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Newsletter Special Feature #3
Steven Wilson
Eat Sleep Suplex Retweet
Steven Wilson is the founder and premier voice of Scottish wrestling’s premier podcast network; Eat Sleep Suplex Retweet. Eat Sleep Suplex Retweet is a podcast covering all things pro wrestling with a mission statement to cover and promote Scottish wrestling. The podcast has grown to have several different shows within it, with a grand total of around 300 episodes since its inception in 2017.
Hello Steven and welcome to the newsletter! Thank you for taking the time to join us and share your experiences of content creation through Eat Sleep Suplex Retweet. Let’s start there, what exactly is Eat Sleep Suplex Retweet?
ESSR is a fan-led media stream, mainly focusing on podcasts but also creating video and written content from a wide variety of topics and organisations from across the wrestling world. We have around 20 members of our team, who are fans-first volunteers, that allow us to tackle all different areas of the sport whilst offering a variety of opinions on a weekly basis.
The Eat Sleep Suplex Retweet podcast network is self-proclaimed at the ‘Scotland’s premier wrestling podcast’. What makes it the premier Scottish wrestling podcast and how does ESSR approach Scottish wrestling coverage?
Not only do we look at the goings on across the upper echelon of wrestling promotions, such as WWE, AEW and NJPW, but we also give focus to the smaller independent promotions, not just within Scotland, but across the UK and Europe. We have built strong relationships with the Scottish scene since our inception, to the point where promoters from these companies have approached us to have content on them. Members of our team also regularly attend shows from the smaller Scottish promotions in normal times, such as Source and Discovery, so as to keep informed of the wrestlers to watch.
Also, in the podcast’s ‘about’ section, you state the podcast’s goal is to be different and to offer something different. How has that journey been? What makes your podcast sit outside the box?
When we started the podcast back in 2017, we didn’t want to just be seen as a preview and results podcast, as that market was quite compact at the time. We decided to focus more on round table feature type discussion content, in order to give our talent the chance to let their knowledge shine. Over time, we have defined this in order to create original content type shows in order to continue to provide something different for our listeners. Examples of this include our Debating Chamber shows, which takes aspects of the Elimination Chamber match into a debate like discussion, as well as Saturday Draft Live, where we discuss our own built wrestling fantasy league.
Starting from this week as well, we will now be combining this sort of content with our own weekly News/current content show, giving listeners even more now from the one place.
How did Eat Sleep Suplex Retweet come to be and what is your role in the running of the podcast? It originally started as a bunch of friends from university with a shared interest writing blog content. As podcast content became more common, we decided to expand this into a weekly audio format. We’ve had the benefit of having good working relationships with university radio stations, allowing us to have a space to record our content to the highest quality with the equipment available. Over the last years, we’ve expanded the team out with the original group to make sure our content is as good as it can be. My main role in the podcast is to organise the content, assigning panels for each show, and in general being the central voice of the team.
What are your favourite experiences as a part of Eat Sleep Suplex Retweet and what are the toughest parts of your role?
We played a big role in raising numbers for charities in 2018 taking part in a 36 hour radio broadcast, which was a huge honour. I’ve also enjoyed being able to provide a voice for a number of talented wrestlers who have gone on to bigger things, as well as giving a platform for a number of talented wrestling fans to get their insight and opinions out to a bigger number. The toughest part at times is definitely getting panels together, given the differing schedules of the team in terms of their day jobs and that, but it is always worth it when the final content comes to light.
Are there any other experiences from running the podcast or your experiences around Pro Wrestling that may be of interest to our readers? You don’t need the most expensive and in-depth recording software to do a podcast. We’ve had great joy using Audacity, which is free to use and whilst there is high quality paid software out there, this free alternative does the job at least to start with. I’d also recommend having someone on board who knows how to use such software very well. I’ve been lucky enough to have a very good producer for our content, as well as several others proficient in working with audio and video files. Good quality microphones though make the world of difference, especially when compared to recording on phones. The majority of our pre-pandemic shows were done using the former method. Whilst you may have heard a number of horrible stories in recent months about wrestlers who’ve done horrible things, there are several good guys in the industry committed to making changes. Don’t let the stories of the worst that the industry had in them previously taint the good ones. Always try and make an effort to speak to other fans at shows. I first started attending Scottish shows after forming the podcast with a very small group of wrestling fans. Now, many of the people I’ve spoken to at shows have not only become colleagues of mine in the podcast, but also very good friends of mine.
Follow Steven on Twitter @StevenW1192
Follow Eat Sleep Suplex Retweet on Twitter @SuplexRetweet
Visit the website www.SuplexRetweet.com
Download ESSR via the link below
https://podcasts.apple.com/kw/podcast/eat-sleep-suplex-retweet/id1315763050