Shane Douglas On How Paul Heyman Is As A Promoter, WWE Launching Podcast Network, His Podcast

Just as news broke of WWE launching its own podcast network, one of their former wrestlers is also launching a new podcast. Shane Douglas also has a new podcast but he talked about WWE's new network when he spoke to Wrestling Inc. on our WINCLY podcast.

"The one thing that Vince McMahon still gets right is the corporate side of things. How many billion downloads does he have on YouTube? They have the very best corporate infrastructure for [the podcast network]. Unfortunately, the place that acumen hasn't seemed to apply is in their writing department and character development department," said Douglas who added that he thinks the WWE podcasts will be great because he knows all the talent have interesting stories to tell.

Douglas was then asked if he could ever foresee McMahon doing a podcast where he reveals all of the skeletons in WWE's closet.

"I think Vince would agree to do a podcast if God and Satan both sat down and agreed to do the co-host position with him so he could explain to them where they were both wrong and he was right," stated Douglas.

Douglas' former ECW boss Paul Heyman was recently appointed to be Raw's Executive Director. Douglas was asked about Heyman's influence thus far but he said he doesn't really watch the product. He also said that if Heyman gives a talent advice, then they can't be going over his head to Vince if they disagree.

"When I knew Ricky Steamboat, Arn Anderson and Dean Malenko were agents in WWE, I was seeing zero influence of anything those guys did," said Douglas. "I learned and worked with all of them but they all told me the same thing ? the kids don't listen. Double A told me it's a paycheck so I'm not gonna rock the boat.

"There isn't a guy on that roster that can't learn a thing or two or 1,000 from a guy like Arn Anderson. If that's the attitude?then put out the bimbo idiot alert. It will be interesting to watch and see. Will the kids in AEW listen to Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, Malenko and Billy Gunn are telling them? Or will they just do the same stuff they've always done at ROH or TNA or elsewhere. There are big questions that still need to be answered."

As for Douglas' new podcast, Franchised With Shane Douglas, he talked about what led to the launch of it.

"I've known [co-host] Brian for several years both as a promoter and from his radio past. I knew he had a great knowledge of wrestling and probably a better recollection of my career than I have," Douglas said before mentioning that he does The Triple Threat podcast which is an assortment of topics and this podcast would instead be focused on just one.

"There were things that were shaking the cobwebs for me and bringing up things that I had forgotten until I went back and looked at the footage?Brian was able to pull out a lot of things that I had forgotten and we had a great time doing it."

Douglas then compared his era to the current one and said even though there's been a recent resurgence in pro wrestling, today still can't compare to yesteryear.

"We got the blessing of being able to learn in the business when it was at a height it's never reached before and hasn't since. We were legitimate rock stars at that time and for someone like me, or from my generation, to see where the [ratings] have gone, it's stunning," stated Douglas.

He then talked about how as he was doing research for the debut episode of his new show, The Birth of Extreme, and he saw 911 vs Doink in an opening ECW bout. He emphasized how simple that match was but also how much the fans ate it up.

"That's as close a microcosm you can see of what than fan base that has left needs and requires to come back to the table. They're not gonna come back to the table for backflips. They know the kids are athletic and it's incredible. But they're not gonna come back for all that stuff. They wanna see a storyline dissected and disseminated to bring them back to the table," Douglas said before adding that he had totally forgotten that at one point he wrestled as Doink in ECW until Brian reminded him.

"I would have bet $1000 that he was lying when he said it, until I saw it?I've had a pretty long career and a lot of that stuff gets pushed back to the recesses. So it was a lot of fun to prep for Episode 1 and to talk about the 25th anniversary of the NWA belt, a seminal moment in wrestling history.

Shane Douglas can be heard every Tuesday on his new podcast "Franchised with Shane Douglas". For more information about Shane's new podcast please visit https://shanedouglas.com/.

Shane's full interview with Wrestling Inc aired as part of today's episode of our WINCLY podcast. It can be heard via the embedded audio player at the bottom of this post. In it Shane discusses his new Franchised with Shane Douglas podcast, recalling ECW memories that he'd forgotten, WWE launching their own podcast network, if Vince McMahon would ever do a podcast, NXT vs AEW and more

You can check out past episodes of the WINCLY here. Subscribe to Wrestling Inc. Audio on iTunes or Google Play. Listen to the show via Spotify here or through TuneIn here.