Even The Rock Couldn't Save the Original XFL with Annie Agar and Noah Gardenswartz | 21
The Big Flop
Wondery
4.6 • 884 Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2024
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 2001, wrestling mogul Vince McMahon attempted to conquer new sports territory by founding a violent, horny football league meant to compete with the NFL. McMahon's focus on entertainment and disregard for safety created an on-field product that was as weird as it was boring. In the end, not even sexy cheerleaders could save the XFL, or as McMahon liked to call it, the "Extra Fun League."
Social media sports superstar Annie Agar and comedian Noah Gardenswartz (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) join Misha to tackle the topic of the "extremely f-ed" XFL.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to the Big Flop early and ad-free. |
| 0:05.3 | Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. |
| 0:14.5 | It's a typical mid-January afternoon in Oakland, California. |
| 0:23.6 | The year is 2001. Lunchtime. |
| 0:27.0 | The Oyster Reef restaurant is full of hungry diners digging into hefty plates of calumari and spicy curried prawns. |
| 0:35.0 | The service is decent. |
| 0:36.8 | The retro decor, pleasant. What better place is there to be |
| 0:40.6 | than a quaint dockside seafood joint? But, um, what's that unsettling sound? The patrons look up |
| 0:50.3 | from their fish and chips to see an unmanned blimp meandering towards them. The blimp crew, |
| 0:56.5 | unable to make a safe landing, have jumped. Diners toss their biscuits and run screaming out of the way |
| 1:03.3 | as the blimp drapes itself around the establishment. The blimp engulfs the oyster reef, causing |
| 1:10.0 | millions of dollars in property damage. |
| 1:13.5 | Thankfully, none of the restaurant guests are hurt. |
| 1:17.1 | In the tangle of masts and uneaten seafood, the blimp goes limp. |
| 1:23.1 | As it slowly deflates, lookers-on read the three bold red letters emblazoned on its side, |
| 1:30.3 | XFL. This is a new, extreme football league, and with its kickoff season only weeks away, |
| 1:38.6 | this is a very bad omen. Before the year is out, much like their ill-fated blimp, the league will crash. |
| 1:51.0 | The XFL is ready to launch its new brand of smash-mouth football. Will it fly fly like creator Vince McMahon's pro wrestling empire? |
| 2:02.9 | 300 pounds! Or crash like the league's blimp? Can you guarantee me right now that there will be a |
| 2:10.1 | year two for the XFL? What a ridiculous statement. It's not a statement, it's a question. |
| 2:14.1 | It's a question. I beg your party. If this turns out to be a grand scale failure, you want to let me finish here for a second, |
| 2:20.3 | pal? |
... |
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