I met some cool new friends over the weekend and found a new favorite podcast.
Kick Out at Two is a “traveling wrestling podcast” highlighting indy wrestling of all stripes. Based out of central Tennessee, the podcast team of Jesse, Wilks, and Brittany spend their weekends traveling far and wide to watch their favorites while discovering new ones.
Jesse is a former wrestler himself, a kid who grew up loving it and still can’t get enough. His co-host Chris Wilks was a late-comer to pro wrestling, but once the bug bit, he went back and watched as much of the old stuff as he could. Brittany is the third member of the crew. Like Jesse, she’s a life-long fan whose love for the sport has been rekindled by the podcast.
Kick Out At Two began as a labor of love for the trio, according to Jesse. “We originally just wanted to talk wrestling into a microphone and put it on the Internet. Through friends like Kerry Awful [of Team IOU], we started getting guests and wrestlers actually started to reach out to us to be on the show.”
Jesse, Wilks, and Brittany found their niche as a traveling podcast, which is how the three ended up in Jeffersonville (ten minutes from me) Friday night. “We enjoy hitting the road and ‘making towns’ to get in person interviews with wrestlers that may or may not have a lot of eyes on them,” says Jesse. “We’ll talk to anyone. If we talk to a ‘big name’ one week the goal is to put a ‘lesser known name’ on shortly after that so if we gain new listeners they will learn about the independent talent we’re speaking with.”
The love these three have for wrestling really comes through in the podcast. They do a terrific job of letting wrestlers share their stories, and they’re equally generous highlighting wrestlers and fans who are giving back. One episode from this spring featured a 20 minute discussion of Wrestlethon, a wrestling video game fundraiser for a fantastic children’s charity.
What I love most about Kick Out At Two is their passion for indy wrestling. They love every shade and variation indy wrestling takes, and they, like me, would love nothing better than to see more of the WWE-only fans start supporting the indies.
“The goal is to help wrestling grow and make it better,” says Jesse. “To uplift as much talent as possible and give them a platform that they may not have had before. We live by the saying ‘the more wrestling, the better.’ So we put together sort of a ‘summer tour’ to cover more promotions.”
The summer tour dates are posted below, and if you’re at any of these shows, I encourage you to find these folks and say hello. Meantime, you have some podcasts to catch up on, so head on over to Soundcloud or iTunes and subscribe today. You can also follow them on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
