Having worked behind the scenes in the professional wrestling world, Bryan Asbury has an analytical approach in talking about the sport.
Having been in the ring for regional wrestling organizations, Matthew Robinson, known as Mortimer Blankenship when he’s in character, is over the top.
As they say, opposites attract. This dynamic duo’s different perspectives make them a perfect pair.
That’s why they believe in only a little more than a year, their professional wrestling podcast, Developmentally Speaking, has taken off.
“I’m very passionate about it, and I think that’s why it’s catching on,” Asbury said.
“People tell me that we balance each other out,” Robinson said. “That has been the part of wrestling commentary that has worked for years. They’ve always had the wrestling analyst. They’ve always had what they call the color commentator. That’s why this works because I add the color, I ask questions, but I also sometimes go off on tangents. We just have a different outlook on the way we talk to the people.”
In November 2021, the two Seymour residents came together to start the podcast that focuses on telling the stories of those who have gone through the WWE developmental system, including OVW, HWA, FCW, MCW, Deep South and more.
Asbury said Louisville, Kentucky-based Ohio Valley Wrestling is where pro wrestler Rip Rogers of Seymour trained the WWE superstars.
“They would do what was called the developmental territory, so like before John Cena was on TV, he was coming to our Oktoberfest and doing these little house shows around Seymour,” Asbury said.
Since OVW was a regional show, Robinson said he grew up seeing the beauty of it firsthand, but not everybody got to see that.
“We wanted people to realize that wrestlers were more than what they saw in the WWE, that even though WWE is the place to be, now, there’s more than one place to be,” he said.
The goal of the podcast is for people to realize who certain wrestlers were and how good they were at the sport, whether they made it as high as the WWE or not.
“We talk about their journey to the WWE, talk about the developmental territories for the WWE,” Asbury said. “OVW was regional. If you weren’t in that TV viewing area, you never got to see who these people were before they were on the main roster.”
In their interviews, Asbury and Robinson ask the wrestlers how they develop, how they get trained and what it takes to become a wrestler. The idea is for their story to inspire those aspiring to be a wrestler so they, too, can train to hone their craft.
“Everybody thinks they can put on a pair of gym shorts and some wrestling shoes and get in the wrestling ring and do it because they watched it on TV,” Robinson said. “No. You’ve got to get trained. There are plenty of schools around here that are reputable. That’s part of the audience that we’re reaching out to, the independent professional wrestler or person who is aspiring to be that so they actually get trained by someone.”
Robinson, for example, was trained by Supreme Wrestling’s owner, who has been wrestling for more than 30 years and was trained by people in USWA and OVW.
“That’s a lot of what we talk about,” said Robinson, who has been a pro wrestler since 2011.
Asbury said they are the first and only podcast that covers the developmental system, from people who went through it to people who taught in it.
“I think that’s why it has gotten over so much is because we tackle the subject that has not been covered before,” he said.
Developmentally Speaking is the name of the podcast channel and one of three shows Asbury and Robinson do. Developmentally Speaking episodes are released Mondays, GLOW Up is released Wednesdays and Connecting Through Wrestling is released Fridays, all at 5:30 p.m.
GLOW Up includes interviews with women who were part of Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling in the 1980s and is expanding to women’s wrestling in general. GLOW’s promoter was Indianapolis native David McLane.
Just recently, Asbury and Robinson partnered with Los Angeles, California-based Women of Wrestling, co-owned by Los Angeles Lakers owner Jeanie Buss, so they will be featuring and interviewing WOW talent weekly with GLOW Up.
“It’s an exclusive partnership with a series of interviews,” Asbury said.
Connecting Through Wrestling focuses on interviewing legends of wrestling.
It’s free to subscribe to the channel at youtube.com/developmentallyspeaking. Currently, there are 560 subscribers.
“In just over a year, we’ve had over 215,000 impressions, over 20,000 views. It’s starting to really pick up and grow,” Asbury said. “View count is growing. Numbers are growing.”
“It’s starting to snowball finally,” Robinson said.
Why?
“Our professional look, it’s our approach. Normally, when someone does an interview, they ask the same questions. Well, we’re looking at it at a different aspect,” Asbury said.
“We don’t dig for heat. We don’t dig for the dirt. A lot of people, you can get dirt and get stories that are spicy,” Robinson said. “We are purely information. We want the wrestler to tell the story of how they become one.”
For both, the podcast is therapy.
Robinson said he has always liked to be a character in the ring and craves attention, and wrestling lets him become someone totally different than who he is. He said Mortimer Blankenship and Matthew Robinson are two very different people.
“To hear the story of these larger-than-life characters and how they came about is really interesting to me,” he said. “We want information. We want to know about you and your character.”
Asbury likes doing research on the wrestlers, finding out what they’ve done after leaving the sport and providing exclusive interviews.
“We help people breathe new life into who they were, let them know that they are not forgotten, what they did does matter and we thank them,” he said. “We help them remember who they are and breathe new life into their career and keep them relevant, alive.”
Asbury said Rogers has helped them a lot by making contacts with wrestlers, and they also have been fortunate to have wrestlers reach out to them about being interviewed after hearing their name mentioned in a podcast episode.
“More people trust us. More people are reaching out,” he said. “In just a year’s time, it has grown so much, and now, it’s more receptive than ever that when people are reaching out wanting to come on, there are partnerships we’re building. When we post stuff, WWE superstars like our posts. Within the wrestling community, it’s making its rounds.”
They also go to conventions to make connections.
“The reception at the conventions has helped a lot,” Asbury said. “We’ve done conventions in Tennessee, Indianapolis, Ohio and Fort Wayne. We network and we try to grow the brand.”
Asbury and Robinson want to pour into the wrestling spectators community, too.
“Even if you’re not a wrestling fan, people still enjoy me and Matt,” Asbury said.
Once they reach 1,000 subscribers and have a certain amount of view hours, there’s potential for Asbury and Robinson to be monetized and also to offer memberships to people.
Looking forward, Robinson said they would love to make a WWE-affiliated podcast.
“My goal is just to have as much fun and talk to as many people and tell as many people’s stories as I possibly can, people that deserve it,” he said.
Asbury said he would love for the podcast to be his full-time job, and another ultimate goal is to be a WWE analyst. He grew up watching wrestling and has fond memories of going to OVW shows, and he later was on a production team that traveled the United States and Canada.
“I just chased this dream and became really good friends with a lot of the talent you see on TV today,” he said. “Now doing the podcast, I get to reconnect with all of those people, and I get to tell stories. I’m on a journey to achieving a childhood dream.”
On the Web
Subscribe to the Developmentally Speaking professional wrestling podcast channel at youtube.com/developmentallyspeaking.
Also, connect to the podcast on Facebook (facebook.com/developmentallyspeakingpodcast), Twitter (twitter.com/developspeaking) and Instagram (instagram.com/developmentallyspeaking).
Information also can be found online at linktr.ee/developmentallyspeaking.