John Arezzi is so busy with baseball podcasts these days that he’s tagging in former Ring of Honor owner Cary Silkin to be a part of Mat Memories From Madison Square Garden.
Both Silkin and Arezzi were at a ton of WWWF shows at MSG in the 1970s and the podcast goes through card by card.
They didn’t know each other back in the day, though.
“I did attend one of his conventions in the ’90s. I always knew the name,” Silkin recently told SlamWrestling.net. They met recently at a fan fest, and one thing led to another.
“John was doing this Mat Memories thing, I was at those shows, not every one, but almost every one. So we exchanged numbers,” said Silkin, who had appeared on a couple of podcasts, until Arezzi asked him to officially join.
Silkin loves to talk about those old days, but recognizes it’s not about getting famous with the podcast. “When it comes to this old school wrestling stuff, there’s just such a damn limited audience,” he said. Those who follow Silkin’s Twitter account, @rohcary, will appreciate him sharing many of his memorabilia, and he especially loves old wrestling cards and posters.
It’s Silkin’s second foray into podcasting. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he and announcer Ian Riccaboni produced the Last Stop Penn Station show.
“Last Stop Penn Station was not only about my life in times and Ring of Honor, and in wrestling, but was also about all the crazy shit I did over the years,” explained Silkin. “I didn’t live the healthiest life. Prior prior to getting my head on straight, which still isn’t completely on straight, I used to scalp tickets in New York City. I sold cocaine to John Belushi, Rush. You’d think people would want to hear these stories, right?”
It was available where all podcasts are available.
“People enjoyed it, because apparently, I’m a good storyteller and the stories are certainly not G-rated. I put my ass on the line just telling them where it was at,” said Silkin. “I was on the streets in New York City in the ’80s as well as stories of going wrestling, my first Garden show in ’71 when I was 14 years old, and my rock and roll life — if you want to call using cocaine with band members rock and roll life, but whatever. It made for good stories, as well as the whole Ring of Honor adventure/misadventure.”
Silkin will leave the production and planning all in Arezzi’s hands — which are pretty full.
Arezzi has pivoted into the Major League Baseball podcast arena with the launch of two brand new shows, now available everywhere on all audio podcast platforms, and visually on YouTube.
A lifelong die-hard Mets fan, Arezzi worked in the Mets organization in 1981, where he was roommates with Mets prospects, John “Gibby” Gibbons and JP Ricciardi. Ricciardi went on to be the GM of the Toronto Blue Jays, and hired Gibbons to manage the club in 2004. The threesome remained friends for all the years since that time. It was Gibby who gave Arezzi the itch to get back in baseball, he secured a book deal for the Blue Jays cult hero with ECW Press, that was penned by Greg Oliver (who also wrote Arezzi’s book, Mat Memories: My Wild Life in Pro Wrestling, Country Music, and with the Mets.
Gibby and Arezzi started a baseball podcast The Gibby Show, which ran from September 2022 through December 2023, and was regularly the #1 baseball podcast in Canada, focusing on covering the Blue Jays. Gibbons was hired by the Mets in December 2023, going full circle to become the bench coach of the big league club, ending the podcast.
Still having the itch, Arezzi reached out to former Mets manager Terry Collins and to Ricciardi about podcasting and now he has two baseball podcasts.
The Terry Collins Show is a Mets-focused weekly podcast with the former Mets iconic Manager who skippered the club from 2011-2017 and led them to their last World Series Appearance in 2015. Arezzi developed the show as Executive Producer with former TSN GM Mark Milliere.
The other new show is The Brushback with JP Ricciardi, which is a baseball insiders broadcast.
Both of Arezzi’s Wrestling podcasts, The Pro Wrestling Spotlight with John Arezzi, and Mat Memories From Madison Square Garden, will remain, although both will be tweaked and rebranded.
The Pro Wrestling Spotlight Podcast is now becoming Pro Wrestling Spotlight Rewind. “We went through over 260 shows from 1989 to 1995 covering the entire history of the show,” said Arezzi, an occasional SlamWrestling.net contributor. “Fans didn’t want to see it end, so now we begin again with the Rewind, where we turn it into a monthly show, covering each month from 35 years ago from April 1989 then May 1989 and so on.” PWS Rewind is produced and co-hosted by Christopher Marsh — or simply “Marsh” as he likes to be known.
And Mat Memories From Madison Square Garden will feature Silkin now too.
TOP PHOTO: Left, Cary Silkin and CM Punk; right, John Arezzi and Terry Collins.
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