Name: Billy Carpenter
Age: 30
Hometown: I'm a rolling stone.
Known For: Co-founder & host of '4 Corners Radio' various live shows & podcasts, as well as 4crwrestling.com
1. When did you first get into wrestling and what drew you to the sport?
If my mother is to be believed, I've been watching since I was about 2 years old. She said I just sat there, fascinated by what was happening on the screen. My earliest memory that I can fully recall is WWF's 'Wrestling Classic' tournament, more specifically the Dynamite Kid vs Randy Savage match. I was hooked from then on. As much as the loud characters were a drawing point, I always seemed to gravitate towards the more athletic guys. Most of my friends growing up were Hulk Hogan fans while I was the lone 'Macho Man' fan. I've seemingly been in love with wrestling for as long as I've been alive--I talked about it in one of my first articles that as a kid, I was kind of an introvert and times at home weren't always the best either. So I escaped into this world all the time and even now, I can still shut my mind down for a while and just watch an old wrestling tape and get lost again. It's a big part of who I am, I guess. Everyone that I know understands just how big of a fan I am.
2. Tell us a little about 4 Corner's Radio and how it all came about?
'4 Corners Radio' came about almost by happenstance. I had been conversing on Twitter with my now good friend Anthony Johns, and we had kicked around the idea of doing a podcast. The talk sort of tapered off and then one day he tweeted, "I need to do a podcast someday", and I responded back with "Let's do it". We met on Skype a few days later with Martin Dixon, Sam DiMascio & Anthony Pope and we came up with a very loose idea of what we wanted and then we just went from there. Since mid-January, all of my free time has been spent building this brand all while having fun at the same time. We all agreed that no matter what, we wanted to make sure that we always had fun doing 4CR shows and podcasts. Since the first show, we've added the website (4crwrestling.com) with a small staff of contributors and we have a variety of shows for every fan--the "RAW Roundtable", "The Indy Project" which covers the news from the American independent scene, "4CRetro" which was just launched that is just a fun look at wrestling from the past, the "Saturday Freestyle" which is about any and everything and "A Hero and A Villain" that I do with 4CR co-founder Anthony Johns. We've added a YouTube channel, Instagram, Vine & Facebook accounts since then as well and I know that we are having a blast just talking wrestling with fellow fans.
3. Which current story lines are drawing you into certain show, and which do you feel aren't quite working?
There's really not alot of storylines that are drawing me in, but there seems to be a sort of renaissance in WWE as far as re-focusing on the in-ring product. Names like Bryan, Cesaro, Ambrose, Rollins, Ziggler and others have me very excited for the future of that company. NXT is my favorite show to watch weekly for that reason--the future is there right now. I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Wyatt Family on the main roster, as they are a unique act to the mainstream wrestling audience. As a fan of New Japan, watching the rise of Kazuchika Okada over the past 1-2 years has been great.
As for stuff that I just can't get into, Aces & 8's in TNA tops the list. It wasn't always that way--when it started, I was actually kind of excited. But it's dragged on for so long with such minimal payoffs along the way that I've disconnected from the story. TNA has such an amazing roster of young talent and I feel that should be their focus. Their product from 2003-2007/8 was phenomenal! I wish they'd get back to that and find their own identity.
4. What are your top three matches of all time and why?
Top 3 matches of all-time, wow! That's a very hard thing to narrow down, but I'll do my best:
1) Wild Pegasus vs The Great Sasuke from the Super J Cup finals in 1994 is one of my earliest memories of when I discovered puro for the first time. It was so radically different than what I had been exposed to before and from there, I had a whole other side of the wrestling world to navigate.
2) CM Punk vs John Cena from Money in the Bank 2011 was the perfect storm of storyline, atmosphere and in-ring work. I've been watching for 27-28 years and watching this at home on PPV gave me a feeling I rarely experience while watching wrestling nowadays.
3) This is cheating a bit, but the Ric Flair vs Ricky Steamboat trilogy of matches for the NWA World title in 1989 is perfection. Every wrestling fan, no matter your level of experience or expertise, owes it to themselves to watch this series. My favorite of all-time in Flair against his greatest adversary. Flawless.
5. Where can our readers find your work and what have you got coming up?
Our live shows can be found at blogtalkradio.com/4crwrestling. My personal Twitter account is @4CR_Billy & the Twitter for 4CR is @4CRadio. I love interacting and meeting new fans, and I'm blessed to do so on a daily basis. Our website is 4crwrestling.com, where you can find our articles, show replays, videos & more as well as links to our various social media outlets. As far as what's next for 4 Corners Radio, we'll continue being a sponsor for AIW, who puts out some of the best wrestling anywhere right now. For our content, we'll just continue evolving and perfecting what we do. The response to what we've done this far has been great, and I appreciate every single person that has tweeted us, read an article, listened to a show or anything else to support and help spread the word. We do this as fans of wrestling who just want to have fun with other fans. That's the basis of what we've done so far and what we'll continue to do in the future.
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