Max Wrestling: A History
Background
The format for the show was developed by "The Captain" Dazzy Dangerously and The Phoenix following their appearance as guests on Sunday Segue. The duo had been co-writing the Max Wrestling Magazine since August 2013. The show has four Championship Titles available: World, Knowledge, Television and Predictions. Winning three of the four equates to Triple Crown Champion. Two other accolades are available including the Iron Bank contract and Promo League cup. Winning all five equates to a Grand Slam Champion.
The show's current line-up consists of Dazzy and Moses Marquez.
Premise
The original premise of the show was to discuss the past week's events in professional wrestling in the first part of the show, and testing The Phoenix's knowledge against the weekly guests in the second part of the show. The loser, or losing team, would cut a promo on a randomly selected opponent to close the show. Later episodes saw the introduction of more regular panel members (or team captains) including Evan "Money" Makeba, The B****** and Roxxie Toxxic. James Belmont has also filled in on the main panel on occasions, while Dave Burnham became an interim regular when The Phoenix took a hiatus during Spring 2017.
With the introduction of more regulars, the teams became more even. The main focus of events was on WWE and TNA, although there has been occasional discussion of Ring Of Honor, Lucha Underground and New Japan Pro Wrestling events.
In 2016, the format was altered to spread out the trivia throughout the show, so as to give more time to topical discussion. Typically, the first and second parts lasted around 30 minutes. A shorter third part was added to include panel segments, these included:
The Phoenix's This Week In Wrestling History - where The Phoenix will run through a list of historical events that occurred during the week in past years (taken over by Dave Burnham during The Phoenix's Spring 2017 hiatus).
The B******'s Stupid Idiot Of The Week (formerly Obsolete Mule Of The Week) - where The B****** chooses a person - or in some cases, company - that has felt his wrath during the week, often other fans that have argued with him on social media.
Brand Of The Week (formerly Segment Of The Week) - where Mike (and a guest, if there is one) chooses the winning brand between the past week's Raw and Smackdown
The show has had several long-running gags including The Phoenix's timekeeping, The B******'s love for bread, issues with a Sky call centre assistant called "Andy", impersonating former WWE Superstar Mason Ryan - with the premise that he now works at Sainsbury's, soundbytes of former Gladiators referee John Anderson and wrestling legend Vader being part of the show as his famous entrance music serves as a time buzzer during some trivia rounds.
All segments were retired in 2018 as the show focused on the topical discussions, however "Recap The Smack" debuted in 2020 with a quick run-through of the of the latest episode of Smackdown due to the show being broadcast the day after each episode of Max Wrestling. Aside from themed episodes such as anniversaries, Star Wars and The Maxies Awards, five main Max Specials are produced each year: Podcast Promo Rumble, PromoMania, Trivia Takeover, PromoSlam and Promo Series. Typically, all three Championships are defended on these shows, which also feature unique graphics and theme songs. These specials began in 2016, but were preceded by four "Podcast Promo Takeover" specials in 2015.
In 2020, fourth annual The Maxies Awards became the only special to take place on a separate day as opposed to being part of the weekly episodes.
In October 2021, promo competition was discontinued and the Promo Championship was de-activated. This triggered the biggest reboot of the show in over 3 years, in which trivia became a focal point once again.
Regulars
The shows original co-host was The Phoenix. Evan "Money" Makeba became a regular on August 9th, 2015. This effectively meant the guests could choose which co-host they would side with during the trivia - The Phoenix became Captain of the Blue Team, while Makeba became Captain of the Red Team. Later in the year, on December 27th, The B****** went from long-running guest to the third regular. This altered the trivia format slightly. The teams became Captains vs. Guests, with one guest choosing one of the three Captains to side with, or two guests taking on all three Captains.
Makeba took a hiatus following the March 30th, 2016 episode. Roxxie Toxxic filled in as interim regular from March 27th. Makeba made a special appearance at the first PromoMania special on April 3rd, explaining his absence in a shoot promo. Makeba made his return on May 8th, 2016, though Roxxie proved popular with the team and listeners during her tenure, she stayed on as a regular - leaving the show with a team of five. On June 19th, Roxxie decided to leave the show as she took a step away from all podcasting for similar issues to Makeba. On August 7th, Makeba stunned Dazzy, The Phoenix and The B****** as he made an unscheduled announcement at the end of the episode that he would be leaving the show at the upcoming PromoSlam special - this episode coincidentally marked Makeba's one year anniversary as a regular. Makeba's final episode as a regular was August 21st, 2016. On September 4th, it was announced Roxxie Toxxic would return the following week on the September 11th episode.
Despite still being recognized every week as a regular, Roxxie was often absent in October, and quietly left the show off-air in early December. Evan "Money" Makeba made an appearance as a guest at Promo Series on November 20th, 2016 and has subsequently appeared as a guest on several specials, including the 100th episode.
Mike Larkin became a regular on February 11th, 2017 at the 100th episode, restoring the show's three-Captain format for the first time since Roxxie's departure.
The Phoenix took a break from the show following PromoMania II on April 1st, 2017. He was been replaced by Dave Burnham until his return. On the June 2nd episode, footage showed Dazzy going in search of The Phoenix, which led to the incapacitation of his drone "Dazguard 1.0". Dazzy announced, following this segment that more footage would air the following week of The Phoenix negotiating a new contract to return at Trivia Takeover 2. The Phoenix failed to return at Trivia Takeover 2, however did return a couple of weeks later, following two special pre-records which covered Dazzy's honeymoon period. Dave Burnham left the show.
Aside from Dazzy and The Phoenix, The B****** was one of the longest-serving members of the podcast. The day after PromoSlam 2, it was announced he would be leaving the show and made his final appearance on the following episode on August 25th, 2017 before returning on October 5th.
Larkin began a hiatus following PromoMania V in April 2020, leading to Travis "The Walker" Anderson filling in as a regular co-host. Due to his cooling-off period moving from judge to participant in the Promo League, The B****** also went on hiatus on May 7th. Moses Marquez became an interim regular on May 21st. Following "The Shift" leading to the near retirement of Dazzy and cutting of ties with The B******, Travis and Moses became permanent co-hosts as of June 18th.
"The Shift"
Host and writer, Dazzy is the only person to appear on every single episode, except for the June 4th, 2020 episode where he had previously announced retirement due to personal disputes. Mike Larkin, Travis Anderson and Moses Marquez requested to record what would be the final episode with special guest The Demoness, with Dazzy producing, to close the show in style. Following large support and the removal of a toxic former colleague, Dazzy decided to reboot and continue the show the following week for Trivia Takeover 5.0: Champion's Chase.
Larkin returned full time at PromoSlam 2020 in August, while Travis began a hiatus following Podcast Promo Rumble 6 in January 2021, to prepare for the arrival of his second child. Upon his return at PromoMania VI, Travis remained a regular co-host until July where he decided to step away from his regular seat.
On November 4, 2021, it was announced that Mike Larkin would be leaving his regular co-host seat after almost five years. This meant the show would become a two-man team for the first time since co-founders Daz and The Phoenix started the show - with Dazzy and Moses.
Production
Max Wrestling Podcast is conducted via Skype and was initially recorded one to three days in advance. Originally, episodes were uploaded on Sunday evenings at 7pm GMT. On December 10th, 2016, the show moved to Saturday nights at 9pm GMT, and then Friday nights on April 14th, 2017. In 2019, the show began airing Thursdays, the same day as recorded, if it was edited in time, and has remained on Thursdays ever since.
All editing and producing is done entirely by "The Captain" Dazzy Dangerously, including logos, graphics, renders and audio. Templates by Flixpress have occasionally been used for intros and graphics.
The opening video has gone through many changes. The original opening theme was "Guerrilla Radio" by Rage Against The Machine, with the video featuring several clips and soundbytes of professional wrestlers such as Triple H, Brock Lesnar, Daniel Bryan and Stone Cold Steve Austin among others. A new opening video debuted on August 23rd, 2015, featuring a scrolling overlay of the show's logo and new clips. On December 28th, 2015, a new opening made its debut to match a revamped logo, this time introducing the regular team. This opening was short-lived, as the show received a whole new makeover to celebrate the 50th episode on February 28th, 2016. The logo became slanted, the opening video had a brighter colour scheme, introduced new clips and replaced "Guerrilla Radio" with AJ Styles' NJPW theme "Styles Clash" by Yonosuke Kitamura. The opening video underwent slight changes from June 19th, with more elaborate text graphics and more new clips. A revamp episode was uploaded on July 31st, debuting a new edgier logo, new mechanical graphics and replacing the opening theme with "Animals" by Linkin Park. This also removed the tradition of soundbytes playing over the theme song. In a special spin-off episode where Dazzy and The B****** interviewed Andre Corbeil, the show debuted "The Arrival" by I Divide as the surprise new theme song on October 26th, 2016.
There have been special graphics to open episodes on special occasions such as the Podcast Promo Championship tournament in late 2015, and annual Star Wars specials in correlation with the new movies - these also featured the logo at the time changed to the Star Wars colour scheme of black and gold.
To celebrate the 100th episode on 11 February, 2017, the show was presented as a throwback to the early episodes - featuring the original lightning theme and graphics, a special present-day version of the original intro video, and the one-off return of original opening song, "Guerrilla Radio".
The show underwent another surprise makeover from the 101st episode, replacing the gears previously seen with a red theme, smoke and machinery. The intro also introduced more modern clips from WWE, New Japan and TNA, as well as new line-up introductions including Mike Larkin for the first time. The closing signature at the end of the credits was changed for the first time ever, replacing the zooming letters spelling out "Max Wrestling" with the name in flames. As the Swerve Talk Network also underwent major changes around this time, a new STN signature was added at the end of each show.
From the 108th episode on April 7th, 2017, The Phoenix was missing from the line-up introductions in the opening video for the first time ever, as he was replaced by Dave Burnham.
In May 2017, it was announced that a massive overhaul was in development, which would revamp the show in June 2017. Dazzy confirmed via the website that the revamp would include a new logo and theme song, new and better graphics than ever before, new trivia rounds, new special graphics for each segment and trivia round and a shaken-up format stating: "the show will be unrecognizable."
The new logo and a re-designed Knowledge Championship were introduced on June 16th, 2017 at Trivia Takeover 2. While this was the beginning of the new revamp, the show would continue using the "Scratched metal" logo for the following two weeks in two pre-recorded episodes to cover Dazzy's honeymoon time off. The revamp took full effect from July as The Phoenix returned full time and all-new graphics and formats were introduced.
In February 2018, Max Wrestling announced the purchase of the MaxWrestling.net domain, launching an updated website.
Due to copyright issues with Facebook over the use of Hands Like Houses' "I Am," a new opening was introduced after only three weeks featuring completely new graphics and the debut of "A Line In The Sand" by Linkin Park as the theme song - in tribute to the late Chester Bennington for two weeks. This opening returned to the show's original style of wrestling soundbytes over an instrumental track. The new theme "Venomous" by Jim Johnston - the entrance music of Stone Cold Steve Austin during the Alliance angle of 2001 - debuted the week before Promo Slam 2, again with soundbytes and new visuals.
A new intro, new graphics and new theme song - "Notorious" by Adelitas Way was introduced on the September 15th episode. The new graphics included a plasma ball continuously moving in the background with the Max Wrestling logo in the foreground.
In another revamp on November 22nd, 2018, the "Madhouse Era" began as a new intro and the current logo made its debut with new opening theme "Madhouse" by Shadow Of You.
For the 4th anniversary on March 22nd, 2019, a throwback intro was produced. Following a public vote for which former theme song to use, a modern-day version of the Linkin Park - "Animals" intro was produced. The theme went back to "Madhouse" the following week with a new opening video.
On May 30th, 2019, "Wildfire" by Palmist became the new opening song as the intro received a new red colour scheme. To coincide with the launch of All Elite Wrestling, the intro underwent a makeover on October 3rd, 2019 to include AEW clips, while maintaining the "Wildfire" theme song. The week following PromoMania IV, the arena stage style main screen replaced the studio style.
In January 2019, MaxWrestling.net was not renewed due to a ridiculously high rise in cost. As such, the website returned to the Wix domain, which eventually became blocked by Facebook, prompting the use of a Weebly landing page with links to the main Wix website.
In the first 2020 revamp, "Fortress" by Memory became the new opening theme, debuting the cross-tron for the graphic stage. For the 5th anniversary, the show produced a 2-week celebration featuring what would become the intro for Max Wrestling: In The Hot Seat as the opening on March 16th, while the March 19th episode opened with a series of flashbacks to previous quotes from the show. In an attempted reboot, "Right Now" by Fire From The Gods became the opening theme between April 9th to the 16th, but due to a copyright flag from Facebook, the decision was made to no longer use copyrighted music on the show going forward - including theme songs for the Max Specials. An instrumental theme was used from April 23rd before a copyright-free "The Shift" by Self Deception was introduced on June 18th to coincide with the major changes to the show and line-up - also known as "The Shift". A month following
PromoSlam 5, the show began undergoing small changes to the thumbnails and introduced "Trust No One" by Foxhaunt as the new theme song - specifically for the lyrics "Now I've found my happy place" to indicate the new team had solidified the new era. The new theme song carried over in October as the show was completely rebooted with all new graphics - returning to the studio style main screen as opposed to the arena stage.
In November 2020, the podcast adopted the tagline "Welcome to the show" - which are also lyrics to the current theme song "Masquerade" by Maddison.
In February 2021, it was announced that the MaxWrestling.net domain was back up and running after a much cheaper purchase than before - thus transforming the Weebly website into the main domain, transferring all pages over from Wix - a task which took three days to complete.
Following Travis Anderson's departure in July 2021, new theme song "My Generation" by Onlap and Discrepancies made its debut. Discrepancies took centre stage in mid-September as their own song "Control" was introduced before the sudden reboot of the show in October led to another new theme song by Onlap
with Halocene, called "Freak Like Me."
In October 2021, Max Wrestling underwent its biggest reboot since the "Madhouse" era in 2018. Following the de-activation of the Promo Championship and promo competition was ceased, it was announced trivia would become a focal point of the show once again. The Knowledge Champion now has to defend the title at least every 30 days and can also cash it in to challenge the World Champion at each special event. The Television Championship was also announced, which is also defended in trivia competition, but the champion must also cut a promo at least every 30 days. The return of favourite segment This Week In Wrestling History was also announced along with new segments Wrestler Of The Week and Geek Of The Week.
The format for the show was developed by "The Captain" Dazzy Dangerously and The Phoenix following their appearance as guests on Sunday Segue. The duo had been co-writing the Max Wrestling Magazine since August 2013. The show has four Championship Titles available: World, Knowledge, Television and Predictions. Winning three of the four equates to Triple Crown Champion. Two other accolades are available including the Iron Bank contract and Promo League cup. Winning all five equates to a Grand Slam Champion.
The show's current line-up consists of Dazzy and Moses Marquez.
Premise
The original premise of the show was to discuss the past week's events in professional wrestling in the first part of the show, and testing The Phoenix's knowledge against the weekly guests in the second part of the show. The loser, or losing team, would cut a promo on a randomly selected opponent to close the show. Later episodes saw the introduction of more regular panel members (or team captains) including Evan "Money" Makeba, The B****** and Roxxie Toxxic. James Belmont has also filled in on the main panel on occasions, while Dave Burnham became an interim regular when The Phoenix took a hiatus during Spring 2017.
With the introduction of more regulars, the teams became more even. The main focus of events was on WWE and TNA, although there has been occasional discussion of Ring Of Honor, Lucha Underground and New Japan Pro Wrestling events.
In 2016, the format was altered to spread out the trivia throughout the show, so as to give more time to topical discussion. Typically, the first and second parts lasted around 30 minutes. A shorter third part was added to include panel segments, these included:
The Phoenix's This Week In Wrestling History - where The Phoenix will run through a list of historical events that occurred during the week in past years (taken over by Dave Burnham during The Phoenix's Spring 2017 hiatus).
The B******'s Stupid Idiot Of The Week (formerly Obsolete Mule Of The Week) - where The B****** chooses a person - or in some cases, company - that has felt his wrath during the week, often other fans that have argued with him on social media.
Brand Of The Week (formerly Segment Of The Week) - where Mike (and a guest, if there is one) chooses the winning brand between the past week's Raw and Smackdown
The show has had several long-running gags including The Phoenix's timekeeping, The B******'s love for bread, issues with a Sky call centre assistant called "Andy", impersonating former WWE Superstar Mason Ryan - with the premise that he now works at Sainsbury's, soundbytes of former Gladiators referee John Anderson and wrestling legend Vader being part of the show as his famous entrance music serves as a time buzzer during some trivia rounds.
All segments were retired in 2018 as the show focused on the topical discussions, however "Recap The Smack" debuted in 2020 with a quick run-through of the of the latest episode of Smackdown due to the show being broadcast the day after each episode of Max Wrestling. Aside from themed episodes such as anniversaries, Star Wars and The Maxies Awards, five main Max Specials are produced each year: Podcast Promo Rumble, PromoMania, Trivia Takeover, PromoSlam and Promo Series. Typically, all three Championships are defended on these shows, which also feature unique graphics and theme songs. These specials began in 2016, but were preceded by four "Podcast Promo Takeover" specials in 2015.
In 2020, fourth annual The Maxies Awards became the only special to take place on a separate day as opposed to being part of the weekly episodes.
In October 2021, promo competition was discontinued and the Promo Championship was de-activated. This triggered the biggest reboot of the show in over 3 years, in which trivia became a focal point once again.
Regulars
The shows original co-host was The Phoenix. Evan "Money" Makeba became a regular on August 9th, 2015. This effectively meant the guests could choose which co-host they would side with during the trivia - The Phoenix became Captain of the Blue Team, while Makeba became Captain of the Red Team. Later in the year, on December 27th, The B****** went from long-running guest to the third regular. This altered the trivia format slightly. The teams became Captains vs. Guests, with one guest choosing one of the three Captains to side with, or two guests taking on all three Captains.
Makeba took a hiatus following the March 30th, 2016 episode. Roxxie Toxxic filled in as interim regular from March 27th. Makeba made a special appearance at the first PromoMania special on April 3rd, explaining his absence in a shoot promo. Makeba made his return on May 8th, 2016, though Roxxie proved popular with the team and listeners during her tenure, she stayed on as a regular - leaving the show with a team of five. On June 19th, Roxxie decided to leave the show as she took a step away from all podcasting for similar issues to Makeba. On August 7th, Makeba stunned Dazzy, The Phoenix and The B****** as he made an unscheduled announcement at the end of the episode that he would be leaving the show at the upcoming PromoSlam special - this episode coincidentally marked Makeba's one year anniversary as a regular. Makeba's final episode as a regular was August 21st, 2016. On September 4th, it was announced Roxxie Toxxic would return the following week on the September 11th episode.
Despite still being recognized every week as a regular, Roxxie was often absent in October, and quietly left the show off-air in early December. Evan "Money" Makeba made an appearance as a guest at Promo Series on November 20th, 2016 and has subsequently appeared as a guest on several specials, including the 100th episode.
Mike Larkin became a regular on February 11th, 2017 at the 100th episode, restoring the show's three-Captain format for the first time since Roxxie's departure.
The Phoenix took a break from the show following PromoMania II on April 1st, 2017. He was been replaced by Dave Burnham until his return. On the June 2nd episode, footage showed Dazzy going in search of The Phoenix, which led to the incapacitation of his drone "Dazguard 1.0". Dazzy announced, following this segment that more footage would air the following week of The Phoenix negotiating a new contract to return at Trivia Takeover 2. The Phoenix failed to return at Trivia Takeover 2, however did return a couple of weeks later, following two special pre-records which covered Dazzy's honeymoon period. Dave Burnham left the show.
Aside from Dazzy and The Phoenix, The B****** was one of the longest-serving members of the podcast. The day after PromoSlam 2, it was announced he would be leaving the show and made his final appearance on the following episode on August 25th, 2017 before returning on October 5th.
Larkin began a hiatus following PromoMania V in April 2020, leading to Travis "The Walker" Anderson filling in as a regular co-host. Due to his cooling-off period moving from judge to participant in the Promo League, The B****** also went on hiatus on May 7th. Moses Marquez became an interim regular on May 21st. Following "The Shift" leading to the near retirement of Dazzy and cutting of ties with The B******, Travis and Moses became permanent co-hosts as of June 18th.
"The Shift"
Host and writer, Dazzy is the only person to appear on every single episode, except for the June 4th, 2020 episode where he had previously announced retirement due to personal disputes. Mike Larkin, Travis Anderson and Moses Marquez requested to record what would be the final episode with special guest The Demoness, with Dazzy producing, to close the show in style. Following large support and the removal of a toxic former colleague, Dazzy decided to reboot and continue the show the following week for Trivia Takeover 5.0: Champion's Chase.
Larkin returned full time at PromoSlam 2020 in August, while Travis began a hiatus following Podcast Promo Rumble 6 in January 2021, to prepare for the arrival of his second child. Upon his return at PromoMania VI, Travis remained a regular co-host until July where he decided to step away from his regular seat.
On November 4, 2021, it was announced that Mike Larkin would be leaving his regular co-host seat after almost five years. This meant the show would become a two-man team for the first time since co-founders Daz and The Phoenix started the show - with Dazzy and Moses.
Production
Max Wrestling Podcast is conducted via Skype and was initially recorded one to three days in advance. Originally, episodes were uploaded on Sunday evenings at 7pm GMT. On December 10th, 2016, the show moved to Saturday nights at 9pm GMT, and then Friday nights on April 14th, 2017. In 2019, the show began airing Thursdays, the same day as recorded, if it was edited in time, and has remained on Thursdays ever since.
All editing and producing is done entirely by "The Captain" Dazzy Dangerously, including logos, graphics, renders and audio. Templates by Flixpress have occasionally been used for intros and graphics.
The opening video has gone through many changes. The original opening theme was "Guerrilla Radio" by Rage Against The Machine, with the video featuring several clips and soundbytes of professional wrestlers such as Triple H, Brock Lesnar, Daniel Bryan and Stone Cold Steve Austin among others. A new opening video debuted on August 23rd, 2015, featuring a scrolling overlay of the show's logo and new clips. On December 28th, 2015, a new opening made its debut to match a revamped logo, this time introducing the regular team. This opening was short-lived, as the show received a whole new makeover to celebrate the 50th episode on February 28th, 2016. The logo became slanted, the opening video had a brighter colour scheme, introduced new clips and replaced "Guerrilla Radio" with AJ Styles' NJPW theme "Styles Clash" by Yonosuke Kitamura. The opening video underwent slight changes from June 19th, with more elaborate text graphics and more new clips. A revamp episode was uploaded on July 31st, debuting a new edgier logo, new mechanical graphics and replacing the opening theme with "Animals" by Linkin Park. This also removed the tradition of soundbytes playing over the theme song. In a special spin-off episode where Dazzy and The B****** interviewed Andre Corbeil, the show debuted "The Arrival" by I Divide as the surprise new theme song on October 26th, 2016.
There have been special graphics to open episodes on special occasions such as the Podcast Promo Championship tournament in late 2015, and annual Star Wars specials in correlation with the new movies - these also featured the logo at the time changed to the Star Wars colour scheme of black and gold.
To celebrate the 100th episode on 11 February, 2017, the show was presented as a throwback to the early episodes - featuring the original lightning theme and graphics, a special present-day version of the original intro video, and the one-off return of original opening song, "Guerrilla Radio".
The show underwent another surprise makeover from the 101st episode, replacing the gears previously seen with a red theme, smoke and machinery. The intro also introduced more modern clips from WWE, New Japan and TNA, as well as new line-up introductions including Mike Larkin for the first time. The closing signature at the end of the credits was changed for the first time ever, replacing the zooming letters spelling out "Max Wrestling" with the name in flames. As the Swerve Talk Network also underwent major changes around this time, a new STN signature was added at the end of each show.
From the 108th episode on April 7th, 2017, The Phoenix was missing from the line-up introductions in the opening video for the first time ever, as he was replaced by Dave Burnham.
In May 2017, it was announced that a massive overhaul was in development, which would revamp the show in June 2017. Dazzy confirmed via the website that the revamp would include a new logo and theme song, new and better graphics than ever before, new trivia rounds, new special graphics for each segment and trivia round and a shaken-up format stating: "the show will be unrecognizable."
The new logo and a re-designed Knowledge Championship were introduced on June 16th, 2017 at Trivia Takeover 2. While this was the beginning of the new revamp, the show would continue using the "Scratched metal" logo for the following two weeks in two pre-recorded episodes to cover Dazzy's honeymoon time off. The revamp took full effect from July as The Phoenix returned full time and all-new graphics and formats were introduced.
In February 2018, Max Wrestling announced the purchase of the MaxWrestling.net domain, launching an updated website.
Due to copyright issues with Facebook over the use of Hands Like Houses' "I Am," a new opening was introduced after only three weeks featuring completely new graphics and the debut of "A Line In The Sand" by Linkin Park as the theme song - in tribute to the late Chester Bennington for two weeks. This opening returned to the show's original style of wrestling soundbytes over an instrumental track. The new theme "Venomous" by Jim Johnston - the entrance music of Stone Cold Steve Austin during the Alliance angle of 2001 - debuted the week before Promo Slam 2, again with soundbytes and new visuals.
A new intro, new graphics and new theme song - "Notorious" by Adelitas Way was introduced on the September 15th episode. The new graphics included a plasma ball continuously moving in the background with the Max Wrestling logo in the foreground.
In another revamp on November 22nd, 2018, the "Madhouse Era" began as a new intro and the current logo made its debut with new opening theme "Madhouse" by Shadow Of You.
For the 4th anniversary on March 22nd, 2019, a throwback intro was produced. Following a public vote for which former theme song to use, a modern-day version of the Linkin Park - "Animals" intro was produced. The theme went back to "Madhouse" the following week with a new opening video.
On May 30th, 2019, "Wildfire" by Palmist became the new opening song as the intro received a new red colour scheme. To coincide with the launch of All Elite Wrestling, the intro underwent a makeover on October 3rd, 2019 to include AEW clips, while maintaining the "Wildfire" theme song. The week following PromoMania IV, the arena stage style main screen replaced the studio style.
In January 2019, MaxWrestling.net was not renewed due to a ridiculously high rise in cost. As such, the website returned to the Wix domain, which eventually became blocked by Facebook, prompting the use of a Weebly landing page with links to the main Wix website.
In the first 2020 revamp, "Fortress" by Memory became the new opening theme, debuting the cross-tron for the graphic stage. For the 5th anniversary, the show produced a 2-week celebration featuring what would become the intro for Max Wrestling: In The Hot Seat as the opening on March 16th, while the March 19th episode opened with a series of flashbacks to previous quotes from the show. In an attempted reboot, "Right Now" by Fire From The Gods became the opening theme between April 9th to the 16th, but due to a copyright flag from Facebook, the decision was made to no longer use copyrighted music on the show going forward - including theme songs for the Max Specials. An instrumental theme was used from April 23rd before a copyright-free "The Shift" by Self Deception was introduced on June 18th to coincide with the major changes to the show and line-up - also known as "The Shift". A month following
PromoSlam 5, the show began undergoing small changes to the thumbnails and introduced "Trust No One" by Foxhaunt as the new theme song - specifically for the lyrics "Now I've found my happy place" to indicate the new team had solidified the new era. The new theme song carried over in October as the show was completely rebooted with all new graphics - returning to the studio style main screen as opposed to the arena stage.
In November 2020, the podcast adopted the tagline "Welcome to the show" - which are also lyrics to the current theme song "Masquerade" by Maddison.
In February 2021, it was announced that the MaxWrestling.net domain was back up and running after a much cheaper purchase than before - thus transforming the Weebly website into the main domain, transferring all pages over from Wix - a task which took three days to complete.
Following Travis Anderson's departure in July 2021, new theme song "My Generation" by Onlap and Discrepancies made its debut. Discrepancies took centre stage in mid-September as their own song "Control" was introduced before the sudden reboot of the show in October led to another new theme song by Onlap
with Halocene, called "Freak Like Me."
In October 2021, Max Wrestling underwent its biggest reboot since the "Madhouse" era in 2018. Following the de-activation of the Promo Championship and promo competition was ceased, it was announced trivia would become a focal point of the show once again. The Knowledge Champion now has to defend the title at least every 30 days and can also cash it in to challenge the World Champion at each special event. The Television Championship was also announced, which is also defended in trivia competition, but the champion must also cut a promo at least every 30 days. The return of favourite segment This Week In Wrestling History was also announced along with new segments Wrestler Of The Week and Geek Of The Week.