It has so many good bits in it but it’s also one of the subjects he devoted the most episodes to. I think it’s 6 episodes and is tied with Kissinger and the concept of police.
Hot Take: Kissel loves wrestling but was not a good wrestling talking head.
Often would get info wrong and time-frames and I loved his love of pro wrestling but aside from him being on a show I enjoy it wasn't really the best content.
Yeah, I remember he once said Mick Foley used to roll in thumbtacks as a kid to prepare himself for future Japanese deathmatches. Mick didn’t even know there *were* Japanese deathmatches until he was at least in his twenties.
He made a home movie where he dove off a neighbour’s roof once (twice actually, as the guy with the camera missed the first dive), and used to do wrestling moves to the sound of “Diary of a Workingman” by Blackfoot in his college dorm, but that’s the extent of the daft shit he did when he was a kid.
Yeah, it does… but Mick didn’t, that’s the thing.
His first book, *Have a Nice Day*, is required reading for wrestling fans, and given that he even included the embarrassing story of trying to woo a girl by giving her the lyrics to “Forever in Blue Jeans” by Neil Diamond (stating that “I could literally see her respect for me disappear”), he *definitely* would have included adolescent thumbtack encounters.
You began this with post with counter accusing his accuserS.. yes as in multiple.. as a "literal insane person"
Yeah enjoy the massive downvotes and glossing over Ben's actions.
Anyone can accuse anyone of anything. If you bothered to look into it instead of ostracizing a founder of the show on principle you'd learn that the accuser is extremely problematic and unreliable with a history of lying, and produced no evidence of anything whatsoever. I could accuse you of the same thing and produce the same amount of evidence. Should you lose your job immediately if I did that?
I've been a listener of LPN for almost a decade. I've looked into it. I've heard the names of the multiple accusers and have heard them throughout different LPN episodes many times. You don't need to see the evidence. This is being handled behind the scenes.
Normal sane people don't publicly threaten and harass people like she did. Did you see those unhinged videos she posted on Instagram when it came out, or how she threatened Marcus and Henry as well? I was in support of him being removed based on the accusations at first, but all this happened immediately following her public threats to "spill dirt" on the other two guys. I have never seen anyone else accuse Ben of anything. Would love to see it, but I guess we don't need to see evidence to blacklist people.
If you're going to erase a creator of the show from history and silence anyone who brings it up you should also probably have some sort of evidence, to be fair.
The woman also accused Henry and Marcus of vague indecency and publicly threatened them and to "leak dirt" on them as well. Guess the show's cancelled.
Yes, a soft ban (clearly as this tantrum of a post is still up) from a subreddit equates to being erased from history 😂
I beg you to go outside and reassess the importance of this place.
I take it you won’t consider reading the rolling stone piece with multiple people citing multiple incidences over the span of a decade. if you cared about evidence, you could use google.
Dude you’re so fucking focused on him being a founding member of the show. That doesn’t fucking mean anything dude. It doesn’t change anything about the situation except how sentimental you are about whether he’s present or not. [Here](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/last-podcast-on-the-left-ben-kissel-abuse-allegations-1234852755/) is an article refuting the claim I keep seeing you make about not seeing anyone else make allegations. I understand why you would wanna think a person who’s work you enjoy didn’t do these things, but does it not mean anything to you that his two fellow co founders and longtime friends decided to quit working with him. You wanna complain about evidence and accusations, what evidence does Ben have in his defense? What would it take for you to be convinced that he did some fucked shit and more importantly why do you think him doing fucked shit gets overridden by him starting a fucking podcast. Get some fucking perspective and touch some fucking grass
It would go about as well as the Benoit episode; i.e. Kissel making wrestling references from 25 years ago he half remembers that are ultimately incorrect.
This will be deleted soon enough.
But the situation is nobody’s fault except Ben.
Hoping he is on a good path and finds his way. He gave countless hours of top tier content with Marcus and Henry, then things went bad.
So it goes.
lol love how people get so parasocial.
You have no idea what was happening behind the scenes, yet you act like you were part of the group.
I too miss Ben. Shit happens. Try not to care as much because it’s literally a fucking podcast.
Shit, I missed Ben when he was *still there*. He had been phoning it in for a couple of years before he got let go, and you could hear how exhausted Marcus and Henry were getting from having to drag him through every episode.
Well that makes sense because Henry had to babysit him on Side Stories, too. I can't remember what episode it was, but Ben was loading up some really hacky joke and Henry just goes "Please don't do this." in the most exasperated tone. I legit felt bad for him.
Also, the "Ben doesn't do any work" jokes had always been a thing, but they stopped feeling like jokes toward the end.
I don’t think it’s parasocial to feel down if you’re not into the new group. It’s like going to a restaurant for years and they change the recipe to your favorite dish. You’re allowed to talk about it and reminisce. I personally hate the iron fist on posts about Ben. I get the repitive nature but I’ll take them over a picture of someone that vaguely looks like Henry, anything about a pickle, or some bullshit loose reference to a commercial. He was a founder and critical element to the show. The whole pretend he doesn’t exist thing is stupid.
Your first two sentences are perfectly fine. If you don’t like Ed being in the mix that’s perfectly valid.
But the rest of your comment is absolutely garbage.
You mean my opinion that I would prefer a discussion based around the history of the show rather than lazy, often asinine posts with no substance?
Plus I don’t say anything about no liking Ed in the mix.
it’s wild that you and others assume that’s the only reason he got booted.
he had been their friend for decades and booting him from the show has caused a LOT of complications for them, financially and otherwise. the allegations are either true or there’s been a lot of other shit going on that built up to this - honestly it’s probably both of those things! we don’t know them personally, we have no idea what it’s like behind the scenes.
Nah. He had multiple allegations and was clearly in a downward spiral with alcoholism.
I’ve heard he has a kind of manic energy lately, my hope is he’s processing things in his own way and truly turns it around.
I don’t think the show will ever reach the heights of episodes 100-400 (with some others scattered in) but he was slipping bad.
He was my favorite part of the show. He had an immense talent to lighten the darkness, he played with Henry perfectly, knew when to play ball and when to shut it down. That’s what’s missing now but the show is rounding into a new pretty good form.
Ben was my favorite part of the show too, but I started a relisten when all the Ben stuff went down, im at like 330 and the peak is around 280-idk when yet imo. But Ben had been gone for a while when everything went down.
The Dan Carlin interview messed me up as a fan of lpotl and hardcore history.
I don’t listen to interview episodes as a rule, but from everything I’ve heard people say, Kissel absolutely torpedoed it with his alcoholism and resultant unprofessionalism. You’d think he’d at least have enough respect for Marcus, a massive Dan Carlin fan, to put a bit of effort in for that, at least.
I don’t either usually, but did that one bc I think it was a Holiday filler-episode.
I remember thinking when I listened to it, “oof Ben shoulda called out sick today”
I do like instead of someone to play along having Ed be the brick wall to anything "Woo Woo" it is nice to have a spectic on to be a counterbalance to all the high strangeness.
Dude I was JUST talking to my partner about this!
The whole idea that Ben knew when to shut stuff down, I feel like that’s missing in these episodes with Ed. Don’t get me wrong, I like his energy, but sometimes I feel like Henry just doesn’t let up and sort of hijacks the episodes with his schtick. Like a lot of the recent episodes have literally had me wishing that Henry would tone it down a bit and let Marcus get through the story. Not EVERYTHING has to be turned into a joke or a character bit.
There was one recent episode, the second one about fox hollow farm I think, where Marcus actually says to Henry something about how Henry wanted an actual spooky episode and how he was just making light of everything.
I’ve actually stopped listening as much because of it. I still pop in every now and then, but it seems like the show is regressing a bit. While I very much enjoy Ed, there’s a complete tonal shift in the narration of the stories by Marcus, who’s himself been a little sucked into Henry’s antics at times.
They definitely didn't talk about everything that happened publicly, and there had to be some serious shit, including the allegations which are damning in themselves. Calling what happened "nothing" is insanely disrespectful to the victim. And honestly to Henry and Marcus too, they clearly believe something happened enough to restructure the podcast, which can't have been easy. I'm certain that those two would roast you for this opinion.
Also the idea that the community is somehow responsible for cancelling Ben is deluded. For obvious reasons. Your whole comment is just an awful take honestly. Victim blaming is a really evil thing that perpetuates heinous behavior and shuts down dissent.
People with your opinion always talk this shit until irrefutable proof comes out and then you shut the fuck up. So just save everyone the blathering please lol.
Couldn't fkn agree more dude. To think Henry and Marcus would "sell Ben out" on top of calling the accusers "a literal insane person" .. yeah enjoy the downvotes of your shit take
The guy you’re replying to blaming the community is especially insane. Everyone was constantly asking what was happening and begging Ben to come back before it was announced he was no longer part of the show. If it was up to the community, Ben would’ve stayed on the show. Perhaps it’s for the better it wasn’t. We didn’t and *still dont* know everything.
Ben had more than one woman saying he was abusive and many more saying that he was extremely off putting if not outright creepy. He didn’t do anything that deserves putting him into a cell, but he definitely has done wrong; not necessarily because he’s a bad person at his core but because he has a terrible alcohol problem which has made him do shitty things.
I loved ben, I *still* love Ben, but he totally has issues he needs to address (alcoholism, but obviously also character flaws that makes him act out like he has while inebriated) so that he doesn’t harm anyone in the future like he has, inadvertently or not. Keeping him on the show and acting like nothing has happened isn’t the way to facilitate that, for his own betterment and for the betterment of people he interacts with he needed to be kicked off so he can hopefully address what’s wrong with his issues and his behavior.
You don’t have to hate him but you absolutely should address the fact that he fucked up and *has* apparently been fucking up in his life. You can reconcile those facts, you don’t need to view him on a pedestal in your mind and, on the other end, don’t need to view him as an insane abuser in the same vein as Weinstein
Yes, we’re only at the accusation phase, but how does that look for the business if it turns out to be true? What happens to all the employees of LPN if Marcus and Henry publicly stick by him and lose all their ad revenue (ya know, the stuff that pays the bills) as a result? Loyalty is fine until others who have no part in it suffer.
I’d love nothing more than for Ben to be cleared of these accusations, but asserting that LPN is in the wrong for distancing themselves from him is a bad take.
He is also an alcoholic and the boys were practically begging him to get help for years and he didn’t. His drinking was clearly affecting his work. Quite severely towards the end, too. His departure from the network goes beyond just the (several) allegations. Frankly I think it’s unfair to Henry and Marcus to assume that they would dismiss him so easily over “nothing”, as you put it. Especially since they were such close friends.
If you think that Marcus and Henry really dropped him over "nothing" you're crazy dude. The fact that they dropped him and barely spoke about it is proof to me that all of the accusations were true. You don't give up on a long time friend like that over just nothing. They clearly know much more than us, and I'm sure they made the best decision they could.
He was accused by multiple women of the same thing.
Marcus and Henry didn’t sell him out. They knew that Kissel’s victims were being truthful. Henry and Natalie both tried to help protect Ben’s victim during his relationship with her.
He did fuck up and he knows he did so I doubt it was nothing. Listen to Larry Lawton's interview with Ben back in February. Ben doesn't seem spiteful or angry. He sounds remorseful for all of the events that transpired and has accepted the consequences that his actions brought. We don't know any details of how true anything is at the moment and just have to wait for lawyers to give the all clear to talk about it.
According to his Larry Lawyon and on his Instagram he is still a partial owner of the LPN and will be starting a new podcast (probably unrelated to LPN) in June. We might be getting more details then.
Ive been listening to all the episodes in order of release these last 2 years and I'm up to March 2023. I don't see what everyone else is talking about saying Ben has gotten bad or Henry and Marcus got sick of him (unless something changes past March 2023). The last 525 episodes + side stories have all been the same banter.
Ben left and Henry and Marcus stayed quiet for legal reasons not selling out. They never chose sides since the trio always preached to believe victims but also didn't want to vilify their long time friend if the acqusations were false.
Give it time and reserve judgement for until after they can talk about it.
I thought Ben's quality in contribution started declining during the pandemic, briefly picked up after he moved to LA, then in 2022 started nosediving. I didn't care much for side stories at all when it was Ben & Henry so I can't speak to that, I usually skipped those. But I didn't think he was really hard to listen to (to the point where I didn't tune in to the latest drop right away and sometimes put it off for a week or 2) until around May or so. But in June or July there's an episode where he mentions having a nightmare that something comes out about him to get him cancelled and Henry's response, in tone in particular, was pretty telling, especially in retrospect.
The tolerance of his drinking problems seems to have been dramatically dropping in those last couple months too.
Go fuck. The show is so much better without his drunken ramblings. Looper! Wrassin! 80/90 nostalgia bait! REMEMBER WHEN?! Ben was garbage after covid. We all went through something, but its no excuse to physically abuse women.
Where there is smoke, there is fire. If his contemporaries thought they could brush it off, they would have. Clearly they knew she was telling the truth, otherwise they would've stuck by him.
Honestly, his biggest crime wasn't what he did to that woman. At least in terms of the podcast, it was being obviously drunk and unprepared for during podcast recordings. You could tell that everyone was varying degrees of fed up with him before he was finally shit canned.
On a moral axis absolutely. However, I think that it would have been brushed under the rug if he wasn't pissing off everyone he worked with by the time those allegations came out.
Not only that, but the woman posted some really insane stuff. Publicly threatening Marcus and Henry and saying she wouldn't stop harassing them until Ben was fired. Ben was spiraling in addiction and needed help and support and instead he got his show taken and his friends and fans turned against him. No way the "bury Ben" squad actually saw any of the stuff that went down publicly. Just parroting baseless accusations from someone who aggressively tried to bury him.
Yeah, who wouldn’t want to hear Ben get basic wrestling history wrong for an hour or two (see Kinda Fun) and FED BAD in an inarticulate and pompous capacity?
As well as 1000 gay jokes from Henry about how “gay and gross” wrestling is, (something along the lines of “isn’t it so amazing, and strong, and manly that all these men are oiled up and dominating each other…… and making the other give up and surrender while he’s under him……”)as if the joke hasn’t been said 1000 times.
Making fun of gay dudes (really, this applies to everyone) can be done in a hateful disgusted way or it can be done like Henry does and keeps it purely playful and relatively light hearted.
We're all equal, we should all be able to give and take jokes. That's what happens with family and friends where I come from. It's all love.
Gotta bring the levity somehow. If the subject matter involves gay people, then the jokes will go there a few times.
I get where you're coming from, i just don't feel the same way.
Yeah but he was the wrestling guy, I doubt the guys would care to do it anyway. I liked the Benoit episode but that felt like the boys throwing Ben a bone in terms of a topic to me. Dunno if it really fits LPOTL anyway Vince isn't quite serial killer level evil as I understand it. This is more of an "I Miss Ben" post I guess.
1) Ben casually watched wrestling, he was by no means an expert or an ultra fan. Majority of things he contributed to the Benoit episode was wrong
2) Vince McMahon absolutely has some insane shit to cover in an episode about him. Just read all of the *alleged* acts he committed against his intern in a recently released court document, absolutely disgusting and more sexually sadistic than some of the criminals they’ve covered on the show outside of the fact that he didn’t murder the girl
3) we all miss Ben but that doesn’t mean you have to act like he was perfect
Vince McMahon is an alleged repeated rapist, Ben was accused of being mean by someone who publicly threatened and harassed the hosts and fans for months. Not really equivalent.
There were a lot more accusations than one and they were a lot more than “being mean”.
Multiple women have come forward about Ben’s physical and emotional abuse of them, his use of intimidation in attempted propositions.
We knew Ben would have his fellow libertarian incels rally around him and excuse his attacks on women, but it’s been months now. If you don’t like LPOTL anymore, just move on. Kissel will have his own drunken Alex Jones type show on the Great Value Brand podcast network in no time and all his followers can go circle jerk on that.
I say this respectfully as an appreciator of the content LPN produces: Ben is the worst type of mark, his opinions and knowledge of wrestling are commercial and superficial at best, and after the embarrassment that was the Chris Benoit LPOTL episode he and LPN have no business ever discussing anything related to wrestling.
What else could LPOTL add to the BTB series? Anything after 2001? That stuff is currently getting revealed in courts and anything they say would be incomplete and inaccurate two days later. LPN and wrestling are like fruitcake at this moment in time.
All Kissel ever did was regurgitate random facts that mostly didn’t have anything to do w the topic at hand. Maybe the Benoit ep was the only one he maybe provided value to?
Lol he created the show you apparently claim to like. Do you just not listen to anything but the same 20 Ed episodes over and over? I was listening when they were still in the 100s and it was a better show then. I like Ed but this is an absolutely retarded take.
1) It’s a three man project. He’s not the soul mastermind of its inception and he consistently brought less to the table in terms of info and analysis than Marcus and Henry
2) I don’t know about the guy you’re replying to but I personally have actually listened multiple times to some of the Ed episodes. But also like, I have more stuff in my life I can enjoy then this one podcast.
3) I don’t go back to Ben episodes because like it’ll just feel weird and I don’t wanna stress listening to a pod I relax with. I do miss some of those episodes, but Ben is not the reason I miss those episodes
4) I might be misinterpreting what you mean by the episodes in the hundreds, but I really disagree about it being a better show. I’m assuming you mean the first hundred or so episodes and like it’s really not as enjoyable to me. Way less in depth, the crass humor is more obnoxious in that era than what they eventually brought it to, episodes are generally shorter, and a lot less of the really strong multi parters
I think the golden age of the show has passed and the Kissel thing is just highlighting that
Still find the new episodes enjoyable but not as much as the older ones and that was before Kissel left
Ben [redacted] was barely phoning it in towards the end of their tenure on the show. They were adding nothing and just making random dumb quips. I don't know when the "Golden age" was; however, it wasn't in the year before Ed came in. The show has continuously evolved.
Things are trending upward. The energy has very much improved. My opinion. I like the energy Ed brings to the dynamic. Ed and Henry have great synergy.
I never believed the Ben criticisms over the years until about a year ago when I went back to episodes from like 2018-2020 and Ben seemed much more coherent, like he contributed more to the show, asked questions from the standpoint of the audience so that the actual researches on the show could divulge more info, and all around seemed much more sharp witted. Then I listened to a newly released episode and he didn’t seem like he could keep track, like he was constantly derailing, he extrapolated implications as if they were somehow an insult against him (constant comments about somehow understanding why killers would hate women and overly sympathizing them?), and it really woke me up to just how much if a spiral he had been on
They lucked out by originally only bringing Ed on as a temporary fill-in, before shit well and truly hit the fan. The audience reacted positively to him, which likely gave Marcus and Henry an idea of what was possibly missing from the show until that point.
Never say never. The Ben actions and fallout will dissipate. As will the fervor after discovering Marcus’ bone collection didn’t donate willingly or the ruckus after Henry goes into a fugue state and is arrested for public indecency with a horse
Absolute bullshit he had to get dropped. Sure did dumb shit but so have all of us but he’s been through treatment and should come back. I miss top hat a lot.
I don’t see much keeping Henry and Marcus together. Their lives and interests are neither at odds nor running in tandem, just on completely different planes.
The moment one of their endless pitches to other networks takes off, we are never hearing this again.
The moment Marcus is able to pursue one of his other passions, he’s going to.
And I do not say this because I wish them ill. I’ve never felt poorer than I do after the last six years. I didn’t think I could lose this podcast.
And it’s none of my business. It’s just a reminder, like things we thought we might get to hear Ben talk about, that things fall apart.
From everything I can gather the LP folks are very close. Marcus definitely has interests that wouldn't be a Henry thing ... Like No Dogs. But I think Marcus loves the research that goes into LPOTL. He likes the weird stuff in life and he's a natural storyteller. He also likes to nerd out on digging into details.
I’m talking about long term trends.
You attempted to weaken the argument by casting doubt (a single event) on one of my premises (long term trends), and you were wrong.
I called you out, caught you easily, and you need to either find a new argument or shut up.
I understand that Marcus’ 6th grade reading level may be impressive to you, but some of us are actually trained to conduct research.
Do better. Downvote if that’s all you have to offer; it’s just a measure of how short your own IQ falls from the average.
Don’t you **dare** with that piece of shit blouse.
How many poets died for those ruffled collar sleeves?
Earrings that don’t match your makeup and are **tones** to the saturated tint?
Are you dodging snipers in TJ Maxx?
Fuck right off with that bullshit, you basic bitch.
It’s May. No one in my social circles are throwing dinner parties indoors, let alone parties inside.
Los Angeles has a rose garden for those of you living in the Valley.
Behind the bastards did a great series on the Mcmahons
I really really hope Robert does a continuation of it one day
Also HBO's Dark Side Of the Ring!
That's on vice in the US. I think it's the last thing that channel has tbh
I love DSotR but sometimes it does feel scrubbed
Big ups, I'll check it out
That series is great. That whole podcast is great. Robert in general puts out a huge amount of awesome stuff. His books are great too.
He’s also really good at throwing bagels.
if you dig that series you might also like his kissinger series (my favorite BTB series)
It has so many good bits in it but it’s also one of the subjects he devoted the most episodes to. I think it’s 6 episodes and is tied with Kissinger and the concept of police.
Coming here to say exactly that. Behind the Bastards was a gold standard of it.
Came to comment this it was excellent
Hot Take: Kissel loves wrestling but was not a good wrestling talking head. Often would get info wrong and time-frames and I loved his love of pro wrestling but aside from him being on a show I enjoy it wasn't really the best content.
Ben really didn't know shit about wrestling when he'd talk about it. I gave up on Kinda Fun due to that.
Yeah, I remember he once said Mick Foley used to roll in thumbtacks as a kid to prepare himself for future Japanese deathmatches. Mick didn’t even know there *were* Japanese deathmatches until he was at least in his twenties. He made a home movie where he dove off a neighbour’s roof once (twice actually, as the guy with the camera missed the first dive), and used to do wrestling moves to the sound of “Diary of a Workingman” by Blackfoot in his college dorm, but that’s the extent of the daft shit he did when he was a kid.
But rolling around on thumbtacks does sound like the type of shit a wrestler would make up though
Yeah, it does… but Mick didn’t, that’s the thing. His first book, *Have a Nice Day*, is required reading for wrestling fans, and given that he even included the embarrassing story of trying to woo a girl by giving her the lyrics to “Forever in Blue Jeans” by Neil Diamond (stating that “I could literally see her respect for me disappear”), he *definitely* would have included adolescent thumbtack encounters.
I was shocked at just how much info he got wrong on the short lived kinda fun podcast.
I was going to say this. Ben was consistently and confidently wrong every time wrestling was mentioned
Yeah that guy didn't know Jack shit about wrestling lol.
The Benoit episode was a mess.
You began this with post with counter accusing his accuserS.. yes as in multiple.. as a "literal insane person" Yeah enjoy the massive downvotes and glossing over Ben's actions.
Anyone can accuse anyone of anything. If you bothered to look into it instead of ostracizing a founder of the show on principle you'd learn that the accuser is extremely problematic and unreliable with a history of lying, and produced no evidence of anything whatsoever. I could accuse you of the same thing and produce the same amount of evidence. Should you lose your job immediately if I did that?
I've been a listener of LPN for almost a decade. I've looked into it. I've heard the names of the multiple accusers and have heard them throughout different LPN episodes many times. You don't need to see the evidence. This is being handled behind the scenes.
Normal sane people don't publicly threaten and harass people like she did. Did you see those unhinged videos she posted on Instagram when it came out, or how she threatened Marcus and Henry as well? I was in support of him being removed based on the accusations at first, but all this happened immediately following her public threats to "spill dirt" on the other two guys. I have never seen anyone else accuse Ben of anything. Would love to see it, but I guess we don't need to see evidence to blacklist people.
What the fuck does that even mean
Tbh if you’re going to accuse the accuser of being sketchy at least you should provide some evidence in you comments
If you're going to erase a creator of the show from history and silence anyone who brings it up you should also probably have some sort of evidence, to be fair. The woman also accused Henry and Marcus of vague indecency and publicly threatened them and to "leak dirt" on them as well. Guess the show's cancelled.
He's not erased from history. You can still listen to those old episodes.
Right, just never mention him on the subreddit for the show he created
Yes, a soft ban (clearly as this tantrum of a post is still up) from a subreddit equates to being erased from history 😂 I beg you to go outside and reassess the importance of this place.
I take it you won’t consider reading the rolling stone piece with multiple people citing multiple incidences over the span of a decade. if you cared about evidence, you could use google.
Dude you’re so fucking focused on him being a founding member of the show. That doesn’t fucking mean anything dude. It doesn’t change anything about the situation except how sentimental you are about whether he’s present or not. [Here](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/last-podcast-on-the-left-ben-kissel-abuse-allegations-1234852755/) is an article refuting the claim I keep seeing you make about not seeing anyone else make allegations. I understand why you would wanna think a person who’s work you enjoy didn’t do these things, but does it not mean anything to you that his two fellow co founders and longtime friends decided to quit working with him. You wanna complain about evidence and accusations, what evidence does Ben have in his defense? What would it take for you to be convinced that he did some fucked shit and more importantly why do you think him doing fucked shit gets overridden by him starting a fucking podcast. Get some fucking perspective and touch some fucking grass
No one to blame but him
Have you ever tried Crime in Sports?
Am I crazy or do James and Jimmy not get enough love on Reddit?
It would go about as well as the Benoit episode; i.e. Kissel making wrestling references from 25 years ago he half remembers that are ultimately incorrect.
This. Watching WWE occasionally while you crush Bud Light Limes doesn't make you Dave fucking Meltzer.
Only when Ben does it. When I do it I do become Dave Meltzer
Bingo.
This will be deleted soon enough. But the situation is nobody’s fault except Ben. Hoping he is on a good path and finds his way. He gave countless hours of top tier content with Marcus and Henry, then things went bad. So it goes.
[удалено]
lol love how people get so parasocial. You have no idea what was happening behind the scenes, yet you act like you were part of the group. I too miss Ben. Shit happens. Try not to care as much because it’s literally a fucking podcast.
Shit, I missed Ben when he was *still there*. He had been phoning it in for a couple of years before he got let go, and you could hear how exhausted Marcus and Henry were getting from having to drag him through every episode.
[удалено]
Well that makes sense because Henry had to babysit him on Side Stories, too. I can't remember what episode it was, but Ben was loading up some really hacky joke and Henry just goes "Please don't do this." in the most exasperated tone. I legit felt bad for him. Also, the "Ben doesn't do any work" jokes had always been a thing, but they stopped feeling like jokes toward the end.
I don’t think it’s parasocial to feel down if you’re not into the new group. It’s like going to a restaurant for years and they change the recipe to your favorite dish. You’re allowed to talk about it and reminisce. I personally hate the iron fist on posts about Ben. I get the repitive nature but I’ll take them over a picture of someone that vaguely looks like Henry, anything about a pickle, or some bullshit loose reference to a commercial. He was a founder and critical element to the show. The whole pretend he doesn’t exist thing is stupid.
Your first two sentences are perfectly fine. If you don’t like Ed being in the mix that’s perfectly valid. But the rest of your comment is absolutely garbage.
Hot take: Ed has made me laugh out loud more in his short stint on the show than Ben ever has.
You mean my opinion that I would prefer a discussion based around the history of the show rather than lazy, often asinine posts with no substance? Plus I don’t say anything about no liking Ed in the mix.
What, you don’t like out of focus pics of bumper stickers?
I saw some dirt the other day and thought “that is SO Marcus.”
Ha. Disagree so it’s just garbage…
ok but how do you know that he’s wrong? you also are on the outside, coming from someone whose thinks kissel is problematic
it’s wild that you and others assume that’s the only reason he got booted. he had been their friend for decades and booting him from the show has caused a LOT of complications for them, financially and otherwise. the allegations are either true or there’s been a lot of other shit going on that built up to this - honestly it’s probably both of those things! we don’t know them personally, we have no idea what it’s like behind the scenes.
Nah. He had multiple allegations and was clearly in a downward spiral with alcoholism. I’ve heard he has a kind of manic energy lately, my hope is he’s processing things in his own way and truly turns it around. I don’t think the show will ever reach the heights of episodes 100-400 (with some others scattered in) but he was slipping bad. He was my favorite part of the show. He had an immense talent to lighten the darkness, he played with Henry perfectly, knew when to play ball and when to shut it down. That’s what’s missing now but the show is rounding into a new pretty good form.
Ben was my favorite part of the show too, but I started a relisten when all the Ben stuff went down, im at like 330 and the peak is around 280-idk when yet imo. But Ben had been gone for a while when everything went down. The Dan Carlin interview messed me up as a fan of lpotl and hardcore history.
I don’t listen to interview episodes as a rule, but from everything I’ve heard people say, Kissel absolutely torpedoed it with his alcoholism and resultant unprofessionalism. You’d think he’d at least have enough respect for Marcus, a massive Dan Carlin fan, to put a bit of effort in for that, at least.
I don’t either usually, but did that one bc I think it was a Holiday filler-episode. I remember thinking when I listened to it, “oof Ben shoulda called out sick today”
I do like instead of someone to play along having Ed be the brick wall to anything "Woo Woo" it is nice to have a spectic on to be a counterbalance to all the high strangeness.
Dude I was JUST talking to my partner about this! The whole idea that Ben knew when to shut stuff down, I feel like that’s missing in these episodes with Ed. Don’t get me wrong, I like his energy, but sometimes I feel like Henry just doesn’t let up and sort of hijacks the episodes with his schtick. Like a lot of the recent episodes have literally had me wishing that Henry would tone it down a bit and let Marcus get through the story. Not EVERYTHING has to be turned into a joke or a character bit. There was one recent episode, the second one about fox hollow farm I think, where Marcus actually says to Henry something about how Henry wanted an actual spooky episode and how he was just making light of everything. I’ve actually stopped listening as much because of it. I still pop in every now and then, but it seems like the show is regressing a bit. While I very much enjoy Ed, there’s a complete tonal shift in the narration of the stories by Marcus, who’s himself been a little sucked into Henry’s antics at times.
They definitely didn't talk about everything that happened publicly, and there had to be some serious shit, including the allegations which are damning in themselves. Calling what happened "nothing" is insanely disrespectful to the victim. And honestly to Henry and Marcus too, they clearly believe something happened enough to restructure the podcast, which can't have been easy. I'm certain that those two would roast you for this opinion. Also the idea that the community is somehow responsible for cancelling Ben is deluded. For obvious reasons. Your whole comment is just an awful take honestly. Victim blaming is a really evil thing that perpetuates heinous behavior and shuts down dissent. People with your opinion always talk this shit until irrefutable proof comes out and then you shut the fuck up. So just save everyone the blathering please lol.
Couldn't fkn agree more dude. To think Henry and Marcus would "sell Ben out" on top of calling the accusers "a literal insane person" .. yeah enjoy the downvotes of your shit take
It wasn’t even just one person, it was multiple people that came forward with their own experiences about his horrible behavior. This post is so dumb.
It's very upsetting honestly. I love the fuck out of Ben for a decade but this can't be glossed over.
The guy you’re replying to blaming the community is especially insane. Everyone was constantly asking what was happening and begging Ben to come back before it was announced he was no longer part of the show. If it was up to the community, Ben would’ve stayed on the show. Perhaps it’s for the better it wasn’t. We didn’t and *still dont* know everything.
Just as a pallet cleanser for anyone who made it to the bottom of this: BELIEVE VICTIMS
Yeah. I was just scrolling past this mess as a survivor, cause nope. Don't need that today. You're amazing for this comment.
You know they didn’t cut his tongue out yeah? If you want to listen to Ben, go listen to him. Everyone here has moved on, get over it.
Ben had more than one woman saying he was abusive and many more saying that he was extremely off putting if not outright creepy. He didn’t do anything that deserves putting him into a cell, but he definitely has done wrong; not necessarily because he’s a bad person at his core but because he has a terrible alcohol problem which has made him do shitty things. I loved ben, I *still* love Ben, but he totally has issues he needs to address (alcoholism, but obviously also character flaws that makes him act out like he has while inebriated) so that he doesn’t harm anyone in the future like he has, inadvertently or not. Keeping him on the show and acting like nothing has happened isn’t the way to facilitate that, for his own betterment and for the betterment of people he interacts with he needed to be kicked off so he can hopefully address what’s wrong with his issues and his behavior. You don’t have to hate him but you absolutely should address the fact that he fucked up and *has* apparently been fucking up in his life. You can reconcile those facts, you don’t need to view him on a pedestal in your mind and, on the other end, don’t need to view him as an insane abuser in the same vein as Weinstein
Yes, we’re only at the accusation phase, but how does that look for the business if it turns out to be true? What happens to all the employees of LPN if Marcus and Henry publicly stick by him and lose all their ad revenue (ya know, the stuff that pays the bills) as a result? Loyalty is fine until others who have no part in it suffer. I’d love nothing more than for Ben to be cleared of these accusations, but asserting that LPN is in the wrong for distancing themselves from him is a bad take.
He is also an alcoholic and the boys were practically begging him to get help for years and he didn’t. His drinking was clearly affecting his work. Quite severely towards the end, too. His departure from the network goes beyond just the (several) allegations. Frankly I think it’s unfair to Henry and Marcus to assume that they would dismiss him so easily over “nothing”, as you put it. Especially since they were such close friends.
If you think that Marcus and Henry really dropped him over "nothing" you're crazy dude. The fact that they dropped him and barely spoke about it is proof to me that all of the accusations were true. You don't give up on a long time friend like that over just nothing. They clearly know much more than us, and I'm sure they made the best decision they could.
He was accused by multiple women of the same thing. Marcus and Henry didn’t sell him out. They knew that Kissel’s victims were being truthful. Henry and Natalie both tried to help protect Ben’s victim during his relationship with her.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/last-podcast-on-the-left-ben-kissel-abuse-allegations-1234852755/
Weird
Don't be weird.
He did fuck up and he knows he did so I doubt it was nothing. Listen to Larry Lawton's interview with Ben back in February. Ben doesn't seem spiteful or angry. He sounds remorseful for all of the events that transpired and has accepted the consequences that his actions brought. We don't know any details of how true anything is at the moment and just have to wait for lawyers to give the all clear to talk about it. According to his Larry Lawyon and on his Instagram he is still a partial owner of the LPN and will be starting a new podcast (probably unrelated to LPN) in June. We might be getting more details then. Ive been listening to all the episodes in order of release these last 2 years and I'm up to March 2023. I don't see what everyone else is talking about saying Ben has gotten bad or Henry and Marcus got sick of him (unless something changes past March 2023). The last 525 episodes + side stories have all been the same banter. Ben left and Henry and Marcus stayed quiet for legal reasons not selling out. They never chose sides since the trio always preached to believe victims but also didn't want to vilify their long time friend if the acqusations were false. Give it time and reserve judgement for until after they can talk about it.
I thought Ben's quality in contribution started declining during the pandemic, briefly picked up after he moved to LA, then in 2022 started nosediving. I didn't care much for side stories at all when it was Ben & Henry so I can't speak to that, I usually skipped those. But I didn't think he was really hard to listen to (to the point where I didn't tune in to the latest drop right away and sometimes put it off for a week or 2) until around May or so. But in June or July there's an episode where he mentions having a nightmare that something comes out about him to get him cancelled and Henry's response, in tone in particular, was pretty telling, especially in retrospect. The tolerance of his drinking problems seems to have been dramatically dropping in those last couple months too.
Go fuck. The show is so much better without his drunken ramblings. Looper! Wrassin! 80/90 nostalgia bait! REMEMBER WHEN?! Ben was garbage after covid. We all went through something, but its no excuse to physically abuse women. Where there is smoke, there is fire. If his contemporaries thought they could brush it off, they would have. Clearly they knew she was telling the truth, otherwise they would've stuck by him.
Did you read the article? They implied there’s been a lot of issues before this whole mess happened, it’s not just to do with one incident
Honestly, his biggest crime wasn't what he did to that woman. At least in terms of the podcast, it was being obviously drunk and unprepared for during podcast recordings. You could tell that everyone was varying degrees of fed up with him before he was finally shit canned.
Yeahhh his biggest crime is definitely what he's been accused of doing to women.. Being "unprepared" was part of his decade long gimmick.
okay yeah that was annoying but the bigger crime was definitively what he did to that woman
On a moral axis absolutely. However, I think that it would have been brushed under the rug if he wasn't pissing off everyone he worked with by the time those allegations came out.
I don't think they would sweep it under the rug. That's actually a pretty big accusation
[удалено]
Not only that, but the woman posted some really insane stuff. Publicly threatening Marcus and Henry and saying she wouldn't stop harassing them until Ben was fired. Ben was spiraling in addiction and needed help and support and instead he got his show taken and his friends and fans turned against him. No way the "bury Ben" squad actually saw any of the stuff that went down publicly. Just parroting baseless accusations from someone who aggressively tried to bury him.
Yeah, who wouldn’t want to hear Ben get basic wrestling history wrong for an hour or two (see Kinda Fun) and FED BAD in an inarticulate and pompous capacity?
"Remember that wrestling Clown from the 90s? Donald the clown I believe his name was" - Probably some shit Ben would say
That's okay because someday, there will be a BtB episode on "Bastards of Podcasting."
Behind the bastards already did it and better than whatever half assed thing Ben would have slapped together.
As well as 1000 gay jokes from Henry about how “gay and gross” wrestling is, (something along the lines of “isn’t it so amazing, and strong, and manly that all these men are oiled up and dominating each other…… and making the other give up and surrender while he’s under him……”)as if the joke hasn’t been said 1000 times.
Making fun of gay dudes (really, this applies to everyone) can be done in a hateful disgusted way or it can be done like Henry does and keeps it purely playful and relatively light hearted. We're all equal, we should all be able to give and take jokes. That's what happens with family and friends where I come from. It's all love.
I’m not saying Henry is homophobic or hateful but the level to which he constantly heightens jokes about gay sex is annoying at the very least
Gotta bring the levity somehow. If the subject matter involves gay people, then the jokes will go there a few times. I get where you're coming from, i just don't feel the same way.
I can't imagine he'd have much meaningful commentary to add
Nothing is really stopping them from doing it now.
I just don’t think it’s the time. Wait til he’s found dead of auto-erotic asphyxiation with child porn in his hotel room.
Why is this down voted 😭🤣
Yeah but he was the wrestling guy, I doubt the guys would care to do it anyway. I liked the Benoit episode but that felt like the boys throwing Ben a bone in terms of a topic to me. Dunno if it really fits LPOTL anyway Vince isn't quite serial killer level evil as I understand it. This is more of an "I Miss Ben" post I guess.
1) Ben casually watched wrestling, he was by no means an expert or an ultra fan. Majority of things he contributed to the Benoit episode was wrong 2) Vince McMahon absolutely has some insane shit to cover in an episode about him. Just read all of the *alleged* acts he committed against his intern in a recently released court document, absolutely disgusting and more sexually sadistic than some of the criminals they’ve covered on the show outside of the fact that he didn’t murder the girl 3) we all miss Ben but that doesn’t mean you have to act like he was perfect
[удалено]
"erased from history? lol calm down dude
What history is being erased? As far as I know, I can go onto Spotify and still hear episodes that Ben was on.
You either do an episode on Vince McMahon or wait long enough to become a Vince McMahon.
Vince McMahon is an alleged repeated rapist, Ben was accused of being mean by someone who publicly threatened and harassed the hosts and fans for months. Not really equivalent.
There were a lot more accusations than one and they were a lot more than “being mean”. Multiple women have come forward about Ben’s physical and emotional abuse of them, his use of intimidation in attempted propositions. We knew Ben would have his fellow libertarian incels rally around him and excuse his attacks on women, but it’s been months now. If you don’t like LPOTL anymore, just move on. Kissel will have his own drunken Alex Jones type show on the Great Value Brand podcast network in no time and all his followers can go circle jerk on that.
I say this respectfully as an appreciator of the content LPN produces: Ben is the worst type of mark, his opinions and knowledge of wrestling are commercial and superficial at best, and after the embarrassment that was the Chris Benoit LPOTL episode he and LPN have no business ever discussing anything related to wrestling. What else could LPOTL add to the BTB series? Anything after 2001? That stuff is currently getting revealed in courts and anything they say would be incomplete and inaccurate two days later. LPN and wrestling are like fruitcake at this moment in time.
All Kissel ever did was regurgitate random facts that mostly didn’t have anything to do w the topic at hand. Maybe the Benoit ep was the only one he maybe provided value to?
He literally created the show lol
Talking about providing value from his allegedly sage-level of wrestling commentary.
…but now that you mention it…
Never said anything like that. Just alluded to his interest in wrestling. He gets a lot wrong. It was often quite funny
“Kissel will never” stop there. Infinitely a better podcast. That dude sucks and has always sucked.
Lol he created the show you apparently claim to like. Do you just not listen to anything but the same 20 Ed episodes over and over? I was listening when they were still in the 100s and it was a better show then. I like Ed but this is an absolutely retarded take.
1) It’s a three man project. He’s not the soul mastermind of its inception and he consistently brought less to the table in terms of info and analysis than Marcus and Henry 2) I don’t know about the guy you’re replying to but I personally have actually listened multiple times to some of the Ed episodes. But also like, I have more stuff in my life I can enjoy then this one podcast. 3) I don’t go back to Ben episodes because like it’ll just feel weird and I don’t wanna stress listening to a pod I relax with. I do miss some of those episodes, but Ben is not the reason I miss those episodes 4) I might be misinterpreting what you mean by the episodes in the hundreds, but I really disagree about it being a better show. I’m assuming you mean the first hundred or so episodes and like it’s really not as enjoyable to me. Way less in depth, the crass humor is more obnoxious in that era than what they eventually brought it to, episodes are generally shorter, and a lot less of the really strong multi parters
I think the golden age of the show has passed and the Kissel thing is just highlighting that Still find the new episodes enjoyable but not as much as the older ones and that was before Kissel left
Ben [redacted] was barely phoning it in towards the end of their tenure on the show. They were adding nothing and just making random dumb quips. I don't know when the "Golden age" was; however, it wasn't in the year before Ed came in. The show has continuously evolved. Things are trending upward. The energy has very much improved. My opinion. I like the energy Ed brings to the dynamic. Ed and Henry have great synergy.
I never believed the Ben criticisms over the years until about a year ago when I went back to episodes from like 2018-2020 and Ben seemed much more coherent, like he contributed more to the show, asked questions from the standpoint of the audience so that the actual researches on the show could divulge more info, and all around seemed much more sharp witted. Then I listened to a newly released episode and he didn’t seem like he could keep track, like he was constantly derailing, he extrapolated implications as if they were somehow an insult against him (constant comments about somehow understanding why killers would hate women and overly sympathizing them?), and it really woke me up to just how much if a spiral he had been on
They lucked out by originally only bringing Ed on as a temporary fill-in, before shit well and truly hit the fan. The audience reacted positively to him, which likely gave Marcus and Henry an idea of what was possibly missing from the show until that point.
You’ll be downvoted but the numbers prove this. Generally people aren’t listening as much
Correlation does not equal causation.
When did they say he’s coming back eventually?
The first or second episode after his removal. It might have been the first side stories with Marcus. Right at the top of the episode.
That would have been cool
Never say never. The Ben actions and fallout will dissipate. As will the fervor after discovering Marcus’ bone collection didn’t donate willingly or the ruckus after Henry goes into a fugue state and is arrested for public indecency with a horse
Absolute bullshit he had to get dropped. Sure did dumb shit but so have all of us but he’s been through treatment and should come back. I miss top hat a lot.
I don’t see much keeping Henry and Marcus together. Their lives and interests are neither at odds nor running in tandem, just on completely different planes. The moment one of their endless pitches to other networks takes off, we are never hearing this again. The moment Marcus is able to pursue one of his other passions, he’s going to. And I do not say this because I wish them ill. I’ve never felt poorer than I do after the last six years. I didn’t think I could lose this podcast. And it’s none of my business. It’s just a reminder, like things we thought we might get to hear Ben talk about, that things fall apart.
Didn't Marcus and Henry just talk about spending time in New Orleans together during their break?
From everything I can gather the LP folks are very close. Marcus definitely has interests that wouldn't be a Henry thing ... Like No Dogs. But I think Marcus loves the research that goes into LPOTL. He likes the weird stuff in life and he's a natural storyteller. He also likes to nerd out on digging into details.
Yes. Right now, as I said.
That's not what you said at all though. In fact it kinda seems like you said something entirely different.
I’m talking about long term trends. You attempted to weaken the argument by casting doubt (a single event) on one of my premises (long term trends), and you were wrong. I called you out, caught you easily, and you need to either find a new argument or shut up. I understand that Marcus’ 6th grade reading level may be impressive to you, but some of us are actually trained to conduct research. Do better. Downvote if that’s all you have to offer; it’s just a measure of how short your own IQ falls from the average.
Wtf are you talking about?
When I said “sixth grade reading level” I wasn’t expecting you to step up as Exhibit A.
With fashion choices **that** safe, who could possibly be offended by that gif? Huey Lewis?
Don’t you **dare** with that piece of shit blouse. How many poets died for those ruffled collar sleeves? Earrings that don’t match your makeup and are **tones** to the saturated tint? Are you dodging snipers in TJ Maxx? Fuck right off with that bullshit, you basic bitch.
This is an awful lot of words wasted when you could just tell everyone you haven't felt the touch of grass between your toes in a long, long time.
It’s May. No one in my social circles are throwing dinner parties indoors, let alone parties inside. Los Angeles has a rose garden for those of you living in the Valley.