Street Knowledge With Chris Graham

The road to “Full Gear” continued last night when AEW made its debut in Manchester, New Hampshire, at the Southern New Hampshire University Arena for Wednesday Night “Dynamite.”  Last night, wrestling fans relived the “Wednesday Night Wars.” WWE’s “NXT” aired head-to-head against “Dynamite,” on The CW Network from the famed 2300 Arena, invoking shades of ECW. Tony Khan needed to swing for the fences to compete with “NXT” in the ratings. Thankfully, he hit a homerun.

Is Tony Khan finally getting the hang of booking pro wrestling? The question arises after taking in this week’s AEW “Dynamite,” which featured a payoff in a five-years-and-running tag-team feud between The Young Bucks and Private Party, Adam Cole’s return from more than a year out with a broken ankle and, finally, the debut of Bobby Lashley. Chris Graham and Ray Petree dive into the deep end of the AEW pool here. Other topics of interest include: Orange Cassidy challenging AEW world champ Jon Moxley. How should AEW approach this one, and the match that we know is coming after, between Moxley and Darby Allin? Should Allin get a run with the AEW title? Who is next in the tag-team division now that Private Party has the belts?

Tyler Reddick and Joey Logano have already punched their tickets into the NASCAR Championship 4 finale. Two spots are still up for grabs as the NASCAR Cup Series returns to Martinsville for the Round of 8 playoff finale on Sunday. Rod Mullins of Dickenson Media joins us to preview what we can expect from Martinsville. Mullins also reports on changes on the team of 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace, and the latest on the lawsuit challenging the NASCAR charter system.

Former Waynesboro mayor Bobby Henderson is back, this time running for the At-Large seat on Waynesboro City Council. Henderson joined AFP editor Chris Graham to talk about his decision to get back into the political ring after a two-year hiatus. The focus for Henderson, a military veteran, retired Virginia State Police trooper and lifelong Republican, is on restoring the voice of voters in the city, which has been under the thumb of a MAGA majority led by the vice mayor, Jim Wood, the past two years.

Terry Short Jr. is running for a third term on Waynesboro City Council, this time running for the Ward B seat on the body. Short talks with AFP editor Chris Graham about the 2024 race. Short is one of three independents running for seats against a slate of Republicans hand-picked the sitting vice mayor, Jim Wood, the chairman of the Waynesboro Republican Committee. Wood is the guy who was in national headlines last year for his homophobic slur of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Short was outspoken in his criticism of Wood, who stands to become mayor if the GOP slate is successful in next week’s voting. That is, if we get the vote certified. Wood’s two appointees to the Waynesboro Electoral Board have filed a lawsuit saying they will not vote to certify the local vote absent a court order, raising issue in the suit with state election law. We cover those topics and others, including housing affordability, education and economic opportunity, in this interview.

Lorie Strother, a candidate for the Ward A seat on Waynesboro City Council, sits down for an interview with AFP editor Chris Graham to discuss the 2024 election. The biggest issue facing the city involves the lack of affordable housing, which plays into the growth in the homeless population. Strother, who was homeless herself as a teen, shares her perspective on what the city needs to do to address the housing and homelessness issues. She also discusses her nine-year tenure on the Waynesboro Economic Development Authority, and what the city needs to do to continue to grow the local job base.

I hate that I feel the need to start this story about Ron Sanchez being formally rolled out as the interim head coach at UVA Basketball by addressing an interwebs rumor, but this is the world we live in.

Tony Bennett, after giving a lot of thought to things during a weekend trip on the Rappahanock River, decided, on Wednesday, so, two days ago, that he was going to step down from the UVA Basketball job. It was far from a spur-of-the-moment decision; he’d been going back and forth about his future in college basketball for the past three years. “The thing that has choked me up the most, and the hardest thing to say is, when I looked at myself, and I realized I’m no longer the best coach to lead this program in this current environment, and if you’re going to do it, you’ve got to be all in. You’ve got to have everything. If you do it half-hearted, it’s not fair to the university and those young men. In looking at it, that’s what made me step down,” an emotional Bennett said Friday at his retirement press conference.

Dean Smith retired on Oct. 9, 1997, to engineer giving the North Carolina job to Bill Guthridge, and SI.com columnist Pat Forde was so offended that he helped create an award in Smith’s honor.

Like Kamala Harris, I worked at a McDonald’s, in my case in high school. Unlike Donald Trump, I never got a French fry certification pin for learning how to drop a basket of fries in the grease, which takes all of five seconds to master.

Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano executed Team Penske’s fuel strategy flawlessly on Sunday, securing victory in the South Point 400 Playoff race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. This win earned him the first of four spots in the NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4.

Sam Houston has been involved with professional wrestling his entire life. The son of Grizzly Smith, Houston’s family is ingrained in the fabric of the business. His older brother is WWE Hall of Famer Jake “The Snake” Roberts, and his younger sister is former WWE women’s champion Rockin’ Robin. From setting up the ring and shuttling wrestlers across Louisiana as a teenager, to winning the Mid-Atlantic Championship and appearing in WrestleMania IV, Houston has seen it all.

Front Row Motorsports has not turned a profit in its 20 years in NASCAR, according to a court filing from its owner, Bob Jenkins, who along with Michael Jordan at 23XI Racing is suing the privately-owned racing circuit to challenge the legality of its charter system, aimed at teams being able to get a bigger share of NASCAR’s $3 billion annual revenues.

Tony Bennett retired on Friday after 15 seasons as the head coach for the UVA Basketball program. AFP editor Chris Graham was at Bennett's retirement press conference on Friday, and reports on the mood in the room, which, yes, obviously somber, looks back on what led to the shocking move by Bennett, and ahead to the prospects for the upcoming UVA hoops season, and beyond.

This week’s “Street Knowledge” podcast on AEW, with AFP editor Chris Graham and columnist Ray Petree, opens with a segment acknowledging the tragic flooding down in Western Carolina, including Asheville, N.C., the home of AEW stars Dax Harwood, Cash Wheeler and Adam Copeland. “Dax Harwood kind of lives on social media, it seems, and he did post yesterday, just that the storm walloped him pretty hard. He was home in Asheville. And man, that situation there, it looks horrible,” Graham said on the podcast. “Roads in and out of town, washed out, power gone, no communications, or very limited communications. It just looks awful. So that's, I mean, of course, there's the much bigger situation, just with all the people who are affected by that, but, but certainly from a wrestling perspective, we'll try to keep tabs on all that. That's, it's just a horrible story.” Also on the show: Review of Night 1 and Night 2 of this week’s “Grand Slam.” WWE apparently has interest in Malakai Black. Would he be a good fit for a re

The money quote from AFP columnist Ray Petree on this week’s podcast: you could miss this week’s AEW “Dynamite,” and not be any worse for the wear heading into the big “Grand Slam” show next week in New York. And no, this isn’t good for AEW. Ray and AFP editor Chris Graham cover a lot of territory on the AEW beat this week. In this podcast Jericho-Cassidy sheds viewers in dud of opening segment The opening segment of “Dynamite,” featuring a match pitting Chris Jericho vs. Orange Cassidy, went over like the proverbial wet fart in church. As a gimmick, “The Learning Tree” is easily Jericho’s worst re-invention yet. Every week, we watch the “Jericho Vortex” suffocate Bryan Keith and Big Bill. Since “All In,” Jericho has had The Conglomeration and Orange Cassidy in his crosshairs; culminating in this match — which lasted nearly 20 minutes. Was this the best use of time for this episode of “Dynamite”? New looks for Jon Moxley, Private Party Jon Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli are doing a good job reinventing themsel

Politics is a contact sport, as Springfield, Ohio, knows all too well, with MAGA Nation continuing to put the city in the crosshairs, all because city leaders refuse to play along with the Donald Trump/JD Vance lie about immigrants eating pets. Chris Graham covers that topic in today’s podcast, and we also get into the Senate IVF bill that was blocked by MAGA Republicans, and the Teamsters, rather curiously, deciding to sit out the 2024 election, despite Trump making it clear that he will continue his union-busting ways if he gets elected in November. All of that, plus our too busy with North Carolina politics to care about Waynesboro guy running for a seat on Waynesboro City Council.

If you want to know the reason for something happening in the world of sports, follow the money. That’s the theme for today’s “Street Knowledge” podcast, at least the first two segments. Host Chris Graham examines the rumored talks involving the ACC, Florida State and Clemson, and the latest about the AEW-Warner Bros. Discovery TV deal that is supposedly in the works. The final segment breaks contain to update the latest on UVA Football, which is coming off a 27-13 loss to Maryland in Week 3.

NASCAR and its team owners, with two notable exceptions, have come to an agreement on the extensions of team charters, with an announcement on the extensions coming in advance of the opening of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs last weekend. The two exceptions – 23XI Racing, co-owned by Michael Jordan and NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin, and Front Row Motorsports, owned by restaurant operator Bob Jenkins – are taking different approaches to where they want to see things go from here. Jenkins has not commented on why he didn’t sign; 23XI, through Jordan and Hamlin, has been outspoken on why, citing terms that the team doesn’t think are favorable for the long-term.

Chase Briscoe and Kyle Busch battled to the end of the Southern 500 to secure a spot in the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. Briscoe got the win and the final playoff spot, leaving Busch, who has been running well of late, on the outside looking in. #TeamAFP’s Chris Graham and Rod Mullins break down the thrilling end to the regular season, the disappointing near-miss for Bubba Wallace, and look ahead to the playoffs. The second segment covers the developing news that an announcement appears to be in the works regarding NASCAR coming to an agreement with team owners on the terms of team charters that the team owners have been pushing for to give them more stability for the long term. What does that mean for the sport?