Maron

“Cold Turkey”
Season 3, Episode 12
7/30/2015

Sadly, Marc Maron has decided to end his show Maron after it’s fourth season. Personally, I thought it was just as as good as his podcast. Especially, if you wanted to actually see Maron work through his personal issues instead of just hearing him talk about them. Anyway, here’s a wrestling-ish episode that features CM Punk and Colt Cabana, both of whom were guests on previous episodes of WTF with Marc Maron.

Marc Maron is getting ready to shoot the pilot for his show within a show that’s based on his popular podcast. Of course, he starts to feel self conscious about his weight after he’s been fitted for a shirt that’s a bit too tight. Luckily, he finds himself interviewing world-renowned indy wrestler, Colt Cabana, on his podcast the next day and brings up getting into shape. But first, they spend a few seconds ripping on the evil empire that is the WWE and their lack of creativity. As Cabana rambles on about his intrepid nature bouncing from VFW halls to where the Juggalos gather, Marc is busy stuffing his face with nicotine lozenges. After a bit in which they try to maintain kayfabe and keep from exposing the art of blading, Cabana suggests that he train Marc if Marc is serious about getting into shape. But Marc considers Cabana to be fat. Not wrestler fat, just TV show fat.

Cabana suggests CM Punk as a suitable trainer seeing as he is now training to be a UFC fighter and is conveniently doing it in Los Angeles. Marc isn’t sure he wants to commit to a guy who he sees as unstable for quitting at the top of his game as a pro wrestler in order to take up real fighting. Cabana ignores him and FaceTimes Punk. Punk looks to be healthy and in good spirits, which he attributes to throwing off “the shackles of wrestling slavery.” The second dig at WWE. Punk says he’ll be happy to help out Marc, and they more or less coerce Marc into going along with it.

The next day, Marc is talking to his assistant, Kyle, about going cold turkey and quitting everything from nicotine to junk food. Kyle doesn’t think it’s a good idea considering Marc has the TV show pilot coming up. Kyle also happens to be sporting his Colt Cabana “Star Colt” t-shirt, in hopes of showing it off to Cabana when he comes in to interview. I’m not going to lie, one of my favorite parts of watching Maron, is identifying which wrestling t-shirts Kyle is wearing. Marc then breaks the poor wrestling nerd’s heart by telling him that wrestling’s fake he had rescheduled the Cabana interview to the day before.

After having one last junk food jerk session, Marc decides to visit Punk at the gym. It’s kind of amusing that Punk, of all people, is training Marc Maron. No disrespect to Punk, the guy is probably in better shape now than he’s ever been, but considering he was referred to as “skinny fat” in the wrestling world, it’s pretty funny that he’s the one who’s going to get Marc in shape. Maybe it was another dig at the WWE for not seeing him as a top guy because he lacked that bodybuilder physique.

Marc joins Punk as he’s doing some push-ups, and wastes little time taunting Punk by mentioning how Punk now has to really work his ass off now that he’s doing real fighting. Punk says it’s not that different. And, of course, Marc says it is because “wrestling is fake”. I guess you can get away with asking these types of questions if you’re Marc Maron, and not Kevin Wong, after asking him the difference in training for MMA and pro wrestling. Anyway, Punk nips the shit talking in the bud right away, and turns his attention to training Marc. We get a sad little training montage that includes Marc trying to substitute girl push-ups for regular push-ups, and struggling with sit-ups.

Marc is too beat up to continue training with CM Punk and plans to call the whole thing off, but Kyle begs to do it, seeing as he’s his assistant, but mostly so he can talk to Punk. Being the huge mark that he is, Kyle sounds like anyone of us wrestling fans would if we were ever to talk to CM Punk. Marc takes over the conversation and goes off on Punk, telling him that Vince McMahon was right to fire him on his wedding day. Punk takes it all in stride, which seems totally out of character for both CM Punk, the character, and Phil Brooks, the actual human being, if we’re to believe the internet reports, that is. What’s feeding Marc’s hostility is the pressure mounting around doing the TV pilot, especially after Kyle informed him that the show was starting to generate a buzz.

Basically, Marc’s deflecting all of his anxiety in dealing with this huge career change onto Punk. Like Marc, Punk is making the leap from one form of entertainment to another and if he fails miserably the whole world will be witness to it. But unlike Marc, Punk has made his peace with it and that pisses off Marc because Marc is scared shitless of being a failure. So much so, that Marc shows up to Punk’s sparring session to call him out on it. Punk chalks it up to the withdrawal process that Marc is going through, but Marc keeps provoking Punk, bringing up the fact that Punk never headlined WrestleMania (the biggest chip on Punk’s shoulder).

This is enough for Punk to literally put Marc to sleep, but sadly without the use of the GTS. Instead, Punk goes for the tried-and-true sleeper hold. Marc passes out and a few hours later wakes up to Punk sitting nearby, casually reading a book. We find out a little later that Marc injured his back during the training session and ends up with a prescription for painkillers. And if you’re a fan of Maron, you know that this is what ultimately leads to Marc’s major relapse. Yes, straight edge wrestling superstar, CM Punk, is the reason why Marc Maron, the TV character, ends up a drug addict once again, ultimately losing everything.