NO HOLDS BARRED

Ah, those were the days.

The word has been out on the Internet for some time that I've been working to bring back my "No Holds Barred" Internet radio show which ran on the now-defunct eYada.com network from 1999 until it closed in 2001.

This version will differ from the first in a few significant ways. That show was daily, while this show will be more or less weekly. That show was live, while this one will be prerecorded. That show was backed by a network which had $25 million in seed money to play around with during the first Internet boom, while this show -- well, I guess you can figure out that we have almost $25 million less. That's where sponsors come in.

After a few false starts with this thing in the past few months, I've come to the conclusion that the best way to get this going is to do it myself. As you see from my post about podcasting, I have been experimenting with posting some recent audio interviews. I've found several free sites to host the audio, with Ourmedia.org being the lead site for that. And yes, I've already checked with its co-founder and executive director, J.D. Lasica, that posting commercially-supported content there is OK.

This blog right here, as well as my blog and page on Ourmedia.org, will be the text centers of the show. There also will be various sites which highlight the show and sponsor it. And I will also use my MySpace.com presence to push the show.

The new show will also be a podcast, meaning, for those who have just discovered electric typewriters and touch-tone phones, it will be in the MP3 format and thus downloadable to iPods, other MP3 players, and of course hard drives. The support from the sponsors will allow it to be heard for free. And as I learn more about podcasting and everything related to it, I will attempt to make it available as widely as possible, including through services like iTunes.

Oh yeah, the content. This show will be more oriented towards talk and interviews than the old show, especially since it is not live and not daily. But since it is a podcast, I just may experiment with putting up shorter shows and even plain interviews more often, rather than waiting longer to produce, say, a half-hour weekly show.

The goal is to cover the combat sports in general. Where boxing fits in depends upon what happens with another idea I have which is still under discussion. Let's just leave it at that for now.

So when the hell is the "No Holds Barred" show coming back? As soon as we finalize the sponsorship deals, which should be very soon. But if you want to get in on the ground floor, ping me, baby.