Episode 595: Bloody Ticket Stubs

A happy place comes in many colors.

Whatever your color, bring happiness home with Certopro Painters.

Get started today at Certapro.com.

Each Certipro Painters business is independently owned and operated.

Contractor license and registration information is available at Certapro.com.

Let's be real.

Life happens.

Kids spill.

Pets shed.

And accidents are inevitable.

Find a sofa that can keep up at washable sofas.com.

Starting at just $699, our sofas are fully machine washable inside and out.

So you can say goodbye to stains and hello to worry-free living.

Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics, they're kid-proof, pet-friendly, and built for everyday life.

Plus, changeable fabric covers let you refresh your sofa whenever you want.

Neat flexibility?

Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa anytime to fit your space, whether it's a growing family room or a cozy apartment.

Plus, they're earth-friendly and trusted by over 200,000 happy customers.

It's time to upgrade to a stress-free, mess-proof sofa.

Visit washablesofas.com today and save.

That's washable sofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Time for a sofa upgrade?

Visit washablesofas.com and discover Anibay, where designer style meets budget-friendly prices, with sofas starting at $699.

Anibay brings you the ultimate in furniture innovation with a modular design that allows you to rearrange your space effortlessly.

Perfect for both small and large spaces, Anibay is the only machine-washable sofa inside and out.

Say goodbye to stains and messes with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics that make cleaning easy.

Liquid simply slides right off.

Designed for custom comfort, our high-resilience foam lets you choose between a sink-in feel or a supportive memory foam blend.

Plus, our pet-friendly stain-resistant fabrics ensure your sofa stays beautiful for years.

Don't compromise quality for price.

Visit washable sofas.com to upgrade your living space today with no risk returns and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Get up to 60% off plus free shipping and free returns.

Shop now at washable sofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

There's nothing like sinking into luxury.

At washablesofas.com, you'll find the Anibay sofa, which combines ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price.

And get this: it's the only sofa that's fully machine washable from top to bottom, starting at only $699.

The stain-resistant performance fabric slip covers and cloud-like frame duvet can go straight into your wash.

Perfect for anyone with kids, pets, or anyone who loves an easy-to-clean, spotless sofa.

With a modular design and changeable slip covers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style.

Whether you need a single chair, love seat, or a luxuriously large sectional, Anibay has you covered.

Visit washable sofas.com to upgrade your home.

Right now, you can shop up to 60% off store-wide with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Shop now at washablesofas.com.

Add a little

to your life.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Tired of spills and stains on your sofa?

Washablesofas.com has your back, featuring the Anibay collection, the only designer sofa that's machine washable inside and out, where designer quality meets budget-friendly prices.

That's right, sofas started just $699.

Enjoy a no-risk experience with pet-friendly, stain-resistant, and changeable slip covers made with performance fabrics.

Experience cloud-like comfort with high-resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing.

The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity, and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime.

Check out washable sofas.com and get up to 60% off your Anibay sofa, backed by a 30-day satisfaction guarantee.

If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund.

No return shipping or restocking fees.

Every penny back.

Upgrade now at washable sofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Like a midnight and the rock and roller.

He's in a fight for wrestling solar using a racket and some mind control.

He's Jim Cornette.

The keys to the future held by the past.

And with tag team partner, Barion Last.

He sends this message out by podcast team.

Jim Cornette!

Well, he's never fake or sloney.

He never backs down from a fight.

He never wins the pony.

Cause his mama raised him right.

It's time

to to prepare

your mind

to get the experience.

Get the experience.

Get the experience of Jim Cornette.

Hello again, everybody, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Jim Cornette Experience, where today you can join us as we take a three-hour tour through modern wrestling, classic wrestling, and all the stuff that happened to us this week.

And joining me, Hawaiian Brian, the podcasting lion, the king of the Arcadian Vanguard Podcast Network, Mr.

Co-host you.

If he'd been the first mate instead of Gilligan Love, he'd still be back in Honolulu.

Be great, Brian, last, everybody.

I'll just cut it short there.

Aloha, Jim.

A pleasure to be here once again.

Action-packed show, lots of action.

AEW has so much action.

But there's more than that to talk about.

You cut it short.

That's the first good thing that's happened to me this week.

and i've

i got a bad taste in my mouth right now

and i don't even mean from watching the shows i this mouth rinse

that my

dentist has has given me and you know i had the infected gum a couple weeks ago and i've i've got the consultation now with the oral surgeon i'm gonna have two teeth pulled instead of one up and one down

because the one up was the one that i knew looked a little shady the one down was the one I had no idea there was anything wrong with.

So he's, I would not be exponentially

more miserable with the twos.

I'm going to be out.

Might as well take them all.

Pull my toenails while you're at it.

Fuck.

But now I got this mouth rinse and it's not pleasant.

It's not sprite zero.

Let's put it that way.

Have you ever had a bad taste in your mouth, Brian?

From dental work or dental

just a bad taste in your mouth in general just you just walk around every once in a while for a week or so with a bad taste in your mouth that ever happened to you yeah actually the other day i got a salad and uh the salad was supposed to have a very nice uh sweet vinaigrette and that was not what it was it was quite disappointing and it ruined the salad

sweet vinaigrette

My salad never tasted so shitty.

All right.

Well, before we go any further ladies and gentlemen there there's there's rumors and speculation going on about something here and we wanted to go ahead and nip it nip it in the bud as as Barney Fife would say

a lot of people know over the course of the years he we've talked about him you've seen his his work

But the guy that does and has done the artwork for both of our shows, Experience and Drive-Through, the YouTube channel, the thumbnails that the kids call them,

and a variety of your programs, Brian, on the Arcadian Vanguard network.

Travis Haeckel

announced that he was not going to be doing the art anymore.

And he, you know, this is what's come up over the last few days

that he made that statement on Twitter, but the way that he did it, he left it open

as to any reason.

He just, I'm, you know, I'm not going to be doing the art anymore.

And, you know, blah, blah, blah.

That's about it.

So

since he didn't say whose decision it was or what it was about or whatever, people have started.

I know you'll find this hard to believe, Brian, but people on the internet are making up conspiracy theories and stories.

and starting drama.

It's over money.

It is over money.

They fired him.

Why would they fire him?

What in the way?

So we're going to put the rumors to rest before before all of the fake drama gets going because the real drama is good enough

but anyway

no we didn't fire him no it wasn't over money going further we have to back up a little bit

brian i guess it's been

well i've known travis for years years he's from here in louisville he's been a wrestling fan forever and

So I can't actually remember the very first time that we met, but he's been doing our art for what, close to 10 years, certainly eight, I would think.

Seven or eight, somewhere in that.

Seven or eight.

Well, you know, as I get older, I, you know, I can't keep track of time.

It just starts melting away.

But anyway, he's been doing the art for us for almost 10 years, one way or the other.

And,

you know, Travis was his son, Aiden, we've talked about.

He'd like to take Aiden to Disney World and take him to his ball games.

And a lot of times, you you know, we

work around the schedule sometimes on the art.

Oh, shit, they're out of town at a ball game.

No worries, blah, blah, blah.

And he would tweet pictures years ago on his Twitter of the trips to Disney and cartoons and art and things.

And

we've never had a crossword between us.

of the three of us that I can think of in all of those years.

And what we knew about Travis's personal opinions was,

you know, he was a big Disney fan.

And

he did always say he didn't like to talk about politics.

That's fine.

And he did make a point at one point of letting everybody know that he didn't like the vaccines.

I thought maybe after he got COVID a few years ago and was in the hospital for so long and almost died, that might change, but that's nevertheless.

And

you reminded me, Brian, here several days ago that it was probably about, I don't know, five years ago, whatever, he told you, I'm getting off of social media

because he'd been, you know, Disney Dad Travis on Twitter with the pictures of the Magic Castle.

And we followed him and,

you know,

went back and forth, blah, blah, blah.

So he said he was getting off social media.

and

okay a lot of people do that believe it

if i wasn't having to keep up on the wrestling news i wouldn't be on the goddamn internet at all everybody's well aware of that so we had no issue with that

and i can't say that i've seen travis in a while but in person

but i haven't seen a lot of people in person in a while we talk on the phone every once in a while You've been in constant contact with him

because of the art, either by text or email, I would say, multiple times per week, right?

Yeah, for about 10 years, give or take, you know, almost 10 years of, you know, constant all-the-time corresponding.

And let me just, if you don't mind, jump in and make a little bit of a correction.

Previously, a while back,

because you know, I first got to know Travis through the shows through social media, through him reaching out and sending artwork and stuff.

And then we found out that we had met each other years earlier after the Louisville show in 95.

And

he had said to me,

and I don't have the exact thing in front of me, but it was a variation of, I hate all the political things I'm getting off social media.

And I think that's like the healthiest thing anyone could do.

Whether or not you hate political things or not, it's not always healthy for people.

But, you know, he said that.

And then I know he would kind of disappear or reappear on Facebook because I'm not on social media as much as, you know, people probably think.

It's usually just posting clips and looking for news, and that's it.

Well, yeah, because we don't have a lot of time, and I don't know how this shit works.

I'm not interested in learning.

Yeah.

And I knew he was on Facebook because a couple of times he bowed out from being, I know it was in the mothership Facebook group.

It may have been when we first started the Cult of Cornette group.

You know, he was like a mod and he bowed out, you know, just, I don't want to be on social media.

Hey, fine, no problem.

I don't know if he ever really left with the Twitter situation.

Whatever that original account was that we got to know him on social media with, I think it was like Classic Memphis Wrestling or Memphis Classics.

It was some variation of Memphis Wrestling.

That went away.

Then there was the Disney account.

And I don't know if that went away or not, but that went away because we followed it.

Because I asked Stacey to make, I said, do we used to follow Travis?

And she looked it up, but he hadn't tweeted on it in five years.

But I had not seen Travis on Twitter in forever.

I didn't even, I didn't even know he had a Twitter

Well, point B.

So again, you know, there's never been any conflict in the relationship and nobody ever said anything to anybody about anything that might be happening.

And then

last week or two, I've seen on Twitter either, I think somebody tweeted me, but didn't give any specifics.

And then I was in one of those conversations I was eavesdropping on where people are talking, but basically it's like, boy, I wonder if Cornette saw what Travis Heckle said on social media or what.

And I,

no, I didn't.

So I asked you before we got ready to record something the other day, week, whatever.

I said,

did Travis say, say, has he become a closet AEW fan?

Is he saying something on social media I should be aware of?

You hadn't seen anything.

And we got other,

you know, things to dwell on.

And I said, if it was important, I would think I would see it or whatever.

And that's where we left it.

And it was important, and I saw it eventually.

I guess it was this past Sunday, somebody

looking on Twitter,

and somebody has tweeted me, hey, Jim.

What in the world do you think of this?

And it is a quote tweet where Travis has tweeted on his new account that we were not being followed on or aware of.

Joe Biden is a pedophile.

And

I looked away for a second like I'd accidentally seen my parents having sex.

Because I'm like, what?

What?

Oh, my God.

And

come to find out

if you look for not just a pedophile, but a confirmed pedophile.

Like everybody knows this.

And in investigating

the rest of Travis's account,

and folks, again, this is not going to be

a political thing.

I'm so sick and tired of hearing that.

This is going to be

something, I don't know what.

Because

if you look further at what Travis had been tweeting,

it was like he had a checklist provided in the daily newspaper of every

fringe, MAGA, grievance, issue,

not just the regular shit, not just,

he doesn't believe in climate change.

And he,

January 6th didn't happen, and they have opened the borders.

And they're going to change your kids' sex and not tell you about it.

That's there.

A lot of it is just

silly and silly.

Nike is evil.

Sami Zayn is a commie dirtbag.

He's mad at Billy Joel because Billy Joel said in the new documentary that he was done with Trump after the good people on both sides deal.

He's pro-dildo throwing.

He's constantly chiming in.

Just, I hate commies.

Exclamation point, exclamation point.

It's the

pro-dildo throwing thing that's a step too far, I think.

Well,

nobody he knows watches PBS.

Sesame Street.

Now, for Christ's sake,

Aiden never watched Sesame Street.

The Department of Education are all commies.

And CBS has never been news.

It's always been propaganda.

This is a quote, I swear to God, to everybody.

Walter Cronkite fooled you all.

Oh, my God, really?

Cronkite!

I'm not making this shit up.

They are

Walter Cronkite, now the most trusted man in America now is on the

defensive

40 years after his death over at the fucking right-wing loony camp.

Then they're mad at Cronkite?

Billy Joel's one thing, but Cronkite?

That's a new one for me.

I did not know that was a complaint amongst people that Walter Cronkite had fooled people on behalf of the communist organization CBS.

But the point is, getting back to what was way too far, this is the

not only the content and the tone, but the frequency

gave you the impression that the hinges were starting to flap.

And we get back to the main point,

which was that was only the third time over the week period that he had tweeted Joe Biden is either a confirmed or verified pedophile

and was asking why nobody is going to pick him up.

Like it's like it's just, it's a known fact.

Oh, shit, they found him guilty and shit.

They sentenced him and he's just walking around.

Nobody's bothered to pick him up yet.

I don't know what to fucking say.

I've never been so embarrassed in my life, and I'll get to that in a point in a minute.

And also,

his other thing is he's happy about the military takeover of the nation's capital because the Democrats are okay with people being murdered because of their severe TDS.

So now.

Here's the thing.

Before I go any further,

the reason why that the country is in the shit shape it is in right now

is because people like Travis and so many others have been fed this horseshit

and made to believe it, and then they spread it.

And nobody

connected to this program

is going to be doing that.

but i get i i get ahead of myself again

because you know me brian

i'm level-headed i'm reasonable

i didn't want to fire travis i wanted to go over to his house and choke him

because how can he how can he do this behind my back you were pissed off I have not heard you that pissed off about a person

in a while.

You were.

Because here's it.

No, here's the thing.

All the people who hate us and don't like me and you don't want to make me bad.

What I don't care, right?

But when it comes from inside the house,

that's on another level because I had no idea

that these things were being said or going on by a person connected to the program.

Anyway, point being, when I calmed down a little bit, I called you

because you are a little bit more level-headed about these things.

I was about to go to the pool with my family, it was Sunday afternoon.

You're not quite as prickly,

you know.

You know, you're just sitting there by the pool with the family waiting to hear about this.

And you were,

I overused the phrase gobsmacked, bum-fuzzled, astonished when you viewed the content as well.

Yeah, and specifically the Joe Biden thing, and I think these are the exact words I said to you.

I don't have a problem with someone criticizing Joe Biden.

I don't have a problem with someone criticizing his administration, the way things were run, what it led to.

I don't have any problem with that.

But when it's not any of those things, it's not some

criticism that seems to come from a level place or just reasonable.

Joe Biden has Alzheimer's.

Well, you know, unfortunately, probably.

They were trying to cover it up so that we could save the fucking world, but that's probably true.

That's something that's at this point been talked about, rumored in books from every side of the aisle.

So that's fair.

Joe Biden is a confirmed, verified pedophile, Brian.

You haven't heard about this.

There should be somebody picking him up.

And again, what you said at the very top was

it was the quantity.

And I had, I kind of of thought Travis is like a libertarian and he hated all the politicians.

I didn't realize it was

seemingly, I don't want to say an obsession, but it's seemingly something that meant a whole lot to him that he really felt like he had to

just issue a barrage of tweets seemingly every day.

Every day.

And, you know, like you said, it's not about you're not allowed to have your beliefs.

It's a free country.

There's freedom of speech.

It's all that.

But he's representing the Jim Cornette podcast.

And that's the part that

when I type Travis Haeckel's name in, the first thing that comes up is Jim Cornett's artist Travis Haeckel.

So I would have thought that he might have mentioned something like this to me in a previous 10 years that he was going to, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

So

in you trying to throw a blanket on me,

I try to be professional.

And Brad, remember what I've always, every time I try to be professional, it doesn't work, but when I scream at somebody and physically assault them, I usually get what I want.

Let's try to be professional.

I don't have to have

this long personal relationship with Travis.

Let's not fuck the show, you,

the fans.

Travis is out of a well-paying second job that he has.

Let's not

just to not

disrupt everything.

I'll just be over here.

You continue to deal with Travis.

Travis continues to do the art.

Travis continues to get paid for the art.

The fans get to see the art.

Just don't say anything else crazy on Twitter, I believe was my quote.

Don't say anything else crazy on the internet.

I may have made it broader, just to not leave a loophole.

Quit saying crazy shit on the internet.

And you

in some fashion, probably more politely delivered that.

I emailed him before I went down to the pool to meet my family after I got off the phone with you.

I sent him an email and I let him know, because it was the maddest I had heard you in a while.

I let him know that you were as mad as I had heard you in a while.

And it was because you had just found out.

Because listeners had gotten in touch about these tweets and

specifically that Joe Biden is a

one.

Specifically, that we didn't even know he was on Twitter.

Like, he doesn't follow us.

And we didn't follow him because we didn't know he was there.

It's almost like it was,

again, he felt an urge.

He had to get these thoughts out there under his name on Twitter.

I don't understand.

But I explained all this to him and I said that this is a problem.

If you're going to continue to do this, we probably have to figure out something.

Let me know what you want to do.

And

later on that day he sent me back an email uh and he also sent it in text i believe and it said you know that he was

really sorry and that he really appreciates

you and he would never want to do anything to upset you and i'm like okay cool you know now we're back to where we were travis yeah i'm not saying change your thoughts i'm just saying that sounded like normal travis That sounded like the Travis we've always had communication with.

And, you know, again, we're not saying, we didn't even say take down stuff.

We just said no more.

Quit.

Just stop.

And again, you Google Travis House.

I actually didn't think about asking about taking shit down.

I forgot you could do that.

We didn't even get there.

We didn't even get there.

So I think we're okay.

I think the next day was Monday.

I had a bunch of meetings and a bunch of things going on.

And then

overnight.

At three in the morning, so I didn't see it until I woke up.

And by the way, he did take it the first day off in, I don't know how long, and he didn't tweet.

Because,

you know, you'd look.

So then, like I said, three in the morning, I saw it the next day at seven when I woke up.

He sent me a message saying, Hey, I thought about it, and I think I'm just going to drop off the show.

No hard feelings.

You guys have done a great job.

He sent me a note that he appreciates everything.

I mean, again, you know, that's that's the thing.

I know Travis.

I like Travis.

I care about Travis.

We've been

through a lot with Travis.

And I think him and his family are terrific.

And I, you know, it's just, he's representing the show with

seemingly any crazy fringe thing and then insisting that this is the way it is and then tweeting about it over and over again.

And then well, they don't say he appreciates he appreciates me.

He appreciates me and never wants to do anything to me.

And then he turns around and everything I publicly stand for.

He's like, this is bullshit.

Well, I'm sorry.

go ahead.

No, but I mean, again, it's he's obviously got a lot on his mind with this stuff.

He's come a long way from I hate politics and tweeting just that all the time.

Now it seems that he's got a lot to, he's got a lot of feelings about this stuff, and that's his right.

So, yeah, he decided to leave.

And then he put out a statement because we weren't going to say anything until we had a chance to do it here on the air.

I didn't put out any kind of.

statement or anything we still had Travis artwork in the pipeline we're just about done with that

Go ahead.

Also, we were going to wait a couple of days to see if maybe he might

rethink this, giving the income that he's losing on a

in all these years, he's into six figures with what he's made just doing this art.

But go ahead.

Yeah, and I mean, he's told me in the past, because, you know, I always like hearing these stories that I think him and Aiden always got a kick out of being recognized, having their names recognized.

It just happened a couple of weeks ago.

They went to get pizzas somewhere in Louisville.

And the person there was like, Are you Travis Eckle from the Jim Cornette show?

You know, so people associate him with the shows.

But yeah, he put out a statement.

It had like a weird line where it was like, you know, if that's your kind of thing, you know, continue to support it.

Whatever,

whatever that is, I don't know.

But like I said, I think this whole thing's unfortunate.

And

if Travis isn't, you know, it would be like if Travis had a Twitter page to take politics out of this, if Travis had a Twitter page and it was talking about how Vince Russo is a genius

and it was nonstop stuff like that.

It's not even, I mean, that.

No, but I'm just saying it's diametrically opposed to what your views are.

I know, but let's take the silliness out of the equation of any of this.

As far as if it was Vince Russo or whatever, or maybe let's put some silliness in it.

If Donald Trump hired one of those blonde bimbo Stepford wife press secretaries to lie for him, but she came out and said, Yeah, this fucking guy's full of shit.

I don't think he knows what he's doing, but here's what he wants me to tell you.

I don't know if she'd have her job very long either.

But

go ahead.

It depends how bimbo.

Let's make it more serious.

First off, as I said, for the

country, is this is happening because this guy has normalized this to just lie and be accepted because these people, they fall down the rabbit hole or the maggot hole and they can't get out of it.

And I don't hate Travis and

I'm not mad at Travis.

I'm sorry we lost Travis

as a person.

I don't believe Travis is evil.

I think what he's being told by evil people, he believes.

And

that's the problem that we've got to stop.

We can't keep letting people just spread this horse shit.

They're eating the dogs and cats.

And we've got troops in the fucking streets kidnapping people because of this shit, because crime is up when crime is down.

And it's all performative with this fucking

wannabe lunatic dictator and all the people that are falling into the sway of the whole thing.

Even he's just the figurehead of it, but it's out there in other places.

And all these right-wing liars are trying to jockey for the be to be the next one after this old man kicks the fucking bucket.

We're still screwed.

We can't even hope for a fucking happy ending because there's more of them.

But here's another thing: it's personal because Travis.

And by the way, he's got my phone number.

He's got my email.

And I emailed him some of this same stuff.

said why, and he hadn't bothered to answer me yet.

But as were we friends, then

Brian,

didn't he go behind my back for however long he's been doing this, saying this stuff?

What was his plan here?

I sound like Chris Hansen.

What was his plan?

I that nobody was ever going to tell me,

and that, and that he, you know, or as an employee for the aforementioned large amount of money over almost a decade and having a job for life,

he couldn't have come to me or you or either one of us and say, you know,

I'm really feeling an overwhelming urge to say a bunch of shit on Twitter that will make Jim make your head blow up.

And as your employee,

is this going to cause a problem?

Do we need to have a peaceful transition here?

Is there something else?

Just, I'm going to do this

rather than take my money for however long he's been doing this, say this shit behind my back until somebody stooges on you.

Then I'd ask him, how the hell?

I'm surprised it took this long.

And that's what I'm mad, but I'm more embarrassed that a alleged friend, employee, and/or member of the program here is going to just, oh, fuck you.

Oh, yeah, you won't catch me till eventually.

I apologize to anybody who saw this stuff or heard him say these things and thought that I knew that it was happening.

And I hate to admit having feelings.

God damn it, but they're hurt.

Yeah.

And beyond,

beyond your feelings and beyond my feelings and beyond either of our political leanings,

sadly, you also have to look at it from the business perspective.

We have partners.

We have lots of people we work with, from

advertisers to our advertising agent to international distributor.

We have all sorts of people we work with who are partners in what we do.

You don't want them to all of a sudden be like, hey, what the fuck is this?

And if any of them saw it, I'm pretty sure, no matter what side of the aisle they are on, because again, it's not just like, oh, this is a conservative point of view.

That's not what it is.

It's beyond that.

And it's the kind of thing that's embarrassing.

It's the kind of thing that, if it got noticed, could cost us.

Wait a minute.

If we read one of those tweets on,

if we just said what he said on YouTube without any context, saying this is crazy that they said that in the sentence, we would get kicked off goddamn air.

You can't know.

And, you know, again, for anyone who thinks it was about money, it had nothing to do with money.

And for all I know, I think Travis and his family have been very happy.

I don't think there's ever been an issue with money with us.

And for anyone who thinks this is just a difference of political opinions, it's more than that.

And again, it's Jim's shows.

His name is on it.

The people that do business with us are doing business with the Jim Cornette podcasts.

We can't have that stuff being out there in the show's name.

That's the and I find it very ironic, and you can put this out there in my name, I find it very ironic that he is accusing the former president of being a confirmed pedophedophile, pedophile, given

the current occupant of the office.

It's just, it's crazy.

And I'll just say one more time again,

I'm mad that Travis has

had, that this has happened to Travis in the same way that I would be mad in invasion of the body snatchers when the seed pod takes over another member of the group.

Why?

And that's that's the issue

of being upset about this thing because it's we've had

since this whole thing nightmare began 10 years ago or whatever with this guy and this whole, all these people around him,

I've had emails on and off

I've been saying the same thing since the start.

So people have heard it.

And I've had emails right along every once in a while.

I don't understand what it is, Jim.

I've had to stop speaking to my best friend or a member of my family, or they just,

you can't talk to them anymore.

I don't know what it is about a fat man wearing orange makeup that's an obvious grifter and con man, and a series

of lying stooges around him.

That's part of it, but the bigger issue is it's beyond just Trump.

It's beyond just the same.

Well, the news

dissemination

is flat earth kind of shit.

You know, it's like

it's the news dissemination about the that these people can somehow be

made, can be built by Jack Pfeffer, this band of freaks, a fat grifting con man, a criminal family, and a bunch of lunatic plastic surgery victims all around him.

A news network can take that

and make this goddamn cult

to the point where people will, they'll leave their jobs or they'll not speak to family members, or unfortunately, want to speak to family members, the family members can't speak to them.

It's insane to me.

And it's not even good lies.

It's shit.

It's on the surface of it.

You can see through.

And then when you dig further, it's even clearer.

Well, again, Donald Trump and his kids aren't going out there and saying Joe Biden's a pedophile.

I guess that's the issue.

It's not just he supports any of that.

And I don't even know if he does, I assume.

But I don't know because again, I always thought he was just a libertarian who hated all politicians.

But again, you know, I I don't want to just keep going over this over and over again.

It's all, yes, it's all unfortunate, like I said.

But Travis, the views that he,

again, felt the urge to obviously spend time putting out there every day don't align with these programs.

And

again, it's all unfortunate.

But once again, we didn't fire him against my best interest because he quit anyway.

I should have just said, fuck it, being professional, but

we didn't fire him.

It wasn't over money.

He decided not to do this to tweet

stuff

to

900 followers.

The problem was one day something

that he might say might hit the big time.

And then there we are.

And again, I apologize

if anybody thought that I knew about what was happening before I knew what was happening.

Yeah, and I think I speak for both of us.

Like I said, never had an issue with Travis.

Lovely family.

Like I said, we've been through a lot medically with Travis.

I care about the guy.

And,

you know, it's unfortunate.

That's why I am mad at this shit.

I'm mad at this whole movement that is leading so many of these people

down this

path.

And that

there's

again,

you can't yell fire in a crowded theater, right, Brian?

That was adjudicated

long ago.

And you know the reason behind it.

Because if you yell fire in a crowded theater where there is no actual fire taking place,

you will institute a panic where people in trying to get out of the way are going to fucking get hurt.

Because that was a thing that used to happen back in the days when you could yell fire in a crowded theater.

It's the same thing.

Whether it's the news networks or the politicians, and you know who they're all sucking up to, and he's

the king of all liars.

They spread shit to cover up their own shit.

People believe it, and then they turn around and they repeat it.

And

sooner or later, you've got all these people believing it.

And this is what's happened.

And

you know, it's got to draw a line somewhere.

And the other thing, too, is

whether it's this situation with Travis or anyone out there,

if you just call people a pedophile because you don't like them, or you search for evidence to prove this idea you have must be true.

You water it down for when a real pedophile needs to be exposed.

If you call everyone a commie,

when there are legitimate commies out there, when there are people who are commies, if you just call everyone a commie, you water it down for where the real commie needs to be pointed out.

And it can't just be, I don't like you, so I'm going to, you know, it's not giving people nicknames like Twinkle Toes, Mick Fingerbang.

It's like, Twinkle pedophile, Mick, fucks the boy.

Like, it's just, it's over the top.

And, you know, when there really are people out there who are fucked up, that need to be exposed for a lot of things.

You don't want to be just, you know, I don't like Joe Biden.

He's a pedophile.

look here he is next to a girl at the white house in front of the press like what the taking pictures

in front of the press it wasn't like i found this hidden video it was like the press's video

oh

but but again yes that's the you can't just

you can't i you know so again we're sorry about about the whole thing.

And in terms of artwork, we have a few Travis things in the pipeline that'll probably be out by the time you hear this.

We actually found a bunch of clips that didn't get released for one reason or another, old SmackDown and Raw reviews from a year ago.

So all of a sudden, those go up and you're like, what the hell is this?

That's what it is.

But really happy to say, George Levinitis, who has been a tremendous help to us.

over the last several years.

Originally, he was a guest artist when Travis got sick and we enjoyed his work and he's been doing a lot of guest artwork for the channel.

He's going to be stepping it up and contributing more and we're really happy about that.

We really like him and his style of art.

And we're also opening up the floor again for guest artists.

If it's the right person and you understand what we do, the feel of what we do, the fun of what we do on there, and you think

or the fun feel.

If you would like a fun feel.

Well, no, let's not say that, but hit us up.

Hit us up.

If you've ever wanted to do art for the show, again, touch corny drive-through at gmail.com.

We'll try to get to everyone.

A lot of people always want to get in, so it's nothing personal.

If we don't go right to you, some of you actually, it may be personal.

You just may not understand what a thumbnail is.

But

guest artists, we got George moving forward.

We got a lot of big things we're working on, big things coming up.

And

I wish the very best to Travis going forward.

But we got big things happening and exciting times here.

You sound like Nick Gulis now.

This is the biggest show.

Yeah, one of the biggest cards I've signed in many years.

Headline, well, it is a big card, and I got some big emails here.

Tired of spills and stains on your sofa?

WashableSofas.com has your back, featuring the Anibay Collection, the only designer sofa that's machine-washable inside and out, where designer quality meets budget-friendly prices.

That's right, sofas started just $699.

Enjoy a no-risk experience with pet-friendly, stain-resistant, and changeable slip covers made with performance fabrics.

Experience cloud-like comfort with high-resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing.

The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime.

Check out washable sofas.com and get up to 60% off your Anibay sofa, backed by a 30-day satisfaction guarantee.

If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund.

No return shipping or restocking fees.

Every penny back.

Upgrade now at washablesofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Let's be real.

Life happens.

Kids spill.

Pets shed.

And accidents are inevitable.

Find a sofa that can keep up at washablesofas.com.

Starting at just $699, our sofas are fully machine washable inside and out.

So you can say goodbye to stains and hello to worry-free living.

Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics.

They're kid-proof, pet-friendly, and built for everyday life.

Plus, changeable fabric covers let you refresh your sofa whenever you want.

Neat flexibility?

Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa anytime to fit your space, whether it's a growing family room or a cozy apartment.

Plus, they're earth-friendly and trusted by over 200,000 happy customers.

It's time to upgrade to a stress-free, mess-proof sofa.

Visit washable sofas.com today and save.

That's washablesofas.com.

washablesophas.com offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply we've got viewer mail brian and we're gonna go through a little bit of that because again we got detectives in the audience a bunch of sherlock holmes's a bunch of columbos a bunch of

what was columbo's first name Well,

we got a few of those too.

Some gimmicks, definitely.

Do you know who that is?

Yes, the cartoon character that does the thing with the gadgets.

It's

Carlito's way.

I vaguely know.

All right.

I don't know Colombo's first name.

Peter.

Peter Columbo.

Sounds like a bodybuilder from the 60s.

Anyway, we've got some viewer emails, and this is from Lucas in South Africa.

Just real quick, we wanted to.

Say hello to Lucas.

He's been listening since 2019, but his father just passed away and he was a big fan and introduced Lucas to wrestling when he was a kid.

So

he was thanking us for the entertainment, you know, during this period of time, but we appreciate you, Lucas, and everybody wishes you well also.

And

go ahead.

I was going to say that's right.

Yes, we do.

Well, yes, you were going to, yes, well, that's nice of you to agree with me, but he's Lucas in South Africa as opposed to lucas anywhere else just in case every lucas was trying to jump onto that shout out and try to claim it for his own if his dad was a wrestling fan in south africa makes you wonder if he was at that famous terry funk hulk hogan was that south africa that happened south africa right

yes yeah oh that maybe he was

we'll never know now but thank you well lucas if you're listening because you're a listener Tell us if your dad was at the match and we'll follow up with your next email.

Yeah, and if you got a program, program, let me know.

I'll buy it.

Oh, good God.

Or a ticket stub.

Are you going to inject the commercialism and the collectivism into this thing?

He wants to keep those things for souvenirs.

Hey, Lucas, let me know.

I'll give, I'll top the offer.

Perhaps the ticket stub was dipped in Terry Funk's blood as it fell under the ground.

That was happening a lot there in those days.

Fans would

not only did it happen, I've seen it happen, and I did it.

I did it, Brian.

Did I ever tell you this?

You may have.

Whose blood was it?

And I still have it

because I was 13 years old, I guess.

Yes, I was.

But

in the old days, kids,

after the matches were over with, if the main event had been real bloody and everything and they dripped on the canvas.

When the matches were over and people are leaving the building, in Louisville Gardens, they had a fucking clothesline, right?

With a break in two places where you know, the guys walked in, and you could just step over it.

And the crowd would go up around the ring and put their finger in, or blot their program in, or whatever the blood to say, hey, is that real, or what the fuck's going on, right?

To inspect the shit.

And

the famous Mongolian stomper and bullet Bob Armstrong match,

where Jesus Christ, I don't care what anybody has ever said about wrestling for a two and a half minute period.

You had 4,000 people screaming at the same day, including me.

I couldn't figure out how they did it.

I didn't know this was the most violent, bloody realism.

Holy shit, the place went bat shit.

It still exists on film, thankfully.

I have a copy.

And they both got incredible juice.

And it was a double count out where Bob was right.

And this was before I was the official photographer.

Now, bear in mind.

Bob, they were right on top of, or Bob was right on top of him, and they were right in front of us.

And we'd got front row by that time.

And I got the great picture right.

It's on the cover of Tuesday Night at the Gardens.

And they left so much blood on the canvas there by the time that it was all pulled apart that all the people started fucking going up and put.

And so I went up and put a piece of my notebook paper in that, and fuck, it's covered right,

and uh, and I still have that to this day.

I had put it in a frame uh 51 years ago, or whatever it was.

Do you know whose it is, or is it a mixture?

What is it?

No, it was a mix, they were there for a while doing the, he was beating the shit out of stomper so they could be counted out on the aprons.

It was just it was everywhere.

Now, having been able to see the film with modern eyes,

all of the Bob Armstrong and Stomper matches were good.

And this one was good until

Stomper had started getting the heat on Bob.

And I know now what they did, but nobody did then.

Stomper fucking hits the ropes and does his big leap in the air with those cowboy boots and comes right down, and it looked like he potatoed him now, on Bob's forehead where everybody could see it.

And Bob set up and blood just gushed down his face instantly.

And the people saw that and were like, oh.

And then Stomper starts getting more heat on the cut and the way Bob's selling that, oh my God, this blood is coming out and the people are starting to come up.

And then Bob.

The bullet, he's got that fire.

He starts firing up and the people are with it and he makes the comeback.

And now Stomper's is bleeding and the people are going bat shit for like this just couple of minute period he's like ah and it was violent as hell and they end up getting counted out and etc

well you what had happened was

what had happened was bob

old trick he bladed while he was down before the stomp

but they had timed it so perfectly because whatever stomp i can't remember what he did to put him there, slab, body slab, whatever.

As Bob is laying there while the people are looking at Stomper hitting the ropes, Bob had done it.

And when he hit him with the stomp and Bob sat up, it was already coming.

And it was seamless.

Nobody would have looked at Bob to be touching his head before that.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

Were you already the president of his fan club at that point?

Yeah, as a matter of fact, yes.

No, wait, no, hold on.

Hold on on there, cowboy.

No, that was when it was still my old friend Mike Gibson from Ackworth, Georgia, who later relocated to the northeast and owns a bookstore there now, the way northeast, like almost to Cape Cod or whatever.

No, I was a member, but I was the official correspondent since Bob was in the territory, but I was not yet the president.

Did you send in photos?

As a matter of fact, I think one of the maybe the last bulletin that he did was one of the pictures that I took of this incident that I'm just describing to you.

But it reprinted in black and white on copy paper of his sister's, you know, fucking print.

Some way or another, I remember that at one point, I think it was his sister that had a copy machine in her work or something.

But

yeah, we're thinking about you.

Anyway, yes.

Oh, we're back to, yes, back to Lucas in South Africa.

How did we get to Bob Armstrong and the stomper?

Don't even tell me that we're in South Africa.

By Omaha.

Well, Kurt

from, I don't know where the fuck he's from.

I'm not going to give his email address.

Has

said, I assume you've been getting a few of these and we may, we've got more than a few because I saw a couple and I don't see a lot of stuff.

But when we were talking about the Fritz von Erich

letter to Jack Pfeffer, trying to get booked, and he gave as his

resume, his background in athletics that he had played pro football for the New York Yankees.

Now,

are you smart to this yet?

I have received a ton of correspondence about this since it aired, yes.

Yeah, well, apparently, but now there's an asterisk here where we weren't completely just oblivious.

They're not the Yankees.

It was the New York Yanks.

Apparently, there was a professional football team in the New York metropolitan area from 1949 to 1951 called the New York Yanks.

And then they got yanked out of the tri-state area and then went to Texas.

But that's part of the story, right?

People are saying that even if he was aligned with that team, it wasn't when they were in New York.

It it was when they were already in Texas, right?

Well, I don't know.

This was in early 1953.

He had already done it.

Did he play

in New York or did he play when they went to Texas?

It seemed to me like he said he

made it seem like he would have played for the New York team because why wouldn't he call them the Texas cornholers or whatever they became?

And I would never stretch the truth.

Well, but he didn't have as far to stretch it back then because it hadn't been as long since he'd been in it.

Yeah.

Anyway, but yes, there.

And also, apparently,

there was a football team even earlier than that, the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Did you see this trivia?

I knew that.

I knew that.

And obviously the New York Giants.

Oh, I knew that.

Well, why didn't you chime in about this?

Well, we looked like idiots.

Because you didn't ask anything about the Dodgers.

It was specifically to the Yankees.

well you could have anecdotally different league it's not even the same league i don't care i don't know what league is to begin with you could have anecdotally said well you know there was one time there was a football team called the brooklyn dodgers so that seems possible jim there's also a football team called the new york giants and back in the old days there was a baseball team called the new york giants they moved the san francisco The San Francisco football team is not named the Giants.

They're the 49ers.

And of course, the St.

Louis Cardinals were both baseball and football.

This has been a sports minute.

I'm Brian Lest.

Sports Center brought to you by Sexual Harassment in Connecticut.

You know,

if we actually bothered to try to come up with bits for this show, it would probably suck.

Unlike these great improv bits that are just wonderful.

Well, you know, well, at least it entertains us.

And that's really all we could hope for in the end.

I'm reaching the end, Brian, of my, I'm in the December of my years before I go sit out under a tree and become compost.

So I got to entertain myself.

All right, we've been talking about the wrestling history on television.

We have been.

since the Pfeffer file visit that I had up at Notre Dame and

we've been going through some of the things that we got and we uncovered because we talked previously about the history of wrestling on television.

And the earliest that anybody was coming up with was, well, 1947 for Los Angeles.

And 1946, they signed on the air in St.

Louis or something and did something with Bill Longson on a talk show, whatever.

But then through these letters from your friend and mine, I.T.

Flatto, not only the attorney for Jack Pfeffer for many years, but also the promoter of the Ridgewood Grove Arena.

Is it Ridgewood Garden?

We'll get to it in a second.

But anyway,

point being,

we saw them talking about the NBC original

commercial telecast that went to a select few people in the New York metropolitan area.

were broadcasting wrestling in 1939 and 1940.

And

that was, you know, something that we were talking about a couple of weeks ago.

Well, we've got a couple of things.

We're going to go back in time and

we'll start in the modern era of 1939 and 1940, and then we'll go back further than that.

But we were talking about the

magazine transmitter from NBC that Brian, you sent me a link to, and these are on the internet.

How did you find it?

I forget what I googled, but I googled something, and that was one of the hits.

But if you Google NBC transmitter, it'll come right up.

It's the in-house trade magazine for the National Broadcasting Company, and specifically,

well, I mean, it was they were radio, the network, and also

the

record end of the business and everything for those people who liked music in their homes.

And they were experimenting with television.

And so the in-house magazine, Richard, sent a piece that he researched the same file you did.

And he says in the 1940 collection of NBC transmitters, page two of the February edition, you'll find the following passages.

And this is from the magazine of that time.

NBC television ended the year 1939 having put on 668 individual programs in the eight months from April 30, 1939 to January 1st, 1940.

The schedule was on average five days a week, two hours a day, for a total of about 360 hours or an average of a little over 10 hours a week.

That was when

television was on the air in one place in the country.

The programs were made up of approximately one-third from the studio, one-third film, and one-third outdoor pickups.

And some of the shows were, Brian, most of the Brooklyn Dodgers' professional football games,

the six-day bike races at Madison Square Garden.

Remember, that was a thing back in those days.

The Bear-Nova fight, Max Bear was the heavyweight champion at the time.

the father of the guy who played Jethro on the Beverly Hillbillies for the kids.

What was Nova's first name?

I keep wanting to say Aldo, but that'd just be a fantasy.

Mike Bucci.

No, quit it, no.

Bucci, whatever, however you pronounce him.

No,

it wasn't Lou Nova.

He was a more modern boxing figure, wasn't he?

I can see you're impressed about Nova.

I don't know.

They also did the television ball from the Waldorf Astoria, the premiere of Gone with the Wind at the Capitol Theater,

and the weekly boxing and wrestling matches from the Ridgewood Grove Arena.

And it said, Our television audience, this is where I wanted to go with this, because the Ridgewood Grove Arena again is the one we found.

The letters where they were complaining that they had spent money to out, or he was complaining, they had outfitted the

arena for television and wanted to continue on the experimental basis of not paying for it.

He wanted 50 bucks.

He wanted 50 bucks a week, goddammit, and 100 bucks for the boxing.

But anyway, this concludes with our television audience.

And this is in New York City.

And at the time, and again, we may find out shit.

We're finding out all kinds of stuff, but

nobody else was transmitting television in the United States because NBC was in the process of working it out, right?

So we've established that.

So this would be the total television audience, not just in New York, but nevertheless,

to be estimated in the neighborhood of 2,000 home receivers as of January 1st, 1940.

And as we've said, a lot of those were either in

the RCA executives, the technological folks that were working on the project had these in their homes, and some rich people

and connected people.

And it goes on to say: with the average of four or five persons per receiver,

as indicated in an early survey, it means that our potential audience is between 8,000 and 10,000.

Originally, if you had a television in your home,

not only would everybody in the house probably be watching if it was on, but you would have people over.

So

the very earliest estimates were, yeah, four or five people are watching each set every time that we do something on average, which meant maybe

the chairman of RC at General David Sarnoff was home alone in his den, but there was 10 people over at the fucking production engineer's house.

Well, the other thing is back then, too, how many people turned on a TV set alone?

I mean, was it a big deal?

Hey, I'm going to turn on the TV.

They'll be programming.

from two to four on Wednesday.

So come over.

Hey, when I was a kid, there had to be one one person watch the picture and one person behind fiddle with the rabbit ears.

But I digress.

That's why, as we'll talk about later on here today, if we get to it,

the average, they now count number of viewers because all the statistics are so minute.

But the way that television ratings evolved

for years through the 90s, I believe, they counted the homes, not the individual viewers.

They did separate surveys and they had an average number of viewers per home, which went down steadily.

In 1953, when

if you had a TV, it was one TV in the whole house.

It was like three and a half people per home were watching or whatever.

And by the late 80s, early 90s, it was like one and a half person

per home.

And then now it's just

figured in a completely different way.

But

so, yeah, yeah, so you had,

they were shooting these things or airing these things before basically

most of the people that were able to watch them were either in the homes of RCA executives and or friends,

and they were trying to work it out.

And that's 1939 and 1940.

So we've established that

And I've got, hold on, I thought I had another.

God damn it.

Wait a minute.

Well, I guess the thing, too, is

if there was anything before this period of time,

it seems more than likely it could only be experimental and base that in New York and probably the future WNBC Channel 4 that we're talking about.

I forget the exact initials.

I don't have this in front of me.

Well, yeah, well, I'm going there, but I thought I had something else about 1939 first.

I thought, but nevertheless,

and maybe you'll answer this.

I don't know.

But the other question I have is when you did the breakdown about what was currently airing, you know, I think it was a third in the studio, a third

live events, a third on the street, or whatever it was.

When did they do the first live remote?

Or when did they first start doing that?

Because then we kind of have an idea when they even had the capabilities of wiring the Ridgewood Grove Arena, whatever it is.

See, that's the thing: is

outdoor pickups.

I don't know if that means that

they went outside, shot it, and then came back and broadcast it,

or whether they, I would have to think, I don't know if they were trying to broadcast live on an outdoor location at that point, but probably somebody's going to tell us.

But that was basically the fine point of the thing.

Yeah.

But, Brian,

and you sent me this, you know what I'm going into here because I don't know what this guy's name is because you said this is off of Reddit, and I don't know how Reddit works, but it's a page from Reddit.

Yeah, what is this fellow's name that's done this research?

I don't even know.

Someone sent this to us.

It was from the Squared Circle page on Reddit, and it's someone who listened to the segment you did talking about what you discovered at the Pfeffer Library about the earliest known broadcast in the United States of a professional wrestling show.

And he had his own research.

And it was W2XAB

that were the call letters that

letter from up in, whereas Schenectady or whatever.

But anyway,

this fellow has searched for the old

listings in newspaper archives, and he found a television listing.

Well, it was an article, I guess, or an announcement or whatever, August 27, 1931 issue of of the New York Evening Post,

where W-2XAB announced they planned to air an experimental wrestling match.

And

the August 23rd edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle

said that they plan to experiment with

different lenses and tinted backdrop screens to enhance the picture quality of its boxing and wrestling telecasts.

So

they're announcing this that finally is listed,

and there's a clipping here

of their, and we'll get to this lineup on their experimental television in a minute.

But the 15-minute broadcast, simply listed as wrestling match, was broadcast at 10 p.m.

on September 17th, 1931.

Wow.

30 years before my birthday.

Eddie says by November 1931, boxing and wrestling were among the most popular W-2XAB offerings, but let's stop here for a second.

How big was that audience if a little 10 years later, nine years later, whatever it was, it was only 2,000 transmitters.

How big was the audience in 1931?

Well, see,

here is the thing:

I don't believe

there was technically an audience.

I think, because, and

I don't know

a lot of these, since RCA and NBC was connected to radio also, and that was the

reason for the NBC transmitter magazine, the in-house magazine that we were talking about earlier.

And that was the reason why the radio listings

back then were in the newspaper every day, like the television listings became.

So

I'm wondering if they listed the experimental television broadcast in conjunction possibly because it says m107 2850k

has got the frequencies i could

was this a radio oriented broadcast as well whatever the case why did everything sound more like the future then than now

it does

25 here on the air yes

But

here's what I'm going to say is before we talk about the wrestling programs, programs, and I'll read a couple other things here in a second, but it says they plan to experiment with different lenses and tinted backdrop screens.

Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you about.

What does that mean?

Where are they?

Well, here's the thing.

They say there were limitations.

The director fellow was credited, William A.

Schute.

S-C-H-U-D-T

should.

He should or he shouldn't

was credited with inaugurating the early programs, but there were limitations.

Boxers and wrestlers alike had to compete in a miniature ring and could easily fall out of the view of the camera.

They also fought in a dark studio for the projector's benefit.

Yeah, see, that's what I was wondering.

Yeah.

Airing blonde competitors was a hassle.

Hey.

In the early 1970s, a couple of Nick Gulis' TVs, like from Huntsville, were so cheap that when the interns were there and they'd shoot them across the ring in their fucking white outfits, it would just bleed all the way across.

It said, which meant light or dark backgrounds were needed to account for each wrestler's hair color.

But for the limited audience back then, these minor issues didn't matter.

And he says he cannot 100% confirm whether the broadcasts were professional wrestling or amateur wrestling.

But one would think if they had a ring,

even for boxing,

there wasn't a lot of difference in amateur and professional wrestling at that point in people's minds, and there wasn't a lot of amateur wrestling programs.

So

I think we're looking at wrestling.

But here's the point I was going to make with the backgrounds and the different lenses.

I don't think there was an audience.

I think this would, remember, we saw,

what was it?

It was footage of the early George Hackenschmidt.

What did Hackenschmidt footage where he was working out with somebody and that was the film they found?

I think so.

From England.

And yes.

And

I think this was kind of a thing where

they just had boxers box or wrestlers wrestle.

And

there's no indication there was any kind of studio audience and they weren't in an arena if they were experimenting with backgrounds.

But listen to this schedule, Brian, from

2 p.m.

to 6 p.m.

was experimental programs.

I have no idea what that might contain.

Sounds far out.

I wish I could see that.

Groovy man.

Experimental TV.

Yeah.

Hey, just make sure you don't go too far.

But then from 8 o'clock until 11 o'clock, every 15 minutes at 8 o'clock, Helen Rowland, contralto.

8.15,

sketch, Shadows of the Night.

8:30, How to Finger the Violin with Vincent Sorcey.

Oh, boy.

8.45, Natalie Towers, Characterizations.

9 o'clock, Miniature Musical Comedy.

9:30, Mystery Sketch, The Television Ghost.

9.45, Dave Franklin, Songs.

10 o'clock, Experimental Wrestling Match.

10.15, Elliot Jaffe, songs.

10.30,

Abigail Pericles, songs.

And the last program of the day, 10.45, Cartoons Drawn while you look.

And so that's a fascinating show, right there.

And none of this could have been live, they had to be filming it first and then broadcasting it, one would think, because they couldn't.

How you could have a fucking mystery sketch followed by songs, followed by a rant, here comes the wrestlers.

The other day, one of the listeners, and I apologize for not remembering who it was because they deserve credit.

They may have sent it to YouTube.

They sent me some sort of video on YouTube.

It looked like it was a history channel kind of show, but I don't know if it was on the history channel about Philo Farnsworth versus RCA versus Sarnsworth and, or not Sarnsworth, Sarnoff, excuse me.

Sarnoff.

Sarnoff and Farnsworth.

Boy, that sounds like a law firm.

But it was all about that feud.

And remember, part of the issue was the patents that Farnsworth had that he created

was better visually.

It used more,

I guess, resolution, more.

I don't know how to phrase it.

What does it say?

Same Lions,

the 525 Lions,

I think, was

the standard for a long time that they went to.

And I think that was his.

So when you talk about this being shot and the wrestler's hair color being an issue, remember, this wasn't that.

This wasn't the technology eventually that RCA was able to use and NBC was able to be formed.

because of this

this was whatever rca was developing on their own to the point where they needed to somehow get Farnsworth's pass.

But besides that, I mean,

with all due respect to Philo,

if you put the picture that his

concept could deliver on the receiver that existed at the time and showed it to somebody today, they'd say, my God, anybody looked at that?

It still wasn't, you know, goddamn high, deaf, boom, boom, 4K.

Again, i'm only 63 still for another four weeks or so

but when i was a kid and my grandmother stayed with us and she had brought she had was recovering from surgery and had brought some of her things from home and her little television that was probably from

at the time 1952

It was a 12-inch

screen,

you know, black and white, obviously, And

it was hard to tell what the fuck was going on on the Twilight Zone,

much less what they were using that had been manufactured 20 years earlier and wasn't even perfected yet.

So, and again, this is coming from RCA.

If I'm hearing everything you're saying correctly and understanding it, I think it's RCA.

This is before Rockefeller Center.

So, wherever they were shooting any of this studio stuff, wrestling or anything else.

It was in Schenectady.

It was in Schenectady.

It wasn't in Schenectady.

Because that's at that time.

You know, who would have thought that the biggest money-making enterprise in the history of the world about to happen was coming from Schenectady?

Farnsworth was out of Philadelphia.

Did he ever do any experimental broadcasts?

Because again, if we're just talking about one company, the one that ended up winning.

Well, hold on then Google lists, you son of a gun, because you're quicker at it than I am.

But I am still and I'm trying to think the all of the documentaries I've just watched, but Farnsworth was never able to finance anything like the NBC

system on his own.

He came up with the concept, but

and the patents and things on his deal, but was not able to put anything like this in motion.

According to the internet, and they're never wrong.

Never.

Philo Farnsworth conducted experimental television broadcasts from the early 1930s, notably through his station W3XPF in Philadelphia, and later W9WFT in Fort Wayne.

And nothing plain about Fort Wayne.

But what was he?

Who was backing him here?

What was it?

Did he have an entire network behind him like NBC did?

Oh, I don't think he had that.

Shouting into the wilderness.

I mean, he had investors, and I don't know how much money was pouring into different times.

And he was always searching for more investors because

you know the philosophy was to try to bankrupt him, making him fight for the rights to his own patent for years and years and years.

Well, then, I would then,

if Philo and Flato had gotten together, can you imagine that?

I'm

booked, I'm booked next Tuesday for Philo and Flato.

I just don't understand how you call like an office up, like, hi, honey, is he there?

It's I.T.

Flato.

That name.

But, nevertheless, if philo had only found flat oh

maybe he would have been broadcasting how to finger the violin

but you know a lot of this stuff there was things going on that we didn't know

and now 1931 september 17th

a wrestling match

that was recorded somehow at some point was broadcast at 10 o'clock Eastern time, I assume.

I think that was before they had such a thing.

Now we have to figure out

W-2AXAB.

There has to be a way.

We have to figure out what that match is.

I may be crazy researcher back in the day, but there must be something somewhere.

Well, no, because again, they probably brought him in and just had him in the miniature ring they were using for boxing and

experimented with the lighting and had them wrestle it and nobody was there.

So

unless Pfeffer kept notes on it.

Hey,

it's the right time.

It's the right time period.

But now this is all fascinating.

So we went from thinking it's one thing to another thing.

Now we think it's another thing.

We're 15 years.

We've added 15 years just with bringing this topic up and getting everybody to.

chip in and talk about it.

Well, we're now at 1931.

That ain't bad.

We're now at 1931.

We need to try to find out more information about what that match was, where it was, anything from 31, but and then fill in the gaps between 31 and 40.

You know what?

I feel like Carl Kolchak in the night strangler, when he was with Wally Cox in the newspaper morgue, and they were finding a series of similar murders happened every 21 years back to 1880.

Should we try 1920?

I'm so happy that Me TV is finally taking Colchak off.

I like Colchak, but it's the same episodes over and over and over, non-stop.

Yeah.

So now it's the Adventures of Superman have been added to Saturday nights.

They're the same episodes over and over.

But they haven't been on in a while.

They haven't been on.

But poor Carl.

No, they're on.

But it's more than one season.

They're on handy TV every Sunday morning.

But there's multiple seasons of the Adventures of Superman.

It's one season of Colchak.

That's not even a long season.

No.

I think it's 24 episodes.

I could be wrong.

But I so seldom am.

Why would we assume that?

And all right anyway.

If they come up with an HD transfer of the masters, then I'd want to watch it.

But it has to look like Manix.

It can't look like Canon.

It has to be top of the line, look good, not this like, you know, we have a VHS copy.

We're going to air it.

If you found a kinescope of this 1931 wrestling match, would you want to watch it as it is or would you want to have it remastered?

I would say, holy shit, we have just discovered that they discovered kinescope years earlier than we thought they did.

That'd be what I said.

Well, see, I'm working on that too.

We're going to

go the way back machine with those kinescopes also.

It's really interesting just to think about like,

let's say from this point in time until 1950, let's use that as the after the war, kind of when TVs really start being sold.

Just.

Everything came together.

Eventually,

they have networks, they have channels, they have programming schedules.

Like everything came together within these years and you know the war threw everything off obviously, but I love this stuff.

I'm sorry, I'm just geeking out over here.

I apologize.

Well, well, you know, it never, the view never changes, baby.

It's time to head back to school and forward to your future with Carrington College.

For over 55 years, we've helped train the next generation of healthcare professionals.

Apply now to get hands-on training from teachers with real-world experience.

And as few as nine months, you could start making a difference in healthcare.

Classes start soon in Pleasant Hills, San Leandro, and San Jose.

Visit Carrington.edu to see what's next for you.

Visit Carrington.edu/slash SCI for information on program outcomes.

Let's be real.

Life happens.

Kids spill.

Pets shed.

And accidents are inevitable.

Find a sofa that can keep up at washable sofas.com.

Starting at just $699,

our sofas are fully machine washable inside and out, so you can say goodbye to stains and hello to worry-free living.

Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics, they're kid-proof, pet-friendly, and built for everyday life.

Plus, changeable fabric covers let you refresh your sofa whenever you want.

Neat flexibility?

Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa anytime to fit your space, whether it's a growing family room or a cozy apartment.

Plus, they're earth-friendly and trusted by over 200,000 happy customers.

It's time to upgrade to a stress-free, mess-proof sofa.

Visit washable sofas.com today and save.

That's washablesofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

The view never changes because there's always a war.

There's always the ratings to think about.

There's always the the audience and who can,

you know, shimmy and screw the other person out of that audience and jump in.

So should we go from just for a minute from 1931 to 2025 and see that something, the view never changes, baby?

Have you heard that apparently

the WWE is

see

Uncle Dave is trying to

phrase this or present this as,

oh, WWE's really worried about AEW.

They're going all out.

They're trying to counter program him.

They're putting the big shows against him.

I take the viewpoint that I think

that the WWE, now that they have conquered the world and they're worth $747 billion and 16 cents,

I think that they have said now's the time.

that we can demolish this little motherfucker.

We'll just wipe our fucking shoes on him.

He's lost talent.

He's got the same, he's lost viewers.

He's got really the same base and his TV show creatively is a mess with many people not over or floundering around.

So let's just fucking finish it off.

And Brian, I don't even know if that's an unpopular viewpoint that I have, or if more people are starting to recognize it that now they're just not even making any

about it.

We're, you know, we're in a tank and he's in a wheelbarrow and we're just going to shovel him over.

WWE wants to own the entire industry.

And it's not just wrestling, it's everything.

It's everything from podcasts to toys to everything.

They want to own it all.

And if they don't own it, you will be some sort of subservient company reliant on them, like TNA.

And,

you know, Tony Khan's biggest threat to WWE

is simply money.

That he could throw money, he could raise the pay scale, and potentially maybe one of these guys that we have as a star will take him up on his offer.

But they're going to do everything they can to stop him.

They're going to run against him.

They're going to try to make it so he can never get another television deal again.

So that even if you don't want WWE TV, they're like, oh, well, here, here's TNA.

Here's AAA.

Get some Latino viewers.

Here's NXT.

They are dead set against AEW, and they're going to look to kill AEW.

And this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

It's a little more overt now than even when Vince was there,

which is saying something, but it's not necessarily about Tony.

They would do it to anyone who was number two right now.

But Tony specifically,

you know, I don't think we're talking out of school saying they don't take Tony seriously.

Whether you think they should or shouldn't, they don't.

And they also enjoy fucking with AEW.

Some of the wrestlers do, but the people who are running things do.

You mentioned it was even more so than when Vince was there.

But Vince not only was

doing things the old-fashioned way when he would do them.

And I don't think that he

took AEW that seriously because he never took any other company really seriously except WCW at that time.

But at the same time, his people were saying, well, we got to watch the pay scale.

But now that these,

there are shark Hollywood agents and big time wheeler dealer and deal maker people involved and staffs of them and major corporate executives.

Even if only one of them was only

a tenth as predatory as Vince, there's three times as many now of them.

So they know all the ways to just fucking bam, bam.

And they've got all these deals that they're making and they're guarantees that they're getting.

And at the same time, they can just elbow this son of a bitch out of the out of the fucking elevator before the doors close.

And it's all their group.

And we'll talk about a couple of different ways they're doing it, but taking it, I don't know if it's in order, but at least one at a time.

So now the pay-per-views on September 20th

are, There's dueling pay-per-views.

I'm getting my two teeth pulled on September 22nd.

I don't know which I'm looking forward to least over that weekend is having to watch two of their pay-per-views at the same time or getting two teeth pulled.

But this was a recent addition,

wasn't it, to the WWE calendar against their September 20th gimmick they're doing.

Yeah.

They found out AEW AEW had all out and they waited until the very last minute they could.

And then they, surprise, announced a premium live event direct head-to-head up against it.

Yeah.

And now that there's no more pay-per-view, they don't have to worry about like,

you know, pay-per-view or the cable company saying you can't do this.

They could fucking stream anytime they want.

Well, that's the thing is, did they have a big premium live event announced for September already and they changed the date?

Or did they just, September was open?

I believe it was open.

I believe it was open, but I'm not certain, but I believe that was the case.

So they, so they just held it.

Yeah, okay.

But again, the all in, the all, it's all out this time in September.

That's one of Tony's little pride and joys.

And,

you know, so they're fucking with that.

But they're also talking about now, from what I understand, I hear it through the grapevine,

the idea that they're going to move the Saturday night's main event December date,

and which theoretically then would become John Cena's retirement match to December 27th up against

what do they call World's End, which it may be.

Every year, I feel they're going to be prophetic.

But

if they can work it out with NBC, apparently, They're trying to do

Cena's retirement against their World's End pay-per-view.

And Cena's retirement would be on network television.

I'll save my thoughts or questions about the idea of doing that for after we talk about AEW, but yeah, they're doing that to fuck with AEW, if that happens.

And I mean, that's going to cost them

AEW being them too many pronouns, pal.

That's going to cost them some viewers, definitely off of their

couple of their biggest shows of the year, while at the same time,

will you be able to tell if an extra 150 or 200,000 people didn't tune into Cena's retirement on NBC Christmas week when it'll probably do 2 million fucking people?

It's going to be negligible, if anything.

And Tony's pay-per-views are still out there.

They're not on Macs.

You can get them from HBO.

You can get them from Amazon or this place or that place.

He hasn't sold those rights.

You know, WWE just sold their premium live event rights

separate from everything else.

I mean, everything is for sale to a different party.

It's incredible.

But Tony has everything.

Everything's in the Warner Brothers Discovery Basket.

There's no Ring of Honor deal.

Dark and Elevation left YouTube.

Not that they were great or anything, but it was just programming that one day was gone.

And you have these premium live events that

apparently they get really good pay-per-view numbers, and that's people having to buy the pay-per-view because there's no $9.99 option.

Well, and speaking of which,

we're going to have to get together, you and me, off the air for you to tell me what the, how the fuck I'm going to watch the AEW pay-per-views since there's no pay-per-view channel on my cable anymore.

And I have to find out who is operating this thing or carrying this thing.

And that's,

again,

The WWE, we mentioned they're doing the different streaming deals, et cetera, and the news we talked about on the last show we did,

where

is it Paramount has paid $7 billion for UFC for the streaming of the shows and et cetera?

So I saw again, somebody just added up

for the wrestling without UFC, if you're a fan of both, but just for the wrestling.

What will it cost you to buy whatever services you need to either buy the service buy the show itself or buy the service that you need to get the thing that the show is on you know what i'm saying right yeah

it's a hundred dollars a month just right now with what they've announced to get everything that the wwe

has

and if the ufc is doing something else with somebody else that if you wanted both

you're closing in on, you know, fucking three, what, two grand a fucking year or whatever.

Yeah, and they're saying that with the ESPN deal, like we talked about last time, that potentially if you have cable, you may eventually by the end of the year be able to get it once the cable operators negotiate with ABC and Disney.

But if you don't have cable and the whole thing is that people don't have cable, people are getting rid of cable, then you have to pay $30 a month.

So it's going to be very interesting how this works.

Well, yeah, then that's part of the $100 is that you might get the thing for free if you have the the other thing, but you have to pay for the other thing.

So they're taking that into account.

Yeah, then you'd have to have the other thing, and people are dropping cable, so people are just going to have to get the 30 thing.

Us cable people, we have a good deal,

and it's this, that, or the other thing.

And in the meantime, finally, in the financial news,

uh, now they're saying the WWE is plotting

to help TNA get on television.

Have you heard about this, Brian?

Have you read about this and put them on TV in opposition to AEW?

And

does that surprise you in any way?

Well, no, no.

And you've been calling this all along.

But now it's again, it's an example of, well, here's this separate entity

that we don't own and actually control,

kind of,

but they are our little buddy and they will do whatever we want.

And so we ain't going to fuck with them.

So it's a block against the antitrust monopoly accusations.

And it's also another product that can independently with a little nudge in the ribs

be pitched by more professional people

and people that have a track record in this major entertainment landscape instead of Tony Kahn

try to talk

Jack Warner into putting a ring of honor on their network when their viewers on the existing programs are drooping.

Tony needs to fight back.

What he should do right now is put together a two-hour highlight reel of the Vince Russo years and send it to every television executive and say, this is TNA.

Watch this.

Make them answer for this.

No, they're going to do everything they can to drive Tony out of business and to own the entirety of the professional wrestling space.

And there are rumors going around about a TNA sale.

I don't know how true they are.

I only saw a couple things, but even the names being being rumored for people tied in with TKO and people who are working with TKO,

they want it all under their umbrella.

And they're going to get a Japanese company one of these days.

And I, you know, I've said it before.

I want Tony.

Tony Khan needs to fight back.

I want him to fight back for the health of wrestling.

Someone needs to fight back.

And then I want to root for the guy.

And then I watch his show.

And I'm like, man, this fucking sucks.

And then

we'd have this.

Yeah, like the booking is horrible.

Don't tell me, oh, we do have stories.

If the stories suck, your stories suck.

But the booking's horrible.

It's like, fuck, how's he going to fight back?

But he needs to.

And,

you know, it's not going to stop with Tony.

You know, it's not going to stop with Poland.

It's not going to stop.

They're going to keep going.

No, WWE wants to take over every aspect of everything.

If there is a media deal to be had for professional wrestling,

the agents who run WWE want that deal and they want all that money and they want to keep building up the stock value.

So eventually they can convince some friendly Saudi to buy it.

But this is not going to change and Tony Khan needs to fight back.

I just don't know how he will in that way.

I don't know how.

And I think he's, I hate to use the word arrogant, but I think he's arrogant enough to think that he has a handle on it.

And then people on the outside who talk to people in that company or just are paying attention realize, no, you don't.

You don't have the team.

You don't have the team in terms of talent.

You don't have the team in terms of executives.

And it's going to be interesting how this plays out.

But at some point, and I'm not going to go through it all, but Brandon Thurston put up a series of tweets looking at the MLW lawsuit.

and what is and isn't a monopoly right now or an attempt to have a monopoly.

But we're looking at WWE trying to set themselves up for a monopoly.

But hey, you can't say that because the AWA is in Minnesota, so they'll have TNA.

And here's the thing: Tony's like his baby faces,

he's kind of ineffectual, and nobody thinks that he can whip anybody.

Yeah, he can't fight this.

Look at the way he comes off to big business typhoons.

And,

you know, I'm sorry, but it's a whole nother world.

And,

you know, that's, that's the thing is, is again, he, I don't say arrogant because that makes him sound like some kind of

smooth operator.

Yeah, but it's the same.

More, more, more like, more like clueless, like, well, they can't do that to me.

I've got a lot of money.

Well, they just did it to you because they got even more money now.

Because he's going to be fucking heartbroken.

When Warner Brothers Discovery, or whoever owns it at that point in time, says we're not renewing you.

Where's he going to go?

He's not going to Disney.

They got WWE.

He's not going to Fox.

He's not going to,

Fox apparently already said no.

They're not going to CW.

They're not going to NBC Universal, who owns USA Network.

They're not going to Netflix or, as of this moment, Peacock, you wouldn't think.

And again, that's part of NBC Universal.

YouTube is

YouTube's talking to WWE.

There's something that's going to go go down.

It'll probably be the catalog, but we'll see.

But there's going to be nowhere to turn.

Nowhere to run to, baby.

Nowhere to hide.

Oh, you know where that you can turn and hide?

Nowhere.

Tell me, please.

Ryan, I'll tell you where you can turn and hide from all of this, all of this stress and discomfort and achy paininess that you have, and the way you can unwind cornbread, hemp, CBD gummies.

Oh, yeah, that's the way you can.

Yeah, you can turn and hide there.

Just burrow down into one of these things.

Because if you want a natural way to relieve the aches and discomfort that comes with living a life,

if you want to de-stress and maintain not only your physical, but your mental wellness,

a peace of mind, Brian, all I want is to have my peace of mind.

You can sit down with a CBD gummy, courtesy of cornbread hemp, and you can put Boston on the headphones.

And boy, howdy, it'll take you back to the days when life was worth living.

You hear singing like that, you wish England won in Boston.

Well, hey,

don't mess with my tea party.

Cornbread hemp CBD gummies are made to help you feel better, whether it's stress, whether it's discomfort, just needing a little relaxation.

They only use the best part of the hemp plant.

The roots.

No, I'm saying it's the flower for the purest and most potent CBD.

I thought the best part of the plant would be the roots.

That's where all the life comes from.

It grows at.

Well, you eat a lot of beetroot, don't you, to keep regular?

You talking to me?

Yeah, yeah, I'm talking to you.

I don't eat a lot of beetroot.

What are you talking about?

Oh, you're supposed to eat beetroot beetroot and fucking

onion cloves

to keep your poop going regular.

Once again, we're not talking about the roots.

We're talking about the best part of the plant.

Yes, the best part of the plant is the price.

I'm fixing to save you some money.

They use only the best parts and they are formulated to help relieve the discomfort, the stress, the sleeplessness, the sleepless nights, laying awake, tossing and turning.

And all of the products from our friends at Cornbread Hemp hemp based right here in louisville kentucky are third-party lab tested they will not go to a lab unless they've been to at least three parties in that place so they can see what their pharmaceuticals are like and boy howdy you ought to go to one of these things

the fucking black light and the disco ball not that kind of holy shit no this is of course an outside uh party that uh

because several of them ended up out outside in the yard in the parking lot we're talking about the best part of the plant, and we're talking about the best deal for the listeners.

And let's plant that in the ground and go that way.

Yes, yes.

They're USD organic, USDA organic, or USDA organic.

To ensure safety.

That has to be one or the other.

To ensure safety and purity.

And, you know, if you take one of these, it'll automatically turn you back into a virgin.

Again, no, that will not happen.

Right now, I'm telling you what, boy, howdy.

You're not.

Yeah, well, no, I'm telling you that right now you can save money.

You can save money because all you gots to do is go to

cornbread.

That's C-O-R-N-B-R-E-A-D, cornbreadhemp.com slash J-C-E, and you're going to save 30% off your first order.

30% off your first order of these fine, pure, potent,

and good views.

CBD gummies at cornbreadhemp.com slash JCE.

30% off just like that because

we put the word in for you.

That's right.

A great product.

Very popular here at Last Manor.

I know there's some big fans over there.

A Castle Cornette, Cornbread Hemp, a great deal.

One last time, Jim, that promo code.

Well, it's JCE.

I mean, at this point, Brian, we've been doing this for so many years.

Don't you think you'd remember it?

You may try to mess me up and say, ECJ.

Well, I'm not ECC.

I don't know about you.

Well, you could mess me up.

But once again.

You know, JEC almost sounds like

that almost sounds right.

Well, once again, ladies and gentlemen, don't be messed up.

Don't be almost right.

Be right.

I don't know how any of this ties.

You're messing up the right way.

Cornbread hemp.

Yes.

And the don't eat the roots.

San Jose's airport is a simple airport to fly through, which is great for travelers because you can get from curved gate in minutes, connect to lots of places around the country and world, and you can even wash your car while you travel so you can take off dirty and arrive clean.

Which is pretty awesome if you ask us.

A simple airport is a better airport.

San Jose Moneta International Airport.

Fly Simple, Fly SJC.

Visit flysjc.com.

Life's messy.

We're talking spills, stains, pets, and kids.

But with Anibay, you never have to stress about messes again.

At washable sofas.com, discover Anibay Sofas, the only fully machine-washable sofas inside and out, starting at just $699.

Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics.

That means fewer stains and more peace of mind.

Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers, allowing you to refresh your style anytime.

Need flexibility?

Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly.

Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes.

Plus, they're earth-friendly and built to last.

That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch.

Upgrade your space today.

Visit washable sofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life.

That's washablesofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Anyway, speaking of roots let's get to the root of a problem here there's debate on the internet brian i don't know if you're up to date on this i need some guidance the carry and cross situation is it a work is it not did his contract expo well his contract expired allegedly

they want him they want her they want both they don't want either

He's beating around the bush in some fashion and creating

some attention and interest in this one way or the other.

But I'm wondering why that they would want to, if this is all a carefully contrived work,

is he interesting enough or enough of a top guy if they gave him the push that it would be worth, is he Brian Pillman all over again?

These are my thoughts.

Well, we have some audio we could play.

He was on the Ariel Hawani show.

Now, that in and of itself made some people say, you know, look, see, it's a work.

Ariel Hawani has a very friendly relationship with WWE.

Why else would he be booked on this show?

And then he immediately came out on social media and said, it's not a work.

It's not anything like that.

Paul Heyman had previously been on the Ariel Hawani show and put over Carrion Cross, saying that the groundswell of support, I'm paraphrasing,

was akin to the way the support started for Steve Austin.

is what Paul Haynes says.

Hey, well,

Paul does have a flowery way of phrasing most everything, but

I don't see that.

But I think we're being a little grandiose.

Go ahead.

And again, he disappeared.

They didn't renew his contract after he seemingly was getting more TV time on his own than he ever had before.

The stable with him and Paul Ellering and

the authors of Pain was not exactly doing it.

Everything since NXT has been off, was finally connecting.

Here he is talking with Ariel Hawani on the Ariel Hawani show.

This is about this not being a work.

People could talk about the unreals and all that stuff.

I think there are certain questions that you shouldn't ask out of respect for what you do and what it's all about.

I appreciate that.

But I do feel like I need to ask you a certain amount of questions and I need to be as sort of pointed as possible, okay?

Or, of course.

Are you working us right now?

No.

No, I'm not answering questions today as a character.

This is legit.

Yes.

This is Kevin.

Yep.

Okay.

What you put out on your YouTube channel on Sunday evening, a riveting documentary that I urge everyone to see.

You almost have about 800,000 views as of right now in three days.

That's incredible.

You said that your WWE.

Well, actually, it cuts off right there.

We'll pick up more audio here.

What are your initial thoughts?

Just the idea.

He's being asked if this is a work and he's immediately saying no.

Well, that would be what you would say if you were working somebody.

Would it see that?

God damn it.

I don't.

My my head is spinning because of the world that wrestling is in these days

but

again if you're working somebody the first thing you're going to do is deny that you're working them so that in itself means nothing

and you would say no i'm here i'm not in character now i'm here as kevin that in itself means nothing

What I'm trying to figure out is what is the upside potentially of going to all this trouble?

And yes, he was getting himself over

with promos and different things, but it didn't particularly look like they were trying to shove him down anybody's throat.

And every time he has a big match with Sammy, he pretty much loses it and they don't set the world on fire.

And so that's, I'm just, but, and I've got thoughts about, is this a Jerry Lawler type of walkout because they fired the cat if they just didn't want Scarlett and he said, well, I ain't going to take your offer.

There's all kinds of things that can, and there's a rumor going out they didn't want Scarlett.

And I don't really know what purpose Scarlett serves besides giving us something to look at while Karrion Cross is out there.

But go ahead with your story.

Yeah, well, it's not my story.

It's his story.

And it was told to Ariel Howani.

Hell, and he's sticking to it.

On the Ariel Howani show, this is Karrion Cross talking about the contract that was presented to him.

Well, I mean, truth of the matter is,

I mean, you've already stated, like, you know, my contract was up last week.

I never actually received a contract, like an offer, until last week.

So.

Do you remember what day?

So your contract expired August 10th, which I do believe was Sunday.

Yeah.

I think it was Tuesday off the top of my head.

Okay.

You know, I got the offer.

I wanted to know how they came to the valuation of that offer.

Just wanted, you know, like

some information, some metrics, some analytics that's supporting to, hey, this is how we got here.

When I inquired about that,

they were unwilling to provide that information and told me I had 24 hours to agree to the offer or they were rescinding it.

You know, the next day, we talk.

I ask if they have the information.

They don't.

And I said, I can't make an informed decision without the information.

And I'd like to keep the dialogue open.

Well, let me stop with that.

What are the analytics exactly?

I mean, do they have analytics now?

Is that a thing that they have that they

have to show anybody?

I never realized he was Canadian.

He must be Canadian, right?

That accent.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I didn't look into it.

I thought he was from Queens.

Look into that.

Well, maybe he's from Long Island and he's just hoity-toity, but nevertheless,

no, there could be real metrics.

For instance, I mean, assuming it's everything, merch,

how much merch am I selling?

How much, how valuable am I when it comes to that in terms of if he's moving any numbers?

I don't know if they present that to people.

I mean, that's another issue ultimately.

Well, I mean, you know, you're allowed to

used to be, you're allowed to check into your merchandise sales, but I'm not talking about that.

It's all bullshit.

The only thing you ought to be asking is,

because this is the way that they used to do it, offer him what the other guys in the spot that we've got for him on the card are making.

Because,

you know, that's about it.

I mean, unless you're Steve Austin or some major superstar where.

You have a track record of look at the business this pay-per-view did or this series of live events did when i was on top again whatever what metrics can they have for carrying cross who's just been on the card that was going to do and this is not even disrespectful to him because there's a lot of talented people on the cards that how would you quantify that because the house and the ticket sales and the rating would have been the same

either way, whether they were there or not, except when you get to the top guys.

And he hasn't been there yet so he has no track record so how would they have analytics

yeah all the shows that you've been on and seen it was in the main event of they've done great so let's give you a raise how does that work i'm not sure but to answer your question from earlier here's ariel howani talking to carrion cross or the former carrion cross

about scarlet

when they made that offer Was it for the two of you?

Nothing.

She had nothing.

There was no offer to her.

Nothing.

No.

I was told at one point, because I did inquire, of course.

Yeah.

After we deal with you, we'll deal with her.

Like.

Do you think that they were going to get to her?

Like, once they were probably hoping you'd say yes, do you think they were going to get to her?

Or do you think there was a chance that she was not going to be brought back regardless?

I don't know.

Wow.

But I just,

I didn't.

I don't see why we just could not have done things the way we did them before, you know?

Well, that's that clip right there.

What do you think?

You know, those, those words have been said quite often.

I don't know why we could have just done the things the way we did it before.

I mean, and again, we weren't in a room.

We're not in a conversation.

We're speculating on what we're being told.

But

from,

again, just experience in the office, maybe somebody's saying, you know,

they probably,

they had

contracts that were signed for the same terms.

or for the same term length of time, I should say, at the same time.

So they they kind of were together.

And maybe they want to sign him for a longer period of time than they wanted to sign her.

Maybe they don't really want to sign her at all.

Maybe it just, they want to do something different with him.

Who knows what the fuck?

But do they have to say that?

I mean, that's how you break up a marriage.

We signed him.

We'll deal with her after you.

By the way, we're not going to deal with her.

Well, I love the way.

I wonder if it was really.

fucking phrased that way.

We'll deal with her as soon as we finish dealing with you.

Like after we finish dusting you off, motherfucker.

I mean, you know,

again, this is his side of the story is he's saying, well, where's her contract?

Well, we don't want her.

Well, when you send her one, I'll look.

I mean, who knows?

Who knows?

But

I think that he's doing a wonderful job of calling attention to this, but I don't know why.

And I've been fooled here recently.

They'll go to any lengths, but why for him?

I don't see him or them or this as an attraction

that can be made with a payoff that is commensurate with the effort to go into working the boys about a mid-card guy's contract.

But I mean, maybe they just got a lot more employees up there, so they got a lot more people to have things to do.

And what do you think about the idea that it's a work?

It seems like the only thing they'd be promoting is if he made a surprise appearance somewhere else.

But again, if he made a surprise appearance somewhere else, I might think it was a work.

If he starts making a bunch of advertised appearances ahead of time,

then that might say that maybe they just didn't want Scarlett and he got mad.

Because the guy that you see ranting about WWE, the next step would be you want to see him on the opposition show saying these things.

And all of a sudden, you have a character you could believe in.

But we haven't really known for a while what's going on with his creative and his booking.

And remember after WrestleMania, like literally like right after WrestleMania, he did a promo online.

I mean, they're all online at this point,

saying that this isn't Carrion Cross, this is Killer Cross.

And everyone was buzzing about it.

It was a really good promo.

Yeah.

Scarlett sat there.

It was a really good promo, you know, to her value.

She got, no, I shouldn't say anything, but,

but it was a really good promo.

Here's what Carrion Cross says the creative team, and of course that means Triple H running the creative team, what they thought of the promo.

Everybody was cool with it.

They were like, holy cow.

You know, they said another word we're not going to say, but yeah, they were, everyone was really blown away.

And I let everybody know,

let's make sure this is somewhat protected from the audience, but let everyone know internally that this is a work because

not every department is constantly in lockstep communication with one another.

So

I told everybody that.

Sure enough, not everybody knew that that was a work.

You think it backfired?

Well, I can't say that it backfired, but people were very upset with it because they thought it was real.

When you say people, specifically like higher-ups.

I'll say higher-ups.

They were offended, or did they feel like you were too aggressive?

Like, what could they have been upset?

How would a wrestling lifer see that and be like, yeah, that's too far?

Or you crossed the line?

Or is this real or not?

I don't want to speak on behalf of them, but this is what I will say about it.

So a lot of everything that you see goes through the creative process.

It goes through a team.

I was under the impression that we were doing something improvisationally and it was okay.

But like I said, sometimes the communication is not in lockstep with each other.

So no one told them that this was a work.

No one said I shook everybody's hands.

I gave Megan a hug before I left.

So they're under the impression, like a week goes by, that,

you know, I flipped out.

So like I want.

Let me stop it there for a moment.

He has a little bit more about this specific thing, but

so he does this promo.

The creative team doesn't know.

He thinks they're under some sort of arrangement where, you know, let's all do improvisational stuff.

What do you think of this story so far?

Well,

the one comment that Ariel Hawani made there was, well, what are the like the wrestling lifers think?

Were they upset?

I think the probably the wrestling lifers, because I'm one.

The first thing I would have said when I heard that, if I didn't know anything about the genesis of it, what he was said, supposed to say or told to say, whatever,

I would go to whoever did know

and say, was that a work?

I wouldn't just, because I would,

to be quite honest with you, I thought that it was from the beginning because when we saw him again, you know, that was either his goddamn notice on the air or they told him to say it to get attention or let him say it to get attention.

So I think it, he's talking about hires up.

So we're not talking about just the average greenhorns in a locker room.

We're talking about Triple H and Bruce Pritchard.

What no?

Well, but no, I'm thinking that I'm thinking Triple H,

if nobody told Triple H he was going to say things like that,

then Triple H would have probably fired the guy that said it was okay, but then didn't tell him.

It wouldn't have been the heat on cross.

And Bruce would have been like, what the but he probably bruce probably didn't like it because he doesn't like anything that approaches a shoot of any kind

but i i'm thinking it had to be the writing staff that was offended the not the wrestling people but the writing people that from the way that he phrased that because it was

primarily them that would have been offended by everything that he said.

But no, if you have been in the business

very long at all, in the actual wrestling business,

you would have either said he's working or you would have gone to the ultimate authority that would know whether or not that he just had a goddamn mental breakdown or whether somebody said it was okay to say that.

What do you think?

Before you formed an opinion.

Before we continue on with this specific question and anything else here, what do you think right now?

After hearing what you've heard, do you think it's a work?

I'm not saying it might not turn into one eventually if everybody just calms down and starts talking again, but I think it's again a very odd work to use it on this guy.

And it's probably from some ill feeling about they didn't want Scarlett or they didn't want Scarlett as long or they wanted to make sure they had crossed before they signed.

What would happen if they gave them both a contract and Scarlett signed hers, Cross didn't sign his?

And then, what the fuck?

I mean, any of these things can be going on i'm sure the other side has some points

but it's it's an odd work at this point you know there are so many couples now in wrestling i mean everywhere that you don't really hear too much about that idea that may be more of an idea of the past where it was a commodity to have a woman on the show the idea of it's a packaged deal if you want my girl and i hate to put it that way but if you want my wife whatever it is you got to book me and the same thing the other way she comes with me Yeah, or Sable and Merrow.

You know, you got to have him to get her.

They may be trying to avoid that type of situation.

I don't know, but it's an odd work.

An odd work.

Let's go back to this about the reaction from higher-ups to his promo after WrestleMania.

One day I waited for Hunter outside the production meeting once it was actually brought to my attention that he was not okay with it.

And I explained everything to him.

No one told him anything.

So, as far as I know, at that point, we were good, but everyone was under the impression a lot of people, like, I just lost my mind.

I was just

holding, hold on, there, there you go.

Cause

if he had to pull Triple H aside and say, well, hey, you know, then I want to know who cleared it and what the conversation was with

Triple H and them is what I want to know.

That's my job that day day was to make people believe like any other day.

And

yeah.

Do you think it's possible that they thought that you were going into business for yourself or maybe trying to take away from WrestleMania because you weren't a part of the?

Oh, that's where that clip ends here.

Again, this is all from the Ariel Hawani show.

So the creative team led by the guy who runs the company right now

didn't know what he was doing and thought he lost his mind and somehow there was radio silence or whatever it was for a week.

Again, if you're the booker,

I mean, how does it happen?

See,

I don't know about that either, though, because if Triple H, if I was Triple H and I was

in any way upset about what he said, I would have got to the root of it before I left the building.

I would have either talked to

who was producing the segment.

Or I would have gone to the guy himself and probably the producer because it'd be quicker and get a straighter answer.

Except if the producer then was the one that was like, Oh, maybe the producer said, Oh, I didn't know he was going to say all that stuff.

Well, again, he does this problem, but that's that's the problem with having all these different shows, and pre-game shows, and post-game shows, and internet shows, and this and that.

They've got all these different crews and all these different producers

going through all this stuff.

And did somebody overstep their authority to bless that

potentially that

well he talks a little bit here let's uh play this for a moment because remember they put him in this feud with sami zane which started where like they had these backstage confrontations where he was telling sammy that he had the you know i guess for lack of a better term let the heel out if he really wants to get the world title and then they had these matches that felt like they were building towards him winning something.

And he lost every single match.

And he was still trying to get Sammy to commit an evil deed, which Sammy never did.

Well, here he is talking about the booking for Night of Champions.

Even though he's a commie dirtbag, Sammy would not commit an evil deed.

Well, those are not your words.

They may not, the audience will have to listen to the rest of the show.

Yeah, everybody, you need to start to finish.

All this shit'll make sense.

Jim, here is Carrion Cross, the former Carrion Cross.

I don't know what it is, talking about how he got booked for that show, Night of Champions, against Sami Zayn in Saudi Arabia.

Can you tell us about that?

I really only kind of want to say what I said in the documentary, which was essentially Ron had pulled me aside and talked to me.

And he basically

just

knows what's going on with me.

He's been in my corner.

He's always been in my corner.

I've always been in his.

Ron's somebody I've always gotten along with.

We have mutual friends.

Shout out to Conan.

Yeah, I love that dude.

I had a Who is Ron?

I'm not sure.

Ron Killings, maybe?

Are there any other Ron's on the roster?

What happened to his push?

I was about to say, wait a minute.

I forgot.

He was supposed to be a big star.

Jesus Christ, what they didn't.

Another casualty of the Cena turn, Ron Killings.

Well, let's go back to this.

Night of Champions was a little rough

because one of my relatives...

My Uncle Chris had passed away a little bit before Night of Champions, and the process of developing a service for him was taking a little bit.

So right around the time that my family had announced we were going to do a service for him, I got a call to ask me to go to Night of Champions.

So I told the person over the phone, let me call you back.

Let me see how my family feels about this because I don't want to agree to anything over the phone.

I'm thinking I'm going to the service.

So that Night of Champions match didn't happen.

I spoke to some of my relatives and they said, your Uncle Chris would want you to go do this match.

You can grieve anytime you want.

This is something that's coming around right now, and it's important that you go.

So I had their support.

I spoke to quite a few of them, and that was kind of the consensus.

So I went.

And it's just

you're in the moment and you're enjoying it.

No regrets about it.

But then there's also that.

And you're in this weird seesaw all day and the whole trip.

Like almost feels sometimes

like

guilty that you're having a good time

with this on your mind.

And I just kept thinking about him

all day and talking to him under my breath.

I talked to Ron a little bit about that on the plane.

You know,

I'm getting the impression he seems like one of these guys that it's awful hard to

negotiate with because he thinks deeply about everything.

You know what I mean, Brian?

Have you ever had that in your lines of work, like we have in the wrestling business when you get a guy that just thinks real deeply about everything?

You know, I think he should go to Hollywood.

I think he is a good actor, and maybe he could, uh, he has a good look and he's not like too big.

So maybe he could do something there, but let's go to this.

He's not too big.

This is Carrie and Cross talking about other promotions.

If they've reached out to him, I believe this is our final clip from the Ariel Hawani show.

Let's go to this.

You know, that was the advice that I was given.

Okay.

Since Sunday, have other promotions reached out to you?

Yeah.

Of course.

Big ones?

Yes.

Can I ask specifically?

You can ask, but I won't tell you, brother.

Has AEW reached out?

No.

No.

No.

Are you surprised?

No.

Why?

A lot of people.

Let me stop it there.

If big promotions reached out and it wasn't AEW, who was it?

I was about to say,

we're awful short on the list at this point after that.

Hello, Carrion.

This is Shinma.

What are you doing?

Friday.

Yeah, what about Gleet?

I wonder if Gleet has called.

If Gleat has called, then we know that the bidding war is on.

But

first of all,

I think AEW, they're probably thinking, ah, we're not going to get in this right now.

This probably is a fucking work.

We'll look bad.

They're trying.

It's a Trojan horse.

They're trying to swerve us.

And to be quite honest,

he ain't there, kettle of fish in the ring.

He's not going to do all that shit with the children.

He didn't take bumps for Sami Zayn.

And that audience is so antithetical.

Oh, another WWE guy.

And then, how much would Scarlett want?

And would that upset the

not the apple cart, but the

peach cart over in the women's locker room.

And there may be people.

There may be people there who were there in TNA who they have issues with, which would be a whole nother thing.

And again, oh,

I forgot about the

family of Don.

Well,

let's go.

Let's get away from that scarlet fever and let's go back to the remaining audio here from Ariel Hawani and Carrion Cross.

No.

Why?

A lot of people think it's a work.

They were the ones I was thinking of when you said, hey, people don't know whether or not to reach out.

Because the theory that I've heard is if Cross shows up on TNA, this is all a work because they're in cahoots, right?

If he shows up on AEW, obviously this isn't a work.

Yeah.

Do you agree with that sentiment?

Yeah, that's what everyone is thinking.

I've read it.

I've seen it.

I've seen it.

Everyone's thinking I'm just going to pop up under some other company that's in the WWE umbrella.

They're hoping I do because this seems so nonsensical to people.

People are following the course of events that have happened to get to here and they're going, how did this happen?

This must not be real because this makes no sense.

Yeah, let me stop it there for a second.

He's right.

That's the biggest argument for it being a work, the fact that he was getting over.

The fans were finally reacting to him.

The guy who takes no bumps.

The fans are reacting to the guy who takes no bumps.

That's a sign in the right direction if you really think about it.

And they book him into oblivion and he's gone.

But I maintain what I said

a little while earlier.

I think he's still got a ceiling, unless they are confident that, oh, this is the start of great things for Karrion Cross.

I look and see, you know, he ain't going to get over to LA Knights

level.

Just me, but besides that,

again, he could just be one of these guys that they just were like, you know what, Jesus Christ, we don't want to talk to him anymore about fucking analytics.

This is a lot of trouble.

Yeah.

Or we don't want the wife.

Or,

I mean, sometimes those things happen and it's inexplicable to the talent, but it's not inexplicable to the office.

Or

they could have a tremendous idea to break him

loose into the stratosphere that I don't see working, but they're going for it anyway.

But he better hope that it's a work because

if it ain't a work, he can't show up in TNA because they're part of the system.

And he ain't going to show up in WWE and he ain't going to show up in AAA.

And if AEW doesn't want him,

he ain't got no place else to pop up.

Well, let's go back to the remaining audio.

Believe me, I also think that this makes no sense either.

Yeah.

This is baffling to me, too.

And it drives me nuts that I have to,

that I actually even have to admit that.

It is baffling.

It is.

So.

It would be an all-time story if you go up and show up on the indies and then come back.

That's what people are concocting this, but you have said repeatedly, this is not the case.

Are you open to even talking to others at the moment, or are you still holding out hope that things will get sorted with WWE?

I've talked to many.

And that's where that one cuts off.

He's still holding out.

Well,

he's talked to many others, but the rec center just, you know,

here's something.

I didn't want to give him the extra hot dog.

Well, here's a little bit about that.

Personally,

no, why not?

I spoke,

I had a conversation with with him earlier.

So my Triple H.

They took a point man and they put him between us to communicate.

So now the point man is responsible for all the dialogue.

You can't circumvent that guy.

You have a personal relationship, a history with me.

He knows that I want to talk.

He knows what I want to do.

He knows.

Are you tempted to send him a text?

I don't know what I would send him because

that guy who they put in front of them to talk to me is telling me that everything is coming from them.

Got it.

I've made it very, very clear that I want to keep the lanes of communication and dialogue open.

It's a very weird situation.

Yeah.

It's weird, dude.

I get it.

So I conveyed everything.

There's really like

this is the way forward.

Everyone just needs to stop being weird.

In life.

Well, let's stop it there.

You know, see, this, this, he's starting to convince me this is real.

Because,

well, no, because here's the thing.

He is astonished.

And he's a very good actor, but still he sounds genuinely astonished.

Why can't I talk to Triple H by this point, man?

Because it sounds to me like that Triple H is, he's not high on Triple H's priority list.

And Triple H has given Joe Schmidlap the job of, look, get this guy under a fucking deal, like we talked about, or let him loose, one or the other.

I ain't got time.

And Cross can't understand it because he,

because it's him.

And he don't want to think that, well, Triple H just don't give a shit and he ain't got time for me.

I'm not the rock.

I'm not Cena.

I'm not whatever.

Well, there it is.

There's another quote where he talks about how much it means to him that Paul Heyman has been so publicly supportive of everything.

So obviously he has supporters.

that are part of the creative team and Triple H was and what would an athlete be without his supporters?

Oh, there you go.

It's an interesting scenario.

The idea that he just left and he's immediately did this very, very public promo.

Do you think this scares off someone from signing him?

Well,

I don't know that there's a ton of fucking people that need scared right now.

Again, it was, we just went through who's it going to be for anything meaningful.

Is he trying to, you know, again,

fly his own flag and force the issue and get the talk out there and make himself,

you know, the center of attention controversial, what's going on because he thinks it'll force their hand if it's real, or he's doing what he would do if it's a work.

You know,

you said it before and it really hit me as I was listening to him talk.

It does remind me of the Jerry Lawer cat thing because right after it happened,

Jerry Lauer was doing interviews.

And I remember it was kind of like the same thing.

Like, I don't know.

They didn't tell me.

They just said, you know, good luck and shook my hand.

It's kind of the same thing.

I'm not saying it's the same thing, but it feels very similar.

Well, and that's the thing is that, you know, he may be trying to press this issue on his own because he can't understand it.

That, well, why all of a sudden?

And

if it's real.

Then somebody on the creative team or somebody in the office has said, for whatever reason, we don't want one.

We don't want the other.

We don't want both of them together or they're a pain in my ass for some reason.

Either do this with deal with this guy or let him go.

And if Triple H is not

again,

if they have big plans for the guy enough to do a big worked angle like this,

then it just seems odd that they would throw in, that he would throw in.

that he's got a middleman.

He's not talking to Triple H.

That seems like an odd detail because

you would want to think, well, Triple H is trying to talk me into it, but I, you know, something like that, rather than no, they're treating me like a fucking flunky.

Well, that's the other thing.

You used to hear that with Vince all the time.

Like, you know, Vince likes me, Vince isn't the problem.

You know, it's these people in between Vince and me.

They're the ones letting me go.

Yeah.

But it's like, yo, Laura Nitis can't let you go unless Vince says it's okay.

It's not just him doing it willy-nilly.

And it sounds, again, that sounds a little bit like what's going on here if this is all not a work also

but we shall well nevertheless we will we will keep on on top of that we will keep uh who are you going to put on the cross beat the carrion cross beat this week does sharknado have anything to do he's plenty busy and uh we'll find out what's going on i'll see if kippelman has any time for the uh whatever the hell it is we're talking about here but uh yes Well, you know what?

Just make sure they all get a good night's sleep, Brian.

I mean, I don't know how I'm going to do that, but what do you have to do?

Well, I know how you can do it because we can tell the folks right now how you can do it.

Everybody knows how you can get a good night's sleep, wake up refreshed with no grogginess, and that's with our friends over at Beam and their amazing, fantastic, wonderful Beam's dream powder.

You just get some of the dream powder and you mix it up and you drink it down.

It's an all-natural sleep blend with science-backed ingredients, backed by the science.

And an old scientist, scientist also.

He's a hunched over.

He's got gray hair, a little goatee.

And he's made this stuff designed to help you fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up refreshed.

And unlike other sleep aids, there is no next day grogginess, just real deep sleep that helps you feel good in the morning.

What morning that is depends on how much of it you take.

It could be the next day.

It could be the day after.

It could be the day after that, but you're not going to be groggy.

We're focusing on the next morning which will be the likely result of course from a wonderful night's sleep with a delicious drink of beam

yes well and sometimes you need to get a head start on that morning and and do it the the morning or two previous and just sleep all the way through and you'll even yourself out i don't think that's how it works but it works the normal way for the listeners

yes and you know if you add dream powder to your routine, you're going to sleep through the night without tossing and turning,

a whipping and a whopping and a flipping and a flumping,

reeling and a rocking until the break of dawn.

Again, again, you wake up refreshed, not exhausted.

And I know many people in today's world have the problem with waking up from a long night's sleep and they're exhausted over it.

Well, sleep will not be tiring

on the beam dream powder.

They've improved over 17.5 million nights of sleep.

92% of users surveyed reported better sleep and waking up refreshed.

And 8%,

I'll have you know, reported that they were going to come back and let us know how things worked out because that was actually the first time they'd ever gone to sleep.

And it was so shocking an experience, they wanted to do it again.

But Beam's an American company.

It's a Ryan, did you know that?

It's a wonderful company, a wonderful drink, a wonderful solution to those needing a good night's sleep without the grogginess in the morning.

Our friends, the very, very fine people of Beam.

That's right.

You just, again, you put the dream powder in the water and you mix it up and you drink it down.

And be sure you're wearing a helmet if you're standing up because when you fall over unconscious,

that's not, ladies and gentlemen.

The goofy comedy part is over.

There will be no helmet needed.

You will get a good night's sleep.

You will escort yourself to your bed after having a nice drink of Beam's dream powder.

You can escort yourself, but wear your knee pads because when you're crawling up those stairs, boys, but you don't need to

guard no, no.

What most people do is they'll call an EMT about 30 minutes ahead of time so that once you take the dream powder, sitting down, the EMT can help you to the bed.

Again, not needed.

And this is part of the silly.

The silly, silly part, but of course, the legitimate, realistic, let's pay attention to the facts, ma'am, part is talking about the benefits and the deliciousness and the usefulness of Beam's dream powder.

Jim, let's get through the rest of this without any improvisation.

And there is also,

in addition to all those other things you mentioned, there's the cost.

The cost of the thing because now you can save up to 40% off.

Yes.

It's their best offer yet for a limited time only.

Beam is giving our listeners, that's you out there in Beamland,

up to 40% off.

You go to Shop Beam,

B-E-A-M shopbeam.com slash JCE, use the code JCE at checkout.

You're going to get up to 40% off on the fabulous, the wonderful, the well-working.

science-backed American-made beam dream powder that will help you sleep like a baby rocking in a cradle all night long and well into the next day if you play your cards right.

And also, when you wake up the next day, you will recognize almost everyone in your immediate family.

There will be no changes in

your recognition skills, ladies and gentlemen.

But you can recognize a good deal.

And that's what we're delivering to you.

A good deal from Beam.

Jim, I understand you were about to say the actual link.

Yes, the actual link.

link shopbeam.com slash jce

use the code jce for up to 40 off and don't worry you'll remember what aunt fanny looks like but uncle chester he well he's kind of plain anyway don't anybody can forget about him don't worry sleep happy with beam oh that's well you know what somebody ought to write that and make it a song don't worry sleep happy well i don't know if we could steal that but again you can steal a good night's sleep anytime you want with Beam.

And

yes, this is your show.

Yeah.

Uh-huh.

Life's messy.

We're talking spills, stains, pets, and kids.

But with Anibay, you never have to stress about messes again.

At washablesofas.com, discover Anibay sofas, the only fully machine-washable sofas inside and out, starting at just $699.

Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics.

That means fewer stains and more peace of mind.

Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers, allowing you to refresh your style anytime.

Need flexibility?

Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly.

Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes.

Plus, they're earth-friendly and built to last.

That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch.

Upgrade your space today.

Visit washable sofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life.

That's washablesofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Time for a sofa upgrade?

Visit washable sofas.com and discover Anibay, where designer style meets budget-friendly prices with sofas starting at $699.

Anibay brings you the ultimate in furniture innovation with a modular design that allows you to rearrange your space effortlessly.

Perfect for both small and large spaces, Anibay is the only machine-washable sofa inside and out.

Say goodbye to stains and messes with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics that make cleaning easy.

Liquid simply slides right off.

Designed for custom comfort, our high-resilience foam lets you choose between a sink-in feel or a supportive memory foam blend.

Plus, our pet-friendly stain-resistant fabrics ensure your sofa stays beautiful for years.

Don't compromise quality for price.

Visit washable sofas.com to upgrade your living space today with no risk returns and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Get up to 60% off plus free shipping and free returns.

Shop now at washable sofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Well, it was somebody else's show on August the 13th when AEW did their weekly thing that they do on the on the network, on the cablecast.

They're in the Brady Music Center in Cincinnati, or they were this past week, Brian.

And

those people,

they're in a music center, but they ain't doing a lot of singing.

The people were kind of like, what the fuck is going on?

This show, I'll tell you where I finally threw in the towel, but it gets more and more

incomprehensible.

And there's just nothing.

They devalue everything that they try to do.

They have a champion, so then they have 27 champions.

They do an angle.

They do 20 million angles.

They do the same

kind of shit

endlessly

to where in this thing with

this Darby Allen, they put a guy in a bag and took him out of a bag and the other guy was in the bag and now they're going to take it, knock his head off and break his neck.

And I don't, what in the flying fuck is going on?

I don't know.

But does that preface the show well enough so we can get started at the top of the program?

You know, I said it a little earlier when we were talking about how WWE is going after AEW.

I want to root for AEW now more than ever.

I want Tony Khan to fight back.

I want there to be a strong number two or at least a strong system outside of WWE.

And then I watched this show and I'm like, man, fuck this company.

This is the worst booked show ever.

You know, even for the people that are like, no, you guys say there are no stories.

They have great stories.

They have awful stories.

This is the worst booked show.

And they do nothing to like build up past their base audience.

I'm not even talking about like long term.

Just every show is just for like the tiniest audience.

And

man, this is a bad show.

I would have left when you left.

I don't even know when you left.

I had to watch the whole thing because I thought you watched the whole thing.

Oh,

no, no, no.

But anyway, nevertheless.

They bring MJF out at the start and they still react to him, but it's not, it's not like the old days.

And granted, they're in a a smaller building than they used to be in, but it's just

he's introduced as the CML world champion because now

they feel they have to work with CML because AAA is with WWE.

And

that may be fine to work with them, but the guy that wants the world title is already coming out with a world championship belt,

but he's going for another world.

Everybody has a belt.

It's been way past meaningless.

And I'd rather watch him in the main events at Arena Mexico than against Adam Page.

That's where you get one of them.

That's where it's like a real fun show.

That's another part of the problem: is here comes Paige,

and

they're stuck with him as champion after the last unpalatable champion.

And they're going to have a face-off in the ring with nobody in the ring, nobody separating them because they can't fight, or it's a six-figure fine.

How about having a hundred thousand dollar battle royal in Moline, Vern?

People will love it.

So, and I'm not going to tell you the promo back and forth.

And MJF, he, you know, again,

great delivery and he's very well spoken, but at this point,

it's the same thing.

And

he's having to,

he's the devil, and you know, he's

goading

Paige.

And

it's just, there's no material here.

There's no energy.

There's no interest.

MJF has the talent.

They've devalued him.

He's alone in these promos because he's got nobody to work with.

He's got nobody to produce these whole things or help with any of this booking.

And he told Paige off forever.

And then Paige responded with one of his even more boring soliloquies where he's got the phony inflections and the over-pronunciations let me tell you something there's a aew fan base right now that say that he's like the best promo in wrestling and i don't see it at all he's so fake you don't believe him and then his arguments are all ridiculous

well there's a lot of There's a lot of ridiculous people out there.

Maybe they like the ridiculous arguments.

But it's just, again,

the stuff doesn't add up.

It doesn't make sense.

It's not.

Paige

did the whole deal of goading MJF into executing his contract instead of just giving him a match.

And finally, the way he goads him into it is to, he says, you need to do that to prove to yourself that you're more than a gutless coward.

Yeah, what the fuck?

And because of MJF's insecurity, he flips out.

The devil gets pissed off.

He screams something that got bleeped as he accepted it.

So we didn't hear him accept it.

And then he realizes that he's fucked up and he has the look on his face like, oh my God, what have I done?

This is the dumbest devil in the history of the Bible.

The devil never outsmarts anybody.

The devil always gets played here.

The devil always gets goaded

into doing the shit that he doesn't want to do.

How is MGF the devil?

Unless he wins the belt.

Unless they somehow give him the belt here,

which I don't think they're going to do.

But see, no,

because that would just

salvage something out of this, but

it's not the way to present, build the match to have the devil outsmarted and then him win.

It's to see the,

you don't want to pay to see the fucking devil win something.

You want to pay to see the good guy overcome the devil,

which is what we're supposed to be seeing with Paige and goddamn Moxley.

He challenged the devil to overcome his feelings.

But yes, because the devil is insecure.

That's the thing is that MJF

going back a long time should be the one to smooth talk and outsmart and convince people until they find out otherwise that he was the devil in disguise.

Instead of coming out and saying I'm the devil and running everybody down to their lowest point and then having them make him flip out and get mad.

I don't understand the logic.

But nevertheless, so the devil got outsmarted again and he said he was going to sign the contract for the match.

And this was 15 minutes that seemed like 30, Brian, to be quite honest with you.

I don't know.

You tell me.

I find Adam Page unbearable on the mic.

And again, it is a big ground slope support behind his promos.

People who think his promos are good, and there's no one who has the emotion that he has.

In front of a small room, yeah, he does a good job of getting people to quiet down and listen and yell when he starts yelling.

But if you listen to his messaging,

it's not a mainstream babyface message.

It's a fucking weak

placeholder message.

The whole everything with Adam Page from day one has been booked.

I just call it rotten material.

So stupid, but now that he's the champion, I think it's unbearable.

Well, and here's another thing.

I always used to tell the guys in OVW, they'd do an interview.

I'd say, use some contractions.

It's what?

When you speak like this and enunciate every word correctly, because you are a coward.

Then you're giving a fucking pre-recorded speech.

When you get into somebody's ass and you're fucking reading them out verbally, you're going to say can't instead of cannot, or don't instead of do not, or you're going to use some contractions and you're not, your verbiage, your English is not going to be perfect because your emotion is carrying you away.

But he's rehearsed this in his head

and he thinks he's john ford

so how about that when movie buffs how does it help mjf if he loses the match

i don't know i don't know how they would know either but i don't think they're worried about helping mjf anymore they haven't given him any help so far like it can't be like the hurts syndicate come out and cost him a match they're the baby faces you can't the baby faces can't come out and do that and if it's that it was all a swerve and that him and the hurt syndicate didn't break up i think fans are getting a little sick of swerves again So, who knows this?

I don't think this is a swerve because, if

again, they would have done it better if they'd planned to do it all along-the separation of MJF and the Hurts after they just got him in it.

If it had been the plan, they would have done it better.

And everybody's pretty much acquiesced that it was supposed to go longer, but it got cut short.

And people are saying, well, it's because of problems, a problem with one

person in the group.

But

point being, unless MJF beats him, it's going to be kind of the shits all the way around.

And if he does beat him, I don't see how this

promoted the goddamn thing.

And truthfully, they did miss the opportunity

to, if they wanted to put the belt on MJF, the best way they could have put the belt on the devil is if the devil had goaded Paige into giving him a title shot and he still had his contract.

And Paige gives him the shot and fucking beats him.

And then fucking MGF knocks him over the head with a ball peen hammer and cash in his contract and wins it.

Then you hey, you might have had something.

Anyway,

next match was Dick the Boozer versus Kevin Knight.

It lasted 15 minutes, and I know you're shocked, but Moxley won.

Now we can start talking about what happened after that.

Brian, did you see this fucking mess?

Which mess specifically are you speaking of?

Well,

here is what happened, folks.

If you can keep track of it from the notes that I took.

Of course, Moxley wins, but again, it takes him 15 minutes to do it because they think by giving these green guys long matches and then choking them out,

it gets them over.

And then Wheeler came in and got in a sloppy, fake kind of heat situation on Kevin Knight and Hong Kong Fuye.

They stopped him.

And then Darby Allen's music plays.

And boy, here he comes carrying a skateboard and a body bag.

And he zombie walked to the ring.

And he

did the thing, wasn't this where he jumped up with the skateboard and skated off of Wheelie's back?

And he

popped up.

And then

he put him in the bag.

He put Wheeler in the bag

while Kevin Knight and Hong Kong Fu had a fight with Moxley out on the floor, but we never saw that because

he was taking so long to put this other goof in the bag.

But then Claudio came in.

and beat up Darby.

And then Claudio took forever to unzip the bag and get Wheeler useless out of the bag.

And then they put Darby into the bag and then zipped him up.

And then

put the bag up on Claudio's shoulders and gave the bag an airplane spin

and dropped him.

And then unzip the bag.

And put a chair around his neck.

And we're going to stomp it while he's laying.

Part of him's laying in the bag and they've got the chair around his neck and Claudio is going to stomp the chair how many goddamn angles

are they going to do and nothing else is going on right while all this bagging unbagging it looked like walmart at rush hour

And then Osprey is there to pull Claudio out and save him from the stomp.

I'm like, Jesus Christ, I can't remember who was even in this thing originally.

And then Osprey beat up Claudio and then beat up Wheeler.

And then Moxley stared at everybody.

And the heels wandered off while Osprey

got on the microphone and made a challenge for a tag team match player

in London.

Player?

How do you do player with an English accent?

The player.

Gov, bruv, gov, bruv.

And it's going to be in a cage.

So they just

did this angle to set up a goddamn cage match between these two teams of top alleged individuals.

It's going to happen in what is it now?

Nine, ten days away from the thing.

This was one of the biggest messes I've ever seen.

What do you think would appeal more to fans?

All of these men in a cage or loser eats worms?

I think there's a way to avoid all these injuries.

I mean, if we're just going to do stupid stuff,

like take airplane spins and fucking body bags.

I mean, if he didn't weigh 120 pounds, anyone else, they'd be dead.

Just these bumps that he takes without looking, without seeing where he's going.

But again, if you can do an angle with a body bag, put one motherfucker in the bag and zip him up.

They put the one guy in a bag and zipped him up.

They took him out.

They put the other guy in a bag and zipped him up.

They took him out.

They put him up in the thing.

They took him out.

They zipped him back in the bag.

We'll see what happens with the Death Riders.

And of course, later on, there'll be more on this show about them putting their team together for this big London extravaganza.

Did you see the girls six-man tag team match?

I believe that would be six-woman, not six-man tag.

And I saw parts of it.

Well, I saw the first part, which was the very first move of the match.

Alex Windsor is on one team and Blue Sky's on the other team.

And they tried to start doing this duck run,

reverse, go behind, duck again spot that was way over their heads.

And again, that's why somebody, some producer has to tell these people to their face, look,

you ain't that good yet.

Just do some simple shit.

But Alex Windsor ended up powerbombing Blue Sky right on her ass.

I've never seen that before.

A powerbomb to the ass.

She didn't sell it.

I've never seen it before, but I'm willing to see it again.

Well, at least she had a lot of padding down there.

But

the thing ended, I don't know who won, don't care, but there was eight girls having a sloppy fake fight in the ring.

And Tony Storm and Athena were having a fight in a balcony.

And Mercedes was involved for some kind of reason.

And after they cleared everything out, Storm and Windsor were in the ring, and they actually danced the tango.

It was like a fucking acid flashback here.

These people are on goddamn psychotropic medication.

Beam dream powder.

But they don't go to sleep.

No, no, no, no.

Ladies and gentlemen, beam dream powder will not make it you mentally where you think that AEW television is real life.

No, no,

and apparently, the reason they don't have a women's tag team title right now is because when they just had a bunch of women wrestle a match at the pay-per-view, like half the women in the match got hurt, so they keep getting hurt.

This women's division is a disaster.

Well, speaking of disasters, this is what really

this next thing is pretty much what turned my stomach:

Edge versus Stokely Carmichael,

and they huh hathaway

stokely hathaway i'm sorry

and the the whole thing has been a mess because

the christian

the heel partners and friends of christian turned on him but yet he came out was the biggest prick ever last week and insulted Edge that he's supposed to try to get to get back together with.

But

originally, FTR was turned on

by, I'm sorry, Edge was turned on by FTR

and Stokely's their manager, but they've gotten a restraining order

or something.

What the fuck?

Where they can't be around Edge or he can't be around them, but he Edge cornswaggled him into a match against Stokely, against Stokely's wishes.

And here we are today with Edge versus Stokely.

Did I do about as good a job explaining all that as they did?

I would say so.

All right.

Well, and I said this the other day, but I'll repeat it shortly, briefly, just in case anybody missed it.

The way this works is if you've established, and

one thing that I know about is forcing a manager to get in the ring with the top babyface, right?

I think everybody can give me some credit for experience with that.

You have a manager that you've put in a main event position with credible talent that has

some track record of success and has been given a lot of promos and/or a lot of opportunity to interfere on his men's behalf and to be a thorn in the side of the babyfaces and to cost them

something that was dear to them-title, money, glory, whatever, right?

Have I given them the picture, Brian?

I think so.

All right.

Then once you've established that guy,

then

as he's done something to a babyface or a group of baby faces and they want to get even, then you force him

into

signing a contract that he doesn't realize or in some way

being again snowjobbed into the ring in a tag handicap match with his boys and the baby faces, or just one-on-one, or whatever.

There's a million ways to do that.

And then, generally, that would be on a big house show or a pay-per-view or something where that is what you have built that the people need to pay to see is the babyface getting his hands on the manager to get even with some stipulations that would seem to prevent the manager's heels from helping him out.

That's the way it works.

And

now, again, if you're talking about, I said pay-per-view or big show where they got to pay.

Well, now TV, you're getting rights fees.

I can understand that, but you still have to do

the other shit to make it make any difference, to make it mean something, to make it not just be comedy and an embarrassment for Edge, who used to be a star.

And

to be a waste of him, to be slow and unexciting and boring and goofy.

And we'll get to the ratings here in a minute.

I don't honestly

know what they are at this point in time.

But

as I've said, I've done a lot of the manager wrestler matches, and all of them were either the Great American Bash or a pay-per-view or a big live event where they had to pay.

But I did one, Brian.

One

on television in WCW.

The match between me and Shane Douglas that Shane ended up bitching about.

We might tell that whole story again some other time.

Was that early 1950?

Yeah, late 89, as a matter of fact, December.

But the point is, is that that's what we had done.

I had been their advisor as well as the Midnight Express man.

Nobody gave.

And remember, people now, oh, Shane Douglas, he's been a big name forever.

No, this 1989,

he'd been a

kind of a small to medium name for about 12 months.

And Johnny Ace, John Laurinitis, everybody knows now, but back then he was the guy that waved the sheepherders flag.

So when they put him together as a babyface team to try to be in that rock and roll express vein

to work against the midnight express and it was the program was because as i've mentioned a heard didn't like the midnight and hated the dudes worse and so he didn't care what we did as long as it was with each other

but to work with the midnight express was elevating them because the midnight express had been

multiple world tag team champions, multiple U.S.

tag team champions, featured in main events for the previous four plus years.

Whereas they had no track record of anything.

You guys were over, even despite the booking of 81.

You guys were super over.

And also, because of my track record, I had managed the top guys or managed against the top guys.

When I became their advisor, it brought them up into that

stratosphere in the fans' eyes.

Then, when I turned on them, even though the people cheered it because they hated the dynamic dudes, because they were lousy baby babyfaces with a shitty gimmick.

We were trying.

It was the hand we were dealt.

But then that angered,

angered the babyfaces to want to get even with me for stabbing them in the back.

That was a reasoning.

And then finally, a month later or whatever, when they did it, when we signed the contract on television.

But it wasn't for the match I thought it was.

It was for Shane Douglas, because this was my angle, by the way.

And there's no way, there was absolutely no way that I was going to work with John Laurenitis in any capacity with two left feet and him being a klutz.

Shane could do the moves and was a fine young athlete.

He just wasn't smart to the business then.

So

we signed the contract on television for the next week.

And I shit myself and I'm scared because if I'm scared,

then the fans want to see it that's how we built the thing and hold on let me

bend over and grab my notes

i just so happen to have

in the midnight express scrapbook we shot both those tvs in greensboro at the coliseum

and win the 12, December 30th, 1989 edition of WCW Saturday Night.

So the two matches that were advertised were me and Shane Douglas and Sting versus the Dragon Master.

Exactly Sting and Luger.

Yes, but not exactly Sting and Luger at the time.

We did a 3.4 rating and a 6.5 share.

We were in

1,759,000 homes.

which by the measuring of that time period was a little over, I think, 3 million people.

It was the second highest Saturday night rating in over a year.

And the previous high rating

was the

Midnight Express and Dynamic Dudes rematch off of the Clash of Champions on December 2nd, like four weeks before that.

Because it meant something that people wanted to see me get my ass kicked and see what was going to fucking happen.

And,

you know, otherwise, this was just

a fucking clown show.

I'll tell the story later on.

That was also the start of the heat between Shane Douglas and Ric Flair

that Shane waged that one-sided 20-year program about after that, because he couldn't get over it.

Do you think these fans are invested in seeing Stokel get beat up?

No, that's the point.

He's not been established as a top guy manager.

I didn't even mean that was a pun with FTR,

as a manager of top talent because they haven't been on top since he's been with them.

And he ain't been with them that long.

And he ain't been with anybody else that ever gave a shit or mattered a shit.

And he's never accomplished anything by

basically coming out and screwing a fucking main event babyface out of a championship or a pay-per-view main event.

And he's never been allowed to go out and cut promos, meaningful promos.

He can talk.

See, it's a thing.

The talent now in the locker room and the creative teams, they think because the guy can talk and he's glib, that means he can talk.

He can talk entertainingly, but he ain't got anything to talk about

besides a little stuff to get himself over, but

he's not got, he's not got goals that he's achieved

or mountains that he's climbed, or a track record that he can rely on, or the material for a a good angle that you can sink your teeth into,

where he can talk about the evil things that he's done and the more things that his boys are going to do.

He's just out there doing funny lines, and that's what the boys now think means you can talk.

He's really entertaining.

Yeah, he's entertaining.

What's he fucking talking about?

I want to pay to see or want to go out of my way to see.

So they start the match with security throwing him into the ring where he never tries to run.

He never tries to run.

He turned around and speared Edge and bounced off.

And since the setup was so off and there's no heat in this,

the fans are just laughing because it's comedy.

But it's also obviously phony comedy.

It's not even like the manager getting his comeuppance where the people can laugh at him.

They're just laughing at what he's doing because it's obvious that it's bullshit.

And

I'm sorry, but I always took pride in having the fans laugh at me

being embarrassed or humiliated or getting

a taste of my own medicine or whatever it may be rather than the shit that I was doing was funny because it was all phony and made up and we were just jacking off.

Can you see, Brian, that there might be a little bit of a difference?

Yeah.

So then,

my notes, there was no action.

There was no excitement.

It all looked fake.

There was no energy.

There was no heat.

The fans, and he speared him again and bounced off.

And then the fans are like, one more time, one more time.

Edge got the microphone and went out in the crowd and let a fan cut a promo on Stokely.

And then he asked another one of the girls if they would fuck him.

He didn't say fuck.

But he said, Hey, any hoes out here?

Yay!

So he asked one hoe,

the self-admitted hoe.

Her name was Flo.

She was part of the show.

So,

ho, Flo show.

Basically, he said, you got to get with Stokely.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

Ho, the flow part of the show, but it was no go.

And then he just went out and grabbed Stokely and threw him back in the ring and speared him.

And it just, this took forever.

And then FTR came out, but they got a restraining order or whatever.

So they're asking Edge, don't hurt Stokely.

So Edge speared him again.

The dreaded heels begging the babyface not to hurt their manager.

Oh, yeah, please, please, don't hurt him.

Please, Hammer, don't hurt him.

And then Edge asked the fans if he could pin or should pin Stokely, and they're like, no, no,

beat him up again.

And then FTR runs in.

And I don't know if anybody went to jail over this, but Edge beat them up

and then went to spare spirit spare,

went to spear Stokely again

and now

he throws the powder

after edge

hall of fame level superstar has speared him twice now he throws the powder you know why shane douglas was pissed about that match we had and made us redo it and got that heat with flair

Because he didn't want to sell the powder.

You remember that story?

I do remember that story.

He even told me after we,

the previous week's television, we had led up to this and I told him what we were going to be doing.

If we were going to sign a contract, get me in the ring with him in the airport.

He had said, now, you know, I don't sell that powder in the eyes

because he'd been to Memphis for like three weeks and thought he knew what was going on.

And I thought he was kidding that he had a straight face.

So you.

I told him, I said, I think you're going to sell it when I throw it at you.

I let him know we're going to throw the powder.

and

the deal was

that i'm forced into the goddamn match i'm scared to death i'm at my wits end

and so when the match starts i throw powder in his eyes and blind him while the midnight express has distracted johnny ace his partner and the referee And then for like two minutes, I've got a rope in my, and I choke him with the rope.

And I've got the gimmick and I stick in his eyes.

And I got, I cheat and I let the midnight interfere and choke him while I'm drawing the referee, and anything I can to avoid this guy from killing me.

And then, after a couple minutes, I fuck up and he makes a comeback,

and boom, and I take the big bump, and he gets on me, and he's choking me.

He's going to choke the life out of me, but my shoulders are down and I get counted out.

And then the midnight hits, and Johnny hits, and they drag me out before he gets a chance to finish the job.

He didn't even pin me on purpose.

So now,

20 times in the month of January, all around the country in major arenas, the Midnight Express will face the dynamic dudes.

And if the dudes beat the midnight,

then Shane Douglas gets the five minutes with me to get even again.

It's a goddamn infomercial.

But

after we shot it,

and by the way, the people in the arena were fine with the happenings.

Flair's the booker.

It's my angle.

The only reason that the dynamic dudes at that point are even booked in anything besides to get beat because Heard hates them is because I said, okay, I'll take the other team that he hates.

And I'll work a program with the Midnight Express with them because at least we can get a match out of them.

And it's something for everybody to do.

And Flair has approved all these things.

Well, now, Shane, because like I said, he could do the moves then.

He was an athletic young man, but he wasn't smart to the business.

And he took himself even then way too seriously.

He called her.

He didn't call Flair the booker and say, Rick.

You know, I really have, I sold too much for a manager.

That was his bone of contention.

Two and a half minutes with two guys helping him blind and, or two guys helping me and blind and foreign objects, he sold too much.

Made him look weak.

So he didn't call the booker Ric Flair and ask, hey, can we do something?

He called Jim Hurd over Flair's head.

And of course, Heard

couldn't stand me, couldn't stand midnight, and didn't like Shane and Johnny.

But if it's some way to overrule Flair, sure, do it again, reshoot it.

So we got the word that now we're going to have to reshoot this deal because Shane called Jim Hurt.

So Flair immediately said, who the fuck is this guy?

Fuck this fucking guy.

We inherited this goddamn,

the most unpopular babyface tag team in history from the booking committee after George Scott because J.R.

Said, well, we ain't doing anything with these two guys.

And they're blonde and they can smile.

And he saw somebody skateboarding on TV and said, Hey, the dudes, skateboard.

Johnny couldn't even ride the skateboard, he had to carry it.

He's so Flair said,

These guys,

okay.

So, what we did was at the next TV before the thing aired, we re-taped it where I came out with a doctor's note, my arm, and a sling.

Stan Lane had a single match with Shane, and we did some kind of fucking finish.

And then the matches

that were booked for them in all the arenas for them to beat the Midnight Express and get five minutes with me, Flair just fucking beat them.

He said, fuck it, just beat them.

They don't get it.

They don't get the stipulation.

And then after a few weeks, we had about four or five left, and it was a big town.

And he said, well, this has been so fucking flat.

We'll put them over.

And then they jerk me in and cover me, boom, one, two, three.

Cause I wasn't going to, after that, because it was a personal insult, not only to me, but to Flair.

I wasn't going to fucking put any energy in taking bumps for him or trying to get him over.

So we did that three or four times.

And then the Rock and Roll Express were back and we didn't work with the dudes anymore.

And they went on to put the,

I guess, every other team on the roster over.

But that's what started the heat between Shane and Flair because then Flair said, well, fuck these guys.

Who the fuck do they even think they are?

This is a favor spot.

And he called over my head.

So he just beat him the rest of the fucking time.

But nevertheless, back to this thing.

Yes.

So

Stokely throws the powder in

fucking Edge's eyes after he's already been speared twice.

And then I i wrote idiots and then fr get the heat on edge but they hold him for stokely to throw a punch at him but stokely throws the punch at him and is still selling and falls down not the time stoke

that's not the time for the comedy that's where the manager pulls himself up in the corner and starts selling his guts or his leg or his head or his mouth or whatever and pointing at his guys.

Kill him, kill kill him.

He hurt me.

That's where your heat comes in.

Not by going over and being comedic again.

Jesus Christ, does anybody teach anything these days?

For fuck's sake.

And FTR got slow, uninspired heat and then went for the stuffed pile driver.

And Christian Cage's music plays.

Oh my God.

Here comes Christian Cage out with a spiked bat.

I know they do the spiked bat, but again, this is not the time for comedy.

It's Edge's spiked bat specifically.

But I know they do it, but it's not the time for comedy.

It's just ridiculous and preposterous to look at.

And he didn't use it and ain't going to use it.

But that's the thing.

This is the Edge and Christian reunion.

After After Edge had a five-minute comedy segment with a manager that is not over

and is then

being half-ass beaten up by

not the fucking people that, oh, Jesus Christ.

And then he comes out with a spiked bat,

but Nick Plain comes out

and swings a chair at Christian.

So Christian hits the chair with the bat.

And Nick bails, but Pip Sabian shows up, but Edge spears him.

And then the heels all leave and Edge and Christian do the bump back spot and turn around like, oh, my God.

And 500 people in the fucking Brady Music Center are chanting, hug it out.

So they did.

These guys were two of the biggest stars in the business at one time.

And they haven't been together in 11 years or whatever they said it was, however many years.

And

this is the way they put them back together.

Or this is the way they allowed themselves to put themselves back together.

And this is not having a book of

is the team FTR?

Is the team Pip and Nick?

It better not be Pip and Nick.

Because Edge and Christian gets Pip and Nick would be like fucking Dumbo and goddamn Godzilla against two mosquitoes.

I believe that is the match coming up.

Them against Pip and Nick Wayne.

But I mean, the match, is that to set up Edge and Christian for FTR?

One would hope.

Oh, it has to be.

It has to be.

If not.

I mean, it has to be.

But after all of this, why do we want to see Edge and Christian against FTR?

No, we don't want to see any of it.

I mean, that's the biggest problem with the booking is that they do these things.

They're poorly thought out.

Again, the Hardys are in TNA.

They're about to do something with the Dudleys who are reuniting.

Somehow, Edge and Christian reuniting on national TV proper means less than all of that.

This has been the whole Edging Christian feud.

When he got to AEW, that was done poorly.

Why'd you think they would do this right?

At FTR, it was noticeable how quiet the fans were when FTR got involved.

They don't care about FTR anymore.

When's the last time FTR did anything that we give a shit about seeing?

The match with the match with Juice Robinson and Jay White.

That was two years ago.

I still got it on my my DVR.

That was in July two years ago.

So, yeah, I'm not excited to see Edging Christian reunite or anything else that's going to happen here.

This whole segment was ridiculous.

By the way, folks, there's a trivia note for you.

The one modern wrestling program that I have saved on my DVR out of all the WWE pay-per-views, all of the major events, everything we've recorded is an AEW show.

FTR versus Jen and Juice.

Old Juice Robinson and old Jay White, whatever happened to him.

And that's because it was so far and away

the not only the greatest, but the only great,

what I would call great tag team match that I've seen in the past 10 or 15 years.

And it was on an AEW show.

And they never did it again.

Yeah, they never followed up with any of it.

So anyway, after that on this program, I saw what the next match was, and I'll tell you what it was.

It was Kyle Felcher, Josh Alexander, and the Hardley boys against Brody King, a guy in a mask, Takahashi, and Ishii.

And I said, that I can't do this anymore.

I was, I was nauseous.

There was about 40 minutes left into the show at that point.

And

I couldn't.

I quit.

I don't know if I missed anything.

I don't know what happened.

I don't care.

I couldn't do anymore.

You know, what happened?

Sometimes I give you a lot of guilt.

And well, you know, that you should have watched that girls match.

You should have watched Leo Scott.

I'm not going to give you any guilt here.

This is a bad show that I wouldn't have kept watching if I didn't have to.

I thought you were going to keep watching.

We'll go over what happened with the ratings in a minute.

Well, in that case, then, folks, I think

somebody, I think the moral of the story of today's program,

I don't know who it is, but somebody needs to find a new line of work.

And I think there's no better way to do that, Brian, than to follow your dreams.

Because you know, if you enjoy what you do for a living, you'll never work a day in your life.

That's what they used to say, right?

Well, I'll tell you what.

If you don't care whether you enjoy what you're doing for a living or not, but you want to make some money at it, then fucking just go ahead and do some miserable shit for a short period of time, make a fortune, and then relax and jack off.

How's that sound?

Again, I don't know if this is the advice that we should be giving the audience, but good advice is that if you do start a business, if you leave AEW to start a business, or if you have a business and you don't work for AEW, or you leave anybody else and need to start a business.

You need the right support, the right team behind you, and you can get that from our friends at Shopify.

That's right.

Because there's no me and team, folks.

And the folks at Shopify are going to get behind you.

They're going to push you.

They're going to put your nose to the grindstone.

They're going to be cracking that whip.

You come up with a product, a dream, a service that you'd like to sell, and they're going to put you to work and they're going to push you and they're going to ride you.

And they're going to whomp you and stomp you until you make millions of dollars.

It doesn't work like that.

There are no guarantees, but it does not work like that.

Well, if you break down, you know, and just fall into the dust and wither away before they've finished driving you and whomping you and stomping you, you ain't going to make millions of dollars.

You've got to be resilient, folks.

You're going to fall into the dust.

They're going to fall into the beach.

They're going to get that.

That's right.

Just right into it.

Just drop right into it.

They're going to get behind you and they're going to push you with their...

their great team.

They have hundreds of ready-to-use templates that help you build your online store,

your own design studio.

You can accelerate your content creation.

The helpful AI tools that write product descriptions and page headlines.

I'm smiling.

They can enhance your product photography.

You know, they've got a camera.

If you've got a picture of a person with their clothes on, they can take a picture of that.

It looks like they're naked.

It's enhanced.

Get the word out like you've got a marketing team behind you because you will constantly pushing you.

Work harder, longer hours.

They want you to make money because they're going to get part of it.

Easily create email and social media campaigns to beg people all across the world to give you money.

That's not

begging people to give you money.

Well, you're asking nicely.

Your business will be displayed all over the world via the World Wide Web and, of course, smartphones and all other sorts of technology.

And it's easy.

They power our online store, store arcadian vanguard.com you can find it in the shop app there's a purple button hey what's better than that shopify what's better than purple and these social media campaigns they will i'm telling you right now they're gonna make people want to buy your stuff because that's right and watch out now that kid on that bicycle oh there you go you're gonna make people buy your stuff and you're gonna work hard to create it and then they're gonna buy more of it it's gonna be an endless loop you're gonna be just a hamster in the wheel.

You're making the stuff and they're selling it for you.

You're making it and they're selling it.

You're going to have a lot of money, no time to spend it.

You're going to be a workaholic with a broken family, but you're going to be successful at it.

You will be doing what you do today, but with more support and more help for you and of course your products.

Shopify, that's the Shopify way.

This is the Shopify sound.

There it is.

Yes.

As I talked over it.

And there's more that they could do.

There's a great price to try it out.

Check it out today we trust them you could trust them jim i trust you will give that information shopify well and in shopify we trust at shopify.com you can turn your big business idea into

there it is reality with Shopify on your shot on your side.

Shopify will be on your side, ladies and gentlemen, and in the shower with you as well.

Sign up now for your one dollar a month trial period and start selling today at shopify.com/slash jce.

That's shopify.com slash jce

to start selling today and working today and living to work another day

and work till you drop in the big city.

Don't stop till you get enough.

Shopify.com/slash JCE.

How

all right.

So, so I guess before we go, the question is: did anybody watch this program this week on AEW?

Our normal monitoring of the ratings?

They were way up last week.

They were over 700,000 for the first time in what, a month or so.

Well, what happened?

AEW Dynamite

for Wednesday, August 13th, 2025, 8 to 10.06 p.m.

on TBS.

On average, watched by 690,000 viewers.

Well, that's not bad.

They are back down below 700, but they're way above the low sixes that they were in for a while there.

They were stuck in the middle with you.

3% down from last week, which was 7-Eleven, and 10% up on the trailing four-week average of 630,000 viewers.

We have the quarterly quarterly and i mean is there is there any way before you get to the quarters is there any way and in this barring any kind of major competition from a huge sporting event or a big wwe event or something

is there any way at this point they're going to do more than 750 again or any less than 550

it's always

I mean, even

have they, they've got down in the fives on dynamite, not as an overall number, but they trail off into it.

But they haven't done 750 in I don't know how long, and they never go

below 550.

So that's where their range is.

Now, this, I think, is the peak.

This is as good as it gets.

Right now, there's no NBA.

Right now is the time where you could really take advantage of the sports schedule and hopefully pull in some numbers.

But let's go to these quarterly hours.

These were compiled by WrestleNomics.

And of course, it does not include Max or HBO Max, I guess it is again.

Quarter one,

8 to 8.15 p.m.

The MJF Adam Page Live promo and the Jon Moxley promo,

864,000 viewers.

Oh, good lord.

All right.

That's the biggest lead in that they have had, and biggest first quarter, I should say, that they've had in months and months and months.

And that also shows that they're going to go back to their old pattern of starting big and precipitous drops,

you know, all the way to the end.

So

they've avoided that for the last few months now, where they've started lower, but they've maintained more of their audience and a couple of times even fluctuated.

I think, what was it, a week or two ago, one of their quarters was bigger than their first one, which never happens.

But now was there something odd on the lead in, or is it just the lack of any other sports competition?

And people are watching the Big Bang again?

What was with that lead in?

I couldn't tell you.

You know, typically MJF segments have, even with the declining viewership with AEW Dynamite, they've done better in the key demo, better.

Yeah, but typically, but this is so much higher than that.

I don't even know if that would be

when they didn't know what place he was going to be in the show and suddenly he's there and there's an extra 150,000 people sitting there waiting on it.

I

uh you know again we'll we'll see what percentage of the audience they lose, but they they had more

in in in times previous, they had more casual people

that you could tell were checking out the show until they got bored or disinterested or saw who they could see and then it just steadily lost.

They've reversed that over recent weeks.

Let's see what this does.

We go to quarter two, 8.15 to 8.30 p.m.

Jon Moxley versus Kevin Knight with picture and picture,

774,000 viewers.

Oh, good lord.

Okay, there went 90,000 right off the bat, and they've...

They got a lot of room to go to hit this average.

So they're continuing in that direction.

The direction direction continues in quarter three 8 30 to 8 45 p.m

the death riders jet speed darby allen and will osprey live angle

and the adam copeland ftr video followed by an ad break

769 000 viewers

that's not actually bad that's 5 000 that's kind of normal fluctuation i'm interested to see what my counterpart of modern times Stokely, the manager match,

has to do here.

Well, first we have to go to quarter four, 8.45 to 9 p.m.

Mercedes Monet,

as well as Tecla

and Sky Blue versus Alex Winsor, Queen Aminata,

and Willow Nightingale with picture-in-picture ads.

And the post-match with Tony Storm and Athena and the Will Osprey backstage promo

718,000 viewers.

Ooh, see that

there goes another 51,000.

Now they're down 146,000 since the start.

And

it doesn't look well for Edge and Stokely because they have a rotten lead-in, even though they're at the top of the hour.

We go to the big nine o'clock hour, quarter five, nine to nine, 15 p.m.

Adam Copeland versus Stokely and the post-match with FTR, Christian Cage

and the matriarchy, followed by a hook video and an ad break,

699,000 viewers.

All right, so they lost another 19,000.

They're under 700,000 at the top of the hour.

because of that crummy segment that led them there.

Well, the crumminess continues, Jim.

We go now to quarter six, 9.15 and 9.30 p.m.

Brody King and the conglomeration and Hiromu Takahashi versus the Don Callis family and the Young Bucks with picture and picture twice.

Oh boy, 610,000 viewers.

Good lord.

So not only was that a match nobody wanted to see and it had the buckaroo effect of running everybody off, but they went through two breaks because they couldn't just get the fuck out of there.

So now they lost 89,000 people in 15 minutes with

a kid.

Don Callis is the top manager.

Supposed to have the top stable of heels.

These guys were the EVPs, the big tag team of the year.

They'd lose viewers every time they show up.

Now they're 254,000 people down from the start of the show.

Here we go.

And by the way, they lose viewers.

They lose viewers in the key demo.

For everyone who always said that was the key objective, the overall number doesn't matter.

It's all about the key demo.

That's the only thing advertisers care about.

The only thing the station cares about.

Those are where they lose people.

And I don't have the numbers in front of me.

And I don't know if anyone has the time or the patience, but I would love to know.

Next to the Young Bucks and Jon Moxley, does anyone on AEW Dynamite have a record like they do of dropping the numbers below 500 or below 600 and the key demo under 200.

But let's go back to this.

Quarter seven, 9:30 to 9:45 p.m.

The continuation of Brody and the conglomeration in Takahashi versus Don Callis's family and the Bucks.

An ad break and the Swerve Shricklin Kazushka Okada ramp angle.

560,000 viewers.

Oh, good lord.

Under 200 in the key demo, 194.

So from

the quarter before

the Buckaroos showed up to the quarter when they were done, they lost 139,000 people, and that's in the space of 30 minutes.

Well, Jim,

let's go to quarter eight.

I remind you, we have a six-minute overrun.

Quarter eight, 9:45 to 10 p.m.

The Death Riders Young Bucks backstage angle, an ad break, and La Facion Ignoberales

versus the ops with picture and picture.

These are the things I missed, huh?

This was the main event.

570,000 viewers, 190 in the key demo, six-minute overrun.

More of that match, and Adam Page gets jumped in the parking lot by MJF.

573.

So they actually gained 10,000 viewers for LaFuckers and Goober's main event after the buckaroos had got off the screen.

So they start at 864 and end at 573 and they dip to 560 along the way.

They were officially at one point down 304,000 viewers.

from the start,

which again is well over 30%.

Remember when we would calculate it every week, they lose 35% of their audience.

If they start with a big number,

obviously, some of those people are not regular viewers, and they just happen to be there and they give them a chance.

And

sometimes they make it 45 minutes or whatever, and then they just start leaving in droves.

But, you know, whether three-hour RAWs or three-hour SmackDowns or Saturday Saturday night's main event or whatever,

the one thing you can say about the WWE and every other wrestling program I have ever heard of or been involved with,

you don't lose

a third or more of your audience that you start with by the end of the show.

And as we've mentioned 18 million times,

That used to be the highest rated part because that was your main event.

And it still is for the WWE and some other situations, but not

these fellows because the show is all the same.

It doesn't make a lot of sense.

And finally, you get frustrated.

Well, that's the dynamite way.

Speaking of being frustrated.

That's right.

Is that,

are we out of time as well as frustrated and confused?

We're all out of time.

I have no more time to spare.

There is no more time.

In that case, ladies and gentlemen, until next week or the next show or

both of the above.

Thank you, you, and bye-bye, everybody.

Get the experience, get the experience of Jim Connet

of Jim Connet

of Jim Connet.