Episode 584: Men's Wearhouse

You're juggling a lot.

Full-time job, side hustle, maybe a family.

And now you're thinking about grad school?

That's not crazy.

That's ambitious.

At American Public University, we respect the hustle and we're built for it.

Our flexible online master's programs are made for real life because big dreams deserve a real path.

Learn more about APU's 40-plus career-relevant master's degrees and certificates at apu.apus.edu.

APU built for the hustle.

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 washablefas.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.

Tired of spills and stains on your sofa?

WashableSofas.com has your back, featuring the Annibay 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 washablesofas.com and get up to 60% off your Anabay 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.

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 washablesofas.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 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 washablesofas.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 controller.

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.

He's Jim Cornette.

Well, he's never fake a phony.

He never backs down from a fight.

He never wins the pony.

Cause his mama raised him right.

It's time

to prepare

your mind.

Get the experience.

Get the experience.

Get the experience of Jim Cornette.

Hello again, everybody, and welcome to the Jim Cornette Experience from the Bad Bakers to the Neck Breakers.

We're going to cover this week's blooper reel from both of the big boy companies.

Plus, Johnny Ace makes a run at the Stooge Hall of Fame, and so much more.

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

Co-Host of You.

He ranks right up there with Arthritis and Polio as one of the three great cripplers.

Be great.

Brian last, everybody.

Aloha, Jim.

A pleasure to be here once again for another fantastic week of wrestling talk.

Again, another week where I'm really excited to hear what you're going to say about a variety of things.

Oh, my God.

You know, I actually am too, because I don't,

I don't know what to say.

We've just been talking about this, and it's like.

On last week's programs,

everybody in wrestling listened to our programs and said, let's do the exact opposite of what they've been saying and just really try to break each other's necks.

And it,

but,

but I'm happy today, Brian.

It's another rainy day here in Louisville.

It poured rain again this morning.

Poured rain, just poured rain.

And then it's going to rain a little bit more today, and then it's not going to rain for three or four days until it pours rain again.

But I'm still happy.

You You know why?

You're getting out of showbiz?

No, unfortunately, I'm still booked on the Keith Circuit through Peoria into Champaign.

But no, because Cornett's Collectibles is caught up.

I do not have the, you know, it is a burden, Brian.

It's a burden to take people's money and then owe them stuff that's got to be done correctly.

Everything has to be personalized and autographed and autographized and done to order.

This isn't a McDonald's of merchandise here.

This is cooked to order for everybody, baby.

And I have finally caught up.

Everything through May 28th is shipping out this week to the fine folks.

If you don't have it already, because this was like the last 200 packages or whatever.

But anyway,

I feel a feeling of relief and exhilaration.

All right.

I guess you're sitting over there just puny as fuck.

It wasn't exactly a question, but it's your show.

You got to take us in a direction.

Well, I want to say that.

I got to take a breath every now and then.

You got to just play the organ while I've read.

No, but

if you want to order something from jimcornet.com, the t-shirts, the action figures, the books, the certificates of the cult of cornet membership, et cetera, you can order with impunity.

But if I could ever,

if I could ever stop autographing this merchandise, Brian, I'd have time to make more merchandise.

This is this what they call a catch-22?

I guess so.

I guess that would be, or maybe not.

We got some cool stuff planned for the summer and the fall.

If you people will stop spending money and buying this stuff, then I'll make more of it.

That doesn't seem right, does it?

Again, this is your show,

your business concepts.

Well, you know, corny coin still could make a comeback at some point.

But yeah, we do have some cool stuff planned, not only the vintage stuff, but stuff, something that I'm trying to get the time to put together.

It's going to be wonderful for all the boys and girls out there.

All the boys and girls out there can get into their parents' wallets and take all those pieces of paper out that are colored green and send them in, and I'll send them these fine things.

Speaking of sending in green things, I plug again the WHAS Crusade for Children is June 7th and 8th, and I've been too disorganized to do a fundraiser this year because I just did, I didn't plan it and have time to execute it.

But I am sending $2,500 on behalf of everybody in the cult of Cornette.

And if you can figure out a way to give anything, it doesn't have to be that, obviously.

WHAS Crusade for Children, just look it up and you will see the various ways they can,

they take anything these days.

You can actually, Brian, if you want to make a, on Crusade weekend when the telethon is going on, if you just call them and say, I want to give you money, they'll send a cab to pick it up.

It's fucking amazing.

Or you can obviously do it all electronically now from the moon, like all the kids do, but still the good old-fashioned entrepreneurialism of we're going to raise money,

we'll send a fucking cab to get your goddamn money.

That always tickled me.

I think it has to be, it used to be, it had to be $20 or more.

I think now it's 50 bucks.

They put a limit on it, but goddamn gas is expensive.

Anyhow,

it's local television at its finest, I'm telling you.

And before we talk some more about television, I got an email from

our friend Pork Shop Jack.

Jack,

and it tickled me

that nobody actually has asked this question, or maybe I, because I don't live on the internet,

this actually,

I say nobody's asked the question.

He's asking the question because he got on Reddit where there was a discussion about this.

So I guess somebody has asked the question.

But he said,

with the news of obviously Sabu passed away and they had a GoFundMe, you know, set up by the family to help cover funeral costs, et cetera.

That's what he's referencing here.

And he said he found out that that was happening on Reddit,

where it sparked a discussion about how the lives of ECW wrestlers have largely turned out when compared to that of Paul Heyman, who is still featured prominently on WWE television and no doubt making very good money.

This shines a new spotlight on all the times.

Hey, man, has screwed over wrestlers with people bringing up such instances as Chris Candido and Tammy Sitch losing their house when they weren't reimbursed for charging company expenses to their credit cards.

Remember, that's when

he put them in charge of travel

and they had like $60,000 worth of some ridiculous amount of plane tickets on their credit cards and couldn't make their house payment, ruin their credit.

or not paying talents on time, et cetera, and then using their contracts to threaten them when some like Sabu and Mike Awesome attempted to go elsewhere.

So my question is,

is Paul Heyman the luckiest person in wrestling history?

I can't recall him ever experiencing a comeuppance for anything he ever did and to still be thriving today on WWE-TV when many of the ECW originals are broke, broken down, or dead.

Granted, the environment and style of wrestling was not conducive to longevity or mainstream success, but it's morbidly fascinating to see how Paul has lasted this long and has remained, to my eye, unscathed by his past actions.

Well, Jack, except for what Mother Nature has done to him.

But otherwise,

because Jack says Tommy Dreamer wanted to assassinate him at WrestleMania, for goodness sake.

How lucky is Paul?

Has he ever experienced a consequence at all whatsoever in his life?

Which would have been a fate worse than watching Tommy's booking.

What do you think about this question?

I mean, there's a lot there.

I don't think he's the luckiest.

I think he's, in terms of self-preservation and survival, the smartest or one of the smartest ever.

Yeah.

Without question.

I think.

He is today where he probably wanted to be 40 years ago, 50 years ago.

He's there now.

Is he a different person?

In terms of the screwing people over, there were a lot of stories back in the day, even before then.

I mean, just the Heyman is a liar thing didn't start with the downfall of ECW.

Well, no, and to be honest, because I was there concurrently, as the kids say, for the evolution, the metamorphosis of this.

At first, they were all entertaining stories that captivated you, even though you could kind of,

if you were with it, tell that there was Mucho Bullshadow.

But then

he got better at it.

He got around people that didn't know it quite so good.

And it, it, yeah, there you go.

But go ahead.

You know, he cost a lot of people a lot of money.

He led a lot of people on.

People would catch him in lies and he would be very charming and talk his way out of things.

You know, typically, I think if you didn't talk to Paul, you probably got mad.

If you got him on the phone or he got you on the phone, he would probably try to smooth things over in his own way.

And then a lot lot of you again.

Yeah, yes.

Well, that was part of the charm.

Have you heard of him screwing anyone over or anything since ECW?

Because

that's the thing, is he a changed person?

He's an older guy now, he's gone through a lot of things.

He's had children, they're grown.

You know, is he a different guy today?

I mean, he's well, yes,

well, yes, and also he's much better at it because he still continued to get better at it.

And now, his

what I was going to say overall of the whole thing is when when he's not in charge of the money andor making the final decisions of the business, then that's where, you know,

his heat past that is minimal in the overall scheme of things, right?

So, no, since ECW,

he has not had to be that person and has had more of a chance for his positives to come through than his potential negatives.

And it wouldn't even have

everybody said Paul was a rotten businessman, businessman without even trying to be a rotten businessman.

He couldn't hit deadlines, that he wasn't organized for the sponsors or the pay-per-view commitments for blah, blah, blah, things like that.

So, and

I mean, people can, he spent a lot of money in the sake of art or promised a lot of people money toward the end

in the sake of art, which some of that could be said of me also, but I didn't go crazy with it and think I was going to conquer the world.

So as long as he's not in those elements of responsibility, Paul hadn't,

he's, he'll still,

I mean, in the, I'm not there now in the finished meetings, but or the, you know, creative sessions, but I would think there's an element of performative aspect of Paul and in those to people to sway their opinion to what might

be wanted of them or whatever.

But I think the main thing now that Paul, as you mentioned on the biography of him, was he performs as himself

and he

creates this world and this, you know, aura and this whatever.

And he's able to apply his talent at bullshittery.

Except instead of the 20-something-year-old psycho yuppie telling a Jack Nicholson story from the China Club, he's now

the Alfred Hitchcock of wrestling, sitting sitting back and analyzing things in a calm fashion.

But it's all performance.

And I don't even mean that in a bad way because I'm a fan of his work.

But like, that's, you know, you hear people every now and then say, oh, imagine if Paul Heyman had a podcast.

Paul Heyman's a really good podcast guest, if you can get him.

He wouldn't be a good host because

too much of him in the performance mode, which is all you would ever get, it would burn out the audience quick.

He used to say that he was going to, like, if he hadn't started ECW or started ECW, went to ECW and started doing things, he was going to compete against Howard Stern in New York.

And like, no, he wasn't.

No, he wasn't.

Well, and that's it, but see, that's part of the charm of, you know, Jack Nicholson said he'd back him up.

I mean, that kind of thing.

We kind of got used to it because we saw it from the start.

But

other people, as he got better and other people were removed from the situation a little bit and just heard it from him, they thought, oh, these things are great.

But Paul is, Paul is not,

Paul's not naturally, Paul can tell a funny story, but Paul's not naturally funny.

He's better dramatic.

He's not going to do stand-up comedy.

He's going to tell captivating stories and create characters and things, but he's not going to fucking, you know, shit all over the fucking heckler, boom, boom, boom.

In terms of the question, in terms of the career span, again, he's he's one of the ultimate survivors.

I have one of the fattest files in the correspondence files I have is the Paul Heyman one.

Now,

did you mean to do that?

I'm being serious.

I'm not even...

Everything with you is about Girth.

Well, I'm just saying, hey, a lot of people are in favor of Girth.

What I'm saying is this file is pretty fat.

Fuck, I can't say it now.

You see, you're such a dick.

I don't even know who I'm defending or what I'm defending.

You're defending that fat dick.

But you see the way he was at a young age corresponding with Norm Keitzer.

And you could tell even that, I mean, it was all performance.

You know, we here at Wrestling Press International.

I mean, just all this.

You know,

it was all performance.

And, you know, again, it's lying, but it's lying like the same way David Geffen lied when he told them, you know, when he was working in the mailroom and he just, you know, stole the letter from the college saying he didn't go there.

uh you know he he lied to give himself a career and give himself a chance and he went from being a teenage kid shooting ringside at the garden

to

working for small indie promotions in the northeast doing everything from interviews to the programs

doing a studio 54 thing which is all over he took over the editorship of a couple of floundering magazines to you know he took him to he was the editor of the wrestling news i believe maybe for a brief period of time.

I got to go through.

Everybody had a chance at that at one point in time in those dark years.

Who got away with more when you think about it, in terms of the tantrums,

both privately, like the Flare one, which got out publicly because he had a lot of public.

I mean, who exposed the business more on the radio before Paul and Eddie Gilbert?

You know, and that's the thing.

They were hand in hand for so long.

Look, maybe,

you know, and I'm not justifying anything that he did that fucked up people's lives in ECW, but maybe the Paul Heyman from 93 to 2001 running ECW with a crazy lifestyle, maybe that's a different guy than he is today, not to say that he's not completely full of shit.

And

you'll never get to see the real Paul Heyman.

It'll never be out there.

It'll always be just this performance, and it's incredibly entertaining.

Well, what exactly was the question?

Is he the ultimate survivor?

What was the the question?

Well, has he ever experienced a consequence at all?

And of course, everybody's had the ups and downs.

And of course,

I think we worked out he's been fired more than me from various places.

So, but

the overall thing is, I got a tickle out of the email because it's like, is Paul Heyman the luckiest person of wrestling in history?

I never looked at it that way, but Jerry Lawler broke his chase.

There's a consequence.

Jerry Lawler broke his cheeks.

Well, I was about to say, Lawler, you know,

tag your it.

And, but if Paul has had his ups and downs, obviously, and he went out of business into bankruptcy and all that, that, that, by,

but nobody's actually

besides Lawler, now that you bring it up, uh, besides him, Tommy didn't actually hop the rail and,

you know, engage in organized mayhem.

But the thing about the guys,

okay, so he went out of business.

I can sympathize more with the fact that he owed guys money when he went out of business than the state that some of them ended up in later because of the, we've talked, we've been talking about this, it's topical.

The fucking shit they were doing, and you see the sabu highlights and he's flying through the end of barbed wire and the fucking throwing people over the top into the crowd, not only the risk of lawsuits from actual collateral damage from citizens,

civilians, you know, in those things, but the guys

coming very close like they still are today because of some of this shit to breaking their fucking necks or actually not coming close.

How many broken necks were in ECW, Brian?

You're not only a mathematical savant, but also a wrestling historian.

I mean, one of the Pit Bulls and Sabu.

Sabu, one of the Pit Bulls, Taz.

Taz?

I mean, they have to be more than that.

those are the three early ones those are those are the from the early days the three I remember yeah point being that we came up with three broken necks because they all happened on TV sabu got thrown in the air by benoit landed right on his head yeah pitbull i think got ddt'd and just landed right on his head and then taz i want to say was like a stuffed pile driver or something and he just went and he landed right on his head right on his head Well, but the point is,

you know, in his dream of trying to run a wrestling promotion, if everybody, if he went out of business and owed people money,

that's what that's happened.

But

to have fostered the environment for that many years of, well, let's just fucking kill ourselves in the process of this.

That's where I've always had the problem.

That's what we were talking about last week.

That's where somebody.

ought to step up.

They already have stepped up in the WWE

and told some people people not to do some things.

And apparently they need to step up and tell Pinta a thing or two.

But AEW, nobody's controlling anything or trying to that we have heard.

And, you know, that's the thing because Paul, I've said before,

and I love his talent.

And he is one of the classic carry.

He's the Jack Pfeffer of modern wrestling.

He's a classic character, but he wasn't doing any of that shit.

He wasn't falling into the barbed wire or diving over the fucking deals.

And,

you know, yes, again, I've called guys, do a drop kick in the finish.

I couldn't do a fucking drop kick, but it's, I've always looked at it as if you are the booker,

promoters can be different.

They cannot give a shit, but if you're the booker,

you wouldn't ask guys to do something that you either haven't done or wouldn't do in concept if you had the jumping ability or whatever, right?

Try to

not ask somebody to fucking kill themselves if you're not going to be out there doing some of the same kind of similar shit.

And

Paul wasn't doing any of that, but he didn't bring the guys back, even for the good of his business.

Because in 1990, fucking

eight or whatever it was, when they were trying to be big, but they weren't yet and whatever.

Couldn't he just say, just slow down a little bit?

We don't have to do this every week because we have to be here hopefully in two or three years with everybody with their head on their shoulders.

Not figuratively, literally.

I think his concern was less about people getting hurt and more about people jumping to WWE or specifically WCW.

Well, God, if I was being asked to fucking set myself on fire and dive into barbed wire every time I went to work, I might jump to the competing fucking

package shipping office or whatever, too.

Anything, get me out of here.

He had them, he had them convinced that with the

Pauli speeches, that they were a movement and they were a revolution.

And it was, it changed the business.

They didn't make any money out of it, and we still can't get rid of it.

And guys are still trying to break their neck.

If you know, and that's

yeah, I was thinking while I was thinking about this, Brian.

I was thinking while I was thinking about it.

Did I ever tell you the only time that I, as a booker in Smokey Mountain Wrestling, or when I was on the creative committee and happened to see anything in WCW or

Ring of Honor or OVW, whatever the fuck.

The one time that I can think of that I stopped a match as a booker because I thought somebody was

up

and nobody was going to stop it but me.

Do you know what?

Have I told you that, or do you remember when that was?

Oh, I don't know.

Is this another one of those Russ McCullough stories?

No, Smoky Mound Wrestling.

I brought the Moondogs in.

Larry Latham, and

folks, if you don't look up the Moondogs is all I can tell you.

Don't stop now.

Who was the other guy?

Well, hold on.

I'm going to tell you here in a second.

But But for the kids who might not have even heard of the Moondogs, look up the Moondogs, 80s, WWF.

But they

basically were over in the Memphis territory and in Tennessee from the 83 run they had with the fabulous ones, all the fucking bloodbass and the wild ass shit.

It was Larry Latham and Randy Collie.

Spot and Rex, the Moondogs.

And then they made some money with it in the WWF.

But then in the early 90s, Larry Latham and a couple of different partners had come back in Memphis and

did a program with Jerry Lawler and Jeff Jarrett.

And the wild ass matches and the trash cans and the chairs.

But it revitalized their business because

somewhat, not for the standard of the time, they were doing well.

But it was like bringing.

It was pre-ECW, pre-ECW, actually, when you think about it, because that mempha, those tapes were going around and the moondog stuff with Richard E.

Lee and just

a variety of moondogs, and it was wild stuff.

Two befores, whatever.

But it, it, it was like bringing the chic in, but the chic was too old.

So now we've got another gimmick.

It was the gimmick, and they were the ones doing it.

And the baby faces only had to do it when they worked with the moondogs, and that was part of the deal.

And you, it, it got attention, and you couldn't do it too long.

But anyway, so the point is: 83 in Memphis, draw money with the fabs.

They go to the WWF, the name gets out of blah, blah, blah.

But Larry Latham was from,

goddamn, somewhere in Arkansas near like West Memphis, or somewhere in Arkansas near Memphis.

And he lived there.

And they had had the early 90s run, as I said, with Lawler and Jeff.

Was in 93.

I think he called me.

I don't remember calling him, but he was pitching the idea of the moondogs.

I said, Larry, you got a partner?

He said, Well, this kid, I can't remember what this kid's name was.

I broke this kid in.

He can do the gimmick.

I said, Well, I think I said, I can give you all, you know, 300 bucks a shot for the team, which now that's, you know, like $900 or $1,000 today.

But he said, I said, I said, Suppose $150 each.

He said, well, no, you just give me the 300 and I'll take care of him it's okay

so i bring him in to have a program with the rock and roll express a classic monsters against the my baby faces and then

had the moondogs against ron and don harris the bruise brothers because now you got the baby face monsters against the heel monsters

and you know and then it was time for him to go but When I first brought him in to television, point I'm going to make,

their deal is they jumped the job guys and they beat the shit out of them and they hit them with chairs and they, I'm blowing the whistle.

I'm their manager.

And, you know, everybody's seen that drill and seen the moondogs.

And I booked them against guys that they could just beat up.

And, you know, you're working with the moondogs.

So it's kind of like in the 80s working with the Road Warriors.

You know what's going to happen.

But there had been this one guy in Morristown, Tennessee.

that every time this convenience store that was on the way out of town when we went to the Kentucky towns,

He'd been wanting, he'd been working out law and wanting to get booked.

And every time I saw him, he wanted to get booked.

And finally, I called him.

I said, well, work with the moondogs on TV.

Okay.

So I figured at least this will discourage him if nothing else.

But they're having the match, and Brian Hillbrand, Mark Curtis, is the refereed.

It's a TV match.

One of their, I can't remember if it was the first one they'd done or one of the first ones.

And I think Brian's trying to control the shit in the ring.

And Larry's got this guy out

on the floor of the

high school gym that we're shooting the TV in.

And Larry Latham picks up a steel chair, just the same kind that you get at Home Depot, no padding, no nothing.

And this guy was on his knees in front of him, and he just raised it up and hit him as hard over the fucking head as I've ever seen.

I don't even know how to explain to you the sound or the force or the way it looked or just the guy crumpled.

And I said, well, shit, he's killed him.

And I'm waving at Brian.

I said, ring the bell.

And Brian turns around.

Brian says, so what?

I said, ring the bell.

Just stop it.

Just stop it.

He's dead.

He's killed him out here.

Because Brian, I think, was still trying not to see all the chairs and shit.

So we wouldn't DQ it or whatever.

And he just couldn't ring the bell.

And then they still, the moondogs are still beating these guys up i don't think that first guy was up yet but they're wanting to do more and i'm blowing the whistle for real for going good it's over we're out of time we gotta go we're gonna break get them and i finally try to get them to settle down

and because i'm sure i've seen well this guy's got brain dead we're gonna have to call an ambulance here in a minute and i can't remember

I may have even had to go to the desk and do a promo first, right?

Or whatever.

But as soon as

we got back in the fucking locker room, I went to, I said, where is that fucking guy?

And

there he was.

And he came up to me.

He said, did I do okay, Mr.

Cornet?

Do you think you could use me again next month?

God damn, I never will see you again.

Fuck.

Why are you going to blame him?

No, I said, get out of the business.

Consider yourself lucky.

No, there was no way he was ever going to make any money in the wrestling business and and you know but jesus christ but i stopped the match that i was in as booker because i thought well no that's too much we can't do we've we've gone too far damn it

and i'm just i don't know

if i now

make sure i'll finally give you a shot against the moon dog what did you think was gonna happen well now there's there's a lion that needs to be crossed I thought he'd get, I thought he'd get a good indoctrination into job guy, and I didn't know he was going to get fucking brain damage.

Now, it was hard to tell from before or after with this fellow if he suffered any ill effects in that department, but I didn't want to fucking hasten his goddamn decline.

But no, and then, and this, see, this will remember this was years before

ECW ECW also.

So, when I saw the chair shots that poor old Boo Bradley Balls Mahoney was taking,

and that, you know,

but anyway, that's what I'm saying is sometimes you got to.

I'll tell you another one now that I've just thought of it.

To be honest with you, did I tell you what I called an ambulance on somebody?

In the middle of a match?

As Booker, yes.

No, I don't know.

I was in laugh because I don't know where it's going to go, but no, I don't know the story.

I was in the goddamn match again,

but I was also the booker in Spokey Bout Wrestling.

We had,

I think it was one of the fire on the mountains in Johnson City, Tennessee at Freedom Hall.

And it was the 10-man rage in the cage

where it was Bullet Bob Armstrong, the Rock and Roll Express, and two of Bob's sons, which I'm thinking were Scott and Steve.

And it was my guys,

the...

The bodies were in it.

I'm trying to think who else my heels were and me,

right?

And you go in war games rules where you go in one at a time from each team and finally you're all in and the blah, blah, blah.

And of course, I'm going to be the last one in

because

I'm a scared.

But anyway, what I didn't know until we had the match laid out and the match was going perfectly according to Hoyle.

But what I didn't know, because I was doing promos or whatever earlier in the day and didn't just sit there and stare at everybody's conversation, but Ricky Morton and one of the Armstrong boys, I don't know if Scott or Steve, were having a debate on, because they were both going to get juice in the cage match, right?

But they were having a debate on the best method of the blading process.

And one of them was favoring once across lightly.

That was the Armstrong.

while Ricky Morton was favoring to stick it in and turn.

And I don't know if they actually got goddamn

you know heated over it or whatever but the match is going long and all of a sudden boom

you know armstrong has got his juice and there's you know things are going on just fine and boom ricky gets his and god damn

ricky morton starts bleeding

like tommy rich after a three-day bender in the omni or something And I'm like, fuck.

And as the match is going on,

you know, they've got Ricky down and he sells.

he sells like Ricky Morton.

Have you ever heard that, Brian?

That Ricky Morton sells like Ricky Morton.

I've not heard that, no.

So you don't know whether he's dying or not to begin with, even if he's not looking like he's ready to pass out from blood loss.

And finally, and Sandy Scott, I'm still at ringside, right?

You know,

maybe one of the other heels

waiting to go in.

Sandy Scott comes up behind me and says, Is he all right?

I'm not sure.

Why don't you call an ambulance just in case?

It's like we're having this conference while all the people are screaming as cage matches going on.

So Sandy goes back in the back and uses one of the payphones, call a fucking ambulance.

So there's a man losing blood.

Yeah, what did he say?

He can't say, because,

you know, the thing is, it's number one, if it's not needed, we don't want to have to pay for it.

But also, he can't say one of the wrestlers in the match is bleeding too badly, but it hadn't been stopped or whatever.

He just says, everyone, the wrestlers is losing blood.

He yanks up.

Did he call 911?

Well, he called whoever he called an ambulance in Johnson City, Tennessee in 1990.

911 emergency.

There's a wrestler losing blood.

Wrestler in Freedom Hall is losing blood.

We need an ambulance.

So

then

he walks back past me and he nods like I've called him, right?

And Ricky's hanging over the ropes and I'm he's goddamn drenched.

It looks like somebody's turned a bucket of red paint over his head.

And finally, my time has come and I get in there.

And

obviously, I'm trying to stay away from Bullet Bob, but but in some way or another, the situation is not dire for me now where I can go over and get on top of Ricky Morton and I get on him.

I go, are you all right?

He's, yeah, I'm fine, Jimmy.

He said, get on me.

I said, well, what's the fuck?

You're goddamn going to bleed out.

No, it's okay.

So

then I start beating on him.

And then we finish the match.

Obviously, they beat me in some fashion in the end.

And then we get to the back.

Well, now the back of the fucking ambulance is pulling up.

And, of course, Ricky's selling in the locker room or on the way to the locker room.

And as he gets in the locker room, he's looking at the ambulance over there.

He's kind of covered his head up and the towel we've got for his blood.

But the ambulance people come in and there's Sandy and they say, where's the emergency?

Oh, what do you

somebody call you guys?

Well, one of the fans must have called.

They see one of the wrestlers was bleeding, but he's all right.

They must have called you guys from a payphone or something.

So we didn't have to pay for the ambulance.

But it looked for a minute, it looked like it might be necessary.

So we wanted to have the option.

Emma, was I too compassionate of a booker, a matchmaker?

I don't know.

I don't know about that.

I don't know if anyone's ever talked about your your compassion as a booker or a matchmaker.

Well, see, more people ought to then.

Anyhow, was this, were we talking about, were we talking about Heyman?

I don't know.

We originally

kind of went from there, but just dangerous stuff and stuff that shouldn't be too dangerous.

And

when do you, when do the people in charge

have a responsibility to not let

people fucking do stupid shit that is not worth the goddamn risk, or just set up a pattern of doing stupid shit

so that that becomes the norm.

And then the next people have to do stupider shit to get the same reaction.

And then that's where we are at today after all of this.

Yeah, now you know not to really react unless the referee looks really concerned, unless the referee drops down quick to get in the other person's face and go, you alive?

Oh, yeah.

And then, you know, well, but at the same time a lot of this shit fools the referees then they're gonna start doing that every time too then they'll drop down and say are you alive

tired of spills and stains on your sofa washable sofas.com has your back featuring the anime 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.

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 washablesofas.com offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply We'll talk more about the blooper reel when we get to the modern wrestling, but we got another email, Brian, and you sent me this.

It was to the corny drive-through at gmail.com address, but from

our friend Adam Smith in East Yorkshire, England, who does the great research.

And

where does he get these crazy toys?

He's got like

any historical event or,

you know, just evolution of wrestling.

He's got the goddamn, the poop on the thing.

And did you even read it or did you just forward it to me?

Do you have any idea what I'm even speaking of?

I glimpsed through it and I said, you know what, let me send it to Jim because if we're going to do it on the air, let's do it on the air.

But this guy has sent over a few things and seems like he really does his research and knows his stuff.

Well, yeah, this is five fucking pages or whatever that I printed out of this email, but we will not read chapter and verse the whole thing, but it got me, it started because we've been talking about it's pertaining to

early television.

Remember a couple weeks ago on one of the programs we talked about in Memphis, we found out in like 1949 when WMC went on the air, they were able to broadcast wrestling from across the street at the Ellis Auditorium because they actually ran extension cords across the fucking street.

And

the, you know, pioneer days and primitive days of television, and then the early network broadcast.

We've been talking about that on and off for ages and eons.

Well, he's got all kinds of

research that he's done.

And Broad, I will hit you with a trivia question

that I bet you will not know the answer to,

because I didn't until I looked it up specifically.

Do you know where the world's first TV station was located?

The world's first TV station?

Yes.

My first guess would have been New York, Manhattan, but if you're asking me a question, that probably wouldn't be it.

Columbus, Ohio.

Well, no, and see, I don't know New York City metropolitan geography, geography, so you could have been close, but the world's first TV station

was inaugurated in 1928

at the General Electric Facility in Schenectady, New York.

Now, where is that?

That's, you know, outside of New York.

I wouldn't necessarily consider that.

But basically,

they opened a TV station because they're inventing television.

They had to have

a TV station to try to broadcast television in order to fucking invent television, right?

So that was for 1928.

They had electricity in Menlo Park for a reason.

Yeah.

They had to be able to turn the lights on and see.

And I knew this already from, you know, I'm a TV nut anyway and documentaries and everything, but actually.

A lot of people talk about the beginning of television as 1948,

your book, Prime Time,

Network TV listings or schedules, 1948 to present or whatever.

The schedule book, yeah.

That was when it

exploded, when it ballooned exponentially.

But there was actually television, World War II delayed commercial broadcast television in the United States and therefore in the world.

by probably four or five years because

a lot of the advancements they had made leading right up to the war, they had to put on hold because they had other fish to fry and then came back and did the last, what, two or three years of finishing everything.

But there were TV stations starting to go on the air,

you know, even during the war.

And the first one,

which was in Schenectady,

is also the first one that recorded wrestling for television, according to Adam's research.

WRGB TV,

located on Washington Avenue in Schenectady, New York, recorded wrestling for television on December 18, 1942.

That was the first time

in the United States, it says here, probably in the world.

And when you think about it.

And by the way, that's by Albany.

I just checked.

I didn't even realize where it was.

Well, and I mean, you know, General Electric happened to be there, their headquarters for television, at least, for that type of thing.

It would have been wherever their,

you know,

manufacturing place was, but

it wasn't because of the population.

Nobody had a television set at that point, especially, you know, until after the war.

But they were trying to figure out what can we do with this.

And think about it.

When

you're trying to figure out whether you can broadcast any video signal or not successfully, you're not going to try to cover football or fucking baseball or basketball.

Wrestling, we can stick it in a room with lights and it's there, 20 by 20 feet.

So that was just, you know, experimental, but who was promoting it?

Well, there was, I don't even, it doesn't say here in this research that he sent whether it was even promoted or not, or whether they just said, hey, let's try to shoot wrestling as one of the things we're trying to shoot.

And the book I have, I believe that would really be the network era, because what you're talking about, 1928, that's before

there was a network system in place for,

you know, ABC, well, eventually ABC, but CBS, NBC, Dumont, ABC.

Right.

Well, the network, this was 1942

was before the radio networks existed, and that's why NBC and RCA Corporation were trying to lead the charge into television because they were going to branch off into NBC.

But

point being,

at that point, you know, they were broadcasting to nobody.

And then

At this point, then after the war, we've talked about the Chicago broadcasts.

The first attempt at a regular broadcast of professional wrestling occurred in Chicago, July 1946.

In association, WBKB,

in association with the American broadcasting company, ABC,

started showing the Wednesday night shows from the Rainbow Arena.

They had tested it in July, and the resultant broadcast was deemed to be of sufficient quality to begin a regular broadcast.

And the

show was an instant hit with the viewing audience, such as it was at that point.

We'll get to that in a minute.

But

so that's another reason Chicago

was always mentioned and was always talked about in the television conversation.

They were there from the absolute start for the

viewing public, for mass consumption.

And that was ABC.

And

then in 1947

in St.

Louis,

they got regular television service on February 8th, 1947 with KSD Channel 5.

It was owned by the Pulitzer Group that owned the St.

Louis Post-Dispatch.

And

it was announced that the debut broadcast for KSD-TV on the 8th of February, 1947

would contain 15 minutes of sports interviews hosted by program director Harold Grahams.

Among those interviewed would be St.

Louis Cardinals catcher Joe Gargiola

and Wild Bill Longshen.

Longzen would be demonstrating wrestling holes on Grahams during the program.

And everybody loved the segment.

Longshen demonstrated some arm holes before hoisting the host into the airplane spin.

And the St.

Louis Post-Dispatch reported that it seemed to many as if Longzen was going to hurl Grahams through the television screen and into the laps of the audience.

But

for our purposes, this appearance made Wild Bill Longson the very first professional wrestler ever to appear on television in the city of St.

Louis.

Wow.

Of all the wrestlers.

He was the guy.

Yeah.

Wow.

But, and also,

do you think Fez turned off his TV set?

As a matter of fact,

that station also did the first successful transmission of television pictures west of the Mississippi River took place on October 8th, 1946, when that station made a test recording of a parade and

apparently aired it.

Blah, blah, blah.

But anyway, and one more thing here.

We got to go all the way to the end because this is another

discussion

because there's so much information here.

But Los Angeles,

we won't even get into the start of the

television era in L.A.

because we'll do that at another time.

This is all so detailed, but

Brian, do you remember, have you did Rock Rims,

the book that he did on Southern California wrestling may have been where I read this or wherever the case, but remember there was a revolt amongst the Southern California wrestlers, late 40s, early 50s,

because so many of the matches were being televised around the territory that the live gates were

down and their payoffs were down, and the promoters were keeping the money from the television.

And there were

efforts at strikes or talks of strikes.

And I think the TV union people got involved or whatever and the promoters had to kick something in do you remember where we might have read that or do you know anything about that well i'm pretty sure rock rims would have covered that in his southern california he did a northern california book and a southern california book if they're still available anywhere uh i don't even know how you find google i think everyone every once in a while he he finds five or six that he that he sends out an email they're like you know goddamn Fabergé eggs.

But he did great research, and I believe that would be where you read.

I can't think of what other book you would have read that story in.

Well, but at any rate, the point was that they started.

See, there's some element of truth in all of the old

rules of thumb in wrestling that the modern era and generation sometimes scoffed at as, well, it wouldn't be, you know, be the same today.

There was a reason why that they were rules of thumb because

the shit that you didn't want to happen had happened before with negative result,

whether it be exposing the business in New York and the wrestling business in New York goes to the shits for 12 years, or

in this case,

the studio wrestling shows evolved

as a ways for the promoters to use television as a tool of promotion to their live events where people had to buy tickets.

But originally,

when there was no studio wrestling per se, and we were, you know,

all in wrestling, we're figuring all this stuff out.

They just showed matches.

And in some places, like Chicago,

they were able to

control it and make a boom out of it.

And

the matches all came from the

smaller clubs, as they say.

And you didn't get Thez and Rogers.

I know it's out on YouTube now from the archives, but that was not the normal fare that you would get on TV, even in the network days, right?

But where that you had put main events on television,

it had killed live attendance at live gates or where you showed the arena matches themselves.

It really hurt live attendance at the live gates.

That was a rule of thumb for a long time, which is why it developed that.

You didn't see main event matches on TV and you had studios to advertise the big shows.

Listen to this statistic, Brian, and tell me what you think of it.

Because remember a few weeks ago,

and I think it was Adam's research,

talking about how Los Angeles wrestling had been on its ass during the war

and then

had gotten hot again with the new talent and the new booker.

and was doing just land office business right as television got started,

1948, 49, widespread commercial tv

well the the opposite happened a few years later

it says wrestling matches from the grand olympic auditorium in los angeles were not broadcast from 1949

until december 1952

this somewhat protected the olympic from the box office downturn seen across southern california when broadcast resumed in december 1952, it immediately decimated the live gate.

Comparing ticket sales and grosses shows the huge decline.

Listen to this, Brian.

Los Angeles Olympic Auditorium is what we're talking about, not any other towns or any other buildings.

In 1952, they sold 221,979 tickets and grossed $311,966.

Is this based on what they filed with the State Athletic Commission?

What is this based on?

Yes, yes.

Well, this is, yeah, this is the figures that they reported.

Obviously, down to the penny, it has to be for

the tax.

But yeah, for 221,000 tickets sold, $311,000, because tickets then

$0.75, $1,250, whatever the fuck.

1953,

38,000 tickets sold and they grossed $36,000.

It went from 221,000 tickets to 38,000.

Same amount of $311,000 to $36,000.

How many dates difference?

What that said it was weekly.

The Olympic Auditorium in those years was weekly.

So they went from averaging,

what is it, 221,000 divided by 50, 4,000 to 5,000 people a week every show to

fucking bleh

i'd like to know what hollywood legion was doing at the same period of time well and see that's that's the thing is that

uh they were doing all kinds of ocean beach arena i mean it's a fascinating it's a yeah book story in itself but

uh In 1952, matches from Hollywood Legion Stadium broadcast on KTTV on Mondays, Long Beach, on Thursday evenings on KTLA, Ocean Park, KCLA, Friday, workouts, KLAC on Sunday.

Some of those survive.

We've seen some of those LA wrestling workouts, which were an interesting thing, just commentary over guys like babyfaces just working through moves with each other.

But that's, you know, again,

that's the thing is that there was so much on television and the boys' payoffs were

were getting smaller and then they had to do deals where they would rotate they wouldn't show every match from the valley gardens arena every week they'd only do it once a month and but they had the wilmington bowl the valley gardens arena ocean park arena southgate arena

and 1952 and this doesn't count

That was the year of the Gilmore Field show with Thez and Leone.

So they were so hot because

they were still showing the smaller town stuff,

but they didn't show the Olympic.

And when they started airing the Olympic 2, it just completely burned everything out.

And what else would people need to pay to see?

Well, I think a lot of it, too, was the morphing of professional wrestling in different parts of the country, but specifically here LA.

to a television product, not just an event being filmed and put on TV with commentators.

And very often in L.A., they had Dick Lane.

The commentators were as big as the wrestlers in some places, especially in the early days.

Jack Brickhouse, like the guys who did wrestling.

But LA, if you think about like the boom, think about like the business in the early 60s, the Destroyer, Fred Blassey, you know, eventually the stuff they did with Tolis and Blassey.

It was all about the promos.

It was all, not all about the promos, but the promos were a big part of it.

The Destroyer's promos were a big part of it.

And I think LA, as time went on, became a like a perfect wrestling television show.

Eventually they had the studio show with Dick Lane.

And then that went away and it just all became

all became Gene LaBelle yelling on the mic at the Olympic.

And by the way, Dick Beyer, I found a clipping.

Some stuff I was researching from 1957 with a rookie or almost rookie, Dick Beyer,

six years before he would set the all-time television rating record with in Japan, he was working with Pat Malone.

That's just classic to me, those generations crossing.

I just found the program.

I'll say it now.

I won't say if it forgets the program.

I have it over here somewhere.

I think it's 1937, Dayton, Ohio, Eddie Malone.

Is that him?

Yes, that's him.

He may have been the light heavyweight champion of England at that point.

The closest Pat Malone had been to England was fucking Oklahoma at that juncture, but he was the light heavyweight champion of England much of 1937 was Eddie Malone.

But point being, yes,

there's these things as wrestling and television was starting to intersect and form

the modern era of both.

A lot of this shit, you know, led to trial and error.

And sometimes it helped business and sometimes that's why

some promoters until the late 50s

said, we don't want that television.

Sam Muchnick

wouldn't do a television wrestling program in St.

Louis except for the two-year period that a brewery actually sponsored it and footed the bill, and then they syndicated St.

Louis wrestling on TV to like Carbondale, Illinois, and

I think maybe somewhere near Evansville, whatever the fuck.

But when the sponsor dropped out because they sold the brewery or whatever, he said, no, we're not going to do any more TV unless somebody pays for the whole thing.

So through most of the 1950s until Wrestling at the Chase started, they were doing those fucking houses in the Keel Auditorium with newspaper publicity.

Do you know when LA?

Every place was different.

When did LA get their studio show?

Because they had a studio wrestling show for a while.

Well, dad gummet, let me just check here with Adam, who knows all the answers.

Um, oh my god, there's a lot of it's so dark because it's raining today.

Because I wonder just how much success was attributed to the concept of studio wrestling nationwide.

I don't know that he is going into the era that the studio show would have appeared because these are, this is still all the early 50s and the television contracts and et cetera.

So we'll have to revisit that.

You know, in the stuff out of Chicago, the wrestling as you like it, which eventually became wrestling life, but there's a period of time,

geez, off the top of my head, maybe 50 into 51, where the big thing on the cover was now with television listings.

And it was focused towards wrestling fans who were also going to watch all the wrestling that they were advertising in these Chicago programs.

Here are all the places you could watch it.

And it was all about getting the television viewer, the early television viewer.

And that's so cool because they would also be kind enough to

go through.

They would list the television schedule for like the three or four channels that was in Chicago at the time.

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, by day and time, the old TV listings that folks like us remember, you kids.

But they would put the wrestling shows in bold so you knew when to watch the wrestling shows.

That's right.

But that was a selling point because,

again, for the kids, and we'll wrap this part of it up, and then we'll go to something that happened this week on TV that is a horse of a different color.

The reason why, again, that 1948 is most often given as the start of television is because that's when the basic

nighttime scheduling of network TV programs began, even though that was still confined to the northeast for the most part there was no

transcontinental coaxial cable in those days and they had to ship film canisters on you know planes or whatever for a day or two later on the west coast but

people started buying televisions

and

Milton Burrell and the Texaco Star Theater and everybody always says gorgeous George, but the wrestling phenomenon in general

are the things that were mostly given credit for between 1948 and 1950.

I know the kids can Google it.

But television ownership in the United States increased more exponentially than almost any, I think faster than the internet did, faster than cell phones, faster than any,

even the radio, any kind of modern technology, from being in virtually like single digit percentage of people's homes to being in fucking at least half of them, if not more.

And so that was why everybody went wrestling crazy.

And a lot of the shows that were popping up were radio shows.

You know, Arthur Godfrey was big on radio before he was the biggest thing on television.

And there were lots of serials, whether it was Ozzie and Harriet or whatever.

Adam Costello.

I mean, there were lots of things that went from radio, Amos and Andy.

I mean, there were lots of people.

And

Yeah, there were lots of things, lots of people that were major radio hits.

So, when all of a sudden, something or someone you've been listening to for a while has a weekly, or in some cases, a daily television show, that's a big selling point.

But of course, they were simpler times back then, Brian.

Yeah, how big was the screen?

Hey, right?

When I was a kid, and my father's mother, my grandmother on my father's side, had had some kind of surgery.

I don't know.

I'm three,

two, whatever, three, I don't know, but she had to come stay for a while, right?

While she recuperated.

And they fixed her up, her bed and her room and everything.

And she had brought or they had brought her TV from home.

Now, this was say 1964, maybe, right?

And this TV is at least 10 years old.

So that means it's from the early 50s.

I didn't have an appreciation for it at the time, but I remember just that it sat on the tabletop there and it looked cool and the rabbit ears.

But the goddamn pit was black and white, obviously.

And the screen was like 12 inches.

And I'm like, even then we had bigger TVs, right?

But that's what they were doing.

They were sitting there.

That's another reason why football.

didn't just run away with the goddamn ratings like wrestling and boxing

because

you're looking in black and white at a 12-inch screen of a shot of a fucking 100-yard goddamn field.

What the fuck have you got there?

Right.

But they could actually

sequence but gorgeous George and his sequins coming out there.

Yeah.

Popped off the screen.

And so that's what that's what worked.

Anyway, would you like to talk for a minute, Brian, about what doesn't work or who doesn't work?

Apparently, Penta doesn't work.

He's shooting, isn't he?

What in the

teetotal?

I'm trying not to cuss within your time parameter for the YouTube clip.

Son of a gun.

You pickle, you cum quat.

Shut the front door.

What the French toast?

If I've killed enough time yet or not.

Did you say French toast?

Hey, quit now.

What the fuck was this guy doing?

What the fuck?

Get back on Penta because now we, what we do is we call it where we see it and we, or we call it how we see it, and we call it where we find it, or we

piss on it whenever we feel like it.

I don't know what I'm trying to say here, but we got to be fair because we're going to poop all over the parade of the AEW folks when we talk about how they almost assassinated the roster on their show.

We must give equal time, even though Penta kind of qualifies as both because he's an AEW veteran that is now

in the company that's supposed to tell him how to slow down and not kill anybody.

And

we didn't watch, I didn't watch Raw because God, last weekend, SmackDown was three hours.

Saturday Night's Main Event was two hours.

Raw was three hours.

The pay-per-view from AEW was four and a half days.

And what, if, even if we'd watched it, why would we talk about all of it?

My God, is there no fucking mercy in the world?

But so I didn't see this clip for a couple days.

But

have you now seen this

act that Penta perpetrated on Raw the other night?

I watched Raw this week.

So I saw it when it happened and I saw it in real time.

And it looked bad.

in real time.

And again, when you see the referee as fast as he can get to the ground and get in the guy's face,

you know that the referee saw it the same way you did.

And it seemed like the commentators thought it was bad, too.

It seemed like everyone thought it was bad until he just kept working.

Well, and he tweeted a picture of himself out.

Chad Gable is who we're talking about.

Tweet a picture of himself out the next day.

Like the front right of his forehead was bruised and matte scraped and purple.

And it

lucky him

because he could have

done the whole Kurt Angle thing.

Otherwise, I broke a freaking neck.

But we'll get to

there was debate

on the interwebs of which was worse or more dangerous.

And I'm trying to think

myself between what we're going to talk about with what Adam Cole got put through on AEW and this thing.

But let's explain this thing first, because I don't know, in a lot of ways, it's a tie.

This was, and I brought this up to you.

I mean, this comes on the heels of Jamie Hayter and Mercedes Monet.

And I looked at Jamie Hayter, almost got spiked.

And you said something, and I go, Yeah, that's not even the first time or the only time this week because I had already seen the gable spot.

Yeah, when Mercedes small packaged Jamie Hayter on top of her fucking head,

but

here is the

I don't know

I can explain what other people that hurt themselves the this week were trying to do and it just didn't quite work, right?

I don't know what this was supposed to be.

Because what had apparently happened, they're having some multiple man match.

And

you remember Dragon Lee, he's the little fellow with the mask.

Yeah, of course.

As opposed to Penta, who's the medium-sized fellow with the mask.

Well, Penta wears a full-body suit.

He kind of looks like

the son of La Parka.

Yes.

Well, he needs to park it for a minute.

I think he needs some bench time to think about his career options.

But the point being, they've gone into this three-way move they're going to do where Dragon Lee

is on Penta's back like he's a backpack.

They're back to back, but Dragon Lee's feet are around and

his toes are sitting on top of Penta's thighs and he's held by Penta's arms with it like in a

whatever kind of position is that, Brian.

I'm trying to explain it verbally, but he's on the guy's back.

Well, meanwhile, they think it's a good idea that Chad Gable's going to come at the guy at Penta,

and Penta is going to tug his Chad Gable's head between his legs and

give Chad Gable a pile driver while Dragon Lee is on his back.

But what happened, obviously,

was that he got him up in the pile driver, and then they all just fucking crumpled

with dropping Chad Gable sideways, not even straight down.

Sideways is worse, ladies and gentlemen.

Sideways is always worse when dealing with necks, necks, and knees.

He dropped Gable sideways

on his head and face and then sat on him with the guy that was on his back kind of crumpling on his back and then rolling off.

If they had executed the pile driver,

what would it have still done to the guy on his back?

He would have just landed on his knees

with his head straight up in the air.

What was he supposed to do?

Fucking sell his, oh, my knees.

What?

Do you see what I'm saying to you?

It looks like one thing, but when you actually try to figure out what the concept is it may not make sense he is if penta had given gable a pile driver perfectly

the gown his back would have still just landed on his knees straight up in the air

so what was he gonna do

i do

And this dipshit

should have known that with the gown on his back hindering not only is he's got the guy's weight on his thighs, but also his

arms are somewhat hindered.

That

he should be picking a guy for a pile driver when both these guys are about the same size he is.

The fuck.

But that was,

I mean, he could have just broke his neck right there and, you know, that could have been it.

But for what, I don't even know what they were trying to do that they could envisualize that it was safe and

at the same time look like a logical sensible maneuver to do to people

down goes gable someone's going to get hurt it's coming sooner i mean these guys are doing more and more of this kind of stuff where

Someone's head is going like so close to the mat,

it just takes the, you know, it takes the wrong judgment.

Even good workers like Owen Hart did it to Steve Austin.

You know, it could happen to the best, but some of these guys, it seems like some of this stuff is,

that seemed like too much for no good reason in this match.

And if he gotten hurt there, it really would have been too much.

Well, and the thing is, as you said, it can happen.

It can happen accidentally.

When, you know, occasionally the rope used to break or the turnbuckle used to snap off and throw somebody off or whatever.

Of course,

they do wonderful ring maintenance these days for the most part.

But there's always something that can happen and something that can go wrong or go sideways.

But when you're

again, when you're trying to set something like that up, it's so contrived looking.

They're going more for,

oh, wouldn't this be cool if we could do this rather than would it make any sense for us to do this and it

and then they're obviously cooperating

and at the same time doing something that either hurts them or just

up

and you're like why

and it it

because the matches now are all about getting ooze from the crowd and even wwe has the thing that AEW has, which is there's things happening in matches that may not always make sense.

Maybe the outcome and the booking does, but the matches are a lot of these guys just doing their things.

And

again, what if he had gotten hurt here?

He's in the main event of that one Worlds Collide.

It's not even pay-per-view, YouTube special

coming.

Well, but you know, you know what?

This wasn't even to me, this wasn't even like, oh shit, he could have blown his knee.

He might have missed the YouTube special.

This was, oh, shit.

He could have broke his fucking neck.

And

I mean, again, there's also degrees of breaking the neck.

I think I made it.

My cousin Larry

fell down the stairs trying to get to the garage and I had broke a vertebrae in his neck, so it, or his back rather.

So he technically broke his back.

You can break,

you know, a vertebrae in your neck and still your head doesn't fall off, but you've got a broken neck.

And that's not good.

Or

you can go straight to, oh, gosh, I can't move any of my extremities level when you're just from that shit.

Because

Gable wasn't prepared for it and he wasn't given the opportunity to prepare for it because he didn't know that shit was going to happen that way.

That's

the majority of injuries, at least in the old days, I don't know about now or if somebody's tracking this,

but the majority of injuries that happened in the old days

came from

shit that you couldn't control and you didn't know was coming

rather than the fuck up of a particular move that somebody just fucked up.

It shouldn't have been going on to begin with.

Did I make that point halfway clearly, Brian?

Halfway, yeah.

Halfway, almost all the way.

But yeah, instead of trying contrived shit that that went wrong, that in hindsight

you should have known better to begin with.

Most injuries came from

that just accidentally went awry, stuff that you would do over and over in repetition.

But there was the one, the spot was slick,

or the fucking guy was slick, or

the fucking mark through beard my eyes, and I couldn't fucking see the foot coming, whatever the fuck.

It wasn't

well, we kind of figured we were going to get hurt.

You know what I think they need, Brian?

Over there, I think, I think, you know what I think Penta needs?

He needs a new way to make money.

He needs a new opportunity to make money, get into business.

possibly build himself an empire without having the opportunity to drop people on their head.

Masks.

He should sell masks.

Yes, because if i drop people on my on their heads like that i would want to cover my face in public too maybe that's why he wears the mask

maybe that's why he wears the mask so as he's walking down the street people can't say well there's that son of a bitch that almost broke that guy's neck i'll tell you what folks our friends at shopify they're not going to break your neck they we're going to twist your arm a little bit is what we're going to do We're going to twist your arm to go and see our friends at Shopify.

Of course, virtually.

You don't need to travel somewhere.

Although, if you do show up at Shopify's front door, they do have

punch and pie available in normal business hours for the fans that want to come and see them.

But at Shopify, they're going to hold you by the hand.

They want to hold your hand and they want to lead you through all phases of your business.

Your small business, they want to make it a medium business, then a big business.

And then maybe even a goddamn empire.

You'll be bogged down in so many lawsuits lawsuits and corporate attempted takeovers and stock mergers that you won't know whether to shit or go blind.

That's what Shopify is going to do for you, ladies and gentlemen.

You're going to be filthy, rich, and stuck in court.

But that's all when you're old.

That's not what they're going to do for you.

And that's not.

That's when you're old.

No, see, you young people out there that want to build your business, you're not important enough to get sued yet.

This is

what I know what you're selling here exactly.

It's Shopify.

They're going to take and build you a business empire and they're gonna start you small and they're gonna make you big.

They're gonna partner with you and help you on your business empire.

That's the Shopify way.

That's what they're gonna, if you can't design a website, well, they're gonna take care of that for you.

If you need a hand, they're gonna reach right in there or reach around or whatever they got to do, and they're gonna give you that hand job right there.

You know, if I say there'll be no reach around, and you go right to that, there'll be no handies, but Shopify is a handy friend to have when you're trying to build your business sell your products get online distribute your products all over the place once again yes online spray them everywhere there you're they're going to give you help with that hand with everyday tasks things that you do every day enhancing product images writing product descriptions generating discount codes What if the people haven't heard about your brand?

Shopify is going to make you famous, son.

They're going to do easy-to-run email campaigns, social media campaigns.

They're going to help you find your customers.

They're going to show you the way.

They're going to lead you down the yellow brick road of commerce into

the Scrooge McDuck money bin of prosperity.

And if you get stuck, ladies and gentlemen, Shopify is always around to share advice, their award-winning 24-7 customer support.

If you call up in the middle of the night, and you say, I don't know what to do, they're going to tell you, go to fucking bed.

So right now.

that's not how it works.

Or right now,

let's talk about right now what people can do.

Right now, well, right now is the middle of the day.

You shouldn't be sleeping.

That's why you're not making any money.

The first thing they're going to tell you is get the fuck up and go to work.

If you're prepared right now to make money, how can they get in touch with Shopify?

Well, they can turn their dreams into reality.

And take your best shot at success, folks, with Shopify by signing up for your $1 a month trial period.

Shopify.com/slash JCE.

You can get this thing set up and start selling regardless of what you have to sell.

Of course, there are some legalities that we won't go into at this point in time, but chances are if you want to sell it, they'll figure out a way to get it out to the people.

Shopify.com/slash JCE, $1 a month trial period.

Let them show you the incredible services they provide.

You'll be addicted to the sound of money rolling in.

Shopify.com/slash JCE.

Your hands are going to stink like old dirty metal from counting all those coins that are going to come into your coffers.

Once again, Shopify, they power our online store, ArcadianVanguard.com, the new lazy booking shirts, the drive-through shirts, so much more.

They're on the shop app.

Thanks to our friends at Shopify, we use them.

You should too.

One more time, Jim.

I don't think you should say that.

We don't use use them.

It's a mutually beneficial relationship.

We work with them.

Jim, one more time, that handy promo code.

Can't just use them like a bunch of street.

Hell, nevertheless, shopify.com slash JCE.

Yeah.

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.

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 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 washable sofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

All right, Brian.

Well, I know before we go any further with the

show here, we've got to cover what we cover every month, it seems like.

Well, I guess it is every month.

They do another one, another pay-per-view from AEW, and then Uncle Dave chimes in and loves all over it because it was the greatest.

He sounds like Nick Gulis.

Nick Gulis, every

week, Gulis loved to be on TV, even though he was not a TV-friendly personality.

And he had that accent and that droning on way of talking.

And he would do all the local promos for all of his towns, right?

They'd come to TV station on Wednesday mornings and he'd sit there at the desk with the big NWA logo.

Louisville Wrestling Fans, Tuesday night, U.S.

star for one of the biggest cards I've signed in many years.

Headlined by that Ratun Grudge Southern Jr.

Heavyweight Championship match between Jerry Lawler and the fabulous Jackie Fago.

Get your tickets, Early.

It's going to be one of the all-time record-breaking crowds every week.

And Uncle Dave is doing the modern equivalent now by every month they have put on the greatest pay-per-view that has ever been put on in the history of wrestling pay-per-view.

Whether they shit the bed, set people on fire,

it doesn't matter.

It's all the greatest wrestling ever as long as

his

good friends are perpetrating it.

And so

we have new ones, right?

Is what I was going to say.

We have the double or nothing ones.

These are from the June 2nd, 2025 issue of the Wrestling Observer newsletter.

But if I remember correctly, recent star ratings for AEW pay-per-views have been a little more critical than they were in the past, or at least.

Oh, yeah, he got all the way down to three, three stars for one of them.

That was akin to blasphemy.

Well, let's go to his star ratings here for AEW Double or Nothing.

The first match from the pre-show,

there's actually no star rating for it.

Anna Jay and Harley Cameron beat Megan Bain and Penelope Ford, 12 minutes, 34 seconds.

Well, boy, we've we've got another one of those to look to talk about here in a little while, so maybe that's why he didn't give it any stars.

Well, here's what Dave wrote: actually,

Jay was laying down on her chest, and Cameron smashed Ford's face into Jay's ass.

Bane did a German suplex on both at the same time, and Taz tried to make a remark about the country next to Germany, and Excalibur started listing countries that bordered Germany.

What the f?

There was a double superplex on Bane, and then Bane did a Lariat on both.

Cameron pinned forward with her Feel the Wrath finisher.

The cameras also missed the finish.

That review is a work of art.

Well, let's get to another pre-show match, Jim.

Bandito.

Yes.

Hologram.

Yes.

Commander.

Yes.

And A.R.

Fox.

Oh, yes.

Defeated Tremperetta.

Rocky Romuro.

Oh.

Leo Rush.

Ooh.

And Action Andretti.

Oh.

13 minutes, 22 seconds, four and a quarter stars.

Oh, come on.

I think he gave them a lot of those guys a four-star match on the previous pre-show.

That's just they light up the crowd before people pay?

Well,

the pre-show match involving eight random people put together to do high spots for no apparent reason in an unadvertised situation is as good as Flare and Steamboat.

Again, what.

Well, we go now to the next match.

This is now for the main card for double or nothing.

Mercedes Monet.

won the Owen Hart Tournament's women's final, the Owen Hart Tournament women's finals in English over Jamie Hayter,

21 minutes, 70 seconds.

Yep.

Four and a half stars.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

Here's another quote from about the moment.

Wait a minute.

Do we take comfort in knowing that

at least that was only a half a star better than the fucking opening prelim match with nobodies?

Or are we...

No, it wasn't.

It wasn't half a star better.

It was a quarter of a star better.

A quarter of a star.

I'm sorry.

My math is wrong.

A quarter of a star better.

Is there no

if he went to a Derby dinner playhouse production

and all the actors

in the play got the lines right

and didn't forget anything?

Would it still be like seeing the same thing on Broadway with the original cast?

Isn't there something to be said about the art of while they're doing all these wonderful moves that they're jumping into

each other's arms for?

The selling and the aggression and the body language and the art of wrestling, or are we now just judging on velocity of bump?

Well, let's continue on here.

The next match: FTR

defeated Daniel Garcia and Nigel McGinnis, 22 minutes, 28 seconds, seconds,

four and a half stars.

And yes, ladies and gentlemen, FTR, a misused heel tag team, goes almost 25 minutes with an announcer who hasn't had but one match in 15 years.

And

his partner, who was his partner?

I've already forgotten.

Daniel Garcia.

And, well, there you go.

Ball of charisma.

And the fucking walking case of amnesia.

And that's better than anything that Undertaker and Kurt Angle ever did.

Well, Jim, the next match on the show, in a stretcher match, Ricochet defeated Mark Briscoe, 15 minutes, 54 seconds, four and a half stars.

This was the one they used the ring for 60 seconds for, right?

That's right.

And the rest of the time was spent in the back horsing around next to an ambulance.

Not even the only

use the ambulance.

I mean, just incredible.

Literally the art, the artistry of Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart

and the drawing power of

a Taco Bell fart.

Well, Jim, the next match.

Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin defeated Dustin Rhodes and Sammy Guevara, 12 minutes, 37 seconds,

three and a half stars.

Oh, now there, there's fighting words.

He's dropped down below four, but

the reality is, as we mentioned,

is a TV match because

they have no teams for the Hurts to wrestle.

So

that was actually somewhat more realistic.

I would, on the old realistic scale of things, I'd go three stars because

nobody shit themselves and it was nice, but

that's his way of showing, well,

you know, they didn't do enough fucking furniture work.

Well, what do you know?

Dave rates people, he rates people.

No, let's go

move on here.

Kazushka Okada

defeated Mike Bailey 16 minutes, two seconds.

Okay, hold on one second.

You can't even even tell me that as much as Uncle Dave likes the train chimpanzees and

the Japanese legends, that he gave this sorry son of a bitch.

And I'm talking about Okada.

I'm talking about Okada.

I didn't know who you were talking about.

I can understand if

old Spitball's out there doing the high stepping like he's a member of the fucking Rockets chorus line.

Well, that might tickle Dave.

But certainly he has to see that Oblada is slowed down to a chug here.

That couldn't be four stars for him.

It couldn't be.

Four and a half stars.

Where we go now.

So that, again, I point out, is greater than almost every pay-per-view main event in history that happened before 10 years ago.

Jim Tony Storm defeated Mina Shirakawa,

15 minutes, 51 seconds,

four-star match.

I got nothing.

Is he rating,

you know,

extra for lesbian activity?

I don't know.

We'll find out if that affects the next match.

Jim, Kenny Omega.

The lesbian activity or the rating of Kenny Omega, Swerve Strickland, Samoa Joe, Katsuyuri, Shibata, Powerhouse Hobbs, and Willow Nightingale defeated Jon Moxley, Claudio Castignoli, Wheeler Yuta, the Young Bucks, and Marina Shafir.

35 minutes, 18 seconds.

Jesus.

Five-star match.

So when it gets down to the meat of the matter,

All the kids deciding we've got all the money in the world to spend and all the time on pay-per-view that we want to take.

Let's go play.

And in the process, you know, just being completely ridiculous and actually making a mockery of the business that they're allegedly in.

And to him, that's a perfect performance.

This couldn't have been any better.

Well, Jim, we had more matches, as you remember.

Yes, yes, yes, they did.

Kyle Fletcher, Konosuke Takesha, and Josh Alexander defeated Adam Cole, Kyle O'Reilly, and Roderick Strong, 12 minutes, 48 seconds,

three and three-quarter stars.

Oh, we've come back down to reality, where not everybody's perfect.

He was trying to still be kind to him, but at the same time, show him that not everybody can

achieve that incredible four-star level.

Before we get to the main event here, do you think Dr.

Martha Hart was watching on pay-per-view?

What?

I forgot about her.

Yeah, she used to make your annual appearance at this event, right?

She, as a matter of fact, she figured out how did she do it that she got booed the last time she showed up.

She said something and got booed.

What was it?

I forget what it was.

Did she say like Tony Khan was a nice guy, or she sang, or I don't know what it was?

No,

I think did she plug the wrong sports team or something?

Yeah, I don't know what she did.

Yeah.

Well,

she's not back.

She wasn't back.

The main event, Jim, of double or nothing.

Adam Page defeated Will Ospreay to win the Owen Hart Cup tournament 36 minutes, 59 seconds.

They had to go one minute longer than the garbage match.

Five and a half stars.

Oh, for Christ's sake.

This This is the one where they did the great hospitalization and finish

styles clash off the apron of the ring and then had 15 more minutes match, right?

That one,

where by the time it was over with,

I believe, as we said, they made the fucking

Paige look like goddamn idiot to begin.

He always looks like an idiot, but they buried Osprey in the process.

And actually, then

Osprey basically fucking cried until Paige consoled him in the ring.

So they went the wrong direction in that

thing on the way to the stadium.

And

it was perfect plus a half.

Well, that's just swell.

36 minutes, 59 seconds.

It was very, very late.

And that was AEW double or nothing.

It sounds like it was one of the greatest pay-per-views of all time.

It sounds like it, doesn't it?

See if you go rent the video wherever you find your favorite videos.

But, Jim, this is your show.

Well, speaking of my show, I was all over another show again this week, and we wanted it's the season finale, or it was the season finale

of Dark Side of the Ring for this season on Vice TV with the topic of I've

he'll always be Mark Magnus to me, but Muhammad Hassan,

the ill-fated

experiment that where Vince was trying to recreate his iron chic fantasies or whatever.

But this one,

thankfully, and this was, I think, the way to end the season because it wasn't a story about a guy who

had tragedy happen to him, made the wrong decisions,

ill health,

financial ruin, whatever the fuck.

But at the same time, it was his career got ruined, but there was a positive

ending and a resolution of the thing is that he had another career and he's done just fine

but this one showed i think better than anything that we've seen on television in a while

how

stubborn and insistent vince mcmahon was when he wanted to do something and how that he would just not stop fucking with it until he finally went too far

Do you think that was the overriding theme of the whole thing, even though it was poor Mark Magnus that was at the center of it?

I thought the overriding theme was that Gene Snitsky seems like a cool guy.

He is.

For a baby killer,

he's a heck of a dog.

Ask him and he'll tell you.

Because he was in OVW for a while.

I made him Mike Mondo's brother because they looked facially, they looked like mean Gene Mondo.

One guy was the smallest guy in the company.

The other guy was the biggest.

But he came back because he was still living in Louisville after he'd done that thing where he supposedly punted the baby across the building.

He came back in the Davis Arena and I said, Fuck, I said, Get the fuck out of here.

I don't want people to see you coming here.

You're a fucking baby killer.

Hated that angle.

Love Gene Snitsky, though.

But, and, and really, this one was,

they didn't have every, you know, goddamn famous in-talking head individual contributing something.

It was down to people that were involved in Mark's career and his friends friends, of Chris Masters and Snitsky, and Maven.

They had

John Pollack as a journalist, and Michael Leonardi apparently was one of the writers that was involved

at the time in this or at the WWE.

And I've never heard his fucking name, but I believe it because there was like hundreds of them.

But

I always

thought more highly of Mark Magnus all around

in OVW than a lot of the guys because he had a little bit of everything.

Because some of the guys took to the work more quickly, but not the talk, or sometimes the other way around, or sometimes a guy could work and talk, but boy, if he just looked a little better physically.

And Mark wasn't a giant, but he had a great physique.

He had a great attitude, wanted to learn, coachable.

His work came along quick.

His promos

came along quick.

This

Mark Magnus at OVW was the kind of a guy that you would give the Daniel Garcia

or Wheeler Utah push to.

Then, instead of a guy with none of the tools,

you find a guy with all of the tools.

But you don't push him down people's throats from the start.

You, you do,

you give him the same amount of time, but you tell a story from start to finish.

With Mark from

I think the tryout camp, first time we saw him, one of the tryout camps.

When he comes here, he starts in class because I don't believe he had had any training.

He starts in class, and then he graduates to doing,

he's an underneath preliminary babyface because he's a good-looking kid.

Why make him a heel right now?

He doesn't know what he's doing.

And he works the flea market shows or he works St.

Therese Jim or the small shit that we do.

And he gets dark match on TV while we're setting the camera angles just to, and he puts somebody over or in a tag match just to get him in front of people.

And then he started on TV as an underneath preliminary baby face.

And then,

surprisingly enough, he switched heel and joined the heel group, which already included the top heels in the company.

So he's like in the group.

He's associating with them, but it's not him.

But then as those guys move on or are called up, or within suddenly he breaks out of the group and becomes a single heel.

And he's got the girl, Nikita, with him.

And

now he's...

concentrating on challenging guys like Johnny Jeter for the OVW title, where Jeter was in the same place he he was three years before, two years before.

And you could draw the parallel stories of their ascent and how Jeter still was honorable, whereas Magnus had stabbed everybody in the back and blah, blah, blah.

But that's the way you brought somebody up from start

to, okay, now here's something.

somebody that you can do something with.

They've been a babyface and a heel.

They have had a couple years of experience.

They have been used from the opening of the card all the way to the main event in that environment.

And they know the different gradations that takes place.

Does this make sense, Brian?

I think so.

So that's what we did

with Mark.

And he more than carried the ball with everything.

And he understood it.

And finally,

what we had going was the, with him and Nikita that made a great-looking couple, this year's model, Mark Magnus,

because it was the striving of everybody who was trying to get the contract and go to Raw.

And last year it had been

Cena or whoever the fuck, who's it, who's it going to be this year?

And he's, and also the male model thing because he was gorgeous.

And we were trying to Rick Rude vibes

with but an updated younger version of Rick Rude.

And I thought since he had done that well, in, as I said, I think it was maybe two years, a little bit over from start to finish,

that certainly they were going to call us and tell us to make him a fucking Arab.

And that's where they had some nice footage, you know, of his OBW run.

They even had a shot of me leveling him with the elbow.

We did the Crusade Rumble, I think, in 2004 for the Crusade for Children, was me and Johnny Jeter against Magnus and Nikita.

And I got two punches in the elbow in before they cut me off and beat the shit out of me.

When you say they called and said to make him an Arab, who made the call?

How did it go down?

I'm trying to think.

Was Bruce around then?

He was generally the one that would call and give me news I didn't want to hear because Johnny Ace didn't want to do it.

But it was somebody from the office who just, we've got the idea.

It may have been Laurenitis himself.

We want to make him an Arab, however, they phrased it.

And I said he's an Italian from Syria.

Same thing I said on the dark side show.

He's an Italian from Syracuse.

And he's doing, but what?

Well, and we're going to bring in Sean Davari.

Well, I knew Davari, I think, at that point from

Ring of Honor, and,

you know, he was a great kid also.

But

I was like, eh, here's another

time we're going to get somebody doing something in developmental that's natural to them and that they're feeling good at and doing well at and

change everything in after two years and fucking two months.

But that was the thing is that Vince had the idea.

And so he didn't care what anybody else was doing.

I want that guy to do that thing.

So that's how that came.

And then

it says, so we're going to send Davari

and, you know, and just make him an Arab.

So I had to figure it.

So

we had, obviously, they knew who he was.

We had him

lose some kind of big milestone something.

I think disappoint.

his cohorts, maybe it was the revolution, bash him and those guys.

And he just walked out of the building and quit wrestling in OVW on TV, just walked out with his bags on TV, gave us a big promo.

I let everybody down.

I screwed up.

I'm done.

And then a month later, he came back with Davari, the rich Middle Easterner that he'd found while he was,

you know, depressed and trying to find himself.

And he'd given him a new ideology.

And that is so that's because how else do we make a fucking Italian guy from Syracuse a Muslim Middle Easterner?

And we just did, we did the bare

stuff with the whole Middle Eastern thing that we could and concentrate on them just trying shit.

But

the people didn't want to,

the fans actually ended up being kind of a cool atmosphere.

And they showed a clip of that also.

On their own, they decided every time that Mark and Davari would do a promo, they'd stand up and turn their back to him

and just so the whole crowd would get up stand up and turn their back to the ring and

we don't want to hear it all that while they were doing their promo

but it was again making the best of a bad situation because they already knew who he was and this was completely the opposite so we had to figure out a way to make him that

so that then they could try all of their

you know the prayer rug and the fucking headdress and the goddamn, whatever the fuck, right?

What are we doing here?

Because they didn't, and that's

this writer guy,

this writer guy admitted they didn't really know what it was until they started to do vignettes.

And that's when they, oh, well, you know, we're going to present him from a sympathetic point.

He's a

an Arab American that's being discriminated against.

They came up with that the day they showed up to do the vignettes.

All they'd said before, oh, he's going to be an Arab, but he's got an Arab guy that can speak Farsi.

So fucking do shit.

And they didn't show, and Brian, I'll let you speak.

I don't know.

You could have had a small stroke and be unconscious over there.

Keep going.

This is good.

They didn't have time to put this story in the Darkseid show.

But when Davari got there and they said, okay,

you know, they need to dress up and act like a blah, blah, blah.

So I said,

you know, bring a suit.

And they said, well, I don't have a suit.

Mark, you got a suit.

I ain't got a suit.

I had to take them to men's warehouse and buy them the fucking suits.

I think we talked about this.

We had Evan Husney on.

But

they had come up with the, the guy was doing well in developmental with what he was doing.

The guy had

all the potential in the world.

They come up with this Kakamami idea on the sperm of the moment.

and they then they had to send me money to buy them two thousand dollars worth of clothes because they had no clothes to look like they had any money

and then they don't they don't know what they're going to do with it until they get there then they decide on that thing which mark was happy with and

everybody was happy with that you know well there's truth in this a put upon, you know, discriminated against Arab American whatever.

And what is it?

And it's, you know, not even a year later or whatever, by the time Vince is finished with it, they're beheading people with piano wire.

I'm sorry.

Give me your thoughts.

I don't know what else to say based on the stuff you're talking about so far.

They gave him a big push right out of the gate.

He's upset about discrimination, but that made him the heel somehow.

The thing with Hogan, I mean, that is a pretty big deal.

The idea that he actually got to work with Hogan at WrestleMania.

Yeah.

Again, it was old Hogan broken down.

That may have been the year.

Is that the year Hogan went into the Hall of Fame?

It may have been the year Hogan went into the Hall of Fame.

I think it was 2005.

That may have been the year Hogan went into the Hall of Fame.

So it was a big deal.

I mean, you haven't talked about it yet.

I don't know if you're going to, so I'll just bring it up.

In terms of him being fired, what could they have done?

And did Vince owe him something?

I mean, we always said that Vince.

You know, at the end of the day, does a boss owe everyone who works for him, whether an employee or independent contractor, do they owe them lifetime employment?

Do they owe them this and that?

In this case, where this guy did nothing wrong,

did Vince owe him something or just do something for him?

I mean, not have him leave the business and question why he's doing anything.

Yeah, well,

there's a difference between lifetime employment and a two-year-long career.

There should be some middle ground in there.

And see, that's the thing.

Again, it was Vince, and they all said this.

It was Vince pushing the

deal and making him more of a real terrorist.

And Mark said he's, you know, registered his

complaints, but, you know, I can imagine because he's a nice guy.

I can imagine as diplomatic as he could have possibly been to ask Stephanie.

And she said, hey, basically, shut up.

We know what we're doing.

Because she's not the one who got canceled off television.

But they,

because he was Vince's pet project, that's why they gave him the push.

The match with Hulk Hogan, working with Sean Michaels, with Undertaker, with all the top guys.

And at the same time, it was hard for him in the locker room because he mentioned the wrestler's court story.

Because

Kurt Angle

goes up to him and says, hey, you know, you're using a camel clutch, but geez, Eddie Guerrero's using it.

Guys, get out of it.

You can see they were setting him up.

And

he'd only been in OVW for two years, right?

So he couldn't ask every question in the world.

If he'd have been in OVW, he probably would have asked me, hey, should this other guy be using the?

And I would have, yeah, don't open that can of peas, but they were setting him up to get ribbed.

And nobody was shitting in his,

you know, his lunchbox or whatever, like has happened in the past.

But

there was some level of scrutiny and some level of heat on him, and he was going to get ribbed a little bit because coming in with a push like that.

But it wasn't,

that's the thing.

It wasn't like the way that some of the 90s guys treated some of the other

underneath guys.

There was a little difference there,

but they kept pushing the deal on television.

Maven, bless him, doesn't know the difference between money heat and disgusting heat.

Because he was like, wow, this guy's gonna have so much heat, wrong kind,

especially with the network.

So, they did the

angle with the Undertaker, and then the London terrorist attack happens, and

SmackDown is that night, and they still show it and the bad publicity.

And then the writer said he complained to Stephanie about it, and she demoted him.

So, boy, they were touchy back then.

But

Mark basically figured it out that

he wasn't going to be long for there when he asked Johnny Ace about, hey, I'm supposed to be buying this house.

And Ace said, don't buy the house.

The only time Johnny Ace has ever been a babyface right there.

Yes, only time he's ever told the truth in his life.

Yeah, because it's gone the other way a lot in wrestling history where guys, especially in the territory, should I buy a house?

Sure, buy a house.

Now you got him.

Yeah, now you got to stay.

But in this case, they they didn't want him to stay.

And they booked him on pay-per-view because the network had said we don't want this character or whatever on TV anymore.

So they booked him on pay-per-view, finished him up, powerbombing him through the stage or whatever.

But Mark told a story, and it was sad he was heartbroken because

he had done everything they asked him to.

And he had been a,

again, a model,

you know, a trainee, developmental employee, student, however you want to phrase it, never got in trouble.

And

again, something I said for the show, they didn't have time for, but

I would have fucking paid him for two years.

Here, we're going to sign you to a new contract

for two years for

a decent amount of money, not millions of dollars.

But at the time, you know, developmental guys were getting

a grand a week, 15 to whatever.

Saturday to come back to developmental

and just

maybe,

maybe take a few months off and then come back to developmental and wait for a year and a half or two years, then come back clean shaven with longer hair and a different outfit.

I mean, for God's sake, it's not like people don't know wrestling is fake.

And you you can't mean to tell me that they've never changed anybody's name.

It's ever been on television.

And you also can't mean to tell me that the network two years later would have

called and complained if the same guy playing a completely different part, not doing any of those goddamn terrorist things.

And he was a baker from the Bronx showed up that they would have complained.

But instead,

they sent him back to OVW for like, I think a couple months.

That was right when I had left.

So he came, by the time I got them up there, boom, then I'm gone.

He comes back for like two months and then they just dropped him.

And

it depressed him.

Because of all the sacrifices he's made and the, you know, as hard as he had worked.

But finally, he realized that he needed to change shit if it wasn't going to work out.

And he went back to school and got the teaching certificate and became a principal and now is the

well-thought of member of the school district and

looks like a normal human being.

So as I said, I think maybe he came out ahead in the long run.

But they just.

They went too far because Vince didn't have any goddamn restraint.

Imagine that.

And ruined his career and then made him pay for it for doing what they said to do.

And anyone who spoke up against it was penalized or threatened with being penalized.

Shut the fuck up.

We know what we're doing.

Of course, you do.

You're getting hate with your fucking television network.

But anyway, I agree with you.

I think it sucks that it all happened that way.

There's a lot of big what-ifs.

But in the end, for him, it seems like it was the best thing.

He has a family.

He's got a secure job, I would guess, a pension,

maybe a union, who knows?

But

he doesn't have to worry about a lot of the things that a lot of the wrestlers have to worry, he doesn't have to rush to a convention or anything.

He's kind of got his life together, like Tito Santana, you know, went and became the teacher.

And he was, you know, had something secure for a lot of the time.

He retired now and probably got a nice pension, everything else.

Well, and Mark also, he doesn't have headaches or concussion syndrome or, you know bad hips or knees or whatever or neck

and

you know

he was never going to be

the wwf champion and i'm not insulting him by saying that he was not going to be that guy the guy

but he was just equally as talented as a number of people who made

a decent amount of money in a fairly short period of time during some of that era if he'd have gotten the opportunity.

But otherwise, for long term, I think, yeah, I think we're both right.

He'd probably better off in

school with those children instead of some of the children that he would have been working with otherwise.

So, you had two unique opportunities to rebook him if you had been there when he came back, because obviously he left one day and he came back and he had found a new ideology.

Now, he can come back and either he drops that ideology completely and apologizes to the fans and says he'll go back to being who he really is.

He's a young guy going through a lot.

Or he finds a new ideology, and that's his new gimmick.

Now he comes in, and now I'm a guru, you know, now I'm this or that.

Now I'm a Buddhist monk.

But what would you do?

I mean, like you said, I don't think it shouldn't be that there was no way to rehabilitate the wrestler with a new gimmick, even if the gimmick didn't ignore the fact that he had been Muhammad Hassan.

I, again,

for the sake of the OVW

universe, which was small in the overall scheme of things, but on our television and our program,

I think if they'd have said, hey, we'll give you a two-year contract, take a few months off, rest your weary mind, and then we'll keep you in developmental to get you back in the ring and you don't get rusty and you don't get, you know, you still learn.

I would have had him come back and fucking apologize to everybody and blame DaVari.

Because DaVari,

and if they were keeping him, he could have been a heck of a heel.

This is a son of a bitch.

I was so depressed and I was all lost to this fucking guy.

I listened to you.

Like I joined the Manson family.

Yeah.

And

then, because just for that, and our fans, who many of them knew him and, you know, they would have accepted that.

And then you just kind of see where he goes.

Let's see how long can his hair get so he doesn't look like that guy.

And let's see what he looks like clean shaven and what different kind of gear and colors can we can we put him in some

fluorescent spandex anything that's the opposite of what he was wearing just see what else that he could look like different and see where he goes at that point

that's what i would have done

but you never know Maybe Rip Rogers was there then.

Rip Rogers could have given Mark Magnus his old gimmick when he first went to work for Nick Gulis.

You remember that?

which one the disco kid oh that's right

1978

and rip rogers mark shara is just like a rookie and he gets booked out of indiana bruiser sent him to work for nick gulis and they made him because disco was hot they made him the disco kid and he had a

set of headphones that used to remember the headphones you'd have to plug into your turntable or your receiver you had to plug them in right?

They'd have wireless headphones back then, but he would goddamn come out with headphones on and they'd play the music and it'd be like he's fucking dancing to it, trying to disco dance.

It didn't last long, the disco kid, but that was, it was the summer of 78.

And it's the summer of 2025, Brian.

And the summer is a time to be out and about enjoying every moment from sun up to sundown.

but you know what that means when you're outside that means you need something that runs on battery power to stay up on everything the podcast and the music and the severe weather warnings and you can't just walk around like the disco kid in 1978 with headphones on not plugged into anything well people have put you they'd throw a net over you You know what you got to do, don't you, Brian?

And by now, you have to know what you got to do this summer to stay up on everything, what you got to stick inside your head.

Of course, you're talking about those great Raycon earbuds.

That's what I was talking about.

The everyday earbuds.

You know why they call them that?

Because you've got to wear them every day.

As a matter of fact, they keep track of these.

They have a special sensor.

It tells whether, you know, with body heat, whether you're wearing them or not, if you don't wear them every day, you're penalized.

The next time you put them in, you're going to get a short, sharp shock.

Boom.

It tells you, don't fuck with your everyday earbud schedule from now on.

Every day or elsewhere, you're going to get zapped.

Because Raycon's latest model is better than ever for the summertime when the feeling is easy.

With a 32-hour battery life and the multi-point connectivity, you can pair up with all kinds of, you can pair two devices at once, Brian.

That means with this thing, When you got your everyday earbuds in, let's say you go to the park, you see a good-looking young lady.

She's listening to earbuds you can walk up within 50 feet of her and punch a button and pair up with her and listen to what she's listening to no that's not and then that's not how it works let's not if you take that's how it works because that's not if you take the earbud out of the left side of your head your left ear and you speak into it she'll be able to hear your voice again none of this is how it works let's just you can you can actually you can You can beam suggestive phone calls into these people's heads.

Oh, just the heavy breathing alone will drive them crazy.

Ladies and gentlemen, you can't do any of these things, but what you can do is hear the finest tunes, the greatest podcast, great audio with Raycon everyday earbuds.

Take them with you wherever you go every day.

And just do that.

And just whisper into the one, just say,

what are you wearing?

Because Raycon started just half the price.

of other premium audio brands and they come in a spectrum, Brian, a spectrum.

That's a spectrum is a literal array, a plethora, a cornucopia of vibrant colors to match your summer vibe.

Does that they vibrate too?

So when you punch the button for the noise cancellation, does that mean they stop vibrating?

These vibrant colors?

There's no vibration, but there are

healthy ears help.

Did you say healthy

ears?

Did you say helpful?

It'll help your ears reduce their stress, this vibrator.

That's right.

You turn this vibrator on in your ears and the stress release happens about five to seven minutes.

There is no vibration except for the natural,

or is it natural, but the sounds of the bass and wherever you are.

Well, and then the colors.

The colors are vibrant.

I don't know what colors they do.

They have red.

I'm not sure.

Let's focus on the fact that Raycon has vibrant colors.

The fact that Raycon has great audio.

The fact that you can listen to whatever you want, wherever you want to go.

Great battery.

Great.

Quick charge function.

10 minutes of charging, you're going to get 90 minutes of battery.

They got that.

And half the price, did I mention that of the other premium audio brands?

The active noise cancellation alone, that's up on the tip top of the accessible price points there with everybody else.

They've got it.

They got y'all covered.

You can listen to anything you daggum well want to.

And just have that look on your face.

When people are staring at you, bopping your head or nodding and agreeing or shaking your head in disgust, they'll go, Well, that son of a bitch is ready for a rubber room at the puzzle factory.

But no, it's just because you have the Raycon earbuds in your head, and we're going to put in your head a way that you can put more money in your pocket.

Because if you go right now to buy Raycon, B-U-Y-R-A-Y-C-O-N dot com/slash JCE,

you're going to get 15% off Raycon's best-selling everyday earbuds.

15% off, not like less than, not up to, but a whole solid, complete, unadulterated 15% off the everyday earbuds by raycon.com slash JCE.

Stacy's always getting these things.

If they don't wear out, she loses them

because she goes out in the backyard and she gets on the swing set and she's swinging amongst the trees.

The swing set.

So then, yeah, and then she'll get some more.

And then we see the raccoons in the trees that are bopping to the sounds and the tunes.

And they're listening to us, Brian.

You know, we have more raccoons listening to you and I on this show than any other podcast in America today.

They're all in my backyard.

They're agreeing with us, everything we say.

And that you will too.

You'll agree that the Raycon, Everyday Earbuds are the things you need to listen to for the music, the podcasts, the warnings of impending doom.

You can tune into DEF CON on these things, can't you?

Oh, I see that tone.

Jim, you hear that tone?

That means we got to wrap it up.

I hear that tone.

That means that the Academy, I'd like to thank the Academy.

Buyraycon.com slash JCE 15% off.

All right.

It's your show.

We're back.

Raycon, good friends of ours.

Get them, support them.

Do your thing.

Get them.

support them.

Slash JCE, but Jim, get even with them.

That's right.

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 washablesofas.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 washable sofas.com.

Add a little

to your life.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Well, here's something, Brian, that you haven't had to have your earbuds in.

If you've just had ears at all, you've heard the news.

It's been spread around everywhere.

Reversal.

Johnny Ace, my old friend.

Head of talent relations and other types of relations that he got head in,

John Laurinitis, is making a run at the Stooge Hall of Fame, Brian.

He's a strong candidate.

This is some Hall of Fame level stoogery.

Because ever since back in the days,

well, 25 years ago, when he

got the office job in WCW,

the accusations began being bandied about in the locker rooms in some areas that Johnny Ace was a stooge.

And for the kids out there, that means he likes to tell on people.

He's a tattletale.

If Ace knows that he's going to stooge to the office on you.

And there have been throughout history numerous people in the wrestling business that

have attained the level of high stoogery.

And there is a Stooge Hall of Fame.

But I think that this

is a level of stoogery, Brian, that I don't know that I've ever seen anybody else aspire to.

Not only has Johnny Ace managed to to be a stooge in inside the office of a wrestling company for 25 years,

he's managed to stooge first as on the boys and his position as talent relations,

and then

he was given the opportunity by Vince McMahon to, after he had been stooged on

and was fired from his current position back in what, 2010, 11, 12 for sexual harassment.

They kept him on and covered him up a little bit so you didn't see him too much.

And then as soon as Vince got the chance, he not only brought back his stooge

that had been his stooge, even Kevin Dunn

never got his Bucky Beaver chompers into Vince's ass like this.

He'd been his stooge all that time.

Now Vince is hooking him up with three ways while he's an executive

and then when he when they all get sued for it johnny ace turns around and says no i was a victim too so he did a flip-flop

then a couple months later he flipped back and said wait a minute none of this happened and now

He's flipped again.

And he's not only said, yes, I'm going to cooperate with the person that said all this happened,

but I've settled with her because I'm going to give her information on Vince McMahon.

If he's not

the most successful Stooge in the history of wrestling, he's going to be the most famous one because he's going to stooge

the stoogiest stooging that has ever been stooged that's got this much publicity.

If you were a defense attorney, Brian, last, would you want to have,

would you want him on your side or would you, or would you want him on the other side?

Because,

you know, you can't believe him if his tongue is notarized.

I'd hate to think what Mrs.

Baba would think of all this, but Jim, we have a statement that was released.

This is a statement on behalf of both Janelle Grant and John Laurinitis, although put out, I believe, through Janelle Grant's attorney.

John Laurinitis has agreed to cooperate and provide evidence in Janelle Grant's lawsuit against Vince McMahon and WWE.

His agreement to a confidential settlement is a pivotal next step toward holding McMahon and WWE accountable and bringing justice to Ms.

Grant after years of sexual abuse and trafficking.

Mr.

Laurenitis looks forward to moving on with his life.

We cannot provide any additional details at this time.

Now, we have a follow-up from Vince McMahon's lawyers, but let's stop there for a moment.

Well, that pretty much sounds like that

he said,

please leave me alone and don't hurt me.

And I'll tell you things you need to know about Vince McMahon and/or

testify to things that happened

that

support your case, doesn't it?

What else could it be?

Vince McMahon and WWE.

It's not just Vince here in this lawsuit.

Well, but yes, I mean,

again,

the current WWE, they didn't even own the thing when this was going on.

And who knows

what

that whole can of fish is about.

But the suit is technically, they're referring to a suit against Vince McMahon and WWE.

If Laura Nidas provides information damaging to Vince McMahon, it would also be providing

information against the previous people in WWE.

Is there still anybody there that was there then?

Thou,

who would be there in any position of power that was there five years ago

when anything was happening?

Nick Con, Triple H, Bruce Pritchard.

Well, now Nick Conn and Triple H, I said position of power.

Come on, Bruce couldn't pull a greasy string out of a cat's ass.

I have a statement here from Vince McMahon's attorney, attorney, Jessica Rosenberg.

Today's dismissal of John Laurenitis as a defendant doesn't alter the facts of this case in any way.

Vince McMahon never mistreated Janelle Grant.

No matter how many press releases her team issues, the truth remains unchanged.

As Mr.

Laurenitis' lawyer previously said, Mr.

Laurenitis corroborates Mr.

McMahon in publicly declaring that Ms.

Grant's allegations of of sexual abuse and coercion in her complaint are completely unfounded.

Well, that's what he said before, but

if you were Janelle Grant's lawyer and the best John Laurenitis could say was, well, these statements are completely unfounded, do you think you'd settle with him?

Or would you settle with him if he could say, do, or provide something that would

just pull up the fucking limo and pick you up and drive you right to the fucking bank.

Yeah, did Laura Nitis' lawyer finally turn to him and say, look, you're going to be in a lot of trouble if she gets this lawsuit to go forward?

And it looks like it is right now.

It may cost you everything.

Laura Nitas probably said, you know, all right.

And made a deal.

And Vince McMahon.

You know, this comes on the news as today, as we are recording.

Do I have this?

Words coming out about Vince McMahon's new company.

Have you seen this?

Uh-oh.

What kind of monkey business is he operating?

I saw it from Brandon Thurston, who had the first report I saw.

Let me see if I can find it real quick on Twitter.

But Vince McMahon, according to a report from WrestleNomics, has launched a new business venture, forming an investment firm called 14th and I,

pursuing opportunities in sports, media, and entertainment.

This is all from public filings in the state of Connecticut for LLCs.

14th.

But 14th and I

does that roll right off the tongue.

Well, according to what Brandon Thurston wrote here, the firm's name appears to be a reference to a location of historical significance for McMahon and WWE.

A 2006 article on WWE.com noted that the Capital Wrestling Corporation, the predecessor to WWE,

was headquartered at the corner of 14th and I streets in Washington, D.C.

around the 1950s and 60s when the company was led by McMahon's father, Vincent J.

McMahon.

Oh my God.

14th and I,

a little inside,

a little inside reference.

And this is the worst dating site ever for a person.

That's what I was going to say is that

the 23and me went bankrupt but 14th and i is is that only if you're you know a minor can you have your dna scanned or whatever it it yeah i don't think 14th and i

it's not even third in goal man you name your company that so everyone asks you why did you name your company that in every meeting you go to

So, but again,

any specifics about what are the things that he wants to do in the sports and the entertainment?

They are all entities formed in Delaware.

They all list Stanford, Connecticut as the principal office.

Does it have the address in Stanford?

Not that I need that, I guess, at the moment.

They have filed trademarks with the U.S.

Patent and Trademark Office for 14th and I.

And Brad Blum is listed as the president of 14th and I, the former WWE executive.

It's a private investment firm focused on sports, media, and entertainment sectors.

We are a disciplined, flexible, long-term capital and strategic partner, primarily targeting buyouts, majority deals,

as well as selective growth-oriented minority investments.

We seek to partner with and empower exceptional management teams, provide deep expertise, capability, and relationships to help drive significant long-term value.

What the fuck does that mean?

They're going to buy shit.

That's what that means.

If they're going to buy anything in wrestling, what's available for Vince McMahon to buy?

Is he going to buy T if he buys TNA?

Does that change the way you see everything with TNA over the last year?

But it couldn't be TNA.

I would hope not.

He ain't going to buy new TV.

I don't think that

if he were to buy any existing wrestling promotion, I don't think it would change the way that we would look at that individual promotion past what the fuck's he going to do with it and what changes are going to come.

But

again, in all honesty, TNA is owned by the entity, the network, as they say.

I'm sure they're open for business and they'd sell anything, but would they keep the show on or would it be?

See, that's the deal.

A lot of these times,

WCW tried that before that it fucking happened.

There was a Sinclair shopped around the idea of selling Ring of Honor once before they actually did.

But you'd have to either pay for the television or the television time wouldn't come with it.

So,

you know, they're looking for things to purchase.

And it's, again, it says sports, media, entertainment.

It could be anything.

Now we got to be, you know, have our eyes looked at if he's going to try to buy one of these podcast companies because that's like the hot thing to do.

And then they find out there's nothing there and you lose your ass.

Well, at least we won't have to worry about that because we, the independents, that's right.

But, you know, that's the thing.

If they're looking for things to purchase, what's going to really be available for sale?

Now we're figuring he's financing this with his own money, a good portion of it, and we know he has plenty of cash.

He's got $2 billion.

The question is, what's there to purchase?

What could he buy?

What could WWE's expert team from years ago do to improve whatever?

Is it a big purchase?

Do they try to buy a Feld Entertainment and get a whole variety of things like Wringling Brothers?

Or do they look for a sports team?

Do they look for, you know, distressed media assets?

This is going to be interesting.

I mean, the fact they're moving forward with it, the same day John Laurenitis is saying, it was him.

I don't know if those distressed assets may be positively despondent by the time that they get get finished with him

well we'll keep an eye on vince's maneuverings and machinations

uh over this whole thing and and see whether whether laurinitis fingers him before he uh gets his finger back in a wrestling business or not which do you think i i think

laurinitis may have some

tall tales to tell about uh unfinished business

I don't know what Laura.

I mean, I remember a few years ago, Bobby Fulton tried to book him, and there was enough of an outcry over that that that didn't happen.

I don't think he could do really anything in wrestling, and that's booking him, let alone a job as an executive.

I don't, that ain't gonna happen every time.

No, that that's that's why I'm saying, do you think that Vince will start another wrestling company before Laura Nitis gets the chance to publicly

proclaim whatever the fuck he's got to say about Vince?

Start a wrestling company or buy a wrestling company.

Well, start by get involved with one.

I don't know.

Again, you know, if we just think about what we've seen publicly, he made a very public showing of being at the Super Bowl with The Undertaker and Shane.

You don't go anywhere with The Undertaker unless you want to be seen.

He's gearing up for something.

He's clearly gearing up for something, and he's got money, and he still owns a giant chunk of WWE.

Let's not forget that.

All things considered a giant chunk, more than the average person.

Yeah, what was it?

Still like 8 million shares or something.

Was it like 5% or a little less than 5%?

I mean, it was still a good amount or whatever he had.

And plus, he's really, he's on a high-fiber diet.

He's got better fiber than he has in years.

So he's ready to go.

Well, we don't have a fiber.

You haven't heard about the fiber diet?

I don't know.

Let's not talk about things that may get the bowels in motion.

Get the bowels in an uproar.

If you want to get your bowels in an uproar, why don't we talk about Wednesday nights AEW television?

That sounds like a good idea, Jim.

Yes, because there was plenty of bowels in an uproar about this was the blooper reel.

And I was,

again,

I just wanted to hit the high points for, because I didn't want to just go into minute detail about everything with this show, but it's just stunningly one thing after another.

This week, it was

what else is going to screw up or what different way are one of these guys or girls going to find to

fucking fuck each other up?

And

then the or production snafus or just they shouldn't be doing this.

And again, they're going to go all the way, apparently, with this hangnail Adam Page business.

Tony thinks.

For some reason, that this guy is going to be the answer to his troubles of some description.

And from the introduction on this show, when Tony Schiavone introduced Paige,

he's a babyface, but he walks out to a video of him burning a guy's house down.

Do you see that on the background?

That's his on his entrance video.

And he looks like just any guy now that you would see stocking a shelf at Target.

Just

he's trying to emote.

He has these Shakespeare speeches in his head

that, and because of it, he comes off as a bad actor speaking in a forced and unnatural way.

And you don't believe him.

He's

performing a fucking scene that he's written for himself.

And

he is supposed to be mitigating the the loss to osprey says hey osprey thanks for the fight of my life you can be the guy to carry this company forward

who a loser what the

but victory is fleeting

and he gave the owen hart belt back to tony because they're going to have a new tournament next year crown a new champion

What the fuck did you go through all that trouble for?

Why'd you wear it out there?

Yeah, and why did you get your head caved in to win it?

Okay, here it is.

Thanks.

But here were some quotes again

because this material speaks for itself.

For those people that are thinking, oh, isn't this great,

you know, piffy comments?

He said, for seven months, that title has been locked in a briefcase.

And then he had a meltdown

about how offended he was on behalf of the AEW championship.

Not because anything has been done to him personally,

not because nobody can explain what Moxley has been saying or doing for the last six months.

So there is no angle.

There is no story.

He said for seven months, the title's been locked in a briefcase.

And it's not for

that.

The AEW title was to be a shining light, a beacon to show the world that what these three letters meant.

It was about competition,

creativity,

compassion,

passion, the human dignity with which we all treat each other.

He's talking about a heavyweight wrestling championship.

What does that have to do with compassion and human fucking dignity?

I heard Everett Marshall give the same speech many years ago.

It's ridiculous, no.

And there are people who swear by Adam Page's promos.

They think they're great.

And

it's practice and it's over-the-top stupid.

I don't like it at all.

The human dignity with which we all treat each other,

the thrilling competition, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

So Paige came out and promised in seven weeks he's going to win the world title, and that's a promise that I will keep.

So he promised twice.

So he's winning the fucking thing, or he's an idiot, or somebody somebody else in the company is an idiot for letting him do it.

So that result is

foregone now.

But Swerve's music then plays.

And Swerve gets a bigger reaction still than Paige does.

And they pretty much character assassinated him.

And they're chanting, blah, blah, blah.

And Swerve showed a video of the Buckaroos saying when they cost Swerve the title in the three-way

with Paige and and

whatever the fuck.

They said we did it to help our friend Adam Paige.

You're welcome, Adam.

And so Swerve tells Paige, and there's Paige standing there like a dipshit.

He said, I had the same chance at Moxley that you have, and I had it one, but your friends came in and did that for you.

And now you've got a clear pass.

So I called collusion.

And Paige said

that he would never let Swerve be the champion again.

And don't, so basically, don't lie to me.

Did you do this?

And now Swerve, by the way, is right.

Paige is an asshole.

But confronted with that,

instead of saying,

I can't control what my ex-friends do or know I didn't have a part to play in this, he looks at the other babyface and then Paige says, Well, dumbass.

At Dynasty, I locked my eyes on you and even thought about helping you, but I would have cost you

the match to your face if I had been involved in it.

I've done it before.

And so,

again, all these baby faces are fucking pricks or dicks or incompetent or backstabbers.

And then, as they get face to face, here comes Osprey.

And I'm Jesus, because this was long already.

And Osprey came out, his hair looked like a goose shit on it.

And he gets in between and tells Swerve that he's wrong about Paige because Paige shook my hand.

So did the fucking con man that sold you the door-to-door burglar alarm system, right?

What the fuck?

Again, they have no angle with Moxley because nobody has understood what the guy has said or done for months.

So the babyfaces are now having to argue amongst themselves about how bad they want the shot and tear each other down

in the eyes of the fans in the process.

And then Osprey

says, we've got one shot at this.

Since when?

People are getting shots of at box all the time

we've got one shot at this and paige is the guy we can either make this easier on him if we all work together or fucking swerve slaps the microphone out of his hand and gets a pop because now he's shutting up this other nattering white boy

and swerve said i'm not ever going to trust paige

And that's just it.

And he walked out and people were booing.

And then then Osprey and Paige argued and Paige left and people were booing him.

So in 20 minutes,

besides the fact that this would not end, at one point, Swerve was the most over guy, most popular, so they buried him.

And then Osprey was the most popular guy.

And now they buried him and beat him.

And Paige was never the most popular guy.

And they're putting the belt on him.

Two out of three of their top baby faces got booed.

And the only reason they've come up with to have the match for the world title is to get the belt away from the guy that's got it now because the fans want anybody to beat him because he's the shits.

There's their world title picture.

Help me, Brian.

You know, looking back, you probably could figure out they were going in this direction when they had him.

when they had him, when they had Adam Page defeat MJF.

And I was like, oh, that's an interesting thing to do right now.

They're getting him ready maybe for Moxley.

Now, if Moxley comes out of that with the belt,

that'd be the worst thing.

So you have to figure they're going to do a big title change.

And they're coming together like they're getting ready to attack the Death Star.

They got to work together.

It's our one shot.

Our one.

Why?

Why is this your one?

It's your one shot in Texas, maybe.

But

they're getting behind Adam Page.

They're getting behind all the usual suspects from the very beginning, minus Cody.

They're getting behind all those people again.

And Adam Page,

you know, he's,

it looks like Tony Khan really believes in him right now.

I think that Paige may be the only person

that would be worse than Moxley as the champion right now.

Because then it just delays Osprey.

And

I don't know whether he ever gets swerved back or not where he was, where he ought to have it, but Paige is just so bleh.

We've seen it.

It ain't going to change.

Ain't going to get any better.

AEW is different than WWE.

You know, the WWE Championship doesn't make me think of creativity and human dignity.

The AEW Championship does.

So it's a different thing altogether.

Compassion.

It's what it's all about, Brian.

Human dignity.

What the?

Human dignity.

Human chess, I've heard, but not human dignity.

How would you describe that other wrestling league that you watch, AEW?

Well, I would say, you know, they really, they go for creativity and human dignity and compassion.

It's an entire den of human dignity.

It's a very compassionate wrestling company.

I need to start a den of indignity.

I'll be over there on the other side completely.

So it was time for Dick the Boozer and the Boer Horsemen to pull up in their pickup truck.

And when they walked in the back of the arena from the parking lot, did you see Boozer almost got lost and walked into the wall?

Yep.

Stopped short and turned right and went the complete opposite way to get in the building.

And it was a six-person mixed-tag team match with

Boozer and Schaefer and Gabe Kidd

with Claudio and Useless in the corner against Mark Briscoe,

Willow Nightingale, and Hong Kong Fuye.

Now, I have a couple of questions.

Dad,

in the mixed tag team environment, the men wrestle the men, the women wrestle the women.

So first off,

Spitball was confused.

There were no children.

They had

one team where they had

two men and a woman.

But his team had the man, the woman, and he was the child.

They had no opposing child.

So he didn't know which side to tackle.

tack did you see when he threw the kicks at moxley and then moxley just unfortunately moxley sold it by just not selling it and rolling out of the ring

and normally i would be upset but i wouldn't sell that grasshopper bullshit either it looks like an actual legitimate grasshopper trying to kick somebody

have you seen gabe kidd before

have we or is this the first time i never watched a full match i've seen clips of his stuff in new japan I'm not a big fan of modern New Japan.

I haven't been in a while, so I haven't really watched it.

I haven't watched him, never saw a full match before.

So I was just going to ask, is this as good as it gets?

Because what the?

Well,

they set him up for a good feud with Willow, I think.

Well, and he might be able to handle her, but I think she may be a little fucking too much for him because

we just mentioned as they brought in Josh Alexander,

a fucking bald guy with a beard.

And now they bring in this other guy, a bald guy with a beard.

But now that I've seen Gabe Kidd without a shirt on, he don't look anything like Josh Alexander.

This pale, paunchy, flabby, fucking,

what the fuck?

He looks like he just got off work at the fucking Valvoline and ran over there.

He's wearing.

sweatpants with it, was it a karate belt or just some kind of belt that was hanging out the front of his fucking pants about a foot and a half?

And he started out the match with a phony punch and forearm exchange with Briscoe.

And then

they all jumped into six-way and blah, blah, blah.

And

this thing went through two breaks, but Gabe Kidd,

seriously?

That

who looked at that fucking 8x10 glossy and said, boy, we need him on television?

And then finally,

the finish was a mess.

Claudio

got up and distracted Mark Briscoe right in front of Aubrey Ed.

He actually stepped in the ring and Mark goes that way and he steps out.

But then they both had to stand there forever, Claudio on the floor and Mark Briscoe in the ring, just staring at each other while time stood still because Commander.

was supposed to come out from the other side, jump up on the top rope,

walk the top rope from one side of the ring to the other, and then jump off on Claudio, who had to stand there and catch him.

Because they're a fighting on collision Saturday.

And then they fought off.

And then Moxley got the choke on Briscoe and the others' heels grabbed the other faces.

And Aubrey Ed ignored that the other illegal people were in the ring fighting and whatever and just called for the bell that

again, a team with a girl and Hong Kong Fuye on it, and they beat Mark Briscoe.

And just stationary fucking finish where they just held the baby faces down and just beat them.

What'd you think?

I hate the Death Riders.

I hate Moxley's matches.

I wasn't really impressed with Gabe Kidd.

I don't know about him spitting at Willow.

They're really pushing the man versus woman thing thing as far as they can go right now.

It's going to go further, I think.

Oh, well, they beat him up on pay-per-view.

You can do that over there.

I'm not a Claudio fan.

I wish he wasn't on this show, but I guess if there was any kind of consultation, consultation.

Consolation?

If there was a consolation, there'd be a lot of other things.

If there was anything to look forward to, it's him versus Commander in a feud.

Or I guess just a match.

Why did Commander interfere?

Commander has a match with him.

There's no feud, is there?

No, they're just there.

They have a match on Saturday.

So in Tony's mind.

So he's got to chase them away.

Anyhow.

Yeah.

And yeah, no, no, no to any of this.

No.

Would you like to talk about the no-disqualification girls tag team contest, Brian?

Man, and this was a big rematch.

I told you to watch that match at the pre-show.

Harley Cameron and Anna Jay obviously have been put together as a new fresh tag team.

Fans are really getting behind them against dastardly Penelope Ford and big mean Megan Bain.

This is a big thing.

They had the match the other day.

Apparently, the feud wouldn't die.

Apparently, they didn't know when to quit.

They couldn't count their lucky stars.

So they brought it back with this:

No disqualification.

Say it with me together, folks.

Lazy booking.

This was the first ever fashion street fight.

Penelope Pitstop and Megan Brain came out with matching tights on and a matching painted garbage can and lid and a gold painted chair because it's a no DQ match.

And then here come

Anna Jay and Harley Cameron with matching tights and the same color scheme they had decorated a two before in a fake lead pipe.

And these four girls get in there with these goofy gimmicks and these stupid stupid-looking outfits.

And they proceed to have

the imitation of every indie garbage match that they've ever seen.

They don't know how to work with gimmicks, so it all looks fake.

Megan Brain apparently doesn't know how to work at all.

At one point, they did a spot where the baby faces, one had

the

chair, and the other one had the plastic

lead pipe and they did a spot where one would hit megan bain in the back with a chair and she wouldn't sell it because she's a giant she'd just turn and like how dare you and the other one would hit with the pipe and she wouldn't sell it and she'd turn like how dare you

but all she was doing was they'd whack and she'd just slowly turn around like why'd you do that to me

and it whack from the and then she would turn and get into position and stand there there so that they,

it was the fakest thing ever.

She took the shots.

She didn't sell them.

She didn't go down.

She didn't rest.

She just grimaced and got into position.

And they went through a break with this.

And

at one point, again, Penelope,

she just don't have it.

As Ernie Ladd said about junkyard dog to Bill Watts one time, yeah, boy, I just don't have it, Bill.

Because she's got that face where she looks like she's concentrating.

It's like, which routine is this?

Oh, we have to go over here and chop now.

And she got in there with Anna Jay, and it looked like two strippers at the gold club fighting over the last night's tips.

And

they did a spot

where Megan ran Harley Cameron's face into the stairs.

And

as they, as Bobby Eaton, you say, they burnt the bread on themselves, Brian.

I think that's what cursed them for the rest of the night because they did a gimmick injury.

And then everybody else got hurt for real.

At one point in the middle of the match, I was like, man, Anna Jay, because I remember she had a street fight years ago, I think maybe with Penelope and it was Anna Jay and

Ty Conti, Ty Mello, whatever her name is.

Ty Mello Jello.

And I remember thinking, man, watching this match, I'm thinking, man, Anna Jay, I guess she kind of knows how to do this without getting hurt.

And then boom.

Well, no, but now the Harley Cameron, it was gimmick.

You know that, right?

Harley Cameron, they gimmicked it here to hide the fact that she really got hurt at the pay-per-view, I guess.

And she's going to.

Well, yes, but I don't know if she see that's the thing.

If she got hurt at the pay-per-view, how did she have this 10-minute fucking street fight?

And now she needs to take time off.

So they heard her in a gimmick to explain.

Help me make it make sense.

But they did a halfway decent job with this.

But here's where they,

unfortunately, for my discerning eye, where I knew bullshit.

She picks Harley up and she gives her the facebuster into the stairs.

Boom.

And immediately the floor camera goes to the pan in tight of the heel celebrating, which usually means they're trying to stay off of somebody getting color.

But the referee referee ran over there and signaled to the doctor.

And the doctor was on his feet and headed that way in the twinkling of an eye and already had a towel in his hand.

And

there should have been some more flummocks and we need a towel.

Oh God, she's bleeding, whatever.

But anyway, they did a pretty good job.

But then the problem was that everybody else for the rest of the night got fucking hurt for real.

So So while Harley has got her face bashed in,

the heels take a while to set up the doomsday, the Road Warriors doomsday device, Brian.

Megan is going to be, I guess, animal and old Penelope is going to be hawk.

Well,

first of all, Penelope looked like she was either blown up or she was dazed because she couldn't hardly get up on the rope.

And Megan leaves

Anna Jay to go over and kind of boost Penelope up on the corner.

So then Anna or

Megan picks up Anna Jay as on the shoulders, and Penelope's up on the top rope and she's right there in front of the girl.

And she yells something at her like, ah!

And she jumps off with the clothesline and went straight the fuck over her head.

Not even close.

Megan and Anna took the bump anyway.

Anna came down.

Megan put her down right on her ass on the mat.

The fans laughed, but Penelope had to be two feet over the top of her.

And she went right by her.

She had to almost miss on purpose.

How did she miss?

Now, to be fair,

old Anna was not sitting up straight like she should have been.

She had her head ducked down probably because she didn't want to get her fucking neck broken when she took that bump.

Oh, I don't think Anna Jay was the problem here.

But no, no, I mean, still, you could have.

I mean, she was close enough to her, she could have whispered in her ear, and she still missed her with the arm by a fucking

yardstick.

One, two, three.

So there was the win there.

So that was the match you wanted me to see rematch.

Well, again, the first match wasn't all gimmicked up.

You really got to pay attention to the work of that man.

I agree.

Penelope Ford.

Yeah, the work of them.

Penelope Ford's.

How much work have they had done on their buttocks?

Penelope Ford's been there since the beginning, and she has not gotten any better.

And, you know, it really, anytime she works, it pops out at you.

Harley Cameron's been trying, so now she's hurt.

Megan Bain is a star, but, you know we'll see what happens with her well no she looks like a star but i'm afraid as long as she's been around

what we're seeing now there may be the reason the reason that we've been looking for as to why she's not up north in the the big program

we'll we'll we'll keep an eye out for you we'll keep an eye out

who boy

And speaking of who boy,

the debut of a new combination, Brian was next.

Another six-man, well, a six-person tag team match, almost all men in this one.

For the six-man tag team titled The Ops of Samoa Joe, Shapupi, and Powerhouse Hobbs

against the frat house,

Preston Vance, Cole Carter, and Griff Garrison.

Griff Garrison's got to be 30 fucking five years old by now.

He's been doing college fraternity shit for the fucking past 10 years, Andy.

You don't even think about that.

The fact that he was in the, not the convertible blondes, the varsity blondes.

The varsity blondes.

How long does it take him to get out of fucking college?

And

they won't give up on Preston Vance.

It's almost like he knows the right people.

Boy, howdy, I'll tell you.

And again, have you seen that face?

He's like a fucking model home in a subdivision.

The lights are on, but nobody lives there.

And it's just, this was so ridiculous.

They get a bunch of indie clowns together

and to send out to the ring with them.

And they've got that goofy manager.

Who is that guy?

Who was that guy?

I've never seen that guy or heard of him before.

No, he was that goofy manager that was with the fucking bear guys.

And one of them got

fired for doing something, wasn't he?

I think he beat up his wife or was accused of beating up his wife or something.

It was awful.

The bald, jacked up manager

was, I think, was with them, but there's like nine of them out there.

And they actually did a video of them partying in El Paso the night before and doing stupid college kid shit.

And then the job guys

had the manager, the manager did a promo about throwing parties and looking for their next member of their group.

And it was like,

I wrote, how low budget can a big budget show look?

They're spending a fortune on this, and it looks like cable access.

And so, anyway, this

finally,

the manager got in the ring and hit Hobbs with a board.

What is that?

It was that a cricket bat or a what a

boat paddle?

What the fuck did they have?

I don't know.

It was a board.

Probably a pledge thing.

What do they call call them?

The boards that they hit pledges with?

The spanking of the, well, a paddle.

A pedal.

A paddle.

A pedal, a paddle.

I stepped in a poodle.

That's how I knew it was raining cats and dogs.

So then Hobbes shit cans the manager right in front of the referee because the manager comes in while the referee's back is turned and hit Hobbes with the board, but Hobbes didn't sell it.

But then the referee turned around and sees Hobbes throwing the manager out of the ring.

Then

in front of the referee, as he stood and stared, three of the stooges ran in to take spinebusters.

The guys that they're interfering in the fucking match.

He's the referee standing there looking at it.

Then Preston Vance comes back in with the board, but the referee takes that away.

And then Hobbes spinebustered Vance.

And then

Apparently, as Cole Carter, I know because he, by process of elimination, he's the only one left.

Carter tried to climb to the top rope behind Hobbes.

So the spot was going to be that Hobbes would,

he spinebustered all three of these guys.

Then he spinebusters Vance.

Then he's going to catch the guy coming off the top and he's going to spine buster his ass too.

Well, as Hobbes turns around to catch him, Carter fell off the top rope.

So he fucking

catches himself on the apron and he climbs back up, scampers back up as quick as he can.

Hobbs standing there.

He jumps off

and Hobbes is going to catch him and spine buster him.

But now the guy's rattled.

So when he landed, right as Hobbes was going to grab him, the guy fucking jumped already and he jumped right out of Hobbes's arms.

So

fucking Hobbes lost him

and he tried to grab him again as he came back down.

He grabbed him again.

And as he grabbed him again,

right as he's going to tell you, Carter jumped again

and almost jumped away from him again and hobbs said fuck it and just held him about halfway up and turned around and just planted him from halfway up the end

big debut for the frat house i don't know where this gimmick has been uh i would say aew dark but that went off the uh the air so to speak a while back yeah it should have been dark before it was

the frat house all right well this seems like one of those things you try on an NXT house show to see how it works out.

And

we'll see what happens.

Maybe they'll turn it into a thing where people will really get into partying with the frat house the day before the wrestling, the night before the wrestling.

I think that that might be fun.

Then they don't have to go to the wrestling the next day.

Be more fun that way.

Well, before we get to the episode that the or the segment of the show that was sponsored by Marie Antoinette, off with their heads.

Tell me, Brian,

whether I don't know whether this next segment was what they were

intending to do or what happened or what.

But

Renee Moxley Good was in the ring and introduced Jamie Hayter, and she came out looking all colorful.

And Renee said, Well, what's next for you?

And the lights went out.

But nothing happened happened for like 10 seconds.

And the announcers are like, oh, I don't know what's going on.

And then

music started playing and there was a logo on the screen.

But just as soon as you saw that, the lights came back on and you cut, they cut to the ring.

And Jamie Hayter was laying there

at the feet of this blonde girl in a black jacket who was standing over her.

We didn't hear any

blomp.

We didn't hear it.

And we heard the announcers.

We heard the crowd, but we didn't hear any whap or attack or oh my god or anything.

Just all of a sudden, boom, there they are.

Renee was gone.

And the blonde picks Jamie Hayter up and punches her again

and whipped her jacket off and spun around and did the Bray Wyatt backbend

and looked at the camera and the announcers were, oh, it's Tecla.

It's Tecla.

Tecla's here.

Who the fuck is Tecla?

Where did Tecla come from?

What the?

Has anybody mentioned Tecla?

I've never seen or heard of Tecla before, no.

Well, she's here.

She has arrived.

She has arrived and she is here.

I swear to God, Officer Yancey, I saw in the news the other day, I think he's running for sheriff down here.

So

did they miss a shot?

Was that what they were trying to do?

Did they?

The music didn't work.

What the fuck happened here?

I'm not sure because they screw up a lot of things and then you find out, oh no, they wanted to screw that up or they wanted to do it.

They didn't know it was a screw up, whatever it is.

They wanted to do it that way.

I don't know.

Where did Renee go?

I don't know about any of this.

I don't know who Tecla is.

She's from Austria, they said

Tecla.

And

she liked posing for the camera.

They're really doubling down on the women's division right now in terms of the amount of time the women are getting on dynamite and the focus on them.

Maybe it's helping AEW and the state they're in.

I don't know, but for me, it's a lot.

But I just again, how did this woman control the lights?

How did it?

Well, not only that, but how the fuck did Jamie hater?

I mean, there had to be somebody sitting in the building that could see, you know,

outline shadows.

They can't turn all the goddamn lights off with thousands of people.

It'd be a free-for-all.

What the?

How the fuck did they cover?

Did Jamie just lay down in the middle of the ring?

Or did the camera and the lights coming on miss this?

girl leveling her?

Well, if she leveled her, why didn't we hear it?

And where the fuck would Renee have gone in 10 seconds to just disappear?

I don't know.

We'll find out more about Tecla.

You think

she is

the technology guru of the future?

There's old Tecla.

She's got the technology.

How do you spell that?

I don't know.

What did you write?

T-E-K-L-A.

That's what I heard.

I don't think we'll probably need to write that name much.

It could have been T-E-C-H-L-A, and she could have been like into like the rave scene.

Could have been F-U-C-K-Y-O-U, and we could just move on.

Maybe it wasn't F-U-C-K-Y-O-U to you, this segment.

Well, it was to somebody.

Maybe it was to Tecla.

All right, here we go.

The TNT title was on the line.

I forgot Adam Cole has a belt, too.

He's a TNT champion.

And he had a single match with old Kyle Felcher.

And these two look like a before and after ad for the Charles Atlas bodybuilding course.

And

Adam Cole is definitely the ones getting the sand kicked in his face.

I know I've just gone over the heads of the millennials or whatever, but

again, this, I feel.

sorry for Adam with whatever physically he's experiencing.

This was pretty rough.

They're doing the moves, but

within two minutes, here comes Trent and Rocky to ringside.

And they're going to do something, but Roddy and Kyle O'Reilly come out and all four of them fight off.

So

while they're fighting off,

Kyle and Adam Kohler on the floor.

Kyle hits him with a super kick and then picks him up for the deal where they're going to, they do the power bomb on the apron, where they pick the guy up and they powerbomb him on the apron.

And the theory behind this stupid move is that the guy spreads his arms out,

tucks his chin,

takes the edge of the apron.

across his shoulder blades, kind of upper back where it will make a sound and look like an impact, but it's not the lower back where he'll just break all of of his goddamn vertebrae.

And then you just hope that the bottom rope isn't in such a place that it hits you in the back of the head, even though you got your chin tucked and fucking fucks your neck up.

So you can see this is a move that everybody ought to do at every match.

But in this case,

Kyle picks him up and turns.

And instead of taking a step toward the ring and putting him down on the ring,

he fucking threw him

he was standing there he was like four or five feet from the ring and he threw him like he was going to buckle bomb him

and instead of

instead of landing with the edge of the ring across the shoulder blades

cole was flying downwards and

He had part of his right arm hit the apron, but his left arm, the shoulder, he came like an inch short of the ring.

And you had to play it in slow motion to be able to see that his head did not hit the edge of the ring.

But it was like a half an inch off.

And he went to the floor and landed on the floor hard.

And

if he had literally gone an inch farther, it would have broken his fucking neck.

With the speed that he was going and the trajectory that he had,

it would have literally, if the ring had hit the back of his head, it could not have failed to have snapped his neck right there.

I'm not talking about just a broken vertebrae or whatever.

I'm talking about disconnect the goddamn spinal column type of bump.

And there was a huge gasp from everybody.

And that was their break spot.

And it was almost a decapitation.

But here's the thing.

And I've been waiting to say this.

There were people, Brian, on Twitter,

the apologists that think, oh, these old men, they don't know what they're talking about.

They thought it was great.

They thought, did you see how safely they did that?

His head didn't hit.

Like that, that was what they were trying to do to begin with.

And that it wasn't a massive fuck up.

And that only by the grace of luck

and God, if you believe in that, did Adam Cole not get a a broken neck because an inch further would have been curtains but these people actually thought well they did it right his head didn't hit his right arm made the noise on the ring did you see any of those

i saw some of that feedback i saw a lot more feedback people concerned before people obviously looked in slow motion to see that.

I still haven't done that.

I only watched it in real time and then heard after the fact that he wasn't dead.

Yes.

I mean, many people were concerned and saying, oh my God, and that could have been fatal and all this other stuff.

But there were people actually saying, no, they did it perfectly.

They don't even know what the fuck ups are.

The people in the ring don't know when they're fucking up.

So of course they don't know how to avoid it.

But anyway, they.

They came back from the break and went a few more minutes.

And then Adam Cole had him.

And here, again, this is Kyle Felcher that they've

say what you want about the outfit, and that there's been no focused booking or push of him.

What is his personality?

But he has worked on his physique.

He's grown up as best he can.

He's a hell of an athlete.

He's got the size.

He can do some shit.

He's never going to learn anything where he is.

He was reckless and he should have been reprimanded because I can't believe the unprofessionalism of letting a guy go in that position.

But they've got now

Adam Cole's ready to beat him and ready to give him the knee, and Josh Alexander runs in and tackles Cole and gets disqualified.

So,

no, I'm not in favor of killing Adam Cole like they tried to do.

But how the fuck are they going to get Felcher over if he can't beat a guy half his size?

That,

let's face it, poor Adam, it just ain't happening.

And they booked that whole group into insensibility.

So now Adam Cole almost won, but Josh Alexander run in

and the DQ and they get heat.

And then they were trying to play the music for the same, but the CD got stuck.

I didn't know they were still using CDs, but what is the last thing that you ever heard that sounded like,

that's a CD getting stuck, right?

It could be a digital file, something

got stuck,

so the music got stuck.

So then they had to get more heat on poor old fucking Adam Cole.

Then the music plays, and Brodie King comes out with a chair and the heels bail out

again.

Just

one more time

for the learning impaired.

No, they didn't do that power bomb spot right.

That's not what it was supposed to be.

It was reckless and dangerous.

It was a miracle.

Freak luck that Adam Cole didn't at least get a concussion and not a broken neck.

And you can apologize for your favorite wrestlers or your favorite wrestling company all you want, but no, that was ridiculous.

It It shouldn't have been done.

Anything I missed before we go to part two of this saga?

Because now we got Alexander and Brody King at ringside.

I guess I'll just say I don't like watching Adam Cole matches, especially against Kyle.

Kyle's big.

For AEW, he's a big guy, and he's put on muscle and size, never wins.

But he's a big guy with a heel manager.

And Adam Cole's half his size, doesn't have a tan on his back.

Just nothing.

It just, it feels like you're watching.

That's because he always does jobs.

His chest is tan.

It feels like you're watching an unhealthy guy.

And I always, you know, we've been saying that for years.

Like, I hope he's all right.

The fact that we're still saying it and we still like, you know, there's a chance he may be sick.

That's a problem.

I.

The only reason that I say that kind of jokingly and go on with the criticism is because one would think that if he's having these wrestling matches, that physically he doesn't have a terminal illness.

But

so then Brody and Josh Alexander was the next match, and we came right back with the bell and they started out with a hockey fight.

And then they did some bits with Brody King's t-shirt or

is it Alexander's?

That is Brody's.

And then they went to the floor and

Brody King, Alexander was right in front of him.

And Brody King just threw a forearm and just potated him right in the fucking nose.

And I'm like, how?

How?

You had to do that on purpose.

He wasn't moving and he fed you his face, just punch him in the chin.

He threw a forearm and bam.

Taz was joking like, well, I came all the way from Idaho.

So then they spent minutes on the floor.

Minutes on the floor.

And I started fast forwarding because they weren't ever going to get in the fucking ring.

During the picture and picture in the break, they actually got in the ring.

But by the time they came back full, they were trying to balance on the turnbuckles to do the, oh, I'm going to suplex you off the wrong way to the floor.

Oh, no, you're not.

And Alexander almost fell off up there.

But then they went down to the apron and started teasing moves on the apron forever.

They still wouldn't get in the ring.

And then finally,

Josh Alexander hit a German suplex to Brody King on the apron of the ring.

And then they both took a bump back to the floor.

So I fast-forwarded while they were still on the floor.

Then they got back in the ring.

They get back in the ring, and Josh Alexander wastelocks Brody King with King's arms trapped too and gave him a German suplex.

And I swear to God, it

53 years of watching wrestling, there's still new shit that I can see.

I have never seen a son of a bitch be so unlucky that he can give another guy a German suplex and bust his own face open.

That is exactly what happened he germined suplex brody king the i guess the back of brody king's head hit josh alexander's head i don't know what would be sharp because it looked like he somebody cut him with a razor

but what would be sharp on brody king's fucking face i don't think that his wit is not sharp

Does he have a so that maybe?

I'll tell you what, next time time I got a ring with him, I'd start pulling him out

because he fucking German suplex.

The guy he comes up, he's fucking bleeding from his head like, God damn, somebody just fucking hit him with an axe.

So now

Alexander is kind of stunned and Brody King just

he's laying there in the middle of the ring, but he knows that what spot is next as soon as his opponent finishes bleeding to death.

So Brody King rolled into position.

He rolled over twice, very slowly and deliberately to get in position.

So, Alexander went to the top, did the moonsault.

Brody King raised his knees.

And boom, and he hit him.

And then

some kind of gut wrench over the shoulder into a fucking sideways pile driver.

God damn, with Brody King hit Alexander with that with the track record of this show so far, I would have never gone for.

One, two, three.

So they beat Alexander again.

They ought to send Gabe Kidd out and let Gabe Kidd do Josh Alexander's jobs.

Nobody'd know the difference.

Who's the last new person we saw in the show who didn't lose?

Even if it's the Frat House, Kevin Knight.

Well, I mean, they deserved it.

The Frat House deserved to lose, but when you bring a guy in that looks like halfway of something,

He never wins either.

How many stitches you think he took from that German souple?

If you'd have called that finish in the old days, 20 years ago, I'll German suplex, you'd get some juice on myself.

And I'd like to go, what?

What?

You were, what?

Anyway, we know.

Go ahead.

No, that was

that match.

And of course, I think that was that another one of the qualifiers for the Big Kenny match, the four-way with Kenny.

I don't even know.

I don't know.

Okay.

We We know Adam Cole is okay because

in the back, Kyle was doing an interview, said 10 words, and Adam Cole jumped in and they had a big fake fight and security ran in.

So Adam's all right, thank goodness.

And then it was time for the last segment.

And Brian, this may break your heart.

But Mercedes Moon came to the ring with 18 belts and her camel face on.

And Tony Storm came to the ring in black and white.

And I knew we were were about ready to see 10 minutes of emoting between the two of them.

And

I just can't.

I just, I was, I was done.

I don't know.

I don't care.

Have I squandered my goddamn responsibility to the audience?

I think you owe it to the listeners who rely on your review.

based on all your years and your expertise.

I think you owe it to them to give this a well-thought-out review.

This is obviously building to what they call the biggest women's match in wrestling history.

I think, you know, if you want, we could travel through time

and you could go watch it and we can come back.

How do you feel about it?

Well, I'll tell you how I feel about it.

I just can't.

Did I miss an epic promo with a blistering angle that would do sellout business for this cataclysmic confrontation?

Or did I miss

the two of them in their own individual ways doing some bad fucking acting auditions?

Well, I don't know if I think that's fair.

I don't think Tony Storm is really a bad actress on an audition.

I think she's got her role down and she's really good in it.

It just doesn't.

Okay, then she's doing a good acting audition and the other one's doing a bad acting audition.

The other ones come up with her own character and she really loves it.

The rest of the world just needs to catch up, I guess.

Reed Monet.

Did either one of them get lost in the woods?

no they uh they stuck to their did any did anyone's team come in no

well and we didn't miss anything

well i i watched i want to i want to i want to see the reality show lost in the woods with mercedes moon

we'll see if uh destination america is still in the wrestling business Hey, if they found Bigfoot, they can find Josephine Camel.

All right.

Well, listen, let's go now.

Yes.

Where where are we going i was gonna i was gonna send you somewhere where where would you like to go wherever you want to go i want to know what the hell's going on at the arcadian vanguard network this week before we find out whether anybody watched this television show or not oh another very big week some cool stuff i got to tell you about this week on the arcadian vanguard podcast network at information about all the shows on twitter at super podcasts or on facebook facebook.com slash arcadian vanguard of course the wrestling both of us are having trouble with our our pipes this week of course the wrestling news each and every day.

Find out what's happening in the pipeline of professional wrestling news.

Only the news, no opinion, no gossip, no star ratings, no paywall.

Thewrestlingnews.com, wherever you find your favorite podcast.

Want to make mention, Shut Up and Wrestle with Brian Solomon, a brand new series.

He's starting on his show, a look back at the...

NWA champions going back to the beginning.

So this week, a look at Orville Brown.

Hear that at SUAWPod.com or look for Shut Up and Wrestle with Brian Solomon, wherever you find your favorite podcast.

Brian, let me ask you this: Do you think that Orville Brown would have made it big time if the accident hadn't happened?

Because has there ever been a big wrestling star named Orville?

It would have been interesting.

I mean,

we were still years away from learning of Orville Redenbacher.

That kind of normalized Orville relations with the American population.

Normalized Orville relations.

But Orville Brown, find out about the first NWA National Wrestling Alliance.

Of course, there was a National Wrestling Association, also a different National Wrestling Alliance, also the Midwest.

There are lots of world champions everywhere.

Lots of them.

They all came together and said, Orville, you're our guy.

And he drove right off the road.

Orville Orville, he's our man.

If he can't do it, we'll get another man.

Paul Fez again.

Paul Fez.

But hear about Orville Brown, learn about him.

And it wrestled.

Get up the Fez signal.

Commissioner Gordon.

Once again, S-U-A-WPod.com.

Stick to Wrestling with John McAdam.

They are looking at wrestling 40 years ago, whether it's in world-class or the WWE.

Hear about it.

McAdamPod.com or look for Stick to Wrestling with John McAdam, wherever you find your favorite podcast.

And of course, the 605 Super Podcast.

The membership.

All right, that died just like my voice did.

Go through the archive, 605pod.com.

The mothership.

Well, mother,

did anyone watch the episode of AEW from May 28th that we have titled The Blooper Reel, where they did their best to injure each other in very different, exciting, creative, and compassionate ways?

Well, I'm pulling up the ratings right now.

And just for the record, for anyone looking for the AEW roster review from the letter K on, that will be continuing on the drive-through this coming week.

Yes, I have the notes standing by here, who we've discarded and who we have kept so far, and we're going to continue with that process.

I think we left off with Jeremiah Jackoff, and now we're starting with the Ks.

I don't remember that, but let's go now to the ratings.

AEW Dynamite, May 28th, 2025 on TBS

from 8 to 10.

Fucking you broke.

What are you laughing at?

You're doing your silliness.

God damn it.

You fucking made me laugh after the fact.

8 to 10.05 here.

Jeremiah Jackoff.

8 to 10.05 p.m.

I think that's the muscly manager's name, isn't it?

Jeremiah Jackoff.

Jim, on average.

Yes.

Watched by 636,000 viewers.

Is this the same?

Last week they fell in a hole and they come back to it's the same thing they do every fucking week.

626, 636, 606.

It's 1%.

I'm sick of six.

1% up on the four-week trend of 629.

So, like you said, right in that range, last week was 575, an 11% hit, according to WrestleNomics.

Let's go now to the quarterly hour breakdowns.

These, once again, compiled by WrestleNomics,

quarter one, eight to eight: 15 p.m.

The Adam page, Swerve Strickland, Will Osprey live promo,

689,000 viewers.

Ooh,

much lower to start than

traditionally,

which on the good note means they don't have as far to fall unless they hold up for the first hour and jump off a cliff in the second hour, but we will see what transpires.

We will now move to quarter two, 8.15, 8:30 p.m.

The continuation of the Paige Strickland Osprey Live promo.

The start of Mark Briscoe, Speedball, Mike Bailey, and Willow Nightingale versus the Death Riders with picture and picture,

634,000 viewers.

Okay, and again, that's only 55,000.

Normally, it's 100 and something thousand.

So

the good part, again, we're finding that silver lining.

When they don't start high, they don't have as far to fall.

We're going at a quarter three, 8:30 to 8:45 p.m.

The continuation of Briscoe Bailey and Nightingale versus the Death Riders of Picture-in-Picture Ads, the Hurt Syndicate MJF promo, and Penelope Ford's backstage promo, followed by an ad break, 606,000 viewers.

And

they

pretty much need to stay within spitting distance of that to hit their average at this point.

And so far, they are kind of within the trend line, so nothing abnormal.

Quarter four, 8.45 to 9 p.m., the Ricochet promo.

Megan Bain.

I forgot.

I glossed over that because he said nothing in a boring way, but the summation is he needs to have a group,

minions that will do his bidding to help out against all these other groups.

So now

old Ricochet is going to have a group too.

That's exactly what we need is some more groups.

Well, we go now to quarter four,

8:45 to 9 p.m., the Ricochet promo followed by Megan Bain and Penelope Ford versus Anna Jay and Harley Cameron.

No deal.

And the invisible woman.

And picture ads,

599,000 viewers.

That's a gift right there.

They only lost 7,000 for that thing.

And they're at the top of the hour.

They should go up according to these numbers, I would think.

And that's also the low point in the key demo, 188,000 for those four women out there.

We continue now to the big nine o'clock hour, 9 to 9.15 p.m.

The continuation of Bain and Ford versus Jay and Cameron, the Mercedes-Monet angle.

What was the Mercedes-Monet angle?

I don't know.

I don't know.

And the Ops versus the Frat House,

followed by an ad break.

637,000 viewers.

There you go.

So they picked up 38,000 at the top of the hour.

They're back to the second best quarter that they've done all night.

This is not losing mass percentages of the audience like they normally do, but they started with more of their faithful.

We go now to quarter six, 9.15 and 9.30 p.m.

The Jamie Hayter Tequo live angle, spelled T-H-E-K-L-A.

Yeah.

The Mystico video and the start of Adam Cole versus Kyle Fletcher with Picture and Picture,

648,000 viewers.

Amazing.

They picked up 11,000 in quarter six, which is usually where they're starting to fall off that cliff.

So this is going to be pretty consistent.

I wonder what time was halftime during the basketball game.

But anyway.

Back to the schedule here, the

quarterly hour breakdown.

Quarter 7, 9.30 to 9.45 p.m., the continuation of Cole versus Fletcher with the Don Callis family and Brody King in the post-match, an ad break, and the start of Josh Alexander versus Brody King with picture on picture,

618,000 viewers.

Well, that's again, that's a gift.

That's only 30,000 down for that.

And I have a feeling

that people are going to give up quickly in the next segment.

Well, the final segment, and I remind you, we have a five-minute overrun quarter eight, 9.45 to 10 p.m.

Continuation of Alexander versus King and the Mercedes-Monet Tony Storm Live promo,

636,000 viewers.

Five-minute overrun, 705,000 viewers.

Okay, now I call bullshit

there, but 636 for those two.

They ought to be turning cartwheels.

They actually gained another 18,000, but

69,000 for the five-minute overrun.

Modern family has not been that popular here lately.

And I'm sorry, but I don't believe that they would have tuned in just for five minutes of these two to continue to talk to each other.

But

if you do what we used to do

and take off the first quarter that always starts the highest and take off the overrun because that's artificial,

then you have pretty much got

600 to 630,000 people.

That's their base audience.

Yeah, they've been steady with this.

Even the key demo, it doesn't really fluctuate too much from week to week.

It's steady.

This is their cable base right now.

Who knows what Max really is or isn't?

Some people say it's...

I think he's a member of the Hurts Syndicate now.

Well, some people say it's one of the biggest sports shows on Max, and other people say, well, Max points out the other ones that are bigger.

So who knows?

But those are the ratings, and they're kind of,

you know, they're in a place right now.

We'll see what happens after the NBA playoffs, if it really changes anything.

But right now, this kind of, this seems like

the base, like you said.

That's who they are.

And that's where they are.

And that's what they've done.

And that's why we said that, because we tell you all about it here on our various programming.

Brian, has this program come to an end?

Based on the way you just said everything, you just said, what you said, yes.

Well,

I'll tell you what, my tongue got lapped over my eye teeth and I couldn't see what I was saying.

But if you will come back next week, folks, to the experience, we'll say it all again.

And in just a couple of days on the drive-through, we'll say more stuff that we can then

talk about that we said.

But I've said enough for now.

So, in parting for Brian, I'm Jim.

Thank you.

Fuck you.

Bye-bye, everybody.