Episode 579: Stars, Superstars, and Rocks

Suffs!

The new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway.

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Winner, best score!

We demand to be seen!

Winner, best book!

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It's a theatrical masterpiece that's thrilling, inspiring, dazzlingly entertaining, and unquestionably the most emotionally stirring musical this season.

Suffs!

Playing the Orpheum Theater, October 22nd through November 9th.

Tickets at BroadwaySF.com

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Like a midnight tender, rock and roller.

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

He's

Cornette.

The keys to the future held by the past.

And with tag team partner, Barion Last.

He sends this message out by podcast team.

Jim Cornette!

Well, he's never fake a phony.

He never backs down from a fight.

He never wins the pony.

Cause his mama raised him right.

It's time

to refer

your mind

and get the experience,

get the experience,

get the experience of Jim Cornette.

Hello again, everybody, and welcome to the Jim Cornette Experience, where today we're going to talk Los Angeles history, Pennsylvania geography, a smoky mountain wrestling mystery, and Master P coming back to save AEW

from all the higher ratings.

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

Co-host to you, there's no limit to his podcasting brilliance, Master B, the great Brian last, everybody.

Aloha, Jim.

A pleasure to be here once again.

It's Silk the Shocker's birthday.

It's one of those great lines from the old days of Master P's wrestling work.

What are you nattering about?

Seriously, a case of how can I miss you if you won't go away?

I was so happy to see Master P this week.

It put a smile on my face as soon as Dynamite started.

So he went away for 30 years and that way you missed him?

Yeah.

And you know what?

He didn't let me down.

He contributed this week exactly as I hoped he would.

It went perfectly.

Do you think if he'll go away for another 30 years, we can try to miss him again?

I'll take, who do you think a winner fight, Master P or Travis Scott?

Well, I think Master P just with size and bulk alone could fall on the little bag of bones and suffocate him.

Who do you think I wouldn't fight, Master P or Jelly Roll?

I think I got Jelly Roll.

He's been in training, right?

He's lost 200 pounds.

That means maybe he goes on a treadmill.

It doesn't mean he's out there fighting.

Well, he's got,

okay, like fucking Mr.

P is out there.

The mass of Mr.

What did I say?

What?

You said Mr.

Rat.

No, you said Mr.

P, but he's master.

Mr.

P, Master, Mr.

Master.

Whatever Mr.

Master's letter is.

Mr.

P, I believe Mr.

P was Brock Lesnar's new nickname after that story came out.

Oh, quit now.

Would you stop it?

There's absolutely no

confirmation, let's say, of that.

But nevertheless, so the P P Fellow

is not fighting either.

None of these people are fighting, people are fighting to not have to look at these people.

That was an argument this kid used in like seventh grade.

Some of us are listening to the Guns and Roses.

I think it was seventh grade, maybe been eighth grade.

So we listened to Guns and Roses.

He's like, Man, who do you think will win a fight?

Axel Rose or the guy from House of Pain?

Like, I don't care.

What the fuck?

What the fuck?

Let them kill each other as long as that's a good album.

Who do you think is a better singer, Hoist Gracie or Carl Gotch?

I bet Gotch had a probably a pretty good European-type baritone.

I don't know.

See, the problem is we don't have too many Hoist Gracie promos to really base a singing voice on.

I thought you were going to say we don't have too many Carl Gotch records to judge his singing voice by.

And when they were screaming in pain,

can anybody isolate those sounds?

I believe that's called the the Buddy Rogers song.

I'm thinking probably somebody's going to want us to isolate our sounds here.

So we might as well.

I am just,

can I mention to you that I'm fed up with watching wrestling after the hours and hours upon hours over the last days upon days and the length and the breadth and the height and the

depth my soul can reach full of wrestling and or talking to you about the wrestling.

But I think I'm even more fed up with the weather, Brian.

Do you know, do you have any idea what it's doing right now in Louisville, Kentucky?

A very faint idea.

It's raining again.

We're all growing fins.

Oh, will the rain ever end before I start cussing again?

Here's the thing.

Yesterday was a miserable day in my life, Brian last, and I don't mean to be.

That's why I asked you before we went on here.

I said, should I put on my fake cheerfulness or should I just be myself?

And you said something about, just go with what you feel.

I don't want to appear like I'm a persnickety individual.

It's just not satisfied with anything.

But yesterday sucked big old donkey balls.

And it.

A lot of it was centered around this fucking weather we're having.

We are like the city of Louisville, when I say we,

I think about it, it's right now it's like 11 inches heavy rain for the year so far.

Basically a foot some places, who knows, even more around here.

But yeah, I woke up early yesterday morning,

worried as I usually am about what the day would bring since there's an incompetent criminal lunatic in the White House.

That's what hangs over the sword of Damocles over everyone's head first thing in the morning.

But then everything I tried to do all day either was more complicated than it needed to be, went sideways somehow, or reminded me of something that I was ticked off about to begin with, including the muddiness and the messiness of my front yard near the road where the fiber optic shit went in.

And I'm just not happy.

I got to redo that.

So nevertheless,

what I'm thinking all day yesterday, Brian, I know you can identify with this.

A lot of people think this in the course of a bad day.

I was thinking, if I just go to Popeyes and get myself just a giant bag of fucking chicken and biscuits and some blackened ranch for dipping, and the world will be a better place at the end of the day.

Yeah, obviously you think that many times also with a stressful life like you lead.

Well, there's no Popeyes nearby.

Well, then how have you avoided just committing Harry Carey without Popeyes?

This pizza, I still get food sent to me from Long Island, kosher deli, and bagels.

Oh, but

you need more grease when things are really dire.

So, anyway, the point is, the last thing I was going to do was I was going to go over to the in-laws to help them with some paperwork that they needed addressed.

And I was going to swing by Popeyes and just get a variety of that crunchiness.

And as I was over there, Stace called over.

She said, hey,

UPS has brought your shipping supplies and left them down by the gate.

And now the FedEx people, I have a problem with them.

The mail trucks, they come right up and out of the drive.

The mailman, he's very friendly sort.

Now we got rid of that knucklehead that we had a while back.

And he's a very competent man.

He brings everything to the door.

And the UPS guy normally that works, he friendly sort, if he can't get the truck in for whatever reason, he'll park at the road, he'll wheel that stuff up the driveway, but he's my regular guy, puts it in the garage there.

The FedE people are usually the ones that will leave you, even if it's a box marked, this shit's on dry ice, it's perishable food.

They'll leave it at the gate and just drive off with no thank you, ma'am, whatsoever.

And you're just expected to know that it's there.

But nevertheless, the UPS guy, the regular guy not on duty yesterday, they have left my shipping supplies at the gate.

And I said, well, I'll get them when I get home because it's not going to rain for a couple hours.

And 20 minutes later, when I'm leaving to go home first to Popeyes,

it's sprinkling rain.

Fuck.

Because I got a six-foot bag of peanuts and giant boxes of shipping supplies, which are more boxes and cardboard and things that can't get wet.

So now I deviate from my Popeye's mission to go straight home to get there to load the stuff in the back of the truck.

At the foot of the road at the gate there, and I nearly strained my milk, as Mama Cornette would say, getting this giant fucking box of shit in the back.

And then the six-foot bag of peanuts.

And here's another heavy box.

Oh, God,

I'm a grooing.

I may have torn something.

And get that up, up, up the dry.

And then it just, it stops spitting.

It stops drizzling.

It's not raining.

As soon as I've rushed to do this and get up to the top of the drive, no rain.

And I thought, well, fuck, I could have gone to Popeye's.

And but before I could get the idea about 15 minutes later that I might go back to Popeyes, I look out the window and here comes this torrential rain.

And it's a toad strangler, a gully washer.

It's coming down like a tall cow pissing on a flat rock, Brian.

It is, I mean, this has to be a rainfall of an inch or two an hour.

And then I look outside and I see that the back drain out my back door.

I had the Monroes re-dig the whole drain thing, put the French drain in, blah, blah, blah.

But the opening,

the opening to that thing gets clogged up with leaves and tree gunk and debris of various kinds comes off of the roof and the skies and the trees and everything in the middle of these gully washers.

And the drain is stopped up.

And now I've got a fucking giant pond of water almost a foot deep and it's creeping up towards sneaking under the back door.

And I, and I got to get the Monroes on enlarging this hole so my hole has to be bigger is basically is the moral of this story.

But nevertheless, in the meantime, I got to go out there in this goddamn driving rain and stick my hands down there and free the goddamn contaminants from the front of the grate of the drain that will take the water away from the goddamn back door.

And right then I was thinking, I'm standing out here in the goddamn rain like a fucking idiot when I could be be eating Popeye's chicken.

And that pretty much just goddamn soured me for the rest of the day.

So, the moral of the story is, Brian, if you want to be eating Popeye's chicken, don't be standing out in the rain.

And that was the moral of the story.

It seemed like a story with no morals, but it's a that's the moral of the story, right?

Well,

I got a story and got no morals.

Let the bad guy win every once in a while.

Will he go out in the rain?

Or will he go to Popeyes?

Dirty.

So now they've, well, go ahead.

Go ahead.

Usually it's later in the show when you make me hungry.

I'm starving now.

Well, hold on here a second.

We're going to get back to that.

But I'd also like to mention they canceled the balloon glow,

the

Kentucky.

The Kentucky Turkin.

That ought to be your goddamn Thanksgiving meal, the Kentucky Turkin.

I get to finally say to you, are you having a series of small strokes?

No,

the Kentucky Derby Festival events are from,

quit laughing at me, a fie upon you.

The Kentucky Derby Festival events have been fucking hammered by this ridiculous weather we've been having.

Thunder was canceled.

This weekend is all the balloon activities.

They have a balloon glow, or they were going to, but they couldn't because of the weather.

And then this morning, there's like a rush hour race where they do a thing nine o'clock in the morning in preparation for tomorrow's big great balloon race, the annual event.

And they've had to cancel everything so far.

I don't know what the fuck they're going to get in.

And the Pegasus parade should come off on Sunday.

That's the only day.

that doesn't have a chance of raining next week.

And then supposedly storms and rain Wednesday, Thursday, and possibly Friday.

And Derby is next Saturday.

So there's a lot of fucking soggy ass motherfuckers wearing silly suits and wacky hats that are going to be populating the city of Louisville, Kentucky.

This is fucking horrible weather.

Just horrible.

Just rotten.

Why don't they just put the Pegasus Parade people in the balloons and free up traffic?

You know, that might be an no, they close.

That's why they do it on Sunday.

Now, when I was a kid,

the Pegasus Parade, because they didn't have like a three-week

Kentucky Derby festival, you know, schedule when I was eight years old or whatever.

And they didn't have thunder over Louisville.

That hadn't become a thing yet.

They had the Pegasus Parade, which was obviously the big parade downtown.

And obviously, Kentucky Oaks is Friday before Derby and then the Kentucky Derby Saturday.

And they had a few other events, but in the 60s, it hadn't got to be a big thing.

But they actually

did the Pegasus parade on, I believe, the Thursday before Derby.

Can you imagine in a major city?

Well, depending on your definition of major, but imagine them doing this in New York.

In a major fucking city, They just shut down like five miles of Broadway on a Thursday afternoon at four o'clock and said, fuck it, we're having a parade.

And they, and, you know, you, they put bleachers up and you just take the kiddies and line the streets and look at the fucking Belen.

You might see Colonel Sanders in a goddamn Kentucky fried chicken Cadillac, you know, waving at you as he passed by at like one and a half miles an hour.

This is the slowest goddamn bullshit.

I hated parades when I was a kid.

I wanted them to race.

Watch them fucking float start turning some corners on two wheels.

That would have been been exciting.

What happens with the balloon race?

Well, somebody wins,

but only if they can fucking fly the balloons in case of non-inclement weather.

But it's a sight to behold all these hot air balloons just in the air.

You would think all the hot air,

goddamn Heyman was in town.

When I was a kid, I saw that one Police Academy movie.

I forget it was three or four, and they had like a big end scene where they're all in balloons that jumping from one balloon to the other.

That's the kind of race I want to see.

Yeah,

not just a bunch of people float up and then kind of slowly float to the left.

Well, they have the floats and the balloons are, you know, some of the floats are very ornate and everything.

And the balloons, they have to, you know, you've seen the funny videos of the balloon accidents when they lose track of their goddamn leashes or their tethers or whatever is holding them to the people that are holding them.

But it's, it's just, it's a slow-moving, oh, and here comes,

you know,

the weatherman from WDRB with the, well, now that do they even do like

weather girls or beauty contest winners and parades anymore?

I don't know if we're

just missing

that in society anymore.

It's sad.

You know, I don't know if they do.

So these quasi-celebrities.

Like yearbooks don't do like best looking anymore.

Well, now, in all fairness, have you seen most of the kids of this generation?

Well, the boys definitely

have haircuts.

That's for sure.

So really, there's fewer.

fewer fucking qualifiers than ever before.

But nevertheless, anyway, so that's what's going on here in Louisville.

But Brian, good news.

Hold on.

I got my

goddamn.

See, I've got all kinds of documentation for things going on in the world but i got good news for you while louisville kentucky is experiencing horrible weather and dreary conditions overall you have a bright ray of sunshine going on up there in new jersey did you hear about this brian oh i don't know where you're going oh Well, this is from Mike, and I get Mike is

up here in the Great Garden State.

So I get he's a New Jersey resident.

But he says, hi, Jim.

I'm writing to let you know of a recent wonderful development for those of us stuck up here in the Great Garden State, but are pining desperately for the delicious flavors associated with the wide assortment of delicacies found in southern cooking.

News broke several weeks ago that Bojangles is hell-bent on establishing a strong footing in New Jersey with the first of several new stores opening up in Piscataway.

Where is Piscataway, New Jersey from

approximately from your particular neck of the woods?

Piscataway?

Yeah, that's what I said, Piscataway.

It's that away.

No, I actually have no idea.

I have no idea where Piscataway is.

It's one of those places I have not visited or been to.

I've heard the name because it's a funny name, but I've never, I have no idea where it is.

But hold on.

I have seen signs when I would have to drive around New Jersey for Dennis Coraluso and other other purposes for piscataway it's somewhere up there

but wherever there's going to be a bojangles

and anyway mike continues i for one am thrilled i personally learned a bojangles when traveling to south carolina for work several years back and now make it a point to stop at least once if driving through the south the bowberry biscuits are enough to lift any sad souls out of their depressive state.

I feel as part of your long quest to school Brian's taste buds as to what good food actually tastes like, you should be requiring him to field trip it over to Bojangles and report back his experience on an upcoming episode.

The first location shouldn't be too far from him, though I know the exact location of Last Manor is a closely guarded secret.

So that Brian Bojangles.

I'm looking at it now,

trying to see where is this exactly.

This is.

oh you go past bernardsville oh well everybody knows that bridgewater oh okay it's a little past the bridgewater area okay i kind of know where it is i'm not going to go there for fast food and come home that's just not worth it i mean is is this like is this a hundred miles or is this more of a 50 mile or say it's about a half hour away maybe oh well i forget

maybe 45 minutes Well, you guys up there, you have to call it in time instead of distance because it could take you a long time to go a short distance.

Just depending on which way you're, which way the wind is blowing.

There's a Chick-fil-A over in Morris Township.

I sometimes go over there because, you know, I like their chicken sandwiches.

We're talking about chicken sandwiches.

Or whatever Bojangles is.

I'll tell you what.

What is Bojangles?

Bojangles.

Oh, my God, damn it.

What is Bojangles?

We were just talking about Popeye.

I was confused.

Well, but no, because Popeyes is here.

We don't have a Bojangles here, but I got a Popeyes here right here, here next to me here.

Bojangles chicken, my God.

The holy grail of chicken chains.

Now,

there is better fried chicken to be had on in some bases, but you got to go to Hattie B's in Nashville or some other local locations, but with widespread coverage, Bojangles.

Day to chicken people, baby,

and the biscuits and the gravy and the sides.

And oh,

now that, I mean, anybody who has ever worked to Carolinas has been a bad.

I used to take buckets of Bojangles on the plane

in Charlotte when we were working for Crockett.

Not the commercial flights, folks, Crockett's plane, but that everybody else would show up with their the beer for after the show or their energy drinks or whatever.

And I had a bag of chicken.

Well, hopefully it'll be on DoorDash.

Oh, God.

I want to sit down here and enjoy it.

I don't want to be in my

life.

But see, here's the thing.

When you, Brian.

Yes.

Yeah, I'm sorry, but you're this New Jersey, New Jersey native who doesn't understand the

intricacies of classic fried chicken.

Especially the first time you experience Bojangles.

You want to be in the restaurant because you want to smell the smell coming from the deep fryers.

You want to those streaming golden brown rows and rows of pieces of chicken up there waiting to be picked and put in these boxes or on these plates and these sides and et cetera, the aroma.

And then if you're lucky and you get there, especially after they open a new one when they're really trying hard.

If you get a piece of Bojangles chicken within three minutes after it comes out of the deep fryer and you just stick your face in that and you just motorboat it like it was Lonnie Anderson on WKRP in Cincinnati, and you were 17 years old in 1978.

That's going to be the best thing you ever put up in your face, that yard bird right there.

So, that you got to go the first time in person.

Well, maybe I will

think about it, but we'll see.

When are they opening?

Well, they didn't see, he didn't say, He didn't have a date on it, but they're trying to establish a strong foothold

up in that market.

Bojangles chicken.

Mr.

Bojangles cluck.

And I got another, I got a letter actually, Brian, from another person up in your neck of the woods, Bobby.

He says he's a cult of cornet member, and he actually wrote a letter.

And he had a question, and he couldn't get through on the email because we get so many emails.

So he thought, well, an actual physical letter might be easier.

But a listener had asked a question

several years ago on one of our podcasts.

And the listener was from Tamaqua, Pennsylvania.

And Bobby says, I don't know what the question was, but you indicated you were familiar with the town.

I'm just curious how you know the town, if you have any stories about the town.

I work there and live nearby.

So to hear that you're familiar with a random Pennsylvania town local to me peaked my curiosity.

And he spelled peaked right,

P-I-Q-U-E-D.

Additionally, he's also curious if I'm familiar with Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania.

That's where he lives.

And they had wrestling shows there in the 70s with the Samoans and Rocky Johnson.

And, Bobby, I can answer very easily and succinctly: the reason

that I know Tamaqua and Orwigsburg is because there's goddamn signs on that interminable battan death march highway known as the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

That when I worked up there, but wanted to visit my mother or wanted to come anywhere west of sanity or west of insanity, I should say.

I drove across that fucking thing and I remember all the names of all those towns.

I haven't been there and I probably now never never shall.

I can think, I can say with all honesty that the chances of me now going to Tamaqua, Pennsylvania or Orwigsburg are fucking.

But I know how to pronounce them because I've had to see those road signs.

But Bobby, I thank you for being a Cult of Cornet member.

All right.

So today's all about towns you've seen on signs.

Yes.

Well, and here's another thing.

Here's another.

Now, this is another letter I got.

And this was handwritten by Justin from Vergie, Kentucky.

And Brian, do you remember Vergie?

Because you've been to Pikeville, haven't you?

You went to a bluegrass brawl.

I didn't.

No, I never went to Pikeville.

I've been to Brownbridge.

You didn't experience that.

Barberville, Louisville.

I'm trying to think of what other Kentucky towns.

Did we do Erlanger?

Am I completely?

No, that wasn't.

No.

And well, Erlanger is suburban Cincinnati.

That wouldn't be the Kentucky flavor at all anyway.

But well, if you Barberville is like a Pikeville starter set,

you're just

creeping into Eastern Kentucky, but

you're not all the way there yet, but you're starting to see a lot of the signs.

Vergie, Kentucky is actually 12 miles from Pikeville.

For those of you not versed in

eastern Kentucky geography, now you know where Vergie is because everybody knows where Pikeville is.

How do you spell that?

Virgie.

V-I-R-G-I-E.

How else would you spell it?

I wasn't sure.

That's not a name I've heard very often, except, you know, it's a common, it's a common.

That's what the girls used to call Dusty when he was a kid.

Oh, Virgie.

Well, that's the thing.

That's a common name in Eastern Kentucky.

Oh, Virgie.

Anyway,

Justin is from Virgie, and we ran Vergie as well as Pikeville, Smoky Mountain Wrestling.

And anyway, he sent me,

well, first of all, I say I appreciate that he acknowledged Harley Quinn and her passing.

And I want to do the same thing for his deuce that he lost around the same time.

He was a Doberman.

But he sent me a box full

of Sprite Zero and paper towels.

Actually, not rapid, the rolls of paper towel, because I've mentioned I use a lot of paper towels.

He heard the show during the pandemic where I was, I think, trying to find paper towels.

It registered with him.

He even said,

I don't know why I'm sending these.

I just know other people have sent them to you from time to time.

But nevertheless, he had a very interesting Smogy Mountain Wrestling-related question, Brian.

I thought we would go.

Would you like to hear it?

Yeah, let's hear it.

Okay.

He says, can I ask you a question I've wondered about for roughly 30 years?

You may literally be the only person alive today who can give me an answer.

I'm 37 years old.

I'll be 38 this year.

Back when you would bring Smokey Mountain Wrestling, dot, dot, dot, ah, fuck it.

Let's save us all a lot of time.

My friend Joe Fleming and I were at the Pikeville College Gym when you brought the Undertaker to main event at the Bluegrass Brawl 1995, Brian, as you will recall.

That's right.

Joe and I were in about third grade, and we strongly remember that Undertaker was going to fight Mabel in the main event.

I don't remember that part.

Well, Mabel still ain't showed up.

If he has, we ain't seen him.

Where the hell was that some bitch and why didn't he make the show?

Joe and I have wondered ever since that night at the Pikeville College Gym, what the fuck happened to Mabel.

Corn, could you please help me and Joe out and tell us why Mabel no showed the Smogie Mountain Wrestling event in Pikeville, Kentucky, roughly 30 years ago?

We will be thrilled to finally find out what happened.

And P.S.,

I'm sorry, Corn, for my below-average handwriting.

I am also a dyslexic son bitch.

So, if my spelling was bad, I'm sorry for that too.

I went to public school, so I'm sure my grammar is fucked, but you'll have to take that up with the Pike County Board of Education.

Thank you again,

Justin, and your friend Joe.

Now, I'm going to have to answer: where was Mabel?

Mabel was in,

I don't give a fuck

at the time because I never, Mabel was never supposed to fit Mabel's name.

Mabel's name was never mentioned on Smoky Mountain Wrestling Television over 200 episodes, whether we had a working relationship with the WWF or not.

I never attempted to book Mabel.

We never advertised Mabel, not only for that show, but any show that we ever did ever in the history of ever.

And there was no picture in any program.

There was, I don't even know who you could possibly see and confuse

with Mabel, but that was the match was

the gangsters, New Jack, Mustafa, and D'Lo Brown.

against Bob Armstrong, Tracy Smothers, and The Undertaker.

And the way The Undertaker figured into that was because since the gangsters had beaten me up, it was that like four months I was a babyface.

The gangsters beat me up.

And then they turned around and they beat up Bob and Tracy.

So we all got together and I said, I know people in the WWF.

And I arranged with Paul Bearer to bring The Undertaker in because we wanted to sell out.

the Pikeville College Gym, which we did.

And that was a six-man tag of me and Paul Barre were in a corner.

We've talked about that.

We talked about Percy before in the past, but

that was the match, and it was always supposed to be the match.

I'm so

I don't know where the, but do you think it was some of them nasty fourth graders, the big kids, Brian, that were yanking Justin and Joe's fucking chains there?

I mean, one of the things I remember, the promos with maybe, I don't remember if it was even multiple ones, but the one specifically with the gangsters in the the cemetery.

So, I mean,

you know, it was always gangstas and Undertaker.

It was never

Bob and Tracy are bringing in, oh, it wouldn't be them, I guess.

It would be someone on the other side.

Who would be bringing in?

The gangsters would be bringing in Mabel.

I don't know.

I don't know whose side Mabel.

Well, Mabel had, Mabel was big enough that we could all be on his side.

Well, D'Lo was bigger in those years.

Maybe he was confused, this kid.

D'Lo did used to like to wear zubaz that were were kind of baggy like maybe

no i don't know i mean it's uh you know sometimes when you're a kid you just hear things i guess

uh well nevertheless uh have you heard the big news brian that i'm going to bring up before we go on any further and talk about some wrestling well this is wrestling too but it's wrestling news the big news about Saturday, May the 3rd is the debut of Corney's vault sale at jimcornet.com, whereas I've been mentioning over the past few weeks, Hotchkiss and I have cleaned out, polished off every last remaining action figure trading card

program.

Well, not every last one of those, but you know,

the limited number editions of a number of merchandise.

So you've got classic promotional photos from the WWF, the last 10 hardcover editions of Behind the Curtain.

We've got some old magazines from the 50s to the 80s, a variety of oddball cornet items that either have been sold out in the past or have not been on sale for a while.

And of course, the last remaining of the bloody variant, original red and yellow, and raw debut action figures and more is Saturday, May the 3rd at noon Eastern at jimcornet.com.

And there's something for everybody, but there's not enough for everybody.

So if there's something you're thinking you're really going to want, jump in early because it may go quickly.

There's anywhere from one to 20 or 30 of any of these items.

There's just a lot of items.

Hey, that's why I had to have it all on paper.

That's right.

All right.

We've got an actual history email here from something that we were talking about.

Remember the guest the program that we did,

gosh, maybe three or four weeks ago now.

It's been so long since we've been watching the wrestling.

but one of them that you hit me with was that I couldn't get was in the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, April 11, 1945,

which I believe I did.

I did mention that was the day before Roosevelt died, but go ahead.

And if anyone wants to see that, I actually have put that on my Instagram, but that wasn't a program.

That was actually, I believe, a postcard with a...

coupon that you could rip off for a discount.

All right.

Well, thank you.

You know what?

You missed your calling.

You should have been a goddamn argumentative attorney.

It was that we were playing guest the program.

It was a lineup.

It was the overall segment is what we were talking about.

What's the attorneys say?

As a matter of fact, well, we'll talk about that later on when we do the True Crime Podcast series.

But nevertheless,

someone named Adam.

Who I don't know whether I should

give his name or not.

I think he's got an inside source or something.

He has sent Adam from East Yorkshire, England.

You figure it out.

But he has got sent several emails in the past, and he's got amazing sources.

He's been doing a variety of research of all kinds of wrestling history.

So would you like to hear, we were right, or I was right.

You had the thing in front of you.

But I was right that that was during a down period in Los Angeles business in 1945.

And

he wrote an email of how they turned the fucking business around to

all-time record business three years later.

And I thought it was interesting.

Some of the kids may not recognize all the names, but this is kind of a great example of how

In the days before national television and national promotions, when things either either before television entirely or on a regional territory basis,

wrestling could be on fire in one part of the country and completely dead in the other.

And you really had to work

on the markets by markets, even in the territory days with television.

Every territory had a stinky town, right?

And it just couldn't get it to go.

So you really had to work for your crowds in those individual markets as individual towns.

And

it was much more fragmented at that point.

Would you like to hear this history, Brian?

Yeah, I'm actually really curious about this.

Okay.

He says, as Jim rightfully pointed out, the war years were a down period in Los Angeles.

Wrestling at the Olympic had particularly fallen on hard times at the end of the Lou and Jack Darrow era.

Remember Carnation Lou Darrow was the Darrow was the promoter for

some time back in those days.

He says Jack Darrow was forced to give up his license in August 1940 due to the Athletic Commission uncovering financial corruption, which included taking liens against the box office tape.

Following the Darrow departure, George Zaharias took up booking the arena using talent supplied by Nick Lutz.

George Zaharias was obviously a wrestler, but he was famous for at the time marrying Babe Diedriksen,

who

I guess at some points, with all apologies to Mildred Burke, she may have been the most famous female athlete, but they were one and two in those days, right?

But anyway, Zaharias struggled to get the box office up to anywhere near respectable.

and eventually handed over the promotional reins to former Philadelphia promoter Ray Fabiani in August 1941.

Fabiani was still promoting in Philadelphia at that point, right?

Yeah, I mean, he was around for a while longer, wasn't like he.

Yes.

Yeah.

Well, because I've got the first,

I've got a 1938 Philadelphia program.

Ray Fabiani was the promoter.

It was the tournament to see who was going to face Londos.

And he'd been established already, even though that was the first edition of his program.

He would be there for years.

But the point being,

in those

pre-interstate days, and air travel was not convenient yet or necessarily reliable.

And he's promoting in Philadelphia, but he's taking over Los Angeles.

Those old-time promoters could figure out a way, trains, whatever the fuck,

to take these major markets.

And there was no need to,

for television purposes, to tie them together geographically it was i guess wherever you could get an opening

uh but anyway adam goes on if fabiani promoted the venue for the next two years during 1943

he gave a huge push to the masked heel the masked cougar remember i think that's where he was on your program The Cougar headline shows for the first seven months of 1943 and defeated every babyface who tried to unmask him.

He was eventually defeated, but but not unmasked, by George K.O.

Coverly.

Coverly was another of Fabiani's bigger draws at the time, most famous for his St.

Louis rivalry with Bill Longson, where Longson and Coverly met on 10 occasions in St.

Louis between 1942 and 1946.

And

longtime listeners of this program will remember that during World War II,

the only

markets in North America that were really doing

incredibly big business for wrestling were Toronto, Houston, and St.

Louis.

And Longshan was main eventing regularly in all of them.

He was the biggest drawing of business for like a six-year period.

And

St.

Louis was

on fire, not only from

the original Tom Pax promotion, but Sam Muchnik opened his company in 1945.

And

really, business just took off from there with the competition.

And then that's when they decided to get together.

So they were doing tremendous business even after that period in St.

Louis, but Longson was huge.

Anyway,

going on with Adam, the masked cougar was not seen at the Olympic in 1944.

Fabiani attempted to push Jim Casey, the younger brother of of Steve Crusher Casey,

who, as we know, was pushed as the world champion in Boston with Paul Bowser,

and Celie Samara, who was one of the first African-American stars, but he found that the box office was still sluggish.

Fabiani's marriage fell apart.

Over the course of 1944, and he departed in September.

Maybe it was those trips to Los Angeles.

Anyway, Walter Miller became the promoter at the Olympic.

Miller tried to promote legitimate wrestlers, bringing in an aging Ray Steele and Minnesota amateur standout Cliff Gustafsson,

but the attempt to change things up was a disaster.

The box office fell apart with crowds of under 2,000 paying 50 cents each.

This was the Los Angeles Olympic Auditorium, and the prices were lower than they were for the fucking Hippodrome in Nashville, Tennessee.

And the crowds were too

because at the same point

wrestling in nashville was on fire because of roy welch and bat malone

but can you imagine that brian that they were charging less for tickets in los angeles and drawing bigger crowds in nashville than at that time in los angeles that is pretty incredible and you know we had that uh other card that I read from Guest of Program was attached with a letter that someone sent.

They weren't a wrestling fan, but they went to the card.

they sent the program.

I think it was 10 years earlier, 10,000 people at the Olympic for Strangle Lewis.

Yes.

But see, that was the thing is the reason why the promoters were,

the promoters were always fearful all through the early days of wrestling and into the territory days of two things.

One is somebody stealing their territory.

And the other one is if you,

if it for some reason, business falls off and you let it go too far,

then it's a year's period to get it back, which is why sometimes they'd start hot shotting,

which would either work or make it worse and hasten the decline.

But now listen to this.

So from that point where they didn't have 2,000 people paying 50 cents, the Olympics boxing promoter Cal Eaton

later to be the, well, maybe at that time, the father of,

or was it all, he was the husband of Eileen Eaton, who was the father of Mike LaBelle, who was the modern Los Angeles promoter, but they always had the deal with boxing and wrestling in the Olympic.

But Cal Eaton pulled the plug on the 26th of February, 1945.

It was shortly after this that Johnny Doyle,

who had been previously been promoter at the Eastside Arena, became booking agent and supplied Eaton with talent.

And Johnny Doyle would later in the 50s be Jim Barnett's partner in that big Midwestern territory.

So the 11th of April.

And then they went to Australia with him.

That was the end.

He died in Australia.

In Australia,

and went to Australia with him.

So they were together for,

you know, 15 years or so.

And Doyle was

involved heavily in Los Angeles 10 years before Barnett became a promoter.

But the 11th of April show that we talked about was an attempt by Doyle and Eaton to bring back former stars to see what stuck.

The cougar was unmasked by the Golden Terror and revealed to be the famous heel Ted King Kong Cox.

Golden Terror was a famous master wrestler.

I'm paraphrasing some of these things because I want to get to the point.

But anyway,

that is the,

he gave the history of the terror and the cougar, how they came to be unmasked for that April 11th show.

And he mentioned also that the super Swedish Angel had some success when he had competed in the Olympic in Ray Fabiani's 1942 international tournament.

So that April 11th show drew 6,000 fans, the biggest crowd since Fabiani had left.

And

ending up with this, it took some time for Doyle and Eaton to make the box office really catch fire.

Enrique Torres debuted in July 1946 and was the top star by the end of the year, drawing the biggest crowd since since the Darrow era.

Credit should also go to the tag team of Ernie and Emil Dusik, who in July of 1947 tore into the Southern California scene and had five weeks straight of near-capacity crowds at the Olympic.

They remained a popular act in the years that followed.

By 1948, Gorgeous George had taken over as the headline act, headlining the Olympic 23 times that year and being responsible for the majority of the 452,000 tickets sold at the Olympic Auditorium in 1948.

So

in 1945,

they couldn't sell 2,000 tickets at 50 cents each.

And for the three years later, for the weekly events at the Olympic Auditorium, they sold 452,000 fucking tickets.

It's amazing.

That's what everybody was always looking for to pop the territory.

That's why bookers went into territories working for promoters whose business was down.

That's why promoters tried to open new markets.

That's why guys tried to branch off and go into business for themselves.

Everybody always wanted to pop a fucking territory.

That's why wrestlers wanted to go in and work for a booker that they thought might pop the territory.

Because then all those people get made stars as well as money, and then they go on to make more money.

And the promoter always wants to use those wrestlers.

Why do they bruiser you and chic?

They used the same guys for 20 fucking years because those were the guys that 15, 20 years before had drawn them all that money.

Whether it was loyalty or just trust or whatever, but that's an example of what you could do in those days with a change of talent and sometimes promoter or strategy or whatever.

And boom.

And then Los Angeles is one of the centers of

wrestling for the television era.

Right.

Hollywood wrestling.

See, that's the thing, too.

This is all pre-TV.

And then, you know, by the way.

But can you imagine if wrestling in Los Angeles had been as dead in 1948 as it was in 1945, would anybody put that shit on TV?

Yes.

It would have changed the whole course of, well, you know, I think at that point, if you were in New York, if you were in or near Los Angeles and Chicago, you had a good shot of getting your wrestling on local TV when they were looking for anything they could get on TV.

Even if the Olympic died doesn't mean that wasn't the only one.

I'm talking about on network television, though.

See, that was one of the network shows.

If they'd had fucking no, no people in the buildings and it had not been a popular thing, it would look dead for television too.

What do you think about, you know, I think for a lot of fans, it's probably hard to imagine

doing angles without TV.

You know, I think it's almost a thought that angles are

a part of wrestling on TV, but obviously you had to do things before TV.

You had to hope it would get in the papers or the people there would leave and create buzz, but you always had to do something.

And yeah, I mean, to your point, 48, they get it going again.

You know, by 1960, you have Fred Blassey, you have the Destroyer, you have Ricky Dozan, you have so much happening.

We have footage that survives from the late 50s, the promos, the local promos hosted by Jules Strongbow in Los Angeles.

But

yeah, I mean, you know what, now that I think about it, to your point, they had to get to TV if it had completely died.

I was thinking of Hollywood Legion and just all the different things they had.

But yeah, if they all didn't have crowds, it may not get on TV.

Well, that's the thing.

If, if, you know,

if they can't get 2,000 people to the big Olympic auditorium, are they going to get 500 people to the smaller Hollywood Legion?

And it just, it wasn't a hot product.

But before television, the angles were the finishes of the matches at the, or the match.

the week or the show before, if it was weekly or bi-weekly territory or whatever.

And as you said, the promoters all had,

you know, somebody to get something in the newspapers, whether it was just an advertisement that they had to buy or whether they had columnists that were friendly and would write about it.

But that was, it was finishes and challenges made in the building the previous week and reported about in the newspaper.

And you really had to have somebody that interested the people and got over in some kind of way to really do big business.

And that's why, again, when Gorgeous George became a thing

in LA Wrestling got on TV, I think, and it may have even been late 46 or 47,

and Gorgeous George was made for that.

But

the Torres brothers, the Deusics, they did it the old-fashioned way because

that was the, you know, the word of mouth and the finishes and the heat in the building.

And you just had to give people something different that they responded to.

But then things could turn around in a heartbeat.

You know what?

Think about the other side of that.

You know, they got TV.

We're talking about, you know, things picked up.

It became a really successful territory.

The WWA was one of the major titles.

When they lost English-speaking TV, what was it, 73 or 74?

Yeah.

That changed everything.

They were still on TV, but all of a sudden it changed the makeup of the company because you almost needed more luchadors or just Spanish-speaking wrestlers because it was on Spanish-speaking TV.

And, you know, it didn't die right away.

But crowds weren't as hot as they were.

And eventually, you know, by the early 80s, when LaBelle sold out to Vince, I don't mean that like he sold out.

I mean, he sold his company to Vince.

Yeah.

I mean, it was down to almost nothing.

Well, see, the thing is, it was the same thing that happened in New York at one point where they

had lost television, but they only had had TV on a Spanish language station.

In LA,

you may think, well, you know, there's a tremendous Hispanic population anyway, but that station was also weaker than the English English-speaking station they had been on.

And they just, they shrank in terms of overall eyeballs being able to see them at all, whether they could understand the commentary or not.

And that was bound, especially in the 70s in Los Angeles, the home of TV.

In the 40s, there was no goddamn, there was a Hollywood film industry, but there was no TV industry in Los Angeles.

Now, 30 years later, they're being seen by less people than ever before since television started

when there's more competition.

They just, they shrunk.

And LaBelle wasn't.

From all accounts that I've read, he wasn't in love with the wrestling business that he felt some need to continue for love of the game.

He didn't give a shit.

He was also apparently one of these business guys that loved collecting the money from being the owner and making lots of money, but never saw a reason to really reinvest in his company or do anything to build anything.

You know, if you really think about LA from the mid-70s on, and I love a lot of that stuff with Roddy Piper.

It's not to take away from that.

But it was almost like he was just happy to hold his territory.

And, you know, the money will come in and we'll do our weekly shows, but there was never an attempt to

try anything or do anything, bring in top-name.

He wasn't going to pay for top talent to come in there.

That's how Roddy Piper got his break was just the fact he was a kid and he could work cheap.

Because at that point, LaBelle wasn't going to be able to get too many top guys.

He'll pay Mill Mascaris every now and then for an appearance,

but not too many high-paying guys were working L.A., especially after.

78.

A lot of guys that I know were broke were like Chris Adams when he came to America, went to LA.

There was no business

Adrian Street, same thing.

Adrian Street, Ken Wayne.

Ken Wayne worked in LA.

I don't remember that.

I believe, I think he did at one point.

It may have been a masked gimmick, but he went out there for one point.

But point being, a lot of people now are thinking, oh my God, I thought there was big money in LA wrestling.

We're talking about this point in time.

LaBelle was a cheap promoter,

but all through the,

you know, especially the 60s and early 70s with them doing the closed circuit feeds of the sold-out Olympic shows and Blassey and Tolos and the all that stuff, you guys could still make

money there.

They just weren't getting paid what they should have been paid.

Imagine that.

But the stars also could, and Sheik, Sheik would go out for the payoff and go shopping on Rodeo Drive or whatever, and because he was a promoter, he would talk to LaBelle about talent and et cetera.

But when the business went down, instead of trying to

invest in getting it back up, he just cut it down to, well, here's what we'll fucking do.

And then it kind of trailed off to

nonsensibility by what, 1980, when they had the monster and all the other bullshit.

Yeah.

And then

he sold his company to Vince, and then Vince did what he would later do to Stu Hart Hart and other people, just decided not to pay him.

And he sued Vince, and I think Vince actually, I think Vince won.

Like LaBelle never got anything for the LA territory.

Well, by then, though, he got what it was worth.

So see how that happens.

And then look at the Olympic in the 80s.

I mean, WWF did great in LA for the most part in the 80s.

WCW,

California Championship Wrestling, like Polynesian Pro Wrestling came to the Olympic.

There were lots of things that came into the Olympic.

And for a long time, LA was dead for a lot of companies.

I've never been there, never seen it in person.

When Crockett debuted in Los Angeles in, what was it, 1987 by that point, I think early, it was the forum.

Went straight for the most expensive building.

Edward did a hundred grand at the gate for the first show and never did that again.

Went back a few times.

And then...

Oh, I thought, I thought they should ran the, maybe I'm, maybe I am thinking of Polynesian pro wrestling.

I thought Crockett ran the Olympic once too.

Probably not.

Probably wrong.

We weren't on the card, but I don't think he did at all.

Yeah, no, he read the forum because it was, and I was thinking, well, this is, this is great and all, but boy, this looks like an expensive by the time.

No, you know what?

Was it, it may have been the first time, may have been in late 86.

I don't have the midnight book in front of me, but nevertheless, the last time I was there for Crockett, it was a sparse crowd.

And I'm thinking, we've come all this fucking way and rented this fucking building.

And we would have had a bigger profit margin in Gaffney, South Carolina.

I remember having that thought.

But I would have liked to have seen the,

I got the Cow Palace.

I worked in the Cow Palace for the WWA.

I worked in the cow palace while pat patterson was

still agenting and working there so i got to actually experience that what was that building that's a big old

that's a big old building

the backstage area reminds you more of a cave than it's It's, it's concrete and paved, but it's got sloping ramps that you can drive vehicles in for the big cow shows that they did

And these circular kind of walkways that go up and everything.

So it looks like you're going into a cave in the backstage area and then a variety of little locker rooms.

But you go out in that thing, it's like, holy fuck, this looks like the inside of the spaceship on Independence Day or something.

It's just massive.

The floor area is bigger than any kind of...

modern sports arena because it was built specifically for the rodeos and livestock things, which are bigger.

That's why it was so dangerous for heels to be able to get back to the locker room because, especially on a big house, there was so much floor area, not just talking about getting through ringside, but then floor area that would be clogged with people and you couldn't control.

And that's where they'd get you and run.

So it was a very interesting place.

To circle back to where we started, it's just interesting because that's the last period of time before TV where you really weren't devastated when you lost TV.

You know, because after that point, if you were a promotion and you had TV and you lost your TV, that could be the end.

I mean, New York survived.

There were other towns too.

But, you know, Roy Shire lost his TV and that was it.

Boom.

Boom goes the dynamite.

Well, anyway, so that's a jaunt through

California wrestling history that we entertained you, me, and

Tom Burke with.

Good email.

Thank you, Adam.

Good email.

Oh, yes.

Thank you, Adam.

But we can decide who was entertained,

or Uncle Dave can decide, Brian, who was entertained.

Which one would you like to

go for?

In terms of entertainment value, I trust my entertainment value system more than Dave's.

What kind of question?

But

isn't Dave's entertainment value system more entertaining because it can't be trusted?

It certainly is a very entertaining series of events lately, watching the star ratings for the AEW events, but I guess we have WrestleMania we can talk about.

Yes, yes, because he has rated at long last, he has rated the efforts by all the

top stars, the guys and gals on both nights of WrestleMania.

And

he's decided, you know, he's going to bless them or curse them or let everybody know what he thinks.

And since,

you know, I'm thinking that

all the AEW matches get four, four and a half, five, five and a half.

Since,

you know, these matches were goddamn on an international stage in front of about 20 times as many people and took in about 50 million more dollars.

That means he'll probably rate them about fucking two and two and a half, right?

Well, let's go to the star ratings for WrestleMania 41.

Let's start with night one.

Jay Uso

defeated Gunther,

16 minutes, 22 seconds,

three and three-quarter stars.

On a normal,

sane, rational, four-star like in TV guide scale,

I think that's a little high, but it's not outrageous because it was a moment.

We mentioned Jay's not the smoothest guy.

He's not slicker than come on a gold tooth in the ring, but he makes up for it with exuberance.

Gunther's very good.

Nobody shit the bed.

I would have said under a normal circumstance, three stars.

So for once, me and...

Me and old potato head ain't too far off.

All right.

That's our potato head caught me by surprise.

The new day.

You should imagine what he thought when he looked in the mirror one day.

The new day won the world tag titles over the Viking Raiders.

Nine minutes, 11 seconds,

two and three-quarter stars.

I can't really comment because we didn't fucking watch that, did we?

Not much of it, no.

I would imagine it was probably about a star less than Jay and Gunther.

so so far he appears to be grading this like some kind of rational adult i wonder what the difference is oh i'm sorry i forgot it's but go ahead we'll we'll see where he goes well match three jay cargill defeated naomi nine minutes 20 seconds two star match

and as far as i

remember that it was a little rough in spots dog

uh a little pitchy.

I don't know that maybe he's being a half a star generous.

I might have been right in that, right in that wheelhouse or that flywheel.

Has Dave adjusted his medication?

No, he didn't watch AEW.

Watch WWE.

Match four, Jim.

Jacob Fatu defeated LA Knight to win the United States Championship.

10 minutes, 38 seconds, three and three-quarter stars.

Boom again.

For a logical

person

using a four-star scale,

I don't think that L.A.

Knight and Jacob Fatu was one of the all-time classic confrontations, a la flair and steamboat, but it was pretty goddamn good.

And the people got into it, and it was exciting.

And I don't think that rating's that far fucking off either.

El Grande Americano

defeated Ray Phoenix

seven minutes 55 seconds two and three quarter stars

again wasn't that one of the ones that we

glossed over in passing i i enjoyed it for what it was again it was a short match it didn't even make it to eight minutes but if ray phoenix had done the things he did in there with kurt angle kurt angle uh chad gable chad gable el grande americano

uh if he had done that in aew do you think Dave would have automatically ranked it higher?

I mean, Ray Phoenix is one of those guys that was.

Oh, shit.

I forgot as one of his boys.

Yeah.

But here's 25%.

And meanwhile, from what I've seen of both Penta and Phoenix,

I've liked them both better in two times in the WWE than I have in five years in AEW.

So

maybe that's Dave's turning against him for it, for being better.

in

a 19 minute and nine second match i didn't realize it was that long oh my god tiffany stratton defeated charlotte flair

one and three quarter stars

i got to admit i i really didn't disagree with that either remember we said it was it was

would jr have said bowl and shoe ugly

They tried to work a fight, which was neither one of their strong points and didn't get

much better as it went and it went too long.

Yeah,

yeah,

we didn't even really mention it during the review.

What did you think of how beat up Tiffany was at the end?

Her teeth was, it looked like one of her teeth were chipped, but I saw a picture of her later and she had her teeth.

So I don't know if they just got her somewhere quick or it wasn't chipped.

But well, you know, they can

make fake teeth these days.

I've heard all about it.

I've seen Roman Reigns.

I know all about it.

How?

No, I had I saw a scuff on her head

that

I say a scuff, you get to the red mark and the bump or whatever, that I assumed she might have conked the apron or something, got a combination of a goose egg and a mat burn.

But apparently, from what I saw on the Twitter,

she did the moonsault and Charlotte raised her knees and her face crashed into Charlotte's knee brace.

So I can tell you from having worn similar, those fucking knee braces don't have a lot to give if you hit them the right way.

That's the fucking idea.

So, yeah, she may have, I didn't know about the tooth until afterwards, yay or nay.

Jim, the main event.

Well, I was just going to say, but I think that was entirely fair.

Also, it just, it didn't, it didn't work, dog.

The main event of night one.

Seth Rollins won a three-way match over CM Punk and Roman Reigns, 32 minutes, 39 seconds,

four and three-quarter stars.

Well,

do you think that Uncle Dave is trying to court the other side, or is he just scared of the wrath of Heyman?

I honestly could say I don't have too much of a problem with any of his star ratings for night one.

You know, I still, four and three-quarter stars may be

just almost goddamn too good for anything

in a rational scale, except for something that happens every year or two, right?

But it's not preposterous, like when he gives the same thing or better to,

you know, the indie kids that are flubbing as much as they're nailing.

So,

you know, maybe he still is a rational human or just feels like he has to tell somewhat of the truth when it comes to

any other company besides one owned by his billionaire friend.

And I don't have it here in front of me, and I wish I did, but I saw it the other day.

Someone had a list of the time in between the matches at WrestleMania.

You don't realize it.

I mean, it feels like it's a long time.

It's like 20, 30 minutes sometimes in between these matches.

Oh, yeah.

There was more time in between the matches than time in matches.

Think about that.

Christine Jarrett would go out of her mind.

Ring the bell.

The people are getting restless.

Well, Jim, let's go to the star ratings.

Let's review these star ratings.

dave meltzer did in the wrestling observer newsletter for night two of wrestlemania 41

eo sky

retained the women's world championship over rhea ripley and bianca bel air

14 minutes eight seconds

five star match

I'm not going to disagree with him.

I thought that was the best three-way match I've ever seen in a women's division, and I really liked it.

Well, no, I'm laughing again because now, you know, it was the best

women's three-way, I think, of all time.

We can say that.

I'm just the over-the-toppedness after we just talked about the four and three-quarter with three of my just favorite people in the world and Roman Reigns in there also.

I've never met him.

But I, you know, I would even say, okay, four and a half.

Let's just, I don't think it's.

I don't know.

The last thing I saw that was five stars was FTR and Jen and Juice on TV that night just because it came out of nowhere and so vastly exceeded expectations.

I just think you should be more judicious with that type of thing.

But I'll go four and a half.

And

as Davis said, if we're arguing over half a star, it's the same thing.

Well, here's one I definitely disagree with.

Drew McIntyre defeated Damian Priest in a street fight, a Sin City street fight,

13 minutes, 54 seconds, four and a quarter stars.

Oh, Jesus christ i did not like that match

well i mean again

besides it being even if you like the stunt show and the garbage match and the trash cans and the lions and tigers and bears oh my

i don't think it was a classic of that genre either

But since, you know, it just, it just felt like, oh, we don't have a match where somebody's getting hit with a toilet seat, so we'll make it this one.

Well, Jim, our next match, Dominic Mysterio won the Intercontinental Championship over Braunbreaker, Finn Bauer, and Penta,

10 minutes, 30 seconds, four and a quarter stars.

Jesus Christ,

maybe, maybe he's just,

you know what, Dave is a slow starter, as Lance Russell used to say.

Oh, that Lawler, he's a notoriously slow starter, but when he gets kicked in, now

he's sprinkling out those stars like sprinkles at Halloween.

I think of it more like Greg Valentine.

It takes him 45 minutes just to warm up.

Yeah, well, most people are cold by that point.

Again, it's good in Brown Breaker's the future of the business, but are we talking that's a little grand for me, but

you know,

whatever.

Randy Orton defeated Joe Hendry.

Three minutes, eight seconds, no star rating given.

Oh,

you know what?

Why couldn't Joe Hendry get a star?

Everybody else gets a star.

Fucking the three-way got a star.

The fucking women's match got a star.

Everybody gets a star.

Joe Henry don't get no star.

What do you think of the criticism this week?

And I think Dave actually may have been one of the people really saying it, that

this was WWE, this was Triple H squashing TNA.

Of all the things you could have done, they didn't beat Joe Hendry.

They beat the TNA world champion.

Really, when you think about about it, I mean, that was the kind of thing they did back in the heyday at Triple H.

Hey, we got the ECW World Champion.

Let's have Hunter beat him.

We got Benoit coming off being the WCW World Champion.

Let's just have Hunter go out and beat him.

What do you think?

Is this a positive or a negative for Joe Hendry and for TNA?

Well, I know, hold on.

That's cross-purposes, different things.

First of all, back then, it was at least a foot race.

You know, where you're talking about WCW and WWF, and ECW was in there because of their

chameleon-like ability to kind of graft onto whatever.

But it's not a foot race anymore.

TNA's business is going to be what TNA's business is.

And maybe a little bit bigger because of the

crossover, maybe potentially

much bigger on specific shows.

because of the crossover with the WWF or WWE and if they get talent on their shows, whatever the case.

But what it was was they want Joe Hendry sooner than later.

They see some kind of talent for something.

I'm not knocking Joe.

I'm just saying, I don't know what they see in Joe, whether it's the music or whether it's the wrestling or whether it's the personality, but they see they want him at some point and they're going to get him at some point if they want him.

And from what I heard, Orton, pitched the idea, hey, that kid, he's in the system.

I've seen him.

I'm a fan of what he's doing.

Let's put him on the show.

And

yes, they squashed Joe Hendry, but Joe Hendry's that

by the time the people see him in the WWE, he's going to be that entertaining guy that sings and smiles and does the pose and everything.

And it was on WrestleMania.

That's fine.

For T and A.

That's the reason I laughed at it when we talked about it originally.

It's embarrassing.

It's,

But what are they going to fucking do?

And their business is going to be what it's going to be.

It's not like the old days where

anybody in any fucking

universe thinks that the TNA world champion is in any way

competitive with the WWA.

That's why I didn't have the WWF stars that came to OVW

most of the time beat the OVW guys.

Because if the OVW guys beat them, then it's phony because elsewhere, why aren't the other guys in wrestling school and the OVW guys are on them raw, right?

But they don't care whether they're pooping on TNA, they're doing them a goddamn blessing by allowing their

greatness to spill off on TNA.

In the meantime, they did a thing with a guy that they're going to end up with sooner or later, and it didn't hurt him.

So, but as far as if it had been

25 years ago and it was was WCW and WWF, my God, that would have been the biggest fucking burial in the history of company world title burials.

But now

you'd have to be alive to be buried in this instance.

They're not anybody that

it matters.

All right.

Was that clear enough?

I think that was a good answer.

By the way, someone you worked with once is on TV right here in the background.

Remember the announcer, Joe Fowler?

SummerSlam?

Joe Fowler.

yes he was there when i first got there and and i lasted longer than he did is all i remember i don't know if he was there past summer slam he was there for like a month or a couple months maybe but here he is hosting some commercial for the giddy up

grill cleaner by some some other commercial he must be doing now the new billy maze joe fowler giddy up

giddy up baby So now they're just showing you how messy you can make your grill and how this will just clean it right away.

All right.

Well.

But you you know what they're doing?

No.

You know what they're doing right there?

They're selling things and they're making money because they're talking about products that you might want in your life.

That's right.

Let's get through this star rating wheel there.

Oh, shit.

Sorry.

I forgot we weren't done.

Well, Jim, let's get back to these star ratings.

Logan Paul defeated AJ Styles 17 minutes, 44 seconds,

three and a half stars.

I mean, that's not outrageous.

It was very well worked.

People were kind of blasé, but I don't have an argument.

Becky Lynch and Lyra Valkyria defeated Raquel Rodriguez and Liv Morgan to win the women's tag team championship, eight minutes, 40 seconds, two-star match.

Oh,

I can't argue with that at all.

But

how about one star for the match and three stars for the pop that Becky Lynch got when she beat up the bird of war?

How about three stars for Liv's shorts getting shorter and shorter every week?

Jesus.

Now you've always got to go there.

Why you got to go there?

Give me a hell of a triple.

Oh, okay.

Then Steve Austin drove into a woman or drove into a barricade.

I think she was working.

And finally, James.

Well, definitely.

It was a delayed Ox Baker bump.

But how many stars did the ATB run get?

I didn't get any here although dave did write and other people pointed this out

nobody explained how they drew 1800 more people in a building that the night before they said was sold out

right night one sean announces a crowd it's a sellout night two is a bigger crowd it's also a sellout

how did that happen they went down to home depot and got some folding chairs i'm telling you that basil the veto or basil we had to we had to do it at the davis arena gotta go out and buy 25 more folding chairs Jim, finally, the main event.

John Cena defeated Cody Rhodes to win the WWE Championship 25 minutes and two seconds.

A star and three quarters.

Oh, boy.

When was the last time a main event got a rating that low?

And he's not wrong.

Yeah, that's the thing.

You know what?

As a matter of fact, he probably rated everything after he saw that match.

And that's why those first few matches looked even better

after the experience.

And I mean, we weren't expecting,

and he's also, Dave is grading on

in-ring work as he always does, which it wasn't the greatest.

But what I was going into it with realistic expectations

was that it wasn't going to be the greatest match ever because John Cena is almost 50 years old and he wasn't going to be, you know, bumping like a goddamn madman or,

you know,

just flying off the top rope.

That wasn't going to be the thing.

They were going to hopefully have the people and the interest to go back and forth and it would take them on the ride.

And,

you know, they would do it that way with a lot of

Shakespeare, as we used to say back in the territory days.

But that

I was just going to say, but that, you know, unfortunately, and

if that had been done to where Cody didn't look like, as Adrian Street would say, a spare prick at the wedding or just some kind of goofball for having a chance to hit this fucking guy over the head after all he's done and choosing instead to be stand there and be kicked in the balls.

I would have given it two and a quarter or two and a half and said, okay, they, they accomplished it, right?

And at least we didn't have to fucking.

And Travis Scott, with that, that wasn't the boy's fault in the ring, neither Cena nor Cody,

that he decided he was going to take the same time Lewis and Clark did to get to the fucking West Coast to get to the goddamn ring.

Hey, listen to what Dave wrote because I actually agree with him here.

Then Rhodes refused to hit Cena with the belt.

In 2025, you want to make sure a babyface doesn't get over?

Have him do that spot.

Boom!

I couldn't believe that Rhodes would agree to that.

Not 1% chance Dusty Rhodes in that situation isn't hitting the guy with the belt and getting the pin.

And then a second ref comes out and tells the first ref what happened.

But that's true.

Dusty Rhodes would have done the exact opposite.

Yes.

Because John Wayne would have done the opposite.

That's,

but you know what?

That's as

James Gregory, my old friend and comedian, once said,

that's the difference.

Back when people were raised on grease and gravy,

that's what they had babies like John Wayne.

He said, John Wayne's mama ate grease and gravy all her life, and then she squatted down and out popped John Wayne.

And Dave just squatted down and out popped those ratings.

I was wondering where you were going.

I don't know where I was going until I got there.

I never start with a plan, Brian.

After every period, it's an all-new thought.

Why would Cody do that spot?

And just to end this with that, I mean, as I'm thinking about it, because again, it's not just like it happened organically.

I wouldn't think it was planned out.

One would imagine.

Why would Cody not recognize that's a mistake?

Or could he not veto that?

Well, I mean, I don't know.

I'm not in in those negotiations to know who has the power to down to the fine-tune that, who's got the power to say no to that or this.

I don't know why that Cody,

I would almost have to think that he offered some type of what he thought was suitable alternate

to doing that or something because, you know, or maybe he's.

Maybe it's just that

they're going to make a lot of money either way, that these things don't matter anymore because they're just cheering everybody because they're all stars or whatever.

But

that was one of the first major flaws to me.

And people have talked about it.

And I was willing to overlook the fact when Cody came back from being kicked in the balls the first time that he didn't come out like Dusty with a fucking cowboy boot on his fist, wanting to hit somebody over the head.

Because you couldn't do physical angles with Cena constantly leading up to WrestleMania because it also would have exposed a lot of his shortcomings that we just saw on full display in that match.

And they're both such great talkers.

Okay, we'll have a promo battle.

I was overlooked that because of the conditions of the situation.

But then to

have Cody be

he wasn't necessarily a sucker

before because he turned the rock down and then fell for Cena.

But fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

When he falls for Cena again, he gets kicked in the balls again.

Then you're just one of those people that likes to get kicked in the balls.

You don't want to be Bob Backlund crying when your belt gets destroyed.

No.

You know, there's certain moves that babyfaces, once you open that door,

And I worry about Cody and his instincts with this stuff.

And, you know, again, he has a team of people he's working with, like Triple H, but,

you know, sometimes you want to be a babyface more than

reason would allow.

You know, you can't just be like, I'm a good guy through and through, no matter what.

It just doesn't work.

But that was WrestleMania 2, WrestleMania 2, WrestleMania 41.

Two nights that didn't work.

But this is your show.

Well, you know, Brian, what they need to be doing is they need to be out on the street selling themselves.

These wrestlers, the men and the women, they need to be out beating the bushes, out in the public, selling themselves.

Sounds like Tom Cassatti's wet room.

Getting themselves over and putting themselves up for the highest bidder.

No, they need to be selling their images and their likenesses and their personalities and growing their brand.

And that's what everybody needs to do.

You need to grow your brand, Brian, because if your brand is real tiny, then nobody can read your brand.

And

if your brand ain't reaching a lot of people, then nobody can see your brand.

And then you got an off-brand brand.

And nobody wants an off-brand brand because the brands that make the most money are the brands that are branded.

Well, branded, marked as the one who ran, you need to run

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that can take you around i mean their influence is felt worldwide they're going to be also the first e-commerce platform on the space station have you heard about this they're going to send one of them up there brian

on the very next show we don't we don't know anything you can't just make statements like this

I see I got a cousin that works at NASA.

No, you do not.

They're going to, well, you don't know who my cousin works for or may have had dealings with in the past.

It could have been some pillow talk.

You heard about that astronaut that worked for NASA that drove across the country wearing adult diapers to fucking kill her boyfriend's girlfriend.

Well, if that happened for real, then I could have a goddamn cousin working at NASA.

Was that it?

It was a pillow talk.

You just opened the window to a whole new argument.

NASA or is pillow talk?

It could have been pillow talk with somebody that was at NASA.

See, you don't know who's here.

I'm broadening this thing that way that you won't finger anybody for being the guilty party that revealed that Shopify is going to send somebody up on a space station and they're going to set up a platform on there

so that they can charge every citizen on earth a special fee from the space station and they're going to give you a piece of it.

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It's a new deal they're starting.

No, again, we don't know anything.

let's make a new rule we don't mention deals that there's no documentation to prove or anything that backs up anything you're saying before

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The more successful you get, the more often you're going to be hauled into court.

And that way, you want to make sure you got big boys on your side.

Shopify, as a matter of fact, has a team of, let's say, adjusters that go around the country.

If anybody tries to haul you into court for anything that's done, well, they have a special under-the-table talk with them.

More on that at a later date.

But right now,

there is no special talk, but $1 a month.

Yes, one dollar.

I think after the court case is final, I think we can talk about it.

One dollar a month.

One dollar a month is the trial period to make it legal.

Where in a Fed, they're working for you.

That's just to indemnify everybody.

That way, at $1 a month, they're going to work for you

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Well, Brian, this past week on Vice TV, Tuesday nights at 10 o'clock Eastern time, that is, the latest episode of Dark Side of the Ring was on superstar Billy Graham.

And

again, besides the fact that I love to watch these old clips of stuff that has not been shoved down our throats and Graham was made for television,

can we ring the bell on

one fucking debate right now?

The best looking belt that the WWE, WWF, WWWF ever had was the...

Billy Graham belt.

It was one of those Nikita Mocha bitch belts.

It just looked phenomenal on all stuff.

It was a great-looking belt.

I love the way that belt looks, and it was perfect for its time.

I do like the winged eagle belt, but again, I grew up there in that arrow, and that was the belt for

what, almost 10 years?

Oh, yeah, easily.

So, I mean, that was kind of the belt of my childhood, but I really like that one.

Do you think that one looks better than, let's say, the NWA globed, what did they call it?

The globed dome?

The domed globe.

Yeah,

i love those mokovich belts and the the world tag team belts we had for crockett were made by him also and they hadn't been kept up as as well as that one was but i had replica sets made of those things it's the only replica belts i've got just because i love them so much but it just looked it looked like a big piece of jewelry

And

you don't get that look anywhere, the texture and et cetera.

But with Graham,

everything just looked so good.

And

they had video where they juxtaposed him and Dusty, him and Hogan, especially.

I mean, it was the point of the episode was that

if he'd been the superstar Graham of 1974 in 1984, Vince would have made him Hulk Hogan.

But Hogan took his gimmick.

Ventura took his gimmick.

Dusty took some of it.

And I know people are going to say, what the fuck?

Not body-wise, but the promo and the

tie-dye.

I mean, Graham was doing even tie-dye before almost anybody in wrestling.

Maybe the seven.

His wife was doing the tie-dye.

That was news, too, that she was the one doing the tie-dye stuff in the bathroom.

Yeah, but that was, it was his.

It was his gimmick that he put together.

And now so many people, Scott Steiner at one point, and everybody on on a wrestling show now is kind of doing something either from Graham or from somebody that did it from Graham.

And, but at the time that he was doing that in wrestling, even when I first found wrestling magazines, the pictures of him, 1972,

they're fucking tremendous.

He looked different.

It was a whole different thing.

And one of the talking heads.

was his friend Steve Strong.

They were workout buddies, but I didn't.

Steve Strong got runs in smaller territories as superstar steve strong didn't he he did

and

you know so it even bill dundee

he didn't do it directly but big bad john when they teamed him up with bill dundee

He started doing the promos.

That's right, Big Bad John and my friend Billy Superstar Dundee.

He was doing it after superstar Billy Graham, but nobody at that time in Memphis had seen Graham.

And Dundee looked, it was just the idea of the nickname.

It's everywhere.

But

then Dundee decided to wear Macho Man trunks.

And it wasn't because

stealing from Macho Man.

He'd have probably rather have fought Billy Graham than Randy Savage.

But that was the kind of the

overall scheme of the piece here was that

they didn't delve.

They got got him in the business, and we'll talk about it, but they didn't delve too much on his career before or afterwards, as much as his incredible run, where he was not only

the longest-running WWWF heel champion ever

at that time and for a long time afterwards, but he was also the biggest box office attraction in the business.

And

just because Vince Sr.

had decided he was going to do something, he took the belt off of him and he sent Graham into a depression that he never recovered from.

And

that was defined the rest of his life, practically.

But

they had more of his family on this one, Brian, than other documentaries we may have seen, including I didn't know

he had a son.

I remember seeing pictures of him and his daughter vaguely, but his daughter, Capella, great personality, well-spoken.

And she was seemed like she was more

hurt about the fact that, as she said, he loved us, but he loved being superstar more.

And he wasn't there for them.

And he split up with their mother.

And the son, until the end of the episode, seemed to hold it more against him for not being there and even said, you know, we hated him for years over that.

But

there was more family involvement here than on any of the other

retrospectives or anything we've seen about Billy Graham.

But the talking heads were strong.

Myself, I've made a few cameos.

Billy Anderson, who is from Arizona, Arizona expert, Ken Patera.

Well, Billy Anderson was in between trips to the loo.

Billy Anderson was really close with Billy Graham for years.

Yes.

And well, as I said, they're both from Arizona.

And

because a a lot of people may have thought, well, how did Billy Anderson, I don't think, ever intersected career-wise with Graham?

But,

you know, they were, they were hometown buds.

And Steve Kern, who worked with him in Florida, Steve Strong, as we mentioned, and Uncle Dave,

really, I'm glad to see him doing that.

Well,

they've got a new treatment for broccolitis, where your head slowly turns into a head of broccoli.

And I think they're reversing some of the earlier fucking damage.

Anyhow, broccolitis.

So, broccolitis, yeah.

Well, it comes from not washing the broccoli.

Ah, naturally, naturally.

Naturally.

So he trained in Calgary with Stu Hart.

He meets up with Dr.

Jerry Graham, who's a legendary figure in the business and is also a ragingly drunken mental patient

and easy you ought to be my brother and that lasted about two weeks in los angeles and then graham got fired that was when he was trying to graham had made a comeback i think around 68 for the chic in detroit and this was like 69 70 in los angeles and

anyway they they they got the photos

they got the pictures enough to prove the providence.

And I remember one of the first magazine covers of the London publishing magazines was, This Billy Graham Preaches Violence.

And it had him hitting the double bicep with the fringe jacket and the whole thing.

And, but, you know, while we knew that, at the same time, while he's in Los Angeles, he's working out.

And we knew this, he's working out with Arnold Schwarzenegger and their friends.

They were such good friends.

See, you'd always think exaggeration in wrestling, right?

But they were such good friends they had pictures where arnold picked his dog wife and daughter up at the hospital when she was born when he had car trouble or whatever

so then he's holding the baby and things so

they really they skipped over

everything through

what his first run in the WWWF really the awa entirely but he had already been on top one of the top heels major name in

in the awa for vern and worked programs with wahoo and crusher and all those guys marty o'neal marty o'neal yeah

i feel bad i'm sure he was a legend you know over there but whenever i see footage of him he just looks maybe it's the glasses he looks lost and then you see like early gene okerlund like this guy's got some life to him yeah marty o'neal looked like if roy orbison had a blind grandfather Was he blind?

I don't know, but he looked like it for a while.

Now I feel bad.

Was he blind?

No, I don't think he was.

How could he be a blind wrestling announcer?

Well, he was just holding a microphone, looking awful.

No, he didn't blind.

He did commentary too back in the day on those shows.

No, he just had the weird glasses.

But anyway, sorry to his family.

I just want to say.

None of them are listening to this thing.

Are you kidding?

Probably by this point, half our regular listeners have given up.

So anyway,

he's in the WWF.

And

remember, it was him and Ernie Ladd and Ivan Koloff that were the revolving trilogy of top heels

in the WWWF at that time that were drawing big money anyway.

And

Vince Sr.

made the call to have him be the champion in between Bruno and Backlund.

And that's what Graham's son on this said, I hate Bob Backlund.

Even though he was mad at his dad, he hated Bob Backlund for beating him for the belt.

Like poor Backlund called a finish.

Because that started the downfall was Backlund.

Well, yeah.

And

I mean, that could have been Steve Kern.

Did they say that in this?

They didn't say that in this.

It could have been Steve Kern.

No, they didn't bring that up.

Maybe they thought nobody believed it.

But Vince Sr.

wanted an all-American boy, and Kern was already established.

And it's not like they were going to send Briscoe, but

they had just started Backlund and he'd already, they had plans for Backlund in the NWA, you could tell, because he'd already worked St.

Louis.

Yeah.

He'd worked

for the funks.

Yeah.

Graham had, well, and that was a classic sign of we're sending him trying to teach you something

to work for the funks.

But Graham had already

obviously had plans with him,

but he recommended him to Vince Sr., not knowing that that would pretty much be Bob's run.

And the NWA would never get another shot at him.

When Paul Orendorf, when Graham sent Paul Orendorf to Memphis in 77, when he was a rookie to work for Jerry Jarrett, the footage they sent of Orndorf was working out doing those hero Matsuda fucking badass calisthenics with Bob Backlund.

Because they were the only guy in shape enough to fucking,

you know, follow that shit with, because it was the thing where they intertwined legs and did sit-ups together and all that shit.

But anyway,

they couldn't talk.

Graham couldn't talk Vince Sr.

out of it.

Couldn't couldn't talk him out he thought for sure we're selling out we're turning him away he could he tried to even claim that his knee was hurt or his leg was hurt in a match a couple of nights beforehand and vince wouldn't buy it yeah what happens then do you just give that up like if it's like ah he doesn't believe me i guess i'll just walk around regular again yeah well you kind of you don't put as much effort into limping and you know you work out the kinks

because if you know if you know it it ain't going to work, because he had, Graham had made a mistake.

He had worked the night before in Toronto, and he didn't think anybody'd know.

But, but, I mean, but yeah, they were, and it wasn't just the garden.

He had just had the rematch in,

I think it was a rematch, or maybe it was the first match in Philadelphia with Bruno.

And they'd sold out the spectrum and turned thousands and thousands away.

But

anyway, they were going to do it.

So they did it.

And Graham was already taking pain pills.

Google if you can, because I don't remember what year Graham was born in.

How old was Billy Graham in 1978?

But he was already taking pain pills.

And

he always looked a little older physically than he was to begin with.

And he was getting older by this point.

And he had already OD'd a couple of times, according to a couple of people's testimony, including his second wife's Valeries.

So from that point, he kind of left the wrestling business and was just in this depression over

having the belt taken away from him and that spot taken away from him.

And

I think, did it was it Uncle Dave said he was doing like lawn service or whatever in Arizona?

But how have you found how old was he?

He was born June 7th, 1943.

Wow, he was 35 years old.

But between the steroids working on the joints, the premature balding,

and just having

a mature face and demeanor, you thought he was older.

Because,

see, I had seen the magazines and seen him in the wrestler, the Vern Gagana version in 74.

There was no home video then.

The first time I got to see Graham really wrestle

that he had lost the belt to Backlund in what was it February of 78.

In like October 1979, he shows up in Memphis and Jared Jarrett wanted to establish the CWA World Heavyweight title and have a real name hold it and drop it to Lawler.

And it was maybe August he showed up.

I've got pictures of him and Bockwinkle holding their belts on the same fucking show.

But at that point, in the ring, you know, you could tell, and I know now with hindsight,

this guy that was used to these fucking giant houses and crowds, he was in Memphis and wasn't the top guy in Memphis, and the fans weren't taking to him like the top guy.

And he was phoning it in,

and

he wasn't taking in really any bumps.

And he was, you know, He was doing the promos, but in the ring,

the people here in this territory had never seen him before and he didn't impress anybody.

But he had, that's the only place he worked for like a two or three year period.

Jarrett was able to talk him into it.

And it was just kind of, you know, being there.

When you say he didn't impress anyone, you're talking obviously as fans, as fans that don't look at it as critically as today.

Was it in the ring he didn't?

Was it that the promos he was doing for the long

connect?

I mean, what wasn't impressive?

The promos were great but the matches weren't any good because it he didn't besides the fact that he didn't work the memphis style uh he wasn't going to be taking a lot of bumps he wasn't going to i don't remember he you know he was a big bleeder but i don't remember graham ever getting juice in memphis his work was more see-through it was In the 70s in the AWA, when he had more oomph to him, 10 years, you know, or maybe six or seven, he aged quickly.

Years before that, he wasn't a polished in-ring performer, but he had more motion to him.

And working those wild matches with Crusher and Wahoo and all the guys in the AWA, there was movement.

And up there in the WWF in the 70s, when it was all about the bigger guys and the slower matches,

he kind of could hang in the ring.

The promos were incredible.

The look was off the charts.

But when he got to Memphis, he was cutting the promos, but the life wasn't there.

And he didn't get,

he was brought in as this guy was the biggest star in the business.

You've all read about him.

It wasn't like we're going to start from scratch to get this guy over week after week, month after month.

He wasn't going to be there forever.

And the in-ring, just compared to the guys that were in the Tennessee territory at the time, was just slow and the shit didn't look right.

It didn't look believable.

It was a little weaker.

And you like that Nikita Mokovich belt.

What did you think of the CWA belt when they whipped that out?

Oh, good God.

I can't remember who it was that they found some guy.

It was the only wrestling belt ever featuring stained glass.

And they found somebody, I think, in Tennessee that made that thing.

And it certainly had a different look.

But

I can't remember.

I think Robinson ended up making off with it.

I don't think they ever got it back.

Billy Robinson, that is.

But nevertheless, that was Tennessee.

And then he went back to the WWF in 1982 with the bald head and nobody and the karate gimmick.

And again, when he came to Memphis, he didn't look in 1979, he didn't look like he did in 1973.

But he still had the body and he had blonde hair and he was still wearing the tie-dye.

But then when he had got back out of the business, and that's when they said he really was bad on pills and his his wife or daughter his daughter said that she was sad looking back on this era because my god in 1982 he would have been 39 years old and he would have passed for 55 right with some of the old timers that still stay in the ring that mustache added like 10 years to his

But the physique, not only did he lose weight, but everything drooped.

And he would get it back later on, a few years later.

Somewhat, not, you know, all the way, but that was, you could tell he just, he was not a well person.

Well, plus the karate gimmick.

Oh, God, yeah.

You know, karate kid hadn't come out yet, but Bruce Lee had.

I mean, there was enough people that had seen enough stuff.

No, Bruce Lee was 10 years old at that point.

Yeah, exactly.

You couldn't fool anyone that Billy Graham actually knew karate.

So that thing also was,

you know, it's not just that he showed up looking like that.

He showed up pretending he knows karate.

But you know what?

That showed that he was so, his confidence had been shattered, that he was felt so rejected by that, because they said he'd had a, you know, his father was never affectionate to him and his childhood, he was poor and blah, blah, blah.

So

the rejection

of Vince Sr., he wanted to change his whole fucking thing.

And,

you know, we know Vince Jr.

has said,

you know, he,

when when that Graham showed up, Vince Jr.

was like, what the fuck?

That was his

prototype for a goddamn pro wrestling champion.

And if it had been Vince Jr.

instead of Vince Sr., he'd have been Hogan.

But instead, he gets,

you know, Fu Manchu.

And then by the time he gets another run in, what, 86 and 87, his body had given out.

And he's, he was 43 years old.

And he's hospitalized for the start of all of the hip replacements and joint givings out and hospitalizations and health issues and livers and kidneys and everything.

And that was pretty much

him as far as a career.

But then...

You know, he worked Florida with Kevin Sullivan a bit, which I'm sure if you were partying at the time, that territory may have not been the best place to go.

No, not after the...

Before, I'm saying before he went back to W.

Yeah, beforehand.

86.

Yeah, but not after he went back in 86, 87.

That was it.

He was still there when you were there.

When you first got there, he was there, right?

Working for Crockett.

Oh, shit.

No, wait.

Yes, because he went from Crockett back to Vince for that last run.

Well, we worked with him.

We worked with the Midnight Express worked with superstar Billy Graham and Jimmy Valiant.

That was in 85.

He went from there to Vince for the last run.

And then that's when,

you you know, his body started giving out.

But I mean, in, and let me just say, a superstar Billy Graham in 1985, cutting the promos for Crockett, he had the tie-dye, he had the goddamn body, he had gotten his shit back together, and he was working at least harder and some better

than he had in Memphis six years previously.

And that Billy Graham, if you'd have kept the one that was in Crockett in 85, 85,

he might not have gotten over from scratch if nobody'd ever seen him.

But that Billy Graham with that name, he could have fucking had another

number of years in the business at that age if his body had not started falling apart.

And the hep C and the liver and the joints and everything.

I remember the video of him.

I think it was like him giving Steve Lombardi a bear hug and his back just went out.

Like all of a sudden, he's giving someone a bear hug and it's like, he's almost like using him, stand himself up.

Yeah.

And that was it.

And

I have actually worked in the ring with superstar Billy Graham

in handicapped matches.

Even the Grand Wizard didn't get to do that.

There you go.

See, that's another thing to mark down for me.

But that was a good last.

But you know what?

Yeah.

His hair wasn't coming back.

I mean, the reason he got rid of it was it was going, I think.

It wasn't coming back.

But when he grew the goatee and he had like kind of the look that Scott Steiner would later steal, the you know, the multicolored goatee,

he looked cool again.

Physically, though, he, you know, he wasn't as withered down as he was as karate Billy Graham, but he was so pumped up, but he was also just so much older.

His body looked older than he was.

Now that you know what his age is, like his body looked like Dick the Bruiser era.

Yeah,

look like, look like Bruiser in the Tyndall Armory era of the 80s.

I just popped Dave Dynasty and nobody else.

But the last scene of this was really sad because

his son finally,

you know, he was in the hospital in 2023.

He'd lived for 20 years after a liver transplant.

They were always

hearing he's remembering we were talking about, we're always hearing he's near death.

He's on death's door.

He's been dying since 89.

He's been dying for 30 years, whatever.

But finally, his son said, well, I got to go see him because his daughter had.

And they had a last visit.

And the last then phone call

that he had with his son was really sad, where they said they loved each other and blah, blah, blah.

But the way the son told it, it was a sad ending to that.

But,

you know, that was

you can look invincible.

like Graham did on the outside, but when his confidence was broken or when his

self-esteem took a shot, or just, you know, having something like that taken away when that was your goal, that,

you know, that pretty much wrecked the rest of his life.

You know,

again, it's that weird thing of being told you're going to have this great thing happen to you, and it's going to end at this date.

You know, I'm sure he made it much worse than it had to be,

but still, it's something that's a crushing blow.

It's not like he left the WWF right away.

You know, he was still there for a little bit.

But, you know, whatever he was on, and he may have been on everything at one point in the 70s, not like the 80s when shit got almost clean.

Yeah, no, the 60s.

Yeah.

When they were mixing it up in toilet bowls.

You know, physically, you have to wonder, you know, where he was at that point.

But,

you know.

People use the Billy Graham thing to dismiss Backlund's early years before he became really too goofy or the goofiness didn't work anymore.

The howdy-dootiness wore off.

Yeah.

But Backlund was super over, but they were worried.

You know,

they had Dusty coming in a lot.

They had Mil Moscaris, obviously, there the year when Billy Graham was champion, but he was still in the air, so to speak.

Bruno was, you know, around, like, they were trying to make sure there was enough around Backlund to prove himself.

And Billy Graham was like the first one of those guys to kind of disappear off the scene.

And, you know, Dusty liked him, obviously, gave him the chance at mid-Atlantic.

And he went back to work for Vince McGraham.

Then he became a manager.

And again, he wasn't,

you know, he managed the Rock Dom Morocco.

It was a babyface manager.

It just didn't work.

And then he was on commentary.

And,

you know, there's a lot of guys.

I think Ric Flair is one of them, too.

The greatest promos in wrestling history.

Can do cut, can do color.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a whole different thing.

Yeah.

And, you know, but that's that's the thing.

Dusty loved him because, you know, he influenced Dusty.

He influenced everybody.

And

from what I recall, he was a fun guy in a locker room to be around.

He just, you know,

couldn't take the fall from the top and a lot of health issues that were

brought on or as a result of, you know, some of the various chemicals that he needed to do to get to what he needed to do.

But next week on the program, Dark Side of the Ring, Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert.

And I'm looking forward to this one because,

again, this is going to be, we're going to see some footage that hasn't been beaten to death and overexposed.

And we're going to hear Eddie's story that.

ended unfortunately about 10 years before he would be a household name now.

It just right before that fucking hot period in the 90s.

So

that is interesting.

That's always the big hypothetical.

What would have been,

you know, people presume because Eddie was a smart guy, he would have been set up for life.

You know, he would have been great during the Monday Night War, but he had burned a lot of bridges.

He was in Puerto Rico because it was the only place that would let him book.

And he definitely was one of these guys that once he was Booker, he couldn't turn it off.

I'm sure you could relate.

You know,

once you're doing it, it's hard to not do it when it's all you're thinking about nonstop as he was.

Well, and the thing is,

with Eddie,

with Eddie and me, the difference was I could hold blowing up for longer.

Eddie would have the blow up quicker and sometimes over, you know, stuff that in the long run might have worked out.

But that's explained a lot in the

piece.

But

not only by me, but by everybody involved, because I think Dutchman tells on there saying, I think the longest Eddie booked anything was six months.

But at the same time,

Mick made the point.

Mick Foley makes the point that, you know, he would be looked at as one of the most creative minds today

by that next generation that he just didn't quite make.

But the thing is on talent and creativity.

Would Eddie have made it anywhere?

Most certainly, especially when the attitude era things got hot, would Eddie have stayed anywhere long term because of his disposition?

Maybe another question.

And

we'll let everybody get their,

form their own opinions when they watch the show.

You know, a lot of people always compare you to Heyman, and it's a natural comparison just because of everything you guys did in the business.

You started as photographers.

You ended up running your own companies.

But in a lot of ways.

You know, you and Eddie Gilbert is kind of the weird dichotomy to look at just because you both grew up idolizing Lawler.

well now hold on now idolizing oh yes i pray to you king no our favorite wrestler besides his the most besides his father yeah i mean you both were for he was the guy in our yeah he was the guy in our territory really eddie and i were more similar we're both from the same part of the country we both knew each other for longer than paul and i never met till we were till we were grown folks

But Eddie and I had a similar background in what and philosophy of what kind of wrestling worked or didn't work.

And we did more of the same kind of stuff than either Eddie and Paul or me and Paul.

Eddie and I were more similar in

the wrestling product.

Like that Lawler's Army thing was a big influence on both of you.

Well, at some time or another, it becomes easier instead of buying new suits and going through dry cleaning, you just go to the fucking Army surplus store and get the goddamn...

Now, you didn't make yourself a king.

He did that.

He made himself a king of Philadelphia.

no i couldn't pull the king off but i could be the general of the army i just found one last thing about this and i am curious to see how this eddie gilbert thing is going to go i wish they had i wish they had included missy hyatt but i understand why that may have been an issue also i wish there was a better narrator for all these than chris jericho he's horrible at this but i just found in the eddie gilbert file like eight by tens that were made up when he was like 14 shooting photos at rain it's just him holding a camera wearing a sweater in the back and it says eddie Gilbert.

I mean, it's a professionally done 8x10.

He always knew somehow he was going to get in the wrestling business.

And

the difference in the two of us, because we were a month apart in age,

and from the time we met, we were 14, 15 or whatever.

The difference is he knew he was going to be a wrestler.

and be in the business.

And he was just doing photography until that point, and which shortly before his 18th birthday came around.

Whereas I was doing the photography, and I had no idea anybody would ever ask me to be in a wrestling business.

And I was too scared to fucking volunteer the idea, but I would be a wrestler anyway.

So, but we both

ultimately

had the

booking, the booking thing is what his true goal was.

And because that was the influence of watching Lawler and Jarrett work,

you know, when he was coming to the matches with his father, Tommy.

And

I was just fascinated in the match, not to think anybody would ever let me do that either, but that was what fascinated me that I thought, well, I could potentially do something like that and or manage.

But

that was our trajectory some way.

He knew he was going to, and I never dreamed I would until I did, but we kind of did the same thing to get there.

Yeah, I have several 8x10s from clearly before he was like in the business when he was just shooting photos.

And

yeah.

You know what?

Because of Dark Side coming out, I'll put a bunch of that on Instagram and maybe we'll talk about any of the letters in there from the files next week.

Well, I guess, Brian, before we go any further, we got to.

I don't know if it's check in or if it's just

hover in, zoom in on The Rock's latest antic.

Now he's arguing with podcasters and the podcasters that he ain't arguing with, he's leading down a path that would make one think that he's trying to challenge Hulk Hogan in terms of the

prevarications and preposterizations of some of his comments.

In other words,

he's pulling some of this shit just right out of his ass, Brian.

Were you right all along about this whole thing?

Again, I'm in a weird position.

It's kind of like when you discover a band and you really like them and all of a sudden like months later other kids are listening to them and you're like no you guys weren't here at the beginning uh but yeah everyone's catching up because it's no actually

you know i i think you're wrong there brian i think it's more like it's a hot new burger joint that everybody's going to and the first time you go there you say well this shit sucks and they're probably cooking it in a microwave and then after a few months when they quit trying because they've been doing good business, then everybody figures out, you know, this shit sucks, and they're cooking it in a microwave.

That's more apropos to this situation.

Well, yeah.

But who am I?

I guess the point is, everyone's catching up to what I said.

I always say I say the truth, even if you don't like what I'm saying at the moment, it'll catch up to you.

And it's undeniable what's going on with the rock, and it's undeniable

the short-term and potential long-term issues they're going to have

because of a weird dynamic that they've put in place with The Rock there.

Since we last discussed it in real time on the drive-through, you've seen some of the quotes, you've seen some of the different perspectives on this, correct?

Yes, well, because when we were doing the previous show and we'd been talking endlessly about that, which was WrestleMania weekend, and then suddenly he's on the Pat McAfee show and he's blurting some things out that we're seeing in real time.

We're, we're,

I want to talk about that

in more detail than we did previously but also is he apparently he's arguing on twitter

with what's his name i thought he when he was saying dave i thought he was mad at uncle dave i thought that chain had been broken but it's it's dave dave legana

over at the busted square or what is it dave la who i think it's legreca because i think he's related to that don legreca guy used to be on wfan and then does that unfortunate show with uh michael k but um yeah he's on serious i believe is he serious about it well apparently he's serious about it he's a wrestling fan and he was

like everyone else with their eyes open he noticed what happened with everything leading up to wrestlemania and how disjointed everything got and

the

disastrous feeling they left people with at the end of uh night two and he got mad as hell and he couldn't take it anymore and he made inflammatory comments i don't know how inflammatory he's a podcaster who expressed

inflamed the rock.

Whoa, did they see that's the thing?

Let me read this response and tell me: does he mean to be condescending or does he not even realize he's being condescending?

Let me know what you think here.

Hi, Dave.

The business is a complete work.

Always has been, always will be.

Every aspect of it.

Every match.

Every interview.

Please join me, Cody, Cena, Brian, and the rest of us for our creative discussions.

So you can expand your perspective.

Until then, stop ranting.

It's not healthy, my friend.

Should have been a comma there before, my friend.

Enjoy the show.

And then he had a little, I guess, cutesy message for Bubba, because they used to work together.

But what are your thoughts on what he said there, the response, the fact that he did respond, and the tone of it?

I don't think, as you said, he realizes how he's coming off to people as such an insufferable douchebag.

He's become such an auteur,

he's one of those fucking annoying French directors at this point, instead of a Hollywood action star.

He's constantly got to beat people over the head with this is all

a work, it's all fake, it's all planned, it's all written, it's all scripted, because he at the same time he wants to straddle

his worlds.

He doesn't want to insult his Hollywood people

that he's actually trying to make, you know, wrestling fans believe this stuff is real.

He's showing his incredible creativity and production capability and starring roles.

And at the same time, he wants to be

rewarded and given praise for the incredible

rise of the popularity of the industry and his

not only

in ring, but now that there ain't no in ring,

he wants to be the face of this thing.

Like I can move and shake when I come in.

But at the same time,

he says he, and he always has loved the business from when he was a kid.

That part's absolutely true.

and studied the business and studied the guys.

But now that he's in this position, he wants to just tell everybody, no, we're making all this shit up.

And here's exactly how it happens.

And,

you know, because I'm an actor and a producer and a Hollywood megastar now instead of a wrestler.

And indirectly, shit's all over the fucking business.

Well, not, not maybe indirectly, directly.

Do you see what I'm saying here?

You know, to me, The Rock, it's very similar.

It's going to sound like a crazy comparison to you, but to like Cody Rhodes when AEW started.

I want to be an executive.

I want you to see me as an executive, but where's the actual executive skill, executive talent?

You know, The Rock is really talented.

He's maybe one of the all-time, not maybe, he's one of the all-time greatest when it came to having a script,

when being told what to say, when sometimes having the notes on his hand.

He could do that.

He's a great performer.

But when the performer thinks they're brilliant creatively and they have never, ever really shown that ability, yet they're insistent on having the capabilities to be as creative as they want whenever they want, however they see fit, even with their troll piss boy who used to live on Planet McMahon 25 years ago and hasn't done a fucking thing in wrestling forever.

It creates an impossible dynamic, whether you like Triple H or not.

Again, if you're booking everything throughout the year and someone just swoops in, tries to take credit for everything, fucks up all

long-term storylines.

And again, whoever doesn't think this fucked up the whole Cena thing, it did.

It clearly did.

And they doubled down on it with having Travis Scott do the walk-in at WrestleMania.

This whole thing has been a disaster and it's only going to get worse.

And, you know, again, The Rock, if The Rock thinks he could swoop in with Gewertz and his team and just do whatever they want, that's going to

eventually there's going to be a showdown.

This is like fucking punking the bucks in the back.

Like, eventually, I'm not saying there's going to be a fight, but

this is the billion-dollar mega-conglomerate version of that.

Yes.

Yeah, it's coming, though.

And, you know, again, I'm not saying Triple H is perfect.

And there's plenty of reasons to question the booking leading into WrestleMania in, you know, various ways for various things.

But this was just out of nowhere and at a distraction and not followed through on and just odd.

And then they

attempt to claim that it was meant to be there, or some people, aka The Rock, claim that it was meant to be this way all the time.

Same thing two years in a row.

But if there is a fight, I hope Gurwitz gets kicked into balls.

What do you think?

But anyway, what do you think?

Back to this tweet, though, just the idea that The Rock tweeted out,

whether condescending or not, the business is a complete work, always has been, always will be, every aspect of it, every match, every interview.

You know, Frank Gotch may want to have a word with you, Rock.

Always has been.

But the fact that

a couple of the guys that got double-crossed would like to speak as well.

But those exact words coming out of someone who's at very best a part-timer as a performer.

And, you know, who knows how involved on a day-to-day basis he is.

He says Ari Emmanuel called him up to save Elimination Chamber.

Well, that's what I wanted to, one of the things that I wanted to mention.

Because it wasn't the ticket prices that was causing people not to come.

It was the one that was.

But no, there wasn't.

It wasn't even anything causing people not to come because

someone retweeted

the folks at WrestleTicks,

they do their irregular reports, right?

And a tweet from like the end of January or whatever saw that Elimination Chamber had 26 or 7,000 fucking tickets sold already and only had like two or three or four thousand left available a month before the show.

It was

that's it.

Basically, I think that the rocks saw Hogan's deal where the WrestleMania documentary where Hogan's deal was that, well, you know, it was kind of the advance wasn't doing too well.

So Vince called me and just stole it.

It was the same fucking week he said this that we, you know, that thing came out.

It was not weak,

nothing they were doing at that point was weak, as I recall.

Weren't they selling a bunch of shit out still?

Yeah, and that was before they went to Europe.

And obviously, the rock wasn't there and it sold.

I mean, it didn't sell out, it looked like it sold out everywhere.

God damn it, people gave him money and didn't even come.

They just here, take my money.

That's how much buddy it is.

Take my money.

I just want to sing.

Yeah.

But on the McAfee show,

besides the overall theme that he's always doing now, well, it's all a carefully crafted and organized story that, you know, where we write

that whole nine yards because he's Hollywood.

He told McAfee that he wasn't at WrestleMania so as not to take the spotlight away from Cena.

And

say, oh, Cena's the great, the greatest of all time, the goat, right?

but if he didn't want to take the spotlight away from john cena at wrestlemania then why did he insert himself in the goddamn finish of the pay-per-view the previous month that was leading to the match at the god do you see what i'm saying here if he could he was already in certified yeah listen from the beginning of netflix beginning of the year and if he could show up drunk to nxt why can't he show up to wrestlemania

In Vegas.

If he was in LA, there's no reason why he shouldn't have been there.

If we find out he he was in LA just sitting there, he could have been there.

You can drive that, right?

Yeah.

But the words can drive.

You can sit in the back.

Well, piss.

I mean, can he see over the fucking steering wheel?

They're booster seats.

They make booster seats for people.

Oh.

Uh-oh.

It's the rock.

Uh-oh.

Let me hang out.

You got your bat phone line?

But then also on the McAfee show, that's what he said.

Well, the advance was slow for Elimination Chamber, so Ari called me and we're looking for a way to you know jazz this thing up a little bit

and he said he pushed the story that final boss wanted the soul of cody rhodes

but then he said well we tested it with the fans and found a lot of the fans did want him to sell his soul to me where would that

who were those people

Where were those people?

Heidi, were those people in

San Salvadorian concentration camps or whatever that we weren't able to hear from them freely?

I don't know who's been giving feedback to the Rocks camp.

It is an interesting take that I don't think anyone else had, but sure.

And then he actually said eventually down the line, Cody will be a heel.

But not, you know, it's not the right time.

That's Jericho at MJF.

That's what Jericho did to MJF.

Yes.

to cut his legs out from under it.

So now, so the fans that are listening, they're rock, oh shit.

We shouldn't trust Cody.

It's going to happen anytime.

See, again, it's one thing, you know, he's an executive.

He's on the board.

It's one thing if he wants to call up there and just say too much, but it's another thing when you throw someone under the bus like that, because that's what that is.

Because once you plant that seed in people's heads, that the boss of the company or one of the bosses, or if you believe bullshit, the final boss, Ari signs the checks.

Rock doesn't sign the checks.

The final boss is saying that cody is going to be a remarkable bad guy or whatever he said all that does is make you wait for it to happen and yeah it doesn't help cody at all cody can't be happy about the way any of this for two years in a row the rock has

had an interesting he the rock must hate dusty road like something must have happened For everyone that's like, you hate the rock, he must have tried to steal your girlfriend or he must have turned you down.

No, I just call it the way it is.

Sorry.

Did he steal your girlfriend?

I don't know what situation.

I doubt he would want girlfriends.

Let's just say that.

Well, and by the way, if the people think that you hate him, imagine how Cody hates Cody, right?

Yeah, Cody.

Can you imagine?

The Rock's going to come back.

He's going to be like, I propose that I take your wife and daughter and they join me on TV and then I leave TV.

Now he's going to be back.

Listen, we have a problem.

It's coming.

Let me plant the seed now.

Smashing Machine, the movie.

Oh, I think it comes out in the fall.

Have you seen some of the reviews?

I have have not, but I saw a picture of him, and he looked like ridiculous

one of those 60s fucking bald caps on sitcoms.

Hold on, I have some quotes here.

This is from what is this?

MMA Mania.

This is an article by Alexander Behunen.

Let me get the actual quotes.

Unfortunately, early reactions suggest audiences are in for a head scratcher.

Because that's what you want out of the Smashing Machine movie, a head scratcher.

Indeed, Jordan Roomy of Worldofreal.com dropped a report this week based on whispers he's picked up.

And the outlook isn't promising.

Here's a quote from, I guess, Jordan.

A month ago, Benny Safdie's The Smashing Machine screened for a lucky few.

I kept quiet about it.

However, it's now screened again.

And judging by what I've heard, there's zero doubt in my mind that people are not ready for the type of film in store.

I'm told what Safdie has concocted in the Smashing Machine is,

here's a quote, indescribable in tone and style.

And that it's, here's another quote, almost plays like a spoof of the biopig genre.

In other words, the Smashing Machine is gonzo filmmaking.

and not Oscarbait in the least.

Dwayne Johnson's performance runs tonally opposite to the film's odd style.

It's as if his performance belongs in a different movie.

In other words, the Smashing Machine is not the film any of us expected it to be.

Although, described as a biopic of beloved MMA fighter Mark Kerr,

this is not a conventional take on his life.

The Smashing Machine.

Wow.

The Smashing Machine was meant to be the rock's ticket to an Academy Award nod.

A lifeline to get him out of the current garbage movie slump.

Jesus Christ.

For now, that seems like wishful thinking.

So

the red flag, The Rock's performance reportedly feels out of sync with the film's vision.

Is Safty struggling to draw the right notes from his star, or Johnson's ego steering him off course?

So we have to wait for the trailer now.

But if that's coming out in the fall,

and if he's going to get negative publicity of that, he's going to be on TV.

He's going to be on TV.

But think about this.

Is this thing like a goddamn

one of the movies the Castaways made on Gilligan's Island with the movie equipment they found floating in a box?

And he's trying to play Shakespeare.

What is the incomprehensible?

I absolutely want to see it now, though.

God damn it.

Yes, this could be huge box office.

So it's a biopic of Mark Herr.

Yes, but in the Gonzo style.

What?

Imagine Amazon Brothers made bad biopics.

No.

So yeah, he's going to be back.

He's going to be back on TV.

He's going to be back on TV.

Yeah.

SummerSlam's two nights.

That sounds promising after what we've done.

And also, by the way, to clear up something, also on the McAfee show.

He said as they got closer to the show,

that the elimination chamber, then they made the suggestion to turn Cena.

But he didn't apparently say that Rhodes turned it down.

But with the whole thing about the segment being moved from earlier and going at the end and the whole nine yards, they were trying to do damage control already.

But then he said the best thing for WrestleMania was me not to be involved in the finish, even though I would have done a few things differently in the finish as to how they got there.

Best thing was for me not to, but then come and produce from the back,

right?

How pissed would you be?

I mean, again, that wasn't your finish, obviously, but if it was, and two days later, he's on TV saying this, what would you think?

Oh, my God.

You know what I'd think?

I don't know.

Triple H has a bad heart.

He may not think like I do anymore or used to, but.

But they, you know,

that was the thing.

They were obviously trying to figure out how to kind of get out.

And John Cena obviously realized also

that it needed to be about him and not about The Rock because he had the opportunity to say pretty much anything he wanted to say that it wasn't fuck.

And he never mentioned the Rock's fucking name.

So

again, remember Elimination Chamber.

Remember.

The scrum afterwards, Triple H started it off.

And he's done that before.

You know, he kind of gives the state of the union and and all the records that they've broken, all the working-class fans they've priced out.

He gives the whole update on everything happening with the uh, with that night's event.

And then the talent comes out, they did that last time, then the rock ended the night.

Triple H gave all the business updates, and The Rock came out for like a victory lap.

All right, tell me how great the performance was.

What's your name?

What's your name over there, darling?

Hi, hi.

I'll remember your name.

Like, it's just such bullshit.

And yeah, it's going to be a big problem.

And you have interesting dynamics there i think they recognize triple h's skills i think nick con likes working with triple h i think ari emanuel's the rock's agent

and he's made a lot of money with the rock for the last 20 years and

you know his daughter i believe is working i believe she his daughter wasn't she uh bruce pritchard's assistant for a while so that's ari's daughter now who's now what i someone told me that ari emanuel's daughter was bruce pritchard's assistant for at least a while so the point is

you might have a, you know, was that well, I mean, was that business or was it, you know, when he's in ill health and she had to like clip his fingernails and wipe his butt and everything?

No, I told you years ago, someone I know who it's his story to tell, but so I won't say his name, but he had a meeting with Kevin Dunne and Kevin Dunn was cutting his toenails in the meeting, which is just disgusting.

That is, you know, for everything you say about him, that's disgusting.

That's disgusting.

Rude, just a rude, disgusting guy.

But

The Rock and all this.

You know, again, WrestleMania was not the greatest.

And you can't blame The Rock for the whole card, but you could blame him for the main event of night two.

And

the excuse of,

I don't think the final boss was needed.

I called Cody and Cita and said, I don't think I'm needed.

What the fuck?

What is that?

It almost seems like it was a pressure campaign without saying it, actually.

Now, you better call them and tell them you do need me.

You better.

Well, and also, I think they probably made it clear to him that they didn't need whatever his original idea was.

And so he just kind of

drifted off.

See, that sucks for Triple H.

He has two people in the Rock and Gowarts who are chomping at the bit to replace him and do what he's doing.

And they can't do it any better.

Not to say he's perfect again, but

I'll take Triple H over the Rock and Gowarts every day of the week.

I'll take what they're doing the 99% of the other time of the the year over the 1%

when

Rock shows up and

does whatever Rock does.

Man, if you really think about it, despite winning the title and finishing the story, like the last five years, every like, every winter time, Cody's life is just filled with disappointment.

Every year, every year.

Tony did this to me.

Fucking Brandy's upset about Tony.

And

okay, then I'm not going to get the belt.

And okay, the rocks return.

Every year.

Oh, I tore my pick.

Oh, my God.

I wonder if he kicked Maria Ospinskaya in the shins back in the 40s.

You know, you bring up Triple H not mentioning The Rock at the Hall of Fame.

When The Rock was putting over people in that three-way match, he didn't mention Punk.

And Punk went on TV and did that interview calling him out for his bullshit.

So there's a lot of interesting dynamics in play right now.

You know, it's almost,

it, it makes you stressed, Brian.

It makes you stressed.

It could give you anxiety, could make you give you the nervous heebie-jeebies, keep you from sleeping at night, all the things going on, the backstage intrigue, the drama, the dramedy,

the wonder, and the mystery.

It's enough to just drive anybody into just complete crackdown.

I wish that we had something that could help us out with that.

Brian, don't you?

Well, Jim, well, that sounded actually negative.

Hold on.

Well, Jim, you know what that means?

Make it cheerful.

We're positive and we have a positive new friend to tell everyone about.

And it is something that we're really excited about.

It's almost a perfect fit for what we do here.

Our new friends from Louisville, Kentucky, at Cornbread Hemp.

That's exactly right.

You know what we had to do?

I had to call in because with the state of the world, and believe me, this not only fits in with what we do, but if you fit in with them, then what we do will be even better for you.

But I had to call in some of my friends and my neighbors and my fellow Kentuckians here from Louisville, Kentucky, to help us all out in times of trouble and stress and to stress or strife in today's modern environment.

which sucks.

So we all need some relaxation, better sleep, pain relief, all those things that make you feel better, but with no synthetics and no dirty chemicals going on, all the natural, clean, scientific type of stuff.

And that's what they're doing over at cornbread hemp.

And you'll say, corn?

Now, wait a minute.

I will neither confirm nor deny that I've decided to bring happiness.

onto the world under an assumed name.

These cornbread hemp people are just fine over there.

I have nothing to do.

Will you admit here on the air that you are a secret investor, that you may be one of the owners of this corn company from Louisville, Kentucky?

Something fishy is going on here.

I cannot make any statements about that right now just because the KFC people have deserted Louisville, Kentucky for different environs and the time is right for another company to take over the world based right here in the Derby City.

I might or might not be involved in such a thing, or maybe I just lease them the right to use corn in their name because I'm so identified with corn here in the state.

What is this on their website?

Senior Vice President Marketing, H.

Featherbottom.

Hey, come on now.

Yes Hotchkiss taking a job behind my back.

I didn't know anything about that.

I swear I didn't.

But I'll tell you what, folks, that I do know.

If you go to cornbreadhemp.com

right now, and I think everybody pretty much knows how to spell all those words, cornbreadhemp.com, you are going to see a plethora, a cornucopia of CBD and THC products, the likes of which we did not even know existed until we were introduced to these fine folks.

Because

you may have heard some CBD spots in the past.

Yeah, rub this on or take that capsule, but this cornbread hemp

stock, this roster of products is varied and amazing.

And the packaging alone tells you that they mean business because this, I mean,

you can't find stuff in a modern pharmacy packaged in such a professional way that gives you all the details and the information you need, such as, for example, the berry CBD gummies.

Each gummy contains only eight calories, only two grams of sugar.

That's minute.

But these things will make you feel

and make you relaxed, make you feel better, make you sleep better.

Or the THC gummies, they still only got eight calories if you're watching your waistline.

But they also have

balms and oils and seltzers.

Brian, as a matter of fact, did you balm yourself today?

Were you using the soothing balm on your various aches and pains, your sore spots,

the joints and the shoulders and the elbows you have that creak and crack.

The elbows.

Oh, I'm knocking over.

Oh, there goes Popeye.

I'm knocking over stuff here.

I have the bomb.

Is this a bath bomb or is this like a bomb for my beard?

What is this?

No, it's not a bath bomb.

It's a bomb.

It's a soothing bomb

that you rub upon yourself or have some loved one rub upon you that will that will make your sore

muscles feel better.

Oh, what just fell out of here?

Oh, it's a oh, it's the part of the lid that I ripped.

Hold on, let me open this.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's not usually as hard for people to unbox the fine products as it is for.

I have to be honest, I have issues with your uh your honesty sometimes when it comes to these things.

So, I'm not going to take your word for it.

I'm going to have some of this uh blueberry breeze THC gummies.

I'm just going to have them now.

But go ahead.

Well, I'll tell you what,

they had 10, 10, is it 10 grams?

10, yes.

10 milligrams.

Is it 10 milligrams?

How many 10 milligrams?

I've said, I get 10 grams.

You probably wouldn't want to take it once.

That's Tony Khan.

The THC or the, yeah, that's up to Tony Khan levels.

But the gummies, 10 milligrams of THC or CBD, Stacey, immediately when we got the first box, she's been having trouble sleeping.

She took.

one of the THC gummies and has never slept better.

As a matter of fact, that was Wednesday afternoon.

This is Friday morning.

She hadn't been up yet.

No, she's got all kinds of work done.

She's been up and Adam, she's been up and she went back down and woke up again as you will with the fine product.

I just, this is delicious actually.

And it smells great.

And also they have seltzers and they have even measured the seltzers to where if you drink one, you'll feel in this type of mood and two, you'll feel in that type of mood.

It's very helpful.

Their website is very instructifying and very helpful.

And as I said, you can rub stuff on you, you can eat the gummies, you can drink the seltzers, you can take the various products, and they're clean as a whistle.

And they're 100% illegal, shipping directly to your door, as I mentioned, with no synthetic, all organic ingredients and real THC.

From Kentucky.

Perfect.

From Kentucky, which

carrying on, by the way, a 250-year tradition in Kentucky.

There's been young, uh, enterprising mountaineers down in the eastern part of the state growing a variety of things that a lot of people didn't know about for hundreds of years.

But now

it's all out in the open and packaged on the shelf for your amazing consumption.

They're all the products are third-party lab-tested for the safety and the purity.

And it's basically no alcohol, no hangover, just kicking back, relaxing, and living in the moment, Brian.

Living in the moment, living on the edge of the lightning bolt.

And as a matter of fact, one jar of the THC gummies contains, I believe, what is it, 20 or 30 gummies?

20 gummies.

Yes, 20 servings.

So you eat that whole jar and you'll be on the edge of a lightning bolt.

No, no, no.

Once again, no, definitely not.

You want to only have the recommended dosage, which

you know what they say this is

one gummy in case in case of lightning don't get hit by lightning so you wouldn't want to do that i meant serving size they only recommend a serving size of one gummy i just had one of this blueberry breeze and i feel great

and i'm ready for dynamite and you're going to be ready for whatever tony con brings you what you still look like hell though you may feel great but see with they make no at cornbread hemp we make no i mean they that's not nice they over on the other side of louisville kentucky Kentucky, from where I am, they make no representation that any of their products will make you look better.

There's nothing they can do about that.

But if you want to feel better about how you look,

good boy, I'll tell you what, a lot of you need to,

then go to Cornbread Hemp.

And because they're our new friends, Brian, we're going to save people a bunch of money.

Yeah, a bunch of cash right now.

Because

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Again, so many products that we can't even enumerate them here.

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and save 30% on your first order now 30

is closer to 50 than zero is that means you're saving almost half well you know let's just call it 30 you're saving 30 what a great yes but it's almost half without really being too much exaggerated well then the next thing you know it'd be free and everybody can afford that so it's almost a third why don't you say it's almost a third well it's all because it sounds better when i say it's almost a half but but again we we go back it's right at a third almost we go back to these accuracy issues we were just speaking about, and we have to make sure that people.

What are you complaining about?

30%.

Most people give you like 10%, 15%, 20%.

It's a great deal.

30% and you're complaining about it.

Oh, no, you better not.

No, I think it's a great deal.

No.

Yes.

Well, as you should, because they can't just give this shit away.

What do you want?

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off your first order to try out this amazing array of products and goods that will make you feel soaked.

I feel good.

You know, I did actually.

I rubbed a whole bunch of the balm all over my body.

And when I woke up the next morning, I could play, I could play every bit of it and got a DeVita on a mouth harp.

Once again, so the recommended serving size is what we recommend you use.

And this is a brand new friend of ours.

And I have to say, this is delicious.

I had the blueberry breeze already.

More

real life sampling to come.

But cornbread hemp from Louisville, Kentucky.

One more time, Jim.

Let's welcome our new friends and let's direct people to that promo code.

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off.

That's right.

Welcome to the show.

And these are delicious.

Welcome back, my friends.

Alrighty, they had another show that never ends the other day.

Can i take a drink of my seltzer i'm gonna need something

well here we are again what

what's the matter with you

what is the matter what's the matter with you it's not you it's the blueberry breeze as well and see folks again we don't we don't lead you down the primrose path all righty let's let's get cracking now.

On AEW, Dynamite from this past Wednesday night, April 23rd, they were at the UNO, that's the University of New Orleans, for those of you not so initiated, the UNO Lakefront Arena,

New Orleans, Louisiana.

And we'll get to history in that building in a second, but Tony Schiavone was standing in the ring.

They had the Lakefront arena which i think we established one time before on a show last year seats about 8 000 or so and

i think it was set up for about 2500.

tony's in the ring and he introduces master p

and here comes and i what the

I know Master P because he was on WCW 25 years ago.

And Brian, correct me if I'm misremembering, but didn't the fucking wrestling fans hate the fuck that he was on the TV show back then?

Oh, yeah.

Remember, there was Silk the Shocker's birthday, and he had Big Swole, the guy, not the woman Big Swole, but the male Big Swole, the guy with the big arms.

No, I don't remember any of this.

I just remember that.

It's Silk the Shocker's birthday.

Wasn't this stuff that Master P did on WCW so bad that and the group that he was affiliated with of wrestlers or whatever

soldiers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it wasn't, weren't they so unpopular as babyfaces that they actually turned Kurt Henning and his crew that were supposed to be heels babyface?

Yeah, they were singing rap as crap and they became the big babyfaces.

You know, look, the no limit soldiers and all that stuff in WCW is terrible.

However, he is a big deal in New Orleans.

So

then why didn't he draw any people?

There were no people.

Well, I don't know if they announced him.

I don't know.

I didn't know he was going to be there.

I didn't know he was going to be there.

All of a sudden, Master P came out.

I was like, oh, this is an interesting play.

You got Travis Scott.

We got Master P.

Well, now I will say Master P make three of Travis Scott.

But what, again,

is he still in the music business?

They said he's a coach in New Orleans or something's going on with the youth program or whatever.

Is he still anybody in the music business?

I don't really listen to the modern sounds, Brian.

Yeah, I couldn't tell you what Master P's been up to, but you know, whatever it is,

it led him on this road here, and nothing will ever top him no-selling the Death Riders.

Nothing will ever top Master P standing down the Death riders.

All right, well, we're hold on, we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Stand there, just not even moving.

Well, first, we got to set the scene for the people because this

thing is going to go on for a little while here.

Because he comes out and he introduces the ops

who are Samoa Joe Shapupi

and now Powerhouse Hobbs because Hook got taken out of the equation.

And besides the ops, and I think now that's some kind of young people's slang.

It sounds like a goddamn comic strip from the 20s you'd see next to, you know, the fucking Andy Gump or some shit.

But there's so much wrong.

Samoa Joe is a top guy.

And Hobbs needs booking

to be at the level of his potential.

And Shapupi is an anchor around anybody's neck.

He's just a boring blase.

It doesn't even count.

But

unless Joe has a health or injury issue where he doesn't want to have singles matches, I don't know why you have a main event guy in a six-man tag team.

But nevertheless,

Joe and Master P caught caught up with each other and talked about the student athletes and put New Orleans over.

And suddenly

the Boer Horseman's music plays and the camera sees Marina Schaefer.

And she's got a nice tan this week.

And she's coming through the crowd, the building from the,

she's been out in the parking lot.

Insert your own material there, ladies and gentlemen.

I'd like to have known her in the parking lot of the Dorton Arena in Raleigh, where they they had those little ticket booths that were just like individual little hotel rooms.

But nevertheless, I digress.

So she's walking out, and they're watching her and the rest of the fucking idiots, the heels, attack the baby faces in the ring from behind.

And they get some boring heat while Master P stands and stares at the whole thing.

He's the biggest guy in a fucking ring, except for Hobbs.

And he's just standing there staring at it.

And then

that's where Master P and Dick the Boozer have their staring contest where they just stared at each other.

And

as Mama Cornette would say, take a picture.

It'll last longer.

I'm not sure this stare was so long.

And then suddenly Joe comes from behind.

He gets a sleeper on Moxley or the rear naked choke.

And as he he does that, he's got him standing up.

Master P starts throwing fake punches at Moxley, trying to hit his midsection, but his shit looks so weak that you see Joe turns him, turns Moxley around.

And Joe has his back to Master P where he can't do that anymore.

And Master P is trying to reach around Joe to fucking hit the guy in the ribs from around.

God damn it.

You can almost see Joe over his shoulder going, God damn it, his arms are so long.

And then P got lost and started talking on a microphone,

just ad-libbing,

whatever the fuck he was doing.

Yeah, what do you think about that, huh?

Or whatever.

But then here comes

the Buckaroos and their friend Osleepy.

Osleepy.

And they hit Joe with a chair and they get some heat on Joe.

And suddenly, Master P apparently got scared and disappeared.

If he's going to jump out when the two kids that are half his size and their bleach-blonde Japanese friend come in the ring, why didn't he jump out when the goddamn top heel group, including the world champion that's been pouring bleach down people's throats, came in?

He just stood there and stared at him.

What the fuck sense is this making?

None.

See, it ain't over yet.

It ain't over till the fat lady sings.

As they were getting heat on Joe,

Schaefer gathers Moxley up and gets him out of the ring, but music plays.

And swerve from the other direction.

He

walks into the arena like, oh,

Pierce, there's aggravated mayhem and some felonious assault going on here.

I should stroll down and see if I could be of any assistance.

He walks in and the buckaroos bail out of the ring and try to go back up the ramp, but music plays again.

And there's Kenny.

It's Kenny.

Kenny's here.

He's got a chair.

So Twinkle Toes McFinger Bang is walking in with a chair and the lollipop lollipop guild has to, because they can't go out the entrance, and Swerve is standing on the other side of the ring about 50 feet from them.

They got to bail over the railing.

And then, while all the babyfaces stood in the ring,

Joe cut another promo on

fucking Moxley.

We're coming to get you.

Jesus H.

Christ.

What is going on here?

I don't know what else to say.

You think they're setting up a stadium stampede?

But not

with the world.

If they do not

culminate whatever the goddamn failed experiment is with Jon Moxley as world champion somehow, in a climactic fashion, at their big stadium show, just for

just to give those people something for going to see see

this

rec center product in a stadium setting,

I don't know what to tell you.

They don't, I

don't think they need to have another multi-man garbage match as much as they need to pick them a world champion such as poor old Will Ostrich

or

one of

one or two other choices, and just goddamn do it.

I thought Master Pete did a good job.

He was the best in the whole thing.

Well, now I might not be able to argue with that the way you phrased it.

What a badass.

He didn't sell for anybody.

Moxley got face-to-face in a bit.

I would put my money on Master Pete.

The guy's not even a wrestler.

But he is giant.

He's a huge, huge man,

unnaturally unnaturally big.

All right, let's move on in this thing.

Because Ricochet,

I want to talk about him for a second.

He wrestled Mark Briscoe in the first actual match on the program.

And

it's a good match because Mark Briscoe was in it.

I don't know what else to say, but Brian.

Ricochet

had scooped Mark Briscoe and a little top spread and put his feet on the ropes, but Mark rolled through and pinned him one, two, three.

And I'm thinking, what the two years ago, when it would have done some good, Mark Briscoe, as I recall, didn't beat any fucking body.

But now, two years later, when he's put over everybody and been beaten like a rug, they give him a win over this weasel, Ricochet, that they're allegedly trying to push.

So I'm not arguing with the fact that he won the match.

But of course, then what I am arguing with is the fact that Ricochet then got a chair and hit Briscoe twice with it and pulled out a pair of scissors and was going to stab him

until music played.

And Kevin Knight came out and punched Ricochet once.

And he scampered away.

And the Rock and Roll Express at Ringside applauded this effort and got a little graphic.

That, well, there's the Rock and Roll Express.

So,

but they had a good match.

That's the most important thing, Brian, from what I'm told.

They had a good match.

But here's what I'm going to ask you.

Did you see where

Ricochet was, we've heard about him arguing with fans on Twitter before.

I mean, back and forth, not like just

a put down or an insult and a boom but back and forth and well no no you're not yes i am type of thing

remember that right did you see where he was arguing with one of the fans on twitter about whether he's better than eo sky or not

i must have missed this one No, I did not see this.

I saw this a few days ago.

I don't know if it's fresh or not, but there was somebody retweeted a couple of the tweets of it.

Well, basically, he was saying that she can't do half of what I can do.

I mean, she's good and all, but I can do all that stuff better.

Now, I'm wondering, is he serious?

Is he that

indie-minded, far-gone?

Or is this

an attempt to be a heel and be his heel character,

but kind of coming off as a whiny, cosplaying kid but before

when he was arguing with the fans he was still a babyface

so what do you think did you see that samantha irvin video

oh yeah the music video yeah

yeah

all right before i give my thoughts you as an industry insider oh no

no no no no no no no no no no no we're we're going to we're going to evaluate the music here Samantha Irvin has done

a song.

I guess it's a part of a collection of songs she may have done.

Sometimes, you know, Hotchkiss Featherbottom, he calls those albums.

Oh, get out of here.

But

the video,

well, the song is

Shawty Wanna,

S-H-A-W-T-Y.

And the whole song is about her singing what Shawty

wants to do.

Now, is she shoddy or is someone else is ricochet

is ricochet is ricochet shorty is that the

well then it's not shorty it's shoddy maybe that's it's shawty is what she because that's the title of it that's written on the clip is shoddy wanna so does she is she shoddy and does she wanna i don't know or is she singing about another person named shoddy that wants to do these things

but before

i mean it's a catchy tune i had it in my head when I, after I listened to it.

No, she could sing.

I actually really like the sound.

And, well, and I was going to say, I'm not, you know, a professional judge, but

the tune is catchy and it seems like she can sing.

It's a nice RB sound, yeah.

Was the video

a little,

I'm not even going to say, I'm not even going to say suggestive.

I'm going to say, was it a spoof of videos?

Was the, the, the acting and or the putting together of video, was that a little on the, hey, kids, let's put on a show side to you?

You know,

if she's going to show it, I'm allowed to talk about it.

That's my attitude.

And I think she recognizes that she has assets and her ass is wild.

And she got that thing all over that video.

If you love ass, watch that video.

Well, no, I'm not going to deny it.

She shakes it slowly.

She moves it a little fast.

She does the cha, cha, cha.

She does everything you've ever wanted to see.

I'm not going to deny that a preternaturally large percentage of the camera angles in the video are swooping up from the ground up her naked thighs and or blood tox and gluteus maximus.

Well, that's what they, the scientific biological term for

your ass.

And it's on prominent display in.

a variety of ways, but I was talking.

In a variety of lace outfits.

In a variety of outfits and a variety from a variety of angles, drone shots.

I mean, those fucking cameras that the ear, nose, and throat guy uses where he sticks it down your throat.

They got one of those where you can see it from the inside.

It's amazing.

But what I was talking about was the performance and the production of the piece.

I was trying to be professional while you're all the time talking about people's posteriors and their hindquarters.

And it looked to me like at some points,

this may not have been

girls just want to have fun level production from this uh

whoever shot the thing with the actual music video i don't think there was anything wrong with the production of the music video it was just fun

it's not like they air these things on tv anywhere any anybody it's a little hokey it's a little hokey a little hokey she's shaking her ass with her friends Well, you can shake your ass with your friends in a non-hokey way.

That was too hokey.

It's not her.

It's not her shaking.

It's hokey.

It was the people that were shooting the thing.

It was a Hokey Pokey.

Hokey Pokey, dude, a Hokey Pokey.

All righty.

We were talking about Ricochet.

We just decided to do five minutes on his wife's ass.

Yeah.

Well,

that's more than he does.

Yeah.

If the song is about him, it'll be.

Shawty want to jump off the dresser onto the bed.

Shawty want to practice a superfly splash.

Shorty wants to do tumble salts down the hall.

Shawty don't last five minutes on my ass.

All right.

So anyway, so we're going to move on with this television program that we're reviewing here now.

I'm trying to be professional, for heaven's sake.

It's getting late.

Yeah.

Tony Schiavone was back in the ring.

Now we know we're in trouble again.

And he started to introduce FTR when suddenly

Out came Stokely Carmichael and interrupted him.

And we have not seen

Stokely Hathaway.

Stokely, what did I say?

Carmichael.

This is no revolutionary.

This is Stokely Hathaway.

Well, no, he's not Stokely freaking Carmichael.

He's not a revolutionary

or an anticipation.

Revolutionary, a disciplinarian.

But anyway, Stokely came out.

And he interrupted and he gave FTR the big introduction.

Okay.

Yes, they've turned heel.

But how does this happen?

How did it happen?

Has Stokely been on TV in a year?

Has he ever been a top manager?

Or did he just manage groups of people that

he could do some cute little promos with and they'd do some backstage stuff?

Has he ever been figured in in a main event picture?

I think the last time we saw him, he was managing a heel Chris Statlander against Willow Nightingale, and then he just disappeared off TV.

So now you've got a babyface tag team as former champions, and they turn on their best friend who's Edge,

who's

formerly a major star in this industry, and they come out with

a manager that's an underneath manager.

And that's not even, I'm not evaluating his talent.

I'm saying how he's been presented.

Could nobody have thought ahead four to six weeks where at least you would be able to do something with this guy where to re-familiarize people that, oh, yeah, that was a guy on TV a couple of years ago.

Well, maybe we don't want him to remember that.

Who do we want them to think he is now?

How do we want them to think about him now?

So let's bring him out and have him do something

to interact with some main event talent and be taken seriously so that then when finally he lands with FTR, oh, big deal has been done.

So Stokely cut the promo.

He can talk.

Upset that FTR got fined for doing less than anybody else ever had, like arson,

attempted murder.

Yeah, good point.

Yeah, and in the process, he reminded fans of all the stupid, silly, fake shit that everybody has done.

And then they're trying to do a wrestling angle where they get fined for punching a referee or whatever.

That's why the goddamn, your booking universe needs logic.

so stokely's their new agent

and

meanwhile tony shiavani just turned it over to him has been standing in the corner staring off into the seats and stokely tells him get up here and do your job so tony walks up grabs the microphone and just sticks it out in cash's face and looks away like i'm doing this under duress

it's not your job motherfucker to do shit under duress

You're supposed to be

the

person in charge of the program from the announcer standpoint, not

I'm going to stick the microphone over here.

It's just an amateur hour production.

Then

Cash promoed Danny Garcia.

Nobody cares.

Nobody gives a shit about that guy.

And then Dak starts cutting a promo

and calls the Rock and Roll Express into the ring

that we saw for five seconds applauding in the previous segment at the railing.

And the fans start chanting a little bit, rock and roll, rock and roll.

But I'm going to tell you what they did, and then I'm going to tell you what was wrong with it and what they could have done to fix it here in a second.

Dax interviewed the Rock and Roll Express, and he did the deal Roddy Piper used to do.

He'd ask him a question, and then he'd answer it for them.

And

basically, well, for Ricky, he wasn't even trying to interview Hoot because nobody would have believed Hoot was going to talk, but

he would ask him a question, and he's automatically, Dax has been,

well, first of all, when he called him in the ring, they're out sitting in the front row, and he called them in the ring as heel, as a heel.

Which, Brian, could you

would you have fallen for that?

Couldn't you see this coming a mile away?

Oh, we're legends that have been stuck in the crowd.

So this newly turned heel team

is going to fucking call us in the ring and beat us up.

But they call him in, and then

that's when Dax does the thing where he asked Ricky a question and then answered again and being heelish right off the bat.

And they're just standing there like they're waiting

for the time that's going to come where they get beat up.

And then

Dax said, well, the Midnight Express was better and you guys are about 100 years old.

And finally, Ricky

bowed up at Dax a little bit.

But Stokely showed him the legend killer shirt.

And then FTR jumped him and

nailed Robert.

And Robert's got a bad back.

So he went down and stayed there.

They just punched him and he boom, I'll be over here.

And they gave Ricky a spike pile driver.

And then Adam Cole, Roderick Strong, and Kyle O'Reilly hit the ring, and the heels bailed out.

Could you see through this a mile away?

Yes, they telegraphed every single.

You could argue they telegraphed the Rock and Roll Express's involvement just by showing them

sitting at this wrestling event where they had tickets for New Orleans, nowhere near where either of them live.

But yeah, I mean, you know,

they did the FTR heel turn, and since then they did the thing where they tried to pile drive Tony Schiavone,

and they're beating up the Rock and Roll Express.

Randy Orton was the legend killer.

The name works for him.

I personally wasn't a big fan of the idea of having legends come to the show every week just so they can get beaten up by someone who's much younger and better shape.

Again, it's a different animal here, but if they're making t-shirts with it.

If this is going to be their thing, they just beat up old wrestlers for no reason.

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of that.

And by the the way, if Stokely's their new manager, why did both guys cut the longest promo they've ever done right after it?

Here's our new manager.

Say something for a second.

Now we'll talk for 10 minutes.

Now we'll take over.

But here again, it's not that hard if you have the pieces to put them together in the proper order.

And the Rock and Roll Express, that could have been easily solved.

If

20 minutes beforehand on the television show, going to another commercial or whatever,

they had had one minute of footage where, and here's earlier today at a autograph session outside in the breezeway of the UNO Lakefront Arena, there's the legends, Ricky Morton, Robert Gibson, the Rock and Roll Express.

They were at the very first wrestling event held at the UNO Lakefront Arena back in 1984 when they were the mid-South Tag Team Champions.

They were here today as part of a special meet and greet.

We salute them, the Rock and Roll Express.

Boom, go to break, come back, don't mention them again.

But then

when this segment comes up,

as I said,

I have an issue with Stokely just suddenly being with FTR to begin with.

But nevertheless, when they're in the ring,

FTR and Stokely, then

That's when if Dax is going to talk, he could have said,

hey, you know what?

We are here as the greatest tag team in AEW.

Now we have the greatest agent.

We want the World Tag Team Championship.

Now that we're free from some of our former friends, like that, no-good Adam Copeland or whatever, but

we've always said that we are throwbacks to the old days when tag teams were tag teams.

And as a matter of fact,

the Rock and Roll Express are sitting there at ringside.

And it's no secret, we've patterned ourselves after the 80s tag teams in the glory years, like the Rock and Roll Express, the Midnight Express, and Tully Blanche and Narn Anderson, Rock and Roll Express, why don't you guys come in here?

Because I happen to know

that all of you legends think that we're the greatest tag team in the business today.

Come in here and tell them how great we are.

And then

Ricky Robert could come in.

And Dax could say, go ahead, tell them how we do all this so much better than you guys did back in the day.

And that we're the only one that has taken that and done something better with it, blah, blah, blah and let ricky just say look

you guys are a great tag team

but i don't think you would have made it back in the 80s because you ain't got the guts to stand by a friend because me and robert have had fights

but back in in the end we'd always be back to back fighting off whoever was messing with us and all the things that adam copeland did for you And you turned on him, I'd be out there mowing his grass.

I don't think you guys have the the guts to be great in the 80s.

And then let Dax and Cash beat him up.

And then,

is it going to be somehow that the three of Adam Cole and Roderick Strong and Kyle O'Reilly are going to be in the next tag team program with FTR?

That might make it even.

Or is Stokely going to have to put the tights on?

Why would you not have the team

that is going to be the next opponents of ftr

save the rock and roll express from the attack by ftr

is it because they don't have any goddamn idea who it's going to be well again adam cole ran out too wearing his uh

he's the uh what is he he's the tnt champion i guess now and they promo daniel garcia here

So who knows who they'll be wrestling or teaming with?

You would think

Ricky and Robert need a comeback when you get Ricky Morton still sells better than every single person there, however old he is, 70 years old, whatever it is, he still sells better than everyone.

But does that make any sense on how to just establish somebody's in the building on an unrelated incident and how not to make them look stupid when they walk into a trap and just to have some type of continuity to the whole thing.

Yeah, because you're right.

And we've seen a lot of baby faces looking stupid recently.

But when they called the Rock and Roll Express into the ring, you had to know this wasn't good.

Ricky and Robert had to know that.

Yeah, well, and we all did too.

And it wasn't good.

But speaking of not being good.

How do you feel about just the Midnight Express being used in that fashion?

You know, good or bad.

You know, you're not as good as the Midnight Express.

Oh, well.

Well, I mean, that's a kind of a natural line you'd hit the Rock and Roll Express with.

It'd be like, you know,

the same thing with the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky.

If you want to blister Kentucky, well, he ain't as good as the Cardinals or vice versa.

It's a rivalry that people would know in the given field.

I don't have a problem.

And also, everybody still talks about us because of the magnitude of us

by cracky.

We wouldn't have fallen for that.

If they'd asked us to get in the ring, we would have given them the finger and walked out and got a hot dog.

Speaking of hot dogging, that's a natural

transition to the next segment, Brian, because they're back.

They're back

from Rancho Kookamunga

at the Daycare Center Bouncy House.

The chairman of the board of the Lollipop Guild have returned to wrestle on television.

The Hardley Boys are back in action.

And they wrestled Kevin Knight and his partner, Hong Kong Fuye.

And I got to tell you something, Brian.

I can't believe I'm saying this.

Kevin Knight.

No.

Oh.

No, well, hold on.

He ain't bad.

I'm not going to knock him, but I can't believe what else I was going to say was that

I'm on the Hardley Boys' side.

I hope they hospitalize that nerdy little shit, Spitball Bailey.

The sight of him in a goddamn wrestling ring just makes my sphincter pucker.

I mean, that grin

and that little fucking tiny little microscopic body and that goofy gimmick and those stupid poses.

It just makes you want to just fucking slap him over and over

and then throw some water on him to wake him up and sober him up and start slapping him again.

Well, he's a black belt.

You'd have to be careful.

are you serious he knows how to handle himself i'm sure he does because nobody else will do it for him can i just say before you rip all this apart uh and rightfully so kevin knight is impressive he's got a build he's got a leap he needs to be produced obviously i'm sure you'll say but

Really, really impressive.

Well, and as a matter of fact, and of course, I'm not going to rip this apart because I'm not watching these two clowns.

That's the thing is that

nobody's interested anymore about the young bucks.

Let's face it.

And somebody said this on Twitter.

I think it was Triple H's Thoughts, made the observation, said,

isn't it odd that Jim Cornette for years was saying that Jacob Fatu,

with the right presentation, which goes for anybody, and is going to be a big star in a major company.

And wouldn't you know who won the pony?

And for years and years, even longer, Jim Cornette has been saying that the young bucks ain't worth a shit.

And finally, everybody else is caught up to it, sort of like with you and The Rock.

Where now everybody else is caught up to it.

And it's not that they're talking about them like, oh, we don't like them.

It's that they don't give a anymore they're the afterthoughts the hysteria has passed and the bubble has burst nobody talks about them nobody is anticipating seeing them in any any kind of angle or program nobody wants to watch them on television the numbers bear that out

and they take off more than they take on

to avoid being constantly criticized for not being very fucking interesting.

You know, a lot of people always wondered what would happen as they get older.

Are they still going to be the Young Bucks?

Will they just be the Bucks?

They're the afterthoughts.

That's what they've become.

And, you know, for all the flowers, as these idiots call it, that they want for

being nice to Tony when he wanted to fund a wrestling company,

who has really done more damage to that company than the Young Bucks?

From costing Tony CM Punk and all of that, to look at the ratings.

And we'll talk about the ratings later, but they are a ratings killer.

What we said at the very beginning ended up being true.

AEW is one thing.

Kenny Omega is one thing.

The Bucks drive people away.

They appeal to a very, very tiny audience.

And

unfortunately, they're so insecure about it.

I don't think they can deal with it.

explains a lot of their behavior, but they used to at least be able to sell shirts.

They used to at least be able to have people come out just to see them.

They're the afterthought.

Nobody gives a fuck about the Young Bucks right now.

Triple H must be happy beyond belief that Tony re-signed them.

Those are the kind of guys you bring into your company.

It does no good.

And they're getting paid more than anyone ever before to bring nothing to the table and stay home mostly.

The hottest they ever were was before they got on national television because

the act played in Peoria.

It worked on the Indies.

People couldn't really get sick of them.

And the ones that were most interested in them were the ones that the small number of people that liked that kind of thing.

And for those kind of people,

but it doesn't play on a big stage and they were

just not up to it.

And, you know, unfortunately,

being not up to it, which was obvious from the time that I saw him.

That's why I said it.

The combination of that and them thinking that they were not only up to it, but they were the king shit of it

ran off a lot of people that probably liked him at one point because they realized, goddamn, these douchebags are sniffing their own fucking farts.

Yeah, remember they used to have that YouTube show.

And suddenly they stopped doing that right when it became very clear that each one was losing popularity and the numbers and the views were going down, down, down, because people don't give a fuck.

They had a moment on the indies.

They were able to time it right so that Tony Khan, who finally got his dad to say yes, could have them to start up with.

And what do they bring to the table?

Nothing.

Nothing.

And again, they don't even sell shirts anymore.

Well, but on speed search in this match, it looked like the children were having fun.

And this went through the nine o'clock hour.

So it'll be interesting when we check in on that here in a few minutes.

Kevin Knight is a good signing by Tony Khan.

I guess he's in shape.

He's got athletic ability.

He's larger than many of them over there.

And they haven't booked him into being a goddamn moron yet.

So we'll see what happens with that.

But I'm not opposed to him.

But the other guy.

If we could do an angle, I would go to work for AEW if they'd let me do the angle where I pour bleach down somebody's fucking throat if it's him, Bailey.

Don't say that.

I would hate for you to do an angle that I wouldn't like.

Well,

this would be real bleach, though.

See,

that would make some interesting television.

Anyway,

let's talk about the Hurt Syndicate.

Because they came to the ring for a live promo and MVP

announced that they've put put all the teams out of action and nobody can stand up to them.

That's because there are no teams that they can, the world tag team champions can wrestle.

Apparently, Cage of

Tor something that he's going to be out maybe a year almost.

And there's no tag teams, but these guys are the stars of our show here, and they got nobody to wrestle.

And

right as he gave the microphone to Lashley and Lashley was going to say something on the screen,

vroom, vroom, here comes MJF in a sports car.

What kind of car was that, Brian?

Are you a car person?

I'm not a car person.

I don't really.

It was very nice.

It looked like it cost some money.

And they played MJF's music, and he comes out and comes to the ring.

Of course, that's where he wants three thumbs up

from, you know, so he can join the Hurt Syndicate.

And they're going to, you know, evaluate this again.

And MVP says, guys, you know, where I stand, thumb up.

And the fans were kind of chanting, three thumbs up, three thumbs up.

And then Shelton,

Shelton, he gave his, and he gave a thumbs up finally.

And he says, not because of the broads and the watch, but it's because of MVP.

I respect him.

And then MJF makes the pitch to Bobby Lashley.

I know AEW.

I know how to cut corners and win.

I know the lay of the land around here.

You let me in.

We're going to run everything around here.

And

then MJF, you know, basically

he was asked before he's going to have to tell Bobby that he's sorry, right?

So he said,

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Doing the Fonzie thing.

And the fans start chanting, say, you're sorry.

And

they're into this, at least.

You know, it's something they're interested in, my God, instead of just chanting for kill him with a table.

So

MJF says, I'm sorry.

It gets a big pop.

And also, Bobby,

you can have the car.

Bobby said, well, yeah, give me the keys.

Well, the keys are in the back.

Well, let's take a walk.

So they leave and they walk toward the back, and they have to go to the shot of the announcers at Ringside, you know, for a minute and,

you know, kill some time to let it back there.

And then they go to the back or they go to the camera in the back.

And MGF gives Bobby the keys, says, take a look at it.

Smell the new car interior or whatever.

And Bobby and Shelton get in the car

and they're looking around.

And MGF's like, okay, come on, guys.

Come on, guys.

You know, Bobby, give me the.

And Bobby sticks his hand out and gives him a thumbs down and drives off.

And MGF is going, wait a minute.

And MVP says, hey, hey, hey, remember what I said.

Give the people what they want.

So he's trying.

but he has not yet convinced the Hurt Syndicate to let him into the fam family.

But again, this is

the weasely MJF that is trying to keep himself under control so that he can get something out of these guys

has been more entertaining than him just coming out and screaming and cussing the people out trying to get boot.

I don't know.

Do you think?

I think this is the best MJF stuff in a long time.

And like you said,

it's the manipulative MJF, not the angry and you can't exactly figure out what the reasoning is.

Or, again, no more of the emotional stuff.

This has been great.

The fans are super into it.

They're into this more than anything else on the show.

They haven't even had a match or anything.

It's just these segments, and they've been the highlight of the show.

It seems like the people involved are having the time of their lives.

Shelton Benjamin and Bobby Lashley are doing a great job of being amused, clearly being amused by this whole thing and still being able to play the roles they're supposed to play in this while looking like they're enjoying the hell out of this whole thing.

I'm enjoying this a lot.

This is my favorite thing on AEW's TV for, I guess, now almost about a month.

And I've really enjoyed it.

I really like it.

Well, and then MJF

after I think there was a break involved, but they were in the back and Renee was with Hangnail.

And an MJF comes in and they just

bicker back and forth with nothing of substance, but just arguing and knocking and insulting each other.

And it's like, just,

you don't want another backstage fight because there's 10 of those every fucking show.

But at the same time, why are these people just standing there fucking insulting each other?

I wish they'd keep MJF away from anybody right now except this thing because it's distracting.

And hangnail is distracting anyway.

You never know about that boy.

Is he good?

Is he bad?

Is he in the middle?

What's his problem?

What's his demeanor as far as hair do you say?

Oh, I don't know.

The hairdo would be one problem.

Anyway, they had a big tag team match, Brian or Playa.

Would you like to be Brian or Playa from this point on?

I would rather just stick with what we've been always using, which is my name.

If that works, playa.

Well, hey, cornbread, baby.

Telling you what,

our friends here in Kentucky.

Hey, listen, I'm loving the blueberry breeze.

So, Will Osprey and Brody King,

that long-standing tag team combination that has so much in common with each other.

took on the team of our friend Take a shit

and the new member of the Don Fallas family, Josh Alexander, the lethal weapon or the walking weapon.

And remember, Josh came up short in his debut in the company when he got beat in a cold match

first time we saw him.

But then

Don has taken him under his

mud flap, I guess.

And I wrote it when this match was starting, I'm tempted tempted to watch to see if Josh Alexander's ear falls off.

Remember, that's the first thing they told us about him.

Well, he wears the headgear because he had

surgery to reattach a cauliflower ear, and also he's had a really severe neck injury and has had surgery to correct that too.

So, the first thing is, anytime he gets in a ring from now on, people that only know that about him are like scared, like shit, he might hurt himself.

But anyway, this match went on for a while,

And then finally,

the heels just leveled Osprey and he just rolled out of the ring.

And then the heels in front of the referee just double-teamed Brodie King for

probably almost a minute

over and over until they beat him.

And so

Osprey was out on the floor for about a minute or so, and the referee just let the two heels just beat up Brodie King and one, two, three.

And then

to rectify the errors that they had made there, they started beating up Osprey too.

And then

there was music.

And here came Kyle Felcher,

who had an entrance.

He walked down to the ring to come and beat up Osprey too.

My God, more people have beat up Osprey in the past three weeks than beat up Bruno Samartino in 20 fucking years.

And then they played music.

And Hangnao Page started walking to the ring.

But he was attacked from behind in the entranceway by Rocky Romero and Trent.

Remember Trent?

Yeah, where did that come from?

His mother makes cupcakes, doesn't she?

Yeah,

suddenly hangnails coming out.

I'm going to put a stop to this and save Osprey and Brody from Alexander and Take a Shit and Felcher.

But then Trent and Rocky Romero jump hangnail and they beat him up.

And

the fans mostly didn't care because the baby faces are all shite.

Would you like to move on to the main event or did I miss any observations?

On

the show went really downhill pretty quickly after the MJF segment, but I was shocked that the next match was the main event, that they let them go as long as they did.

There was no overrun because of hockey.

Hockey.

But this next match was surprising, I guess.

Well, it was the Owen Hart Tournament Female Division, and that's very, very important.

There's people that fight and claw and scratch all their lives to get into this fucking thing, Brian.

And they gave it, as you said, about the last, what, 20 minutes of the program, but they couldn't do an overrun because they had an NHL game, National Hockey League.

And that takes precedent over modern family reruns or whatever.

But Jamie Hayter and Chris Statlander, I I can't keep track, but aren't these two both baby faces, or haven't they been babyfaces?

Or yeah,

then what good does this do anybody

to have

to your two babyface girls have a match and

and then just because it's another tournament, and then Hayter won because Statlander never wins a big one,

and then

Josephine Camel,

aka Mercedes Monet,

came out to stare at her, and they went off the air.

You know, I want to thank the people who have done the graphics of

Mercedes Moon's face superimposed onto pictures of Joe Camill.

They have been very entertaining on Twitter.

See, this is one of those periods of time where I get frustrated with AEW because, you know, the reality is it's Tony and we've seen Tony get to the heights he's going to go.

And now it's just going to be more of this endlessly until

forever, actually, I guess.

But like right now.

That's a very long time.

Right now is the time if you had a serious team and you had serious management, serious executives, serious COO,

serious everything.

You should be making the moves right now to prepare for WWE problems in the future.

Because right now you're not going to be able to do much, but there's there's going to be WWE issues in the future.

Right now would be the perfect time to start preparing for it, but they're just doubling down on all the things that don't work.

There's a few highlights like the MJF thing, but

the show, it just is not very good.

And then you hear AEW fans like, the show's been great lately.

Yeah, you said that like during a six-month period where it sucked the last time and the last time and the last.

It's always great.

Until after the fact, you're like, well, maybe the storylines weren't good.

Yeah.

because the booker is not good.

But yeah, sorry, I'm a little frustrated just because I think about that.

You know, I still go back to I wish there was a billionaire who could start a wrestling company that could really be a competitor to WWE in terms of at least main event presentation and talent.

But, you know, we've seen what Tony's going to do.

It's just that was my original bone of contention with the whole thing.

I knew this was going to be the shot that somebody was going to have in my lifetime, at least.

Maybe the young folks out there that are in their 20s might see something.

And I knew that he was going to shit to bed.

And that's.

Well, let's not prolong this.

Yeah, who watched it and why?

Jim, here are the ratings for AEW Dynamite.

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2025 on TBS, 8 to 10 p.m.

On average, watched by 521,000 viewers.

Oh, mother of all creatures, big and small.

According to WrestleNomics, the second lowest overall number and key demo number in dynamite history in the normal time slot.

The previous record is, or I guess, still the record holder, June 19th, 2024.

So a very, very low rating.

And you asked before about tickets.

According to this, the source is WrestleTicks, 2,302 tickets distributed.

And that, as we've established, doesn't mean 2,302 people in the building.

Alrighty, then.

Let's go to the quarterly hour breakdown.

These were compiled by WrestleNomics.

Quarter one, AEW Dynamite on TBS, April 23rd, 2025, 8 to 8:15 p.m.

The Ops, Death Riders, Bucks, Okada, Omega, Swerve Strickland, and Master P live promo, promo,

the Patriarchy backstage promo, and the start of Ricochet versus Mark Briscoe,

597,000 viewers.

Good Lord.

They have never started that low.

And

can you remember a lead-in that low ever?

Or not a lead-in?

Well, okay, I don't know what the lead-in was, but can you remember a starting point that low ever?

I can't, and it appears to be about 150, 160 or so thousand viewers off the trend line.

There's no exact way to do it here, the way it's done, but it's significantly off the trend line, obviously, the last 90 days.

Well, at least they don't have incredibly far to fall.

Go ahead.

Quarter two, 8:15, 8:30 p.m.

The continuation of Briscoe versus Ricochet with picture-in-picture ads, and the post-match with Kevin Knight,

540,000 viewers.

57,000 down in 15 minutes.

But well, now,

again, like I said last week, I think they're going to have to come up somewhere to make their average.

Well, we go to quarter three, 8:30 to 8:45 p.m.

An ad break.

The FTR Stokely Hathaway Rock and Roll Express Paragon live promo and an ad break.

What do you think of the former Undisputed Era now being the Paragon?

I don't think

it does it matter at this point what you call them.

Well, five.

It's like a legless dog.

It ain't going to come anyway.

560,000 viewers.

Well, it came back up a little bit.

The Mark Briscoe effect.

Mark Briscoe gained him some viewers.

We go now to quarter four, 8:45 to 9 p.m.

The Young Bucks versus Kevin Knight and Mike Bailey with picture and picture.

505,000 viewers.

Oh, good lord.

Key demo shoots down from 212 to 184.

Again, where's the Bucks audience?

Where is it?

We go now to the it's right there.

That's all there are.

We go now to the big nine o'clock hour, nine to nine: fifteen p.m.,

quarter five.

The Bucks versus Kevin Knight and Bailey continued.

Tony Storm and Queen Aminada's confrontation backstage.

Oh, I forgot.

That was as phony as a football bat.

And MJF and the Hurts Syndicate's live promo,

550,000 viewers.

And MJF and the Hurt Syndicate.

appear to be in the, well, no, I was going to say, it's the third highest quarter so far.

I was going to say second.

Well, we go now to quarter six, six, 9:15 to 9:30 p.m.

MJF and the Hurts Syndicate backstage, an ad break, the Adam Page MJF promo, and Will Osprey and Brody King versus Konosuke Takeshta and Josh Alexander with Picture and Picture,

490,000 viewers.

Oh, good Lord.

And with Osprey,

this is what they've done to Osprey.

He doesn't deserve this.

He was supposed to be the biggest star in a fucking company.

Now he's in a random tag match in the lowest quarter of the show.

But wait, there's more.

We go now to quarter seven, 9:30 to 9:45 p.m.

The continuation of Osprey and King versus Takeshta and Alexander.

The post-match with Paige, Fletcher, Archer, Romero, and and Trent.

Followed by an ad break,

464,000 viewers.

The low point in the key demo, 157.

Good God.

And finally, the main event: quarter eight, Jamie Hayter versus Chris Statlander with picture and picture

460,000 viewers.

So they only started with 597,000 and they still managed to lose 137,000.

Beyond,

but now hold on here.

And just the one point I want to make is: in the first

five quarters of the program that were all above 500,000,

the lowest one of those was

quarter four with the buckaroos in it.

People consciously left at that point and came back at the top of the hour when Hurt Syndicate came in.

Yeah, to see anything else other than them, they drove away the audience.

They always do.

There's nothing appealing about them.

They don't get pro wrestling beyond appealing to their friends and

their old fans who have gotten old watching the Young Bucks.

They're not really there anymore.

The Young Bucks now have old fans.

But yeah, this is

certainly not great,

but I'm sure they did millions on Max.

Let's just be honest about it.

Well, in the meantime, I'm thinking about cracking open another one of these jars of blueberry breeze.

But do you think there's any gummies from our friends at Cornbread Hemp to take my mind off of all this?

Hey, one last question.

Beyond the booking and beyond star power or lack of star power, whatever it is, beyond things not connecting, is there anything to

ratings being hurt because it's a week of wrestling burnout?

I know it's WWE and, you know, you can't worry about your, not can't worry, but you shouldn't focus on what they're doing.

But it is WrestleMania week, and they did overload everyone who's a wrestling fan with their stuff.

And, you know, you got to think that that may have caused some people to say on Wednesday night, you know, I've seen enough wrestling this week.

Well, and I can buy that theory, but let me ask you this: did they do two nights at WrestleMania last year?

They did, yes.

Did they do a SmackDown?

They did.

Did they do a Raw?

I believe so.

Did they do a Hall of Fame?

Yes.

Did they do an NXT?

Exactly.

It's a lot of wrestling.

Okay, but they did it all last year, right?

Yes.

Last year, did AEW do 521,000 people at Wednesday?

I don't have that number in front of me, but it wasn't that low.

No, because this was the so

they do these things every year.

So there is some element of correctness in what you state, but it should be

from year to year, somewhat comparable.

But from year to year, instead, it's constantly down.

And

blow me on the Macs thing.

People have to try hard to go to Macs and find AEW.

You can't tell me

that an appreciable percentage of the audience on television where it's resided for five years,

an appreciable number of people

are watching it on Macs where you can't find it and it's been on for a few months.

Just in my opinion.

All right.

But nevertheless, I guess we're ending on a happy note.

We're ending on a happy note.

You know why?

Because cornbread, cornbreadhemp.com, baby, it's the way to go.

Forget your troubles.

Come on, get happy.

You're going to call up cornbread hemp today.

Forget your troubles.

Come on, get happy.

We're going to sleep till next week when we do this again.

I know, again, that's not how it works, but look at how happy it's made him.

And look at how happy we all are to say after five hours of drive-through, however long this baby is, we're done for today.

Yes, we are, but we'll be back in a few days with more of this nonsense on

your program.

And then this is my program, and the next one's yours.

And then we alternate from there.

That one's mine, and this one's urine.

Well, I don't want to piss anybody off, so thank you, folks.

Fuck you, and bye-bye, everybody.

Get the experience, get the experience of Jim Cognet

of Jim Cognet

of Jim Connet.