Episode 578: The Calm Before The Storm

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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 Jim Cornette.

The keys to the future held by the past.

And with tag team partner, Barion Last.

He sends this message out by podcast team.

Jim Cornette.

Well, he's never fake 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.

Get the experience.

Get the experience.

Get the experience of Jim Cornet.

Hello again, everybody, and welcome to a sneezing and wheezing edition of the Jim Cornette Experience.

Am I allergic to the spring pollen or bad outlaw wrestling?

It's the Calm Before the Storm Edition where we are going to

take a breath, everybody, before the chaos starts.

And joining me, Hawaii and Brian, the podcasting line, the king of the Arcadian Vanguard Podcast Network, Mr.

Co-HostU, his podcasting empire is nothing to sneeze at.

The great Brian Last, everybody.

Aloha, Jim.

I forgot to play it earlier.

So just a very brief version.

Aloha, Jim.

A pleasure to be here once again.

A fun episode where we're talking good audio and fun times.

Good audio and fun.

Well, that's that's all you can ask for out of a podcast, isn't it?

The minimum.

First of all, we are, by the way, I said the calm before the storm, we are recording near hours before

the start of the WrestleMania weekend festivities and all the activities begin.

And people say, Well, why did you wait till afterwards?

Well, we're going to do that too.

But we are somewhat obligated with all of our commitments and goals and network

affiliates across the country.

We got to get this show out.

So we're catching up on everything that happened up until the fucking

shit starts happening here today.

So if you're, if you're

some people are going to hear this as

shit's already happening.

Well, yeah, I think actually based on when this will come out, a lot of people may be hearing this on the way home from WrestleMania or getting ready for Monday Night Raw.

So, any messages you want to say to people in the future?

Yes, you've made a horrible mistake with a valuable weekend out of your life that you'll never get back.

Have you seen any of the complaints about the WWE ticket pricing?

You know, specifically for right now,

I guess the pricing was set before the economy went to complete shambles, but

still, I mean, even if the economy was healthy, the ticket prices, have you seen what they are?

So, I know the economy is somewhat taking a turn for the worse, but at the same time,

Jesus Christ, what did they have?

A fan base full of Nelson Rockerfellers to begin with that I don't think it in the best economy in the history of the world, which we had right before dumb shit took a next to it.

That a family of four is good as $10,000 I saw was an estimate.

On a family of four going to Las Vegas, having a hotel, the travel, the tickets, the whatever, you're spending $10,000 to do this.

Of course, do family of fours go to WrestleMania?

Or is it groups of four individuals that

have bonded together over their love of wrestling, possibly because

their nether regions are getting no action?

I can't answer that.

Of course, if there was a big event to bring your family across the world or across the country to, it may be WrestleMania, although in Vegas.

Would you really,

at this point,

is it worth taking kids that are fucking six and eight years old to WrestleMania for them, or would they rather go to

Disney or fucking

whatever the kids do these days, the small children, the amusement park type of thing?

Or would the parents just be taking them to WrestleMania because we want to go to WrestleMania ourselves?

Do you think we'll get WrestleMania at Disney?

Possibly we can have Disney at WrestleMania.

Because I'm thinking they'll reanimate Walt pretty soon

to bring him out to host the second century's worth of the wonderful world of Disney on color TV.

Because he's frozen in the basement down there, right?

I think that's just a myth.

But if you did WrestleMania at Disney, you could reanimate Ric Flair and have him by Space Mountain.

I don't know if Flair needs any reanimation.

He's been too animated for a while now as it is.

Imagine if there was like a hall of presidents, but with like old wrestlers.

Oh, there goes Ed Stranger Lewis as the thing circles around.

Who's next?

As soon as you walk in the door, you reach into your back pocket to pull your wallet out and shake hands with Tootsmont.

Much like the Disney one.

It starts with Abraham Lincoln.

Well, there you and he's he's he's grappling on the farm.

That was the cool classics illustrated comic book cover of the life of Abraham Lincoln, or however they termed it, from the 50s was him in front of the split rail fence, and there's the log cabin in the background, and he's shirtless, and he's squaring off with a wrestling opponent, young Abe Lincoln.

There is

very cool.

You have two options.

You're telling the history of wrestling at Disney and this Hall of Presidents thing that'll never happen.

You're either starting with Abraham Lincoln or you're starting with Milo of Croton.

And then you have a big jump, like in terms of timeline.

So I don't know.

Lincoln may be the better, the better bet.

Who was on top in the middle between Milo and Lincoln?

I'm not sure.

Say they needed a wild Bill Longson to come in and keep everything going.

All right, but anyway, so yes, so we are recording again this program as we're going to bring it up to the end.

We're going to hear from the people also, the cult of Cornet that have been neglected over the past few weeks.

We've had a lot going on.

I've got some emails and communications here and follow-ups on things we've been talking about.

We are not the voice of the voiceless.

We, Brian, are the people who give the voiceless a voice.

See what I did there?

You can't deny that.

I can't deny you did that.

Well,

I'll certainly deny it if i'm hauled into court over it but i'm taking credit for it right now

uh so anyway and as i mentioned the pollen count is high

the pollen is high and i'm sneezing and wheezing

i'm gonna drown in snot and phlem snot and phlem

snot and flim

See, I do those professional effects there.

So it sounds like it was pre-recorded.

Maybe we we should go back to Milo Croton.

This is going so well.

No, you keep your croutons to yourself there, pal.

I'm the whole chef salad here today.

This is my show.

If I had a wrestling restaurant, that's what I would have.

Milo croutons.

Milo croutons.

And Jack Parsley.

Nevertheless,

I was just going to say, if I'm a little creaky, because I woke up today, my eyes were looking like looking through Vaseline, and they announced on the news the chart, the pollen count is like an 11 out of 10.

It's all the way up.

It's red all the way to the top.

And I'm very drippy.

Another byproduct of spring.

Isn't it just 10?

Well, they said it's an imagine it's an 11 out of 10.

See, they've melts a

pollen scale.

Well, that's because it's so it's just, they just took a bucket and just dumped it on, just a book it

just a book it and dumped it all over us.

That's how much pollen we got.

So it's an 11.

That helps Dave's argument that there's no end to the star rating system, it's infinity.

Well, only if a natural disaster happens.

And see, we're still in a disaster area.

So this isn't part of it.

Well, it ain't helping.

That's not the same thing.

If we wouldn't have all this pollen, if only we could get some rain.

Oh, shit.

We had too much of that, didn't we?

Well, now it's dry as a nun's.

Hello.

Hello.

So

I'll just move on to a couple of emails here.

How about that?

Like I said, this is going great.

Yeah, because I want to hear from some of the people out there.

And Frank from Herman, Maine

wrote in, Herman, actually, it's H-E-R-M-O-N.

So not like the

Herman Munster, but Herman Maine

just thanked us.

He was just very nice.

He wrote, he's been a fan for years.

He'd been to wrestling in Bangor.

Banger.

Hell, we almost killed her.

And, you know, all over Maine since he's been a kid.

And he thanked us both for all that we've done for him.

And we don't even know who he is.

Wait, is he from Maine?

And we like to keep it that way.

Is he from Maine, or his name is Herman Maine?

Yes, no, if I said Frank from Herman, Maine.

Oh, I thought you said his name was Herman Maine.

I'm sorry.

No, no, you're thinking of Norman Maine, maybe.

From the

wasn't that a star is born?

Norman Maine.

Well, Herman Maine is a place, and Frank is a guy.

See, follow along, Brian.

I'm being as clear as I can possibly be.

I'm not trying to be obtuse

or opaque,

but he thanked us.

Listening to us both makes me escape the pressures of life with my job and my family life for a few hours.

Apparently, his family must suck.

No, he says, I'm not saying anything's bad.

He actually says that.

I'm not saying anything's bad, but it's nice to escape.

Escape from his, he's in the Manson family.

He has to escape from these people.

Oh, come on.

Well, Frank from Herman, Maine, there's probably not that many Franks in Herman, Maine.

So you may have some trouble now if your immediate family listens to this.

If you ever leave town, just call yourself Herman Maine.

Rob Recksteiner going to Rick Steiner.

Just call yourself Herman Maine.

Herman Maine.

You know, maybe that's what Seth Rollins should have changed his name to instead of from Tyler Black.

Instead of Seth Rollins, he could have been Herman Maine.

That's the ultimate test of a wrestler if they can get over with the name Herman.

Herman Hickman did it.

When was that?

What year?

Well,

the 40s.

Buddy Rogers did it as soon as he dropped the name Herman.

As soon as he changed his name.

There has to have been another Herman,

Herman,

Herman.

Herman Munster did it for one episode.

Herman Munster did it for one episode.

That's only because Gene Labelle would put him over.

But it was at the Olympic.

Anyway,

our next team, a very serious situation here that David from San Diego rode in.

He's been in the hospital for a couple of weeks, checked himself in because he had health issues.

Obviously, you don't.

go to the hospital and check in because you wouldn't have a vacation.

So he's in the hospital with health issues.

I said this was serious, but he's feeling better

because he caught it in time.

He said he, they said, I was lucky to check in when I did otherwise.

All she wrote, but he's feeling better and he's going to be out in a week or so.

And he's been listening

to the shows to, I guess, take his mind off of, you know, we've talked about those hospital mattresses.

Now, if I were you now,

David, especially in San Diego, where it's a very warm area, area, I'd move around on those things.

Every once in a while, your skin will grow to the covering in the hospital mattress.

And then when you sit up one day, you've just torn your whole back off.

Well, the other thing is, and I don't know when he sent this in, but we have friends in San Diego.

Hello, Andre.

Speaking of our friends in San Diego.

Ah, Andre the giant.

But they just had an earthquake.

So was he in the hospital when the earthquake happened?

It was like a 5.1.

Well, are you insinuating that he needs an alibi?

That's not what I'm insinuating in any way.

Somebody needs to know, you know, he needs to back up.

Where were you when this earthquake happened?

Like, in some way, that he was contributory?

You know, David, you may want to contact Andre.

He may be able to help you with whatever problems Jim's trying to incriminate you with here on the air.

Did he cause the earthquake?

What do you think he did?

Did he have some kind of sonic raising?

You said, was he in the hospital while they had the earthquake?

Like, as long as he's out of action, we don't have to suspect him.

Imagine you're in an earthquake that's, you know, moving around for a good minute.

And you're in the hospital.

You're hooked up to all sorts of shit.

There's things beeping and bopping all over the place.

What's that like?

Bibbity, bibbity, bumpity.

If I'm in an earthquake, I want to be in the fucking hospital.

I'm as close as I can possibly be to the fucking doctors.

Again, no place better to be.

But you're going with the idea there's not going to be a lot of structural damage around your room?

Well, then somebody can carry my ass out of there because there's orderlies.

Orderlies.

And here's the, yeah, there's the orderlies.

They're going to come in and they're going to go room to room and carry people out.

And think about this now, too.

That if there is structural damage all over the city from an earthquake,

then are they going to go to your house individually or are they going to start with the hospital?

to rescue all of the people in the hospital.

So you need to be in the case of an earthquake, run to your local hospital.

I don't know if that's the official advice that the state of California or anyone gives people.

I think it's find a safe place and just stay there.

You can't dispute my logic.

I'm just, you know what?

You make sense.

That's the scary part.

The more you talk about it, the more sense you make.

Well,

see, now at least you've acknowledged this.

So acknowledge me.

I'll acknowledge David.

We hope you feel better.

And straighten up now here for a second.

Jason from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, has been listening to the program.

His wife just passed away.

She was only 38 years old.

And they were married for seven years.

And

obviously, he said he's been listening as a distraction.

And I can't even imagine.

you know, how he must feel or, you know, what you,

what you would need to be,

what kind of entertainment would need would be needed to distract you is what i'm trying to say jason but we're all thinking about you not only me and brian but everybody out there

and we're not going to make fun of you for any of this because all you may have wanted us to but get back with us later on but in the meantime we're just thinking about you

and and brian agrees i have no idea who this man is but yeah

and then well yeah here's somebody you know who the who that they are i'll tell you oh no our friend john fell in baltimore do you know what he has done oh no is he hurt again no no he

actually they got him one of those chairs

to where now he can just blow in the tube and then it moves him around without him having to

I didn't know it got that far.

I mean, that took a big leap from he fell down to he's got a special chair that he has to operate with wind.

Well, they don't want him to stand up anymore because it always happens, and they're sick and tired of going and fetching him.

John, one of the true nice guys out there, John Fell in Baltimore.

Yes, there's still a couple out there, and he's one of them.

They're roving

the prairies in the wild.

But what he did was he sent me, I'll have you know,

a three CD set is what it is.

Did you know that Jimmy Page and the Black crows did a well that's not a duet because there's multiple crows but did a a combined effort of a show at the at the greek theater in in los angeles

and they've done a three disc set have you heard about this with your music industry connection i knew that they had done a thing together i hadn't uh you know i don't have the release Well, he sent me said release, and it's not, he didn't even like burn it on a white

CD and fucking write on it with Sharpie and send it to me.

This is actually a professionally

done type of operation here, but they do Zeppelin and Crows stuff,

which I've just got this in the mail and I've not got the chance to even stick it in yet, as they say.

But

the set list on the back,

hard to handle, misty mountain hop, what is and what should never be.

Remedy, the lemon song, shake your money maker, heartbreaker.

She talks to angel.

They're pulling out all the big hits, and they've got each other there to

support themselves, however you might phrase that.

So thank you, John.

And

if you hear this, I know they've also got a thing.

He can write notes now.

If he just sticks another thing in his mouth and goes toot, toot,

he can write an email.

All right.

I heard he's going to join Deaf Leppard as their new singer.

And also at the same time, he's going to be drumming with his feet.

Anyway,

hold on.

Oh, you know what else I got?

I have no idea.

What could it be?

Well, here's another.

Is it another letter from Herman?

I can see you're excited.

Herman Main.

I can see you're excited about this.

Russell.

Russell Mansfield.

He says no relation to Eddie Mansfield.

And I've lost,

he doesn't have have his address on this.

It's on the envelope, which I don't have.

So I don't know where Russell resides.

He resides in Russellville.

Russell Mania is running wild,

but he resells

new, old stuff or old, new stuff.

You know what I'm saying to you, Brad?

He acquires and resells vintage items, but he specializes in.

stuff that is old, but it was never sold.

It's still in the package.

It was still in a store consignment or something.

You see what I'm saying?

Or maybe you don't.

No, I do.

I was just waiting for this to go somewhere.

For this to go.

So, well, I'm trying to get you to agree with me.

I agree with you.

He does what he's claiming that he does, whoever this may be.

That's what he does.

Muscle mania.

Well, he sent me.

Remember, we were talking about the old audio cassettes that I taped the wrestling shows on.

I said the Radio Shack Sirtron cassettes.

You got them like three for

three dollars or whatever come to find out it was two dollars and fifty nine cents he sent me a package unopened package of three oh wow radio shack certron tapes from the from the 70s

and

a radio shack mini cassette recorder

the thing like remember the story with shivati had that stan lane fucked with him about that he was making his memo notes on the road with.

He sent me one of those, and

I actually needed that.

And it's new in the box.

I can just put batteries in it because I have old mini cassettes from my old

answering machines in the 80s that I have no way of playing.

I have

messages from

many wrestling greats and or near greats and people that have been dead for 30 years.

Oh man, those calls must be amazing those calls must be amazing jim it's me zombie brody i've been dead 30 years

oh i can

brody never called me

we we we had a couple of polite interactions but he never called me on the phone

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And here this guy that wrote here, his name is Ken and he is from Marietta, Georgia, and he has a confession to make.

Brian, would you like to hear what that is?

sure.

Okay, well, because he's going to spill his guts here now and admit to everything.

Hey, Jim, I just wanted to apologize for something I did to you about 40 years ago.

When I was 13 or 14 years old, I figured out where you guys all entered the Omni for a show.

At the time, I wasn't smartened up quite yet, and I flipped you off.

You weren't very amused and told me sternly not to do that.

I just said, okay.

Now in my 50s, I think of you driving in the car hundreds of miles.

And as soon as you step out and stretch your legs, some little snot has given you the finger.

First, thank you for how you handled it.

I needed to be called out for that.

And secondly, as an adult, I understand all of what you guys went through to make a living.

I sincerely apologize and ask for your forgiveness.

Either way, thank thank you for your time.

Ken from Marietta, Georgia.

Well, fuck you, Ken, you little snot.

You gave me the finger

after I'd ridden 250 miles with my legs all cramped up and stove up.

And I don't accept your apology.

What did he say that you said to him?

And you told me that's not nice.

So what did he say?

He said, you told me sternly not to do that.

Don't do that.

Is that what you would say?

I don't remember the specific interactions, but I almost have a feeling it would have been more colorful, except maybe I was in a rush.

We used to, we'd be in a hurry.

Sometimes the Omni was the second of a double shot.

We had an afternoon show, so we were rushing in.

But yes, that was the.

the area outside the Omni.

And by the way, Ken, you're forgiven.

You're old now.

And if you were going to make it in life, you would have done it at this point.

So I can laugh as I look down on you.

Well, no, but that area back in the Omni,

the people would know that the guys, whether it was cabs or rental cars or their own cars or however, you had to go in the back door of the employee/slash

athlete entrance.

That's where the basketball players went in if they were having a ball game or whatever the case.

And the people could crowd back there and they had cops to keep them from just molesting you and just, you know, putting their hands all over your body.

But

they would be out there to hoot and holler and gesticulate and everything.

And that's where

Bubba,

the cab driver, slammed the cab door on his hand and it latched with his fingers in the fucking door.

And he wouldn't sell it because there was 200 people sitting back there standing back there watching him

so it was a very public area so i might have chastised him for doing it in front of small children and or there's there was ladies in the audience

there was there was a number of ladies back there that would be hanging around waiting to see when the guys came in so that they could

later on see when the guys were going to come out beyond the ladies when you think about your time as a fan and let's say the 80s specifically, because that was kind of the end of a certain type of fan,

how many of the fans that stayed around or were there at the beginning around the back

wanted to yell at the wrestlers because of genuine heat versus this is the fun thing to do.

We go there and we start yelling at the bad guys.

Well,

both of those things can be true and kind of were.

They had fun.

yelling at the bad guys because they didn't like the fucking bad guys and they wanted to fucking, you know, top their friend and insulting them or trying to get a rise out of somebody or whatever.

But honestly, it was more about

they wanted to see the baby faces and they tolerated hooting at the heels in the process.

When I was a kid in the 70s, going to the matches at the gardens,

the most dedicated fans would wait out.

There was an

in those days,

there's a parking garage behind the Louisville Gardens now, and you can barely drive the width of a car up to the back door.

But in those days, there was another building behind the gardens, and there was room for two cars to go past

each other in this alleyway where you, so all the boys would park in the alley where the cops could keep the people from coming up

and fucking with their cars, right?

And you can still get by and everything.

But the overflow, or in the old days, before they figured that out, everybody wanted to hang out around the back door to see if Jackie Fargo was going to say, oh, when's Jackie going to get here?

Or Eddie Marlon and Tommy Gilbert?

Or they're all talking about seeing the baby faces.

It was only the girls of the select few of those that met the requirements.

And every once in a while, a couple of asshole guys that wanted to hang out and see any of the heels, and that was usually somebody like Lawler when he was first getting over because he was kind of cool.

But nobody was going back there to see the heels.

They were going back to see the babyfaces and get pictures with the baby or get the babyface's autograph or whatever.

They knew the heels weren't going to sign any autographs, and they probably weren't going to stop for their pictures, and they probably weren't going to ask to begin with.

So all the interaction was with the big babyfaces.

And even,

hey, kids, they'll take a picture with Chief Bobby Bold Eagle all day long, even though he's in the first match.

So, that was the thing.

What were we talking about?

Uh, what were we talking about?

A fan giving you the finger at the Omni.

Well, and oh, yeah, and so fuck him.

But yeah, the fans hanging around.

No, there it was not like anybody was.

Oh, I want to get a selfie with Kurt and Carl von Brauner, whatever the fuck.

What was here's another.

This is okay.

Ask me,

ask me.

I only went there twice.

But what was the story with Barbaraville?

Like

the phenomenon when we left town, was it just the fan week buses, or was it always like this?

When we left town, it seemed like the entire town lined the streets to watch us leave like we were a parade.

It was odd.

It was like, it was one of the oddest things I've ever experienced.

Was it, was that in the bus, right?

Yes.

Okay.

Well, the first year.

Well,

see, I wasn't on the bus, so I can't say firsthand, but I'm thinking if you got that reaction,

it was partly because, you know, they knew that you people.

It was the same thing.

Remember in Louisville, obviously, it caused a stir.

The Smoky Mountain fans are up there in that section.

But that was a little different.

That was an actual riot about like in the midst of breaking out when it got the fused.

Barbaraville was scared.

You were presented as, you know, heels and et cetera.

But in Barberville, you were just people from outside fucking town.

I mean, they know everybody.

The population of Barberville was it 6,000 people.

I don't know.

You might want to Google it while I'm just meandering on.

But they saw that bus that wasn't from their high school.

They might have thought another goddamn rival county school was invading or something.

They were just odd to see strangers in town late at night in Barberville.

And

when you were there,

what would the crowd have been?

What was the date on that?

That was August of 94.

Would we have had 800 people, 1,000 people in the gym?

Maybe around there.

Yeah.

And it was right after

religions.

The best we ever did, I think, in Barberville, when we had the Steiners there, I think we did like 1,200 people, but nevertheless, are the thousand people in a town

of 5,000 people?

No, the population, according to the 2020 census,

oh, no, excuse me, that was 2000.

The 2010 census, 3,165.

Okay.

So.

We had 33% of the people in town staring at you weird looking fuckers dressed as you are.

The accents all stood out for the most part.

And they,

and you come into the wrestling show, they wanted to see who the fuck you were.

That's the same.

Barbaraville is the same place I took Rick Rubin to the fucking Pizza Hut.

I don't know the Pizza Hut story, I don't think.

The only time that Rick Rubin ever came out when he was first working on the

first album with Johnny Cash, American Recordings.

He had just, this was going to be his first meeting with Johnny in Hendersonville.

That's when I took, I drove Ruben to Johnny Cash's house in Hendersonville and had lunch there

in that incredible fucking place he had out on the on the lake with all those antiques.

But Ruben said, well, since I'm, he didn't like to fly like me.

He said, since I'm coming out there, he came to the Smogy Mountain shows on,

I think, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

and then i took him to hendersonville

but when we went to barberville and nobody knew who he was sans that they everybody thought he was cat collins' friend right because

they knew cat he'd worked with everybody in southeastern they didn't think he was bringing some eccentric goddamn multi-millionaire record producer with him.

They thought he was some kind of fucking hippie bum friend of Cat Collins's.

And anyway,

but we end up in Barberville, and Barberville was a Saturday night show.

And we get out at 10 o'clock.

And

Ruben says,

can we eat somewhere?

Well,

okay.

Pizza Hut was basically the thing.

Besides, if we wanted to stop at a gas station to get a subway,

everything else would have closed at nine o'clock, except, and that would have probably closed too, except it's Saturday night.

So Pizza Hut was open.

And Ruben's a a vegetarian.

So you've, you know, imagine for the people who've seen Reuben now with the long beard and the sunglasses, just imagine that the gray beard is black and he's got more hair on his head and he's still got the sunglasses on and he's got that accent.

And we walk into Pizza Hut and he asked the woman,

he wanted the thin crust

with the tomato sauce, but no cheese, and then a variety of vegetables like mushrooms and green peppers on it and something else.

And she looked at him, she said, you ain't from around here, are you?

She said, I would have remembered if you'd come in and ordered that before.

And so, yeah, a guy that was,

as we were sitting there, I said, because he's so laid back, right?

I said, Rick, you do realize that you actually have enough money where you could go lot to lot in this town and buy the entire fucking thing.

And you're eating a pizza hut at quarter after 10 on a Saturday night in Barberville, Kentucky.

It was such an odd look to me.

It's good.

It's, it's, it's, well, they were, they were good God-fearing wrestling fans down there, Brian.

But it looked like a set.

Like, it didn't look real.

Like when we went through town to get to the arena, there was no one on the streets.

When we left, everyone was on the streets.

So it was just like an empty, like lot like like a film set well when you got in it was saturday during the day nobody's downtown

but then everybody was getting getting out of the matches

going back out of wherever the they came from i don't know

anyway now the people the people of barberville are high highly upset at you now for

calling their town some kind of names.

I'm not sure what.

Or they could take it positively.

It looks like a movie set.

They may put that on the next Chamber of Commerce brochure.

Brian Last of Arcadian Vanguard said we look like a movie set.

The movie being deliverance.

Yes.

Anyway, we've got an email that clears up some misconstruations

or misconconceptions

about

the streaming TV and who knows what numbers.

There's been some debate about this, Brian, about whether or not everybody should know the numbers of the streaming or who knows the numbers.

Right.

Well, a person emailed, and I'm not going to give his name because

it's a common first name, something you find around a lot of people's houses.

But he says, hi, Brian and Jim, please keep me anonymous as I am a Nielsen TV home.

and could lose it because of it letting it be known that I am.

They apparently take the confidential aspect very seriously.

Is I had to sit through an hour of that being preached to me.

So, this is something that nobody's really even brought up.

You're not allowed to tell anybody

that you're

working with the Nielsen people.

It's almost like

you become a Vince Russo.

Why, why do you have to,

why would it do you do they think that then

the TV stations are going to come to people and bribe them?

I wonder.

That's what I'd be doing.

Yo, ABC.

You know what?

All they need to do?

Go to the Best Buy and all the electronic stores and turn all those demo TV to them.

All right, Tim.

But anyway, so who is this fellow?

I forgot to, I'm not giving this guy's name, but this guy,

he continues.

So I started with him about eight months ago.

Apparently, you get to stay for a while in the Nielsen family.

And let me give a little insight.

I am in the key demo and I have streaming only, and that's exactly what they want right now.

So that seems like that's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If you're going to people that have streaming only to get

numbers that you might extrapolate about things

instead of streaming, I don't know.

But nevertheless.

Their device monitors exactly what I stream and sends that data to, say, Warner Brothers or whoever has agreements with them.

It includes how many are in my household as well.

So anybody's claim that nobody knows exactly what is going on with streaming is complete BS.

Now, I'm sure it would be impossible to nail down exact numbers because of devices like phones, et cetera.

But with that said, Nielsen asked me if I'm home to stream from my TV, if at all possible, to give a very accurate picture of what I'm watching.

But it even gives them data on the YouTube videos I watch.

And I'm sure they would say, Wow, who's this Jim Cornette guy?

So that's another thing, Brian.

Make a note of that to send to our advertising and sales department that we need to start getting Nielsen ratings on these

highly popular YouTube clips we're doing.

But anyway, that's from name withheld by request.

But they,

if it's information that it seems like would help anybody's cause, it seems like that they have the information that they could release if they wanted it to be released, right?

I think so.

Yeah.

Well, and that's another thing that Sam here.

Oh, I'm sad.

No, no, his name is not.

It's actually Samantha.

No, I'm kidding.

No, I saw something the other day.

I forget what it was exactly.

It may have been an NBA thing.

I don't remember exactly what it was, to be honest.

But it was a streaming service saying that, you know, this thing got 1.7 million blah, blah, blah, whatever it was.

I don't remember a single thing about this stuff when I think about it, but I remember seeing it and thinking, you know, they could produce that.

I remember seeing a thing about a show that did a number that I can't remember.

But I saw something and it indicated that, yeah, when there's something something braggable, they have numbers and they'll produce them and they'll use them to show they have something going on on their platform.

But otherwise, I don't remember a thing.

Well, and, you know, that's like most modern entertainment.

All right, we've got to, we're going to put this to rest with this little

communique from our friend Pete over in Milford Haven, West Wales.

Oh, no.

Well, now we've had a couple of discussions about this.

The takeover, the purchase of Ohio Valley Wrestling by MSM,

who are the owners of Haverford West County Football Club.

Not country, not Faversham, not whatever the...

all the other things when we couldn't remember their name.

But this just has a few statistics pertinent to, to, because we did the follow-up where we found out that,

well, the

English league is not like the Premier League in

the English Premier League is not like the Welsh Premier League.

And there's some other discrepancies also that we've been made aware of here.

But also the fact that we saw the picture of their, their field is in a goddamn forest.

in the wilderness.

And

so now we have some statistics just to bring this whole thing into perspective.

Hi, Jim and Brian from Pete.

I've just heard your segment on the OVW takeover by

MSM, owners of Haverford West County Football Club.

Wanted to provide you with some background info.

I live seven miles from the club.

The town Haverford West has a population of about 15,000 people, a very small town by all standards.

The The club Brian is semi-professional.

The players get paid, but it's not their primary occupation for the most part.

And actually, this

well, hold on, hold on.

I'm getting there, but this is starting to see.

I think I'm seeing why

maybe they purchased OVW, because those guys, they may get paid, but it ain't their primary occupation.

They've got a lot in common.

The Premier League that they play over there in Faversham or Haverford

is not the same league as Fulham FC that Tony Kahn owns.

Fulham, they play in the English Premier League, whereas Haverford West County play in the Welsh Premier League.

So, for comparison, Haverford West County,

the team,

is worth around 1.2 million pounds.

And I'm going to say from when I was

over there across the pond, that's somewhere rough math, around 2 million bucks.

In May 2024, Fulham, that's the Cons group, was valued at 632 million pounds.

which is somewhere around a billion fucking dollars.

the haverford west stadium has a capacity of 2400

and only has one covered stand the equivalent league in england

is about seven or eight leagues below the

well now he's written this basically the equivalent league in wales i guess he meant say is about seven or eight leagues below

the english premier league or some way it's a long way off.

Sounds like the Wales equivalent to Barberville.

And well, and they do turn out for the wrestling, I guess.

And also, it's not country, Brian.

It's county, no R,

Brian.

And please don't confuse the Welsh with the English.

That had caused trouble in some of these parts.

Yeah,

let me just say a few people said, That's not a Welsh accent because I, you know, did my OVW owner.

This is a splendid thing.

Like that voice.

voice i wasn't trying to do a welsh accent that wasn't my intention i was just doing a wacky idiot who bought ovw

well you're just i mean you're you're doing the goddamn monocle guy on the monopoly board when you ought to be doing sebastian cabot or something

please come out to my country forest we'll have a wrestling extravaganza you're gonna find out this is like the welsh tom cassati and he's gonna bring all these wrestlers over to the middle of nowhere for a show that's not gonna happen

well

they're going to start calling this guy great value Tony Khan.

Anything you can do, I can do, but much smaller.

But we're going to keep an eye on the people in Fabersham.

We will continue to follow this story.

Has OVW, have there been any material changes?

Has anything really been offered?

I don't watch that.

No, I can't.

I'm not watching.

Have they moved the corporate offices to Dallas?

I mean, has anything changed since this big sale?

I'm not going to watch the program to find, and there have been no more press releases about everybody packing up and moving over to the fucking Royal Forest of Dean for a camping trip or something.

But

I don't have any idea how this is going to transpire.

But as I said, I'm gobsmacked.

I'm so interested to finding out exactly what the fuck is going to go on here.

This, this promotion has changed hands in the last five years more times than fucking WCW changed bookers the first 10 years that Turner Broadcasting owned the thing.

And I'm curious as to why that

exponentially more people put money into it.

And then you hear exponentially it's losing more money.

Where do the money go?

See, the value comes from the investment.

The more money gets put in, the more valuable the company is.

And if we want to sell it, then the money you put in, if we want to buy a piece of this company, it will make this company more valuable.

And then what happens is we go find someone else who wants to buy into the company.

Now you're clued in with us.

Now you're a partner with us.

And then we get him involved.

And then he goes to get someone who has some money.

And then they buy a piece of this too.

At no time is anyone saying, How are we going to make any money with this?

But that's have you done this before?

No, but it smells,

it smells like rain.

I don't know what

it smells, it's raining again.

You know what it smells like?

It smells like pollen in the springtime.

But the April showers will lead to the May flowers that bloom from the rain.

And that's what Saturday, May the 3rd.

At noon Eastern is going to be a blooming good time for all of the classic wrestling fans at JimCornet.com because that's when Corney's vault sale kicks off.

And we talked about this last week on the program.

Hotchkiss and I have cleared out the storage unit.

I've been going through the vault with duplicate items of magazines and limited number merchandise, and we are putting on sale the last 20 or so of the bloody variant action figure that you may have missed, or the raw debut variant that you may have missed, or from

years ago,

the red and yellow original.

There's 20 something of each of those.

There's also half-price action figures.

The first Christmas variant that doesn't include the tennis rackets on sale at clearance, half price.

We got scratch and ding announcer play sets, four of those for $10 off.

We got six bloody variants that don't have a tennis racket in them for $10 off.

Plus, we've got trading cards.

Do not be

bamboozled or flim-flammed or horn-swoggled or anally protruded by the people on eBay.

My WWF and TNA trading cards, limited amounts, but signed personally by me for an affordable price.

A reasonable price and not price gouging on eBay is going to be available.

Also, Smoky Mountain Wrestling and Ohio Valley Wrestling programs.

Smoky Mountain event tickets, the last 10 hardcover editions of Behind the Curtain, some classic books and magazines from the 50s through the 80s.

Saturday, May the 3rd at

noon o'clock Eastern, there's going to be deals and steals at jimcornet.com, Brian.

The people are already, they're lining up.

Actually, what they're doing is they're going outside their homes and they're lining up on the sidewalk in front of their homes.

Since I have no brick and mortar store, they feel they must sleep out for this because they want to jump in and get all the best deals.

So they're roughing it out on their front porches andor their sidewalks until Saturday, May 3rd at noon, so they can be first in line to go inside their house and get on the internet and go to jimcornet.com.

Now that's dedication.

Oh, yeah.

At jimcornet.com.

Dedication.

What do you want to talk about?

Dedication all around.

Dedication abound.

dedication

dedication it's all right uh should we discuss something now uh yeah what would you like to talk about economically this is my program isn't it i've lost track of that for a second it's your it's most certainly is boy you better be glad you're not giving a deposition right now with these wishy-washy answers to these clear and concise questions that i'm asking You want to talk about the dark side of the ring with Tony Atlas?

Let's talk about it.

It was an interesting episode.

Some interesting stories.

And

what did you think?

There's one we'll get to

that there's more to the story, and I wish we'd have got it, but I don't know what it is, and I don't know who would have told it.

But

first of all, I love the territory footage because

Again, we've seen a lot of the footage that you would see of Tony Atlas normally in any of the

WWE retrospectives would center on his time there.

You've seen that stuff, but Dark Side Incorporated stuff from Georgia and Louisiana and the Carolinas, et cetera, et cetera.

And a lot of people forget that Tony,

in the 70s and early 80s, before he had the even his first WWF run in 81, was it?

or thereabouts.

He'd been on top for a while and was a star in in a lot of the territories.

And I thought Paul Bosch brought him into Houston around that era.

But he was a great athlete.

The size, the dropkick, the head scissors for a guy with that body and then the legitimate strength also.

And he was just, he was a freak of nature.

And that's, you know,

why he was pushed.

Even I saw him

in, what was it, goddamn, 78, probably, definitely on television with 79 live.

And that was three or four years into the business or whatever.

He was still green.

He had an unorthodox way of working anyway, but

he was just so impressive looking and so quick and, you know, had such charisma that people got with it.

And

so they had good talking heads,

Gerald Briscoe and Tommy Rich,

David Crockett.

That was the straightest I've ever seen Tommy Rich in my entire life just sit there and talk.

I don't know if straight is the right word, but like he just seemed with it more than any time I've ever seen him talk about things.

Yeah.

And

of course, I'm sure there was an editing process, but no, I see what you're saying.

Yeah, well, he's calmed down in his old age.

And Nick Patrick was on just to bury everybody about the quantity of drugs they used to do.

And a lot of the first part of the show was Tony Atlas just telling stories about him as a kid, like Tony Atlas tells stories.

And it went from

getting brain damage to shopping for shoes for women to step on his face with.

And then they show him going and shopping in the shoes.

And again,

but it's not sexual.

It's to calm him down and control his rage.

Which

i don't know brian if somebody was walking on your face would that tend to stir up more of your rage than it would calm down

i can't explain a lot of why or i can't explain any of what he does me or ricky steamboat neither of us could explain any of this i know

and steamboat was so funny because steamboat is such a a good wholesome non-perverted type of guy for the wrestling business, right?

That he was like, yeah, I.

But, you know, they talked about who said it?

Was it Jerry Briscoe?

Someone said at the very beginning, oh, Tony and his stories, you don't know what to believe, or they indicated that he tells stories.

What did he say early on there that was outrageous?

Like, what stood out as being,

was it like, oh, there's no way he got brain damage?

Well, I mean, what's the thing that's well, no, I mean, you know,

I mean, there's a case to be made that Tony had some brain damage from early on.

Well, he made a scar on his head and

he made the case.

But also,

see, here, here's the, I hate to skip around, but what the fuck?

We're just, we're having fun before WrestleMania here.

The funniest part of this show to me was Murdoch and Tommy Rich taking him to a KKK meeting.

Because here's the thing, you know, Tony tells good stories, but sometimes Tony, all good storytellers, maybe sometimes they remember stories a little differently or whatever.

But Tony,

if that happened, if

Dick Murdoch and Tommy Rich took Tony Atlas to a KKK meeting,

then it was a fucking rib.

If the story has not been wrestlers' exaggeration by, because you notice they had Tommy Rich on this show, but they didn't have any comments from him on

at least did i record

any of them the the kkk meeting

and and he must have been asked and they must have asked him that if tony brought it up well one would think but because

here's the thing think about this because everybody's always said oh dick burdock was into kkk i was around dick a long time He may not have been the most tolerant liberal that I've ever met, but he never tried to recruit me into KKK.

kkk he might have had a membership card that he could show people a lot of boys had they could show people

but do you think that dick murdoch would legitimately pull up to a kkk meeting with the world's largest black man in the car with him he might get shot but the way that tony told the story we have murdoch was passing out these flyers in the locker room You know,

he said he was dyslexic, couldn't read or whatever.

But when Murdoch asked him if he wanted to go, Tommy said, yeah, I'm going.

And then later on, when they pull up and it's a clan meeting and the guys got guns, Tommy looks at Tony and says, I didn't read the flyer.

Hello.

And Tommy was Tony's tag team partner.

They were fucking ribbing him.

That's the, it's the same thing as when the Fargoes would pick up a hitchhiker and one of them would shoot the other one and have the guy help dispose of the body.

Or the fucking mabel rib where you send a new guy in a territory out in a house at the woods to some woman and her husband comes home with a shotgun or the briscoes putting a midget naked in their trunk to pop out at the

at the toll booth yeah you know or whatever that it there's it's just the way that it was told by tony i'm sure he believe he may he still believes it maybe

If it happened, but if it happened, it had to be a fucking rib.

Well, they didn't really give us an ending, did they?

I mean, it was Tony Duck.

No.

But then what happened?

Tony Duck.

And then it was, yeah, it was,

I guess they pulled away.

What happened?

Yeah.

I guarantee you, Murdoch had to.

Where was this?

Was this in Georgia?

It must have been Georgia.

That was the only time those three were together at the same time, I think.

Well, okay.

I bet you that Tommy Rich, because Murdoch.

Didn't live and wasn't from Atlanta.

I bet you Tommy Rich had some friends.

Hey,

me and fucking Murdoch pull up with Tony in the car, come out with them hoods on and carry the shotguns.

That's the greatest shit in the world.

It could only have been Atlanta or maybe Mid-South because Tommy made an appearance or two because Watts owned the piece of Georgia, but I don't even know.

Yeah, but then did they, did they, did they know a bunch of guys that would be at a house that would come out in hoods?

I don't know.

But nevertheless, that's the thing is that at least they had David Crockett,

who was there at the time, because it was the guys that were working out, George and Sandy Scott were two of them that were working out at the YMCA that saw

who the fuck is that guy?

And, you know, instant interest.

And they,

the Crockett promotions, gave him

one of the earlier developmental contracts $150 a week just to train to wrestle.

And in what would that have been, 1975?

That's like $400, $750 a week or whatever today.

There were probably some of the boys on first match at the time in the territory going, hey, what the fuck?

And

again, you know, we've talked about Tony when we previewed the episode and talked with Evan Husney and et cetera.

Tony legitimately was from small town Virginia and dirt poor.

And,

you know, it George Scott had to smarten him up.

And he said, and this is true.

I've heard the guys, he was disappointed when he found out the business was a work.

But, you know, by the working with all the top guys in the Carolinas, and then they had a pipeline of relationship because

they were next door to Atlanta and Barnett's territory, and Ole would bop back and forth and either be on top or book either one at different points.

So he went to Atlanta to get the exposure on TBS.

And Tony Atlas and Tommy Rich TNT was a big

fucking deal at that time.

See what they did, TNT, because they were very explosive.

And then, but

at the same time, I should say,

Tony tells the story.

He admits it.

That's the...

whole point of, you know, his book and et cetera.

Too much too soon.

As soon as they put him on top, he was spending all the money.

But it was like he wasn't like,

you know, like a rock star, like I, you know, I'm going to buy a goddamn Maserati or whatever.

He was a poor kid, like a boxer that came into money and started giving it away or buying shit for people.

But when it was very easy for the guys in the Carolinas in,

say, 77, 78, 79

to make 100 grand a year or more each, which would be close to half a million bucks today.

There's probably,

you know, six or eight or ten that was in that group when you look at the names that were in the territory and the business they were doing.

And,

you know, but at the same time, he just didn't know how to handle it.

But then again, you talk about the stories, Brian.

They talked about the one of the car wrecks that

they had with tommy rich nick patrick and tony and it said tony said well it broke my neck

i don't remember him ever having a broken neck do you well he's so muscular the muscles held his neck in place he doesn't need the bones well now that was danny hodge and even he needed one hand but

The thing about what he went at, he had to hold one, one arm was holding his head in place while he swam out of the canal.

But here's the thing.

I think at one point, Evan had told me that when they asked one of these guys about the wreck that they were in with Tommy Rich, whether it was Nick Patrick or Tony Atlas, is a which one?

Tommy was famous at that point in time when they got the

northern tour started where they would leave.

Atlanta and go up to Ohio with Columbus being early TBS Central.

And they opened up Columbus and Cincinnati and the towns in Michigan.

Tommy Rich went through every rental car company that worked that area to the point where they stopped renting cars for the wrestlers.

And they had to, like,

I think either start flying in different places or Kay Fabig assumed fucking people renting the cars to get the boys rental cars because Tommy had wrecked so many of them.

Yeah.

We heard that when we when we went into Atlanta in 85, we were still hearing the story of whatever you do, be careful with the rental cars.

Yeah, see, that's one of the things.

This is Dark Side of the Ring, Tony Atlas, but Tony wasn't even the wildest person in his team.

Yeah.

His downfall, Tommy Rich was the partner.

But

yeah, then I got the notes here on the

Dick Murdoch KKK rally.

You know,

the,

and unfortunately,

I think, and I'll take a side note here because it's the same thing I'm thinking about.

A lot of times guys were easily wound up by other guys in the locker room and they would be ribbing them, but they wouldn't know it and they'd be believing shit.

And I still think to this day that that's probably where poor Kamala thought that he only got paid a tenth of what the Undertaker got paid or whatever that

issue was that he had.

But, you know, but sometimes guys get wound up and they believe shit.

And as Tony mentioned, he was developing substance issues.

So,

you know, maybe that led to him being a little more fucking susceptible.

But then he said he no-showed winning the world title to get his face walked on.

No, he did.

he no showed shows

and vince fired him but he didn't no show winning the world title.

Did you see that part?

I did.

I mean, you kind of glossed past the fact that the way it was presented here was then he finally got to the WWF and now the famed WWF, I think it was called in this, and he had really made it, but it merged like his two early runs together.

He wasn't there straight from 81 on.

He was there from 81 to 82.

Yeah.

Made maybe appearances in 83, but I don't know.

By the end of 83, he was back because that's when they did him in Rocky Johnson.

But it wasn't just one giant run.

He went to Mid-South.

He was back in Georgia in 83, which is when a lot of this chaos actually happened in 83.

So they merged it all together.

As far as him winning the title and no showing it, unless he was completely confused, and I'm not even saying this is true.

And he was thinking, like, you know, Barnett would have given him the title for a week or a night or something

to boost the Georgia territory.

And even that, you know, I haven't heard that story before.

But that's where you know it would have happened i would think would have been in georgia because in wwf

when would it have even been a matchup after 1984 he was a baby face he was well but now you're you're trying to put too many details into tony's memory this cloudy i guess to begin with but but never there there was a problem with him making the towns to

to do other things, but not.

Did you know about the feet thing or the walking on his face with shoes thing like back then in in the 80s?

Were people talking about it?

In the 80s, I don't.

Well, and I, me personally, I don't believe I did because I had seen Tony obviously as a fan in the 70s and I'd been at shows that he had worked on.

But when I got into business, it was years and years before we were actually in the same place.

I think there was some element by the 90s of, you know, conversation about it.

And then he just decided, well, we'll just open it up to the floor for discussion, but not like that far back.

No.

But,

and here,

I don't know what the timeline is here.

I know what my involvement is, but they told the story after he was done with the WWF and he got,

I guess,

the run with Savoldi first in ICW.

He was living in Maine.

And then, or did he come back as Saba Simba and then go to ICW?

No, no, no.

What happened was

he was in WWF and then they either fired him or just let him or released him.

And he went to go work for World Class when WWE let George Scott go there to book in 87 and he was black Superman.

That's right.

And then after that, he went to work for Savaldi, ICW, into IWCCW.

They aired him against Vic Steamboat on that show way too many times.

It's traumatic to think about how many times I had to see that.

But I mean, he said that, like, Vince was running the day before them in Maine to put them out of business, but IWCCW was kind of all over the area.

It wasn't just centered in Maine.

And I don't know about.

Yeah, well, besides that, no, you know, the fact that Tony Atlas had gone to work for, you know, an independent promotion in the Northeast was not cause for Vince McMahon to change his touring schedule in order to go in in front of them.

No, that's a little preposterous.

And then, you know, but the Vince bringing him back as Saba Simba, everybody made fun of that.

And there was, it was ridiculous and et cetera.

But whatever the timing was,

at this point,

he becomes homeless and he's sleeping out in the park.

But where I got involved in this was, and maybe you can tell me what time period Saba Simba was,

because I know that I heard that he was open.

And this was early 1993.

And I've told you the story before when he sent me the plane ticket back, right?

Right.

I mean, the rumor had always been that before you had decided on the gangsters gimmick, originally.

It was just you were going to give Tony Atlas a push.

And when he turned it down.

Well, no,

I'd never even seen or heard of the gangstas as human beings on the planet when I was trying to bring Tony Atlas in.

It was a completely different thing.

Because in early 93,

he was available.

He had just, maybe he had just been in WCW is what it was.

WCW had given him a short little run.

And he was gone from there.

That's right.

And I know, and I'll come to find why I know this in a second.

And anyway, I got his phone number.

Can't remember how, because originally,

instead of Tammy being the manager of primetime Brian Lee as a heel, she was going to be the manager of Tony Atlas.

The same thing was going to happen with Tammy.

She was going to come in as the bitchy,

you know, collegiate Northeast preppy feminist person that, you know, everybody came to know and love,

looking to buy the contract of a wrestler.

But at the same time, I was going to bring Tony Atlas in as a heel

because even if

his promos were never the best, and I think he was best as a promo when he was a babyface because he was so genuine and entertaining, but he was a heck of a heel

look to him, and he could still work, and he didn't have the beautiful body at that point in time, but he was still huge.

And then to me, if you put little Tammy and Big Tony together in the hills of East Tennessee and Eastern Kentucky, you'd probably get some heat.

So I called Tony and we made a deal.

And we were going to fly him down.

I think it was we would fly him for like if it was a week where we had the weekend shows and then a TV, he would go home after that, but then he'd come back and stay 10 days, whatever the case.

We had a place for him to stay.

I agreed.

I mean, he had no job.

So he was going to take 500 bucks a week.

And

the day the TV, we sent him a plane ticket, and the day of TV that he was supposed to start,

me and Hildebrand in the car go by the post office and check the post office box, and he's mailed the ticket back.

And he said, My wife, I still have the letter around here somewhere.

My wife and I have gone over our expenses, and we feel that I'm unable to come to Tennessee at this

And I was like, what the fuck?

Who wrote it?

Because I don't think he writes, does he?

It was typed.

That's what expanses.

My wife and I have gone over our expanses,

and we feel that I cannot afford to come to Tennessee at this time.

And he sent a plane ticket back, bless him.

But come to find out later on, apparently,

while he was in WCW, he had allegedly been on the road with WCW, but actually

had been on the road doing whatever he's doing with

a female.

And his wife got hot about it and found out about it.

And she didn't want him going to Tennessee.

I guess when she saw maybe a picture of Tammy to be managed by this beautiful blonde girl.

Would you use the...

Knowing that he has a thing for women walking on his face and you were going to have this bossy, bitchy manager would you have used it if you knew about it no

no look at how tough he is with my new nikes

no because no if somebody was going to jump off a ladder onto his chest with both feet that's one thing but no it wouldn't show how tough my giant heel was

To have it, no, she would be bossing him around verbally because she was a bossy little bitch, was Tammy.

But she wouldn't be walking on his fucking face.

And you asked about when he was homeless.

So going back to that, he was Saba Simba.

So that's why

I'm wondering when, when in relation to when he turned me down for the $500 a week job in transit, he became homeless.

I think it was a while before that because there's only two periods of time, I think it could be, without knowing exactly when.

It would have been right before he went in as Saba Simba, which was late 1990.

And he was the IWCCW world champion a little bit before that.

So he may have been homeless while working for them.

And then after Saba Simba, he showed up again in WCW when Bill Watts was there briefly as a heel.

And then he was really quickly gone.

But that's right before you would have been calling him about Smoky Mountain in 93.

But there you go.

So I think it probably was before WWF.

Otherwise, he couldn't have been on a bench for a year and a half.

He would have gotten a lot of splinters off of that.

Or was he homeless, but still work?

He doesn't say it like that.

I was homeless, but I also made, you know, three dates a week, you know, for Savaldi.

Well, for a while, he was homeless and making dates, uh, apparently from

you know, his book and etc.

But so, I guess this Monica, the wife he still has, and bless them, they're still together.

But maybe she was the one that didn't want him to come to Tennessee.

But

here's the goddamn thing:

you never know how things are going to fucking work, right?

But for Tony Atlas, who had just been let go by

WCW

and who was homeless at some point contingent around this time

and had no job,

turned down

a top-heel spot in Smoky Mountain Wrestling where he probably would have dominated the television two months before we started working with the WWF.

And

here would be one of their former fucking big stars, but now

he'd have a whole new look.

And think about how many guys in the following two years went back to or to for the first time the WWF off our television.

See, that's one of the sad things, too.

When he went into Saba Simba, that was off him finally having a really cool heel look with IWCCW.

May have been a small promotion on sports channel, but he had like the facial hair and he kind of had, it was managed by Tony Rumble.

Yeah.

He had a heel persona that was working.

And then Vince saw coming to America and said, oh, we'll make him

Saba Simba.

And then again, they talk about the first match, Piper's on commentary.

That's Tony Atlas.

What the fuck are you doing?

And that was the whole thing.

And

it was so

blatantly ludicrous that it buried him.

He needed to go away for a while and

come up with some other present tattoo and make the people forget about that.

But again,

you know, that's the deal.

If he'd have ended up working for me in fucking two months, a lot of our guys would be going to the WWF to begin with.

But nevertheless,

we can't dwell in the past, can we?

Sure, we can.

That's what we do.

Well, you know, that's actually what we do.

Yes.

And then he got inducted in the Hall of Fame and managed Mark Henry and got fired after Vince told him that everything was fine and he was going to be there for a long time.

They left off the ball.

But anyway, remember they brought him back in 96.

In 96, I think it was 96, briefly.

He was with The Rock or Rocky My Via.

Was he?

They showed him in the crowd, like watching Rocky My Via.

My God,

I was there and I barely remember this now that only that you brought it up.

Hey, listen, if Darkseid wants an episode that'll get a lot of buzz and that would actually fit the

show and be really good, do Rocky Johnson.

I dare you.

Dark side of the ring, Rocky Johnson.

I double dog dare you, as some may say.

Oh my God, the double dog has been dared.

You know, the only thing that follows that's the triple dog.

And then somebody's...

somebody's balls are in a vice.

I remember on a Legends House, like Jim Duggan and especially Roddy Piper were getting, or actually it was especially Jim Duggan were getting really annoyed with Tony Atlas they found him to be like the most annoying guy and I could see that but he also seems like the nicest guy in the world he is he's he's nice and he's entertaining and he's you know personable and

maybe the energy alone might get a little stressful after a while

but anyway at the end of the program this was one of the few

dark sides that at least has somewhat of a nice ending that he and his wife who had a stroke and has been in the hospital for, like I said, five or six years, but they're still together.

He goes and visits her and takes care of her in the hospital

and apparently still wrestles at some fanfests or whatever, because he said he, you know, guy got to make a living.

But, you know,

Mark Henry,

taking over for Shakespeare as the profound philosopher of the piece, said said,

it's never too late to wash the mud off your face and act like you got some damn sense.

Words to live by, Brian, don't you think?

I think so.

I mean, it was kind of like dark side of the ring of dark side, if the dark side of the story ended in 1990.

And then it's been like 35 years of a wonderful woman taking care of this very nice man.

Well, but in next week,

superstar Billy Graham, baby, or this week, or however it's phrased, the next episode of that coming up this week on the next dark side.

You know what I hope they figure out on there and say, they probably won't, because it's only me wanting this.

When did he start with the, I'm going to die within a few months thing?

Because

he was about to die for like 35 years straight.

It was like, you'd see him and then he was like, oh, he looks pretty good.

And then you'd hear him like talking like, my hips done and this is done and this and my organs.

And oh my God, he's about to go.

And then he'd like say like he was about to go.

And then like he'd be around for another 25 years, but that can't happen.

And it didn't happen.

You have bone transplants and

things happened.

My God, we're praying for Superstar.

And he's fucking, he'd live to be 80.

Yeah, if they have a death tracker, he started it in.

Maybe it was Gorilla Monsoon calling him dead in that newspaper column.

put the curse on him and started the downhill slash.

And that was 10 years earlier because like 10 years later, he was in a wheelchair by saying, like, I'll never walk again.

Dastardly steroids.

I'm going to die tomorrow.

He lived forever.

The power of the superstar.

The power of the superstar, the man of the hour.

They better mention the poster, right?

They have to mention the famous Billy Graham poster that was sold in the magazines.

Oh, yeah.

I'm hoping they found.

I didn't have one.

I'm hoping they found one.

I had one from the Japanese magazine, a nice one of him with the belt, big full color poster that they could shoot, but I didn't have the tiger poster.

The tiger one is the one that matters, yeah.

Well,

just shit all over me then.

So I'm nothing.

My whole life has been wasted because I don't have that one poster is what you're saying to me now.

This is how dark side of Jim Cornette starts, the depression because of this.

I'm going to go into a spiral.

It's like Vince taking the belt away from me.

I don't have the poster.

You've mocked me.

I'm going into a spiral.

You know what?

With Dark Side of the Ring, on a Tony Atlas episode, you know,

Brian, what would have made a perfect tie-in?

Because

all those videos and all those shots-well, no, all those videos and all those shots of Tony Atlas with his getting his face walked on and stepped on by women in tennis shoes and various other non-feminine type of footwear.

If he was was laying on a helix sleep mattress,

that would be a way to

demonstrate how comfortable you are on a helix mattress.

That if you're laying on one of the fine quality helix mattresses that they make, like the Lux collection or the elite collection, that even if...

If somebody's just walking around on your nasal passages and stepping on your eye sockets and putting their heel into your mouth and stomping on your tongue, you're still comfortable like you're in a baby in its mother's arms.

Now, what they will do is they will allow you to put this to the test

because if you check a special box on the 2025 order, they will send about a 50-year-old woman that used to work as a librarian wearing tennis shoes.

When you unpack your helix mattress, she will walk all the fuck over your face.

There will be no former librarians.

There'll be no any of this except for a mattress

showing up at your door that you buy because it's a wonderful mattress.

There is indeed a survey, but there isn't a box for this trying to correct it all in one fell swoop.

Helix.

Well, see, they can't guarantee she would have been a librarian.

Sometimes the supplies run low, but that adds to the fucking fantasy of the whole thing.

But folks, that's all you do is you go to helixleep.com and you take the quiz.

You pick out a mattress that you like.

Once again, from any of those fine collections, they got mattresses that'll cool you down, ones that'll heat you up, ones if you like to sleep in any kind of position and the support you need.

And you take that quiz and then you pick the mattress that they select for you based on that information.

It is delivered to your door.

And you unbox it.

You put it on the bed frame or whatever surface you are going to indeed be supining your position and and resting in.

And then you just close your eyes.

And this fucking woman, she looks like she ought to be working at the goddamn target.

And she will just,

she'll stand on your right side of your face.

Then she'll walk on the left side of your face.

And then she'll put her feet up under your nose and give you a little adjustment there.

And then she'll slap you in the side of the face with a barefoot with her toes hanging out.

And then she'll go on about her business.

But that's, you got to hurry because that's only for the spring.

Speaking about business, Jim, I think you're giving us the business.

There will be no old lady.

There will be no slapping.

I said she was 50 earlier.

How old do you think she is?

There will be no woman stepping on anyone's face, of course, unless you go to the Tony Atlas message board or something.

But what you can get is a fine mattress just for you.

They look at your survey.

They don't just look at it.

They honor your survey.

They look at the results of your survey.

They say, let's give this man the service he deserves.

Look at the way this weirdo likes to sleep.

And, you know, and there is also,

you can make a list of the people currently sleeping with you.

They need that information too, just their records.

The basics of information necessary for really just age, birth date, social security number, and measurements.

No social security.

That's all they need.

Keep it to yourself.

And the measurements depend on whether it's a male or a female.

The females have more numbers.

The men, they're just interested in one.

This is turning into the chain gang interview where we're both just talking.

I'm trying to save this thing.

If you've got snoring, back pain, sleep apnea, or any of those conditions, well, normally I'd say you're fucked.

But Helix, they can help you too, because their mattresses will, boy, if you just, if what you do is you turn over and you have one of these mattresses sit on your face.

And that.

that eliminates the snoring.

Nobody can hear you at least.

So it's good if people are in the next room.

Again, I don't know what, I don't even know what you're known.

Just

what you do is you just reverse your sleeping position.

Instead of sleeping on your back on top of the mattress, you sleep on your face underneath the mattress and then nobody can hear you snoring.

What do you mean, sleep on your face?

It would be your back or your belly, not your face.

How do you sleep?

Well, no, it'd be your face because the mattress is on top of you.

Your back is still on the mattress.

You're just reversing that whole procedure.

Listen, this does not sound safe or advisable, and thus it is not.

And of course, Helix Sleep guarantees you a good night's sleep.

I think that's what we can say.

There's something that we can say, and what we can say is that we personally really like Helix Sleep mattresses.

And I guarantee you that I like Helix Sleep.

I can guarantee that, Jim.

Well, I can guarantee you the same thing, that I like the Helix Sleep mattress.

And I can guarantee you that if you tip that woman 20 bucks, she'll lighten up on that face walking.

Right Right now, folks, if you go to helixleep.com slash JCE,

well, you are indeed going to get 20% off and two free pillows from our fine friends at helix sleep.

That's all you got to do.

Helixleep.com slash JCE.

They might get you, give you something else.

They might give you a better deal.

If you just slash that JCE in there, they'll know you're one of the cool kids.

Helixleep.com slash JCE.

You're You're going to save a lot of money.

You're going to get a lot of good stuff.

And nobody will be able to hear you snore under there.

A fine mattress for you and the entire family.

We love them here.

They love them in Louisville.

You'll love them wherever the hell you are.

Helix Sleep, one more time, Jim.

That link and promo code.

Yes,

the link and promo code JCE.

That's terribly difficult to remember.

All right, Helix Sleep, and this is your show.

Well, I was taking a drink.

Not a, not alcohol.

Yes.

You can't drink a mattress.

Wait a minute.

That's an idea.

Because how many times you wake up in the middle of the night?

You need a drink.

You need a drink of water.

You need to drink a cold sprite zero.

You need some kind of drink.

What about if they have a mattress where they've got a cooler sewed to the side right next to your head and a hose, not a hose, but a straw or a tube of some description, a tube-like structure dangling over your face where you can just lean up, put your lips around the tube, and

suck in a nice cold drink, and then turn back over and go back to sleep.

Folks, coming soon to helix.com.

Say that.

You know, they're not going to have that.

And I think contractually, we're not allowed to suggest or create new patents or designs in the world of mattressing.

It's going to be called the guzzler.

Why?

You'd be the one guzzling.

Yes, it's going to be called the guzzler because it enables you to become a guzzler in the middle of the night of your favorite drink without having to get up out of the warmth of your helix sleep bed.

Just put it on the nightstand, ladies and gentlemen.

And get no, you can reach over and turn it over like I do all the time.

Or if you try to take that can,

you have to raise your head up can

because if you take a canned drink and you try to sip it while you're laying flat on your back you're going to turn it up your nostrils and it's going to drown you you know there are several drowning related fatalities related to to nighttime drinking in bed that's because of that so this way if you've got the tube that you can suck on

then you don't pour anything up your nose and you don't have to raise your head up.

Beguzzler, coming soon

you can talk about it not coming soon to helix let's just stress well once they once they purchase my idea for an agreed upon fee we'll see i heard you have a i heard you have some real difficult partners but once again helix sleep.com slash jce

we love them i'm gonna have to get at least five grand we love them and we're gonna end on a happy note with truthfulness we love them helix sleep.com yes slash jce we're finally done and now we move on with your show

Oh,

boy.

All righty then.

We will, these boots are made for walking, Brian, but not on a face.

They are made to walk on down the street and check in with our friends at AEW Rasslin.

They did dynamite again.

They did it again.

They did it again, Brian.

And this time from Boston, Massachusetts,

in,

I forgot

what they call the, It's a music hall there.

What's the name of this place?

The something, something music hall.

What do you like?

Say Massachusetts again?

Massachusetts.

Let me get this for you.

Well, that's the way they used to say it when I was a kid in first grade because we couldn't pronounce Massachusetts back then.

But they were in the

music hall up there, and they're on the same tune.

The MGM Music Hall at Fenway.

Does that have something to do with MGM studios or films, or is this more MGM that owns Fabersham West County?

No, I think I would guess I don't know for sure, but I will say it looked really good.

I thought the venue looked great on TV.

Well, that's

incredible.

Yeah.

Yes, because they've got to the point where they've got the buildings down to where they can.

fill up what they need to fill up to be seen on camera.

But we got to talk about the milestone because they made it.

And a lot of people are saying they just wanted to troll,

as the kids say, poor old Eric Bischoff.

And he looks like a troll.

He looks like he's living under a bridge.

He might be.

But they wanted to troll Eric Bischoff by saying that they had become the longest

prime time wrestling program in TBS history.

Is that the way that they phrased it?

I think so.

They outlasted Nitro by one show with this one or whatever.

But

was that really a,

I guess for Tony's a numbers nerd and you can do anything you want with numbers, but was that kind of a weak

fucking swing and maybe a miss?

Yeah,

our show has been on the station at a particular time longer than the

other programs that have been on the station that were on for decades longer and that 10 times more people watched.

But still, because ours has been in this one particular day part

for a while.

Yay.

Is it a big deal?

It did seem like they overdid it.

The only people really going crazy with it on social media were like diehard AEW fans who look for like everything positive about AEW, but no one else really cared.

On the show,

geez, at the very end, Excalibur and Shiavani were just fucking blowing each other, going crazy, fucking, oh, we're going to be here next week and the week after and the weekend.

Yeah, this is great.

I love it.

Yeah.

It was so fucking awful.

We're not going anywhere.

He actually fucked up saying we're not going anywhere.

It was like, we have plans to not go away where they are.

And the other thing is, not to defend Eric Bischoff, because I don't even think that's what this is, even though I think this is about,

I think they're,

the way they went over the top, part of it is a fuck you to Eric Bischoff.

I do think that from their perspective.

But Eric Bischoff, for good and for bad, had a different animal than Tony Khan in terms of ownership and financing.

And,

you know, it's not like it was an equal race with two parties just going out there.

I know you're going to say, oh, Ted Turner.

Yeah, but by the end, Ted Turner, first of all, Ted Turner wasn't hands-on, and Ted Turner wasn't even there by the end.

And

Tony has endless money to do this.

WCW eventually didn't.

And, you know, it's just, I don't think it's an apples to orange, or I guess apples to apples.

I don't think I'm making any sense, but I don't think it's...

It's apples to sardines is the comparison.

Yeah, it's not the exact same thing.

It's not the same animal.

Well, and also

you can look at the fact that WCW went spectacularly out of business doing three or four times the viewers that Tony does now when everything's

great.

And Tony's about to enter a period of time where the only thing he's going to be able to do is overpay.

So it's going to be very interesting.

But

again, I'm not one to go straight into the doom and gloom, but I did think it was funny.

It's like, what the

if they were on the air, on the station longer than any other wrestling program, or they were viewed by more people than any other wrestling program, or some clear-cut

milestone, then I would say brag about it.

But we've been on the air longer in this particular time,

even though they just said without saying nitro.

They just wanted to say nitro.

Yeah, they just couldn't say nitro, but it was all about we've now been here longer than nitro,

which is a bischoff creation.

It was a fuck you to bischoff

when I was on the uh booking committee in WCW in 1989.

The Friday night power hour was the weakest of the three programs: Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday night.

And the power hour did twice as many viewers on a Friday night after baseball as both of Tony's shows do now combined.

Let that sink in.

Anyway,

we go to this sinker of a show.

Boy, the Boston Tea Party.

They should have thrown this son of a bitch overboard.

Good Lord.

I got to say this at the beginning.

I'm just, I'm amazed at the,

I wouldn't do this if this was when I was getting in the business.

And I'm amazed that anybody with any sense anymore wants to get in the wrestling business with what you have to do to yourself, seemingly,

in order to be part of this traveling road show.

I mean, in all seriousness.

You could look at wrestling at any time over the 100 years of the 20th century, whatever era it was in.

And if you were an athlete or an athletic guy

and

you got smartened up to what was going on,

even if you didn't get smartened up to what was going on, if you were an athlete or an athletic guy, you could look at this shit and you could say, I could do that, or I might want to do that, or that might not be too bad to try this type of thing.

But now, Brian,

what kind of fucking moron

wants to, at this point, train and dream and actively hope to be involved in a fucking business where not only do you have to fling yourself off high objects through all kinds of furniture and sharp objects, but you have to let guys half your fucking size just pick you up and throw you around or give you moves willy-nilly that you don't know how the fuck you're going to land or where you're going to come down from.

I don't know how they're getting anybody anymore to fucking.

I mean, I know that

everything changes.

And Carl Gotch said that Harley Race was a fucking ballet dancer and he was too over the top.

But at what point do

what does Carl Gotch know?

Well, but at what point do normal level-headed fucking people say, well, you got to be a goddamn idiot to want to do that shit.

Everybody's either hurt or been

operated on or about to be operated on or always on an injured list or stove up in some fashion or about to be fused.

And again, just continuing.

It wasn't even bad with the furniture.

They didn't do the

Home Depot hour on.

AEW this week, but just the things that they're inventing that they think when they talk about it, oh, we could do it this way and you could land that way.

And sometimes these things go awry.

But I've just,

is it just all about

let's figure out an artistic way to do a fucking 480 degree flip and go head first through some goddamn object?

You know, I think that's part of it.

The other thing is the whole doci-doe aspect of everything.

So much of it just looks like

guys who have a square dance routine, they figured out, and it coincides with someone else's square dance routine.

Yeah.

And, you know, again, between that style and then realizing, I think everyone nowadays, when you watch wrestling, even the people that are like, oh, it's fake, they even recognize, yeah, these guys get hurt.

Everyone gets hurt if you fall down, let alone all the time.

Right.

But.

You know, now it's just such a different animal in terms of

when guys got hurt when I was a kid watching, they got hurt in a ring.

Now, like, you don't even know when they're hurt, but it looks like every single thing is doing long-term damage.

And a lot of it probably is.

And like you said, trusting your body to the other person.

If there's no structure around that, no mental structure in the wrestlers or no supervising producer of the segment or match or whatever it is.

If you leave people to their own devices, you know, it may get the stars they want.

It may get the ooze they want, but it may not be the best thing for their bodies.

It may not be the best thing for what they're doing.

But also,

yeah, it's not as appealing as watching guys win squash matches on TV.

Well,

and that's another thing.

I don't know whether it's more dangerous today,

the bumps they're taking or the goofy idiots that they're allowing to give them bumps.

That may be, you know, more to the point.

But

again, I just think, my God,

I go back to a period of time where guys were wrestling six days a week, seven days a week.

And their living depended on

taking care of each other and not doing stupid shit, but at the same time,

drawing money and getting the point across.

And instead of trying to invent

these ridiculous moves, which require obvious cooperation and

balancing and steadiness to be able to pull off and execute a backflip off the top of the cage or whatever.

And that the risk is high at the same time,

they managed to simulate combat without fucking taking unnecessary risks that led to serious injuries and surgeries and structural damage.

And I think Bill Dundee,

who worked 28 days a month in the Tennessee Territory for nine straight years,

I think the longest he was ever off was a month when he had to fucking dust up with Savage in the parking lot of the gym, had to have his jaw wired shut.

Yeah, but to answer your question, I think Memphis wrestling is the kind of wrestling that inspired people.

to say, I think I could do that, or I want to get into the business.

And I'm not even talking about people got into the business, just the general nature of it, where it was talking shit, getting into fights, and then those matches, as painful and brutal as they were.

And you've seen those pictures of like everyone with black eyes and cuts.

I mean, Memphis had the great photos of like Sputnik Monroe all busted up.

Like it didn't look as

if you want to.

Do you want a black eye or a neck fusion?

Yeah, it's not as scary as falling off a ladder to me.

I'd rather get punched in the face.

I've been punched in the face.

Falling off a ladder is still a new thing that I don't want to do.

Yes.

And see, that's,

that's what I'm saying is that

I just don't know what their minds are thinking when they just continue to do this repetitive shit over and over.

What do the kids call it?

Spamming.

The moves and the moves and the moves and the moves.

And they're just beating each other up and breaking each other down.

And there's not a lot of room for error in this shit when they're tucking their heads.

And it draws no money because it stands out because it makes no fucking or because it doesn't stand out because it's no different

than anything else that anybody else is doing.

But try having a good-looking fucking fight where somebody gets a black eye and people would freak the fuck out.

What caused this?

What was there anything specific on the show, or was it just everything?

Well, actually, yeah, I was going for, I'll not even do this in chronological order.

I'll jump into Will Osprey and take a shit.

I mean, everybody, this is an Uncle Dave specialty, and they do all these moves wonderfully.

But again, I guess Milly Vanilli sounds different if you just want to take some fucking drugs and listen to the kids play some music than if you're a goddamn experienced musician and record producer that knows that it's not even really them.

But let me just, again, there was a couple of things in this Meltzer special.

22 minutes of video game moves that made no sense

because it's another dream match in the Owen Hart tournament.

They, you know, they had the match that you would expect they have.

They're very athletic fellows.

Of course, at the 15-minute mark, they were trading forearms.

But there's a couple of spots.

Osprey gives Take...

a kick and rears back and goes for his shitty elbow finish.

But his take is on his knees.

He's so beaten up, he collapses flat of his face on the ground.

So what does his opponent do that's still in the middle of a match with him?

He stops and stands there and stares at him while a referee gets down and checks on him.

Are you okay?

Cover the motherfucker.

What?

I swear to fucking God.

He acted like he didn't know what to do when

he had kicked his opponent in the head and his opponent's so fucking fucked up and dizzy and and on dream street that he can't even stay stand upright on his knees

you don't think to just cover him

and then

the referee starts backing osprey up like oh i think he's really hurt well then cover him

But instead, then take a shit, jumps up at 100% and gives Osprey the blue thunderbomb.

So, the babyface, besides being an idiot, is also a sucker.

You're in a goddamn match with a guy, and a guy fucking falls down in front of you.

Brian, how smart do you have to be to just cover him?

You brought this up the other day.

I don't even remember exactly what the example was, but it was like it may have been the pack match where it's like, I don't know what to do.

My opponent is injured.

You pin him.

Yeah, you pin him.

Yes.

That's what you do.

Pit him.

My opponent is helpless at my feet and can't defend himself.

What could I do?

Beat him.

So then,

after fucking take a shit,

I'm back to calling him that all the time now because Jesus Christ.

After he suckers the babyface and hits the blue thunderbomb, Osprey gets back up and starts doing flips.

And then they hit each other

with some shit and got one counts.

And then Osprey hit two big moves on

Take, and Take stood up and leveled him without selling either one of him.

And then they gingerly helped each other climb up to the top rope and balance there while throwing weak little midsection shots so that

Take could clothesline Osprey while they're both standing on the top rope, so Osprey could backflip and land on his feet in the ring.

Apparently that means that take a shit hits like a goddamn six-year-old girl because if you can be clotheslined by this guy and have the wherewithal,

I'll just do a backflip and land on my feet, then what the fuck?

I don't see at this point how you could ever

train these guys to put a match together and break the bad habits that Osprey has learned from being

indie bound all his life.

And Take is learning now from being with all the indie-minded goofballs instead of in a good developmental program.

Well, I think that's it.

We've learned what the way is.

The way is they get signed to WWE and all of a sudden they get in line.

They get significantly.

But no, that's what happens.

They're not good.

I'm afraid you can't break some bad habits and you can't.

When somebody has been indoctrinated with a line of bogus bullshit thinking,

see the average Trump supporter.

You can't fucking even give them facts and

get them back.

They've got bad habits that are established, especially take Osprey.

They can do all these things athletically, but they have no idea how to put a fucking match together for anybody other than this indie fucking crowd that Tony is now running off

and is dwindling over this shit.

But, oh, and then finally,

Osprey hit his finish, but he covered him, got a two count

so the next move osprey ran at take and take hit him with a boot and went to suplex him but osprey flipped out and they rolled around and osprey hit him with a styles clash and got a two count

and then they did more back and forth and osprey just hit some thing one two three

It's just, they act like anything that happened more than 30 seconds ago never happened.

The heel barely cheats.

Nobody sells anything and then it's over.

They're world-class gymnasts with no wrestling basics.

They can backflip from 20 feet in the air, land on their fucking feet.

They can't throw a good-looking punch.

And they can go all out for an hour with their cardio, but they can't put together five minutes worth of psychology.

to draw you into a contest instead of a car wreck.

So I don't know what to say.

But I wouldn't trust any of these motherfuckers picking me up, spinning me around, and dropping me in the vicinity of my head.

And again, I've taken everybody's, I've been tombstoned by The Undertaker, and pile-driven by Jerry Lawler and figure forward by Ric Flair and pressed over the heads of Hawk and Animal, the Road Warriors.

And I was, as I've admitted, awful nervous about and thought it was fucking crazy, the scaffold.

But otherwise, I've never felt like I could potentially be bringing my goddamn

life to an end or be end up a goddamn body cast over doing something what about when you work with baby doll

all right only once

she fucking

slapped me and my head spun like linda blairs but

But yeah, that's it's just I suppose like the next generation, even though, you know, it's not a real generation, but the next generation of Omega and that style of

every match is a big match that goes a while.

You kick out of everything.

They point, they point to the ropes they're going to run to.

They turn their back on their opponent to run to the ropes for no reason with the prancy, fancy dancing.

Yeah.

And Omega looks like he could barely walk, you know, or he can't walk without being in pain.

So, I mean, it's not.

Or he looks like he's got a corn cob up his ass.

One of those things has to be true.

I guess my point is it's it's not a style.

You know, I'm going to be really interested to see how a lot of these guys are in their 50s, just because, you know, every generation you say that about, oh, what's Dynamite K going to look like when he was 50?

Well, he was in a wheelchair and he lost a leg or something.

What's Mick Foley going to look like?

Well, he says he has to tell his stories over and over again because he has no memory.

You know, what's this group of guys, a lot of them a lot smaller than Mick Foley, and even Dynamite because of all the stuff he was on, you know, they're a different body frame, some of these guys.

What are they going to look like in their 50s?

I don't know, but all I know is that

the whole idea of wrestling is to protect yourself from a professional standpoint, is to protect yourself and your opponent while giving the people the impression that you're doing everything you can to beat shit out of each other.

But they've dropped the

protecting themselves and their opponent instead of in favor of, oh, we could do this big stunt and we could do it this way.

And it ends up looking phony because it requires so much cooperation.

And it's goddamn dangerous because you have variables that can't be controlled.

Which way is that table leg going to fucking fly?

You know, is this

time that I run into this wall or this barricade or whatever going to be the time that my fucking joint pops out.

I had that thought when they were both on the top rope.

I'm like, man, what if this is when one of them slips?

You know, I mean, again, we see top rope stuff all the time, but

it's a different level of stuff, especially when you're planning on not just like

going over and down, but like multiple flips to land on your feet or whatever.

So much can go wrong.

And again, I guess that's his gimmick.

He does all these things, but it's not just him.

There's a lot of people just do they can in their repertoire.

So you get to see it every time they come out there.

And

I can't understand, and then we'll move on.

I can't understand it because of the

it's completely opposite of what the goal of this business has always been.

And

first, make it look good.

That's why, guys, I said lay it in.

Make it look, if there was an error, you wanted to err on the side of people can't see through this.

It doesn't doesn't look fake.

So, yeah, and you could

legitimately rationalize: okay,

it hardweighed me, boom, a little punch to the fucking eye to the cheek, whatever, it's a goddamn black eye, or get a little color, it's a fucking cut with a razor blade,

or take this big

fucking chair shot to the head because I know how to throw it and you know how to take it.

That if you, if everybody's a professional and you do whatever you're doing correctly,

somebody may be, you may get hurt.

Oh, that hurt, but you're not going to be injured.

You're not going to be having surgery.

You're not going to miss work.

And it's going to look real and it's going to add to the money you're going to make because people are going to buy into this.

Now they're doing shit that obviously is phony when people already know everything's phony to begin with, and it looks even faker

that may end up with them being hospitalized or having surgery because they're falling off of something from 20 feet in the air or being dropped on their heads.

I don't get that.

Yeah, if it's going to help fucking make the business look real, punch me in the face.

But I don't care what it helps or what it makes anybody look like.

Don't drop me on my head off a fucking ladder from 15 feet.

That's just stupid.

Anyway, you know know what else was stupid?

Starting out the show on April 16th with the Owen Tournament Female Division with Mercedes Moon

against Athena

and then letting them go 21 minutes from bell to bell.

I know Boston is Mercedes' hometown.

I didn't, they were, they were a hot crowd there in Boston for Mercedes and for a variety of other things, hotter than aew has been having lately i didn't sense a punk in chicago reaction

but did did she have to go 21

minutes bell to bell and then when they ran out of shit she rolled her up

well at least they finally found the crowd to chant ceo

Did Athena lose weight?

Is she the one with the formerly big satchel ass that was always stiff and reckless and landing on

I think that is maybe how you described her at the time.

Yes.

Well, she looks good now.

She's lost the satchel in her ass.

She's been starving on Ring of Honor.

Yeah, that's true.

The wrestlers in Ring of Honor aren't on steroids.

They're not even on food.

But I was hoping that she might land on fucking Mercedes where we get a break from her.

But the one time you want her to do something, she didn't do it.

Anyway, you don't have anything to say about that match, do you?

No.

No.

No.

Okay, in the back, Rene Moxley Good had hangnail Adam Page and the Buckaroos came in.

You know, the maggots used to call Joe Biden sleepy Joe.

I'm going to start calling Okada Sleepy O.

Can anybody bother to wake him up when he comes to work?

Do you think is

maybe they've stolen okada from new japan against his will and he's doing all these things because he's drugged and can't resist that's why he's in a coma whenever he's seen

there's so many

questions about the entirety of the okada run so far and what are his motivations and

why is any of i you know at this point i don't think anyone's expecting him all of a sudden to become great or anything but why this why any of this at least he was wearing a suit that was the right size this week.

Well,

you know, it's the one the Undertaker picked out for him.

But Maddie accepted the apology that Paige didn't give for whatever they did before.

And they did their regular fake promo where they're playing heels, but they want you to know they're playing heels because nobody would ever actually act that way, even if they were heels.

And then they

offered to patch things up with Dick the Boozer and the Boer Horseman

because we, you know, we got to get that settled.

And then

Okada tried to do comedy by calling Paige a bitch, but then he took it back when Paige called him on it.

But then he made a face of some description.

And then Hangnail went out in the Owen Hart tournament

to face wild card

or the wild card entrant

which i thought wasn't

i thought the the yay who they debuted two weeks ago was the wild card entrant kevin knight wasn't he a wild card how many wild cards they have no kevin knight replaced uh jay white because jay white got hurt i think that's right he's another one they sent to the hospital So Josh Alexander from TNA, I've never watched him wrestle, but I have heard the name, the walking weapon, Josh Alexander.

He's been in TNA.

He debuts here.

They've apparently just signed him.

He got a pop when his name popped up on the screen because this is, again,

they were a hotter crowd and also even smarter and more inside, it seemed like, than a lot of the crowds that AEW has been getting lately.

But what the fuck?

What the fuck?

They bring this guy in.

They announce they signed him.

They debut him on television.

We've never heard his goddamn voice.

He didn't have a promo, not that I saw.

And they put him in a tournament match with a

I guess he's going to be a heel.

I couldn't really tell from

the work,

really.

But they beat him

with page.

And

what the fuck?

They did it again.

So now we know that this guy is in hella, 13 minutes.

He's a guy that comes in, has a good match, and he loses.

And the announcers in selling him to us

at the start of the match said, well, he wears that headgear because he had

a cauliflower ear reattached surgically back years ago.

And by the way, he's also had neck fusion surgery and overcome that.

He's already bald and he doesn't look like he's 25 years old anymore.

So now we've got a guy that has come in.

We know all of his weaknesses.

His ear fell off his head and he's got a bad neck.

And he's not as young as he used to be.

And then he loses the match.

And this is the way they debut a new fucking talent.

Help me, Brian.

And again, they need talent.

If you can't get them from WWE, or at least until they release people, you can get them from TNA, I guess.

If you were going to do something with him, why beat them night one?

You know, again, the people were cheering for Adam Page, but I couldn't tell from the match, from the work of the match, who the baby face, who the heel was.

And they did nothing.

And they just started out with some bit of wrestling.

It was was serious wrestling, looked tight.

And then in one minute, they were trading forearms.

And then Paige goes ahead and does his stuff just like he's working with a guy that's been there for a year.

Instead of making sure that the people, first thing they see is Alexander looking good.

And then Paige has to figure out a way to work to come back from that.

At one point, they're on the floor.

Alexander missed a boot and straddled the railing.

And I swear to God, had to sit there, stock still motionless, for Paige to run around up the ramp and jump off the ramp to clothesline him.

And there was a little bit of heat

on Paige.

No heel shit.

He just, Alexander took control.

And then

Paige bowed up and fought back.

But.

That's what I wrote.

This was Alexander's chance to go out and get over.

He's just doing moves.

We've never seen him, never heard him speak.

The match needed to stand out and he needed to be established as a threat at the start of the match so that then Paige would have something to struggle out from underneath and then maybe blow a longer comeback at the end to make up for that.

But then you're still beating Alexander, which is insanity.

in his first appearance on television if you've signed him long term to establish him immediately as a loser.

And then

in the phony department, since they were kind enough to tell us that he's got a bad neck, Alexander kicked out of a tombstone pile driver.

Guy with a bad neck,

but he couldn't kick out of the small package.

That's what Paige beat him with.

One, two, three.

So they couldn't beat the guy with a bad neck with a tombstone pile driver.

Then he, I'll just small package you.

Boom.

What is wrong with these people?

Which people?

Tony Khan for booking us got a lose or these two guys for booking this match or the agent?

All of them.

All of these people.

They don't have agents.

They might have babysitters.

I don't think they got it.

So then Felcher and Don Fallus came out and

Kyle and Paige had a sloppy fight until Alexander got a nod from Callas and he attacked Paige and powerbombed him

and then walked out while Kyle

picked Paige up and gave him a beautiful brain buster.

See, if Kyle Felcher

can do a brain buster like that

and he had, let's say, eight weeks in a row of matches that lasted about seven minutes where he beat a middle card guy with that brain buster.

Why, then that brain buster would be something that might make people nervous.

But in the meantime, blah.

And I bet somebody convinced Alexander when he came in and like, they're beating me.

Oh, but you get to power bomb him afterwards.

I bet that

they convinced him that that would make some kind of difference in this.

But,

but, yeah, so thanks for coming, Josh.

You're,

I guess, pretty useless at this point.

Welcome to AEW.

He didn't look bad,

you know.

But anyway,

The nine o'clock hour was a world tag team title match between the Hurt Syndicate and Bishop Khan and Tia Leone, the Gates of Agony.

Weren't these guys in the group?

Remember,

now, did Jake Roberts sell

Archer and or Cage to...

Don Fallus and in return

Jake got because he had these guys, didn't he?

And didn't he get some Mexican guys?

Jake didn't have these guys, these guys were mixed up with the

Prince Nana and the Embassy, weren't they?

Son of a bitch, you're right.

Well, now they're managerless and rudderless.

I thought they came in with the trade with the Mexicans to Jake.

Yeah, no, that was Lance Archer in exchange for

Hatchichero and Beast Mordos and

Gravity.

How's Jake doing with them Mexicans?

I seen Jake again.

I never saw Jake ever again.

Never saw Jake again, did we?

Well, he got the better end of the deal then.

Well, since 93, they've been trying to get him back into Mexico for various reasons.

They're still upset with him turning on Conan.

Conan.

So the Gates of Agony, who have no manager,

had a world tag team title match against the Hurts Syndicate because Hurt Syndicate has no teams to work with.

And

they have to give jobber teams who never not only never win, we never, never even see these guys anymore.

But they got to give them tag team title matches because of the sorry state of affairs that their talent roster exists in.

So the Heels jump-started this, and

they isolated Shelton for a little while and got some heat on him.

The smaller one looks better, but these guys are green and sloppy.

And Aubrey Ed, by the way, is completely useless as a referee.

She just, she has a great fucking pose and she always hits the right number when you ask her what's two plus two and she stomps her foot four times.

But good God.

Hurt syndicate took over after the first couple minutes and they beat up the little one and went to a break on this match that didn't last that long and didn't probably need to last as long as it did.

When they came back, Shelton and the little one, I don't know which is which, were down.

And the little one tagged the big one.

And the big one came in and tripped over the middle rope, stepping through and fell down.

And then popped up and tried to make a comeback on Shelton and hit part of it.

And

they got a four-way,

everybody was lost

because you can't.

I could see members of the Hurt Syndicate trying to send by mental telepathy information to these

guys

but they weren't picking up on it they didn't have their antennas up and finally shelton germined the little one bobby speared the big one and then speared the little one and one two three

and i said these guys the the gates of agony

They're so big compared to the rest of the roster, especially, and they look like they could be something.

And I think they wanted to try to have a match with these guys.

But it just, they ain't, they ain't there yet.

The gates, that is.

And

again, now it's the Hurt Syndicate trying to make the best of a bad situation and make this off-brand team competitive because who else they got to fucking,

you can't put,

I'm sure you'll never see the Buckaroos in the ring with Shelton Benjamin and Bobby Lashley.

I'd pay to see it.

I would pay to see it too, but that's why I'm sure you never will.

I mean, it would be visually ridiculous on the surface of it and

a complete style clash.

And there's no way that any of the Hurts could sell for any of them without destroying their image.

I'd pay for both bucks against MVP.

I'd pay to see that too.

I still think visually it'd be ridiculous until a few more Kookamungans showed up.

Kookamungans.

That's the natives of Kookamunga, the Kookamungans.

And they're among us, the Kookamungans.

But who there's

nobody?

It's sad.

And the other thing is clearly they

have the demeanor

of heels, but the fans are totally reacting to them like they're the baby faces.

But maybe that's part of it because they have the demeanor of heels.

And they're stars.

They have the demeanor of stars.

Yeah, and they're stars.

They have the demeanor of grown adults that kick people's asses and do

impressive things and carry themselves like they're somebody instead of these grungy,

fucking no account, as Mama Cornette would say, no account nitwits that come out in their goddamn floppy clothes and fucking ass off playing wrestler.

But nevertheless, the Hurt Syndicate.

We're still in the ring when here came MJF and the fan.

They were chanting MJF here in Boston.

And they cheered the Hurt Syndicate.

They chanted MJF

because MJF, again,

you know, running on past glory as far as being a heel.

But MJF was better here because he's poking Bobby Lashley verbally.

But he's trying to impress the Hurt Syndicate as a group, but he can't resist because he's a little weasel.

He can't resist giving Bobby the jabs, right?

But he's still trying to impress them, so they'll get the three thumbs up.

And he brings out

seven rentahoors

in various kinds of black dresses and presented them to the

hurt business for a night out on the town in exchange for a three thumbs up.

First of all, Brian.

Why did they, they weren't wearing the same kind of dress, but they were all color coordinated.

Do you think when he called the escort service, he said all of the dresses have to match in their own way?

And secondly, is this the state of professional models in Boston, Massachusetts that we got?

There was a whooping crane in there.

There was a little bitty one.

There was a bit.

They were all over the page.

But it's a.

I like the concept, but it's always the same thing, whether it was the flare and steamboat deal that they did in what Cleveland on the Clash of Champions in 89,

or the one of the entrances on pay-per-view.

Whenever they get just models, girls that are told to show up and dress in a slutty demeanor,

they look like you can tell they're clueless about what's going on.

They would never be at a wrestling match, they don't have any idea what's happening here,

and they're in their own way because there's so many of them.

Invariably, there's a few ugly ones that kind of brings the whole thing down.

Was that a question I asked you?

It doesn't bother me.

I don't think.

I think if MJF showed up with models that ridiculous, they look ridiculously good, like they wouldn't be anywhere near a wrestling show, even if they wouldn't even be modeling for anything MJF would get his hands on.

It makes it unreasonable.

These look like girls from Wiggles.

This looks like MJF.

MJF went down there and said, let me get the finest strippers you got.

I need to impress the Hurts Syndicate.

But

what kind of strippers they got up in boston then those weren't with the lights on how many strippers have you seen with the lights on it changes everything there were a lot of lights yes i've i've inspected a couple of strippers up close with the lights on that's no that's that well in all varieties including with flashlights and you'll tell you what don't tell but here's the thing i it used to piss me off because when i would see these angles and especially one when they did the one with flare with the women's with their they they were skinny and looked like models.

They weren't as pretty as the girls we had coming to the matches.

They looked fake and they were fucking fashion model types instead of fucking real wrestling arena rats.

And we had better girls.

Flair had better women that he was going out with afterwards for free.

than the ones that they purchased for him on television.

So the point is, I'm saying these looked a little phony to me.

Like, they had no idea what the fuck they were doing there.

But, you know what?

But, but it doesn't, you don't want them to act like they know what they're doing there.

You want them to be clueless hookers that MJF got for the Hurt Syndicate.

Well, but they weren't really all over the boys.

I mean, there should have been some goddamn fondling and

maybe

snatch grabs, grab-ass,

what?

Snatch grabbing and things of that nature.

Well, there was one that was very hands-on.

Grab of the ass.

The one that came in with the gunth.

She was kind of very hands-on, it looked like.

Well, anyway,

but so Shelton is liking it, and he was mesmerized.

But as MJF is doing his pitch,

I need more time.

And he's pointing to his wrist.

And MJF, oh,

you want my watch?

Well, I'll give you this watch.

for a thumbs up.

And Shelton puts the thumb out.

It's starting to go up.

Then he sees Bobby Lashley looking at him and it goes back down.

And that's when MJF says, you must be out of your democracy.

I love it.

And he changes his tube because Lashley is up in his face.

And I wrote, this is good shit, pal.

Because MJF wants to bow up and cuss Bobby Lashley out, but he would kill him.

And MJF knows that, so he's trying to stay cool.

And he's the weasel in the thing.

He's trying to get this done.

And MJF gives Shelton the watch anyway.

And you can have the ladies too.

And he said, when I do join the Hurt Syndicate, there's going to be plenty more watches and women.

And he told Bob.

You're the almighty, but just remember, MJF is better than you and you know it.

And Bobby's pissed and MJF leaves and Shelton is over there talking to the women.

I like this thing.

I'm just getting a kick out of it.

It's not these children doing their

floor exercise gymnastics routine over and over or the stupid shit with Moxley.

It's guys that can talk.

People are interested.

They look professional.

See where it's going.

It's some kind of story rather than a dream match.

You don't know where it's going.

That's one of the things that helps.

It's not obvious.

Because it's hard to change Bobby Lashley's mind once he's set on stuff.

I think everyone's been great in this.

I think Bobby Lashley, it's actually bringing out some of the best stuff he does.

Not in terms of the wrestling.

I'm just talking in terms of these angles.

Yeah.

MJF, he's not flipping out for no reason.

He's not talking about his emotions.

I think the fans are starting to react to him again,

you know, the way they were.

I think this has been, he has done a great job at various different times of

getting getting past bad booking that was long-term, like the Jericho feud.

The Adam Cole thing's not going to be easy.

Well, it's not as easy.

He's working on that now, still.

And I think he's kind of done it.

MVP's been great, but to me, the highlight of this whole thing, Shelton is like the most underrated character on wrestling TV.

Just his facial expressions, the way he reacts to things.

He, again, I said it, I've been saying it for a while.

AEW has used Shelton Benjamin better than WWE.

And I can't disagree with that.

And I think part of it is that

Shelton's not standing there by himself.

He's got two other grown adult professionals with him.

So it's not like he's floating around by himself with everybody else going, hey, let's do this and do that.

He's got a group there

that they can all pitch in

experienced, logical, sane, rational shit instead of,

you know, just, hey, let's do something and have a big spot.

So they're getting, can you think of anybody that has come to AEW that was more over

three months later than they were their first night in, except for Lashley and Benjamin and

MVP?

I'd have to think about it.

I can't off the top of my head.

Think of it.

Well, that tells you something right there.

But you know the thing brian though the one mistake mjf is making here you realize that don't you the mistake he's making i don't know

he gave them women look at shelton benjamin bobby lashley they can get their own women and he gave them a rolex watch well they can get their own rolex watches they've been big boys for a while they've made big money He needs to give them some kind of gift that they can't just get anywhere else at any old run-of-the-mill bodega somewhere in a subway.

He's got to give them something that's truly prized, that's truly valuable, that's truly means something that would put them forever in his debt.

I think, Brian, to be honest with you, I'm going to call it right now.

I think he needs to haul out the Raycon Everyday Wireless Earbuds.

I think he needs to play the Raycon card.

Well, if you're going to give him women in time, you got to give him song.

And what better way to listen to song than on Raycon?

Well, nevertheless, folks, with the Raycon everyday earbuds in the ears of the Hurt Syndicate, that way they'd be able to listen to their favorite music when they go to the gym and work out and pump those big muscles.

Or when they're out

on the town enjoying the nightlife, they wouldn't have to listen to all those models that they've got nattering in their ear.

They can just look at them while they're listening to more exciting music.

Or

they can just punch that active noise cancellation cancellation button, and they don't have to listen to any of the AEW locker room gossip and drama.

They can tune the children out and once again, listen to what they want to listen to.

And folks,

Raycon's Everyday Earbuds not only start at just half the price of the other premium audio brands, they have the quick charge function.

the 32-hour battery life, the multi-point connectivity, and they come in a spectrum of vibrant colors.

So, Mother's Day is coming up, and you want to get your mom something, get her something in a pretty color.

Get her a pink or a bird's egg blue, or maybe even some type of vibrant fuchsia.

But whatever your mother's favorite color is.

And if they don't have your mom's favorite color, tell your mom.

They may not have some of those colors, but they have standard colors you will love.

Well, who's to say what's standard?

I mean, some people have different tastes and ways of looking at the world.

Say somebody wants burnt magenta.

I think that Raycon should honor their,

at least their request to try to create a burnt magenta.

But folks, if you want an earbud of a different color, and if your mom doesn't have a favorite color, then give her one.

As a matter of fact, get her one black one and one blue one.

And then you can say, I made my mom black and blue for Mother's Mother's Day.

See, what are you getting?

Why would anyone want to say that?

Why would anyone want to say that?

Why don't I say that?

It'll get attention.

It's just like when Sputnik Monroe,

Sputnik Monroe said one time, said, I know a place in Mexico that you can get a pair of boots with a big dick and balls engraved on the side.

And somebody asked Sputnik, said, well, why, Sputnik, would you want?

a pair of boots with a big dick and balls engraved on the side and he said because you walk into a bar wearing them son of a bitches, you can get in a fight in five minutes.

So folks, right now, if you want to walk into a bar wearing the Raycon everyday wireless earbuds, go to buyraycon.com.

That's B-U-Y-R-A-Y-C-O-N byraycon.com slash J-C-E, and you're going to get 20% off site-wide, whatever you buy.

from one side of the site to the other.

And it's a wide site.

You're going to get 20% off.

Get several pair.

Get one for your mom.

Get one for her mom.

Get one potentially if you have, well, baby mamas spread out all over the place.

You might want to get one for every set of women that you have procreated with, but whatever.

A lot of people are having babies around Mother's Day.

So get them here, buds.

Byraycon.com slash JCE, Brian.

Well, obviously, Jim, there's no time to listen to music now.

We have to get back to dynamite.

And we actually do because it's kind of a pickup of the last segment with the Hurts Syndicate and MJF.

Well, yes, because then they came back to the backstage area

after some more foolishness had transpired.

And

MVP was

talking to the Hurts.

Obviously, they had the girls there.

Shelton was still distracted.

I believe they kicked

the young female interviewer, Alicia, a toot.

They kicked a toot out.

And

MVP was.

A toot got the boot.

A toot got the boot.

Don't get your nose in a snoot over it.

And MVP tells the Hurt Syndicate, look,

we can use MJF.

This is business.

We can use him to get what we want.

And if he gets that a line, then.

So already he's trying to work from within to get Bobby to kind of lighten up a little bit, but that doesn't necessarily mean that all will end well

between MJF and the rest of the Hurt Syndicate.

So we got a cliffhanger there is what we got.

Anyhow, we already talked about the marathon

Owen Hart tournament match, 22 minutes bell-to-bell of Osprey and our friend Take.

And then

we came to the main event of the evening.

And apparently,

the Heels,

of course, they said the Heels attacked Hook earlier and took him out.

But Samoa Joe and Shapupi are still going to face Dick the Boozer and the Boer Horseman for the six-man tag team title, and they're going to get a surprise partner.

But

Brian, think of it because they just hospitalized PAC last week, right?

Now the world champion, Dick the Boozer, has to team with his Stooges, Claudio, and Wheeler to defend the six-man tag team title against Samoa Joe and the ops.

So

Freeberg rules, obviously.

But he's the world champion.

So, nevertheless,

instead of hook, and that's why I don't, I mean, it's AEW.

He could legitimately be hurt and injured, and they made this change, but they brought out Powerhouse Hobbes.

And

there's also an element of maybe they thought, well, with what we're going to do,

you know, Hook's a nice young man, but he's not ready to be involved in this.

But they should have thought the same thing about Shapupi.

So

they have the same match.

The pretend badass and the Stooges walk in through the lobby off the street and they jump started into a six-way at 9.58 p.m.

Eastern.

And so they go into the overrun.

They went to a break at 10.02.

And when they come back,

They have the rest of the match.

Well, then everybody is down.

Everybody's down and incapacitated.

And here comes Maddie and Nikki, the Hardley boys.

And

they're going to menace somebody doing something.

But Swerve comes out of the crowd and jumps both of them.

It gives them both the double stomp and tosses both of them over the rail into the crowd.

So

apparently.

Nana bit Kenny Omega's arm.

Yeah.

And Mega ran away with the dog.

It was Kenny, actually.

Actually, I thought,

well, I'm not sure which one was Megan and which one was the dog, but

he tossed him over the rail.

Shapupi got the sleeper on Claudio on the ramp.

And Hobbs gave Wheeler Useless a rock bottom on the announce desk.

And then

Marina Schaefer came in and hit Hobbs with a chair, which he didn't sell, but Willow

came in and took Marina Schaefer out and joe got the sleeper on dick the boozer

and as soon as he slapped it on the referee called it instantly there was not only no tap there was no there was like a second so it wasn't either that he tapped or that he obviously was put out it was oh that's the finish

and there they got new six-man tag team champions Brian, I said to you

before we went on the air without talking about this in detail, I just said, I can't believe that they did what they did after they've done what they've done.

This fucking guy, hey, Moxley, has been

no selling everybody, beating the shit out of everybody, choked out everybody.

for all this time and the death riders have been so indestructible for all this time

and suddenly on free tv

And I'm not saying Samoa Joe, I think, should be in the world title picture.

I don't know why he's fucking around with fucking Shabata as a partner who's just useless.

No appeal, no charisma, no nothing.

And we love Hobbes, but he just brought him into this because they hurt the other guy.

They've been doing this for months, and with no planning, no buildup, and a free TV match with a guy out of nowhere,

they choke the fucking plumber out.

Now he loses.

What is going on here?

Can you believe that?

Again, I want

Moxley and anybody involved with him to lose every match they have.

But can you believe after all they've done to this point, they just did that now?

It was surprising, but I guess they want to set up a reason for people to think Samoa Joe may beat him when he beats Samoa Joe.

Or Moxley said,

if you choke me, I'd only do it for a second.

Because that was a really quick thing.

There's no sense in doing it here.

If you were going to give a victory over Moxley to someone, and I like Samoa Joe, is that the person to do it to?

Well, it was, and you know what?

It may be because it's better than Copeland, who's 50-something years older.

but why just out of the blue like this

in a meaningless match?

Somebody's going, oh, they won the six-man title.

Did anybody even remember that these guys had the six-man title to lose?

Does anybody give a shit about the six-man title?

And have they ever?

No.

It just, it's what ruined the tag team division.

But

again,

he's beaten Swerve like a fucking dog.

He's choked out Edge.

He's done this and that.

Then suddenly the six-man tag, now's the time they beat him and choke him out.

No recourse, no fucking get even.

They've got a stadium show coming up.

Now I want to see Samoa Joe and Moxley.

I bet that's not what's going to be in the stadium, but Joe's the only one that can fucking beat him.

Is that going to be in the stadium?

I think they should have started earlier, maybe.

Why is Samoa Joe having to babysit children in a three-man team called the Ops?

He can talk, he can work, he's a former world champion, and the people believe in him.

So now he's one of the six-man tag team champions with poor Will Hobbs floundering and shapupi.

Don't forget Hook, who we last saw puking on TV.

And somebody said, oh, well, he might have had a concussion.

And I didn't see what they did to him

beforehand, poor hook, that he might be puking because of the concussion.

Or maybe he was just puking because he was blowed the fuck up, because he was nervous.

And I don't know what.

But

then why couldn't they say that the angle that they did last week put him out instead of, well, they jumped him again after they fucking

a jetsky.

He landed on his face.

He couldn't be here.

So anyway, that was that piece of programming.

And now we'll see that

somebody's finally beaten Moxley.

It just came out of nowhere.

And we don't have a clear idea of where it's fucking going.

But of course, that applies to most AEW programming.

Final thoughts on this show?

On the match?

Not really my thing.

Claudio versus Shibata.

That part was specifically not my thing.

At least they make Willow look good.

Willow gets the takedown marina.

I guess we'll get that match at some point.

And

it was fun.

You know, the one thing that's funny about the smaller building, with the big arenas, there's kind of a walkway.

There's a place to go.

With this one, because everyone was so jammed into whatever it was, like 2,500 or whatever it was in that building.

And it looked great.

But like, security had to really make sure they got in front of Moxley to get people out of the way so he could get to the room.

You know, the main event stuff has been bad, but there's been good stuff on the show.

And I think the stuff with the Hurt Syndicate and MJF has stood out and been a highlight.

I didn't mind Takesha versus Will Ospreay, although I agree with every single thing you said about it.

But I kind of knew that's Will Ospreay's match.

I'd be surprised when he works a different kind of match.

I knew what it would be.

The Young Bucks stuff, no.

The Adam Page stuff, no.

Josh Alexander, maybe next time.

The Mercedes-Monate 20-minute match, no.

Uh, what am I forgetting?

I'm forgetting something.

At least we didn't get to see.

Uh, well, I shouldn't even do that because then I could start ripping everyone apart.

But yeah, I guess I liked one segment on the show.

Now that I, yeah,

one and a half, two segments on the show, somewhere in there,

somewhere around there.

Well, that was AEW Dynamite, and uh, now we're going to be concentrating going forward on the WWE offerings.

But before we go to the ratings,

my fine feathered fiend, what in the world is happening at the Arcadian Vanguard Network this week?

I had a feeling you may be going there.

Hello again, friends.

Let me tell you about this week and every week on the Arcadian Vanguard Podcast Network.

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Want to make mention of Shut Up and Wrestle with Brian Solomon this week and actually the last several weeks, guests from WWF's past.

That's not really the way to put it, but guys who used to work in the office.

And now I bet you don't remember this young lady that you took to her senior prom.

Ed Holinsky was just on the show and Tom Buchanan, the photographer, just on the show.

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And of course, the 605 super podcast, the

mothership.

One day we'll be at a court and you will get a new episode.

But go through the archive, 605pod.com.

Available wherever you find your favorite podcasts, The Mothership.

Well, now we need some dramatic organ music

to find out if anybody watched the AEW programming on April 16th.

And if so, how many and what did they like and what did they not?

This is indeed what we need.

Let's go to the ratings here.

Let me find the ratings here.

They were here.

This is indeed what we need.

These ratings, AEW Dynamite on TBS, Wednesday, April 16th, 2025, 8 to 10.14 p.m.

It was a big one.

On average, watched by 624,000 viewers.

Oops, they're going back down in their little

range they've got.

Is it 600?

Is it 650?

Is it 625 every week?

And now they're right there in the middle of the pocket.

They indeed are.

And according to WrestleNomics,

down 5% from last week, 659.

Down 3% from the trailing four-week average of 644.

So let's now go to the quarterly numbers.

Again, these were compiled by WrestleNomics.

Not including Max.

Not including Max, which obviously would put this in the millions, tens of millions.

But, Jim, here are the quarterly numbers.

Again, compiled by WrestleNomics.

Quarter one, 8 to 8:15 p.m.

Athena versus Mercedes Monet with picture picture and picture,

651,000 viewers.

Oh, boy.

Okay.

So we are going to have one of those shows where they start with just the faithful and they keep their audience for the most part.

Because that is the lowest

starting point that I can remember in the weeks and weeks and weeks that we've been doing this.

And

they're only

27,000 off their average.

So they've got to be pretty constant through this whole thing.

Yeah, and obviously it's well off the trend line of the last 90 days.

But quarter two.

What was last week's open?

Was like 760-something or whatever?

I don't remember off the top of my head, but quarter two, 8:15, 8:30 p.m., the continuation of Athena versus Monet,

the post-match with Timeless Tony Storm,

Hangman Adam Page, and the Elite's backstage angle, and an ad break,

629,000 viewers.

Yeah, last

last week was a

I know last week they didn't lose that badly either.

We we mentioned that they held up

fairly well last week.

This week they only lost 22,000 people and that's almost never occurred in the course of a first quarter, second quarter.

loss.

So they're they're on a good pace to have the few they have at the start stay with them.

Well, we go to quarter three,

8:30 to 8.45 p.m.

Hangman Adam Page versus Josh Alexander with picture and picture,

561,000 viewers.

Ouch.

Okay.

They're apparently going to have to have some people come back at this point.

And that, you know,

they give a guy that much time that nobody's ever seen and that they're just introducing.

You know, it wasn't fair to him, but that's what happens.

Well, we go now to quarter four, 8:45 to 9 p.m.

The continuation of Alexander versus Hangman, the post-match with the Don Callis family, an ad break, the Patriarchy's backstage angle, and a recap of collision,

611,000 viewers.

Good lord.

So

50,000 came back suddenly after they lost

39,

they lost 68 and 50 came back.

That's odd, but go ahead.

Interesting enough, just because of the way of the graph here, right here between quarter four and quarter five, which I'll tell you in a second,

it intersects with the 90-day trend line.

Like right here is where it equals out.

Like this is where it would be.

Quarter five, nine to nine, fifteen p.m the big nine o'clock hour the hurt syndicate versus the gates of agony with picture and picture and the post match with mjf

635 000 viewers

boom they're back up to the best quarter that they've done since the start

and

the people saw you know something going on there

well they saw more of that in quarter six 9.15 to 9.30 p.m., the continuation of the Hurts Syndicate MJF live angle, an ad break, the Hurt Syndicate backstage with the Hookers, and the start of Konosuke Takesha versus Will Ospreay,

682,000 viewers.

Good lord.

So there's another 47,000.

That is their high.

Have they ever had the high point of the show in quarter six before?

They must have over five years, but I couldn't cite an example.

It's also the high point in a key demo and a big spike from 217 to 274.

People haven't given up on Osprey yet.

You know, they're working on making them, but they haven't done it yet.

Well, I think it's Osprey, but I also think it's a little bit of the Hurt Syndicate MJF stuff picking up steam.

It went for a while and all of a sudden there were women in there.

So I think that contributed to.

But we go.

That's one thing you don't see

a lot of around the AEW bunch is women.

We go now.

They They should do what Bishop used to do in higher models that just sit in the audience and clap it with nothing.

Let's go now to quarter seven, 9:30 to 9:45 p.m.

Konosuke Tekestra versus Will Osprey continued with Picture and Picture,

681,000 viewers.

And they held him.

Not bad.

You know, again, that's a thing.

If you had somebody booking this fucking guy, Osprey, and giving him a direction,

the people want to like him and they watch him on television.

If it was somebody to produce him and give him some coherent thing and an opponent that

you were setting him up for this goddamn dynamic confrontation down the road, not because it'd be a great dream match, but because everybody's going to want to see what's going to happen when these two guys fight, you've got something because they can't even

Tony can't even run the people away from Osprey with his rotten booking.

So that means that you've really got something there they could take advantage of if they knew what they were doing.

Well, we go now to quarter eight.

I remind you, we have a 14-minute overrun.

That's a quarter right there.

Quarter eight, 9:45 to 10 p.m.

Konosuke Takesha versus Will Osprey continued.

An ad break.

And the start of the Death Riders versus Powerhouse Hobbs and and the Ops.

599,000 viewers.

14-minute overrun.

Continuation of the six-man match.

565,000 viewers.

Yeah, see, that's what happened at the end is they stuck Moxley out there.

That's right.

And he does what he always did.

And they lost 126,000 people from quarter seven through the end of quarter nine, might as well say.

The best parts of the show are the parts of the show that gained and picked up steam.

The MJF Heart Syndicate stuff and Osprey Takesha, again, acknowledging everything you thought of the match, when you look at the other matches on this show, that's the match that stands out.

You know, it's Will Ospreay.

You're going to get something out of it.

Moxley, they went away.

They completely went away for Alexander versus Hangman Adam Page coming out of the Hangman Adam Page Young Bucks backstage angle.

They got a couple things.

Well, at least instead of starting big and dropping steadily, now they're starting meh, but they go up and down in the middle.

There's something to be said for going up and down in the middle, Brian.

Is there something to be said for stopping doing this now and

starting it up again in a couple of days?

I think that's a good idea because I think we're like hours away from the first of many, many, many, many things we need to watch in between all the editing and and all the other stuff.

And fun, fun, fun,

folks.

We're going to be doing hours of shows over the next few days.

We don't know what is going to be covered on which specific show, but just listen to all of them and you'll find out.

And until then, in parting, we want to wish you love, peace, and soul.

And don't spend all your money in Las Vegas for WrestleMania.

Otherwise, than that, thank you.

Fuck you.

And bye-bye, everybody.

Get the experience.

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