Episode 568: Jim Reviews WWE Royal Rumble 2025

Your global campaign just launched.

But wait, the logo's cropped, the colors are off, and did legal clear that image?

When teams create without guardrails, mistakes slip through, but not with Adobe Express, the quick and easy app to create on-brand content.

Brand kits and lock templates make following design guidelines a no-brainer for HR sales and marketing teams.

And commercially safe AI powered by Firefly lets them create confidently so your brand always shows up polished, protected, and consistent everywhere.

Learn more at adobe.com/slash go/slash express.

Like the midnight and the rock and roll.

He's Jim Cornish.

The keys to the future, held by the past.

And with tag team partner, Barion Last, he sends this message out by podcast.

He's Jim Cornet.

Well, he's never fake a phony.

He never backs down from a fight.

He never wins the pony.

Cause his mama raised him right.

It's time

to prepare

your mind.

Get the experience.

Get the experience.

Get the experience of Jim Cornette.

Hello again, everybody, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Jim Cornette Experience.

Today, we're going to ramble on about the Royal Rumble and regurgitate the rowdiness of Raw.

Plus, we'll talk with the director of the Queen of the Ring movie, Ash Abelson, all that and more.

And joining me,

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

Co-Host of you.

He's a star of stage, screen streaming, and screaming, the great Brian Last, everybody.

Oh, hello.

Hello again, friends.

Aloha, Jim.

A pleasure to be here.

I just ran into the room as my music was playing.

Yeah, was that the Royal Rumble entrance where you had three quarters of a mile to get from

dressing room to ring, so you had to have extra music there?

As a kid who loved WrestleMania 3 and WrestleMania 6, I wish they would bring back the ring cars.

And a night like that, the Royal Rumble, an event like that, that, an entranceway like that deserves it.

Yes.

And because the guys are blown up by the time they get there.

I've just dropped my pen.

We'll talk about all that today.

Is that the sound of the pen dropping?

That's the sound.

Well, I went whoop because I dropped my pen.

Whoop, whoop.

Well, I'm all for clip.

Hey, you've told me

right before we went on the air and you've given me some news that's making me nervous.

You say, hey, I got a new device.

And I'm like, what?

peep organ wasn't bad enough.

You had to break into that ballpark and carry that thing out in a flatbed.

But now you've got a new device.

We don't know what form or fashion that's going to take.

Well, for instance, if I do this,

now if I do this and I play it back,

so I think we're going to get more of this kind of feel, this kind of vibe going.

What kind of feel is that?

It sounds like a fucking ice cream truck, an ice cream truck backing up.

Hold on.

Can you stop it?

I can't stop it.

I can't stop it or lower.

God damn it.

Oh, I think it stopped.

I think it stopped.

I still hear it.

It's echoing in my brain.

Because my ears are hurting from these goddamn vice-like headphones you sent me.

So, oh, you got to have this B fucking headphone so all of our equipment matches.

Jesus Christ.

Now I've got a headache every time.

Oh, I'm relieving the pressure now so that, oh,

so that my ears can separate from the side of my fucking head from these vice clamps that you sent me.

And now you've got a new device and you're saying...

And you don't have a big head.

And I didn't say I have a big head.

I said I got tight headphones.

There's a difference in that.

They're not tight.

I have the same ones.

You have like a thin head.

Well, then you've got a tiny little pinhead.

Oh, you have like a head, like Burt from Burt and Ernie.

Like there's an Ernie-size head and a Burt size.

You have like a Burt-size head more than an Ernie.

Well, Ernie, let me tell you this.

They won't go on a normal adult human.

Just because you're goddamn related to Zippy doesn't mean that.

And now,

see, this whole, you've got a new microphone

that

you've got constant settings on that you're.

Would you stop it?

Is this thing on?

You've got all these settings and this equalizer, the old old graphic equalizer.

I had one of those in my first car.

I got the whole

car stereo thing done

when I got my 73 Firebird in 77.

It wasn't brand new.

But I digress.

You got the graphic equalizer, you got the microphone and everything.

And tomorrow, Hotchkiss Featherbottom.

He's the Bill Gates of Louisville, Kentucky.

You've heard of both of them.

He's a computer whiz and genius.

He is bringing me to Castle Cornette a brand new computer and monitor

that I have.

This is,

do you realize this is like getting, I can't say it's like getting rid of an old friend, more like an old enemy.

I can finally pitch this thing off the deck like I've been wanting to do for years, but I have to replace it with one that I'll soon want to pitch off the deck.

But it's all because of you demanding these upgrades.

This is only...

I got my first computer in 2009 when JimCornet.com reality in the world, right?

So I had to get the computer to look at all that stuff.

And then

I swear to God, in 20,

so that was 2009.

In 2016, I believe we've narrowed it down.

I had to get another one.

And that was only like seven years.

So I said, get me the goddamn, I want the, the,

the, the, the, the big boy.

Give me all the bells and whistles, whatever the fuck.

We'll get, you know.

You said, get me the big boy.

Get me the big boy, the best computer.

I don't want to have to go through this every fucking few years.

And I got what was supposed to be a state-of-the-art fucking deal, and that was in 2016.

Here it is.

It hadn't even been 10 years later, and we're replacing this fucking thing.

You should have fucking

a Mac.

I wanted a big Mac.

I wanted a couple of them.

Sit here and fucking stuff down my neck while I have people look at this thing.

You should have gotten the biggest Mac you could.

You would never complain about anything.

Nothing lasts anymore.

My mother had the same telephone sitting on the kitchen counter

for

30-something years.

I had already moved away and gone on to fame and fortune.

The big black thing with the dial.

And the boy, when you hung that son of a bitch up, you could have committed aggravated homicide with this telephone if you'd have hit somebody over the head with it.

It weighed 30 pounds.

And boy, when you are nice.

So I got to get this new computer

in here at your insistence.

And this fucking thing, as I said, didn't even last 10 years.

It freezes up all the time.

The monitor, every time I switch pages from one thing to another, from the Twitter to the email to whatever, the monitor blacks out.

I got to turn it off and on again.

is fucking slow it does sometimes only half of the web page pops up yeah and your internet I think part of the issue is whatever you do have you're not getting the full use of computer that you're using right now the one that's dying right now well and it's and it's not that old

so it ought to be ashamed of itself I should dig up the warranty card and call these people who are these people

I can't I don't have a glass

now that we're in the new year

Obviously, you weren't the only person who had a big head.

Things you could think of where they used a phone, like on Memphis TV or anything?

Well, you can't remember who called me on the phone on the TBS set.

No, no, I'm saying like a hard phone, like that's that was, that was a, it was a, they still brought out, remember?

Right, no, there, they, I'm talking about before then when the phones were actually still the heavy-duty phones.

No, I'm not talking about the landline.

I'm not talking about Paul E's phone.

Right.

I'm talking about the actual desk phone that they brought out for me

to fucking talk to whoever the fuck.

It was pretty good size.

They just took one off of the

in the TBS wrestling studio.

When you went to the right, you went through double doors and on the right-hand side was the control room where the director and producer, Dusty, everybody sat.

But if you turned and went down that hallway a little bit further, those were all the offices.

They just grabbed a phone off the fucking desk.

And that's what they looked like in 1988.

But no one used it physically in that angle.

Well, because that's the thing is

there was no

area

really where there was a phone cord long enough to get to a wrestling ring wherever it was positioned in an arena or a TV studio, usually to be able to get it to the ring to use it in an angle.

But it was used in plenty of fucking film noirs as a murder weapon because they were already in the bedroom or the living room or the drawing room or wherever Mr.

Mustard fucking preyed on people.

And they could just pick it up and bam!

But the average phone cord was like six feet long back then.

You'd had to gone to the front of the Louisville Gardens, gone in one of the offices, ripped it out of the wall, carried it all the way back to the ring, and then hit somebody over the head with it.

That would have been unwieldy.

Plus, you get the ring sound when you did it.

Well, yeah, but, oh, you mean the ring instead of the ring?

The internal ring of the internal ringing of the internal bell.

Yeah.

Sort of like.

Yes, sort of.

But only much heavier.

More like a gothic bong.

Yeah, I hate the way I sound right now.

I'm listening to myself in this thing.

I don't know if I like it.

Oh, what in the world?

Now you're going to.

I mean, you sound like the usual crap.

It's just your internet sucks.

But I don't know if I could deal with me sounding like this.

What in the world?

I don't know if I can deal with you sounding like this.

I think you overestimate the fucking premium that people put on goddamn being able to hear a fucking mouse pissing on cotton.

As long as they can understand what we're saying for Evans, and we'll just be like everybody else and just belch and fart and chew and sound like Kevin Dunn on an IFB from the truck and

do it like everybody else does.

And then we, here, let me take a big sip of Sprite.

Ah, boy,

no one wants to hear that.

We're going to have to edit that because it sounds disgusting.

No, no, say that's part of the speech.

Disgusting.

Don't censor me.

Don't

say it like Russo.

It sounds disgusting.

Disgusting, bro.

Don't censor me because I have the right to free speech.

And you do, that's not speech.

And all of these.

That was emitting from my mouth.

It's speech in some Galapagos fucking island where they go,

whatever.

No, I would get Stephen to argue that they didn't have Sprite on that island.

So it's nothing like that at all.

I think they would be free to speak on Sprite or anything else that they had on any island.

Because no matter what island in the world you're on, it's still America, goddammit.

All right, before we got a big show today, what are you giggling at?

No, be serious.

Well,

the long and the short of it.

We got a big show today because it was Royal Rumble weekend and then it was a big raw on Netflix and

there's things going on that we don't know to quote Ronnie Van Zandt.

So we're going to talk about all of that.

But we also

have an interview, part one.

It's going to be a little bit later on because we had a conversation with Ash Abelson, the director of Queen of the Ring, the new movie that's going into general release, as we say in the business, on March the 7th around the country.

But we'll talk about where the premieres and sneak previews are.

And that was such a long conversation.

We're giving you part one today, including a

kind of an off-putting story about his attempted dealings with the WWE.

And

then we'll be talking about all the

big goings on on in that company.

But I must digress to talk about the big goings on in my company.

Brian, because here's another reason why I'm getting this new computer, because

Hotchkiss Featherbottom says, we got to bring you up to modern times because of this massive online empire that we got going on.

He's got big ideas.

You think the...

The email blast was an incredible invention, and you think this thing that we're doing right now all month of February called a sale that Hotchkiss came up with, you think that was big.

Wait till you hear some of his innovations that are coming up for 2025.

It'll make your jaw drop.

But right now, the sale that he is

works on your internet.

That's the only thing that matters.

You know,

you're single-minded and you just, you're only out for yourself.

You don't care about my empire.

You only care about your empire, the audio quality.

We have internet Jim Cornette variant figures coming out.

We need the internet to be good.

Hey,

my internet is as variant as you can get.

Well, you know what?

That's true.

That's see, you know, think about that.

So, anyway, all month in February at gymcornet.com, the tag team action figure sets are on sale, whether it's the heavily bodies, whether it's the Midnight Express, either Eating and Lane or Eaton and Condri, or whether it's the Midnight Express four-pack,

all of them son of a guns, $20 off the regular price all month long.

And

if you buy one of those aforementioned tag team action figure sets, you will get any of the remaining Jim Cornette action figure variants at only half price.

And all of these things are autographed, and some come with pictures and books.

And

there may be, I don't know, Reese wrappers and some of the, you never know what kind of things are going to pop up in these boxes.

And anybody that spends over $50 on merchandise gets a free two-hour classic wrestling DVD from the Wrestling Gold series.

And that's all the month of February at jimcornet.com.

So get them while they're hot.

It's a month of love, Brian.

A month of love.

You love everyone, don't you?

Handsome Jimmy loves love.

That was a promo Jimmy Valiant did.

I love you, love, love.

Handsome Jimmy loves love.

And he was out there for a minute and a half just talking about loving love.

And people are fucking dying.

Sometimes it's not what you say, it's how you say it.

That's right.

At Cornet's Collective Symbols.

Yes, I was already finished with that, but thank you for bringing us back to it.

Because we do want to regurgitate that.

that point in people's minds.

But Brian, I understand also

they're doing another big football game.

What do they call it?

The Super Bowl?

It's the thing that's on every year opposite the Puppy Bowl.

That's right.

Yes.

I think you said this line last year, maybe.

That's why it's not hitting me so hard, but the Super Bowl.

I know my mind.

It's the biggest annual television event of the year.

It's coming up soon.

When is it?

Next weekend.

So what's today?

Today is, are you talking about this weekend or is it going to be next weekend?

Hold on.

Maybe it's this weekend, though.

Because now, this weekend, is this and next weekend the same thing to you?

Because it's this weekend.

This weekend.

But now, I'm asking you another question: now, is this and

this weekend and next weekend the same thing to you like it is to some people?

No.

So, you are aware, like normal people, that this weekend means the weekend in front of us, the weekend that is approaching the Super Bowl, yes.

And next weekend is the weekend after that.

Correct.

Some assholes will try to argue that

next weekend is this weekend because it's the next weekend.

But see, that throws off common sense.

So this weekend is the Super Bowl.

Correct.

What do they get?

The Vince Lombardi trophy?

Correct.

Do you realize then, Brian, and are you aware that right now you can go and download the DraftKings sports book because they're an official sports betting partner of Super Bowl 59.

They've done 59 of them.

And you can bet on who's going to win the Vince Lombardi trophy, who's going to win the big Super Bowl.

And you can bet on who's going to make touchdowns.

And you can bet on whose jockstrap is going to chafe them.

And at the end of the game, they're going to have to have petroleum jelly applied to their taint.

You can bet on all kinds of things if you download the DraftKings Sportsbook app.

And if you're just salivating to win a lot of money, then right now new DraftKings customers can bet $5 to get $200 in bonus bets instantly.

Boom goes dynamite just like that.

If you put your $5,

and I would say of hard-earned money, but considering our audience, there's probably ill-gotten gains.

Put that $5 down, they're going to give you $200.

You know, this is actually more profitable than going out and mugging people on the street.

What's the odds, Brian?

If you're walking down the street, you only got $5 in your pocket.

The guy that you happen to pull a Boy Scout knife on has $200 cash on him.

What's the odds?

Where are you?

Well, let's say Wartburg, Tennessee.

I don't know what that means.

What part of Manhattan are you in?

Well, you're in the garment district.

What time?

3 p.m.

3 p.m.

Yeah, more than likely.

But I mean, you probably, I mean, depending on which street you're on.

All right.

Well, everybody doesn't live in Manhattan.

So for the people out there who are in more underprivileged locations and whenever they pull a knife on somebody, they're not able to get a $200 fucking return on their goddamn investment there.

This is easier.

This was the point I'm making.

Can you deny that?

That this would be easier than pulling a knife on somebody and robbing them for $200.

And also, let's just say, do not pull a knife on anyone and rob them for $200.

I think that disclaimer needs to be said also before any other disclaimer is here.

Well, you're an idiot if you do that when I'm telling you that this way is easier anyway.

You're saying if you're doing it at 3 p.m.

in the garment district.

Well, what about 9 o'clock at night in Cleveland?

I mean,

if you're on the avenue, you shouldn't do it.

But if you're on one of the streets, I don't know.

You could probably get away with it at 3 p.m.

now that I think about it.

Well, nevertheless, go in the alley, back in the alley.

But nevertheless, don't do that because then you'd have to travel to Manhattan or wherever you'd need to go to an alley.

Just download the DraftKings Sportsbook app.

You're going to put in $5.

They're going to give you $200 in bonus bets instantly.

The Super Bowl's coming up.

One of those two teams, whoever they may be, has to win.

So you got a 50-50 chance.

And if you bet on both of them, you pretty much got it covered.

I don't know why why this is a, how does anybody ever lose at gambling when this loophole seems like it's so obvious?

Just bet on both sides.

You're going to win either way.

There are no loopholes, and let's not refer to this as anything with a loophole.

Of course, this is straight up doing what you're doing with draft gears.

Well, you're downloading is what you're doing.

But I'm just telling you, it seems to me like that it'd be hard to lose if you bet on both sides.

But maybe people with more experience than me can come up with something.

Anyway, right now,

download the DraftKings Sportsbook app.

Use the code JCE.

That's how you get the $200 in bonus bets instantly when you bet just $5.

The code is JCE.

It's a secret code.

Don't tell anybody.

Only on DraftKings Sportsbook.

The crown.

is yours, especially if you bet on both sides.

And bet on a draw.

Just cover your ass.

Well, the crown is yours.

Go for the gold, whatever it may be with DraftKings.

But, Jim.

Grab the brass ring.

We've got an audio clip that we need played here at this point, don't we?

From the home office in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Well, that's right.

He is entering right now.

He didn't know you were going to go to this so early in the program, so he was not prepared.

He's warming up his vocal cords.

He's putting down his tea.

And hold on.

Just so happens I'm clicking on the shit.

Ought to be five minutes early after as long as we've given him off for Christmas.

Gambling problem?

Call 1-800-GAMBLER.

In New York, call 877-8 Hope and Y or text Hope and Y-467-369.

In Connecticut, help is available for a problem gambling.

Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org.

Please play responsibly.

On behalf of Booth Hill Casino and Resorting, Kansas.

21 and over.

Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction.

Void in Ontario.

Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance.

For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.co slash audio.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

DraftKings, the crown is yours, the official betting partner of the Jim Cornet Experience.

Yes, and as a matter of fact,

I'm going to try to talk to them as soon as possible to see if my idea is valid because I'm really not sure how that anybody can ever lose.

What's about how much?

I mean, a lot of people don't have the money to just bet on every single end of it.

I'm sure you go to the racetrack and you can bet on the trifecta and all the different things and you could win, but most people just put a few bucks on one thing.

Well, it seems like you ought to divide those dollars that you've got to put on one thing and put them on two things.

Now, I'm not saying if there's 18 horses in a race,

it might get expensive to bet on all of them.

You're no Mike Tonay.

I don't think we should be giving anyone advice on what they should do with their money when it comes to wagering.

But of course, the crown is yours with DraftKings.

Do what you may do.

Well, do what you want to do.

Go where you.

You know, what we wanted to do earlier this week, Brian, was while we had a chance to intervene on his busy schedule, the director and writer, screenwriter of

the new movie Queen of the Ring, Ash Abelson,

I would say sat down for an interview.

He may have been standing up.

We were on the phone.

We don't know what physical activity was undergoing at the time.

It doesn't sound like he was out of breath.

So he probably wasn't on on the treadmill, but he got together with us for an interview, and we are going to play the first half of that very shortly here in the program.

Is that correct?

That is correct, and we will go to that right now.

I don't even think we brought up what we'd say.

He plays Vince McMahon Sr.

Only in this period, he was a young man, so he was just Vince McMahon, and there was no senior because he had no junior.

Or at least not that he was in contact with at that point in time.

Well, let's go to the actor, director, filmmaker, and so much more behind Queen of the Ring, Ash Abelson, part one.

Tulsa is my home now.

Academy Award nominee Sylvester Stallone stars in the Paramount Plus original series, Tulsa King.

His distillery is a very interesting business.

And we gotta know the enemy.

From Taylor Sheridan, co-creator of Landman.

What are you saying?

If you think you're going to take me here,

it's going to be really

difficult.

Tulsa King, new season, now streaming exclusively on Paramount Plus.

All right.

Well, thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for sticking with us for this one because we have on the phone now the director and writer.

of the upcoming Queen of the Ring, the film about the life of wrestling champion Mildred Burke.

Ash Abelson is on the phone with us now.

And Ash, thank you very very much for doing the podcast.

Well, thank you guys.

And let me just start by quoting a very wise man who once said, let me just explain something for all you genetic defects out there living downstream of the nuclear plants, okay?

We got a major motion picture here to promote.

We have a box office to stimulate.

And I will have you know straight from the ugly horse's mouth, Hollywood does not care about pro wrestling pictures, okay?

So we have to take it upon ourselves to stimulate a box office, to drive traffic, and to show the gatekeepers and the power that were, the power that was and the powers that be

that pro wrestling fans do want to go buy a ticket and some popcorn and be taken away for a couple hours in a dark room.

So thank you for having me today.

We got some work to do.

Ash, I'll tell you what, you sound like

I may have been somewhere around your mother about 40 years ago.

It sounds like to me,

maybe some of me rubbed off on you but i tell you i've had bad experiences when i do try to take the wrestling fans into a dark room for a couple hours i don't know if i recommend that or not

i i i went back and revisited your uh your your promo coming in the wwe i forget what year that was and uh the the the the genetic defects living downstream of the nuclear plants i was like that is so good i got to bring that back that was uh what a what a what a great moment man well the people know and can tell that you're a wrestling fan but the this movie that you have made queen of the ring yes it's about pro wrestling and and we think and hope that the wrestling fans will like it but

as a bigger overall motion picture it kind of mirrors

the come from behind underdog success story that your father, John abelson actually directed what was it now my god almost 50 years ago the the first rocky it's kind of in the same flavor of that

you know against all odds we're going to triumph motion picture in a ring

yeah um you know i i met my father finally when i was 34 uh and we became very close for for two two two and a half years before unfortunately he got pancreatic cancer out of nowhere.

But yes, there's a lot of parallels.

You know, people think

Rocky was a boxing movie, but it was really, you know, a love story about a man that wanted to prove that he wasn't just a bum from the neighborhood and he was he was worthy to get

the nerdy intellectual girl at

the pet shop that he thought was out of his league.

And with Queen of the Ring,

we have fun and say, yeah, it's a pro movie, but truthfully,

it's a much more human story about a single mom and a little boy that grows up in an unorthodox family and an unorthodox environment pursuing their dreams.

And it's a mom and her kid against the world.

The odds are against her.

And yes, she has a dream.

to be a pro wrestler in a time when most of America had it illegal.

But it also

is a very

just crazy family drama between Mildred and her promoter, manager, husband, and his son.

So it's really the four of them.

When we were filming, I kept calling it the core four of where, you know, there's all these other characters and side stories that were developing throughout the film.

But the heart of it is really the four of them.

It's Mildred Burke, Billy Wolf, and their two sons from previous relationships.

And the four of them go on this incredible journey.

And I don't want to spoil anything because there's some really unique, bizarre, but

just magical moments that happened between these two parents and their two kids.

But that was what really drew me to the story.

Of course, I grew up a huge pro wrestling fan and I still am.

I remember the match I went to when I fell in love with researching what happens behind the scenes because I didn't know as a little boy that house shows were a thing.

I only thought

what you saw on TV on the weekends was the only thing going on.

I remember my mother,

we were in, actually dealing with some court drama.

We were in Manhattan and she comes in, she goes, hey, I'm taking you to see the Ultimate Warrior and the Undertaker at Madison Square Garden.

They're doing whatever a body bag match is.

And I said, what?

Like, that's not on TV.

I thought she would just mess with me.

It's like, here's my mom trying to talk pro wrestling with me.

I was like eight or something.

I was like, no, that's not real.

You're confused.

You must be looking at something.

She goes, No, here it is.

And I looked at the newspaper article, and I go, Oh my god, it really happening.

And it was a house show in MSG.

And uh, I'll never forget that.

That was the match that made me go, Wait, so there's so much more to wrestling than what I see on television.

And then the rest is history.

Now I'm just uh another mark like the rest of you, waiting for the new dark side of the ring season.

But uh, yeah, that was the moment.

The good thing is, that was a long answer.

Well, no, no, the good thing is, with our audience, this is of all the publicity that you will do for the Queen of the Ring,

our listeners probably know more about Mildred Burke's story and the issues with Billy Wolf and et cetera.

And of course, this story was based on the Queen of the Ring book by Jeff Lean.

How did you get

involved with, you know, going from being a fan or from, you know, thinking something of the story to I'm actually going to write this screenplay.

I'm going to make the arrangements.

I'm going to delve into this thing and I'm going to make this movie.

So I am friends with Jim Ross.

The first movie I ever made, which is really this ridiculous dating comedy that me and my friends just created with our buddies was basically us learning how to make a movie.

It was almost probably 10 years ago now.

We stunt casted some wrestlers.

It was Diamond Dallas Page and

Jake the Snake Roberts.

And then we put in Jim Ross playing a character's boss.

He was kind of this funny heel uh uh corporate guy.

Anyway, I became friends with JR through that.

And through that, um,

we became, we stayed in contact.

And once I felt like I actually knew how to make a real movie, I

called JR and said, hey, I want to make an 80s period pro wrestling story.

that's kind of a love letter to all these great books I've read from that time frame.

And I want to ask you to work on it with me because I want it to be authentic and I love, you know, just talking to you.

And you've had so much experience, especially in that era.

Would you work on it with me?

Because it felt like at the time, there wasn't a pro-wrestling movie.

And this was, you know, this was probably 2016, 2017.

We started this.

There wasn't a pro-wrestling movie that had a more, you know, triumphant inspirational ending.

There's the wrestler, which is a masterpiece, but that's, you know, Aronofsky telling a story about the decay and the decline of the star but there wasn't like you know not to to be on the nose but there wasn't one there wasn't like a rocky or karate kid uh pro wrestling movie that was truly in the site guy so i called jr asked him if he wanted to work on it with me he said uh absolutely by the way do you know who mildred burke is and i i said no i have no idea who's that And he goes, I want you to check out this book, Queen of the Ring.

I feel like it should be a movie.

It's on, you know, the first woman who really put pro wrestling on the map for the ladies.

And I go, wow, sure, okay.

So

I ordered the book.

I read it that week.

Probably the quickest, quickest book I read, Batter, My Appetite for Destruction, Stephen Adler's Guns and Roses Bio.

And I read it, which is a great read, by the way.

That's a page turner.

So anyway, I read it right away.

I called him back.

I read it that weekend.

And I called him back Monday morning.

I said, fucking forget about the fictional 80s thing.

We have to tell this woman's story.

I was so just enchanted.

And I used that word with total intention.

I was just enchanted by the book and her story.

And I was also

a mix of upset and embarrassed that I didn't know who she was.

And none of my buddies on my pro wrestling group chats and texts messages knew who she was.

And this was actually, I think, a year or so before the WWE.

put her in the Hall of Fame.

So no one I knew other than J.R.

actually knew who Mildred Burke was.

I knew Mae Young and Moolah, of course, because they were still on WWE-TV,

but I didn't even know about the Wendy Richter screw job with Spider Moolah until I started really diving into Mildred's story and doing a lot of other kind of peripheral research on it all.

So I was just like, then I just felt like compelled as a diehard pro wrestling fan going like, you know, unfortunately, not a lot of people read books anymore, especially if it's not on a super famous person.

And even though the author of the book won a Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Journalism at the Washington Post,

this book wasn't, you know, it's not some bestseller.

It's not something people know.

So I felt like, well, if I can get the movie made

and use everything I have in my resources, last name, whatever, to just help.

the world learn about this story, even if you don't even care about pro wrestling.

That's what's so great about it.

You could give a, I mean, you could give one shit about pro wrestling and just see this story for the, for the just magical journey it takes you on with this family.

And I think it's got a real shot.

And so, yeah, I just set out to figure out how to get it made.

And, you know, I joked about it at the beginning, you know, and fun cutting a promo, but the truth is, yeah, Hollywood doesn't, I think it's going to change now, hopefully, with the Iron Claw and with Queen of the Ring and whatever comes next, but there's not,

you know, Hollywood doesn't really take pro wrestling seriously when it comes to cinema.

And I hope that we continue to

change that perception and that stigma or whatever it is.

But,

you know, as you guys know better than anyone, pro wrestling has so many great stories that deserve movies and there's so few out there.

So hopefully we change that.

You know, a lot of guys, Stallone became a,

I don't know if you would call him a wrestling fan, but

he respected wrestling because at one point during the Paradise Alley shoot, when a lot of the boys were,

it was about the underground world of wrestling in the old days.

And a lot of the boys were in the movie.

And also, Stallone had some stunt people there.

And there were stunt people over in the corner making fun of the wrestling business.

And Stallone

shot him down.

He said, hey, those guys do what you do, but they do it in one take with people on all four sides.

So shut the fuck up, right?

Yes.

And,

you know, that's one thing.

Well, we've talked to Camille, who plays June Byers in the film.

And, you know, one of the things is you manage to capture the look and the flavor,

especially with the actors' theater shoot that I saw with the match between Mildred and June.

You know,

you have the period piece flavor.

Not only is it the,

I have the same problem with this movie I do with every other movie about about wrestling?

Nobody in the world looks like

the boys and now the girls, right?

And you know, there's nobody walking the face of the earth today that really looks like Jack Pfeffer.

But

you captured the,

it's a period piece.

You captured the look of the old-time arenas.

The city of Louisville, maybe you can tell us how you, you know, landed upon the Derby City because you were able to take the Sealback Hotel, the Pendennis Club.

It looks like the 30s.

It looks like the 40s.

You've done an incredible job there.

How did Louisville come up?

I appreciate that.

So I was dancing between Savannah, Georgia, and Louisville, Kentucky, mainly because I needed a place that looked period.

There's no CGI.

There's no...

Actually, the only green screen that's in the whole movie, it's not even really in it, was when you have an announcer bit that we use for television that quickly goes to black and white.

So, there's really, I would say, you know, there's no green screen, there's no CGI, it's all practical locations.

Um,

and uh, and everything you see in the frame was, you know, except when we go to these black and white cutaways for you know, passages of time.

Um, it's all real.

Uh, Louisville has a lot of great historical buildings, and it also has OVW,

you know, right right down the road where we needed to train our actors so that the wrestling could be as authentic as possible.

I almost did Savannah and I loved it and I met with the film commission there, but it was a more challenging location to get everything to because most things have to come from

Atlanta and they're just a bunch of other challenges we had.

And also there wasn't a wrestling setup like OVW.

When I went to Louisville, everything was very close in in the city, like within the, you know, four miles.

Most of our locations can be there.

And

Kentucky has is very,

you know, being aggressive from what I can tell with bringing more productions there, the tax rebate, all those things.

And it just felt like Louisville was the right place.

And look, a big part of that.

was OVW being there.

A big part of that was just all the wrestling history there.

And then we just started having all these like Easter eggs, like you living there.

It started going, you know, I believe people go, oh, the universe works in mysterious ways.

I actually think the universe works in very obvious ways if you're tuned to the right channel or the right frequency.

And then you kind of just got to go with the flow and start following the signs.

And it kind of just create, you know, Louisville just all of a sudden became this.

Yeah.

And then you have this and then you have that.

And all everything started falling into place.

And so I just said, you know what?

I'm going to go with it.

Louisville, Kentucky over Savannah.

Let's let's set up shop.

And I'm glad we did.

And I love Savannah, but yeah.

And that's why, luckily enough, you not only got me, but the premiere,

the entire, the world premiere, besides the film festivals that there's been sneak peeks, but the world premiere for Queen of the Ring is going to be February 25th here in Louisville, Kentucky at the AMC Stony Brook Cinemas.

And we're going to have more on that details in the upcoming weeks on the podcast.

The 26th of February, you're going to be in Chicago and the 27th in Nashville, Tennessee, which is your adopted hometown now that

you've moved out east from California, right?

I did.

Yeah, I moved my company Sumerian to Nashville

and I will hopefully have a home there raising my little boy there.

But I've fallen in love with the city and it just seems to be a better place where I can raise the family and have a little peace of mind.

But I've been in Los Angeles 20 plus years.

I'm here right now finishing the movie.

I love this city

but uh now being a parent and everything and really just trying to focus on safety i think it's it's uh it's a decision i a hard decision i made but um but yes nashville and we're we're purposely

We're purposely starting the premieres in Louisville.

So the cut of the film that was in the film festivals has changed slightly.

Nothing dramatic, but there's been a handful of tweaks to scenes.

There's been some musical changes.

One short scene has been removed and a few other scenes have either been shortened or extended to make it easier to follow the narrative.

But Louisville, we're purposely giving the first city to see the finished theatrical cut of the film, mainly to say thank you.

to Louisville, because everyone that worked on the movie that was local, as well as every background actor, every location, you know, it was met with such open arms that I get emotionally even just talking about it because I'll give a fun little difference for everyone to understand the difference between shooting a movie like this in LA and shooting it somewhere in the heartland like Louisville.

In LA, people are so jaded about movie productions

and they just assume movie a bunch of money because oh there's a studio there so so you'll be shooting in a house and someone across the street will be like, Oh, look, they're shooting in the driveway of that house.

They got a movie.

And he'll start mowing his lawn.

And he's mowing his lawn.

And then your line producer's got to go across the street and go, Hey, man, we're shooting a movie across the street.

We got permits and everything.

You mind like mowing your lawn later?

And, you know, not even just like a pro-wrestling angle, not man, this is the only time I can mow my lawn.

I got a whole busy day.

I got to mow it right now in this hour as you're shooting in your driveway.

And then

the line producer,

that's it.

Or for 15 grand, I'll shut off my lawnmower right now and go back to my house.

And then you were literally caught in some guys guide you.

And it's just, that's the reality.

Now, go to Louisville.

Oh, you're making a movie.

Oh, it's a true story about this fascinating woman that everyone forgot about.

How can we help?

And that extends from the location.

Now, don't get me wrong.

We still paid plenty of money.

Some of these locations were expensive because even though they're a period building, they're owned by some corporation.

However, some of them are still family-owned.

But the background actors, the just the spirit, which we really captured in the final scene of the film, which you, you were, you're all over,

that there was just such passion and an earnest love for the fact that, you know, a major motion picture baby was coming to Louisville.

So that was why we're doing Louisville first.

It's a it's a thank you to the city and to everyone that worked on it on and off the screen.

And I just think they deserve to see it first.

So we are doing L.A., New York, but that'll be the following week.

Louisville, Kentucky, you guys are up first.

And then everything busts open on March the 7th, nationwide, as they say,

on screens all across America.

The people will be able to go and see Queen of the Ring in their neighborhood.

Brian, you've been sitting back silent because, you know, Ash is a big time Hollywood mogul and director, and I'm a major motion picture star but would like you know one of the normal people like you like to ask a question yeah you know Ash I was hoping you and I could maybe talk off air maybe partner up on something I've been working on this script for a while oh come on it's called Mustang Hill and it's about this crazy mean old man who one day is sitting at home cursing at the sky and a car comes flying over a hill uh seemingly and lands on a fence and then he goes out there and verbally assaults all the civilians looking to help the victims, as well as the police officer.

And that's kind of the big ending: the police officer and him.

You interested at all?

I mean, we can incorporate some wrestling scenes if you want.

I know somebody can star in it.

I've already worked out the material, but come on now.

All right.

Well, let me ask you this, Ash.

You talk about growing up liking wrestling.

When did you first start watching wrestling?

And what was the first thing that got you hooked?

I started watching it.

God, I would have been.

Well, the early, I mean, I probably started watching it when I was three or four, but I don't remember, but the earliest I can remember was probably

kindergarten in the first grade, so five, six years old.

My brother and I both watched it.

Um,

and

he,

he was a, he was

Hogan, and I was Warrior going into WrestleMania 6.

The first big, like, like 15 minutes of total memory as a kid where I could literally remember a match and me and my brother jumping up and down on each other and jumping off the beds and all the twists and turns was Mania 6.

And there's actually a fun parallel to Warrior and Hogan in our movie in the sense that, you know, that was the,

at least from my knowledge as a little kid and a fan, that was the first time, you know, two baby faces, two good guys, were going against each other.

And I believe,

but Jim, I'm sure you know better than me, but I believe that when Claire Mortensen, who Tony Storm plays, and Mildred Burke went against each other, that was kind of the first time.

And this is really just done so out of necessity from my research for them to have two formidable headliners to go against each other.

But Mildred and Claire were both

good girls.

They were baby faces, but they put them together.

And then I don't want to spoil anything because part of the magic of this story and what made me love it as a pro wrestling fan, but also just as someone who loves drama, was that they had shoot matches.

So when the promoters and the managers and the talent couldn't agree on a finish, they literally would just start shooting in the ring.

And the ladies did it with a live audience because there wasn't

another solution for it.

But I don't want to go too much into that because that's part of the big reveal that all of you guys and girls will hopefully go see March 7th.

But the Warrior Hogan match, I remember loving it so much much because

the twists and the turns in it,

you know, and Hogan getting the first, you know, three count, but the ref was out and all of those twists and turns.

It was just such,

it was so entertaining for me and my brother because we were rooting.

You know, I was a younger brother.

And I think most younger brothers at that time were going Warrior and most older brothers were going Hogan.

But that was the first memory I have of buying a pay-per-view, having to beg to get the money to do it from my mom and like that was the big moment but we had been following it for wrestlemania four and five up to there and i do remember that wrestlemania three i had to go back and watch so i didn't see three live um but of course i fell in love with that it's like age like fine wine with with uh savage and and ricky but um the sixth anyway long-winded answer the sixth was the first time and funny little and again jim i love it if you if you believe this or not crazy little uh side story.

10 plus years ago, actually, no, it's probably longer than 15, 13, 14, I started managing Warrior.

I was like, let me just look him up.

I got some bands.

Yeah, crazy story.

They say, don't ever work with your heroes.

All your idols will fail you in the end.

Listen, he was a very

complicated man.

There was a lot of great things about him and a lot of not great things about him.

So I don't want to sit here and

turn it into a hit piece on him because I have a lot of great things to say about the Warrior.

However, there were obviously a lot of challenging things when working with him.

And maybe that's a separate episode.

But the one thing he told me about WrestleMania 6, he claimed that

the morning of at the Toronto Skydome,

Hogan and Vince were sitting in a

conference room with him.

And again, I'm just telling you.

what Mr.

Warrior told me.

I'm not vouching for this being factual

or hearsay or make-believe.

he claims that still the morning of they were going back and forth if they were really gonna give the strap to warrior and he's sitting in a conference room and it's like nine in the morning and hogan and vince are doing lines of blow going back and forth talking about the finish and warrior sitting in the corner eating tuna fish and drinking black coffee just happy to be there he told me that I had my buddy in my office with me.

It was a Sherman Oaks office, 2010, maybe.

That story was told.

It sounds interesting.

I have no idea if any of it's true.

But

let me ask Brian, Brian.

Do you remember Warrior ever being described as just happy to be there?

Only when he has his tune of fishing coffee for the record.

But have you thought about it?

He wanted to fart on Hogan's head.

Have you thought about making a comedy like the Hulk Hogan story?

You know,

it would be fiction.

I will say this, actually.

I read

David Schultz's book.

And

yeah, and you know what's sad?

It's like John Casper wrote that book.

Louisville.

Yes.

No,

the guy that wrote that book

lives in Louisville.

I don't think that was Schultz.

Wait, it was Schultz.

That's how I ended up first meeting Cosper because I called him about the book.

You're right.

He called him.

absolutely.

Yes.

So I read that book.

And man, there are so many great

moments in the origin story.

And one of them stuck with me forever, which I'll probably put in a movie.

Maybe it'll be something fictional, but like he was so broke.

And he's in the classroom, and this kid's making fun of him, going, Why are you wearing my shirt, Schultz?

And everyone's like, What the hell?

And they look in the tag, and his, you know, his family got it from like the thrift store, the hand-me-down or salvation army or something.

And this kid, you know, his family had donated it, but his name was written in it.

And Schultz takes the shirt off in the classroom because he's so embarrassed and gives it to the kid.

And I'm like, fuck, that is a great moment for cinema.

What a powerful, devastating moment for some little kid in elementary school to be humiliated for being poor, wearing hand-me-downs.

But

that's another episode.

The Schultz story, I thought it would be a great movie.

You'd have to make it fictional because unfortunately, I think Schultz was racist and was kind of a piece piece of shit when it came down to it on the Mr.

T backstage stuff.

And, you know, him just, I do think he was just, he had some inherently prejudiced energy inside of him, which was sad because from my experience reading it up until that point, I felt like, you know, he was protecting the business and trying to do what's right.

But there's something interesting about the, you know,

and I am trying to be careful on referencing any, you know, wrestlers we're talking about, but like

the juxtaposition of the heel actually being like a sweet you know good person and then the big baby face you know behind the scenes um being a um

well yeah yeah i mean it's it's just there's there's it's an interesting thing you know it's a great it's a great premise for a story that you can be fictional and this this goes back into what i was originally saying when i called jim ross you know i'd read all these books you know bret Hart's book, all these different books of, you know, faces and heels and industry.

And I was like, I just want to make this love letter to all of them, make a fictional story, but litter it with Easter eggs of people going, oh, I think he took inspiration from that and inspiration from that.

And that is what led to Queen of the Ring.

Because I just wanted to.

You know, I love all these pro wrestling stories that have never been told on the screen.

But I would say this about military.

Go ahead.

Well, I was just going to say again, as I mentioned to Camille, when when we talked to her,

she's not, you know, she's not somebody that's been herself on National Weekly Television for 10 years to where when people see this movie, they go, oh, that's so-and-so playing the part.

This story, as you mentioned, has not been mainstream.

And

so people can lose themselves in this movie because, as I mentioned, nobody looks like these people.

But at the same time, you're...

You're seeing people that are representing the people that actually were in this story, and it hasn't been told and done to death.

Yeah, here's a fun story about trying to make it super accurate on how they looked.

Obviously, you can only do so much with everyone you've casted, but when we were doing the screen test, which is basically the first time we put, you know, the actors in hair, makeup, and wardrobe and put them in front of the camera and do the lighting palette, see what they're actually going to look like in the movie, Mildred Emily or Cards, comes out and they've done her eyebrows like what the eyebrows really looked like back then.

They're very thin and very arced.

And,

you know, everyone's like, okay, here we go.

We're still in the director.

And I'm just like, never.

What?

I go, absolutely not.

It won't work.

We're going to be the eyebrow movie.

No one will even focus.

That's all they'll see.

That's all they'll see.

And that was the start of me taking creative liberties of like, there's.

there's a time and a place to be very specific on accuracy.

And then there's other things where it's just going to take away from the story, which is the most important thing is the human story in this.

And I was like, forget about the slanted eyebrows.

And it's nothing against the team that did them.

They were legit, but it's just so distracting because

we don't see anyone like that.

You see the pictures of Mildred Burke and the eyebrows, but no, today people are like, my God, was she a burn victim?

What has happened here?

Literally, we would have been the two-hour eyebrow movie.

That's what it would have been.

And I was just like, forget it.

Nope, no.

Natural eyebrows.

And they told me I had to dress like a businessman from the 40s and 50s luckily i just brought my own stuff from home

i did actually the third day i was wearing my own it looked like you know they here we'll give you a pair of shoes and then i was under the desk where you couldn't see my shoes i'm wearing those goddamn tight ass painful shoes all night you couldn't even see them

You did a great job, though, Jim.

Truthfully.

You really did.

Well, I appreciate it.

Brian, I'm sorry we covered you up.

Considering the talent that's in the movie,

how much or did you have any dealings with any of the wrestling companies today?

WWE, AEW, TNA?

That pretty much covers it.

In America, I'm sure New Japan stayed out of it.

But did you have any dealings with their different wrestling companies?

So I started with Billy Corgan for NWA

because Camille was still under contract with.

Well, actually, no, I didn't.

Okay.

You know what?

Fuck it.

The movie comes out in fucking a matter of weeks.

Tell a story, baby.

Tell a story.

Yeah.

I mean, so here's the reality, guys.

I'm going to break it here first.

And I just, all I ask is all you cult of Cornette, cornballs, or whatever the lingo is, you marvelous marks of mayhem,

show the world opening weekend.

Be part of the conversation.

Love it or hate it.

Just talk about it

and go support an independent film that not only is it about an an underdog woman, but it was an underdog production.

Every which way there were roadblocks, there was,

and I'll leave that into the WWE of it all.

So when we send out the breakdown

for cast to the industry, which is basically there's a go movie, a go picture, which means this movie is getting made.

They're starting to cast.

It's no longer a pitch.

It's not trying to be put together.

They're casting.

They're going.

It's called a go movie.

We put out the breakdowns so all the agents and managers go, oh, look, they're trying to fill this role and that role.

And two of those roles,

we had already had Emily, but two of those roles were June Byers and Claire Mortensen.

So my agent at CAA gets hit up and says, hey, the WWE reached out.

They're interested in

talking to you about the movie and getting some of their talent in it.

And I purposely never went to the WWE for casting because I just know all of the yellow tape and red tape to get any of their talent.

So I just didn't even want to open up Pandora's box.

But they say, no, go take the meeting with them.

It was the head of scripted entertainment there or scripted film and television who is no longer there after the TKO deal, but he was there for many years, lovely guy.

And he goes, we love the script.

I want you to meet with two other execs.

I go out to Century City.

I meet with these two other gentlemen, lovely guys.

All these people were great.

We love the script.

We want to support.

Will you meet?

You know, we're going to send it to Charlotte Flair and Liv Morgan.

And will you do Zooms with them?

I go, of course.

They're two of the best in the world right now.

I would love to.

Nothing but love and grace and respect to Charlotte and Liv.

I get on Zooms, each one of them separately.

And I have now gone, you know what?

Maybe I will cast some WWE stars.

I've always wanted those two roles to be real wrestlers just because the amount of stunts that are going to happen that I wanted Clara and June to be people that could do their own stunts and that knew the art of pro-wrestling.

So they were always going to be stunt casted, no pun intended, but I wanted to make sure that they were the right people to play those roles.

So I do this Zoom with Charlotte.

She's fantastic.

Then I do a Zoom with Lib.

And funny enough,

I don't know if she's said this a lot before, but I'll share it because it's a great story.

I asked Lib how she got into wrestling, and she said she was working at a Hooters as a waitress, and a wrestler came in and asked to,

she recognized, I mean, she was a fan and basically said, hey,

you got to let me get a tryout, which is so serendipitous because.

That's the way Mildred got started, right?

That's it.

I go, holy shit, this is literally our story.

Now, I don't know if she wants to share.

I mean, maybe you added out the hooters.

I don't know if she cares about that, but she was a waitress and a wrestler comes in.

I know who the wrestler was.

Again, I don't know if she wants it in public because I don't want to disrespect anybody.

But anyway, that's the heart of the story.

She was a waitress.

A wrestler comes in.

Give me a tryout.

Just like Mildred's story.

And then

Charlotte had just so responded to the screenplay.

She's like, this is so real.

This is how it is.

And so we casted both of them.

Charlotte comes out to Louisville and she's training with us.

She's already been, you know, sized with wardrobe.

She's at OVW.

She's training Emily.

She was so amazing.

She's just so committed, so excited.

And I'm thrilled because I'm like, wow, Charlotte Flair is going to be our main villain.

And she's just, you know, one of the best in the world, one of the best of all time.

And then days before

we start shooting, not even weeks, literally days,

less than a week, my producers can't get the paperwork signed from WWE.

And we're still waiting for Liv to arrive, but Charlotte's already there.

And then all of a sudden becomes this

game of ambiguity where,

oh, she's being pulled.

What do you mean?

Well,

they won't let her sign.

And I'm like, well, who's saying that?

You guys are the ones that pitched me to cast them.

and I keep asking the you know the the the people at WWE in the film department and

you know the cut to the chase no one can give me a very clear

honest answer other than they believe it came from the very top which is would have been Vince at the time and that he was mad about another wrestler who I believe maybe this was Seth Rollins shooting Captain America, which unfortunately I think his scenes got cut anyway, anyway, but he was mad that some of their talent wasn't shooting all their TV episodes because they were out doing movies.

And he was like, if it's an independent film, we're not messing with it.

And

the punchline was they pulled Charlotte out of it

because

it was an indie film and they didn't want her, you know.

I don't know if it was wasting her time or jeopardizing her time or her storyline.

I don't know what it was.

I thought thought it was some old beef with Mildred Burke and

Vince or Vince Sr.

I couldn't figure it out because I was like, why would they do this to us?

Oh, Vince Sr.

and Mildred Burke, they patched that up back in 1946.

No, so basically they come to you and they say, we'd like to you to book these two young ladies to be in the movie and you bring them, bring Charlotte to Louisville, wardrobe her, put her up, train her.

She's excited about it.

And then they say, never mind, we changed our minds.

She can't do it.

Yeah.

And by the way, we have, we have all these great videos, which I mean, I guess unless Hunter, if you're out there or

Nick Khan, if somebody wants to call me and tell me what's up, but like, we'll probably just put them out there because they're great footage of Charlotte, you know, training Emily and how much the movie means to her and how excited.

And the whole thing is just sad and tragic

in the sense that they pulled her and it was so elusive and

just, you know, and again, I'm not trying to sit here and shame the WWE.

I love the company.

It's a huge reason why this movie got made in the sense that it inspired me as a kid growing up and watching it.

But like the whole way it was handled was fucked up.

And then, by the way, here's part two to this story.

So then TKO, right?

They sell.

Then we start getting good feedback in the film festival circuit.

Then a guy from TKO, who's like, you know, somewhat newer there, but really lovely guy, digital sponsorships, brand partnerships, they approach us, hey, we want to help promote this movie.

We want to get involved.

I go, you really?

And by the way, I have whatever the kids call it.

I have the receipts.

I have all the emails, phone calls, text.

Now they're coming to us again.

Hey, we want to do this.

We want to do that.

I go, great.

I would love.

to to have WWE help promote this.

You guys have the target audience.

Can we do something in between Royal Rumble and WrestleMania when it's coming out?

I can get some of the P ⁇ A money, which is

the promotional marketing advertising dollars to promote a theatrical release.

I go, we'll pay you what you're asking to help promote this.

Great.

This is going to be great.

All right.

We have this whole thing coming together.

I'm going to go get the long form.

Two days go by.

Guy didn't call me back.

I go, fuck, this is the first time I've never had someone want to take my money.

Why isn't this guy calling me?

Two more days go by.

Hey, I'm really embarrassed.

I don't know what to say.

When this went up to the top, they said oh yeah we can't be involved in that movie

i go literally wanting to take

again

yeah this is post tko so the first time the casting was pre-tko second time post tko they come to me again and look This does not just stir up drama.

I asked this gentleman actually as recently as like a week ago, hey, he saw the trailer come to go, hey man, congrats.

You know, I'm really rooting for you.

I'm sorry we didn't get to,

you know, help you with it.

I go, dude, totally get it.

Thank you for reaching out.

It means a lot.

I hope we work on another project.

By the way, I'm going to have to start doing press for the film.

And this is going to get brought up because everyone knows Charlotte and Lib were originally cast in it because, you know, 100 news sites ran that story when it was happening.

What do you want me to say?

in regards to that and what do you want me to say in regards to the WWE not having any association with it?

He goes, you know what?

Let me find out what that is and get back to you.

And guess what?

No one ever told me anything.

So here I am with a cult de Cornette shooting it left, right, and center.

This is the reality of it all.

I don't know why.

I have my own series.

But they did a Jim Ross thing.

No one has told me anything definitively

at all, other than they left me at the altar twice and said, Thanks for stopping by.

But on the second one, on the second one, nobody said, We can't can't take your money

because blank.

Yes, there was never a reason.

And again,

they approached us.

I had left it alone.

I said, you know what?

I'll work with TNA, AEW, NWA, OBW,

PWG.

Anyone who wants to party and help get Mildred's story to the world and show everyone these great performances of these actors.

Let's party.

But yeah, I don't know, man.

It's really, really bizarre.

And it's heartbreaking because I just, I don't know.

I don't know what to say.

But you know, as I told Camille when we spoke to her,

we didn't reveal that whole story.

But she did say that she was, you know, cast at the last minute because of issues.

And I said, you know, it was probably better because

better for the film.

Charlotte Flair,

would it be an eyebrow movie?

But they'd be like, oh, there's Charlotte Flair.

She's so famous.

She's so, you know, her instantly if you're any kind of wrestling fan.

Was it better that Camille was able to come in with less fanfare behind her and embody

the spirit of June Byers and the character of June Byers better to where people can lose themselves in it?

May have helped the movie.

I think

to your comment, the answer is yes.

yes.

There is a thing called the suspension of disbelief in storytelling, which to quote Google, I'm just going to quote it here.

Suspension of disbelief is the act of temporarily ignoring logic and critical thinking to enjoy a fictional story.

It's a key concept in storytelling, especially in film and television.

I've heard tell of it, yes.

Yeah.

The suspension of disbelief, I do think it, what they say, oh, it took me out of it.

i think because charlotte is so recognizable and so famous and so terrific

it may have been harder to escape into this world um and go to this other time and place because she's charlotte flair um

only only because she's that famous and relevant and just you know it's harder uh to someone that doesn't watch wwe it would have been fine um because they wouldn't know charlotte so they would just be seeing her as the you know, this terrific actress playing the main opponent.

But I think to wrestling fans,

even to casual wrestling fans who don't know 40 different active women wrestlers, but they know Rhea and Charlotte and Liv, if you will, it probably would have been challenging.

And it's something that happens all the time

when movies cast super famous people or they stunt cast people.

Sometimes it can work like a charm and other times it breaks the suspension of disbelief and it backfires for the filmmakers so i do believe that that could have happened look that's not to to knock what the hair makeup and wardrobe departments could do because sometimes they really can just take the person to a whole other place so it's very possible charlotte would have been just as terrific if not better than camille but if you're a betting man the odds are yes the suspension of disbelief would have been more challenging with someone as famous and terrific as Charlotte.

Yeah.

Hey, your makeup people would have had to pull some Lon Cheney senior bullshit with Charlotte to disguise her.

I'll tell you that.

At the UPS store, we have the key to unlock the world of possibilities because we'll sign for your packages and protect them from porch pirates.

Both locations are independently owned.

Product services, pricing, and hours of operation may vary.

State Center for Details.

The UPS store.

Be unstoppable.

Come into your local store today.

All right, we have arrived.

We are here.

I know what you're doing.

What am I doing?

I know what you're.

Ash Abelson also has a record company, and you are trying to audition for your

Brian Lass orchestral sounds of the space continuum

album that you're trying to put out.

And that's what you're doing here.

I have a new sound that I'm going to be debuting on that album.

It goes a little bit like this.

oh wait yeah oh wait it ran off and left

okay i'll work on this a little bit later but uh yeah a good part one but the conversation was so good we didn't stop there well no we didn't we're gonna have part two uh when are we gonna have part two next week on the experience here

yes

yes apparently we we will be doing that but

here or there on the experience there well it'll be here because it's this show, but it won't be until then because

that's where it'll be there.

So there you have it.

Well, we're here now.

Yes.

And you know, Ash Avaldson, I mentioned

he's directed the movie, he's written the movie, he's acted the movie.

He's also got a record company.

He mentioned he's got a comic book company.

He's doing all kinds of things.

I'm just wondering, like a lot of these big music and entertainment moguls, maybe Ash ought to get together with our friends over at Raycon and come out with his own line of earbuds.

He could call them everyday ash buds.

What do you think?

You think that would be the next thing?

Because Raycon, I mean, they're just covering the world with these earbuds, but ash buds, well, that would be a bud of a whole different color.

Do you think it has to be the color ash?

Like ash gray?

No,

you know, I think it could be any color, any color of the rainbow.

Because they're not necessarily burnt to ash.

They're just built by ash.

But let's talk about Ray.

You could call him Ray or you could call him Raycon.

Well,

we call them the cons

over at our house because they're, you know, they're good, close, personal friends, lifelong friends.

Folks, Raycons,

Everyday Earbuds are your perfect partner for the gym, work, phone calls, or to life.

Because you can take premium audio with you wherever you you go.

As long as you remember to take your ears with you, the Raycon everyday earbuds can work.

If you have removable ears or detachable

ears of that nature, then you might sometimes forget to bring one or the other.

You got to have ears and earbuds.

And Raycon's latest model is better than ever.

Got the 32-hour battery life, the multi-point connectivity.

For you daring folks out there that just want to plug into two different devices, you can spit roast the heck out of your audio with this thing, folks.

And speaking of battery with the quick charge, was I speaking of battery?

Probably assault along with it.

With the quick charge function, you can plug these son of a guns in for 10 minutes and it gets you 90 minutes of battery.

Now, let's say you're committing a second story job.

You break into the apartment, you plug these in for 10 minutes while you're in there loading your bags, and boom, you're back out the window and you can listen 90 minutes of music on the ride back home to Secaucus.

And the everyday earbuds also come with active noise cancellation, which is often difficult to find at an accessible price point, for what I'm told.

Well, they got it, and they're not going to charge you out to yin-yang for it either.

You can just press that button and cancel your noise, just like the poor people do.

Raycon's everyday earbuds are also available in a variety of vibrant colors, including ash, I bet.

But they got all the colors of the entire.

So imagine you got, I don't know,

a 16-color bottle.

You'll be happy for 30 days.

And then at the end of that month, I don't know, strange things may happen.

Your mood may change quickly, but...

You're going to be happy for 30 days.

It'll have nothing to do with Raycon.

Whatever mood you are in, Raycon is there with the music for your mood.

Get your mood music right to your ears with Raycon.

Yes, straight into your ears.

No need to go around your elbow to get to your wrist or try to beam it into any other orifice.

And right now, folks, you can save some money.

Go to Buy Raycon.

That's B-U-Y-R-A-Y-C-O-N.

Buyraycon.com slash J-C-E.

You're going to get up to 20% off site-wide.

Up to 20% off everything on the website, including 20% off on all all headphones.

I may look into that instead of these pliers that I'm wearing on my head right now.

Oh my God, my ears are numb.

Buyraycon.com slash JCE.

I'm just, I'm, I'm massaging my ears.

I've got to, I've got to start using the Raycons instead of these horrible headphones you gave me.

Buyraycon.com slash JCE.

That's right.

Well, you know who's in need of listening to something else than what he's hearing lately, apparently?

Vince McMahon apparently may want to cancel some noise.

I know this happened, what, a week or so ago.

So many things have been going on, but people have been asking us to

give our thoughts or knowledge or whatever the fuck on

the amended complaint.

between Janelle Grant and Vince McMahon.

And I got a couple of questions now that I wouldn't have had a few months ago or when this thing was originally filed.

But

what is the update, Brian, from the legal desk at Arcadian Vanguard?

Well, hold on because I'm having a new microphone, so I don't know how far away I can get.

I'm reading it off of it.

Oh, good lord.

Everything's now going to be blamed on the new equipment.

Here are some of the details in the.

See, that's why I never get new equipment.

Here are some of the details in the new amended complaint.

McMahon offered Mrs.

Grant to WWE Superstar Brock Lesnar for a sexual encounter during his formal negotiation of a new contract with WWE.

Well, now that

we knew that, but we weren't actually told it, but it was narrowed down to one person.

Well, no, we didn't know it was part of a negotiation.

Well, no, remember

they said a former UFC and WWE champion who was in the middle of a contract negotiation, but was unnamed.

Well, that kind of narrowed it down to one fucking guy.

And now they've actually just come out and say, yeah, it's Brock.

So that is the, they actually called him by name.

And McMahon ordered Mrs.

Grant to send, or Miss Grant, I should say, to send Lesnar sexually explicit content of herself.

Now, we did know that.

That's how we found out that Brock's into pee.

McMahon said...

Now we, we, you know, hold on now.

Let's not paint every.

We don't know whether it's Brock or whether it was Vince.

Vince, I bet he'd like that.

Yeah.

I thought he was past his days of needing clean pea.

But anyway, let's go to the next one.

McMahon sent a text message to Miss Grant.

He didn't feel the same about Harvey Whippleman's, did he?

Where he fantasizes in graphic detail that watching as a group of men are, quote, surrounding her

and leaving her physically, another quote, wrecked,

underscoring how he viewed her as a commodity to offer to others.

A text message from a plane's going by.

A text message from McMahon to Miss Grant, where he makes clear that only McMahon has the power to,

quote, arrange Ms.

Grant's sexual encounters.

An occasion where McMahon video recorded Ms.

Grant while nude for Laurinitis

without Ms.

Grant's knowledge or consent.

Details about the sham investigation WWE proclaimed to conduct in 2022 after it became public that McMahon signed NDAs with multiple women in which investigators refused to interview Ms.

Grant.

And we'll stop after this next week.

Well, I was about to say that that was also about

the same time that

some of the outsiders with some honor were resigning from the board of directors, right?

And we talked about what investigation was going on at that point in time.

Now, and I have the, I saw the full transcript of this.

I don't know if you did, but the transcript of a voice message from McMahon to Miss Grant, where he attempts to coerce her into signing an NDA

really fucking fast.

That's a quote, so he doesn't get kicked out of his own fucking company.

Oh my God.

Okay, hold on.

Stop.

Pump the brain.

Did you read that?

No, I didn't.

Here, I'm going to be perfectly honest with everybody.

Of late, over the last few years, if I start trying to read

legal legal filings, I get about halfway through the first paragraph and I want to take an axe and go all Joan Crawford and straitjacket on people.

I just,

I can't fucking stand it.

But when you get to,

I have never heard Vince talk like that before.

Like, you got to do something really fucking fast before I get kicked out of my own fucking company.

That, that's a side, another side

in this whole thing of of the chairman that we never saw.

Well, Jim, there's a lot of stuff, like I said, in this complaint, and I'm going to try to narrow it down and get some of the details.

The complaint also

here from Newsweek introduced a disturbing claim that McMahon instructed Grant to create pornographic content from Michael Hayes.

Oh, geez, and now he's...

Long-time WWE creative executive.

Grant's attorney states that in September 2020, McMahon directed her to produce customized, explicit material for Hayes and his team.

And his team, Wade, what kind of meetings are they having?

I know.

The creative team, I assume.

Yes, that's what I, what kind of meetings

again?

When I was there, the creative team was sitting at Vince's fucking dining room table for 12 fucking hours every Wednesday, having to listen to fucking various people drone on

and

hoping and wishing and hoping that it was over soon.

We didn't have these kind of fucking meetings.

Well,

yeah, again.

Well, again, and while you're looking, let me ask this question now.

And

then if you see anything else there, it needs to be brought up.

But at this point,

why did they amend this?

And do,

I mean, he

fucking.

Vince is not going to get blistered for anything because the fix is in.

Not only is his longtime close personal billionaire friend squatting in a White House and his estranged wife is a member of the cabinet,

but Trump's pardoning fucking violent criminals that he's never even met before just because they were on his side.

They've already been rearrested for rape and various things, many of them, some of them.

You think

nothing bad is going to happen

to any of Donald Trump's friends or cronies.

I don't care whether it's criminal or civil now because people are saying, well, civil trials are different bullshit now.

A lot of things are going to be different now that this is heading toward a police state instead of a democracy.

So

why aren't they just folding their tent and going home?

What do they think they're going to get here?

Why did they amend this?

Well, because they added more details.

And I mean, there's a lot more graphic details about Vince,

you know, what he was doing to her sexually, what he was demanding, what he was saying.

And a minute ago.

Oh, I'm sure it was all horrible.

That's what I'm saying is that it doesn't matter now.

Vince McMahon has a get out of jail-free card.

If you're in the fucking click.

Well, here's the voicemail.

You're good.

Here's the transcript of the voicemail.

Oh, Jesus.

Hi, baby.

I'm still, I'm packing up because I got to get out of here and go to bed.

I'm still at the office and I got a board meeting in the morning at 10 o'clock.

It's like, Jesus fucking Christ.

Now, wait a minute.

That is a phrase that I could hear Vince using.

In any event, on the agreement stuff, we have to do it.

And here's why.

Because there's a new twist in this fucking thing.

Wow.

Is this ever going to end?

So there's an audit committee.

It's a public company.

And if we don't get this done by the 31st, I'm fucked.

Because McDivitt is in charge of the legal.

A voice from conference room speaker.

Nobody else on this call.

Goodbye.

It sounds like the boardroom.

That's in parentheses there.

It's the conference room.

I'm in.

Goodbye.

It's the conference room.

That's Vince Sayna.

What the?

So McDivitt is in charge of the fucking audit of the books kind of thing.

He's got to tell the audit committee there are no lawsuits.

There's no pending this.

There's no that kind of like thing.

And he won't do and can't do it legally.

So we need to work on this really fucking fast.

Otherwise, I'm double fucked.

I'll be divorced aside from that.

It'll be fucking, you know, I don't know what this is going to do in terms of, you know, I mean, shit, if he, if I don't get it done,

he's got to go to the audit committee and say, by the way, here's where we're say, yada, yada, yada, Janelle.

So now the board knows my story, knows what's going on, and it's like, oh my god, holy shit.

You know, they kick people out of their own fucking company.

How long is this woman's voicemail?

That's not going to happen here, but um, oh my god, it's like public shit and all that kind of stuff.

So I'm fucking tired of this shit.

But in any event, uh,

sorry to be responding so late, but uh, we've got to get this thing fucking done so quickly, baby.

I had no idea that McDivitt was,

well,

not turn on me, because that's not really the case at all.

It's a legal deal, you know?

And he can't say to the audit committee, no, I never told him any of this stuff.

He wouldn't know, but now he knows.

And now he's been involved in, you know, in writing some of this and all that kind of crap.

And And

I got to get this fucking thing done or I'm double fucked.

So let's please, you and I, I can't do it first thing in the morning because it's 10 o'clock, but as soon as we can, let's please get this thing done in some way, somehow, okay?

I'm sorry, baby, we have to do it this way

because I'd like to do it on a napkin too, but now I can't.

Um, so I'm kind of fucked, but that's okay.

Good lord.

Wait a minute.

There's God.

Is this a long playing album instead of a voicemail recording?

Well, it's not okay.

But let's get this thing done, please, so we can go on with our lives.

Okay, baby.

I'll talk to you in the morning.

I'm sorry to take up so much of your time.

Okay, bye.

So there's the voicemail.

And the idea, Jerry McDivitt, because he was aware of this, because he's the one who probably drafted drafted the agreements in the NDA.

He couldn't lie to the border.

It's a publicly traded company.

He couldn't say he wasn't aware of this.

And,

you know, Vince said, I didn't say turn on me, but, you know, he can't, he can't help me.

What do you mean you've got to tell the truth?

I'm telling you, Vince McMahon, Donald Trump with a better fucking hairstylist.

What do you mean you can't lie for me?

We need to do this for you.

Maybe that's why McBottie fast, really fucking fast.

You got to sign this.

That's why McDibbitt retired.

He said, well, fuck it.

I'm done with my major client anyway.

He got to the point where Vince was too much for him.

I mean, again, it was the end of his career.

McDibbitt was closing in on 80, I think.

But still, it was becoming more painful to work with Vince.

Yeah, I was about to say 80 and 40 years of that with Vince.

That means he was like a 120-year-old man chronologically.

So what are your thoughts on what we've summed up so far?

And of course, read this transcript.

So, I mean, they have the original audio somewhere.

I mean, they could have videotapes and a signed statement from Vince.

Yes, I fucked this girl around in the most horrible ways imaginable.

What are you going to do about it?

And I don't,

this is not a country of law and order anymore.

So, I don't think that Vince McMahon

is going to be penalized in any great way for anything by anybody as long as the fix is in.

Now the country's a fucking work, the legal system.

So he's right at home.

Well, again, to take it away from politics, what do you think of Vince McMahon?

And I mean, obviously.

That's what I've, you know,

it's worse than we thought because he was also groveling like a

he was a 78-year-old love-struck teenager.

Oh, baby.

Oh, baby.

Please, baby.

We got to do this.

Or was he a promoter?

Or was he a promoter saying what he needed to say to get her to sign that contract?

Well, yes, but he, that's the thing: is whenever Vince would talk to grown adult men

as a promoter to sign a contract, he didn't sound like he was wheedling and begging.

It's it's it's disconcerting and somewhat off-putting to hear Vince go, baby, we know I'm so fucked.

We need to do this.

Oh, please, okay, bye.

Good God.

He lived, He lived his life in reverse.

He's become a fucking awkward teenager when he's almost an octogenarian.

But also, there were details, and again, like I said, I don't have them in front of me.

I'm trying to find them, about John Laurinitis.

Basically, Vince served her up to Laurinitis

to the point where they redid his office.

And they made a point in the...

Wait a minute.

What did they put in a secret room?

Well, possibly.

Hold on.

Let me see.

Again, I'm trying to find the exact things I read a few days ago.

Well, now they've changed their story since then.

But I mean, they made a few other points.

They stressed that the reworking of the office wouldn't have happened without NickCon and Brad Blum's approval and involvement, and also that it shared a wall with Paul Levesque's office.

So now they're filling in names in the complaint.

You ask what they amended.

They added details.

They added some context.

Again, all from their point of view, their side.

But also they've added more names.

And this is also the same weekend where all of a sudden they trotted Stephanie McMahon out there.

I'm just telling you.

I'm just telling you.

I'm about to tell you later on in this program.

If you haven't already heard, you will hear, folks, because our recording schedule has been screwed past day or so.

I'm telling you, Stephanie being out there was not just to plug her cable television program, but they want a woman on their side that's all happy and smiling.

And, well,

they can't be doing things like that at that company.

Well, there's Stephanie.

If they see that smile, they'll believe it.

That's the, she should not smile.

Just be serious.

People would actually believe in her.

Well, again, here we are.

Are you surprised that Vince McMahon,

we know how much money he has, we know how much cash he has.

That he hasn't just made a ridiculously stupid offer to make this go away?

I don't know that I'm surprised about that because think of me.

How many times did Vince ever want to settle anything

or, you know, or admit any kind of defeat or take any loss or whatever?

And now

with the company, you know,

up in the air and his participation in it, that may have been one thing.

Oh, baby, please, baby.

But now, okay, that shit's happened.

He's got $2 billion in cash on top of what he already had to begin with.

And,

you know, he doesn't think, what the fuck now?

Who the fuck's going to fuck with me?

Fuck these people.

So now it's like, I don't think he'd give a crippled crab a crutch, much less give him any money.

Because he's probably blaming them for

things he did.

In his mind,

he's blame, as Ain Lowley used to say, everything you do gets blamed right on you.

He's blaming them because he got blamed for the shit that he did.

And, you know, he's got a production company now and he's got all these former WWE people working for him.

I can't wait to see what kind of nonsense that no one's going to want to see that they're going to put out.

I can't wait to see that.

Now,

they have not committed to a particular genre of entertainment, right?

It's a production company and they're going to produce productions.

They've committed to a genre, Vince McMahon.

That's a genre of entertainment.

That's a bullshit kind of entertainment that was all over WWE, obviously.

But XFL, every single other thing he touched had that Vince McMahon feel.

We won't talk about it today because I don't have all the details and it's kind of just happened

just recently.

But the Ringboy case is also moving forward.

That's been allowed to move forward.

So we'll have more details about that in the future.

And this has been Vince McMahon Legal, amended legal news.

Well, let's go

straight to more WWE news of a less unsavory nature.

There was a couple of things on SmackDown.

It was three hours long, but there was a couple of things on it.

And this was leading up to the Rumble.

And before we get to the Rumble, just to be

chronologically correct and not leave anybody in fucking confusion, I thought we ought to do this in the order in which it occurred.

Owens and Punk was fucking hilarious.

Owens and Punk was great.

And that was the first 20 minutes of the program.

And it got a little bit slow from there, but we got to talk about that first.

And also

to mention,

again,

the,

and I'm tipping it off, but the Royal Rumble review later on in this program as a podcast, we have already recorded because of our various recording and editing schedule snafus this week.

But it was again,

there's Pat McAfee.

He's a hometown guy.

They were in Indianapolis, but the Bainbridge Field House over next door to the stadium.

And he got a huge pop.

And,

you know, he's a hometown guy and played in the NFL.

And he's got

the podcast and the shows that he does.

And he's always been a presence for years in Indianapolis.

But

he was out again cutting that promo.

I love Indianapolis.

Indianapolis.

I love you.

And my God,

it's just, no other city has ever gotten his treatment.

But then again, as we'll establish later on, we're not sure what they paid for it.

But I think

Pat needs to calm down just a tinch because he

did just a month or a five months.

Well, no.

No,

he's a good personality.

And he loves the wrestling business.

But he's just so up now that I think he needs to calm down every once in a a while just so he can go back up because he's I'm afraid he's going to hurt himself.

But he loves the wrestling bit.

You know, he trained with Rip Rogers, right?

You knew that.

Of course, yeah.

We've talked about that in the past.

Well, I didn't remember how long.

It was a while back before he even got this gig.

It was even dealing with the WWE.

He,

because Rip's from Seymour.

And it ain't that far from Indianapolis.

McAfee put a ring in like a barn or whatever on his property.

Have Rip come up and train him before he was even doing anything because he wanted to explore that.

So

I'm pulling for the guy, but goddamn, Pat, hold on just a second.

But anyway, they

threw to Joe Tessatore.

Is it Tessatori or Tessatori?

Now, I've called him both.

Joe Tessatore

or Tessatore.

Is it it, that's a more?

No, that's not a more.

Is he Italian?

I would believe so based on the name.

Okay, then Joe Bambino

asked Kevin Owens to come out

because Owens has been saying, well,

the announcers and everybody's against me and they're slandering me, whatever the fuck.

But old Joe.

Was reading his introduction off the notes in his hand.

Could you tell or do you even remember watching?

We've seen so much wrestling.

I've seen him read stuff on the show before.

He does it really well.

Well, but in this case, I thought it was kind of noticeable because it's not just, you know, looking down at a format to see what you're pitching to next or we're going to the VTR or whatever, but he had this long explanation he was going to make as a journalist to Kevin Owens

that we don't believe that we're misrepresenting you and we want to know how that you feel that we're treating you unfairly.

And sir, if you make a at a point like this,

then we will be glad to correct whatever the case.

And, but he was reading it off the notes.

Like, he, you know,

I don't know.

I think that needed to come more from his heart.

He needed to be more wounded

personally than to have to read the topic of conversation.

But nevertheless,

Owens does the promo

and you know, it's about Cody, obviously, and the rumble and the ladder match.

But he, you know, he won't fucking talk to Joe.

And Joe says, again, I want to give you a fair chance to, you know, register your complaint about how we've been talking to you.

And Owens says, I think you're a tough guy.

You can shove your apology up your ass.

Take this back.

And he grabs, because they've got the two belts.

hung on the thing where you can reach him.

He grabs the wing deep.

And he says, I'm taking this and I'll take the other one tomorrow.

And is it,

Akamussalini

in Indy?

And the place pops like, and here comes Punk.

And Owens has that look on his face.

And we get the CM Punk chance.

And Punk's kind of amused and smirking.

And they just stared at each other for a while.

And people are like, holy shit, holy shit.

And how big was this crowd in Indianapolis?

The night before they had 70,000 people in the stadium.

Probably, what was it, 10,000, 12,000 people?

Jesus, H.

Christ, but everybody's over here.

And then Owens is like, can I help you?

And Pung's like, no.

I'm sorry for interrupting you, but I'd heard my name invoked because Owens had mentioned him too.

And, you know, I'm sorry if you think I was looking past you, but when I win the Royal Rumble,

if you make it past Cody,

the main event of Mania could be the two of us.

And if you win, congratulations, it's not going to last long.

And, you know,

basically told him off.

And Owen says, there's 29 guys in the Rumble that I like more than you.

But the thought of me beating your ass at WrestleMania, I like that.

But I know it's your goal to be the main event at WrestleMania, and it's right at your fingertips.

And you never getting that is so good to me.

And he blisters Punk and tells him he's going to go to this grave of miserable failure.

So Owens hopes he doesn't win.

And Owens, again, he's walking off.

But Punk says, hey, I'm not the one that's lost five title matches at the Royal Rumble.

I'm not the one that's lost to Logan Paul.

I'm not the one that used my friend to help me win.

whenever I, and he tore him down.

What do you think of that line?

I'm not the one who lost to Logan Paul.

Well, that

I think it shows, and not only, I mean, there may be a little prickliness between Punk and Steen here to begin with personally.

Yeah, maybe.

You know, maybe.

They're two very disparate individuals.

Everybody can agree on that

it's probably something in the locker room amongst guys that have been busting their ass for 10 or 15 or 20 years or whatever they've been doing.

That all of a sudden Logan Paul's popped in and it's like, well, you got to put Logan Paul over.

Oh, fuck.

I'm sure nobody's, you know, really happy about that down deep.

They may, you know, have the match with him and want to make the money with him.

But anyway,

that's when Punk says, hey,

I got to win at the Rumble and you got to win at the Rumble, but tonight, you just got to get back in in the ring and I'll kick your ass.

Ed Owens milked it and he's going to, and he's going to, and he left.

And then they played the music and 20 minutes, but that was fun.

That was an enjoyable

confrontation between these two big mouse, I thought.

That's what makes WWE TV good was when they have these enjoyable confrontations.

Just guys who you know don't like each other, who never interact, having a few minutes to

snark at each other.

And then Drew Drew McIntyre usually shows up.

But here it didn't happen.

And,

you know, we saw Punk and Cody.

We've seen Owens and Cody.

We've seen Owens and Sammy.

We've seen Owens and Punk.

We saw Rollins and Sammy.

I mean, there's all these interplays.

And again, you throw Drew in the middle of some of these.

It's more interesting in the matches.

I saw Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice once, but I was underage, so I had to sneak in the back door.

Was it worth it for that movie?

Nah.

But anyway,

otherwise than that on SmackDown, with the exception of our good, close, personal friend Jacob Fatu,

they had a confrontation between Damian Priest, because now he's on SmackDown now and his goal is championships and he's going to win the Rumble and blah, blah, blah.

And out came Fatu and Tommy Tonga.

I'm loving me some Tommy Tommy Tonga now.

And Jacob cut the promo.

So they're really,

they're grooming him for major things.

But did you, the promo that now Fatu did, did you hear the one thing?

And I think,

wonder where they got that idea from.

Jacob cut the promo, said, we both come from the streets, priest, you and me, but I was locked down in that box.

They're acknowledging

jail or prison sounds better than jail.

They're two different things, but it can be interchangeable.

But I think the announcer is acknowledging he's, you know, he's been locked up.

What did we say

not even months ago, now, years ago now, maybe when we first started talking about this, was

bring him in and acknowledge this is the most dangerous member of the family.

He's been in prison.

He's got a record.

He's fucking out of control.

That's where they're going.

And he said, I'm off the leash now.

All gas and no brakes.

And you either lay down or we'll beat your ass down because we run SmackDown.

And

the priest, you know, bowed up at him and said, well, why are we even talking then?

And Fatu just looked at him and milked it and growled at him.

Then priest takes the jacket off and they circle.

And now priest and fatu get in a fight

and boom.

And priest fought back, but they swarmed him.

So at least it wasn't like he just dropped like a fucking limp wrist.

And

then the music played, and LA Knight comes in.

And Tommy Tonga has a chair, right?

He was going to use, but he kicked the chair.

Toma.

I like Tommy Tonga.

But it's not his name.

It is now.

And he kicked the chair into Tommy Tonga and then

Jacob Fatu is up and LA Knight swings the chair and Jacob punched the fucking chair and knocks it across the ring every

but Priest kicked Fatu but LA Knight then hit Fatu with the chair and Fatu went to the floor and LA Knight cut the promo and challenged for a tag team match play uh later tonight

so and that was the top of the nine o'clock hour we had to wait a while.

And then, spoiler alert, they had the tag team match, and it was a very fine tag team match.

And

Priest chokeslammed Tommy Tonga

one, two, three.

He loves to tonga about the things that he's done wrong.

And otherwise, the big news from SmackDown, and we'll talk about that, then we'll move on to Rumbling,

was that did you see the big surprise announcement brian the big shocking surprise that they pulled on the the new inductee into the 2025 wwe hall of fame he never could have guessed this was going to happen

triple h

going to be inducted in the hall of fame they they stunned him with it michaels was there They were at the WWE headquarters.

They showed the tape.

Sean Michaels was there.

Undertaker was there.

Then here comes Stephanie, gives him a big hug.

We talked about Saudi Arabia doing sports washing.

Are they doing Stephanie washing?

But anyway, do you think Triple H was full of shit or was he really surprised here?

He had to know this was happening.

He says he was surprised.

I saw him do an interview where he really put over Nikkon, saying Nikkon did it to surprise him because he wouldn't accept it.

Just like Vince never would.

Thank God Vince isn't in the Hall of Fame now that you look at it.

And he didn't know that Sean Michaels and the Undertaker were there.

And he said that he was surprised when Shawn Michaels came out, but he thought maybe he just read the format wrong.

And

he says he didn't.

I mean, there are people who have a problem with it.

Didn't they do a surprise induction a while back that the person wasn't surprised?

I'm trying to think of.

I'm not sure.

I wouldn't be surprised.

I mean, you wouldn't be surprised.

I wouldn't be surprised.

But Triple H, again, he's in for DX.

You can't argue that he would belong in a WWE Hall of Fame.

Do you have a problem with it?

And do you think?

No.

Do you have a problem with it at all?

Or what do you think?

No, I don't have a problem because he was a big name as a headliner.

Just, you know, go.

The double inductions in anybody's hall of fame, I think, are starting to get a little carried away because,

you know, it just to me, you ought to be in the hall of fame as a person for a thing,

you know, for the cumulative, I'm trying to say this properly, as a person for the cumulative career you had in the field that the Hall of Fame represents.

I don't know.

Ray Stevens should be in the Hall of Fame as himself, with Nick Bockwinkle, with Pat Patterson.

I mean, how many times, you know, when you can put somebody in wrestling that's done different things, do you put Babe Ruth in the Hall of Fame twice in baseball because he played for New York and Boston.

See, you didn't think I knew that, did you?

Well, he played as one player, though.

You don't put teams in the Hall of Fame, put players.

So it's the

total of your career.

Now, if he was a commentator, he can go into the Hall of Fame.

It's a different wing as a baseball announcer.

They're in Hall of Fame, too, but no one considers them

in the main body of the Hall of Fame.

But so the point is, though, that you can't go in as a player on one team and another team.

So why would a wrestler go in as a member of one team and as a member of another team or as an individual when he's already in with part of the team?

Because there are members of the team that wouldn't be Hall of Famers without the team.

And then there are members of the team that would be Hall of Famers without the team.

But do the people in baseball

that are not Hall of Famers without the team get into the Hall of Fame?

Say that again?

Let's say that what's the greatest baseball team in the history of baseball teams?

More than likely the 27 Yankees.

Okay, but somebody on the team.

Okay, let's say the 86 Mets, because at least then we're talking about

somebody may know.

The best, yeah.

There had to be some schlub on that team, right?

They weren't all

on their own deserving of being in the Hall of Fame.

No, of course not.

Rafael Santana was not going to get the Hall of Fame.

That was a great building shortstop.

So if Triple H technically is already in the Hall of Fame because he's a member of DX and they inducted DX, if they wanted to me

to get the biggest bang for their buck, they would induct Triple H as the single world champion, multi-time individual major star that he became later on.

And Sean Michaels was a member of DX at one point, but should be in for his own merits.

And he is.

But then that might leave Road Dog and Billy

in the wind.

Road Dog and Billy would not, again, WWE Hall of Fame, anyone can get in, but you wouldn't think of them as classic Hall of Famers, but with DX as a unit together and all those t-shirts they sold, that's Hall of Fame t-shirt sales.

Okay, but now, again, I'm not complaining about anybody being in the Hall of Fame, much less Triple H, but twice is too much.

Twice for anybody is too much.

They're just getting another ceremony out of it.

which is the whole idea, but,

you know, because they ain't making any more legends these days.

There are although there may be a few on this crop that we've got here lately.

Rick Flair was inducted twice as an individual and as a member of the Four Horsemen.

That's what I'm saying.

Hulk Hogan inducted twice, although he says seven times.

No, inducted twice in 2005 as a single and again in 2020, booed as a member of the NWO.

Sean Michaels in 2011 as a singles wrestler, 2019 with DX.

Booker T inducted twice, once with Harlem Heat.

Brett Hart, inducted twice, once with the Hart Foundation.

Hall and Nash, individually, or as Diesel and Razor Ramon, I think, or at least Razor Ramon, and I think he went in as Kevin Nash, and as the NWO.

Sean Waltman,

he may be the first three-time inductee.

What?

Not yet, but he's in there as DX and the New World Order.

But you got to put the 1-2-3 Kid in.

If this is the standard you're going for, 123 Kid has to be in as his own person.

And finally,

Barry Windham.

One would think 123 Kid would pass the Cocoa Beware bar.

Barry Windham inducted twice as a member of the Four Horsemen and for the USA Express.

Well, they're double dipping.

But yeah,

the point is,

I don't know what to believe anymore.

It would be heartwarming if they surprised Triple H, but I have to think that, you know, these

corporate, greedy capitalists, they've obviously, they've got profit uppermost in their mind.

They're going to maximize this thing.

It's all a plot.

Well, I guess that's part of the question, I guess.

For the fans that are in an uproar, like, look at this shows that there's nepotism.

This show, like, whatever.

We all know what the realities are.

For the people who think it's ridiculous that he would be the main eventer for the Hall of Fame this year, do you think it's ridiculous at all?

No, who else is going to be the fucking main eventer?

Who else have they not inducted twice now?

Look at that goddamn all-time great list that are already in twice.

Who else are they going to put in once to match that name level?

But that's why they're doing it,

inducting people multiple times because they don't have anybody can draw on top anymore that can be inducted currently.

And

they got to wait till the forest is repopulated with full grown trees.

Well, that tree will be inducted.

It might be time for you and me, Brian.

Shake the leaves?

No, we'll be inducted as

the legendary podcast that we are.

You can go for both of us.

Well, I thought you'd go because you're closer.

No, I would not give WWE my content.

They would then own the rights to my speech.

I wouldn't go.

No, I'm just thinking they could give us a plaque and we'd go on about our way.

I got plenty of plaque.

I went to the dentist the the other day.

Oh, God.

Oh, my God.

I need a drum now.

Oh, I got to get a drum in here now.

That's what I got to do.

Wait a minute.

Hold on.

Well, there you go.

That was, that was SmackDown to get us ready for the Royal Rumble.

But

I needed to get some rest in between.

Brian, I really, because I was after SmackDown, and it's three hours long now, and it's going to be that way to what, May, June, somewhere around that area.

I needed to take a good night's sleep in between just so I could refresh myself and watch more wrestling.

But I didn't have to worry about falling asleep because as soon as my butt hit the mattress, I was at, you know, you've heard the phrase, I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Don't even need to go that far, folks.

When you're dealing with our friends at Helix Sleep and the mattresses that they make, you go to sleep when your butt hits the mattress.

You sit down on the side of the bed.

Eight hours later, you wake up.

God damn, your feet are tingling.

They've gone completely to sleep.

You're still in the same sitting position.

It's some kind of goddamn Curare poison that they extract from the

guam trees over there in the Philippines

in the Philippines to do this.

But when they cook these mattresses with this guam extract, then it instantly makes you go to sleep whenever you touch it.

They don't.

It's amazing.

No, none of that's amazing because none of that's true.

You will wake up refreshed.

Besides, sometimes your neck's a little sore because once you go to sleep, sitting down on the side of the thing, your neck, your chin will go to your chest.

So you got to move around a little bit when you get up.

But I'll tell you what.

Yeah.

I'll tell you what.

Tell me.

They make all kinds of mattresses for all kinds of people that want all kinds of things.

If you want to sleep on something hard or just to go to bed with something hard and wake up with something soft, or if you sweat when you sleep and you need to be cooled down or you're frigid when you sleep and you need to be heated up or any of these things, if you're unnaturally large in some type of way, either height and length or weight and girth.

They've got shit for you.

And kids.

They got beds for you.

Well, they've got shit for you in the way of putting on your beds.

they got the mattresses for you what else is helix sleep gonna make besides mattresses well they got beds for the kids too and let's go right past that and let's tell everyone

they don't have they don't have beds for the kids they got mattresses for the kids now get this straight brian don't try to advertise anything that they're not going to do we want to be completely truthful here we would not want to misrepresent anything They don't have beds for the kids.

They got mattresses for the kids.

And these mattresses for the kids, they've got a little slide pocket in where you can stick them like their lunch and maybe a comic book for them to read.

And they'll stay in these mattresses for days at a time, children.

Once they get used to it.

No, again, they have mattresses for kids.

They're going to bend on at night, have a good night's sleep and wake up ready for school, ready to brush their teeth, eat their breakfast, and get off to school.

A good night's sleep.

So you, with the adult helix sleep mattresses, let's talk about it.

You won't even have to worry about waking the kids up.

They're so comfy.

They're going to stay there for three or four days.

You won't have to get out of there.

They will take them out.

This man, that's not the same.

No.

Hey, Jim, what's that over there?

Well, I'll tell you what it is.

It's the promo code because what you do

is you go to helixleep.com slash JCE

and you just take the little quiz on what type of mattress you're looking for and how you like to sleep.

And they will fit you up.

With the mattress that's perfect for you, and they'll ship it right to you.

And then poof, there it becomes.

And you open it up and you put it on you.

You got to have your bed frame now,

or unless you can just put the mattress on the floor.

Make sure that there's none of the children are laying on the floor before you put the mattress down.

Or it might be a good way to hold them in place in case they are playing hooky from school.

Your kids will go on top of the mattresses, just like you.

Regular sleep for children and adults, and whoever needs a good night's sleep, and they'll

bounce on them.

They certainly will.

And

right now, if you go to helixleep.com/slash slash JCE, you're going to get 20% off sidewide and two free dream pillows.

These dream pillows are excellent for dreaming.

Normal pillows, you just lay down and

there you are.

It's foam rubber.

But these pillows actually broadcast dreams into your subconscious.

So you can program them whether you want a gothic horror or a romantic comedy.

or potentially just some slapstick dreams.

Boom, you set the switch and you lay your head down on the dream pillow.

No, you don't program anything.

It is a pillow that you don't.

Dream on, dream until your mattress purchase comes.

20% off side-wide and two free dream pillows with a mattress purchase at helixleep.com slash JCE.

Then why am I having all of those dreams lately where it looks like a Western that was shot in Italy has been dubbed into English?

Maybe you need the dream police.

I guess Jim's not a cheap trick fan.

Helix Sleep.

You're auditioning for AMDA College of the Performing Arts?

Yeah, and it's not just an audition.

I'm entering the ultimate talent competition.

What happens if you win?

A full scholarship, the chance to perform in NYC in front of thousands of people, and a life-changing college experience.

High schoolers, auditions are happening right now in your city, but spots are filling up fast.

Don't miss your shot.

Go to AMDA.edu to schedule your audition today.

That's AMDA.edu.

All right, the rumble has been rumbled.

It wasn't in the jungle.

It was in Indianapolis,

which is kind of, it's a jungle out there in Indy these days, Brian.

I'm hearing it's the most fabulous city on earth.

It may replace, what is it, Plainview, Long Island, as the most magical place on earth, if Pat McAfee's writing or reading the copy.

Holy man, can we talk about for a second

how much did the state of Indiana pay

for the Royal Rumble?

I remember that it was talked about, but I don't remember the figure.

But the Royal Rumble, they're getting a summer slam coming up at some point.

They got

another big show, maybe, in that package.

They were in Indy for SmackDown the night before over at the Little Bitty Field House, only seated, you know, $15,000 or whatever.

How much money did they get to have them just verbally filate

the city of Indianapolis?

And Pat McAfee, my God, he wanted to.

I'm afraid if he was to go out on the street and take a manhole cover off, he would stick his manhood in a manhole cover of the city of Indianapolis.

Am I overstating this?

I don't even know what the hell that means.

I've never heard that analogy before.

What the hell does that mean?

If you want to make love to the entire city, you just take off a manhole cover and go to town.

Guessing it'll have to be a small manhood, manhood, manhole cover.

Manhood will a hood over the hole.

We don't know, but the orifices were, they were very kind to Indy.

Well, they were.

And if you saw the press conference, and I know you didn't, but

Paul Leveck, the first thing he did was blow Pat McAfee and put him over the top for connecting them with the people from Indianapolis.

So we'll see.

But according to the Indy Star newspaper, Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, and WrestleMania stand to bring in excess of $350 million in economic impact to Indy when it's all said and done.

More than $40 million is expected to be infused into the city from the Royal Rumble alone.

But how much did the city infuse into the WWE?

Did we get, was that reported?

I'm trying to find the number.

I'll let you know what I can find.

Because I think that infusion

has to be significant for the level of, my God, Vince didn't talk about the Goden like they were talking about Indy, that tuttle in town.

And they didn't even once mention a St.

Elmo steakhouse.

Or St.

Elmo's fire.

Well, no,

hold your tongue.

Hold your tongue.

Man and woman.

No, yes, yes, but

hold your tongue on because St.

Elmo's is a historic place and we don't want it to burn down.

And they still grill those steaks the old-fashioned way.

They had dumb waiters.

My mom and I went to St.

Elmo's Steakhouse because it was across the way.

I can't remember.

It's been 50 years or whatever.

But it's across the way in some respect from

the Expo Center

to where

we went to Bruisers Matches.

Unfortunately, I missed the promotional war live and I got more like Bruiser and Crusher against the Bounty Hunters type of era.

But nevertheless, but they had dumb waiters that brought up the baked potatoes.

And I know the kids are now saying, well, why couldn't they hire some smarter people?

Google dumb waiters.

I don't, if I only had time to

educate you children.

But that was cool watching the bam, bam, and the door open up.

And here comes 72 baked potatoes individually wrapped in silver aluminum foil.

I had OCD even then.

I appreciated things like that as a a child.

I'm trying to find anything about it.

And actually, I'm not finding any numbers, just announcements.

But here's something just went up this morning, just a half hour ago, from the Indianapolis Recorder newspaper.

Here are records that WWE set this weekend.

Oh, boy.

Largest gate in single-night WWE history.

Ticket sales surpassed all previous Royal Rumble editions.

and all non-WrestleMania single-night gates.

Well, as a matter of fact, they said on the broadcast, as we say in the business, that it was the

fourth biggest gate.

It was behind

three

of the double-knight WrestleManias.

I think last year's two and one before.

And otherwise, it was an all-time record for anything.

Record viewership.

Domestic viewership on Peacock rose nearly 14% from last year's record-setting Royal Rumble, while international streaming numbers surged even higher following the shift to Netflix globally.

Now, that's no firm numbers there, but they're saying 14% higher than last year,

which is a pretty hot Royal Rumble.

I mean, that was Cody winning it,

right?

Well, yes, but the bigger thing, globally, exponentially,

many big numbers.

We don't know, but it's a goddamn lot.

You know, it's just, it's gotten ridiculous.

Listen to this.

Large numbers.

Listen to this.

Difficult mathematics.

Go ahead.

Merchandise boom.

In partnership with Fanatics, merchandise sales soared more than 95% over the previous record set in 2024,

making it the highest-grossing non-WrestleMania event in WWE history.

Now, wait a minute.

Wow.

I'm just a small-town bird lawyer, Brian.

We've established that.

But an increase of 95% means that they doubled what they did last year, which was a record.

Sponsorship revenue soars, 14 sponsors.

All matches featuring sponsorship.

Revenue climbed 94% over last year's record.

God, it's not even just like 5% increase, 94%, 95%.

And finally, social media explosion.

The event set a new high.

for social video views and Royal Rumble history.

A standout moment featuring Braun Breaker Breaker

spearing popular streamer iShow Speed became the most viewed Royal Rumble social post of all time, generating over 300 million views

in less than 24 hours.

Reads like a press release.

I don't know if it was sent to them as a press release, but it's from the Indianapolis Recorder.

Well, so the

good lord, if they could have only got rid of Vince 10 years ago,

what the fuck may have happened?

But you know what?

If they had gotten rid of Vince 10 years ago, let's say, or 15 years ago,

I don't know if everything would have ended up the same way.

It was

kind of a perfect storm.

Nick Khan is the right guy.

No one can deny that in any way.

And quite frankly, Paul Laveck right now is the right guy.

And in tandem with Lee Fitting.

when he keeps his hands to himself or whatever the fuck his problem is.

They're working well right now.

I don't know if that group would have been put together.

Lee Fitting would still be at ESPN.

Yeah.

If it was 10 years ago, would Nick Khan have made the move 10 years ago?

TV was in a different place, media rights fees were in a different place.

It all worked out best for everyone but Vince, I guess.

I was just exaggerating anyway.

They could have kept him till maybe six years ago.

We could.

Now, anyway, so we were in Indianapolis for the Royal Rumble, where apparently every single son of a bitch of the 70,000 people that showed up to the Lucas Old Oil Lucas Old Old Lucas's stadium, apparently every single one of them had an ATM in their back pocket and just fucking pissed cash across the merchandise tables and

lived like Caligula.

I don't know what's going on with these people.

And they started the show with lots of the walk-ins.

And the stars arriving.

Owens comes driving in in a golf cart customized with black duct duct tape you got to admit he's got style

and then punk and cody got the two biggest pops when the people saw him on the screen and seth was right right there with it

and then roman and paul at the end i think they got the biggest ooh kind of pop like oh they're here too

but they you know a lot of people

reacting to people walking into the building

and then they opened with somebody in the building that we didn't expect to see in the building.

Is this the start of okay now that,

you know, things have progressed a little while?

Is Stephanie McMahon, can we make her palatable again because of her maiden name

since she is part of the

Levesque family now and,

you know, maybe we still want her to be rehabilitated in some kind of way, to be on television.

Is this the start of this?

So we can explore some of Stephanie's places.

Yeah, again, I'm not sure if there's really much of a demand for this other than internally, maybe at home to make her happy, but I personally don't think there should be a McMahon on the show, let alone starting off the show in 2025, especially the weekend.

Janelle Grant just amended her complaint.

Well, but does one have something to do with the other?

Do they want a female

face on the other side of the thing on a well here's we've got women too here that like us I mean, you tell me.

I don't think it's necessary.

I think it's actually just an unnecessary thing.

I think right now they have a winning formula.

Paul Levesque starting off the shows is the right thing.

He's Dana White.

You don't have Dana's wife coming out there and doing it.

And again, Stephanie's been around.

The Lord knows what he might do if she did.

And Stephanie's been around for a long time.

In a long time, she was mainly a female Vince degrading talent on camera.

I personally don't think she should be on the show anymore.

And

she doesn't have any position that I I know of in WWE or in TKO.

I mean, I guess she has shares,

but other than that, she's going to host this soon-to-be-unwatchable show wherever you may find it on ESPN Plus, I believe.

Stephanie's Places.

That's what we want.

Then she could do Stephanie in the kitchen and Stephanie on the road.

Well, but

she's going to have the, they said, you know, big superstars as guests.

Is it in a kitchen?

What are her places?

What is the exclusive?

What is the thing that you will not get anywhere else?

Them sitting there talking to Stephanie like they haven't seen her a certain way for her entire life and now they see her a little differently?

I don't know.

To me, it's a vanity thing for someone who's bored and she can't be the bullshit chief brand officer anymore because it was a bullshit position made up for her by her dad.

And this is a way, I guess, to keep her busy.

I really don't know.

Again, nothing personal against her, but everything going on.

Nothing personal and she's a horrible.

I'm talking about as a television performer and everything, and

what people are clamoring for is content versus what they are not.

And this is going to be pushed down people's throats, so I'm sure a lot of people are going to watch it.

But I also just think, in general,

Shane McMahon going to AEW, if that had happened, would have been one thing.

Shane McMahon showing up in the middle of the show would have been another thing.

Shane McMahon starting off the show welcoming people, to me, it's a new era in a lot of ways.

And I think you need a clean break.

And Stephanie could be a Levesque.

She came out there as Stephanie McMahon.

And,

you know, let her enjoy the show.

She could sit there with, you know, the rocks mom at Ringside or whatever.

But let's not pretend she was a seasoned executive or a talented executive.

She was Vince McMahon's daughter, and she was put into executive positions because of that.

And she's still getting gifts because of that.

But, you know, I thought, especially with the complaint being amended this weekend, what the fuck?

Come on.

Well, I'm thinking that they're thinking the opposite.

I'm thinking they're thinking we need a female face out here.

And well, here's Stephanie.

Have you seen that face?

Have you seen her smile?

Have you seen the photos of her smiling or trying to smile?

I don't know how to explain it.

She doesn't know how to smile.

She looks like an evil clown in a Stephen King movie, but

I'm just saying that, you know, that's and

she's obviously stayed in shape.

I forgot how buxom she was.

She'll never drown.

She's got that going for her.

And well, at least she has that.

Well,

she came out and

did the big speech thanking Indianapolis and Netflix and the Peacock.

Again,

what is she?

And we're so happy.

I just happen to be related to the guy that's, you know,

in charge of the creatives.

So I thought I'd come out and.

But she welcomed us to the Royal Rumble, where that was what she had the most emotion in that because she was channeling

events in the yeah, in the big, and then the big pyro blew off, and

and she went back to her places.

Yeah, let's hope she stays in her place.

More, well, I think we're gonna see more of Stephanie.

I guarantee we will.

And then

they followed that with McAfee, a big package of him doing the voice-over, talking about the Indiana Love Fest and the introduction of the Rumble.

And for however many millions of dollars that the state of Indiana paid for

to have their image,

I don't know whether varnished, shellacked, maybe glazed by this.

I don't think you could find people in Louisville that would fucking go crazy about our town or any other place like McAfee was doing.

It has to be.

He had to have bullet points.

Anyway.

And there was McAfee and Wade Barrett and Michael Cole on the call as we began this pay-per-view with, oh, for God's sake, the Women's Royal Rumble.

And you forget

how long

time can be until you sit down to watch the Women's Royal Rumble.

And let me say this: I didn't watch this thing live.

I didn't not watch it Saturday night, but at the same time, because of my

interest was peaked in the men's Royal Rumble, I didn't want to get it spoiled for me.

So I recorded the program.

And in Sunday, I didn't get on the internet during the day while I attended various chores around the house.

And then when I got a chance to sit down and watch it, that's when I got on the internet.

So nothing would be spoiled, although something was spoiled.

But we'll talk about that here.

But gee, money, Christmas.

30 women is too much.

I'm sorry.

I don't mean to hurt anybody's feelings.

But

as I I said to Camille, not to her face, we were on the phone, to her voice the other day.

I don't hate women's wrestling.

I want women's wrestling to be an attraction where the top women wrestlers are coveted,

but not where everybody gets to play.

And boy,

there was some brutal choreography in this.

At some points, it looked like some long-legged girls, you know, auditioning to be a rocket

with a prearranged

dance routine that just happened to involve hitting somebody else in the mush.

Brian, am I overstating this?

No, I think there are several potential rockets.

BFAB, I think, could be a rocket.

Oh, boy.

What?

I thought you were going to make a comment.

I was taking a drink.

Let you sit back and analyze BFAB's fucking

lack of fabness.

As Buddy Holly said, oh boy, B fab.

She was in here, but she did not start it off.

She did not start it off.

No, she didn't.

EO Sky and Liv Morgan

started it off, and I found out something else.

The Owlway in this stadium, because they had 70,000, I don't know, we'll get to, they announced it, whatever.

But the aisleway was like, goddamn, a quarter of a mile, and

it would take Usain Bolt five minutes to get to the ring.

In this,

you know, so there

at one point during the men's rumble, they did an entrance and milked the whole thing to where nobody made any content, content, contact by the time that the next entrance began.

So, and especially Liv Morgan and E.O.

Sky's little bitty legs are so little bitty short, they can't cover a lot of ground.

So, that they started.

And if you think I'm for an hour and 15-minute match, if I'm going to try to give you any goddamn

play by play or blow by blow or critique everybody's wrist locks, you're out of your mind.

This is a big match.

It only happens once a year.

Well, don't worry.

We've got plenty to talk about.

Or if the Saudis want to buy it twice a year.

Or and then potentially what'll happen when you know some other country gets all the money.

Then we'll just lose all our events.

They're going to Saudi Arabia in this year.

You should have appreciated this.

This is the last women's Royal Rumble with skin.

Well, you know, I'm just,

are they going to take 30 women over there and put them in scuba diver outfits?

Should they use this as a chance to separate the two Royal Rumbles and do them as two separate events, the women's event and the men's event?

Oh, please, please.

They can do the women's event at the performance center.

Anyway.

Number three was Roxanne Perez.

She ran, and it took her almost 30 seconds to get to the fucking ring.

I mean, you know,

thank God Jay Uso didn't have to do his big entrance all the way through this fucking thing.

That distance, my God, he'd have been a candidate for a heart transplant.

So then, number four was Lyric Valedictorian.

And number five was Chelsea Green.

And she did her normal

entrance with it.

It's so over the top with the gesticulating and the

facial expressions and everything that

it's almost off-putting the level of animation.

But she took forever to get there because she was doing all that stuff and stripping as she went.

And she got in, and the first two strikes that she threw was a forehand slap and a backhand slap, and she whiffed both of them.

You couldn't really tell she missed on the first one because of the camera angle.

But the second one, she tried a backhand and went six inches over his girl's head.

Girl sold it like she'd been slapped by fucking Dana White's power slap champion.

Or Dana White himself for that matter.

And then came BFAB.

And nobody, you could hear people asking.

the guy sitting next to him what time it was in this stadium of 70,000 people.

It's like they all held their breath and thought, if we think hard, maybe she'll go away.

She is worse than Model Girl.

Because

Model Girl does have the endearing,

confused, deer-in-a-headlight look that she uses at everything, right?

But she's a baby face.

She's supposed to be

somewhat simple-minded and pure of heart.

But BFAB's a baby face, and she walks around strutting around like she's a goddamn heel

and she's just rotten it's an athletic girl that has no idea of the concept of wrestling doing

choreography as she sees it in her mind

that as long as you do this and they do that there's no

emotion or facial expression or level of aggression or try to any effect of realism or let me get you lost in this suspension of disbelief.

It's just, I'm going to take my right foot and throw it up on your shoulder.

Am I exaggerating a fine?

No, there are certain women in the company.

And actually, in the two cases you have right there, Maxine Dupree and BFAB, they're both tall with long legs.

And

it's not like Barry Wyndham with long legs.

We're like, you know, he just looks so graceful running the ring.

It's not like that at all.

It's like you've said it before, like a deer on ice at times.

Yeah.

You're waiting to see what's going to hit the ground first, the ass, the feet, like they just, they don't know how to fall right.

But they could both be rockettes.

I think they could both be really good rockettes.

One could be the rock and the other one could be the it.

Anyway, so then Ivy Now came in to straighten everybody out, number seven.

Zoe Stark, number eight.

I've noted they're not wasting the big names early, are they?

Except for Liv Morgan

and Chelsea, Lab used her a little bit.

And here came Lash Legend,

and she got in and fucked some shit up.

Remember when we were still watching NXT like four years ago, she was kind of hilariously bad at the start, right?

I wonder why we haven't seen her in four years move out of NXT.

Well, they've just started using her on the main show with a, she has a tag team partner.

I don't remember her name, though.

Lash Legend and

her friend.

And

Wyatt Earp and Lash Legend.

I don't know, but the point is, if it's taken her four years to get this fucking far,

she may not live long enough to make the main roster.

And she fought with Bfab, some forearm potatoes and awkward kicks, and then Chelsea dumped Bfab and

got a pop for that.

And then we started, Okay, now it's the second 10, so we're going to step it up a notch.

Number 10 was Bianca.

Number 11, Shana.

Number 12, Bailey.

Now we got a few things going on.

I didn't keep track of who all got dumped when, because then there's another 30 names to write down.

Hey, what did you think of the graphics, though, here in this match and during the men's match, in terms of at the bottom of the screen, they had how many people had already come out, how many people had been eliminated, how many more people were to come.

That was brilliant.

And you can tell Lee Fitting, ESPN, any kind of that it looked like a sports graphic

where you could instantly tell, you know, depending on what sport it was, who'd scored the points or who'd been in the quarter or what, whatever the case it was.

So especially when it got down to the end, you say, okay, here's the six that are active.

24 have been eliminated, blah, blah, blah.

All that stuff.

That made it somewhat easier to follow than in previous years when they didn't have they didn't, either didn't have the capability or the knowledge to line it all up like that, where it was not just a garbled mess on the screen.

So I liked that part.

But then getting back to what I didn't like, back to the match.

Number 13 was Cruella Deville.

At least she came in at a dead run, like she meant some business.

And then came Model Girl.

And she got in, and

she and Ivy exchanged some awkward moves, and she whiffed a kick over her head or past her face or whatever.

And then she stood around for a second looking confused, and then she fired up and did the worm in reverse.

And now that apparently is the thing

the people will cheer for the simple-minded little thing.

If she just gets in the middle of the ring and tries to pose

and fire up and flex her muscles, and

she's goddamn big around the muscles on her arm look like mosquito bites on a strand of spaghetti.

And if she turns sideways, sticks her tongue out, she'd look like a zipper.

And when she gets a sunburn, she looks like a thermometer.

I could, she uses a Cheerio for a hula hoo.

All right, all right.

Will you leave her?

I could go on.

But then came Naomi.

That should be some kind of TV show on Bravo.

Then came Naomi.

And then was Jada Parker

and

Piper.

What's her last Piper?

Piper and the Gates of Dawn.

Piper Niver.

Her former punk rock group.

No, that's a great album.

You know, not a lot of people like the Sid.

I shouldn't say that.

A lot of people like the David Gilmore stuff more than Sid Barrett.

But anyway.

Well,

you see what happened to Sid over it, don't you?

You ever hear that story when they were recording, I think, Wish You Were Here?

He showed up in the studio.

They didn't know who he was.

Bald and fat, and he just said, When do I play my part?

And then they all started crying.

And then he left.

That's why they were a miserable band.

They had some good songs, though.

Well, but did they have any good songs in the Royal Rumble?

The women's?

The tune doesn't come to my mind.

But next was Natalia.

And then number 19 came Jordan Grace.

And this,

you watch the same things I watch.

This is the first time I've actually seen her

in the ring.

Well,

have we seen something I'm not remembering?

The question would be, did we have this exact conversation a year ago?

I don't remember if you watched the Women's Royal Rumble, so I can't say, but she was in last year.

Was she?

But I don't remember if you watched the whole thing.

It could have been one of those ones where you zip through it.

I think, because there was more matches on last year's show, wasn't there?

Because they had a shorter aisle.

They had room for three more matches.

So I think I may have just said, oh, I can't watch two Royal Rumbles back to back and let the women, you know, ruin my taste buds for dinner.

But anyway, it's the first time I remember seeing her, and she came out and they've obviously got plans.

She beat up several of the girls and dumped Jada Parker and gave Piper a Death Valley driver and got a little holy shit chant going.

And so they're obviously going to use her because they wanted her to make an impact.

And the people, of course, now this is not a sample of the audience in Dubuque.

These are the most motivated individuals, but they knew who she was.

And then she hugs Naomi because they said that, well, they're friends from TNA.

So this TNA,

you know, fuck, Vince didn't mention the companies that he was working with, few though they may have been, to the level that they mentioned TNA on this show.

So their friends, they hugged, and then Bianca came up and snatched Jordan by the hair and tried to dump her.

Because Bianca's a WWE lifer, right?

She's never been to the other side of the septic tank and knows where her bread's buttered on, as the old saying goes.

You've always buttered your bread over a septic tank, haven't you, Brian?

No, I buttered my bagel, though, over the

sink.

The outhouse.

So anyway, there's going to be bad feelings there with Bianca and Naomi over Jordan.

So we'll tune in on days of our menstruation to keep track of that.

And then here came Mia Yim, number 20.

Mechan.

I'm reaching.

No, Meechin.

Her name is Meachin.

Oh, it'll always be Mia Yim to Mia Yim.

And in number 21,

and her and she,

Alexa Bliss came back and the people were screaming, and I don't know why.

What is the attraction of her?

And

she just came back.

Her last action was in January of 2024.

Why was she out for a year?

What injury did she...

She had a baby.

Oh, geez, that's a serious injury.

It may have happened after an injury, though, but she was out and then she had a baby.

Wait a minute.

You're saying the injury caused a pregnancy?

pregnancy no i'm saying that she may have been hurt and then got pregnant

so she wasn't able to run away with that's not what i'm saying i'm not her doctor i don't know the schedule i don't know what time i look i don't know when she was supposed i don't know anything i just don't know have you not got the notes on her ovulation yet

we were supposed to forward those over in the files well she's uh

She's back, and apparently, a lot of those fans, either they love surprises or they really like those awful segments she was constantly in.

They seem to be excited, but

she's awfully slight to have had an offspring.

If she was pregnant, that would have doubled her size, wouldn't it?

From 80 pounds to 160?

What would that's the thing?

That

seems like that's a serious medical condition.

I always think you're way too hard on Liv Morgan when you say, like, oh, she's tiny, she's this and that.

Alexa Bush, you could say that about.

She's not only just did.

She's not only smaller, but she's not only smaller than everyone.

She also has supernatural powers.

That's what I'm afraid of.

She came out with that stupid doll.

Remember the doll?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jerry Mahoney.

She needs to upgrade to Knucklehead Smith.

Is she going to join the Wyatt 6?

Maybe she'll join Harley Cameron and they can throw their voices back and forth to the different dolls.

Harley Cameron can actually do it.

And, well,

it depends on the doll you got.

Because really, the doll is the key to the whole thing.

Once you get your hand all the way up the

well, we'll talk about that.

Back to the Women's Royal Rumble, ladies and gentlemen.

And Wade Barrett is like, people said she wouldn't come back.

Stop reading the dirt sheets, Cole.

So then number 22 was Zelina.

Number 23 was Candy LaRue.

Number 24 was Stephanie Vacker.

And then...

She got a big pop, surprisingly.

Well, yes, she did.

I I didn't say she didn't.

I just didn't comment because.

And then

number 25, Trish Stratus.

And they popped big because she's a surprise.

She's a legend.

She ticks all the boxes.

But she got in there and did a bunch of stuff and looked better than,

I don't know, 12 or 13 maybe of the previous entrance in this thing.

How old is she now?

She's got to be.

She's got to be up up there.

She's eligible for AARP at this point, isn't she?

She was no, she's only 49.

What?

She's only a few years older than me.

Wow.

Well, so there's still a chance.

That's crazy.

I don't know about that.

I got a good thing over here.

Well,

depends on.

I don't want some woman that's going to just run out in the night and go to the Royal Rumble to participate

and lose and lose.

No, she didn't run out in the night.

It was five o'clock local time.

But she didn't even win.

Still daylight.

Well, now you've spoiled it for everybody.

So I'm sorry.

God damn it.

You can't do that.

People won't listen to us if we're going to spoil this shit.

But yeah, unfortunately, Trish didn't make it.

But she looked good.

And number 26 was Rochelle Rochelle.

And then came number 27.

Charlotte has returned.

Charlotte Flair, big pop,

comes out.

God damn, she looked like Theda Berra in a silent movie, big cowl and cape and robe and the pyro,

and she took her time on much of the walkout,

has a brace on the knee, but it was covered up with spangly lame.

And

again,

it used to be a Pat Patterson thing that the guys, and there was no Women's Rumble then, so don't complain, but the guys that you really wanted to feature going forward, you really wanted to keep strong, you really, whatever, they will make an impact when they come in.

And

there was some of that in the men's rumble also this time, but it hasn't seemed as

important, or maybe just some of these guys don't know how to feed each other and set up to feed a fucking guy coming in the ring, whatever.

But at least Charlotte went over and chopped everybody and clotheslined everybody and boom, boom, boom, and did some spots with Jordan Grace and dumped Piper.

And, okay, you know,

I've made an impact.

Everybody knows I'm here now, that type of thing.

So that was good.

And then came Julia.

I liked her better when she was hosting that cooking show.

That's a different woman.

Is that not the same one?

No, this is a different spelling altogether.

Oh, well, I thought it was a showbiz name for the cooking show.

And then number 29 came up, and it was the refrigerator Nia Jax.

And she came out and dumped Trish with Candy LaRue's help because they were involved in a whole little tug-of-war thing there.

And of course, the refrigerator gets in and

wallers around dumping, or not dumping, but knocking over everything in its path.

Sort of like the same way as when they bring any major appliance into your home.

And then finally, number 30,

Nikki Bella.

It got a big pop because people didn't expect that.

And

which one?

She was the one that was not the one.

That was behind the one in 31 and one.

She was not the one that's married to Brian Danielson, is she?

No, that's her sister.

Yeah, well, it had to be that one because I knew there's only two of them.

I just can't keep them straight.

And she's to date John Cena.

He's here for his like goodbye year.

All of a sudden, she's going to return now.

That's awkward.

Well, that's what way she can,

with her and John, they can come and go at the same time.

But

is this the first time I've seen her wrestle?

No.

I don't.

No, no, no.

We've definitely seen her years ago.

Or was I just saying, I don't want to see this?

She was the one that watched.

She was the one that was excited to see Vader at the Hall of Fame?

Well, yes, I remember talking about that and making fun of that.

And,

you know, and folks, just so you know, he'd passed away at the time.

She didn't know he was dead.

That clip's on YouTube.

But I honestly can't remember.

I don't know what the fuck did her and her sister do.

I can't remember.

So I don't.

Anyway, she got face to face with the refrigerator.

And when they had their stare down, apparently the spot was going to be that then all the other girls who have been selling, they get up and they surround the fridge

like hungry Girl Scouts on a sleepover.

But when they were face to face, Nikki and fridge,

Nia had to turn around and yell, get up.

And all the other, and then they started standing up, right?

And then they jump her and she pushes all of them, like nine of them off.

And then they stop her.

And

then Nikki tried to wrestle.

And it was an hour and five minutes into this match, and there was still 10 girls left.

So I decided to do the humane thing and skip ahead until we got down to nut-cutting time,

as they used to say down in the country.

And that was Charlotte and Nia Jacks.

And now we pick, and Roxanne also.

She was in there too.

And picking it up there,

Charlotte was trying to mount some offense against the fridge.

So Roxanne was really wanting to make a name for herself here.

And she jumped in from behind and clipped Charlotte's knee and then jumped on her, started getting some heat on her.

And then she jumped up and she started getting on Nia Jax.

Literally, she was up on Nia's back and

the fridge is trying to dump Roxanne off of her and she's trying to hold her over the rope.

And Charlotte came up from behind and dumped Nia right over the top of Roxanne and the top rope.

And boom, the fridge was out.

And now it's Roxanne and Charlotte.

And you're thinking, well, my God.

Could there be an upset here?

As we'll find out later on, any weird thing can happen.

But they went went back and forth a little bit.

Roxanne ain't bad.

She's painfully short, but she ain't bad.

And

Charlotte knocked Roxanne to the floor after an exchange, and Charlotte wins the Women's Royal Rumble.

So she gets to pick whatever champion she wants to face out of all the available champions at WrestleMania.

So

good triumphs over evil in the end.

Well, is she a babyface?

I don't know.

I'm just glad to see her.

What do you want to see?

Charlotte against Rhea Ripley again or Charlotte against Tiffany Stratton?

Woo, woo.

Selfishly, I think Charlotte and Rhea Ripley, again, they're always going to have a great match.

But to be honest, again, they're both.

Rhea's a babyface.

Regardless of how they portray Charlotte, she's got some goodwill because she's just returned from an injury.

And Rhea against Tiffy

can kind of be like the,

you know, the battle of the nature boys in terms of this arrogant, older, more experienced, and now possibly beloved

blonde female icon versus this new bratty,

new kid on the block type of thing, spoiled brat type of thing.

So that probably would be easier to promote right now.

But that's just me.

Well, we'll see what happens.

But Big Royal Rumble, Liv Morgan, not Liv Morgan, what's her name?

Alexa Bliss's big return.

We'll see how that happens.

You can't use the word big in any way about Alexa Bliss.

But you must be happy.

The person you would probably want to win out of everyone in that match won.

Yes.

So at least, but also for business, she's a big name.

She's been gone for a while.

So therefore,

we miss her because she went away.

And that's perfect to me for

a WrestleMania main event in the women's division.

All right.

I was about to say that they had legends in the crowd.

Godfather and Mickey James and Kurt Angle.

So, right there, you know,

you know, they made some money on this show because right there is three plane tickets plus family members.

fuck what's that that's it'd be fifteen eighteen hundred dollars son of a bitch well mickey james's family member is also the gm so i don't think they have to worry about extra airfare or anything well hey does the general does the gm of general motors wife come to the board meetings i'm sure he brings everyone he wants the head of gm he could do whatever the hell he wants i'm telling you they got to watch their budget here on this travel there's not going to be a shareholder revolt here there will be well

who knows but let's go back they've got some revolting shareholders

No, I'm just saying they got to watch the budget here.

You know,

I'm telling you, they're spending money handy.

You never know this could all end tomorrow.

Anyway, the WWE tag team title was on the line, and I don't know why, after I've seen the match, with the Motor City Machine Guns versus Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Same Face Gargano,

two out of three falls.

And

they did three falls in 15 minutes.

Not that I was advocating they should have gone longer, but

I will never get Gargano.

Okay,

so I'm not even going to go any farther.

Him or his lovely wife, it's

people that can do moves that have no star look, no physique, no

over-the-top personality, no great ability to cut promos, no incredibly gripping gripping television presence.

They're trained

move-doers.

But anyway,

everything the guns do is perfectly executed.

It's very,

they're sharp.

Their teamwork is great, but they started off

so fast, especially after an hour and 15 minutes of...

30 women wailing on each other.

I feel like they ran off and left the people.

And they, again,

they started with a flurry.

They stopped the guns for a little brief heat on Sabin in the first two minutes.

And then Shelly got a tag.

Gargano,

Ciampa was reaching for a tag, and Gargano pulled his hand away, so Ciampa didn't make it.

So, due to that, the referee was flummoxed, and the opponent was flummoxed.

And Shelley had started his comeback, but turned into a knee lift by Ciampa.

One, two, three in like three minutes.

The first fall, No reaction, totally flat.

The people didn't get it.

And the announcer, whatever her name is with the Star Trek hairdo,

instead of saying

the first fall goes to, or so-and-so has scored the first fall,

she would only say, so-and-so have scored a fall.

And if the people in the stadium weren't paying attention, two out of three fall, because when's the last time they had a two out of three fall matching at WWE, then they're like, what the fuck is that?

It is it over?

And there was no star power in the match or anything that was presented at this level when they're expecting to see Cena and Punk and Drew and blah, blah, blah.

So the people just kind of sat there for this thing.

Second fall, they got heat on Shelly.

Saban made a comeback and they hit their

neck breaker splash finish one, two, three.

No pop.

And in the third

the guns had Gargano about to beat him, and some guy in a hoodie jumped up on the apron and drew the referee.

It was Montez Ford, and Dawkins came in and hit Shelly with a crutch.

And then

Champa and Gargano double knee lifted Shelley one, two, three.

And then the Street Profits beat up Gargano and Chiampa with the crutch after they'd beaten the machine guns and left them laying.

And they and

people were up a little bit for the the crutch action but

what'd you think

not comparing the workers or the work or anything else right but it reminded me of rock and roll express versus heavenly bodies after survivor series in 93 okay i agree with that too no matter what you did that crowd didn't care But that was a different situation.

The Rock and Roll Express weren't on WWF TV.

That was not a feud with a WWF audience history.

These guys are on SmackDown every week.

And that crowd did not care.

There were no reactions.

There were no hot tags that caused anyone to react.

And the pins, the finishes of every fall, no one gave a shit.

I wanted to like this match and I couldn't get into it at all.

And the fans didn't get into it.

And it was one of those matches where if there was crowd energy, It may have felt different, but I really didn't like it.

Well, and that's the thing.

And you said they're on SmackDown.

The referees are on SmackDown every week, but people don't really jump up and down and get warm, fuzzy feelings.

For them,

it's not only how they're presented where the tag teams are all and they're fucking around with purely deadly or whatever their fucking names is, the tag team division in this little quagmire they're in.

But also, these people are 70,000 people in a stadium.

And they came to see stars.

They paid big ticket prices.

And they send out guys that are presented.

And no matter how good they may be, and I'm a fan of three out of the four people in the match.

They're, you know, not the big box office guys.

They're like the fucking opening act, and we've already seen an hour and 15 minutes with a lot of stars, and now we got to sit through this.

And what's the two out of three fall thing?

What?

And it just, it didn't work in this environment.

Pity.

Pity, as they say.

But guess who was at Ringside, Brian?

I don't remember at this point who was there.

I'm not sure.

Well, there was Ron Simmons, and there was Rick Steiner, and there was RVD.

But

the biggest name,

I don't know why he wasn't the one singing the national anthem instead of that girl that looked like she was scared shitless.

John Mellencamp.

Right there at the big stadium to see the Royal Rumble.

The little bastard himself.

He was born in a small town.

Did you know that, Brian?

You can see it on his face.

He was miserable.

And he lived in a small town.

He'll probably die in a small town.

And fairly soon, given the state of the way he looked.

He gave the most half-hearted smile for a man that must have gotten those tickets for free.

He doesn't.

He's not a happy person.

That's not his gimmick.

He doesn't smile.

Well, ain't that America.

You and me.

And then we were ready for the ladder match for the WWE Championship with Kevin Owens and Cody Rhodes.

And they're going to climb the

stairway, the ladder to heaven,

and get both

the real belt and then the winged eagle belt that Owens has held hostage.

That's going to everybody on this one.

And Brian, this was the third match on a show, and the bell came two hours and 20 minutes in.

I don't think there's ever been a Royal Rumble.

I have to check.

I don't think there's ever been a Royal Rumble before where there were only four matches in total, including two Royal Rumbles.

I can tell you when I fucking was responsible for booking one or two of them, that goddamn Vince would have had a shit fit.

Let's just do four.

What?

But again, they've set all the records in the world.

So

the fans for this one were going bat shit before they touched, and they milked it.

Because they knew they had them.

And that was the thing, again, with the poor tag team guys.

People were waiting to see see something like this: the title match or the Royal Rumble or, you know,

what surprise are we?

Is there fucking some legend showing up or whatever?

And they knew none of those things were going to happen in the tag team match.

But now they're, ah, they're, yes, they flipped a switch.

So Cody and

Owens get in the fight.

Boom.

And then they're down on the floor in the aisleway.

And Owens body slammed Cody through the struts of a ladder that was turned over on its side and beat him with them.

And they fought into the crowd.

But here's the thing.

I liked the first half of this match better than the second half.

And I'll tell you why, because they kept even this shit that I complain about all the time.

Ah, now they're going to fight out in the crowd.

Now they're going to fight in the allway.

Now they're going to.

They kept it moving.

There was some animosity, it looked like, to it.

It wasn't like where the guys on Dynamite are just going to put their hands on each other and stagger out somewhere and throw a few punches and then stagger back somewhere.

They were moving.

They kept it interesting.

Owens grabbed a hold of the camera and Cody's head and ran Cody's face into the fucking camera lens.

They were keeping it lively.

I even noted that it looks so much better than the typical

indie-level fighting in the crowd.

They just, they had more oomph to them.

But they did a lot of fighting on the floor.

And Owens beat shit out of Cody for a while.

They got a four-foot ladder.

I don't miss, maybe it was needed for a midget to saddle a Shetland pony.

I don't know.

But they beat each other up with that.

And then

right about the time that I said, I'm really

liking a ladder match for once because it's clear that they're trying to to make it a struggle and they're keeping it moving, but there's no stupid risks.

Cody's selling great.

Owens is getting heat.

And then Cody backdropped Owens on the edge of a ladder that was laying sideways and he landed on like the

edge of it with the small of his back.

And I wrote, well, that was a stupid risk.

And then Owens power bombed Cody on one of the ladder.

As soon as I'd written, you know, they're having this match and not taking any stupid chances.

That's when they started taking the stupid chances.

And then Owens built an erector set structure with the ladders and gave Cody a Fisherman Buster suplex off the turnbuckle onto the fucking ladder.

And Aldous and the referees and the agents all come in to check on them because they're both selling.

And Sami Zayn came out to check on Owens and then check on Cody too.

And,

you know,

it appears everybody came out okay.

But again, they got WrestleMania coming up.

And

regardless of what Owens wants to do, you've got Cody.

It's going to draw you some money.

I don't know that he needs to be being battered with furniture eight weeks out, but nevertheless.

Owens, you know, went after Cody, but Cody hit the crossroads.

And Cody bounced Owens' head off the desk.

And apparently,

I don't think he hardweighed Owens.

I think Owens hardweighed himself.

The corner of his eye contact would be made right on your eyelid, would it?

No.

Or did he just fucking accidentally headbutt the fucking desk with his eye?

But anyway,

and then he beat the shit out of Owens.

And then Owens stopped Cody and tried to go for the package pile driver on the desk.

But Cody stood up under him and gave Owens the Alabama slam through a ladder that was bridged from the apron to the announce desk.

And the ladder broke in the middle.

Well, it didn't break, but bent in the middle.

And Owens went upside down with his head.

Did you see?

Going in between the rungs of the ladder as he was

ass over tea kettle upside down in amongst it.

Yeah, that looked brutal.

And actually, my sister was here, and she's not really watching wrestling, but she saw that when she left left a little while later, she turned and she goes, I hope that wrestler is okay.

Jeez.

Well, but she never has met him in person, so she would be.

But I mean,

again,

how the fuck, that's

kind of a good way to break your neck if that goes awry.

But they love to do that shit.

I know they're getting millions of dollars.

But one would think that you can come up with another way to get millions of dollars that doesn't revolve around getting thrown on your head at a high rate of speed through a goddamn piece of metal.

Just

a thought.

And then Cody climbed the ladder and got the belts.

And it was 25 minutes or so bell to bell.

But I said, I liked the first half a little bit, maybe a little bit more than the first half.

And then the ring got cluttered up with the ladders broken and turned over and the stunts took over from the fight.

And,

you know,

obviously was good, and people enjoyed it, and they worked their ass off.

But I'm just like, ah, fuck.

Somebody's going to get paralyzed one of these days.

Hmm.

Yeah, I mean, we'll

see what happens.

We definitely saw more feedback from people wondering if Owens was really hurt or not

than we have in a long time, and it looked pretty brutal.

Well, yeah, and I mean,

I assume his neck is okay, but the goddamn shot to the eye was

because it was swelled up by the end of the,

you know, five minutes later, it was puffed up and you could see where the cut was.

And as I said, if he was trying to just say, I'm just going to head-butt the desk and see if I can get some color because they don't want me to,

you wouldn't head-butt the corner of it with your fucking eye.

No, that's a bad idea.

Either he's just got bad aim.

I don't know.

Maybe he's,

you know, he's got depth perception issues.

Where do you think they're going with him and Sammy?

Sammy didn't help him win.

Well, and that's another thing thing that is left open, and we're going to find out about as we get to the chapter on this week's As Raw turns.

But at the same point, Sammy has been making a lot of mistakes and kicking a lot of people in the face by accident lately, hadn't he?

You never know.

Of course, he could be the victim of soycumstance.

Hey, Jim, before we go to the men's match, just because it follows up on the earlier match and the winner of the Women's Royal Rumble, we have some Charlotte Flair news.

Breaking news.

Breaking news.

Well, it looks like it broke a while ago, but people are just discovering the breakage.

TMZ reporting, Charlotte Flair divorces Andrade.

Ooh.

Charlotte Flair is ditching her tag team partner in life.

TMZ Sports.

I'm glad they're treating this with the gravity that it deserves.

These people's lives are in turmoil here.

And, you know, so we need to approach this with some level of decorum.

Go ahead.

TMZ Sports has learned she's divorced Andrade.

Court records we obtained show Ric Flair's daughter filed to separate from her wrestler hubby, real name Manuel Alfonso Andrade Oropeza

in Florida back in June of 2024.

And a judge appeared to sign off on the divorce in October of 2024.

It's not yet clear if a reason for the split was listed in court documents.

I've never seen that written like that before.

Charlotte, a WWE superstar who just won the Women's Royal Rumble Saturday night in Indianapolis, began dating Andrade in 2019.

They got engaged in 2020.

In 2022,

They tied the knot at a lavish wedding in Mexico.

But apparently, they've got lessons from a Boy Scout on how to untie it.

The couple had appeared happy in the months following the ceremony, with Rick even opting to team with Andrade for his last match.

Oh, I forgot about that.

I forgot that was his partner in that train wreck.

In fact,

there were little to no signs of any recent trouble in Paradise, as Charlotte had actually posted about him helping her with her knee injury recovery just months before, submitting her court docs.

Charlotte will have plenty on her wrestling plate to keep her mind off the breakup.

As the winner of the Rumble, she now has a ticket to WrestleMania 41.

As for Andrade,

he, too.

He's got a ticket to the law on the last train to Clarksville.

We'll have time in the squared circle to keep him busy.

Although, after he was eliminated in Saturday's Rumble,

he'll have to work a bit harder to get some run at Mania in April in Vegas.

So obviously TMZ is taking sides.

Well,

again, I mean, you know, it's not like we've criticized ESPN and some of the other legitimate news outlets for writing puff pieces.

You can't expect

critical journalism from TMZ.

It still sounds like a jaw condition to to me.

But

well, that's sad.

These two

crazy kids caught up in this star-crossed world of wrestling, and their ships have passed in the night, apparently shearing off significant portions of the hull on the way by.

You know, we have so many couples in wrestling nowadays.

It's a big thing because there are women and men at every show now.

So everyone just starts dating and hooking up.

But now you're going to have wrestling divorces.

Like people in the same company, I I guess you've had that before, but.

But

in larger numbers, it could start getting awkward.

And yeah, that's the thing is

I don't know if there had been

a call for

extensive women's division, 50% of the roster or whatever in the territory days.

My God, that any business would have ever been able to be done.

It would have put everybody out of business because of the inter-cohabitating and mingling and interspecies contact and conduct that would have been going on.

It would have been a madhouse.

So I don't,

what are the, are they giving everybody saltpeter and catering now that only a few of them actually end up couples or whatever?

Because this

would,

when you think about how many guys and girls are in close proximity all the time, it's not as...

plentiful as one might think once you study it.

Do you think you would enjoy being a star in the business now and all the women you would get?

Or do you think you would hate the fact that you'd be a pariah in the locker room for being a male slut?

Who are you asking that question to?

Stan Lane.

Oh, well,

boy, I tell you what,

the baby oil fucking stock would have gone way down if

Stan had not been allowed to

pursue his interests back in the old days.

Baby?

Like Puffy?

Oh, I forgot.

Now, baby oil's got a bad name now.

That was in Mick's book.

You don't remember that?

I don't remember that.

Mick Foley, in one of his books, he's written so many.

He's

fucking more plentiful than Stephen King.

He's got a lot of time.

Well, and he's got a lot of stories.

But he said that he was at a hotel one night.

We were on the road for WCW and he saw Stan Lane

entering his room next door with like three bottles of baby oil and several extra towels or whatever.

And he tells the story better in the book than I am here.

But nevertheless,

well, that is celebrity gossip news.

We are back.

Well, yeah, and again, you know, it's none of our business whether they

just couldn't make it work in this fast-paced world.

I think TMZ should lay off of them.

Who is it for us to cast the first stone while living in a glass house

of sin?

I don't know what the

all right.

So, anyway, so the men's royal rumble began three hours into the show.

There had been three previous matches.

And that was the point where Michael Cole said, and we have 70,347 fans here tonight.

They had a bunch of them.

I mean, they inflate a lot, but there were legitimately, has anybody questioned there had to be 60 to 65,000 people there

that had tickets, not counting the parking attendants and the fucking

miscellaneous staff?

Or do you know,

have they inflated this to a massive degree?

According to Russell Ticks,

the day of, there's a plane going by.

That's not good news here lately.

That's a scary thing to say out loud.

Yeah.

According according to this at 5 30 p.m the day of the rumble

there were 313 available tickets tickets distributed

67 590 jesus christ so then add you know 5 000 for the magical people www not even not even they added 2500 that ain't that ain't bad they probably had 2,500 legends sitting in the crowd

anyway they started the men's match, and I see where they were going, and they didn't get there.

Rey Mysterio and Penta were the first two to start.

And when you think about that, the pitch sells itself.

The iconic Rey Mysterio, he's a legend, he's a Hall of Famer, whatever.

cutting-edge guy of the Lucha Libre style 20 years ago versus Penta, our new Lucha star, who's the, he's today.

So we've got,

you know, a meaningful couple minutes there where everybody can see them do their thing by themselves, right?

That was the pitch.

And that, I mean, I would have gone for that.

Before I say anything,

did it materialize in your mind, Brian, as wonderful as what people might have thought it would have been?

The Penta Rey Mysterio?

the two minutes they got to just do their thing

i mean it was okay i don't know what people could have expected it's not like they can do anything to the floor and uh well they did and you say two minutes it's like three minutes because when two minutes happened the next person came in but they had a long way to go and a short time to get there yeah i know it took five minutes for both these guys to acknowledge the crowd and get to the ring but did well then did you look away when you saw that basically penta was eliminated one minute and 30 seconds into this this thing.

Well, you have to go over the top rope to the floor with your feet.

Yeah.

With both feet on the ground.

Yeah.

Well, it wasn't clear.

It was clear.

Both feet touched at the same time.

The referee said one.

Referee said one.

I recorded this on real television.

Brian last, and I got slow-mo and freeze frame on my cable box because that's real TV.

And both his feet touched and he pushed off.

And you could tell.

Point is, they did the handshake.

Penta wouldn't let go.

He pulled him in.

He did zero meeto.

People were into it.

They started into their spots.

They're doing some things.

And then they did the deal where they both went over the top almost and it was going to be teased.

And they'd say, and Penta's feet both touched.

Wade Barrett said, oh, it was only one foot.

And Pat McAfee said, we need a review.

Guess what?

We didn't get, Brian.

The review, my kid was asking me about that.

She never watched us.

You wanted to watch the Royal Rumble.

Hey, where's the replay?

Yeah, they wouldn't wait.

We're going to wait a long time on that.

Long fucking time.

And

they've fucked around trying to be a little cute.

But anyway, they did some stuff, but it wasn't.

And before anybody says, oh, fuck, you just hate Penta or you don't like the Mexican people or whatever the fuck,

I was watching it

concurrently when Rey Mysterio showed up and was doing the shit he was doing.

And everybody was going, holy shit, look at that.

And I didn't get that from this because it's Penta's job now to

give us the holy shit.

And

it wasn't there yet.

I don't know.

But we didn't get a review.

Maybe if we'd got a review,

how fast do you think that the producer was in Pat McAfee's fucking ear saying, we're not going to fucking replay it?

Don't mention the review.

Don't say it again.

So then number three was Chad Gable.

Number four, Carmelo Hayes.

Number five, Pablo Escobar.

Number six, Otis.

And I'm thinking, Jesus Christ, they're doing the same thing they did with the women.

But then number seven was Braun Breaker.

And again, you can tell who they've got the plans for.

I talked about it in the women's match and in the old Pat Patterson philosophy.

A star comes in.

You want him to be portrayed right.

He makes an impact.

He speared Carmelo Hayes and tossed him out and hit the Brekensteiner on Gable and suplexed Otis, just picked him up and just fucking flung him.

And leveled Rey Mysterio and speared Escobar while Escobar had Penta

up on his shoulders and then he tossed Escobars.

He just running roughshod here, right?

And that people remember those highlights.

And then

the low light came when number eight

was Tozawa.

And as he's coming out,

and I thought,

with the new

more adult, grown-up,

sensible approach to the WWE, have they outgrown Tozawa?

Is it funny anymore to anybody?

Well, he's part of the comedy act with Model Girl and Otis.

Is it funny anymore to anybody?

No, it's not funny.

I wouldn't say any of it's funny.

Well, then, how could a comedy act not be funny?

Send them to the fucking Catskills.

It's a wrestling exclusive thing.

Let them get booked on their own merits and see what happened.

Otis will be washing dishes, and Model Girl will be

washing dishes.

Washing dishes alongside Otis.

So Carmelo Hayes is going back while Tozawa's coming out, and Hayes just leveled him in the entranceway and knocked him goofy.

And they follow with the camera.

They pick him up and take him back to the gorilla position.

And there's Triple H.

And he's like, Tozawa's hurt.

He can't go.

Well, somebody's got to go.

And then he turns around and tells somebody, I thought

because the gorilla position wasn't lit that well.

And I see the guy, I thought it was Leo Rush.

But it's somebody that you mentioned earlier that people on social media

acknowledge or whatever named ISHO Speed.

Now, how does he show speed?

He shows speed.

He saw speed.

Well, he may have taken some speed to get the courage to go out there.

He's an influencer.

Have I mentioned how badly I hate that word influencer?

Like, has anybody ever aspired to be an influencer?

And if you have, how sad must your life be?

Yeah, how many of these influencers are just trying to influence you to buy their meme coin?

How many of them are just trying to influence their way on a WWE pay-per-view now?

That seems like an easy thing to do.

That actually seems like the easiest thing of all.

Yeah, well, this guy, but he was under the influence, and so they sent him out there.

And I wrote, what the fuck, who is this?

Because I didn't know at the time that he was the social influencer.

So he slid in the ring and ran up behind Braun, who was trying to dump Otis and helped Braun dump Otis.

So he technically got credit for an assist on an elimination.

And then he did a back, a standing backflip in the middle of the ring, like celebrating.

And then Braun Breaker speared him.

so hard he turned his toenails backwards.

And then he picked him up and bodily threw him over the top rope to Otis, who caught him on the fly and gave him the SOS, the sack of shit slam overhead, over the announce desk, and wasn't even looking where he threw him.

So

you could tell that those two guys

would have spent money to do those spots because they enjoyed that.

And whoever this fucking guy is,

when he wakes up, I'm sure he'll have had a wonderful time.

But the anticipation anticipation was awesome because as

i smell speed what's his name i i i smell i

what is his name i i show speed i show i wrote it down i show speed i feel pretty oh so pretty well as he's standing there brawn breaker starts running the ropes and you know it's coming and you're like oh

and he backs up and

braun hit him as hard as he's ever hit anyone Boom.

Well, that's because the guys resent this.

But don't you have to?

Even if you didn't, don't you have to?

Because if you're light on the celebrity there, it kills you.

Yeah.

Of course, you know, and that's why

all the guys who, it was a big thing.

It was a thing in Ring of Honor.

I'll get back to this match in a second.

Like 15 years ago or whatever.

When guys would go out after the show, fans would want the guys to chop them.

And we actually sent a memo out at one point when Sinclair took over I said, don't chop any goddamn, because there were videos popping up on Twitter or whatever.

I said, number one,

if you cave the guy's chest in or if he has a heart attack walking away from the fucking fan fest or whatever ambulance chaser gets a hold of him,

he could suffer ill effects and sue you.

But more importantly, if you don't hurt the motherfucker and he stands like, oh boy, yeah, that stings.

And look at the state of him, then what what does it say for your opponents when they go down so nobody can ever go down from your chop ever again so what are you fucking doing here tell the fans i don't get paid i don't fucking hit people and i'm not going to hit you because then you'll sue me or your family will because you'll be dead

anyway

So i show speed was shown the door.

And then number nine was Seamus.

And number 10 was Jimmy Uso.

And number 11 was he's single girls and looking to mingle, Andrade.

And then we get to number 12, Jacob Fatu.

And again,

here's a guy they got plans for.

He needs to look good.

He kicked Gable and Samoan dropped Andrade and gave the ass to face to Gable.

And

Pinta tried Zero Meadow and got to zero and got punched.

And then he picked Pinta and Rey Mysterio up and gave them a double Samoan drop.

Tossed Gable and tossed Mysterio and tossed Andre

and just had turned and he and Braun Breaker were about to face off and there was some anticipation and the rest of people that were in the match got in and broke it up and diverted their attention.

But they shot it well.

You got that moment with Braun behind him in the crowd, like waiting for it.

We'll have to wait a little longer, but I bet it'll be worth it.

Well, and if you notice all these shots where they get a guy's face, but there's a guy behind him and the over-the-shoulder and all the,

it's not like that they're just grabbing that on the fucking fly.

And now, again, this is another reason why

if you're at this level and they're doing this as a talent and you're doing this kind of stuff, you've got to be able to know where you are in the ring.

I'm sure they're

walking through it or going over it or giving some kind of briefing beforehand about, oh, if we get this shot or whatever, but to be able to,

you're in a stadium, 70,000 people, you're in a match with a bunch of fucking guys, and still you got to know that you're on the east side and you need to be facing to the north to look over the guy's shoulder.

It's very, it's very complicated.

Fortunately, back in my day, we didn't have to worry about that because with the cameramen we had, we were lucky if they were actually shooting the ring.

Jackie Crockett was shooting the fucking the blonde from Spartanburg in the front row half the time.

Anyway, number 13, Ludwig Kaiser

took his time.

He had that,

you know, pissy face walk that he does, and he didn't get in the ring.

He went to ringside and he...

Kind of hung out and hung out.

And finally, he saw his chance.

He rolled in and grabbed Penta and went to throw him over the top rope.

And Penta reversed it and tossed Kaiser.

And that was it.

So actually,

it's better if that happens to you than if you go out there and you're cannon fodder for 10 minutes and then somebody dumps you and they don't make a big deal out of it.

And by the time that you've been in for 10 minutes, they forgot when you came in anyway.

So if you're an underneath guy, you're not going to get a pop for being dumped after 10 minutes.

But after 21 seconds, they like it.

Hey, a little less than a month in, and I don't think he was on last week's Raw, but the two matches, then the Rumble.

What do you think of the way they're treating Penta?

They're definitely, again,

they're trying to push him.

And they, well, they are pushing him.

And

he did better in the first TV or the second TV match than I thought he did in the first TV match.

And the first one was with Gable.

So a lot of that was him.

He's the language issue

is going to play some level in it.

That's something that Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero didn't have to really contend with.

So I think they're trying, and he's going to be very valuable for them,

especially in the Hispanic markets and as a merchandise seller.

But I still think that he and his brother coming in at the same time, they would have been a bigger splash as a tag team

than possibly than he's going to be carrying on his own.

Yeah, Tony knew that too.

Exactly.

That's the point.

Yeah.

But then number 14 was the Miz, and we come back to reality.

And then number 15 was TNA champion Joe Hendry.

And he hit the ring and got a comeback on.

Several of the guys, got a big ovation from the crowd, chokeslammed Miz, so he got over with me.

And then

as as he was celebrating all these things Fatu stopped him and they started to do a thing where Seamus was there and he wasn't happy that Fatu stopped him because he was like I was enjoying that when he was doing the boom boom clap boom boom clap thing

but we didn't have time to see if that was going to lead to a fight because number 16 was Roman Reigns with Paul Heyman.

And you know what?

Now that I saw that, I'm pissed off.

You know why?

No, pissed off at what?

Because back in my day,

they told the managers, don't go to Ringside for the Royal.

I have a picture of, I think it was the

had to be the 1995 Royal Rumble, with me standing in the entranceway pointing to the ring, telling Jimmy Del Rey, run, run.

Because the manager would just come out and like, go, run,

be free.

Go win the Rumble for me.

And then you'd go back.

they didn't have the managers at ringside back in my day well now there's only one manager nobody takes up as much space as like four or five of us did back in the day I thought we were clear and free of any insults and here we are again well I'm just stating facts you know we could all me

Albano

Harvey Whippleman the Johnny Polo

the other Bobby Heenan, we could all fit inside a cargo elevator.

You know, that walk to the ring may be the most steps Paul Heyman's put in in a year.

Exactly.

Normally, he calls a cab in New York to get from one place to the other.

It's that far apart.

Anyway, here came Roman Reigns, and he tossed The Miz, and he tossed Seamus, and he tossed Hendry.

And then Braun speared him.

And Braun went to toss Roman Reigns out, but Roman reversed it and tossed Braun Breaker out.

So again,

the guy that got early offense on Roman Reigns after his initial flurry was Braun Breaker, and it fell to Roman Reigns himself, one of the most over guys in the match, to dump Braun.

So,

anytime that Braun talks about from now on, about

if he's confronted with not winning the Rumble, well, it took Roman Reigns.

So, this was very good.

And then Fatu jumped Jimmy Uso and tossed him about the same time.

So, now

we got Roman and Fatu for the first time, a little tease.

And they did them.

I got to be honest, the big, okay, now we're going to fight 1-2, 1-2, 1-2 may have been slightly overdone.

It was appropriate for all the people that did it, but it was a lot in the end of this match.

But the big one, too.

And then Jacob took over, but Roman came out with a big spear.

Boom.

And wouldn't you know, just at that time, number 17 was Drew McIntyre.

And he wants Roman.

So now we got Roman and Drew in a big one, too.

Roman and Drew and a big one, too.

And how about you?

Dosie do.

And then Fatu stopped Roman, but Drew helped Fatu because, obviously, he doesn't like Roman.

So Strange Bedfellows here.

Actually, that was a German video series.

I don't know if they can subtitle the pay-per-view Strange Bedfellows, can they?

I don't know.

I don't know this video series.

Well, then, while all the big boys were fighting, here came Finn Balor to give Penta something to do because he'd been laying around for a while while McIntyre and Roman and Fatu and Braun and everybody mixed it up.

And then after Finn and Penta got going, then 19 was Shaky Nakamura.

And then number 20 was Jey Uso, and he got the big pop.

And there was 70,000 people waving and yeeting.

But like, if he'd have had to come from the top of this arena, Coliseum, stadium, all the way down to the ring, he would have, again, he would have needed a fucking defibrillator by the time he got to the ring.

But Jay made a comeback on everybody.

And a little awkward.

Some of these guys are not the best at feeding him, and he does have the timing

situations, and he tossed Nakamura out, but he's not a big,

like, you know, brawn breaker hits the ring.

He's got to toss three or four people.

Jay's not an animal.

He is a human being.

And then number 21 comes about A.J.

Styles.

Number 22,

Brown Strongman.

You have nothing to say about AJ Styles?

This is the first time we've seen him in a while.

I forgot that he'd been gone.

I'm so, but I don't know what's going on.

Welcome back, A.J.

Yeah, thanks for coming.

And Brown Strong, man, this was where they needed Andre the Giants' motorized cart, right?

This poor guy, his fucking legs are

people who've had polio are more mobile than...

Were you surprised he was here after the angle they did at the end of the match with Jacob Fatu on Saturday night's main event?

Yes, kind of, especially especially when he was, you know, not in any kind of plaster or cast or wrappings or anything.

And then

I think they did a great, great job getting Fatu over in this, but for this guy to come out and then get in a fight with Fatu and eliminate him.

That was kind of, that wasn't well thought out, in my opinion.

Somebody else that is going to be money going forward with the Bloodline story and the world title picture and whatever the fuck

should have been the one, I think, to eliminate Fatu.

But he threw him completely over the top.

And then Fatu cleared the desk out and threw the

desk chairs, you know, around and pitched a fit, but he had to leave in the end.

And that,

yeah.

That's why I was kind of bleh about Fatu's elimination with the, and

especially again after he had been

pretty much run over by a fucking truck the other night, right?

But he is one big SOB.

That's what I've heard.

Indeed, he is.

How big a boy is he?

I don't know, 6'10.

What time do you think his brother gets off of work?

Who is next in the rumble?

You wait till my brother gets off.

I'll be down there.

See if you know, you know.

Roy D.

Mercer?

The next.

uh what is happening what are you

this is Roy D Mercer

all right number 23 was John Cena and the place blue as soon as you heard the the

crickets chirping of his music

and and

did you notice that John had a look on his face the whole time like oh shit what have I gotten into here

it would it was almost

he almost looks like, what the fuck?

There's, he's come in from a time warp.

He's still wearing the gimmick.

He's almost 50.

He's in great shape for his age, but he doesn't see the sun a lot.

And the bald spot was bigger than ever.

He's starting to morph into

Jim Varney.

Again, it's John Cena.

He's as skinny as a big muscular guy can be for Hollywood, but he's still in great shape.

No, I mean, he's not as like big and thick as he used to be.

Skinny is a great muscular guy.

Well, they don't want big, thick, muscular guys.

They kind of want skinnier, muscular guys because that's better on the silver screen.

But

I mean, he looks like he's in great shape, and he's got all the charisma of John Cena, so he's all right.

Well, I know he's good.

Why are you putting down John Cena?

Why did he?

Why did he?

I'm just saying it was just, it was odd.

Seeing him in this, actually in this company with Drew and Punk and everything, it's like

suddenly there was somewhat of a time warp in terms of presentation when you see what got over

during Cena's.

No, it felt cool, though.

Like when you saw it was Roman Reigns and Punk and Cena, it was like, wow.

You know, that Jey Uso, like, oh, well, I guess he won't be there too much longer.

And in here came Gene Stanley, and

we were amazed at the progress.

But Cena, the place blew, he came in, he dumped Brown Strongman

and tried to attitude adjustment Finn Balor into Brown's arms when Brown was standing on the floor.

And Finn fell short

and basically on the back of his head.

And Brown kind of bent over and grabbed his legs on the way down and then stood up and said, oh, fuck, and walked off pissed like he missed the fucking catch.

I don't know if he was mad at...

his own catch or at Cena's pitch, but if you go back, again, look, that's why I love the real television.

You slow-mo that, but he's like, ah, fuck this shot, damn it, damn it,

resin, rattin, red and fretting.

So then

Roman spear drew,

and Roman and Cena faced off.

And as soon as you got Roman and Cena there staring her eye to eye, nose to nose, toes to toes,

like Mussolini

in the stadium

had interrupted that thing.

He walked purposely as the crowd was singing his song and he's got the game face on.

And here comes Punk.

And now you got Punk and Roman and Cena were up on their feet.

And AJ

and Drew and Jey Uso were down on their face.

And the crowd was roaring.

And Punk and Roman and Cena said, that's what it, i noticed cena was like oh shit his facials were just hilarious to me but they milked the whole two minutes and they didn't touch they didn't do anything and boom the music played number 25 and it's seth franklin rollins

and now people oh shit

and

seth came in and tackled punk right away and then cena and roman got into it but then drew went after punk and then seth was fighting drew so this is what we came to see here.

All of this intermingling.

And then suddenly, number 26, Dominic Mysterio.

And he ran straight up to the top rope because Cena was laying there and splashed Cena and tried to three Amigo Roman.

And Roman just picked him up and gave him the Samoan drop and stopped his ass.

And boom, boom, boom, now everybody's mingling about again.

Number 27 is Sami Zayn,

who comes in, he kicks Drew,

and then he kicks Seth, and then he gets in a fight with Punk,

which was four-mingled and ghost-shadowed on Raw the other night.

And then

came number 28,

Damian Priest.

This poor boy.

It wasn't a big reaction.

He made a big comeback that was set for him to do.

Everybody fed him.

But did you, could you tell that it was like, no, we've seen Punk, we've seen Seth, we've seen Cena, we've seen Drew.

We are, we are not here for you.

He chokeslammed and tossed Dominic, and that got a big pop.

But I could choke slam Dominic and eliminate him, and I'd get a big pop because they wanted to see that happen.

But

was that kind of a real-time peak meter that Damien has not cracked into that echelon yet?

Yeah, and I don't think that is a good example because I think with him and Dominic, there is a specific history that may get a bit of a pop.

And I'll give you a great example, not to play spoiler, Drew McIntyre.

When they're looking at each other after the elimination, my first thought was, oh my God, I don't want to see this again.

Because we've seen that, right?

We've seen

Damian Priest in a judgment day had issues with Drew McIntyre.

But they got to do something with him.

But

can they send him to TNA for a while?

I mean,

no, I mean, seriously, just to retool and just kind of experiment or do something on a show with no viewers, just something,

because this isn't working.

There's no buzz.

There's no energy.

Guy was a world champion.

My kid said, who's that?

And my kid, he's a former world champion.

And then it hit me.

Wow, he's a former world champion.

No one's reacting to him.

Yeah.

And then number 29 was L.A.

Knight,

who came in and made a nice comeback.

I think some of it he might have just taken on his own.

Well, did you see the rumor is that it may be him.

And let me just say it's a rumor we don't know.

But apparently the story is that Drew McIntyre left the building or left the match really upset.

And other guys had problems too with one of the talent trying to get all this stuff in.

And a lot of people think it may have been L.A.

Knight.

And if you watch the match, you can understand why that may be a thought.

Well, but at the same time, didn't Drew McIntyre stalk out of a big show about a year ago and everybody was trying to read things into it and he was just working?

Yes.

And also, when he got eliminated here in this match, it appeared him and

Priest bumped into L.A.

Knight and whoever he was doing his spots with.

So they like collided right when they were doing obviously a very planned elimination.

But who knows?

Well, but who knows?

Let's keep our eyes on that.

But L.A.

Knight got all this stuff in.

That's what he said.

Yes.

Because he was running out of time.

Because number 30 was up and here came Logan Paul.

And

again,

right as Logan Paul was coming, suddenly Damian Priest dumped Drew McIntyre.

in a flat way from behind that you almost didn't see.

Maybe they were running a little long.

and then l a knight tried to dump logan paul but logan paul broad jumped from the apron to the desk so his feet had not hit the floor as of that point

and then that's when l a knight dumped priest

and logan paul walked around on the railing and jumped to the stairs and AJ was about to springboard off the apron, but Logan Paul foiled A.J.'s springboard attempt.

His feet hit the ground and he was eliminated.

So a lot of things happened there in a short period of time.

So again, you may be right, Brian, but I may be crazy.

But it just might be a lunatic you're looking for.

Or it may be Logan Paul.

I mean, those are really the two prime candidates, right?

L.A.

Knight or Logan Paul.

At the end of the match, who would have come in there and just tried to get their stuff in?

Well, but L.A., L.A.

preceded Logan.

And as a result, Drew's

elimination got no pop whatsoever because there was other things going on.

And

my money would then, in that instance, between the two of them go on L.A.

Night.

Yeah.

You know what I hate?

When people have to get all their stuff and...

Yeah,

I know exactly what you mean.

It doesn't make you feel too great.

Well, we're here at the great end of the rumble because now we got big stars in the ring and one of them has to win.

Yes, we got Roman.

We got Cena.

we got Jey Uso, we got CM Punk, Seth Franklin Rollins, and Lugan Paul.

And then they all started cooking their various spots and Seth gave the curb stomp to everybody and then faced off with Roman and they milked it forever and then they got in a big one too.

They did some back and forth shit and they were both hanging over the top rope.

And Punk came from behind and dumped both of them, Seth and Roman.

And then as soon as he looked down at what he had done and saw that it was good logan paul came from behind punk and dumped him

and then everybody's kind of like well wait what the what the

and punk and roman were both on the floor mad and seth

ran over and gave roman a double-footed curb stonk a stonk

double-footed curb stomp on the floor.

And then Seth and Punk got to fight.

And the referees were pulling them apart.

And Seth was chasing Heyman around and gave Roman a stomp on the stairs, and Punk tackled Seth again,

and all this stuff's going on.

But then Seth left, and then Punk left, and Roman was selling, but eventually he left.

But then now we had

John Cena, Logan Paul, and Jay Uso.

And you could tell

that with Punk and Roman and Seth out of this picture, that everybody thought

pretty much John Cena had to win this.

Wouldn't you say that was now what was in everybody's mind, right?

It seemed like the thing that made the most sense.

Figuring he has to get one of the big matches at WrestleMania.

Right.

So Logan Paul and Jay had kind of the awkward one, too, because

remember, Logan Paul's still not a veteran as far as timing, and Jay's timing is a problem even for the veterans.

But Cena picked up both of them for an AA, but Jay slipped off and kicked Logan Paul and dumped,

or he kicked Logan Paul and then John Cena dumped Logan Paul.

So now it's down to Jay Uso and John Cena, which was, again, kind of not what you would have expected because they're both so terribly popular with the fans.

And they milked it forever, and then they had a big one, too.

And the crowd got with that.

And Cena got to do the you can't see me for the last time

as he yelled, and the five-knuckle shuffle.

But then Jay got the super kick, and again,

and a spear.

And then Jay went to toss John, but John reversed it.

We've seen that spot a couple times.

But Jay held on, and John ran at Jay.

And Jay pulled the top rope down.

And

my God,

it was like

he barely cleared the top rope.

I right now

could get farther over the top rope, and Jay was pulling it down somewhat.

But John, instead of being the low bridge thing, he kind of got over it.

And they were both on the apron.

And they traded the punches, and they milked it.

And then Cena picks him up for the AA,

but Jay dropped behind in the ring and shoved John Cena to the floor where he landed basically feet first.

And I wrote all that for that.

Jey Uso won the Royal Rumble.

And then John Cena got in and hugged him.

And we were four and a half hours in.

And of all the people that a lot of people thought might win the Rumble, I don't think that a lot of the people thought that the people that was going to win it was Jey Uso.

And there was a lot of consternation and uproar on the internet for that result and General Zabada, but it kind of left people going, eh?

Tell me what the feedback is that you're hearing from all of your sources.

You know, it's weird because obviously he's super over.

He gets a great reaction.

Now, again, a large part of it is this is the audience participation era of wrestling.

It's the most expensive tickets for people that want to feel like they're at a concert or want to feel like they're involved.

They like it.

The matches are another story.

We just saw Gunther beat him.

Not really aching to see more of him against Gunther.

Think it's going to be him against Cody?

Don't really want to see him and Cody.

It ain't going to be, so we don't have to worry about it.

So, and the other thing, again, though, he's super over.

And a lot of fans loved it and went crazy for it.

We did see a lot of feedback, not just to us, but just generally on social media, from people who thought it was the wrong move.

I guess the big thing is the Royal Rumble maybe shouldn't be looked at as an end destination.

It should be looked at as something to further along a story, whether it's from CENA, whether it's from Jey Uso, whatever.

That's really what this is.

Elimination Chambers coming up.

The winner of that gets a title shot, right?

Well, but it would have to be at the other champion that the first guy, the Rumble winner, doesn't pick then, though.

And have they established from last year, can the championship be defended two nights in a row?

They can do anything they want to do.

But

here's the issue.

And this is what

people are trying to figure out how to explain, but they can't really explain it.

Jey Uso.

Because of the whole bloodline story, which we were talking about as it was happening, he was presented and the booking was genius as the sympathetic figure that finally broke away from the yoke of servitude under Roman reigns, right?

And they were leading people to make him a babyface, and people responded.

And then

they pulled the trigger on that.

And now with the bloodline versus the rogue bloodline,

they all got back together.

But Jay was on the side of right, right?

He had opponents that people wanted to see.

get their comeuppance.

They like Jey Uso.

They like the Yeet.

They like the sunglasses.

They buy the merchandise.

They love the entrance, like you said, the audience participation, the lights, and the waving.

That's all part of it, too.

They like Jey Uso,

and they want to see him

get even with the bad bloodline or get even with people or fucking Gunther.

Gunther called him the company mascot and a silly little man

and denigrated him and didn't respect him.

They wanted to see him beat Gunther.

But in the Royal Rumble,

the problem becomes, and this is sometimes people don't think about this, even people in creative positions.

To win the Royal Rumble, Jey Uso didn't just have to beat the guy that called him the silly little man and made fun of him and disrespected him or the rogue bloodline that everybody hated or the whatever the fuck.

For Jey Uso to win, it meant that Seth Rollins couldn't win, CM Punk couldn't win, John Cena couldn't win, Roman Reigns couldn't win.

In effect, a lot of those people, you know, because those have been the stories.

Those are the main guys.

Those are the meat of the matter, the titles, the

blood feuds.

We want to see these guys intermingle.

And suddenly none of them get the fucking deal.

Jey Uso, in effect, beat other people that a lot of the fans wanted to see win more than they wanted to see him win as much as they like him does that make sense

makes a lot of sense that's the backlash that's the feedback do they see

jey uso at that level if if roman had won are we going to see roman and cody again

if Punk had won, we're going to see Punk and Cody.

If fucking Seth went, we're going to see Seth and Cody.

But nobody wants to see Jay and Cody.

And truthfully, nobody still views the secondary world title that Gunther has as the one that the winner of the Royal Rumble should want to challenge for.

But now if they do the deal that Gunther beat Jay just here, when was that?

Not long ago.

Where was it?

Saturday Night's Main Event.

Yes, last Saturday or whenever the fuck it was, two weeks ago.

But now does Jay say, I want another chance, and they heated up with Gunther disrespecting him and calling him a silly little man and try to lead the people into wanting to see Jay get even.

And then I'm not really sure I'm a fan of that because if that does happen, Jay's got to beat Gunther at WrestleMania.

Or elsewhere he's dead as a flounder in a fucking sandbox.

So,

but that's the reaction from the...

From the fans.

They want to see Jay succeed until they realize that Jay succeeding caused punk or this guy or that guy not to.

And they're like, well, wait, but we wanted to see those other.

What the fuck?

Now there's the elimination chamber, and

so it's not like they're going to bait and switch that, but

he's not going to wrestle Cody.

It's going to have to be Gunther again.

They're just going to try to make people want that, and he's going to win it to justify their faith in him.

But that's my take on why that some people were like,

when it was Jay, which you know was not

uppermost in most people's minds amongst the people that might win the thing.

All right, well, there it was, the Rumble Royal,

and here we are backward again.

That's what they called it originally.

They didn't know what it was when Pat Patterson came up with it.

So, if you watch the early television episodes where they're plugging the original event in 88 to destroy Crockett, they're calling it the Rumble Royal at first.

Well, Well, but then they transposed their alliteration and became famous.

Can you hear now the pouring rain that has just started on my roof?

I don't want you to bitch about background noise, so I'm telling you ahead of time.

I still will, but I hear it, yes.

Well, you know, there's a lot of things to complain about today in this modern world, Brian.

And did you see?

I just saw it on the news.

I think you were talking to me about something similar, that now there's the equivalent of a plastic spoon of plastic in brain samples that they've been taking, that we're absorbing plastic from the atmosphere.

Have you heard about this?

Not from the atmosphere, but from what we touch and

the world we live in.

Yeah, I know all about it.

I'm the one who told you about it.

Well, I saw it on the news, too.

That's when I started believing it.

I don't just take your word for anything.

But you never know what kind of toxic sludge that you've got coming into your body, even unwilling on a daily basis you know i saw something else on the news people in their sleep swallow like 300 spiders a year and that's why i quit sleeping years ago and it didn't affect me at all affect me at all but you never know what's penetrating your environment hoagie dokey would you like a dose of raw to finish us off here today

This was another, I get with the commercials, I guess it would have been three hours because I watched it after the fact.

I can't stay up for this thing.

It's just too late at night.

Daddy got to get some sleep.

But

so I watched it without the commercials, and I still don't have on-screen fast forward, but it's easier to hit to high points when you don't have to fast-forward to commercials.

You're probably wanting to fast-forward some of this review, aren't you?

Well, I watched a lot of it live, so I couldn't really fast-forward through anything.

And

I watched a lot of it live.

The Rocket Mortgage Field House.

Did that used to be the Gund Arena?

Have I asked you this on a previous program?

Is that where we did SummerSlam 96?

I don't know.

Let me find out.

It's next to the stadium.

Well, there you go.

Another one of these big, major corporations, these corpulent corporations that bought naming rights for a

gunned arena.

Sounds like it's some bad shit going to go on, right?

Some fucking heavy stuff is going to take place.

Rocket Mortgage Field House

sounds like they're all going to be snapping each other with towels in a shower.

But there were 13,432 of them there.

And Cleveland is not that appreciably far from Indianapolis.

So when you're talking about drawing

13, 83, 90.

Almost 100,000 people

over three shows on a weekend.

That ain't bad.

But we got to talk about,

you know, it's not that far from Indy to Cleveland as a crow flies, but the crowd reactions were somewhat different, weren't they?

On several people,

including Charlotte, which we'll get to, but Jay Uso.

This is the reaction Charlotte gets.

I just don't think you realize it.

I mean, she got a little bit of a surprise reaction when she returned, but.

But what is she accused of

skinning Dalmatian puppies to make a coat?

She's a major star that's been gone for a year because of a major injury that people know is legitimate.

And she came back as a surprise at the Rumble and people were like, yeah.

And she won the thing and nobody, the snipers didn't pull out their scopes and nobody was drawing switchblades.

But then two nights later in Cleveland, they brought monkey feces to throw at her.

Because she's not a babyface.

She shouldn't be booked as a babyface.

But she was about to do a babyface promo that they told her to do until

she said, Fuck you.

All right.

I'll say until we get to that part.

Yeah.

But

there's a lot of stuff on this show.

I mean, none of it wrestling related.

Well, a little bit of it, but.

Well, who cares about the wrestling?

We want to talk about the show.

But also,

whereas the internet and the general, what do they call it?

The IWC, the Internet Wrestling Community,

was like, Jey Uso, and we talked about in the Royal Rumble review that you just heard, but that we had done a day or so ago, this fucking Frankenstein of a show.

People there, when they were thinking punk and Rollins, and they had him right in front of them, they were kind of eh.

And people on the pay-per-view,

they were like, well, we got Punk and we got Rollins.

But these people were right there live and they get to fucking see him and they went insane to begin with with the waving and the yeeting.

And the whole place was,

as they used to say, the whole place was live.

And when he got to the ring, they wouldn't stop and went on and on to the point where he

the fans started chanting one more time.

And he gave them the signal.

They restarted the music and the yeeting.

They saw him in this building.

He's in front of them.

He's a star and they came to to like it

so this wasn't your snarky

worldwide you know somewhat jaded internet wrestling community it was the people in cleveland

and then

he desperately needed to do a promo not only

that got to people with him as the as as the main event guy, but also,

what do we say in the review?

Nobody wants to see Jay and Cody.

Jay and Gunther, they just did it.

But now it kind of makes sense that if they do it again, Jay's going to win.

And he did both.

Not only did he nail the promo, but then they did the

face-off or standoff with Gunther that made the people want to see Jay kick the shit out of that guy and make him the pick.

that he's going to pick when he picks.

So this was the segment was incredible, I thought.

And it was 13 minutes into the show

before he even had to speak words.

Between the chanting and the eating and the cheering and the people standing up for him and him being overcome with emotion for real, that you could tell,

it just kept going.

And at 13 minutes in, he says, Thank you guys for that.

And they fucking roar again.

So, I'm

now

work aside, and we pick the work apart, and we should pick the work apart.

But he is nailing this as far as being

the guy that they know shouldn't actually be there because he's not that great compared to all these other guys, but he's so fucking likable.

You want him to be there and you'll overlook it.

And he comes out and tells the story.

I was a tag team guy and I was part of the bloodline, but I didn't think I could ever be the singles guy.

I wasn't confident.

I didn't have it.

But tonight, I got it now.

And yay, NHA, you deserve it.

And he was breaking, his voice was cracking and it wouldn't work because he's telling the truth.

I worked really hard to get to this position, but I got it because of you.

His voice broke up.

Thank all of you.

Because of you guys, I'm the Royal Rumble winner.

And they gave the applause.

This is the only thing

that he could have, the only perfect thing he could have done to come out and say to

make this is

he just he's likable and he's telling the truth to them.

I shouldn't be here.

You guys helped me just by liking me and doing the yeet and the whole thing.

And now look where I am and thank you.

Now he's their fucking horse if he never wins another race.

But anyway, he says, I'm going to WrestleMania, the main event, just me, ooze.

And then Gunther's music hits.

And

before we get into the Gunther reparte,

what'd you think of it?

You had to think Jay nailed this.

Of course he did.

And he always does.

I mean, that's what we always say.

Well, he's not.

No,

this is an all-time classic.

This is when you do it.

This is when you do it.

You're the man of the people.

You just won the rumble and the place is going nuts for you.

Yeah.

It transpired the right way.

It felt right.

But I mean, usually he does the I'm blown up anyway, so I'm going to spit out a few words where you can yeet promo.

And that's good to fire him up and everything.

But this was very difficult to do because he was emotional and it was true.

And that's what it should have been.

So it all worked out well.

And with Gunther,

in no way am I looking forward to the match.

But I think the week-to-week

build, promos, emotion,

I think those intangibles will make the build of the match and the weeks leading up to the match.

If he actually gets the match, I mean, we're assuming he will get the WrestleMania match in a few months.

It's probably a fair assumption, but.

Well, now that would be ⁇

if Jay and Gunther is not

for the world title at this point is not part of WrestleMania, they'll be pissed again at something.

Because now they want to see it.

And again, assuming it is, it's the same thing as if it wasn't.

I'm sure the story in the build will be good.

And the match will have an exciting, energetic entrance.

And maybe some drama after the bell and everything in between will be a problem.

But not a problem, but not optimal.

Well, not optimal.

But so Gunther came out and he did another Great Heel interview where he belittled

Jey Uso,

you can't lace my boots.

If I beat Cena or Punk or Roman, yeah, but not you.

You don't mean anything to beat you.

But if you choose me, I'll make every week hell and WrestleMania will be the worst.

I want to fuck you up.

So consider your options.

And he starts to just walk off and leave him.

And Jay says, I'm tired of people telling me what I'm supposed to be and what I can do and can't.

I mean, the man of the people, the people.

And whoever he chooses, he's going to walk out main event Jey Uso champion.

And then, of course, they're saying the same thing with the women.

I'm going to talk to Cody on Friday.

I'm going to see what's going on.

They're not having the pick being picked yet.

But

it will be a disappointment, I think, if this is not where it goes.

So it seems like that's where it's going.

I'm sure it will be.

And I'm sure it will be.

Wait a minute.

It will be a disappointment or it will be where it's going?

I'm sure it will be where it's going.

Okay, well, the way that when I phrased, what I phrased, the way I phrased it, and then you came back with that other phrase, it was unphrased.

But that's what happened there.

I will, again, I'm not going to dissect the match.

Ludwig Kaiser against Penta.

And the cool statistic was Penta was in the Royal Rumble for 42 minutes.

If you don't count that, he was eliminated about a minute and a half in.

And Kaiser was in for six seconds.

So they had the

long and the short of it there.

But

again, Kaiser, great worker, and he was calling it.

Either that or he was having a fucking long conversation with this guy in between the middle of their match.

And he was working his ass off.

I don't see Penta as being easy for a lot of these guys to work with because of a timing issue.

And

when he's trying to sell, which nobody's ever asked him to before, he doesn't get the body language, I don't think.

But the people like him and the gimmick and the merchandise.

So they're trying to have a lot of these guys that can

get the best with him.

And finally, the finish was

Ludwig hit some kind of big whoop-ty-doo and got a two-count and then went for an O'Connor roll-up.

And out of the roll-up,

Instead of rolling him all the way over on top of him, he schoolboyed him out of it and fed Penta the arm.

And Penta finally got it and did the arm snap thing, which I don't know if that's translated yet, that people understand what's going on there.

But then he hit his finish where he drops the guys on their head folded up.

One, two, three.

So, and then they give him another in-ring interview

where he was.

cut off after he said thank you and Pete Dunn

came out to stare at him.

And while that was happening, Kaiser jumped him from behind and gave him a kind of a crossroads DDT deal and then left the ring and left Dunn standing there.

I don't know what Dunn has done to deserve that.

But the Penta experiment, what did you think of this contest?

I thought it was all right.

And obviously it's a little different because it's the first time he's taken any punishment.

after the bell.

Just all right.

Nothing else to add.

Just all right, dog.

A little pitchy.

I was surprised when Pete Dunn came out.

I didn't think we were going to get a Pete Dunne-Penta feud.

I didn't think that was the way we were going to go after he beat him a few weeks ago, but maybe they liked the way they worked together.

All righty then.

Let's talk about the,

I was going to say the 800-pound elephant in the room, but Jax wasn't in this segment.

Charlotte came out to Queen Charlotte.

Charlotte Flair has returned and came out to the ring.

And as we said earlier at the top of this review, we were talking about how

different reactions can come from different crowds, even if the towns aren't that far apart.

They booed her like she owed them money.

She started out.

I saw this promo before.

Where?

It was almost to the day.

In 1993, I went to the third raw taping at the Manhattan Center.

And that was the night Brutus Beefcake.

made his return, gave the longest promo of his career, and got heckled because because he's just given this sob story that leads up to he was all alone at Hulk Hogan, came to his hospital bed and held his hand, and now he's back in the ring.

But I remember when he had recounted that it is the parasailing accident.

The way it happened in the room that I'll never forget, and I may be getting it slightly wrong.

It's been a long time, but the footage is out there.

He starts going down the list of things.

He's like, and then my wife left me.

And there's this one guy in the crowd that was like, good.

And then my parents died.

Good.

And then my face was destroyed in a paraselia.

And the guy just goes, let's go sailing.

But they shit all over him.

And he would always been a babyface.

There wasn't really any question.

Well, at least since 87.

This is a different story, but same promo.

Well, that's the thing.

You could tell she started out.

There was, she had something that she needed to say.

She would start to say, I missed you guys.

I missed that.

I I love doing this.

The last year broke me mentally and physically.

And every time she'd say one of those, they booed her more.

And, you know, and it looked like it was throwing her off for real because she's like, how am I going to?

She had to think on her feet.

And she ended up doing kind of a heelish promo and said, but I came back and I'm the greatest.

So boo me now.

I'm going to drink it all in because I love you guys.

Even though I'm, you know, trying to

somewhat follow the framework of the promo she was going to give when every time she would say, I love you and I'm so glad to be back.

They're like, fuck you.

Well, again, she's always better as a heel.

I don't think she could deliver lines as a babyface, even when they're sincere.

And the other thing is where this promo went,

unless she's wrestling Tiffany Stratton.

She's not a babyface against Rhea.

No one's going to care more than Rhea.

So it's, it's, what were they doing exactly?

I'm thinking, did they think they were going to have like a a punk and seth kind of thing where you had dueling responses or dueling reactions that that charlotte would be somewhat healish but did they think like i did that well she just came back from a goddamn horrible surgery and she is a name and it was a surprise and a rumble hey

there might be i don't know but

You agree with me that it looks like she it looked like she was switching gears in midstream to try to salvage the thing because they're just like fuck you.

I thought she did a good job because that's what she had to do.

But again, the question becomes: if she wasn't supposed to be booting a heel, why do you have the most popular babyface come out there to have a confrontation with her?

Well, I'm thinking they, you know, the battle of the icons, whatever.

But

she was getting hooted with Charlotte, and then she said, but I fought every day to get back here and heal this knee and the whole nine yards.

And then Rhea Ripley's music plays.

And she comes there and mommy is over.

And now it's just like, oh, yeah, the opposite reaction.

And

they went back and forth a little while.

They've had a couple of matches at WrestleMania and Rhea says, yeah, I respect you, but please pick me because at the last WrestleMania we faced each other, I beat you.

And then Charlotte said, well, the first time I beat you.

And Rhea said, well, you're right, but I was just a kid back then.

Oh,

sick burn, as the young folks say.

But that's what Charlotte said, well, I got nothing but time.

I'm going to see Julia.

I'm going to see Tiffany.

See if they inspire me.

But Rhea, you've shown me you're still just a kid.

I'll see you next week.

And Rhea bowed up at her and said,

you show me by the way you talk to me that you don't respect me like I respect you.

So pick me and I can beat the respect into you.

And one would think they're going in this direction.

And I don't, with this response, if it was Charlotte and Tiffany, Tiffany'd probably be the babyface.

Actually, she may have been anyway, just because even though Tiffany, I guess, is Tiffany a heel?

I guess technically she was.

Did she turn babyface or is she still?

No, I think she's still snotty.

They just like her because she's snotty.

I don't know.

It doesn't put Charlotte in a really good position there.

I mean, these are the two most popular women on the roster right now.

It's hard to get cheered against them.

So Charlotte kind of has to be a heel.

And that's the best way for Charlotte to be used.

She's better in the ring as a heel, I think.

Yeah, well, I mean, I'm not going to argue that.

I just thought that she would have more

oomph as a well, we're glad she's

any sympathy.

We're glad you're back.

But it's like, no, can you please leave again?

I had the toughest year of my life, but I missed you.

Boom!

Fuck you.

We didn't even notice you were gone.

I've worked so hard to get back because of you.

Boo.

That's even worse.

Don't blame us.

It's not our fault.

All right.

But so there's that.

And then

there was other things which I don't particularly care about.

And then the whole thing with Seth and Punk and Sammy.

We'll just, we'll talk about that because Sammy was in the back.

He's going to have an elimination chamber qualifying match tonight with CM Punk, the first time they've ever wrestled, apparently legitimately, in their careers.

And he was talking about that for a second.

He said, oh, wait,

I need to talk to somebody.

And he walks across the backstage area, and it's Jay Uso.

And

he hovers up next to Jay, and the people are like, is there tension?

Is there heat?

I can feel it.

And he grabs him and gives him a big hug.

I'm sorry I kicked you in the rumble or wherever it was.

It was an accident.

And Sammy gave him a pep talk.

You know, you got to go out there and do it for yourself.

We love you and you're great.

Cause Sammy's the

reconciliator,

reconciliator.

He's the person that wants to bring everybody together and reconcile their differences.

And then Karrion Cross walked in and started talking to him and I quit paying attention.

Well, I mean, isn't that generally the normal response?

You'd owe this fucking guy again.

I don't know.

Maybe he'd be a baby face against Charlotte, though.

Let's see what happens.

And then Punk later on in the back responded that he didn't win the Royal Rumble, but neither did Roman, and neither did Seth.

And I apologize in advance to Sami Zayn, but I'm going to go to the elimination chamber tonight at his expense.

And now Roman is injured and out for the foreseeable future is what they're saying.

So is he the last man to enter the elimination chamber?

Or

what's going to go on with Roman?

I mean, that's part of the story.

Again, it's all Game of Thrones.

Like everyone wants the throne.

Everyone wants the belt.

There are multiple people who want the belt either for the main event position at WrestleMania or just to be the champion again.

And Roman is not giving up on that belt.

So you got to figure between now and WrestleMania.

He has to get back into the picture of at least trying to hunt for it.

That makes sense, the elimination chamber.

Yeah.

And also

another

cliffhanger.

But speaking of people who should be hanging off a cliff, so Seth Franklin Rollins came to the ring in a black leather cowboy outfit.

He looked like Trish Stratus without the

proper chest development.

And

they did the deal where he made his entrance and everybody's, whoa.

And they go to the break.

And by the time they came back from a a break, and they went to backstage, and they went to a plug, and they went to this and that, and they may have gone to another break.

He had to have been out there for 10 minutes by the time they came back to the actual ring.

And what do they do with even a guy as

big a star as Seth Rollins?

How do they have him stand out there for 10 minutes?

Does he go away somewhere?

One of the live event

members of the cult of cornet, please chime in on this.

Is he just standing there in the corner, like, oh, god damn it, it won't fucking come back to me.

What the fuck?

So

he had a lot of shit to get off his chest,

and he is happy for Jay Uso because he wants to see people get what they deserve.

And Jay

deserved that.

Just like Punk,

I love seeing him get embarrassed.

He lost the Rumble, and Roman, he lost, and he may not make it to Many at all because he's hurt, and I'm the one who hurt him.

I love people to get what they deserve.

And

I lost the rumble.

That hurts, but there's still the elimination chamber.

And

old Sami Zayn better take care of his business tonight.

As a matter of fact, I need to talk to him.

So

he brings out Sami Zayn.

And Seth gives him the pitch that he needs to beat punk tonight.

And all the reasons he said you weren't on his level, Sammy.

But it's your night.

He gave him the pep talk.

Put his dream of WrestleMania in the dirt for good and go to the elimination chamber and fight me.

I'm going to be there.

And as he's making this pitch to Sammy, who, of course, is, you know, standing there non-committal,

he finally gets to that part, and suddenly you hear Laka Mussolini coming out early.

Because here comes Punk and he's like, what the fuck's going on?

As he's coming down the aisle, Seth says, fuck it, jumps out and goes to meet him.

And the referees are in between them and they're separating them in the aisle way.

There's bad blood and horrible feelings.

The mixed emotions between these two.

But then Punk goes to the ring.

Sammy is in the ring.

And the first time ever, we got Punk and Sammy.

But now, again,

Seth is trying to convince Sammy to fuck with Punk, even though Sammy and Jay and everybody, they're all happy with each other until somebody stirs the pot here.

And then we had,

imagine this, a wrestling match.

where they

started with a lockup.

They did headlocks and takeovers.

I mean, they did a couple of spots.

It was refreshing to see wrestling on a wrestling program.

And then the tempers flared and they started pie-facing each other.

And then they started laying in the chops, but it wasn't the

indie-level stand here and you hit me and then I'll hit you.

It was they were blistering each other and they were selling them.

And Sammy works well in the environment like Rey Mysterio, where he's selling and fighting from underneath.

And then he'll fight back and he'll pummel Punk, but then Punk will fight back.

And

at one point,

you know, they had CM Punk chance.

At another point, they had Sammy chance.

And

here, one thing, did you have the video glitches?

I saw on Twitter, I was not alone, but.

No, I had them.

I watched live and they were all throughout the night, but especially there was a moment here in this match where it was pretty frequent.

Yeah, and that's it.

Was that that was network transmission from Cleveland then, right?

Because if it was if Netflix's signal live was going out and doing that, then they would have been able to fix it on the replay.

It had to be the signal they were getting.

So you think Tony Khan has sent the plant like into the truck?

We had the audio issues the other day where all of a sudden we got the Spanish feed.

Now the regular feed is just cutting out.

Very AEW-like.

Well, no, the Spanish feed was

on the pay-per-view, right?

No, Saturday night's main event.

Saturday night's main event.

That's right.

That,

because it's NBC.

It's not their regular network.

That, I can believe, may have been something at Master Control.

And then

they couldn't figure it out until they figured it out.

This not a mistake that they made in the truck and feeding audio to the wrong place or not going to the right video or whatever.

This was just going black and breaking up.

That's why I'm thinking somehow there was a problem in the transmission between Cleveland and wherever

the Netflix network

receives its shows to fucking put them out.

But it was hard to follow for a minute.

But anyway,

Sammy hit the blue thunder, got a two count, and they chanted, this is awesome.

And Punk had been working Sammy's bad left arm through the match and hit a divorce cord on it like Bobby Eaton

and got the Anaconda vice.

And people are chanting Sammy, Sammy.

And then Sammy squirmed to the ropes and got the rope with his foot and got a pop for a rope break.

Imagine what you can do when you're having a wrestling match.

And then they had, let's go, Sammy CM Punk.

And boom, some more two counts and false finishes.

And the fans were screaming.

And finally, Sammy hit that, what do they call it, the exploder suplex in the corner and milked the kick.

And as he went for the kick, Punk scooped him and hit the fucking go-to sleep one, two, three, and got a big pop.

And

it was a great wrestling match because it was refreshing that it wasn't the same shit that everybody does and

the people were into it.

And then

we've established that the elimination chamber will be CM Punk, John Cena, and

four other folks to be named.

And then

right as Punk is offering his hand to Sammy and Sammy takes it, like, okay, we're going to put all this behind us.

Owens comes from behind out of nowhere and nailed Sammy from behind into punk and both of them went down but instead of getting on punk he grabbed Sammy and gave him the package pile driver

boom and as he landed folded up and boof we we go off the air so now Owens has turned on Sammy again

Boy, Sammy's a forgiving guy, isn't he, Brian?

How many times does a son of a bitch over a 15-year period have to stab you in the back?

Isn't this four now?

It's been maybe more than that if you go back to the indies.

Wait, counting Ring of Honor, it's been at least four.

We said it a few weeks ago.

You got to figure out at some point in their career, and they're not getting younger, they're going to want their crazy WrestleMania match.

They've been working against each other their entire lives.

They only wanted to work against each other at various times.

They came into the business together.

The only thing they don't have is a Kevin Steen El Generico balls to the wall WrestleMania match.

Well, now their balls will be taped up to the wall.

I predict that.

I predict we're going to see Steen and Generico part

37.

And what's going to happen between now and then?

Because CM Punk obviously has an issue.

Someone bumped into him and knocked him out of the ring.

I think he'd be more than happy to be bumped and knocked out of that whole program.

If he could just take a bump past the ropes, past the apron, and all the way to the locker room.

Okay, you guys finish.

Well, that was WWE Raw.

It certainly was.

And this was the Jim Cornette experience.

How long did we go today reporting all this news?

Officially, too long.

Officially?

Well, in that case, we'll be back officially next week to do it again.

Is it this week or is it next week?

Oh, come on, not again.

All right.

Technically,

you know, I don't know.

Technically, we'll be back in a couple of days with the drive-through.

That's your program.

And we've got all kinds of comments and recipes and organ playing.

People's organs will be manipulated on the drive-thru this week with Brian Last.

And next week on the Experience, part two of Ash Abelson.

He's not like Cher, I guess.

Ash.

And more of that stuff.

You're trying to hurry me.

All right, Brad.

No, no, I'm giving you background music.

I'm trying to get you in the mood for the well in that case.

I'm trying to hurry me.

If you're going to play music, thank you.

Fuck you.

bye-bye, everybody.