Jim Cornette Experience Special - CM Punk / MJF Feud Omnibus

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I don't know what to do.

I'm always in the dark.

The smoking deck shore smells like a dark bar.

Downy rinse fights stubborn odors in just one wash.

When impossible odors get stuck in, rinse it out.

like the midnight and the rock and roll.

He's in a fight for wrestling soul.

Using a racket and some mind control.

He's Jim Cornette.

The keys to the future held by the past.

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

He's Jim Cornette.

Well, he's never afraid, cause won't

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, friends, and you are our friends, and it is omnibus season.

We are back on the bus, the great Brian last here.

You there, and of course, we have a big topic, a collection of great segments from the experience and the drive-thru with this man, Mr.

Jim Cornette.

I'm up here now, Brian.

Can you see me up here?

What are you doing up there?

It's a double-decker bus.

Double-decker?

So, so I'm on the top so I can get a good view of everything because we're talking about a double deal here today because this is for people who say that we have never complimented AEW or given it a chance or tried to be fair about the thing.

We don't like nothing.

Well, there was a time when we liked something because we liked both decks of the people that were involved in it before the bus ran over it.

The CM Punk and MJF feud, they had a star, CM Punk, and they had a guy with the talent to get over and become a star, MJF.

If

I won't even say with any help from the booking, if the booking just hadn't beaten him over the head like a cudgel.

But during this period of time,

they were doing a little cooking.

A little cooking.

Do you smell what they were cooking?

I do, and I think a lot of AEW fans did.

I think when it comes down to the best feuds in the history of AEW, the best promos, the best heated angles, and the best matches, CM Punk and MJF may be the top of the food chain there, and very little can really compete with it in terms of the business it did, in terms of the acclaim, both from critics and the average run-of-the-mill fan.

It may be, and I think it is, the best feud in AEW history.

And so this is an omnibus of all of the coverage that we gave, if I am understanding this concept correctly.

All the coverage that we gave this concurrently as it was happening, compiled, compiled,

compiled with all the bile.

That's right.

It's a very combustible compilation of bile compiled

all here in one place.

So you can listen to it in chronological order all the way through from the from go to woe.

Well, let's go to it now.

Some would say the highlight of CM Punk's running AEW.

Some would say the highlight of MJF's running AEW.

The CM Punk MJF feud omnibus starts right now.

Speaking of shutting up, they were chanting at people to shut up here in a minute.

MJF, we get him twice.

We get him on tape and we get him live.

Here comes MJF with Spears and Wardlow.

I don't mind Sean Spears now.

Now that he is a flunky to

MJF, he's got a flunky.

He's got a bodyguard.

You've got people in the periphery to

do MJF's bidding.

That's not bad.

And MJF cuts another promo.

And again, great.

He did.

He mentioned, by the way, did you hear him say, I'm the man that's going to start a bidding war in 2024?

Great line.

He said, I could take a big old cowboy shit on Adam Page's title reign.

And he deserves to be the next champion because nobody in the locker room is on his level.

Now, of course,

as we know from previously, whenever you say a provocative statement like that, some music is going to play.

But as soon as MJF said it,

like Mussolini

with extra cheese, pickles, onions, if you please,

put on the bun, the mayo there.

I'll eat it and I'll.

All right, anyway.

I don't know.

Like Mussolini, but there he can.

The people lost their shit, and so did I.

MJF and CM Punk.

And here comes Punk to the ring, and MJF's got the face like, oh, shit, what the fuck?

I don't know whether this was an error.

The music dropped abruptly when Punk was stepping in the ring, and it seemed like it shocked us, threw the mood off a little bit, but they got right back into it.

They're face to face, but Punk's standing there with his arms crossed.

He doesn't have a microphone.

He's just looking at MJF.

And MJF,

nobody says a word.

They're already getting a holy shit chant.

And then nobody says a word.

They get the shut the fuck up chant.

And then finally,

I thought MJF was great here.

This is all he needed to say because he just did the cheesy thing where he kind of got the fake smile and sticks his hand out and introduces himself, says Maxwell.

And Punk just has his arms crossed, looks at the hand, looks at MJF, looks at the scene, and just scoff, laughs, and turns and walks out on him and left MJF with shit on his face.

That's the way

that you start a program by insulting or offending or embarrassing a heel.

You don't grab him and shove his head in the fucking toilet and flush it and give him a swirly.

You don't beat him bloody.

You don't

beat him

out of something,

some gold championship or some amount of money, you don't

insult him in a personal way like that.

And now, of course, the ball is in MJF's court to be a snot about the whole thing.

But that's the way you start a program by embarrassing a heel.

So now he wants to do something about it.

But Punk has not by any means,

you know, gotten his revenge for something that hadn't even been done yet.

But he's not beaten MJF up, he's not fucking taking heat off of him by just treating him like a fucking, you know, flunky.

So the personal insult, that was, and, and Punk didn't have to say a goddamn word.

That was great.

What a segment.

You know, again, they vacillate.

How's that for a word?

From positive to negative at polar opposites.

Your thoughts?

I thought this was excellent.

MJF was delivering her great promo, and then the moment, it's really all about that moment when the music hits and the people pop, and it was the pop for Punk.

And I felt it was also the pop for, okay, this is interesting.

Yeah, here's two guys.

It's the pop for they like who is going to interact in the ring with each other.

Yeah.

And I thought Punk played it perfectly.

Punk has a look.

Punk has a 1,000-batting average so far in AEW.

He has been spectacular in everything he's done.

Spectacular by being simple.

Yeah.

I mean, this whole thing was so simple and so compelling, and very little was said.

And I have a hard time thinking anyone saw this and can't wait to see what's going to happen next because they didn't give anything away.

We don't know what the hell is going to happen.

And it was so simple.

I hope they don't rush this

because this has the potential to be something special because these are two top-tier personalities in AEW.

Punk's the biggest star they have, and MJF's the biggest star they have for the future.

I'm really looking forward to this.

And

not only can they not rush it, I hope, but also this is what

the benefit was to MJF getting involved with Brian Pillman Jr.

It did elevate temporarily Brian Pillman Jr.

to be involved in something like that, to have spotlight on him as a single, to be involved with a guy like MJF that people do take as a...

as an uppercard guy.

If they'd have followed up on that momentum within giving Brian a few wins after the program was over with and involving him something he could come out on top of, that would have been great.

But that's, unfortunately,

too advanced booking for our amateur Booker of the Year.

So he dropped the ball on Pillman, but

at the same time, you needed MJF because MJF had been swirlied and flushed down the toilet, literally.

And

he needed to beat Brian Pillman Jr., then go to Darby Allen.

And he obviously needed to come out on top of Darby, but Darby looks better.

And there's still an issue between them that you can revisit.

But now that MJF has come out on top of two guys,

clearly, I mean, obviously he cheated, but he clearly beat them by cheating because he's a heel.

And now he's ready for a top guy.

If they'd have started with this and punk

before

Pillman and Darby, then yes, the promos would have been great,

but not a lot of anticipation maybe for the match because MJF would have still been seen as the fucking dipshit that was treated like a goof by Chris Jericho.

Now he's got some momentum going.

I hope they don't rush it.

And also, for fuck's sake,

if anything,

If any match they've ever had calls for a rematch to be envisioned before the first match even happens, it's this.

Because, I mean, we could sit here and think about it and go up and down the pros and the cons,

but I don't see MJF bumping his head on the ceiling that is CM Punk and then getting,

you know,

knocked back down.

But at the same time, I don't see

MJF getting the last word on CM Punk and CM Punk not getting a

comeback.

So I think there ought to be some way here where they can split wins on a series of two matches.

I don't know who comes first, who comes, whatever.

I mean, he still doesn't have a pinfall loss, right, MJF?

Well, I don't know what they've counted in those lights out matches or if they.

Pinfall, though.

Pinfall.

Yeah,

that's what I'm saying.

I don't think he's been pinned, and I don't know what his exact record is or whatever, but defeat-wise, especially cleanly and clearly, no, he's still

pretty untainted.

So

that's what I'm saying: is that there ought to be some way that they can orchestrate this where you could get each guy to win one and lose one, and then leave it open, see what happens.

Because that way you've established that neither guy is dominant,

but neither guy is also worse,

is lesser.

So that automatically brings

MJF up a notch.

I mean, I don't know that Punk's going to be able to get any more over in his fucking lifetime unless he cures cancer.

But anyway, that's something to think about.

Wednesday night, the night before Thanksgiving, they're in Chicago, Illinois.

Where do you got to start?

Where do you got to start, Brian?

I'm not going to sing it.

Lack mussolini

and extra cheese.

Pickles, onions, if you please.

Put it on the bun, the mayo there.

I'll eat it in my underwear.

Come on, enough.

I'm the cult of meat with extra cheese.

The cult of meat with extra cheese.

Now with tomato.

Oh, I didn't expect that.

There comes Punk, and I'm saying, okay, they're leading with Punk and QT Marshall.

Punk's a safe shot in Chicago every time, but suddenly

the music of MJF, not QT Marshall.

And I'm saying, well, it's Christmas.

Come early.

And by the time he gets to the ring, he doesn't even know.

The people are ready to hear this.

They've wanted to hear this, just like everybody else has, because Punk's Punk's noted for his promos.

MJF's noted for his promos.

And also, they're two of the most interesting personalities in the company.

And MJF, he did, before he barely even had to speak, they had the asshole chance, the CM Punk chance, the shut the fuck up chance.

And then they started.

And the way they did this, if you notice when they started out, they were all the way across the ring from each other in opposite corners.

And Punk is just humoring this little prick, like, what the fuck is this guy come out here to say?

And let him say it.

And over the, I don't want to jump ahead, but over the course of the thing,

as the comments got more heated and there got to be more back and forth, that's when they got up closer together to each other.

So they didn't start up.

They knew they were going a while.

So they didn't start face to face because then where are you going to go?

Remember, I mentioned that before,

especially with MJF and the way he's so sharp with some of this stuff.

Before he gets to his go home line, he's already emasculated the baby face if he's right there up in front of him where he could reach him.

This time they started and they gradually came together.

But

Punk let MJF build it and he just sat back and had the facials and the reactions to it.

But,

you know, MJF brought the, you know, the only straight-edge guy I've ever seen looks like a meth addict.

And I'm going to verbally finish you quicker than your UFC career.

That was the one.

That was the one where, as soon as you heard that, it took it to another level because you didn't know if they were ever going to bring that up in AEW.

You figured it would be a sore spot.

And who's going to bring it up?

The one guy who wants to really annoy CM Punk.

It was great.

And then just...

Just for Punk going to get a microphone and somebody handing him a microphone, the people popped on that because they were, okay, here we go.

You know, MJF, my jealous fan, the poster of me on your wall.

But then he hit hit him with a less famous Ms.

Oh my, what a burn, as the kids say.

And great reactions.

Yes.

From both guys throughout the whole thing.

Very different reactions, but the camera was on their faces, and you got to see the reactions, and it was perfect.

And this, it was like,

obviously, both these guys, you couldn't.

It wasn't obvious that you couldn't see a mile away that somebody had written this down or even that they had written it down down and practiced it.

It seemed off the cuff, spontaneous.

Two guys trying to blister each other as best they could and keep up their

respective reputations with that.

You know, MJF, your breath smells like shit because you've been kissing so much ass.

It's PG punk.

And then he starts comparing him to John Cena.

But

I did think that it was,

I don't know, ironic, funny, preposterous, whatever, that in front of this crowd, being compared to the biggest star that the wrestling business has made in the last 15 years is bad.

It's the representation.

But it's, it's the, yeah, it's what it represents.

It's just where everybody was in the scheme of things.

But anyway,

as they wound up and got worked up and got closer to each other,

and MJF says, you're nothing more than second best.

That's all you've ever been.

And, you know, I'm better than you, and you know it.

And then Punk

comes back instead of being mad and yelling at him and pissed off.

He said, you know, you're right.

You're right.

At first, I didn't know if they'd still give a shit.

I didn't know if I still had it.

I might have been a little, but I'm not scared anymore and I'm not unsure anymore or whatever.

And I'm not scared of you.

And I'll let you make the New York Times again, this time in the obituaries.

And

then he told him off and escalated it again.

Replaced as one of the four pillars by Britt Baker.

And then the only way that you'll ever be number one is if Tony has a daughter and you marry her.

That's and I even saw somebody complaining that they spent too much time talking about the other company.

I saw a lot of that.

And I think in a lot of cases in wrestling, it's a real thing, like an impact.

Don't talk about WWE.

It makes you look small.

But that wasn't what this was.

No.

These guys didn't ignore the obvious, the things that everyone in that audience knew about.

And by bringing all that stuff up, it made it all seem more real.

You believed what they were saying.

These are things you may not necessarily think you would ever hear on a wrestling show, which is why you got some of those reactions.

I think anyone who had a problem with them talking about, I mean, they didn't just go out there and yell WWF, WWF, WWE, excuse me, but they referenced things that everyone knows about.

It made perfect sense.

Yes.

And they referenced a place that he's been and they referenced fucking

all those fans know what's going on

and they know the relationships and they know the track records and it was good stuff.

And like you said, it made it seem real.

And then after the

if you marry Tony's daughter, that's well

here now.

You know,

the laundry starts coming off and Punk offered to punch MJF and his needle dick.

And so they start doing the here comes the scarf and here comes the jacket and here comes the blah, blah, blah.

And then MJF rolls out and takes off like a heel.

Fuck.

We ain't going to get to see it now, but we want to see it.

That was, I mean, it was, that was,

it's pro wrestling without any

physicality whatsoever.

The first step of pro wrestling is to get people interested in the personalities.

The second step in pro wrestling is get personalities

in conflict with each other where the people want to see them fight before they actually fight.

And then the third step in pro wrestling is let them have the fight and sell tickets to it

or pay-per-views or draw ratings or whatever the scale is these days.

And that's what they're fucking doing.

And I was gobsmacked that,

again,

you don't see anything that

real or legitimate or

just well done on anything the WWE does because even if they had anybody that could talk like this, they don't let them.

And those fucking pea-brained little fucking minutia dick fucking comedy writers hand them shit and say, no, you'll say this word for word.

and it sounds like it.

So,

this is where AEW can easily

blow the WWE television programs out of the water is with

real

interesting

promos

because it's the only place that guys are allowed to do them.

And honestly, how many places have guys that can talk like MJF and Punk?

So, there you have that.

I

can't rave enough about this segment.

I watched it more than once.

I tweeted it out.

I never tweet out AEW shit.

I tweeted this out because, you know what?

Because you're on the payroll.

Because I'm on the payroll.

Tony, I need a raise.

But,

you know, I tweeted it out because it represents what I want out of wrestling in 2021.

We can't go backwards.

I don't ever want to go backwards.

Everyone's like, you know, go back to 1985.

I don't want to go to 1985.

I want to live now.

But there are things you can apply that worked in 1985 that you shouldn't just reject because they're from 1985.

What I like about this is it's diametrically opposed to a Young Buck segment, where I think even if you like them, you have to admit there's goofiness, there's silliness beyond.

a natural goofiness and silliness.

You know, there are wrestlers.

Jim Duggan was naturally goofy on promos in mid-South.

I'm not talking about WWF Jim Duggan.

But the Young Bucks stuff, and I'm using them to encapsulate a lot of the bad shit, the Orange Cassidy stuff, the Matt Hardy stuff, a lot of this crap that I think doesn't belong on a national broadcast in 2021, it makes me embarrassed to be a wrestling fan and it makes me not like what I'm watching.

But when I see stuff like this, when I see stuff like Danielson right now,

stuff that treats it like it's real, stuff that doesn't insult your intelligence, stuff that's logical, that makes sense, that doesn't seem ridiculous.

This is my argument for what wrestling should be right now.

This stuff right here that's captivating, that goes 20 minutes and you can't fucking turn away from it.

I couldn't leave the room.

I was getting called downstairs.

I said, I'll be down in a few minutes.

I usually pause the shit and go downstairs.

Well, and part of that was because Suzanne forgot to leave me the keys to the handcuffs.

Well,

maybe so.

But this was a phenomenal segment.

I didn't want it to end.

It went a couple of different directions that I didn't expect.

And this is two weeks in a row now where I can't wait to see what's going to happen next with these two.

Nothing physical.

Right now it's just mocking each other and getting under each other's skin.

Draw this out.

We said last time, don't rush it.

You got something special here.

You got the biggest star in that company.

I would argue the biggest star in the entire wrestling business right now

versus the next biggest star in AEW, quite frankly.

This is a special moment and a special feud.

And so far, two weeks in,

it's been great.

And to me, it perfectly shows what I think wrestling in 2021 in terms of the angles and interviews and segments outside of the matches.

This is what I think it should be.

Everything can't be this, but everything could have the tone of this.

Well, yeah, and you mentioned

it's real, so it would work in in any time period.

In the 80s, they would have been yelling at each other about, well, I beat so-and-so and I beat so-and-so and I beat, well, you cheated to beat me.

And they would have been talking about the finish of something or their record like that was completely legitimate.

The people would have been with it because they thought it was.

Now

they were still making comments that the people could believe were legitimate.

They're just personal, they're not coming out and saying the wrestling business is 100% real.

And they're not coming out and saying that the wrestling business is

100% work or anything in between.

They are making it personal.

And each one of them is, well, not each one of them, punk and jealous of MJF, but MJF, the heel, is jealous of punk and trying to get over him.

So it's still, it's instead of

In the storyline context, instead of fighting over a championship or being screwed in a finish or whatever, and treating the business that way, they treat the business still seriously as a competition amongst who's going to be the biggest star and who can get over.

And they don't mention anything that would buzzkill you and take you out of the moment and remind you that wrestling is a work.

So it's just a little different way of approaching two guys having a problem with each other.

And they're doing it in a worked environment where you can still believe there's some animosity.

And, and, because one thing that fans know is that there actually is legitimate animosity in a lot of cases amongst guys who want to occupy the same spot, whether the endeavor that they're participating in is work or not.

So, yeah,

this is, this could be modern wrestling.

We've heard from so many people from interviews, from different things, from wrestlers who work there, that Tony loves mid-South wrestling.

Early on, remember, we heard that this is going to be like a modern version of mid-South wrestling.

Yes, which was why I was so particularly offended after hearing that when I saw the legless boy and whatever.

This

and Danielson, the last few weeks, this is mid-South wrestling in 2021.

Yes.

Yep.

And I think it's important to note that because there's still a lot of other really bad shit.

There's a lot of other shit that's improving.

There's a lot of other people who may right now be doing something to hold them over until the next thing, but there's still bad shit.

But the good shit in AEW right now is the best shit in years.

And this punk MJF feud,

this is very promising.

I mean, two weeks in, everyone's been buzzing about this segment, a 20-minute talking segment.

People are sick of talking segments.

It didn't feel like the normal talking segment.

No, as a matter of fact, and we're not over with punk's business yet, but when I

speed searched through the commercial, which that's really the only time I used the speed search this week, when I went through the commercial and and came back, that's when I realized, my God, we're almost half an hour into this show and it's flown by.

And then they had the punk.

Go ahead.

Well, I was going to say, and this goes into the next thing, but what I was going to say is

it's really an interesting dynamic right now because AEW, Tony Khan's from Illinois, and they go to Chicago a lot.

it creates a really cool dynamic you don't get anymore in wrestling because everything's a national touring company.

You get a home field advantage for punk.

You got a local audience cheering a local guy multiple times a year on national TV.

We haven't had that in a while.

You know, I mean, I know it sounds like a silly thing, but we never get that.

We never get a hometown flavor on a national wrestling show.

And we're getting it all the time now with Punk in Chicago.

It's kind of cool.

And if the WWE guys do happen to visit their hometown, if anybody knows that they're from that town,

they generally get bent over and pissed on and

mud slung in their face.

Kiss my egg.

Gobbly gook.

Well, Brian, next on the program in the parade of champions

was the other match that I referred to momentarily.

Lee Moriarty,

the arch nemesis of Sherlock Holmes and his faithful companion, Dr.

Watson,

grappled with CM Punk.

Brian, you want to do it with me?

Nope.

I don't want you to do it, actually.

Look on my plate.

What do you see?

The cult of meat with extra cheese.

I want a burger, American cheese, pickles, onions, if you please, cause I'm the cult of meat with extra cheese.

Like it good and greasy, fresh out the pan.

I'm the cult of meat with extra cheese.

The cult of meat with extra cheese.

The cult of meat with extra cheese.

Fried or broiled, the cow must die.

The meat is done.

The toppings fly.

You won't have to ask me

if I want some extra cheese.

Now with tomato and bacon, too.

Not a drop of mustard there, you fool.

Cause I'm the cult of meat with extra cheese.

On the bun, the mayo there.

I'll eat it in my underwear.

Oh, come on.

Add a fried egg that'll make it fine.

You can tell that burger's mine.

I need that burger, handed to me.

Cause that's the one with meat and extra cheese.

It's the one with meat and extra cheese.

I always wonder what you do with your spare time, and now I have a better idea.

I think the best line is the cow must die.

The cow must die.

Broiled or fried.

All right.

Anyway, so

what we had here,

what we had here was a baby face match.

And they even did a little fucking clip, a package, et cetera, to show that Lee Moriarty is just a babyface, just a nice guy.

You don't want to see anything bad happen to him.

So this isn't going to be as fun, I wrote at the top, as most punk matches, because he's so brilliant when he has a heel.

If he's working with an underneath guy and it's a heel, then he's got stooges at ringside or they can cheat or whatever.

Before the match starts, MJF's music plays.

He does come out and goes to the desk for color.

And that was, again, he's effortless on color.

He has a vocabulary.

Imagine that.

And great delivery.

But the longer I watched the match,

the string is broken.

I have to be honest.

They started with matt wrestling, the counters, the reversals, the arm drags.

It was even, if not advantage, Moriarty so that MJF can knock Punk.

Well, look at him.

He can't even, you know, fucking handle Moriarty.

How's he going to handle me, etc.?

And that was fine, especially early in the match.

And then Punk got a little more aggressive and took over clearly going into the break.

But when they came back from the break, Moriarty the one that had just hit a false finish.

And then Punk missed a knee to the buckle, and he's getting the shit kicked out of him.

And I had, at that point, I'm saying I'm not

enjoying Moriarty getting this much offense.

There's a difference in telling the story so that, you know, MJF can mock him a little bit and then Punk comes back and cleans things up when he gets the opening.

This was,

I mean, Moriarty gets a crossface on him, and Punk has to get a rope break.

And Punk gives Moriarty a Frankensteiner off the top rope.

Moriarty rolls through for a sunset flip.

And finally,

Punk hit a roundhouse kick and dropped Moriarty.

And I thought, okay, boom, there it is.

And now he's taking over.

And MJF, even at that point, why has this lasted this long?

And that was my comment as well.

And then as soon as he knocked him out with a

kick,

Moriarty had taken back over and got a two count.

And then they went for something, and Punk reversed it, picked him up, hit the GTS, boom, one, two, three.

But it was,

as Ain't Lola used to say, by the skin of his teeth.

This is the first one I haven't liked.

I think it's because it was a babyface match,

and I think it's because it went on too long.

You can tell the story

that Punk is either a slow starter

or he's still getting back in shape or whatever, or you can,

because there's no animosity here, he's not really turning it on and trying to hurt this guy.

And MJF can make fun of that.

But when, and I'm not even indicting Lee Moriarty as a talent, but

he has not been portrayed at anywhere near the level of his opponent here.

And

it was too close for too long.

And I wonder in trying to

tell this story that MJF is telling to whether Punk is in shape or whether he still got it or whatever the case, that they aren't giving people

evidence, whether true or not, that Punk doesn't still have it anymore.

What do you think?

Maybe that's part of the story is what I think, because there's no other excuse for it.

It's been too often.

It's been every match.

He's not finishing anyone off.

At the same time, Danielson's kicking people's heads in in the earlier segment or sometimes a segment after this.

It has to be part of a story.

And if that's the case, I guess we have to see where it goes because right now that part of it doesn't make too much sense while he's feuding with a MJF or while he's having a series with or a little program.

It wasn't a series, it was one match with Darby Allen.

That he can't finish anyone quickly.

He's not finishing anyone quickly.

I got no problem with him having these competitive matches.

I like the Daniel Garcia one, a few of the other ones.

But I feel like with Lee Moriarty, here's a guy who we just never saw.

He showed up on TV.

At least I hadn't on TV.

Showed up with Leo Russell or showed up with Matt Seidel a few weeks ago.

We haven't seen Matt Seidel since, and then all of a sudden he's here in this match.

It was good.

I thought MJF was really good on commentary, and I'm intrigued by the MJF punk stuff.

But

on one hand, should have been quicker, probably.

On the other hand, considering what else was on this show, I could see why they were drawing some of these things out.

But then don't make him wrestle a babyface

where he just has to get out-wrestled.

Let him show vulnerability to a heel who cheats somewhat.

It's a different context.

And

I understand it's a story.

And I'm not even saying I'm hating the story.

I'm saying they're doing a good enough job telling the story that people may end up buying that punk doesn't have it anymore if they don't be careful.

Because, again, when he has an excuse, the other guy cheated to get an advantage or whatever, he's got stooges at ringside, or etc.

Rather than just being out-wrestled by an underneath guy, at least if he's going to be out-wrestled by somebody,

let him be out-wrestled by a Bobby Fish,

whose gimmick is that he's a fucking fighter.

Anyway,

after that match,

MJF started coming down the entrance aisle and cutting a promo on Punk and talking about him struggling to beat QT Marshall and Lee Moriarty.

And

what are the jokes about him going after Britt Baker?

Is this something from YouTube or something on their auxiliary programming that I'm not?

I don't think so, only because I don't think Punk's really doing a lot of the bullshit stuff.

I could be wrong, but I thought it was just alluding to punk making comments in various promos on TV.

You make a guy feel like

I think it was another Britt Baker line, so it was public and it was on TV.

At least that's the way I took it.

Yeah, well, and there was another Britt Baker line, because she was one of the four pillars instead of

MJF.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

But Punk responded, I love Larry David's pajamas MJF was wearing.

And then basically, well, bring your needle dick in the ring.

And

they very closely had two segments in a row where the heels saying the same thing or basically the same thing in that.

Well, no, we're not going to do it this week.

We'll do it next week in my hometown.

And MJF was building up the, you know, the big homecoming and that he'll probably be showered with accolades in a real place like Long Island.

But then he went too far, Brian.

He insulted Larry the Dog.

He threatened to put Larry the Dog to sleep.

And that was too much.

And here comes Punk up the aisle.

That was the first time I ever heard of Larry the Dog, so I didn't know what it was.

Well, no,

Punk's Larry the Dog.

Larry the Dog's been on Twitter and things over the years.

And I loved, because I know how I would feel.

I don't care about most people, but mess with my dog and you're fucked.

So here comes Punk up the aisle, but Wardlow comes out to get in front of MJF.

They don't argue anymore.

Maybe somebody had told him, well, you're doing this too

haphazardly, too start and stop, and also it's not the right time because there's something else going on.

Maybe somebody said that.

I don't know.

But anyway, the referees were there to get in between.

They didn't have any physicality.

It was a good promo segment.

I'm even more want to see the match between MJF and CM Punk, except,

like I said, I wasn't a fan of the match.

And

maybe if their object is to get the fans worried about Punk's welfare at the hands of MJF, maybe this match helped that.

But

just a little much for me, dog.

Can't add too much to that.

We said that we hope they didn't rush everything, and so far they aren't.

This was, I think, week three or week four of their program.

We'll see where it goes next week, but they're keeping them physically apart from each other for a while, and I think that's smart.

Oh boy, um, so this past week,

AEW was in Long Island, New York, and this was December the 8th, folks, the Wednesday night that we get to stay up late.

And again,

this started off like a

classic wrestling program from the days when people used to watch this stuff.

And after the first 30 minutes, I'm thinking they're going to do it again.

Long Island, New York City.

They're bringing out the big guns.

Oh, God.

That rest of that show fell in a toilet faster than a turd out of a guy's ass when he's just drunk a gallon of castor oil.

Straight down.

But we started off hot.

We started off, we're in Long Island.

We got Sock Face on play-by-play.

We got twin color guys, Tony Schiavone and Taz.

I don't mean they're twins.

I mean there's two color guys.

Taz is a Long Island guy.

Taz is a Long Island guy.

Got a lot of hometown flavor here tonight.

Here comes MJF's music.

And the people are up because it's the hometown boy.

And in out walks CM Punk.

Lock Punk is healing on Long Island Sound.

No,

Long Island Sound is the Long Island Sound.

So punk is a healing.

It's bread heart

in the United States or Canada all over again.

It's the dueling hometowns.

Is it Tennessee versus Texas?

No, it's Chicago versus Long Island.

The rivalry that we didn't know we needed until right now.

And Punk comes out in this environment, in this atmosphere, to a cacophony of booze

because he's been fucking with the hometown boy.

There were some punk chants, yes, obviously, but he gets in the ring and you can tell he's having a ball

because

this is

perfect for what he does.

All of Punk's promos

are so based in reality, so peppered with genuine comments, so conversational and then declarative.

It's natural, and he didn't have to change his attitude or his personality or even his material.

Because when somebody is a smart ass to him, He has no problem

being a smart ass back.

Maybe it was one of the things I like about him.

So you expect him when he's getting booed,

the whole bit of the promo, oh, so this is your boy.

This is the guy you're going to support, the guy that did this to me and that to me and the other.

Okay, if that's the guy, okay.

That's on you, not me.

It was brilliant.

And I meant the little things.

He said, oh, Chicago was so much louder.

And he just ripped the Islanders to shreds.

You're closer than I am, and I don't follow the hockey, Brian, but they pretty much, I guess, have to suck from what he was alluding to, don't they?

They were once the very best.

They were once the pride of Long Island.

There was once a drive for five

and they have been pretty much garbage ever since.

And now just four on the floor.

But hey, now we got a building that won't be going away.

So I think the Islanders...

I say we, like I'm part of the team.

I think the Islanders have a bright future for the first time in a very long time.

Well, but not after this promo, they didn't, because now everybody thinks they fucking suck.

He took off his jacket, and he's got the four pillars of AEW shirt, but MJF is replaced with Britt Baker.

And again,

you know, MJF,

he drew the comparison to Dennis Rodman when he finally started playing for Chicago.

He said, MJF is your worm.

This worked.

This worked, and nobody had to do anything out of character or say anything that it didn't sound like they would say in real life.

And that's why it was brilliant.

And

when he said he's got his eyes on next week's Paige and Brian Danielson title match, of course, because he's CM Punk.

He's a big star.

He should be looking to see who's going to win the world title match, but then he segues right there.

But MJF and I have got something going on, and we need to get that settled first.

Let's prioritize your involvement.

And then, you know, I mean,

his dog Larry, he said, Larry has more balls than MJF, and he's neutered.

Don't run like folks in Long Island, MJF, stand and fight like they do in Chicago.

And finally, he finishes up with now that he's worked himself up, and I can identify with this too, after he's talked about all the things MJF has done to him and done in general, the spineless, weak-willed, chicken shit that he is.

Then finally, Punk works himself up and says, okay, this is your guy.

Well, if that's who you back, then you're all chicken shit

and leaves the ring.

Brilliant.

There has not been

a segment of wrestling television on anything the WWE has produced.

That has been as good as the punk segments and a few of these others that we have praised to the heavens because it looks like it belongs on a wrestling show, and somebody didn't script it and lay it out

and fucking me, and somebody means something.

That's what they need.

That's why the WWE is boring and losing all their viewers because

they're so contrived, choreographed, and manipulated, and orchestrated, and overproduced, and overwritten, and lacking any kind of passion and legitimacy.

And then guy comes out with a microphone like this and blows them all away.

They ought to be ashamed of themselves, I say.

That's what they ought to be.

What did you think of this segment?

Really good.

I think maybe a tad too long, if I had to make any criticism at all.

Well, if it had been maybe the last couple of weeks' shows, I might agree with you.

But on this show, I could have taken another hour and 40 minutes.

Go ahead.

I didn't know what was coming next.

That's a good point.

It was an interesting dynamic and it was what I expected.

Of course, CM Punk's the biggest star in AEW by far, but I would argue maybe even the whole business, the whole building's not going to boom.

He's a baby face just by being himself.

Right.

But he took it and he ran with it.

And,

you know, someone like Cody, she'll get someone like CM Punk and how he handled this and realized there's a way to get these things done.

And you'll get the look at his face.

He had everything under control.

This is really good.

And I think the thing I like the most is they're keeping these two away from each other.

They're promoing, even at each other, but each week there's another

escalation of this feud and nothing has gotten.

It's not like week one, promo, week two, promo, week three, car accident.

Week four, he's back.

Like, there's not that.

It's been laid out fairly coherently.

And like you said, the punk segments have been the best.

Punk and Kingston was fantastic.

The punk and MJF stuff has been really good.

Punkin' Darby was good.

This is not one of the parts of the show that's a problem at all.

Well, and we're getting to those, but we still had some good stuff.

Kind of.

Here we come, the main event segment of the evening.

The finals of the Diamond,

Dynamite Diamond Ring Battle Royal from last week.

MJF and Dante Martin were the last two, and now they're going to meet in a singles match to determine who gets the diamond ring.

But MJF comes out and cuts the promo first.

He's in Texas.

And so he first line, this place is a goddamn dump.

And then Texas, your daughter swallows.

But this is why the announcer shouldn't cuss.

And this is why every Tom, Dick, and Harry on the card shouldn't cuss, because that way the top heel can come out and do it.

And it's not fucking

repetitive gratuitousness, but rather you get mad at that guy.

And he does a a promo on punk and talked about his streak of wins over job guys, which makes you the new Ryback.

That was fucking classic.

That was good.

And said that Dante, then he segued into Dante Martin and said Dante has the charisma and verbal ability of Helen Keller on Qualudes,

which was a wonderful picture.

And then here we go.

Here comes Dante moping his way out.

If Dante was on Beale Street in Memphis in the 50s with Sputnik Monroe, he would have been arrested and sentenced to jail for mopery because he just mopes.

He's a great athlete.

Amazing athlete.

And did you see the forward into the reverse leapfrog?

Like everybody does a forward leapfrog, and Snooka and some of those guys used to do the backward leapfrog.

Yeah.

But Dante did a forward into a backward leap.

He started forward and spun in midair and landed looking back behind him.

Amazing athlete, greener than a pepper tree, and this match showed it.

And they shouldn't have given him this long.

I know they're trying to push the fucking kid.

And he should be pushed.

Maybe not right now.

But he's definitely a keeper for the future and a project.

But when they give him this long on national television, especially with a match we've just seen previously, it doesn't get him over.

It exposes his weaknesses.

Get him in and get him out in seven or eight minutes where you can just do the things he can do.

And MJF was trying to let him, because MJF was going over, so he wanted to be not a prick.

He was trying to give him every opportunity.

But my God,

did you say not far into the match?

Dante comes out of the corner with a forward roll as MJF is laying there.

And instead of That whole forward roll into a thing is just extra bullshit, But he jumped up in the air and did a forward somersault and was trying to land with a splash and landed with a knee drop on MJF's jaw and throat.

And I got hot as soon as I saw it.

And MJF,

I don't, I'm sure he felt it.

It didn't.

It apparently didn't hurt him as bad as I was afraid it did when I saw it.

But he rolled out and rolled out again, rolled back in and rolled out again.

Like he was saying, fuck it.

Let me get my shit together and let me let this fucking goof calm down a little bit.

And then they go ahead.

He's so good.

I thought, I didn't watch it back, but I thought when I was watching it, oh, he, I think he got him in the face.

MJF is so good at selling, I wasn't certain what happened.

That's how good he was.

Yeah, well, if he had been six inches to the left, Dante, he would have brought his knee down right on MJF's face and nose from several feet in the air.

But as it was, his knee landed on MJF's neck, which could have been bad, but maybe enough of his collarbone got it, and MJF selling his jaw, but that wasn't what he was supposed to do.

And so they went to the heat spot, which was MJF shoving Dante off the top rope onto the floor to start the heat.

And they go to the break and they come back, and it just

Dante

has no physique, He has no

fire to his facials or to his body language.

A monotone face.

I mean, Gargano looks like a goddamn

silent movie actor compared to fucking Dante.

He hit multiple dives.

MJF would keep rolling out and Dante do another dive.

And finally, he did a springboard backflip off the top rope to MJF on the floor and went completely over his head.

And

MJF caught like Dante's right foot on the way by and grabbed it and went down with it.

But Dante did a backflip off the top rope and landed face first on the floor and hopped right up.

And MJF is the one that was selling it.

And the announcer said, oh, wait, Dante caught him with his right knee.

No, he didn't.

That's why they didn't replay it.

And I'm not trying to knock fucking Dante.

This is not fair to a guy like Dante Martin, who I say is a tremendous prospect and what an athlete.

But there is no way that he's ready for national TV doing anything except his gymnastics.

And he was off on some of those.

This is where there needs to be a middle ground between the indies and national television, between science and superstition,

because he's not ready.

The 10 punches in the corner, he gets MJF in the back, and he was throwing punches to MJF's left shoulder vicinity, supposedly hitting him in the head or face or whatever.

And it was so bad that the director, for one split second, took a shot from the side of his fist and said, oh, shit, and went to the other side.

He couldn't take a shot of it.

This kid has to work on personality, facials, basics,

get in the gym,

age a couple of years.

They're going to shove him

before he's ready to do anything but this flipping stuff, and

he's going to be pigeonholed as a sloppy flippy guy.

And then finally, Dante hits the springboard double-jump moonsault that he does.

Barely.

MJF was standing there, but Dante almost went right past him, and MJF had to to get under it.

And then

suddenly, Ricky Starks appears at ringside

and puts MJF's leg on the ropes out of nowhere

and breaks up the count.

And then Dante

gets up and acknowledges the presence of Starks and turns around to go pick up MJF.

And MJF just gets the fucking Fujiwara armbar on him, and Dante taps out.

So,

not a good match, rotten finish.

And

MJF should not need interference from somebody that's not even related to him to beat Dante Martin.

Why didn't he use the dynamite diamond ring that he already has, much less is new when he's about to win, knock him goofy, and beat him with a headlock takeover?

That would have made sense with his interview.

That would have made sense with what he did with Darby.

And that would have put some heat on MJF.

As it was, out of nowhere, Stark shows up, involves himself, leaves, and then MJF just takes the guy down and taps him out.

Fuck.

Before we talk about the afterbirth, what'd you think?

I thought it was all right.

You know, this is where I'm glad that they started the show with the 60-minute draw match because I feel like seeing the rest of the show, you kind of had to.

And this match had to be far away from that so that hopefully you got a little bit of the crowd back.

It looked like you had a really excited, overzealous kid doing a lot of stuff that sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.

I think MJF did all he could.

I think MJF's a young ring general in there, but

you had a guy.

If you don't know where he's going to land, there's only so much you could do.

The spot where he hit MJF in the face, I thought he got him hard.

I wasn't certain.

There were several dives where I thought because they were...

Because it wasn't at MJF, MJF had to move in an unnatural way from where he was.

I was afraid he was going to tear his knee knee or something

on one of those.

Dante has a lot of potential, but this is one of the problems.

He has a lot of potential, but AEW doesn't have too many places to send him other than onto TV.

But there are people there who show enough that,

like you said, facial expressions.

He's not, he hasn't learned that on the indies.

He's young.

He hasn't been on the indies forever.

He didn't learn that on the indies.

How's he going to learn it now?

So, you know, there probably needs to be a system where you do take some of these guys off TV for at least six months and just learn the basics, reinforce the basics, the Rip Rogers course, whatever you want to call it.

If he got in the gym, Dante, and got a little bit more weight on his body,

he'd be great in a mask

because

you cover that face up with something more attractive.

I guess is the only way to say it.

Remember, Jerry Stubbs was great as Mr.

Olympia.

Tremendous as Mr.

Olympia, yeah.

As Jerry Stubbs, he was he was pea head and bald.

But you know.

I'm not saying Dante Martin needs to wear a mask.

I am.

Cover that fucking face up because that face just

it's droopy.

He's not excited, not happy, not mad, not anything.

He's confused.

It's a confused looking face.

It has to be the whole package.

If you've got

Remember that,

what was her name?

Susan Boyle

that won that singing competition.

She looked like a mud fence and sang like a goddamn opera star, and it didn't fit, right?

And part of the reason why that she won was because it didn't fit.

You wouldn't think that that voice was coming out of the,

well,

if you've got a guy with that athletic ability,

but absolutely

no personality in his face until he gets older and gets some,

put a cool-looking mask on him and make him the kids' hero that does all the flying and

acrobatics and everything.

And he's got a cool outfit for the kids because, you know, and keep it short and let him learn.

I don't know.

But anyway,

the afterbirth.

So FTR come out to the ring to celebrate with MJF because they are part of the pinnacle whenever it suits the storyline.

Even though Wardlow and Spears didn't didn't come out, and there's no Tully, but FTR came out to pick MJF up and celebrate in the ring so that we could have a blackout.

And you know, after what happened last week, everybody was thinking, well, this is the Briscoes.

But no,

the lights come back on and it's stinging Darby.

And

they have a big fight and finally the Heels, the numbers advantage, takes over and the Heels are kicking the shit out of them.

And then suddenly, Lak Mussolini

with a baseball bat.

Here comes Punk with a baseball bat, and the Heels powder.

And Punk grabs the microphone and challenges for a six-man tag, which I am looking forward to.

FTR and MJF against Darby, Sting, and Punk next week.

Because I will remember I was afraid they were teasing that Sting and Tully were actually going to be getting at it.

But that'll be a good six-man and a nice ratings thing.

Of course, here's

I sense FTR getting a shit kicked out of him again.

But did, and did you see Punk's t-shirt?

You're talking about the t-shirt for women's rights?

Women's health.

What am I supposed to say?

Women, well, reproductive rights.

Common sense.

Yes.

And medicine over superstition.

We could just say it like that.

He's in Texas.

One of the,

I used to live there.

I have friends in Texas.

I love many of the places and things in Texas, but there's a lot of fucking redneck, Republican assholes.

And that's where they're starting the groundswell of trying to deny women across the country their reproductive rights.

on behalf of an invisible, fictitious, supreme being.

So

punk hits the ring in Texas to make the babyface save and challenge for next week, wearing a t-shirt with a diagram of the fallopian tubes or whatever.

And the thing says, you get your own and then tell it what to do.

And I have to think, and let's face it, the AEW crowd, one thing you can say, it's a younger crowd, so they're probably all predominantly,

I won't say pro-choice and pro-life.

I will say pro-medicine and anti-medicine.

They're probably all pro-medicine.

But I have to just the, I just love the, the, the,

the finger to the general Texas society that feels like we should all be living back in the fucking dark ages.

So that was a nice little thing to see on the way out.

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The main event of the evening, a six-man tag with half an hour left in the show.

It's a Christmas present.

The big entrances, everybody got got their big entrances.

FTR

and MJF against Sting,

Darby Allen,

and Luck Mussolini on LSD.

CM Punk.

A couple of observations.

Great sign, MJF stole Christmas.

But again, as we've established, they bring signs because they remember the Attitude Era and everybody wanted to be part of the show.

FTR's AAA belts look like license plates for a 36 Packard.

And I enjoyed,

even though obviously we just did a segment here on how I thought face paint was overdone in wrestling 30 years ago,

Punk comes out last with the Sting tights and his face painted in solidarity with Sting and Darby Allen and does the Sting howl instead of its clobbering time.

Straight out of the Dusty Roads playbook.

If he was in a six-man with the Road Warriors, he'd wear the spiked shoulder pads and the face paint.

If he was in a sixth man with the Rock and Roll Express, he'd wear the bandanas and blah, blah, blah.

So that's, you know, and in Greensboro, because obviously

the people there are going to be even more,

what's the word I'm searching for, more

sympathetic and warm towards Sting because he's been, that was his coming out party and he's been there so many times times over so many years, blah, blah, blah.

And it had to be a thrill for FTR to work with Sting in Greensboro because they're North Carolina boys.

But besides that,

was this the best six-man tag that AEW has yet ever presented?

I can't think of another one better.

I hear you going through your mental Rolodex now.

Off the top of my head, I'm not sure.

This was really good, though.

I can't.

Every other six-man tag that I could think of had the cosplayers and the gymnasts in it.

This is the first time they've actually had main event guys in a real wrestling six-man tag team match.

And there was stories through the whole thing.

MJF started out the first thing by ducking punk.

And that's what was going to be the recurring theme as it should have been.

It's free television.

You're teasing the pay-per-view or you're teasing the big event.

You're teasing the match down the road.

Punk and Dak started out the match by working,

which was incredible.

And then Cash and Darby got in and did more.

There was more wrestling in this match than in any normal AEW match.

I was amazed at the start that everybody was pitching in, and there wasn't a turd in the punch bowl.

They finally, they did a setup to tag Sting in.

He got a big pop.

And then Punk chases MJF out of the arena.

They come back in from the other end.

The people wanted to see Punk get his hands on MJF.

But at that point, that spot was to end up with all the heels on the floor there to set up Darby.

You can't even call it a dive.

He did a flying body block through the ropes on all three heels and bounced off of them.

You heard the smack of the meat in the flesh.

And it looked like a pinball going into fucking,

you know, the heels.

Boom.

It was great.

And that was a break spot.

And I'll buy that.

That was fucking great.

And by the time they'd come back from the break, they had stopped Darby Allen for a set of heat on him.

And they were kicking the shit out of him.

And MJF would only get in whenever,

you know, everybody was in control and he would want to fuck a little bit with punk.

But the heels were working like heels here.

And they even built body slams.

They slammed Darby Allen numerous times, just regular slams.

And then Cash goes to do it and Darby small packages him and makes a bit of a false comeback because he got a big pop with just one body slam.

And then he tags Sting for the real comeback.

So they actually not only

Got a nice little false comeback and he gets a pop with a body slam from an AEW crowd, but then hot tag sting and sting makes a real comeback

and then the heels fed for it perfectly and it was an extended comeback then he gets the scorpion and MJF comes and stops him from behind and they go to the break again isn't brilliant

they come back now they've got sting down there getting some heat on him

But then they do the deal, which it's a little comedic for me, but it works because it's Sting and in Greensboro, even though he had to position himself because he didn't really get it the first time.

But he did the thing where they have the double knockout and he's woozy and he falls over and headbutts MJF in the nuts.

And then kind of gave a tag to Punk.

It could have been hotter, but poor Punk leaped up.

I think he was going to springboard off the top rope, but his foot slipped.

So he recovered and just landed on his feet in the ring and made a double comeback on FTR.

So great save.

Couple of false finishes.

And then FTR stops him on the turnbuckle and they hit their superplex and big splash off the top for a two count,

which was close.

MJF had disappeared by this point.

He's hiding.

Cash and Darby took a great bump over the top rope

and then

they did something off camera that popped the people like crazy and put both of them under the timekeeper's table, but there was absolutely no camera shot of it.

Brian, remember when I've said that one of the producers' jobs is you have to go over the match that the, besides the fact of giving them the finish and making sure they're not doing any stupid, once they've got their match, then you have to hear it because you got to be in the truck to tell the director what's coming up if it's something crazy.

And the reason why that camera shots are missed on these things is because

one of two things.

Either the guys don't bother to tell the producer or the producer forgets and doesn't tell the director.

And that's why you get no shot of this off-brand shit because nobody expects it to be coming up.

So they need to tighten that shit up.

But

Dax and Punk are in the ring trading.

And then FTR hit their finish on Punk, but Sting made the save.

And then MJF is back, and he DDT Sting,

but Sting no sells it and nuts MJF on the ropes.

And then

I know they're trying to give Sting all these big spots, but Sting ran MJF across the ring and hip-tossed him over the top rope where FTR was waiting to catch him.

But

you can't.

If you're going to hip toss somebody over the top rope,

you have to hip toss them over the top rope

because that turns them.

If they dive on their own and they're still trying to be hip-tossed, if you don't put any oomph behind the hip toss, they're just going over headfirst, which is what happened.

He went headfirst over MJF or over FTR and almost landed headfirst on the floor.

They broke his fall enough that it didn't break his neck.

But do you see what I'm saying?

With the turn, Sting should have been underneath MJF's left arm with his right hand, and he should have been around MJF's neck with his left hand, and he should have got under him good so that when MJF jumped, he could have both pushed and turned MJF's head.

But as it was, MJF just dove straight over the top rope, and that was a dangerous thing.

But having said that, as soon as they determined that MJF was not paralyzed and might walk again someday, Sting comes off the top with a crossbody onto the floor on all three heels.

And that got a big pop because fuck, he's 62 and it's Greensboro.

And then that was all we got because Punk was lining up MJF for the GTS, but Dax came in and shoved MJF to the floor.

And then all three baby faces gave Dax their finishes

and beat him one, two, three.

A great match and to get FTR lose again.

This time it was the right finish and the perfect result.

It's just all those times that they've beat FTR with lesser talent in places they shouldn't have been beat that has now made it, instead of this being a big, impactful thing, is like, okay, well, we know FTR loses again.

Which is why you should give guys credibility before you start having them do jobs to everybody in sight so that when they do start doing some, it means something.

Nobody believes FTR is going to win anything these days because they never do simply because the Hardley boys are jealous of them and have to prove by a self-fulfilling prophecy that they're not the best tag team in wrestling, even though they are.

Your thoughts?

I like MJF and FTR together, although I hate them being called MJFTR.

I think that's stupid.

I hope that doesn't stick.

I wasn't crazy about Punk coming out with the face paint, and I get the

reference to Dusty doing it when he teamed with the Road Warriors or teamed with Sting,

but I don't know.

It didn't feel right to me.

But, you know, it's a minor thing to kind of pick on here.

With the MJF moment where I was scared, I thought he broke his neck there for a second.

I looked at it like he was overcompensating for an older wrestler who may or may not be able to do.

What he was trying to get him to do.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not sure.

Well, then don't do the spot.

Because then it's a rib on yourself.

Oh, I'll do this big spot with Sting and he'll still be walking tomorrow, but I'll be paralyzed.

It was good to see Punk, not Punk, MJF do a promo afterwards because it showed that he was alive.

So that was good to see.

But

MJF has heat, and he's great.

If he does more with FTR, away from the Spears and away from the Tullies, Wardlow, if you need to, just because you're building to something eventually, they all wore matching colors.

Like, it looked good.

It looked right.

They aren't that far apart in height.

It just looked really good.

Everybody looked professional.

Everybody looked in shape.

Everybody could work.

Everybody seemed serious.

It was a level above

the rest of the flock there in that company.

You had three of the best in-ring workers in the whole business on that heel side.

And that'll get some people mad because some people say, oh, MJF's not that good or FTR aren't that good.

Talk to anyone in the business.

In the ring, those guys know what they're doing.

And Punk

is having just a great 2021.

I'm sure he'll have a great 2022.

Darby's, I love Darby's dives.

I wait for him now because he lays them in.

And now I'm seeing him bounce off people.

It's even cooler.

And I'll give AEW credit, although it hasn't always been perfect.

And he's gotten some wins over guys like FTR at that show in Queens and different things.

It hasn't been perfect.

But when you see the way Tony Khan has used Sting for now the last year

and you compare it to all the ways WWE used Sting.

oh good lord or any other way you could have used sting right now and i actually think they've done all right

i will agree with that i think they could have put a couple of things that he did on pay-per-view instead of free television because in hindsight it didn't matter for the ratings that much but what he has done for the most part has been nothing wrong with

and it was a good main event and you know they did a good rating and i believe the main event ended up pulling similar ratings to the opening opening of the show, which is a good sign.

Usually, the viewers are just tuning away, not coming back.

But it was a good main event, and it went a while, went like a half hour.

And I've said it before, the serious stuff on these shows work.

And if you have more stuff on Punk and MJF and their aligned wrestlers, and Brian Danielson and Adam Page, and what they got going on, and different things, this is the shit that works and that's really good, and that feels like a modern take on the things that worked in classic wrestling.

The Bucks and the best friends, and Adam Cole and all that other shit.

It just feels like I can understand why some people thought that was cute a few years ago, but it feels like everything else is kind of passing that stuff by right now.

Hey, the rest of the kids are growing up, and

the problem class is being left behind.

And I think we're going to see more behind-the-scenes

drama, probably, as they figure out that, oh, shit, this company now has real talent coming in and it's showing us up.

How can we stop that?

How can we bury these people?

We'll find out

who comes in and has the cachet and the pull and the industry not to get buried on purpose, like a lot of the other people have been.

That didn't have that same pull.

But then, after that, guess who came out?

I don't know.

Oh, CM Punk.

Lac Mussolini with Provail Cheese.

Disgusting.

They had CM Punk a live in-ring promo on this episode, and they let Jane Cargill and Thunderosa go across the top of the nine o'clock hour, and then had Punk come out later on.

So

he gave another class in public speaking.

He acknowledged Jim Ross.

He remembered Brodie Lee.

He segued seamlessly and perfectly to MJF.

When he's in the ring, he's talking to all four sides of the ring to bring all the live audience in, which the WWE guys just stand there and try to not look at the camera, but they're not supposed to really engage all the live fans and wander around like you do if you're really public speaking.

So this was real, and

he ended up kicking MJF in the balls with he's a bigger waste of con money than Tim Tebow,

and said it'd be a real shame if somebody interfered with MJF's quest for the gold.

So, you know,

there's more to the story here.

That was so, I felt like I was watching SmackDown.

I got to see

the equivalent of Paul Heyman

on AEW, CM Punk's Verbal Ability.

They followed this up.

What was this, the first 30, 35 minutes of the show?

They followed it up with MJF versus, by the way, Captain Sean Dean is the illegitimate brother-in-law of Captain Ed George, apparently.

What?

Just because he's a captain?

Well, you know, these captains, they like to stick together.

There's Captain Bly, Captain Queig.

They're all in a club.

Captain Ivan, Captain Lenny.

There's been a lot of captains.

Captain Lou.

But anyway, MJF is going to wrestle, you know, Tits McGee.

And you know what's going to happen.

But suddenly, before the match even starts, punk runs down.

No music,

which was definitely the right thing to do because that, again, if he's coming up with this punk in his mind as he sees it, I doubt he'd have time to go over and tell the music guy, I'll play my music.

Anyway, MJF bails to the floor.

Punk stands there for a minute and then turns around and hits the go-to sleep on old Captain Sean Dean.

And MJF is disqualified.

Perfect.

That's an old as the hills fucking wrestling angle that the goddamn baby face causes the heel to get beat or to lose in some fashion.

If they had more

actual disqualifications and actual rules so that people would recognize them instantly like the fans did in the old days, then it, you know, it would have registered quicker.

But once the announcements, people got it.

And that's basically Punk's.

Then they had a long promo battle, MJF in the entranceway and Punk in the ring and punk's thing is this is what's going to happen every time until you get in the ring with me you little bitch

and then they knock each other back and forth drumming up interest in them having a match

and

you know mjf says unlike you roddie piper was talented enough to main event wrestlemania and if i don't get proper respect here i may be main eventing two or whatever the fuck And then Punk says, yeah, you can main event night four of a buy one, get one free extravaganza.

And again, they're not referencing putting over another company as much as they are taking inside digs at each other like guys in the business would

saying shit like that to each other.

And then, so then finally, MJF says, well, you want the goddamn match?

Well, next week, it's CM Punk versus Wardlow.

Oh, boy, here we go.

And Punk accepts, of course, because eventually MJF is going to run out of people people to hide behind and he's going to put him to sleep.

But

next week,

I can't wait to see what Punk does with Wardlow.

This will be another different style match.

Punk's matches have been different styles, even if they did dilute the

level of his opposition here several weeks ago.

And they're milking Punk getting to MJF.

And

why do it next week?

Why give them what they want when this is interesting?

And again, 45 minutes into this show, you've had one of the best matches they've ever had and two guys that can promo like that.

And it makes the program seem major league and much more exciting and much more interesting than anything the WWE does.

And I wrote right here, I guarantee you that they're going to ruin this by the end of the show.

And that prophecy came true.

What did you think about punk and Maxwell?

I really liked it.

And to your overall point, and this has happened a few times lately, the first 45 minutes of this show were a great wrestling show.

Nothing insulted me.

Good action, good promos, good.

I mean, it was a great show up to this point.

And nothing else in the remainder of the show really referenced anything from this portion of the show or went back to it.

We never heard more from Danielson or...

Punk or MJF.

Take a peek in the back for 30 seconds of both the guys in the world title match getting sewn up or patched up.

It's just the show moves on and the universe of AEW moves on.

This was good.

Everything they've done with MJF and Punk has been good.

Some of it's been exceptionally good.

They're getting from the beginning to whenever we get to this match, and it hasn't been boring.

They keep mixing things up.

Even when they use classic wrestling stuff, they put a little bit of a modern edge on it to keep it fresh.

This has been great stuff.

Whoever's booking fucking punk and MJF should book the rest of the fucking show.

I mean, what?

It's like two different universes.

Why is this good?

And then everything else happens.

Like, one thing is serious and well thought out.

And Danielson, too.

I mean, I'm not going to take anything away from everything with Danielson lately, but what happens?

The show just goes right off a cliff.

And it happened again and big time this week.

The one

sure thing, Brian, the one sure thing.

The one person we know ain't going to disappoint us.

The one person that we know

is always going to deliver.

The one person that we know

everything is going to make sense.

Wardlow with MJF versus

Lac Mussolini.

I got a sneeze.

CM Punk and Wardlow.

Wardlow looks fantastic.

He looks even better physically, and he's got new gear.

He looks like a star.

He had clean new gear.

He's got a great physique.

He has facial expressions.

He's a good-looking guy.

He's got the size.

I think he's trained down a little bit.

I think he's a little lighter and leaner than he was when he first showed up.

And, you know, I got to be honest, I didn't know exactly what was going to happen in this match, but I figured that obviously Punk needs to win somehow, and it would probably further not only the issue between Punk and MJF, but also between

MJF and Wardlow, who he's been treating like a flunky.

And I thought maybe somebody's going to miss something, whatever the fuck.

I never

envisioned what they did, which we'll talk about it in a second.

And this is another thing you said to me.

You said to me, when you see this,

You're probably not going to like it, and there's reasons why you wouldn't.

But at the same time, when the entire program is over with, you're going to have to look back and admit that this is the only thing on the show that made any kind of point.

And you are right on both accounts.

The first one that I didn't like of Punk's little efforts here.

And

it wasn't a bad match.

Nobody did anything wrong in terms of the execution of the thing.

It wasn't very long.

Punk was putting Wardlow's size over.

He's bigger and stronger.

So Punk would sell for him.

And when Wardlow would go for the power bomb, Punk would roll out or get away.

And they went through a break.

And he got some heat on Punk.

And Punk was trying to fight back, but the guy's too strong.

Finally, Punk makes a comeback with the clotheslines.

And again,

I see the point.

I see the goal here.

What they were trying to do.

I think there were too many clotheslines that Wardlow wouldn't go down for.

He'd rock, he'd rock, and finally, Punk came off the top with a clothesline and he took the bump.

Wardlow took the bump.

There was a lot of them to get to that point, but still,

nothing to be upset over.

And then Punk gives Wardlow the running knee in the corner.

Boom, and he stops there and he flips MJF off because MJF has been a pain in his ass at ringside.

And Wardlow catches him and comes out of the corner and power bombs him.

And then picks him up and gives him another one.

And now we're into the deal where Wardlow's been doing that every week.

He'll give somebody four or five power bombs and beat him with the foot on the chest.

Well, in this case, they start picking up on it and they start getting into it, but he gives CM Punk five power bombs.

And then MJF jumps up on the apron and says, Don't pin him, give him some more.

So then he gives him another one and another one.

Now we're up to seven.

And MJF is going wild on the floor and Punk is selling.

And then MJF clears off the dreaded ringside table with the black tablecloth on it and tells Wardlow to power bomb Punk through the table.

And he does.

So there's eight powerbombs, the last one through the table.

Referee Aubrey does the slowest count ever.

Remember the first two months of AEW, Brian?

We said, Well, that Aubrey, all the other referees are dish rags.

But Aubrey looks like she's trying.

She's trying to have authority.

She's got a good game face.

She looks active.

That went away quickly when all the matches degenerated into fucking indie spot fests and all the referees were buried.

But

she gave a slow count.

Punk is crawling towards the ring.

And he makes it in and beats the count at nine.

And And let's stop here.

Eight power bombs with the last one through a table, and you get back in the ring.

I'm sorry.

I don't care who it is.

I would have even been on

the train with him.

I'd have been riding in his back seat if he did three in the ring and one through the table.

But we just, we went so far.

And Punk beats the count, and MJF is telling Wardlow, power bomb him again.

And now Wardlow is fucking

looking at MJF like, oh, Jesus Christ.

All right.

He goes to pick, pump, pump, pump up.

He goes to pick Punk up

and Punk small packages him.

One, two, three.

And Punk sells, and Wardlow's pissed, and MJF is frustrated and yells at Wardlow.

And Wardlow bows up at MJF, and Spears comes in and calls him down

and

Spears and Wardlow leave.

Besides the fact that this was too much, now

the issue seems to be

Wardlow versus MJF, not MJF versus Punk.

And I just,

it didn't hit right with me.

What'd you think?

And I kind of knew that was going to be a reaction.

That's why I said what I said to you before you watched it.

Let me do positives first.

Regardless of layout or the fact that Aubrey Edwards takes five minutes to count to nine,

I think Wardlow did really well in this.

Yeah.

And I'm not just talking about what he did.

Look at his face.

Look at the way he's moving.

The frustration he shows.

I think MJF at ringside, how did you watch that not want to smack him?

And punk, as far as selling that he's a veteran wrestler getting his ass kicked, I believed it.

I thought he was about to get pinned.

I didn't realize where they were going to go.

I said, oh my God, he's really getting the shit kicked out of him.

It was almost like the Vader destruction of Inoki in Japan when they debuted Vader, to where people are just like, shit.

That was quicker.

That was quicker.

And it started a riot.

So, I mean,

not exactly the same, but I think it went on too long.

I also think I wouldn't, I had the same reaction or a similar reaction to you.

I wouldn't have done the table spot only because you're doing way too many table spots on every show.

If you hadn't seen one in the middle of the day, why risk your top guy when everybody else is getting hurt doing them?

Yeah, I'm against doing things when they've been done non-stop.

I mean, we'll talk about how they did the same match in two segments in some ways, back-to-back.

But it took a long time, and it seems like they're certainly setting up.

I'm going to guess Wardlow, Spears, and then Wardlow, MJF, once they finish MJF Punk, because we don't get rematches in AEW.

It looks like they're going there.

I don't know how imminent it'll be because they've done the thing with Wardlow and him, and then they've stopped it.

They've started it.

It's been a long-term tease.

Wardlow has a slow fuse.

It's sped up since they put him with Spears.

It seems like he's getting more and more frustrated by the week.

If you had to hang around with Spears, wouldn't you be getting frustrated real quick?

But look, to the overall point,

not perfect.

The layman and me would have done it a little differently but i liked it i enjoyed it because at least it told the story and it was coherent and

the rest of the show is the problem and we've said it before jokingly why can't the booking of this segment be the booking of the whole show what's going wrong what's the hitch in the system you know and that's a you can with this segment you can argue or discuss

the psychology of it and well would i've done how many power bombs would i've done or would i've done the table or whatever but you still it's see you see it makes a point even if it might have been the wrong point even if it might have got people too into

MJF versus Wardlow before we've had MJF versus punk but

at least you can discuss it rationally most of the rest of the segments on these programs

there's there's no positive spin you can put on them they just suck So, like you said, at the end of the program, I realized, even if I didn't like it, it made a point.

And you said something earlier.

By the way, no one insulted you.

Everyone treated this the way it should be treated, despite Spears' outfit.

But Wardlow, Wardlow looked like a star.

I mean,

this was like something that would have worked.

These people would have worked on Raw when Raw worked.

MJF, Wardlow, CM Punk, these seemed like main event wrestling personalities.

Wardlow really impressed me here.

Like we said, it's the rest of the show typically.

And we didn't even have Brian Danielson this week, so that really sucked.

And it really took anywhere from 20 minutes to 45 minutes of good wrestling out of the show.

But I can't complain too much.

And from week to week, this is the one thing that's coherent on that show, MJF and Punk.

And we'll see if that goes into MJF and Wardlow.

Do you think that they were watching the Terry Gordy, Ted DiBiase, Georgia tape?

when they came up with the pile drivers.

I think the concept of this, the pile drivers.

I don't know.

I mean, I would think, based on stuff I've read, it seems like MJF may like wrestling history.

I think I've read stuff with Punk where he says in the past that I'm sure he likes wrestling history more than a lot of the current stuff, but I have a guess, actually.

But who knows?

I mean, there's a lot of different things.

I saw someone point out, you know, Bret Hart, the way he was selling the Powerbombs from Wardlow was very reminiscent of Bret Hart, the way he would sell being defeated and beaten down.

Well, here's what I was going to say.

The reason for that is because I remember, and what was it, 1981 or was it 1980?

I believe believe it was 81, I want to say.

81, yeah.

Freebirds in Georgia, they were the reason why people would drive 30 or 40 miles, me being one of them each way to see cable before everybody had cable, because the Freebirds were on TBS Georgia Championship Wrestling.

And that show, you had Ted DiBiase, you had all the fucking major NWA stars, you had Ric Flair, whatever.

Got to see this show.

So who was DiBiase's partner in that match?

In that match?

It wasn't when he was teamed with Frazier, was it?

I was going to say, I don't think it was Frazier.

I got to double check because you know what?

They did bring the JYD in.

Let me double-check who was part of the game.

It might have been Dog, but the point is, what everybody was up in arms at the time was they did an angle where Gordy in this match, Freebirds versus DBase, and well, it was Freebirds, Gordy, and Roberts, and Michael Hayes was on the floor.

Against DiBiase, and I think it might have been Dog.

But while the referee is distracted, Gordy gives Ted DiBiase a pile driver in the ring, and he's selling like crazy.

And then they're getting heat on DiBiase, and they distract the referee again, and two pile drivers.

Holy shit.

And then they boom, boom, boom, and then they distract and three pile drivers.

And now the girls in the TBS studio are screaming at the top of their lungs to break glass because they think that DiBiase is about to die.

And then that's what had happened.

They chuck him out on the concrete floor in the studio and they draw the referee's attention and Gordy gives DiBiase the fourth pile driver on the concrete floor.

And that's when he goes into twitching convulsions and he's laying there and he can't get up.

And then some of the other babyfaces.

I can't remember what, because they kept saying, Gordon Soley kept saying, the referee is not aware of what's happened to DiBiase.

The referee would stop this match if he had seen what they had done to DBase.

And finally, a bunch of the babyfaces just ran out and fucking stopped the match after that pile driver on the floor.

And they called, they went to break.

They came back.

They had called an ambulance.

They had a real ambulance and they called a real EMT crew into the studio.

And you saw them putting DBase on the goddamn wheelie stretcher and taking him out.

And

that was not only one of the most memorable TV wrestling angles on any show of the era and had everybody talking about it, but there was also consternation among the very small amount of smart fans in the country at that time and guys in the business going, what the fuck were they doing?

Four pile drivers.

It's bullshit.

It's unbelievable.

And they were well-done pile drivers.

Gordy had a great pile driver.

DBIC knew how to sell them.

They looked good.

They looked like something you didn't want to take.

But at that point in time in the wrestling business, people were conditioned that if you were pile driven once,

maybe twice, you're going to the hospital.

This was four, and one of them on the concrete.

And of course, he did go to the hospital, but there were people in the business saying that's bullshit.

They're going too far.

They're going to set up unrealistic expectations amongst the fans and/or,

you know, cause us to have to fucking kill ourselves by going too far.

It was a debate, it was a well-done angle that put heat on the issue and got the free birds over even more, but it was also controversial in the business.

Here

is double that amount of

a move,

including one not just on a concrete floor, but through a table first.

But the guy, instead of riding an ambulance to the hospital, he crawls back in the ring and does a small package.

I'm just, I don't.

Other than the small package, he was selling non-stop.

There was no point that CM Punk jumped up.

And I hate that we have to give a disclaimer, but so many guys don't sell anything.

He at least sold it like he was dead.

Yes.

Except for the roll-up.

And that's why I'm saying DBIC did the same thing.

And it was, it was great to watch on TV.

And people traded that tape like crazy.

And oh my God, you know, I've seen 15th generation copies of that fucking tape.

People were so anxious to get it.

But it did provoke the same amount of conversation that this is.

Was it too much?

And was it unnecessary?

And

you can see it either one of both ways.

Say it was well done.

A little too far.

The surefire segment came up, Brian, that I thought we can always rely on.

In this case, Sean Spears, the chairman, versus

like a muslin.

I can't breathe.

I saw what they were going to do.

I saw what they were trying to do.

It was actually standing alone,

a nice tease.

But almost an hour into a rotten television program, this was a letdown.

MJF, Spears, and Punk are in the ring for their challenge match.

MJF goes to color, says, this is going to be awesome.

The bell rings.

They go to lock up.

They duck and dodge.

And Punk lifts Spears up and gives him the GTS.

Boom, one, two, three.

In what, 10 seconds?

And what the, and then MJF's, oh, shit, and he goes to the ring, but Punk sees him and grabs him by the scarf.

And as he draws back to punch him, MJF ducks out of the scarf and bails out

again standing alone in a a good program a good tv show

this wouldn't have been bad because it was a nice little tease and he still hadn't got his hands on mjf again and we're still wanting to see the match

but as rotten as the rest of this show had been and was about to get worse

Didn't you feel just kind of a little let down?

I don't know because Spears is someone who I've never really liked liked, and I don't even like him really in this role.

And I'm happy this kind of ended quick.

And I think it kind of told an interesting story.

The biggest complaint from you seems not to be anything about this match or angle.

Not what they did, but they did where they did it.

They did it in the middle of this show where they're, I just want to see punk out there for 10 minutes just so I could fucking relax instead of, oh my God, what car wreck is going to happen next?

I didn't have a major problem with this, though.

And of course, it wasn't the only time we saw MJF.

And I did get a kick out of the idea.

MJF was brought out to do commentary and the match lasted two seconds.

Well,

and then speaking of meaning, the things you say,

Lak Mussolini,

no Coke Pepsi.

Here comes CM Punk.

About time.

Takes over the room.

Takes his time on the entrance, but it's not interminable like the WWE entrances.

He's keeping busy, he's moving around, he's looking at people, and he starts talking to them.

And he's talking conversationally and naturally, and he stirs the people up to want to see him fight MJF.

He's got MJF's scarf on that he stole last week.

It's under his jacket when he takes the jacket off.

He does promo

or promo on the cheap scarf and on Long Island.

A lot of disreputable people come from that part of the country.

And he wants MJF tonight.

MJF comes out with the music, comes out in his suit and the same scarf.

Apparently, now we've seen there's a lot of these scarves around.

And, of course, he turns down the challenge and won't waste it on Cleveland, and the fans are chanting asshole.

And MJF finally agrees, okay, next week in Chicago, and we've heard this before, it's going to be CM Punk against MJF.

He announced it next week in Chicago, Punk's hometown.

Hmm, imagine that.

And then

I know it's my boy MJF.

It's my hero, Mussolini.

Brian,

if I said they went too long here, would you agree with me?

I would this week, yes.

Yeah.

Because I didn't want to, I don't want to paint you in a corner there, but I got to be truthful.

I wrote at the point that he had announced the match,

I wrote, MJF is teetering on going long here.

And he meandered.

And the point that he was trying to make after he wins next week, you're going to see the real CM Punk.

If he doesn't get his way, he'll sue.

Or he'll complain, or he'll quit like he did in 2014 when he quit here in Cleveland and blah, blah, blah.

MJF spoke too long continuously here.

I'm not saying that it was bad delivery.

Not saying it was bad material.

I think it probably could have been said in a more economic number of words to

quote something that Jim Ross said to me one time.

Could have been more economical with the number of words, Corney.

I also think he spoke too long continuously without punk.

There was no back and forth jousting.

This was MJF doing a soliloquy

and it started dragging.

Not because he didn't have, he didn't drop his energy level.

It was a little much.

Too many words to say things that could have been said

more

like I'm doing now.

Too many words.

Could have been shorter.

Punk started to respond.

And told, you know, he had a good line.

The best thing I ever did was leave and the best thing I ever did was come back.

Okay, we get it.

He told MJ off and he fired the people up, but now punk was going a little bit long

because this whole thing had gotten a little long.

And then all of a sudden, here comes FTR and Wardlow.

It's nice to see FTR can

come out and do flunky business.

We ought to call them the piss boys.

Let's not do that to FTR.

Well, that's all they get to do is come out and carry the fucking bucket, collect the piss, and walk off.

But anyway, Spears tackles Punk in the ring from behind while FTR and Wardlow are coming out and the heels all glom him

and they gut-shotted him with a chair and they choked him with a scarf.

Wardlow was standing there, not really excited about this or wanting to be involved because of that sub-plot that we've had going on for two years now.

And MJF taunted Punk, and then MJF ordered Wardlow to powerbomb him, and Wardlow powerbombed him on a chair that was laying in the ring.

The power bomb's not bad enough.

It has to be on a chair.

But we went into sports entertainment land, which is what we have stayed away from with punk.

They're doing this.

There was no bell ringing.

There were no referees coming down.

There was no security.

There was no help.

There was no urgency.

It's the biggest star in the company.

CM Punk.

And I'm saying, I know,

you know, some people bouncing on their trampoline was, oh, no, it's Kenny.

It's Kenny, Kenny.

No, the biggest star in this fucking company, if it's not named Brian Danielson, it's CM Punk.

One of those two has the fucking spot locked down.

And you can't tell me if a gang of people is beating up the biggest star in the company and it's not supposed to happen that somebody wouldn't be trying to do something.

It's distracting.

from the angle when they're not trying to do something.

That's why you,

when you set these things up, you explain to the people that are supposed to be trying to do something what they're supposed to be doing or trying to do and to not succeed.

But no bell, no referees, no help.

They beat him up, and then MJF sits cross-legged, Indian style, as they called it when I was a kid, on him, on his chest and says, see you in Chicago.

This had to last 20 minutes.

And

I mean, hey, Babe Ruth struck out every now and then,

but

I could have done with

half this long,

and I could have done with a little more urgent, chaotic physicality and believable violence at the end instead of a sports entertainment angle where nobody was trying to stop the crime from taking place.

Your thoughts?

I did think it went too long.

I thought that what they were setting up was good, but it could have been done a little quicker.

I agree with just about everything you said.

I didn't mind the beatdown and specifically the powerbomb under the chair spot

as much.

Was it superfluous?

Maybe.

But it didn't, you know, out of all the things we see on this show, that was the least of the things that bothers me.

Well, yeah, I mean,

I'm picking at nits here on this was by far the best thing on the show and the best talent on the show, but still

they can achieve better than this.

This was a rare swing and a maybe a single or whatever.

And it may not be the best usage of them, but we got FTR out there interacting with CM Punk.

It's a little better than them not on TV for weeks at a time or doing feuds with Arn Anderson's little friends or whatever they're doing.

I'm happy to see them doing something with a main eventer.

And hopefully FTR will be used a little better in the future.

But we're getting ready for the match.

It's been,

what, three months or so they've been building up MJF and Punk.

I am really curious to see them in the ring finally.

Oh, I definitely want to see the match next week.

And in Chicago, you know the fucking response will be off the charts.

I just, again,

when it's top talent and they're capable of doing such good work and it's a main event match and it's something that people want to see, if you're going to shoot an angle, I want an angle with heat.

I want an angle with chaos.

I want an angle where the guy getting a shit kicked out of him is in jeopardy and the heels are riding high.

I want to see if we can induce in somebody's fucking mind out in that crowd the thought that we, that's what we used to go for.

That's what every time I set up a fucking heat angle, that's what I was going for.

I had in my mind, there's somebody in this crowd that we can fucking take on this ride that will lose control of themselves and think if I don't do something to stop this, nobody's going to.

and at least try to start over that rail.

That's the idea of a fucking heat angle.

Of course, when 20 or 30 or 40 of them get the same idea at the same time, then you've gone too far.

But

I've never done one without wanting to create that environment.

And,

you know, it goes down to you have to get everybody involved.

You have to tell each referee or each underneath guy running in or each security guy.

Sometimes I would tell guys specifically how many bumps to take off off the apron when they were playing King of the Hill in the Ring before they finally fucking laid there and sold one

just to make sure that we had enough people trying to come in.

I would make sure I told the guy ringing the bell that if I'm not on the fucking headset queuing you, just

count to fucking 15 and start ringing it again.

I would give everybody cues, places to be, times to run in, stagger it so it looks like more help is needed.

Go back and find the WCW Saturday night show where the Midnight Express did the angle with Pillman and Zinc and we did the fucking Vegematic on Pillman's throat with the racket over the top of it.

You see referees being tossed out.

Then you see other people coming in try to save.

It's a staggered run-in.

We're playing King of the Hill.

We're keeping people out.

It's urgent.

That's happened in a I've saw these angles when I was a fucking kid and I saw people coming over the rail to respond to them.

And sometimes you have to go a while before it fucking clicks in.

And it's not going a while of shitty looking phony stuff.

It's going a while of

chaos and jeopardy.

And you build that fucking environment.

And that's what people makes people want to see

the guy that just got the shit kicked out of him or whatever happened to him come back later and get even.

Elsewise, it's just meaningless motion.

If they don't believe it, they can't get into into it.

They can't lose themselves in it, or they can't even say, well, now say what you want.

This shit's all set up, but goddamn, leave him alone.

Whatever.

This is just,

I'm getting grumpier.

But then, Brian, the moment we were all waiting for finally came after we sat through the rest of this

suffering to get to the meat of the matter.

MJF comes out and makes his entrance.

They go to the break.

On the other side of the break, you hear it,

like Mussolini.

And Owl's number one, Chicago, Italian beef.

See, I had to throw that in.

It was hometown favorite.

Nice little loose mention there, yeah.

Remember, owls number one, Chicago, Italian beef, the favorite of Moose Cholak.

MJF versus Punk, and I looked and I said, they've got 45 minutes on the air, but they're calling it the main event.

This could be good.

And with all that time, they took their time and they built the anticipation.

And MJF opened up with a cheap shot because he's the heel.

And Punk turned it around and started taking it to him.

MJF got tied up in the ropes, did the terry funk up and down.

And if you notice, they had to be watching tapes for this match because they brought out all kinds of tricks and little ebbs and flows and little ways to

pay homage to the stars of yesteryear.

They had a fucking match.

Not only they had they had a grudge match.

MJF tried to powder.

Punk chased him out of the ring, up the bleachers, and beat him up.

The referee went with him.

The announcers are covering it.

The referee not wanting to count him out this early.

This is when you play with the rules, a match that people want to see between two main event guys that's been built, and now in the babyface's hometown,

you're giving them the payoff to what they've been wanting to see.

This is when you let some things go.

You have guys running around fighting in the arena, or you have the referee being lax on the count out, or whatever, because

that makes it stand out even more.

If it's every match, it means nothing.

So

anyway,

Punk even did the series of body slams.

They were chanting one more time for a body slam.

They were having a pro wrestling match, and it was so refreshing because we don't see them very often.

And then just a simple thing to go to the break, Punk charges, MJF moves, Punk hits the post, goes to the floor, and MGF starts heat on the arm, the left arm that he fucking ran into the post with.

And they went to the break, nice and easy to understand.

They come back.

Imagine that.

MJF's getting heat on the arm.

But Punk fights back, gets a little bit of a comeback, went for the elbow off the top.

MJF crotched him on the top rope before he could come off, starts heat on the arm again.

Every time that Punk would come back or get an opening,

the people would get with it, but MJF would shut him down because it wasn't time for the big blow-up yet, the big comeback.

And again, they got creative with different ways to do it.

Then

the one spot that I didn't like, and it wasn't either one of their fault, actually, maybe partially a little bit punk,

but Bryce Remsburg, the referee,

this is where you need a Tommy Young because all of his mannerisms were so natural to what he would do.

A lot of the other referees, they're not

asked to get into the middle of a bunch of spots, therefore, they don't have a lot of practice, whatever.

But you saw where MJF goes in the corner, pulls the referee in front of him, hiding behind the referee.

Punk pulls the referee out, puts his arm around him to walk him out in the middle, like, let me take care of this, and turns around.

And MJF

actually didn't turn around.

As he's walking the referee out, MJF took tape from around his wrist and slipped it over Punk's neck.

That's fine,

but the referee kept walking after Punk got grabbed all the way to the opposite corner without turning around,

messing with his shirt collar.

It was so unnatural.

It killed the spot.

All Punk had to do was grab the referee and pull him out

with the referee facing away from MJF and step by the referee, go like, get out of here.

And MJF could have got the thing around, but the referee could have turned around within two seconds and wouldn't have seen it.

That was awkward.

Should have been quicker.

However,

Once that he wraps the tape around Punk's neck, MJF covers it with a sleeper.

And he's got the sleeper on with the tape around his neck that he's already choked him.

The referee can't see him.

He puts him to sleep.

The referee checks the hand and rings the bell.

And the people are bullshit.

And they start playing the music because if that's the finish, that's what they do.

And then I swear to God.

The referee walks over as soon as I saw how MJF was standing.

MJF had shoved the tape that he'd he'd used to cheat with underneath his armpit

and so nobody would see it and had his other arm up.

And the referee comes over and raises the army head down.

The tape falls out and the referee sees it.

Again, that was Jerry Lawler and Jack Briscoe in the Mid-South Coliseum in 1974.

Only it was a chain, not tape.

Again, the poor referee

had wooden face.

He pulled MJF's arm up and didn't look down at the tape falling out because he knew it was falling, so he knew he saw it.

Instead, he just looked straight at MJF like, oh.

So it wasn't a real reaction, but it was a good spot.

And he restarts it.

And the place blows.

And Punk starts making a comeback.

And MJF is bumping.

And Punk takes him in 20 punches in the corner, not 10, 20, straight to the head,

looking good with MJF not covering up.

He's open for him.

And not fucking Punk windmilling the area of his head, but throwing him to his fucking face.

And the people counting.

We went back in time to when this shit was actually watchable.

So again,

Punk goes for the scorpion.

MJF kicks him off and he takes a bump to the floor and re-injures his arm and they go to the break.

And they come back and MJF's getting heat on him again.

But Punk foiled the heat seeker pile driver gimmick, hits a springboard clothesline, but he's still selling his left arm.

And then Punk hits the dive to the floor on MJF, but comes down on his knee and hurts his knee.

And they're both selling.

Punk tosses MJF in, but he's limping.

So MJF takes back over.

Punk comes out and gets an STF, but he can't hold it with his bad arm.

And then they got the double bridge this deep in the match.

And Punk went for the go-to-sleep, but when he picked him up, the bad leg gave out.

So MJF got an ankle lock.

And the people are chanting, this is awesome, because as we've mentioned, When you give them a wrestling match, they like it.

They just don't see a lot of them.

And then Punk rolls through and throws MJF to the buckle.

They stood and traded.

Punk hit that reverse Hurricane Rana.

I hate those things.

I don't know how people don't break their necks.

But they were selling.

Both were exhausted.

Punk can't stand up.

MJF is selling his neck now.

They almost wiped the referee out, but he ducked out of the way on a roll-up.

He ducked out of the way, and MJF mule kicks kicks Punk in the nuts and gets a two count.

And they go to the break again.

Holy shit.

And they're coming back.

Punk is selling, but fighting from underneath.

MJF foils a bulldog attempt by biting Punk's finger.

And then Punk turns around and bites MJF's head and hit the...

pedigree, which he calls the Pepsi plunge, off the turnbuckles.

But he can't cover because he's selling his bad knee.

knee.

And then they both reverse tombstones, one backwards, then the other backwards, and then Punk drops MJF with a kick, hits the elbow off the top, two count, huge pop.

This thing is cooking.

And then,

finally,

Punk calls for the go-to-sleep, but he's still limping.

MJF rolls to the floor.

Here comes Wardlow.

steps over MJF and gets face to face with Punk and then steps back like, do whatever the fuck you want.

Punk tosses MJF back in, gets in, turns to look at Wardlow, turns back.

MJF nails Punk with the dynamite diamond ring, boom,

and falls on him one, two, three.

Punk's first defeat.

And

because MJF had won the match that was restarted,

nobody expected him to win now,

win again.

So everybody was calling mentally in their minds that Punk was going to win the thing, and they swerved him there.

The only bad thing,

they showed a replay, which I get was set up, obviously.

This is what they wanted to do, which showed

Wardlow passing the ring while he was face to face with Punk.

He passed the ring to MJF on the floor behind his back.

The original camera shot didn't see it.

Probably by design, it looked like.

And this so that they could catch it in the replay.

But

while that was good,

the people in the arena didn't catch it.

And when MJF rolled in, he already had the ring on.

When he throws the punch, He falls on his stomach and he put the ring back in his tights under his belly.

So the people in the arena,

I don't think they ever saw the ring.

I think it would have been better if when he was thrown in, he already had the ring.

When Punk gets in and looks back at Wardlow,

either MJF could have come up with the motion like he's

setting the ring good, or after he threw the punch, He could have taken the ring off where they could have seen it and put it in his trunks before he went face down to hide it from from the referee.

Then the people in the arena would have got it instantly.

Otherwise than that,

they went 45 minutes with this thing,

and

I could have watched plenty more because it was fresh, it made sense, they kept things moving, nothing was out of place.

They gave us a little bit of everything.

And, you know, what a fucking little roller coaster ride there.

So,

again,

you know, they have a handful of people that can do marvelous work with any amount of time that they're given.

And then the rest of the show, you got to sit through to watch what you want to see.

What'd you think?

I thought it was really good.

Took a while to get there, though.

I hated the stuff on the floor at the beginning.

And I'm not a big fan of that in general, but especially when you start the match with it, not a big fan of that.

And I can see that.

And that's why I said, you know, if they didn't do it all the time, this is where you're supposed to do it.

But the reason why that it looks so

normal is because everybody does it.

But good match.

And

like you said, I was surprised that MJF got the victory because you were certainly taught through watching wrestling for years that he was about to get screwed over or he's about to lose the CM Punk.

And I shouldn't say screwed over.

After that, but it didn't happen.

You would have thought conventional wisdom was his out was winning the illegal one that was restarted that was his excuse his out his bitch his gripe

which is why this was better the way they did it like that yeah i thought it was good the only again the biggest problem for me may have been i didn't like the beginning of the match

and everything before the match on the show was really bad or almost everything to the point where it made me not really in the mood for the match.

And that's a shame because this is one of the biggest matches they've had on free TV in a while.

You know, that's why, to be honest with you, I can't,

I don't know why Punk, Danielson, and a couple of other guys don't get together and go to Tony and just say, Tony, Jesus H.

Christ, we are literally hurting ourselves on purpose to get your company over.

And we can't do it on a show where you've got all this fucking foolishness with all the various executive vice presidents living out their own mental masturbatory fantasies and/or

have you know a bunch of indie talent doing not very good shit on the program to either make people tune out before they see us or like you were just not in the mood to see it because you've had to sit through so much other horseshit

somebody at some point is going to have to explain to him

Look, these people have been wanting to love your show since day one.

They hate the evil empire.

They hate Vince McMahon.

They hate the WWE.

And the WWE is the most boring wrestling show we've ever seen on television.

Now is the time.

But you can't do it with these goofy fucking little pet projects of yours.

And you need to get somebody to write a television program that knows how to write a television program.

These are your faults, Tony.

Thank you for starting this company and giving us all a place to work and giving the fans hope that there'll be some other kind of wrestling besides the WWE.

But you're shooting yourself in the foot by not having people that know what the fuck they're doing in positions to be able to do it.

And that's why, again, we've said it every week.

The WWE gives them every advantage, hands them loaded weapons.

hands them all the stars they want

and they say god damn it we don't care how bad you want us to kick your ass, we're still going to do television shows that are rotten to the average wrestling fan.

If you are not convinced and

committed to watching and liking AEW television to the extent of all

you've just decided to forego all reason and all logic and your eyesight and everything, and this fake, stupid stuff isn't happening,

that's the only way that you can possibly excuse this.

So, I mean, I mean, we're two years in now.

And even if somebody can make the case that, oh, there wasn't enough available talent, even the guy's a fucking billionaire, he could have found the available talent.

Two years ago, that it's different now.

And still, the one joke

guy with his hands in his pockets, and still,

I won't say thankfully, the one is injured, but still we have an ongoing invasion of Japanese schoolgirls because of one of the EVPs.

The other one can't keep his wife out of the goddamn ring, even though people would rather give a kidney up than see Brandy again.

It's just, it's chaos because nobody's in charge, and there's no one

view here.

There's no one vision.

There's no one person dictating the logic of this universe.

It's like

if the biggest movie studio in history decided we're going to sign 40 movie stars and we're going to let them decide what kind of movie they want to make, and we're going to give them 10 or 15 directors just to see if we can keep them from walking off the set accidentally.

What would it turn out like?

Be a fucking mess.

That's what this show is.

It's a mess.

There's elements of greatness with the people that are capable of doing it.

And then it's insulting, embarrassing, or just plain rotten for the people who aren't.

And we all know who all those people are.

It's disheartening, Brian, to see somebody close, this close to,

if not putting the WWE out of business, obviously, certainly that's not going to happen, at least just having a better, consistent product.

But whereas the WWE is just kind of flatlined and it is what it is for the most part,

AEW can soar with the Eagles, and the next segment they can scratch with the chickens.

And it's, it's even more

frustrating when parts of the show are good and the rest sucks than when it all sucks.

There's hope.

They just, they can't see how to do it.

I don't know.

Anything else you want to say about this program?

Not really.

I guess I'm glad also they didn't go with an easy or lazy way of paying off the MJF Wardlow thing.

They're still prolonging that, and everyone probably expected him to turn on MJF there.

It's also not the end of Punk and MJF, I wouldn't think.

So we'll still get to see more chapters in his story.

And that's at least good because the one segment on this show, it's either one and two with Danielson and Punk and MJF or just Punk and MJF.

It's the one segment that's always good.

I hope it continues for a while.

The opening segment.

They tried to do the big thing for MJF, Wardlow to the Ring, setting up the cardboard cutouts of MJF Beaten Punk last week.

And they had old George Hamilton Roberts intro FTR and Tully and Spears.

Spears comes out looking silly, and it makes it funny.

He's got a jacket on with no shirt and the skull cap on, carrying the chair, and it's just, it, I don't know.

But anyway, finally, they wind up the big intro for MJF, and they have Justin Roberts read that whole thing, and it was some good stuff in there.

And he comes out being carried on a throne like Lawler in Memphis, coming into the Coliseum.

And did you see the guys carrying him were trying real hard not to fucking trip and fall?

And they did that with Lawler and the WWF as a spot one time.

It wasn't real, but these guys had to go down a ramp.

So it looked like they were suffering.

And do we have any,

was that just a random throne girl that he was making out with like two anteaters?

Or is that somebody that he's involved with?

Or he just decided to go for it.

Yeah, I haven't heard anyone talk about that or any confirmation, but I have to figure it maybe someone he knows at a minimum.

But anyway, it was seven minutes into the show before MJF finally spoke, but it's better than some of the matches.

So

they're still teasing the thing with Wardlow.

He went to thank the person who made his victory over Punk possible, and it was Spears, not Wardlow.

And then

they showed a video of MJF's new shirt on the screen.

And I get they're missing Keith Mitchell already because once they got the video up on the screen, then they couldn't fucking get the camera shot back.

But finally, MJF's gotten the promo.

He's bragging, and out comes Punk.

No music.

He's serious.

He's on the stage.

Tony Schiavone goes over to him.

And I got to be honest, you know how much I like MJF.

But Punk picked this up when he started talking because it wasn't really headed anywhere.

There was a lot of

they put the production over the content.

We were 10 minutes into the show or better, and all we'd seen is the glorious entrances and the heels being cocky.

And it just, did you, did you feel like that, that it wasn't really kicking in until Punk came in and started picking up the pace a bit?

You needed Punk to come in, and I thought it certainly picked up the pace, and he has a real intensity that's great.

And it took a while, and I agree with you 100% about Spears.

We'll get into Tully in a little bit.

And the other thing is Justin Roberts.

I've heard him announce wrestlers' deaths, I think.

And it wasn't as painful as it was for him to do this.

It was a little over the top, I think, in some of those elements.

So Punk brings out Darby and Sting,

and they've all three got the black baseball bats, and Punk wants a rematch with MJF because he won illegally, of course.

But

then

basically, they come out with the

this is again back and forth, and it took a while.

Punk is daring Wardlow

to drop the group.

You need to subsist on your own.

They're just taking advantage of you.

And, you know, Punk wants MJF, but Punk also wants Wardlow, a rematch with him.

And then Dax steps in and he wants a rematch because

they're still pissed that they got beaten by Darby and Sting.

I think he just wants a rematch because he wants to wrestle on TV once in a blue moon.

And then Punk pitches the idea of the three of them against FTR and MJF, and MJF won't do that.

And he offers FTR versus Punk and any partner except for Sting and Darby.

and if the if the punk and his partner besides sting and derby win over ftr then he gets a rematch with

the best thing about this was that the opening segment sets up a match later on and we've been bitching about that right exactly so they did that

but it was confusing to get there because everybody wants something else.

And is anybody going to be sitting there taking notes like I am?

Or were they just a little confused?

And at the end, we'll talk about the ratings, but I believe the ratings were up this week.

And again,

you show Punk in the opening segment.

What have we always said?

Then he goes away.

Then you never see Punk again.

Showed him in the opening segment.

It ran a little long, but they had a lot of things that they clearly were trying to get into this one segment, including the Wardlow Ts, but it made you realize that Punk.

and FTR were going to be on later in the show and who's his partner going to be.

So in that sense, they did something right.

Well, and also, and we'll talk about the ratings afterwards.

Remind me of that.

Don't let me cut that off.

But also, they had the big reveal that they had teased, and there was curiosity about that because there's so many people it could be because the WWE keeps fucking up and giving their opposition every bit of talent that they need.

So, all these things, that's why

this segment was not bad.

And we could have been looking at the pudding gang.

So, that's definitely a plus.

I would have loved to have this 15-minute segment done in eight or nine, I think, is the only thing

that I had a problem with.

But anyway,

so they've set up what I thought was the main event.

Then I realized, oh, wait, they got the Texas death match.

So at least that match is later on in the program.

We get to see FTR, we get to see Punk, and we get whoever.

So now Tony Schiavone is in the back again.

They've either got 16 interviewers or poor Tony is everywhere.

And he never looks out of breath or disheveled.

He's in the back with Andre Oleo Leo

or aka Mushmouth.

I've been binging that Cosby documentary, too, now that you've put me onto that.

And I loved Fat Albert when I was a kid, but Mushmouth was my favorite.

Anyway,

why are they portraying

Andre as a complete blithering simpleton.

I understand he can't speak English or apparently Spanish because nobody can understand what the fuck he's saying.

But we haven't established that he has the IQ of a fucking baked potato and he's still talking about the kid that works for Sting

and they've told him

and listening to Andre try to talk is like enduring a root canal

and he's still wanting to buy Darby from Sting or something like that.

And then we come to Wardlow's match, and this time the opposition has stepped up a little bit.

He gets the Baker, formerly the partner of the butcher.

We never see the butcher anymore, so now the Baker had to go it alone.

And this was a little bit longer match, went through a break, and the Baker got him a little offense in, and then he got powerbomb four times.

And then Spears comes in.

And

do you think they planned it like this, or do you think they stole our first review?

Remember the first time Wardlow beat somebody with the power bombs, put his foot on him, and then I said, and then Spears came in and wore the guy with a chair and stole all the spotlight.

They didn't say that then, but then ever since he's done it, the announcers say he's stealing his spotlight.

So is that the way they meant it to be, or are they stealing our

review of what it actually looked like?

Well, they're certainly listening.

I'll put it that way.

Well, they're listening.

They're just not heeding.

All righty then.

Next on the AEW parade

was the match that we had been waiting for.

FTR against punk and a mystery partner.

And I wrote, ah, it's not the main event, and I forgot the Texas death match, the main event.

But at least we're going to see who the partner is, and they're doing it at the top of the nine o'clock hour.

So that was smart for the ratings.

That's probably why they kept people.

So, anyway, we find out who Punk's partner is.

Lak Mussolini with Moxale.

It's Moxley.

So, all right, I say, okay,

this is going to be the ultimate challenge.

Can FTR and CM Punk make this guy have a wrestling match?

That was the challenge.

And they gave this one time.

And I'm not going to go through

every single high point and spot and twist and turn and change in momentum.

But Dax and Punk started and they wrestled.

One tackle, drop down, reverse, hip toss, kickoff, headlock, takeover, head, scissors, kick out.

Wrestling.

And then cash comes in.

One tackle, drop down, hip toss, arm drag.

More wrestling.

I'm loving it.

And then Moxley comes in and he does that weird shoulder dipping,

swerving body language.

He looks like he's twisting in the wind.

Bez from Happy Mondays, yes.

I don't know that one.

But he locked up with Dax and they actually

did some wrestling.

It was headlock, takeover, one tackle, drop down, scoop slam, and then big kick, and then another big kick, and another big kick.

He's sitting Dax there, and he's just hitting the ropes and kicking him in the chest.

I guess he's trying.

And Punk and Moxley worked well together.

He said, Punk did a backslap tag.

Now I know what it's like when a child of mine brings home a bad report card.

The disappointment.

FTR did a little heat spot on Punk's leg and started heat, and they work like heels.

And Punk's selling his ass off, but

it was just a false set of heat because they wanted to give Moxley a comeback and then get the heat on him so Punk could have the last comeback.

But

as a result, they only got like one minute of heat on Punk's leg.

And then when he tagged Moxley, Moxley made a comeback, but there wasn't that much reaction because the heat was so short.

And then they go into a four-way and

both the baby faces did dives and they all fell down.

They went to the break.

Somehow,

during the break, well, I don't say somehow, they got out there, but during the break, they replayed it on the other side.

FTR picks Moxley up and double belly-to-back suplexes him through a table at ringside onto the concrete floor as a heat spot.

As a heat,

the referee is counting, and he pops up at nine and rolls in.

He beats the count back in,

but they start

the heat on this fucking guy in a regular tag match by double suplexing him through a table on the concrete.

So now he can sell.

Moxley is hopeless.

If it was FTR's idea, say, hey, we'll start the heat on you by giving you a double back suplex through a table onto the fucking floor.

If he had any idea of what the wrestling business was, he would have said, are you out of your mind?

Cut me off with a knee to the back and let me fucking sell.

But it's all got to to be the garbage indie modern outlaw goofy wrestling anyway

at one point

i thought they were going to do and it's they still may come back to it i thought they were going to do some kind of turn with moxley and punk because moxley

atomic dropped dax but dax reached back

I think that's where he blind tagged, right?

And then, but he suplexed cash and went to the corner for a tag, but Punk wasn't there because he'd been distracted and then nailed off the apron by Dax.

So I thought, oh, Moxley's going for the tag.

Punk's not there.

But they never mentioned it again.

Did you see FTR give Moxley the Vegematic?

Yes.

Just barely.

I love you, boys, Dax and Cash.

I know you watch the tapes.

But

there's a reason why it looked so good when the Midnight Express did it.

And one of those reasons was Stan Lane's incredibly deep squat.

His legs were fucking powerful and he could and limber and he could do a deep squat.

Also, Moxley's legs were in the wrong place, guys.

If you want to go back and look at the tape while I'm saying this,

all the listeners out there, just talk amongst yourselves for a second.

I'm talking to FTR.

When you pick Moxley up for the bear hug to squat down and lean him out, his legs went around your back.

I've mentioned this before.

That's the wrong place.

You need to have the guy up in a bear hug, like you're going to hold him there for a while, the old spot where you hold the guy there, and he puts his shins,

folds them up, and puts them on your thighs.

Once you got the guy in the bear hug and his shins are folded up on your thighs, then you squat down as low as you can and lean the guy straight out.

And that's why Stan's deep squat came in handy.

Because then,

when Dax would come off with the leg drop, all Cash has to do is let go and Moxley lands flat, falls right out of his arms.

Because Moxley's legs were around Cash's back,

and then Cash didn't just drop him flat, but stumbled forward onto his knees because he doesn't have that deep squat.

It kind of kerflucked it up there.

And Cash should have been a couple of feet farther out and toward his back about a foot.

So when Dax comes straight off, he's going straight with the leg drop toward the opposite turnbuckle because that's that straight line.

That's when you know if you try to jump off with a leg drop a little bit toward the left side, you're getting off and the momentum's changing.

Does this make any sense verbally to you, Brian Last?

Absolutely.

This is great stuff.

I love when you give advice.

So, well, it's not advice.

I invented the goddamn thing.

It's not advice.

It's just telling you.

This is not a fucking debatable thing.

This is how you do the fucking thing, and that's how it works out.

Instead, like I said, legs around the back.

It brought both of them forward.

Cash stumbled, positioning, whatever, but they were trying.

Then Dax missed the elbow off the top rope, and Moxley clotheslined Cash and hit a shitty hot tag

because the heels were tagging two almost simultaneously.

He didn't lay there and sell and let the fucking heels tag so the fresh heel comes in and tries to go after him.

And then he evades that guy.

And then both the heels are in when he tags, dives and tags punk so that punk can come in and both the heels are ready to feed.

But it was a simultaneous tag.

And I give up on hot tags.

The people popped anyway because it was punk and this set of heat had lasted a while.

But I'm tired of trying to advise people on how to do a hot tag when nobody is getting it anymore.

And it's fucking ridiculous.

Having said that, Punk made a comeback while still selling his leg from the brief heat from earlier.

And it was great.

Because now you, okay, we know why the guy's not just 100% now.

And then they even did a doomsday device, Punk and Moxley, which it was a two-count, but they got it in.

Here's another thing.

Cash gives Moxley a spinning DDT on the floor.

And he's going to be back up in a second.

You can't kill Moxley.

They hit Punk with the bell and a brain buster and got a two count.

Then they got more heat on Punk and hit the big rig on him, but Moxley saved.

Then everybody's selling and we got the double one two in the ring with all four guys.

This has been a good tag match except for the Piccadillos that I've just picked out.

This is far and away one of Moxley's best matches he's ever had because they weren't fighting on the floor.

There wasn't all the goddamn plunder in the ring.

He was actually wrestling.

And they gave him time so that they could do what they needed to do without rushing through it.

And there was no trampoline business going on.

I'm picking at nits because if it was the grade schoolers and the pudding gang out there, I wouldn't give a shit because they're hopeless.

But since these guys, except for Moxley, are all top fucking guys and some of the best in the world at what they do, I'm giving constructive criticism.

So it was was a great match up to that point, especially for AEW, because there was more professionalism than normal.

And then everything started going sideways

when poor Tully got in the ring.

Because

Punk gets a submission on cash, and the referee, Aubrey,

is with the other two guys.

And Tully rolls in, takes his suit jacket off, and starts swinging and swatting Punk with his suit jacket.

He didn't just do it once to distract him.

He does it several times.

And

I'm at a loss.

If Punk has a submission hold on my guy, the referee's back is turned and the referee's busy with the other people in the match, and I'm the manager, wouldn't I come in and haul off and football kick Punk straight in in the face to get him to let go of my fucking guy?

Or would I take off my jacket and swat him in the head with it?

I don't know what this was supposed to be because,

yes, Punk let go of the hold and stood up, and there Aubrey turns around, and there's Aubrey standing there staring at Tully in the ring, staring at Punk.

So, why did they distract the referee for her to just turn around and see the manager still in the ring?

And then

Punk goes to pick Tully up for, well, Tully swings, Punk blocks punch and goes to pick him up in the fireman's carry for the GTS.

But did you see what went wrong?

I'm sure you could pick it apart from what actually went wrong, but obviously I saw what happened where he shouldn't have.

I mean, they shouldn't have done this to begin with, but whatever.

Well,

what happened was when Punk blocked the punch and went to Fireman's Carry Tully and picked him up for the go-to-sleep,

Tully has not been picked up in a while, and he was so, and you guys, you can all go back and watch the video.

This is exactly what it was.

Tully hadn't been picked up in a while.

I'm sure he was eager to show that he still got it.

When Punk bent over,

Tully jumped before Punk was lifting.

So what the effect that that has, and you can see this on the video, is that, and I don't care how strong you are, when you're off balance, this is going to happen.

I've seen this happen to the Road Warriors before.

When I bend over to pick the guy up over my shoulder at a fireman's carry, if I've just bent over and he jumps up without me starting to lift first, then he's jumping in the air before I'm standing up.

That means when I start standing up, he's coming down.

Now I'm bent over.

That means 200 plus pounds, whatever the fuck Tully weighs,

is coming downwards on the back of my head before I've had a chance to get my legs under me and stand up.

And it almost took Punk face first

to the mat instead of him being able to pick Tully up.

Well, then he realizes what has happened.

And he has to, he's staggering, but he's trying to get under Tully because he's got to get his legs under him to pick him up because they're still off balance.

And now Tully is holding on like a monkey fucking a football.

And finally, he got up under him and gave Tully the go-to-sleep.

But this is why I'm not managing either.

Tully's almost 70.

I'm 60.

We don't need to be doing that shit.

I mean, everybody wanted to see,

you know, a legend when he's 40 or a legend when he's 50.

But it comes a point.

We talked about the chic earlier.

We talk about what Vince McMahon looks like.

It's not doing your

memories that people have any favors when they see guys going out and being involved in these things.

But anyway,

so go to sleep on Tully.

But right at that point, Cash rolls Punk up.

a two count

that might have was a nice little false finish there but then suddenly punk and Moxley both just spun FTR up and hit both their finishes on both Dax and Cash at the same time.

Covers simultaneously, one, two, three.

They beat both of them right in the middle of the ring.

So, again,

if FTR had come in and got the Keith Lee treatment and got win after win on television a year and a half ago and established themselves as what they are, the best tag team in the business, and then won the championship, which they did, and then

defeated the Young Bucks the first time around and made the Bucs chase for it.

Then they would have been established.

But instead, they come in, they get a couple of wins, they get the belts.

They're mostly on YouTube.

They get beat by the Young Bucs,

the EVPs,

then they turn heel.

The Hardley boys do.

to take FTR's place and FTR never gets in a ring with them again because they were so jealous.

I'm talking about the Hardley boys now.

They were so jealous that a lot of people were saying FTR were the best in the world.

They brought them in specifically to beat and bury them and then switch heel and take their spot.

And then a year later, every three months or so, we get to see FTR have a tag team match on television.

In this case, the babyfaces beat up their manager.

and pin both of them cleanly in the middle of the ring at the same time.

Why didn't you piss in their mouths while they were down there?

It's not Punk and Moxley's fault.

FTR should already be over because they should have been booked properly.

And then they're a joy to work with.

I'm sure everybody in the company wants to work with FTR because they know that they'll be taken care of and not get hurt and not have to go through foolish, silly cartoon bullshit.

But it was a great tag team match, and Moxley was even bearable.

And the finish would have been great if FTR had come in and gotten over or been pushed a year ago and now could do this and still keep their heat.

But they didn't and they weren't, so they can't.

Closing thoughts on this match.

I liked it.

Good way to use Moxley, keep him out of a singles match, put him in there with punk.

Also, a minor thing, but I like the fact that they established that punk isn't Mr.

Popularity in the dressing room.

Who's he going to get to be his partner?

He's getting along with Sting and Darby.

We know that relationship.

It's played out on TV.

He has put over Moxley.

He did that promo when Moxley went to rehab talking about Moxley.

So it's established that he at least thinks about him and cares about him.

So it makes sense that they would team up.

I know it's a minor thing, but I like that when you stop and you think about it, Bill Watts style, how did these two get here?

Why are they teaming up?

It makes some sense.

Tully shouldn't be, we've been saying it for months now.

Tully shouldn't be a manager.

He can't do a good promo anymore.

He can't do anything physical anymore.

It's almost like Jim Hurd knew.

The abilities are gone.

No, I was 33.

I know.

I'm joking.

I'm joking.

Other than that, and with FTR,

I'm happy we get to see them have matches.

It is no coincidence that the guys who work with them end up having really well-thought-out matches.

That are good.

I could do without the table spot in the middle of the match or even the ring bell, to be honest with you.

But everyone knows what it is.

They got Hoganed.

They got brought in by the guys looking to beat them just to shut internet fans up.

Everyone knows what, everyone knows what's up.

And look, the only person that could change things is Tony Khan.

And Tony Khan has, for whatever reason, been happy with the way FTR is booked.

Go figure.

Who knows?

Well, no, but also he has, he can't tell anybody what to do.

He has no authority because he has no balls because he's not in charge.

He's the boss.

He pays everybody, but he's not in charge.

If he was in

well, if he was in charge, it wouldn't probably be any better because he doesn't know what to do.

But fortunately, he's not in charge.

He can't tell anybody what to do because they won't listen to him because he's a fucking mark.

That's why they need a fucking authority figure that knows what to do and that gives a shit enough to tell them.

The program started off

differently.

No Mussolini,

just punk sitting cross-legged in the ring.

Well, they used to call it Indian style when we were in grade school.

Everybody sit around the desk Indian style.

We're going to have cookies.

They don't call it that anymore.

What style is it now?

Doggy style?

Crisscross applesauce.

Crisscross applesauce.

Because of the way your legs crisscross.

Yeah, but where does the applesauce come from?

It just makes it all rhyme.

I think in that case, the child may need to be sent home if if he's producing applesauce by crisscrossing his legs.

Possibly a medical fucking issue there.

I don't know, though.

Who am I to decide?

I'm not a pediatrician.

Start one of these fine Sprite Zeros.

If it was Dr.

Pepper, you'd be a pediatrician.

So anyway,

Punk started this show out.

He looks directly into the camera.

He speaks to the people.

He sounds like it's coming coming off the top of his head.

It's conversational.

Gets to the point.

He's talking about old shitty little Max from shitty little Long Island.

Thought you might get offended there.

He's just doing a promo.

He doesn't mean it.

Well, he does, but nevertheless.

It's a rematch is what he's talking about.

He wants that rematch with MJF.

Wouldn't you know who won the pony and when this rematch is going to come up?

March 6th at the Revolution pay-per-view.

Well, that is convenient.

And he was sitting there with a little gift box in front of him.

And again, a good promo.

And then he unwraps the gift box because he's been saying that MJF, and this is very,

this tied together perfectly.

He's been saying that,

you know, or MJF has been saying that he's better than Brett in Calgary, better than Punk in Chicago, better than Piper in Portland.

So Punk unwraps the gift box that's sitting there in front of him and pulls out a dog collar and chain.

Okay, you want to be better than Piper in Portland?

Well,

and I mean, he didn't even need to explain it for this crowd because they're the smartest of the smart.

And I jotted down, hopefully history will be recounted.

And then, yes, Tony Schiavone started telling, oh, that reminds me of Piper and Valentine.

and then gave no details whatsoever.

But later on in the program, they covered it a little bit with the,

you know, the announcers talking about it.

But Greg Valentine, I would imagine, is available.

Yeah, remember he was there when they had the last dog collar match, wasn't he?

Oh, that's right.

He was.

So instead of bringing him to sit at ringside and look like a fucking bump on a log, why don't they just take a camera and let him do a couple minutes talking about how that, you know,

they were never the same after he and Piper and, you know, Piper's eardrum and his

so dangerous and blah, blah, blah.

They can't show the footage.

That's owned under the auspices of the WWE now.

But for the sake of people who either weren't born or haven't seen the match from 19, what was it, 1983?

80.

I was going to say 82, 83.

From they haven't seen the match 40 years ago,

just tell people,

fill them in.

But anyway,

so he calls MJF out to the stage to answer.

And when MJF comes out there, Punk shows him the picture of a 14-year-old or 12-year-old of whatever age he was then meeting a 14-year-old MJF meeting CM Punk, which was a great touch.

It's a legitimate picture.

And people start chanting Punk, and MJF goes to fire back at him and is rattled and can't think think of anything to say.

For the first time in history, MJF can't speak and throws the microphone down and leaves.

And now we get Lak Mussolini with extra chain.

But that was a good segment.

It didn't go too long.

It was good at this point for MJF to be speechless because he never has been.

Punk set the fucking stipulation up and it makes sense.

You understand

where it came from.

Not like a Texas death match that's not really a Texas death match to start a rivalry that's not really a rivalry for a world title from a champion.

It's not really a champion.

Blah, blah, blah.

This worked.

It made sense.

Now we want to see punk and MJF dog collar match.

And he, you know, where he's going to leave MJF's blood all over the ring on the pay-per-view.

It's wrestling.

Imagine that.

What'd you think?

I thought it was good.

I thought it was really good.

Maybe a little too long,

especially considering how many other long promo segments would end up happening on this show, including right after this.

I liked it.

I'm intrigued by.

You know, we've never seen MJF just walk away.

What's the reaction going to be next week?

They're running out of time.

Not running out of time, but there's only a few more episodes before the pay-per-view.

There's going to be some sort of reaction.

He's got to get some heat.

Yeah, I mean, they're not going to just leave it at that.

So, this has been the one feud that week to week has made sense since the beginning.

So, they're going to do something next week.

I'm intrigued to see what it is.

And I wasn't sure he had a gift box.

You said he had a gift box.

I was looking at it like, what is that?

Is it it looked like a fucking birthday present to me.

I don't know.

I guess I didn't see it that way.

I thought he was.

maybe hiding something he was.

You know, they got these new things called a high-def television.

Oh, shush.

I saw what it was.

I saw it.

I was putting it on rabbit ears.

It was the picture was snowy because you had to turn the fucking antenna.

If I could find someone to fix tube TVs, I'd be in heaven right now because I got some good stuff here.

But anyway, my point was going to be, you know, there were a few points where, because it went a while and he was talking more than yelling a promo, you did hear some fans acting up in the background.

But then like he would pull them back in and when he finally pulled out that dog collar and you heard the crowd reaction and then just the little shit he was doing like putting it in his own mouth to show what's going to happen.

I thought it was really strong, and I am looking forward to this match.

AEW has done a rematch that I want to see, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what this dog collar match because I don't think these two guys are going to let us down.

I think it means something to them, too.

Yeah, and it's not going to be ridiculous, you know, diamond cutters off the top of the ladder with the dog collar.

It's going to be shit that makes sense, one would imagine.

Um, I will say, you did mention

that this was long for a talking segment with so much other talking on the show.

That's why they should have cut down some of the other talking because none of it was as important as this.

I agree.

So, Tony Schiavone, quickly in the back with Christian Cage, Jungle Boy, and Dino Douche.

Let me ⁇ the information they imparted to us in like a one-minute...

Backstage pre-tape

was that there will be a triple threat tag team title match at the pay-per-view where two teams are challenging Jungle Boy and Dino.

But next week, there's going to be a tag team battle royal on TV to see who, I guess, those two teams are.

And in two weeks, there's going to be some other kind of battle royal on TV to determine something else.

Is that what you remember?

You got more out of that than I did because

at this point, all three of those guys, every time they talk, it's like Charlie Brown's teacher is talking.

I just don't don't hear it.

Ram, rom, rom, rom.

Peanuts, parents.

I have no idea what they're involved with or what they're doing.

There's going to be Battle Royals next two weeks on TV and a multi-team tag team title match on the pay-per-view.

So this is going to be a goddamn cluster.

I said that the match of the week between Raw, NXT, and Dynamite was Champa and Ziggler, right?

That was the best match of the three programs.

The best interview, the best segment was on AEW and came up next.

Imagine that.

And imagine this.

It involved MJF and CM Punk, but mostly MJF.

And I've seen a lot of people are talking about this on Twitter and they're raving about it, et cetera, et cetera.

But this,

it's an example of

Miz wouldn't have done this because Miz couldn't do this because it would have required him being somewhat real.

And Miz just is the celebrity type.

But MJF now finally,

he didn't even break character.

He didn't get away from his gimmick.

It actually more explained his gimmick of why he's an insufferable prick because he was mentally mistreated in his past or whatever.

And he's got a

specific grudge against punk because of not anything punk really did to him, but because of what he believes Punk did.

And

the whole thing,

he ended up, and I think I know, obviously, I don't know for sure, but I think I know where this is going.

And it's even better that some people said, well, MJF, he switched babyface and he showed us he wasn't really that mean of a guy.

Right then and there, he may have, but I don't know if it's going to happen over the long term.

But

he told the story about the picture of him meeting CM Punk when he was 11.

He had ADD and school was hell, but he was good at football.

He was one of the only two Jewish kids to,

you know, go out for the football team.

Are any Jews in the house?

Were you in the house, Brian?

I was not in the house, but I was watching live, obviously.

Well, there you go.

He started his middle linebacker, and his teammates threw quarters at him as hard as he could because he was Jewish.

Is that a thing that people do?

I can't speak specifically to that, but I will say, despite people recognizing that there are a lot of Jewish people on Long Island, we still do deal with anti-Semitism.

And some of what he dealt with, according to this promo, this heel origin story, are very similar things to what a lot of us, despite growing up in either Jewish communities or communities that have a large Jewish population or just...

outright large Jewish communities, you still deal with this, even on Long Island.

But I don't get the the idea of throwing money at somebody that you don't like.

That's like an Arena Mexico thing, right?

Well, you had a great match.

We're going to throw the money.

I would have been there with the catchers, Mitt, catching the money, going, fuck you guys, throw some more.

Well, usually bigots aren't smart.

Well, I know what he's doing anyway.

But nevertheless,

the point is he was...

He had a tough time in school.

He found something he was good at football, but his teammates didn't accept him.

He cried all day, but he'd get to meet his hero that night.

And that meant everything to him.

And he promised himself he was going to be the best wrestler in the world.

And he wanted to be like CM Punk.

And he found out it was just another Friday for CM Punk, but it meant a lot to him.

And then in January 2014, Punk left him when he needed him most.

It was your fault, you know, good bastard.

So anyway, MGF went to college, but he quit to become the best wrestler in the world.

And he's not going to quit like Punk at Revolution because I'm better than you and you know it.

But he laid this whole thing out and you got to see it.

And

the emotion, and he was quivering and he was kind of tearing up a little bit.

And it said, obviously,

I don't know if, you know, he made tons of money getting money thrown at him, but there was a lot of real in this.

And he was drawing on,

you know, some of that and that emotion.

And it, and people started kind of getting with him a little bit as far as, you know, just feeling sorry for him.

And all of a sudden, when he's done, here comes Punk, no music,

just coming out with a concerned look on his face.

And

Tony Schiavone,

he's trying to help, but did you hear him say, I've got five kids.

ADD is no joke.

Fuck, he's got five kids.

Fucking sexual addiction may be no joke either, Tony, for heaven's sake.

As Arn Arn Anderson said, you got enough cum in you, Shivani, to shampoo a buffalo.

But anyway, Punk comes in the ring with no microphone and just looking at MJF and says, is that true?

Is that real?

And MJF walked off on him.

And Punk's sitting there going, maybe, you know, is this guy for real?

It creates questions.

It was fucking good.

And now it's more intriguing.

Now does Punk believe that maybe he had something to do with making this guy act this way toward him?

Whatever.

Was it me?

And of course, I can see, I don't think I'm ruining anybody.

No spoiler here.

The best way for MJF.

And of course, what I predict may not necessarily happen because I can just see it making the most sense.

But

MJF, at some point, when he beats Punk, which he probably will,

then he reveals, yeah, you fucking idiot, you fell for that whole fucking line of shit.

I was the one running the goddamn football locker room when I was in college.

Fuck you, or whatever.

But I like this, and it was different, and it wasn't the same shit we see over and over again.

And MJF did a great job.

What'd you think?

I thought it was one of the greatest promos I've ever seen on wrestling.

It was one of the most unique promos I've ever seen on wrestling.

You have a guy that the fans love booing,

not in the Cody way, but in the right way.

And he was able to get them to shut up and listen and start believing him and going with him.

He did have tears.

This fucking guy was able to make himself cry in the middle of this.

And like you said, a lot of this was probably based on reality.

I believe that just, you know, based on how I grew up on Long Island.

But this was an incredibly strong promo.

This did a great job of laying out, like I said before, the heel origin story, but where exactly this comes from with MJF and punk.

And I'm going to say it again because I've been saying it for a while, but it's noticeable that for the last several months, the one segment that is almost always

must see on AEW-TV has been anything with CM Punk or MJF and this feud and this program.

Yeah.

It's been months now.

You know, not everything's what you would do and not everything's what I would do, but they're not messing up.

They're doing that.

The worst thing that we said one week, we said, it started going a little long.

It was good, but it was a little long.

That's the worst thing that we could say.

They're telling a story.

They haven't rushed anything.

They haven't done anything egregious or stupid.

They haven't done anything to take away your ability to suspend disbelief.

This,

I would actually argue this may be the single greatest feud in the history of AEW, just right now.

just based on the logic and the fact that it's connecting with fans.

The dog holler match is going to be a big test, but I'm sad this feud's going to have to end at some point because the only thing that'll make it better is if each guy now goes to have another feud and those two segments become the good segments on the show.

But this has been one of the greatest feuds in modern wrestling.

This has easily, I think, been the best feud in AEW.

Not feud amongst the executives, but actual feud on camera.

I think MJF has to win the dog collar, and I think they come up with a third match

that,

if not Punk's specialty, I don't know whether guys even have specialty matches anymore, but something that Punk deserves to get based on what happens in the dog collar.

And then

Punk can get his fucking win, but MJF has already beat him twice, first two times in a row, and has been elevated in somewhat of a moral victory, you might say.

So yes, Punk would win in the end, but it wouldn't be like, it wouldn't be the Jericho one more match, kid.

It would be, okay,

I put you over and I put you over again, and now I'll get it, but you're more established.

I think that,

you know, that hopefully they're looking towards something like that.

And this whole feud is done nothing but establish MJF in ways that that Jericho feud completely missed the mark.

You want to talk about punk here?

Punk was great.

Like you said, no microphone.

Hit the ring.

You look at his face.

His face told the whole story.

You could have watched that scene on mute.

You would have known what was going on.

You can't wait to see what's going to happen next.

This has been the best.

This has been the best thing they have there.

And the only question I would have for you is: and someone's going to tell me I'm wrong, but I don't, I'm trying to think back in my head.

I know he lost to Jericho, but that wasn't a pinfall.

Do you give MJF his first ever pinfall loss at AEW to CM Punk?

I think he would, at the point that Punk has earned it, which he, if he puts him over one more time, he has.

But see,

the

conventional wisdom or rule of thumb, or maybe even, you know, just feeling like it's fair would be, okay, if they're going to go three matches, well,

MJF won the first one in Chicago, Punk wins the second, but MJF gets heat and then they have a third.

I don't like that

setup because

if Punk wins the second, especially in his own stipulation, then it kind of

puts a period on it where, okay, MGF got the fluke, but now I've established I'm better.

If MGF wins again

in the stipulation that Punk came up with, whether fair means or foul, then

it's like, wait a minute, shit.

We didn't think it was going to go this way.

Why should there be a third match?

MGF's already beat him twice.

That's what he's saying.

But there would be extenuating circumstances to where Punk would deserve and receive a rematch, and then Punk could get his win back.

I can see that as having a little bit more impact than, okay, I'll take the first one, you take second one, and then we'll have the rubber match.

The other intriguing thing is going under the assumption this feud eventually will have to come to an end, and it seems like they've been teasing the MJF Wardlow thing.

They're either going to pull that now or they may wait a little longer.

We're not even sure.

But that's a possibility for MJF.

What do you think they do with Punk next?

Hopefully anything Punk wants to do, because so far, I would have bet that he's been picking most of this and he's done a good job.

I hope we don't see

MJF versus Wardlow in any kind of series of things.

I think MJF needs to introduce another stooge beholden to him to fight Wardlow to get Wardlow over, because if they went straight from Wardlow turning babyface to Wardlow versus MJF,

you're either going to beat Wardlow, that's too soon, or you're going to beat MJF, and that shouldn't be done except rarely.

So there's going to be a little issue there with what the fuck goes on.

With Punk,

I mean,

I can't predict because they just,

like with Adam Cole and Adam Page, just pick shit out of the blue, except with Punk having more control.

That is interesting because

he's worked with a variety of guys.

I don't know.

Who would be be good to be next?

I don't know.

Well, maybe we'll find out.

Here it came.

Thank God.

Even if there

is a God, thank God for this.

I had seen so much rotten wrestling from all these companies.

I was about to give up.

And it was redeemed in one segment.

Lakmussalini

being serious.

He came out with game face, a no-nonsense entrance.

After MJF's promo last week, the question on CM Punk's mind was, am I the bad guy?

Now, what I'm I'm going to pick at one thing here at the start, and then I'm not going to pick about anything else about this because it was fabulous, but

we had to sit through 30 minutes of that goddamn stinky battle battle royal.

They couldn't have taken two minutes off of that and done a package to refresh the comments that Maxwell Jacob Friedman made the previous week.

For anybody that missed it, for anybody that just might need a little reinforcement, not the whole segment, just the pithy parts.

They used to throw quarters at me.

I believed in you.

You left me.

That type of thing.

They could have done that and then brought Punk out, but

again, inexperienced television formatters.

So, Punk says, until a week ago, I was sure that MJF was the bad guy.

But what MJF did took courage.

I didn't think he had it in him.

But am I being gaslit?

And he looked at Punk.

He looks at the camera.

There's close-ups.

You see sincerity, the eyes.

This is not

prearranged material given to him by someone.

You can believe he is saying this.

It's a talent, the delivery of that.

It's called being a good television personality.

He believes what he's saying, and he makes you believe it too.

And he said, I believe those things happened to MJF, but I'm not sure about his sincerity.

There's a picture of me with Steve Austin, but when Stone Cold Steve Austin went home, it didn't make me do bad things.

But MJF attacked Dean Malenko who has Parkinson's disease, verbally buried Brian Pillman Sr.

in his hometown in front of his son and family, said awful things about Darby Allen's dead uncle.

And Punk says, I've found out one thing is true.

Hurt people, hurt people.

That's fucking brilliant.

He's

all these idiots that in this fucking house of the Knights of the Thrones of the Black fucking whatevers trying to be all spooky and deep and mysterious,

they get overly dramatic and gaga, and you don't believe any shit, and it's just written down stuff people are saying.

But when you get a guy that can tell a story like this and then just break it down to hurt people, hurt people.

That's the motivation.

That's the super villain's backstory.

That's what happened to Mr.

Glass in Unbreakable.

Blah, blah, blah.

This guy was hurt, so now he wants to hurt other people.

Am I Dr.

Frankenstein, and he's the monster?

So he calls

MJF out.

He said, I want to talk to you.

But then he stopped talking and then he started pacing.

And he paced on live television for a kind of an uncomfortable length of time, and there was no music.

Because if it wasn't set up and everybody wasn't waiting for their cue,

it would take MJF a while to get up from the monitor where he's listening to his

fucking adversary and come out there to confront him.

And they gave it enough time where it wasn't just

next scene.

And here comes MJF, no microphone, no music.

And Punk says, I used to be you.

I used to be full of hate.

I poured alcohol down an alcoholic's throat, etc., etc., all the things he'd done, but too much hate will burn you up.

And

now it's not about you or me.

It's about an 11-year-old kid out there looking up to you like you looked up to me.

And how or what are you, effect are you going to have on him?

And Punk ends up finished up.

He says, Am I the good guy?

I sure am trying.

And sticks his hand out to MJF.

And there's the look, and there's the paws, and the milk.

And MJF comes in with the hug

on Punk's face, and he won't hug him.

He's like, he's got his arms spread out there and looking like this fucking guy.

What?

And then finally,

just long enough, he's okay, I'll go for it.

And he gives him the hug and he pats him on the head.

And MJF backs up with that lip quivering and kicks Punk square in the fucking nuts

and he drops like a rock.

That was brilliant

on everybody's part.

The timing and the delivery and the whole down yards.

Then Punk gets on or MJF gets on Punk and gives him that heat seeker pile driver and that got a pop.

And he pulls off the jacket and there's the picture of him and Punk on his t-shirt.

Here comes Wardlow and Spears.

And MJF gets the diamond ring and nails Punk.

By the way, did you hear as soon as he nails him, what was happening, Brian?

What do you mean?

What was happening as soon as he nailed him with that ring?

The bell started ringing.

Stop this.

Ding, ding, ding.

And then Punk comes up bleeding.

FTR comes out.

Here comes security.

Security's running out and trying to stop it.

They are attacking the biggest star in our company.

We've got to do something.

And the bell's ringing again.

Ding, ding, ding.

And FTR is knocking off security, blocking them off.

Again, I will give a little bit of a tip.

When you're sending the security or the minions,

it's always better if they get to the ring, but not necessarily in it.

Instead of stopping them at the entranceway,

It creates a better picture of chaos around the ring if FTR and the other heels get right in the ring and are at the ropes, and as people try to come into and down to the ring, they're playing king of the hill, knocking them off the apron, won't let them get in.

It's easier to see all the action at one point at that time.

I'm picking at nits here, but this was so good.

A little fine-tuning.

Then they get the dog collar, and they're hanging punk with the dog collar, and he's drenched in blood, and they're ringing the bell, and security has been dispatched, and the heels are in charge.

Here was some fucking chaos.

And then MJF gets the microphone right in his face and punk can't see and he's bleeding and his eyes are bugged out and he's coughing or whatever the fuck.

You stupid old man.

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing people he didn't exist.

I'm the devil.

Which I think, was that an old punk promo from somewhere?

Oh, maybe and I don't know.

That would be an interesting thing.

I think it was.

Yeah.

Anyway, so at that point,

now string him up and they start pulling the chain and they're hanging punk.

And god damn it, they should have widened back up.

He's twisting on the apron.

But if they could have got a wide shot,

where there's a way you can do this without killing the man, where his feet could have been off the ground while he's hanging from the chain, that would have been great.

But otherwise, here comes Darby Allen, Sammy Guevara, Guevara, and Sting,

the top baby faces.

They hit the ring and make a save, and the heels powder, and the save got a big pop.

When's the last time you heard a save get a pop?

If they do one, it always happens after everything's over with, and they haven't built up the chaos, the urgency, the jeopardy.

As soon as people saw Darby and the gang, yay.

Now,

as good as this was,

just imagine for a second, if you didn't see blood on TV all the time with AEW,

if you didn't see angle after angle in every segment all the time with every company, if this was not only perfectly done like it was here, but unusual.

And didn't happen multiple times in a segment where there's just these ridiculously long beatdowns and heat segments and et cetera, just over and and over.

Imagine what kind of impact this would have had.

And then realize that's the kind of impact

that Angles had before we got to this point where everything has been so overdone.

That's why people in the crowd would lose themselves and try to get over the rail to help.

That's why tickets would be sold.

for the event or pay-per-views would be bought for the event that this issue is going to culminate in because it would register with people because they didn't see it all the time.

And it was not only well done, but unusual.

We have to imagine that now because we don't live in that world anymore.

That's why most of the time, even these things, even the ones that are well done,

they don't work because

it's not different.

But this was

the best segment, again,

of the entire week of any wrestling promotion.

Your thoughts?

This has been the best feud in professional wrestling since it began.

And whenever people hear us criticize some of the wrestling they may like, some of the younger stuff, some of the high-flying stuff, and they'll say, well, it just seems like you guys don't like anything.

Wrestling's moved on from what you like.

You just have to accept it.

I point to something like this.

This is exactly what I think wrestling should be now.

And we're about to go to a pay-per-view,

and I'm excited to see this match.

They've built it up.

There's meaning behind it.

It's not a throwaway match.

Every single thing they've done on TV has meant something and continued to build.

This is the best feud in wrestling.

This is the smartest feud in wrestling.

This is an example.

And I've said it a while back when it came to things when AEW does it right and it's modern-day mid-South wrestling like this.

Yeah.

It pisses me off more when I see some of the other stuff on the show because this is exactly the tone

of what the competitor to WWE should have.

Yes.

Not phony, not show biz, not predetermined, prearranged, not fixed, not a performance

because WWE has that all locked up.

And apparently, a lot of people don't want to see that.

Not like they ever did.

It's just more apparent than ever before now.

and this could be as you said modern-day mid-south wrestling a violent alternative it doesn't always have to be violence and i just said don't overdo it somebody's going to say well you can't do that all the time you just said that no use this tone use this execution everything is logical everything's believable the people that say things what they say they appear to mean The matches appear to be important.

They don't appear to be cooperating with each other and winking at their friends while they have fun doing cool moves.

Hey, do you remember how MJF turned on Cody?

God damn, it's been a long time, but

basically,

Cody had taken MJF as his protege, even though he was a heel, Cody saw something in him.

And everybody else was trying to ward him, but too late.

MJF's true colors came out along those lines, something of that nature.

He threw in the towel, cost him the match with Jericho, which meant he could never get a AEW world title match again, but he got in the ring.

They embraced him and the hurt Cody, and then he gave Cody a shot to the nuts.

So I like that.

It's a throwback to his last betrayal, and I think that's brilliant, too.

Ain't that a kick of the nuts?

There you go.

That's MJF's thing.

This is the best feud in the history of AEW.

And when it comes to this pay-per-view, you have a world title match.

You have the three-way tag team title match.

Make no mistake, this is the main event of that pay-per-view.

This is the one match I can't wait to see.

Yeah, well, we're going to get to their world title match in a minute and the lack of promotion or interest or anything in it.

But yeah,

I can see people, especially the ex-WWE fans in the audience, want to see Moxley against Danielson.

But, I mean, has there ever been a major world title match in a major company on pay-per-view that has any less interest than this one?

And

the tag team title match is just the interchangeable trampoline cowboy match that they always have.

It's not going to be anything different, not appreciably better or worse, depending on whether you like that kind of thing, is all the other matches they do because it'll be the same thing.

So, yeah, Punk and MJF,

they ought to have points in this pay-per-view because if it does well, it's almost all them.

Yeah, you know, there goes to my discussion before about the tone.

Take personal feelings and everything aside.

Just look at it objectively.

The stuff with the Bucks and Red Dragon and the Bucks and Cole, which ties into Cole and Page.

Look at that tone versus the tone of everything with Punk and MJF.

Everything is serious.

Everything at times is evil.

I mean, you know what I mean?

Like, it feels like one thing.

And then on the other side, it's a bunch of guys just playing,

just playing.

I mean, that's really what it seems like.

When, hey, Brandon, turn on the camera.

Okay, so we're going back into the comedy portion of the show.

where they're going to do a bunch of comedy routines that suck.

That's the problem.

You know, like I said, send half the people the Ring of Honor.

Now that you have that option, that's like Australia.

Send everyone to Ring of Honor right now.

And just make one of the promotions the serious tone that wrestling needs.

This angle, this feud, and I'm sure this match coming up are exactly what wrestling can be right now.

Instead, it's Friedman.

That was great.

I love that because you hear the

opening strains, the guitar licks, you think it's cult of personality, and suddenly it's MJF yanking your chain.

I like that.

And off his music switches to his, and here he comes.

So

you, Mr.

Music Business Background, I know that the music that Punk came out to was what he used years ago in Ring of Honor.

But what is the song and who is the artist?

I forget the song name.

It's AFI.

It was actually a great album.

I have that album when it came out.

I used to play it all the time.

I had a girl I used to know who liked that album and she got me into that album.

It's a great album, and he used to come out to that song, which is, I think, the first song on the album.

I just don't know the name of it.

Who is AFI?

They

be a band that played music similar to the music you heard on the, I don't know how to describe them.

They were a band, I guess you could say maybe emo-ish, goth-ish.

They were going through a lot of issues and they made a lot of good songs.

Well, anyway, he changed it up a little bit.

And they mentioned it for the folks who didn't understand why it was different music.

They mentioned what it was.

So not the, again,

I didn't hear the song title, but they said that it was Ring of Honor or Punk's old Ring of Honor music.

Anyway, from the time that they came out, And they're standing in the ring.

Both guys' facials are great.

Their attitude, their demeanor, as the fink used to say.

During the in-ring introductions, to give it a big match feel, like a sporting event, and not just this, here he comes down now to the aisle to his custom-made music doing his pre-choreographed routine.

But they're in the ring.

It's a fucking match.

It's a fight.

And both these guys know how to...

especially punk, obviously, just because of his experience, know how to command your attention while they're either not doing much or not doing anything.

Because the way they walk around with attitude and expression on their face and the body language for the people in the big arena that can't see their expressions.

And they took their time.

That was the longest fucking chain I've ever seen in a chain match.

And I thought that might give them troubles, but they seem to, I got to be honest, even guys who have had some chain matches

have issues more often with the chain than what I saw them have in this match.

A couple of times they were:

if you step over the wrong rope, you got to go back in and back out because you're wound around and all that stuff.

And that just happens.

But they didn't have a lot of trouble as compared to some I've seen.

But usually it's like an eight-foot chain or a 10-foot chain.

This thing, when they each had their backs to the turnbuckle,

it pretty much reached.

So, anyway,

it just from the start of it, they took their time.

Everything meant something.

They didn't, the first time that MJF whipped Punk with the chain, he just did it once, and Punk sold it.

And you can see it left marks, it left link marks on his back.

MJF wrapped the chain around his hand and punched Punk twice, just twice,

and he was bleeding.

And by the way,

my new favorite magician is not Chris Angel, it's CM Punk.

Chris Angel has nothing on punk.

He's got the magic touch.

Did you see it?

I ain't going to talk about it.

I didn't see it.

Obviously, I saw Mr.

Friedman, as you called him before, but I did not see Mr.

Punk.

No, you didn't see Mr.

Friedman because we didn't either.

He disappeared for 45 seconds.

But anyway, yes, Punk's got the magic touch.

Did you hear when MJF got the microphone and told Punk to quit and Punk said, eat shit, JR came in and like it.

That's the Vince line, right?

Did you catch that?

I did catch that.

And once again, I thought the commentators were a little over the top and took away from this match at times.

Well, but I like that little callback to learn to eat shit and like the taste of it, pal.

I liked the, you know, when Punk jerked MJF off the buckle,

headbutt in the nuts punk does the bulldog on the with the chain

and punk's color was really coming he was fucking great and he's whipping mjf with the thing punk goes for the the gts the go-to sleep mjf gets the sleeper with the chain around the neck and punk's fading and the people are chanting and then the kick off the buckle quick 2K this is wrestling

again they traded

mjf got the arm bar punk rolled into the anacona vice anacona anaconda your anaconda don't want none

uh mjf gets out by pulling hair imagine that

the knee the the knee lift to the chain or with the chain was where we were just talking about mjf takes a bump to the floor

And I know he's young and inexperienced, and I felt the same way when I was doing it first time on TV,

but I don't know what he he was doing.

The camera was on punk in the ring for 30 seconds.

And then finally, MJF got in.

I love him, but he's still

working on

that home magic kit for kids thing he used to order out of the back of the comic books.

Who was it?

Marshall Brodine's magic tricks.

But anyway, then they go out to the floor.

Now they're out on the floor.

They're giving us a little bit of everything.

It's not 100 miles an hour.

It's not overkill of everything.

It's not back and forth with no selling.

They're having a fucking fight.

And Punk bashes MJF from not from pillar to post, but pillar to steps.

And then goes for the knee lift into the steps and hurts his leg.

That's going to play a part in this.

This may be the first gimmick match in AEW history that has made sense.

Punk calls for the go-to-sleep, but his leg is bad and he collapses.

And then they fought on the apron.

That's where they got tied up in the chain where MJF had to bop in and out a time or two to get out, tied up out of the ropes.

The reverse tombstone on the apron, I hate apron spots.

And I don't want to downplay the danger of this one, but if you're going to do, this was a controlled situation.

The guys that are jumping off the top rope or flinging each other on these aprons.

That's not a controlled situation.

This was controlled and both of them sold it like death.

So

a lot of these things in a blow-off match, that's where you want to do them.

And if we didn't see them every week, they would have even more impact.

Then we get to the part it couldn't be perfect.

And

I got to, right now, I was vibrating.

I was hopping up and down.

I was even backing some stuff up to watch it again.

And then MJF goes under the ring and pulls out a bag, and it's thumbtacks.

And seriously, even

come on, guys.

And I'm just talking to the two of you now.

You're two of the best talents in the business currently.

You're having a classic match on a major pay-per-view.

This bullshit was completely unnecessary.

It's just

validates the goof and the garbage match

participants, constituents, and it encourages every jack-off wannabe mud show fuck with a 1-100th

of your talent that this is somehow a thing that actual real wrestlers and real stars do.

And it's stupid.

And it ain't going to win anybody anything.

It's just, it's fucking stupid.

Did I mention that word?

And they teased falling the tax, and then MJF superplexed punk on the tax.

And

this

ran a risk of ruining this fucking classic for me because why?

It's like watching your children, you know, take up doing fucking hard drugs.

Why?

It's so unnecessary.

And now they've ruined a lot of the ring for bumps.

I don't,

I took the bump off the scaffold.

I would do that again before I would just take a bump in thumb tax, not only for money, but just because it's stupid.

Anyway, somehow MJF got unhooked there.

I didn't see how it was, but he called for Wardlow several times.

And finally, here comes Wardlow.

And this is where

the floor camera was behind Wardlow.

And I could see because I then later on went back and looked.

He starts feeling because MJF is screaming for the ring.

Well, he starts feeling for the ring.

The floor camera was behind him.

You couldn't see it good.

So the floor camera starts to truck around

Wardlow's left side.

And just as you can start seeing it, that's where I think it was Tony, but it may have been excrement too.

Oh, he can't find it.

Great.

If, you know, if we'd have seen that for ourselves before you called it.

You know,

he hadn't gotten the idea over yet that he couldn't really find it to anybody but the guys who had been in the finish meeting, apparently, and knew that it was going to take place.

Anyway, he couldn't find the ring.

So

Punk took that opportunity to hit the GTS on MJF.

And then

MJF fell into the tax and did a funny,

you know, back arch type of thing.

That wasn't the right reaction there.

You don't want it funny.

The tax are screwing everything up.

But then Punk looks at Wardlow, and Wardlow looks at Punk, and Wardlow finds the ring and leaves it on the apron to a huge pop and walks off.

And Punk gets the ring and grabs MJF and gives him the finger.

MJF spits in his face.

Punk nails him with the ring one time, one, two, three.

If there had been...

A shortage of thumbtacks in the United States of America on the day of this match, this would have been the closest thing to a perfect gimmick match that I've seen in years.

Your thoughts, Brian.

I agree with some of your criticisms.

Hated the thumbtacks, hated the commentary.

In terms of the two participants, I thought it took me out of it for a second when Punk started using the chain.

And just the way he was working it, it didn't look the greatest.

Well, and I saw that also.

And if you notice, here's the thing: they're using a real chain.

Right.

And

if you go back and watch,

Punk had pulled it for where he thought he was going.

And MJF anticipated and bowed his back down a little bit.

And the first one, especially, it was like, it didn't quite get there.

But yeah, you know, there was a couple of MJFs looked better on Punk.

And we saw the marks on Punk.

So for good reason.

But yeah, I got you there.

But I thought it was great.

I think this entire feud has been the example of what a lot of people like me want wrestling today to be like.

And we don't understand why there isn't a full-time promotion that just treats things seriously.

This feud was great.

Give it to Punk.

He got great color twice in one week.

Who's the last guy in the business to do that?

Used to be all the time, and then all of a sudden it went away.

Yeah.

Wednesday and again on Sunday, great color.

I hate to say it, but I hope you bleed a lot more.

CM.

But really good.

And,

you know, they did the two matches.

Punk wins the second one.

It almost feels like it's not the time to do a third match.

It feels like it is the time maybe to move on with MJF and Wardle.

I don't know what you're doing.

Oh, yeah.

Well, no, now I agree.

I had said beforehand, if it was me,

I would have had MJF win the first two and then Punk win the blowoff.

After this, they can't blow anything else off.

This was so good.

And it was an ultimate,

you know, fucking finisher.

And they've got the right turn for Punk to make, or for MJF to make rather so he doesn't just go out a loser he he'll he'll say i'll deal with punk on my time but wardlow and that he gives him a gracious graceful exit out of the thing

so in this but i i would have had another match of some description that didn't have the heavy you know dog collar end all be all whatever

But no, I agree with you now.

They must move on.

This feud has been so well done.

It's been so intelligently done.

And now we're going into whatever Punk's going to do.

And I have a lot of faith in CM Punk's quality control.

I have a lot of faith, maybe more than almost anyone in wrestling right now.

And I have to say, since the Jericho feud, everything MJF has been a part of has made sense and been great.

And this feud is the greatest in AEW's history and maybe the best in wrestling in years.

It gives me a lot of faith going into MJF Wardlow.

And that makes me want to ask you the question, seeing the crowd reactions he's starting to get, seeing what he could do in the ring on a limited basis as a heel, just killing people with the power bomb, but seeing how the MJF punk program was booked and how things made sense and how people react to MJF a certain way, you got to think Wardlow is about to come out of this a major star.

Oh, yeah, they're into him and they love him and they love the power bombs and they loved the

couldn't find the ring and they've been wanting this for a while since they've juiced it up again.

Remember, they were teasing this two years ago.

And if they'd have did it then,

Jesus, because they had only been together for six weeks.

So thankfully, they put it on the back burner.

And then they've, you know, established some history between these guys.

And obviously, we're not going to see.

Wardlow and MJF write off.

We'll get Wardlow and Spears.

So here comes the power bombs.

And maybe MJF can, certainly not FTR.

I hope that group is

dissolved at this point.

But maybe MJF can get a couple of other people to feed to Wardlow.

And then,

again, the first match with MJF and Wardlow, that's got to be Wardlow's first loss.

Then he beats MJF, well, then why go any further?

But that means that they have to just give Wardlow,

put something in his bank account first, not just beating job guys, but actually beating people close to or doing the bidding of MJF and getting closer to him.

And then,

boom, MJF fucks him and sets him back, and then he's got to get on the comeback trail, blah, blah, blah.

And I guess what happened?

Because he won the latter match, he gets the winner of Sammy versus Scorpio Sky for the TNT title.

Yeah, what did I say?

The world title earlier, it's one of their many titles.

And, you know,

does MJF somehow

piss in his post-hosties over that one?

Do you want to put the belt on him right now?

He still actually hasn't come out of under

MJF's contractual obligation.

That contract.

And here's something.

Somebody on Twitter said Tony Khan can spend $40 million for Ring of Honor, but he can't buy poor Wardlow out of his contract with MJF.

That's true.

See, See, when you start doing this shit

where

all your loopholes aren't closed and your logic doesn't make sense from one segment or talent to another, this is where people start asking these questions.

Having said that, why

was CM Punk and MJF not the main event?

Because I looked and I said, fucking hell.

We've got half this show to go.

How are they going to, any of them going to follow this?

Right.

And most of them them didn't.

Well, there it is, a look back at the best feud in AEW history, CM Punk and MJF.

Jim, final comments.

The question I will leave everybody with is: will CM Punk's wrestling career last long enough for MJF to get his career out of the hands of Tony Khan and to the WWE where they can do this again and make about

40 times more money with it?

That's the question.

Well, we'll see.

It would have to be in a different company.

And of course, although we have a compilation here of the feud, in a lot of ways, it was left with no real conclusive ending.

There's still places it could go.

CM Punk technically still has a bag with a title in it somewhere.

Well,

it needs to go to New York is where it needs to go.

But

I'm afraid that.

MJF's indentured servitude will outlast

Punk's ability to participate in it before he retires again at this rate.

Well, we shall see what happens.

We shall see if these guys and the WWE give us a volume two at some point in the future, in the far future.

But until then, for this omnibus and for Jim Cornette, I'm the great Brian Last.

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