Episode 541: Behind The Curtain

Football season is here, and now you can legally bet on football in all 50 states with Cal Shi, the nation's largest legal prediction market.

Every game, every prop, every parlay, Cal Shi has it, and it doesn't stop at sports.

You can trade on elections, the Oscars, and more.

You can finally bet on football in all 50 states.

Download Cal Shi today at kalshi.com.

Use code RADIO for $20 when you trade 100.

Calci, get in on the action.

This is an investment that carries risk.

Calci.com.

You want your master's degree.

You know you can earn it, but life gets busy.

The packed schedule, the late nights, and then there's the unexpected.

American Public University was built for all of it.

With monthly starts and no set login times, APU's 40-plus flexible online master's programs are designed to move at the speed of life.

You bring the fire, we'll fuel the journey.

Get started today at apu.apus.edu.

At Certipro Painters, we know that a happy place comes in many colors, like ones that inspire a sense of wonder or a new flavor that makes life just a little bit sweeter, or one to celebrate those moments that lift you to new heights at home or at work.

We'll make your happy place your own.

Certipro Painters.

That's Painting Happy.

Each Certipro Painters business is independently owned and operated.

Contractor license and registration information is available at Certipro.com.

The keys to the future, held by the past, and with Tag T partner Barion Last, he sends this message out by podcast.

He's Jim Cornet.

Well, he's never fake a phone here.

He never backs down from a fight.

He never wins the pony because his mama raised him right.

It's time

to prepare

your mind.

I can get the experience.

Get the experience.

Get the experience of Jim Cornette.

Hello again, everybody, and welcome.

It's a kind of a slow week in wrestling and nothing important going on in the real world.

So it's a calm and cool edition of the Jim Cornet Experience.

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

Co-host to you.

He's so cool.

He's a chili.

The great Brian Last, everybody.

Aloha, Jim.

A pleasure to be here once again.

Chili Willie has been airing on me tv tunes and of course even on me tv with the woody woodpecker hour in the morning on saturdays but it's a pleasure to be here once again i think we're gonna have a good time talking about who knows what this week you you didn't even talk about my accent you am i doing him well who are you doing exactly nikolai volkov that was not nikolai volkov well it is the way i do him that was the worst nikolai volkov

Well, you know, these goddamn accents, you know, see, I don't have an accent.

I'm one of these people that just has a flat voice.

You can't tell what part of the country I'm from, right?

But Nikolai,

go ahead.

You could probably say the South.

I would say people would probably guess.

No, nobody would ever guess that.

So

when we went to mid-South in 1984, the nicest guy in the locker room was Nikolai Volkov, right?

Just a big kid.

He's so funny.

He's always playing the practical jokes.

I'm talking about the exercise tube where he'd have somebody stick it in a guy's ear and then he'd blow in it and scare him to death from behind or whatever and sew the sleeves of my jacket together before I'd go out.

So when I tried to put it on, my arms wouldn't go through.

But he,

when I got there, and there was Butch Reed and there was Hacksaw Duggan

and there was Junkyard Doggin, there were a lot of strong promos, right?

And Nikolai blessed him, you know, he had the accent and he really, he wasn't Russian, but he, he was like Jerry Novak, the bounty hunter.

He wasn't Russian, but he was from somewhere in that

geographic part of the world that the accent sounds the same and they could kind of speak Russian and/or what.

Do you remember what Nikolai was?

Was he?

He wasn't Czechoslovakian, was he?

That was going to be my guess, but it's something in the Eastern European bloc.

In the block over there, no K.

They got the K out.

But anyway,

so he hears all these promos, and Butch Reed is just slaying the guys, right, with his material.

Like,

you know, I'm standing here, I'm so cool, I'm chilly.

Or Butch, one time, he said, Ted Taylor, you got two chances of beating me, Slim, and none, and Slim just left town.

So Nikolai is, he starts using this kind of in the locker room.

He'll drop it in every once in a while.

He's taking the lines, but he's trying to do them with his accent.

And then he does it on TV one day.

He stands up here and he cuts the promo.

He says,

And let me tell you this: you have two chances of beating me, Slim and none.

And Slim has walked away from town.

And Watts stood up and said, God damn, there's 10,000 comedians out of work, and you're telling jokes.

We don't need a funny Russian.

And then another time, he and Darso were doing the, you know, the promo, and Nikolai said, We're so cool, we feel chilly.

It was funny to me.

No, it's funny.

I mean, you don't hit how badly he spoke English well enough.

Well, that's true.

He did have a very thick accent.

And it wasn't like really a put-on thing or anything.

That's the way he would talk to you in the locker room also, but a very nice guy.

Wonderful guy.

How big was he in person?

Oh, my God.

See, he wasn't like a bodybuilder where he had the abs and he was all cut and everything so that it, you know, it was a different time.

He was

closing in on 6'5 or 6'6.

Well, maybe 6'0.

He was so wide and broad that you didn't get a good idea of how tall he was, but he was at least 330.

And with that big chest, he was strong as a bull.

And,

you know, he could still move even at when we got there, my God, he had to be 40.

He'd been in the business since the late 60s.

And he could still, you know, he wasn't a Chris Colt style of bumper, but he could move around and he was quick for a guy that size.

And he had been a boxer, a shoot, real boxer in his younger days.

So

those fucking fans that wanted to mess with them, they didn't have any idea what fucking hit him.

He'd just walk away from people and they'd be laying on the ground.

But he was just a big, big pussy cat.

Did you ever meet Nikolai Volkov?

Yeah, several times because he worked for Dennis.

Oh, that's right out there.

He had a long-ass career.

If you really think about when he started and how long he worked and the different periods of time he was on top, it's a pretty remarkable career.

Yeah, he was one of the Mongols when, and they were a top tag team when he'd only been to business a couple of years.

Yeah.

And

he was, you know, he was the

he sounded enough like a Mongol, even if he wasn't of Asian descent or whatever with that accent for the 60s they didn't know where the mongolia was and the other guy with the other guy bolo was from or was he was he was older he well yeah uh newton tatri he was from like pittsburgh wasn't he he was so he was even further from mongolia

did they do promos

i don't know

There's very little footage out there that I've seen.

Have you seen footage of any of their matches or anything?

I've seen some footage, and it may even be 16 millimeter from like the old garden.

Not the old garden, but the garden in the

garden after they moved to the new garden.

What's the garden gardens?

But I saw some footage I know I've seen, but no promo footage.

And

you know, I don't know.

I don't know how again, too, there was a period where they didn't have TV, but I think this was a period where they did have TV.

Well, but also they worked, they were big in Pittsburgh for Bruno.

That's right.

Right.

So

anyway,

all right.

Before we get into the program today, it may be shorter than normal.

We don't know what we're doing actually yet.

And thankfully, there's not a lot that's gone on.

And we apologize if anybody's disappointed that we're potentially in and out here in only a few hours today.

But

this story has a silver lining.

It will perk up at the end.

So don't anybody just jump off a bridge in the middle of it thinking, what the fuck.

But I want to send a special get well out to Stacy's mother, Jan,

who flew all the way across the country to visit us to be admitted to the hospital.

For the past couple months, we've been planning a vacation for Stacy's mom and stepfather to come out and visit for a couple of weeks and see Louisville

and all that stuff.

And they get here.

They landed Friday night at 8 o'clock.

And we had time to take them to dinner.

And everybody tried to go to bed.

And her mom started getting

stomach pains and real just uncomfortable.

Bye.

And it got bad enough that by 6 o'clock in the morning, we had her down here at the urgent care

where they did tests of various kinds.

And I'm not going to

read this woman's medical chart on the air in front of a million people, But they diagnosed her with some things there and then by early afternoon had transferred her over to Baptist Hospital a few miles away, the big hospital,

where they diagnosed her with some more things.

And she's in the hospital now with a serious kidney infection caused by a kidney stone that's been

forming for some time unbeknownst to anybody and a variety of assorted things related to things like that.

And it's going to have to be in the hospital for a number of more days.

And then

she's going to have to go back in the hospital in a couple of weeks and have surgery and some period of recovery.

And this is the way she started her vacation.

But

the silver lining is that apparently she has been

relating symptoms to her doctor in California that one would assume would indicate them to look into her kidneys better.

And they told her to drink plenty of water.

And so she got out here and immediately, because,

you know, California has a lot more people in it than Kentucky.

And Brian, now from what I'm hearing, when Stacey told her sister that, yeah, we had mom to urgent care at 6 o'clock.

And they'd done this for her by noon, and they've transferred her into this room at Baptist at 1.

And she's had this procedure to help the kidney infection by six o'clock.

They were shocked that she had got out of urgent care in 12 hours.

She'd still be sitting somewhere waiting for somebody to look at her out there.

So the silver lining is, or,

and here's another thing, where they live, they are not as close to because of the traffic and the highways.

And these,

I saw a subdivision that looked like it was computer generated the last time I was out there.

We got subdivisions with over across the street, the thing I fought for so long, like 75 houses.

I said, they've got subdivisions on the side of those mountains out there with a thousand fucking houses in them.

I don't know how these people ever find their way home.

So she was right on top of the urgent care, right on top of the hospital, with doctors that actually have time

to, you know, do some tests and diagnose what's going on.

So anyway, we're monitoring that situation, but we've been back and forth for a couple of days.

That's why this show may be delayed a little bit.

That's why my voice sounds like shit

because I've not been sleeping properly.

You know, I'm elderly myself, Brian.

You're aware of that.

You're not 65 yet.

I wouldn't call you elderly.

Hey, I got the AARP card.

That means nothing.

Would they just let anybody in now?

I thought that was a closed society.

You had to attain a certain age to get membership.

I think they lowered the age.

Isn't it like 50-something, you get that?

Well, yes, I got it when I was 55.

You weren't a senior citizen then?

Well, they say I was.

I was entitled to a discount at goddamn Olive Garden.

Oh, boy, what a deal that is.

Well, some hospitaliano.

Don't have to pay extra for breadsticks.

anyway so so that's the um

that's what's been going on here so we're going to go through a few things we're not going to talk about the real world until at least next week because the mood i'm in

right now people would be talking to me from certain federal agencies but i've got a

an email brian from from brian

Not you, though.

No, certainly not.

Somebody stole your name.

It's Brian from Reno.

And he says, dear Mr.

Cornad, and I want you to help me understand this, Brian, last, not Brian from Reno, because I don't know what he's fucking talking about here.

You got to help me.

I just finished listening to episode 339 of The Experience and about wanted to tear my ears off.

Well, that's a promising start.

When you were discussing AEW's budget in Nevada, remember we were talking about that, how much money they spent on doing the TV and everything.

Yeah, and that, I guess that was part of the story, was that it kind of exposed potentially what the overall talent budget was annually.

Yes, yes, and all that stuff.

Well, Brian from Reno says, I would almost rather hear Vince Russo read the Bible with a hot poker up his ass than hear you pronounce Nevada.

Aside from screaming Carson City,

when you thought my beautiful hometown of Reno was our state capital,

just guy's really into it.

Well, you know, goddamn, hey, our state capital is Frankfort.

I don't expect most people not from Kentucky to know that.

But anyway, he was also screaming, Nevada.

Mr.

Cornet, please, it is not

Nevada.

He's an N-E-V-A-W-W-D-A-H.

It's Nevada, N-E-V-A-A-H-D-A-H.

I mean, not not spelling, but pronunciation.

I think that's wrong, too.

Well, he says ah is in McMahon, not awe is in con.

I thought it was Nevada.

I thought it's, I'm,

but he's saying I'm not saying Nevada, and I'm saying Nevada.

I don't know how else to say that.

I've scared myself into thinking that I now trying to pronounce it right and differently from the way I've done it before, but I always say Nevada.

Nevada, right?

That's a lot of people say that, but I think it's actually Nevada.

Well, he says

Nevada.

It's Nevada.

No, Nevada.

That's what you said.

What?

He says, I'm saying it's Nevada and it's Nevada.

Nevada.

Las Vegas, Nevada.

So you're saying Nevada.

How does he phonetically spell this out?

He says it's not N-E-V,

A-W-W-D-A-H.

D A H that would be Nevada.

Nevada, yeah.

It's Nevada, N E V A A H D A H

Nevada.

Nevada.

No, that'd be Nevada.

If it was Nevada, how would you spell it?

It's the same way.

I'd spell Nevada.

Whoa.

Hey, hey, whoa, whoa, what are you ripping off?

I don't understand.

It's fucking Las Vegas and suburbs.

How's that?

I have an email here, Jim, from Sam.

He says, it's Missouri, not Missouri.

Oh, goddammit.

Down there in old Mississippi.

Mariah, not Maria.

Well, you say Maria, I say Mariah, and I say Mariah, Maria, and you say Mariah.

Let's call the whole thing off.

How much time have you spent in Nevada?

Specifically, I guess, Vegas.

Have you been to Reno?

I've never been to Reno.

What about Carson City?

Nobody talks about Carson City.

When do you hear?

Never.

You hear about Laughlin, I've been to, for the LPWA.

You hear about Laughlin.

You hear about Las Vegas a time or two.

Reno, hear about that.

Fucking Carson City.

What the fuck's going on there?

Do they have casinos in Carson city i don't know hold on let's uh do a deep dive real quick into carson city

no not the johnny carson fan site let's go to uh carson city nevada

you know that god damn it johnny carson was making more money at one point than anybody on television and he should have bought a bunch of property in the 60s and 70s in california and they could have turned it into carson city

and made a fucking fortune.

He could have sold it every night on TV.

If you really think about it, he doesn't have the rights or his estate doesn't have the rights to the actual name, The Tonight Show, but all the existing footage of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, they own.

And whenever he renegotiated, remember, he was doing like a 90-minute live show every night, or five nights a week.

I think sometimes six nights a week.

And then he got it so that he had four nights a week for 60 minutes.

He owned the hour after his show.

And

he owned all of his master tapes and he took off Fridays.

Do you remember what his first power play was, though?

Was that wouldn't be the move to California?

No.

No, what was the first one?

The very first power play was, and I'm old enough that I remember some of the local stations still doing this.

But in the, he took over in what, 63 from Jack Parr or 62,

62, yes, from Jack Parr.

And still to buy a 64, 65, whatever,

the tonight show technically was an hour and 45 minutes

because it would come because a lot of the local 11 o'clock news was 15 minutes in those days.

Not as much happened, right?

So the tonight show originally came on at 11.15 and went till 1 o'clock.

But

as the local stations started switching their newscast to 30 full minutes,

some of the local stations would preempt the first 15 minutes of the tonight show

and join it at 11.30.

And when he got wind of enough of that, he said, why am I going out there and doing my fucking monologue when not everybody is listening or watching?

So

he wouldn't come on until 11.30.

They would have Ed McMahon and Skitch Henderson, who was the band leader then,

go out and play a song and do the audience warm-up.

And they would introduce Johnny Carson at 11.30, 15 minutes into the show.

And then they just said, fuck it, we're just going to start at 11.30.

And they got him to actually shorten his show on purpose.

If you ever see any of the old footage from when the show was longer, maybe at least 90 minutes, I don't know if they have any of the footage from back then.

It's such a better pace for conversation.

Yeah.

And, you know, at that time, too, they're smoking and they literally have time in the show to like light up, sit back, think, and ask a question.

It's remarkable.

And you don't have that anymore.

I mean, you don't even have talk shows.

They have that girl they gave a show to after Stephen Colbert.

And again, like Johnny and like Letterman, Colbert has the time slot after him.

He owns that.

Or, you know, his production company does.

So they got to pick what was going to be there.

And it's not a talk show.

It's some kind of bizarre game show for an audience of I don't know who.

It's

a dying art form.

And I think a lot of the problem is no one does it right.

Craig Ferguson did it right.

That was the last guy that really did it right.

Tom Snyder, where's he when you need him?

He died, unfortunately.

Well,

well, we could try to find his kids.

Did he have kids?

Did you ever see the Tom Snyder episode with John Lydon, Johnny Rotten, and Keith Levine from Public Image Limited?

Oh, God,

I didn't see it live.

I saw the tape at one point in time, and it's been many, many decades.

That is maybe

one of the single greatest heel performances in rock and roll history.

And anyone who's learning how to do promos or wants to learn how to be just a just a real fucking heel, just to the core, like you're really like, oh my God, this guy just hates everything.

Watch this.

Watch John Lydon on speed and jet lagged do an interview with Tom Snyder and he's just not playing along.

It's hysterical.

Amazing.

And Tom Snyder was one of the more sarcastic individuals on network television at that point, too.

The other ones I would say, yeah, and that's why they didn't jive at all.

And they actually ended up right before I think Tom Snyder left the air.

They had a reunion like in the 90s, and it was very chummy and very, you know, I'm sorry, you know, I was a jack, you know, just all of a sudden a different tone.

I will just uh also uh mention that

I got real quick from Frank Colbertson.

You know, Frank.

Oh, nice guy.

Frank and Mike Rogers, and those guys out there trying to keep Portland wrestling alive and in the news.

Um,

said, hey, Jim and Brian, I just checked the Forbes updated daily list of billionaires.

And once again, Tony Khan is not on it.

However,

Shad Khan is $11.8 billion.

Still no sign of Tony.

Well, that's because Tony's billions are included in Shad's billions, because that's really what they are.

So you mean that when Shad has billions and billions,

then it just kind of's the the trick, that's where trickle-down economics works.

That's the true trickle-down economics.

I mean, when people come out and tell you that Tony Khan on his own is a billionaire, or that Tony Khan on his own is a successful businessman before AEW, any of these things, it's laughable.

His father's a billionaire because of his patent.

They have spent the money they've made, and it's a lot of money.

on various things like sports teams and super yachts.

And because he's the the son of the guy with the money, he's been put in charge of all these things, given his own little analytics company.

You never hear anything about that anymore.

And given AEW with a budget of reportedly $100 million or so for talent,

that's the reality of it.

You know, I don't know why they feel like they have to hide from it and pretend like Tony is an independent, self-made businessman.

It's ridiculous.

It's ridiculous.

And there's nothing to be embarrassed about.

Look, I wish my dad had Shad Khan's money and just left it to me.

That'd be amazing.

I'd right now be sitting in my library made of limestone.

It would be amazing.

But instead, I'll be here.

Wait a minute.

You would be in a library made of limestone?

If I had Shad Khan's money, if I inherited it, I would buy a giant property of land and kind of start rebuilding Manhattan from 1920.

And I would just have these beautiful limestone fucking buildings and Gilded Age mansions all over the place.

See, now, no.

And no horses.

See, that's the benefit of it.

You could have all of that, no horses, no early cars, and all the pollution.

It could be a utopia.

What I'm saying is, give me your money, Tony.

No, no, but see, now, look, you're so,

you're material there.

What?

You're living in a material world, and you, Brian, are a material girl.

Because remember, we talked about this a few years ago.

Yeah.

What?

Didn't that Madonna do that in the song?

Oh,

she says she's a material girl.

It sounded more like Michael Jackson.

Oh.

Spinning around getting ready to beat it, is what it sounded like to me.

But nevertheless,

we talked about this years ago on the program when everybody was talking about a billionaire.

Tony Khan's a billionaire.

Vince McMahon is a billionaire.

The other guy's a billionaire.

Whatever.

I say, if you, why does anybody need a billion dollars?

And we broke this down.

That if you, okay,

here's a billion dollars.

So you immediately give 35% over to the various state and local and federal taxing agencies.

AKA the crooks.

And you got $650 million.

Not enough.

Now, hold on now.

Not enough.

Now, let's say you've got 25 friends.

You want to give them a million dollars.

Now you got 625 million dollars.

Now you say you got 10 family members, you give them $5 million.

Now you got $575 million.

Let's say give

$100 million to cure crippled children, $475 million.

$100 million to cure cancer, $375 million.

goddamn $100 million

for innocent homeless animals.

Where was I down to?

Is that $375 or $275?

I don't know.

I don't like this charitable Jim Cornette shit.

What is this?

Then you say, well, fuck, I've still got, how am I ever going to spend $275?

I'm going to give all my friends another goddamn

$2 million, $50 million,

and $25 more million.

There's $200 million.

And how can for the rest of your life

could you ever spend 200 million dollars i would buy a giant piece of land and i would start reconstructing 1920s manhattan limestone buildings libraries the old penn station all these things that are gone bring them back because i have limitless amounts of money and you know what else i can control it it's my land i can control everything have my own police force kind of like what disney tried to do at epcot before he died my own private epcot where i can make a better society for everyone who i okay how about this if with the 200 and whatever million dollars that i had left over that i just talked about i could spend 25 million and buy

the acreage around me to where that i could just flatten everything plant trees and live in the middle of a 500 acre

central park and I'd still have a hundred and goddamn whatever million dollars.

Yeah, I'm not going to to stop until i have a giant limestone mansion

i'm not going to stop until i have like 75 acres and like a 40 000 square foot limestone mansion

and before you say a goddamn word my lawnmowers just showed up you see and the unprofessionalism once again on his own show from Castle Corner from Mr.

Charity here.

That's why he has to give away so much money because of how much damage he does to everyone's ears listening to this show.

The screwy weather last week, they couldn't come and the lawn is shaggy.

Are you wanting me to get one of these tick-borne illnesses from having overgrown grass because I told them not to come when they could come because they couldn't come last week?

Yeah, do you want you want me to be in hospital too?

All kidding aside about giving away all this money, which is just ridiculous.

You're already giving away enough of it to the federal government.

No giveaway anymore.

If you had, let's say.

I don't mind giving it to people who deserve it.

That's why there's so few of them.

Basically,

the crippled children and the homeless animals and the people that have cancer.

Give them enough time.

They'll disappoint you, too.

My point is, let's just say Jim Cornette has $600 million at his disposal.

Yeah.

Would you build like a giant wrestling museum and hold it?

Like you have to.

A museum?

You have to think about all the things you have.

Where were the people sending emails talking about how I pronounce Nevada?

Nobody says anything about you saying museum.

I have a New York accent.

People are used to it.

We rule the world.

New York's.

Anyway, what was your question?

Would you build a wrestling museum library with your collection, with other things you can get?

Like, we need an independent body that's not WWE

to do something.

And

if you had Tony Khan's money, wouldn't you try to do something to preserve wrestling history, the real history?

If I were the king of the forest,

yeah, as a matter of fact, if I had the hundreds of millions of dollars at my disposal, yes, I will make it no secret, I probably would buy a number of other vintage wrestling collectible items and things and such of that nature.

And

I would probably endow, since I would be so well endowed,

I would probably endow a foundation after I'm gone, because I wouldn't it would make me too nervous to see the general public wandering around through my collection.

But after I'm gone, they can set up a fucking brick and mortar, as they say, museum and let people museum

and let people come in there and look around at all the wonders contained therein.

Yeah, when I was a kid, we used to go sometimes with camp to Sagamore Hill, which was Teddy Roosevelt's home on Long Island, and they preserved it.

You know, they made it look like the original,

on the inside, it looked like just a giant log cabin in a lot of ways.

But just dead animals everywhere.

And it was

on the walls.

It's Teddy Roosevelt's bull moose.

I thought you meant there were, it was like just been the old days where there were just dead animal carcasses lying around the fucking living room or some shit.

Bull and moose party.

That's what Teddy Roosevelt was known for.

Just killing animals, cutting off their heads, and hanging it on the wall.

Stop it now.

But it's a very nice place.

You have a barbaric, animalistic tribute to a animal murderer up there.

We have Farmington down here.

They've renovated that also to be of the period, like 1812.

It was built by a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln's big mansion with these high ceilings and the wonderful antiquery.

And no one was slain and had their heads put on pikes and stuck out in a front yard like whatever your people did up there.

We had a place, well, they're still there on Long Island, old Beth Page.

And it's like a very I remember old Beth Page.

You know what?

As a matter of fact, Ricky Morton told me one time, he said he walked into a bar and there was old Beth Page.

And she was a looker in those days.

And he went up to her and he said, you know what, Beth?

I'd like a little pussy.

And she said, I would too.

Mine's as big as a hat.

But go ahead.

All right.

Well, let's get away from old Beth Page that hangs out in the bars with Ricky Morton.

Old Beth Page on Long Island is like a village that

I guess is from like 300 years ago or so.

So they have like all the old houses and all the old beds and they're just people wearing wait a minute is it the same mattresses

i don't know i mean it's replica at minimum but i mean they've had this stuff there for

when you need them they're not living there it's just kind of they're showing you how people live but they have people dressed up and acting well if they've got beds in there somebody's gonna lay down in them eventually if they're showing you how they lived in the old days But that would be part of it.

And here's a person sleeping in a shitty old 300-year-old bed made out of goddamn goose goose feathers and fucking spit.

One day years ago, we needed something to do.

It was me, an old ex-girlfriend of mine and my brother.

And we're like, hey, why don't we go to Old Beth Page?

Like we used to go with like camp and stuff.

We went there.

There was no one there.

It was just us.

So all these people are like putting on the show, like house by house for us.

Here's the woman churning butter.

Here's the guy milking the cow.

It was just, there was no one else there.

It was bizarre.

and cool.

How did the cow feel about being milked for an audience?

I don't know.

I don't know.

Isn't that something they'd rather do in private?

And you wonder what they think.

They're just staring.

All this is happening and people staring at them.

I remember the first cow I ever milked.

What was her name?

Well, actually, come to find out it was George.

Old Beth Page.

So that was a disappointing experience.

It was old Beth Page.

It was old Beth Page.

That's going to be DDP's manager in a few years.

Diamond Dallas and old Beth Page.

And they'll be very positive.

From Australia to San Francisco, Cullen Jewelry brings timeless craftsmanship and modern lab grown diamond engagement rings to the US.

Explore solitaire, trilogy, halo and bezel settings, or design a custom piece that tells your love story.

With expert guidance, a lifetime warranty and a talented team of in-house jewels behind every piece, your perfect ring is made with meaning.

Visit our Union Street showroom or explore the range at colourjewelry.com.

Your ring your way.

Suffs!

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

We the man to be home.

Winner, best store.

We the man to be seen.

Winner, best book.

We the man to be quality.

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

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

Tickets at BroadwaySF.com.

It'll be very positive.

I've got one more.

We've got to be corrected here, Brian, before we go any further.

We've got to be corrected.

Yeah, someone saved the show.

Travis.

Travis wrote in, hi, guys.

You gave me a hell of a laugh on your commentary about Sika mouthing not guilty to the jury at Vince's trial.

Remember, we were talking about Sika unfortunately passed away a few weeks ago.

And

we were mentioning that story, but Travis says,

since this is a story I happen to have looked into at great length, I wanted to add a few fun tidbits in case you weren't aware.

The accused intimidator was Affair It was Affair not Sika.

We do apologize.

Which makes more sense because Alpha also lived in Pennsylvania.

Sika, I don't think, was on this coast.

Well, he might have this coast.

Yes, he was.

Was he in Florida?

Was he in...

No, he's in Florida.

He's lived in Pensacola for years and years and years.

I was thinking in San Francisco.

Yes, that's the same coast.

It's just the other end of the coast.

That's right.

But anyway, the person who reported it in court was a guy named Dory DeQuatro.

who purported himself to be a journalist, but was actually a swing musician in New York City.

Huh.

Sounds like wrestling.

Well, a lot of people, you know, they cross over from music to journalism.

But if

basically he was a John Arezzi type of opportunist who was the leader of one of the groups trying to ride the Fed's coattails in taking down vents under the guise of cleaning up wrestling.

Like Arezzi, he seems to have been a mark doing the bidding of bidder, whether justly or unjustly, wrestlers.

I don't know anything about this guy.

I mean, it's interesting because I don't even recognize the name at all.

Well, it's Dory D-O-R-E

DeQuatro.

DeQuattro.

No relation to Susie Quattro.

Can the can.

Well, you do and you'll clean it up.

So the judge actually put DeQuatro on the record in the case.

DeQuatro got very uncomfortable and changed the story a bit to Affa and his friend were mouthing not guilty to each other.

The judge asked the jury, and specifically the individual juror who de Quattro pinpointed, and none of them had any clue what he was talking about.

So I'm guessing it never happened, although the story is incredible either way.

So now we have another viewpoint on this.

Who is Alpha's friend?

Well, he's just in the middle of the case, he's just turning to him.

Yeah, not guilty, not guilty.

I'm thinking there was probably a contingent because the Anawahi family, there was a number of them living in,

what is that, Eastern Pennsylvania.

And I'm sure they went in solidarity.

So there were probably a lot of members of the family there.

And many of them don't look as

imposing as Alpha does, but, you know, and probably some of the kids.

Who knows?

Maybe they made a day of it.

I'm not sure.

There could have been a picnic.

When Vince was going to fire Fatu and Alpha showed up with Fatu and a couple of his other family members,

that was Rosie and Jamal and whatever names that they that morphed into.

That was their first trip up there.

Yeah, that was around the time they became the Samoan gangster party in ECW.

Yes.

But do you think that was the conversation?

Like, look, you know what I did in court.

What the fuck?

You can't fire anyone ever from my family.

No, I think it was more that Alpha was like, you know, your father.

He was so good to me and my brother.

And I know these guys, you know, that type of thing.

And

Vince had a sympathetic streak for the talent that had meant something to his father.

So

you could always do something with that.

All right.

But anyway.

So there you have that, Brian.

But, you know, and there's always a new kind of character popping up on television,

sometimes popping out on television.

Brian, you've heard me mention many times before that anybody that comes out of a box is over, right?

I've heard you say that.

That's that's that's an old wrestling

rule of thumb.

It's been passed down from generation.

I think the first person to say that was probably Joe Stecker in 1917.

Oh, give me a break.

Anybody that comes out of a box is over.

He said about Clara Mortensen.

And that's exactly.

Well, he said something about her box being

over.

But anyway, I'll tell you what.

I'll tell you what.

I'm changing it today because actually he was saying it was awesome.

And that's what now anybody that comes out of a box is awesome.

And anything that comes out of a box is awesome.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's just, it's a box of awesome.

And you can get it in your mailbox.

See the box of mail and the box of awesome in the mailbox.

See it?

It all ties together.

They've proven my point.

Our friends over at Bespoke Post and their all-new premium lineup of Box of Awesome collections.

And we have been mentioning

the incredible set of knives and sharpening tools and oils and things in the

custom-made wooden boxes that I've just received.

Brian got the same thing.

Usually he's the one that gets all the knives and I get all the cooking stuff.

But in this case, our worlds collided.

But all you got to do is go to boxofawesome.com and take the quiz.

And then you will tell them what you are interested in: the genres and categories and items and fun things.

And then every month, they will send you up whether a standard box or a premium box, it's up to you.

And all these items come from the dear old mom and pop stores that are the backbone of our democracy.

And Brian, you know that

democracy ain't got much bone left.

Osteoporosis is set in.

So get these things while the world is still turning and you still have money to spend.

Go right now to boxofawesome.com and enter the code JCE at checkout.

You're going to get 15%

off your very first box.

And that could be

who knows how much.

Because it depends on what you get.

And

every box you get is already at a 30% or more discount or thereabouts or in that neighborhood across a plethora of products because they're already giving you money off and then you save more.

They're coming now on lawnmowers up my front yard to.

I don't hear anything.

You don't hear that.

It's in your head.

No one's here.

No one hears it.

No, you're not.

No one hears it.

You're lying now trying to get back because they were right under my goddamn window.

They're riding lawnmowers trying to get these boxes of awesome and you can too.

Brian, tell them again.

You didn't tell them to begin with.

I did, but you tell them again

how they can go to Box of Awesome.

You can go to Box of Awesome, boxofawesome.com, promo code JCE.

Is that right?

That's right.

Yes, that's right.

That's right.

That's right.

You can be right too with a box of awesome.

It'll show up at your door.

It'll be awesome.

Unfortunately, the knife will be inside the box likely, so you can't use it to cut into it, but you'll be holding that box.

Because whoever's in the box will use the knife to cut themselves out and they'll pop out and they'll be over.

There'll be no one in your box.

There'll be no one over them.

Well, it depends on.

How they ask when they come out of their box as to whether they get in your box or not.

That's wrong.

Get over with yourself.

Get yourself the box of awesome today.

What's that?

Wait a minute.

What are you telling people to get over themselves for?

I'm not saying get over yourselves, get over with yourself.

Be impressed with something you did and something that arrived, and something you'll be able to do.

All sorts of wild and wacky things out in nature or inside, away from nature with.

Box of Awesome.

There's a promo code, Jim.

What is it?

JCE.

And you know what?

You don't have to get this stuff for yourself.

You could get over with somebody else and send them an awesome box, a box of awesome.

See?

So again, that's charity, Brian, something you know nothing about.

You're against the whole concept.

That's not true.

Send somebody else a boxofawesome.com code JCE.

And when somebody pops out of their box and it surprises the shit out of them, they'll be over with them too.

And for every five boxes you send someone else or other people, we will say your name within the last three seconds of

something at some point.

But how would we know?

I don't know.

of awesome see we need to workshop that yeah this show has really gone downhill today

well i'm glad it's mine should i try to save it go ahead

you know what that means ladies and gentlemen it's time for something that will lift up all of our spirits starting with the leader of the cult of cornet mr jim cornet jim how about some classic audio from

before you were in the business, but just slightly before, but you were around.

So maybe you'll have some insight.

Here's a video, some audio here.

What?

From March 7th, 1981, The Dream Machine Quitting the First Family.

Jimmy Hart, Wayne Ferris, Tojo Yamamoto, Jimmy.

Can we slow down to cheerleading a minute?

And let me ask you this.

We've got the situation pretty well to define in here.

Tommy Rich is unable to be here today, which leaves the options as follows.

The fact that the Southern Tag Team Champions will forfeit the titles to your challenging team today, this is not going to happen.

The second thing, Dundee has already said that he would wrestle against both of them in this special one-fall 30-minute championship match.

But the third thing, and I ask you this, and I would give you some very good advice, that if you went in there today in a handicap match and won it, the fans are not going to respect you.

They're not going to respect the team or the win, even if they did take the title away from Dundee.

And the reasonable thing, it seems to me, to do and good advice would be to postpone it till Tommy Rich can be back.

Dundee and Rich can then defend against them.

Nobody's trying to get out of the match, but I think that a postponement would be the very wise thing for you to do in here.

Can we get a postponement on the match today?

Let me stop it there for a second.

He's amazing.

What an incredible.

He laid the whole thing out for everybody so they could understand it.

Obviously, if you're somebody hearing a lot of these names for the first time, it may have gone past you.

But for the viewers of the program 40 years ago, they knew exactly what's going on.

It's presented so level-headedly, so

reasonably, conversationally.

Lance was, and you know, and he sounded genuine.

Yeah.

That's why he was everybody's, you know, favorite uncle.

Well, you know, the thing, too, is he was never hyperbolic.

He was never like a Shivani out there like, oh, this son of a bitch or whatever.

And because of that, he's talking to the lead heel manager.

He's just talking to him.

Jimmy Hart's standing there staring at him.

It's not like they have to go out there and fight right away.

Right.

Even when Lauer would make fun of Lance,

you knew that you could stop and listen to him.

He was a reasonable guy and that connected with the audience.

Lance didn't, Lance didn't go with the heels first like, you know, how dare you come out here unless they had just done something heinous, but he would start an interview being.

the broadcaster and then the heel could be the dick instead of lance trying to steal the fucking he would explain things and bridge to things and transition things and you could bounce things off of him he wasn't trying to be the the baby face well he just laid out the whole thing the studio audience listened ferris and yamamoto are out there with jimmy hart here's jimmy hart's response

oh you you really would you you think i would advise you that if you want the respect that these men i'm sure are looking for as champions that you would postpone it until you can win it rather than just trying to beat one man you know what what?

I think he wants us to postpone the match.

Can you believe that?

Russell, that's why you're an announcer and I'm a manager.

Are you crazy?

You know, if the fans didn't respect me, you know how much sleep I would lose over that?

Do you know actually how much sleep I would lose over that, man?

You have to be an idiot.

You're a complete idiot.

Let me tell you something, man.

Why don't you overlook the buck for once and do the

thing about it and postpone it?

Let me tell you why, because Jimmy Hart has worked hard all of his life, man.

I've been in Memphis, Tennessee, my whole life.

I've thrown papers.

I've worked at Gov service stations.

I've had gold records.

And for 14 months, I've been a professional wrestler.

And it's been the greatest thing to ever happen to Jimmy Hart.

And do you think, actually, that's what those rules are for, you fool, because of people like Dundee and Tommy Rich, man.

I've got a toothache.

I'm sick.

My wife's sick.

I can't be here.

You know the situation.

You're an idiot, man.

He's not making any excuse.

He got caught in the middle of a contract situation.

And he couldn't be here today.

Is that simple?

Yeah, okay, well, I'll tell you what I'm going going to do.

Bill Dundee is a superstar.

If he's a superstar, well, then let him get up in the ring and earn his status.

He's supposed to be Big Muncho, man.

So, Dundee, come on up.

The title match will be today, and we will be the new Southern Heavyweight Champion.

That he will wrestle you to

if that's going to make you feel like a big man or these two guys you are in there.

Let me stop it for a second here.

It's interesting to hear him say it.

This is 14 months into his career as a wrestling manager.

Yes.

And the first bit of that, he didn't do any promos, really?

Because he was Lawler's manager, which Jerry at the time liked to have manager, whether it be Mickey Poole or some of the other guys he would have to second him, private buddy Diamond at one point, just

a guy that he could use as a stooge at ringside to pass him the gimmicks and, you know, throw the boot in or whatever the fuck.

And it was another toy that Lawler had to get heat.

He did all the talking,

but he still got so much heat on Jimmy, the fans were beating Jimmy up before Jimmy had even said anything.

And

then, obviously, when Lawler got hurt, that's when Jimmy had to carry the ball.

And all of a sudden, as Mama Cornette used to say, we found out he was vaccinated with a phonograph needle.

And he started talking, you couldn't shut him up.

And it was, you know,

this was only a little over a year into him starting in the wrestling business from scratch.

Let's go back to this audio right now.

You're looking at the next champion, baby.

That's it.

Come on here.

Dream we got.

I've been back here watching what's been going on.

And I've had it up to here.

I've been watching what's going on.

You've been giving me the run around for now three months.

You brought me in here three months ago to fight Jerry Lawler.

He beat me by the skin of his teeth.

But he also, he's whooped a lot of people.

He also whooped Joe LaDuke, he whooped Austin Idol, he whooped Jimmy Vayne.

He swooped everybody.

He swooped everybody.

But you've been giving me the run around for a long time, and now today, I can't believe what you're doing today.

You've got this title match right here.

I should be in there.

I've been loyal to you longer than Tojo Yamamoto, longer than Wayne Ferris, longer than Dutch Man Torah.

I've been loyal to you longer than anybody, Jimmy.

I've been with you since dirt.

And now this,

now this come about.

I can't believe what's going on.

I'm tired of sitting in in the back seat.

You're playing with my head, you're playing with my pocketbook, you're playing with my money, man.

Hey, I don't like it.

And I want to know today.

I want to know today.

You know that Bill Dundee can't whoop two men.

Can't no guy whoop two men.

But I want to know today, will you change that match and put the dream machine in there where I rifle belong?

You changed the match today.

That's all I want to know.

Are you going to change it?

No.

No, listen to me.

Hey,

that's it.

Okay.

Looks like the Jimmy Harrett organization has a little disorganization.

No more.

No more.

No more.

No more.

I'm not under you.

No more.

A little problem here and there.

Well, I'll tell you what.

Let me stop it there for a second.

I was about to say, hold on to it there because.

The people are screaming, yay, just because he came and said, I quit, I'm done, and walked out.

That's again, that's maybe they should have taken a page out of that for Will Osprey when he had his little conversation with Don Callis instead of, oh, I really would like to go out on my own.

Well, you mean so much to me, boy?

What the fuck?

No wonder nobody gives a shit.

And he said the little thing there that connects with anyone.

Dream Machine's a ridiculous character.

The way he talks and the mask, you're messing with my head.

You're messing with my money.

You know, actually,

that was the way Troy talked.

There was not any element of.

How do you say say tired?

Tired.

Tired.

I'm tired.

I'm tired of it.

I'm way past tired of it.

There was no accent put on nor television verbiage there, but go ahead.

If this was AEW, not to compare anything to AEW, but if this was modern wrestling, there would have already been a brawl.

The breakup would have already happened.

Like everything would have already happened.

This speaks to...

not just the importance of letting things play out, but also the importance of having different tones of the commentators and of the entire show.

The audience in this segment alone was loud at the beginning, got quiet to hear things, reacted to Jimmy Hart, and then reacted to Dream Machine.

That's what you want, but if everything is just screaming at the audience all the time, it goes right past you.

And or,

goddammit, you didn't hand me my mail in time.

Let's fight.

Boom.

It just

things have to, well, continue with this because it's not over with.

There's a little bit more here.

Let's go to this.

I don't need the big Goodyear blimp.

He's been eating me out of house at home, so who really cares?

But let me just tell you right now, baby, you're looking at the next southern heavyweight champion.

So, superstar Dundee, come on, pack your lunch, baby, and come on out, baby.

Well, it isn't over with yet.

Remember this.

I would bring to your attention the fact that Dundee clearly stated that he does not have to win the match.

All he has to do is avoid being beaten.

And that's the end of this clip right there.

But now, well, do we have the end of the match?

Hold on.

Let me go to the match.

Because you got to hear what happens because we brought them this far and you got to hear these people screaming and squealing like pigs stuck under a gate.

Well, Jim, let's now go to part two.

This is the match.

Bill Dundee handicapped match for the tag titles against Tojo Yamamoto and Wayne Farris.

The honky-tonk man.

March 7th, 1981.

We're going to join the match in progress.

Lance Russell on the call.

Bill Dundee getting his ass kicked.

Right in the left eye.

Dundee down.

Tag on Yamamoto.

Referee moving Ferris out of there.

Billy bleeding on both eyes now

Jimmy Hart

really feeling happy

Well

up to this point he had really given it a go

using very very good tactic but Ferris stopped him on the floor

Dundee bleeding on both eyes and Yamamoto

methodically chopping him enough now

Coming up on the 15 minute mark

Tojo stings

Dundee trying to kick and he caught him with one foot didn't catch him full.

He's groggy

Bill trying to fight his way out of it.

At the 15-minute mark, he's now halfway through.

Battling back on Ferris and Yamamoto.

Dundee goes for Yamamoto.

This Ferris is the referee trying to get one of them out of there.

Dundee pounding Ferris.

Ferris down in a corner.

He grabs Yamamoto on a a whiff.

Nice tough kick.

Billy.

Beats the head for the outside.

Ferris catches it on the rope.

The referee wrestles with Wade Ferris.

Mojo

fired in his eyes.

Now one, two,

three.

That's going to be it.

They even had to resort to tactics like that.

As Wayne Ferris was fighting the referee, Ferris was not supposed to be in the rank.

Dundee,

his eyes really messed up.

Staggering around.

Big deal, Jimmy Hart.

Big deal.

His men couldn't even beat Dundee without resorting to two men on him.

Dundee is now showing the referee.

What I suspect is Saul.

Wayne Ferris going after Dundee.

As the referee was talking to Jojo, the referee pulls Ferris off.

Hart, Yamamoko, both come in, kicking on Dundee.

Ferris again pulled away to Hardstone.

Here comes the green machine.

There you go.

Green.

Nailen Farris

wants Toto.

Look at that green machine go.

This guy's 273.

He is a big one.

Dundee back on his feet.

Calva Moco goes out.

And the dream was being still after Wayne Ferris.

He made it clear

before the match.

What he felt like.

Dream was going after him in the dressing room.

Referee Jerry Calhoun stops him.

The Pelts are still going to go to it.

Okay.

And And I didn't want to interrupt any of that because that was like listening to the old boxing films or the boxing radio broadcasts of the 40s.

With Lance, you can hear

the inflection, the emotion, the ups and downs.

He calls it.

He lays it out.

He lays out when necessary.

The details that aren't there, but you can't tell, even when you're watching tele.

Dundee bleeding from both eyes now.

No, he did a regular blade job, but nobody knew what that was then, but just that he said bleeding from both eyes now.

Oh my God, Lance is there.

He can see it.

He's in person.

Little details like that and just

the credibility in his voice and the concern that he has when people are doing something wrong.

And then,

you know, you could hear the people living and dying with every time that Dundee would fight back.

And then, of course, the heels still have to fuck him.

Tojo threw the salt in his eyes.

And then you're hearing the people when Dundee's showing the referee, look, it's salt, it's salt.

And then when Dream comes out, those people in that studio,

they would literally scream so loudly in that television studio that they normally did news in or you'd do a cooking show in that it would distort the audio of the microphones.

It would peek out all the fucking meters.

They wouldn't be able to handle it.

And

that kind of excitement translated

across the screen to the people watching that show.

That's why Memphis TV

was the highest rated television program in the country.

And you can feel that,

you know, they're screaming at shit.

They're screaming.

They're just jumping up and down and fucking screaming.

You were taking photos at this period of time.

Were the fans ready to turn the dream machine?

What did you think?

Yes.

I mean,

they weren't ready in terms of, oh my God, we want to cheer this guy, but he was over as a heel.

And he had been Lawler's original

opponent when Lawler had come back from the broken leg.

And the reason was because that was before they started bringing in Lawler's historic rivals, the Austin Idol, and there were the Hulk Hogan and Joe LeDuc and all those guys,

because they knew that Lawler's return from a year off with a broken leg and the chance to get five minutes with Jimmy Hart was going to be what drew.

And so they put the mask on Troy, who, as we've mentioned before, had been,

you know, he was from Memphis, but he'd been working Mississippi and outlaws, and he'd been trying to get booked, and he could do the promo, where there he was playing it straight and that's another thing there was a jerry jarrett kind of touch and you could hear in what in the way that lance explained it so logically and

a believable point of view jerry jarrett would have laid that out for him in jerry's words and then lance put it in his own words And there was another Jerry Jarrett point.

Don't go out and be Dusty Rhodes.

Don't go out and be the dream machine.

Go out and be Troy Graham.

You're really upset.

And that's why he didn't do the patter there, right?

But they knew the dream could talk.

And putting him under a mask as the dream machine, will somebody think it's Dusty Rhodes?

Maybe, maybe not.

And they sold out.

That was

the first appearance of Troy Graham in the Memphis, Mid-South College.

I take it back, second.

He had worked there one time before, about a year and a half before.

It was second time he was ever there.

He was in a main event on a complete sellout.

He was Troy T.

Tyler the previous time?

He was Troy T.

Tyler when he was working

in Knoxville.

For some reason,

maybe they were just taking a look at him at that point, but

they teamed him up with the Assassins at a six-man against Sonny Kung, and I couldn't remember who.

And then you never saw him again until the Dream Machine, and nobody knew it was him.

They didn't remember him anyway.

But then, because he was such a great promo, right?

And then at at that point, I think they, I can't remember who had just turned or who had left, but they were kind of short on baby faces.

And so they did that turn.

And Dream was automatically, he and Dundee became a team, won the belts from

Ferris and Tojo, worked with

Onita and Masafuchi when they were here, managed by Tojo.

And Dream was

the number three babyface for a while behind Lawler and Dundee.

And then they turned him again back heel

that fall and he teamed up with, and he was back in the family.

Go ahead.

I'm sorry.

Jimmy Hart's little kicks when he gets in there and starts kicking Dundee when he's down.

No one kicked like Jimmy Hart did.

Like these fast kicks that were just coming at him.

The little peripatetic kicks.

And it was

because Jimmy was as, you know, he was so skinny.

If he got sunburned, he looked like a thermometer, as Lawler would say.

And he didn't try to look like he was hurting anybody but he he

he looked like he was he was trying in his own way but he was completely ineffectual at doing it and i kind of stole some of that stuff from my repertoire also i'll hit somebody but i don't want him to sell it the date's interesting too because this is march 7th they're doing this angle that starts with tommy rich being knocked out of action

Less than two months later, he wins the NWA title.

Well, as a matter of OK,

then right there, and I don't know why I didn't realize it at the start, that was when Tommy had left or was in the process of leaving and going back to Atlanta.

And

they needed a new babyface because Dundee and Rich had been teamed up at that.

But see, Tommy had come back in late 1980.

That's a weird run right there as a heel.

Well, yeah, see, that's the thing is that Jarrett was trying a variety of things while Lawler was out of action.

And he called Barnett and said, can I get Tommy Rich back?

And he had come in and he tried to run.

And he,

Tommy was a tremendous fucking heel.

It was a revelation.

If anybody said, the problem is the houses were at, you know, record low levels because Lawler was out and it wasn't, that period is not well remembered.

He was a revelation as a heel for the first time in his life for about three months there, late 1980, early 81.

and then they switched him babyface and then he was on his way back to georgia they did the angle with his mom on tv remember yes like tojo attacked her

he's

and and they switched jimmy valiant heel and he started wearing that dark eye makeup and miss piggy piggy rich

Tojo slaps and Tommy's mother probably weighed about as much as he did.

She just was shorter.

But Tojo slapped her, and I think she swung back at him.

There's some bizarre shit going on at that point, but it was just, it was trying anything that might catch on because Lawler had been out for so long and had so many setbacks with the leg.

You know, it's interesting, too.

It's a weekly territory, obviously, with this strong TV.

But Jimmy Hart's a manager that,

for the most part, you never had to like build up to the big moment where he gets hit.

Every match, he was getting punched and taken a bump, and it never took away from his heat.

Well, that's the thing.

It wouldn't have worked in Louisiana.

It wouldn't have worked with Watts'

approach to things because they were used to the big buildup.

So if you had done it just every week, it probably would have killed a guy.

But in Memphis, because it being weekly, as you said, and because you know, a small crew and everything had to be wild, the managers got the shit kicked out of them too on a regular basis, which flies in the face of and contradicts normal wrestling philosophy.

But that's why you got so good as a manager because they let you get heat too.

And you got a lot of practice.

Not only did you get the shit kicked out of you, but you

were in every finish or you were passing gimmicks or they put you on TV and let you talk and get your heat back.

And they were figuring finishes where you'd be actively involved.

So there was always something going on.

And a baby face has got a lot of you, but you got a lot of the baby faces too.

And I mean, and,

you know, if you did it right, the baby faces could sell for the manager long enough through nefarious means with gimmicks and cheating and whatever the fuck

that, you know, then when he made the comeback, you just, you didn't want to take the, and Jimmy, about every

once a year or so he would get actually just carried the fuck out right

otherwise he'd be bumped around and punched and maybe pinned or spanked or whatever but he would be able to scamper away yelling at people as he did it

and that that's that was kind of the you you had to be on your toes and you but you had chances to keep your heat if you were

good at getting it to begin with.

Well, there it is, some classic audio to break things up, and we'll probably do this again pretty soon.

Well, but in the meantime, Brian, we can do other things like talk about SmackDown.

From unsolved mysteries to unexplained phenomena, from comedy goal to relationship fails, Amazon Music's got the most ad-free top podcasts, included with Prime.

Download the Amazon Music app today.

Life's messy.

We're talking spills, stains, pets, and kids.

But with Anibay, you never have to stress about messes again.

At washablesofas.com, discover Anibay Sofas, the only fully machine-washable sofas inside and out, starting at just $699.

Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics, that means fewer stains and more peace of mind.

Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers, allowing you to refresh your style anytime.

Need flexibility?

Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly.

Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes.

Plus, they're earth-friendly and built to last.

That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch.

Upgrade your space today.

Visit washable sofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life.

That's washablesofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Well, Jim, let's talk about SmackDown, SmackDown for, I believe, Friday, July 12th.

And in a lot of ways, nothing happened, but in other ways,

what happened was kind of perfect.

The important shit happened.

Oh my God.

And then they gave us, I thought it was an episode of Glow for a while.

I was thinking, where's Dave McLean?

Thought they'd have him out on commentary.

By the way, they were in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Am I pronouncing Worcester right?

You're closer than I am up there.

I've been there.

I believe so, but I'm not certain.

I believe so.

I like their sauce.

The Worcester sauce.

Anyway, apparently you're not too saucy today.

Is it still material?

What's going on?

Is it still the?

I've had a trying weekend.

Is it still the Centrum up there, the Worcester Centrum, or have they got a

Dunkin' Donuts Memorial Coliseum now?

Give me a moment.

I'll find out what building they were in.

Because the old Worcester Centrum was the scene of some of the great WWF events of the past.

They seem like they've gotten too big to go to a place like Wooster anymore, but they made this building look like Madison Square Garden.

So, what is the name of the arena now there?

Uh, hold on, I'm accidentally on the wrong

Worcester?

I'm on the wrong Wooster right now.

Well,

I'll tell you what, that's what they told that chicken.

Don't get on the wrong Wooster.

Apparently, it's a law.

It takes a long time to Google the name of the arena.

The name of the arena, excuse me, the name of the arena, the DCU Arena.

The DCU Arena.

So this wouldn't be the old Centrum.

The last time they were there for SmackDown, October 7th, 2022, 6,261 tickets distributed.

For this event,

9,203 tickets distributed.

They were up by 3,000 people.

That's up one-third.

According to WrestleTicks, 47%

increase.

Well, yeah, 3,000 is a third of 9,000.

But if you take that they had 6,000 before, well, then that would be a 50%

increase to 47% of the 3,000 that you got a 33 and a third percent chance of

the record going round, round, round like a record baby, round, round, round.

It's crazy to think about.

And look, things could always happen.

No one stays hot forever.

but when you know on the horizon they have a year of John Cena goodbyes

and Lesnar at some point and Heyman's return because now let's just treat him like a draw and Roman and Roman and The Rock

it's one thing after another the CM Punk Drew McIntyre feud we haven't even had a chance yet to see how that does on its own Their biggest star, they're doing record business and their biggest stars aren't even on the goddamn shows.

So like I said, you can never predict what could happen.

In 2001, people thought WWE may stay hot forever and it came quickly down to earth for a number of reasons, even though it was still relatively hot.

But WWE,

barring some kind of really bad shit, like a scandal or something.

I mean, I can't see anything stopping this right now.

And again, they have all these things on the horizon.

Those aren't even in front of us right now.

Those are things for next year.

And there's not even a chance of the global economy crashing until at least January.

Anyway, back to SmackDown in Worcester.

The opening was the live in-ring promo with Tiffany Stratton.

Brian, are you keeping Tiffy time?

I'll watch her matches, but I don't really,

you know, again, I asked the same question I asked about AEW women stuff.

Who is this for?

Is it for the women's audience?

Is that what it's being written for?

Or is this being written to entertain me,

a 44-year-old male who's married and has kids?

Am I the audience for this?

Or is it someone else?

Who is the audience for this?

Now, look, there are a lot of people who really like this stuff, apparently.

So there is an audience.

I just don't know what it is.

And I like her, Matt.

She's good in the ring.

But I might have the whole promo personality, whatever you want to call it.

She's a very athletic young lady.

She's very attractive.

She does have some meat on her bones.

She's not,

you know, the anorexic type, but the voice is a female Russo to me.

In fact,

I can't, not on my wrestling show.

I just can't listen.

And then Bailey came out, and you know what?

She's a lovely yookin, a lovely yookin.

I say so, Popeye.

She's a lovely yookin.

She's a lovely yucking young lady.

I say so, yeah.

Yeah, see?

But why the fuck does she have to shave half her fucking head?

Well, that's the thing.

That's an observation.

Yeah, it's been a thing for a little while for some women.

Well,

I don't know why.

And then the refrigerator came out, and she started talking and made Tiffy sound like Meryl Streep.

And then they beat up Bailey until Mia Yim saved her with a kendo stick.

Saved her with a kendo stick.

And then we had a

do you have any comments on this, the

interview that I just referenced?

No, not really.

No.

Okay.

No.

Because I didn't want to get ahead of you.

But then we went to Chelsea and Piper doing a promo in the back

where they're upset about something.

They want to see Adam Pierce and there's going to be things happening.

And then we go back to the ring, and it's the refrigerator against Mia Yim.

And that's why, and they went a while.

And what is this?

Fucking glow?

I know there's a werewolf lurking.

That's the only thing keeping me around.

But

I will say that the refrigerator won with not only a Samoan drop, but also the bonsai drop.

And both of them were fairly safe.

It's nothing that I felt the need to cuss this woman over.

So apparently she likes Mia Yim.

And then

she went for another bonsai drop, but Bailey ran out and saved Mia.

But then Tiffy was there and they beat up Bailey.

And then the refrigerator left, but while Bailey was down, Tiffy had her briefcase for the money in the bank, and she started to cash it in.

But the refrigerator came back in to look at her, like, What the fuck are you doing?

And she backed down and put the case behind her back so the refrigerator couldn't see it.

And they left together

like Brute Bernard with the two before stuck down the back of his tights, telling the referee, Don't see it.

Oh, Tommy Young hated that.

Tommy, a corny, I'll tell you

that that brute Bernard,

that brute Bernard would go out of the ring and get a tuba, a tuba for Corney and put it in the back of his tight.

It would be sticking up over his head a foot and a half.

And he'd get in the ring and just tell me, don't see it.

Don't see it.

Don't see it.

So they were 30 minutes into the show, and it was all the all-women brigade.

That's what kind of started this off on

a slow roll downhill for me.

But anyway, I was on that same hill.

I was tumbling too.

Tumbling, tumbly, and in a landslide brings me down.

But then the bloodline package with Solo doing the talking.

He's the man now.

And when they do the interviews, in that,

instead of the house of black looking like they're trying to reenact the goddamn video for Bohemian Rhapsody in somebody's closet,

it looks like kind of a cool room that has dingy lighting and

they're all dressed up in their Samoan gangster outfits.

And it looks like a mafia meeting in Pago Pago.

And I like this look.

And Solo says he's built a whole

new, more powerful family and it's more aggressive and blah blah blah and says everybody

is going to acknowledge him tonight.

So that means we're getting some bloodline tonight somehow.

So that's, that's keeping us going, right?

Right.

That's the promise.

And they fulfilled it.

They did.

That was when you knew, okay, there's going to be shit I really don't care about that would normally drive me off, but they're promising me something's going to happen.

And so, and then for completionism, we should acknowledge that Baron von Corbin and Apollo Crews had a tag team match with the Lucha Heels,

and they beat Apollo Crews.

They used to like him, didn't they?

The office, I mean.

They pushed him for a while, and then

he pops up every now and then, and you don't know why, and somebody beats him, and he leaves again.

Did you like the sit-down with Cody and Orton in the back?

It was very interesting.

You know, we just talked about that recently.

I said at the end of a conversation, how big do you think it'll be when Randy Orton turns on Cody?

And you reacted, you, ooh, you know, you thought about it.

And they kind of referenced that idea here, saying it won't happen.

Yes.

And that's the way you know it's going to happen.

Well, it doesn't have to happen right away.

I guess it's.

But no, of course.

No, this is

what they did here was they did

a kind of a, you know, a story

moving little promo for a minute and a half sitting in the back in the locker room.

But this is something they can clip in a year or whenever

and say, remember when you told me this, Randy Orton?

Because Cody was sitting there and Orton comes in

and says, hey, I know these Samoans are around tonight.

Well, I'm going to have your back if you get surrounded by a bunch of Samoans.

And

when this whole bloodline thing is finally over with, I know you're going to have a lot of guys coming for that belt.

And the belt's sitting there.

And if you note, Orton's always looking at that belt.

And Orton tells Cody, he said, I promise I'm going to have your back then too.

When all those people are coming out, and he wants him to have that belt

so he can beat him for that belt.

And they don't even have to do this for a year.

It's fucking great.

So, yes, but you see

every time that that belt and Orton are in the same place,

there's a point where he looks at it with lust in his eyes.

And just long enough for you to notice, and then it's gone.

It's a great story that could play out,

you know, right towards the end of the Cena run

of Randy Orton, someone who started around the same time but was younger, sitting back and watching all this.

He realizes he only has so much time left.

Unlike Cena wanting to kiss babies, he just wants that belt.

Yeah.

Man,

make a few more million dollars on the way home to St.

Louis or wherever it is he's living these days.

And then we get to the nine o'clock hour, and here comes L.A.

Knight.

And

again, they're just playing to guys' strengths.

We've seen at this point, remember we said he needs to beat people.

That was months and months ago.

Now the idea of L.A.

Knight talking to us and talking to the people live in the arena so they can yeah back to him

is better than just seeing him in a match for no apparent reason.

And he's building the match with Logan Paul for the U.S.

title.

And

he pitched to the VTR of him beating Logan Paul in the three-way a couple weeks ago to get into money in the bank.

And he's already got a folder there.

He's talked to Aldous.

He's got the contract for the U.S.

title match at SummerSlam.

And and he's signed it.

And he would love to have Logan Paul come out here and sign it.

And they start, oh, but he's not here.

But he will get it signed, and he's going to own that belt.

And say it was just straight ahead.

SummerSlam promo sell the match, but that's what we need to hear from L.A.

Knight now.

And

what do you think?

Logan Paul as U.S.

champion is

wonderful.

LA Knight's going to need something at some point, isn't he?

As popular as he is to remain popular.

That's the thing.

And, you know, he's defied the odds several times.

Coming out of that Bray Wyatt feud for the better, coming out of the male models, somehow to get set up to have a run.

And now, you know, we're at a point where he hasn't really done or won anything in a while.

However, he's still super over, and he should be.

He connects, but they got to do something with him, whether it's the U.S.

title or something.

He's still one of the most over guys on the entire show.

Yeah, but how many lives does he have at this point that he doesn't succeed somehow with some gold at some point?

And, you know, and they go, well, you know, and they quit saying, yeah, as much.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you think he's got to beat Logan Paul?

I don't.

I would like to see.

I don't think Logan Paul.

Especially considering Logan Paul's schedule.

Well, I don't think Logan Paul needs the belt now.

He's already got heat.

He's a tremendous heel.

He's a tremendous talker.

As much as L.A.

Knight needs to do something,

you know, positive for himself, as we just mentioned.

So we'll see what they do.

Because,

you know, Cody's not losing the belt at SummerSlam.

And whatever, you know, who's the other goddamn

priest may lose the belt at SummerSlam.

Imagine if they did that.

Imagine if Cody did lose the belt.

Yeah, but that ain't going to happen.

But anyway, back to SmackDown.

What do you think about young Blair Davenport?

I think she reminds me a lot of Jamie Hader.

That's a good thing, actually, because Jamie Hayter is really good.

I think she's all right.

Well, she, you know, I thought that was the character that Lisa Welchel played on

that girls' boarding school show that was borderline pornography for 1978 or whatever.

The girls in a boarding school all by themselves.

You know, the strict rules they have at girls' boarding schools: lights out at nine, candles out at 11.

That show was something.

And then Blair Davenport

wrestled Naomi, and we were back to glow.

Really, Naomi was glowing.

I like Naomi.

She makes you just want to get up and move.

Just get up and jump around.

And she glows.

I want to get up and change the fucking channel.

And I don't even have to.

I've got the remote.

She's built like Mrs.

Mett.

Like no one, I've seen no one else.

What?

Mrs.

Mett, the female mascot wife of Mr.

Mett, the original baseball mascot.

Wait a minute.

Now, hold on.

Let's back up a second.

So there was a baseball mascot called Mr.

Met.

There is currently.

There is currently.

Have they been divorced or is he still married to Mrs.

Mett?

No, all of a sudden, like a decade ago, it went from Mr.

Mett.

See, Mr.

Mett was there like in the early days.

He had a giant paper mache head.

Like in the early days of Shea Stadium.

And then when the Mets started winning, suddenly Mr.

Met kind of disappeared.

And then throughout the 70s, when things got bad, Mr.

Mett kind of wasn't around.

And when the Mets took over in the 80s, there was no Mr.

Met.

But when they fell on hard times and they were desperate to get kids back to the stadium, Mr.

Mett reappeared in the early 90s and he never left.

And at some point, they introduced a wife, a woman, giant baseball head mascot who would run around with Mr.

Mett.

And she just had a dynamite body.

I mean, that was the thing.

It was like, it would throw you off.

You're like, man, look at that body.

But there's a giant fucking baseball head.

What does she look like?

Yeah.

But so the Mr.

Met was to draw the kids and Mrs.

Mett was to draw the horny fucking fathers.

I don't know if that was the intention.

I think they just needed someone

who was willing to wear this giant fucking head on a hot day and run around a baseball field.

With large upper frontal protuberances.

Well, I'm not sure.

On the female.

I'll just say she had she.

Every Met fan had to notice it.

Were they bigger than baseballs?

Of course, yes.

Well, were they bigger than softballs have you played softball

yeah i'm aware of what a softball looks like i'm not gonna judge uh the body parts were they were they bigger than cantaloupes

what is wrong with you

i'm just asking for who for determine what she would look like with a giant round paper-mâché baseball head to try to determine if she was balanced with

I don't believe it's currently paper-mâché.

The original head was paper-mâché.

They hopefully better put a catcher's mask in there so somebody doesn't come up and punch Mr.

Mett in the fucking face.

The Cincinnati Reds kind of stole the Mr.

Mett look.

They just added a mustache to it, but that's kind of bootleg.

But there are other, obviously the Philly Fanatic, the San Diego Chicken, there are other people.

You should have had.

But Mr.

Mett is the first.

He's the original.

He's the greatest.

Good lord.

You should have had the Mets call down here.

One of our local television personalities, famous man in the Louisville area from the 60s and 70s, could have come up and helped you.

His name was Milton Metz.

Milton Metz.

And he had a baseball or a baseball-shaped head and glasses.

You want to know how bad things got for the Mets right before they sold the team at the end of the 70s?

Mr.

Met wasn't around.

They introduced a new mascot, Metal the Mule.

And it was a fucking mule, the name Metal, that would just graze around in the outfit.

What the fuck?

In New York, where we're known for our team.

Wait a minute.

Who is this is a professional baseball team making these decisions?

What do mules have to do with anything in New York?

And what did he have to do?

Did he bang his head?

The metal mule?

Did he bob his head up and down to Ozzie Osborne?

Well, metal the mule was only there for a very short period of time, but it was a questionable decision.

You mean to tell me that that actually got out in front of the people before somebody with some semblance of sanity meddled with metal?

I think metal was there for at least a season, maybe longer.

Well, let's get back to SmackDown.

Why?

It's so much more fun to talk about baseball mascots, even though you know nothing about them.

It's more fun.

Well, I know, but we got to get to the werewolf, you know, because we're still in glow, because after the Davenport and Naomi match, then in the back,

we saw Bianca and Jade and Naomi,

and they immediately started squealing at each other and hugging each other.

And then they did a bunch of scripted shit that I, and they,

and in the process of this, you see Chelsea and Piper sitting in the back out in front of Nick Aldiss's office with Aldous on the door.

And Bianca and Jade and Naomi

say out loud that Nick Aldiss is not there.

And then they fucking freak out, Chelsea and Piper, and rush into Aldous's office.

And then

Bianca, Jade, and Naomi keep squealing at each other

until Naomi sees Blair,

and Jade and Bianca walk off and Blair doesn't want any trouble.

She tells Naomi that maybe the best person won and she offers her left hand to shake it

and they shake left hands.

And then

I get,

is this a new Blair Davenport is from across the pond.

Is this a new thing they're doing over there shaking with the left hand?

I have not seen people do that.

I would not accept that.

That's disrespectful, I think.

Well, then Chelsea and Piper came back out of Aldous's office, and you'll never guess he wasn't even there.

And then they walked off, and then while Naomi is standing there contemplating the situation, Blair came back from behind her and just leveled her and walked away from her.

And again, besides for an LA night

interview

and a goddamn tag team match with the Underneath folks.

We have, it's been all women all the time on this program.

And then in a related instance, we get a tag team title match with Waller and Theory against Champa and Same Face, where it's kind of like a mixed tag team match because there's a pretty much a female on both fucking teams.

Waller on his and same face on his.

Hey, why are you still killing Waller?

Oh, fuck him.

Give him a chance.

He's run me from watching my boy Theory because of his flabby fucking physique and his nerdy goddamn haircut and his general fucking cheesy, goddamn fake heel fucking promo delivery and his lackluster work.

Well, if you can get past all that.

If I can get past that, he's fine.

He's going to give you the Austin Theory babyface run.

What do you think of that?

That seems to be coming.

I don't know if I like that.

I think theory, because theory to me is like Luger was when he started, except not work-wise.

but he's so big.

He's got such a good body.

He's got such a fucking, not only a nice face, but an arrogant smile.

And he's so good at what he does at such a young age.

He's a natural heel.

I don't know if I see him as a baby face right now.

We'll find out.

He does anyway.

Don't you think he does need to change things up, even if you don't see him as a babyface?

Because this is where he's ended up right now as a heel.

Yes.

Something needs to be done.

Yes, well, I think something definitely needs to be done.

He needs to throw his tag team partner at the bottom of Lake Michigan.

But yeah, let's see what happens.

Let's see what happens.

DIY won, by the way.

They did it themselves.

So anyway, now

we get to the point.

Because as soon as Champa and Same Face win a thing, they beat Waller, thankfully.

Out comes Jacob Fatu and he levels Theory on the floor and Waller runs away and that fits his fucking gimmick.

And then Fatu rolls in the ring and levels Gargana and levels Champa

and hits the incredible pop-up Samoan drop and then does a springboard flip on

Johnny and does a triple jump moonsault on Champa

and then starts the weed whacker right underneath my office window.

Can you hear that?

Yeah, I can't even lie.

I hear that.

Okay, good, good.

Everyone hears that.

Yeah, well, and that's capitalism at work.

They're out there working hard trying to earn a living.

But anyway, his biggest enemy, the weed whacker.

The weed whacker.

But basically, he came, he laid out

both of the tag team champions and one of the ex-champions, and the other one ran away from him

and

looked good doing it.

And that, again, it's not just about the moves because somebody out there is not going to get it.

And they're going to, well, why you did the triple jump moonsault?

You don't like it on AEW.

No, I like it when a fucking main event guy that they are pushing

that is coming out and getting over by laying out people can all of a sudden uncork a move like that when he doesn't look like

that that something like that should come out of that fucking badass body

it's all part of the package you got to have the other shit too

and then once he lays everybody out

here comes solo music and solo comes out with the tongas

and he does the in-ring promo

And as soon as he does the deal where Roman used to do, where he's an acknowledge me,

immediately the fans are, we want Roman, we want Roman.

They've

again, remember when

Roman Reigns was a babyface and he was the most unpopular son of a bitch?

They fucking hooted at him, right?

And now they've worked it to where he became such a great heel that now that this other shit's going on, the people can't wait for him to come back and he hasn't even done anything nice yet.

Brilliant.

And, you know, and that's as Solo says, Jimmy didn't acknowledge me and he's gone.

Heyman didn't acknowledge me and he's gone.

And Roman Reigns, if he decides to come back, he will acknowledge me.

So this is just, Solo has gone mad with power now.

This is the

new generation.

This is Gaudi.

He's the flashy fucking

Don that wants everybody to know it.

Whereas Roma was one of the old-fashioned guys, like the Salernos and the fucking Capistranos and all those people, where they wanted to lay back and

run things in an orderly fashion.

And then, and he basically said, tonight is Cody's turn to acknowledge me, and they play Cody's music.

And he comes to the ring four-on-one.

And they're not even pretending anymore.

It's like, yeah, we know you want to just see Cody come out and get in a fight.

So here we go.

And they have the face off, and the people are chanting Cody, Cody.

And Cody says, we want the same thing.

SummerSlam, the WWE title.

I'm going to talk to Aldous, but

if I could make any decision,

I wouldn't wait till SummerSlam.

We'd do it here, right here, and now as a babyface, right?

And the bloodline starts circling him, and he starts throwing punches and grabs Solo for the crossroads, and Jacob Fatu stops him with a super kick.

And as soon as here comes Orton, he promised he'd be there,

and he beats up the Tongas on the floor and ducks under Jacob.

So Jacob goes over the top rope and he goes to DDT Solo and he hits it.

And Solo didn't know sell it like Jacob Fatu did.

And then Randy Randy goes to help Cody up, but there's Jacob back and he stops Orton and he fucking heels on him

and then dives out on the floor on him.

And they tie Cody up in the ropes and they get heat on him and they beat up Horton with the stairs and then they make this is right out of Dusty's playbook.

They make Cody watch

while Jacob Fatu super kicks Randy Orton over and over, and then they triple power bomb Orton through the table.

And then once Cody's seen all that, solo spikes him, he's still tied up in the ropes.

And Brian, not only is this a mid-south wrestling kind of angle to go off the end of the show with, off the air,

but going back to what we said earlier, in a year from now, when the time is right,

Orton can show that video and go, look, I saved your ass from these Samoans.

and what happened because of you that's what i got

the shit kicked out of me

and what were you doing you were just hanging in the ropes not doing a goddamn thing it all is going to work in whatever way they want it to work yeah because eventually they got to kind of bring you would think the bloodline stuff all internal once roman comes back unless roman's tagging up with cody which could be something that builds into something at a later they've got that they've got that too but you know when roman comes back you would think it's Roman and maybe the Usos and whoever else they have there in their stable versus the modern Bloodline Heyman comes back.

Cody's going to need something non-bloodline related.

He's going to need several things.

So there's that.

And then

once Guther's the other champion, there's another thing down the road.

But that's the thing.

Whenever they've got the island of relevancy, all the occupants are battling over that.

Cody's got other things going on, and Orton could potentially be for next next year's summer slam if they wait that long.

And you talked about Cena coming back earlier, and what's,

you know, all these people,

and they're setting everything up where

this is really incredibly like Dusty Rhodes, aka Eddie Graham, Bill Watts style of booking.

Where I'm not suggesting Cody's doing all of it, but

it's the same philosophy where Watts and Eddie Graham in their territories, they had

decent-sized rosters for those days, 20 guys, 22, 24 guys.

But they had,

and then Dusty had more with Crockett.

But you could go to, for the World Tag title, the Midnight Express versus the Rock and Roll versus the Road Warriors versus fucking Dusty and Magnum.

Everybody had different ways they could go.

The different horsemen could break off in different combinations and work with top babyfaces because there was always

some element of an issue kept going amongst those people.

Some bad feeling, some bone of contention.

And it's the same thing they're doing here where

Tony Kahn makes a million matches, right?

And they come out of the blue, and it's not necessarily ones anybody was asking for.

It's just ones that appeal to Tony.

And

they're not milked till the people want to see them before they're even signed.

It's barely that you want to see it after it's announced.

But they're creating interest in what would happen if so-and-so wrestled so-and-so

before they even get there in the story.

And giving everybody multiple interesting opponents that they haven't even had to announce yet.

That's booking.

It's It's not matchmaking.

It's fucking booking.

One question about all this before we wrap up SmackDown.

With Jacob Fatu

and how spectacular he is and the reactions he got and how different he is and how real he seems,

do you risk, for lack of a better term, him becoming a Jimmy Snooka?

Bob Backlund worked with Jimmy Snooka.

Eventually, Bob Backlund was getting booed

because everyone had to cheer Snooka.

He was the cool wrestler.

He was the one doing the cool moves.

It hurt Backlund.

I mean, 1983 was miserable for WWF fans.

What do you think?

I mean, when I say Jimmy Snooka, it's a make himself a babyface just because it's impossible to boo him the more you see him.

But here's the beauty of this.

He's inside a group.

that you don't want to see succeed, even if you like him.

And also, with all due respect to Mr.

Backlund,

the baby faces of today are a little bit more over with this audience, and they're not as tired of them as the WWWF fans may have been tired of Bob as he entered his fifth year as champion.

And they've got more charisma, and the promos are more important.

It's a different audience.

What you maybe want

is for the people to start at least,

well, they already probably do anticipate Fatu's, you know,

involvement.

And if they're starting to cheer for him inside of this goddamn bloodline group, at some point,

you've got Jacob Fatu versus Solo.

If they mistreat him as the enforcer, if they don't give him the respect he deserves, and one day he says, No.

So, I mean, that's it's not

they're not making

Jacob Fatu a top single heel right now, challenging for the title of a,

to be quite honest, pretty bland, you know, whitebred babyface.

He's the enforcer of an evil group that's fighting a lot of babyfaces with personalities.

So he's going to get over, but it's not going to distract.

And down the road, again, you talk about things down the road, down the road, him and Solo having problems.

Yes.

And that's, you know, that could be two years or however.

I mean, they've got, there's no reason to rush any of this.

But right now, they don't have a problem with anybody being over in the wrong way because they're just almost everybody's over.

Well, SmackDown was over.

That was SmackDown.

But you know, Brian, I'll tell you what, if

in the old days, back in the old days of the wrestling business, when When somebody like Jacob Fatu came along

and the fans saw him on television, they'd get on their telephone and they'd call somebody.

Generally, their friends who watched wrestling, did you see that guy?

If they didn't see that guy, they went, you got to see this guy.

But it would all be by telephone, the old dial up, the rotary dial.

You stick your finger in the hole and you spin it around.

It was good practice for a young teenage boy back in those days.

But now there's all kinds of ways to call somebody.

Brian, you can call, you can punch buttons and call them.

You can talk into your phone and call them.

You can text them.

You can write something down and send it to them.

You can take a picture and actually just send it right over to people these days.

And you don't even have to wait to get it developed.

It's an amazing time we live in.

I'd like to go back to the old simple times, but we're not going to do that.

So

we're going to save the fans money.

We're going to save the listeners money.

We're going to save the cult of Cornell, the people.

We're going to save them money.

You can call somebody.

You can text somebody.

You can take a picture and send it to somebody.

You can take your cell phone and just sling it like a frisbee and it'll come right back to you.

Yeah, don't do that.

And that's not what a frisbee does.

That's what a boomerang does.

Well, a boomeranging frisbee.

You can sling it like a frisbee, but it'll circle around like a boomerang and come right right back and land in your hand.

But only

if you get the deal from Mint Mobile,

because that includes the boomeranging frisbee attachment.

It does not include that

app.

Fucking, no, it does not include that.

No.

Well, yeah, because Mint Mobile, he they want to, he,

the, the, the Mint.

Yeah, Mint.

He's

a little bit more.

He's all over the world, Mr.

Mint.

He's, he's, he's going mobile.

He's going mobile.

He is a guy who who wants to give everybody everything.

Yes.

Who's next?

I'll tell you, Bob O'Reilly is next.

Mint mobile.

Anyway,

so Mr.

Mint wants everybody to have the telephone service that they've got the technology for these days at a fraction of the money that you pay these other.

big box providers with their big overhead and their big advertising budget and their

they're just big but that means they charge charge you money, big money.

You want to go with Mint Mobile because they won't charge you a Mint.

They've already got one, Mr.

Mint.

And they're going to sell you, actually, they're almost going to give it away, a wireless plan, a premium wireless plan for three months for $15 a month.

And that is...

That's a significant savings from what I understand over the other big box retailers.

I've still got my

wall phone.

I just crank the crank and it rings and Sarah picks up and gets me numbers.

But if I was to go to one of the new phones, I would go with Mint Mobile.

You can agree with that, Brian.

I could agree that if you were going to have one right now, you would have Mint Mobile.

There's a lot of things you said that I don't necessarily agree with, or at least I wouldn't apply here, but I agree with that.

Well, I don't know what I've said that you could possibly disagree with.

You get the unlimited talk and text where you can write and talk to anybody you want to as long as they'll suffer your presence and talk to you anytime you want.

And it's got the high-speed data so you can send those pictures of your genitals to everybody in your fucking social circle.

And it's got the attached with this special app where if you sling that thing like a frisbee, it's going to come right back to you like a boomerang.

Just try it and see.

Just take your phone and just skip it like a flat rock across the lake.

you'll watch it come back to you i bet you

anyway right now you want to know how to do this thing brian you want to know how to get this deal save this money how do you do this thing i'll tell you how you do this thing there

you go to mintmobile.com slash jce

that is mintmobile.com slash jce

and they're going to give you this three month well they're not going to give it to you but like i said it's almost giving it away but they're going to sell you

this three month premium wireless plan 15 a month total of 45 that's 15 times three

and and

well you can just talk your little head off you can just natter on

natter on like a nattering nabob all you want because it ain't going to cost you a single penny more

no it won't it's no it will not It won't cost you a mint, but it will be mint, mint mobile.

It's in mint condition.

Mint condition well what's in mint condition well the phone plan it doesn't have any dings or scratches it it works perfectly

and you can take it around different places that's why it's mobile see you don't have to just sit at home you can actually take your phone with you and use it in other locations now thanks to the the cutting-edge technology that mint mobile has has fucking broken through with hey as a collector As a collector, what's the history of the word mint being applied to perfect condition?

Oh, silly.

Where does this come from?

Silly boy, because

the original collectible

that depended on condition was coins, were coins.

And in mint condition means they are the exact same condition, no scratches, no dings that they came from the mint.

That makes perfect sense.

And then near mint would be, well, it's almost there, and then you go down from there.

But that, because that people have been collecting coins since the 1800s that was the first grading system

all those coin collectors like sitting there cursing these fucking stamps everyone's now jumping on this

yeah because and actually stamps should be not mint but print but that's a whole nother thing that that You can debate this on the message boards on mintmobile.com with your $15 a month phone plan when you mintmobile.com slash JCE.

There are no Mint Mobile message boards for the record, at least not covering the camera.

Well, they've got them on the fucking phones all the time, the message boards.

People are on the social phones all the time.

Okay, what the time?

Oh, go ahead.

I'm sorry.

Well, they're the social phones, right?

Where they're on the social media

and mobile with them, where they just go everywhere and just they go out and parking lots and talk to each other.

The kids do.

You know what that means?

It's time for the promo code.

What is a gym?

Slash JCE.

And there is a $45 upfront payment required, which is $15 a month for three months.

And it's new customers on the first three-month plan only.

We can't just double dip.

And speeds are slower above 40 GB on the unlimited plan.

I still don't know what the fuck that means.

Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply if you live in the wrong part of the country where they monitor your communications and things like like that.

It's all coming to us, folks.

We're going to be living in a police state, but see Mint Mobile for all the details.com.

Well, what in the world is happening at the Arcadian Vanguard network this week?

I haven't been able to keep up with it since I've been otherwise

occupied.

So much going on.

Again, get details.

It's late in the day and I'm kind of talking slow.

I realize it now.

Get details on Twitter.

Get details on the Twitter.

At superpodcast or facebook.com/slash Arcadian Vanguard.

Of course, every day, get the wrestling news, wherever you get your favorite podcast.

Free daily morning wrestling newscast.

Get your news from the wrestling news.

No paywall, no clickbait, just the wrestling news, thewrestlingnews.com or wherever you find your favorite podcast.

I want to make mention of the latest episode of Shut Up and Wrestle with Brian Solomon, his guest, Mike Edison, a funny one.

Mike Edison.

I remember him.

He invented the electric light.

And I think this guy invented the guitar bong, but that's a different story.

Here at SUAWPod.com or shut up and wrestle with Brian Solomon, wherever you find your favorite podcast.

And of course, the 605 Super Podcast, the

membership.

605pod.com, available wherever you find your favorite podcast.

Listen to the Scott Cornish omnibus of his impressions and characters, the funniest stuff.

I've had so much fun going back and listening to it.

605pod.com.

Available wherever you find your favorite podcast.

The

mothership.

Hey, it's not nice.

See, that one was natural.

It wasn't even pre-recorded.

It sounded fake.

Isn't that funny?

It's like wrestling.

It was the real one, but it looked fake.

It sounded fake.

That's the first thing I learned when I got into business.

The guys would say all those old-timers, they threw punches that looked like shit and hurt.

Anyway, speaking of,

if it didn't look like shit, I bet it hurt some people's feelings.

The WrestleMania documentary.

We finally got a chance to catch up with that.

And we want to close the program out with some thoughts on

exactly what went on there.

I'm going to say this top of the program, and then we can delve into the minutiae of it.

But the first thing you see on this thing is Bruce Pritchard sitting next to the head guy, laughing and nodding his head.

Some things haven't changed for 40 years.

He used to do that at 1919 Caroline

at Pierce.

And then he used to do that in Stanford.

Well, I guess he's still doing it in Stanford.

Well, at 1241 East Main Street, and then over there at,

I don't know, Bugtussle Way.

I don't know what their fucking address is now.

But

this thing

was incredibly well shot.

The camera work was art.

It was edited seamlessly.

The voiceover was done so professionally.

It was a piece of art as a

visual documentary of something

that allegedly occurred.

Visually, it was stunning.

In content.

And now I know why they took two months.

Remember, this was supposed to come out the week after because they were just going to put it together.

But they had to take two months to figure out a way to make it look like The Rock

somehow did this whole thing by himself, you know, from start to finish.

And I know now I sound like you

because The Rock is my guy as far as talent goes, as far as he can come out

and talk for 20 minutes, and you feel like you got your money's worth.

Incredible talent, but God almighty, have the years in Hollywood

now that I get a good look at him speaking as himself instead of working on television, have the years in Hollywood made him full of himself or what?

He's the male J-Lo.

I said it last time and it rings.

Well, see, I know who J-Lo is and I can point at her picture, but I don't remember if I've ever heard her speak in any kind of, I don't give a fuck about J-Lo.

So it didn't really register to me what you were saying until if this is the male J-Lo,

then boy, she must be huffing a lot of her fucking methane gas too.

No, he's completely full of shit.

And it's a thing where the character doesn't end.

The rock may end.

But then he begins the character of Dwayne Johnson for the public.

Well, that's the thing.

It wasn't like he was keeping up being the rock.

He was being Dwayne Johnson almost.

It was like an eloquent Vince Russo with a good voice and a nice-looking body and face and some intelligence still claiming credit for inventing air, water, and oxygen.

You see, he could say a lot of things and he sounds very nice saying it, but I don't know if he really has great ideas or anything.

It's just that he knows how to present himself.

Although, considering all the editing problems and the delays or whatever it was, and a lot of people point their finger directly at seven bucks on the rock, the fact that he said, I need to look good in this thing.

Let me wear this shirt.

Let me have this look.

That's where there's a disconnect.

Like, even Hogan never really presented himself like that to the public.

Not that they would speak the same way, but, you know, with The Rock, it's like he's trying to

he's trying trying to be something that it doesn't seem like he really is.

He executive.

Remember when Uncle Dave started calling Sting real estate Steve when he would show up places in a suit?

He looked like just a normal guy because Sting in a suit didn't really translate.

It looks like he's trying to be executive Dwayne.

And

did you catch the one?

Wait a minute.

It was later on, but I made a note of it.

Yeah.

When they talked about the rock joining the board of directors of the wwe he called himself director of the board

as director of the board

not a member of the board of directors

d-o-r-e-d

well but no but seriously

there is no such thing as director of the board is there but it sounds like the head guy there was no such thing as muhammad ali making him the people's champion until all of a sudden he got a belt at the hall of fame ceremony from muhammad Ali.

But here, the thing, it started out

Triple H basically, and you can tell that Triple H had to negotiate all this because he knew what was going on.

You could tell that he's the real deal, that he understands what needs to be done.

And also to this day, he is still a masterful wrestling politician.

Yes.

Because

it can't be easy to manage Dwayne Johnson.

He said it several times there.

He's like, and I just decided we'll do this.

So I called called Nick and Ari

and Paul, you know, and Triple H.

Yeah, he called the guy who runs the entire company over his idea.

That's what you have to deal with.

If you're running creative, you would need to have someone who's going to run not just above your head, but to the top of the entire conglomerate.

That's where they started because.

Triple H, talking about Cody and Roman, said we had that story and match laid out.

And then The Rock comes along and he's, well, I had dinner with Nick Kahn and his sister, my childhood friends from Hawaii.

And he threw a wrench at the whole thing.

And at the same time, TKO was buying the WWE.

And the Rock was going on the campaign and showed up on SmackDown.

And the way they were telling the story, Rock was like, Yeah, we've, we'd been working on this thing with me and Roman for quite some time.

And yeah, and it hadn't come together.

And in the meantime,

something came along that the regular viewers of the television program wanted to see more.

And then

Rock was like,

it was almost like he was talking, like, he didn't really have any idea that it was going to be Cody and Roman all along.

He thought everything was falling into place.

And then he said, oh, yeah, they've been working toward the other thing for a couple of years, but we have the opportunity to create another main event.

And they used the head of the table line when Rock came into that surprise interview.

And remember, we say he was down the road with the Pat McAfee show, and apparently he thought, I'll just try this out.

And when he said the head of the table line, of course the fans popped.

They wanted it in addition to, not instead of.

Am I wrong about that?

Did people,

did they say if we pop on him

saying that line, that means we vote for Rock and Roman and against Cody and Roman?

They just, yes, we want that too, right?

It was a great line.

The delivery was really good.

I don't remember the exact date, but I believe it may have even been before the Royal Rumble.

Yeah.

So it's not like everything was a direct line to WrestleMania at that point.

Also, if The Rock didn't know what they were doing with Cody and Roman, I guess he just wasn't watching the TV.

Well, he knew what was going, but he was like, well, we'd been talking about this big thing, and now they were doing something else.

But I'll bring it up now because I don't know if I agree with it.

And I may may be one of the few who doesn't naturally, but the idea that Dwayne Johnson, The Rock versus Roman Reigns, because The Rock would be in a singles one-on-one main event versus Roman Reigns would be such a big draw for people who are not wrestling fans, people on peacock, because it would be the image of Dwayne Johnson there on the title screen.

I don't buy that.

I don't buy.

See, that's where I hate when people try to market things like baseball is marketed for people that don't watch baseball, no game.

get the best.

They don't like baseball.

Yeah.

In this case, the idea that Dwayne Johnson being in the main event was the best thing, according to him initially, because people who aren't wrestling fans are going to watch, but you piss off the entire fan base.

Yeah.

It's a

that was that was Shit Stain's whole M.O.

for all of his life.

Oh, I get the people and piss off the people that actually are watching your program and don't get the other people.

But that's the thing you could tell by this.

Cody realized he had to finish the story at WrestleMania.

Things were up in the air suddenly, you know, when they, at the Rumble, when they tell him it may be Rock and Roman.

But Cody wins the Rumble anyway because Triple H knew that it would bury him not to.

And

to comment what you said,

Rock and Roman may have been the same.

business-wise, viewer-wise,

ticket-wise, because it's WrestleMania and it's peacock and all that.

It may have been slightly less.

It may have been slightly more.

But what it would have done is it would have devalued and damaged Cody

to the point that it would have taken more money away cumulatively from the house shows and the TV ratings and the blah, blah, blah that would be negatively impacted by Cody not

being in his position he's in right now where they're setting records,

that it would cost him money if they had done Rock and Roman,

even if it would have gotten more

publicity on Entertainment Tonight or fucking TMZ or whatever.

Do you think that's a fair assessment?

I think Cody Rose, I don't think The Rock was going to draw a ton of extra people.

I don't think The Rock being in the tag team match the night before, night one,

was anything that to the catching.

No, no, no, no, I disagree with you there because it's still The Rock coming back and wrestling.

No, no,

I agree with that.

I agree with that, but I'm saying I don't think that is any weaker than a one-on-one match for people who are not wrestling fans.

Oh, yeah, no.

The Rock's wrestling in that tag match means just the same to the person who's not a fan as The Rock main event night two against Roman.

I think you are correct in that there was going to be a

negligible amount probably of regular people that aren't watching wrestling at this point in time that would tune in for The Rock, but it...

It definitely added to WrestleMania because he was wrestling on Saturday night.

But anyway, that's where they were.

And then they had the

injuries to punk.

And, you know,

they tried to re-rack that whole thing.

And Cody even commented before he did the

promo where he said, I want you, Roman, but not at WrestleMania.

He said, I was not overly excited about this.

He knew.

He knew that this had to be the way it was for him.

It was going to cost him and the company a lot of money if that didn't go through.

But the, you know,

here's the thing.

I said I wasn't going to like this documentary because they were going to, oh, this is how we worked out this violent fight with my good friend, and we'll show you how we did it.

They did and they didn't.

Did you notice you didn't see Cody Rhodes hugging Roman Reigns or The Rock?

Because he's smart enough to know that there's money to be made with those guys and it would have hurt him.

But you saw Rock and Roman hugging and kissing after their promo,

where they had done it, where they got in each other's face and they thought they had switched the match.

And that's what I hate about these shows: the love you, brother,

from these guys who were out there either fighting or yelling at each other, insulting each other.

But Cody was smart enough enough to not do it because he knows because of his

lineage.

And he was rightfully afraid of losing to fans' faith if he didn't finish the story in the appropriate venue.

You know, the other thing is the big history-changing moment, or one of them,

was Cody Rhodes when he gave up the match to The Rock.

With The Rock and his team's intention of making The Rock the accepted babyface and Cody slinking off to wrestle Seth Rollins.

Yeah.

When Cody didn't smile, when Cody didn't embrace it, when Cody didn't act in that moment, one of the biggest actors in this company, all of a sudden there, that was his reaction.

That

was the thing that

put it all to bed.

There was no way at that point the fans were going to let

shit go down and let Dwayne Johnson be the babyface going into a main event against Roman Reigns.

They didn't want that.

They knew Cody was getting horn swoggled.

Now, they showed a bunch of video, I imagine, of personally selected podcast marks,

people not affiliated with the wrestling business that have their own little podcasts and they dress them up with the video and they have little costumes they wear because they're playing a part.

They were popping for the Rock versus Roman

because I'm thinking that they probably had to

guarantee Rock that there would be a certain amount of pop before they talk about the fans blitzing Twitter and social media with we want Cody and Rocky sucks.

They had to prove the Rock's

point that a bunch of people wanted that match.

But could you believe they put a bunch of

I'm not talking about a podcast from someone actually in or formerly in the industry.

I'm talking about a bunch of fucking

who the fuck are these peoples?

Is that a plural thing?

Reacting like children.

Again, there's one thing watching these things and talking about it.

It's another thing.

Oh, my God.

Look at his ass!

No one reacts like that for real.

They were jumping up and down like schoolgirls with shiny new vibrators.

And that vibrator's name was The Rock.

Yes, that's the thing.

Did Dwayne, I know he got Gerwitz from Romper Room somewhere, but did he also sign on some people from the Kremlin and the propaganda department?

Triple H was diplomatic, but you knew he knew what the fuck needed to go on.

And then

I started writing this down.

The rock sitting there, I called Nick.

I said, even if Rock versus Roman is the bigger real world match out there in the real world,

but my gut says

I don't like it even if it's a segment of fans upset.

So

I went with the latter and I told these guys and he laid it all out like it was his idea and he told all of them what it should be and would be and could be, which was what they goddamn

had originally, plus a tag team match on Saturday night for him to be involved, make money and save some face.

And again, I disagree with the idea that it was just the biggest, it was the bigger real world match.

If Cody Rhodes wrestled.

But what a condescending way to put it.

Yeah, you know what, normal people out in the real world,

I'm a big deal.

But these guys, you know, for their audience, a little small audience, it just, he didn't come off good trying to come off good.

He came off like an asshole trying to come off like a beneficiary.

Yeah, and by the way, who do you think was going to win that match?

Roman versus The Rock.

Roman's been gone for months since then, apparently working on some projects.

The Rock went right to a film project and got hurt.

Who was going to win that match?

I think probably both guys' bank accounts and nobody else.

And he tries to pretend like it was all his idea.

It was just a big pivot.

The biggest real world match, honestly, was The Rock against anyone.

Didn't even have to be Roman.

For the casual person who's not a wrestling fan, Dwayne Johnson's at WrestleMania against The Miz.

It didn't matter.

For the wrestling fans, it would matter who he wrestled.

Oh, come on now.

The Miz.

I'm serious.

For like the average person who doesn't know anything about wrestling, doesn't know who any of these people are.

Well, that's true.

then they wouldn't know who the fucking Miz was.

If that's the idea, you're going to get people who are Dwayne Johnson fans on a worldwide level because of all his films.

They're not wrestling fans.

It doesn't matter who he wrestles.

It doesn't matter who he wrestles at WrestleMania.

He just wanted to be in the main event against Roman Reigns so he could say he drew the house.

But anyway, random observations.

When we get to the meat of the matter, there were more office people wearing suits in this one hour than in the first 90 years of pro wrestling combined.

Well, that was always a Vince thing, though, wasn't it?

I know, but guy, it just looks so

professional.

It's not the business I do.

Everybody's wearing a fucking suit and tie.

Any Terry Funk coming in and goddamn flip-flops.

Where do you think that comes from, evince, though?

Just the idea that for appearance's sake, everyone has to be wearing a shirt and tie.

Yeah, yeah, oh, yeah.

It was Vin.

I got to be professional, pal.

But anyway, here's another rock quote quote for you.

Becoming this new version, talking about being a heel, the final boss.

Becoming this new version is the most gratifying decision I've ever made.

I'm telling you, he's huffing his fucking flatulence.

So anyway, they have the show.

One of my favorite things that they showed was Triple H producing the entrances.

As well, I don't like it when they go behind the scenes and the guys hug each other after they beat the shit out of each other.

And I don't like talking about creating them and booking the match and all the inside shit.

But I like it when one of these programs shows you the work that goes into laying this shit out as a television program and as a live event production.

and going over it and anticipating

problems before they happen or answering people's questions that they don't know to ask, that talent wouldn't know until they

get in a position to go, oh my shit, what am I supposed to do now?

Well, hopefully, as the producer, I've already told him four hours ago: look to that camera, don't step on that spot, or it'll blow you up.

The music queue is here, whatever.

And

they're not just walking out there

blind with no preparation as television performers in in that slick a production on that big a stage.

And you can tell the difference when a lot of the guys on the other program

just walk out and don't know where the goddamn camera is.

And so it's

they are a level above.

I hate the overly produced matches that take the life and the spontaneity out of it, but I love the fact

that this is a professional television production and they're not going to build

fake drywall walls with no studs that are attached to nothing.

And they're not going to have rooms with windows that don't have a door to get out of.

And the pyro is not going to blow the fucking guy's head off or set him on fire most of the time.

And, you know, that's it.

This is a whole different level.

of production.

And that's why a lot of the guys are shocked when they go up there and say, wow, this is a machine.

We were in chaos, we know what the fuck

because they

know what

to do because people that are in the position that they're in

know how to produce shit, whatever they're given, whether it's television, live event, the entrance, the pyro, the finishes, or whatever the fuck.

Less room for error.

But it, and then did you see the shot of Seth Rollins limping in for the run-in?

They showed a ringside shot that wasn't on the Mania pay-per-view, and he was using the folding chair as a crutch.

Did you see that?

I did see that.

And then remember that angle or that footage we saw of him taking the bump and his leg kind of just flopping.

Flopping.

You could kind of see that from the side angle from what they showed.

Yeah, but because remember we had said at the time Seth barely had gotten in the ring and didn't even stand up and they walloped him with a chair.

And I said, why the fuck?

Not really because somehow

he was out there, he couldn't walk by that point.

So

anyway, spoiler, Cody won the title on Sunday night at WrestleMania.

And then the documentary ended with The Rock telling Cody that their story had just begun.

Who's going to win that match?

Well, we'll see.

If The Rock was as Hogan-like as he seems lately, he would propose or be up for a two-year program, and then he would win match one and then never come back.

Or insist on winning match one, match two, and match three.

Hogan may have learned that from the chic.

I think Cody Rhodes has to beat The Rock, and The Rock, as a member of the board of directors, would have to be wholeheartedly on board with that to make a bigger fucking star for...

the company that's care that the one that's carrying the company, not the one that bops in and serves on the board.

I'll say this now.

Whenever The Rock comes back, let's say, for instance, next winter,

when they start building up for stuff, whenever it finally gets to him and Cody,

Triple H and Cody Rhodes are going to be as frustrated as any two wrestling personalities in the world, putting that together.

Having to deal with little Gewerts and his bad ideas.

Boy, he looks like one of the fucking little rascals, doesn't he?

they were little or when they were grown up and they were still little.

Well, no, kind of when they were delinquent children.

I don't know, Alfalfa or fucking, you know,

maybe, maybe George Foghorn Winslow with that nerdy little fucking haircut.

I don't know.

But

if Cody, if Cody Rhodes wrestles the rock, Cody Rhodes has to win or they're all completely out of their minds.

So again, I've been talking about issues behind the scenes and personality and fakeness from The Rock for a while now.

Are you starting to see it a little more?

I said that earlier.

Don't wring it out of me again.

I hate to admit when I'm

but

as a performer, he's brilliant.

Yes.

But when you saw him sit down and talk like a normal person allegedly is supposed to talk,

he's about to award himself the Nobel Prize for literature for this whole thing he's responsible for everything I called this guy and told him this I that's why all the memes are out

I said this to the other guy I told Lincoln don't go to the theater the plays the shits whatever

and see watching this I end up feeling bad for Triple H I know it's crazy to say Because I think he's doing a really good job and watching just the limited footage.

And again, it's company footage.

Seems like he's the man for the job.

Yeah.

And he's got it down.

And look at the direction of the good stuff on their TV.

Everything's moving along like a wrestling company nicely amongst that stuff, not the Uncle Howdy shit and everything else.

Right.

But overall, Triple H, boom, no complaints.

He's doing a better job than anybody has done there in quite some time.

So now it's The Rock, whenever The Rock comes back now,

he's technically Triple H's boss, or not even technically, he's Triple H's boss.

He's one of his bosses.

Also, he's going to be a top talent, and also he wants to go directly to the people who run the company to make sure his stuff happens.

He's the biggest star in the business to the mainstream population, and he is old childhood friends with the guy that is running the company now on behalf of the

conglomerate.

But is he technically

really Triple H's boss?

Because if you're on the board of directors,

you still can't, if somebody that sits on the board of directors couldn't have, in the old WWE, would one of those people that we've never heard of before,

they were just put there because they had a business background,

would they technically have had the power to go into a raw taping if Vince wasn't there and tell people what to do?

No.

So

Rock may be on the board of directors, and obviously he has a great amount of sway and et cetera, but he's not technically Triple H's boss, which I think

makes the

idea of a Triple H and rock issue on television at some point when he comes back even more,

you know,

something to look forward to more because Triple H can come out and say, no, you're on a board of directors.

You ain't my fucking boss.

Well, Nick Khan's my childhood friend.

Well, tell Nick Khan to come over here and tell me something then, motherfucker.

And by the way, Nick Khan works day to day with Triple H, day to day.

Well, yes.

And then Nick Con could come out and say, you know what,

Dwayne, I never really thought all that much of you when we were kids or whatever.

I don't know.

But the point is,

there's conflict that can be manipulated there that's real in some respects, but can be turned into work.

Well, that's the thing.

It's going to be real.

Because the only reason The Rock is doing all this, the only reason he's back, it's not just all the money.

It's the idea that he's going to get to do his stuff the way he wants to do it.

If that starts getting rejected,

you're going to start having problems.

Big stars,

I'm not going to start having any problems.

They all do what they want, I don't give a shit.

Big stars are not used to being rejected when they have their ideas out there, and the rock's on a little bit of a roll with this.

And

again, look at just the change in public perception and reaction from people over the last

year between the Cody stuff, the In-N-Out Burger stuff,

the Hawaii stuff, the Black Adam stuff,

the articles, and then whenever he has a chance to go out there and make himself look good, his choice is to present himself in a weird, condescending manner that looks bad, I think, to almost anyone.

That's a good word.

It seemed he was condescending like he was

above everyone else and sending out directions on, well, I have a grip on all of this, and this is what we should do.

It just, he was too full of himself.

And you said he was the biggest worldwide star they have.

I don't know.

It's an interesting question, him or Cena?

Because Cena doesn't have anything negative, really.

He's really good at shaking shit off.

And he speaks as fake as the rock in a lot of ways.

But there's also a genuineness there, I think.

Well, but no, but I think just because of seniority, more people know of, when I say biggest star, I'm talking most well-known personality.

You know, whether you're a fan or you just know who he is or you recognize him or whatever The Rock is there.

I agree with that.

The Rock is the I think John Cena might be a more popular personality amongst the wrestling fan population at this point.

But more people know who The Rock is.

See, it's going to be interesting if that switches because he's filming Peacemaker season two right now.

Season one, people loved.

You got to think season two has a chance to be bigger than that.

He's dedicating a lot of time to that.

There's going to be a publicity machine around his name for the next year.

Yeah.

And again, he doesn't have the baggage of Dwayne Johnson.

He's impressed a lot of people with his roles still

the way you used to hear Dwayne Johnson, like in the early days when he first went to Hollywood.

You know, remember, he played a homosexual in the sequel to Get Shorty?

I forget the name of the movie.

Well, you don't have to just goddamn label him as that.

No, but it was nothing wrong with that.

No, that's

often been struggling with his sexuality.

But it was a big deal.

I didn't say that.

Again, this is Jim Cornette, Dwayne.

But he played a role that was outside of what you would consider to be something that The Rock would do in Hollywood.

He lost a lot of weight.

He was trying to be a serious actor.

And for a while there, for a little while, people were impressed with him.

And then he realized where the money was, which was taking every fucking steroid, known the man, and doing action movies, wearing the same outfit in every single movie and playing the same role and being the same character in just about every movie you do.

And it worked for him, but it's like a wall.

There's a wall that he hit.

Meanwhile, Cena is now emerging.

And

again, a season two comes out sometime next year, I would assume.

And is it hit?

Because of the nature of streaming and where we are as a society right now, movie stars versus streaming stars or just stars in general.

Cena will probably surpass The Rock within a few years if things work out.

I think it was that nude scene that Cena did that propelled him over the top.

Oh, with we still haven't seen The Rock's yin-yang.

His yin-yang?

His well-patallywhacker, however, you want to phrase it, ding-a-ling, my ding-a-ling.

Him and Chuck Berry, we haven't seen his.

That was his last hit.

That was his last hit.

And his last hit and his favorite thing.

My ding-a-ling.

Have we ding-a-linged enough yet today here on this program?

Any closing thoughts on the WrestleMania document?

Did you see the part?

One of my favorite parts when Cody, they film him coming out of the bus and the Dusty truck is right across from him.

And he explains, and I never heard it laid out like this, and I was losing it.

That smile Dusty would do.

He says, he goes, he would call that his million-dollar smile, but nobody smiles like that.

And it was such a funny observation.

I really laughed at that.

That was good.

He did that.

One of the first times I saw Dusty was was I had gone to my Uncle Harold's house in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and they had cable.

And it wasn't like they had cable because they were a big city.

It's like some of those towns down there had cable first because that was the only way you could get fucking television.

Oak Ridge wasn't bad, but further up in the holler, you needed some type of assistance.

And TBS had just, what was that, 7677, brand new on the satellite.

And there's Dusty Rhodes doing the promo.

And he said, And I want to say my million-dollar smile, I'm going to give it to you right now.

A psychedelic camera lady turner, turn your camera on a close-up of this and hit the million-dollar smile.

And he'd do that, like the photo op.

And nobody smiles like that.

And he was just doing bullshit, you know, that nobody else was doing with the felt hat and the tie-dyed shit and the psychedelic fucking robes and whatever.

anyway yeah the documentary visually a piece of art somewhat rewriting history trying to sanitize dwayne johnson's reputation as almost fucking this whole thing up yeah and this is the best case scenario this is after months of edits or whatever the hell was going on behind the scenes what do you think of that the idea that this was supposed to come out they advertised it almost right away and it took them months and Everyone's pointing to Dwayne Johnson.

This was the way he was presented in the finished product.

Yeah, and

I think they kind of probably realized as they were going through this, they intended to do a documentary on WrestleMania all along, and they were shooting from the very start, but they didn't realize that all this shit would go on in the middle.

And then somebody,

because I'm sure they were also editing some rough cut as they went along.

They weren't just going to start from scratch on Monday morning after WrestleMania.

They had some of the story put together if they were going to release it that week.

But then somebody probably brought up and said, you know, it looks like we really didn't have our shit together at all.

If we

tell this whole story, Warts and all, we look kind of fucking foolish.

And

The Rock looks like he got in the middle of something and tried to take the fans'

enjoyment away.

So they had to.

Then they had to start from scratch and reevaluate everything.

And that's why it took, what is it, May, June, July, three months instead of the week of.

Well, you know,

it's close.

But that's what I think.

Well, there it is, the WrestleMania behind the curtain documentary.

And also, I think they owe me a fucking, some kind of payment because they took the title of my best-selling graphic novel available at jimcornet.com along with so many other fine pieces of merchandise and used it for their documentary.

Well, Stephen Pinu could probably take care of that.

On the topic of.

Yeet!

Don't say that.

He can't help you now.

On the topic of reviews, real quick, before we close up, people keep asking the Iron Claw, what's the status?

Oh, God, I saw that.

And I guess we're going to have to talk about it at some point.

Here's a tease.

The best thing was they got the Sportatorium

ring to look almost exactly like the Sportatorium ring looked.

But almost none of the things in that movie were ever said by any of those human beings to any of those other human beings.

And none of the people in the movie looked like any of the human beings that were saying those things or weren't saying those things.

And

they used your time machine to hop back and forth chronologically

and mesh together some other fucking items.

And it was driving me crazy.

And I was screaming at the screen, that's not what happened.

Or they would not use those words.

Or they did not say these things to each other.

But otherwise, Ned, it was wonderful.

Is that the review?

Are we going to do a real review?

I guess we got to.

Well, I didn't take notes.

I just actually, Stacey popped it up one night on the streaming.

You saw it from beginning to end?

Yes.

No, actually, I started at the end and I watched it backwards.

It was easier that way.

Okay, that's hysterical.

So what did you think of the casting?

Well, let's just get this out of the way because this may be all we get from you about this movie.

Well,

none of those people look like any of those people.

You didn't think the guy who played Fritz was kind of as good as you can get for hockey?

Well, Fritz, I guess, is as close as you could get.

But,

you know,

Kevin was bigger than Carrie physically.

I mean, you know, the body.

And then also, it just, I guess, if they used real wrestling terminology, then maybe the

general viewing populace might not be able to understand it.

But nobody, they, Fritz wasn't going to talk that way to his kids.

His kids weren't going to talk that way to each other.

It was like a bunch of marks discussing wrestling that had never been in a locker room before.

And they

I appreciate they tried to make it seem like a shoot, except when they didn't.

But it just, it,

I cannot enjoy a movie, a television show, a documentary.

Well, I won't say a documentary, a documentary, I can, but a movie or a television show based on

something that I know anything about

when they fucking make shit up.

That's what kills it for me because I'm like, no,

he wouldn't talk like that.

He didn't say that.

He didn't look like that.

These things didn't happen.

They didn't say those things to each other.

Whatever the

The dramatic license kills me.

I cannot fucking get past it.

And then

for good reason, none of the wrestlers in the movies or TV shows about the boys look like the fucking boys.

And the reason was because that was the whole idea.

Nobody looked like these guys.

You had to buy a ticket to see them.

But

am I wrong in this?

Was the casting of Mike Von Erich the worst?

Oh, boy, howdy.

Or what did you think of the flare and Harley race?

Harley race didn't bother me the way it bothered some other people.

No, the flare, I think, was the worst, wasn't he?

As I'm trying to think, yes, the flare was pretty much goddamn rotten.

Someone said that it was almost like he was doing an impression of the flare on young rock as opposed to the real flare.

Yes.

I mean, it just

that's the thing is: you've got,

I'm sure some of the actors, the actors that were the Von Eric boys, they're not bad actors.

Now, like this Flair or whatever, he's just some fucking clown that watched three of Flair's interviews on YouTube and is trying to play heel wrestler that he's seen on TV once in a while.

But, you know,

they give him a lot of time for that promo.

That's the thing is that it just,

if you saw the real people do it, and especially if you knew the real people,

that's why I don't like any of these dramatic renditions of

the wrestling business because it's not real.

They don't look like it, they don't talk like it, they don't act like it.

And a lot of these things didn't really fucking happen.

And then that just bugs me.

Let's talk about a positive before we get back to more negatives.

The sportatorium, the look, and again, the sportatorium has been torn down.

It's not there.

The look of the building that they presented as a sportatorium, the free birds.

What did you think of it?

You worked in the real building right around the time of the prime, or the peak of the company, I guess I should say.

What did you think of that?

They got the ring down, and the sportatorium didn't look bad.

Obviously, they couldn't have, they couldn't construct a 5,000-seat arena and put 5,000 people in it for extras.

I understand that limitation.

I think the wrestling scenes were probably the highlight of the movie, both in terms of

the way the ring looked, the way the tele they shot it, the way the television looked.

And also,

they were somewhat exciting, the wrestling scenes in the movie.

And, you know, so, but that's the thing is that,

you know, they were trying for that detail to get to the wrestling fan.

But I think I just don't see any way that a professional in the business that knew these people and was there for some of the things that happened,

it has to drive you crazy.

No, this is not right.

It's completely wrong.

Is part of the reason it would drive you crazy?

Because if you know the real story, the real story is kind of better than, or you could argue, maybe better than the movie version?

Well, yes.

And I know, again, time limitations, and they can't put everything in,

but

they wrote the boys converse and Fritz conversing with the boys, the boys conversing with each other

like fans would about the, it's hard to explain, but this would not be the way that the boys were talking about the wrestling business.

I'd have to get a,

get me a copy of the script and I'll translate it into wrestling lingo.

That, you know, that would be fun, actually.

Now, how would they say this in the locker room?

And then you have a paragraph of regular English spoken by a normal person that didn't translate it into wrestling language.

How would you say it in the locker room?

The biggest star in the movie, Zach Efron, playing Kevin von Erich.

He received a lot of praise for his role.

How similar or not similar at all was his presentation of Kevin von Erich from what you remember being around Kevin in 1985?

No, none of these guys were anything like the Von Erich boys.

I mean, they, again, they made the, they did the moves and the matches and they said some of the,

you

things that they said in promos and in the story, you know, the okay, they'll take a line here or there, but none of these guys talked like or acted like any of the von Erichs in person in real life.

And that's I've never known anybody else that did.

Do you think David was well cast?

I never met David, he's the only one I never met.

Just in terms of look, at least.

Well, no, because nobody looks like these fucking people.

And David was like, what, six foot four?

Six five, maybe.

And like I said, the ripped one in this one was Kevin, and Kevin was in great shape, but Carrie was the fucking bodybuilder.

And he looked like the,

you know, the little guy there.

I'm not trying to pick it apart, but

no, if it because it's people that I knew in a place I was, it, it,

it's not like that.

But they, it wasn't, they didn't make fun of the wrestling business or knock it or

make it like that it's so simple anybody could do it or be disrespectful to it.

I'm not saying that.

I just,

it was just, ah, no, no, no, no.

All right.

Well, there's the review of the Iron Claw that everyone's been waiting for.

And yeah, boy, see, aren't you glad you waited?

All right.

Well, this is your show.

Okay, well, then it's over with.

I'm sorry, guys.

I've got a lot going on here.

Hopefully, everybody will be healthier when we get back together on your program, Brian.

The drive-through in a few days from now.

But

until then, get well, mom, and everybody else.

Enjoy democracy while we have it.

It's not going to last much longer.

And we will see you on the drive-thru.

Thank you.

Fuck you.

And bye-bye, everybody.

of Jim Connet,

of Jim Cornette,

of Jim Connet,