Episode 540: Jim Reviews Money in The Bank

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

He's Jim Cornette.

The keys to the future held by the past.

And with tag team partner, Barion Last.

He sends this message out by podcast team.

Jim Cornette.

Well, he's never fake a phony.

He never backs down from a fight.

He never wins the pony.

Cause his mama raised him right.

It's time

to prepare

your mind

the experience.

Get the experience.

Get the experience of Jim Cornette.

Hello again, everybody, and welcome.

The WWE has money in the bank, and AEW has a mark in the back.

It's the Is It Any Wonder Who's Winning edition of the Jim Cornette Experience, and joining me for all this and more.

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

Co-OSTU.

He's the winningest man in the National Podcasting Athletic Association.

The great Brian Last, everybody.

Hello, aloha, Jim, and hello to everyone out there in Podcast Wonderland.

It's a pleasure to be here once again.

You see, that's the thing.

You got to play

the Pioneer there, your little organ that you fiddle with, and then

and come out like you're in March Madness, the NPAA, the National Podcasting Athletic Association.

You're the man we have run off and left, everybody.

Left them in the dust is what we've done, Brian.

And I'm pretty confident in my athletic abilities, so I'll take that award.

Well, and I'll have you know that I've spent a lot of time over the past couple of months jogging my memory.

So I'm ready to go.

I got the cardio in.

I can't hear it.

I got to remember that.

Jogging my memory.

Good.

Thank you very much.

I can't hear it thunder right now out of my right ear.

I got the tinnitus has gone into the echoing thing, and I don't know whether I'm screaming for no reason or whether I'm whispering, and it just, I don't know.

It's just why.

So

bear with me today.

We've got, we've got things going on.

And

I want to, right now, I don't have gardeners today, but I do have people drilling and grinding

upon the other end of the property.

What a pervert you are.

What the hell's going on?

What are you talking about?

Why did you

automatically go in the gutter?

I figured this was going on.

Now you admit it.

Drilling and grinding happening all over the property.

Well, that's like the Playboy Mansion out there.

They've got the plug-in apparatus where there's the high-powered stuff.

Oh, and Caligula Cornet.

And maybe something is pneumatic.

I'm not sure.

It's making a lot of noise over there at that area.

No, I'm having my windows worked on.

Oh.

And you know, a lot of these companies these days will just come out and they'll just put you a brand new window in, right?

With varying degrees of quality and/or success, depending on how much money you pay, but there's very few that will come out and restore your historic windows.

And I found myself another problem, a homeowner's problem I found myself learning about

at the west end of the house in where the Creekstone siding is that my father laid when he built the house.

They're still the original windows from 1955, and they look gorgeous on the inside.

They match the

woodwork that he did, the whole nine yards.

But on the outside, when I went to look and get some new storm windows and see what was going on, 20-something years ago, when we had some remodeling done, I told the guy I wanted new storm windows, and he gave me the new storm windows, but he wrapped the other, the

edges of the windows in this aluminum business.

Have you ever seen that where it's aluminum around that?

And it's supposed to keep the water out.

No, actually, I've never seen that well i didn't like it when i saw it but it was brand new as well it's there now

so i'll keep it but then as over the years i've thought you know that looks like a statemental home

and then i ended up having the one of the pieces come loose and saw that the wood on the outside underneath this aluminum was rotting

And that's when I called these people and they Heritage Window Solutions out of Lexington.

They restore historic windows and it's a fascinating

procedure they go through now you have some experience just in the last few years alone of dealing with windows of you know different kinds around the house right well this was brand new stuff we brand new windows we were having put in right and that's that's fairly straightforward they just take everything out till you got a big hole in your wall and then put a new window in

but if you want to save the windows this is this is fine art they're doing here.

It's like a dentist filling cavities.

They're grinding out the rot at the sill to replace with new wood while at the same point

they're going to clean up the other parts of the window that aren't rotten, repaint them, seal them.

They've even got for stuff that goes in the masonry, they've got like

synthetic, what they call it.

I can't, it's some kind of like putty

that they shoot in there and then it hardens and then they can sand it off in the shape and it's synthetic wood that they can make and then blend it in with the rest of the shit.

And then they seal all this stuff up and we get to custom-made storm windows and they say it's good for 100 years.

But it's in, it's loud and fascinating.

But if I could get a hold of the guy that gave me the alumina, because they said, yes, it traps moisture inside instead of

it's like a flashing thing, but it's supposed to run the water off, but it can trap water inside.

If it gets in there, it can't get out.

So you're just.

But that guy's dead, considering our respective ages 20-something years ago.

So if he's still alive, he'd probably be so old that I wouldn't feel good about kicking the shit out of him.

Not that I wouldn't win.

I'd be pretty confident if he's like 80-something now, I could take him, but

I wouldn't take as much pride in it.

as I would if he was only 60 or 65 and I was to hit him over the head with a hammer.

What if he was an 80-year-old man with a foul mouth?

Well, then I'd give him some slack because I'd feel some kind of kindred spirit with him.

Really?

If he all of a sudden started talking shit and running his mouth to you, like right when you're feeling some sympathy for him?

Oh, I thought you just meant a general foul mouth.

No, if the old cocksucker came up to me, well, fuck you.

Well, I'll kick you in the fucking dick, you fucking non-agenarian son of a bitch.

There it is.

See, and there's something.

There's another string of English words that have never been put together in that order before.

I will kick you in the dick, you non-agenarian son of a bitch.

Now, that's something you don't hear every day.

What was the one Carlin said?

Here's something you never hear.

If you don't stop blowing me, I'm going to call the cops.

Yes, if you don't stop sucking my dick, I'll call the police.

You never hear anybody say that.

So, this is a program.

In addition to learning about wrestling, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,

you you you expand your vocabulary

we're very big on spelling and and pronunciation over here

so you know it's it's a very literate program i think that we

we foist off on the people i mean it's a very cultured wrestling show we have music performance

critique I mean, it's like almost like it's on PBS.

Well, you,

I sing.

That's music.

I'm not sure what you do.

If we can call it that.

Well, I'm not sure what you do could be called melodious, at least.

It might be music.

Some of the

that's melodious.

Yeah, I think that's an Emerson, Lake, and Palmer outtake.

Maybe.

Anyway,

we got a lot to talk about today because they had the money in the bank in Toronto in front of the biggest arena gate in the history of Canada for wrestling.

The biggest name star of the last

couple of decades has announced his retirement tour for that very same company.

And

you got him, Mel Tony Kahn, he responded.

He brought a few.

We're going to talk about that too.

On Collision, he popped out a couple of surprises

just to battle John Cena coming out unannounced in front of that big crowd.

We're going to talk about that.

And

biography last weekend was on the Steiners, and we got to catch up with that.

And but before we do that, we mentioned this on the drive-through.

And

now we've got somewhat of an update that on the Kevin Sullivan GoFundMe.

If you didn't hear the drive-through yet,

apparently

the news has just come out, but Kevin has been in the hospital in Florida since the middle of May with what was an accident, a surgery, sepsis, blood poisoning, various

medical issues that, of course, he's still, from what we understand, in intensive care.

He lives in Washington state.

He's down there in Florida because he was there for an autograph session when this happened.

And

at this point, even with his insurance, you know, two months in the

intensive care and the hospital surgery and all this other stuff.

And there's associated costs that insurance doesn't cover.

So his daughter, Nicole, had started to GoFundMe,

which you can

access.

Brian, you say you just go to GoFundMe and look up wrestling legend Kevin Sullivan will get you there, right?

If you go to GoFundMe and search for Kevin Sullivan, it'll be, you know, probably the top hit, I'm pretty sure.

But also, if you just go to Google and you Google Kevin Sullivan, GoFundMe, GoFundMe being one word, it'll come right up.

Right.

And,

but but anyway,

obviously, it had just started when we heard about it.

They were only asking for $20,000, which I think is a modest amount in a situation like this with who knows what, because

he's still not, you know, out of the woods with the whole thing.

So they've blown past that since we mentioned it and,

you know, it's gotten out on Twitter.

But we still like to ask everybody if you were a fan of almost any wrestling for the last 30 years, then somebody on the show was helped or started or booked by or

learned from Kevin Sullivan.

If you like Kevin's work

and any of the promotions he's been involved in,

you know, here's a chance for everybody to let him and his family know what we thought.

I wanted to mention that again.

I think I can't remember.

They were over the gold when I looked yesterday,

but they're currently at 34,000 as of right now.

Yeah, but you know, again, this is not one of those frivolous go fund me's you hear about from some people, and that is not a

big amount of money in the United States of America when you're dealing with medical expenses.

Yeah, you know, we just watched Who Killed WCW, no one talked about their pension plan.

Yes,

yeah, that was a little lacking in that organization, also.

But anyway, if,

as I said, if anybody gets the opportunity to, and

Brian and I appreciate everybody that has, and obviously the family does.

And,

you know, so if you've got an opportunity to check that out and just, you know, keep posted because I think Nicole had already done an update saying that she was.

you know, happy for the

surge at the start there and that,

you know, she will keep us posted.

So we'll see what's going on there.

And it shouldn't surprise anyone, but I believe Jeremy Bagley has been sharing it all over Twitter.

So a lot of the Cult of Cornet members have been helping out.

And like you said, everyone appreciates it.

I never worked with Kevin, but he's always been incredibly supportive of what I do.

So really good guy.

I've had nothing but good experiences with Kevin Sullivan.

Anyway, before we get into the modern

effluvia,

that we have to talk about here this week,

because it kind of ties, a lot of it does, into Kevin Sullivan.

The biography on the Steiner brothers, Rick and Scott Steiner, that was on.

I won't do what you do and say AEW.

It was on AE,

that network.

I actually watch.

You were about to do it, weren't you?

And I caught myself.

I never do.

I never do.

It's so similar.

Maybe Tony will buy A ⁇ E because it's confusingly similar.

That way, people will be tuning in thinking they're watching, you know, a goddamn cooking fucking class or something, and up will pop

the wrestling.

Anyway,

the biography, you saw this episode, did you not?

Oh, absolutely.

I wish this one was two hours.

Usually they're two hours.

This one was a quick one hour, but I enjoyed it.

Yeah, and again, we talk about

that so many of the A ⁇ E programs at this point are cross-pollinated with other

the rivalries and the biographies and the heels and the baby faces and the water boys and all the various series they have, they have not done that much on the Steiners.

And so, a lot of this stuff, obviously, you weren't seeing it for the first time if you have been a fan of the Steiners, but seeing stuff that you haven't seen in a long time in terms of the wrestling footage.

And then

you don't get a chance to, because when was the last time we saw,

especially with Scott, a sit-down interview with Scott Steiner on a network program.

Not on a wrestling show, not when he's being Big Papa Pump, but when he's just being himself, which, as you can tell, there's sometimes not a lot of fucking line of demarcation there.

Yeah, where else do we get to see an interview with the most understanding woman in the world, aka the wife of Scott Steiner?

Yeah.

But no, that's the thing is that

for good or bad,

because of Scott's being mostly Scott, Rick is, you know,

Rick doesn't have that many personal issues with people

and is more of the more laid-back of the two.

But Scott was on the outs with the WWE for

years and years to the point where they, and I'm sure he probably got a fucking kick out of this at the time.

Like, yeah, fucking good for the good thing for them.

What was the show?

What was the WrestleMania year or whatever when they put his picture up backstage and said, do not admit this man, call police or whatever the fuck?

When was that?

I don't remember.

It must have been about a decade ago, but I think Hogan was there, which prompted it because he had just threatened to do whatever to Hogan like the day before within days of that.

Yeah, he was going to fucking stretch Hogan for some reason, and they're probably valid.

You know, but they put his picture up back there, and it was fucking hilarious.

Or was that kind of a was that a russo thing do you think

was it me just fucking lighting up russo to the point where he panics and fucking puts out a restraining order or they put it was hogan just like shitting himself like shit stain would or

of course i mean scott would have you know would have been down there in a couple minutes if he'd have had the thought cross his mind but yeah i think with scott there was a threat that things could get very physical and no one could stop it

Well, anyway, but now they're in the hall of fame.

Rick's progeny is about to be the biggest star in the wrestling business, and they get their own biography on AEW.

See, I did that just for you, and you need him selling.

You know, the problem, too, I'll just bring it up here because you bring up Braun Breaker.

I apologize for Swami barking at the mailman in the background, but don't you think that this biography almost points out how ridiculous it is that his name's not Braun Steiner?

Well, yeah.

And I mean,

it's been ridiculous since day one.

We talked about it.

Why not Braun Steiner?

Because, you know, everybody,

if you didn't know, how could you not know?

If you don't know, your ass better call somebody.

How would you not?

I mean, there's no fucking suspecting the milkman here in this relationship.

Well, he certainly looks like a Steiner.

He should be named steiner everyone knows he's a steiner and his dad was even been on nxt tv with him it's ridiculous that they gave him a name just so they could own it but well they're now they're now calling the clothesline the steiner line and the frankensteiner so but they just can't own steiner i mean again he came in under vince you have to wonder if it would be different now if he came in they could actually take advantage of heritage because one of the things under vince And we'll see how Triple H does with this.

At a certain point, it was almost bad to be a second generation wrestler.

Remember Kurt Hennig's son?

They gave him multiple names, not one of them was Hennig.

Oh, God, yes.

Well, but now here's the thing.

As soon as he achieves his first milestone level of success, championship, whatever they deem that to be,

that's when he can come out and say, okay, now I can use my name because I'm not trading on my old man because I'm.

I'm better than my old man now because he'll still be a heel, whatever.

So it's possible it could happen.

I think

just, you know,

again, they don't seem as hard and fast,

Ari and

the gang there, the Hollywood crowd, as with Vince's rules as Vince was and made people be.

So it could be open.

But yeah, right now, everybody, obviously, everybody knows because he's in this fucking show

and my son.

So anyway, Braun Breaker Steiner.

Maybe they'll hyphenate it like these

ladies that get married but want to keep their

own name and then they become Gertrude Wildebeest Foofingham.

Well, you know, talking about the Steiners, they go back to the very beginning, the Rick Steiners, I guess we should say.

And it's kind of weird seeing images of Rick and Scott.

as children growing up, just the size difference as they're getting older.

You know, Rick Steiner with lots of hair and no facial hair.

It's a real trip seeing that stuff.

Well, and I'd never seen those.

Obviously, I didn't ask them, hey, can I see your fucking baby pictures, you know, but

I

it's like you don't expect them to look like normal humans in some cases because they've always been these genetic freaks and these, you know, unique people.

And they were from Bay City, Michigan.

They wrestled in high school, wrestled in college at Michigan.

And they made a big deal of talking about their parents were very strict.

Their father was, boy, he looked like a real strict conservative type of fellow from the Leave It to Beaver era.

So,

but their personalities, Rick said it best: well, when we went to college, got away from dad, we went wild.

So I'm wondering if this is a cautionary tale for maybe advocating permissive parenting, because the first thing they did at college was take a guy's car and put it on the 50-yard line at the football stadium.

And,

I mean, we've told stories about these, they not malicious

and not trying to fuck with people's property and not just being vandals or whatever the fuck, but they were stiff with goddamn ribs and would fight.

And

it's not like that they would have a problem if somebody fucked back with them like that.

They would laugh about it too and then get you back.

But But everybody was scared to retaliate in many cases.

But anyway, more on the ribs in a little while when they start talking about him.

But it was cool seeing that early footage where Rick was introduced as Rob Recksteiner.

And he's just, he's got the fuzzy hair by that point.

He's jacked, but you could tell he's kind of like, what the fuck's going on around here?

But as we mentioned, you know, when we've talked about him before we've talked about braun rick picked it up so quick because it was

it said january 85 was his debut on awa television and he's in mid-south by fucking 86 and early 85 he came in at the end of 85 that's right well and by the next year he's looking like he's somebody and he's rick steiner now so i mean it was

it was very quick

because i was watching

you know, all the territory TVs that were still remaining, right?

And in 86, I was seeing, you know, Mid-South and CNN guys, like, what the fuck?

And then by the time he came to work for Crockett,

even that that was 87, again,

exponentially better in two years.

And now,

I guess I've got it in the notes here somewhere, but we're like two years or a little removed from Braun's debut in NXT.

And I think

he's better at this stage than Rick was.

You know, it's interesting.

You never hear Rick Steiner on a list of people that was a Vern Gagne student, and they talked about it here.

And the other thing,

you never hear anything about the late

84, 85, 86, the territory still kind of operating like the territories.

The idea that Jack Lanza and the AWA sent him to work for Watts.

You know, again, think of where things were were in the middle of 1985 in terms of what Vince McMahon was doing and what everyone else was doing to react to it.

It's wild that they were still doing that, that he was still sending them out there to get seasoned.

Well, but that

probably wasn't official.

And see, that was the thing, and he had met George Steele, the animal,

who before he became so popular later in his career as George the Animal Steele.

Remember,

George Steele, Jim Myers, he would work,

he would teach

in Michigan.

He would teach school nine months out of the year and then go to work the summer for Vince Sr.

as George the Animal Steele in, what, the early 70s, right?

And then he started making so much money and he would work for Chic in Detroit or whatever.

But he started making so much money in a wrestling business, he quit teaching.

But since he was from Michigan,

and he had been an amateur, and he, so he, hey,

you need to go train with Vern Gagne.

And this was 1984 because Vince wasn't training anybody.

And at that point, George Steele was like,

he was not just and Jack Lanza.

They were not just agents for Vince.

That's what they did,

you know, for their jobs or, you know, whatever.

But

if you, they knew everybody in the business.

So if they saw a guy that just needed a break or some to some place to train, they go, well, you ought to call so-and-so, or here, let me try to put a word in for you.

There weren't too many options either, right?

And that's off-the-clock type of stuff, where it wouldn't be going through the events, wouldn't it give a shit at that point?

I mean, if you think about it, if any wrestler in that period of time met someone and they thought this guy should be a wrestler, either they were going to train him or they had to have somewhere to send him, and there weren't too many options.

Yeah, so were we going to send him to Larry Sharp?

Well, it's it ended up that was he got the uh by what the late 80s when all the regular territories had ceased, he got the business by default.

Yeah, that's right.

But anyway,

so that, that's how, and you would see Rick Steiner and you go, okay, somebody can do something with him.

And, you know, so anyway, that's the way that happened.

And

I loved, again,

because I knew Rick by this point.

And he was working in Crockett.

I was paying attention when his brother, Scott, starts working in the,

was it Bruiser trying to restart it, or was somebody else just using the WWA name in 86, Ohio, Indiana, and a bit of Michigan?

Jerry Graham Jr.

have something to do with it?

He may have, but I think Bruiser was still involved.

Well, I mean, you know, WWA at that point.

He wasn't wrestling by that point on most of the shows or whatever, and it was a really low-budget attempt at a resurgence.

I mean, he probably owned something in the background, but the point being,

it wasn't something that a lot of people were seeing at that point in time.

No, which is why I was surprised when they showed the footage of him beating the great Wojo.

Really good crowd reaction.

I was like, wow, I didn't think there would be anyone there.

But they actually still had a respectable audience, I guess.

Well, but I mean, look at the size of the building.

Was there 1,500 or 2,000 people there, which back in the 80s, for any type of promoted wrestling show

under Bruiser's

fucking name, even the WWA, it should have done something.

But point being, they didn't have, I don't think any television at that point in Indianapolis, I'm pretty sure, may have had something like Toledo, whatever the case.

But Greg Wojakowski, the great Wojo,

had been a hotshot amateur, I think, with major credentials.

Oh, yeah.

And

I think he'd done some work in Japan, Japan, right?

Probably for Anoki.

Did he not?

I don't recall, actually.

I thought that at some point they brought him over as a shooter, but he was a high-level international amateur decorated blah, blah, blah.

And the great Wojo, because nobody could pronounce Wojkowski and I can't spell it.

And they had put the belt on him.

And then

it was the same principle when they not only

saw Scott Steiner and the physical impression that he made to begin with and his credentials, you know, in school, but also they figure, oh, his brother

is working for Jim Crockett.

He's on TBS.

Maybe we could get a date on him or we see that

kind of thing.

So,

because I'm not...

I'm not downplaying Scott's potential, but they put the belt on him over the great Wojo in his first match.

And

contemporaneously, as I was keeping up with it and getting the clippings, I think Brian Hildebrand, as a matter of fact, was around this area and probably with some of the shows and shot.

It looked like they were giving Scott Steiner a big push because Rick was a star on television and there's his brother.

But at the same point, he grew into it fairly quickly.

If you remember when the Steiner brothers hit, all the Apter magazines had ads for WWA matches with Scott Steiner.

It was all about young Scott Steiner.

And whenever you finally saw that footage, I mean, mean, it was crazy.

He was doing stuff that some of the high flyers today don't do.

He was doing like a 450 splash in the middle of the ring.

Yeah.

And well, he was like Brock Lesnar.

They had to calm him down for his own good as far as keeping his body

in the shape he was able to keep it in, doing all that stuff, right?

If he'd have done everything he did from the start, he'd have fucking broke down before then.

But anyway,

that was the thing is that you knew you had something with both of these guys.

Everybody who who saw them

said, Oh, you got to go train with somebody good.

And with the WWA, oh shit, this guy's going to be a star.

His brother's already a star.

And holy shit, we'll sell his tapes or whatever.

We'll push him to the moon.

But I don't know that

Scott was there.

What again, how quick they were, how quick studies and quick developing.

I don't even think they put a

it was two years, two or two and a half years tops with Scott too.

By the time he has that first match and wins their world title in Toledo,

he's on TBS.

Yeah, he was in Memphis at the end of 88, I think.

Right?

Yes, yes.

Because he had to,

you know, there had to be some kind of middle ground there.

And

I think that's, you know, again, another time Memphis was able as the last, one of the last places left at that point in time to just give him seven nights a week work and live TV.

Yeah, think about who was there at that same time.

Him, Cactus Jack, Sid Vicious, three guys very different that would go on to be three of the top guys of the 90s.

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And, you know, in this biography,

they skipped the Crockett run almost entirely.

And I know the focus was the Steiner brothers.

But, you know, Rick was,

I don't think they told the story of how popular and successful Rick had been, boom, boom, boom, in that point in time.

But as you mentioned, it was only 46 minutes plus commercials.

So, but, but by early 89,

you know, here come the Steiner brothers in

WCW, and then you get to see all those highlights.

And Jesus, again,

I got kind of used to it when I was seeing it on a monitor every fucking TV taping.

But they just picked these guys up and just put them anywhere they wanted to.

It was fucking amazing.

And or could turn them in any position.

I mean, Ronnie Garvin used to tickle the guys on a boring Saturday morning TBS taping by taking a job guy.

The poor fella obviously looked like a piece of shit, but they were trying to, you know, be part of the thing and do favors for guys.

But he'd take the guy's own

index finger and make him pick his own nose and eat it and shit like that.

But the Steiners took the,

just a whole new level of

what the fuck?

You had no idea where you were going, but they reasonably put you down well, if that makes any sense.

Most of the time.

Most of the time.

There may be some times that they didn't.

I'll tell you, you know, we'll talk a little bit about it here.

I'm such a mark for the Steiner brothers from 89 until, let's say, 94.

And

when they first hit, there was nothing like them.

I mean, the Road Warriors are like big, painted-up shoulder pads, big, like monsters almost.

You believe that the Steiners could handle them.

Yes.

Just based on how they handled themselves.

And their matches were spectacular.

A few years back,

when everyone, and it's funny thinking about it now, where they are now, when everyone was going crazy about how the Young Bucks should be in the Hall of Fame.

And thank God that didn't happen.

I mean, again, look where they are now.

I would say the Steiner brothers are go watch those matches.

It's not just the innovation.

There are very few babyface tag teams ever that got those kind of reactions mid-match to everything they did.

And those WCW fans, and it was tough to be a WCW fan for a lot of that time period, the Steiners were guys that gave you optimism.

Until they were gone in 92,

every time there was a Steiner Brothers match, you had to see it.

The matches they had with random to the American fans, random Japanese wrestlers, some of the all-time greats from New Japan of that era, Tatsumi Fujinami.

I mean, everyone was in the ring with them.

They destroyed everyone.

You've never seen anything like it.

Go watch Wrestle War 92 before the actual War Games match.

They have a match that lights up that audience.

It's like nothing you've ever seen before.

There are very few tag teams that have ever hit the way they hit.

And again, WCW wasn't doing big business, but that wasn't their fault.

They were one of the few bright spots in WCW.

Well, and it started in 1990

when

Jesus, they hadn't been together as a team for six months.

You know, we talk about,

yes, sometimes when you go back and look at the highlights with the job guys, a lot of the job guys didn't know how to take bumps either.

Some of that, some of the bumps they were just given, but there was some awkward things going on.

But in that time period, with them only having been in the business for a couple of years and having

only six months as a team,

the team in the whole company that the Midnight Express and I wanted to work with was the Steiner brothers and the Southern Boys.

For the, you know, we've obviously we had wonderful matches with them because they, they got it also in a completely different way.

But the Steiners were so over and

if you knew what you were doing and you didn't fight them on trying to get their shit in, they were the easiest team to work with.

Now, I know people call bullshit.

No, with the midnight, they were the easiest team to work with.

Because if you watch, we had the nasty boys or the Road Warriors or the Japanese teams or whatever, like you're talking about, those guys were also

strong, ball-busting teams, right?

Slobber knocker people.

It's got to be a fight.

You're going to clothesline, clothesline, punch, boom, boom, boom, boom.

And so the Steiners even had to fight to get their shit in, right?

The midnight was completely, it was like Tully and Arn, completely different style team.

We're going to do all of their shit and take bigger bumps and put it over facially and with the body language because that's the style of team we are.

And then to get heat on them, we're going to go from behind.

We're going to use the racket.

We're going to double triple team and not make them look weak.

And then on the fucking comeback, we're going to do all our shit again.

And so they liked working with the midnight because it was a night off for them.

And they were very careful with Bobby and Stan and me

because they respected what we were doing.

Same thing as the Road Warriors, same formula.

They knew we were going to do all their shit and fly for them.

And so they would let us get our shit.

When it was time to get our shit, you didn't have to fight for it.

That's why the matches worked.

So anyway,

that's why the matches were good and we all enjoyed working with each other right and and they could be careful and not hurt you they'd never potated me a bit but the ribs now they were stiffer in a locker room because they talked about

you know lex luger talked about them stretching him

and

You know, all of the guys they used to duct tape, they duct taped Disco Inferno in the parking lot at Universal Studios and TNA one time, and they duct taped, I can't remember who, but guys would be.

But as the

when you say they duct tape people and they said it here, and how does that, how does that start?

Well, let's see.

Um, it, it could just be going back and forth verbally.

And somebody zings somebody, oh, well, fuck, come here.

Or it could be they just see somebody and they got a roll of duct tape and they, somebody.

They always have a roll roll of duct tape.

Is duct tape a usual thing that you find in a wrestling locker room?

Well, in the Steiners bags, it was.

Because

it's better than the padlocks.

Because I remember in the WWF, and as a matter of fact,

I'm pretty sure they got me one time that it was them.

But a number of guys would do the padlock rib in the 80s, where you would

they'd have like the master lock, like a school locker, right?

And they would either fucking put it around your suit bag or your wrestling bag handles and padlock it to a locker where you had to go get the bolt cutters to get your bag and leave the building or from the janitor, or you'd come back from working.

And there'd, in addition to your already heavy bag, there'd be like eight or 12 fucking padlocks hanging off of it that you couldn't get.

So you had to drag that whole thing around.

The duct tape was was not as bad because at least somebody could just get a knife or a pair of scissors, but they could actually duct tape you.

And so, if a guy was leaning on the rail and they caught him, they'd just duct tape his fucking wrists around the railing in the arena

when the

doors were about to open and the fans were about to come in, and they'd pull his fucking pants down around his ankles and leave him try to figure out how to cover up his dangling, fucking ding-a-ling.

Or,

like they said in the documentary, they had duct tape the nasty boys

hands behind them like they're handcuffed and they're, you know, ankles together.

But

they would do that again to people out in the parking lot to a goddamn railing or out in the in the building.

Well, remember when

because they lived in Georgia, so when we do the WCW-TVs in Savannah or Macon or something like that, they'd ride down together in a car, Rick and Scott, and they would bring Scott's dog, Arnold,

who actually managed them when they worked for me in Smokey Mountain Wrestling.

And

Arnold was a pit bull

and was,

you think, fairly lovable, but he sounded like the most goddamn mad dog you've ever seen in a horror movie.

And

Scott had him on a leash, but he could.

He'd get out about 10 feet in front of Scott with this thing, and Scott could have him chase guys at command, right?

And when he found out that Bobby Eaton was kind of nervous around big, mean-looking dogs anyway,

one time in Savannah at the Civic Center, the doors are opening and the fans are coming in the front door,

and there comes fucking Bobby Eaton in his underwear and barefoot and fucking holding his goddamn towel around his neck as he's running out of the goddamn breezeway.

And there comes Scott Steiner with his pit bull on a 10-foot leash,

chasing him around through the goddamn ringside and back in the other side.

And the people are going, what the fuck's going on?

And he chased him all the way.

And then another time they got after Bobby.

Bobby had his boots on

and

they chased him into the bathroom.

And he got on the stall and he was standing up on the toilet seat and holding on to the top of the stall.

And Steiner ripped the fucking door off the goddamn deal so that Arnold could get in.

And he says, Sing him, sing him.

And Arnold clamped down on Bobby's boot.

And he could work.

He was where he wasn't even biting the boot.

He just would grab your foot with the boot in his mouth and

like that.

And Bobby's petrified until he realized he's not really trying to hurt him.

So we worked that spot with the heavily bodies in Smogy Mountain where they could get to get Arnold to Jimmy Del Rey's boot.

But anyway,

and there, remember, I told you, I think last week on the show or on the drive-thru, they duct taped Kevin Sullivan's son to the right.

They didn't pull his pants down, but they duct taped him to the rail for acting up when he was 12 years old or whatever.

But that

I've told you the story of Amarillo, right?

When we left the Civic Center and stopped at that convenience store.

I'm not sure.

Okay, well, me and Bobby and Stan, and we're in the convenience store on the service road.

Everybody in West Texas know what I'm talking about.

It's a road that goes to the right of the interstate, but only one way along, and that's where all the businesses are.

And there's a ramp, and you get off and on the interstate every so often.

And on the other side, it's the same thing.

It's a West Texas thing, the service road.

So we're at this store, and all Rick and Scott come in.

And there's no other fans in there.

There's nobody else in there except the guy working there.

But we're trying to cafe, and they just start talking to us because they don't give a shit.

Hey,

hey, fuck you, Bobby Eaton,

because that was Rick's favorite fucking greeting for Bobby.

Fuck you, Bobby Eaton.

And we turn around

and Rick has pulled a goddamn handgun the size of a dirty hairy movie out of his fucking fanny pack.

And he's just standing there holding it, showing it to fucking Bobby.

He's like, what the fuck?

The guy's ringing the shit up in the store.

He's not noticing anything.

And he sticks it back in.

And this was 1990, right?

So you could fly around with shit like this.

Apparently, I don't know.

Maybe they bought it when they got to town.

So anyway, we're like, fuck, he's going to, this fucking guy's going to think we're all going to rob him.

Let's get out of here.

Me and Bobby stand get in the car.

We turn out.

We're going down a service road.

And on the left of the service road, like I said, is the interstate.

It's up about 20 feet higher, the interstate on an embankment.

And, you know, they got it graded off and everything, right?

So,

a couple seconds later, here come Rick and Scott in that fucking rental car of some description on that service road up behind us with their lights flashing.

And he decides,

I think it was Scott driving, that he's going to go around.

He goes to the left and drives up the, so he's driving alongside us on the embankment, kind of sideways, in between the interstate and the service road.

And Rick is firing that gun up in the air out of the window.

Bang, bang, that's it.

And off they go.

And they're just, you know, on the way to the hotel having fun.

They were fucking insane.

But that's, but

they loved having fun.

And like this program said, they were always at each other's backs and they were always together,

you know, whatever they were doing.

Had I ever told you that story?

I think you may.

I remember you talking about Rick Steiner with a gun.

The gun on the embankment, I don't remember.

You ought to remember everything that I ever say to you.

We've only known each other for 30 years.

I remember when Rick Steiner first started out, him and Steve Williams and the UWF were driving to a show and they found like a car on the side of the road in flames and they rescued the people.

Oh, that's right.

It wasn't

for them.

Yeah, pulled the door off the car and saved the people.

Yes, and it made the local news.

And, you know, they got a lot of attention out of that at that time.

Yeah, some burning car.

And again, nobody was,

nobody was shocked.

But, oh, it was Steiner and Doc, and they jerked the car door off the fucking hinges to, oh, no problem.

But that was, you know.

And nobody was surprised it was in the mid-South territory with the shit going on on the roads down there.

they talked a little bit about in 92 scott and bill watts not getting along at all again rick steiner had broken in pretty much under watts you could say he did some stuff before but watts is where he really got his first bit of attention you surprised that him and scott butted heads do you think it was only about the money issues watts trying to cut everyone's salary no matter what and everyone who had a nice salary saying what the hell no you didn't or do you think it was a personality thing that never would have worked you didn't hear the brief they buried the lead here but the brief line that Scott had about Watts, that was the, you didn't hear that?

I mean, I don't even know that they tried to cut his money that drastically because

let's

I know in 1990

they were making three grand a week apiece.

Now by 1992,

That may have increased and it probably did, but it wasn't like they were making outrageous money.

But Scott said that

he told Bill Watts what he thought about his son Eric's push, and I can hear that conversation.

And I would, if I was a betting man there, Smithers,

I would say that the personality conflict came from Scott told Bill Watts, what the fuck are you pushing this gangly fucking

blithering simpleton?

As Bill Watts called his son Joel one time, you blitz.

No, you blithering idiot.

Joel, you blithering idiot.

No, I'm sure that Scott, in pretty blunt language, told Bill what he thought of Eric.

And I think that's where that came from.

And they kind of just mentioned that and went off in another direction.

I don't know if that was the only thing.

I mean, that might be.

I bet that was probably the straw that broke the Campbells back on one side.

Remember the end of their WCW run right before Scott had like a what he won like the TV title from Rick's Steamboat and then it was vacated when he left.

But it was the Steiners against Gordy and Williams that summer.

Yeah, and that's the kind of, that's why I said that's the kind of stuff that Watts loved because those were classic matches and everybody was a legitimate athlete and a hoss, as the, as the kids say.

And

so there had, there was deep personality conflict with.

I'm sure with Scott and Bill, and partly over Scott probably tell

not

talking to Bill Watts like he was not used to fucking guys talking to him that have been in the business for three years or whatever.

But that

they started in the WWE, WWF, let's call it by its real name since it was at the time, at the end of 92.

And,

you know, honestly, they were successful there.

for the brief period that, you know, what, the first six, eight months of the year until and that's when we worked with them and i got in the middle of of uh well i didn't get in the middle of anything but we were right there in the middle of the transition from them

doing well in the wwf to to starting to tell vets hey we need to leave yeah you know their first several months in wwf was exciting i was a big fan of theirs you know i saw them live uh i think they were on the first Monday Night Raw.

It was a big deal.

The Steiner brothers are there.

They wrestled the head shrinkers, who they had a history of from when they were the SST

in the NWA.

They wrestled DiBiase and Mike Rotunda, and those, as a fan, were like the least exciting matches they could have to me.

Then we got them in the Quebecers,

and I enjoyed that personally, but I don't know if they, they don't seem like Jacques Rouge kind of guys.

But the Heavenly Bodies was the highlight of their run.

Other than the Bretton Owen match,

I think the highlight of their run was the stuff with the the heavenly body.

Specifically, maybe the one night that was the highlight of their run was SummerSlam 93.

Well, yeah, and the four weeks of TV we got to build up to it.

But see, that was the thing when they went to the WWF.

They were some of the few guys at that point that were still

interesting and watchable.

And,

you know, people wanted to

see their squash matches because

they were still doing all that shit, so impressive, right?

And at the time, a lot of the WWF television was, so they were a breath of fresh air up there from what the guys were doing.

But then, when they got into it, as you said, with whatever teams, they were just so good, right?

And they were, again, really different for the WWF.

And so they've been there six months or so.

And that was when completely, you know, independently, not tied to the the them being there me and the heavenly bodies showed up

for me to work with yokozuna whatever and

they at the time you know they had said well we'll have the bodies work with the steiners

at uh summer slam do you have a problem with them putting them over of course not

And so the bodies came in as a new team for a build

to work the SummerSlam WWF tag team title with the Steiners.

And I thought, well, first of all, I thought there'll probably be

some extension of that program, you know, when they see how good it is or whatever.

And then, you know, so we did the deal, and it was the same formulas I just talked about

earlier in the show or earlier in this clip here.

In that, even though they didn't know Jimmy Del Rey at all,

and I'm not sure if maybe Rick and Dr.

Tom had met at some point, but really not worked with each other.

But it was the same formula team.

And,

you know, I'm kind of conveying the spots.

Here's what we do.

And blah, blah, blah.

So they knew we were going to do the same thing.

They're from Michigan.

They went to college at Michigan.

We're in Detroit or Auburn Hills, as they say, the palace.

It's sold out.

It's the biggest home state audience they've probably ever appeared in front of at that point in time

and they've got a team one of my teams that does that stuff to do all of their

so they were a fight and they did all of tom and all of jimmy

it and jimmy del ray was

yeah jimmy del ray was one of the people that after people watched that event because most people had never heard of him before And most people didn't even realize he was Jimmy Backlund or heard of Jimmy Backlund before.

It was like, where did this guy come from?

He stole the show.

Well, and that's because we knew for a few weeks out when we started doing the television.

And I told Rick and Scott, I said, just watch their matches, watch the bodies matches because we had some TV matches where we did some shit.

I said, watch their matches.

You can see.

I said, but we're going to do the same fucking thing, right?

That we used to do.

We're going to have fun and do all your shit.

But watch what this guy does.

And Jimmy was good.

He was light.

He was easy.

And so that's the thing is Jimmy was Tom was, you know, laid back and he had obviously been in, that was a high profile position for him at that point in his career, but he'd, you know, been in main events and worked territories and blah, blah, blah.

Jimmy had just got the break and he refused to believe and was shocked.

And you can see it on his face that no, they're not going to.

I can, they're going to do the DD, the float over DDT and oh shit, they want to do this and that.

He was timid at first to ask the Steiner brothers.

I said, no, they're fine.

Show them here.

Boom, boom, boom.

The fucking headlock.

Ding.

And so, and it was

one of the better matches that either team had during that run that year in the WWF because of that.

I think other than the Brett Nowen match, which was a unique match, it's probably the Steiner Brothers' best match there.

Do you remember before the match started?

Again, hometown show,

best night of their WWE careers and they interview their sister at ringside before the match and whoever it was petting or someone says what was it like having these guys in the home growing up and she goes oh you know rob and scott there they are it was the first time they used his real name on tv accidentally

well it's it because you know he's always robbed to her

And no, yeah, the sister and the mother was at ringside and the whole thing.

And

it tore the house down.

People liked the fucking match and they they got over and had the belts up, right?

And that's when

I had already, because that was what, August 30th, I think that year, right?

That seems to stick in my head.

It used to be late August, so that sounds right.

But anyway, the first weekend of October, I had them four days in Smoky Mountain Wrestling.

When we had first started, that's when I had talked to at the time.

It was Bruce and Pat, Bruce Pritchard and Pat Patterson.

Doing the booking for the house shows and the talent.

I said,

you know, since we're already, we're we're going to be promoting this match on SummerSlam.

Can I have the rematch of my big October shows?

Yes.

And it was going to be for the WWF Tag Team title.

And thankfully,

before we ever announced that, when I was at TV up there, probably at the

it may have been the TVs after SummerSlam, but they told me ahead enough.

Well, Pat came and said, well,

I can't do the accent, bless Pat.

But we're going to take the belts off of the Steiners,

the Steiner.

I said, well, oh, and he said, well, we're putting it.

Apparently, that's when they found out they were to switch the belts, which they did to the Quebecers, right?

Jacques and Pierre.

That's right.

With Johnny Polo.

With Johnny Polo.

Well, because unbeknownst to me, because I, again, wasn't asking Rick and Scott their personal business, that's when they had registered their dismay or disappointment to Vince with the money they were making, which wasn't exactly apparently

the, you know, the

gold mine that he had promised them.

It's the same line.

You know, Shane Douglas years later, you know, he had a big problem with WWF when he went up there as Dean Douglas, but he said the same thing that him and his wife met to meet with Vince, and he said, you're going to make more money than you've ever made before in your life.

Yes.

And then it didn't happen.

So I guess that was just a typical line that he used.

Well, and see,

in the 80s, it was, you're going to have the opportunity to make more money, right?

And then it gradually became you're going to make more money.

And then it started being that it wasn't more money because WCW started offering guarantees.

So

at any rate, so the Steiners did come down

to make the dates, but it wasn't, they had lost the belts, so it couldn't be for the belts.

But I think honestly, it drew the same,

whether they had the the belts on the line or not.

But that's when Scotty had told me when we were talking about the finishes, because hey,

I figured if we slipped, because it was going to be Knoxville and Johnson City were the important

towns that we were going to

have footage of.

And we were going to do a DQ because obviously I didn't expect them to put them over in that high profile a situation, or was I going to have them come in and beat the bodies and not come back.

But I wanted them to split, I think it was Hazard, Kentucky, and

Barberville.

Also, maybe we'll put you over one night there.

You put them so I could at least say it on television.

Well, we beat them in Barberville, but that's when he told me, hey, we got some problems with the office up there, and we don't know how much longer we're going to be there.

And so they weren't going to be putting anybody over because, as

we found out here, they were already eyeing going to Japan.

And

Smokey Mountain Wrestling, believe it or not, was getting publicity in the Japanese publications.

You've seen a bunch of it.

So, what happened there was reported in Japan.

So,

Scott and Rick were old school.

They couldn't do any jobs, which I understood.

But that's when I found out that they were not happy.

So, they were there, they were there a year.

So, that their whole,

as the team as the steiner brothers

their whole wwf career only lasted 12 months because they were like in in december and out in december right

yeah that's why i always say 94 is kind of for me the end of the classic steiner brothers period after that wwf run they still went to japan and then they returned to wcw but you know by the time they returned to wcw it didn't feel like the same team anymore scott was much bigger and that changed the way he worked and Rick,

not that he was disinterested, but just Rick didn't seem the same.

He didn't have the charisma that he had just a few years earlier.

So I am a big mark for the Steiner brothers, but I wasn't a big fan of their return to WCW.

Well, and I agree with you, and I think that

it was a combination of

bad creative, which, you know, plagued the whole company.

And unless you were part of the chosen focused people with the Steiner brothers,

they had to, they were WCW originals at that point, but they had to persevere through the fucking,

you know,

Hogan,

NWO,

Bischoff, that era where everything

revolved around that.

And they didn't particularly use Rick as well as Scott, I think,

probably because Scott, as he said, pushed back more.

I think Scott told him awful lot more.

And I think

they may have seen

possibly Rick was disinterested because

they just weren't, they were lost in the fog in that size of a roster with,

here's another thing, they were the giants of the locker room in 1990, and they were medium-sized by the time they got to 96.

So part of that aura of the Steiners,

they had muddled it up with a bunch of other guys as big or bigger that didn't have the talent or the presence, but muddied the water.

You know what I mean?

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I do.

So I think all of that.

But then

Scott becomes big papa pump and Rick gets his real estate license.

And I think that's why Rick is more calm to this day as Scott had another

15 years in the fucking wrestling business a lot of time to drive him absolutely bat shit

but

you know at the same time big papa pump

in wcw it worked in the wwf it's another thing they didn't they didn't get and i think by that point with scott's injuries and etc

But big papa pump was a big deal in the WCW programs for that period of time.

Am I just misremembering that?

He was a big part of those shows.

He got over big time as a heel.

You know, at the time, I remember the big comparison was superstar Billy Graham because all of a sudden he showed up with the new hair, chain mail,

and he had two women with him.

He ended up with that one, I think, Medeja, all the way to the end, but there was another one who was even hotter who was there at the beginning.

And the other thing was, all of a sudden, you were talking about his promos.

Because no one had ever talked about the Seiner Brothers promos or Scott's promos.

Now he was unhinged as a heel.

And you never knew, whether in Kfave or not, what he was going to say.

The whole idea of, oh my God, they're going to give Scott Mike,

Scott Mike, they're going to give Scott Steiner an open mic.

That's the time when it started, the late 90s in WCW.

Before that, he was never on the mic, really.

Well, see, that's the

Rick was good, especially in the...

the varsity club and as the dog-faced gremlin was and and then later on in the you know the early years of the steiner brothers and that era as being the goofy guy that could get serious, et cetera, physically, but he had that gimmick going.

And Scott was just, Scott looked like an all-American guy, if an all-American guy was also a superhero.

And he couldn't talk like a babyface because as you can tell, that's not naturally him.

I'm not saying he's a criminal and evil person.

I'm saying he's not naturally a nice,

pleasant guy with a cheery,

you know, he likes to have fun, but

when he turned heel, he could let loose and he could be more of himself.

And

it was also a time where you could say more things on television than what you could have in 1992 or whatever.

So,

you know, that's the,

that was the difference is that he was, it was more of him.

naturally, which we always talk about being a big difference.

So as a single,

you know, Big Papa Pump was, you know,

it was, it was very natural for him, and it was entertaining.

And the TNA math promo, I was there the time he did that.

And that was just something he did.

It's not like anybody wrote it, wink-wink.

But, you know, at the same time, then people would try to get him to do it again.

And you could never do it again as good.

If it wasn't planned, it's just something you do.

When you try to do it again, it never turns out as well.

But nevertheless, by the time that, go ahead.

Did you know?

I mean, I guess we're going to that time period.

Did you know about his whole thing with his foot where he had a numb foot?

He had no feeling in his foot for years?

Yes.

Well,

he didn't call me up first thing when it happened to give me the diagnosis, but whenever the next time I worked with him after it happened, yes, I knew about it.

So that would have

would have been in what, in TNA, i guess right uh i think he said it happened at the end of wcw well no but i'm saying the the time that i would have next seen him yes i'm trying to think yeah no no may no he was in the wwf

in the early 2000s didn't he come over briefly in the early so

the point is a few years after it happened the next time i worked with him

And, you know, just in the process, and especially in TNA, because I was the agent

on a lot of his matches and

you know so you would discuss what you can do or can't do or whatever i would see him taping his goddamn foot up

but it what is it drop foot

syndrome or whatever i whatever it's called it's a

a condition where he was

he basically had to tape it and and wear tight boots and do the whole thing where he was almost in a cast because there was either not only numbness but nerve damage where he couldn't control

like the part of his toes.

If you want to go up the stairs and you want to not trip over the goddamn stairs,

your foot will drop.

Boy, this sounds like a real medical fucking explanation, but do you understand what I, the words that are coming out of my mouth?

Oh, he couldn't just,

his, the, the ankle hinge, he couldn't just control that at random.

It that sometimes it he couldn't control where the front of his foot was going or something to that effect.

That's why he had to tape it real tight around the ankle and the foot.

God damn it.

If you need to see his medical fucking, get a court order.

But that's the thing is that he wanted to be the top guy in WCW.

And unfortunately, he didn't get it till November 2000.

You know, when it was too late, they were about out of business, but

he had wanted to be the top guy.

And like a lot of guys in that era and eras before,

and athletes, you go, well, fuck it.

I'm going to tape it up.

I'm going to go out there

because he was ambitious.

And also, Rick said that Scott got kind of a bad attitude at that point because he thought people were out to get him and got a little crazy was the quote.

And

so

if one wonders from watching who killed WCW,

if WCW was in somewhat, as Sebastian Cabot used to say, a classic state of disarray around about this time period.

If I wanted to make up a funny story that bears no

resemblance to people or events that actually exist in the world, but boy, it had been fucking hilarious if this really happened.

If a person

won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, the big gold belt that Crockett had bought for Ric Flair back in 1986,

if that person won that belt in WCW in the year 2000

and took it home in their bag with them, and because that office was so

Verklimped and preoccupied and bum-fuzzled and...

gobsmacked that that person then brought back one of those good-looking replica belts that they started making about that time.

And he kept that original belt in his office for years and years until somebody found out about it, at which point he

would then sell that belt to that person for literal shoeboxes full of cash American currency, tens and tens of thousands of dollars.

Well, that would be a funny story, wouldn't it, Brian?

Hysterical.

It would would be hysterical,

possibly criminal for the people buying the belt because they're buying a lot of people.

Well, that's right.

That's why I just made that story up out of complete whole cloth, ladies and gentlemen.

But funny story.

It would be so hilarious if that actually happened.

And then, after they did that, they bought an NWA champion and his whole family.

They got the whole package then.

Now,

moving along here,

that

basically at that point, a few months later, WCW is out of business.

And

Scott, again,

you know, that's the point where he was really, I think, having trouble with it.

Or I made note of the foot injury about this time.

And,

you know, that's when he, oh, he showed up to drop the belt to Booker T.

That's what it was, with his boot all taped up and everything.

Because he, you know,

say what you want about his bad attitude, but the company's going out of business.

He's the champion, but they want him to drop the belt to Booker T, and he shows up with a bad foot and does it.

So last night of the company, too, if there was ever a night where you're going to no-show without repercussions, that's it.

Well, remember, Nash's opinion was, well, I'll sit home and watch the Titanic sink on my couch, and Steiner went injured to drop the belt because he see, part of the bad attitude may just have been not taking that much bullshit.

So,

anyways, at that point, that's when Rick said he got paid for a year

afterwards to not wrestle at all and

do anything that he didn't want to do.

He went to Japan after that and missed his son's ball game, which he's got a couple of kids.

I don't know if it was brawn breakers or not.

And he came home and got his real estate license and stayed home for his kids.

And that's been

Rick pretty much, you know, since then, what, 15 years or whatever, more than.

And he seems really happy.

It sounds like a happy life.

Yeah.

Imagine having a problem with the school board and he's on the fucking board.

Oh, my God.

And I'll tell you what, Rick Steiner is the closest one

that when you shake hands with him, he's got the closest hands in wrestling that felt like Lou These's hands.

The swollen knuckles, the calluses, the

calcium from various broken bones from amateur wrestling.

It's like it's an unusual fucking feel.

And he's the closest one to it.

So if he's shaking hands out there running for a school board, they're probably scared not to vote for it.

If you were running against him, would you be tempted to cut wrestling promos and put them online?

No.

No, because then you're getting in a pissing contest with the skunk, as they say.

You're playing right into his hands.

You're going right down Steiner Alley.

You're going to get Steiner line.

Well, you got to have backup.

You got to have some kind of bodyguard.

I'm booking the school board thing like a wrestling angle.

All right, back to the documentary.

Let's go back to the show because, you know,

but yeah, but there, there's Rick Steiner is at home in Georgia and he's doing his thing.

And Scott goes and has another run in the WWF that he doesn't like.

And,

you know, I don't think him and Vince were meant for each other, just like him and Watts.

But, and also, his foot was bad

at that point.

And

then he went to TNA, he said, to rehab his abomination of a WWE run.

But then, so this is what, yes, so I knew about his foot earlier on, but the Puerto Rico thing

is while I was in TNA

because I remember getting to television or the taping and hearing the news that he had torn his trachea.

And I said, how the fuck do you even do that?

And

he got kicked in the throat.

I can't, do you even remember who he might have been working with?

I don't even know.

Oh, I don't remember.

I don't remember, no.

But he was in Puerto Rico, whoever might have been there then.

But he got kicked in the throat, and it didn't tear his trachea in his throat.

It tore it in his chest.

And

because he said, if I just torn.

torn it in my throat, I could have just had a trachea out of me and it would have been easy.

You know, that's his outlook.

But

in the chest, they had to,

because I saw this not long after it had fucking happened, and it was just disgusting.

They had to cut way around his rib cage under his arm

and go past his lung, some kind of way

to

repair his trachea part in his chest.

And so that was, and that was like almost

a fatal fucking thing that could have occurred if it had gone the wrong way to begin with.

So,

you know, that was definitely not good.

And then his wife said, she got pissed at him when he was like, oh, Doc, how much time do I have to take off?

And she's like, off,

fuck.

And he was back in a couple of months.

And that's, you know,

that was the things that he did.

But and when Rick, I meant to mention with the real estate license,

he mentioned he was buying houses and flipping them with Rick Roode and Kurt Henning and Bubba, boss man.

Because I remember that's when Bubba, for a time, when he was working as agent, producer, whatever they called it back then at that point with

the WWF, they sent him to OVW some.

And

we ought to get a cabin in Gatlinburg.

And that was like maybe six months later, that's when Buba passed away.

But

he had, because the Minnesota crew that became the Georgia crew

that they either knew from Vern or from,

you know, Mid-South and Rude had,

you know, been around him for a long time.

Because Rick had told me also at one point that apparently one of Scott's, I don't know, college friends or somebody he knew had become a hot shot financial advisor and said it made Scott a fucking fortune.

And that was in 1995.

So it was no wonder he was telling all these fucking people off about his money.

Anyway.

And, you know, they finished the show up with Braun, but do you have any other Steiner-ish comments before we move on to the second generation?

Any Steiner-ish comments?

Well, any issue.

Hey, fuck you, Cornette, you four-eyed jerk.

Hey,

Arnold, get him.

Sing him, Arnold.

Sing him.

Ric Flair, you're a piece of shit.

Hulk Hogan, I'm going to kick your ass.

What else do you want, Steiner-like comments?

Well, no, any comments on the Steiner.

And that was a funny thing.

Also, I made sure when they came to Smokey Mountain, I told Scott, I said, we can't have the belts on the line.

Bring fucking Arnold.

and we'll make him your manager against me.

And we did the boot spot with Jimmy Del Rey and Dr.

Tom.

He'd go after the fucking boot and the people went out of their fucking minds.

The dog was the star of the matches.

Those are good shows, too.

You had Sherry Martell on those shows.

Yes.

And so we had a little something for everybody.

But nevertheless, any other comments about the Steiners before we move on to close with Braun and his generation.

I would just say to anyone who has not watched any of those matches from 1990, let's say 1989 to 1992 in WCW, watch every available one, especially against Japanese wrestlers.

They're incredible.

And also,

did we get in WCW?

I'm just trying to think,

we dropped the U.S.

tag team titles to them in the Meadowlands

and we had one.

In the summer of 90.

Yes.

And we had a bunch of house show matches where we put them over in cold matches pretty much

during that period of time.

And I think we had one TV match with them for like 10 minutes on syndication

and never had the Steiners on a pay-per-view.

But would go and have the,

again, the matches tore the fucking house down.

But between...

the Oli regime and Heard,

we could never do anything meaningful with them there.

You know, one other thing I'll bring up because I just thought about it.

There was a period there, 1990 or so, where people started realizing Scott Steiner is really special.

Great shape, could do stuff no one else could do, legitimate tough guy.

Remember, think of the beginning of 1991, if I had to guess, they gave him a

main event against Flair at the clash.

And it was a disappointing match just because they didn't mesh well together.

But at that point, just a few years into his run there, people were already predicting he may be the future world champion.

Yeah, but what they did with that, to be honest with you,

is they went with that for ratings.

It was Flair versus Scott in a singles match.

They went with it for ratings and because Scott was obviously a star and et cetera, et cetera.

But it was disappointing because think about this.

How many singles matches had Scott Steiner had

in the previous two years of his career at that point?

Not too many.

Maybe none.

Unless they did an angle where Rick was hurt and Scott was in a single match on T or whatever, they were always in tags.

It's a whole different animal.

So

part of that was a point where that was one thing that, and I mean, of course, Flair can get

something out of anybody, but it was not only a style clash, but it wasn't something where Flair could just naturally control the tempo of everything as he was used to, because Scott was not only too big to move around like that, but also may have had ideas of his own.

And I think, but that's in some cases, that's why things like that don't come together.

Anyway, a very a very entertaining program.

And then

they went to basically comments on Braun, which Scott said he's got the potential to be better than both of us.

And

I think I saw all three of, I'm seeing Braun now and saw both these guys at this same stage of their careers.

I think Braun is because

he's got the advantage now of having watched a

template

with his uncle and his father that

he's not going to just try to do a be a greatest hits a tribute band or whatever,

but he's got a template of being able to see someone that looks like him and moves like him and is shaped like him and has the abilities of him apply themselves to this while he was growing up.

And now, and he's also got the access to a great training facility and all these different minds and et cetera.

So I think, you know, he is ahead and should be.

But at the same point,

he's smarter now to the business, I think, that at this point in time

than they were back then, because

the only thing that he's missed is

the time on the road and the territory.

And otherwise than that, Braun's, you know,

formation has been more advantageous and he's taken advantage of it.

And then

when Scott talked about the, they closed with him going to the Hall of Fame and all that stuff,

and Scott said, I came in peace.

He don't want to screw

Braun's chances up, or and

he'd probably gotten over it at that point.

But

I like that line.

I came in peace.

I could identify with that in the Hall of Fame ceremony.

But it was awesome.

Brian is what it was, The Steiner biography was awesome, wasn't it?

It was awesome.

Could have gone longer, but I thought it was an awesome documentary.

Well, since we're just talking about awesome things,

wouldn't it be great, Brian, if you could just every month go to your mailbox or receptacle or orifice that you receive your packages in?

The mailbox.

Call the mailbox.

Other pages, yeah, whatever, you know, in

different cultures, you know, around the world.

You know, but if you could just go to

hole or holding area and open up a box of awesomeness or just a box of awesome as it's come to be known every month, wouldn't that be just swell?

It would be awesome.

It would be awesome.

Well, now you can, folks, because of our friends at boxofawesome.com.

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And

I got to lean over here because because I couldn't.

This item is so heavy, I couldn't put it on my desk.

I was afraid it would collapse.

Hold on.

Oh, my God.

Oh, good Lord.

It is the

latest

item that I've got in my box of awesome, the Thai,

and that is from Thailand, right?

T-H-A-I.

The Thai, I don't know if my Kentucky accent.

translates around the world.

The Thai

moon knife set.

It is a half moon shaped knife, along with another knife that is shaped sort of like a quarter of a moon.

I don't know, but I am no astronomer, but it looks to me like a layman to be about a quarter of that moon.

In a custom-made wooden box with beautiful

brass hardware on this thing, it's engraved in the top of this deal.

What it is, it's authentic carbon steel made in Thailand,

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Now, listen to this.

That,

do you hear that ringing?

It's almost like unsheathing Drew McIntyre's imaginary blade in his entrance music.

Oh, wow, it did sound like that.

Yeah, what that is, is that right there.

Just be careful.

Well, see, I'm just sliding it slowly across the wooden box that it comes in because you could cut somebody from asshole to appetite with this thing.

But what it is meant for,

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And it's made from

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Both of these fine knives with the

carbon steel blades and the wooden handles.

And boy howdy,

heavy-duty workmanship there.

And

it came along.

That's when I closed the top of the box, Brian.

And it came alongside the Thai knife sharpening set.

So you can keep these knives, as I mentioned before, sharper than a mother-in-law's tongue.

So right there, that's what you get.

Or you could get other things.

Usually they give you things to commit mayhem with, and they give me things for the kitchen.

This time, my kitchen.

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But if you'd like to whack down the culinary mayhem.

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I guess, is AEW a pop business?

Just Tony's not married.

There is no mom.

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Well, that must be where the 10% comes from.

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All right.

Well, as I said earlier, we're going to talk about the money in the bank, but first, we got to talk about the mark in the back.

And that's poor Tony Kahn.

He had one

bright spot

last week on his television program.

And

on Saturday night,

the collision,

and I'm assuming it's going to do a

potentially record-low rating because it was against

Money in the Bank, which is Money in the Bank.

But there were a couple of things that happened we're going to comment on.

And the first one opened the program,

and that was

MJF's promo explaining

why he did what he did to Daniel Garcia and Peripherally,

Will Ostrich, and the whole thing from last week on dynamite.

And

again,

it's almost a shame sometimes when they do something really good.

It's a bigger shame than when they do something that's really the shits because when it's really the shits and hardly anybody sees it, it helps them.

But when this is really good and hardly anybody sees it, it ain't going to help them.

But maybe they'll put a package on Wednesday night to bring us up to speed on the program that a few more people watch.

Do you know where South Haven, Mississippi is, Brian?

I have no idea.

I'm not big on Mississippi geography.

Well,

it's not, it's a trick question

because South Haven, Mississippi is peripherally

in the Memphis, Tennessee kind of metropolitan area.

And

as a matter of fact, hold on one second, just so I can.

I think we're about to introduce Mr.

Rand and Mr.

McNally.

So we got Randy McNally coming in here because I want to make sure

that I am, because, you know, I frequented that area quite often in my younger days, but now that senility is creeping in.

Oh, bye-bye, sweetie.

Love you.

You too, Stace.

Harley's leaving the room with Stacey.

So,

yeah,

if you go across the Tennessee-Mississippi border,

set your clocks back 20 years, ladies and gentlemen, then, you know, South Haven is only about 10 or 15 minutes from downtown Memphis.

What was that old George M.

Cohan song, 45 minutes from Broadway, but it's a world away.

But they've got a, it's another one of these small...

suburbs that has built a halfway decent size arena

in modern times, and they've got a building down there now.

So, but the way Tony Schiavone

introduced the program when they came on the air from Memphis here in South Haven.

I missed that.

And now, and

now people are like, wait, what?

What the fuck?

What happened?

From Memphis here in South Haven, it's collision.

You must have been in a collision head on, apparently.

It's like WCW in 89.

We're going to be in New York, in Troy, New York.

Well, and Vince was

bad about that, like a lot of other things also, in that we would be in certain places.

He would

just call it the college arena or

greater Kumquatville.

I don't fucking know.

But anyway, they opened this program collision from South Haven.

against Money in the Bank with a package on the MJF and Garcia

will extravaganza last week which we have covered you can listen to that if you want to on our youtube channel and then get back to us and the package actually was well done for once they had something to work with in that some points were made

you know not only verbally but visually

and then they hit mjf's music and

He gets a big pop, obviously, either way.

He gets a large, a bunch of noise when they know it's him coming.

There was booze, there was cheers, but when they turned the music off, it seemed that the people had picked up on there were more booze going on.

No leather jacket.

That's important, too.

It was back to looking or dressing somewhat like the old MJF.

Looking as only he can look.

Not like the dice rules era MJF.

Well, that's because now he's put away his

childish things as he's become a man again.

And they even got some you suck chants going.

And then

he said,

I wish that unlike your mothers on their knees at a truck stop bathroom, you'd keep your mouth shut.

So we could tell by the tone of that we're going to

go in here that

he's here to lay waste to some people.

Yeah, that was the first sign that, okay, this promo may be promising.

Yeah.

And

I mean,

I'll go over the points in a minute.

You can't replicate this.

Not only his machine gun delivery when it needs to be,

but also just the sheer volume of story that was told.

But he made sense out of this shit.

For once on any of their programs, something makes sense, not just from last week.

But he made it make sense from six months ago.

He's being consistent

to who he is, MJF, who we have thought he is, who he's supposed to be.

Not referring to the song and dance with Jericho, obviously, but part of the way that he last did that big baby face

promo last August, which they excerpted, was when he bared his soul to the people that he's got

a rejection disorder.

He named it, I have no idea.

I couldn't even spell those words.

I just said rejection disorder.

But he

was scarred as a child and he was made to think that everybody was an evil scumbag.

But now he's opened up the whole deal that he did

about being a vulnerable person to be babyface last year has now

the seeds have come home to roost.

I fucked that simile up.

The rooster has come home to lay an egg.

To seed.

There you go.

Because

now you've rejected him.

The people have rejected him.

They started.

He's off,

broken his body, sacrificed his all for you, people that he opened up to, and you scorned him.

And you went and cheered for Will, and you went and cheered for Swerve, and you went and cheered, well, fuck you.

Garcia was a pawn.

You really thought that you were getting that match at all in with this?

I was always going to stab him in the back because he's a make-a-wish kid.

And then that was the second promising part because it wasn't trying to elevate Garcia like everything else they do is.

It's trying to put reality back into place.

It was like, I blew smoke up your ass so I could stab you in the back because you're another one of these pretender, these clowns that they're cheering for.

And then, you know,

when they played the clip, he came back and he said, I told you that if I opened up to you, if you turned on me, it would tear my heart out.

Because when the great heel turns in wrestling in the territory days were not when somebody just said, fuck you, and hit him over the head with a chair when nobody expected it.

But it was when the heel thought, like this Drew McIntyre stuff, when he thought he was right,

he thinks he's right.

And he laid the whole deal out.

I broke my body for you.

And you chanted, thank you, Joe.

And then you discarded me for swirl and Okada

and that talentless hack Osprey.

And he told the people, it's not personal between me and Garcia.

He's just, he's a pawn.

It's, it's personal between me and you.

I'm going to take away the things you love.

I have it.

Sniddley whiplash

couldn't have gotten a more fucking heinous goddamn attitude, right?

He's going to tie some people to the railroad tracks here.

And it makes sense for once.

It's not people just dressing up as somebody else or changing their hairstyle and

trying to act differently.

Chris Jericho.

And, you know,

oh, the light, he said, Osprey only cares about ratings from Meltzer.

I care about ratings from Nielsen.

Oh, my God.

Since everybody that was watching this show will get that, so it was good anyway.

But that was just a tease.

Let's do it.

Let's pop a number knowing he's not there.

So just doing things to ratchet up the heat in the room.

Yeah.

Calling him out.

They play the music.

He laughs.

He's not here.

Now, of course, the music guy now has to be on MJF's payroll.

I wish he'd stick to things that he ought to nominally be able to control, but nevertheless,

and he didn't even claim when he started his catchphrase at the end, they started to say his name, and he said, No, you had your chance.

Fuck you.

I'm MJF, and you can thank me later.

Boy, I've got a whole list of people I'd like him to get rid of.

But anyway, it made sense of it, and

it got some interest in him

and Osprey just because he's trashing this guy, and

they like young Will.

So it got some interest in that without them really having to do anything physical yet.

But also, it just explained,

he made some of the

pandering, simpering nonsense

now work for him in a way because he he said it was fake and phony all along just to make you people like me

basically because I wanted you to lie.

And you still didn't like me, so fuck you.

I'm going to fuck all this shit up.

I like that spunk.

What about you?

Won't call it spunk.

We'll start with that.

I thought that was the best MJF promo in

a long while.

And it was a return to form in some ways, but it didn't feel like it was retro.

It was what he needed.

It was

what this company needed.

Every heel is cheered.

Every baby face acts like a heel.

There aren't any just flat-out heels.

And he's the best at it.

The problem is, as good as this was, and it made perfect sense,

and it went a while, and it was good.

It held you.

And it was his best performance in a while.

It was on collision against money in the bank.

Yeah.

That's the only issue I have because you have to now seek this out to hear it.

And you should hear it.

If this was on Wednesday night, it would have gotten a big reaction.

You know, that's the other part.

He had the crowd in his hand right away.

And he got a big reaction exactly when he wanted to at all the right times here.

I thought this was great.

This was the best AEW promo.

all year and his best promo in a long time and it gives you some hope for

the TV possibly improving, at least in his segment.

Remember, early on, when shit was already nuts and bad, and the booking was bad from the beginning, you always had the MJF segments.

Other than the Chris Jericho shit.

Fuck Jericho.

And for a while, you had the punk segments.

And eventually you had the punk.

And then when they met up, it was the best thing in the history of the company.

And then you got no punk, and then you had no MJF.

Now, at least we got one back.

And listen, those were the days when MJF meant the most to the ratings and to everything else.

So, a return to form and something that gives you hope for the future in some way in AEW.

Well, it also because

do you remember?

Just let's look at the

state of the group that tormented him behind the

devil that had sworn to take him out and blah, blah, blah.

Mike Bennett and Matt Taven, where have they even been for a while?

They're still in, they never work on the main show, and they're in Roddy's corner whenever you see Roddy come in to do a job.

And Roddy, who I just mentioned, comes in to do a job.

And Wardlow, does he still work there?

I don't know what happened.

Remember, even they started trying to give him like a renewed push after the things with the Undisputed Kingdom started like going nowhere.

And then that went nowhere.

and now he's just off TV.

And Adam Cole, who

if Adam Cole comes back, but by the time that he returns again from his injuries, and Britt Baker is a giant babyface who had everybody knows they're a couple, and she's returned from her injuries.

Is the devil,

Adam Cole, going to be a fucking manipulative heel, Professor X in a goddamn wheelchair, you know, sending out mayhem?

Or is he going to be a beloved returning babyface hero?

So that whole thing that they put MJF through was for absolute fucking naught.

And how bad are Adam Cole's injuries for real?

Britt Baker just came back and she had a series of mini-strokes.

No, now, come on now.

Nobody said it was a series.

It was a mini stra.

It was a mini stroke.

Excuse me.

Excuse me.

God damn, you'll have her slobbering in her fucking soup next week over the day.

Well, my point is, she came back.

No, she got better.

She came back.

Adam Cole broke his foot, never returned.

Well, never is a long, long time.

When did he jump off that stage and break his foot?

I've lost track.

What decade was that?

No, come on now.

No, that was like a year ago, right?

I mean, well, people I know have had leg transplants.

And,

you know, but it's, I'm sure that they're working diligently.

But the point being, he's not going to come back as a goddamn heel.

So all of that was for naught.

The only other thing I'll say is it's a two-way street.

MJF could do a job like this, not a job, but could do a promo like this and hit a home run, even if no one's going to see it on Collision.

And hopefully, they do replay it and people see it on YouTube.

But now, you need a babyface who can do the job and do the promo and get people behind him against MJF.

Do you think it's Osprey?

I think it's only Osprey.

Name another one.

You can't.

There you go.

Osprey's the only one is a babyface.

He just left the heel stable.

Well, yeah, yeah.

He resigned.

He resigned and his heel manager wished him the best in his future endeavors.

God damn it.

I'm just, I don't even know.

But that has to be Wimbley because they just had, people were thinking it was going to be

Osprey.

I've called him Ostrich so many times.

The bird man, the bird man, will he beware?

They were thinking it was going to be him against Swerve, and he would win the title at Wembley Stadium.

That's what early Scuttlebutt was from all the smart

sources, right?

But they just had that match, and they can't have it again.

So I would imagine that because of what we are seeing just unfold in front of us, and they're stupid if they don't, put MJF's biggest match and Osprey's biggest match

In Wembley Stadium, Osprey would be MJF and MJF would be Osprey.

What the fuck else are they going to do?

Mitsu Arakawa and Higo Hamaguchi in a tag team match?

Well, you got the AWA, AWA, the AEW world champion, Swerve Strickland.

Adam Page is fired up and ready to go and back in action.

Okay, then let them wrestle each other because who gives a shit?

Name another match that would sell any tickets right now to anybody well they've already sold and I understand that the number has been sitting at about 40,000 for a while now some of them may have buyers remorse at this point but what match is going to instantly move tickets amongst people that ain't already going

that they can put together off of their roster I'm just asking you

there aren't too many big matches you could really think of are there

They have stars.

I mean, Danielson is allegedly going to be retiring at the end of the year.

Moxley's a star.

I'm not a fan of his.

You don't have any matches for anyone that you can think of that are like, wow, that's a stadium show where we need to get some extra people in there.

Well, in that case, it's up to our boy MJF again.

He's going to be hunchbacked with scoliosis from carrying this fucking company and all these deadweight, non-drawing,

sorry sacks of snake feces on his back.

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Did you watch any of the other stuff on Collision?

Well, you know I did, Brian, because we got to talk about it.

Not only did we see the sublime of AEW, the MJF promo, but we also saw the ridiculous.

And this,

this is why.

that they're

where they're at, and this is why they've been where they've been, despite spending now we know literally hundreds of millions of dollars,

and why that is not going to basically substantially change.

It had money in the bank in Toronto, Canada, and the biggest

indoor sports arena there.

Well, it's Skydomes technically is indoor, but they had 20,000 fucking people in Toronto sold out in a major North American city, and they brought out the biggest star of the last 20 years, John Cena, to announce his retirement tour,

featuring stops at the major pay-per-views, including WrestleMania along the way.

That was a big surprise.

People didn't know he was going to be there.

Well, there was a surprise in South Haven as with a South Haven surprise.

A returning

superstar came back to AEW to appear on their collision program from South Haven, Mississippi, opposite Money in the Bank.

Hometown boy.

Hometown boy.

Well, not even a hometown.

He's from Olive Branch.

Not South Haven.

He's from Olive Branch, Mississippi, but it's his home area.

Our old friend dwarf dongsucker,

Marco Stunt, Rippy.

Oh, my God.

They brought him back to wrestle Jungle Jack off

because of their history together when it was Jurassic Express, a boy and his dinosaur and a smaller boy, or whatever their tagline was.

And

this highlights

the differences, the reasons.

WWE gives them John Cena.

AEW gives them dwarf Dongsucker.

And it's not like that this was a

they well, years ago they were just starting up.

There was never an excuse for using this fucking freak show bullshit.

Might as well have had a trained chimpanzee.

But

even in the first year, there was no excuse for it.

And it

gave a negative perception of that company to a lot of people.

A lot of people may forget now

that the biggest audience they ever did for AEW Dynamite was the first show they were on.

First, the very first night, first show they telecast.

And a lot of people tuned in and saw some amateur hour bullshit

and didn't come back.

And/or because this amateur hour bullshit, whether it be Marco Stunt

or Jelly Nutella

or to this day, our little puppy pockets.

Most people that might have sampled this looked at it besides the original audience that knew what they were getting.

They looked at it and they said, What the fuck?

Is this a parody of WWE, or is this

supposed to be some kind of kids' show?

Or is it cover?

They had a legless man on their first pay-per-view in a battle royal.

And

anything that was the indie

darling

or the hot thing in rec centers across America, from Hickory, North Carolina to goddamn Ottumwa, Iowa,

because they were all friends, because how work the same shows because these modern mark promoters fly people in from all over the fucking country to be on their shows

because they have a name on the internet.

That's what they presented.

And as a result, they got the perception with, as we've seen,

they haven't increased the audience, they've decreased it because some of the people that were willing to give

the amateur hour a shot

got bored with it.

And what else can you see done to a human being?

So

you can't

say what you want about even the WWE under Vince, but

98.5%

of the people on the program,

if they don't look like athletes, they look like some kind of celebrities.

And if they don't look like an athlete, Sami Zayn,

that's the gimmick of the guy that's the underdog that doesn't look like a goddamn athlete.

He looks like a piece of shit just like you assholes in the stands.

You can identify, but that's the gimmick.

In AEW, they got fucking 45 people with that gimmick.

It's been, it's certainly not been a low rent in terms of expenditure,

but AEW has had, and this is not a compliment, an indie look,

a low-budget look, a fucking outlaw feel,

an amateur-ish,

parody-ish,

tongue-in-cheek element

to some of this programming since they've been on the air.

And

Marco Stunt was one of the poster boys of that, and they've learned nothing.

As I said, at least it's a benefit it's on because nobody saw it anyway.

But just they've learned nothing.

They've learned nothing.

Comment on this.

I'm getting enraged.

I'll say the same things I said about the previous segment.

This was a nice return to form.

Marco Stunt looked great out there.

You know, this is another one of those things that should have been on dynamite.

If you're going to do it, do it where people are going to see it.

You get some payoff.

It's the only time Jack Perry's ever going to look intimidating, ever.

And it was buried on this show.

And like you said, it's a long-term storyline thing, if you really think about it.

And it was on this show where they knew it was against the pay-per-view.

They knew they were going to get killed.

You know, I don't know what else to say.

It's not surprising.

In the classic days of MJF doing a great promo, it was usually followed by some shitty, embarrassing thing right afterwards.

And this was it.

And

the big benefit was just it didn't make Jack Perry look like a very, very, very skinny, in-shape kid.

And that's what he looks like.

And that's part of the problem.

You look at who are the champions.

Only because he was booked against fucking tiny Tim.

My god, put a fucking crutch under his arm and Bob Cratchit behind him, and he's tiny Tim.

You got to see Jack Perry do some of his power moves, you never get to see that.

You'll never get to see it again either.

So it was a very interesting match,

but it exemplifies a lot of the problems with AEW, not just the general booking principles or lack thereof, or the mindset behind things,

not just Marco's stunt being used,

but Jack Perry, the response to everything with punk, making him this scapegoat.

If you watch the reaction, not just listen to it, but watch it.

When he hit the ring, no one was reacting.

He doesn't have that star quality, and Tony thinks he does.

And it's one thing being a lot of these things and being a baby face who's going to get your ass kicked.

and have to find a way to win.

It's another thing when all of a sudden you're the badass Jack Perry.

Well, yeah, because if you notice, as Jungle Boy, oh, Jungle Boy,

he had the blondish, flowing locks, right?

And the little loincloth thing.

And you could beat him up and he could get sympathy because, you know, you're beating up a young-looking small child.

I don't know.

But now he's got the dark hair and it's pulled back and he's grown the facial scuff and

he still looks like he's 146 pounds

so

as a heel no no

it's just he's play acting like his friends and they none of them can come to grips with the fact that they have a look for a certain thing and that's their ceiling and they ain't going past that yeah like his one big move is he smirks with a beard that's it what else is he doing that's the only thing you can think of it's an acting thing hey at least some of his friends married their beards

so

the point is

that this is

what now see get your mind

get your mind out of there

but but that's the thing is that besides this indie bubble level of fan that wants this preposterous shit

That's why they haven't grown because they had items like this, the Marco stunt or whatever on the program.

I'm sorry if people,

if people think, oh, Cornette just wants AEW to fail and go out of business because he didn't like him and they didn't give him a job.

I need to talk to Stephen P.

New.

I know that you cannot disclose what is told to you when you're under an NDA, but since the NDA has been disclosed, could I sell copies?

Of the NDA I signed with Tony Kahn in 2018, like for charity?

Because it doesn't contain any of the things that he told me.

It just contains language telling me not to tell any of those things.

We got to check on that.

They may want you to black out.

I'm talking about this like it would legitimately happen from their end.

They may want you to black out the LLC name because it's not one that is publicly known, really.

Well, but besides that, we could, you know,

I could understand, we can redact some information, but my opinion has not changed.

I was not against the idea of a second company rising like a phoenix from the ashes and challenging Vince McMahon's dominance in the wrestling landscape.

I was, to say the least, pessimistic and actually outright, oh, horseshit at the thought that Tony Khan was going to book it and that these outlaw morons that he was dealing with were going to be able to fucking operate it.

And my opinion has not changed.

And many of those

roosters have come home to roost.

And other people,

I was only the only one that was honest about it.

Some people probably called bullshit at the beginning, but nobody cared what they said.

Other people didn't call bullshit at the beginning because they wanted to take some of Tony's dad's money.

And then when they finished with that, then they called bullshit.

Just give me a 10-year contract of some gray goose.

I'll say great things about you.

But don't be, none of you people out there, in or out of the business, be grumpy at me because my opinion and my commentary has not changed, and many of the things that I've said have turned out to be valid because Tony can't book and these assholes can't run a goddamn national wrestling company.

And that's just the way, and this is an example of it: putting

their friends who amount to trained chimpanzees, Marco Stunt and Orange Cassidy, on a program that's expected to be competing with the goddamn biggest multi-billion dollar conglomeration of fucking wrestling and fighting and fussing and feuding

that's ever been, and they counter-programmed with shit like that.

There you go.

Well, a nice return from Marco's stunt.

That's why I stayed home.

Did you see any of the other stuff on Collision?

No, I did not.

Oh, come on.

There was a long Claudio match.

I didn't even see who his opponent was.

He was in a mask.

I just fast-forwarded because I'm sick of Claudio.

But this really was a return to form for AEW as a company.

Riho

was on on the show.

Yeah, Riho returned on Collision of all places.

Her name is Riho.

Or as I think Tony Schiavone said it, she's making her debut here on Collision.

Or actually, she's making her collision debut, but she returned and it was her against Lady.

How long has she been gone now?

She came back not long ago and beat some people and then left again and went back and said she was making, what, $400,000 a fucking match or whatever.

Or a year.

No, since then, she did the interview where apparently she said she made $400,000 a year.

And also, she appeared in one of Kenny Omega's video game streams in the background.

Well, here she was going for it.

Lady Frost, who I want to say, I heard she's a second-generation wrestler or she's someone's...

She's someone's kid.

She is the grandson.

No, without a single girl.

She's the grandson.

She's the granddaughter, I believe, of Tony Marino.

The famous Tony Marino, the Batman.

The Batman with two T's.

The Batman, with two T's.

Like that with the exact same costume.

Well,

Riho wrestled Lady Frost, and I had to watch it because, A, it's Riho, and whenever she just pops up for no reason, I'm always entertained at this point.

And Lady Frost ain't bad.

She's not much taller than Riho, but she's kind of built like an athlete.

They said she's a gymnast.

So I'm watching this match.

It got real sloppy at one point.

And then Riho did a dive from the top rope to the floor.

It was almost like she landed arm first.

And yeah, she broke her arm apparently or fractured.

And then it just continued the match.

And she's holding her arm and selling and kicking out of everything still.

She kicked out of a perfect moonsault from Lady Frost.

She dives off the top rope to the floor and breaks her arms.

Was she diving headfirst?

Well, I'm going to open this back up.

I have it here on the computer.

And I mean, was Lady Frost?

Did she lose her in the lights?

Lady Frost was fucking nowhere near her.

She just leaped.

It was a leap of faith, is what you're.

Hold on.

We're not laughing about the.

No, we're not laughing about Rio getting hurt, but you know what?

We predicted Rio getting hurt because how the fuck is Rio not going to get hurt when she's 90 pounds with rocks in her pockets doing shit with goddamn grown adults that she shouldn't be doing.

Hold on, I got the finish where she's gripping her

hand, her wrist.

Let me go back to the dive.

It was right after picture and picture.

Here's the moonsault.

Going back 15 seconds on a clip.

Here's Rio gingerly walking back up the stairs, holding her arm.

You gotta see this.

Here she is.

She's running now.

She's going to the top rope.

Riho is on the top rope.

Lady Frost on the floor.

Rio dives, lands at the feet of Lady Frost on first.

Oh.

was she trying to catch herself or she was off balance?

You know what?

There's no way she would have, she was too far.

I mean, again, I'm not even blaming Lady Frost.

I'm saying Rio shouldn't have jumped until, I don't know if Lady Frost wasn't close enough or not getting closer, but

that was a

getting

closer to your dive.

The injuries from dives and jumps has gone through the roof.

Adam Copeland broke his leg jumping leg first off the cage, on the table, whatever the fuck that was.

You know, he thought if he got his, if he got his feet under him and just kind of leaned over the table, but anyway, that's

okay.

Poor Riho.

Hopefully, she gets well and goes home and gets a job as a clerk or an accountant or

anything that you do that doesn't require diving off shit.

and you know and

but yeah so riho and marco stunt on one side and on this other show they give us john cena what is and then this point the main event was adam page the hangman versus uh jay white the uh channel changer and

wait a minute i thought that adam page is now a heel because he came out and kicked the shit out of poor old jeff jarrett owen heart tournament and then well now jay white's a heel right because he's part of of the gangbang gang.

And they really bloodied up Adam Page, the heel, who comes out there now with the mustache, but you got to see him when he hits the entrance stage.

Now he just makes angry faces.

So he kind of just looks like Dax with long hair

when he gets on the stage.

But that was collision against the pay-per-view.

Unless there was a good reason that MJF thing should have been on dynamite.

And hopefully it will be in some form.

He's a rich kid and he's gone too far, but you know it don't matter anyway.

He can rely on old Shad's money.

He can rely on old Shad's money.

You know, you would have it so good right now if you came back to managing because you've established it where you could just grab the mic and start singing to get your heat.

Hey!

You don't have to do much.

You could just stand in the middle of the ring and sing.

No one's going to get to you.

No, I'm telling you, I'd be hitting those high notes.

And

as a matter of fact, Bobby Eaton used to always request I sing his favorite song.

He'd He'd say, Corny, can you sing Far, Far Away?

That was his favorite song?

Yep.

And so I'd go as far as I could.

And sometimes I couldn't even see him by the time I got finished.

But nevertheless.

Let's get far, far away from collision.

That was AEW collision.

You know what you need to do, Brian?

You need to get in a better state of mind to listen to music.

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You need to cool out, chill out, calm down,

get relief from pain, get relief from stress, get relief from the hurry-scurry society that we live in.

That's what you need.

Can you tell you're hanging on by your fingertips?

I'm okay.

I mean, I'm busy and everything.

I'm not really as stressed as you say.

Rio, I'm watching the finish of this match where somehow they still gave her the win over Lady Frost.

She looks like she's in pain.

Send her to the emergency room.

This is embarrassing.

She could use some help.

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All right.

Well, we're going from all friends to all business.

To no friends at all.

You know, SmackDown, I think you termed it a nothing burger on July the 5th.

Were they looking at this like, well, this is kind of a lame duck show?

We're in Toronto.

We got to do something for these 16 or 17,000 people.

We had a TV.

They sold,

what was it, 45,000 tickets?

Over the course of the weekend for the various WWE activities in Toronto.

Is that the press release I saw?

Something.

I know there was a Sami Zayn comedy show.

Oh, right there.

They turned them away from the fucking Skydome.

But no, they had NXT.

They had.

Well, I think about that.

They had 20,000 for the pay-per-view.

And then they had about 16,000 here for this SmackDown.

There's 36.

And then they had,

say, what, 5,000 or 6,000 for the NXT?

nxt

and then they had 374 for sammy so they had worked out where are they for raw

um

i don't know

maybe they're in quebec city but you said it before it was a nothing burger but usually at least lately it seems like typically for the most part it is the night before pay-per-view that's not wrestlemania

Yes, because they don't need to, and this is a personal appearance in tights at this point.

They can't do any better than the following night sold out, right?

And on Peacock, everybody's going to watch because more on that later.

It's dirt cheap or free or, you know, whatever the case.

So they've just got to show up and

it's like a soap opera now.

Well, you might not remember, but back in the

back in the prehistoric days when there were soap operas on all three of the networks all day long,

it's 30 minutes, five days a week, and it's a drama, but it moved so slowly.

It took people an entire segment to have coffee with each other

because they got it, and they know that the housewives are probably going to miss a couple of those episodes that weeks.

They can't run off and leave the audience.

So, nothing, it's the same thing here.

They're out there doing shit, but nothing actually happens.

If that's a way to phrase it.

And honestly,

at the start, they had the opening

in-ring money in the bank interview with all six of these guys out one at a time.

And Drew is the star of that show.

He's the one they care between Jey Uso and L.A.

Knight.

It was Yeet versus Yeah for a minute there.

Carmelo Hayes, Gable, and Andre and Drew McIntyre.

So

he got got the CM Punk chance, and he's the one that told each one of them off in his own way.

And he asked Jay how he got across the border, which was

pointed.

And then everybody got in a fight.

And the end.

And it was 15 minutes into the show.

So they used the time and let everybody see the celebrities on the roster.

What else can you say?

The fans seem happy.

No matter what we say or how boring things get or slow they get at times, the fans seem happy.

I mean, they keep coming out.

Why go faster than you need to or give more than you have to, I guess, is the modern thing in WWE more than ever before.

Well, and that's true, but it just has never seemed this easy before.

Anyway, the girls got in a fight in the back, and then the Street Profits had a tag team match with Purely Dreary.

And remember, I said 98.5% of the people on the roster either look like an athlete or a celebrity, except for Sami Zayn, because that's his gimmick.

Well, this is the other 1.5%.

What the fuck?

Purely dreary.

Anyway,

35 minutes into the show when that was over with, and then Jade and Bianca fought Indian candy.

And you'll never guess who won.

And you'll never even want to try.

And you'd be right.

And then we were at nine o'clock.

And this was

probably the only thing.

I'm looking at the rest of my notes.

This was the only thing I gave a shit about on the whole show.

Kevin Owens

cut a good promo.

They sent all the baby faces to the ring for the six-man tag.

It's pay-per-view.

And

by the way, have you noticed Cody finally has even got the what do you want to talk about over?

He hung with it, and it works.

Pay-per-view crowd in Bizarro Land, I don't know if that I don't know if that counts as it working.

Well,

it's not met with the crickets it used to be.

But anyway,

he talked and then Orton had a line, and then Owens took over

and he cut the promo.

And this is true.

On the past Monday, his mother was rushed to the the hospital.

And he did a really heartfelt promo about that

he wanted to be there with her, but he wasn't going to miss this because his mother wouldn't have wanted that

because she's always been behind him.

And,

you know, blah, blah, blah.

So it was, and he finished strong, fired up.

And that was a good, I don't know if

that's the kind of thing

when everybody talks about, oh, they ought to have more realism in wrestling and give the guys more chance to do their own material, whatever,

when you can talk like he can and you've got something to say,

yes, you should.

They've taken it to an extreme in both these companies, in the WWE in the past, not letting anybody say anything except what's written, and in AEW, not having anybody with the sense to write anything for people that can't fucking talk.

So, this is in the middle of all of that.

Very good.

Did you listen, have an opportunity to listen to that at all?

I did.

I thought it was really good.

It was an excellent promo, actually, from him.

And it was something to kind of tie him into the main event the next night a little bit more.

And obviously, she was still in the hospital the next night, so he was,

you know, still a sympathetic figure.

And then Bailey wrestled Piper, and all the other girls got involved, and the refrigerator came out and beat up Bailey until Mia Yim came in and saved her bacon.

Did I encapsulate the information contained therein as succinctly as possible?

That's right, bacon, yes.

Bacon.

Nothing spells like bacon except bacon.

So then, for the tag team title, and this is the state of affairs

in the once great tag team division, the home of the Hart Foundation, the British Bulldogs, Demolition, the Rockers, the

Rollers, the Strollers.

The tag team title match is Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Sameface against Grayson Waller and Austin Theory.

And

the story now is Waller is using theory to get ahead.

So hopefully that means that soon we'll get theory away from Waller so I can pay attention to him again.

And the fact that Johnny Sameface can hold a belt in the WWE either means the belt means nothing,

or the incriminating information he had was not on Vince McMahon, but apparently on either Triple H or Ari Emmanuel or whoever else was operating this thing.

Because what the fuck?

This fucking, I'm

even if you like him, wouldn't you be way past bored of him?

I can't just, I mean, I agree with what you're saying.

It seems like he's a Triple H project that Triple H is not going to give up on.

He's one of the last few guys remaining from that era of NXT, right?

And I guess.

And Triple H, for whatever reason, they're not going to give up on him.

Now they've given up on the tag team division.

That's one of the things.

You may not give up on Gargano.

You gave up on your tag team division, not just with this, but with everything.

We have so much happening in WWE.

Where are the strong tag teams?

Where are the tag teams that are over?

Where are the hot tag team matches that steal the show?

It doesn't happen because they don't want it to happen.

But if there's anything that you'd like to see change from the Vince McMahon era to the current era, a focus, a refocus on tag team wrestling and developing good tag teams, believable tag teams, good heel tag teams.

Not.

You said purely deadly are here on this show.

Street Profits have been around for a while and they just feel stale.

And then, this, a makeshift tag team of Walworth and Theory and DIY, which no one, I mean, they were getting no reaction.

What are they doing themselves?

What is has DIY ever been explained if you didn't watch NXT five years ago?

Tommaso Campaign, they missed an opportunity by not putting him with this little fucking boring pip squeak.

And the whole family, what does

Candy LaRue

in the middle of these mostly

fit and tanned and impressive looking women?

She looks like a, she's the make-a-wish kid like Garcia is on the other channel.

What one of these things does not look like any of the others?

Her.

What the fuck?

She's a local girl wrestler.

And so anyway, they won the belts with double submissions.

on Waller and Theory.

And then they finished the program with a pre-taped package of the bloodline with Solo,

basically saying that Roman wasn't man enough to defend their legacy, so I'm the tribal chief now, and I'm going to take the title from Cody.

And if Roman wants it, he can try to take it from me.

And boom is going to go the dynamite.

They're already chanting for Roman Reigns.

And

the amount of people in this company that they're all chanting for is growing exponentially.

So they're literally over here not even trying.

This was the equivalent of a fucking bowl of oatmeal with no sugar.

And the people are scarfing it right down and asking for more.

You know, Roman Reigns can literally come back and in his return promo, whenever he does it after whatever happened, say,

you beat up my wise man, you stole all my shit,

and then you said all these things when I was burying my father.

Oh,

because that's literally when it was happening.

When this,

so I mean, the bloodline can get really personal and it could be really strong.

I mean, this is all intriguing and it's all great.

I will say, though,

you've asked me about Tongaloa,

and I told you, I haven't really watched too much of him.

I saw a highlight video going around of him in New Japan

watching every single thing.

And then he watched the nutshot the next night.

Yes,

let's memorialize him coming up when we talk about it.

But he is the man who on pay-per-view television missed a nutshot on a stationary target.

Well, that was SmackDown.

Speaking of nutshots on a stationary target.

We got Jacob.

We got Jacob, at least, thankfully.

Because remember when I said said there waiter there's four of them and they're in a six-man tag which one's gonna work and which one's not you know what it may have been they said and it sounded like a shoot based on what we know too they said on the pregame show that wwe and even triple h had to work with the canadian government to get jacob fatu into the country yeah

I bet if he wasn't going to be able to get into the country, it would have been Tongaloan.

At least they're covering.

Yeah, and then he could have missed the nut shot as an active participant.

But anyway, before we go to the shots on the nuts, what in the world, Brian, is going on in the various Arcadian Vanguard network programming this week?

Hey, another fine week.

Get caught up on everything on Twitter at Super Podcasts or on Facebook, facebook.com/slash Arcadian Vanguard.

Of course, all that's happening in the world of wrestling, get that news for free from the wrestling news each and every day, thewrestlingnews.com.

or the daily wrestling morning newscast, wherever you find your favorite podcasts, Arcadian Vanguard's The Wrestling News.

Want to make mention of Stick the Wrestling with John McAdam, another fine series of shows looking at 1984, the year the WWF blew up things like Buzz Sawyer showing up and then Buzz Sawyer leaving seemingly right away.

Bulldog Buzz Sawyer, not Mad Dog Buzz Sawyer, the Bulldog, but hear about that and so much more.

It was Bob Brown filing for trademark infringement that doomed that run.

McAdamPod.com or look for Stick the Wrestling with John McAdam, wherever you find your favorite podcast.

And of course, the 605 Super Podcast, the

mothership.

Well, thank you.

Listen to part one of the Scott Cornish tribute, an omnibus, six hours of all of his impressions in the top ten.

The handsome boogeyman, hot dog Enlasto, Impressionist Jim Ross, Sheila the shooter, angry barista Ken Patera, and so much more.

It's a funny, funny look back at someone who we miss.

I can't believe he's not here, but here at today, 605pod.com or for the 605 Super Podcast, wherever you find your favorite podcast, the mothership.

Yeah, yourself.

All right, well, now the time has come.

We got to talk about the money in the bank.

It's as good as money in the bank, Brian.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 19,858 fans is what they're saying.

It was sold out, regardless of what the official number was.

That was the largest arena gate

that they've ever done in the country of Canada.

And they've done a couple of stadiums that have outdrawn it.

And I mean, they know how to put on a fucking show.

Now, I got to be honest, at the top of the thing here, I'm going to say I almost couldn't watch their fucking show that they know how to put on.

What did you watch this thing on?

I watched it on Peacock.

Did the

picture on the cock look like a third-generation VHS tape to you?

No, that's your internet.

Well, my picture on the cock

was rotten

because I ordered the pay-per-view like God intended to be watched on real television with a remote that fast forwards and rewinds and slow-moes.

we spent all this time from the days of general david sarnoff to get to this point where we can have a dvr on our cable box that records things in high def and you can control it

and people want to do away with that for this streaming shit

so i order the pay-per-view

and for once because

And I will expose your business, Brian.

You had a family birthday to go to,

frivolously just paying attention to your family instead of coming and recording with me like

normal people should that care about their goddamn profession.

Actually, I didn't have to go there.

I was the host that was here last month.

Well,

it's even worse.

You were right there.

That's right.

But nevertheless, so I had a day to absorb this thing from Saturday night.

I could record it and watch it on Sunday at my leisure and

skip through the 10-minute in between the matches where they sell us stuff and blah blah blah.

And I go and I sit down to watch the pay-per-view.

And when I recorded the pay-per-view,

I don't know how they managed to do this,

but the

audio and the video were not.

You know, like when the audio and the video is like 30 seconds off and it just, what the fuck?

Yeah, it ruins the experience completely.

Imagine when the audio and the video are five minutes off.

Wait, this is on your DVR?

This is on the DVR of the pay-per-view on the pay-per-view channel.

How the hell did that happen?

I've never heard of that.

That's what I'm at.

The entrances for the first match, the Money in the Bank men's match, I was still hearing America the Beautiful or whatever was being sung.

And it was like that.

I fast-forward through the whole goddamn.

It didn't make, it was completely unwatchable.

So I was like, fuck now.

So Stace finds me the peacock

on the smart TV in the TV room.

I never use the smartness of it.

I like my dumb TV in the TV room.

But then the picture not only looked like dog shit,

but also there's no way with these modern TV remote controls, there's like four buttons on it, and there's not even anything that looks remotely like a fast forward or a rewind.

I can pause it and unpause it.

And I don't know how this shit works anyway.

So I had to sit there and let this thing play

unmolested without skipping anything for three and a half hours.

So my mind wandered a little bit.

And in some of the long shots, I couldn't tell who was in the fucking ring.

I used to get a better picture at 2 o'clock on Saturday morning on Channel 4 from Bloomington, Indiana, trying to watch Dick the Bruiser's TV.

Hey, did you see that clip I tweeted out last week of Dick the Bruiser on a Letterman show, the morning show?

Yes, I did.

I retweeted that and something.

Somebody else had somebody Ed Bruiser on another thing that I retweeted.

Did you watch the Letterman appearance?

Yes, I'd seen it before.

The bit at the end where he tries to apply the stomach claw to you know that's that's why that Letterman named Paul Schaefer the world's most dangerous band, or not Paul Schaefer, but his band the world's most dangerous from the world's most dangerous wrestler because Letterman did the news in Indianapolis.

And that's why Jim Cornett named Gary Capetta the world's most dangerous ring announcer.

Yes.

Yeah.

So anyway, back to Money in the Bank.

And they started with the Money in the Bank men's match, which thankfully, because after the women, why would you want to see any more of this ladder horseshit?

And I will say that Samantha

Irvin, not Irwin,

could she be related to Dr.

Bill Irwin?

No, she's Irvin.

Well, she may be Irvin or not.

She's revving up and ready to go.

She explained the convoluted stipulations well.

She's got a lot of enthusiasm.

But it was

Jey Uso, Uso, Andre, L.A.

Knight, Chad Gable, Carmelo Hayes, and Drew McIntyre in a six-man ladder match, everyone for themselves, to get the fucking briefcase.

And right off the bat, why do they have to have six?

They could have taken Andre and Carmelo out of this and not harmed anything.

You can't,

this is a stunt show.

It's, you can't,

you can do cool things in it,

but it can't be a wrestling match that makes sense, that has any logic, that tells any kind of a story.

It's just

the ladders came into play in the first minute,

and then everybody does tricks, and

it'll be two guys doing their set thing that they've agreed on that they're going to do while the four other ones wait for their cues.

And at three minutes in, the crowd is chanting, we want tables

because the fucking half a dozen ladders ain't enough.

And, you know, in this thing,

Chad Gable and Drew McIntyre looked great, I thought, all the way through.

L.A.

Knight got to beat a few people up.

But I mean, it's just...

You're waiting for different stunts and you have to suspend any type of

not even any disbelief, but just like Drew McIntyre at one point sold out on the floor somewhere for longer than people recover from open heart surgery.

And then he comes back at 100% right when he needs to be.

And same with everybody.

And then finally, at the end of the thing, they figure out

a ridiculously after everybody does everything

to everybody,

then each guy takes a bump on the ladder that is risking life limb in the pursuit of happiness.

So they've got a reason to be out so that the last two guys can do the thing.

And we knew Drew needed to win it, and we hoped he would win it.

And it was a good little finish they did where

Gable had got up there and was hanging from the cable when Uso turned his ladder over.

So he stuck up there and then he dropped, took a hell of a bump and bounced up and got speared.

So he's out.

And And then Uso climbs the ladder and has his hands on the briefcase.

But Drew grabbed one of the ladders and kind of used it like a cue stick and knocked Uso off the top of the ladder.

And then he climbed it and got the case.

So it was a nice finish, but God,

this has become so ridiculous now with the ladder matches, and they're so dangerous.

And it's just,

it's a stunt show.

And that's all you're watching for.

And I just, I'm just,

what'd you think?

Yeah, I mean, it was run in the mill as far as these ladder matches go.

The one later in the show is really the one to write home about and write to other people about too.

It was really the one to complain about.

That's why I'm saving it.

But Drew got the win and it played a part in a bigger story.

It was the right guy.

Yeah.

And I guess for a money in the bank show, it was a fine opener.

I think we are starting to realize that, you know, I've always said

you can't be successful.

Good booking

can sometimes overcome subpar talent more than

the other way around, is what I'm trying to say.

Great talent, great booking.

Well, great talent can

sometimes, but not often, overcome subpar booking, but great booking can sometimes overcome subpar talent.

And I'm not saying that Drew McIntyre is subpar, but the WWE booking right now, everybody that wins should win.

It fits into the thing, into the bigger picture.

That's why they've made these stars.

And some of these same people were there

under the previous administration, and they didn't mean nearly as much as they mean now.

But on, you know, again, on the other side of this war,

you've got some guys that have talent, but they can't overcome the shitty booking.

Yeah, McIntyre's the biggest case.

He went from being the most boring guy in the company to the most intriguing guy there.

Well, and sometimes it's just letting people actually act like adults and

real instead of the scripted dramatic bullshit.

On the other side,

They don't have any scripted shit to work with, and they can't come up with their own most of them.

It's feast or famine, is what it is, Brian.

But anyway, so Drew

got the case, and that was

the start of this event.

Yippee.

Next up was the Intercontinental title, the real one,

not the one that Tony Kahn made up, Braun Breaker against Sami Zayn.

And

I can't remember now.

I didn't think,

Did I think or did I not think they were going to put the belt on Braun when we talked about this earlier?

I think you did, but I am not in any way certain.

Well, nevertheless, with this match and the way they did everything, I'm glad they did what they did.

Because I think they're wanting to establish Braun

as a major player, but they're not going to rush it.

And they don't want a

Rocky Ma Villa-like

kickback or blowback blowback or whatever, like

die brawn die or whatever.

Even though he's a heel instead of a babyface, they don't want people to think he's getting it too soon.

And Sammy is over in Toronto because,

who was it?

Corey Graves said that.

How come anybody's from Canada?

They're a hometown guy.

Canada's a fucking giant country geographically, but they're very loyal.

But the commentary

that you can actually listen to on this program, by the way, they're pushing Braun perfectly.

They're prepared.

They've got producers feeding them statistics.

They sell the talent.

They don't sell mark shit

about what somebody did in an indie show in Japan 10 years ago.

They're selling the talent.

And they're

back, whether it's he hits the ropes at 23 miles an hour or he's fucking this or that or the other thing.

They're selling the fucking talent.

And Sammy's the perfect guy, I think, to work with a guy like Braun because

not only being the underdog that's over, but he sells like a match.

Since he was El Generico,

I've said the fucking guy can work, and boy, can he sell.

And he sells with his whole body.

So he can be

dishragged by Braun Breaker.

And it's not like Braun's being unprofessional, taking most of the match.

That's the fucking point.

And Sammy fights back with fire.

And again, Braun has the heel

attitude, the facial expressions, the body language.

He's seen,

like I said earlier in the program, kind of templates of his dad and his uncle

that he can draw from that.

And he can kind of, he's his own guy, and he can do his own thing, but the genetics are there.

and

he hit the frankensteiner again where he runs up to the top and does the pose and the blah blah blah

and he's already getting the this is awesome chance

from people so

anyway

they had a real good match in that respect and finally braun went for that

spear where he runs all the way around the ring.

Sammy leapfrogged him again like he did the other day on TV, but this time Braun Braun stopped and turned around and stopped Sammy again and did the deal where he clotheslined him over the desk.

And it looked like he tweaked his knee, Braun.

So I hope that's not the case.

But then he again, the strength, he hit the press and the power slam, but he ran into a kick.

And as he staggered up in the corner, Sammy came with that big kick in the corner.

Boom!

Looked a little fucking firm

and surprised him with it.

One, One, two, three.

And so Sammy's beat up and wore out, but he got it.

And Braun's sitting there with that evil fucking look on his face.

They didn't get lost.

He was right there with everything the whole time.

He's working up to,

you know, main roster level.

So

I like what they're doing.

If they didn't put it on him here because they don't want

backlash of too much too soon.

But at this point,

I'm starting to be convinced they've got a halfway decent plan for everybody.

So I'm not going to get too upset.

Yeah, good match.

I was surprised by the finish.

I thought they may belt him here.

Sammy,

in a lot of ways, and I think I kind of said this before, but it keeps hitting me every time I watch these two guys now.

Sammy's like Moxley done right.

The man of the people who just looks kind of slovenly.

Yeah.

But he'll put up a fight.

Like he'll fight to the end.

He's that gimmick done right, Sami Zayn.

And

good match.

What if Sammy went to the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy and came back a grappling master?

You know, I would believe it, maybe a little bit more with him.

Then Moxley, yeah, you got to point out.

He's a better promo.

He could at least tell me more about it.

But good match.

And we'll see where they go with Braun Breaker.

You know, like the Steiner brothers, Steiner's got the world titles from the Freebirds early on, but then they lost them almost right away to Doom.

And then they were always chasing him.

I mean, they got the U.S.

tag belts from you guys, not the world tag belts in the summer of 90.

So let's see where they go with Braun Breaker and how long it takes for him to get there.

Did you see the Sammy promo afterwards?

I'm trying to think.

Sammy.

Probably not.

He did a really, really, really good promo afterwards putting over Braun.

And I'm not going to start quoting it or anything because I'll mess it up, but really, I was hoping you had seen a really, really good promo.

I may have stepped out of the room because this thing was just running in the background in some instances.

All right, the next segment was the surprise segment where they bring somebody back from their past, and it turns out to be the biggest star of modern times.

And they had even key-faved this internally, I guess, because they had,

from what they say on the formats that day for the majority of the crew and everybody, a 15-minute interview with Trish Stratus.

So people were smelling something was up.

Because I don't know if she's ever talked 15 minutes cumulatively, but,

and by the way, the picture I had on Peacock, she's standing in the ring.

It looked like Nicole Bass.

I couldn't fucking see shit.

Is this what we're going to have to put up with when Raw goes to Netflix?

Until you get better internet, yeah.

Well, it's Spectrum.

it's their fault.

That's a free plug for you, Spectrum.

Yes,

and that's all you deserve: free plugs.

But people, if you have any choice, don't get spectrum.

So, anyway,

Trish starts out by introducing my special guest.

She made an awkward allusion to apparently something that happened when she was Cena's mystery partner or vice versa on TV, I guess, 20 years ago.

Did it sound like anybody got it?

I didn't get it.

So I don't know if anyone else did.

Yeah, say she made that awkward illusion.

She introduced John Cena.

He came to the ring.

She handed him the microphone and left.

It was perfect.

And

then, I mean, he gets a big response because he's a big star and because it was a surprise.

But then

I think he hooked him.

He announced his retirement right away.

And then he went into more detail, but I think he kind of hooked him there.

Oh, shit, this is serious.

Instead of beating around the bush about it, and then he went into his promo and he put the Canadian fans over big.

And it is true.

Even when

WWE domestically has been soft,

Canada, especially Toronto,

has always, before the big

turnaround in the 90s, we were still doing Raws in the Skydome

in Toronto because they couldn't get to people in

the smaller building.

So he put them over,

and he says he's going to be there when Raw goes to Netflix,

which I bet probably was maybe a deal sweetener.

But the 2025 Rumble is going to be his last one, the 2025 Elimination Chamber, which we know sets up WrestleMania, and the 2025 WrestleMania.

But I mean,

he does a great fucking babyface promo.

He thanked the people for their support.

They chanted thank you, Cena.

He got emotional and thanked them again.

And apparently,

the tagline of his retirement,

not even tour, but his final dates is going to be the last time is now.

Yeah, the tagline is this Hollywood thing is really working out.

Well, that too, also.

A P.S.

Hollywood is beckoning.

But I think they kind of,

he may have had to jump in and hook him at the start because I heard afterwards they had the

last time is now t-shirts on sale in Toronto at the building before his promo.

So they may have had a slight clue.

But, you know, at least he's not going to,

he's not going to stick around until he's fucking ancient.

And he does have other options and he wants to remain somewhat special in people's memories.

So if,

and I think this is going to be, that's going to be 25 years.

So

why not?

You know, we've seen it in baseball a few times.

It happened a few years ago with Derek Jeter.

Yankee great when he retired, he announced it before the season.

So every time he went to a town, it was the last time he was ever coming to that town.

So even if you never cared before, you may care now.

And WWE, you know, you said it'll be his last WrestleMania.

He said there in the press conference he's retiring at the end of 2025, not at the end of WrestleMania.

So that means that's one year on top of everything with the bloodline, anything with CM Punk or Drew McIntyre, anything with anyone getting elevated or signed or returning from injury or whatever it may be.

Beyond all of that, the rock returning, they're going to have one year of booking the last time John Cena comes to a town in multiple towns.

They're on fire now.

They may, they may, I mean, it's just, it's, it's extraordinary.

No one's done that because, again, no one really retires, so you got to be careful.

Terry Funk announced multiple retirements.

I went to at least one of them.

Yeah.

But if he's really going to retire, and I believe him,

a tour, a retirement tour, is a brilliant thing for them them to do.

And even if it's only,

you know, what, six or eight of the pay-per-views at this level of the game, that's tens of millions of dollars potentially on the table.

And the TV ratings through the fucking roof.

See, with AEW, everything which Sting was about the pay-per-view, even though they would kind of say it on the way there, this is his last time he'll be here in Greenville or whatever it may be.

In advance, it really wasn't a big deal.

It was all about the pay-per-view.

Here, you have one year,

every pay-per-view he appears at, whatever TVs he appears at, anything untelevised he may appear at.

Who knows?

Maybe he has that on his bucket list.

One more surprise house show appearance.

That's a lot of tickets.

That's a lot of tickets to sell.

And where are they going internationally next year?

Because then they could say, well, I'm just saying it.

The last time ever in Germany.

The last time ever in wherever.

Goddamn, Saudi Arabia.

You think they're going to call up Prince Muhammad Ali Hassan or whatever his fucking name is and go, hey, for an extra 25 million, we could get you Sina the month before he has his last match.

Whatever.

It's just, it's amazing.

Brilliant move.

Now, I will say this, and everyone knows he's a genuinely nice guy.

The make-a-wish stuff he has done that's not really publicized, even though a lot of it is.

People know he does it.

You don't know about specific examples.

Extraordinarily nice guy.

But he speaks like a pandering motivational poster.

It's just like nothing is really said.

I mean, very much like Derek Jeter in that way, too.

Nothing is said.

During the press conference afterwards, I asked him about Vince McMahon, and he just wouldn't say a thing.

Go listen to his previous things.

He's focused on the future, like Mark McGuire.

And he was asked about steroids.

He's focused on the future.

And then the next question, he goes,

I want to answer all your questions.

I'm open to anything.

Ask me anything.

The guy just did.

You wouldn't answer it.

But this is going to be big.

They got him now.

Like you said, the Rumble, Money in the Bank, and WrestleMania.

That's just the lead up to the biggest.

No, Elimination Chamber.

Elimination Chamber and WrestleMania.

That's the biggest buildup of the year, the run from the Rumble to Mania.

You can have seen it in the mix there.

Well, but now SummerSlam is a stadium and two nights.

So next year, I'm sure it will be too.

So that's

bigger now than WrestleMania used to be.

And there's matches to be had.

You know, think about specific matches.

They asked Punk about it during the press conference.

There's a match.

Punk versus Cena.

A big history.

One more match would be a big deal.

Punk versus Randy Orton.

Maybe the same thing.

I mean, there's lots of different things.

By the way, I said all those things they're doing right now to heat things up.

Lesnar.

Lesnar's Roman Reigns.

I mean, there's no guy's just not in the mix, and things are exploding.

And now they're going to have a retirement tour with Cena.

And every show they do, they announce this the biggest gate of all time in any way,

any building with concrete.

That's the biggest gate.

Every single show.

The most people that have ever breathed air in a specific location, ladies and gentlemen.

We've just done that.

They're going for the noise record.

That's why they got that thing on the screen, you know?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Like a fucking WHO concert.

I guess.

So, again, ladies and gentlemen, John Cena about to retire.

He's not going to be around very long.

But, Brian, I have it on good authority that you may not be able to see him,

but you can still hear him.

You want to know how?

Well, you know, that album's about to be 20 years old, but how?

Well, I'll tell you how because you can plug in your Raycon everyday wireless earbuds and you can listen to the best of John Cena all day long and all night long.

All night long, stay a little longer, all day long.

You can do it because the Raycon everyday wireless earbuds, they not only sound like real life, is this real life?

They sound like it, but also they've got the 32-hour battery life now on these new upgraded models.

And so you could actually play them longer than a day is long.

Longer than a day is long.

Only time will tell if they'll stand the test of time.

It's a good one, Ringo.

Longer than a day is long.

And then

photograph, I still, but nevertheless,

all I want is a no, I'm the photograph.

What are you doing?

Photograph was Def Leopard or was that phonograph?

I was making a reference to your faux pod.

I'm thinking about Ringo.

All I've got, he had a song about a photograph, too.

I don't know.

Photograph is deaf leopard.

That's like their first big hit.

All I've got is a photograph, not photo.

Yellow submarine.

We all live in one, but anyway, the everyday wireless earbuds, folks, they've also got the quick charge function, the ergonomic design to fit that wide range of ears.

As a matter of fact, even if you've got ear lobes like an elephant, an African one, not the Indian one, have the tiny little shell-like ears.

They'll fit you.

And the awareness mode, the active noise cancellation, the customizable sound styles, and especially important for our audience, they are sweat resistant.

And as a matter of fact, you know, you can use these things when you put these in your ears and you're sweating like a whore in church out there doing labor in the middle of the summer or whatever, you won't get an ear infection because all that sweat can't run down your ear canal and then coagulate with your ear wax and cause an infection.

It's effectively performing a blocking mechanism.

So I guess if somebody was to come up beside you and spit the side of your head, it would keep the spit from going down your ear canal also.

So these things are a good way to avoid the spread of communicable diseases.

As a matter of fact, put them in some of your other orifices and

it provides a blocking.

I think you go too far.

I pause for a second and then you go further.

No, do not put it anywhere other than your ears where they will work better than anything else will work in your ear to play you Oral Delight.

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Enjoy your ears.

That is their new slogan.

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Yes, and Oral Roberts.

You know,

wasn't it ironic that a guy that was against all the fun was named Oral?

But anyway, folks, right now, the Raycon folks, they're fine people over there without the

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They don't care what your personal proclivities are.

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That's why they offer a 30-day happiness guarantee.

So that means you get these Raycon everyday earbuds, and for 30 days, you're going to be happier than a pig in poop.

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Buy raycon.com slash JCE, 15% off and free shipping.

And stick the, again, buy some for your friends, some for people on the street.

I have it on good authority that they get good feedback when you just walk up and just stick a pair of these in people's ears and turn them on, and the people will be surprised at how good they can hear.

Again, we've gone through this in the past.

I can't believe we have to do it again here at the end of the spot.

Do not ambush anyone with Raycons other than in a gift presenting fashion.

Well, yes.

In a package that is sealed with maybe a bow.

Well, no, but now

if you're trying to surprise somebody, no, a surprise is the best kind of a gift.

So you just want to walk up behind somebody they don't know you're there and stick a couple of these in their ears while they're turned on to like iron butterfly.

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Wouldn't you hear them coming?

Wouldn't you hear them coming?

Before they got into your ear?

That's what she said.

Wouldn't you hear them coming?

I don't know what kind of iron butterfly you're listening to, but I don't think they made those kind of noises.

Ladies and gentlemen, buy Raycon for yourself or in a gift presenting fashion.

Or someone you love.

And you want to make them come.

Present a sealed package and you will come to Oral Delight with Raycon.

What's that promo code, Jim?

JCE.

Well, now, Brian, we've come to the time where we're talking about a former 16-time world champion.

Now we're talking about a

one-time world champion in Damian Priest defending that

recently inaugurated title against Seth Franklin Rollins.

Haven't we seen this before?

Seems like a lot.

You know, sometimes you get that feeling for something you haven't seen before, and that's when it's really scary.

You know, Triple H in the press conference afterwards really put over Damian Priest and says he's really, you know, earned it.

He's really been a great world champion.

To me, it's not, he's not there yet.

And watching him walk to the ring with the belt, I don't know.

It's just,

you know, we'll see where they're going, but he still doesn't feel like a world champion to me.

We've wanted him to be there.

We saw that he might be there

someday, and

it ain't,

I don't,

I don't know.

There's some guy, is it the minions that he's got that cluttering him up?

And now he's told all of them to stay out of his business.

And Finn's like, oh, whatever you say, boss, you know, there's going to be trouble, but whatever.

See, that's part of the problem.

You've seen him a little bit fire up but other than that you see him come down

yeah he he's not a very stern disciplinarian for this band of merry pranksters yeah there's so many friendly conversations backstage and then you know he comes to the ring he's just your friendly neighborhood damian priest You know, we've seen him.

He kind of rolled his eyes and

held his nose and bore up under our true silliness, which not like, can you,

can you see Stone Cold thinking a guy was cute and putting up?

No, it just,

I don't know, but then also the matches.

Well, there's a couple of things here.

And I don't know what was going on with one of them, but they,

the way they had to work this, they teased from the start

that McIntyre was going to cash in on Priest like Priest did to McIntyre.

And they say Seth and Priest are the only two men to ever cash in the money in the bank at WrestleMania.

But they opened at 100 miles an hour in such a hurry, it was like they were just doing stuff

to do it.

And then

it would be the pattern where they'd do a lot of quick shit and then they just stop everything and like expect Drew or look for Drew or call for Drew.

Like one time Seth started calling, Drew, come on out here.

And then he did three dives in a row.

So, and then,

you know, at one point, I kind of zoned out because they're going so quick and it's just doing stuff.

But then Seth hits the stomp and some kind of shit and gets a two count

on Priest and then stopped and started daring him to get up.

Get up, get up forever.

It was like, I was wondering if Priest was going to get up.

Like, is he hurt?

And then, as soon as he gets up, he just gives Seth the razor's edge.

And, you know, just

in wrestling school, they used to call it zero to hero,

you know, instantly.

And then it slowed down.

And then and then the superplex spot.

Do you remember what I'm talking about?

The three count before the finish?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, look, I was going to say there was more than one timing issue in the match, and the biggest one was the one with the referee.

Well, it wasn't really his fault

because,

and first of all, the thing where they do they do a great superplex but then Seth is one of these people that has to do and that you used to see it on the indies I yelled at a couple guys in ring of honor I think for doing it

they'll do a superplex and then hold on to the guy

and then pick him up and give him the falcon arrow the fucking arrow

And then to make it even worse to kill the superplex,

the guy will block the fucking arrow and give the own his own fucking arrow.

And what the fuck do you just do the superplex for?

It's so stupid.

But they did that here

where

Seth did the superplex and then tried to do the thing and priest blocked it and then did said

whatever the fuck.

But

Seth ends up falcon arrowing him

and covered him, and it was a three count

because he didn't kick out.

Maybe he really was selling the superplex.

And the referee counted three.

He had to.

And everyone saw it.

And then they continued on, and the crowd was kind of confused.

But then here came Drew McIntyre.

They turned the house lights on, too, didn't they?

Oh, yes, that was one of the things that apparently the lighting guy was going by his eyes instead of his fucking format.

Instead of a well, no, instead of his IFB.

You know, they're going to cue the lights.

Somebody's going to say that.

Uh, and they turned the lights on.

So people really thought that was it.

But, and, and to be, I say,

I think the referee held up and did not count to three, he just sweeped it at 2.9,

but it was a three because nobody moved and they turned the lights on.

So then people are.

So you say it's not the referee's fault?

Is it Damian Priest's fault?

Well, yes, he didn't kick out

and the referee

see you know you always hear they say the tell the referee call it like a shoot and under normal circumstances but in the goddamn

with the import

of this match the fact that

neither one of these motherfuckers was supposed to win

I can understand why he held up because, you know, it would have fucked everything up.

But did Damian Priest have the wind knocked out of him?

Did he not hear the first count and think it was still two?

And that's what I can't figure out.

But they,

again, they destroy the superplex that is the biggest bump to give somebody else another pissy little bump because it's fancy.

And then it

fucked up anyway.

And then here came Drew.

And now we got something.

He cashes in.

It's a triple threat match.

And he DDT's Rollins.

And then he kicks fucking Priest.

And then all of a sudden, here comes CM Punk.

And not involved in the match, but there's no disqualification.

In this case, not lazy booking.

At least it worked for him for once.

Punk, they go to the floor.

And he wears him out with a fucking chair.

And he chokes him with a camera cable

and hits him with a chair again and the crowd goes batshit

and then he rolls him in the ring and gets the title belt and whacks McIntyre over the head with it

and then sits on the fucking announce desk holding the belt while Priest gets up and chokeslams McIntyre boom one two three

that was perfect because again

Priest isn't happy because

he told people to stay out of his business and now it's somebody else.

Drew's laying there out cold.

You just know he's going to have to do something about that.

Seth doesn't like punk to begin with

and certainly didn't appreciate this goddamn

intervention here.

And Punk's sitting there like he just had a big old hot box of Mindy's muffins.

And then Seth even said, Seth is a baby face, but he starts to go after him and the referees stop him and the blah, blah.

Hey, he caught Seth.

He cost Seth the belt here, too, if you think about it.

Yes, yes, that's what I'm saying.

Yeah.

They set up 18 matches here.

And again, Drew McIntyre, this was,

it's looking like SummerSlam may be a more sure thing now because they wouldn't be heating this thing up like this every week if they weren't pretty sure they could be selling this soon.

so

no wonder they got two nights at a stadium.

Pretty soon they're going to need goddamn three nights in

where's a bigger place than a stadium?

That is a good question.

Three nights in the Grand Canyon.

All right, I guess.

This could be their version of Sturgis, right?

When WCW used to do the hog wild bike rally.

I don't think WWE would do it unless they could set up chairs and

sell the rights to sit in them.

Well, no, that's what I'm thinking.

They fucking buy the Grand Canyon.

All right.

And they start having their events there where

they could hang people on the side of the canyon and get some Sherpas

to come in there and fucking navigate to people.

It'll be visually stunning.

Anyway,

were you finished talking about Drew and Seth and Punk?

I don't even know if I said anything yet.

Did you say anything?

Would you like to say something?

You know, the thing at the end, everything at the end, all the things at the end were so hot that it almost made you forget about the referee thing.

Let's keep going with the referee thing.

The fucking three count that wasn't.

Yes.

And at least it happened right after that, so it took their mind off of it completely.

They didn't have time to get confused.

Too bad.

You know, the stuff with the bloodline is so intriguing.

But to me, feud of the year, the feud I'm most into is CM Punk and Drew McIntyre.

And both guys have been so good in this.

I don't know if you saw any of the stuff after the show where McIntyre went nuts on the post-show.

I'm sure we'll catch up with him.

Him and Adam Pierce got physical, and now he's been suspended in K-Fabe because of his behavior.

So we'll probably see clips on Raw before we're recording right now.

Well, Raw is after we are recording.

Let me rephrase that.

And then Punk was at the press conference.

Wait a minute.

What day is this?

Raw, it isn't too far from Raw.

We never get a chance to, we talk and then we watch, but go ahead.

But I thought everything there was great.

And again, you still tease everything with Punk and Rollins.

They're really good now at teasing long-term stuff and having it pay off.

So we're going to get Punk and Rollins at some point.

And Drew and Punk don't even have to wrestle

until the match.

Let them do shit to build it up.

They've now established these guys hate each other so much that they keep doing these things and they're all believable.

It's never like I ran over his dog or I showed up at his house and held his wife hostage.

Like any of these things we've seen.

Does either one of them have a baby that could be terrorized?

Let's save that for AEW.

That's kind of their thing.

They may have a trademark or a copyright or something on that.

But

great finish to a good match that completely...

If this thing hadn't happened right away.

The three count thing could have really poisoned everything.

It was about to go south because it hadn't been that far north to begin with, but they got through with it.

And Punk and McIntyre, though, right?

Feud of the year.

What feud has been better than that?

And because it's two individuals.

With the Bloodline thing, it's an ongoing deal.

You spread the credit around a lot of babyfaces.

This is two guys focused on each other.

And McIntyre, he's been just a revelation.

Like you said, he has legitimate reason to be pissed off, but you still don't like him because of everything he's doing.

It's the way he reacts to it.

Yeah.

You know, it determines whether you like him or not.

This is perfect.

But then, Brian, we went from the sublime again to the ridiculous.

Or as Corey Macklin would say, as ridiculous.

I mentioned that because of the

streaming on the cock,

I couldn't figure out how to fast forward this shit with any,

I couldn't figure out how at all on this television, much less with any accuracy.

And the picture was so shits, I didn't want to monkey with it too bad.

It might turn into a kinescope next.

So I just let the thing play out in real time.

And so it was on the screen.

I was listening to it as the next match came up was the Women's Money in the Bank ladder match.

And surprise, surprise, ladies and gentlemen,

this is not not something that I was in favor of.

And

see some of my comments about the men's ladder money in the bank match, six-way extravaganza.

It's not,

they have gotten completely away from the point of a wrestling match to the

extent that the thing that these things have to do with wrestling is they're held in a wrestling ring and wrestlers are performing them.

And I want to say at the outset, I understand what the young ladies are trying to do.

They know that they're now more than ever in this company where they have the potential to make untold amounts of money, but they're also

deep, deep.

They have a deep talent roster with all these superstars and the guys

are, you know, main event fucking

level up and down on these premium live events, events, and they've got to do something to stand out and try to get over.

And many of them are inexperienced in terms of being on the main roster of blah, blah, blah.

So

they're trying to get by.

Oh, watch what I can do, ma.

And that's generally when the kid winds up taking a trip to the emergency room.

Watch this, Ma.

But they're trying to get over.

I don't blame them.

They're being allowed to do it.

They're being booked in something like this, and then it's being tolerated.

But it's good, not good for the, it's good for the fans that want to watch

people do stunts.

And maybe,

maybe sometime they should do

a championship ladder stunting on pay-per-view.

And you could have male and female division.

And just let everybody do stunts off of ladders.

And don't even worry about ringing the bell and starting a match or what.

Just watch this shit.

And that would be, but it's not good for the business because you not only have the bumps in this match were so ridiculous

that humans shouldn't live, much less 150 or 130 pound girls or whatever the weight of the girls were.

And because they were trying to outdo the guys.

But it's bad for the business and it's also bad for them

because somebody is going to break their fucking neck or their back.

And it's not necessary.

The people were like, wow, bang Kapow

Zowie right there.

But in six months or three months or six weeks,

when they've watched another fucking 40 hours of television and two or three more pay-per-views with people taking bumps off of shit.

What the fuck?

They're going to have the effect of this when they're 35, 40, 45, whatever.

If somebody doesn't get carted out now, and I guarantee you, Brian,

if I'm lying, I'm flying, and my feet ain't left the ground,

somebody,

male or female, could take one of these goddamn suplexes off the ladder onto another ladder, and paralyze themselves.

And if it didn't look like a cool bump visually, people would not even really pop on it because they've seen so many.

It's numbed people, the people in the stands, that this shit actually hurts and is very,

very high risk because the furniture can't work with you.

And they think because everybody does it and lives and gets up and walks away and does more of it,

that it's all just bullshit.

But

so they

numb people

to just seeing this and think, okay, there's a trick to it.

Well, there's a trick

to evil.

Can evil jump in the fucking

fountain at Caesar's palace, but the trick didn't work right.

And that's

so the fans just accept these bumps now

and they go, ooh, but they have no idea

anymore because they've seen so many of them,

what they feel like or how dangerous they might be.

And they're going to

somebody going to get hurt.

And I don't remember who won.

I don't care

because it's ridiculous.

Is that an unfair commentary at this point

i don't know it's not unfair for you because you're consistent

so i can't say that

i enjoyed it but i enjoyed it because

no one really got hurt and i got to enjoy everyone going right to the brink of getting hurt because

some of this stuff looked dangerous if it was an aw someone would have died if this match was there with their women's division like this

I enjoyed it.

Now that you say you forgot who won, so did I, because I can't remember who was in it.

See?

Wataya Valkyrie.

No, it was Tiffany.

It was Tiffany.

Oh, yeah, Tiffany won.

Yeah, no, no.

That was nice.

And then

Lyric Valedictorian almost got killed.

That's who I'm thinking of.

Lyra Valkyrie.

She was great in this in terms of like almost dying, but not dying.

And then Carmella.

Is it Carmella?

No, not Carmella.

No, that's Hayes.

He was in the men's division.

No, that's not even who I'm thinking about either.

Who's the name of the

girl?

Chelsea Green.

That's her name.

Chelsea Green, who was scared of heights.

But it was her hometown, too.

And I thought she was very entertaining in this match.

I enjoyed this match, although I remember half of the participants' names.

No one died, so we could all enjoy it.

But

your points about it are not unfair.

And again, you've been consistent on these things, so that has to be said.

Well, it just

there's a limit to human endurance.

They can't make soft ladders or you wouldn't be able to climb them.

It's just gotten out of hand and ridiculous.

And,

you know, I blame the guys 20 years ago that

had to start this path that led to these fans that were fans of theirs getting in the business, but not losing the markish part of their personalities.

And the companies who have have tolerated it for the sake of, oh, well,

you know, we'll fucking sell more tickets if these guys break their necks and cave their fucking faces in.

But and now

having women do, what's next?

The kids' division?

Ladder matches for the 10 to 12-year-olds.

Let them fucking fracture their spines.

Hey, because you know, you've got children.

Their bones are softer when they're young, right?

That is correct, yeah.

So if they break a few, they'll form back.

They're not brittle like me.

I'd break into dust now.

But you can break.

Let's start breaking the kids' bones.

I'm pretty sure this would violate all sorts of laws and child labor laws and OSHA and

CPAC.

Well, but they'd be independent contractors.

Right.

But they wouldn't have the ability to sign off.

The parents wouldn't.

And I think the parents would be in trouble if they were signing off for their children to participate in Money in the Bank ladder matches.

If you're 29 years old and the person you are an independent contractor for says, I'd like this motherfucker to suplex you off the top of the ladder through a table as the finish of your independent contracting,

but you got paralyzed.

I wonder what would happen.

But that's the thing.

Are they being told, do this spot?

Are they saying, hey, we have the idea for a spot or we want to do this spot?

We want to show we could do this spot.

Well,

one way or another, the office is approving it.

But I mean, I don't think anybody's going out there specifically saying, okay, we want you to take the crotch-locked leg strangle off the top of the ladder, but they're saying we want you to get knocked off the ladder through something.

That can be a vague,

but still specific request.

And you know what else?

Eo Skye was in this, and Eo Sky is pretty awesome, I have to say.

Good lord.

Good lord, she's good.

Whenever you've given her a chance, she's the one that you end up liking her matches every time.

Well, anyway, so so Tiffy won.

Tiffany.

Tiffany.

And then Tiffany and Trish, Trish and Tiffy

did some shit backstage in

the break-in between the matches with, I would say, some of the phoniest acting that I've yet to witness anywhere broadcast past somebody's home movies.

But that's just me.

That match will be both ends of the 18- to 49-year-old demo.

Well, they're coming at us from both ends, Brian.

We got to be careful.

But anyway, now we got to the main event of the evening.

The six-man tag team match, the bloodline versus the

sort of team, WWE, the big three babyfaces there, Kevin Owens, Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes.

And we've been waiting to see this thing.

It's going to explode, right?

Hey, one day down the road.

Saying it now, down the road, when Randy Orton turns on Cody, it's going to be big oh

and see that's another one they got yeah we didn't think of that one earlier and they can all and cody and the rock

they've got cody and rock they've got cody and orton they got cody and gunther they've got it's it's it on and on yeah the matches don't stop until the break of dawn

anyway

So did you notice some of the announcing, some of the commentary at the start of the six-man tag when the heels made their entrance and came out first and et cetera?

Did you hear what they were saying?

I heard some of it.

You alluded to it earlier in our program about the strings they had to pull to get

Jacob Fatu into Canada.

Michael Cole said the WWE had to pull strings to get this dangerous man into Canada.

And Corey Graves said he has no morality.

He's a menace who ought to be locked up.

Did I book this?

Did I send them announcer notes?

This seems familiar.

It may be on the YouTube channel.

Well, I'm sure they are, but still,

I'm not crowing about this because I was a genius and thought of this.

I'm mentioning this because

it's fucking obvious.

It's wrestling.

Again,

they're getting the talent over.

The announcers are telling a story to get the talent themselves over, not a mark in his basement telling other marks that they used to play video games together in fucking Sapporo.

And that's it.

And then also, did you see what he was announced at?

Size-wise?

6'2 ⁇ .

Yes, and the weight?

I don't remember the weight.

275.

Now, the problem is what he was in with Randy Orton,

if you really paid too much close attention, which a lot of people don't, then that means Orton was like 6'6 and fucking 310.

But remember, I told you Jacob, he plays bigger than he is.

He seems bigger.

You can say, I've stood next to him.

I bet you he's 5'10.

But he seems like he's six feet tall.

And at the time I was working with him, he probably was

280, 290, something like that.

But he's slimmed down for this because he needed to to show his athleticism.

But that doesn't mean they have to tell the truth.

That's what I've been saying all along.

They've given this guy this badass

entrance at his screen and his debut, and he's laying waste to everybody.

And he's allowed to do his shit.

And they're

talking about his criminal background and how dangerous he is, the good parts of doing that to get him over.

And

they're making him seem bigger physically than he is.

That's how you get somebody.

And his first WWE match is a main event on pay-per-view.

But that's how you get people over, for fuck's sake.

So

this was not revolutionary on my part.

It just makes sense.

That's why so few people do it these days.

And I mean, from the start, this thing, this was,

this was not the Free Birds and Yvonne Erickson Dallas on the 4th of July.

It was not until the end, an exceptionally exciting six-man tag team match, but

everything that needed to be done for business was done, and it was back and forth, and it was very professionally executed, but it wasn't goddamn, you know,

the greatest match in the history of wrestling, but it didn't need to be because they were there for it and it sold out the building and the people were loving what was going on.

They're chanting, we want Roman.

They're chanting, fuck you, Solo.

I noticed that

they pretty much started with Tomatonga and all the babyfaces just kicked the shit out of him

because they can't kick the shit out of Solo.

he's the heat, and they can't kick the shit out of Jacob because he's the enforcer.

So,

and apparently, they don't want Tonga Loa in the fucking ring.

Yeah, we'll get to that.

So, it looks like Tomatonga is designated kick the shit out of guy.

But then they did simple things, and Jacob didn't do everything in his repertoire.

There's still a bunch more to go, and that's great.

But against Randy Orton, Orton gives him that draping ddt

and gets up and starts to turn around for the fucking

setup for the rko and jacob pops up

and doesn't sell it and fucking simoan drops him and super kicks him

that's again that's all you need all you need to do from a guy orton's stature no sell one of his moves and fucking drop him he didn't have to fucking then take him out put him through a table gets a point across.

And Corey Graves had a great line

about Jacob Fatu.

He said a criminal record was almost a job requirement in ECW, and Paul Heyman is scared of Jacob Fatu.

And so, you know, then they

got a lot of heat on Owens.

I think maybe too much.

The crowd got, I think, a bit

testy with seeing so much of it.

He fired up to keep them going.

But, you know, that was the thing is that

I think besides using too many headbutts, Jacob Fatu was great.

They've got Solo positioned as the guy that's got all the heat because he's the usurper of Roman Reigns' reign,

to make a little pun there.

And Tama is the fall guy in this thing, probably.

I'll Tongaloa eventually.

And they didn't need to do much.

They kept it moving

Cody did you know all of his shit and finally

Cody backdropped Jacob Fatu over the rail into the goddamn orchestra pit

and but then Solo speared Cody got a two count and that's when they wiped out the referee and Cody hit the crossroads but there was no referee So then Owen splashes Solo off the top rope and Orton hits an RKO on Solo, but there are no referee.

So Cody clears the desk off, and they go to power bomb him, and that's when Jacob saves it.

And Owens

manages to splash Jacob through the table, which

sidelines him for a minute.

Owens goes to pile drive

Tama in the middle of the ring, and that's where Tonga Loa came from behind to interfere.

And

on a stationary target with an ass as wide as Owens is, he missed his nuts.

He hit him, but he didn't hit him.

He did the between the legs arm motion, but he didn't actually hit him.

And Owens never knew he was there.

And he started picking the guy up for the deal, and he had to hit him again.

And it's like, ah.

And then Orton

came out with two RKOs, but Solo spiked Orton, and Cody hit Solo with two of the crossroads, but Jacob ran up to the top rope and flipped off and

dove or body blocked Cody and hit the implant DDT

and held Cody for

Solo's spike and then threw the referee in and he counted one, two, three, and Solo beat Cody.

But Jacob did all this damage.

He saves Solo from Cody,

lays Cody out, holds him for the fucking spike, and then rolls a referee back in.

So they are obviously

highly optimistic about what Jacob's going to be doing, and I don't blame them.

Your thoughts on the swing and a miss on the ball?

Yeah, how do you fuck that up?

And then I saw, I told you before, I saw a highlight reel going around.

It's on, I think, the cult of cornet facebook group page of just basic things

various basic things in new japan that were like that like how did he miss that how did he end up like that

like why did he move like

it it it's you know it's you can't blame footwork because he was on his knees

I don't know why.

He just, he can't fucking hit the target on his knees.

Yeah, I I don't, I don't know.

It was really weird.

I've never seen anyone botch shots of the balls before.

And I mean, obviously, you're not supposed to hit the person, you know, with any degree of force in the balls, but there is

a variety of things you can do to let them know that you are there.

And he did none of them.

It was like the...

Is this why he's the infamous Tongaloa?

Well, he is now.

Because he has all these infamous incidents.

You know, like Jacob Fatu's criminal record, Tongaloa keeps having infamous botch incidents.

Should they make this part of his gimmick now?

Like, he is the one guy who can't shoot straight on the fucking team.

No, if this was AEW, I'm sure they would exploit that to the fullest.

But I have a feeling he may be wearing a suit a lot more often in the future now that there's

other folks that can handle the work in the ring.

Maybe that's what pushed him over the edge to get Jacob.

They were like, oh, shit, you know,

we better rethink this anyway.

No, I think that, you know, what the fact that he's in the shape he's in tells me this has been a long-term thing.

Remember, his name was on the family chart, the family tree, when The Rock had that press conference before WrestleMania, and he's in great shape.

The best thing.

Well, I mean, everybody's name was on the chart.

There are people who are goddamn

not even in wrestling that's name was on the chart.

So they didn't all get hired

unless

they something

or did they,

and then I told the TKO board of directors my sister-in-law would make an excellent marketing rep.

But anyway, so that was the excitement.

A solo has beaten Cody now

at NWA champion booking back to the 1950s, 1960s.

He's got a pinfall and a tag or six-man over the singles champion.

That's going to heat that situation up.

Cody's got all kinds of challengers for big matches on the horizon.

No one kicks out of the spike.

No.

And

nobody nips up after the Randy Orton DDT, which I was exceptionally pleased that Randy did that for Jacob Fatu.

It's Road Warrior Hawk in Memphis.

Yes, well, Lawler told him to do it.

He said, just pop right back up.

He didn't know it was going to become a thing around the world.

That he would never stop that.

He would always not sell a pile driver from that point forward.

Lawler is like, I've got this fucking, he's been wrestling for three months and he's fucking stronger than a goddamn

fucking Ford truck.

And I've got to get something out of this.

So let's see if I can get something without actually having to have him hit me.

But anyway, Jacob Fatu comes out a bigger star.

There's heat on all kinds of these matches.

It didn't hurt the babyfaces to lose, on and on and on.

Except for the attempt to paralyze 12 members of the roster with this ladder foolishness.

You know, I thought this was, again,

they're not giving them everything, but they don't have to, and they're setting records.

But what they do give them, it means something.

It makes sense.

And their fans are loving it.

And it's easier to watch than it used to be by a long shot.

Maybe for these ladder matches, they could do something different next year, like line ringside with

foam, or you know, those balls like a ball pit.

And then the fun is watching these big guys try to crawl out of it.

It's hard to get out of those things.

Well, yes, you turn it around completely and you say, we're going to make it safer.

And now when they fall, they just keep bouncing and rolling.

And it's like in quicksand and they're trapped.

They're just bouncing all over each other.

They can't be hurt, but they also can't walk.

So if a guy's climbing to the top of the ball pit, but a guy's already made it back up to the ring, he could then jump from the ring into the ball pit, do his spot, both guys are okay.

Well, he could jump from the ring into the ball pit and bounce up and get the fucking briefcase instead of having to climb the ladder.

So you definitely think trampolines under the ball pit?

Well, I think you almost have to, don't you?

I don't know, because then you create a situation too where once someone hits the ball pit, Instead of just sinking, the balls could just start bouncing all over the arena.

Well, then give the people baseball bats.

Ooh, bat day.

And then there you go.

So you've got trampolines around the ring with big beach balls all over the top of them.

And then when the fucking

guys, well, the big bouncy balls, the big round ball thing.

You know, you went in a different direction.

This is why me and you have to have our own promotion.

What?

I was talking a ball pit.

A ball pit.

Not a ball.

With the big bouncy balls, right?

No, no, no, like the little tiny balls.

You have to like, you fall into it, and you have to try to climb your way out of it.

No, I thought you, I want to see these motherfuckers bouncing around.

Well, they're not going to be able to do that.

The kind of balls that you, they're just balls everywhere, and you dive into it, and it bounces you up.

See, I want trampolines, and then these bouncy balls, and then these motherfuckers dive off ladders and bounce off these balls everywhere.

And whether the balls bounce into the crowd or the wrestlers bounce into the crowd, you give the fans baseball bats to knock the son of a bitch's back.

Why don't we make a Jim Cornette night, make it tennis rackets?

Well, there you go, and that way they might last a little longer before you wore them out, either the balls or the wrestlers.

Instead of the bat, the bats might be harder.

You probably wouldn't get a lot of wrestlers bouncing back.

You know, a human body, once it's drained to blood, doesn't have the

dribbling capacity.

I didn't know where you were going exactly.

Well, yeah, it won't bounce.

Doctor, Lecter.

I didn't know where you were going.

It kind of hits with a sick thud rather than bouncing back.

So that, you know.

All right.

Well, we'll see.

Do you think that's something?

I think it's something.

Something is the word.

I think it's something.

Do I think it's something that will come to fruition?

You know, the ball pit may be more realistic than this baseball bat wielding audience batting

balls out of the sky.

It sounds like with your version of the ball pit, somebody could get hurt.

Well, I don't know about that, but that was

wwe money in the bank no one got hurt there but jim

i think we can kind of do it now let's talk about if anyone got hurt on wednesday night we finally have some uh

some version of the ratings good lord it is there this was last wednesday july 3rd's aew program it's now monday

july the what does that say 8th and We're just now getting these quarter hours.

And WrestleNomics has not published them, so we only have what Dave Meltzer has published as of right now.

Oh, so we're taking this with a grain of Epsom salts and possibly some bleach.

Possibly.

WrestleNomics gave us the overall number.

Well, gave us, they sent out an email with the overall number.

Oh, they told us, I said, don't tell anybody, but here's what it is, guys: 688,000 viewers on average.

Again, this is Wednesday, July 3rd, 8 to 10:16 p.m.

688,000.

That's up from 680 last week.

Well,

but then everybody was wringing their hands and clutching their pearls about last week.

And now they're going to, well, this was the day before a holiday.

So I understand it used to be it's a holiday.

I can accept that.

But then it became it's a day before a holiday, a day after the holiday.

It's a holiday weekend.

Didn't there always used to be days and weekends before and after holidays, and it still didn't just continue to

perform like shit.

It's blamed on a lot of things by a lot of people.

Another one you hear is that people have dropped cable, but then reports have surfaced recently that the drop in cable,

the drop in AEW viewership far outpaces the actual drop in cable.

Yes, if people are trying to decide, apparently that more of them are dropping AEW first than dropping cable.

Less people have cable and less of those people are watching AEW.

I guess that's the best way of saying it.

Ah, it's a double whammy.

All right.

Well, what information

is Uncle Dave perpetuating here?

According to this report on the Wrestling Observer newsletter website,

the major key, he says, is that 18 to 34 was way up.

Now, that's a demo we haven't really heard before.

18 to 34.

As another country heard from.

Well, they were way up, way up, way up, Jerry.

I'm not diminishing it being a real thing, but it's something that's never been been cited before for uh aew but was that the only thing that was way up well let's see uh that may be why it was cited

besides being let's see even with the disadvantage cable has

it was way up in that demo dynamite was the top rated show for the night on television for the night

Dynamite

re-read it verbatim now.

We don't want to take anything out of context or misquote Uncle Dave.

Read it like he wrote it.

Dynamite was the top-rated show for the night on television for the night.

MTBS, for primetime as a whole, was the highest rated station for the night.

Besides being second behind the prices right in all of television in 18 to 49,

it was first on television in 18 to 34.

We're now going to harp on this one.

They can't use 18 to 49 anymore.

So now it's going to be 18 to 34.

And then it'll be 18 to 29.

And it'll be, they're really big at 18 to 19.

I think they're going to hit their sweet spot between 24 and 26.

All right, let me scroll down.

Dave does not break it down as nicely as WrestleNomics does.

I have to say, this is one of those.

Oh, I can't imagine why.

This is one of those areas where WrestleNomics has really done well.

Dave's brain must be as cluttered as his office.

He's got things up there, but he just can't get them out in an orderly fashion.

The show did 1.53 viewers per home, which is AEW Glory Day level numbers,

and 62.2% male in 18 to 49.

So fewer people are watching, but at least of the people that are watching, more of them are in the same home.

From one year ago.

Do you think, is this a series of county and state homes across the country?

I'm not sure, but from one year ago, the show was down 19.5%,

which was on July 5th last year.

It was down 21.1% in 18 to 49,

but it was up 8.5% in 18 to 34.

Factoring homes that lost cable over the year, the real numbers would be down 14.5% in viewers, 13.9 in 18 to 49, and 18.5% up in 18 to 39.

Do you get all that?

I've got it right here.

I was taking notes.

According to this, Uncle Dave needs an increase in his medication.

All right, let's see.

The show opened.

It doesn't have the quarter, like the times or anything.

Quarter one, usually it's 8 to 8.15 p.m.

This was MJF Daniel Garcia and Matt Menard.

And the start of PAC versus Brian Danielson, 733,000 viewers.

Okay, now were the Big Bangers were on this week?

It wasn't the Black Panther, was it?

It was the annoying white people?

I believe so.

So they're dropping with what they're handing off to AEW.

And for those of you listeners who got in touch after the last time we talked about this and said, I don't understand why you don't like the Big Bang Theory.

It's such a great show.

We respectfully disagree.

Yes.

I think it's dog shit.

It's horrible.

Is that respectful?

Yeah, I could say a whole lot worse.

Oh, well, you're true there.

All right.

So if they started at 733,000,

they've got to hold somewhat most of their audience to hit their average because they're starting so much lower than normal.

Okay, now I'm going to assume that Dave's referring to quarter two because he never actually breaks down the times or anything.

Quarter two, which would be 8.15, 8.30 p.m.

According to Dave, the rest of Danielson versus PAC and interviews with Willow Nightingale and Mark Briscoe, 688,000 viewers.

And that's their overall average.

So

they're going to be fluctuating that I don't know what's going to happen here.

I'm biting my nails here.

I'm on the edge of my seat.

It's because of hemorrhoids.

The next segment listed again with no time.

I'm going to assume it's quarter three, 8.45 to

no?

Yeah.

8.30 to 8.45, excuse me.

Yes, that's what it would be.

That's what it would be.

The in-ring with with Briscoe, the elite, and the acclaimed, plus a Tony Storm and Mariah Mae interview, 715,000 viewers.

This segment was also the peak in 18 to 34.

And who was in it?

Briscoe.

Mark Briscoe, that would be.

The Elite, the Acclaimed, plus Tony Storm and Mariah Mae's interview.

Well, maybe there's some horny high school dropouts staring staring at Tony Storm's giant buttocks.

We now go to quarter four.

I believe.

I think 8.45 to 9 p.m.

The Jeff Jarrett, Karen Jarrett, Satinum Singh, Jay Lethal, and Sanjay Dutt backstage interview.

And the Britt Baker Mercedes-Monet segment.

711,000 viewers.

Okay, this go ahead.

High point in the traditional key demo that they were using for their barometer until that wore out 18 to 49

this was the high point in that 322 000.

this show has only fluctuated

from the high point in the first hour from the high point to the low point which was quarter two

12 uh 45 000 people and otherwise it stayed in that in that range, which I don't ever remember happening.

So was it because it was the night before a holiday?

Only the dedicated people that really wanted to see this thing bothered to even tune in at the top?

Or what is...

You know, what have we said every time there's a big dip?

There's a big dip, they recover slightly, and that slight recovery, which is not to where they used to be, becomes the new norm.

And this is

coming, which is coming.

You can't just blame cable television for that.

What's coming in quarter five at the top of the nine o'clock hour?

Quarter five would be the rest of the Baker and Monet segment, plus Don Callis backstage with Will Ospreay and Kyle Fletcher, and the start of Samoa Joe Hook and Shibata versus Brian Cage and not the bloodline.

721,000 viewers.

So they're still in the same pocket.

They have

not fluctuated more than that in now an hour and 15 minutes.

The rest of the trios match in the next quarter, which I don't even know where we are because Dave doesn't say where it is.

Quarter six.

I've got some notes here.

Quarter six,

which would be 9.15 to 9.30 p.m.

The rest of that trios match and the post-match attack by the learning tree

fell to 647,000 viewers.

Oh.

But it also had two commercial breaks, Dave notes.

Well, boy, I gave him an excuse to get the hell out of there.

So that was the biggest drop of the entire show of 53, 74,000 people.

And that's the low point so far.

Yeah, you could have six commercial breaks.

You had one learning tree.

That's what will do it.

The next quarter, Jim, quarter seven,

945.

No, 930 to 945.

You are correct, sir.

Hangman Page versus Jeff Jarrett,

680,000 viewers.

Well, at least they got some back, and there was some legitimate interest in that until they killed that off, too, for

Cowboy Page.

But they're still

that's the second lowest quarter of the seven they've done so far.

And finally, quarter eight, I remind you there's an overrun

9:45 to 10 p.m.

The Adam Page Young Bucks backstage confrontation and the start of Will Osprey versus Daniel Garcia,

655,000 viewers.

Ouch.

Two commercial breaks in the match, two,

16-minute overrun.

MJF beat down on Garcia,

647,000 viewers.

And remember, we said

on the drive-through when we didn't have these numbers, that it would depend on whether

people stuck around to see what MJF was going to do, because who gives a shit about Daniel Garcia and Will Ostrich after two hours of this program.

And I gotta,

it was a great deal, but it was the lowest viewership almost, except for Seg 6 of the whole.

No, it was equal to Seg 6.

It was the lowest viewership by the time they got to it.

I think for the sake of

the biggest audience seeing it, they should have done it in the first 30 or 45 minutes.

Instead of, you know,

because let's face it, MJF is not Merlin the Magician.

He can't make people sit through all this drech

for, you know, to see what he's going to do in somebody else's match.

But go ahead.

Well, the other thing, too, and I agree with you 100%, obviously, and you're the expert, but look at WCW.

Don't you forget it.

But look at WCW.

You know, if you had stayed there in 1990, no matter what you guys would have done, there was only so far you guys could recover because of all the damage that had been done.

Right.

And I think with AEW, it's a similar situation.

They may not recognize it, but the booking, the storylines, the lack of stars, whatever, the combination of everything,

it's been going on for so long that it's like WCW back then.

There's only so much that could be done, and not really too much can be done right now to fix all the years of problems.

You can't just fix them like that.

And I think, you know, with this, and again, you know, they said, well, the previous week, was, and there's been the playoffs, and this was a holiday, or the day before holiday, Juneteenth was a holiday.

But they're consistently starting with a couple of hundred thousand people less than what they started with

not that long ago, last year, year before last.

And they're

they're not losing as much of the audience because there's not as much of the audience to lose.

They're not losing as big a percentage, but still

they can't get their own audience to stick with this all the way through just two hours, not even three.

So,

and you always know when,

you know, the drop is coming when it gets to be the real amateur hour type of bullshit around about Seg 6, where they try to stick that in and think nobody will notice.

But, you know, again, from regulation start to regulation finish, they only lost 78,000 people,

which was

only probably about, okay, do the math, not yet, 12 or 13% of the audience they started with.

Some weeks it used to be 30%, but that's when they started with a lot more people.

Well, unlike Dynamite, we usually have a lot of people here at the end of the show that started with the show.

And I think we are, I hope we are here at the end of the show for this show.

Well, we've overstayed our welcome, folks.

Until the next time we do this again on the drive-thru and again on the experience for Brian.

I'm Jim.

Thank you.

Fuck you.

Bye-bye, everybody.