Episode 537: Dragons, Castles, and WCW

Like the midnight and the rock'n'roller He's in a fight for wrestling solar Using a racket and some mind controller He's Jim Cornet

The keys to the future held by the past And with Tag T partner Bariah at last He sends this message out by podcast He's Jim Cornet

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.

I can get the experience.

Get the experience.

Get the experience of Jim Cornette.

Hello again, everyone, and I bid you a hearty welcome on this holiday weekend.

The clash at the castle wasn't nearly as violent as the finger-pointing going on on who killed WCW this week.

We're going to talk about both of those things and more on the Father's Day edition of the Jim Cornette Experience, oh Joey, oh, Bliss.

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

Co-host to you, the Poop Deck Pappy of the podcasting industry, the great Brian Last, everybody.

Aloha, Jim.

A pleasure to be here once again

for another fun episode here, Poop Deck Pappy, and I guess that makes you,

what, the blimp?

Hey, goddamn it.

I may not be Olive Ocan.

I'm the star of the show here.

I can be Popeye.

I am what I am, and that's all that I am.

And I've got all that I can stands that I can't stands no more.

That one's appropriate.

We can talk about poop deck here in a second, but I just want to mention it is Father's Day that we are recording this.

And a lot of people out there are going to, I love the cult of Cornad, but some days, I just wish, you know, it's a big chunk of the day here.

But some people out there, yeah,

yeah.

I know how you feel.

I know how you feel.

Some people out there are going to say, well, why don't you record on a day other than a holiday?

Because we do all are part of one of these various programs that are on the YouTube channel and the podcasting networks and platforms that were picked up on the fillings and people's teeth in some states.

We do one of these things or part of it every day or two.

So there's really no way to avoid

sitting down here, you and I, when other people are enjoying their holiday.

But you had just mentioned before we get into the Father's Day business, because at least this will lift us up a little bit.

What people don't know is off air before we get on air.

I get you in the mood by playing you some music.

We do some sing-alongs.

That's why I'm always so grumpy, is because you're playing me the music on your organ, which now I've come to find out is on your left side.

My organ's on my left side, but it's like a music hall in here.

It could be, you know, medical science is working miracles.

It could be fucking fixed for you.

What hump?

But nevertheless,

you're a poop deck pappy collector.

You're a Popeye collector.

And you have,

you'd said to me right before we started recording, not one, but poop two.

Not one, but poop.

This is a great example of Popeye's English here.

Not one.

Not one.

But two poop deck papy action figures in your office there right now.

Presently, yes.

How did you...

How did you come to have two of them?

Well, one's from a toy line that came out like in 2000 and one's from one that's active right now there's a toy company boss fight studios they put out the first line of popeye toys that are like true to the comic strip and the early cartoons more than you know the popeye versus brutus as opposed to popeye versus bluto i guess more more more more of the original seeger more fleischer studios and ec cigar less famous studios

you say cigar i say seeger that's right you say mariah i say maria because it's spelled like bob instead of fucking have one.

But it's one of those names that you never saw him interviewed or anything.

Obviously, it was a long time ago.

So you only read the name and you find your own pronunciations and you kind of go with it.

I do that with all sorts of things.

He was big in vaudeville, I understand.

Wow.

Yeah, back in those days.

That's why they call them foot lights because they had fucking lights at your feet.

They could see.

They were.

The limelight.

They burned lime in the days before electricity.

For those who don't know, Poop Deck Pappy, by the way, is Popeye's father.

Well, who doesn't know that?

Plenty of people.

There's not like an active Popeye series right now.

And it hasn't been for a while.

Well, there's not an active goddamn, I can't think of something that's plain common knowledge that's not active right now.

But everybody knows who Poop Deck Pappy is.

Ava Gardner.

There you go.

Everybody knows Ava Gardner.

She's not right now.

She's not active now, but boy, was she active.

Boy, she was active back in the day, and and people said good things about her activities

but anyway speaking of activities it is father's day as i mentioned

and uh you have actual i've got harley well i've scared harley quinn off now where'd she go she heard the sound of my voice and ran off harley quinn was

resting comfortably at my feet until i had to start talking to you she's given me all kinds of puppy kisses for father's day

But you have actual human children you're burdened with.

Do they do anything for you?

Or is it just the canines?

You know, the one thing for Father's Day I want more than anything else is just to sleep in and get some sleep.

But of course, it's the day they're excited to wake you up early and tell you how much they love you.

How much they love you.

But no, they woke me up early.

I got a bunch of cards.

I got French toast.

And my son woke up wanting to watch Godzilla Destroy All Monsters.

And I had DVR'd it when I was on Svenguli a few weeks back to keep it because it has the English version of it, as opposed to you go to Apple, you get the Japanese version with English subtitles.

No.

Yeah.

So for my kids to really enjoy it, they've watched the Japanese versions more than the English versions of every one of the original Godzilla films.

Well, yeah, but you read that many subtitles, the kids are like, what the fuck is this, school?

We just want to hear what they're saying.

Why would Apple in America give you the Japanese?

Language?

Well, the true to the original version, I guess.

I'm not exactly sure the reason or, you know, the story.

Well, the original version of Godzilla that I saw had fucking Raymond Burr in it.

He wasn't speaking Japanese.

All right, that was my favorite episode of Perry Mason.

Perry Mason versus the giant.

Yes, giant lizard.

And I opened the door, and it was then I realized that that was a lock-in monster.

No, but Sven Gooley had Destroy All Monsters, which is the coolest one, especially for kids, because it has all the different monsters fighting with each other and against each other.

And then he had it on there, so I get to play it for them.

I kept that on the DBR.

Do you think that's Tony Khan's favorite movie destroy because all the monsters are just fighting each other and against and with each other and against each other and everybody's just fighting no his favorite movie is destroy all money

well for my father's day i'll have you know yeah

the plan might might have

for a while there was that Stacey was going to barbecue me some nice burgers and we'd sit in the backyard and enjoy sitting under the red bud tree or whatever.

And it's about 100 fucking degrees today with high humidity.

So that has become, but instead,

she is going to bring me home a take and bake Papa Murphy's pizza, my favorite, with sausage and bacon and onions and green peppers and extra cheese.

And I'm going to cook that bad boy up and I'm going to stuff my face with that inside in the air conditioning.

And they're going to genuflect to me as

father and king of the castle cornet and master of the domain.

And then tomorrow I'm going to go back to being a schlub out there with a goddamn hose in the yard.

It's seven o'clock in the morning.

Now, do you?

Oh, poor you.

No, I planted these.

No.

Working man, Jim Cornette.

Oh, my God.

No, again, hey, I'm wearing boots.

If you're wearing boots, you're working.

I planted these trees on June the 3rd.

It's June the 16th.

It's It's rained one day for a few minutes.

And now the weather forecast is 95 degrees every day and no fucking rain whatsoever.

Why do you need boots?

You're in your own yard.

It's not like it's rained to hose on your feet.

Why do you need boots?

Because I'm walking.

There's mole holes and there's fucking wild animals out there.

I might need to kick in a head to protect myself.

I would have to if a rabid raccoon comes after me.

All the time of the year, no matter what the weather is, you're going to wear your boots to go water the trees?

Yeah, yeah, I wear my boots to walk out that far in the yard.

Yes, once I get away from the periphery, you never know what you're going to step in or what you're going to encounter.

I could have, I could have, if I was wearing my flip-flops, I could have tripped over a box turtle just yesterday morning.

And then he'd have snagged my fucking toe and I'd have got some kind of gangrene and my foot would have fallen off.

Oh, my God, the video clip, we would have done of that.

Well, you see, but I avoided that because I had boots on.

So my shell was as hard as his was.

And I'm out there with that fucking hose.

Wait, did you kick the turtle?

No, I didn't.

I could have tripped over him because I didn't see him.

He was hiding in the grass, laying in wait for me like a wolf in turtle's clothing.

But you compared your shell to his shell as if there was some kind of comparison.

Like you had an example.

If he had started my way, I would have had to retaliate.

But anyway, so I got to, every morning, I got to be out there for a fucking hour on these 15 fucking trees with the goddamn hose.

I've got me a little folding chair that I drag from tree to tree so I can sit there instead of standing like an idiot.

And you can't sprinkler these things.

You're not supposed to spray the whole goddamn tree.

It's just been planted.

And did I mention the balls on it?

Where they plant the thing, the ball is on the bottom of the tree.

It's as big as a giant pumpkin and it sets in a hole in the ground, and then they put the mulch bed around it.

But since it's only been a week, it's not like you have to sprinkle the ground around them.

You've got to wet the balls.

And that's where the roots then grow and regenerate and move into the soil.

So I've got to wet each one of the tree's balls because it's important in hot weather to keep your balls wet.

So I have to have the hose there.

Are you here?

Are you there?

I'm listening to you talk about your boots and your balls and and whatever else is going on there.

My boots and my wet balls.

So I've got to take that fucking hose and I've got to just wet the balls underneath each tree.

So, you know, it's, it's some things,

human labor cannot be replaced in some

instances.

Speaking of human labor, where are the Monroe?

I said they're not over at my house every morning at seven o'clock.

This should be their job, not yours.

They're not going to come over here just to spend an hour watering trees at seven o'clock in the morning.

They've done worse.

They've done worse.

Well, they've done a lot worse, but for more compensation, that I'm going to pay them to water the fucking trees.

But now I can't do it in the evening time.

Like I like at the end of a hard work day, go out there and sit and pleasantly hold a hose on some trees while I reflect on the day's activities because it's so oppressively hot, you get a goddamn brain aneurysm.

So I got to be out there fucking tromping around at seven o'clock in the morning

with my big long hose.

But around in the middle of all of this, I'll have you know the customers again at Cornettes Collectibles.

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We got a long show today, so I won't be any more commercial than that.

Hey, what do you think's on CBS right now?

The last couple of days.

Oh, are you going to do this again?

Okay, Freya was bull riding.

That's right.

Then it was

and calf roping.

Don't forget that.

And then it was dirt racing somewhere in a community in Missouri with a population of 324, and it was on CBS television.

Midget Sprint Cars, sponsored by Toyota.

That's what it was.

And but and ladies and gentlemen,

it's a misleading title.

The race car drivers are not midgets, apparently, which would have made it at least entertaining enough to me to reach the bar and be on CBS, but it's the cars that are smaller,

hence the Num de Plume of midgets, correct?

Is that what we ascertained?

That is correct.

They are midget cars by designation.

Well, what's on this week?

This week is the WNBA,

Chicago at Indiana.

The Indiana fever versus the Chicago bulletin.

Virus?

I don't know what exactly.

Blow holes?

What?

I did not say that.

That's what you're saying here.

I thought that's what I heard you say.

I wonder what kind of ratings this will do.

This is Caitlin Clark.

She's that one big college basketball star is now in the WNBA.

She's the biggest.

I'm aware.

Everybody is aware.

I don't know how she got so famous, or did she score like 100 points in college or she was just the greatest player ever.

It just all of a sudden they said the biggest star in women's basketball assigned in the WNBA.

I literally never heard of her until like the college basketball, you know, with the final four for women, I guess, until that like last game.

I heard of her.

And then it's been non-stop.

So

do we know, has she been like

excellent all along or she just burst into prominence?

I can't tell you because I don't watch the WNBA or follow women's basketball.

I'm watching.

Well, if you told me, we'd both know.

But

she just got an assist.

There you go.

Who helped her?

Someone else with very colorful.

I don't know who any of these people are.

I'm just watching people running around.

Was she broken down on the side of the road?

She called for roadside assistance.

She got an assist.

What do you think, though, the fact that they say that her joining the NBA, I saw a statistic the other day.

I don't know if you would have seen it because I don't know if it was a Twitter or where, but I'm pretty sure I did.

Games with her like drawing double what everyone else is drawing in the league.

Maybe,

yes,

they've said this on the news report.

That's why I'm asking.

That's what I'm asking you, Costello.

How did everybody in the world

hear of this person?

And we just heard about this three weeks ago whenever they debuted her,

that she's a superstar.

And all of how have we overlooked this?

Or is it the fault of the news media at large?

Or what the fuck has she done suddenly to get so over?

I'm asking this in all good faith.

Well, she's also white.

I think that's a big part of it, to be quite honest with you.

So am I.

Right, but you don't play bad.

Coronette, if a white guy with glasses all of a sudden was the best in the league, I think everyone would be paying attention.

Like, who the hell is this guy?

I tell you what, I could hit a heck of a fucking three-point shot if you give me a second to get set and let me use both hands and nobody's running at me.

It was an example.

It was a ridiculous example.

You're not going to be the best in the league no matter what.

Well, how about if you have time to set for your three-point shot?

You know what, on Father's Day, what kind of fucking parent are you that has such

you don't talk to children like that about achieving their dreams.

You tell them, no,

you can do anything you set your mind to.

Is it your dream to hit a three-point shot?

It's your dream to hit a three-point shot that, as you said, you'd you'd have plenty of time to prepare and stand there and catch well no you say you said you just squashed my hopes and and my my future my potential that you say you you'll never be the best player in the game how do you know i might not set my mind to it you're underestimating me

But anyway, the point is.

According to Wikipedia, she's considered a generational talent.

She's described as one of the greatest women's college basketball players of all all time by many publications.

Okay.

Rebecca Lobo, ESPN analyst.

Oh, god damn it.

No, that needs to be a girl on the AEW roster.

Rebecca Lobo, a former basketball player, ESPN analyst, said that she's the best offensive, offensive women's college player.

She's the most offensive player we've ever seen.

Since someone else I've never heard of, in part due to her unprecedented shooting range and proficiency amongst female players, Clark has been labeled a transformative player in women's basketball.

Yeah, she's the only one who can get more than 4,000 people into the building.

That's what that means.

Well,

then good for her.

And

good for her and her whole team, whoever she's playing for.

Who is that again?

Is she in Indiana or Chicago?

She is, that's a great question.

She's a big She's not too far up the road from me if she's in Indiana.

She's from Des Moines, Iowa, AEW country.

Well, I don't care where she's from.

Indiana Fever, the Indiana Fever.

There you go.

Well, she's 100 miles up the road right now.

I ought to go up and see her, maybe do an interview for the show.

The Indiana Fever was something that

Dick the Bruiser got one time, I understand, at a

show.

Yes, it was a spot show, and afterwards, he went to Dr.

Feelgood and got a shot for it.

But now the thing, back to the CBS at noon,

it was kind of ridiculous.

We were talking about that this

racing from a dirt track in the middle of a field in Missouri could get on network television and wrestling couldn't.

But this is more, this is more something you would expect to see on network television.

Is the big star and the WNBA playing a game?

I can buy that.

Let me ask you this, because there are people who think that some of these shows are time buys.

Although if you look at some of their press releases, it certainly doesn't indicate that, but that doesn't mean anything.

It's a press release.

Is it worth it for, let's say, a Tony Khan,

whether his product is good or bad right now, just in terms of exposure?

Do you think,

because everyone's looking past broadcast TV, everyone's looking past network TV to streaming.

In 2024, do you still think it would be worth it if it was a time buy for an AEW or a wrestling company that size

to get every week noon on a CBS or an NBC or something like that.

If these preachers are buying this time and Tony Khan has shown money is no object,

he will fly everyone to the show in a Learjet.

Like that's a big deal anymore.

That's the point.

Is it worth it?

Do you think we're all talking about the cable deal and potential streaming deals?

You forget that a lot of the country may still be watching broadcast TV.

Yes,

like me,

because it's easier, because it's simple, and it's got a nice little guide where everything is, you know, where they bundled up all the television stations together and called it cable.

So you can go to all the television stations at the same time, but the streaming, they're bombarding you with shit looks like fucking

raindrops with every fucking program in the world.

Everything looks different, works differently.

Fuck all that.

If I want to work that hard, I'll goddamn do more of this.

But nevertheless, you asked a question.

I think it's more of a

the standards of television ratings have fallen as we made it, that, you know, that now it's even network television.

A couple million people is a big deal, for fuck's sake.

That used to be in the middle of the night, the audience watching Tom Snyder on the Tomorrow Show on NBC at two o'clock in the morning in the old days.

So I don't know if they were to let you buy noon on Sunday with Tony's ratings on cable, but good cable stations

on other days at other times, that it would be worth any money because I still don't think people would fucking watch it.

If you had a product

that had

very little exposure

or minimal, or you know, not on one of the major cable stations, and you got a chance at a sweet deal, because I guess

the networks are happy with half a million people these days.

If you could

secure a slot that was at least fucking

11 a.m.

or noon for an hour or two, and on your smaller platform, build a CBS special

that you had something

Bofo in mind for to expose a new talent, or you know, you've got this guy that if anybody could just see him and this match idea, whatever the fuck,

and promote your own network special because they'll let you buy the time, but they don't have to say that publicly,

then that might be newsworthy or attention getting for a smaller promotion.

But Tony's already got a big enough fucking time television show that not a lot of people are watching that I don't think it would make any difference.

But am I just talking out of my ass there?

I mean, it's an interesting thing.

I was trying to find it because I saw a press release the other day.

For one of these events we've seen on a Sunday, and it may have even been one that has been airing on Sunday before we started watching where it said they get a million viewers for noon on a sunday for one of these things there's no guarantee wrestling would get more or less obviously but they're saying a million

and

you know for a company like a robot and but is this nielsen or is this their press release it was a press release

exactly but when it comes to aew

and some of the problems they've actually had

that they have not found solutions to, specifically with local promotion and drawing in markets for their TV shows.

Maybe local TV something would help.

I don't think it's a local version of Dynamite or Collision.

I think it probably has to be a different kind of themed show than

the other things that are airing here.

If it's a network program, then it's not a local show.

It's shown on the local stations, but you can't customize.

So

you don't really

diluted in that, yes, you still have to buy not diluted, but diluted.

You would still have to put commercials in

the local station that the show was airing on if you were running in that market.

Local promos.

But at the same time, then you're having to buy those too.

And then,

again,

if it's a one-time thing, a local broadcast does you no good at all.

If you've got some kind of platform and you can lead to a network special, you've got something.

But if you've got no

television or a platform or whatever, and you get local broadcast, but it's one-week thing, you have no time to build an audience.

Except if you're a dirt racer, because apparently they're all over the place.

Well, you know what?

I don't know anything about because wrestling has kind of let it go by.

I mean, Dave Marquez probably knows a lot about it, but just what's up with the world of syndication nowadays?

And what opportunities would be there, again, for a well-funded wrestling promotion who could try to do some different things locally?

What is the syndicated or the syndication market right now, if any, for wrestling?

Well, I don't know.

I don't know everything.

And like you said, Dave probably does know better than most people.

But at the same time, I know enough to know that it's easier to get on some form of television than it ever has been before, because now even the local stations have the secondary channels that,

you know,

like W-O-K-Y number two, which is me TV or Antenna TV.

So each local station has about two or three other stations that you can get it if you've got cable, which now so many people do.

But it's dilute, so you can get on, but then the audience has been diluted.

And it's harder for those secondary channels to mean anything as far as drawing

live houses in a particular market, but you can put enough of them together

to either entice a regional or national sponsor, as Dave has done.

And,

you know, so you're doing the television show and syndicating it, but it can never,

syndication for wrestling can't ever happen again where it would be a

difference maker across the country because you can't get on the primary stations anymore unless you're either buying time

or some major goddamn company decides they're going to syndicate you.

And that has not happened in a long time because the

wrestling companies are too wrapped up in

rights fees and

cable and streaming and blah, blah, blah, Netflix, whatever all these words are.

Words and phrases.

Yeah, real quick, I'll just mention this.

I'm looking at this up.

PBR, that's the Professional Bull Riders Association, I believe.

This is their press release from when they announced their deal with CBS Sports for the 2024 season.

They will broadcast approximately 70 hours worth of coverage

throughout the season, including 20 hours of live coverage.

So

if it's live, it's not a buy if it's live, right?

Well, I wouldn't think it would.

I wouldn't think that they would buy, you know, the bull riding people would buy the time anyway, but I, I

wouldn't think that would be a time buy, a live special.

I mean, anything could happen.

All right.

Well, we'll stay on top of this story.

And if wrestling ends up on network TV, we'll take all the credit for it.

I would have to stay on top of it.

I don't know if we've been on top.

We've been on top of it about as long as those guys have been riding those bulls.

I saw a video the other day.

Someone sent me of some guy in Mexico.

I think it was Mexico.

They said, you got to see this guy.

No shirt on.

Looks like he's bombed.

Just has a cigarette hanging out of his mouth like he's the sandman.

Jumps on this bull and rides this thing like nothing's bothering him.

And he's getting thrown around.

He's got the cigarette in his mouth the whole time.

Bad ass.

That's what should be on TV.

I'd watch that.

Well, that would lead people to

the kids would take up smoking again.

Guys, they got the Marlborough man in there, and he rode the bullies used to it.

And one more thing

about syndication I was going to mention is that

the reason why the deal with Ring of Honor and Sinclair Broadcasting looked good and actually was good and could have been better and quickly dovetailed.

That was the way to get on the primary stations in town, the local broadcast stations.

The program wasn't relegated to WDRB.3

or whatever.

It was on the main Fox affiliate or the local ABC affiliate or whatever the local affiliate was.

And

the theory was as they picked up stations, which when the sale went through, I think they had 60 stations.

And I heard before they got in financial financial trouble here recently, and good for them, the right-wing fucking lunatics, we found out they are.

They had 120 or 30 stations or something like that.

That would have been

the

basis for

your national syndication and charging national ad rates.

Remember back in the 80s when Vince and...

Crockett were doodling it out in that realm, it was you had to get 80% of the country, I believe,

to be able to sell commercial time on your syndicated network and charge the national ad rates.

And that's what they were always fighting over.

With Sinclair, that was the theory because they owned the programming

and they were going to be able to broadcast it on an ever-increasing number of stations that were the program or the stations in these towns that people watched for their local news and for their network evening programming and shit,

which would have been viable had Greg the Office Boy not come along, piss everybody off.

But, nevertheless, so that's that's and nobody's going to do that again because who's going to own that?

Sinclair doesn't even own that many stations anymore.

Unless one of the networks themselves

decided to buy or get into a wrestling promotion,

you can't have true either national network TV, but on local stations, really, again.

All right.

Oh, this is my show, isn't it?

That's it.

And, well, and

the CW, I'm sorry, CW is going to have, which show are they getting?

They're getting NXT.

NXT.

The least likely of the ones to actually tour nationally or use local broadcast affiliates to sell tickets in live markets.

I mean, it's crazy to think about because it was always the staple and it's still the thing that so many of us go back and watch and have great memories of things that were said and different people doing them.

But local promos, localized promos, are dead.

I mean, even for pay-per-views in a lot of cases, promos are about people.

They're never to actually sell people coming out or tuning in.

And,

you know, when you're having trouble drawing locally, it may be, I mean, again, you want to think outside the box.

And sometimes by doing that, you go back to the things that worked in the past.

There's got to be something in there in the middle, you know, there's got to be something that should be done.

In 2011 or whatever it was, when we started doing local promos in Ring of Honor for the Sinclair stations,

and we had the guys come in the day early and come to the TV studio, they thought they were going to do like an interview or, you know, however many takes it takes to get this interview done or whatever.

Or Or as no, we're doing local promos.

They blew some of their minds.

They were like, what the fuck is this?

We don't.

Yes, you're going to talk to goddamn Tampa or fucking Fayetteville or whatever.

And what do you know about all these towns?

And all of them, most of them do absolutely fucking nothing.

Well, learn something.

You know, sometimes you'll see an ad for like AEW on RAW or something.

You'll see an ad like, you know, for they're coming to Long Island.

They're coming here or there.

But it's always like some generic ad in the same way they used to make one.

The circus is coming to town.

See the Ring Loot or the Lions.

It's never, here I am with Jon Moxley.

John, what are you going to do in Long Island?

And Tony Khan's got money, and these guys got lots of time on their hands in between matches.

The babyfaces need to know who the popular people are in town and how the sports teams are doing.

And the heels need to know who's embarrassed themselves

on a fucking local level and what the shithole neighborhoods are

and just go from there and buy some local ads on cable systems and

and talk to them talk to them

but anyway maybe i'll do that maybe you'll start seeing cornet ads in the middle of raw

well what

this show sucks don't you think if you think so too hear me this week on the podcast Well, that's why I was going to say, I've got to be in on it first before you do that, because if it's Cornet ads, what is Cornet going to say?

Well, I'm gonna get a Cornette puppet.

He'll say whatever I, you know, hey,

listen to my show, it's great.

I told you, send money to Long Island.

I told you the last time you tried to stick your hand up my ass, that'd be the end of that.

I wasn't gonna really do it.

Well, he could have fooled me.

I did the first time.

Well, I know that's why he don't get fooled again.

All right, should we talk about one of these wrestling programs?

We're having too much fun.

Why?

Why?

I'm just,

I'm trying to, the one thing I do,

I do want to talk about today was the one program that I really enjoyed over the last week or so was the biography they did on AE

of Ricky the Dragon Steamboat.

Because this one,

it...

It's one of the rare ones where the guy wasn't his own worst enemy, brought almost everything on himself.

You know, at various points, he had all kinds of opportunities to straighten his shit up

and is remembered fondly as a great talent that fucked up everything.

Steam, but what a nice guy Ricky is, right?

He really is.

And everybody thinks well of him.

And now he has a nice house and a nice wife and a couple of nice dogs.

And he and he enjoys racing his

midget cars.

I think his track had pavement.

But,

you know, he's one of the good guys.

You wish that

at certain points in his wrestling career,

he had not confronted dipshits such as, you know, Jim Hurd, and you might have got more of him.

But, you know, just what a, and what a classy guy that he comes off telling his story, whatever the stories are.

He's a very nice, classy individual.

You don't hear people just shitting on, thankfully.

So

the ratings must have been horrible for this because he's such a good person.

Nobody probably wanted to see it.

Did you see this program?

I saw this program.

I loved it.

I thought it was great.

I thought WWE did a really great job with it other than the disgusting appearance of Bruce Pritchard later on to try to justify the awful gimmick they brought him back with.

But other than that,

I thought it was really good.

And I think the two takeaways are that Ricky Steamboat's a really nice guy that you still root for.

And the second takeaway is Bonnie Steamboat must own the rights to her name and likeness or any mention of her or anything or threaten a suit about anything mentioning her at any time because

there was no mention at all about the wife, Bonnie Steamboat.

Well, but now think about this.

Does anybody really want to think about her or mention her?

Isn't it it better that it's just all just left in the past?

Uh, um,

I

want to bring up one thing I noted at the start when I'm watching,

you know, because this was another one of those programs that was great for the old video.

So, if you didn't see it, you didn't bump the ratings up, go back and see it because they used a lot of old Carolina's footage and the really classic stuff.

Um,

and a lot of people,

obviously, all the talking heads remarked about how talented Ricky was.

And especially a lot of people talk about the way that Ricky sold.

And then Ricky Morton

is a paragon of selling.

And I think this is,

I'm wondering which one

is

the more effective

because

they're so unique and so diametrically opposite, but they both look so good.

Where Steamboat, it's like ballet.

It's great, the pain on his face and the body language and the cringing,

and it's emotional, but it's

it's like it's like a superhero.

He's like a comic book superhero, especially when he's young with that fucking physique.

And whether on offense or when he defense, when he was selling,

he's just so graceful in the arm drags and just everything.

And you kind of see him like Powell when he's selling like Superman on a comic book cover.

Whereas Ricky Morton was almost the antithesis.

He was far from a superhero.

He was the underdog, the mortal guy, the plain.

Look at that cute boy.

It was raw.

It was visceral.

When he would take those violent bumps and snap around.

And I, you know, I think they're both almost classic in their own way in wrestling is that if a baby face

doesn't do something that leans toward one, he does something that leans toward the other, but nobody has done it as good.

Does that make any sense?

Makes lots of sense.

And I just, you know, I love that about Ricky was able to pick that up.

And I think that's why, you know, can you ever imagine him having been a heel?

Except when Bonnie came to the ring with him in WCW.

I once heard him say that his thing was he sold to the back of the room.

Yes,

because you have to project and

they can't see your face.

Remember, I've said that about the reason why that Lawler, Jerry Lawler,

dominated the Mid-South Coliseum as a big building, his 11,000 seats.

But his body language fit his facial expression.

If you were in the cheap seats behind him,

you could tell whether he was mad, shocked, hurt,

whatever.

And

steamboats, same way.

It's the body language.

And, you know, and just the athleticism.

In high school, he already looked like a star.

In the pictures, he's a good-looking guy with a look in a group of nerds, right?

And because they said his father was in the army and his mother was Japanese, so

their

individual parents didn't agree on their marriage.

It was a mixed marriage back in the World War II days.

And,

you know, he talked about how he had lived all over the world with his dad in the army, but experienced racism from kids and adults.

But

again,

he's the best looking fucking guy in the fucking school, right?

And then he said he worked at his father's gas station to save money to buy a car.

So he was already a fucking

wonderful standout moral character when he's a fucking teenager.

And

with him,

you know, kind of doing that, his girlfriend worked with Vern Gagne's daughter Donna

and

said, hey, my boyfriend ought to be a fucking wrestler or whatever.

And somehow he ends up training with Kaz at the barn in Minnesota.

So that's, I mean, just an amazing

series of events that that could happen like that.

And

you would, again, anybody else,

you know, we see what has happened to some of the other people that came through Vern's camp,

but Ricky never cracked up.

He was always a steady person.

He, you know, spends a few months there and then gets to go to Florida and work for Eddie Graham.

Holy shit.

Home.

That's where he's from, Florida.

Yes.

And to work for Eddie Graham,

who

changes his name to Steamboat in honor of Sam Steamboat, who was one of the biggest

star babyfaces in the history of Florida wrestling.

So he comes in as the nephew of Sam Steamboat in Florida, and the people loved him wish they would have had some pictures of sam steamboat in his prime as opposed to like one video clip of him at the very end of his year maybe in hawaii or something yeah but well the the steamboat footage is hard to come by these days though but now here was the

this is the shame of it all brian can you imagine

If Vince McMahon had heard about this new young wrestler named Dick Blood.

You see, right there.

Well, listen, wrestling had two chances because, for whatever reason, when Tito Santana broke in, his first name was Dick Blood, Richard Blood.

Well, no, but they called him Richard Blood.

Yeah.

But, and, and that was, you know,

Richard, Ricky Steamboat.

I guess we should say Ricky Steamboat's name is Richard Blood originally.

But when they did his promo pictures, they put Dick Blood.

I'm like, I can't imagine being labeled with that fucking name.

Oh my God.

So steamboat worked perfectly.

And the thing, and

that's the thing.

Steamboats are on the Mississippi down south in Louisiana.

And Sam's steamboat was from Hawaii.

I don't honestly know how he got the name steamboat.

Do you?

Because it's not really a, it's not Japanese.

Do they have steamboats over in Japan?

I don't know the history of the steamboat name or the steamboats in Japan.

But it looks like he's a steamboat more than a blood.

Ricky, I mean.

Yeah, I've never met anyone with the last name blood in my entire life.

Anyway,

I mean, just

yes, Vic Blood, Dick Blood, and Rick Blood, right?

Moving along to the Carolinas.

you know, and I remember getting results.

This was before that I could see the Georgia TV on, because we had no cable up here in like 76, but I remember the results of, you know, Ricky Steamboat and whatever.

And apparently Flair had seen him, you know, down there at those tapings and.

sold him to Jimmy Crockett.

And

boy, when they brought him in, especially those,

you know, early 77, 78, 79, has there ever been a better-looking baby face in fucking wrestling?

Just the body and the hair and the feet.

He looked like Bruce Lee was actually a grown man instead of 140 pounds.

And you're a Bruce Lee fan insulting him, so that says something.

What do you think?

Well, yes, because

that was the thing.

It was the appeal he had.

This is just two or three years after Bruce Lee died, and he'd been the biggest thing.

And here comes this guy who looks even better and is 100 pounds bigger and has that body and is doing, oh my God, it was insane.

What were you going to say?

I was going to say something.

You said something, it triggered something, and then you decided to insult Bruce Lee.

So now I don't remember what I was going to say.

He was the best-looking baby face in wrestling, is what I'd said.

With the physique and the look and the hair and the thing and the blah, blah, blah.

And then that's when.

Oh, Oh, that's what I was going to ask.

Oh.

What do you think when you hear that?

Knowing Ric Flair recommended him and it led to a legendary feud and matches that people still talk about.

Same thing happened with you, right?

Ric Flair saw you guys in Mid-South and immediately recommended you to Jim Crockett.

Well, yes, but it wasn't the same thing because then I didn't have a legendary feud with him and he never would put me over.

Good point.

Yeah, see, but no, that's it.

Flair was a talent scout for Crockett and a representative of the territory because it was the place to go most of the period of time from in the NWA

from what, 76 through

87.

But anyway, you know, and he

saw that, you know, I can work with this guy.

My God, can you, because it's not hard to figure that out.

And,

you know, that's in the Carolinas.

Now, Ricky had only think about this.

He only had like fucking three years maybe experience from the start.

But that's why the old footage, you can tell on the interviews, he was so soft-spoken.

And he was still unsure of himself there.

But you'd get in the ring and he had the facials and the fire.

And he was a natural.

And by the way, that was the only time Bonnie appeared in the documentary, the clip of her.

Yes.

When Flair and Steamboat had the confrontation in the studio she was one of the women on flair's arm

and

now wait a minute now and beth

beth rick's wife was involved in but was that a different angle i think that was a different angle because i'm pretty sure that was bonnie in that act yes yes well no but she was a yeah

Boy, if you were a woman that got into an angle on the wrestling show back in those days, you had a pretty good percentage of Ricky's,

or Ricky told told the story about his father trying to hit the ring with a chair on Ernie Ladd.

Oh, my God, that was such a good story.

And the thing is, he had told his parents, now I'm going to be okay.

I'm going to be all right.

But people,

in those days, not only weren't they as well versed as everybody is today in the inner workings of how wrestling worked, but the young guys weren't going to

just sit down with their parents who are going to one show for fucking hours and try to explain this shit.

So they just try to reassure them.

Okay, you know.

And his father tried to fucking take a chair and ring at Ernie Ladd, which a lot of people

I think today would probably, oh, yeah, bullshit.

He's telling that story.

Remember, we've talked about it before, and there's newspaper clippings and reports of it.

That when Danny Hodge started wrestling out of

the amateurs and then amateur boxing,

in his first six months in the business, they had him against uh angelo savoldi right for the world junior heavyweight title and fucking hodge's father

jumped up on the apron and stabbed or cut sovoldi for what what was it 80 something 90 something stitches

do you remember the number of stitches brian i don't remember the number of stitches but i've heard the story and it's not I mean, for anyone doubting it, it's not an outrageous thing, the idea of anyone hitting the ring or an old person hitting the ring, but specifically a family member that was never smartened up because that was never done.

And in this case, he tried to smarten him up, didn't he, in his own way?

Well,

yes, he had tried to again reassure him, I'm going to be all right, Pop, no matter what happens, you know, blah, blah, blah, or whatever.

But

the guy got seeing this heel maul his son, the guy got fucking overwhelmed, but he fucking stabbed him.

Anyway, so then the steamboat biography goes into into the angles where, and that was the perfect thing, where

Flair,

they were diametric opposites.

Like it was, remember we talk about this is what draws money, Austin and McMahon, Flair and Dusty.

You know, the nature boy versus the common man.

This was the nature boy versus the fucking,

you know, wonder boy.

He was so wholesome and beloved by everybody.

So what are you going to do?

You're going to mess his face up.

And he rubbed Steamboat's face on the goddamn concrete.

And then they

sandpapered it.

Keith Greenberg was getting on my nerves here at this point.

It was unnecessary to stick him in because they had people telling the story that are actually in the business.

But Harley didn't cut him.

They sandpapered him.

And truthfully, I always thought it was fucking Gene Anderson.

Well, Phil, let's just say what he said.

He said that he got cut by Harley Race and then sandpapered.

Yes.

Yeah.

So that it almost infected the cut in a way.

No, you don't fucking gig somebody before you're going to sandpaper them.

That's just insane.

But again, was it, or did Gene sandpaper somebody else?

And this was Harley.

Am I mixing my metaphors?

I'm not sure because I could think of a few different people with that sandpapered eye look.

over the years and I will

steamboat it was Harley anyway so I'll believe him.

Boy, I tell you what, goddamn, that's what they used to do sometimes with burns also,

where they would say if they burned the guy's chest, they'd sandpaper it a little bit and then put the iodine on it.

Oh, gosh, it looked terrible.

But the you don't have to do it for Ronnie Garvin.

But, well, no, because he got singed a bit, but I mean, the sandpaper would be worse, but

the Iranian assassin.

No, the Cuban assassin.

When it was the Cuban and Iranian Assassin tags, it was Cuban Assassin's

son, I believe.

No, which one was it?

Anyway,

point is, it was.

No, it wasn't.

It was Angel the Cuban because that was so many years ago.

Angel the Cuban.

Angel Acevedos.

The Cuban Assassin.

He poured lighter fluid on his chest and set that on fire.

When he got burned with a fireball, so it showed good on TV.

But that was a little extreme.

But anyway,

that's this angle when they did this to Steamboat and it disfigured his face and it took, as Flair said, weeks for months for the pigment to come back.

Not only did this get Steamboat over to Carolinas and propel him into the main event with Flair,

but everybody wanted when VHS came in,

I think it was originally one person that had this because this was, what, 1977, 78.

And when VHS came in on a more regular basis, you would get 47th generation copies of these fucking, because everybody wanted to see that.

And then

the polar opposites.

Steamboat does the angle where he rips Flair's clothes off his custom-made suit down to his skivvies and

punctures his ego, deflates his pomposity.

That's the way you get a baby face over a top heel.

He didn't hospitalize him and put an end to

the issue.

He humiliated him and made everybody laugh at him.

And people saw that as more of a mortal insult to Flair.

And, oh, that got steamboat over.

Because you could get over a top guy like that.

And so, and then they had the fucking matches, which were,

you know, in state of the art.

That was the gold standard anytime they got in the ring.

But there's never,

oh, and did you see one of the clips?

Roughhouse Fargo, Sonny Fargo, was on Mid-Atlantic television.

He was a referee over there raising Ricky Steamboat's hand after he won a match.

Can you think of two more opposite babyface attractions in the history of wrestling?

They're Roughhouse Fargo and Riggy the Dragon Steamboat.

See, I would have loved to have seen a guy like Steamboat brought to Memphis to sit in the crowd and just see Roughhouse Fargo after working with him as referee Sonny Fargo for a while.

Oh, you have no idea.

Here's how over he is here.

And just let him run.

Oh, yeah.

Well, that's what

when me and Bobby and Dennis showed up in the Carolinas,

Roughhouse was still refereeing for about another year or so.

I got to ride with him a couple times.

But, you you know, we would

our eyes would brighten up when he came in.

We'd talk to him more.

And the other guys who had never been there, like, what the fuck?

You don't understand.

Just book him in Memphis.

It'll sell out.

Just put his name on the card.

He doesn't even need to do an interview because he doesn't.

And they're standing there looking at us like we got turds hanging out of our mouth.

Anyway, then they covered the steamboat and youngblood team.

And

boy, the emotional part where Ricky got over in all Japan working for Baba, and then Baba made an announcement on television and helped his mother find her family after all those years that they had been estranged.

That was, I had never heard that before, and that was very cool.

And he was crying talking about it.

I never heard that story.

It's an amazing story.

And when you really think about it, in the early 80s, and, you know, a lot of guys, you and me, we have a lot of those Japanese magazines from that era.

Steamboat was in those magazines.

And he came over to all Japan, but you never think of him as being like one of the regulars like everyone else.

You have to wonder what things, how things could have maybe been different if he didn't go to the WWF, because you have to think Baba would have wanted Steamboat as much as he could have gotten them.

Oh, yeah.

I think he would have been one of the top

and see, I can't say foreign attraction because since he was half Japanese,

he could have been made there if he'd have wanted to just work

probably all Japan and have the rest of the time off, I think.

I can't see because he could work with anybody they brought in.

They brought in the best talent from the NWA.

The Funks were Baba's bookers then.

They never had a top babyface sell like Ricky Steamboat.

So it would have been very interesting to see how it would have affected things.

But, you know, I think if he hadn't.

And honestly, I don't think he wanted to probably, because he is, you know, it always has been been a family guy and, you know, wanted to be gone 26 weeks a year, whatever.

But

I think if he hadn't done the WWF, that would have been

because that's the thing is that was right about that time.

That's when he finished up in Charlotte because Dusty came in, and we've talked about this before.

He knew Ricky had been there for seven years, and Dusty wanted to go with Barry Wyndham

as his top young babyface.

He was going to be the guy, Dusty, but he wanted Wyndham.

And later on, that turned into Magnum when Barry took off.

But

Ricky didn't fit.

And that's when, you know, he

basically went to the WWF and the dragon.

And they fleshed it out a little bit.

I'd forgotten about those martial arts videos he did.

Oh, yeah.

How can you forget those?

Well, because, you know, I'm so

not only was I seeing him on the Carolinas tapes, but then also that trilogy with Flair and that run there.

I've concentrated on that.

I forgot about the, you know, me in the WWF.

But again, looked like a 230-pound Bruce Lee

and can carry the martial arts gimmick off

and look the part.

And then,

you know, again,

let me ask you this.

Discuss this, as they say.

A lot of people

say that the Flare or the Steamboat Randy Savage match at WrestleMania 3 is the best match of all time, right?

People have said that.

I'm not saying just pulling something out of my ass.

They don't say it as often now, but it was said a lot throughout the years, and some people still do say it.

Well, but I mean, a lot of people said it for a while, right?

People say all kinds of stupid things now.

At a minimum, people for a long time said it was the best WWF match of all time.

Okay.

And a lot of people for the same period of time or whatever said that Flair and Steamboat, especially the 89 matches, were the best matches ever had, right?

Right.

Yes.

And

what is the common denominator?

Dave Hebner.

No, the common denominator is Ricky Steamboat.

Because think about this.

I like Ricky Steamboat versus Ric Flair,

especially number one and number three from 1989, better than I like Ricky Steamboat Savage from WrestleMania 3, right?

That's my statement.

And at the same time, I can see where people would like Savage and Steamboat of WrestleMania 3.

But did you ever see Ric Flair versus Randy Savage?

Yes.

Was it nearly as good as Ric Flair versus Steamboat or Steamboat versus Savage?

It wasn't as good as either of those, but I actually thought Flair and Savage, WrestleMania 8, I thought, was a really good match.

Well, yeah, I'm not saying, well, Gears is going to be really good, but that's what I'm saying.

If Flair and Savage were the bigger stars.

But Flair versus Savage was not as good, in my opinion, as either Savage versus Steamboat or Steamboat versus Flair.

Right, because both those guys had the best in-ring working babyface.

And that's a lesson to be had by the young fucking wrestlers of today.

And or sometimes the young bookers of today,

when they always want to match up the two biggest stars all the time,

sometimes the two biggest stars,

what helps them get to be the two biggest stars is because they worked with the other guy and it helped them get over.

And or just because

you like all three people, it's chemistry.

Who fits better stylistically rather than

who you like better?

I love the Flare Steamboat matches, but I actually prefer the Savage match.

Again, it's the first thing.

Well, fuck you.

I'm never going to speak to you again.

It's the first thing I saw growing up.

You know, I saw that before I saw the Flare match.

The arena, the building, the fact that it happened at WrestleMania 3 in that building, it looked incredible.

The other thing is,

I love the commentary on that match.

And midway through the match, Ventura just says, This is the greatest match I've ever seen.

In the middle of the match, he just all of a sudden says it because it hits him, and then it keeps going and getting better.

It was different than anything else you saw in WWF typically.

You know, Bret Hart and Steamboat would have a good match on a house show, but it wasn't on a big position like this.

And

the thing they also have in common, for good and for bad

steamboat and savage and steamboat and flare

i think were big influences on the style of matches that young guys who were training to be wrestlers wanted to work lots of near falls kick out of things they took it too far yeah it wasn't as smart as what they did but i think those matches and a few bret hart matches

Those were big influences on a lot of the next generation of wrestlers and the style.

Well, and

see, here's the thing.

I agree with you 100%.

The problem was it just influenced

the body of work of the performers didn't influence those people.

The idea that this is the greatest match that they've ever had.

And then their careers also, so we're going to try to do that every time we wrestle.

That's what became the problem.

They ignored the the context of what got to that point

to where these guys were so over

and had become such great talents in such big companies that they're finally going to be matched in this major match on this major show.

And then they do 14 false finishes.

Not in Poughkeepsie on Tuesday

every week.

But anyway,

I'll tell you what,

I was, oh, and by the way, then

clarify this for me because then I want to get to January 1989, where for

about a week and a half, I was actually excited that George Scott had arrived and TBS had bought the company.

Yeah.

And if you grew up and saw any of those angles they did in the late 70s, you got to see those again.

Well, yes.

And actually, I didn't even mind that.

Because they were as good the second time around and most people hadn't fucking seen them.

But

back up a second, because you need to tell me what the fuck's up with this.

Steamboat said that Vince had him drop the intercontinental title to Honky Talk Man

because he asked for two weeks off.

He wanted to spend more time with his family, Lil Richie.

No mention or pictures of Bonnie, but Lil Richie was all over the place.

No, what was the real deal?

What happened?

He said,

We can't leave the

intercontinental belt dormant for two weeks.

I don't know how Vince would have even sold that in 1988 or whatever it was.

What was the real deal?

I don't exactly know.

Now, I can see Vince saying that as a line of bullshit for whatever reason.

Well, but Ricky then said, well, then I took six months off instead.

And he did.

He was gone until WrestleMania 4.

Well, that's why I'm wondering if maybe he didn't ask for six months to begin with

or at least three months or something because two weeks i know how vince booked i you you didn't defend the title on television in those days was was he trying to miss a nbc special and again this wasn't on an nbc special this was on the syndicated show honky tonk man got the belt the story throughout the years and then there are people who believe it people who don't was that butch reed was supposed to get it but instead honky talk man got it this led to a lot of the stuff on NBC with Savage and Honky Tonk, the Heart Foundation getting involved, and eventually leads to the thing where in a few months, Honky Tonk Man refuses to lose the belt back to Savage, threatens to go to TBS,

and they re-book everything

so that instead of Ted DiBiase winning the world title tournament, Savage does.

It's a domino effect is what it is.

That's right.

It's all Bonnie Steamboat's fault.

It's all Bonnie's Steamboat's.

I'm kidding.

My question was going to be, because I know it was the case with Heard.

Was Bonnie negotiating for Ricky with Vince?

That would be my question.

I don't know.

So the point is, I'm not calling Ricky a liar.

I'm saying that, and sometimes we can remember these things, but I think there's some.

middle ground in there between him saying, I want to take two weeks off, and Vince made me drop the belt, so I took six months instead.

But he wanted to be home more with his family.

And the finish almost looks like a screw job, and it wasn't, but it was such an awkwardly done roll-up with him and

it looked really bad.

Well,

sometimes the cake doesn't quite rise.

But anyway, so he's gone six months and he goes back.

But at that point, Vince is not using Imka.

You know, the old-time promoters, they didn't like people who cracked under pressure and wanted off.

So he gave his notice and he left.

And that's the thing is,

I hate that for the last four or five years of Ricky's full-time wrestling career, he was still only part-time because he was in such great shape.

But anyway, we got to January 89,

and I remember getting to

that we were still doing a show at the TBS studios on Techwood Drive, but I think they had switched it to where it was nighttime tapings now instead of Saturday mornings.

And

that's when I found out that Esteambo was going to be Eddie Gilbert's partner against Flair and Wyndham because I can't remember what interaction Eddie had been having with Barry Wyndham or what or how Eddie was in that, but he had a mystery partner.

Do you even remember better than me?

Eddie was having issues with Flair and Wyndham and it led to the mystery partner thing.

For a while, it seemed like Eddie

And if there was ever a time where anything was going to happen, 1988 was probably his year.

That's the year he runs over over Lawler.

That's the year he books Continental.

There's a lot of sheet buzz coming into him being hired by Turner and or hired by WCW.

And this was kind of where it still seemed like he was going to get a push.

And then quickly everything went to Rick's steamboat.

Not that it shouldn't have.

Well, but here the thing is,

both these things can be true.

You know, you just know, Uncle Huck, that Eddie was trying to maneuver himself into the booking position with the new owners right because that's a thing that eddie would have done eddie wanted to be the booker and it it wasn't far-fetched because dusty it was just gone jimmy crockett had been the interim guy

eddie you know was i'm sure was

trying to muster some forces of that that would recommend him, you know, with the newsletters or whatever the case, and politicking.

And

it didn't hurt that he's working with Ric Flair and Barry Wyndham, and this was before Flair had any issues with Eddie, as I recall.

So there wasn't anything personal going on, but they hired George Scott.

The first thing that George Scott's able to do is bring Ricky Steamboat in to be Eddie Gilbert's mystery partner.

And as you said, they have that match in the studio and Steamboat looks phenomenal.

And he beats Flair and everybody's fucking jumping up and down.

And

that's when Eddie kind of got lost.

And

after the George Scott debacle,

as you'll recall, when they went to a committee, Eddie was on it.

That was only three months later.

And so.

And then Eddie left the committee because he booked something.

Ric Flair booked something for him to lose in Memphis against Ron Simmons.

Was that it?

And Eddie was.

Eddie didn't leave.

No.

Eddie didn't leave.

Eddie was invited to leave the booking committee, but

he was on the

committee after George Scott, and we'll get back to Ricky Steamboat, but after George Scott, the committee became, besides Jim Hurd and Jim Barnett, who were going to, and Jody Hamilton, who they made sit in there, and they were going to be, regardless of whatever.

It had become Kevin Sullivan, Jim Ross, Eddie Gilbert,

and help me, maybe not not anybody else at that point.

And that lasted about three months, but the sins of George Scott did worse damage to the ratings because they kept going down, even though the other guys tried to do something about it.

So by

June and into July, that's when it was the worst it had ever been.

Thus far, it would get worse later.

And that's when Flair demanded, make me the booker.

as soon as that happened he still had all the people on the committee working for him with him whatever the terminology was but he was the head guy and made decisions

and by the way just to tack it on to the story when Flair became head of the booking committee that's right when Rick Steamboat left right when him and herd had the problems well yes and

and that's another thing he's like what the fuck which we'll get into in a second and now we've lost steamboat and look at these numbers and look at these fucking bullshit.

But anyway,

the problem was then Flair got

as we've noticed when Rick gets cranky with you, he'll stay that way for a while, or maybe not sometimes

on Twitter, but he'll stay that way.

Okay, you get he gets a negative impression of you.

I think

he didn't particularly

read the newsletters or have any knowledge of any of Eddie's booking in Continental or in Memphis, or

he knew Tommy, you know, Eddie's father was a wrestler and he wasn't being disrespectful, but it wasn't like he came from

the Ganya wrestling dynasty to Rick, right?

And he's looking at a bunch of people.

Kevin Sullivan was the only person he wanted to keep on the committee as it existed because everybody else was either counterproductive or he didn't particularly feel they had that much to offer.

But Eddie, they have a show in Memphis, and since he's on the booking committee, Flair's not there, but Flair sends the finishes.

And it was for Ron Simmons, who at that point

was

getting bigger, but it wasn't doom or anything yet, right?

Ron wasn't main event guy, but still is Ron fucking Simmons.

It is for Ron to beat Eddie.

And Eddie looked at that in Memphis as a personal insult, as like a shocking slap in the face.

Flair didn't think, I'm sure, any goddamn thing about it whatsoever.

Because as he said after the fact, it's not goddamn Memphis.

It's fucking WCW.

We're on TBS, for fuck's sake.

But Eddie took it personally and he changed, I think, the finish to some kind of DQ.

I don't know if he turned it around

and beat Ron.

He might have, whatever.

No, maybe he DQ'd Ron since he was a heel anyway.

Whatever the fuck.

That's when Flair called me and said, hey, you want to be on the booking committee?

Because I'm fixing to fucking

have an open chair because I'm getting rid of one guy.

That's the way Flair, I'm getting rid of this guy, or I'm getting rid of the other guy.

You know, once that you know who he's talking about, he'll never name him again.

And

yes, please, what I'll do, whatever, just tell me when you need me, Rick.

I have nothing to do with Eddie, right?

So then,

goddamn, I know we're meandering here.

No, don't worry, this is good.

This is good.

Well, we'll make it, we'll make up time with a shortened fucking SmackDown review.

So then,

you know, I'm sitting waiting, right, for a week or two or whatever it was.

And then Flair calls me and says, Okay,

you know, I've told him I'm replacing Eddie Gilbert, he's off the deal, or I've told him you're coming, be at the meeting Tuesday, whatever the fuck, however, he told me.

And so then that's when I went to the

first booking meeting, was at the actual CNN center TBS office or WCW offices

and the boardroom table with Heard and that old fucking thing.

But

Eddie had told the story,

and I'm not trying to speak ill of him,

but it wasn't true.

That, well, he didn't find out that he was off the committee until he walked in and saw Jim Cornette sitting in his chair.

Well, for one thing, we didn't have a signed seating.

When you got in there, you just, you tried to sit as far away from where you knew Heard was going to be as possible, right?

Otherwise, it was up in the air.

And secondly, he already knew because he didn't come to a meeting and opened the door and I was there.

That never happened.

Flair told him about it beforehand, and there was ill will between them

because of that, because

it was the, again, polar opposites.

Eddie felt that his name and his reputation in Memphis and Continental and the Gilbert family and his

reputation with the smart fans and the newsletters for his innovative booking should garner more respect than probably it actually at that point

maybe needed.

He was very good with that with especially with getting like Heyman, with getting a lot out of a little.

His best talent was still in the ring.

He was a very excellent worker.

He could talk.

But whereas he thought it should probably have a little bit more respect than it did, Flair gave it absolutely fucking none because to who is fucking Eddie Gilbert to Ric Flair.

So he was on the other level of the fucking who the fuck is this guy?

Kevin Sullivan, I know he's been worked for Eddie Graham for 15 years.

Who the fuck is this guy?

You know, you bring up polar opposites to tie it back to Rick Steamboat and the experience in Japan.

My favorite, one of my favorite Eddie Gilbert stories is when working for Wing,

one of the outlaw groups in the 90s, if we are going to call it that.

Yes.

Him and Doug,

and Eddie Really Didn't Work Japan got on the mic, took off their monster masks,

challenged or ran down Mickey Ibaragi, who ran the promotion.

And then my favorite part, pledged their allegiance to Giant Baba.

I remember that.

They never worked forever.

Never, never.

And Baba, can you imagine when Baba heard that?

Like, I'm not hiring these two people.

He's allegiance to me.

Who are they?

Who who are these people who are allies of mine

oh oh oh

uh what a move what a

just what a there was a series of we're not gonna make this about any gilbert there was just a series of bizarre incidents around eddie gilbert in front of fans for like five years just

well god damn it all right since we're

And here's the thing.

I liked Eddie.

Doug's a nut.

Doug, I've told you about before.

He got mad, cussed me on the internet because I wrote the foreword to Howard Brody's biography, right?

I wrote, yeah, Howard's had an interesting life.

Boy, read this book.

And then Doug didn't fucking like what Howard wrote about Eddie, so he fucking cussed me.

And on the fucking internet, you and your fucking book, you fucking redneck.

You can't read a book, much less

know what anybody else has written.

But anyway,

it was Christmas week of 1980, I believe, or was it 81?

For the purposes of the story, it matters not, but my

records can correct it if anybody wants me to tell them.

Tommy and Eddie Gilbert, baby faces, father-son tag team.

They're fixing to leave the territory.

I think that may have been when they went to Tulsa and worked for McGurk.

Well, then maybe it wasn't because I think it was, it was, I seem to remember killer Carl Kroup was here.

That may have put it in 1980.

Yeah.

But nevertheless,

the point is

the Louisville Gardens had

put a big punch.

It's Christmas week, right?

They had put a big punch bowl.

Back there with punch for Teeny and for all the boys and the referees and

they'd put some out of

Christmas cake or cookies, whatever the fuck, 40 fucking years ago.

I don't remember what the food was.

I just remember the effect of the punch.

Because apparently, after

Teeny had some, somebody somehow spiked it, or maybe they took one down in the locker room where Teeny didn't go.

They had one down, but some punch got spiked.

And apparently,

this is what I was told.

I was a mere photographer, but I'm shooting Tommy and Eddie's match with the heels

and some guy at ringside, because Eddie was young and gangly in those days.

And one of the guys at ringside was fucking hooting at him, right?

And Tommy

got vocal with the guy back.

And then Eddie did too, kind of a little bit, and the fucking heels were trying to redirect it.

And the point is, after the match, somehow Tommy ended up going out through, or Eddie ended up going out through the fucking middle of ringside after the fan.

Tommy ended up going out there too.

I don't know whether to pull him back and the cops went out there and they're yelling and cussing.

And Teeny was hot because she came out and said something to the effect of the Gilberts have been into the spiked punch.

I'm just telling you what I'm observing.

The babyfaces suddenly have an argument where they go out in the middle of the goddamn crowd at ringside, yelling at one of the fucking fans, and

then they're asked to fucking, you know, go back to the locker room.

And later on, TD's like, then spike the punch.

The Gilberts had too much punch.

What the fuck?

The fuck.

Anyway, where were we?

We're talking about Ricky Steamboat having too much Jim Hurd's punch.

Yes, because that's the thing.

He signed because he didn't know about this new company, TBS.

He was taking a chance on

burning his bridge with Vince McMahon, who he had been working with, but he knew Jim Crockett, who had just sold the company, knew George Scott,

and had had good experiences in his career with George Scott before George developed fucking

brain epilepsy or whatever caused him to be a complete idiot.

But still, it was a chance.

So he said, I'll agree to six months.

And

they had to give him a decent money deal.

What was it?

I don't remember because it wasn't such and such 100 grand per year because it was a six-month deal.

So at the time, from the standards at the time, would it have been $150,000 for six months, $200,000?

Somewhere in there?

I can't tell you because in so many cases, there's not much rhyme or reason to who got offered what.

But whatever it was, it wasn't what he was going to get going forward.

Well, that's the thing is that,

you know, he's brought in and with a favorable booker and the guy who's, and they don't know the booker is an idiot yet.

And the guy says, I'm going to give this guy a big push.

He's going to be the top guy.

But then,

you know, the problem is six months later,

everything that Steamboat needed to deliver, he did, except the creative decision that the company did and went with of featuring him as a family man, which smacks of Jim Hurd

and featuring Bonnie in the ball gowns.

It smacks of Bonnie.

I wonder if it smacks of Bonnie because remember when Steamboat returned.

Well, it smacks of

both of them.

It smacks of like when Vince McMahon got together with Sable, both of them were smacking.

Then this talentless fucking personality-less bitch gets featured and it kills the on-air talent that she's with.

Because when Steamboat returned to WrestleMania 4, it was, you know, remember, they had the stuff of him and little

Ricky when he was a baby in the ring at WrestleMania 4.

So it was starting then when he returned from the hiatus.

Anyway,

nevertheless,

Steamboat had some of the great matches of all time.

He's a model employee.

He looked like a superhero again.

Even if he wasn't second coming of Farmer Burns and fucking Frank Gotch.

You know, after six months, he just had a great match with Lex Luger.

This is whether his booker was still there or not, Flair loved him.

All the talent loved him.

And not in like, he's our friend, but in no, this is a guy we want to work with.

He makes everybody look better.

He's not selfish.

He's selfless.

And he's still a name, even if you don't want to put him in world title contention.

Here's the guy to wrestle for the U.S.

title or drop it to a heel, whatever the case.

And Heard once cut his money in half, like he did with everybody else.

And

it's the same thing you tried with us,

same thing you tried with the Road Warriors.

It wasn't,

you could understand if it was a talent who wasn't producing, wasn't performing the things that they were asked to be done

in an

entertaining or successful way, if they were the shits, if they were a problem.

But no, just being in a company that's not drawing any money for reasons beyond their control, i.e., the fucking ownership, the management,

then no, don't cut my money, smarten your ass up.

That's what we spent

about a year altogether.

Just me, meaning we, Flair, myself, Kevin Sullivan, all the people that were in the administration during that floating period of time, Jim Ross, whoever, Terry Punk, trying to smarten up Jim Hurd.

Don't penalize the talent because you're fucking this place up because that doesn't sell.

If we had just suddenly shit our fucking pants in the middle of the ring and were producing horrible television shows and horrible fucking matches and the people at the buildings didn't give two shits about us when they were there,

then cut our money.

But no, you fucking, anyway.

Well, remember, too, earlier that year, 1989, is when Jim Hurd met with Randy Savage,

met with Roddy Piper, who was about to return to WWF,

and apparently gave them both low-ball offers.

I mean, it all goes back to the same problem.

Well, but and here's the thing.

Somebody's going to say, well, they wouldn't spend any money then, TBS.

Then don't have the fucking meeting

because what he did every time he did, or then agree to something and go back on your word.

Remember,

Tully Blanchard and Arn Anderson gave notice to the WWF after a year and came back on the promise of Ric Flair that they would be featured in The Horseman Again, the top spot,

and that Heard had agreed to pay them each $250,000 a year.

And after they give notice and it was too late to turn back,

Heard fucking rescind the offer to Tully because he flunked the drug test for Vince

and then cut Arn's money $100,000 because you're not as worth as much without Tully.

So he fucked Tully completely and cut Arn's money almost in half before he started because he was a lion sack of shit.

And he didn't even know who Arn was.

Well, and who gave, you know, Arn didn't know who Heard was.

Arn was going on Flair's fucking word because Flair was promised by Heard.

That's one of the first things that went wrong.

But to your point, with

the other guys,

if you know who somebody is in the fucking business

and you have a meeting with them, you're either going to talk seriously and give them an offer comparable to a job they would be leaving.

Or you're just exposing yourself as a fucking idiot that they're going to go back to their current employer into the fucking locker room and say, the fucking guy tried to give me 100 grand.

What the fuck?

But between

ridiculous offers, not being serious, and then lying to guys,

that's why the only people that left Vince to go for

fucking WCW for the next five years were the goddamn people that Vince fired and ran off.

Anyway,

so then Ricky was gone again.

And then

you mentioned this earlier.

The goes back to the WWF, the full dragon blowing fire gimmick.

And I swear to here's what I wrote.

Bruce, of course, defends this nonsense.

See, that's the thing.

Who was it for?

I go back to this like I asked about the women's division.

I was a kid.

I was 11 years old when he returned.

Ricky Steamboat Karate Master was a whole lot cooler than Man Spitting Fire,

who they didn't even use his name for a while.

They tried to make it just the dragon, no Ricky Steamboat.

Yeah, while he's wearing a big blow-up pool iguana on his back.

No, he was really, really cool as the Ricky Steamboat of the...

mid to late 80s.

That worked.

There was no reason to change it.

That was Vince fiddling with something for no good reason, and it helped no one.

And of course, he didn't get a push, push, so it didn't matter.

But no, Bruce Pritchard trying to defend that is ridiculous because

in terms of marketability alone, the Ricky Steamboat character that he had been up to that point was more marketable than a fire-breathing dragon.

For who?

Is it for children or is it for adults?

Who is that for?

Because kids didn't really care about it.

Well, besides that, here's the other thing also.

The fucking

it looks great in a compilation video on television, but at the house show it was over in fucking, what, four fucking seconds, and then he's got to goddamn rinse his mouth out and shit.

But

didn't they think, well, what about if the kids try to gargle some fucking alcohol and blow into a goddamn Bic lighter to imitate their goddamn hero?

How did they get by with that?

I'd a whole lot rather them hit each other with the rubber nunchucks for a Ricky the Dragon martial arts steamboat than have fucking third-degree burns from kerosene poisoning or whatever.

Did you hear that story about the first time that the guy they hired to train him how to spit the fire did it outside?

All the kerosene went in his own face and his face was fire.

No, you see, yes, that shit don't always even, if you know what you're doing, I don't.

And it's fucking, it's kerosene of some description.

I understand in his divorce, that was the first thing listed.

Breath.

Irreconcilable breath.

Irreconcilable breath.

But anyway, so then he goes back to WCW

in 1992 to team with Shane Douglas.

Which is wrong.

They show him returning at the end of 91 to team with Dustin to win the tag titles and Barry Wyndham got hurt.

Oh, that's right.

But they said it was 92 and they said it was with Shane Douglas, which is what he did at the very, very, very end of 92, mostly early 93 until Shane left.

Now that you say that, I do remember Ricky Steamboat and Dustin Rhodes, but that's for the point where as Smoky Mountain was taking up a lot of my time, but I knew about Steamboat and Shane because when we did the deal with Watts

toward the end of 92 in the February 93 pay-per-view,

That's when Steamboat was teaming with Shane Douglas.

They were the babyface team.

And the Rocket Roll Express and the bodies came in from Smogy Mountain.

And we had that eight-man tag on the syndicated television with the bodies and

Steve Austin and Brian Pillman against the Rocket Roll Express and Steamboat and Shane Douglas,

which was an interesting lineup.

And then Shane left, but they were still the tag team champions.

So they put Tom Zinc under a hood.

Oh, boy.

And they made Ricky Steamboat and Tom Zinc dos hombres.

Basically trying to make it sound like it was still Shane Douglas under the mask did it get dose over

it was over pretty quick

it was over it was overdosed there you go and that was kind of the end of Tom Zinc and WCW too

boy talk about trading your house for a tent with uh

but anyway and then you know he hurt his back and his first serious injury ever

and that's what pretty much puts an end to his career how many back injuries have we seen now?

From Dynamite Kid, the house show footage that's out there to what Shawn Michaels claims hurt his back to the Ricky Steamboat clip here.

Simplest fucking thing.

The bump that hurts the back doesn't look bad at all, and it does all the damage.

But you know, also,

I hate to make this simile,

the straw that broke the camel's back.

If you've done, because actually dynamites may have been that also.

Yeah.

That's right.

If you've done enough damage to something and you don't realize that you've done

that particular damage, then something

slight or not as impressive can be the thing.

And, you know, a lot of times just shit that actually just gets you the right way is not as visual as the guy, you know, doing cartwheels over the top rope and landing with his neck in a fucking incinerator.

i don't know

but it it was the

i know what he means in that if you well we'll talk about it later on if we ever get there when we talk about the clash at the castle pay-per-view where damian priest did the hangman spot with his ankle and everybody was concentrating on the arm or on the uh leg because that was what was caught in the ropes He almost broke his neck.

Yeah, the way he hit the apron was brutal.

Yes.

He almost, head first to the apron, almost, if that had been an inch either way.

But, you know, you never know

the snap when the steamboat went to push off and he slipped off the rope,

then that causes you to tense in a completely different

kind of involuntary way because you're like, oh, shit.

And then when you land, you're tense and it, it's anyway.

That's what happened.

But,

you know again he's living in knoxville now which i didn't even realize

uh and he does the car racing hot rod steamboat

and they talked about his run as a producer and agent in

wwe and the hall of fame induction which he teared up about also but

I remember the

the when he we joked about it, Jay, you know, well, didn't joke about it, but is it that Jericho gave him some kind of stroke or whatever when he had that match where he came back when he was 56 and still

looked fantastic, but it was a brain bleed that was nearly fatal and he was in intensive care for three weeks.

Did we know it was that serious?

Yeah, I remember hearing it was a brain bleed and

I didn't realize, you know.

Well, you and I weren't doing this then.

We weren't doing this, but you know, I also don't know too much about brain bleeds and the fact that they told them there's nothing we could do, you just got to wait it out and hope that it doesn't kill you.

That's crazy to hear.

Uh,

but I don't know if I remember that I knew that it was this serious as

a health issue as it was here.

But coincidentally enough, a lot of AEW Dynamite viewers report brain bleeds every time there's a Chris Jericho segment on the show.

See, now he's a carrier, he's like Typhoid Mary.

Never actually suffered from the disease, but brought it on for those around her.

But anyway, but again,

one of the nice guys, one of the rare biographies where he's still working out, he stays in shape.

He's got the nice wife, the nice home, saved his money, apparently, not on drugs, doesn't have to do indies.

And he has cute dogs.

The end.

You knew it was going to end well when it started and he's doing an interview in front front of his office.

Yeah.

You're saying that most people don't just fucking use the security camera in their fucking trailer to.

Well, most of these biographies, when you see the guy interviewed, you're always like, oh, is there a bed in the background?

Is that a couch?

Where the hell are they?

He was in front of his office with an Intercontinental Championship belt behind him.

Every once in a while, they put people in...

random hotel lobbies, though, just to throw us off.

Yeah, like, where was Keith Elliott Greenberg?

That certainly is not his office or his house he was like in a nightclub or something what was that i'm not sure well you know we don't want to judge maybe he's one to knock one back in the middle of the afternoon we don't know about these things that has nothing to do with home decor

well i thought you meant he was in some kind of saloon up there somewhere in the bronx a saloon in the bronx

Yeah, they got those gin joints up there.

That's right.

I just saw something the other day where some family, they bought a house on Lake Michigan, I think.

And while redoing the hot tub, they found underneath it an old prohibition era tunnel for bootlegging.

Like an underground tunnel that was apparently going to several of the houses for whoever was sneaking whiskey over the border from Canada.

See, I thought you were going to say they found some bones of skeletons of some of the bootleggers.

Boring.

That's not exciting anymore.

all right well anyone can find bones in a yard what what's well how that i'll tell you what sometimes there's there's plenty of fun depends on whose bones and whether you wanted them found

but i'll tell you what you know what you need to do with your bones brian

you need to you need to lay those tired old sore bones down in a sleep a sleep that will rejuvenate and replenish you, that will give you rest and relaxation and recuperation.

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I like what I'm hearing.

You could certainly represent me.

Well, that's the kind of experience you're going to get when you take the Helix Sleep quiz on their website, which, of course, as I mentioned, is helixleep.com, and you tell them what kind of mattresses because they got so many mattresses.

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I thought it was something where you could put the bodies on the mattress and it would help them grow.

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That's right.

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We've talked about this before.

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Well, Jim, you know, in the 90s, I don't know if Helix Sleep was around back then.

I don't think it was, but a lot of people, if you didn't have a good night's sleep and you woke up in the middle of the night, Nitro was on again.

Something a lot of people don't talk about.

WCW Nitro aired.

again the same night right after it aired.

That's right.

And that's unwieldy grammar, but now you have reminded me of that.

They just started over and repeated the whole goddamn thing again.

They had like four hours.

But it was a big advantage because it just reiterated everything from before.

It wasn't like four fresh hours.

It was two hours and two hour replay.

And that was probably a big benefit to them, but we are.

So you could watch both.

That's right.

You can watch both.

A lot of us did that.

A lot of us who were taping both use that as a...

as a nice tool, but we're talking about the death of WCW or who killed WCW.

Which is, and there's there's a lot of tools involved in that.

And of course, episode two, this past week on Vice.

This is your show, but I'm just taking over here.

Who

WCW, episode two?

Well, that's the daggum question we've been asking.

And I'll tell you one thing that we haven't got to the,

we haven't got to the aha moment yet.

It's only second episode down,

third one coming up.

Fourth one is the finale.

So we haven't got to the aha moment, but we have settled one debate.

We know who has the best agent or PR guy that set up their deal.

This is the Eric Bischoff show.

Now, I know he, again,

he's the best storyteller.

He's the most charismatic guy of all of the people involved in the talking heads.

And he also helped recruit many of the talking heads who might be somewhat like-minded.

And the narrative seems to be letting Eric plead his case most sympathetically.

There are counterpoints to be had, but

Bret Hart.

Well, you got to have the counterpoints.

It's hard not to have the counterpoints, but

they're kind of glossing over and letting him get away because he's so smooth with it.

A lot of shit that Eric says, he just blurts, it's not the case.

It's not true, Poop Deck Pappy.

And maybe it's misremembering.

I don't know.

Was he he on any type of chemical enhancements back in those days?

It was a wild, crazy time.

Maybe he doesn't remember everything, but

you know,

it's all its standards and practices' fault and this and that.

And then, and we'll hear more on that, I'm sure, next week.

But also, he's Brett Hart.

Well, he needed a new star for Thunder.

He'd been talking to Brett for two years.

It started in 96.

Then Vince led him in 97

before they pitched thunder.

But anyway, there is some finger pointing starting to be done here.

And the title of the episode was The Streak Is Over, because, of course, 83 weeks was the magic number.

And

from living through it and being up there on the other side, there was definitely consternation.

in Stanford about

the continual ratings losses, even though,

Brian, when you look back, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but we know that it was multiple times what they are now.

Vince was yelling at everybody at Maddie, we got to do something and let's hot shot this thing and get the Zamboni or whatever the fuck with an audience of probably, what, three times, four times what they have right now?

I don't know the numbers, but significantly larger, yeah.

Probably be three.

But so.

Hey, were you working there?

You know what I hadn't even thought about until you just started saying all this.

Didn't Bischoff take out a billboard right opposite Titan Tower?

Oh, God, I think.

Well, not like with his picture on it, like a real estate guy.

Okay,

WCW.

Well, yeah, yeah.

Looking for a real estate guy.

That would have been a hell of a move.

Looking for real estate in Stanford?

Oh, what a move that would have been.

Either that or any Connecticut employees thinking of moving to Georgia, call ETE

at 1-800.

Oh man.

Oh God.

But so it starts out

that Bischoff says that, you know, Schiller calls him, they want two more hours because nitro is so good.

And the question is, will it weaken Monday?

But Bischoff didn't want to tell Ted no.

And then that's when he said he brought, he needed a star.

He brought bread in for thunder, which that, you know,

I mean, everybody knows that's obviously not the case go ahead that's obviously not the case however that may not necessarily be not the case in awful english right there but we don't know how he sold it to the turner executives is the point well true true so maybe he doesn't want to fucking expose himself after all this stuff because again you had to justify a giant contract the biggest in the company You also had to deal with at that time guys who had most favored nations contracts.

I think Kevin Nash and Scott all had to like waive it for Brett.

Yeah, yeah, they did.

So there were a lot of things with money moving around.

How are you going to justify that?

Hey, you're making us take on another two hours.

But that's when

they have all the talking heads who about the only thing they universally agreed on was they put Brett over.

Everybody that had a comment, oh, yeah, Brett, they put him over big.

And he came in, as we've talked about so many times, after the Montreal screw job for $2.8 million a year.

And I think it was going to be three years.

It was going to be.

And Brett says, I had a great first night in, and everything, quote, went downhill from there.

And the quote was, everything Eric Bischoff ever said was a lie.

So that's where we start there.

And then they start telling the story that everybody said, well, they can't book 10 hours a week.

And

they expand the NWO to,

you know, have 30 people and multiple groups and whatever, all the things that they did.

Yeah, both of these things can be true.

Maybe it might be difficult to book 10 hours a week with the pay-per-view or whatever, but at the same time, you don't have to just do ridiculous, stupid shit at the last minute for almost no reason, which is what they were doing weekly, depending on

who he was listening to and how much sleep everybody'd had.

And so that

the

the problem with booking too much television is that you dilute

there's not as much happening.

Not you're booking more television, so you got to make more shit happen.

You make more shit happen and people can't keep track of the goddamn shit that was happening.

Are you keeping track of this?

I'm keeping track of this shit that's happening, yes.

All right.

Well, anyway, that's what the so

they're very sympathetic to themselves, but no, it was a rotten television program with little pre-planning.

And

this

is going to be an issue.

It wasn't at that point, but it will be later on in this program, the money they were spending on talent.

But anyway,

Goldberg,

they create a star.

Really by accident, they just let him go out there

with minimal training in the early days, remember, and had no thought of a win streak.

They just knew, well, we don't want to beat this fucking guy.

I think Mike Tanay came up with a winning streak.

Mike Tanay came up with a winning streak after

there technically was one because they had a green football player that they thought they could do something with, but he

wasn't very good, so they didn't want to let him go very long.

So they just had him beat people.

Is it not rocket surgery or brain science?

Is as old as wrestling?

Is the old-fashioned, you know, monster push for a big green guy, a leviathan in Ohio Valley Wrestling.

But that's the thing is that then when the fans started liking it, because

a great-looking guy like that, a huge monster winning in dominant fashion, explosively and looking like it hurts, which it did.

That gets over with people.

So they start chanting for him and they start cheering.

And that's when Mike Today said, hey, he's undefeated.

Let's go with this.

And that became a thing.

But they backed into it.

And then they fucked it up.

They didn't even mention in this show where they started manual.

But

that's a thing that got him over as an attraction.

But he was still green.

And as you hear from his own lips and from listening to him talk, he kind of is a mark.

And he really, he was never taught and he didn't know what the fuck he was doing.

And you can't blame him when he becomes one of the biggest wrestling stars of all time in fucking six months, knowing dick all about what he's doing.

Going through the power plant.

Yes.

I mean, you know, and having those matches.

So that's the thing is,

again, you're dealing with polar opposites is a theme today on the program.

Now you're going to have Goldberg and Bret Hart.

Bret Hart, who is almost like a goddamn Picasso of wrestling, who prides himself

in his art and his craft and his business, and is serious as a heart attack.

And

the one thing that he's proudest of is never hurting anybody.

And then you have Goldberg, who's like, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.

They just told me to do this thing.

God, it's great when the fans cheer for me.

And hey, I told him the kick was coming.

What kind of kick from fucking where?

More on that later.

Anyway, they create the star, and even Nash is talking about how stiff he was.

Like, dude, brother,

you know, and

nobody wanted to stand in front of that.

And then they told the story about when Goldberg got over that Bischoff says, Hulk called me and said, it's time.

I want to put Goldberg over in the Georgia dome.

This was the best one of the fucking.

You know what?

At least they had one person from the corporate side there to say the obvious.

Why isn't this on pay-per-view?

Yes.

It's not just like the wrestling people that really knew.

That guy was on the business side.

He's like, what the fuck?

Why are we giving this away for free?

Well, Brian, stop me if I leave anything out.

But what it was was they were so hot.

And especially in Atlanta, they had booked the Georgia Dome

for a Nitro.

with nothing advertised.

And they sold like 25,000 tickets.

And then they kept selling, and they were going to do close to 40,000 people.

And also,

all the Turner executives were going to be there because it's in Atlanta and it's such a big deal.

It's going to be on national television.

And

less than a week before, that's when Hulk

tells Bischoff, yeah, I want to wrestle fucking Goldberg.

And then I know, well, did he tell him he went to wrestle him first?

And then he said he'd put him over.

I think that may have been when he said he would drop it to him because I think they advertised the match first locally as a non-title match.

Yes, but that was only a week or two out.

Right.

And then there was no promotion.

Like between the nitro before and the nitro it aired, there was no promot, like there was nothing on the nitro before saying that.

I don't think, again, I'm trying to remember in real time, but there was no promotion for it.

And there should have been

the biggest pay-per-view in company company history.

Well, yeah, it might have been the biggest pay-per-view in pay-per-view history at that point.

But the thing is, Hogan knew he would look good if he was in the main event of the biggest house they ever drew in front of all the TBS executives.

And he put himself in that match in the main event that hadn't been advertised in less than two weeks with no promotion, no angles, no nothing, just we're going to have it.

And they gave it away on free television.

And he gets to say he drew the house.

He gets to say he drew the house, or it doesn't even have to say that.

It's in the executives' minds.

Well, Hogan's the main event guy.

And look, here's Goldberg.

And then

they nullified it and fucking switched it around,

what, weeks later, right?

So they blew the match on free TV and with a week's promotion for Hulk's ego.

And then

they took it off of him with the goofy thing with Nash, which we'll discuss in a second.

But first, this fiasco.

Yeah, and again, it was a big moment in terms of, as a fan, it was one of the great moments in WCW, maybe the last really great one.

Goldberg winning the title from Hogan.

Like you said, they didn't address them botching it up already with the fake numbers that were clearly fake to the viewers.

And also, Goldberg remarked on how thrilling it was, the crowd popping for him when he won the title.

You could tell

he's like the Road Warriors the first year or two.

When they got fucking excited, Jesus Christ, it's like getting hit with a Volkswagen.

He's a less offensive ultimate warrior in a lot of ways.

Yes.

And I'm not saying he's not wrong.

No, the Warrior had multiple chances to get it right and was a prick.

This guy was just thrown into shit and was a phenomenon.

A stiff phenomenon made out of potatoes.

And that, again, that match would have made more money for WCW than any other match ever.

It would have broken the pay-per-view record for that company, and instead it was just on this.

It was still a successful night,

but it's kind of the beginning of the end.

This is right around the time that Tyson comes into WWF.

This is right around the time that, obviously, according to what they're saying here publicly, Bischoff had burned out and made Kevin Nash the booker.

Well, no, he wasn't a booker yet.

That was about to happen.

That's my point.

It's all around this period of time where the problems that WCW are going to have start becoming more apparent.

I wonder if Vince McMahon had ever dreamed

if Nash goes down there and works for them, they'll make him the booker.

He would have done like the Bill Watts-Grizzly Smith deal.

Grizzly Smith was booking for the opposition in Mississippi, the Culkins, and he called Watts.

He said, can I come back?

And Watts said, no, I'll pay you $250 a week.

Just stay there and keep booking for them.

You're going to put them out of business.

Well, this was interesting, and let's talk about it since you brought it up.

Eric Bischoff and Kevin Ash.

Kevin Ash just volunteers to be the booker, and Eric Bischoff says, okay.

Okay.

But Kevin Ash kind of goes into some of his philosophy on booking.

Absolutes in his eyes, or at least the way he put it here, of his booking.

What did you think?

Him talking about that.

It should always be the babyface chasing a heel champion.

I mean, he seemed pretty absolute about that.

What did you think of that?

We'll go through a few of these things.

This is at the same point where Bischoff started doing the standards and practices thing.

Well,

TBS wants a more family show.

And old Truman Capote there, Brad Siegel, says, can they do it without being as lewd as WWE?

They took it into the gutter.

He ain't wrong.

Well, no, he's not wrong.

But the thing is,

again, at least some of the WWF lewdness made half-assed sense.

They were just all over the place.

But nevertheless, so Bischoff is blaming standards and practices.

Nash wants to be the booker.

He says, okay, go ahead.

Again,

sometimes

the greatest player is not the guy you want to be, the coach or the manager of the team, right?

We've talked about this sports analogy.

You know more sports than I do.

And sometimes the best worker is not the best teacher and these other similes that you can draw.

But because Kevin Nash, who had been in the business at that point

eight years

and had never booked or been a member of a creative team, suddenly,

yeah, he's got, whether you like his ideas or not, he's got good ideas.

So I'll make him the booker of this company is grossing fucking $100 million a year or whatever the fuck it was.

It's just, and Nash, the most disinterested

talking head ever.

I've seen people be more excited to be put in a medically induced coma.

And, and that's,

that's the thing with what Medusa said.

Here's a quote.

Once you have the monkeys running the zoo, you're in trouble.

And so Bishop just takes off.

Nash is the booker.

We know that,

you know, God bless Kevin, but he's always been out for either himself or his close circle of click friends and

he doesn't care about the company, which his statements, you know,

bore out.

So

the first thing he does, they've got Goldberg, who's massively over.

He's one of the two biggest stars in the company.

Did Hogan have that much heat or that much interest or that much?

No, Goldberg is pretty much the guy, right?

And he can't work a fucking lick.

So instead of working around it, instead of doing what Dusty did with Nikita Koloff

in 1985, four, whatever it was,

instead of having the best in-ring heels bump off of him and have the best talent in the business in the locker room in his ear trying to smart him up and tell him how to work.

As Goldberg said,

I don't know, there's a bunch of backstabbing cutthroats.

Nobody's telling him any goddamn thing.

And Nash wants to beat him because you can't have the top guy if he can't carry it.

If he's selling that many tickets,

one tackle pancake with everybody.

That's all you fucking needed.

If you're trying to get this fucking guy over,

and he's a minister society in the ring, and he's stiff, and he doesn't know what he's doing.

He's a mark for himself, then fuck it, find somebody else.

If he's already that fucking over,

as

we've applied to another situation, fire the fucking writers.

Are you banging stuff?

Yes, I'm getting vehement here on the goddamn desk.

So that's the point: they beat him.

They hit him with a fucking taser.

I remember seeing this.

They hit him with a taser and they beat him.

And it buried him because he didn't know.

Goldberg did not know how to take care of himself

much

I'm not talking about physically

that's a saying

the pros experienced veterans they can lose in such a way or they can show weakness in such a way that they can get the guy over, get the opponent over, get the issue over, but they can take care of themselves.

They don't come out looking bad or stupid or with their dick in the fucking mud.

But a guy that green, he don't know how to take care of himself.

And he couldn't argue his points in the goddamn finish meetings if they did have them eloquently because he didn't know the terminology and he didn't understand psychology.

He was being told things to do by people who may or may not have had his best interest at heart.

Such as when Nash becomes the booker and then they tase him and Nash beats him.

And that's where,

yes, the babyface making the chase

is a classic rule of thumb in wrestling.

There's more money in the chase than there is in the capture for Dusty Rhodes or Jack Briscoe or Cody Rhodes, not for Andre the Giant

or Haystax Calhoun,

or

no.

Not for Bruno San Martino.

Not for Bruno.

It depends not only on the individual that's chasing, but the people

that are being chased.

That has to fit.

And

Goldberg and Dusty Rhodes or Jack Briscoe and Cody Rhodes are as far apart or Bruno.

They're as far apart as night and day, but the point is.

When you have

a guy that's working with the people, you figure out a way to work around him rather than to try to make him conform.

This was not damaging to the industry.

No, the shit they were doing in other matches was a lot more damaging than Goldberg having

putrid, basic fucking matches and being over like God.

So, anyway, and you know, nobody wanted to see Andre the Giant chase anything, nobody wants to see the goddamn Hulk chase anything

or whatever.

So, and then Nash said they showed

the pin where he wins, and he says, When I won, I was over as fuck.

I don't care what anybody said.

Yeah, he was over as fuck, and so was WCW's business over,

but that was part of the problem, too.

The cool heel got himself over more than the biggest babyface in the company, and that goes to

where they fuck themselves in the proverbial Keister.

The next time they could do the Georgia Dome,

the Hulk and Nash with the finger poke

and Hulk winning one, two, three, and Bischoff.

Folks, if you don't know, we can't go into so many details on all this stupidity.

If you don't know that at one time they actually built up a deal on Nitro from the Georgia Dome.

Where the Hulk had Hulk Hogan had challenged Nash

for the title.

It's going to be the big fucking Battle of the Titans.

And then, boom, Hulk pokes him with a finger.

He takes a big bump and Hulk covers him one, two, three.

And Bischoff tried to explain this like

it somehow could have been good if it had come off right.

Was that the

description you were getting?

I was under the impression he now accepts that it was not well thought out or it wasn't the right idea.

He was trying to explain it somehow like it made some kind of sense, though.

Well, this was the problem then as it is now.

A lot of people try to justify a lot of the things that were wrong at the time.

Well, and Nash was, it sounded like he was, oh, it was good.

You know,

Kevin Nash is a smart guy.

He's had to have learned something in 25 years.

It wasn't good.

And then that was the night that they spoiled Raw.

And I remember this because I was at the other fucking location.

And the people tuned into Raw to see Mick beat Rock for the title when Shivani had spoiled the result and knocked it.

And that led to the flipping of the war, this bullshit that WCW put on their television.

It pissed off some of their fans again.

While on the other channel, they got to see exactly what they wanted to see, which was Mick Foley win the big one.

And they gave us advertising for it.

And Nash, the booker's comments was a lot of mistakes were made, but my check didn't change.

There's the problem with why you don't let some of your stars get creative control or be bookers.

Because they don't give a shit about you or the company or the business in general.

And Conan was trying to be honest

in fighting jealousy.

No, Conan was really, it has been really good in the series so far.

Yeah.

And he came back and said, we did ourselves no favors.

Who would Bischoff listen to?

And

anyway, I loved hearing Bischoff talk about how they moved expenses around in the various departments at TBS to how

yes,

WCW did get shorted on not being paid for television for a long time and not being paid what they would have been had there not been the relationship and all that stuff.

But it was all bullshit.

They benefited as much as because they were.

At one point, Turner Home Entertainment was paying some of the stars at least part of their salaries.

And the big money.

The talent being paid, ridiculous money was being paid by

Turner Broadcasting itself, not WCW.

That's why nobody could afford

to

quit and go to the WWF when WCW was sold because they still got paid for a year, year and a half, more money than Vince would pay them to work.

So it was the bookkeeping in that company, along with everything else, was suspicious from the start.

But

anyway, that

here's the problem.

They were drawing ridiculous money until they fucked it up because they self-destructed and all of them couldn't handle it, couldn't keep up with it.

But Bischoff was spending so much money.

The talent cod, there were hundreds of talents under contract being paid every week.

Many of them never worked.

You never saw them.

God, that sounds familiar with modern day, doesn't it?

And they even investigated him because the story went around probably from somebody that

he was pissed off at and didn't get one of the contracts that he would get kickbacks, bishop, on the contracts he gave out because they were so ridiculous.

But when he was cleared, they told him what he was being, he was cleared.

He said, well, this made me quit being loyal to the company.

What?

But not quit his job.

Well, and that's the thing.

Maybe he just can't handle money, either his own or the company's.

Maybe he just does spend like that.

Vince McMahon

was not going to pay anywhere near this amount of money for anywhere near this amount of fucking guys.

It's not like he was engaging in a nip and tuck bidding war.

You know, with the thing with Brett, okay, that's an individual thing and a couple of other individuals.

But as a by and large,

I think Scott Norton,

somebody said he was making like $750,000 a year there at one point.

I don't know if Vince would have fucking known him if he'd have tripped over him on the sidewalk.

It's just insane.

So the drunken sailor spending rule was in effect.

Maybe that's maybe that's Eric's issue.

He keeps bouncing back and forth from the brink because he just can't hang on to the cash.

But back to Bret Hart.

Here's a quote, they're killing me off on purpose.

And so finally, he says he pulled Goldberg aside and said, I want to teach you not to hurt guys.

Please don't hurt me.

And I will teach you, and I can see him doing this.

I can honest to God see him and hear him telling the guy, look,

I'll teach you not to.

But at that time, maybe Goldberg was like, because you can tell even now, he's like, well, hey, I told him, watch the kick.

What the fuck?

What kind of kick from where?

And watch the kick is be ready to take a bump when I working kick you, not

watch as I kick you in the hit as hard as I possibly can.

Yeah, watch this, motherfucker.

Boom, there.

You just see that?

If you missed it, I'll do it again.

So he,

and that's Brett's, when they showed the tape, Brett, he's starting to turn to take like a drop kick, and he's got his left hand going up, and this foot just comes in like a goddamn telephone pole on top of an 18-fucking wheeler, and bam, it blows past his hand and fucking kicks him right inside of the head.

And that's when Brett said, watch the kick.

They never explained to me.

You know, I do this move where I kick guys in the head as hard as I can.

And then he said, this is a quote.

I wrote this down.

Fuck,

I somehow will myself to stand up where I'm run over by this imbecile.

And he's beard him, and his head hits the fucking mat again.

And he said it was a lousy ending for a great career.

Fucking hell.

Now,

Brett seals the show in every one of these things.

He's so good and so honest.

Yes, and

you can't dispute anything.

And you can tell Goldberg's fed up with it, right?

Like, I've been hearing this for 25 years.

But,

brother, again, polar opposites.

The one person, me and Russo,

Brett and Goldberg,

Flan Dusty and a working wave, whatever the case,

you almost can't find people

that would be any farther apart in

viewpoint or, you know, whatever.

That is my favorite thing about it.

I love Brett.

Brett's one of my all-time favorites and he's like the Canadian coronet now, the way he talks about these things.

But with Goldberg, it's gotten to the point where he's so tired of hearing about it that whenever they show up, he's like, oh, like his body's moving.

You can tell he's so fed up with Brett Hart

telling everyone that he's an imbecile that killed his career.

Because now he's asked about it like non-stop, and Brett doesn't stop talking about it.

So very, very funny.

Bill Goldberg.

Bill Goldberg.

And in the summer 99, as they're ending this episode, Bischoff said he's frustrated.

He's burned out.

That was a good description of WCW's fans and viewers also.

And he called it one of the worst periods of his life.

And it was

September 10, 1999.

Schiller calls, that's what he said.

Schiller calls Bischoff in and sends him home, which kind of sounds redundant.

You got to come in immediately.

As soon as you get in, go the fuck home.

What the fuck?

But Bischoff said he was confused and relieved.

I can understand in some ways how he feels about that, if nothing else.

And he went to Wyoming to fish.

And

if that's what relaxes you, go ahead.

But next week,

shit stain arrives.

And the shit, as Gary Hart used to say, will be on, brother.

This will be the most enjoyable the Russo-era WCW has ever been because it'll be be in clip form with just people mocking it and talking about how bad it is.

I'm looking forward to this.

Well, now here's another bonus to this.

I've never seen most of this because think about this.

He left in September, October, whatever it was.

I had moved to Louisville in July of 99, started an OVW.

And the last thing I gave a shit about once I got out of Stanford was watching WCW.

It was hard enough for me to keep up with WWF at that point.

I quit that, what, three or four years later, and started just watching

our programs and OVW and WWF.

So I have not seen, I have heard about

most of the stupid shit that he did, but on a week-to-week basis, I've never seen this stuff.

They had a quote from him in the trailer for next week, and it was something like, I was better on camera than 80% of the roster.

I saw that in the commercial, yes.

That ranks up there with another one of his quotes when he said, well, if I can learn to work in the ring, anyone can.

He's right.

So if he could ever learn how to work in a ring, anyone could.

Yeah.

So let me just say this.

It may have taken 25 years, but finally, through the miracle of wrestling documentary television, I have finally started to be vindicated as

how could anybody possibly hate being in a goddamn room with another human being as much as I did with Russo?

It must have been my fault.

But now people can see.

Now,

almost overwhelmingly, the response is, no wonder.

What the fuck?

How could you sit and listen to this fucking moron in his drivel without wanting to grab him around the fucking throat?

So I have a feeling next week we'll set some records for people putting their foot through the TV screen.

It's going to be interesting.

There's four episodes, right?

So I guess there's going to be two episodes.

Well, we've done two.

There's two more to go.

Two and two is four.

Are you hanging with me on this complicated new math?

Well, I guess there's going to be a lot.

There's going to be just a smaller period of time to cover in the next two episodes.

So there may be a lot of clips and stuff.

Well,

there's a lot more blame to go around from the end than there is from the start of the beginning.

We're really going to get into the finger point next week, especially when Shitstain gets involved because he can fucking deflect and genuflect and

send criticism other people's way in a fucking heartbeat.

If they really want to get some numbers, release a super cut online of just Brett and Goldberg back and forth.

Well, the one on Twitter, did you see the one that I retweeted?

Somebody did it where they just clipped.

It was like a minute of Bret Hart's greatest WCW experiences.

It was him saying, idiots, stupid idiots, these idiots.

He was an idiot.

What a failure.

I didn't see it.

It was over and over.

Oh, my God.

But I understand that

some people,

over

this animosity and this enmity and this

aggression that they are showing over who killed this company, some people have been reconciled over it.

Am I seeing this correctly?

That

apparently now Flair and Bischoff and Russo and Jim Heard,

Flair has somehow apologized for his stern words on Twitter.

Well, I don't think he apologized to Heard.

I think he thinks and hopes that Heard is dead because Heard's not on Twitter.

That's not what he said on Twitter.

But did he actually put Heard in that group?

Well, apparently Ric Flair was bothered by the death of WCW show, or death of, I called it the wrong name again.

Who killed the killing of WCW?

Who knows?

The killing of Sister George.

Who killed WCW?

And Ric Flair was not a participant.

Of course, Darkseid famously did an episode that Ric Flair may not have appreciated.

So he was not a part of this process.

But while reacting differently,

In a sense, he had a very similar response to you from episode one or from you to episode one.

Well, that's what I thought because that's what I'd seen was that he was not happy with these three people, the unholy triumvirate, Jim Hurd, Eric Bischoff, Vince Russo.

The three of them have the more blood on their hands.

That's where last I left off with Flair.

Here's what was tweeted from the Ric Flair Twitter account.

Again, it may not be him necessarily typing it out, but every first letter.

And in that case, wouldn't someone turn the Capital thing off if it wasn't him apparently that's his style but let me read this

i've tried to lay low on this but let's face it who killed wcw

it's a three-headed monster jim hurd eric bischoff and vince russo

there's no individual wrestler or faction that caused anything to kill wcw

It was the people in charge that created dysfunction, animosity, and tried to divide and conquer by lying to everyone and involving themselves in the promotion, which was the ultimate failure.

God,

I could give you a thousand more examples.

He's definitely dictating this to someone.

I am one to live through all three nightmares and to be saved by WWE.

Thank you to WWE for

bringing someone who was dead in the water as a result of these three people

back to life.

So let's stop.

Okay, okay.

Not only is that the way that he has felt and the way that he has spoken publicly, privately to me, publicly,

for the past 30 years, and that is verifiably and demonstrably not only the way Ric Flair feels, but it's also the fucking truth.

He did not, he didn't tell any whoppers there.

He didn't stretch any truth.

He didn't make false accusations.

This is not what

anything that many people aren't saying.

This was not inflammatory in terms of, is he lying or is he working or is it what?

No.

That's kind of what happened.

And that's pretty much what he said has been happening for 30 fucking years.

So I have no problem with that tweet whatsoever.

It is interesting that two of the people that were involved in the early days both had the same exact thought, which was, even though it didn't completely die, you have to blame Jim Hurd.

Yes, yeah, I mean, that was the start of it.

That was, you know, Vince had an eight-year fucking unobstructed run at doing whatever he wanted to do to the wrestling business because of Jim Hurd.

Well, apparently, Vince Russo did not take too kindly to where

hold on, hold on.

I want to be clear here.

I'm not saying Heard was there for eight years.

I'm saying Heard's

three-year tenure put WCW in the hole for their first eight years.

Go ahead.

We have something here.

Vince Russo, who didn't like what Ric Flair had to say, tweeted out.

Looks like the nature boy is hitting the rum candy again.

Thanks for giving me that much credit.

Rum candy?

Thanks for giving me that much credit.

Wait a minute a minute.

Back up.

Let's not bury the lead.

What famous Ric Flair story of public intoxication involves rum candy?

Well, there was that night in the cornfield with Ray Candy.

Oh, that's the the one.

Yeah.

Thanks for giving me that much credit for a writer to take down a multi-million dollar company through words on a page.

Words on a page, bro.

I guess I really was special.

Not my fault you weren't in the dock, Rick, R-I-C-K.

Sorry, man.

I hope you don't think my excessive use of your son David and the rest of your family for that matter, who were great, by the way, wasn't the knife that drew the company's last blood.

Yeah, I failed at laying low.

Yeah, he put David Flair in the ring before he'd ever had a goddamn wrestling lesson.

And then after they'd done that

and made him look like an idiot in front of the entire world, then fucking

then signed him and sent him to OFEW to train, to start training.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is the way he talks also, by the way, just so you know.

Using someone and using someone well are two different things.

Saying that I used your family is one thing.

Like you said, David Flair was used in certain ways that didn't make much sense.

Ric Flair had his head shaved and was put in a mental hospital.

Yes.

So that's not good booking, and that wasn't anything any Ric Flair fan ever wanted to see.

There was a flim flam of the Flair fans, is what it was.

Ric Flair responded to Vince Russo on Twitter,

wow, glad you got back to me, Vince Russo.

Whatever candy I'm eating, at least I can afford to eat, which I'm not sure you can.

I would give you $20.

Shoes cost more than your house, brother.

I would give you $20.

Or excuse me $20,000, not $20.

I would give you $20,000, Eric Bischoff, $20,000, and Jim Hurd $20,000 a piece wired in advance to show

up in Tampa or Atlanta I'll rent the venue in Tampa or Atlanta it will sell out for sure so we can hash this out I guarantee that I could probably sell this to a pay-per-view status because I'm Ric Flair and you're not yeah

story of my life he turned it into a sales pitch what is that well besides that

Okay, Heard, he's 90, whatever years old.

Hopefully he's hooked up to some kind of really strong machines.

They probably couldn't transport him down there, medivacuum or whatever.

But I know, you know, Bischoff's interested in 20 grand with his financial history, and Russo's begging for spare change on the corner, practically.

So, of course, he wouldn't take my offer of five grand if I had a baseball bat and he just had to come pick it up.

He wouldn't take that.

See, that'd have been in cash.

He wouldn't have had to pay federal income tax or anything.

But nevertheless,

but it all ends with basically.

I'm liking the way Flair's talking so far, though.

And now I think he's full of shit.

It's just a huckster trying to set up a pay-per-view with another bunch of hucksters.

That's what it sounds like.

But then I hate your guts.

Let's talk about it and we can both make some money.

Come on, how you doing?

Hey, yeah, but then how come the worm turned and the mood changed all of a sudden, from what I understand?

Well, Ric Flair on a Wednesday morning issued this Twitter, this Twitter tweet.

He issued this tweet.

A very important person in my life reminded me yesterday that Twitter is the weakest form of communication.

I want to take this opportunity to apologize to Jim Heard,

Eric Bischoff, and Vince Russo,

because I really don't know.

I unfairly judged you without knowing the inner workings and behind the scenes of the business.

Wait a minute.

He was in the inner workings with Heard.

I was standing there watching him in Heard's inner workings.

On the corporate end, with people you had to report to and work with.

In the office, they were talking to him, both of them.

I wish, on a personal note, that all three of us could have worked together and had better relationships.

What the fuck happened?

What the fuck is this?

Well, it goes on to blow them a little bit more here and then to say that, remind everyone that the Rocks company picked up the option to make a biography of Ric Flair, which they're working on.

But

a very important person in my life.

Who is that fucking spoil sport?

And where is the real Ric Flair and what have you done with him?

Because that's both.

I want to apologize.

I would like to work for all of you gentlemen.

I'd like to work for all of you or work with all of you gentlemen or whatever.

Maybe he wants to work with The Rock.

Who threatened to pull what financial rug out from under him that he all of a sudden changed course?

God damn it.

I would have almost fucking paid him the same thing back just not to fucking get the limbertail on these three fucking Cretans that he accused of, and rightfully so,

wrestling malfeasance.

You see, the good thing about Heard

is Russo has never been in a fight, but he's also younger than Flair considerably.

Bischoff looks a little older, but he's still younger, and he looks probably younger than he really is.

Heard is old.

Flair is old.

I don't think anyone would have a problem with those two going at it.

But did now, did you, did you ever see Bischoff try to work, though

well yeah in 1998 or oh god okay well no you'd have to be a goddamn paraplegic not to be able to take him and i mean i guess he did the karate exhibitions and stuff but every time he tried to work he's a black belt in ninja star wars well there you go and that was velcro

No, I think anybody could fucking whip Eric.

He just had people buffaloed because he had a Japanese friend and a fucking gi.

Anyway, so

what's what's happen?

I'm disappointed in Rick for that last one.

You know, maybe it was somebody else.

Maybe he got hacked.

Maybe he got hacked on the last one because I know the first two were the way he actually fucking feels.

Who encouraged him to apologize to Jim Hurd?

Like Russo and Bischoff are still active in the world of wrestling by doing different things.

Jim Hurd is completely out there or out of there, I should say.

Did he have to just feel like he had to include or maybe somebody wrote it for him and had to include and doesn't know who Jim Hurd is?

Or

hopefully, somebody's not trying to lead Rick to Jesus or anything, where he's forgiving all of people of their sins.

Oh, here's another tweet he just put out: A very important person in my life reminded me yesterday that Twitter is the weakest form of communication.

I want to take this opportunity to apologize to that poor stewardess that I chased around with my penis

on the plane ride from hell.

Look at this helicopter, baby!

Woo!

For heaven's sake, next thing he'll be apologizing on Twitter to the Egyptian.

All in caps.

I want to apologize to the Egyptian

for that thousand-dollar chip I gave that woman for calling you an asshole.

And I didn't mean to woo at the old blind grandmother.

I apologize to the other guy for the bathroom incident, but let's not talk about that.

Woo!

Wait a minute, poop deck pappy.

Remember, we're...

all right.

You've gotten that name on this show in like five different segments so far.

Hey, I am pushing, and next is going to be olive oil.

And I'm starting to get hungry.

So, what's happening in the world of the Arcadian Vanguard Network this week?

Another fine week of programs.

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Want to remind everyone to go through the archives, shut up and wrestle with Brian Solomon, and of course, stick to wrestling with John McAdam.

Scott Cornish has been on both shows.

Great appearances.

New episodes of both shows up right now.

And of course, the 605 Super Podcast, the

membership.

Stay tuned because there is some stuff working or working.

There's stuff we are working on right now.

Scott Cornish themed special programming.

Stay tuned.

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Go through the archive, 605pod.com, the mothership.

Stay tuned.

There's something growing and we may have to get some kind of disinfectant.

You want me to tickle you again?

Woo, hoo.

But now we're going to go home, Brian.

I'm going to take us home, baby.

All right.

We're going to talk about the main event here with a little stopover.

Friday night, they didn't clash at the castle.

They just talked about clashing at the castle.

And then Saturday, they clashed at the castle.

They had SmackDown from Glasgow is what it is.

That's what I said last time.

Well, now you change your story.

I was on the right side of history the last time.

Well, but I'm taking Michael Cole's word for it.

So that might be a mistake right there.

So we still don't know for sure.

But anyway, it was from Friday night.

SmackDown was on Fox was from Glasgow, the same building.

And then they did

the

clash the next day.

And

was I hearing that the clash at the castle was the biggest gate they were ever going to do for an arena, not a stadium, but an arena event, which is

breaking the record from last month when they did the same thing, didn't they?

I did not see the scrum afterwards or the media conference or the

press event, whatever they want to call it.

But apparently Triple H said that they broke the record that they set previously in France.

Well,

I'm telling you, they sold.

That's the secret that they haven't tapped into yet in America.

Find the fans who like to sing and sell tickets to them.

Yes.

And do these people, when they go to a movie, do they talk back to the screen?

When they go to a concert, do they sing to the singers or do they listen to the singers sing to them?

No, they sing to the singers.

That does happen, certainly.

Well, I would shut up and let the singer sing to me if I'd have paid that much money.

What's it like?

What do you think it's like being in a headlock and people are singing to you?

Well, I'm going to get into that in a second with SmackDown before we talk about the clash at the castle.

But the thing is, they are selling

ridiculous amounts of tickets in these markets at ridiculous prices

to see almost nothing,

and they're doing it.

And the people are happy as fucking clams that they were there.

That's the guy.

Regardless of what you think about my opinions of what is or is not good wrestling or great wrestling or a great wrestling program or any of my opinions, are we safe in saying

without fear of contradiction or

you know, causing controversy that this was not the best episode of SmackDown, most exciting or best in the history of the program over the past 20 years.

Can we say that?

We can say that.

And although a lot of episodes seem to kind of just float along, it seems that a lot of the times the episode the day before the pay-per-view or the premium live event, less goes on by far.

It's usually promo.

Well, yes.

I understand that, but everything's already been done.

You know, you're going to buy it or you're not, or you're going to watch it or you're not, whatever.

But then can we also say

that Clash at the Castle was not the most exciting, greatest arena event that the WWE has ever done in the past 25 years without causing any controversy.

It's not the greatest of all time,

but they're setting records.

People are paying more for it.

They have managed to pull.

Remember, I said when this whole TKO, UFC, WWE

giant merger.

I said they're going Hollywood.

The big people are running this.

This is goddamn Universal Studios now.

This is Disney.

It's MGM.

It's monogram.

Maybe not Monogram.

I'm talking about that.

Yeah, that's too far.

That's Tony.

But that's the point.

This is fucking giant.

They are giving people just the bare minimum you can give them and call it a show.

And these people are opening their fucking wallets and turning their pockets inside out and having a fucking ball.

And I'm I'm amazed.

So on SmackDown,

I hit fast forward until they got somebody that I cared about.

And an hour into the program, here came Cody.

And he starts doing an in-ring promo about AJ Styles.

And the fans started singing to him.

So he let them get it out of their system and got back on track.

But then AJ and Gallows and Anderson come out.

and the crowd starts singing to him, too.

But now nobody's listening.

And

Cody, Cody, is supposed to ask AJ to get in the ring, and they're supposed to have this meaningful back and forth promoting this match and telling people what for.

And the fans won't stop singing.

And especially because now they're Dominic and AJ with the singing over it because he's the heel.

And I got sick and tired of fucking trying to listen to it.

And then,

you know, AJ had good material.

He said, Cody, you quit WWE and New Japan and Ring of Honor.

You started a company and you quit that too.

You can't handle pressure.

But when Cody started to fucking fire back at him, they started singing over him.

And I was like.

So Cody told AJ off.

AJ told Cody off and they left.

No blows were struck.

What did I miss from not being able to fucking

concentrate for the people fucking singing?

And what was that song?

I don't know, and I don't know.

What language do they speak in Glasgow?

They speak English.

They do?

I believe so.

Well, then, what were they saying?

I don't know what they were singing.

Well, you speak English.

But I don't know the song.

Well, you could understand.

You speak English, but you speak English.

That's right, because I couldn't understand the the words that were coming out of their mouths.

So I figured it wasn't English.

And if you speak English and you couldn't understand them, it wasn't English.

Was it?

I think someone needs to find a wrestler who knows these songs because the first wrestler to start singing along on the microphone is going to be the biggest babyface ever.

Joe Hendry.

Well, he's singing his own crap, isn't he?

Nice thing.

He can sing anything.

He's a singing son of a bitch.

Yeah, but he's

in wrestling purgatory.

He's got to get out of there first.

Well, I didn't say a lot of people were going to hear him.

I said he could sing it.

So then I fast-forwarded to last saw somebody else I gave a shit about at 9:25

p.m.

Eastern.

You remember I've said before, Brian, I hate to compliment anybody, hate to praise anybody because they're going to then do something stupid publicly and make me feel bad for putting them over.

Logan Paul, our boy,

you see, he was on goddamn Twitter this past week, swinging off a ex-President Pigshits jockstrap.

And I assume.

Actually, it may be the other way around, to be honest with you.

Well, no, Pigshit's using Logan Paul for the goddamn platform to spread his bullshit.

But

I'm pretty sure Logan Paul is one of these people that doesn't give a fuck.

has no moral character whatsoever and will put

things like this, give them a platform just because it's famous people and he gets paid out of it.

But that to me is like taking a kickback from the bank robbery.

In a situation like this, to care more about making money than you do the world or the people in it, to give a criminal fucking con man

the stage to spread more of his bullshit that these suckers already believe to some extent.

It's not just TV or a work.

It's serious,

world-shaping issues.

And enough people believe this already without giving him an opportunity to poison our society further.

So, hi, Logan.

Fuck you.

What was the segment?

Well, I didn't see the segment.

What was the segment on the show?

The segment was he got home from the Tetris tournament where he got beat by a 14-year-old and L.A.

Knight was in his swimming pool.

Oh, I did see this.

Yes.

Yeah, and he kicked L.A.

Knight out of his swimming pool, and L.A.

Knight left.

and then they had

Solo versus Kevin Owens, and the bell rang, and they fought for 30 seconds.

They went to the floor and started bouncing each other off the desk.

And Owens splashed him off the apron to the floor, and they went to the break.

And I could have written those words about every other goddamn match they've ever had on this show.

I didn't come back.

That was SmackDown.

Yeah.

All right.

That was SmackDown.

Are you ready to go to the castle?

It's got to be more.

Yeah, it has to be something else.

Come on.

Yes.

Well, no, that was SmackDown in my eyes, right there.

And by the way, there's no castle.

I think the other clash at the castle they did, there was actually a castle there because they showed it on camera.

There's no castle.

Yeah, this is downtown.

They got some kebab places, but they ain't got no castle.

But it was the clash at the because the castles are in the country, I guess.

There's castles in the country.

Is there a country without castles?

I guess there are some of the smaller ones.

Many country, many of the smaller, underprivileged countries.

Is there a first world country without castles?

This is the only one I know of in the state of Kentucky, Castle Cornet.

Anyway, as you can tell, we're excited to talk about the clash at the castle, Jim.

Five big matches.

I'm trying to talk about it.

If you'd let me continue, there were three big matches out of five.

It's what there were.

Well, here we go.

And they started off with,

obviously, Drew McIntyre homecoming,

home country hero

should go on last.

How are you going to follow that?

But I guess they wanted to put as much space in between the two world championship matches as they could.

But they started the show

with an I quit match for the WWE title with Cody and A.J.

Styles.

And,

you know,

again,

how are you going to follow this?

What the fuck?

The whole crowd, and the people loved it.

They sang Cody's song, too.

They're a singing bunch, as we said.

Michelle, Cody's mom at Ringside,

biggest arena gate ever.

Suzanne watched this a little bit too because she was in the other room and I had it on the TV and I left the room for a bit and had to come back.

And I said, What did I miss?

She goes, Oh, he started yelling at some old lady in the front row.

And then I was like, Some old lady in the front row, really?

He's like, Oh, yeah, he acted like he was going to hit her.

I'm like, Really?

And then I realized a little bit later it was

actually his mom that she was talking about, but she didn't.

Yes, it was on mute.

Well,

that he was going to hit some old lady in the front row.

And at least he didn't woo at her.

But

well, we'll get to that later on.

But Michelle,

I ought to stick to not trying to work either.

Here's the thing.

I wanted to like this match.

Cody's the biggest babyface in the business.

AJ is a fucking technical phenom.

But

they didn't try to replicate as Corey Graves had referenced Magnum TA and Tully Blanchard, 1985, I quit.

They didn't try to replicate that.

They tried to replicate Ian Rotten and Madman Pondo in 2008.

The tables and the chairs and the kendo sticks and the

two, the first two minutes, they're going after it.

Boy, boom, boom, boom.

And then Cody starts pulling out tables and setting them up.

And then he threw AJ into the crowd.

They fought in the audience.

And then they were out in the back hallway of the building.

And

I'm like, now it's what we see every week on AEW, just better performed with bigger stars.

And they go into a production room and start

Cody's choking him with fucking camera cables.

And I'm like, fuck, I have to fast forward Cody

the first fucking match on this thing.

And I fast forward it till they got back in the goddamn ring.

Because what?

And it's And we talked about in France, they got a virgin audience.

They're going to love it.

If you do it in front of them,

they start to fucking match this hot crowd.

The first thing to do is go to the back of the building.

People are watching TV.

They could have done that at home.

Anyway, they get back in the ring and then Cody gets a figure four.

And I'm saying, okay, now they've

had a no-holds-barred fucking brawl in the goddamn production room.

They get back in the ring and they grab a hold.

They dampened my enthusiasm.

Both of these guys, I mean, they did the vertical suplex spot where both of them went over the top.

And then the brainbuster AJ gave Cody on the desk, and Cody gets juice.

These, they're great moves.

They're being performed well and safely by professionals, and they're selling shit.

And they're,

you know, it's as good as it can get, but it's still the same shit that everybody does every goddamn week.

And that's when then, you know, AJ

yelled at Michelle and got some heat on Cody.

And the crowd is, fuck you, AJ.

But so much of it was on the floor.

They don't need to do that.

Neither one of these guys.

They can work.

They're exciting.

They can use the ring.

When AJ brought a chair in,

the crowd chanted, we want tables.

And that's why I wrote the business is ruined forever

by this, which I blame Heyman,

the furniture craze of the 90s.

It's not go babyface, please win.

It's put the babyface through a table if that's the way it has to be.

Because we want to see a table break.

People are so mad at the furniture.

AJ gets a kendo stick and hits him about nine times.

Then he gets a belt and whips him.

If you've got the stick and it's already proving successful,

instead of stopping hitting the guy who's not getting up to pick something else up that's less dangerous to hit him with, why don't you just continue hitting him with the thing you're hitting him with already?

That's not rhetorical.

Would you do that?

No, I would not.

Unless I was a baby face and I was building it up theatrically to, you know, I find different things one after another.

No, I would not.

But you're following a shooting with a stabbing.

I gave the motherfucker a brain buster on the desk.

Then I hit him with a kendo stick.

Now I'm going to whip him with a belt.

What's next?

Tickle his nipples?

You're going backwards, aren't you?

That's true.

Fuck.

So then

that's when AJ stopped fighting and went to the announce desk and got a water bottle and threw it at Cody.

And then went back out the other side and got a velvet bag out from under the ring and dumped out leg shackles.

And he cuffed Cody's arms behind him,

but they were leg shackles with the chain in the middle because

Cody still needed to be able to move and had to get the arms in front of him and et cetera.

But

he cuffs his arms behind him and hits him six more times with the kendo stick.

And now the pace is glacial.

Where then AJ goes back to yell at Michelle and she's she's supposed to slap him,

but she goes for the first slap and

I don't know if she was like, well, that wasn't a good enough one.

So she tried for a second one, but they they tried three times and one just haul off and hit him would have been great.

But it was like she was just pawing him.

And then

AJ took the chair and hit Cody a couple times and then wrapped a chain around his arm like he was Nikita Koloff

and went for the forearm.

And this was a beautiful spot.

AJ with a chair around his arm goes for the

springboard forearm,

but Cody has the chair in the ring.

And as AJ gets to the top rope, Cody throws the chair and beans him in the head and AJ bounces off the rope and falls through a table on the floor.

And somebody also on Twitter put cartoon sound effects to that.

It was fucking hilarious.

I retweeted it.

And it was a great bump, and that was

a great finish.

But it wasn't a fucking finish.

How do you get up from this thing?

So

then Cody

crawls over and gets the key to the handcuffs and gets loose and

nails AJ with the cuffs and he gets juice now.

And Cody makes a big comeback and the people are loving it.

And then Cody hits a crossroads, and then another crossroads, and then another crossroads on a chair.

And by now, unfortunately, both guys' gigs have dried up because they got it too early.

And,

you know, it wasn't like they were going to the bone, but at least it's a positive sign that we have blood

in the new WWE

where we've, you know, it's a goddamn slaughterhouse every week on TBS to the point where it means nothing, but the complete banishment of it took a lot of goddamn drama out of the big matches in the WWE.

Now we've got a little soup sign of it.

But nevertheless, he then handcuffed

AJ to the ropes and hit him nine times with a chair.

And this is the guy who got beamed in the head with a chair and flipped off the ropes through the table onto the concrete floor moments ago.

And AJ's response to nine shots with a fucking chair is, screw you.

So then Cody throws the metal stairs into the ring

and picks them up and holds him over his head.

And AJ's cowering in the corner.

And then he freaks out and says, I quit.

And the music plays and Cody thinks and says, ah, fuck it.

And hits AJ with stairs anyway.

And then celebrates.

What'd you think of of that?

What'd you think of the finish and then him hitting him with it anyway afterwards?

Well, I like that something happened,

but the

him giving up at the threat of being hit again, as opposed to being screamed, you know, as opposed to screaming in the middle of a hold or something.

What are your thoughts?

Well, yeah, that's what I'm saying is that it is.

After all the shit that had just been done to AJ and he's up on his feet and coherent enough to scream, oh, no, don't hit me with the stairs, I quit.

They'd gone too far already.

I like a chicken shit heel freaking out and saying I quit like that.

And

if this was a little bit more of a blood feud than maybe AJ Styles and Cody Rhodes

long-running six-week rivalry may call for, yeah, I have the babyface hitting me anyway afterwards.

He wasn't even like bloody and beaten in the corner, like, you know, barely able to stand.

It was like, he was standing up.

Yes.

He was like, oh, shit.

That's the thing.

They still, I wrote, they still have a show left.

They still have to do it.

They've chairs and tables and lions and tigers and bears, oh my, and fighting in the back and fighting in the crowd and fighting in the ring.

and tables breaking and all this other stuff.

And that's the first fucking match.

And then the finish is, oh shit, don't hit me.

I quit after all of that.

And the people wanted to see him get hit.

But then they did an angle where, as Cody was going back down the aisle, there's solo and they face off, and the Tongas come out and jump him.

And they're three-on-one on Cody because we never see AJ again.

And Owens and Orton come out and save him.

They have a big six-way brawl in the aisle.

And I can see that being a main event on one of these premium live events, the six-man with the Samoans and the babyfaces there,

and the heels powdered off, but gee, what the fuck?

And now they're about to go to a triple threat women's tag match after that goddamn.

Can we not

stop the same shit over and over and let the guys who are talented in the ring tell us a physical story instead of a stunt show?

Just a thought.

It's so redundant.

What did you think?

I liked it a little better than you, but, you know, especially the early part, it just reminded me of everything else we see.

I got into it by the end of it.

The finish, though, left me kind of hanging.

Even though Cody hits him afterwards, which is more of a heel move than a babyface move, really.

Yeah.

That's what I'm saying.

If he had been horribly wronged for years, yeah, maybe.

But anyway, go ahead.

Right.

This should be like if it was Cody against Tony.

Like, that would be the case.

Just bam, bam.

Yeah.

Bam.

Randy, get in here.

Bam, bam, bam.

But yeah, I mean, that's.

And then AJ, I guess, is just dead now.

I don't know what's going to happen with him.

We'll see.

I mean, they're setting up the big picture, I guess, as Bloodline wants the title back.

Are they doing it on behalf of Roman?

Are they doing it on behalf of themselves?

And then Roman has to come back.

So we'll see.

Did you see a very

small detail, but still I noticed when Owens and Orton came out for the save?

Because they weren't on the show.

They didn't wrestle.

I assume they weren't advertised.

Owens co-hosted the pre-show.

Okay.

Well, whether they mentioned we knew Owens was here, the announcer said, we knew Owens was in the building.

We didn't know about Orton.

In his trunks?

Orton comes out in his trunks and his boots, tanned, oiled, looking like he's ready to wrestle like a million fucking dollars.

And there's Steen out there in goddamn tennis shoes and a warm-up suit

and that's the day it didn't matter whether or not it's going to wrestle or not he goes out looking like a goddamn star you know when that guy's around although on the other hand should orton have showed up in street clothes in this situation if you know he's not wrestling unless he wrestled a dark match that we didn't see and i don't know what you know i don't think they had a dark match but even no no he should have showed up and showed off the fucking goods goddamn that's what he looks like he looks like a fucking star why hide it?

If he's going to go out and have a fight, he's going to be ready just in case.

Backing up his friend the babyface.

He was manager?

What is this promo you're doing here?

That's a little attention to detail that the rest of these fucking outlaw-minded jackoffs don't fucking

pay attention to.

And that's something else he learned from Rip Rogers.

If people are going to see you on a show, go out looking like a fucking star.

Did you see that apparently they signed Hiccule?

We've seen him in AEW.

Wait a minute.

Wait a a minute.

Hiccalula?

Hicculeo.

No, Hiccalula.

That's that song from that surfing movie.

Hiccalula, baby, Hiccalula.

What surfing movie is that?

That's one of those 60s beach movies with Annette and Fabian and

all those people.

No, Frankie?

Frankie, Fabian, K Fabian, Fabio, whoever those fucking people are.

Hiccalula, Hiccalula, baby.

Anyway, who'd they sign?

Hicculeo, who apparently

is he another one of Haku?

That sounds like a disease, also, you'd get from too much carbonation.

Well, he's a

bad case of the Hicculeos last week.

Lasted for fucking hours.

Let me see exactly who and what.

Hicculeo.

Is this somebody else to get in between us and Jacob Fatu?

Well, that's the thing people are wondering.

He is his family.

It says that.

Yes, Haku.

It says, according to Wikipedia, uncle slash adoptive father.

Tomato.

Wait a a minute, he's Haku's

adoptive father.

What did you say?

How old is this man?

When they start a senior division, is he going to become in as the elder?

King Curtis was booked.

I don't know why.

This got to be so good.

Haku's son.

He is Haku's son.

Haku is his uncle's son.

So Haku is his.

Wait a minute.

Uncle slash adopted father?

I thought that was only available in Mississippi.

How is that?

But listen, he signed.

Wouldn't Haku have had to bone himself?

Listen.

Haku is chimp corner.

That's

upset.

These family trees in Samoa, they branch everywhere like those bonsai trees.

All right, so Hikkalula's coming.

Hikaleo, his brother is Tamatonga.

Oh, boy.

His cousin slash adoptive brother is Tongaloha.

And bad luck Fale, who's also in New Japan, is his adoptive cousin, it says here.

And why people are talking about him

beyond his crazy family situation.

The reason people are talking about him, excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, is WWE just trademarked another name.

And I want to say, and I'm trying to pull it up, I want to say it was Talatonga.

Jesus.

So people are assuming it may be him.

And does it have his height?

Because that's what I'm looking for here.

I don't want to say seven feet because that may be ridiculous.

Oh, come on.

He was really tall, but I don't remember how tall.

You know, this reminds me of 1996.

Fatu was the sultan.

Remember that?

They'd done everything they could with Fatu at that point, and he hadn't become Rikishi.

And,

you know, he was just in that lame gimmick.

And Vince told us, I'm gonna call him in and fire him.

He brought him into the fucking office to fire him one day.

And after the end of the meeting,

all of us on the creative team got the news.

Not only didn't he fire him, but he hired three more members of the family.

Anyway, where is Jacob?

Is he climbing a ladder somewhere?

Jacob's ladder?

We'll see.

And the Usos,

again, they're kind of in the background now.

They got to pop off into this, too.

I was about to say, they're going to pop off into this.

Where did the one Uso go?

I see Jay.

I haven't seen Jimmy as much.

And what about the Tonga kid?

What happened to Jimmy?

Did Jimmy, did somebody hurt Jimmy?

Or Jimmy?

What did they do to Jimmy?

Hands off, Jimmy.

Hands off Jimmy.

Touch Jimmy.

That was on the other day.

Oh, my God, it holds up.

That episode's so good.

All right.

Anyway, so they went to a triple threat women's tag team title match.

Alba Fire and Isla Dawn

versus Shayna Baszler and Zoe Stark versus Jade Cargill and Bianca Belair.

And boy, I'm going to tell you what happened here.

They had to, this is what tipped me off that Drew, spoiler, Drew wasn't going to win because they had to have

one of the hometown attractions, home country attractions, win something.

Yeah, bingo.

And so they did it here.

But again, placement.

They won a girls match to Mina shit after that

chaos on first with the biggest stars in the company for the title.

You know, even with the hometown team, that helped, obviously.

But

I have to think this is a short-term deal or

is potentially leading to some kind of

ill will between Bianca and Jade because Jade and Bianca

give Shayna Baszler his goddamn double team thing.

It looked like a double Goldberg,

but then Isla Dawn pulls Jade off and gives her kind of a German suplex and pins Shayna.

So

the titles changed hands without Jade and Bianca losing because of the stupid rules of their stupid three-ways.

But, and they had to give the home country something, but

was this the thing?

Does this mess something up with Jade and Bianca, or is this where they were going?

They're going to split them up anyway.

They're definitely going to split them up.

And I started thinking more and more that they're starting to tease it.

Now, I will say, and I was hoping you would watch this match for

good luck with that on Father's Day after I'd spent an hour watering.

Why, I had hoped you would because

Jade Cargill, I think we need to watch what she's doing in there.

And

you've worked with a lot of raw talent, a lot of people who were,

you know, monster wrestlers,

bodybuilders.

I think you could watch these and definitely see a little bit.

I thought when she came out,

my first thought was something you always say, boo-boo job face.

And it turned out I was right.

And

but also.

I mean, they're hiding what she can't do right now in tag teams.

But okay, so you watched this.

Did they hide it well in a women's three-way?

Is this the equivalent of when

the WWE put Ronda Rousey in that battle royal here some months back?

And I said, what the fuck?

They left her twisting in the wind.

She doesn't know what the fuck she's doing.

And it shows because as she's mentioned, she needed, was a person that thought that she needed rehearsal.

So

why would you put Jade

in this situation where it's going to be, there's always some element of something's going to come up where you got to think for yourself, even if everything's laid out.

These are too awkward.

That's just that's another reason I didn't watch it.

Well, that's part of the issue right there.

Things are laid out because Jade, when things hit, everything looks amazing.

Yeah.

But it's clearly all things that she has rehearsed.

Sequences, she's rehearsed.

Things, power move, she's rehearsed.

And when things don't go exactly right,

it shows.

Anyone could slip off the ropes.

That happens to anyone.

I wonder how Jacob Fatu is going to do.

I'm sure he'll be fine going from cables to ropes, considering some of the things he does.

I think he's probably got some experience with both because they've got a lot of those rope-type rings out in California.

But I think he's also going to pay a special attention to feeling things out before he just goes out and does shit.

But I think Jade, there's still a sloppiness, and you have to remember there's an inexperience, even though she was on AEW-TV for a few years,

it was the Goldberg push.

Yeah, so it's not the same thing as what they're trying to do now.

But the other thing was, there was a spot where Shana choked out Jade from behind, and it went on a long time.

And I almost thought Shana was going to tap her.

She did tap.

They showed Jade tapping as she was being choked, and the referee didn't see it.

But the commentators all started yelling it.

And obviously the match kept going for a while from there.

But there was a lot of awkward stuff with Jade in here.

Yeah, well, that might have been to give Shana something since they were going to beat her later on or whatever.

But that's, again,

that's the thing is, I think in this case, her losing this early has to be more than with the plans plans they've made for Jade, or that they've already shown us that they're doing in the entrance and the build and the whole nine yards.

Even if it was a hometown team, they wouldn't have just decided we're going to take the belts off of them unless this was the start of a story with Jade and Bianca.

So that's where I think they're going, and this played into it.

It was a tie, well, we can do it because it's right.

Right?

But at the same time,

they're putting her in, like you said, these complicated, crowded situations where she's going to have to be less green than she is now.

And she got no

real star

and probably wasn't dedicated to it in AEW.

I mean,

did we hear that she lived at Dustin Rhodes's wrestling school?

No, no, but we the whole time she worked in AEW, but we did hear things like she would work before the shows with Danielson on stuff.

Well, just whoopee, just whoopee, Whoopee Goldberg for her.

Work a goddamn idea.

Oh, I'll get in the ring before the show.

I'm making a goddamn.

Well, she may have done more.

I don't know.

I'm making a goddamn guaranteed six-figure income in a business that I've had no connection to whatsoever until a billionaire decided to put me on national television.

And even Jade said after she left that she got very little training compared to what she's been exposed to.

But at the same time, was she knocking down doors going, I need to be in sweats doing this every day?

How seriously was she taking it until she got this big offer?

We don't know.

But the point is,

she ain't ready to be in these three-way six-girl, who gives a fuck

matches on her own.

That's my opinion.

Well, Isla and

Abyssla, whatever the other one's name is, they won the match.

Hometown winner of the tag team championship.

Yes.

And then

came the Intercontinental title match between Sami Zayn and Chad Gable, and the crowd again was singing a song.

I don't know what that song was either.

And

Paul Jones would have been big over there.

I got a song I need to sing, and I'm going to sing it.

I'm going to say this to both of these guys are wonderful workers.

And they were doing arm drags and leapfrogs after the main event with the top star was on first with blood, furniture, and chaos.

But it was a very nice match.

The people liked it.

And basically, they had a match in front of a long extended angle.

A model girl, she looks like she would need written instructions to find the bathroom.

Her facial reactions at Ringside were,

I don't know, the polar opposite of Elizabeth.

I don't even know how to explain it.

They were so over the top.

Well, they bounced between scared and confused, confused and scared.

Although I will say intimidated is in there.

Later on in the match, when she started selling her injury, I won't spoil anything.

I thought she did a good job with that.

I will say that.

Well,

anyway, they

I also agree with Gable.

If he has been so misused with this talent and the promo that he can do,

I really, if they hadn't botched him so badly for so long,

this is a good deal and the people are interested in it.

But remember, we talked about it seems like Sammy's taking a step down from beating Gunther for the Intercontinental title to fucking trying to

free the indentured servants of Chad Gable.

Gable would have been more important if they hadn't done that stupid shit with him.

But nevertheless, ditch the girl here.

He's doing great.

She's completely useless.

Anyway, they started doing an angle at the end where basically they're teasing the turn.

Gable wanted model girl to hit Sammy with the belt, but she wouldn't do it.

So then Gable goes over to her and chews her out.

But while he's looking over his shoulder, apparently he didn't trust her to be smart enough to give him the eggy.

Because did you just, the camera caught him?

He's pointing at her and yelling, but he's looking over his his shoulder like, is Sammy coming with the kick?

When do I turn?

And of course, then Sammy runs with the kick, but Gable moves.

And then Sammy almost kicks Model Girl, but pulls up short.

And Gable hits a German, gets a two count, and then he ignores the match and goes to the floor to scold the girl again.

But Otis gets in between him and the girl.

And Gable and Otis get nose to nose.

And then as they're nose nose to nose on the floor, Sammy hits the ropes on the other side of the ring and dives onto both of them.

But what I saw was I saw Gable move

and shove Otis kind of into it.

But Michael Cole said, did you see that?

Otis shoved Gable out of the way and took the brunt of the dive.

No, it was the exact opposite fucking thing.

That's right.

So he, they told me.

Don't believe what you see with your own eyes.

Well, they told him about the spot ahead of time, but I bet you he fucking wrote down in his notes the wrong way.

Because anyway, so nevertheless, always watch your monitor, Michael.

I taught you that when you and I did your first broadcast on television back when you were a virgin.

Anyway, Gable got the ankle lock on Sammy on the floor and Sammy rolled through.

And Gable sprawled out into Model Girl's leg and clipped her as she was trying to fucking help Otis.

I don't know what the fuck's going on here.

And Otis got mad

because the girl got hurt.

And Gable drew the referee, but Otis wouldn't attack Sammy

until finally he drew back like he was going to in a very stagey and awkward manner.

But then Model Girl, limping and screaming about her legs, no, please don't.

And Otis picks Model Girl up and her carries her and her hurt leg out of there.

and Sammy hits kick one, two, three.

Yo, she climbed up to say that and then fell back down.

And then

as slow as possible.

Remember George Adams Steel running out of the building when Elizabeth, this was not that.

As slow as he could walk out with her, waiting for, I guess, the victory.

This, what this is, is some of the most awful, phony bullshit that I've ever seen that the crowd is fucking completely eating up.

It's not

Sammy's doing doing fine but like Otis just the dumb dumbfounded face and the stagey movements and model girl whose as I said emotions range from confused to bewildered and

Gable has to be

they're doing too much of it to where he's just he has to leave his goddamn match and turn his back to yell at a girl on the floor.

Nobody would actually be doing these things for real, but the people love it because they want to see the big fat fuck squash the little goddamn obnoxious fuck.

But that was that.

Did I miss anything

about the fat fucks and the obnoxious fucks?

People are waiting for the Otis turn or however you want to see it.

They're waiting for it.

So they'll get a big pop when it happens.

And

you know, these two guys are both really good in the ring.

Sammy doesn't have a great physique, but he looks like a dirty fighter.

Like, he just looks like, you know what I mean?

Like someone who would be like dirty and bloody and just a mess fighting.

You could see him fighting.

And Gable's tremendous.

Gable,

I really think Gable's great.

I was watching this match.

I thought he was fantastic here.

Remember, I said Sammy is the everyman.

He gets a pass on looking like shit because he can work and he can sell so good.

And that's the appeal.

But then you just get people

that are fans of his and want to become wrestlers.

And the only thing that they've copied is the looking like shit part.

That's what happens with all every time

somebody gets over that shouldn't get over because they

don't look like it or don't act like it or whatever, but they've got something special.

Then we have to fucking look at that with nobody with nothing special.

From then on out.

So speaking of nothing special, it was Bailey versus Piper.

And I said, It's fucking Father's Day.

10 o'clock in the morning.

I'm trying to catch up on this shit.

So, Bailey won with some kind of fucked-up crucifix.

Did I miss anything, or was this your bathroom break?

You know, I didn't see the whole thing.

The only thing I did see was Chelsea Green came out there with Piper, and she got kicked out of ringside eventually, and she returned in a mask,

which was the comedy spart of the spark.

The comedy spot of the match.

The comedy spart of the the part.

The comedy part of the match in English.

And

did she still have on that petticoat junction bustle that she wears?

So you could tell with the mask, but the giant chiffon fucking ass on her skirt?

She was wearing the exact same thing she was wearing, I believe, when she got kicked out of ringside, just a mask.

Oh, okay.

Well, all right.

Well, you never know when something like that's going to work.

Anyway, now the time time that we have all awaited has come.

It's the main event for the other world title, the second one we've seen tonight out of five matches.

But it's got Drew McIntyre in it.

And

boy, howdy,

and poor old Damian Priest, God damn, we'll talk about his trip around the world in a second.

But this was, you know,

Priest is the heel,

so he was booed more

than he's ever been in his life probably because not only was he the heel but also he's against the hometown hero who in this country would kind of be a heel

so the the the crowd was loud and this benefited

this match somewhat and then they just worked their ass off the rest of the way but the even i like they they had the decibel meter did you see that for all these that was a great idea

all these international shows where they're going in front of these crowds that are just just going batshit insane because they never get to see this they got to do that

but i don't know how they how they do if they did it in austin texas i'm not but nevertheless

they had a good match um

there was a few things that i think priest he's trying hard but still

I don't know how to explain it.

He hasn't come all the way out of his shell or

found that last gear where

you could see him in the goddamn ring in the 90s with stone cold, right?

Which a lot of these other guys

that have broken through to that upper echelon, you can.

You can with Drew, you can with Punk, you can with Cody,

you can with Gunther.

But work-wise in the ring with Priest, it's almost, but it's not, it's not quite.

But everything that Drew does, he's the best he's ever right now.

And he moves great for a guy that size.

But then

Priest

had Drew on the floor, and he was going to do one of those deals where he runs and he steps up on the middle rope and he flick cannonballs over the top and lands on Drew McIntyre.

And when he put his

Priest put his right foot on the middle rope and put his weight on it,

it fucking slipped off.

Those ropes, again, they're dodgy.

I fucking hate them.

Instead of cables, it could have been sweat, whatever.

But when he did that, he did the version of the hangman with his

ankle instead of his neck.

And everybody was freaking out about,

you know,

whether he broke his leg or he tore his ankle or whatever, he flipped forward at a high rate of speed speed and almost went headfirst into the apron.

It should have either knocked him out or broken his neck, but he was an inch off one way of doing that.

And then he was tied there for a shoot.

And

the referee for a shoot could not untie him.

Until you get back up and go back over the top rope the way you came, no human being is going to get you out of that goddamn rope.

I can promise you.

So that's what when McIntyre

realized that he was okay and he hadn't knocked his brains out or broken his leg, he started working with him again and he helped him in a working way, bringing him over so that he could beat him to get back over the top and get him untied.

Have you ever seen a bump like that in your life?

I've never.

I mean, I've seen people get caught in the rope going over.

I've seen people trip.

But again, like you said, the way he came came around and just head first it looked like head first it wasn't a i mean it wasn't right there it was from the distance again everything but it looked like he got whiplash look at that he whipped his head right into the apron yeah it was miraculous that he didn't have serious head or neck damage not the leg the leg was you know the leg was fine the ankle wasn't going to go anywhere It was right there in those ropes.

Well, considering he wasn't decapitated, it actually played well into the rest of the match.

Well, and he kept his ears, unlike Mick.

That's the same thing.

Mick did that with his neck.

That's the hangman.

That's where he lost the ear.

That's what you're talking about.

You couldn't get out of there.

He couldn't just slip out.

He slipped out.

He ripped his ear off.

So, anyway, and Priest shook it off, and they had their match, and they went through the big yay-boo exchanges, and

they did great false finishes.

I won't bore everyone with enumerating them, but they had big shit that they, you know, Priest did a hurricane off the top rope, but turned around into a fucking claymore.

And then

I got to admit, at first I was like, what the fuck?

That was kind of the shits, but then I saw where they were going.

When they, the referee was in the corner and both guys were backing into the turnbuckle and the referee dove to the floor out of the way.

But he, you know, he landed and kind of,

well, he took a dive.

Alfred Neely bump.

Well, he took it, he didn't even really take a bump, is that he just jumped out on purpose and acted like he twisted his goddamn ankle, right?

And I'm like, what the fuck?

But then,

as he was trying to get back in, that's when they both lurched into the ropes and knocked him off the apron.

And then he took a bump into the fucking barricade and everything.

And boom.

Okay.

So now

Drew hits the Claymore kick and covers, and the crowd is counting out loud like to 10.

And then you see the long camera shot, the aisleway.

There's somebody running down.

It's a second referee.

I see the referee shirt and then the handheld camera at ringside behind the second referee sliding in.

You see his ass.

You see his shirt.

You see him count one,

two,

and stop.

And then Drew looks up and sees who it is.

And then the camera on the other side in the perfect position sees that it's CM Punk.

And he's held up the count.

And what the, oh my, and the people realize it's Punk and they see him on the screen when they're in the cheap seats.

And they stand up and face off.

And Drew snatches Punk and gets a huge pop.

And Punk hauls off and kicks McIntyre into balls, and the crowd goes bullshit, as Pat Patterson Patterson used to say.

And then Punk gets out, and the first referee rolls in, and Priest grabs fucking McIntyre and choke slams him one, two, three.

This finish was worth the whole show to me.

That not only was brilliant,

but it was shot like a fucking movie in one take in an arena in front of 20,000 people.

And you could not,

they didn't spoil the reveal

that it was punk, even when the count was going on.

They had it framed perfectly.

Well, they had it framed perfectly for us at home.

The people in the arena didn't react until the camera switched too.

So they didn't even realize when the referee was running out there that it was punk.

Well, yes, that's because in the excitement, he runs down real quick with his head down in a referee shirt and slides in, and he's got his head down.

He's on his belly on the mat.

He starts counting.

They're looking at the pin

and then when he holds it up that's when they look at the referee and then they've got the screen to back him up because they got the camera shot and everybody sees it's fucking punk did you see the backstage footage before this no i did not they put it on uh social media it's cm punk watching the monitor and he sees what's happening and he acts like oh i got to do something and he sees the female referee there he goes quick give me your shirt you have an extra shirt oh i love it and she says why do you need it he goes i can't tell you Just give me a shirt.

And he puts it on and he runs out.

You know what?

The only thing better would be if he'd have pulled her shirt off and she was left there in her bra or pasties.

You've taken it too far.

Pasties?

What?

Pasties.

Let's see what you think about that.

If he'd have pulled the girl's peppery shirt off and she'd have been left in pasties.

Do the kids know what pasties are?

They're not going to find out on wrestling anymore.

Look them up on the Google Machine.

Don't look them up on the Google Machine.

Kids over 16.

Okay.

Well,

or if your parents aren't home.

Let's say 18 to play it.

Okay, kids over 18, or if your parents aren't home any age at all, it'll be fine.

Look up pasties on the internet.

But no, that's a very, see, that's a nice little piece of attention to detail.

And then look up tasty pasties.

Let's see what you find.

Well, kids.

And then look up Tempest.

What are we talking about?

Oh, we were talking about Drew McIntyre.

That's right.

Yes, Damian Priest.

And Damian Priest

won the match, and Drew McIntyre was left with soggy balls there in the middle of the ring.

And Punk has foiled him again.

And Punk found the only three Punk fans in the building that he could celebrate with then.

He had his t-shirt on and everything.

Yeah, he's done it again.

He's cost him again.

That was what they had to do, but

it was a perfect way to get out of it in the guy's home country.

He lost nothing.

Would you agree that the next thing that happens between these two has to be Drew doing something to Punk?

Punk's gotten over on him a few too many times since he's been injured.

Well, but again, it depends on

exactly what Punk's physical status is, not only for when he can take bumps, but when they're going to have the match.

You don't

these

these in and out stick and move hit and run when you least expect it i'll fucking fuck you some kind of way type of it they're keeping it fresh

but until you know the date and the place and the time of the match i don't think you want drew

to return to favor and get too physical on punk and

and do something at that you want to wait till you know you're going to be promoting it all right

Well, your idea of him ripping her shirt, it's like everything, every one of your ideas is like out of an 80s teen movie.

It's just like, well, she rip her shirt off, and she happens to have perfect breasts.

That happened in the 70s, too, I'll have you know.

Not so much in the 60s.

Those tits were a little droopy.

Bad manners.

And in the 50s, they looked like bullets.

Well, they didn't look like bullets.

The bras looked like bullets.

Well, the tits as a result, because the tits were in the bras.

That's saying, well, eventually I'll be.

A tit is like water, it expands to fill the shape of its receptacle.

What are your thoughts on the fact that Tony Storm gets to use the word tits on AEW-TV?

Does that blow your mind?

The word tits is allowed to be used openly on wrestling?

Again, that was one of the seven, wasn't it?

Yeah.

I remember, you know,

cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits, it was the one that you ended up with.

But I don't,

it's not,

it seems like that if you

can break some norm of society or rule of broadcasting or do something that still might be considered unusual or not acceptable behavior everywhere, that you waste it on throwaway comedy shit instead of having main event people use anything in some kind of way to be serious and draw money.

Or just have a fucking guy that looks like a plumber with fuck on his t-shirt on television.

Well, speaking of drawing money, it appears that CM Punk and and Drew McIntyre are set to do that whenever they finally do something.

And

that was the pay-per-view.

Five matches.

The fans seemed happy with it.

Yes.

Oh,

they couldn't wait.

On the way home, they were stopping at ATMs to get more money out to mail in to the fucking WWE to thank them.

It's insane.

I want to find out how big a crowd will support

how few matches.

You know what I mean?

Like, I want to see, can they get a building filled for two matches?

It depends.

The right two matches, I bet they could.

And then back in the old days,

in the early 70s, the Memphis Mid-South Coliseum could sell out on a three-match card.

I'll have you know.

And they got a lot of them, too.

The problem was the promoters had too much money, so they said, all right, we need more wrestlers, more people to give money to.

But anyway, do we need more people to give give us money, or have we fulfilled our commitments for this week?

I think we're good until the drive-thru, which will be an action-packed drive-through.

Well, it certainly will.

And you might not even be able to drive all the way through.

You might have to wait in line for a little while.

So bring a book to read because we got a packed show on Brian's edition of the drive-thru this week.

Yeah, yeah.

Whoop-de-doop, fat man coming down the street.

But until then, this formerly fat man's going to have a Papa Murphy's pizza.

And you know, those Irish, they know their pizza.

Ah, Papa Murphy.

But until the drive-thru and next week on the experience, when we'll do something equally as interesting as what we did today, if not, you get your money back.

Money.

Until then, thank you.

Fuck you.

Bye-bye, everybody.

What?

They didn't pay anyway.

So what are we going to refund?

Jim Connet

of Jim Connet