Episode 535: Palate Cleanser

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At the midnight and the rock and roll.

He's in a fight for wrestling soul.

Using a racket and some mind control.

He's Jim Cornette.

The keys to the future, held by the past.

And with Tag T partner Barrian Last, he sends this message out by podcast.

He's Jim Cornet.

Well, he's never fake a phony.

He never backs down from a fight.

He never wins the pony.

Cause his mama raised him right.

It's time

to prepare

your mind.

Get the experience.

Get the experience.

Get the experience of Jim Cornette.

Hello again, everyone, and welcome to the Jim Cornette Experience, where today

we have a palette cleanser, no pay-per-views, a soup san of SmackDown, and a bunch of classic Mid-South wrestling conversation.

And who better to join me for something like that than Hawaiian Brian, the podcasting lion, the king of the Arcadian Vanguard Podcast Network, Mr.

Co-host to you, the Mid-South savant himself, the great Brian Last, everybody.

Hello, Jim.

It's a pleasure to be here once again for all the happy talk with all the happy people

here on the whatever show this is.

Shiny, happy people.

You had to elbow Harry Carey out of the way there

to jump into the booth to say hello to everyone.

Do you always live at the ballpark?

I have gotten hooked on

doing my own silent cinema soundtracks to my own silent films.

I don't know what silent films sounded like that

well you it was it was you've even been to the nickelodeon my friend well

put another nickel in in the nickelodeon and tell me give me some give me some tied to the railroad tracks silent movie music there i just i do very upbeat stuff i do

i do very like happy things are happening and i fell you know like something like that like happy things everything is good and i fell off my bike like that kind of is my musical

fat guy walking down the street oomp doom doomp, doomp, doomp.

Sewer cap's gone, plop.

Yeah, that kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, the sewer cap is off today, folks, on this program.

Like it was ever on.

We're hoping you're getting a good whiff of the proceedings here.

I'm going to be a kinder and gentler

individual today.

I'm not going to be ranting and raving about people setting each other on fire on purpose for no particularly good reason and things and such of that.

Because as we're speaking right now, Brian,

now,

by the time the people hear this,

the frivolity and the fun will be over with, but it's Crusade for Children Weekend here in Louisville, Kentucky.

And I'm missing a major chunk of the broadcast of the telethon in order to come here and talk to you and serve to people, the cult of Cornet.

But I've said, besides the fact that it's the greatest cause in the world, and besides the fact I've said it's the epitome of local television and what local TV used to be, and before when there was local television, besides everybody's got the news for three hours, I love that.

But also,

what else can you think of in the world

that nobody can knock, that nobody knock, nobody's against, nobody has any, no,

you don't go into a store and say, I'm with the Crusade for Children.

People, oh, we don't believe in that kind of thing around here.

It's fucking universal.

This may be the only thing left that nobody disagrees on,

potentially in the fucking world today, certainly in the continental United States.

You ain't got nothing.

Dude, does everybody agree on anything up there in New Jersey?

Well, I don't know if everyone would agree on that because people up here have never heard of the Crusade for Children.

So if you stormed into someone's business and said, we're here for the Crusade for Children, they may hit you in the head with a bat.

Well, no, they do that in New Jersey when you walk into the goddamn business to be a customer.

That's just what you're not, that's all Hollywood.

That's not the ability.

They want you to have the right attitude to be.

No, I'm talking about if you've heard of it or if you have any knowledge of the thing,

then

it's universal.

And the broadcast is.

Like I said, the local television, it's incredible, but now they've gotten so much bigger than when I was a kid.

It was down at the old Memorial Auditorium downtown.

That's where they, and they did all the live acts on stage and the guest celebrity, but they had the local people, blah, blah, blah, and did the whole thing.

And then they moved to the studios of WHAS.

And then it's gotten so big now with all of the fancy dance space age technology we got these days.

With the sub-channels and the internet,

now it's fucking everywhere.

They even have remote broadcasts from Bardstown and out in Shelbyville and southern Indiana for the fire departments that can't get into downtown Louisville to be on the main broadcast.

And they're farming it out to sub-channel.

It's an amazing feat of local television.

And they do this

for nothing.

Not only do they do it for nothing,

they give up

like

a day and a half of network programming and no commercial time whatsoever except a 30-minute block of news in the evening.

And otherwise they

lose money to do this and everybody donates their services.

And as we went on the air here, they were at $3 million at noon on Sunday.

And the big stuff comes in

later on this afternoon.

So they're shooting for,

I can't, it was six and change last year, I believe, millions.

So,

but anyway, here's the thing I was going to mention.

Let's go, money bags.

Well, I'm trying.

Well, I'm going to get to that in a second because I got a figure update.

It's several thousand already that we've raised.

But

to make you interested in this, Mr.

Fucking aloofness back up there in New Jersey, where everybody can take care of themselves with a baseball bat.

Well, yeah.

Remember the story we've been talking about where the

start say the bridge went off the truck.

The truck went off the bridge.

Oh, stop it now i didn't say anything you laughed at me you had the thoughts

the truck went off the bridge in louisville here over the river and was dangling and the driver the woman was trapped inside right you remember this story is very recent the world's greatest seatbelt

exaggerating and she wasn't gonna get out of there and they lowered the firefighter from a crane from a rope or by a rope from a crane, however you fucking do that type of thing

Down next to the truck, and this was on worldwide television.

And he cut her loose from the seatbelt and picked her up, and they fucking raised him up and saved her life.

He and his wife just had a baby, and the baby is one of the crusade kids.

And he was on the telethy, was born prematurely,

variety of health issues.

And he was explaining: if you want to help the real heroes, help the crusade.

So everybody around here, at one point or another either knows somebody or has been somebody one of the crusade kids right

so it's and

this woman in jeffersonville the fire department comes in with like fifty something thousand dollars or whatever but

this woman that lived there had donated all her life you know whatever she could blah blah blah

And she died and left her entire estate, which this woman had $71,000

and left it to the fire department to donate to the crusade.

Shit like that.

And the three kids, eight to 12 with the lemonade stand, that we need to hire them, they came in with like $350.

Where the fuck are these enterprising goddamn children?

You know,

that's $100 a piece plus tips, right?

So I think we need to put them on staff.

But anyway, it's a wonderful thing.

So, WHASCrusade.org,

they operate it year-round.

You don't have to donate just during the telethon hours.

And as far as our business that we were transacting, as you will recall, Brian, the warehouse find of the Jim Cornette Bloody Variant and Raw Debut Variant action figures,

we were going on sale Saturday, June 1st at noon Eastern, which we did.

And in the 24 hours since then,

the bloody variants are sold out.

There's still some raw debuts remaining, but we've already sold 335 of them.

And so that's 3,350 for the Crusade.

And

certainly 65 more are going to sell in the next six days.

So then I'm throwing in another $1,000.

So that will be about $5,000 roughly.

And did you hear about Bagley?

What Bagley's doing?

Marcus Bagley?

No, that's Marcus Alexander Bagley.

I'm not talking about it.

It's Jeremy Bagley, jacked up Jeremy Bagley.

Not only is kicking in, I think, another 500, 500, 550, nevertheless, $500 and something dollars, but

he bought one of the figures and picked a fan at random to send it to.

So that counts too.

So he's probably, he's like almost 600 bucks now.

So anyway,

what have you done lately, Brian, to help your fellow man?

I've gotten these shows out, one after another, after another, to make millions of people happy.

Well, it makes millions of people happy, but does it.

Is what we're doing now,

is it a noble, a noble occupation,

something that we are doing for posterity, for future generations, that they can learn of the wackiness of the world that we exist in today?

Something that we can point to our descendants, to Harley Quinn, or to your children,

and say,

Daddy did this and it was good.

Well, I think it certainly helps justify this crap that we're doing by pretending it's noble.

But no, I think we're doing something very important for history's sake.

Are we doing

crap or are we doing art about crap?

See, this is our art.

Is it deep, baby?

As Mama Cornette used to say, it's getting deep.

Better pull your pants up.

Where else do you get music and comedy and all sorts of curse words that you never hear on any broadcast channel where else why you come gargling thunder cunt

see now that's

from the man from the man who put felching the dog on his television show comes the latest podcast cum guzzling whatever he said

well see that's that's one from across the pond

they say that they say those type of things over there and blunder busts and things i got this bull riding on on tv in the background oh all right now That's the most ridiculous shit I've ever seen.

I'm glad you reminded me of this.

I'm glad you reminded me of it because you remarked to me as we were starting to begin this broadcast,

you said, look at what they're doing with this bull riding.

You were checking out the bull riding because they got

the guy that's now in charge, I guess, of some element of AEW's events.

It came from the bull riding world.

Well, that's not why.

It was on CBS and I had CBS Sunday morning on and then I had Face the Nation and then this was on after it, it turns out.

Well, then you looked up and you said, oh, this is the bull riding.

And this is where the guy that's now in AEW and the bullshit wrestling has come from the world of bullshit bull riding.

Right?

That's what we heard of.

Their new marketing director was from the Professional Bull Riders Association.

Yes.

Not the Professional Bullshitters Association.

I got a bunch of those over there, but he's the only one from the Professional Bull Riders Association.

Not that he rode the Bulls, but that he was the

in the business infrastructure of of marketing the bulls and people who rode them

and so anyway you were looking at this goddamn bull riding on television and you were starting to tell

describe it to me

like that this was the first time this had been seen outside of goddamn closed tight-knit circle like i you won't believe what they're doing and what he looks like and i said yes i know what it looks they're riding a fucking bull so the guys i told you about before were getting their ass kicked.

This guy that just rode, he's another one in a cowboy hat.

No one stands out.

Wear a baseball cap.

Someone, I dare you.

He was.

No, they got to be in gimmick.

It's part of the goddamn costume.

It's like when you work at Chuck E.

Cheese or whatever.

But everyone is the same gimmick.

Where's the gorgeous George here?

Where's the guy coming out in a robe?

No, they didn't come to see the people.

They come to see the bulls.

Well, what I'm saying.

They want the bulls to throw the people off.

Oh, though, this guy's getting fucked up.

The guy they had on before was not getting thrown around so bad.

Does that mean he's really good or the bull is a pussy?

Sometimes it's a combination of the two.

That's the thing is that nobody should ever want to do this.

This is a stupid thing to do because these fucking, the bulls don't work.

You cannot train the boy.

Isn't bulls not even like a bear?

See, you got a bull market and a bear market.

The bear market is the one you want to try to work with.

The bull you don't want to try to work with because you can't train them.

And they will fuck you up and then stomp the fuck out of you after they've thrown you the fuck off hold on let me pause this so i can get these names these sound like bull riders cash wilson cole elsehair and chase brooks

yes it's all like you know

country stars or bull rider names are interchangeable yeah this looks like

bull riding everyone has a hat everyone looks exactly the same everyone's dressed the same no one stands out but also have you looked the way that they when they get on the they're holding the bull is restrained while they get this stupid motherfucker on its back.

But to try to make sure that he can stay on for 12 seconds or whatever the goddamn cutoff point is, whether you're a good bull rider or not,

they grab a hold of the thing like he's holding his crotch, right?

But he's not only holding on to a thing on the bull, but he's tied a fucking rope or a string or some type of foreign object apparatus around this thing.

So

to help hold on whether he wants to or not, so they can just fling these motherfuckers up in the air.

And the only thing that's connecting them to the bull is the goddamn hand that's tied to the fucking

deal that looks like a little Johnson there.

They had a guy before, the one, the first guy that I told you, holy shit.

Uh-huh.

Every time the bull kicked up, the guy flew back and his head and upper shoulders hit the bull.

It looked like he was taking bump after bump after bump.

Some of these guys don't hit the bull.

They just kind of jerk around a little bit like they're, you know, I don't know what the fuck they're doing.

Like they're on a Sivian.

This guy was taking fucking bumps back and forth.

Boy,

that's a fucking reference I wouldn't have expected to come from you, but nevertheless.

Well, I wouldn't expect these guys to come from the Sivian.

But anyway, nonetheless.

I'll tell you what, if they, you could get a lawsuit if everyone ever acted like these fucking bulls.

I'll tell you that.

Stephen P.

New could be on that case.

But no, can you imagine the spinal goddamn

snapping of the head and the neck?

And

Jesus Christ.

And then again, wait till one of them hits the fucking ground if they do.

And then that bull will go to romping and stomping.

And actually, boy, that'll be a mud hole stomped in somebody.

Well, now that I look, this may be a different organization.

This is the WCRA Rodeo Corpus Christi.

Well, wait a minute.

You mean, is this either a local or an outlaw bull riding operation here?

This can't be just local because the winner will be the second ever WCRA $1 million triple crown.

And then it cuts off triple crown of rodeo winner.

Triple crown of rodeo winner.

Well, but never, is that like the Vern Gagne's $100,000 battle royal?

Do you think they do worked?

Are we fact-checking this?

That's interesting.

Do you think they do worked purses?

in like bullfighting?

Not bullfighting.

This is

in bullfighting.

It'd be a lot more interesting if you had the option once you get thrown off to fight the bull.

That would be interesting.

But only with your bare hands and a goddamn bad attitude.

Fuck these swords.

The bull's unarmed.

He's just got hooves.

I think this needs to be more like, you know, Hemingway approved.

But oh, come on now.

You need to go to the to the masses for this.

I think that

You know, everybody should be accessible for everybody to come and watch these bulls stomp fucking the brains out of these idiots.

So don't go to Hemingway.

Go to something like, look, take your frustrations out.

Watch a bull kick a motherfucker to death.

Market it that way.

Have you attended one of these events?

Do you want to sit up closer?

Do you want to sit further back to see me?

No, have you seen the bull every once in a while will fucking make it over the goddamn rail?

into the fucking front row or two before

well and possibly even further than that if you google the videos

look at the the the bulls and and the various fucking animals that they try to fuck with every once in a while make a comeback

what do you think of the running of the bulls

that again

is i'm firmly in favor of because that's natural selection

if you will get out and it just If you're just running in that mess of people, they're going to fucking trample you.

And what the fuck are you running for?

Is there a goddamn million dollars buried under a big W

that you're going to get to first and be able to dig it up?

No, they're just running down the street from a bunch of fucking bulls that they let loose to begin with.

Fuck them.

I hope they all get trampled.

You mean they're going to let us loose so we can kill whoever we want?

This sounds amazing.

Yes.

What do you think is going to fucking happen, you fucking morons?

And again, what is the, I've never heard that there's a prize.

They just run away from the bulls.

Well, don't don't goddamn be go toward the bulls you won't have to run away from them

man i feel like if we got a good backer and we got into this uh bull riding thing no one knows how to mark it everyone here is so bland we got to create stars superstars gimmicks

it's virgin territory

Well, and, you know, back in the old days, the wrestling audience and the rodeo audience and the

horse show audience at the state fair and all that type of thing.

Oh, shit.

There's a women's division.

Oh, come on.

It's about to happen.

We have, home, let me pause there to get their names.

Mary Beth Beam competing against Kelsey Domer against Martha Angelone.

And they all have the exact same fucking hat that every guy had.

Are they going to take, oh my God, are these smaller bulls?

How does this work?

Here we go.

Or do they have to be female female bulls well she has a rope she has a lasso what is she gonna do with that went past him ladies and gentlemen it went past him female bulls i was looking at the green lasso she has yeah that's okay what does she do with this you've never been around a lot of farms brian no i haven't oh no she's not i guess the bull's not throwing off she's just riding a horse and trying to capture another animal who just ran past what so they have they have to catch a flag off a bull what are you talking about what is it i guess it's a little i don't know what it is is it a

is it a deer?

I don't know.

What the fuck is that?

What are you going to do?

What are they chasing?

I don't know.

I don't have a farm life, ladies and gentlemen.

Here comes the next woman.

Oh, she looks like she's serious.

She's got a regular, regulation-colored lasso.

Now, is the woman trying to ride a bull or trying to catch a goddamn animal?

No, she's on a horse.

Oh, she caught...

Well, she...

She didn't really catch it.

She got the rope around it and then it ran away with the rope.

Does that mean you win because you're not hurting the animal?

no i think it means i think it means the animal won because you're supposed to hang on to the rope you

is it butterfingers

yeah i don't know it took her two uh point

two seconds

it's a 2.15 i was about to say two minutes and 15 no two oh oh just over two seconds and this girl needs just over 2.14 seconds to win What does that mean?

I don't know.

It's your story.

All right.

Well, this has been been our bullfight.

Well, I'm going to go to the bathroom.

You're narrating this.

And you're trying to get back into bullfighting.

This isn't even a bull.

This is just a horse.

She's just on a horse.

So, well, hold on, let's find out.

Did she win?

I don't know what happened.

Again,

the thing just ran on no time.

I guess she lost.

Is Aubrey Ed entered in this competition?

on either side?

No, she's not.

Travis, don't use that in the artwork.

Thank you.

I will continue to monitor that situation because I've got a couple of, I want to thank you, Aaron Carmen from Hope, Indiana.

Eric Carmen?

Well, Aaron, not Eric Carmen.

He's not from Hope, Indiana.

He just died recently, didn't he?

Well, that's because he's from Cleveland.

They got nothing better to do up there.

Well, let's go back to a little town called Hope.

Hope.

And that's he was at an OVW show that we ran in Hope, Indiana one time.

And he sent me, for the entertainment of our programs, he sent me a Sprite t-shirt.

Big bright green with the Sprite logo.

And I'm going to wear that.

It's very comfy, too.

I'm going to be wearing that proudly.

And he also wanted me to thank you,

Brian Last, for your contributions to the gerbiling community.

I don't know what he meant by that.

The gerbiling community.

Thank you for your contributions, Brian, to the gerbiling community.

You're very welcome.

I guess you mean by producing the segments where Jim talked about the gerbiling community?

Possibly that I don't know.

You know, it's between you and Aaron.

You know,

Hope Indiana is a small town, but word travels fast, Brian.

Just here were the next three guys for the tie-down.

Same hat.

Everyone's got the same hat.

Same fucking hat.

I think it's in the bylaws.

And we've also got

Lloyd

from

well, he doesn't say exactly where he's from, but

he's familiar with Japanese currency.

So I'm assuming that he has personal experience, but he's an American-speaking person, so he was listening to our program.

Remember, we were talking about

Riho

and how much money she said she earned from AEW for wrestling, like 12 matches.

It worked out to like $30 something thousand dollars a match for a year or whatever the fuck it was.

In the range of $400,000, I believe.

But the Japanese press reported that she was making 60 million yen.

And we were talking about

what is the

exchange rate, or I don't know what the technical terms are, but someone, Lloyd,

who is more well-versed in this than we are,

says there is no difference in unit

like American dollars and cents, or more concretely, think of one yen as the equivalent of

one cents,

or one cent, rather.

In the current currency exchange, one cent can give you one

yen

or 1.56 yen.

So it's about a penny, right?

So

60 million yen is indeed 383,669

or whatever the fuck.

In Japan, the average salary for a new

uni, UNI, I assume university, grad,

is about 3 to 3,5 million yen.

$22,000

is the average salary in Japan for a new graduate of university.

However, minimal inflation has happened in Japan since the bubble burst in the early 90s, so wages and prices are minimally higher than what they were back then.

But 60 million is a fuck ton of money for anyone working in Japan,

is what Lloyd says.

So, how about them apples?

If you figured out, even

us over here with our just, you know, simple small-town bird law currency,

if you reported how many pennies you got paid, how many cents you got paid,

it would sound a lot bigger, wouldn't it?

You know, the other interesting thing I hadn't thought about until you just said this is taxes.

If she made 400,000 or claims she made around 400,000, is that after taxes?

And if she's working in the States, but still living in Japan, she's not a United States citizen that I'm aware of.

How does that work?

I don't know anything about how that works if you're a Japanese citizen making hundreds of thousands of dollars in America.

Well, but hold hold on, Cowboy, because it would be her gross, because she's an independent contractor, because that's what she'd be.

We haven't heard they gave her an office job yet, right?

So she wouldn't be an employee.

So

that would be probably her

guarantee or her minimum or however, but it would be her income from AEW, and then she would be paying taxes on that, just to quote a number like that in the wrestling business from my extensive experience.

So, but it's

$4,000?

Hey, you know what?

She's worth it because this division sucks so bad.

Whenever she reappears like a couple times a year, I now get happy.

Like, oh, this is going to be fucking hysterical for the next two weeks.

And then she's gone again.

So I'm okay.

I need to figure out.

We might need to get Jay Shark NATO to help us.

I want to start telling people how much money that I make every year in cents.

Like I make,

I might make 60 million cents.

I don't, well, no, I make more than 60 million cents in if that's 400 grand.

Well, goddamn, how many?

Boy, I could tell people I make like fucking 180 million fucking cents a year.

That's fuck, fuck you.

I quit.

I'm retiring.

I'm done.

Close it up, Brian.

I don't need to work anymore.

I made 180 million cents last year.

If I ran for prime minister, I would say, and next year I will introduce the quarter.

Change society altogether.

All righty.

Well, speaking of changing society,

before you move on with the topic of Riho's salary, and we don't know exactly what it is, and this is what she said to the Japanese press, and

who knows what it really is?

Well,

to be honest, with what we know, he was paying a number of other people five years ago, and with her having friends

in the industry, it may not be ridiculous, but go ahead.

Well, what I was going to say is with Tony Khan stating that he is willing to spend whatever it takes to be competitive on the free agent market, which unfortunately is a necessity right now.

I don't know who the options are, but if someone comes up, he kind of has to dive in because

he needs some freshness somehow.

And with the idea that Arn Anderson, Mark Henry, Jake Hager, because we just talked about them, We figured that's at least a million dollars right there.

A lot of the smaller wrestlers we heard were cut a few months ago, but that wasn't really much money.

We didn't think.

I mean, they were complaining about not being able to afford food for their family, so I don't think that was too much.

God damn it.

Well, Jerry, the way you're paying us, we ain't even on food.

But there are people saying that Tony is clearly trying to cut the budget.

But at the same time, obviously, Mercedes-Monet,

you hear two things from people inside.

You hear she's not making as much as everyone says.

And then you also hear, she's making a fucking ton of money.

So that's a lot of money.

Other free agents he's going to bring in, you got to figure they're making a lot of money.

Like none of these guys, like Edge or anyone, are signing with AEW to make less than what they were making.

So it's not like he is going to cut budget and cut what he's going to have to pay people.

There's no real question here.

I guess just an overriding question.

The AEW budget and how they're going to function.

Well, but since you ain't going to go here, I'll go here with the budget because we talk about talent all the time, but that's not the only way that he spends money.

And

besides that, although, but let's throw in the fact that he will continue to pay everybody that's injured on his roster

the money they're contractually obligated to make.

And that's what they figure 15% of the roster is out, either injured or

Tony's telling them they're hurt.

It comes as news to them.

But in that category somehow.

It's funny the way you put it.

Or Tony tells them they're hurt.

I was going to.

What's up, Ricky Starks?

Hey, hey, Ricky Stark man.

I was going to just dismiss this as the ravings of a fucking cosplaying child when Matt of the Buckaroos said that.

Remember on the pay-per-view, he said, cut the music, the final countdown.

It's the $200,000.

We're over budget already.

But now, then,

riddle me this: Batman:

Where's the mark between these two that I'm about to mention?

Because that sounds like what a goofy goof would say: like, it's costing us $200,000.

You know, it's like Vern Gagne's $100,000 battle royal.

Uncle Dave apparently just

wrote in his

his weekly missive, his manifesto,

I believe that is a real number.

Now, is he just believing what they tell him now to a preposterous degree?

Or

did they really spend, did Tony, there is no they, did Tony really spend two hundred thousand dollars to play the final final countdown on pay-per-view,

which is very

important.

You, as a former music industry insider,

I didn't think about it at the time, but is that outrageous?

Because it was, even though it's been so long ago, the song is not in huge demand, I wouldn't think, these days.

Which of these preposterous things could possibly be true?

And which one is the mark?

Tony for paying it or or Dave for believing it?

I don't know if this is something you should point your finger at Dave right off the bat.

Now, there's no uniform fee.

Every band, every rights holder would set their own fee.

You could probably go license a song from some band no one's ever heard of, relatively cheap, maybe even get all the rights to it in the publishing.

But when it's an established song, which I'm going to guess they still make,

they possibly still make seven figures a year just royalties.

Oh, geez.

Of this one, their biggest song, it was Europe's biggest song.

It sold well in America, it sold well all around the world.

They probably still make a lot of money off it.

I don't think it's outrageous that that would be the amount because notoriously, they didn't want to license it or they didn't want to license it cheaply.

I have a tweet here from June 26, 2023.

So a year ago, Brandon Thurston tweeted out: Tony Khan says the final countdown song license cost, quote, as much as a wrestler's contract.

Oh, rights are in perpetuity, so it will be usable in video library.

Now, again, it's important to note, Jefferson Starship, Jane, is obviously a song where they have an agreement where they could use it every single week.

This may be a song where each usage is a single

That's that's a separate deal.

So whatever the as much as a wrestler's contract was in 2023, we don't know if that's the same one for using it a year later on this pay-per-view.

It's also important to note: not the only song licensed on this pay-per-view.

Orange Cassidy had two theme songs, Jefferson Starship Jane and the Pixies.

Where is My Mind?

They brought back.

Well, you know what?

I see, I skipped that, so I didn't realize that they played two of them, but Where is My Mind may be

that they mean they just buy that motherfucker and use it as their opening theme.

So I'm not going to say Dave is saying something outrageous.

Now, I'm sure that may be the word going around in the company.

And I'm also sure it could possibly be true.

You know, licensing a song by, you know, the box tops is probably a lot easier than licensing a song by the Beatles.

And the Beatles will be able to set their costs.

Or refuse entirely in some cases.

Some artists will not allow their music to be used in this frivolous a manner.

And again, I say the Beatles, but it all depends on who owns the rights, who owns the rights to the recording, who owns the publishing.

Everything has to come together to make these deals happen.

And

if they get $200,000 per usage, that's extraordinary.

Not only extraordinary, but even if it were $200

at all,

If they paid $200,000 for it last year and they've only used it what?

Then, then right and that now they use it a year later but again too it's about the rights they're not just asking for a

they're not just asking for the rights to use it at a live event they're asking for the rights to have it in the catalog going forward so whenever they replay this match on a streaming service or wherever it may be it's not like a wwe situation where they have to edit out the music Well, exactly.

And it's on pay-per-view to begin with.

And then it will be sold in some some manner, whether it's streaming or in the old days of two or three years ago, DVDs or whatever.

So I knew it had to be, but

just the idea that what the fuck?

No, Brian, get a new fucking song.

We still haven't made a goddamn, we've lost tens of millions, hundred million, however many millions of dollars.

Get a fucking, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, when we turn $1 in profit on this fucking venture, we'll pay $200,000 for your fucking song.

And

hold on.

Some people are going to say, well, that's what he's identified with.

That's what he used in Ring of Honor.

That's what he used in Indy.

Yes.

And nobody paid for it then.

Because it was under the radar.

Just you fucking

subgenre of individuals.

And if anybody had tried to...

stooge them off, they probably would have sued or whatever the fuck, and they certainly wouldn't have been able to afford $200,000.

now for all the complaints about mark booking from tony khan this is a mark kind of move it wasn't even really needed here and if it costs two hundred thousand dollars again at the same time where you would think they're in a position to cut salaries or maybe not even cut salaries but cut the amount of people they're paying and not hire lower end people for as much money as you've been paying lower end people

but when you're dealing with the son of a billion i said this you can go back before aew

was really announced And then, of course, after it was announced before Dynamite, I was saying all these things.

My concerns, it was less about Tony individually and more about my experience dealing with the sons of millionaires and billionaires.

You're not dealing with people in reality.

You're dealing with people who could spend money frivolously and not give a shit.

$200,000 is a drop in the bucket.

The only boy who could ever book it was the son of a billionaire.

The only boy who could ever cook it was the son of a billionaire.

Yes, he was.

Yes, he was.

You see, you should have done, was the son of a bumper man.

I mean, that would have worked.

Okay,

anybody out there, Rocky Ramon on down in the cult of cornet,

get to work on that.

I've given you inspiration.

I got one more email real quick.

Because I just wanted to bring this up.

This is from Warren

from Zambia.

And apparently, one of the recent drive-thrus where we talked about, well, we played the clip of Hulk.

He was bragging about how well known he was.

And it was part of another story.

We were talking about some of his fabrications and insinuations.

And Warren says, play the clip of Hulk Hogan bragging how he was known in Mozambique.

And I believe Zamboi.

I just wanted to let you and the listeners all know that Zamboi does not exist.

I believe he got confused and combined Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi.

Or Zamboi and Bowie.

Well, possibly.

To form a new country is impressive, even by Hulkster's standards.

But apparently, there is no Zamboi

there now.

And we might have been confused because we were thinking of Zamboni.

But the flying Zambonis came from a part of Italy.

Someone needs to write a Hulk Hogan biography that's like an autobiography unofficial with all the things he has said publicly.

Don't fact-check anything, just put all that in it and make it this big, like the movie Big Fish, just this big story of this guy telling this tale.

And at the end, when he's about to pass away, everyone's there waving to him and saying goodbye.

The Hulk Hogan story, brother.

But

we apologize to the people, not in Mozambique, because he got it right, but in Zamboi, we apologize to you because you don't exist.

So we didn't want to play a part in perpetuating that

vicious rumor that Zamboi exists.

Possibly Jim Bowie, who was a famous frontiersman here in the United States, who used to do things like...

carving up wild animals with his bare hands and a knife in order to eat and sustain himself, Brian.

You remember back in school, we learned about the frontiersmen, how they could take a knife in their bare hands and take down a wild grizzly bear and cut its balls off and roast them over an open flame and they were a delicacy.

You heard those stories, didn't you?

This is what you heard in school.

Well, down south, we did.

You know, you got, you got,

you've never had mountain oysters.

You have never.

I don't even know what that is.

What is that?

You've never had mountain oysters.

You've never had.

Oh, I'm telling you.

Is that like one of those things where it's code for like an animal's testicles?

Yes, that's exactly what they are.

And boy, I'll tell you what, it's almost as good as Rambler's Road Apples.

But I'll tell you, these are the days gone by, ladies and gentlemen.

I saw the movie Funny Farm.

I know what's up.

These are back in the pioneer days, back when you had to.

go out and strangle your own food on a daily basis, but no more is that have to happen.

And now we we can, with our modern society, we can sit back and relax and have people

actually deliver food to us, Brian, to our doors, to the doorstep.

Possibly even if you open the door and say, come in, they'll bring it in for you.

And I'm talking about our friends at Omaha Steaks, because, you know, Father's Day is coming up.

It's right around the corner.

And in the old days,

Back in the pioneer days, while you were living in a log cabin with holes in the wall big enough to throw a cat through, where the cold wind would whistle and blow, dad was going to go out in the woods and take a mallet and try to hit a goddamn deer over the head.

Elsewhere, you were all going to eat celery, celery, and road apples.

And that it doesn't have to be that way.

Now you can reward dad for all the dads back in the old days that went out there with that hammer and tried to hit that fucking skunk in between the fucking eyes so that you could eat skunk meat.

And you don't have to buy skunk from Omaha Steaks.

That's not necessary at all because they've got all the stuff we want.

The premium proteins, the juicy pork chops, the air-chilled chicken, the beefy burgers, and of course, steaks, the Omaha steaks, the bacon-wrapped fillets, the sirloins, and the purloins.

And they all come from her loins, the loins of a fabulous cow that died to serve you.

So right now, go to omahosteaks.com and use the promo code JCE and you're going to get exclusive savings on the hand-selected gift packages that are starting at just $89 to begin with.

And then we get you save money off of that.

And well, you're farting through silk.

even before you eat these delicious steaks and juicy burgers.

So, Brandon, you got your Omaha steaks package.

We know you love those

plump weenies,

but have you dove into those?

Jumbo Franks, I believe, is the official name for the record.

Well, if you like Frank's weenie, that's up to you.

But have you dove headfirst into those delectable sides and desserts like the steak fries or the caramel apple tartlets?

Sometimes we eat the dessert first and then we don't have dessert left to eat with the steak.

I planned to do the potatoes tonight.

I wanted the caramel apple tartlets, those are really delicious.

And Suzanne put one in the toaster oven instead of two, made one for herself, not for me.

So, well, I got to do that later.

Selfish, selfish, good, just selfish.

I'll tell you what, I don't know why you don't just, well, no, she's a good woman.

Call Steven Peter.

Of what kind of good woman would take your tartlet?

I don't know.

I just don't know anymore, Jim.

You think you know people?

You think you knew her?

You know me.

But anyway.

I can't take all these pastry-hating women.

Pastry-hating women.

Well, you can go to omahasteaks.com right now and use that promo code JCE folks, and they're going to bring cattle byproduct and assorted fixings and goodness to your door.

You can grill it outside.

You can cook it inside.

Some of it, I guess, guess, well, technically, you shouldn't eat any of it raw, but it comes packed, vacuum-sealed, and frozen with the dry ice.

You just put it in the freezer and you can fix it whenever you want.

It's already prepared, but it's not going to be stewing around in a hot post office for days on end.

No, they don't do things that way.

Omahasteaks.com, promo code JCE.

That's right.

See, this is the problem.

We talked about this early in the show, and now I'm starving.

Well,

okay, good.

Let me good.

Good.

Then you'll be hungry.

Hungry and ready to go in and fight these battles.

What battles?

I don't know.

I'm just trying to fire you up now.

All right.

Anyway, we got to talk about SmackDown a little bit.

We do.

And then, yes, well,

we're obliged just to keep the people up to date because there were a few things that went on.

And I hate, you know, I don't want to be guilty of lack of continuity with with the listeners so that then next week, when we complain about something,

they say, Well, when did that happen?

They should have complained about that last week.

So it's all about timely complaining.

Well, there were a few interesting things.

Well, I don't want to say anything now until we get there.

I'll wait.

I'm just babbling with words that we get together in weird, in a weird order.

Let's go back to the down of Smack.

Yes.

So

they were in

May 31st, they were in Albany, New York.

And now, you know, you are closer than I am to Albany, New York, that Hall of Fame there.

I don't want to say these people were very nice to me before you go off on some kind of tangent.

I don't know whether you're firm or again them.

But the young man was very nice to me when they inducted.

Christine Jarrett up there.

He was nice to me in my email communications with him and et cetera.

But apparently they're in the arena there, and the fans could come early, but they're an ongoing concern there in the arena, the Hall of Fame that they've got.

So is this...

I think both things are true.

They are in the arena and they are an ongoing concern.

Yes.

And, well, you ought to go up there sometime.

You're not that.

Well, everything is close in New York, isn't it?

I'm pretty sure I got a better wrestling Hall of Fame here at Last Manor than they do up there.

Well, I know, but you ought to see what you could go up there and slip into your fucking pocket.

You know, unfortunately, five-finger discounts.

Unfortunately, I hate to say it, but that's one of the rumors about that Hall of Fame: basically, if you have something good, they'll just trade you for it based on things they have.

But I don't know how true that is, but I've heard it from a few people.

You know, there's a lot of people, there are people who like the Hall of Fame, and there's people who are vociferously against it.

I'll say that.

Well,

but it was, it's there in the same building as they were.

They were, dude, we know how they did.

They had a nice crowd, it looked like from from what they shot in the bleachers.

But

that I recall that building from the old days.

I believe it's the same one.

They've just changed the name, and it's a pretty big fucking place.

I always wondered why

they could draw huge crowds like that in Albany.

The crowd was 77.47.

The previous time there was December for Raw, 69.86.

Well, they were up even.

But

it's a big old place, so they didn't fill it up.

But anyway, the first segment of SmackDown, May 31st,

the very first thing is Nick Aldous is in the ring and introduces refrigerator jacks.

And

they're going to go all the way with her.

She's got heat with the people, but she's got more heat with me.

And as I mentioned the other day, from squashing those fucking girls for no goddamn good reason, otherwise that she either doesn't care or can't work her shit.

And if she's going to do an interview,

as they say verbally, she's as phony as a get-well card from an Undertaker, so I don't want to hear it.

And so basically,

here's what happened on speed search.

She called Bailey out, but before Bailey got in a ring with her, Piper and Chelsea attacked

fucking fucking Bailey and beat her up and laid her out in the ring.

And then, you know, the refrigerator told Piper and Chelsea off while Bailey just had to lay there and stare at everybody forever.

Was that a summation of what occurred there in your eyes?

They've got the best women's wrestlers in the world, but they also have a bunch of people filling out a division that I don't know if anyone's truly interested in.

Well, but I mean, Jesus, it was poor Bailey

had to just lay there while they beat her up.

But I mean, we see people get set on fire and run over with fucking trucks, right?

So they beat her up, but she had to lay there holding her head, like, oh my God,

I'm so stunned by what happened and I'm so hurt that I can't even just roll out and crawl away before they hurt me again.

I have to lay here and look at them do things.

Like, I don't, what the fuck.

And, but then, and they're building

Piper Niven

versus the refrigerator.

Although I will say that Piper Niven looks like Karen Carpenter next to refrigerator Jax.

But they're apparently built.

So we do get

Haystacks Calhoun versus Man Mountain Mike.

Happy Humphrey.

I don't know.

Those are the pictures you would see in the magazine.

That's why.

Well, how about you know we got billy versus benny

but no but i mean the the refrigerator my guy is she's standing there again piper did look

big until we saw this she's got her own gravitational pull

at the beach kids play in her shade

in riots cops tell her to break it up well you know the pleather outfit may not do any favors either

She got hit by a car last week.

The driver said he didn't have enough gas to go around her.

All right.

Anyway, so we'll move on from here.

I can get something out of there.

Did you watch Champa versus Theory?

Tommaso Ciampa versus our former boy, Austin Theory, who we can't stomach anymore because he's always standing next to Grayson Waller.

You say we, I don't mind him and Waller.

You don't mind Wallering?

I don't mind.

However, I didn't watch this.

And the reason was, as soon as I heard the DIY music, I decided I'll take a break and go do something else for a little bit.

It was more about Gargado than Champa.

I thought it was going to be a tag match, but I just wasn't interested.

I wish you had a because, and if anybody wants to go back

and just look at it,

I'm not saying with these two particular individuals.

Well, right now, let me preface this by saying the way that they've booked Tommaso, where he's with the fucking guy with the no face and

you know, he's in the middle if he's there whatever he's he's not going to be instantly catapulted or ever catapulted into the main events

or main event picture and i'm not trying to say

the theory i think still has potential if he could just get away from all this and impress somebody that he's doing a little something different he's got all the basics and all the fucking talent in the world in the ring and he can talk and he's young there's something going to happen there

but if tony khan wanted a sports-based wrestling presentation

and great in-ring pro wrestling,

it would be two guys like this or anyone like them, although there are not many.

But not his children doing the tumbling.

Again, there's no reason for

me to campaign right now.

I still, as I said, think theory has a future.

But I'm not saying these guys should be the fucking AEW world champions, but they are better than 80, 90% of Tony Khan's roster as far as what the job entails, their work in the ring, their look.

The Champa is not big, not overpoweringly large, but he's ripped and he's in shape.

And he had facially and visually, he has an aura of somebody.

His shit looks good enough you can buy that he would fuck you up, which I don't know why he's with the fucking nerd, you know, with the, but anyway,

in theory, he's the muscle-headed fucking young, goddamn jack-off kid that you want to slap in the face.

And his work, his basics, all the way up to his execution is usually fucking fantastic.

And if you had

these guys and guys like them

with different,

like any territory was with different personalities and different ways of working and going about things and one guy's more appealing as a heel and another is a babyface or whatever but this is a sports-based presentation you can buy these guys

they had a very good match with superb work

at a nice exciting back-and-forth exchange and then

they had to do whatever business they're doing with their stories.

Where

Theory rolled out to the floor, and Wilder, Wilder, Gene Wilder,

Waller

grabbed him and threw him back in so he wouldn't get counted out or whatever, and then turned to the announcers and was yelling, See, I always help him or whatever.

He's taking credit for theory being a big deal.

And Theory hears him and is like, What?

And Champa

double knockouts him into each other and rolls him up one, two, three.

So it was a great match with a cheap finish to get out of it, and they're telling some story now where there's going to be, hopefully, Theory will kick the shit out of Waller.

I don't know.

But anyway, that's the thing is these guys, they're athletic.

Champa's not young,

but he's of the modern generation.

Theory is young.

And they're athletic and they visually look like something and they know how to work.

And not only that, but they've been in a system that's

and Tommaso was in the independence and in Ring of Honor, but he's a smart guy.

And they know how to work for television and for the people.

So

this to me,

they're almost as out of place, though, here as they would be in AEW for a sports-based presentation.

Anyway, did you see the Bloodline meeting?

I believe so, yes.

Because I skipped over Apollo Crews and Andre, because what the fuck?

I saw some of that.

Apollo Crews always looks good, and he never wins, so you're never going to get it.

Yeah, I don't care.

So Solo

is now giving instructions to the various Tamas in the back,

or to the various Tongas.

Tonga, Tonga.

Tama, Tonga, and Tonga Loa.

If they're brothers, why is it one guy's last name and the other guy's first name?

Is that a Samoan custom?

Have they explained this?

What the fuck's going on there?

Haku was originally King Tonga.

Was Tonga his first name or his last name?

Okay, but that still, it could be one or the other, but then it would have to be Loa Tonga and Tamatonga, wouldn't it?

You would think.

Anyway.

So they're in the back and Solo's telling them what to do.

Here's what we're going to do.

You're going to do this.

You're going to do that.

And Paul walks in.

And now Paul is being the

meek and trepidacious and nervous.

And

he's approaching these people with kid gloves and the utmost calm and

suggesting that he can better serve Solo if he's allowed to give him more counsel.

Because these people you're recruiting are violent men.

And I see violence, but not strategy.

I see violence for violence's sake.

The strategy has to be when Roman comes back, we have Cody in check.

And Solo said,

we have him.

And Paul's like, who's we?

And then boom, music interrupts in the arena.

It's Kevin Owens.

And of course, that means they can't speak to each other anymore.

But

this is great

by Paul.

And this is obviously not only Paul doing the promo, but is Paul, he's making them

as much as he can and his credibility can and his ability to

sell this thing,

he's making them dangerous, more dangerous in people's mind than they may actually even appear visually.

But he's trying to create the element, you know, when he says that we couldn't get these people

into countries where they couldn't pass the background check.

Roman has already thought about them.

But even

Roman reigns wouldn't deal with people.

That's creating a picture in people's minds.

Paul's brilliant at that.

And

the only thing I keep thinking about before we go to the

deal in the ring

is,

goddamn,

they have to be building to the most dangerous one of all is Jacob Fatu.

Because old Toma Loa and Tama Tonga, Tonga's, goddammit, whatever the fuck.

And see, this may be a problem that the people have also.

The casual viewer that they get a lot of.

But Jacob Fatu looks more dangerous than all of them.

That's to me,

they look too clean.

They look like they go to the gym too often.

Their gear looks too good.

They don't have fucking tattoos and all the various fucking

Jacob.

Look, you could fucking buy him in a prison movie if you cast him in that role.

So that's the only thing is, but Paul is brilliant at building it about

these guys because that's what they need to do.

And I'm not sure that visually they're,

yes, their work is fine, but they're neither incredibly large nor incredibly vicious looking

in standards of today's modern wrestling.

Are your thoughts?

I think Tamatonga's done a good job so far.

Tongoloa really hasn't been established at all yet, other than just being a guy there.

But I actually like the job that Tamatonga.

I'm more interested in Tamatonga now than I ever was in him in New Japan.

And

let's see where they go with that.

Also, if Roman's coming back and the chants for We Want Roman are getting louder and louder.

Yes.

That doesn't always keep happening.

Eventually, he has to come back.

This can't go on forever.

The only question is,

is he coming back with help to take down the usurpers?

Or is he coming back and they're going to get more help against him?

Obviously, there's someone leading it.

They teased that already here.

And it may be the rock down the road because that was left open from earlier this year.

And The Rock Down the Road.

That's a fucking country album he can do.

The Rock Down Down the Road.

I know exactly what show to watch to find out what Cowboy had to get for that song.

But otherwise, Roman's going to come back.

Maybe he has Jacob Fatu on his side.

I don't know.

I'm not saying that's the right thing to do, but how many heels can they load up on?

Especially if there is a leader that they're answering to that isn't Roman and that isn't Solo.

Solo's answering to someone else.

There's only a limited amount of options of who that could be.

And the other thing is they, I thought in this segment, they did a good job of

the big thing,

bigger, I guess you could argue than the bloodline is Cody Rhodes is the world champion.

It's all about getting him and getting that belt back for the bloodline.

So there was a lot of stuff here.

This is a good segment.

Yeah.

And well, and then they continued it because as Owens is going to the ring and it's the nine o'clock hour, imagine that, how these things happen.

As soon as he starts really talking and establishes that Randy Orton is home recuperating,

then Paul E.

comes out and interrupts and talks his way to the ring again.

And

it's just brilliant.

I don't even want to try to tell the story that he told, again, being flustered and cautious, but he buttered up

Owens and how Roman respected him, you know,

at the end and above all, whatever the fuck, down deep.

And he begs, he begs Owens, please stay away from the bloodline.

Solo doesn't respect you.

He's recruiting criminals.

These are the people you're antagonizing.

They're thugs.

They want to take you out.

If you keep on, they're going to do something bad to you.

I'm thinking, this is fantastic.

He is a goddamn.

Again, did Zero Mostel ever win an Academy Award?

I don't know.

Do we, we need to find out because Paul E could possibly

at least an Emmy.

But anyway, he begs Owens to back off, please.

And then,

of course, Owens shits all over him.

Why would I trust you?

This is all you, the pulling the strings.

You know, with his accent, he's got to like the Kevin Owens and he talk like this.

And he's not going to fall for it, right?

And

he basically worked himself up into a nervous breakdown, telling Paul he didn't need his help.

And then Paul works himself up.

Maybe I'm trying to save you.

But no, let's not listen to the Hall of Fame wise man.

Let's not listen to anything he has to say.

And as he works himself up, he accidentally hits Owens

with

a backhand as he's having his tantrum in the air.

He looked like Trump jerking off two people at the same time, whatever, right?

And

immediately, he registered,

I've hit him.

And Owens is, you've hit me.

And the crowd sees it because they did it perfectly.

Again, Paul, he could have been a silent movie star.

And the audio goes blank because the people start chanting, you fucked up, you fucked up.

And

Fox don't go for that.

No can do.

So it's fucking muted for like 30 seconds.

seconds.

And then finally,

Owens goes, he's going to grab Paul, but there's the music plays and here comes the bloodline.

Well, now, meanwhile, I was thinking, and they may still go somewhere with Paul has pretty much called these guys sewer rats, right?

With how he was describing them, they might take issue with that, wouldn't you think?

Well, it doesn't seem like they like him at all.

It seems like they'd be more than happy to attack Heyman.

Solo's been holding him back, and Solo's been talking down to him to keep Heyman in place.

He knows he needs Heyman, but he doesn't want Heyman running the show.

Well, anyway, before we find out what might happen, uh, because the bloodline

was coming out,

but then suddenly from behind, because I guess they were waiting in the fourth row just in case, the street profits hit the ring.

And then, so they all had a sloppy six-way

where Owens and Solow

fought off.

I mean, it's just

two guys just fight completely away with each other, just away from everything else that's going on, and you never see them again.

Nobody ever comes back out.

Brian, think about that.

You and two of your friends are in a fight with three guys, right?

And even if you and some fucking guy fall down a hill, roll through a parking lot into a goddamn creek and are momentarily submerged, possibly in water, perhaps and even human waste, and you knock him the fuck out.

Are you going to just hitchhike home from there?

Are you going to go back and find out if your two friends kicked the other two guys' ass?

Yeah.

Well, they don't.

They never do here.

So the two tag teams, Wink Wink, stayed in the ring, and that was our next match.

So I'm like, well, fuck.

This was a great fucking segment and we got another fucking tag team match I don't care about.

And the Tongas won or Tomatonga and Tom Tongaloa or Tom Deloa.

And wait till our truth gets finished with him.

In the movie Body Slam, Sam Fat 2 was Tonga Tom.

Boy, how that's that took a lot of fucking creative.

Who wrote that script?

I don't know, but you could tell when you see that movie, it's an interesting thing because it comes out, I think it came out in 87, but they made it in 86.

And it's clearly influenced on everything that's happened in wrestling without any logic or reason.

There's a team based on the Rogue Warriors.

There's the Rocket Wrestling Connection.

Captain Lou Albano is Captain Lou Murano.

That may have been an honest mistake.

Now, come on.

There's a wrestling talk show hosted by Charles Nelson Riley based on TNT.

So it's everything that happened in wrestling in 84 and 85 put together in some script.

Why are we talking about that here?

I don't know, but you know, I never thought about this.

Imagine every suit that you've ever seen Vince McMahon wear.

Imagine it on Charles Nelson Riley.

And now vice versa.

Imagine everything you've ever.

It works.

It works.

It works.

Anyway, what did work kind of sort of till the end there?

We kind of knew it was coming, but it was nicely done

Was A.J.

Stiles has asked for time to address

the people

because

all show long, he's been very somber.

People have been shaken.

Cody shook his hand and whispered something to him.

And L.A.

Nice said, hey, if what I hear is true, respect.

And then he's hugged Gallows and Anderson.

A.J.

has, and they haven't been together in a while.

He said, you guys were here with me at the start.

I want you to go out with me.

So we're thinking he's going to give it up.

This is kind of the way they're momentous announcement.

And he got in a ring and

basically he did the promo where Aldous said, If I want another shot at Cody, I'd have to go to the back of the line.

And I can't do that at this point in my life.

I've been doing it.

Why do people instead of saying I've been doing this 20 years?

Why do you have been doing this for over two decades?

Do people use the word decades in normal speech?

Some people do.

Wrestlers don't.

It doesn't sound normal.

But anyway,

so

he had friends over for his son's graduation.

And then he was like, how many have I missed?

Maybe I should stay at home and be a father.

And so he tells

Gallows and Anderson that he loves them.

And they do a nice, a heartwarming two-sweet and a big hug in in the middle of the ring.

And I wanted them to play The Road is Long

as they walked off into the sunset.

But see,

they're too careful with their money to be frivolous like that.

But anyway, and then AJ says, well, before I go,

I had asked Cody to come out here earlier.

That's what we said to each other.

If I called for him or whatever, if he'd come out here.

And Cody comes out and he's over.

And AJ tells him it was one of my greatest matches.

And

this is the house that AJ Styles built.

And I called you out here to hand you the keys.

And Cody puts him over for everything he's done.

And they hug.

It's a heartwarming example of sportsmanship.

And Cody raises AJ's arm

to one side of the ring and the other side, the other side,

and finally that last side.

And then,

oh boy, boom.

AJ levels the boom on Cody Rhodes and just kicks the shit out of him.

When did you know for sure?

At what point were you pretty sure, at least, that Cody was going to kick the shit out of Cody?

AJ was going to kick the shit out of Cody?

The suit.

When I saw him earlier in the night in the suit and they started teasing it, that's when I started thinking it because I remember the last time they did this because it was effective.

Mark Henry.

Mark Henry announced in his pink suit that he was going to retire, and he turned on Cena, and it worked.

It was one of the best things he ever did there.

They got the crowd totally into it.

It was great.

So, if he'd have come out in fucking blue jeans and a goddamn sweatshirt, like he'd been changing his oil, you would have known he was going to retire for real.

No, I thought I would think he's just doing a promo or something, but the blue suit, the light blue suit.

Again, Mark Henry wore a pink suit.

No, it was salmon.

This was like powder blue.

You know, I knew it wouldn't make any other sense otherwise.

Yeah.

The show is going to end with him just announcing his retirement, hugging Cody, and leaving.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And they set up everything perfectly with having the Good Brothers there to back him up.

That was set up perfectly.

And then, and I, geez, I guess they were very confident.

about this, but

AJ Styles gave Cody the styles clash.

Well, he cleared off the top level of the stairs.

So the standing on the base of the stairs, which is what

is that 18 inches?

I don't know.

But still, he gave him the styles clash off that

platform of the stairs onto the pads on the floor.

And they landed flat.

But boy, geez,

I don't know if I'd want to be upside down and going through that or not.

So Cody must have confidence in him because he's the most important guy in the fucking company.

But it was a

so we're obviously

going to see or hear more of Cody and AJ.

I guess the question is, how much longer does it go?

And I'm interested in the match.

The last match was good.

Now they have a little bit of something going.

They did a big angle after Cody beat him already.

But Gunther won a title match.

If this goes a couple months, there goes Guther's title match.

Well, no, but

no,

both these things can be true because they don't have to just run it like Memphis in the old days where it was a weekly program.

And, you know, you couldn't.

Do you hear the heavy rain now that is coming down upon my roof?

You're hearing things.

No one hears them.

No, no.

No one.

No one hears this.

No one.

I'm looking out the window, though.

I can see it.

It's fucking pouring fucking rain.

That's why I turned around and the Monroes are out there.

The Monroes are clearing the property in this deluge.

Hey, you didn't bring up what I thought, what a lot of other people thought

was the highlight of SmackDown.

Did you not see the LA night Carmelo Hayes interview?

Oh, I forgot about that.

You got me sidetracked.

I skipped ahead.

Yes, I did.

And also, what's her name, Kayla?

I ought to call her clueless.

He was trying to work with her a little bit.

She just stands there dumbfounded.

You could almost see behind her eyes.

This wasn't in the script.

He's just talking to me.

But,

you know, I don't yet know what anybody sees in

young Carmelo that he should be interacting at this point in time with the main event guys in the company.

And especially unless the idea is he's to get heat by

being disrespectful when he's absolutely not ready for the spot.

I mean, what...

Again, he was a babyface.

It looks like now they're starting to make him heal.

Well, starting, he's been an asshole to me since he showed up about two or three weeks ago.

For those who didn't hear the face-to-face backstage with Caleb Braxton, here's some brief audio to capture the moment.

I mean, why would L.A.

want to face you when a first-round draft pick is standing right here?

Well, if I face myself, myself, I'd be looking in the mirror.

You're talking about Logan, right?

Yeah, let's get it right.

Get your names right.

Look, truth is,

he knows ball.

And there it is.

He forgot who he was talking to, who he was staring at.

And L.A.

Knight didn't let it go and you couldn't because everyone heard him say, did he just call

himself to him?

You know, everyone heard it happen.

So L.A.

Knight's good on the fly.

Well, that's what he started out asking old Clueless Kayla a question.

Legitimately, all she had to say was yes or no, it was some one-word thing to just act like that she was comprehending the words that were coming out of his mouth.

But you could tell also he was just, he was doing his thing and she didn't really know that was coming, but she wasn't listening.

She was apparently waiting either for her

the cue for her next line or just to get the fuck out of the picture.

And finally he's okay.

He's, you're going to answer.

Okay, don't answer.

And then she tried to say something and he went on with it anyway.

It was like she was just staring blankly at him.

Does anybody know how to fucking just do live TV there anymore?

Oh, god damn it.

Yeah, not a good look for Carmelo.

He looked,

you know, getting lost on TV.

Like, yeah, night TV is not good.

And see, thing is, with the, with the first airing, I didn't even,

I didn't understand what Hayes said well enough to understand that he was fucking up.

And then I just thought LA Knight was belittling him.

And then you played that

back earlier.

And it's so

he

had that memorized in his head, whatever he was giving on a piece of paper, to the point where, but the only thing

he dangled his participle or he mixed up his tenses or whatever.

And he was talking to the wrong person.

But he was trying to recite the words.

That's what

a lot of the problem is with

wrestling these days, is that it ain't wrestling enough.

It's bad community theater.

It's like, who can you see talking the way they do at 7-Eleven?

Yeah.

I could see L.A.

Knight just living in gimmick.

Carmelo Hayes is speaking.

Again, on the video, for those who haven't seen it, you can really tell.

You said he's memorized what he's going to say.

He kind of has the reactions down.

And then L.A.

Knight throws him off by pointing out that he's thrown off.

And L.A.

Knight is as smooth as can be, as calm as can be,

because he knows who he's talking to.

But

if you have everything memorized, it's going to throw you off.

And that's the way it came across.

Oh, God,

it's like

if you saw the dream machine, my wonderful friend Troy Graham in the goddamn corner convenience store.

He without his mask on in street clothes,

you would instantly know it was the masked dream machine because he was acting and talking the same fucking way.

If I ran into dusty roads at the gas station, there's a chance he may call me baby.

Yeah, as a matter of fact, there was yes, or he may cuss you out.

It just depended on what kind of mood he was in.

I swear to God,

it was in Philadelphia at the Civic Center one night in 86 when Dusty and Magnum had just got the fucking fur coats and they were wearing the fur.

But bear in mind, this was warm weather.

But I'm standing by waiting for Dennis Corluso

to pull up because he's going to take us out of there back to our hotel.

And then Bobby and Dennis are coming down after they got their shit done and every got dressed and everything.

And there come Dusty and Magnum on the other side of the

giant garage door entranceway.

But anyway, the point is, I'm hiding over the corner so any stray fans don't see.

me to begin with, but now next to Dusty and Magnum and some random civic center worker come in a kid in a t-shirt comes up to dusty and says can i have your autograph and dusty said yeah and he said the kid asked dusty he said do you have a pen

and that was too much dusty said yeah i got it sticking out of my ass

like he'd give the kid an autograph but he's not going to provide a fucking pen he's standing there in a 25 000 fucking chinchilla coat

But anyway, times were simpler back then, Brian.

But now you got to swerve people.

You got to scramble people.

You got to get away from people.

People can't know what you're up to and where you're at.

They can locate you all kinds of different ways.

You know, we were talking about whether or not the bloodline's going to swerve us

with Heyman or whatever, or swerve Strickland.

or even old Shitstain swerve, swerve, bro.

But the real way to

people in today's modern space age society, ladies and gentlemen, they soon will put a man on the moon.

You got to scramble your signal.

You can't let these big technological companies, they've got the computers.

They've got, you know, you've seen the film of those big banks of computers.

with the

wheels spinning and the gears running, just those IBM machines.

These big tech companies have walls and walls of those things, don't they, Brian?

Just walls and walls of them.

Well, you said you've seen films, yeah, like from the 50s and 60s, yeah.

Yeah, that's what they got all kinds of these things.

And what they're doing is they're spying on you.

You may think you can fix your privacy setting or turn off your app tracking.

Those are just things they tell you, ladies and games, games that the games people play, you take them or you leave.

I'm telling you, you need to leave them instead of taking them because they're feeding on your information, literally sucking your blood, the blood of your internet history

out of you, and they are draining you of it, and they are selling it to the highest bidder who can suckle on some more of it.

And one way or another, They're going to suck on you until you're dry.

So you need to convince them that you're somewhere else.

When they come to find find you to suck more of you, you're at home.

Scramble your signal with Express VPN

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So they can do whatever they want with the fucking monks up there.

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We don't know any of them personally.

And they don't listen to us because they've taken a vow of silence.

Wait a minute.

Does that mean they can't talk or they can't listen?

Hey, speaking of mountaintops, Darby Allen was supposed to climb Mount Everest.

Didn't like two people from the latest voyage to the top of Mount Everest just die?

Well, maybe they're the ones that took his place.

See, if not for being hit by a bus and breaking his foot and being run over by a fucking bread truck,

he'd be up there on Mount Everest now.

Maybe Maybe he'll bring the flamethrower, wouldn't that help him?

Well, that may be the you may have to figure that's the hard way to defrost somebody, isn't it?

Wouldn't that go straight from frostbite into fucking third-degree burns?

Remember the midget that used to be

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That was the greatest name

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Well, no, let's just hypothetically.

We're not encouraging people to do, but there are people that are going to engage in that type of activity.

We can't legislate morality.

We're not encouraging, but there are people who will do it nonetheless.

That's exactly what I just said.

So if you're going to do the international espionage, you're going to have some trace on your computer,

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And if they're going to weasel down your computer hole and in through your wiring until they go up through the poop chute and the SWAT team's going to be beating your door down, launching the fucking flash bang, boom,

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One more time, Jim,

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Yeah, yeah.

And you can pass international files.

Just mark them confidential.

And then you can go from there.

What am I hearing,

Brian, about more bickering now on the air amongst the announce team?

And I don't listen.

I've tuned the announcers out in AEW.

But are they bickering?

Is this a work?

Is it a swerve, bro?

Well, I'm not sure.

A lot of the listeners have sent this in.

So let's play this.

This apparently was during the commercial break on Dynamite in the middle of the Jon Moxley versus Rocky Romero match.

So this is not footage on the general air is what you're saying.

This was during the commercial break.

They were feeding a satellite or this is a special

commercial free service.

What's going on here?

I don't recall if this was used in picture and picture, the actual footage.

And the audio, I guess, would be available to people who subscribe to wherever you see the unedited version without commercials of Dynamite.

Oh, good lord.

We used to, back in the old days, we had time to rest for a couple minutes in between these fucking segments.

But a lot of the listeners have sent this in.

I have made it known, and I think other people need to speak up.

The commentating on Dynamite is something really holding the show back.

And Taz is not the problem.

The problem is, you have a lead commentator who doesn't work and is not a skilled communicator.

And you need that, especially when the booking's a mess.

You need someone to try to be Bill Watts and explain this shit.

And then you have Schiavone,

who, when he's not just telling you how great everything is,

is just telling you what Tony Khan's telling him in his headset.

So with that said, let's go to this audio.

The AEW commentating team of Excalibur, Tony Schiavone, and Taz.

Things are wild on Moxley Sandy hard into the barracks.

Excuse me, the ring steps.

And now the stomp.

Moxley returned to the ring.

What you got, Tony?

Seeing Smart Veteran right there going for a cover.

He knows Moxley's circle.

Sorry, what's Shivani up to?

He's got another note.

He's talking to him.

I mean, how often do you talk to Tony Connolly during these broadcasts?

Just watch, watch the match, dude.

I am watching him.

Dude, I'm calling the freaking match.

Don't tell me, watch the match.

I'm calling it.

Watch the match, dude.

Kiss my ass, dude.

Dude, me.

Show Cove Rex Calvin, where you out.

Copy hot now.

What I'm doing.

Let me stop it, though.

It's very loud.

Oh,

I got to think that was

probably about 55%

meant in a jovial fashion.

And the other 45% was natural reaction, and it kind of joined together.

It could have gone either way.

Oh, God.

Kaz is a smart guy.

He knows he's stuck with a bad commentating team, and it's dragging him down.

So I'm sure there's a lot of real frustration at, especially Shivani, who's completely useless on commentary right now.

So,

you know, I don't know.

I mean, the question, the listeners have been sending it in, how real was it?

How real was it not?

But the way Taz spat dude back at him.

Yes, teacher.

For a guy from Long Island, that speaks volumes.

Oh, goddammit, dude me.

No, that's it.

Like I said, there was quite a bit of

genuineness there, as well as, I mean, he wasn't going to stand up and say, I'll pull you across the table, you Bucky Beaver motherfucker.

He wasn't at that point, because if he'd been,

he'd have pulled him over the fucking table.

But

it was, he obviously, as Dennis Condry would say, struck a nerve with Taz.

Can you imagine being disrespected by old Shiavani sitting there with his earring, getting told what to say by Tony Kahn?

Can you imagine sitting there and having to put up with that?

No way.

Well, that's,

I mean, everybody's entitled to have holes poked in themselves, Brian.

So we're not going to judge Tony for his earring.

But even though he is older than me.

Well, we can say he looks ridiculous with it.

But it appears like

that, unfortunately, Tony's the one that Tony Khan is

hampering probably at this point more than anything else by Taz say this, say that, and say the other thing.

And Taz, you can't get a flow.

When somebody's listening and about to say something or whatever, because somebody else is telling him something, especially with a three-man booth.

And I'm sure it's frustrating for Taz because he's done actual real television.

Shavani has become David Crockett.

What now?

Come on.

I'm serious.

I'm not even joking.

David had an appeal.

No, we don't.

David, you know, David, David, now in the Nostalgia Factor and

David had an appeal.

He had his own little style.

Yeah, well, the new, hey, just look at him.

Tony's not doing that.

Just look at him.

Oh, look at him, look at Magnum.

Look at him.

No, now it's this is awesome.

This is great.

This is great.

This is the greatest

fun.

I'm having so much fun.

This is a ball.

The other night, he said, I love this job.

I swear he did.

I love this.

This is a great job.

Tell me, if you want to fix dynamite, start with the announcers.

And like I said before, Taz is not the problem.

Day, dude.

Dude, dude, me

from Kentucky.

What do you know about dude?

Hey,

we got dude ranches down here.

All right.

Do you want to, now we've got all that out of the way, the modern stuff?

Do you want to get give the people

just a little bit of fun?

People have been wanting classic wrestling return.

They're wanting some stories, some

details, some fables, a continuation

of

ongoing series that we've been doing.

Hold on,

out of my book, where we go back 40 years and talk about Mid-South Wrestling and what I was doing on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis.

And all of the earlier segments that we have done, I believe, live on the official Jim Cornette YouTube channel.

Is this correct, O guru?

That is correct.

The previous, I want to say three segments we've done on this for 1984, as well as all the ones leading up to it from 83, are on the official Jim Cornette YouTube channel.

And

some people like the history and like the look back at what it used to be like in the, in the, in the long ago, the before times.

And

also it gives us a chance to look back and see how much more wrestling was going on and how many more people were watching it and going to see it back in those days.

I thought about all this earlier today.

I was listening to some music and Freeze Frame by Jay Giles' band came on and and I'm like, fuck, Terry Taylor 84 Mid South.

That's the first thing I think of when I hear that song.

The funny thing was,

it was a complete departure.

The

Dundee booking, the Memphis style booking, the focus on the young, exciting babyface booking.

Whereas,

in all honesty, the year before, Steve Dr.

Death Williams had been the

young white meat babyface in that territory.

Then you've got, they're doing a music video of terry taylor doing a photo shoot in his underwear or his fucking swim trunks or whatever the fuck and that's for the wrestling news by the way i think yes

and you know and that's the thing is that it it was those people went crazy because All the young ladies started coming.

And well, we've talked about it in more ways than one.

We've talked about it.

But as I mentioned, not only can you go back on the YouTube, if you haven't heard these segments and catch up

for the people, especially who are into the business of wrestling and how it used to be and how much guys used to make or how much we used to travel or whatever,

but also some of these matches that were especially from Houston live on YouTube.

And we are not

personally endorsing anybody, but they're out there in various places that you can find some of them.

And especially the Houston ones, the good thing is, no disrespect to Paul Bosch, but they're out there with no commentary.

And to just listen to the crowd reactions really makes it more enjoyable.

Yes, because the people are going so bat shit.

And some of the Oak City and Tulsa matches are out there also because that was close to

the office and they used to.

shoot some of those for raw footage and action videos and etc.

But anyway, we left off, I believe, with the, we were in the middle of February, was Sunday, February 12th.

So, to be chronological,

we'll start with February 13th.

And

not only is that a Monday, but also this is the start of

one of the classic fucking mid-South.

Everybody's heard about the schedule in Mid-South Wrestling, D.B.

Ossie or Duggan, or anybody who ever worked there was how burdensome it was.

From Monday, February 13 to Sunday, February 19,

we're going to not only work,

hold on here, I want to make sure I get this straight.

In seven days, we're going to work nine shows

in nine different cities

and have a six-hour set of interviews, local promos.

And one of the shows that we work in those seven days is a TV taping where we do two hours of television.

And that's why when

people started talking about the modern schedule as such, it's a grind.

Allie, fuck you.

You want to jump in the car with me on this one, Brian?

See how many states we can visit in seven days.

It's the thing that anyone looking back still has a problem with.

The mid-south schedule, how it was possible, let alone for guys that were there for a long time.

It just seems impossible to have any kind of life, as good as that wrestling action was, and it was the best.

How did anyone have a life if, like, Ted DiBiase was doing that for two years in a row?

If JYD was doing it for years,

you can see why Jay D was like, yeah, you can see why JYD was like, you know what?

This seems like a good opportunity to go somewhere else.

Well, it's always a good opportunity to do some drugs.

And

DBSI told me, I think his longest stretch exclusively there,

I think it was 18 months, because he said,

he's at one time to me, he said, I was there for a year and a half.

My hair was falling out, and I hated the business.

I had to leave.

I didn't care about the money.

And,

you know, see,

is it the mileage or the repetition of the places with the mileage?

No.

No, it's the repetition

because all these towns that we were going to, remember, we had

15 or 16 television markets and there were spot shows.

You weren't just sick to, I mean, you were sick to death of some places because the trip was so long or you knew you were going to have a riot.

But it wasn't repetition.

It wasn't repetition of the same towns over and over.

It was the unrelenting schedule of never having a day off almost ever.

Remember, I said

my longest stretch in this year will be 103 days.

And that was just without a day off with some of these,

a lot of territories ran double shots Sundays, matinee, 2 p.m., evening, 7.30.

Watts ran double double shots Saturday and Sunday.

Two shows each in a lot of cases.

So

never getting a day off and the travel and then the fans beating the out of you

and then this was a

a hard for the guys in the ring and even for the managers the referees this was a hard physical

style of wrestling people have seen the tapes these guys beat a out of each other

but and the angles and the

breaking boards over people's heads, whatever.

But this was for DBSi is the same reason why

I, you know, I had to be there.

We were there for a year and that was good,

but we had to be there.

DBiase wanted to be a star.

You had to go there to learn.

It was my fucking military school.

You know, at least I didn't have to go serve in the army.

I had people after me, but they were my own fucking citizens.

That's when you went through that,

you not only learned and made a reputation if you succeeded in the wrestling business, but you could handle a lot of different shit because it wasn't anything you hadn't seen before.

But you had to fucking crawl on your belly through broken glass to fucking get it.

I can't imagine, and that's why Watts had young guys that he made stars because Wrestling 2 was about to retire.

And this may have hastened his goddamn decision.

But most of the guys were young.

They wanted to be stars.

They weren't already fucking stars.

Stay there for any length of time.

They'd bop in and out.

It was, it was, fuck, it was, I mean, stampede wrestling was a whole nother level of grueling long trips and horrible weather and also much, much less money.

But this was the hardest

continental in the United States, in the continent of the United States territory to fucking work, I think.

But nevertheless,

after you did this, you could do any goddamn thing, as witnessed by the fact that we did.

But we were still in New Orleans on Monday nights, as everyone will recall, when that was a weekly thing.

And

we were right in the middle of the program with Magnum TA and Wrestling 2.

They were the Mid-South tag team champions.

A lot of these matches were non-title

where we would beat them

because I was campaigning for a title match and I was being such a prick about it, nobody wanted us to get one.

And if

we did have a title match, it might be,

you know, in a smaller market and maybe we'll do a DQ or whatever, just for whatever.

But we're beating these, the champions because they know they're going to go in a different direction.

They're establishing us and then two in a month or so is is going to turn, and

TA is going to be the

singles babyface that they go with.

And we've got them in these matches, like in New Orleans that night, at $21,500 house.

And by the way, we've established that $1

in

1984 was $3 today.

So triple everything.

This was a $60-something thousand dollar house, and we made $750.

But

we fucked them in the finish and then they've got to take the 10 lashes.

So we're doing the after I've whipped them with my belt on television.

Now they're having to get whipped in the towns every fucking night, right?

And that was

pretty much the program that we were doing through these

towns this week, but that was a 400-mile round trip, right, on Monday.

So at least the next day on Valentine's Day, we got to be home.

We were in Alexandria at the Rapids Parish Coliseum on a Tuesday night, and we did about 12 grand.

And

this was, they were farther behind in the television, so this was still where we kicked the shit out of Wrestling 2 until Magnum TA came in and broke a board over Bobby Eaton's head.

And

poor Bobby, no, no wonder he had had ringing in his ears at some points later on in his life.

But anyway,

there was no mileage involved there.

So we had a pretty good average going, only 200 miles a day so far.

And then Wednesday was a TV day.

Not only

the interviews at the morning, in the morning at Channel 3 that we mentioned, that we did every Wednesday from 9 a.m.

until 3 p.m.,

but then we did the TV that night at at the Irish McNeil Boys Club.

So

my day would start at

6:30 when I would have to leave my apartment in Alexandria to go to Shreveport for these fucking interviews.

And by the time that we did TV that night and then got out of there and took that goddamn two-lane road back to fucking Alexandria, I would seldom be back in before two o'clock in the morning.

So I love these because that's a what it do that math.

Help me.

Is that a 20-hour day?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Well, and say it, damn it, say it.

Yes.

And

a 260-mile round trip, a 20-hour fucking day.

And we do two hours of television.

And

I participate in six hours of local promos.

Where are you going to get that kind of experience?

And I made $40 because that was the TV pay.

It was $40 fucking dollars.

So there were trade-offs to be made in this fucking educational process I was undergoing there.

And you were a young guy and you didn't mind it.

You understood that this is a learning opportunity.

Wrestling 2 was like 85 years old.

You had a bunch of people there.

In between you guys, who was complaining the most about the schedule and how much time was spent on the road?

Well,

here's the thing, all the guys in the, well, the heel locker room, you know, because most time babyface are separate, but all the guys complained about the trips or the town or the car story that there are these goddamn traffic or whatever the fuck.

But it wasn't like anyone was campaigning to say,

no, goddamn it.

Because I've mentioned.

Remember the time that

we finally, I think it was going into September, we told Dundee, we said, my God, we need, please give us a few days off.

We just got, we'd never asked for time off before in any,

I don't think Bobby or Dennis ever had.

Not only been in business a year and a half, but please give us a few days, please.

And he had to clear it with Watts, right?

So we got, we got Oklahoma City off, Tulsa off, fucking Houston off.

We got all the towns you make the biggest payoff off.

And we were still in the spot shows.

And Dundee explained, he said, well,

you know, if you want days off,

he's going to fucking put somebody else in for a brief two or three or four week program on the TV around the fucking loop and it'll work you back in.

That's, they're taking those spots.

Yeah, okay.

The point is, we quit asking for days off.

But that was, you know, it was,

you, you understood that

So the point I was making is in the locker room, nobody was complaining to the point where they were going to campaign to go and say, quit running towns

or leave me off of some of your towns.

You knew when you went to work there

that there was going to be all kinds of

we

went into

arenas.

I think I may have already told a story, but we rode in the back of a fucking chicken truck when our car broke down.

It was the only ride we could get into the Centriplex.

We had

two

swamp-dwelling Cajuns

ride us from Monroe, Louisiana back to our homes in Alexandria after another one of our cars broke down in the back of their pickup truck one night about midnight.

Dennis had to ride.

We put Dennis in the cab with him because we wanted him there in case either one of them got squirrely.

And me and Bobby rode 80 fucking miles in the back of an open pickup truck,

right?

And

stuck in places with no tools, no way to change a goddamn tire because the lug nuts rusted on and the fucking were trying to flag down truck drivers for wrenches.

And at the time of it in Arkansas, the fucking Barton Coliseum sold out and we're at a lawnmower repair place in Star City, Arkansas, trying to get our carburetor fixed or whatever the fuck that was.

It was chaos.

It was from one town, you got in your car and pretty much went from one from your home to a town and either back to your home to go to another town or directly in the next town.

But nobody was paying you

in the wrestling business.

Remember, we established that my best week ever in wrestling was like $900 and something dollars in Memphis one week.

Most time it was four or five or six, and my last week was $75,

right?

This week that we're talking about, I made $2,365,

which times three,

what is that?

Almost $7,500.

And I've been gone from the $75 a week for two months.

Fuck, I'll sleep in the goddamn car, right?

And I've scoffed at Darby Allen for that, but no, for $7,500 a week, I'll sleep in my car for fucking free because I'm a bum.

I'm going to get a fucking job.

What'd you do with the paychecks?

Put them in the bank.

I mean, was it that?

Was because in the 80s, I guess your bank would have still been all over the place at that point.

My question was going to be: did you deposit it?

Did you hold on to it until you can go home to Louisville and deposit it?

What did you do?

No, well, I was, if when was I going to go home in the middle of this fucking schedule, right?

I was home like twice that year.

No, I had a bank account there in Alexandria and a checking account to pay bills and et cetera.

And for the first few weeks,

when we first got there, they would give us the checks at the interview

segments that we do at Channel 3 on Wednesday mornings, right?

Your check would be there

along with the formats for what you're going to do, the promos and blah, blah, blah.

And then all the guys would say, yeah, you can go to this bank and cash it.

Okay.

And the first week, I did that.

I'm like, okay, so I cashed a check and I I got $1,000 or whatever it is.

And then I asked, I was like,

why do we just go over and cash it?

Why do we take it home?

Well, just all the guys were just cashing it, getting the fucking cash because they wanted the cash.

Go look at this.

That's what I figured.

And I'm like, well, fuck.

I thought there was some, this was for some reason we were expected to do this, right?

So I would take my fucking check home, put it in a fucking bank.

And this was before ATM cards, but

I never got a draw.

I just figured what kind of money I might need on this adventure with some left over for goddamn emergencies and carried that with me.

But anywho, sometimes, you know what?

You can't buy a fucking ranch at 3 o'clock in the morning in Galeano, Louisiana.

Let that be a lesson to you.

Can you buy anything?

How many places they were open past 9 p.m.?

No, if you can flag a motherfucker down on the fucking highway, you could probably pretty much have anything.

You know, we would have bought any goddamn thing that anybody had passed.

Anyway, we're getting back to this schedule.

So we go to Shreveport on

February 15.

And that was,

again, two tapes, which included

a contract signing

that we did with Tu and TA.

And I gave a little...

A little crack on Bill Watts.

That's the first time that I'd kind of directly, you know, zapped him, I believe.

And then we beat

good old Jump and Joe Savoldi and George Wangeroff on television.

But the next day, as we've mentioned before on these segments,

we went back from Shreveport to Alexandria as 130 miles two-lane road.

The next day is get back on that highway and go the exact opposite direction further on to Baton Rouge, another

220 miles round trip.

And there was a

big fucking no DQ match where we beat two and TA.

I knocked Wrestling 2 out with the fucking racket and Dennis pinned him.

And the house in Bat Rouge was coming up.

That was one of the first times we'd been to Baton Rouge.

I think I mentioned in one of the segments before, that's where

Bobby and Dennis both had fucking gotten in a fight and we broke the tennis racket over the guy's head.

And they said, here, you keep it from now on.

But nevertheless.

have you seen Baton Rouge in the news recently?

What happened in Baton Rouge?

Hold on, let me pull something up here.

While you're pulling, I'll say that they admitted to $16,500,

which is

better than what they had been doing down there in that part of the country.

And we made $250, which equals $750.

What's the Baton Rouge news these days?

I have an article from the New York Post from about a month ago, April 29th, by Ronnie Reyes.

Wealthy white Louisiana residents win the right to split from Baton Rouge and form their own city.

What?

A group of wealthy white Baton Rouge residents, if we haven't said that before, have won a decades-long battle to split from the majority black city to form their own suburb following a state Supreme Court ruling.

After reversing a lower court's decision on Friday, the Supreme Court ruled 4-3 in favor of the incorporation of St.

George, which will form in southeast Baton Rouge.

And there it is.

The wealthy white residents of Baton Rouge decided they wanted to incorporate St.

George as its own city, and now that's where we are.

St.

George.

What is he the saint of?

What's he in charge of?

You're an expert in saints, aren't you?

Curiosity.

Well, you know what that did to the cat, don't you?

No.

Killed it.

Oh.

Curiosity killed the cat.

This is Reggie's corner.

Because, well, no, apparently, the cat had discovered some kind of goddamn information that Curiosity didn't want public.

Really?

And Curiosity.

And this was the ninth live, so that silenced the cat.

That was the last one, too.

He was on the last one, coincidentally enough.

That's horrible.

Let's go back to Beaumont, Texas.

I'd rather talk about let's talk about dead cats.

Let's continue.

Come on, dead cats.

We don't don't want to talk about any dead animals here.

We want to talk about this dead program.

Now, I'm getting to a point here because we were in Batrouge, right?

We go back and we get back about midnight.

That may be an early night.

And then the next day we're in Beaumont, Texas, which is 160 miles the other goddamn way.

And we do the same thing and we come back.

And then we get to our double header.

And here's the point I'm going to make.

Keep track of this with me.

On Saturday, February 18th and Sunday, February 19th, for those of you who think that professional wrestling is more popular or more grueling or grinding than ever before,

Saturday we do a two o'clock show in Greenwood, Mississippi for the Culkins.

And we wrestle Wrestling 2 and Magnum TA in the main event.

The house does $8,700, which in those days at those prices was probably about 1,200 people in Greenwood, Mississippi.

And then

we go that night to Vicksburg, which is 120 miles away, and do the same match before a house that's $100 less.

So

in Greenwood and Vicksburg, Mississippi, in the same day, they sold 2,500 fucking wrestling tickets.

And we made the equivalent of about 750 bucks for the two matches.

But then we had to get in the car and go to Shreveport that night because the next day we had a double shot in Oklahoma.

Get your Google maps out, kids, or whatever, and figure this out.

We go over to Shreveport, so we've left our homes to go to Greenwood,

which was 230 miles from where we lived,

at probably 9 o'clock that morning.

We do that at 2.30.

We have the match, boom, we go over to Vicksburg.

We have the match, boom.

We go to Shreveport.

By the time we get to Shreveport,

it's goddamn 1 o'clock in the morning, and we have driven that day 3.50, 510 miles, had two wrestling matches.

And we get to sleep about maybe five or six hours because we got to leave.

No, I'm sorry.

I tell a lie.

I think we slept about four or five hours because we had to leave Shreveport and go to Oklahoma City, which was still a six and a half, seven-hour drive to be there for a two o'clock show the next afternoon.

But

having said that,

that show in Oklahoma City did a $70,800 house.

And we made $750 on that show alone, the equivalent of $2,250 today

and

000 today

and that was a record because

brian remember it wasn't until into 1982

that watts had even taken over oak city and tulsa from leroy mcgurk right

right 1981 it was still just mississippi and louisiana And then in 82, he takes over the McGurk towns.

And then by 83, he's working with Paul Bosch and the whole territory has changed.

Yeah, but he hadn't had a chance to.

This was the biggest crowd that he had, or the biggest gate,

the record house that he had drawn in the under two years he'd been running the Myriad in Oklahoma City.

And this was another good sign, as you've asked in previous segments, when did we know that things were catching on?

Or when did you know we feel comfortable about what

again?

Dundee's booking and our match being featured, the the towns are up usually, predominantly,

when our program with 2 and TA is going on.

But I'll tell you, February 19th, in Oklahoma City, besides wrestling 2 and TA against the Midnight Express, Butch Reed beat Jim Nidhart.

Remember, Nidhart had been Reed's partner,

but they had switched Jim Babyface because he was about to go to Memphis.

Junkyard Dog beat Crusher Darso.

Dundee was about to, and Watts were about to take Darso

and put him under Nikolai Volkov's exclusive wing and make him Crusher Khrushchev.

So he's going to be further mixed into the main events.

He had come in as a babyface lumberjack wearing Daisy Dukes.

Yes.

So Crusher Khrushchev was a nice change from where he started.

The Daisy Dukes didn't work.

No.

And

Terry Taylor beat Nikolai Volkov.

They're establishing Terry as a top baby face.

Here's a match for you.

Mike von Erich beat Buddy Roberts

because this was Oklahoma.

Fritz's TV was in both markets.

He had an interest, so we would get world-class matches from

them on these shows at that point.

Kamala beat Tony Torres just to do it.

Wendy Richter beat Princess Victoria

on the ladies' side.

Messiah Ito, who was about to go to Memphis, beat John King, who was about to go home.

And Lanny Paffo beat our friend Jerry Gray.

But that's,

they had started Terry, obviously pushing him.

They had brought us in, started pushing us.

And they were finishing up some of the guys that were going to Memphis, and the Rock and Roll Express was about to start.

So even though we had been

there now for seven weeks,

as we mentioned, it was hard to change the Mid-South territory on a dime because of the staggered television and the geographic area of it and the regular shows in these arenas every fucking night.

It kind of gradually made changes and you saw positive signs.

And so when we do $71,000 in Oklahoma City and he doesn't even have all his new talent in the territory yet, you know, everybody was like, okay, we got some, we got something going here.

And then

we go to Tulsa that night.

And by the way, that's 120 miles across Oklahoma and do a show in Tulsa and then go back to Alexandria 520 miles.

We got back six o'clock the following morning.

So that's literally four shows and a 1,500 fucking mile round trip in two days.

But Tulsa,

again, here came fucking Magnum TA to break the boards over the boys' heads.

And we did a record house there, $42,000.

We made another $400

plus the $125 trance money.

So there's another $1,500.

So that day we've made the

equivalent of, we've made the equivalent of almost $4,000 for these two shows.

And this is the fucking show

where the goddamn guy came through

security as we were walking back.

He fucking dove through and nailed me right in a goddamn nose.

And boom, and both sides started bleeding.

And there came, I've told the story.

It's on the YouTube channel.

I don't want to go through all the details, but as Grizzly Smith had the guy by the fucking head,

Bobby was hitting the guy over the head with the racket, but he was taking all the skin off of Grizzly's knuckles because Grizzly had his hair.

And they were fucking fighting everybody to get us all back.

And then before I could fucking try to throttle the guy, Watts threw him up against the wall and was trying to punch him.

And he's crazy, ah, you want to hit the wrestlers, huh?

He's trying to punch the guy.

The guy keeps covering up.

So he fucking grabbed the guy's arm and held it up against the wall.

So here, Grizz, hold this.

And Grizzly held the guy's arm up against the wall.

And Watts punched him, boom, and dropped him and stood on his head with both feet.

I still fucking get a chubby thinking about that, that motherfucker.

No good piece of shit.

Yes, we were trying to make him mad, but not mad enough to hit me that hard in the fucking nose.

Had you ever seen these standing on the head with both feet before?

No, but all the boys that had been there for a while were saying, God damn, it's Tulsa.

He came from home.

So he was just dressed.

He had like sweatpants and tennis shoes.

If he'd have been in an out-of-town town, he'd have had his boots on, his cowboy boots.

He would have caved that guy's head in.

And the cops are standing there watching him do it because that's kind of shit happened every few shows in almost all of these towns.

And they're dragging them back.

And either the boys are trying to kick shit out or are kicking the shit out of them.

But now it's the guy that's paying them.

And he's

one of the most popular people in fucking town.

So, and the guy deserved it because I'm standing there leaking blood like a goddamn water faucet.

So, after he stands on his head and cuts a promo on him, he's already knocked him goofy.

The cops grabbed him by the arms and legs and drug him down the hallway.

And we never saw or heard from him again.

I was spitting blood on him on the way.

But, you know, that's it, it wasn't unusual.

So, Watts, it was unusual for Watts to attend shows unless they were in his hometown.

And there he was at a house show or a house show, just a show.

At a show.

Yeah.

What do you think he thought of you?

Because it's one thing hearing reports from Grizzly Smith or Bill Dundee.

It's another thing seeing you in the mix, getting people riled up.

You know, everyone would react differently to getting punched in the nose.

I'm sure there's a lot of guys who wanted to be wrestling managers.

Who, as soon as that kind of shit happened, they'd be like, forget it.

I'm going home.

What do you think of that?

No,

I was, well, for the first few months, especially, I'm screaming, let me at him.

Bobby and Dennis are holding me back because they were afraid I'd get to him and he'd fucking kill me, whoever it was.

But right?

No, no, let me at him.

No, no.

But after a while, when they had no choice about whether some would get to me, and I at least fucking came out even and learned how to fucking swing with some accuracy of club, they, you know.

But no, what's the, but that's the thing.

He

at first, he

obviously, when he came up and saw me, he had never heard of me or seen me before in Memphis,

but

he saw the concept.

And then Dundee said, yes, he can fucking talk.

And maybe they exchanged the newfangled video cassettes.

He might have, you know, Watts might have seen one of my TVs or whatever, or I briefly said something in Memphis.

But the thing is, he could have cut it off.

He was pretty confident.

He picked the talent and Bobby and Dennison to put them together, and he picked me,

even if there was some salesmanship going on between Bill Dundee and Jerry Jarrett or both.

You know, to start out like that and go with it, he seemed to have some confidence.

But he could have cut it off, especially after the last stampede.

Or if I'd have gone to him and said, oh, God damn it, I need more security.

You know, you're lucky to fucking be here, that type of thing.

At least he took up for me, right?

He's like, you want to hit the fucking wrestlers, huh?

Well, the managers, but you know what?

It's crazy.

1983, Bill Watts had a part in putting together two of the greatest tag teams of all time, the Road Warriors in Georgia.

Yeah.

And then the Midnight Express.

Yeah.

Same year.

That's crazy.

But

he liked the concept of what I was doing and what I was going to be if I could pull it off and then I pulled it off.

So he appreciated that.

And he would, he would, to take up for me whenever he saw him beating the fuck out of me out there.

Hey, you brought up money.

One last question about that.

This is the most money you had made in wrestling as a performer, not counting your photography days where you were raking it in.

Well, yeah.

Dennis and Bobby had been in the business for a while.

Dennis, you know, going back to the early 70s, he had been involved in big stuff.

Him and Hickerson against Jackie Fargo was like the hottest thing.

You talked to anyone who was around back then.

But he also worked a lot of territories like for Jarrett, for Gulis, Continental, Alabama, whatever it may be, Gulf Coast.

Where was this already at this point in terms of how much money Bobby and specifically Dennis had made in the past?

Hallelujah!

Hallelujah!

Hallelujah!

Hallelujah!

No,

Dennis had been

really since his third year in the business, had been a main event level heel in the Tennessee territories, whether it be for Nick Gulis or whether it be for Jerry Jarrett or whether it be for Ron Fuller in Knoxville.

But think about it in the 1970s,

a top heel, unless you were figured in, unless you were the Jackie Fargo or Jerry Lawler or et cetera.

You know, we've talked about, or

the world champion coming in to main event a sellout in Mid-South Coliseum.

Still, if a guy made $1,000 a week in that territory, that today is something like, what, $3,500 from the 70s or $4,000.

And it was short trips and you only work six days.

But no, $2,300

for

either Bobby or Dennis in a territory that hasn't even really peaked yet, that still has room to grow,

was far away over anything that I would think that Condri and Higgerson main event, because that was late 70s, main event week would be $900, $1,000 in Tennessee.

So this was much more than

either of them, much less me, had ever made.

And we said, we've just got here.

We've just been here for six weeks and we're, you know, and I'm getting punched by fucking fans.

We've already had dust-ups.

At any point early on, did you think things had peaked or did you realize things were still rising?

No, this wasn't even.

We saw there was plenty more room in the buildings and these people are starting to come over the fucking rail.

Yes, there's plenty of room.

We're not even in the full-fledged main events here.

Junkyard Dog is the top guy.

And we're not going to be, we're not fucking with, and we wouldn't be, we'd be fucking with him next month, right?

But we weren't even with the top tie.

And then Watts comes out of retirement

so yes god damn it

put me a fucking pillow in the trunk

we did that on a trip to oklahoma in that goddamn panel van that dennis bought from stan lane that used to be one of their rolling whorehouses on wheels for the fabulous ones that the vent and the top leaked and we're on an overnight trip from New Orleans, the Superdome, to Oklahoma City, 700 fucking miles in the pouring rain, and me and Buddy Landell and Carl Ferge

are trying to sleep in a U-shape, hugging the walls in the back of the van because the leak is coming down in the middle while Bobby and Dennis are swapping off driving in the fucking front.

Yes, because no, this is a ridiculous amount of money for all of us.

So the point is, as a summation to this week, yes, it was two TV shows we taped on Wednesday.

At least we were home in our home arena on Valentine's Day.

We did the long promo session Wednesday morning.

We worked every other night of the week.

And on the weekend,

we do four shows over a course of 1,500 miles and set two record fucking houses in Oklahoma that day.

There were $113,000 of wrestling tickets sold in those two towns 100 miles apart

back when the average ticket price was $10.

And we weren't even fucking really

cooking yet, right?

Ben, we also did 1,500 miles, as I said, in the car and got beat up by the fucking fans and got in goddamn riots and et cetera.

But where else are you going to learn the wrestling business except a deal like this, right?

That's what I'm saying.

And

when I'm 20, how old was I 22 years old where am I going to make the equivalent of around $7,500 for that week's work

and you know why that I couldn't make that money Brian anywhere else in 1984 at that time I'm not sure why because they didn't have Shopify

if they'd have had Shopify I wouldn't have had to been punched in the nose by random Cajuns or cowboys in Oklahoma.

And I wouldn't have had to have driven up and down the road 4,000 miles back and forth that week.

And I wouldn't have had to have been pummeled by refuse thrown from an angry throng.

Because what I could have done is I could have come up with a great idea or a wonderful product that needed worldwide exposure.

And I could have gone to the people at Shopify.com and they could have taken me by the hand, led me by the ear, if you will, all the way from the concept stage to the execution stage to the, oh, we're all rich and we're going to buy a tropical island stage.

Shopify.com does it all.

And if I'd have only known that, I wouldn't have had to have gotten beaten and pummeled and abused and injured and PTSD

and a sour disposition.

Brian, I could have been.

I could have been selling things.

I could have made things with my hands.

Bird photography.

I could have done bird photography.

I could have communed with nature.

I could have even taken the little birds and trained them and then sold them to people around.

You know, if you want to train some birds, folks, and then put them in a little box and punch some air holes and sell those, Shopify.com can send them from here to Taiwan and get you paid for it.

They'll set you up to be a professional business instead of some fly-by-night bird operation.

Because heaven knows, I'd I'd hate to get a bird lawyer involved in this.

So, once again, folks, if you need this global power platform, commerce platform, the global commerce platform with power behind it, is what I'm trying to say.

Like millions of other entrepreneurs of every size and

state and country and zip code all over the world, 175 countries.

Well, this is a big deal.

They will put,

if anybody messes with you, well, Shopify's got people they can send over there and take care of it.

They don't.

They don't and they won't know right, Brian.

Well, no, they have millions of entrepreneurs all across the world, 175 countries.

They're a global force.

That's right.

They power 10% of all the e-commerce in the United States.

I would think that they've got the resources resources.

And if somebody's getting in your way, trying to maybe take over the block, you notice somebody's going to drop around.

You just drop, I'd just pay a visit.

I don't know.

These are not the kind of things we do on any of my construction sites, ladies and gentlemen.

Well, I'm telling her,

well, I would whistle, but my mouth is dry.

Hold on, where is that whistle thing?

I used to have a whistle here.

Is that it?

That wasn't it.

Hold on.

See, that wasn't.

No, mine's a wolf whistle.

Yours is a slide whistle.

That wasn't a slide whistle.

This is a slide whistle.

Well,

regardless of whatever kind of whistles, folks, you want to sell, you want to sell slide whistles or meat whistles.

It doesn't matter because if you want to sell it, Shopify will make it easy.

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But, you know, Brian, you asked what Watts might have thought of me.

or whatever at this point.

And let's explain the booking thought behind he's done so far, because remember, we've been there almost two months now.

We're going into the week of February 20th.

We started Christmas and did a few TVs before that.

And the talent trade with Memphis, everybody remember, well, the Rock and Roll Express and Buddy Landau and all these other guys.

But he knew that he couldn't just take a clump of talent.

and get all these new guys over at the same time, especially with the way that his TV was bicycled around the territory, but just as a matter of booking common sense.

So he, as we've seen by these cards, he said, give me the top babyface I'm getting, Terry Taylor, and let me establish him.

And Terry Taylor has already won matches on TV and is having music videos done, and he's wrestling the top heel Nikolai Volkov, the evil Russian.

And he said,

give me the top heel tag team and manager that I'm going to have and let me start getting them established because he had

his tag team title had gone from Butch Reed and Jim Nidhart when they were heels

to Magnum TA and Wrestling 2.

Nidehart, he decides to get rid of, so they switch and, or he switches on Butch and they have a little program.

And he knew that Magnum and 2 was going to be a shorter-term thing, so they could do the mentor

student angle between them, but Wrestling 2 wasn't getting any younger.

But that gave him the opportunity to establish the HEEL team, the Midnight Express.

So the Rock and Roll Express, I believe, may have debuted.

Did they, Dave?

I'm looking at the

TV results now

in my handy-dandy book.

Thanks to, by the way, Mark James for all of the Mid-South wrestling history books, as well as Memphis wrestling history he's done, markjamesbooks.com.

But anyway, the Rock and Roll Express didn't debut until February.

But then when they came in, the thought was

that if they got over,

the kids, the young folks, would want to see them wrestle these new heels, the fucking Midnight Express, which was the whole...

Point.

It was a three or four month plan to get to that point that they had come up with originally when he got the rock and roll to counteract us in the trade, right?

This makes perfect sense.

I can't imagine it's wrestling.

But

he staggered it so that there would be a demand for it.

And as we will see soon in these segments, there was.

The people started chanting Rock and Roll Express in our matches when we were wrestling other people.

And then later on, Buddy Landell, the

cocky young underneath heel that was going to be brought up.

He would debut and come in, et cetera.

So everybody had room to breathe, and

he was also weaning the guys that were going to Memphis the rest of the way out.

Nighthart and Messiah Ito

and et cetera.

And

but so you asked if we knew,

again, were we anxious about is this the peak?

We knew we had the rock and roll coming.

And my God, the matches that, you know, we knew we could have with them, even though we had never officially had one.

Bobby and Dennis had never wrestled the Rock and Roll Express before we did it on Mid-South TV.

But

they had both wrestled Ricky and Robert and endless times with other partners or singly.

So

that was the idea.

We knew this was coming.

And then this was about the time.

To finally tie back in and let, have you gone to sleep yet?

I'm going to talk to you here in a second.

This was about the time that we found out that Watts was going to come out of retirement within the next week or so after this.

That was my next question.

When did you find out you were going to do something with Watts?

And when was the first time someone said you may do something with a junkyard dog?

Well,

believe it or not, I never wrote down the exact day that they told us that Watts was coming out of retirement.

But since we, as I'll skip ahead in my book here a second, we shot the angle on, wasn't it,

March 14th?

So within the, by the 1st of March,

we knew this.

Okay, so that's big.

So two weeks beforehand, you knew you were doing something with Bill Watts.

Well, because Dundee just said he's coming out of retirement.

You're going to work with Watts.

He saw those guys bump and he said, I want to do this.

Exactly.

But then here's the thing.

That's when we said, well, wait a minute.

We got the Rock and Roll Express coming in and we're, you know, we're because we still haven't won the belts from two and TA.

This is all going to interconnect.

And that's why it's so brilliant.

And it not only showed Dundee's finishes and his eye for talent, but Watts'

lessons from Eddie Graham that all of this worked together, that we won the belts at the same time that two turned on TA,

at the same time that Watts had already slapped me on TV because of blah, blah, blah.

And everybody logically went in all these different directions.

But

we were like, fuck, we know we're not beating Watts, right?

So how's this going to work with the program with the rock and roll?

And Dundee's like, oh, just wait and see.

I don't know if he knew for sure because that's the one thing.

And I think Watts has even admitted to this.

When Dundee gave him the idea,

he said, well, if I beat the fucking Midnight Express and, you know, humiliate the manager, then they're done.

We got to move them on, right?

They'll be done.

They won't have any heat.

And Dundee's like, you know, I can't do the accent, but watch and see, hide and watch.

Whatever he's hide and watch,

it'll be fine

because he knew what Bobby and Dennis could fly for the fucking guy and it would draw mega money, but at the same time,

To be honest, two weeks after all those matches with Watts and a couple of TVs they've seen, and maybe the next house show, and we were fucking with the Rock and Roll Express.

If you asked any of those fans

what the finish of the match was, they knew Watts beat us up, but they didn't remember the exact finish, one, two, three.

They remembered me being humiliated.

And then when I get back on TV and fucking starting out with the Rock, they want to see me humiliated again.

Put him in a straitjacket, put him in a fucking cage at ringside, handcuff him to somebody.

That was the whole philosophical key.

They didn't remember when the Midnight Express got beat as much as they just wanted to see somebody

get their hands on me or humiliate me again.

And as we mentioned before, a fine line in psychology, they didn't beat me bloody.

They didn't carry me out on a stretcher.

They didn't fucking mutilate me because that would have been final.

They put me in a pink dress.

They put me in a diaper and fed me a baby bottle.

They did fucking handcuff me.

They put me in cherry pickers and hung me over rings

and in goddamn straitjackets and fucking,

you know, all manner of apparatuses and in matches where I was legal and they could beat me up if they could catch me.

And that was the whole fucking idea.

So anyway,

so in answer to your question, when we're, we've already set a record in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, two of his major towns.

We've got people hitting the ring on our matches and Paul Bosch in Houston is saying, two shows in a row, you're about to start a fucking riot.

And then I mentioned the setting the gate records and we haven't even got to the Rock and Roll Express yet.

And we're just about to hear that we're going to work with the goddamn owner of the company and the legendary figure in wrestling in that part of the country that's coming out of retirement.

We're like, fuck, we were already making the equivalent of in today's money of 7,500 bucks a week.

Yeah,

give us some more.

So the following week, they gave us less.

We only made the equivalent of about $5,200, but we still worked eight fucking times at a set of interviews.

And here was one in New Orleans.

Remember, we talked about how that

the downtown auditorium at that point was the primary building in New Orleans, and it was weekly on Monday nights, and they hadn't opened the UNO Lakefront Arena for wrestling yet.

So that was the big building.

And

they had been struggling even a little bit at that point, right?

And they're about to

dog the whole thing with dog and leaving.

Then New Orleans kind of changes up.

But on February 20th, we had a special main event with Tu and TA where it was a title match.

And also Wrestling 2's mask was at stake.

And

then I'm trying to read my notes on this, but to finish, we got heat on Magnum TA, and then 2 made a comeback.

gave Dennis the short knee, which is the key for not the big knee lift where he's knocked out, but a short knee where he can go over in the corner, but still be cognizant, and gave Bobby the big knee.

And Bobby turned right around into Magnum, who gave him a belly-to-belly suplex.

And fucking, that's the first job we did.

Boom, one, two, three.

They pinned Bobby real quick.

So he didn't have to unmask.

The titles didn't switch.

That is the first pinfall job we had done in the territory.

But

immediately afterwards, boom, I jump in with the racket.

We beat them like dogs.

And,

you know, get our heat back by leaving them pretty much laying where the referee are ringing the bell and the referees are blah, blah, blah.

And,

oh, and I tatered

number two.

I made a note.

So

tatered by who?

By me.

I tatered two.

Oh, oh.

Hey, yes.

Tatered two.

I thought you thought it was the second time you've been tatered.

No, I was still learning how to use the racket.

And poor Magnum, thankfully, he grew the beard later on and became the bearded, rugged, handsome fellow he was.

But

he's the only guy I ever split open with the racket.

It was one of these fucking nights, I believe it was in Baton Rouge that we talked about.

I jumped up in the air and was going to drop the stem, the handle of the racket.

into his chestal area,

but somebody else kicked him and he sat up.

And as he was was coming up, I was coming down and I caught him right on a chin bone and busted his chin.

I was bleeding.

He's like, fuck, I said, you moved.

But anyway, so we did that night a $30,000 house.

And this was well up from what they'd been doing in New Orleans in a weekly town.

That's the equivalent of 90 grand today.

We made 300 bucks, the equivalent of 900.

However,

the rest of the week, with one exception, Houston, Texas, was it was more small towns, but it gives you an idea of what,

again, a normal week in mid-South, even if it wasn't built around major shows.

We were in Shreveport on that Tuesday night for a house show

that did probably about 1,200, 1,300 people, wrestled two and TA.

And then we stayed over, obviously, the guys, all the top guys, because we do interviews no matter what every Wednesday morning in Shreveport, as we've talked about.

So we were there at Channel 3 that Wednesday again.

So

the week hasn't been too bad.

400-mile round trip to New Orleans, 130 miles up to Shreveport,

stay there, do your promos, and then over to Monroe, Louisiana, which was 100 miles.

And have another match with 2 and TA.

But now it's starting to work, because now you got to go back home to Alexandria.

Now it's starting to wear on you.

Even you talked about the,

you know, the burnout or what, how'd you phrase it earlier?

What would get to you worse?

Not the repetition of where you're going, but just the constant motion of going somewhere.

Constantly being in the car.

You were all the time you guys were in the car.

Well, in Monroe that night, and by the way, $11,000 house, Monroe was one of secondary markets.

It could have been better, but that still is,

what, probably around 1,300, 1,400 people.

We do another match where boom, boom, boom,

they beat Wrestling 2 with the racket, 1, 2, 3, and they've got to take last.

So now those guys are getting five lashes with leather straps, two from Dennis, two from Bobby, and the last one from me.

So they ain't having no fucking box of fluffy ducks either, right?

But now we've gone to New Orleans and back, and we've had this fucking match where, you know, the goddamn chaos.

And then we've gone to Shreveport and had a fucking match.

And then we've done hours of interviews.

And then we've gone to Monroe and had this fucking match.

Now we go back home to Alexandria.

The next day we're going to Little Rock, Arkansas.

And as I've mentioned, 275 miles each way,

all state highway, no interstate in those days.

that was a hard fucking trip.

And whatever was going on with Little Rock on February 23rd,

they only drew 13,000 fucking people or $13,000,

which was maybe 1,500 people.

But so I don't know what was happening there, but that was a shame on us.

Where were they in the loop in terms of what week they got TV after it aired?

Almost at the end, late, like with Oklahoma City and Tulsa, probably the last last week around five weeks late well that may be a part of the issue with the how many people were at that show it it may be also because actually yeah they're still on

they're still on late january television so that's that's one thing but as you can see the miles are starting to pile up even though that was the first long trip it's constant and

brian back then you know

You didn't really you didn't really have any choice.

You had to listen to the radio if you were within a radio signal or if you were one of these fancy dan people making all kinds of money that got the cassette player put in your car.

You could listen to your own cassettes, have some tunes or whatever, but there wasn't the options that we have today.

And in this modern space age world,

we pretty much had to talk about wrestling, talk about fucking girls, talk about bullshit.

And or listen to the radio.

And when there was no radio, a cassette tape, if you didn't have a cassette tape, then you stared out the window.

It's what I'm trying to say.

For hundreds and hundreds of miles a day.

Oh, if only they had had the Raycon Everyday Earbuds back in 1984.

I wondered where you were going.

As a matter of fact, was the guy

who invented the Raycon everyday earbuds even born in 1984?

He may have been, or if he wasn't, he may have been about to have been.

I don't have his birth date in front of me.

Do you think he was just a gleam in his father's eye, as Mama Cornette used to say?

I think so.

Maybe

possibly.

Who knows?

That's why back in those prehistoric days when we had to sing to each other is what we had to do.

That's how I learned to sing so good.

Because we sang.

We sang to each other in the car, the top hits of the day.

But now you can listen to anything.

You can listen to the music of today or yesterday or any day.

You can listen to podcasts.

You can talk on a telephone.

You can call NASA now with all the things the kids can do with these earbuds.

And they have upgraded the everyday earbuds even more.

Well, now they're not everyday things.

Certainly they're special occasion earbuds now.

that you can use every day because they've got now the new quick charge function.

10 minutes of charging, you get 90 minutes of battery.

Did you know that?

I want to talk a little bit more about Dennis and Bobby's harmony in the car.

They were singing too.

Well, every once in a while,

Bobby would go boom, boom, boom, boom, and then Dennis would belt out every once in a while.

The hits, you know, and swinging to the oldies sometimes.

Did you hear about the new

active noise cancellation on these bad boys or the multi-point connectivity, where you can pair two devices at once without them blowing up.

They can send the matter into the antimatter at the same time.

You can pair them together, and they'll just send a signal back and forth to each other.

And they've also got the,

of course, the ergonomic design that we've been talking about, where you can just insert them into the various orifices that they're meant to go in.

It's not for us to decide.

And they fit well without uh just falling out willy-nilly.

You've never stuttered as much as you have talking about the orifices to put the

well, you get me, you get me worried when you talk about you know, you're always trying to put out disclaimers on what you should do with these things.

It's not for us to decide what you do with your everyday earbuds and privacy your own home.

It's pretty well defined, you put them in your ear.

Many people do,

you do, but it's what you do, yes, yeah.

Well, and and and and all

those oral waves anywhere else.

All power to you, whether it's oral or however you want to,

hey, however you swing, that's your fucking business.

These things are also weatherproof and or sweat resistant.

Oh, good.

So

you got that going for you, too.

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what

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soon as you fucking turn them on they say oh you have a wonderful skin tone

Says right here, they complement any and all skin tones.

That is what it says.

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Now, I say.

Now.

Before we go any further, and I forget to ask you to do it.

Oh, if.

No, no, I wasn't going to ask you to do that.

Would you just tell the people what's happening at the Arcadian Vanguard network this week?

I could say that.

Get caught up on everything on Twitter at Super Podcast or on Facebook at facebook.com slash Arcadian Vanguard.

Of course, every day, the wrestling news,

the wrestling news for you for free.

Available at the wrestling news.com.

If you haven't heard it, it's new to you.

And wherever you find your favorite podcast, look for Arcadian Vanguards, The Wrestling News.

Every single morning, get the wrestling newscast.

Also, I want to make mention the latest episode of Shut Up and Wrestle with Brian Solomon.

Out now, by the time you hear this, another roundtable of former Titan Tower employees.

Hear what they think about what's going on with Vince McMahon, WWE, and so much more.

S-U-A-WPod.com.

Shut up and wrestle where you find your favorite podcast.

We're looking at 40 years ago in Mid-South right now on Stick the Wrestling with John McAdam.

They're looking at 40 years ago in the World Wrestling Federation.

Hear that today, mickadampod.com, or look for Stick the Wrestling with John McAdam, wherever you find your favorite podcast.

And of course, the 605 Super Podcast, the

membership.

Go through the archive at 605pod.com.

That was a big one.

That burned my throat.

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

Lots of fun stuff.

The most burned your throat chapped my ass.

Oh, no.

When do you next leave your home?

Could it be arranged where somebody came in and carried that thing off?

Which thing?

That thing, it's making all that noise.

There's a lot of those things around here.

You're talking about this thing?

No, I was talking about the other thing.

This thing?

And no, you got my thing.

Now,

don't grab my thing.

I was talking about your organ, what I was talking about.

I was talking about your organ.

I'd like to separate you from your organ.

Oh, Lorena Bobbit.

Yeah, well, bobbit, chop it, whatever needs to be done to it.

But anyway, we're going to finish this week while we finish this show because we're at a very important day here in wrestling history, Friday, February 24th.

And we were in Houston, Texas, because as I mentioned, this thing was starting to build up.

First, we did 400 miles Monday.

We did 130 miles Tuesday.

We did

200 miles Wednesday.

Then we did 550 miles Thursday.

Now we do another 500 miles on Friday.

But we're in Houston, Texas.

And again,

besides Midnight Express versus Magnum TA and Wrestling 2, and they got the lashes.

Here was the card in Houston that night.

Butch Reed beat Jim Nidhart in a football helmet match because they both had the football backgrounds.

That was, again, Butch is the top heel that's staying.

Nidhart is going to Memphis, so he's dropping these matches around the territory.

Midnight match, Junkyard Dog beat Messiah Ito.

They had elevated Messiah Ito, I think, as you remember, to

an element of hitman status to get him to do some jobs on the way out.

Terry Taylor beat Darceau.

And listen to this underneath match, because again, Paul did his own thing for his own market.

Gordman and Goliath beat Jose Litherio and Buddy Marino.

So

if in the answer to a trivia question,

yes, the Midnight Express were on the same fucking wrestling card at one point in time as Black Gordman and the Great Goliath, one of the great...

in-ring tag teams of the 70s.

Yeah, fans from Southern California especially would say the ones who were there for, you know, the next generation at the Midnight Express were the best tag team they saw since Gordon and Goliath.

And that was, you know, the example of some of these unique matches that Paul still was having and would have through the rest of this year, too.

It really wasn't totally assimilated yet.

Houston is a mid-south town.

And also, Nikolai Volkov beat Tony Torres, and Buddy Landell,

who's just now starting, beat George Wangaroff.

So

that show drew $58,500, which if we're doing

our math for today's money, that's almost $180,000.

And we made $700 a piece, which is over $2,000 for one night.

And again, we're, geez,

the building ain't full.

We got the rock and roll coming.

And I don't know exactly what day we found out Watts was coming out of retirement, but it was sometime within the next seven or so.

So we're thinking, you know, ha ha ha.

To my question before, though, when I brought up the junkyard dog, it was more not even necessarily about the last stampede as a as a run,

but more just did anyone, when was the first time someone said, man, they made you someone with you guys and the dog?

Well, see, the dog was actually

the

dog was the trigger that they wanted to pull.

It was Stagger Lee, obviously, as we will hear in these segments.

Never been proven.

Well,

highly suspicious.

Dog was going to lose the loser leave Mid-South wrestling match to Wrestling 2.

And I believe he was, he did go to the Carolina.

Was it?

No, it wasn't the Carolinas.

It was Memphis he went to for a while, right?

Just for a few weeks.

He, JYD, went to a bunch of different places.

He went to Memphis.

It was in Florida.

He showed up in mid-Atlantic in 84.

Well, nevertheless, this is what he was doing.

But the point is,

that's the only thing that

it didn't really, it didn't even work as good as it could in hindsight because Dogg had only been gone like three weeks.

And Stagger Lee, who had come back

to do this series, The Last Stampede.

The people knew who Stagger Lee was.

It was Dog because he had done that angle a couple years before with DBase

for a longer period of time.

But I think that's an example of how that

Watts was not really sold on that he was coming out of retirement

until after they had planned to have Dog lose and because he was booked out to these different territories.

So when they brought him back for this

series, but he had only been gone for three weeks when and remember it was the night of the Superdome show when the TV finally aired were at five o'clock in New Orleans local time, where Watts went out in the woods and found Stagger Lee.

And they said, fuck, Dundee said, well, we should have had more time, but fuck, he'd hardly been gone.

So I think that's an example of how Watts said, you know, because Dundee had to talk him into it.

Watts didn't plan.

Oh, my God.

The territory wasn't in verge of bankruptcy.

It was down.

He wanted new talent and a fresh booker.

He didn't want a goddamn life preserver.

So he wasn't doing anything in a panic.

But I think when he saw this

for this territory, this was already a quick turnaround and he liked the performances he was seeing and the reaction they were getting.

And, you know, and Dundee's saying, yeah, you're the man.

Come out and the last stampede.

And that was another thing.

he made sure to sell that it was the the only time that this was going to happen the last stampede not a long campaign in his words for the record a year later it was the stampedes alive in 85 well followed by corstia korchenko and then the freebirds and the first one was the most effective it was also the best one I was about to say, what did the other revamps had one side of the equation, but did not have the other side of the equation.

But we'll get there.

Remember, too, Watts was a Midnight Rider.

After Dusty did it, Watts did the same promo by, you know, the fire.

You know, instead of Dusty saying it, it was like, I've got one more silver dollar.

It's Watts saying the same line.

So he kept trying.

But the first one,

it had been a while and people didn't really see it coming until it was building and they were thinking they wanted it before they ever thought they'd get it.

But anyway, we're going to get there.

But after we get out of Houston, talk about from the penthouse to the outhouse.

Brian, from February 24th in Houston to February 25th, we're the main event in Manning, Louisiana.

And I did not, I believe it was some kind of school gym.

I'm not sure.

But it was an $8,600 house, which means there were still like 12, 13, 1,400 people.

in Manning, Louisiana to see us get disqualified against Magnum and Wrestling 2 because no need to fuck them and beat them because we don't cause a riot.

And then the Sunday

was February 26th.

It was another double shot.

And this was

Port Berry, Louisiana,

which was 85 miles from Alexandria, but at 2 o'clock in the afternoon against Junkyard Dog and Magnum TA.

And then

that night in Homo, Louisiana, 130 miles away from Port Berry,

against

two and TA, I guess two wouldn't work double shots by that point.

And so we do two more matches in front of $4,300 in the afternoon, $7,100 at night.

That's $12,000, probably 1,500 people.

for the two shows.

And we made

200 bucks in their money, so the equivalent of about $600.

So

we did better in Houston on Friday than we did in three shows over Saturday and Sunday and put in a round trip of $162.40, $340,370, 570 miles to do that Saturday and Sunday thing.

It wasn't all sunshine, lollipops, rainbows, and waterfalls.

But it also speaks to how Houston's business started really popping.

This was kind of the payoff to working with Bill Watts at Mid-South Wrestling.

It would never be this good again.

I mean, it goes for a little while here in 84,

but they couldn't recapture that in 85 or 86.

And before this, it wasn't this hot.

Things started really blowing up in Houston.

And, you know, that's again, if I'm a promoter like Bill Watts and I'm the owner of the company.

And I've just hired a new booker at Thanksgiving and brought in new talent

at Thanksgiving time on television and Christmas in the territory.

And now I'm in the middle of February and I've done record gates in terms of number of dollars taken in in Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

And Houston is doing

$60,000 or thereabouts, which is the,

again,

6,000 plus people.

New Orleans is up to 30 grand.

And I know I haven't even got all my new talent in.

I'm thinking I've made pretty much the right decision.

And that's why that Dundee was able to get Watts to go for the,

you know, the coming out of retirement.

And then also,

and like I said earlier in this segment, Watts has admitted this before, that he was ready to finish me in the midnight up at that point and send us somewhere or whatever, because he thought once that he beat all of us in that fashion, what good?

But Dundee knew what we could do with the rock and roll.

And he knew it was a different type of thing going on here.

And he said, just have faith in it.

So they really

started both programs at the same time.

And we definitely did the one with Watts.

And we could or could not have done the one with the rock and roll if he hadn't wanted us to.

But by then, the people.

had already started chanting for it.

They didn't care that he beat us.

They wanted to see the other guys guys beat us too.

And then they wanted to jump in the ring from the crowd and fucking beat us.

But goddamn it.

How much of it was they wanted to beat you guys and how much of it was they wanted to beat you?

Well,

they wanted the Rock and Roll Express or the Fantastics or whoever to beat

the Midnight Express and win the tag team titles back and embarrass them and show them that they're not the best, but they wanted anybody,

it could be anybody.

If Jim Ross had come over the fucking desk and grabbed my neck, they wanted to see anybody get a hold of me.

And they knew most of them,

you know, in the crowd in these the various towns that

got so inclined, they figured they had a pretty good chance against me because these people were jumping Butch Reed.

Or they'd jump fucking Nikolai Volkov or take swings at him.

So they were pretty fucking convinced they were safe with me, which is

why it drew money because

they knew that somebody had to get me and kill me.

There's no way that this guy can exist in the world of mid-South wrestling without somebody breaking him in half.

And we got to be, we want to see this.

We got to be there.

Whatever position they can put him, are they going to throw him off the scaffold?

What are they going to do to him?

We just want to see it that was the fucking formula see again and a lot of it's just the way you were used you weren't just managing you weren't just introduced you were doing the introductions and they were clever and they were quick and you put down Reese or Boyd or whoever it may be boy pierce gave you some looks that are incredible just oh yeah I can't believe what he said And then remember, I always think one of the most important things everyone forgets is after you did everything where the Express came back and beat up Watts,

you were at the desk the next week.

You were doing commentary on the matches.

It made people really want to kill you because you were just, you were Jim Cornette on commentary for the first time after you had just taken out Bill Watts.

Well, and they could put me at the desk and they knew that I could,

you know, while the match is going on, even if it's the midnight or if somebody else, I can still impart the information and get people riled up and further the thing.

And also, that's why they gave me so many of the

not of all the local promos, but if it was a two-minute segment, I would have some significant part of time and quite a few of them because Watts knew I wasn't like Butch Reed or wasn't like Hacksaw Duggan in that I'm I'm not only need to sell my match, but I can, they can have their match in the town and get over, but they just need to hear me talk and talk for my guys.

So that's why I was doing a predominantly most often, you know, interview subject, because anytime we get him to talk on television,

somebody else will want to fucking assassinate him.

So

that was the formula that they were using or starting to use.

And as I said, then,

you know, once we got through with the Dagum last stampede, and I see a lot of people don't remember

the Midnight Express were the Mid-South tag team champions all through that series of matches where Watts was kicking the shit out of his Watson dog, but the matches weren't for the title.

It was

the Eddie Graham lights out match kind of thing stipulation without saying the lights out match.

There's not no need to put a hat on a hat.

Lights out last stampede.

But in

the Superdome and in Houston.

And in a couple of the other towns, we actually had

tag team title defenses on the card and then came back and had the main event.

So we beat somebody underneath and then come back and get the shit kicked out of us in a main event.

But again, what, and I'd hate to get ahead of ourselves, but when by that point, we're getting to in Houston and New Orleans, we're getting $2,000 payoffs for these matches apiece,

the equivalent of like six grand today,

and we're working every other night of the week, and these payoffs, we're like, oh,

fuck.

Yes.

Kick the shit out of us.

But anyway,

we ended up at February 26th.

Do you think that's a good place to save the rest

until next story time

with Jim Cornett, baby?

Okay, I don't know why you're doing that, but yes, why ruin this with an Adam Cole impression?

But I think that's the perfect place to end the February.

Well, I kind of did Paul Lind, baby.

bang, kind of there, yeah.

All right, that's snarkiness.

That's what people need.

Because we will continue to do this because we have many more record houses and revealing angles and revolutionary items.

And my God, in two more weeks, a day off is coming up.

So people got to stay tuned for that.

But anyway, we're going to come back and do this again.

We've been doing a lot of shows lately and a lot of things happening.

And we're going to go back and cause some more things to happen.

No, we don't cause things to happen.

We just acknowledge them and talk about them.

Well, I think we cause things to happen every once in a while when people have these knee-jerk reactions to some of our innocent, well-meaning critiques.

But sometimes there is a causal effect to what people do.

Tony went out and got a driver's license on purpose.

Now, the biggest complaints we see are people saying, please stop Jim from singing.

Please, my ears, they're bleeding.

I just want to stab myself in the ears.

Things like that.

Oh, come on.

Nobody could possibly be saying something like that about a mellifluous voice such as mine.

As a matter of fact, you don't, you know.

I'm reading the comments here.

Mick Foley had it easy.

I hate your ears.

Would you like me to sing us on out?

No.

Sing us on.

He's on down.

He's on down the road.

Yeah, he's on down.

He's on down the road.

Well, don't carry nothing that might be a load.

Just he's on down, he's on down.

They used to play that in the rough arena.

What's the matter with you?

Why are you laughing now?

Because I didn't know where you were going.

I mean, I know what you're doing, I didn't know they played it at the rup arena during the shows.

Where I figure you're going.

No, yes, after the when the wrestling show was over with, he's on down, he's on down the road to get the fuck out of our building so we can clean it up

Back in the 70s.

And then an OVW at the Gardens.

We've closing time.

That's lame.

See, that's

like every standard bar.

Well, I wasn't, I didn't care enough to be personally in charge of that.

I let other people handle these things.

But anyway, we're done here until our next show where we'll be doing that with you there, correct?

That's right.

I wish we could play Greensleeves right now.

We are done.

All righty.

Well, in that case, thank you for for joining us, everybody.

And until we see and hear from you again, thank you.

Fuck you.

Bye-bye.