Episode 532: The Mother Of All Episodes

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Like the midnight and the rock and roll.

He's in a fight for wrestling soul.

Using a racket and some mind control.

He's Jim Cornish.

The keys to the future, held by the past.

And with Tag T partner Barry at last, he sends this message out by podcast.

Jim Cornish.

Well, he's never afraid of phony.

He never backs down from a fight.

He never wins the pony.

Because his mama raised him right.

It's time

to prepare

your mind.

Get the experience.

Get the experience.

Get the experience of Jim Cornet.

Hello again, everybody, and welcome to the Jim Cornette Experience in honor of Mother's Day.

We're doing the mother of all podcasts for all of you other mothers out there with a special appearance from the Egyptian.

And joining me for all this hilarity and so much more.

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

Co-host to you.

There's no brother from another mother I'd rather have.

The great Brian last, everybody.

hello hi jim a pleasure to be here once again and i think that pleasure would continue but here comes the egyptian well you know is some dipshit has got to wander in

and cause k whenever you're having a wonderful time with your family and that's what we should be doing right now you and i and we probably

Will be at some point.

We're going to time travel in this program.

We're starting this program on Mother's Day.

And yes, that's correct, ladies ladies and gentlemen.

Both of us are

indeed married.

And

your lovely wife is indeed a mother.

And, well, mine is too, of our little Harley Quinn, our little fur baby.

And we're sitting here talking to each other and the millions and millions and millions of Cult of Cornet members out there

because we're stupid.

No,

we're doing a little bit here while the various ladies in our lives are enjoying being pampered elsewhere.

And then we're going to jump back in on that.

And we'll, we'll get.

So you won't hear this program on Mother's Day, but we're starting it on Mother's Day.

It's a great explanation there.

Yes.

Suzanne's actually hanging out with the kids whose mother she is.

And then

it's Mother's Day.

It's not Mother's Day, and there's Dad in the corner.

But dad will be up soon.

That'll be up so June, we get, right?

We get June.

We get June.

Well,

Brian, you're going to have to help me.

You're going to have, I've tried to be good.

I've tried to change my ways, to reform, to fucking see the light, to turn over a new leaf, to fucking make some New Year's resolutions, to modify my behavior.

But I'm still upsetting people.

And I just, I don't, I'm very confused.

Brian, would can

I hope all the Cult of Cornet listeners will just take a second to help me work through this.

Can you be my therapist here, my mentor, my advisor, my confidant?

Under management therapist.

Didn't we start with that?

That didn't work out.

I'm not angry now.

I'm not angry now.

I'm bewildered.

I'm bemused, bum-fuzzled, confused.

I don't understand because,

see, I've been trying to do things the right way.

I've been trying not to tick some people off.

Now, it started out that I was ticking people off.

I was making people upset.

I was getting people

all kinds of stirred up

and just wound up in the crotch.

When I would say things like, for example, so-and-so

ought to be boiled in oil and have the fat sold for soap.

Now, some people considered that an inflammatory statement.

Or if I was to say, for example, that son of a bitch should be run over by a steam engine in front of his immediate family, people thought that was being too extreme in my viewpoints.

I'm guessing there would be a kidnapping involved there because why is everyone hanging out by the steam engine?

Well, you know, it's the locomotive.

It's the other side of the tracks.

A lot of people are living there these days.

And, you know, you got to get to one side or the other because when you're in the middle, things happen.

But anyway, so I tried to lighten up on people a little bit, and I tried not say such inflammatory things like that.

No good gum bumping sack of snake feces ought to be drug out in a parking lot, strung up, and let kids throw rocks at him for a dime apiece.

And then these people started getting upset over our artwork, over the thumbnails, the

innocent cartoon land thumbnails of the official Jim Cornet YouTube channel that have captivated so the hearts of so many of the nation's children.

They love the cart.

And

children, adults, big and small, or old and young, or old and new, or whatever that children of all ages.

They love the art, but some people, oh, goddamn, look at that picture.

That proves he's a horrible son of a bitch.

Oh, my God.

That fucking cornet deserves to be run off the goddamn planet.

We ought to fucking shove a hand grenade up his ass, pull the pin, and wherever his spleen lands, they get get a prize.

So

we tried to even go further, Brian, and I actually

gave somebody a compliment.

And this is what I don't understand.

I'm hoping you can walk me through this because I gave someone a compliment

about their work in the wrestling business.

Not just a compliment, but a compliment about wrestling, which is even rarer coming me.

And that person

responded by saying, Thank you for that compliment, Jim Cornet.

I appreciate it.

I appreciate it.

And we both trended for three days with people saying,

oh my God, you're a no-good piece of shit for thinking that no good piece of shit

to the person that I complimented.

I thought Adam Pierce was a piece of shit, but you're a bigger piece of shit because this happened after that.

You should have known better.

Are you going to wear a red coat?

I'm just trying to, and here's the problem.

The reason why that they are mad at this person for thanking me, for complimenting them,

is because they say that I'm a

misogynist and a racist.

or a racist and a misogynist.

I'm not sure which order they're putting it in.

And the person that they're screaming at, that is a horrible person

because I complimented them is a black woman.

So she doesn't have a voice in this.

It's what I say.

You're a racist because I know I'm white.

Have we got caught in some kind of centrifugal situation here where we're spinning in a circle?

And I came up behind the goddamn issue and fucking lapped it

Because how

I don't understand this.

It doesn't go together.

If I am complimenting a black woman for her work in wrestling,

then why are the alleged wrestling fans saying horrible, disgusting things to her and calling her names because she thanked me for the compliment?

And I'm the misogynist and the racist.

Wouldn't it be them for saying the horrible things about the person who is of

a race and a gender?

Or I don't understand.

Help me.

I can help you because the problem is a pretty small problem because I think we've started to see more and more.

The nini audience is getting smaller.

The audience that actually listens is getting bigger, not just in terms of the actual listenership, but the listeners willing to speak out and say, we've seen enough of this now.

I am a black man and I listen every week.

He's not a racist in any way.

I've had real racism in my life.

We've had emails.

We've seen tweets saying that.

And then it's the same people.

It's the same little white guy on Twitter saying, Cornette's a racist.

He said horrible things, which...

You know, I didn't have a problem with any of this until he started hating my wrestlers, but he's horrible.

He's horrible.

And then someone will say, oh yeah, I remember when he said they should put the belt on Shelton Benjamin.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

It's just, it's a frantic lunatic audience.

And they're the ones who look bad because they're the ones saying, I mean, how many comments did we see?

This poor Samantha Irwin, Irvin, excuse me Irwin.

Samantha Irvin, not Irwin.

I thought she's married to the crocodile hunter, right?

That's right.

Steve Irwin R.

Shyster.

But Samantha Irvin, a fan, said something from the video we saw after the fact of her.

She seems to be someone who's a genuine wrestling fan and probably was appreciative of your comments.

And then the people criticizing her

for having the audacity to say thank you to you are saying worse things about her than you have ever said about anybody.

It's a sickness.

It's a craziness.

And

I'm happy that more and more listeners are now getting directly in there.

And whatever you you want to say, ratioing them, fighting back, filling up their comments with facts.

Because seriously, fuck this.

Enough of the people that sat there eating their fucking boogers, trying to dictate to everyone else how we should think, how we should live, how we should be.

I'm sorry you're overly sensitive at everything, even shit that has nothing to do with you, but go fuck yourself.

Here's some advice: get off the computer, get a fucking job, and get your dick sucked.

Is that advice for me?

Because I'm on the computer.

I don't have a job.

Jim, get off the computer.

Well, two out of three ain't bad.

No, that's advice for the listeners.

Not the listeners, but the ninnies out there.

The ninnies.

The ninnies, the nattering nabobs of negativity.

Go to the observer board.

Get off Twitter.

Get the fuck out of here.

Well, we said you're losing.

When we talked about the Pierce.

controversy over the peer the Adam Pierce fashion controversy.

There's words that'll never be put together again.

It's not even a sizable amount of people.

It's a sizable amount of Twitter accounts.

It's a small amount of people with 74 accounts that, for some reason,

they feel the need to

have some kind of presence in the world.

You can tell whether they've got six followers and they follow 4,000 people, or the picture of the Japanese anime, or some

Joshi or fucking AEW personality figures highly into their goddamn username to begin with.

And they're the ones that just lose their fucking minds over everything and say this shit to people

that they have never met, don't know anything about.

And it's somehow, you know.

Again, I don't even care if you go out and get a job or your dick suck.

Just go out in the yard.

Because that's where I went on Friday night.

When this whole thing happened, I get after our

clip came out

and then she thanked us for it on the tweeter machine.

We're out there in the backyard and Harley is making friends with a bird under the redbud tree.

They're about five feet apart, right?

And Stace takes a picture of it.

And she tweets it.

Look, Harley making a bird friend.

I say, you know what?

I'm going to retweet that because I like it when people see pictures of my puppy.

So I come up here and get on my computer, retweet the picture, and I'm trending.

I'm like, what the fuck?

I don't even have time.

Here's a picture of my dog and a bird.

And then the next day,

it's Saturday.

The weather was beautiful.

The Monroes are over, you know, continuing to.

build my patio that I've spoken of back there with the fire pit and the stone and blah, blah, blah.

And I had to run over and visit my cousin Larry.

For those of you who've been listening over the last several months, he's still having health challenges, et cetera.

And we're planning, it's good weather.

Stace and I, or we're going to put some burgers and dogs on the goddamn grill.

And there are people screaming on Twitter, using their day to scream at this poor woman who innocently thanked someone for a goddamn compliment.

What the fuck is the matter with these people?

And I'm trending for three days while I'm in the backyard eating a fucking burger.

How was the burger?

It was lovely.

It was wonderful.

It was a lovely burger.

I've never heard that before.

It was a lovely burger.

I would encourage more people to have more burgers and less Twitter.

But so

here's the thing.

Should I stop complimenting people?

Or is it that I just don't compliment the people that they want me to compliment?

Or how should I adjust my behavior?

Should I quit saying good things by pair?

Should I quit saying bad things?

Or what about

if we just instruct all the people who don't like anything that I say or don't like any of the various things that I say to put their lips together around my penis and blow?

And then that would accomplish some element of the dick sucking you were talking about, while at the same time, I would be the beneficiary of same.

I've seen some of these people.

Good luck with that.

Have fun.

Have fun over there.

A dark era, Castle Cornet.

It's a blowjob era.

You never know.

There may have to be a screening process.

Or maybe some people will be invited to choose a surrogate.

It's not like the glory days behind the dumpster.

It's a different scene nowadays.

scene.

It's a different scene in this modern environment.

It's not

like when you could just go back behind the dumpster and everything was there.

All right.

No, but you know what?

The big thing, the big takeaway, though, I think, and again, it makes me really happy, the listeners get it.

And you're seeing more and more of them speak out because they enjoy the show.

We come at them twice a week.

We give them more content than just about.

Anyone could reasonably ask for.

We're there a lot.

They listen to a lot of us.

They hear everything we say.

They don't agree with everything we say, but they listen to the show and they enjoy it.

And when they see these people who don't listen, have preconceived notions about you, don't like you purely because you don't like their wrestling or won't give it a chance, in some cases, just as absurd as you make jokes about wrestlers.

Those people, it feels like that's a diminishing audience.

And we're seeing a whole new era of growth and a whole new era of the listeners willing to say, fuck you, leave us alone.

We like this.

It's better than everything else.

Well,

is it actually Tony Khan and his merry band of pranksters validating our comments by

performing same every week on television to their dwindling audience who may be starting to agree more and more with us and a variety of other listeners that feel the same way?

That, what the fuck, straighten your shit out.

See, that's a large part of the resentment from a certain segment of the audience it is that when aew started in 2019 from the jump jim cornette is wrong this proves jim cornet wrong jim cornet's wrong and then in five years

it slowly started

well you know he's right about a few things here or well you know i don't like all the things he says in terms of the names but he has some good points or you know i listen every week now and he's right I don't even watch AEW anymore.

Well,

it wasn't like anybody had to be the ghost of Nostradamus to predict some of the things that would happen based on some of the people involved and traditional

rules of thumb of the wrestling business.

That most of the time, when somebody's never done something before, chances are they're not going to fucking knock it out of the park in a goddamn national television show from day one.

Or, you know,

the legless boy on the first pay-per-view was the canary in the coal mine i think but it it's it's not only their company also but we've

honestly what have we been saying for since we've been doing this program

the ww and when aew started the wwe

had been practically laying down and inviting somebody to come and challenge them for a while because they had made them themselves the company the empty the evil empire the promotion itself, more often than not,

because events, either on TV or in real life at various points, was fucking heel.

And they didn't like his creative because his mind had melted.

And whatever,

I mean, you know,

adolescent fantasies that he started working out when he was in his fucking 70s ruined the TV show and nobody was a star.

And it was blah.

The time was, they were giving it to an opposition promotion to at least get a leg up at that point on a silver platter.

And Tony comes, gets the leg up, and he, like in a fucking Three Stooges movie, goes all the way over the fence and lands with his head in a bucket of yellow paint.

And now the WWE,

you can see the visual.

I can.

I kind of want to.

I kind of wish Tony would be willing to do some silent film or something.

And

now

the WWE is the goddamn

new

era with a babyface legend, Triple H in charge of creative and a goddamn multi-billion dollar conglomerate behind it.

And they're going around the world.

They're international yacht brokers from Toulon, France, and the opposition has been reduced to a local yokel at the goddamn Jacksonville Kmart.

And that's, you know, and

we say if WWE wasn't a heel and Vince wasn't pissing somebody the fucking fans off,

then that would be better for their business, which it has turned out to have been.

And we said if Tony would put some people who actually knew what the fuck they were doing in charge of booking and picking talent instead of the all-friends network.

then that would help them.

And that's come to pass.

So, but those weren't hard things to figure out.

It's just that nobody was willing to come out and tell the fucking truth.

Because everybody wanted to take the billionaire's fucking money.

God damn it.

And now we're sitting here hoping there'll be a third well-financed national promotion somehow.

Yeah, when I'm 80 fucking four,

they'll get another chance at this.

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Uh, Brian, is it just wrestling that makes people crazy on Twitter or social media or whatever?

But do other lines of what do they do it in baseball or shove it or, you know, the MGM Madden Universal?

What the fuck?

On social media?

Is it just the wrestling fuckers?

Primarily.

I mean, every now and then a feud will break out or a back and forth will break out, but wrestling kind of does it better than others.

You know, I don't know how much you follow it because, you know, you don't really follow current events that don't deal with, you know, trees and whatever the fuck happens over there.

Birds.

But have you been following the feud with Drake and Kendrick Lamar?

I have have not.

I know, I've heard the names.

I'm aware that they are people that exist in the world.

Drake was a character on Seinfeld, right?

Everybody loves the Drake.

No, that's a different Drake.

Well, Kendrick Lamar was the NBA player that overdosed in the whorehouse in Nevada, right?

No,

that's Lamar Odom.

Oh.

It's sad that we both know that, but no, that's not who this is, no.

Well, then, well, you know what?

I'll tell you what.

Here's the goddamn deal.

If you're going to fucking make national news for fucking overdosing and frying your brain, staying up for three days at a fucking whorehouse in Nevada is a way to do it.

I applaud that man.

But apparently, if...

If neither one of these are those people, then I may not know who the fuck they are.

See, the thing is, you can't think of the visual of someone having this medical issue in a whorehouse without thinking of a bunch of hookers around him dressed like hookers trying to help him.

Just the ridiculous visual of it.

There's no way to see that and not laugh.

But anyway, the thing is,

it was a whorehouse.

Nobody would perform mouth to mouth.

It was the best little whorehouse, but they had the worst first aid, forced aid.

The worst forced aid.

Forced aid.

You had to pay extra for the forced aid over there.

But so what happened between Lamar Odom and

Drake?

This is a feud, and I pulled up an article here because it'll get me a little caught up to date as well from the New York Times.

Kendrick Lamar versus Drake Beef

goes nuclear.

Wait a minute.

So his name is Drake Beef.

No, no, they have a beef.

These two, Kendrick Lamar and Drake, have a beef.

So it's Kendrick Lamar versus Drake Beef goes nuclear.

Although there's no comma or anything, so it looks like it does look like Kendrick Lamar versus Drake Beef.

Well, that's because

Kendrick gets two names.

Why does Drake not get a goddamn proper surname?

Mr.

Beef.

What are your thoughts in general outside of wrestling on people who become celebrities?

Again, Meatloaf.

What do they do?

Madonna.

They don't play basketball and he's not on Seinfeld.

What are these people doing these days for employment?

Kendrick Lamar and Drake.

They're very, very popular rappers.

Drake's probably the most popular of this generation with young people, and Kendrick Lamar is a critically acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper, actually.

Oh, come on.

There is no, God, there is no Pulitzer Prize for rap.

You cannot tell me there's a Pulitzer Prize for rap.

Is there a Pulitzer Prize for Bluegrass?

I don't know.

Well, I say, well, Google it.

You can't tell me there's really a Pulitzer Prize for rap music.

No, he won it for Walden by Henry David Thoreau by Kendrick Omar.

And what?

He was a joke.

He rapped a thing.

I don't know the difference.

You mean to tell me he rapped Thoreau, but wouldn't Thoreau get the goddamn...

Well, he's certainly?

There'd be a copyright infringement.

Is there an estate of Thoreau?

I can't believe I'm Googling this, but there is no Pulitzer Prize for Bluegrass.

There's one for music, and I guess if you play Bluegrass, you could win,

but there's nothing specifically for.

And he won.

Bluegrass.

Well, he won, but let me read this article.

What did he win for?

Let me read this article here by Joe

Costraselli or something like that.

The long-building and increasingly testy rap beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake exploded into full bore acrimony and unverifiable accusations over the weekend.

This came out May 6th.

That does sound very violent.

Both artists.

Both artists rapid fire released multiple songs littered with attacks regarding race, appropriation, sexual and physical abuse, body image, misogyny, hypocrisy, general trauma, excuse me, generational trauma, not general trauma.

I'm just going to say general trauma.

That sounds like, it sounds like it's a fucking lawsuit.

Generational trauma.

Your honor, my client suffered fucking acute hearing loss, goddamn loss of consortium with his wife, and general trauma.

Generational trauma and more.

Most relentless was Lamar, a Pulitzer Prize winner from Compton, California, who who tends towards the isolated and considered.

Why, what?

Who tends toward

who tends towards the isolated and considered, but has now released four verbose and conceptual diss tracks,

totaling more than 20 minutes of new music.

Oh, I can't wait to hear it all.

Targeting Drake in the last week, including three since Friday.

Three since Friday.

If you've written and recorded three songs since Friday, how good can you fucking be?

I mean, is there any quality control on this shit?

Each racked up millions of streams, and the three that were made available commercially, Euphoria, Meet the Grams, and Not Like Us, are expected to land near the top of next week's Billboard singles charts, while seeming to, at least momentarily, shift the public perception of Drake along a maestro of the online public arena and meme ecosystem.

Meme ecosystem.

Who is this fucking guy, Joe Petricelli?

Joe

Coscarelli.

Cascarelli, I believe would be his name.

Possibly.

He needs to put the fucking Thesaurus down.

This fucking guy, who is he writing this for?

What is the audience that wants to hear this fucking

in between?

On Friday night, Drake released his own broadside against Lamar,

plus a smattering of other recent challengers in a teasing Instagram interlude, plus a three-part track, an elaborate music video titled Family Matters.

Who is out there watching

Instagram interludes from these fucking clowns?

In which he referred to his rival as a fake activist and attempted to expose friction and alleged abuse in Lamar's romantic relationship.

But that song was followed within a half an hour

by Lamar's Meet the Grahams, an ominous extended address to the parents and young son of Drake, born Aubrey Graham, in which Lamar refers to his rival rapper as a liar and a pervert who should die in order to make the world safer for women.

Well, and meanwhile, they're putting these songs out in 30 minutes.

How long did it take fucking to for Boston's third album?

Well, again, you say that putting it out in 30 minutes, we don't know how long it's been ready.

We don't know when the track was finished.

We don't know what that is.

Well, then are they working together?

Because they're answering each other back and forth.

Well, no, this seems to be benefiting just one party so far from what we've read, not both parties.

But the idea that, you know, in wrestling, you have shoot interviews.

And that's really the only time, or even now Twitter, you get to hear anyone what they really think.

Maybe.

They may still be working.

What do you think about what is one of the...

There's a plane going by, windows open.

What is one of the things that has always been there with hip-hop?

The diss track.

The guys going out there and putting down their rivals.

You know, Ice Cube, no Vaseline is one of the classics ever of the genre.

But what do you think about, you know, they're not doing shoot interviews.

They're actually going out there and trying to not just say, I'm going to piss on your grave, but find a way to turn that into a bunch of bars.

Well, and also, and then they start shooting each other, right from the the

who killed two pack and sug night and well no sug night's alive sug night's still

prison actually i'm just spouting off names that i know have been shot at or shot people or gone to prison or whatever fatty arbuckle right or notorious he didn't shoot anyone um

i was thinking of the the fat guy the biggie biggie biggie small fellow he didn't shoot anyone either you got hold on he shoot well he got shot you confused biggie smalls with fatty Fatty Arbuckle?

Which whatever their name was.

But the point is,

and no, there's a point to this.

I'm going to tell you.

Yeah, well,

but then he lost weight and killed his gimmick.

Wrestlers

should,

the rappers should adopt the wrestlers.

promo, but they actually get mad and don't work with each other.

It seems to me that instead of them really shooting on each other and saying all these horrible things and having all these violent feuds and altercations, if they were working with each other, then it would boost everybody's record sales and nobody would get shot.

That's what I would think first off, because...

The diss track in wrestling is to make everybody money, not to

not fucking kill somebody.

Well, let's go back to the article here.

Lamar also seemed to assert that Drake had more than a decade ago fathered a secret daughter.

Echoing the big reveal of his son from Drake's last headline reap reap.

I can't read.

Last headline rap beef.

They claim Drake quickly denied on Instagram before hitting back in another song on Sunday.

Neither man has addressed a full array of rapped allegations directly.

Rapped allegations.

And we sit here enraptured.

On Tuesday, a security guard was shot and seriously injured outside of Drake's Toronto home.

That sets me?

Which appeared on the cover art for Lamar's Not Like Us.

What the fuck is that?

Oh, God damn it.

So his house was the cover art of the other guy's art, and then someone went to the house and shot the security guard.

In Toronto, by the way.

Drake's, again, he's living in Toronto, so that means either someone knew someone from, you know, Bruiser Bedlam's gang

or some American came up there and did that.

Jumped the border.

Yeah.

So yeah, they were so fucking anxious to turn me away, my innocent little self, but they let in whoever came up there and shot the guy.

So yeah, what did I say?

I prognosticated that here about 35 seconds ago.

Well, I will scroll down a little bit.

Why now, the sub headline here.

Since late March, the much anticipated head-to-head seemed inevitable.

Following years of will they or won't they

lyrical feints, Lamar hit directly on record first this year during a surprise appearance on the song Like That by the Atlanta rapper Future and producer Metro Boomin.

Metro Boomin.

Both formerly frequent Drake collaborators.

So this is like Paul Heyman going with the Midnight Express.

Right?

He's going to the guys who used to collaborate with Drake to make a Drake diss track?

Well,

no, because now there was...

See, unless you can prove that Dennis Condry was in both camps at one point in time,

then it would be more like this guy, he's a turncoat is what he is, isn't he?

He was on one side, and then he was on the other side.

The guy that's going with the other thing, it's doing the other diss of the other diss track.

Well, it's both.

That's what I'm saying.

It's both the Atlanta Rapper Future Future and the producer Metro Boomin both were frequent Drake collaborators.

Well,

maybe he didn't give them enough credit for their collaborative collaboration.

And now they're burying him.

With audible disgust, Lamar invoked the track First Person Shooter from last year's Drake album for all the dogs, in which a guest verse from J.

Cole referred to himself, Drake, and Lamar

as the big three of modern MCs.

Lamar took exception to the grouping, declaring there was no big three,

quote, just big me.

He also called himself the Prince, the Drake's Michael Jackson, a deeper, more complex artist versus a troubled, pop-oriented hitmaker.

Oh, good lord.

Do you think all of these fucking guys are too busy sniffing their own farts to fucking know what's going on in the world?

Like that spent three weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 as Future and Metro Boomin released two chart-topping albums, We Don't Trust You and We Still Don't Trust You.

This, this.

No, this a lib.

Are you reading this in

The Onion or whatever?

And

I know it's easier to get on the charts these days than it used to be back when music actually sold before you could just just steal all you wanted for free, right?

But is it this easy for people to get on the charts with shit these days?

The songs were anchored by a parade of Drake's past associates, each of whom seemed to share a simmering distaste towards the rapper, who later called the ambush a 20 versus one fight.

In early April, J.

Cole fought back momentarily,

releasing the song Seven-Minute Minute Drill, in which he called Lamar overrated before backtracking, apologizing, and having the song removed from streaming services.

Wait a minute.

So

these other motherfuckers are shooting people, and this guy said somebody was overrated and then apologized and deleted the fucking song?

Yeah, they're going to send a gun to his house.

That's why.

But Drake's...

Jesus Christ, what a pussy.

But Drake soon picked up the baton, releasing a wide-ranging diss track called Push-Ups, less than a week later, that addressed the field with a special focus on Lamar's height, shoe size, and supposedly disadvantageous business dealings.

Well, first,

how tall is he and how big are his feet?

I don't know.

Let me look that up.

How tall, Kendrick Lamar, height?

Five foot five.

Oh, so he's a little short fucker.

What do you consider short?

Drake is six foot.

Drake is six foot.

For an adult human male, if you're,

I would think, less than five foot nine, you would be considered a little short fuck, wouldn't you?

Do you think short people are better lyricists because of the frustration out of being short?

No, I think the short people got no reason to live.

They got

people may not know the song, and you're making a bad joke here.

They got tiny little feet and tiny little voices going peep, peep, peep.

Don't want no short people.

Don't want no short people.

You can't tell me I don't sound like Randy Newman.

Don't want no short.

Sounds like you're on Team Drake.

I'm not here.

Let's go back to this article here.

Less than a week later, Drake.

I thought they were making fun of him because he was like a lurch, like a six foot seven, 160-pound fucking.

scarecrow or something.

Less than a week later, Drake mocked Lamar's lack of a response on Taylor Made Freestyle, which is also what they called the Abruble Bimbo when Terry Taylor was in town.

Taylor Made Freestyle, a track released only on social media.

It featured Drake taunting Lamar for being scared to release music at the same time as Taylor Swift and using AI voice filters to mimic Tupac and Snoop Dogg.

imploring Lamar to battle for the good of the West Coast.

Let's stop there.

What do you think of AI being used to bring Tupac Back to the Dead to back Drake and this beef?

Well, what the?

That's what rap was built on.

Other people's fucking music.

They just take the beat and do whatever.

Rick Rubin said to me, these words came out of his mouth when I asked him about.

Should we pay for any of this music we're airing on Smokey Mountain TV?

He said, I make rap music.

We take other people's music and sell it.

You'll be all right.

Well, here's some lyrics from Drake from this song.

Since, like that, your tone changed a little.

You're not as enthused.

How are you not in the booth?

It feels like you kind of removed.

Taylor-Made Freestyle was later removed from the internet at the request of the Tupac Estate.

But it was.

I know those are English words.

I recognize the sound of most of them, but I don't know what the fuck you're talking about here.

But it was a seemingly tossed off line from the earlier push-ups that included the name of Lamar's longtime romantic partner.

The quote, I be with some bodyguards like Whitney,

that Lamar would later allude to as a red line crossed, making all subject matter fair game in the songs to come.

Wait,

back up.

What did he say?

He said.

I understand when I say bad things about someone in order to piss them off, everybody else in the world can kind of understand what I'm saying.

I don't know what

did he say again?

I be with some bodyguards like Whitney.

Okay, who's Whitney?

I am not sure.

I'm Googling right now.

Who is Kendrick Lamar's fiancée?

All about Whitney Alford.

So that is her, Whitney Alford.

Or Whitney Lamar.

I guess maybe they are now together.

But I be with some bodyguards.

He's not saying, and Whitney, if she had as many dicks sticking out of her as she's had stuck in her, she'd look like a porcupine.

I can understand how that's inflammatory.

Now, he didn't say that.

You said that.

Well, that would be inflammatory.

I could understand that.

But this guy didn't.

What does he say?

What is the bodyguard?

I don't know what's going on here.

It was this same alleged faux pas.

That may have triggered an intensification of Drake's beef with Pusha T in 2018.

Now I have a subheadline how we got here.

A subheadline.

Even with Drake dissing cameos from Future, Ye, the former Kanye West, Rick Ross, The Weekend, and ASAP Rocky,

the main event was always going to be between Drake, 37, and Lamar, 36, who have spent more than a decade subtly antagonizing one another in songs while maintaining an icy frenemy rapport in public.

You got all that?

This writer may not be doing the best job for getting this story across.

Jeez.

Yo, that's what I've seen.

What is the audience for this?

Is it, I don't know if these people's immediate families would understand who's on whose side here.

I'm going to scroll a little bit.

In 2011, Drake introduced Lamar to mainstream audiences.

On his second album, Take Care.

They went on to record again.

Oh, well, now that one guy, Now we got some bone of contention here.

The one guy made the other guy, put him over, the flare sting type of deal, brought him in.

Here you go.

And the other guy has been an ungrateful prick.

Is that the root of this?

But the collaboration ceased as Drake became his generation's premier hitmaker across styles in hip-hop and beyond, while Lamar burrowed deeper into his own psyche on knotty concept albums that brought wide critical acclaim alongside less constant commercial success.

So one was the Indie Darling, and the other one was Maine Vanning WrestleMania.

Ah,

jealousy,

jealousy, that green-eyed monster.

And finally, the last thing here, the week it went nuclear, Lamar's first targeted response, Euphoria, was more than six minutes long and released last Tuesday morning.

In three sections that raised the temperature as they built like a match.

He warned Drake about proceeding and insisted, somewhat facetiously, that things were still friendly.

The quote: Know you a master manipulator and habitual liar, too,

but don't tell no lie about me, and I won't tell truths about you.

That's pretty good.

He accused the biracial Drake, who was born and raised in Toronto, of imitating black Americans' heritage and insulting him subliminally.

Once again, a quote from Lamar:

I hate the way you walk, the way you talk, I hate the way you dress, I hate the way you sneak this.

If I catch flight, it's going to be direct.

And he called Drake standing as a father into question,

quote, teaching him morals, integrity, discipline.

Listen, man, you don't know nothing about that.

Days later, Lamar doubled down with an Instagram-only diss track called 616 in LA,

borrowing both Drake's back-to-back diss tactic from his 2015 beef with Meek Mill.

Oh, good lord.

This is all over the place.

I know you want to lord.

I don't want that.

Fake bully.

I hate bullies.

You must be a terrible person.

Everyone inside your team is whispering that you deserve it.

I think all of these son of a bitches need to have me come in there and explain to them how to just tell a motherfucker off where everybody will know what you're talking about and that person will feel suitably chastened.

See, that's what one of these guys should, that's what Drake should do.

Drake should find the best beat he can get, the best producer, come up with that beat, and then all of a sudden it stops and it's just you with no music behind you cutting a promo.

Stop wasting time.

Let's do this.

Yeah.

For heaven's sake, because

we still haven't settled things between Ric Flair and the Egyptian, right?

Or Paisanos.

Paisano.

Well, the Egyptian, as we know, the manager, he was

they were harboring the Egyptian at Paisano's.

He was identified as the Egyptian on the closed captioning when Flair was too drunk to pronounce dipshit.

Yeah, somehow the Egyptian's less offensive than Nicholas dipshit.

Yeah, but I'm thinking, could we

if we had some kind of a beat and we had read, here comes the Egyptian, he runs a pizza kitchen, takes a long time shitting, I'm wiping my ass, nature boy.

Here comes the Egyptian, is it fact or fiction?

That Flair was bitchin', cause the manager was a dip shit.

Order a sausage, baby, or pepperoni, maybe.

Woo at an old blind lady.

We're leaving a thousand dollar tip.

Here comes the Egyptian.

Something like that.

Brother.

I just want to get something in there so I can get a songwriting credit.

Brother.

Yeah, it's something.

I just need to get my name on that track.

But there it is.

We've covered the Diddy news.

And

Diddy, Diddy, Diddy.

We will continue.

No, don't.

You're not sexist.

You weren't saying titty news, the Diddy news.

No one thought I was saying titty news.

We're talking the Diddy news.

And from the news we heard, maybe Diddy don't like that titty so much.

Who knows what's going on?

But ladies and gentlemen, we will stay on top of of everything happening in hip-hop and beyond.

For MTV News, I'm Kurt Loader.

Well,

you better reload, pal, because...

Real quick, actually, before we move on, have you heard that Hall and Oates are fighting?

No, I hate it when

I hate it when mom and dad have a fuss.

No, it's like really, really bad.

I think there's like restraining orders and shit.

Hold on, let me see if I can find an article.

What?

Who threatened to beat who up?

Did fucking

Oates finally, after all these years, say, fuck you, you glory hog?

I have an article from Variety a week ago.

Daryl Hall talks new solo album, Elvis Costello Tour, and confirms Hall and Oates are officially over.

Let me go to the Hall and Oates part.

Say it isn't so isn't just the name of a classic Hall and Oats song.

It is the much headlined reaction to the news that the duo that practically defines duos

had a nasty and seemingly final split last year.

The two who began singing and performing together more than 50 years ago over a mutual love of soul and doo-wop music, were almost impossible to imagine without each other.

Even more than Simon without Garfunkel or George Michael without Andrew Ridgely.

This was more.

I could imagine that pretty easily.

Yeah, that worked out well.

Yeah.

This was more like a final split between peanut butter and jelly.

Oh.

It's actually hard to imagine.

The problem stemmed from Oates' attempt last year to sell his half of the duo's jointly owned company, Hull Oates Enterprises.

Whole Oates.

Whole Oates Enterprises.

Which controls trademarks, personal name and likeness rights, record royalty income, website, and social media assets.

Something he can't do without Hall's consent.

It hit me by surprise, Hall acknowledges.

Speaking from his home in the Bahamas.

I don't know, man.

All I could say is people change.

And sometimes you don't really know someone like you thought you did.

Difficulties can be made from things that aren't difficult.

And then it goes to a place where it can never come back from.

It's unfortunate and untimely, but some things just change.

People rewrite history and harbor thoughts you had no idea about.

Asked if we've seen the last of his former group, he replies, that is correct.

I haven't had a creative relationship with John for at least 25 years.

We didn't write songs together.

We didn't do anything together except perform live shows.

We had an arrangement that I couldn't play my solo songs on stage with Hall and Oates.

And now I get to.

And I'll look up the restraining order, but what are your initial thoughts on Hall and Oates breaking up?

Well,

again, now I'm interested in seeing exactly what Oates's side of the

beef, as they say, is in this thing.

because,

you know, let's face it,

there's always the more famous guy, and Hall was the more famous guy.

I think

Andrew Ridgely is the classic example.

But at the same time, you know, he was part of it.

How much of a part of it was he?

Really down deep.

Hall was the voice and Oates was the mustache.

And now he doesn't even have a mustache.

He doesn't have a mustache.

Well, see, that may have been part of the problem.

Or maybe it was just

as they got older, did they find that one of them became out of touch and the other became out of time?

Do you think there's some sort of obligation once you become famous with a mustache or any sort of facial hair that you have to keep some semblance of that throughout?

Like if Magnum T.A.

showed up with no mustache, it would be disappointing.

Yeah.

Now, in 2024, if he went through an autograph show with no mustache, like, oh, come on.

And now Oates has no mustache.

Yeah, I think you've got to, you know, keep some level of, well, Groucho,

in the movies, he painted his on, but for television, he actually committed to growing one, but only for the

shooting season of You Bet Your Life.

In the offseason, he shaved it again.

According to an article I have here from the L.A.

Times from November, earlier this month, Hall sued Oates, his former music partner, because Oates allegedly planned to sell his share of a joint venture to a third party.

Hall argued it would violate the terms of an agreement they had reached.

A Nashville Chancery Court judge swiftly blocked the sale while legal proceedings and a previous arbitration continue.

So

basically, he got an injunction to force them back into arbitration.

Oates and the other defendants in the lawsuit, Oates' wife, Amy Oates,

and business manager Richard Flynn.

in their roles as co-trustees of Oates's Trust.

Well, see, you know, Daryl Hall, a little bit more recognizable than Oates.

Maybe Oates was trying to get some money together.

Oates tried to sell.

Yeah, he tried.

He signed a letter of intent with Primary Wave Music.

They got money for the sale and alleges further that the letter makes clear that the duo's business agreement was disclosed to primary wave music in violation of a confidentiality provision.

Tony Collins must be involved in this some way.

It's confidential that Hall and Oates have a business relationship?

How could that be confidential?

but i i think oates wants some

money

and maybe he's trying to maybe he's got you know goddamn some kind of terminal crotch rot or something his wife and he's trying to set up the trust for his wife there to make sure she's taken care of and that no-good heel

that disgusting

No good son of a gun Daryl Hall trying to hog all the glory and all of the company.

For heaven's sake.

I wonder what they both think of Tommy Mattola when he managed.

I mean, he ended up with their publishing, and then he left them and went to run Sony.

Yeah, they ought to be suing him together.

I think him too.

They may have tried to sue him.

I'm not sure.

It was a long time ago.

Well, they could do it again.

But that is the music news.

One last thing.

Brian Wilson is now under a conservatorship after his wife, Melinda's death.

Apparently, people are concerned about Brian Wilson's state.

Well, I was about he's been under

some type of care for 40 40 fucking years, hadn't he?

In one way or another, I think so, yeah.

So, well, I guess his wife was trying to make sure that he got out of the sandbox regularly.

And now if she's gone, they've got someone to watch over him.

How old would he be now?

He's got to be 80.

He's got to be 80, 81, 82, somewhere in that range.

Even though they were merely beach boys rather than beach men.

81.

81.

There you go.

So now he's beach elderly.

Life's a beach.

All right, this is your show.

It is.

Oh, well, in that case, I'll take back over.

Thank you very much for all the news.

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and i wanted to say thank you to jason from youngstown oh and i will read a part of his letter My name is Jason from Youngstown, Ohio.

I wanted to gift you this VHS to remember your Twitter trend.

He sent me a VHS of Mighty Joe Young.

The Disney remake, by the way.

And he says, could you please give a shout out to my friend Tony, who's a loyal member from Jasper, Indiana of the cult of Cornet,

and his cat, Tom, who crossed the Rainbow Bridge last year, unfortunately.

So that's from Jason from Youngstown, Ohio.

He mentions that several times in his letter.

Have you ever been to Youngstown, Ohio?

No, I have not.

Is it a nice place?

No, it's not.

It's a very old place.

I don't know why they call it Youngstown.

They ought to call it old shithole.

That was just my first impression.

Also, I wanted to say thank you to Adam, who went to the Universal Studios tour, and they got one of those penny smashing machines.

And he sent me a set of Universal Famous Monsters Smashed Pennies for our TV room down there, for our horror collection.

Do you have any smashed pennies?

I have a couple.

Yeah, I have some from London.

I think I have some from Hawaii probably.

Well, good.

One of these days, they'll be worth something.

And

thank you, Matt O'Donnell.

Yes, indeed, the Matt O'Donnell,

the artist behind the Reggie's Corner theme, because he sent he heard us talking about them.

And I think my DVR, I may have lost one of them, but he sent me both the Gunther Ilya Draganov matches on DVD and an original BBC Kitchen Nightmares DVD with Gordon Ramsey before they Americanized the show.

I've seen a few of them, and I like it better because he goes into more serious business about the restaurants.

I want to thank Matt O'Donnell, too.

I was pleasantly surprised at the P.O.

box the other day to have a package filled with however many dozen discs this is, the Midnight Express DVD set.

So thank you.

I really appreciate that.

Wait a minute.

You mean to tell me he sent me three lousy fucking DVDs?

He sent you three dozen?

Well, I don't know if it was three dozen.

It may have been more than that.

I'm not exactly sure.

I didn't count.

Well, it's probably close to 50 if it's the Midnight Express's greatest hits.

Actually, I know who put that

set together.

He's from West Virginia, and I'm going to butcher his name.

It rhymes with Messer Schmidt, Blesser Schmidt.

And he, and so Matt O'Donnell is taking credit for somebody else's hard work trying to suck up to you.

He's not taking any credit for anything.

He just,

why would he be sucking up to you when he could be sucking up to me?

He's not sucking up to me.

He already sucked up to you, it sounds like.

Well, a long time ago, I guess, because he wrote a very nice note here, he mentioned these discs to me, and he was nice enough after all this time to send it.

It was very, very nice.

Thank you very much.

There are nice people out there in the world.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, he sucks at sucking up because I got three and you got 45.

Oh, so it's jealousy.

Now I see what this is.

All right.

Listen, Kendrick, I don't have any time for your shit.

Well, let me tell you something, Drake Beef.

You're going to.

And you're going to suffer the same fate as old Gus's Sir Beef down in Charlotte.

They closed that place a long time ago.

That could be your hip-hop album, Corny and the Egyptian.

Walk like an Egyptian.

You know, that's a big weekend coming up, the first weekend of June, and I will tell you why.

On Saturday, June 1st and Sunday, June 2nd, that is the WHAS Crusade for Children weekend this year.

And we've talked about it on the show here going back years and years.

I won't bore the longtime listeners, but for the newer folks, it's the oldest and largest local fundraising charity organization in the United States of America.

And they've raised north of $200 million over those 70 years for special needs children in the Kentucky and southern Indiana area.

And it was my mom and dad's favorite charity.

And we didn't do anything for them last year.

We got busy and something was going on.

And we had done a fundraiser last spring for NAMI for mental illness, but we didn't do anything for the Crusade last year.

So not only am I plugging it now, and for the younger folks, you can go to whascrusade.org

and it explains exactly what they do, how they do it.

100% of the money is returned to charities because everything's on a

volunteer system.

All the fire departments around town raise probably half of the money that's raised doing roadblocks and doing year-long fundraisers.

But anyway,

so we're going to do something this year at Cornett's Collectibles at jimcornet.com because, Brian, I've mentioned that the

last Jim Cordette action figure variant will be coming out later on this year.

And then I am, we're going in other directions.

I am saying goodbye to the action figure business.

Now, bear in mind that Midnight Express and Heavenly Bodies figures are still available now, but they may not be by the end of the year either.

So get them while they're hot.

But in the process of talking to the

the toy company, Figures Toy Company here a couple of weeks ago about this final variant figure.

They said, well, Jim,

we just did our inventory down here because Figures Toy Company, they do all kinds of different genres, not just wrestling.

That's probably not even their primary thing.

They do, you know, all kinds of different figures and toys and accessories and blah, blah, blah.

So they got the big warehouse down there and they say, Jim, we did the inventory.

We've got a few of your figures left over.

I said, well, which ones?

And now, again, as we've mentioned, I get the majority of the figures that I sell at gymcornet.com.

And Figures Toy Company has historically kept a few for their online outlet.

And apparently,

I don't even know whether they put these up or whatever.

People didn't know they were there.

Because Brian, you remember the bloody variant figure of me where Paul E.

clocked me over the head with the phone on TBS.

I'm in my white jacket.

I'm bleeding like a stuck hog, blah, blah, blah.

And the Raw debut variant, the pink and red,

where Bobby Heenan welcomed me onto Raw in 93.

Both of those, my copies, copies, is that the right word, my stock of those figures sold out in like two days each.

a couple springs ago

and they were the most popular ones we've done

and talking to tony at figures too he said yeah well we got some of the the pink and reds and the bloody variants

i said oh really

nice of you to tell me now

two years later they've been sold out but nevertheless guess who bought those remaining figures brian i'll give you one guess

You may be speaking to me on mute.

Oh, I didn't realize it was a real guest.

Who bought the figures?

Was it Mike Lano?

It was not.

I outbid him.

It's me.

It's me.

It's Ernest T.

or James E in this case.

So we are going to, on Saturday, June the 1st at noon Eastern Time at jimcornad.com, we're going to have less than 200 of each of these.

And this is it.

I bought everything figures toy company has of me.

And they will go on sale while they last with $10 from each figure going to the WHAS Crusade for Children.

And hopefully, since so many people were somewhat ticked off that they missed these when they were on sale originally, one more chance at it.

If they go,

if these are all sold out within the first seven days, I'm going to add $1,000 to the total we raise.

So it'll be five grand going to the Crusade for Children.

So

anyway, if you want one more shot, but then after that, it's going to be on eBay because that's the only place there's going to be any.

The raw debut variant and the bloody variant, personally autographed, jimcornet.com, Saturday, June the 1st at noon Eastern.

And

we got, like I said, a little under 200 of each.

If we sell out at a week, I'm going to add $1,000 to that, $5,000 to the Crusade for Children.

That's what we're doing this summer.

So spread the woid for the people who missed out on this before.

All right.

The bloody variant.

That's like two years ago, right?

Yes, that's what I'm saying.

They missed out on this.

These bastards have been screwing you over for that long.

They just.

Oh, come on now.

No, it was completely inadvertent.

They had no idea they were there.

All you need to do is turn me and Stephen loose on them.

It'll all be fixed.

We're not going to be suing anyone.

Well, we're going to be suing some people, but it's not going to be them.

I will fix them.

No, they were over in the corner, and I don't know if it was mislabeled, or they had to cat.

I don't know what happened.

But there they became.

And now we're trying to do some good.

We're doing some good for people and for children from

this serendipitous occasion that fell on our heads.

And you're trying to sue people.

I didn't say anything about lawsuits.

You were litigious individuals.

You went to lawsuit.

I didn't say anything about lawsuit.

Well, you were getting Stephen involved.

Why else would we call it our goddamn legal bulldog

to start chomping on somebody's leg bone?

I'm not confirming or denying anything, but if Figures Toy Company messes with you again, they're going to have something to deal with that they're not ready for.

They have not messed with anyone.

They have done a service for the cult of Cornet members that may have joined the cult since these were on sale

and have didn't even have a chance at them originally.

Now they've got a second chance, a second lease on life,

thanks to this bookkeeping snafu or whatever the fuck took place.

We're going to get in there.

We're going to find out how many people are in that office.

How many bookkeepers are there?

Who's handling shipping and receiving?

We're going to take care of everything.

And we're going to get you those figures.

All the figures that have been missing.

I already got the figures.

We're going to get you more.

More.

Lots more.

They don't.

I don't want figures of other people.

The stuff that we could do with those, you can donate those to kids.

Donate those to kids.

All the unsold, you know, wrestlers, give them the kids.

Well,

some of these wrestlers are not suitable for children.

See?

Maybe.

I know they have a New Jack figure.

Well, that may come with a parental warning on it.

But anyway, Saturday, June 1st at noon Eastern, go to jimcornet.com.

And everything else that we normally have for sale is for sale as well.

And

then you can just buy, buy, buy.

The bloody variant may be the

of all the different variants that have come out.

I think that's the one that may be the coolest.

And that also, that was 72.

No, it wasn't 72 hours.

It was a day and a half, wasn't it?

That those sold out because

that was the most popular.

It hurt me, actually, kind of wounded me a little bit that the fastest selling

Jim Cornette figure would be the one to see me in mortal danger of my life and gushing blood and

the very life force ebbing from my body.

Well, stay tuned for the next variant, the missing ACL Jim Cornette.

Yes, yes.

That'll sell a lot.

And actually, just my leg ends at the fucking, at the mid-thigh.

It's a stump.

It's a special limited edition.

But

anyway, we're doing that.

Speaking of people that have various physical disabilities, like I was just speaking about with mine,

Kenny,

our friend Kenny Olivier, although he's been, oh, go ahead.

I was just breathing.

I was just, I was just breathing in and out.

I don't know what you were saying.

Well,

that's a Kenny thing.

He breathes in and out a lot.

But

he's been saying more logical things lately.

I don't know whether he's been under some type of psychoanalysis or maybe some type of program where he's looking at things a little clearer, but he said some things that make sense lately, and we've notated that.

Now, some people have taken it and run with it and said, oh, Cordette likes him now.

I didn't say that.

I said

you have to be able to admit when even a person who you would otherwise not ever want to be in the same room with says something that makes sense, you got to admit it.

And he's done that a couple of times lately.

And apparently he's done it again.

Am I to understand that you have

You have audio of a recent statement from is he playing video games again?

Is somebody going to get bagged in this

it turns out the secret to hearing kenny omega's thoughts is give him a controller and then he'll just say anything

well that's because on the on the interviews he looks on promos on tv

with a camera in front of him a microphone in his hand he looks awkward he looks confused he looks unsure of himself he's he's very wishy-washy

His eyes dart to and fro and hither and yon.

But you stick the video video game and thing in his hand and put the screen in front of him where people are being teabagged.

That's a video game thing.

We established that.

And

he's suddenly, he's a natural.

He just spills his guts.

Well, it's important to remind everyone the road to get here.

A few weeks back, he all of a sudden, in the middle of his stream, started going off on Rossio Gawa, former head of stardom, former owner of stardom, now starting his new promotion.

Marigold, dream, Fighters,

Dream, Marigold,

Chicago, Marigold Arena.

Something.

And Kenny

made

him make allegations.

He alleged that they were allegations.

I don't even know what he was saying, but these were the most thinly veiled allegations since Gypsy Rose Lee hit the mainstream.

You know, I just saw a program the other day.

It was not a Jack Pfeffer program.

And one of the wrestlers on the card was Gypsy Moe.

And I lost it, just a visual of it.

But

we started with Kenny talking about.

We started with Kenny talking about Rossi Ogawa.

Then we also had Kenny talking about his failures as an EVP,

the problems with everything that happened with punk, that he didn't have a problem with punk, that sometimes people should fight it out.

It would help everything.

And again, it was so out of character, or at least no one expected it, that it took everyone aback.

And you would think, this has to be a work.

But then what is the work?

That the company I work for is a joke?

That I'm going to come back and feud with these guys who are idiots who chased out the biggest star in the company?

Like, what is the work?

And with that said, let's play this new round of audio from Kenny Omega.

Stop me when you want.

I will say going into this,

not that he's saying anything that's wrong,

but the fact that he's saying it the way he is, I almost get the feeling this too is a work, but we'll talk about that.

Let's go to this.

I know, no, no, no, no, no.

I am not healing on Meltzer.

He is

just but one guy with one opinion who's watched a lot of wrestling.

It counts for something.

It counts for something.

But he's jumped the fucking shark, so it doesn't count for much anymore.

He has jumped the motherfucking shark.

And guess who has who is to blame for that?

Me.

I'm the guy.

I broke this scale.

It fucked up something in his brain where he doesn't realize, he doesn't even know what good matches anymore.

He's just like,

Kenny, you opened my mind to this weird fucking world of wrestling that I never saw before in my life.

And I think he just, he can't, he doesn't understand it anymore.

Let me stop it for a moment here.

Are you surprised by what he's saying?

No, no, because he's working.

I can tell in his voice, and he doesn't,

he not only doesn't have that much oomph in his voice when he's speaking from the heart like he was when he was paying more attention to playing a video game and talking about old Rossi,

he's obviously working.

And

the emphasis on the motherfucking,

it's he's doing a promo.

He's doing a promo, and he's basically putting himself over,

saying that he broke the scale.

And then, and from what I'm led to believe by this thing, I think that,

you know, he's probably now insinuating that Uncle Dave has lost his mind because he's actually, when old Will Ostrich has a match, he rates it higher or Will rated higher.

They're all working a goddamn angle about their fucking rating system.

I like this new Kenny Omega gimmick, though, where he just tells the truth.

Let's go back to this.

A few more seconds of this.

And stopped being able to understand.

He can't comprehend what's going on.

I showed, I opened Pandora's box and it's just running rampant now.

That's all it is.

Well, that's the clip.

Michael Makazawa in the background nodding along.

Of course he was.

Michael in the background or in the foreground nodding or bobbing.

But nevertheless, no, he's working.

He's obviously working.

And they're going to work a deal.

When Ostrich gets fucking seven and a half stars or one quarter star more than fucking Kenny

did on something.

That's going to be a bone of contention.

But there's nothing.

Say what you want to about him or not about him or whatever.

But with Kenny,

he's a

breathy douchebag a lot of times, but he doesn't come out and bury some and say harsh things about somebody that he just said about Dave Meltzer.

Oh, he's lost it.

He's fucked up.

He's blown it, whatever the fuck.

And he doesn't do that because he's way too fucking soft to do things like that.

And that's another thing that makes me think that they're working something.

For comparison's sake, from the same stream, here's Kenny talking about his diverticulitis, just so we can compare the way he sounds.

The good news of that is that I was able to get some pre-op

stuff done.

I have a wonderful doctor that I did with fun,

and

he is someone who is

the top,

the top of his field.

and he

as opposed to a proctologist who started at the bottom and stayed there i've got to say even getting a kick out of the things he's been saying lately he's painful to listen to yeah he he just doesn't know how to have but see that's the thing that i'm saying is that he in any time except for that rossi ogawa

uh

monologue that he went on anytime that he criticizes somebody he goes out of his way to mitigate it at the start or to say something positive or just my opinion.

He doesn't just blast people.

He was blasting Dave.

It's a gimmick.

It's a gimmick about they're going to work an angle about the star rating fucking system.

Maybe just between themselves on Twitter, it might not make television, but there will be some fucking bone of contention about who got rated what by who and who's right.

and etc.

And as far as the Rossi Ogawa thing goes, it's important to note I saw in the week after Kenny Omega's comments some pushback, specifically from Fumi Saido, a friend of mine, Japanese historian and journalist, saying that Kenny's off base with all this stuff

and presenting a different side of it.

So, it may be something we need to look into and talk about.

I don't know.

Well,

that's that's a thing also, if anybody wants to do their own research, but

he

was saying these things

thinly veiled, not even opaque, transparent,

and didn't didn't fucking back up that much from it, especially for a noted prevaricator and mitigator like himself, and

was just certain, oh, this shit's going to come out one of these days.

Now, with people saying, no, no, it ain't going to come out because there ain't nothing there.

And those being

people with more experience in Japan than Kenny's had because they're fucking decades older.

How can you come out and say shit like that about a guy if there's nothing there?

and you know what the is the motivation for that this it's very interesting and again we did hear in the past i don't know what ties into what but the four hundred thousand dollar a year girl riho when she was sent to work for stardom they wanted her to beat everyone remember didn't we hear about that a while back when this rossio got when he first left stardom that there were issues with him and aew because of yes awesome because of riho Did he want her doing jobs because Sapporo was too close to fucking Jacksonville or whatever?

Who knows?

Dave Meltzer responded to a tweet asking, Dave, care to comment on Omega's comments about you?

Omega and Osprey are building a feud.

It's part of the angle.

Okay, okay.

So

his

idols and good friends are trying to build a feud for business and he fucking shits on it because it involves knocking him.

He comes out and said, oh, fuck, no, it's all an angle.

I'll tell you right now, it's all an angle.

They'd never say things like that about me if it was real.

So it's all an angle.

I'm going to blow their whole goddamn,

you know, strategy at business here because I don't want anybody to think that criticism of me is legitimate.

Is that what he's saying there?

But what is the angle?

That they're going to create buzz online arguing over who's more deserving of Dave Meltzer's stars?

I think they are.

And if Kenny can't wrestle for a long time because,

again, diverticulitis surgery, he's been alleging.

When is this match supposed to happen that they're building towards?

Well, because that's getting

the thing is, they're getting ostrich ready to carry this banner on.

Because now that fucking O Cody has told Kenny that he's the best bout machine, you know, you just know

that

Japanese and indie wrestling mark-minded people like the people in charge of AEW

are gonna fucking either have Will Ostrich win the AEW title in Wembley Stadium in August or defend it against O Cody.

And now he will be the best bout machine.

And then they're hoping that Kenny will come back by then

with it, hopefully with all of his intestines back in the right place.

And they can fight over who the best bout machine is.

And they may get up to eight, eight and a half stars at that point.

Hide and watch.

Meanwhile, the WWE is going to be over there selling tickets and getting hundreds of millions of dollars from major foreign governments to put on shows.

Well, we will see Osprey versus Omega sometime in 2025.

Maybe Dave Meltz will be sitting front and center like he was in Chicago for Flare versus Steamboat.

And at the end, he could stand up and give both men, the Dave Meltzer clap, the ovation that matters.

Again, it's crazy because what Kenny's saying is true.

And what Kenny's saying is something you hear from a lot of people, a lot of Dave's old friends, quite frankly.

Yeah.

And it's part of an angle for what?

It's part of an angle for a feud that isn't there.

It's part of an angle for nothing that's going to happen on TV.

And again, and at least they're trying to do something to get some controversy or something or other or some talk or whatever.

And Dave comes and shits on it immediately because it would involve him having to, him being shit on.

You know, Dave's fucking lost his mind.

We haven't even heard Ostrich take up for him yet, right?

And Dave, that's all it angle.

The fuck.

Well, there's the latest Kenny Omega news, and we'll see where he goes next on his next video stream.

I don't know if it depends on the game he's playing, the genre of game, or if the stream has a good connection, but he's got a lot of things coming out of his head right now.

Games people play,

right?

You just get.

I'm sorry.

No, no, it's your show.

It's your show.

Is it my show?

Your transitions, your show.

Every now and then I rinse it out.

And I need to be rich tonight.

And I need it more.

Downy rinse fights stubborn odors in just one wash.

When impossible odors get stuck in,

well, do you have any other topics that we should cover here with all of these beefing people and audio before I continue with my show?

I did want to mention a couple of things I've been holding here because we haven't.

Oh, you've been holding there.

Well, I'm always holding, but not a couple of things you've been holding.

Would it be Chip and Dale, your right nut and your left nut?

I didn't have time on the drive-thru to get to some of these topics I've been holding back.

And now I have them here.

There's no more holding them back.

Jim, I have an article here talking about Hulk Hogan.

Hulk Hogan wanted to turn heel against the Ultimate Warrior.

Suggest he pitch Triple H name.

Oh, God.

Yeah.

I saw that.

This is a quote from WWE's Most Wanted Treasures.

Not to knock anybody, but sometimes when you see a new shiny object, stronger, better, faster, you kind of are attracted to that shiny object.

At WrestleMania 6, the Ultimate Warrior showed up, right?

When Vince McMahon asked me to put the Ultimate Warrior over, I said, no problem, brother.

Why are we doing this and where are we going?

He goes, oh, well, I just need to get the belt on him.

He's got some momentum.

If he gets the red and yellow rub, he can really take off.

Oh, good lord.

I go, okay, I get it.

But where are we going?

Vince goes, well, I'm not really sure.

I said, how about this?

I hand him the belt.

Let me get halfway down the aisle, do the slow turn, and come back and crucify him and tell everybody, I'm Triple H.

Hollywood Hulk Hogan, brother.

Oh, you can't be a heel.

I said, yeah, I can.

I was a heel with your dad.

Oh no, you've been a babyface too long.

I was just dying to turn heel and he didn't want me to.

Then after WrestleMania 9 or 10, Vince and I had a talk and he just thought my run was over.

He said, the red and yellow thing, man, we just beat it to death.

I said, I could turn heel.

He goes, nah,

I just think your run's kind of over.

And I went, I don't agree.

So let's stop there.

Was Hulk Hogan going to be the original Triple H?

And what do you think of his version?

Not to even dismiss it outright, but his version of Vince wrapping him up in 93.

Remember, he came back WrestleMania 9.

They gave him the belt against Yokozuna after he took it off Brett, lost it at King of the Ring, and then he was gone.

We never got the heel run there.

We saw what happened with Randy Savage a year later.

Does that sound like what Vince's philosophy was in general with older wrestlers then?

Well,

some yes and some no.

But first of all, I saw this episode.

It was the season premiere of Most Wanted Treasures, which is

where I got the idea that it was mostly regurgitated shit from the other fucking programs.

We got a history of WCW again,

history and quotation marks, and it was a bunch of guys going to look for other guys' fucking tights, right?

But in the middle of this, Hogan was involved.

And yes,

the ridiculous stories,

the only reason there was a triple H ever to begin with is because

Paul Levesque's first gimmick in WWF at the time was Hunter Hearst Helmsley,

the rich, remember he was from, where was he from?

Greenwich, Vince's hometown.

That's right.

And he had kind of the polo pony riding outfit and jacket and the ruffled, and he curtsied.

It was another one of those fucking instant death goddamn gimmicks that Vince was handing out at that time period.

And that's where I

got maligned by some people who didn't listen when Shitstain was saying, well, Cornet never thought Triple H was going to draw any money.

No, that Hunter rehearsed Helmsley wasn't going to draw any money, and he didn't.

And so there was no

not only was it not a Triple H thing to be in the WWF at 92 that Hulk said he had this idea, but Hollywood Hulk Hogan had not been goddamn thought of either

because he was resisting, Hogan was resisting

every effort that anybody had made to turn him heel, including

they had to fucking twist his arm in WCW to finally be the third man in the NWO, did they not?

Am I imagining that that was what happened?

He didn't want to be a heel.

He didn't want to do it.

And then he realized Hall and Nash had a lot of momentum.

And he said, how do I get that?

Suddenly, Hall and Nash were the hottest thing in the company.

And that's what he wanted to be because Hogan was

somewhat of a disappointment to WCW as a babyface past the publicity that they got in terms of gates and houses and etc.

So it's ridiculous.

But he, again, he inserts himself into everything.

He, even when he says, and

Vince wanted me to put Warrior over, I said, no problem, brother.

you'll get the red and yellow rub

no vince was

basically banking on

that the time had come that hogan was worn out somewhat but that warrior

who was even more of vince's bodybuilding fantasy as this superhero character come to life and the face paint and the bullshit

that was going to get over and it was temporary insanity and it did for a period of time

but he was never going to let

a heel

beat hulk hogan it had to be the other fucking babyface right that's how that worked and it didn't involve hogan turning heel because they he didn't want to have hogan and warrior have a program

they had the one match because

I mean, they didn't go back in the houses and do it every goddamn every week for six six months like they do with the other shit because it was a passing of the torch.

And Vince didn't want to traditionally, what they had done is have a heel win and blah, blah, blah.

He didn't want a heel to even beat Hulk Hogan even at that point.

So

Hogan just makes this shit up out of, you know, thin air, depending on what his venue is, what his audience is, and how he can make himself look like

the thing that everything else that you're talking about circulated around, revolved around.

Am I exaggerating here?

No.

Brother, no.

No, brother.

But that's the, you know, and they had him at the beach shop on that program, and he ended up giving Mick Foley a pair of his tights off the wall at the beach shop for $10,000.

And, you know, and talked about how it took him 10 years to win Andre over to be a friend.

And,

you know, just

again, you know,

a lot of the fans are coming around on this now, saying the same thing I've been saying for 20 years.

Hulk Hogan has led an interesting enough life that he could have stories and people would listen to him without him having to be an insufferable, pathological, lying, egomaniac that puts himself in every goddamn thing.

I mean, I'm surprised he wasn't sitting next to Newton and the apple fell on his head.

My favorite is still him, Mr.

T and Michael Jackson hanging out at Wembley.

Like that ever fucking happened.

But anyway, that's more examples of Hulk Hogan.

predicting the future and and every idea he had was great, even the ones that he didn't have or didn't revolve around him.

Well, Jim, a few other quick takes here.

I have an article from, again, a few weeks ago.

I was waiting to do this on a drive-thru.

We haven't had a chance.

Recently, Nikki Bella was on her podcast and mentioned that she was considering reaching out to Tony Kahn.

Kahn was on a podcast, The Battleground, and here was his response to that.

If Nikki Garcia ever wanted to come into AEW, I would be very interested in that.

I think the world of her, I have so much respect for Nicole and Brie.

They're like family to us because Brian is a part of my family.

And that makes Brie and Nicole part of the family.

What about Uncle Johnny Ace, Tony?

I have so much respect for both of them.

And if

Uncle Joe may be moving kind of slow over there at the junction on that one.

I have so much respect for both of them.

And if Nikki was interested in coming to AEW, we would love to have her here anytime.

That was so great to hear.

It means the world.

I just like both of them so much.

I think they're really, really cool and really, really great stars that would add a lot to AEW if they ever wanted to come.

My God, he talks like somebody needs to be chaperoning him in public, doesn't he?

All you need to do is do an interview and say publicly something nice about him or that you would like to work there.

And this is the reaction you get.

Well, besides that, I'm sure she did say that.

Because now look at

the precedent that's been set.

How much money did they pay for Soraya Paige?

And that she's still getting it.

They're not using her.

She's hardly ever there.

You don't see her.

She didn't get over.

She means nothing, but she's getting a lot of money.

Then I direct your attention to Mercedes Moon.

I direct your attention to who at one point, Ruby Soso

was going to be the fucking game changer in the women's wrestling.

He is

Tony Starr, whatever, he's setting up a precedent where if you have

a name now

in the women's division anywhere, they will give you a lot of fucking money.

And if he's heard that Riho

made 400 grand to work like 15 times,

of course, every woman in the business is going to be, yeah, I'd love to work for Tony Khan.

Former AEW world champion Britt Baker responded to the news that Nikki was considering an AEW run.

She posted a clip of her talking about the Bellas.

Here's a quote: Any female wrestler right now, if you can say the Bella twins didn't inspire you in some way, you're lying.

Oh, good lord.

That's an alarming statement.

What did they inspire besides people who want to be on fucking reality shows with their husbands about their goddamn dreary personal lives that we don't give a shit about because we're adult men that want to see wrestling?

Well, that's the AEW Women's Division update.

Maybe we'll see the former Nikki Bellish.

Can't use that name anymore.

Why couldn't Britt Baker say that about Sherry Martell or say that about fucking Medusa?

Hey.

Or say that about...

If Rio's making $400, how much is Britt Baker making?

And when was the last time we actually saw her?

Yeah,

she maybe she shouldn't be running her pie hole at all, calling attention to herself.

She's goddamn out there getting a goddamn check of a choke a fucking horse every week.

New rule, if anyone wants to comment on this from AEW, start by listing your salary and then give us your opinion.

Yeah.

Well, Jim,

one last quick hit here and then we'll move on with your show.

I have something that a listener, Chris Schumann from Beach Grove, Indiana,

sent to us.

It was posted apparently on Reddit.

It is a letter from the State of Indiana Athletic Commission, September 9th, 1974, to Governor Otis Bowen, M.D.

from Mr.

Richard E.

Bosung, the chairman of the State Athletic Commission.

The subject, complaint letters involving brutality in professional wrestling.

The official comment, one, a special meeting will be held with all referees to upgrade their knowledge and understanding of rules.

Emphasis will be placed on the enforcement against the use of salt, fire, tongue depressors, and any foreign material.

Two, members of the commission will be in attendance at as many shows as possible possible to evaluate referees and attempt to correct any errors in their judgment.

We have an unofficial comment from the governor's personal file.

In the years I have been associated with the wrestling shows in this state, the most serious injury was when one of the wrestlers slipped outside of the ring on a wet spot on the floor.

While the events in these letters do happen, All those concerned with the event know what they are doing and how to react to each situation.

No wrestler has ever requested we stop these acts since they are not being injured and these acts help attract crowds to the next event.

I was concerned when I first saw the fire being used.

I did meet with the wrestler who uses it, and he showed me how it is used.

He has used this gimmick in quotes, for the past 13 years in many states, and no injury has resulted.

Trying Trying to define the very thin line between what is permitted and what isn't is most difficult.

The members of the commission will work with the wrestlers to keep violence to a minimum.

Sincerely, Richard E.

Bosung, Chairman.

And we obviously,

the guy that they're talking about, since this letter was written in 1974 and 13 years with the fire, was the chic.

And

in Indiana, I mean, was he

well, but here's the thing.

It could have been, you know, in later years, Evansville and Lawler or the Iron Sheikh in Throwing Fire and down in Evansville, still in Indiana.

But the point is,

what you see every once in a while on Twitter, somebody will

repost a letter to the editor from a newspaper.

And usually it was from the 50s or 60s and the 70s.

There was a number of them.

One here in the newspaper in the Courier Journal, this woman wrote about the barbaric actions of the heels at the convention center wrestling matches that Jerry Jarrett actually wrote a response to.

And I have a copy of it,

you know, defending the business.

But somebody would get upset.

Well, Saul Weingroff used a...

a fireball to, you know, because Saul used to throw fire as a manager of the Von Braunners out of his cane.

Or the sheik would throw a fireball.

Or Dr.

Ken Raimi used ether to drug this poor innocent wrestler and my children were watching on TV.

Or the tongue depressor was

another thing that Ken Raimi used to do.

He'd have it in his medical bag.

But I'm trying to think who would have used a tongue depressor.

In Bruiser's territory in 1974, it may just have been something that, well, as a matter of fact,

handsome Jimmy Valiant, that stick that he would use to poke the fucking guys in the head and fucking get juice.

It was a tongue depressor wrapped in athletic tape.

And it looked pointed.

Anyway, the point is all of these

various foreign objects or acts of violence, every once in a while, somebody would write a letter to the newspaper or make a complaint to the TV station.

And apparently, in this case, the governor or the governor's office

had been apprised of this.

And what they would do is they would go to the state athlete.

Who's in charge of the wrestling?

State Athletic Commission.

Talk to the commissioner.

And then the commissioner has to write a letter to the governor.

Now, the governor of the state of Indiana at that point in time and probably right now to this day probably doesn't give a shit about wrestling or even is smart to the business or how it's done or what goes on.

But the commissioner, especially at the state level, the head guy,

in those days,

Bruiser and Snyder were obviously they were careful with who they confided in.

But if you're the state athletic commissioner, you're based in Indianapolis, you had to know what was going on.

you were supervising the matches.

And the inspector that they had in Evansville in the 70s,

He was a member of the police force or sheriff's department or some type of law enforcement, but he had an idea of

what was going on.

But still, they weren't completely smart to the business.

So they had to convey to the governor or whoever they were responsible for, look, this is part of the show kind of thing.

Nobody gets hurt.

I don't know how they arrange it, but they do it so that there's not a problem, governor.

It's some fucking blue-haired old lady or some, you know, preacher at a goddamn church somewhere or somebody's upset, but there's not a problem with this.

I'd tell you if there was.

That's the kind of

and the commissioner does not want to,

because he doesn't know where that letter is going.

He knows it's in the best interest that wrestling not be exposed in the newspapers as phony and bullshit because they're making money on it.

The more tickets that are sold, the more money the state makes.

So they were wanting to regulate, get their

license fees, get their, you know, the doctor, take the blood pressure, and then basically,

as long as there's not a goddamn issue that people could be raising a legitimate concern, conduct your business, do what you want, and pay us.

That's

what you hoped for in a commission.

And back in the days of the territories when they were that strong, that's usually what you had.

And then you had

every once in a while a crazy commission like Oregon that wanted to just shut that shit down.

Or

the guy in Kentucky, Fred Lampson, gets appointed commissioner, doesn't know what the fuck's going on with wrestling and drives everybody crazy.

But most of the time, the commissions were like,

you know, don't cause fucking problems for us and pay your fucking taxes and you're fine.

The special meeting to help the referees upgrade their knowledge and understanding of rules with enforcement against salt, fire, tongue depressors, and other foreign material.

How did that happen?

Well, and salt was Mitsu Arakawa was a top heel for Bruiser at that point in time, and he threw salt.

How are you going to train those referees?

What was this meeting?

And if the Athletic Commission is at the meeting, are you putting on a show for them?

I mean, is this a work?

No, no, because here's the thing:

the governor ain't going to go to a goddamn training session for pro wrestling referees.

The training session probably was when the fucking commissioner went to the next show at the Expo Center in Indianapolis.

He said, get all the referees together.

All right.

Just watch out.

Keep it.

Don't fucking let people get too upset.

All right.

That type of thing.

And

Evansville was a different territory.

That was at that time, that was Jerry Jarrett's crew coming from Tennessee.

And

maybe they sent a memo to the inspector down in Evansville.

Yeah, tell the referees to watch this kind of shit.

But again, if you told the governor of the state of Indiana, well, it's a different crew in Evansville, we'll have to go down and tell them separately.

He'd go, Different crew?

It's all the same state.

They didn't know.

So this was probably, oh, yeah, we'll take care of it.

And nothing changed.

All right.

Yeah.

Was that loud enough?

At time travel, it sounded like Drew McIntyre at a Grateful Dead concert.

All right.

Well, stay tuned for that artwork.

If his bagpipes were half deflated.

Oh, so he's playing with the Grateful Dead.

Not that he's in the stands matching it.

I don't have any idea what his personal relationship is with the Grateful Dead, but never.

We had to take a brief break, which gave you an opportunity to time travel and use that machinery that you use.

But, Brian, here's the thing.

Have you ever thought about the one thing you got to take with you when you time travel?

What's the one thing you got to take with you when you time travel?

Clean underwear.

Oh, good heaven.

If you're going back to the 1700s, they never washed their underwear.

Penicillin.

No.

Yes, I've done it.

You haven't.

If you're going to 2147,

then they don't even have illness anymore.

They've cured all that shit.

No, the illnesses there are even worse, but they're used to it.

We're not.

It'll kill you right away.

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no he's not trying he well you just said the opposite now you're saying he's trying he's trying to help he's he's trying he's trying to find weak spots he's trying to find the chink in the armor he can't do it even a superhero cannot find the flaws in the mint mobile unlimited high-speed premium gourmet

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That's right.

Once again, what's that promo code, Jim?

JCE.

You don't have to say it like that.

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All right.

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What about, could we sing it?

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Oh,

that kind of

mint mobile.

Is it.com?

Is this going to be the next thing to take off?

You know, fans would chant something, you know, go, Ricky, go, stuff like that.

But eventually it became a chanting audience.

This is awesome.

Is the next phase a singing audience everywhere?

Well, you know, that might be more entertaining because they'd work for them in France.

They may be trendsetters.

You know, the French have always been the trendsetters for all of the Hotsy, Totsy, hoity-toity fashion and things and the gourmet

cooking.

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basses or the basos in the other side and the

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I guess they'd kill everybody.

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It can't be a uniform sound.

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France had their sound, their singers, and now when you go to, you know, Tennessee, different songs, different singers, different tone.

Does that mean when they go to Detroit, they have to chant Motown?

Barry Gordy's notoriously litigious.

He would probably sue the crowd for copyright infringement.

We said sing, not chant.

You see, you're forgetting the whole plot.

Plan.

Well, but we're

singing, chanting.

Can you sing on Mint Mobile's phone plan?

You could do anything.

You can't get out of the spot, but you can sing on the place.

Well, speaking of getting out of the spot and putting someone else on the spot, I understand that Dana White has made some comments lately and that you have

an excerpt of some of those comments and maybe applicable to the overall scheme of things of where the UFC crosses over and meets the WWE.

Yeah, a ton of listeners have sent this over and it was making the rounds on social media.

I think Vince McMahon was trending because of it, or just Vince was trending because of it.

Here's Dana White at a press conference of some magnitude answering a question about a fighter and specifically making WWE appearances.

Again, UFC and WWE are now one

or it's a union.

It's a union formed in holy financial circles.

So let's go to this.

Dana White.

We were talking to Derek Lewis this week, and he had mentioned that he might have been in talks with WWE as well, just to check them out.

In the past, there'd been some wrestlers like Bobby Lashley and Jake Hager that went back and forth between wrestling and fighting in MMA.

Do you think there's a possibility for some UFC guys to go to a pay-per-view and make appearances or compete or anything like that?

Well, I didn't know that, but yeah, I would do anything for Derek Lewis.

I really like Derek Lewis a lot.

And listen,

some of the fighters who fight here, you know,

have always dreamed about doing a, you know, a WWE match or whatever it is.

And yeah, I don't have a problem with that.

I mean, I didn't have a problem with that when Vince was consistently fucking me for no reason.

And, you know, now that that's not the case anymore.

There are lawsuits over that thing.

Maybe you want to rephrase that.

Vince was consistently fucking me for no reason.

I was about to say that, yeah, maybe he should have toned down that statement a little bit, but at least he doesn't appear to be traumatized by it.

Yeah, obviously, he would absolutely do it.

Could we ever see you as like a special guest referee one day?

Me?

Yeah.

That I guarantee you, you will not.

No, never.

Well, he still hates wrestling, but now part of the same family.

What do you think of the comments?

Well, yeah, and honestly,

the story has been told that Vince did.

Fuck him on a couple of occasions, and he's taken it to

heart

in terms of keeping him off television when Vince had the exclusivity or the right to refuse, you know,

waiving that, whatever the case.

But well, Vince did the one thing to help them, which was he gave the network the okay to let them do the ultimate fighter, and then that took off, and then there were problems.

And then he said, I'm not going to make that mistake again because he

Vince had no idea at that time.

You know, we had tried to tell him he didn't give a shit about MMA in general.

The UFC, he looked at as they got big enough to be

not

competition, but comparable.

But

when we had Shamrock and Severn and blah, blah, blah, he didn't want to hear Shane tried.

He didn't want to hear it.

But the thing is, Dana White

has always tried to

also, you can tell publicly, separate what they do from pro wrestling as much as possible because he didn't want people to think that the UFC was a work.

And some people did, or at one times thought that just because of,

you know, why wouldn't it be?

But it, and,

and all the boys at one time when the UFC was first getting, it's a work.

Yeah, man.

I'm not saying it's never, there's never been a gentleman's agreement in between two people.

And Kurt Engel told me when he was in TNA that he talked to Brock and said, hey, we get the chance, we could, you could have one, I could have one, and then fucking, we'll flip a coin on the winner or whatever.

But Dana White didn't want people to think that UFC was predetermined to the point where they discouraged the

promos and the trash talking from most of the guys, the top guys that could pull it off, that didn't get hokey with it, that you could believe, the Chal Sonnens, the Connor McGregors, that,

boom, let them go out and draw money, but he kept a better, tighter grip on his business than wrestling did in just coming out and just letting everybody do every goddamn thing.

But now,

even though he doesn't,

I don't think he likes a wrestling business or wants to be involved in it, obviously.

But he recognizes that not only are they under the same ownership, but he

can potentially either get possibly guys from

wrestling.

Gable Stevenson just flunked out, apparently.

They couldn't make a wrestler, a pro wrestler out of him, but he's the greatest amateur wrestler in the country.

Would that be an avenue?

Go to the UFC.

And he also knows that he can get some of his fighters huge fucking payoffs within the same company

for doing

something they probably want to do anyway, a lot of them.

So he's begrudgingly having to say those things probably not

you know full full-throated endorsement but he he recognizes reality you know in terms of the relationship with the ufc and wwe and the vincer they were the two major players left for pay-per-view and

you know in demand just announced they're shutting down at the end of 2025.

And thank God, what a bullshit company that is.

As someone who worked in Pay-Per-View at one point, what a bullshit.

It's a company owned by the cable companies, set up to be an intermediary you have to work with to get access.

And then they get 10%, let's say, which is going to the people that are taking 50% already.

So it's ridiculous.

Goodbye in demand, but it says something about the major players.

And now look at the state of pay-per-view and the state of streaming.

It's a different animal.

I know a lot of people jumped on Dave Meltzer last week because he said, I guess factually,

that the last WWE pay-per-view backlash was like the least amount of buys for any pay-per-view ever for WWE.

Well, yeah, because I'm the only one.

Yeah, it's a different animal now.

So, I mean, it's a factual statement.

It's just comparing it to any sort of tangible metric because of the changing business models is ridiculous.

The lowest

selling WWE pay-per-view

means nothing when they're not hardly even trying to sell pay-per-views anymore because it's all streaming.

And like I said, I'm the only one because I want it on real goddamn television with a remote control.

It works the way I like it.

But otherwise, how many streamings are they doing?

They're doing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of the streamings.

So if you're...

If you're selling a product and 10% of it or 5% or 2% is one place, but 98% is the other place, don't you kind of total up all the ways that you're selling it somehow?

Yeah, it's going to be really interesting, too,

with the Netflix deal when that goes into effect, the fact that they're still on Peacock because

they are competitors competing for now live entertainment.

You know, Netflix has live stuff.

They had a Cat Williams comedy special last week that was great.

They had the Roast of Tom Brady.

You know, they're getting into live events on these platforms, and WWE is going to be on two of them at a time where everything is now getting consolidated again.

It's like that Jim Gaffigan joke is coming true.

It's coming true.

Why don't we just bundle all these streaming services together and we'll call it cable?

It's not going to be on TV.

It's not going to be cable like that.

It'll be streaming, but everything's going to be bundled together.

They're about to do Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max.

Where is the WWE network historic content going to end up being available to people or will it?

And they're premium live live events.

Again, they're on Peacock right now and the archive's on Peacock.

Netflix is getting live raw.

At what point is Netflix going to say we want a premium live event?

I'm just worried that they've got the entire goddamn history practically of, as we've mentioned before, the entire history of wrestling that's still on tape.

90% of it is in their mountain somewhere.

And,

you know, is some point in the near future coming where you got to fucking break in and do a heist movie to fucking see any of it.

Yeah, I mean, they don't care about history.

They never have.

They more than likely never will.

I mean, they pretend they do because they like to buy things and then sit on them, but they really don't.

But I think a lot of that stuff will live.

But a lot of traders, old tape traders, a lot of people who have files and stuff, a lot of the stuff lives on.

It won't go away.

The stuff that's out there, at least.

But I guess that's the state of things with Dana White, WWE, and

the way it is now.

Let's talk about the way it was then.

Well, because

someone has historic footage in their collection that has never been given up and

probably never shall.

I'm sitting on it right here.

I've got my own mountain.

And they had some of the vintage footage on the rivals program that we're catching up on this.

It was last weekend, but

it was two names near and dear to my heart, John Cena versus Batista, the old OVW class.

And this is another one, Brian, where this was,

oh, God, did I jot down a fucking day?

2005-ish, 2006-ish, 2007, 8.

I'd never seen any of this.

Really?

Because

I had goddamn, right about

late 2004, early 2005, I think it was, I determined if I watched any more WWE, I was going to hate fucking wrestling business so bad I couldn't do my job here in OVW.

I wouldn't want to look at them

because of all the,

you know, goofy gimmicks that they had given my guys and the, you know,

careers that they had shortened, and then having to deal with our friend John Laryngitis and his smarmy attitude on the phone.

I quit watching the pro.

When was Katie Vick?

Oh, that was like 2003, maybe 2002, 2003.

Something that's that started it.

And by 2004, 2004, I was about, ah.

But anyway, so I didn't see a lot of this

stuff as it happened.

But

I jotted down that

I had the greatest fucking Undertaker rival gimmick since Kane, and they made him Devon Stooge with a fucking box hanging around his neck.

And I had who at the time I thought was the next

fucking Ric Flair, and they made him a goddamn goofy, fucking

bland babyface.

I wasn't voting for the white rapper, but at least it gave him some oomph past the

impeccably clean tights he always had.

Hey, real quick before you get going with this, as you're talking about this, and we all know about the disappointments you had and wrestling fans had with the way OVW wrestlers were brought up to the main roster.

Of course, there are some that really made it, there's a lot that should have.

When Leviathan became Deacon Batista,

and John John Cena just went up there.

Where were you with that?

Were you already disappointed multiple times?

Or was it fresh and new?

Like

you didn't know they were going to screw up everyone yet?

When did JR step away from talent relations and Laurenitis start?

Oh, it's just like that.

That evening.

Probably about that time.

It was noticeable.

But here was the thing.

In 2002 is where they first, I believe 2002, is where they started both of these guys, and

they phased them in with house show matches, dark matches, etc.

So from the time that they left OVW until the time that they showed up on TV, there was some gap of time.

But the point is,

a lot of people have,

you know,

waxed poetic about the OVW class of 2002 or 2003 or this,

you know, talent or that talent.

And when you go back and look at these rivals or retrospectives, you realize that with the exception of Brock Lesnar, who was bulletproof in that regard,

every time they brought one of these fucking superstars, and Orton, because he had the genealogy,

every time they brought one of these major stars into their company from OVW, they downgraded their gimmick.

They gave them something less than what they'd been doing in developmental or something blander or something goofier or whatever the case.

It wasn't just that class.

It was almost everybody.

And then

the story in some of these programs is, I had to find my way, find who I really was.

You know, I was on my last legs.

They were going to cut,

goddamn, you you were halfway there before you fucking went up there.

And they fucked everybody up.

That's what I was going crazy.

If they had just turned Leviathan into Batista straight away, the fucking monster with the one name and he's hanging out with the top guys, okay.

All right, but though, they made him a flunky for Devon Dudley with a fucking half of a suit jacket on and carrying a box around his neck.

It was sabotage.

That's what I got pissed off about.

With John Cena,

he was the prototype.

I didn't name him that.

That was his gimmick in California when he first got into business, had 10 matches or whatever.

But when they say he's coming in, he's the prototype of the perfect wrestler.

This is his gimmick.

Okay, let's run with that.

And he was a heel, and he did incredible promos.

And his

cardio and his athleticism was unmatched.

And his dedication, he was mentally focused.

We've said it a million times.

His work was good.

And

as a heel leading the match, I believe would have gotten better because everybody always knocked John's work

until he got over as such a big star that then he couldn't do anything dangerous and they didn't want him to.

But he would have gotten over as a top guy either way

because he had all the tools and he was an adult adult and knew how to apply them.

But when they brought him in without any

thought whatsoever,

they're going to send him out there to announce he's John Cena and he has ruthless aggression and fucking slap.

It was Kurt, right?

Yeah, I think so.

But then there he is, and they said in this program.

Then he's a babyface named John Cena that nobody's ever heard of before.

He looks great, but he's going out in the colors of

the local sports team because that was John's thing even before he came to OVW.

He had as many boots and fucking immaculate tights as he could possibly find.

And they didn't have a goddamn plan from the start.

And they were going to waver on him, and maybe, you know, he ain't going to make it.

And Stephanie hears him rap on the fucking plane.

And suddenly it's like it's a goddamn revelation

that here is this guy who physically and

verbally and psychologically gets the wrestling business and is progressing incredibly

and

is mature and able to handle his fucking business.

He's going to be a star now because he can rap.

They're about to cut him beforehand.

But suddenly he can rap, so we'll keep him.

What fucking horse shit.

I mean, do you see what I'm saying?

It's like that was a revelation to them that maybe we can get something out of this guy when we'd seen from day one in Louisville.

This is the fucking guy out of the bunch of them.

Jesus Christ.

He was younger than Batista.

He was smarter and more dedicated and more mature than Brock Lesnar.

He cut a better promo than Shelton Benjamin.

Shelton had everybody blown away on athletic ability, and he was also a great human being.

But I mean,

of all of the class, Cena had everything if you wanted to apply it to pro wrestling.

And then you look at Batista and you go, what the fuck?

How in the world can we not make money with this?

But it's got, I told him.

Two months in, I said, you're never going to be taking arm drags in the first match.

You got to be a main event fucking guy or you ain't going to make it at all.

Because of the way he looked, he could not be a preliminary fucking talent.

What's the first thing they did?

Made him a preliminary talent.

You telling me that Batista as Leviathan was less green than Jade Cargill,

right?

But at the same time, you see Jade Cargill.

She started late.

She's not a natural, but she looks like a million dollars.

Produce her

and make her a superhero.

And don't let her go out there and do 30 minutes with Serena Deeb and Technical Classic.

It's the same fucking principle.

So they made him a flunky.

That's anyway.

That's my bitch and bone of contention:

is that

the guys that were

going to be stars

no matter what, Cena, Batista, Lesnar, Orton,

they were able to battle through it.

But a lot of the guys that, you know, didn't have that surefire fucking thing, but could have been,

well, they showed footage of Doug Basham in the ring at OVW training John Cena and Batista because he was a better worker, telling them what to fucking do.

But a lot of the other guys weren't bulletproof in terms of genealogy or

physique or, you know, whatever.

And they didn't get the opportunity to overcome the bad, stupid fucking gimmicks.

Batista overcame being the stooge when he started working out with Triple H.

And they kind of actually said that when

they became friends and, you know, etc.

But the thing about Batista was, I think it was revealed in this episode also,

he wasn't an interesting person.

To me, he had to be a gimmick.

He looked like the greatest gimmick in the world.

But as he, I think his own words were,

you know, he was an introvert.

He liked to sit in the corner and be quiet.

He didn't go up and shake hands or talk.

He was fucking boring.

So he needed a gimmick.

And then later on they gave him kind of a gimmick and then they made him kind of like james bond with the suits or whatever but he never wanted to be himself

whereas cena

didn't really want to be anybody but himself

so they were opposite people but the one

when somebody's in wrestling school training

developing, whatever,

if you're sitting over in a fucking corner and you're not a personality and you're doing what you're asked to do but you're not

at least coming up even with stupid shit you're allowed to come up with stupid when you can be shot down by your coaches right and

taught why

if you're just sitting there you're you're not impressing anybody if you're not fucking talking to the boys if you're not fucking telling jokes if you're not fucking well i guess none of nobody does that anymore now they all sit around and look at their fucking phones But 20, 25 years ago, if you weren't coming in

goddamn performing in some fashion, story, goddamn hoo-ha, whatever the fuck,

people, he's boring.

He's never going to get anywhere.

Does this make any sense, Brian?

It makes sense.

That's the one thing, like you said, Batista started hanging out with Triple H and all of a sudden, started seeing things philosophically very different.

And he's a guy that kind of has put down his OVW time over the years at various points.

I guess thinking that he was going to be stuck as Leviathan forever and he never would have learned anything.

Is that what the inference would be?

Well, that's that's the inference.

He was learning how to make money, but he couldn't realize it.

And we said this.

I'm not going to take off on, you know, knocking Batista on this program, but that was the

difference is now

he came back once, right, to do it, but he, we analyzed this, the timeframe on the show one time.

When I saw him, I said, at this age

and, you know, this late start, he's not a natural.

He looks like a million dollars.

Undertaker, same thing we thought, Kane, same thing we thought as some of the other fucking monsters.

Undertaker, natural rival.

And you can get five to seven years out of this guy as a pay-per-view attraction, as a main event fucking heel, whatever.

And we did the math.

And even though he didn't keep the gimmick,

the time he was in WWE,

minus time off for injury, because I mentioned he was injury prone,

he actually got like a fucking five and a half, six year run,

which is pretty much what I predicted because.

You could tell.

And again, you can't just move that guy down the fucking card and have him doing jobs in the second match.

You can't keep him on as a permanent field hand like they did poor Dolph Ziggler.

You know,

so

at any rate, you got a quiet guy, doesn't express himself, is not pitching in, is not really motivated.

You make him a gimmick and you shoot for, he can work with Undertaker, he can work with Kane, he can work with Big Show at the time and a few others.

And there's your five years you can get some money out of the guy.

They did it a different way and they got money out of the guy for five or six years.

Anyway, Brian Gerwitz sounds and looks like the epitome of one of these weasel fucking writers they started getting about that time, doesn't he?

He looks like the kind of guy that would be carrying around a bottle filled with piss.

I guarantee you that if it had been five years earlier that he came along, he would have been my Russo and I would have snatched him around the neck because I can tell that he has no knowledge of how fucking frog-like and minuscule he really looks.

And that's another one of the problems we never talk about with all the Dwayne Johnson stuff of him putting all his stooges in place.

Gewarts is now all over these documentaries like Bruce Pritchard always was.

Well, and at least Bruce's

Bruce's face would fill a screen up, right?

Boy, Bruce's face would fill a screen up.

Gerwitz just his bug eyes is the only thing you look at.

But anyway, so we talked about my problems with writers and goofy gimmicks, and that I think that Cena would have definitely gotten over on his talent work ethic, no matter what.

I saw him, to be honest, as he is now.

He's wearing the suits, he's got the jewelry on, he's a great promo, he has a glass of fine crystal and scotch in it, or whatever.

I saw him as the next generation Ric Flair when he was the prototype.

But nevertheless,

so at one point,

they

you tell me, Brian, is this legitimate?

They said when they were the final two in the 2005 Royal Rumble,

then they both went over together.

They're claiming that that wasn't the spot.

And god damn it, I'll tell you what, it looked kind of fucked up that if they meant to do it that way, they lucked out.

But was that an accident?

I don't know.

Because that's 20 years ago.

I didn't know whether you might remember.

It's 20 years ago.

It's a long time ago.

Because Gerwitz said it wasn't written in the script.

Here's another reason I hate this jock sniffing little prick.

If you use the word script, that is a surefire test that you don't belong in and never should have been allowed into the wrestling business.

If you use the word script,

I would scream at people in fucking training class about about that.

You would think Gerwitz has been elevated to his position.

He'd know that by now.

But

it looked like they overbalanced on a thing.

I don't know.

So then they came out and restarted the match and then,

you know, did their regular finish.

I'd be interested in getting anybody else's input on that as to, but it

again, it did look like, I don't know if they could have done that on purpose, but nevertheless,

then they end up both of them being the world champion at the same time because they had the 20 years ago, WrestleMania 20, 2005, they still had been doing the brand split.

So they had two champions, but they were trying to paint the picture

that, you know, these guys had risen to be in the top of their respective shows.

Again, it just, to me, it just highlights how dumb it is when they have

one guy winning a world title and another guy winning another world title on the same fucking show.

And then it takes until 2008, three years later, that they ever actually goddamn wrestle each other.

But nevertheless,

the PG era began and Cena became the never give up babyface.

And they said, Batista, not so much.

And Gerwitz said he wasn't PG.

And Batista said he didn't, this was a quote.

he didn't want to be flashy and entertaining

see that is the and again earlier i'm an introvert i didn't want to be around anybody i wanted to crawl under a rock and hide

those were quotes from him and cena is an extrovert

You could have him do anything.

You could send him to the goddamn local news.

You could send him to the charity hospital.

You could send him to the maternity hospital.

Whatever the fuck.

I think they got Batista over in spite of himself now that I'm dwelling on this.

But anyway, so by what was it, Mania 2010?

I was actually there in Phoenix for the Ring of Honor weekend and went to the heart attack grill, but I never saw that WrestleMania.

Cena won.

They had a rematch in the next month in a last man standing match and Cena duct taped him and won.

That was fucking hilarious.

I don't know if I would have done it to a monster like that, but

they told a story.

Batista didn't like the creative and decided to be an actor and quit the WWE.

So they had the I quit match, and Cena gave him an attitude adjustment through the stage to write him out of the.

Have you noticed that

if a rivalry or a feud or a famous incident happened before 2005, the highlights are of matches.

But by the time you get to 2010, every highlight

involves cruelty to furniture or cars.

Someone getting thrown off the stage.

That's right.

That's what it became.

I will say, you know,

towards the end,

and you always wonder when a wrestler knows that they're finishing up mentally,

where are they?

I found Batista's character kept getting stronger and stronger, almost like he was just going to do his thing, and it was working.

He was such a different kind of character on there, this big muscled-up guy in skinny jeans, and then he was just gone, and then he was just gone.

And he's a good actor, he's been good in the movies I've seen him in.

Well, that's and I think that's the thing is that he wants to be somebody else because he doesn't like to be the center of attention as himself.

And Cena or Rock,

they're the opposite guys in that they have to be themselves in almost everything because

their personalities are big.

So it's two ways of looking, two opposite directions of looking at the same thing through the middle,

as Mama Cornette never said.

Well, that was WWE Rivals.

What a rivalry it was.

Are they out of rivalries now to talk about?

No, no, we got.

I'm about to watch Flare versus Dusty and see see what they do with that one we didn't see that one already that's the new one no that's a brand new one it was just on just as before we traveled through time it was on last night

so we'll talk about that this week on the experience or on the drive-thru or what program is this what day is this this is the experience Oh, well, what an experience it is.

So we'll talk about it on the drive-thru this week.

Or the experience.

Or, or, well, where, well, goddamn it.

You don't want to talk about it?

I got to make sure I have time to watch it.

Well, what else are you going to be doing with your time?

I'll tell you how you can save some time.

Okay.

Do you know how long it takes you?

Whenever you get up in the morning and you do your personal grooming, you've got to go find a rusty bottle cap or a fucking butter knife and smack it against a rock a couple of times and try to scrape all the hair off your face for the day.

You know, that takes a long time, 30, 45 minutes.

Doesn't it happen like that for you, Brian?

Is this why your face always looks so raw?

Yeah, because I didn't know about Harry's until recently.

Because our friends at Harry's can shave you.

That's right.

They won't do that.

They won't do that.

But they can help you get the supplies you need.

Actually, if you're nice enough to Harry, from what I understand, he will come over.

But nevertheless, they can save you a lot of time and a lot of money with your shaving routine because they've got all the tools that you need.

You don't have to just go around out in a backyard and try to find a sharp object.

They've got the professional stuff that does it right.

They've got the ergonomically designed handle for the razor that is topped with five blades that are made specifically in some goddamn country.

Somewhere, I'm trying to remember.

Where are they?

Are these German engineered?

Yes, indeed they are.

Well,

the type is small.

I knew it was from somewhere over in one of those countries where they're fucking badasses and they'll goddamn fuck you up if you get in the way.

These are sharp ass German engineered blades.

They stay sharp longer, made in their own razor blade factory.

And boy, I'll tell you what.

They're sharper than a serpent's tooth.

And you get them on that weighted ergonomic handle by Harry Ergo.

and you put some of that foaming shaved gel on your face.

You take off the travel cover so you don't slice yourself on those incredibly sharp German blades.

And then you scrape all, and scrape is too

bourgeois a word.

You gently remove all of the hair off your face.

It's like it's falling off.

It's like it's just...

It's leaping to its early demise off your face because the blades are so sharp, the foam is so gel,

and the goddamn handle is so ergonomic.

It's like you're waving your hand in front of your face and instantly you're slicker than come on a gold tooth.

And what does it take?

A 90 seconds, two minutes, boom.

Depends on your hand-to-eye coordination.

And Brian, you know the best part of this whole thing?

The trial set, where you can trial this out and you can make sure, ladies and gentlemen, that what I'm saying to you is nothing but the gospel truth here today.

The trial set normally costs $13 for the razor and the blades and the gel and the cover.

But

right now, if you go to Harry's, that's H-A-R-R-Y-S noapostrophe.com slash JCE, what's that promo code again, Jim?

JCE,

you're going to get that travel set or trial set that you can travel with across state lines if you want to.

No man-act involvement whatsoever.

You're going to get it for only $3.

Now, Brian, put that in your pipe and smoke it.

All right.

Can we take a break?

I don't mean right now.

My bong?

Can I use my bong?

You can, but you can burn and combust anything you want to, but not until I finish telling the fine people about how fine the Harry's products are.

And

they've got the highest customer satisfaction in the shaving industry.

Now, can you, you know, you see people all the time.

They're on the local news.

They're in the hospital laid up in a hospital bed with stitches across their throat because of a shaving accident at one of these low-class shaving places.

You know the kind.

They're next to the all-night wicker stores.

And

there's nothing like that at Harry's because the gel makes you sadagum slick.

And the razor blades, even though they're sharp it's a safety razor apparatus you're not going to cut the carotid

you're not going to you're not going to cut any arteries or capillaries on your face you're just going to get rid of that no-good hair that disgusting matted stench ridden hair hanging off your entire visage will be removed for only three dollars for this trial set And you can use this trial set umpteen of times because the blades stay sharper longer.

And if you like it, no risk tried.

Don't like your shave?

You don't worry about it.

Folks, it's on them.

They'll come back to your house and put that hair right back on your face and you'll never know it was missing.

They're not coming to your house.

Well, how else are they going to put the hair back on?

They're going to send it to you, make you do it yourself.

I think not.

These are classy people.

Once the hair is gone, it's gone.

It will not be reattached.

Let's make sure we firmly state that for legal reasons.

Are you saying it won't grow back either?

I'm saying it will grow back unless you have some sort of condition, but the hair that you cut off your face with the five blades of sharp German steel from Harry's, that hair cannot be reapplied.

Oh, or what?

Well,

then, before you get this trial set, shave with something else and save that hair just in case, and you might have to put that back on.

But anyway, folks, once again, go to Harry's.com/slash JCE $3 trial set:

the blade, the handle,

the gel, the cover.

Then you can subscribe.

They'll send it to you all the time.

You'll stay slicker than whale shit in an ice flow.

Harry's.

It's Harry's.

That's who you ought to remember.

Harry, I'm just wild about Harry's, and Harry's wild about me.

All right, once again, Harry's promo.

And also, they have richly lathering, skin-softening body wash and scents like redwood, wildlands, and stones.

So if you'd like to smell like a tree, a field, or a rock,

they can help you out with that too.

And extra strength.

High-quality, amazing-smelling deodorant, just $5.

Comes in a mason jar.

All right, once again, Harry's.

What's the promo code, Jim, and the website?

Harry's.com promo code slash JCE.

Well, Brian, what in the wide, wide world of sports is going on at the Arcadian Vanguard Network this fine week?

Another fine week on the Arcadian Vanguard Podcast Network.

Thank you for asking that fine question.

Get information about all the shows on Twitter at Super Podcasts or on Facebook.

Facebook.com/slash Arcadian Vanguard.

Of course, every day, the wrestling news.

Get your free morning wrestling newscast directly from the wrestling news.

You can trust what you get from the wrestling news.

No opinion, no conjecture, just the wrestling news.

No penicillin.

Well, maybe sometimes, depending on the topic, but get that penicillin, your daily wrestling penicillin from the wrestling news.

Directly from thewrestlingnews.com or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

Look for Arcadia Vanguard's The Wrestling News.

Want to make mention of Shut Up and Wrestle with Brian Solomon, some great recent episodes, including Brad Beluchian, who was on this show not too long ago, talking about the six-pack.

Upcoming episode, classic audio, never before heard, Brian talking to Roddy Piper.

So hear that, S-U-A-W-Pod.com, or Shut Up at Wrestle with Brian Solomon, wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

And of course, the 605 Super Podcast, the

membership.

What was that?

That was my brain exploding.

Oh, well, go through the archive today.

It's 605pod.com.

Explode your brain.

Go through the archive of one of the greatest bodies of work ever in wrestling audio, the 605 Super Podcast.

More to come.

The mothership.

If you do so humbly say so yourself.

I only tell the truth.

Well, speaking of telling the truth, let's wind this program up with the

recap of SmackDown on May the 10th, Friday night, May the 10th, the Smacketh was layeth down

on Wilkes-Bury.

They were sold out in Wilkes-Burry, Pennsylvania.

What the what is it?

How about Wartburg for a fucking pay-per-view?

What

this is getting ridiculous, isn't it?

These and

again, this program kind of bears out what I said last week or two weeks ago or whenever.

They don't have to do anything now.

They just don't fuck up.

Do not majorly fuck up.

And

they're cruising.

They're farting through silk.

These people are happy as clams for these programs to sit in that audience at these ticket prices and parking and crowds and arena hot dogs.

And they don't get a lot, but they get to look at and listen to the big stars.

And there's a few matches that happen in between.

This is a winning formula, apparently.

Do you think any of that changes once it's not on network TV?

I know it's a weird question because it's still WWE.

It's them, not really Fox, that's popular, but still it's a network TV show.

Do you think any of that changes?

And if it's not on Friday nights.

Well, but not because it's still going to be on USA and their crowds are bat shit too at raw.

Except for the other night and where was it?

Hartford?

They were on lithium or whatever.

But that's Connecticut.

Connecticut doesn't count.

Well, that's what I'm saying.

But, you know, again, they just,

they don't have to do anything except not fuck up.

And there's nothing on these programs where people are saying,

well, this is some fucking minor league horseshit.

Everything looks like a billion dollars.

And they got the stars.

And there's.

Remember a few years ago, we could

rattle off chapter and verse on stuff that was just really fucking stupid and childish and they've even made gable quit going shoosh

so

of course now on the other hand not a lot of earth shaking shit happens but you know we've come to expect that

anyway the the opening segment was nick aldiss in the ring introducing cody he does his entrance for three minutes the crowd goes batshit

and they plug the king of the that's it's the king and queen of the ring,

it's king of the ring.

Does anybody give two shits who the queen of the ring is?

But you know, Jesus, apparently,

what is your problem if this

queen of the ring show?

I'm sick and tired of it.

We're gonna have an elimination chamber and the women, a royal rumble, and the women, a fucking,

you know, 12-man gang bang and the women.

I don't know why you went there.

No, we're not.

But anyway,

I just want

everybody to have their own match or night or event or whatever instead of goddamn every time that men do something, the women have to do it on the same show.

And then we have to look at two of them.

Because then it just waters down both.

Anyway.

Explain this to me, Brian, because this was said, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how they're going to work it.

Because Aldous says, well, Cody, now that you're here,

I'd like you to meet your next challenger in Saudi Arabia to King of the Ring.

And they play the music and out comes Logan Paul.

And they said champion versus champion.

And

when they were doing the promo, They're holding up both belts.

That can't be for both belts, but they gave the impression it was.

Or was I I just mistaken?

No, they gave the impression that both belts were on the line, which is puzzling to begin with.

It's really puzzling considering the shows in Saudi Arabia.

It's a U.S.

champion.

Well, Logan, they like Logan Paul

in Saudi Arabia because he's a big social media guy.

Maybe he had the match with Roman there in Saudi Arabia, didn't he?

He's had several big matches in Saudi Arabia.

But the question is, how are they going to

Cody doesn't need the U.S.

title?

They don't want to unify those titles.

And how are they going to get away with Logan Paul not losing this match?

There are two options.

One, you could do something they haven't done in a while, just an old school screw job for the fans, but people used to not care, and then they did.

Double countout, double disqualification, whatever it may be.

Or

you put the belt on Logan Paul.

But they ain't going to do that.

I don't think so.

But but then again i i will say and i'm not comparing one thing to the other but i was always surprised in 98 how quickly they got the belt off austin after beating sean michaels for it you know he didn't need the belt i'm not saying cody is steve austin but no well the but the the whole thing cody needs the belt because this is the whole point is that he now won the belt And I'm not saying he needs to hold it for, you know, Bruno levels, but he, I don't think he needs to lose it in two months.

But, and I'm not saying he will or he should, but we're just talking this out.

Yes.

But should it be a Dusty-like situation?

Or is it automatically where Cody is better chasing

and having shorter runs and getting fucked over?

Dusty was always getting fucked over.

He always had a grievance that the fans felt.

And if Cody got fucked over by Logan Paul in Saudi Arabia, who jumped on a jet and went back home with with the belt.

There's something for Cody to be pissed about, something.

Or something for many people to be pissed about.

I guess so.

I'm just because

otherwise you're beating Logan Paul, and that makes no sense.

He's the U.S.

champion.

Why are you beating him again?

And they made it sound like it was title for, they said title for title, didn't they?

Yeah, they said champion versus champion.

And Cody made the remark, well, I've never held that.

There was some remark made that they wanted each other's belt, but,

and Logan Paul even said he's the star of the WWE.

He wants to kick off the Logan Paul Levesque era.

Great line.

Yes, I'm interested in this match.

They did a great promo.

The whole thing about is it belt versus belt or is it just champion versus champion

was presented in a confusing way.

And yeah, that's what Cody said, if I win your U.S.

title, I'll be the Grand Slam champion.

Well,

they were talking about a title-for-title match.

That's what the whole thing was.

So, I don't, I'm intrigued about seeing them wrestle.

And Cody,

in Saudi Arabia, at King of the Ring, he can beat Logan Paul, and it doesn't hurt Logan Paul, even though Logan Paul is a U.S.

champion, but not with the U.S.

title on the line.

Bingo.

So, I don't know what the fuck is going on here.

And I wrote at the bottom this, how are they going to get out of this?

But we got to monitor this situation.

Maybe.

Which one of Logan Paul's friends will be dressed as a bottle on this pay-per-view?

That's how they'll get out of it.

But you know, then, but they're not going to beat Cody.

Are they going to

be cube?

I'm saying I agree.

I don't think they will.

I was presenting a scenario where they could.

I don't think they will.

So that means he has to beat Logan Paul either by pinfall or by a screw job finish, which

will the Saudi Arabia fans react negatively to a screw job finish or will they just understand that's part of the wrestling event?

What if they do the old deal where Cody beats the bottle?

The bottle tries to interfere and Cody jerks him in and covers him and the referee counts and he beats the bottle.

I think only if the bottle was a bigger star than the people that have been, like if the bottle was revealed to be Randy Orton or something, you know, just well, and I suppose somebody out there is going to Cornette's serious.

No, I'm not.

But

we will find out, hopefully, between now and the actual event, we'll get a clarification on the title situation and who's going to win what if who wins who or beats who.

He said, I'm going to pin you on the prime bottle in the middle of the ring.

Yeah.

Logan Paul is a great fucking promo and what a talent he is becoming.

And I'm not opposed to the match because, like I said, he's such an asshole and he can talk so well.

You can beat him at a world title match and

he would still have the U.S.

title and he could still brag and blah, blah, blah.

I don't know what's going on here.

And then how do you get the U.S.

title off of Cody if he wins it?

Because if you beat him, you're beating the world champion.

Well, the other question is, is Logan Paul ever going to be full-time or is it still going to be him just sweeping in and sweeping out?

You know, it's almost like the Roman Reigns schedule, maybe not as drastic as that, where he's just gone for months at a time.

Isn't that like an old song, like sweeping out and sweeping in?

But that's the thing.

He shows up before a big Saudi event.

You always know he's going to show up in the weeks before that and set up a match, before WrestleMania, Royal Rumble.

But is he going to be there week in and week out on that TV show?

Well,

that is another question we're going to have to him.

Maybe he just might need to get his little butt whooped if he ain't going to put the time in and grind and grind like our friend Ostrich grinding.

Hey, real quick before you move on, any thoughts at all on the dynamic between Cody and Nick Aldiss at the start?

Yeah, well, Nick,

he is the

Adam Pierce is the genial, friendly, helpful, honest, faithful general manager.

While you can tell Nick Aldiss is the one that is probably out for his own selfish, ulterior motives in some cases and is

all all business and doesn't care what happens to anybody.

So

I think there's got to be a little tension amongst the world champion and the guy running the show, but

they're not making Aldous the full-fledged heel like Vince was, where he's just doing outrageous,

slanted or biased things.

And if they don't do that, then they won't fall in the same trap they were before, where, you know, the company was just always the heel.

And it can be more about Aldous's personality and

that way they can throw some wrinkles into various things because that's something Aldous would do, right?

But it not making the whole company look fucking crooked.

Yeah.

Well, I'm glad you gave that a full-throated endorsement.

I think Aldous is doing a great job, but there's always that little dynamic where...

Yeah.

Is he on someone's side?

Does he have an agenda?

What is his purpose?

what what is guiding him

the something and again there's always a history you know there's a history with him and cody there's something something in the way he moves

keep going let's hear the next lyric yes that's all right keep going let me hear the next lyrics

he excites me like no other general manager

something

all righty so then we got to the highlight of the night It came early.

The queen of the ring is having their qualifying matches also, and the first round

was Naomi versus the refrigerator.

Did you say this is the highlight of the night?

This was the highlight of the night for me.

Because remember I said, you know,

AEW is the place where all the unprofessional shit and the minor league shit and the goofy shit and the stuff where people say, oh, it just doesn't make any sense shit happens.

But everyone, this is still live TV, and every once in a while, there's things you just can't control.

And

I couldn't look away from this match.

I started watching it because

with the refrigerator in town,

you never know what she's going to do.

I'm not a big Naomi fan, but the refrigerator jacks, let's see how this starts.

And

from the beginning,

they were fumbling and staggering and sloppy like they were trying to run in pudding.

Everything either looked weak or fake or off.

They were running past each.

At one point,

old refrigerator Jax just kind of palmed Naomi behind her and walked off in the other direction.

I'm like, do they even know what they're doing?

And then,

within seconds seconds of the opening bell to compound all of this naomi was having a wardrobe malfunction

i don't know whether this is the first time she'd ever worn new this new outfit or whatever

but every time she moved every time she moved

because if you move

you're gonna tug at your top again

She hit a moonsault at one point and the screen went black for two seconds because they were

trying not to shoot nipple on network television, apparently.

Oh, is that why it went black?

You know, it happens at random times in SmackDown.

You never really know what the cause is.

No, well, usually it's profanity.

But in this case, it was...

It was so profane that the image went black.

I mean, what the hell?

It was the Oreola of

the thing.

And they struggled to get to the top for Naomi to hurricane Rana

her off the top rope, and the screen went black again because there was more adjustment.

And then

at one point, finally, they're going to the finish, and Naomi hits a super kick and pulls her top up, and hits another super kick and pulls her top up.

And then the refrigerator stops her and picks her up and gives her a power bomb.

And when Naomi lands on the power bomb, what does she do?

She pulls her top up.

She tugging that left side in.

And finally,

Jax hit the bonsai drop one, two, three to

put this thing to an end.

But it was just,

it was every time that Naomi would move, she'd have to pull her,

adjust her business up there, or they would get

the two seconds of black screen from the guy with his finger on the fucking button over at Master Control.

But at least the refrigerator advances in the Queen of the Ring tournament.

And apparently,

Naomi's tights will not advance to be worn again, at least on television.

I like Naomi.

I think she's good.

Well, there you go.

Now, has that changed your opinion because of her wardrobe malfunction or what's going on?

Well, I've always thought she was good, especially when she glows in the dark and she's moving all over the place.

It makes you want to glow in the dark and run around and move all over the place.

Move all over the place.

I like it.

I think, you know, she gets people to want to really get up and just move all over the place.

Just get up and move.

Glow.

Everyone just wants to feel like they have the glow.

When you got the glow, you really know.

So, I mean, yeah, she's good.

How low can you go with this glow?

How low?

So, in you go.

All right.

We saw an old friend come back.

Baron von Corbin is back.

He's on SmackDown now.

And

I've got to put it, I've got to give the devil his due.

We have,

you liked him when he was happy or sad or when he was a bum or when he was a king.

When he was a bum, those were some of the best vignettes of the late Vince era.

Are you trying to kill Vince now?

The late Vince.

Well, there's the early Vince era.

There's the mid Vince era.

There's the billionaire Vince era.

Then there's the late Vince, like the old man

who is just fucking all over the place, era.

It was a very good year.

But anyway, I didn't like Baron von Corbin.

Besides the fact that he looked like Baron von Raschke, he had nothing else going for him.

He was pale.

He was a shits.

His gimmicks were the shits.

I didn't like nothing, right?

His name didn't even have Von.

It was just Baron Corbin.

Well, he looks like Baron von Raschke, so I think he's Baron von Corbin.

But the thing is, now

he's been in NXT.

Whatever he's been doing, he's lost weight.

He's got

a bit of a tan.

He's got different gear on.

He looks better.

And his work here, I loved it.

I thought he was working hard and his shit was good.

And

it's a King of the Ring blah, blah, blah qualifier with Carmelo Hayes,

who is second time I've seen him now, the number three draft pick.

We took the piss out of their draft choices last week.

But

besides the fact that Corbin has improved,

he's got a foot in height on Hayes and 50 pounds in weight, even though he's trimmed down.

And his work looks better.

And Carmelo Hayes, again, is the second time I've seen him.

He looks like he's auditioning for a breakdancing contest.

And so,

meanwhile, I wrote, while Corbin has dropped all the goofy gimmicks and looks better than he ever has, Carmelo Hayes pins him with a small package, one, two, three.

Well, remember when we couldn't get Corbin off our television and he was actually winning sometimes and beating people, and he was rotten.

Now I'd like to see him used.

And he's putting over midgets with small packages.

What do they see in Carmelo Hayes that you do not see in any 10 guys in AEW right now?

I was about to say, you really hate this Carmelo Hayes, don't you?

It's not that I, but here's the thing.

You're blowing your own fucking business.

They concoct this draft and they execute it half-ass, but a number three pick, that should have been Braun Breaker.

Because then you've got a guy that can carry the fucking ball as being the next big thing, the next Brock Lesnar, number three draft pick over Drew McIntyre, over CM Punk, over this name and that name and the other name.

And it's believable and it would elevate that guy.

But instead, you make this guy the number three draft pick and people expect to see something.

And what I'm seeing is

any 10 guys in AEW, he just does the shit probably sharper than they do.

But it's this springing and leaping off the ropes and the flying about.

and he's tiny and he's generic.

If he was a number 12 draft pick, I'd give him a lot more chance, but

they put him where they put him.

He don't blow you away the first time you see him.

Brawnbreaker does.

Or apparently the second time you see him.

Or the second time.

No, pretty soon I'm going to ask him to blow me, period.

Stop asking people to blow you?

Well, sooner or later, somebody will say yes.

Are you that desperate?

No, I'm just wondering.

Anyway, so that was Hayes and Corbin, but I want to see some more Baron Corbin.

Do you want to see any more Baron Corbin?

Yeah, I mean, we'll see where this goes.

Maybe he'll become a bum again.

I'm open to seeing where this goes.

I didn't really watch this match too closely.

I hate to say it, but Carmelo Hayes has not impressed me too much so far.

But we'll see what happens.

Again, a lot of people are high on him,

A lot of people are high.

And I like being high.

So I'm trying to see it, but

I'm giving it some time.

It's so high you can't get over it.

So low you can't get under it.

And so wide you can't get around it.

Okay, what's the next match?

One nation under a groove, getting down just for the funk of it.

One nation and we're going to move.

Nothing can stop us now, now, now, now, now, now, now, hey.

Do you like the stuff before that?

Do you like maggot brain?

I'm okay with it.

I liked funkadelic more than I liked Parliament,

to be quite honest.

You like funk more than you like that brand of.

I like the funk more than the horns.

All right, anyway.

Randy Orton

never been the king of the ring, never got a dinner.

For all of you Dean Martin Roast fans out there.

And he promised tonight, or is there going to be an RKO out of nowhere on AJ Styles?

And then, Tomatonga, you're in the other bracket, but we're going to meet because of what you did to my friend Kevin Owens last week.

That's what Randy Orton said.

And then we got another queen of the ring qualifier.

with Jade Cargill versus Piper Niven.

And Brian, you admit it, admit it.

You thought this would be the female train wreck of the evening.

I did not think it would be a train wreck.

I thought it would go short, but I would have bet on this being a bigger train wreck than the Naomi-Nia Jax match in advance, and I thought it was the exact opposite.

Well, and you were wrong because Naomi and Jax

you had every right to think it was a train wreck because of the, or would be a train wreck because of the refrigerator's involvement, but maybe

they may have been able to pull it off if Naomi hadn't had her

Brazier malfunction.

But I knew with they're not going to put Jade in here for 15 minutes against anybody, much less Piper, who

Jade can move a lot of the women around

because she's bigger and stronger

effortlessly enough to where there's a margin for error if she's going to pick somebody up.

With Piper,

she couldn't do that.

I'm not knocking Piper,

but they had to have more of a big girl, big girl, shoulder tackle,

shoulder tackle elementary kind of match that was laid out.

Piper's a veteran.

She's been doing this a while.

So

they kept it short.

Nobody fell out of the ring accidentally.

And Jade, the only thing that they're going to remember is that she won with her finish.

And the announcer, wow, she'll never get the jaded on her.

And she got her up for that.

So this was,

you know, I don't think they had to have seven girls matches on this same goddamn show.

But if they had to have one, I'm glad they had this one because you're getting Jade Cargill over and that's the project now.

But no, they got through this thing without

without anybody's clothes falling off.

And they're doing a good job of protecting Jade, building her up.

The fans are into her.

She's got great music.

And she appears to be trying hard.

Her selling's getting better.

I noticed that.

Yeah, the entrance.

You got that going for her.

But, you know, if they can get her, if she can get enough time and work with the right people to get to another level.

It's going to be something when her and Bianca turn on each other.

Whoever's Wyndham, whoever's Luger, whoever whoever does the turn,

it's going to be something.

They better make Bianca the heel.

Because I don't know.

Jade's not going to be ready to lead.

Well, that's what I was thinking, too, especially because Jade just came in there building her up as a babyface.

Maybe it's time for Bianca to be a heel.

That's why I said it depends on who's who in the situation.

Well, I think they got to run as a team till next year, don't they?

Maybe make it a WrestleMania match.

Yeah, I'm not saying it has to happen right away, but again.

Well, I thought you meant next week.

No, no, no, no, no.

Not right away, but let's see how the bracketing works out for the Queen of the Ring.

Let's see that.

By the way, it's interesting crowning a Queen of the Ring in Saudi Arabia, but you know,

WWE is in the business of selling the rights to content and getting a lot of money for it.

The time is now.

Develop a show that is all women.

Sell it to one of the many people looking for content, even if it doesn't go for a ton.

That's fine.

It would help in the long run for everything they're trying to do.

And that was one of my thoughts on this.

Give us a break, right?

But it could be the best thing for women's wrestling.

Give that a chance to develop as opposed to just being the stuff slotted in between the main stuff, which is what it too often comes across as.

Well, and as a matter of fact, the very next match was another Queen of the Ring qualifier with Bianca

against Candy LaRue.

And no, I wrote, this is becoming a rib at this point.

This is the third girls match in an hour and a half.

So I skipped.

Bianca won, obviously.

But

did I miss anything?

It was fine for what it was.

She kicked the shit out of Candice LeRae.

Indy Hartwell cheated on her behalf.

They're still together from the old days where they all lived in an apartment together in NXT on TV.

And

yeah, it was fine for what it was.

But again, what's did they put up brackets?

And I missed it when I was fast-forwarding through things.

Did they actually show brackets?

They had brackets.

So where's Bianca and where's Jade?

I don't know.

Okay.

Hey, I'm not even

sold on having a queen of the ring, as you'll recall from a few minutes ago, much less I'm going to study the brackets.

But you know what?

I am going to study the interpersonal relationships between the bloodline because now we got

a little story advancement here because,

and they didn't even have to come out in front of the people.

That's another thing.

It's like they can just do important bloodline interviews in the back.

But Solo and both of the Tongas

are there, Tonga, Loa, and Tama Tonga.

And Paul E comes in and says, hey,

can I talk to Solo alone?

And he's like, I'm Roman's wise man and you're making decisions around here.

And Solo said, hey,

Solo's pissed because they were drafted in round three.

Paul took Roman out of the draft.

Are you trying to take food away from my kids?

Are you dealing with my brother Jay?

And Paul's all

verklimped.

And Solo said, you haven't spoken to Roman since WrestleMania, right?

That's right.

Well, I have.

So now,

unless he is telling a big fib, Brian, Solo is in contact with Roman and Paul is not.

And we know that we can believe that Paul isn't because of the way he let it slip that he wasn't, that he didn't mean to let that slip.

But the question is: can we trust Solo?

Because Solo says, I've talked to Roman, and until he comes back, I'm in charge and you're my wise man.

Whoa.

And then he hugs Paul and tells him he loves him and gives the over-the-shoulder look to Tomatonga like, I'm going to fuck this guy up.

So what do we got going on here?

I mean, I would think Solo is lying to Paul just to get Paul as an asset on his side.

Just to get Paul's ass on his side.

And then eventually Roman Reigns will reappear, get a massive babyface pop.

They're already starting to chant, We Want Roman.

You're starting to hear that in segments featuring the Bloodline.

The question becomes,

you know, who else gets tied into this?

Jacob Fatu is someone everyone's still waiting on.

Based on the way things are going, I don't know how he fits in with Solo's group.

We'll see.

It would be quite numerous at this point.

It would have been that one.

If Roman Reigns needed some backup to take down Haku's sons

and his

thumb heavy nephew or cousin.

Thumb heavy nephew.

Whatever his tape thumb.

Why doesn't everyone just go out there with a tape thumb?

He's going to need backup.

And again, if he goes to the Usos, why would the Usos help him?

And maybe that's a story.

Roman has nowhere to turn.

Who could he turn to?

Maybe this is taking too many weeks to play out as I'm booking it.

You're on the show.

I was about to say,

I'll call the craziest, the craziest in my family, the one you all know you're afraid of.

Somehow make Jacob Fatu crazier than the way you've made Tamatanga so far.

Well, that wouldn't actually be hard.

There's nobody that comes off the aura of Jacob Fatu on that television program.

As long as they don't clean him up or fucking calm him down.

But anyway, that's, you know,

Paul really is going for that Emmy now, I think.

Well, well you know and and also he's hired his own makeup artist you can tell that what

well it's it's a thick my god you you could almost stick a needle in paul's face and it wouldn't ever draw blood because the thickness of the makeup at least he's not orange like he was in wcw

that's because they had lesser quality makeup people

they got our they got artists working on paul now to get to make him look like a living human being they it's a lot of work.

Here we go again.

Anyway, he was great in this segment.

He was absolutely fabulous in this thing.

And I can't wait to see.

And when they've got to build, we can't know that Roman Reigns is going to come back.

They shouldn't advertise it.

It should be a surprise, and they've got to build a moment where

Some important fucking crossroads comes up in the bloodline's fucking path and right as they're about to decide which side to take here comes fucking Roman the place will fucking come unglued if Roman comes out to save Heyman is Heyman at a point now where he could be sympathetic in the ring about to get beaten by Solo and the Tonga brothers and if Roman came out Can't really go back to his music because it's long and dramatic.

It's like when the guys do the run-ins to the music, it really wouldn't work for Roman Reigns.

Yeah, yeah.

But if Roman Reigns appeared at that moment to save Paul Heyman, would that work?

I think it would.

And of Corey, you could still have Paul be Paul and not change his stripes, but

obviously go with the guy that can do the most damage to the people that are trying to get to him.

So it, it.

It could be interesting.

We'll see what happens.

I'm just, I'm wanting my Jacob.

And then we had another King of the Ring match with Daryl Dawkins of the Street Prophets, along with Montez Ford and BFAB.

Bobby Lashley is apparently hurt now.

In training.

What's the injury?

I didn't see what the injury was.

To look at him, apparently, it's goddamn, somebody ran over him with a car.

How does that beast get hurt?

And in training,

they didn't say what the injury was.

I have no idea.

Because he was in training.

I wasn't even there.

But so Dawkins filled in against Tama Tonga with Paul and the bloodline, and Tomatonga won fairly quickly.

And then Solo

spiked the babyface afterwards because he's like that.

And Ned, Pretty Odvy, do you have any other comments to make on this outing?

Just in general, not just the backstage segments, the Zen Ring moments, sometimes called matches.

What are your thoughts on Solo in this role so far?

And what are your thoughts on really haven't seen Tonga Tongoloa too much, but Tamatonga since he's debuted.

Again, he's someone who's really been elevated.

He was in New Japan for a long time.

I don't think anyone ever thought he would get an opportunity like this.

And he's really run with it.

So, what do you think?

Yeah,

his work looks good.

He's got emotion and aggression and etc.

I'm liking Tamatonga.

I don't know that he could be the guy to speak for this group now, or that Solo needs to be the guy to speak for this group now.

Even if they got Solo over

as the

master of the Samoan spike and the dangerous guy and a blah, blah, blah, he still doesn't look like the leader to me.

He looks

the leader, meaning the leader of this group or the guy that needs to be the leader of any group.

And I know they're dressing him up and I'm not knocking him, but he's still new.

And I just, I don't know.

The hired thug within the group was, you know, was fine.

I don't know about the guy that's going to take over in the fans' eyes or take over the bloodline group in the storyline for Roman fucking reigns with 10 years of history behind him.

So we'll see.

But I think that's a story.

In a way, it elevates solo a little bit.

And obviously, it can't go on forever.

If it does,

you you know, it'll have to really take, and so far it has, but you have to think it's kind of a short-term thing leading to something to further the overall Bloodline story.

I just wish there was.

It looks like a group of three guys that are mostly equal in size and,

you know, level in

perception with the fan.

But I think that's kind of the

story.

That's kind of the gimmick in a way.

It's that Solo

is taking this all

on his own.

He's not asking for anyone's advice.

He's just making moves like a young guy probably shouldn't, unless he's got juice.

And eventually someone's going to have to put him in check because he's still a young guy doing it.

So it works in that way.

It's not like he's a natural leader.

It's not like the rock leading this thing right now.

So I'm okay with that aspect of it for Solo.

I wish he was stronger verbally.

Let's put it that way.

Can you imagine what MJF could do

if he was...

If he was Samoan?

Well, no, I'm saying if he was suddenly, if he was in a group where the top guy in the group had been the top guy in the business for the past several years, and all of a sudden that guy is gone and MJF gets to break out from under that shadow, that type of thing,

that would work.

It's not a perfect comparison, but Triple H after Shawn Michaels left at WrestleMania, whatever, in 1998.

All of a sudden, he was the leader of DX.

And, you know, there was no looking back from that point.

And it ended up working in the end for him.

It worked really well for him.

Yeah, yeah, it did.

And again, he'd been there in the mix and on top for a couple of years.

He's a foot taller than Solo.

He's significantly more physically impressive and could fucking talk and would talk incessantly back in those days, Triple H.

But nevertheless, we'll see what happens here.

But then it was time for our main event, Brian, that we've been waiting for all night long, AJ Styles versus Randy Orton, the King of the Ring qualifier.

And

Orton has promised an RKO out of nowhere.

AJ has promised he wants to get even, get back into King of the Ring and win that to get back at Cody because that was bullshit, what happened.

And,

you know, say what

this was, something else is going to go on with AJ Styles, apparently, because you would think he was too big of a name to get knocked out in the first qualifying round on a free TV match.

Coming off losing at the pay-per-view.

Coming off losing at the pay-per-view.

Something's...

Something's going to go on with him, and they got him out of this to do that, maybe.

But they rang the bell to start the match.

They did one spot and they went to break in 30 seconds.

And so they came back.

And I mean, it was AJ Styles versus Randy Orton.

The crowd was hot.

Both guys are over.

Their work is fine.

They had a good match.

AJ looks like Lex Luger these days.

He's fucking immense physically.

And AJ got heat on Orton's leg and Orton did a great job selling it.

But this wasn't,

this was a high-quality TV Randy Orton versus AJ Styles match, but it didn't do anything to change the course of the wrestling business's history.

And finally,

AJ hit the forearm, made a cover.

Orton got the ropes.

AJ goes for the Styles clash, and Orton hits the RKO out of nowhere.

One, two, three.

Simple finishes.

They don't obviously require cooperation from both guys for extended periods of time, like you'll see on the other channel.

They don't go too far and lose the fucking plot.

It is what it is.

And that's what, and nobody,

the heel got beat and didn't jump up and kick the shit out of the babyface for once, and they went off the air.

So that was, that was pretty much that.

Yeah, fine match other than the commercial breaks, which

kill everything on this show and you have to wonder what they're going to do with aj two big losses in a row he's wearing all black now

i mean he's already a heel i don't know why i guess i'm just used to him always having colors he's wearing all black and

he's going deeper and darker within his own persona and he's as jacked up as he's ever been yes

I don't know how he can do the flying shit still at that thickness, but he's amazing athletically.

Yeah.

And that was SmackDown.

And that certainly was.

And again, you know, they're selling out.

Everything's setting records.

Everybody's a star.

And they're just doing the shit that makes sense and just enough to get by.

And I guess you can't fucking argue with it right now, since we know it could be much worse by what we have to watch on Wednesday nights.

You know, for years you had wrestling on Saturday mornings here in New York and Sunday mornings, and it was squash matches.

And

every year for sweeps, you got like three weeks or four weeks of like matches between people that mattered, and you got local promos.

But I watched every week.

You know, there's something to be said for the fact that they're doing it in a modern way because it's not overtly squash matches.

Everything's kind of competitive.

But the show is not bland,

but just kind of floating at the surface.

And then they ride a big wave and then they let it come down and they kind of build it up again.

And you just kind of hang there waiting for things to happen.

It's working right now.

It used to work.

Again, squash matches, but this is kind of the modern version of that, what they're doing on SmackDown now.

And then, you know, the other folks' answer is to

do everything that everybody possibly can do where you can't even remember it after the two hours is over with, which is more detrimental to your overall business business than doing nothing, which is why that one side's setting records and the other side's sucking pond water.

Yeah.

But just something to think about.

When are we going to think again to the people out loud?

We will be thinking to the people again out loud on the drive-thru in a few days, and we'll have lots of fun and all the fun.

you could handle.

And maybe even a bear.

And until then, folks, we are done for now.

Thank you for hanging there with us.

Now you're free to drop down and strut off.

Thank you.

Fuck you.

Bye-bye, everybody.