Episode 527: Jim Reviews WrestleMania XL

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APU built for the hustle.

Like a midnight and the rock and roller.

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

He's Jim Cornette.

The keys to the future, held by the past.

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

He's Jim Cornet.

Well, he's never fake a phony.

He never backs down from a fight.

He never wins the pony.

Cause his mama raised him right.

It's time

to prepare

your mind.

Get the experience.

Get the experience.

Get the experience of Jim Cornette.

Hello again, everybody, and welcome to the extra special Super Duper Scooby-Doobie edition of the WrestleMania Weekend Jim Cornette Experience.

Hello again, boy.

We're going to have fun today if I don't bleed to death first.

And joining me,

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

Co-host to you.

With all the big shake-ups in the world of wrestling, he feels the earth move under his feet.

The great Brian Last, everybody.

Aloha, Jim.

A pleasure to be here once again.

There's so much to talk about.

Just when you think you can go to bed, more happens.

This wild world of pro wrestling here during Super Bowl weekend, WrestleMania XL.

Oh, yeah, XL.

You know what?

Here's the thing.

More can happen, and I'm still going to bed.

I think I'm going to go to bed in the middle of this program.

In the last on a Helix sleep mattress, ladies and gentlemen, after having some CB distillery.

No, I'm going to sleep on a Helix mattress next week, according to our schedule, but I will have some CBD this week later on in the program.

However, hopefully some THC by the time we get finished with it.

Here's the dadgum deal, Brian.

I'm too old for this shit.

I don't...

I take back all...

I mean, Heyman looks...

morbidly obese and disgusting in every way, but he's still got more energy than I do.

He's there live doing all this shit.

I've just watched it and I'm tired out.

I'm having health issues here over this.

I've over wrestling overdose is what's happened here.

Between yesterday at noon and today at noon, and we are

right now, right after noon on the Sunday after the first night of WrestleMania, when we're talking right now,

in 24 hours, I've watched like 12 hours of wrestling.

I've eaten and slept and pooped

and watched more and changed pins.

And that's pretty much all I've done for a 24-hour period.

These people, the fans are there live.

How do they have the energy?

Especially last night for WrestleMania.

And we'll talk about crowd energy when we review the show, but that energy and that weather.

To be outside in that weather for five hours, six hours.

And also, I'm pissed off.

It's colder in Louisville than it is in Philadelphia.

It was fucking freezing again yesterday morning, but nevertheless, so today I get up.

I can't stay up.

It's four fucking, I couldn't stay up until midnight after I've watched all that shit.

I figure I'll be able to zip through the packages and the plugs if I get up on Sunday morning and watch Saturday night's WrestleMania.

And between that and trying to take a poop and trying to get Harley to take a poop,

And in this crazy weather, I'm dripping, I'm snotty, I blow my nose, I get a daggum nosebleed.

It could have been my heart about to burst with an overdose of the raslin.

And then I had to delay recording here some half an hour or more so that I could finish bleed.

I may begin gushing blood again.

At any point, you know, I've always had the touchy nose.

The nose will bleed, especially in certain weathers or conditions, but it hasn't that often in my old age.

It used to when I was young and apparently had undiagnosed high blood pressure.

But

now it's still with it.

The pollen's out and then it's freezing and then it's hot and it's dry

and a boom.

So any moment you could hear sirens, I could be rushed to the local medical facility.

We're going to try to do this program anyway.

So I am at a lot of sleep.

I'm grumpy and I'm weak from blood loss.

Let's get started.

What's new with you?

Did you have a fucking earthquake?

Oh, yeah, we did.

We had an earthquake.

We had aftershocks.

It was crazy.

Have you ever been in an earthquake?

Like one,

one time we had an earthquake here when I was a kid, and I was in bed asleep, and my mom was yelling, Jimmy, there's an earthquake.

And I kind of woke up.

It felt like the magic fingers in the hotel and the beds back in those days.

And then it was over with.

So I kind of slept through that.

I don't think I've had any others, but what

was this snappy tappy likes the magic fingers you hear this well you know you had those for a quarter you could go to dreamland back in those days baby yeah or playland

which which well you know it depends on this

i got on one of those things that a day's in in like hopkinsville kentucky and as soon as i put the

goddamn quarter in and turned the deal, the fucking motor fell out of the bottom of the bed and on the ground.

And then it was just going

making a noise.

I couldn't shut it off.

But what did they have?

Was it a damage full, a panic full,

a noticeable?

How strong was your quake?

It was pretty crazy because, you know, we've had small ones in the past.

I think they said that like 1.6 or whatever on the Richter scale.

Like when I was a kid, I remember when I was like five playing with my toys, and it was a minor shake, very minor, but I remember it.

It's happened a few other times.

This was 4.8.

The epicenter was within 15 miles of my house.

And I was on the deck.

There was a lot going on.

I had been working for hours.

I woke up at like six that morning.

I was smoking my morning joint.

And all of a sudden.

Oh, now, kids don't try that at home.

What kids?

Who's listening to this show?

Adults try that at home.

So I'm there on my deck doing this.

And I hear like, it almost sounds like a mix between thunder and like the biggest recycling truck ever just hit the street.

My daughter said, she was at the school, it sounded like a plane was about to crash into the building.

You never hear that, you know, here on the East Coast.

We don't experience it like they do in California.

Just how loud it is.

Everything shook and it was as loud as anything I had heard in a while.

On the ring camera, I was able to watch the reaction of everyone in the house.

The cleaning woman lost her mind.

Suzanne went running from one side of the house to the other with Swami right behind her.

But

it was crazy.

And then you have to inspect everything.

And then we had some aftershocks.

Weird.

You know, we always talk about these weird weather patterns.

We're now getting 4.8 magnitude earthquakes on the East Coast.

Yes.

And

immediately following my tornadoes, and now tomorrow, as we sit here and speak on April 8th, we got the lunar eclipse coming up.

So we can't blame that one on climate change, but, you know, that's a regularly scheduled event that we just happen to be around for in our particular lifetime at this juncture.

But Brian, you know what?

We need to do about this, though, don't we?

We need to get back to church.

What?

You saw what Marjorie Treason Green said on Twitter, don't you?

I didn't, and I'm Jewish, so I don't go to church.

Well, that's the point.

She said,

God is sending earthquakes and lunar eclipses to get America to repent.

Why can't God send me a Mets win?

No, no, no.

She said this seriously.

This was not a joke.

This was an official statement from an elected representative of ours in Congress.

So just not to get on a soapbox, but for anybody who can't understand why I cannot take Republican voters or Republican politicians seriously, even above and beyond the Trump criminal lunatic thing.

She said that.

Like

she skipped third grade science class.

And

it's not climate change.

It's not

the astronomical bodies doing their regular thing.

It's God's mad at us because we ain't going to church.

So he popped this up.

You know, he must have known with a couple hundred years' advance notice on the eclipse, I think.

You know, the thing is, this isn't John Denver working at the grocery store.

You have to ask yourself if God, whoever you believe God is, whatever you believe God is, if God chose to communicate with earthlings, if God chose someone to help him get his message out, would it be this person?

You have to ask yourself that no matter what you believe, if God said, I need to let everyone know who they're going to turn to, are they going to turn to this person to relay the message?

That's what you have to ask yourself.

Yes, you do.

But anyway, I want to turn to another person real quickly, and then I I got something to test your

wits about you here today.

But

I got an email from Danny, who is apparently from,

he says, across the pond in Stockton-on-Tees, near Middlesbrough in the northeast.

And that's not a bro like the shitstain bro.

It's B-R-O-U-G-H.

So that's Middlesbrough

guest there, isn't it?

Or how do they say that?

What's his name, Danny?

Danny.

That's That's easier to say.

What did he have to say?

Well, he's from Stockton-on-Tees.

He says,

I wish we had a guy like Stephen P.

New to fight for the little men in the UK.

My little man, Adam, was born 10 years ago.

He was eight weeks premature and was extremely swollen at birth to a point his lungs wouldn't open.

Oh, my God.

And he didn't breathe for 15 minutes.

And this resulted in

brain damage, damage, cerebral palsy brain damage, which was totally avoidable had the hospital followed correct procedure and done some scans.

So maybe Stephen needs to open a branch out in that direction.

But he has a

certain type of syndrome, I won't try to pronounce it, and autism as a result.

We were told he would never walk or talk.

Fast forward 10 years, he does both of those things.

And like me, is a massive wrestling fan.

And like you, he's a mama's boy who loves tennis.

His favorite wrestler is the Iron Sheik because when I started his wrestling education, the first match I showed him was Hogan winning his first title.

But he saw through Hogan's bullshit straight away and started rooting for the chic and calling him Sheiky Baby.

I want to thank you and Brian for helping me through the last few years.

Looking forward to your podcast is a real positive in my life.

Adam's mom often walks in at a point you are mid-advertisement and gets a real kick out of seeing what you'll say next.

But anyway, don't encourage him.

No, as they, well, come on now.

We're helping the people here.

But anyway, they have hard days caring for their beloved boy Adam and his sister Alice.

But Jacqueline and Danny, we want to give you a shout out.

Great job on Adam.

And he sounds like he's doing fantastic and he has exceeded the doctor's expectations.

So I wanted to bring that up.

Somebody exceeds some expectations around here in the world, at least.

That's really nice.

Nice letter.

And we apologize, the show will get better in the future.

How bad has it sucked in the past?

What are you trying to come out and say here?

We can only get better.

Are you talking about this one?

We just started it.

We're laboring under handicaps to begin with.

I think we have to look on the positives.

Things will get better here with the show.

We could drop that one we do every week or so that you host.

Might get better.

Hey,

it's a very popular show.

There are dozens of people that like it.

Anyway,

I've got an email here from Jeff, and he wants to

change the parameters of Guest the Program is what he wants to do because he has sent a clipping.

And he wants you, Brian, he wants me to read it.

You know, normally we play Guess the Program on your show, at least that's the fun part of it.

You read a lineup and I have to try to guess the location and the date, right?

Well, he wants to change the parameters here where I read you a clipping

and you have to guess the location and the date of guess the wreck, guess the car accident.

How's that sound?

I didn't know we were working for Jeff now.

Who the hell is this Jeff guy sending new parameters?

Sticking up your ass, Jeff.

He's a friend of mine, and he's come up with some parameters.

He's a friend.

Now it changes everything.

Yeah, yeah, he's a good, close, personal friend.

Listen to this now.

Tell me where this was and when it was.

Professional wrestler Tommy Wildfire Rich has been found guilty in municipal court on a reduced charge stemming from a March 30th auto accident.

Rich 26 of Jonesboro, Georgia, entered a no-contest plea Wednesday afternoon to a charge of failure to control.

He was originally charged with operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated.

City prosecutor Craig Mayton asked the court to reduce the charge because the evidence did not support the original citation.

Apparently, Mayton said a blood test revealed Rich's blood alcohol level was 0.062%,

which is below the 0.1% level set by state law.

It's an imposter.

As being intoxicated.

Well, I'm thinking that this was Tommy in just his normal walking around mode.

And now they have lowered the limits to 0.8 most places, but he was still under that.

But in his normal...

Hey, I'm fine.

I can walk straight line.

Well, hold on.

Hold on about that comment.

But now, in addition, Maiden said the test concluded that Rich was not taking any other drugs at the time.

so they must have caught him on a good day.

But Maiton said the investigating state trooper reported Rich had some problems with balance.

The prosecutor said he was informed that Rich does have an ear problem, which affects his balance.

But apparently, the accident occurred while Rich and fellow wrestler Tony Atlas, 28 of California, were returning to this place after a wrestling match in the other place.

Atlas was hospitalized for three days at Grady Memorial Hospital with minor injuries received in the mishap.

Wow.

Rich's attorney said the accident occurred in Kingston Township when a tire blew out.

The car went out of control and flipped over in the median strip.

And Judge Taylor fined Rich $25 on the reduced charge.

$25.

Yes.

But now was the, here was the kicker.

Jeff in his email said, my dad brought Tony Atlas in for an independent show years later.

He asked Atlas about this accident.

You know where you and Tommy Rich flipped over the median and you wound up in the hospital.

And Tony indicated that he'd have to be more specific.

Oh, wow.

But

what were we just talking about here recently?

What were we just talking about?

That's a loaded question.

We do four hours a couple times a week what do you mean what were we just talking about remember when they were talking about the rental car and should we damage the rental car and i said what did i say i said tommy rich

when they started doing the ohio towns the story i got was that he wrecked so many of the rental cars they wouldn't rent to the wrestlers anymore well this was columbus ohio they were returning from a wrestling match in akron

in 1982, which is when they had opened up.

Well, there was my guess.

Yes.

Well, you didn't want to play anyway.

I was going to guess 82, but I wouldn't have guessed.

I would have guessed either Georgia or Ohio.

I didn't know for sure.

Yeah, but they were returning to Columbus after a match in Akron, and I guarantee you that was a rental car that ended up upside down in the median.

So

maybe not the first time.

No, I would think that was because they had opened up really in 81.

They started going up there, didn't they?

Or did they?

We have someone trying to make a claim.

They said that they flipped their car over in a median and it threw a passenger out named Tony Atlas.

No, we already did that one last week.

No, this is a new one.

Yeah, no.

Same guys.

Same guy.

He went out the side this time instead of through the windshield.

Why would you get in a car with him again?

It's like, it's not like the thing where the plane crash won't happen twice to the same person.

So sitting next to Flair makes you safe.

After Tony Rich goes into his first ditch or flips over the median, why would you ever go in a car with him again?

Well, no, but

Buddy Landell, most of the time I loved him.

Most of the time I loved him.

Sometimes, you know, it was it was hard.

But when we first went to Louisiana, it was the four of us, me and Bobby and Buddy and Dennis, that would rotate each, every four days, a new guy's car, right, is what I'm trying to say, rotate to drive it.

And you'd pay.

Whoever was riding with a guy in his car, you'd pay him trance.

It was 10 cents a mile, I believe.

Or was it 5 cents?

5, 10 cents, whatever.

Anyway,

so Buddy Landell was the worst, most distracted driver and just paid no attention and would talk and would look in the mirror and comb his hair and do whatever he was doing and speed or be aggressive or just any trait that you could possibly not want in your person driving your car, Buddy had it.

And finally, he made me so nervous.

And I'm trying to think now

what the breaking point was where I just said, Buddy,

I can't ride with you anymore.

And I just told him, I said,

you know, because Dennis is like, no, he's supposed to drive one out of each of these four days, right?

That was a big deal back in those days.

You do your share of driving.

And Dennis didn't want to let him off that easy.

I'm like, well, I will drive myself when you guys are riding with Buddy, right?

Because fuck it, I can't do it anymore.

It makes me too nervous.

And the first week that I started that policy, I went to fucking Jackson, Mississippi.

And I left earlier than they did.

But when I got there, I sat down in the locker room.

And then in came,

God damn it, it was Carl Ferge.

Maybe Carl Ferge and Pat Rose, maybe, or whatever the point is.

They had come from Alexandria also.

and had been driving down a road about 50 miles out of Alexandria.

And they looked over and saw a car off the side of the road down a hill in a bunch of fucking mud.

And there was God, and Dundee was in the car, too.

It was Dundee.

And

in the mud, knee deep was Bobby Eaton, Dennis Condry, and Buddy Landale.

His car is off the fucking, he slid off the road.

I can't even remember what car.

He caused it by not.

being an attentive driver, but they're in the goddamn mud, right in the muck, in the Louisiana bayou.

And they said,

Help us out of here.

And he said, Fuck you.

We can't get, they wouldn't let them in the car in their condition with all the mud and everything where they'd got out of the car.

And it's all, they said, Well, call ahead.

So they called somebody.

Fucking at the next town, they got the goddamn gas station, whatever.

I can't remember the details because obviously I wasn't even there.

But they were like an hour late by the time they got out of there and got cleaned off and got somebody to fucking drag their car.

And the car wasn't disabled.

It just needed to be drunk out and got back on the road.

And that was the first fucking trip that Buddy was captain of their ship without me.

As I said, pretty soon it became Buddy ended up just riding with one of the three of us.

There was a story way back on the show I told.

That I had heard from Buddy Landell himself about Buddy crashing into

about butchering hitting buddy's car and then buddy said his eye flew out and then you said where did you hear that story that's not what happened i said buddy land that was who i heard it from is when did that happen that was later on that summer that was that summer i know it was 84 but was it in the summer okay because when well when buddy first buddy we were like the first ones to come from memphis as you'll recall and then i said the rock and roll got there and then buddy showed up about the same time So we'd already been there for a little while and then Buddy got there and they were just using him, you know, in the the middle or whatever.

And he was riding with us to help us fight our way back from the ring in some of these towns.

But then

Dundee got the idea of Butch and Buddy being a thing, and

that was later on toward the summer.

So, Butch and Buddy started either riding together a lot or if they would follow each other, if Butch because Butch still lived in Baton Rouge, 120 miles from Alexandria.

So

basically, but Butch took over Buddy Watch.

And, you know, we had the three of us in a car at that point.

And that's when Buddy's car wreck started involving Butch.

And yet,

Butch ran into Buddy only because Buddy just rear-ended at a dead fucking, well, I say a dead run.

He was going like 25 miles an hour through Bunky, Louisiana, on the main street through Bunky with stoplights and traffic and goddamn, you know, the stores are open.

And he saw, I think the story was, he saw a pretty girl on the sidewalk and grabbed his hairbrush and was brushing his hair at her and not looking in front of him when a light changed.

Somebody stopped and he just bam right into him.

And then Butch was following Buddy.

So bam, he went into fucking buddy.

Well, then, goddamn it.

It was Buddy's head that hit either the windshield or the steering wheel and busted him open.

He's got juice running down his fucking head.

But Butch

maybe also had not been as attentive as he might have been to hit Buddy because he was apparently doing a fucking bump of cocaine at the same time

and wasn't paying attention because he's cocaine spilled all over the goddamn floorboard on the driver's side.

So then Buddy fucking realizes it's Butch that's hit him, even though he's dazed and confused and bleeding.

And he opens his door and he staggers out.

I don't know if it was goddamn,

you know, some poor innocent middle-aged woman sitting there in the front car or whoever it was they hit.

But Buddy's first thought is to go back and see if fucking ex-NFL pro football player bodybuilder Butch Reed has survived this accident.

And he sees Butch on his knees.

Butch's door is open and Butch is on his knees.

His feet are sticking out in the street.

He's on his knees outside the car, but his head's inside the car.

And Buddy comes over.

He's like, Butch, Butch, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

And he's leaning over.

And Butch is like, God damn it, buddy.

You're bleeding on my fucking shit.

Buddy's bleeding on his cocaine that he's trying to gather up on the floorboard of the car before somebody else walks up,

which is why he's not down selling.

He's down scooping up

Bolivian marching powder.

And so Buddy bled all over Butch's cocaine as well as all over his dashboard of his car and the inside of fucking Butch's goddamn car door is hanging open.

And then

that's when one of the boys, well, it was Dundee again because he was the booker.

He had heard they somehow managed to get a phone call to the Mississippi Gulf Coast Coliseum in Biloxi.

And Dundee comes in the heel locker room and says, Well,

Butch and Budrow, Butch and Budrow.

Butch and Budrow.

I'll say, Butch.

well, I'm trying to do the accent at the same time.

Imagine in an Australian accent, Butch and Budrow have been in an accident.

And we said, who'd they hit?

And he said, each other.

And

I don't think they made the show that night, to be honest with you, because their cars were fucked up and Buddy had to get his head stitched.

You know, it's a really underrated idea from Dundee because you never hear anyone really rave about it being his idea, but putting Butch with Buddy works so well on TV.

What were they like together off camera?

The same way.

That's why he did it.

Because Buddy would fucking be Buddy, and Butch would try to take the piss out of him in the locker room.

And it was like

that era's version of Ron Simmons' damn.

And Butch was obviously the leader in

Booty.

That's what Bill Dundee called him.

Loss of blood, folks.

And Buddy would follow him around.

And, you know, Buddy wouldn't be the fucking

star at anybody's expense, but he was, you know, acting like a stooge to

Booch.

But it was great.

And they were naturally like that anyway.

All right.

Well, that was a tale of Buddy and Butch and Buddy and Booch and Falco.

Yeah.

And Ploon.

And Plune.

From Apple Dern.

Folco, not Falco.

No, it was.

His name was Fulco.

Oh, I thought you said Funco.

No.

No, that's a pop.

No, it's not a pop.

They make pop.

All right.

No, Funco.

Funko makes Funco pop.

Yeah, it's not a pop, though.

Well, they are

a brand of pops.

Pops.

What do you consider a pop?

A pop.

What's a pop?

One of those pops with his head.

They call it the Funco pop.

Well, it's kind of a fun cop.

Just like Jamie Funco.

Well, you call them that, but.

Well, it's because they're the top of the pops.

That's why they call it.

You know what?

He may be the one in Judgment Day I like the most at this point, J.D.

Funko.

Well, yeah, because everything he does looks good.

The other ones have fallen off greatly in our estimation, except for our girl, Rhea.

But anyway,

it was Fulco,

not Falco,

who did After the Fire.

First, at least.

No, they didn't do After the Fire.

I don't know why you decided to go through the history and then you messed it up right away.

Let's say I messed it up again because we couldn't figure out

whether Falco did putting on the ritz, but that was Taco.

Taco.

Taco.

But Falco was the one who did Dercommissar before after the fire, but it wasn't Falco we were talking about.

It was Fulco, who was the husband of

Plun.

And they were from Appeldoorn in the Netherlands.

And I am Oly and he is Sven.

And

but anyway, where were we going with this?

Nowhere.

Mentioned these people.

You mentioned these people and broke.

Oh, Jeff.

Thank you, Jeff.

That's where we were going.

Thank you, Jeff, for your email.

Well, that was a while ago.

Jim, we have some sad news to report.

What's up now?

News being broken by Greg Oliver of SlamWrestling.com

or dot net, excuse me, slamwrestling.net.

Promoter Al Zink has passed away at the age of 91.

Oh, gee,

I thought it was going to be a rib of some kind, or you were going to do a single-shaped city.

I would never make a joke about such a subject.

What's wrong with that?

Never make a joke about the death of Al Zink at 91 years old.

Good heavens.

And in Nova Scotia, too, or up there in...

Was he Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, New Brunswick?

What part of the world was

promoted?

The Maritimes.

The Maritimes.

I think that's a safe way to.

Well, is that a whole group of that's what they call the whole group of the area there?

Hold on.

It goes into here.

I could see your Canadian geography is as good as mine.

I was up there a time or two, but not often.

My Canadian geography, I have learned, is comprised of only the territories that were good.

Thank you.

If it's any of the ones that are just like, there's no footage or you don't hear any good things about, I kind of don't know the geography as well.

Al Zink was the one that

Dennis Condry went up with Phil Hickerson and David Schultz and the Gibson brothers from Tennessee, summer of 77, right?

Was that Al Zink or was that Emile Dupree?

I bet you was Al Zink.

I'm not sure, but did Al Zink, I'm going through this article here.

They left after like two weeks and came back to Tennessee after causing riots and fearing for their lives.

Schultz had to bail him out with a hockey stick.

He was the WCW-NWA promoter from 89 to 93 in Canada.

Well, that's nice of him to

bring back a legend at that point in in time.

So, did you meet him when you actually worked for WCW in Canada?

I don't remember.

Maybe he was the...

Good God, was he the promoter of the show that was gassed?

I was gassed.

Remember?

You know what I'm talking about, don't you?

I'm not sure.

We had a goddamn loop up there for WCW in 1990

that was somewhere in Nova Scotia, somewhere St.

John.

There's two St.

Johns.

We were in both of them, I believe.

And the first town drew like shit.

We're talking 500 people to go all that way.

And a second town drew like shit.

And if there was four of them, the third town drew like shit.

And the last one we were going to do before we left fucking to come home,

we get to that one and there's a giant line outside the building, four abreast, and winding around the sidewalk.

And oh, wow.

Okay.

One fucking show we're going to goddamn do up here that's worth a shit, right?

And the hotel is right across the street.

And we check in the hotel and I'm looking out the window.

I'm going, that line hadn't moved.

Well, you know, we still got a few minutes.

You'd think maybe they'd open up the doors a couple minutes early because there's all these people standing there, but we got to walk over.

It's an hour before showtime, right?

We walk over there.

And as we're about halfway there, I think it was David Crockett.

I can't remember, but it may have been, Nevertheless, whoever was there representing the WCW office started wave and said, Go back, go back.

What

it was a hockey arena, right?

And they'd had a leak in the

gas or in the gas, in the ice freezing process of a professional type of hockey apparatus, somehow there's ammonia involved, right?

And And they've had a leak, and the whole building, they say, is filled up with it.

You know what ammonia smells like.

I mean, it'll burn your nose if you just stick it over the bottle, right?

Imagine if there's a leak from this shit from tanks.

And

he said, they've got a bunch of big fans on.

Just go back to the hotel for about a half an hour.

Come back at 7:30.

Okay.

So 30 minutes later,

we go back, we walk back over there again,

and we went in because Bobby's like, well, come on, we better get ready.

You know, Bobby is like, we got to work.

We're defying death here.

We walked in the building.

They still had the fans on.

They're still said, oh, it'll clear out.

It'll clear out.

Your eyes start watering.

Your fucking nose hurts.

And Bobby's sitting down in his bag and started taking his fucking shoes off.

I'm like, Bobby, don't start getting dressed.

This does not look like it.

They couldn't let the people in at that point still.

And we're in there about to get dressed, right?

And

so finally, about 15 or 20 minutes later, saner heads prevailed and they canceled it.

We can't bring the entire audience in here and gas them, even if we can gas the wrestlers.

So they cancel the show.

We're on the way to the fucking airport the next morning, pick up the newspaper.

And open up, and I've still got the clipping.

I think it was in the Midnight Express scrapbook.

The headline in the local newspaper was Wrestling Show Gassed.

I said it was a mercy killing.

And we came back home never to return to Canada for WCW.

Well, as it says here in the article, when the Toronto promotion run by Jack Tunney switched allegiances from the NWA and Jim Crockett promotions to the expanding World Wrestling Federation, Zink saw an opportunity.

It was Zink.

who ran WCW shows in Toronto and in the Maritimes.

Zink worked with them from 89 to 93.

Here's a quote.

I was always a straight shooter.

I almost had Maple Leaf Gardens.

I was so close.

I was ready to undercut Tunney.

And then Shane Zink, his son.

Sounds like a real nice guy.

Here's a story.

I got to end with this.

I don't know why this gets me.

His son, Shane Zink,

can still recall the way his father would get in trouble as a promoter.

Here's a quote.

I used to go to the wrestling with him in the circuits, and every once in a while, I'd get a call over the PA system.

Shane Zink, please go to the office.

I'd only be a kid, like eight, nine, and he'd be beating up five or six guys

who attacked him.

And I mean, he cleaned the house on them.

He was a real scrapper.

Who the fuck is beating up the promoter?

Is he five or six guys?

Why did he call his son there to see this?

I mean, I know that the sheets weren't as prevalent back in the circuits days, but when the fuck did this take place?

Or could it be, hey, guys, I'm going to call my son to the office.

Let me make it look like I'm kicking the shit out of all six of you at once.

Well, because let me tell you, we did go to Toronto once for WCW in 1990.

And it wasn't at Maple Leaf Gardens.

It was at some

college gym in Toronto.

And

I recall it being a beautiful drive down by the lake shore

to this building that there was absolutely nobody in.

And so

I don't want to, I hate to speak ill of the deceased's promotional abilities, but there was,

I think maybe the WWE got away from him and he got with WCW,

you know,

for a reason.

But nevertheless,

he lived a long, full life.

He had a big falling out with Rudy Kay.

According to Zinc, Rudy had no business head.

That's a quote.

He was soft with the boys, but I wasn't, especially the prelim guys.

I want my openers to be as good as my main eventers.

It all fell apart.

Here's a quote.

Rudy double-crossed me when I was in the hospital, said Zink, who had fallen off a horse.

What?

When I was in the hospital, Rudy asked for checks, and like a fool, I signed them.

I think I want to learn more about Al Zinc.

Sounds like a fascinating life.

Oh,

and folks, if we've said it once, we've said it a million times.

Never sign checks after you fall off a horse.

It's like operating heavy machinery.

You can't be doing that.

Make sure when you're jumped by six people, call your nine-year-old son to come save you.

Yes, on the PA system.

Don't call security.

Don't call the police.

Get on the PA system.

See if we can find this man's son.

See he'll stop wailing on these motherfuckers.

Oh my God.

All right.

We haven't fun yet.

Come on.

Well, yeah,

over the man's death, we're trying to have fun over a man's decedence.

No, we're not having fun over that.

We're having fun celebrating his life.

Like we kicked the shit out of a bunch of people all at once in front of his child.

And apparently the PA announcer.

Well,

speaking of people getting a shit kicked out of them, before we talk about the

weekends festivities at WrestleMania, and by the way, we are still in the dark as we sit here on night two, because this is in between night one and night two.

The show is so nice, they had to split it up twice or whatever the fuck.

So, chronologically, we're going to go through

SmackDown Hall of Fame Mania 1 and Mania 2 by the time this is a finished program.

But over on the other side of the street, over

welcome back, baby, to the poor side of town.

There's still another promotion in the world besides the WWE.

I know there's not a lot of oxygen in the air for one these days, but there are a couple things happening in AEW,

all of them obviously

outside the ring related.

We have, we're going to try, you're going to try to update me,

first of all, on

the releases that we've talked about on the drive-through here a couple of days ago, they released 10 people, most of whom they had not been using in any significant capacity or capacity in quite some time.

And a couple of them have a problem on the internet.

The Tate twins, who were Dalton Castle's boys,

they have come back at Tony and

I'm going to get you to try to explain this to me because I've seen part of it and I've been a busy boy.

But Tony said all the releases were due to budget cuts.

And then somehow they asked him about the Tate twins and he said, well, the Tate twins were no-showing our TV tapings.

And then the Tate twins say that they've been maligned and slandered and

their reputation irretrievably damaged by being accused of this.

But in their statement, they didn't actually deny that they had no-showed TVs.

They just said that we were upset at Tony for saying it.

What is going on here?

Tony Kahn on the media call for Ring of Honor

Super COD.

Super COD Ivana, as Kevin Sullivan calls it.

The Super COD Ivana.

The COD Father, baby.

On the media call, here was a quote talking about the releases,

about the boys.

They didn't show up for work on more than one occasion oh and it's not acceptable well there you go you agree with that correct i agree with that

well the boys

put out a long missive over several now was it was this was this the boys in conjunction with each other is this one boy on behalf of the other boy they're twins you got to think that you know one mind works for two well what does one start the sentence and the other one finish it or how do they you know know, how does that work?

Or is one the person who writes and the other one the person who speaks?

Or this is a joint, a joint missive.

I wish I had a joint.

Now, I think because they're twins, they can compete.

They can communicate telepathically.

Well,

what did they think to us then?

Well, here's their statement.

The boys' statement, a joint statement from the boys.

Trademark.

If they are allowed to call themselves that still.

Now, here's a note.

We had planned to stay quiet publicly about our release to take nothing away from the biggest show of the year for Ring of Honor in Super Card of Honor, or in Supercard, excuse me.

Didn't even give the full name tonight, out of respect for the locker room that will be on it.

And by the way, we

nobody's talking about it.

We kind of forgot they were going to have it, but apparently they had a Ring of Honor show this weekend also.

And just like AEW,

this Tony Khan promotion, every time there's anything positive happening, they somehow find a way to make the story about the ineptness of the management.

Due to Tony's comments and the numerous fans, media outlets, friends, and co-workers that have reached out to us, that isn't an option for us anymore.

We want to apologize to the Ring of Honor fans and to the AEW fans that were invested in the storyline, and we're expecting both of us to be there.

With so many fans wanting answers, in addition to numerous people that have voiced their comments at the thought of us really just no-showing on the sum of the biggest opportunities of our lives due to Tony Khan's statements, here it is.

I lost something there.

I don't know what to do.

Maybe they should have collaborated a little longer on

the presentation, but keep going.

Dave Meltzer was their proofreader.

My brother and I were told that we would be included in this story through Supercard, and there were plans for us to be with John and Taya leading up to the show.

We were asked to pitch several ideas for ourselves, insinuating we would get an opportunity to show that we can wrestle more in the future.

On March 16th, our scheduled date following Dalton losing custody, that's in quotes, I guess that's the angle they're doing.

For the first time in our...

Did they do an angle where he had custody of the

boys?

That's what it says here again in quotes.

For the first time in our history of flying in North America previously with Sinclair Ring of Honor and now Tony Khan's Ring of Honor,

our travel was booked at a Nashville instead of our home airport of Knoxville.

Ah,

there at this point, there are screenshots attached to the tweets showing the communication between AEW and a redacted name that is apparently part of their travel team over at AEW.

Where were they going

to?

What

place?

What town?

I'm not sure.

Hold on.

Let me see if that's.

Did you just say it?

It went past me.

It didn't say where they were flying to, just that they were flying.

Oh, it says

Ottawa.

Oh, well, you certainly can't drive there from either Nashville or Knoxville.

Yeah, no, they were going to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

So let's go back to this.

On Monday, April 1st, we were contacted by management, accompanied by HR on a call, to inform us of our release due to budget cuts.

At that time, we raised concerns and repeatedly questioned.

Well, wait a minute, we've jumped ahead in the story.

So, did they goddamn drive over to goddamn Nashville and fly out, or just say, fuck it?

Well, they don't say that exactly in their tweets here, but if you go to the actual phone calls or the text messages, excuse me, there is a Witten.

There's a Witten record here.

This show's a mess.

There's too much happening.

Monday, March 25th.

Hey, just checking to see if we're booked this weekend so there's no confusion on our end and so we can plan out our week accordingly.

Thank you.

The reply from AEW came, as of now, no.

One of the tapes, thank you.

Just checking to see if you heard about us being used this weekend.

There's no collision taping this weekend.

You'll probably be booked for London, Ontario on the 30th.

And then I guess they weren't.

There's all kinds of pieces of this story.

They're not making their case plain.

They're assuming that everybody knows who all these people are by their first name and what was going on with them.

And if they're making an official statement rebutting the reason why they were terminated or why they were told they were terminated by a company, they need to lay this shit out a lot fucking clear and a lot more concisely.

And here's the deal.

I can

understand

if

AEW fucked up and somehow sent these guys plane tickets at the last minute flying out of Nashville to Ottawa or wherever the fuck it was instead of Knoxville

because they made a mistake.

Okay, well, then

because you would have to get to the airport an hour before your flight and it's three fucking hours or whatever.

But if they just said, hey, to fly you to

auxiliary players into a goddamn another country from Knoxville, Tennessee is going to cost us however many fucking thousand dollars, or we can fly you from Nashville for half or a third of that, which is probably a possibility.

and told them about it ahead of time, it's 175 miles.

It's all interstate.

You can drive three hours and get your flight and save the company a couple thousand dollars.

And guess what, guys?

You were kind of lucky at this point that you had,

if you indeed had a contract that was paying you a regular sum, whatever you were doing,

you're lucky you had that in this day and age.

Now, if they just are under contract and only get paid when they get booked, That should have been an incentive to drive down there to Nashville and get on the plane.

And I guess part of the issue here is just the communication between AEW and talent, because I have some more text here.

Let me read you some more.

Here's another thing.

Fuck the fucking text.

If I want to know something about where I'm supposed to be and how I'm supposed to get there when I was in the wrestling business and gave a shit about such matters, I'm calling a motherfucker on a phone and I'm speaking to a human being and I'm saying, where is my goddamn ticket?

Where am I flying out of?

What time do I leave?

What airline?

I got a fucking pack.

And all the the kids are texting around back and forth like

everyone's texting.

You're the only one not, so stop making it about.

God damn it.

Well, that's why everybody's confused.

No, well, no, they're doing AEW.

That's why

that's why I'm saying you got some weasly, squirrely son of a bitches over there in AEW land.

Get one on the phone and pin him down verbally.

See if he's shaking and shimmering or humming, humming, humming.

Well, let's be assertive.

Address these things.

I'm trying.

Let me be assertive right now and go to this.

March 13th, Brent Tate

to a name redacted.

Again, release the name, guys.

If you got a story here, let the story come out.

Yeah, finish the story, man.

Hey, we just received emails about driving to Nashville for flights, and we've never flown out there because it's three hours away.

Oh, good lord.

We have an airport 15 minutes from us.

Oh, good lord.

Even the, and then the other.

Oh, good lord.

You know what?

In the old days, you'd had a car out at the curb, get in it, and drive your ass 800 miles to fucking Canada.

Goddamn ungrateful little twits.

The other brother then responded, even the old Ring of Honor never had us fly out of Nashville.

Oh, good.

Were they flying you to Canada?

Then AEW responded, reach out to your travel person and ask them why that's happening.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

Okay.

And then

on the 16th, Saturday, hey, we are getting texts from people asking if we are at the venue.

We told travel Travel as soon as you told us to fix our flights, and she said she would send us new flights, and we stayed up until midnight Thursday and still haven't received anything.

Brandon and I both have had our bags packed since Wednesday.

Just to show you how much we were expected to be there, we already packed.

It's good that they're packed because that way when they got fired, they were all ready to leave.

And then the response from

okay guys i just got off the phone with travel my understanding is that because ottawa is a difficult airport to get in and out of boom they tried to save 800 per ticket boom by having you go out of nashville boom i see your point about being asked to drive three hours to a different airport But did anyone specifically tell you that they were getting new flights?

Excuse me, that you were getting new flights.

And when you didn't have new flights, did you contact anyone to see what the situation was?

Hey, listen, I know it's fun to pick on AEW.

It doesn't seem like they're really in the wrong with this.

No, that's I could tell at a mile away what they were doing.

These are not the main event guys.

They're the guys that hang around with a guy and part of his gimmick.

And yes, they wrestle some and fine, and I'm not knocking them, but they can't

honestly

look in the mirror and say, we are people who, if it was not for AEW, would still have a contract with a television promotion of any kind and at least have a check coming in, right?

They'd be on the indies doing what everybody else in that situation is, which is working shots.

And

so, when you're trying to fly somebody from goddamn Wartburg, Tennessee, to fucking a small Canadian market, yes, if you go to Nashville, that's a hub and you can get cheaper flights.

And I fault both sides of this because, goddamn, again,

the fucking administrative side, the office side is a disorganized mess and nobody is telling them this specifically.

And with the other guys, they're idiots that they thought that they had the fucking leverage to just blow shit off or whatever.

Or if they...

If they heard they were going to get new flights, well, apparently they probably misheard.

Or when they didn't get new flights, they still had three hours to get in a fucking car, make the show, because you're lucky, you've been given a gift.

But somebody

from the talent

administrative division of AEW on the office side should have called them and said to them flat out, because we did this.

We used to do this.

And Ring of Honor, we did this a number of times because Sinclair was tighter than his tick on fucking airplane flights.

And we did it in the WWF for fuck's sake.

That's why we spent that Saturday night in Nova Scotia.

You save money on these goofy flights because

not only were they going to save $800, $1,600 on these two guys just in terms of a plane ticket, they were probably doing it with some of the other talent.

Maybe if somebody lived in fucking some other place where there was a smaller airport or a bigger one.

Point is, somebody should call the Tate twins and said, Hey,

we can't fucking, we're not going to spend however many thousand dollars to fly you just to fly you guys before we put you up in a hotel, before we pay you

to be on this goddamn deal, or if they're paying them regular before we put you up in a hotel and we spend these thousands of dollars to have you stand outside the ring.

But if you're willing to go down to Nashville, which is three hours down, three hours back in a car,

we'll buy you

fucking two tanks of gas and,

you know, and you'll save your job.

Well, once again, let me go back to the actual text messages here.

Oh, God.

One of the tapes said that a name that is redacted here, a woman for AEW, she said she would send flight options shortly.

I didn't hear from her, so I texted from my phone about seats and didn't get a text back.

Texted about seats for what?

I also also emailed her on Sunday or Monday about hotels and seats for the flight

and didn't get an email back.

Yeah, you got her phone number, Nitwit.

The other tape jumped up.

Jack her up out of bed on Sunday morning.

Where's my fucking plane ticket?

Also, the other one said here, our cars aren't in good shape also.

That's why we request rentals.

I'm not sure why.

I'm not sure why travel changed our airport week of without notice.

That's why we request rentals so now they're renting them a car also?

We have flown to Canada numerous times from Knoxville and this has never been the case.

You can get to the moon too if you got NASA behind you.

AEW responded.

You had flights going from Nashville so you were booked.

If you had gotten a rental, you could have sent in the receipt and gotten reimbursed.

Oh, good lord.

The flights from Knoxville were two stops and more expensive, which is why they tried Nashville for this trip.

You guys should have at least let someone know you, and I guess it continues from there, weren't going to come, I would assume, would be next.

Can your excuse be I was sitting by the phone for the whole time, so I didn't make an attempt to come at all?

No,

no,

because again, it needs to be adjudicated one way or another, communicated from party to party officially before you've

they're they're sending this poor travel woman, unnamed travel woman that was in there, texts on do we have flight options?

Can we get a car?

And she's not getting back to them.

Who's in talent around?

Who is the booker?

Who's helping the booker talk to the fucking talent about whatever the fuck?

That person should have been on the phone with these two guys saying, look,

you got to fly out of Nashville.

It's cheaper.

If

they don't have cars to get three hours,

how are they making independent wrestling shots?

And how are they working for this company if they do not have between the two of them one car that will drive three hours down the interstate and they're in the wrestling business?

Yeah, by the way, this is another story because we just talked about that.

What was his name?

Slim Jay, a guy you and I are both not familiar with.

Yes, he was living in a hovel.

Yeah, he couldn't afford to support his family working for AEW.

What's going on over there that the lower car guys?

A lot of them are making a fucking fortune.

Some of them can't afford a car.

Here's the thing.

Well, if they're in the wrestling business, you need a car and a fucking phone.

And what I'm saying is they shouldn't have considered themselves important enough to just sit around and dick around and wait on the travel woman to serve their bidding.

Somebody from the office should have been on the phone with them or they should have been beating up somebody from the office's phone in the talent relations department.

We want to fly to Knoxville.

Leave the voicemail.

We want to fly to Knoxville.

We got tickets out of Nashville.

What is going on?

So somebody then would call back and say, look, you two morons, have you not figured this out?

You're going to Ottawa, Canada.

We're going to save $1,600 fucking dollars if the two of you drive three hours down the road and fly to Nashville.

I can't believe that they are goddamn frivolous enough with their money that they would agree to rent them a car to go to Nashville, Nashville.

But they had said we would have done it if you'd asked, but nobody was fucking talking.

They were goddamn texting and sitting around like movie stars.

Because I guarantee goddamn T you,

when I was in the business at their particular level, I would have not have been calling Jared Jared about whether I got a plane ticket if he told me to go to Hawaii.

I'd have had fucking speedos on and I'd have my nose greased up for a long swim.

Fuck.

So it's an incompetent office and a couple of guys that don't understand their level in the wrestling business.

Again, incompetent office, the communication's bad, and seemingly the Tates

think there's an added value that justifies them requesting these things.

Let me end with these tweets and I'll ask you a question.

And by the way, that was saved $1,600 on the tickets.

They were still going to be spending hundreds of dollars.

just to have them go there with Dalton fucking cat or whatever the fuck.

They're now saying we never heard back if we were booked and we figured since no one got back to us from travel, we weren't booked again this weekend.

Also, that's why we asked if we were booked until super card weekend just to avoid all this.

Nashville wouldn't have been an issue for that one day, but with NCAA basketball tournament and St.

Pat's Day weekend being in Nashville, last minute would have been an issue already.

That's why we always reach out to them.

They didn't ask them to go down there and hang out for a while.

They said go fly out of there.

Were they supposed to go drive three hours down to interstate and get a hotel room?

And then there was a tag and the other brother came in and said, we did tell the mystery travel person that we couldn't do that flight.

That's why she responded and told us she would send us other flight options.

And that's what we were waiting for.

And then there was another tag.

We have also been told numerous times to get approved for rentals because they got onto us for getting rentals without asking.

Yes, they what without, oh, Jesus Christ,

they were just getting rental cars and turning them into the office to go be goddamn

wallpaper in this gimmick.

What the fuck?

Seriously?

It's not even on TV.

I mean, if it's on Ring of Honor, that's the only thing, it's never on TV.

What precedent

are they setting with these other fucking guys on the cards that these guys get rental cars without even asking and just turning in like, oh, yes, baby.

Do you remember the stories I've told you about Watts' main event guys driving to fucking Oklahoma?

Jesus Christ, these fucking entitled little weenies.

Go ahead.

Well, to wrap it up, and again, it keeps going back and forth.

You kind of get a tone of what these text messages are.

But Tony Khan, people got on him for talking about budgetary reasons.

We'll get into that in a minute.

That sounds pretty budgetary to me, though.

But when he said that they no-showed dates and they...

contend that that is not they contend that this is evidence that shows that isn't the case what do you say is tony khan fair?

Is he saying anything wrong saying they no-showed?

Do you think that they're right saying that they didn't no-show or because they didn't show up?

Does that constitute a no-show?

Here's the thing.

I think that whatever you want to phrase it, they have been justifiably told we don't need you guys anymore because you're a pain in the ass to deal with.

And we don't need to spend this much money on you.

Tony ought to apply this to a lot of people on the roster.

We do not need to spend this this much money on you to be on our show, and it would be just fine.

And

that's where this fits.

And

I'm sorry, but it probably ain't working out on the Twins' part either.

If they between the two of them, and they've, I've been seeing those guys for 10 years, so they've got to be close to 30, right?

If they're between the two of them, they're 30 years old, they're in the wrestling business, and neither one of them has a car that'll make it to Nashville.

They've picked the wrong career choices.

They need to reevaluate and maybe consider another line of employment.

And

if they thought that they were important enough

for the company to be spending, what would it be then, three grand or whatever, plus a rental car to get them to fucking wherever.

Hotel.

And hotel.

And they're paying them some kind of salary

to be released.

You have to be gripped first, don't you?

So

to do what?

And they're complaining about it.

Oh, we can't get down to Nash.

Bobby Eaton, his first three years in the wrestling business, at one period of time, he was making car payments on two used cars that wouldn't run and riding a Greyhound bus to his matches.

And he didn't no show.

So fuck you.

Anyway.

Well, that was the story of the boys and maybe the final story of the boys.

We will stay on top of this story.

But there's another part of the worm that is turning over there also because apparently now Tony is hating it

that he's getting the

bad press, the bad publicity.

People are saying bad things about him and he's freaking out.

and flipping his shit over the punk interview to the point where now they have announced that

CM Punk, ladies and gentlemen, will be returning to AEW television this Wednesday night.

Does this smack horribly of the Razor and Diesel will return to the WWF

scandal of 1996 or whatever it was?

CM Punk is still the biggest star in AEW.

AEW still revolves around CM Punk.

Tony Khan, more than anyone else, can't get past CM Punk.

He wanted to be Punk's friend, and now he is very upset about this interview that was on Ariel Hawani's show.

This will be two dynamites in a row dealing with or addressing CM Punk, whether it's the Edge promo, whether it's Dax Harwood getting in the ring after the show to yell about how happy he is to work.

Well, no, no, no, to be fair, Edge wasn't really a promo as much as a visible meltdown.

If you're going to call Dax yelling and there was an element of desperate screaming there and clawing at the edge of the abyss as you slide down but anyway but anyway cm punk is still the biggest star there and they're getting more buzz than they have just overnight because the announcement came out at like one in the morning or whatever because collision was on

You know, in the middle of nowhere, no one even remembered it existed this week.

And they announced, I have it right here.

Well, they wanted to try to start collision after, they were starting after the college basketball game, but also they wanted, they thought, well, at least WrestleMania would be over with.

The fucking main event was still going on at quarter to midnight or whatever, I think, when they started this thing.

Jim, a graphic appeared on the screen on Collision.

The Young Bucks present backstage footage from AEW all in London and will discuss it for the first time on Dynamite.

And they have their new characters in the photo, standing there and standing there in their seersucker suits.

You know, if they're going to put, there's so many, this is so fascinating.

And again, it reeks of desperation.

And there really is no win here for AEW unless you believe, looking at wrestling history, that Tony Khan now

and the Bucs now leaning into this will produce some kind of thing like Vince McMahon leaning into Bret Hart, punching him in the face.

Well, I don't know if that's going to happen.

Now, look, anything could happen, but CM Punk is super over right now.

And all there is is pictures of him seemingly loving life with his co-workers.

And you still have a crew of people who can't get past him.

He did an interview and he addressed it.

Look at the reaction here.

And let's get your initial thoughts on all this.

All the preparation, H in the country could not soothe the inflamed asses at AEW because of, and he was sitting there, punk, me, too many pronouns, pal.

calm, reasoned.

It wasn't an acting performance.

It wasn't a plea for forgiveness.

It wasn't an explanation to try to get him out of trouble.

It was just a recounting of the way that he viewed things

and

came off pretty fucking credible, right?

They go out of their minds to do the rah-rah speeches and tweets that,

as we mentioned, kind of in part validate what Punk was saying because a lot of their reasoning is, I'm having the most fun I've ever had in my career, or I'm working with all of my friends who deserve this, or I get to spend so much time with my family.

Those are the

opposing viewpoints, apparently, of what Punk said.

Tony was that upset that Punk questioned, not even questioned, just said flat out, it's not a real business.

It's not predicated on any of the things that a real business would be.

And Tony's been flipping out ever since.

Yes,

he fires people coincidentally.

But as we've, as we've seen, you know what?

There's kind of a reason.

Maybe they were waiting in the office.

They're like, God damn, can we get rid of 20 or 40 of these?

Jesus Christ.

Hey, maybe now's a time he might let us peel off a few.

But anyway,

but now, besides the knee jerk, elbow jerk,

the reflex, flex, flex, flex,

from last week with the promo.

Now they're, again, like you said, they're advertising, they're preaching to the choir.

They're advertising to people who have already bought the product because they're talking about, they can't say Punk's name, right?

They haven't said that yet, have we?

Have we?

No.

They haven't said that.

It just says they're going to present backstage footage and then it leaked to various wrestling media members who spoke to AEW sources that, no, this is the real thing.

This is not a bait and switch.

They're going to really show the footage.

And they better.

Because if they renege on this, their fans are going to be unhappy.

And if they show the real thing and they cut it up in any way, Punk's got a lawsuit.

Well, yeah, but

what I was saying, and I will talk about that in a second, but what I was saying was if

they're, they can't even say the guy's name, so they're preaching to the people that know the specifics of the exact incident and know enough to know what they're talking about.

Because the story came out at the time that there was Wembley security camera footage, right?

So

this is their desperate plea for ratings by sending out a coded message to the people that are still watching that nobody else is going to understand.

And then

at first I thought, oh my God, these two,

the California Raisins are being such douchebaggy heels that maybe they're going to shoot a parody thing and try to make fun of it, whatever.

And then they've come out and said, oh, no, it's going to be legitimate.

So we'll see.

If it's not legitimate, if it's, you know,

douchebags trying to get

silly heat, then that's going to be worse.

But right now,

they're just going to show

another wrestler that they have that's under contract to him, Jack Perry, that he might get over being mad at and bring back at some point, getting fucking choked.

So by a big star from another program

so how

it's so desperate because punk can still be on our show we found a loophole except we can't really say his name and the only people that are going to know are the people that already know and he's choking out one of our guys they're spending tv time having a hissy fit over punk appearing on a podcast

not another tv punk hasn't said a word about any of them on WWE TV.

No.

And he probably never will.

He talked about it on a podcast, and now they're dedicating another thing.

They can't get past it.

They all try to make it like it's punk and everyone else.

They can't get past things.

They can't get past the reality of stuff.

They're going to release this footage.

Again, if it's cut up at all, that's going to be a problem.

I want to see.

And they say they're not going to show the footage of whatever scared Tony Khan to the point where he was afraid for his life.

That's what I want to see.

Oh, well, maybe

they'll, here's what they'll do.

They'll show the actual footage of punk choking out Jungle Boy, and then they'll say, and here's what made Tony Khan fear for his life, and then

Rick Astley pops up,

that thing,

and it'll get the whole audience all at the same time.

Maybe not?

Yeah, not one of your better ideas.

Not really?

No, not at all.

All right.

Well, no, but here's the thing is that

what are you going to show?

How could you clip this?

Because it wasn't like a fight where there was an advantage

given over from one side to the other.

He grabbed him in a front facelock and choked him until Joe asked him to let him go.

Well, again, we don't know that.

The footage will show exactly what it is.

That's Punk's story of what happened.

The footage will show.

It's going to be awful hard to.

Fucking

alter that or are they playing with the artificial intelligence over there at AEW?

that they ought to be into artificial intelligence they don't have any of the natural

if they alter it in any way that'll probably be a lawsuit so i don't think they'll do that i think it'll probably be the bucks in character in the role of evp on camera reviewing the footage and this may lead to the reinstatement of jack perry

but again this is It's all dealing with the biggest star in your company who's not there and more than likely never will be again.

And you all had a chance to do something and you blew it

when he was close enough to reach him they didn't want to do anything but now they want to show all the footage

it's a minor league operation and that's the thing cm punk said out loud what the wrestlers you talk to there will tell you or text you

it's not a real business It's Tony's dad funding Tony's hobby.

And hopefully it makes some money.

They better get that big rights fee renewal.

If not, they really look like shit.

And Tony gets to feel like a hero to his fellow message board fans when he puts on a pay-per-view with five-star bangers.

But the TV is atrocious.

Tony doesn't know how to book.

Tony doesn't understand how to get people over.

Tony doesn't understand how to follow up on momentum.

Tony's awful at this.

Merchandise has been a disaster.

It was poorly run.

The buildings, the ticket sales across the board.

Well, hey, what about the new

head fellow there?

The big office fellow?

What's his name?

Kosha Irby, I believe is his name.

I was going to say Jack Kirby, but

he's new.

So who knows?

Maybe that's why

that's why maybe we're getting some budget cuts.

We don't know.

Here's the thing.

How much could they have trimmed off the budget if these guys can't afford a car or a home that are talking about that they got let go unless this footage shows cm punk getting knocked out which it isn't or shows cm punk

i guess not beating up jack kirby to the extent that he says right why else would you release this because there's no

again jack perry's gimmick now is he's the scapegoat well no maybe after the cm punk interview on tv they start with the edge thing And then the Bucks shout him out on the way to the ring.

So you have to think immediately the plan was in place to get him back on there.

This seems like a no-win situation for AEW, a desperate attempt to get some ratings.

But if they're not even going to be able to say it's CM Punk and you're just relying purely on internet fans, how much of a rating is this going to get?

Well, that's what they're showing the footage because then the buckaroos are going to say, see,

Jack Perry could have kicked his ass, but he didn't lift a finger because he was professional and the other guy choked him out.

So therefore, we fired the other guy and we're bringing Jack back.

And then

I want to see the footage of Tony.

I want to be known as the guy that got choked out by punk.

This is Tony's chance to bury punk and say, punk is a liar.

He's a maniac.

Here's the footage of punk scaring me.

That's the footage we need to see.

Why aren't they showing that?

I'm

pretty sure that that footage doesn't exist, Brian.

That for one thing, if, you know,

you can't,

if somebody's yelling at you and saying, fuck it, I quit, I'm done, whatever the quote was, this is a clown show,

barehanded, no weapon, no lunge toward, no threatening motion, no goddamn people holding him back,

how are you going to be scared of that?

And the answer is you can't.

But that was what the lawyers recommended that Tony use, the verbiage he used when they tried to get themselves out of that situation without punk suing him because he was happy to go on and make the millions of dollars he's making now.

To go back to after Montreal, let's say,

Bret Hart was still talked about and made fun of and kind of a character while not being there on WWE TV for a short time.

Remember, Sean Michaels had a midget come out dressed as Bret Hart and, of course, Vince McMahon's promo about Brett screwing Brett.

And again, it all worked out.

for WWE, the Mr.

McMahon character, the rise of Steve Austin, Sean Michaels going home.

It all worked out.

That was the weeks after Survivor Series.

We're now, what, almost a year after the Perry thing, a few years after the Bucks thing?

Let's release some of that footage of Jericho yellow.

Not all.

The Perry thing was only, what, about nine months ago.

Maybe people have been impregnated and conceived by then.

How does this benefit them?

Can this benefit them the way anything benefited WWE in that situation?

And how could any of this benefit them?

The Bucks and Jack Perry, who will forever be tied to Sam Punk?

Well, but

it benefited Sean and etc.

with Vince, and because

it wasn't the big star got in trouble and got fired, and

there was no one to replace in the vacuum.

Sean was still a big star.

Austin was about to be a big star.

Fucking Rock was coming up.

There was Undertaker was right.

It was still a company of big stars.

And this

prickish heel, Shawn Michaels, with his friend Triple H and whatever the fuck, making fun of

running off Bret Hart or fucking around Bret Hart was done to get heat on a heel that was, at that point, let's remember at Bret Hart's level on the cards and in the eyes of the people in terms of star power.

This was,

hey, the only star you motherfuckers had, now he's gone, gone and is because of this fucking underneath guy that looks like he came out of a Tarzan movie and he thinks he's a big deal because his dad was an actor on TV.

And that's, you leave, just leave it fucking go.

And the guy didn't win.

If he'd have knocked Punk out now.

He said, well, when Punk comes back and challenges for the title, well, look, our fucking, one of our smallest guys knocked Punk out.

Here we got footage, but

what are they selling?

Yeah,

the big star on the other channel chokes out our guys for real.

Fuck.

I don't.

Help me.

Well, the other thing is, is this going to do anything to get anyone who hasn't been watching the show or anyone that has never seen the show to tune in and stay?

No.

Because they announced it at one o'clock in the morning.

They don't have another crack at another television show to make this announcement until the television show where they're going to show the goddamn show.

So, and then, whatever rating they get for this, the next segment will be like the Undisputed Kingdom, you know, shop for toilets, and they'll lose the entire audience.

Well, this is not going to get a rating

because of that, because that nobody has heard of the announcement that watches the television program.

It's on the internet, yes.

And the people that are already going to be watching on

Wednesday night, the people who were going to be watching to begin with are the ones that are going to know this is going to happen.

And they're probably going to, for the quarter hour in which it takes place, they're probably going to be at 800 and something

fucking, unless they go too late in the show, 800 and something,

whatever their top is,

everybody in their audience is going to be interested in this, but

because they know what the fuck happened and now they want to see it.

But other, it's not going to

anybody too new to come to the program and

they're still not going to stick with it afterwards like you said or wherever it is in the show other parts are still going to be doing the same things that they've been doing

and how long can this

i have a feeling it's not going to be a lengthy goddamn skirmish so

They're going to have to dress it up with, well, they're going to have to.

It'll be the Bucks acting silly.

They'll have a telestrator.

they could have fun with it well i was going to say some kind of presentation and if it's silly then that's that's great the the only goddamn real thing they will have ever aired on this program and they'll figure out a way to make it silly and seem fake too

well the crazy thing is again this is all happening because tony's upset about what punk said about him punk only said what other guys don't say publicly yes

And Tony's upset because CM Punk's acknowledging the truth that Tony's a nice guy and he's got a big wallet.

It's his dad's wallet, but he's got access to a big wallet, but he's not a boss.

He's not someone that people respect.

And you can't all of a sudden now try to act hard and convince people that you are.

Folks, it's a wrestling locker room.

Even though it's a lot softer than it used to be and people are a lot more polite, apparently, in the wrestling business than they used to be.

It's still, even if you take and put the girls over on the side in the girls' locker room, I'm assuming they don't all change together, even today and in our enlightened atmosphere, just the guys' locker room.

You mean to tell me anybody out there that has any experience in life,

a locker room full of ex-college athletes or guys that believe they're athletes or people who want to be TV stars that are in their 20s, 30s, and 40s with a few fucking veterans around

and their natural nature of making fun of people in their own groups amongst their own tight friends, making fun of other people.

With Tony Codd, the way he hugs people, the way he conducts himself, the way he speaks on the interviews, the

strange ideas he seems to have about professional wrestling or what he likes or whatever, but also

the money that he pays out

and the

kindness that he shows, you think that they're not busting his fucking balls in private little groups?

I'm sorry.

But

there's

one reason why Tony Khan

has been accepted in any wrestling locker room, whether in 2024 or 1974.

Because billionaire precedes his name in introductions.

Well, here comes billionaire Tony Khan,

and he's welcome everywhere.

But otherwise,

and I've said before, Tony is a nice guy.

Everybody agrees he's a nice guy.

Detrimental to business, doesn't recognize his shortcomings.

Tony Khan is the kind of guy that may have been stripped naked and duct taped to a fucking railing in the territory wrestling days by the same guys that he's now paying

millions of dollars to.

Well, I'm sure there's a spot you were going to to transition to here at some point.

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

That by gum that Tony needs, he needs to calm down.

He needs to calm down.

He's a very excitable boy.

Warren Zvon should do his theme music.

But Tony Khan needs to calm down because, you know, anxiety is bad for you.

You know this.

You're aware of this, aren't you?

Are you scared about the level of anxiety that you have, Brian?

Does it make you nervous?

It's

awful close in here.

I'm not too anxious at all, no.

Well, you should be.

Why?

Because of all the bad things that are going to go on and about to happen in the world.

Even some of them might affect you, some of them might not.

We don't know.

It's a goddamn pinball machine, a crapshoot.

You got to be on the alert all the time, ready to go, ready to defend yourself, ready to defend your family.

What is this?

I'm telling you, it's anxiety is just running rampant these days.

Well, you need some things to calm you down every once in a while, is is

what you need.

And you know, all that anxiety can cause you pain and inflammation.

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That is not a proven fact, and that is not a proven fact.

That is wrong, though.

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We're mere hours before night two of WrestleMania.

But Jim, before we move on too far from the AEW stuff, one last thing because a lot of the listeners did send it in and we're not recording another drive-thru until tomorrow.

So, I want to make sure we get it in.

I have

Tony Khan's response from the Ring of Honor post-show scrum to Brandon Thurston's questions about the releases.

A lot of the listeners wanted to get your takes on this.

So, we've talked about different things, and Swami's barking.

It's just a mess here.

No one knows.

Oh, don't blame the dog.

Everybody's upset about these budget cuts.

Are you kidding?

But and Brandon's budget-minded.

He's a cruncher of the numbers.

He'll get to the bottom of this, won't he?

Well, let's go to this audio, Tony Khan, talking about budget cuts.

Hi, Tony.

Brandon Thurston, WrestleManiax,

with the releases that just happened, you said it was for budget reasons, right?

And that's the first time there's been releases for budget reasons.

I know in the past, there's been contracts that have expired, but you've talked about loyalty and wanting to keep people on until their contracts expire.

I know there's been some exceptional cases otherwise, but

does that represent a policy change for you?

And if so,

can you tell us what led to that?

The entire time that Brandon Thurston's question is being asked, Tony Khan is reacting with his face.

He's making approving nods.

He's kind of selling, ooh, that's interesting with his face.

He's non-stop action, this guy.

Non-stop action.

Let's go to his answer.

And by the way, when people ask Tony questions,

he's not a physically intimidating figure, but people have this

level of apologetic tone.

Have you noticed in their voice or they kind of like a little mea culpa dip in there already?

Like, I know you might not want to answer this, but I'd like to ask you about it.

Is that just me?

Does that not happen normally at press conferences?

Hey, we've heard that guy from The Observer almost apologize for having to ask questions dealing with the realities of the negative stuff around AEW.

But let's go to the...

He's like Billy Moomy in

the Twilight Zone episode.

Episode.

In the Twilight Zone episode.

It's a good thing.

Don't wish him into the cornfield, Tony.

Go ahead.

I'm sorry.

Well, let's go to this.

Tony Kahn, answering Brandon Thurston's question.

Well, it's a great question.

I think that this year I have...

been very active not only in the free agent market, but in the production budget.

You know, there are things tonight, like, uh, for example, on one song alone, I spent like you know, a year's pay for most pro wrestlers in this business.

And uh, the budget

let me stop right there again.

This is about the budgetary reasons that he fired some wrestlers who can't afford cars or places to feed their family or live,

but he wrote.

What song did he pay

that much money for for that night?

That was a ring of honor show he's talking about.

Right?

That's right.

He paid a year's salary for a wrestler for a song on a Ring of Honor show.

Is that what I just heard him say?

That is indeed what you heard him say.

Well, let's hear him say some more.

And the budget with not only free agency, but production is very high.

And also, we're going into a contract year, and I plan to continue being very active, not only in free agency, but in the production of the show and producing great content and

going into this year well again the

question is about why these wrestlers got fired for budgetary reasons when that was never the policy previously well but he's trying to say it without saying it that he's spending more money on wrestlers free agency and he's spending more money on production

But it's not hard to spend more money on production without making the show look a goddamn dick's bit of difference if you're spending six figures on a goddamn song.

what the that's how do you think that the people in the locker room whether they are currently employed or whether they've just the ones that have just got the uh the axe as they say

if it was like we've got to cut our budget because we've been running nba buildings that were only a quarter full

or we've got to cut our budget because even because we just signed a bunch of new stars guys could understand that maybe okay the boys tony we fixed the budget problems We're going to have the boys fly out of Nashville.

Yeah, that's

what I've said.

You could understand if it was, we've got to cut the budget because we're losing fucking millions of dollars every week, or we've got to cut the budget because we've got to sign some new stars to try to make a difference in our business.

But we've got to cut the budget.

But boy, that hundred grand I spent on fucking,

you know, incense and lollipops and rainbows or whatever the fuck on the song is

I don't understand what he's doing.

Here, I have to look at where we're at, and I've really had spent more than I had planned going into this year.

So, I really love our roster and where we're at.

I am very supportive of everybody we have here, and everybody that's ever worked here.

I think

I really appreciate everything they did when they were here.

And this particular group, it was not an easy set of choices to make.

And in particular, with this group of wrestlers we just released, I would be happy to take any of of them back under the right circumstance.

I have no bridge burned with any of them.

And like I said, even with the boys, I disagree with the point on travel and that in the history of ROH and working with us that there hadn't been a couple times where they didn't make it and maybe change stuff.

But on the other hand, I really like both of them.

And, you know, whether we agree or not about that point of contention, I think it's regardless.

I think they were great.

They were a great part of Dalton's act.

I like both the Tates.

So I fired them.

What is this?

All the people I fired, I would absolutely take them back under the right circumstances.

What circumstance is that?

Tony, I can't afford to feed my family.

Take me back.

Well, no, but again, we can't blister him for not being a businessman, then blister him when he's a businessman.

Under the right circumstances means if I didn't have another 175 guys that I've got to pay and I'm not drawing any money.

And I can understand that if he just say,

we got to fucking at some point,

no matter what it is, but then he contradicts himself with the rights fees for these songs.

Goddamn,

Pockets, the company mascot, gets a goddamn commercial piece of music that they had to pay something for.

If you're just wasting money for that, that nobody understands that it doesn't mean anything for him, except he, the movie where he ripped off his gimmick, also contained this song.

What the fuck?

But that's, you can't do both.

You can't

to preserve the goodwill with the roster.

Even

the boys are the boys.

They're, oh, it's terrible that this guy that never wrestles and nobody cares about him got fired after he's been here for three years.

But you can't keep the goodwill of your roster together if

you're cutting wrestlers while still doing stupid shit with your money, like the music rights for underneath guys or the giant arenas that you can't come close to filling or the fucking

the excesses that we see him go to

instead of just concentrating on improving the product.

But nevertheless.

Yeah, I mean, Tony had the option.

He could have kept all these people on the roster or he could get rid of them and use that money for one Mercedes-Monet and four songs.

No, these 10 guys didn't equal one Mercedes-Monet, I bet you, much, much less four songs.

Like everybody we released in this batch recently, and I have wishing nothing but the best for any of them.

And,

you know, I think for us this year, it's a really important year.

And I'm really looking forward going into the media rights year to, like I said, being very aggressive and putting our best foot forward, doing the best wrestling we can.

And I'm thinking and have good thoughts and within the best

reminded about everything.

Stop for one second because, you know, it's almost stupid that he made everything from day one centered around the media rights thing in terms of what he was telling people publicly because he showed his hand publicly and now something better happened there.

But at the same time, he's also, that's told the media companies, right?

This is not a goddamn program that people are going to cut their nuts off to bid for in this particular environment.

And

if the media companies know that

this deal is contingent or their profitability of their company or how far they go is contingent on this deal, doesn't that give them the opportunity to say, well, take it or leave it?

Or start lower than they would?

You see what I'm saying?

I always thought it put them in a funny position with Warner Brothers Discovery, because even if if your friend is a top executive there saying publicly, yeah, we're doing this because we're going to ask for a giant raise in five years.

Yeah.

You're saying that out loud.

Why are you saying that out loud?

That'd be what I would be saying.

But Tony's saying that because of this, and it is important,

he's doing all these things.

They're trying to make the show great.

This is them trying as hard as they can in the media rights renewal year, and the ratings are dropping.

And he thinks this is his best foot forward

just released but also

I expect that there will be people that will want to come to AEW I think really AEW and ROH were

doing great wrestling but also this is a great place to work and I believe that

everybody that has worked here that was in that group that are not with us, I have nothing but the best wishes for any of them.

And they were all different circumstances, all different people.

People are all different.

And these are human beings.

And I

also

and, like I said, they're all different circumstances

for the company at this time.

I thought it made sense.

Thanks, Brent.

All right, we'll do two more and we'll all right.

Let's stop it there.

I think Tony's done enough.

He don't need to think more.

What do you think of

Tony's response to this question about the releases?

Fair answer?

Well, yeah, awfully wordy and not really specific in any instance.

But basically, yes, it's, I don't know why this is.

The only reason it's a big thing is because Tony is noted for not ever letting anybody go, no matter whether they're being used or not, or he has the opportunity or not, or whatever.

And some of that could be considered an admirable trait, except that he got himself talked into hiring 200 fucking wrestlers.

And

think about how

the people that we still don't see, haven't seen forever, you don't see for years at a time, they live in foreign countries, they still get paid.

So this is negligible and more of it needs to go on if they were running this thing

with any kind of

concern for business because it's not even knocking the product to say that there are 30 or 40 people on that roster.

I guarantee you, you could find

whether they're talented or not, that ain't been used, ain't going to be used, ain't on fucking TV,

and are what the fuck?

Let them go do something else, bring them back later on when there's room.

Boom, done.

They've gotten an incredible amount of money per capita per match, apparently,

that either we never fucking see them.

So I

does Mark Henry still work there?

I think so.

I don't watch Rampage, right?

He used to do the thing on Rampage where he would introduce the main event.

That was a lot.

I haven't seen a clip.

I haven't seen his name mentioned.

Haven't heard him talked about.

Is Mark Henry the best paid commentator in wrestling history per word?

Per word spoken on camera.

He set a record when they signed him to his first contract.

He had his debut match with Lawler on pay-per-view and then got hurt in training and didn't work for a year and a half, but got paid.

And I love, you know, I'm not knocking Mark.

I'm just saying that's the way things worked out.

And everybody was going, Jesus Christ, he made like $375,000 for a match at a time when that was a lot of fucking money for a match, even

that first year and a half.

But anyway,

where were we?

Was Tony done?

Tony's done.

We're done with Tony, but that was Tony.

Any closing comments on his budgetary concerns leading to these cuts?

Yes, Tony, we'll send for you if we need you.

Until then, you're dismissed.

And I think you ought to dismiss a few more and maybe try to

pare down the size of those arenas a little bit until you're ready to

put some people in them.

But speaking of putting people in arenas, I think

the WWE, they need to, maybe that, maybe they could call Tony, take some of those big buildings off his hand for their overflow.

They're selling out everything.

Tony ought to get the picture.

But from what I understand now, I think you told me we might, before we go into the

festivities in Philly this weekend,

you might have a clip that Triple H is talking about he's looking for a different kind of talent for his roster maybe than Tony is.

Is this what I'm hearing?

That is indeed what you're hearing.

I have a clip here that a lot of the listeners have sent in.

I think it's from Pat McAfee.

I guess that is what you would call it.

I was going to say, I think it's from PMF.

I guess that is what you would call it.

No, no, it says

hashtag PMS Live.

And I just,

when it said it like that, it's kind of funny.

That's spelling out the initials in my head.

But, Jim, on the Pat McAfee show or PMS Live,

Triple H had a a comment about, I guess, the free agent pool or people that are coming or have come or why do they come?

Let me play.

Why did they come in the pool?

Well, let me go to this.

It's only 25 seconds.

Here's Triple H talking to Pat McAfee.

It's a different game.

It's a different world.

If they're not here to be all in on this, like when I see people that come out of, you know, trying to make it, and then they pick the job where they go, well, they work less.

The schedule is lighter.

Like, all right, then I'm glad I didn't get you.

Okay.

Because if you're not in it for the grind at that, at that point early in your career,

you have no business being here.

Okay.

Well, let's stop it there.

And again, recently in AEW, they've signed Okana.

They've signed Osprey.

In the past, Jay White and various people chose, what we've been told chose Tony Kahn and his money over WWE and working your way through a system.

What do you think of Triple H's comments here?

Well, it's true, true, and it's been that way to some extent the whole to since you know Vince went national.

That was his mindset,

and that's why he always talked about you'll get the opportunity to make more money than until there were guaranteed contracts that you still knew that when you worked for him, you stood a better chance than not of making good money.

But they want

the old-fashioned work ethic that I can't, I I can find fault with a lot of their business practices, but not

the Triple H especially, instead of the Kevin Dunn, you know, Vince thing of modern times or John Laurenitis, let's hire some lingerie models, let's hire good-looking people and teach them how to wrestle.

Our friend Shit Stain one time, he was quoted as saying, Well, I've had matches, and if I can learn to work, anybody can.

That was an exact quote, folks.

Another reason I despise the ground that he stains shit colored with his footsteps.

They

they they just what

you know and and that's the thing is that they want people that want to get over

whether it's me talking about our schedule in Louisiana, we wanted to be stars.

We were going to fucking run those roads and do that shit and fight those fucking fans.

It was the same thing.

No matter what era you were in, you had to go through the trials and tribulations of whatever point in time that it was to get to where you wanted to be and be a star and make money and be, et cetera, et cetera.

And

especially now with the WWE, the way it's structured, the money is so, the potential money is so huge that they want guys that want to learn this as

an art and as a business and want to fucking perform.

And if

they become a star, they

want them to go on the road.

They want them to make the schedule.

They want them to do the big matches.

And they're apparently going to pay them very well for it, too.

But they want guys that are, and I like the way he said it, all in, wink, wink.

But there is something to be said for guys at some point in their career.

And I'm glad it's there for them.

Of I've got my money, but I'd like to take advantage of the last few years of my career, but I want a lighter schedule.

I want to spend more time with my family.

I want to have fun.

And this billionaire will pay me

however many hundreds of thousands or a million dollars over the course of whatever.

So why not?

Because

I can't do that WWE fucking thing anymore, and new guys are coming and it's crowded over there.

I understand that, but I don't understand,

and nor does the WWE want to fool with any young wrestler that doesn't want to be in that program and become the next Rock or the next Austin or the next Ceno or the next fucking Roman or whatever.

But that's young wrestler.

We're talking about free agents like Okada.

Will Osprey can't be considered a young woman?

No, but okay, then not young wrestler.

How about unknown wrestler?

Okada's fine.

And I think that if...

Now that I've seen Okada,

I think they probably wanted him because they figured they could get a fucking foot in Japan.

Because for the, what the fuck are we seeing from Okada right now that would impress the WWE audience or the, he would stand out from the in-ring of who's there now?

What have we seen?

It was Okada who got the punk perry footage and put it in his red car and drove it to the bucks.

Well, nevertheless, so if I think that they probably wanted a foothold in Japan and wanted to fill that demographic, but they weren't going to pay Okada to just walk right in and just be who the fuck would he be in the middle of this that crowd of stars?

And Tony's like, oh yeah, you can fly to Japan and come back every couple of weeks and whatever.

And for Tony's audience, they might know who Okada is.

That's fine.

For the WWE audience, they would have had to completely start him from scratch.

And I don't see it.

With Osprey, I believe they probably had much more interest than they would have in Okada because he can speak English and he's athletic and he does all the blah, blah, blah.

But he would be moving to Florida.

He would have to fucking train in the system and then just be there to understand how television and shit works that he ain't been doing, not at this level.

But instead,

don't he say, fuck, you can fly right to Heathrow every week or whatever.

You come make these nine-day tours.

I don't know what the fuck.

And

he's perfect for their audience.

Whereas the WWE, again, would he be a British ricochet?

And so

Triple H isn't talking about

guys like that that

they'll go for him, but they're not going to break the bank for him because they got to start him from scratch.

There's only a few people probably still left in the business they could get that they wouldn't have to start from scratch.

If Danielson ever came back, they'd know him.

Would they ever accept Moxley back?

My God.

Yes, they would, because he's tied the Reigns and Rollins.

So that always makes it acceptable.

But that's the thing is that when we saw, and we're going to talk about the Roman Reigns biography soon in the future, but when you see the three, there's Seth Rollins, there's Roman Reigns, and there's the plumber.

And Uncle Dave was thinking he was going to be the star out of that group.

Holy Christ.

But they would have to completely control what the fuck that idiot would do on their television.

Point is, there's only a few people that can walk in and they wouldn't start them from scratch.

And

otherwise,

but Tony will just bring them right on in, and here you go.

You can have whatever you want.

See, the other thing is, to this point, if you're just going to throw much more money and really fair terms to guys to compete against WWE, that's only going to have to expand with every free agent that pops up that's worth it.

Well, but now, who's the next worthwhile free agent?

Do we know?

Becky Lynch.

Hmm.

Well, do you double down on that division and throw a bunch of money at someone who can't be called Becky Lynch outside of WWE?

No,

Becky Lynch is smart enough to know where her bread is buttered.

Seth is in that position.

She's just released an autobiography.

They have her entire catalog, and she's making a fortune in merchandise.

She can make money if she wants to take time off.

She can make money by sitting at home with, you know, but

just because her contract is up in two months, unless she wants to just take a vacation, I can't imagine she's going anywhere.

That would just be insane.

But do you use AEW as a negotiating tool?

Against WWE as opposed to just, here's what we're offering you.

Okay, I'd like a little more.

Now you're, I'd like a little more.

This guy's willing to give me all sorts of crazy yeah but goddamn

at the same time if if you are the wwe office you know that she would be committing career suicide by leaving and going to work there and you might say well if we're going to give you x million dollars and you don't want that you still want to use leverage it go take that and around and find out

And it's going to be interesting.

Everything's selling out and NXT is about to go to network TV.

I mean, I know it's a small network and network TV doesn't mean anything anymore, but it'll be interesting to see if that increases any any of the awareness around it.

Well, and also, remember, when they brought Becky back here a while ago and had this thing planned with Rhea, the book is coming out.

I think they thought, you know, Becky'd come back and beat Rhea, and Rhea is just continuing to get over, over, over.

I don't know if now would be the time for Becky to say, well, I'll talk to Richie Rich over here, but we'll, yeah, go see what'll fucking happen.

Call Paige.

Whatever the fuck.

Anyway.

Well, Jim, before we completely move on, just to finish up an

story.

Apparently, Tony Khan licensed Leonard Skynyrd for Mark Briscoe

in the Ring of Honor World Championship match.

And

actually, hold on, is a

licensed a bunch of songs.

It's not even just that one.

I got a.

I thought I had a list here, and I don't.

Well, Leonard Skynyrd was one of the songs.

And they used to use Give Me Back My Bullets, right?

And

back in the day of Ring of honor when nobody knew it was happening right so they just played it

that because tony lives in a different world i'm sure that was a and and i'm sure mark was thrilled and it was in honor of jay and however it was presented

but again

has tony ever thought that maybe

Instead of licensing the music, I should give the

even if he licensed licensed other songs and it was only 20,000.

What about if I say, Mark, here, because we never got to goddamn put you on our television when your brother was around and you were the best tag team in the world.

So here's a $20,000 college fund for Jay's kids.

Or I can play this music for you when you go out on his pay-per-view that nobody's going to goddamn watch.

And then brag about it when asked about why I fired a bunch of wrestlers.

Well, yes, but am I misdirected there somehow?

I like commercial music being used where it's...

Well, you know how I love it.

I love it.

But in this, to pay for it versus,

I don't know.

Versus steal it?

What are you saying?

To pay for it versus...

I mean, if you.

Dine and dash.

If this was the national television program and it was an ongoing person that was not the company mascot that gets Jefferson Starship for probably a nickel 95 or whatever the fuck,

if was featuring Mark and putting him on the big TV every week and using him on top in the real company, yeah, license that fucking go the whole way with the gimmick.

But now he spent a bunch of money for one night to license a fucking song for Mark.

I would have, again, I'd have said, here, here's the Jay's kids' college fund.

Instead of I'm spending all this money on licensing music that I'm going to go complain about later on when I talk about firing more wrestlers.

And I'm sure he's done a lot for Jay's family, to be fair.

But that's the update on audio.

We had to play before we review a bunch of things.

And as you said before, Darkseid, Harley Race, and biography, Roman Reigns, and

this one and that one.

Well,

other things that have not been covered in this rush up to WrestleMania, we're going to catch up with on the drive-thru.

And now we go to SmackDown on April the 5th, because we're not going to, again, folks, please, I don't want to relive most of these moments.

I'm going to make some observations.

We're not going to blow by blow this whole shit because this is fucking hours and hours of wrestling, but the SmackDown

before

they're already in Philly.

They're at

what the Wells Fargo Center now is what they call it.

It's right next to the stadium there.

And they were sold out with a small set.

They announced 19,000 some.

I don't know where I wrote it down, but it had to be close.

I haven't seen crowds like that since the Attitude era.

And, you know, back in the 80s and the territory days, where they didn't have the big sets.

If you sold out, you sold out.

That was the building was full.

And this, it's looking incredible.

And the video and production now that you've called my attention to it, even though I've been looking at it, I just watch the breaks now, the in-betweens, the bumpers, the crowd shots, the broke shots.

Because it's fucking awesome.

They're doing art now.

It's a fresh way to feature pro wrestling.

And you don't really get that too often.

I mean, AEW, in a lot of ways, looks like the production from WCW.

Kevin Dunn's production looked the same for years.

This is actually a fresh perspective using the usual things you need, but a fresh perspective on how to feature pro wrestling on TV.

It's great.

Well, yeah,

this is what's been happening to network television while we all been distracted with looking at the same shit because

everybody has been guilty of it for the last few years.

Everybody goes for experienced wrestling people because of the in production, because of the unique nature of it and the seat of the pants flying.

You kind of got to know.

And so you get people that have been doing wrestling forever, but that means you get people that have been doing wrestling forever.

And now, with this budget, again, with this company,

they can get anybody.

They can get the heavy equipment.

They can get the fucking

snazzy young savants at at every position audio and camera and

so anyway um

who is not a young savant in my opinion meek mill

narrated they did the cold open for wrestlemania they showed it on smackdown

and he narrates it and then apparently raps over it or behind it the video or was that him rapping was that him

that was him oh boy it wasn't bad it was a very well-done video and don't criticize him

don't put words in my mouth don't criticize him

considering what lil wayne performed well

we're going to get to to small wayne here in a little while but I like the video was art.

I liked his narration.

If the rapping was an example of his music, I'm glad I'm too old to be listening to this shit because that left a lot to be desired.

It was like somebody had

fucking trapped a goddamn coyote in a trap

and it was begging, pleading at the howling at the moon, trying to get out.

Anyway,

so they had an amazing crowd.

They're sold out there.

They open up with the KO show with Randy Orton, where they bond over their mutual hatred of Logan Paul.

But then

Logan Paul appears on the screen.

And it's a small screen way at the back of the building.

And

you could hear him, you could tell a lot of people in the building couldn't even see this fucking screen.

And then, of course, Steen has to make a goddamn wise crack about it.

Oh, and that tiny screen back there.

Yeah, it's called being in a full building, Kevin.

You've never experienced it before.

It's fun, isn't it, when they don't cut half the fucking thing off for the entrance.

But nevertheless,

so

I love Logan Paul.

He's next door at the stadium with his own crew, and they're cutting back and forth, and he's cutting a promo, knocking Owens and

Randy and everybody, and just the personality.

Love the fucking guy.

So then Orton and Owens realize that

Logan Paul is next door.

Well,

he's just right next door.

And they jump out of the ring and start running up the stairs through the stands.

And then,

oh,

Austin, Theory, and Grayson Waller roll out from under the ring, confused, and run after them like they have missed their cue to jump the babyfaces and kick the shit out of them.

And now they're chasing after them.

And

we go to the break, but when we come back from the break, before we move on, there's Orton and...

Owens outside in the parking lot in a golf cart riding to the stadium.

And as soon as they are in the distance, you see Waller and Theory

comedy running trying to catch up with him.

And with what's fixing to come up here shortly, are Waller and Theory on, are they fixing to be AEW bound as free agents?

Are they about done with them, you think, at this point?

No, I don't know why you say that.

Oh, fuck.

They gave them the tag titles the next night.

Oh, I forgot.

Well, they beat them on Friday night see i skipped that whole goddamn tag title fuck up on i forgot you forgot that they are they finishing them up they gave him the tag titles the next night well they made them look like idiots and then beat the shit out of them and beat him the the night before so okay

well i don't know maybe that's the thing

so they got to become a head of talent relations well that's the thing i

We want these guys to quit.

Fuck it.

Tell them we're going to make them the tag team champions.

That'll run them off.

Anyway, then then they did the Andre the Giant battle royal on SmackDown

with all the jobbers in the ring and Bronson Reed was entering.

And then Ricochet and Almost got an entrance.

Almost is back because it's a battle royal.

And Bronson Reed won it.

You know what I would do with Ricochet, just real briefly?

Because now that this company...

Please be nice.

No, no, I'm trying to be nice.

Now, you're going to,

you're going to apologize to me when you hear what I'm going to say.

What I would do with Ricochet, since this company has more money than the federal government now,

I would figure out some kind of gimmick.

The superhero gimmick for the kids, the Tiger Mask flavor of things.

When Tiger Mask, before he was a wrestler, he was a comic strip character over there.

And I would get

the Comet.

I don't know, the fucking, whatever the fuck, not the Blue Blazer.

And I would tell Ricochet, do the Mr.

Wrestling 2 deal.

Johnny Walker got hurt.

Professor Tanaka broke his neck.

He had to retire.

A year later, Mr.

Wrestling 2 shows up.

Pay him to stay home for a year,

but train,

stay in shape and work on this gimmick and do

fucking vignettes or whatever and go the whole way with it.

Make it a coop, Mill Moscaris, whatever the fuck.

But make it goddamn,

go all the way with that.

But he's a great talent, but he looks like just that face and he can't fucking talk.

Give him a beautiful outfit with a beautiful goddamn mask and a goddamn, make him a kid superhero and he never has to fucking speak

and

make him a top guy that way and

run off all the other small guys that do anything remotely like him so he's special because he does it better than them.

And that's the way you could make some.

But now,

is that being not nice to Ricochet?

Well, I don't think it would work

now, but I think it would have worked when they first brought him in.

He has noticeable tattoos.

You can't do it.

Remember.

No, give him a full body outfit.

The cape and the superhero costume with the...

material from Krypton covers all the tattoos.

We'll get away from the PGR with another superhero.

But in Lucha Underground, remember, he was Prince Puma under a mask.

And he looked really cool under a mask.

And then they took the mask off.

And then there's that face.

I'm not saying that.

See, that right there is an example of you not being nice.

Well, no, that's that's me.

That's me being goddamn fair.

He's from Kentucky.

He's from Kentucky.

Oh, bullshit.

He's from Kentucky.

What would be bullshit?

Where'd he ricochet into Kentucky from?

Hold on, Rico Shay.

That's R-I-C-K-O-S-H-E-A.

All right.

S-H-E-A?

What are you saying?

Ricochet?

Well, he was born in.

It's C-H-E-T.

I know.

You missed the whole joke there, buddy.

I believe.

Well, it says here he was born in Illinois, Alton, Illinois.

See there, the home, by the way, of the world's tallest man in Guinness Book of World Records, Robert Wadlow, who was 8 feet 11 inches.

Ricochet got short short-changed.

Hold on, I thought it said here,

what does it say here?

Paducah, Kentucky.

Build as being.

It's been billed as being from three different places.

Las Vegas, Nevada, Boyle Heights, California, and Paducah, Kentucky.

Well, that's because Paducah is the nearest major metropolitan area to Alton, Illinois.

See, you didn't know that, did you?

No.

Well, and now you do.

Now you know.

So moving on, if the idea won't work anyway, fuck it.

Just fuck Ricochet.

Fire him.

Hey, hey, hey, come on.

Well, you said the idea wouldn't work.

Too late, so let's fire him.

Anyway, so then Logan Paul comes out in the arena.

He's there live in the arena now.

He's over here now.

While Owens and Orton have run to the stadium to catch him, right?

And he outsmarted them.

And he gives another great heel promo, which most of the stuff is obviously his own

material.

And that's what I like about a lot of these heels now.

They actually sound like the same person didn't come up with all their shit.

And

he says, and I've got eyes on a scene because right now my boys are over there kicking the shit out of these two.

And where are they?

And the screen Theory and Waller pop up

and a little bit too much overacting, but they can't find Orton or Owens.

And then Logan Paul's in the ring and realizes, ah.

And then here comes Orton and Owens rolling out from under the ring, and they corner Logan Paul and stunner him and RKO him

and leave him laying because the other two bumblefucks

couldn't find the baby faces.

Your thoughts, Brian.

I enjoy everything with Logan Paul.

So I thought it was clever, it was good, it was a great way to incorporate, you know, that it was live, there was a lot of things happening in the area, WrestleMania's there, hot crowd.

I liked it.

Yeah, well, and I liked the back and forth from building to building.

And that was the kind of stuff that we used to do back in the day that was fun, that, you know, didn't

expose the business, except I wish that Theory and Waller were a little bit better at their acting rather than their overacting.

But

that's another Ethereum

theory.

What is he?

He must have the goddamn most abrasive fucking person.

He must be a real heat-seeking missile in the locker room that they have taken that talent and just brought him back to be the flunky of Waller that's now the flunky of Logan Paul.

He's a flunky flunky.

I think it's someone that he's someone that it'll work out maybe later, but very early on, they put him in all that stuff with Vince.

They put him at Mania with Cena.

It didn't, for whatever reason, it didn't take.

Because it was horrible shit.

And he didn't really impress much in the promos or anything.

I mean, Cena called him out to his face about his promos.

Yeah.

And they never really got better from there.

Waller seems like a natural prick.

Maybe some of that will rub off on Theory.

Maybe Theory will discover himself a little more right now.

I don't think they're giving up on him.

It's just Waller looks so undigestible visually.

The goofy outfit and the lack of physique and the goddamn nerdiness of the face and the annoyance in a

hit him.

Yeah, but but you feel like if you did, you could do damage too at the same time.

All right, someone told me he used to box, even though you wouldn't really know that from the way he's presenting.

He did, he did apples, oranges.

I'm telling you, he was a he was the most productive employee in the fruit market.

Yes,

Yes.

And then he moved over to the land of fruits and nuts.

All right.

Well, let's continue on with the fruits and nuts.

I shouldn't say that.

Let's continue on with WWE.

Well, same thing.

That's what Pat Patterson, a lot of guys always used to say.

The WWF is the land of fruits and nuts, and Vince McMahon is the head cashew.

But anyway.

In the back, I know, Brian, you'll find this hard to believe.

The Heel Luchas had beaten up the babyface lucha, and the other babyface luchas were upset about it

and then they went to the ring and had zelina with the babyface luchas against carmen electra with the heel luchas

and carmen won

and then the heels and dominic who's in this group for the sake of the match at wrestlemania beat up the babyfaces until here came andreed

and saved the day.

And I believe we've now set a record for most people involved in two factions in a goddamn rivalry.

I think we're up to 13 now, counting all the ancillary characters.

You know, Suzanne is Colombian, and she's seen some of this on TV on Fridays when I have it on and WrestleMania, of course.

And she said, how come every Latino is in one feud?

Every Latino in the company has been shoved into the, no matter where you're from, Cuba, Mexico,

Venezuela, wherever you're from, you're in this feud.

Well, it's so at least they understand each other.

If there's not a problem in the translations, everybody understands the insults.

Alrighty, you know, the nine o'clock hour on SmackDown, it was a big one, Brian.

Here came Bianca and Naomi

in cowboy hats, cowskin dresses, cowboy boots.

And

it looked somehow like

they were, is this something fashionable now, or are they trying to be the Dixie chicks?

If they'd been in Nashville, I would have got this.

Well, you're very old and white.

You have to remember this.

Beyonce Knowles, Beyonce, as she is known now without the Knowles.

Oh, Beyonce.

She has the number one album, Cowboy Carter, and it's her country music album.

So now she's also dressing like

she's, you know, a country musician.

She's her country music.

Yes.

That's right.

Just waiting until she discovers punk rock.

Can't wait to see her with a mohawk.

But that's why it's a fashionable thing right now to be someone who's never listened to country music, who's embracing the fashions

of country music.

Of county music.

I said country.

Well, here is another fan of the county music that came out then because

They did the big,

you know,

they stood there kind of in an awkward fashion, stagey toward the camera, recited back and forth some memorized material and did a banter,

somewhat acting like they were auditioning for the role of Florence on the Jeffersons.

I don't know what that was about.

And then they introduced Jane Cargill.

But the WWE, Brian, has changed her name.

Did you see this?

They're now calling her Jade Cargill.

So they've changed her name.

What are you trying to pull?

No, I'm just saying they've changed her name.

Her name's always been Jade Cargill.

You're the only one who refused to call her Jade Cargill.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Are you saying you now accept her as Jade?

Well, now that they've changed her name.

What do you mean they've changed her name?

How have they changed her name?

Because

they did the blackout.

They did the lighting effects.

They did the big entrance with the overhead shots, the carefully managed camera angles.

It was cinema.

And they introduced her as Jade

Cargill.

See, that's all it took.

It was just a minor tweak of everything she was being presented as.

So, for the wrestlers who don't like the nicknames you have for them, this is a way they can go about getting rid of the nickname?

Yes, they can just.

Lights go out, lights show.

Yes, they can just go be stars.

If they go be stars, then I'll change their names for them.

And they've got the formula for Jade here.

She did the same thing.

She had an incredible entrance.

She looks like a star.

They figured out all these angles.

She did a short recited interview without botching it up

and said, you are now in the eye of the storm.

And that's all.

And we'll get to night one of WrestleMania.

It's going to be the same thing in the matches.

They're going to.

They're going to lay until she's ready.

They're going to lay it out so she's dominant.

No mistakes are made, she's working with people that know what they're doing, allegedly, hopefully.

And it's going to be strictly controlled to present her in the best light because, as

they said a few months ago, they were dismayed at the lack of training she had had.

But that's the thing is that

it wasn't just the lack of training, it was the lack of presentation.

On AEW, she looked great, but she came out there with underneath girls as stooges and a preliminary manager that didn't really serve any purpose.

And

she would say, cut the shit to the announcer for what reason, we haven't figured out.

And she'd go out every few weeks and have a seven-minute match where she beat somebody.

And she still stood out over there.

As we said, when she finished up, what the fuck was that?

They never got anywhere.

It never went anywhere.

Here, they've transformed her entrance and her presentation.

They've given her more training.

They're putting everything together with the thought to make her a star.

They're interacting her with other main event players that can elevate her and presenting her as if she's a bigger deal than they are.

The complete opposite of what was in the other place.

And this is until she,

until or if or whatever, that she learns how to have matches from scratch on her own

and

gets some experience.

They will do this and they can draw money with her because she looks like a million dollars and they're exploiting her strengths.

She started late in the wrestling business, so she still needs to learn how to think about it.

But,

you know, so far, there's no mistakes in this.

I have nothing to add.

Are you talking to me?

I have nothing to add.

And then came the match.

Why that I thought they were finishing these two, Jabronis, Theory and Waller, up, because they got beat by the new Crotch Republic.

And they beat Waller.

They usually beat Theory.

This time they even beat Waller.

And then the Judgment Day hit the ring and kicked the shit out of both teams and left them all laying.

So I figure, well, they finally smartened up on Waller and they're firing Theory too because he got the stink on him.

But apparently they're not.

Too bad.

Well, not too bad with Theory, but too bad with Waller.

Did you like the LA Night promo?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, excuse me.

Yeah.

I fucked that up.

Yeah.

You set it up on a silver platter and I dropped that platter.

We were playing T-ball there and you whiffed it.

LA Night came out and that's all they wanted to see.

He came out, did his entrance, did the promo.

The people loved everything.

And then he left.

And it was, again, nothing new.

One thing I'll mention in a second was new, but that's how he gets over.

He comes out and does his thing.

And they like it.

And it's audience participation.

And now he's got to win the big ones more often than not for people to stay with him.

And I think we said this a week or two ago.

The reason why he got so over and it was perfect timing, boy, if he'd have waited another couple months, it may have been too late.

He was the only one talking like a fucking wrestler on this program about six or eight months ago.

Now they got a bunch of them, but he slipped in there and got over it by being the only one that sounded like a goddamn actual real fucking professional wrestler in his promos.

But he owned this crowd and they loved everything he did.

And he's cutting a promo on AJ, but at one point, he's chewing the gum, right?

Lawler's done it.

I think Austin, I don't know how these guys fucking do it.

Chewing the gum when they work or when they talk or whatever, but he's chewing his gum.

And he went to give emphasis to, and when I've kicked your ass, and he swallowed his fucking gum on live television.

You saw the look on his face.

He stopped.

He recovered and covered it up.

And never even coughed.

That was like a goddamn Harlem Globetrotter between the legs behind the back dribble pass, wasn't it?

Of promos?

Very talented guy.

I couldn't believe that.

I can't imagine how he didn't bend over and fucking blow hemorrhoids at his ass choking over that.

But right down the old goozel pipe, it went, and he worked it into the promo.

He asked the fans a question and let them fucking say yeah while he goddamn swallowed.

Anyway,

and then we got to our main event of the evening

and this is going to be a theme over the course of this podcast but we don't need any of these brothers to wrestle each other anymore do we jey uso versus solo

i think the the the brothers don't need to wrestle each other specifically the fat two brothers just to make sure we're clear here well i said these brothers You said we don't need the brothers to wrestle each other anymore.

Well, no,

Owen and Brett, if that was possible, they could wrestle each other.

I'm not opposed to all brother matches.

I'm saying these brothers, Jey Uso's brother, Solo's brother, Jey Uso's, Jimmy Uso's, all these brothers need to quit wrestling each other is what I'm saying to you.

Is that unclear?

What did I say?

Brother.

Brother.

Jay was never a flawless technician to begin with, but the hot dogging and the slap punches are driving me.

And I'm not talking about when he throws punch, slaps his arm.

I'm talking about you're slapping a guy in the face, what's supposed to be a punch.

It's an open hand.

Every member of the family is doing the same thing and working the same way.

And Solo has a little more because of his

fearsomeness and street fighting.

He's a little different, but

Jay and Jimmy worked as a team, but not against each other.

It's not a clash of styles.

It's a goddamn, it's a mirror image of styles and neither style or both the same style with both guys.

It's not a good one.

They're good athletes.

They're over as personalities.

Their work is not convincing.

And Jay and Solo was not convincing here.

And it was

stagey and herky jerky, was it not?

Did you, what'd you think of it?

Well,

you have been pointing out for a while your issues with the way the Uso, specifically Jay Uso works.

So I've been paying attention to it.

I've never really loved any of their matches, but this weekend specifically,

I hated their matches so much.

I mean, this is nothing.

This is chump change.

The WrestleMania match is one of the worst matches I've ever seen.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I don't want to see them wrestle each other anymore either.

Well, and I got to say it.

Well, here was the finish.

Jay hit the splash.

Jimmy came in, disqualification.

Imagine that.

Heat.

Cody and Seth made the save, laid Jimmy out and whipped him like a dog, whipped him like a dog.

And then Cody cut a good go-home promo, rallying the troops and pretty much telling us he's going to beat Roman.

And his

off-the-air quote was: when one good story ends, an even better one begins.

But I'm.

After I saw Jay and Jimmy and Solo in the ring so far this weekend, I'm at the level again WWE is now

and the money that's potentially there for any major personality.

Jacob Fatu would be well worth a multi-million dollar offer right now, much less no offer at all.

And he ain't getting any younger.

And they're in, unless the rest of the family hates this poor guy for reasons that I'm not been smartened up to.

How the fuck do they not have that guy in this?

But that was SmackDown.

They layeth the smackethetheth downeth on these people.

It sucked.

But the Hall of Fame, that was the kind of shit show that anyone could like.

Well,

and I'll tell you what, now, a lot of people there,

the whole sellout crowd was there not only to see SmackDown,

but also to see the Hall of Fame.

But there was some time in betwixt and in between, Brian.

You heard of it where they got to tear the ring ropes down and they got to make the ring a stage and they got to set up different seats.

So, a lot of people,

the fans, they were just sitting there twiddling their little Johnson,

waiting for this to take place when they could have been catching up on all the latest wrestling news by listening to our podcast or by listening to our YouTube.

or even by listening to one of our competitors on the Raycon wireless earbuds, because they wouldn't have been just sitting there

forced even to listen to these dead gum commercial announcements that the WWE is throwing at them in the arena there while they're changing the set.

They could have plugged in the Raycon everyday earbuds into their ears or the ears of their loved ones next to them.

And they could have been listening to all the news from all the other outlaw mud shows that were going on around town, people trying to leech off the WrestleMania name.

But see, they couldn't keep up with that because they were not able to listen because all of that was being drowned out by the commercial announcements and clattering that was going on in the arena.

You got to have a pair of Raycott Everyday Earbuds in your pocket all the time, no matter what.

Get several pair, multiple pair.

You never know when you're going to have your other pants on.

And the last thing you want to do is leave your earbuds in your other pants.

Brian, that's happened to you many times, hadn't it?

It has not.

No, it has not.

You've never left your buds in your other pants?

No, I always put my things, whatever it may be, my wallet, my sunglasses, whatever it may be, I always know exactly where I'm going to put it.

Your buds are always in your pants?

I always know where my bud is.

Well, I'll tell you what, with eight hours of playtime and a 32-hour battery life, everybody will want to be your bud when they see your Raycon everyday earbuds, folks.

And whether you want to put them in your own ears or hand them right over to your friend or neighbor so they can stick them right in their ear canals, whatever the case may be.

You'll find that, and by the way, surveys have shown it's not possible for ear-to-ear transmission of a communicable illness.

So you could just, you could pass these things around like you're at a Grateful Dead show.

And folks, they've got three customizable sound profiles, the earbud tap functions, the noise isolation mode, and the awareness mode, which lifts you into a higher level of consciousness.

And we can save you money.

You want to know how, Brian?

I'll tell you how.

You go to buyraycon.com, B-U-Y-R-A-Y-C-O-N.com slash J-C-E,

and you're going to get 20% off and free shipping.

So 20% off of whatever you buy with these fine people.

Free shipping is way.

How many earbuds would it take to equal like 40 pounds?

If you buy buy 40 pounds of earbuds, they'll still send them to you for free.

And do you know how much money that would cost?

I mean, they'd have to pay out their ass with UPS to send 40 pounds of earbuds to the goddamn Virgin Islands, but they'll do it.

Oh, they'll do it.

You buy them, they'll send them

20% off in free shipping.

Buyraycon.com/slash JCE.

That's exactly what we would like to do, slash JCE.

But once again, Raycon.

Was that a threat of physical violence directed toward me?

Do I need to fear for my life?

Is your name JCE?

Well, technically.

No, technically, it's not.

So technically, I'm in the clear.

Well, if that wasn't.

Stay up late, buddy.

If it wasn't a separate E, but if it was just like JCE,

like Ishi.

I don't know.

I think you got something to worry about.

But anyway, speaking of things to worry about, this is your show.

Well, we hope that everybody listens to the earbuds at every opportunity, but we've got to pause now to recognize and talk about the

salute to the immortals, the pantheon of the legends that is the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony.

And

the first thing I've got to say is, and I don't think this is an inflammatory comment, don't they need to move this to SummerSlam or some other place?

It's got lost now.

When it was its own event, even in an arena,

but it was the only thing of the night.

And,

you know, everybody came dressed up and they had their red carpet and they had time for the speeches and a blah, blah, blah.

Except for that, that year they did it for TV and tried to have the funks do a five-minute acceptance speech, right?

But when it was its own

event, it felt like something.

But now they start it at 10.15 Eastern or whatever after they've revamped

the set.

They're streaming it on

peacock.

But

they weren't done until after midnight in that building that had already seen two hours of wrestling.

And the guy, you know, at midnight, I don't care who it is talking.

You know, when giving

acceptance speeches or induction speeches or whatever there's got to be an element of boy i'd enjoy this a lot more at 9 p.m isn't there

is this too late is it just being sandwiched in

now again it used to be one of the regular features of wrestlemania weekend then they added a second night of wrestlemania so it throws off everything and then they added nxt

and they've added a lot of shit

And I mean, unless they're going to back up to Thursday night or something, I don't know.

I think the bigger issue is

just the fans there.

You know, they're not necessarily the fans that wanted to attend a Hall of Fame ceremony.

And I think you want to have that as an event.

Why not have that?

You're in the business of selling tickets.

That's something that you'll be able to sell tickets to.

Yeah, it's a separate, separately ticketed event that used to be and is still waiting to happen.

Like you said, the audience is different because all of the people were polite for the, you know,

in places where a more typical Northeast crowd may not have been so polite, but they were the fly-ins and they respect everybody.

But it got late at night once that Heyman was done and they had to put a Heyman on, they had to Saturday night's main event the thing and put the main event on first because you're fighting sleep.

So,

boy, there was, you know, after, and how do you follow Paul speaking, doing anything, right?

So

anyway, that's what I'm saying

is that this, I think if they're going to do it

and give everybody a chance to enjoy it, maybe spread it out a little bit, take it out of WrestleMania and put, make it the attraction of SummerSlam weekend or one of them.

Nevertheless,

Jackie Redmond and Corey Graves were the host.

She may be the best on-air female talent that the host,

interviewer, whatever that they've got.

And Graves is doing great stuff.

He's quick.

You know, my favorite thing about her is whenever they go to her in the back, and again, these backstage vignettes or interviews have been so much better lately.

Whenever they go to her, she says, thanks, Cole.

Not Michael, Cole, or not Michael.

Thanks, Cole.

Thanks, Cole.

But of course, they led with, you know, Paul because it's Philadelphia.

And

also, again, by the time he's going to be finished, it's going to be after 11 o'clock.

They didn't want to put Paul out there at midnight.

It still would have been good, but that wouldn't have been fair to him.

And, you know, he, a great history package, those old pictures.

Oh, my God.

Was it ECW or WWE that aged him so horribly, do you think?

I think it was life.

It's just a question of of life.

But anyway,

so Paul,

that's the thing.

You could tell by that

most of the video package that they did,

he does nothing

fake or eye-winky.

He's always who he's supposed to be.

He only interacts with top main event talent.

Everything he's involved in makes sense.

He has a completely unique personality and delivery.

And he never does or says anything that Paul Heyman

wouldn't do or say on television.

So, you know,

you can make the case that I talk about Gunther being a perfect wrestler, but you can make a case that Paul has taken care of himself.

Because, I mean,

at some point or another,

every member of the talent roster has had to, for whatever purpose, do something really fucking stupid, right?

Who can you think of besides Paul

that hasn't done something really stupid or phony or eye-rolly or whatever?

I can't think of it.

I mean, there's certain things he's done that's made me roll my eyes.

I can't say that.

But not in a like, you know, they're out there.

He's scrambling for the 24-7 title, or you know what I'm saying.

No, he stays away from embarrassing shit, whether it's running TNA

or being involved.

I mean, there's very few people.

For a little while, he's involved with like Ryback and unfortunately, Kurt Henningson, who never had a good name.

It was Michael McGillicuddy, then Curtis Axel.

That was the only weird period where it was like, what are they doing with Heyman?

Other than that, the people he's with has always been the right.

I mean, he managed Sabu when Sabu was the Indy Darling.

He managed, you know, everyone at the right time, it seems like.

But anyway, he's a very, very smart fella.

Visually repulsive, but a smart fella.

Anyway, so Roman

inducted him, talked about the inspirational things that Paul has taught him, and was very heartfelt in that.

And he always knows what.

I thought it was kind of,

good lord, there's a fucking sports car going by here.

One of those goddamn hot rodders.

What if it's the fabulous ones?

I thought it was a vroom, vroom.

It was the thrill seekers.

I thought that it was telling

Roman says he always tells you what you need to hear.

And sometimes it may have an element of what you want to hear, but he's a great motivator.

And he said he's a minch.

Brian,

that's good, right?

That's like the ultimate compliment, yeah.

Well, there you go.

I didn't know they had minches in Samoa, though.

I think you could be a mensch anywhere.

They just may call it something else.

Ah.

Well, then Roman introduced him, and Paul waddled out proudly and hugged Dreamer and RVD and Bubba and Roman.

And, of course, then gets away with cussing, but they're bleeping on Picok.

I thought that they could get away with a few things on the streaming, but apparently they even bleeped shit.

Nevertheless,

we finally saw members of his family.

His kids were there.

And when I've heard him talk about his children,

I was thinking children, but didn't they look kind of college age, 18, 20, thereabouts, something like that?

You're a better judge than I am.

Well, if you think about it, when he had kids, that was 20 years ago, give or take.

How time flies when you're not paying attention to other people's business?

But anyway,

they're fine and all grown up.

She's attractive.

He looks scared, shitless,

the young man.

But I wonder if...

You leave them alone.

What is your problem?

Well, no,

his son looked like he was scared there, like he's got the perma grin on his face, like they're shooting me on camera.

But she's attractive.

I wonder if Paul should have a DNA test.

Will you, again, will you leave him alone?

We're talking about his Hall of Fame

induction.

Did a wonderful job.

He should run for office.

He put Triple H over.

He put Stephanie over.

He talked in a heartfelt manner to his children and gave them a pep talk about not giving up on their dreams.

Referenced wishing that his mother and father were here to see it.

Wished Dusty

was here to see it.

Said that directly to Cody.

Somebody in the crowd chants or didn't chant, yells, we love you, Paul.

And he says, I love me too.

And

he stole

a page from my book of philosophies, Brian, because he had an old cardboard box there and he pulled out his leather coat and headset from ECW and his hat

right out of that old box.

And the people cheered, which proves that anything that comes out of a box gets over.

And he did his ECW segment.

And,

you know, Rah-Rod that, because that's, it's Philly, and that's what that segment of the audience came to hear.

And he said, if you think ECW died in bankruptcy court in 2001, you can suck my dick.

I have a feeling he, even Paul, might have asked if he could say,

suck my dick.

They bleeped it, of course, but I think he probably asked on that.

He should have done a Thunderbolt Patterson.

You could suck my.

Oh, you could eat my.

No, he was going to eat there.

Yes.

Well,

and then we could eat each other's.

But anyway,

he,

Paul, and of course, in his own fashion, took credit for everything he's ever done.

And then said when he was swimming in the ocean of obscurity, he was rescued to the island of relevancy by Roman reigns.

Did you notice when Paul, when he closes his eyes, I've never seen this before, his eyelids are wrinkled.

Did you see that?

No.

I've never seen a human being.

When he closed his eyes, his eyelids are wrinkled.

I can't even tell if you're fucking with him again.

If this is really an observation that you're real, it's a real observation.

If you go back and look, Paul Heyman, when he closes his eyes, his eyelids are wrinkled.

Anyway, so then

he talked about the new stars and who got mentioned first, Braun Breaker and Rhea Ripley.

he

knows he knows he you might see if if he lives long enough next year or two you might see him with braun breaker i bet you

and then he still

he has that volume in his voice where he can turn that boomingness on and i'm thinking it's kind of like

You know, Aretha Franklin, the bigger she got, the more power she could get out of her lungs.

So

it's nothing like that.

And by the way, she had a very powerful voice when she was not as large as she was as large and in charge.

But no,

you think about it.

You're talking about a Campbell soup can are you talking about a big old barrel drum?

That barrel drum is going to have more resonance.

Depends what else is in the drum.

If the drum is filled up with lard,

for instance, it looks like that drum is filled with lard, but

anyway, he said, I'm blown up and I have to pee and finished with, we're going to disrupt the industry all over again.

And that was a 50-minute segment.

How Paul, again, has the energy with that, the state of his physical condition, I'm proud for him.

That was a

best speech that has ever been at the Hall of Fame, I think.

Obviously, what the people came to see.

Really good speech.

For me personally, like some of the parts like about being canceled, that was kind of cringy and you know i don't well but but he's got he builds everything up to

he can read you the phone book as they say or he can you know read mundane things but in the dramatic manner that he builds everything how do you think he's been able to talk all these people into doing all the stupid things they've done for him over the years well there's also a lot of stupid people

Well, that's that helps, but no, you've still got to be good.

Well, what I was going to say before,

You see, you drag me into what you do to him.

Slandering him.

And putting the guy over as the greatest talent in the goddamn business.

Go ahead.

It was a good speech.

He came at.

He saw some of the old ECW guys.

I saw a comment online.

It made me laugh.

They said he patted down Tommy Dreamer to make sure.

Because Tommy Dreamer previously said, you know, Paul Heyman cost me everything.

I was going to shoot him at WrestleMania.

Well, when Tommy went through that period of cloudy thinking there he was going to hop the rail at WrestleMania and shoot Paul and himself and make history.

But I guess he changed his mind and he hugged him instead.

The biggest issue, I guess,

I mean, Heyman's so smart.

Thank God he went on first because I don't even know if he would have been able to get the same energy if he had gone on after everyone else or any of the other people at all.

Yeah.

But starting the show with Heyman was a good idea.

Well, then we went after Happy Heyman, our friend and colleague, we went to Bull Nicano being inducted by Medusa

or Alundra Blaze as they still call her there.

She was

Alundra Braze.

Yeah, Dairy Queen Brazier.

She was Alundra Braze.

What is wrong with you?

She was Alundra Blaze.

She was

Alundra Blaze for like a year and a half and has been Medusa for the rest of her life.

And they're still calling her Alundra Blaze.

I think Medusa's great.

Bull Nicano is great.

This is a two and a half hour show.

And it's not that I'm not interested in women.

I'm not particularly interested in this particular woman.

Sherry Martell, check.

Leilani Kai, Judy Martin, check, whatever.

But

Medusa, random thoughts on what I did watch.

Medusa looks fantastic.

As soon as she started talking about Bull Nicano's dreams and aspirations at the age of 15, I hit fast forward

i came because there's no visual fast forward on the on the peacock

so i was having to kind of just gauge it but i jumped back in on bull nakano's entrance she's lost a considerable amount of weight has she not

she has

she looked very

Svelte and demure and fat looks fantastic for her age, which apparently they said was 56.

And then she started talking.

And it sounded like she was going to be nice to people and talk for a while, so I hit fast forward.

That's rude.

And when I came back, I was in the middle of the Becky Lynch and Rhea Ripley video, which was dynamite, by the way.

But what, if anything, did I miss about Miss Nakano's

induction here?

Well, you shouldn't call it dynamite.

That's not necessarily a compliment anymore.

Ah, that's true.

It was a very nice speech.

It went on for a while.

Asuka seemed emotional listening to it.

Bull Nicano was really good.

And it was even cool because they showed some of the footage they had of her, I think, from 86, when her and Dump Matsumoto came over and worked some dates for the WWF.

You know, people almost think it's like nothing and then the Jumping Bomb Angels.

They were there in 86,

and it was really cool.

Really cool to see.

I liked it.

Well, good.

But here's what was really cool to see is the fucking video between Rhea Ripley and Becky Lynch, the WrestleMania match promotional video,

and

again, next level television production on this thing.

And

what I talked about a few weeks ago, the whole mommy and the man deal.

This is a money match in the women's division in anybody's.

Anybody's little black book.

And Jim, can we take a break for a moment?

I have a few things I want to cut into the show with, if you don't mind.

Oh, I'm sorry.

One,

tying into this story, and Paul Heyman specifically, because VCW,

WWE wasn't the only company putting a Hall of Fame together.

The Indy Wrestling Hall of Fame took place.

Oh, boy.

Game changer wrestling promoter Brett Lauderdale had to announce on Twitter, let me read this tweet to you, in the true spirit of independent wrestling, Sabu has decided to keep his deposit and no show the Indy Hall of Fame ceremony today.

He accepted the booking and took the money, but doesn't want to get in the elevator and come upstairs.

What?

What a legend.

Doesn't want to get in the elevator and come upstairs.

That's a new one.

Not he won't get in the car and be driven to the show.

He won't come upstairs.

But that's the other Hall of Fame, Sabu.

I guess he's still...

still inducted if he doesn't show up.

I don't know.

It depends on where his car is parked.

Unless there's goddamn a stairway he can take, he might not be able to get back to his car.

Well, that's that news.

And then here's other news: elevator phobic sabu.

This may excite you a little bit more.

There is news going around right now, Jim.

And even the Observer is now reporting it.

Jacob Fatu has informed people that he has signed with WWE.

Boom!

Boom!

Now we're going to see some shit.

Now something's going to happen.

The werewolf will be on the prowl.

Ow!

Werewolves of WWE!

What?

That sounded so awful.

It's so out of tune.

It has nothing to...

Whatever.

Jacob Fat2, what do you think?

Well, I just said I'm howling over the news.

What do you think this means for tonight?

Well.

Could this mean something for WrestleMania as we are recording?

Would you do that right away, or do you send them to NXT to work his way up?

Well, no, you don't do either, I don't think, because Cody pretty much needs to win tonight.

And you don't debut a new

secret weapon and a losing effort, but I don't think that the people in NXT should see him.

I think he should make some kind of impact by possibly on the Raw after WrestleMania

by fucking doing one of those goddamn moonsaults at his goddamn look off the top and squushing somebody or another one of those awesome things he can do and surprise everybody right off the bat.

But that's just me.

If you do something where Cody beats Roman,

you know, kind of like when Shawn Michaels lost the belt and DX had to retool, the next night is when Sean Waltman debuted.

Yeah.

If you do something like that, the next night you have a new member of the bloodline, which needs a new member badly.

Yeah, this guy could come in and, goddamn, oh, shit, they let him out.

He's out.

He's free.

Doesn't have a bracelet on.

Shit, we're all in trouble.

The previous management refused to even negotiate with him.

Yeah.

But he is somehow here now, unchained.

Well, I know how because his fucking cousin's on the board of directors.

Boom!

Boom.

This guy's gimmick is that nobody would touch him because of how dangerous he is in his background and he's a threat to society, but goddamn rock's going to let him loose on us because he's pissed.

The rock has to go make a movie.

Who's going to be there in his stead tearing things up?

Jacob That too.

You never know what might happen.

Hey, Jim, one more thing, because this is fascinating and it's something people are talking about as we do this real-time, real-world update here in the show.

Is this real life?

A statement from Michael A.

Monteforte or Montefort.

I really don't know.

What does Mr.

Fortunato have to say?

Michael A.

The middle initial makes it classy.

Michael A.

Monteforte

posted on Instagram.

This is Vince McMahon's personal trainer.

Oh boy.

Vince McMahon was unable to attend his first WrestleMania.

How quickly people forget that without his vision there would be no wrestling or wrestlemania.

He invented both.

Sadly, when a person is down, the people who say they love you turn their backs on you.

Don't judge a man without getting all the facts.

Things aren't always as they appear.

Ah, so this Michael Monteforscu,

Monteforskin, Montefuscu,

Montefalco,

he knows

Monte Crisco.

He knows some things that he's not saying.

You know, and that's the thing.

That is true.

When a man's down,

it's terrible for people to just,

while he's down, just shit on him like that.

You know what?

You're out of control, first of all.

I like this little insight, though, into vince's inner circle first of all it shows that vince is upset that some people haven't stood by him

that he invented wrestling let alone wrestle mania but also who's he hanging out with

his assistant and that other executive who are brothers that work for him the chef the chef

the chef Is this the personal trainer now?

Or is this who was who was involved in the head shitting incident?

Physical therapist.

No, he was a physical therapist.

So it couldn't be, it might not be Michael A.

Monte Cristo here.

Because he's a personal trainer, not a physical therapist.

Does it say anything to you, though, that this is the person putting out a defense evince right now?

He surrounded himself with people that are...

I've said

Vince is Trump if he was articulate.

He surrounds himself with stooges and sycophants that tell him how great he is, and then he demands that his,

you know, Miss Grant there, whatever his relationship could have been called with her,

write letters glorifying that he hung the sun and the moon and stars.

He lost his fucking mind.

Do you think the personal trainer gets a $50 bonus?

Only if he gets color.

Well, Jim, let's return to the Hall of Fame.

Back to the Hall of Fame, because speaking of real Hall of Fame talent, I'm glad to see that finally an omission has been rectified and clarified and circumcised or whatever, because it just wasn't fair.

That all the great contributions that Muhammad Ali made to the world of sports, that he

maybe was in some little rinky-dink Hall of Fames,

but now he's enshrined in a major Hall of Fame, Muhammad Ali,

into the WWE Hall of Fame.

I'm from Louisville.

And

we love Muhammad Ali.

And I mean, yes, he did do the first WrestleMania as the referee or blah, blah, blah.

But he was a wrestling fan.

They showed the clips.

And we see all the Ali documentaries here in Louisville.

And they never show his wrestling clips.

So it was nice to see that stuff.

But

this was for publicity, was it not?

If really nothing else.

And WWE has some sort of merchandising or marketing agreement with him because they put out different action figures with him within the last year, 18 months, and they're about to put out more.

So, well,

there may be a clue as to what's going on with this timing.

Did you see in the package that Hogan always said, hey, I'd go up to Muhammad Ali and say, you're the greatest?

He'd say, no, you're the greatest.

Hulk Hogan, you're the greatest.

Hulk Hogan, you're the greatest of all time.

I love you, Hulk Hogan.

But anyway, they had the Undertaker to induct him.

And Taker's clearly a fan, and he loves combat sports and legends like that.

That was his era, like mine when we were kids.

He also needs to just shave his head.

Well, it is getting thin up there.

I don't know what the hell was going on up there.

But a heartfelt speech.

And then he introduced Alani Ali to accept.

I'm sure she was thrilled of all the many honors that have come their way, but they bleep the F when she said WWF as it was known then.

It happened a few times.

I think it happened with Windam and Rotunda, too.

Can they not even say that now as in like referring to the past, a historical fact that was accurate?

That's crazy.

You're talking about history.

I mean, that's the thing.

You're talking about actual history.

So anyway, this was this

whole thing was the most bizarre segment.

Undertaker coming out there and not like,

you know, Muhammad.

Just, hey, this is Mark, friendly Mark out here.

Talking about how much he loves Ali.

There's no connection with the Undertaker and Muhammad Ali

at all.

The Undertaker had no connection.

The Undertaker gives the speech.

They bring up Ali's wife.

And I know Ali was married a few times, I believe.

But she goes, I knew Muhammad since I was six.

Yes.

And I'm like, what?

Well, that did require a bit more explanation.

And we don't have the time, and I'd have to refer to one of my books, but this was one of Ali's later wives, and they had not been romantic since they were six, but because he was a celebrity, even at that point, she had met him as a child.

Right.

Which would have

been a nice.

Yeah, it would have been a nice sounding story if she'd have, you know, but, but yeah, anyway.

And to put then,

if she accepts, she

then presents The Rock

with a championship belt for the People's Championship because the story was.

And when he comes out, she calls him out.

The crowd mildly kind of booed him.

And he gave an acceptance speech.

of the title belt that she gave him

and putting Ali over, obviously, but said the Ali family came to a show in Louisville and authorized him to call himself the people's champion when he was with the nation during the Attitude Era.

In Louisville, do you remember this?

I don't remember that.

I'm not saying he never met with them.

Now, wait a minute, hold on.

Because he was with the nation.

He was done with the nation by what, the beginning of 99, right?

Well, yeah, no, they did a couple of pay-per-views in Louisville in,

I think it was 97

and 98, I believe.

I didn't even think, you know, the whole ridiculous thing that happens here, I didn't even think about the idea of the rock lied about the story of meeting Ali in Louisville.

Well, no, he never said he met Ali because Ali, he said Ali's family.

And

Ali does have family that do live here.

So

point, and they may have even come to the matches.

I'm not saying, but I don't know if there was a concerted,

you know, contingent from the Ali family that came in to have this summit meeting with The Rock about, but nevertheless.

And he said, you know, he said, yeah, they told me that Muhammad said you're okay

to do it.

But so anyway, you've got

The Rock accepting an award from the wife of Muhammad Ali, who's being inducted into their hall of fame.

And

I'm starting to get with you.

It's like we're getting a lot of rock here in a little short period of time.

Hey, listen, it's not even her presenting him with a belt.

What does she know?

The belt makers?

How did she get a belt?

How come the belt has the WWE logo on it?

What the hell was it?

Was this even really Ali's wife?

Was any of this real?

No, no, no.

Was any of this real?

Did any of this happen?

It was there.

Yes, yes, it was there.

Come on.

The belt had the logo on it.

Who does she know?

She's not calling Dave Millikan.

Hello, this this is Muhammad Ali's wife.

I need a belt for the real people's champion?

No, she had it made in Pakistan.

It was cheaper that way.

Come on, what was that?

He presented himself with a belt.

My man over at Main Event Belts in the UK.

He presented himself with a belt.

That was a Vincent man did that once.

He presented himself with a giant plaque to celebrate the sales of the WrestleMania VHS at the garden, made his own plaque, gave it to himself.

This is what The Rock did.

He got a belt and gave it to him.

He had Muhammad Ali's wife give it to him.

By the way, I accept the lineage of the people's champion that it was Bruno San Martino.

And well, and by the way, yes, the people's champion,

the people's champion is not a new phrase in wrestling, which is kind of where The Rock got it.

But also.

I would say, oh, you're just making too much of this.

You're just going on and you're winding everybody up for no reason.

But The Rock brought the belt out at WrestleMania the next night and held it up like he was still a WWF champion.

Again, that's the thing.

If you really believe she presented it, that means you think somehow she got this belt made with WWE logos on it.

I mean, who thought it was a good idea to do this?

How is this a good idea?

Hey, the Ali family has a reach far and wide.

They know jewelers everywhere.

All right, can we move on now?

Even the fans are another shot.

Even the fans are like, what the fuck?

He walked through the crowd.

He came through the crowd at a new order to accept this.

You got another clear shot at the rock here at the end.

So save something.

Because I want to get to Wyndham and Rotunda.

So we get past Wyndham and no, Barry Wyndham and Mike Rotunda, the U.S.

Express, both Hall of Fame wrestlers for this team, as we talked about.

I'm not sure.

And they had a bunch of

the talking heads talk about how they revolutionized.

Did they revolutionize anything?

Did we establish they weren't there a year?

The video basically was all around them being a part of WrestleMania 1.

And really, that is kind of their biggest legacy in WWE.

They were great

and

probably would have kept going if Barry hadn't decided to quit.

Which I think, according to Barry, happened after Mike quit.

And then when Barry quit, Mike had already gone back.

They teamed some in Florida also, but it wasn't like, you know, the point is, Barry Wyndham is a single wrestler, definitely Hall of Fame guy.

Barry Wyndham and Ronnie Garvin were a very successful tag team, as people may remember.

Mike Rotunda and Rick Steiner were a great team.

Rotunda wasn't bad as IRS on his own, but just this team.

But anyway, then they did also.

There's a tie-in.

There is the new Bray Wyatt documentary that's out.

They had

Taylor and Micah Rotunda,

Mike's sons, or son and son, son and daughter, and acknowledge Bray, who is the other son.

And Mike looks great.

He always stays in shape.

Barry is not as big as I'd seen him in the past.

I think he's lost a little weight.

He's got some more to go.

And this was the thing is

Mike was never an animated public speaker.

And he did most of it.

Barry chimed in every once in a while.

And it was already midnight.

And so they were polite to him but i think they probably the people would have enjoyed it more if it had been earlier in the festivities and they honored bray with the the cell phone lights and everybody held their their phones up and they played the music but uh

nice nothing nothing revolutionary here on this induction

yes

Mike Rotunda looks like Chandler from Friends if he had grown up right.

Yes, if he'd grown up and stayed away from bad habits.

That's right.

And that's a Mike looks like a fucking IRS guy to this day rather than a wrestler.

You know, I remember his promos as Captain Mike.

Both versions, the wrestling team captain and also the yacht captain.

Different versions of Mike Rotunda.

Of course, his IRS, he was a character.

Michael Wallstreet, various other things.

Was he just nervous?

I mean, I've never, you know, he was stammering more than I thought he would not that there's anything wrong with that but well because he was trying to be himself instead of even think about it mike's been out of the business for a while he's a successful grown adult um

but he's trying to be himself rather than his gimmick and and

he i think he realized that he'd never tried to be himself before and he was kind of and also it's late you could tell that every When you're sitting there in the room, you can tell when people are drooping, right?

So when you get up there, you feel like you're going even longer

than you would have been normally because you know people are drooping.

But boy, the next thing perked him up, didn't it?

What was that?

If he only had time.

Oh, that's right.

This perked me up.

Thunderbolt Patterson.

And now

the people know, the people.

They know what we've been talking about.

In trying, you can't describe it, you have to experience it.

And, of course, we had heard that Thunderbolt was going to be inducted by

like Marion, Ohio radio legend Scott Spears.

And we thought, what the fuck?

Lawler wanted Lance Russell.

And they said, no, nobody knows who he is.

And he gets a fucking radio guy from Ohio.

They just humored him.

They had New Day along with Big E,

who's back with them to give

some element of an induction speech and then introduced, and now accompanied by Scott Spears, here's Thunderbolt Patterson.

And they,

T-Bolt's 82, so he's in a wheelchair.

They wheeled him out, but he gets up.

He can move around, but he couldn't take that long trek, right?

Down to the ring.

He got up.

He hugged Gerald Briscoe.

hugged JBL and got back in the chair.

And they went to the video.

And now the people, you see the 70s footage in the ring.

You see what we're talking about with the work.

But from the promo clips and then from this speech, you see what we're talking about with the promo.

Thunderbolt was over with the fans in the places that he got over.

He was over as a person with those people, and they believed in him as a person.

And if you had heels that had a lot of heat, the anderson brothers or whoever the fuck

people would go out of their minds to see thunderbolt beat them up and they would overlook a significant portion of thunderbolts in ring because it it

you just had to

but it was the thing that he was doing rather than how he was doing it and he was charismatic in the ring you can't you watch the clips of him in the ring and it is you do watch him even though he's

i'm not talking about his charisma when when he's in the ring, the strutting and the dancing.

I'm talking about when he actually did an offensive move to anybody.

That's what you had to overlook because that looked like shit.

But everything else about him was

incredible.

And lots of people stole stuff from the promos, as they talked about.

And,

you know, you see by the clips, the people are going crazy, but the heels are just bumping off of him when he, you know, looks askew in their general direction.

And that's what it was.

And then,

but well, before Thunderbolt started talking, Scott Spears did indeed speak.

And I'm surprised now it was after midnight in the building.

I'm surprised there weren't snipers from that crowd in Philadelphia.

He called Thunderbolt Patterson the Jackie Robinson of wrestling.

Yeah, well, yes.

That's a bit of a stretch.

That's a bit of a stretch.

Bobo Brazil and Jim Mitchell are calling, but nevertheless.

Yeah, really?

What this was, was local radio at its best

because this is

he was a local radio guy, and I'm sure he's a big wrestling fan.

And he told the most confusing story that I've ever heard in my life about a sheriff killing his wife.

And

I'm about to tell it better.

A sheriff killed his wife and drew the fucking crime photo sketch of Thunderbolt to try to throw people off the trail.

But it would have been a hell of a story if anybody had told it.

And so then Scott got finished.

If I only did crime.

If I only did crime.

If I only had a dime.

So then

Thunderbolt, then I could call somebody.

See, that's

amazing.

The days of the payphone.

And anyway, he started, Thunderbolt started his speech by praying,

and suddenly it was a revival, and it was just like his wrestling promos, only nobody on wrestling television in territory days ever let him talk for 15 minutes.

And now you see what I'm talking about.

It's complete gibberish, but an amazing performance.

There is no linear story or thought related or possibly even a sentence finished.

It's just blurting sound bites and random words and phrases tied together in a

performance that's as much athletic as it is verbal with the contortions and the

oomph that he puts in it.

Did you see what happened with his dentures?

At one point, he almost

maybe the polygrip wasn't working like it needed to,

but he managed to catch them.

And that's the thing is that

you're caught up in whatever the fuck this is.

It's a captivating

performance of something that, but you...

you don't know what he's saying.

He says a lot of things that sound good, but they don't really join together to form a cohesive story.

And then, and I think he, it was done and he was over, or it was over with.

And then he ceased talking.

But that's, I'm telling you, nobody says

nonsense like that anymore in the world.

You can,

you can make money with it.

They did make money with that because whatever he's doing, people like to watch it.

Well, at one point, the uh DJ or the um the local radio guy,

I'm wondering, I'm wondering what their format is.

He didn't look like a heavy metal kind of guy or a fucking you know,

urban music.

I have a feeling it's talk radio, I have a feeling it's talk radio, but he said when Thunderbolt said, if you move,

the people knew what that meant.

Yes, it even

told the story wrong about if if I only had time.

I felt like he watched one of our videos about it.

Yes, I think he may have to prep for this because he did.

He said one time when asked to go out on television and talk about his match, Thunderbolt said, if I only had time.

No, it was only saying,

just say you're going to be in Carrollton tonight.

It's a spot show.

If we mention it, it draws.

If we don't, nobody goes.

Just say, the last 30 seconds of the show, I'll be in Carrollton tonight.

I'm coming to Carrollton, Carrollton, Carrollton.

That's all you got to say.

And Thunderbolt got last 30 seconds, got finished talking about the Omni,

and then looked at the camera and said,

and

if I only had time.

And they went off the air.

Well, this guy explained it.

He goes, People knew that when Thunderbolt said, if I only had time.

They didn't know.

Because they weren't, because they didn't hear the word Carrollton to know that he was going to be there in Carrollton that night.

But

anyway, that, I mean, D, you see now.

I'm a fan of Thunderbolt.

You ain't going to talk me out of it.

I think he's the best.

I'm not saying he's bad, but it's different.

It's undescribable.

It points out like when you see Big E doing like his evangelical voice or whatever you want to call it, it feels like a guy putting on a voice.

Thunderbolt, it's real, it's deep inside.

This is the way he communicates.

Well, no, because I mean, there's a difference.

I'm not trying to

pigeonhole or categorize Big E's African-American experience, but I can say this with some degree of certainty: the Thunderbolt Patterson has been in many more black Southern churches in his life than Big E has been in his.

And Thunderbolt sounds legitimate.

He sounds exactly

like

the preaching that you would hear in the Charian, Georgia, or in Mississippi, or in the Carolinas, in those churches, which is why those audiences believed him because he sounded exactly like the preacher that was lying to him on Sunday morning.

And he was the wrestler that was lying to him on Saturday afternoon.

But it was the same.

It was legitimate.

It was authentic.

And this guy's 82 years old now, and he can still talk like that.

Should they give him the Ron Wright gimmick, bring him back, let him work TVs?

No.

Managing carrying cross, Thunderbolt Patterson.

You know, hey, nobody thought more of Ron Wright than I did, right?

And dude,

bless his heart.

But I wasn't going to pitch Ron for national TV because it wasn't the audience.

For East Tennessee, it was perfect because everybody knew somebody like him, but he was turned up all the way with it.

And he had the history and it made sense and it worked.

But with this production right now, Thunderbolt Patterson in the wheelchair, I don't know.

And let's face it, Ron Wright could focus on the issue and give you a promo that would get the...

rest of the people involved over rather than just,

we got to go see Thunderbolt or we got to go see Ron.

The people knew when he said, if I only had time, it meant you better come to the arena tonight.

Yeah, because we got no more time on TV,

but we'll have more time tonight at the arena.

So I mean, it was,

this is a,

this was, again, also, there's been 40 years, what is that, two generations, as they count them, removed from when any of these people would have seen Thunderbolt live work

or talk or whatever.

And it had to be somewhat of a culture shock to go,

what's going on here?

Well, you know, the saddest thing is if someone saw that and said, I wanted to see more Thunderbolt Patterson, there isn't a lot readily available.

It's not like some fan can say, you know,

this could be something that causes someone to dive off into wrestling history.

Yeah, no, well, and the stuff, most of the promo stuff is from the mid-80s or early 80s Georgia shows that they have in the library and then the WCW Legends events or whatever.

But

they know Florida stuff, I think, and they've got mid-Atlantic.

That's what I'm saying is the only,

they don't have any mid-Atlantic as old as Thunderbolt.

No, I guess just 85 is all I'm thinking of.

Well, no, there might very well be some early 80s mid-Atlantic because Crockett had kept, when they got the Nemo truck, what, 81-ish, there was a lot of stuff still around.

But he wasn't there.

He wasn't around.

He wasn't there.

That's why I'm trying to get to that point.

Thunderbolt was not in the Carolinas past the mid-70s, and I think there's only a few things of him on the mid-Atlantic films that I saved.

But the Florida collection is what they got those clips of the action footage you see of him and Dusty.

That's when Dusty was a heel before the 74 turn.

That would be the only place that there would be

the footage of Thunderbolt when he was really in his prime, really over on top main event guy.

And I don't know that they saved the TVs.

I think that's a lot of arena matches, so you wouldn't have a lot of interviews.

There's where I was going.

So not a lot of stuff left.

He's in the limited footage.

There is, you know, there's the film they made about the Sam Houston Coliseum and wrestling in 72, I think.

He's in that.

So you get to see him as a heel working for Paul Bosch.

Did he work some for Einhorn in the IWA, or am I imagining things?

I think he did.

I'm trying to remember that intro where they would show you all the different stars.

Luscious Larry Heineme, they show you all the different stars on there.

I think Thunder and him too, all the stars, and him too.

I think he may have worked there, yeah.

Well, anyway, you're ready for the main event,

right?

Of the Hall of Fame ceremony, because we can't go home yet because the big one, the big one has left.

Finally,

Leon Ivia has come back to the Hall of Fame

and again, nice package.

Thank you, Doctor.

Here came the rock.

Nice package manufacturing history to somehow make this a reasonable entrant into any Hall of Fame involving wrestling.

What the hell was that?

We talked, we've gone over the details, which we will enumerate here again shortly in a briefer fashion.

But Rock came out to his music, and this is where you could tell: okay, the people are tired.

This was not a rock entrance.

This was, here he comes again.

At least it's about over.

Didn't you feel like that?

Oh, yeah, I felt like that.

Even in Philly, even with the rock, right?

This is the nicest Philly audience, I think, ever.

Well, yeah, because they're the ones that fucking took Doink down when he was a babyface.

Philly are the ones who took Santa Claus down.

Yeah, well, but remember, almost nobody in the building was from Philadelphia, though, because this is WrestleMania weekend.

Everybody's from out of town.

But anyway,

he mentioned in a plethora, a pantheon of wrestling promoters' names.

He mentioned Jim Crockett.

He mentioned a variety of Fritz von Erich.

He mentioned Vince, and there was a smattering of disgusted murmuring.

in the crowd at the mention of Vince's name.

Did you catch that?

I caught that.

And remember, even when Vince was there, you were never supposed to mention Vinch.

Vinch.

You were never supposed to mention Vince.

Goddamn, people, this is taking a toll on us, too.

Please have mercy.

Well, Minch.

He's a Minch, but not Vince.

Vince is not a Minch.

Vinch was not a Minch.

No, he wasn't.

And a small smattering of disgust for the mention of his name.

But

Rock almost started rambling here.

And then he mentioned Dusty and the Rhodes family and talked to Cody

and said he respects Dusty and Mama Rhodes, but Cody, you and I aren't business, it's personal.

So at least he turned this into

something for business.

But as we mentioned, and I think it was a,

I'm not opposed to all of these things, any of these things happening individually, but we gotten rock heavy real quick.

And that's me saying that.

His grandmother in in the Hall of Fame.

Muhammad Ali's widow giving him a championship belt.

Main event at WrestleMania.

His daughter is now the general manager of NXT.

The final boss.

I love

any of these things in a vacuum, but they're coming fast and furious.

No pun intended.

So this was, and again, you know, the people were like, okay,

I don't think they cared about Leah Maivia if they believed the story of how successful she was that was told rather than knowing the truth about how she inherited a limping business and saw it put out of its misery a few years later.

And threatened anyone who came within reach.

I mean, Ed Francis got threatened.

He said that the other day.

They made the video all about that one show, whatever it was, 85 or 86.

Hot summer night.

It was the 85, which had 40 guys, including Antonio Inoki and Ric Flair from all over the world and did 15,000 people, but it was most guys going because of

to honor Peter Maivia and his memory and to get a free trip to Hawaii for a couple of days.

And again, you listen to the Rock speech, you watch that video.

They're saying now how they're honoring the legacy with the next generation, The Rock's daughter.

The Rock says now Leah gets to join her rightful place in the Hall of Fame next to her husband.

It's too rock heavy, too quick,

in the wrong ways.

I love the new heel rock stuff if people think I'm still ripping on his

on-camera stuff.

That stuff's been mostly great, although it's a little self-indulgent at times.

But this stuff is ridiculous.

I think the problem is the business was hot.

It was getting hotter.

It was on a trajectory to keep getting hot.

He jumped in there.

He's not the cause of it.

He can cause more people to get interest over a period of time.

But the WWE shouldn't be centered around the rock and the rocks wants.

Well, and that's one thing that I saw with the first night of WrestleMania that we will get to shortly.

I know you all have been waiting with bated breath.

He can't help even.

I mean, the match was structured where a lot of the attention was on him, but you can't help but looking at this guy even when the attention isn't on him, unless he hides under the ring.

Just natural charisma, doesn't it?

Blow everybody else away.

Roman Reigns looked like a big deal until he was standing next to the rock.

I don't know if you can, can you dull that brightness down?

I'm not sure.

Maybe he'll do it on his own if we see him anymore.

Maybe he can come out and give a fucking concert again.

Put him in there with Brock.

He'll be out for two years healing up.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

But anyway,

that brought a conclusion to our Hall of Fame portion of the WrestleMania weekend festivities with

Paul Heyman giving a speech and then everybody else fucking boring us to tears, practically.

The Rock giving himself a belt after Muhammad Ali's wife says she's known him since she was six years old is one of the things that

will always blow.

And the Undertaker coming out there just giving now that was now waiting.

Now you've said it wrong there because now the way that you said it, she hasn't known The Rock since he was six.

She knew Muhammad since he was six.

That's right.

We covered that earlier.

And The Rock had a big summit with the Ali family at the Louisville Gardens to go over if he's allowed to call himself the people's champion.

And all these years later, they had a belt made with WWE logos to present to him.

Well, and you know, you know

the whole rest of the story, don't you?

No.

The rest of the story is during that summit meeting,

you you know, The Rock gave the Ali family the rights to sell the People's Champion merchandise with his name on it.

And they turned around and they ran straight to our friends over at Shopify and set up a global commerce platform.

And they have secretly made $27,472,000 on the Rock's merchandise over the last several years.

How would you know that if they secretly made that?

How would you know that?

Well, because see, Shopify, the fine folks over there, they're the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business.

They're our sponsor.

And, well, I got to talking with one of the high muckety mucks over there, and they told me, just between him and me.

Really?

Yes.

Interesting.

That's because you don't get to speak to a lot of the high muckety mucks over there.

You just speak to the

regular fucking

Kmart fucking shopper that, you know, talks to you.

But I get to only talk to the CEOs and the final bosses and the people over at Shopify and all the rest of our sponsors.

Who would you talk to?

You talk to Joel, Henry,

yeah, Phil?

Yes, Carlos, three of them,

all three of them: Joel, Henry, and Phil.

All three of them.

And, folks, you can talk to Joel or Henry or Phil, whoever you talk to.

They will tell you the same thing: that Shopify is going to make you a lot of money.

They're the place you need to go.

If you've got a product and you've got a service you'd like to sell on the internet, well, Shopify helps you turn browsers into buyers.

Shopify powers 10%

of all the e-commerce in the United States of America.

Shopify takes you everywhere from the launch, your online shop stage to the first real-life store stage, all the way to the, did we just hit 1 million order stage and all the way into, oh my God, the IRS has caught us.

They're cracking down.

We're going to prison stage.

They'll be with you

through the entire life of your business.

They will disassociate if you're a criminal.

You will do legal things and pay your taxes.

Oh, as soon as you get charged with anything, they're going to disassociate you real quick.

But as long as you're making money, you're part of the family with Shopify.

And folks, again, they've got other.

They've got lots of that and so much more.

I can't even begin that.

There are no words to describe the products that Shopify

is.

Running through my mind,

they've got other,

goddamn it.

They've even got those, ladies and gentlemen.

Where else could you get such a variety?

I've lost the line.

Oh, the God gets so long on the email.

It's double spaced.

I can't find it.

Well,

you can grow your average order value if I can't find where I was reading before.

And you don't have to just sell your own stuff with Shopify collective you can curate products to sell from the brands you love you go into a store you see something you like from a brand you love you just take it stick it in your pocket take it home list it on your sites shopify no don't do that do not do that obviously don't steal don't shoplift Shopify magic Shet says this is not shopliftify what do you think this is shopify there's going to be some payment going on somewhere that's right and they're your no excuses business partner you can sell without needing to code or design.

Just have a wild hair up your ass and some kind of hair-brained idea, and Shopify will take it and run with it.

They'll teach you how to make money with it.

And then whenever you get too big for your britches or develop a drinking problem, they'll leave you in the gutter somewhere and go on to somebody else.

And with Shopify Magic, you can whip up captivating content that converts.

from interest to sales immediately.

You can pick the perfect email send time,

generate instant fact answers, make blog posts and product descriptions, and whatever you do with them from there.

And they make getting paid simple by instantly accepting every type of payment in the world.

I'm talking every type of currency.

You know, on some of the South Sea Islands, they accept shells as currency, Brian.

You might get, say, you might open a box one of these days.

You'll get a bunch of fucking seashells from the seashore.

They'll accept any type of currency, but they'll get you something.

You'll get something out of this shit, no matter what.

So, if you want marketing made simple and Shopify to remove the guesswork with built-in tools that help you create, execute, and analyze, then all you got to do is go right now to shopify.com because they got a $1 a month trial period.

I mean, geez, even if it just sucked donkey dicks for a dollar a month, who gives a shit?

Shopify.com/slash JCE.

That's all lowercase now, by the way.

Shopify.com slash JCE for a $1 a month trial period to grow your business no matter what shape you're in or stage you're in or shape you're in or no matter what state you're in.

Offer void in certain states.

Shopify.com slash JCE is going to make you money.

It's a beautiful and lovely travel through time.

You know, Jim, it's funny.

On this time travel, right before I did that, I discovered another sound on here.

I could almost do the song from Crocket Cup 87.

Listen.

I got to figure it out, but you remember the hit?

Remember that montage video they did for the Crockett Cup?

Yeah, yeah, it didn't sound like that.

That wasn't it?

That's not it, dog.

No, that was the other one.

Well, we traveled through time, folks,

because we realized that if we

talked about night one of WrestleMania, it would take us longer.

Night two would already be ongoing.

So we just broke for a brief Swanson TV dinner and then watched these night two.

And now here we are back to report on all of these things.

And before we do that, Brian, just briefly and lovingly, how is the Arcadian Vanguard Network going to respond to WrestleMania Weekend this fine week?

We will cover all the happenings of WrestleMania Weekend everywhere, WWE and beyond for free.

Get the wrestling news wherever you find your favorite podcast.

Look for Arcadian Vanguards, The Wrestling News, and of course, directly from the WrestlingNews.com.

Get information about all the shows on Twitter, at super podcasts, or on Twitter, at facebook.com/slash Arcadian Vanguard.

And of course, the 605 Super Podcast, the

Mothership.

The Mothership!

Oh, God damn you.

That was a false flag.

You see what you get?

Go through the archive, 605pod.com, wherever you find your favorite podcast, The Mothership.

Well, maybe I should have made that a popcorn fart.

That seems like it's a lot more than a popcorn fart.

Based on what I always thought that meant Bill Watts, the only person who would ever say it.

You don't know how to eat popcorn.

But speaking of popcorn, a lot of popcorn was consumed

at the Link, as they call it, the Lincoln

Fidelity Financial Field House, whatever the fuck that name of that stadium is, that they had the WrestleMania in this weekend.

Boy, what a

how is it the way that is it the way they're shooting things the way they're lighting things

it looked like it was twice as big as Wembley Stadium did it not on these shots and the drones and the aerials and the pans and the sweeps and the jibs and the

jib jabs?

You know, for everyone that focuses on how good it is to get Vince McMahon away from this company due to his misdeeds or alleged misdeeds, let's look on the other side.

It was good to get him away from the company creatively.

And in terms of the stranglehold on production that Kevin Dunn had, it has opened up a whole new world to WWE.

Wow.

I mean, it's night now.

How would you feel if you were Bucky Beaver and you're sitting at home counting your millions of dollars that you got in small, unmarked, non-sequential serial number bills and you realize that everybody is remarking, Jesus Christ, thank God he's gone.

Do you think he's like texting Vince, criticizing the show?

Do you think they watch it and like text each other?

What the fuck could you criticize spielberg would have problems criticizing this fucking thing at this point in time wouldn't he right again Kevin

I'm sure he can criticize oh they're not jerking the camera back and forth to cover up for

she's not pretty enough well and that's just well I'm not even gonna

I don't I don't want to make any remarks about I don't even know where you're going but just I was gonna I wasn't I don't know it probably wouldn't have been as bad as I thought it would be now in hindsight but nevertheless we got wrestlemania to cover so the stadium looks amazing it was 52 degrees felt like 48

how would you like to have been out there in your speedos brian for that particular night i wouldn't have wanted i wouldn't have wanted been out there i wouldn't have wanted to have been out there in my coat for like six hours watching wrestling a baseball game four hours with extra innings That's a long time to be outside in the middle of the day in that kind of weather.

Well, yeah, well, at least brought, that's why they're breaking it up.

Instead of freezing the people stiff, they do three or four hours each night.

It's a little easier to take.

They should sell WrestleMania portable heaters and give them to the fans and bring them to the stands.

Maybe

they should have just given everybody

some kind of, you know, methane torch.

That couldn't have gone wrong.

They could have gotten a vodka sponsor and just passed around the vodka all around the stadium like Russia.

Everyone, no one will feel the cold then.

No, actually, you know, that makes you more susceptible to cold.

That's a false narrative that's been put out there by all the cowboy movies.

What?

Wait, hold on.

First of all, it's not the cowboy movies.

It's the people from Eastern Europe who started.

Well, no,

when you watch the old cowboy movie, they're trying to warm up the guy that's been caught in the glacier.

Give him a shot of whiskey there, February,

or whatever.

Not vodka, whiskey.

Well, it's alcohol.

It's the same thing.

Brandy and the goddamn brandy in the Yukon.

Not that brandy.

Brandy in the Yukon.

Where can I see that?

I'm going to drink brandy.

Oh.

Went around the dog's neck.

I know I'm not narrowing it down any.

What I'm trying to say is that with a cask that is around the St.

Bernard's neck, that they have the brandy when they rescue the people from the fjord up there with plune and falco and fulco.

But

that's a misnomer.

It actually makes you more susceptible to the cold in some fashion, drinking alcohol instead of fortifying you against it.

So that's a public service.

And look it up.

I think vodka has magical powers when it comes to cold.

You could do anything in the cold if you drink vodka.

That's why we never spent time in Brighton Beach.

That's why there's so many Russians, is what you're saying.

You can do anything in the cold if you're drinking enough vodka.

Well, one thing has nothing to do with the other.

That's not why there are so many Russians.

Well, if you can do anything in the cold, it's cold there most of the time.

So, speaking of a cold place,

which was Philadelphia at WrestleMania,

And who is Coco Jones who sang the national anthem?

Not exactly sure, but she did a good job.

Well, she got that going forward.

What did that tell you?

You want to talk about a new era?

It wasn't America the beautiful, which is what Vince McMahon always preferred.

But it was God Bless America the next day.

Yes.

Is that another one of Vince's?

I don't know.

Maybe they just didn't want to do the same song two nights in a row.

Wasn't a story always that Vince didn't like the national anthem?

So he would just have people sing God Bless America?

Or not God Bless America, but America the Beautiful?

America the Beautiful.

Well, what did Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, what did she sing?

America the Beautiful.

Well, Larry, that's what he liked.

Well, Ray Charles sang it at WrestleMania too, and, you know, famously on record, that's the best version there is.

Well, but that was the best Vince intro of talent at WrestleMania.

That's the one that Bruce usually does the imitation of.

The queen of soul, Aretha Franklin.

Yeah, I saw Bruce at WrestleMania.

He's doing an imitation of Aretha Franklin in more ways than one.

No, come on now.

He just heard that Heyman was on a diet plan and he figured he'd take over the Hitchcock chair.

So let's get back to this show, which they had here.

Because at the start of night one,

we're seeing a thread being strung up here, strung up potentially.

The Triple H era.

Everybody say, everybody talking about it.

And here came Triple H.

Welcome to a new time, a new era.

Welcome to WrestleMania.

And that's all he said.

But that was, and I wrote on my notes, I was like, was it worth the long walk down there?

But he wanted to make a point.

He's now the baby face in charge of the company.

It's not an evil empire anymore.

They have finally gotten.

How long have we been talking about, goddamn it?

How much longer can they all be evil?

And the answer is they don't need to be evil anymore now the heels can be evil again instead of the company

and people are responding to it apparently because they're hotter than they've been in ages and

so now not only is he the the baby face cco in charge

but now he's been able to babyface the

the good McMahon member, his wife, Stephanie.

Don't judge her by her blood.

Judge her by her marriage.

She's the one McMahon that the name can be mentioned on television, which we'll get to at night, too.

But

they've transformed it.

Now the company doesn't have to be the heels anymore.

It opens it up for, except for the board of directors guy.

And

this way,

they have rectified a wrong that's been existing for quite some time in that the reason why AEW had a brief flash of fucking,

can't say brilliance, life, spark of life before they settled firmly in the fucking bottom of the bowl was because people were so mad at the WWE as a promotion.

Is that not what we've been saying for years?

People were wrestling fans and they were fed up with the biggest promotion being run by Vince McMahon, not necessarily because of him, but the style of wrestling he was promoting.

Now you could say it's because of him completely, but it was really the style and the presentation.

The style of it and the fact that you couldn't count on there being

a beacon of authority in the company because you could never trust Vince, right?

He always wanted to be a heel.

He was a great heel for years,

but not for years and years and years and years.

Anyway.

But what did you think, Brian, of Triple H's brief but poignant statement?

Well, you know, you said it.

I don't know if you got to see the press conferences either night, but after night two, Triple H addressed it.

He said Paul Heyman's really the one that did it.

He started calling it the Paul Levesque era.

Now that's a thing.

You know, who knows if that's really the way it was conceived.

But he said it's not just me.

It's me.

It's Lee Fitting, the head of production, and it's Nick Kahn.

And if you think about it, instead of one Vince McMahon-like creature at the top,

you got someone who can worry about just the wrestling.

You got someone someone who can make the business deals that make the wrestling work.

And you got someone who can find a way to make it look different than it ever has before and better than ever before.

It's a winning combination.

You wonder about Vince's influence.

I mean, as long as he has one of his dildos still there, he's got influence, and Bruce Pritchard's still there, and that's what he is.

So,

you know, we got to be

you would never name

an instrument of that description after, well,

Brother Love.

Brother Love.

Well, but anyway, nevertheless, all of his instruments

may be neutralized for that use, though.

They got to follow along in a new path.

But the fans are with it.

Like you said, I mean, Stephanie's accepted.

I mean, she got, if there were any booze, they were minimal when she came out night two.

And at the Hall of Fame,

nothing.

I mean, people were happy to see her, I think, in a way.

People are happy to get away from Vince, and whoever's on the other side, I think they're willing to accept.

That may have been the canary in the coal mine, her being there without much, just being in the crowd at the Hall of Fame.

Why shouldn't she be able to be there?

But at the same time, there was no

outcry, ban her!

So then

Triple H got the great reaction on night one.

And I understand in internal documents, they had triple h going out in her place in night two but then here came stephanie and the response was fine and you know the same thing is that

they're pushing the tagline that this is the the either the triple h era the paul levec era but it's a new era and

they have babyfaced those members of that family that were

By the accounts that we've heard and stuff we've talked about, they were the ones trying to avoid Vince for the last few years.

Like, Jesus Christ, they left when he came and came when he left.

Well, what was left on WrestleMania?

Was that it?

Was that WrestleMania?

No, that was the whole show.

Yes.

No, they opened up night one.

God, we're still there, but we'll move quickly now.

Becky Lynch versus Rhea Ripley, Mommy versus the Man.

And

again, Rhea had

a band, they had a lot of bands, a lot of musical performances on these two nights, but they look, I don't remember what their name was.

I didn't write it down.

They looked like Death Metal Devo, kind of.

But Rhea Ripley looked,

she's a superstar.

She is so far ahead of most of the other women

on the roster or in the business that you can't use the same scale.

And she's so young.

There's

so long for her to get in the movies.

They mentioned that Becky Lynch had strep throat temperature of 102.

That sucks to be sick on the week of the big show.

What's it like working ringside, let alone a match if you're that sick?

Oh, God, it's the shit sometimes, literally, depending on what you're sick with.

In this case, being a sore throat and a fever, she had to feel horrible physically and head, and

you know, not be able to

just be able to breathe properly.

But, you know,

it always,

that's like one of your worst fucking fears is you're featured on a big show and you come down with something that's unavoidable.

And,

but she worked through it, and that was the thing is that it almost sounded like a Kerry von Erich excuse,

you know, but

it was legitimate, but it could play into,

you know, what eventually happened because she didn't win.

So at least there's some out there.

But I'm not going to go blow by blow on these matches because everybody was trying to put all the twists and turns in.

But

perception-wise,

they worked hard and fast here, and not fast in a bad way, but they kept the pace up and they worked hard.

And also,

it's the personalities.

And

while Becky is painfully thin,

and you know, visually, size-wise, this is

a contrast with her and Rhea,

the aggressiveness and the personality she makes up for it, the people are behind her, et cetera, et cetera.

But

these two throw better punches and forearms than half of the fucking

AEW guys, all of the Japanese guys that they

import over here and half of the Americans on the AEW roster, the men.

You know,

Becky's actual work

is not

athletically Charlotte or Ripley level, but she's got good psychology and the aggression and the little

fireball personality that she's got makes up for,

you know, much of that.

But anyway,

they got some big two counts.

The people were with it.

They did that spot.

Did you see that where Rhea picked her up in the electric chair and they went over the top rope and Rhea landed on her feet with Becky still on her shoulders and gave it to her on the floor.

Amazing.

That was, you know, some fucking

specialty shit.

And again,

they did a lot of big moves, but they sold in between.

It wasn't just a video game.

It was a struggle.

They built it very well.

And then

finally,

Becky, they were fighting on the top rope.

Becky was going to try the rock bottom off the top, but Rhea escaped and did the rip tide to the turnbuckle and then a rip tide in the ring.

Boom.

One, two, three.

And it was a great match and a right finish.

And as we talked about, I think when we did the preview, this may have been, and people were saying it, that.

They'd bring Becky back.

And well, we'll just put the belt on her at WrestleMania.

And this was months ago when they were thinking about it because they've been building this a while.

But

there's no reason to beat Rhea.

There's no, there would, if Charlotte was back right, there's no reason to beat Rhea.

She's hotter than

any woman has been since what, the last time Becky was hot or whatever.

So I think she's got a ways to go here.

Did you like this contest of the Immortals?

I thought it was all right.

You know, I'm always a mark too for the look of outdoor shows when the sun starts to go down

and, you know, the sky is not just middle of the day bright.

I like the look of the stadium.

Just another tequila.

I don't like that.

I don't like that.

Neither does anyone else.

But good match.

Rhea's grown her hair out.

Whatever that means.

Maybe nothing.

An observation.

She's growing her hair out.

Some deep psychological fucking workings going on there.

Her hair grew.

Maybe she is going to Hollywood.

Well, that wouldn't have any.

You can have all styles of hair in Hollywood.

It's an equal hairstyle opportunity community.

You know how many out-of-work hairstylists there are?

Maybe she's growing her hair to give someone some extra work.

This is the stupidest conversation we've ever had.

Yeah, I don't know where it's going to.

The eclipse is later on today.

Are you sure the effect of the moon is not moving your brain fluid around?

I'm behind the sun right now.

All right.

Well, Purely Dreary hosted some kind of look at the teams in the ladder match.

And I decided, okay, I'm going to skip this video and the fucking ladder match.

Next time.

Next time they're on, watch them.

Just for one reason.

No, I said it to you last time and I watched it and I was like, holy shit, they act the same way the Bucs do.

The acting, watch their acting.

Did you see that?

No, but you got to, it's ridiculous.

That's what makes because they're a ridiculous tag team.

It makes more sense for them than the EVPs.

You got to see it, though.

They act the same way.

It's the same style of acting.

It's not Strasburg.

Goldberg potentially could come in and spear them all.

But no, anything that those two have anything to do with, I can't stomach.

We're talking back about Purely Dreary now, not the Buckaroos, although that would apply.

But also, these

teams are jokes to begin with.

And I'm not talking about everybody as a talent, but the way they've been presented.

it's a 12-man, six-team ladder match, which is the worst stipulation I can possibly think of.

And

to make it worse, the goddamn,

they've had the tag team titles unified, and now they put both sets of belts up there.

And there were two

teams that won the championships of the various television shows in the same match.

And you,

I'm sorry, between the package, the entrances, a garbage, indie fucking furniture match, and the finish, it was 30 fucking minutes.

And yes, I went back and looked after you mentioned it earlier in the program before we traveled in time that Waller and Theory got, because I'd zipped to the finish.

I thought, okay,

Ms.

and Truth did it, right?

I didn't realize that Waller and Theory

got the one set of belts, and then they had more matches, and Miz and Truth got the other set of belts after more tables and stupid bumps.

And the fuck.

Yeah.

What did you think of the match?

Fun match.

Fun match.

I enjoyed it.

And Waller and Theory got the belts.

Kind of old school WWE style.

They kicked the shit out of them.

And then here's the belts.

Let's see if they treat them any differently now that they have them.

Again, new era.

It's the Triple H era.

Waller's an NXT guy.

Theory's an NXT guy who was all of a sudden saddled with Vince McMahon.

So we'll see.

So

the civil war of Mexico annexing Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic was up next.

So

Dominic has now, for the purposes of, I guess, because he's got Hispanic heritage and so does Ray, so he's on the other side.

So we got Dominic Mysterio in with Pablo Escobar and all of his various lucha

heel men and women.

And they were facing Rey Mysterio and the newly turned babyface Andre with all of the babyface lucha men and women.

And

I think we got up to, on SmackDown, we got up to 13 fucking people right in this thing.

So it's busy, but they care about Ray and dominic

and one andre is working his ass off apparently

you know now that he's back there and rejuvenated after being able to escape the lunatic asylum that he was confined in for a little while he he did the crossbody

off the he had ray mysterio on his shoulders and stood on the apron and they both did a crossbody off onto two different fucking people that was snazzy.

Did you see that, Brian?

Yeah, I watched.

Well, good.

Then you can tell me what else happened because

I zoned out a little bit.

Yeah, this is not a match that you care about.

This is a SmackDown main event.

This is not something that you're really going to care about for WrestleMania.

It was a good idea.

I didn't fast forward through it, but I kind of zoned out till, you know, they got heat on Ray and then the finish.

But

I was trying to figure out where they were going because I was like, how can they put more people in this thing?

For the folks who haven't seen it yet,

Andre makes his comeback, a lot of moonsaults.

Girls do moonsaults.

Everybody did dives.

And then two big mask guys

stopped Dominic from using a chair at ringside.

And then Ray, 619, Dominic and Escobar, and then splashed Escobar 123, which was the right thing.

You don't want Ray to pin Dom at this point, no reason.

But the the two masked guys were the fucking giant bearded guys.

I'm like, who the fuck have they put in the group now?

And they took the masks off and they were two members of the Philadelphia Eagles, which

apparently people there, there was more people there than we thought from Philly because they got a halfway decent pop.

They recognized.

Well, also, one of them is a Kelsey brother.

One of them, his brother dates Taylor Swift.

Is he the Kelsey family the origination of the phrase deader than Kelsey's nuts?

I'm not so sure about that, but his brother dates Taylor Swift, and they together have a popular podcast.

So it's not just people in the Philadelphia area.

He's a

nationally known personality now.

So they know him all over the place.

And I guess his nuts aren't dead.

Well, his nuts might be dead, but his brother's nuts are doing well because he's dating Taylor Swift.

If you get a vasectomy, do you consider that if someone named Kelsey gets a vasectomy, is that technically deader than Kelsey's nuts?

Well, no.

It does not count as the death of the nuts.

It's just he didn't know the nuts weren't loaded,

is what it would be.

Man, they had some article in the paper the other day that there was some guy getting a vasectomy when the earthquake happened.

They had like a picture of him holding an ice bag.

All right, well,

so anyway, and then the moil.

And then the moil.

The moil.

So anyway, after that,

Lil Wayne

came out and did something.

Lil, not Lil, Lil, like Diamond Lil,

Lil Wayne.

Oh, so Lillian Wayne came out.

Not Lillian.

And did, well, that's what Lil is.

Lil, like Lillian Ellison.

That's where Diamond Lil, Lillian was the name, Lillian Russell.

So is his name Lil Wayne or Lillian Wayne?

It's Lil, short for Lil.

It's an abbreviation of Lil, as you know.

Lil Al, like Lil Al Vavasor.

No, he was, that was a friend.

He was French because he was for a Cajun from down there in Louisiana.

So that Lil didn't mean he was little.

It was, that was his first name, Lil.

No, it wasn't.

Lil Al Vabasseur.

And Lil Wayne is from New Orleans.

So he's Cajun too.

Well, there you go.

Then his name is apparently

Lil.

Apparently his real name is Dwayne.

Funny enough.

Dwayne Wayne?

Dwayne.

No, Dwayne Michael Carter Jr.

I don't know where Wayne came from.

Well,

our

little.

All right.

Then Lil Dwayne.

And that makes The Rock Big Wayne.

Came out.

No, he's Big Dwayne.

Not Big Wayne.

Well, his name is Dwayne, but he calls himself Lil Wayne.

That would make The Rock Big Dwayne.

I thought his name is Lil Duane.

Big Wayne.

Big Wayne, I mean, no, no,

no.

This guy's Lil Wayne.

What does he do for a living?

Let Let me say this.

He was the biggest thing in hip-hop and rap in like 2008.

Like big, massive.

But, you know, sometimes

things don't translate to the live show.

Did a safe fall on his head and he lost his abilities?

That was.

Usually I defend all the hip-hop stars that appear on these shows because I don't think they're as bad as you do.

This was really bad.

This was really, really bad.

I almost wanted to ask for a refund on the pay-per-view, but, and then the match didn't help any because

little Dwayne Wayne,

Wayne from fucking New Orleans, was

accompanying Jay Uso for the match with Jay and Jimmy Uso fighting each other.

And

boy, howdy,

we've been prophesizing for a few weeks now.

I've been mentioning that,

I don't know, Jay is hot dogging and

their work is not

smooth.

I mean, we've, we beat around the bush, but

like I said when it was Jay and Solo, we do not need to see any more of these brothers wrestling each other.

This what

the full body outfits that they come out with in, or come out within, come out in,

are off-putting to begin with, especially that sequined parka that Jimmy was wearing for a while.

Then they take the top off, but the pants look like I don't fucking know.

And they, they tried.

I can't say there's, they were serious about what they were doing.

They tried to do it.

They just didn't do it well.

Everything is, it's sloppy.

The dozens of super kicks over and over.

The

just the Usoisms.

Like I said, it worked when they were a team and there was somebody else with some other type of style in there interacting with them.

But

one-on-one together wasn't for me, dog.

And then at some point, Jimmy asked Jay, please don't kick me anymore.

I'm sorry for everything.

And Jay helped him up.

And then Jimmy turned, super kicked him and hit a splash for a two count.

And then Jay hit him with a spear and a splash, one, two, three.

And it came to an end.

Dissect this for us, Brian.

I'm not going to dissect it too much.

It was one of the worst matches I've ever seen.

One of the worst matches easily I've ever seen on a WrestleMania.

They didn't mesh well together, but it's not even that.

It's the pacing of the match.

I hate yay boo,

but I hate calling it that anymore, even.

Just trading blows back and forth, let alone just super kicks.

This was painful, I thought, because what they were doing was taking forever.

They They finally got the crowd into it.

And again, the crowd was a little hurt because of how cold it was

when Jimmy did the spot, feigning, you know, please leave me alone.

At least they got the people into the story by the end.

But as a match,

this went on forever, and I thought it was awful.

I hated it.

I think you were being too nice.

I just

don't know what more to say to them that,

guys,

you gotta watch your videos, watch your tapes, or whatever the kids call them these days.

And

look at how this, no, y'all are neither one to rock.

You can't get away with certain things, and you've got to fucking sharpen up your

smoothness because it's just you're all over the fucking place.

And get some snap and some shit and

the slap punches, all the things that we talk about, but it just

they're over as personalities.

Jay, a little bit more than Jimmy, I think.

When Jimmy went over, or went over, took over, early in the match, the crowd kind of went, eh.

They are fantastic as personalities.

They have been great throughout the whole Bloodline thing.

It's the matches.

Yeah.

And this was the worst of them all.

Because you got the two worst defenders in there against each other.

The guy who wrestles the slow style where stuff looks like that against his twin.

It's not just like two guys who wrestle the same way.

They're literal twins and they were doing the same shit.

And it took forever.

It just took forever.

This was brutal.

It wasn't Brett versus Owen.

No.

Because they did a lot of the same shit, but all that shit was so good.

All right.

Well, anyway, yes.

And we were.

It was sad when Lil Wayne was the highlight of the match.

But his rapping was the highlight of this match.

And by the time they were done, we were over two hours

into the night at this point because things were

Saturday night took longer in that weather.

Into the night.

And then

came the six-man tag that we'd all been waiting for.

Carrie and Oscar and Dakota against Bianca and Naomi and Jade Cargill,

the newly rechristened superstar on the WWE roster.

And

they had a big entrance for the babyfaces.

I wish that I was interested in or

knowledgeable of fashion or whatever the

whatever's going on.

They looked wonderful.

It looked like Fashion Week out there in New York City.

They have put

a ton of,

and I guess Bianca and naomi would be getting something

special even if if jade wasn't with them but boy with this trio and their new

you know uh pot of gold being jade they've they gave them the moon here didn't they

you know they all on the on the entrance i mean they gave everyone big entrances at wrestlemania this was the three of them naomi a big return recently bianca's been one of the biggest stars for the last few years and jade if you're going to do something with jade you got to do it right from the jump.

Yeah.

The fans react to the entrance.

I mean, you know, again, with this production and

the obvious way that they have orchestrated these things,

because before it was always orchestrated, it was like, okay, get in the middle and pump your arm and we'll shoot it or whatever.

But there,

this is amazing.

Anyway,

and then the bell rang.

They did a bunch of cheerleading routines in the match, which I wasn't particularly interested in until Jade

tagged in at about the 10-minute mark.

She had never been in.

They're building it and then they're going to orchestrate what

is going to happen.

And as soon as she tags in, she cleans house on everybody.

And then the other ones all cleared out.

And Jade hit her finish on Dakota Kai 1, 2, 3.

So again, they're not leaving anything to chance.

And

everything is coming off lovely here.

Nothing to,

you know, in AEW, they just put her out there on live television and told her, face the camera

and you see what we got.

So anyway,

I think they're going to get a return on that investment better than whatever it may have been, better than Tony is going to get on.

Mercedes or the previous investment of Paige or the previous investment of all of his,

you know, name-brand

female acquisitions, don't you?

You know, I think so.

And you have to wonder if Mercedes had decided to go back to WWE instead of AEW, would she have been in something like this with the big entrance?

Probably.

Instead, she's an AEW and

with hopefully an exit plan.

But Jade

was someone that AEW actually tried their hardest to present strong.

You know, she never lost until the very end.

She had a stable.

She had multiple managers at different points, a lawyer.

She should have had a lawyer behind the scenes trying to get her out of that contract.

No,

yes, they did what they thought was pushing her, which was send her out to the ring and let her win a bunch of matches and put a bunch of non-interesting, amateurish people around her.

And now they have given her extra training.

They're having producers not only work with her on her

interviews, which are kept short and she memorizes, but also the matches, which are kept short and she memorizes.

And

the camera work is off the charts, and she's beating established people in front of millions of people on television.

Anywho,

up next was one of my favorite matches of the weekend.

It's not

any surprise there.

The Intercontinental title match with Gunther against Sami Zayn.

I'm dying to hear what you thought of this because it took us all for a surprise.

Well,

I was all the way there till I knew about five minutes beforehand what they were going to do in the finish.

I was like, you got to be ribbing me because it just, it couldn't be anything else at that point.

But we'll talk about it in a second.

But the thoughts of the match, Sammy had already,

we've established his wife and his son were in the back, and he tells them, you know, he tells her, don't let my son be out there.

I don't want him to see it in person, watch on TV, whatever.

And then Gable told him, go out by yourself.

You got this.

I'm not going with you.

And he gets a pep talk from Steen, too.

So

the match was brilliant in that

Gunther looks incredible.

He's always perfect, as we've talked about.

Sammy Zane.

I think I mentioned this back years ago before they ever even started, you know, doing all this, this, pushing him on top as a single.

I said, Sammy

can sell better than most people.

And he's also been brilliant verbally.

It's just he looks like he looks.

I can't even say he looks like shit.

He looks like Sammy.

For the kind of people who like that kind of thing, that's, you know, but

part of it helped his look actually kind of lends into his underdog persona.

But the match was great because Gunther's going to dominate, and the babyface underdog is going to fight from underneath.

And this was a perfect dynamic for that.

And the fans were into it.

And

these guys knew how to put their match together and they knew how to execute it.

And they, again, they got big

false finishes, two counts with power bombs and clotheslines out of nowhere.

And

Gunther's a heel.

He got heel heat in front of Sammy's wife and his attitude and his facials, the way that he projects himself.

So, and then you've

got the ultimate baby face in this guy that looks like he ought to be working at a goddamn, you know, video game store or comic shop, except that he's a WWE superstar.

We can identify with him, right?

He's one of us, he's the Eddie Marlin principal.

He looks like one of the fans.

And

finally,

where I knew was

when Gunther started taking his time and splash off the top, and then he hit

another one, I think maybe two, but

he wouldn't cover him.

He's taunting the wife, and Sammy's fighting to his feet.

And Gunther goes to the top like he's going to do something again, and Sammy runs, gives him the kick and the brainbuster on the top turnbuckle.

And I don't know if you remember this, Brian, but I told you

years ago when when he was El Generico in Ring of Honor, look at that fucking physique.

He is stronger than he looks because he did that to Steen one time when Steen was even fatter than he is now.

He can pick the guy up and turn him to where the gravity can take over, which is no,

you know, small feet.

And he gave Gunther the brain buster on the top turnbuckle and then

two of the kicks and covered him one, two, two, three.

And it got a huge pop.

Yes, but what the fuck?

It,

and I'm not saying that Sami Zayn shouldn't be used as a main event guy.

And a lot of people like him.

He's very popular.

But they had something going with Gunther

that I think

it needed to be

either a really

it was this Seth thing after he's lost his world title,

or was this LA Knights thing to establish himself maybe one step up, or was this Braun Breaker's thing to shock?

Can you imagine?

And maybe the closest we get to Gunther and Brock, Gunther and Braun Breaker, where Braun Breaker would explode onto the fucking

main roster and, you know, get a win over this dominant beast.

Is Sammy really going to be that much more over at any point in time than he already is?

And that's not a knock on him.

I'd say he's already over.

Did he need

the way they built it, people wanted to see it, but was this the time to spend Gunther's loss on a guy that's already in a prominent position?

I don't know.

Obviously, going into it, I wouldn't have done it.

I've been saying all along, I said on the show months ago, it would have been Bron Breaker in my eyes at the time, just because it would have elevated him right away and given him credibility.

Yeah.

I think that

the Sammy Gunther thing started really clicking because the Sammy Gable story did, too.

And

the comparisons between what's been happening and Rocky 3,

where Rocky has to train with his former rival, Apollo Creed, to be able to get past the guy that beat him, Clubber Lang.

Wait, man, I thought that's the angle that Moxley wanted to do with punk.

Apparently it was, and they did it here.

I mean, it seems like they're doing it with Gable and Sammy.

Gable kept saying, I want one favor from you after this.

That's what Apollo Creed kept saying.

He ended up wanting to box with Rocky in an empty arena, just so he would know for himself who was better.

I don't think they're going to do that.

But they've set up some kind of story with him and Gable.

So for that reason, I'm curious to see where it goes.

And

I don't know if I want a series of rematches with Gunther and Sammy, but this is a chance to do something new with Gunther.

Look, they got a new world champion on one show and on both shows.

This is the chance to do something new with Gunther.

Well,

we will talk about those new champions shortly, but it's still night one, folks.

There's things going on.

And Nick Aldiss and Adam Pierce came out to announce the biggest WrestleMania of all time

of some description.

They're going to have statistics on this.

But they've had more people in one place, but they've never had more people over two nights or whatever the fuck this is going to be.

They've never had more people with more cash in their pocket.

There you go.

They've never had more people leave the arena with emptier pockets.

That's what the statistic gave.

But 72,543 is what they gave us.

That's the number they're

going to be.

But the turnstile count was only 45.

Yeah, the turnstile count was 162.

You know, like Buddy Fuller said in Springfield, Ohio, somebody left the back door open.

500 people somehow snuck in without anybody noticing.

So the time for the main event was here, the biggest tag team match of all time.

Cody made his entrance and hugged Mama Rhodes and gave his weight belt to his father-in-law.

Brandy's father was there

alongside Michelle.

And Cody adopted a Sgt.

Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club motif for his outfits this weekend.

And it was the...

Oh, it's classic Cody, man, Michael Jackson at the 4th of July.

That's what it is.

Well, there you go.

And then Seth Rollins came out dressed in Ethel Merman's costume from her last Broadway play.

Boy, this was definitely the

peak of flamboyant Rollins, wasn't it?

Liberace would have been seen as a fucking, like an Undertaker or a congressman next to Seth in this juncture here.

And then The Rock came out carrying the championship belt that Mrs.

Ali presented to him.

And that I'm sure she might have not only paid for it, she may have crafted that with her own two hands.

And then here came Roman Reigns with Paul Heyman.

And we kicked it off with Cody Rhodes and Seth Franklin Rollins against Rock,

Rock Roman, and Roman Reigns, Rock Reigns, and Roman,

the Rock and Roman Reigns.

And

when they did the face-off at the start, you had to think physically, these two white boys are in fucking trouble, right?

Because that's Rock and there's Roman and they're jacked up.

And the announcers mentioned that

Rock and the Undertaker are the only ones to main event WrestleMania in four different decades,

which is pretty goddamn amazing when you think about it.

However,

from this point on,

Brian, there were points that I thought were, this is brilliant, this is psychology, this is wrestling, these are professionals, and there were some points I thought, oh, you got to be kidding me, they got to do this too.

And they existed in the same match because this thing went

I don't know if it was 44 or 45 minutes bell to bell.

And I'm not sure that in temperatures that had to be dipped into the 40s at that point, with an ill wind blowing slightly, that

they got everything that they could out of the people, even though they, yes, they were there, they were with it.

It wasn't like, you know, the popcorn match, but couldn't they have taken it easier on the people and the viewers at home and cut this down by about 15 minutes and still got the point across?

When has The Rock ever gone short?

Well,

goddamn, if I was my own self was physically uncomfortable and I was the one that could say go home, I believe I might tend to do that.

But

there was a psychology lesson early on when they didn't, they didn't rush it, they didn't hurry, they were getting pops for the tag ends just to see this guy versus that guy.

And,

you know, again, there was, it went from classic tag team wrestling early on to then suddenly

The Rock told the referee, I don't fuck around.

If you count, you're fired.

So that they could just go out in the arena and fight

Cody and Roman on the stage and Seth and The Rock in the arena.

And it was like every other match on TV everywhere and kind of spoiled what they had been doing, which there was some art to that in the ring, right?

Rock took a lot of the fucking match, didn't he?

As far as in the heat, he did.

Roman was kind of standing around quite often.

Yeah.

And

then Rock hit a nutshot, and the referee actually apologized to Cody that he couldn't do anything about it.

So

if they're setting up some kind of special referee,

and I'm not talking about for the finish of this match, if they're setting up some kind of deal where the next time that Rock is involved, there will be a special referee,

then I can understand planting the seed.

But

if they just did it for just this match, then that was kind of,

I thought, way too easy.

The easy way out.

And then, you know, every time that Cody and Rock got their hands on each other, people wanted to see it.

And,

you know, they got numerous two counts with their big moves, blah, blah, blah.

And then they did a kind of a modern sequence where The Rock just disappeared and the babyfaces double-teamed Roman Reigns silly.

And then they went back to The Rock, pulling the referee out and nailing him and wiping out Seth.

And Roman got a nutshot and a spear on Cody.

And The Rock rolls the referee in, but that's only a two count.

And then they get heat on Cody.

And so there's a lot of points where they're building, they're taking people on a roller coaster, but they are using

almost every one of the

Attitude Era Falls finishes all in the same match.

The Rock taunted Michelle with the weight belt, but Cody made a comeback and got the bonic elbow.

And The Rock hit a Spinebuster and went for the people's elbow, but Cody cut him off with a cutter.

and got cheers and booze for cutting off the people's elbow.

And, And, you know, again, boom, boom, boom.

Finally, they did a spot where the babyfaces got double pedigrees and double covers and only got a two count.

And then the Rock cleared the Spanish announce table off, but Cody rock-bottomed the Rock on the

American language table.

And Roman speared Seth through the rail.

And it went on in the ring with more heat on Cody.

And Cody got two crossroads finally on Roman and was going for the third, but Rock had the weight belt on the floor and whipped him in the small of the back.

Pow!

And that broke up the third one, and Roman hit a spear.

And then the Rock asked for the tag.

And, Brian, did you note that there was some element of

they were looking at each other with Roman going, oh, you want the tag?

But

the only way I I can, again,

figure this out is

if they're building to Rock and Roman and Rock being a glory hog or whatever the fuck, because as Roman spears Cody,

Rock sticks his hand out for the tag.

Roman tags him.

Rock, Rock bottoms him and hits the people's elbow.

One, two, three.

So Rock gets the victory while Roman

is kind of struggling to his feet in the ring after all the abuse he's taken.

So this was the rock show.

And you said they're building him up for Roman.

They better be building him up for Cody too.

Cody needs that win back now that he's the champion.

And I think that has to be the plan.

This is what I said when we predicted the matches would happen.

Rock pins Cody.

Cody gets everything going the next night.

But again, like you said, Even after the next night, just not to play spoiler, we'll get to that review.

They really didn't tease much dissension between The Rock and Roman after the fact.

So we'll see where the story goes and where Jacob Fatoux goes and whatever else.

But this was all the rock.

And the rock got the win.

And, you know, Roman has now kind of become second fiddle to the rock.

Well, and

I agreed with you.

And we've talked about that the Heels were going to win night one, Cody win night two.

And I agree with you that Rock should get the win because that way they've set the, because we've talked about there's probably more money at this point in Rock and Cody than there is in Rock and Roman.

But after the Roman spear,

for Rock to come in and take that much time to milk the moves and blah, blah, blah,

I was envisioning something where Cody had ended up,

you know, flattening Roman with some move or something and almost ready to make the goddamn cover.

And that's where Rock waffles him or Rock bottoms him or something from behind and gets it.

But this was like, while you're laid out and Roman's done all the damage, I'm going to do my shit.

And it'd be boom.

One, two.

It was a little flat also.

So I.

And they got to give Cody a win back over the rock, probably on one of these big shows with a big budget, like Saudi Arabia or something, if I had to guess.

I don't know if they're going to hold that off to SummerSlam, but that's the next thing they've built up here is Cody needs that win back from the rock.

And,

you know, I guess they've kind of set it up knowing how they've done so many things long-term with the bloodline

if we get to the point one day where the bloodline has enough of the rock and turns on him there's the thing that gets him back to being a babyface

which you would think would be the goal before he

uh disappear not disappears but

Before at some point he's not going to be on television regularly, he would want to be a babyface riding off into the sunset.

You would think this this is his monster heel moment.

We'll see if he can keep capitalizing on it without overshadowing everything and everyone and it getting to be too much.

But you would think the end game would be,

you know, like Hogan.

You come back and you get the one last heel run, and then you turn babyface, and that's the way we see you for the rest of the time because you're never going to be a full-time wrestler again.

Okay, but now, how old is Rock now?

And we'll move on to night two.

How old is he?

51, 52?

I think that's what it was 52.

Goddamn, he looks better than Hogan did when he was 52 and moves better too, doesn't he?

He held up on this thing.

There was no,

you know, bring the oxygen tank to ringside.

Rock needs a hit.

Well, we will stay tuned to Dr.

James Andrews and find out what happened after the fact.

Okay, he was moving around pretty good the next night.

Yes.

For a guy that wasn't in the match the next night, he was moving around great.

I just realized he wasn't even in a match the next night.

Well, I mean, he got in the ring, okay.

Yes, he took that choke slam fantastically.

Yes, he was all the way up in the air.

Well, that was night one of WrestleMania, and I did like the way it ended.

And I got to give him credit because I've killed him for years.

Michael Cole doing a much better job under this new regime.

And

Cody was down on the mat look despondent.

Rollins.

You know, they pointed out Rollins is hurt.

How's he going to defend the title the next night?

Which played into things.

Yeah.

But I thought this weekend, I thought Rollins did a great job for what he needed to be, not like, you know, the outfits and everything, just what he needed to be to make all this work.

And that was a big part of the story.

The babyface is left battered and beaten.

He wants to thank his seamstress and his haberdasher.

I want to thank Austin.

And Mr.

Calvin Klein and Mr.

Francesco Scavulo or whoever the fuck else made all this possible.

All right, well, we covered night Uno.

Let's go to Night Dos.

This was April 7th, the Sunday night of the crowning achievement of WrestleMania.

And the weather was warmer.

It was 61 degrees instead of like 52 or whatever with a 48-degree wind chill.

And God Bless America was performed by The War and Treaty.

That is an odd name, is it not?

I mean, I guess the two things go together.

You can't have a treaty without having a war first, but would you have named your duo

the war and treaty?

Is he war and she's treaty?

I don't know whether that was clearly delineated.

But also, how come if he's the war and she's treaty, then he gets to be the war where she's just treaty?

That would be like the Batman and Robin.

I don't know, the war.

That kind of works.

But either way, not familiar with them, but they did a great job.

I thought it was really good.

They have some lungs on them.

And then here came the other half of the Levesque power couple.

Stephanie McMahon, the good one, as we mentioned.

She got the entrance.

No, no backlash.

I think people have now.

They identify her as, again, as we said earlier, as part of the Levesque bloodline.

And she said she's the most proud of this WrestleMania of all of them, as it's the first of the Paul Levesque era.

And then she led the fans in chanting, thank you, Vince.

No, no, come on.

Don't tell the people who might not have said that.

You'll spread malicious rumors.

She actually said she jumped onto somebody else's tagline.

She said, Are you ready?

And then here came WrestleMania.

And suddenly,

we had about 50 bagpipers and drummers and swordsmen and lords a leaping and ladies dancing

and here came Drew McIntyre.

And Punk on commentary said sacrilege because they were playing Piper's theme song.

They weren't just playing any song.

They were playing what Piper would come out to.

I try not to listen when the bagpipes go except if it was Roddy playing them.

And yeah, and Punk jumped his introduction because he's like, cut that off, cut that off.

But Punk was there joining Michael Cole, Corey Graves, and Pat McAfee, our broadcasters for both nights, did a fine job.

And Punk was wearing a suit.

Looked like he had just come from a funeral.

You don't see some people in suits that often.

Lawsuits, maybe, but not

the regular kind.

And then for Seth,

George Clinton's worst acid flashback appeared on the stage.

The Philadelphia Mummers

is what they looked like a few of them would give you a hummer as they were mumming there.

Is that what you thought watching them?

The mummers looked like a few of them looked like some hummers.

I can't believe you just said hummers on this show.

And

this, it was ridiculous.

This scene was ridiculous, but I mean, you know, it was a spectacle.

People have, you got to do it, do it at WrestleMania.

And we had Seth versus Drew, but we were 20 minutes into the show before the bell rang on this one.

And immediately,

boom, Drew McIntyre comes out with a Claymore kick and gets a two count.

And then with this match, and I got to tell you, I liked it.

It worked.

But they were doing the Brock Lesnar big show match playbook, weren't they?

Where

it was built around the big moves, the stomps, the suplexes, the Claymore kicks, the

pedigrees, a lot of two counts, and then selling, but it worked, I thought.

And, you know, I'm not, again, going to go blow by blow on all of these back and forth, but they did it creatively and they got all of their moves in multiple times, but there was a reason for

each kick or each move failing if it did.

And then

finally, Drew had cleared off the announce desk.

And Punk at that point was calling it in his headset, but he was calling it so like Drew could hear him when he was talking bad about him.

And Seth fought up and gave Drew the stomp on the desk,

rolled him back in, but Drew McIntyre hit a kick and got a two count.

And then another kick and got a three count.

And that was the only

thing.

It was an exciting match with

finish because he just survived Seth Rollins' finish on the announce desk.

And 15 minutes after that, he hits two kicks and beats him.

Or 15 seconds, I should say, not minutes.

He hits two kicks and beats him.

But

otherwise than that, as a match before we go to the afterbirth,

this was a nice, it was a nice

peppy, goddamn way to

get the people going at the start.

I liked it.

What'd you think?

Good match.

I figured Drew would win.

So

up to that point, I thought it was great.

Not to say that anything after it wasn't, but I thought it was good.

And had a good WrestleMania moment.

His wife at Ringside.

Yeah.

Got to show her the belt.

So he got to have that moment in front of fans.

Whereas Seth was just showing people his hummers.

Boy, Seth just did nothing but put other people over this entire WrestleMania.

But

some things are bigger than ourselves.

But it was a good match.

And then there was a celebration because when we predict Drew McIntyre would win this belt.

And then

Drew and Punk started making smart ass remarks to each other because Punk has obviously been on color this whole time.

He's still there.

And then Drew gets over like he's crawling over the desk.

He's going to menace Punk.

And Punk's got that brace on his arm

over the top of his suit jacket.

And

then finally, Drew stood up on the desk right in front of Punk and crotch-chopped him and turned around and laughed about it.

And Punk leg sweep jerked his feet out from under him.

And bam, Drew takes a bump on the desk.

And then Punk takes off the brace and the fucking jacket.

and gives Drew a clothesline with the fucking brace and kicks the shit out of him or starts kicking the shit out of him.

And suddenly, the music plays in.

And here comes Damian Priest with the Money in the Bank briefcase.

And he nails Drew McIntyre with the briefcase, rolls him in, cashes in, hits the choke slam.

One, two, three, and he's the new world champion.

And CM Punk has taken away.

Drew McIntyre's moment of triumph at his world title win and fucking facilitated the goddamn thing going over to Damian Priest.

And Drew McIntyre can't fucking believe it.

And so now they've heated that program.

And I got to be honest with you, I don't know if Drew or if Damian Priest is going to have that belt long or if he's going to do much for it.

But we didn't see this coming.

And that was the biggest thing they could do

to

heat up Drew and Punk, which is going to be money as soon as Punk's ready.

Does Drew come back and beat Damian Priest on Raw?

I don't fucking know.

After a while, I'm not talking about tomorrow.

But,

you know,

they heated up a money match that they've already got waiting on them.

I don't know what's going to go on with the world title, but I like this.

This deal was a nice little surprise.

This was great.

It was a great way to open the show.

I guess the question is, how much longer is Punk on the shelf?

Because if you can't start building him and Drew into a match that could happen anytime soon, who is Drew going to work with?

and then well and then with rollins coming out of this again another guy they teased stuff with him and punk in the past but drew and punk has kind of become the thing now

what does rollins do coming out of this

well that's why i was thinking that they might not have pulled a trigger on gunther for poor old seth or give him something to do but with

with this

You could start building Punk and McIntyre now and not have to have it for eight to 12 weeks if you do it right so

how long has it been since it's been since jan has been three months already two and a half months you know we'll see what happens

but we got a new world champion damian priest and there's another guy there was a

now is a chance to do something different with him and elevate him Let's see what they do.

No more of these backstage segments playing darts with his friends.

He needs to get a big head and leave the clubhouse for the Judgment Day and have his own private locker room.

They got a knock, except for Rhea.

You know what?

Him celebrating with the Judgment Day at the top of the ramp was one of the cool moments because you could tell that was more real than anything else.

Yeah.

It's their guy.

He's the world champion now.

Look at how far they've come from being Edge's two people, just Rhea and Priest, in the original Judgment Day.

I forgot about that.

Tony Khan has made it, so I've almost forgotten about Edge.

Anyway, speaking of forgetting about things, I wish I could what was next.

Um,

Snoop Dogg was there,

and then Bubba Ray Dudley came to the ring to be the special referee of

what else in Philadelphia.

They had a garbage match with furniture of some description.

What did they call it?

The six-man with Philadelphia street fight.

There you go, of course, it had to be, and they put

poor Bobby Lashley in there with the rest of of this Drek, the authors of Incompetence, Carrion Cross, Scarlet, poor Paul Ellering.

He's still there.

And they broke a bunch of tables.

I couldn't watch this.

What the fuck?

Did anybody?

Well, it wasn't very good.

And I don't think too many people cared.

And a lot of it's booking related.

McAfee said this is the first WrestleMania Ellering's been involved in.

He was at WrestleMania 8.

Gene Okerlund, the famous introduction of get ready, here they come.

And then the Road Warrior, the Legion of Doom, came out with Elwering for the first time in WWE.

And then a few weeks later, he found Rocco in the rubble of Chicago.

But this match wasn't very good.

You know, everyone's talking about CM Punk returning to WWE.

And guys who have chosen AEW over WWE.

Jay Cargill chose WWE.

Not a lot of people talking about Snoop Dogg jumping back.

Remember, he was on AEW-TV.

Oh, that's right.

I forgot about that.

Hall of Famer Snoop Dogg back in the fold.

Is Shaq next?

Did they ever find him

after they put him in the ambulance?

I'm telling you, he has to roll up in an ambulance.

Whenever he next appears on one of these wrestling shows, just to continue the story, he shows up in an ambulance.

The ambulance could pull up, the doors open, and he slides out on wheels and slides right to the ring.

This was a Philadelphia street fight.

Bubba Ray Dudley got a nice pop, and it was a nice thing to have him there.

It was kind of fitting.

I'm not knocking Bubba, I'm just knocking furniture matches with underneath talent.

But sadly, based on what this was and what it followed, and kind of knowing what else was left in the night, there were certain matches you're like, I got to go outside and smoke a joint now because I don't want to miss anything from the next match.

Oh, you're saying that's what the people in the stadium all did?

I'm saying that's what I did here in Last Stadium.

At last, oh, okay.

Yeah,

I went into the parking garage here at last manor i smoked i

i understand you have a full-size replica of the roman coliseum in your backyard is that true i'm not confirming anything

well la night and aj styles was up next in their big grudge showdown

and they they had a hot start to this thing and they had a fight and

I like this again because

both these guys can work and they know how to wrestle.

They had had a quick pace.

It was aggressive.

And there was no furniture involved.

There was no gymnastics.

They had a fucking wrestling match.

Imagine that, with ill intent toward each other.

And

I was disappointed.

This time, instead of the big leap to the top and a suplex, L.A.

Knight did a leap to the top and a German.

And the camera missed the jump.

Did you see that?

I get you didn't see it.

Did you notice that you didn't see that?

No, I did see that.

I watched this match.

I didn't see the jump.

Yeah.

I saw that they missed the jump.

Well, most other people might not have known there was a jump, and they didn't replay it.

He was already up on the top when they re anyway.

That was his WrestleMania jump.

But AJ was a heel.

He got heat.

LA Knights a babyface.

He makes comebacks.

I mean, again,

two guys that know what they're doing.

AJ's not, his strongest point has not been promos, but he's good in the ring.

They turned it on.

And finally,

after a very quick and jazzy back and forth, L.A.

Knight hit his fucking finish.

Boom.

One, two, three.

So again, you know, Ella and the people love him.

They're yeah and his brains out.

And this was the perfect thing to do because this had been his first WrestleMania, they said.

Unless he was in the crowd when Ellering found Rocco or whatever.

No, that wasn't at WrestleMania.

That was in between WrestleMania and Samsung.

I know I'm fucking with you because I don't care either way.

How about that?

You don't care about Rocco?

How about them apples?

I don't care about Rocco.

I don't care about.

I don't care about Paul Ellery's brief run as a ventriloquist match.

Rocco or Dumbo.

Yeah, I never knew.

I knew Paul did the I did a rod.

I didn't know he was a ventriloquist, but

back to LA Night.

Good match, right finish.

Boom.

There we go.

LA Knight still on the ascent.

What'd you think?

Good match, the right length.

I thought AJ was good here.

I thought LA was good here.

The fans were into it, getting better temperature than night one.

And this was kind of like a almost every match leave the fans happy night.

Good match.

And I think it's, you know, it was important that

There wasn't any tomfoolery.

They just gave L.A.

Knight a good win because AJ Styles has been the WWE champion in the past and won big ones and et cetera, et cetera.

And,

you know, besides sending the folks home happy, this did something for good old L.A.

Here's a trivia question for you.

Has anyone,

how can I ask this, has anyone ever been

involved in the WrestleMania main event and inducted to the Hall of Fame in the same weekend?

You mean,

in what sense?

What do you mean?

Well, Paul Heyman, he's in the corner involved in the main event, but he got inducted to the Hall of Fame

the same weekend.

Oh, I'm sure they've done something with someone, and I just can't think of it.

Well, I mean, done something, but not like he may have come out unscheduled to run in.

I mean, they just had people do that here in this match we're going to talk about, but I'm talking about regularly scheduled, still on top of the cards.

Already, Heyman's got a bunch of firsts here, but he's still on top of the cards.

He was booked to be in the main event event at WrestleMania with his man, and he's inducted to Hall of Fame same weekend.

Boy,

I wonder if he bought a lottery ticket this weekend.

I would have, and I never do that.

Anyhow,

so the U.S.

title match was up next.

The triple threat Logan Paul versus Kevin Owens versus Randy Orton.

And

Brian, what do I always think about triple threat three-way matches?

What do I always say about them?

Well, you don't like them.

Yeah.

I always say they suck.

Yeah.

Can't make it make sense.

It's fucking stupid.

They abuse the goddamn rules.

Bring a bunch of garbage in, blah, blah, blah.

This was perfect.

This was my favorite match all weekend.

I loved this match.

I can't praise this match enough.

This match did not offend me.

Is that high enough praise for you?

I'm shocked.

I mean, I know you love Kevin.

Not Kevin.

I know you love Logan Paul, and he's great.

He's one of my favorite guys in there.

You're a big Randy Orton guy, and you've always appreciated the good points of Kevin Steen's career and tried to push him with those.

But again, three-way matches.

Well, explain why you love this one so much.

Because it made sense and they didn't just do stunts.

They had a match that told a story and had some type of logical reason for everything that I don't know about every single goddamn thing.

Somebody it was a logical reason for it to transgress this way

because Owens and Orton had bonded over their mutual hatred of Logan Paul, but there can only be one winner.

So at first,

Even to the point where on the entrance,

Owens drives down in a golf cart and then backs up and picks up Orton and they both come in together.

And they both go after Logan Paul, and they do the thing where they drop him on the desk and they're beating him up together.

But then, after a couple minutes, both of them go for a cover at the same time and realize it.

And

fucking, Owens is like, are we going to do this now?

You know, only one of us can win.

Oh, let's go back to this guy.

And as soon as they go back to beating up Logan Paul, Randy tries to RKO Kevin from behind, but he slips it.

And then everybody's, ooh,

they got the people hooked.

They understand what's going on.

And then Owens said, you want to do it now?

So then they have a big fucking fight.

And now Logan Paul has the opportunity to level both of them with a double buckshot Lariat.

And then

I couldn't keep up with the twists and turns of things they were doing.

But every time

that Orton and Owens would get into it, then that would give Logan Paul a chance to recover and then come back in and be the heel.

So

there was still a heel, Logan Paul.

There were two babyfaces, Owens and Randy Orton, but Orton is a snake.

And both of them had a goddamn

an incentive.

to fuck with each other, but at the same time, nobody went out and tried to end each other's careers by pulling out a fucking chainsaw.

They were wrestling.

And

I mean, Logan Paul is fantastic, but it's great for him to be in there with a guy like Orton because at one point they went to trade the forearms, right?

The uppercut forearms.

And Orton

on the job training was trying to show him and did end up showing him the rhythm.

He's like, where to put his arms?

He'd grab Logan Paul's arms and put it down.

And he'd hit him and he'd try to get him the rhythm exchange.

And Logan Paul got it and won the exchange.

But it's on the job training for this guy, but he's fucking great.

And

then Orton gave a double draping DDT to both Owens and Logan Paul.

And then they start going to the big fucking two counts.

And

finally, Logan Paul gets his brass Nucks.

That's the only thing.

Can you think of anything else that they really did to exploit the fact that a triple thread is a no DQ

besides having the Knucks in broad daylight.

No.

And obviously, the Knucks also have been established as a thing with Logan Paul.

Yes.

And that's the thing: they didn't have to put a hat on a hat because it was no disqualification.

They didn't have to go out there and tear up the whole goddamn stadium.

They did all this athletic shit in the ring in such a way that people were following the story of the match.

And then Logan Paul, out of desperation, gets the knuckles and he swings, but Orton ducks, but Logan gets him the second time.

Two count.

Holy shit.

And then Logan Paul nails Owens with the Nucks and goes to pick Orton up, but Orton hits an RKO and they both sell it.

And then Orton gets the Nux, but he gives them to the referee and goes for his kick.

But then the Prime bottle pulls Logan Paul to safety.

Now, can I stop you real quick?

Yes.

When Logan Paul first came out and the prime bottle was on the stage with him doing like this mediocre dance almost.

You're thinking right away, who's in the goddamn prime bottle?

From the moment he came out, who's in there and what are they going to do?

Which one of his stooges will it be?

And I actually really liked the stuff with the prime bottle.

It wasn't as goofy as it sounds.

Well, yeah, and the prime bottle is

revealed to be who the fuck is it?

What's the guy's name?

He's another one of people in Logan Paul's world.

He's a big streamer.

That's what they said.

He's a big streamer.

Well, that's probably because of that fucking bladder kidney issue he's got but they've got pills for that these days anyway

the prime bottle pulled logan paul out and then when orton went out there the bottle shoved orton and orton just booted the guy about halfway across the ringside

and then picked him up and gave him an rko on the desk and then

logan paul took the opportunity to run Orton into the post, but then Owens power bombed Logan Paul and stunnered Orton and got a two count.

But then Owens went for the pop-up and Orton hit the RKO and Logan Paul shit canned Orton to the floor and hit splash off the top on Kevin Owens one, two, three.

What a splash, too.

Do you see

a splash?

But this was, this is,

I rescind the statements that I've made that it is impossible to have a good three-way triple threat match because they just did it.

It's just apparently exceedingly difficult because this is the first time it's been done.

But bravo, bravo.

And

a small smattering of Future Farmer Association of America

applause for Kevin Owens, Logan Paul, and Randy Orton.

How good is Logan Paul?

Tremendous.

Everything he's involved with is amazing.

And it's great.

By the way, we didn't even talk about what did you think of WrestleMania having the prime bottle in the center of the ring?

Well, I mean, it's not offensive.

You know, it's not like that's all you're thinking about when you're, because the show looks so good in all the other ways.

It's not like, and they also had the turnbuckle.

But

it's subtle there.

It's there.

And then the WWE logo's on a second one.

And then the bottle's on the bottom one.

And, you know.

And then they announced a different drink is now the official energy drink of WWE.

And I thought his drink, Prime, was an energy drink.

I guess it's not.

They said that's now the official, what is it, hydration drink?

Whatever they call it.

It's the hydration station.

But I thought

is the new official drink, the gin and juice?

No, that was a different drink that was sponsoring a different match.

I think it's C4.

That's what it is.

Steve, I thought that was a vertebrae or an explosive.

It is.

It's also

a vertebrae exploding drink, apparently.

Well, don't tip it back too far, folks.

You'll break your fucking neck.

I think the gin and juice should be the official drink because Snoop was

sold on the idea.

Anyway,

we're moving on.

Bailey versus EO.

And I've already been cursed in my own home because Stacy said, oh, this was a good match.

She had to watch this thing.

She's in the art studio.

She's working on her painting or whatever.

She's got this on.

She just likes to watch the girls' matches.

Well, I can understand that well hold on you've never said this before i know stacy every now and then would watch some stuff if she's watching the girls matches does she say anything to you about the girls matches yeah she loved this match not just this match but any of the girls matches well she loves rhea ripley

but uh but no usually there's nothing to say to me about the girls matches

But

and I'm not saying she's watching every week.

She's watching WrestleMania.

She's watching the big hoop-de-doo.

If Tony Khan's going to lay an egg on live TV, she might pop in for that.

But point is, she liked Bayley and EO.

She was mad

that I did not watch this entire thing.

I got the general gist of Bayley winning with the big elbow drop.

But this was what, hour number 14 of the

wrestling that we had seen in a 48-hour period or less, and I was running low on time and energy.

So did you

very good match EOSCO?

They'll break it down for me minute by minute.

Yeah, that ain't going to happen.

Damage control.

You know, they show them each and every week walking into the building when they get there.

And if you watch Asuka and Kyrie Satan, they're so committed to their characters.

And I don't know exactly what their characters are, but I get such a kick out of them.

EO Sky is really, really good.

Out of all the different women in the ring, she's actually really good in the ring.

And

this was a good match.

And again, this was a night about giving fans happy moments moments other than Logan Paul.

Bailey getting a big victory.

The fans loved it.

Bailey new world champion.

Except for Rhea, who's the other world champion.

That's right.

And we got more tag team champions now.

At least they haven't split the

Universal title up yet where we'll have three.

We'll see.

But nevertheless.

They introduced a bunch of celebrities at Ringside that I've never heard of in my life, nor even seen their names written down on paper.

Am I missing anyone of any note that I should have known?

Probably not.

Okay.

And then Snoop Dogg was back with his cheerleaders in the ring to announce the attendance.

Now,

the official attendance for night two,

according to them, was 72,755.

And Snoop Dogg announced the two-night total

at 145,420 while the graphics said 145,298.

I'm wondering if Snoop Dogg just had 420 on his mind

and super disposed that over the real number.

I don't know.

I read an article a few months back that he stopped smoking weed.

That was, I think that was a publicity stunt.

Was it?

Yeah.

I didn't pay attention to publicity.

I can't remember what the resolution was of it, but it was something.

It was a

beginning of a plug for a new product he's involved in.

Oh, I didn't see part two of the story.

I only saw the first day story.

Well, and I don't remember the rest of the story.

So we'll move on and finish the story.

See how that worked?

We're going to move on to the story getting finished because it was time for our main event for the Universal title, Cody Rhodes versus Roman Reigns, the second encounter at WrestleMania, the rematch from last year.

And we got Cody's entrance now with brandy.

How about that?

I'm happy about that.

And he had the long entrance.

He gave his weight belt to a small child.

He hugged Michelle at ringside.

The whole nine yards.

People are ready for this.

Another Sgt.

Pepper.

patriotic red, white, and blue outfit.

And then Roman Reigns got a choir and an orchestra.

And they announced that he's had 31 title defenses in 1,300 and whatever days.

What's the math on that?

Is that fucking eight a year, 10 a year?

I guess.

And they've made it work.

That's the amazing part.

You know what?

But that's the thing, I guess.

Because that used to be a knock on wrestling in the territory days by the people or the newspapers or whoever that wanted to knock it.

Well, these guys wrestle every night.

Where do you see that in any other sport?

You know, and it is true when the Southern heavyweight title was being defended 250 times a year or whatever.

So Roman Reigns with 31 defenses in four years is like a UFC fighter or a boxer at this point.

So it does kind of give it a little more credibility.

And also, I bet he's laughing that he gets paid the money he does.

And when you divide it and prorate it amongst the matches, it looks more impressive.

Have you noticed the handheld camera on the in-ring intros is either some kind of extra high-def, ultra-high-def, three-dimensional high-def camera with a soft focus and a background.

It looks almost like

a video game type of thing.

Have you noticed those shots yet?

I've noticed it, yeah.

I'm wondering what some

this is new shit since I've been in a TV truck, but some of our devoted followers out there tell me what kind of fucking camera they're using.

What is this new technology that we're seeing, this witchcraft?

So the time was for the title match, and they had the face-off, and they were in no hurry, and the crowd was hot.

And if you notice, again, Roman Reigns never breaks.

He never has a

facial expression or an attitude that he should not have if the moment that he is in at that current time was actually happening.

And

I had high hopes for this match.

I wanted to like it.

And then at two minutes in, when Cody pulled the table out from under the ring and shoved it in the ring, I was like, oh, God damn it.

And Roman stopped him and put the table back to get some, and the people booed.

And I was like, yes, yes, thank God.

But it made sense, Cody, doing that.

He has to overcome the odds.

It's bloodline rule.

So I wasn't offended by that.

I was just hoping they wouldn't go that quick, right?

I didn't know where they were going, but geez, already.

And but then seconds later, Roman had the kendo stick, but they didn't

overuse it.

Cody got it away from him and used it and then dumped it out or lost it or whatever.

And

much of this was they had to do the over-the-rail into the arena arena where they could take a bump on an empty table in the back, but then they came back to the ring.

And they built this.

And more importantly, I guess they feel like they have to do those stupid things,

you know, to satisfy the modern audience.

So we'll give them a little of this and then get back to business.

But

they built where Cody even had levels of comeback where he would.

get a flurry, but then something would happen where he'd get shut down.

But then the next time that he had a flurry, it'd be more of a flurry.

They built very well through the thing.

You know, and again, it was about going for their finishing moves.

There was a spot where

Roman had nut-shotted Cody after he cleared the desk off and powerbombed him through the desk.

And they got to the ring, and he hit the Superman punch, but only got a two count.

But then Cody, and then they would sell in between these things.

Again, it it wasn't like the AEW shit.

And then Cody might hit the Cody cutter and get a two count or a spear and get a two count.

And then finally, they teased the moves as much as they hit them with going for the crossroads and blah, blah, blah.

And then finally, Cody hits the crossroads and Jimmy Uso comes in and super kicks him.

And then they start doing the,

you know,

the kind of thing that they do all the time with the bloodline, but at least they souped it up for WrestleMania here shortly.

No, this was great.

You can't criticize this.

Well,

that's what I'm saying.

You know,

it started out, oh, there's Jimmy, oh, there's Solo, but then

it gets grander.

But Jimmy comes in with the super kick

and he holds Cody for the Superman punch, but music plays, and here comes Jay, and they get Jay and Jimmy get in a fight,

and they spear

or Jay spears Jimmy off the stage.

And so they're neutralized.

But then in the ring, the match is still going on.

Roman Reigns hits the spear and gets a two count and a huge pop when Cody kicks out.

And then Roman gets a face lock, but Cody pushes him to the floor and Cody spears him through the barricades.

There go all the big spots.

And Cody rolls Roman in.

And he grabs him for the crossroads and hits two crossroads.

But then as he's going for the third, Solo is there and spikes Cody.

And he puts Roman on top of Cody and turns around to walk off.

One, two, he kicks out.

And fucking, and it's a pop there too.

And Solo turns around, like, what the fuck?

So Solo gets on Cody and then tells Roman, finish him.

So Roman struggles up to his feet and spears Cody.

One, two, kick out.

And Solo's bullshit.

And then music plays.

Here comes John Cena.

The place explodes.

No one thought this was happening.

Good now.

They're bringing out all the goddamn stars, right?

We don't care if you thought he was here, whatever.

Cena runs down and makes a comeback on Solo that, as we will recall, Solo is the one that spiked Cena and put him out of commission.

And he gives Roman Reigns the attitude adjustment and then clears the Spanish announce desk off and attitude adjusts,

adjusts the attitude of solo through that.

And right as that, the rock music plays.

And here comes the rock to the ring.

And now we've got the face-off with John Cena.

And the crowd is going bat shit.

And let's face it again.

I said it was the same kind of shit when Jimmy runs in or Solo runs in, but now you've got Cena and Rock face to face as an unadvertised bonus in Philadelphia.

These people are going out of their minds.

And Rock Rock bottoms him and says, get the fuck out of my ring.

It gets bleeped.

He's cursing like he's Shane Douglas and ECW at this point.

He's just saying, fuck it, just to show everybody that he can do it.

And he takes his belt off like he's going to whip the shit out of Cena and music plays.

And here comes Seth to the ring with a chair.

Well, it's Shield music.

That's the music from The Shield.

Ah, true.

Well, I didn't recognize it.

And Seth came out there with blonde hair, dressed like he did in the shield.

But a lot of fans thought Moxley, though, in that moment, a lot of fans, when they heard that music, they did think that.

But thankfully, they were not.

They were not that unlucky.

They got Seth.

But the thing is,

I thought Seth would get a moment with the rock, but Seth gets in the ring with a chair going after the rock and Roman from the blind side, you bam, stopped him.

And that was the end of Seth.

Well, no, but that was a big thing.

Again, if you.

Well, again, the shield, yes.

Well, no, but it's kind of brilliant for the long-term storytelling.

No, but I'm not talking about the second time he hit him.

I'm talking about the first time he hit him.

Oh, okay.

Because he, when Seth was going in with the chair after the rock, at least there could have been some kind of interaction with Rock there, but Roman just cut Seth off before he got to do anything.

And Rock was still about to whip Cody.

See?

And that's when we got

bong.

and here came the Undertaker and the lights are out and the light.

Well, not here came the under, but bong, you know, he's coming.

And the lights go out, and when the lights come on, he's already in the ring behind the rock.

And there's where he hits the choke slam, and then the lights go out, and when they come back on, he's gone.

But now.

And he was dressed like he was, you know, the thug Undertaker, not like the dead man.

Well, yeah, but I mean, you know, it worked.

It worked.

I'm not complaining.

Yeah, you can't expect him to actually change clothes for a WrestleMania appearance.

Come on.

It worked.

But no, it worked because

that's the person they now see as the Undertaker.

Yeah.

For this audience.

But anyway, now Roman and Cody are laying there in the ring.

There's a chair laying there.

The weight belt is laying there.

And they're both going for it.

But now Roman gets the chair.

And he stands up and Seth is pulling himself up to his feet.

And Roman can either hit Cody

or he can hit Seth.

Yeah.

And now he turns, because now is the part, I know from the Shield, that's what, and they've showed the tape, so everybody else does also, that when

they broke up, there was the chair shot from behind.

Well, now Roman gets to return it onto Seth.

But when he does that, bam, and he levels Seth.

He goes for a spear on Cody, and Cody stops him with a kick and hits three crossroads and the cover, one, two, three,

and finishes the story.

And that's why I was saying earlier, I thought Seth should have got, been able to get in and do some kind of duck-dodge thing with the rock before he got laid out because then

he just gets up and he gets laid out again.

Before we get to the post-match, and there's a lot to talk about then, obviously, you're excited because you're banging the desk nonsense.

Well, yes, I'm just, I'm just, it's just a barn burner there,

a pier sixer.

It was a good match, but it was an exceptional series of moments

that were incredible to see live.

Well, I wasn't there, but just on TV, as it happened, it was great.

The

long-term booking

of,

and just by happenstance, not that they planned this out 10 years ago, whatever, but the idea that he got Rollins back for what he did to him.

It was his chance to finally do it after all these years, and that cost him the match.

Yeah.

That's so interesting.

That's such an interesting concept just to play with.

I love this.

I thought this was great.

In the same way, I love matches sometimes that aren't in ring classics.

It all worked for this here,

built up incredibly.

And then, of course, you got the big moment in the post-match.

Yeah.

And if there had been, again, multiple run-ins with,

you know, Joe Cephas and fucking Tits McGee, it may have been, but this is The Rock.

This is John Cena.

This is the goddamn Undertaker.

It's WrestleMania.

That worked.

If the glass had broken, they would have set the stadium on fire.

That's the only thing they were missing.

I was thinking that in some fashion, that might be the three count was

Austin to come out to count the three.

Well, I said that the other day on the show.

Imagine if the glass breaks and that's who could stop the rock.

There were three options.

It's Triple H,

it's Steve Austin,

and The Undertaker.

And it worked.

It worked.

Everyone was happy that no one expected The Undertaker in the middle of this, and it worked.

And well, and Triple H hidden an option right now because they've got a long story down the road for that.

No reason at all to get jumpy about that one.

But then

Brandy came to the ring, Cody held the belt up.

They met the first member of the Rhodes family to win the WWE title, and they sent the top baby faces.

Sammy, Seth, and Jay, and Owens, Orton, Cena, Punk was there, LA Knight,

Mama Rhodes, and the family.

and

Brodie Lee Jr.

Was he?

Yeah.

Well, I don't really know what the kid looks like without negative one under the mask.

Yeah, he was the kid.

Remember, he was at ringside last year, and then Cody lost, and he was there this year for this.

Well, he got booked back for the return, too.

And that was the kind of, you know, the old scene you'd see when Dusty would win the NWA title or even the Florida title or whatever title.

All the other baby faces would come in and pick him up.

It was a celebration.

And then

when Cody had hugged everybody and shook hands with the announcers and everything, oh, and also he called out

not only the artful Dodger, Bruce Pritchard, but also Triple H to thank them for their part in

his return to the WWE and gave them big hugs.

And he and Triple H had the

heartfelt moment.

But then, like I said, when he shook hands, the announcers hugged the camera guy.

There was Nick Khan in the front row.

And they had a moment there and

a nice little congratulatory deal.

So

Cody's the biggest star in the business now, except for the, it'll always be except for the rock.

But is the rock really in the business or what?

You know, you had to even finish your sentence and you started correcting yourself.

Well, yeah, well, because

here's the, even if Rock wasn't on the board of directors, you, I'm just convinced that that personality, the magnitude of him, you cannot be a bigger star than the Rock, no matter who's calling the shots.

It's just not possible.

You know, we're not going to go too much longer just because this already is a giant-sized episode.

We'll record the drive-through in a few days so we can catch our breath and edit all these shows.

But Cody in the press scrum afterwards, or the press conference, as they call it in WWE,

you know, he said, and it's a very interesting thing.

He had been wondering to himself,

what's next after this?

If his whole career, if the whole story of his whole career is the story of the chase, of completing the story of his father, and now he's done it,

what's next?

So this is going to be very interesting.

How do they capitalize on this with Cody?

Because he's no longer chasing anything.

Maybe The Rock,

because of the insults about his mom, pinned him night one.

But again, other than the made-up made-up title that The Rock gave himself, claiming that Muhammad Ali bestowed the title on him,

what do you think is next for Cody?

Well, I mean, there's obviously going to be,

depending on how that all these people interact with each other and what the plans are, because Cody and Rock is a big money match.

Rock and Roman could potentially be a big money match.

Why is there tension between Rock and Roman with some of the things that happened, including the miscue and the tag match?

I don't even know whether we mentioned that

Roman speared Rock accidentally when Seth pulled Cody out of the way at one point.

That's right.

See, Seth really, again, plays into everything.

He said, I'll be your shield.

Yeah.

He literally was the shield for Cody Rhodes to win the title here.

So you've got potentially great storytelling.

It's really great.

Yes.

But I'm saying with these matches, you've got Roman and Seth, but you got potentially Cody and Rock.

You got Rock and Roman.

You got Roman and Seth.

You have a rematch with Roman and Cody that could go to Saudi Arabia.

Stephanie versus Gewerts.

Oh, come on now.

Hand is the referee.

You have Orton

established as a top guy, being a kind of a wild card that could be involved with Orton or with Orton, with Roman or with Rock, potentially.

There's all these other names, Logan Paul, what the fuck is going on?

We don't know how they're going to tell whatever story they're going to tell between rock and roman, whether they're going to stay aligned, split up, who's going to go what way, where first.

But depending on that, they've got a lot of shit that they can pull out of their bag right now.

Here's another thing, and I know Triple H said that the draft is coming up, so they're going to continue to do that.

It always is a big ratings night for them.

Which champion is on which show?

Well, because Cody was on Raw, and now he's the champion of the guy who is predominantly only on SmackDown, and Priest and the entire stable on Raw until they're broken up in the draft.

Well, and

again,

how does it affect toward the end of this year?

Because we're, what are we?

Eight months away from a lot of shit changing with them going to the Netflix thing starts in eight months, right?

In January?

It starts in January.

I believe they leave TV in October, I want to say, and they return to Netflix in January.

Yeah, but they don't leave all of TV because the other show is still, I'm so confused, but they're still going to have a show on fucking

USA.

It's just going to be the other show, right?

What the fuck is

they're going to be all over the place?

And what about Gunther?

Gunther lost this title, but he's been so dominant, could he immediately be put into a situation where he is a potential challenger and he and Cody.

That could be incredible because Cody can sell his ass off.

So they got plenty to do to keep busy.

Well, night one, maybe a bit underwhelming and cold, frigid.

Night two, a night of happy moments for the fans.

And,

you know, Cody got the kind of celebration and not too many guys have gotten over the last 30 years.

Sting got it at the bash in 90.

Obviously, Dusty always got it.

How many videos of Manny Fernandez hugging him in the ring are there?

Manny Fernandez should have hit the ring and hugged Cody.

But a big moment, a really cool moment.

I guess the big thing will be how do they move forward with Cody now that he's completed the story?

What's next?

And with the bloodline, especially if Jacob Fatu's on the way,

it can go a whole bunch of different ways.

So a lot of interesting things coming out of WrestleMania.

And you know, Jacob Fatu did not debut because, remember, I said you don't debut a secret weapon in a losing effort.

And it'll be interesting to see whether that's an immediate follow-up on the raw that happens tonight as we speak, the raw after WrestleMania, or whether this is something he's going to filter in and play into something some other way.

But we'll find out.

And

when do we finish our story?

When are we done with these programs?

We're done with this program right now, unless I could check for Twitter and see if there's any big news happening.

We're never really done, though, because there's always another one to do.

So even though we've done one, we've got many more to do.

That's right.

Vince McMahon sold more stock to Endeavour.

That's his plan.

He's going to bankrupt the company that took his company by making him buy back his stock.

So, so the question is, now, how much money did he get top that on top of that $1.2 billion he's sitting on?

Hold on, I have something here.

Brandon Thurston, WrestleNomics in two agreements.

Endeavour is buying 1.6 in change shares, 1.6 million in change, shares for $142.6 million.

Oh, tko is buying an additional 1.8 million in shares for 150 million

for a total of 293 million dollars uh after these transactions vince will have eight million shares remaining uh and it will be below five percent ownership

and that means there'll probably be less reports about what he does

well that's all we need is vince not being reported on constantly so we know exactly what he's up to but that's so 300 million on top of the 1.2.

He's got $1.5 billion in less than a year in cash or cash equivalents paid to him for selling his property.

What's he doing with that fucking money?

What are we doing with our lives, Brian?

It's almost time for the eclipse.

So are we done here for the time being?

Do you have protective glasses for this?

No, I'm going to watch it on television the way God intended it.

You're not going to go outside and try to experience the

hush, the darkness, the chilly.

There was a hush all over the world.

Well, that was a kind of hush.

That was a kind of hush.

It's not going to be chilly.

It's going to be 60-something degrees, and I don't want to damage my corneas.

Cornette's corneas are very valuable.

I'll watch on television, and I'll go out and let Harley piss in the darkness in the middle of the day, as opposed to the darkness at the edge of town.

We're done with this program, aren't we?

I mean, I could try to keep you going talking about just minutiae like we are right now.

I mean, this eclipse is so exciting.

I'm so excited about this.

I don't believe we're going to do that, folks, until we come back in a few days with the drive-through for the experience for Brian, for Jim, for all of us.

Thank you.

Fuck you.

Bye-bye, everybody.