Episode 519: Full Blast

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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 team partner Barion Last, he sends this message out by podcast.

Jim Cornette.

Well, he's never fake a phoner.

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 Jim Cornet Experience.

Today, Triple H cuts better promos on this board member than he did the last one.

Johnny Laurinitis is squealing like a pig stuck under a gate, and we think AEW is still doing a TV show, but nobody really knows for sure.

And joining me to talk about all this and so much more.

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

Co-host of you, he's currently being sued for being too damn good at what he does.

It's testifying, Brian, last, everybody.

Aloha, Jimmy.

Pleasure to be here once again.

Spoiler alert, I'm not being sued.

At least not that I know of.

I don't know what you know.

I got to talk to you and my attorney.

But it's great to be here on your show.

All the pressure is off me.

Well,

I'm in contact now with the opposing counsel, and they say you got to tie half of your voice behind your back from now on, Brian, so that the field of the podcasting co-hosts can be even.

That's what

you're going to be forced.

Either that or you're going to become Jerry's butler.

I'm not sure

which way the judge is going to go on it.

I pledge to go full blast.

That is my commitment to the listeners.

Well, at least you've got to pledge.

Oh, good lord.

Full blast with dramatic, melodramatic overtones.

At least you've got a full blast setting there on you, unlike your Xfinity internet that didn't fix shit, apparently, as we've come to find out.

The jury is still out, at least.

We've told the people on the drive-thru that has just probably emanated forth from the Arcadian Vanguard broadcasting towers, probably the last 24 to 36 hours, as the people hear this, because we just did it yesterday.

Because

we were flummoxed and bamboozled and roadblocked and sidetracked for about a 48-hour period from being able to do the program while the world was on fire, the wrestling world was in flames.

And your internet people decided to screw up your whole neighborhood.

And they were back and forth.

We told that story on a drive-through.

So now this is part two

of Podcast Mania, where we try in another

however many hours to finish catching up on all the crazy,

maniacal, insane, lunaticishness,

if that ain't a word, I just made it up, that's been going on in wrestling.

The most powerful man in wrestling has been sued for a variety of abominable crimes that we can't even make comedy out of anymore.

The biggest babyface in fucking wrestling has switched heel because the fans turned on him in one night.

And is it surprising, I guess, Brian, at this point, that only one wrestler was arrested this week for murder.

Well, the week is not over yet.

Some may look at it more like a fortnight than a week.

May capture more of what's happening, the tone of things, but it's a crazy period of time.

The wrestling itself, I don't know about, but the world around wrestling is just nuts.

If we could just keep the pesky matches out of the way and concentrate on the fucking drama and the chaos-ness.

And folks, if you didn't hear the drive-thru and you want to hear about,

we talked about Billy Jack Haynes, we talked about

it being a bad week to be a president of a wrestling company, Scott DeMoore gone, and

Old Rossi over there in Japan for stardom out the door.

And a whole bunch of other stuff on your program.

So they need to check that out to get up to date on those things.

Did I miss any of the high points?

There were so many brian there were so many i mean people speaking out like bret hart speaking out against vince has gotten a lot of uh play out there

and then uh

yeah more more vince we we spoke out about the people speaking out about

and uh and now i guess xfinity is hiding from you is that correct you're trying you've signed up for the text messages and they've gone radio silent do you think they've taken your money and crossed the border well i've received so far 84 in credits to my account.

So if this continues, it's going to cover the whole bill by the middle of next week or so.

Well, then you'll be retiring by the end of next month.

I know.

$84 already?

Who said there wasn't any money in podcasting?

I'm going to get rich off this.

I'll tell you what.

And also, folks, for those who have been wondering, as soon as we quit having to talk about various people in our industry going absolutely bat shit, french-fried, titty-fucked insane,

we're going to do another, you and I, Brian Last, Florida people out there, the Cult of Cornette, are going to do another

retrospective segment on Mid-South Wrestling from 1984 as we have been derailed from doing so for the past couple of weeks.

And we still got to finish up January 84 because

things are starting to get interesting.

So we may do that

as an addendum.

or an add-on to one of these podcasts over the next week or so.

Hey, honest question for you, because the beginning beginning of 1984, taking just you and Mid-South, looking at that as just a small example, the whole world of wrestling, it was crazy.

What was happening?

Crazier then or crazier now?

40 years later?

No, crazier now.

Because then it was still mostly business, wasn't it?

You know, Vince is raiding talent and.

cutting the territory's throats and trying to steal TV

slots and stations and

the other promoters are doing a crummy job of banding together because everybody wants to run it, or their guys need to be featured, or whatever all the other issues were.

It was stupid shit was still going on, but it was all related to the business.

Nobody was being

sued for criminal defecation.

Or, you know,

there weren't any murders that year.

83 may have been a different story, but there weren't any murders in 84.

There were no goddamn major

who running a major wrestling company

fell, self-destructed, fell from grace.

The business

was popular in 84.

Eddie Graham.

No, he didn't die till 85.

Was it 85 shit?

January 85.

That's right.

That's right.

Uh-huh.

So as- I'm not going to brag about it.

Good job.

Well, but I mean, you know, the point is, 84, it was crazy for business, but it was normal wrestling business of people trying to run opposition to each other and being crazy in a variety of ways, beating people up,

you know,

but not,

no, not any of this.

And they weren't all turning state's evidence on each other either.

And fucking singing like canaries in the window at Sing Sing.

It was normal back then in those days.

Well, we'll discuss more of that normal, and I'm sure we'll find many

subnormal things and deviance as well.

We'll try to unearth deviance.

I can't even say it.

I'm smiling.

We'll try to unearth deviance wherever we find it in whatever era.

But in the meantime, Brian, if you would like to unearth out there, you folks in the cult of Cornet, unearth some incredible collectibles.

As we said on the drive-thru yesterday, I basically finished talking to you, ate something, went to sleep, got up, watched more wrestling, and I'm talking to you again.

What kind of life is this?

But I told the people we'd give them an update.

The Midnight Express 40th anniversary tag team set action figures went on sale at jimcornet.com.

On Saturday the 10th, which was yesterday as we're speaking, and by cracky,

as predicted, the packages with the Bobby bobby eaten signed photos sold out in two minutes but this time everything is still available instead of one product

we have multiples we have the eaton and condry sets the eaten and lane sets and the lane and tom pritchard heavenly bodies tag team sets so everything's selling at a brisk pace but nothing else is sold out because they're all going although Brian, which team is ahead in the race of overall sales at this point?

I would go with the team that there's never been figures of before, the Heavenly Bodies.

You are correct, sir.

The heavenly bodies are almost halfway gone, folks, in a little under 24 hours.

So anyway, go to jimcornet.com right now.

There still are packages available with the Milestones book on the Midnight Express figures, and all of them come.

with the autographed 8x10 photos, as we mentioned.

None of these are going to be remade or others produced in the future because I'm getting too old for this.

So we wanted to do one last collector's item for the midnight and the bodies before we got out of the business.

And

you can only get these at jimcornet.com.

They're available nowhere else in the world.

And all of the members of the midnight and Dr.

Tom now or soon.

He hadn't got a check yet, the only one on sale yesterday.

Thank you for your participation because we have eliminated the middleman in this and all of the talent is getting their rightful due out of a merchandise deal in the wrestling business for once.

So we appreciate that.

And your participation, jimcornet.com, and all of the

Cornette merchandise, the t-shirts, the certificates, the books, whatever, temporarily off sale while we, like when we did the four-packs, which, by the way, there still are a few hundred four-packs available.

While we fill all these so people are not backed up and it doesn't make the feather bottoms and I crazy, we've suspended sales on on those items for the next few weeks till we catch up with these initial onslaught of orders.

We got an assembly line process going now, Brian.

And we really perfected it with the four packs, but now we got our shit together and we expect to be mowing through this like goddamn Yokozuna at a Chinese buffet.

I'm telling you what.

All right.

Well, that was a hell of an ending there.

Did you ever see Yokozuna at any kind of buffet, for that matter?

No, I did not see him go tune at a buffet.

Good lord.

As a matter of fact, I swear to God, his favorite snack for when we would have to do interviews, like we're in these big buildings, right?

These major arenas for raw or whatever.

And a lot of times

where they put us for interviews, like we still did local interviews and pre-tapes in those days, out the ass.

Everything wasn't live.

And so they'd find a room they could soundproof way off on the other side of the arena.

And they would have the guys go over there in the afternoon and do the shit.

And Fuji's knees and his hips were bad.

And, you know, if they didn't have a golf cart for him, it took him a while to get places.

And you couldn't make Yoko hurry.

He was on his own time.

And so they nominated me to be there.

I actually got exercise at that point because I was the one that was going back and forth trying to convince Yokozuna to come on over to the promo room.

And he would wait till either Brooklyn Brawler or Harvey Whippleman brought him an entire family bucket of chicken from KFC.

And then, if we had a golf cart, he'd ride it.

If not, he would, you know, have somebody carry the chicken behind him and he'd go to the interview room.

And by the time we finished doing just pre-tapes, he would have eaten the entire family bucket of chicken

by himself, and that's in between lunch and dinner.

I can see you're amazed.

I'm starving.

Well, and right now, if you go to kfc.com, ladies and gentlemen, use the code JCE, you'll get absolutely dick all of nothing.

Yeah, they're not a sponsor.

That code doesn't work.

Well, you never know.

You demand it.

The public could demand it.

If they tried to use the code JCE enough at KFC

to get some

food for YOU and ME.

Use the code JCE everywhere, ladies and gentlemen.

Let us know if any of them work.

Maybe there's like ones we don't even know about.

Well, yeah, but besides that, and try for pin numbers also and

ways to get into people's ATMs, just JCE everything, because if we initiate a groundswell and a demand.

Let's stay away from pin numbers or anything that would be considered wire fraud.

Let's

It's all funny games.

All funny games.

All funny games.

Anyway, all right, well, this is going to be a horrible transition.

But maybe since they were fans of the program, they might see the humor overall in it.

Got an email from George from the UK, whose brother Lester passed away just before Christmas.

And Lester was a huge fan of me and wrestling, had a big memorabilia collection.

And their mom, Doreen,

had hoped that I could memorialize his passing on the show somehow.

And that's what George was, I think she emailed, and we may not have seen it,

but now we've caught up with both of them.

And we just did want to say,

you know, that we were sorry to hear about.

Lester's loss and that George and Doreen hopefully,

you know, this was what he wanted or what she wanted for his memorial here.

We're sorry for your loss, but he was apparently, I mean, it's a long email, which I will not

go through the whole thing, but he was a huge fan of not only the podcast and us, but wrestling in general.

And,

you know, it would mean the world to Doreen if we all said something nice about Lester.

Or even you.

Thank you, Lester, for wherever you are, for listening to the show.

I'm smiling.

Thank you, Lester.

I think that's the real thing I want to say.

Thank you, Lester.

And, of course, Jim means it too.

That's why he didn't read any of the letter that was sent about you.

Wolf, what are you doing?

For heaven's sake, no,

I did not.

Just because it's very personal.

Of course.

Very personal.

And there's no reason for you to be in this.

Tone of voice here.

I'll don't make me come over there.

I'll break my foot off in your ass.

I think Lester's a fan of the show.

He would appreciate the

whatever is happening.

The attempts at humor.

The attempts.

He's heard so many of them before, the attempts.

And also, Stewart from Bradford, England.

I'm sorry to hear he lost his wife, Jenna, recently.

I'm not sure exactly when, but unfortunately, she had cancer, which we have.

A bunch of the members of the Cult Cornet raised last year over $10,000 for City of Hope and American Cancer Society and a blah, blah, blah.

And

Stewart, we're sorry for your loss also, but we appreciate the things you used to say.

She says, or he says, my wife would say, put that dickhead on,

talking about when he wanted to listen to our shows, because she got a kick out of it, too.

It was said in a loving way.

Parenthetically, he added that it was said in a loving way.

I did the accent because they're Bradford, England.

That's a Bradford accent, right?

Put that dickhead on.

You're not just any dickhead.

You're our dickhead.

Well, I'm that dickhead.

Well,

and me and Jane Cargill need to get together.

The bitch and the dickhead.

That could have been a

fucking sub-issue of the brave and the bold when they were trying out superhero teams.

Anyway, Stewart and John Fell got a kick out of that one.

Don't use any of that in artwork, Travis.

The bitch and the dickhead?

Don't use the bitch and the dickhead.

Well, it certainly doesn't apply to Stuart, who we were trying to send our sympathy to when we can't keep anything.

And Lester.

And Lester and Willie Tyler as well, if he's still in good shape.

Lester, that's right.

We can't keep straight about anything because

our world has just become a fucking parody, Brian.

This is just, it's not real.

None of the things that we've been talking about that have been happening lately are really going on.

We're in some kind of fucking fever dream.

Can this be real life or did we just have a tooth pulled?

It's, I guess you're talking about the world of wrestling.

Yes.

It's non-stop, crazy things happening everywhere.

It's the, you know, 40 years after the big shakeup, there's a big shakeup like never before, and it's affecting seemingly everyone in the business.

Every company has people being wiped out over the last few years.

They're erasing.

Fuck you.

Get the fuck out of here.

And

that's the thing.

Vince obviously didn't still hold power, but as we mentioned on the drive-thru, he's gone now,

probably never to darken the doorstep again.

He doesn't give up.

Chronologically.

He doesn't give up.

He's not going to live long enough to figure out.

And then, like we said, with TNA/slash/Impacts, got to moore

Rossi over in Japan.

And

I don't know is I guess technically the only person that could fire Tony Khan would be his father, right?

In effect, if his father said, you know,

like when Ole came into the TV station that day in Atlanta in 83 and told us all, don't do this anymore, closed the whole territory.

If his father took away the checkbook, AEW is closed.

So, well, and it would take a while yet because they've still got money coming in.

They got the rights fees and everything.

So it could be like that, the TNA situation where when mom and dad cut Dixie off, they struggled along for a few years owing more and more money or cutting more and more expenses or begging more and more people to fucking do more and more things.

But finally, they hit the wall and all that shit took place.

So,

but

is he going to try?

I'm he being Tony Khan, too many pronouns, pal.

Is he going to try to do anything

about the fact that the WWE is running away with all the publicity, positive and negative, and indifferent, that their business is booming, that everybody's talking about it, that everybody's debating what's going on, and everybody's got an opinion.

And meanwhile, he's putting on television programs like he did this past Wednesday night, February the 7th,

where

for the kind of people who like that kind of thing, that's the kind of thing those people like.

And nothing else makes a lick of fucking sense.

There was a question in there somewhere, but then you kept going.

Yes, and you should have answered it while...

while you had the chance.

Nobody's talking about this company anymore, except occasionally when when somebody falls on their head because these television shows have just degenerated into

meaningless meanderings of indie wrestling.

That we've called

the upshot of this whole episode, what, a month ago?

We said he's going to fuck around and make this a fucking three-way.

And wouldn't you know who won the pony?

And

Swerve and fucking page, they've had a reverse program.

And the fucking

the whole nine yards, it's just a malaise.

It's a zombie program at this point, just appealing to the same people that tune in because they feel like they need to.

To answer your earlier question, I guess my question for you would be, if AEW had things going pretty well right now, If they had buzz for anything they were doing right now, other than just like the debuts of people or the goodbyes for people,

wouldn't they still be swallowed up by everything that's happening with WWE?

It's too big right now.

Oh, yeah, but at least they'd be putting up a fight instead of rolling over and allowing themselves to be used as a doormat because Tony thinks this shit is good.

And that's the

nobody's over.

No issue is over.

We've talked about it.

And then the buckaroos come out.

And did you see

somebody on Twitter don't want to get anybody in trouble, but somebody on Twitter tweeted out a picture of them in their blood-stained white outfits

and made it an advertisement for a Halloween tampon commercial, or costume, rather.

Two pussies included in photo.

I saw someone post it next to the photo of you from 88 saying it must have been a tribute to you to wear the white outfits, although it wasn't their blood on the outfits.

Well, and besides that,

mine was an homage to goddamn great baby faces or heels that had turned baby face or baby faces that had gotten juice in days gone by wearing white.

Make sure you could see it.

It's not new, but

obviously

it definitely wasn't their idea.

But that's the point, is it's just

it's bad indie wrestling.

Most people that they have that we might be interested in are injured and they manage to neuter or spay, depending on the genre of Wiz same,

the people that we might care about.

So here, you know, you want to talk about this show briefly?

Let's talk about AEW Dynamite.

Now, this was a show they were building up.

They had a big lineup.

They had a big crowd.

I think I'll double check what the final crowd was.

4,000 people, I believe.

Over 4,000, I believe, were distributed.

So I don't know how many were there.

But for AEW, this is a, for anyone right now, this is a pretty nice crowd.

So, let's talk about what the crowd saw.

Well, the first words you hear on the program are from Sockface, and it's horrible because now I think you hear an element

of panic in his voice because he's trying even harder than he used to try, which was too hard.

And now he's just

growling it.

Oh, it's so big.

Sucks.

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And the match they start with is

Magnum Hangnail Page

and Swerve Strickland, where the winner gets Samoa Joe

for the AEW title.

And of course, there is the question to be asked of how many fucking times do we have to see these two, especially when Swerve won the first two.

They've done everything possible.

Remember, they broke concrete blocks over each other, terrorized their babies, intermingled their bodily fluids together.

They're blood brothers.

Wonder how that's going to get over at Christmas dinner.

But

anyway, nobody likes the empty-headed dip shit trademark.

He's bland and boring, and the people boo him because they don't want him to succeed at anything, and they kind of want him to go away.

And

the announcers were trying to.

Well, Swerve has never beaten Paige fair and square.

No, he's just beating him over and over.

But the fans are chanting Swerve's house, and Paige asks for cheers and gets booed.

And they

start a feeling out period where for about a minute and a half or so, they're feeling each other out in the course of starting their match.

And then suddenly they go to the floor, they go over the rail, and they started doing what they always do.

And every time Hangnail would do something of any consequence offensively, the fans would boo him and they were chanting and cheered for Swerve.

And

after five minutes in, you know it's the same, same shit, right?

And I just couldn't, I was like fast forwarding.

I was like, they're going to get to something sooner or later.

And at 22 minutes into the program, they were out fighting on top of the barricade and Swerve tried to pile drive Paige on top of the barricade, but Paige instead did some kind of sloppy DDT and they went to the break.

It's 23 minutes into the fucking program.

They're just now going to a break and this match is still going on.

And they come back and it keeps going forever.

And they've pulled out a table, but then they just leave it there because they're going to come back and use it later on.

So

now the deal is, you know, if they've set a table up,

the match can never end until they've gone through the table, right?

When's the last time anybody set one up and they didn't use it?

That's a big heel move.

I would never do that.

Well, you know, you're complete fucking idiots.

You're burying your own shit.

Now, whatever you do till somebody goes through that stupid fucking table,

it ain't going to count.

So,

at one point,

Paige gave Swerve the dead eye, his thing.

He picks the guy up over and he drops him on his head, on the apron of the ring.

But while Swerve is laying there selling on the fucking ground, Nana revived him with his dance.

Did you see that?

And then

as Nana does that,

Paige comes out, takes a chair, and whacks the fuck out of the heel manager and the crowd boos.

The crowd booed the babyface hitting the heel manager with a chair.

Brian,

when

did you ever, in my career on tape, live, in any promotion, in any company, anywhere that I was a heel in,

hear anyone

boo the babyface for striking me in a violent fashion?

Maybe like Philadelphia, but even there, there were enough babyface fans that they would overpower.

I just you would hear some heel fans.

Yeah, and only when it was Laurinitis, come to think of it.

Because the people in Philadelphia are Nostradamuses, every single one of them.

So then.

But I think the other thing is,

you have to acknowledge Adam Page is the heel.

The elite are heels.

I mean, the Young Bucks are heels.

Adam Page is in the elite.

Adam Page is a heel.

You can tell he grew out of his mustache.

Dax must be jealous.

Grew out pretty quick and thick.

And Swerve and Nana are clearly baby faces.

That's because Paige eats a lot of shit, so it's got fertilizer.

And Swerve and Nana are clearly baby faces.

And who doesn't like an elderly dancing man?

And he's not elderly.

He's not even as old as me.

I'm kidding.

I'm kidding.

The elderly dancing man.

He's not like he's Don Cornelius, ready to fucking turn to dust.

We love you, Nana.

But no,

the point is nobody's presented that way because it's just, it's

nobody turns until the people start booing them.

And then they're like, uh-oh, I

better be bad now.

And it doesn't make sense.

And it hasn't been.

No linear story is being told.

They just, they wave, they flap in the breeze like a flag.

But anyway, Sword being turned babyface by committing robbery and breaking and entering is one of the great moments in AEW history.

Too bad there wasn't a baby he could kick on the way into the building.

They'd have carried him out on their shoulders.

Don't kick the baby.

Don't kick the baby.

So

later on, they're back on the apron.

Swerve gives Paige his own move, the dead eye, off the apron through the table.

So the

fucking...

Not only did the fucking heel was the one to set up the table, but then the heel is the one who should be the baby face, who is the baby face, that uses on the baby face that is the heel

his own move off the apron through the table.

But then after he has dropped the man on his head through the table to the floor off the apron, he rolls Paige in and goes for the stomp off the top rope and Paige moves.

After the table spot and 15 seconds later, Paige is up on the apron springing over, doing a flip, going for the buckshot.

After he just got fucking thrown headfirst through it,

how

not only are the talents involved in this match, and I use that term loosely, even for Swerve at this moment mentally,

they're fucking delusional

and they need to be at least fined and disciplined, if not outright told, you're goddamn morons, but there's nobody there to do that because nobody's fucking that giant dog.

Tony's just holding its head and it's humping the chair leg in the living room in front of the mother-in-law.

All right.

So, anyway,

he goes for the buckshot,

and Swerve foils it and hits some kind of goddamn fucked-up finish move.

I don't know what, and cover,

and the bell rings at the two count.

And

somebody, by the way, I believe said on the internet it was actually 30 minutes and six seconds or whatever because they had to get the bell at the two count and they couldn't.

They got a referee that's wired and it's doable if you got fucking guys that can do it, but they didn't get it.

The time people wanted the Rock and Roll Express to win.

Well, there you go.

Charleston, South Carolina, all over again.

But did they announce?

Because I admit that I did fast forward much of this marathon fucking fiasco, but did they ever talk about did you hear in the arena

they they called a time five minutes left 15 minutes expired any kind of did the announcers on tv but not for the live crowd or did they just ring the bell like a bunch of indie marks out of nowhere and piss the crowd off because the crowd booed like crazy when they got the fucking bell and it's a time limit draw out of nowhere everyone hates a draw every fan hates a draw even if it furthers what's happening but i don't even remember if they announced it in the introductions.

You know, this match is a 30-minute time limit.

They may have, and I just don't recall.

Well, I'm sure they probably did in the introduction.

And you hear the introductions all the time.

But the point is, and we covered this the last time they did something stupid like this, where it pisses the people off if they don't know, if they're not kept apprised that they're coming close to the time.

So it's like Ring of Honor.

until I stopped them.

Would have a match.

It would just go 20 minutes and the people would be loving it.

And and suddenly the bell would fucking ring.

I said, why didn't you make any goddamn announcement?

Three minutes remaining, two minutes remaining, build the drama.

They said, well, but then they'll know we're going to a draw.

I said, so then you work this hard for 20 minutes or whatever, and the people boo the finish because they didn't even know it was coming and they feel like it's just a cheap way to fuck them in the ass

instead of Three minutes remaining.

Oh God, one of them might win two minutes.

Oh God, one of them might win one minute.

Oh God, the false finish.

Oh my God.

Ding, ding, ding.

Wow.

They almost had it.

Or

shades of goddamn incredulity.

Go 19 minutes and 30 seconds and do a backslide one, two, three.

And then that gets you through the next two or three time limit draws before you need to do it again.

It's all work.

Fuck.

And remember, though, to be fair to them, we don't know because I don't remember hearing it.

And I didn't necessarily.

I may have fast forwarded a bit too, but in the past, they have announced it in the room and we didn't hear it at home watching TV, but they did do it the right way.

Okay, then that's an indictment of this lousy announce team for not building the drama and giving a fucking hand job without a happy ending to the

dwindling television audience who are going, well, what the fuck?

If there was a time limit, why didn't they tell us it was coming up?

It's just not professional.

It's indie.

It's outlaw.

It's fucking small-time wrestling.

If you're going to do 30 minutes between two top guys, there ought to be a clock on the screen for the last two minutes while they're goddamn exchanging backslides and fucking crucifixes and roll-ups and all this other shit in a scramble to win this thing instead of setting up fucking furniture or going for fucking forward flips after they've been paralyzed by being thrown through goddamn solid oak onto concrete.

Then you might build some drama and some tension.

If anybody gives a shit about who wins the match to begin with,

once again, 30-minute time limit draws Swerve and Adam Page.

And of course, that,

no, that ain't over.

That's what I was saying.

It ain't over.

Yes.

Because Swerve,

the heel, who's the baby face, takes the microphone and demands five more minutes.

And Paige is selling and laughing and says, you had to beat me.

Well, it's over.

And I, and so the babyface doesn't agree to the five minutes because he said, fuck it.

You had to, not because he wants to

win meritoriously.

No.

And then Tony Schiavone busts in immediately and says, well, wait a minute.

I just talked to Tony Khan.

You're on fucking headset on the goddamn announce team and you had this much time to have this goddamn intricate conversation with the boss in the last 30 seconds

or it's going to be a three-way at the pay-per-view

and then Paige gets mad and Swerve is happy

and so the heel is happy and the baby face is whining and we're it's reversed and it's reversed and we're 40 minutes into the program and we've ended up what did I say almost a month ago?

They can probably make people want to see what's going to happen between Samoa Joe and Swerve Strickland and watch Tony be a mark and stick this fucking boring piece of shit in the way so that neither one of them gets over and the match is diluted and the attraction is diminished.

Watch Tony go a step further and put the belt on Adam Page.

Would that just be a signal?

Fuck it.

I've just turned it over to them and their friends and they can do what they want.

I quit.

Tony will never quit.

For now, I think Tony goes, he's like a little flitty.

He goes back and forth between which group he likes to give power to at the moment.

Well, and then

obviously, do you have anything else to say about this,

what we just saw before we move along?

No, I just think it's untraditional how they got here, but Swerve Strickland is the babyface clearly.

There's no ambiguity about it other than the fact that he is a heel stable and his manager is with the, well, he's a babyface.

And Adam Page and his giant mustache is clearly the heel.

And he's behaving like a heel.

The five-minute thing after the match, that's a babyface move.

How they got here is weird, but Swerve's the babyface.

Well, and then Swerve's manager, Nana, when he's with Swerve, they like Nana.

But then Nana comes out with the rest of the,

you know, gang and whoever, I can't remember their names,

Cage is in there, and the Samoan guy, whatever the fuck, Tia Leone.

Oh, that was it.

Yeah, Linoleum.

And then he's against babyfaces, and they're supposed to boo them then, but Nana brings some element of

likability to the stiff brigade.

All right.

So they back

and Renee Moxley Good talked to Samoa Joe, who reacts to the three-way.

And he's a great promo, what a convincing-looking guy.

And I feel so bad.

He deserves so much better.

I don't know why

when they last let him go from

NXT or whatever they had done to him.

or whatever the problem was there, I wish to fuck

that they had seen what value there is there because he'd be refreshing on that show.

He's just stranded on this one.

And then we had Tony Storm and Red Velvet.

Brian, what were your thoughts on that contest?

I didn't watch it.

Well, in that case, that makes two of us.

Yes, she's an interesting young lady.

But at this point, for fuck's sake, we've become a red velvet, right?

Well, no, Tony Storm is interesting.

We've said that.

But also, we knew what was going to happen here.

And we've got, you know, billionaires under federal investigation, we got to research.

So

in the first hour, we've had 40 minutes of

what we had and Tony Storm in red velvet.

And at the 9 o'clock hour, they think it's a good idea to hook the viewers in and just, you know, get people talking by having a six-man tag team match with Plumber Moxley, Claudio Castignoli, and Brian Danielson against three unknown luchadors from Mexico wearing masks that look interchangeable with the other people they have on this program that wear masks.

What the fuck?

You're looking at it the wrong way.

The guys in the match were really excited to participate in the match.

And this is a way you could build towards a great relationship with CMLL, perhaps a new forbidden door, not just AEW versus New Japan, AEW versus Arena Mexico.

Wait a minute.

Hold on one second.

Let me just.

What I was just thinking is.

Excuse me.

So for 20 minutes

at the top of the nine o'clock hour, three people that we've never seen and can't tell apart wrestled.

The three guys that

bless Brian Danielson.

At one time, he was so good.

Oh, those nostalgic days.

I feel like playing the boys of summer in the background while I remember how good Danielson was at one point in time.

And then there's poor Claudio, but to Plumber, we've seen him,

we've seen all there is to see.

And finally, another three

unknown masked luchadors came into the ring.

Everybody stared at each other.

And then here came Christopher Daniels and Mac Daddy and the other jobbers to hit the ring

to bolster the American crew and all six of the Mexican fellers bailed out

and nothing happened.

And that was 20 fucking minutes on national television.

And

Brian, you were asking me at the top of this segment if it wasn't just that the WWE would overpower anything right now.

This did not have the drawing power it would necessitate to pull a greasy string out of a cat's ass.

So I don't know that it would need all of the current scandals and chaos up in Titanland to overshadow this.

Do you?

AEW is appealing more and more to the smallest core fan they have.

And I think it doesn't drive away everyone right away, but the more you start putting, and it's not about Luchadors, it's about anyone, just faceless people on that show

for longer matches or bigger moments.

No buildup.

No one knows who anyone is.

I don't understand what that is.

Well, and it's it again and the luchador thing is not even

don't try somebody tell me oh he's so racist they have

caucasian american people that are wearing luchador outfits also or have had on their roster in the past

and they all begin to look the same it's like i've seen this

Is this the guy that used to wear green?

He looks, but now he's in orange.

I don't fucking know.

Because everybody's not a goddamn expert on every wrestling promotion in the world, nor do they want to be or have time to be,

which is why everybody's wondering what's going to happen between Cody Rhodes and fucking Roman Reigns, and nobody's wondering what's going to happen between the Plumbers BBC and CML

OUSE.

And then, did I miss something?

Brad, I saw in the back Adam Cole is sitting in his chair because he remains crippled.

After the devil was revealed, we found out that Lucifer, Mephistopheles,

old Scratch himself, the devil, Satan,

can't walk.

He's disabled.

Satan needs a hover around.

Oh, he's scary.

I can't run in from the devil trying to save my soul.

Can't nobody catch me because I'm never too slow.

You wouldn't need the Ohio players to run away from this devil.

He can't walk.

So he's sitting in a chair in the back of the building, and his henchmen are around him, and they have captured Muffin Top Taylor.

And he is writhing in pain at their feet at whatever they've done to him and they're about to do to him.

And then they went to a break.

Did we ever find out where the police called?

Did we ever see Muffin Top again?

Did we ever see the henchman?

I'm looking at my notes.

Did the henchman appear again?

What the fuck was that?

I'm not sure.

I think there was a promo before this with Trent and Orange Cassidy and Rocky Romero, but no Chuck.

And then Chuck got attacked by Adam Cole and his friends.

Yes, but they went to commercial break.

The tailor is down.

The man is down.

He's been the victim of an assault and battery, a kidnapping, felonious fucking assault.

And then nobody ever says a goddamn word about it.

Now you don't come back.

The police are there.

They're taking statements.

Just the facts, ma'am.

So they came back to Tony Khan's big announcement.

And you know what he said, don't you, Brian?

He brought it back.

He said, Thanks, guys.

He did it twice.

He did it twice in it.

Start and finish.

That's right.

It's a big move.

That's great.

That's for great, not thanks, guys.

Well, it's a great thing that he brought back thanks, guys.

Anyway, the big announcement,

bastard.

They return to Boston, Bean Town, on March 13th with AEW

big business.

And the

S's, or at least a couple of them in business, are the dollar signs.

And didn't they do were Boston is B-O-S-S-T-O-N?

They're trying to drop subtle hints that the former,

what was her name?

Sasha Banks.

Say banks, boss, business, money.

Mercedes-Monet.

Now, Mercedes Monet, get it money, eh?

They're dropping some subtle hints.

What are you?

What are you laughing at?

You're so white sometimes.

It's amazing.

What Tom talking about?

I'm not, I don't speak French.

I'm sorry if my accent is off.

Aren't people white in France too?

Money, eh?

What was

Monet?

Monet is kind of like French for money, right?

All right.

You better give me my Monet.

Monet.

I'll kick your ass a Mula.

Mula's a.

Mula, Mula.

See, there you go.

Wouldn't that be great if she was still alive, they had big business with the dollar signs, and they bring it.

There she is, the fabulous Mula.

Fucking people would riot.

All 12 of them.

But anyway,

Tony's reading off the teleprompter, but at least he's blinking now.

They must have...

Do you think they like on that Star Trek episode where the leader of the country was a puppet that was anesthetized?

And do you think they're giving Tony a shot now before he does his announcements?

He was almost getting like angry in tone.

He was almost spitting out what he was saying and trying to look as confident as he can while he's clearly reading it off of something.

But anyway,

they're putting some Monet,

A,

on that old Sasha Banks, he's going to be a needle mover.

This is going to be a big change, big difference.

What a game changer.

The difference maker.

You know, boy, this is going to be the biggest impactful AEW signing since Paige or Coda Ibushi.

I promise you.

Real quick, before we get off this, let's talk about the results because as we are recording, it's a few days later.

Tickets went on sale.

AEW Dynamite Big Business, Wednesday, March 13th, according to WrestleTicks.

Current available tickets, 1,230.

Current setup,

6,831.

Tickets distributed, 5,601.

Well.

But now,

question is.

32 days until the show.

The last time they were there was last July for Blood and Guts.

They drew 8,900 people.

When did the tickets go on sale?

They went on sale Friday, I believe.

Aha!

Aha!

So that was after the announcement.

After the announcement.

But at the same time, the last time they were there,

they were 8,900.

So

for her to, well, but

they're not doing anything like what they've done the last time they've been anywhere, if that is in any kind of English.

They're down everywhere.

So this would would be, I would think she has made some impact there.

So good for them.

It's the punk business model.

You debut her in her hometown.

You get as much as you can out of that first time, but you got to find something to capitalize on.

So it's not just a one-time thing.

And then

she's just lost in the mix the next week.

Well,

that's what I was going to say.

I hope she makes all the million, whatever, dollars that Tony is paying her for her contract back on the first gate in Boston there because

in six weeks she's going to be one of the girls, right?

Because that's what happens to everybody.

And it's not related to their talent or lack thereof.

It's that everybody that comes in settles into this

kind of generic indie presentation, don't they?

There's no stars here.

Well, it'll be a big test.

Again, they have a month until the show.

They have a lot of time to sell tickets.

You know, you got to think at least the first night will be a big deal.

Then we'll see what happens after that.

Well, in the meantime, here's a big deal that they could have had, but

I don't know what's going on at this point.

Chris Jericho versus our boy.

I'll just say it once, take a shit.

Takesa.

But then I'll refer to him as our boy take from here on out because we like him.

He's talented.

So we'll say his name Takeshta.

The leech of the overness of anyone in AEW, Chris Jericho, was in full force and effect a single match between

Em and Jericho.

And

yes, I understand

that,

you know, Jericho wants to show that he can still go with the young kids.

But the problem is, Take

has not been presented yet as anything like a threat to the top-level singles that he could be because we've seen him so intermittently and frequently.

He's been in tags and in goofy garbage matches.

This guy has talent, and he unlike any of the other

Japanese imports that they brought in, he's not so old and decrepit.

He's ready for the rock and chair out in front of Cracker Barrel.

He's not so minute that he's ready for Cowboy Lang's fucking opponent on Lord Littlebrook's fucking midget troop.

He

has some

charisma and ability and size and moves.

And yes, it would have been great if he had,

you know, as soon as they debuted him, they had a coherent and focused push behind him.

He'd be a main event guy, I think, in their company now.

But

no,

no,

you can't get

take

over

by having him have to slow down to work with Jericho

and then

put him over Jericho by Jericho getting hit in the head by the screwdriver from the goofy manager.

This is all about Jericho.

This is not about Takesha.

Tell me I'm wrong.

You must really mean it.

No, it's completely the problem.

Takesha turned heel.

He showed a lot of promise, turned heel.

Showed a whole lot of promise.

What has he done since then?

He's done nothing to break away from the pack.

Held down by this callous crap.

Tag matches.

He beat Jericho.

did it mean anything

this is does it help him did it really push him any further

it was just another garbage match and we'll tell y'all what happened in a second but in generics this is the guy that should be

nakamura in the wwe they should be doing

videos where he speaks forcefully and confidently in Japanese, his native language, and they put the subtitles up and he's in a fucking, fucking

he's in a

fucking

appropriate location with atmosphere.

He's somebody.

He's dressed up.

Maybe he's in the, instead of the fucking goddamn nice restaurant that the Escobar crowd is in over there with people dining around them, the focus is on him.

He's in a goddamn

fucking luxurious fucking hotel suite.

And he's saying these things, dressed up as somebody, and then they're translated on the subtitles.

And he's beaten people in singles matches left and right.

And instead, he's just wanders around with the rest of these goofy groups.

And Hobbes is in the same situation.

He could be treated with the same concept, completely different looks as Tekeshta.

But that's the thing.

With Jericho, they have a match.

One minute in, they're out on the floor.

He gives Jericho a brain buster on the floor, picks him up up and rolls him in, and the match continues.

So the brain buster on the floor is a heat spot at this point now on a 50-something-year-old man.

Don't you need a brain for the brain buster to actually have an effect on you?

It's the neck.

They just named it the neck.

I know.

I'm making a joke about Jericho's lack of brains.

Well, no, I was trying to actually, what you said, you raised a valid point, but unfortunately, If it was something that would attack the brain instead of the neck, Jericho would be impervious.

Should the fans contact Stephen Pinu to sue the Brain Buster for false advertising?

1-877-50 Steve.

But anyway, so then Hobbs

tripped Jericho.

And then Sammy comes down and hits Hobbes with a chair, and Hobbs doesn't sell it.

So Sammy gives him a cutter on the floor

and then hits him over the head with the chair and they they fight off

they fight off and that's not even the end of the match they're not even in the break spot yet

because once they do that

then jericho for whatever reason puts on the kabuki mask that tekeshta wears down to the ring right that's what it was

And he climbs up on the top rope and dives off the top to the floor at Takeshta, but he can't see because he got the mask on and he missed him by three feet.

And that was the break spot.

It sure was.

So, I bet, but they,

who does these fucking finishes?

They did the finish in the middle of the first fucking segment.

So then they come back and to make things

even.

Takes the did a cannonball flip over the top rope to the floor on Jericho and missed Jericho by three feet.

Went right past him.

So I fast forward to the fucking finish because this was just

the problem was

Takesha's having to slow down for Jericho.

Takesha's having to adjust what he can do

because he respects the older veteran blah, blah, blah, that's leading the match.

And that's why Takesha had to dumb himself down from being able to get over like he can and do things he can do because he's working with Jericho.

And that's why it didn't do

either one of these guys any good because people are tired of the goddamn bullshit finish, which is going to happen here in a second.

And it didn't get Takesha any heat, nor did it get

Jericho any sympathy because I think he's past the sympathy point.

But

Takesha gives Jericho the spinning blue thunder bomb off off the top rope and they landed in a heap.

And that was a two count.

And then Jericho's up moments later, gets the fucking walls.

And Don Fallus slides the chair into the ring without getting in the rings.

The referee

just looks over and sees a chair slide into his view and go, oh, oh.

and goes to pick it up and carry it to the other side of the ring from whence it did not came.

He doesn't look around to see who threw it.

He just picks the chair up and carries it to the opposite side of the ring to put it out while Don gets up on the apron and hits Jericho in the head with the handle of a screwdriver.

And then Tekeshta got the walls on Jericho

and Jericho tapped.

He didn't stab him with the screwdriver because he didn't bleed.

And of course, that wouldn't make you tap out from the walls of fucking Jericho.

So he hit him with the handle of the screwdriver.

Well, I can buy that Jericho then crumpled in a heap from getting hit in the head with a goddamn Stanley tool.

But then, no, then.

That may not have been his first screwdriver on that day.

It may not have been the first screwdriver at all.

But then after you hit the man with the fucking brass knuckles, you get a submission hold on him.

And instead of being unconscious and the referee calling it he taps he recovered from the screwdriver

not the screwdrivers but the screwdriver

only to tap out to the

good god

four and a quarter stars in the observer what

yeah

what

he loves his chris jericho

he's no he's he's got to be scared of jericho jericho cutting off his access to the cool kids to the cool kids

What the fuck?

So that

this TV match that meant nothing with a past his prime canned ham and a potential future star in another company was better than many flare and steamboat matches.

Four three-quarter stars, yeah.

All righty, ladies and gentlemen, this

assassination of Dave Meltzer's credibility has been brought to you by his own fucking chicken lips.

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Well, Jim, on that topic, real quick, let me ask you about this because a lot of the listeners sent this over.

It's a quote apparently from Dave Meltor on Wrestling Observer Radio about Chris Jericho

that he should only be losing when the losses mean something.

Honestly, he needs some wins over top guys right now because whatever you want to say about him, unless he's going to leave for a while and come back, and this is a comeback for redemption thing,

he's the highest paid guy in the company and it's like you really want to protect that investment if you're paying a guy that much money you can get anyone to put over these guys

you need to have him lose when the losses mean something

which is probably exactly what chris told them

oh my god

where do you even start with this

we knew that he was i guess it's news to a lot of people that he's the highest paid guy in the company we have long been aware of that.

Well, no, that's why the Buckaroos had to say they were the highest paid tag team of all time because individually they don't get what

Heat Sapper over there gets.

But where do I even start?

That is predominantly what Jericho should be doing now is putting guys over

in the end

and

sometimes even on the path.

Now,

this match,

if the booking in AEW was proper in any fashion and Takeshita had been used normally and pushed from the start instead of debuts and turns and forgets and here and there and gone and in the group or whatever the fuck.

But if all this had been done correctly up to the start or up from the start till now,

and anybody cared about this shit and the finish wasn't so badly done

and the manager's interference wasn't so fucking goofy and obvious, and so much of the heat didn't go on the referee or just the promotion in general.

This is exactly what Jericho should be doing: putting a guy like this over.

The only caveat being, as I mentioned,

you know, besides that, having a match with Jericho doesn't really do Takesha a lot of good right now because he has to slow down so much for him.

But to beat him okay, if everything else that I said was applicable, instead of this was just another throwaway TV match, because none of those things that I mentioned that you need also applies.

But

for

Dave to

what they should be doing right now with Jericho, honestly, I know he's got a 10-year contract, but my God, he looks like this now.

What do you think in two or three years?

Tony should be concentrating on Jericho getting in a coherent personal issue with one guy

and taking about three months.

And

if you want to give him one to get him back over,

okay, but is Chris Jericho about as over now as he's ever going to get?

He's still mostly trading on past honors and reputation and his name.

But if you want to give him a little program with somebody upper level to get over and then give him some other focused program to get a young guy over

and then maybe do it again where you give him somebody to get a little win back in the end and then get some other guy over and there you've got a fucking year and a half down the road.

But you can't let him book it because then he'll just do what he always

does.

Yes, because he's a fucking

glory hog and a goddamn heat sapper.

But if you're paying him more than you're paying everybody else, you should be telling him what the fucking do.

But that's also another thing.

It's not happening in this company.

So,

you know, there's, but Dave is,

Dave

refuses to start with the viewpoint that there's anything wrong whatsoever with AEW, its booking, its presentation, Tony Khan's mind.

and or any of his friends' contributions to whatever's going on over there.

And then then he starts at the point that it's actually a real company where shit makes sense and somebody's in charge.

And then he says what ought to be done.

But he overlooks the fact that he has

based his suppositions in a foundation built in a dream world.

See, the fact is, he was saying the truth.

When he said that you're out of touch, you are.

You're out of touch with what he needs to help his business.

Yes, what Dave needs to help his business is more gullible trampoline cowboy aficionados who will follow his drivel, where a throwaway television match involving the aforementioned senior citizen and the aspiring young Japanese prospect is better than Ric Flair and Riggy Steamboat because, well, why wouldn't it be?

Would you like to move on to the big mate event of the AEW Dynamite episode, Brian?

Well, I think we must.

The World Tag Team Championship on the line.

The long-awaited showdown, the first time these two teams have ever met.

Big Bill and Ricky Starks against Sting and Darby Allen.

Tag Team title on the line in a tornado match.

All four in the ring.

Anything goes.

No disqualification.

Lazy booking.

Two referees to enforce the rules that they don't have.

Okay, already the background on this is somehow.

And by the way, I'm going out on a limb and I'm saying that now they've painted themselves a corner where it appears that the

Buckaroos are going to beat Sting in his retirement match and win the tag team title in Greensboro.

Because how else do you explain what is now going to happen here?

Sting announces his retirement match is going to be at their March pay-per-view.

This was

six months ago, right?

A few months ago.

I don't remember how many months, but it was a while.

It was months ago.

And he's been on a tour around where every time he appears in the city, it's pretty much the last time he's going to be in that city, even though they are not promoting it like that in most cases.

And already before announcing who his opponent would be or partners would be or any kind of match, they had sold 15,000 tickets in Greensboro because everybody in Greensboro wants to be there to see Sting's last match.

And it's a big thing that they've lucked into

that is outselling anything else they got going on.

And

for whatever else that says, you know, Sting is the one person they've got can sell a decent number of tickets.

And then suddenly, they come up instead of giving Sting even a tag match with Sting and Darby, his tag team partner.

So there's not,

nobody wants Sting to have to go out there and go 15 minutes in a singles match at 63 or whatever he is.

But it can't even be Sting and Darby against a couple of heels or Sting and Darby against FTR in North Carolina, where FTR can carry the whole thing and make Sting look like a million dollars.

Or the tag title change.

Wait a minute.

Or

it couldn't even be Sting as a guest enforcer in a six-man tag team situation or whatever where he joins a team that's been wrong.

It couldn't be any of these things.

Suddenly, the buckaroos have to stick their noses into this.

And

all of a sudden, the direction has to go for the tag team titles.

Would Sting

Darby say, wouldn't it be great

if if we won the tag team title before you retired?

What?

I don't know.

Okay,

he says.

And then they put the fucking tag team title on him.

And then there's the buckaroos there.

What are they going to do?

Is Sting and Darby going to win Sting's retirement match and

they're going to do a tournament for the tag team title?

How have they they've done a tournament for everything.

It's just, it's lame.

It's unnecessary.

I think the two living tampons

intend to try to get heel heat by beating Sting and Darby Allen for the tag team title in Greensboro.

Because why else are they even mentioning the tag team title?

And why are these two little douche nozzles involved in this to begin with?

It makes no business sense.

Nobody wanted to see this.

Nobody wanted to see them in Sting's last match.

Except maybe Sting, but even if Sting wanted to work with them, you don't have to set it up so that you have this situation where either they win the tag titles and it's apparent what that would be.

Like you said, now they're going to get real heat because they got these tag belts.

Maybe Adam Page gets his belt.

Either that or they're not going to be able to do that.

It's either that or they were title champions defeating the new top heel tag team.

Yes, it would defeat.

And again, like you said, either creating a battle royal or a tournament situation, which we don't need on the show again.

And then, even if the fucking little TWATs win that,

they lost their first big match after they come out and lay waste to everybody.

Well, we'll get there.

Let's talk about this tag team title match on TV first.

Stingin' Darby and Big Bill and Ricky Starks, Tornado match, anything goes.

The first time they've ever met.

And then a Tornado, anything goes.

Two referees.

Relaxed rules.

Fuck.

I've seen some relaxed fucking things in my life, but this was all this was comatose.

So anyway, the bell rings.

They get in a fight, and immediately all four of them walk fight through the arena and use the garbage cans and the bullshit.

And Sting gets up there, and everybody stands there and catches him as he jumps off the bleachers.

And I said, okay, they're not even going to, this was my notes.

They're not even going to try to have a match.

I'm fast to the finish to see how they lose the belts.

And

they did the garbage for a while that, you know, the Indies don't do all of the stuff that they did because the Indies can't afford to rent these big buildings where there's no people in them.

So they got more space here.

But anyway.

Sting got the scorpion on Starks, and Big Bill and Darby fell off the apron through a table.

Another table.

But this time, Big Bill, the seven-foot giant, and Darby Allen, the fucking indestructible babyface, apparently,

they're two big fucking gaping yeast-infected pussies

next to Paige and Swerve because they just went through a table in the same fucking place.

Goddamn.

Not even an hour before this, they were back up just hopping around in no time.

So these two must be just fucking weak, right?

And then Starks got out of the scorpion, but Sting ran into a padless turnbuckle and Starks hit him with a spear and got a two count.

And then, of course, my DVR froze, but

because it was 10 o'clock and the show should have been over,

but I was able to obtain by nefarious means because of the preposterosity of what was about to happen next, I'd see it for myself.

Starks hit the spear, got the two count,

and then went for another spear,

and Sting caught him with a scorpion, one, two, three.

And confetti falls from the ceiling.

And Sting's sons, who are in the front row and have been referred to at various points in

the presentation here.

They're applauding and then he calls them to come in the ring and they come in the ring and everybody's celebrating and having a fine fine old time and then these two

white douchebags in white suits with white baseball bats come in straight from kookamunga

and beat up sting and his and darby and his sons sting's sons dwarfed the buckaroos

and they just had to roll over and then darby gets color which of course stains the white suits because they stole my concept

and they got they tried to get heat forever by beating these guys up.

And again,

when you've led with the baseball bats, and if you need more than five shots on a person with a baseball bat and they ever get up again, that it's fake.

And it just,

nobody was trying to help.

It's fucking sting.

Nobody was trying to help.

And the announcer swollen the EVPs, they're EVPs.

And

nobody wants to mess with the EVPs.

What the fuck?

Well, that's the thing.

Tony Schiavone, Tony Schiavone, Tony Khan,

within 30 seconds or less, had told Tony Schiavone what to fucking say about the goddamn finish of Swerve and dip shit, but now Sting is being mutilated.

And his children emasculated in front of goddamn the monitor that Tony apparently is sitting in front of.

He ain't got dick to say.

None of the wrestlers come out because they're scared of these two little fucking children because they're EVPs, then the heat goes on the company.

Well, fuck, if they're representing the company and Tony ain't doing it, what does Tony have to say about that?

It doesn't make sense in either world, real or K-Fabe.

And they're out there trying to be badasses when the fans know that they're fake, little phony fucking twits from Kookamunga.

And these guys,

Sting has to lay down for them.

Sting's sons have to lay down for them.

So it, it, and the announcers, again, were saying EVP so much that it was embarrassing.

It's just, it's childish.

What?

I'm sorry.

Well, you know what it is, too?

They lost the time because they could have done this, we're evil EVPs thing going back to the very beginning and they never did it, never did it right.

They're certainly not doing it necessarily right right now, but they're introducing this right now when wwe is about to do an evil board member versus the chief executive officer so it's going to look second rate because wwe is about to do the palace intrigue stuff yes and with big stars in those positions instead of you know indie fucking high school drama class level fucking players like tony's got And they could have done it with people that the fans knew there was something real that went on with, but they were too scared and cowardly and gutless and ballless and dickless and all other types of male appendageless to do that with people that didn't like them and they didn't like them either.

So instead, they're trying to manufacture fake heat that the people know is fake with people that they know they don't dislike.

And then the

and it doesn't make sense.

And it's just not good.

And did they pipe the fake booze in?

Because there were a lot of booze, but the people that I saw on screen, their mouths were closed.

Oh, I don't know.

I didn't think they were piping them in.

I don't know if they have that pipe.

I'd like to see if somebody can go back.

I know they may not be able to do it, but.

Somebody go back and take a look and see what you think.

There was a lot of booing in the arena without a lot of people moving very far or emitting openness of their mouths.

But nevertheless, that's so.

Now we're stuck with this thing staying in Derby and the Buckaroos at the pay-per-view.

And they're going to botch up somehow the one thing they've drawn money with in the past fucking six months.

Or they're going to end the pay-per-view with the young bucks with the tag belts and Hangman Page with the world belt running out of there and being the heels and hoping that gets people interested.

I don't know if that would.

Again, WWE's all the oxygen in the room is going to WWE.

But

we shall see.

This was a big show, and they spent a lot of time building it up.

How do you think it did?

Well,

I've got to just say my comment on what you just said before we go to the ratings is,

boy, howdy, I'll tell you what, I don't think Tony got enough oxygen when he was a fetus is all I've got to say.

But nevertheless, thank you for jumping in with that expert analysis.

Yes.

It's that kind of analysis you only find here on the Jim Cornette experience.

I don't know.

I don't know how they could possibly have

had as many people watch this program as they did last week's program.

It's got to be, got to be getting to them sooner or later.

I mean,

this was a big thing they promoted for quite a while, but it was rotten.

I'm sure they started strong and tapered off.

It's a very interesting rating story this week.

AEW Dynamite, February 7th, 2024 on TBS, 8 to 10.04 p.m.

On average, was watched by 805,000 viewers.

Ouch!

Okay, so

that's about 30 or 40 down from what they've been doing regularly, which indicates to me people maybe have said, well, we've seen this shit before, but go ahead.

According to WrestleNomics, it is down 2% from last week, which was 818, and it is down 4% from the trailing four-week average, which is 836.

Well, Well, now we know why their average is trailing.

I would almost say trickling.

Once again, these ratings were compiled by WrestleNomics, quarter one, eight to eight fifteen p.m.

Adam Page versus Swerve Strickland,

878,000 viewers.

Oh, my God.

What happened to the Big Bang theory?

Did the balloon pop on the Big Bang?

Maybe it's an episode everyone hates.

Okay, that was

the lowest handoff.

Well,

that was the lowest handoff in the history of this program, I think.

Well, we handed off to quarter two, 8.15, 8.30 p.m.

The continuation of Swerve versus Hangman with Picture and Picture,

780,000 viewers.

Ouch.

Okay, they lost.

98,000 on that marathon dreariness with Swerve and Page.

And I don't see unless something stabilizes how they're even going to make their average.

Go ahead.

The Silver Dome just emptied out and everyone walked out of there.

Quarter three, 8:30 to 8:45 p.m.

The continuation of Swerve versus Adam Page with the post-match, an ad break, and a Samoa Joe promo,

838,000 viewers.

Okay, so

as soon as the all-clear was sounded on Swerve and page 58,000 came back.

Good lord, that

doesn't say much for,

well, Swerve with a better opponent.

You know, you could say something for him, but wow.

Okay.

Well, we go to quarter four, 8.45 to 9 p.m.

Red Velvet versus Tony Storm with picture in picture.

The post-match with Deanna Perazzo, the Trent Beretta Orange Cassidy, Rocky Romero promo, an ad break, and the BCC entrance,

833,000 viewers.

And within 5,000, kind of pretty much the same.

But at the top of the 9 o'clock hour, I can't see how they'll gain on a match with complete unknowns.

Well, it is indeed the 9 o'clock hour, quarter five, the big nine o'clock hour at 9 to 9.15 p.m.

Danielson, Claudio, and Moxley versus Hechichero,

Mascaro Dorada, and Volador Jr.

with picture and picture,

826,000 viewers.

Okay, they only lost 7,000.

That was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

Nothing to brag about, but they dodged a bullet there.

Well, let's find out where that magic bullet goes in quarter six, 9.15, and 9.30 p.m.

Thank you, Dr.

Ehrlich.

The post-match angle, the Undisputed Kingdom, Chuck Taylor, backstage,

whatever it was,

an ad break, the Big Tony Khan announcement, and the start of Chris Jericho versus Konosuke Takesha,

771,000 viewers.

Yeah.

All right, well, there goes 29,

55,000 more, and I bet you this becomes a trend.

Well, there goes thinking Tony's big announcement is a draw anymore.

Well, they've seen through that.

It's a meme now, isn't it?

Even with their faithful audience.

Well, Jim, let's see what they meme to do here in the seventh quarter, 9:30 to 9:45 p.m.

Chris Jericho versus Konosuke Takeshta with picture-in-picture ads and an ad break.

723,000 viewers.

Ouch.

Mr.

Jericho wanders in and loses him another 48,000.

That's over 100,000 in two quarters.

The best thing for Chris Jericho is not booking him strongly.

It's getting him off TV right now.

And finally, quarter eight, and we have an overrun.

9:45 to 10 p.m.

Darby Allen and Sting versus Big Bill and Ricky Starks with picture in picture.

787,000 viewers.

Five-minute overrun with with the Young Bucks, 820,000 viewers.

Well, at least again, Sting,

he picked up

64,000

because they knew that was the main event.

They'd been advertising it.

People must have come back and said, ah, we'll fucking come back when that starts.

And then, you know, then they get the artificial overrun from people.

I can't believe 20, 33,000 people just hopped on the last four minutes of that.

They were tuning in to see fucking Mighty Mouse or whatever

was after.

But,

you know,

you've got basically the faithful there.

For some reason, they didn't get the big number at the beginning.

And so, therefore, they didn't lose as much of a percentage of their audience as they normally do.

But still, you've got some of the most featured people produce some of the least impressive numbers.

And whether it be,

you know, 100,000 people bailing on the middle of the marathon with hangnail, or whether it be,

you know, the Jericho Takesha debacle at the end, which was the lowest point of the program, practically

Jericho's not going to hold people anymore, especially when you put him against someone who we really like and is really talented, but you've done nothing good with.

He's not booked weekly, but he's not booked well.

Oh, yes, he is.

But you know what I mean?

Very weekly.

He's not out there.

Very weekly.

He's not out there losing every week.

It's just he's booked like shit non-stop.

Yes.

He's booked very limply.

But that

was another limp episode of AEW Dynamite.

One that their fans were raving about.

Dave gave four and a half stars to a few of the matches there.

Dave gave four and a half stars to the lowest rated segment of the program.

And said Jericho should win more.

Yeah, that would have saved it.

See, all those people tuned out because they got a fucking premonition Jericho was going to lose.

The thing that's hurting AEW is Chris Jericho not being presented strongly enough.

That's, of all the things, that's what's hurting AEW right now.

But, Brian, you know what the people at 10.04 p.m.

Eastern Standard Time in the United States of America were were ready to do after they watched that television program, don't you?

Turn on the Channel 11 news and see what the weather is with Mr.

G.

Well, it depends on what part of the country you live in because I don't get your Channel 11.

I get my Channel 11, and we don't have a Mr.

G or a Master G.

But I'll tell you what we do have.

We do have a fine night's sleep for everybody listening out there if you get

a helix sleep mattress.

That's what we've got because if you watch AEW on television, if you manage to take toothpicks and prop your eyelids open until the end of the thing, you're going to want something soft and comfortable and warm and inviting and

just neighborly to just fall right into and go into snooze land, into slumber town.

Take the midnight train to somnambulism.

Was that a Gladys Knight and the Pips hit, or did I remember wrong?

midnight train to Somnambulism.

Where in Georgia is that?

It's on the other side of Peachtree City.

But anyway, folks, I'll tell you what.

No other mattress company can compare to our friends at Helix Sleep, and I'll tell you why.

And you may be surprised to hear this because Brian was.

As a matter of fact, Brian accused me of manufacturing

fictitious

facts.

All these fictive facts about these

facts.

Fictitious factoids about these issues.

You did not believe that some of these outlaw mud show mattress companies out there are putting fiberglass in their mattresses.

You tried to stop me.

You said, no, no, that can't possibly be.

I said, you are incorrect, sir.

Yes, sir.

Some of these fly-by-night.

You never know these seedy.

you know, mom and pop manufacturing outlets that make the mattresses.

You know, the pop makes them, and mom carries them on her back down the street.

They're putting fiberglass.

I wouldn't be surprised if also I thought it was asbestos, and they may have done that too.

As a matter of fact, a lot of these mattress companies, ladies and gentlemen, you may not be aware of this either, just like Brian was completely ignorant of these facts.

A lot of these mattress companies out there will just go up and down the side of the interstate and find things to pick up and stuff in their mattresses.

Well,

you could be getting spare car parts and pieces off of goddamn 18 wheelers and semi-trucks you could be getting discarded

well dead pets we should remind everyone this is not what you will get from helix sleep you get the finest mattresses and we can't confirm that any other company is using these items that you are listing well now we can't confirm it but where does all that from the side of the road go

You see the prisoners pick it up, but you never see it again.

It's going in these mattresses from these other companies.

That's why you can only trust Helix.

You don't want to be sleeping on a mattress containing a radiator from a 57 Chevy or the potentially, possibly the bones or the desiccated corpse of somebody's pet poodle.

You never know what you'll find on the side of the road, folks, but you know what you won't find, and that's a Helix sleep mattress because people, you know, when you're driving down the road, Brian, I don't know if you live in this type of neighborhood.

As you're driving down the road, you're going to see a lot of mattresses laying on the side of the road.

A lot of couches, a lot of love seats, occasionally some kind of kitchen cabinetry and mattresses people get rid of.

They're too big to put in your garbage cans.

You just leave them on the side of the road.

These are never helix sleep mattresses because nobody that gets a helix sleep mattress wants to let go of it.

Even if grandpa dies on a helix sleep mattress.

And the stench of his grisly death is still on it.

Let's not.

Most people are just going to spray that daggum thing with some fucking Febreze and put some sheets back on it because it's a helix and it's good.

I don't even know where to begin with this one.

Most people would not do any of that.

Helix sleep is good for the whole family, whether it's grandpa or the kids or you.

But everybody's time's good.

But everyone dies.

But everyone dies and people die in all sorts of places.

So technically, it could be on the most comfortable mattress ever, but you don't have to worry about that.

Just go to sleep and enjoy a good night's sleep.

I see he's on mute.

Would Helix sleep?

Yes.

Just go to, don't worry about anything.

Just go to sleep.

And

you'll know if you wake up.

It'll be a new tomorrow.

Folks, just go now.

Where should you go?

I can't find it.

Go to sleep.

Go to sleep.

Just go to sleep.

Go to sleep.

Go to sleep, little.

Go to Helix Sleep.

That's H-E-L-I-X.

HelixSleep.com slash J C E and use the code Helix Partner 20.

Helix Partner 20, and you're going to get 20% off all mattress orders and two free pillows.

If you go to helixleep.com/slash JCE.

Lady.

Lady.

helixleep.com.

I'm gonna do it slash JCE and use the code helixpartner20.

You'll get 20% off the orders and two free pillows.

And I need, I'm crying.

I need to wipe my face.

Well, wipe your face and, of course, go to bed with Helix Sleep.

Go to sleep and don't worry about a thing.

You might wake up.

And you'll be waking up potentially on a Helix Sleep mattress.

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

Oh, God damn it.

HelixSleep.com slash JCE.

Use the code HelixPartner20.

I think my nose is bleeding.

Well, wipe off that blood and go to sleep with Helix Sleep.

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Okay, I've managed to take a pause and get some oxygen.

And now we're going to talk about what's taking up all the oxygen, which is the

ever

circulating universe around the Vince McMahon scandal, which everybody is

dealing with or giving their reactions to, or we're finding out more about

as time goes on.

And one of the things we found out, apparently,

whoever at Endeavor, whoever at Endeavor, I'm a poet and don't know it, but my feet show it because they're longfellas.

That's what Mama Cornett used to say.

Whoever at Endeavor was making all these decisions,

Ari Emmanuel,

potentially,

was apparently convinced that Vince McMahon was indispensable to the WWE business because they

insisted that he stay on as the executive chairman of TKO until his death, resignation, or incapacity.

Well, at least two of those three things happened.

It may be less of them insisting on it and him insisting on it as part of a deal.

Remember, he's the one who came back to put this thing together.

It wasn't so that he would fade into the sunset, it was to try to set himself up.

But now, the thing is, our boy Thurston Howell over at WrestleNomics, he's got the timeline on this where

Endeavor made the offer for the merger to the WWE.

Endeavor would own 57% WWE

sharehoers, those shareholders,

shareholders would own 43, 57, 43.

WWE comes back and they say, we want it to be 49 for us and 51 for you.

And that's when Endeavor proposed Vince as the executive chairman as the condition of giving the increase to 49.51 to the WWE.

And that's why Vince would get to pick five of the 11 seats on the board.

And,

you know, the Endeavor would get to pick six but now they've bumped it up to 13 and it's six for wwe and seven for endeavor

pretty soon it'll probably be 22 but nevertheless

that's why the quote was mr mcmahon's continued leadership would be critical to the value creation driving endeavor's desire to engage in the transaction

they thought shareholders would lose their mind if they purchased wwe and vince mcmahon was not part of the deal.

Well, but

they didn't know this shit then that has come out.

And they still had to, they knew he was under some kind of several investigations.

So they still had to put out that statement that

Mr.

McMahon could potentially be a liability or detrimental to our business or whatever with their filing, all that blah, blah, blah.

But I think they thought that they bought the line that Vince had to be there, even though we've seen over the past couple of years that he's not only did he lose his mind, but that a lot of the talent was happier when he wasn't around because he'd lost his touch, too, along with his mind.

And maybe they just hadn't picked up on it and thought he was that valuable.

Again, or it was baked into the cake and they weren't going to say anything otherwise.

They were only going to put him over.

I mean, I've seen that happen.

That's Clive Davis has experienced that a few times.

He gets put over by people who can't stand him because he spends all the money.

But Vince.

Hey, don't jive about it.

Don't jive about my man, Clive.

All right.

Well, whatever you say, sir.

But Vince,

Vince, again, he came back

after leaving

not to run his company, but to sell his company.

And

he found the buyer who gave him everything he wanted.

I would have to think all of this was part of that.

It just so happens they had an out.

Death, incapacity, or resignation.

And

that apparently was what

brought it to Vince.

Now, it was Ari Emmanuel and the other feller.

What's his name?

Goddamn, I've lost it.

I have an article here.

I'm not exactly sure.

I believe it was.

No, Nick Khan.

Mark Shapiro.

Oh, Shapiro.

It wasn't Nick Kahn.

It was Ari Emmanuel and Mark Shapiro that were the ones who went to Vince and said, well, the jig is up, pal.

Well, here, I have it here.

This is from the Hollywood Reporter article by Alex Weperin.

If I go down a little bit.

The week was supposed to be capped off January 27th at Tropicana Field in Tampa, where the company was to host one of its signature annual events, the Royal Rumble.

But a bombshell lawsuit, followed by a fateful decision from a major sponsor, changed the course of the firm.

By the time the Royal Rumble began, McMahon was gone from TKO seemingly for good, as it sought to distance itself from McMahon's alleged past transgressions, as it endeavored to make employees feel safe, and as it responded to an impact to the bottom line.

Those concerns culminated on the evening of January 26th when Emmanuel and TKO president and COO, Mark Shapiro,

called McMahon and told him it would be in the best interest of the company for him to resign.

He agreed and submitted his resignation.

And that's when NickCom put out his quote that he would no longer have a role with TKO or WWE.

Boy, would you like to have a tape of that conversation?

He had to expect it, right?

Well, yeah, but still,

and here's the thing.

These are not wrestling people per se where it didn't have the same gravitas probably to them it would to any of us to be you've got to be the one to call and tell vince mcmahon he's got to get the out of the wwe

A lot of people in the wrestling business may have been the ones to want to make that call, but I don't know if anybody's ever had the guts to.

Certainly not the power to.

But

were they even, do you think they were even nice about it?

Or did they say, Vince, Slim Jim just pulled out.

We bought a goddamn pig and a poke.

If you don't get the fuck out of here, we're all going to be up shit creek and your stock's going to be worth dick.

What do you think?

According to this article, Slim Jim was the big thing, which I guess begs the question, if Slim Jim had not pulled out, if no sponsors had threatened to pull out or pulled out directly,

would anything have changed just based off the articles and the lawsuit?

That's hard to say because I don't think there was a fucking chance that sponsors weren't going to start pulling out that quick.

And again, reminder, this is the week they signed the Netflix deal.

Yeah.

And, you know, I.

I don't know what the paperwork looks like on that where they could call them up and say, well, you know, wait a minute, we changed our fucking fucking mind because your boss was a serial head shitter, whatever.

But it couldn't start the relationship off right.

But anybody else, whether it be Slim Jim or any of these other sponsors, with all the, and,

you know,

the federal investigation is still ongoing.

They got Vince's phone, as you said.

They don't know what else is going to come out.

I think it was almost impossible that some sponsors were not going to,

it was a weekend by Monday, say, wait a minute, but Slim Jim had the goddamn sponsorship of the show that was going on the following day.

So, weekend or no, they were like, well, you know,

so

I don't know if they would have ever been faced with a situation where that news came out, but nothing bad immediately happened where they had to call Vince and say, fuck off.

And based on the quote from Netflix, which was, you know, he's gone.

This isn't a story.

He's gone, whatever they said.

Yeah.

I mean, we don't know if Netflix called and said, what the hell?

And that's how they were reassured.

Yeah.

Oh, he's gone already.

You don't have to say anything.

He's already gone.

We're already on the phone with Slim Jim getting him back.

I think

that's pretty much probably what happened.

And

they had to tell Vince that, you know, not only have you done all this for nothing, this big sale,

you're about to kill your own company, your shit's going to be worth nothing.

Just get the fuck out of here.

Do you think we ever hear from him again?

Does he do a big interview somewhere with some major media

person that will be sympathetic?

Do you think beyond the lawsuit, and he's going to be very careful because this could be the

big one?

Do you think we ever hear from Vince McMahon again?

Do we ever hear him defend himself publicly?

Yes.

Well,

it depends on who he gets to be as lawyers because,

you know,

public defense and under deposition, as we've seen with Trump, which this is so similar in so many ways, is two different things.

Trump can go out and lie his ass off in interviews and press appearances and whatever, which he does for a daily habit.

So convince, and he's probably going to be a lot better at it.

Well, he used to be.

Now he can't fucking speak.

But they don't need to be testifying or under oath or under deposition

because they'll fucking cross themselves up.

And I think that at some point when Vince learns what all they know and what all they're going to try to do to him,

unless his lawyers absolutely forbid him to speak publicly, he's going to want to do some kind of interview with something somewhere that will be seen.

I'm not talking about goddamn, you know, wrestle fucking dick or whatever.

I'm talking about the Wall Street Journal or whatever.

That's where he belongs on that site, Wrestle Dick.

Well,

he's going to want to defend himself, but he's going to want to know for sure what he's defending himself against first.

And so I think it'll be a while, but it will eventually hear about it, especially if he's going to court.

If he's, if, if he's, especially if it's a criminal charge instead of civil, especially,

I would think you can't hold him back from trying to defend himself unless he's old enough that he'll listen to lawyers at this point.

And we'll move on from this area of the Vince McMahon scandal in a moment, but from this article at least, and every source has a spin, so you don't know,

it sounds like TKO were taken by surprise at exactly what these allegations were.

They may not have thought it was this.

I mean, most people.

Yeah.

Well, I don't think this would have been the first thing that popped up in most people's minds.

And also,

they knew there were investigations going on,

and they knew the, but it was, we talked about on the drive-thru.

The NDA that Vince got Janelle Grant to sign was drawn up independently of the company.

He got one for the company, but didn't tell the company about it.

So a lot of this stuff was executed trying to clean up.

shit before the sale or the merger or whatever they termed it.

And it just started leaking out when the thing went through.

And now they're finding out maybe this is Vince was a motivated seller in terms of not wasting too much time and letting grass grow on this thing because lips were moving.

But

speaking of moving lips,

Johnny Laurinitis, Johnny Ace,

and his, what is his attorney's name?

I keep forgetting it.

I keep wanting to write it down.

Oh, I don't know.

Let me find it.

Let me find it.

He's heavily reviewed on certain parts of the internet as a Florida lawyer that people that have used him in the past don't think too much of.

Remember, we found that out.

But he is

basically flipping, turning states' evidence.

Would you, would, if this was a mob movie, he's a squealer, he's a rat, he's a

fucking

what's the other terms that they use in the mob?

A stoolie, A stoolie.

A stool pigeon.

He's talking about everything to everybody.

Because he was a victim, too, you know, John Laurinitis.

He was a victim of big, bad 80-year-old Vince McMahon with spinal fucking problems.

See, that's the thing Vince probably didn't count on was Laurinitis.

Whatever you want to say, flipping against him, protecting himself.

Whatever you want to say, who knows what this story is going to come out as.

But do you think Vince expected that?

No.

Again,

Vince and Trump, Vince expects that these, just like Trump did, that some of these, you know,

subservient second bananas

that can't afford to pay millions of dollars in judgments or potentially face criminal action.

are not going to turn around and point all their fingers back at him for orchestrating the whole mess.

And

he's surprised when they do.

And he's going to find out.

And already, because of the Laurenitis comments,

explain this to me, Brian, because I'm trying to keep this straight.

And I know you've got an article there that may shed some light on it.

But as one of the statements that Laurenitis's lawyer has made on his behalf

has confirmed, Laura Nitas has said that he did know and other upper management in the WWE did know

about the claim that Ashley Massaro made that she was sexually assaulted on an overseas publicity tour with troops for the WWE back in,

was it 2014?

I don't know, years ago.

And

help me.

She says she was drugged and raped by military personnel personnel on a military base during one of the WWE tours over there.

She says that she let management know and that she was encouraged not to say anything because it would,

I forget the exact words, screw up all the hard work they've done, all the good things they've done.

It would ruin their relationship with the Army and the Armed Services or whatever branch of the Armed Forces, and that would just be terrible.

So don't say anything.

But the problem here is that now these statements are coming back out because Laurinitis' lawyer has admitted that Laurinitis knew about this story and that there was a meeting with Vince and Laurinitis and other executives with Ashley Massaro.

But Laurinitis' lawyer said, but there wasn't a cover-up.

Even though for years,

that's where I'm saying, explain this to me.

Hasn't the WWE story been that they didn't know about it and that there wasn't a meeting and that they hadn't heard this story?

Yes, that was kind of their defense.

But then how can there not be a cover-up if the lawyer is admitting, yeah, he knew

about everything that he wasn't supposed to know about and there was a meeting that there wasn't supposed to be,

but there was no cover-up, even though we've always said that none of those things actually happened.

By the way, the lawyer's name is Edward Brennan.

Yeah, everybody should look him up.

I've seen some interesting things about his quality of workmanship, but how is the, how do those two things coexist?

They don't.

Again, either John Laurenitis is trying to save himself and willing to do whatever it takes right now, or John Laurenitis is revealing the truth about things.

Again,

if only the only reason would be to protect himself and save himself right now.

But then is this a bad effort at that?

Because if Laurenitis' lawyer is saying, yes, he was in a meeting with Vincent McMahon and these other executives with Ashley Massaro, and he did hear this story,

but there was no cover-up.

His lawyer is saying

him as being the part of the cover-up because there was a cover-up.

Right.

And his lawyer is saying, my guy here's a jerk-off.

You really want Vince.

He's willing to say the truth while protecting himself.

Give him immunity.

Talk to him.

And we'll give you Vince McMahon.

And that's what this is.

Well, there you go.

At least that's how I perceive it.

But you're just like me, except you're from up in Jersey.

They got

rigged birds there.

So you're a big-time bird lawyer.

Big-time bird lawyer.

That's right.

I have a bird whistle in the other room, motherfucker.

Yeah, well, I had it here.

God damn it.

Why don't you keep it in the other room?

Hey.

Why don't you whistle it out your ass?

How about that?

Hey, I can't do that.

So basically, so now Ashley Massaro, who committed suicide a few years back, has been drug up again again and drug into all of this because,

again, this is another example of Laurinitis and Vince being involved in improper treatment of one of the female talents and they didn't do shit all about it.

And they covered it up, even though the lawyer said, well, we didn't cover it up.

We just denied it it ever happened.

That's not covering it up.

So,

in all of this, and apparently

the iceberg is not yet melted, folks.

We're just seeing the tip.

But the one reaction we've been waiting on, you know,

I think I speak for everybody out there, the reaction that would turn the tide of opinion and let us all know the

proper moral stance to take, the proper course to take.

The reaction to this entire thing has finally come out from Bruce Pritchard.

Bruce Pritchard says, I'm paraphrasing here, but it's not much because it wasn't a long statement.

I'm not being accused of anything.

I'm not being sued.

I wasn't involved in anything.

I wasn't even there.

And we'll let the legal system and the jurisprudence system take its rightful course in this fine country of America.

And I wasn't even there.

They got Vince's phone.

They'll see whatever he was texting to whoever he was texting it to.

Oh, I guarant fucking T you, if Bruce got that text, he would have thrown his phone in the fucking ocean.

Or jerk.

No, I've been closet.

He's a weirdo, too.

He is probably telling more truth right now than he has told in the last 20 years put together.

When he says, I don't know, I wasn't there.

I'm not being sued.

I wasn't involved.

I know nothing.

I see nothing.

Leave me alone.

To go back to what Ronda Rousey tweeted out a few weeks ago, is Vince truly gone if Bruce Pritchard is still employed there?

Because there's one reason and one reason only why he was there.

Well,

here's the thing: Vince is not only no longer employed there, but Vince is no longer on the board of directors, which means that unless probably prodded, directly questioned, or forced at the point of a hot poker, I don't think Bruce Pritchard will mention Vince McMahon's name in the office in public again.

So,

and I'm not not sure that he might be still talking to him on the phone.

Exactly.

Everyone there.

No, I'm saying I'm not sure that he's still talking to him on the phone.

He might not be answering the fucking phone if Vince calls at this point because he knows they took one phone from Vince.

The other one may be bugged.

I'm thinking

he might be in a goddamn concrete bunker somewhere.

Wait until the Vince Bruce Pritchard booking ideas text messages tweet.

That'll be

I'm sure there's a bunch of those, and I'd love to see some of them, but

I'm again saying that

I believe Bruce is the artful Dodger will be as far away from all of this as he was when it was all going on to begin with.

It's going to be interesting.

Again, TKO has said that, you know, or at least it's coming out that they were not aware of the full

strength of these allegations.

There's a lot of people there who have been there for a long time.

You know, Michael Hayes' name has come up lately as someone who was a Vince guy, which is kind of amazing.

I know, I don't know how that works.

Strange bedfellows may apply here too soon.

But that's the thing.

You have a lot of Vince loyalists, guys who were either only there because of being a Vince loyalist, like Bruce, or guys that did have something to contribute, but may have gotten away with a little more than they should have because of Vince.

Do you got a clean house?

If the perception,

whether true or not.

Here's the problem is, here's the problem is if you clean house, well, you're just too close to Vince.

Well, his fucking son-in-law is a chief content officer, and you don't want to get rid of him.

But I mean, we still haven't established who was leaking what to who.

Maybe Triple H was a double agent.

That's why they trust him.

If it came out that Stephanie was the one leaking it, does it help Triple H

in terms of the perception would be so strong of that him and his wife actually did something positive?

Oh, yeah.

That his job was protected.

I would, I would have to, especially if they know that, because somebody knows where they got something, don't they?

And

again,

I've still been saying Stephanie was bopping back and forth, trying to stay as far away from Vince last year and a half or two as possible.

Triple H, when he wasn't out with heart problems, had been been demoted and his baby taken away by Vince for his,

you know, to

benefit his, Vince's three-way partners.

And I don't think Triple H could have been happy about that.

So

that may be why they, not only he's doing a great job, but they trust him because they've known he was kind of

been made the black sheep of the family by his own father-in-law.

A lot of this may be why certain people in the family didn't like some of Vince's ass kissers and loyalists.

They thought they were home for one reason or another.

Have you noticed, and now that we get into Vince's extended family tree predecessors and progeny, a lot of members of this family didn't get along with each other.

So should we really be surprised?

Anyway.

Well, the Ashley Massaro thing, it'll be interesting because this is something that all of a sudden is getting a lot of publicity.

And it's something that needs to be talked about, needs to be looked at.

And

her allegations, even if you look beyond the horrific things that happened to her, are that it happened to other women.

There were other people that things like this were happening to, whether it was being punished for turning down Vince's advances

or succumbing to Vince's advances, making out with Vince making out within the moment.

Yes.

That's, wasn't it in one of Ashley Massaro's statements?

And this was part of a document that I assume she was giving a deposition where she said she saw Vince making out with other

female talent in the locker room.

And

this, he would have been what 60, 65.

And then he started personally writing her promos, but in a humiliating fashion, not something to get her over, something to embarrass her.

Personally writing them, though, not his writing team, Vince.

Yeah.

That's,

I mean, yeah, yeah, I'm just I'm trying to picture the 50-year-old Vince that I knew in the locker room making out with one of the girls, and that's fucking unsavory enough, but the 65-year-old or 70-year-old or whatever.

Hey, let me read this to you.

This is from Ashley Massaro's statement.

During my time with the WWE, I had observed Vince McMahon making out with the other divas in the locker room, but he never paid attention to me, and I assumed I was not his type.

This changed after my Playboy cover was released.

I was fortunate enough to be allowed to fly on the company jet and stay at the same hotels as the executives for a period of time so that I can get home faster to spend more time with my daughter.

On one of these occasions, Vince was attempting to get me alone with him in his hotel room late at night,

and I felt extraordinarily uncomfortable.

He began calling the hotel room phone and my cell phone non-stop.

I called Kevin Dunn to explain the situation.

Oh, good lord.

And he said I should tell Vince I was not feeling well and would see him at TV the next day.

So I did.

Immediately after that night, Vince started writing my promos for me.

Vince does not write promos for female wrestlers.

That is the job of the creative department, and he certainly wouldn't have, under any normal circumstances, written a promo for me.

But he did, and the promos were written with the clear intention of ruining my career.

I brought the first script Vince wrote for me to the WWE employee in charge of Creative at the time, Michael Hayes,

and he said,

You're not saying this.

Who the fuck wrote this?

And I told him that Vince did.

He said,

Well, kid, these are the breaks.

Meaning that Vince wanted to end my career and destroy my reputation on the way out.

I swear to God, I can hear it in Michael's voice.

He is known for this type of behavior and also did this to a redacted name upon her departure from WWE.

In addition, after that night, each time I walked by him, he would make vulgar sexual comments that were clearly designed to make me uncomfortable.

So,

again, Vince, Kevin Dunn, Michael Hayes.

It's a very interesting.

I mean, it's a really sad existence for any of the women in the company to have to deal with that from the boss of the company.

And again,

I don't remember that this ever took place, but I would have bet you all the money I had in my pocket at whatever time when I was working in the office there that if somebody had come in and said to me or Vince or Bruce or JR or whoever,

you know, if it was Luna, if it was Sonny or Sable or whatever, some member of the office or crew just said this vulgar thing to me,

he would have had him apologize.

That's what I would have bet money on.

He certainly was not making comments like that to random women in the building, whether it be talent or...

employees or whatever.

It's interesting that if she did turn him down, that would be his reaction to rejection.

Good Lord.

Yeah.

Well,

you know, he's got a, that's the thing.

And, and you plug in your, your boy's book there, The Six Pack.

Um, every story that comes out about Vince involving his childhood and his background,

he does not take rejection well.

He has a massive inferiority complex.

He hated where he came from,

and he was determined to fucking overcompensate in whatever manner possible.

And one would think, with all the other weird family dynamics that he had going on with the abusive stepfather and the potentially abusive mother, and whatever else all these goddamn stories are that he alludes to from time to time, but never confirms or give details

that his thinking and

again, it can't help concussions,

multiple bodybuilding drugs to look like that when you're 80 years old and whatever the fuck else is going on and an unlimited amount of money and a massive need for control.

My God, we need a team of psychiatrists.

A team, if you will.

Well, he can afford it.

I don't think he ought to have to pay for it.

I think that ought to be.

If they haul him into court, they look, we can put you in jail.

You're not going to live long enough to really satisfy anybody there.

We're going to sentence you to the fucking state home and have a half a dozen people examine you to see if we can prevent any of these things from happening again in the human race.

That'd keep him busy for a while, wouldn't it?

We'll see.

He'll end up running the state home, but.

And booking the fucking lunatics in matches against each other.

I guess to end this,

unless you want to go further with the Ashley Massaro statement, and this is a sad story, and I'm sure more is going to come out about it.

In terms of who knew what when,

when she told Kevin Dunn this, Kevin Dunn wasn't like, oh my God, I can't believe it.

It was, tell him you're sick.

He already knew what to say.

Tell him you're sick.

You'll see him at TV.

So, I mean, the Michael Hayes thing, hey, you got a bad script.

And you're like, oh, shit, the boss changed it.

Out of my hands.

That's a little different.

Kevin Dunn knew what to say to the talent who was getting harassed by Vince.

It's like he was the mother of the family at Thanksgiving dinner that's used to making excuses for the drunk uncle.

Just overlook him.

He'll sleep it off or whatever.

Aye, yeah, yeah.

Well, because he was Kevin Dunn, I mean, let's face it,

he can sue me if he wants to.

We can bring some people in to talk about this.

He's the one sitting there getting all fucking excited with his fucking teeth hanging out of his mouth.

Every time they would talk, I have a conversation about the divas on the plane, and he'd be sitting there at his Renfield perch next to Vince and go, oh, she needs bigger boobies and stuff like that.

He just, you know, he's a little worm, but he got at least due to get out as quickly as he could before any of this fucking got public.

Been a great 40 years.

This minute is my last minute.

I'm out.

Yes.

I am out of here.

See y'all in the funny papers.

All right.

Well, that was the Vince update.

I'm sure there'll be more updates, but

I think there's going to be more people dragged into this because there's no way that this kind of systematic shit was happening for a long time and no one noticed or no one had any idea that anyone was being harassed, let alone the details of the harassment.

This is going to be interesting.

What you're saying is a lot of people might be preparing for a new career,

some other line of work, some other way to make a living because they may be

persona non grata here in the wrestling industry up there in Stanford.

They may be forced to be on home incarceration.

They may have to work out of their house, Brian.

Well, possibly.

We really don't know yet.

Yeah, well, I tell you what, folks, we know that a lot of you listeners out there in the cult of Cornette, you're wearing the big county ankle bracelet.

Your movements may be slightly restricted to a smaller geographic area for a temporary period of time to be adjudicated by the county.

I'm sure there's some people in the audience, but maybe not a large portion of the audience.

Well, we've got such a big audience that every, all of our portions are big.

All of our parts and all of our portions are massive because we got a big audience.

And if you are indeed

in that betwixt and between time where you can't really go, but you can't really stay, Well, then you're going to need to work from home.

And you know, that's the best place to start now with the incredible space age e-commerce technology that we've got now, Brian.

And here in the United States of America, we got this thing called the World Wide Web

and the interwebs and the internets, and you can sell products on them to people awaiting those selfsame products all around the world.

But you can't just start and just do it like any old willy-nilly outlaw mud show.

You got to get people on your side that know how to do this thing, that have got experience, they've got some clout, got some weight, got some pull, got some stroke.

See if the crowd was whating me, I just keep doing that.

And the folks at Shopify,

well, they've got more stroke and more pull and more clout and more get up and go, go, go

than anybody in the e-commerce business.

They are the global force behind all birds and brook linen.

And those are household names that just roll right off your tongue.

And they sell birds and linen.

So if these people are selling birds and linen and making a fortune, then you can sell, I don't know, bottles and glass.

Birds and linen.

That was John Lennon's all-girl group.

Yes, birds and linen.

Thank you very much.

And Shopify, as I was talking about, They power 10% of all the e-commerce in the United States, and it's a rowdy 10% too.

This 10% that they're keeping control of and they're riding herd on, they're they're the wild west of the e-commerce people out there in the U.S.

And Shopify is able to keep them under control.

So if you want to make money with your business selling on the internet with the e-commerce thing that has exploded in popularity over the last few months, well, all you got to do is go right now to Shopify.

No, it has, really, it has.

Some people don't go to stores every week anymore.

They just get shit off the internet.

It's happened all of a sudden.

You may not have noticed.

It's been a little bit longer than a few months.

Well, I lose track of time.

I'm busy here with you.

But right now, if you go to shopify.com/slash JCE all lowercase JCE, don't put the capitals in.

They'll get mad at you.

They'll believe that you're yelling at them, and then their feelings will be hurt.

And

they'll sabotage your business and force you into the poorhouse if you get on the wrong side of these son of bitches because they got a lot of pull.

But if you get on the right side of them, you can sign up for a $1 month trial period right now at shopify.com slash JCE

because they've got everything you're going to need to grow your business no matter what stage you're in.

We've talked about all the various things they can do for you: the converting checkouts and the blog posts and the product descriptions and the FAC answers and the Shopify magic.

Boy, you ought to see them make the fucking elephant disappear.

And they accept every type of payment so you can get paid simply and easily.

They'll accept anything.

They'll accept jewelry.

They'll accept SNH green stamps.

They may accept some type of favors, if you know what I mean.

You know, you got to get in there and make your pitch.

Well, it depends on what kind of business they're in.

Let's talk about a good business, a good legal business where you have wonderful things you are making or you have the license to sell and you're going to sell them online.

You're going to use Shopify.

What's that promo code, Jim?

Well, it's JCE, all lowercase.

That's right.

They've got an endless list of integrations and third-party apps.

And they'll sell any of those to you if you want them.

Long as you know what they are.

But folks, it's marketing made simple.

Shopify is removing the guesswork with built-in tools.

So right now, if you want to make some money, honey,

well, then go to shopify.com/slash JCE

and get paid.

Well, now that everybody's going to get paid, what are you paying off with on the Arcadian Vanguard Network and over at the Wrestling News this week?

Yeah, let's try to do this quickly because I'm tired.

There's been so much stuff, and I got to.

I got to get back to editing right after this, editing the show we recorded yesterday, so I stopped editing to record, and I got to go back.

But the Arcadian Vanguard Podcast Network

on Twitter or X

at SuperPodcast or on Facebook at facebook.com/slash Arcadian Vanguard.

Of course, a lot of things happening.

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The 605 Super Podcast, The Mothership.

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You're getting older, you know.

You can't be.

Yeah,

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Yeah.

What type of thing?

The type of thing that you do when you do the mothership.

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Well, another thing I can't do is make it through SmackDown.

How's that for you?

Well, you better have.

You better have, because I did.

You better have.

No, we got another fucking big angle going on now.

They're going to show us how to do this thing right, too.

Apparently,

the next rivalry, not going to be between...

Nick Aldiss and Adam Pierce, just mere general managers, going to be between the chief content officer, Triple H, and the board of directors member, Hollywood Rock.

And I'm loving it.

Corporate rock.

Corporate rock.

Ah.

Well, there you go.

And he's got to come out.

He's got to wear a suit.

Got to wear a suit pretty soon.

But

again, I think you termed it before we went on the air.

This is SmackDown for February 9th.

And before we went on the air here, you said something to the effect of this was,

you know, the first segment and then a bowl of nothing soup.

But it doesn't have to be anymore.

They did two and a half million people for this show off of the WrestleMania kickoff thing the night before.

And what's going to happen?

They got 14,000 people in Charlotte.

That's a new arena.

It's not at the old Charlotte Coliseum.

It's not even the new Charlotte Coliseum.

It's the

fucking whatever arena they've got now.

And there's 14,000 in that.

Meanwhile, by the way,

Saturday night's collision main event was Pockets versus Ishii.

You see how big that crowd was?

SmackDown is drawing two and a half million people on Fox, is getting 14,000 people in the building in Charlotte.

And collision is getting beat by the other midget wrestling show on the Discovery Network.

AD Collision in Hendersonville, or excuse me, just Henderson, Nevada.

2,473 tickets distributed.

Well, and guess what?

That's a suburb of Las Vegas.

By the way, it's not just like

out in the middle of nowhere, Nevada.

Henderson is next to Las Vegas, correct?

Correct.

Anyway.

They opened the show on SmackDown with the kickoff package, the WrestleMania kickoff, and they made The Rock a huge heel.

And Cody was portrayed as even more of the hero.

So they are really building on this.

And the package encapsulated all of the important points, if you missed the thing.

And then they have Triple H's entrance.

And now, what is, is it?

He's in a certain kind of frame of mind depending on his theme music, because this wasn't time to play the game.

This was bow down to the game.

No, bow down to the king, not bow down to the game.

Oh,

well,

they're bowing to somebody.

The other thing is, is this the first time he's come out there and introduces Paul Triple H Levesque?

I think so.

If it happens,

I've never noticed it, yeah.

It's always Triple H, and he didn't come out to his wrestling music.

We're bowing down to him, and he had Aldous and Pierce in the ring, the two general managers with him.

And he's more popular now.

Did you hear the Triple H chants?

Suddenly, he's the goddamn bell of the ball around here now.

They're loving him.

When you make the program watchable, people appreciate it.

Well, there you go.

And this was the best promo because normally,

you know, we've said it.

He talks a while and it's not always scintillating.

But he was prepared for this one because everybody in the news, it's not what they're doing on television, it's what's in the news.

Oh, the fucking rock did an end run around Triple H, overruled him, pulled the board of directors card, blah, blah, blah.

So here he cuts the promo.

Hey, we took a hard left on the road to WrestleMania, that's for sure.

But let me clear up one thing.

There's some confusion around here.

Some people don't know their role.

People tried to assert authority they don't have.

I don't care where you sit,

as in sitting on the board of directors.

The answers come from one place, and whether you like them or not, you're looking at him.

So now we've got, like you said, the palace intrigue, the game of thrones at the very top.

And they played into chief content officer like crazy

and he

announced the main event will be at wrestlemania

roman reigns versus cody rhodes

and so could he have

without mentioning the rocks name but saying it the way that everybody knew what he was talking about could he have said it any better

i thought this was great i thought he did a great job it's sad that you know he can't work a match physically.

Yeah.

But he could be great in this role, and he has been so far.

I did have one thought watching this with Aldous and Pierce behind him.

Which one of those two is going to flip for the rock?

Which one of those two is going to say I answered to the board of directors, not to the chief content officer?

It has to be Aldous because not only is he the edgier one, but he's the new guy.

And then Aldous will blame Pierce.

Say it's Pierce.

Yeah.

Throwing him off.

Yeah.

And then Pierce will blame Bruce and and they'll fire Bruce, but no.

And everyone will believe it.

So then the Triple H's final line on this was, there are some people

back there

that this decision is going to disappoint.

They won't like it.

It doesn't matter if you don't like it.

And then he turns it over to Aldous, who...

shifts to Seth Rollins and the world heavyweight title.

And we've all agreed here that Seth Challenger will be the winner of the Elimination Chamber on February 24th.

And a series of matches to determine the participants will start tonight.

And Pierce directed everyone's attention to the

they're not calling it the Titan Tron anymore, they're just calling it the Tron.

You think even the word Titan now is too Vincy?

Yeah,

pretty much.

Yeah.

So the participants in this thing: Randy Orton, Bronson Reed, Kevin Owens, Logan Paul, A.J.

Styles, The Miz,

Bobby Lashley,

Drew McIntyre, Sami Zayn, Dominic Mysterio, L.A.

Knight, and Ivar, the Viking.

I think we can predict at least one finish.

So, 12 stars, six matches, three nights.

I guess this night, Raw, and then SmackDown next week.

And the first match is Drew McIntyre against AJ Styles.

But the promo segment isn't over yet because now Drew comes out with the microphone.

And I'm loving his promos now.

He says thank you to everybody for feeling the same way about CM Punk as I do and for buying the t-shirt that he's got, you know, CM Punk's WrestleMania main event, R.I.P.

Thank you for

thanking me for

bashing Punk.

And he called himself DM Hunk.

So he's got a little sense of humor, too.

And he's taken credit for this.

He came out and reasoned with Cody and got physical finally, and it worked.

And so now he's taken out punk.

He's made Cody finish his story.

He's almost saved WrestleMania.

The only thing he's got to do is save the world title by winning the elimination chamber and then beaten Seth Rollins at WrestleMania because that's what's best for business.

Drew McIntyre, McIntyre, who would have thought this was hiding there all that time?

Was he just an unhappy babyface and wanted to get all this venom out of his system?

I guess so.

But to go back to the previous thing, what do you think they're going to do with

Triple H and The Rock?

Oh, I'm sorry.

I glossed over that.

They can't have a match, obviously.

You mentioned Triple H's heart problems, but again,

The Rock can talk like crazy and, you know, whatever we think, he's a big star and now he's a heel.

And Triple H,

they wouldn't believe, the fans wouldn't believe Nick Aldiss or Adam Pierce or anybody else standing up to The Rock verbally or trying to put his foot down in a power struggle.

Triple H has got enough fucking pull and enough stroke and enough

credibility with that audience that they will say, yeah, this is going to be a fucking struggle.

And just the idea all these years later that Triple H and The Rock, after the attitude error and everything, that these two would have a problem, it works.

You believe it.

So, you know, the personalities are what's important here.

They don't have to fight.

And, you know,

again, I can't wait to see it.

Like you said, they could go so many different ways.

Aldous can flip a lancer to the board of directors and try to undermine Triple H or whatever the fuck.

Does The Rock start signing wrestlers behind Triple H's back?

That's how Jacob Fatu gets brought in.

The Rock just signed them.

There you go.

I don't care who signed.

I don't care if goddamn

Howard Hughes' biographer, what was his name?

That would have been a hell of a fucking

line if I could have got that out.

Clifford Irving.

I don't care if Clifford Irving signs him.

I guess you got to be 60 to really get that, too.

So we'll gloss over that.

So anyway, Drew McIntyre was out there, and he's got to wrestle AJ.

And here came old AJ, day late and a dollar short.

He just, he can't hang in this atmosphere anymore.

And when they come back from the break to start the match, here comes L.A.

Knight.

He makes his entrance because he's going to sit at the desk for color.

And so they ring the bell for this thing and they're 22 minutes into the show.

And it's match number one.

They go a little under three minutes and they go out to the floor and Drew throws AJ over the rail into the fucking sound pit to the break.

And when they come back, they go a few minutes and it's back and forth.

And

finally, they go to the floor in front of the announce desk.

And

as AJ takes a bump, L.A.

Knight pours water on him.

AJ slaps the bottle out of L.A.

Knight's hand.

Drew drives AJ into L.A.

Knight and then rolls AJ into the ring.

And L.A.

Knight's trying to get in the ring.

The referee's keeping him out.

AJ small packages Drew, but there's nobody to count.

And then as soon as AJ pops up and nails L.A.

Knight off the apron, Drew hits his kick.

One, two, three.

So pretty much the same variation on a theme, but they got out of it.

And everybody knew Drew's going to the elimination chamber.

Yeah.

And it was a WWE-TV match.

Nothing wrong.

Not much of it.

Any thoughts?

Those are my thoughts.

Well, there you go.

Did you have the thoughts of ridiculous horseshit when you saw the segment with purely dreary and whatever they were doing?

I saw them on a pier or wherever they were, but I didn't watch.

Well, you should have peered in a little closer.

It's bad.

These guys are bad.

And then they did a package on Bailey and EO Sky and their falling out.

And

we're going to do it again, Brian.

They've got the men's elimination chamber,

so we got to have a girls' elimination chamber.

You keep acting surprised.

This is every single event they do.

They do one, they do one for the other.

Well, they had a qualifying match here, too.

Bianca Belair against Mia Yim.

I wonder who is going to win.

But they're seriously, again,

it ruins it every time they have the war games.

They're going to have women's war games.

They have a Royal Rumble.

They're going to have women's Royal Rumble.

They have the Elimination Chamber, Women's Elimination Chamber.

They take the edge off their big match just to fucking act equal, and these matches are not equal.

The interest is not equal.

The performance is not equal.

I'm equally disgusted.

I'm regusted and dismayed.

All right.

We don't smack down?

No, we're just at 9 o'clock, but we're getting close because there's not much left.

Triple H was in the back with Braun Breaker, and Triple H is proud of him and anxious to see what he can do at this level.

And just as Braun is going to ask for advice on which of the offers to take, Raw or SmackDown,

here comes Paul Heyman.

And Braun leaves.

I'll come back later.

And Paul said, boy, that's a hell of a talent from a really wacky family.

And basically, the upshot of this is, is that Heyman tells Triple H and the rest of us that he sees it's not a good time to talk to Triple H right now.

So he's going to come back next week and he's going to bring Roman Reigns and The Rock.

So they got two and a half million people to watch this show with no Roman Reigns or The Rock.

And if people have a week to think about that next week, Roman Reigns and The Rock is going to be there.

Boy, howdy.

They do a good job of drawing it out.

You know, if it was AEW or most places, actually, probably in the last 30 years, even WWE, they would have had them on TV on this episode.

Yeah, they'd have finished it in seg three.

Yeah.

But then Bayley was in the ring for a promo.

She's a very likable babyface.

She can talk.

I'm not interested in any of the other girls in her mix.

But then the missing Dakota Kai came in.

Remember, she wasn't there when the

Carrie and Oscar and EO turned on Bayley.

And they had a heart-to-heart girl talk about all the issues and all their heartfelt emotions.

And

did this look like it belonged on wrestling or on lifetime television?

This was okay.

I'm not going to kill this.

Well, anyway, they cried and then they said they missed each other.

And Dakota misses you and me and EO.

And

I guess Bailey misses me and you and a dog named Boo

and then the Kabuki Warriors contingent of damage control came out and Dakota Kai milked turning on Bayley hitting her with a chair but instead ran the other girls off with a chair

so Dakota Kai crippled as she is is going to stick with Bayley against the other three that are fully

operational and not injured.

So you got one and a half against three.

It's still still uneven.

They need one more.

They got to find who that other party will be.

Well, technically, they need one and a half or for Dakota Kai to get well.

Yeah.

So maybe they'll get another girl and Darling Dagmar.

So then we had Pete Dunn and Master Bate

take on the team of DIY.

They went a minute to the break.

They came back and at least they beat Johnny's same face.

I don't know why DIY are not wearing their tool belts to the ring.

And shouldn't they have the hats with the little lights on like they're going down in the crawl space to investigate something?

Well, that's the thing.

What are they doing themselves?

Are they wrestling and winning matches themselves?

Isn't that what everyone is supposed to be doing in wrestling?

Well, they didn't win here.

So apparently they lost it themselves.

Lose it yourself.

LIY.

If somebody's got to do it, if nobody else is going to lose it for you, you got to step in.

It's a big question.

Why are they do-it-yourself?

In what way is anything they're doing a do-it-yourself?

Are they flipping houses?

They're not drawing any.

They might as well try to flip some.

So, anyway, we get to the main event.

Another qualifying match with Sami Zayn and Randy Orton.

Two baby faces.

Obviously, you know who's going to win here.

Sami Zayn is not going to beat Randy Orton.

And

I think Orton, Orton looks great, and Orton knows how to turn it on for the big show, and Orton is a smart worker and can get by.

But Orton, I think his patience for these trivial TV matches may not be what it once was

because he's doing just enough to get through this.

And you can't really tell except I'm watching, right?

Because they're stretching it out.

It was almost 10 minutes with the entrances and the break and the spots before they actually got this underway because they don't stick Randy out there for 30 minutes, right?

And it's a cold match with another babyface.

But they were doing a spot, and Randy hits the ropes, and Sammy's going to sidestep him and throw him out on the floor so Sammy can milk a dive or whatever.

And Sammy sidesteps and grabs Orton's head with his hand.

And Sammy made the motion like he's thinking Orton's going flying over the top rope.

And Orton went through the second and third and took a nice little safe bump to the ground.

It's almost like

he lost him in mid-throw.

And then Sammy on the floor went up to the top of the barricade around the ring to do a moonsault.

And Orton sidestepped it bigger than shit and kind of covered his face up like, fuck, he's coming at my face.

I think he was just not in the mood to have a lot of it on this particular night.

But finally, they had again

a WWE-TV match.

Two pros, nothing wrong wrong with it.

Orton hits the big superplex.

They go back and forth.

And finally, Orton hits the RKO out of nowhere, one, two, three.

And then as he's glorifying his victory and Sammy's disappeared, McIntyre comes in and they stand there and look at each other.

We go off the air.

I think this was probably the

living embodiment of less is more for this television program.

Wouldn't you agree, Brian?

It was the the opening segment and then a bunch of stuff you could miss.

I mean, the Heyman segment backstage sets things up next week.

Yeah, but the thing is, you can miss it, but

if you're a regular fan instead of somebody that's force-feeding themselves like we do, like fucking competitive binge eaters in a contest,

it's not hard to watch this.

There's nothing really stupid or offensive.

They aren't necessarily nobodies.

Like all the mistakes that AEW makes, put nobodies in a ring and leave them there too long.

They're not doing that.

They're all stars.

It's just, you know,

you watch the show to see what's going to happen in the main event picture, and everything else is,

you know, the parsley around that plate.

Well, this is the parsley around the week we've had.

We didn't cut out once here for this recording.

How about that?

No, but you've sounded like shit on my end on numerous occasions, but I didn't want to interrupt because people pay to hear me anyway.

That's right.

Keep sending those checks, ladies and gentlemen.

They don't really pay, do they?

They just kind of listen for free.

Not that you know of.

Hey!

Hey, what?

Well, if you'd like to listen to something else for free, I got the perfect thing for you you wouldn't want to pay for.

Brian last show, the drive-thru, is coming up in probably a few days.

Yay!

From now, whenever that may be.

And another one of these free shows, free wheeling and free balling, will take place next week.

On the on the airwaves.

On the what?

There we go.

On the airwaves, on the interwebs,

out there in the public ear.

Oh, you don't need to have a goddamn three-piece band do it.

Just

one horn.

What's this one?

Oh, it's a chew.

I thought it said alcohol.

Okay.

All right.

Well.

Alrighty, are you finished?

I think so.

Folks, thank God we're done.

Hopefully, you've stuck with us and enjoyed it.

If not, we'll try it again next time.

Until then, for Brian, I'm Jim.

Everybody else is bat shit crazy.

Thank you.

Fuck you.

Bye-bye, everybody.

Experience.

Get the experience.

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