Episode 515: The Astronomy Edition

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Hello again, everybody, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Jim Cornet Experience.

I, of course, am Jim Cornette.

Today it's the astronomy edition where we tell the difference between stars and black holes.

And joining me, not the person you expect because Brian Last has finally taken a day off to spend with his family.

It took him all morning just to find him, but now.

Joining me in his stead and his place, but never to replace him,

an author, a gadabout, a raconteur, and a part-time swashbuckler.

You may know him by his birth name, Solomon Grundy.

It's Brian Solomon, everybody.

Well, I'm glad to be here again.

I'm glad that Brian took a day off finally.

And we don't get Brian last today, but we get Brian second to last.

That's me.

Is this your all-about Eve moment?

Brian, you know, you're incredibly accomplished on the printed page, your regular columns over there

in the

Inside the Ropes magazine over the uk your fine books that you've written but but you know you're not you're not a

word on everybody a name on it i should say well you're a few words but you're not a name on everybody's tongue as a broadcaster and now you're branching as your big chance and the number one program on the entire planet are you nervous do you have the

Are you shaking like a dog shitting peach seeds?

No pressure at all since you describe it that way.

You know, I'm listening, I did NPR last week, so you know, I'm I'm moving up in the world.

You know, there are a lot of similarities between this program and the offerings from the fine folks over at NPR.

So that was a good warm-up for this.

I think you'll call it a lot of the politics.

Definitely the politics and some of the words.

We're going to use some of the same words they use over on NPR.

But I'll be, you were hitting me with excuses

before we went on the air.

Because first I said well you know you messaged me on the skype here and normally i'm on brian last time on the skype where if if we say we're gonna record something at 11 o'clock his skype comes on at 1102

and you had messaged me on it but i emailed you even earlier this morning because i'm an old man i get up early in the morning and It went to your spam.

And so that's what you think of me.

My email instantly goes to your spam folder.

Well, that's what my email account thinks of you, obviously.

It's trying to protect me from you for some reason, but it did go to spam.

And I felt terrible because I was, like I said, watching my email like a hawk, thinking, okay, maybe we'll do a little prep because I know I'm new to this and we don't work together everywhere.

No, we don't prepare shit over here.

So, you know, you're used to working for these professional outlets.

I have the Titan training, Jim.

That's what it is.

Yeah, you were in the corporate world.

This is the Outlaw Mud Show a podcast.

The less we plan, the more people like it, as a matter of fact.

But then you said, well, I hope I do good because I'm just now getting over the flu.

Are you coming in here?

Are you limping in?

Are you on crutches, Brian?

Are you half your best?

Or what percentage are you back from the grave?

Well, I've been a mess, and I don't want to harp on it because then, you know, you're going to use it as a

material to make fun of you over is what I'm fishing for here.

I don't quite sound myself.

If people listen to my own podcast, Shut Up and Wrestle, by the way, on Arcadian Vanguard, my voice is not quite up to full power.

I have kind of like that husky whiskey cigarettes thing going on.

As I said before, the Kathleen Turner voice, but

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know if you sound more like Kathleen Turner or maybe more like Peter Lori right now with the.

Yes, Jim.

Yes.

Yes.

If you had a German accent, you'd be right in in that range, tonal range.

I despise you, Jim.

Well, I hope you feel better as the program moves along here.

I think so.

I'll come into my full voice.

My fever broke yesterday.

I'm feeling more like a human being today.

I'm able to kind of stand up, get out of bed.

And so if I can do that stuff, then I can do this.

What did the fever get up to?

Did it get up past 104, 105?

It didn't get to 111 like ralph cramden but it got to a hundred and

almost 102 which had me a little worried oh so you're two degrees away from total brain vacancy is what you're saying right and some people would say i've already crossed that uh well kids we've not even taken into account the fever from last year but nevertheless um

Well, it's the weather for it.

I just want to make mention of the fact that I'm miserable again.

I've told the people, the regular listeners, the cult of Cornet out there, they know that winter time

is my least favorite season of the year because there's no leaves on the trees.

Everything looks gray.

All the leaves are gone and the sky is gray

and it's cold.

But the average temperature

here in Louisville, Kentucky,

on this particular season at this time of year, is supposed to be like low to mid 40s for a high and upper 20s for a low.

And over the next week, we're only going to get above freezing for a high, like one day.

It was single-digit fucking temperatures this morning with below zero wind chill.

When I took little Harley out for her morning ruse, it was so cold, she didn't even Russo.

She peed and turned around and went right back in.

Well, we didn't have it.

Yeah.

Well,

that's the thing is that I'm too old for this.

I live in Kentucky.

It's not supposed to be sub-zero.

and we got the heavy rain and the winds and then we get the dusting of snow and then another dusting of snow and then another dusting of snow it's just enough to i'm not as young as i used to be and i'm formerly fat

and at my now spelt 188 pounds i don't have as much insulation as i did before so i'm anxiously awaiting spring and the return of the leaves and the I love to sing about the moon and the June and the spring

and things like that people really love when you sing that song

well i don't care whether they like it or not i'm gonna sing it anyway yeah

but you're up there in connecticut how can you take how old are you i am 49.

well you got two more years and it's gonna go straight to your fucking balls the cold and the wind

And you're going to be wrinkled up and the shit's going to pull up in the shed.

How do you take it?

How do you remember what it was like 25 years ago?

I hated it.

I think I'm already there.

I mean, I don't know.

I think it's because I just grew up here.

When you grow up, you know, with something like that, you just get used to it.

I'll be honest with you.

If anything, it's gotten a lot more agreeable.

And I guess we could thank the complete destruction of our global environment for that, but it's gotten a lot more.

I mean, I can at least reap the benefits of it.

You know, I'm not going to be here when the world goes on fire, you know, hopefully in 50 to 100 years, but I can enjoy the warmer weather optimistic you're optimistic yeah i guess so it's gonna take that long i'm a glass half full kind of guy but you know the snowfall is a lot less than i remember when i was a kid i mean we haven't we just got some snow here where we got i mean maybe about six inches and it was the first significant snowfall we had in two years and it was gone in about two days because then it just started raining and temperature hit the 40s and the snow was all gone.

I mean, I remember when I was a kid, just, oh, my goodness, getting inundated.

People People in the Northeast will tell you, just blizzard.

I remember every winter that I lived there, having fucking snow and ice and misery,

gloom, despair, and agony.

Only

telling me I was 25 years too early.

Yeah, you should come back.

I think Huntington, Connecticut is ready for you to return.

We could be neighbors.

That's like 10 minutes from where I live.

Hey, man, that's okay.

You know, I'm sorry, but State Farm told you you needed a new neighbor.

Anyway,

I promised a big announcement this week on the program.

Last week was Brian Last, obviously.

And boy, this is going to be a thing.

When this gets clipped up for YouTube, if I call you Brian, then they're going to go, what the fuck's the matter with Brian Last?

He sounds like he's got them, somebody's choking him.

Oh, that happened last time.

I don't know if you saw.

I always make the mistake, which I should never do, of reading the comments on these things.

They always

never read the comments, right?

I try to listen to that because that did happen last time where people were like, who is this guy?

Like, what, or they were like, what happened to Brian?

He sounds sick.

Something wrong with him?

It is confusing.

Brian, Grundy.

There you go.

Solomon Grundy.

I'll just say Grundy all day.

And that way, for YouTube, it'll make sense.

They'll go, who the fuck is Grundy?

Because they might know Brian Solomon, but they won't know.

So you're just fucked.

Yeah, what else is new?

Okay.

Anyway, I promised a big announcement, and I don't want to be like Tony Khan and not come through.

And therefore, the time for the big announcement

is here.

You know,

Brundy,

it was back in September I announced and we launched the Midnight Express 40th anniversary celebration because as we've been talking about on the programs here for weeks now, and we've been going through intermittently some of the old

date books of mine from 40 years ago, we've just gotten into the formation of the Midnight Express in November of 1983 in Mid-South Wrestling.

And we launched the first ever Midnight Express and Jim Cornette action figure four pack of all of us, which, by the way, the limited edition of 2,000, there's around 500 still available.

JimCornet.com, the action figure set, the full color milestones book, the autographed photo and certificate of authenticity, still available there.

But we got so much great feedback on that from the people who got it and the people who wanted it, they loved it, that they can't live without it.

The only complaint we got was,

ha,

it's out of my budget.

I need to sell a kidney.

And actually, I wrote back on Twitter, somebody said, I'd need to sell a kidney.

I said, if you're selling a kidney for $229.95,

you need to reevaluate your entire life and the status in the community that you exist in, right?

Right.

But nevertheless,

so we have solved that problem.

For the more budget conscious in the audience, the Midnight Express 40th anniversary, the final chapter, part two and last,

begins on Saturday, February 10th at noon Eastern with tag team sets.

By special arrangement with figures toys, you can get a box set, a two-pack

of either your favorite combination of the Midnight Express, either Bobby Eaton and Dennis Condry or Bobby Eaton and Stan Lane, and that comes with an autographed photo, obviously by myself, by Dennis, by Stan,

not by Bobby.

We've covered that with the four packs, although there are

going to be like 42

of the Eaton and Condry two packs that do come with a picture with Bobby Eaton's autographs on it.

And that's going to be, again, the, so I'm warning people ahead of time, that's going to be the one that everybody goes for.

Unfortunately, for obvious reasons.

Those are the last ones we've got that Bobby signed.

But nevertheless, Eaton and Condry Condry and Eaton and Lane, same deal, comes in a display box, full color pictures of myself and the boys.

Each set, as I said, comes with an autographed photo.

And we will have a few deluxe sets with Bobby's signature on the photo and also a few more deluxe sets with the Milestones book included.

because we had 2,000 Midnight 4 packs, but we had to get 2,500 of the books to get the price break.

So there'll be slightly under 500 of these packages that include the book as well.

It's the same situation as the Midnight Four Pack again, in that we are eliminating the middleman

and Bobby's family and Dennis and Stan will share equally in the profits from this.

And by the way, I just talked, Brian, to Stan a couple days ago,

and

I just want to say to a member of his family family that I've known for years and loved to death,

his mother, Jean,

she is doing well.

She lives in her own apartment.

And she, this year, I can't remember the date.

I'm sorry about that.

She will turn 104 years old.

Wow.

Stan Lane has the most amazing genetics.

His father.

was well into his 90s when he passed away.

And remember, his his Stan Lane's father, when he was in his 60s, and Steve Kern's father, when he was in his 60s and was a service veteran and a prisoner of war in Vietnam, they did an angle with Roger Smith and Donnie Bass, the assassins on Memphis TV, and almost kicked the shit out of Roger and Donnie trying to get them down.

That's right.

Yeah.

But anyway, but I want to say hello publicly to Gene.

And here's the thing, the point I was going to make is that I can't believe when I was talking to Stan,

you know, he was expressing his gratitude for the fans that have bought the sets and the money that he got around Christmas time.

And I never thought I would say this about a 70-year-old man, but he said it was really helping in planning for the rest of his mother's retirement.

That is wild.

She will be 104.

Bless her little Pete Pickin' heart.

That's amazing.

It's almost hard to believe.

And that's almost like a running joke with me.

Whenever I'm talking about a person at that age, I'll always say, I wonder how their mother is doing.

But in the case of Stan Lane, I mean, we actually can wonder how she's doing.

That's impressive.

And like you said, it's the genetics, too, because then it gives you hope that maybe, maybe you may live to be that age too.

No, because

I'm not the offspring of Stan Lane's parents.

Not you, not you.

I mean the you, the hypothetical.

Nobody else is either.

As far as we know, Stan was an only child.

be he'll and that's he's worried about his retirement he said what am i going to do when i'm 105

so anyway

back to the figures the point is

by this coming weekend or so we will keep you posted you're going to be able to go to jimcornet.com and you'll be able to see pictures of of the the figures the sets you'll get all the information on how they come and also

And by the way, there's going to be less than a thousand.

Now, we talked about having 2,000 of the four packs, and we've sold around 1,500 so far.

I think we sold, what was it, 1,000 or 1,100 the first weekend.

There's going to be less than 1,000 of these.

I'm sorry, I would need to build an Amazon warehouse.

If we get any bigger, folks, less than 1,000 of the Eaton Condries and 1,000 of the Eaton and Lanes.

And

just since we were doing it,

And because Dr.

Tom Pritchard had a contract with Figures Toys also, so we were able to put this together.

There's going going to be 500.

And this is, by the way, folks, this is the first time and last time for all of this.

The midnight figures in the boxes with the whole nine yards and also

Sweet Stan Lane and Dr.

Tom Pritchard, the heavenly bodies, 500 of these one time only that also comes with an autograph picture of all three of us.

Just because, and they're in the heavenly bodies outfits.

Not obviously the heavenly bodies that you saw in the WWF in 93, but the heavenly bodies that you saw in WCW in 93, my original Smoky Mountain Wrestling tag team champions and original set of heavenly bodies until Stan retired and segued into announcing for the WWF.

It's funny how these things happen.

Yeah, it sure is.

Tom goes on to become the best trainer

in the business and et cetera.

Well, I always saw it as the heavenly bodies were like the evolution of the Midnight Express because the members kept changing.

So you had first

Dennis drops out and then Stan comes in and then Bobby dropped out.

And it was almost like when

Dr.

Tom got added, in a way, it was just sort of like the next step.

I mean, I understand why you didn't want to keep using.

Well, let me ask you that.

Was there a reason?

Well, because here's also,

we've talked about this on the show many years ago, but you weren't on it.

That when Dennis left, my first thought to replace him with Bobby was Tom Pritchard, who was a single in Alabama at the time,

because

my mind never went to Stan simply because he and Steve, to my knowledge at that point, were still teaming together in Florida.

But that's where Steve had like two months beforehand or whatever.

decided to retire for however long wrestlers retire for.

And he went into real estate.

And Stan Sully was a single and dusty.

So I was thinking about it.

They just bought Florida.

I was thinking about Stan Lane.

Well,

and the first thing I was thinking of, I bet Steve Kern's fucking thinking about him too, but then he told me.

So then they had Stan come up and boom.

And then when Stan wanted to retire, I said, well, now

is, you know, or whether when Bobby wasn't available,

you know, that's when I was able to get Tom then.

And then when Stan wanted to retire,

that's when Kevin Sullivan had suggested Jimmy Del Rey, who a lot of people have caught this, had actually done a job on Atlanta TV for the Midnight Express eight years before that, and then became one of the heavenly bodies.

So

it was freaky all the way.

And

when

Jerry Jarrett first made me a manager and brought me into the wrestling business, it was for the express purpose of managing Stan Lane and Steve Kern, the fabulous ones, who he had put together, but was going to turn heel on Jackie Fargo and remake the heel fabulous Fargo's with me as a rich kid manager.

But they fucked up and got over so good as baby faces that he never dreamed of switching them heel.

And he'd already got me in and made me a man.

So I squeaked in.

I was like, I dove headfirst and slid under the finish line.

Was there ever a thought to continue to use the name Midnight Express or

did WCW own it or anything like that?

No, and now we've got it trademarked.

But no, without Bobby, it couldn't be.

Okay.

I mean, I agree with that.

I just wasn't sure.

But yeah, and then if I'd have said,

you know, the Midnight Express and the people showed up and it wasn't a Midnight Express and we hadn't, we made a change on national television.

We could tell every single one of our fans at the same time.

And then it was rare that something like that works.

But,

you know, it well, you have a situation, you have Ray Stevens and Pat Patterson.

You have Ray Stevens and Nick Bockwinkle.

The common denominator, Ray Stevens, common denominator, Bobby Eaton,

Stan made it work when most people couldn't have.

But it and also it was it was easier because there were three people in the team counting me, so only one was replaced.

And it,

I mean, it it didn't even really work all the way, but it kind of did for Dick York and Dick Sargent on Bewitched, right?

Yeah.

But yeah, but it was rare that, you know, we were able to keep that momentum going.

But Stan, you know, took us in a whole different direction and made it work.

So,

but that was, that was a kind of a freaky for 15 years.

I was supposed to manage the fabulous ones that were formed at the same time as I was introduced into the business, but then they were such great babyfaces.

No, but five years later,

that team has come to an end.

And just at that point,

I need a new member of the hottest heel team in the NWA.

And then when Bobby unexpectedly gets renewed because everybody loved him and kept overruling Jim Hurd and nagging him to death,

then I finally got the guy that I had thought of to replace Dennis originally.

And then, you know, the heavenly bodies with Tom and then Jimmy Del Rey lasted until 19, so it's a 15-year period.

And are we including the WWF's new Midnight Express anywhere?

No, we're not.

Just curious.

I mean, nothing against those guys.

They were great.

You know, Bob Holly and what was it, Bart Gunn, right?

Bob Holly and Bart.

You know, and that's, we've talked about it so much.

Miscasting.

You can have, you know, you can have great movie stars in a rotten movie.

You can have great stars in the wrong role.

You can, you know, any simile you want to draw, but no, that was an unfortunate, which I went along with trying to be nice for once.

You see, that I had the reputation of being so hard to work with after the fact.

When I was being nice as it was going on.

Anyway, speaking of being nice, it would be nice if all of you will tune in next week and or check with JimCornet.com over the weekend, I would say, of the

21st or thereabouts, because Hotchkiss has been down with the flu.

And we're going to have pictures and banners and information on all of the tag team packs.

Like I said, less than a thousand eating in Condries, a thousand eating in lanes, a couple of different packages there, and a special one-time only

collector set of heavenly bodies and autographed photo.

There's going to be about 500 of those.

And they go on sale February 10th at noon Eastern if you want to start planning your calendars.

And the tag team set started $99.95.

So boy howdy for the budget-minded.

And it's still going to be a situation where the talent's going to be able to share in the proceeds from Sane.

And once again, you know, Stan's got a plan for his mother's retirement.

Yeah.

You know, I was reading a book

actually the other day.

It was

one of those books, 100 Things to Do Before You Die.

You heard about these?

I sure have.

Yeah, it depends where, you know, what age you are, how quickly you need to read the book.

Well, that's the thing.

I read the whole book, 100 Things to Do Before You Die, and Yell for Help didn't even make the list.

I couldn't.

Shitty book.

They really missed the boat there.

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But anyway, I got it emailed from we're still trying to catch up on the emails from over the holidays.

The regular folks out there, besides you, you're irregular, Grundy.

You tell me about it.

Yep.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, they know that I'm averse to getting on the technology when it's trying to be the holidays.

So I'm going to, but I got an email from Raphael,

who apparently lives in Brazil.

Well, he says, I'm a Brazilian fan.

So hold on, I'm going to wash this down here.

Maybe he's a fan of Brazilians.

Could it be that?

No, no, he's from Raphael because he's talking about an incident over here.

But anyway, and he says, hi, Jim and Brian.

So I don't know how the fuck he knew you were going to be doing a show.

Clairvoyance.

No, I think he's a Presbyterian.

My name is Raphael.

I'm a Brazilian fan, and I listen to the podcast every week during my gym workout hours.

There is this somehow obscure story about the first and only house show WWE had in Brazil.

Now, you used to work up there for the Evil Empire.

I don't remember him ever running Brazil.

No, I don't either.

I was there.

No, but if it was only one show, I could see how that would slip between.

Well, that's why I'm

saying that, you know, I don't remember ever of them going to Brazil, and you were there.

And so it appears that they've only, I'm sure, one of the

well-informed out there will let us know the exact records, but apparently, this is the first and only house show they ever had in Brazil.

The year was 2012,

and it involved Chris Jericho getting suspended from WWE at the time and some shenanigans.

So I thought it would be fun to share with you.

Because now, this,

again, this is apparently publicly checkable, right?

I don't, I think I remember something, but it might be also confusing with the, you know, Bradshaw got in trouble in Germany.

Were you around then?

Yes, I know that story.

I remember when that happened.

I was around then, yes.

So maybe I heard about this.

Maybe I was thinking it was that or whatever.

But we invite everybody to check Raphael's testimony here is what I'm talking about.

It was clear that WWE was betting a lot on Brazil given the amount of publicity that took place.

At the beginning of May, WWE sent The Miz and Kofi Kingston to Brazil in order to publicize the event that would take place in Sao Paulo.

You guys can check some photos of what I'm saying on this website, and then there's a link.

I don't know how to fucking convey that verbally.

The card of the event was actually pretty cool for the time, featured CM Punk, Chris Jericho, John Cena, The Miz, Dolph Ziggler, Beth Phoenix, and others.

The main event was a match between CM Punk and Chris Jericho.

And Jericho tried to get some heel heat by kicking and stomping the Brazilian flag in the middle of the ring with a lot of police officers and military staff in the seats.

Now,

and there is a picture.

He included a picture of Jericho.

I assume this is the Brazilian flag.

I'm not a flag expert, but it's obviously the raw signage is in the background,

and Jericho is holding up the flag.

But anyway, he says, because apparently

it's not new, it's not recent, it's not a midlife crisis that Jericho keeps having public relations

of mishaps and makes poor public choices in

his fight against authority, being the rebel rocker that he is.

So, Raphael says, after this villainous act by Chris Jericho,

the Sao Paulo military police were completely outraged and even arrested Jericho.

The confusion was only resolved after Jericho took the microphone and apologized to the public.

Because if he didn't, he would leave in handcuffs.

But the problems didn't stop there.

On his podcast, Talk is jericho he said that the company had to negotiate with the authorities so that he could leave the country

wow i don't i don't i don't know about that to be honest you maybe that might be a little glorification which would you i wouldn't talk about it on the podcast if i'd done something so stupid that they had to negotiate with authorities for me to leave a country not only that but

I've talked about my colonoscopy, but I don't know if I could go that embarrassing.

What?

I've never heard that before.

That's the crazy thing.

Like, I've never heard that story.

You would almost think if it slipped under the radar, maybe you leave it there.

Well, hold on, hold on here.

Wait a minute.

All of this, Raphael says,

left Vince McMahon completely furious.

And then Jericho was suspended from WWE for 30 days because of what happened.

You can fact-check that info on the official WWE website.

There's apparently it says wwe.com/slash inside/slash Jericho dash Brazil.

Does that make it?

Can you type that in, or if you do, will it electrocute you?

Are you waiting for some goddamn virus?

Jericho, I'll just do a little

bit www.wwe.com

inside Jericho, Brazil.

Sounds like a fucking South American porn movie to me.

So apparently, yeah, it did happen.

Chris Jericho, this is on www.com.

I'm not sure if it's the exact article, but Chris Jericho responds to Brazil incident.

And this is on their website

at a WWE live event in São Paulo, São Paulo.

How do you say that shit?

I think it's São Paulo.

São Paulo.

Chris Jericho reportedly denigrated the Brazilian flag during a match, suspended for 30 days, responded to the incident in his own words.

I made a bad judgment call in the course of entertaining fans in Brazil.

This is what he told to the website,

which you can take with a grain of salt because that could have just been written by a writer.

You can do that here, but you can't do that there.

I apologize to the people in the crowd for showing disrespect.

Now, listen to this.

During Jericho's match with the WWE champion,

the flag found its way into the ring somehow.

I guess it walked or something.

The flag found its way into the ring where Jericho crumpled it and then kicked it.

Local law enforcement stopped the bout, gave him the opportunity to apologize or face incarceration.

Yeah.

So that was, it was a bad move, Jericho said.

I did it with fans' entertainment in mind, and I'll accept the consequences for that.

So, yes.

Well, Ed Raphael concludes that WWE never returned to Brazil after this event because there were some legal ramifications.

And he says, so yeah, as a Brazilian fan, thank you, Chris Jericho.

But here's the thing.

Yes,

you know, you can get away with that shit

in the United States.

Well, he was trying to do it.

Yeah.

Well, but hold it.

You can get away with that in the United States, but even then, you've got to pick.

You couldn't.

Can you imagine if you'd have had a goddamn the iron chic

stomping on the american flag at an event at fort bragg

or you know or what an army base like we had one of the clash of champions one time

you know he says raphael says that the military police are in the stands yes If if I'm in a show in a foreign country where there's military police in the stands, I'm not sure I'm going to pull hair, much less stomp on a fucking flag.

He was trying to.

I've been in that situation in Louisiana when we were in the middle of a fucking, you know, angry crowd with little security.

We're like, heel, who, us?

Fuck it.

Headlock, right?

I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

No, I was just going to say, I think he was just, he was trying to do what Shawn Michaels had done in Canada.

I mean, that was like

the thing, I guess, that a lot of people have tried to copy.

Even somebody did it in AEW, where I think the Bucs did it, of taking the maple leaf flag and

up your nose, between your legs, humping it in the ring, the whole thing.

So I think that kind of opened the floodgates.

But you're right.

Sometimes you have to know, you have to, as they say, read the room.

That's the thing is that in between,

and once again, Canada.

What are you going to do in Canada?

They're going to issue you a fucking written citation to modify your behavior.

In Brazil or in Germany or wherever some place they go, they may fucking put you up in a firing squad because in between

Michael shoving the maple leaf up his nose along with half of fucking Colombia in the 90s and

this incident with Jericho in the Brazilian flag was the thing with Bradshaw, JBL.

And I mean, he...

It was the 90s and the attitude era, and at least you could say he'd, or maybe it was the early 2000s.

No, it was the 2000s.

Yeah, I was there.

And for people that may not remember it or know, you're talking about when he started goose stepping around the ring in Germany, aren't you?

Yes.

Yes.

And he found out fairly quickly that that is actually illegal now in Germany.

They went all the way with trying to fucking apologize for their shit.

And now if you do that shit out in public, they will throw you in fucking jail, which is maybe something we ought to.

take up over here at a later time.

But nevertheless, so that's the thing in the same company company because Bradshaw got all kinds of, he had to apologize and he got all kinds of heat and they were pissed.

And it's the same company and it's a legendary locker room story that now JBL, now that he's fucking on the golf course in Bermuda, can sit back and fucking laugh about.

But at the time, he was shaking like a dog shitting peach seeds.

So you would think that you would err on the side of safety

when you have the flag of the foreign country that you are in

and the military police representing that flag are in the fucking stands with guns.

Just a thought.

It's tricky because I've said it before.

It's almost like a running joke,

and this is an extreme example.

It's like, you know, you have some people that are working heel and it seems like a lot of times today when the heel actually makes people angry or actually gets people pissed off, which I guess is supposed to be their job, that's when they get in trouble.

In a situation like this, though, obviously there's a reason for it, but it's so odd to me now how we like our heels to be safe.

You know, it's like you don't want to cross that line.

You don't want to go too far.

You don't want to, you want us to be able to laugh with you or enjoy it without being actually

angry at you.

And that's kind of an odd thing that's changed in wrestling.

Part of the psychology has changed in that now everybody knows that whatever is being said chances are 99.9 percent probable that it's been okayed by the promotion and that nobody's being surprised by anything

whereas in every previous era of wrestling

and again you've got uncle dave tries to say oh well there's a you know there's exposés in the newspaper in the 20s that proves that everybody thought wrestling bullshit no it's a completely more complex issue than simple, superficial minds can understand.

In that, yes, people have always looked at wrestling like they've always looked at the games at the carnival, like they've always looked at a lot of other things.

Yeah, shit, but they didn't know.

They didn't know how.

They didn't know who.

They didn't know to what extent or in what way they know that goddamn David Copperfield didn't make the fucking elephant disappear or they didn't flatten.

Chris Angel with the steamroller, but they can't figure it out.

And what the fuck if it looks good enough?

And if you're just goddamn head of cocktail or in the right frame of mind or want to believe, you can fall into it.

That's always been the case.

And that's when a heel could offend people.

But there were still lines that couldn't be crossed because

people overlooked, no,

Hans Schmidt

didn't carry a Nazi flag

into the goddamn ring and, you know, do interviews where he praised his poor leader, the late Adolph, right?

He just was, he looked German.

His name was Hans Schmidt.

He was really French Canadian from Montreal.

He wore a metal helmet, sometimes with the Iron Cross.

The von Brauners did that, the Iron Cross way back in the fucking Kaiser days.

You were German enough that the people's mind filled in the rest.

And

same thing with the Japanese, because we'd been mad at them.

Just if they're Japanese and they admit it, even when they weren't, they admit they're Japanese and

they throw the salt in the eyes and they got that karate.

They're sneaky.

That was always the thing.

They were sneaky.

They would sneak.

They would bow.

Right.

They would bow and smile.

That was a big thing they would always do because they were trying to.

seem harmless, but they would sneak attack you.

And Pearl Harbor, I love the idea of Pearl Harbor being used as a a verb.

I think that's something that we're doing.

Well, yeah, that is a locker room term now.

Yeah, Gorilla Monsoon used in my days.

Well, Gorilla Monsoon used to use it all the time.

Yeah, but nevertheless, and whoever we were mad at, as you know well, the Middle Eastern contingents over the time, the Sheiks and the Arabs and the terrible Turks and whatever.

But you couldn't just come out and say, yes, I'm in support of Adolf Hitler.

I don't know.

Mussolini may not have had as much heat over here as the other ones did.

It would be hinted at.

Although the Iron Sheik did used to mention the Ayatollah, I think, directly.

Well, Ayatollah Khomeini.

Actually, that's why he had nuclear heat and didn't give a shit whether people tried to come after him or not.

And they got away with it because

I think, honestly, I don't think the Iron Sheik would have flown

20 years earlier because more people were smart to the business.

It wasn't that there was fewer people that would be offended.

It says there are more people smart to

show, like the TV programming people or whatever

rather than it would have caused a serious issue definitely in the 50s and certainly on local TV in the 60s even 70s

but nevertheless so that that's the point is that

you've got to know you can't you know

You can't go in front of the goddamn leaders of the country and or their representative with guns and go that far.

But that's why heels have always been offensive because you went far enough that the people's mind would draw the rest of the picture and they would imagine from there.

There, my fucking idiot ex-mailman thankfully got transferred out of here before I had to fucking go get a post office box to have everything rerouted.

He believed Barack Obama was a Muslim.

You know, he's a Muslim.

What the fuck?

Put your fucking truck on out of here.

Because to a simple mind, the name and the fact that he's not white

indicates that he should be wearing the fucking turban and a blah, blah, blah, or whatever, because they're simpletons.

So all you needed to do in

any previous generation

was look the part,

be visually what they are offended by, scared of, afraid of, mad at, whatever,

and then

let their minds fill in the rest

and not get kicked off of television.

No, definitely not.

That reminds me of Muhammad Hassan.

What they did.

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, there you go.

Thank you.

You know, he was

a shame.

He had a wonderful gimmick as Mark Magnus, this year's model, fucking physique like that, wearing black pleather pants and the jet black hair.

He's fucking Italian.

He's got a beautiful girl in a bikini next to him at ovw they take him they make him a fucking arab and have him try to cut people's heads off after a terrorist attack

i remember i don't know if you had ever heard this but i remember when they were bringing him up and this tells you all you need to know when they were trying to create that persona for him the way it was explained to me because i would sit in on these writing meetings that I didn't want to be in with all the TV writers.

I mean, they would stick us in there like a fly in the wall.

And the idea of Muhammad Hassan was they wanted to play off of those old stereotypes like the Sheik, the original Sheik or the Iron Sheik.

But I think they were even more thinking of the original Sheik.

But this was their words.

This was their description.

They didn't want it to be the stereotype of what you would think.

They wanted him to be intelligent, well-spoken.

He could speak English.

They wanted him to be able to do his own promos, and they also had Davari with him.

So they wanted to have almost like an Americanized version of the Sheik is what they were going for.

It was just a strange balance that they were going for.

And of course, it blew up in their face.

I can believe that the Sheik might try to fucking behead somebody in modern times, you know, but at the same point, I can't believe their timing.

And I can't believe they thought they could get away with it at that particular point in time.

But I also,

again, the idea of a modern shei is wonderful, but the guy was fucking Italian.

Fuck.

Thank God at least he was educated.

He's a principal of a fucking school and highly respected educator up there in New York State.

I guess as respected as any smart people in New York State.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute now.

All right.

But anyway, speaking of...

Speaking of people that were banned off of television, I got to talk about this before we get into the television shows that should have been banned this week.

As Mama Cornette used to say, like a bad penny, he turned up.

The person who has not been seen since instigating the fiasco that, when history is written, will have led to the direct downfall of Tony Khan and his collection of action figures,

Jungle Jack,

has turned up again, has shown his face out in public, such as it is,

and basically debuted in a surprise attack.

So shocking, a guy in a mask and dressed in black comes over the rail, never seen that before for New Japan Pro Wrestling.

Brian, you guys over in the wrestling news department and your shutting up and wrestling program, you're covering this.

this fluid situation, aren't you?

What do we know about the

re-emergence of Jungle Jack Off?

Well, there was so much going on that night, too.

There was a TNA pay-per-view.

There was collision.

There was Battle of the Belt.

And then

there's other things.

And then there's this New Japan show, which was in the United States.

And

Jack Perry shows up, which I don't think was, I mean, I certainly did not see this coming.

I don't know if maybe it was just...

because I was down with the flu, that I didn't have my finger on the pulse as I normally do.

You were down with the sickness?

Yes, exactly.

Something like that.

But I think that when he, I mean, the minute that he showed up and tore up the AEW contract in the ring with the giant AEW logo on it,

I just remember seeing everybody online.

Right.

Megan.

Do you think that Megan and all the staff that would have been in charge when he signed his contract, do you think they had all their contracts drawn up with a four-inch tall AEW logo on the top of the front page?

I think that's standard for business, isn't it?

Yeah, that's standard for the industry, clearly.

And other people were saying, well, if it was that easy to do, I mean, God, think about all the other people that would just tear the contract up and just,

that's it.

Okay, I can go back now, you know.

But I think, I mean, part of me was thinking, I mean, clearly

it's a work, obviously, because you've got New Japan working with all elite wrestling and all that stuff.

But part of me was thinking, well, you know, if it had been a real situation,

it wouldn't have been that he got out of his contract because he physically tore up the paper in the ring.

It could have been that maybe the company had released him for, you know, whatever reason.

I mean, God knows they had reasons.

And then he was doing this performative act as a way of kind of like showing the world.

that he was done with the company.

I don't know.

He's a rebel, too, Brian.

He's a rebel and he'll never be any good.

He's a rebel and he'll never do what he should

because he wears leather and has long stringy hair and a famous dad.

But, nevertheless, it that's

the tearing up of the contract, of course, is symbolic to the

demented minds that are following this and New Japan's half-empty American building, wherever it may have been, or whatever.

And then, also, and you didn't mention, he also had a black armband with white

writing scapegoat.

Right.

So he's clearly, he's clearly designed to play the victim in this melodrama.

And otherwise, he's grown his beard out.

Is he trying to look like an adult now?

You know, you know, the first time that fucking Jack Perry had to shave.

Oh, my God.

He was so excited.

He could hardly, he could hardly contain himself because he was in fucking a senior year of high school.

But

he's grown his scraggly beard out and he's wearing, I don't know, was he dressed like Fidel Castro?

Is his new gimmick, homeless Jack?

And he, because of his being suspended since the first of September, he's been living in a cardboard box under an overpass.

Is that Or did he go back to the jungle and now he's communing with the apes?

I've heard that a human being, if done right, can commune with an ape.

I think Jane Goodall communed for years, didn't she?

But nevertheless,

so what is his gimmick?

He's a homeless bum that came over the fucking rail and beat the shit out of some guy in New Japan and tore up his contract.

No, I don't think Tony has released him because

Tony never releases anybody.

I'm sure this guy sabotaged their biggest show ever and fucking directly led to Tony having to fire his biggest star ever, which gave the WWE one of their biggest stars in years ever.

And so he sent him home, but he's still been paying him.

Right.

Nobody said anything about your suspended without pay because then old Jungle Jack off would have been suing

because after some point in time, you need to shit or get off the pot.

But Tony never does that.

Every time somebody fucks up, he sends them home and sends them their check not to fucking be around him.

So he has to confront it.

So now after four full months,

maybe Tony says, you know what, I'm still mad at you.

Are you looking?

Because look at all this shit that he directly caused, the Jungle Jack directly caused to be said

to the domino effect of their business.

All these, all this embarrassment.

So Tony's probably said, well, you go wrestle for New Japan.

And he's still paying him.

I'm sure somebody proved me wrong.

And I'll admit it right here on the air in front of Jungle Jack and everybody.

But until then, I'm sure Tony Khan is paying this fucking asshole that sabotaged his business, tried to on more than one occasion, finally did.

And now he's saying, well, go wrestle for New Japan because,

you know, yeah, that way I don't have to deal with this.

And,

you know, that's,

and again, he's going to act like he's the scapegoat to all these fucking smart marks with their heads stuck up their ass.

That's my assessment of Jungle Jack Perry's debut for New Japan.

So he can be over there with these similar-minded individuals doing mindless gymnastics and dumb shit.

And let the guy that was fired from

the goddamn Toledo Mud Hens

because of him go on to fucking be the star hitter for the New York Yankees.

I'm sorry, Brian Last.

The Mets.

Wait a minute.

It's Brian Solomon now.

Listen, the no, I sent that to Brian Last, who you know is going to listen to this.

Oh, yes, true.

I was going to say, people are confused enough as it is.

You got to make sure you keep the name straight.

Well, you should, you know, did you speak to your mother about giving you somebody else's name?

And by the way, I grew up a Mets fan, too, so that's why I thought maybe you might have been.

I mean, it could have worked both ways.

My grandfather converted me into a Yankees fan, but, you know, I grew up a Mets fan.

Well, it's still baseball.

It is.

And

that's something that Jungle Jack better remember.

It's still goddamn baseball.

Yeah, and I think, you know, for a split second when I saw him pop up and I saw people talking about it, for a split second, I didn't think he'd been released because, like you said, I don't think anybody gets fired over there.

But for a second, I thought...

Well, I thought maybe it's possible.

I was thinking that maybe he had walked out voluntarily.

Maybe he had said, you know what?

Maybe he had felt the pressure of all of this, all of this that he had wrought, and he, you know,

felt bad about it or felt kind of responsible

and just took his ball and went home kind of a thing.

I thought for a moment, but then when he took out two things, when he took out the giant contract, and then also knowing that it was New Japan, that you know that the two companies work together, if it had been some completely random,

although, I mean, I shouldn't say that because they have AEW wrestlers popping up in completely random indies all the time.

But, you know, very quickly it became a

completely random indies popping up all the time on AEW television.

It works both ways.

There you go.

But nevertheless, you know, and so the point is also, I guess now he's he's roughened up around the edges.

He's got the beard.

He's got the hair.

He's got the frumpy clothes and the grubby attire, and that's going to show that he's tough.

He's a jungle man.

That's what he is.

Well, and not only that, but because he's been made the scapegoat, scapeboat, sole scapeboat,

because he's been made the scapegoat, I'm sure that that has hardened him mentally and put him through all kinds of stress and agony.

And you can tell, but he hasn't had a good night's sleep, Brian.

Hadn't had a good night's sleep in probably weeks and weeks and weeks because of all the worry and the frustration over this, over where his next check was coming from.

Wait a minute.

He knew.

He knew it was going to come every week in his mailbox.

But

I guarantee you, he hadn't been sleeping good.

And you know, here's why, because he doesn't listen to our program.

That's obvious, or he would have learned something.

And he doesn't know to go to the people at Helix Mattress.

Now, I know you're here.

You're new on the program here, Solomon Grundy, but you certainly, because of your relationship with the Arcadian Vanguard Network family, you have a Helix mattress somewhere in and around your vicinity, maybe out on the back poach?

Oh, plenty of them.

Yes.

Yeah.

They're all over the house.

You have a mattress in every room of the house.

Yeah.

It's like Princess and the P.

I just stack them up.

Well, I'm certainly not going to ask about your particular preferences or piccadillos, but there are at least two rooms in my house I don't have a mattress in.

But folks, if you'd like a mattress in every room of your house, you can't pick a better one than the Helix sleep mattresses over there.

They, because we've been talking about our fine friends over at Helix for years.

And so many of the fans have written in and said that they have slept like sleeping in a cloud, like sleeping in the arms of a baby or something like that.

That doesn't sound sleeping.

Do you sleep in a baby's arms?

I wouldn't want to sleep in the arms.

Rolling in my sweet baby's arms.

Rolling in my sweet baby's arms.

But it doesn't say anything about sleeping.

That sounds hard, though.

But if you have a baby sleeping in your arms, well, throw the thing on a Helix sleep mattress because the baby will be more comfortable and you won't get a bad back.

And every Helix Elite mattress comes with a 15-year manufacturer warranty.

Every Helix regular mattress comes with a 10-year warranty.

They've all got the 100-night free risk trial.

That means you can try out any type of risky behavior on these mattresses for 100 nights and you won't catch anything.

And furthermore, Helix supports the military and the first responders, the teachers and the students.

They get a special discount.

And I wonder if that includes sex professionals, because actually they're using the Helix mattresses and giving lessons to the various clients they have and proper technique and

positioning.

Yeah, I don't think they give lessons, though, do they?

I mean, I wouldn't know from experience.

Well, no, that's that's a separately contracted situation there.

You have to ask for that from a different location.

Okay.

But you should never have to compromise on comfort.

And that's why Helix has the mattress with the cooling technology that helps regulate your body temperature.

This thing will cool you down where you will look like a body in a morgue.

I mean, you start turning blue.

It's and shivering.

And then finally, when you get down to about 72 degrees, then they can use use you for human sushi presentation.

Have you ever seen that, Brian?

Stace and I were up in New York City, and this club owner invited us in to observe the naked sushi.

The girl has to lay there almost motionless or elsewhere all the shit falls off.

And then it's a messy presentation.

Right.

But apparently it's a highly paid.

She was making more money than I was.

And I was.

I was making a lot of money at the time.

Well, I thought when you said human sushi that it was like sushi in the shape of a human body or something.

No, no, you have to pay it at a completely different extra fee for that at a completely different company than Helix.

They got out of the dead body sushi business long ago when they got approved by the Better Business Bureau.

But all you got to do, folks, is go to helixsleep.com, H-E-L-I-Xsleep.com,

and you take the quiz and they just ask you a bunch of probing personal questions until finally they figure out the exact mattress that you want, and then they send it to you.

And you get to try it out for a while.

And if you're a real prick and don't like it, you can send it back, and they'll give you your money back because they're way, way too nice over there at Helix for my thoughts.

But nevertheless, I can save you some money, and I'll tell you how.

I don't know about Solomon over there, but I've got connections.

And if you go to helixsleep.com

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With the two free pillows, it makes all the difference.

If you've got somebody that you'd like to silence, they go to sleep on one, you put the other one over the top of them no about three minutes and you know light is rain i don't think the helix people really bargain for all this i first uh sexual training now you're advocating murder i i don't know if that's really what their product is designed for i mean i i can't speak for them copy you got different copy brian you got last week's copy they've

maybe that's what hey i'm new here jim so if you know if you want to smother somebody with a pillow i mean fine whatever they changed their whole business plan uh in the last week, and they've come out with a new line now.

We're going in a different direction, kids.

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Use the code helixpartner20.

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Hopefully, you're fine, folks, out there, and you won't stray too far to the dark side.

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Okay, so I think we've kind of beat around the bush long enough, as they say.

I think it may be time to finally.

Now, are you saying that the Philippic sleep mattresses are stuffed with straw?

They quit doing that three or four years ago.

Are you talking about flammable?

Is it flammable or inflammable?

I thought you were going to do something entirely different with that setup, and I'm glad that you didn't.

But what I was trying to say is that it might be time to actually talk about some of these TV shows that we had over the weekend from WWE and from AEW, don't you think?

I guess should we take it in chronological order?

I guess it'd be chronological order or elsewhere it would be in order of which stunk the most.

And chronological order will bring us to SmackDown on Friday night, which, in my opinion, stunk the least.

What about you?

Yeah, no, I would agree with that.

I think that's the best way to put it.

First of all, I watched it very closely from beginning to end because I knew that was your first mistake.

But because I knew we were going to be doing this, I didn't,

you know, I'm normally covering these shows anyway for the wrestling news, so I'm always monitoring what's going on.

But I really gave it, you know, my extra added attention.

And I have to say, well, see, that's that's where you went wrong because Brad last should have told you.

He said, Look, Cornette's not going to watch half this shit, right?

But see, that's where I step in.

I can fill in the blanks.

You know, they do, it's, it was a decent show, and I think that they're doing a halfway good job over there at SmackDown.

It's not, it's not, it's an enjoyable show.

It's a little overly long, I think, but but I mean, they, they, it's entertaining, I would think, especially for their fan base.

They're getting good reactions.

Saska, Solomon Grundy, you are a man, the glass is half full.

I'm a man, the glass is all the way empty, and it's broken and probably fucking poison you if you try to drink out of it.

Well, I'll put it this way.

As far as contemporary wrestling goes, and this is coming from somebody who does a podcast all about vintage wrestling every week.

As far as contemporary wrestling goes, in my opinion, I think for whatever it says for the business, a show like SmackDown is probably the best that we're going to get.

I'll agree with that.

Again,

the bar has been ever lowered.

No,

we're beating around the bush here.

All right, let's beat the bush down.

Let's beat the bush down and set it on fire.

SmackDown for January the 12th.

They were in Lincoln, Nebraska.

That was one of Ric Flair's better towns.

I'll just leave it at that.

But out comes, first thing you see, Grayson Waller

in that

ridiculous

costuming that he someone believes is flattering for him or heat.

It gets heat with me.

I'm not sure it gets the right kind of heat, but whatever he's wearing, and he's got Austin Theory with him, my boy Austin Theory.

What have they done to him?

They've paired him with what may be WWE's version of our little dog pockets.

This grace i don't know

it on any measure of the scale well we'll talk about it later on when when theory is out there but uh i do have to have issue a correction i i do when i've made a mistake when i've offended people i do you know

apologize and apparently a lot of people have been offended by me continuing to call Kevin Patrick the English guy.

And they have written, say, he's not fucking English, he's Irish.

I'm not sure I'm doing the accent right, but apparently he's Irish.

So we have them to blame.

But I apologize to my friends in Merry Old England.

They did a package from last week, the triple threat match, where Roman and company came out and slaughtered all the top babyfaces.

And then they had a clip from after, supposedly in the back, where,

you know, Paul told Roman about the four-way being made by Nick Aldiss for the title with him against the top three babyfaces.

And Roman says, fix it.

Right.

That was last week.

So now we're supposed to see Grayson Waller against Cameron Grimes, but we come out of that package and Solo and Jimmy Uso are beating up Grimes in the aisleway and the security guys.

And Waller in theory just bailouts.

They don't get any.

And that's where Heyman takes the microphone.

And this was a Heyman-heavy show, which actually isn't a bad thing.

No, not at all.

Yeah.

And he said, we're not the bad guys.

This James Bond want to be Nick Aldous is the bad guy.

He made the four-way to guarantee that Roman loses the title.

See, now they're trying to say, okay, this is going to be the chink in his armor.

Right.

This is the weakness of the unbeatable.

Three guys are going to beat him.

But anyway, that makes Aldous the bad guy.

And then Aldous takes the microphone.

And you and I have talked about this.

He's, He's, I mentioned last week, I didn't like him being so calm and cool and collected while three of the most valuable members of his roster were being slaughtered in front of his face.

But I like the idea that he's the snooty,

fucking hard-nosed, you know, I'm the general manager and I want to get over for me.

I'm selfish.

This is all about me, me.

And I'm not going to brook any of your

interference, Heyman.

And he says, this is not a talk between equals to Heyman.

Like, I'm your boss, motherfucker.

The four-way is set, and the Bloodline aren't going to ruin another main event tonight because they're in it.

And he books AJ and LA

and RO

against Solo and Uso

and Romano.

Roman Reigns.

And Paul tries to answer him by taking the microphone and Aldous won't let go of it.

That was great.

That was great.

Yeah.

He's in control of the show here.

Paul says, Roman's not here.

And Aldous says, you're right.

So find a third guy if you like, or it's two on three.

Yeah.

And the best part was they got this all done in 10 minutes.

It was great.

Go ahead.

No, they did.

And I was saying this to you before, but I love what they're doing with Aldous.

I wasn't sure in the beginning.

I had the reaction a lot of people did, which is, well, they're kind of wasting this guy.

What is this?

You know, he's a wrestler.

He's accomplished.

But he's really, they're doing something very different.

It's, we've talked about how the authority figure thing is so completely done to death.

And usually they're either evil or they're completely ineffectual.

I mean, I like Adam Pierce, but his whole job was just to just yell and

exasperatedly wave his arms around while

he's the nice guy who's trying to keep this, you know, this troubled student class

in line, whereas Aldous is a cutthroat, evil businessman out for himself and not any particular side of the wrestling rust.

But they're not doing the evil thing where he's like one of the McMahons.

It's not that kind of a thing.

It's like he is.

in charge and he's going to make it clear, I run this show and I'm going to do what's best for this show.

And I think it's cool to have a character like that because we've always talked about how lame it comes across sometimes when they try to act like the wrestlers run the show.

Because look, we all know the wrestlers don't run the show.

So it comes across as really just annoying when the wrestlers are just running everything and no authority figures can control anybody.

And with Nick Aldous, it seems like he's there.

in storyline.

He represents the company.

He represents WWE.

We run the show.

You're going to do what we want you to do.

And not even Roman Reigns is above that.

And I think doing that, it keeps Roman Reigns fresh and it keeps the bloodline as fresh as it could be because they were, you know, definitely becoming stale because now they have this new wrinkle where now they have a boss who is not going to just kowtow to whatever they want.

But I think you'll find out over a period of time, and I'm pretty sure Aldous will be in this spot for a while.

You'll find out over a period of time, Aldous wants to run the fucking WWE.

And as soon as he's not evil, like I'm a madman and I want all the heels to win, he's like, I'm going to run this whole fucking thing.

This could be very interesting.

Yeah, and I hope it leads to him actually getting in the ring and working a program.

And I mean, I may sound ridiculous, and maybe I'm totally off base here, but I could potentially even see this leading to his eventually challenging Roman Reigns himself.

You're not only off base, you're not even in the ballpark.

Tell me why.

I guarantee you, you may see Aldous do physical things,

and you may even see Aldous put into

a match.

A la Vince was put in matches or whatever.

I don't think you will ever see Aldous

wrestle with any regularity or for any other reason than a premium live event after a long, long period of time.

He knows that he's closer to the end than the beginning on his wrestling career, but he's got a whole new thing that he's found here and that they've found in him.

And if they don't,

you know, just

they should lean away from the fact that he's been a wrestler rather than lean into it, except in terms of him putting a foot down because physically he's, you know, big enough to stand eye to eye with people.

But boy, they ought to wait and make the people pay it.

It's something.

It's Austin and McMahon.

Yes.

You know, It's not, you know, Vince is going to be wrestling on Raw this Monday.

What the fuck?

No.

Right.

So I think they're going to lean into that aspect of it.

I don't want, I don't think he should want to be just not just a wrestler, but I don't think he would want to wrestle with enough regularity that it would not be special for a long, long time.

But I think,

and then, you know, at the same time, then he can be presented as a retired wrestler, but he wouldn't be on the same level as currently active, you know, competitor.

Yeah, and we know, obviously, Adam Pierce also had a wrestling background, but I know Adam Pierce has been very public in saying that he never wants to wrestle again.

But in the case of somebody like Aldous, you know, the average WWE fan, they have no idea what his background is.

They don't know if he ever wrestled before.

And I think, like you said, even if it's a special one-time only or very rare thing, the idea of, and once he shows the people what he can actually do, I think a lot of WWE fans will be really surprised because they don't really see him that way.

I don't know whether they should be surprised.

Think about this.

25 times more people are seeing him now than have seen him before.

Should he show him he's a great wrestler?

It depends on whether he's against a babyface or a heel and what he's fighting for.

Should he show him he's a great wrestler or should he be in a position where they're finally going to get this motherfucker's ass kicked and I want to see it?

We'll see how far it takes him to get there but i would i would not want to see him in tights for months and months this is just getting started right speaking of people i don't want to see in tights for months and months did the

the tag team match between the lwo and angel and herbert i'm going to make one comment on it they showed a picture the graphic of all four of them

match coming up next going to the break and besides the fact that one guy has a full beard otherwise all four of those pictures could have been the same fucking guy

this is these are guys with the same size they have the same color hair

they're the same

style of wrestling

and they look the same and fast forward it's it's a problem across i i mean aew is even worse with it where there's just the they don't make enough of an effort or at least what the effort that they used to make to really visually differentiate people.

You know, there's a lot of similarity in the presentation of a lot of wrestlers today.

Well, but you know what?

I mean, before all it took was at Guerrilla, there would be the sign no matching tights, which means if you're wearing fucking red and your opponent's wearing red, somebody go fucking change.

And otherwise, everybody looked different.

Everybody on the roster looked and was different shape, different features, different gimmick, different obvious visually.

And we got a bunch of people in in a certain size range and a certain method of wrestling these days and just about everywhere.

But nevertheless, they started a show-long

journey now for a quest for Heyman

to try to find the third partner for their six-man for the main event because they go to the back and Uso's freaking out.

Oh, shit, where are we going to get it?

Paul's like, hey, I'm going to find somebody.

All these people kissing my ass trying to join the bloodline.

Don't worry.

And Usa says, well, I am worried.

And they look at Solo and Solo says, I never worry.

So now that's what this is going to be, you know, throughout the night is Heyman's trying to find the partner.

But then they go back to Nick Aldiss and he's there with Carmelo Hayes in his office and Nick's putting him over.

Yeah, you know.

And just when Carmelo Hayes gets to start to ask about the rumble, here comes Waller and Theory.

And they barge in and argue into a match with Theory

tonight against fucking Carmelo Hayes, which, as we'll talk about in a few minutes, will lead to no good.

And then we go back to Heyman,

and he comes up to Carlito and his group of friends, Zelina and the other people.

And Paul offered, and this was, because nobody, you know, nobody is a better smarmy

con man, talk out of both sides of his neck, as JYD would say,

person than Paul Heyman.

And he's got an apple, which he polishes and gives to Carlito.

And, you know, do you want to, you could come and be the partner of the blah, blah, blah.

And old Carlito takes the apple and blows him off.

But how great is Heyman in this shit?

Yeah, he's he's great in this kind of stuff.

And I love when they give him this kind of thing to do.

It's incredible to me that after all these years, you would think that it would get that people would get tired of it or that it would get, but he's always, he always finds a way to keep it interesting.

His reactions to things.

I mean, even just at ringside, when sometimes, and maybe I shouldn't be doing this, but sometimes I'll be watching him instead of the match just to see his reaction.

Yeah, every little thing that happens, you know, he'll react like it's the end of the world, which is great.

Well, anyway, point being,

you know, so far his first,

his first effort to find somebody has led to no good.

So now

they actually had, and maybe you can explain this to me.

You've sat in on some of those production meetings.

You've known some of these,

the writers of the actual

sketches that they do.

Why did they have Butch

and Tyler Bate have this phony conversation in a fake coffee shop about meditation and British strong style.

You said you watch things very closely.

Can you explain this conversation to me?

I did, and I watched this particular segment very closely too.

This is an example of the kind of thing that I've said before too.

I know you guys have said that I don't have much use for on these shows.

And it's not the fault.

of the talent.

I actually, I don't, it was like I was watching a scene in train spotting or something.

That's what it felt like to me.

But then I started thinking, okay, so we've got these two guys.

They're in, I guess, a coffee shop, and they're having this heart-to-heart, in-depth conversation about life.

In front of a video camera,

national television.

Multi-camera.

So you got multi-camera shoot.

You've got the wide shot, whatever they call it, the main shot.

Then you've got one camera on Butch, one camera on Tyler Bate.

They're just supposed to be just, they're kind of rekindling their friendship.

And that kind of stuff just never works for me.

And if I have to say, believe it or not, it's one thing that I think AEW at least tries, tries to do differently than WWE is that when they do these backstage things, they always at least try to explain why there's a camera there.

Whereas WWE just gave up.

It's just, you are just watching a television show and there's no apologies made for it.

And that's it.

And on AEW, they give you a reason to have the camera there.

They just don't give you a reason why the guy on camera can't see the 10 feet off camera.

The three people coming to beat the shit out of him are standing right there.

Right.

You know why the camera.

Or one, one gripe at a time.

Yeah.

You just don't know why the wrestlers are there in front of the camera, but that's different.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

So then, Bianca,

Bianca fought Bayley and Bianca won.

You have any thoughts on it?

That is true.

That occurred.

That is true.

I was saying before how I think that, you know, SmackDown, they'll do these things on there where they give you a great match.

And

I have nothing really to complain about it, but it just feels like they just go too long.

And maybe it's because they have a lot of time to fill.

Maybe it's because I get spoiled watching old TV wrestling where the matches all have 10-minute time limits.

I don't know what it is.

I don't know if my attention span is.

shortening as I get older.

But after a while, it just becomes, I don't know, you have two very talented wrestlers in there.

They're great.

I like Bailey.

I love Bianca Belair.

She's incredibly athletic.

I thought they did a fine job.

It's just, couldn't we have done this in half the time that they did it in?

Well, here's the thing, Brian Last and I discussed this quite a bit.

And with all the WWE programs, especially Raw, because it's three hours, but even with SmackDown.

You know that except for the main event potentially and whatever's going to happen that they present the matches as, okay, these are the kind of blase people.

They're going to have a match now, but coming up is the big stars are going to talk to you.

And that's the thing I said at the top of the program.

I teased it.

I said, see, it's an astronomy show, the difference between stars and black holes.

The WWE is running away with this thing by showing them star after star after star and making new stars and elevating people.

And all they have to do is fucking talk to you.

And then they just say, let me talk talk to you.

And then they just put some of these fucking matches in to fill time in between people talking to you.

Whereas in AEW,

nobody is, they've lost their major stars to injury or ineptitude.

And most of the people on the roster are not as over as they once were.

And they are wrestling you to death.

And it's all watching car wreck highlights over and over and over again.

And nobody stands out.

There's no clear stories, and they're not elevating people.

They're de-escalating them.

See,

WWE is boring us to death by having stars talk to us, and the people are eating it up.

And AEW is killing their roster, and not even softly with this song, but with brain damage and fucking spinal injuries.

By giving us nothing but car wrecks that look all the same and nobody gives a shit anymore.

That's where this whole thing is going.

Well, one thing I'll say about the match, though, that

I do think would be fair to point out.

You know, people talk about the women's division and AEW and being a mess and it is.

And they've trained their fans into not caring about it.

I mean, I was at World's End and I mean, that is a fact.

I mean, people just, for whether they're right or wrong, that is sort of the time when everybody just checks out.

And that, that's not the case with WWE, if you notice.

Like, people really see these women as stars.

They perceive this

as a big deal.

And that is to their credit that they've done that.

They have made people care about women's wrestling.

No, compared to the LWO against Angel and Herbert, this was a main event in any arena in the country, but I have a limited amount of time.

But then talking about talking,

They had earlier in the night, they had had Logan Paul had cut a promo on Kevin Owens, and he, that cast that he's wearing is illegal, and I may sue or what old-time heel shit.

And then Owens does a promo about Logan Paul.

So the broken hand and the cast isn't an advantage.

And I want to talk to him face to face next week on the Kevin Owens show.

So they're going to have Logan Paul, international star and

man of crypto coin and fucking Big Mouth Owens talk to us next week.

And

that's what they did.

And then here came Bobby Lashley and the street prophets.

And guess what they were going to do to us, Solomon Grundy?

They were going to talk to us.

Let me talk to you.

But now here is

where the segment, the talking died.

Because I'm going to describe what I saw, Brian.

Tell me if you disagree or if for some reason you think maybe there was a some kind of chloroform leak from the hospital next door that put the fans to sleep.

It was piped through the air ducts and put everybody in a state of suspended animation.

Maybe the Cordyceps.

But anyway, Lashley and Street Prophets come out

and talking about being attacked by the AOP

and

killer Crockarrion Cross and Paul Ellering and Scarlet.

Last week, and I love Bobby Lashley, but I've said promos are not his strong suit.

He needs more conviction in his voice.

He really is.

I mean, he's the most badass

MMA fighter on the fucking planet.

And what a beast of an athlete, but he really is a nice guy and a soft-spoken guy.

But

he says the right stuff.

We're not cowards.

We confront people face to face and fight, but it needs to have more oomph in this day and age.

And he's the one that's got to carry the legitimacy for the other two because when they've had promos to pass, all they've done is just,

I don't know, comedy at each other, whatever the fuck they were doing.

But now they're calling the heels out that beat him up last week, and nobody's reacting.

And then

the lights dim,

and there's Paul Ellering in the entrance.

And it looks like somebody went to film school is figuring this out.

He's in darkness, but he you can see him, but he turns and grandiosely points.

Is that a word with grandiosity?

Yes, it is.

Points to the screen.

And on the screen, there's Karion Cross and Scarlet doing their spooky stuff where they recite some shit.

And they're putting Occam and Razor over.

And now their group is called the Final Testament.

And the video ends, and the fans are sitting and staring.

And Lashley and the street prophets are standing in the ring with their proverbial dicks in their hands.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean,

this is not an example of WWE at their best.

I mean, they're good at making people care about things, as we've said.

They're better than AEW at that, but they have not gotten the people to care about this.

And I don't know how why or well, I mean, I do know why to a certain degree, but it's not, it's just not working.

They had MVP with Lashley.

We know why, because MVP is a great talker.

He's not with him anymore.

And this whole, they're just not buying into, I just don't feel, you could feel watching that segment, like you said, there was no energy.

Like people just were waiting for it to end and to get on to the next thing.

I think one thing they could do is try to educate fans even on who Paul Ellering is, because I think it's awesome to see Paul Ellering on my TV in 2024, but I'm almost 50 years old, you know, and I watched the Road Warriors in their prime, and I think it might help if they explained who he was.

I know that the

tag team, those guys, they wanted Ellering with them as part of their presentation.

It was a condition, apparently, on their return to the company.

They had asked for that.

But I think they should explain why.

Like, okay, these guys are managed.

By the way, the company asked these guys, or these guys told the company they wanted Ellering?

I had heard that the tag team, and God, I I can't remember the Authors of Pain, is that the name?

Okay, there's so many,

but yes, Authors of Pain, but it's these tag teams now, it's everything is something of something.

Well, you know what, you got who's on first, what's on second, I don't know who's on third, but go ahead.

Right.

I'm not asking you who's on second.

Exactly.

But no, they had asked, I had heard, the authors of pain, the AOP, to have Ellering with them.

And that's why he's there.

I could be wrong about that.

I think that's great, but you want to educate people.

Hey, guys, this is the guy who managed the Road Warriors.

You know, give them a reason to care.

Well, and

Brian Last and I talked about this also

on one of the shows last week, but

Paul primarily after the initial run, Paul was a great wrestling prospect

for

I guess, probably about four or five years.

Precious Paul Ellering.

He maintained in in Tennessee as a heel.

He maintained in Mid-South and in Georgia, and then had a couple of really bad knee injuries in a row.

And I mean, his physique, when he first came to Tennessee in 79, he was a bodybuilder.

He looked big for Hawkin' Animal.

I mean, he wasn't like 300 and something pounds and as tall, but he was huge as far as his physique.

And he had to drop a lot of weight.

And because by then Precious Paul had

adopted a really

good heel promo,

they said, Well, Paul can talk.

Let's make him a manager.

He's hurt.

And

that's where he ended up with Hawk and Animal.

And they had

not only a professional relationship, but he was their shoot manager,

not only in terms of, you know, their bookings and et cetera.

keeping track of their transportation, but also he invested their money.

And that was when he carried the Wall Street Journal around in the promos, that was the fucking rib.

That's what he was reading in the locker room.

So.

Oh, wow.

But point being,

after they were together for the first, what was it, two years, the Road Warriors had to become babyfaces because they were so popular.

Then Paul was limited as a manager in cutting promos because He had to be a babyface, right?

And because the

Hawk and Animal were so, their personalities were so over the top, he took the back seat as he should have because

you had on a hat type of thing.

He can't be outrageous too.

He's just kind of the

insidious one behind the scenes, right?

So pointed, that was a unique dynamic.

And it didn't allow Paul to cut

then the following decade of great memorable promos

and for to be in all these highlight videos or whatever.

So, yes, your point is well taken.

People don't remember great Paul Ellering promos.

People don't remember Paul as the leader of numerous

main event stars because he was identified with the Warriors and he was in that unique position.

They were the hottest tag team at the box office in the business.

He didn't want to change anything.

But to establish him as a heel manager of anybody else, much less these two guys that I didn't see

two tons of fun in,

you have to do

interviews, history packages, not only telling people who he was, but telling people what he wants to do now.

Why is this near 70-year-old man

out here with these guys?

Does he have something that they're going to get for him?

Or why is he beholden to them that he would do them this favor?

Right.

None of it.

None of it makes sense.

And even like if you, the only way you'd even know that they were affiliated at all in the past was if you were watching NXT, because when they called them up to the main roster the last time, a few years ago, before they released them, Ellering didn't come with them.

So he, he was only with them in NXT.

So it's a pretty obscure thing.

I just get the feeling when he comes out there, like you said.

that there's this no i mean i don't want this to sound like an insult i mean he's he's a small old man that's what he is but you see this little old man standing in front of a black background and you're thinking, who the hell is this guy?

You know, that's what, I'm sure that's what young fans are thinking.

And again, 44 years ago, when I first met Paul Ellering,

he had a better physique than I would say all, but maybe two or three people in the entire WWE today.

But times change.

So what is the presentation now?

And what is he going to?

But it's point is, I was going to make is that's that's what they could do with paul but besides that the cause is lost to begin with because

carrion cross and scarlet

the this is the wwe's black holes of charisma it takes two to tango where they're trying to

set people up to make stars, right?

But you have to also not only have the material, but pick the right people.

And the ship has sailed on carrion cross.

Nobody gives a shit.

Nobody's going to.

Scarlett's beautiful.

She needs to be with somebody else doing something else.

And Paul, with the other two guys,

I don't see anything about the other two guys that

they look like a smaller version of the Vikings, a fat tag team that can do shit.

Well, they're already not using the Vikings.

So anyway, that's, I don't think the, I think the Final Testament, the last chapter has probably almost been written.

we'll see what happens yes in the book of corny

is that folks let me know if that needs to be a t-shirt the book of corny

uh speaking of the book of hayman he's still trying to book a partner he was in the back frustrated he's got his head in his hands and in comes purely dreary

uh letitia and claudia i can't remember what their fucking names are and they've got the accents and they offer their services.

But then Paul says, I need one guy.

And to face L.A.

Knight and Randy Orton and fucking

AJ Styles.

And all of a sudden, then

they get the limber tail, as J.R.

used to say, and they start backing up and excusing their way out of it.

And then they bid him adieu.

This is

this gimmick, these guys, I don't think they can ever overcome it.

And they don't really look particularly impressive to begin with.

But this is a holdover from when Vince McMahon was around, and I hope that this stuff can be weeded out because there's no sense when you're when you have this many stars and you have guys at the top of the card that people are caring about and you want to keep it that way.

Why have this fucking stupidity and silliness where

some average person can point at your show and look and say, why do you watch that stupid shit?

And be right.

And, you know, it's not necessary.

Nobody's watching the show because it's fucking falderall.

Why do they have to have anybody that just looks purely fucking stupid for no reason?

That's my thought for the day.

That should be on a t-shirt right there.

There you go.

Everything I just said for the last minute and a half, just small print.

And people have to lean over and invade your space to read it.

And so then Heyman goes and he finds Lashley and the Street Profits.

Eddie tries to sell Bobby Lashley you and the bloodline.

And he said, the only way I want to see Roman Reigns is if I'm standing across the ring from him.

And he walks off on Paul.

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And you know what I was thinking at that point, Brian Solomon?

What?

You know, I was thinking about poor Heyman at this point.

Overwrought.

anxiety-ridden, stressed out.

His whole world's falling apart.

The bloodline, his meal ticket is going to be vaporized here just shortly.

He's thinking,

I got to plan ahead and try to figure out a way to save money on my wireless plan.

Clearly.

Because he's always having to call Roman Reigns.

And who knows where the fuck Roman Reigns goes these days when he's not on SmackDown or Raw?

He could be in the South Pacific.

He could be in the south of France.

He could be in.

South Alabama.

You never know.

But that's why the Paul Heyman's wireless bill is so damn high, just like the rent.

But now, if he would listen to this program, Brian, if Paul Heyman would take the words that we say

to his heart, he could get a cell phone plan from Mint Mobile for only $15 a month when he buys a three-month plan.

And you know, Roman Reigns is going to last more than three months as a top guy, so he's going to have to be calling him at the end of every television episode.

These things add up.

You call Samoa talk for 15 minutes.

Well, on some wireless plans, they'll charge you $279.48.

That's what it says right here in this copy.

But Mint Mobile, it's all included because Mint Mobile is unlimited.

That means you can call Cambodia and recite the Gettysburg address.

Fuck Mint Mobile.

They got to pay for it.

You're only paying 15 bucks a month.

Is this American Samoa that we're talking about?

Because that might make a difference.

I don't know if if they still have an enclave over there.

And also, it's unlimited text and talk.

So let's say you just want to sit there and let your thumbs do the walking as you harass and stalk some poor innocent female who may not even be aware that you have these intentions until you send her a manifesto about all the various ways that you would like to whisper sweet nothings in her ear.

Yeah,

it costs you a thing.

No, nobody, well, maybe your dignity, it might cost you.

Well, but you already don't have any of that if you're doing that in the first place, do you?

And that's true.

The high-speed data.

Whatever kind of, let's say you need a question answered and you need it answered quick.

How can I cure Aunt Fanny's crotch rot?

Boom.

They're going to give you the data in high speed, just instantly like that.

And it's so you can ask as many questions as you want.

Just talk to your phone, put the phone in your hand and say, hey, Mint Mobile, answer me this.

And they got to answer you unlimitedly.

Data, talk, text, it all 15 bucks a month.

You know, I had an Aunt Fanny.

I don't think she had that particular.

Well, I mean, she probably wouldn't have told me if she had that ailment or not, but I, but I did have an Aunt Fanny.

Well, I was about to ask if you did investigate your Aunt Fanny's crotch on a regular basis to determine whether that some type of fungal infection had said.

Poor Aunt Fanny.

Oh, Mitch, you were saying that.

Poor Aunt Fanny.

I'm sorry, Aunt Fanny.

I'm sorry.

She's dead, and you're talking about this.

Why would you tell the people that your poor dead Aunt Fanny had fungal infections and her taint?

Well, I said had.

That implied that I no longer have an Aunt Fanny, right?

Oh, I thought you meant that she cured it.

You mean she never cured it?

I doubt she ever had it.

Had it to her grave, huh?

It was a chronic condition.

Well, nevertheless, folks, we'll have Mint Mobile to your grave also, but 15 bucks a month, especially for you elderly people that don't plan to live too much longer.

longer, it's not going to cost you an arm and a leg, merely a life and a death.

And right now, if you go to mintmobile.com/slash JCE,

you will be able to get your wireless plan set up and you'll cut it to 15 bucks a month from whatever you're paying now with these cut rate competitors.

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See Mint Mobile for details on that whole line of bullshit I just described to you.

There you go.

Well, nobody's done more for cell phones over the years than Paul Heyman, so he deserves some type of of special deal.

I mean,

that guy has been using

a cell phone.

You're telling me,

you're telling me how long Paul Heyman's been using a cell phone.

Do you know what I would do if he hit me over the head with his cell phone right now?

I would look at him and smile and bend over and fart in his general direction because these things are barely the size of a credit card.

True.

That fucking phone in 1988, it was the size of a fucking

construction brick

and it was shaped in an odd fashion, and the antenna stuck out,

and it busted me open from asshole appetite.

That's my story.

I know I'm sticking to it.

I know.

Well, that's what he's done.

He's found a different way to use it.

He always puts a cell phone in the mix.

He's not going to attack anybody with an iPhone.

That would be ill-advised, but he's found a way.

Look at the state of him now physically.

I mean, you know,

he has to have help in the mornings when they feed him his oatmeal with X-Lax.

I really appreciate that Paul Heyman has in his later years turned into zero Mustel from the producers.

I'm really very glad that that happened.

Max, Max B.

Alleystock.

Right.

I'm wearing a cardboard belt.

You know,

I've leaned toward Hitchcock, but now I can see, I can see the zero Mustel in Paul E.

It's very heartwarming to see him morphing into all these beloved entertainment figures in his in his elder years.

He just needs a Gene Wilder to play off.

And I think it's the milk of magnesium is doing him good.

Anyway, back to SmackDown, though, because

I've got to.

Are you sure?

Well, no, I got, oh, I got to, I got to,

he's got a puke.

No, I've got to talk to my boy, my young son,

my spiritual son,

Austin Theory.

Because remember, at the top of the program, they'd come out, Waller was going to have a match.

Well, then they argued with the Carmelo Hayes, and now it's going to be Austin Theory, Waller in the corner, the sublime and the ridiculous, against Carmelo Hayes.

And

it is no secret that I've been a fan of Austin Theories.

And that was the one thing when Vince was around after he went mad that they were doing right was at least featuring theory.

I think that his in-ring

and physical conditioning

at this point in time, well, his in-ring is definitely better than Cena's was at this point in his game, comparable to Orton, conditioning better than Orton's early in his career and comparable to Cena.

At their OVW era, I saw these guys at the same level of development.

This kid's 22, 23 years old.

He's a prodigy with his work and his timing.

And he knows how to bump bump and feed.

And bumping and feeding is not just taking a bump for something and popping right back up to get hit again with no change in your physical

facial expression or body language.

Bumping and feeding is getting hit with something and taking a bump.

And it seems that your momentum propels you upward and staggering and you turn and your eyes.

I'm shocked that, boom, you're going to get hit again.

And you take a bump a different way and you get and you feed.

You leave your arm out if you need to be shot off, or you leave something open if you're going to be dropkicked, or whatever the timing.

And in terms of he doesn't just stand there, Austin Theory, and wait for some schlub to dive on him.

He's distracted or he's staggering.

He turns at the last minute.

You see the shock and surprise on his face before he gets hit in the mush.

He sells that.

His in-ring work

is smoother with the basics and with the right timing than than almost anybody his age.

He's a prodigy, right?

And he can talk

and he gets more confidence as he goes along.

He's still a young man.

He's grown the beard, so he's scruffed up a little bit.

But he looks like an arrogant and an obnoxious and an egotistical prick that would talk down to you or be the college jock or whatever.

He's got an unlikable persona as a heel, and he's fairly glib.

And hopefully, he will get further progress verbally to the point where he'll be the ones that they let

talk on his own instead of being given these scripted lines.

But he delivers them better than most people.

What he doesn't need to be doing,

because he's so much farther ahead on all the important aspects of the game, verbally, in-ring work, conditioning, visual appearance, attitude, facial expression.

He's a grinning, expressive prick.

He doesn't need to be doing flippy-do shit like every other goddamn trampoline cowboy and jack off.

He's ahead of that.

He's beyond them.

And what did he do here?

He did

great stuff

because he was working as himself.

He's a worker.

He's a pro wrestler.

He's not a goddamn gymnast.

And he doesn't need to be because he will be a money-drawing main event level talent, not an indie goof in the middle.

But he goes out and he has a match with Carmelo Hayes, who

honestly does some good shit and is in shape and looks like an athlete and is probably going to be the description of an indie goof in the middle when all is said and done.

And Theory tries to do flippy shit and nearly broke both their fucking necks and had to stop the match again.

Brian, is that two times in three weeks they've had to stop a live television match because people can't stay off their fucking heads?

Yeah, that was surprising.

I had to watch that a couple of times because I wasn't sure, again, like whenever this happens, if that was the planned finish or what.

It just, that's, no, obviously not.

And they just stopped it right in the middle.

And I guess they felt they needed to.

But man, I, it, and, and to me, it always seems like the things that don't look that serious serious are the things that are the most serious.

I couldn't even initially tell what happened, but I guess they couldn't.

When you saw the replay, it got clear on the replay, didn't it?

Right, on the replay, yeah, their heads went together, I guess, is what happened.

Yeah, well,

what happened was Theory had caught the guy and he set him on the turnbuckle, and he climbed up, and he was going to do some kind of thing where he had a hold of Carmelo Hayes, and Theory's back is toward the middle of the ring, and he's going to sit down on the top rope and spring backwards backwards and do what did the Spanish fly

where they both do the fucking

back flip over and land and it's so preposterous looking that the guy's obviously cooperating they'll call it unzip my fly and blow me if you believe this

and instead of doing the Spanish fly did the Spanish flop and

they didn't rotate far enough and theory the dangerous part was not that they bonked heads uh when they landed landed, which they said both got facial contusions or whatever.

Right.

But the most dangerous part that didn't quite materialize was that Theory

not only was landing on his head, but he was landing on his head with his neck bent to the side.

And that was the, and, and

one more inch of not going far enough over or whatever,

and that could have been a whole lot worse.

And the referee slides in immediately and says, let's not do this anymore.

Right.

And again, it's flat as fuck.

And in this case, it was a single match.

I took them to task in the tag team match that

the guys that won the match look like, well, fuck, we didn't get to do all our shit.

Rather, no, we won the match, right?

And everybody said, well, that's because they didn't want to win that way.

No, it's because they got their fucking performance interrupted and they were visibly pissed and they showed it.

You always get pissed when something like that happens.

You're not supposed to fucking show it, is the deal.

I know what I'm talking about when the shit goes south, right?

Instead of the people on Twitter, you're always pissed off.

Don't show it, react like you would if it was real, not I didn't get to do my shit.

But here, this was a single match, and everybody just had to stand around or lay around, and the doctor's checking everybody.

And the announcer said, Well,

these things can happen.

But

that's the thing.

You've got a future main event talent, almost broke his neck, trying to do shit that he doesn't need to do because he's a farther ahead of 90% of the guys his age or in some cases older and doesn't need to fucking do back flips.

And that happens with a lot of guys like him now, though.

People, there are guys that don't.

need to be doing those kind of things and they just somehow feel like I don't know what it is just to fit in or to match everyone else's style that they have to do things that they have no business doing.

Well, Brian Alvarez, the organ grinder's monkey for Uncle Dave's organ,

openly said to Theory a couple of months ago, Well, all the indie wrestlers are lapping you.

They can do many more things than you're doing.

You're working that boring old style.

Coincidentally, Brian Alvarez is five and a half feet tall and 150 pounds and wrestles like Cheetah in a Johnny Weissmuller movie.

And that's the last thing Theory needs to listen to is bullshit like that.

He's ahead of all these clowns.

He's in the biggest company and he has all the tools that genetics, steroids, and fucking Dr.

Frankenstein can't add on to any of these indie goofs.

and they're jealous.

And if I had

having spent years at the top of the largest company in the world's training program,

if I was going to give him some advice, I would say do everything you're doing in the ring and work even harder on your personality and get more

glib

and more fucking comfortable and more confident talking verbally and be a bigger smart ass and come up with different ways to piss the crowds off when you're in the ring, either verbally or physically with your actions,

and find some different way and get rid of Waller

anytime you can.

Put strychnine and his goddamn protein powder secretly in the locker room

and keep doing what you're doing in the fucking ring and work your ass off.

And your time will come unless you land on your head and break your fucking neck and they carry you out on a spatula.

Anyway, that's my free advice to Austin Theory.

Would you like to get back to the bloodline?

The bloodletting is about to begin.

Why not?

Let's do it.

Well, in the back, finally, there's Jimmy Uso, and he wants to know who Paul got.

And Paul, you know, Paul, who'd you get for us?

Who's it going to be, man?

Who's it going to be?

And Paulie said, I've interviewed every man in the locker room, and no one is worthy.

No one is worthy of teaming up with you people.

Auditions are over.

We're not going to take any more tryouts

i've got full faith in you jimmy uso and solo i'm not worried and who so says i'm worried

yeah they were great here i thought they were great at the time this is ridiculous but they're making it work right because they're good and not even just Paul, I thought that Jimmy was good in this.

I thought Solo, you know, doing what he does as being the man of few words.

Not a lot of people could pull it off like what you're saying, what Heyman was doing, where he was saying, that's it.

No one's worthy of you guys.

There aren't, not everyone would be able to pull off that kind of

chicanery of two-facedness.

He's so good at being that two-faced kind of, I'm going to just, you know, make you think one thing.

And not everybody could do that.

And they played in his strengths.

Let's face it, they have it started.

It may have started years ago as a rib, but Paul has embraced it.

They've made his inside the wrestling business reputation/slash persona from ECW,

his current one where he is out for himself.

He's weasily

and conniving, and he'll bullshit everybody to get them to manipulate them to his will.

And then he'll tell the other person the exact opposite, the whole nine yards.

And now he has made this his gimmick, and it's an art form, and he's brilliant.

And that's, you know, that's the old,

who was it?

I can't remember who it was, but one of his guys in ECW called him up.

One of the main event guys, might have been Bubba Ray, somebody said,

Paul, where's my fucking plane ticket?

I FedExed it.

Well, what's the tracking number?

549-642753.

And he said, Well, that's two, too many numbers.

And Paul said, Well, just take the last two off and hung up on here.

But anyway, so Paul says, I'm I'm not worried.

And Uso's like, I'm worried.

And Solo says, I'm not.

And then Jimmy says, well, if Solo ain't worried, I'm not worried.

And you know, they got to have something up their sleeve.

And sure enough, immediately there's Randy Orton's entrance.

And within 15 seconds, they've jumped Randy Orton in the aisleway and they've Samoan spiked him.

And the referees come out.

And the heels go to the rig.

And we go to a break in like one minute.

Oh, shit, Orton's fucked.

And this is the only thing I didn't like about this deal because this has been

over this show, not only a show length storyline thread, whatever you want to call it, but it's been wrestling.

It's been wrestling the fucking authority figure that Tony Khan ought to have.

Nick Aldiss was available, by the way.

For the past few years, at some point, if Tony Khan needed an authority figure, which he sorely does, all these people were available, or at one time were Tony's.

But

you've got the authority figure making a match.

The heels are trying to fucking get out of it,

and then they're going to commit heelish acts against the babyface who are going to have to retaliate.

This is wrestling.

Yes, some of the other shit's preposterous and or in the middle is filler.

But with the stars and the top guys, you're understanding this.

And everybody

in their role is performing it well.

And it's not

illogical or just goofy and crazy.

You can follow this shit, right?

Except

they come back from the break after they've jumped Orton and they recap, well, here's what just happened.

And the heels are standing in the ring and they play AJ's music.

And he comes out, even though he waits in the...

in the floor in the alleyway until LA Knight's music plays.

And out he comes.

These heels have just jumped Randy Orton and beat him up.

Where was LA Knight and AJ?

The referees came out.

The aid of the security came out.

Why did his partners come out?

Oh, they were making sure their music was queued up.

Yeah, they're not, you know, they don't get activated until their music starts.

They're like androids or something.

I mean, that was the lapse in this.

Again, if a Bill Watts or an Eddie Graham or a Dusty Rhodes or whatever.

There would have been AJ and L.A.

checking on Randy Orton as soon as the damage happened in the aisleway and the heels go to the ring and then the fucking baby faces say, fuck you guys and jump in.

But they've got to do their breaks and they got to do their entrances to fill their network time.

And there's also the unspoken.

There's that unspoken thing that it's one of those things that I guess people just say, well, it's wrestling because you can have these guys like Orton who, when they're in the ring, you can shoot them with like a bazooka, you know, and they'll get up two seconds later.

But if you jump them in the aisle, you know, and hit them in the throat with your thumb, then forget it, they're out.

They're absolutely done out.

They have to be taken out of the match.

You know, but obviously it was all set up for Orton to make his triumphant, you know, return mid-match.

You know what phrase I never heard when I got into business and for 15 years after that, maybe?

It's wrestling.

Right.

A lot of even the guys now that have been around for ah, it's wrestling.

I guarantee you, Bill Watts, when giving me a finish, never said, if I called out that there was something that might be illogical or some loophole or something, he never said, ah, it's wrestling.

No, and no.

But anyway, nevertheless.

So here comes AJ and here comes L.A.

Knight.

And then they finally, when they're both there, they get in the ring.

And now it's AJ and L.A.

against Solo and Uso.

We're comorato to go-go when you need them.

And AJ and L.A.

Knight are arguing with each other.

about who's going to start or whatever because they're reluctant partners and the the heels jump them from behind

and start getting some heat on them and make them have to come back out from under it.

And nobody says this.

This may be an unpopular opinion.

And I think the world of them is personalities,

but neither one of the Usos is smooth.

The Usos are not classically trained worker.

Neither one of them is Brad Armstrong is what I'm trying to say.

They are.

They look like they might be awkward to work with at some points.

And I don't remember ever looking forward to Uso's matches, just what is Uso going to do or say, or whose side is whichever Uso going to be on, but not, wow, I can't wait to see that fucking match.

Am I being too critical?

No, I mean, I don't think, I mean, they're where they're at for a reason.

I like them.

I think they've, they've, God, they've been around so long.

I think they may have, well, they're not a tag team anymore, but I think they have some kind of a record.

You know, you could almost say that about a large large carbuncle on your neck.

It's been around for so long.

It never really, but I've got used to it.

I mean, they're good.

I enjoy their matches.

They're not terrible.

I wouldn't call them one of the best working teams in the business at any point.

They've had a lot of longevity, and they're fairly good at what they do.

That's my ringing endorsement.

Well, is the longevity because of lack of competition in the field anymore?

But nevertheless, so the babyfaces fight up and and beat up the heels for a couple minutes and they go to the break in two minutes, even the main event, break in two minutes.

But when they came back, they basically go into it.

This was a storyline set up and there's nothing wrong with that because their storylines are landing.

They're registering with people.

But

AJ finally went for the tag.

They got the heat going on him.

But Solo had pulled L.A.

Knight to the floor.

And L.A.

Knight dealt with him, ran him into the stairs, whatever, and goes back to the corner after AJ's already been pulled back and can't tag him.

So now AJ gets free and sees him again.

And he's pissed and won't tag him.

He's going to stand there in the middle of the ring and argue with him about where the fuck were you?

And then Uso goes to super kick AJ from behind, but AJ ducks it and Uso super kicks L.A.

Knight off the apron.

Unfortunately for him, where he's going to have to sell for the next fucking two minutes or so from one one kick.

And then AJ and Uso have the double knockout because here comes Orton's music.

Now,

this was kind of sort of

an old-fashioned southern angle that I love and have done a number of times in Smokey Mountain Wrestling, OVW, wherever, but kind of abbreviated, truncated maybe,

where if the baby face that has been

way laid at the start finally comes back with his cuthead bandaged up or his bad wrist in a fucking tape or whatever the case, right?

Or another

babyface to take his place, who's even, you know, in fine fetal,

runs down and jumps on the apron of the ring and grabs the turnbuckle and starts reaching for the tag and works the people into it.

And then you do spots where the baby face, the heat's getting on him in the ring or the heat's being gotten on him in the ring.

He now tries to fight for the tag there.

And you can get a minute or two with the couple of milk spots there.

And then finally, you get the tag.

But they just said, fuck it, let's get this over with.

They played his music and sent Orton out.

He jumps up on the apron, and AJ immediately jumps over and tags him.

And Orton makes the big comeback.

And now the fans are up because it's Orton.

And they're chanting Randy, Randy.

And he and Uso go back and forth.

And then Orton RKOs Uso one, two, three, and gets a huge fucking pop.

And then Solo jumps Orton, but AJ forearms Solo, and L.A.

rolls back in to give the BFT to Solo, and then Randy Orton RKOs Solo.

So basically,

you know, they won the match.

After being slaughtered last week, I agree.

I usually like to put the babyfaces shining and then the heels slaughtering them in reverse order and then make the people, you know, wait till the big show to get to see the heels get even.

But they got slaughtered last week.

So this week, without Roman,

they won the match.

And then they all three

to give Solo an out.

It took three guys with their finishes to fucking level him.

And then they went to the floor and beat the shit out of the heels some more and power bombs solo through the announce desk.

And Paul Heyman called Roman on his Mint Mobile plan.

So, I mean, that was a heck of a main event.

And the people, they're stars in the match.

And they had a story behind it.

And the people were ready to see it.

And it fucking worked.

I don't know why this is hard for some people to understand.

It worked because people are invested in the individuals, in the characters.

They care.

You have to make people care.

You can put...

people in a similar type of a match that

the fans haven't been made to care about and they're not going to have that same reaction to it it's like what we were saying about the the women's divisions and the two companies it's not like magically there are better women wrestlers in wwe than aew i don't think that's true i think they both have talented people it's just they don't make i don't know if you if you put those if you put those names down on paper and then count it in which side which yes i didn't say it was 50-50 even

but i will say i think there's enough over there that if they wanted to turn it into something people gave a shit about they could but as far as this main event goes yeah i mean people are invested the storylines are established they know who everybody is they believe in them that randy orton that baby face come out of the locker room thing it never gets old it reminds me people in the northeast that would remember it's a it's a big sports moment and i always think sometimes that this inspired a lot of it In the 80s, there was a famous basketball match.

People will know this, where Larry Bird on the Celtics, he smashed his face on the parquet floor at Boston Garden, and they took him out of the game, and you thought he was done.

And before the game ends, he comes out of the locker room.

I mean, it was like something out of wrestling.

And he's all banged up, and he's like, put me back in the game.

And the Boston Garden is going insane.

And they wind up winning the game.

And it just always reminds me of that when

coach.

I'm ready to play.

Well, they called it, again, when I got into business, late 70s, early 80s, the spirit Spirit of 76, because the guy comes out, you know, like the famous painting, the fife and drum, and the fucking guy with the crutch, and he's wrapped up.

Spirit of 76 comeback.

Oh, that there's a moment

for years.

It's basic human nature.

Have you ever seen, there's actually a match where Andre the Giant did exactly that.

It was at Madison Square Garden.

He came out in the middle of the match.

He had his whole head bandaged up.

He's all bloody.

And Gorilla Monsoon shouts out, like the spirit of 76.

He actually said it.

Yeah.

Well, there you go.

And that's

again,

this is why that, whether you like it or not, I'm not making these numbers up.

I'm just reporting facts.

WWE's pulling away with this thing.

They have more stars.

They have more viewers.

They're making more money.

Because the people understand this shit and they're involved in the personalities.

They're not watching to see dumb shit Austin Theory try to break his neck by doing a backflip.

They're here for the stars to talk to them and tell them what they're going to be fucking doing and occasionally show them a little bit of

doing it.

And again,

that's Tony is doing the exact opposite of what's working.

He is taking random people that look like Ned, that have no major league experience and do repetitive, redundant shit over and over.

And he's putting them on television to do it over and over.

And that is the

side of the business that people are not responding to.

They're not buying tickets to the returns of AEW at these house shows.

They're not increasing their television viewership.

They're decreasing it.

They are not increasing the quality of their talent roster.

They're hospitalizing it.

And it couldn't be more obvious and it couldn't be more different what they're doing.

But in this case,

different is not good to be the alternative to the WWE when it's a bad different,

when it's not a very, a not very good different.

If you want to have an alternative to McDonald's,

don't fucking sell pepperoni and fucking goddamn pineapple pizza.

That is not even in the genre.

Have a better burger or a tastier burger, but don't completely goddamn change what the fuck the product is.

It's this.

Well, you know, the whole deal, Brian Solomon, is just that Tony only listens to himself.

He can't hear anybody else saying that everything is not great.

He can't hear other people.

He can't believe it that they can't see why this is is

foolproof.

And it's all because the sounds in his own head are louder than the voices of the people around him.

I think it's almost like that what he's done is he listened to our program, you know, from the start.

You know that.

That's commonly accepted fact.

Yeah, yeah.

And he listened to our Raycon wireless earbud spots and he got a pair and he put them in and he forgot to take them out.

And now all he's hearing hearing is his own voice over and over on his tapes that he made in his basement as a teenager when he was booking his e-fed.

And that's what he's doing now.

He's belching that forth on the printed page because the everyday, he ought to be have his head examined and maybe x-rayed to see if they can find and remove the Raycon wireless earbuds.

I think that must be the only explanation.

What do you think, Brian?

You really think that that has anything to do with it?

I mean, I think you're being kind.

I'm just reaching here.

It could be that he's just completely bat shit insane and ready for a rubber room at the puzzle factory, but our friends at Raycon appreciate the mention because they do have the everyday earbuds that look, feel, and sound better than ever and have a perfect in-ear fit.

And if you're wearing them and you wear your hair just the right way, people probably wouldn't even know that they're there.

So you might even be able to hook up some kind of walkie-talkie device where somebody could hide behind a bush and tell you what to say to the girl you're on a date with if you're a fumble mouth that can't get laid or if that old chestnut if you're wearing tony storm's fuzzy hat over your head you might not be able to see the the them in your ear because they'd be covered by the hat and and if you were wearing them and you were wearing tony storm's fuzzy hat then somebody could get on the walkie-talkie and say, hey, dipshit, take that goofy-looking hat off.

Or poor Adam Hopkins could run over and frantically kind of get it off of you that that's another possibility and if we knew who adam hopkins was that would be hilarious but folks i'll tell you one thing raycons will give you eight hours of playtime and my gosh speaking as a man of 62 i haven't had eight hours of playtime in 10 or 15 years but also a 32 hour battery life so she'll like it too And the Raycons are priced just right.

You get quality audio at half the price of other premium audio brands and actually a quarter of a price of some stolen merchandise that I've dealt with in the past, but that's out of the back alley and we can't talk about it because it's under a gag order.

But it's no wonder, folks, that Raycon's everyday earbuds have tens of thousands of five-star reviews because this is what Uncle Dave listens to his Tokyo Dome pleasure soundtrack on.

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You can tap these earbuds, and holy mackerel, you ought to taste that sap.

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All this with earbuds, folks, go to buy Raycon, B-U-Y-R-A-Y-C-O-N dot com slash JCE right now, this second, today at least, and you're going to get 15% off your Raycon order and free shipping.

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If you want to open a window, they'll just pitch it in, whatever the case.

Buyraycon.com slash JCE, 15% off free shipping.

It's like a sore dick and a busted drum.

You can't beat it.

Let's be real.

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Okay, so we've given, I think, WWE all the attention that they deserve.

I guess we really should turn our attention to the AEW shows from over the weekend, specifically Saturday stuff.

Well,

maybe not the attention they deserve, but the attention that they warrant.

We don't normally watch Collision anymore since punk is gone and FTR has been neutered.

And they had the Battle of the Belts special immediately after Collision.

The one

match or just the happening that a lot of people were waiting to see was how are the people going to take Chris Jericho?

What kind of response is he going to get from the fans?

Whatever.

He's going to get booed out of the building like he did in New York a few weeks ago.

So that was why

I broke my usual,

not New Year's resolution, but just standing resolution and actually watched one of these Battle of the Belt shows, or more specifically, this particular match, which at least I didn't have to wait long.

It was on first.

They know it from 10 to 11 o'clock, they're battling sleep amongst the viewers, as well as attrition and indifference and malaise.

So the way they did this, again,

Tony is pulling out all these little tricks to try to artificially inflate the numbers or keep people, you just keep me hanging on.

They had two hours of collision, and collision went one or two minutes over

into the Battle of the Belts time slot

where you see FTR and Danny Garcia standing in the ring.

They had just had a six-man tag with the House of Black.

And

by the way,

Daniel Garcia teaming with FTR, guess who got beat by the House of Black?

Dax.

It's like having the Road Warriors teamed with Barry Horowitz and they beat Animal.

But nevertheless, that's the first minute of the Battle of the Belts.

They're standing in the ring and then the announcers say the Battle of the Belts is next, even though.

It's time for the Battle of the Belts.

And they say, oh, hold on.

Outside in the parking lot

and i swear to god if i'm lying i'm flying and my feet have not left the ground

they've got big bill and ricky starks against jericho and sammy guevara scheduled for a street fight for the tag team title

and they go to the parking lot and they're all four having a sloppy fake fight in front of the tv truck

And then they fade to black for two seconds and then come back up to the same thing.

There's a fight at the TV truck and Tony says, we're back on Battle of the Belts.

That was the deal.

They spent 15 minutes in the parking lot.

I'm going to go ahead.

What were you going to say?

No, I was going to say that it's gotten to the point.

I shouldn't even say it's gotten to the point.

It's been at this point for a long time where I don't even know why they keep doing these specials because there's nothing special about them.

I mean, I think it's a great idea.

They wanted to have their own Clash of the Champions or Saturday night's main event, whatever you want to call it.

But it's just, it's such an afterthought.

And the weirdness of always having it follow another show.

So it doesn't even feel like its own show.

It feels like it's a continuation, which it is, of the show you've just been watching.

And it's almost like we're all supposed to kind of go along with this mass delusion that we're suddenly watching another show, it's very strange.

It's almost like a Monty Python sketch or something.

It's the same announcers in the same place, the same shit.

But besides that, it's like

I've said having dinner before you have dinner, taking a shower before you take a shower.

Here, what you've been watching for the last two hours that you're already tired of.

Here's some more of it.

And

Jericho, being

convinced that he's a master manipulator,

he came up with this idea, I'm sure, to mask whatever negative reaction he might have gotten had they,

I don't know, tried to have a real match, Pinocchio, and started from scratch on this thing.

He said, we give them the whole thing, and then I go into the arena under cover of such smoke and mirrors that everybody will just be screaming.

So that's what they did.

And

they were next to the truck with garbage can lids and road signs and saw horses.

And there were eight random people standing around on the street watching and laughing, taking pictures with their phones.

And they just kept hitting each other with shit in the same general area.

And then Jericho got chokeslammed in a mulch bed.

And then Sammy ran over both heels with a golf cart and got a two count on the sidewalk.

And I'm sorry,

I'm watching NBC.

It's Saturday Night Live.

It's a sketch.

And so

the first five minutes, they're in the same 20-square-foot area.

Then they went around the side of the arena

and they're on the street.

And Big Bill takes bricks out of a backpack that he hits Sammy with and throws a brick at him, but it goes through the car window.

And then they give Big Bill a double vertical suplex on the roof of a fucking Honda Civic or something.

And there's poor Rhett Titus.

It's my car.

And Jericho hits him with a Judas elbow.

So they can't even do

life or death street fights without comedy.

More on this in a moment.

They go past the TV truck.

They bounce each other off the port-a-potties.

Now they go into the back door of the arena where cameras are waiting to pick them up on the other side.

Glad they knew which door they'd come through.

And they fought in a laundry cart.

And Starks put a fucking toilet plunger on Jericho's face and hit him with a plastic snowman.

And I wrote, this is so bad, all because Jericho can't appear in front of people.

And then Jericho put Starks' face in a copy machine and made a copy of it and showed it to the camera.

So they have to show all of the viewers, what's left of them, how clever they are to come up with these cute spots.

And by that time, they were slowing down, because this does take effort.

And they were hitting each other with plastic shit.

And a random production assistant was just standing in the middle of the fight area with her back to the wall.

A woman, by the way, not scared, just standing there talking on the fucking

woggie-talkie.

Yeah, they're fighting here now.

And then they went through a break.

It was old already.

They went through a break.

And when they come back, Sammy's doing the fire extinguisher spot, which I love.

I've done it throughout the years in various places, not fucking six times a year.

And then they were in catering,

but the whole backstage area of the arena

was completely empty, sort of like the fucking stands.

And it was 15 minutes into this, Solomon Grundy,

that they finally fought into the arena.

And by that point, the babyfaces were in control.

So the booing of Chris Jericho, if there was any, would be at a minimum.

And the people are already wrapped up in whatever the fuck's going on.

But by the time they got into the arena,

they were all blown up.

So it's just, it was sloppy, staggering, and setting up stunts.

Brian, you know why this always worked in the territories, the wild out-of-place fight.

Because it was involving,

it wasn't just anybody on the card.

It was a main event angle with a personal issue between two elements, either singles or tags, that had been festering.

And maybe there'd been a few matches.

And then they have a fucking real match.

And then the tempers flare.

And maybe people are bleeding by the time it's over.

And especially if the heels fuck the babyfaces and try to run off and get away with it,

then

the fucking babyfaces chase them and they end up in the concession stand or by the locker room or in the parking lot or where there's a fight of a few minutes.

And

you've started the story

on page one, chapter one, and then you gradually go to the finish of the story.

These morons, because they have no goddamn self-control, no restraint, no understanding of the business, and no context why anything is done, especially Tony Khan, who

attention deficit doesn't do it description.

They just start with the goddamn finish and give you 18 minutes of fucking finish.

And it's, it's old and it's repetitive and it's silly and it's phony at various times.

And it doesn't.

It looks like everything else they do.

It doesn't register.

But they've seen these clips on YouTube of when this was done in the territories, and they think this is all it was.

It takes you weeks to get to that point of shooting the angle.

You have a 15-minute match before the angle starts,

and then the angle takes four fucking minutes.

And you're out, or it gets old, and nobody wants to see anymore.

How hard is this?

So,

Jericho

had Big Bill when suddenly

our friend Take-A-Shit showed up and hit Jericho in the head with a stick, and Big Bill powerbombed him off something, through some tables to the floor.

And then Sammy climbed the lighting rig, 30 feet in the air or so, does the loopy thing where he tells the fans he's crazy.

He needn't really bother at this point.

And he took forever to get up there there while poor Ricky Starks had to lay motionless like a corpse in a coffin.

And then Sammy does the Swanton and Hobbs is there suddenly and pulls Starks out of the way.

Weren't they mad at each other a while back?

Hobbs and Stark.

Nevertheless, rhetorical question.

And then Sammy goes through the gimmicked platform and Starks covers him one, two, three.

18 minutes of this.

The one thing that they did was cover up.

Jericho didn't get booed out of the building like he did in New York City by a much bigger crowd.

Yep, and I was in that.

And you were in that crowd.

Everything else was fucking abysmal.

I don't know.

What did you think of it?

Well, it's even worse when you realize, like, what you said.

I mean, it's apparent that the main reason they did it that way is just to keep him off away from the live crowd.

Otherwise, I don't know how much more of a reason it had to even happen.

But it's the kind of thing that we've been seeing them do for a while.

Like you said, they get an idea of, hey, this worked in 1982 somewhere.

Let's try it.

And it's like, okay, yeah, great, but you don't know how to execute it.

The worst example was, and I'm sure you vented your spleen about this, when they tried to recreate the Tupelo concessions thing for it.

And I mean, they even had Jeff Jarrett there, who, you know, Jeff Jarrett, I know he wasn't in that match, obviously.

He was a kid, but I mean, he was involved in the company.

He may have been present.

And to do it that way.

I guarantee you, Jeff wasn't in Tupelo.

Okay, but to do it that way.

Not even, not even the guys booked in Tupelo wanted to be in Tupelo, but go ahead.

But the but the absolute mishandling of that, and I try to give them the benefit of the doubt as much as I can, but the mis-execution of that, turning it into this kind of goofy,

almost like a parody of the Tupelo concession stand brawl and that's kind of like what we see whenever they try to do a match like this it's just it leans into that whole you know what we used to see with the cinematic matches during the pandemic when with the uh where they would do all these things that you could never really do in front of a live audience and it it rarely works very rarely and this wasn't one of those rare times

and i'll tell you a little bit more about tupelo here in a minute and and i've been to that building i wasn't there the night of the the brawl but i can tell you a little bit about it But the point with this is that

it just, it's incessant.

How many more things can they dive off of?

How many more things can they fall through?

How many more flips can they do or these stunts with the crash pads and the blah, blah, blah, and getting run over by golf carts?

It's incessant.

It doesn't get over anybody.

It gets over for the people that are sitting in front of it live in the arena.

Oh, yeah, they run him over with a golf cart or whatever the fuck.

They get a pop, and then 15 minutes later, they don't remember what the fuck because they're popping for some other stunt.

It's again like watching car crash highlight videos where it's just over and over.

What happened to cause that crash?

We don't know.

We just filmed the fucking cars running into each other.

We don't know if it was weather, fucking drunk driver.

Who cares what causes something?

We just want to see it.

And

with all the guys hurt like they are, and then to do this,

it,

again,

it's counterproductive.

And that's why that there is this growing gap

because the WWE makes investments.

Hey, I guarantee you that Endeavor and TKO Holding Group and all, they don't give two shits.

When they lay down at night, whether everybody on the roster is paralyzed and in an iron lung, except that means they've lost an investment.

But they are business-minded enough not to

allow,

much less encourage

the guys on their roster to do this stupid shit because they know not only does it lead to diminishing returns because people get immune to it if it's not done by somebody you really fucking care about,

but also

if those people get hurt, they lose money.

They got to pay them.

They got to treat them with the medical care.

They lose the access to that star on their television and on their programs for however long he's hurt.

And that means it costs them money.

And they don't want that to happen.

There's a fine line in this business.

You can't just go out there and wrap yourself in bubble wrap and just do headlocks and entertain people.

But the whole meaning behind this business before it was taken over by indie outlaw mud show-minded morons

and then facilitated to a national television level by a goddamn real life Richie Rich collecting breathing action figures.

The idea was to get people interested in the personalities and the reason why they're clashing and give them a violent, realistic fight.

that in the end might hurt but will not hurt anyone as far as injure them so they can't continue to work.

That's the balancing act, the tightrope that is the magic art of pro wrestling.

And when you get guys that are just, well, like Darby Allen,

he's a great talent that can be produced, but not being produced.

He's a fucking moron that doesn't give a fuck whether he breaks his neck or not because he's an adrenaline junkie and he's just thrilled by it.

Well, fuck you, you blonde-headed q-tip-looking motherfucker.

If I'm paying you half a million dollars a year or whatever, you're not going to be jumping your house on a tricycle or climbing Mount Everest.

You're going to be taking care of yourself in between the appearances you make for me.

And then I'm going to clear these stupid bumps you take so that I know whether it's a risk-reward ratio that we all want to fucking engage in.

You goddamn knuckleheads.

So they did this is what they did on the Battle of the Belts.

Do you have any further comments about that match before I tell you what else was on the Battle of the Belts?

Well, I mean, it accomplished what they wanted, which I think the main goal was to protect Chris Jericho.

I don't know if there was anything else that they were looking to get out of that, but

it points to everything that's wrong with what they're doing right now, which is that they are, as you guys have said many times before, but it's very true, they are playing only to the people that are absolutely die-hard dedicated to the product and will watch it if there was a test pattern on for two hours.

They're playing to those people and they seem to stubbornly, stubbornly have no interest in expanding beyond that.

It is mind-boggling.

Well, and I mean, that's been

the kind of the mindset since day one.

We've talked about it, and they made a brief overture with bringing some more people into the tent when they got punk.

And that's why that punk was run off because

the NDEVPs and their various ilk know they can't hang in that major league environment.

They didn't want anybody showing them up.

So, the quarter of a million people you brought to us, fuck you, punk, take them back.

But this is an hour in prime time on national cable.

And that was the first match.

That was 20 minutes.

But we had two more matches on this program.

And they were for the TBS title, Julia Hart versus Anna J.

15 minutes worth of that one.

And then

you can't call it the main event.

The first match was the main event because they Saturday night's main event

programmed it where the top match would be on first because you're fighting sleep, even though 11 o'clock is not 1 a.m.

That's why Hogan wasn't going to go on at 12:30 at night.

But the last match on this show for the dollar store title was Pockets against Preston Vance.

And that went for 15 minutes.

And that's

that show, either a garbage, phony street fight,

so Jericho wouldn't get booed, a girls' match, and the mascot against a job guy

aired for one hour on national cable television in prime time.

And that's where the point is: it's not about these matches.

It's about does Tony Kahn

want

Warner Brothers Discovery to go running to the WWE and be their

suitor.

Because

you don't even have to be a wrestling fan to look at this and go, well, my God, this looks nothing like the WWE program.

No wonder the numbers are in a toilet.

I mean, isn't it obvious now to

just a television executive watching the difference in the shows and the way that the talent looks when you look at Preston Vance and Pockets, and then on the other channel is Randy Orton versus fucking whoever.

It's what the fuck is going on here?

They've definitely made themselves vulnerable.

I mean, in a situation like that, if the executives are kind of weighing their priorities and things, I think the only thing that makes them pause or balk is if they wouldn't want to meet WWE's number of what they want.

But other than that, it's like I was saying, these Battle of the Belt specials and things, you...

I don't even know why they're still airing other than that it was a deal, I guess, that they signed that were going to produce

No, they got handed the Battle of the Belts for switching networks.

Remember when they first had them on TBS and oh, we can't have you here because we're going to do something else.

So we'll put you on TNT, but we'll give you four

primetime specials a year that now nobody watches.

It's such an afterthought.

I think at this point, it's almost below rampage.

And I have to ask, I mean, maybe I'm wrong here.

Maybe you would know, but I think there have been nine Battle of the Belt specials.

I know that.

I don't think any any belts have ever actually changed hands on any one of these specials.

We had one of the viewers wrote in with the statistics.

I think one or two might have, I can't remember, but it was some ridiculous thing: like 21 different championships of some kind had been defended or displayed from Ring of Honor and New Japan, and FTW title, and AEW titles, and women's titles, and TBS titles, and TNT titles.

It's just, it's goddamn gaga.

And that's

mark booking.

This is mark booking.

This is when people in the business talk about mark booking.

This is what it is.

Random matches, multiple championships, dream matches, regardless of who's a babyface or who's a heel, or what the

competitive matches, regardless of whether it's a fucking curtain jerker against a supposed main event or not.

Everything's got to be even.

And this is mark booking because that's what Tony was, was a mark booker.

And now that things are falling apart,

I think people can start to see the difference when we point out what they need to be doing versus what they're doing and how it, how it's resulted in their current situation.

Brad, what do you think the odds are, Solomon Grande?

On Warner Brothers Discovery

saying we'd rather have the top program in the industry than whatever the fuck it is you're putting on our air that's losing 30 for 35% of its audience from start to finish.

What do you think the odds are?

Or if WWE is too much, do you think they just say, well, fuck, if we can't have the good stuff,

then we're not going to put these two guys in blue jeans wrestling each other on our show or on our network.

We just won't have the show.

What do you think the odds are?

Are you a betting man?

Well, generally not, but I don't,

as much as it would be absolute chaos if that happened and I know a lot of fans root for those kind of things to happen.

I don't know.

I think the more likely thing is that

I actually think that they wind up staying with USA Network.

I think that the main reason that they're not staying with USA Network is is regards to money.

And I think that if they get turned down by Warner Brothers' discovery, that maybe they wind up lowering their asking price to a point where they see the value in just staying where they are because there is value in that.

And I mean, people don't like to change the channel.

You're always going to lose viewers.

But I think there's something to be said for, I mean, good God, you're talking, imagine if this were to happen, hypothetically, and they go to Warner Brothers Discovery.

You're talking TBS, right?

All of a sudden, people tune in expecting to see AEW Dynamite, just like it's 1984 on TBS,

and instead they see WWE.

And it would be like a Black Saturday all over again for the moment.

But it wouldn't really be, because beforehand, when Black Saturday happened, the Georgia program, which was superior to the WWF program, was replaced by the WWF program.

But in this case, it would be the outlaw program being replaced by a superior program, the WWE.

They'd be welcomed with open arms.

That's true.

I don't think you'd have the widespread, the only, of course, the only kind of outrage you'd have is from that 750 000 people that tune in religiously to watch whatever is put on wednesday nights twitter would blow up yeah they would twitter would would resemble the apocalypse of course but as we all know from being on twitter enough you realize that it really means nothing and has no impact on anything but i think that uh

As much as I would be fascinated to watch the fallout of that, I just don't know if that's going to be the way that it shakes out.

It's almost too perfect of a scenario to actually happen.

Well, you know what we got to do, don't you?

What?

To figure it out.

We got to download the DraftKings Sportsbook app right now.

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And that way, we'll be able to figure out what the odds are that Tony Khan manages to salvage this shit show and keep his network or whether he's run the Warner Brothers Discovery Network off with too much pockets and too many Preston Vances.

That's the fun of wagering, folks.

You get to bet on all kinds of things.

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The football playoff thing?

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Do you bet often, Brian Solomon, or is it was alcoholism your only personal failing, or are you also a gambling addict?

I've never really been a betting man.

My dad has been an accomplished horse better or horse handicapper, whatever you want to call it.

Horse whisperer?

Horse whisperer, horse.

I'd horse whip you if I had a horse.

I spent a lot of time at Belmont Racetrack and Aqueduct Racetrack as a little kid but maybe that's what made me not want to be a betting person that's not to say that people should not sign up with draft kings for all of their gambling needs for all their gambling needs i think your dad was just trying to make you one of the jockeys so he could have an inside and information on the thing well you were only seven

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It's not your fault.

You were a large seven-year-old.

You couldn't get on.

The horse was sway-backed.

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And by the way, Brian Solomon, you're obviously not here regularly on the program, so you might not be aware that there are certain fine print that I'm being asked to read now.

I will do that as succinctly as possible.

Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit www.1-800-gambler.net.

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Wow, that's a lot.

Just bet against Tony Khan.

But nevertheless, I want to go back to this and go in backwards order

because

I just tuned into the Battle of of the Belts to see how they were going to handle the Jericho situation.

I was mortified to see what they did with the rest of the program.

But then,

as I wondered, wonder, wonder, oh, but oh, why is Dak standing in the ring?

I went back to peruse the report of collision to see what the fuck they had done on that show leading up to this Battle of the Belts fiasco.

And that's where I found out that they'd had the six-man tag with the House of Brech

in in the main event, teaming up against FTR and Danny Garcia, and they beat Dax again.

The only match that Dax has ever won in AEW was against Cash.

Otherwise, he gets beat like a fucking drum.

And

as I mentioned,

doing it with Garcia, that's like having Barry Horowitz team up with the Road Warriors and beat an animal.

But the collision television program is another story, also,

in that

they had something different

about that program.

It was a wrestling show.

The matches had a different look.

They didn't do all the goofy stunts and the furniture and the fucking, you know, shenanigans.

They had the FTR and

Gin and Juice, old switch, light switch, switch hitter,

sling blade, what's his name?

Switchblade, Jay White and Juice

against FTR, two out of three falls, was the best modern wrestling match of all time.

And they had six mans with Punk.

When it was Punk Show, you could count on

a brilliant live interview or an

excellently wrestled main event.

And so we started looking forward to it.

Once Punk was gone and his influence was gone, and they stopped using the real wrestlers and infiltrated it with all the friends of the Buckaroos, it became just a half-price fucking wednesday night dynamite now we don't watch it at all i said well maybe we're not giving them a chance so i wanted to tell the people

what the fuck they missed when they didn't watch collision from eight to ten o'clock eastern time

dead in the middle of prime time on saturday night this is what they offered

in the middle of rights negotiations in the middle of the wwe running away with everything, in the middle of multiple examples of self-inflicted wounds, by Tony and his top talent doing stupid things and saying stupid shit on Twitter or whatever.

They've got two hours of national TV.

Here's what they presented to you.

Edge comes out

and makes a challenge to anybody.

I'm dressed.

Anybody wants to come out?

Come on out.

Answer my challenge.

Guess who comes out, Brian?

You don't need to guess.

You watch the goddamn goddamn thing.

Lee Moriarty came out.

Yes, he did.

I think I'd already forgotten, but yes.

Yes, and they had a competitive match, and Edge won.

Obviously, they're not completely insane yet.

And I'm not even pissing on the idea of Edge making open challenges

that could lead somewhere if he did this

for some period of time and then the right guy came out and beat him,

especially by fucking him, because Edge is a babyface.

But when you send a mid-card,

average, blase-looking fucking babyface out

to wrestle the babyface main event guy, make it a challenge, it needs to be quick.

I realize what they're doing.

Edge, now he's taken millions of dollars from Tony.

He's going to finish his career where there's no pressure on him.

There's no stress.

He doesn't have to make a difference in the numbers.

It doesn't matter to these people.

They love him because he's a legend.

He gets to finish his career with Christian.

And in the meantime, he can have some fun, competitive training matches with some of their young talent, developmental matches, right?

Not on national television.

If he's willing to do developmental matches to train guys, get a goddamn ring, put it in a fucking warehouse, open up a school, and don't do it on national television with your main event guys because you ain't got many of them anyway.

So now we know that Edge is competitive with Lee Moriarty for 10 minutes or whatever the fuck.

And oh my God.

So again,

if heels came out and Edge beat them, that's fine.

It helps Edge.

Babyface comes out that nobody gives a shit about because he does nothing

and he looks like shit,

just some fucking guy,

and then they do everything in the world to each other.

You're devaluing your star attraction.

You're not elevating your job guy.

Yeah, it's a weird thing they do over there.

And you alluded to it before where it's like there's almost a disregard for who's a face, who's a heel.

They just match people up sometimes randomly.

Or like you said, if it's just because it looks like it would be a good match.

But it doesn't really matter who's good, who's bad.

I had a weird experience.

Well, I had many weird experiences at World's End, but I had a weird experience during the Swerve versus Dustin Rhodes match, which I know you guys talked about.

But, you know, Swerve, I think, is great.

Dustin has always been great.

But that match was a clear-cut Swerve as the heel, Dustin as the face in that match.

Just the desperate babyface trying to make the comeback.

And that crowd was 100%

not having it at all.

I mean, they were aggressively against Dustin, poor Dustin.

And I think some of that might be the Cody

connection.

I got a sense that there's some of that bile going on.

Yeah, they're probably upset because Cody left them.

And also it was a bait and switch match.

They thought they were getting Keith Lee.

So there's that

substitute match.

And also,

the biggest thing is.

Tony's heels are all the most popular babyfaces in the company because his baby faces are so feckless ill-presented and

bland and blase

i mean the heels stand out as being interesting right i mean swerve can do no wrong he literally literally caught you know threatened harm to a baby

literally and they didn't care they loved it and i said to somebody i was saying a couple of people there you know like this feels weird like this is so surreal that he's clearly a heel and they love him And they said something to me, which I think summed it all up perfectly.

They were just like, you know what?

With AEW fans, they just decide ahead of time who they like, who they don't like.

And it doesn't matter what they do.

It doesn't matter how they're booked.

It doesn't matter what the storyline is.

They just like who they like and they don't like who they don't like.

And you can't change it.

And that's it.

And Tony pays no attention to that and just books everybody against each other anyway.

Yeah.

And so then that was the first match on Kale.

At least Edge is a star.

And then they give us the six-man, poor Prince Nana,

as one main event guy, Swerve Strickland, and the biggest bunch of Drek, otherwise, Brian Cage and the gates of agony.

Boy, agony, despair, and gloom.

They beat Lance Archer and Vincent and Dutch of the righteous with Jake Roberts.

And in a battle of the fans, figuring, who are we supposed to cheer for?

The fucking evil fucking team with Jake Roberts or the evil fucking team with Prince Nana?

What the fuck?

And then poor Dustin,

because he did do a job to swerve, so he had to get a win back, he beat Willie Mac on national television.

And then Hangnail Page

had a thrilling confrontation with JD Drake.

And then

Deanna Perazzo, or as Timeless Tony Storm said, Donna Pulitzi

beat Red Velvet.

This is a prime time two-hour national television program.

Hook beat Kevin Matthews.

The reason why Hook got to beat Kevin Matthews is because next week he's going to wrestle for the world title on TV.

So Tony, not to be drubbed on Twitter again as to give Hook a...

a win before his title match or whatever.

And then they had the aforementioned six-man tag team match so that Dax could do another job.

The all-around best in-ring performer on the fucking roster, him and Cash.

And that was a two-hour tag.

And again, then they go into

the Street Fight Chaos and then Julia Hart and Anna Jay and Pockets and Preston Vance.

Three hours of AEW on TBS on Saturday night from 8 to 10 o'clock.

Back in the territory days, we would have cut our nuts off to have shows a time slot like that.

And he's just throwing indie bullshit at him.

And

in this crucial time, there's no excuse for this, except he doesn't know and he can't be told, apparently.

And a lot of people ain't trying to tell him hard because they don't want him to cut them off

and either.

Make them go home or back to the toy box or not be one of the action figures he regularly plays with because they know that his father will give him more money.

And then Cadbury will bring it in in a briefcase and hand it to the action figures to continue playing with Tony.

But it's gotten embarrassing.

I'm sorry, but this is the last draw this weekend.

And look at this fucking lineup: three hours of television.

My God, Vince McMahon would have taken a sledgehammer to anybody that would have suggested we put this on his air.

And

that's why I was going to tell you.

I'm going to leave you with a little story, Brian, because we talked about Tupelo, Mississippi, and the Tupelo concession stand brawl and the modern fixation that the Marx fans have with it.

We loved it when we were kids, too, because you didn't see anything like it ever.

Now

you can't get away from it.

But I teased Brian last about this, last week on the program, and then we got distracted and I didn't tell him.

But Brian Solomon, do you know

what

regional promoter from the territory days that Tony Kahn most reminds me of?

Who?

Miriam Springfield.

Okay.

Do you know the story of Miriam Springfield?

No, I feel like I should, but please enlighten me.

Okay, in the Tennessee territory, down at the Memphis end, even before that that Nick Gulis and Jared had split off from Nick Gulis and started his own company, Tupelo, Mississippi was a Friday night town at the Tupelo Sports Arena.

And the Tupelo Sports Arena, I don't know what other functions it may have had.

I think Friday night wrestling and maybe they might have fucking bingo or whatever in there.

I can't imagine any other use for this building.

It was, From what I was told when I started, it used to be used as a paint and body shop.

And I believed it because there were still grease and oil stains on the floor.

And especially when it rained and people walked in with wet shoes or the water ran in the sides of the building and the side doors, it was slickered and fucking come on a gold tooth.

And

it was just a big concrete block, cinder block building in a nondescript side street, not downtown Tupelo, out in some kind of half-assed neighborhood, right?

Where you might be driving down the road and all of a sudden you'd see a paint and body shop.

And

there was a small parking lot there.

And then a lot of times people just parked on the street blocks away and walked.

And if you tried hard and used every available seat, you could probably get about 800 people in it.

And it was just, again, a big building.

There was a set of bleachers at the back end and otherwise it was folding chairs.

And they had run this building because they needed a Friday night town close to Memphis back in the days when they did Memphis TV Saturday mornings.

But Goulis in his day was running three or four towns on Friday nights.

So it was never a big money town.

And there was a local promoter named Herman Sheffield.

I have a feeling that he owned the building because why else would you not only use a local promoter in Tupelo, but also this guy had nothing to do with anything in wrestling anywhere else, right?

And did you ever see the tape, not of the original Tupelo concession stand brawl, but the one with Eddie Gilbert and Ricky Morton against Masa Fuchi and Mr.

Onita with Tojo?

Yes, I did see that.

And I know that Onita was really influenced by the original match.

To the almost the end of the wrestling business.

But do you remember the fat lady in the floweredy Moo Moo shirt and baggy shorts and flip-flops that came in and Tojo Yamamoto slapped her?

Yes, yes, I do.

That was Herman Sheffield's wife, and she wasn't smart to the business, and she was the one who sold the concessions, the popcorn and the hot dogs and the blah.

And she was freaking out and came in and was screaming at Tojo and kind of swatting at him, get out of here, get out of here.

And he gave her a working slap that she didn't know how to sell.

And then Herman Sheffield, off camera, you see somebody grab her arm and pull her out.

But on the original,

the original deal with Lawler and Dundee against the Blonde Bombers, the one that actually drew money, Jared had made the deal with Herman Sheffield.

We'll pay for anything we break.

And Herman's deal was anything but the popcorn machine.

You can't break my popcorn machine, right?

So that was the standing deal.

Whenever they did that in Tupelo, you can't break Herman's popcorn machine, but everything else is okay because this building was literally, if any city official had gone into it, it would have been condemned.

And there was nothing worth a plug nickel in the place.

When you walked in the front door, when the fans came in the front door, you immediately passed by the ticket table where you had to buy a ticket.

All seats at

$79, $80, $81, $82, $4, $5, one of those two, right?

And then you would walk in and the concession stand would be on the left-hand side and the wrestlers' locker rooms, such as they were, dressing rooms, would be on the right-hand side.

One for babyfaces and one for heels, where the people could see they came out of separate doors and separate rooms.

And those rooms were made with like that old wallboard shit and not even to code or professional construction.

One time, just at a regular house show, the fucking babyfaces chased the heels back to the locker room and ran one of the heels' heads into the fucking wall and the wall fell down.

And there was Eddie Marlin in the shower, naked as goddamn Jbird, and all the fans fucking staring at him, right?

And then after you passed the concession stand and the locker rooms, and right over the concession stand was that little loft

that Lance Russell famously had the camera and was shooting from to go down the stairs in the concession stand.

And then you entered a big empty room.

It used to be a paint and body shop, and there was a ring and fucking chairs.

And

so basically, by the time that

Jarrett had established his own company, and then in 1980, Nick Gulis went out of business.

Jarrett gave him a mercy payoff, took over Nashville, took over some spot shows.

Tupelo

was getting to be a liability to run that old building every Friday night.

They were outgrowing it.

And Eddie Marlin was the promoter.

He'd run the town for the office.

And

they had TV in Tupelo at channel nine, like in Jackson, Tennessee, at a channel seven.

And those were strong signals.

And the TVs in Jackson hit central West Tennessee.

And in Tupelo hit northern Mississippi and central West Tennessee for all their spot shows.

And I've talked on a program by Booneville, Mississippi at the college might do 2,000 people once a year.

But Tupelo sucked, right?

And nobody wanted to be booked there.

They had a battle royal one time.

And Eddie Marlin rang the bell for the 12-man battle royal and turned around and walked back to the fucking ticket booth, started counting the gate.

And by the time he sat down at the chair, everybody had dove over the top rope and the match was over.

One guy was left winning to win it.

They wanted to get out of there.

Jimmy Kent,

his last day in the territory was in Tupelo.

He was booked in a loser-leave town match.

He showed up outside the building with his car pulling a U-Haul and his whole family in the back seat.

So who's going to win this fucking match, right?

So

anyway, Eddie finally made the decision.

We're not going to run Tupelo anymore on Friday nights.

But who did this upset?

Not the boys who were booked there for these fucking

literally the house would be $1,000 with $5 tickets, 200 people in this place.

And it was just brutal.

Every territory had the worst town in it.

Not just a spot show once a year, but the worst town they ran regularly.

Tupelo was it for the Tennessee territory.

My first 10 weeks on the road full time, I was booked in Tupelo nine Fridays out of that 10 weeks, and it rained every goddamn day, right?

And on the way back from Memphis one night, I wrecked my car.

I'll get to that night in a second.

So anyway, Eddie Marlin is going to give up running Tupelo.

Who did this upset?

Miriam Springfield.

who was a woman who sat in the front row with a lady that was a friend of hers and was there every Friday night and had been for years.

And when she found out that they were not going to run Tupelo anymore, she about had a fit.

And I wasn't there for the conversation.

And I don't know how that it all got put together, but rather than her not be able

to go and her and her friend and sit on the front row in this converted paint and body shop and watch these dreary matches with these unmotivated wrestlers in front of 200 fucking people in Tupelo, Mississippi every Friday night.

She bought the town from Eddie Marlin.

From what I understand, she paid, it could be mistaken, it could be an exaggeration.

Randy Hales probably knows more about this than me, but I was told she paid $40,000

in like 1981, right?

So that she would be the promoter of Tupelo, Mississippi.

And the office, the deal was they would plug the shows on TV, on the Channel 9 TV,

and they would send her a card of main event, you know, TV superstars

every Friday night.

And she would do the newspaper advertisement, and she would fucking pay the rent on the building, I guess, to Herman Sheffield.

And she would pay the boys their minimum guarantee because that's all you ever got out of Tupelo, was your minimum, $50, right?

And she was the promoter.

And for and the office got 10% booking fee.

So

on a town that they were losing money on, instead, suddenly Eddie gets 40 grand on behalf of the office, and he got a nice piece of it, I'm sure.

And she has to take on all the responsibilities of paying guests.

So they're 10, 12 guys on a Friday night headed to Memphis TV.

There's where they go.

They make $50.

If the fucking house is $1,200, then $120 goes back to the office and they don't give a shit, right?

So that's the way they were.

And by the time that I got into business, it was really dreary.

I mean, we had some $900 houses at $5 tickets.

And it was three or four weeks I was in the business that I was being booked in Tupelo on Friday nights.

Tupelo was the first place I ever got punched by a fan because I was trying at that point.

Nobody had told me about temper your fucking work for the, because there was no cops, because they couldn't afford them.

And normally nobody got heat, but I got heat.

So Jesse Barr, the guy that I was managing, dispatched the fellow.

He didn't knock him out.

He just kind of halfway German suplexed him on his head and the guy slunk off.

But anyway, then I get there one night, I go out and manage Jesse or whoever the fuck,

and I come back in the locker room.

And the way that they did it there, every other town in the territory,

you got paid by your check that you got once a week in Memphis on Monday nights.

But because this was a Miriam Springfield production, you had a white envelope with your $50 in cash with your name on it.

So I had to sit around till the matches are over and then the referee's handing out the heels money.

I'm in the heel locker room.

He didn't have one for me.

I said,

what about me?

He said, let me go ask.

Came back and said,

Mrs.

Springfield said you weren't on the sheet that the office sent, and so she ain't going to pay you.

Because here was another thing about Miriam Springfield.

They sold her the town.

They didn't smarten her up.

Oh, man.

I was just going to ask about that.

Not only did she never come in the locker room or was allowed to come in the locker room.

They said, oh, there's naked men in there.

but she wasn't smart to the business and she liked the baby faces and she didn't like the heels because Jimmy Hart had gone through the same thing.

She wouldn't pay Jimmy Hart

unless he was she specifically had to because it was on the sheet from the office because he was a heel and he was trying to screw Bill Dundee and Jerry Lawler.

So

Dundee was the booker, but I couldn't go into babyface locker room.

So I had to The next day at TV tell Dundee, I didn't get paid.

Can you please give my 50 bucks from Miriam Springfield?

But on the way to Memphis that night, that's where I hit the slick spot on Highway 78 in the Holly Springs National Forest and totaled my goddamn car that I'd just bought six weeks earlier and very well could have killed myself.

So by the time I got to TV the next day,

after being picked up by my cousin who lived in Memphis and then driven to the studio to where I could fucking catch a ride with Jimmy Hart to Nashville that night, I couldn't walk.

My neck was stiff.

I'd been knocked out.

My hand was almost broken.

So they didn't beat me up too bad.

And I finally got my $50

two weeks later.

So I only, because I

totaled a new car, I only went in a hole about 15 grand for that one shot.

But that's the thing.

That is the moral of the story.

Tony Kahn is Miriam Springfield.

He always wanted, he always hoped, he always always dreamed, and he just wanted to watch his wrestling and run his wrestling.

And he didn't care about making any money.

He didn't care about

as long as he can sit there at the gorilla position

and tell everybody what to do.

He's, as Mama Cornette used to say,

in hog heaven.

And that's so Tony Kahn

is Merriam Springfield.

Instead of $40,000, he's got $100 million.

It's the same principle.

And we've seen it over and over in the business.

Those of us that have been around long enough, pay attention and read about what happened before

we came around.

Ronnie Gossett sold Nick Gulis' territory to this fucking woman in goddamn somewhere in middle Tennessee one time back in the 70s.

He didn't own any of it, but he sold sold it to her.

And he spent a little time in jail, but she didn't get her money back.

The only reason Nick Gulis found out was when she called the office and said she wanted to have a staff meeting about the way things were going to change.

So, who?

What the fuck are you talking about?

I've just bought your company.

No, you haven't.

I bought it from a man named Ronnie Gossett.

Oh, you did.

I mean, you know,

it's not unusual.

And I heard it in Tony's voice when I talked to him on the phone.

They will drain his blood.

And so here we have it.

This is the kind of wrestling that he booked with his two friends on the internet when they were kids.

And he said this.

This is his story, not mine.

And now he's doing it on national TV because he can afford to.

Nobody else has ever spent this much money before before in this business to not make any.

And I know, and I'll say this, and then we'll be done.

Uncle Dave, the apologist in chief, says, oh, but the plan has always been to get a big rights fee and then he'll be profitable.

No shit.

But how do you get a big rights fee?

When you're doing everything wrong, when you're producing television like this that is losing viewers, not gaining, when you are losing talent to either malcontented attrition or hospitalization,

and when you can't fill the buildings that you're booking whenever you come back to a town because you've shown them everything that you had the first time.

So, yeah, if somebody

wants to pay them $200 million a year for the rights for this television, they'll be highly profitable.

Otherwise, it's been fucking five years almost, and he's burned through $100 million.

And by their own lips, they admit they have not made a profit yet.

And I'd be interested to see how far behind they are, really and truly.

They haven't made a profit yet.

And I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, I believe in the entire history of WWE, at least as long as Vince owned it, there was only one year where they operated at a loss, wasn't there?

I think it was while you were there.

I mean, not saying it was.

It was right after.

No, it was not a a causal.

No.

No, it was 95 or whatever the fiscal year of 95 was.

Because when I started in early 96,

that's when Vince was still stewing about it.

And he had taken.

That's why I didn't know why Lord Al Hayes retired.

And I didn't know why JJ got mad and decided to sell his house and quit later on that year.

And

Bruce was, you know, unfazed.

He never fucking gets bothered by any act of disrespect.

But Vince cut all the

office people's money

because the the company was doing bad but he cut the wrestling people's money but he didn't cut the

business people's money which is what made the wrestling people

mad and uh

and led to a whole bunch of and then i showed up and i was like i heard that people worked in this office got paid all this money Where the fuck did that go?

But that's also why TV ratings matter too.

People have to remember $6 million.

He lost $6 million and was wanting to kill people.

It's

with Tony,

he's just

his father said it best.

He's going to inherit a shitload of money.

I might as well give him some of it now so I can watch him enjoy it.

Is that what he actually said?

No, that was what the reasoning that Shad Khan said for giving Tony this

gift.

Well, I mean,

when you talk about the rights fees and things, I was going to say that's where the TV ratings come in.

People can talk about, oh, well, you know, people aren't watching TV the way they used to anymore.

And that's all true.

And the numbers are down with everything.

And that's all true.

But TV ratings are part of what goes into whether or not you get the rights deal.

So

if your ratings are in the toilet, you're not going to get that same sweet kind of a deal.

You're not going to have the bargaining leverage.

And that's really the biggest value of ratings today is that you can negotiate those kind of deals.

You can say, this is what we're going to bring to your network, to your sponsors.

And if you can't deliver it, then you're going to wind up getting the short end of the stick.

Right now, AEW has put itself in a position where TV networks, if they're tuned into what's going on, would say, well, okay, if we can't afford the big show,

and I mean mean the WWE, not Paul White.

Right.

They ruined that term with him, by the way.

That was always the term.

If you can't afford the number one program, then these guys are cheap.

If we want wrestling at all, I guess we could take them.

And not a great position to be in, in my humble and lovable opinion.

But anyway, I've vented about as much as I care to vent today, Mr.

Solomon.

Did you enjoy your sojourn into the hysterical world of the Jim Cornet experience?

I survived it, right?

I guess that's a bonus.

If you're not too offended personally and you're still breathing, then I guess everything's ended up in the right direction.

But

if you didn't like today's program, folks, don't worry.

We're going to do another one any second.

All we do is programs here at the various

Arcadian Vanguard Network, Cornett's Experience, Cornet's Drive-Through, Shut Up and wrestle, the whole Hee-Haw gang.

So tune in in a few days for the drive-thru hosted by the, not only the great, but also now the missing Brian Last.

I hope he had a great day with his family, and I hope that the DNA test turned out the way he wanted.

And Brian Solomon, thank you for sitting in.

And we'll be back in one week.

With another Jim Cornette experience, who knows who may host that one with me?

You'll find out.

See, there's a cliffhanger.

Until then, folks, thank you.

Fuck you.

And bye-bye, everybody.