Episode 598: Record Lows

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Like a midnight and the rock and roller. He's in a fight for wrestling solar using a racket and some mind controller.
He's Jim Cornette.

The keys to the future, held by the past. And with Tag T partner Barion Last, he sends this message out by podcast.
He's Jim Cornette.

Well, he's never never fake a phony.

He never backs down from a fight.

He never wins the pony. Cause his mama raised him right.

It's time

to prepare

your mind.

Get the experience.

Get the experience.

Get the experience of Jim Cornet.

Hello again, everybody, and welcome to a big day of Jim Cornette Experience right here on the old podcast. And today, AEW announces it's opening its own hospital to save money on its injury angles.

And Danny Hodge's father has a knife. And more of this tomfoolery is joining me now.
Hawaiian Brian, the podcasting line, the king of the Arcadian Vanguard Podcast Network, Mr. Co-host to you.

He's the David My Lancer, the great Brian Last, everybody.

Aloha, Jim. A pleasure to be here once again.

We're going to have a lot of fun. I look forward to listening to your amazing comments.
No, see, already, there's a tell, Brian Last. There is a tell.
You've already phrased.

I look forward to listening to your comments, which means you are going to try. to stay awake for once.

Hey, goddammit. You're going to try not to talk is what you're going to do because you got a big old fat lip there.

You got a big old fat lip. There was a second-story cat burglar in the neighborhood, ladies and gentlemen.
And Brian last had a midnight fist fight with him.

And he's got a busted lip and he's ashamed of the minor way that it affects his speech that you would not be able to tell except I just let the people know about this.

that's right it was a cat burglar

no i was at a bjj class and i was sparring with uh helix oh no helix gracie and uh no see i was gonna give you the opportunity to to tell it but your daughter head-butted you in the face she's uh

she's the one has been taking the brazilian jiu-jitsu

and when you when you didn't give her a big enough slice of cake and ice cream she said come here, dad. Bam.

No, what happened?

Realistically, what happened was I went to give my daughter a kiss thinking she was asleep. And I bent over to give her a kiss on her head just to tell her I love her, have a good night's sleep.

And she, not knowing I was there, moved her head up and just head-butted me as hard and fast as I've ever been head-butted. And I've been head-butted a few times.

And it got me really good, busted my lip. And who knows what else?

Who knows what it could be? You know, they are you going to start a GoFundMe like Psycho Stew for these major facial damages? Busted Brians, GoFundMe. Please help me with my busted lip.

How long did it take you to regain consciousness? Well, that's the other problem.

I enjoy entertaining my family. So anything mild that happens all throughout the day, I take a bump.
You know, this is my chance. This is my canvas here.
If I

could almost trip, I will absolutely trip and take a big bump in front of my family to get a pop. So they're used to it.
So I go down selling and they think I'm selling.

They don't think I'm really hurt. They're laughing at me.
And then I get up and they saw the blood and they stopped laughing.

I thought you were going to say that normally you like to entertain your family by having severe injuries or getting brain damage or whatever. I mentioned I like getting head-butted.

It's a family tradition here.

So

I will not be talking at all after this opening segment. It'll all be

all Jim all the time.

See, you have already articulated. You're smoother with a fat lip than any other podcaster out there.

You've just articulated better than most of the knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing cretins that occupy these airwaves these days or these interwebs or currents that are flowing and streaming through the air.

You're all right.

You're doing good. Well, I mean, make no mistake, even today, feeling under the weather and having a busted lip, I'm still better than everyone.

Oh, now you're under the weather, too.

Is there some illness involved also? I'm feeling.

Why were you if you're contagiously diseased? Why were you bending over? Contagiously diseased to put germs on your loving daughter's head. No wonder she head-butted you.
Get away from me.

You goddamn spreading the plague. I woke up this morning feeling puny.
As some may say, with a little bit of a sore throat, feeling it in my head. just nothing's going right.

I feel only slightly better than the AEW ratings right now. No, I feel awful, but uh, we're gonna have a good show.
It's gonna be, it's been so much fun so far.

Oh, well, yes, I'm just glad you're setting the expectations as low as possible. Do you need to take your blood pressure, use a rectal thermometer? Ask, do we need an EMT standing by?

You think you're going to get through the? I have some, I have some Dayquil here, two Dayquil tablets I'll be taking shortly because I think I may have a mild fever. But

fever!

In the morning,

I'll pull through the show. They give me fever.
You know, that's actually kind of in your key. You pulled that off.

Well, thank you very much. Well, speaking of pulling things off, why don't you just take the tourniquets off?

And if you start bleeding again, let us know when you're two quarts low.

Okay, prime time.

And,

I, you know, actually, the first thing that I was going to say on the show today until you just blurted out a lot of this nonsense, some of which I did not even know, bare details is all I was aware of, that I was going to say, feel better soon.

And you've stolen the thunder here, but feel better soon to Stacey's mother, Jan, who's been in the hospital again all week, this week. And

the people who listen to the program regularly know she's been in the hospital several times over about the last 12-14 months so we think they must like her they keep bringing her back in at various ways but uh she entertains them i think but you know so i've been trying to keep up on the news there while also keeping up on the wrestling news and everything but we want to

tell her to feel better so they're threatening to let her come home in the next couple of days so she is feeling better and hopefully this time she learns her lesson and stays away from your cooking.

Hey, no, it was, it had nothing to do. I wasn't even there.

I was not even there this time. It was, it was someone else that put the poison.
And no, I'm, it was just completely unrelated.

But anyway, so I apologize if I'm not

up on all the stupid things that people, because it's coming so fast and furious, Brian, when people say the stupid things and do the stupid things in wrestling over the past few days.

That's pretty much the

interesting thing about wrestling these days: who

involved with it is going to say or do something stupid over the course of a period of time

rather than the actual programming. Can you deny this?

No, a lot of the things you see on TV, it's less about what you're seeing on TV, more about you can't wait to hear what the fallout's going to be in real life. Who's arguing with who?

Does Nikki Bella have a problem with Wade Barrett? Does Wade Barrett give a fuck? Like these kind of things are the things I think wrestling fans live for nowadays.

Oh, you know, and that's the thing. I'm going to apologize

to the listeners out there, to the cult of Cornet members, if I, because I know

that I have not been myself. You know, Brian, you can concur with this, that I have a reputation for the longtime listeners, for the people who've followed the show for ages and ages,

being a cheerful person, an upbeat, a positive person, never critical, never down, never grumpy, always sunshine, lollipops, rainbows, and waterfalls.

Troubles and stress just run off my back like a duck's feathers in

mobile oil or whatever the fuck that saying is.

I don't know. Somehow the duck has feathers that cause trouble to run away or something.

But normally, you know, I'm a normal, I'm a, I'm a, I'm never grumpy and cranky and old and cantankerous and miserable.

I feel like I've been that lately, but you can concur that that is not, certainly not my reputation on a long-term basis.

Certainly not with people who aren't strangers, no.

So anyway.

I've been trying to come up with something, and I have, and I've been working on a project to try to alleviate my stress with everybody's health issues and the family and all the stuff we've had going on this year.

Not a lot of time to jump up and kick my heels and come on, shake your body, baby, do con guy, you know, that type of thing.

But I wanted to do something fun to alleviate my stress. So I ended up giving myself a whole different kind of stress.

But

Over the last six months or so, it has been fun in spurts. And my announcement that I've been teasing for the past couple of weeks is the new cornet books here.
The new cornet books here.

It's not as big as a phone book, but it's more interesting.

Brian, you know, I've been obviously telling you about this project and my aches and pains with it, or what I found, or what I'm doing.

But for the folks out there, at the risk of boring you, Brian, so you can continue with the ice pack on your mouth.

I was at the grocery store checkout line, you know, trying not to stare at the people who didn't have their shit together that were delaying me in the course of my business.

And I would stare at the racks of the collector's books they'd have,

you know, on Elvis or on the World of Disney or the Beatles or.

classic horror films, whatever the case,

where they got the nice, you know, it's a variety of articles about the subject and the color pictures and the memorabilia reproduced.

And I said, somebody ought to do that

for wrestling.

And then at the same time, for a while in the back of my head

is

over a period of almost 10 years from like 2012 to

close to 2020 or thereabouts, these years are starting to blur together.

I wrote a monthly column for Fighting Spirit magazine, which was the dominant newsstand wrestling magazine in the United Kingdom at that point in time. It's since

experienced its demise, but I understand I was not a contributory factor.

But

I had a lot of writing that had never been seen in the United States and actually had not been seen

anywhere in its entirety in print because, you know, I have a problem with being brief. You may have noticed that, Brian, that I have a problem with brevity.

But anyway,

so

I always thought, well, I ought to put those columns together in some type of compilation.

And then

I thought, why don't I just do both? So that's what I've been working on. It's an eight and a half by 11, 100-page collector's book in color, except for the people who are sold.

they're still in black and white.

Like you would find on the racks of the newsstand or whatever, or the grocery checkout line, but it's on wrestling instead of this, these off-brand things that most people like.

And

in trying to come up with how to put this together, I went through the columns that I'd written. And there were some pieces of writing that I was especially proud of.

But it couldn't be all over the page. So I kind of culled it down to the best pieces

that I'd written either on wrestling stars that had passed during the time I was writing the column or

wrestling stars of the past that had passed, but had

great careers that impacted me.

And then when I sat down with those, I rewrote almost everything

because

it's been years later. I forgot to say things the first time, and I can't leave anything alone.

And I added a few new pieces based on what I was doing while I was getting there.

But my theme came together.

It was

stars in the wrestling business that I was either a fan of when I was a fan or had personal interaction with in the business or both.

That one became the other. Hence, the title of it is Heroes and Friends.

Because this is

12 guys with,

I think, unique and fascinating stories.

You know, whether

even if they weren't wrestlers,

some of these guys would have, if they were the world's best sign painter at one time,

they still had fascinating stories, unique lives.

And these pieces are kind of part biography, part historical

perspective and information that some of the we impart here on the show, part

personal interactions and stories of my whether I was 17 years old or 50 years old when I

interacted with these people.

And then we have taken, and Brian, again, you were involved here because you gave me access to the wrestling news archive, which is, well, we could do a phone book and not even scratch the surface, but a couple of things that I needed,

because you have everything. You were able to have that.
And a few other people I'll thank over the course of time as weeks go on.

But there's about 100 pictures and illustrations from my collection, the Wrestling News Archive,

in various places, some of these

not seen in decades, and some I would say never seen by the public. And I know that that's true because I took a few of these things and they've not been released.
This is also

the first publication using

some of my wrestling photography directly from the negatives. Since, as we've talked about on the program, here that we're starting this project going through my original negatives and

jumping to Yahosophat,

what you could get on a print from a negative in 1979 has changed significantly

in 2025. Brian, I may have been as good as Francesco Scavulo and never realized it.

I don't know what the fuck is going on. If it had looked like that then, I could have raised the prices back then that we were selling them at.

But anyway.

The 12 guys that this book features, and,

you know, we're not going to go over everything in detail today, but we'll talk about this again as the weeks go on.

Chapter one is Bobby Heenan.

And I think that's kind of self-explanatory because we wouldn't be sitting here talking now because I probably would have never been involved in wrestling if I hadn't seen Bobby Heenan.

Bobby Heenan, The Sheik, Bruno Sammartino, Ray Stevens, The Dream Machine, Paul Bearer, Vader,

Boo Bradley.

And I don't know if people are going to say, well, one of these things doesn't fit.

I liked Boo. I had personal interaction with Boo during the period of time he worked for me at Smoky Mountain.

He had passed away while I was writing the column.

And

I just, I did it based on how I had been introduced to him and my interaction with him.

And Brian Elliott, who was the editor of Fighting Spirit at the time, said that it was one of the best pieces of writing in general that he'd ever published in a magazine.

And it kind of

encapsulated the way I felt about Boo and his experiences in the business. So he's involved.
And Sputnik Monroe, go ahead. Well, you were going to say something.
Well, some fans,

again, there are some younger fans and some fans

with Smoky Mountain. Who would he be? Balls Mahoney, if you're one of the kids out there.
But his first

break in wrestling and television spot was in Smoky Mountain as Boo Bradley, Chris Candido's childhood friend.

Managed by the evil and vindictive Tammy Fitch, who would later on go on to have sunny days.

Did she ask him to change Fitch?

Sitch the Fitch, or did you do that? No, I thought that's what it was.

I thought that's what when she ended it because they had the New Jersey accent.

So I'd already written down Tammy Fitch.

She said, No, it's Sitch. I said, Well, it's Fitch now.

We've done the notes. Bob Connell can't fucking make these last-minute changes.
The fuck.

Anyway, I told her that way,

at that point, there was no internet. People won't be able to fucking look you up.
Considered a blessing. Yeah, really.

But anyway, the other people involved, Spudnick Monroe, Lance Russell, Ron Wright, and finally, and my favorite chapter, Pat Malone, the Green Shadow.

And we've been teasing people with talk about Pat Malone,

but his story is here, all the stories that we've told together with facts and figures and pictures.

And

I think it's the best one of the bunch because it's the one that almost everybody that buys this book will learn something from, no matter what kind of a wrestling expert they think they are, because

he's the unknown story that we're finally getting a chance to tell.

But some of these pictures are cool. And

again, the Lance Russell chapter,

we've found enough of my negatives.

The best pictures that I have seen

of Lance, Lance and Dave, Lance and Lawler, Lance and Hulk Hogan on the Memphis wrestling set coming off of these negatives 45 years later or whatever.

And Hotchkiss Featherbottom has been a

gem in all of this, said, Oh, here's what you do with this high-resolution scanner. And then boom, and you put it through the thing.
And I'm like, God damn.

Again, I should have charged more money back then. Do you have Lance at Jerry Jarrett's house party?

uh

lance was not there

oh i thought lance saw the house and that was one of the things that triggered a meeting with him and lawler no lawler heard about the house i got lawler wasn't there either

no i've i remember i've got

I got pictures of Stan and Steve because they were about to debut as the fabulous ones, and that was Jarrett's pet gimmick.

Dundee was there because he was obviously the booker.

There may have been a couple of the other boys there, and I'm trying to think,

but there wasn't a lot.

And Lawler was definitely not there. And Lance didn't come.
Lawler was intentionally not invited or Lawler didn't want to go?

I don't know. I wasn't, you know, I wasn't the mailman carrying the invitations out.
But no, Lawler wasn't there.

Now, Lawler lived in Memphis at the time, and all these guys lived in Nashville right down the street.

But

no, Lawler heard plenty about the house:

18,000 square feet, and the fucking ballroom, and the gold fixtures, and the

hundred acres that it sat on the mountaintop of.

Why am I down here on Walnut Creek Road?

Yes.

But anyway, but that's the thing:

there's all kinds of of high-end merchandise for modern wrestling.

And you can get, you know, the high-resolution copies of Cody Rhodes' dental x-rays autographed and framed from Fanatics or whatever.

And you and I have talked about this. There's not a lot of higher-end,

you know, color. collectors books on classic wrestling.
I think I found out why when I saw what this thing was going to cost and the time it took to set it up, but there's not a lot in that space.

There's almost nothing in that space. It's always been one of my big things.
And, you know, I'll probably be doing some projects down the road too with things from the archive.

But, you know, if you look at music, for instance, there's a magazine I've always loved. I've been getting it since I was 19, Mojo Magazine from England.

And it's high-end writing and it's high-end photography. And it's a nice layout.
Nothing looks cheap. Good slick paper.
My thinking has always been: why can't that be done for wrestling?

You know, especially if you have an audience, if you have the people who actually care about this kind of thing. You know, you look at whatever's out there now and it's just everything.

You know, it's covering modern wrestling, which is a different animal than covering classic wrestling, but just the look and the layout and everything. It's not what appeals to me.
You know,

when I see PWI on a newsstand at Barnes and Noble, it just, the look of it doesn't appeal to me. The look, the look alone.

And to clarify, we're not talking about actual biographies. We talk where Brian Solomon has just written about Gorilla Monsoon.
We're talking more of the

more visual photo illustrated magazine photo tabletop coffee top

fucking rocky top, whatever kind of books that

you, because I wanted to be able to see if it's about the Beatles, they're showing there. There's their first 45 on blah, blah, blah.

So here,

not only do you see

in Bobby Heenan's chapter, he made a set of nucks at a Legends event we were at that he could knock me out with because he was managing the baby faces.

And

it's the same way that I did it. Of course, he was doing it first and somebody different taught me, but it was so cool.
He took the white tape and around the cardboard and made the blah, blah, blah.

And after he hit me with them and knocked me out, he fucking signed them for me. And I've got them.
So there's a picture of that. We've talked about Ron Wright's chisel

in the stories about Ron Wright and those crazy days in East Tennessee when they used to get juice that way.

Well, there's a picture of the chisel that may never have been seen, at least in color in public before.

You know, shit like some stuff on Sputnik Monroe to

to not only back up

the the famous stories about him helping integrate the seating at the ellis auditorium and the ones everybody knows and sputnik and the cowboy but just some of his other lunatic adventures so anyway it's it's uh

and there's more modern

too

that uh all the way up to what well vader was around even 25 years ago so son of a gun I've hit all eras.

But besides the pictures and the memorabilia and the history and et cetera, I'm proud of these pieces of writing because,

as I said, the main thing was

what put them together to make a theme of the book to me

was that they were heroes and friends. They had been both people I was a fan of and/or

personally interacted with, or both.

But also, these stories are just

insane when you set them down on paper. And hopefully I have.
There's a lot of the wrestling journalists out there, Brian,

and the people with supposed degrees in journal of the creative folks.

But I would invite

everybody out there to compare mine with theirs. I may not be a a Solomon or a Hornbaker, but I turn a fairly decent phrase.

and don't be scared we talk about how high in this son of a

is it's 24.95 and that includes my autograph because i wasn't going to do that to people

it's still you know within the realm of reasonability for the for the the common folks out there to and stocking stuffers

Actually, if

anybody in your family wears a stocking that's the shape of a, would be appropriate to put this fucking magazine in without rolling it up like a

ball,

you probably need to send them to the doctor. But it's a good gift giver also.
And

did I mention that the holiday sale at Cornett's Collectibles at jimcornet.com will start this year, Saturday, October 11th. at noon Eastern.

And that's when this book will go on sale. But we're working on getting banners up on the website so that everybody can see what it looks like and what's going on.

Brian, how many could I put you down for? At least one.

Maybe.

Now, don't go crazy for the whole, you know, the whole family. Maybe pass them out down the street.
Stick them in mailboxes.

Well, we'll see about that.

But as a photographer and as the photographer for the photos you were talking about before, what's it like for you after all these years to see these photos that you know pretty well?

You know your material from 40, 45 years ago

at a higher resolution than you've ever seen it before.

It's amazing. That's what I'm

because again, even if you had

in those days, if you took a picture

on a roll of film, had the film developed and your first roll, your first set of prints made off of that roll, right? That's as clean as they were ever going to be

because invariably

no matter how careful you were at some point if you reprinted negatives

though especially several times they're going to be exposed to dust there's going to be a scratch there's going to be something right

well

Many of my negatives are pretty, almost all are pretty pristine, but some of them have been printed several times in the past.

And you could see at some points, you could see dust or you could see a little smidge or a scratch or whatever.

And no, this not only is that gone, but also just the

resolution, I guess what I'm trying to say when you, because I look at the prints, I still have all these prints from the 70s.

And then I've looked at the test prints that we've made.

based on the new images that can be scanned off these negatives and also seen what they look like when you put them in to set up the printing process

i'm like holy jesus christ

this would have been worth time magazine in the 70s

so it's it's i'm

again hopefully i'll live long enough for the the estimate is now 70 to 80 or 90 000 frames i might have over here in negatives but

we're going to see what this shit looks like here one way or the other.

But it's just, it's an amazing difference in just the quality of the

print that you can make now, the detail that you can get in it versus what you were limited to. And remember

in the 80s,

Bill Apter was said, please send me black and white.

pictures for the magazine because color pictures didn't reproduce as well in his black and white magazine because of the printing limitations of the time.

Now you can just send a goddamn picture that you can print

and hang on your wall through

an email and be downloaded and zapped at Walgreens and it looks better than the shit we could do then.

But on the negatives, the information is there.

If it was in focus and the exposure was right,

you've got a world of information now that you can get out of that thing to where it's like you're looking through a fucking window rather than seeing a picture that's been reprinted off a negative.

What exciting. Am I boring you or have it all lost the ability? Is your face swollen up like Planet of the Apes? I can't wait to actually get my hands on this and see it and read through it.

Some of these articles I've read previously, but it's been, what, 10 years? Well, and actually, I rewrote everything anyway. So a lot of them don't

bear a lot of resemblance. There's a couple I saved because of Paul Bears, it just was

kind of almost, and there's one of these, and I'll quit talking about it.

Every time I read this thing and I've read it 50 times, it makes me start crying.

It's the Lance Russell

because

I wanted to do something,

write something that was deserving of what, not only what a great person Lance Russell was,

but how important he was to the wrestling that people even watch today.

And I think I make that case

in this piece, that not only was he a big deal

in his market, but that he helped so many people that went on to influence the business in so many ways and did so many things that influence, et cetera.

And also just to illustrate how much people love this guy. And so that may be my favorite.
I don't know. They're all my little babies.
Anyway.

Was it as enjoyable as it was in the past when you would lay out a program or a magazine to do this? Well, no, this is, I mean, the.

The programs and the magazines were always like, oh, Jesus Christ, we've got to have this done in two days. We need to sell a couple thousand of these, make 50 here, right? Boo, here's a picture.

Goddamn, stick this in.

And even writing a magazine article,

you know, you're on a monthly deadline and a certain amount of space.

So this was, and all the books that I've done are different because the Midnight Express scrapbook was one whole completely different thing. And then the

Gardens book and the

rags, paper, and pens about the Memphis merchandising were

the

more historical fact booked for the historical nerds on one specific subject and behind the curtain was a graphic novel

and i say this is a completely different thing again but it's it's

it's fun because i get to use all the pictures and the memorabilia and the things that are cool related to these people that I mean even the publicity pictures that were widely circulated at the time of some of these people

are not really well seen today.

It's not any big deal to me to pull out a picture of Pat Malone and Ginger the Bear from 1950 something and go, oh shit, I forgot nobody's seen this in 70 fucking years.

So that's, I think that's more fun because I get not only get to write, but we also get to put a lot of this stuff together.

Well, again, very cool. When is it going on sale? Saturday, October 11th at noon Eastern at jimcornet.com.
Since you happened to ask,

all right. When will the website crash?

And no, we're uncrashable now. We're unsinkable.
Remember, we got Hotchkiss Featherbottom, and

he's, I'm telling you, he's bulletproof. The unsinkable Hotchkiss Featherbottom.
The unsinkable Hotchkiss Featherbottom. He fingered Molly Brown one time in high school.
Come on. That's disrespectful.

That's disrespectful. Well, to which one?

I'd like to know.

See, now.

Well, we've sunk to a new level. Yes.
Yes.

I'm taking a drink.

I could use one too. What do you got going on? No, it's a sprite zero for heaven.
I just needed something to wet my whistle, as Mama Cornette would say. And

speaking of being all wet, did you hear what happened in the news? Did you hear who got in legal difficulties, Brian?

Did you hear who got arrested?

Who got arrested? That was like a big deal, the story. No, I don't know.

It was a pretty unusual thing that happened. Something you don't see every day or find around the house.
You didn't see this, did you? I'm not sure where you're going, no.

Chucky.

Chucky Cheese got arrested.

Walked out of it, out of the restaurant in handcuffs. You didn't see this on the news? They had body cam footage.
I must have missed this. You watch, what is this, your furry news that you watch?

Where did you see this? No, no, this was on, it was actually, I saw it both on the local news and on the national news, and it was repeated in various day parts of the local news, but I.

I was watching it and I didn't even pay attention to the location of the place. I don't know where it was in the United States, but I'm sure it's the only time it's happened this week.

So if you're interested, you can Google it. But the cops went into a Chuck E.
Cheese.

And well, you've got kids. You've been a Chuck E.
Cheese where they have the guy that's Chuck E.

The fucking, what is he?

A rabbit? I don't know what kind of animal he is. Or a rat.
A mouse. A mouse.
Not a rat. A mouse.

Well, he's a rat now.

He's a fucking, what kind of bird don't fly? He's a jailbird. He's a mouse.
He loves cheese. That's why he's that Chucky.
That's why he's named Chuck E. Cheese.
Well, there you go.

Well, old Chucky, the cops went into Chuck E.

Cheese's restaurant and they went right up to Chucky in costume and turned him around and handcuffed his ass and walked him out the parking lot and put him in the fucking squad car.

With the head on?

With the head on. They didn't take the fucking head off until he was standing outside the police car.

There is video. They walked a fucking giant mouse and hand past the children.
The restaurant was open.

Think of the children, Brian.

What would you do if you took your children to Chuck E. Cheese and the cops came in? And not only, and he was doing a photo op.
They took him out of the photo op with the fucking.

Yes, it said, come here. We didn't talk to you.
Well, hold on. What was he arrested for? We haven't even said that.
What did he do? Well, here's the thing. Oh, Chuggy had a side job.

Apparently, this woman called the police and said, Hey, I was at Chuck E. Cheese and they stole my credit card.

And I believe a Chucky might have my credit card.

And then the cops came and they pulled her credit card out of Chuck E's fucking pocket or pouch or whatever a mouse has that he keeps his credit cards in.

My face hurts from telling you. That's a great idea for like a burglar.
Like, I'll get a job at a theme park in a costume where.

I could hug everyone and pat everyone on the back and they wouldn't think anything of it. Of course, Mickey Mouse is patting me on the back.
And in reality, it's the artful Dodger.

But the thing is, but I'm not excusing Chucky's, Chucky must go to jail. Chucky got to go down.

Chucky's in trouble.

Yes, he is. They can't get Roger Jackson, but Chucky Cheese is off the street.

Hey, they sent a team in.

Roger Jackson is still hanging around, but they sent a team in for, but no, but can both of these things be wrong?

Chucky must go to pay penance for his sins of stealing a credit card, especially on duty and uniform. See,

that's a betrayal of the public trust.

But did the cops have to?

Couldn't they at least have taken his head off in a restaurant to show the little children that it was something? No, that's probably why they didn't. That's probably the exact reason.

You just hit your, you hit your head. No, but they can say it's that way.

it's a fake chucky it's not the real chucky but the kids

the real chucky's a good person this is a fake see we're arresting him for being a chucky imposter would you arrest a santa claus in front of kids

you can't put santa claus in front in handcuffs and perp walk him out the goddamn door in front of children can you well because it would destroy the myth of

I mean, this is clearly not Santa Claus at that point. Well, anyway, it would just, it would give them some kind of bad taste in their mouth about the Christmas and Santa Claus.
Now these people,

they're going to grow up and hate pizza like you do.

Is that what happened to you? I love pizza. You don't see that.

Did you see Chucky?

Were you digging into some goddamn pepperoni sausage pizza as a child? And then all of a sudden you saw Chucky perp walked out and fucking frisked over the cop car. Yeah.
You figured it out.

And then you've got trauma. You know, at these kids' birthday parties, they don't typically have sausage and bacon pizza, whatever the fuck you eat.
They have a lot of people.

Hey, if I went to a party and didn't have any kind of meat on pizza, I'd fucking leave the goddamn party, even when I was a kid. What again? Fucking cheap ass.

If you're a parent, you could explain away Chucky leaving with the police. Like, oh, they want to talk to their friend Chucky.
Maybe he's helping them. No, they want to talk to him.

That's why they put him in handcuffs and the guests got his hand tied because he's fucking walking him out. Oh, they're playing some kind of game that they always play.
No.

But if you take the head off, you'll ruin the whole thing. These kids are going to be traumatized.
Well, but no, because

Chucky is screaming, I work here. I work here.
And the cop's saying, I know you work here. Is that what happened? He was screaming, I work here.
Yes, I work here. I work.
I know you work here.

What was the giveaway? What was the giveaway? What was the giveaway? The clue.

Because normally, if you just go into most pizza places at lunchtime, you're going to see giant mice.

Now, Chucky.

From the best of my memory, Chuck E. Cheese, they used to have an animatronic band.
I don't think they have that anymore, but he always had friends. He had other furry creatures who love pizza.

What were they doing? Were they there at all?

Not one of these son of a bitches stepped up to vouch for him. I'll tell you that.
They were all hiding in their dens and burrows, apparently. See, there's more loyalty in McDonald's blend.

Oh, yeah, all of them stick together. Well, it's because of Mayor McCheese and his lax policies.

So, what happened? Did he get charged with anything? Does he have a name?

Yes.

He ready to show up for the trial in the same outfit now.

Google his goddamn name. Hold on.

Don't Google his Chucky. Google Chucky.
No, Google Chucky arrested. I guarantee you.

Oh, it was the first thing that popped up. Chuck E.
Cheese arrested. Newly, this is from CNN.
Newly released video.

Hold on. I have to agree to something here.
Newly released video shows a man arrested while wearing a Chuck E. Cheese costume.
Police in Florida have released body cam footage.

So it's Florida, of course. Yeah.

He was charged with credit card theft and fraud charges. Oh, what was his name? Did they give his

real given Christian name, or is he still known as Chuck E?

They did not have a name there. Hold on.
Let me go to this Tallahassee newspaper.

It wants me to pay a dollar for the first month. I don't want any months.
I want for one article, assholes.

The confusion and anger of children and their parents at a Chuck E.

Cheese in Tallahassee, Florida has gone viral in newly released body cam footage of mascot, of a mascot, excuse me, of a mascot being escorted out of the location in handcuffs. Does it have his name?

His name is Jarmel Geroux Jones, and he's 41 years old. Jamel Geroux Jones.
I wonder if he's named after Al Jaro. Well, at least the Geroux part.
I was thinking of Al Jaroux.

That could possibly be, but also perhaps his parents were Spider-Man fans and they just wanted their own J. Jonah James.

You ever see that We Are the World documentary where it's a pretty cool documentary. They're recounting how the whole thing happened.

I think right after the American Music Awards, and Al Jaroux is bombed. He got drunk as soon as they got there.
He's like, well, he's getting in the mood of saving children, I guess.

And he just got bombed, completely drunk.

I have audio.

Hold on. I have some audio here, Jim.
Let's get this one. What? Here's Chucky's.
Here's the body camp of Chucky. Here he is in his outfit with a bunch of kids and a family there.
Let's see.

Come with me, Chucky.

Come with me.

Stop resisting. Stop resisting.

You're being detained. Stop resisting.
Let it go.

Let it go. Do not cause a scene here, sir.
Oh, goodness.

This is CBS out of Chicago. Chucky, stop resisting, Chucky.

That the fact that they're calling him Chucky, I mean, it makes it seem fake. It doesn't even seem real.

Here's a kid's good now.

Mother, no.

Oh, my God.

This is so funny. Well, there it is.
Chucky Cheese arrested. Oh, here's the entire 20-minute body cam footage.
A Chuck E.

Cheese customer reported a worker to police after seeing he used her stolen credit card on camera. An officer first went into the Chuck E.
Cheese to use the bathroom and try to identify the suspect.

Oh, here's him getting arrested.

I don't know if you can hear him. He's muffled, but they have it up here.
I don't know shit about nothing, is what he's saying.

I'm working, entertaining kids for a living.

I got you, buddy. Come over here.

You got anything on you? It's gonna poke me, stick me, stab me.

You got anything on you? He's still in the mask. They're frisking him.
him he's in the

does this come off man does it is that does this just come off the top i want to hurt you oh work

i understand you weren't here

they put the chucky cheese head on the roof of the cop car so maybe it wasn't about not traumatizing the kids at all Yeah, they cut Chuck E's head off and they're displaying it like a trophy, children.

When he said, does this come off? He should have said no.

Right? Why would you say yeah? Why would you say no?

he's the gag tries to pull out and he's going ow, ow, ow?

We're gonna talk

in a second. Um, how does this come off, man? Is it just like a normal...

I gotta take this back and this is my work stuff. Okay, check it out.
Yeah, we'll do it. Put him in the car and read him and then go from there.

Search him as best you can. I know he's probably got

internal pants, but... I gotta take all this stuff off, man.

I gotta get him a dress.

What is going on?

Just pat him down. Pat him down for now.
I just make sure there's nothing crazy. Do you have any weapons, nice? Cheese?

Okay, perfect. Putting him in the cop car.
And again, this is a 20-minute video.

You think he had any

contraband cheese shoved up his ass to take to the pen? The name of the video is Chuck E. Cheese Mascot Steals Credit Card and Regrets It.

All right. Well,

you know, it's this kind of news that you can only get here on this show.

There's only one wrestling podcast out there giving you the latest wrestling news, wrestling history, as well as mascots going down.

And that's the Jim Cornette experience.

Where's Ricky Lee Jones when you need her? The Chuckies in Jell. Yes, he is.
Chuckies.

When you first said Chucky got arrested, I don't know why. My first thought was Dances with Dudley got arrested? I was thinking the Chucky, the

red-headed Chucky doll, Chucky Chucky.

But they never arrest Chucky. They don't have the guts.
Did you see that when it first came out? I know you were working a lot, but Child's Play. Yes.
Oh, yes. Yes.
What did you think?

I love that type of thing. The spooky

thing. That type of thing.
The spooky doll, the haunted doll. It goes all the way back to Telly Savalis and the Talking Tina episode of the Twilight Zone or the various other.

TV movies with the voodoo dolls with Karen Black and, you know, all the animated dolls. That's scary.

that's still scary the Karen Black one yeah yeah

she was a little spooky too until you got to know her well the name didn't help just sound so

sound fine so final yeah fade to black

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Well, let's fade to another subject. You want to? I got something here, Brian, that surprised the heck out of me.

And this is more information from the Pfeffer files up there in Notre Dame,

uh, but also can be cross-referenced with the fine

wrestling at the garden book, The Battle for New York, Scott T.O. CrowbarPress.com, the history of wrestling in Madison Square Garden,

to indicate that

I think the payoffs for Madison Square Garden may have gone down when Vince Sr. took over

because I got again just two shows here we want to talk about,

but uh, Ricky Starr payoffs for March 1957, two shows in Madison Square Garden, where he was not even the main event

on either one of them,

but he was a top attraction at the time. Obviously, the younger folks, Ricky Starr was a

he had a legitimate ballet dancing training,

and he also was a legitimate wrestler and combined these and had

like a

Caucasian raca

type of gimmick in the late 50s that he made a lot of money with and then went to England for years and years, lived there.

But nevertheless,

on March 11th, 1957,

Madison Square Garden, they drew 19,995 people and paid $62,565.

Okay, that's the official attendance and gate.

And the main event was

Raqqa

over Hans Schmidt, who was the hot German heel at the time. Oh, yeah, that's a big match.

And the semifinal

was Ricky Starr over Dick the Bruiser.

So

again,

Ricky Starr was the next to last match, even though he was a pretty big name. But this is the period of time

when Pfeffer had a lot of fucking control. The Fargo's were on this card.
They had just put the Fargoes together.

There were

talents that were working for Vince Sr. in Capital Wrestling in Washington.

But as we've mentioned, the garden promoters were able and had their own wrestling advisors, including Colaquariani, who was the key to Raqqa.

And so they picked and chose talent. But Pfeffer had a piece of Raqqa or had a piece of Ricky Starr, rather,

which is why his payoffs are recorded in Pfeffer's files. He got $2,500.

for that semifinal match in the garden on a $62,000 house. What was the date of that show again?

March 11, 1957.

Okay.

Wow.

$2,500

in 1957. It's like

fucking 11, almost $12 to one today. So that would be the equivalent of around $30,000

in fucking today's purchasing power, as they say,

for a fucking semifinal match in Madison Square Garden.

But he was, and then we've also got documentation that

a few years later,

the Fargo's were a main event or a semifinal match. He got like $1,000.
Of course, they were in a tag,

but this guy was being taken care of. And then he comes back.

Hold on, got turned page.

On March the 30th, 1957,

they draw 20,125 people and $63,753, so about $1,000 more and another

130 people.

And Raqqa and Perez are on top against Fargo and

Don Stevens, who would later become Don Fargo.

That was the night they sold out.

the garden, the big record house that they always bragged of, right?

But the semifinal was ricky star against paul bunyan

who i am pretty positive was that giant

lurch-like character that used to also work as max palmer do you know who i'm talking about i know the name but i i can't and as i try to think about it i can't put an image to it He was a big, lumbering, kind of normal-looking guy.

They build him. He was in some movies and TV.
They build him at eight feet two,

which was a

big exaggeration because that would have put him,

I think, at that point, as the world's tallest man or second place or whatever. But he was like as big as El Gigante, tall.

He just wasn't an athlete or anything, but they used him in wrestling in the late 50s. He made movies that I think is Max Palmer.
His wrestling gimmick in a lot of places was Paul Bunyan.

It was a three-minute and 55-second match.

So one would have to think that it was a freak show type of thing that Pfeffer would have loved. And I believe that's why he probably represented this guy now that I'm talking this through.

Ricky Starr got another $2,500.

So he made for two shows at Madison Square Garden in the month of March 1957, just working two nights, he made $5,000,

which is the equivalent today

of almost $70,000.

What would Pfeffer's cut have been?

That is not recorded, but I assume since he had

however many other fucking wrestlers and he's booking all these guys into the garden, the Fargoes were giving him

When he, well, he found them here

and sent him to Tennessee. And then they were giving him an equal payoff as their manager, even though he was not there.
Everywhere they were booked on the road through him,

if they made $50, he made $50.

If they, I mean, whatever they made each. Jackie 50, Don 50, Pfeffer 50.

And then there's the letters in the Pfeffer files that, again, I've got to go through and put some

dates and places to the records they have and see what kind of gates these guys were doing and the various pay scales. But

they were on a weekly basis writing in with what they got paid and sending him his cut.

His bundles,

the bundles, as he called them.

Apparently, a wad of a payoff or any kind of wad of money, money was a bundle.

But think about that. This fucking guy and Ricky Starr, he was working all over the Northeast at the time and

in places like Baltimore and fucking

Philadelphia. And he was big and he got big shots in Chicago.

And,

you know, at one point, worked in a variety of places across the country making that kind of money as an attraction like that. It's insane.
And he's just one guy that Pfeffer was booking out.

Pfeffer was a one-man booking office. They mentioned the Fargo's, various other people.
So it wasn't like that was the only money Pfeffer had coming in.

From what you've seen, and I don't want to spoil any future segments you're going to do on this, but

the relationship between Pfeffer and Jackie Fargo,

was it as good with Pfeffer and Don Fargo? Was it different? How would you compare the relationships from what you've seen?

Well, it didn't last as long as Jackie's. And that's Don,

for whatever reason, and I think because it was a pattern of his career, he just wanted to leave and go places.

I mean, I don't even know whether he had a a reason a lot of times, but when he originally

left the Fargo's team,

you see letters he reported in for a short period of time, but then he was on his own. Pfeffer was not booking him.

Pfeffer still kept a relationship with Jackie where even in 62, 63, 64,

when Jackie was mostly based out of Tennessee and was really getting over there,

Pfeffer would get him shots in Chicago when he took remember we've talked about when Pfeffer took over Chicago with Fred Kohler and ran it into the ground and there's records there that show

how bad the losses were 63 and 64 yeah

but Pfeffer brought Jackie Fargo in as the world champion that was his new buddy Rogers

and I mean people have seen film of Fargo when he was in his 40s and the 70s, but he did look,

he never had the physique of buddy Rogers, but he could pass. He was very Pfeffer-like, and he could pass close enough.
What's the oldest Jackie Fargo footage you have seen?

There is something from, I think, Nashville off of silent eight-millimeter film of a six-man tag, and I can't remember where I've seen it. And I think it's from around probably the mid-60s.

And otherwise, it's the 1972

match with Al Green that sold out the Mid South Coliseum for wrestling for the first time. I love the way Al Green throws his punches at Jackie Fargo in the corner in that match.

Boy, howdy. I love the way that Fargo stands in front of him, even though he knows what's going to happen.

But nevertheless, then Pfeffer brought Jackie Fargo to Boston for Tony Santos during Tony Santos's final year or years promoting Boston and pushed him as the world champion there.

And he had still gotten Fargo to the Madison Square Garden cards as late as

I think it was either 61 or 62,

one or the other, with Jackie and Roughhouse, Sonny.

And see, that's the thing. You see that Jackie was making,

you know, $80 or $100 or $120, whatever it was in Memphis or Nashville.

But when Pfeffer would get him these out shots on these runs, he'd make several hundred dollars in Chicago or he'd make $1,000 in the garden, or he'd make five or six, $700 in Boston.

And it wasn't until after 64, Pfeffer lost his connections. And,

you know, then they weren't coming. And then through 65, 66,

Jackie's over in the Tennessee territory. They're giving him towns to run.

He's partners in businesses with Eddie Bond, the country music guy that used to tour with Carl Perkins and Elvis and all these people, he's on the radio.

And, you know, he's tired of sending Pfeffer his cut. And then finally,

something happened, which hopefully we will find out more specifics about. But by 67,

Jackie broke his relationship off with Pfeffer,

and there was no more.

money involved in that famous meeting they had in the locker room in Nashville with Gulis and Welch and Christine and Fargo and Pfeffer.

And then the black cats start popping up every time that you see a

fucking anything from the Tennessee office.

Yeah, I mean, it must be a difficult conversation when you get to the point where he's no longer booking you out anywhere because you don't need to be booked out anywhere.

You're working in the territory that you live.

Are you supposed to pay Pfeffer forever

based on that?

Well, you know, you've always got to pay the Pfeffer,

Whether it be Peter Pfeffer or Jack Pfeffer.

Anyhow, Ricky Starr.

He's one of those names, like, if you ever meet fans from like

right before Gorilla Monsoon, even though, like, you know, we talked about Gorilla last week, so I'll say him.

But even though there are fans who were still there, like the previous era, Raqqa, Ricky Starr is a name that always comes up. I remember seeing Ricky Starr.

Whether it was the ballet slippers or, you know, the mannerisms in the ring, whatever it was, he stood out to a lot of the fans that saw him.

And, you know, again, then

probably more of our British fans will

remember him because he spent the last years and years of his career there. He came back to the States maybe once

before he retired. And Lannie Poffo based a lot of...
His stuff, especially later on as the genius, on the mannerisms in the ring of Ricky Starr, right? I think he did. I believe he did.

i might have seen him do it

anyhow we got another thing here a little history for the folks because this this learned me something brian that i didn't really know before i didn't know the details about this story it's famous story inside the wrestling business that's been told in the locker rooms for the past 65 years but I didn't actually know the details, and I think people have forgotten some of them, but

it's kind of

apropos to bring this up because of the talk about Roger Jackson and Psycho Stu and all this malarkey going on with people not being smart, being allowed in the business, or people hitting the ring and aren't smart, or whatever the case.

Things have always happened.

Now,

of course, we said that there was not usually the case where everybody involved was in some degree culpable and there was a lot of stupidity and unprofessionalism going on to go all the way around at the show out in California here recently.

But there were always incidents related to people

who weren't smart that were still maybe connected in some fashion.

to the actual wrestling business or the wrestling,

the people on the wrestling program going on.

And

the other day we talked about George Gulis'

TV promo that he had done that ended up on YouTube. And I mentioned I'd say it was part of the Savoldi's

library that they had. And

somebody emailed me

a newspaper article from the Oklahoma City Times, Saturday, May 28th, 1960, on Angelo Savoldi,

who was one of the Savoldi family at the time was

a top guy in the Oklahoma, the Leroy McGurk territory.

And

it's the full story of, again, a story that's been famous in the locker rooms and wrestling for a long time.

And I just knew the bare bones of it that Angelo Savoldi was the heel.

And Danny Hodge, as a rookie,

the great Danny Hodge from Perry, Oklahoma, that would

go on to be the world junior heavyweight champion and

is still remembered, the Hodge Trophy in Wrestling, an NCAA champion, the greatest American wrestler, probably pound for pound ever produced.

But

his father one night, Danny Hodge's father at a wrestling match,

stabbed Angelo Savoldi, his opponent, because he wasn't smart.

That was the bare bones of the story that we've been told all those years. You've heard it, right, Brian?

I heard that he went after him, and as he had the knife in the air, he said, I hate Parsippany, and he went for him.

But no, basically, there's more details now. And I want to read this newspaper article.
And it might take me a second because it printed out in two fucking pages. And I got to hold them both together.

But again, it's the Oklahoma City Times, May 28, 1960.

Angelo Savoli, with more than 70 stitches in his back and arm, declined Saturday, file state charges against his boxing opponent's father for slashing him with a knife in a Friday night match.

William Edward Hodge, 50, of Perry, Oklahoma, thus was released from city jail on $20 bond from a police court complaint resulting from the municipal auditorium melee.

Savoldi and Old Pro began talking Saturday about a rematch,

which would keep a well-publicized rivalry alive. Savoldi said from his hospital bed he's more interested in meeting Hodge's son, Danny, again in the ring than in pressing any charges.

Young Hodge and Savoldi are both professional wrestlers, but they were meeting in the boxing ring Friday night.

So apparently, and again, before we go any further with this,

Hodge also, and everybody in Oklahoma knew it after his amateur wrestling success, before he became a pro wrestler,

this,

I don't know what you call them, investment group management group, said people got together and said, we want to,

because he had competed in the golden gloves also as a boxer.

And he was actually.

Wasn't he the only guy to fucking win the golden gloves and an amateur wrestling title ever the same year? As well, but nevertheless

so this group got him to to become a professional boxer and he had about seven or eight fights and he and he didn't like it and he quit and then he turned to pro wrestling so this angle with sovoldi they had wrestled a couple of times and apparently they had done some kind of deal to okay now the stipulations this week it's a boxing match let's see how you how you fight hodge at a boxing match huh that type type of thing.

But that's a detail I never knew about, but it plays into the story because listen to this.

In the fifth round of the match, Hodge's father suddenly charged down the aisle, stepped into the ring, and slashed twice at Savoldi's back with a pocket knife.

The father was interviewed in jail Saturday prior to his release. In a boxing match, you're supposed to follow the rules, Hodge declared.

I wouldn't have said a thing if this had happened at a wrestling match. My boy was down, and Savoldi had hold of both ropes and was stomping on him.

I didn't say anything last week when he did the same thing in the wrestling ring. But when you put on boxing gloves, there are certain rules you're supposed to follow.

We've talked about this, Brian, that a lot of guys in the old days didn't smarten their family up

because they just

give them good tickets. You had to run down the aisle.
Well, yeah.

But they didn't smarten the family members all the way up. And later on, there's more of this, but he's Hodge's father said, like,

well, you know, wrestling, that kind of tomfoolery is allowed. Apparently, Hodge had, because here's the thing, it's Danny Hodge's father, even if he is somewhat small-town fellow.

He knows that his son is the baddest wrestler and boxer in the goddamn country.

So Hodge, to avoid having to smarten him up, said, well,

they let us do the show biz and everything and wrestling, but it's still rough.

But, you know, the outcomes are legitimate, whatever the fuck.

Whatever cover story he'd given his dad, his dad somehow figured, well, now they're fighting on boxing rules now, so it ought to be different.

And then, hold on.

The doctor said the two knife wounds were not critical. We had to do quite a bit of repair work, a nurse said, but he isn't hurt critically.
He feels pretty good this morning.

Hodge and Savoldi had met in two professional matches at Stockyard Coliseum, but both matches ended in confusion. Promoters arranged the boxing match as a result.
The elder Hodge,

employee of a Perry implement firm,

said he's seen all his sons' professional bouts, both boxing and wrestling. In professional wrestling, that horseplay is all in the game, but I feel like boxing's different.

So he cut the guy with a knife in his arm and his back.

So what did you heard about this before getting this information? Well, I didn't know it was at a boxing match. And I didn't know, you know, the whole buildup and that,

again, that

his father had somehow, because see,

again, it wasn't surprising. All the guys said when they repeated the story was, yeah, Hodge never smartened his father up.

But it's fascinating to know that he gave him some kind of fucking story where to so he wouldn't hit the ring on his wrestling matches.

Way, you know, we're allowed to do that stuff or it's okay there. It's show biz.

But somehow the dad thought, okay, boxing rules. Well, now he's got to treat my boy fair.
He didn't tell him the whole goddamn deal was a work.

And dad didn't pick up on it because it was a different time.

It's a great story, though. Does that think about that? Does that help or hurt the wrestling company for that to get in the newspaper? Oh, God, it helped.

Because people talked about that in Oklahoma for the next 20 years.

Because Hodge was a legend to begin with. And now it's even bad.
And also,

for people who would say wrestling's fake, what the fuck? The guy was stomping his son, so he got in the ring and fucking cut him and put him in a hospital over a work.

You know,

actually, there have been

fake

stabbings and slashings

December of 77, when Lawler had the rematch in the Mid-South Coliseum with Harley Race for the NWA title, and to keep his deal with Jimmy Valiant going, Valiant ran in, broke the bottle over his head,

and slashed him on the chest with it. And Lawler bladed his chest

and went to the hospital afterwards to get him to stitch it up. So it made the newspaper.

But this was the

element of premeditation was not there in the Savoldi-Hodge

conflict here. It was just,

you know,

serendipitous. It got front page coverage.
I mean, there are stories about, I think, what, Mario Galento's wife, Smokey, like pulling guns on people, right?

Yeah, she had a gun in her purse sitting on the front row.

And

his opponents would,

you know, make sure to ask if she wasn't going to get too mad or whatever the case. And

finally,

that was early on. You know, they were together for a while.
I think finally she got smartened up.

But then, if anybody fucked with Mario or he believed they were fucking with him, then she still might pull the gun on him.

But they even got they had their daughter working before it was over with, Barbara Galento.

But now here's the question, Brian.

It two people who aren't smart,

probably in many ways, but definitely to the wrestling business.

Two completely different setups, two completely different time periods, whatever.

But when you think about it, which one would you have rather had? Would you rather had the guy, well, he took his pocket knife, he cut me on the back, he cut me on the arm. I got 35 stitches.

It ain't serious.

Or would you rather have a guy take for 23 free shots at your face, break your fucking facial bones, knock your teeth out, give you brain damage, put you into some type of short-term coma.

And

yeah.

Because a lot, because I know a lot of people are going to be saying, oh, see, it could be worse. He actually used a knife on him.
He cut him. Fuck.

If it's the devil or the deep blue sea, if it's one or the other, I think I'll take Hodges' dad, won't you?

All things being equal, knowing that Angela Angela Savaldi had a nice long life, yeah, I would take that. It's amazing.
Roger Jackson's still out there.

There's been no, there's been nothing, no repercussions for any of this yet. Hopefully, we'll have an update next time.

I know his dad's been doing interviews and giving comments on both sides of the issue, apparently.

His dad has a different story every show he does, and he does five shows a day. But one of the things he's like, well, he ought to do some time in jail.
Not prison.

but just jail and some community service. And I think now they're also blaming Psycho Stew for

having the other. Well, he was obviously a minister society as drunk and out of control as he was there.
He looked like he was in a soma coma.

Well, hopefully an update soon. Hopefully.

Yes, hopefully some type of repercussions that we can report on the other fellow. But until then, Brian.

Maybe you think you're just you're in a you're in a business where people are going to jump in the ring and slash you with a knife or shoot spinebuster you and bash your face in or just all around just treat you just bad just bad maybe you want to change your business maybe you would like to go into the job you have right now

and you'd like to tell all your co-workers to piss up a rope and you'd like to say thank you you bye to the boss and you'd like to go home and be your own boss the master of your own domain, as they say.

You can't just do that by yourself, can you, Brian? You got to have help. You got to have somebody in your corner.
You got to have a professional

entity

that can lead you and guide you in all these ways so you can take your creativity and your good ideas and your various forms of

this ought to work and turn them into reality where you can tell people where to go and what to do and how to park your car without taking instructions anymore in your life.

Brian, is that not the life that the American dream aspires to?

I believe so. Yes.
Oh, what was that? That was that kid on the bicycle. He's always ahead of the game.
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Alrighty then.

Let us move forward now with more

part of the entertainment of the programming here. I got an email, Brian,

from old friend Ken from up in what part of Pennsylvania? He's up there. He's up around the Pennsylvania area.
Upper Pennsylvania? Up around the Pennsylvania.

Could be lower, could be eastern, could be western. And after all, what is Pennsylvania but Philadelphia on one end, Pittsburgh on the other end, and West Virginia in the middle.

But he said, and this brings up something that's interesting in the way that

more modern fans think about something as compared to the fans and, or modern guys compared to the fans and the guys of the old days.

He says, I was watching an SD Jones match on YouTube. Right there was his first mistake.

And of course, there was the spot where the heel slams SD's head into the turnbuckle, which he doesn't sell. Jesse Ventura comments, well, that won't work on SD.

I started thinking about how, I guess, for lack of a better word, racist it was in wrestling before the modern era, as many black and Samoan wrestlers could not be hurt when their cranium was under attack.

So many used the headbutt as a finisher, SD Jones, Skip Young, Bobo Brazil, Tony Atlas, Afon Sika, Samoan SWAT team, etc.

What was the background on this? And were the black and Samoan wrestlers pissed about the stereotype.

Well, for the background of the idea of just a headbutt in

pro wrestling, now that we know the modern fighting styles, people actually headbutt in fights, depending on the

context and what kind of fight you're having, pro or amateur, whatever, headbutts are a thing.

But yes, it is an old racist stereotype that black people have hard heads.

I don't know how far that goes back, but that was a stereotype.

And obviously,

in wrestling, one would think that that was the reason why that

so many black guys, Dad, Bobo Brazil wasn't the first, but he probably, because he was

the nationally known

black babyface that everybody knew and loved and used the headbutt as a finish, that he would have popularized it. But it goes back to, I'm sure, the 30s and probably farther than that.

So,

yes, there is a racist underpinning or, you know, the racist origin to black guys using the headbutts or not selling the head into the turnbuckle or whatever.

But as far as

whether they would be pissed about it, this is the thing, Brian.

And,

you know, either the fans or the guys will be like, oh, bullshit.

Bobo Brazil didn't give a shit. Bobo Brazil, if you had gone to Bobo Brazil and said, Bobo,

I know your finish is over.

Instead of the Cocoa Nut, it was the Coco butt. I know your finish is over, but it's racist and we want you to change it.
Do something else. He would have said, wait a minute.

I got the easiest finish in the wrestling business. I can do it to anybody.

There's literally almost zero chance of injury unless I really headbutt the guy.

I don't have to pick anybody up. I don't have to fall down.

Are you out of your fucking mind?

That's the thing. It was business.
I mean, seriously, I can't even imagine. I can't even.
Hey, Bobo, one thing. Drop the Cocoa button.
Yeah. What?

What do you mean?

And I mean, to say it for a lot of those guys that used it, it worked for them and it was easy. And it was easy on the opponent.
And it was a business. You weren't trying to do the

prettiest, most dangerous, most athletically thrilling thing ever seen. You were trying to get one move that you could do to anybody over that people would pop on when you did it.

Now, as for the Samoans,

I don't think it's a stereotype that they have. I've never met a Samoan or a native of the Pacific Islands.

That the first thing I would think of to do if I was forced to fight one of them would have been hit him in the head.

I don't know that that's a stereotype. I don't know

in the Samoan culture if that's considered offensive or whatever, but

I wouldn't try it.

And so, I mean, they

probably,

that's probably something that they just said, well, fuck, if I was mad at a guy, I'd just hit him in the goddamn head with my head.

But I'm willing to be corrected on that if that's also offensive in the Samoan culture. We have an email here, Jim, from Samoa from Soft Head Sam.

He says, we're not all the same.

There was that problem when they weren't getting enough calcium in the coconut milk back in the 50s and an entire generation was born with soft heads

we do apologize for the error i mean guys still use the headbutt it's not like it's gone away right i mean jacob fatu headbutts people doesn't he well yeah and he and he's samoan all the samoans headbut people

now i i

don't recall now that it's been brought up because it wasn't something that was just weighing heavily on my mind. I don't know a bunch of the black wrestlers of today are using the head butt.

I know a bunch of the white ones

that

you wouldn't look at and say, well, I think he has a preternaturally hard head. They're using it because it's cool.

It's like, you know, Dick the Boozer will head butt you. It looked like shit.

It is interesting, though. It is something that a lot of black wrestlers used for a long time, and then it just went away.

And, you know, as you were talking about this, I'm thinking of the current wrestlers, and I can't think of anyone using the headbutt.

At some point, it went from everyone was doing it to no one does it.

But see, that with Jacob Fatu and Solo's same way,

I think they do too many because they'll just, when a guy's down in front of them, they'll just like headbutt him five times real quick. And the guy's selling already, but the, you know, the

perpetrator is not really registering anything.

And that just, to me, that's a lazy transition.

With Jacob, if he grabbed a guy like the guys that used to use it for a fucking finish in the left hand with the back of the guy's head and drew back and bam and one headbutt and the guy takes a big bump and Jacob makes a little funny face and he goes about his business, that would have so much more impact, but they just use it as kind of a transition thing now.

Well, let me say something that you may not agree with. With the rare exception, and the one I could think of is the Dynamite Kid, who at times I saw really lay it in, or at least it looked like it.

But I hate the diving head button. I just don't think it looks good.
And I think it's something that needs to be explained to someone who doesn't always watch wrestling.

And maybe it makes sense to that fan, but it just looks like a slow-moving head to the shoulder. At times, it doesn't even look like it comes near the head.

And I just never thought that was the one thing I, and I really like Harley race, but that was the one thing I always thought it looked like.

Yeah, well, Harley was trying to go forehead to forehead, but do it safely. And there was still

you couldn't do it at full speed, right?

You know, a guy like a guy like Benoit or somebody that came off the top with that kind of velocity, and you knew it was doing some kind of damage to something. I could buy that.
Yeah, he really was.

Yeah.

But a a lot of the guys that just, like you said, just do it and land in the general vicinity or, you know, whatever. It, no, it's, it's an example of

one or two or three guys get something over. It looks good when they do it or it looks appealing to the modern generation.
Then everybody tries to do it and people see through it.

That's kind of the same thing with the head, but Ronnie Garvin.

was excellent with the standing.

I used to call them the flipper headbutts, where he would just free without holding your head, just free stand, and he'd jump up and headbutt you. And he had a good eye for it.

And it looked pretty fucking good, but he looked like Flipper up in the air.

I'd be at ringside. They call him Flipper, Flipper.

You know, if you ever talked to WWF fans from like 82 or 83 who got to go to live shows or specifically smaller shows, the most disappointing thing in the world was when the snooker match would end with like a headbutt from the second rope.

As opposed to the super fly splash, the guy would be down. You'd be like, oh, he's going to do the splash.
And instead, he would go like halfway and just do the headbutt.

Well, that was

his spot show finish.

Because that's, again, you know,

even if it's a guy's trademark move.

Then you can't do the super fly splash 320 times a year off the top rope over a period of five or ten years straight and that's that's another reason why bobo brazil wouldn't have wanted you to take away his headbutt because you could do that

but a lot of those guys realize that

you know that there's no way i can do this i'll do the splash in the garden do the splash the big show i can't do that 320 times a year or i'll cripple myself

which dynamite kid did it 320 times a year and crippled himself.

If you were booking a wrestler who had a really crazy looking forehead, would you tell him to do the headbutt? Like, let's use your deformity.

Yes, well, no, that would like King Curtis.

That fucking, remember that head, he used the head, but Duke Myers,

Duke Myers had a goddamn head the size of a fucking deformed watermelon. And he did the headbutt boom, and it was believable.

I mean, it depends on the size of your head. I don't know if Danny Garcia needs to be doing a fucking headbutt.
He looks like he'd pop like a pimple.

Anyway, depends on whether you got a soft head or a hard head.

Brian, since we're talking about people with soft heads, do you want to bring up that Matt Riddle is not making himself any friends these days?

Yeah, I was wondering if you saw this story because it was like over a few days where there was controversy and then there was a statement. And then I guess, in a sense, fallout from the statement.

A tirade?

I love the tirade. The last thing we had heard was that he ran into Shane McMahon at Hulk Hogan's funeral, and Shane made a sarcastic comment about his now red hair,

to which Matt Riddle replied, go fuck yourself.

And that was the last thing we had heard. By the way, the news statements are accompanied by video of him with this red hair, and it's the most ridiculous looking thing you've ever seen.

What the fuck is he even doing? I didn't think all of it's red. I don't know what the fuck it is.

but to bring, go ahead. I was gonna say, in terms of wrestling, I think he's like working for MLW or something.
I don't even know what he's doing. Well, he was working for, hold on.

He was working the other day for Boca Rattan Championship Wrestling, I think. Yes, Boca Rattan Championship Wrestling.
He worked for the other day.

But they're over in Boca Rattan. Otherwise known as Southern New York Championship Wrestling.
But go ahead. But I still, I'm waiting for him to open up Del Boca Vista.

I think that's my fucking market that's ready to pop. Have you ever seen the bloopers where Jerry Stiller can't say it? He can't say it.

Del Vista Boca. Del Vista Blue King can't go.

That's why even in the episode, he goes, Del Boca Vista, like that. He like spits it out because he's trying to really concentrate on each word.

But speaking of Del Boca Dico.

So apparently the story came out that Matt Riddle was booked for a show over in England, jolly old England, and he didn't show up. And he didn't send the money back.

This is the first story came out, didn't send the money back for the deposit, didn't show up or refused to come.

And then all, and to compound everything, it was a charity show to raise money for all the little charities of the world, whatever it was.

And so he, so then

He responds, and here's the thing about Riddle.

He might even have a point or two here in the middle of all this, but he's such an uncircumcised, flaming asshole prick

about everything he says and does. And he's such an obvious mental case and just a dick in general that there's no way to have any sympathy for him.

But apparently his rebuttal statement. was that the promoter wanted him to arrive in England for a Sunday show on Thursday.
And he said he wasn't going to do it.

But then the guy said he would make some kind of appearances or something else to make up for the days instead of sitting there for two days. But he didn't do it.

So Riddle didn't make the trip and he went to work for Del Boca Vista Wrestling on the one night and then something else the next night.

And he said he would fly Saturday night over there for the Sunday show.

But the promoter over there said, well, then you pay for it. He said, I'm not going to pay for it.
But then he said, I'm not going to pay for it. Take it out of my pay or something.

Well, that means you're paying for it, you fucking mental midget.

But it's one of those deals where the guy didn't want to come over and sit there doing nothing for a couple days.

And the promoter didn't come up with anything else for him to fucking do, but he's trying to get him a cheap ticket or whatever the fuck. I don't know.
But the point being, that was the thing.

And then

Riddle was saying, well, you didn't. You didn't announce it was a charity show until a couple of days ago, but then they had some type of proof that they'd announced that a month before.

And then Riddle ended up giving back the deposit that he'd been sent.

But he's just,

he's an idiot. He's just an idiot, and he can't keep from saying stupid things that make people mad at him.

Well, Jim, we do have the actual audio of...

Not the first statement that you referenced, just his response, I guess, to everyone

being upset.

video title I have here is Matt Riddle drops unhinged video, responding to being exposed for having no show to charity and being accused of not returning the deposit he was paid.

Wait a minute, what a fucking title. First of all, that pretty much encapsulates the statement.

But yes, there was the back and forth with he explained what had happened from his side of the fence on the with the promoter and everything and the dates and the back and forth.

And also he said he booked him a bad flight, like a middle seat, you know, fuck you, whatever.

But then I assume the video that you're talking about is the tirade

that he went on to pretty much everybody in the fucking wrestling business, whether it be promoters, fans, or just anybody that he might come in contact with

in the process of wrestling for Del Boca Vista Wrestling. Is he just gone fucking nuts and he don't give a shit?

Well, let's go to this audio. He appears to be in a red bathrobe.

Sitting back, he has red hair. He's in front of a spray-painted wall.
Let's go to Matt. Is this his Charlie Sheen, period?

It may be.

You know, I could explain everything in great detail. I'm not lying.
But I really don't give a fuck anymore. Most of you motherfuckers are dumb fucking cunt.

Just like when you believe that Me Too bullshit, all the other fucking fucking

garbage

you guys are all fucking dumb and it's fucking insane it's fucking insane

fucking believe these fucking creeps

uh

whatever dog at the end of the day I'm gonna keep getting booked I'm probably gonna start fighting again I'm probably gonna do a lot of other shit fucking crushing on only fans because I've got a big fucking you know what and I'm nice as fuck dude Everybody, if you don't like me, unfollow.

Go fuck yourselves, all right?

I don't give a fuck because at the end of the day, the cream fucking rises to the top. And I'm really, really tired of trying to be nice to everybody.
Because I hate to break it to you.

Most of you guys are fucking morons.

Peace.

Well, there it is. The words from Spanish.
Well, at least he wishes peace on everybody. Clearly, not a moron.
Matt Riddle.

Clearly, a stable individual that you would want to book for meet and greets, personal appearances, public promotions, things like that, where he can interact with the general populace.

Yeah, WWE got to the point where they were afraid what he was going to do at the airport.

Remember, he got drunk and he got on the microphone at the airport? And it was all inside.

That's right.

And I guess, well, the fan fests are doing well for him where he gets to meet and greet the public. Oh, apparently people are canceling him off of those because

he's insulted everybody that's potentially a customer. Is this what I'm hearing? Yeah, there was a, I just saw this this morning.
Matt Riddle.

Supercon, S-I-O-U-X.

He's been banned in Sioux City.

That's right. I have an article here from SE Scoops.

Former WWE star Matt Riddle has been removed from Supercon in South Dakota following inflammatory remarks he made about sexual assault allegations during a recent online appearance.

He dismissed what he called me to bullshit, referencing 2020 allegations made against him by Candy Cartwright.

I forgot about that. That's right.
He was accused of

something with someone in Florida that he was with for a while. She was in the business, I think.
Well, no, but that was a different one.

This was in the back seat of the car with the girl, and the other people were there, but they couldn't say what happened, blah, blah, blah.

There was a variety of things.

I think they just blamed the inflammatory statements about sexual assault so that they didn't have to come out and say, we don't think this guy is mentally all there, and we don't want him at our show talking to fucking people.

Yeah, and by the way, I think he survived that. He wasn't fired until, was it 2022? Yeah.
That didn't even, he stayed after that, but I guess it's kind of telling.

I said before, I think he's working for MLW. If that's not true, I don't know where he's working, but he ain't working for AEW.
Like, you would think someone with that level of exposure on WWE-TV,

if they were workable, you would figure that Tony would be all over that. And instead, he's crushing it on OnlyFans.

Because he's got a big, you know, what.

Apparently, to make up for the lack of brain size i was gonna say see you know you get you get an overabundance of one thing you get shortchanged over there on the other side you know it's something wwe got rid of him you know he was on top still i mean as as on top as he was going to be but he was in the main event mix remember it was stuff with him in the bloodline and then he was gone and it says something that they found him unemployable that Tony has stayed away from him.

I think maybe he's done something with New Japan. I'm not even sure.
But he just disappeared as soon as

there was, there was somewhere. He had some falling out with Japan.
That's why he's not going back to Japan, isn't it?

I don't know. I hate to spread theories.
You know what? I mean, I think we're booking Dark Side of the Ring. We have Alberto Del Rio, and now we could do Matt Riddle.

They got to get into the current stuff. I think that's where the money is.
You got the people out there right now to do it with.

But he hasn't finished being a dick yet. He hasn't finished fucking himself up.

That's better for them. Then they could have a part two.
Then they could literally just tell the story, flesh it out, not rush through things, knowing there will definitely be more.

Well, but now you can't ever tell about these things. What if he just flings himself into the ocean the next day after the first show airs? Then you got no follow-up.
Do you think he's unemployable?

For a wrestler?

No, I mean, folk of Rattan wrestling, I think he's got a chance to do return after return there with all their top talent. But no,

it's not just that he's saying stupid things to the fans or stupid things to an indie promoter. He says stupid things to the top talent in the companies that he works with.

Remember what Brock Lesnar told him, you and I will never work together, Dick.

You know, because he was trying to shoot his own angle. He's not smart to the business, Matt Riddle, nor is he smart, apparently, to life.
And it's not a gimmick.

There's plenty of people that can be stoned all the time and still not sound like a blathering dip shit. So

it's a gimmick with him,

you know, publicly, but it's just to cover up the fact that

I just caught that high.

There's no pun intended.

You caught the high. I caught the high.

The point is,

he's just working that to cover up the fact that he's a fucking moron.

He's not really very fucking bright and he doesn't know what to say. And he's dumbed himself out of every position he's had.

And

I'm not saying he's unemployable because whatever he's doing on OnlyFans,

hopefully there's someone in there with him. I don't, you know, don't know exactly what the fucking

product looks like.

But he's not going to make any money in the wrestling business anywhere in the near or distant future.

I didn't think he was that good to begin with, but people liked him because he acted weird. And

dubs flew out of his ass on WWF television. And now he's on social media.
Apparently, now he's insulting CM Punk and AJ Lee. So now

he's on his

tour of cancellation, I guess. I don't know what this is, but now he's.
Yeah, and he.

Again, he keeps cutting promos on people he's never going to get a chance to work with. And if he did get a chance to work with him, with them, they won't work with him.

He's a fucking idiot.

And he's fixated, I could beat so-and-so in a real fight. I didn't know if he could beat anybody in a real fight anymore.
Can he find his way home? Is this early onset CTE?

If he worked for the post office, they would tell him to take a week or two off instead of coming into work after saying shit like that.

We'll see what happens. We'll see.
We're not going to see him wrestle anywhere. We'll see what else he says that goes around on the internet.
I don't know.

I'm going to go to Boca Boca Rattan next year. I might drop in on him.

But you know what he's doing, Brian? What he's doing is he's giving people

that appreciate the benefits of good quality CBD products. He's giving them a bad name

with all of the various falderall and shenanigans that he's pulling. Because now

there's professional ways to get your CBD gummies instead of going out behind a dumpster and Boca raton and dealing with some unsavory individual.

Do you know what our friends at Cornbread Hemp are doing here now in Louisville, Brian? Have you heard about this? I have not. You may hear about the neighbors' gardeners.

They're making a lot of noise right now, but I have not heard about cornbread hemp's exciting activities.

I would have never known about them grass cutters over there, but I would tell you that cornbread hemp, they're making waves here in the city of Louisville, Kentucky, based right here in our fair derby city.

And they are now sponsoring officially U of L Athletics, the U of L basketball team, the football team.

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All right, this is your show. That was as sour as a fucking rotten lemon.

All right, it's

your show.

Well, I guess now that we've relaxed and eliminated our stress, had a good night's sleep, we need to talk about

the thing we need to talk about. AEW wrestling for Wednesday night.
September 3rd, AEW Dynamite. The story this week is the ratings, and we're going to tell you what they are.

But first, we got to tell you what contributed to them being that way.

And

Brian, okay, let me give you two scenarios. Think about this.

If you're a farmer living out in the middle of nowhere on a country road, And you're sitting on your porch and your front poach,

and you got your old hound dog by your side, and you're watching the birds fly around in the front yard.

And all of a sudden, you see a car coming down the road from the west coming from Pixley and a car down from the east coming from Bugtussle.

And as they get right in front of your house, they just run right the fuck into each other. Boom, right head on.
And holy shit. And the airbags pop and shit catches on fire.

And here comes some police and here comes a fire engine. Here comes an ambulance.
They carry people off to the hospital. There's scorched marks on the road in front of your house.

You're going to remember that for a long time, aren't you? You're going to

tell that story. 20 years from now,

you're going to be telling that story to your little grandbabies. And the people that know you are going to be sick of that fucking story.
You're going to remember every detail, right?

More than likely. It's an extraordinary occurrence.
Exactly.

Now, let's say that you live in an apartment in the middle of the city at the intersection of two major roadways that have people constantly making illegal left turns.

And about once or twice a week, there's somebody smashing into each other in the front of your house where you're looking out the window.

And there's fire engines and there's police cars. Yeah.
Huh? Queens Boulevard. I've heard of this.
Queens Boulevard. There you go.
And King's Crossing.

And all of those royal places there.

Well, you know, there's royalty in America, too.

And the police cars and the fire rate, they're there every day. You're always hearing sirens.

So, next week, you might not remember the details of everything that happened because you see it all the time.

This is where we're at with AEW television. And this is what we've been talking about for years and years.

In that sooner or later, the chickens, as they say, come home to roost

when

the only change in the shows and the way the shows are presented is that they do more shit now.

Because they have to do more, because they've done so much

that they have to do more to make it outstanding.

to make it memorable, to make it, but they've already lost the cause and they've already shit the bed because what can you do?

In the past

two weeks, they have hospitalized and put out of action

Kenny Omega because he needs to be out of action, has procedures planned and things to do and Swerve Strickland because he's got to get worked on and Will Osprey because he's got to get worked on.

But even when people know they're already hurt, they still have to fucking hospitalize them.

So now there there is such chaos and carnage, people being run over, jumped off of shit.

You're just watching an endless parade of a variation on the same theme, and it gets more and more, and it impacts you less and less because you've seen so much of it.

Until finally, you're not even turning around when the cars run into each other.

And this is the problem with why they have been,

they haven't bled viewers, They have trickled viewers.

But over a period of five years, when you look back at the first goddamn year, they were doing 800,000, 900,000, sometimes a million people.

But then it's gradually descended over a period of time because people wear out. You get sick of it.
You get tired of it. What more can they do? What more can I see? I can't keep track of this shit.

It doesn't make any sense. All of my favorite wrestlers are either gone or always hurt.

Or they botched the guy that they brought in that I wanted to like.

And you can't blame Max

because Max didn't even,

however many people are watching on Max,

they had already lost 300,000 or more off of their weekly average before the Max thing started.

What are those people doing?

Watching fucking slides on a barn wall?

And it just, it's gotten worse over the last several weeks.

When concurrently with, apparently, when Tony said he's decided to take over everything again and follow his instincts, and his instincts are to put as many people as he can

into every goddamn thing. And there's no restraint where there's multiple acts of mayhem happening on every show.

And what else are you going to fucking do? And who gives a shit?

You know, I had a they would, they would, I'll say this: hold that thought. They'd get more attention on this television program if they arrested Chuck E.
Cheese than if they hospitalized Kenny Omega.

Go ahead. I'm sorry.
Especially the end of the show, a show that traditionally just hemorrhages viewers at the end of the show, yet they keep doing things at the end of the show.

There's long-term damage.

And

unfortunately, there are people who are blind to any reality about AEW that isn't positive. The main one being Tony Kahn.

But it's also the people that Tony talks to, that he texts with,

that aren't honest with him that he's not good at this. And if he was, it wouldn't be now six years in.
They tried to make a big deal. Just recently.
Everything's up.

Everything. We're having a great year.
Pay-per-view is up. Ratings are up year over year, which hasn't made sense to anyone.
We do them every week on the show. We follow them.

We can't even figure out what's up versus last year.

But at the same time,

there's been this feeling watching Dynamite

like it's dying. And it's because there's no star power.

And even if Osprey and Swerve were healthy,

no disrespect to them, because I think they're both stars. I think Swerve's matches are ridiculous, and I'm not really a fan of them.

But they're both stars, but they're not major stars. So even if they were there, it wouldn't make a difference.
There's no major stars. There's no stars.

And they have so many goofs that don't look like they belong

on this show. And if you tuned in two years ago, and saw Wheeler Yuda, Daniel Garcia, they're still there.

They're still there. It's the same B-level, C-level players they keep throwing out there.
They have Don Callas

with like every fucking heel on the show.

Heels that matter, heels that don't. Heels that you don't see.
And the heels that don't matter in the group make the heels that matter seem less matterful.

The commentators.

We weren't a few minutes into this.

I don't even remember the exact words, but it was something from Tony Schiavani along the lines of, this is why AEW is great. Who is he saying this for?

We're in the middle of the match. And then serious shit happens.
And the three of them, and I'm sorry to incriminate Taz, but yeah, him too, start chuckling and laughing at like murder.

Like all this shit that's happening around them. The serious stuff, the stuff that should be like, oh my God, someone's going to die.
That's what makes them laugh. I'm clapping my hands.
I'm sorry.

I'm getting fired up. Yes.
You know, I mean, also, we have to say you may be part of the blame. I mean, now that we know that they've switched Nielsen homes just recently,

maybe that's, maybe it's one less wrestling fan or two less wrestling fans this go around than it was last time.

But there's how many just random eight-man tag matches are there?

Or four-way matches with guys who aren't over? And they still want to pretend like the Young Bucks are stars. The Young Bucks don't mean a fucking thing to this show.

And they wouldn't mean a goddamn thing to any other show right now.

they don't have any stars omega's done again they have to hide him in tag matches he can't go and you understand why he wrestled as physical a style as every wrestler learn don't do if you want to have a career so whatever you get from this point on is gravy but they have no star power the show just feels like a runaway train and this week You know, at least in the past when they had bad shit, and this has been, again, another bad show,

they gave you a heads up.

Like a few days out, be like, oh my God, look at what they fucking booked on Dynamite. This is going to be a shit show.

They're not even doing that anymore. They don't even tell you what crap matches are coming up on this show before they happen.

And they follow up on nothing. Everyone wanted to make a big deal of that pay-per-view.
Meltzer said it was amazing. Just these matches are amazing.

No one came back Wednesday to see what happened. And then the next week, more of the audience died.

The Wardlow follow-up died. Everybody forgot about him.
Everything on this show, the Death Riders, literal death.

Literal ratings, death,

audience, death, interest, death.

And it's just a B-team crew there.

And I'm getting mad about it because I've been saying just recently, Tony's got to fight back, and Tony's got to give it back to WWE.

That's what I would do if I was a fucking billionaire's son with an unlimited budget. But you know what? He's not the one.

We have to hope some golden child will come along at some point

and fix things with a billion or a trillion dollars. But it ain't Tony.
And he's never going to accept it. There's this embarrassing video of him running.

I don't even know what it's from at the ECW Arena on Dynamite or after it at the other taping, whatever they were taping.

No one takes him seriously. I'm getting all fired up just because it's the state of dynamite.
It's not even about this week's episode. It's the state of all of this.

Here is what the problem is going to be. They have finally gotten to the point, after expenditure of tens and hundreds, potentially of millions of dollars,

where they're getting paid from the television network the rights fees.

The numbers are going in the wrong direction. And I asked this question when the

shortly after the rights fee deal was announced. Is there an out? Is there a bar they have to stay above? Certainly, if

something happened, the XFL, there was just a, I saw a documentary the other day, the 30 for 30 they did. Their first game had 50 million viewers.
Yeah, that's right.

And within like fucking six weeks or whatever, they were the lowest rated primetime network program in history.

If they get to a certain point,

which they would appear to be reaching this past week, and they level out there

or even continue to go farther, is there a point where the network says, what the fuck are we doing here?

Because collision

just on Saturday night. Oh, did you see those ratings?

It was like 190-something thousand people. Yeah, I'll pull them up when we do Dynamite's ratings later.
It's a week of just awfulness.

But that's the point is their Wednesday night show and Saturday night show together did not equal the the viewership that their wednesday night show alone had two years ago

so they're there's

they tody can't keep and tony and as you said people he talks or texts to or people that have the same

mindset let's say

things going on in their minds that they believe that a large number of people know who was in every faction in New Japan Wrestling seven years ago.

And if we run them all out there and either get them to fucking have a brawl or sometimes just stare at each other, people will buy tickets hand over fist.

No.

That's just a

go ahead. It's just, it's a depressing state of affairs because it doesn't seem like anything is going to get better.
They're not going to all of a sudden get access to top flight stars.

There's nothing on the horizon that's going to change anything. And again, it's Tony at the top booking now for six years straight.

And he doesn't want to acknowledge the realities. And even if he did, who is he turning it over to? Brian Danielson?

Seriously, who?

It's a sad state of affairs right now at AEW, and it doesn't appear like anything's going to get better. It's gotten a whole lot worse.
And

again, we don't know if Max went. Maybe Max was 10 million people this week, but I don't think it was.
I don't think it was a couple hundred thousand people.

Let's give the people an example because here is how the show started.

They're still in the ECW closet. I mean, the ECW arena, 900 people.

And the announcers are running down the show. And here comes, I wrote Josh Alexander.
Then, oh, it's Gabe Kidd.

Do they not look identical? Can you tell the goddamn difference between Josh Alexander and Gabe Kidd? Gabe Kidd has a little bit more of a slouch.

Okay, so slouchy kid. Josh Alexander was good posture.

Kid comes out and interrupts the open, gets in the ring and calls out Darby out.

And Darby slides into the ring from behind and Gabe Kid stops him immediately.

But Darby fights back and sticks.

Gabe Kid's arm in the top of the ring post. So they got a cheap ring.
Their posts aren't capped. But it was creative.

But then Gabe Kid takes back over and they get in a fight on the floor. Now, meanwhile, there is a smattering of clapping going on.

Most of the people are just watching this, like, what

already this is going on.

And they want to like Darby. But

every time that Darby gets started doing something, Gabe Kid cuts him off.

And then he rolled Darby in the ring and went to find something under the ring and yelled at the fans, turned his back so Darby could cough and drop him off the top rope. rope.

That got a pop.

Then they're back in the ring and Darby charges him to give him the backsplash in the corner and Gabe Kidd catches him in a choke.

And what the, they're having a match disguised as a street fight. They're doing spots now.

Here comes Wheeler Useless and Darby nails him and levels Gabe Kidd.

and pulls out a the thumbtack covered skateboard.

And Yuda bends over and waits so he can get up on the turnbuckles and jump off the turnbuckles and skate across his back with the thumbtacks.

But then he threatens Gabe Kidd with the board, but he can't do anything because he has to wait for Dick the Boozer, and Boozer's late.

But then finally, out comes Boozer with Claudio and Marina Schaefer, and nothing happens.

But then the lights go out,

and then the new hook music starts playing.

Brian,

have you ever heard

more uninspiring entrance music? What the fuck is that? Yeah, the Death Riders music.

No, that

the hook music.

Whatever it is, whoever it is, whatever, it's not good.

And he comes out and there's no response. It's dead silence.

Yeah, see, the hook music and and the whole hook signal thing would work if it was going to be some big strong maniac that comes out there and kicks everyone's ass, but it isn't.

He's doing the same thing he was doing five years ago, and it's not his fault. They need to come up with something different for him to do.

They throw the signal, they play this lousy music, he walks out, and then

when there's no response from the fans and there's dead silence, they play different music.

And Samoa Joe and Hobbs run right past him,

past hook, that is, and get in a fight with all of the horsemen. The people pop for them, but they're doing some kind of thing where Hook doesn't want to be told what to do or how to do it.

And he argues later on with Joe and Hobbes, and

he's mad. He got replaced.
Jesus Christ. Anyway, back to this thing.

They have a big sloppy fight all over the building. Somehow, Willow is out there beating up Marina Schaefer.

And then some of them left.

Some of them were still in the fight.

But then the camera goes to the back, and there's Darby Allen and Gabe Kidd again.

And in the back of the building, and Gabe Kidd, they're fighting, and he's cutting a phony dramatic promo

on Darby Allen and takes a ball peen hammer and is going to bash Darby's head in. But Darby moves and he sticks the hammer in the wood platform of the thing and the deal.
And

then Darby,

Darby goes to a truck and grabs powder and throws powder in Gabe Kids' eyes. Yeah, what was that?

Well, that was to blind him so that he could then grab a rag out of the truck and chloroform the motherfucker.

They're doing every goddamn southern wrestling angle that it was done over a 20-year period at a five-minute fucking fight.

He's, he's, they're in the arena brawl. He has fucking tried the hammer.
He powdered his eyes. Now he chloroforms the guy.

And while he's unconscious, Darby puts him in a body bag.

But the body bag is chained to the back of the pickup truck.

Do any of them stop and think when they are coming up with this shit while they're stoned or taking kratom or whatever they're doing, how preposterous this all is when it's all strung together?

When they come up with it or are they oblivious?

And then he gets in the truck and

basically pulls out with the bag, with Gabe Kid in the bag chained to the back of the goddamn truck as he pulls him so that Gabe Kid

can have the fun of doing a movie stunt man stunt

and he drags him off.

What the fuck?

There's a lot there.

I guess in the beginning, we'll start with the end.

The pulling away of him or with him in the body bag.

I mean, that's kind of hurt. The burning or go over a pebble, just anything.
Well, I think there was some type of surface in the body bag because he wasn't turning over and everything.

He was the flat pull, but I didn't want, I don't want to do it. Here's the thing.
They did a lot there. The baby face did a lot

to this heel who hasn't been established. And that's weird because because he's been in some big matches already because he shows up on TV like the week before and you're like, who's that?

Oh, it's Gabe Kidd. He's friends with Moxley.
Oh, yeah, how? Why?

He'll be in the match. They don't tell you anything.
And he's just, he pops up on this show and we're supposed to care. And there's a lot of people like that.

They don't establish anyone and then they pop up. They get treated like we're supposed to care and then they disappear.

Well, and the best part, Brian, was before we leave this, you have to remember we had another issue going on because when we left the building, Willow and Schaefer and Joe and Hobbs and Claudio and Kid and Moxley and the whole Heehaw gang were just having the big fight, right?

After we see Darby pull Gabe Kidd off in the bag,

they go back to the arena and the announcer's like, oh boy, we don't know what's going to happen with old Darby. And there's nobody fighting.

The whole fight in the building, everybody just, no explanation. They're just gone.
It's over. They left.

They weren't mad anymore. Whatever.

How many people were involved in that thing? We should count some. Man, how many times have we asked that question in the last few weeks about AEW? Right? The pre-show for the pay-per-view.

These giant eight-man or eight. Yeah, it is eight-man.
I was supposed to say eight-team, eight-man matches on the show. Don't give him any ideas.

Eight teams,

everyone for himself.

So anyway, then to continue the pattern of just not getting anybody over, it's just a mess.

The next match is for one of the women's titles with Mercedes Moon

against Alex Windsor. Alex Windsor has just gotten there.

She's got good size. She's a fine, healthy-looking female specimen.
She's old Will Osprey's significant significant other. I don't know what their legal status is.

She's a new fresh face. She's not nearly as rotten as Megan Brain or Penelope or, you know, any of the other bad indie outlaw Japanese girls that they've featured in the past.

More on that in a moment.

So you went, well, maybe she could do something.

So here's what they do with her.

They put her in a match with Mercedes.

With entrances, it goes 20 fucking minutes.

Mercedes had a crossface on her for like a minute or so.

Windsor gets out of it, but

Mercedes just then just rolls her up. One, two, three.

The heel beat the babyface clean without cheating and in the most boring way possible.

When this is a brand new talent that they might want to push and give some credibility to. So they think it's giving her credibility when she goes 20 minutes

because they don't see that this is goddamn boring for television audience to sit there and watch this goddamn forever.

But

she needs to win. It gets her over by winning.
If she can't beat Mercedes, don't book her against Mercedes.

But she would get over by winning, not by going 20 minutes and then getting beat by a heel. It's a better wrestler.
It doesn't have to cheat. Then you know what she is? She's a loser.

That's the problem. Tony thinks that gets them over.

And but then

the babyface, who's already been beaten clean in the middle of the ring by the heel without cheating,

goes for a handshake.

Mercedes gives her the finger.

So Alex Windsor says, well, fuck you and attacks her.

And Mercedes hits her with the title belt and knocks her the fuck out and gets her hold again.

So now, now she lost clean.

She was disrespected to her face. She started a fight that she ended up getting her ass kicked again.

And as she's in this hold and helpless, music plays. And guess who comes out?

Riho.

Riho is back

and she beat up Mercedes and Mercedes sold for that

so the ultimate indignity

Windsor gets beat clean she gets disrespected she gets her ass beat in a fight that she started and then she gets saved by a joke wrestler that's half her size

And the girl that she couldn't beat in 20 minutes gets her ass kicked in 30 seconds by this goddamn midget.

Thank you for coming, Alex Windsor. Your services are no longer required because what's the point?

That's why nobody gets over in this company. Because Tony, his mental condition and his

upbringing of dealing with three other people on a fantasy wrestling board

has not prepared him. Imagine that.

To get big-time talent over on a big-time television show.

Your thoughts, Brian, on Riho.

And again, one of the simple concepts you would think even a fool would get about getting someone over is have them win. That just seems like the most basic, easy concept.

I want to try to get this person over. I want people to be interested in them having a big match.
They need to win. But we didn't even get there.

I'm excited for Rio versus Mercedes-Monet.

AEW past versus AEW present. We're going to be be shocked when Riho is actually bigger than Mercedes, I think.

We'll see.

Only in her thighs. Only in her thighs.
You know, did she come through the crowd?

When they played her music, did she come through the entranceway? Did she come through the crowd? Well, no, she, well, there's really not a lot of difference.

There's only 900 people in the building, but no, I think she came out through the entranceway.

Last time she ran out, she had a lead pipe. Remember that? That was one of the most ridiculous visuals ever.
It was bigger than her.

You know, so much.

I said that there's long-term damage with AEW Dynamite at the top. And

one of the things has been Mercedes Monet.

And I get it that she does have a dedicated fan base, although they're not big enough to matter. And I think that needs to be said because they've given her more screen time.

Then probably any woman, maybe more than Tony Storm.

They've given her more screen time. They've let her do everything she has wanted to do,

which is clearly just acting out her fantasies as a wrestling character that's not believable.

But when you look at the things that have led to the

slide in television viewers,

or anything else that's a metric that you look at with AEW, she's one of the guilty parties.

And again, it's Tony allowing this, and Tony's the biggest guilty party of them all in terms of the quality of all this.

But the Mercedes-Monet character is a big part of the problem.

Well, at least we can look forward to the

next episode of Monet Mag.

Are they still doing that little scam? Yeah, we'll have to see.

What's free? So you can't call it a scam. It's free.
They don't have advertising, I don't think.

What's your time worth to you?

So Will Osprey's out with his surgery. Yeah.
and now his uh significant other got beat a couple times here

and there was nothing really to give you hope about oh i hope she comes back next week like it was just like okay she's done it felt like

and then kenny's girl comes back yeah kenny's girl comes back at the same angle to go after mercedes and then he gets stretchered out that doesn't look good for riho

well i'm sure he has a whole harem of women hanging around him that can take care of him and during his convalescence Harem, scare him.

Ooh.

Speaking of scaring me,

Jesus Christ, Mark Briscoe,

at some point, he's going to hurt himself. He's still working his ass off.

And the people love him, but they keep putting his promos are good.

He came out, cut a promo, and said Don Callis looked like Elton John dressed up like a prosthetic penis.

Eddie wants Kyle Felcher and he wants the TNT title.

It just, he's working his ass off, and he has deserved so much better. The people liked him.
They would have liked him more.

But now they're just putting him in here to constantly get the shit kicked out of him and fail in the end.

And

I don't know what they don't see about they had a chance to have a really great gimmick babyface here. And instead,

nevertheless, he does a promo.

He wants Kyle for the TNT title, but now Callus says that he's got to beat somebody to get to Kyle, so he wants that guy.

And the music plays, and out comes old Don Fallus with Rocky Romero and Lance Archer.

And the fans

do the thing where they boo over Don and they don't listen to him.

And again, it was funny when it was Dominic.

And it was cool when it was Dominic. And he, Dominic, wasn't trying to say anything important anyway.
They were milking it.

But when now they've just decided they're going to do it because they don't give a fuck what these people are saying.

You can't get the goddamn angle out.

And he said, Briscoe's opponent on Saturday, so Mark came out on Wednesday and called out the guy he's supposed to fight. And Don says it's going to be on Saturday.

And it's take a shit.

And his music plays, and he comes out wearing a dress shirt and genie pants. What in the world?

Look, he was ready to go play golf in the 30s.

I don't know what

why do they want him to look ridiculous instead of cool and badass?

But he gets in the ring, does a face-off with Mark Briscoe, and then gets back out of the ring.

and okay we've established that's the match on Saturday but now Briscoe cuts another promo but I want to fight right now so

so Rocky Romero volunteers but Don picks Lance Archer

and so now we've got Mark Briscoe versus Lance Archer and here's the thing Lance Archer has all the size He can do shit. He works like a giant.

The problem is he's been booked by Tony Kahn for five years now.

And so nobody whatsoever gives a shit about him or anything that he does.

Because why would you with the things that he's done?

And he just beats up Mark Briscoe. Whenever Mark is fighting back, the people are with it.
Whenever Archer takes over on him,

it's dead silence because they love Mark and they don't give a shit about the other guy.

And they go a few minutes too long.

And Mark hit the froggy bow and won one, two, three.

I'd be very interested to see if he beats Take-A-Shit on Saturday. And he's certainly not going to beat Kyle for the title.

So there's Mark Briscoe that could be the answer to so many of their problems if they'd taken care of him from the start two years ago, three years ago, whatever it was.

Instead,

they're starving for babyfaces, and he could be a buffet, but but he's been booked into the middle.

So you got that going for you. And A, I wouldn't put him over Takesha right now.
And B, if I was going to do that match, I would have put that match on Wednesday night.

Well, they want 198,000 people to see it on Saturday. You know, again, I'm talking about things that lead to the long-term damage.
Don Callis

and his stable, but really him.

Getting on commentary every time one of his people are out there and he does his shtick, but he's like Robert Fuller in Memphis.

Like, just all over the world. He's not that good.
All over the show. He's all over the show, but he's not that good.
And he's not even the booker. And he's all over this show

for no reason.

And again, there's a lot of central characters who have been all over Dynamite for the last year and a half or so

that are the reason it's an unwatchable show you don't care about.

If Don was a manager, it might be better, but he doesn't manage.

He doesn't lead the group in a lot of the promos in terms of advancing their shit. He just does

indie sounding stuff. He doesn't manage at ringside.
He doesn't interfere in the major match. And when he does, it's a comedy type of thing where he kicks somebody and hurts himself.

It's just, there's no manager to it. I don't know what's going on there.

Tag team title was on the line, Brian. Bandito and Burger King against Claudio and Wheeler.

And I'm sorry, but this is the I refuse. I wrote, I refuse.

I'm not.

And here's what they did.

12 minutes in, Dick the Boozer comes out, runs Brody King into the post.

They get a two-count on Bandito.

Darby comes out and tackles Moxley, and they get in a fight. And Bandito hit that goofy goofy move that he does on wheeler useless one two three

and

claudio i'm sorry claudio and wheeler together is again one of these things that has been all over this show as everything has died people do not want to see the death riders i'm sorry for i know you like claudio and this is not the claudio of i'm i'm no i'm i'm tired this is not the claudio of the kings of wrestling this is the claudio of the bane of wrestling yeah this is terrible stuff and brodito the fans at least least like them and are into them.

But Brodito being the tag champions probably is a bigger indictment on the tag team division than it is on either of them as a tag team.

Well, speaking of the tag team division and the tag team roster,

they've got a marquee tag team match coming up in Toronto.

Edge and Christian reunited in their hometown against FTR, who they can actually have a decent match with, even though the promotion of it has been so muddled and messy.

But then they,

before we even have the match,

they start taking the attention away from that match and start muddling it up to where

you've seen too much physically. You get distracted by a shiny light on the wall of some other direction, and there's no clear path here.
Again,

Edge comes to the ring, apparently to do a promo,

but before his music stops playing, he's immediately jumped by FTR,

who kick the shit out of him for 15 seconds or so until Christian Cage hits the ring.

And they have a four-way, and they were trying to do a major pull apart with security and other wrestlers, and wild violence and chaos.

And what they had was a pull apart with a bunch of nameless, faceless security guys and job guys trying to pull these guys apart, where the fans were just sitting there watching

because they've already seen

three different arena-wide brawls and goddamn dives off the roof and all this shit. And now four guys are having another fight.
What's the difference?

And nothing was even said before this. It just burst out.

And then

when they get them separated, Edge and Christian, the babyfaces, left first.

And Edge was the one that came out to do an interview.

Hope he didn't have everything important to say.

Yeah, what was he going to say? Who knows? He never said it.

Because FTR have to be left in the ring because now

they get in a fight with one of the job guys

that came out to separate them and they grab they grab one guy and spike pile drive one of the jobbers and the other one starts fighting them and getting offense

and i'm what the

and then they go to the break and they come back and they're in the back of the building with fr and stokely and they're starting to cut a promo on edge and christian

but almost immediately dax is screaming off camera hey you come here come here

And the jobber that had got an offense on him comes in and starts apologizing. Like, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, I lost my head. I don't know what I was doing.

And Cash gets in his face and cuts a promo on him and tells him to get a partner for Saturday.

They've got a match coming up on the pay-per-view with Edge and Christian, and they're challenging job guys.

What the fuck is happening?

I can't explain it. You know, there has not been a single positive move in the booking of FTR,

arguably since CM Punk left.

But I don't think it's even tied into that, unless you're going to say Punk was booking them. But just nothing is booked right.

The Edge and Christian

feud,

which should have been a big deal for them, they blew that.

And now they're reuniting. Like you said, why is there anything sidetracking anyone between now

and the big match they're going to have?

It should be about pounding that match, making it something that people really want to see and have to see, not, oh, well, the FTR get past whoever that guy was.

He wasn't even like a big guy or anything. He was smaller than them.
Yes. I don't know what this, I don't know what justifies any of this in any of their minds.

And then Stokely, every time he does a serious promo or tries to, you can't take him seriously because you've seen too much of him. Overexposure.

what has he what has he done to be taken seriously

a comedy match with edge some

witty promos about people that

they didn't really have a major thing going with he's never won them anything he's never gained them any prize or come through at a pinch

he doesn't have any heat he hasn't ever fucked anybody around

And with all that said, I'm sure it'll probably be the best match at the pay-per-view. Unless they overcomplicate the finish and try to do too much,

it'll be the best match at the pay-per-view. It will.
And the people will love Edge and Christian because it's Toronto. But

they've got all this time to promote it. And they've already botched the whole thing up.
And they gave away Edge and Christian's first match as a team against Job Guys.

Well, it was supposed to be Nick Plain and... Pip.
Turned out to be Pip and the fucking lizard. Has there been any follow-up to that? Where's the lizard go?

I guess he crawled back down to his. It's no follow-up.

A big return. He got a big pop.
Even though he's supposed to be in the hillside, the fans are chanting for him both at Dynamite and the pay-per-view.

And then it's just off TV again?

Well, you know, he needs a cold environment.

No, he needs a warm environment, right? If they're cold-blooded, they need to be warm. Yeah.
I don't know what you're thinking of.

If they're warm-blooded, they need to be cold. Cold-blooded.

Check-ins. Now, that's pretty cold-blooded right there.

Well,

but you know what? Maybe we're not hearing about everything because we're not listening, Brian. What they need to do is they need to come up with a second audio program

on the AEW Dynamite where we can watch. what's going on on the screen.

We can turn down the awful announcers and we can stick in our Raycon everyday wireless Earbud classics to have a second audio program where somebody can explain to us Tony Khan's booking.

And that way, we'd have everything covered. Or we could actually just listen to some Skinnered man on our Raycons and not have to worry about understanding any of them.

What do you think? Maybe some Devo would be more apropos, considering we're talking about the de-evolution of professional wrestling.

Well, we are Devo, D-E-V-O.

And, folks, Raycon's Everyday earbuds are E-A-R-B-U-D-S

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We're through being cool. Let's get back to the spot.
Okay. Well, this message is sponsored by Raycon.

And of course, you know that because we're telling you how great their products are. And,

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They've gone back to school. You remember back to school shopping when you were a kid?

It was always the first sign of the apocalypse. You didn't want to buy those notebooks, those fucking pencils, those goddamn crayons.

You might have wanted the new shoes, but you didn't want any of the rest of it because you knew what it meant. Well, now that you're an adult.
You had a problem with crayons?

Well, only where I have to take the crayons and utilize the crayons

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Of course.

These things are ergonomic. And if you put a little Vaseline on them and put them in that hole, just twirl them around just right, well, boy, howdy, it'll trip your trigger and tickle your taint.

No, we're talking basic ergonomics. And Jim, we're talking Raycon.

Well, basic ergonomics, word life, pal.

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Let's say you're out walking the dog, but you want to be aware of your surroundings in case somebody's coming up from behind you with a ball peen hammer like on AEW.

Well, when that happens, you're going to get an electric shock in your earbuds that indicates you need to turn around and duck the swing.

And then once you take the hammer away from whoever is attacking you while you're turning their brains into jelly, you can listen to the finest tunes from Jelly Roll. See how that works?

I use the Raycons and the Ball Peen Hammer, and you should too, ladies and gentlemen. Let's not talk about that.
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Well, it's

back over to AEW Dynamite. Whipping good.
Well, let's see if this was indeed what finally put the nail in the coffin of the ratings for this week, because now

they haven't done it enough, Brian.

Over the course of the recent weeks, they had to come up with another random eight-man tag where a bunch of people can do a bunch of moves and then they hospitalize somebody at the end of it.

And that's basically the main event. Sometimes the faces change.
You had

Josh Alexander, who I thought for a minute was Gabe Kidd.

You had Kyle Felcher and you had the Hardley boys teamed up against Kevin Knight, Hong Kong Fuye, Hangnail Page, and Canny.

Don't forget about Canny.

What differentiates this from anything else they do? Any other made these eight-man matches where nobody follows any rule, there's no story told, there's no point made.

It's a chance for everybody to do as many of their various athletic tricks and stunts as they can until somebody wins.

And this is the same kind of forgettable shit

that they've been presenting on and off, mostly on since they've been on the air, which is why

it's so many people have given up because what else can you fucking see?

They started at 20 minutes until 10 and they were still going at 10 o'clock because they got to do the overrun.

Early on, it helped their average, but I think lately it's a toss-up as to whether it helps the average or hurts.

But as soon as they get past 10, they go two minutes into the overrun and they hit Kevin Knight with three big moves in a row at one, two, three.

They always beat Kevin Knight. They never beat the little girl that's his tag team partner.

Then,

I know this is surprising to you,

but then the heels start to get more heat.

And the Hardley boys get in a fight with Hong Kong Fuyi and Kevin Knight, and they fight off.

So those four went somewhere. But here comes Lance Archer and Rocky Romero.

And they start all kicking the shit out of Kenny and Hangnail,

along with Kyle and Josh.

And then they set a chair up in the ring,

and Kyle brainbusters brainbusters Paige on the chair.

Now,

that's not the hospitalization angle. They just wanted to get one of the baby faces out of the way with something simple so they could do the angle where they really injure somebody.

So the one guy's been brainbustered on a fucking chair in the middle of the ring just to get him out of the way.

Then they set a table up on the floor and all four of the heels get on Kenny. And this was way slower than it sounds.

And then Kyle

gives Kenny,

it was supposed to be a brain buster, but it was a vertical suplex, bad enough, off the apron of the ring, through a table, and almost killed the both of them.

And then they do the same thing that they,

how many shows have they done it lately? It was twice on the pay-per-view, wasn't it? How they carried somebody out on TV the week before last, but out comes the neck brace, out comes the doctors,

and they neck brace Kenny and they cart him off

to go to Swerv Land and Osprey Land and

whoever else.

Again, I can't remember the list

in the last month.

Why is any of this expected to mean anything? Or does Tony just,

because of his condition,

have to tie up all these loose ends, no matter whether it's good for business or not?

Well, I don't think it's tied up any loose ends.

Well, I mean, it's far. Oh, we're not going to have Kenny on TV for a month because he's going for some type of planned medical deal and to renew his Japanese visa.

Because Lord knows he doesn't want to get shut out of Japan. The horror.

Okay, say, okay, he's gone to Japan to do publicity and renewing his visa. You don't have to break his neck when you just broke three necks last week.

We bring up lack of star power. This match is a perfect example.
The young Bucks don't mean shit.

Speedball Mike Bailey as a main eventer. How's that working out? Oh, good God.
As a main eventer, how's that working out?

And now the Bucs will go have a match with them and they'll do all their flips and kick out of everything and people will rave about it and no one will give a shit.

The next day, everyone will forget about it and move on. And it won't draw a number and no one will buy a ticket to see it.
It's just another meaningless thing on this show.

The Callus family is death.

Like Rocky Romero just being a member there doesn't seem like all of a sudden he's there. He's like barely on this show.

This show is in a sorry death fall right now. And I don't see anything on the horizon that could pull it out.
I only see things that's going to damage more people when they're on this show.

MJF was pretty much away from this entire episode. The Hurt Syndicate had a backstage promo.
Oh, I forgot about that.

They were in the back for a minute and a half talking about a six-man in Toronto with Ricochet and his two preliminary gas stooges.

So

they got MVP in the ring. And instead of it making a difference to force MVP in the ring against somebody, they go, okay, we'll do it with Ricochet and his job guys.

And then they lay at Omega during the overrun where less people will see it

than any other point of the show. And unless you think people are going to go search for this on YouTube, and again, everything's down.
Interest in AEW is down. We've seen it.
It's down.

And you can understand why.

It's a rough show to get through. They have no star power.

The limited stars they have get hurt and disappear. And the booking is just mightily frustrating.

Well, that's why they're in the shape they're in. And before we get to the shape they're in, Brian, which is the big story, the ratings of this week,

I think, I guess they had an unscheduled Super Bowl opposite him. But what in the world are the highly rated programs on the Arcadian Vanguard network doing this week?

It doesn't have to be the Super Bowl. Remember, the Little League World Series kicked our ass a few weeks ago.

Little League.

Go get information about all the shows on Twitter at superpodcasts on Facebook, facebook.com/slash Arcadian Vanguard. Of course, each and every day, the wrestling news is there for you.

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Want to make mention of Stick to Wrestling with John McAdam, a look at 1985, 40 years ago in Mid-South Wrestling.

McAdampod.com or look for Stick to Wrestling with John McAdam, wherever you find your favorite podcasts. And of course, the 605 Super Podcast, the

Mothership!

Yeah, there's some house guests here that don't know what just happened. Go through the archive, 605pod.com.

Wherever you find your favorite podcast, your sound effect crapped out, but we will crap on.

So you got house guests. How much you charging them?

Not enough.

So the ratings for dynamite. I got me a piece of paper here.
Well, before we get there, Jim,

I think part of the story is collision on Saturday, although technically part of a different week.

That was a big story that I was going to talk to you about before the dynamite story happened. Well, that's true because that

collision was the night before their

big event, correct? Their pay-per-view extravaganza.

Was it? No, it was the one after. It was the week after.
It's the week after. One we're talking about.
That's right. So after their big pay-per-view,

not only were the dynamite ratings down last week, but then this was the...

First collision after the pay-per-view and they did

somewhat stunning record lows. Is this correct? I don't know if you could say somewhat stunning at this point, but 195,000 viewers on average for collision on August 30th, 2025, 8 to 10 p.m.

The lowest non-preemption collision in the history of the show.

And for the key demo, 18 to 49, it's tied with February 1st, 2025, as the lowest of the non-preemption episodes, according to WrestleNomics, down 31% from last week, which was 281.

We'll break down what was on this show, what people didn't want to see, but

you've always talked about the network, and so many people want to focus on the streaming priorities of the network.

The numbers keep going down. They can't be ignored.
The key demo is disappearing. That's the bigger problem, maybe.

Well, with collision to 195,000 viewers on a Saturday night from 8 to 10 o'clock, I know there has been attrition on the TV audience in general, but that can't be,

even that low cannot be acceptable to the network if it becomes a pattern. And 281 ought to be

in that general range as well of unacceptable for a Saturday night primetime telecast, even in today's sorrowful television environment. Would you have watched this show?

Here are the quarter hours compiled by WrestleNomics, August 30th, 2025, collision Saturday night.

8 to 8.15 p.m. quarter one.

Daniel Garcia vs. Blake Christian.

Post-match with the Death Riders.

The Conglomeration Backstage.

The Paragon Backstage. Or maybe they're together.
The Cowas family vs. the Conglomeration.
219,000 viewers.

Quarter two, 815, 830. Continuation of that match.
Post-match. Picture in picture.
Jamie Hayter Tecla Angle.

$199,

bottoming out at $43,000 in the key demo. $43,000.

Quarter three, $8.30, $8.45, an ad break. The matriarchy backstage angle.
And the start of Jay Lethal versus Hologram, with picture and picture and full-screen ads, $179. That's the low of the show.

Good, Lori. And also, and poor Jay Lethal.
And I forgot he worked there. And

we got to look at what we got to look at on Wednesday nights but we can't ever see Jay Leeth Jay Lethal wrestle and when he does wrestle he's in there with monogram

and if you saw him on Wednesday night it would hurt the number because of the way he's been used since he got there he doesn't matter on Saturday doesn't matter on Wednesday but no one matters I mean that's the other problem

we go to quarter four 845 to 9 p.m. The finish of Lethal versus Hologram, post-match, Ricochet promo, ad break, Alex Winser versus Ashley Vox.

Post-match, Don Talis, Mark Briscoe, backstage angle, 188,000. So a big jump back up to 188,000, 61 in the key demo.

9 o'clock hour, 9 to 9.15 p.m.

FTR versus Adam Priest and J.D. Drake.

A picture-in-picture, a post-match,

and a death before dishonor dishonor recap, 186,000 viewers.

So far, would you watch this show?

I don't even know who half these people are.

9:15 to 9:30 p.m., quarter six, an ad break, Callus Family Backstage promo, and the startup Juice Robinson versus Big Bill. I forgot about him.
Or Juice. And Big Bill, where's he been?

With picture and picture and full screen ads, 184,000.

Well, the answer is he's been over on collision that nobody watches, not just us, but nobody else either. Well, we have two more quarters here, Jim.
Quarter seven, nine.

Thirty to nine: forty-five p.m. Juice Robinson vs.
Big Bill continued.

Skyflight backstage angle. Who's Skyflight?

I don't know. Gabe Kidd, backstage promo.
An ad break. And the start of Mina Shirakawa and Queen Amanata and Tony Storm versus Billy Starks and the Triangle of Madness

200,000 viewers

final quarter 945 Billy Starks is a draw 945 to 10 p.m. Mina Shirakawa is a draw

the final quarter continuation of that match and the post-match with Tecla 208,000 viewers

So

to be honest, I think this is the first time I could ever remember where the two highest rated rated quarter hours were the first one and the last one.

And in the middle was Drech. They

three quarters over 200,000 people out of eight on a Saturday night from 8 to 10.

All righty then. And again, you're not presenting programs that even your fans want to go out of their way to see.
Max be damned. But hey, Brad, at least the Wednesday night ratings are holding up.

Oh, yeah. The Wednesday night ratings for AEW Dynamite this past week, September 3rd, 2025, on TBS, 8 to 10.06 p.m.

On average, watched by 472,000 viewers,

a 0.11 in the key demo, lowest cable audience and key demo audience. for a regularly airing episode of Dynamite in the history of the show.

okay

was there a run-through of the super bowl on another channel was there a major sporting event a live broadcast of goddamn beheading

somebody said that uncle dave said well the u.s open tennis tournament was big but but you know it still shouldn't have been that big You think any of these people are watching tennis?

Dave makes a lot of Dave makes a lot of excuses for tony kahn not being capable of booking this

and then he jumps on any success and pretends like it disproves everything else ignoring everything in front of his face that everyone sees so we have no indication that there was a major program that would appeal to the aew audience past the u.s open tennis tournament that was against this thing

we need to find out whether this was just something that happened and next week, maybe they'll be back up to 600,000 or whether this is the start of another trend.

But it ain't good this close after a major pay-per-view where all of their entire top baby face side of the roster got wiped out and sent to the goddamn

health facilities. Now, again, it is important to note.
I don't have that in front of me, but NXT's numbers have been down the last several weeks, apparently.

And you just talked on the show about being

chosen to be a Nielsen home. If you were just chosen, you got to think other people were just chosen.

You think they're

switching the people around? I mean, we joke around. Could this be as simple as there are less wrestling fans who are in Nielsen homes right now than there were two weeks ago?

Well, but no, because think about this. Hold on here one second.

They don't just change the homes every goddamn five years.

It's a regular ongoing thing.

So there's almost no way that suddenly they could make enough changes to

take away 25% of this goddamn audience of this show that has a five-year track record behind it of a pattern of

a certain amount of viewership, and they don't all go away and stay away.

It fluctuates, but they lose people over a gradual period of time. So I don't think one change is going to take away

200,000 fucking people.

But, you know, again, we'll see if what happens week to week. But, you know, there's something else going on here.
I think people are just fucking tired. They're like,

what else are they going to do? Well, listen to this. This is down 19% from last week, which was 585.

26% off the four-week average, which is $6.38.

So again, this is not just like a one-week blip. This is coming off last week seemingly being the one-week blip.

And we've taken another hit down, a big hit.

They have further blippage to go, but where did they start? Because again, the last few weeks that they've been

down, it's been more of a steady audience throughout where they don't start big and then lose a ton. They start smaller and keep more of them, but it's still

fewer in the long run. So what did they do this week? Did they start high and plummet or did they just never have them to begin with? Well, we go to quarter one.

These were compiled by WrestleNomics, Dynamite on September 3rd, 2025, quarter one, 8 to 8.15 p.m.

The Gabe Kidd, Darby Allen, Death Riders, Ops Live Angle, and the start of Mercedes Monet versus Alex Winser,

521,000 viewers. Ouch.
Okay, they started low and stayed there.

That's the lowest open in the history of the show, isn't it?

I think so. I think it has to, for a non-preempted episode, as they say, maybe.

Quarter 2, 8:15, 8:30 p.m.

The continuation of Monet versus Windsor, picture-in-picture, and the post-match with Riho,

506,000 viewers.

So they lost 15,000, and they ought to be.

consider themselves blessed at that because

after you see Riho,

you gotta go.

Did they go? Well, we go to quarter three, 8:30 to 8.45 p.m.

The Ops promo, an ad break, Ricochet and the Gates of Agony promo, and the Mark Briscoe Callus Family Live Angle. 487,000 viewers.

Yeah, Riho got him to go.

We go to quarter four, 8.45 to 9 p.m.

Mark Briscoe vs. Lance Archer with Picture and Picture, Tony Storms promo, an ad break, and the Harley Cameron Chris Statlander promo,

483,000 viewers.

Well, at least

probably Mark Briscoe was able to hold him steady. They thought, well, we won't go anywhere as long as he's around, but they've gone from 521 to 483.

They've lost 38,000. That's

not a big number, but when you start with half a million, you know, it's

not helping.

Well, it's now time for the big nine o'clock hour, quarter five, nine to nine: 15 p.m.

Claudio Castignoli and Wheeler Yuta versus Bro Dito

with picture and picture,

475,000 viewers.

They're hanging in there. They got their fingernails dug in on the edge of the cliff, and they're not going to let go.

We go to quarter six, 9:15 to 9:30 p.m.

Kazushka Okada's promo,

an ad break, the Hurt Syndicate's promo, and the Cope FTR Christian Live Angle, as well as a Garcia Moxley video,

and an ad break,

440,000 viewers. Well, it looks like one of the fingernails just broke off.

We go now to quarter seven, nine thirty to nine forty-five p.m.

The Young Bucks, Josh Alexander and Kyle Fletcher versus Adam Page, Jet Speed, and Kenny Omega with Picture and Picture,

440,000 viewers.

The exact same number. So apparently everybody was just full after a big meal and didn't want to make any moves.

Well, we go now to quarter eight. I remind you, a six-minute overrun,

quarter eight, 9.45 to 10 p.m.

Continuation of the eight-man tag tag match with picture and picture,

441,000 viewers.

Six-minute over on. They actually eked out an extra thousand people.
Go ahead. Six-minute over on 422,000 viewers for the post-match.

So

in a way, that's not bad. 521 to 422, that's 99,000 people.

If you look at it in a positive fashion, that's the smallest number of viewers that they have ever lost over the course of a television show.

It's also the smallest number they've ever started with

and potentially the smallest number they've ever ended with on a regularly scheduled program.

This is not looking good. WWE keeps running against them.
They just changed the time of their pay-per-view in Toronto because they know they're going to get crushed. I mean, they're putting what? A.J.

Lee in a match, Brock Lesnar in a match.

Cena? Cena. I mean, it's a big show.

AEW has no star power. And then you see this thing.

And they, and the AEW has moved their pay-per-view star time to three in the afternoon, but already Uncle Dave, who as we know is the mouth organ for Tony Khan's brain.

has already said, oh, yeah, I'm sure they'll run long so they run into, like, they're going to do damage to the WWE show with this dog and pony outfit that they've got right now.

They're going to run long to try to make people not want to buy the WWE show.

WWE is Brock Lesnar and John Cena. They've got a mixed tag with Punk and A.J.
Lee and Rollins and Becky.

They've got all the promotion and this giant audience watching.

They're just going to run this pay-per-view six hours for no reason to keep 22 people,

their attention that aren't going to switch over to watch WWE. Everybody that's going to watch WWE is going to watch WWE first.

First and foremost, I mean, not

just because it comes on second. By the way, same thing the other way.

AEW have their fans that don't give a fuck about the WWE show. They're upset the show was moved because they don't care about WWE.
They just want to see their show.

But everything right now.

How many of these people you think were driving in that day from like out of town? And now they're like, what the fuck? We got to leave at six in the morning?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Well,

there you go, pal. It's not looking good.
Another case of there you are. It's not looking good.

Right now, Tony Khan needs to be doing better than he has, and he's doing worse than he has, and not good.

You know, we always said we were going to be up and cheerful and bright and happy and peppy and bursting with love. And we just, he brings us down.

He brings us down.

I feel so low. Would you like to feel better, Brian? Yeah.

Then let's end the show. Yeah.
Folks, thanks for listening. And hopefully next week, Brian's lip will not be fat.

And my mood will be elevated and we will have another fine episode.

And don't forget that the drive-thru is coming up in another few days and we'll do all kinds of wonderfully fun stuff then and there too.

but in parting for the jim cornet experience i'm jim cornette he's brian less thank you you and bye-bye everybody get the experience get the experience of jim cornet

of jim cornet

of jim cornet