Episode 402

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Hello again, friends.

Whenever you hear this, and you are our friends, and welcome back to another edition of Jim Cornett's drive-thru, right here.

On another day, it is indeed a day in the summer, and we are indeed here for you.

No reviews, but questions, wrestling history, and the usual chaos.

I'm your host, the great Brian Last.

Oh, Jesus.

And here he he is, the leader of the cult of Cornet,

Mr.

Jim Cornette.

I thought because we were time traveling, that we had got stuck in the machine there, and it was just going around and around like if when you were a kid, you went to the fair, and they put you in the thing where you stand in the thing, and you're against the wall, and it spins around in a circle and everything.

Oh, and then some people vomit out into the middle of the thing.

I thought we were stuck in that.

That's the theme to the great Brian Last.

What are you talking about?

No, it was just going on on and on.

The theme keeps getting long.

It's like the

fucking various TV show themes that you go back and look.

Remember the first season of Maude, it was like three minutes long.

And then by the end of the

season six, it cut it down to 15 seconds.

And then there's Maud.

It's supposed to go that way, not increase exponentially.

All right.

Well, just like the theme song, you opened the door right there.

We need to fill up a lot of time here today.

What are the best TV theme songs of all time?

What are the best TV?

Oh, I dropped my pen.

What are the best TV theme songs of all time in your eyes?

Well, grab your pen.

And it has to have lyrics, nothing instrumental.

Okay, now hold on here.

I want to attack these things individually.

First of all, we don't have to say we have to fill up a lot of time here today.

Like, you know, we're contractually obligated to just drone on, even if we have nothing to say.

We'll tell the people in a minute that we're pre-taping this program because of circumstances beyond your control.

But as far as instrumentals don't count, well, then that takes up half of the great TV show themes, Mission Impossible.

Laylo Sheffron just died, by the way, I saw on the interweb.

R.I.P.

But Mission Impossible, Hawaii 5-0,

the honeymooners.

I mean, it goes on.

It's a separate cat.

It's interesting, but the honeymoon, no one ever really listens to that.

I'm being facetious.

I'm being, I was naming one thing that was not like the others for your, and it went right over your goddamn dome there.

Because as you're saying it, I can hear the song in my head.

I'm like, yeah, it is a memorable theme song now that I think about it.

Well, it was

by Jackie Gleason.

That's right.

Who conducted the orchestra and he popped the corn too.

But no, it was a great TV show themes.

The Green Hornet.

That's an instrumental.

I've actually never seen an episode of The Green Hornet.

Oh, goddamn you.

Just what?

And I love Bruce Lee, but it's my presence.

It's not available anywhere.

How do you get it?

Where does it air?

How do you get it?

Well, I saw it on network

first run, to be honest with you.

But then

it has been, it's been on,

I want to say me TV.

I'm willing to be corrected in recent years.

Oh, I've never seen it.

And I think, and also, I think it's been on handy TV.

Still sounds like a masturbatory aid, but it's heroes and icons.

Handy is handy, heroes and icons.

I think it was on there.

And of course, I've got the

you know the DVD set for heaven's sake, but it's the green, it's it's Bruce Lee, but it's also

they did the Batman episode crossover, right?

Of course, Batman.

Well, that's kind of an instrumental.

There's lyrics:

Batman, Batman, Batman,

Dennett Denett Denetta.

Again, lyrics.

Neil Hefty.

But again, what are the best TV theme songs with lyrics?

Gilligan's Island.

Is that one of them?

Or are you just, that's your one?

I don't know.

You've just hit me with it.

I don't know what to think.

The correct answer is different strokes.

Oh, cover.

You've done this to me before.

You said the same thing.

And it's just an excuse for you to talk about this

different

strokes.

It hits hard.

It's good.

Well, then tell them to lighten up their strokes.

All right.

Well, this is your show.

No, it's not.

But fortunately, what I was going to say to you is that we should explain to the people at the top of the program why.

One of the things we're going to explain is why I'm explaining to you, Lucy.

is why I'm just such a cranky bastard all the time.

Because you know what I've been wanting

to finally explain that.

Well, it's going to be a multi-mid omnibus.

But no, and here's the thing.

I've been cranky for the last week and a half or more because it hasn't rained here.

It's been 90-something degrees, but instead of it raining constantly like it did earlier and flooding and everything in the earlier in the year, now it doesn't rain and it's 90 and it's everything's dry.

And we, the rain that has been popping up has been missing us where it'd be raining three miles away, nothing here.

Well, yesterday, in the middle of the afternoon, boom,

we got the big thunder.

We got an inch of rain in like an hour and a half, three miles away.

They got nothing.

And then overnight,

the thunderstorms jacked everybody up out of their slumbers at like four o'clock in the morning, and it wasn't severe or anything, but we got deluged with, I haven't heard what the reading was of that rain, but that was going on forever.

And so now we got some rain, but then it heats back up to 90 degrees, and now the dew point is like 75.

And every time you walk outside a door of a dwelling, it slaps you in the face.

And I've been trying to get the chance to just go out and brine and take my limb lopper and my pole saw

and trim that.

the i'm i'm looking at them i can see them and walk out of random dwellings it's like a serial killer no

and no i'm saying i've been wanting to go out in the yard and do some yard work or i got weeding that i need to do and things right but it's so goddamn miserable that if i was to go out and try to undergo any physical activity a person of my age I'd have a stroke in an hour and a half.

I'd be in bed the rest of the fucking day.

So I have thing.

I can't just go out and physically punish myself to do two hours of yard work and be in bed instead of operating this the goddamn empire, the

global media conglomeration that I am, the magnitude of me, I have to be of, you know, boom, boom, boom, here taking this call and that memo and signing off on things.

And

future endeavoring people

can't just be laying out in the yard with an oxygen tank strapped to me.

So I haven't been able to enjoy that, is what I'm saying to you.

And apparently, for the next week, it's going to be 92 degrees every day

and 77 every night with a 70-something

point dew point

and pop-up thunder showers to make everything even steamier and stickier.

It's like we live in Guatemala.

So, since I can't have any type of of enjoyment in that respect, I'm actually taking a trip.

And we are going to report on my trip.

Aruba, it's Aruba.

Just look around Aruba

or Jamaica.

And we're going to report on my trip on next week's experience, but we are recording this drive-through ahead of time because I'm going to be gone when people are hearing that, or when we would have normally have recorded this for the people to hear it, or you know what I mean.

He's going to be at the Tupelo Wrestling Hall of Fame, ladies and gentlemen.

Anyone thinking about going this weekend, he'll be there.

No, but I'll give you a hint.

If you do stop by the Herb Welch Wrestle Plex in Dyersburg, Tennessee this weekend, you'll probably be really surprised.

That it's still there?

I'm not going to narrow it down any, but anybody that shows up just because I said that's going to be really surprising.

All right.

So, anyway, that's what we're doing here.

We're doing a program where we're just having discussion and questions and fun

and frivolity and leaving the

picking apart the weaknesses and the frivolities of modern wrestling to another day.

That is indeed correct.

But we do want to tell everyone.

That in the meantime and in between time, there's still merch and

lots of things that please buy.

Jimcornet.com, Cornettes Collectibles.

Well, there's always merch.

Merch will go on.

And folks, at jimcornet.com, you can get the highest quality merch for the most affordable prices, including action figures, autographed memorabilia, magazines, books, DVDs, certificates.

and so much more.

And praise Hotchkiss Featherbottom for his quick and speedy service at jimcornet.com and the show t-shirts.

You can get the cornet face shirt over at jc.com.

That's still the same place, but the brand new plethora of show shirts is just right at your fingertips.

That's right.

A plethora of show shirts with more show shirts to come

at ArcadianVanguard.com or on the shop app.

Just look for Jim Cornette or Arcadian Vanguard, or of course, every single video on the official Jim Cornette YouTube channel.

Your sister, Sue, sews the show shirts.

That's right.

Well, Jim,

yes.

Obviously, as the listeners can tell, it's going to be a long road this week to get to wherever it is that we are going.

I was looking for something that someone just sent in.

to play you and now I can't find it as soon as I wanted to actually get it.

But Jim,

I have something somebody sent in.

If you need to stall for time.

Yeah, what do you have?

Well, this is actually, I don't know whether they sent it in to you or to me or to both of us or what, but this is following up on something that we talked about a long time ago here on a program.

And the question was just

preposterous to us that was asked.

And we just, we had fun with it, but, you know, it was more than a kind of, what kind of moron would have believed this, right?

And do you remember when a guy said, hey,

did y'all ever hear, I guess, when Dusty Rhodes got out of wrestling that he worked on a tugboat because

a friend of mine, so-and-so, worked with Dusty Rhodes on a tugboat.

And we just called this guy just every kind of liar and charlatan and carpet bagger in the world.

Just a ridiculous, preposterous thing.

And come to find out, Brian, do you know

that guy's friend or whoever it was was working with Dusty Rhodes on a tugboat?

Do you are you interested in hearing more?

I was going to let you tell the listeners because I think I know where you're going because I received a few emails about this.

Okay.

Well, apparently.

He was working with Dusty Rhodes on the tugboat.

It just wasn't the wrestler Dusty Rhodes.

It was the former baseball player Dusty Rhodes that Dusty Rhodes

was kind of nicknamed after.

And this was brought to my attention from

Thomas

Latrale.

Latrille.

Latroll.

Latrille?

L-A-T-R-A-I-L-L-E.

Would that be Latral?

Is he French?

He's from Washington State.

I was going to ask you if he had a location.

Washington state, it wouldn't be French unless he moved there.

Well, they let French people in.

I don't know if they allowed him in Washington State.

I don't know.

I don't know how.

Well, I'm not.

So, Thomas

said a little while back: if American Dream, Dusty Rhodes worked on the tugboats, blah, blah, blah.

He sent along a New York Times article from the early 1980s: the World Series winning ballplayer from the 1950s, after a lifetime of hard living and even harder drinking,

ended up working on the tugboats.

And he also, he was mugged in the subway and relieved of his championship ring, he says in the story.

Oh, that's awful.

So, but at least it wasn't Dusty.

He only worked on the tugboat gimmick, not the actual tugboat.

I mean, they had footage on the news the other day of flooding in the subways, just water pouring down and the...

water was up to like the door opening and then pouring into the subway.

And then they had like the guy from like the official guy from the city being interviewed.

He's like, Yeah, the infrastructure we have was built for a different climate.

Everything's changed.

And basically, everything in New York is what it would have been 500 miles south.

And we're not prepared for this.

And then they come to like a different thing.

And I'm like, hold on, stop.

Just keep focusing on what he just said.

He just said it's all coming to an end.

I don't know what dusty roads in the subway made me think of that, but it's

for any of our listeners now, by the way, that want to ride the subway in New York.

If you go, if you start down the stairs into one of those holes in the ground and you look next to you, and there's a guy that looks like Ernest Borg9, get the fuck out of there.

Yeah, I've seen that disaster movie.

What the fuck?

It somehow became the dirtiest flume that you've ever seen in your life.

The flume.

It's the flume.

All right.

Did you flume into what you were looking for there?

I just wanted to bring it up.

Yeah, I did.

I have something here, and

it's some outside audio.

But I had not heard it because there was so much wrestling this past Saturday as we are recording that I didn't even try with Tony Khan at the media scrum.

So here's Tony Storm, timeless Tony Storm,

giving a speech.

And I wanted to get your thoughts on this.

This was put in the Cult According to Facebook group by...

Now this is she's giving a speech at the scrum.

at the scrum okay this was posted by member christopher heinz

let's go to this scrum speech

i have prepared a list for each

mercedes money thank you for making me a better wrestler and a better woman

and for keeping your lips clean all four of them you taste great

When we meet again, as I know we will, I might not be so kind.

Tony Shibani,

go fuck yourself.

I know it was you in that bathroom stall.

To the fans, thank you.

I don't know why you support me like you do, but if we all had good taste, none of us would be here.

To Athena, go fuck yourself and each one of your minions, but also congratulations.

Tony Khan.

No comment.

Luther, thank you for being reliably an idiot.

I always know you'll never be there for me when I need you.

And to Wendy Richter, go fuck yourself.

Whether it's this lifetime or the next one, I will put you in a head scissor and never let go.

And to Montel Vontavius Porter, thank you.

It wasn't cheap, but that was the right strain for my various psychological disorders.

And to the Rizzler, thank you.

It wasn't cheap, but that was the right cheese for my various psychological disorders.

And to my mother, go fuck yourself.

If it wasn't for your imbalanced love and parenting, I would not have become an explicitly successful in this weekly Colosseum of Gay Violence.

I will now be taking questions to, you know, continue your content farming.

Well, there it is, the Tony Storm,

timeless Tony Storm speech.

Whatever you want to say about the gimmick on the wrestling show and everything,

I mean, that's some good shit there.

I mean, I know.

And I, and I got to be honest with you.

If,

if she was the, the, the nut in the company,

if everything else moved along at a logical, normal, reasonable human pace and level of comprehension, and she was the fucking nut,

I could actually, I could, I could buy it.

It's, it's, it's good shit, pal.

Maybe it's just because I've become so used to she's just another

nut in a giant fucking bowl of planters' fucking cashews.

But it's better than everybody else's.

Yeah, I mean, she gets away with saying some shit.

Tony Schiavani, go fuck yourself.

I know it was you in that bathroom stall.

Whoever's writing her stuff, if it isn't her, I think they do pretty good with it.

But it may be her.

It may be her.

Last time she was asking Stan Hansen to hit her with a Lariat and not in the ring.

I'd like to think that that's her stuff because it is.

It suits what she's doing.

I'll say that for it.

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Older homes are especially vulnerable to quake damage, so you may need to take steps to strengthen yours.

Visit strengthenyourhouse.com to learn how to strengthen your home and help protect it from damage.

The work may cost less than you think and can often be done in just a few days.

Strengthen your home and help protect your family.

Get prepared today and worry less tomorrow.

Visit strengthenyourhouse.com.

All right.

Well, Jim, do you have anything?

That you have gone through in your files, any papers?

It's become a popular segment on the shows.

You know, I do, brother.

No, I told you I had did this, had this, found this,

asked you if you had ever heard this specifically.

As you know, I've been in the process trying to clean some, not clean stuff out, but just sort some things and looking for stuff.

And the folks have

liked the agent reports and/or the talent evaluations or the various memos or stuff from my files over here.

And

I asked you if I had ever read you this, and you said no.

This was the deal

that Bill Watts and I made for

WCW Super Brawl in 1993.

So that was Super Brawl 3

for the Rock and Roll Express and the Heavenly Bodies, as you'll recall, to do the Smoky Mountain Wrestling crossover.

on TV leading up to the promotion of that pay-per-view, right?

If the younger listeners want to

Google it or whatever, WCW Super Brawl 3, and you'll see details on what happened, I guess.

February 93.

Yes.

Yes.

But the reason why that I have it is confidential memorandum on the WCW letterhead, the reason why I have this.

The deal had already been in place for

probably at that point, well over a month.

But that's when I've told the story before in, you know, a couple of shoot interviews, as the kids say.

Watts called me in Tennessee because I was operating Smogie Mountain Wrestling, obviously, and said, well, they're fucking me around.

I'm not going to be here by Super Brawl.

So I'm going to put your deal in writing so they can't fuck you.

Okay.

God damn it.

What the fuck?

Yeah.

What are you thinking when you actually hear those words?

I was thinking, here we go again.

Because

I had agreed to finally work with WCW again after

when Watts and I started talking, it was late 1992.

So after

two years, Heard is gone.

Watts comes in as not just the booker because I, you know, talked to Dusty in 91 when he was the booker.

I said, I can't be anywhere around a Heard.

You don't, you're not running the show.

And

then Heard's gone and Watts actually is the vice president of wrestling operations or whatever the fuck their title was then, where he reports only to TVS.

But the problem was he reported to TVS.

And so this has just been, we haven't even executed the first pay-per-view match yet, but this was going to be the start of,

again, as I've talked about before, kind of an early developmental thing without really developing from scratch.

But when they had young guys that needed more experience, that we could take them and work them 15 days a month, and that we would have access to major names, which we already had Bobby Eaton.

He had given us Bobby for 12 weeks to freshen him up.

And we got a couple of dates on to go along with it.

This, you know, the whole deal hadn't even really got kicked off yet.

And we barely done the first TVs.

And already he's like, I ain't got to be here.

I'm like, fuck, the fuck is the matter with these people?

So, and there wasn't anybody else that I was going to be

negotiating with, doing business with, trusting, or whatever that had any kind of the concept of what we were planning to do, if they had any interest or not.

And so I was like, okay, well, we're in and we're out.

Obviously, you wouldn't know how things were going to play out, but had you ever in any way met Eric Bischoff before this point in time?

No.

I mean, besides working for Vern and then,

you know, coming to work there and seeing him on their television until we, and I don't,

I don't remember us having any, any interaction at the TVs up until the pay-per-view, where I accused him of being one of the people that, because

again, somebody told me that he was in the studio hanging around when the topic was or concern was raised.

So.

And by that point, he was in charge, right?

No.

No.

He wasn't in charge, but he was lobbying for charge, but he wasn't specifically, but the problem was at that point, nobody was in charge.

Right.

And, you know, I'll let you go back to this without interruption in a second, but this all led to also Jim Ross being ousted.

And he was doing more than just commentary.

And, you know, within a few months, he was at WrestleMania.

Well, and JR was.

you know, in the fallout as being one of Watt's guys, but it also didn't hurt that JR and say, yeah, bring an Eric Kidd in, you know, a a good kid or whatever.

And then the guy's there.

But no, that's what I'm saying: is nobody was in charge at that point.

Everybody was jockeying.

And

I'll tell Tony Schiavanti was another person who was buried to me along with Eric Bischoff as being somebody who was like, no, we got to edit that shit out of the TV, out of the audio, and et cetera.

When we did the television angle with Watts, because

he was happy when Jim Ross left.

Well, yeah, and they were all trying to either get a job, get a better job, keep the job they had, or get the people out of the way they didn't like.

So nevertheless,

I actually found the

not even a contract here, it's just a memo because Watts and I.

had made the deal and it was a verbal

verbal deal and a handshake.

That's all I needed as long as he was around.

But as he knew, they'd try to fuck us out of our money as soon as he was gone.

Can I ask a question before you?

I'm sorry to interrupt again.

Before Bill Watts came back to WCW in early 92, had you kept in touch with him at all after the closure of the UWF or after the sale of the UWF in 1987?

Had you talked to him at all?

And was he,

when he started talking to you, was he at all aware of your feelings about wcw and turner management um

no well i'm i would have from

from the time what was it 87 or 88 by the time that

87 they got to 87 by the time they got the whole thing wrapped up

probably for four and a half years no he was out of the business really didn't you know i didn't particularly want to call him up and say, hey, Bill, you want to talk about the wrestling business that, you know, you didn't get your money on or whatever

uh and

i was busy but then when he

showed back up in i don't say showed back up when they hired him in wcw i was like okay at least maybe he can do something with this thing

and he had actually as i've said before reached out

to me because

He wanted to see how Paul Orndorf was doing.

Because, you know, he had used Orndorff early on in Mid-South when Paul was before Paul ever went to the WWF and was a huge Orndorf fan, but Paul had had the nerve damage in his arm.

And since he'd been working for me,

Bill wanted to see, you know, how he thought that or how I thought that Paul was doing.

Could he do that again on national TV, et cetera, et cetera?

And I said, yes, he still looks fucking phenomenal and he's doing a great job, right?

And that's the thing that's he was also saying, by the way, I'm going to be booking Paul away from you basically is the presentation.

It was the old, hey, Vince Sr.

calls up and says, I want Waldo von Erich, but I'll give you a week on Andre.

So that we started talking about, well, what can we do here?

And just because he could tell me.

And I would understand when he's telling me some of the

problems that were surmounting down there with how they'd structured the thing already that he was trying to fucking

solve so they wouldn't lose their ass.

It wasn't that he wanted the boys to fucking starve and work for 60 bucks a night, but they hired him to not lose

at that point 10 million, I think it was, or was it 12, somewhere between the 8 and 12 million dollar a year window.

This is before they'd ever made any money.

So, anyway, and we started talking.

And of course, I said, of course,

I'll finish Orndorf up and et cetera.

But that's where the genesis of

the idea for the Super Brawl crossover came from.

Because

I can't remember whether it was on the phone or when I went down there and spoke to him.

Here's when I went down there and spoke to him in person.

I said, you remember when they were doing Brian the

mini movies to promote the pay-per-views where they'd put the guys, if it was bashing the beach, wasn't that when they had a midget with a bomb to blow up the boat or something?

By the time you're talking about, they would have done either one or two because the first one was for Halloween Havoc Spin the Wheel make the deal with Jake Roberts and Cheatham, the Midget, Medusa, and Sting.

And then they did the White Castle of Fear for Super Bowl, the card you're talking about.

And then the Beach Blast one was later that summer.

They had done the first mini movie.

And it went, everybody just remembers the midget blowing up the boat, but they did several of these things.

And I said to it, because it was going around

the,

you know, internet and or, I wouldn't know what any internet newsletter and or locker room rumor both had it that they spent like $60,000, $50,000, $60,000 on this thing, right?

to shoot this and have the guys and the crew and edit it and all it is just preposterous.

And I told him, I said, because that was Turner Home Entertainment trying to make their contribution.

But the problem was,

is that, as he acknowledged,

they, at that point, when he came in, they didn't have angles going that anybody cared about.

They'd had upheavals in talent.

The boys were not exactly fond of management because of Heard for all that time.

And

they had no fucking, just no difference direction to go in than being the kind of discount WWF.

And it's just, it was so busy that people didn't believe in it, the WCW fans they had at that time.

I said, Bill, for half of what you see, I always started with that, for half of what you foolishly wasted five times as much money on something as it's worth.

For half of what you spent on the mini movie,

I will provide the talent, the angle, the footage to back it up from our side, and the execution of an attraction for your pay-per-view that even if it doesn't goddamn set the world on fire, it will sell you more pay-per-views than the goddamn mini movie did.

And he said, Okay, what is it?

And I pitched the thing to him

that I said, You've, we've got for the past seven years on tbs the most popular tag team in that period of time has been the rock and roll express these are undisputed facts correct correct

it houses and ratings they were part of the biggest rating that the turner broadcasting had gotten for one of their regularly weekly television programs since they'd owned the fucking company for almost four years, the Rock and Roll Express.

I said, I got the most popular team

in in the network's history

now i've got the heavenly bodies stan lane and tom pritchard you've got bobby eaten you're loading him to me but together we've got the midnight express and the heavenly bodies with jim cornet who opposed them for so

long and drew the record gates of the blah blah blah

We've got another promotion with a television program and the ability to make it look like an outsider deal.

And I will come up with the angle and the way that we execute it, and blah, blah, blah.

And we'll come and put them over on the pay-per-view, which is emanating from Asheville, North Carolina, the heart of mid-Atlantic wrestling, where the Rock and Roll Express were fucking gods.

And I'm not talking about 30 years ago.

I'm talking about three and a half years ago.

And he said, okay, so we got $25,000 for Smokey Mountain Wrestling for basically me to administrate this whole goddamn thing.

And each of the guys got an extra $1,000 for making the pay-per-view match, which was

about two weeks' worth of what they were making in Smokey Mountain Wrestling.

And this was 30 years ago.

So that's, we're talking about

around three grand a piece or whatever for today, plus $250 a piece for getting booked twice, I believe, on TBS and once on the

national syndicated show that they did.

And

we executed the thing as we were supposed to, even though Watts wasn't there.

But then that was the

end of that.

And

I had this on paper.

So because

Ole had called me.

They put Ole in charge of the booking while they found a new vice president, which I think was

who the fuck succeeded Watts as vice president

was uh was in the name now.

I know who it is, too.

Um, Jesus Christ.

Well, nevertheless, Bob Bill Shaw, Bob Dew, one of those either one of those, yeah.

That was a bridge guy.

Well, nevertheless,

Ole had called me and said, Well, I guess you got this deal on paper, huh?

Yes, yes, I do, Ole.

We're awaiting the check.

But anyway, this is what he wrote.

And then I'll open the floor to questions.

It's just, it's confidential memorandum, January 26, 1993, to Brian Mitchells.

He was the, what are they, the comptroller, the guy that paid people and kept track of these things.

From Bill Watts, Re

Smokey Mountain Wrestling compensation for WCW Saturday TV and Super Brawl 3.

Number one, we'll pay each person involved in WCW Saturday on January 25th and February 9th $250 each.

Two, we will pay $5,000 for their bout on Super Brawl 3.

Three, we will pay as Smokey Mountain Wrestling $25,000 for Super Brawl 3.

WCW will receive the necessary tapes and footage, plus the spontaneity of SMW's involvement on our TV and this pay-per-view.

It creates an outside element that has fan appeal by former big stars with WCW.

It should add greatly to the overall appeal of Super Brawl 3, and Bob Dew approved this business deal.

We will remit these payments in the normal course.

as we pay for participation on each of these events, meaning when the talent money goes out, their regular talent.

And he itemized it on January 25th, following talent from SMW appeared for WCW

at center stage per number one above.

Riggie Morton, Robert Gibson, Bobby Eaton, Stan Lane, Tom, Tommy Pritchard.

He still knew Tom from when he was Tommy.

Tommy Pritchard and Jim Cornett.

And he carbon copied Bill Shaw, Bob Dew, and Dusty Rhodes.

So,

because that's the first fucking thing that Ole had called up when

they realized it was on paper and says, You got it on paper, ah, kid.

And Ole was done with them by the end of the year,

right?

Oh, yeah, yeah, he was out by the end of the year.

Well, what year was that?

That was 1990.

Yeah, he was.

A lot of people didn't stay around long, but that was,

again,

you know, it was an early attempt

at a sort of a participation with, we did, in spoken about wrestling, we didn't want to be a national promotion.

That was not the design of the thing.

But it was a great regional territory and a place for people to learn.

And if you had a relationship with somebody that understood the wrestling business that you could trust,

they also understood that it was valuable for them in a way because they are not only going to be able to send people maybe that they don't have room for, but they'd like a future for,

but they're going to be able to have the first shot at getting somebody that, oh, I might

find, pick up, develop, uncover.

whatever, which turned out to be dozens and dozens of fucking people.

But they were too fucking, had their heads too far up their ass with who was going to run the thing and as a result nobody was ever running it

it was pretty cool as a kid to watch wcw saturday night and see smoky mountain footage it was right around the time that i saw the first couple articles in the apter mags that had pictures and

you know you and stan

midnight express had been such a big part of that show

and then you were just gone And for like a year and a half, two years, it was, you know, whatever, you know, again, I was a kid.

I was just a kid watching wrestling.

oh there he is in a magazine oh there he is on global

at four o'clock in the afternoon one day i'm like oh my god they're still doing something

so when i saw smoky mountain especially the clips

it looked so cool it got me like hooked on i need to get as much footage of this as i can

well and here's the thing with

With WCW at the time, and I've told a story, I think, 93 or 1, whatever it was, on a couple of occasions, we drew more people in the Knoxville Civic Coliseum than they drew in the fucking Omni in Atlanta.

And

what we were trying to do

was establish that

we have the ability to give people a leg up in a wrestling business and maybe have a little big brother over here that we can work with, get some notoriety off of, but not to look like a goddamn flunky or whatever.

But the idea of a cross-promotion thing, the one thing that people were starting to realize, especially when the WCW was down to the base audience that it was, was that the promotions hated each other.

And that's why we came up with the idea for us to storm out in a shoot.

And for the younger listeners, I will explain briefly.

They showed footage on WCW Saturday night of the Rock and Roll Express, who had been signed their first time back in,

you know, almost three years or however long it's been.

They're going to be in a feature match on Super Brawl.

And here's some footage of what they're doing now.

And it was like two minutes of them beating the shit out of me and the heavily bodies.

And so.

With Bob Caudle.

With Bob Caudle, too.

That's another thing.

He heard his voice in a few years.

With Bob Caudle, who had been all over the shows that people had been watching just a few years before.

And so it, it, they're like, okay, yeah, I remember this shit.

Big crowds, you know, whatever the fuck.

And then next the following week, when they're having a match involving, I don't know, Tits McGee and his friend Joe, whatever it was, me

and Stan Lane and Tom Pritchard and Bobby Eaton had been hiding in a goddamn

janitor's closet at center stage, even away from the boys.

The only people that knew that we were there was a couple of the

WCW agent type people, whatever the fuck.

And we got there way early.

And we walked out the side and came in the front door and walked down the stairs and let the people see, you know, oh shit, that is them.

And the boys are dressed in street clothes, but I've got a tennis racket and wearing my shit.

So they kind of figured it out.

And we cut the promo that we,

we don't appreciate what you showed last week, that edited footage that you showed of Riggy Ward and Robert Gibson, a Rock and Roll Express, who have never been able to whip us or any of my teams ever in the history of their lives.

And you edit that footage together, making us look like a bunch of flunkies and them beating our butts.

I couldn't say ass on TV.

But.

What I did get bleeped for was that was the, this was the whole point.

I said, we left here because we were being disrespected and unappreciated, and we hated Jim Hurd and were not fond of current management.

And they bleeped out that I hated Jim Hurd.

They didn't want slander to him or whatever.

And then lied to Watts and saw the microphone didn't pick it up.

They could hear me out on Peachtree Street.

And I cut a fucking promo of what I would have said to the goddamn

WCW as a company without the fuckings

of what we thought.

You're not, we're not going to let this go by.

No, get that fucking hogheaded Bill Watts out here.

Fuck you.

You're not showing shit of them beating us up.

Well, they're back there.

They can come out here and beat you up if you want to right now.

Okay, goddamn it.

And they all had a match in their fucking street clothes.

And the people were going, go back and watch it.

The people were going batshit through the whole thing because it just livened the program up they didn't expect to see any of that

and that's what they needed was a little fucking spark

you know it was also i know this is probably not the way anyone really looks at it it also ended up being on air bill watts's finest moment in wcw because he had started getting booed by the fans because

The product wasn't exactly getting a lot better.

He was pushing Eric Watts really super hard.

Or Dusty was because he was the booker.

One or the other.

Eric Watts was being pushed really hard.

Well, one knew what the other wanted.

Right.

And,

you know, Watts hadn't really broken away from just being, you know, the cowboy.

You know, it wasn't like they even talked about his history or showed UWF footage.

It was just one day he was there.

And he was just in charge, like, you know, a cowboy Jack Tonney.

But your thing was the first time we really got to see any energy.

Well, yeah, he had nothing to

play off of, as they say in show business.

And that was the thing is, if you had

not only a believable scenario, but also something that people didn't expect involving people that they knew who the fuck they were.

It was kind of more energetic than what they'd been doing in WCW for the previous couple of years.

And that, you know, that that woke people up.

And it also gave people,

by the time I got finished with it, he got out there,

I think they would have voted for fucking Mussolini, you know, to tell me off.

But

that was part of it.

But it gave him something to do that he was good at, which was being the stand-up babyface, settle it in the ring, fucking kind of boss, owner, commissioner, whatever the fuck he was.

And then we brought Bob Armstrong

from Smokey Mountain.

And

again,

if I was a Mark Booker, I would have had Bob come in and go and start cussing at Watts.

No,

Bob was a babyface too.

And we were the heels, not the fucking company.

And so Bob was the one as the Smokey Mountain commissioner that we made an appearance on WCW television, was also able to handle what was going on on Smokey Mountain TV, and they worked together to get us into a position where we had to put up or shut up or whatever.

And that's another of the reasons because Bob Arms said people in fucking Atlanta.

If Watts had booked Atlanta in 74 and used Bob on top, he knew he could cut a fucking promo and they could work together, believably, again, not in a match.

I'm saying work together to give some credence to this this thing that both of the

and also for Smokey Mountain, that both of the commissioners of these various groups who are kind of being treated equally

are in agreement that this thing needs to take place on pay-per-view, that type of thing.

But it was, and, and,

and to be honest with you, do you, we did the, we did a couple of the TBS TVs, but we did the, I think, Gainesville, Georgia WCW syndicated show back when that was a thing.

That's where we had the match.

It was

the Stan Lane, Tom Pritchard, the bodies,

and

Steve Austin and Brian Pillman in an eight-man tag against the Rock and Roll Express with Shane Douglas and Ricky Steamboat.

And Steamboat and Douglas were their tag team champions.

And the people spent the whole match chanting for the Rock and Roll Express.

And

that didn't go.

There was a lot of people in the locker room hot because we came in for like two tapings, got a lot of fucking attention, do the pay-per-view match, which they liked in Asheville.

And then, boom, it were never seen again.

And again, right after that angle, Bill Watts never seen again.

Jim Ross, never seen in WCW again.

He had been the voice at WCW.

So it was a real changing.

Right there, your brief appearance was kind of the signal of the changing of WCW from, you know, Watts was was the end of the previous period, Bischoff was the beginning of the next one.

Well, but had history a show, because that was February 1993.

History has shown for the next about, what, two or three years, they did some stinky fucking business.

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Did you keep in touch with Watts at all or much between that and 95 when he showed up in the WWF?

Again, that was only a couple of years that I was going insane.

I didn't think he wanted to hear.

See, that's the thing.

I don't think Watts has ever really wanted to hear about anybody else's fucking wrestling when he was out of it.

I don't think

he's never been one to, unfortunately,

he would exchange various business and financial opportunities more than he would exchange on the phone ideas about

any kind of wrestling that he wasn't involved in.

Oh, the other day I was going through the Watts file in the Kaiteser Wrestling News Archive.

And I laughed because, you know, I got one too when I was a teenager and I got to know Bill Watts at the Dennis Carlozo thing.

It was like, you know, hey, Norman, great to hear from you.

Here's, you know, the new gummies that I'm selling and here's the new vitamins that I have.

These are the things.

I had a box of vitamins and supplements at one point that I think weighed 40 pounds that I gave to Goodwill.

That I think if I'd have taken all of them, I'd either be a goddamn.

physical marvel and a behemoth right now or been dead for 15 years.

Imagine if he had had the internet.

You know, cowboybillwatts.com, get my vitamins.

I'll sign every 40-pound jug of vitamins.

Oh, my God.

Well, that was, that was the thing.

You talked to him.

You can't leave the conversation until you are fully sold and investing money in whatever the fuck he's doing.

I think I had an air filter or two.

But anyway,

we loved the cowboy, but he saved our ass on that.

And we got paid because Smokey Mountain at that point, we needed to buy something

i can't remember what it was but something in the range of some kind of equipment that would help keep us on television what was the date of bluegrass brawl

uh april april the the 1993 was april 2nd or 3rd so did the paper protect you i mean did you have any worries about them pulling on or bobby

uh

no actually i was hoping they'd let me keep bobby i you know i i

didn't think but what did you think they were going to do

well no that's for a while i thought they might let me keep him because it was like watts had been the champion of him coming there to freshen up so that he could bring him back

whatever they had done to him it wasn't attractive in the booking so Watts was going to bring him back somehow with something better.

And so I'm thinking since it was Watts's idea, maybe they're not going to renew him.

I might have him.

But no, they still,

well, I'm not begrudging them, but they still renewed him and brought him back because all the agents and

anybody involved in the wrestling booking always voted for him.

And with Arn,

you know, I had, again, I had

paperwork.

So, and it had already been announced and they kind of couldn't.

get it like

they didn't really want us to not come either because they had already announced this thing

was going to happen on Super Brawl.

And then all of a sudden, if it just vanished, that would have been awkward.

You know, and again, it's always interesting, too, that within six months, you would be on WWF-TV,

which the only thing we want.

Same goddamn match.

Man of Stan, who had to think, what the fuck?

Stan retired like May 15th, and we started with the WWF at the end of July.

Well, he started as a commentator right after that, too.

So it ended up working out somewhat for him, too.

But that would happen, and then Arn and Bobby would continue their feud in ECW.

So it was the rare program that went to three different territories, if you want to look at it that way, within a couple of years.

But yeah, what could have been?

I guess that's the big question.

If

Watts stayed, which it's very hard to see any scenarios where he would have, just based on everything at that time.

But if he had,

you guys would have been in developmental.

What?

Like, Eric Watts would have been sent there.

Someone rehabbing would have been sent there.

Someone who needed a new gimmick would have been sent there.

And also, let's see,

because I'm about to bring Candido in.

So

Candido would have been directed south instead of, but this is all if Watts had stayed.

I mean, and that's just so far-fetched, but let's say he did.

A lot of the guys, the heavenly bodies ended up going to the WWF for a run, but

a lot of the guys that we found and/or fostered would have been directed in that direction.

And it's to say Paul Orndorff got Brian Adams.

Brian Adams.

Let me try that again.

Brian Clark.

Nightstalker was Brian Clark.

Brian Adams was crushed.

But Brian Clark, the Nightstalker, was the kid that was driving Paul Orndorff to the Smoky Mountain shows.

So we were able to give him a place to work so that Nightstalker then went to WCW.

But that was just the very tip of the iceberg there and then all of a sudden we started sending people the other way because

we did

um

but it it

it also i i i had thoughts of to be honest i was going to get charleston huntington west virginia out of watts before it was over with

because

We couldn't get TV out of there.

And we had that market.

That was one more fucking market.

We could make the money we were making in Knoxville and and we'd be fine we'd be just swell

one more and they had tv on the strong station

and i and watts said well we will we'll not run live events against you in knoxville and johnson city and the rest of the towns we ran were too small for them at the time to run anyway

and i said

Bill, give me Charleston, West Virginia.

One more.

I know I can make that fun because they write run up there twice a year.

I can make that thing a monthly town and boom, and we'll have it.

And it's all drivable from Atlanta for everybody.

And even thinking about it.

Newman.

Do you think you would have been able to draw better and limited programs with Smoky Mountain talent with WCW wrestlers than they were drawing at that time in the South?

Well, I mean, it depends on, you know, I wasn't thinking that we were going to just suddenly be flooding our cards with all of the guys that they didn't want to use down there, it would be and see that Watts understood the economics of a goddamn territory.

We've got 12 guys on spot shows, but we've got 16 or 18 on our monthly towns, except for Knoxville with managers.

We got 20, 22, but we can take two or three and work them in.

And he understood.

So it wouldn't be like just a goddamn developmental territory.

But if somebody had the potential that needed the time that you thought, well, I could do something with him if he was six months or a year better, then that's where you start working together.

And then with some of their name guys, if you brought in as a challenger to a heel champion that you didn't have a babyface, it was fucking ready for right then.

Just see if he was going to get his ass kicked or a mystery partner, special partner or something.

Yes, I probably could have drawn a bigger house in Knoxville with half the guys they had on the roster at that in 1993

in WCW

that they were because it would have been made special.

Probably a silly question, but did you ask him at all about Brad Armstrong?

Well, obviously, that I mean, I can't,

I can't truthfully remember where Brad was at in

the injury and/or activity

equation at the time,

but that was the thing that I'd been trying to figure out some way to do since the start of the thing.

There had never been a point where Bob, Brad, Scott, Steve, and Brian were all available to be on a show at the same time.

So,

and when did

I think, when did Rody

start with Jeff in the WWF?

That was not long after this thing because we had just used him a time or two.

I think it would have been 94.

It would have been that late.

Okay, we started using Brian in like what, late 92 is the Dark Secret,

which was the Arachnoman costume that Brad wore in Smokey or in WCW turned inside out.

That was one of the first matches in Smoky Mountain.

I saw Dark Secret versus Dixie Dynamite.

Yes, Brian Armstrong versus Scott Armstrong.

Hey, one other question about all this Super Brawl 3 in Asheville.

It was also the return of Ric Flair.

He didn't wrestle, but it was his first WCW appearance since 91, since Jim Hurd.

He had just lost the match to Mr.

Perfect on Raw, the third episode of Raw, I believe.

Did you get to see Flair that night?

You had a lot going on and you didn't leave.

But did you get to talk to Flair or see him that night?

Well, yes.

I mean, I wasn't dominating his time for old home week while he was, you you know doing his big deal but yes see i got

i got to see everybody and i enjoyed

everybody except for you know certain people that we've already talked about like eric bischoff and whoever the office stooges were at the point that's where and

who was it god damn it

somebody

When I was walking, because we were at the Asheville Civic Center and you've never been in there, but you go right for the small babyface locker room side, left for the small heel locker room side.

And

I was in the side there and who was it?

One of the, it was maybe Nick Patrick, maybe Nick Patrick, the referee

said, it's good to see you back, but somebody says it's good to see you back.

I said, well, fucking look quick.

And he looked at that look on his face.

And I said, as Dennis Condry would say, don't pull up no chairs because we can't stay.

And he's, oh, I said, no, Watts is gone.

We ain't, you know, whatever the fuck, right?

And so then, well, go ahead.

No, no, no, go, you go ahead.

I think you were going to say what I was going to ask you.

Well, that's what Dusty called me in a little while later on.

I heard, Dusty wants to talk to you.

Okay.

Because Dusty was now the booker, I believe, again.

He may have always been the booker.

Yeah, I think he did book throughout Watts' run.

He was always the booker, but Watts was the vice president they never let the booker do what he wanted to do

and

i went in and dusty said do we have heat kid i said what he said do we have a heat somebody told me he said he won't be around long i said no i'm talking about watts being gone dusty i said i love you

if you were running this place i would still be here

But apparently, even Watts was supposed to be running this place and he's not anymore.

So nobody's running this place.

I don't trust any of these motherfuckers that came back for six weeks and here we are.

But I love you is basically the gist of our meeting.

And I just wouldn't make sure, kid.

But it was like, geez, it's just, you know, it's like a fucking Agatha Christie novel.

Every time you deal with that company, you turn around all the plans you made or any arrangements or.

deals, handshakes, whatever, contracts.

It's just fucking chaos.

You don't know whether somebody that has a half-ass idea of what they're doing or not is going to be in charge of anything.

And it would continue to be that way until they blundered into their,

what, 83 weeks of success and then crashed and burned like a fucking meteor in the New Mexico desert.

Hey, one last thing on all this, then we move on.

I don't remember it exactly, but it's your story.

Maybe you will.

Wasn't there?

It was your story.

Wasn't there some kind of incident on the way out where you like had a, you almost went at it with someone from the production crew?

Oh, yes.

Yes.

Yes.

What was the guy's name?

He was on the credits in early 90s WCW as like the security guy or whatever.

His nickname was Bear or something.

But he had come along after I had been gone from the company.

So I'd never seen this fucking guy.

Right.

Well, the thing was because of

the date that the pay-per-view was in Asheville.

We actually, me and the bodies, had a match in Johnson City at Freedom Hall at one o'clock that afternoon because I couldn't leave the bodies and the rock and roll off the Smogy Mountain show.

We had a match with the stud stable, Robert Fuller, and Jimmy Golden.

And then we got in a car and drove the 60 miles down to Asheville.

And when we get there, everybody's already fucking parked.

So as we pull in,

I see David Crockett.

Crockett.

David, Bergen Park.

He said, just pull up there.

Whatever the fuck we're pointing around.

David Crockett has authorized this.

So I pull up there.

We go in, and we don't think any more about it.

Who was in the car with me?

It was me.

Actually,

I think Tom Pritchard went with somebody else.

I think it was me, Jimmy Del Rey.

No, Jimmy Del Rey wasn't there then.

It was me and Brian Hildebrand and Tom Pritchard.

That's who it was.

But Brian Hildebrand was in the car with us.

So anyway,

after the show, well, not after the show, but after our contributions show, we're going to try to get out of there because it's been a long day.

So I'm waiting on Dr.

Tom and

Brian's already gone to the car and I'm kind of halfway.

And Brian comes running up and says,

hey, you're going to tow your car.

I said, well, what?

Yeah, this guy says you're going to tow your car.

And this is when I had that

Ford Taurus that you've seen on Smoky Mountain TV, where Bobby Fulton bashed the back window in with a lead pipe while we were driving it.

But it had glass in it then, though.

And I come out there,

and there's this guy walking up the ramp behind us.

I said, buddy, we're coming.

We're just saying, well, you need to get the car.

I'm going to tow the car.

I said,

we're coming.

We got one more guy.

He's bringing his bag and we'll be right there.

Well, we're going to tow this guy.

He was just very vehement.

Now, meanwhile,

it's Asheville, North Carolina on Sunday night at 10 o'clock.

There is barely another goddamn creature moving, not only in the back of the fucking Asheville Civic Center, but as far as I can see or hear almost anywhere else in fucking town.

This is 30 years ago.

It wasn't the hip place it is today, right?

And what is your goddamn deal?

I'm telling you, I have the keys here in my hand and I'm walking to the car

to move it.

And there's another guy coming, and we're going to leave.

I'll see that you do.

I said, who the fuck are you?

He's, well,

who the fuck are you, civilian?

He said, he said, I said, I'm a motherfucker.

He's fixing to beat your ass if you don't shut your smart mouth.

It just, it had to be a thing where I said, just, just go, go back in the building.

Leave me the fuck alone, motherfucker.

And I'm going to do what you want me to do.

And it was one of those things where every time I would say that and try to turn away at Hilda Brand Standard going, oh, motherfucker, this was a last word guy.

As soon as I said, I'm doing it now, see that you do.

Just to just to say it.

And what if I don't?

It's that type of thing.

So finally, I started walking back up the hill.

I said, motherfucker, I don't know what your fucking problem is or who you are, but David Crockett told me I could park here to begin with.

I'm fixed to move it, but if you don't get out of here and say one more word to me, I'm going to kick you in the fucking balls.

And you know what he, he pulled a knife out on me.

And I said, you son of a bitch.

I threw my bag down and I think, what did I grab?

I don't even know.

Was it the racket?

I don't even think I had a racket.

I grabbed, I think I grabbed a stick off the ground, some kind of stick of wood.

And Hildebrand has grabbed me around in a waistlock, holding me from trying to fucking swing his stick of wood at this fucking guy who's got one of these butterfly knives as he's backing up, talking into his fucking

walkie-talkie DLI.

Call Doug Dillinger in Asheville PD.

Call Doug Dillinger in Asheville PD.

And I'm screaming, yeah, call Doug Dillinger, motherfucker, and tell him Jim Cornette's about to stick this stick up your ass.

I've known Doug Dillinger for 10 fucking years.

And he'll believe it.

And I swear to God, within he's backing up with the knife, but the walkie-talkie and Brian is wearing on me, even though he only weighed 140 pounds.

I'm blowing up.

And I've still got the stick.

And here comes finally in about 15, 20 seconds, Doug Dillinger and a bunch of fucking cops around the corner.

And Doug's running and looks up and sees me with that stick and this fucking guy and started laughing.

And goddamn it, what the fuck is God?

I said, Doug, this fucking guy pulled a knife on me because I was telling him if he didn't shut up, leave me alone, I was gonna kick his ass.

And eternity told, he said, because that's how I knew it with him.

Bear,

go back in the building.

And I said, what the fuck is taking over around here?

Is everybody out of their minds?

I said, this guy was going to fucking pull a knife on me and run me into the goddamn jail because I didn't want to move my fucking car.

I said, don't, you don't have to worry about seeing my car around here any fucking more.

But then Tom Bridger comes out, like, what the fuck is going on out here?

Was it a story too that like Eric Watts was watching all this happen, but he didn't like intervene because he was enjoying it?

Well, yeah, I come to think of it.

He was out there, wasn't he?

Because, yeah, well, I mean,

what's he going to do?

If this guy is this clueless?

I've just been on their show.

It's not like I'm a goddamn household name, but I've literally just been on their show that they're producing 100 yards to our fucking left.

So, if he ain't going to take my word for it, is he going to let Eric Watts talk him out of this goddamn parking lot Nazism he's going through?

The fuck?

Well, we discussed Jim's last days in TNA last time.

This was Jim's last days in WCW.

Fiery to the last second.

Well, I mean, what the fuck?

He's like, Jesus Christ, dude.

I mean, I said, who's

what am I blocking here?

There's nothing.

The show is still going on.

There's nothing happening.

Nobody's trying to leave nowhere.

Nobody's coming in.

I love that he hit you with a civilian.

Yeah.

And I'm trying to, because he didn't really have,

he obviously wasn't in a police uniform, but he just, he looked like a goddamn dumpy fucking production crew guy to me.

I'm like, what the fuck is your issue?

I

don't belabor this.

I'm not in a good mood anyway.

Well, what started as a Jim May Have something turned into a quite memorable segment.

What a great segment that was.

And of course, Jim.

Maybe Bill Watts.

And by the way, Doug Dillinger, that son of a bitch,

You see, you know,

and I found this too.

I'll read this.

I can't reach the file now, but I'll read it sometime.

Doug Dillinger was the ringleader of the effort that they lodged to fake arrest me that night for assault on a police officer after I'd accidentally kicked one of the cops in Charlotte when they tackled the fucking mark that had fucking jumped on me from behind.

And Doug Dillinger was one of the people that facilitated because they didn't book me into midnight at the next Charlotte show where they were going to do it.

So Doug got the fucking Spartanburg cops involved

so that they could serve me with the

arrest warrant in Spartanburg at the TV taping that following time we were there or whatever.

And

gay, I still have the warrant that's signed at the bottom, Big Daddy Jimmy Crockett.

That was the night that you

went off on Baby Doll?

I went off on baby doll because she knew it was a rib and she started laughing.

And I don't even want to embarrass the poor old soul now with

what I said to her face.

Maybe that's why she knocked me out in Raleigh later on that summer, come to think of it.

I guess I deserved that fucking punch to the fucking,

not temple, but cranium, whatever it is back there.

Yeah,

her fucking face turned from laughter to sadness in a heartbeat.

That's one of my favorite things about that.

They're all doing this on you, and you just immediately turn it by going off on her.

What are you laughing at, you?

Well, Jim,

just imagine how different history would be of Bill Watts when selling his vitamins and his supplements and his gummies, or WCW in the early 90s when trying to sell tickets and pay-per-views.

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I should have been more forceful on that.

Well, we are back.

The show continues.

The fun continues.

Hit it with a hammer.

I'm not going to do that.

It would destroy the keyboard.

That would be, well, there you go.

But that would be more forceful.

Oh, come on now.

Well, Jim, as we are...

Recording here today, again, in advance of a lot of things.

This is the ultimate time travel episode, if there ever was one.

Some Tony Khan news is breaking.

It's coming out of an interview he did.

I do not know who this is with.

Q101.

So it's either a radio station.

I know a Q102,

but I don't know the Q101.

New York used to be Q104.

Q102 is in Dallas.

Well, here's Tony Khan talking about

his relationship with CMLL, but the big thing that people were talking about is the relationship he had with AAA.

And Dragon Lee, who you may remember was appearing on AEW-TV,

abruptly announced he was signing with WWE, if you remember, right when they beat FTR for the AAA tag titles.

Yeah,

he won the match, won the belts, and said, see, I'm starting for the WWE.

Well, here's Tony Khan talking about this.

This goes for a couple minutes.

We could stop it along the way and talk about it, but this is pretty interesting.

We spoke.

It was announced that WWE had purchased AAA.

I am just curious in terms of your business relationship with CMLL, how that might affect things.

It's great.

It's a great thing.

We started working with CMLL in 2023, and things have really, really looked up for us.

I have a great, great relationship with Salvador, and I think.

I can't keep up.

He just did great, great.

So that's two.

Yeah, I know.

I can't keep up.

Let's just, I'm sorry.

I had not, frankly, that's not unexpected to me.

I'd kind of been expecting that ever since the way the Dragon Lee signing was announced on December 30th of 2022.

From then on, I'd said, okay, then I think it's highly likely that's the way this thing's going.

Because that was certainly a big surprise to me.

It's not like, you know, you know, FTR were there and they saw the WWE cameras and it's like, okay, something's up.

I had not agreed to that, actually.

Take me through that situation.

Again, let's stop it for a second before they go a little further.

We saw cameras from the WWE and said, hmm, something may be afoot.

Something.

WWE cameras are here.

Should we drop the belts?

And of course, that is what happened.

They dropped the belts and a Dragon Lee immediately announced he's going to WWE right after he beat FTR.

But let's go back to this.

We had agreed that FTR would go down and wrestle Roosh and Dralistico.

And then something happened during the day where Dragon Lee was in there.

I was up doing a show in Denver that day.

And

I remember I was with Samoa Joe.

Samoa Joe had a match that night.

It was December 30th in 2022.

And I talked to FTR and they said, there's some kind of strange stuff going on here.

And then right after Dynamite ended, that match went off.

And they announced that Dragon Lee was signing with WWE.

And he still had FTR's name on the plate.

So it was really a double cross.

And

that would never happen now.

That's one of those things that would never happen now.

It would never happen now because of the politics in Mexico Mexico or because of the way that Salvador and I are

brothers.

Like, you know, I have a very close relationship with him.

I don't.

I'm going to stop for a second there.

Oh, boy.

I'll never get fooled again because this guy really likes me.

Just because you get high with someone doesn't mean you're brothers.

That's what I always say.

Oh,

is he going to follow this up with saying because we have contracts in place or specific written documents or or some framework of a deal here or just because this guy likes me more than the other guys liked me.

There's a little bit left.

Let's hear what he says.

Believe he would ever betray me like that and I would never betray him like that.

And, you know, if we wanted to do something on a show, we would talk to each other.

We wouldn't be making subs or changing stuff out or

switching allegiances mid-show.

Very much so.

I don't think I've ever said that, but here, you know, I think it's a good story for you and your audience.

And I like you.

So, you know, it's greatly greatly appreciate it.

Well, there it is.

I don't know who he is.

And I like you, and you'd never betray me.

And I would never betray you either.

So I'll just tell you how that this other guy betrayed me because I thought he liked me too.

Well, again, I'd like to give credit to whoever this is.

I don't know who this is.

It says Q101 in the corner here.

Are you sure he wants the credit?

What do you think of what Tony's saying here?

You know, we've talked a lot about WWE messing with him, you know, just this past weekend in terms of, oh, you got your big show.

We're going to run as many shows as we can with as many stars as we can, trying to hit as many audiences as we can.

This is a different animal.

Who, if anyone, did something wrong here in your eyes?

Obviously, Tony thought he had a deal with Triple A.

Again, if it's not on paper, of all companies, I don't know why you would trust AAA.

But Tony seemed to think everything was happening.

FTR smelled something in the air.

It smelled like rain.

WWE cameras were there.

I mean, that's like a 1983 Vince movie.

Why is Steve Taylor running around giving everyone his business card?

What the hell is that?

That Pat Patterson up in the stands in that baseball cap.

What do you think of this story?

Well, first of all, that's when I was talking earlier about being able to work with Bill Watts, WCW, Smoky Mountain Wrestling.

You have to know.

I had a handshake deal.

I'm scoffing at this guy.

But one of the things is you have to know who you can have those kind of deals with.

And

once you cross country borders,

the possibilities go drastically down unless you're dealing with the reanimated corpse of giant Baba

as to whether

you need something in writing.

But you try to work with like-minded people and promoters when you're sharing talents so that everybody's on the same page.

And again, it's hard enough to enforce if he's sending his talent out.

It's hard enough to enforce it when you get some guy wants to go into business for himself or do something shady in Poughkeepsie, much less in Mexico or Japan or somewhere you've got no recourse with except to tell your talent.

If anything changes or goes sideways is not what we agreed on, just fucking leave.

And hopefully, they're at a place where they can leave.

But, you know, sometimes that's not,

doesn't look like a good idea for their health and well-being.

Now, this wasn't his tag championships.

This was AAA's, even though it was his wrestlers holding it.

Should he have done that?

Should FTR have done anything differently?

What do you think about all that?

Well, you know, and again,

what good did it do FTR to have their belts otherwise?

And they got books a few times in Mexico for AEW business.

They never completed that thing.

The only reason it ever meant anything is if they got the AEW belts.

And remember, that's when the Hardley boys had them.

So FTR had almost all the belts, but not the belts of the company that they're on the show of.

So it was just nonsense.

It didn't come to fruition to begin with.

But I think honestly,

you know, if

FTR had their belts, they should drop them

before they sever any relationship.

But at the same time,

if they're important AEW talent and they see WWE cameras and

they've got a substitution of the scheduled opponents they had, where now they're putting this other guy in this thing,

I don't know whether maybe one or the other of them might have tore a hamstring, warm it up in a locker room.

And shit, we just oh, he's in pain.

He's we'll come back next month and drop it.

I'll do a single.

What do you want to do?

Just to fuck with them a little bit.

What are they going to do?

I say, what are they going to do?

Hopefully, in this day and age, nothing.

But as long as they weren't going to get goddamn

taken for a ride somewhere out under a bridge,

they might have pulled that fucking deal.

Is Tony right to be be peeved about it?

And I love it.

That's the thing: is you can buy Tony being peeved.

If you say Tony's mad, that almost sounds silly.

But peeved, he could be peeved.

Yes, again, the whole thing is they get into these deals with all of these other companies because Tony's an internet newsletter mark that wants to work with everybody in the world.

And sometimes it just, it ain't really that important that you work with everybody in the world when everybody in the world ain't really working with you.

Well, Jim, what's got a question here on the show?

This one was sent via the Cult of Cornet Facebook group by Michael Jericho.

If Sting had beaten Flair at Wrestle War 90, does anything really change?

Jim Ross has said Sting lost all the momentum with the injury.

Did Sting ever become as big as he could have before the Monday Night Wars?

I mean, he was definitely popular in the matches with Vader.

And

the thing is,

that's a loaded question because did Sting ever become as big until the Monday Night Wars?

Part of that, much of that was because of the company he was working for.

I mean, you know,

God damn the second coming of George Hackenschmidt couldn't have been big in some of those

dark times.

But I think it definitely did kill the momentum because the people were ready for it.

And you see

the way the people were reacting to him in January and February, the way the people reacted to the turn of the horseman on him.

You know, that's the whole thing Flair had been building to.

And it Luger saved the day in terms of a pay-per-view main event that

people wouldn't shit on and filling the spot as the top baby face

temporarily

but

flair didn't want to

flair didn't want to put the belt on him because he had promised it to sting and he knew if luger beat him and then he won it back and then he put it on sting well that's just bullshit And to be quite honest, if Luger had won it then,

I think it would have buried Sting worse because it would have given the people a happy ending that they wanted to see.

But now all the attention would have been on Luger.

And

when is goddamn, you know, by the time Sting gets back,

you know,

it just was an awkward situation all around.

But I think it definitely did derail some of Sting's momentum.

But by the time that

he did,

he was able to come back, get in position, and win it.

The whole company sucked.

How much did you guys have booked out?

I mean, obviously he got hurt.

Was it a month?

Was it three weeks before the pay-per-view?

I forget exactly how long it was.

It may have been two weeks, but it was the first week of February.

Hold on.

I can.

Wait a minute.

Like, in terms of ideas for Sting's first title reign or the first feud or the first few weeks, like what was the plan?

Wait a minute.

I'm coming back to the mic because I'm going to give you exact dates here.

The clash of champions in Corpus Christi.

Texas shootout.

Wherehead, Texas shootout, yeah.

Where he

unfortunately got injured.

One of my favorite Chip Cornet lines on commentary that night.

Cactus Chuck is dead.

Little did we know by the end of the night, the company is dead.

Now, Corvus Christie was February 6th,

and Wrestle War in Greensboro was February 25th.

So, 19 days.

Wow.

And

again, you know,

the houses were not doing well in most places in the country.

The TV ratings had come back.

June 1989, WCW Saturday night did a 1.9

and main event on Sunday to a 1.1.

And the Clash of Champions did a 3.8 in June 1989.

That was all after George Scott and the booking committee stuff, right?

Flair got Saturday night from the 1.9 to a 4.0,

Flair versus Pillman.

We got a main event from a 1.1 to a 4.4, which was Flair and Arn against a Rock and Roll Express from Beaumont, Texas.

In February, by the way, 1990, right in the middle of this run, the pay-per-view buy rates and the ratings had come back and we were trying to get the fucking house shows back.

And part of that was the crummy local promoters and the stupid scheduling and et cetera.

But there was a little life being shown.

And then, boom, there goes Sting.

And that fucking deal is screwed up.

And then

that's, by the way,

I've told you I've got Flair's resignation letter as booker because I wrote that for him.

Flair quit as Booker in

around about this time, February-ish or early March of 1990.

But I also found Flair's resignation letter that I ghost wrote for him.

in 1991 when he quit completely and went to the WWF.

I didn't know you wrote that one.

I ghost wrote a fucking, I found one.

He was having a problem with one of the goals gems he was buying or whatever.

And I wrote this guy a nasty letter under his name.

He would call me and give me the promo on the phone and I'd fucking type it up.

But anyway, so all that was happening right at that point in February.

And,

you know, then it all just, his sting was hurt.

Flair wasn't Booker anymore.

I quit the committee a couple of weeks later.

It all went to shit from there.

So Sting had won the title of Wrestle War.

Like, had you already heard?

That was the question.

Had you already heard on the booking committee, we're doing a new pay-per-view in Washington, D.C.

Have you already heard that they can have RoboCop?

Like, how far out were you guys thinking with Sting in terms of...

Well, I was definitely on the creative team long enough to hear the RoboCop.

fucking pitch because also see remember then the next pay-per-view after February was May, was RoboCop.

So, we talked, started talking about it immediately at that point

because they were only doing four a year.

And

RoboCop was in the manager cage that I was in at Ringside.

That's why I couldn't rattle the gimmick bars too hard or they'd fall apart.

That's one of the last things that I

had to endure on the creative team.

But as far as a first

month's rain or whatever for Sting,

oh, look at the.

See, that's the thing.

These goddamn individual angles were not planned weeks and months in advance.

Flair was booking like they booked the Carolinas.

You had, like, Dusty booked Crockett.

You had major names that could all be in line for world title matches and world title programs with Sting.

Flair's still there.

He's going to have rematches.

Arn Anderson

we had tried to have Tully, but that got fucking squashed.

But

it was not like that there were a bunch of angles where, okay, this is the week where he's going to get him on TV and rub his face into the fucking concrete.

And then he'll come back and blah, blah, blah.

You filled that in

as you were going along when you were writing the TV for the next few weeks.

Hey, here's leading up to the blah, blah, blah.

Or there's the house show in Charlotte or the Meadowlands that's going to draw money.

Let's put a special stipulation in there.

We can plug that on the national TV, that type of thing.

But you've got

and Luger.

Remember, Luger was still a heel.

So here comes...

That was his best heel work ever.

Well, yeah, that was the best.

Lex Luger was ever in the ring, I think, period.

Siren was going by here.

So you had flare rematches.

You had Arne Anderson as a secondary program and opponent for Sting trying to fucking help his friend and fellow horseman get back.

And then you've got the big thing, which was what TBS wanted to go to.

And at the time,

rightfully so.

Eventually, they want Sting and Luger to be the new

Dusty and Flair.

But,

you know, then Luger without Sting.

Flair is still the champion.

And if he doesn't put it on Luger for the reasons I mentioned that that would be odd, then Luger doesn't really have a lot to do because now he's a heel out with another heel champion.

So Luger filling the spot salvaged all the main events that Sting had already been booked in against Flair or in special tag team matches or whatever with somebody of that

caliber that the fans would see as that level of a name on the cards.

Just like he did when Magnum had the accident.

You don't immediately bring in

Barry Wyndham, immediately would have been seen as, oh, they're trying to give us another Magnum.

Who'd he put in the Magnum spot?

Nikita Koloff, top single heel.

You know, I was going to ask you about Barry Wyndham because, and forgive me, my timeline's off the top of my head.

I think he came back to the NWA right after you left the booking committee, but you can correct me if I'm wrong there.

But if he had been

in 91, right?

In 90, in 90.

Well, right after, yeah, well, he was.

No.

He came in.

Didn't he come back right as we were leaving, period, I thought.

But somewhere, yeah, in 1990, because he was the fake staying at Halloween Avenue.

Yeah, but he returned, you know,

he returned months earlier.

I think I want to say maybe May or June.

But my question was going to be, if he had been available in February, do you think you and Flair and Kevin make the same decision to go with Luger and switch him babyface suddenly?

Or would you try to do something else?

No, not well.

See,

again, that's

Barry at that point,

had it been

what, since he was

late 88, early 89, he was figured in,

and then he was off again.

I don't think he was a guy you could just drop in to make an impact that quick.

If we had had more time

to build it up,

that would have been one thing.

But just to shock everybody and say

it was more shocking to, oh my god, Luger and Flair right out of the bat than,

oh my god, Barry Wyndham's back.

It wouldn't have set the seats on fire.

You see what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Because at least Luger was there and he was hot in some respect.

Well, Jim, our next question sent to the Culticornet Facebook group.

This is from Ryan Murphy.

Why did the WWF never try the Road Warriors as heels?

Specifically, when they were being refreshed at WrestleMania 14, but even prior to that, had the idea ever come up?

Oh, God.

It's an interesting question because everywhere they went, where they got over as massive babyfaces, they went in as heels.

They never came in as a babyface.

WWE, they did.

Well, I would think when you say everywhere they went, they didn't went that many places when you think about it.

Because they started in Georgia on TBS in 83 and

were heels, even though they got a babyface-ish response, as you said.

But

really, they didn't go anyplace.

They started making

shots in other territories.

They were in Memphis working with Lawler and Idol in 84.

They were heels, but they were, you know, they they got a pop.

They were impressive.

AWA, they were heels, even though they were getting pops and they're starting to get popular.

But that's what I was going to say.

They really, they made the move to the AWA.

They were still heels.

And then gradually, as they just kind of turned all the way, the thing with the Russians, which spanned AWA and NWA, they were booking them both.

They never really went anywhere else except to WWF after that.

Think about it.

Even Japan, though, they were booked as like strong heels and they got over, you know, running through the crowds, like, you know, barreling over.

Yes, but I mean, I don't count that because my guys, the Bruiser, Brody, Stan Hansen, Funk Brothers, Abdullah the Butcher, the Sheikh, that wasn't novel.

They weren't really heels as much as more crazy foreigners.

But point being, yeah, they had to.

They had to start out as heels, but once they had been seen on national television, which Crockett gave them,

they couldn't be really be heels anymore in this country.

And when they tried, with they

stuck a spike in Dusty's eye, for God's sake, and the people were like, Yeah, get his other one.

Nobody ever wanted to see him as heels again.

It just didn't, it didn't compute.

So, I think with, and with the WWE, by WrestleMania 2014

or 2014, WrestleMania 14,

which was what 1998,

the phenomenon was over.

As much as I liked both guys, especially Hawks, you know, issues.

But it just,

it was 15 years later.

They needed to be

the

83 through 86 Road Warriors were the most fucking dangerous to work with.

Not because they were careless, but because they were excited.

But the could see that and then after that it was it just it lost the luster yeah i remember as a kid and i was a big road warriors fan and then they went and became the legion of doom even though they had already been using that name as like their secondary name

but it was even

like going from all black with maybe red letters to a mostly red based outfit with some black mixed in.

And I know that sounds like a minor superficial thing, but as a kid, it was like, they're not as bad as they used It was a Vince thing, give them some color, you know, and that's yeah, it made them look more like a kind of a toy and less like these fucking post-apocalyptic motherfuckers that'll eat you.

But it makes you wonder how a heel run would have worked for them at any point in the 90s.

Could they have done it?

I mean, promo-wise, they could have done it,

but how would the fans have done that?

That's the thing.

The in-ring by 97, 98

with the

with the competition on the roster was not

it just it didn't seem like it was working and and plus they didn't have anybody as we've gone over that knew how to book them to their strengths without exposing some of the things that they

by then some of their weak points so it's kind of what they did 15 years beforehand to bruise her and crusher

jim our next question via the cult of cornet facebook group was sent in by fred Esposito.

Is there anybody that didn't like Bobby Eaton or had heat with him?

Well, there are people he did not like.

I don't know which, when sometimes when the kids say had heat with or whatever, you don't know which direction it's going.

There are people that he would, you know, tell a talk about in the car as...

as we all would is that no good sorry son of bitch was a stooge or stab somebody in the back or here's what he did or whatever.

So he didn't approve of everybody in the world.

But I don't know

of anybody that actively disliked Bobby Eaton for being Bobby Eaton.

Or you know what I'm saying.

They could never say, well, he fucked so-and-so around or stabbed so-and-so in the back or whatever.

So while Bobby was not completely blind and didn't trust everybody in the world, because he knew there was some, oh my God, George Scott's son that fucking byron scott god almighty he would look at stooge he'd mutter bobby would mutter every time he looked up that stooge and he would say he will walk sideways at you he would do the thing where he'd be walking down the hall and then bobby would lean sideways at his waist where he's sticking his ear to your conversation he'll walk sideways down the hall 50 feet to stooge on you

So he recognized something, but nobody disliked Bobby.

Well, that's what I was going to say.

What about the other way?

Did you ever hear, like, hey, you know, this person's actually kind of pissed at Bobby or this person doesn't like Bobby?

No,

if they were, they probably wouldn't admit it because somebody would think there was something wrong with them or have a problem with them.

What about Stan?

I mean, I wish I had more,

what, Stan being mad at Bobby?

No, did anyone ever get mad at Stan?

Oh, a lot of people.

Well, it depends.

First of all, you know, when Stan and Steve were together, they were somewhat abrasive to some of the heels that had to suffer the indignities at their hands.

And

let's put it this way.

Some guys were a little bit peeved at Stan without coming out and confronting him about it, that he didn't take quite as many bumps as Bobby did.

It all came down to everybody.

Well, Bobby does all the work.

Even when that was an exaggeration, Bobby did a lot of the work, but look at Bobby.

Bobby always did a lot of the work.

But Stan would get residual heat.

He couldn't keep up bumping with Bobby because he's making Bobby do all the work.

So even if Stan did have some heat, it was generally as a result of how much people like Bobby.

For as gruff and tough as Dennis was, was there anyone that had a problem with Dennis?

No.

And at the same time, Dennis, what Dennis was funny as fuck to sit in a locker room with.

He could be gruff if the need called for it.

But no, everybody loved to work with Dennis because Arn Anderson has said out of all of the Midnight Express and he and Bobby were

best friends, but Dennis may have been the best worker worker of the bunch of them.

In the ring, easy night off, never any

problem, mistake, whatever.

What did Bobby think of Dennis's work?

What did he ever say about it?

He loved it because Dennis had already,

Bobby had been a main event guy working for Nick, and Bobby had been featured for Jared, but he wasn't like one of the legends of Memphis wrestling at that point.

But Dennis had worked not only in main event programs, him and Phil Hickerson as a team, but he and Don Carson, he and David Schultz, they'd worked on top in

not only the Knoxville territory, but the Nashville end and then the Jarrett Memphis end.

been to Georgia, various places.

Dennis had more experience and he knew how to speak for himself more,

stand up for himself.

He knew more about the responsibilities of when you're being put in a money position.

And

he knew more about tag team wrestling instead of just, again,

I mean, Bobby'd been partners with Coco.

Bobby had been partners with George Gulis.

Like, you know, that would.

train you for a career at a high level.

But he'd never been partners with a guy that had worked with big talent or in a main event spot, ongoing programs that had drawn money, and Dennis had.

Dennis and Phil had drawn three years of straight money without even leaving Tennessee in three different territories.

So

Dennis was able to teach Bobby a lot about tag team wrestling, not as far as what moves to do, but like giving advice on how Watts wanted things done.

He liked a more wrestling style presentation than the punching and kicking and chaos in Memphis.

We would get to that, but we would be a wrestling heel team

up until that point and work.

If you've got 25 minutes with Wrestling 2 and Magnum TA, work a goddamn hammer lock and keep it interesting and keep them up and down in the middle with spots with the manager or trying to milk the tag, whatever.

The timing of putting something together where all the money that's being drawn on the cards is our responsibility because we're in the main event rather than Bobby and Coco being this week's opponents for Jerry Lawler and Bill Dundee.

It was a step up.

So Bobby loved Dennis's fucking work.

Jim, our next question via the Cult of Cornet Facebook group was sent in by Jonathan Meisner.

Why didn't Robert Fuller and Jimmy Golden ever get a run with the Smoky Mountain tag titles?

Oh, God.

Honestly, no other reason that it didn't come up before I had to finish them up.

Because

from what, fall 1992

until

summer of 93,

the tag team program, originally

the Fantastics, Bobby and Jackie Fulton.

were the first babyface opponents of the heavenly bodies.

And then once we had run with them for the first several months we were on the air,

then Ricky Morton had become available, already had Robert Gibson.

I was able to reunite the Rock and Roll Express.

And what I did was, whereas,

as I remember it, the Fantastics had worked with Fuller and Golden to kind of get ready for

the heavenly bodies.

But meanwhile, when I got the rock and roll together, I gave them the opportunity to get a win over Fuller and Golden to get them ready for the bodies.

But then

we added Dutch Mantel to the Fuller and Golden stud stable.

And we established by the end of the year that the stud stable was kind of its own because Robert Fuller and Jimmy Golden were just funny as fuck together as heels and just entertain Fuller's promos.

And then Dutch adding to it is kind of like play.

He was still wrestling a bit at that time, but he could be the manager also.

And

again, you know, Fuller and Golden,

they were old Tennessee wrestling, old-fashioned as fuck,

but it worked in that atmosphere.

But also, I gave them the Black Crows hard to handle.

The fucking, it was Otis Redding, right?

The fucking remake.

And here they come out with that big smile on their fucking faces.

They're both six foot six, and Robert's dick is six feet long.

And they're just, and they know how to work, and they get to people involved in everything.

So I had the Rock and Roll Express, who were

straight baby faces, the heavenly bodies, and then added Bobby Eaton for that time that we were just talking about, three-month period there, where we're straight heels and three members of the stud stable

that could do, you know, either way.

And we did the Rage in the Cage, where they were against us and then they flipped on the other baby faces and gave us the keys and left and all that shit.

So

the only reason they didn't end up with the tag belts was right about the time that I was finishing up the program between the rock and roll and heavily bodies and Stan decided to retire and I was bringing Jimmy Del Rey in to

replace him

was when they called first, I think, for Robert Fuller.

They called him him and wanted him to go to WCW as Robert Parker, the Colonel Robert Parker, the manager.

So.

Did that surprise you?

Yeah, believe it or not, yes.

I mean, in a business where very little surprises, Robert Fuller had never been a manager before, ever.

And I mean, he had been wrestling

since Continental had closed up a few years before.

He wrestled some independent shows down south,

but wasn't really, I didn't think, on a national promotions radar.

And somebody had had.

Remember, I think he took over for Booker after George Scott, didn't he?

That's right.

That's right.

And he had had the stud stable, but he was still, you know, wrestling, doing whatever.

But

I didn't think WCW was all of a sudden going to bring in Robert Fuller.

And especially to be the world's only six-foot, seven-inch manager or whatever.

But he was hilarious doing it he called let me know i said well robert i can't pay you what they're going to pay you so good luck and then of course as soon as you get you know one there jimmy golden becomes bunkhouse buck and i think jimmy golden

again was not on the radar to be booked by any of the national television promotions in 1993 but

It happened.

So, so that's the only timing was the only thing.

I love the fucking gimmick.

And what is the greatest line I've ever heard when we did our first Smokey Mountain Wrestling taping?

Because I got Jimmy first thing he lived there in

town.

Robert was still working for Ron part-time at his hockey team.

Which town did Jimmy live in?

Well, a suburb of Knoxville.

Whereas Robert was working, because Ron still owned the hockey team in Cincinnati and Robert was working for him part-time.

So he was back and forth.

But Jimmy, we had on the very first TV point being,

we're sitting in a locker room.

I can't remember who the job guy was, but I said, Jimmy, what do you want to do for a finish?

He just said,

I throw a pretty good drop kick.

I went, okay, there's your finish.

Hit him with a drop kick when it's time, right?

God.

Damn, he hit him with a drop kick.

I didn't think he was going to fucking wake up the guy.

He knocked him into a next area code.

I said, that's your goddamn finish from now on and if you're not

somebody you're beating him with a drop kick because he was 50 years old at that point or i think

well no i'm i'm telling a lie because everybody was older than me at that time even still but he in 1990 he was born in 1950.

Okay, he was 42 years old.

He jumped up with those long legs, hit this fucking kid, knocked him ass over a tea kettle.

I said, that's fine.

That's the most believable finish we had here tonight.

But Jim, our next question sent via the Cult of Cornet Facebook group.

This was sent by Brett McKee.

What does Jim remember about booking tournaments during his career?

I remember not doing too many of them.

You know, there's certain times when it's...

when it's necessary.

And

the first big show in Knoxville for Smoky Mountain Wrestling was a tournament to crown the first ever Smoky Mountain champion.

When you're starting from scratch, yes.

And we did the tag team tournament on television, except for the finals, which we did that night also.

If you're starting from a championship that, or even a promotion, more importantly, from scratch,

great for a tournament.

If you want something on TV for ratings that you can do once a year that will,

you know, help your goddamn programs that you're trying to continually work between the talent at the same time, get the programming out of it.

But I think in this day and age, the tournaments have been

done like battle royals were at one point.

Tournaments drew, even a kind of a bullshit tournament.

You could, ah, we're going to have a tournament.

Oh, a bunch of matches.

That just novelty would draw.

But now it's been so overdone.

Unless it's for something important or to begin,

you've got to have your beginning.

In the beginning, we created the tournament for the title.

If somebody, a major star goes down to injury,

and maybe you want to put the top four guys, okay,

two semifinals and a final on pay-per-view, I can see where you could sell interest in that as a money-drawing thing.

But I mean, you can maybe make it entertaining, but I don't see any way you can make a tournament draw more money or more interest or more ratings in this day and age than

personal issues between individual

halfway recognized stars.

Do you disagree with that, Brian?

I think a tournament at the right time for the right reasons could be a big deal.

But I think just having tournaments because it's that time of year, so it's time for the annual this tournament, which will be followed by the annual this tournament.

It takes away a lot of the importance.

And

I think the best case scenario, it's self-gratifying booking for the booker.

And also, a lot of times it's harder to book than a card of matches with individuals with personal issues because you've got to,

okay, if you want eight guys,

because there's four first round, two second round, and the final.

And if he's talking about what I've booked in the past, besides, you know,

throwing in ideas and stuff on WWE or whatever, if it was Smoky Mountain Wrestling or OVW,

we'd have goddamn 50 people to put in the fucking tournament.

But you've got to, most of the time,

match up heels and baby faces because it fucks the matches up if you don't.

But then if it's every time, people see through it, but usually you have to do it that way.

And every once in a while, you can throw a little swerve in or whatever.

So if you do too many of them, it's unpredictable.

But if you throw a lot of babyface

confrontations in, then you've...

you've shot yourself in the foot because you've got one of your main event baby faces beating another one of your main event baby faces clean

you don't want that If you could help it,

maybe he's got an injury going in and something gives out on him that's not the other guy's fault.

Yes, you could, but you can't do that over and over.

So many freak things that can happen so many freak times before it gets old.

You get heels and heels are easier to get out of because

somebody can either fucking fuck up trying to cheat or somebody can succeed cheating.

And nothing has been lost in the way of the guy's auras.

So it just, it's,

and you can't advertise anything but the first round matches ahead of time.

So

you're not going to have

Stone Cold Steve Austin versus The Rock in the first round with a semifinal and a final left to go.

So you're going to have to trust its people believe that the final is going to be Stone Cold and The Rock.

Or you could just book it that way and advertise it and be sure and they'll draw the money.

You see what I'm saying?

Yeah.

WrestleMania 4, the tournament that Randy Savage beat DiBiase in the finals to win the world title.

It looked like they were getting set up for in the second round, Savage versus Steamboat.

Steamboat had been gone a while.

The year before they have that classic match, returns for the tournament.

Loses in the first round to Greg Valentine.

Comes out there with Bonnie and the baby loses.

But

the Crockett Cup tag team tournaments, that was a pain in the ass for Dusty.

And to be honest, I don't agree with a few of the things that he did.

And

we were always figured in the tournament where we lost to the team that was eventually going to the finals and/or win, right?

Usually the Road Warriors.

That was our thing.

But

remember the one year, it was, was it Magnum TA and Ronnie Garvin were the babyface team that went to the finals with the Road Warriors.

86 and the Super Dome.

Yeah.

And what

the people didn't want

to see either team.

I mean, they wanted to see the Road Warriors win, but they didn't want to see either team really lose.

And

we would have loved to have been the foils because I thought we could have done a better job at it because

they wanted to see us get shit kicked out of us already.

So I wasn't trying to lobby for us to win the thing, but he

in trying to strike that balance between just having straight babyface heel stuff and trying to swerve them up a little bit.

And plus, he wanted Magnum to figure into a final some way, but it just, it got odd a time or two with all.

And those were what?

That was 24 teams, right?

Or more.

At least 24.

I mean, 86 was an afternoon and an evening.

87 was two nights.

And I mean, there were a lot of teams.

88 was two nights.

They were random teams.

I mean, it was Giant Baba.

Well, yeah.

86, at least there was territory teams left.

By 88, there was, he was fucking pulling goddamn full bodysuits out of the drawer and telling George South to get dressed three times.

It was bad.

Well, Jim, our next question via the Cult of Cornet Facebook group was sent by John Trobau.

What is Jim's favorite face versus face and heel versus heel match?

Call me crazy,

but the best,

most enjoyable,

most logical,

sensible,

made-sensable, whatever the fucking phrase I'm looking for,

babyface program that I ever saw was the one that Dutch Mantel and Jerry Lawler did in 1982,

where they were both the two top single babyfaces in Memphis and managed to

get in a program over the southern title.

cut scathing promos on each other for several weeks, Have a goddamn,

I think they may have ended three weeks in a row in maybe four.

I don't have the book in front of me, in Memphis and sold

somewhere around, you know, 30,000 tickets for that series just in that building alone at a time when business was not doing so well.

And neither one of them switched heel.

And the people bought it and they actually picked sides.

And

Lawler had memphis probably

60 40 or 70 30 and they were 50 50 in louisville and dutch had nashville 70 to 30.

they didn't like lawler because he didn't show up a lot anyway they knew he didn't want to come up here on saturday nights

and it it just it fit and neither guy did anything that the other person

Or let me say this again properly.

Neither guy did anything that they would not have done if they were who they were presented to be when they were on television.

And they both had been heels in the past, so the people could remember that they had that little streak in them.

But it was brilliant.

And like I said, it picked business up when

Dutch was the southern champion, didn't really have anybody to defend against.

And Lawler was in between programs with his out-of-town.

you know, talent that he would bring in.

And they did better than

bringing in big talent because the people bought it and they wanted to see what would happen.

And within a couple of weeks after it was over with, because of what Jimmy Hart did, they were both back teaming together to fight the common enemy.

And everybody, it made perfect sense.

That's my favorite heel or babyface program.

That's a babyface.

Well, that was a program then, I guess, matched too, but this is about

what about heel versus heel.

Uh,

do the midnight account against Tully and Arn?

Because for a while until we became these sympathetic baby faces, that counts.

We were, well,

goddamn, I made more money off of that for the six weeks it lasted or whatever than I did working almost anybody except the Rock and Roll Express and actually a little bit more in some cases than the payoffs for them.

So

And it drew for all those six weeks.

And

I thought

they did a great job with their matches because there were four tag team experts.

So that would have been my favorite heel program.

Is there any more footage of the matches that you know of that isn't out there already in circulation in terms of fan footage or whatever?

I don't think so.

The title change is out there because the one guy in Philly in the stands.

And

I think we did.

one

match.

It was either a dark match or it didn't even start on television.

We did a dark match at a TV taping.

They might have taped it.

And otherwise, it was all house shows.

Jim, our next question sent via the Cults of Cornet Facebook group.

This was sent by John Wilson.

I just saw an interview with James Storm.

What are your thoughts on him and other TNA Global Force talent?

From, well, we've talked a lot about TNA talent.

What are your thoughts on Cowboy James Storm?

I loved him.

I thought he was fucking great.

He's an entertaining guy.

He could cut a promo.

He could work.

He got silly, and I told him so at the time when he was doing a thing where he was riding the customized beer cooler to the ring and all that shit.

That was more of,

you know, Russo's contributions to things.

But

he and Rude, to me, were the, they were the next generation of the guys that should have been on top there that were kind of,

you know, even with Jeff being held down, but again, because Russo was such a mark and so was Dixie for the guys with WWF names.

But I thought Storm was excellent.

He knew old-fashioned fucking southern wrestling, how to sell as a babyface without dying and make a comeback with some fire.

He had a look to him.

He had a man's voice when he cut a promo and

was pissed off about something.

And yes, every once in a while he'd get into the ha-ha, but some of the ha-ha

for a good old country boy, sorry about your damn luck, that'll work.

It just has to be the judicious ha-ha.

But I don't even know

what happened when he eventually separated with TNA.

I was not paying attention at that point in time, but I understand it's been

several years.

Where did he last wrestle?

He's doing the acting thing now, isn't he?

I actually don't know.

I have no idea.

He was in, I saw headshots on the internet

and they didn't have a fucking height scale behind him, and he wasn't wearing orange.

But no, he's tried to do some acting in Nashville and get some, I think has done some parts or whatever.

Possibly TNA, you know, ran him completely out of the wrestling business, but I don't know how old he would be right now.

So I'm not suggesting that he needs to be out amongst the kids, but he could fucking go.

You know, it's crazy to think about, but a lot of these guys from that era, even though he was there a long time, but speaking specifically to when you were there, guys we talked about, Hernandez and him, you know, for example, they're not kids anymore.

You know, even if they were active, they'd be, you would think, towards the end of their active full-time career, if everything had worked out well.

Yeah, and I would have a storm could have easily been a star in the WWE as far as his talent in the ring, whether that they got it and/or

wanted to turn him loose, let him cut his promos and do his shit.

I don't know.

But

maybe Vince might not have seen it.

This current administration, if he was still 30 years old, might.

Well, Jim, our next question sent via the Cult of Cornet Facebook group was sent in by Brian Jeffrey Gein.

What was Jim's?

What now?

G-U-Y-N-N.

Gunner.

Gein.

Gunner.

Guine?

Guine?

Well, here's Brian Jeffrey's question.

What was Jim's favorite year in the business?

Oh, geez.

I mean,

it's hard to beat 1984 because without that, I wouldn't have had any of the other years.

Although we were almost,

we were physically assaulted and came close to being fucking,

you know, the shit kicked out of us time after time and various highway incidents and working ourselves to death.

But we made a ton of money and got a reputation and were the top guys in a major territory.

86 was incredible, the run with the World Tag Team titles and record business in,

you know, an even bigger territory.

As far as favorite year, see, it doesn't have to all be big business.

1993, Smoky Mountain Wrestling, as much as it,

you know, again, contributed to all the gray hairs and various nervous breakdowns I've had.

The early success we had in opening up some of those markets, Pikeville, Kentucky, finally cracking something in Knoxville that August.

The success on the spot shows, the TV shows were good.

What was your favorite year as it happened?

I mean, you're looking back on these amazing years you had.

And you said.

Well, no, that's what I'm saying.

That's what I'm saying.

At the time that we were, I was going through it.

Those were great times.

I was starting to think, you know, the more modern shit, I didn't really enjoy a lot of that shit as it was going on like I did then.

But did you enjoy 86 more than 84 just because,

you know, circumstances were different.

It was now another territory.

I probably,

yes.

I enjoyed 86 more.

Maybe the balance might have almost been even, but, you know, it was just, it was even bigger and the crowds were even even bigger and we had gotten better at what we were doing and more people were seeing us do it so probably 86

would have and then i had some fun with smoky mountain until i just you know got so frazzled and then and ovw

uh besides i mean i had no fun in fucking the wwf was either i was there to finance Smoky Mountain or I was there for three years in Connecticut, but I don't think I was, I had fun doing certain things, but it was not an overall enjoyable experience.

And in OVW was very enjoyable, even though I had a number of nervous breakdowns.

And

a little bit of Ring of Honor was enjoyable until that got frustrating.

But the enjoyment level has gone down in modern times.

Not counting your first year as a fan, because I think that's special for every wrestling fan if you discover it as a kid.

Not counting that, what was your favorite year as a fan?

Ooh.

My favorite year as a fan that

I'm fascinated by to this day.

And

I saw the stuff, but I didn't get to,

it didn't still exist.

I can't go back and watch a lot of it.

And I didn't commit it to memory like I would have as an older person.

My favorite year was 74, but my favorite year where I was a fan and seeing everything and understanding more of what I was seeing would have been 81.

Because 81 was that

incredible run that Lawler had in Memphis.

And I was going to Memphis at least once a month to see Terry Funk while I'm in Louisville four times a month, while I'm in Evansville four times a month.

I'm in Lexington once a month, a couple more spot shows.

The talent that was in and out was incredible.

Bachwakel, Crusher, Blackwell, Hulk Hogan that year, both the Funks, Austin Idol, Chick Donovan, Chick Donovan.

I mean, Hard in the First Family, the, you know, the Gibson brothers were a babyface tag team underneath, you know, Dundee and Dutch and all the fucking, it was just, it was incredible, 81.

81 Memphis TV is such a fun year to watch.

And the Jimmy Hart First Family stuff is just out of control all year.

It's so good.

Him and Chick Donovan singing We Are Family.

Yes.

I mean,

and then that summer, that summer was Jarrett came up with the dream match deal.

It's certainly not like the dream matches Tony Khan does.

Where that angle, it was almost near sellout on the fifth Monday of June, June 29th.

They had 10,129 people,

five Mondays that month.

And he comes up with his Kakamami thing,

books a card with 14 fucking guys, and

boom.

And then they repeated it around the 10.

That was the summer.

It was just everything was good that year.

Was 77 a good year to be a fan?

The year of the breakup, the year Jarrett started on his own?

Was that a good year to be a fan?

Yes.

There were

a lot of different talent.

And of course, 77, you had Harley Race coming in to work with Rocky Johnson.

You had Lawler and Jack Briscoe in Memphis, the first Jarrett card.

Lawler and Dundee that summer.

But I guess that's the thing.

While 77, you primarily, if you're

a fan of any kind of the Tennessee wrestling territories, 1977, you remember the summer Lawler and Dundee.

But there wasn't, and there was a lot of talent that came in and out.

But

by 81, everybody was more over.

And the funks were in so much.

And there was a relationship with the Florida office.

That's where we got Steve Kern and we had Stan Lane for the first time then.

And it was just a level up and down.

The card was

everybody was over stronger in 81, but 77, that's what Lawler and Dundee, again,

between what was it, May and the first week of September,

they headlined like nine out of 12 weeks weeks and sold almost 100,000 tickets for just their matches in Memphis alone.

And they were doing it all over the fucking territory every night.

I don't know how they lived through it because they were beating the shit out of each other.

But that was,

if you think about it, Jarrett's promotion technically was six months old.

And this fucking match on top in Louisville and Evansville and Memphis and spot shows is selling fucking 20,000 tickets a week.

That was also you that brought Bugsy McGraw into the first family.

An interesting move for Memphis Wrestling,

an interesting fit for Memphis Wrestling, and a dream machine.

Oh, yeah, yeah, see dream machine,

Halley Oop,

but Jim.

81, baby.

What was your favorite year in OVW?

Oh,

um,

I believe either 2000,

2003, or 2004.

And maybe

you might do a fiscal year there instead of a calendar year and maybe go 2002 to 2003 and 2003 to 2004, but thereabouts because

we had moved to the new arena.

The TV show looked incredible.

We didn't have, you know,

the people that

the fans think of around the world when they think of the OVW clad.

John Cena was gone and Batista was gone or Brock or whatever, but up and down the card again, there were 25 or 30 guys that could go and the Bashams were on top first as a team and then against each other, having the best matches that we probably had in developmental, except when

you know,

Jericho came in to work with Jeter.

Densmore worked with Benoit at the Gardens.

There was always a WWF talent figured into what you would consider like a really main event level match in OVW, except when Doug and Danny wrestled each other.

And then you can say, well, they could have had that on fucking Raw anyway.

And just the music the guys were using, just the way we were shooting the TV, the commentary.

the booking, somewhere around 2002 to 2004.

The last year, I was goddamn punching a lot of walls and pissed off a lot and couldn't devote my full attention to what I was supposed to be doing because I was too busy,

you know, dreaming of ways to murder John Laurinitis.

But for that 2002 to 4 spot, we had hit our fucking groove here.

Jim, our next question sent via the Cult of Cornet Facebook group.

was sent by Simon Bohm.

A food-related question.

What What is Jim's favorite cut of steak?

How does he like it cooked?

And what is his favorite side?

Well, when I was a little bitty baby boy, Mama Cornette always got me the New York strips.

And that I think because that may have been my dad's favorite.

And so she just, whenever,

obviously she was shopping at the store.

She didn't consult me.

Jimmy, would you like the ribeye?

No, she would get to bring the New York strip home.

Or if I was little and we would go to such a place to serve that kind of thing, I would just kind of get that because that's the kind of steaks that we ate.

As I have gotten older, I have gotten more of a fondness for that.

Now, still, a good New York strip

is hard to beat, but sometimes there's not the good New York strips that are thick enough and wide enough instead of these little bitty things you see these days.

I have more appreciation for the ribeye, but

in addition to a ribeye being a little bit easier to do at home and get all the juice and everything in it, if you're going to eat a steak these days with everything costing an arm and a leg and a shank and a jowl and a fucking udder and everything else, just get the goddamn filet mignon because, oh boy, and don't you dare.

Don't you ever dare have that thing any lighter than medium pink inside?

If you go to the light pink or the goddamn done on a filet mignon, fie upon you,

you should be penalized and imprisoned.

What's worse, that, or just putting ketchup all over your steak?

Well, you don't use ketchup on a goddamn steak to begin with.

I agree you don't, but I've seen people do it.

Well,

I've seen people commit acts of various vehicular homicide and mayhem that ought to be brought to justice also.

You see videos all the time of people out committing crimes.

Well, we ought to do something about the steak eaters with the ketchup.

Put up some signs for them.

Create a television show to track them down.

But yeah, so I'm going to go with a fillet if I've really just pressed and just want to just eat a wonderful steak, just a wonderful, wonderful steak.

And what would be your favorite side with the fillet?

Well, regardless of what cat, you can't eat a steak without a baked potato.

But now if the place has a wonderful loaded baked potato, then that's the way you got to go.

What about spinach?

Oh, for heaven's sake.

Who am I?

Popeye?

What are you talking about?

That's spinach goes with steak.

Well, if you can only pick one side, I'm not picking spinach.

Now, if that's your logic, then that means that the

mushrooms

or the grilled onions that you would put on the steak, that's a side too, because that's just spinach.

That's just some goddamn weeds for dressing.

Oh, stop it.

Spinach can be delicious.

Your substantial side is a big old baked potato cracked open, leathered all kind of butter with cheese sprinkled all over it and bacon bits.

And then salt that bad boy down real good.

How about corn?

Yeah, you don't put corn on your baked potato.

No, with steak.

Corn with steak.

Oh, there's nothing wrong.

I like corn.

There's nothing wrong with corn, but you can't pick corn over a baked potato with a steak.

That's why they call it steak and potato.

That's That's why Mama Cornette.

What about steak fries?

Whenever I would get out of hand and out of line, Mama Cornette would say to me, you're going to have to eat a lot more steak and potatoes to be able to push me around there, Jimmy boy.

What about steak fries against the baked potato?

Well, now, if they're good steak fries, because steak fries are more of the wedges that are crispy on the outside, yet succulent on the inside, not these fast food type of old pansy-ass fries you get these days.

So that, and then you could dip those in the ketchup, but the ketchup should not come in contact with the steak.

Or you can have the steak like

the filet Oscar where they put the crab meat and the various sauce on it and everything.

That's a wonderful addendum to a steak, but that's not really a side.

That's an accoutrement.

An accoutrement.

All right.

Well, that was the food question, of course, Jim.

A little bear nays sauce, maybe

on a steak.

We can go for that, but that's not aside.

You may be someone who loves steak and have a problem with this segment.

You may be someone saying, hey, didn't they say they were about to go to guest a program?

Where is it?

I guess my point is, Jim, some of the listeners, they may want to sue.

Oh, you're talking about false representation where we said we were going to do something and we lied to you.

Well, we know who will take a case like that.

This manuscript man.

news, to renew,

steady news,

and outlaw much show or two.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Steven P.

New will take all kinds kinds of cases, including if you happen to be full of shit and think that you can threaten somebody to get them to go away because they're telling the truth about you and or somebody that you've been dealing with.

Well, think again there, bear man.

Because terrible Ted.

Terrible Ted, Ginger the wrestling bear, and Victor the bear all together couldn't pull me off the carcass of the son of a bitch that you are trying to defend.

and Stephen P.

New is the man that'll tell you that in more detail at newlawoffice.com 87750.

Steve, he'll be glad to tell you exactly what you need to do to make things right.

I'm talking about the royal you out there.

He'll be glad to tell anybody out there how they need to make things right for their client, for his clients.

And if they do, then they'll

be fine.

And if they don't, they're going to not hear the end of him for a long,

long

time.

Stephen P.

NewnewlawOffice.com, 877-50-STEV.

You know what that means, Jim?

It's time to start getting ready for the end of the show.

But before we get there, as promised,

guess the program for the listeners.

I get the opportunity here to...

prove my knowledge by you blindly, blindly reading me a card and me being able to to tell you the year and the location of self-same aforesaid card without ever having known the knowledge in advance.

That is correct.

These are programs from my personal collection.

Before I file them away, I have them here in a folder and I wait until we do guess the program and then I hit you with some of them at least.

And then you try to make me look bad, but we, me with my borderline mystical way,

will divine this answer.

See, there are some that are, are, on the face of it, you would think that's pretty easy, but I guess when you try to narrow it down to time, it could be more difficult.

For this next one, Jim, I'm going to give you.

I don't expect you to have a problem with the location, but let's see if you can figure out when.

The opening contest

is that the opening contest or the main event?

Oh, opening contest: beat the television champion,

Iceman King Parsons versus Johnny Tatum.

Okay,

A midget match.

Cowboy Lane vs.

Pepper Gonzalez.

That should be Lang, by the way.

Cowboy Lang.

The next contest.

Oh, Battle of the Northeast.

Jim Powers 240 out of New York vs.

Jack Victory 260 out of New Jersey.

The next contest, Mike Reed.

from Dallas vs.

Killer Tim Brooks.

And the main event, Kerry Von Erich and the great Kabuki versus one man gang and maniac Mark Lewin.

Good lord.

Well, this is world-class wrestling, the Von Erich

area.

And

seeing King Parsons, but I guess he was because basically what I'm beating around the bush and saying is one would think this was the early 80s, but with some of the names involved.

But this, I'm believing,

is one of the attempted, not rehashes, but revivals, perhaps, of

world-class or Dallas or Texas wrestling or whatever.

And

it would be at the sportatorium, but did they bring these guys back in like 88, 89?

Because

it just doesn't make there, like I said, there's some early 80s names here that would have worked world-class, but not on the same card with some of these other guys.

And

I don't know who the fuck Mike Reed is.

Is this

some sportatorium card from from 1988?

The Will Rogers Coliseum.

Okay, Fort Worth.

August 5th, 1985.

85?

You just left it like a week ago.

Well, what the fuck?

Okay.

When we left, we left.

What date is this?

August 5th, 1985, Will Rogers Coliseum.

Okay, we left July.

My last show was July the 4th.

The Midnight

left July the 1st.

So a month later, King Parsons wasn't in the territory.

John Tatum wasn't in the territory.

Jim Powers wasn't in the territory.

Killer Brooks wasn't in the territory.

Wait, Ice Minister.

And King Mark Lewin wasn't in the territory.

Ice Man King Parsons wasn't in the territory while you were there.

I don't think he was still there.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Kabuki had just come back.

Gang was there.

But yeah, Lewin, Brooks, whoever the fuck Reed is, Powers,

and Tatum

were all brand new guys in the previous four weeks.

I would have never guessed that in a million years.

Five matches, three referees, Bronco Lubich, David Manning, and Rick Hazard.

This Friday at the Sportatorium, Dallas, Mike vs.

Gino, Kevin vs.

Chris, World Six-Man Champs vs.

Kabuki, Casey, and Iceman.

All right, that's one program.

Let's get our next one here.

Ooh, a pack show.

Yeah.

Jim, the first bout, 30-minute time limit.

Ignacio Martinez out of Mexico versus Vic Brell out of Los Angeles.

Senior Martinez has done a good job of late protecting his title as the first Matt Caballero of all Mexico.

It says it like that.

Mayco, M-A-Y-H-E-E-C-O.

I wish he'd have done that good a job protecting the tapes when he was Pedro years later.

Tonight, he meets a tough ombre from the football field and Mr.

Brell.

The second bout, 30-minute time limit.

Rube Rube Wright out of Texas.

Rube Wright

versus Dick Reigns out of Texas.

He was a tough son of a gun, was Rube Wright, but dirty Dick Reigns was more than able to take care of himself.

I bet that one was a stem winder.

You can bet all the tea in China that a Texan will win this match, unless it ends in a draw, of course.

Here are the two best grapplers developed in the Lone Star State.

The third bout, 30-minute time limit, Terry McGinnis out of Texas versus Carl Davis out of Texas.

Here's another sensational tussle featuring two former cowboys, Carl Davis and Terry McGinnis.

The latter recently returned from a successful tour from Australia and is looking for new laurels here in the future.

Strictly a toss-up match.

The fourth bout, a team match.

Jules Strongbow, Oklahoma, and Rudy Laditzi out of New York

versus Vic Christie, California, and Ed Pays, Ohio.

The undefeated dirty duo, Strongbow and Laditzi, seem to be up against it tonight.

Christie and Pays, a couple of Frank Meriwells, figure to give them plenty to think about, provided they have something to think with.

Wow.

The fifth bout,

three falls, 45-minute time limit.

Iron Mike Mazurki at a New York versus Lee Wyckoff at a Missouri.

A fortunate break for Mazurki occurred when Talon the Titan ran out on his match with Wyckoff.

Talon is left for parts unknown rather than tackle Wyckoff on the map.

Rather than put up with more payoffs like he's been getting.

Lee has been getting tough breaks in his recent bouts.

None of the boys want to play with him.

And finally, Jim, the sixth bout, three falls one hour time limit.

Everett Marshall,

Colorado, versus K.O.

Coverly,

California.

Here's a match the fans have been asking for.

Coverly makes his first appearance since his recent suspension by the commission for a bit of rough stuff.

Marshall is rated tops both as a wrestler and a man.

He has the warmest admirers of any grappler in the game.

If Coverly tosses Marshall, he's in line for a bout with, in quotes, G-Me,

J-E-E-M-Y,

G-Me in the Greek accent, Jim Landos.

And that was our main event.

And at first, with the Texas representation, one would have thought that that would have been down in the lone star state.

But then we started branching out with names like Jules Strongbow, Vic Christie, Mike Mazurki

is a somewhat of a giveaway.

And

obviously, Ignacio Martinez would be Pedro Martinez, who would be the

promoter of the NWF out of Buffalo and have an interest in Madison Square Garden in the 50s and that territory.

And his son, Ron, with the PM Film and Tape Company,

is why we have a bunch of this stuff that still exists.

Rube Wright and Dirty Dick Reigns were both old-timers from Texas, as was Crippler Carl Davis.

But Jewel Strongbow would later on become the booker, matchmaker, and the TV host for the Los Angeles television program.

Vic Christie and his brother Ted were big in California for years.

Mike Mazurki

was a wrestler before he became the well-known television character actor.

And

by the

early 1950s, he was

almost exclusively doing television roles and maybe main events in a few major markets.

Everett Marshall did

Thaz beat Marshall for one of his six NWA titles, didn't he?

Or one of his six world titles.

This has got to be the Olympic Auditorium.

And it's in the 1940s.

And my only thought is 19,

I'm just going to pick something.

Olympic Auditorium, Los Angeles, 1946.

The date, October 23rd, 1940.

Ah!

The Olympic Auditorium, Los Angeles, California.

Price 10 cents.

There's an article here.

Talon skips town.

Biggest news event in wrestling circles this week.

is the unscheduled departure of Talon the Titan for Parts Unknown to avoid a meeting with Lee Wyckoff tonight.

The contract was signed a week ago by Stanislaus Zabisco,

Talon's manager, and at the time, he expressed his delight at the prospect of letting Talon tackle Wyckoff.

The match was the result of a hot foot administered by Talon to Wyckoff while the latter lay slumbering peacefully on the rubbing table in the dressing room.

Well, let's stop there because there's a pre-TV and pre-radio.

Well, I should say pre-radio, but pre-TV angle.

Is it angle?

A hot foot on the massage table.

Well,

yeah, and now the guy's pierced, so he wants to fight.

It took the combined efforts of Nick Lutz and myself to keep Wyckoff from braining the Polish giant with a plumber's wrench.

Lee was boiling mad, as you might understand, if you've ever been given a hot foot, either asleep or awake.

The first notice I got of Talon's departure came yesterday in the form of a telegram from Mr.

Stan Zabisco,

informing me that he and Talon were en route to Omaha.

Fortunately for all concerned.

They left LA via Omaha.

Fortunately for all concerned, there was a first-rate substitute at hand, Iron Mike Mazurki, who electrified the fans two weeks ago by his sensational showing against Mr.

Wyckoff in a handicap match.

Iron Mike has been doing some brilliant work on the mat.

Ever since his first match with Wyckoff, he has been pleading for another crack at the Missouri Wizard.

Tonight, he gets his chance.

From a wrestling standpoint, the match figures to be more attractive than Wyckoff against Talon, for Mazurki is more scientific than the Palish Samson.

If Mazurki tosses Wykovoffe.

Did they say Palish?

Palish, not Polish, it's P-A-L-I-S-H.

I think that's a misprint.

Or they're trying to mess with the guy.

I don't know.

If Mazurki tosses Wyckoff tonight, he moves up into the big leagues, becomes a steady main eventer hereabouts, and is in line for a match with Mr.

Jim Londis.

for the World's Heavyweight Championship.

These are some of the things that make a wrestling promoter prematurely old, that bring out the gray hairs on a man.

But it wasn't my fault.

It was something over which I had no control, and I beg that you, my friends, take the circumstances into consideration in your judgment of the situation.

However,

Lee Wyckoff is going to get a square shake in this arena, as long as I'm the promoter here.

I'm going to see to it that he gets everything that's coming to him, even including a match with Mr.

Jimmy Landos himself for the title, a match that Wyckoff has long been entitled.

Wow.

And it's not signed, but who would have been promoting in 40?

Was it Lou Darrow or was it someone else?

I think it may have been Lou Darrow.

Old Carnation Lou.

So what do you think of this?

You know, the promoter writing an editorial, for lack of a better term, in his own program to explain why someone someone who was going to be in the main event wasn't there.

Well, and that's, and Talon Vladislaw Talon

is who he worked as in a number of places, was, you know, the foreign menace with Zabisco in his corner.

That would have been a big deal at that point in time in Los Angeles because in 1940, Zabisco was still a big deal.

But he's obviously

the promoter here trying to, you know, put the blame on them because it wasn't my fucking fault that i couldn't

you know provide this match for you because they left town so this will be better anyway yeah and it wasn't a phone call obviously there were no cell phones or anything a telegram so by the time you get the telegram we're on our way to omaha there's no getting them at that point well besides i don't even know if there was a telegram to be honest with you

They may have just heard, yeah, they left town, checked out of the hotel, said they were going to go work Omaha.

Well, fuck it.

We'll just, you know, we'll make something up.

All right, Jim, this next one here, there's actually a newspaper clipping attached, so we'll get to that afterwards.

Time limit events, one fall.

Sandar Kovacs versus Steve Stanley.

Ace Freeman versus Gene Dubuque.

Tag team match.

I think they left out two.

It just says, out of three falls,

Miguel Perez and Tony Martinelli versus Ludwig von Krupp and Paul Berger.

Tag team match, two out of three falls.

Marvin Mercer and Chief Bighart.

Atomic Marvin Mercer versus John Tolis and Chris Tolis.

And the final contest here, to a finish.

Antonino Raca.

versus Dr.

Jerry Graham.

By the way, it has the results written in here.

It says who won each match.

It says to a finish, and next to it, it says draw.

To a finish.

That was the finish.

The draw.

Oh, my God.

I got to.

Sandor Kovacs was a wrestler before he was a promoter.

And he was noted for promoting, at least, in the Pacific Northwest.

Steve Stanley was the brother of Gene Stanley.

The Stanley brothers, they're the blonde tag team in the 50s.

Ace Freeman,

after he wrestled, was the promoter in Pittsburgh.

Ludwig Kroup, would that have been killer Karl Kroup in a very early incarnation?

I don't know just because of where this is.

I don't know if he, if he did wrestle that long, I'd be surprised.

Well, but I would be surprised, or is that didn't Malenko work early on as Otto Kroup?

Um, I think he and what was Kroup's partner here?

Who was Kroup's partner here?

It was Ludwig von Kroup and Paul Berger.

Yeah, we don't know who the fuck Paul Berger is.

Uh, Miguel Perez and Tony Martinelli

makes me think that we're

back in the Northeast, as does Chief Bighor and

the Tolos brothers at one point in time, and Marvin Mercer

would have also been working in the Northeast.

But the biggest tip-off is Raqqa and Jerry Graham.

I think we're in another one of your goddamn New Jersey towns, possibly.

But we're in the Northeast.

And if it's Raqqa and Jerry Graham, if Eddie was on the card, that would narrow it down to 58 through 60.

But Jerry had a couple of ins and outs with Perez and Raqqa being split up.

That means it's a smaller market, even though they're still on the same card.

This is either a small town in New Jersey or possibly Pennsylvania

in

1960.

What are you doing to me?

I'm sorry.

I was going to say 1960 or 61, but now it sounds like it's going to be 1959.

So tell me what the fuck.

Very impressive how you got it.

I didn't expect you to get the town, but you got close enough.

The Patterson Armory, Patterson, New Jersey, which was a regular town for Willie Gilsenberg.

And the hometown of Lou Costello.

December 27th, 1957.

Ah!

15 cents for the program.

If you open it up, there's a

big picture here of Tony Martinelli and advertisements on the back for the next car, January 4th at T-Neck.

Eduard Carpentier versus Dr.

Jerry Graham, 2 out of 3 Falls, Tolus Brothers, Miguel Perez, other stars you see on TV.

And this was Jerry Graham when he was still a single before Eddie.

And this is, what, a month after the Madison Square Garden riot.

So here's the article that's attached to it, written by the United Press.

Patterson Police Help Wrestlers.

The bloody wrestling feud of Antonino Argentina Raqqa and Jerry Dr.

Graham ended in a no decision last night when police ejected the two bleeding fighters from the ring

amidst rioting by fanatical fans.

At least a score of policemen escorted Graham and Raqqa from the Patterson Armory after a 22-minute bout in which the two angry fighters refused to stop a slug fest.

The regulation 11 p.m.

curfew halted the contest.

Police Sergeant Arthur Lauro

said the 2,000-person crowd, which he estimated as, quote, about half Puerto Rican, went wild when they saw the blood on rough belting blonde, Jerry Graham.

They surged into the ring while police threw up a fast cordon and half-carried the fighters from the armory.

The frantic crowd ripped Lauro's coat with a sharp instrument and

jostled the grim-faced cop.

Excuse me, cops, more than one.

The bout had been sponsored by the Patrolman's Benevolent Association.

Differences between Graham and Raqqa, who canceled a long-planned holiday to sign for the bout, stemmed from a slugfest in Madison Square Garden a few weeks ago.

The bout also ended in a riot.

The two wrestlers were subsequently fined $1,000 each by the New York State Athletic Commission.

The fight last night was promoted by Willie Gilsenberg, Thomas J.

Babe Coleman, both of Newark, and Charlie Hoffman of Union City, New Jersey.

Jesus Christ.

Jerry Graham loved that shit, didn't he?

Fuck it.

Yeah, let's start a riot.

It's just so interesting because it's probably, not that there haven't been worse riots, but I would say it's probably the most famous riot, wouldn't you say?

The Madison Square Garden riot in 57?

Yeah, from the newspaper coverage

that it got and the...

The number of people that were at it and the lasting repercussions that it had in a major state, in a major market, changing, you know, the rules of nobody under 14 could go go to a wrestling match in Madison Square Garden for the next, what,

16 years.

It was always said that Niska Berlin was banned, but I don't think he really was.

No, he wasn't.

He used that to

help his image.

I think there may be the truth that was in it was that he just didn't pay the fucking fine.

And so that's why he was banned.

If there was any truth in it, it was that, because he was legitimately fined, but he's like, fuck this shit.

Here we are a month after that riot, and they started up again.

And it was the same thing I think you hear about the Madison Square Garden riot.

You know, the fans were really into it.

It's a hot crowd.

Puerto Rican crowd, they love Raqqa.

They see blood.

They go crazy.

Now, the story there was, it was, I think Dr.

Jerry Graham made Raqqa bleed.

Yes, which that was even worse.

And also the story, and there's somewhat credence to it, is that Raqqa didn't know he's going to bleed until Jerry Graham came up with it.

And that was, I'm sure that was even more of a natural reaction that flipped the people out.

Well, the way they said it here was Jerry Graham just started bleeding.

And then the fans are like, get him.

They just started surging the ring when he was bleeding.

Well, a lot of times it would be like that in those days when they would be wanting to see the heel get it, want to see the heel get it.

He's bleeding.

Yeah, we've got him.

He's weak.

He's vulnerable.

Let's all join in.

You know, shit's hot when they're starting riots riots at the policeman show.

Like, it's not like I think we'll get away with it.

There's cops everywhere getting stabbed by the fans.

Hey, at least it was at some places down south.

The cops would be on the fucking people's side and turn on the boys.

Oh, man.

All right, Jim, let's get another program.

That's when Schultz got Higgerson and Condry out of that building in Nova Scotia.

That's what had happened.

They were just up there for the fucking season season or whatever.

Here are these local cops.

They put their hands on their guns and they weren't going to let them get out of the fucking ring.

Here came Schultz with the hockey stick.

Jim, our next program here.

The first bout, 20-minute time limit, one fall.

Warren Bockwinkle versus Stu Gibson.

The second match, 20-minute time limit, one fall.

Fred Davis versus Frank Taylor.

The third match, 30-minute time limit, one fall.

Barney, the chest Bernard

versus Al Lovelock.

I'm sorry to say that again.

I cut you off.

I just chest Bernard.

He had the

big chest he'd throw out there.

And Al Lovelock, later to become the great Bolo.

And now we have a double main event.

One-hour time limit, one fall.

Wild Bill Longson versus Lord Athal Layton.

And the second of the two main events, a handicap tag match, one hour time limit, two out of three falls.

Vladik Kowalski,

if that is indeed how you pronounce it, Vladik.

W-L-A-D-E-K, right?

That's right.

Versus Enrique Torres

and Mike Mazurki.

And here are the conditions of the tag match.

I'll give you this.

Kowalski agrees to pin Torres or Mazurki twice within 60 minutes.

Partners may change at their discretion, and one fall will not disqualify any participant, including Kowalski.

If two falls, however, are charged against Kowalski, he loses the bout.

Or if Vladic gains two falls against the Torres-Mazurki team, the Polish giant wins.

So a two out of three falls.

All righty then.

Warren Bockwinkle,

the father of Nick Bockwinkle.

Stu Gibson, by the way, did you know is from Louisville, Kentucky.

And he worked here during the

a lot, especially during the early 50s and mid-50s when

there was still a local promotion here.

Fred Davis Davis and Frank Taylor, we don't know.

Chest Bernard, Al Lovelock, journeyman performers.

Al Lovelock would later work under a mask as the great Bolo.

Wild Bill Longson, we know from

being one of the biggest box office attractions in the history of the business.

Lord Layton

was not only a wrestler, but then later on became the announcer for the Chic's heyday

in Toronto.

Kowowski

having a handicap match with Enrique Torres and Mike Mazurki.

We just talked about Mazurki

with Stu Gibson being from Louisville, with Warren Bockwinkle being from St.

Louis, with

Longson being on the card, and with Kowowski

being in a handicap match, as they phrased it,

and the way that St.

Louis used to do do handicap matches,

one makes me think that this is a

very

obscure and old Keel Auditorium card from

the late 1940s.

And I'm just trying to remember what the earliest year was that Kowowski would have worked St.

Louis.

and I may be way off anyway, and you probably throw the ringer in on me, but

St.

Louis Keele Auditorium, 1947.

The card

Friday night, March 14th, 1952.

What?

8:30 p.m.

at the Keele Auditorium, St.

Louis, Missouri.

God damn it.

That late late

1952.

It's a fascinating card.

You know, there's a long, interesting history of handicap matches in St.

Louis, you know, a territory that didn't really have gimmick matches, didn't really have gimmicks.

Even guys who had gimmicks when they came in, other than like Dick the Bruiser, they had to change what they were doing.

But they had a lot of handicap matches over, and I shouldn't say a lot, but...

You know, when David von Erich first got over, it was in a handicap match.

You know, it's not like a new thing it was something that for 30 years they used

as an interesting mechanism because no other territory really used it the same way but this and and this was actually different than what they did a lot of times because a lot of times the handicap match was

brian last versus jim cornet

and

mr met the mascot But I would have, basically, you'd have to beat one and then the other within the hour time limit.

It wasn't like two against one or tagging in and out.

This is a little different.

And because

Kowowski at the time was the Andre the Giant kind of of wrestling, being six foot seven and 275 with an incredible physique back then, he was one of the biggest guys in the business.

So, but you're right, the handicap match.

in St.

Louis was always used

with main event guys involved.

It wasn't like, okay, I'm going to fight this guy and his manager.

And

as you said, the way that Kevin got over, it was a handicap match with

the Harley, right, against Kevin.

And was it Kevin and Fritz?

I was going to say, I think I thought it was David and Fritz, but...

Or what it would, David.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

But point being,

Fritz never got in a match.

That's what they were attuned to think, okay,

the guy at the handicap will beat the first, and the world champion will beat the first guy, but then he may lose to the second one.

But in that case,

the second one never even got in a ring because the first one won the handicap match.

And that's the way they made him a star.

So

anyway, I knew it was St.

Louis.

I didn't think it was that late because just some of those names

doesn't seem like a card big enough for what St.

Louis was doing at that period of time.

And by the way, here are the ticket prices.

Ringside, rows 1 to 12, center, $3.

5 to 12 off-center, $2.25.

Rows 13 to 26 in section C, $1.50.

And 13 to 21 in section A, the courtesy seats, 75 cents.

Loges, Loges 9 through 22, the center, $2.25.

Loge one to three, and twenty-three to thirty-two off-center, one dollar.

Mezzanine, sections five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, two dollars and twenty-five cents.

Sections three, four, eleven, and twelve, a dollar fifty.

Thirteen and fourteen, a dollar.

Sections one, two, fifteen, and sixteen, the courtesy seats, 75 cents.

It was a big fucking building with a lot of different price levels in those days.

Front balcony, all sections, $1.

General admission, 75 cents.

Tickets go on sale 7 o'clock the night of the show.

Hold on here and by the way three dollars for ringside basically the the lead story of that

there were a lot of places in the country still that were only doing

you know a dollar fifty or two dollar ringside at that point and three dollars in 1952 equals thirty two dollars and fifty eight cents today so it was still only a thirty dollar

ringside and that was somewhat expensive.

I think the garden was only up to four at that point, right?

You may be right.

You may be right.

All right.

They were doing sellouts of Madison Square Garden in the early 50s with a $50-something thousand dollar house.

So there you go.

This next one here:

the opening contest, one fall, 30-minute time limit.

Jimmy Mitchell

versus Sonny Kurgis.

A special event, one fall or 30-minute time limit.

Dr.

Lee Grable

versus brother Frank Jarrez.

Jairs.

Jairs.

I always get that wrong.

His son, too.

Frank Jairs' son, Joe Jairs, is the one that wrote Whatever Happened to Gorgeous George, the wrestling book in the early 70s that was like the only book about...

the inside of the business existing for years and years.

And then the finals of an elimination tournament.

One fall 30-minute time limit or referee's decision.

The winners of these two matches will meet in the main event, which will have a 45-minute time limit, two out of three falls or referee's decision.

And the two matches are Ray Eckert versus Jack Witzig

and Bobby Manigoff versus Tiger Joe Marsh.

Winner to meet Luthes.

Did you get this from the Ray Eckert estate?

I actually am not certain about this one because there's another giveaway here for just the collection I bought.

So I may have or I may not have.

Well, Ray Eckert, whoever administrated his things here not long ago, I got a bunch of stuff.

He had

from the collection of Memphis programs from the 50s and St.

Louis in excellent condition and pictures and et cetera.

Point being Jim Mitchell, the Black Panther, I take it.

At this timeframe.

That is correct.

Although it says Jimmy Mitchell, but he is a Jimmy Mitchell, but Jim Mitchell, the Black Panther from Louisville, against whoever the fuck he was wrestling.

I don't know.

Dr.

Lee Grable was a hypnotist.

And that's why he was a doctor.

And he hypnotized people to somewhat do his bidding.

Brother Frank Jairs was the

Mormon from

Salt Lake, Salt Lake, Salt Lake City, Brother Frank.

Ray Eckert, we just talked about, he was a baby face for

a recognized babyface for years and years.

Bobby Manigoff was a former world champion of some recognition and

one in Houston.

Tiger Joe Marsh is another one of the California-based guys that you see in a lot of the 60s TV shows, along with Count Billy Varga and Gene LaBelle and those guys that were doing

parts and TV and stunt work and stuff.

So we're back in in California.

And I know because I have one of Jim Mitchell's booking books where he kept his records, we've talked about that,

that he was in California a couple of times in the late 40s, the riot with Gorgeous George when he wrestled him in the Olympic auditorium.

And I think he went, either that was his second run, he'd been there before or vice versa.

But you're trying to fuck me around here.

This is California again.

I would think it's the Olympic Auditorium, but who knows?

It could be Long Beach.

But picking

a year,

Frank Jairs had a run in Tennessee and was

Southern Junior Heavyweight Champion in the late 50s.

But this has got to be before that.

Olympic Auditorium 1949.

I don't know.

I'm going to be off on the year.

The date?

August 1st, 1953.

The Civic Auditorium, Honolulu, Hawaii.

Conolulu.

Well, son of a bitch.

Well, but they were getting talent from California.

And I have the follow-up card here, August 9th, 53.

Just to complete this, Tiger Joe Marsh versus

Auaga Mayava.

Is that Nef Mayava?

That would have been Nef Mayava, right?

The first Samoan superstar.

I believe that's exactly who it is, and that's in the opening match.

One fall 20-minute time limit.

Special event, one fall 30-minute time limit.

Jack Witzig versus Sonny Kurgis.

Semifinal, one fall 30-minute.

Pacific Coast Champ Ray Eckert.

Versus brother Frank Jares.

Main event, World's Heavyweight Title, two out of three falls to a finish.

no time limit.

Lou Thez versus Bobby Manigoff.

So it's the same guys as the previous week, except they brought Thez in to defend the title.

Yeah.

And they would have guys come over for several weeks or a couple months or whatever because they couldn't,

especially 70 years ago, it wasn't convenient to fly back and forth.

And Thez has talked about in his book that he would go over

for like a working vacation.

If he defended the title once in a main event and got paid and got a trip over there, he would stay in Hawaii for fucking five days or whatever.

And would that have been Al Karasik, the promoter at that point, or was that before him?

That is correct.

It's Al Karasik.

So, yeah, that was a sweet deal for the champion in those days.

Yeah, the reason I don't know exactly where I got it is I've been buying up as many old, especially from the 50s, but really anything, old Hawaii programs, because

I feel like there's still not a lot known.

And, you know, you can always find little hidden tidbits in these programs about who's feuding with who in real life, what auto-dealer pissed off the promoter.

You can just find all sorts of weird shit in these programs.

But I also have one somewhere from the year before.

It's one of my favorites.

It's Lou These's first appearance in Hawaii, and it's the first World Heavyweight Championship match in Hawaii.

And it has the ticket stub, too.

So that one's cool.

Let's go to this card here, Jim.

On its face, it may seem easy, but I guess it's about date more than anything.

Boy, today it is

Opening contest: CV Offie or Siva Offy

versus Tony Bourne.

The next contest: Joe Lightfoot vs.

Matt Bourne.

Third contest: The Destroyer

vs.

Terry Allen.

A tag bout:

Stan Stasiak and Tiny Anderson

vs.

Buzz Sawyer and Hacksaw Sawyer.

The final preliminary bout.

Or hack, as he was known to his friends.

Rip Oliver versus Steve Regal.

And the main event, a double championship bout.

I will not name the titles, although I don't think that's going to be a hard thing for you.

Yeah.

Jay Youngblood versus Playboy Buddy Rose.

Well, obviously, we are a Don Owen promotion,

potentially in the Portland sports arena.

But let's just take a look at this for a second.

With Matt Bourne and Tony Bourne, Tony Bourne was from the area, and the last

time this would be one of his last matches, I assume,

because he wouldn't have worked much longer.

And Matt, at the same time,

had not been working too long.

Save the Joe Lightfoot,

Siva Afi,

Stan Stasiak,

the Sawyer brothers.

They all spent time in Portland.

Rip Oliver was there for years.

Steve Regal went briefly,

obviously during this time.

Jay Youngblood, Buddy Rose.

The only thing that helps me narrow it down specifically is Terry Allen.

And

we know that Magnum was in

Mid-South by late 1983, and he had already worked

Florida at that point.

But this was, I think,

where

he spent some time here right after he broke in.

And then right before he went to Florida.

And my God,

it's either 81 or 82.

It's got to be.

And I'm thinking because of where

Steve Regal was in 82.

He was here in the Memphis territory during the summer and was working for Bruiser also because

in that fall, because I was on cards with him.

So,

unless it's very early 1982, I've got to say this is 1981 in the Portland Sports Arena.

Uh-oh.

Jim, Saturday, May 16th, 1981, the Portland Sports Arena.

John Owen presents.

Jesus, finally.

Your referee, Sandy Barr, also there's an ad here for bar printing, stationary posters and flyers, business cards as low as $15.

Also, there's an ad here.

Sandy Barr's Flea Market.

Every Sunday at the Portland Sports Arena.

Tables are $5 each.

I've got some of his flea market promotional flyers also.

All right, Jim, this next card.

The opening event.

Honeyboy Hannigan

versus Frank Thompson.

Okay.

The semifinal, two out of three falls, one-hour time limit.

Tex Riley.

Versus Black Jack Dillon.

And the main event, two out of of three falls, one hour time limit.

Chief Bighart versus El Toro.

Good Lord.

Now you're just with me, right?

To end this thing.

I don't have any idea who the first two guys are.

Tex Riley,

or call him by his Christian name, Alvin Tex Riley was one of the most popular babyfaces in the gulis Welch, Tennessee territory in the 1940s and 50s.

And he was one of Roy Welch's go-to guys, you know, Roy and Herb Welch, Pat Malone, Tex Riley, Wow Bill Canney,

Charlie Keene,

that crew.

And he was killed

before his time.

Was he killed or did he have a heart attack?

I'm trying to think.

I think maybe he had a heart attack.

I actually don't know.

Black Jack Dillon was not James J.

Dillon.

And Chief Bighart was a famous, you know, Native American Indian gimmick wrestler, but he wrestled everywhere in El Toro.

Jesus Christ.

Birmingham, Alabama in 1951.

How about that?

That is a guess.

That is for sure.

I don't fucking have any idea.

Thursday, June 10th, 1954, Columbus the Arena.

Son of a bitch.

And by the way, coming soon, Jerry Graham, the hypnotist, and Freddie Blassey and many other well-known wrestlers in the North.

And Jerry Graham was a hypnotist like Dr.

Lee Grable.

Just Graham practiced in Ohio while Grable was practicing out in

California or whatever.

But

Chief Bigheart, Bobby Fulton, loved him some Chief Bighart.

And he was a big big name for Al Haft and the whole Ohio Territory.

But Tex Riley,

to me, is out of place on an Al Haft card.

So that's wild.

All right, Jim, this will either be our last or one of the last, but maybe the last.

We'll see.

The opening contest: Gordon Nelson versus Skip Young.

Tony Marino versus Bob Ellis.

Steve Kern vs.

the Great Mephisto.

For a tag championship, I will not name, Jack and Jerry Briscoe vs.

Siegfried Stanky and Ox Baker.

For a championship I will not name, Pat Patterson vs.

Mike Graham.

And a lights out match, Ivan Koloff and Buddy Wolf vs.

Eddie Graham and Dusty Rhodes.

What a card.

We are in championship wrestling from Florida.

As soon as you said Gordon Nelson and Skip Young, Gordon Nelson not only was a very accomplished shooter, but was a pro for years and worked and trained guys.

And I think refereed later in Florida, Skip Young would later become

the massed sweet brown sugar.

Then you said Tony Marino and Bob Ellison.

I was like, what the fuck?

Maybe this is a Puerto Rico thing from the late 70s.

But then I remember

that Tony Marino did spend some time in Florida.

And Bob Ellis,

this was after 1977 where he had been to Tennessee and maybe around the same time he was working or about to work Puerto Rico.

Steve Kern and the Great Mephisto.

Mephisto was Frankie Kane.

The Briscoe brothers against against Stanky and Ox Baker, Mike Graham, Pat Patterson,

Eddie and Dusty.

I mean, it's Florida.

The question is the year.

And I think with Eddie still in the ring,

Stanky and Ox teamed up.

Bob Ellis on the card,

Buddy Wolf in the main event.

It's

we're in Florida.

I don't know whether it's

it could be Miami

It could be Tampa

And it's 1978

All right, Jim

Tuesday June 7th 1977

Tampa Florida say at least you got the right state Tampa Florida baby That's six months off six months off.

You know what one more let me still have a good one here.

Maybe he's all over the place.

Maybe I don't.

All right, let me go.

Let me go to this one.

We'll end with this one.

The one that's not good.

Well, that way I can get this out of my file.

I have a pretty bad file here.

Get it out of your system.

Opening contest: Black Demon versus Tomas Marin.

Plus

Juan Caruso

versus Joe Krugnally.

Good lord.

Plus

Arnold Skoland vs.

Joe Turco.

That's who I thought you were going to say: Joe, Joe

Schmidlap here a minute ago.

Plus, Chuck O'Connor vs.

Mike Conrad.

An extra added: Flying Fred Curry, a new favorite, vs.

El Olympica, white masked foe.

A bonus attraction: Gorilla Monsoon.

401 pound great vs.

the spoiler.

Rough.

Vicious.

For the World Tag Team Championship, two falls out of three.

Mr.

Fuji and Professor Toru Tanaka, the champions, vs.

Chief Jay Strongbow and Sonny King, X champions.

And the main event for a World Championship I will not name.

Pedro Morales, the champion, versus George Steele,

the animal.

Good Lord.

Well,

if it's not the garden, maybe it's the spectrum, or actually, were they in the spectrum that early in the 70s?

Maybe it was the Philadelphia Arena.

Maybe it's the Boston Garden.

Tomas Morin, I used to, when I first saw his name in writing, I thought, what's Tommy Marlin doing all the way up there?

Arnold Skoland obviously tips off that it is the Northeast.

And Joe Turco, longtime WWWF job guy, Chuck O'Connor

would later on be Big John Studd.

But because he's Chuck O'Connor here,

this narrows it down to

the 1973 to 1976 window because didn't he become

well they did the thing with the masked captain USA thing in Texas, but he became John Studd in Texas in 77, I think, didn't he?

Wild Bull Curry on a major card.

Go ahead.

For the record, it was Flying Fred Curry.

I'm sorry, Flying Fred Curry.

I just wrote Curry.

Flying Fred Curry

and El Olympico, again, we're looking at 73-ish

time period, the monsoon and the spoiler.

Wasn't the spoiler Don Jardine on the same

in the territory at the same time that they let Moscaris be the first masked wrestler, but Jardine still had to wear an open-faced mask?

It is correct that Moscaris was the first masked wrestler, and the spoiler was not allowed to be masked.

And that would have

Strongbow and Sonny King, the ex-champions.

Spoiler being their Morales and George the Animal Steel for the title that you wouldn't name.

It's either 1972 or 1973.

I'm going to go.

Good lord.

I've been fucking up the dates.

I'm going to say

this is the garden.

Fuck it.

And I'm going to say it's 1973.

Well, Jim, it is the garden.

The Boston Garden.

Ah, Saturday night, August 12, 1972.

And

so I went against my better instincts and was wrong on both cases after I'd already said both of the other correct answers.

Well, on that note, the drive-through is closed.

Wow, that was guess the program.

On that note, the drive-through is closed.

all right peaceful ending to a peaceful show we'll be back at some point i don't even know what day it is now we'll be back very soon with the experience and of course the drive-through wherever you find your normal podcasts on the normal times and days or whatever the hell oh we'll tell the people on the on this experience coming up where where i went that we had to tape this oh that's right jim goes to club med find out all the information is Club Med still a thing, actually?

I don't even know.

Yeah, now it's just a hospital you check into now.

All right.

Well, Jim goes to Club Getaway.

Hear more about it on the experience.

And of course, next week here on the drive-thru, the drive-thru is brought to you by the law office of Stephen P.

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