Episode 388

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All right, you got the extended version because the gardener's up here.

Welcome back to another edition of Jim Cornedge Drive-Thru.

Hello again, friends.

It's me, the gardening friends decided now is the time for spring cleanup.

It's one of those days.

It's one of those moods.

I'm your host, the great Brian Last.

We have lots to talk about.

We're going to preview WrestleMania, which no one cares about this year.

This whole show is just starting off wrong.

Here he is, the leader of the cult of Cornette, the man who will be a

ray of happiness today.

Mr.

Jim Cornet.

If this is starting wrong, I don't want to be right.

Oh my God, ladies and gentlemen, boys and and girls, children of all ages, Brian Last has a porcupine up his ass today.

He is being bombarded with bad news, bad luck, and bad intentions from all sides.

And that's the organ

solo recital.

whatever you might

perpetration.

That was one of the versions of the extended cut for the record.

Well, yeah,

it started off like a fucking funeral dirge.

And I was thinking about, God, he's playing himself into into the great beyond.

And then you tried to pick it up in the middle.

And then it got kind of in a gata de Vita-ish.

And then it got perky at the end.

But here we are in your garden, you goddamn guard.

They're not gardeners.

They're not planting flowers and putting fucking fertilizer around your begonias and your petunias.

and things of that.

They're picking up sticks and they're going to cut the fucking grass.

I think you are dignifying

their position and or

being derogatory to the gardeners that study the the farmer's almanac brian and and and and they get down they put their hands in the dirt and the soil and they plant the seeds that grow toward the sun with the rain to bloom as the flowers that bloom in the spring

These guys are just cutting the grass and picking up sticks.

Yeah, they should consult the farmer's almanac like WWE said they did for WrestleMania 9.

I don't know if it'll rain.

Let's get the farmer's almanac.

What?

Well, we'll get to that.

We'll hopefully review that.

We're in the fucking desert.

What are the chances?

But, you know,

there's all kinds of stuff here.

We might as well be honest with the people, Brian.

You know, we're going to get through this together.

I feel like my weather guy, Mark Weinberg, on a tornado warning.

Folks, the next few weeks, we're going to get through this together.

Man,

we got a big, go ahead.

You know who I've heard say that recently a few times?

Stephen Pinu.

He says that literally when he's deposing people and they get rattled.

Don't worry.

We'll get through this together.

It's the funniest thing.

But anyway, back to you.

Well, back to me, Mark, for the weather.

No, I'm just going to get through this together because it's a big weekend coming up or a big week coming up or a big multi-day-like structure coming up

where there's wrestling every goddamn day.

Multiple, if you're one of the people who are younger and have more of a tolerance for that type of thing, there's multiple events going on that you could either go to live or you can watch on TV or you can buy on pay-per-view or you can stream

from

the golden streaming services.

Have you ever read that book?

The Golden Rivers?

The Golden Rivers by I.P.

Freely?

Was that a Dell book?

It was a Dell book.

He went out with Sam.

But anyway,

and the viewers and the listeners are going, what the fuck?

The WrestleMania is coming up.

There's all the promotions that piggyback off of WrestleMania.

There's the Hall of Fame.

There's the Raw after WrestleMania.

There's the SmackDown before WrestleMania.

There's the...

What other things are there before and after WrestleMania?

I don't know what you already said.

Hall of Fame as an NXT that I don't think we're going to watch just because of times.

And AEW is still going to, meanwhile, be trying to eke out their offerings that they normally do in some fashion.

Do they have Collision Saturday?

No, isn't this the one where...

Oh, they moved it up.

They moved it up.

They moved it up.

But so what we're going to do, folks, is today here on the program.

Dark side, two episodes of Dark Side this week and next week.

This week and next week.

Well, that's what I was going to say is is is is we're going to talk about today on the program a few of the things leading up to that

and then on the experience

this coming within the next couple of days we're going to try to get the uh aew dynamite

offering out of the way and and speculate and pontificate on the dark side and then

Boy, we're going to have a supersized couple of shows over the following days after that with night one, night two, hall of fame,

my nervous breakdown.

But we're all going to get it through it together, folks.

That's right.

Yes.

Holding hands,

walking across the all right.

Anyway, it's your program today.

How many people do you think at WrestleMania?

There's going to be a hundred thousand

or so.

Well, I guess the same 50,000 for two nights, but you know, the peripheral, there's going to be a thousand fucking wrestlers.

This is the weekend of the year that every wrestler dreams of because they get to be employed and we hate because

we have no life besides presenting this.

But with a thousand wrestlers and let's say 50,000 fans,

and about 5,000 crew people and associated other promotion hangers on and equivalents and et cetera.

There's going to be probably, what, 70,000, 75,000 wrestling-oriented people descending on Las Vegas.

Las Vegas isn't what it used to be.

Brian, they've run the whores off and all of the mob and the rat pack.

And now it's the goddamn M ⁇ M world and...

the world of Coca-Cola.

And

it's a kids fucking bouncy castle in a desert now.

Instead of back in the old days, when you went there to drink and gamble and fuck.

And watch the LPWA.

And why?

Well, even then, back in those, in the 90s, it was still a little unsavory.

I got there in the mid-80s first time.

You could actually, you could still smell the piss where Frank Sinatra had pissed on the goddamn dunes.

I'm talking about the hotel, not the actual sand dunes.

Yeah.

Back in those days, but now it's, it's goddamn, it's a fucking, it's a big open-air pinball machine full of

children and family activities.

Bucksy Siegel when you need them.

Yeah, they cleaned up Times Square

and they have cleaned up Las Vegas.

Where do you go to have a good filthy time anymore?

Philadelphia.

Well, that's true.

Boy, that's true.

No one's cleaning that up.

I was about to say there's some

aspect of taking the word filthy too far.

But to all of our friends in Philly, you know, you loved us first, me and the midnight.

So we'll always have a bond there.

But Jesus Christ, there's a

odor.

It smells like a man eating from Monday cheese in the septic tank of a slaughterhouse in some places downtown.

So what I was going to say was, with all the many people there for WrestleMania in Las Vegas, how many people, Brian, do you think are going to be wearing the new Corney's drive-through t-shirts or just the Corney shirt?

They have so many options available.

They also could just go to the store at jimcornet.com.

They could be wearing the Cornette face shirt.

There's so many options right now to represent Jim Cornette and the various podcasts with more to come.

And of course, you can get the new Corney shirt.

You can get the drive-thru official shirts.

There are two different options right now.

Go to ArcadianVanguard.com.

Go to YouTube.

It's our store.

It is attached to our page.

and of course every video has the links to the shirts and of course go directly to the shop app our friends at shopify they power us they can power you and uh yeah we're on the shop app just go there look for jim cornet or arcadian

power there

and of course you you mentioned earlier you can go to jimcornet.com where

the first Saturday in May, Saturday, May the 3rd at noon Eastern, it's Derby Day, but it is also the debut of the May Mayhem sale at jimcornet.com from Cornett's Collectibles, Corney's vault sale.

I told you about it the other day, Brian.

We were doing the program.

Hotchkiss and I have gone through the entire storage unit, consolidated two into one thanks to the recent sales, and have inventoried everything, fixed some clamshells on some old figures so they're brand new.

when they were damaged in shipping.

And

on Saturday, May 3rd, you got got something for everybody, but not enough for everybody.

So you got to get in early because we've got TNA and WWF trading cards of yours, truly.

The real autograph on a mint condition card, not some kind of forged or suspect thing on eBay.

But there's limited numbers.

I think like 22 of the WWF cards and 19 of one of the TNA cards and some other special stuff.

We've got Smokey Mountain Wrestling and Ohio Valley Wrestling programs in mint condition, vintage magazines from the 60s and 70s, including a real nice wrestling review with a Luthes Color Center fold.

We have got DVDs that we haven't sold in years, that we've got 10 or 12 of, maybe six, I think, of one.

We have WWF.

publicity pictures of me straight from the office that I've had for 32 years

that can now be personally autographed to the fine folks out there in the cult cornet.

And

the last remaining

action figures of the sold-out

variety, the bloody variant, the raw debut.

Some of these are on sale because, in the case of the bloody variant, there are, I think, about 20 that are perfect.

And then there are, I think, five or six that don't have the tennis racket because the factory forgot.

So those are on sale.

And the last four

announcer play sets are on sale at half price because the corner of the box is crinkled and you get me there's some scratch and dings in there but if you've missed anything including the original figure the two boxes i saved until my death and then i re-evaluated that and said well what good's it going to do me So anyway, Saturday, May the 3rd, for all of those things and many more.

And the 1953 wrestling fans book by Sid Feeder.

I hope I don't, is Sid still alive?

Do I have to give him a commission on this?

Well, no, you're not selling it.

I mean, there's nothing to give him.

He got a commission from the original sale of the book.

Yeah, so fuck him.

And he's dead.

Well, good.

No, don't say that.

I mean, you don't know.

He's trying to sue me for selling one copy of this remarkable book that he wrote in 1953.

on my website in 2025.

It's an amazing resource for any of the budding historians out there.

There's one copy that's going on sale, but fuck Sid.

Sid got his

fucking long ago.

As a matter of fact, as a wise man once said, fuck Sid and Ross, too.

JimCornet.com.

JimCornet.com.

They're getting closer to the office.

I now see leaves flying into the air.

There's a man over here.

Are you sure that's not a tornado?

Oh, yeah, I hear him now.

It's the ship is landing, the mothership.

They're going to blow the roof off your sucker.

All right.

This is a great show so far.

Uh-huh.

We have to talk about this year's WrestleMania just because why not at this point?

But before we get there, I want to talk to you about something that I think you watched.

I watched.

We heard from a ton of the listeners about it.

WWE on Peacock released a documentary about WrestleMania 9.

That was the WrestleMania in Las Vegas.

Now they got a car.

Now there's two guys and another guy driving something.

Are they around in the corner into your living room from the dining room?

No, they're working in tandem to get the leaves away from over here now.

But anyway, as I was saying, this documentary, I don't even know if it had a name.

I'm sure it did.

Becoming a spectacle.

Becoming a spectacle.

Or as some people called it, rewriting history, but whatever you may call it, the documentary about WrestleMania 9, of course, you weren't yet in WWE,

but you would arrive a few months later.

What were your thoughts on this documentary?

Let's talk about it.

Yes.

Well, and as a matter of fact, I wrote somewhere in my notes here.

Thank God I wasn't in yet.

Thank God I started two months later.

This was April.

And so April, May, June, most of June, I started four months later.

There were some things I got a kick out of.

We'll talk about the rewriting history part,

but I did get a kick out of seeing people that you never see on any of these documentaries, the production people,

the Kirwin Silphies and Nelson Swagler, George Germanakis had just started

when I just started.

And,

you know, I worked with all these guys and ladies, some of them.

You know, I didn't see Jennifer Goode on there.

I would love to have seen, you know, her, but

worked with all of them at the TV studio when I was doing the announcing part of my tasks up there and everything.

And

always liked those guys.

Basil DeVito,

we didn't really ever have much interaction.

I don't know how long was he around?

Was he still around when I was there?

Oh, he was still there and he started 10 years earlier.

Just about 84, 80.

I don't remember having any conversations conversations ever with him.

Maybe he was just on the other side of the building.

He was handing out tickets with Linda.

Well, that's true.

And

he was trying to figure out ways to be more show busy, apparently.

But anyway,

George said they had 575,000 hours of footage now in their

library, archives, whatever, which is just

absolutely batshit at this point.

And

what do you think?

472 hours will actually ever be seen by anybody by the time they get finished.

But this,

the whole special, it seems like

the tone they wanted to take was, well, this was the first time that WrestleMania became a spectacle.

And, you know, was a precursor to the modern era where it's, you know, bigger and more magnificent.

But

Jesus Christ almighty at the time,

Brian, I can testify to this, even when you were alive, but I was obviously a little more cognizant of things,

what, 30 fucking whatever years ago.

This was a bomb, as Jackie Gleason would say.

This show was a big bomb, wasn't it?

With

the reaction from the fans in Las Vegas at a makeshift arena in a parking lot to Hulk Hogan swooping in and winning the belt was, you know, great because, oh, shit, this is shit we didn't know we were going to see.

But it didn't really play, especially the hardcore fans, the diehard fans, the smart fans of the era or whatever, hated it.

And,

you know,

Jim Ross was mortified that the first day that he shows up to work for this company, he's wearing a fucking toga, kissing a camel.

I mean, it, you know, whatever he says now,

nostalgia and time may have tempered,

you know, the reaction, but no.

They called it the world's largest toga party.

Other than WWE employees, there was like five people in togas in the audience.

Yeah, no, that part didn't get over.

And they could, and I remember the boys at the time were grumbling.

They could have saved the money on the camels and the elephants and paid us.

And I was in Smoky Mountain Wrestling at that point, but I still knew obviously a bunch of guys in Atlanta.

And everybody was rolling their eyes at what the fuck, this clown show.

They tried to make it more

in highlights, you can make this even more pomp and pompous and pageantryous

than it was, but it actually, there was a lot of this shit that just fell fucking flat, right?

But now it's the precursor to maybe this is like the Ali and Oki fight to mixed martial arts.

They went out and had a bunch of camels shitting in the parking lot of a casino.

And

that whole narrative, and I apologize for the heavy buzzing behind me, that whole narrative.

that this was a precursor of future WrestleManias or this was the first one that was a spectacle.

That's nonsense.

I don't even understand what the point is in that discussion.

It wasn't the first spectacle.

You know, WrestleMania 1 had the celebrities.

WrestleMania 3 broke the indoor attendance record, allegedly.

WrestleMania 4 and 5 were at Trump Plaza.

They got a good amount of attention.

Six was at the Sky Dome.

Again, tons of celebrities.

Yeah.

And then again, seven at the Coliseum didn't work out for...

various reasons and eight was at the at the uh hoosier dome it looked incredible on tv so i don't understand.

I think it's a false narrative that they tried to do to have some reason to present this documentary.

Well, and also the dagum,

it was a spectacle, even at WrestleMania 2, which you know didn't

critically get a lot of acclaim, but it was a spectacle.

The fact that they had football players involved in the Battle Royal and they were in three different locations and blah, blah, blah.

But

Caesar's Palace leaned into

the spectacle, as in Mama Cornette used to say, they made a spectacle out of themselves.

It was just over-the-top goofiness because they panic, and Vince panicked,

as he would later on with WrestleMania 13 and went back to what he knew

because

they made the point.

And this is why Brett's bone of contention.

They had gotten away from the Hulk Hogan era.

Hulk had said, well, in the early 90s, Vince didn't believe believe in the character.

So I decided it was time to take a step back.

It was old as shit, and he wanted to make movies and fit comms, baby.

So Hulk left after eight, and Brett and Taker and Sean

has stepped in.

The Steiners came in.

They made the point, the Samoans, they had to kind of mention DevKayoko.

the new monster heel.

And Taker said we had to make new stars.

And then,

you know, they've put this work in.

And just because

then they decide they're going to go to Las Vegas,

which had never been a big money wrestling town.

Think about it.

They,

they, just because it was the, they had promoted the boxing event.

Vince and the WWF had and got the relationship.

Which was a flop.

I don't know if they outright.

yeah.

It was a flop, and it wasn't considered a great fight.

They made it seem like it was a great fight, and Caesars couldn't wait to work with WWE again.

No, well, that's the thing: the fight was a flop, but the Caesars and the WWF had made the connection.

And then all of the executives started talking amongst themselves.

And I'm sure Ed Cohen, bless him, is no longer here, but he booked all the arenas at that time.

I'm sure he was involved.

But old Basil there, Basil, Basil.

And they thought, oh, this will be a great cross-promotion.

They weren't thinking

about whether or not that they could, because they were used to selling out WrestleMania, bing, bing, bing, but they were in a rebuilding period with

talent.

See, that's a lie, too, because WrestleMania 8 didn't sell it.

It didn't come anywhere close to selling out.

Well, I know, but they

did WrestleMania 2 in L.A.

Well, I said that was a fly, but they'd done the Silver Dome in 87

and they had done the the hoosier dome

uh bless them you know at least it was in indiana in indianapolis where people from chicago and azabada you could drive to but what they did was in 91 they had to move it from the 100 000 seat la coliseum because they couldn't sell any well that's true and well that's because

of their

and also there you go maybe that's when vince started to lose faith in health hulk ho hulth hogan in old hulth hogan That's when Vince started to lose faith in Hulk Hogan too, because they had to, but that was a fiasco in the war and everything.

What I'm saying to you

is they should have realized,

but it was the business end of each company talking to each other.

Caesars, they want attractions in Las Vegas back at that point.

And the WWF

marketing and live event

office, I'm sure, thought that oh this would be great caesars palace las vegas because you heard the guys remarks for las vegas but they go to a town that's never drawn major crowds for wrestling at a point where they're not hot anymore and they don't even have hulk hogan it used to be hot

and they're in a rebuilding period as far as

the the the new

Undertaker had only been there, what, two years, three or whatever, as far as the newer 90s guys that were going to be coming in are already there and going to get over.

And so their sales were soft

in advance.

And

Vince goes, did the same thing he always does.

He doesn't panic, but he goes shit and changes his mind and goes back to

Hulk Hogan or at WrestleMania 13.

It was big guys on top, the sid and taker, whatever the fuck.

But that's what he did.

And then it pissed all the boys off.

I thought sometimes people were a little grumpy when I got there, but I thought, well, it's a different environment.

The other thing is, I don't think it really helped business much.

And I don't think you could have thought it would have.

Again,

you know, they had a downswing in popularity over the last two years.

It wasn't just because Hulk Hogan left.

It was because he left because of the steroid scandal.

It was because of all the publicity over the sex scandals.

There were all these things that played out in public, on Donahue, on Geraldo, on the news, on Larry King.

It was everywhere.

So WWE as a brand was probably more toxic at that period, maybe even more so than the Benoit period, because it really had a negative stigma on it, wrestling, those wrestling people.

So they kind of had to.

That's what caused the need for Bret Hart to be elevated and Shawn Michaels to be elevated.

Undertaker was kind of pushed to the top right away.

But Hogan returning in the midst of that, again, a new era.

They just kick off Monday Night Raw in January, which is a whole new kind of show that Vince McMahon had never, Vince McMahon didn't do live weekly shows.

That was a new thing.

And then all of a sudden they bring Hogan back in the middle of that.

After Brutus Beefcake did not get overright, when they brought him back at Monday Night Raw, the fans rejected him.

And then you brought Hogan into that.

Wasn't that the night that somebody screamed, kill yourself?

Oh, they screamed that.

And again, my favorite was still, my wife left me, good.

And then my parents died.

Good.

And then my face got crushed in a parasail.

And this guy yells, let's go sailing.

But that's what they, and they gave him a feckless Jimmy Hart.

Baby face Jimmy Hart is a shadow, obviously, of what he was in Memphis, let alone as just a heel manager in WWF.

It didn't work.

It wasn't a big thing.

For the Vegas crowd, maybe it was, but how much of that Vegas crowd was people from Vegas and how much of it was people who were in town visiting?

How many many people actually traveled there?

It was a puzzling decision, and it was a bad decision.

It was either the

maybe some of your gardeners were there in Vegas, but it was either the tourist crowd that probably maybe hadn't seen a live event or mini, or it was the fans in Las Vegas that didn't get to see a lot of fucking events at that point.

And,

you know, yeah, they're loving everything.

But that was, well, as a matter of fact, then

it was King of the Ring that

he dropped it back to Yoko with

the explosive camera from the Japanese photographer, right?

That's the fireball to the face is the only way Hogan would drop it.

And then he was gone, thankfully, the month before I got there.

What do you think about the argument in this that Vincent Mann did it only to help Yokozuna get over?

That he would eventually beat Hogan for the title again, and that would help everyone and everything, including Brett.

Well, it's that's what Hogan would say, because yeah, say, I will anoint someone else with my star-making power.

If Yokozuna had given him the bonsai drop

after even some heel shenanigans, that would have got Yoko over.

But an exploding camera from a fucking Japanese photographer, it was just more hoo-ha.

Because Hogan said he's going to do it, and that's the

least he could do, literally.

And then he left again.

So I don't, no, this was just, he, he horn swoggled.

Vince was like, oh, shit, we got to sell out Caesar's palace.

This has to be a big event, besides the camels, pal.

We got to get Hulk.

I can, and, and Hulk fiddled him.

You know, but there is something too to what you said before, like the boys said, hey, you can pay us the money you're paying for the camels and all this stuff.

They make it out like it was the spectacle and people loved it.

I don't think any wrestling fans at all cared about Caesar and Cleopatra

showing up.

In fact, it was groan-worthy because, like, who are these fucking actors pretending that they're Julius Caesar

to invite the wrestlers to come to Caesar's palace?

It was ridiculous, and it was that stuff.

And yeah, I mean, Bobby Heenan on the camel is a cool thing, but

none of that shit with the Toltoga theme and the Roman Empire theme.

None of that was necessary.

Bobby can get something

out of anything right if there's a camel air or whatever the but for the rest of it

that's one of the things is that is vince's

i'm trying to explain that

he loves that kind of

the

We'll have camels and togas and fucking elephants and the pomposity of the thing.

That's the kind of shit that Vince Smoke and Mirrors was trying to,

in his mind, would make up for.

Maybe we ain't got such a great fucking attraction this year.

And it's hard to explain why he likes this kind of shit, but he does.

But the point is, no, at the time, the wrestling fans

didn't particularly give a shit.

And the other companies were rolling their eyes at the fucking fakery and phoniness of this.

And the boys in the WWF, even though now they remember it somewhat fondly,

I remember a lot of them from that era are going, yeah, they could pay the fucking camels.

They can't, you know,

it was just ridiculous, but now they all look back on it like everybody was so happy to be in Las Vegas.

These are still

international goddamn star wrestlers.

Why were they so happy to get a few days in Las Vegas?

If I went to Las Vegas in that era,

I would, for fun, I would go without having to fucking wrestle in the middle of it.

Because I figured anywhere you went and still had to wrestle somewhere in the middle of it, it wasn't all that fucking fun.

But they're actually like, oh my God, we were in, we got to go to, you know, Valhalla for three days.

And they just all seemed happy in hindsight about how they were in Las Vegas, possibly because this was the company authorized documentary they were being asked to speak on.

Yeah, I think so.

Lots of Vince McMahon in the documentary.

Certain people didn't mention him.

Bruce Pritchard just called it WWE when obviously referring to Vince McMahon, but Basil DeVito would talk about Vince.

They couldn't get around that.

And watching the footage, you could see why.

It was Vince's baby.

That's the reason all these things that were unnecessary were there.

Vince wanted them, but not one, I didn't see one image of,

and obviously he wasn't mentioned, Kevin Dunn.

That's what I was going to bring up

is that he was there.

He was definitely there.

But

I was fascinated by the

backstage footage of Vince producing,

where he's telling people, you know, what to do in the motions and the whole things.

That's classic Vince.

You'd see that for hours every TV day.

And the stuff with Basil DeVito and

his books where he explained, they had the map how to scale.

the prices for the seating for the building and stuff like that.

That was fascinating.

And all the other stuff behind the scenes with the production people, Kevin Dunn's face not fucking once.

And

if they could even show a man publicly accused of shitting on a person's head, but they won't show Kevin Dunn,

where does that leave their relationship?

But anyway,

that's the thing is that.

You know,

the new talent, they made mention that they debuted.

They had Lex, Luger, but he was debuted as

vince wanted him to be the narcissist which had been modified from narcissus like he was going to be a greek gladiator in love with himself

and bobby heatan couldn't pronounce narcissist so he got narcissistic anyway

but it that they did that poor lex for a while until he became lex luger

and then they had also debuted our friend Jorge, Giant Gonzalez.

And Bruce was still defending this.

And even Taker had to say it was ridiculous.

But the poor fella, you know,

he wasn't ever going to fucking get over, but he was very tall, a very tall man.

You don't think they could have done more with him just by changing the outfit alone?

No, because we tried before that.

He was the nicest guy in the world,

But

he not only didn't get it, but physically,

see,

he had played basketball in Argentina.

And then the Hawks, the Atlanta Hawks had signed him

because he's seven feet seven, really, or whatever he was.

And they brought him over.

And that's when Turner owned WCW.

And

they quickly figured out that he was seven feet seven, but he he couldn't fucking play in that environment.

And so since they already owned him, let's make him a wrestler.

And I walked into CNN Center to one of the booking meetings one day with Jim Ross.

And in the lobby, there's this fucking giant.

He's sitting in the lobby chairs.

He's so tall, his knees are up above his head as he's sitting in this fucking chair with his feet flat on the floor.

He said, there's our new giant.

I said, Jesus Christ.

But

he just couldn't.

Well, you saw some of the highlights that they were able to show.

And I, you know, it was just, it was.

Anyway,

but nevertheless,

so Brett

had thought and everybody thought that he was

heading to WrestleMania, Yoko, the main event, title match, whatever.

But then they bring Hogan back and he gets the

tag team double main event, Hogan and beefcake with DBase and Rotunda

because they trusted them not to

hurt anybody because what is the odds that both of those guys were going to be have

damaged faces when they get in the ring?

But, you know, Taker alluded to, well,

we were trying to make new stars and they were bringing the past back.

And

Brett said Vince even told him, don't worry, you'll have nothing to do with Hulk.

And of course, Hulk's statements were,

he's so insufferable in that he's saying something nice about someone in words, while the meaning and the context and the inflection is all about how great he was to do whatever he did for them.

You know what I mean?

The ultimate backhanded compliments and the

just the insufferableness of his smug.

Well, of course, it was all me behind everything.

But,

you know, that that was,

I liked this thing as we as they were building up to the show, I will make the point.

I liked this thing to look at the backstage, you know, set up stuff of the people that I knew.

And I hadn't thought of that person in a while.

I got a tickle out of the, because the guys didn't used to have cameras in the back like that.

And they showed all the shots of everybody saying, this is for what?

What's this for?

And I guess, you know, this is where the major rehearsals started for this type of thing.

And I can understand

in wrestling rehearsing entrances, especially when they're on television.

So that, you know, you know where you're going and you don't fucking go the wrong way and the camera can shoot you.

But I didn't know it would ever come to actually, they just go out in the building and rehearse a fucking match.

That still kind of galls me, but we have to do it these days.

But then they got to the day of the show.

Before we start on that, Brian,

did I miss anything in the preamble and the buildup to this thing?

I mean, they went over the different stars they were trying to make.

And,

you know, again, everyone has different comments they make that may not necessarily be true, but sometimes it's just what they feel about how they were used or anything.

And then, you know, Sam roberts seems like a nice guy in these things but he doesn't really know history or yeah you know when you say like i will fight anyone if they say that doink versus crush wasn't well booked

oh i know i've i made a note of that i made a note hold on he said it it's okay to be a fan where did i oh the story had been told immaculately

between Doink and Crush.

Again, it's okay to be a fan.

It's okay to be a fan that does work with WWE, so you're never going to say anything to disappoint them.

But, you know, he didn't really know history.

And again, they had other people like Natalia and Kofi Kingston that were making comments that just sometimes they have modern stars for no reason, they're not really adding anything to the discussion.

And I thought that was the case here.

What'd you think of Bruce showing Pat Patterson's book?

Um, well, no, that was his book.

No,

what he said.

So he said it was Pat Patterson's.

No, hold on.

Well, I'll bet you $5, but go back.

And he said,

Pat patterson and i had this is the bible pat patterson and i had these books because that's the same kind of book i've got it just started later uh that was what everybody on the creative team had to have it was the same kind of book as vince it was laid out the same way as vince you had to

You ordered your book and your pencils through Beth Zazza, Vince's secretary.

So

he insisted everybody use the same fucking pencils because he liked the way that they erased without smudging too bad.

He erased a lot.

And

Vince would have somebody like Beth or someone in the office fill out his, but it was a ledger book that he made into a date book by drawing

three lines on one page, four lines on the other page for seven days.

And when you opened it, there was your Monday through Sunday.

And you would draw lines or you would date it with a pencil and you'd write in all the information for all the fucking buildings and all the

the card and when's the last date we were there and when's the next date we're coming back to that town and what's the seating capacity and a blah blah blah so everybody had the same book

so

that was bruce's but pat would have one identical and vince obviously would have one

identical to that.

It just, it was your different handwriting as to what the difference was.

And again, like we said before, and we'll continue to say the narrative is questionable the actual uh facts being said may not be facts but i think the highlight of this thing was the backstage footage just seeing that and all those people in that time you wanted more of that you wanted to see more of randy savage interacting with linda mcmahon like that i wanted more of

but you know they they obviously have to i don't know if he wanted any more of it but well she was all over this thing and you barely saw her you know linda was very involved in all this stuff and obviously these cameras were all over the place But for all the footage they shot, we really didn't see that much, all things considered.

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Void reprohibited.

But that's,

you know, when they got to showtime,

as they say, or show day,

they'd done the rehearsals all day, but Hogan showed up with Beefcake, I guess, and Jimmy Hart.

They showed them walking in two hours before showtime.

And Hogan's got the glasses on, but this is the famous black eye day.

And the first thing that Taker does is bring up the savage rumor without actually coming out and saying it.

But then Steiner told it.

And then.

Apparently,

they showed Hogan what Steiner said on the fucking laptop.

And Hogan was like, Well, if that's the way he wants to tell it, or what was his comment?

If that's that's the way he wants to tell it, that's fine.

He said, If that's, he made it sound like that's what Randy told him or something.

Oh, okay.

The way he phrased it at one point was kind of like, Well, maybe that's what he heard from Randy.

That's what Randy said.

Yeah.

But that's what a lot of people have heard.

I mean, you've talked about it in the past here on the show.

That's the story you heard when you got there a few months later, right?

Yes.

And well, of course, Bruce told the jet ski story, is what I heard.

And Hogan told the jet ski story and Brutus backed him up on it.

But basically, he walks in with a giant black eye and stitches.

And

the story was that that's when apparently Savage and Elizabeth had been having issues.

And because Elizabeth was good friends with Linda Hogan, that Liz had gone to stay at their house and Hogan didn't tell Savage where she was, or some drama to that effect.

And

Savage punched him.

And Savage was making

fucking thinly veiled allusions to it on commentary on the show.

Yeah.

Which they played here.

Yeah.

And by the way, knowing what we know now about Hulk Hogan, let alone Linda Hogan, you can understand why he was concerned at that point that his wife, who, you know, whether right or wrong, had been with him like 24 hours a day and when not with him, locked away, all of a sudden she's with them.

It wasn't just like she's with people who are trying to help her.

She's with nuts.

She's with a nut woman and a guy who will lie to anyone about anything.

You can understand why Savage was upset.

The jet ski story, how the fuck, how does that work?

Well, he watches a jet ski way that it hit him in the face and he just had a neatly placed black eye.

Well, that's the fucking other thing is the story he tells is that he fucking hits a fucking wave and he gets thrown up in the air and flips over the jet ski and he tries to tuck, but the jet ski lands on his face and he's got, now the injury doesn't look too bad.

It's a hell of a punch, but to be whacked with a flying jet ski, it's still only a black eye and a cut on the eyebrow.

So, and also with him and beefcake both, why don't they stay out of the water?

They can't stay out of the water.

So

beefcake backs up Hogan's story for the record.

Beefcake.

Well, of course, he does.

I don't even know if they get along anymore.

That's why, and I don't know when this was filmed.

And Jimmy Hart does, but he wasn't there.

They just called him up and said, Jimmy, here's what's going on.

And he panicked.

Yes.

Well, and that sounds about right for Jimmy.

Oh, God.

What do you think, man?

What do you think in your gut really happened?

I think Savage punched him in the face because

just the fact that

they are allowing

in a company produced documentary they're allowing undertaker and steiner to in various ways allude to it or tell the story and they showed the clips of savage even fucking playing ha ha on commentary about it must have been a hell of a punch he seemed like he was having a ball if you watch anything from karandy savage that day

so i'm sorry but you know even if

Even if he and Savage were Hulk and Savage were on the outs,

you know, Savage wouldn't do that in that way with that tone in his voice if a fucking jet ski had fallen on a guy's face.

If a jet ski fell on his face, wouldn't he have more than a black eye?

Well, of course he would.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't understand.

I mean, I don't know what beefcake.

So I also don't know if they were partying.

Maybe Brian Blair was there.

Maybe someone could ask him.

If Hogan showed up the day of WrestleMania and you were the promoter.

And he had a black eye, would you try to use that?

They really didn't do anything to like say like, well, we just found out Money Incorporated attacked Hulk Hogan at the hotel before.

Like, they didn't do anything to build it into a story.

Should they have?

Well, see, maybe that might have been a thought, except if Hogan came to WrestleMania two hours, he's got a fucking black eye in stitches, right?

This is not a goddamn torn ACL,

a fucking neck that needs surgery, a goddamn career-ending injury.

You can fucking have a match with DBase and Rotunda.

Obviously, they said, you know, we knew to not stay away from his face.

But

if he came in two hours beforehand with his emotional support group,

he was probably giving Vince some shit already about the whole thing.

And

I'm sure that part of this led into the goddamn finish they did that night, probably.

But it's not like that he was ever in danger of not being allowed to or not being able to work.

And the story he said where he fooled the fucking commissioned doctor.

Yeah, we shot an angle doctor, fake stitch.

A doctor knows what stitches look like.

The athletic commissioned doctor saw a fucking wrestler with some stitches in his eyebrow and a black eye and took his blood pressure and passed him to goddamn wrestle.

And by the way, if that's the story he was telling the commissioned doctor, again, why wouldn't he say, the heels were wrestling attacked me?

Why would he out of nowhere go, the macho man hit me?

We're going to do something together.

Yeah, we're going going to do something together.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

And also, the doctor wasn't fooled.

The doctor didn't need to be fooled because the athletic commission, they take your blood pressure and make sure you're breathing.

As long as you have a license that has been paid for and your blood pressure is not over the moon and you're obviously ambulatory, every athletic commission doctor I've ever seen would say, pass, friend.

Yeah, with all due respect to the Nevada State Athletic Commission, I'm sure Caesar's Palace said, you're going to pass Hulk Hogan, right?

Yeah.

Caesar's Palace, Caesar and Cleopatra, who wants to upset them?

So, and the guy who owns Caesar's Palace literally was saying, I want a Hogan title win, or when is Hogan going to win the title?

He was expecting it months in advance.

Yeah, see, there were some clues there that, and I think Hogan smelled that.

Poor advance.

Probably the fucking Caesar's Palace guys on Vince about, what about Hulk?

And Hulk is, oh, hey, Vince, you know, you're going to Vegas.

It all came together perfectly.

But anyway, they

had the tag match.

And

I get, was that Beefcake's last match in the WWF?

I thought he was there after that, but he made that comment.

Is he just, he can't remember?

I can't remember if he went on the European tour.

It may have been his last match.

Remember, right around that time, well, you wouldn't know this.

They planned out, they showed the photo of it, a Hasbro figure for for Brutus Beefcake, and they cut it from the line.

They replaced it with another Tatanka, I believe.

So, I mean, they it's sad the barber got cut.

They quickly made a change to the barber, but it wasn't working.

Brutus, you know, for all of his deficiencies in the ring that people may point out, he was super over in 88 and 89 and 90.

And then he got hurt.

And

you know, he never was able to recapture any of that feeling from the fan base ever again.

And this whole thing with him and Hogan, just it felt out of place.

And Hogan also, I mean, they didn't even point it out here.

Hogan

wasn't half his size, but he was a lot smaller here than he had ever been on WWF television.

Well, because he had gotten smaller to try to do real movies, right?

That's what The Rock did that.

Why was it that For years, all the agents would tell the guys that got into the movies almost specifically because they looked like that to not look like that?

because unless you're the rock where are you going to get all these action roles you know even cena cena is slimmed down now you know i don't know if cena just wants action roles i think a lot of these guys want to break away from i mean the rock still wants to break away from that he did try to when he first went to hollywood remember he was in the uh what was the sequel to get shorty oh uh i forget the name of it now he was in the sequel to get shorty he played a gay character because that was a big deal at the time but he was really slim if you look at the rock in like 2002 to 2004, when he was still making wrestling appearances and acting, he wasn't very big.

Naturally, he's a big guy, but he wasn't very the first thing.

He was for him in terms of the range of his life.

Yeah, so I mean, now he has been able to make the fact that he's the gigantic Dwayne Johnson into his selling point.

That wasn't the case then.

He was trying to establish himself.

But why can't a great dramatic actor also be 277 pounds and twisted steel and sex appeal?

I don't know.

It depends on the role, I guess.

Like, you know, Nanny with muscles or whatever roles Hogan had.

Mr.

Nanny.

No, Mr.

Nanny and Santa with muscles.

Santa with muscles.

Or Santa with Nanny.

And boy,

that was a stag film.

It went around on 8mm back in the 50s.

But anyway, they had the other matches after the tag match real quick.

Just a couple of soup sons of information.

Kurt Hittig went blank in the match with Luger and Lex had to lead it.

And did you catch, Lex said, Kurt may have been over caffeinated.

Well, like when he also said he thought he was ribbing him at first.

Haha, funny joke here at WrestleMania.

All the match Lex.

That's a funny joke.

What are we doing?

You know, Brett Hart said that happened with Davey Boy at SummerSlam in 92, you know, which is Davey Boy's greatest day as a wrestler, I would assume, here at Wembley Stadium, here, right here at Wembley Stadium.

in front of like the biggest paid audience in WWF history at that time.

Wins that bout.

Brett said he went blank.

Is that something you witnessed a lot in wrestling?

Just guys

not knowing what to do.

I mean, I guess the way you plan out matches and call spots is very different.

And this is kind of that point where things really started changing, but just the inability to do anything you thought you were going to do?

Well, no, because see, there was always something to blank out on.

Even if it was the finish, right?

That was the big thing is suddenly, you know, that was guys would have dreams.

The wrestler's dream where you're in a locker room somewhere and the bell is ringing or in later years, your music is playing when that became a thing and you're naked or you got your trunks on, but you don't have your boots on.

Or mine was, I can't find my racket, or

you don't know the finish.

And

every wrestler back then would have dreams.

They were going to the ring.

They don't know the fucking finish.

And for some reason, and all this stuff's proceeding.

And you're like, what are we doing?

Davey, I can believe.

Davey, Davey.

There was, I'm sure, a lot of nervousness and, you know, pressure that day or whatever.

And Davey would go blank every now and then.

But Owen or Brett or somebody was around.

Bobby Eaton went blank one time on Mid-South television in the middle of the finish again, Junkyard Dog and Hacksaw Duggan.

And it was a four-way and the referee was on the other side.

And I saw, I think, Duggan

punch Bobby and Bobby staggered.

He punched him again and bobby staggered he punched him again and bobby staggered toward me he said courtney where are we i said ass bump and he turned around and swung at duggan and duggan ducked it and ass bumped him he couldn't he just it was like you go blank but i'm not sure that so and it's with

With Kurt's case here, it may have had to do with being over caffeinated in Las Vegas.

Over caffeinated.

Is that what we're calling?

Over caffeinated.

That's what we're calling it.

That's what Lex called it.

And that's what I'm sticking with.

Kurt was overcaffeinated in Las Vegas.

And he said, what are we doing?

Is that a rib that you've heard people do?

I mean, on the other side of it, Lex thought it was a rib at first.

Is that something guys have done?

Well, every once in a while, just for a minute, not necessarily.

I mean, it's been done.

Yes, everything's been done, but it wasn't prevalent.

Who was it?

Chick Donovan called a fucking spot.

A guy grabbed him in a headlock.

And as he was shooting the guy off, he said, one tackle, drop down, you finish it.

And then shot him off.

And the guy's like, what the fuck?

But anyway, yeah, so all those things can happen, but every once in a while, people go blank through natural or artificial means.

And then

Undertaker said to him and Giant Gonzalez, the stare down was the highlight.

And then Yoko and Brett.

Well, you scared a few matches, the Steiners and the Headshrinkers.

Well, yeah, I mean,

they showed highlights of them, but it wasn't like they went into, you know,

tons of detail.

But what, what, the other, hold on, I say, Michaels and Tatanka, Backlund and Razor.

I'd forgotten about that one.

Talk about generations clashing.

Bob Backlund would have been a nerd on Leave It to Beaver.

And he's in the ring with Razor Ramon.

and yes and we talked about the immortal crush and doink classic right

is there something else

they mentioned who it was not that it i guess really matters it was matt bourne and steve kern right

i think well matt it that was the second doink that night and the second the second doink was probably kern

because

Apollo didn't start doing it until until they fired Bourne, right?

I think so, yeah.

Yeah.

And Kern was already a Skinner.

It was already on contract.

But anyhow,

there was Brett and Yoko.

Brett wanted Yoko to have the best match of his career.

He said Yoko blew up, which I can believe, especially out in the sun.

And they went home early.

That's why it took a while for Fuji.

Remember when you saw that thing, you're like, what the fuck?

How long is he going to be in that deal before Fuji throws the salt?

And then Yoko beat him one, two, three.

And then Hogan came in and stooged it off.

And in what they pointed out at this point,

made no sense.

Fuji challenged Hulk.

The champion who just won the title challenged the other guy to have another match.

And Yoko was blown up

and

ducked the salt and leg dropped one, two, three.

and as steiner said a lot of guys thought it was a slap in the face uh brett was vocal about it afterwards and sean agreed with him for once that may be you've never heard that phrase before

but hulk had a lot of heat over there with the with the guys as well as a lot of the fans especially as i said the smart fan community which was much smaller at the time, despised it.

And it was kind of kind of

a deflating way to end the show if you weren't a fan of Hogan in 93.

Yeah.

And you can, I don't understand how Brett ever trusted Vince McMahon ever again after that.

Because he had been telling him, I'm going to give you a six-year run of whatever he was telling him.

And then he,

in all fairness to all parties,

I know Vince has told a lot of things to Brett and he signed him at one point to a 20-year contract, but I don't know that he ever told anybody in those words they were going to have a six-year run with the belt, nor if you were

a talent in the wrestling business that was a candidate for that belt.

If you ever believed anybody, if they said we're going to give it to you for six years, you're kind of goofy.

Because if you're if you've got to that point, you need to be smarter than the business than that.

But

everybody looked back at it fondly, but this was rotten in the ring in large part.

It did blob business.

And except for

WrestleMania 13 and potentially, what, two, it may have been the worst

when you examine all the metrics.

So, well, wait, what was that?

Atlantic City fiascos.

You know, it was a changing of the guard, too.

They didn't even bring it up, but obviously it was Jim Ross's debut, and he was very nervous.

At one point, he called a Frankenstein or a Steiner line.

But

Gorilla Monsoon had been on commentary for every WrestleMania.

They mentioned him here, and they showed him, you know, doing the introduction.

But that was one of the big things for me as a kid.

That was the big change.

Gorilla Monsoon no longer being on commentary for the big events.

It was always Gorilla and Ventura.

And then it would be Gorilla and Ventura.

And then Gorilla took off a few, and it was...

Ventura and Shivani.

And then it was Gorilla and Heenan.

And, you know, it was all, it was a different era now.

Gorilla Monsoon was no longer going to be one of the featured commentators.

He had been there at WrestleMania 8, him and Heenan, and now he was no longer doing it.

But think about this.

The fact that

Jim Ross prided himself on

being from the

real sports announcer school of wrestling, a la Gordon Soli, where,

and JR had been already done NFL games in Atlanta for the Falcons, and he had been involved with other real sports casting, you know, jobs.

So, and he is the voice of the only competition, WCW at that time.

And

this guy who's known for his emotional sporting calls.

Austin and Tyson.

Well, not then, but you know what I'm saying.

Down goes Frazier.

He goes to the other company and his first night in there in the parking lot of Caesar's Palace wearing togas.

It was just,

you can tell how he, you know,

I felt bad for him when I saw it.

I'm sure, yes, as I said, he was mortified.

And I'm sure he thought, my God,

you know, this

isn't going to work.

And for a while, it didn't for the first few years, but

that was, it just,

but Nick Kahn,

Nick Kahn got his first, got his first wrestling experience there, apparently.

Yeah, the last few minutes.

He was an usher at the show.

The last few minutes of this documentary turned into the let's kiss Nick Kahn's ass part of the documentary.

Yeah, imagine that, the American dream.

He was an usher at the show, and now he owns the whole goddamn thing.

You know, with Jim Ross, it makes you wonder how different things may have turned out or how different his comfort level would have been if when he came in, they put him him on Raw instead of just the syndicated show.

Yeah.

Vince McMahon kept doing Raw, and that became the main show.

If Jim Ross had come in a year earlier, maybe he would have been on,

maybe he still would have had superstars, and Vince would have taken himself off that.

But Vince McMahon was the lead commentator on the main show, not Jim Ross.

Well, and that's the thing is that it didn't.

It was still four more years, almost, but no, a little over four more years before Vince would drop the facade and pull himself back as the lead announcer.

But at the same point,

you know,

I'll tell you what, working with JR, working with Vince was easy because

he liked to get things done.

He didn't dick around.

But JR and I, if we had to do voiceovers on a program,

we could literally do it live to tape and it would take 45 minutes because we weren't voicing over the fucking commercial breaks, right?

Whereas with anybody else that I worked with there, whether it was, well, Michael Cole was just starting out, but the times with Shane

or anybody else, it was

laborious, to say the least.

And

I think that Vince should have let JR run with that a little bit, but Vince suffered from the

Watts syndrome in that he knew that he could sell his product and the guys that he was envisioning better than anybody else.

And

so, therefore, he was going to do it.

Well, there it is, a review of the WrestleMania 9 documentary.

What was the name of it again?

Becoming a Spectacle.

Becoming a Spectacle.

Or making a spectacle out of yourself.

Although not historically accurate at times, a fun documentary worth checking out on Peacock.

And they're still out there, even though I just sent a terse

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The head, the head gardener.

My POV?

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Jim?

Yes.

Why don't we review WrestleMania 41, which is coming up this weekend as we are recording?

We have a tentative lineup here, cards subject to change, of course.

But let's talk about night one, April 19th.

For the tag team championship, the War Raiders, Raiders, Eric and Ivar versus the New Day, Kofi and Xavier.

Oh, boy.

You know, I guess we've got to be honest and even about this thing or fair, balanced, whatever they say.

As bad as we say that the tag team situation is in AEW,

this is...

This is where we are over here, too.

Poor tag teams in general just can't flourish in today's environment.

I like the Vikings since they made them more serious.

Those guys are big and they can work.

We just saw that Falder all for so long and I'm not really interested.

And the new day we've been sick of for a while.

They turned heel and they changed their outfits and I thought they were going to stop wearing the fluorescent and everything.

And then they went right back to that.

Are we allowed to say that we just, we don't care?

You know, it's interesting.

They really kind of, I don't know, know, dropped the ball is the right term.

And it feels like a lot this WrestleMania season has been bungled or drawn out for so long that it doesn't matter anymore.

But the new, they did that hot angle, that amazing thing with them and Big E, where they keep them out,

and it kind of never went anywhere that direction again.

I know they're still heels, and I know they yell at fans, and they're mean.

But there was the chance, like, if they had followed up the next week with something big, something could have happened, but it just...

With somebody, with somebody on top, not another one of the interchangeable four tag teams that they rotate.

Well, Jim, another match here, night one: Ray Mysterio versus El Grande Americano.

Oh,

again, you know, we had such hopes.

Remember, Gable was going to be a serious son bitch for about three weeks there.

Um,

yeah, I mean, it's going to be an excellent,

excellently performed contest because

Ray is Ray and Gable's a great athlete, but it's just silliness and the

mask and the whole nine yards with him.

And the

did he and

what's the fat guy's name, Otis?

Did he and Otis ever actually have a fight?

See, that's the sad thing.

I think they may have on Raw.

I mean, they pushed each other, but I don't know if they've ever actually wrestled.

I've never, I don't remember a pay-per-view bill to Otis has broken free of the chains of slavery and is now going to exact his revenge upon his tormentor, Chad Gable.

No, they each just kind of moved on in a different direction, but they would still interact every now and then and have like, you know, feelings,

but they all just kind of went their own way with their own little groups.

So anyway, yeah, Gable's another guy that.

I think they could have done something to make him serious, which they did a few weeks there and he had some good matches and then elevate him, but he's still, you know, fiddle fucking around with all of this shit.

Our next match, Jim, I'm sort of intrigued by this.

Jade Cargill versus Naomi.

Are the Flying Burrito Brothers the special referees?

A lot of them are dead.

I mean, Graham Parsons is dead.

Well, the crowd may be for this one, too.

No,

I mean, I'm sure they will rehearse something that will be wonderful and hopefully brief.

Let's put it that way.

Does it surprise you they have Jade Cargill in a singles match?

And obviously, it's part of a feud with someone who,

you know, Naomi's not necessarily considered

a seasoned.

Well, she's been around a while.

How do I put this?

Not necessarily someone who's a wonderful ring general.

Yeah.

A wonderful ring general.

You would think they've tried to hide Jade's weaknesses in tag matches and it's worked.

If you're going to put her in a singles match, why isn't it her against a Bianca or a Rhea,

someone who you would think could get the best out of her?

Well, but hold on because remember, they're reacting.

Obviously, Jade really got hurt.

Somebody didn't push her off the goddamn roof onto a car and she was out for four months.

She had some type of injury or something that was preventing her

from

appearing.

So they did, they came up with this to explain it.

Was this what they were originally going to do?

Or the way they were going to get there?

Maybe, maybe not.

But if they were reacting to something, it's got to be Naomi.

And there ain't no money in, they ain't no money in Jade and Naomi, but there is in Jade and Bianca.

And we're waiting to see what's going to go on with her over there on the other side of the fucking deal.

But so this is just a match that they're having, which Jade is going to, I would think, win.

And

something's going to happen with with her and Bianca and et cetera, et cetera.

But they're going to walk through this a number of times, I'm sure, this match.

Do you think it'll be short?

I'm hoping it'll be short.

Listen to that.

Silence behind me.

Let's take advantage of this.

Jim, for the United States Championship, the champion L.A.

Knight versus Jacob Fatu.

Boy,

we've talked about how

we have been disappointed that L.A.

Knight would continue to be programmed with people in the middle that weren't nearly as over with the crowd as he was.

And

it would take, you know, the bloom off of him.

And we don't hear, let me talk to you as much as we used to.

And I got to be honest with you, I don't see LA Knight beating

Jacob Fatu.

Will it be a disqualification?

I think that's the only way that

you could justify LA Knight retaining the title here.

But why would you book this and then just do a DQ

on WrestleMania like it's a TV match when you don't have to?

So

we'll see what happens.

Possibly something happens to further Fatu's

animosity with some of the other members of his extended family.

We shall see.

L.A.

Knight has still been stuck with middle card opponents and middle card programs, even though for a while he was a top guy there.

But they got so many top guys there now.

He may have been bumped off the ledge because of just seniority.

And it doesn't look like Solo or Tama are booked on anything so far on WrestleMania.

So maybe that would be the match.

They would, you know, they got to be involved in something at the show.

Jim, the next match.

Maybe they'll be ushers.

Worked out well for Nick Kahn.

The next match, Jim, one that they have successfully got me interested in.

For the WWE Women's Championship, the champion Tiffany Stratton versus Charlotte Flair.

I want to see what this is going to be now.

Well, yeah.

And is it going to break down into a shoot?

Are we going to see a good old-fashioned shooting match here?

I would imagine it's WrestleMania.

It's a big

stage.

The world is watching, as they used to say.

So I would imagine both.

young ladies are going to be on their best behavior and try to

coexist with each other in a professional manner.

But there's always the chance that something could go sideways and tempers could flare.

Because it, if I see what I did, that

yeah,

especially if the Egyptian comes down the aisle.

And then, you know, things are always going fine until the Egyptian shows up.

But

I think I got to give this one to Tiffany, I bet bet you, as who's going to win.

I think so, too.

Jim, for the World's Heavyweight Championship, the champion Gunther versus Jay Uso.

I have liked this.

I didn't like it when they were just making Jay a flunky who doubted himself and et cetera, every week.

But obviously, they had the.

the light at the end of the tunnel of the redemption where he realized, you know, he came out of it.

I ain't scared of you no more.

And he said that and he vowed to beat Gunther.

So it turned out well on TV.

And

yes, of anything

this weekend, if you want to bet the farm on, bet the farm, but Jey Uso is going to win that belt from Gunther.

Elsewise,

you might as well just go back to Samoa.

Yeah, unless there's some kind of big run-in or someone turns on Jey Uso.

I don't know how you would get away with him not winning that.

Yeah, people would be setting fire to fucking seat cushions.

jim the main event of night one

a triple threat match roman reigns versus cm punk with paul heyman versus seth rollins

i'll tell you you know we

you talked about the build and etc and we've been mentioning this is that they had too long

I like this match.

I want to see this match and I want to see the fucking main event of night two.

I don't know that any of the rest of the matches have particularly

captivated my attention.

There's some that it's going to be good, but we want to see the main events.

But at the same point, I think a lot of people, why they haven't liked the build is just because nothing, nothing was able to happen for long periods.

It's like that shocking event where John Cena turned two months ago.

You know, as Lawler would say, well, you can't grieve forever.

It's not even really fresh anymore, is it?

So I I think they've just had too long

to get to a point where they could have got to

more economically three or four weeks ago.

And with this entire event, having said that,

the one match where the stuff has consistently been good

is this three-way.

And I hate three-ways, but I want to see what's going to happen with these three guys because if there was anything made for a three-way,

this is it.

There's legitimate legitimate reasons for all of them to dislike each other.

In effect, all three of them are babyfaces, but one of them

has a long history of being a heel, Roman Reigns, until just recently, and still is kind of always can be thought of as out for himself.

And Seth Rollins has been straddling, even though the fans like him.

They goddamn don't like it when he fucks with punk because they like punk pretty much universally, except for for the hardcore seth rollins fans

and

the the fact that they're all three three of the five best promos in the and then throw heyman in there four of the five best maybe

you know that's it's interesting and we don't know what's going to happen and which twists and turns are these things going to take and especially when when paulie walks cm punk down the aisle and gives him away as a blushing bride This is a bigger main event in the world title match, I think.

I think this is the star match of WrestleMania.

I think Rollins is going to go over.

With or with anyone's assistance or because of someone's mistake?

I don't know.

Again, you haven't seen Raw yet.

We'll talk about it later in the show.

We're not going to record that part just yet until Jim watches it, obviously.

But,

you know, you'll see what you think there.

Obviously, Heyman could turn.

He's been a babyface, a whimpering babyface for a while now.

But But we'll see.

That's night one of WrestleMania 41.

Jim, let's talk about night two of WrestleMania 41.

Here is the card as we are recording, and again, card subject to change.

For the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship,

Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez, the champions, versus Bailey and Lara Lara, Bailey and Lyra Valkyria.

Well,

well,

tell him, Hawk.

It's a shame when there's actually a bigger star in the women's tag team title match than there is in the men's tag team title match from the previous night.

Liv Morgan's in there.

She and Rochelle Rochelle got a good chemistry with each other.

The

stern-faced, a larger lady, and the

animated and smart-ass tiny lady.

And there's Bailey, she can work, and lyric valedictorian.

She has recently been picked out of a police lineup in Pocatello.

Somebody knows who the fuck she is.

But I'm going with Liv Morgan and Rochelle Rochelle winning that match because of the fact that Liv Morgan is a fucking star.

And I bet that'll be a fun match.

I'm actually looking forward to that one.

It'll be so much fun.

Jim

AJ Styles versus Logan Paul.

Well,

I almost forget about it.

We talked about it.

Yeah, and many people did.

As we talked about, technically, it's going to be fine because that is to,

I don't know whether it's appeas Logan Paul to have fun or just to showcase what he can do because he and AJ can do springboard,

have a Coronas and all that stuff and do the, that's the high high spot match.

You know, Logan Paul for supposedly going to do this full time, we haven't seen that much of him.

Half the time he's from on location or he shows up to do a promo and AJ is back

and

he's back.

He hasn't really set the world on fire with being back, but he's back so he can have this high spot match with Logan Paul, which I would imagine Logan Paul will emerge victorious from.

In a fatal four-way match for the Intercontinental Championship, the champion Braun Breaker versus Penta versus Finn Bauer versus Dominic Mysterio.

Oh boy, howdy.

I mean, I guess they had to do this because they want to get everybody on the card.

I mean, with a three-way match as main event of night one, why they're having any other multiple-person matches, I have no idea because they're all going to A, pale in comparison, and B, it distracts from the promotion.

And I'd love to see Braun Breaker in a

singles defense against anybody, but bet the farm on Braun because, my God, he is the future of wrestling, and I don't think they want to start beating him at WrestleMania.

Jim in a Sin City street fight,

Damian Priest versus Drew McIntyre.

But now, where is the Sin, Brian?

We talked about this earlier.

They've cleaned Vegas up.

It's a family attraction now.

Where's the daggum sin?

The traffic.

There you go.

That makes people use bad language.

I'll tell you that.

You know, honestly, Drew is one of our favorites.

And Drew, to me, is one of the top guys

in the company.

And his promos and his heel work has been outstanding.

And I think he needs to lose this because if he beats Priest, Priest is kind of flattered a plate full of piss, isn't he?

Especially in his own kind of match because Priest would be from Sin City in whatever backstory they're concocting.

Well, he already is.

He already is pretty flat right now.

It hasn't really,

for me, it hasn't connected since he left Judgment Day.

If he loses here, it'll mean even less.

Drew McIntyre is at a point now where he could lose and immediately not have it take anything away from him if he has some time on camera to have his facial expression shown.

He can get anything over just by looking pissed or surprised or bewildered.

So I don't think he'll be hurt by anything.

Indignant would be a good word.

Well, that's that match, Jim.

In a triple threat match for the Women's World Championship, the champion EO Sky versus Bianca Belair versus Rhea Ripley.

Again,

the money is in Rhea and Bianca.

I would like to see that as a singles match.

EO is going to get in the way, in my opinion, but

either EO retains because Rhea and Bianca get involved, or one of them wins and the other one is their next challenger.

But they're going to hopefully leave this with Rhea and Bianca, and

then we'll go from there.

Well, we'll see.

I wouldn't be surprised if EO Sky keeps the title coming out of this.

Well, Rhea and Bianca don't necessarily need it.

If each one of them costs the other one the title, it might be more important to their match.

And, Jim, the main event for the undisputed WWE Championship: the champion Cody Rhodes versus John Cena.

And this would...

Are we going to get through this without seeing The Rock or Travis Scott again?

What do you think?

I think we should hope so, because even if you're a fan of that, and I said it was going to be bungled, and it's been bungled, if they just show up again here

to do something in the finish, I don't think.

It's going to make it worse.

I don't think WWE fans are going to be happy.

You know, if The Rock had been on TV at all, if Travis Scott had been on TV at all over the last couple months, not to say I'm a fan of that aspect of it, then it's one thing.

But if they just stroll out there again,

you know, at some point, The Rock turns into a variation of Hogan.

Just coming out there, he could justify everything he's doing because he's a star, but it's not helping anyone else or anything else on the roster.

It takes away from him.

Yeah.

And that's the thing is that

if

If they show up,

a significant portion of the people are going to, well, they're definitely going to boo Travis Scott and they probably will boo the rock which I know he's the final boss and everything but it's going to be the booing of the wrong kind because

I'm not like a lot of people I have thought the promos between Cena and Cody had been great

and

to me if they'd have done the deal where after the elimination chamber

Cody and Cena hugged and Cena kicked him in the balls and we never saw the rock we never saw Travis Scott

this would have been even better but it's not that bad as long as the rock is not involved but if he just keeps showing up at odd moments then he gets the

you know the the fans uh opinion of oh this guy just sticks himself in everything like they've already got so if we can get but but

is it because

Was he spurned when he had all these ideas and people don't want to hear him again?

And now he's just left and gone away and he's not going to come back.

Or is he going to come back?

Because he has to, he feels,

and get in the way of shit again.

What kind of situation have they got themselves in where the biggest star in the business that they're the biggest company in

has made himself unwelcome to much of the fan base with his

tampering with goddamn state's evidence?

Well, that's WrestleMania night two.

And one question for you before we move on.

What do you think about where WWE is right now?

Obviously, as a business, they're making more money than ever before.

And they just had a red-hot European tour.

Shows domestically may not be selling out as quickly or in some cases at all like they used to a year ago, a year and a half ago, but things are still really hot.

Their stars are really big stars.

But my interest has completely died in a lot of this stuff.

And obviously, WrestleMania being two extra weeks of build this year.

Not even talking about the problem of running it on Easter Sunday, which is kind of crazy if you think about it.

But the extra weeks of build, I don't think helped.

I think it hurt.

Nothing really seems red hot going into Mania.

And I know a lot of people with the Rock and Travis Scott on the Cena turn thing said, look, you see, it all.

ties in.

It all makes sense.

The rock said that, you know, see, this has all been our plan.

If the plan was for The Rock and Travis Scott to show up and cause the scene to turn and then never appear on the TV again until WrestleMania,

that's a problem.

Again, I said that was a problem.

The TV and the angles don't seem to be connecting as well as they did as the bloodline stuff was all coming together a year ago, a little more than a year ago.

It feels like, I don't know.

Again, they're still hot.

I'm not saying like, you know, they're going to lose their business, but it feels like it's cooling down a bit for a number of reasons.

What do you think?

Well,

yes, it is.

And, you know, part of it is just you can't be hot continuously, red hot, and you know, rev the motor until it finally is going to blow up at some point.

But they're still,

as you said, doing great numbers with everything.

I think what they need to watch out for,

besides creative,

they are not only charging high ticket prices, but they're selling people a lot of shit.

The point is, how much money do people fucking have?

And is there a breaking point, especially with the

United States firmly in the grip of a criminal lunatic that has no idea what he's fucking doing and the stock market is going up and down, and people aren't certain about the future?

Can they keep expecting their fans to have this level of not only time engagement, but financial engagement before some of these numbers start going down, no matter how good the creative is?

And then

if they come up with some good shit, more of Cena and

surprises and thrills and spills for the summertime,

you know, the creative probably okay for a while because the stars are over.

But,

you know, how much can they expect to continue to engage this many people this rapidly on a time and or financial basis?

Do you feel me, Brian?

I do.

And, you know, hot things don't stay hot forever, although it just seems, it seems almost like a forced cooldown in a lot of ways.

It feels like a lot of things that didn't get a chance to play out fully, and maybe they still will.

You know, Heyman's famous for saying we're only in the third inning.

But the bloodline doesn't mean shit right now.

Roman Reigns,

you know, he just shows up every now and then, although he's been around a lot more for WrestleMania season.

Major star, but he doesn't feel as big as he did.

Punk's kind of exactly where he was.

Rollins, same thing, if not slightly elevated.

Drew is, but Drew's not really involved in anything anyone's excited about.

Priest hasn't broken away.

Dominic's kind of...

In the same place he was.

Although not with Rhea, with Liv.

Liv's been elevated, so it's work there.

Tiffany's been elevated, it's work there.

But there's a lot of things that just,

I don't know, it feels like they're running in place.

It feels like, you know, a lot of those WrestleManias, like WrestleMania 9, we just talked about 8, WrestleMania 6, I could think of, there were matches on the show that just filled out the card, but

they weren't anything you could really invest in.

You know, Tito Santana versus the barbarian

wasn't a feud.

It was just two guys that won squash matches being put in a match on a pay-per-view.

It's not that, but it just feels like a lot of this stuff.

Well, see, that's

in those days, expectations were lower

because the standard card was

two or three or maybe four matches deep on anything anybody cared about.

And then you were used to the rest of them are just matches.

But then they've

raised the bar so many times over the successive years.

And now it's two nights and everything has to be.

We got bigger expectations now, but we need to lower

expectations.

Because then if you think you're going to get a mouth full of shit and then you just get a

cold McDonald's double cheeseburger, well, you're happy.

And looking back now and everything with The Rock and Travis Scott, we could just leave Travis Scott out of it really for this question.

I like say the rock and Travis Scott.

Like it's one word, the rock and Travis Scott.

But was it worth it?

You know, getting all the buzz, getting the social media attention for that one night, The Rock doing the press conference and feeling really proud of himself right after being a heel on TV, on pay-per-view.

Was any of that worth it to get the Cody versus Cena?

Well, obviously, Travis Scott could have burst into flames and blown away with the wind, and it wouldn't have made any difference because he didn't need to be there to begin with.

Nobody gave a shit.

And all he did was bust Cody's eardrum or whatever.

But The Rock,

like you said earlier, is such a conundrum.

The Rock could have done something, one would think being such a big star and a movie star and everything,

maybe not what he did, but something to jazz up

the main event of WrestleMania instead of confuse people.

Just off top of my head, if

If he was willing to take someone else's ideas that maybe had had been doing this all along and had worked him in because it was part of the overall plan,

rather than him just coming in with his own idea and them doing it, and then

he goes away wherever for however long because either people didn't like it or he just has other things to do,

that wasn't optimum.

So

I don't know why they couldn't have all got together and planned something ahead that made sense as it went through instead of being this outlying thing that got some attention.

And then it's not germane to anything else in the story.

Well, we will see if WWE is cooling off or how hot it is at WrestleMania.

And of course, after WrestleMania, two nights of wrestling action, not even the Count the Hall of Fame, SmackDown, NXT,

the Roast, all the things happening.

After all that kind of action, especially if you're in Vegas, you'll probably need a good night's sleep.

And maybe when you get out of Vegas and get home, you can get that good night's sleep from our friends at Helix Sleep.

Well, that's right, Brian.

You want to wait till after you get back from Las Vegas to have a good night's sleep because can you imagine what goes on, Brian, on those mattresses in those Las Vegas motels?

For heaven's sake, everybody in the world converges, and now it's a family destination.

So you've got families cross-mingling with all the high rollers on the strip.

You just know that you do not want your child to lay down on a mattress that a high roller on a strip has paid for a Tijuana donkey show

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You want to have your kids laying down on clean mattresses, like from Helix Sleep that makes mattresses, especially for kids.

There's not even room for a donkey.

You got to get a Shetland pony.

Have you had the Shetland pony mattress yet, Brian?

Again, they don't have any of these features.

I don't know why your mind goes to these places when talking about these things, but Helix Sleep does not look at you.

The finest mattress, whether you like a firm mattress or something a little more loosey-goosey, I don't know exactly the terminology here.

I don't sell mattresses.

Helix Sleep does, and they do it well because the mattresses are great.

And Jim is so excited about the greatness of these mattresses that his mind just gets blown.

It goes all these different directions, right, Jim?

Yes, well, I see on the news all the time.

You know, a lot of the motels on Route 66, what they do is they throw their mattresses in a dumpster, dumpster, and then people come along and pick them up and sell them to the unsuspecting consumer.

That's an epidemic of this bootleg mattress black market scheme going on around the country.

You've got to order.

Really?

It's an epidemic.

You've seen this on the page.

It's happening all over the place.

You see it on the local news.

But you got to sleep on a clean mattress.

You got to have your family and your children on mattresses that are not defiled.

And that's why Helix Sleep comes in, because not only do they make mattresses for everybody in the family, as you said, the firm sleepers and the soft sleepers and the back pain sleepers and the sleep apnea sleepers and the sleeping too hot sleepers and the snoring sleepers and the little kiddies with the Shetland ponies.

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You know, they've also got the problem with some of these mattresses.

If you lay on them too long, they will grow into your skin.

And then when you get up, you just rip your back off.

That's because of the secret alien fibers that some people cut costs with, Brian.

You've seen this on the news also.

I know you know about that.

And I also do know that Helix Sleep has none of that.

So why don't we talk about that?

Well, no, no, they don't.

They don't brook any kind of that foolishness.

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Well, Jim, why don't we get some questions here before we wrap up part one of our recording here?

I was supposed to be here

today, but it'll be over multiple days.

Jim, this question was sent via email, the Corney Drive-Thru at gmail.com, from Jason.

He signed it blessings, Jason.

I'm sitting here watching a match with the heavenly bodies in it on WWE Vault.

This is so random, but did Dr.

Tom ever get laid on the road?

Nothing against him.

I was always a fan of his in-ring work, but goddamn, he looks like my third grade gym teacher, Mrs.

Davis, with that ridiculous term.

Mrs.

Davis, now wait a minute.

What did Mrs.

Davis do to get drug into this?

Was that the end of the question?

How was that, Jay?

Blessings from Jason.

Blessings.

Tom was quite a...

quite an attractive specimen of male manhood in his younger days.

And the females females of the 80s and the 90s, they loved the big hair.

Look at the music videos.

The women, the men, the dogs, everybody had big hair.

So

I don't want to go into multiple details about his romantic encounters, but Tom was considered quite a sex symbol back in the day.

What about the hair?

Let's talk about the hair.

When you would do your promos, did it ever distract you when he was tussling with his hair constantly behind you?

No, no, because that was the thing.

You know, it,

you know, a lot of people are like, why is he fiddling with his hair?

It was something you remember, it's something that caught your attention.

And he's doing that.

And it's kind of like a Piper didn't have a big giant head of hair like that, but he would kind of scratch his head every now and then.

Dr.

Tom would do the same kind of thing where he'd scratch his hair every now and then as he was talking, just to illustrate that he was just all head up.

But that

was a big deal at the time when they came to him.

Brother Bruce came to him with the

body Donna's thing, but you got to cut your hair.

He wasn't going to do it.

That was the one thing, deal breaker.

God damn it, I'll cut my head with a razor blade.

I'll take bumps off the top rope.

I'll put people over.

I'll goddamn it, whatever, but cut my hair.

And he was fucking miserable when he cut his hair.

And considering

that that was a lousy angle for him to cut his hair for, I don't blame you.

Was the haircut modeled on Candido or Susan Powder?

It well, that's

honestly

probably more Susan Powder, but because Candido had that hair to begin with, it worked.

And for people who are going, who the fuck was she one of Moolah's girls?

Susan Powder, P-O-W-T-E-R,

was an exercise

guru that had a commercial and or a infomercial

on losing weight and exercise.

Stop the insanity.

Stop the insanity.

That was her catchphrase.

And

she had a burr haircut, you know, that was bleached blonde.

which was unusual for women back in the day to make the choice to actually shave their head.

Now I see them on TV all the time.

They're just bald.

As the Be G said, bald-headed woman.

Where do you you see?

All these bald-headed women.

I don't know where you see them.

You see them on TV all the time.

They got, yeah, Bailey's got half her head shaved.

That's dude.

That doesn't count.

Well, she's almost all the way there.

But anyway, so poor Dr.

Tom and Candido had the hair cut anyway.

But I don't know if Vince McMahon might have thought that he was modeling Susan Powder because he sure hadn't been watching Smogy Mountain.

But yeah, Tom didn't like losing the hair, and especially for the Body Donna's gimmick.

That was Jesus.

Well, Jim, our next question sent via email to corney drivethru at gmail.com is from Dan in Ocean Grove, New Jersey.

Did Jim ever meet or work with Gypsy Joe?

Any sorts?

And what's your take on his legacy in the business?

Was he respected or more of a sideshow act?

Well,

God, this might be an essay question that might go longer than many people would care to hear, but yet I did know Gypsy Joe and

I never,

I didn't work with him.

I worked around him

because he last worked in the Memphis Territory, like just a few months before I got in the business as a manager.

So.

Yes, I knew him, spoken to him, worked with him as a photographer, but didn't really work with him in wrestling, even though he continued on, as everybody knows, for quite a number of years after that.

We were never in the same place again at the same time.

Gypsy Joe

was,

he was considered at the time that in the 60s, 70s, and 80s,

he was considered a heck of a worker by the other guys and a heck of a tough guy.

And,

you know, he didn't have heat with anybody.

He was friendly to everybody.

But, you know, the

tapes in the 70s, when he first went over to work for Baba, the Japanese tapes, where

he would let somebody just hit him over the back with a chair and bend the chair.

Nobody else allowed chair shots like that back then.

And the bumps that he could take in his younger days and still in his older days.

But I mean, he was a guy that would take the backdrop over the top rope and not grab anything and just land on the floor outside somewhere.

So he wasn't doing

in the territory days, crazy, you know, baseball bat barbed wire garbage independent matches

as he did later on, you know, when Indies became a thing.

And in his older years, he just, he was a...

a heck of a worker that took big bumps and was a tough son of a gun.

And he was a huge star over in West Virginia when that was a territory.

And he worked either underneath or middle card most of the time through the late 70s, early 80s here.

But he was a main event guy in some of the southern promotions, not only as Gypsy Joe, but also

as, you know, one of the hooded tag teams that Nick Gulis loved to

use.

And

I think at one point he was one of the blue infernos.

But nevertheless, the guys all respected him then.

And then

it became a thing, Brian, you've seen where he and New Jack talk about generations colliding from,

you know, generations apart.

Jack didn't understand that he had the gimmick that you had to hit him and he didn't sell big because he was the tough guy.

And Jack took it personally and fucking hit him with a baseball bat.

And just the other stuff that Joe was known for when he was older, it's just because

I think honestly, that's wrestling's the only thing he had ever done.

And

he was 60-something years old, 70 years old, or whatever.

He couldn't get a job with a major promotion or anything well-paying.

But around Tennessee and the South, he still had enough of a name that people knew they were going to see something if he came and did one of these, you know, hardcore deals or whatever.

But

I don't know really really how old he was for sure.

Nobody did at the time.

And I don't know if anybody ever found out.

And I guess to answer his question, you would say despite the end of his career, which was literally in his 70s, you shouldn't see him necessarily as a sideshow act?

No, you know, that's unfortunately, as I said, what it became because he,

I guess, still needed a job and didn't have any.

anything to fall back on, but he was

not anything related to the fringe of wrestling in the territory days.

In his younger days, he worked in all regular places, didn't have any fucking,

you know, garbage matches going getting out of hand.

He just took big bumps and he was a tough son of a gun.

Jim, our next question sent via email to corney drivethrough at gmail.com is from explicit in Toronto, Canada.

Should WWE finally recognize Ted DiBiase as a past WWF champ?

Ted did defend the title and did promos as WWF champ.

He defended the title against Bam Bam Bigelow.

They don't recognize him as a past WWF World Champ in their history books.

What's your take on it?

Should Ted DiBiase,

who bought the title from Andre the Giant on the most watched wrestling show ever on television,

did promos with it, wore it, I think, at a few house shows, defended it, apparently.

Should they consider him the champion in their history books?

Well, see, with 30 years or whatever, more in between, I had forgotten, or if I ever knew, I didn't know he defended it, actually.

I thought, yes, he bought it from Andre, the famous Saturday night's main event, the blah, blah, blah.

And then

who was it?

Jack Tunney at the time, right?

Reversed the decision that the title can't be sold.

And that was the cause of the tournament.

WrestleMania 4.

That's right.

But if he defended it in the middle, then yes, they should have done

some type of thing with the asterisk saying, you know,

DiBiase purchased the belt from Andre in this disputed match.

And

while the appeals were going on, he defended versus so-and-so and did this and that and then was stripped of the title on such and such date.

I think that was because

it's not like they haven't had any other

tomfoolery go on with any of the titles, or the one time they switched it and completely forgot about it and just never showed the fucking match.

So

it was not like they forgot about it like amnesia.

They just said, ah, fuck it, we didn't do it.

We decided we didn't do it.

But yeah, I don't know why they wouldn't stick Teddy in there for that.

He had it longer than fucking Yoko had it after he beat Brett before he did the job for Hogan.

Again, not much of this really matters in the general scheme of things, but having this serious discussion,

should the NWA recognize Edouard Carpentier all these years later?

It's a little bit different than Kowalski and Bobo Brazil, although they have claims too.

Should Edouard Carpentier, who defended it and was billed as the champion in a number of places,

should his title reign in some way be recognized?

Yes, I think so, because they were going to do it all the way

until,

what was it?

Oh, goddammit.

In Thes' book, it was

Quinn, Eddie Quinn in Montreal didn't want to give Carpentier up to the schedule of the NWA champion and talked him out of it after he was all fired up and they'd already done the match, right?

I think that because it was designed, Thez had the idea he's going on an international tour.

He could drop the belt

with a dispute and then come back and they could do a unification or whatever, whatever the original plan was, it didn't pan out.

They still recognized both Carpentier and Thez as champions in various places and were

starting in that direction to need a unification match, and then it all fell apart.

So there ought to be some kind of footnote there.

But how would they resolve it in an official record?

Would they resolve it?

Carpentier lost the title when Eddie Quinn said, come back home to Montreal, I'll pay you more money.

And again, Lou says they created the international title.

Did you ever see that telegram that recently was tweeted out from Dick Hutton to Morris Siegel?

Oh, God.

I think I've seen something about that in the past, but what was it?

I've lost it now.

What was the

comment?

I believe it's a WWE tweet.

I have the image here.

Thanks for your offer.

Am willing to meet Thez and give him a crack at the NWA title before 4th of July in Houston.

However, I refuse to consider less than $25,000 guarantee with a percentage privilege also.

Refuse to sign for any match in which Fez is billed as an equal basis as international champion.

He must come into the ring as challenger.

Best best regards dick hutton

what do you think of that i mean again the international title here we are talking about it it was an issue if you want me to wrestle him you can't bill him as an equal champion well but hold on cowboy

because

while that was a genuine sentiment from sam muchnick and other people in the nwa hierarchy.

And at the time when Thez was champion, definitely that was something that he held in high regard.

The idea that nobody was billed as a co-champion or as an equal, blah, blah, blah.

But Dick Hutton, I'm pretty sure, probably didn't give a shit.

But what that telegram was,

in those days, they would send that telegram so that Paul Bosch or Morris Siegel, whoever the Houston promoter was at that era, or whoever the local promoter was anywhere else, would then print that

telegram in the program.

But it was a legitimate telegram.

And

there's no way that Dick Hutton was ever legitimately asking for a $25,000 for a match in Houston when at ticket prices in those days, the house may not have been a lot more than that.

But that's what they wanted the fans to think, that this was, there were intricate negotiations going on.

And you have to.

Sort of like it is now today for real in wrestling.

You have to handle everybody's ego and massage everybody's ego and you have to

make sure everybody's money is right and handle this request and that fucking demand.

And that made it more like the headlines in the news articles that people read about pro-boxing and how those fights were put together.

So that was a legitimate telegram that Dick Hutton legitimately sent.

But the audience was either the television show where it would be read or the program where it would be printed for the fans.

You see what I'm saying?

Yeah, and I've seen some of those kind of, I hate to use the word work telegrams, but it kind of is what it is in the past in programs.

How prevalent was that?

Well, that was for years of the major way of immediate written communication

is to send somebody a telegram.

But a work telegram.

But well, a work telegram.

I mean, in wrestling, everything's a fucking work.

I mean, sometimes they might not have even sent the telegram.

They would have just,

you know, written something, but a lot of times they'd send it.

Remember, I have some of these.

The NWA

sent a telegram to all the member promoters every time there was a title change.

That, and I have some of those.

And that was a thing that they did.

And then the promoters would print.

Sometimes they'd either verbatim copy it or they'd print the whole telegram and the the program or whatever.

But that was a way to make something look like breaking news.

This just happened.

This is important.

And the telegrams were the way that these big wigs communicate.

Oh, I just that's the way those big wigs communicate.

They just throw stuff all over the place.

Well, no, I elbowed my keyboard.

I was, I was waving my hands in the air, gesticulating, but they would.

That's the way they communicated, was they would send telegrams back and forth.

And

in all honesty, part of this also was

that if it was a legitimate telegram in those days, chances are somebody at the Western Union office or the fucking delivery boy or somebody along the way was going to be a wrestling fan and know what it was or who they were talking about.

And so that would make it look a little more legitimate when they deliver this telegram to this fucking promoter.

That was the way that things were done.

All right.

So I guess to sum that up, Ted DiBiase should be recognized as champion if he actually defended the belt.

I think so.

All right, Jim.

One last question here today for this part.

We'll have more questions when we finish this recording.

This was sent to corney drive-through at gmail.com by Joe in Ottawa Valley, Canada.

Any thoughts on the passing of Hartford Love of the Love Brothers?

Oh my God, I didn't know that it had taken place.

You know,

those are two guys, the Love Brothers, Reginald and Hartford Love.

Never saw them work.

Never saw, they were never in the same

territory or place or on any television that I could get a hold of.

They did work for the Sheiks some, but I don't remember ever seeing them at a time when I was watching Sheiks TV in the early 70s at Aunt Lola's house, but their pictures were in all the wrestling magazines.

And there's one great headline that the Love Brothers preach violence.

But they were kind of like hippies for the time, late 60s, early 70s, the psychedelic colors, tie-dyed stuff, the Love Brothers.

Maybe they had flowers in their hair, Brian.

But no, I didn't.

They're two guys that I don't know that much about.

And And poor Hartford, I didn't even know he was sick.

All right.

Well, that can't be the last question because,

but, you know, there are certain guys.

It seems like there's a lot of guys who work for like the NWF that I've never seen any footage of.

Yes, yeah, but you know, not even just that company, but just the

upstate New York,

you know, some of that northeastern area.

All right, we'll have a couple quick hits here.

We have an email that was sent in by Greg C.

Thanks to a kind soul on YouTube, the entire tenure of OVW as a developmental territory is being uploaded.

Holy shit!

I went back to what you described as the real beginning of OVW, April 2000, when your television clearance expanded and watched until the end of September.

Some topics I don't think you've covered?

Bodybuilder, former American gladiator David Nelson.

Oh, good lord.

Who cut bait first, Nelson or WWF?

He was gigantic.

He was an odd fellow.

And he was this big, I mean, he had to be 280, 290, whatever.

This has been 25 years and he wasn't here long, but

big bodybuilder.

And he's one of the guys that they had found that had never had any wrestling training or any interest in wrestling, as far as I know.

And I think he's one of the guys that pulled up to the back of the old Davis Arena in some kind of Mercedes or BMW or something.

He may have had a football background, definitely did some kind of powerlifting or whatever.

Didn't particularly fit in as one of the boys

before

the

triple X-rated gay adult porno video that he did

had made the rounds of the locker room.

I know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He and uh, it wasn't a natural wrestler, wasn't a natural promo, wasn't really

sure what he got into.

And I don't think the WWE was really sure what they got into.

And I don't remember if there was a straw that broke the camel's back, or did he get hurt and just not ever come back?

Or did they fire him?

Or did he quit?

I don't know.

I can't remember.

I hadn't thought of that name since 2000.

He did not look like he was a person that would be the star of the video that he was in.

Did you make Stacey a character once you realized that Judas, and then it says in parentheses, Jeremiah?

Couldn't Jeremiah or Jebediah?

No, what happened, first of all, with

Danny had started OVW and some of the guys that he trained, he had given them gimmicks and they were running the shows, right?

But these two guys that he'd made, the Hillbillies,

jebediah blackhawk and cousin otter

and they had the hillbilly gimmick and it worked for you know the local saint therese gym show or whatever but the guys underneath it cousin otter became mr black

because he was six feet one and and 400 pounds and he could do the splash off the top rope i told him at the time i said you're 20 years younger younger than fucking Vader and the same size.

And your work is better already because he wasn't hurting anybody.

I said, if you can get your weight under control, we can get you a contract.

And I wanted him to go from, I think it was 420 to 375 and eat it up going to 430.

So I told him, I'm not booking you until you come back and you're under 400 pounds.

And I think that was the last day I ever booked him.

Amazing potential.

And Jebediah, Jebediah Blackhawk became Judas,

who was associated with the Disciples of Sin.

But no, I didn't make Stacey.

Stace was already managing in Memphis because she had done a little bit of stuff in California.

And when she was riding down with me to just make the Memphis shows for Randy Hales, Randy one day said, well, hey, because he had.

Vic Grimes and Aaron O'Grady and a few guys that had come from the same wrestling school out there in California.

So he suggested it.

And then I said, okay, that'll give her some practice and we can do something in OVW later on.

So that's, those happened independently of each other.

But,

but then, and

you know who Judas is, don't you, Brian?

Who?

What is one of my favorite fucking explanations for a fuck-up that has ever been uttered by a human being?

I don't know.

Well, it was on the TV news.

This was long after the OVW days, but it was on the TV news here in Louisville one afternoon that a guy had been arrested for driving

under the influence of alcohol while he was driving a school bus.

And come to find out it was the former Jebediah Blackhawk, a.k.a.

Judas.

And they interviewed him and he said, no, he said, people have got it all wrong.

He said, I wasn't drinking and driving.

I drank

and then I drove.

That was Jebediah.

Well, Jim, a couple more things here real quick.

Jerome Crony.

Yes.

How did he survive getting beaten by all those green guys?

Who was he?

I just saw Russ McCullough accidentally slam a chain across his face.

Yes.

Jerome Crony was a guy named Jerome Hatton,

and he had trained with Danny.

And he was a small little nondescript looking guy, but he could work pretty good.

So Danny had put him in a full bodysuit and made him like, I think the American Eagle or something like that.

And he had this country voice that he talked, and he's entertaining as fuck to talk to.

And he became

Jerome Crony.

He was a crony, a stooge of the heel manager, old of the the round mound of sound himself, Kenny Bolin.

And

crony as a tag-along and a stooge and longtime Memphis fans from the 70s, a Mickey Poole type of character, where he was obviously dummered a box of rocks and was the flunky.

But he got, he started getting over because he could take all the bumps and come off the top rope and do all the shit, but people would do that to him.

He couldn't beat up anybody.

And

the only match that he ever won in OVW was he beat Matt Morgan, who was the seven-foot-tall, 330-pound fucking giant.

He beat him after Big Bad John came out and whacked Matt Morgan over the head with a fucking chair and he was unconscious.

And Crony wins the match and then becomes Kryptonite Crony.

And then we started playing the music.

Who did the song?

Will you still call me Superman?

Kryptonite, whoever the fuck it was, is 20-something years ago.

And here's this fucking idiot coming out, bragging about beating Matt Morgan, the giant who can't wait to get a hold of him and Big Bad John for causing it.

And it just,

you used what you had on a local basis at a wrestling school.

If you could find some entertaining personalities,

try to put them in positions where people would go, okay, let's see what the fuck he's going to do.

Anyway, that was Kryptonite Crony.

All right, and you know what?

Greg has more questions about OVW 2000.

We will ask them next time, but that is it for this.

We shall return momentarily.

It'll be like we were never gone with more drive-through.

I ain't leaving.

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We have escaped the past.

We are here in the future.

And with you here on the drive-thru, I assume Jim's there.

Jim, are you there?

You know, if you wouldn't eat Taco Bell in these breaks, you wouldn't make sounds like that.

Oh, come on.

That was the sound of time and space and light and everything all mixed together, a sonic boom of wonderment and pleasure at the same time yeah yeah

i'll i'll boom your pleasure before you jim me uh we we had to take a break in between this because we couldn't do this whole thing at one time due to our personal business that we had to take care of but in betwixt and between time while we were time traveling brian you're one of these young hipsters uh about town that know all about the social medias and the the interwebs.

Can you explainify something to me?

Splanify something to me that happened to me on my brand new computer set up here that it can't be that.

And the internet speed is high, but I got on the Twitter.

First thing in the morning, I want to see, well, what, what have people tweeted or tweeted?

What tweets are on Twitter this morning?

What's happening in the world?

And I,

you know how you start at the top and as you scroll down and you go to the older tweets, right?

That it works for you that way also, doesn't it?

When you scroll down?

Unless Unless you have it set so that it's like based on your preferences as opposed to what you want to see in order that it happen, yes.

Well, I didn't even know you could do that.

But basically, you start

at the top.

And as you go, it's an older, you know, it's like five minutes ago, seven minutes ago, whatever the case it may be.

And I'm going down.

I ain't gone too far down.

I see somebody tweeted something 15 minutes ago and it is blah, blah, blah.

and then i said well that seems familiar and well why are they tweeting on that old news and i looked and i was on march 21st it went from this morning

and i'm just going down and with no rhyme or reason or whatever it went from two hours before that to march 21st

And I clicked on and off and back on and back and forth and I couldn't get it not to do.

Why would it do that?

Is it this Elon musk fellow that he overdid the ketamine

or what's the matter with twitter it's a mess i get non-stop ads now and i get it they they

beyond wanting to make money from ads they want you to be sick of ads so that you'll pay for an ad-free version that they have uh which is yeah i don't pay that much attention to it yeah it's which is just nonsense uh the whole platform is just a complete mess well that's not a technical explanation though for the question that i asked i don't know how to i don't know how to explain it.

I've no well.

I think that somebody out there in the cult of Cornet should be able to tell us: well, the Framostat

has blown out the capacitor over at the fucking chip manufacturer, and that's why that happens.

Give us a technical explanation.

Okay.

In the meantime, if you tweeted me anything last night for about a period of about 12 hours, I don't know what the fuck anybody said to me.

So

there you go.

All right.

This has been time travel.

And aren't you glad you're here?

But, Jim,

here on the drive-thru, let's keep things professional.

And let's talk about some modern wrestling.

Keep things.

Let's talk about some modern wrestling news before we get to your review of WWE Raw.

Well, that won't take long, but go ahead.

AEW has made a few announcements.

Oh, good lord.

A press release went out as we are recording the day before, yesterday.

Did invitations go out to Tony's birthday party or something?

The O2 in London to host AEW and New Japan Pro Wrestling Forbidden Door,

August 24th.

AEW Dynamite and AEW Collision to make Scotland debut at the Ovo Hydro.

August 24th.

Ovo Hydro?

OV.

Unless you're supposed to just say, because they're all capitalized, OVO Hydro.

That kind of sucks, too.

But tickets for both events go on sale Friday, May 2nd.

All Elite Wrestling Today announced that the O2 in London will host AEW and New Japan Pro Wrestling Forbidden Door Sunday, August 24th, marking the first time AEW has ever held an event at the legendary venue.

In addition,

that's everything I just said in the fucking thing.

Well, AEW, that's the first bit of news.

And then as we are recording today, this morning.

Well, hold on a second about this first bit of news.

I just want to make the comment that

they haven't been to the O2, but they've been to Wembley.

And then

they didn't go back to Wembley because the same reason they didn't go back to Arthur Ashe, but they went to Australia.

They've gone to Australia.

That's already over with.

They did that, right?

Yeah, I seem to remember that.

And now

the stadium show that they're doing this year is in Texas.

Hopefully, the poor Texans know what they're paying for down there with their tax money because there's got to be some kind of incentive involved.

And uh, and now they're going back to London, but they're gonna

they're gonna go indoors and try.

I think New Japan, to be honest, will help them more than AEW will at this point, won't it?

With the

most learned and knowledgeable wrestling fans there in Europe.

What's the O2 arena, like 20,000 seats?

Oh, yeah, just a mere 20,000.

No, but I'm just saying, obviously, they drew a big crowd at Wembley year one.

Year two was still,

you know, a nice crowd, just for a building like Wembley, where you're coming off a crowd almost, what, more than double that.

It didn't look so appealing.

So now they're in a smaller room.

Do you think they need New Japan to fill that room?

I think New Japan might be the more attractive thing at this point for the, because they've seen a couple of AEWs now, but they, have they seen a major scale

New Japan show that's worth,

you know, going out of the way to see, as the kids say?

Here's the other thing about Forbidden Door.

What New Japan star hasn't appeared on AEW-TV?

Oh, well, that's the.

I'm not saying it's going to necessarily be Bofo on pay-per-view.

And

thankfully, it's probably not going to be on regular television.

But for the people to get to see all of these people in person in London at the same time when they haven't seen the AEW guys in a while and again,

the New Japan guys, have they done a big scale thing in London where it's something people would want to go and travel to possibly to see?

So

they'll probably do all right there at the live event, but it's not going going to be anything new to the rest of the universe that has to watch on television.

It's just another television show or pay-per-view.

And again, they'll be doing television tapings in Scotland.

So that'll be a first for AEW.

And of course,

that is Forbidden Door.

What songs do you think the AEW fans over there are going to sing?

Or do you think, do they have rhythm?

Do the AEW fans, are they going to have the rhythm over there?

Are they going to serenade us?

I think they'll probably get it.

I'm just being silly now.

They'll probably get it right, or it'll sound like that Roman Reigns song's shreds.

But, Jim, another AEW announcement.

This morning, as we are recording, as announced by Fox Sports Mexico, AEW will partner with CMLL to bring AEW Grand Slam Mexico

to the historic Arena Mexico in Mexico City on Wednesday, June 18th.

This marks the first time an AEW event has ever been held in Mexico.

Tickets on sale Saturday, April 26th, for anyone looking to commute.

Well, you know, this is a strategy, I think,

because now he just needs to go to the other,

what, 175 countries there are in the world to go to the first AEW show in that particular country because they haven't pissed any of those people off yet.

So I guess two questions coming out of these announcements.

One, not that we haven't raised this before in previous years, around the time of Forbidden Door, specifically.

What's the benefit to AEW dedicating the level of TV time that they will to promoting this and building to it when it almost never has anything to do with the rest of the general scheme of things they're actually trying to build?

It's just dream matches.

And

on the other hand,

is it smart for AEW to do anything they can to pull these companies in as partners when WWE is trying to lock down the system?

That second question, first,

that's the important thing:

is they got to, but

problem is every time they open up a

talent pathway, an underground railroad to feed them some people, they bring all the, like they did with New Japan, as you said, they bring them all in and shit them all out at the same time on TV and nobody really gets over.

And

if they're partnering with CMLL now, it's not like

that we haven't seen plenty of denuchadors on AEW television.

So that's really not going to be anything different.

But at least it's some

level of cooperation with somebody else around the world for the sake of their base fans that they're going to have to keep happy somehow.

And they like that kind of thing.

But also for AEW, I think the TV crowd in Scotland will be much better, I would think, for television viewers

than, you know, the dead crowds they've got in Poughkeepsie or wherever, where they're just sitting there staring because they're bored by all this.

And in Mexico, they're going to

Boy, that for the kind of people who like that kind of thing, that's the kind of thing those people are going to like.

So they'll have another rabid crowd, they'll do well, whatever.

I think they need to get out of the United States as much as possible.

Now that I think about it, but yes, they need to have somebody to work with around the world just to try to get some talent or whatever.

But unfortunately, it's

slim anyway.

And

first question:

no, it's ridiculous that they

Tony just wants to have these in his mind great matches.

And it's the same as Uncle Dave.

Oh, the TV's filled with great matches.

No, it's not.

It's filled with these repetitive gymnastic matches that the base audience likes and it runs everybody else off.

Some of the matches, a precious few of them,

are or have been great matches, but most of them are just the same fucking thing.

with everybody trying to have fun because they're in fantasy land.

And then you compound it by having a bunch of people that either the average person in the United States has no idea who the fuck they are and that they've ever been in the business show up on this television, or that it's just people with personalities that nobody gives a shit about.

That's a dream.

If they say Okada

is in any dream match ever again, unless they figure out some way to do a head transplant where they put another body on him,

then it's just ridiculous use of that term because this broken down son of a bitch,

I don't think he could have a bad dream without looks like hurting himself.

But you know, even on the topic of Okada, you know, they're building to him and Kenny.

That whole thing is built on new Japan history.

It's not built on their history.

Yes, that's what I'm saying.

is they bring these guys in from Japan that and put them in what they call dream matches that have either never happened or haven't happened in 10 years or boy wouldn't you like to see this guy against this guy but these Japanese guys are either tanking it and taking a guy's money or they're shells of their former self because every single one of them every single one is he

anyone

every single one of them is a shits They're either broken down or they suck or they ain't given a shit and they don't try or they're just jacking off.

And And you see that.

So you see a bunch of people unknown to everybody but the most die-hard audience that are expected to come in and get over in a two-minute package.

And then they have matches with other people, which you don't know who the fuck they are.

There's no angle behind them,

no personal issue, except ones that the announcers may manufacture from years before in New Japan.

And then that's TV for four to six weeks and a goddamn pay-per-view.

Because this

subset of wrestling culture just wants to see guys go in and do moves with each other.

And that's why they can't expand.

And that's why, but Tony loves it.

And the guys love doing it that are making a fortune working for him.

So that's why they're never going to expand.

They don't get anything else.

And they think that

because they've gotten a limited amount of attention and appeal on the indies,

and then all the indie fans around the world got together and started watching AEW and they ended up with 600,000 people.

They think it's good.

They think that is what, and they're looking at these other guys running away with the race and they can't figure it out.

And, but anyway,

what would you think, just to take it from another perspective, if you were one of these international promotions or promoters, CMLL, New Japan,

different structures.

CMLL is probably the most secure of anyone just because they own their buildings.

Yeah.

But New Japan is obviously not what it once was.

And it's changed ownership a few times already.

The Rock the other day tweeted out a photo of himself wearing a New Japan shirt while staring at a Rubik's cube.

And people ran with it like, The Rock's buying New Japan.

Oh, good God.

You know what I mean?

Like, that's the kind of stuff you hear about New Japan.

But if you're those companies and you see what WWE is starting to do and promote internationally,

all you could think, I mean, Mexico's right there, obviously, but all you could think is they're coming closer and closer and closer.

You know, they're coming for us.

And again, CMLL is a different situation.

They own their building.

Arena Mexico that AEW will be running.

CMLL owns the building well that's the thing is that cmll knows that i understand with new japan because it

you know kevin owens went on tv wearing a bret hart jacket that doesn't mean kevin owens is buying bret hart you know i can see the rock wearing a new japan it's got a lion on it you know whatever the fuck or he just wants to with wrestling fans

but

It would probably be more detrimental to New Japan to be on the wrong side of the WWE

than it would for CMLL.

CMLL, as you said, they own their buildings, but they have the history and the tradition.

They've been there.

They're on

the ground in Mexico.

And I don't think the WWE can go in and run shows in Mexico just like anybody can in any genre.

The circus can go to Mexico, whatever.

I don't think the WWE could ever take over Mexico because of the nature of the way the

lucha libre is ingrained there and how

the business is done there.

And they ain't going to take

remotely

a high percentage of the Mexican talent from any company

because

they just ain't.

There's so many wrestlers in Mexico.

They may get the top stars, but they ain't going to get even close to everybody meaningful.

But New Japan,

you know, the top few guys, they could take them.

And New Japan is because of they're not what they once were.

As you said, they're a little bit more vulnerable to, you know, losing another couple of pieces of talent or having even quarterly big WWE events run over there to take.

steam away from their stuff.

They got more to lose.

All this stuff we've seen with AEW and New Japan over the last, however many, four years, three years, it wasn't that way right away at the beginning, we know.

But we never hear, oh, the one guy on this show is like the new hot thing in Japan.

He's like the brand new guy.

We never hear, like, this is the person everyone's getting.

Like, it's never that.

It's just, here is the people that toured with Ring of Honor a few years ago.

Yeah.

You know, and again, some of them were really great in their prime, but that can't be the selling point.

And it's been the selling point.

That, or if you like Okada's fashion choices and you you want to just tune in to see what he's going to do, man, I'll tell you, he's the ultimate joker out there.

Just because

he got all this money,

he barely works, does comedy that stinks, where he just centers around, it centers around him saying the word bitch,

and then he dresses like a bum.

So,

yeah, forbidden door.

Yeah.

So

I think they need to leave the boundaries of the United States as often as possible for the sake of having a lively audience, but that's not going to address the creative issues.

It, you know, and again,

that's what the show has the look of.

We're just going to put a bunch of matches together and everybody's doing their own thing and it

doesn't flow.

All right.

And someone's making noise somewhere here, and I'll find out who.

But, Jim, staying on the topic of

AEW and WWE and talent,

some interesting developments over the last few days.

It came out,

people presumed it, and now reports are coming out, and Dave Meltzer talked about it, that Mariah May may be WWE-bound.

Oh, no, say it ain't so.

They call the wind Mariah.

Because she's blowing the other way.

Well, she's been in AEW, I think, a little less than two years.

You have to say, she's one of the best-pushed women they've ever had there.

I mean, she went right to the top.

She was with Tony Storm for their fan base.

They were into that.

She was pretty good in the ring.

She wasn't too bad on the mice.

She didn't seem completely unnatural like a lot of people.

But she's been there for less than two years and gotten a great push.

And you got to think Tony Con

would give her financially whatever.

she would want unless she was completely unreasonable.

But she's choosing WWE allegedly.

And, you know, this comes on the heels of, there was an interview.

Let me see if I have this here.

Stephanie Vakor

did an interview.

And I have this from Fightful

quotes here.

Oh, apparently she was talking to Rock and Pop FM,

wherever that is.

And this was about joining NXT and joining WWE.

It took me by surprise.

As I was in talks with WWE, we were going to tell the whole story.

What happened is I was involved in a very important match.

After that match, WWE called me on the phone and said, are you interested in working with us?

And I said, of course I am.

What do you propose?

Let me stop there.

We could only presume what the important match was.

Remember, she had that, was it Forbidden Door last year?

Yeah, one of these events.

She came in as the Mexican.

or New Japan representative, the champion against an AEW wrestler, and she lost.

And she looked really impressive.

And then the next thing we heard is that she signed with WWE.

So she had this important match and then they called her.

And well, there's another example of a forbidden door being an audition for the competitor.

Why do you bring in and feature

talent that is not under your control already?

so that potentially your TV could make them popular and the other guys could sign them up.

Let me go back to her quote here.

They asked me afterwards, would you like to go to the main roster or NXT?

And I said main roster first.

There were money deals, and I was waiting for the proposal because at the time I was living in Mexico and I had a double contract with New Japan and CMLL.

And at that time, I had the most important women's world championship in New Japan and two of the most important women's championships in Mexico.

So I had a huge responsibility in me from the biggest companies in their respective countries.

I'm a person who likes to do things calmly and think well, not rushed.

Sorry to read, this is going on and on.

I was so excited that WWE reached out to me, someone from the office talked to me, and that there was a negotiation.

I remember I went back and I talked to my company, CMLL, and I told them that they called me and offered me work with them.

And my boss thought I was talking about AEW

because I said they would talk to me.

We just stared at each other and I asked, Wait, did AEW talk to you?

And he said, Yes, they talked to me yesterday because they really want to do business with you.

So it's going on and on and it talks about her love of Shawn Michaels.

But

and apparently, that's one of those talk-to-text type of transcripts or whatever.

Stephanie Vacour chose WWE.

You know, Okada stands out as a wrestler who chose AEW.

We presume there was a significant WWE offer on the table, but Tony has more money.

But Mariah May.

And,

you know, you look at what has already happened and wrestlers chased away from AEW by Cody and CM Punk

and wrestlers who left feeling unfulfilled.

The one thing Tony had that couldn't be beaten was money.

The idea that

he could outpay WWE.

If that doesn't even work,

he's in a lot more trouble than

he's in just them trying to get all the talent.

It's still going to work, but it always, it's going to work where it always would have worked.

And it's not going to work where it always wouldn't have worked, I believe.

And

here's what I mean by that.

With Okada, I still believe.

That if the WWE had seen him in the last few years, that they were just bidding him up to see how much money Tony would spend.

I still believe that because there's no way

that you can convince me that Okada could hang in the WWE at this right now in this moment

and would be any kind of success with any of the performances that he has put on so far.

But he chose the money and the soft schedule because this way he can lay around and be even worse than he probably can be if he tried.

If you want

a few highly paid years in the business, and especially if you're toward the end of your career, rather than

or potentially have established yourself as well as you maybe can in this environment,

then yeah, you're going to take Tony's money and you always will.

But if you

are

young

and

not just impressionable, impressionable, but if you're young and you've seen once you get on that television that people will react to you and that you can hang somewhere in the middle to upper percentile of talent in all the television companies today,

then you're going to want to go to the WWE.

You're not going to want to be tied up in this shit show.

in AEW where there's no leadership, no structure, the inmates run the asylum, everybody's doing their own shit.

You can't depend on the booking from one week to another.

They made MJF rotten

so they can fucking kill anybody,

right?

And Maria May, I'm sure, saw, hey, I've had a good run.

They have actually somehow not fucked me up.

I got in on this Tony Storm thing.

I'm gorgeous.

I can talk pretty good.

Now I'm going to see if I can hang with the big boys and work for the big movie studio instead of monogram pictures.

The B movies have been good to me, but I want to be in the goddamn May Jamotham pictures.

But that's, I guess, the question.

Would monogram be monogram if the owners spent money?

That's what makes the equation a little.

You have someone willing to.

If Ed Wood was still directing the movies.

See, that's what she's young.

She knows she can get over bigger.

She can be as big of a star in her mind and possibly for real, but she thinks she can be as big a star as a Liv Morgan or Area Ripley or Bianca Belair or blah, blah, blah.

And look at her.

Looks are comparable.

Promos are comparable.

We'll see about the work.

She's young, though.

She's not like.

If you're happy with, I'm going to take the money for an easy schedule.

I've gotten as far as I can get.

I've done what I can do in the wrestling business.

And this sucker is going to pay pay me.

I just got to put up with this fucking

rotten television program I'm a part of.

You're going to pick AEW.

If you still think you could be comparable to the big stars and you're young and you got time,

and especially if you've had a trial run by being on Tony's television.

And the people didn't fucking completely hoot you out of the building.

Okay.

Because some of these indie fucks, yeah, they think they can be WWE stars, but once they get on Tony's television, they suck.

Male and female, we remember a bunch of them.

But if you've passed that hurdle,

then

there you go.

If she was 15 years older, I'd say stay right where you are, Maria.

You've got a fucking retirement plan here if you play your cards right.

Yeah, what is she, like 26?

She's really young.

Yeah, so that's, you know,

so that's it.

Are you betting on your future?

Do you want to see in the next 15 years if you can be a big star for the biggest company and make a lot of money for that period of time?

Or do you want to make a lot of money for a short period of time?

And then Tony.

Maybe after three years or whatever, loses interest and he's got a new toy or he's booked you into oblivion.

And, you know, bleh.

Well, we'll see what happens.

Again, Mariah Mae has been removed from TV.

We haven't seen her.

Well, then, that's the thing.

She was one of the hottest girls in the company.

And suddenly, boom, that's what Tony probably found out.

What?

You might want to leave me?

Well, then he won't want to talk to her because it's uncomfortable.

So she'll go home and she'll get her check.

And he'll just ignore the situation.

Well, you may be asking yourself, how's Dave Melcher dealing with this?

I don't know whether anybody was, but now we can find out.

This new reality where Tony's money can't get anything and people are not going to choose AEW.

And it would be an interesting perspective.

Several listeners have sent this over.

Jace has sent over notes.

I have not heard all of this.

Let's go to this.

And you can review Dave's comments from Wrestling Observer Radio about the Mariah Mae rumors and

the thought process behind, I guess, guys and girls who want WrestleMania moments more than Tony's dad's money.

Mariah May.

Very similar.

She put a post up

basically saying that,

you know, I forgot the exact words, but it was saying, you know, like,

there are no mistakes on your journey because you want to get to where you want to be or something.

It's all part of the trip of getting to where you want to be.

She had a photo of Orlando, Florida, and I know from people in WWE that,

you know, that she has been there.

They know she wants to go there.

I think people saw that cryptic thing.

I don't know when her contract is up.

Everyone seems to think it's the summer that it's up.

And, you know, it's another one.

I was given the impression it was a two-year deal that she signed originally.

So I guess you can do the math.

Well, let's stop it there for a moment.

So

if her contract's not up until the summer at the earliest, he's going to pay her to sit home for a quarter of the year?

Well,

see, this is all picking at nits here.

June can be considered summertime.

We're six weeks away.

Is it summer?

Then

I saw somebody on Twitter say it may be a little longer than that.

The point is, it's nothing.

It's nothing to him to pay people.

Look at who

that we find out every once in a while still works there that we haven't heard the name in two years.

He pays more people

to just stay home or to come maybe to the shows and sit and catering than he puts on the air.

So that's not a big deal.

He pays people regularly to just stay away because he either doesn't.

He doesn't have anything for them, but he doesn't want to hurt their feelings, or he doesn't want to deal with them if they're mad at him.

We've heard both.

So they just stay home and they get a check.

If Vince would send you home and then find a way to stop paying you.

Yes.

But and see.

I don't justify that at all, but that's what he would do.

Well, but it gets, goddamn, it's better than

I never wanted to be paid to stay home.

I just wanted to be happy where I was getting paid at, right?

But the thing is, if you're paid to stay home, the longer people don't see you, the more of a non-entity you are, the longer they have to forget you, the more that

time has to pass you by and other people take people's attention.

So a lot of times, if you're actually in any kind of entertainment business,

whether it's wrestling or movies or rock and roll or whatever the fuck it is, and you still want to do this and you haven't already got to the point where you can say, fuck it, I got fuck you money.

I'll do what I want.

Respect my authority.

I'll do what I want.

Then then you don't want to be forgotten and you don't want to be invisible you want to be out there somewhere doing something

and so that's

it's contanamo bay when he just pays people to sit home they're wasting their athletic prime and

many of these people are not going to become brilliant producers or bookers or matchmakers or announcers in their elderly years.

So they need to be out there doing something right now.

And you know what else is going to happen?

What do they do every year, just about every year after WrestleMania?

They'll start releasing talent.

So Tony will then have his pick of the guys WWE flushed.

You know, and then you repeat that cycle.

He brings guys there

that are not hot.

And,

you know,

that's going to be a problem.

It comes down to where is he going to access talent.

But let's go back to this, Dave Meltzer's thoughts on this Mariah May rumor.

That would be the summer.

But I do, I have heard heard the same thing that, at least in AEW, there's a belief that she's heading to WWE.

Well, I think that explains something because, you know, when they did that blow-off match with Mariah Mae, and I was going like, God,

why are you doing the blow-off match?

This is like one of the hottest feuds you've ever had, and now you're just going to blow it off.

And they did that awesome, awesome blow-off match.

And then she hasn't been on TV since, and she wasn't put in the tournament.

And, you know, with Tony, when he thinks someone's going, he takes them off TV and she's been off TV.

You know, I thought, you know, I was even talking to some people and I was just like, you know, why isn't she with Megan Bain?

Why is Penelope Ford with Megan Bain?

Mariah is so much bigger of a star.

The two of them together

would make like a perfect heel team.

He's not wrong about that.

No, no.

No, I agree with everything Dave is saying here.

I actually think he's

come on.

The Walmart cashier is a bigger star than Penelope Ford.

That's faint praise.

But still, yes, she was involved in the deal.

She didn't just get dropped in out of a helicopter.

Seem to go after Tony Storm and various partners, so you can kind of break up.

You don't always have to do singles matches.

And they could be a long-term team.

And I think that that's the answer is that he felt she was leaving.

And it's time to go to Megan Bain right away.

And that's it for Mariah Mae.

I mean, it's like, it's an

Let me stop there because that's another interesting thing.

If you think she's leaving and she still has

six months left or whatever it is, and you're in the middle of the hottest program, like Dave said, that the women's division has had,

why blow it off then?

If you were promoting, if you were going to blow it off, would you wait until the very end of her contract?

Well,

no, it, it,

if that was the time, I don't know that he's insinuating they moved the blow up, the blow-up, the blow-off up,

just that they, they blew it off and didn't do any follow-up of any kind.

If she's got six more months, but I think she's leaving, I'm going to bring her back and she's going to do another job for Tony Star.

I think I can beat you.

If you give me a rematch and beat her again.

And then instead of beating her like a drum, which many

promoters would have done in the past when somebody's leaving, especially if it's not cordial.

Then you pick maybe one other girl to get a little brief program with just for her to put that that girl over too, and then leave her off for the last couple months.

But get,

I think Tony, instead of looking at business, he's wounded when he hears that you want to leave me?

And he just, he doesn't talk to him anymore.

Rather than, all right, well, I still got six months and I'm going to get some

my money's worth out of you before you go.

I don't have to like you leaving, but if you want to still get paid, you're going to put so-and-so over, and then we're going to fucking have another little deal, and you'll put so-and-so over.

But if you're not going to join the friendship train, you have to go home.

Let's go back to so, yeah.

Let's go back to the conductor of the friendship train.

Does he have that?

Doesn't that say does the conductor have more?

Well, that's gone.

Choo-choo.

Let's go back to the conductor.

Interesting one because I think in the same situation, again, I don't know what the offers are out there,

but I would think because

Tony, I mean,

Mariah

really is to a degree, I mean, I think Tony looks at her not as a AEW creation because she made her name in stardom,

but

you know, she was just someone on the roster in stardom, you know, nice look and everything and

got better.

But she became, you know, I mean, she's long run as AW Women's Champion, and in one of Tony Khan's most hands-on programs that he's ever done.

You know, I mean, out of the box,

not traditional wrestling, out of the box.

And anything comes out of a box is over.

Let's stop over a second because he's taking forever to get to wherever he's going here.

Thanks for all the suggestions to play this, ladies and gentlemen.

But any thoughts at this point while we take our pause?

Yeah.

You know, that's the thing.

It has to be especially galling to Tony if he was, because we've heard from a variety of sources that in a lot of cases, these guys are now are just

Tony, you know, is saying, oh, well, yeah, the champion's going to be so-and-so and you guys have a great match.

And they just go off and do their own shit and have their great match.

And so if he was really deep in the weeds, as Vinnie Mac would say on this one, then it has to be especially wounding to him.

Which meant he watched a lot of Turner Classic movies for six months.

How'd you get deep in the weeds on that feud?

But think about this also.

Again, poor old Mariah,

she's been there for a couple of years and she probably wants producers.

She wants direction.

She wants

a major league television production behind her.

She wants people to design costumes, all the things that you get over on the other side.

Instead of the chaos and the on and off and stop and start, and

everybody's doing their own thing business over there, maybe she realizes she doesn't know everything and she'd like to try to learn.

Ain't nobody learning nothing over there.

Just my thought.

And again, 26 years old, you have to think if she's up for a new contract, Tony may be offering her a five-year deal.

Could be a three-year deal.

But do you want to be locked down under Tony Khan until you're 30 or past 30?

Have you seen enough to give him that amount of time if you have dreams of doing something?

And the other thing is she's from London.

In terms of AEW and the biggest thing you could do, is she ever going to do anything bigger than wrestling in Wembley in front of her family?

With AEW, with WWE, every year.

You know, you listen to the modern generation of wrestlers talk about being a part of WrestleMania.

It's a different animal.

And it's something to look forward to.

With AEW, what do you have to look forward to if you work there other than the money every two weeks or whatever it is?

What do you look forward to?

Well, and I guess, you know,

part of this is my mindset is different because

now that so many people are on guaranteed money.

And again, I'm not privy to everybody's check,

but people are on guaranteed money.

So now it's like, oh, it would be so much fun and it would be a big thrill to be on WrestleMania.

It used to be whether it was Starcade or whether it was WrestleMania or

Superdome in Mid-South,

Reunion Arena, Star Wars, Christmas, whatever, the big show in the territory.

You wanted to be on it

because it was a big fucking show and you were going to get a big fucking payoff.

And

then you wanted to be in the main event of it because it was a big big show and you'd get a bigger fucking payoff.

And yes, that was a thrill.

And look what I've accomplished.

I main invented the Superdome.

But the

overriding thing was because I was in the main program, because that was what they thought would sell the most tickets.

That was why I'm proud of doing that.

Now it's just like, I guess, since many of them, the top guys still, I'm sure, make Buku WrestleMania bonus or whatever.

But is it for a lot of the guys, it's just like, well,

it'd be such a thrill for me to be on WrestleMania, but I'm making guaranteed money anyway.

So now it's just the thrill of being on the show?

I don't know.

And here's the other thing, not to use a Vince McMahon term that he overused, but even with Tony's money being thrown at you, is the opportunity still bigger if it all works?

If it all works out, whether you're a woman or a man in WWE and you get to the main event of WrestleMania or a world title match at WrestleMania, which it seems like they consider that a main event too at some points,

and you're making merch money, and you're making money from all sorts of places.

Does it equal out in the end?

Versus Tony throwing all this money at you, you're not going to sell as much merch.

You're not going to sell anywhere near as much merch.

More than likely.

And various other intangibles.

Does it equal out in the end end if it works?

Money-wise.

I mean, yeah, you know, there's all kinds of equations you can throw into that, such as, well, yeah, I took Tony's money for, you know, the first six months, it was okay, but then I got hurt and I was off for a year, and the other guys probably would have screwed me.

But Tony's paying, that type of thing comes in.

But I think if you're young,

and also, did MJF, did he re-sign before they kicked vince out for well and good for the final time

i think he did didn't he that's a good question i don't know

because

if if he signed and vince was still there i understand why if

if he signed when vince was already gone for good

then god damn it that was bad timing

If you're young and you believe in yourself and you are able to look in the mirror realistically and say, my performances in most ways, or every way, or whatever way, is better than the average fucking person I'm seeing in both these companies.

And I've got time to prove it, then you need to go to the WWE.

If you say, God damn it, me, look at fucking me.

Nobody else would pay me this much fucking money than this fucking mark.

I'm staying right fucking here,

then

you're in AEW.

Yeah, without having to play any more of this audio, because it's insufferable this week.

A few things that I see here in the notes.

Dave says AEW would have offered a lot more.

Says that before Mariah signed you to AEW, people were all saying that her dream was WWE.

Veterans would be looking at these situations and rolling their eyes that this generation isn't about the money.

Money isn't the main driving force for this generation.

Well, hold on, hold on here.

I do roll my eyes in some respects.

And of course, people will point out to where I left money on purpose to go do something for less money that I wanted to do.

And my answer to that is yes.

And also, I was kind of already established to begin with, where I had that

cache in the industry.

But no, it's money, but it's also the ability to make more money.

God damn, the divas

in the WWE diva days,

they're still being asked to come on television and do things and et cetera.

Who's going to remember the AEW girls in 15 years from now?

See, that's what she's 26 years old.

It's not just about the money now, it's about the money over the course of your life and your ability.

Maybe she wants to be in the major motion pictures and the sitcoms too.

Because

a lot of the girls and many of the guys that get into business these days want to be TV stars and movie stars.

Well, where you got a better chance of being a TV star or movie star, WWE or AEW?

Unless you want to be on

Impractical Jokers or with the goddamn Costco guy going boom on the chocolate chip cookies or whatever it is they fucking do over there.

Dave also said this is a generation of fans who want to be like Bret Hart and other guys wanted to be like Hogan or Bruno.

It wasn't about wanting to go out there and have a great match, but it was more about making money.

He likes this version better, and there's way, way better matches today.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

Again, it goes to the point.

Again, I agree.

There's way better matches going on today than Hulk Hogan was in.

And that's not, again, a high bar.

But no, Bret Hart

went out and had a great match in order to fucking give the people their money's worth and get himself over so that he could draw again and become the champion and blah, blah, blah.

If he'd have been going out and having that fucking match in the first match,

it wouldn't have meant anything.

And he, and

he probably wouldn't be speaking to us now, and he certainly would have been proud of it.

He wanted to be in the main event because he wanted to be drawing the money.

You want to be the star.

If you're an actor, you want to be a star of the fucking movie most of the time.

If you're a goddamn singer, you want to be on the top 40 chart or get a gold record.

If you want to do it for fun, that's because you recognize your limitations and that you ain't going to get a gold record or be the star of the movie.

So you're doing it for fun with lowered expectations

and for some of the guys in aew that was indie wrestling and they should have been happy there

but there comes a time where there has to be somebody in the position that says okay this is great for

we talked about some ovw stuff earlier in the program it's great for local tv but we ain't gonna put that on tbs i'm sorry

There are stages, levels, as the kids say.

Anyway.

Well, we shall see if Mariah May levels up.

We'll follow up with this story as we learn more.

But Jim, on this topic real quick, with the news that came out that Chris Jericho, I think the exact quote was, of course, I would consider going back to WWE.

I would also consider not going back.

Although most people just focused on the, of course, I would consider returning to WWE parts.

And Dave Meltzer putting in the observer that Jericho probably should take their offer.

Is he once again, if he's really contractually free, is he once again set up to clean up because of the timing?

We're talking about

Tony needs to hold on to everyone he can?

No, he can't be.

Number one, he can't be contractually free unless he just baldface lied to everybody.

Because wasn't it just a couple of years ago that they announced that he had signed a brand new 10-year contract and we laughed because he was going to be there till he was 62?

Can you see those fucking matches?

There is a thought that maybe it wasn't a 10-year contract, and the contract may be up imminently.

Well, in that case, then Tony Kahn

should consider himself lucky that he's got an out-clause where he can save several million dollars a year that he's pissing down the fucking well.

But

again,

you know, I think Jericho for

short-term nostalgia.

I think I said this on the last show we did, or maybe this one.

It's been that we do a show every day.

You know, if there's value in Jericho returning to the WWE because many people are not going to know where he's been.

That's generally the big.

It was like for most of those people, CM Punk returned to wrestling after 10 years, not CM Punk returned to the company.

And that's another thing Uncle Dave keeps saying.

Well,

they love it.

The WWE fans love it when somebody jumps from AEW.

No, they don't.

Some of them do because they watch both shows, but the majority of the WWE fans

like it because somebody's come back.

They've come and they haven't been wrestling for 10 years.

Now he's back.

That's the nostalgia thing.

That's what they can get out of Jericho.

And if they do a deal where he's.

there for two years and he does three pay-per-view matches and some appearances to promote him the first year, and then does some big retirement fucking match or angle or wing thing, and he gets put in the Hall of Fame, then it would be worth it to them at this level that everybody's at now to offer him several million dollars because they'd make it back.

But

for a,

I don't think they would even propose to him that he should come back and be on any kind of full or even

is it possible to have a full-time part-time schedule any

anything above every so often would not be i think anything they would even want to pitch him at this point because punk's what 45 years old jericho's 10 years older than he is

well again we will so we will follow this story and see uh where it leads

jim One last thing, and then we'll get to Raw and more.

Nick Kahn, as we are recording, I guess he did an interview either live or recently with Bill Simmons on his podcast.

And there are a few quotes here going around.

Let me get your thoughts on these.

Nick Kahn

expects a number of AEW wrestlers to jump ship to WWE once their contracts expire, is what Cultaholic Wrestling wrote.

Here's the quote.

In terms of the other wrestling promotional company, they have a lot of talented wrestlers, and we're happy about that.

When, contractually, they are available to talk to and have conversations with, assume a number of them will come over.

Nothing but respect to the father who finances it and owns the Jaguars and all those other things.

So that's the first quote.

Let's stop there.

I mean, that's...

That's not tampering, but literally, assume a number of them will come over.

He knows that they want to go there.

That's the thing.

WWE is aware that when someone on AWTV gets in better shape or does really good stuff, they're hoping they can get out of their contracts soon and go to WWE.

They know that.

Yes.

Well, and besides, they don't even have to watch the TV and see who's doing push-ups.

There are no secrets behind the scenes in the world of pro wrestling.

If a guy in one company knows a guy in the other company, he can make his intentions or his desires or his hopes, dreams, aspirations, whatever you want to call them, he can make them known

via the Underground Railroad.

And the thing is, again, it's not that hard to figure out, folks.

And I hate to even tell people again, I feel like I'm repeating myself.

There was a time when The shoe was on the other foot.

And if you were a talented young wrestler who felt he had something to to offer and could go somewhere.

Did you want to put your career in the hands of Vince McMahon, this brainrotted fucking octogenarian, pervert billionaire that was just doing weird shit?

Or

did you want to go with this new young upstart company that was giving all these young guys a chance?

Of course you'd go there.

But then

when the worm, as they say, turns, and now all of a sudden the the pervert octogenarian billionaire is out of the business and now it's the fucking mentally screwy 40 year old billionaire

when this other company is firing on all cylinders and is owned by goddamn

the movie people in hollywood and riches and fame and fortune And they're selling out and setting records and they're using young guys and making them stars.

or

five years of this screwy shit show

where the indie-minded fucks have run off the only major stars they've had

and everybody's in business for themselves and there's no structure or leadership.

As I said, you can either take the money or You can take the money for a short period of time until you feel like I got to get the fuck out of here.

And now there's nothing.

Why would you give this guy, Tony Khan, five years of your life when there's nothing stopping you on the other side, if they're interested,

from potentially getting over?

Because you don't have to worry about Vince's goddamn screwy whims.

It seems like more people are getting a chance based on at least some of their ability and appeal.

So it's not hard to figure out.

And the people that are going to

be happy and loyal and content

with AEW are the indie-minded fucks that ain't going to get a goddamn chance anywhere else.

And they know that.

Who else would have ever put Chuck fucking Taylor on national television on a wrestling program?

There right there shows you everything you need to know.

The fact that nobody could go up to this guy and say,

sorry

that they've made such a nice guy.

Let's put him on TV.

Are you glad that the generals that are fighting the battles in war say, well, you know, my brother-in-law, he's such a nice guy.

Let's put him on the front line.

He's a fuck up and a coward.

He's not equipped for the job, but he's nice.

See, that's the thing.

If you're convinced that you can be an accomplished talent without being anybody's brother-in-law or a fucking nice friend to somebody,

then you're not going to want to tie yourself up in AEW, are you?

Specifically, what are your thoughts on nothing but respect to the father who finances it and owns the Jaguars and all those other things?

Well, and again, he's speaking to the adult in that room.

It's his little way of explaining to Tony without explaining to him that we don't take you seriously, kid.

I'm sorry, this is a big organization over here, and we're a big business, and this is a vanity project for you that your father who made these billions of dollars has financed and

if it was a that's why i've said that remember what at first they were offering they being the wwe were offering

over market value to get guys not to jump five years ago because they didn't know what it was going to be right now that they've seen what it is

Now they're reacting accordingly.

Sure, they'll fucking put a TV special on and opposite their pay-per-view or try to run the market or do the little things because everybody does that.

But the bigger thing is they're no threat now.

AEW is in no way a threat to the WWE, so they can sit back a little bit.

They can pick fucking talent.

They can pick their shots.

And they mostly let

Tony and the rest of his, you know, brain trust tie their own nooses and hang themselves in it.

And then they take advantage of it.

CM Punk walked right in in time for the biggest fucking three shows of the year.

Cody walked right in in time for WrestleMania.

Yeah.

Amazing how these things happen.

And Tony cooperated with both of them.

And unknowingly.

Bill Simmons suggested WWE shouldn't sign too many wrestlers because it would result in some being wasted.

To which Nikon replied, that's something we won't do.

We won't sign and bench bench people.

We sign people who we want to use.

If another entity signs and benches people now, that is not something we would do.

Who's he speaking to there?

Well,

you know who he's talking to.

If they sign somebody

and they're going to give them regular money, that means they expect regular work and they're going to try to get something out of them.

And I know there's going to be somebody out there saying, well, I've been trying to get booked and trying to work.

Well, maybe they just don't see anything for you right now, or maybe in the future, because

here's the thing.

When they pick up some more talent, eventually they're going to let some go, but the sum they let go

is going to be meaningless in their overall scheme of things.

And they're probably going to have been

presented as pretty low on the cards.

So they're not going to be a bonus to Tony.

Whereas at least when Tony lets people sit out and be forgotten about, he's not making them look stupid every week on TV.

So there's something to be said for that.

But

no, he's making these pointed remarks to let everybody know that the WWE

realizes their competition is Shad Khan and him alone.

And they respect him for the money he's made, but they're not considering any of the rest of this anything that they need to lose any sleep over.

One last Nick Kahn quote about Cody Rhodes.

Cody started part of another league, and then you sort of saw him fade out over there.

It was something that we talked about at WWE.

It was like, well, this is interesting.

It used to be, hey, this is about the wrestlers.

This is about empowering the wrestlers.

Cody's one of the co-founders.

And then that narrative shifted.

And that's when we decided when we knew contractually we could make the call, to make the call and say, hey, why don't we get together and have a conversation?

The deal was done in minutes.

And boom, he returned to WrestleMania 2022 at AT ⁇ T Stadium just three years ago.

A year later, he was in the main event of WrestleMania 2023 at SoFi.

And the rest is history.

And it

sounds like he's openly pitching AEW talent without doing it.

I mean, I know he's not doing it for that reason necessarily, but everything he's saying is.

Well, he's illustrating how easy it was and how easy it could be.

If you have something that we are interested in,

unnamed wrestlers out there, this is how easy it could be and this is what could happen.

And I mean, it's only common sense, but he's putting it out in a professional manner instead of, you know.

at a media scrum at three o'clock in the morning, we're going to have great matches and fuck them.

Well, here's something interesting.

Khan also talked about having previously been CM Punk's agent and now working with him at WWE and his reputation as a locker room cancer.

Here's a quote.

It was so obvious to me that he wasn't a cancer.

And having been an agent, assume I have dealt with some personalities that were not the easiest from time to time.

That's part of the job.

I always found him to be a gentleman.

I always found him to be honest, responsive.

And I felt if he was that way outside of the company, if given an opportunity to come back to the company, he would be that way.

And he said he would be.

And he's been a gem to work with.

You know, it all goes back to AEW.

Imagine that.

It all goes back to AEW.

And I mean, it's amazing.

You know, this,

I don't know what you call it, this gap is going to get wider, I think.

Even if WWE starts cooling down.

But there it is, the AEW section of the show.

Jim,

perhaps after listening to all that nonsense, you want to hear some good tunes and just jam out.

Well, I don't know whether I want to do that or not.

I might want to jelly out.

No sense giving jam all the fun, but I'll tell you what you might want to do.

You might want to jam some of the Raycon everyday earbuds in your mother's ears.

Because Mother's Day is coming up, Brian.

You're aware of this.

You know a mother in your family.

that's right we have a mother in the house there you go you got one close you can just sneak up behind her take one of these in each hand and pop them in her ear she won't know what hit her wouldn't do that but no one else should do that they're for your own use well whether she sees you coming or not mother she your mother will trust you folks out there your mother will trust you so she won't notice you sneaking up on her but you'll have the raycons

And you're ready to surprise her for Mother's Day.

And that way, she won't have to listen to you you yammering.

No mother wants to hear her kids yelling and screaming about wrestling and all that other stuff.

Maybe even the grandkids, perhaps, you've procreated.

Well, then now your mother has to listen to these slimy little crumb snatching rugrats screaming and whining around.

I'm telling you, get mother for Mother's Day, the Raycon every day here, bud.

She can.

Relax, recharge, enjoy her favorite music.

Maybe a little Ann Murray, some podcasts.

Ann Murray.

Hopefully, mothers don't listen to our podcasts.

Well, what do mothers listen to these days?

How old is a mother?

I mean, how old is a mother in your eyes?

What age group are you looking?

Well,

they can be a brood mare for the state anywhere between the ages of 18 and 50 something, so I'm told.

Anyone under 50, you think they're listening to Ann Murray?

Well, you know, Snowbird.

I'm telling you, that's a tune that'll relax your mom.

You want your mother relaxed.

You want her, she'll positively be comatose from Ann Murray.

But anyway, the latest model of the Everyday Earbuds is better than ever.

The 32-hour battery life, the multi-point connectivity mom can pair with two devices at once.

Let her walk on the wild side a little bit.

And with the quick charge function, 10 minutes of plugging it in will give you 90 minutes of battery.

She can just plug it in and go.

If mom's going out maybe on a bike run with the Hells Angels or something, quick, you know, or she's committed a crime, got to leave in a hurry.

And they started just half the price as other premium audio brands.

So you can get two of these for the same price as one of the other ones.

And then you've got quadraphonic sound.

But now, Brian, apparently you cannot put two in your ears and two in your nose and get the quadraphonic sound.

Don't put that.

You have to put two in your ears.

And then you have to call a friend to put two in his ears and stand back to back.

No.

And you will both have quadraphonic sounds.

That is not how it works.

It doesn't have to be back to back, not belly to belly.

Don't stick anything in your ear.

Mind you,

if you want to get one from someone, give it to them as a gift and walk away.

Back away.

Let them do their thing.

And

if you back away,

if you back away where they're, what they're going to stick in you is going to go in the wrong place.

What?

But I'll tell you that.

Now they're sticking it into you.

This whole story took a turn right there.

It was you with the

way you're.

What's happened when you're when you're getting the quadraphonic sound while standing back to back with one guy some things can happen but nevertheless never if your mom doesn't like her raycons what kind of ungrateful is she but she's your mother not dying out there so your mom is very nice ladies and gentlemen everyone loves your mom There's got to be one mother out there that's just a giant bitch.

Kyle's mom, she's a bitch, a big fat bitch.

She's a big fat bitch.

Oh, yes, she is.

She's the biggest bitch in the whole wide world.

She's a bitch to all the boys and girls.

That's Kyle's mom.

But if your mom doesn't like her Raycons, they offer a 30-day happiness guarantee return policy with no questions asked because you don't want to ask a mother questions.

Mothers do not like to be questioned.

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even on the quadraphonic ones.

Now, you can be dressed if you need to be when you're back-to-back with that other guy for the quadraphonic sound.

But if you get naked,

the treble response is not as tiny.

None of that is true.

But the part that is true is, of course, that they're great earbuds from

well, then some of it is true.

I love to say Helix.

From Raycon, not Helix.

Raycon's a great mattress.

No, Helix is a great mattress.

Raycon's a great earbud and we're talking about raycon raycon.com slash buyraycon.com by god

by god

do they have a mattress that you can sleep on with earbuds in the mattress so you can listen to your tunes while you're asleep we're trying to set up a joint venture where somehow we would be a party a third party involved that uh makes money off the deal but doesn't actually do anything Well, would they call them then Ray Sleep or Heal Ray?

SleepCon.

That sounds more like a fan fest.

All right.

Well, once again, where you get together and you get a bunch of people who are enthusiasts of sleep and you get them together and you have cots next to each, and they all lay down on the cots, and it's sleep con.

And while they're asleep, folks, you sneak in and you stick some Raycon everyday earbuds in their ears.

They'll never know the difference.

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That's the end of that.

Well, Jim, whether you've been lying down on your mattress or listening on your earbuds, either way, there's still more show.

Bad transition, but here we are.

And of course, you watch Raw.

This is the big one.

This is the Raw Before WrestleMania.

Also, this isn't the big one.

Well, it's supposed to be.

It's the go-home show for WrestleMania.

The Raw After WrestleMania is the big one.

Well,

that is the big one, but this is still the go-home show for WrestleMania.

You think you have to do that?

That's the Ram.

The Raw After Mania is the big one is the ram.

This was the

rab.

No, raw, raba-bimemet, raw before mania.

See, I can't make an acronym.

This was a lousy raw.

It wasn't lousy,

but

they did everything already.

They got there.

They couldn't have Jay.

you know, zip tied to the ropes again with Gunther

bathing in his mother's blood.

They'd done that.

They've done most of the angles.

They had the triple threat participants to save them in the main event spot of this, but otherwise they had some matches and they had some interviews and the interviews were good.

But

they had eight or 10 weeks of build and four to six weeks of material and they just stretched it, didn't they?

You know, the build has been lackluster despite there being hot things, but, you know, Jey Uso and Gunther, they found a way.

I apologize for the wind behind me.

They found a way to keep it moving and big things happen.

But even that, which I think they did as well as almost anything for the build for WrestleMania,

it still feels like it went too long.

The three-way stuff with Punk and Rollins and Reigns is really intriguing.

And again, that's one of the few things you're really looking forward to that was built well on the show.

The extra time didn't help.

And I also just think cosmically, just in the overall picture, the Rocks return for the Cena turn

ended up kind of being a big distraction.

And

I don't know if that's the specific point, but it feels like the show is kind of, I don't know, the direction doesn't feel as direct as it did for a while.

The direction doesn't feel as direct.

They were in Sacramento.

Sacramento, California, they had 14,000 fucking people.

I remember Raw Raw in the 90s back in Sacramento, they didn't have 14,000 people.

So they're doing something right.

And Gunther came out first.

And again,

can I sing the praises of my man Herr Gunther?

What the?

He's great.

Because normally you would get

If a guy's a tremendous in-ring worker, but he's from another country

and English is his second language, it would be a struggle.

His accent makes the promos.

He's one of the best promos in the business today.

Because he sounds like he looks like he should sound and he says the things that make sense for him to say.

He is not

phony about himself or see-through in any way.

And

he did a promo.

He came out.

with purpose and called Michael Cole into the ring.

Apparently, it was going to happen later on, but Gunther just wouldn't wait.

And the people were booing the shit out of him, but he didn't let it throw him off, as some other people, Charlotte and other people have done.

And

he's enjoying that they're booing him, but he's not letting it fucking take over.

He still said his shit.

And he got the yeet chance.

And Michael Cole's trying to ask him, shit, screw your questions.

Screw Jey Uso and everybody that stands with Jey Uso.

See, that's the accent that he uses.

And he did a good heel promo.

And he said, if you think I went too far with Jimmy, I've never lost control of myself.

I've always been in control.

I love taking a bath in your brother's blood.

Now that's a fucking heel.

It was a great heel promo.

And that's what he did.

He did the promo and then he left.

He's selling the match, and there's nothing wrong with that because he's already bathed in the brothers' blood.

But boy, howdy, I tell you what, they fucking lucked out with him.

With him and Drew McIntyre, Punk, and Seth, and Roman's issue, and

Jacob Fatu, Braunbreaker, and a couple of other things,

you can see that they've got shit not only set up with stars now, but stars that are going to be stars for a while.

And they're worth watching.

Except not for three fucking hours.

It's a long time.

That's the issue.

Every time that on Netflix, they go to a break.

I try to fast forward.

I'll fast forward three or four minutes.

I'll come up in a commercial.

I'll fast forward two or three minutes.

I'll come up in a promo spot.

I'll come up in a travel log.

I don't know what the fuck's going on.

Did you have any comments about that before we move on to hear the response from the other side of this match?

No comments other than I agree with you.

I think Gunther, his accent helps.

His facial expressions are a big help.

He gives off an arrogance that seems like it comes natural.

And

good promo.

And but at the same time,

there's the, and before we get to Jey Uso, as a matter of fact, Gunther is a great heel,

and everything he does is so natural and so genuine or whatever.

I've never met him, but I've never heard a bad thing about him either.

I bet you he's a nice guy.

Because there's two kinds of heels: there's the kind of heel that knows how to be a heel, and there's the kind of heel that's a heel just because he's a fucking dick.

And here came Logan Paul later on in the program

to confront AJ Styles.

And

they showed a great, did you see the video they did on him?

Did you see this part?

I did not see the video, no.

They did a great video of all the shit that he does because he's a shameless self-promoter, and he's obviously stuck on himself to have the energy to go do all these things and stick himself in the middle of it.

But whether he's boxing or whether he's on the fucking social interwebs or whether he's in a race car, whether they did a video

with him doing a voiceover, putting himself over, he looked like a big fucking deal.

And you can tell that it's his shit, too, that he comes up because it's natural to him.

But you can also tell that he's pretty much a dick.

So

he came out and did that promo.

And then AJ said, well, why don't we just fight?

And they had a fight.

And Karrion Cross was in there getting in the way.

And he,

you know, helped out so that Logan Paul could get the advantage.

And he knocked out out AJ with the big right hand and gave him that flipping DDT move.

That

I hope he doesn't try to give it to anybody bigger than fucking AJ because that could be dangerous.

But

they have a match.

And as we've mentioned, it's a match so that they can do some high spots with each other.

I'm sure there'll be excellent springboard work.

Here's another example with this WrestleMania build.

Has there ever been a Logan Paul match in WWE that just didn't feel,

it just kind of felt like an afterthought

yeah and I think

I think the new has worn off of

remember didn't Logan Paul he had a match with Ricochet so they could do spots right or was it another one of the flying off they did spots together in the Royal Rumble I think it was but I don't remember they may have had a singles match too but I definitely there was another match he had one time it wasn't really and we talked about it I can't remember who it was against but it wasn't really a match to add to the card.

It was a match to have Logan Paul be able to do his dive or his gymnastics or whatever.

And I think this is the same thing because they haven't really done anything with AJ lately.

So it's just,

you know, it's there.

But,

you know, normally I would chastise them for

putting money-drawn guys in non-money-drawn positions, but they've got so many money-drawn guys that

maybe they just wanted Logan to do do some leapfrogs.

So

that is that.

But anyway,

then we had, after much more fast-forwarding and soul searching, Jey Uso to come out to do the Yeet Fest.

And

this was his chance to sell the match.

And he came out, stood on the announce desk and milked it.

And they chanted for him and they yeeted for him.

They love him.

They restarted the music so they could do more yeeting and bowing and

gesticulating and pontificating.

And then

he started doing the regular yeet promo where he'll say something real quick so they can yeet.

But he again dug in

and said,

not only is Gunther,

you know, he was intimidated before, but now Gunther's afraid.

You can tell Gunther's afraid of me.

And I'm going to beat him on Saturday.

And

I think, as we've established, we can bet the farm on that.

And then they hit his music and they did some more yeeting.

The people just love that.

And they've got him to the point where,

you know, he bowed up out of his slump.

And now he's not scared anymore.

And

he's going to beat Gunther and Gunther will be fine, I'm hoping.

And then, you know, good promo.

I mean, it shouldn't surprise anyone.

Jey Uso excels at emotional segments, at segments where

he doesn't have to be perfect on the promo.

That's where the emotion helps.

You believe him.

You get behind him.

You understand his motivation.

What the match will be, let's see.

But

really good.

And, you know, as far as go-home stuff for WrestleMania, you know, the three-way is kind of its own animal.

I don't feel anything about Cody and Cena at the moment.

It feels like it's been a week since they've done anything.

anything.

But this

has continued to go.

And I think this was a great go-home for WrestleMania promo.

It was the right time for this promo.

And it'll be one of the more emotional matches and probably the big response of the night, you know, when he wins a thing.

And

you've mentioned Cody and Cena when we ran down earlier in the show.

The matches, I don't think I actually came out and said it, but I think at this point, Cena's going to win.

And they're going to do something for his last year where Cody is chasing.

And I don't want to compare Ronnie Garvin and Ric Flair in September 1987 or whatever, but Cody will chase him for a little while and get it back.

Because

remember, I said a week or so ago when Cody just laid Cena out with the one crossroads and boom and he was done.

It seems like they need another physical angle for Cena to get some heat on him.

If they don't do one between now and them, I'm now and them.

Now and then, I'm convinced that Cody is going to lose the thing.

Well, the only chance to do it would be SmackDown, which is, you know, the day before.

The night before is cutting it a little close.

Yeah.

I mean, so.

Well, two nights before the match, but you know.

But still, I mean, that's just relying on social media buzz, not a week worth of TV to build.

Yeah.

You know, I don't know.

Again, it's a different world, a different model, but even if they do another big thing, it just feels like,

you know, it can't just be the two-week difference in running WrestleMania on Easter weekend as opposed to the end of March or early April.

It just feels like everything kind of fell.

I don't know.

Everything's just kind of happening, but nothing happens.

And WrestleMania, I guess, needs to happen and we can move on from all this.

But

good promo from Jey Uso.

Yes.

And can you imagine if it was Easter Sunday and Vince was still around, he'd have a match in a ring filled with rabbits.

They did the camels for Las Vegas.

You have to wonder if running Easter weekend is one of the reasons it's not sold out.

Is it just because it's in Vegas and Vegas is not the right place to do an event like this?

Or is it also because of,

you know, what's happening in the world, which is Easter, which is one of the major holidays.

What's happening in the world is not only Easter, but it's also everybody's worried about the goddamn global economy.

Yeah, everyone's worried about spending.

You know, so let's go to Las Vegas.

Most people aren't probably going to go to Las Vegas for fun right now if they already had their trip planned and paid for.

I don't think it's a whim purchase these days.

There's a lot of things.

We talked about the WrestleMania documentary.

Las Vegas.

is traditionally a city for major events, but it's never until the modern era, the last, what, 20 years, done huge crowds for wrestling.

And this is the ultimate huge crowd for wrestling.

And it's in the middle.

You can't drive there from almost anywhere.

So,

and the ticket prices, I'm just, I'm, I'm saying they're, they're doing fine.

We're not going to have to have any benefits for them, but

I don't, they're not going to do 100,000 people a night in Las Vegas, no matter what the ticket prices are,

if everybody's got to fucking take a plane.

Anyway, speaking of people who arrive late to events, see how I did that there, Brian?

You would think that somebody would crack down.

Vince, when the guys hadn't signed in at two o'clock on TV day, he would find them.

But Paul Heyman was in the back,

show long, he's waiting.

He's waiting for Roman Reigns.

And then finally, we're two hours into the program and Roman isn't there.

Paul's sitting back there and Punk comes into the frame and sits right next to him.

And he says to him, I've never seen you look so stressed.

And you see behind them as they're sitting there, an SUV is pulling up, but Paul and Punk don't notice it.

And Punk says, look in my eyes.

What do you see?

And Heyman goes.

a cult of personality

and punk laughs and puts his arm around Paul and hugs him and says, no, a real friend.

And right at that point, you see out of the SUV

gets Roman Reigns, who looks over and sees Heyman and Punk sharing a laugh and a hug.

And he gets the fucking stink face.

And Paul turns around and looks and shits himself.

And Roman starts walking toward the guerrilla position and Paul's following him.

My tribal chief, my tribal chief.

And out comes Roman into the arena.

And Paul's behind him, but Roman's giving him the over-the-shoulder stink eye, like, I won't look at you.

And they get in the ring, and Paul's got the microphone waiting for Roman to gesture for it as he usually does.

And Roman walks by him and bumps into him and gets another one.

from the production assistant at Ringside.

And right in front of Paul, he says,

Kookamanga, where are they?

Sacramento, acknowledge me.

The whole world can hear that.

You never betray your tribal chief.

Some people would betray me.

Wise man,

how could you betray me?

And they start chanting, you fucked up.

The Netflix censor is trying to, he gets up

better than he gets fucked.

I don't know, but they can't bleep it.

They try.

And Romans says, why, Paul?

And when Paul started talking, he started to get booed.

But he said, my tribal chief, it was not a betrayal.

I paid back a favor.

I owed.

He almost sounded a little like Russo there, unnaturally pronouncing a word.

But then Romans' problem is,

I never asked for favors because I take what I want.

I never asked for this.

The only person getting screwed here in this thing is me.

Why should I have to suffer because you owe some dumbass favor?

And then, boom, there comes Seth's music.

And here he comes.

Seth Franklin Rollins, dressed like a plumber in an SM club.

And he

motivates to the ring and lots of woeing going on.

on

and here Seth cut this promo and Brian tell me what you thought here but

I think this promo that he cut is not what the people wanted to hear because it didn't particularly get over or wasn't really gripping it was all about how the winner will determine the future of the industry and it can't be Roman and it can't be punk

It can't be this promo either is what I wrote.

It almost sounded like an AEW style,

oh, the fans on the internet will understand this type of thing.

Did you feel that?

And how does it make sense?

How is this the future of the industry?

Not to say that it would be true, but if one of the guys was the world champion and the belt was on the line, then at least there's an argument.

This is three top stars wrestling a three-way match

where besides winning the match, you don't win anything.

Maybe you win Heyman.

I don't know.

So you can't say it's for the future of the industry.

But then you'd have to take him home and feed him.

Quite frankly, that's the argument that you would make in the Cody Cena situation.

Cena saying, I'm going to win the belt and go home with it and take away your world title.

Cody wants to defeat Cena to save the industry.

That's where the argument works.

Well, Seth was talking for a while and it didn't really land.

But the story was.

I chose, he's telling Roman, I chose not to put Paul in the hospital so he can pay that favor back if he wants, but he's a scumbag so i don't expect it but paul is in punk's corner because he made a choice he's not just returning a favor he's choosing why roman is he choosing cm punk over you

and paul's facials again are great and the way that his jowls flap in the wind when he's nervous

And Paul's downplaying it.

Don't listen to him.

Off microphone.

Don't listen to him.

It's him.

And Roman says he's right.

You made your choice, and I've made mine.

And then Roman turns around and levels Seth and grabs him and runs him into the post.

And Paul's laughing, and

he's like, I acknowledge you, my trouble, chief.

You had me.

You had me.

And Roman grabs Paul's face, pie faces him, and rolls him down.

You can't really say shove him down.

He rolled him down.

But as Paul goes down, now shock is on his face.

Everybody's, oh,

and suddenly,

like Mussolini

to save Pauli,

here comes Punk.

And they, and they're down to two minutes left right now.

So they get in a fight.

Boom, boom, boom.

And Punk clotheslines Roman over the top and then goes to check on Paul.

But doesn't realize that Roman has slid back in the ring.

And when he turns around, Roman spears Punk and he gets on top of him and is beating the shit out of him.

But Seth has a chair and nails Roman Reigns in the back with the chair like he did

years ago with the shield

situation.

And then he gave the curb stomp to Punk, and he gave the curb stomp to Roman

and stood there over them as Paul was mortified.

And so we still don't know what the fuck might be going on here.

And you, Brian Lass, do you still say you believe

that it may be that Paul Heyman will throw a wrench into everybody's plans and leave with Seth Franklin Rollins?

I don't know.

That seems like an option.

But because it seems like an option, it could be a,

you know, a false turn.

A McGuffin from Hitchcock.

I think Rollins is the one set up to win the match, whether Heyman turns or not, whether Heyman Heyman accidentally costs Punk and Roman

the match as opposed to consciously doing it, or maybe Heyman leaves a Brock.

Who really knows?

But I think, I mean, tell me what you think.

I think Rollins is kind of set up to win this, and I think it helps him the most to win it.

I'm starting to go along with you because

most

people

would have probably discounted that at the start of this thing, and it may be now the way to go in the end.

But

everybody is still technically a baby face,

even though they have their own issues with each other.

And I think whoever cracks and actually does something beyond the pale

will get a ton of heat out of this.

And it doesn't make sense to turn punk heel, and it doesn't make sense to turn Roman back heel so quickly.

But Seth, it might not be a leap.

What do you mean?

Well, with Roman, though, he's not really acting like a baby face.

And I understand sometimes, you know, as a heel, you stay a heel, and that's what makes you a baby figure.

Yeah, he's he's got to.

He can't change most of the things he's doing right now.

But you were going to say.

No, I mean, I was just going to say Roman's kind of an island unto himself by his own doing.

He's the one the booking just seems the most curious about.

If that was a sentence that made any sense, it didn't.

And neither did that one.

Two in a row.

Here's the thing, and then we'll move along.

Be merciful to you.

Roman, and Roman's part-time, and I don't know that he gives a shit whether he's a babyface or a heel, as long as he's making money and featured.

But there's a way Roman could turn heel if he blatantly fucks someone and does something that an honorable tribal chief couldn't do, shouldn't do.

That's how he could turn heel.

Otherwise, he just has to do the same stuff that Roman Reigns has always done, and that's the appeal.

And then Paul can't be a

babyface long term, but I'm not saying it has to end right now.

But he knows that it's odd that people would be cheering for the

devious, you know, corpulent fucking

mastermind and manipulator the wise man so this is a temporary situation

but we shall see what happens at the big wrestlemania

i'm not really that excited i mean i'm sure something will happen friday to pull me in the hall of fame may be nice

but i'm just really not that uh into wrestlemania the hall the hall of fame may be nice so it'll be worth sitting through eight hours of other wrestling well we didn't even discuss it You saw they have legacy inductees this year.

Oh, actually, I didn't.

Do they do they have the more of the legacies?

Yeah, let me tell you who they are.

There's three people, which is a nice way of saying, here's people that should have always been in any wrestling Hall of Fame, but we just now realized.

All right, this year,

the WWE will be inducting three new people to the legacy wing of the Hall of Fame.

Ivan Koloff will now finally be a WWE Hall of Famer.

Dory Funk Sr.

will be entering the Hall of Fame.

And finally, Kamala.

Kamala will be entering the Hall of Fame.

Okay, well, I heard about Kamala, but I didn't realize it was the legacy thing.

But

Ivan Koloff, why he hasn't been in years ago.

He was a WWWF champion and one of the top three heels of the 70s

there.

That's been curious for a while.

Dory Funk Sr.,

not that he doesn't belong in any wrestling hall of fame, but where did that come from for the

WWE

of modern day?

And

Kamala, they couldn't

give him a regular induction.

He's from the 80s, for God's sake.

Coco Ware had a regular induction.

And if he has family, I'm sure the fans would love that if Kamala's family came out there to talk about what the business meant to.

their father or their family member.

That's odd.

Well,

there you go.

I mean, they just had Dory Funk Jr.

at an NXT show.

So they saw him and they said, Dory, we want to induct your father in a Hall of Fame.

You don't have to give a speech or anything.

You don't even have to show up.

Stay here with Marty.

Again, Ivan Koloff was alive for years and around, and they could have.

Well, most people are.

Well, it's puzzling they didn't put him in the Hall of Fame.

It's a puzzling thing.

Well, that's what I said.

Yes, it's very puzzling.

They could have had, they could have, and Kamala.

Yeah.

Kamala, they could have done that at any point.

Well, Jesus Christ.

That's what it is.

And that was WWE Raw.

And that was the Hall of Fame news here at the end.

And speaking of the end, I know we're not going four and a half hours here today, but ladies and gentlemen, it's been two days.

Don't worry, next week is going to make up for it.

It's been two days straight of recording and lots of meetings and phone calls and all sorts of other stuff.

So we're going to call it here.

Next week, songs return.

Send in your songs, whether or not they are Weezer parodies or not.

Apparently, I should say.

Send your songs to corny drive-through at gmail.com.

Where's my song?

Hold on.

The drive-thru is closed.

All right.

Where does this go?

Alrighty then.

Boy, that was.

Well, this is magic.

This is the go-home show next week on the experience, the big WrestleMania

show.

There's so much content.

I figure most of it will be there, but there's so much content.

Some of it will roll over to the drive-thru as well.

We'll figure that out as we go along.

But of course, the experience and the drive-thru, wherever you find your favorite podcast, go through the archive, patreon.com slash cornet.

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That's not even on.

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