Episode 387: Jim Reviews AEW Dynasty

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Hello again, friends!

And you are our friends!

And welcome back to another edition of Jim Coronet's drive-thru.

I hit the desk and I moved the chair, but you could deal with that, and we could deal with another episode.

I'm yelling at everyone again for no good reason.

We have an exciting episode.

Big reviews.

Everyone's demanding to hear what Jim thinks about everything that's wrong in wrestling right now.

We We have that and more fun and hijinks and who knows what else.

I'm your host, the great Brian Last, and here he is, the leader of the cult of Cornet,

Mr.

Jim Cornet.

Brian, come on, sing it with me.

Sing it with me.

Come on.

Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river.

Come on.

If you come down to the river, bet you're going to find some pissed off sons of bitches.

We don't have have no money.

We don't get no thunder.

Everybody's shit is floating in ditches.

I come to you from the 51st state, Brian, the state of emergency.

It is.

When last we left our castaways here on Gilligans Island, formerly known as Metropolitan Louisville, I think on the last show, I told the people that we had the tornado pass right within mile or a mile or so south of the castle, southeast, headed in that direction.

And now they've confirmed that was an EF3

with winds of up to 145, or is that starting at 145 miles an hour?

I think that's the criteria that took the roof off that goddamn giant warehouse building and spread asbestos and chaos everywhere and turned the trees over and the light poles and wrecked the apartment complex and the blah, blah, blah.

And

then, you know, that was, there was another tornado on the other side of the county, as well as all the other chaos weather.

And then they said, and it's going to rain

like six to 12 inches and to 10 to 12 inches or more in some places that got more than a foot.

And it rained.

When's the last time I talked to you?

Wouldn't is this real life?

It rained Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday

to the point where now the flood level is there.

They've got all of the, it's not just the Ohio River from Cincinnati on downstream to western Kentucky, that some of it is a mile

wider

underwater than it normally is, which is taking into account all kinds of roads and towns and things and shit on the riverfront.

But all of the other secondary rivers and the locks and the dams and the whole nine yards is in top 10 or top five Frankfurt.

Part of the downtown state capital is underwater.

Like the top of the street lights is what's showing on some streets.

And that's like the number two ever.

Most rainfall and the highest flooding they've had in 30 years in a lot of places.

But here's the goddamn deal, Brian.

What did I say to you the other day about my spring?

Spring, I've come to hate spring.

It's been chaos and destruction and horrible weather and just drech and famine and pestilence.

Guess what they did?

Guess what they've done, gone and done, did?

They've already done, did it, Brian?

What did they do?

Oh, no, are they not going to do the big parade down the street with all the horses and the horses that like, you know, do the the funny walk?

And

no, they don't have a parade with horses doing funny.

It's the people, the ministry of funny walks that they have.

But that's a separate

holiday.

They've canceled Thunder Over Louisville

because

not of all of this, obviously.

But

the main thing is

they can't reschedule it.

It's gone.

It's over with because of this massive thing that they start planning from the day after

one year happens.

They start planning next year's.

They have dozens of fighter jets and antique planes and private planes in for the air show.

The

fireworks take two days to set up and they're not only on the bridge, they're on barges on the river.

They would be swept away in floodwaters if they could even get them out there.

And the hotels charge thousands of dollars.

The Galt House, they said

they've gone from charging thousands of dollars for Riverview rooms for viewing parties to giving discounts off their normal rates for flood victims.

And the total economic impact on Louisville, all the restaurants, there's going to be a half a million people

on the riverfront on both sides, Indiana and Kentucky, mostly Kentucky because there's more room.

That is the most of the places that they would be is underwater right now.

And so it's cost the economic impact, as they say, when they talk about WrestleMania, right?

Well, it brought the economic impact of whatever the fuck to thunder over Louisville, $125 million

to the city of the restaurants, the hotels, the fucking people from near and far.

And they've canceled all that shit.

That's what people are.

And meanwhile,

they've got drone shots of everything.

There are goddamn washing machines, clothes washers just floating down the fucking river.

It's going to take weeks to clean when the water recedes for all this shit that's been swept.

I mean, wood and natural debris and just shit out of people's fucking yards.

It's all going to be laying out in plain sight like a beached whale they closed the town of Utica Indiana

the little town over on the other side of the uh

obviously the other side of the river it's in Indiana it's right on the riverfront and they had the mayor or the police chief or whatever on say yeah we're going to lose about 50 homes

So we're the day after tomorrow, which this was a few days ago, we're just, we're going to close the town.

If you can't show that you live here, you won't be allowed in.

and they brought in a bunch of u-hauls and loaded these people shit up and fucking drove it off

has it ever been canceled before and what is the actual reason for the cancellation not that there isn't you know plenty of reason but what was the actual reason well no

many of the as i said the places that People would gather or even try to drive in, River Road is underwater.

These, I mean, these off-ramps on the interstates are closed off.

It almost reached part of the interstate downtown at Spaghetti Junction.

They, they don't have, it's not safe.

They've got emergency group.

They're still rescuing people in various places, water rescues.

Then they have the guy on the news that he built his house.

like to survive a flood, but he's living on the third floor and his fucking garage is underwater.

And he's talking to him from his fucking deck going, yeah, I'm fine.

I'm just watching TV.

But they got other shit going on and the waters are rushing so fast and you can't get there.

And even in COVID, they wouldn't let people congregate.

They actually

did fireworks displays in a smaller fashion.

around town surreptitiously where you if you worked on the deal you weren't supposed to tell people where it was so they wouldn't go there but they put it on TV

But then, I can't remember, it's been canceled.

This is a big fucking, this is the kickoff of the Kentucky Derby Festival.

So, and this would have been the second highest television rating in the market of the year, second only to the Derby.

It would have been a 50 fucking, I used to get the fucking numbers,

a 50 rating and a 70 share.

Maybe Randy Acher could do a benefit concert.

Oh, fuck you now.

Don't fucking don't start that with me.

I'm in a goddamn disaster area.

I'm in a disaster area and still coming through with my goddamn duties and responsibilities here today.

So don't you try to make mockery of me.

I've survived a F EF3 tornado.

a goddamn historic flood

and and the cancellation of thunder over Louisville

just to be here with you today so well it's a pleasure to see the multiple time survivor jim cornet

i tell you they can't they can't pin me down like a cockroach in the corner baby they can't pin me down i just keep on rolling rolling down the river

you know i don't know who should be more offended john fogarty or ike turner

Well, he's dead.

I think Saul Zance is going to have a word with me.

Well, he owned the right.

See,

That's just for you.

Fogan is the only one still alive.

About goddamn time for that Zance fella.

All right.

Well, this may be a fantasy.

This may be real life.

I'm not sure.

But this is your show.

No, it's not.

See, that's the thing about it here today.

It is not in any way my responsibility.

Well, we got a lot of the wrestling to talk about.

We do have a lot of the wrestling to talk about because AEW,

such shows probably still going on.

Do they quit going out and taking bumps?

You think when the people leave the building, when the fans are out of the arena, do they go back out and just have fun and take some more fucking bumps, these guys?

I bet you there'd be a few of them that would like to.

Why doesn't Tony do like a wrestle-a-thon, just an excuse to have 24 hours straight of wrestling?

They did that one time.

Not AEW, they, too many pronouns, pal.

But I'm trying to think now that you've said that, there was some place at some time, an independent promotion, I think potentially for some kind of charity or some

reason that they were trying to get some publicity for it, had some kind of continuing match that went on for 24 hours or something like I'm willing to read emails if they send them in

out there in.

in TV land about what I'm talking about, but I think something like that has been done.

But

I don't think the AEW guys want to care whether it's on TV or not.

Some of them, they just want to go out there and look, I can fucking springboard to the top turnbuckle and do the back flip, and you run underneath me and you run up the turnbuckles.

And when you do the back flip, you're standing on my shoulders.

And then Marina Schaefer will come up behind us and stick her head up our ass.

And then they just go try it.

See, I think the wrestle-a-thon idea would work for AEW because it's the first time we have a booker who stayed up for 24 hours.

Oh, God, come on.

No, not in any way, shape.

Actually, I guess that isn't true.

I guess that isn't true.

No.

No.

Well, some of Tony's biggest influences stayed up for 24 hours.

Maybe he can break the record.

Maybe it could be like we raise money while Tony books nonstop until he falls asleep.

Actually, some of the greatest bookers in history started staying up 24 hours a day right before they said, fuck it, I quit.

there was probably something to that when DeMarco, okay, Paul DeMarco came into the Barnett's office in Australia with the fucking booking book.

And he, Dundee told me his story, he was there when it happened, not in the office, but in the territory.

DeMarco holds the book over Barnett's desk and says, I have mastered the business and drops it

and I am done.

That's great.

And he turned around and walked out and got a plane and came back to the United States.

He's like, fuck it.

Anyway, that is the key.

You know what?

That's better than my horse is sick.

I've mastered the business.

I am now done.

You try and walk out.

Oh, Paul.

Paul, certainly, you can give two weeks' notice.

Am I thinking of the wrong guy?

Was DeMarco the guy that all the other wrestlers didn't like?

Who am I thinking of?

Paul DeMarco?

I'm not sure now.

Well, no, I hold on here.

Let's evaluate this.

I never met him.

It didn't see him.

And he was primarily in the 60s.

He was big in Atlanta, remember.

You've seen the old programs.

And I believe Florida.

And he booked and worked for Barnett at some point during the 60s.

So, but I don't know much about.

Probably one of our friends out on the West Coast would know what more about demarco because i think he spent time in california also oh maybe mike leno knows

i don't know if i would take that uh as a character reference or not but look i have a brand new interview with paul demarco by mike lano right yes

a brand new what did he say this time uh let me see all right well uh but nevertheless what i was gonna say was so now our next milestone here

here in the derby city as they call it and and surrounding environs.

The thunder has been flummoxed.

I mean, they're still going to have the Pegasus parade and the balloon race and the various things.

But the

next big thing.

What's the Pegasus parade?

Well, that's where they actually have a parade of floats and bands and people and Hoochie Coochie dancers.

I don't remember what all that.

I used to go when I was a kid.

I don't know.

I was there when I was eight years old, standing on the side of fucking Broadway, watching the goddamn floats go down the street.

And they have it on, they used to have it on television.

I don't know if they do anymore.

Is there a big ending?

Like a guy dressed like a Pegasus runs out at the end and like

Santa Claus at the end of the Thanksgiving parade.

There's a lot of horse-themed activity going on.

As a matter of fact.

In previous years, I believe they even got a couple of wrestlers involved,

like in the late 50s, when, or right before the late 50s.

I've seen a couple of foul pictures, but

it's just the local parade and they close off Broadway through downtown Louisville and they have the parade and all the kiddies come and look at the

floats and the fucking balloons and the hoochie coochie dancers.

And they smell more horse shit than they'll ever smell in their lives.

Well, no, there's not that many horses when you come to think about it compared to, you know, what you're going to see at the rate.

And that's the next big thing.

That's what I was trying to say is the actual run for the roses itself on Saturday, May the 3rd, the first Saturday in May, the 175th, I believe, or is it 76th this year, running of the Kentucky Derby?

And that's going to be a fucking mess if it rains too.

People in the infield wallering around in the mud.

Churchill Downs,

people think, Stacey's sister thought, oh, would it be glamorous if we all fly out there?

And since we're all out there, we'll go to the Kentucky Derby.

And it's like, she thinks we'll sit in a box and do whatever.

These box seats and these VIP things, if you're the chairman of the board of Brown Foreman Distilleries, you know, you can invite your goddamn friends to these luxury, but it's probably like the Lakers.

in the forum or whatever.

Is that an apt analogy?

You're more sports-minded than I am.

You can't just wander into these fucking things, buy a ticket at the window, is what I'm trying to say.

Well, at least everyone will have a hat, they'll be ready for the rain.

Well, and there's a lot of hats involved, and now, especially, you can't take, they don't allow you when you go in the infield,

uh, which is home to like 80 to 100,000 people, depending on the weather.

And most of them will never see a horse actually in person, except they can see the screen.

But now that you can't take things that could be misconstrued as weapons and umbrellas and fucking pup tents and whatever, you're just out there wandering around.

It's like a goddamn horse-themed fucking Woodstock.

And

so the point I was going to make is Churchill Downs,

they've done a lot of upgrades and they've spent millions of dollars because I mean, all the stars and movie stars and celebrities and big wigs do come in and do all these things you see on television.

But for the average people in that neighborhood,

the original location of the track, which is there, was 175 years ago.

There wasn't shit there, right?

Now the neighborhoods and things have grown up around it, and it's not in the most attractive neighborhood of the city of Louisville, if you know what I mean.

It's not a high commerce, high, you know, there's, there's no

gentrification of condominiums and everything.

So you never have, you never hear I have a beautiful place down by the racetrack.

Well, no, but no, but this is like one of the most famous sporting places in the world, right?

Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby.

But it's, you know, because it's been there 175 years.

It couldn't control.

There's no massive parking lots

that can handle, because there could be 150,000 people in this thing, but there's no.

massive modern sports arena parking lots and it's not right next to the interstate where you can just bop off and all this stuff that

major cities do.

So the people that live in this neighborhood, they have stories on the news about it that they make

as much money the week of the derby and all the pre-races and everything as they do sometimes in six months at their job because they'll charge people $100 a car to park in my fucking yard.

And

they line them up and they sit out there in lawn chairs and that's their business for the fucking week.

Because

you can't get in and out of that place without chaos going on.

It's not easily accessible when 150,000 people want to be there all of a sudden for the day.

So it's, it's, uh, it's, we'll be watching on the, on the television at home.

But you know what I was going to say, don't you?

Is that Saturday, May the 3rd is also the debut of our May Mayhem sale that is postponed from spring spectacular because I've found even more good stuff at jimcornet.com.

We'll tell you in the next couple of weeks, but there's not only

merchandise, memorabilia related to me that we have not sold before or maybe had some years ago, but also some general classic wrestling.

memorabilia back even to the 50s that I've culled from the vault because I finally got the chance with Hotchkiss, as I mentioned to you last week or whenever, to make those two storage units, one storage unit, and to do a sweep of the vault for all of the stuff I'd put in the corner that I used to take to shows or had duplicates of.

So there's going to be some cool wrestling stuff at jimcornet.com.

Derby Day, Saturday, May the 3rd, noon Eastern time is when it all happens.

And if you are a valued customer of JimCornet.com and you've put your email address in the box at the bottom of the homepage or you've ordered from Cornett's Collectibles, we'll send you an email with a list of a lot of the stuff that we're going to,

we're going to be putting up for grabs and that'll happen later on this month.

But in the meantime, Brian, we are literally, we're fashion icons now.

People are wearing our garments, our garb.

their dress of the public display of affection for our programming and and for my

my lovely and beneficent face the magnitude of me is all over our new t-shirts and people are buying them and and they're literally shedding their clothes in the streets and putting these on instead have you heard about this it was on the news no literally i have not heard any of that uh so i don't think you did either Yeah, they just suddenly, it was like a gasp come over them and they just started whipping their clothes off and throwing them to the ground and putting these t-shirts on.

So everybody, we got to start making pants.

You saw this on the news.

Where was this?

This is over Zoom,

it was on all the stations.

Well, of course, you can shed your clothes and put on a fine shirt with the face of Corny, or perhaps the drive-thru logo.

More to come.

Working on some stuff with Travis Heckel for people who've said, We need some Travis Heckel stuff on shirts, but you can get all the shirts and well, now, wait a minute, they didn't say it like that.

Travis Heckle's, none of Travis Heckle's stuff is on any of these shirts.

He did the artwork.

That's right.

Yeah.

I like this dynamic.

We're reversing the commercial spots.

Let me tell you, it's going to be shit is all over.

I got a shirt one time with some of Travis's stuff.

And I said, what the hell is this doing

on this shirt?

And he said it'd never happen again.

See what we got and more to come.

No, that's that's what started the whole thing.

Somebody said they wanted to see what he had.

ArcadianVanguard.com or very easily go to YouTube.

On the bottom of every video, you will see a link to a shirt or the store.

Click that.

And of course, on the shop app, powered by our good friends at Shopify.

That's right.

That was.

There it is somewhere in the distance.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I got it.

Hold on, hold on.

It's over here.

It's over here now.

You jumped in on that on me.

Thunder over Louisville.

So your program, Chief?

It is, and we have a lot to talk about.

We have a lot to review.

Before we do anything,

let's have a little bit of a wildcard here.

Uh-oh.

I collect wrestling books.

You know, I have a pretty big library of books that have been published and manuscripts, all sorts of things I have here.

This is under the topic of wrestling fiction.

I was wondering how aware of this book you were.

By the author David Morgan.

Are you familiar with David Morgan?

I'm not, no, not familiar with David.

Is he related to JP?

He is the author of The Mafia's Virgin Daughter.

Wait, now who?

Wait, that took a disturbing turn toward the end of the sentence.

Now, what?

He is the author, David Morgan, of The Mafia's Virgin Daughter.

And this is his book.

This is a first printing dedicated to Naomi with love by David Morgan, 1973.

Sweet Sam.

She made them all cry, Uncle.

Everyone wanted a piece of her action.

Let's see how much we could discover about this book without reading it.

Just by looking at the cover, the fans crowded into the wrestling arena, screaming for sweet Sam to scale new heights in her torrid tangles with the greatest gals in the game.

The mob was hot on her gorgeous tail

as a greedy goat-like godfather tried to come up with a proposition the mat champ couldn't turn down.

The men lined up to get their chance to rise to her challenge as six foot four Sam went on a no holds barred hunt for a man she could really look up to.

Sam was a girl who had a lot going for her, and she wasn't shy about letting it all hang out.

So before I go any further, oh, I'm actually on the inside cover, every inch a woman.

In Samantha's case, that meant an awful lot of female, for Samantha stood six foot four in her bare feet, which was the way she liked them.

In the wrestling ring, Sweet Sam always got her woman and made them love it.

Outside it, she put a sensuous stranglehold on every man who saw her fabulous form.

And in or out,

both men and women agreed, Samantha was the champ.

What are your thoughts on wrestling fiction?

Well,

the wrestling fiction took a disturbing trend as well there.

Mr.

Morgan,

what publishing house is he writing for there?

Who issued this tome?

That's a good question.

And that's not apparent.

Is this a private public?

Nobody put their name on this?

A Dell book.

Dell.

No, what?

This is Dell.

Dell?

Dell Publishing Company, United States of America.

Dell Publishing Company.

And for the kids who haven't ever read,

Dell Publishing Company, besides the fact they did mainstream paperbacks for years and years, years were on the racks in all the stores.

Dell even had a comic book branch.

And

many of the Disney

and cartoon characters, like the Walter Lance characters, and how many of them I'm thinking of,

Dell published comic books of those for children as young as

a wee little two.

And meanwhile, they're putting out Samantha's fucking leg scissoring and clam slamming

all of her opposition on

this,

what do they call it, white label production, possibly.

And this is 1973.

And there's a picture of a woman, an actress, obviously, or someone they hired to play the role of Sam on the cover here, making a wrestling position.

I don't know what you would call this exactly.

Does she look 6'4?

She has long legs, but you can only see them until the knees, and then it cuts off.

Do they reach all the way to the ground?

Oh, you can't tell.

You can't tell.

Well, I don't know if the book was based on this woman.

I don't know if they hired a woman.

to play Sweet Sam.

Well, no, I think this is probably a model's artist rendering, models representation of

the Sam who was in

the mind of the author for whatever reason.

And I'm sure it had a lot of space to occupy up there.

But Dell Publishing.

Hmm.

Let me see.

I'm just hoping I'm a random.

Are there pictures?

There's no pictures.

It's a paperback here.

Well, a paperback can have pictures.

I think Mo Joe Quinn.

Mo John Quill.

Excuse me.

But wait, wait, Mojo Quinn.

I thought he was a fucking soul singer.

Mo John Quill is the promoter.

Mojo Quill lifted his hat slightly, ran his hand quickly over his head, and replaced the hat before Samantha could see what, if anything, was under it.

The thought went through her head that whatever those two muggers had been after was something Mr.

John Quill kept under his hat.

It wasn't until later that she thought about it again and was aware of the pun.

Oh, I get you now, Mo John Quills said with an enlightened expression on his face.

Deceit and trickery, right?

Uh, trickery and deceit, right?

He was stalling, desperately trying to figure out what this babe wanted from him.

Having other worries, he would say whatever she wanted to hear, but what?

Just to get her off his back, so she saved him from being mugged, it sounds like, and now he doesn't know who she is.

She was offering no help to him.

She just sat, green eyes smoldering, not explaining or amplifying her complaints, leaving him to work it all out for himself.

Well, here goes nothing, he thought, and he said,

Now let me see if we're playing in the same ballpark, right?

You're saying, it seems to me, and correct me if I'm wrong, right?

What the hell?

That you are not in favor of trickery and deceit.

He paused, and even though he didn't end his sentence with the usual question, Samantha nodded once.

Her Her brilliant hair swung down across her pink cheeks and back again.

What about her ample bosoms?

At least I'm on the right track, Mojan Quill thought and continued.

Now I'm going to explain something to you, right?

So I want you to listen carefully, right?

Right?

Now get set.

Listening?

Here it comes.

Mojan Quill would have been a great actor.

He really appreciated the drama of the situation and knew how to build to a climax.

Samantha was on the edge of her chair.

The wind is whirling behind me, Jesus.

Okay, Sam, you asked for it.

He was getting carried away himself.

He took the cigar out of his mouth and pointed it at the wide-eyed girl like a gun.

Wrestling is not a sport.

He replaced the cigar where it belonged and puffed three times, waiting for the excitement to die down.

The fact that Samantha was not excited did not dismay him unduly.

Wrestling is not a sport, right?

It's a business and it's entertainment and nothing else.

I'll stop there so I don't end up reading the whole thing, but it appears that Vince McMahon may have based a lot of his life on the promoter Mojo.

How do you spell that now?

Is that like three names like John Wayne Gacy, Mo, John Quill, or is it John Quill like NyQuill?

It's Moe is one word, M-O-E.

As in Mo Howard, I guess?

John Quill was Joe Joe.

Was J-O-N-Q-U-I-L.

That's an odd fucking name to make up, isn't it?

It is.

He must know someone trying to get revenge on his friend John Quill.

But this is from the book, Sweet Sam, from my wrestling library here by David Morgan.

Is that available on Amazon?

I don't know.

Once again, David Morgan, author of The Mafia's Virgin Daughter, which must have been such a hit that Dell said, put that on the cover.

We want them to know it's David, that this David, not some other David.

Well, there it is, the story of Sweet Sam.

Yes.

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One more thing here before we get to some reviews.

As we are recording, news has broken.

OVW,

your old stomping grounds, and actually something you owned at one point or was a partner in.

If that makes any sense with Danny Davis.

OVW has been sold.

I have a press release here.

The logos of OVW and Morley Sports Management.

Morley Sports Management Limited acquires OVW Wrestling.

Ohio Valley Wrestling, OVW,

are pleased to announce that Morley Sports Management Limited, MSM,

will acquire a majority shareholding in the business from 1 May, 2025.

Obviously, they are from another country.

That's why the date is like that.

Yes, they do things backwards, as we said the other day, like it's May 1st.

MSM are current owners and operators of Haverford West Country, who are a professional soccer club based in Wales and play in the nation's Premier League.

as well as providing strategic and creative consultancy to some of the world's biggest sporting brands.

Huh.

Is that what Tony's in?

Is Tony in the Premier League?

I don't know.

Under MSM's management, Haverford West Country are in its most successful period in the club's 125-year history with a competitive side that played in UEFA European competition in 2023.

for only the second time and became the first Haverford West Country side in history to win a European tie when they beat North Macedonia's KF

what the fuck

in the UEFA European

spell what you're trying to say son S-H-K-E-N-D-I-J-A

It's a weird word just to have in a middle there because you're not prepared for it.

You're like, I've never seen this before.

But anyway, they currently sit in third place in the Welsh Premier League.

And by the way, I love the way they're listing this.

Like,

these are their qualifications to be operating and owning this

wrestling operation.

But go ahead.

Since their takeover in 2020, alongside significant on-field developments, the club has developed a highly accredited and successful community program,

a competitive and history-making Boys and Girls Academy,

and

high-quality media output, including weekly podcasts and a documentary following the club's rise from amateur status to a fully professional club competing in the upper echelons of the Welsh Football Pyramid.

And the West Derbyshire Havershire Foundation.

MSM.

We shouldn't make fun of our friends across the pond.

Now, you know, I love you guys.

No, they clearly have money to spend.

MSM and its team have a successful track record in business operations within the sporting arena and bringing them to the heart of its community.

If they say so themselves.

The current ownership group.

And they do.

The current ownership group, headed by Matt Jones, will retain a minority equity position.

Now, wait a minute, hold on, back up.

This is the current, they unwieldily transitioned there, but the current ownership they're talking about now is of OVW going forward here.

That's right.

Matt Jones will retain a minority equity position and will remain as advisors to MSM and its board for the foreseeable future.

We're going to tell you how we've been losing money on this thing for five years.

Founder of MSM,

Rob Edwards, who will officially become the CEO of OVW on 1 May 2025, states, here's a quote, OVW is such a historic brand within wrestling.

and sports entertainment and has real provenance.

I've never read a press release on wrestling like this before.

Some of the biggest talents in the industry have learned their trade at OVW,

confirmed by the fact that the main event at WrestleMania this year will be between two OVW alumni, John Cena and Cody Rhodes.

One of whom was there in 2001 and the other of whom was there in 2007.

Led by Al Snow, the promotion remains littered with talent.

There's garbage abound everywhere.

In the same way that the riverfront is littered with decorations.

Led by Al Snow, the promotion remains littered with talent.

with whom we want to promote not just within Louisville and Kentucky, but across the U.S.

and Europe.

And and alongside the OVW Academy, provide a clear pathway for people anywhere to break into the industry in what is one of the leading environments to learn the trade.

We want to build on the exposure created from wrestlers on Netflix.

That was years ago at this point, and take OVW's reach across the pond and beyond.

I like that.

That's good.

All the way to infinity.

He adds: the current ownership group have worked tirelessly to drive OVW forward in the hope of finding a bunch of European marks that will buy it for way more than it's worth.

Excuse me.

Into the modern era.

And we are.

I think

they should have phrased it instead of tirelessly.

The current ownership has worked sleeplessly.

And they are dedicated to, oh, we are dedicated, excuse me, to continuing their good work over the last few years and build on the strong foundations in place alongside its passionate team.

We want to empower those

within the business currently to help us achieve new heights within the industry and take advantages of the opportunity this era we are in create,

alongside making OVW an asset within the community.

In everything MSM do,

we want to create not just industry impact, but social impact also.

We are so excited for the challenge and breaking new barriers.

Hey, then they need to bring some sandbags and a fucking truck and a shovel and come on down if they want to make an impact on the society around here right now.

We are so excited for the challenge and breaking new barriers for this fantastic brand.

Matt Jones, who represents the current ownership, explains, I fully believe that MSM is the perfect management entity to help OVW continue to grow and expand the boundaries of its support into new and exciting markets.

I look forward to providing support as they lead the future of this historic wrestling organization to exciting new heights.

Thank you to our OVW fans for your continued support and enthusiasm for what we do.

And we hope this partnership will ensure we can continue to provide you the highest level of entertainment and engagement for years to come.

We'll see you at Ringside.

That was a mouthful.

And I mean, we're laughing, but primarily because

was it on anybody's bingo card, as the kids say,

for any promotion, much less OVW that I'm, you know, obviously have been affiliated with in the past,

for a fucking English soccer league company ownership to just suddenly say, well, we want to buy a fucking small local independent wrestling promotion in the United States.

And from the sound of that,

that press release

is very rosy and optimistic.

But in that, it didn't explain why that of all things that this apparently

well-financed, one-would-think operation could get involved in, they just, oh, let's,

we've got this thing and fuck it.

Where are they?

Where is their home base?

What part of the UK?

I don't want to misrepresent anyone.

I got to go back to this.

Well, whatever part of.

They are from Haverford, West Country.

Okay, in Haverford, West Country, we've got to own an ongoing business concern in Louisville, Kentucky.

It's an easy commute.

We can keep an eye on it easily.

How the fuck is this even going to?

And what,

and why is it worth the effort

for

the

it made a nice living for me and Danny Davis at one point in time, but this is not a goddamn giant financial juggernaut here and it hadn't been when it was doing well.

We think there'll be a content explosion all across the universe with OVW stars reaching all new heights led by us, MSM, the geniuses behind Haverhurst Forest or whatever the fuck they were saying.

The Royal Forest of Dean.

But no, here, this brought up, here's what I, when I saw this press release go out, and it's been on again, the TV news.

Our good friend Gilbert Corsi, who used to be the voice of Ohio Valley Wrestling in the 2010s, as the kids say,

is the anchorman there and

had this story on.

Obviously, Danny Davis

was always the majority owner and he was the founder and

operator and manipulator.

And I didn't write it down here to have right in front of me what year that he

sold, but it was well before the pandemic.

Was it

was it around the time we started doing the podcast, 2016-ish?

Maybe 17 somewhere in there i was thinking it was pretty early on because i i almost feel like he was in florida pretty early on but maybe i'm completely wrong well it said time flies as we get nearer to the end of ours but

point being

at one point

i think it was probably no you know what it was it was definitely like 2017-ish but anyway

Danny had told me, well, Al Snow

has, and I'm, again, I'm going to make it plain up at the top.

I haven't talked to any of the current ownership group like ever.

The Matt Jones with Kentucky Ray, he does a sports radio program.

I haven't listened to the radio in this town since we were buying it for OVW, except if it's the classic rock station.

So I've never heard his program.

I know there's other people.

Our mayor, Craig Greenberg, who bought into it as part of some type of investment group.

Again, we'll go into this.

And then got elected mayor, but he's owned part of it.

But originally, so, and I've only saw Al Snow for the first time in five years in person at the movie premiere.

So I don't have any inside knowledge of this, these dealings or this activity, but I can tell you my,

from my experience and what I, what I've heard here in the community.

So Danny Davis was about ready to retire.

He was fed up with the wrestling business.

And bless his little P.

Piggin heart, he went to to florida and now

he he may speak to people as individuals but i guarantee you he hadn't watched any wrestling or couldn't give a possibly what the is going on right now

uh and he's having a wonderful retirement but it was somewhere around there he said al snow wants to buy the company from me

And I believe Al had a financial backer.

Let's just say that that's a pretty good bet.

And,

you know, they made a deal and Danny retired to Florida and Al became the owner of OVW.

And then again, I wasn't transcribing this as it happened contemporaneously to give testimony later, but it wasn't long after that,

I believe, that

we heard that they were either the, I can't remember the order of events, but they were either looking for another investor or had another investor, and they also got accredited.

Do you remember this story, Brian?

They got accredited as a trade school, like for plumbing or for fucking

whatever trades are, stonemasonry.

I don't know what they have trade schools for, but they got accredited with Kentucky as a trade school.

And they were trying to

expand their profile, but at the same time,

their profile has been diminishing around here.

And then,

a few years back, my cousin Larry,

because, you know, before he got ill and before he retired, he had a medical supply company, et cetera, et cetera, not germane to the story, but he was in the medical field.

And he said, yeah, this doctor friend of mine, because he knows obviously what I do or have done.

This doctor friend of mine, Jim, has invested in a local wrestling federation.

I said, what?

And he said, yeah,

he's just doing, I said, I said, Ohio Valley Wrestling?

Yeah, that's, that's it.

Was that yours?

Because even then, Larry was starting to get a little forgetful.

And

I would hear that some people are investing.

And I'm like, investing in what?

And then, because Danny had had the, after the WWE developmental, He'd had TNA with him for quite some time and then had done his own thing for a while and has had the school fairly self-sufficient, but he had cut back on the number of big live events and

that's only continued.

And

so then

the news report said that the controlling stake in OVW has changed hands three times since 2020.

And that doesn't even count Al's initial purchase from Danny with whoever he had.

So, controlling interest

in this little teeny tiny wrestling school keeps changing hands until now.

This international,

I don't know if it's a conglomerate, but it may be a conglomeration,

has bought it.

Yet

I live here and I used to run it.

And we built out the building that they're still in.

And I've

about once a year, I will see on the very weak local independent station, they run OVW multiple times per week, like they run

commercial for the fucking fish blender.

And you click on for five minutes and it gives me, I'm, you know, I'm sorry if I'm offending anyone,

but it gives me that sick feeling in my stomach when you think that, you know, a

famous attorney who has had a son, who he sends through legal school and is going to become the next Clarence Darrow instead, turns out to be an intravenous heroin user in a fucking gutter somewhere

is the feeling I get from watching the television show that has the company that once bore my face and I had financial interest in.

So I don't know what the fuck is going on,

but they run a TV taping in a building that they get 100 from the look of what I see on camera, 150 or 200 people on Wednesday nights.

There's no six flags deal anymore.

There's no major house.

I don't see a spot show schedule,

but they did

Brian.

Remember the wrestlers thing on Netflix?

Did you see any of that?

I watched the first one.

I don't know if I ever even commented to you about it.

I didn't know you watched it.

I never watched any of it, but I remember they toured briefly or tried to tour afterwards.

Well, out of morbid curiosity, because I had this what, because again,

the sick feeling you get, I would get when a documentary on the inside of a wrestling school that I once had part of is going to be broadcast to the world and Kay Fabe's corpse will be drawn and quartered in Times Square.

But the show, number one,

was

embarrassing from a standpoint of, yes, that it showed what they were doing in front of no people.

But also the talent, that Hollywood Haley Jay, who was supposed to be a star at one point, came off

like I would have,

if I'd have just gone down there and wrote him a check and bought the thing then, the first thing I'd done is fire that fucking douchebag.

She's just, Jesus Christ.

And they're petty fucking issues.

And it just,

so the talent had gone to hell, the look of the thing.

And Matt Jones, who was the, I guess, the guy operating it, so, well, we're losing $30,000 a month.

So what the, it didn't used to cost us $30,000 a month to run the fucking thing.

I think Danny might have run it for $30,000 a year if he had to, but it wasn't no.

How are they losing that much a month on what?

I don't know what the fuck they were doing.

And

they were trying to get on, they were telling people that they were getting on this wide television network.

It was the

modern day and streaming equivalent of the Bill Barron's strategy.

Get us on all these low power and independent services that feed these bullshit stations and Pocatello.

And eventually that adds up to a number we can do.

1-800 per inquiry spots, 1-800 by this shit, that type of thing.

But nobody was watching it.

But

they did do off the Netflix thing.

So I watched the first episode.

I said, oh, Jesus Christ, no.

And then, and again, I don't even know who I'm knocking now because I don't know who these suckers are that bought this thing next.

But then they said they were doing a national tour.

And in my small circle of

actually non-wrestling related, incidentally

related to wrestling friends that I speak to,

I heard that this

guy that managed some kind of facility in, I believe it was Las Vegas.

Again,

I'm willing to be corrected, but I think it was Las Vegas somewhere out on the West Coast,

was a big fan of this Netflix series.

And he bought a show from OVW for fucking 2,000 miles away.

And he was telling this guy that told me, oh, yeah, they're on Netflix and everything.

And the guy that told me he was smart enough to know, ah,

and I think, let's put it this way: I don't believe they made their money back.

And did you ever hear about that show happening, Brian?

It happened, but did you ever hear about it?

I do remember at the time, WrestleTicks, I believe, were reporting on some of the ticket sales, and they didn't look good in advance.

I don't remember hearing anything about the actual shows.

From what I understand, there were more witnesses to the St.

Valentine's Day massacre than there were to that wrestling card.

And then again, independently, a guy that I know

was contacted wanting him to

help promote this national tour.

And he had been given a glorified picture of what the realities of Ohio Valley Wrestling's business and appeal across country were at that point in time.

And I tried to temper his enthusiasm so he didn't.

go bankrupt.

And I don't know that that

pairing eventually went too far.

But no,

I don't know what's going on here, but doctors and lawyers and mayors

have been putting money into this thing

for years now.

And

as I said, they don't do the spot show schedule we used to do.

They don't do the six flags.

They don't do

any major live events that I'm saying you see every once in a while.

Oh, at a festival at

the riverfront or whatever, maybe not now.

They'll have OVW wrestling will be there.

Everybody knows the initials OVW, but nobody's going to see OV fucking W right now here.

And

so I don't,

I don't know what, I mean, I don't know what Rip Rogers, I think Rip's retired.

I don't know if he's

still training anyone or if they just have to come to him and see more or what the deal is.

But otherwise, there's no

connection between the OVW that we had and what this OVW is now, except that people keep fucking buying.

When we were one of only two profitable wrestling promotions in the United States of America,

nobody wanted to buy it.

But now there's been a losing money for 10 fucking years.

There's goddamn people lining up.

What is going on here, Brian?

You know, it kind of sounds like stuff we've seen and experienced in podcasting you have some company obviously their interests are in owning sports properties and whatever content lies with it they made a big deal about their content development in that press release and they're buying a wrestling company it happens to be ovw

but they're buying a wrestling company they're going to have content and now their portfolio which

You know, most people are building companies to sell them.

Their portfolio will be, we have have this property and we have this property.

Maybe they'll get some more properties.

And then, you know, next thing you know, the Saudis own OVW.

That's the way it works.

Oh, boy, howdy.

Yeah.

Well, they got a football team over there in West Fabersham.

And they've got a sports representation company that floats around the world.

And they got a wrestling school in Louisville, Kentucky at 4,400 Shepherdsville Road.

Hearing you were bought by some soccer team you'd never heard of somewhere else, is that like hearing that like some Nigerian is investing in the GWF?

Yeah, where's Olu Oliani when we need him?

What the fuck?

He clear this whole thing up.

He's got a letter of credit, Brian.

I got a copy of it.

That letter of credit.

Well, we'll see what happens.

I mean, I guess the only other interesting thing.

But at least the mayor's out of the wrestling business, so we can be thankful.

Is he out of the wrestling business?

Well,

now, wait a minute.

I don't know if he's still part of the old group that had a minority

interest,

equity.

Yeah.

Whatever the fuck he's got.

We'll sell it to you, but we want to hold on to a piece because if you find a sucker that'll buy it for you, we want to make money off that sale too.

It's a good move.

It's a good move.

Well,

there you go.

There's the OVW news.

That's the most OVW news I've heard in a very long time.

We'll see if anything comes of this.

But, Jim,

some people sell

wrestling school,

not memberships.

Scholarships?

They don't sell the scholarships.

They sell

the reasons why we made money.

Well, some people sell admissions, I guess, to

there we go.

There you go.

That's not really a great transition, but let's go back to selling.

Let's talk about something you may have to learn at wrestling school, how to sell.

But the type of selling we're talking about is once you make it in wrestling and you haven't gone to the majors yet, and you need to sell your own shit and you don't want to go with any company that's already doing it, you may want to set up your own store, and of course, that store can be powered by Shopify.

That's right, because sell your own shit by Shopify should be trademarked, and we're doing it right now, and then we'll sell it back to Shopify so they can sell it to other people.

And there will be a lot of selling going on, and a lot of buying, a lot of buying, and a lot of selling because

that's the noise you're going to hear whenever you deal with Shopify.

Because they're going to ring you up and they're going to ring somebody else out.

They are going to give you the same checkout that the big boys use where you have the global reach, you're covering the world like

an enveloping darkness.

Your business, your product, your merchandise available wherever

the human being may exist on this planet and has the money to pay for it, they will take, actually, they'll take whale blubber up there in the Antarctic or is it the Arctic?

Whichever is up where they have the blubber, they'll take it and they will convert it into

cha-chings for you.

You just, you go to shopify.com and you look at what they can do for you, folks, because Nobody does selling better than Shopify.

They are powering, as a matter of fact, our current sale of shirts for Corney's drive-through and corny shirts and a variety of things that you find on YouTube or wherever you see your favorite podcast advertised because Shopify is making us money.

They can make you, I understand you think, well, they're stars, they're international big business typhoons, Jim Cornette and Brian Last.

They got these connections.

Well,

you can have them too, because we're letting you in on it.

Because with our cachet in the industry, ladies and gentlemen, gentlemen we can give you a code a secret code you don't even need a decoder ring where you can get a one dollar a month trial period for your online business your platform your checkout your commerce at shopify a dollar a one dollar a month what is that is that

what's the math three cents a day

would be a dollar a month.

Well, maybe on in October, the days of the months with 31 days, it would be 93.

Nevertheless, it's very cheap because they want to show you what they can do for you.

And once that, it's like injecting intravenous crack cocaine in your veins.

Once that you see the money that they're going to make you,

you're never going to want to give that money up.

You're going to be fiending for your jones and for the cash, baby.

You're going to be a complete capitalistic whore.

You won't be jonesing for anything you will be appreciative of having a partner you could trust having a say a a a thing that you could rely on yeah this

could rely on and of course

no crack uh you're gonna be well you know it it depends on well depends on what your flavor is you know

but whatever you got on your back they're going to give you some of it it's going to be called money and you want some more of it you'll do anything to get some more and so you sell more and more until finally you're selling everything that you can possibly sell in your store.

And Shopify is converting that whale blubber into good hard American currency.

And they're handing it to you.

And you're just rolling naked.

You're rolling naked in this dough because you've sold your clothes.

Why?

You've sold your clothes because you've sold everything there is to sell except your dignity.

And then you started on that.

Now you're rolling around in money naked as the day you were born with your Willie hanging out.

That's what Shopify can do for you, folks.

Right now, go to Shopify.

Go to shopify.com/slash JCE

to upgrade your selling today and get that $1 a month trial period.

JCE all in lowercase, by the way, in case the computer tries to kick you out, because not everybody can take advantage of this offer.

It's only for the people that can understand basic fucking instructions.

Shopify.com/slash JCE in lowercase.

And soon

you'll be hearing that sound.

Money.

It's a hit.

Don't give me that

good bullshit.

They're going to take people's money and they're going to turn around and give it to you.

And that's the good old-fashioned American way.

Take something from somebody else and give it to somebody.

Through sales, through the legitimate manner.

Well, if, you know, as long as they are polite and keep their mouths shut and do what they're told, you know,

everybody will get out of this all right.

You'll get out of this all right.

$1 a month.

Try it out today.

Shopify.

We like it so much that we use it ourselves for our t-shirt store.

More to come from us, more to come from them.

Do the right thing.

Don't make a mistake.

Shopify, what's that promo code, Jim?

JCE, all in lowercase.

Yeah, don't make a mistake.

You got a real good life going there for you.

It'd be a shame if you didn't do what we said.

Shopify.com JCE.

Well, Jim, on the topic of selling, WWE is doing everything they can to sell us on this year's WrestleMania, which I feel like every week it feels like it's still weeks away, but it's coming up in just a couple of weeks now or a week and a half.

No,

it's no, it's, yeah, well, a week and a half.

You got it.

As we sit here and speak right now, we don't know when the people are listening.

But at least SmackDown was back in the United States.

Back in the USA.

The boys have come home.

You know, it's always good when the boys come home from overseas.

Sweet home, Chicago.

You know, I bet the first thing they did, Brian, they went to their hotel and they went down the hall and they went to the ice machine and they punched the button and they just stood there as the ice poured out like a slot machine in Las Vegas hitting a jackpot and enveloped them in the cool, refreshing, modern invention that is known as ice cubes

because they probably hadn't seen any in a very long time.

And I know I'm risking, again, offending our fans across the pond.

I loved my trips over there, but god damn it.

Ice, my kingdom for ice.

They got ice in Chicago.

We got plenty of water down here, and it was freezing, so we could have ice here as well.

But they didn't get an icy reception in Chicago for SmackDown, did they?

See, I brought it all the way back, Brian.

It was a hot crowd there, 16,000 plus in Chi-Town.

Certain people got icy responses, but overall, no.

Well, yeah, there were certain people that were iced out of the social circle.

But that's the old Rosemont Horizon.

I recognize the ramp and the seating and everything.

I don't know what they, what are they calling it now?

The fucking Al's number one Italian beef center.

But it's a historic building there.

And they did

a package with the history of the happenings between Punk and Roman and Seth.

And then they come out there in Chicago.

And the chants are CM Punk, CM Punk.

And then

Lacka Mussolini in Illinois,

he got the big pop and they sang the song and they chanted the chants and they

ooded the oz and they did a big it's clobbering time.

And of course, Punk milked it for everything.

It's where that cow's udders are sore.

And he even, when he got in the ring, he took the handheld camera from the cameraman and shot the crowd and fired him up.

He's got it's his hometown and he knows how to talk and how to fire people up.

He's a showman.

And

the promo, again,

he talks to people

and he sounds like he means what he says and he does mean what he says.

And

would you say, am I verbally fillating the man, Brian?

Or would you concur with this on me without sticking your tongue out or anything?

That he's the best at weaving

shit that is true, is real, and that

either the people know to be true and real or have no reason to doubt into the promos that he does about his worked environment.

Yes, actually, I would agree with you on that.

And that's what the,

that's the idea of maybe we finally, somebody, I know that was wordy, but carve it in stone somewhere.

Because that's the thing.

And he's, I wasn't supposed to, I'm not supposed to be here.

And the theme of his promo was all through his life people say you're supposed to be here he was born with a cord around his neck he was blue you're not supposed to be here and they brought him back

and the thing and it's tying into what we will

find out with happy heyman as well

but that promo there was There was legitimate stuff, and then there was stuff that was related to what he's doing.

And

he weaved back and forth.

and it's and

very very well done but he it was all he's overcome and now the hard work begins

and he got him to chill a little chant for aj there but he got him to he didn't mean it well not he didn't mean it he mentioned her and they chanted for her and then he said no if you want to chant chant for larry and they chanted for larry hello puppy

And then he did the, you know, the fired up WrestleMania promo.

And I,

again, I know know people are saying, oh, the buildup.

I'm more interested in seeing a triple threat match than I ever have been with these three Cretans involved.

And as far as I'm concerned, besides Cody

and the real world title,

this is the star of our show.

So I'm loving this shit.

But he cuts the promo for WrestleMania, and then Heyman interrupts and gets a big pop.

And

Paul, you know, waddles down and puts Chicago over and punk over.

But Paul does Paul.

He presented the details

in his way, the history.

He set the table for the thing.

In an entertaining way, he's the guy that's the manager's job.

He's the guy that gives the facts and the figures and the statistics in an entertaining way as to the history of everybody involved and sets up

what the issue is specifically here why he owes punk a favor

and

illustrates the the closeness that they have had that has been hinted at and

Remember a year ago or whatever, it was, well, punk's off the table for Roman or punk's off limits or whatever.

And they've teased this, but now they're going into more

detail on it because now it will be fresh in people's mind.

And we're giving you more detail on something that you've already kind of known.

We're not dragging it out of the blue.

We're just fleshing it out because now it's pertinent, that type of thing.

And Paul's got one more favor to ask of Punk, if he would do me one more favor.

Please tell me the favor that I owe you so I can tell Roman Reigns.

And Punk responds, he says, I'm going to tell you, Paul, but because I respect you and I respect,

I want to tell everybody at the same time.

I want to tell you when I tell Roman.

So let me know when he shows up.

And that's their show-long

cliffhanger

thread through the program.

And also.

That's that was 23 minutes that flew by at the top of the program where

you're updated on this issue, and then these two guys come out

and sell you on a thing.

And I want to see what's going to go on from there.

But your thoughts on the and we'll do this chronologically instead of going through the rest of SmackDown and stopping back in with the

Heyman thread, Heyman hanging by a thread.

We'll do this all in a row.

But what'd you think of this opening segment?

I thought it was good.

It felt like the beginning stuff was really geared for the home crowd.

And, you know, we got to see it.

And then it was geared for the television crowd with the Heyman stuff.

And,

you know, it's like you said, they start off the show with this.

And you know that there's a part two.

And you have to wait till the very, very end.

And little incidents happen as incidental moments that they happen to film on this show.

And they get in between.

Exposition of the issue.

But this show has so much stuff I just don't care about.

And when you watch the fans react to like the tag team match and stuff, the fans may not care about some of the stuff either.

But you want to see the moments and what's going to happen with the big stars.

It's about that more than the matches.

And if you like teasing things until the very end of the show, this did a great job.

Well, but then later on,

they went back into back because Heyman was waiting for Roman Reigns.

And again, by the way, they're in the same building.

That was

the

WrestleMania Great Moment that they're inducting.

Austin and Hart at WrestleMania in the Hall of Fame match.

Same building.

WrestleMania 2.

WrestleMania 2 they had there.

Yeah.

Vern Gagne ran that play.

Anyway, so Heyman's waiting for Roman.

And he cuts the promo.

He's like, for the record, let me say this, please, Punk.

Whatever Punk says, no matter what the favor is, my answer is yes.

Anything, just tell me, tell me what it is.

And then an SUV pulls up and there's a big pop because it's Roman, but it's not Roman, it's Seth.

And Seth gets out and tells Paul that I've got a plan.

But when Roman gets here, you let me know because I want to be there.

So now they've updated it to all three of these fuckers are going to be there.

Oh my God, I can't wait to see what's going to go on.

Right.

So they're freshening it up and they've got people to

add to this thing.

So at least they're keeping it, you know, interesting through this.

Because again, three hours is a long, long time.

But anyway,

finally,

finally,

Paul's in the back.

Sunrooftop, digging a scene with a gang dog.

Paul's in the back and an SUV pulls up, and it's Roman.

And he gets out, and Paul goes to him, like, Oh, my tribal chief!

And he walks right past Paul, doesn't even look at him, he's pissed off.

And they do the follow shot where Paul's scurrying along behind him, you know,

humming, humming, humming.

And they go right through the guerrilla position and into the arena.

And the people are going crazy.

And he gives them the acknowledge

And we get the OTC, OTC chance.

And then Roman looks at Paul.

He's like, Paul, Paul,

is he here?

And a people chance CM Punk again.

And he asked, Paul, is he still talking about the favor?

Yes, yes.

Should I share?

a secret with Chicago?

Yes, yes, yes.

CM Punk wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me.

He wouldn't be in the main event at WrestleMania if it wasn't for me.

Punk's never been in the main event until he was introduced to the tribal chief.

And he goes through that whole thing.

I made this company.

I made this guy.

And he calls Punk out.

He said, Come on and come on out here.

And they're waiting and no music.

And Roman's looking at his watch, like, what the fuck?

And then suddenly the music hits and it's set.

And whoa,

and

they're all woeing to the ring.

Interminable woeing, I would say.

Interminable is a word I would describe this.

I thought we had left Europe.

But anyway, Seth's story is: I wouldn't miss this for the world because I don't know what the favor is, but I want to see.

And he Knox Roman.

And as he was talking at this point, the fans started getting a little restless because they were chanting, what's the favor?

And Seth is trying to get across the

point that, you know, Roman could have stopped punk, but he didn't.

And he could have stopped punk, but Roman didn't let him.

And the people are chanting, CM Punk.

I got the feeling that they were ready to get to the meat of the matter here because Seth was going a little long.

And finally, Roman told Seth that he was untrustworthy

And he couldn't be trust old Seth.

And that's why you're fuck you.

But

he called Punk out, not Seth.

And then the fans are starting to sing, Roman, Roman reigns.

But Seth called Punk out.

And as soon as he called Punk out, then we got like a Mussolini the second timey.

Just if you're keeping track of the number, Brian.

And And Punk comes to the ring with the microphone.

And it's, what's the favor?

And Punk said, this is about friendship, legacy, loyalty, promises made, and promises kept.

Paul, this goes back to 4,400 Shepherdsville Road in Louisville as a familiar address, Brian.

Now it's owned by the West Fabersham Football Squad.

But that was OVW.

I have said,

with all the spots that I recorded and all the fucking commentary I did, the times I plugged those shows, I've said 4,400 Shepherdsville Road more times than I've ever said the address of anywhere I've lived.

But anyway, that was where I showed up and they told you, I don't belong.

I'm not supposed to be here and you should fire me.

And you said no.

And Paul, you prophesies this.

And he went into a story that I wasn't on the bus, so I can't tell whether it was true or not, but it sounded awful, goddamn plausible.

And that's the point with Punk,

him and Paul Heyman on Big Show's bus.

When I think he said, when you left the company, I think it was when Stephanie got mad and fired him.

And Punk was like, they're going to fire me now.

And Paul said, you'll be fine.

Force them to deal with us.

Well, they aren't here anymore.

So I'm going to force Roman to deal with us.

And then Paul's facials.

And

he says, oh, my God, in such a way you can weed.

You can read his lips perfectly.

And also his jowls shake with fear at the same time.

And he says, at WrestleMania, I want to be in my corner.

Roman, your wise man, and my best friend, Paul Heyman.

And Seth starts cackling, and Roman gets the stink face for a second, and then he starts laughing.

And he's like, You understand he loves me.

The wise man needs me.

I saved him.

And this was the line: even if I let him,

he wouldn't do it.

Wise man.

Let this desperate fool down easy.

And the people are chanting CM Punk.

And Paul does the lip quiver.

His eyes are puddled and bleary,

even more so than usual.

And Roman is, are you crying?

Wipe him up and tell him no.

And he starts badgering him more.

And Roman says, one more chance, tell him no.

And Paul says,

no, I can't.

And he gets a big pop.

And Seth is laughing again.

And Roman

kind of snatches old Paul and backs him up into the corner.

And Punk comes from behind and squashes Roman and gives Roman the GTS.

And Roman's knocked out and has a face-off with Seth.

And the fans are chanting CM Punk.

And Paul's screaming, no, no.

And Seth steps out and gets booed for not fighting.

And Punk is smirking in the ring.

I'm loving this shit.

What is

everybody can talk?

Every issue is rooted in reality.

They have been telling these stories that are now everybody's

animosity and,

you know,

violence is coming to a head.

I mean, you know,

I'm sold.

What do you think?

I've enjoyed it.

I mean, you seem to be madly in love with it, but I've enjoyed it.

You know, I think.

Well, it's refreshing.

Something I actually want to see instead of what I'm watching out of duty.

You know, I said it last time and,

you know, I felt it a little bit here, but not as much.

But Roman kind of doesn't feel as natural as the other two do.

And Rollins is a complete, crazy, goofy character.

So when he feels natural, but that was what I was also going to say.

This has brought out the best in Rollins on the mic because you believe him.

His whiny voice works when you believe he really hates the people he's ranting and crazed about.

And him being kind of like Drew, just like all of a sudden he's just lashing at him.

He's crazy just to the idea of punk existing over here.

I think it's been really good.

And

yeah, we'll see how the match goes.

Like you said, I think it is one of the main matches of WrestleMania.

I think

in terms of matches with general interest, it's this and Cody Cena.

Well, anyway, we will see what occurs here, but there's more when we talk about Raw here shortly in the saga of poor Happy Heyman and his former and current proteges.

But I want to talk a couple other things about SmackDown.

And one is Felix.

Our friend Felix, the other Lucha brother, has made his debut.

And Brian, and he was against Nathan Frazier, who's that kind of scraggly Joe Dirt-looking fucker from NXT.

But would you like to hear, Brian, what I thought about our friend Felix?

Ray Phoenix, and it was his debut a few months after his brother debuted on Raw.

But what did you think?

I like him.

I thought he did much better than Penta did in his debut and actually better than what penta has done since he's been there

because

his was fine there wasn't botches there was some of the minor see-throughedness that comes with

lucha to begin with but much better

i think you know he's got the

if somebody is going to do the running and springing off the ropes and the diving and flipping about,

he's probably the guy to do it.

And I think he should be the one that they let do it.

Because then it becomes different and he's the best at it.

Yeah, he may be the best guy in the business in terms of doing the high-flying stuff and making it look spectacular.

So at the, and at the same time, having a grip on how to work an actual legitimate match in a real company, there are some.

world-class high divers over the across the street that may have him beat and just the high flying alone, but but he looked better.

I liked the look of the gimmick.

And he did an in-ring promo and that was a little better than Penta.

But I just wanted to make mention of that that we'll keep an eye on Felix too and see how he does.

But already it was a better start and no right-handed headlocks.

Do you think it's a good idea to keep him and his brother separate, two different shows, develop them both independently?

Well, at this point, since

they started one, they might as well do it this way.

And And then at some point, they could bring them together.

Because right now,

Penta's involved in a

four-way with three other guys who want to kick the shit out of him.

Sooner or later, he's going to need some backup.

I don't know if they're going to do it that quickly, but I think they could establish.

They've already mentioned their relationship, so they could just establish that one's there for the other guy when they really need it.

and see what happens from there.

And what do you say to the fan that says, you hated Penta in AEW?

He did all the same stuff.

You hated him.

What do you say to them?

Or Felix.

Or Phoenix, whatever his name is.

Phoenix, not Felix, Phoenix.

Well, no, that's the thing I've said because everybody, I used to tell you, you know, you can't please Cornette.

Well, they didn't remake Penta as a human being and as a pro wrestler.

They put him in a different environment.

He's been better

in the WWE since he's been in AEW because he is produced and he does have more professional guys to work with.

And

he is being focused on and featured in some kind of way.

All the things are coming together.

So,

yeah, he's good.

And I think Felix

is better.

So, yeah, a lot of people were rotting in AEW.

They can be better.

They're still, I don't think anybody's going to replace them.

or replace Nick Bockwinkle on my list of favorites with, you know, either one of these guys, but they're better in that environment because they've got help

instead of people people just saying, oh, go out and do all the shit you always do.

And they both seem so excited to be there that they will listen to the producers.

They will just be, hey, we're doing

what we want to do.

Yes, whatever you want, we will do.

We could do it.

Yes.

Yes, yes, we will do.

I said that.

I don't even remember what brought it up.

But Bobby Eaton, we were in Louisiana and it was near the end of the run.

Maybe he said something about he'd think we'll get over in Dallas.

You know, they whatever.

I said, oh, if not, we can change.

And he said, what do we do different?

I said, I can be Russian.

I can do, I can be German.

I can do the accents.

And so every time then

something would come up, Bobby would just look at me and he'd say, I can be Russian.

You had to be there.

All right.

Again, as I said, it was a long show, but there were two more things on SmackDown that we want to talk about.

And one that a lot of people are interested in.

I'll save that in a second.

But the other deal was

Nick Aldiss was in the ring and introduced Kevin Owens, who has been doing the Angles and has already been announced built up for a match with Randy Orton

at WrestleMania.

And

Owens came out.

and had the solemn attitude and you could tell something was wrong.

And I guess it had been leaked on

the interwebs earlier in the day or whatever.

What he was going to, thankfully, I stayed away from all of that stuff.

But apparently, he came out and cut the promo.

You know, I've been doing this for 25 years.

It's been great, you know, been able to take care of my family, but there's a price to pay, a toll that it takes on our bodies.

And it's my turn.

It's now he's hurt.

And apparently, seriously,

he said he's been dealing with a neck injury, I guess, since January.

And they didn't know exactly what it was.

And without giving any details, he found out this week, suddenly, apparently.

And it had to be something new because they've already announced this match.

The WWF, the way that they monitor legal and do all kinds of shit.

and

medical.

But apparently the doctors came to him and said, no, you need to stop this right now and have neck surgery.

So, without knowing details of what kind of injury that is or how that happened, it's plausible that they didn't know because they're right, they're 10 days away from this goddamn build.

So

he thanked the WWE for letting him say it, and he doesn't know when he's going to be back.

And

thank you, and I'm sorry.

And then Orton's music hits, and people are like, uh-oh, but since he's really

fucked up,

they weren't going to,

you know, goddamn have him pile drive Owens or anything.

But he came out.

They did the face-off.

Kevin left.

Orton was in the ring,

you know, not really

demonstrative in facial expressions as to what anybody was thinking.

And Aldous says, well, we've got the problem now, Randy, that you you have no match for WrestleMania.

And Orton looked up at Aldous and just jumped up and RKO'd him, which was a nice way of giving people a pop to get out of a

sucky segment.

But I hate this, and everybody, oh, you hate it.

No,

he's been doing some of the best shit that he's been doing or has done lately.

Owen, since they, we've talked about it, abandoned the

anger management issue he had where he did, I was this fight all the time.

And it's, he switched heel and he got the pile driver over.

And

he's been cutting some good promos, but he hasn't wrestled.

Now that you look in hindsight, he only had that match with

Zane

in February.

He has not really been wrestling a lot.

And he said it was a match in January.

I don't remember what he did in January that would have,

but, you know, they've known that he's he's been

hurt in some fashion, but didn't know it was going to be that serious.

So I hate to see that.

Am I a curse, Brian?

When, no matter how much I ever despise somebody, if I actually start cheering up about them a little bit and warming up or cooling off or whatever the right phrase would be, that well, then they're stricken with goddamn horrible injuries.

Say some nice stuff about Moxley.

I can't think of anything.

He's going to be here for a while.

But anyway, I hate to see that.

So get well soon, Kevin.

For heaven's sake.

We don't want to submit.

What about Ordinary?

This is why I didn't want him diving off the goddamn roof

when

they wanted to 15 years ago on such an occasion.

And I read a quote from him where he said it wasn't like a ladder match or anything.

It was actually a regular match where something happened that it got tweaked.

Well, yeah, I mean, anything can happen,

but that's why you

try to mitigate the damage you do so that the shit is weaker to begin with.

And you said, what about Orton and Aldous?

I don't think people would want to.

Aldous has not been such a reprehensible character that Orton has any reason to want to beat the shit shit out of him in a prolonged match, nor do the people really have any reason to want to see it.

I think this was just to

keep in

character with what Randy Orton would do and to give the people something

to remember past, oh my God, one of my favorite wrestlers is all fucked up and who knows if we'll ever see him again.

That type of thing.

It was an out of the segment.

I wouldn't read a lot into it.

How about Aldous and Mickey versus Undertaker and McCool?

I might pay to see that.

That might be something.

But only if the men can wrestle the women and vice versa.

Well, Jim, I'm sure you can understand probably

more than most segments on SmackDown.

We heard feedback from people dying to hear what you were going to say about.

I saw it live.

I watched as it happened and I couldn't believe what I was watching.

I wanted to know what you were going to think of this.

Tiffany Stratton and Charlotte Flair, with Nick Aldiss standing there watching this transpire.

No, no, wrong guy with the accent.

It was Barrett, wasn't it?

Oh, it was Wade Barrett.

That's right.

It was Barrett.

Well, you know, they all look alike over there.

But yeah, Charlotte and Tiffy.

And

this honestly,

I mean, I don't know what ill will there is between these two women, but the

ability for this thing to go sideways and off the rail was Charlotte's fault for letting the people get to her and make it obvious to where that it derailed what they were trying to do.

And

potentially, then was Tiffy tiffed

or was she pissed off?

They were both brought to the ring by Wade Barrett.

Bad news

because they've got the upcoming clash of the Titans, and you know, they're going to do an interview segment.

And

obviously, the point of the thing was that they were going to be catty to each other.

That's kind of the gist of the whole thing.

But for whatever reason, people have taken to Tiffy,

despite the fact that she was presented pretty much as a heel there a lot.

They took to her that screech, I don't know, the screechy voice and the

delivery, and the

she's obviously working hard, right?

I'm not saying she's slacking off,

but she's a gymnast that they've taught to do some moves and they've thrust her into this situation.

And to me, she has a look on her face like, what the fuck is this?

And what am I doing here a lot?

And the voice, because she

was supposed to be originally her gimmick was the annoying, rich, quasi-Paris Hilton type of douchebag that you want to choke when you see him on TMZ, right, Brian?

It was that, that was the original presentation of her.

And then the people said, well, we like her.

I don't know about the douchebag you want to choke.

I don't know.

Again, I don't know about your TMZ viewing habits.

I don't know what exactly you're watching over there, but.

Well, you know, the foo-foo girl with the tiffy time and everything.

It was supposed to be, it was supposed to be, you know,

not favorable yeah I mean I don't even know what you call it at this point the valley girl or whatever it is but WWE fans watched her through NXT I will say

unlike a lot of the girls that you see on NXT then and now she has a little bit of size and she's pretty good in the ring so I've actually you know again this is her gimmick i'm not i'm not crazy about the gimmick but i've actually found her to be you know i can understand why the fans have taken to her she's pretty good

I'm not saying she's BFAB.

I'm saying that you can tell that they just

kind of pulled this athletic young girl who probably didn't have a lot of product knowledge into this thing.

And I can see it in the ring.

But the point is the voice and the delivery, but they like her.

Okay.

Well, meanwhile, here comes Charlotte and they don't like her and they're in Chi-Town,

not Charlotte.

And

the people started booing her as they do, Dominic, as they do when they decide

the same thing.

They decided they like Tiffy.

So now they decided

they don't like Charlotte and they're going to boo the shit out of her.

But she let it be obvious that it was getting to her.

I mean, she was trying to do the start.

You know, she said about Tiffany, she wanted a moment and I hadn't done any charity work lately.

She's trying to, you know, speak down to the

greenhorn there.

Well, it started right off the bat.

As soon as the fans started booing and they were both in there and the booze just like, it was like a growing boo.

Yeah, it was growing.

Like, it just kept growing and getting bigger and louder.

And she said, that's power.

And I was like, okay, that's an interesting way to try to say, fuck that, let's get to what we're doing.

And then Tiffany goes, what time is it?

And I've never heard it this loud before.

It's Tiffany Time.

Like just everyone screamed it.

I was like, okay, they've got a really live, active crowd into this.

And then the booing did not stop.

Yes.

Well, but then that's the thing is they started trying to do their stuff.

And when Charlotte, the people would boo Charlotte, but

in this, in this program,

you heard people getting on, the guys in the last segment.

getting on with their shit when

the people are booing because it's shit that needs to be said.

And yes, you can milk it, but not when

the problem became that Charlotte stopped with the people and started addressing them more than staying with the fucking flow of the moment.

And she let them slow her down.

She not only

did that, but they saw that.

they were stopping her and they were interfering with her.

Here's another thing that I've seen a few times here lately when

somebody will say, start a sentence,

and then the people, and then boo or whatever, and

they stop and milk that, but then they start back with the same words again.

You can tell not only was it a prepared statement instead of something you were saying off the cuff, but also we interfered with you.

And then they want to do it more.

And instead of her paying attention to what they were doing and letting the people do their thing

which you would think charlotte's been around long enough to be used to being booed in the in the promos

but then you know then it was a different animal she's never been booed like this since her comeback since the road

she's never been then god damn it enjoy it Do you think Flair would have stopped when he was yelling at Dusty and Dusty was standing right there to fucking turn around and spend time on the people instead of shut up, fat boy.

Was my shoes cost more than your house?

It's a new thing, though.

Flair was never booed on the mic like that.

I can't think of a time Ric Flair got on the microphone as a heel and people were just like, I don't want to hear him talk.

Boo!

Nonstop.

Part of this is that the people have decided not only are they singers, but they're also censors.

And

if it becomes a thing, and Dominic, that was the first one, remember, but then they've started doing that since then.

If they decide that they don't want to hear from a guy and it's cool that all of them together can boo and shut him down and be part of the show, that's what they're doing.

They're not even doing it a lot of times now because they really hate the person.

If they really hate the person, it's just a groaning, shut the fuck up type of boo.

We don't want to hear you talk.

But this is audience participation.

Some of them may think that's what they're supposed to do,

but they like doing it.

And if you show the people who are doing it that it's going to flummox the fuck out of you,

then they've got you.

And then

that's what they tried to get back to it.

Charlotte made fun of Tiffany's voice because she was trying to screech over the den about the match.

And

I wrote here, Tiffy trying to get back to promo.

But then she popped up and said charlotte after wrestlemania it's going to be your life is going to be just like it is outside the ring alone what's your record now 0 and 3

and then she dropped down and bailed out of the ring so that charlotte had to run to the ropes to try to to get the last word which obviously wasn't scheduled because she's running after going, well, is that why Kaiser's in my DMs?

Which is the way the young people say they're tempting to fuck behind somebody's back, right?

Which was the reveal on the show that Tiffany's dating Kaiser.

That's never been a thing before said on the air.

Well,

because we don't keep track of her DMs either.

But there's also

a lot of direct fucking going on.

When she said you're 0-3, before she rolled that, she had, woo!

Oh, yeah, woo!

And now, here's the thing:

this girl is not, I mean, she may be a Rhodes scholar and study astronomy.

I'm not talking about she's stupid, but she's not experienced quick enough on television to have just come up with that on the sperm of the moment because

she was mad about the way the promo was going.

She had to have that one already, didn't she?

Oh, I think there may be legitimate feelings with.

her and maybe even other talent with Charlotte.

Absolutely.

Feelings.

Whoa,

feelings

the audio is cutting out your singing is too high pitched hey it's just not able to handle my you know i'm like one of those opera singers that can shatter glass i've got the

0.1 percentile high octave thing going on here

but anyway but yeah so tiffy bailed out and rolled out and left charlotte standing there with her microphone in her hand, trying to get that last line in.

And it was hard to hear to begin with.

And

the recipient

had already taken the

shot at her and rolled out so she couldn't get to her.

So now are they going to have some cat scratch fever in their match?

Are they going to get into it for real?

Can we look forward to a shoot between these two?

Probably not, but it definitely makes me more interested in the match.

I'd actually be more interested if I thought we were going to see a shoot between these two from all the other shit I've seen lately.

I'll say they have a Charlotte problem.

I know you don't see it this way, but it's not just fans enjoying booing, it's fans who don't want to see her.

And I don't know, I don't know exactly what has caused it.

Um, I do think there are certain things that

haven't helped.

You know,

not to make fun of it, not to bring it up for no reason, but you see enough people talk about it, and I've thought it too.

When she

comes back every time looking radically different.

It's a weird thing.

I think there's a little bit of that.

I think

for whatever reason,

the fans right now are at a weird point, almost like AEW fans with Cody.

You know, I don't know what she could do right now to stop this.

I mean, get out of Chicago, maybe the first thing.

But

I think there is a little bit of a fan pushback happening here.

Again, I don't know what they wanted.

Who did they want Tiffany Stratton to wrestle?

I don't even know if it's about Tiffany Stratton.

I think it's a Charlotte thing independent of that.

This happened to be an example of her colliding in this segment with the person that right now the fans have chosen.

It rattled her bad.

I mean, there were times where she stopped talking, and it was almost like you could see she's trying to think what she was smiling the whole time, and she has her dad's smile.

And she's just thinking, like, what should I say or do next?

It was really awkward.

And again, I don't know where they go from here.

It got out that they edited it.

When WWE put it on social media, the 0-3 line and the

Kaiser's in my DMs line were both edited out of wherever they put it on YouTube and everywhere else.

And see, that's a sign right there to me.

There was no profanity.

There was no double entendre that would have taken it into the gutter.

More harmful things are said on television all the time.

That had to be a specific request from one or both participants.

Well, if you take hers out, I'll you can take my out, or vice versa.

Because there was no other reason to do that.

Otherwise, than somebody in the segment said, What the fuck?

Maybe both people in the segment said, What the fuck.

See, that's what I'd like to know.

Where did it exactly go completely awry?

Because she brought up this interview.

Apparently, Charlotte did an interview somewhere.

I'm not sure what talk show it was, but apparently it's out there where she talked about being divorced three times and she didn't want to be like her dad and various things.

And then Tiffany brought it up in this thing.

Was that planned?

Because that's a public interview that's out there.

People have talked about it.

Or was that something she wasn't supposed to do?

Like, where did this go?

Okay, now you're bringing up shit you're not supposed to bring up.

Was it just at the very end, or was it even before then?

When Tiffy said that line, she immediately dropped and rolled out like I used to when I'd give Wrestling 2 the last lash with the belt and I knew he was going to come for me.

And

then Charlotte trying to rush her retort in while the girls already bailed out, that obviously wasn't walked through that way.

So some or all of that had to be a spur of the moment.

Yeah, by the way, great job, Wade Barrett.

What were you doing?

Just

yeah, he was

standing on Jesus Christ, what's going on here is it it it doesn't sound like it did in rehearsal

um

but and to your point about charlotte i could understand if she

are they just revolting

against her because she's always booked on top who almost who is better

it's not like a Mercedes Monet type of thing where,

you know, she's hyped and pushed, and all these other girls are so much better.

Is it the flair thing?

What have we seen with Charlotte that's that good in a long time?

She's almost never there,

and when she's she was hurt for a year and a half, that's why I thought that people would be glad to see her when she came back,

you know.

And again, now you start thinking about it, there were prior incidents.

Remember, there was the incident where her and Becky Lynch started going at each other in a promo on Raw?

I remember that.

Yeah, I remember that

in the middle of the ring.

Remember that?

Yes, with the fridge.

See, that's why she's on top because she's the interesting one.

There's always something going on.

It's not just girl wrestling with Charlotte.

Do you think all the booze and all this behavior, it's just to set up Tessa being brought in as her partner?

No, but I think you should say when we're talking about a member of the Flair family, you should say all the booing rather than all the booze to differentiate.

That's true.

I keep an eye on that.

Booze has a different meaning in the flair.

That's why I want to be clear here.

We're not.

Thank you for clearing that up.

No, we definitely needed that clarity here.

And then I think they're going to bring in, you know, they got a new training, a new girl in the training development center is what I'm the performance center.

She's an Egyptian.

They're going to bring her in to fight Flair.

Well, you know, that would be the ultimate enemy of the Flares.

It's Ricky Steamboat and, of course, the Egyptian.

Yeah,

I'm telling you.

We were doing fine until the Egyptian showed up.

You know, I'm sure the match will be good.

I mean, but we'll see.

Charlotte, you know, as you think about it, the Royal Rumble and what else, she barely has worked in a very long time.

And again, when I say she looks different, it's not just facial surgery.

I mean, physically, she doesn't have,

she used to have a bigger, not a bigger frame, but she was like...

She was like an athlete.

Like, she doesn't look like.

Well, hold on now, cowboy.

Before you put your foot in in your mouth, what she's done is she is she has leaned up, is what you're saying.

That's a nice way to put it.

I guess so.

I guess so.

Well, but herein lies the problem.

What you're also not going to see for good, bad, or indifferent is that moonsalt off the top rope to the floor anymore because she blew her knee.

She's had a knee issue.

She's got the brace.

What, what did Terry Gordy do when he had two blown ACLs besides not get them fixed?

He lost like 40 pounds.

You try to lose weight as best you can and still retain,

you know, whatever look you're going for, and you eliminate shit out of your repertoire that requires stress or not only landing on your knee, but landing on your feet in a dodgy situation from high heights.

That's going to be something she's going to avoid.

So I can't browbeat her for trying to drop some weight after a knee injury.

A guy, girl, or

animal, vegetable, or mineral does that.

But

it's not to the,

we'll talk later on, but I still don't know, it's not to the point of Adam Cole.

I don't know what's going on there.

At first, I thought he might have been sick and I didn't want to say anything, but now he's wrestling 20-minute matches.

He just weighs 140 pounds.

Anyhow.

Did you see Ludwig Kaiser's response?

Well, he didn't respond on TV.

No, he responded on social media.

He responded on the Twitter.

What did he say there?

He took to Twitter, tagged Charlotte Flair, and posted a video of Sean Michaels telling Diana Smith, please do not flatter yourself.

Oh, which you were there for.

So you remember that moment.

Oh, my God.

And boy,

I can only imagine what Sean would have said if Diana had said all the things she wanted to say.

Yeah, instead of Stu, you'd have Flair calling you up.

Oh oh my god her whore

yeah

you know you want me

you know that was the best line sean i know that you want me thank you the way she delivered thank you you should have heard i'll tell you this real quick we'll get on with the regular programming but we were setting that up

And the storyline was,

until Stu made phone calls, that somehow Davey and Diana were going to be working in collusion to set Sean up to look like a,

I don't know what he was supposed to look like, even more of a prick than he already was back then, but that he was hitting on Diana and trying to come in between their marriage and acting salaciously or whatever the fuck.

And we got there and Diana had come up with, and Diana, if you're listening out there, I love you.

But she had come up with a rather lengthy statement

about the whole situation that in her mind, she thought would really bring some gravitas.

I said, Diana, please just listen to me.

All you got to say is when it comes to you and you're looking at Sean and I've set up the principle of the thing, just say, Sean,

you know you want me.

And just step back and let the people react.

And she was kind of miffed because she wanted to do her scene, right?

And she said, Sean, you know you want me.

And Sean sold it with his faith.

And the people just, wow, bullshit, because he's been in Playgirl.

And let's Diana was an attractive woman, but you know, he's curtsying around with Pamela Anderson on pay-per-view at that point in time.

With Vince on the rug.

Yeah.

And

I wonder where Pamela fit in in that equation.

Jose should have dropped his pants and be like, it's me.

It's me.

It's me.

Well, again, back to the Charlotte thing.

They have the match coming up.

You know, we'll see how the fans react.

I mean, we're right around the corner from WrestleMania, but on any of the TV shows, but,

you know, was it a one-time thing in terms of it going completely off the rails with the booze prevent her from being able to talk in front of a crowd?

You know, Dominic seemed comfortable with it.

She completely did not.

Yeah, and that's what confused me because with her experience, you would have thought Tiffy would have, might have got rattled if it had been the other way around because she's brand new.

But with Charlotte,

fuck it.

The point is, it's still television.

And you've still got to say that you're still promoting WrestleMania.

You still got to say the things you need to say.

And

you can,

if you're an adept heel

verbally with the Drew McIntyres or the Heyman, when he's in that.

position or punks or whoever, you can

drop back for a second and snipe with a fan every once in a while or the fans and still keep your role going.

But if it's throwing you off that bed, just

you got the microphone, say the shit that needs to be said.

If the crowd at home ain't listening, or not at home, but if the crowd in the arena ain't listening, the people at home can still hear you.

Because unless they're,

it doesn't really.

work for a shoot that the fans in the arena can drown out the guy with the microphone.

The audio guy is doing that to, remember, I've talked about this when they started doing with Dominic.

The audio guy was turning Dominic's sound down and the crowd sound up on purpose to make that impression because that was more important than anything Dominic could have said at that point.

But if you've got the microphone and the people in the truck are not victims of carbon monoxide poisoning, they can bring your audio up and the people in the arena cannot stop you from being heard at home.

Have I made that point, Brian?

Yes.

Then why didn't she do it?

All right.

That's all I got to say about that.

We'll see what happens if they get

in a verbal or physical shoot here in the near future.

I'd like to see that.

And now, Charlotte better watch out because Tiffy's stocky and she's younger.

I put my money on Tiffany in a fight.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah.

But Charlotte's Charlotte's still a better worker, even if nobody doesn't like her.

Well, we'll see.

Again, we haven't seen Charlotte work in a very long time, and they have really good women's workers there.

Is Charlotte as good as Rhea Ripley or Bianca Belair or E.O.

Skye or Tiffany right now?

We'll see.

Oh, but, well,

I'm not saying at this point that Charlotte is better than Rhea Ripley, and I might even give you Bianca Belair.

She's much more important for drawing some kind of money than E.O.

Skye.

We'll see, because, you know, the one thing she had that I always said, I I always thought she had the greatest presence just from the moment she came out of the back with the robe, walking out.

Just, I thought she had great presence.

But if she's rattled and she loses that,

I don't know what, you know, again, let's see her work a match.

We haven't seen her work yet.

But that was a pretty concerning segment if you're a Charlotte fan, just in terms of how it appeared to affect her.

Well, Jim, with that, let's now travel through time and we shall return shortly after this.

Well, may not be shortly in the real world, but let's go to the review of AEW Dynasty, which took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

All right, we are in the future traveling through time

because there was so much important stuff happening.

We left the world of SmackDown and your questions and whatever else we had planned to go to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where AEW,

going to the home of ECW,

had AEW Dynasty.

I don't know why I'm yelling.

AEW Dynasty.

So excited.

Let's talk about AEW Dynasty in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a very, very long show.

Let's not talk about it.

How about that?

Let's, as Mama Cornette would say, let's not and say we did.

What do you think about that?

Every month, I think

somebody's going to do something different.

Just something different than the fucking endless parade of constant same shit that we see.

Somebody's going to figure out how to have a match a different way.

Somebody's going to come up with a sensible finish.

Somebody is going to

do something

that we don't see all the fucking time.

But no,

not these.

The one thing that they're not going to do is shorten this son of a bitch up, Brian.

Was this

the longest actually on

pay-per-view that they've done?

Four hours

a little over 15 minutes on pay-per-view.

The pre-show

was still an hour and a half on the broadcast, but they only had two matches on the pre-show, so they could save it for the 10

that were on the main part of the broadcast, whatever, the premium live event portion.

God almighty.

How can they stand it?

I mean,

when midnight comes and guys that are riding with the guys in the main event are still sitting there going, would they ever fucking just?

I mean, I used to be in that position at 10 o'clock at night.

Right?

Flair.

The guys used to fucking

make a joke about Flair in St.

Louis.

By the time that he would finish going out there and having that 30-minute match and coming back and taking a shower and putting his suit on, if you were riding with him,

you could have goddamn had three meals in three different restaurants by that point.

You get out of there.

Are you still there?

I am.

And I don't like you either because you told me to watch one of the matches that I would normally have been able to vault over.

We'll get to that in a minute.

Oh, come on.

But on the pre-show for people keeping track, the show before the show,

apparently Leo Rush, Action Andretti, and Nick Plain

defeated Top Flight and A.R.

Fox.

And then

explain this one to me.

They had 10 matches on this pay-per-view,

and it went four and a half hours, Brian.

But on the pre-show, they had the Battle of the Acclaimed, a single match between Anthony Bowens and Max Caster.

And it lasted 30 seconds before Bowens just beat him flat one, two, three.

At one point, remember back many

eons ago in the before time, the long, long ago,

back when the acclaimed were a tag team and they were the most popular people in AEW because since the fans were given no direction, they took their own and just said, fuck it.

We like these guys.

We want to see them scissor their daddy's ass.

And then Castor

became a prick for some reason, and Billy Gunn has gone back home to hopefully collect a nice check and be above the fray.

And they have a match between these two former partners, and it's on the pre-show, and the one guy beats the other guy in 30 seconds.

Am I missing something about

booking

that maybe I've never been taught before?

Brian, can you explain this to me how this

happened in this fashion?

No, I've enjoyed the Max Caster thing,

but I didn't realize they were going to bring out Bowens

to do something about it.

And they didn't even do that on Dynamite.

They didn't even do it on the pay-per-view on the pre-show.

I actually think people may have been interested if they thought Bowens was going to wrestle Caster.

But I guess if you're going to give it away unannounced for free, why not make it 10 seconds?

I can't explain any of this.

So then

let's keep the booking philosophy in mind as we go through this thing.

They were in Philadelphia at the Licorice Center.

They had a crowd, it looked like for them.

Did I hear they were going to have seven, eight thousand people somewhere in that realm for this?

I'll see what I can find, but that sounds about right.

And the match they led with was the Owen Hart Tournament Male Division.

I get first-round match.

Will Osprey and Kevin Knight.

And Kevin Knight just made his,

for those of you going, who?

He just made his debut

this past Wednesday night, remember?

And

did he win his match Wednesday night?

Who did he wrestle Wednesday night?

We talked about it.

Oh, it was a tag match.

Him and Osprey teamed up together.

That's right.

It was a tag match.

Yeah.

So he won the tag match.

So

he's just joined the company.

He's been in one match, a tag match with Osprey as his partner.

And now he's in the Owen tournament against Osprey.

And

this was a TV match.

Will Osprey is a top guy.

He's the number one or number two babyface, depending on how you look at it.

Why was he put in this position on pay-per-view?

In the 90s, did we book

Bret Hart against Bob Holly on pay-per-view just because it was in a tournament?

The guy's been seen once on television.

He hasn't won a singles match yet.

Now he's lost

his first singles match in the company to Will Osprey,

which makes no sense to, again, put one of your main event guys on a pay-per-view in the fucking opening match against a

guy in the middle that nobody really knows.

And if they're wanting to, and then beat him.

If you want to do the old top guy, elevating the mid-card guy

scenario,

you bring the mid-card guy in and you give him standard wins at first, but he gets beat by the top guys.

And then he wins over a few more bottom guys, gets beat by the the top.

Then he gets closer with the top guys.

And then finally, he beats.

It takes months and months and months to go through that.

So what this ended up was, is instead of Osprey being able to contribute

in some way to the pay-per-view, this match sold no tickets,

meant nothing.

They didn't even know where they were going to see it

until.

Wednesday night when this guy was revealed.

And

so it didn't do anything for Osprey.

It didn't do anything for the company.

And for night, you beat a guy who just got there.

So that means you continue to establish him as another one of the many guys that come in here that do flips and never win.

So who cares?

See Andretti,

action.

So

what Osprey won with an elbow?

What difference does it make?

Why was this here?

Well, maybe it was here just to make sure that no one else could get the crowd going for the rest of the night.

No, this was a hot match for AEW fans.

That's the only thing that could justify it, and I'm not saying it does, is we gave them just an amazing high-flying match.

But like you said, they just brought this guy in.

I've only seen two matches with him.

He's impressive.

He's not built like a waif like so many of these guys.

He's got a little bit of a look.

He does the same stuff a lot of these guys, you know, like Osprey do,

but it looks good, him doing it.

At least it looks a little better and he looks a little better physically.

He just got beat him

and they beat him right away.

And I don't think it justifies it if the top guy beats him.

He got beat right away as soon as he came in.

So, well, besides that, he's a babyface.

He got beat by another babyface.

He didn't get fucked by heel.

So I'm just, you know, okay, now we've established the pecking order order around here.

And again, that's, you said, well, it gave a nice high-flying match.

What the fuck did they call that triple threat fiasco later on?

Didn't they remember that was going to happen?

We needed an air traffic controller.

That's what I'm saying.

It's the same thing.

Nothing hurts anyone.

Everyone flips everywhere.

The same standard modern Japanese wrestling tropes, to use a word that I despise, that these marks in the ring have picked up and magnified and

made it to where you can't look past any of this shit because it's the same thing over and over.

The fighting spirit forearms and the fucking goofy

reactions to Savat kicks, like, oh, if I kick you here, you'll bend there.

So I can kick you there, then you'll stand up.

What the fuck?

God, even Bruce Lee could halfway make it look good, but they don't have Bruce Lee around here.

Maybe some Linda Lee's, but nevertheless.

So that was that.

That's what I thought about that.

Will Ospreay goes to the next round?

I think they said he faces the winner of Takesha versus Brody King.

Oh, boy.

So maybe Osprey versus Takesha.

That'll be the next match that'll be really, really good.

And everyone will kick out of everything and no one will be able to follow it.

Well,

don't worry.

There's plenty more to follow this.

It followed it as in came after it.

Remember what I said about: well, here's one of your top baby faces just on a match on a pay-per-view that means nothing.

So why?

Well, then the World Tag Team Champions were out next in another TV match

where they're in a position where they're booked with underneath guys who never win.

And

Big Bill and Brian Keith, we thought

Big Bill might do something several months back when

he came in, he came back from wherever, just not being seen,

looked good, seemed like he was going to be treated halfway seriously.

Then he got stuck under Jericho's tree.

And then he's been

floating around in this fucking stooge group, but he beats job guys every once in a while.

And he's partnered with a job guy who's five foot fucking two,

eyes of glue, looks like something from a zoo.

And there's 150-plus guys that we figured, Brian, under contract.

And this is the shape that Tony Khan has ended up in where his tag team champions are defending on pay-per-view against Big Bill and Brian Keith.

And so

after about

eight minutes or so,

Bobby Lashley had to take some bumps for Bill's offense, which looked horrible.

And I don't know whether he was scared that he was going to hurt Bobby, Bobby's going to kill him, or whether Bill's just giving up,

or whether he couldn't figure out where he was supposed to be, or whatever the fuck was going on.

And then

suddenly while Bill is at the ringside railing, MJF pops up from behind the railing where all the people at ringside were pointing down going, look, look.

MJF pops up from behind the railing and turns Bill around and nails him with the dynamite diamond ring and the camera missed it.

They just cut away from where he was with the people pointing, look, look, look.

And they cut to another shot when he nailed him and the announcer said, Was that MJF?

And then Lashley

speared Big Bill at ringside, and the camera missed that

because they were trying to figure out what they just missed a second ago.

And they were so close, all you saw was the back of Lashley's bald head go underneath the bottom of the screen as Big Bill sunk out of sight.

So they've missed a lot of stuff lately.

Yeah.

Well, it's

how could

how could you not know where they were going to be on this finish

when there's Big Bill?

All you had to do was shoot Big Bill until the fucking guy punches him.

And they replayed it.

They had the camera shot and the director

went away from it.

So MJF had punched him with the ring.

And then Lashley speared Bill and on the floor.

Then they replayed the MJF spot and he walked out.

And then Shelton suplexed Brian Keith.

And Lashley speared Brian Keith.

And Shelton covered him with his hand.

One, two, three.

It was, and

that was an okay finish.

It was a TB match.

And that's what I'm saying.

What service are you doing your company when you put the tag team champions, the number one tag team in the company, in the second match, is cold, goofy match

with two guys that you knew who was going to get beat.

You know, that's a TV thing to further the MJF MVP story, but

oh, pay-per-view?

Did we defend the world tag team title on pay-per-view against the mulkies, or did we do it on a house show in their hometown?

And it was the u.s tag team title by the way i apologize well let's not compare these guys to the mulkeys that's a bit of a stretch but no the mulkeys won more on television remember they got that one big victory the gladiators of course from california yes that's one more than big bill and brian have had as a tag team on this television yeah i can't explain any of this it's been a weird three-week buildup i guess they were trying to win chris jericho's respect by having mvp dressed him down because you know chris jericho must know what that feels like I really don't know what the

idea behind it was.

I want you to feel what I feel.

I want you to feel what I feel.

And then they got eviscerated once their guts were gone, and now they've been hung out to dry on pay-per-view so their skins can be used to potentially clothe needy children.

Well, here's part of the problem: the tag team division sucks.

Shelton and Bobby with MVP is a winning combination.

Who are they supposed to wrestle?

Even FTR, we'll talk about them later.

It appears they're set up to wrestle someone right based off what they did.

It's not like, okay, we turned heel.

Let's get into a program with the other heels.

So I don't know.

That's the point I'm making about this whole thing.

Tony Khan has put them in this position with 150 wrestlers under contract where nobody has a match.

None of this makes any sense.

You hear me, what I'm telling you.

I hear you.

The fans fans like chanting we hurt people.

Yes.

And then they want them to hurt.

They get mad when the hurting isn't happening.

I guess it's better than we hurt ratings because that's what the Boer Horsemen are chanting.

But nevertheless,

continuing on, you know, we got the Owen Hart Tournament Female Division.

Brian, that is now underway with Mercedes Moon against Julia Hart.

Julia Hart has a wonderful entrance.

If she was

a singer or

some type of show performer on Broadway or in Las Vegas, I would love that entrance.

But then, after that, between her and Mercedes doing her little stripper dance, the stripper shimmy and

all of that,

they try to have matches.

And

see,

it gave me the sour belches, is what it did.

I can't say that I

honestly paid a lot of attention to this thing, Brian.

And I don't know that any of the people in the arena could honestly say that either.

Yeah, I realized during this match, the Philadelphia fans are a lot nicer today than they used to be.

Boy, howdy, I'll tell you what.

The clown is down.

They would have, Sue, you remember what they did to the dynamic dudes.

but nevertheless maybe that sheet is still around somewhere

so these two

after about 15 minutes they decided that the most exciting finish that they could offer people

was to spend two minutes i timed it two minutes

basically stationary in the middle of the ring with Mercedes getting a kind of a phony STF and Julia rolling her up

and then Mercedes rolling through with it and getting it again until Julia tapped out.

Two fucking Moolah.

Moolah's finishes had more movement than that.

They think they're the fucking Gracies.

I mean,

and even if you say, well, but, you know, that's modern wrestling.

Okay, well, the fucking world champion, Dick the Boozer, the plumber and his challenger, we're going to try to do some of that shit that he does in the Home Depot Jiu-Jitsu grappling tournaments up in Newport later on in the show.

So the girls

have decided to do the fucking Death Jitsu before the fucking plumber.

What the help me?

I don't think there's any help for this match.

Mercedes-Monet, another big win.

The fans finally got behind Julia.

The AEW fans are getting trained to be disappointed.

I'm not saying they should have done a title change here or anything.

Was it even a title match?

It was a tournament match.

I'm not even sure.

It was the tournament, but Julia, at least, yeah, they like her more than Mercedes because

at least I don't know why they like her more than her because she's well, because she's prettier.

She doesn't have that fucking camel face.

But otherwise, it's not like she's the second coming of Mildred Burke either.

What are you laughing at?

You took me by surprise.

If you put Mercedes Monet's

wig

on a picture of Joe Camel on the side of the old cigarettes, you tell me

where they separated at birth.

Travis, don't you dare.

Travis, do your duty.

Travis, don't you dare.

Don't know.

You do your duty, baby.

Travis, no, don't listen to this segment.

Well, anyway, then can we move on like the two wise men leading our camels through this barren desert?

Like the 2,000-year-old men, we can move on.

So the six-man tag team championship was next on the line with the Boer Horsemen of Claudio Castignoli and PAC

and Wheeler Useless taking on

the team that they're just their best friends, their neighbors.

Their kids go to school together.

You know, it's love is in the air.

FTR and Edge

from Asheville, North Carolina.

And

there was almost no chance.

Nobody had a thought in their mind

that anything would go wrong between FTR and Edge in this match.

But first they had to get there.

And they started out the match.

Dax and Pack had some nice spots where the heel totally out-wrestled the babyface, but they are turning later on.

And here's another thing.

Remember, we were talking about the participatory crowd booing, the audience participation.

They're loving doing that.

They've decided that their

Dominic is Wheeler.

Because anytime he tags in, the crowd does the boo, like, oh, fuck you, you suck.

And I'm sure that there is probably

more than a tinch of legitimacy in that sentiment from the crowd.

He's been shouting

Watts.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, instantly before he did anything, the chant was, fuck you, Yuda.

And this is not like Dominic, where

the people, even the ones that were booing Dominic and still do and everything.

And he's still presented as a putz, but they know he's fucking entertaining and he's been in shit that was good.

And,

you know, they love the love triangle and the whole thing, where Yuda's just obviously

he's somebody's mascot again.

He's a thin, tiny, frail kid that I'm sure means well, looks like a fucking goof.

If he got a little bit in the gym and gained a little weight, he might look more like that superhuman character that jumps into the barbed wire on Twitter.

But

they don't want to say it's preposterous that he's gone this far in this thing and people don't want to see it.

So anyway, then the baby faces shined and FTR pulled out the Midnight Express playbook, the flapjacks, power slam off the top.

And then they stopped cash and got some heat on him.

And then the tag was about set up and Pack

got in a fucking way

where he came across like he was going to nail the other two baby faces off the apron, and he did nail

uh fuck which way

Dax off the apron

and was gonna nail Edge and then Edge blocked it and nailed him, but he took the bump right there.

And now it's just it's because the referees just having to stand and look for an illegal look at

an illegal guy that just ran into the ring, just sitting right in front of him.

And he's not doing it.

He's like, get out, you need to go.

And

finally,

Cash just went for the tag and they thought it was going to be for Edge.

And instead, Dax had jumped up and he tagged Dax.

But it was set up awkwardly and Pac gotten away.

And Dax made a comeback.

But then they,

did you see the ridiculous?

triple spot they got where two sharpshooters and an STF and Dax and Claudio were having a girl slap fight while they had the sharpshooters on.

FTR has now started doing the same

stupid, goofy, silly bullshit to get a pop that all these other indie level guys do.

And they didn't used to, am I just not remembering it?

Or did they used to be halfway more serious?

Have they just stopped caring?

What the fuck is going on here?

That's a tricky question.

I think they were more serious.

I think at a certain point they were indoctrinated into aew and they started thinking things like orange cassidy were acceptable and they started trying to justify these things and

you know with this spot specifically i can't tell you i remember it in an ftm fta in an ftr match maybe it was but i've seen it in a whole lot of these matches with the death riders or claudio or moxley just right next to each other slap me hit me just stop with all of this because everyone's doing it if everyone's doing it you doing it means nothing.

So yeah, I didn't like it.

And you know what I think Claudio is just the most overrated wrestler in the entire world, maybe.

He didn't used to be, but

I must now just acquiesce to your viewpoint.

Oh, wow.

So then Pack hit Dax with a leaping tombstone.

Yuda gave him a splash off the top and Pack gave him a splash off the top.

Cover one, two cash saved.

And 30 seconds later, Dax got up, ran over to the corner, and tagged Edge.

After the tombstone and the splash and the splash.

And then Edge made a comeback, which this match was not, I noted, tearing the house down.

They pop when it looks like somebody fucked themselves up and may go to the hospital.

And that's, I think, what these people watch for.

So

then Edge set pack up on the top turnbuckle.

He's going to superplex him, but he tagged Cash.

And then Cash stepped into the ring and tagged Dax.

And I don't know what the fuck.

These were the last guys.

I tell a lie.

I bet you the Motor City machine guns won't do it because I caught Dax and Cash doing the backslap tags.

That was that.

And the machine guns, I bet you will not do that either.

So they're the last tag team left in the world that actually follows the rules of wrestling.

But I didn't think I'd come to the point where FTR would start making shit up on the fly.

But nevertheless, so Edge has got the guy for the superplex.

Cash got tagged in and turned around and tagged Dax

like that means both of them are legal.

And then Edge gave him the superplex and Cash did the splash and Dax did the diving head butt cover one, two, and Claudio saved.

And then everybody got in

a stationary submission hold or holding the partners back from breaking up the stationary submission hold, so nothing was happening.

But then they hit the shatter machine and a spear on Wheeler, and Claudio saved again.

And then finally,

Edge went to spear Wheeler.

Wheeler leapfrogged him.

Edge stopped short of Dax, but Wheeler

pushed them together.

And then that fucking caused him to have a double knockout.

And then Wheeler hit the knee on Dax and pinned him one, two, three.

So they were really going for the heat from the people there.

They gave Wheeler the pin.

Your thoughts on this match before we go to the afterbirth, which

is about to occur?

Not a big fan of the match, not a big fan of anything with the Death Riders, not a big fan of Cope.

I still think FTR are really good,

and hopefully they will be away from six-man tag matches for a while.

Well, but also, can they get away from overbooking for a while?

Because, okay, we knew that something was up and that

The way Dax and Cash have been acting like petulant school children on the TV meant that one or both of them is going to turn on Edge.

And we hoped that it would be both of them because then they would just be, if they split them up in this booking atmosphere, it would be disastrous.

So the Boer Horsemen leave and Edge and Cash help Dax up and they do a triple hug

and they raise their hands.

And then Dax spins Edge around, bends him over, gives him a pile drive.

And Cash is like, what the fuck?

He's with a mouth agape.

And Dax rolls out and gets two chairs.

And I'm like, oh, for fuck's sake.

Because they, of course, they have to.

I'm sorry if Edge is their best friend.

They have to put this concerto thing over that he's responsible for the single phoniest, stupidest, most see-through fucking deal that's ever been done in fucking wrestling.

They get the two chairs, or Dax gets the two chairs, and he puts a chair underneath Edge, and he hands the other chair to Cash.

And Cash takes it and looks, and then throws the chair down and shoves Dax on his ass.

And that gets a big pop.

But then it turns to booze when they start booing the other babyface for not turning heel

because they don't want to see Dax and Cash break up.

But then

Cash helps Edge up and pulls him up into the shatter machine that Dax cooperates with on a second's notice.

And then they give Edge a pile driver on a chair.

And then Cash concertos him

twice.

And of course, you can't sell it.

But the thing is, the guy getting hit, he doesn't even move a muscle, which

Brian, I'm sure it's like everybody, a time or two you've had the opportunity to hit an unconscious person

hard with a blunt object.

So you know that it's still going to move the corpse.

It's still, there's going to be a reaction or a response of this blow.

Also, if it was legitimate, blood and brain matter would shoot out.

for the record, I have not hit any unconscious people.

You mean you do that to them while they're still around and can feel it?

It may go unconscious, but I don't hit anyone once they're down.

Well, nevertheless, so the guy that had to retire because of his bad neck and came back from retirement, they pile drove him on a chair and they can chair towed him twice.

And in the medical staff and the stretcher come out, they're there in seconds.

Think of all the attempted homicides and aggravated mayhem and assault with intent to commit bodily harm with weapons

that we see.

Here is not only the doctor at ringside, but a medical staff and a fucking stretcher on wheels within seconds.

But they won't let him put it on edge.

Cash puts the neck brace on and then lays down on the stretcher and mocks him, and Dax gives him CPR.

So there's a little frivolity there also, as they've tried to.

So

again,

not a good match for very little fucking reason, except to get this turn in.

And then,

why, Brian, did Cash shove Dax on his ass?

What do you mean, when?

Here in this match?

Yes,

when Dax, Powell drove Edge and Cash said, what the fuck?

And Dax got the chairs and put Edge on the chair and handed the other chair to Cash.

Cash threw the chair down and shoved Dax on his ass.

And then Cash pulled Edge up and they gave him the shatter machine, the pile driver, the concerto twice.

Why did

Cash shove Dax on his ass?

He was having a battle of his emotions.

He didn't know what to do.

He hadn't decided yet that he was going to do what everyone thought he was going to do and just help out his longtime tag team partner.

He still didn't know if he wanted to turn his back on Cope.

I mean, Cope is, you know, the man.

And then

he quickly realized, yeah, that's what I want to do.

It just helped his friend kick the shit out of Adam Copeland.

Quickly within seven seconds, after shoving the man on his ass, after shoving the man seven seconds later, shit, I shouldn't have done that.

I'm going to beat up this other guy.

Adam Copeland, who may not do jobs, but we've seen him get more beatings over and over and over again to a point where I don't want to see him anymore.

There are fans excited about the idea of edging Christian versus FTR.

Oh, Christ.

You know, I don't know if I really at this point want to see that,

but that's what some people are excited about.

All righty, then you're not

it.

No,

I would like to see FTR potentially against the Hurt Syndicate,

but can we just at least keep

Sheldon Benjamin's got another couple of years?

I think.

Can we keep, is he 50 yet?

Can we keep everybody just in their 40s?

Do we want to see Edge and Christian concertoing and ladder matching with FTR?

Or do we want to see just some goddamn wrestlers that we are interested in have matches for reasons that we care about?

Edge and Christian, the combined age would be what 100 and

105, right?

Do you think Edge and Christian as 50-year-old men look like Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin as 50-year-old men?

No, I mean, I do think there are probably fans that, you know, again, for the same reason that the Hardys

are still a thing, and maybe that the Dudleys would get a pop somewhere, they still may want to see Edge and Christian reunite, I guess.

And why not work with your best friends from Asheville if you're going to do that?

But

no, no.

All righty then.

Well, let's instead of 50-year-old men, you want to talk about some 25-year-old women.

All right.

I don't know where you're going, but let's do it.

What do you got in mind?

Well, that's the best thing I can say about them: they're not 50.

The women's title was on the line with Tony Storm,

old timeless Hollywood Tony with luther dressed up as burgess meredith and rocky

against megan brain with penelope pit stop dressed up as a truck stop floozie that got misdirected and a free ticket to the wrestling matches

and brian you asked me to watch this

because you said

that many people are saying a lot of people saying it that the

at least this aew women's match

was getting better.

And

I was half and half on this

because the first half I thought, well, they've done a wonderful job.

And by the end of it, I thought, I hate this maybe more than anything else.

And they turned me right in the middle.

Obviously, Tony Storm is over.

She's popular with their fan base for all of this black and white tomfoolery and all the shit that, because they like to watch wrestling that they can laugh at and not take seriously.

And they've come to the right place.

But Toni Storm can work.

And she's got experience and she was the leader here.

And

she knows what she's doing.

And for the first half of this thing,

it was a basic big girl, little girl match where

Megan used her size and it was basic.

And Tony Storm was doing the running around, and all Megan had to do was be in the right place.

And she ended up body slams and showing the power.

And then,

you know, there, the Penelope interfered with a leg trip to start the heat.

And again, it was basic shit, but Megan, everything she was doing was looking good.

And it was following.

And okay,

on a show this long with all this much bullshit, it's night.

Just see one-on-one.

We've got a match.

We're establishing the big heel as dominant physically.

And Tony Storm, everybody's hero, blah, blah, blah.

And then

Penelope interfered again.

And finally, Luther grabbed her and carried her off.

And the people start going crazy.

And then Tony starts a comeback.

And the people are up, the fans are going,

and a boom, boom, boom.

And then

she put on a submission hold on Megan and brought the whole thing to a halt.

And Megan got kind of a halfway, half-ass rope break that wasn't really

milked in any kind of fashion.

And then Megan cuts her off again.

And

that was the first half.

And right there,

the people were into it.

The heel manager being carried off by the babyface manager, if you can be that charitable to call him that.

And then the babyface makes her come back, go into your fucking finish.

Every match on this marathon doesn't have to be 20 minutes long.

Everybody doesn't have to do everything that they know how to do.

They're just allowed to.

And that's why it's so long and so repetitive.

Now,

Megan has cut Tony off again.

She turns her back to Tony Storm and starts climbing the turnbuckle like she's climbing up for a moonsault.

But Tony Storm gets up and comes and tries to pull her off, and she just shoots Tony a back elbow.

and keeps climbing with her back to Tony Storm.

And she comes back and she knocks her away again.

What the fuck?

How are are you?

The girl is already up trying to pull you off the turnbuckle.

You give her one fucking elbow.

You don't even look to see where she is.

And you're continuing to climb up with your back turned to her to do this moonsault.

Why?

And then

Tony Storm gets up there and gave her a belly to back

off the top, flipping her over where Megan Brain almost landed on her brain.

She barely got turned.

And then both of them were down forever selling that.

And then

they traded forearms.

Never seen that before.

And there was more back and forth.

And Megan hits a couple big suplexes and gets a two count.

But they looked great.

Then momentarily later, Tony Storm's fine and she's doing reversals and she hits a German suplex

and an ass in the face and a headbutt and three ass in the faces in a row and a pile driver

and covers Megan.

One count.

I'm a god damn it.

Way to make everybody look bad.

And then Megan gets up after the German suplex, the ass in the face, the head butt, the three asses in the face and the pile driver.

Megan gives her a backdrop, a clothesline, and a power bomb,

and does a cover,

picks her up, and goes for the F5, and Tony foils that

into a small package, one, two, three.

What the fuck is the matter with these people?

Did they ever go to wrestling school?

Who is telling them to do this shit?

And again, in this,

in this four and a half hour show,

and with everybody doing everything else, a girls match, they're kicking out of fucking pile drivers and multiple fucking finishes.

And they're not only just kicking out, but they're just fine.

They're just okay.

When they had them going,

And Luther carried the heel girl out and Tony Storm made her come back.

If she'd have then hit the three asses in the face in a row,

and if they wanted to make Megan a big physical monster, three asses in the face, cover one, two, she kicks out.

Holy shit, spin her around real quick into the goddamn power or the pile driver that Tony Storm does.

One, two, three.

There's a fin, and you could have knocked the last seven minutes off of that.

Oh, but the fans were cheering some more of the shit they did.

Yes,

I don't care.

Long show, more important things to come.

Don't do everything you can possibly do on every show for the rest of your life tonight,

and you'll have something left over.

But instead, we get these these shows that never end, and it's always the same shit.

I believe I mentioned that earlier in the program.

What'd you think, Brian?

Well, in terms of the booking, I don't think it was necessarily the same thing as Kevin Knight losing in the second match, but I thought they should have put the belt on Megan Bain here.

I thought the time's right.

She's impressive.

She hasn't lost yet.

Don't fuck anything up yet.

But instead, she lost.

It was a surprise victory.

I mean, she took a hell of a beating, but it was the roll-up that gets them.

That's what always happens.

I'm a big fan of hers.

I have to say, I watch her and I'm like, that's a pro wrestler.

I think she's really good.

I like her more than I like Tony Storm.

Well,

and part of that is that obviously this girl is still green and Tony was leading her through a bunch of this stuff, but the problem also is,

did Tony think that this was good shit to do?

Or did they make her do this ridiculous number in the finish?

But Megan, yes, she's got the size, she's got the look.

She makes Tony look even more pale because she's so tan.

And now I'm finding out from people tweeting me and chiming in that apparently Megan

has been in the business for like eight years.

She was training somewhere in 2017.

She went to OVW for a while.

Not that that's an endorsement of anything at this.

I'm talking about the current modern day OVW, not anything that I ever had to do with.

So please.

But,

and she's also, somebody said, had

two long stretches where she wasn't working.

Maybe she was injured, whatever.

I don't know, but still,

I

they she can be led here.

She looks good.

She did everything right.

She was in the right place.

But we can't, I don't know that we can keep looking at her like, oh, she's brand new if she's been around somehow

for seven or eight years.

So we'll see what happens.

But

I mean,

when I originally saw her, I said, what's the matter with her that the WWE didn't snatch this up?

And, you know, again, there's a ton of potential here.

I hate that

if she wants to make money in the business, well, if she wants to draw money in the business, she's in the wrong place.

If she wants to make money, she'll probably do fine here.

But if she wants to be a star,

time may be running out to not teach her too many bad habits.

She needs to get out of this environment.

If they wanted her to be a bigger star, they should have put the belt on her here.

It wouldn't hurt Tony Storm.

Tony Storm is like.

She's better in the ring.

I'm not saying she isn't, but she's like a female Santino.

It's a comedy character the fans like.

Yeah.

She doesn't need the belt.

Megan Bain, you put the belt on her, you have the most impressive-looking female as your champion throughout wrestling.

But

we'll see what happens.

Well, but then Tony Khan, what do I know?

Tony Khan knows best.

Well, but then also, you got the same thing.

Is there something the matter with her mentally?

Because I said, is she a goofball?

Because all the visual stuff is

there.

Why haven't we seen big things before now?

But who knows?

Well, once again, I actually like the match and I am a big fan of Megan Bain.

But what was next on the show?

Was it something that you would enjoy?

Well,

under normal circumstances, if this was a perfect world or even a logical world, yes, it was.

But since it's not in AEW, I didn't.

The Owen Hart tournament returned.

Mark Briscoe versus Kyle Felcher.

And

everybody knows how I feel

in a sane, rational world, with what Tony Kahn

was gifted with Mark Briscoe in terms of the opportunity, the right talent that he had there at the right time

to make a star out of Mark Briscoe.

He would have already been over the last two years, the babyface

world champion of this joint, not the top one, not one of the other six.

And then he would still be

a top babyface single attraction in the gimmick kick-ass babyface category like Hacksaw Duggan was in Mid-South when

Magnum TA or Brad Armstrong or another one of the more traditional babyfaces was the champion.

And he would be a drawing card.

He always gets over in front of the live crowd every time.

They'd naturally like him in Philadelphia.

He's from not too far away from there.

And because of his history there.

And

that's why that their great value Randy Orton beat him with that brain buster on the top turnbuckle

that I don't know why the fuck anybody would go for.

Way too much room for error with that.

And

it was another TV match because they've destroyed Mark's value.

It was a wonderful match that the people liked because Mark Briscoe always fucking gets over, but he also always gets beat.

And unfortunately, that's the position that

they're ended in because Tony is not able to

see and react when he is gifted shit that he didn't plan for.

And his advisors that he listens to

have the most indie mindset of anybody in the company.

And they keep him doing this great match bullshit with children

instead of recognizing personalities and real wrestling talent that can get over with a wider audience.

Though he might have a chance, a prayer even.

of expanding his fucking audience by legitimate means instead of fictitious.

Well, they're out there watching on streaming.

Yeah,

I would stream all over this whole fucking show if I was a mainstream wrestling fan and not somebody living in this fucking bubble.

I'd stream all over it.

Wouldn't take me four and a half hours either.

What'd you think of this match?

I mean, technically it was good in a vacuum.

But again, I knew who was going to win.

I think everyone knew who was going to win.

There wasn't any question about it.

The booking made it pretty obvious who was going to win.

The booking over the last two years has made it pretty obvious who was going to win here.

So it's hard for me to,

you know, it's hard to enjoy a match sometimes when you know that they're just having a long competitive match where every fan knows what the outcome is going to be already.

Everything's an exhibition of moves that they each do.

But, and again, and there's nothing wrong with sometimes you're supposed to know who's going to win because it's a big star against a guy that, well, we like him, but he ain't going to beat the other guy on television.

But again, same thing.

See Osprey.

See everybody else.

They've got Kyle in a top spot.

And he's in a tournament match against a guy who never beats anybody on pay-per-view.

This is what is the fuck.

I'm serious.

Why is

they think the answer is just book a bunch of guys in a bunch of fucking matches and have a bunch of fucking tournaments and

have a bunch of titles on the line?

And if it's not a garbage match with chairs and barbed wire and people being punctured, then it's an endless array of floor exercises and uneven parallel bars from the gymnastics team.

It's all the fucking same.

It's meaningless.

You need personalities.

What's the sign over Jerry Jarrett's desk?

Personal issues draw money.

There are no issues here.

Oh, wait.

There's an issue in a next match, Brian.

A personal issue.

It's so personal that the babyface's mother and sister have to be there to make sure that they get the decision overturned.

Let's flow right into.

The ROH World title match with Bandito against Chris Jericho.

The exact opposite of what I just talked about, where you've got

a young top guy,

several of them, Osprey, Felcher, in cold matches with no angle and no reasoning, and not able to contribute anything to the card.

This match was advertised ahead of time, has an angle behind it.

was supposed to contribute to the card.

And a problem is the babyface is a guy in a mask that's just got there

and is being backed up by his mother and sister.

And the heel is Chris Jericho, who's nearing 60

and looked like he was in quicksand two minutes into this thing.

And

Bandito's got a whole lot better chance working Jericho style than Jericho has trying to keep up with the Luchador because Bandito was trying to work hard and move fast and do things and

it was like he was working with a zombie am i overstating this

maybe maybe not i mean

don't you think there's a chance that could be jericho's gimmick he's a zombie just like this bloated zombie coming at you

i can't pump I mean, it's just

every time he shoots a guy off Jericho, I'm talking about, it's like Vader.

He just grabs the guy's arm and shoots him, and he doesn't run with him.

He doesn't take any step.

He doesn't have to take in that ring.

And they did the deal where Bandito picked him up for a suplex.

Of course, he picks him up with the right arm hook in the head, which is the wrong side.

But because I guess he's right-handed, he's got to hold the guy upside down.

I understand the delayed vertical suplex.

Harley Race used to do it.

Not for 70 fucking,

I don't know how many seconds, the crowd counted to 70 in increments of 10, I believe.

While he's holding him up with one arm and half of the time, he's using the other hand to make sure the crowd counts along.

It's obvious Jericho is not wiggling his legs.

He's not like, let me out of here.

He's not whatever the fuck.

But the rest of the match wasn't even that

impressive.

It was a a lot of it was in slow motion.

And they'd gone 15 minutes.

And then both of them were down.

And Brian Keith comes to the ring and jumps up on the apron.

And guess what happened to Brian Keith when he jumped up on the ring apron to draw the referee?

Gravity pulled him down.

I've been waiting to say that.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, gravity in the form of the masked luchador came out and and pulled Brian Keith down.

And they got in one of the phoniest fucking fights I've ever seen, where they were throwing fake punches in the neighborhood of each other's ribs.

And while I was going on, and the referee was watching that, Jericho gets a baseball bat

and draws back and swings and pulls up and hits Bandito in the shoulder

about hard enough to potentially bruise a cantaloupe.

I don't know, Brian.

These cantaloupes, they've got them genetically modified these days.

They're tougher than they used to be.

Would this have bruised a peach, that bat shot?

Well, he doesn't want to hurt Bandito, obviously.

He's a heel.

Not in front of his fucking mother.

Not in front of his family, no.

So he hits him with the phony bat shot on the shoulder.

and then goes and hides the bat and then crawls forever to the cover.

And I'm thinking, well, this is going to be a good pop when this guy kicks out of this.

One, two, three.

What the fuck?

And now there's more folks, but the problem is, is that now

Bandito, in front of all of these 7,000 people or however many there are, has gone down and stayed down.

for the phoniest looking fucking shot with a bat that has ever been thrown in wrestling.

and then that's when bandito's mother and sister come into play they flag down old aubrey ed

they they had that red flag well now the red flag is for a bull what color is horses attracted to well they flagged her down

and

they went came inside the ringside area to go show aubrey ed

the hidden baseball bat.

And meanwhile, while this is going on, they're still playing Jericho's music because he won, but Jericho, they cut to a shot of him.

And Jericho's giving the fucking floor camera guy the fucking throat cut sign and he's mouth, cut the music, cut the music.

Because that was stepping on people paying attention to the mother and the sister

and the father and the brother and the mother and the sister and the father and the brother.

So then

Aubrey Ed goes over and tells the other referee, well, here's this bat here.

And both the referees tell Smiley Roberts to announce that they are restarting the match.

And that gets a pop because people genuinely don't want to see Chris Jericho as any kind of champion, I don't think.

And then Bandito did some kind of goddamn hokey ad.

They had the people up.

And all it would have taken would have been a snazzy have a Corona or something and roll him up.

But they did some kind of fucking bullshit where Bandito flipped over Jericho's back while he was leaning toward the ropes and then came back down.

And then German suplexed him.

One, two, three.

But people were still happy that Jericho lost.

And that was two and a half hours into this show already, plus the pre-show.

What'd you think overall?

It was quite the touching moment to see Bandito

and gravity embrace mom and sister.

I don't know.

It looks like gravity had set in on mom a while back.

Listen, did she jump the rail?

How did she get out to the ring?

I think they spread it out.

I believe it was a quick shot.

They spread it out.

I don't think mom leapfrogged that rail.

Well, again, they've been trying this feud.

We've kind of seen it on the periphery because it never really played out on dynamite.

It was kind of short little interview vignettes, but everything else was playing out, I guess, on the Ring of Honor television show, which airs

on streaming somewhere.

It doesn't air anywhere.

It's upstream of here.

I don't know.

Where do you go next with Jericho at this point?

I don't know.

There's a wonderful retirement community down the road here.

Gated place.

Down an old country road.

Down an old country road in the middle of the night.

All righty.

Well, speaking of somebody who looks like their dirt road has been traveled here recently,

the next match was a no time limit and no interference match

for the

TNT or TBS title or one of those other belts.

How many title matches has there been?

Adam Cole versus Danny Garcia.

And

I wrote, you must be shrooming.

This

is another example of this endless, repetitive

Garcia,

bland, boring,

no fucking charisma, no look, no world-class athletic background, just an indie fucking wrestler that was overpushed too quick, beyond his capability, because I'm sure he's a very nice guy.

And

this

bland, nondescript, talent taking up television time

is what has led to their malaise of the ratings.

But then,

again, I've said this, Adam, I was a fan of Adam Coles.

I knew Adam Cole Ring of Honor 15 years ago.

Great young 19-year-old kid.

I thought, boy, when he grows up, the way he can talk and he can fucking work.

He didn't grow up.

He grew down.

He was bigger than.

And

not even talking about the

horrible booking and the unfortunate injury that, and all those angles that they did, him and MJF back and forth and all that other hogwash and horseshit with Roddy and Tavin and Bennett.

And where are they even?

My God.

Not even the booking.

Look at a picture of Adam Cole in NXT

just a few years ago.

And then look,

he's lost

20, 30, 40 pounds.

I don't know.

He doesn't get a tan.

He hasn't seen the inside of a gym.

I like the guy personally.

At first, I didn't want to

hone in on that

because I was afraid he'd be sick like some of these other guys have been.

But if he was sick, he wouldn't be out there having fucking 20-minute matches with fucking daddy Garcia.

So he apparently just

has reconciled himself to the fact that he looks like a starving child in Appalachia and he's not going to do anything about it.

Garcia's built like a clerk at Costco and he looked like a giant next to Adam Cole.

Who's the baby face here?

Did somebody turn again?

Hasn't Garcia been in fucking?

He's been a heel at a baby face.

Adam Cole was the devil at one point.

And then he became an angel.

And this was again,

I don't know if it was 20 minutes.

It seemed like it was 45, but

Garcia hit him with a leaping gotch pile driver and got a two count.

And Adam Cole, the next thing he did, was get up and start fighting back.

Cole gave Doofus a Panama sunrise off the ring stairs onto the floor.

And the next move that was exchanged was Garcia small packaging Cole and then giving him a Panama Sunrise.

And then a knee and a cover and a two count.

And then moments later, Adam Cole gave another Panama Sunrise.

And then Garcia

got up

after it was just done to him.

He got up, looked at the turnbuckles, bent over and

positioned himself

and stood stock still for another Panama sunrise.

And then a knead of the head one, two, three.

So you've got.

Again,

in a middle card match for a belt that nobody cares about, for an issue that nobody can discern what the fuck it is, and nobody cares enough to find out,

and leaping pile drivers for these fucking people whose necks are as big around as my wrist

are two counts.

Your thoughts on this strategy, Brian?

Wasn't a fan of the match.

I'm not a big fan of the Twink division.

You know, they gave Daniel Garcia reportedly a multi-year, very lucrative contract.

Then they gave him a big win.

He won the TNT title.

Does he matter in any way?

And has the title ever met less?

And now you put it on Adam Cole, who

is existing somewhere in the AEW universe.

Maybe it's on Saturdays.

I really don't even know.

But I know I kind of got sick of seeing him.

And you could say what you want about the shape, and we talked about the physique for a while.

I could be wrong.

I think he's actually working out.

I think he's getting into better, his arms are,

I think his arms are more tone right now than they've been in

as long as I can remember, many, many years.

He's a smaller guy.

You're not going to see.

I mean, he's a tiny guy.

Look at a picture of him at NXT five years ago or whatever, and just stand it next to now.

And again, as Arn Anderson said, fat looks better brown and white, even if he's not tone.

Get a tan.

They're fake spray tans.

I don't know what's it,

it's a cosmetic industry, and you have to accept that.

And if you don't, it's a problem.

The visual it gives you is children's wrestling.

When you see over and over, and we've got Spitball coming up.

My God, he looks like a grade schooler with that dorky fucking smile.

But when you put the average person that might watch WWE wrestling, but

they would sit down in front of this and go, What the fuck?

It's kids.

Who is this fucking Garcia with this fucking hang dog face?

What the fuck?

They look like normal people being allowed into a professional setting to imitate what they've seen on television.

There's no visual whatsoever appeal of this.

And again, the word was that they outbid WWE and gave Garcia a great deal.

They gave him a kind of they did.

And it hasn't helped anything.

I bet you that they were bidden.

Again, I said this a while back.

They've got to be going, what the fuck?

We can make this guy pay anything.

For these fucking guys, even if they're not necessarily interested in one, they might bid him up a little bit just to see if they can fuck with Tony Khan and his payroll.

Because who would pay?

Speaking of who would pay,

what we got next,

the triple threat match with Ricochet

versus Hong Kong Fuye, Spitball Bailey versus Kenny.

Did you ever think you'd be put in a position where Kenny

looked like the giant lex luger i had the same thought i had the same thought when i saw the three of them in like man omega looks like a looks like a wrestler i was like omega is a great shape he's gigantic

the bell rang at three hours and five minutes into this show

for this triple threat what belt is on the line here the intercontinent international continental uh no this is the international it will merge with the continental uh reportedly at all in oh Christ.

That way, you get this.

Well, that way, you get what you set up at the end, but anyway, I'm sorry.

Well, but

that's

this was the match that I'm sure that Uncle Dave will

pleasure himself over.

And Tony was, I'm sure, at the monitor just with glee asking for extra servings of ice cream.

Children, it looked like children playing in a bouncy house.

Spitball is such a, just a fucking nerd, just a goofy, grinny fucking douche.

He makes Kenny look like Stan Hansen.

I'm scared of fucking Kenny now.

And they just randomly would come in and out and do moves.

There was no story, no rhyme, no reason.

One guy disappears so the other two can do their cheerleading routine.

Then the other one will appear and swap out, and then they'll do some three-way stuff where they're vaulting about and diving and flipping on and on.

You can't describe anything here.

There's no flow.

They carefully did a move on the rail right in front of the front row people.

It could have got Tony Khan sued.

I can't wait till one of these dipshits puts their heel of their boot through some kid's mouth.

And

they all make the same pretend mean faces.

It's like they studied at the same acting academy, but they all look 12 years old.

And if

I see all three of these son of a bitches, by the way,

god damn it.

If I see one more motherfucker in a wrestling ring pose and point to where he's going to run and then run there like he's got a corncob stuck up his ass,

my brain will explode.

What the fuck?

You're kicking the shit out of a guy that's on his knees in front of you.

So then you're naturally your first fucking thought is to turn your back on him.

Stand up straight, point dramatically at the goddamn ropes, and then run away from your opponent to hit them.

Where did all this shit come from the last fucking 20 years?

The lack of,

I don't know, potentially weeding the wrong people out of wrestling school, that might be the first thing.

And the

lack of telling them how the fuck to think about the wrestling business might be another thing.

I fast-forwarded five minutes, I stopped again.

It wouldn't stop.

Every finish ever done, they did some really contrived three-way bumps.

And then finally, Kenny,

our friend Kenny,

was on the top with Ricochet and they

cooperated into a grip to where that Kenny could do the one-winged ferry on Ricochet off the top rope.

One, two, three.

30 minutes, bell to bell, not even with entrances.

And then,

as Kenny is celebrating, they play music, and here comes Okada.

That fucking blase son of a bitch

in his fucking suit with his belt and that fucking face.

It looks like it's frozen and amber and confused.

And he walks out there and they stare at each other.

And then Kitty walks out.

And then Okada walks out.

And then I was ready to walk out.

What the?

Okada awkwardly leaving the ring was my favorite part.

All right, guess I have nothing to do now.

I guess I should just go.

Yes.

Well, I mean, it's,

and did they they bother to wake him up first, or was he sleepwalking when he came out there?

I'm telling you right now,

I have never seen a more boring,

bland, phoned it in, lazy, good-for-nothing, short-cutting,

check-stealing son of a bitch than Okada.

The worst

Moxley's trying.

Moxley is trying, and he's still the worst wrestler in the world, but Okada is the laziest, most overrated, and most boring.

Because he doesn't even, he's not even like Moxley.

He doesn't even do stupid shit that you can really uproariously laugh about.

Nothing happens.

Okada is the black hole of charisma.

Not only does he have none of his own, but he sucks in the charisma of those around him.

So that was that.

Help me interpret this for the listeners in some kind of way.

In true Kevin Knight and Megan Bain fashion, obviously.

Speedball just came in, whatever we want to say about him.

Tony Khan treating him like a big deal, so he's already lost.

Ricochet starting to get...

The Ricochet heel thing is working.

They just actually have to have something for him to do, like a program or a feud or anything.

And Omega's a big star,

and maybe having the two guys there was easier than one-on-one.

I don't know.

And then you're setting up the big match for you would have to think Texas Stadium, Texas Stadium, whatever the hell it is.

The stadium in Arlington, Omega versus Okada, Tony Khan's dream match.

He may splooge all over his own face watching that fucking match.

But good

heavens.

So you've got a 40-year-old guy that's had multiple injuries, has just recovered from abdominal surgery against the laziest wrestler in the world.

How's that going to go?

Well, if you want to find out, I could sell you a ticket.

There are plenty of tickets on sale right now.

Tickets now available right up until showtime, folks.

Get you good seats.

All right.

Well, the main event, Brian, we finally come to it.

The main event was next for the AEW World Heavyweight Championship.

Swerve Strickland with Prince Nana versus Dick the Boozer with Marina Schaefer.

And

the bell rang to start this match at three hours and 50 minutes into the pre-show

or into the show plus the pre-show is what I'm trying to say.

So they're going over four hours with this thing in the ring, plus the couple matches and miscellaneous conversation they've talked about before.

And it was late.

I mean, you just say how long it went.

It was already after 11.30 on a Sunday night.

So most people getting ready to either, you know, go to work or do something early in the morning.

So it was not a, they went to the main event and then they went along with it right before 12 o'clock.

Yeah, Eastern time.

And after four hours of chaos on this show, they started

with Moxley and Swerve getting in the middle of the ring and doing mat wrestling and grappling, like one of those tournaments in Newport that Moxley gets choked out in.

And then after they decided, okay, we've done this a little bit, so that feeds Moxley's fantasy of being a member of the Gracie family.

Then they went to the floor and they were on the floor for a while.

And

Schaefer did this a couple of times.

She interferes and just buries Prince Nana.

He's out there.

He's at ringside.

He sees her interfere.

I used to, when I was a babyface manager, I used to have to watch that.

If there was a heel manager, Heyman would work with me because he knew I was coming for him also if he did it.

So he'd only do it when we'd called for it previously and I had a place to be.

Other heel managers and or sycophants would not give a shit and I'd have to go over there and

fucking try to goddamn stand my ground.

But Nana,

it's a girl.

I don't care if she's a fucking shooter.

It's Prince fucking Nana.

He could pick something up and swing it at her, but he's got to just stand there and do nothing.

They should not have the girl interfering unless

he is

occupied.

Moxley tried to do a bunch of shit that he can't do.

They were outside on the floor forever.

Moxley threw Swerve over the desk so Swerve could crawl under the desk and get his color, which

apparently was a pap smear and dried up shortly afterwards.

And this was not a no disqualification match.

They just stay on the floor and they use all the shit because Moxley is such a garbage wrestler that he can't have a match.

So he just buries the referee and shits on the opponent and the match itself there's no art to this it's his masturbatory fantasies of the tough guy that he believes he is

probably because of his unhappy upbringing like with tony holm and donald trump we found out if you don't have a happy home life when you're a kid it can mentally you up

Moxley did a DDT on the stairs to him and gave him a pile driver, got a two count.

Then he bit some of the blood before it dried up and flipped the fans' birds.

Then they traded forearms.

I will say that the fans definitely wanted to see Moxley lose.

Possibly not in the traditional heel way, but more in the please make this whole thing go away mode.

So both of them were down.

Marina Schaefer gets the briefcase because the belt belt allegedly is still in the briefcase and brian did you see at the top of the match before the bell the referee held the briefcase up instead of the belt

it's so ignorant in his mind everybody's loving this

so marina gets in the ring with the briefcase with the referee staring at her Said, get out of here.

And Nana gets in and yells at her face to face.

And then for no reason at all, turns his back and she hits him across the back with the briefcase, which looked like shit, but he went down.

And then she just kicked him out of the ring.

I'm sorry, but if this was a real fucking life situation, one of these guys would go up and punch Marina Schaefer in the fucking mouth.

So if you don't want to bury your baby faces for not just going up and punching this fucking bitch in the mouth,

don't keep setting shit up where she

with

total, you know, abandonment of any consequences, just goes and does shit to people, and nobody stands up to her.

What's the word I'm searching for?

Impunity.

She just does shit with impunity, and none of the guys.

Anyway, She kicks Non out of the ring while the referee watches all this and does nothing.

And then Moxley

is going to jump up and give an rko to swerve but swerve moves and now moxley rkos his own girl by accident

and then he's hit two girls in one week

yes

because it's by accident so that don't count

and then swerve hits the double arm ddt gets a two count

And then Moxley pushes Swerve off the top rope to the floor and goes out and pulls out a ladder.

And again, is this no DQ?

They never even said that.

This is just a title match.

Moxley picks Swerve up, that he's just taking a bump off the top rope to the floor.

He's supposed to be unconscious.

And he drags Swerve to the ladder and pushes Swerve up the ladder.

He is making an unconscious man climb a ladder against his will.

and swerve is doing it he's so he's so dizzy that he doesn't know that he's climbing a ladder

i don't know why the ladder was there

it was it was under the ring it's always got to be under the ring

and then moxley goes around

and climbs the opposite.

So Swerve is sleep climbing the ladder.

And Moxley climbs up the other side and the whole reason for that was so that they can tease the superplex off the guy they've thought of a spot

how do we get there

in the middle of gone with the wind

how do we break out into a musical from the 70s

Well, we'll just do it.

It doesn't make any sense.

And everybody goes, what the fuck?

But they'll love the musical.

So

Swerve's blood is dried up.

Moxley was trying to bite it a little bit.

Moxley tries to superplex him off the ladder through the announced desk, but Swerve fought out

and had Moxley hanging there upside down and gave Moxley the double foot stomp off the ladder through the desk.

And then, of course, it took a while for him to get back in the ring after taking a...

a bump like that one would imagine

but once they got back in the ring fortunately,

they were all right enough that they could start trading forearms.

And then Moxley got a chair with the referee in the ring

and

threw it at Swerve, but Swerve moved.

Swerve, I'll tell you, aptly named fellow.

He gets out of the way of all this stuff.

He moved out of the way and Moxley crowned the referee over the fucking head with the chair.

Now,

I know that the referee is down with brain damage, but when he would wake up, one would think that he would call for a disqualification.

But we'll come back to him.

Swerve hits a big move on Moxley, but there's no referee.

And then suddenly here comes hangnail Adam Page, and he comes down and gets on the apron of the ring.

And as both

Swerve and Dick the Boozer are standing up, he's going to buck shot one, but he's looking at Moxley, but then he's looking at Swerve.

And which one's he going to fucking buck shot?

Well, we don't know

because here come the Boer horsemen, Claudio and Pac and Wheeler again.

And they start fighting Paige, but Paige makes a comeback

and dumps all of them out of the ring and hits the deade

on Moxley.

So the

Swerve, the babyface in a world title match is getting help from another one of the babyfaces.

So Paige dead eyes Moxley, but then here comes Samoa Joe and Hook and Shapupi

to fight the Stooges, and then all of them

fight off.

Whereas Swerve turns around and hits Moxley with a chair

and then goes up to the top rope.

And Moxley sits up and is looking at Swerve on the top rope.

And Swerve is getting his balance and he's milking it.

And he's seeing if the people are going to cheer as he stands up.

And the whole time, Moxley is sitting, sitting up,

staring at him, not making any effort to move.

And then the double stomp.

Boom.

If only he could have gotten out of the way in time.

And at that point, the lights go out.

And when the lights come back on,

there in the middle of the ring are Maddie and Nikki.

The buckaroos have returned from the land of Lilliput.

And they're holding Swerve's hands and they give him that shitty little double knee lift that they do.

This is a guy who has survived leaping pile drivers, falls through furniture, DDTs on stairs, being skewered with fucking hypodermic needles, but this shitty little phony fucking knee lift from these two little street urchins.

Boom, he's down and he's out.

And they get out of the ring, and Moxley covers him one, two, three.

30 minutes of this nonsense, bell to bell, as I said, not even with entrances, to get to this point.

And the buckaroos come back and

apparently are now mad at Tony Kahn again because,

remember,

they beat up their boss, even though they're EVPs, because they wanted to take over the company.

But then Moxley came in and he wanted to take over the company and they ran out because they were scared he's going to beat them up and they feared for their life and they left for six months.

But now they've come back to help Moxley take over the company that they are part

runners of, along with their former partner, Tony Khan, who

they have taken for an incredible amount of money.

Your thoughts, oh, great Brian Last.

Oh, the match sucked.

The match was so bad.

The Moxley matches are bad, and

I think the people really hate him.

He has exhausted their fan base,

and they wanted a title change here.

You could have said that about a few matches on the show, but definitely here.

And I think there's a lot of stuff people put up with in this match thinking, tonight's the night we're going to get the title change.

Instead, you got another pay-per-view ending deflating their fan base.

You can't be excited about the Bucs coming back as heels, where previously as heels, they drove away the audience.

That ain't going to work on top of the Moxley stuff continuing for another few months.

And now, if they're in cahoots, Moxley drove people away from the television, the Bucs drove people away from the television, put them together, people are going to start taking their TVs in for a refund at Best Buy.

Yeah, you know, it's one of these things, like you said earlier, Tony Khan thinks he knows best.

And that that means doubling down on the worst booking stuff he has, which is anything with the Death Riders.

And the fact that Moxley was going to win, I thought was kind of telegraphed by the fact that the other Death Riders won the six-man match.

I didn't think they were going to, I thought if they lost that match, Moxie was going to lose.

That was, for whatever reason, that was my thought.

Well, but remember, we said that Swerve wasn't going to win this anyway when we previewed this thing because it's not like,

I mean, everybody is more than past ready for Moxley to lose the belt and this whole thing to go away, but they hadn't, in their universe of logic, built this match up as the climactic point that would be suitable to put an end to this thing that they put all this fucking time in.

They're stuck with this shit,

just like they're stuck with everybody else on this card in the positions that they are in.

with nobody to wrestle and nothing interesting to do because it's just a confused mess of indie dream matches.

I have a dream match.

Young Bucks versus Hurt Syndicate.

That is my dream match right now.

Let me just say that for the rest of the year.

Let me just say that I don't think you're ever going to see that match.

I don't think those worlds will coexist anywhere on this television programming.

And,

you know, maybe because we've said that now, specifically, we've said that they'll try.

But otherwise, I don't think the buckaroos want any part of trying to foist their silliness on three men that could break them like grandma's buttermilk biscuits with a twinkling of an eye and a snap of a finger and aren't going to, as Lou Thes used to say, brook any of their nonsense.

They might try it now that we've said that, and I will see how that works out for them.

Well, there it is, another AEW dynasty.

And like I said, another

ending that deflated fans.

They're leaving people unhappy at the end of their events.

Chasing a heel with a belt is one thing.

When your fan base just doesn't want to see any more of the universe around that heel, it's a different kind of problem.

Well, and as we've talked about so many times, when he can't have a fucking match without the garbage, when everything has to be no DQ, when everything's done, when you do things right in front of the referee, subliminally, you're putting into people's mind that the promotion is responsible.

And

they have matches on this card,

or at least one match, Cole and Garcia, where they had no interference allowed.

Okay, well, if you can stop it, then you can stop it anytime.

So when the people are sitting there watching the referee stand slackjawed when a bunch of heels gang up on one baby face because it's no DQ

and nobody ever tries to come.

People just get disgusted with it.

It's disc, the disgusting heat is the heat that causes people to go away and not come back and not buy tickets.

And it's not disgusting heat doesn't get the name

from

People being disgusted because someone farted in someone else's face or they threw feces at each other.

That kind of disgusting.

It's disgusted like, I'm fucking tired of this.

I'm fed up.

It always happens this way.

They won't do anything about it.

They just do whatever they want to my hero or whatever, and it's always flat at the end and nobody tries.

Plus,

that was disgusting heat existed in wrestling before that.

It was so obviously fucking fake.

So now imagine how disgusted some people get when they do disgusting heat to people that, you know, this is all fake.

They could have just not done that.

But instead they chose to do this.

That's even worse.

Yeah.

Then you get resentment.

Yeah, resentment heat.

So with the wrestlers and the booker and the promotion.

I'm starting to resent these son of a bitches that I have spent four plus hours going through this stuff.

It would be a little more tenable if it was just a wee bit shorter.

In the house, too.

I heard from people who went there who actually enjoyed it, and they were like, you know, I was ready to go a few matches before the end.

I was so tired.

I'm so tired, tired of being alone.

All right, well, this is your program, isn't it?

It is, and that was AEW Dynasty.

And now we will travel back to where we started from, or

somewhere near there, right now.

Well, we are back here where we began in the future, yet it is the past, days of future past.

What the hell is going on around here?

It makes a lot more sense than AEW's booking, I'll tell you that.

But, you know, after a big event like that, Jim, after a big pay-per-view, big matches,

you may need a big night's sleep, a good night's sleep on a big bed, the right bed, the right bed for you, a comfortable bed.

We know comfortable big friends at helix

big bed friends at helix i'll tell you it's a choice of either a good night's sleep or pouring bleach in your eyes after one of these pay-per-views and i know which one i'm going to pick i'm going to pick the helix mattress because folks again there is nothing more comfortable in the world that you can lay your weary bones in and be cradled in like in the the love of a mother's arms like a helix sleep mattress.

We got them in our homes.

We got them for the wives.

We got them for the kids.

We've got them.

As a matter of fact, I carried one over to the neighbor's house and I said, start sleeping on this.

And this woman looked at me funny.

And she got really upset when I started dragging her old mattress out the bedroom window.

She got over this.

Well, the restraining order expired and she got over it.

She has reported that she's never slept better.

Who did she report this to?

Well,

it's part of the court-mandated proceedings.

She has to enter a status update every three months.

Folks, if you would like to be able to report to the court that you've been sleeping better than ever, you got to get a helix sleep mattress.

That's the thing.

And get one for your neighbor and carry it over there.

With some level of physical force and or coercion, you can get your neighbors to start sleeping on these things too, and they will be even happier.

And then they'll be in better moods and won't give you any trouble with cutting the grass on the property line or whatever.

This is a coercion-free product.

You don't have to worry about that.

And when you bring it over to your neighbors, you bring it, do you open it yourself?

Do you bring over the mattress opened or you bring it over the box unopened to get a box experience?

Yes, you bring over the box of helix mattress unopened because that's it's so easy.

But I'll tell you what, hauling that old one that doesn't,

you know, maneuver around like a helix in the nice box there out the window or door or whatever might be handy, especially when sometimes they don't want it to go and they're pulling on the other direction.

Well, no, that's the problem.

Well, again,

let's focus on buying mattresses for personal use.

Your

people, these people are persons.

These people are persons, and they deserve people's status, too.

Of course, whether they're neighbors or friends or people you don't know, go up and knock on a door leave make a new friend no let's no you because see some people they may be sleeping in misery they may be sleeping on one of these mattresses that has asbestos in it for stuffing or barbed wire and broken glass ground up and mixed with old yard clippings you know some of these

manufacturers in these factories You don't know what's in that you're sleeping on.

So take the box up to the guy's door, knock on the door.

When he answers the door, say, you need to start laying down on this at night.

You're going to feel a lot better.

You can probably eyeball the guy's house and tell who's going to need this type of thing.

Once again, Helix is here for your sleeping needs.

They're not looking for salespeople.

They're looking for people who want a good night.

No, no, no.

You're purely contributing your time.

This is a charity type of thing, but also it will spread the word about Helix because soon

everyone must sleep on Helix.

That's the goal of the state is to get everyone at night night on a helix sleep mattress.

And then once they flip the switch and those radio waves start, it's going to be a brand new world.

It's not right now, folks.

It's going to be the same world.

There's no switch.

If you'd like your children to be programmed, I mean,

good night's sleep.

There will be no programming of children.

There will be plenty of good nights of sleep.

Yes.

That's the way to put it.

Yes.

And yes, that's the way to put it.

Good nights of sleep, where subliminally you're taught certain things things that will serve you well later on when you're all

members of a certain society.

But nevertheless, folks, right now,

whether it's the kids or the wife, yeah, they've even got a mattress for your mother-in-law.

That's what, as a matter of fact, it's got a hinge in the middle.

She lays down on one side and you flip the switch and boop, it's like a mousetrap.

The other side goes right over.

It looks like a panini maker.

And there in the middle is mom, so she can't get out and

she's comfortable in there, but she's not going to be bothering you.

This is not a product from Helix.

This is a product of the imagination, the figment of Jim's mind.

But let's talk about

something that's real: sleep.

You need it.

You need a good sleep.

I think

I got an advanced test copy of that new mattress.

I didn't mean to let it out.

But, folks, right now,

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Check them out.

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Did you get the mother-in-law mattress?

There is no mother-in-law mattress, so we'll use stop it.

I wonder what the hell she's stuck in then.

Well, Jim, let's get away from your mother-in-law and let's get to.

That's what I'm trying to do.

Before we get too raw, which more than likely, because of the extra pay-per-view review here this week on the show, we won't get to any questions.

It'll probably be raw, but some classic wrestling before we get there.

I have here a file, Jim, from the file.

Yes.

Yes.

This is a file from the Wrestling News Archive, which comprises the various correspondence and photos of Norm Keitzer, Pro Wrestling Enterprises, Wrestling Review, The Rings Wrestling, Wrestling Monthly,

Major League Wrestling.

What am I forgetting?

There's a whole bunch of other publications, too.

Yes.

This is one of the big files in here, the Pat Malone file.

Oh my God.

And because I swear to you, I am working on writing in my spare time, ha, a piece on Pat Malone.

Oh, so this is very serious.

Is this for Time magazine?

No, it's actually, it's for Look.

Look is coming back.

No,

for something that I'm working on,

I was writing some

passages on Pat Malone, and I was thinking, you know, I'm going to run this by Brian before I show it to anybody and see what he thinks of it once I'm finished with it.

And here you are with a full file on the man.

Well, there's multiple parts of this file.

There are two different files of photos going back to seemingly the beginning of his career.

And then him as an old man backstage at the shows.

There's a picture of him and Roy Welch, picture him and Norm Keitzer.

This is the correspondence file I have here.

And are there any pictures of him as the green shadow?

I believe so, but I can go back and check.

Because,

okay,

not only do I want to see him, and we'll do that off the air, but also Scott Teal in his research.

The green shadow was so mysterious.

And folks, the reason why I'm writing a piece about him was he was one of the, and I think we mentioned it on the show, one of the biggest draws in the history of wrestling that absolutely nobody

talks about or remembers.

And that's sad.

But

Scott Teal, when he's researched his Nashville book and Knoxville book, there are very few publicity pictures or any kind of pictures of Pat Malone as the green shadow still existing.

But we didn't account for your files that you have curated there that have been around since the 1960s.

Well, I'll see what I have.

Again, there's a lot of stuff here, and this is one of the big files and a lot of correspondence.

Here's a.

uh because, of course, Pat, as we've talked about in later years, was responsible for selling the magazines, the wrestling news, and the arenas around the Tennessee territory, including getting the little kids, hey, boy, come here, sell 10 of these magazines.

You can get in and watch the matches.

Yeah, and I have here this is a letter from Pat Malone typed to Norm Keitzer November 10th, 1976.

Please find and enclose a cashier check in the amount of $500,

half of the amount I owe you.

I will send you the balance, which is $500 in a few days.

I want to thank you, I think he means thank, for the copy of the letter.

I don't think it will create any problems for me.

I will call you soon.

Go ahead and get ready for me the 2500 magazines, issue number 39.

Thank you for everything.

Sincerely yours, Pat Malone.

And I guess he would be...

I have a letter.

Yeah.

And

if I recall, because the wrestling news was the magazine, as we talked about, that was sold in the arenas back at that time.

I think when I started going,

I think the first issue I got was like issue number 30.

Maybe it was, it might have been the late 20s, early 30s.

And

that was in spring of 1974.

So

around that time, that may be one one

right about the time that he started using some of my pictures also.

But he was getting 2,500 of the magazines that he could sell around the territory.

And I believe the price at that time was,

I want to say $2, but maybe it was $1, but I think it was $2.

And it's coming on the heels of this, a letter from Norm Keitzer to Pat Malone, November 5th, 1976, to Pat Malone, Ezel Road in Nashville.

Dear Pat, Mr.

Nick Gulis called me yesterday and he was unhappy about issue number 38 of the wrestling news.

He said that Armstrong and Fuller had left the area and Diamond was not important enough for a cover.

And also that Don Green had left the area and was working opposition to him and that he didn't like having any photos of Green.

Hold on, hold on, because the Diamond he's talking about was Buddy Diamond, who was a, I remember this magazine, who had just done a deal where he was becoming the private in Jerry Lawler's, the general's army, Lawler's Army.

And

Fuller and Bob Armstrong had indeed left and gone back to Knoxville.

And Don Green was working for the company that Luthes had spearheaded with, who was it at the time?

It was, was it Buddy Lee or was it Danny Davis?

Not my Danny Davis, but the Nashville Danny Davis that was back in the UWA in 1976.

Yeah, that's 76.

Yeah.

Yeah.

so that was, so yeah, he featured all these guys that fucking Nick was on the outs with for some reason or another.

Anyway, to make a long story short, he wants me to check out with him who goes on the cover each time from now on.

Also, he said either I or you should check out with him any stories about his area I put in.

I covered all he wanted in a long letter I wrote back to him.

I've enclosed a copy for your information only.

He wants me to use a photo he is sending me of Tojo Yamamoto, George Gulis, Jerry Jarrett, and Jackie Fargo on the front cover of number 39.

And

that color picture that he had Mike Shields take, I believe, at the TV studio in Nashville.

They actually,

right as I was getting started taking pictures, all the other stuff was 8x10 black and white, and sometimes not even on photo paper, just printed.

But this one was printed like real

cardstock and in full color of Nick's four stars, Jerry Jarrett, Tojo Yamamoto, Jaggie Fargo, and George Gulis.

And they had that at every merchandise stand.

Go ahead, I'm sorry.

And to use the one you sent me of Tommy Rich on the back cover.

Since Mr.

Gulis is the boss, I will go along with what he says and check out all the stories with him from now on.

I don't think this system will be hard to live with, and I hope you think the same.

I did want you to know what happened on this, so I sent you this letter and a copy of what I wrote back to him.

Let me know if this will create any problems for you or anything.

I think everything can work out okay, and I can satisfy him and give you a good magazine to sell.

So, issues from the office.

And also, the picture of Tommy Rich, as I recall from the back, see, a lot of these pictures were Mike Shields was taking them them because mike shields at the time would take poe still pictures back in the mid-south coliseum locker rooms and then he was doing the video the film camera for the matches

and as i said i was just starting in louisville to take pictures the other end of the territory but pat would just get pictures and send them in and norm keitzer as we've talked about would credit

photo by Pat Malone.

He never picked up a camera in his life.

But that was Pat's interest.

And here's the kicker.

Six months, not even after this letter, Jarrett and Gulis would split and Pat went with Jarrett.

And because Pat was

close friends since the 1920s,

and they were intertwined with training the wrestling bears.

And Roy Welch, when he established the booking office, he's the one that made Pat Malone the green shadow.

And Pat Malone put Nashville on the wrestling map for Roy and Knoxville.

He did incredible business and Birmingham.

So the loyalty

was with Pat and Roy.

When Jarrett split off from

Goolis, Pat still came to Louisville and still went to Memphis.

He just stopped going to Nashville because Nick kept Nashville.

And

because Teeny had been in the office with Nick and Roy and Jerry had been Roy's protege,

Pat felt more loyalty to them rather than Nick, who was not always well liked by everybody.

Nick, who was

sending into the magazines?

Yeah, Pat didn't have to worry about what Nick thought.

And then

I don't know whether Nick was selling many copies of the wrestling news in Nashville, Chattanooga, and Birmingham because that's all he had left and he wouldn't have those for two more years.

Well, Jim, the next letter I have here, correspondence, this is from Norm Keitzer to

Pat Malone, dated December 20th, 1976.

Dear Pat, I received your check for $500, which pays for what you owed on number 38.

Thank you.

For number 39,

I still have not located the 400 copies that were lost by my printer, but will keep looking for them.

If I find them, I will send them immediately.

But for right now, your bill stands at $840

for 2,100 copies of the Wrestling News number 39, NWA East Edition, at 40 cents each.

I have the two slides you sent me.

I'll have to get prints and negatives made from them.

In the future...

Please send me color negatives rather than color slides as they work much better.

Just use

not knowing knowing that he didn't take any of these photos, it's funny to me.

Yeah.

Just use color-negative film rather than color-slide film.

And see, that's because in that era of printing to make the color separations, they liked negatives, but I couldn't send him any of my negatives because I goddamn needed them to, you know, print the pictures here.

So they had to deal with it.

Now, as far as Knoxville is concerned, I got a call from Mr.

Dick Steinborn, who I met while there.

He wrestles there, and he also handles the programs sold at the matches for the area.

He was interested in selling magazines for me.

I told him you are the exclusive distributor for magazines for that area, and that any deal would have to go through you.

I know that you sold some magazines to the ring many who stopped to see you.

I'm not exactly sure what he was trying to say there.

The ringman who stopped.

Oh, the ringman.

I bet you.

You know what?

It's crossed out after that.

I thought it was a why.

Who's the ringman?

Well, whoever was hauling the ring.

See, here's the thing.

Pat never went to Knoxville in the modern era to sell magazines.

That wasn't part of really either of Jarrett's territory or Nick and Roy's territory.

Remember, Kazana ran it till 1974.

Ron Fuller bought it and opened up Southeastern Wrestling.

And

since this is a couple of years later, Dick Steinborn at the time was wrestling as, I think, Mr.

Wrestling, or was he the gladiator under a mask at that point?

But also, he was a photographer, was shooting some of the pictures and helping Les Thatcher with the programs and things while Les was doing the TV show.

So they were probably wanting to

sell some of the magazine, same thing.

But I bet you whoever was hauling the ring, was it Mac McMurray, the referee who was partners with Ron, or somebody had stopped in to see Pat if they were going through Nashville?

Maybe, hey, let me take some of those and sell them or whatever.

And he sold them to something like that.

All right, well, back to this, the ringman who stopped to see you.

Maybe it might be possible for you to make some sort of deal with Steinborn.

I know he does all the programs that handles that end of the business as Ron Fuller told me this.

He might be able to put the magazine on sale using the same people uses to sell the program.

What I couldn't give him was a price for the magazine.

Why don't you offer him the same price you sold those other magazines for if you are interested?

This might be a way to get more sales up there and have the magazine on sale there all of the time and yet save you from having to make the drive down there.

See, that's the thing.

I think Norm is confused about the geography of the state of Tennessee and what territory was And he was thinking because Pat was exclusive for the Tennessee territory, he didn't realize that there was two already and fixed to be three different territories in the state of Tennessee.

If you are interested in this, Mr.

Steinborn's telephone number is, and he has two different phone numbers listed here.

I'm not sure, as I wrote it down twice and they were different.

Also, I had an idea which might help sales up there and also give Nick Gulis what he wants.

To explain my idea, I've enclosed a copy of another edition of the Wrestling News called the Stranglehold Edition.

If you will notice, we use the same covers for the Stranglehold Edition as we do for the AWA edition.

Look inside the back cover of the magazine enclosed, and you will see this.

We just fold the cover the opposite way so that each area gets someone from there on the front.

In that way, we could use the same magazine and covers for the Nashville and Knoxville areas, but staple the magazines the opposite way so that each area had their man on front.

And

also

with these different editions, they had NWA East, NWA West stranglehold for the WWA in Indianapolis,

AWA edition.

The first,

you know, when you print a magazine, it's stapled in the middle.

So the first eight sheets, 16 pages on each side would be the same thing.

And then they would insert

new copy just for that specific edition of the magazine for the pages in the middle and then staple it like that.

Yeah, they reused a lot of shit.

He was a master at cost cutting, was Norm Keitzer.

This is all just ideas, and maybe you don't think it is worthwhile.

However, I think it might work out.

If you want to contact Mr.

Steinborn and work out a deal with him on the wrestling news, you can.

If not, just forget it.

I gave you the deal, so do what you want.

So do what you want.

I guess that covers it for now.

I'll be planning out the next issue soon.

We'll call Mr.

Gulis about what he wants on the front cover and go from there.

Thanks, Norm.

And I have seemingly the reply from Pat Malone, again typed

December 22nd, 1976.

Dear Norman, I just received your letter in magazine.

Enclose, please find a cashier check in the amount of $500 on issue 39.

At this time, I will have a balance of $340 that I owe, and I will send as soon as possible.

As far as the Knoxville side, I intended to go there and have a talk with Mr.

Dick Steinborn and Fuller, but they change every few weeks of who is in charge.

I might not know they have a new booker or a man in charge every few weeks.

That makes it hard for me to do business with any one person.

But I intend to go over there.

We'll call you in a few days.

We wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Thank you for everything.

Sincerely yours, Pat Malone.

And two questions.

And number one, I wonder who the revolving Dora Bookers was at that point in time.

This is seven.

Were they going back and forth between

Dick Steinborn, Bob Armstrong, Robert Fuller at that point.

Ron Fuller himself.

Ron.

But the second thing is, is that hand sign, Pat Malone?

Yes, it is.

Is it look like kind of neat handwriting?

It does.

Okay, that's his wife, Sammy, is typing it for him.

And I'm not like Pat was an invalid, but he didn't give a shit to sit down and fucking typewriter.

This is a goddamn old shooter that used to fucking carry a knife in his boot to fend off the fucking fans that were trying to attack him.

His fucking knuckles and the calcium deposits were like golf balls.

He wasn't sitting down at a typewriter sending Christmas greetings to Norm Keitzer when he was 77 years old.

His wife, Sammy, was typing that.

They even typed out the envelopes because I have the envelope here post-dated December 22nd, 76, Nashville, Tennessee.

to Mr.

Norm Keitzer, Medelia, Minnesota.

And then in red, it's typed out, attention, important.

Make sure it gets to the right department there.

You got me actually interested.

I'm just going to go a little forward just to see if there is anything about the fallout with Googles that I can find.

Anything from late April, early May 1977.

And by the way, here's another, while you're looking at that, another little factoid that I've come up with, and one of these days we'll talk about why I've been doing this research.

But

Pat Malone, as the green shadow, was responsible for, as the top heel for popping the wrestling business in Nashville in 1940 and 41,

when Roy Welch had first taken over and established a booking office there.

And in those days, they had the matches at the old Hippodrome,

which was a big, they had no sports arena in Nashville.

The Hippodrome was a big roller skating rink with permanent bleacher seats, and they had concerts, they had political conventions and rallies, any kind of

entertainment, live entertainment, that was the place that in indoors you went in Nashville in those days.

And if they were selling and jamming what we believe, Scott Teal has tried to investigate this.

And, you know, I've heard Christine Jarrett talk about it, but

the building supposedly could seat about 2,000 people, but if everybody was standing and they would do this all the time, you could get almost 3,000 people in this thing.

And their tickets were like an average of a little bit less than a dollar.

But

if you use the old-time promoter's formula, and there were six guys on these cards, and Pat Malone was in the main event, and he was either wrestling

the booker or the booker's brother, the head of the office.

He was best friends.

He was figured in.

He had a run there of years.

If they drew a $2,500 house and you use the wrestler, the old-time promoters formula that Sam Muchnick used to use, you can see

Pat Malone, this is where I'm going with this, getting

payoffs in 1941 out of the Nashville Hippodrome.

And $200 in fucking today's money equals like 4,000.

So these old fucking shooters set this office up and Roy kept it between himself and his brother Herb and Wow Bill Caney and Tex Riley

and a few of the other Tennessee mainstays for the next 15, 20 years.

And these guys were making what even

today

in the wrestling business would be considered legitimate money of the equivalent of

thousands of dollars a week.

It was a fucking amazing if you go back and look at this that far, what they were able to do with no television, no interstates, and in the middle of the Depression and World War II.

But bring us back to 1977.

Yeah, let's go to here.

We'll hit on a few things.

It may be slightly out of order because this, again, this is a massive file of paperwork.

And some of this in this area seems to be, it's all there, but out of order chronological.

in the chronological sense, I guess.

Here's a letter from Norm Keitzer to

Pat Malone, February 16, 77.

Nice talking to you on the phone today.

Hope that you are feeling well and your health is good in the future.

I'm sorry that issue number 40 was delayed, but I wrote Mrs.

Jarrett a note and asked her to decide who they want on the cover for issue 41 by March 1st.

And if they want someone other than Lawler, to decide by then so that I can then get the next issue out on schedule.

I've already received some color stuff from Dick Steinborn of Boys in the Southeastern Area, so we should have no problems there.

I'm shipping you this week $1,000 for 2,500 copies of number 40, the Wrestling News NWA East Edition, at 40 cents each.

I guess that covers everything right now.

Hope the magazines arrive quickly.

Sent him a bitch about five years later.

He was charging me about 80 cents for my magazines.

Here's another one from Norm on March 2nd, 77.

Just a note to let you know that Jerry Lawler and Jimmy Golden will be on the front cover of Wrestling News number 41, which will come out in time, I assure you.

And then closing the slides from color photos in issue 40.

And then see, it goes a little out of order here, but here's March 28, 77 from Pat Malone.

Dear Norman, enclose find the check for the amount of $400 balance due on issue 40.

I would like very much in the future, Norman, if you would let me know who you are using on the front and back cover.

As I sell most of the magazines in this territory, if I don't get a picture on the front and back cover of someone from East Tennessee, I can't sell the books over there.

Let me know at once when to expect the books.

Thank you, Pat Malone.

That's a little terse.

But if I go a little bit forward here, this is where I said they're a little out of order.

Here's a letter from Pat Malone to Norm Keitzer, May 25th, 1977.

Oh.

Dear Norman, I received the magazines.

I will send you a check in a few days for at least half of them.

I'm going to tell you something.

I guess Miss Christine told you.

Don't use anything more of Nick Ula's boys.

And what, I think he means end, it says R, but there's a lot of misspellings here.

And what Scott Teal sends you, as we don't work together anymore.

But be sure and always have some good pictures of the East Tennessee boys, which is Fuller's on the front and back cover.

Also Jerry Jarrett's boys.

Can I give some insight on that?

Yeah, please.

Also, because

when he said we don't work with Nick anymore, don't use it.

Scott Teal, unfortunately, was the suffering for that because Scott had moved to Nashville from Florida in the early 70s and had been doing the slamogram programs for Nick and taking pictures of Nick's guys in the Nashville end while Mike Shields did a lot of stuff for Memphis, as I said.

And

when Jarrett split off from Gulis,

it became the Jarrett Welch Wrestling Company because even though

Roy was,

Roy died about, right about that time anyway, did he not?

But Buddy Fuller, who was Edward Welch,

had agreed to partner with Jarrett so that Jarrett could use the Welch name.

And, you know, Buddy had kind of taken over at that point

the head of the family status since Roy was in ill health and the other brothers had retired.

And so it from Gulis Welch Wrestling, it became the Jarrett Welch Wrestling Company because Buddy Fuller was involved.

And obviously,

since Buddy's son, Ron, owned the Knoxville Territory,

Jarrett and Ron were working together bopping talent back and forth because

it was all in a family and neither one of them was particularly beholden to or

you know enamored of nick so they were nick was in the middle in nashville but the memphis on the west end and knoxville on the east end was trying to squeeze him and it also didn't want his boys to get any publicity in the magazine and scott teal had a good relationship with jerry lawler and jerry lawler secretly had Scott Teal do the programs when they first broke off.

And then Jerry Jarrett put the kibosh on that because Scott had the long time.

Scott Teal's the one person doesn't say a single bad word about Nick Olis.

Said he was always honorable with him, always treated him good.

No,

Michael St.

John will not say anything bad about Nick too, because he did the same thing.

Nick treated him like he was his TV announcer.

Nick, you know, usually tried to take care of the people in the inner circle in the office, but

the opinion amongst the wrestlers varied.

But as a matter of fact, Michael St.

John said, I'll tell you this:

I can't remember what it was, but he came on a point where St.

John, maybe his, was it his wife sick?

He told me the story,

but he just happened to mention it.

And Nick got in his safe and gave him some large amount of money in cash and said, yeah, boy, don't worry about it.

But that's the thing.

Nick, even

he was still planning on being in business, you know, forever because he'd always done that for 40 years.

Why wouldn't he do it forever?

He had a new office building built in Nashville after the split with Jarrett and paid cash for it, like a couple hundred thousand.

I'm talking cash that he had in his fucking safe in his old office.

The old-time wrestling promoters, they kept ludicrous amounts of cash around.

Well, back to this letter.

This will be the final letter of this edition from the files.

Enclosed, you will find the program from Memphis and Louisville.

You can see the boys we use in Jerry Jarrett's towns.

I suppose you get material from East Tennessee of the boys who work for Fuller.

Thanking you, I will close.

Sincerely yours, Pat Malone.

Yeah, thanking you, I will close was not

a sign-off that Pat would come up with on his own.

Oh my God, it has it here too.

Here's the next letter: June, thanking you, I will close.

I love that.

That's great.

pat pat's favorite expression was boy i'll either fight you or run you a foot race

who took this photo of paul orndorf i'm sending you a couple of programs you will see orndorf in front of a white orndorf in front of a white concrete wall either he's got the the old southern junior heavyweight title belt on or perhaps he's in he's in either short trunks or blue warm-up pants It doesn't have the photo here, but it says, I'm sending you a couple of programs.

You will see a story on Paul Orndorf, all in caps.

I would like for to use it in the magazine with the negative.

I hope you have received by now.

I would like for you to use the picture of Orndorf on the front cover, along with Fuller.

Every time the word end is supposed to be here, it says R.

Almost like a beach.

Fuller, are someone from the East Tennessee side?

Be sure and have them on the cover.

Let me hear from you.

Thanking you, I will close.

That is my new favorite sign-off.

Thanking you, I will close.

But we will close there with this.

Obviously, this is a massive file.

This is 77, and it goes until

this.

I didn't realize he was still doing stuff.

86.

Yeah.

87, 88.

So it goes until 1988.

And here is.

I think that's the year he died.

And here is his obituary from the paper.

Oh, my God.

March 15th.

Okay.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Well, I was just going to say, well, you and I off the air got to do some business.

You'll get your files will get a big plug in what I'm producing, but I need that information.

Go ahead.

Well, here's March 15th, 1988.

Do you know his real name?

Because I'm about to say it.

Well, Edgar B.

Davies is the consensus of what most people think his real name was.

Here it says Edgar Brian Davy,

87, a retired professional wrestler who used the professional name of Pat O'Brien,

died Tuesday at Southern Hills Hospital after a brief illness.

Davy, who wrestled in Nashville for several years wearing a mask and using the name the Green Shadow, won the title of World Light Heavyweight Wrestling Champion in 1936.

Funeral services, it goes into the information there.

A native of Carbondale, Illinois, Mr.

Davy was the son of the late Mr.

and Mrs.

Charles Davy.

Good lord.

He first came to this area in the early 1930s and wrestled at the old Hippodrome, drawing turnaway crowds.

He had wrestled in New York City and other cities in this country and around the world.

Later, he promoted wrestling in Miami and South Florida.

After his retirement, about 20 years ago.

And by the way,

that was in the 40s between 1945 and 40, 44 and 47.

Oh, no way.

Wow.

Roy Welch had taken over Tampa

and Lake Mary, or Lake Worth, a lot of towns in Florida.

Florida wrestling was on its ass and not drawing.

This was before Cowboy Lutrell.

And at various points, he sent Pat down there not only to wrestle as the green shadow, but to run towns and book for him and even sent Nick down for a year

out of Nashville.

And

it was too far away.

It didn't work.

And so they came back because Nashville and Tennessee was making more money.

But they were the promoters in Florida, for most of Florida,

right after World War II, right before Luttrell.

After his retirement, about 20 years ago, Mr.

Davey continued to stay close to the sports world.

In recent years, he had worked as a guard at the sports arena at the state fairgrounds.

Survivors include a daughter, Patsy Davy, Nashville, three sons, Clyde Davy, Tampa, Edgar Davy, Nashville, and Patrick Davy, Alexandria, Virginia, 18 grandchildren

and seven great-grandchildren.

So there it is.

It doesn't say which picture this is from, but I'm sure it's in that.

By the way, he was still, he did fill in matches every once in a while in the early 1960s when he was past 60.

And he was still

taking Ginger the Bear around in the 60s and I think to the early 70s.

was, he was fucking a man.

And he had

the legendary stories, but nobody got more heat

than the green shadow as far as with the fans.

There are numerous instances of the fans rioted.

The fans tried to pull the green shadow out of the locker room.

Green Shadow was hit over the head with a broken bottle and slashed in the face.

He was stabbed.

He had a fight with, he was arrested for kicking the shit out of a fan.

Everywhere Everywhere he fucking went.

And there's no video.

There's no film.

There was no such thing as television.

There's no audio recordings.

There's very few pictures.

But he was

inventing all of the,

he and Roy Welch inventing or the first one to do all of the fucking heel wrestling tricks that have come to be.

blase

in front of these people.

They'd never seen him of soapiny eyes.

We're going to lynch this motherfucker.

So he was the fucking saltiest old son of a bitch that ever walked the earth.

Here's a letter from Pat Malone.

Again, very nice handwriting.

I'm guessing it's his wife.

This is all handwritten, informing Norm Keitzer of falling and breaking his right hip on March 30th.

This will end with this.

I just bumped into this.

There was one time he was in the hospital in the 70s, and Tiny got mad because she had called up and she had asked for Pat Malone's room.

And oh, I'm sorry, Edgar Davy.

And so, why does he have two names?

It's a professional name.

She was like, she didn't want anybody to think anything about wrestling was, you know, phony or whatever.

It's a professional name.

Go ahead.

Well, we'll end with this.

This is in the file.

This is dated January 10th, 1987.

It's signed sincerely, Christine Jarrett.

Handwritten.

Dear Norman, please believe me when I say that my grandson, Jeff Jarrett, is number one box office.

It is not just

from a grandmother talking.

Whenever you see fit to put his pictures on the front page, you can automatically send me 700 magazines for shipment.

Hope you are well.

And I wish.

He's trying to bribe Jeff's way on the cover of the magazine.

And I wish for you all great things in the new year.

Signed, sincerely, Christine Jeffrey.

That's the whole letter.

Believe me when I say he's number one.

Put him on the cover.

I'll buy 700 copies.

Well, you never know what you'll find in the Pat Malone file.

This has been from the files, Pat Malone.

And, boy, we went a while, but we had a good time, but let's now wrap things up with.

Your thoughts on whatever you watched on WWE Raw last night.

Oh, golly, we got to talk about that, don't we?

Well, let's talk about the big thing and then we'll talk about the smaller big thing and then the other smaller big thing.

And then that's pretty much the things.

But the main event of Raw, and this was for April 7th.

And again,

you know what it's said, I love the stuff on SmackDown with this triple threat situation.

Imagine that.

Because it fits and these guys are talking me into it.

And I mean, even the people on the periphery, Paul Heyman is on the periphery of this thing.

He can, he can talk.

So, on Raw, they had Heyman in the ring in the main event spot, the last of the night,

because everybody wants to know whose side is he going to be on.

Punk wants him to be in his corner.

What about Roman Reigns?

So,

Heyman establishes at the top.

I've come here to address

a couple of these things that have been going around.

I want to address them in order.

Number one, I will always

be loyal to my tribal chief, Roman Reigns.

And number two, I'll always

be loyal to my best friend, CM Punk.

And just because I'm loyal to both of them doesn't mean that I'm going to be disloyal to either one.

And for WrestleMania,

let's get one thing perfectly clear.

And boom, right there, Seth's music interrupts him.

And

he woes to the ring again and woes.

And the people are woeing.

And he's woeing right up in Paul's face.

And boy, when you see Paul Heyman's face, it does make you go, whoa.

And he said, tonight.

Tonight I'm here.

It's all about you, Paul Heyman.

Everybody wants to know.

Everybody's asking you, whose side are you on?

And are you on the side of

your best friend, CM Punk?

And they chant CM Punk, CM Punk.

And this was kind of telling, or are you on the side of your wise man, Roman Reigns?

And they kind of booed.

They're starting to boo, which I'm sure Roman Reigns could give a shit because he

wrestles,

you know, handful of times a year and makes

appearances every once in a while.

And I don't think he cares for the money he's making.

But they boot him.

And then Seth told Paul that, hey, Roman Reigns doesn't give a damn about you.

And he told the story of how he'd used him and given him no respect.

then left him to the wolves and didn't help him.

And then he did the same thing with Punk.

And Seth Rollins did a great job here.

This is kind of like,

this was like the manager

segment that I talked about earlier when we were going over SmackDown, where it's normally up to the manager to lay out the history and the nuts and bolts and the facts and figures and dates and places and things that may trip up

the average wrestler, but Seth nailed this.

He drew this, all of the stuff we've seen.

He made both Punk and Roman seem like that, as related to Paul Heyman, that they were some selfish, self-centered assholes that, you know, left him to fend for himself.

So, he made a good case, and Paul was selling it good with the facials and the whole nine yards.

He was, you know,

it just the introspection you see in those wide, pie-shaped, puddling eyes.

And so, Seth felt bad for Paul.

And it would be, it'd it'd be easiest, Paul, if you removed yourself from the situation.

But you either can't do that or you won't do that.

So

I think for your own good,

right here, right now, I ought to remove you.

It'll be quick and easy.

Just a boot to the head and one quick stomp and it'll be all over.

The crowd

crowd was not in that.

They did not like Rollins threatening Heyman.

Yes.

No, that's the thing when seth start pushed him it was oh and they were taking up for paul

which and by the way and i've said i don't know when it's going to happen i'm not even saying it's anytime soon but longer term unless he's anxious to ride off in the sunset paul knows that he's probably better characterized in the heel

contenders role so It'll be even better when the people are taking up on him for getting pushed around and then he fucking did.

But nevertheless,

Seth has pushed him around and he's bullying him and he's slapped him.

He's not hard, but kind of, you know, the insulting.

And Paul bows up for the first time and says, Don't put your damn hands on me again.

And he got a pop.

Now we got Paul bowing up, and Seth grabbed him by the face and pushed him into the corner like he was going to maul him.

And suddenly,

like Mussolini

to save Paulie,

clubbering time is on the way.

And here comes Punk.

And he hits the rig and he leg dives Seth Rollins, probably somewhat like he upended Maddie of the Buckaroos before he beat the shit out of him all

out.

And they fought out on the floor and went over the desk and they knocked over the the prime station,

hit into the stairs, and Punk

reared back and was going to try to stomp Seth on the steel stairs, but Seth rolled into the ring.

And when Punk went after him, Seth stomped Punk.

And Punk's selling, and Paul goes over and he's checking on Punk.

And he's going, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

But he's right in position for the stomp.

And Seth sees it.

And slowly he turns, step by step, inch by, no, actually, he didn't turn.

He just ran and jumped up in the air and stomped right short of Paul.

And Paul went humming.

And Seth looked down at him and said, now you owe me a favor

because he didn't kill him.

So what in the world is going to happen next?

I'm loving it.

As the Heyman turns.

I'm loving this, Brian.

Yeah, I mean, I don't think Heyman would end up with Seth Rollins based on the way it was set up, but

would he feel obligated to?

I mean, it's different when you have a favor you owe a friend versus some guy who just.

Yeah, no, I don't think he's obligated because you didn't kill me, so it, I will, in turn, then paint your house.

Yeah, right.

Maybe that works with like swerving Adam Page.

I really don't know.

No, this was good stuff.

And

Rollins came out of it looking strong, and he needed to.

And really good.

Again, like you, I wonder how long the baby face, the whimpering babyface Heyman is going to be a thing.

But he did bow up here a little bit.

Yeah, but you know, it always ends up with him like, you know, on his knees crying or

making the prayer symbol and crying or whatever the fuck he's doing.

But good stuff.

And I agree with you.

I don't know how the match will go.

We'll see.

I'm not a big fan of three-way matches.

They've done a good job of making me they've done a better job of building up the three-way match than anything else for WrestleMania by far but that there there's some minds involved in this too so i have high hopes that

you know it it they're not just gonna fucking drive a truck to the ring with a bed full of ladders and tables and chairs and etc it's it's gonna have some drama to it also

But otherwise, there were a few other things on Raw.

I will make mention that they, again, have more drone shots than the travel channel.

If I want to take a trip around the world i don't need to buy a plane ticket i could just watch

they're in love with the drone shots i think sometimes they ought to have a drone shot from a drone that actually drops like comes down into the arena and and one of the wrestlers is driving it or flying it or what operating it hanging off of it hanging i mean operating it is one thing hanging off of it well no get one of those big ones like you had over in new jersey where you can hang off a son of a bitch.

It was the size of a Toyota Turcell or whatever.

I mean, maybe if you had a

drone fly the wrestler right into the arena.

I don't know if you can get one that size into the arena on the smooth pathway that they seem to use for all these shots, but make it a stadium.

Then it may work.

That went into no roof.

Holy shit, is that Charlotte Flair on a drone?

I think it would make the fans change their attitude.

There you go, because Flair did it, Rick, in the helicopter 40 years ago.

So now 40 years later, a drone into a stadium.

And anybody that comes down in a drone is over.

It's actually a great idea.

Drones like ring cars, like they had a WrestleMania 3 and WrestleMania 6.

They make a little ring and it flies up and it carries you to the ring.

Yeah, and they could have a little claw on the drone like they have at the claw machine at the cracker barrel, and it can just go down in the locker room and pick up one of the boys and carry him out the aisleway and drop him in the ring.

Just like a cracker barrel.

I can see it now.

What else did you see?

Just like a cracker barrel.

What else did you see on this memo?

You know what?

A chicken-fried chicken with sawmill gravy on top, two sides of hash brown casserole, two eggs over easy on top of the chicken and gravy with two sides of bacon and some biscuits.

And you got breakfast.

Anyway,

also on Raw, they had a history package between Bianca Belair and EO Sky and Rio Ripley.

And they had Adam Pierce in the ring so that he could do the obligatory announcement of the triple threat match.

And we've got now every match except Cody and Cena is either a three-way or a four-way or whatever.

But again, he brings all three of them out.

And this is, we've talked about it.

There's wasn't anything wrong with this segment, but.

It's so similar to what they've been doing because they had to stretch out the build for almost two months before this thing.

So

Rhea and Bianca look like stars in there,

all in the leather and the fucking pageantry.

And EOS guy

expression on her face looks like she's at a dentist's office.

She's very troubled.

And Pierce makes the triple threat and wants the signatures on the contract.

And Bianca didn't want Rhea around before, but now she does want her around because she wants to fight her and kick her ass.

And

the fans are chanting, Rhea, Ria.

They don't like Bianca fucking with Rhea.

And I think they're, they're just, they don't want to boo Eo, but I don't know that they're taking her all that seriously.

But basically, Bianca signs the contract and shoves it into Rhea Ripley's chest.

Thankfully, she's got plenty of padding.

She wasn't injured.

And then Rhea signed it and threw it back at Bianca.

And as they're arguing for like the fourth time now, EO comes up to go, what I want to say, and gets pie-faced again

and just turns around and starts to walk out.

But as Rhea and Bianca are arguing and

involved in themselves, EO jumps up off the top rope and dropkicks both of them and knocks them goofy and signs the contract.

So.

We got a three-way there.

Yes, we do.

And I'm sure sure it'll be good.

And I don't know about Harold looking like she's,

whatever you said, in pain at the dentist's office.

She looks like she's troubled.

She looks like she's at the dentist.

She's at the dentist's office.

Trouble.

She's at the dentist's office.

She has that look on her face, like, is this news going to be good or bad?

It might be painful.

Man, Rhea was looking good.

Boy, howdy.

And then what about Gunther and Jey Uso?

Did you watch this segment?

Yeah, I did.

What did you think of it?

I liked it because

they have needed to do something for Jay.

I mean, Jay, everybody likes Jay, but then Jay slipped and fell on his dive a couple weeks ago or not fell, but just didn't clear the rope.

And then they were doing the thing where he was doubting himself.

And then Gunther just beat a teetotal shit out of Jimmy right in front of Jay last week.

The heat angle, you knew.

You just knew

he was going to have to have something to say about that.

And

I think this worked to get people, to get Jay back to where people are going.

They've done the underdog thing with him, but now people needed to have some faith.

I think it gave them some faith.

Because Gunther was out to the ring after the big package where he was bathed in Jimmy's blood last week and everything.

And the fans are chanting, we want Jay, we want Jay.

But Gunther didn't even have to say anything before he even spoke.

Jay's music played and he did the entrance from the stands and with the people yeeting

and Gunther's in the rig just laughing and he's rolling his sleeves up like, I'm going to have to dust this clown off again.

And when Jay got in, he slapped the microphone out of Gunther's hand and everybody, oh.

And he took a minute and gathered up his confidence and the people were chanting, ooh, so, ooh, so.

And Jay didn't do the promo that he normally does, the Jay, the Jay Yeet Uso promo.

And when the fans tried to start Yeetin, he quieted them down because he wanted to hear it.

He gave them the thing.

No, no, this is serious.

He said, Gunther, you got a mother.

I got a mother.

You got a mother.

What do you talk about with your mother?

You talk about family stuff?

You talk about how's grandma doing or whatever?

Well, I got a mother and I had to tell my mother that her oldest son got 15 stitches in his head and he's in the hospital.

And she asked me, why didn't you protect him?

And I said that

I said it's because I was afraid of Gunther.

I was afraid of you.

You had me.

But that wasn't enough.

You had to bring my family into it.

And then he starts firing up a little bit.

But the light bulb went off.

And I see this.

This was a whole thing, but he ended up with,

not ended up with, but he built up to, Gunther, I'm not afraid of you no more.

And that got a big pop.

And Gunther's standing there, not knowing how to take it.

The smile is gone.

And he,

and Jay said, before WrestleMania,

give your family a hug and a kiss.

Because I'm going to ask the Lord to forgive me for the man that I'm about to become.

And the people are with him.

And he fired up and he promised to win and be the world heavyweight champion, which he's going to.

Mark my words in your little black book wherever you keep it.

And Jay walked off and left the Gunther standing there perplexed, and the fans were yeeting.

And that's what he needed

this close to this thing to get people ready to see him win this.

I thought he did a great job.

He excels

in moments of emotion.

And this was a different promo than every promo he has done.

And the crowd was with him, and he delivered everything really well.

And Gunther is just perfect standing there smugly while he's saying all this.

I don't know how I like the match, but the buildup's been really good.

Second best buildup to a mania match after the three-way.

Just because the Cena-Cody stuff, there's so many holes in the story.

I know, but I'm loving the promos anyway.

And I almost think it's it's John Cena versus Cody Rhodes.

It's the battle of the generations.

It's the kind of thing they love to put on posters up there.

And both guys are over and business is hot.

And I think they could have easily done this without the rock.

And that's what's caused most of the holes and or the,

you know, the lackluster continuity.

But I'm not that.

bothered by it because they get they're both such good promos at least we're just getting some

goddamn entertainment out of some of this shit.

Anyway, and they did a really good package, speaking of Cody on Cody Rhodes.

Did you see that on Raw?

Did you wire or did you skip through like most people do all the spots and the commercials and the plugs and the sales pitches and the goddamn buy this now type of thing?

And you may have missed it.

I definitely missed it.

But it was a good couple of minutes, a package on Cody with some modern music that I'm not familiar with, but network quality editing made him look like a superstar.

And that's the kind of thing, again, they're excelling at here in this company.

And the other thing that I will mention:

Penta and Dominic Mysterio had a good match,

but Penta won one, two, three.

And then

Carlito came in and they were beating the shit out of Penta.

And Braun Breaker came out.

Sorry, Goldberg, and even my old friend Rhino.

Sorry.

But the best spear that has ever been speared in the history of wrestling, did you see Braun Breaker spear Carlito in the aisleway?

Well, that was the best one because you didn't see him coming.

You didn't see him leave his feet.

You just see him like a missile coming mid-air into Carlito.

It was amazing.

And flying further than that.

And then

he got in the ring and speared Dominic and then he speared Pinta.

And then Finn Balor attacked him, but then he got back up and tried to spear Finn.

But Braun Breaker, I'm just sorry to tell you this, will be the biggest star in professional wrestling at some point in his career.

I'm not putting a timeframe on it, but I'm saying at some point before he's done, he will be the number one guy in the business.

There's no way around it.

But that was three hours of, not three hours, two hours and...

35 minutes or so of raw.

Well, this has been hours and hours and hours of drive-through this week.

And as I said before, questions.

You know what?

Some asshole said on Twitter, said, is everybody okay?

Last week's experience was only two hours and 48 minutes or whatever instead of over three hours.

They're spoiled now.

And plus, we were in a state of emergency.

Yeah, there's that.

Yeah, there's that going on.

We only get three hours when there's federal aid coming in.

This one will be significantly longer, and we will end it here.

With that, the drive-through is closed.

All right.

And that cut out.

It's cutting out on you again.

And we're cutting out on everyone else here.

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That sounds ominous.

More about him.

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Mentally, that's where I go next.

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I think that's about it.

Whoa.

That wasn't the sound I was expecting.

No organ outro today

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I'm the great Brian Last.

We'll see you in a few days.

Tally ho!