Episode 384

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Aloha, that's the wrong intro.

Hello again, friends.

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

It's a breezy day in the northeast.

I'm pretty sure we're about to find out about the weather in Louisville, Kentucky.

We got wrestling talk.

We got questions.

We got reviews.

And so much more with this man, the leader of the cult of Cornet, Mr.

Jim Cornet.

Well, first of all, I feel like

I'm on a local telethon for,

you know, fallopian research or something with the organ music and then coming into the, you know, and we're back.

And now here comes the possum juggler.

All right.

Anyway, how's your weather?

It's fucking, it.

It doesn't suck now, but it has sucked here.

And my sleep is all off.

And

I'm snurfly today.

So if you, if you catch me sniffling, I apologize.

But we had 80 degree weather for a couple of days in a row.

And then, of course, we had severe weather, including tornadoes up in southern Indiana, hail the size of canned hams.

David Letterman actually predicted that one time when he did the weather on Channel 13 in Indianapolis.

They had like large hail in places.

and torrential rain.

And then the next day it was 30 something degrees.

And then this morning it was 30 something.

but now it's 60 something within a few hours and my sinuses are a disaster area

but i'm powering through brian because i it we owe it to the people the cult of cornet the listeners out there we do it all for them

we're not like john cena ungrateful after 25 years of of worship and idolatry.

He's thrown it all away.

He's thrown it all away.

We're not like him, though, are we, Brian?

We appreciate the people that have made us the

megastars and the magnitude of us that exist today, don't we?

Do you?

We appreciate the people.

You're the megastar.

I'm just a little idiot over here, but you are the megastar and the people

to blame you for anything they have to blame anyone for.

But do not shortchange yourself.

You're not little.

So don't be saying stuff like that.

That is a wonderful setup for from the files later today, actually.

Well, we have a lot of discussion of some idiots today.

But anyway, that's the weather update.

But it's looking up now until tomorrow when we have a chance of more severe weather.

And then it's going to snow again.

Well, that was the weather.

This is my show.

Let's now go to sports.

And last night at the NBA, or at the NBA, at Madison Square Garden for the NBA.

Let's go to the NBA side of things.

We'll get to spring training after this.

The Knicks Knicks play basketball, but they were not the main event.

Did you see what was happening last night at the game?

Well, apparently,

as Big Bad John said one time, face to face, they faced each other.

Apparently, from what I understand, and this could be two unrelated incidents, but

Tracy Morgan.

famous comedian and survivor of the New Jersey Turnpike, was on one side of the basketball court.

And Vince McMahon, disgraced former pro wrestling entrepreneur, was on the other side of the court.

And Tracy Morgan took a good look at him and lost his fucking lunch all

over the floor.

And they had to carry Tracy Morgan out.

Were these incidents

connected or unrelated?

We don't know for sure.

I mean, a part of me thinks that maybe Vince turned to the person he was with and said, He's gonna, he's gonna puke.

He's gonna peel.

I don't know that that happened, though.

I'd like to believe it did.

Vince McMahon, of course, it was St.

Patrick's Day, and he's proud of being Irish.

He was all in green.

I've never seen him look like this before, except for his Sputnik Monroe flash of white hair.

No, now Sputnik's was more controlled in a particular area.

Vince's kind of look more like he's fucking

the skunk that Pepe LePue thought we was chasing the cat that that crawled under the white fence, is what I'm trying to say.

But now here's the question.

When Vince looked over there and saw Tracy Morgan puking, did he say good puke, Shelton?

Was he upset that he was no longer the main?

Yo, you didn't put that over.

For heaven's sake.

You know what?

Hold on.

It took me a second to realize exactly what you were saying there.

Oh my God.

Yes.

For anyone who doesn't know,

for anyone who doesn't know, Vince McMahon famously in a, I guess, a company-wide, a roster-wide meeting,

was taking questions from the wrestlers.

And who was it who spoke up?

Do you remember?

You know what?

That's the only part of the story I can't remember.

It was another one of the African-American wrestlers that was on the roster, but hadn't been there as long as Shelton had.

And when the guy asked the question, Vince said out in front of everybody, Good question, Shelton.

Well, again,

Vince McMahon at the game.

Do you think he was mad that he was no longer the thing that everyone was talking about?

He was sitting courtside.

You don't sit courtside if you don't want to be noticed.

And he was wearing all green.

Yeah.

Weird 80-year-old man in all green shows up.

Looks like a leprechaun at this point.

Well, weird and 80 years old, but well-groomed.

Leprechaun.

shows up behind the court of, well, was it, which bench was he behind?

Was he on the home team or what was going on there?

You know, I didn't actually see the game, I think it was the away team.

And now that I think about it, based on the way he was dressed, maybe he's trying to win back the love of his child Horn Swoggle.

I don't know, but well, and Tracy Morgan, he's a New York guy, right?

Oh, big Nick, he would have been on the big Nick's, yeah, he would have been on the side of the home team, so they're on opposite sides

of each other.

And when they got the shot of Vince, apparently they showed him on whoever was telecasting this game.

And

the Chiron's a former wrestling promoter.

Current pervert.

I was about to say, there was a lot of people on Twitter saying maybe they didn't Google Vince before they announced his current occupation or status.

Maybe this is a setup.

Maybe this is like something he's set up for the cameras.

We're in New York, Madison Square Garden.

What speaks of Vince McMahon and the McMahon family more than that?

Maybe as a new thing, he's starting up Puke Stars, where he gets famous celebrities just vomit while he does commentary over it.

No, and to be to be fair to poor Tracy Morgan, apparently now

there's pictures of him with the thumbs up in the hospital.

They said it was food poisoning.

They may have left unsaid.

Did Kaley have any?

Well, did he have it?

It was since he was behind the

Nick's

bench desk.

I was going to say, bench, do you think he was in there catering?

Is there a lawsuit going to happen there?

Because he just

somewhere he ate right before the garden didn't agree with him.

But

we're glad he's well.

And meanwhile, we're still not sure how many other people puke just because Vince was there.

But it's Madison Square Gardens, so he had no problem

knowing somebody to get courtside tickets.

But I would,

you know, I guess that's why he couldn't be on the home team because those are all reserved for the

more important people.

Again, lots of people go to those games.

Lots of famous people sit courtside at various NBA games all around the country all year long.

But this is the second time we've seen him in public since appearing on the field at the Super Bowl.

He's not hiding,

and he's almost going out of his way to be seen, it would appear.

Well,

think about this also.

This is the

most times he's been seen in public that wasn't related to his work since 1984.

Where else did you ever see Vince go anywhere to do anything?

You know, that's so it, yeah, he obviously wants to let people know at least he's still alive and ambulatory, but I don't,

I don't know what other kind of publicity.

He's like David Bowie.

Every time you see him, he looks different now.

Every time it could be weeks apart, he looks like a different person.

Well, is he

at least he's left the, what would that have been, the the Ziggy Stardust phase of his life and moved on to

or maybe it was Aladdin Sane.

Well, here's the other thing.

Speaking of sanity, he's dressed up all in green on St.

Patrick's Day.

Did he just come into the city?

Maybe he was staying in the city, but did he just come out of the apartment for the Knicks game?

Or was he out at the bar?

Did he have like a big Saint who goes to a big St.

Patrick's Day dinner in like a fancy restaurant all dressed in green?

I don't know.

He's 80 years old.

You think he's going to go out onto town and bar hop into the various Irish pubs around the neighborhood?

I don't know.

That's what I'm asking.

What was his night?

What do you think his night was like, considering what he was dressed up like to say courtside at the Knicks game?

I think he probably was either having a dinner with a few.

particular confidants before or after that and he was probably dressed because he knew that they were going to see

confidants.

We'll call them confidants now.

Better than

unindicted co-conspirators, perhaps.

Confidants.

Well, we'll see what happens.

But yeah, but he knew he was dressed like that for because he knew he's going to this fucking ball game and in his mind.

But I didn't see a wide shot, so I'm sure his shoes weren't green.

He didn't go that far, but it was still, it was expensive green shit.

It wasn't like a goddamn,

you know, a pleather outfit that the local weatherman puts on for St.

Patrick's Day.

It was expensive green shit, but

Walt Clyde Frazier looked over at him and said, this guy's dressed like an idiot.

Don't you dare tell Clyde was one of my inspirations.

Well, that is the Vince McMahon on the town report.

We have gone, we've covered so many different areas, weather, sports, and now society.

Back to you, Jim.

Well,

you know, just before we get started with your program, I had mentioned to you earlier something tickled me.

And I thought we might have a scholarly dissertation and discussion about it.

Because

this, of course, was again.

The germ of this idea came up from somebody who didn't like something we said about their favorite wrestler here on some clip they were on Twitter and responding to and saying,

there's a number of common misconceptions

about me, two basic ones, and both of them have been promulgated and proffered over the recent past

by people who can't handle the truth.

And one of them is, oh, Cornette doesn't hate Vince Russo because he's a rotten human being and the worst thing that ever happened to wrestling.

He hates him because he's taken his job.

They took my jobs.

And he's been so much more successful.

And Cornet's stuck in the past, so he's jealous.

And then that sometimes bumps into the more of the one that the

indyrific crowd likes to put forth when I

talk about their shortcomings.

He hates the modern wrestling because I've been fired from every job I've ever had.

All my companies have gone out of business.

Nobody will hire me.

So I'm jealous.

And then they bump together because most of the people who believe this, despite evidence and testimony of various people to the contrary, they're the children who weren't actually alive when much of this stuff took place or have just recently

found out about the inner workings of the wrestling.

And they just unfortunately, they've been led down the garden path by people they shouldn't be listening to that don't have the facts and the figures and the dates, the places, and documentation and things that we have here on this program, Brian.

And we've told the various stories about my,

from my perspective, why I got mad at these people or they got mad at me or whatever, this company and that company.

But you know, I thought because

the children who weren't alive, like I said, when some of this happened, and also people who have been sold a bill of goods,

basically the childish minds by the childlike minds.

I thought, let's examine this side by side

and just compare, for example, me and

once again, because it's a scholarly dissertation.

I won't call him shit stain.

I'll call him Vince Russo until we make sure we know who we're talking about.

And or we might bring some of these other people in as well to see how that they have

outperformed me and how all of my shit's been a disaster.

But just side by side, let's just do the numbers.

Do you have a pen, Brian?

Can you make check marks?

Yeah, sure.

Let's give me work.

Hold on.

Well, just if you can make some check marks.

We just, we want to keep a score here.

We're trying to keep score.

Okay, I'm ready.

Because again, I got another one of these tweets.

Well, you know,

you've been fired to blah, blah, blah.

How many times have I been fired in the wrestling business?

We've gone over that in the past, but have we compared it to how many times that Vince Russo's been fired in the wrestling business?

Because I can pretty much count for three times from the same fucking company.

But now let's think about this.

All of my stuff's on record.

You can look it up on the YouTube channel.

So we'll just basically go over the main points.

But I got in the wrestling business as a professional in 1982.

And except for the summer of 83, I was fired, but I don't take it personally because Ole closed the whole territory, right?

So it wasn't just me.

Otherwise than that,

we can pretty much document.

It's been public record that I was never fired in the wrestling industry for for the next, what it was till 2020,

1982 until 2005 would be 23 years, right?

Because I walked out of WCW

and

yeah, so that's the first one, right, Brian?

Well, you weren't fired.

You walked out of WCW.

You chose to leave.

Yes, no, I'm saying I walked out of WCW.

I wasn't fired there.

So the first, the first one would have been in 2005 with the WWF or WWE by that point.

Yes, when you were with OBW, though.

Yes, I was still with OVW because it was my cup, but I'm saying that's the first time I was actually fired in a wrestling business.

Correct?

That is correct.

Yeah.

Okay.

So there was 23 years.

And

Vince Russo started.

There's one for me, 2006, the WWE.

And of course, I was still employed because I owned part of my own wrestling company.

But Vince Russo started in the wrestling industry

professionally for the WWE or WWF.

He was writing for the magazine.

So I don't think we really count that because if we count that, then we got to back me up to 1976 because that's when I started doing the same thing and that gets confusing right

so let's go when he first joined the office the creative involved in the procedure is that fair

so when are you counting though because is there an overlap because Bill Watts brought him into the picture while he was still doing the magazine that was the reason why right okay but but no he only sat in on a few of the fucking meetings and if that's the case and we got to back me up to 1985 when i was sitting in on the world-class fucking meetings, and then it gets even more.

So, what are we talking about?

I'm talking about officially part of the creative team, 1997.

97.

Okay.

Yes, yes, sir.

But I just want to make sure this is fair instead of muddling things up with details.

And also, I'd already been part of the WCW creative team at that point.

And so, I had, and I'd been in the business again 15

years.

So, Russo, starting in 1997, is involved in some type of this inner circle.

And he made it through not getting fired by the WWF because he

left under cover of darkness to go take the WCW deal.

But then how do you look at this, Brian?

Because he was sent home

within what, the first six months he got there.

Everybody go back and watch the documentaries.

But he was sent home, but he still had to be paid because they were stupid enough to give him a contract saying that if they sent him home or he fucking whatever, he still had to get paid or he'd sue him.

So that's an asterisk instead of a firing because it was at least twice, right?

And help me, you're better on historical details.

Twice during that period, they said, go home and don't do this anymore.

It was something like that.

It sounds about right.

And one time they said, well, you know, accept our demotion.

And he said, No, I'll go home and you have to pay me or I'll sue you.

And then the second time they said, Just go on home, and we know we have to pay you, but please don't do this anymore.

So that was.

Are you counting that as one?

Because it's WCW.

Let's be charitable.

Let's count that as one.

Okay.

Okay.

WCW, one.

Okay.

So we're one and one with me with the WWE in 2005 and him with WCW by 2001.

Then he goes to TNA when they open up.

Wait, what?

Is that, didn't he go back to WWF for like a couple days before that?

Or was that after that?

I thought it was before.

No, that

was it.

Okay, well, it may have been before or after, but then let's mention that one.

Vince is set in motion the

operation to bring him back.

And his first first day of work, he met with the writing team and went home.

And they all went to Vince and said, if you bring this guy in, it'll either be

various stages of a disaster or we'll all quit.

Because they rescinded the offer and said, no, stay there.

So do you count that as being fired when he never even actually got to start work?

They realized their mistake.

See, that's the thing.

I guess I thought of it as a firing, but I was thinking of it like, okay, you're hired.

We want you to work with the writing team.

And then immediately they heard those ideas.

Yes.

So,

I mean, I don't know, whatever.

Was it good work?

Maybe who was it?

No, it was everybody that was on the team at the time.

I don't know.

Was he on the team?

That's what I'm saying.

Wrestling people alike.

I'm trying to remember who was on the team.

That's what I'm asking.

Who knew it was a team effort anyway?

Put down one and a half.

One and a half.

Okay.

Okay.

Then he went to TNA

where he was there somewhere near the start and was there until they fired him once because the reason why I went to work for him in 2006

was because he'd already been there and they'd fired him.

So I thought I was safe.

So there's another one, right?

Put that one down.

Now, meanwhile, my next firing

is in 2009 in TNA, when, as everyone recalls, Dixie got mad at Jeff over Karen.

Jeff got sent home.

I'm not saying that Vinny Rue orchestrated this.

I'm saying he capitalized as best he could by being the only one that actually enjoyed talking to Dixie.

But then once Jeff was gone, then there went

Road Dog,

and then there went Dutch.

And then there went Sabio.

And then I was the last one.

And it took took them a while because I did three different jobs.

And

as a talent producer, the producer of the show and the director was the only one.

I was the only one they wanted in the truck.

So they had to get a couple of people in there that they could replace me with.

And then they fired me.

And then.

Old Vince had, what, about three months where he thought he had triumphed over evil until they brought Hogan in and they fired him.

So that's another one for me

and another one for him, right?

Right.

Okay.

So

after that point, has he been involved in any wrestling company to be hired or fired?

I'm trying to remember.

I can't remember his history.

But some indie promotion, but I don't even.

Well, I mean, not anything that anybody Caesar is aware of.

And meanwhile,

since that,

I went to Ring of Honor.

As we've established, Ring of Honor was a mutual agreement between me and Joe Koff.

When I said, Joe,

I'm either going to have a stroke or I'm going to choke Greg the office boy.

And he said, I don't want you to have a stroke, and you can't choke Greg.

And we agreed to part friends.

And then

after Ring of Honor, I did little stints in Global Force Wrestling as it was retitled when Jeff came back, which that was

six days of taping in one week, but it ran for three months.

I did the MLW stuff for six months or so of television.

It was like six tapings.

And then I did the

two days of NWA taping

that somehow I got credited with another firing for when, as we all recall,

Lagana asked me to do a favor.

I go down here to do two days of their taping.

He airs it.

People get mad.

He apologizes for me without apologizing for himself.

I get mad at him apologizing for me without apologizing for himself.

And he pisses me off enough.

I say, fuck it.

Never mind.

It ain't fun anymore.

And they put out a fucking statement that I resigned.

And everybody said they made him quit because it was so horrible.

From a job I'd have had two days.

I was ceremoniously dumped.

So

those were like mutual, I'm going to choke you if I see you again type of things.

But I don't necessarily call them firings, but people can interpret those however they want.

And then I retired because of the pandemic and didn't miss anything and realized I'd made the right choice.

So, what's the total over there, Brian?

If I got this right, you were fired in 2005 or 6 from WWE,

2009 or so from TNA.

Ring of Honor, you left on your own.

WCW, you left on your own.

I didn't, I should have said that before.

Global Force and MLW do not count as anything that there was nothing to fire you from.

Well, yes, I didn't.

Can you work?

Can you hide this date for us?

Oh, by the way, you're fired.

Yes, no, I did what I was booked for and didn't pursue more.

So I don't, you know.

And then NWA, again, it depends on if you, what you consider it, but it was your decision.

So

that would be two for you for counting the two that are clear-cut firings that you agreed to.

For Russo,

it's a little trickier.

I guess we have the one from WCW,

and then we gave him a half for WWE.

Yeah, for the Twitter he never really started to begin with.

And then there's two different firings from TNA, or did I miss one?

Well,

no, yes, because yes, they fired him before I came and they fired him right after I left.

So he's got three and a half to your two

if we count just WWE and and TNA versus WCW, WWE, and TNA twice.

So he's almost double me.

See, that's what he's excelled over me at is he's almost double.

But now he has a lot of things.

You've left a lot of opportunities to be fired on the table.

Well, true, you know.

But think about this also.

While we're on this subject, and we'll come back to Vidy Rue, guess who else has been fired more than I have in the wrestling business?

Iron Sheik.

Paul Heyman.

Huh?

Think about it.

Why does nobody tell him?

Paul made a career out of getting fired for about five years there.

They fired him.

How many times did they fire him in WCW?

It's once over the expense.

I love Paul.

And Paul is, I told you earlier, is the only human being.

that knows what it was like to try to run a wrestling company by themselves in the fucking 90s besides me.

So we have that kindred bond.

But Paul was fired twice or three times in WCD.

Once over the expenses thing, once when Flair got mad at him

for that promo.

There may have been another one in there, but

he sued them a time or two.

They brought him back into blah, blah, blah.

Then he was able to do the Dangerous Alliance.

And then he got fuck out of there and went to Philly.

But that was either two or three there.

And then they fired him in the WWE.

Hold on.

on stephanie hold on hold on okay was he fired in memphis

oh wait lawler fired him when he when he agreed to take the bump in the scaffold match he climbed halfway up got chickened out went back down lawler got mad and fired him and broke his jaw well

yeah but

And

I heard from somebody that was there, the pitch was, hey, you're going to take the bump off a scaffold like your buddy Cornette.

He's like, yeah, sure.

And then he fucking climbed he got about halfway up and he hung on and i think they hit him and he take a took a bump off part of the scaffolding apparatus or whatever it was on that day where he said to himself i'll never take a bump again and and he's pretty much taking advantage of it but so there's memphis and there's wcw at least twice and then there was the wwf when stephanie got mad at him so he got four he's twice as me why does everybody think i've got fired from everything you know why because the people that can't handle the fucking truth have said, oh, don't listen to him because look at this.

But it don't add up.

It don't add up.

Well, the other thing is, you don't try to go back.

Like Russo, no, you know what I mean?

Seriously, at Russo, it's very public, like these pleas for, you know, I'll give you a free offer.

Come in and let me write your TV for like a month.

And then if you don't like it, I'll do it another month, like whatever it is.

It's the same offer as a house cleaning service.

And then Heyman, no matter what he's doing, his dream, he's always wanted to be doing what he's doing right now in the company he's doing it in.

Well, he's, he's in goddamn Barcelona or baloney or fucking Cookamonga or wherever the fuck they're at.

In his condition, you know, he's got to get two seats now to fly over that

far.

And

the age of him.

Took a few minutes, but there it is.

But I'm just saying he's got that determination.

But let's go back to Vince for a second.

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Because apparently

all of the businesses that I've ever run, Brian, have gone under.

He's run all of his businesses into the ground.

Well, let's compare Russo for a second, and then we'll go to maybe some other people.

But

I can't really compare to Vince Russo in this category because Vince Russo's never had his own wrestling company.

But let's broaden the term to businesses, right?

And just keep track for me on this, okay?

Businesses that we have been

running in our lifetimes.

While I was operating Smokey Mountain Wrestling,

that was the time where at the same time up there, Vince had,

what was the name of his place?

Thrilling Will's World of Wheels.

Will the Thrill.

That was

from the San Francisco Giants.

That was his nickname.

Will the Thrill video store.

And

he was operating that, and I was operating a regional pro wrestling promotion with television in multiple markets and fucking live events on 15 times a month in five different states.

And

mine lasted for four years, 200 television episodes.

That's more than Seinfeld.

About 500 live events.

And it went out of business.

And

Thrilling Will's video vault

went out of business, also, correct?

That is correct.

I think early 93, somewhere around there.

So we're one and one.

Okay.

You know what I'm trying to find real quick?

Hopefully, I can find this.

Brad Beluchian recently on his Patreon, the Brad Pack, he had some kind of like

form for a personal appearance.

And it turned out it was for Will the Thrill video in like 1990.

Ah, here it is, Jim.

Again, this is from the Brad Pack, Brad Beluchian's page.

Payment for personal appearance.

Name of talent, William Eady

and Barry Darso.

The date, 415.

I'm guessing this is 89 or 90.

Quorum New York, Will the Thrills video

paid the Titan $4,500.

Less management commission, $2,250.

Net to be paid the talent, $1,125 each.

And I believe, you know,

this may have been from the Bill Eady lawsuit against Vince McMahon where they had to turn over everything as part of Discovery.

And no wonder he went out of business in those days charging or paying that much money to...

But nevertheless.

$5,000 in 1990?

That's a lot for a personal period.

That's a lot for the boys.

And I know somebody's going to say, oh, they were in the WWF.

That was a lot for a little dinky fucking video store to pay for the boys.

It was a lot for that place to pay for Mick Jagger, for fuck's sake.

All right.

But nevertheless, we're one and one.

So my next business

was Ohio Valley Wrestling.

which

at one time, along with the WWF in the early and when it became E in the early 2000s, it was one of only two full-time profitable wrestling promotions in the United States.

And it still exists today.

I have nothing to do with it, and I claim nothing to do with it, but it still exists today.

But under my

and Danny Davis's fucking administration, it was the most profitable and most successful that it's ever been.

And it's and Danny started it in 1993.

So, but I sold my interest.

So I'm still, I'm absolved from that.

But point being, that didn't go out of business.

My next project, no, I'm sorry, Vince's next project, after

he left the wrestling business.

in the early 2000s, before TNA became a thing, or right about, or maybe the first time he left TNA, but it was in the early 2000s.

He had the CD warehouse in Atlanta.

Remember that?

People used to tweet me pictures when they would drive by, and it was either a closed sign or something else.

But nevertheless, his CD warehouse went to the CD Poorhouse.

So he's got two, right?

I got one.

That is correct.

Okay.

And then Ring of Honor.

I was with Ring of Honor in an administrative capacity.

You're the only reason Ring of Honor still exists in any form.

Well, exactly.

From 2009

until 2012.

And Carrie Silken has gone on record and not trying to bullshit anybody or just telling the truth.

He was about to close it down in 2009

when I was free from TNA and able to get involved and try to help him make some of his money back.

And through the orchestrating the sale to Sinclair, etc.,

and bridging that gap, I was there for three years.

But again,

after 2012, it existed for another seven years, eight years, because the pandemic is what closed it when they took a bath on observing all the protocols and it wasn't fucking worth it to Sinclair anymore.

And I'm not sure what kind of business ventures our friend Vince has been in since then.

He might have had something else go out of business, but he's still ahead of me because I got officially one company that went out of business, right?

Right.

Then how the fuck do they say that everything I've done has gone out of business?

Well, you see, there's two things you have to remember.

You know, the stuff with Russo, he's always had a little bit of a fan base, and they were the people who kind of had the biggest issue with you for a long time.

And it wasn't that big an audience.

The change in the way some people saw you versus how they would see you if you like their favorite wrestlers started with Ring of Honor.

You having to deal with guys like Owens and Zane.

I just saw a Matt Riddle video, Matt Riddle, of all people.

And they were like, who are the most difficult guys to work with?

There he's like, oh, Sammy and Kevin.

You couldn't get a word in.

They just wanted to do their own stuff.

Oh, my God.

From the mouths of babes.

Yeah.

So

I think between that and

your

rejection of the Young Bucks' hysteria, which is what it was for a while, and

your failure to accept Kenny Omega as your Lord and Savior,

I think turned another group of fans who didn't know anything about your history against you.

Because now all of of a sudden, who's this guy saying that the wrestling I like is bad?

They don't even know who you are in some cases.

This is how they're finding out who you are.

And then with AEW,

I think you saw the people who wanted to root AEW to being a success in terms of popularity.

They saw you

as

the foil because you were telling the truth about a lot of this stuff.

And of course, look at how everything's turned out in five years.

But again, that's also why we we hear from a lot of people who are AEW fans or in some cases, former AEW fans, who say, I started listening to him because I heard how awful he was.

And after a while, I started agreeing with him.

And I listen every week.

Well, yeah, you know, I'm stuck in the past, Brian, because I haven't been relevant since the 80s.

You know, it's been a long, long time since I've done anything.

But if you

want to examine that for a second, because I was thinking.

Because Russo started the stuck in the past thing because that Jerry Springer bullshit that he wanted to foist off on people because he

basically thought that anybody who had ever believed wrestling had to be a complete lunatic and imbecile.

And he looked down on them because he didn't recognize the art of some guys in making people suspend the disbelief.

He just wanted to see cartoons.

So I was stuck in a pass.

But nevertheless,

if you look

at since we parted ways from our first

star-crossed coexistence in the WWF, 1999,

he went to Atlanta

to work with WCW, and I came to Louisville.

The year 2000, Ohio Valley Wrestling made a profit.

WCW lost $60 million.

But nevertheless, there was a lot of people

unfortunately involved with that.

But since 1999,

who's relevant and who's not?

Look at this.

For six years, I

booked and announced and produced the developmental program for the WWE.

Then for another three years,

actually, I took a year off in between

because I was fucking tired.

Sorry, blow me if I can't have a vacation.

And then I spent three years with TNA, the only national television competitor to the WWE.

And then I spent three years not only on television in a syndicated fashion, but behind the scenes trying to orchestrate the whole Ring of Honor thing we just talked about.

So that was

six,

12 out of 13 years.

And since 2012,

I've spent probably a total of about a year doing the various stints for Global Force or NWA or MLW or whatever.

And I've been retired since 2019.

And I've been saying that a lot.

Some people still don't listen.

So that's

from a 20-year period.

I was relevant in some fashion for 13 of them, and I've been retired for five.

Mr.

Russo

was

in WCW, playing peekaboo peekaboo on and off for a year and a half and spent a total of five years in two different runs in TNA.

And he still wants a job, so he hasn't retired.

So that's basically six and a half out of 25 to my 13 of 20.

And I'm still more relevant than he is because people actually listen to us.

But if you want to go

to some of these other

imbeciles that think that they could, oh, Coronette doesn't know anything about, well, let's just, let's establish a bar.

And then I'll close this particular topic up.

Let's establish a bar as to which one of you

minute little turd blossoms thinks that you know more about the wrestling business than I do.

And this goes for many people on both sides of the camera or both sides of the microphone.

Let's just establish a cutoff.

How many wrestling companies have you run?

Because I'm in the plural.

So at least before you can tell me what the fuck, maybe you've had to at least have one.

Maybe they didn't have to run for fucking years and years

like mine,

but just have one for a while.

Or maybe

before you believe Shitstain, now we can get back to his regular name,

has an opinion that'd be more valuable than mine in a fucking confrontation.

Remember that I had a Hall of Fame in-ring on-television performer career before he fucking sat down in his first goddamn meeting.

So I probably picked up a few things during all those years I was waiting around for him to come and save us.

And for all you unfortunately childish minds who haven't grown up, who who think that you're playing video game character when i critique you

it's because you're doing the same redundant shit over and over that a lot of people are sick of that are only

brian the indie wrestlers are like the

are you old enough that you used to go to the fair and you could see the guy in the

What they call it, the circle of, not the circle of doom, tunnel of doom.

He was in the pit with the motorcycle and he would ride the motorcycle around in circles till he was riding sideways.

You've seen that, right?

No, we didn't have that.

We had like a church and they had a big slide and like a haunted house and then there were cannolis.

God damn it.

No.

You go to the fucking fair and there's this big goddamn metal pit that they've fucking constructed.

And this guy starts at the bottom.

and revs this motorcycle up and he runs in circles until he's almost all the way up to the top and he's

in a circle and you think he's going to die at any minute.

And then he slows down gradually and he gets back down to the bottom.

And then the next show he starts all over again.

That's what these indie wrestlers are.

They're just going around in a circle in a pit.

And the people are waiting to see whether they're going to fucking kill themselves or not.

But they aren't the star of the fucking Midway.

They're just part of the attraction.

And it's the same shit.

And that's what I'm criticizing.

Same goofy shit over and over.

Nobody believes you.

You're all phony.

You're silly.

You're winking at them.

You're doing stupid things.

It's unnecessary.

And they can't handle it.

So he's been stuck behind the times.

How many of you, weasels,

have run your own fucking companies, your own television programs, and booked for major organizations where you had to produce rather than just talking

some

real life Richie Rich

into financing your wet dreams?

One of these days, you guys will wake up to reality.

Maybe you'll wake up to reality in an iron lung with some of you, the way you act.

But

I just,

I, well, they're going to try to bring them back.

It's measles and iron lungs are making a comeback.

But that's the,

that's, I think we need to set some bar for.

Some level experience to be able to tell me, oh, Cornette, you don't know what you're talking about when you believe all this bullshit.

And everybody that you think is so darling has been fired twice as many times and hadn't lasted half as long as me.

Well, Heyman's lasted and Heyman,

my God, he's going to baffle science.

He's still alive and

going on to Bologna and Tahiti and wherever the fuck they're going to do this show next.

Did you see?

I thought you were going here before.

Did you see the comments Vince Russo had this past week about Paul Heyman?

Oh, God, no.

I did not.

This was completely unrelated.

I didn't know.

Now, what does he have to say about Paul?

Yeah, this is like a bunch of the websites use this as a clickbait headline.

Naturally, it's a good fit.

Vince Russo calls Paul Heyman's promos one-dimensional and overacted.

The exact quote?

I don't like Paul Heyman.

It's very hard for me to be objective when it comes to Paul.

I think the dude has been cutting the same freaking exact promo for the last decade, man.

It's so one-dimensional.

It's always the same thing.

I think he freaking overreacts or overacts, I guess it is.

I'm not a big Paul Heyman fan like everyone else.

I'm sorry.

That's my opinion.

Do you think Paul's promos are one-dimensional and he overacts?

No.

Do you think he needs more of the acting sensibilities of the Russo

written out?

Yeah,

hot lesbian action.

Can we get another lesbian to jump on Paul?

What the fuck is he?

Again, this is why this insufferable nitwit will have you think that he's Martin Scorsese and he's here and he's allowed to have an opinion on Alfred Itchcock.

But one may be apropos comparison, but not the other.

This is why you want to choke this fucking guy, because if anything, his shit that he's admitted to doing.

I'm talking about Vince Russo, one-dimensional, Jerry Springer, trailer park trash, crash TV,

entertainment for the fucking lowest common denominator.

Paul is a,

as we've talked about, he and I, once again, star-crossed lovers, two ships that...

Wrecked in the night, whatever the fuck, we've had our differences, but he's a fucking verbal genius, especially compared to the field these days.

And his booking,

along with liberal doses of falsehoods and fucking false hope that he gave people,

who got the most out of the least.

And

he knows what he's doing when the wrestling business with telling the fucking story and blah, blah, blah.

All the accolades that we heap on Heyman

all the time.

Even if I

did have some personal goddamn just, ah, I'm still mad at him over shit.

I can't not say that because it's true.

But for this simpleton,

it's like the fucking guy who plays Ronald McDonald at the fucking local McDonald's trying to critique Emmett Kelly.

You're talking about, I don't believe him,

fuck you.

It's just.

Will the kids have to Google Emmett Kelly?

Yeah, probably.

There may be some Googling in the previous segment or two.

But this has been Jim's comments to his critics, I guess we'll say, here on the show.

And of course, Jim, although everyone's a critic nowadays, another thing everyone is, is hungry.

And of course, everybody needs a good meal.

Everyone needs a meal that will satisfy you.

Maybe a meal that is chef-crafted.

We could all use a chef.

Vince McMahon is a chef.

Did Vince McMahon use his chef?

I don't know what his chef is up to did he use his chef too

well let's talk about what the listeners can use and that is a meal from factor

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That means one of those ladies in the white coat that used to be around the school when you were in elementary school has looked at this and said, you know what?

You ought to be eating shit like this.

Well, no, it could be anyone.

Dietitians, of course, could be.

any gender and no i only approve of old women in white coats being dieticians because then well older women women well past the age of attractiveness i want a woman who's just come out of of school who knows all the latest stuff.

Why would you want to?

They don't let them in schools anymore.

There's too much going on.

But folks, the factor dieticians are almost retirement age.

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No, we don't know who their dietitians are.

Oh, I've chosen these are.

I've checked them out.

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Again.

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Who's over there interrupting me?

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So you do, you pop the factor meal right in the microwave and boom, in two minutes.

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That was also going to be Abdul the Butcher's biography, I believe.

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let's say that you were going to cook some other kind of meal, something that wouldn't be.

dietitian approved and a gourmet meal that making eating well easy.

Some kind of thing loaded in fat and salt salt and sugar and you ate that and suddenly you burped and you burped up some kind of internal organ into your throat.

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Well, see, you can avoid that.

And it won't, and then you also, who's going to clean up that mess in the kitchen?

Think about it.

Not only all the pots and pans from where you went to all the trouble of cooking after your busy, hurry-scurry life, but now you've got internal organs and blood.

Who will clean this all over?

Who's going to clean it up?

Do you want that left on your conscience, ladies and gentlemen?

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, let's focus on the other side of things.

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So you can join that program also, but you have to call the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department.

That's right.

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All right.

Well, much like Festivus, that was the airing of the grievances, Jim.

Let's now get to the feats of strength.

WWE showing off their worldwide muscle, SmackDown and Raw this past week, or two weeks, technically.

I mean,

within the last week.

Well, it's been over the last few days, Friday and the Monday.

And then they're going to do it again next week.

And they're in, who knows what?

They're in Bologna and Jamaica.

And, ooh, I want to take it to Bermuda.

Mahama, come on, bring your ring up.

They're all over the world.

And they're just,

again, these people, the big crowds, these buildings, they're sold out.

They're using the small entranceways so they can cram the people in.

And the crowds are hot.

They never see this shit live.

Right?

So this is, as they used to say in the business in the territory days, when you opened up some area that had been dark, it's virgin territory because they're just glad to be getting it.

And

with as hot as they are anyway in the WWE and with the amount of star power they got,

I mean, it's, it makes for an incredible visual and incredible audio experience, the cheering and the singing and the waving and the clapping and the gesticulating and the farting about.

But Brian, after you've watched two three hour, near three hour fucking programs, don't you want to just shut up so somebody gets to the point?

Sometimes you feel that way, yes.

By the end of the three hours, you're starting to get, God damn, I wish,

give me these people.

If I'm an aluminum siding salesman, just

But anyway, there's some things on SmackDown we must, we must recognize.

But again, Barcelona, I don't know how many people they had.

These drone shots look like it's the goddamn Roman Coliseum.

And

L.A.

Knight was crazy over.

I'm not going to go blow by blow with their whole promo, but just the high points, bullet points of the thing were that.

It took a while for anybody, including L.A.

Knight, to say anything because

as soon as he would mention the U.S.

title, you deserve it.

Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap.

And so he finally got out the basic premise of the thing.

And then Jimmy Uso comes out and they're all over him.

And he wants to challenge for the title because his road to WrestleMania has hit a roadblock.

And then

the bloodline comes out.

It says, well, if anybody deserves a title shot, it's Jacob Fatua.

The people love that.

And then when they get in a fight, obviously,

Nick and Brown Strongman comes out to even the odds with Solo and Jacob and Tommy Tonga.

And then Aldous comes out and makes a six-man right now.

And here we go.

And the people are loving it.

That's,

again, these guys are all over, but the atmosphere is boosted by

These people that are clearly having a fucking time of their life.

Do you agree with this?

That's the best thing about these international shows, the crowd.

Because, you know, that's, again, it's not,

even if the American audience, if they're in Cleveland

and it's the only show they've been to that year,

they still know they have the opportunity to go to Moore, or they could go to Columbus, or they could go to fucking Toledo or whatever.

It's not like it's a,

you know, a rarefied thing that you can only get in certain seasons or whatever.

Anywho, they had the six-man.

And I just got to

Brown

is rotten.

He is immobile and he

can barely move the guys bump off of him when he doesn't even touch him.

When he did the stupid choo-choo,

it's just,

I'm thinking, you know, less of him is a lot more.

But they get Jacob over again, even though

the baby face is one.

Jacob is always the one that beats everybody up.

And he beat up and moonsaulted Mr.

Strongman

three times.

I'm sorry.

And then ran back and.

tackled him through the fucking railing.

So they make Jacob a monster and he's getting over and he looks facially.

That the thing I like about this guy that I thought,

remember, I used to say, well, Solo's too clean, Solo's too normal looking

to be a guy as dangerous as like a Jacob Fatu.

And then they brought Jacob in.

I'm not saying Solo is bad, but you look at the two of them facially and tell me which one you think might just fucking go off.

Or don't look at Jacob.

Are you speaking to me on mute?

No, I didn't think I had to answer that.

I think it's pretty obvious that Jacob Fatu is a different,

different kind of wrestler, and he looks like almost a classic wrestler, someone who wouldn't fit into society, and somehow he's here.

Yes, solo.

It's like, well, you know, I could have been an accountant, or I could have

sell cars, I could have done all these things, and I'm in the family business.

But anyway, so did you, did you see, please tell me, because you're always knocking me now because i i don't pay close attention to all of the females contests so you had to watch charlotte flair against befab didn't you unfortunately i was not able to uh see this this past week i would like it sounds like an intriguing match for all the wrong reasons

but i did not see it no oh how was it because you're the biggest charlotte flair fan in the galaxy Well, let me tell you this, because these two are both on my,

stop it now.

These two are both on my must-watch list for potentially different reasons.

I always like to watch Charlotte's matches and I can't look away

from BFAB's matches.

And I said, so I have to watch a bit of this.

And then I got engrossed.

And I know people say I make excuses for Charlotte and Charlotte can do no wrong.

She can't do this.

She is not that good.

This, no, no, no.

It.

I almost wonder why they booked it.

Unless she's got heat with the office.

I mean, because they have to know what your first blush would have been.

But she started trying to work it, Charlotte being she, too many pronouns, pal.

You could tell she was trying to kill as much time as possible just to get through this.

It was

arm drag, tackle, pose,

chops.

BFab was almost fucking up getting chopped, getting chopped

because she doesn't have the timing.

If you go back and look at it,

Charlotte's trying to get the spot where the chops would be smooth, and BFab is trying to feed, and

it's all

off.

And

there was some awkward offense.

And the break spot, Brian, was Charlotte rolling to the floor.

And thankfully, there was a break because it kept us from seeing three more minutes of this.

And then

at one point, there was a smidge of heat by Charlotte.

And then BFAB.

tried to make a comeback and at one point couldn't figure out which way to shoot Charlotte off.

She grabbed her arm and she

and Charlotte,

she grabbed her arm and she was going to arm whip her.

And

she came out from the rope straight for a minute.

And then Charlotte stopped like what?

And then they turned and she went to the buckle instead.

It was like, I'm not sure where I am in the ring.

And then

I'm trying to figure out this finish because suddenly they were trying to do a few things back and forth and BFAB went behind her and got a waist lock.

And they were standing there stationary and Charlotte was trying to block like

she was grapevining the leg like she was trying to block a German suplex, but BFab had not

really indicated just besides standing with a standing waistlock she was going to do that.

And then suddenly

I think Charlotte kind of looked like she whispered at her, and then she took off running toward the ropes,

apparently for

BFab to try to roll her up.

And Charlotte hooked the ropes, and BFAB fall off and, you know, go backwards.

You've seen that move, right?

Yeah, of course.

Well, instead, it looked like Charlotte just ran toward the ropes and grabbed them, and then BFab just began rolling backwards off of her.

And then

Charlotte tried, did a thing and got the figure eight and they called for the bell.

And then, so that was that.

But then Charlotte wouldn't let go of the figure eight.

So here came Tiffy.

And I'm thinking, okay, Lee, they're up.

The people are cheering.

They're coming up.

This is going to.

And Tiffy runs lickety split, as Mama Cornette used to say.

No, lickety split down the aisle.

I did see this stuff.

I did see the brawl stuff.

Okay, well, she runs and she tries to roll under the ropes to make the big save of poor BFAB.

And she rolls and hangs her leg on the bottom rope and stops, boom, stops her dead.

And she immediately spins around and rolls the other way and squirms into the ring.

And then they get in a big fight.

And then here come the referees and the agents and the pull apart and a lot of movement.

And maybe not so much connecting there in all cases.

but they had the again the big you know whoop-de-doo there so that was exciting but

god almighty

yeah charlotte i like charlotte and charlotte's good but even charlotte could not do this and

it had it

It was almost like it could somebody have fallen in the back and hurt themselves and BFAB had to be pressed in as the understudy?

They didn't really want to do this on purpose, but they had no choice.

Can somebody explain this?

I can't explain this.

I guess if you're going to do it, do it in another country.

But then again, it's on TV.

So it's not like it's on TV.

You're not hiding it from anyone.

There are people, as you're aware, who think that you,

I guess there's two ways to look at it.

There are people who think that you are way too nice about everything Charlotte does.

And on the other hand, there are clearly people who hate everything about Charlotte.

They hate everything she does.

And unless you do too, you're too nice to her.

And they're both things that people talk about.

Any thoughts on the fact that people have a problem?

Yeah, some people have a problem with your,

I guess it's not your critique.

You're

my favoritism.

Yes.

My favoritism.

And

yes, Edward.

Again, with Charlotte, it's

I like to watch her against other

female talent that can work in the classic sense.

And I'm not talking about other old-timers, the Rhea Ripleys,

the ones that can really fucking work, that we compliment from time to time, but that also are visually of the size and are marketable in some fashion or the...

you know, the physicality aspect or whatever.

Instead, I'm sorry that E.O.

Skye is minute and she may execute the moves well, but it's all moves that people have to help her with because there's no element of context of a contest because it's

gymnastics and she can't cut the promo.

And I don't see her as a movie star.

And,

you know, I'm sorry.

You're talking about showing what right to your hatred of E.O.

Skye.

Well, no, just as, just as

I'm not trying to go up just on her,

because she's on this program and it or the this in this company and we're but i'm just saying it that type or that

that genre

so but charlotte i see as the classic ice queen wrestling heel she's maturing into the you know the whoo type of you know

fucking flair performer.

She's got a more classic gimmick.

Rhea Ripley's younger.

She's more hip.

The kids like her.

She's what's happening.

You know, all those modern phrases.

I like that Rhea Ripley.

She's really hip.

Yeah, she's hip and she's what's happening.

She's really boss, man.

You know, but they've got looks and they're stars.

And Bianca, I will give.

I don't know what she did with her hair on this.

I think it was raw.

She looked like she dipped her head in a bucket of shellac.

But I'm just, no, not on a 50-50 basis being shoved down our throats with a lot of fucking whining and

young ladies who cannot deliver their verbosity

or their verbality without sounding like they're auditioned in for the fucking high school drama class, things like that, blah, blah, blah.

And it does, it's not just, oh, she can do a moonsault, but that's not the guys either.

Somebody called that fucking

spitball Mike Bailey

on Twitter.

They called him Hong Kong Fuye.

Oh my God, that's so funny.

So, but anyway, with these young ladies, they weren't done yet.

Charlotte and Tiffy, because Miz came to the ring for a Miz TV segment, and then Tiffy and Charlotte came out still fighting and had more pull apart.

And Tiffy climbed up and flipped off the top of the entranceway onto the whole pile of them.

So we got that going for us.

A couple of other things I wanted to recognize

on

SmackDown.

Priest and Nakamura had a match, which I did not watch, obviously, but Drew McIntyre came out and is just wonderful.

He's just a wonderful, great heel.

And he beat the shit out of Priest.

And Brian, remember when Carmelo Hayes was the number three draft pick?

And we said, what the fuck are they doing?

Are they out of their minds?

I think they're still trying to figure out what they're doing.

Well, I think they finally figured out what the fuck.

And Randy Orton beat him in

fine fashion.

It took longer than it should, but it was still pretty.

pretty decisive.

And then he went to punt him and Owens pulled Carmelo out and Orton ran ran owens off

so which young guy who they clearly at one point thought was a priority are they booking worse carmelo hayes or austin theory

theory's much worse as far as booking

but carmelo's worse as far as talent

but yeah no i think

theory either

he ticked off Triple H when he was Vince's boy, or he's done something else that they're just like, no,

because they're just

not only presenting him as a flunky on the main television, they won't even send him back to

NXT to be on top.

They send him back to NXT every once in a while to get the NXT guy over.

So I don't know.

He's.

I mean,

can anybody out there, we have a vast listenership, tell me what

the people in power believe is wrong, either mentally, physically, or emotionally, or reputationally with Austin Theory as to why they're doing the things that they'd be doing.

But speaking on the subject of doing things that they'd be doing,

did you watch Gunther and Axiom?

No, I did not.

Well, I did because I, again, I'm not going to give you a blow-by-blow on the match, but

you said earlier, well, you know,

something like

it's an international audience or it's the audience over there.

Oh, but it's on TV.

This is the perfect spot where,

yes, the people in the building loved it, but it's on fucking TV.

Because Axiom is apparently from, where were they, Barcelona?

Did I say that's in Spain?

Last time I checked it, it, right?

apparently axiom is from spain i don't remember whether they said specifically barcelona they have other towns over there don't they they do in spain i thought axiom was the name of the tag team what's the name of the tag team he's in

no the other guy's just named like

nathan frasier nathan nathan nathan frasier yes i thought their tag team was was it not axiom

He's the only Axiom?

No,

he's the guy that's named Axiom.

Okay.

What is it?

Hold on here one second because I don't know what the fuck we're talking about here.

I didn't mean that.

American Heritage.

I can't lift the fifth edition

that

I'll get a hernia.

So I'm just going back to the third edition because Axiom is an old word.

I just don't know what it actually fucking means.

Is it Fraxium?

Is that the name of the tech team?

That's the name of their team.

Fraxium.

They combine the two.

Frack.

What a clever name.

Yes.

Adam Baum is in here.

All pair.

pair oh hello

xyz what country are you from axiom

axiom means a self-evident or universally recognized truth a principle that is accepted as true without proof boy you got one right there

This guy, this masked wrestler, is named a principle that is accepted as true without proof.

Point is.

Well, how true is this match?

Well, that's the thing.

Gunther comes out.

He cuts the promo on Jey Uso

because that's where they're headed.

But he heard there's a kid that's the best wrestler from Spain and you love him.

And that doesn't mean a damn thing.

And he wants to bring him out.

They're going to have a fight.

And it's Axiom.

And I was like, what the fuck?

Because I didn't know who it was at first.

And then.

When he comes out, he's half of that,

as I mentioned before, that lousy-looking outlaw NXT tag team.

The other guy's just a hairy, skinny goof.

And this guy is like five foot six and weighs 170 in a random luchador mask, axiom.

And you have to believe in him because there is no proof.

And he's going to raise, he's a foot shorter and

at least 75 pounds lighter than Gunther or whatever the fuck.

And I'm thinking, yes, the people behind him or in the building are behind him, but this is on television before

and while Gunther is world champion and before WrestleMania,

I watched it because Gunther is great.

He doesn't do any stupid shit.

And he knows how to build a match and how to have a match and not make himself look overly stupid.

Sometimes there's timing issues on the part of the other guy that he can't compensate for.

You can't have both matches, but I'm thinking, Jesus,

is this, you know, is this doable even for him?

And I think, you know,

the fans there loved it, but it showed the world that this tiny little fellow

was kicking the shit out of Gunther for a while.

It wasn't egregious like it would have been in AEW, and it was mostly logical.

At one point,

Axiom kicked out of Gunther's Powerbomb.

That was a little far-fetched.

And he had to, Gunther had to stooge for a lot of the guy's stuff because he's the hometown crowd.

But finally,

Powerbomb clothesline Powerbomb 123.

And then he put the sleeper on

the fractured Axiom and left him laying.

But I would just.

Was he the one?

I understand they wanted to get more heat on him than anybody on the show so have him beat the

hometown or home country hero but

then you put him in that position do you give the home country hero that much for the live crowd or do you give him less for the television audience

everywhere else

That's a conundrum.

Yeah.

I think they gave him a little much, a little much.

And then one more thing.

Paul Hayman, now that we've put him over at the top of the program,

did you watch his promo?

I did not.

I actually missed the second half of the show.

Okay, well, in that case,

you may believe that

I'm exaggerating here, but I think Paul was jet lagged.

I think.

I always love his shit, but this this wasn't it, dog.

But at the same time, he was there with nothing to do, no one to confront him, no

big statement to make that furthers along the stories.

And he just had to kind of go out and

wing it.

But

his whole promo was: Today is Roman Reigns Day because it's the release of the WWE 2K25 video game.

Now wait till the the show is over to start playing it.

And then that's what he was repeating over and over.

The WWE 2K25 video game.

And they got the blurb on the screen.

So it's blatant commercial that the people are not really that into.

And he tried then to start doing a promo.

Some people have problems with Roman, and one is my friend CM Punk.

And they started chanting for Punk.

But it's not CM Punk Day, nor will it ever be Seth Rollins Day.

And then they

sang that,

the tune, whoa,

goddamn.

And of course, Paul said, I hate that song.

And then he plugged the video game again.

And then he told them Roman Reigns is going to be, where are they next week, Brian, in Bologna?

I missed what they said.

You keep saying that.

So on the figure, they mean Bologna, yes.

Oh, that's where it is, Bologna.

And

the people in started booing because he's just told him Roman's not here tonight, but he's going to be in another country next week.

And they start booing.

And he says, Oh, get a ticket on Cheapo Airlines.

And then, did you hear the controversy

concerning the

line that was cut out of his promo when it aired on TV over here?

No, I don't know anything about this.

They were in Barcelona, so the show was actually happening before

its time slot here, right?

So it aired in its normal time slot, 8, 10 p.m.

Eastern or 8 to 11 p.m.

Eastern on Friday night, but it had happened in the afternoon.

And apparently,

what Paul said was,

because they're in Spain there and they're in Italy next week.

And Paul said, oh, you get a ticket on Cheapo Airlines and fly over there.

What?

It's not like Mussolini is standing guard at the border and won't let you across.

And for some reason, I don't know, maybe they were just seven seconds long on time.

That line did not air on

Friday night on the USA network.

There was a crowd shot and

then a transition to the next line.

So anyway, and then he said, next week, you can say anything you want to say to Roman Reigns' face, and he left.

So it was Paul.

So, I mean, it wasn't painfully bad, but it was good for a little amusing antidote there.

But it wasn't his normal oratory because it, yeah,

it didn't, he didn't have much to fucking do.

I'm sure on camera, I'm sure he was just running around a little busy beaver backstage.

Well, that's WWE SmackDown.

And of course, with Paul Heyman in Europe, there's probably a lot of shopping, a lot of seeing what the latest fashion trends are, trying on new suits.

But perhaps he looked at some of these unique and fresh European fashions and he said, I wish I knew someone who I could work with to bring some of these home and sell them to the world.

He's always looking for a money-making opportunity.

He's very capitalistic like that is Paul Heyman, always trying to get the angle.

He could be over there where we're in Barcelona, Spain.

He could be over there at the Matador's big and tall store

where they can fit the biggest bull,

no matter how wide his ass or horns may be.

And he may say, you know,

I could market merchandise this brand all across the world to all of the giant, corpulent, overweight, fat people with a body mass index of 50 and over,

if only had the platform.

Brian, do you think that's the question he was asking himself as he wallowed in the tent maker's material, having his custom-made Spanish suit tailored to his specifications?

It could have been.

It could have been.

Well, now we know the platform.

It's too bad he doesn't listen to the program.

Although, probably secretly he does.

If he'd gone to Shopify and said, hey, let's take these voluminous, massive circus tent-like clothes for people who look like they've been floating in the river for three days.

I just as an example, it could be any product or service.

And let's put it on a worldwide platform.

And let's have the number one

checkout on the planet, the number one company.

Nobody does selling better than Shopify.

Let's partner up with Shopify and let them make this dream become a reality.

And then Paul wouldn't have to go to barcelona and baloney and maine to spain on a choo choo train he could sit right in his his giant custom-made overstuffed over wide easy chair in his home

watch his alfred hitchcock dvds

and just and rake the money in because

that's what he'd be hearing all the time, jing, jing, ching, ching, without him even lifting a finger.

And you know, at his age and at his weight, gravity has taken over.

And it's so hard to lift fingers.

But it's nothing's hard with Shopify, folks.

It's as easy as can be.

It's a box of fluffy ducks.

It's like farting through silk.

They're going to set you up with the number one checkout on the planet if you're into growing your business.

They're going to give you the commerce platform that's ready to sell wherever your customers are.

They're going to keep track of everything and you're going to get the money and you're going to get the fame and you're going to get the fortune,

and then you're going to get the bill.

But if right now, it's not going to be much because they want you to want them, and that's why we can, right now, folks, offer you a chance.

That's exactly right.

Without fear of contradiction, we can offer you the cheapest trick that you will ever turn.

I guarantee you, even there's well, I won't even go into the prices of potential prostitutes these days.

It's even worse than

the normal rate of inflation.

But folks, this cheap trick is only $1 a month.

It's a trial period at shopify.com slash JCE, all in lowercase, by the way, because that's where you go and they say, we're going to do such a good job for you that we will do this for $1 a month.

as a trial period and see if you like it and if you like us and we like you and

if you like piña coladas whatever you like not that it's going to be all together you can go to shopify.com slash jce

to get that one dollar a month trial period and upgrade your selling today get with the big boys don't try to do this on my TV or web space or whatever that antiquated technology is.

These people,

they've got big time computer operators there standing by

ready to sell all your shit to everybody that's got access to it.

Just like that.

Boom goes the dynamite.

Ding goes the

selling.

And zing go the strings of your heart.

You know, you can even make enough money if you're saving for that special girl.

You can even make enough money to finally get married and put a down payment on a house with a picket fence and a swing in the tree and squirrels and birds.

birds and you can have a little kid and the kid will get in the swing and then he'll swing and he'll swing and he'll swing and then he'll fall and break his leg okay

and then you can call one of our other sponsors stephen p.

No again let's not talk I don't again the story we were doing so well that was the best you have ever done I can't even speak

that's the best out lorna do listen let's let's get away

listen let's let's listen

oh listen to the music let's talk about everyone out there, the listeners, Mr.

and Mrs.

America, who have your products and you want to sell them, you need the right support.

And let's say it firmly here at the end.

Right, Jim?

You can get her from Shopify.

Jim, tell everyone one more time with professionalism where they can get it.

Yes, with professionalism, you can professionally go to shopify.com slash JCE.

Can you imagine if Colonel Sanders

had had Shopify,

he wouldn't have had to put that pressure cooker in the trunk of his car and drive around as a senior citizen cussing people.

I guess you may, that is a possible option that could have happened, a possible outcome.

But no.

Well, I only deal in facts and learned supposition.

No, never in complete axioms.

Once again, Shopify, shopify.com slash JCE.

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Jim, let's go from the world of shopping and the world of SmackDown.

Let's get it all out of the way.

And this next one includes what I think was the segment of the week.

WWE Raw,

and they were in Brussels, Belgium.

Brussels, Belgium.

I always loved their sprouts.

Actually, no, I think they even smell.

I don't like the taste of them, and their odor is quite unpleasant.

But they were sold out and another big crowd.

And if

Barcelona was up and energetic, these people had them beat.

And do they, all these foreign countries, do they pass out a songbook or some, do they have some type of musical?

Because they seem so coordinated.

It's like thousands of them not only

are singing

the wrestler songs that they would hear on TV and obviously a no, but they're singing random tunes and chants that is in their own languages, but by the thousands.

How is this knowledge of what to do transmitted with that mass numbers?

I don't know.

It seems to be a thing at a lot of these European shows with this one specifically.

It was a fun game to play.

It was almost like, where's Waldo?

Find the girl.

A lot of men singing and dancing, dancing literally with their arms in the air.

Not too many women.

It looked like a village people concert.

But so they did the

rock and Cena and Cody

history package where, you know, they explain all the things that had gone on and we brought it up to date.

And then they come to the arena.

And again, they've got an incredible crowd shot.

And if you might be able to Google how many people were in this building, but I don't know whether they...

as they used to call it the fisheye lens

or whatever the drone shots these

crowds are massive.

And they milked it with no music, no nothing.

And then suddenly, Cena music hit.

And it made a boo.

It was surly.

The mood turned surly.

The wind changed direction.

And then out comes Cena.

And he's dressed the same.

He's got the same little

God.

I don't, what is that?

A small little, like a burger towel with his saying on it.

And, but now he's got the dour face and he's not energetic.

He's walking and he's just, you can, it looks like he just sniffed a fart.

And as the music is playing, they start chanting, or well, chanting with the music singing, John Cena sucks.

John Cena sucks, John Cena sucks, just over and over.

And he walked out there.

And as soon

as he got in the ring, they're still doing that.

And then when they played the, or pulled the music down,

he was just milking it.

That's all he had to do.

He's just looking at them.

And they got the dueling chant going.

Let's go.

Cena, Cena sucks.

And that went for a while.

And they're just hopping up and down.

And

then he milks it again.

He started to put the microphone down.

And he was like, I was going to walk out out and got big booze.

And they chatted, you sold out.

You sold out.

And so it was minutes before he had to say anything.

Do you remember what the first thing he said was?

Well, yes, when a person is properly grounded, they shouldn't have to look outside themselves for approval.

Oh, I actually thought, didn't he say before that while they were booing?

Is it you're making this easy?

Oh, well, yeah, I'm sorry.

Yes, that was over the top of all of the yelling i forgot about because i wrote down that quote and i forgot the the throwaway remark but yeah well and

but see it works because they they were making it easy in the job that he was there to do but also it works in the story you're making it easy for me to break up with you

for me to tell you what i think of you

and it was

Again, we've always said the one thing John Cena could do was talk.

That's what got him noticed at OBW to begin with.

I mean, his

look, his work ethic,

there were better in-ring workers, but every other category, he was, you know, off the charts from the start, but

he can talk.

And his deal is for 25 years, I've been the victim of an abusive relationship.

And his,

everything that he was saying would get a reaction of some kind.

And he's pissed off and he's believable with it, the face he's got and the delivery.

All you people have done is bully me and expect me to be your damn puppet.

And the entire arena would chant, fuck you, Cena.

And

it was a combination of a wrestling interview.

Many of the lines that he built up to and delivered and made them work in the context,

the lines that you would say if you're breaking up with an abusive fucking spouse or significant other or whatever.

You've used me as a puppet.

So it was a brilliant juxtaposition of those two things.

And he's, I'm not a babyface or a heel.

I'm a human being and you've been awful to me.

It is how the fans have always mistreated him from the start.

Sure, they cheer him for a second, and then he'd work even harder, and then they'd boo him, and nothing was ever good enough.

And he came back and he worked hard, and he won and won and won, and they hated it.

And the people again channeled, shut the fuck up.

And he tried

one last time to do something nice for you guys, and you ruined it.

How many times have you heard that, Brian?

Maybe you don't want to comment.

But I tried to do something nice for you, and you ruined it.

And they started singing, Shana Nana, hey, hey, hey, goodbye.

Nama Nama.

Well, Shana Na, Shana Nana did it.

No, they didn't.

Well, they should have done it.

So,

nothing I ever do is good enough.

All you care about is yourselves.

All right, now that I've said that to you, I'll go back to seats.

No,

that's what I, this was what it was.

It was like,

you know, not one of you sons of bitches ask me how I felt.

Just what do we get?

What do we, we want more from you, more and more and more.

You get what you've earned, which is nothing.

And again, it was great.

was he was venting his spleen it sounded like you believed he was saying what he meant what'd you think about the part where he singled out the people wearing his merch because they're still selling the merch apparently oh yeah and then saying

even you guys and he turns on them he starts going off on them and then the shot of the little moon-faced little eight-year-old boy was just dumbstruck with

whatever emotion.

But yeah,

they had the dueling chant.

Well, even the ones who cheer for me, that's all you ever wanted me to do is give you more, more of me, more of me.

And you took and you took.

And what did you give?

And so he

brought the people who still were cheering for him into the whole fucking plot against him as well.

I bet, I mean, it was,

it was great when he mentioned Cody's name that got huge cheers.

They're completely on Cody's side.

He's the captain now.

And,

you know, that's what he said.

You've stolen my time.

You've made me your toy and the butt of an invisible joke for 15 years.

That was good.

You're pathetic.

You wear hustle, loyalty, and respect on your shirt, but I live it.

You're awful people.

And I'm breaking up with you.

You're dumped.

You don't matter.

You know I'm right and you're wrong.

It was fucking great.

And as soon as he said that, Cody music plays.

And now they're singing the song and they're whoa.

And what a fucking entrance in a sea of people.

And it's two top guys from different generations.

And the people are standing and screaming and chanting for Cody.

And they're.

They wouldn't let Cody talk because they were chanting apparently in

Belgium-ish.

What do they talk over there?

Belgium-ish?

That was English.

Well, no, some of the chants were in English, but they were chanting something at one point

in a language that I either couldn't understand what they were saying.

But now, here, are you trying to

skimper around the point that you don't know what language they speak?

They speak English.

No, in Belgium.

They don't speak English in Belgium.

Well, I mean, they do.

They might.

Oh, no, Dutch, but not French and German are the official languages.

Jesus Christ.

How long does it take to go to school till you're 35?

See, see, that's what I was saying, though.

You mix all those together.

It's English.

Anyway,

Cody jumps in at perfect.

And

this is what I'm talking about.

When I say, even when

they have heels talking to heels or babyfaces talking to babyfaces.

And

this idea that they blurred the lines and that the shades of gray, there can be shades of gray, and they're doing it brilliantly here with the whole reason that Drew turned.

Seth hasn't turned, but he's embracing

being the heel in a lot of this.

But there's

there's still always you've got to be true to what you would do.

It will hurt you

if you

do things

that

the people don't believe should be in your character as presented to them.

And it's why they lie.

That's why MJF is in the shape he's in now.

And Cody is one of the smartest guys as far as being a babyface, not doing

things he shouldn't do.

And of course, he's in a very well-structured company, but then along every once in a while comes the final boss.

I got an idea.

But the good, the great talent knows how to speak and say things in a certain way to lend a certain subliminal meaning to it, to make it positive or negative, to make it a heelish response from the people or a babyface-ish.

And now Cena has gone all the way on one side and he's the heel.

And Cody comes out, who the hell are you?

Defends them immediately.

As soon as Cena said, now listen, kid,

Cody said, no, I'm not.

It's not kid.

It's WWE champion.

And he took the people's side.

They are the ones that have made you.

And who the hell are you?

Where's the guy on the shirt?

I was excited about going face to face with John Cena, and I got this.

This better not show up at WrestleMania or I'll retire it early.

Find Cena, I want to wrestle him, not this whiny bitch.

And whoa, the people, big cheers.

And Cody walked out to chance and say they didn't have to play music.

They're chanting.

They're singing.

Cena's in the ring, speechless.

Cody leaves.

He drops the microphone.

No music.

He leaves to booze and

shanana.

Hey, hey, hey, goodbye.

From the entire arena.

Nana.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

And Nana wasn't there because it wasn't Swerve's house.

But this, it was a 30-minute segment.

And again, you know, brilliant verbally from both guys.

Cena talked the majority of it, but Cody did exactly what he needed to do.

And then right afterwards, Michael Cole, as the announcer, cut a hell of a promo about Cena being an ungrateful prick.

And now he's turned his back on all the people.

This is classic fucking wrestling.

And the

besides this being in my mind, and I'll let you tell me what you thought in a second,

but besides this being a great segment and being 30 minutes and not getting old and you got all that reaction and what just the content.

But this angle, they've sold me on this angle.

I like Helcena against babyface Cody.

Fuck the merchandising to the kids, as many people have said, but it didn't need the rock at all.

And they didn't tie him into this at all and anything they did.

No, didn't mention him.

And it didn't need his intervention.

If the same thing had happened between Cena and Cody with The Rock never having showed up.

never having asked for his soul, never having demanded an answer, just Cody coming coming out to shake John Cena's hand and congratulate him and Cena kicking him in the balls.

I think it would have been the same response and

it would have been just as good and made more sense, probably.

But this was wonderful.

Do you think this is one of John Cena's best promos?

Yes, because he...

That's a thing.

He's had fire and passion against the heels before,

but he hadn't had a chance in a long fucking time to come out and vent and call people, you're awful, awful people.

It's just you're pathetic

and show that

and turn all into the invisible jokes.

Oh, fuck you.

You can't see me now, but I can see you.

And you're crying.

So I think, yes, because he is, he's great at, you know, verbally at whatever he does.

Go ahead.

Did they need a confrontation here, especially if it wasn't going to end with any physicality?

Yes.

I like this because

we wanted to hear what Cena had to say, his motivations,

you know, why he's done all this.

That was a curiosity, but we needed to see Cody come out and not only stand up to him and take up for the fans so that they're even more behind Cody and that their opinion was represented, but also

so that Cody could say, i want to face the the great john cena the one we used to know instead of this whiny bitch that you've turned into

because that not only will add a little extra heat to the match at wrestlemania but eventually by the end of the year probably

john will recognize the error of his ways and perhaps cody's the one that

finds it in him somehow.

Who knows?

It'd be like Sergeant Slaughter crying that he wants his country back.

You made a lot of poor decisions in the last few years, Sarge.

Yes, you know, and there's a little matter of that espionage charge hanging over your head.

But they didn't need to fight here because Cody

actually stood up to him more by just telling him off and saying, I don't, I think you're pathetic right now.

Find the real you.

It was very dust-ish.

Find your guts, Pilgrim.

You can see John Wayne saying that.

Go home and find your your guts and meet me out behind the bar.

It was very dusty-ish just in terms of the

over-the-top defense of the fans.

Not to say that that was the wrong thing, but just, you know, that crazy about like, we got these people, it's all them, it's them.

You know,

that's dusty.

It's all about the people.

And again, you brought up the other big thought I had, which was The Rock.

The Rock wasn't mentioned.

At least if he was, I don't remember it.

They didn't really

need to.

And it helps Cena not having the rock there while he's doing this stuff.

Yo, God, that would have killed it.

That would have killed it because the spotlight needed to be on.

And I think they all know that.

And even The Rock would have to readily acquiesce to that.

And also, he probably didn't want to go to fucking

Barcelona, Cookamonga, Belgium.

But no, Cena needed to be out there alone.

But he didn't

tell any story about why he sold his soul to a higher power for movie roles or whatever.

It was all about turning on the fans, and that was exactly what it needed to be.

And he was smart enough to know that.

If he came out, and it might have got heat if he said, Oh, yeah, I've given my soul to the rock so he can make me a movie star late,

but

it would make him subservient, and he's the guy that's going to wrestle in the main event.

So he has to be the fucking guy.

And he's the fucking guy.

He's the fucking guy.

And that was the highlight of Raw by far.

Well, yeah, but there was more of Raw.

It just wasn't, it was a little overdone sometimes.

The contract signing with Bianca and E.O., and now we see.

It's a case of anything you can do.

I can do better.

I can do anything better than you with the girls and the guys.

We have a girls or a guys three-way.

Now we got to have a girls three-way.

And it does it at least, can it not have to be on the same?

I know somebody's going to say it's not going to be on the same show.

It's going to be one will be on Saturday and one will be on Sunday.

It's in the same goddamn build.

It just,

it seems a little coincidental that all these things would happen at the same time on in both

genders locker rooms.

I like the new rule.

You can just sign a contract and all of a sudden it's your contract.

Well, no, to be fair, they said it's not legally binding, but since she has possession of the contract, as you know what they say, possession is nine-tenths of the law and ignorance is no excuse for the law.

Ask a couple of people.

Something like that.

I did that as a kid once.

I asked the police officer, you know, what about possession?

I'd never heard that before in my life.

Well, they should have gone back to cop school.

What were they doing giving a guy like that a gun and a badge and setting him out to talk to children when he didn't even know the basic fucking old wives tales about what's legal?

But they had the contract signing where Bianca and EO and EO

managed to struggle out.

No one will disrespect her again.

She's the world champion.

And after WrestleMania, she'll still be the world champion.

And she signed the contract and the fans chanted, you deserve it.

And somebody on twitter said

clipped that like 10 seconds of them chanting you deserve it and say well i guess this will shut up jim cornet about eo no

these people like goddamn anything

i'm not saying she's not over even but i don't care she's a good wrestler oh she she's she was wonderful at doing moves she can't promo she's five foot tall and she's not five foot tall you will you say you okay four eleven five feet tall to so many people.

She's probably 4'11.

I'm gonna say, and I'm not looking or anything,

at least 5'4.

No, 5'3, at least 5'3.

All right.

Now, see, now you change your story.

Well, because I'm comparing it to Rey Mysterio, and he's 5'2, I believe.

So I didn't think she was two inches taller than Ray.

I thought one was acceptable.

Well, nevertheless.

And Bianca, that's where I mentioned earlier.

She looked like she dipped her head in a bucket of shellac.

Her hair was painted on the top of her head.

What the fuck?

that was odd

uh but she's pissed

because eo's pissed and eo slapped her last week and she's not going to disrespect her again either after last week we're giving eo a pass but she better not do that again she delivered this in a way where it was kind of heelish and she got booed from the people the people

And then Bianca signed the contract and then Maria's music played and then we got a big pop.

And here we go.

And she's not going to sit back and do nothing like Bianca.

She got slapped last week and she's pissed about it.

And Bianca got in her business to begin with.

And she's pissed about that.

And they start to bicker back and forth.

And it's the same thing as last week.

They're finger pointing and yelling at each other.

And EO standing behind the table like, you know, what the fuck?

What about me?

So she,

EO meaning, slides the table around, put it in the right place, and comes around like she's going to interrupt him.

And Bianca just reaches out and pie faces her again.

But when Bianca does that, Rhea Ripley head-butts Bianca, who flies backwards onto the table,

and then she kicks EO and power bombs her on top of Bianca.

And boy,

now, where were they?

The country here a few weeks ago, where

those tables were almost goddamn wafer thin here.

That fucking table didn't break.

Now, I know he only weighs 82 pounds, but Bianca was already laying on it.

See, again, you can't stop taking shots at her for no reason.

I didn't, I didn't say, I just, you know, she's probably 125.

Well,

the table was extra strength and it didn't break.

How does that feel if you're Bianca and that happened?

It don't feel good.

It's like, oh god damn it except he you know if it was a real heavyweight it'd been even better or even worse but nevertheless that's where ria picked up the contract and signed it and then took it with her and adam pierce was pissed at this impropriety

And so we're going to get a three-way, and we're going to have the three-way on the guys' side.

And one will be one night, one will be the other night.

And I would rather,

definitely in this one, I'd rather see Rhea and Bianca one-on-one.

In the guys, I have to say, this year it kind of works.

I'm interested to see what they're going to put together, but they're the best in the world in various stages of their game.

So, but this is uh, yeah, for both for both the men and the women, because I like them a little better than you do.

I'd like to see every one of these combinations in a singles match.

It's just I've come to hate multi-man matches, let alone three-way matches.

And I know it's been kind kind of coin of the realm since at least 93.

Well, no, it was introduced really in 93, but it really got popularized a few years later.

But to me, Rhea versus EO is more intriguing.

Rhea versus Bianca is more intriguing.

Bianca versus EO.

And is that every combination?

Is that the same thing?

Well, there's more, but then, you know.

Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce.

There's all kinds of combinations.

But same thing with the men.

Roman versus Punk and Roman versus Rollins to me is more intriguing than all.

I'm not saying it won't be a good match, but it's more intriguing than just another three-way match where there's just creative ways to break up the pin for the last 10 minutes.

Yes.

But with the guys this year, at least I don't have the

dread of, oh, God, it's going to, it's not only it's going to suck, but it's just meaningless because they do have an issue.

It is something marketable, promotable that they can sell tickets on.

You know, so I know the girls have an issue too, but the guys guys had theirs first.

Hey, one last question on all this: Rhea Ripley, now that she's kind of queer-cut as a babyface, do they have to do something to keep her overstrong?

Because I even hear she's not really, she stole the contract, but she lost the match, she got shut out of this thing, now she's trying to get involved.

She doesn't seem like she's in control like she used to be.

Do you have to do anything different?

I'm truthfully almost thinking that they might be about to turn her heel

to work with Bianca coming out of this.

I don't know if that's a good thing.

Bianca is acting more heelish by the week.

I've been saying this for a little while now.

Maybe I'm completely wrong, but out of the two of them, I think Bianca, I would think, is going to be a heel before Rhea.

I don't know, but I wouldn't mind seeing Rhea turn heel and working with Bianca.

They could just use EO for Rhea to beat in the three-way without beating Bianca.

so that's fresh.

I don't know.

They got the Jade issue.

So I think that's going to, whatever they're doing with Bianca, it's going to have to incorporate whatever's going on with the Jade stuff.

Well, but Jade's got a fucking deal with Naomi, who's going to come back, you know, chomping at the book for revenge.

I did see that.

Was that on SmackDown?

The clip with Jade being interviewed in the empty building?

Did you see that?

Yeah, but no, normally that would have been on AEW, but this was

the building was empty on purpose on this this one you know what i'm talking about yeah yes i remember that somewhere and living rock hell walked in and started heckling her yeah

so

who knows they're they're opening up all kinds of stuff there's all kinds of possibilities all right did you watch anything else on raw yes i did well besides jey uso beating austin theory in 30 seconds

and then

beating both the heels up, him and Waller, and then missing the, did you see the missed dive?

That was a Twitter thing.

Not only did I see it, but the Twitter thing was the comparison.

It was almost move for move, second for second, frame for frame with Top Dollar going over the top.

Except when Flop Dollar.

It landed, he walked off and acted like he did something.

Jay rolled back in and gave the camera a sheepish look like, yeah, I fucked up.

And that's why people like him and they thought Flop Dollar was a fat fucking manatee.

But then Gunther comes in and slaps a fucking sleeper on.

And

Jay fought back and took the belt and threw it at Gunther.

And we had more yeating.

But I did want to mention

the blooper that poor old Jay had with the dive.

But

he just didn't get his feet under him.

But then Braun Breaker.

One more thing.

The main event was for the Intercontinental title, Finn Balor and Braun Breaker.

And Finn's not all that interesting, but he's a hell of a a technician.

And I want to see how Braun was coming along.

And Braun is now

the de facto babyface because he's cool and the people know it.

And they're impressed by his physicality and the dogs barking and the whole thing.

So he didn't really have to turn

in any fashion or save anybody.

or change himself as much as just

these obnoxious heels, the Judgment Day were able to get under his his skin.

And now people are with him.

And

again, they had this match.

He's right there for everything.

He's got the timing, the facials, the body language, the look, the aggression.

He's got the trademark shit, the clothesline where he leaps over the desk and takes them with him.

And the leaping Brekensteiner.

And

they did a nice finishing sequence, but it was back and forth, but logical shit.

And Braun hung with him.

He needs to watch the punches to the head.

He's using it as a, I'm waving my arm and backing you up because I'm about to shoot you off and do something big.

He needs to have more contact

and more wham and more oomph, more snap, whatever they call it.

on his punches to the head.

But otherwise,

boom, boom, boom.

He went for a superplex.

Carlito distracted the referee.

Dominic pulled Braun down off the superplex, but he accidentally crotched Finn at the same time.

And Braun nailed the heels off, hit his Brekensteiner leap off the top and speared him one, two, three,

and got a big fucking pop.

And they had a good match.

And then here's the bad part.

And Brian, tell me what you think.

The heels jumped Braun,

started getting heat on him, and music played.

And here came Penta.

And Penta hit and started to come back, and then Braun got up and speared Carlito.

And the heels bailed, and Penta and Braun

had the stare down, and Penta handed the belt to Braun, but then they stared at each other.

I don't want to see Braun and Penta.

That's going to be a styles clash.

Braun is not experienced enough.

to deal with some of the unorthodox shit that he might encounter on the fly in the wild with Penta.

What do you think?

And that was teased earlier in the night after Penta beat Kaiser.

He said he wants the Intercontinental Championship.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I'm intrigued by it.

I want to see it.

So we'll see if it works or not.

You're probably right in a won't, but I certainly want to see what they're going to do.

You know, the only thing for me missing with Braun Breaker,

you know, it's almost for me, the way it feels, it's almost like an AEW run

where he's having these matches and he looks impressive, but there's no no feud.

There's no reason to care beyond.

Like, yeah, I don't know.

He's established who he is enough on the main roster.

I need like a really good feud with really good heated promos or something.

Well, you know, in all honesty,

right now I think they think they don't need it because there's so many guys on top and there's so many guys involved in something.

As long as they keep Braun,

it's like the Hippocratic oath in booking.

First, do no harm, right?

Just keep him good

and get him more experience.

He's so young.

We've got a belt on him.

They don't need the Intercontinental title to draw at the B-show anymore.

And they don't need anything, really.

And they've got so many numbers of things.

Hot on top, drawing, new star breaking through.

They can take their time.

They're not beating him.

They're not making him do stupid things.

They're featuring him whenever he's

involved in something.

It's usually to

something about it gets him over, but they're not rushing it.

And

I don't think they need to.

So that as long as you can make the people still want to bark and still want to see his shit.

And

every time that they do, they say they see the freakish

hitting the ropes at 25 miles an hour or whatever.

and as long as they're letting him do that and not beating him you know consistently

i think he's got all the time in the world

well so did they but they uh went about two and a half hours that was raw on netflix and of course jim brawn breaker yes brawn breaker comes from a wrestling family as we all know A family that has to work out, that has to make sure that they're ready for the ring.

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Jim,

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Okay, we are back full of protein from Organe and ready for action, Jim.

Yes, happy hour, the final portion of the show here where we have a good time and ask hopefully some good questions.

And are you prepared?

Are you ready for?

I'm ready for happy hour.

I've guzzled my Organe, organe but i got to make a not a correction but an addition an addendum to something we talked about earlier this may not make sense if folks if you're just listening to a standalone clip on youtube but for the fine listeners of our podcast in chronological order when we were comparing earlier the times that i've been fired versus the times that vince russo has been fired We forgot one in TNA, the third time.

He talked Dixie into giving him a mercy job where he could just send in his thoughts on the goddamn program.

And he wasn't supposed to tell anybody.

And she wouldn't admit that he was working there.

Oh, that's right.

But then he sent the email to the wrong people and they found out about it and they fired him again.

So that was the three times he was fired from TNA.

Well, that time, I think, was also the time that the network finally got fed up with TNA lying to them.

Well, yes.

Yes.

They weren't supposed to know either.

So we forgot that one because we were concentrating on the time when he got fired in the WWE before he ever actually got started working.

And we overlooked the time where he got fired from a job that he was so toxic that they couldn't admit that he actually had, and he didn't actually have to go there and do anything.

So he's got another one.

So he's at four and a half now, as I recall, to my two.

All right.

We will keep this tally going in the weeks and months ahead.

He got tally A.

If he keeps begging for a job sooner or later, somebody will give him one, then we we can add firings to it but we shall see what happens but jim let's get uh on to some other things here

you know what why don't we start with from the files so we from the files because i got a whopper of uh one here

you used the word whopper before and you were tantalizing me thinking that you were going to send me a coupon for free Burger King or something, but it's a whopper of a file from the Arcadian Vanguard files of the Wrestling News, Ring Wrestling, and the assorted, assimilated products there within.

That's right.

And these are from the archives of the Wrestling News.

It's actually two files.

One is the photo file, one is the correspondence file, which is massive, for Lil Al Vavasor.

Oh my God.

Who was the primary photographer for Leroy McGurk's wrestling company throughout the 70s?

Well, now, and

he was based in Louisiana.

Yes.

And that is the time where McGurk had not only his tri-states territory up there, Oklahoma, Missouri, and

what am I, and Arkansas, but also he promoted Louisiana.

And most of the, from what I understand,

Because I used to see, and I was fascinated by that name, but I used to see his work in the magazines.

And a lot of his work was done when the guys were in Louisiana.

And he sold just about every picture he took to the wrestling news.

So I have one of just about everything.

And in the photo.

I don't know

whether he sold them to him or sent them to him.

Well, no, I have the receipts.

So

I could pretty much say we got the rights to these.

This one here is his car.

He had a station wagon.

And on the door of the station wagon, he's posed here

with his camera.

It says, Lil Al's Wrestling Photos, Port Allen, Louisiana.

It has the phone number and the P.O.

box.

World's largest supplier of color photos of professional wrestlers.

He's driving around town in this car.

And then it has him and his assistant, Mike Orchin, his photo assistant.

Do you have any

insight on his name?

Because

obviously, being from South Louisiana, there's the French and the Cajun influence down there, but Lil, L-I-L,

Al-A-L, Vavasur, V-A-V-A, I believe, S-S-E-U-E-R.

E.

Is that it?

It's E-U, E-U-R.

Okay, I added an E.

But what kind of fucking name is that?

Well, again, I have a couple photos here from,

I'm guessing the 1974 WFIA convention.

You see why they call me little?

It's him next to Jim Melby and Norm Keitzer, and he appears to be a smaller man.

Here's another photo where he appears to have a couple inches on Tom Burke.

He's standing next to Danny Goddard at the 1974.

Here's him and Bill Apter looking over a camera.

So obviously he was in with all the hipsters of the day.

The cool cats.

But let's get past the photo file.

Let's go to the correspondence file because this is some interesting stuff here about when it ends, I guess is a way to look at it.

Again, this is a very, very big file.

We're going to go to 1979.

And now at this point in time,

Watts has started Mid-South Wrestling, right?

In 1979?

Or is this when it's about to take place?

That is right.

Mid-South has started.

Here's a letter from Norm Keitzer to Lil Al, June 4th, 1979.

Dear Lil Al.

Not dear Al.

Even then, you can't just say, hey, Al.

I have been holding this check waiting for more money money to come in, and just wrote you another check, which I will hold as well.

I wrote you a message on it, but have decided to send it right away with this one.

My wrestling publications business is just not doing well, and I have had to make some very tough decisions.

One is that I'm going to hold back on buying any more photos until the business picks up.

I have been trying everything to generate more business, but nothing is working, and the way the economy is, sales are down everywhere and show no signs of changing.

Therefore, I have decided to try and keep things going with the material I have from new photos I get from those photographers who provide them to me in return for free advertising.

I will buy any photos you have already taken from me, but please hold off taking any more, as I don't have the budget to handle more.

Well, and by the way, also,

part of the thing was, Norman never paid that much to begin with, but that's why you would sometimes see in the programs or of that particular period of time pictures from 1976 that he had the color separation made for already that he would just put that in.

And the guy might have a different gimmick or not look like that or whatever, but sometimes it was behind the time.

He was stretching is what he was doing.

Hopefully things will pick up again or something.

But for now, I am cutting back and trying to survive.

This year has been the worst one ever for me, and I just will try to ride out the situation and hope things pick up.

But as you realize, I have left you waiting a long time for payment on your most recent shipments.

And with things getting worse, I think it is best if you hold off on doing more work for me until I can afford to pay you.

He's asked him to do that about three times now, hadn't he?

He did, and he also wrote a very similar note on the actual check.

And then that was June 4th.

What was the check for, by the way?

This check here is for $159.

Holy shit, that may be the biggest check he ever wrote.

And it has photos that were purchased.

1433, Randy Tiger.

1434, Tom and Lane versus Cassidy and Kidd.

1439, Scoot.

1440, Stan Lane.

812, Prince Tonga.

14441, Patton and Singh with Usher.

Does that say Usher?

Jerry Usher was a referee.

Oh, yeah, that's exactly right.

And action,

Charlie Cook and Black Atlas, Black Atlas, Ric Flair, Cook and Atlas, Brody, Diane Devine with Mad with, I was going to say Mad Dog Boyd with Boyd.

It's not Mad Dog Boyd.

That means Boyd Pierce.

And so on and so on.

It goes on, the photos that were purchased, a list of them.

The next letter from Norman to Al,

July 16, 79.

Dear

Lil Al, he wrote, Lil La.

He actually wrote his name wrong here.

Lila.

Dear Lil La.

I wrote you over a month back to hold off on doing more new stuff for me.

Since that time, I have not received anything from you.

Even though you said when you called more than a month ago that you had a package about ready for me, and I agreed to buy it.

I hope you will send it soon before the stuff I wanted becomes outdated.

Things have picked up a bit with the programs and I have a new deal going.

He was still reporting news from the Lincoln shooting at Ford's Theater at this time.

I don't think it would be too outdated.

Things have picked up a bit with the programs.

And I have a new deal going, which will give me control of a national newsstand wrestling magazine.

That's when he took over the ring wrestling enterprise and got on the newsstand with wrestling magazine and the rings wrestling.

So I could again start buying new photos from you.

However,

there will have to be some changes as I just can't afford to buy a black and white 8x10 of every photo you need.

So here's my new proposal.

Does that make sense?

No.

I think you can make out as well on it, and it will give me what I need.

Instead of any prints, I need to have color slides, ectochrome transparency,

transparencies, or whatever you call them.

I can make the screen prints for the magazine and the color separations directly from them.

See, that, and let me give some insight on this.

If he wanted to do stuff on the covers, he needed a slide that was that

reproduced better when making a color separation for the printing process.

I took some slides for him every so often, but most of my stuff was on film

because of the picture business that I had going.

And because my stuff looked fairly good anyway, he would use my color pictures on the covers because the separation would come out okay.

But he still wanted slides from most people.

My new proposal to you is this:

First, I'll still pay you $35 for each trip to New Orleans for the Superdome cards and $15

for each trip to Houston.

Oh, hold on.

Wait a minute now.

God damn, $35.

Even then, if

he shot four rolls of film on a Superdome show, there was $35 plus gas and going and coming.

And Houston, Port Allen, Louisiana, if it's in the New Orleans area, which I think it is, South Louisiana, Houston would be

200 miles in each direction.

And same thing, but nevertheless.

Well, again, that's not for photos.

That was actually to pay him just to go and cover the events.

Then we can work the rest two ways.

First of all, you would shoot color slide film.

Then we can go one of two ways.

He just said that.

What the fuck?

You could send the film direct to me and I would develop it.

And of the pictures I needed, I would make duplicate slides.

I would pay cost of developing and 50 cents for each slide I made a duplicate of and return the complete original set of slides to you.

That's option one.

That sounds like a lot of work.

That way, you would be getting 50 cents per slide.

And since you told me that the 8x10 paper now costs you over a dollar a sheet, and that the the time and labor you put into making the 8x10s and the cost to you to develop the film would all drop off so you need to make more probably

and i would have what i need goddamn he's doing this himself i full-tone photo company was processing my stuff and for apparently around the same price i figure paying for developing and cost of duplicate slide and 50 cents to you would cost me about $2 as now as now

but then I would have exactly what I need for everything or my second proposal would be for you to develop the film and pick out

would be for you to develop the film and pick out what you want to send me and then charge me for what it costs you to develop I would then make duplicates and pay you 50 cents each and return the original as above.

Either way is fine with me, although I felt the first way might be better as you often get busy.

And if all you have to do is shoot the film and send it to me, it might be easier for you.

And I would get what I need when I need it.

Yours, Norm.

Is there any response from Al?

Well, here's another check.

Well, here's this is kind of where things change.

We'll get Al in a second.

One more from Norm to Al, September 10th, 79.

Dear Lil Al, I finally got information on the new promotion setups for the area.

The way things stand right now, I will not be able to buy more photos from you of Louisiana Wrestling,

but I'll buy the ones I agreed to on the phone last week.

Mid-South Wrestling is the new promotion in Louisiana and Mississippi.

I will be doing the programs for them, but they have picked out another photographer who they want to do all the photo work for that program.

Mr.

McGurk will continue to promote in Oklahoma, but as yet I have not made a deal with him to do the programs.

However, that is outside of your area.

I don't know how things will work out for the future, but that is the way they stand right now.

If there are any changes or any other projects where I can use material from you, I will let you know.

But as things stand right now, I will not be able to buy photos from you until there are some changes.

Norm.

And hold on here.

And the reason for that, for people whose heads are spinning with Norman's kindly tone,

when Watts took over from McGurk, Lil Al had been with the McGurk operation for years at that point, and he was probably

heavily loyal to the McGurk side.

And

Watts taking over Louisiana and Mississippi while McGurk still had Oklahoma, Arkansas, and part of Missouri.

wanted new people involved, didn't want a mole in the locker room.

But

if Norm had still wanted to

really do business with Lil Al, he was already going to Houston.

He was talking about Houston.

Houston at the time was affiliated with neither McGurk nor Watts.

So I wonder why that was not an option.

Possibly because somebody had nettled someone.

I have here a letter, a handwritten letter from Lil Al Vavasor.

It's stamped Lil Al's Photo Service, Al Vavasor, P.O.

Box 4,

five hundred forty two Avenue B, Port Allen, Louisiana, and the phone number

december second, nineteen seventy nine.

Hi, Norm.

As you will note, I write void on both tickets.

My failure, delay, and etcetera is your gain.

So he voided a couple of checks he got from Norman.

Note with three exclamation points.

I am trying an experiment.

I'll take two or three more weeks to complete.

If I'm successful, I will call you immediately.

I thought you might be able to use these in the meantime.

He sent some photos.

Do you still need only color slides for all your future photo needs?

Didn't he just get fired a minute ago?

Oh,

as per Grizzly Smith, words to me, didn't say Smiths, just Grizzly Smith words to me.

Tommy has taken over from me.

I spoke to Jack Curtis, and he told me, you said I was very slow, and you were not getting photos from me.

That is true, underlined in red.

I won't try to deny truth and facts.

But remember, I told you, I told Jack, and I pleaded with Grizzly for help and assistance to get photos I need.

All Grizzly wants to tell me, and this is a quote, the boys don't want me to sell their photos.

Aha!

Then it says in red ink in parentheses, who in the damn hell is the boys?

Now let me stop there for a second.

Have you been shooting photos for years around wrestling?

Is it crazy to you that he wouldn't know that terminology?

Well, yeah, of course.

And

I think he's saying it in terms of, well, who the hell are they?

Like, you know, I've been around here.

But the thing is,

the guys wanted to be in the magazines.

The guys wanted, especially in Bill After's magazines, because they were newsstand, they were national.

But the guys wanted to be in the magazines, and I didn't mind being in the programs most of the time.

But

in places where,

for example, I've Dundee every once in a while, I get pricklish because when I was doing my magazine that Norman Keitzer was printing for me and had had a picture of him along with the fabulous ones on the cover.

That was a picture that they weren't selling on the merchandise table.

That's why I put it on the magazine.

It would be exclusive.

But then Dundee and some guys would go, well, why would they buy the picture of me when they could get the picture of me and the other guys?

For, you know,

the guys didn't like that sometimes.

And

if they had, that's if they had the right to sell their own pictures in a place, or just the idea that maybe they thought this this guy, Lil Al

was making a fortune off of selling their pictures and they were pissy about it.

Driving around in his wrestling car, driving around in his red.

Maybe he called a little too much attention to himself, but maybe also it was just that

they were telling him whatever they were telling him because Watts wanted new fucking people.

He didn't want a McGurk mole in the locker room.

Let's go back to this: what Grizzly Smith was telling him.

He even remarked, I could not sell photos by mail anywhere if guys guys were in the area.

Now,

I was told that Buck Robley is also an owner of Mid-South with Watson Curtis and whoever.

There's three question marks there.

Well, Buck Robley at one time was the booker.

I don't know if it was during this particular period of time, but he was never an owner of any of the company, nor neither was Grizzly.

But also alerted to the fact that Grizzly probably won't be here very much longer.

I was told, here's a quote: hang in there, keep your mouth shut and ears open.

Well, now, and actually, is that when Grizzly got sideways with Watts and started booking for Jack Curtis in Mississippi?

In 79?

Was that about that time?

I don't know.

No, it would have been earlier.

It was 78, I think.

Would have been earlier.

Yeah.

So, so then Grizzly, well, when did he send him to book for Leroy?

When did he send him the book for Leroy McGurk?

Would it have been

maybe,

but was Leroy folded up?

Well, not by then.

No.

No.

Watts got the rest in, what, late 82, early 83.

Yeah.

Let's go back to this.

This is in bigger text than everything else.

Okay.

Three exclamation points.

I suspect.

that Grizzly Smith and Bill Watts are the two key people I need to overcome.

But

I don't know what is wrong or how to reach them to discuss a solution.

If you know, won't you please tell me, please underline.

I was told by someone that my ex-wife, Mike Fortune, the kid that worked for me, and or Tina, Siegfried Stanky's wife or girlfriend.

May have had something to do with my problems, especially Ethel and Tina.

Ethel and Tina.

Now, who would have thought that Ethel and Tina would have been involved in this?

Someone is locally trying, trying underlined in red, to reach Grizzly Smith and learn the truth and or problems.

It's written so poorly.

I'm sorry.

So, three exclamation points.

No wonder he just took the pictures and didn't write the stories.

If I succeed in my trial and experiment, will you be able to continue using color slides and whatever from me?

You can call me at night after 7 p.m.

or I can call you collect, you refuse, and call me back.

Waiting to hear from you soon.

Wait a minute.

That's even better.

I'll call you collect.

You refuse it, then call me back.

The fuck?

What kind of coke and dagging fucking bullshit is this anyway?

No wonder he liked dealing with me.

I just sent him fucking pictures.

I didn't engage him in any sociological experiments with Ethel and Tina.

I call you up, hang up the phone, and then call me back at a special number.

And then

say, give me the code number and knock three times.

And then say, wink, wink, nod, nod.

I'll know it's you.

And apparently with this,

he sent photos.

So that's the story there of Ethel.

Are any of these letters put together with clippings from a magazine like a ransom note?

Well, no, but if I go a little bit ahead, one last interesting thing I'll hit you with or a couple.

November 9th, 1983.

So four years later.

Dear Lil Al,

it was nice hearing from you by phone the other day.

I looked at your file and realized it had been four years since I've written you.

There have been a lot of changes since then.

And because by the way, At that point, around about the end of 1979 is when you stopped in any of the the magazines or when you stopped seeing Lil Owl photos, most of which were taken in front of a curtain that hung somewhere.

I never did find out where it was.

But this big stage curtain that he would take for years, everybody, it may have been in the downtown building in New Orleans with a good lighting setup.

I don't know, but go ahead.

Well, you know, let me stop for a second just because of that topic.

I mean, you never experienced it.

But the idea that you're a regular photographer and just all of a sudden shut out.

Now, obviously, it was a different promotion.

It was a change, but it was all the same people.

It wasn't like Watts started up with new people.

It was the same local promoters.

It was the same booker.

It was everything was the same.

It's a lot of the same talent.

Yeah.

Can you even imagine if one day you showed up and you were told you can't shoot and you can't sell any of your photos anymore?

Yeah, well, that would have been quite inconvenient.

And,

you know, that was the thing is that

in Tennessee, there was never any interruption in ownership or change in administration like that.

But in a lot of cases, in different territories, when things happen, things change like that, guys would get on the outs

or guys that were on the outs would get on the ins.

You know,

Dave McClain ended up Dick the Bruiser's son-in-law, right?

He was the photographer, one of the photographers.

No, it was Scott Romer.

I'm sorry.

I don't think I will lie.

Yeah, I don't think that would have worked out.

No,

Scott Romer was Bruiser's son-in-law.

I'm sorry.

But Scott Romer and Dave McClain were both the ringside photographers in Indianapolis.

And

honestly, about the time that

they got, you know, adults, because they were teenage wonders like myself, but their problem was that the whole territory went out of business about the time that they got to be adults and they had to freelance shoot for a lot of the national companies that would come through Indiana.

Scott went around the world.

Dave chose a different path with Glow or whatever.

But

anyway, yeah, you could be on the ins or you could be on the outs.

Let's go back to this November 93 or November 9th, 1983 letter from Norm Keitzer to Lil Al Vavasor.

We are still doing programs for the Mid-South Wrestling Association,

and also they are selling the Wrestling News magazine at their matches.

But, as I told you on the phone, I am no longer in charge of buying new photos from the Mid-South area.

They make the arrangements to obtain the photos and then send me what they want used as far as new material is concerned.

So I don't have a budget out of which I could buy new material.

I just thought I'd make that clear up front so that you were aware of that.

So you're not going to get fed out of the back of the meat wagon here.

As I told you on the phone, any and all arrangements for you to again be a photographer in that area would have to be made through the promotion, specifically Bill Watts.

And by the way, I can testify to what they were doing there because the Superdome programs from 1984 were printed by Norm Keitzer and the, you know, his company, Pro Wrestling Enterprises.

But in some cases, those programs that year,

I did some of the photography.

Uncredited, but they needed pictures, the new baby faces.

They needed fresh stuff of Hacksaw Duggan.

They needed the Rock and Roll Express.

They needed Terry Taylor.

So

I had my camera with me.

So we, a couple of days, I went out and shot Magnum on a motorcycle out in Alexandria, Louisiana, somewhere out in the woods where people couldn't see us together.

And I brought a backdrop and did the rock and roll and some of the other guys in Oklahoma City one afternoon.

And those ended up in the programs.

I hope things do work out for you.

But then, in any case, I've enclosed a copy of the most recent issues of my magazine, number 106, and the Mid-South program, number 86, to come off the press, which I hope you will find of interest.

Sincerely, Norman Keitzer.

And then finally.

You know, Norman writing these letters, how much free time must he have had for himself?

I just talked about 79 up.

I have, I mean, it's a giant stack, inches deep.

of Lil Al correspondence going back to the early 70s.

Finally, let's end with this one for from the files.

February 7th, 1988.

Ooh, dear Lil Al.

Nice talking with you on the phone today.

I guess it's been five years since I heard from you.

The most recent address I have for the promotions you asked about are:

Jim Crockett Promotions, 421 Briar Bend Drive, Charlotte, North Carolina, 28209,

Titan Sports, McMahon Promotions, 81 Holly Hill Lane, Greenwich, Connecticut, 06830.

And finally, Fred Ward Promotions.

Oh my God.

1028 Front Street, Columbus, Georgia, 31901.

I hope these addresses are still correct, as I have not had any recent direct dealings with any of those promotions.

I've also enclosed a copy of the wrestling news number 124, which is the most recent issue I did.

Norman.

So do you think Lil Al called him and said, hey, hey,

you think I can get a job with any of these other promotions?

Because Crockett was running Louisiana at that point.

Beyond the actual business of selling photos, and I'm assuming he did all right.

Is it something you can get addicted to?

The idea of shooting from ringside and being there in the middle of, you know, you're the only thing separating the fans and the wrestlers.

It's kind of, you're in that little...

zone where you could feel the heat.

You feel everything.

Well,

yes, I mean, that was, it was fun, and you got the best seat in the house.

But I think in this case, here, because,

like I said, Lil Al disappeared.

I don't know what he did for a regular living.

He may have been a regular photographer or do other things or whatever was going on with Ethel and Tina.

I don't know.

But if Norman Kaiser didn't hear from him for five years, and all of a sudden, he's asking for addresses for

Crockett, who at that time was on TBS and had just bought Mid-South and was running Louisiana, Vince, who was national,

and Fred Ward.

Because, well, I'm thinking that maybe Lil Al didn't keep up with all the goings on in wrestling.

And maybe he had been to, because Columbus, Georgia, if you were going to go from Louisiana to the Georgia Territory, you'd hit South Georgia, Macon and Columbus first.

Maybe he'd been up there before, worked for Fred Ward, but Fred Ward had been out of the business since 1983.

So

it sounds to me like he was trying to fall back on something if he was needing a part-time or a full-time job or whatever.

And he's seeing all the wrestling on

national TV and think, oh, shit, you know, maybe I could get somebody to actually pay me to do this.

But it doesn't sound like he was addicted or he would have been beating down everybody's door.

When I went to Louisiana, I thought, I'll finally see who this fucking little Al Vavasso is.

And he was never at a show, never

darkened the doorstep, didn't take photos, didn't introduce himself to anybody.

His name was never mentioned.

I blame Ethel.

I blame Tina.

Siegfried Stanky's Tina?

Were you ever around him, Siegfried Stenke?

Never met him.

Great name, but I never met him.

Well, here it is, Inside Mid-South Drama that you never knew you needed to hear about from the files.

More next time.

But, Jim, perhaps looking at the destruction this caused his business, maybe, who knows, perhaps there was a way to sue.

You know, that's the thing I'm thinking about.

It seems like Lil Al got the short end of the stick.

He got iggied out of his position.

It was wrongful termination.

It was all Tina and Ethel's fault.

And if this man had been involved, the truth would have come out.

If you need to,

news, to be new,

news, to be news, to be news, to be news, and outlawmod show or two

news.

Those are the rest.

Yes, that's right, ladies and gentlemen.

The only man that could have saved Lil Al Vavasur from a fate of obscurity, Stephen P.

New at newlawoffice.com, 87750 Steve, for wrongful damage, wrongful termination, wrongful poisoning of your air or atmosphere, wrongful damage to your bodies and minds, anything that anybody's done wrong to you.

Goddamn, just sue them.

It's very cathartic.

We'll have more on that in the months to come.

But in the meantime, Stephen P.

New at newlawoffice.com, 87750 Steve, can take you from the pit of despair and sadness and into the light and the pinnacle of triumph and glory and potential financial remuneration that will change your life in a manner in which you have never dreamed possible until you found the bulldog from West Virginia.

Stephen P.

New.

That's right.

NewlawOffice.com, 877-50 Steve.

Jim, let's get some questions before we get out of here.

This one was sent me of the Cult of Cornet Facebook group by J.P.

Schwartz.

Why is it that heels get to beat down baby faces without interruption?

Whereas whenever the tables are turned, agents and security swarm the scene to prevent it from happening.

Why, you ask?

Why?

Lazy booking.

It's a modern wrestling thing, and we've talked about it endlessly.

That sometimes guys will look crossways at each other, and one guy will maybe blow some snot in a guy's direction.

You got 15 security guards trying to pull them apart before they even get together.

But other times you have cattle mutilation taking place in the middle of the ring, and it's like the whole place is empty.

Nobody's trying to stop it.

It's not consistent.

That's my biggest problem.

It depends on

the company.

It depends on the producer.

It depends on the way it's written.

It depends on a lot of times what's convenient.

And

that's a drawback that I have a problem with is you got to have consistency and you got to create a sense of urgency.

And so the answer is that there is no good reason otherwise than it would

be boring and counterproductive.

the people don't want to see a heel get the shit kicked out of them by a babyface for 15 minutes straight because then you've

you've got your pop on seeing the heel beaten up and humiliated or he's gotten his medicine or he's gotten what fur

and then it gets old even with the best most entertaining heels just over and over just beating the shit out of the guy No, it doesn't work.

The heel needs to first build up enough heat on the babyface through one encounter or multiple encounters that people are waiting to see the babyface get even with him.

And then finally, in the match, he makes the comeback and he does in the end.

So there's more of the heel beating on the babyface than there is the babyface beating on the heel.

But still,

like I said, there's that loophole and the consistency should be tightened up, but it depends on the

presentation.

Does that make any sense, Brian?

It makes sense.

I'll say the the other thing about these segments I don't like.

It's one thing the wrestlers as agents, and it just, it took me forever to realize I was Pete Williams on WWE TV for so long.

I was like, did Pat Buck dye his hair black?

What is that?

It's Pete Williams.

I didn't even know.

I hate the modern, it's not really totally modern, but lately it just looks so bad to me.

Wrestling students, local wrestlers as security guards.

Who go out and hold their hands up and their mouths open.

Stop.

I can't stand that.

It's the worst.

And I mean, other than having Tiffany Stratton land on their head, like happened the other night, I don't understand why they can't just get better people for that.

Well, and that's the thing also is

whether people like it or not, once again, not being stuck in the past, in the territory days,

your security was legitimate fucking cops that people knew were cops because they saw them every fucking week.

And if you got the security in an angle, then they were willing to work with you.

Then the people believed it because it was legitimate police doing this stuff but they didn't just

no territory transported six or eight trainees around just to slap shirts on them and send them out to get beat up as fake security and that's why that

you know people don't believe any of that anymore i mean it adds to the confusion and the chaos and the it gives a nice soft pile for somebody to dive into, but nobody believes these people are actually trying to separate this thing.

i've got videotape of the cops in louisville trying to separate some it it looked more real than this stuff does

our next question sent via the cult of cornet facebook group was sent by mark machowski if i'm pronouncing that correctly

i live in northeastern pennsylvania And over the years, I've heard about WWE having television in Hamburg and Allentown being a popular location for wrestlers in the 80s.

Why were these areas such a big deal?

Was it because of the proximity to New York?

Today, the only major thing in Hamburg is Cabela's.

So, I'd like to know more about the history of wrestling in these areas before it's lost to me.

Well, that

at the time, they were still, the WWF being they, was still doing the majority of their television post-production in Baltimore.

That's Kevin Dunn and Kevin Dunn's father.

And they had

a place down there.

What did they call it?

What was the name of the company?

They did their post-production.

Intermediate?

But yes, say again.

Was it intermediate or am I thinking of something else?

No, you're thinking of something else.

It was, it wasn't Studio One

or whatever the fuck it was.

Point being, that's where Kevin Dunne, that's where Kevin Dunne's father came from.

They were based in Baltimore.

And they did a lot of the post-production.

I think they shot the early Tuesday Night Titans at a studio down in Baltimore where they were doing that stuff.

But point being,

yes, Hamburg and Allentown were close to the New York metropolitan area, but also not far from Baltimore.

It was convenient for the office staff, for the production crew

to get to.

But what they were looking for was something that you didn't readily find in anywhere around the New York metropolitan area and wasn't a lot of in maryland was those two cities had two buildings the hamburg field house and what was it the ag hall in allentown yeah that's right that you could have a wrestling show where you could get the tv equipment in and the lights and you could seat 2 000 people Maybe it's 2,500.

I'm not trying to shortchange them.

Maybe it was 1,500.

I'm not trying to exaggerate.

But it was a small building.

It'd always be full.

They could do it once a month.

Those towns are close together, so they do one one night, one the next night.

And they would have both of their syndicated TV shows in the can for the next four weeks after those two days in Pennsylvania close together.

And the guys would stay at that motel in Allentown that Snooka made famous.

And that's why it was done there.

It wasn't like these were,

I mean, they were good good towns for wrestling because they supported the taping, but it wasn't like, oh my God, we got to go to these two towns.

It was like, hey, we found two towns close together with affordable buildings that'll look good on TV.

And it's close for everybody to get to.

And that's what they did for years and years when they went out of the,

you know, the television studio system and the previous manners of taping that they did.

They set that up when Vince started going national.

Or before, actually.

It was before that Vince Sr.

set those up in what, the late 70s.

That's right.

Philadelphia was one of the towns too early on.

And then they moved to just Hamburg and Allentown.

And then in 80.

They would tape it at the Philadelphia Arena, not the Spectrum, right?

But the smaller building in town.

That's right.

And then they moved it eventually out of there in 84 as the national expansion took place.

That was the end of Joe McHugh as your ring announcer.

And I'm your ring announcer, Joe McHugh.

All right, Jim, let's get another question here.

This

was sent via email to corney drivethru at gmail.com.

Boy, this is a long one.

Sent by Seth from Long Island.

I've heard of the seven-year rule, which was coined by Jim himself.

The premise of this rule is that after seven years, it is acceptable to reuse gimmicks or storylines due to there having been a turnover in the fan base by that time.

Is that the correct way to put it, Jim?

Kind of.

And I say I was somewhat

being facetious when I said that.

You know, oh, seven years, it doesn't have to be that long.

It could be quicker.

It could be longer.

It depends on who did it first and how well they did it.

But there is some element of turnover and at least some dimming of memory.

So

even in the same place, you can repeat stuff after it's been a while.

And,

you know,

it might have a chance of flying.

I guess he wants to know his opinion about that.

He has an article he attached here.

I asked this question because in the era of streaming and social media, where it is easier than ever to search for different wrestling clips of the drop of a hat with YouTube, Netflix, Peacock, etc.,

it seems easier to have some fans go, oh, hey, this reminds me of such and such, complete with a clip of it, even though newer viewers would have never seen that story or angle when it initially took place.

As a viewer of NXT, one specific example for me is whenever I see people say, oh, this is Sean Michaels using his greatest hits for a moment or story, even though the moments in question, the barbershop window, lost my smile, etc.,

were well over the seven-year rule.

Sean himself even addressed that at the NXT press conference two years ago.

Here's a quote.

Some of them,

clearly, complete rip-off.

We're using them because we thought they were good.

Nothing thrills me more than that.

This stuff is 30 years old and people go, oh, it's the same.

I'm fortunate that we have a fan base that remembers that far, but we're also appealing to a whole new fan base.

They're still moving.

They're still impactful.

They're still memorable storylines.

Well, I'll end it there.

He goes on a little bit more and he has another article here.

But again, what is it like now?

When you first said that, I think it probably was in the 90s,

which was a different.

No, no, it was more, it was more recent than that but it was still quite a while back but

that's a

with national television

that was the first problem with trying to do angles that have been done other places because

again in the territory days it was regional television and the wrestling business was built on top stars going from territory to territory

And when they would get to a new territory, they would be working.

If they were your main event guy, they'd be working with the new booker.

They'd want to draw money.

They'd say, hey,

I did this angle with so-and-so in Portland.

It could work here in Charlotte.

Or, hey, you know, Wahoo McDaniel was

great for recommending guys he had worked with to come in and do something with him or other.

That's how Wahoo recommended Ric Flair to George Scott and the Carolinas.

But Wahoo and Valentine would go from place to place and do their shit because

the people had not seen it in a new territory.

It had been regional television.

So those angles amongst the same people done the same way could still make money in a variety of places.

Now, when you get national television,

that has somewhat changed.

But you can also

do angles.

previous that have been done previously that work but with new little twists to to tailor them to the the guys that are doing it.

You don't have to cut the promo the exact same way if you get the point across.

You don't have to do the physicality the exact same way.

If the

main focus of the angle, the injury angle, whether pillmanizing the leg on the chair or hanging somebody from the neck with a goddamn cable or whatever is there, it can be gone into or it can be fleshed out in a different fashion.

So you, but you still,

there's only so many things that the human being can do to another human being and then put it in the context of wrestling.

It makes it even harder.

That's why so many times you see angles that aren't in the context of wrestling and people just go bullshit and tune it out out of hand, except for the

ironic wrestling crowd.

But there's still plenty of old deals that you can tweak and that you can.

And like Dusty said one time, he gave me a finish in Greensboro for the Midnight Express to work with, I think it was the Road Warriors.

And I said, well, we just did that finish last month with the Rock and Roll Express.

He said, they won't notice, kid, it's different people.

Well, they would have kind of noticed because this was a fluke finish.

But if you do the same concept of something, but it's done by different people in a different building that each have their personal spin to put on the main point,

you can still disguise it and use the flavor of what was done before.

You know,

you don't have to be in the Georgia TV studio for the babyface to say, How did you know I had four flat tires?

Or whatever the fuck.

Although, you know, I'm sorry, I was long-winded.

Although certain things work better in the studio setting just because of the close proximity of the fans and the reaction you would get.

Well, yes.

I mean, I was just being, I was being a smart Alec, but you know, there's all kinds of different ways that you can come to the punchline when you're telling a story.

Well, Jim, our next question sent via the Cult of Cornet Facebook group by Rob Schwartz.

What are the most unusual items you've seen thrown by fans at wrestlers?

I made a list a couple of years ago for that dark side of the ring, ring, the tales from the territories series that they branched off on.

I mean, just speaking for myself,

shoes,

Vaseline jars, batteries.

I mentioned that I've been vomited on before.

I don't know whether it was thrown

like from the guy's hand in some kind of container or just came directly from the source.

You've seen literally, again, everything

at one point or another I have seen that's been sold at a wrestling match or is in the environment has been thrown.

I've got a picture that I took at the gardens of Jerry Lawler getting heat on Ken Lucas, and there's blood dripping off of both of them.

And right coming down right toward Lawler's head, somebody had thrown a big 16-ounce soft drink cup.

And since my shutter speed was so quick, I caught it.

You could read louisville gardens on the side of the cup right before it hits his head oh man

that's why they had to quit

years ago for wrestling matches really all sporting events but wrestling matches nobody sells a drink in a glass bottle anymore but they used to you go back in the 40s and 50s and you see accounts of wrestling matches where talent and or spectators were laid open or sent to the hospital by somebody throwing a beer bottle that they bought in the building.

In Boston, one time,

well, not one time, but at one period, they literally put like some kind of fishing net

over the ring because the people were throwing so much shit, the net would catch it before it landed in the ring and bean somebody.

And that's where they put in the cattle shoot at the old Boston garden for the guys to go to the ring after the guy jumped in the ring and

stabbed Black Jack Mulligan for 200 stitches stitches worth when he was wrestling Pedro Morales.

So, I mean, anything that could be pulled out of a woman's purse,

you know, perfume, anything they think that pickles, I say people throw fucking pickles.

They threw tennis balls at me and the Midnight Express in Boone, North Carolina, one.

And it was a planned thing at the college up there.

Because it wasn't like two or three people threw two or three balls.

It was literally they'd bought dozens and dozens and they they were raining

but yeah i was

i have a woman threw her shoe at me one night i picked it up and threw it under the ring she had to limp out one-footed

seriously but they they lose control of themselves

although not although not thrown by a fan i guess the craziest thing a wrestler threw was a woman in a wheelchair Yes, Bruiser in Cincinnati threw a wheelchair at another fan that was attacking him.

And as the story goes, there was a woman sitting in it at the time.

There was a lawsuit over that

oh

it was like 1961 or whatever at the cincinnati gardens can you see bruiser telling barnett barnett go dank what in the world well i didn't see her there i just picked up the chair see like when you hear about these old riots i just wish i had a seat in the balcony to just sit there and watch like the tornadoes

It must have been amazing to watch it.

Being in the middle of them was not any fun at all.

And you couldn't even get a good view.

You were just, you were in the, in the eye of the storm.

But I was in Atlanta in the Omni when they turned on Dusty in the cage in 1980.

And thankfully, I was sitting up in the seats.

And that was

an item to behold with all the cops outside trying to keep all those people back and the people trying to get up on the cage.

And they couldn't tell which ones were the.

boys that had run out to make the save and which ones were the fans that were trying to make the save for real.

and uh

there was a a bunch of them and the louisville stuff you know it was nice to sit back and watch but you didn't want to be in the middle of it but they would throw anything

that including chairs as we've seen from the cleveland riot footage and ecw and uh

but in more vintage fashion ecw was more

fiend all the time it wasn't about heat or anything it was just like hey let's all throw chairs and who cares if anyone gets hurt it was also the the wrestler asked it was terry fugges give me a chair and they they gave him 200.

But no, back when they were throwing chairs in the ring because they were mad and you didn't want the chairs in the ring, that was a little more disturbing.

But they'd throw anything that you could have in a woman's purse, in a man's pocket, that wasn't nailed down.

That was the Beckley lawsuit that we had, where

whoever it was that threw it threw an entire four-foot wooden arrow-shaped owl marker, section D, in like a fucking spear, like a javelin.

And there was a, I stood up one time on the ropes when we got introduced, and somebody threw a balled up cup of ice, hit me right on the head of the dick.

Dick Murdoch one night was in the ring, was supposed to get dropkicked in the back and take a bump over the top rope.

Somebody threw a big cup of ice, hit him in the back.

He took a bump over the top from the cup of ice.

I don't know why, but the beginning of the Coliseum Home video, like the original series series of WWF videos, they had like a montage to that song.

And they had, I think, Tito Santana had.

No, Mike Rotunda had Iron Cheek or Nikolai Volkov in an airplane spin.

Dick Kroll, the giant referee, stand in the air.

The clip they show, someone pegs him in the head with something.

So for the second you see the airplane spin, you see the ball bounce off Dick Kroll's head.

But yeah, that was the occupational hazard.

It

fruit or nuts or or

again, pickles.

Pickles was because they're, you know, they used to sell the pickles on a stick back in the old days in the arena.

The old pickle on a stick.

Yes, down south they did.

Let's get another question here.

We got a little more time and then we got to get out of here.

Songs return next week, by the way.

I see we have a new submission from Rocky the Ramon, so that'll kick off in a new era of songs.

Send in your submissions.

Corney drivethrough at gmail.com.

No songs by Al.

That's right.

No AI, please.

And if you want your song to actually be used on the show in some capacity, it's always best to have something original or something that is clearly a parody.

Let's now get a couple more questions.

Jim, this was sent via the Calls of Cornet Facebook group by Alex Beasy Bally.

My dad, Mike Anthony, wrestled for Windy City Pro Wrestling in Chicago from the early 1990s until the early 2000s.

Okay, wait a minute.

I was thinking thinking it was the Van Halen guy, but I remember Mike Anthony at Windy City,

if my memory serves me correctly.

And he got called in to be enhancement talent a few times on WWE-TV.

Does Jim know who scouted the Midwest area looking for talent at that time?

And does Jim know about Windy City Wrestling that were around in the 80s to the mid-2000s era?

I thought they were still around, actually.

I didn't know that they weren't.

Well, I think in its original incarnation, Sam DeCero was the promoter of Windy City Wrestling.

And

again, when Vern and the AWA pretty much, you know, abandoned live events and they were just doing the TV tapings that they had on ESPN and running closer to home, Chicago, the greatest wrestling city in North America for 100 years, was sitting there.

And wrestling was still so popular and so over in town that Wendy City Wrestling got a local TV show.

I'm not even sure whether it's on broadcast, but a local independent station, if that.

And they would bring in a few names, but they had local talent from the Midwest also.

And this started way before

the other independents started.

This was like, we said maybe 89-ish and through the early 90s.

And they had shows where they would draw a couple thousand people.

And Wendy City,

it was WCPW, Windy City Pro Wrestling,

because

Wendy City Wrestling and WCW were confusingly similar.

But Sam DeSiro was the promoter.

He had wrestled as,

god damn it, I think he had like a Road Warriors-type gimmick, but they lasted for quite a while.

And

to answer the question about who was scouting, that would have been me

because that's Chris Daniels was from that same part of the country.

Jerry Lynn was from Minnesota.

He was starting right about that time.

And I'm trying to think with Chris Daniels also, Mike Anthony, and boy howdy.

Adam Pierce came along a little bit later.

But there was another guy or two, Steve Boz.

Steve Boz, I think, was part of that crowd.

I used to get them booked a lot

for enhancement talent when we did TV up there.

But they had a number of local guys that went on to some notoriety our next question was sent me at the cult of cornet facebook group by steve eckart

what is jim's favorite barbecue joint

uh

where in the world or various places um

here in louisville love the feed store Mark's feed store has several locations, but I used to go to the original one when I was a kid kid, and it was actually a feed store.

They sold bales of hay for the farm animals and sacks of feed and grain.

And it took me a while to go to the feed store as a restaurant because I remembered what it smelled like as a feed store, but quaint building.

There's also another barbecue place here in Louisville now called Martin's Barbecue.

I love the smoked wings, the hush puppies, the best in the world, and the comeback sauce.

Make you want to come back.

Whereas at the feed store, they've got the best burgoo in town and the fried lemon pepper fish dinner is off the fucking charts.

In Memphis,

one is no longer there.

There used to be a place called Gridley's.

And me and Bobby and Dennis or Bobby and Stan, whenever we would go back to Memphis, for Crockett or, you know, TBS or whatever, first thing we'd do when we get off the plane is we'd head to Gridley's.

And they had incredible barbecue.

And I love this.

They would bring you a little iron skillet with these mushrooms in it with cheese on top of them.

And oh my God.

And they had

waiters that looked like they were dressed like the old plantation waiters.

And

at some point,

after like 1991, when I stopped going to Memphis, I came back.

seven or eight years later and Gridley's had gone out of business.

But there is the home of the rendezvous,

which is not the best barbecue in the world, but for the ambiance and the location and all the things they have on the walls, it's a tourist thing in Memphis.

You got to see it.

But Corky's in Memphis has incredible fucking smoked wings, and they got some great shit there.

And then

you spread out around the country.

But that's enough to start on, isn't it?

I think that's enough to start on, and maybe that's enough to end on with that.

The drive-thru is closed.

Where is...

Now I'm hungry.

Remember, Factor, if you're hungry.

I wonder if

they've got keto and they've got chef's choice.

I wonder if they got barbecue.

Well, we'll find out what decision Jim makes on the experience in a few days.

And of course, next week, right back here in the drive-thru, the official.

Jim Cornette YouTube channel.

Just go to YouTube and search for Jim Cornette.

Someone's banging upstairs.

Go to YouTube, the official Jim Cornette YouTube channel.

Patreon.com slash Cornet.

Go through the archives, $5 a month.

Patreon.com slash Cornette.

We know there's a lot of shows that are not currently online anywhere.

Stay tuned.

We have things we're working on right now that'll be taken care of soon enough.

Cornet's collecting.

We're trying to fix it in the most efficient manner so everybody can hear everything.

That's right.

And we're adding a lot of people to our team, a lot of the right people.

But Cornett's Collectibles at jimcornet.com.

What's going on, Jim?

Well, I've got nobody banging upstairs.

They're getting banged downstairs.

I'm kicking the feather bottoms in the ass, and they are sending out the behind-the-curtain graphic novels on sale this month, the month of March for 1995.

If you order any action figure of anybody, me or the Midnight Express or the Heavenly Bodies, you get a free two-hour classic wrestling DVD.

And more news will be coming up about some wonderful vintage memorabilia items and more more in the months of April and May.

JimCornet.com.

That's right at jimcornet.com.

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Until the experience in a few days, and next week, back here on the drive-thru for Jim Cornette, I'm the great Brian Last, Tallyho.