Episode 382: Jim Reviews Elimination Chamber

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The microphone fell.

There we go.

Hello again, friends.

The microphone is up and you are our friends.

Welcome back to another edition of Jim Cornette's drive-thru right here on another sunshiny day as we get ready for the spring.

We're going to spring into wrestling action.

I don't hear a chuckle.

I don't hear anything.

I don't know if he's breathing right now, but here he is.

I think I said my name already.

The leader of the cult of Cornet, the star of the show, Mr.

Jim Cornet.

I just want to get that out of the way, Brian.

Right at the start, at the top of the program, that is the sound

of a human being that has watched hours upon hours upon hours of WWE wrestling.

Here over the last very short period of time, the big Elimination Chamber weekend.

You know, SmackDown's three hours now.

Elimination Chamber was about, what, about a day and a half.

No, that was about three and a half hours.

Raw's just, Raw can be anything.

They could do a Raw marathon.

Bring Jerry Lewis back to host it.

Get people to fucking donate money.

If you donate enough money, we'll stop this program.

Are you there now?

Are you my friend?

I'm listening to whatever you're upset about now.

Well, it's just, it's, you know,

it's just hours and hours and hours and hours.

And then there's hours of the other stuff.

No wonder nobody's watching the other stuff.

They don't have time.

Do people have jobs these days?

Do they go to school?

Do they have families?

It is going to be weird.

Like a weird feeling going from the elimination chamber, all the buzz coming out of it, raw, to I was about to say to nitro, to dynamite this week.

Just the completely different feel, the darkness, the lack of star power.

It's like two different worlds now.

It's not even like they're in the same category.

And that's a good thing, maybe, for AEW.

You don't want comparison to WWE.

You kind of want to have your own thing, but you also have to build that somehow.

Well, they got a pay-per-view now this weekend, don't they?

Sons of bitches.

Revolution.

Number nine.

You say you want a revolution?

And I say, no, I don't.

No.

No,

we never said that.

It was basically told to us that we were going to get it, whether we like it or not.

So, but, but yeah, we're going to talk about all the stuff that I watched on the show today and much more.

And I guess next week at some point on one of these programs, we'll be talking about that.

You know what else this weekend is, don't you?

Don't worry about the paper.

You know, that you have to spend $50

for an AEW pay-per-view where you're going to watch four hours of nonstop fucking chaos

and just endless repetitive nonsense.

Or

you can spend, what does a movie ticket cost these days, Brian?

I didn't actually pay to get into the world premiere of my movie.

I hate to reveal that I was.

mooching off of the theater, but I didn't, I didn't, so but a movie ticket, $12 maybe

something like that these days.

Yeah, maybe.

I'd say 50 if you want to get a popcorn.

Oh, come on, goobers and uh, milk duds.

What about a raisinette?

That might have been.

But no,

instead of spending $50 on a pay-per-view with all that nonsense, you can spend a mere pittance, whatever it is, to go to the movies these days.

You can tell I'm a sociable character and see the queen of the ring in a small starring role.

Why didn't they credit me also starring

or special guest appearance by?

Now, see, I should have negotiated better.

But nevertheless, I'm lobbying with the Academy of Arts and Sciences

because what I did wasn't a science, but it might have been some kind of art.

And I'm going to get some kind of recognition at next year's Oscar.

See, I'm afraid that this is coming out now right after the Oscar ceremony.

People will have time to forget about my brilliant debut performance by the time of next year's honorariums roll around.

But anyway, Queen of the Ring at a theater near you on March the 7th.

So,

people, either right now or soon after, or

a day ago, or whenever this thing comes out,

you got to rush and flock and cheer for me when I appear on screen.

I'm expecting that's going to be another groundswell of support across America, Brian, like the rock.

People are going to get goosebumps when they see me on the screen and they're going to burst into spontaneous, not combustion, but applause.

Applause is what I'm going for.

I want the adulation.

You know, we're going to find out he had those goosebumps surgically implanted

or something.

No, he's got some kind of fucking electric sex toy from Denmark stuck in between his taint and his balls.

And whenever he wants to, he just hits it and

this is all the buildup to his new psoriasis cream or whatever the fuck he's doing.

Yeah, yeah.

If you got the heartbreak of rock siasis, I'm sorry.

Have you thought about going to the theater, standing in the back of the room, and just watching the reaction to your appearance?

Well, I just did at the premiere.

I wasn't in the back of the room.

They knew you were there.

They knew you were there.

You didn't get the true reaction.

No, I snuck in in the dark.

See, like, you know, I had sunglasses on because I wear my sunglasses at night so I can, so I can.

But I got the biggest laugh of the, did I tell you this?

I got the biggest fucking pop laugh of them because it's not a comedy.

So it's not like it was hard to get the biggest laugh, but I got the biggest laugh.

Did I tell you about this?

No, you did not.

Well, I don't want to spoil anything for people that haven't seen the flick,

but

how can I say this just to give people a impart the general idea?

In one of the scenes that I am in, we mentioned when we talked talked to Ash Abelson, who was the director and wrote the screenplay,

he's a one-man band.

He's got a record company, I think a comic book company, and he plays another small but pivotal role in this.

But now, don't think he

put himself in because he was the booker, because his role is smaller than mine in his own movie.

So

he was very, you know, he was spread it around.

But when I introduce Mildred Burke to the character that Ash Abelson plays in the movie, I won't tell you what the character he plays is.

You got to wait and see it.

But that's what gets the pop from the audience.

It's, it's, it's, it's fun.

See, I can't really explain it without blowing it, but it's funny who Ash is playing.

Let's just put it that way.

So I got no finish for this bit.

You drug it out of me.

That was a great story, a really funny moment.

And of course, you can see what it is.

A hilarious moment.

Yeah.

Queen of the Ring.

They were rolling in the aisles, Brian.

But yes, Queen of the Ring at a theater near you.

And soon to be nominated for next year's Academy Awards for at least my performance.

And the red and Camille was great, too.

In all honesty, now, not like I haven't been being honest, but even more honestly, she was fucking great

as acting-wise for somebody who's not ever been in a movie movie or acted before.

That's what I was going to ask you.

I obviously haven't seen the movie yet, but like someone like Camille, who's playing a pivotal role, how much of that role is just in ring and how much of it is actually, you know, she did scenes and there's dialogue, etc.

Yo, she has dialogue.

Yes.

And that's, I mean, a lot of

her scenes are, well, a lot of

there's more of Camille wrestling than there is anybody else in the film because she was kind of the best wrestler of anybody in the film and had the biggest part in terms of that respect.

But

she

has a bunch of dialogue and has to have various emotions and say things and all the things that the actors do.

And she's very, very accomplished at that.

It's, you know, boy, somebody ought to take this six-foot, whatever, tall, statuesque, muscular, athletic, well-rounded

actress that is currently starring in a movie that's opening across the country and later the world and

use them in their wrestling company somehow.

Hmm.

Now that you saw the finished product, could you even envision Charlotte Flair in that role?

Or did Camille nail it?

It's impossible to like, you would have seen Charlotte, you wouldn't have seen the character.

That's the thing that I was, and I said that to Ash when we talked to him, I think, in retrospect, for a wider audience, because

there were not,

at least in the theater that I was in, there were two showings of the thing,

but it wasn't like a predominantly wrestling fan audience.

There were many people there that didn't know anything about the wrestling business per se, but

I think

you would see Charlotte.

And Camille maybe just fits this better because she's

not as

the statuesque statueque.

Hey,

ladies, statuesque.

She's a lady,

but she's she's not as statuesque and aloof and an ice queen as Charlotte is.

And

I think Charlotte also, for a period piece,

you know, the 40s and 50s, she doesn't look like I'd have to see her in some kind of makeup to put her in the 40s or 50s.

I don't know how they'd do that.

She seems a more modern lass.

But anyway.

Well, there it is, Queen of the Ring.

And of course, I think if you're watching wrestling, you are probably seeing a lot of commercials on Netflix.

They had commercials for Queen of the Ring during Raw this week.

I've seen them on, I think, AEW-TV.

I think I saw them on the CW for NXT.

So

they've got an advertising budget.

Words getting around.

And again, a lot of the non-wrestling

fan media, the regular people, the regular folks out there in society, they seem to be liking it as a movie.

So I'm heartened by that.

I understand he's already working on the follow-up about Tom Burke.

Actually,

we're going to find out in that one that Tom was the illegitimate son of Mildred Burke and Billy Wolf when they were working in Massachusetts and they left him on the doorstep of an orphanage.

But anyway, Brian, you know what people are going to have to do now?

Because now that I'm a movie star too,

they're going to have to take advantage of the March sale at jimcornet.com and get some of the fine cornets collectibles before I start raising the prices because I got to charge more for my autographs.

Because once that, as a matter of fact, next week I'm going out and putting my handprints and footprints in cement out in front of Graham and Chinese theater.

I figured

I've had somebody looking at the place, and between four and five in the morning, there's generally nobody on the street, and he can use that quick drying shit, and we can be in and out of there.

So,

anyway, the point is before I have to raise the prices, because when I sign something, it will turn into something as good as the golden Fort Knox.

Take advantage of what's going on this month, which is

if you go to jimcornet.com and buy any action figure, whether it be one of mine or one of the Midnight Express or the heavenly bodies, the tag team sets, any action figure, you get a free two-hour classic wrestling DVD of the 70s and 80s from the Wrestling Gold series.

And

for the next, well, however many days there is in March, till end of March,

the Behind the Curtain graphic novel on sale only $19.95 and can be personally autographed.

That's $5 off the normal price.

So you can look at my award-winning graphic novel before the lights go down in the theater and my face pops up on a silver screen.

And then on the way home, you can listen to our podcast until you tuck yourself in bed on your helix mattress

after having consumed a variety of the products that we recommend to you.

And you can say, I need some more Jim Cornette in my life because it's never enough.

JimCornet.com.

That's right.

JimCornet.com, home of the Featherbottoms.

Check it out today.

La Jim, we have a big show.

We have a big review, The Elimination Chamber, maybe the most in-demand review from the listeners we've had in quite a while.

We also have the Rocks Press Conference.

That's quite the show as well.

Why don't we get a topic or two before we go anywhere, before we travel through time?

And if there are any audio issues in another part of the show, it's due to the time travel, due to circuits getting crossed.

Jim,

this was posted in the Cult of Cornet Facebook group, and I wanted to get your thoughts on it.

Oh, boy.

Antonio Santos, a member of the Cult of Cornet, posted this.

He wrote, well, that escalated.

Christopher Cruz, Chris B.

Cruz

posted something.

Did you see this?

Well, now, wait, hold on.

Hold on now.

Just back up.

Not Chris Cruz the announcer is what you're saying.

No, I'm saying it is Chris Cruz the announcer.

It is, is Chris.

I thought you said Chris Crisby Cruz.

I thought it was somebody taking off on his name.

No, well, it's Christopher Cruz.

It's using his

full Christian name, I presume.

Here's what he said.

I see Alex Luger is continuing on his never-ending redemption tour.

He's a nice, approachable guy now, always ready to meet the fans and talk about his prime.

Nice big smile.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, people can change.

Turn the page, turn over a new leaf, find God, G-A-W-D.

Hard to tell if any conversion is real, but he's been at it a while.

So I guess we should take him at his word.

And he's in very tough physical shape.

So we should have some sympathy for him.

But let's not forget: this is a guy who never liked pro wrestling, didn't like other pro wrestlers, didn't like the fans, and was a condescending asshole.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

One time when I was hosting WCW Worldwide.

Wait, wait, hold on.

Are we sure this is

well, he said hosting WCW Worldwide?

That's Chris Cruz, the announcement.

I mean,

I'm wondering why he picked now to just come out and start cussing poor old Lex Luger,

who has,

as he said, had his trials and tribulations physically.

And the last.

Geez, I don't know how many years I've seen him.

He's always had a smile on his face and being nice to everybody.

But go on.

I'm sorry to interrupt this fucking character assassination.

I think he has been in the news a little bit, or at least on social media, because he's working with DDP.

So, DDP, of course, only works with people if he can film them and exploit them.

But no, he was working with Alex Luger, helping him stand up and be able to do stuff.

So we saw some video of it.

That's the only thing I've seen with Luger in a world.

So, Chris Cruz, again, who's shitting Chris Cruz's post-hosties

The poor guy is on video being able to stand.

And he's figured this was a good time to say, well, it's great he can stand up by himself, but I'd like to remind you what a fucking asshole he was.

Tell me more.

One time when I was hosting WCW Worldwide, a ring announcer had gotten fired.

And Jim Hurd asked if I would go on the road for a bit.

I readily agreed and ended up having a lot of fun.

The fans in the small towns popped when I walked out and it was quite an ego boost.

Oh, excuse me.

I missed the sentence.

When I walked out to the ring because they had been watching me on TV and had no idea I was going to be there, it was quite an ego boost.

So I began to announce the talent as.

Hold on.

I got to be honest with you.

I was there for a while with Chris Cruz, not long.

It was toward the end of the WCW administration there and I working together, but I don't remember.

Nobody was throwing rotten tomatoes at him, but I don't remember Chris Cruz getting a lot of pops, except maybe sometimes he was hosting the show, I think, with Terry Funk.

Now, Terry may have been looming behind him.

There might have been a small smattering of applause in those situations, but I don't remember Chris getting pops at the house shows.

But go ahead.

Well, no, but to be fair, I think.

If I was a kid going to a wrestling show and all of a sudden Mean Gene, not to compare him to Mean Gene, but just someone from TV, if gorilla monsoon went not to compare him to gorilla i can't compare him to anyone but if any of the commentators i was watching on tv just walked out to suddenly been the ring announcer it may get a oh wow look who it is and a few other people okay okay but remember this was wcw in 1990 house shows there were 700 people total in the crowds how many of them were under eight well let me go back to this so I began to announce the talent as they entered the ring, like they do at the TV tapings.

But I didn't know that at live events you waited until they were in the ring and then introduced them.

In comes Luger with a sour look on his face.

He brushes past me in the ring and tells me I'm doing it the wrong way.

What a stupid fuck I am.

How the fuck did I get the job?

You're supposed to wait until we get into the ring to announce us, you idiot.

He did it quickly and no one outside the ring could hear him.

This is just one example of the complete asshole he was to many of the behind the scenes people in WCW and the no power announcers like me.

And as we know,

hold on, pause there so we don't lose this thread of thought.

Luger was right also, because that was a thing they started doing on WCW-TV because they did it that way on WWF television.

But they would announce the guy as he would, either as he would come through the curtain or right before he would come through the curtain.

And I always hate it in a center stage or whatever, it may be fine, but in an arena,

it diminishes the guy's pop instead of boom when the music plays.

And here it kind of comes down the aisle, but in the arena, you wait till he gets up into the ring where everybody can see him, and then you announce him.

And the guy can fucking hoot around by the time he gets to the ring.

If you've announced him coming through the curtain, he can raise his arms and fucking gesticulate about, but there's nobody screaming, Lex Luger, or whatever.

So it's flatter.

But

the agent that night should have told Chris Cruz what was going on beforehand.

But that's one of the minor cussings I've ever heard in the wrestling business.

If he's been carrying that for 35 fucking years.

And as we know, he was also a steroid abuser abuser and cheater.

And an absent father.

He cheat on fucking crews.

And an absent father.

I also heard that for about 10 years, all he ate was grilled chicken and rice.

Wait, no, he didn't really write that.

He wrote that.

It's in parentheses.

That is the only thing in parentheses in this whole thing, for whatever.

I also heard that.

I'm going to say some awful things about him.

and then in the middle.

I'm going to tell people he eats chicken and fucking rice.

That'll show him that no good, dirty chicken, rice-eating motherfucker.

Oh my God.

He's an abuser, a cheater, an absent father, and he eats chicken and rice.

So let's applaud this guy for making a change.

But let's not forget that he was one big fucking bag of dicks for the longest time.

so jim

i guess so what are your thoughts on uh someone finding redemption

oh my god

you're chicken and rice

um

no i've i've i have no chris cruise that i've worked with chris cruise

and and senator you're not no um

i did a thing like like 10 years ago in Tennessee with Chris Cruz announcing for their, in the Roy, the Herb Welch WrestlePlex in Dyersburg, Tennessee.

And Crispy has always been a

stern and quick-witted type of fellow.

But I, I, you know,

I mean, there have been people who have literally broken motherfuckers' necks and that the broken neck E didn't didn't hold as much of a grudge as fucking cruise must hold against lex for cussing him out about the ring announcement

how

how bad was lex i mean beyond chris cruise back in those days let's say between 87 and 90

well again you know i don't know if he was i've never witnessed him routinely yelling at crew members at tv tapings or whatever we've said before,

Lex was not comfortable.

He didn't grow up a lifelong fan.

He was uncomfortable as a baby face trying to force it.

He didn't connect with people that way.

He was a more natural heel.

And by what,

89 or 90, when they'd switched him heel and he'd worked with Horseman in ring.

That version of Lex Luger today would probably be one of the stunningly great workers in the business.

If anybody anybody wants to go back and look, you know, to compare things.

But he just, he was,

he wasn't a person who was trying to be a dick to people.

He just came off that way in most instances.

Now, after I left and moved on to other places,

and this was the WWF thing, too.

You know, I never had a problem working with him.

He just, he was uncomfortable as a baby face, as I said.

I think it was forced.

That's what people could tell.

And he was just naturally kind of had the nose up in the air.

But I've known many more accomplished, flaming, uncircumcised penises than Lex Luger

to, you know.

That's why I wondered what the fuck else there was going on between him and Cruz.

And Cruz has carried us for 35 years.

Because it can't just be he, he cussed me out that time over that ring announcement.

So I'm going to paint him in the worst possible light.

Yes, when Lex got on drugs and shit with WCW, where apparently everybody was on something,

he did a lot of stupid things, which he's admitted to, but Cruz was not around at that point in time.

He's talking about the early 90s,

you know, TBS years.

So I don't know what he could have done or why Cruz feels like after all this time, we should remind everybody that Lex did fool around on his wife and use drugs and eat chicken and rice.

And ate chicken and rice.

Bastard.

By the way, I'm going to go eat chicken and rice.

If that gives you those muscles, I'm going to go eat chicken and rice right after this.

Remind me not to tell Cruz that I'm able to stand up by myself.

He might go off.

Hey, real quick, on the topic of Lex Luger, I see a couple listeners sent this in.

I have an article here.

This is from Feightful, Jeremy Lambert.

And it's just Feightful quoting something else.

It's an interview with Lex Luger from Chris Van Vliet, talking about how he was grumpy or whatever.

This is about how AE's biography portrayed the Lex Express.

They portrayed it a little bit.

My family was upset on the AE special.

They made it look like I didn't enjoy myself.

We had a great time on that tour.

It was judiciously edited by Bruce Pritchard to make it look like Lex wasn't the guy and he didn't have a good time.

They took excerpts of that A ⁇ E special and made it look like I was healing on people during the tour.

I wasn't upset.

They're just spicing it up, I said.

They're just throwing some stuff in there to tell their story.

It didn't bother me at all that they put that stuff in there.

For instance, they would show me acting like I didn't get a suite at the hotel and I was making a big stink.

I was joking around with the camera guys and the desk people.

They made it look like on AE portraying I was throwing a hissy fit because I didn't have a suite at the hotel, which was not what happened.

But that's what it looked like on AE.

I was laughing.

I thought it was funny.

They did a really good job on that.

So there's him saying that even like the lesson.

Well, and then

here's another part of it.

Lex is not known industry-wide for his comedic talents maybe they didn't get the

joke

if anyone was going to miss that joke it would be bruce pritchard who again that's true he's flat out saying bruce judiciously edited the footage so it looked like i was a dick to everyone

uh well we'll see if lex gets into the hall of fame now He may have been a dick to Bruce

particularly, and that's why Bruce decided to because jerry jarrett was kind of a dick to bruce that's what led to the the uh enmity between the two of them when when jarret went up there he he

basically he and pat patterson spoke evenly and he was telling bruce to get to coffee kind of thing and

bruce did not appreciate that

But Lex.

Yes, but well, actually, let's go from Lex to another question here.

Let's go to another Bruce.

Let's cruise on to the next subject.

Let's cruise to another Bruce.

This was sent to the official Occult of Cornet Facebook page by Bruce Sisky.

If Ricky Steamboat...

I think I see a Siskey.

But if Ricky Steamboat had been willing to go heal at some point, how would Jim have booked it for maximum impact?

Oh, good lord.

It's an interesting question, just the idea of Steamboat, because we're coming off what we're going to talk about later, John Cena.

There aren't a lot lot of guys you think of as just being the consummate babyface like that.

Steamboat's on the list.

Well, and but then also for maximum impact, just take a lifelong

pro wrestling babyface and switch him, he'll go.

And I'm going, oh, well, here's how I'd do it.

The thing is, with

Steamboat, he was just so perfect for all the reasons as a babyface, the look and the demeanor, and especially in the Carolinas with the timing 77, 8, 9.

Bruce Lee Mania had not petered out.

And here is a real life

and Kung Fu may have still been on TV or did they cancel out in 77?

Whatever.

Real life martial arts superhero.

Look at his body.

Young guy

has a male, well-spoken male voice, but is not boisterous and over-the-top, but lets his actions and his terminal cuteness speak for themselves.

You know,

why

would you want to turn him babyface?

Or turn him heel, rather.

I'm saying when he's,

when he's such a, you know, a perfect,

you could say if he had to be in the same place for too long to freshen him up.

and in that case, I can't come up with the

I'd put one foot in front of another and do it exactly this way, but you would

have to almost set it up to where

definitely he believed he was doing the right thing,

that he believed he had been wronged,

that potentially the heel manager or some

legitimately full heel figure had somehow

orchestrated

or caused a rift between him and his best friend or tag team oftentimes tag team partner

something to get him in that area and then give him a choice to make it a crossroads where he's pissed off enough he says fuck it

so it's almost like you

you get him mad at one individual,

make him believe he's right.

Then when he starts doing shit that he shouldn't be doing and the people start turning against him a little bit,

then he can get pissed and he can do something full out.

Well, fuck all y'all then.

And then it's almost like you don't, maybe you don't just have him

kick somebody in the balls out of nowhere, but, or maybe you do.

I don't know.

Do you think Steamboat, I mean, obviously you can't say, do you think he should have turned heel?

It depends on the situation and the circumstances.

Should a steamboat heel turn have been used as a tool to heat things up?

I mean, should a heel turn be used just to pop things or is it just sometimes the necessary thing?

This question is awful because

it well,

let me say this about that.

It's almost like when they turned Steve Austin heel in 2001,

He was a heel early in his career.

That was fine, but he was a new person to a

wide American audience, worldwide audience.

They don't remember stunning Steve and WCW, whatever.

And they didn't want to see him turn heel.

And there wasn't really a great reason for it.

Otherwise, they thought he needed to be freshened up.

So let's say you need to be

freshening steamboat up.

But the thing is,

do you devalue him long term by turning him heel?

Because people

may not ever forget that.

He did it once.

Other guys can get away with it, but not the people they really believe in.

So I don't see why there was a reason at any point to switch Steamboat heel

rather than either to just give him a break

or give him a new program with a different opponent.

I don't know what else to say.

I don't know if Ricky, you know, maybe

he might be able to be a believable heel verbally.

I'm sure he could do anything physically,

but I don't think he had the

demeanor, as Howard Fakel would say, to be a heel and really pull it off because he was always such a nice fucking guy.

I think you kind of have to treat it like early Bret Hart.

Here, put on these sunglasses, stand in the back, don't say anything.

Bonnie, talk.

And I think it would have worked.

Well, now,

if you wanted to have riots and call out the National Guard, just

make Bonnie his manager on TV and in the arenas, and he doesn't have to change anything.

And let me say I'm joking before Bonnie Steamboat tries to join the Cult of Cornet Facebook group again.

Whatever she said last time, the correct wrongs or whatever.

I could have needed to be a rebuttal to these allegations.

Yeah, or maybe we'll let you win because it may be fun, but we'll see.

But Jim, maybe Ricky Steamboat could have turned heel

very simply by switching his music.

And not only by switching his music, but by listening to his own music on the way to the ring.

Or

he could have turned heel by giving me a flat as fuck segue into a wonderful.

As a podcaster, that's a good idea.

Yes, he could be the heel podcaster.

I said, here, just work with this.

Well, folks, let me just start from scratch and say, have you ever thought, God, I wish I wasn't having to listen to somebody nattering on at me in my ears?

Just, I wish this person would just quit talking to me.

I wish I could block this out somehow.

I think everybody has probably experienced that at one point or another.

Well, that's what you can do with the Raycon everyday earbuds because they've got active noise cancellation that is capable of drowning out the most maddening of sounds.

And boom,

instantly,

your spouse or significant other or boss or children or relatives or neighbors or anybody on the street, boom, all of a sudden they can't speak, can't utter a sound.

Boom.

And you're in your own world.

You got a couple of these stuck in your ears.

Carry a couple of spares in your pocket just in case one of them might get lost or squashed so that you don't have to listen to anything except what you want to listen to at the gym, at work, on phone.

Don't listen to phone calls on these things.

Just put the phone down and let them continue to natter on and listen to the Rolling Stones.

That's what I do.

And the latest model is better than ever.

What now?

What era of the stones?

No No errors.

They didn't make any mistakes.

What era of the band?

Which band members?

Which guitarist?

Oh, well, the 60s.

And his name?

And good stuff.

And the guitarist name?

He was, that was the first one they had.

Well, now you've scared it out of me.

It wasn't Ron, it wasn't Ronnie Wood.

No, it was not.

It was, it was Brian Jones.

Brian Jones.

Very good.

There it was.

And who was in between Brian Jones and Ronnie Wood?

Anita Eckberg.

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is not trying to give it to you up the yin-yang.

They're trying to give it to you in the ears.

And once they get you in the ears, boy, boo, when that tone comes on, you will say, yes, I will follow your commands.

It's not anything.

And dude, no, no.

No, no.

There are no commands that will be given to you, and you certainly don't need to follow them.

All you need to do is follow your ear, follow it to the right.

Well,

I was listening to them the other day, and I heard a command over and over: get down tonight, get down tonight.

And they come in a spectrum of vibrant colors, folks, for styles that complements yours, your style, or your color.

I guess both, really.

If you're embarrassed, easily get the red ones.

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But there's some kind of SOB in every crowd.

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And

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What is that promo?

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And Jim, with that, let's travel through time and let's go to our review, specifically your review, of the Elimination Chamber.

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Well, Jim, here we are.

A big review.

I have to say, I have not seen a demand for a Jim Cornette review video since maybe the CM Punk press scrum.

Like maybe that night.

But everyone's talking about Elimination Chamber, the things coming out of it.

And we have a lot to say, even maybe some audio from

their scrum to play.

But there, there's their crummy scrum.

Let's go to the Elimination Chamber.

Well, no, I don't want to go to the chamber.

I'll stay here and talk about the one they just had.

I don't want to get.

locked up in that thing for heaven's sake.

It looks like it might be dangerous.

Brianna, you've built up this anticipation.

And here's the thing.

I don't know whether it's because I'm getting older and mellower or whether it's

actually, I think I do know.

Instead of being angry and mad or instead of crying,

it is to laugh.

I must giggle a bit at what is going on.

with the WWE these days and not laughing in a derisive fashion, but it's like like they're making a fucking fortune.

They're making

ridiculous, ludicrous, retittediculous amounts of money.

And they're drawing incredible crowds.

And they're just what the, and

I'm not going to rip this show apart, although the preface may seem like it.

But when you think about it, that's why I'm laughing.

I can't tear this down.

I can't, can't,

you know, a crusade against this.

This is by far from the best wrestling that I've ever seen in my life.

But they're fucking, it's ridiculous.

They're making a fucking fork.

They just had

a pay-per-view, a premium live event.

However, you paid in some respect a pittance.

or more to get this thing in your home with whatever streaming service or television television service or whatever around the world

it's being transmitted to.

You paid something

for a four and a half hour show with four batches.

There's like sometimes 20, 25 minutes in between matches.

The, the,

remember when the pay-per-views didn't have commercials, Brian, back in those halcyon days of yore?

Back when the knights stuck each other with Lancelots or whatever.

Back when it seemed like a crazy idea to have commercials, to even sell commercial spots during a pay-per-view event.

Yes, but also not even that, just the amount of stuff

they have sold us a

four and a half hour show, or I'm sorry, three and a half hour show with four matches

where

a good portion of that show is them selling us other shit that obviously people are buying.

Whether it be merchandise or the next pay-per-view or the goddamn

immersive experience of we're just going to take you to Connecticut and tie ropes around your ankles and drag you through the office and we'll pay for that, whatever it is.

And it's just, it's amazing.

And so I can't crusade as vehemently as normal because this is fucking ridiculous.

I think they're making more money than the U.S.

meant.

Well, the problem is they're making lots of money, then they bonus themselves lots of money and then they make six million in profit well yes and that's and somehow it's still the only thing that trickles down to the common workforce the workers brian the only thing that trickles down is the piss from the executive washroom

but that's it's still the point is they are

They are making this amount of people spend this incredible amount of money.

The house shows, the streaming,

what at the merchandise, the whatever the fuck they're selling.

They're selling every goddamn thing.

And they had 38,493 people.

I'm going to call it the skydome.

I don't know who Rogers is, unless it was Buddy Rogers.

Fuck him.

We're going to call it the Toronto Sky Dome like God intended.

But almost 40,000 fucking people there for the pay-per-view that used to be the one in between the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania.

So they only drew 40,000.

Looking a piss hole in a snowbank, huh?

Can you tell?

I'm just, I'm,

I'm just, dumbfounded for once.

Cornette at a loss for words.

Is that the longest statement you've ever heard from somebody at a loss for words?

I guess so.

I mean, it was a big spectacle.

There was a lot going on, and they were able to build the anticipation.

They didn't give away what people were really wanting to see until the very end of the night.

And it seemed like everyone there was,

you know, that you keep bringing up, I feel like every time you bring it up, they take a match off.

It was like, oh, they only had six matches.

Then it was, there were only five matches on this pay-per-view.

Four matches now.

We're going back like 100 years.

We're going to have a two-match show coming up pretty soon.

Well, and I bet it'll set a record.

They just say, and these five guys or 10 guys or whatever are going to go three hours.

They could do it with one match.

If they just did a Royal Rumble by itself in America, not like, you know, in Saudi Arabia where people have to go.

But if they did it here, I think that one match could sell out.

Like in a, like us, I don't know, what do I want to say?

Arena, stadium, or definitely an arena.

I don't know about a stadium, but maybe.

I think they need to do a show in the Grand Canyon and see if they scale it to where the most expensive seats are right at the fucking,

what do they call the bottom of the canyon?

Right at the bottom of the canyon.

And then you got the general admissions seats way up at the top of the canyon.

How come no one's done the sphere yet in Las Vegas?

Have you seen like the videos and the pictures of that place?

No, well, I saw some type of demonstration video, but the UFC did it, one show,

and I haven't seen any

type of visual from that.

But apparently Dana White said that that is

the most expensive

again, do you call it an arena or a theater or a facility or whatever, most expensive one and probably in the world to run?

And

they just did it to do it because they didn't really make that much money on this like gate.

It was $15 million or whatever.

So

I don't know if they're being cost conscious over at

TKO these days after Dana did that.

I don't know if they want to have Seth freaking Rollins come out on and everybody, whoa, in a fucking complete circle, like

Rollins at the planetarium.

Maybe they could get Pink Floyd back together for that, though, at the store.

I don't think they're getting Pink Floyd back together.

Maybe they could play Pompeii or wrestle at Pompeii.

They could pay who?

Pompeii?

Pompei?

Pompeii.

Pay for play.

Now, that's illegal.

That's payola.

That's right.

Boy, ask Alan Freed.

All right, let's talk about the elimination shot.

They could have taken down Dick Clark, but Dick Clark was just so nice and all-American.

And Alan Freed was that bad Alan Freed, and they took him down and he died a few years later.

And Dick Clark,

Dick Clark had a wonderful career.

Dick Clark was still on TV three years after he died.

But anyway, so they did the

Women's Elimination Chamber on March the 1st.

They're bringing in the Ides of March.

Alexa Bliss versus Roxanne Perez versus Bailey versus Bianca versus Liv Morgan versus Naomi

was the lineup there.

And

help me out at the start of this.

The winner of the women's elimination chamber,

since it's the women's version of the men's chamber,

the winner of the women's gets to pick

which women's champion they want to face, right?

Except well,

Charlotte.

I thought the Rumble was the

right.

They get the

so which see therein lies part of this problem.

What?

Because they've not only got two men's titles, they got two women's titles.

You know, it was Raw Rumble winner gets a shot at the champion of WrestleMania.

Everybody had a grip on that.

Well, then there's two titles, and there's so the men's and the elimination chamber, but now there's the women's, but there's two women's, so now there's the men's and women's, and

it gets exponentially harder to keep straight exactly which of the cataclysmic confrontations that we are expected to consume and pay for the privilege brian

so forgive me my indignation

i think you're the only one having the problem though i mean it's pretty simple it's the same thing as the cody one later on the winner gets cody the winner of this gets the i mean they made it out like it's the winner of Rhea versus EO, but obviously no one expects EO to beat Rhea for the.

Well, that's another thing thing that confused the issue when it came out.

When is Rhea and Eo?

Rhea and Living.

Eo, Eo, not Eo.

Rio, Eo,

Eo, Eo.

We ain't heard nothing yet.

She's wrestling, Rio.

Not Rio, Eo.

Rio.

Is Rio back?

Rio?

I didn't even say Rio.

I said Rio.

And listen.

Her name is Rio, and she dances in the ring.

I believe they're wrestling tonight as we speak.

We'll see again.

So, goddamn it.

So,

and then think about this now.

Then, Charlotte said she was going to go to goddamn NXT and check their champion out, too, which further complicated the whole thing.

I'm just saying, people have lives.

I understand some people impregnate other people and have children.

You can't keep it.

Where have you heard about this?

Where have you heard about this?

I saw it on TV the other night on a news.

This woman had a kid.

Anyway, so,

and also,

in this case, I'm sorry I have to be true to my morals and my principles.

And it's not just because it's the women.

It could be the men.

The Royal Rumble, Hell in a Cell, every other great goddamn gimmick match that is the centerpiece of every pay-per-view throughout the year.

You have to see one before you get to see one.

And

whether it's women or whether it's okay, now we got our six guys in the main event.

We got the punks and the Cenas and the Zabada.

Now let's get the next six and put them on before.

Does that make sense to you, Brian?

Well, again, there was a two-match buffer, and in WWE, two-matches means three hours.

But no, it's the same fucking crowd, and you're watching the same fucking show.

It's not even a goddamn like a double feature in the movie where they come to some conclusion of the first issue and then go on in a different direction, possibly in the same genre, but definitely with different actors and fucking scriptwriters.

So, anyway, and also, if it's the most dangerous match in the world, which we are led to believe at various times, Elimination Chamber, Hell in a Cell,

Royal Rumble,

a party at Daddy Diddy's house, all these things, the most dangerous things in the world.

And before we see these fucking giant, jacked-up genetic freaks like Drew McIntyre doing it, we're seeing a bunch of 125-pound girls do the same thing.

So, I'm not sure how it helps anybody,

but nevertheless,

we press on.

I'm just.

Men!

Men, we must move on.

We can't let this stop us here.

We're going to charge up Liv Morgan Hill and plant our flag at Mount Volva.

So the match was almost ready to start.

What are you laughing at?

Just took a turn, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm no longer with this army here.

I don't know what happened.

Oh,

you're fighting for the other side?

I don't know what hill and planting and sticking and whatever you're doing over there.

It doesn't necessarily sound like it's a pleasant activity for anyone, but back to the match.

Well,

yes, speaking of unpleasant activities, let's get back to the match because it was about to start.

It didn't even start yet.

It was about to start in about 20 minutes into this show.

By the time they got in the ring, it was about to start when suddenly more music played.

And here came Jade Cargill.

We haven't seen her since I don't, I don't know when.

When will I see you again?

When will we share precious moments?

Are we in love or just friends?

So Liv figured they weren't friends, and she was just shaking like a dog shitting peach seeds over this whole thing.

Because here came Jade.

And Jade came into the ring and Liv was begging off and suddenly Jade jumped Naomi

and just beat the teetotal dog shit out of her.

Dog shit, I say, Andy.

And Bianca,

the friend and confidant of Bud partner, former partner, she's in the middle of this triangle of violence.

She was in the

pod, as they say.

They're the pod people brian they've come for us

she's freaking i mean she needs to have an academy award not do they do best silent movie performance because you couldn't hear her but boy she was emoting

yeah she was a very

mime she was a very sad mime very sad mime oh she emoted all over herself

and the referees got

Jade off and Jade slammed the door on Naomi's head and stalked out in a huff, as they say.

That's what Vince said about me one time when I stalked out in a huff.

And Naomi was stretched out or stretchered out.

She was stretched out and then they

stretchered her out, which is the past tense of stretching, stretchering.

They carried her out.

So then,

before we go any further with this contest,

now that's why everybody's saying that

Jade has attacked Naomi because Naomi was behind.

She was the one that did the phantom injury to Jade when Jade got hurt from something.

We still don't know what the fuck was going on there.

And so now she has come back to get revenge.

And Bianca was unaware of this whole thing because Naomi was just trying to insinuate herself in that spot.

And they obviously knew they were doing this because they conveniently switched the

one of set of the women's tag team titles just last last week.

So this all comes together here.

Naomi has been fingered publicly.

Again, let's

watch the way we say things here.

Well, the blame has been put squarely on her by the perpetrate,

Jade Cargill, that Naomi was the perpetrator.

In the last several weeks, have Liv and Raquel denied that it was them?

I don't recall.

I know they've wrestled Bianca and Naomi, and, you know, Liv and Raquel are heels, so they kind of act like heels, but have they said, like, that wasn't us?

Well, I don't really know what their fucking story is because I haven't asked them about it.

But I don't know if you've seen it.

At the same time, I would think that the victim would certainly know who perpetratored their perpetratees.

Jade was all in black,

whatever that still means in this day and age, whether you wear all white or all black, whether you're a healer or misface.

Has it been on an album cover lately?

What do you think about doing this to start off the match, to start off the night?

What do you think about doing this kind of angle, this kind of payoff to something?

Or at least in part, we still don't know the story.

Well, this isn't the payoff.

This is a bump in the road, a speed bump.

That's right.

But what do you think about doing it so early in the show, right?

To start.

Well, I liked it because it shortened up the ladies' contest.

And nobody, I think, of anybody in in this thought that

Naomi was going to be the winner.

And

the poor, the feisty underdog Roxanne Perez probably wouldn't have a lot of the big Vegas money on her because she's still new.

But

it made an impression.

And also,

at the same time, you've got the goddamn elimination shame.

How was Jade supposed to come out and do a cane thing and rip the door off and get once they'd got started and all that shit.

You know,

I like they kind of

started it off with a bang

to answer your question.

But having said that,

we were left with Liv and Bianca and Roxanne and Bailey and Alexa.

They're all baby faces except for Liv.

Liv has grown on me, Brian, like

a tumor,

just taking over my goddamn lymph nodes.

And it's just, it's,

now it's huge now.

Maybe a more of a benign tumor.

Why do you have to go all the way over there?

Well,

she may be benign, or, you know, we might have to take a little biopsy of her.

I know where I could get some DNA.

I don't know what the hell is going on with you today, but you got to stop with this stuff.

But I agree with you.

She has become one of.

No, you do.

We should take it.

No, I don't agree with you on the phone stuff.

I agree with you on live morgan's become one of my favorite workers in the business because it's not just wrestling it's every you say

you know earlier bianca should have won the academy award for flipping out in the in the pod and that was really something again not to that level and was a minor thing but live selling as jade was coming out there i thought was tremendous she does all these little things really well and you know she's pretty good in the ring too

oh and and here's the thing i i agree with everything except i still don't look forward to seeing Liv Morgan matches for the sake of it, right?

It's not like the Tony Khan mentality.

I bet Liv Morgan and Momo

Nobi

could be a dream match or whatever.

You did it.

Liv, was that really it?

I was just, I was taking a stab.

I think you got it.

Son of a bitch.

What did I say now?

You can play it back for me later.

Liv Morgan is a person.

She was

a personality on the women's roster, but then the whole thing with Dominic and et cetera, I think I mentioned before, Tia slingshotted her.

And she was interacting with the top guys as well and the mix there, just like it did for Rhea.

And

she's taken it and run with it as a personality, as the facial expressions and the way she

has inserted herself into, you know, everybody's fucking business and the heel heel and the promo.

That has grown on me.

So

as a overall personality, she's a lot more valuable now than she was a couple of years ago, which a lot of these guys and girls can say that they are because of the change in

the winds that change direction.

You know, it's a weird statement to make.

But in a lot of ways, one of the best things to happen to women's wrestling in WWE in terms of getting over on a main event event level has been Dominic Mysterio,

the mommy and Dominic stuff that blew up, yeah, and it carried on to the live stuff, and that's turned into its own thing.

If you really think about it, I mean, he works ringside those matches like an old manager in a lot of ways.

You know what?

We ought to give him like the

fabulous Moolah Award for the person who's done the most for women's wrestling.

But now, here the here's the thing: Bailey was the only person above five foot three in this match

right at this point well Bianca and

okay Bianca I'll I'll give five six is she five six I'll say at least that so I'm okay with that okay

well but

and again you have Bianca pretty much was the person

that you would think was going to win this if Liv Morgan didn't from the way that they have been presented on television.

But besides that, it just, it's the fucking, I'm seeing the same kind of matches I'm going to see later on.

And we'll talk about when we do the review of the men's match,

how that

it can't help but be a collection of moves back and forth and stunts that are set up rather than any kind of

flow of the art of having a wrestling match that

the top guys that are tied up in the main event match would be so good at.

You know what?

It becomes

every man for himself in a Royal Rumble or a Battle Royal, okay, but every man for himself in this thing where they don't even have any room to fucking get out of there for a minute.

And it's just back.

It's more stunt show than wrestling match to me

because you just reached the point where what the fuck are we

doing here?

It looks like a game show set.

So then I see

one of these with the women before I see the one with the guys that I'm all interested in to find out who's going to fuck who around.

But having said that,

Bianca and Live were the last two, surprise, surprise, and Bianca.

Hit or finish, boom, one, two, three.

What'd you think of the whip spot spot with Bianca's picture?

Oh, well, well, and I was going to with not only that, but did you see the picture that

I don't think I follow Liv Morgan on the Twitter or maybe it was Instagram, but somebody tweeted it that besides the

burner, your burner account.

You follow Liv Morgan?

Oh, oh, oh, I forgot that.

That's that's the extra one that the kids have, dude.

That's right.

Keep everything quiet.

Okay.

But no, at one point, Bianca whipped her with that.

What does she have in that hair braid or holding the end of that hair braid together?

But she whipped Liv Morgan across the back and she had a big fucking welt like a goddamn country whipping match, but also Liv was showing the back of her arm was bruised all over the place.

And again, that's

It's special effects, but that doesn't mean that it's all goddamn,

you know, styrofoam that looks like plexiglass and metal framework and lights hanging and everything.

All that shit can fuck you up.

But so, yes, so point being,

it's, and again, that's why it's yes, it's rough as shit,

but still the girls survived.

So, how much sympathy can I have for Cena and McIntyre and Rollins and the gang?

But nevertheless, after this

contest was over with,

Bianca

was in the entranceway, and Rhea comes out and confronts her.

And there's two baby faces.

They're both stars.

But then, as I've asked you before, EO Sky wanders out

to complicate the issue and looks like a kid asking for an autograph next to Bianca and Ria.

So, what is this match supposed to fucking be?

Well, let me ask you, too.

You said they're both babyfaces.

Do you think it's a given that Bianca wasn't involved with Naomi and jumping Jade or anything?

Well, then, wouldn't Jade have been up in fucking Bianca's face trying to kick in the goddamn plexiglass going, motherfucker, I'll get you two.

Get out of here.

Get out of here.

She kind of tortured her, making her sit there and watch her best friend get the shit kicked out of her.

Well, she just happened to be there.

I mean, if two people attacked you, are you going to murder one and then not even fucking acknowledge the other one that's watching out the window?

I would murder them right in the middle of the squared circle in front of 35,000 people.

That's what I would.

Well, but you know what I'm saying.

In the course of any kind of logic, a forethought.

Because, I mean, that's the other thing.

If they're going to do Rhea versus Bianca at WrestleMania

and this whole Jade Naomi thing is going to play out you know just so happens it's WrestleMania time something has to you would think there'd be some sort of resolution or some sort of bump in the road there well but would you be doing a major heel turn of a well-established baby face right at this particular point no i wouldn't

so i think that jade

got Naomi because Naomi orchestrated this thing to fucking become one half the tag team champions and get in good.

And I think they thought of that right after Jade got hurt, however she got hurt.

Because then Jade, because Jade came out and acted like a heel, was dressed in all black, stormed off, didn't even acknowledge Bianca.

But she's going to be the babyface?

You know, because she kicked the shit out of Naomi, who's never been anything but the babyface.

I don't know.

It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out, actually.

And I like the match.

I just want to say I like the match.

She'll blame Naomi at least.

I thought Liv Morgan was great.

I thought Roxanne Perez was really good too.

And a really good match.

Roxanne.

Oh, God.

You don't have to win the Elimination Chamber

to be in our hearts.

Just be as cute as you are.

Okay, that song took a weird turn there.

I hope she stays in developmental if it means no more of that.

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Well, hey, come on.

Speaking of developmental, can we

get a petition up to send Candy LaRue back for for a little more seasoning?

The member of the Mr.

and Mrs.

Blandings,

the dream couple.

Can you imagine how many people are under contract on the WWE roster that weren't on this premium live event and Candy LaRue is featured?

What kind of pictures

might they have?

Her and her hubby Mr.

Blandings,

pictures of Shawn Michaels with the, what are they, do they have goats in San Antonio, or what would it be an armadillo that he was having unnatural carnal knowledge of that keeps them

in this system

with

no look, no size, no physique, no charisma, no promo,

indie talent that do indie moves.

Except she's not really able to do a lot of the indie moves because

she looks like the girl that couldn't make the cut on a fucking junior hatch here leading fucking squad.

Next to these goddamn pole vaulters and

snowmobile fucking champions that they recruit.

Did I say what the match was?

You have not said anything except put down Candice LaRue.

Her LaRae.

Her name's not LaRue.

Her name's Candace LaRae.

Well, now you've changed your story.

See, in an instant, I don't know what you're talking about now.

They should make her the same Johnny LaRue.

Yeah, go ahead.

I'm sorry.

Well, I'll tell you what.

And Lash LaRue would like to speak to you.

So it was the refrigerator, herself, Nia Jax, and Candy LaRue against Trish Stratus and Tiffy Stratton.

Said

Trish and Tiffy, they could almost

almost replace like

Thelma Todd and fucking Elvira Snodgrass as a great team.

And this is the.

What movie was that?

I missed that movie.

This was the second match on the one of those ones Louis V.

Merrick locked away.

Well, he is because

he Joe Skank gave him a lot of trouble over that kind of stuff.

This was the second match on the big event here.

The bell rang for it one hour and three minutes into the show,

and it was the second girls' match in a row.

And Tiffy is over,

and Trish looks great for her age, but

in all seriousness, ladies and gentlemen,

we've already had, couldn't we have worked in just a single men's match, just as a palate cleanser in between

in this, because there was about an hour and a half of dead time in this show.

But anyway, Trish is great

at, you know, again, at her, and

it's not nice to quote a woman's age, but she's been around a while, so she's got to be more senior than most of the ladies on the roster.

But she did a great job from what that I looked up and saw and finally did a bulldog off the top rope on the refrigerator

and then Candy tried a moonsalt somehow

Trish was covering

fridge and Candy thought the best way to break that up would be to moonsalt both of them with her partner on the bottom but she missed it anyway when Trish moved and she just landed on her partner

And then Trish tagged Tiffy.

God say that a couple of times without spitting.

Trish tagged Tiffy, and Tiffy moonsalted the fridge.

Boom.

One, two, three.

In about 12 minutes, and

how could you ask for more?

I certainly wouldn't.

What about you, Brian?

There were only four matches, so there was only one match to skip to go outside and smoke a joint, and that was this match.

I'm sure it was just wonderful.

Trish Riddis looks great.

I don't know what else I could say about this match.

I've heard that.

I've heard that.

I did see a little bit of this match.

I will, uh, uh, you know, before I went outside, I will say one other thing: Tiffany Stratton's really good.

If you just watch her moving around in the ring, it's not the usual, clumsy way

too many girls in both companies move around.

Well, and some parts of her move in different ways than others sometimes, and she's going in both directions at once.

That's especially nice.

So, who is

Travis Scott and why do we care?

Travis Scott is a musician and allegedly.

He's a musician who's fairly big with a younger crowd.

He's a producer too.

And,

you know, it's kind of like Kendrick Lamar at the Super Bowl as opposed to like years past where it was someone who a lot of people, someone who was more of a legacy artist.

If you were a fan of his, it was a really big deal.

If you weren't, you thought it was the worst thing ever.

And with Travis Scott, I guess if you're a fan of his, this is amazing.

However, to everyone else,

I'll save my Travis Scott thoughts for later, I think.

All right, well, they introduced him, but he's he's here, he's here, and we'll talk more about him later because he ain't leaving.

And who is Poppy?

I don't, I must have missed this on the show.

I don't know who you're talking about.

Poppy did the official theme song for this fucking i did see that yeah you know that's

wwe

like i always say if you want to go to the top of wwe right now become famous doing something else because they will let anyone in there and they embrace any level of celebrity because there are people like i said everything is kind of because there's no unified there's no three channel system there's no record labels controlling radio which is the only way you can hear music There's none of these things.

Everything's segmented a whole lot more.

So I guess this guy has fans, but I said it it to someone earlier.

I never saw like more celebrities introduced to no pop.

Well, now, wait a minute.

Is Poppy a girl or a guy?

I thought they showed a guy in the crowd.

Or am I thinking of a different guy they showed?

No, they showed Travis Scott.

I'm pretty sure he's a guy.

Not him.

There was someone.

Awful, ugly fucking girl.

But then they had a graphic that said they wanted to thank Poppy.

Oh, I thought you told him about the celebrity in the crowd.

I don't know what that was.

Well, no, then I haven't got to them yet.

Then they introduced a bunch of celebrities on shows on Netflix that I've never fucking heard of because I've only got Netflix for Raw and I've never watched anything else on Netflix.

But Poppy remains a mystery.

There's some stuff for you to watch on Netflix you may like.

You know what I just watched the other day?

There was a four-part documentary show about in the 90s, Pepsi did a campaign where you can get Pepsi points.

You know, you could redeem t-shirts or sunglasses.

And in the commercial, they had a fucking fighter jet for 7 million points.

And it had no disclaimer.

And this kid convinced this investor to go in with him.

And they got the points.

And Pepsi wouldn't honor it.

So they sued Pepsi.

And then Michael Avenatti got involved.

And this is like in the 90s.

It's a long time ago.

It's a crazy fun story.

You may like that.

How much does a fighter jet cost?

About $36 million.

So, well, they should have made that significantly more points then, shouldn't they?

I wonder, is Hilton Honors doing the same thing?

Because I got a card.

Do your points expire?

You haven't been in a hotel in a while.

Well, no, but members of my family have been at absolutely gratis.

That means you pay nothing.

And I continue to know the points do not expire, but I've rolled over with them anyway.

Roll over Beethoven.

Anyway, let's let's get back to the pay-per-view here.

After all these people, I've do you remember one of the stories that Bruce Pritchard has told that's actually factual

is

I

will be telling a lie if I remembered which WrestleMania it was, but one of them,

before I joined the company, they had the chance to have Joe Walsh, the Eagles, Joe Walsh, the James gangs,

Joe Walsh play play at WrestleMania and Vince had never fucking heard of him.

And now they've got people at the people down the goddamn block on their street haven't heard of him.

And at least he could have played goddamn

Rocky Mountain Way.

I remember reading something from Heyman years and years and years ago talking about when he worked for the AWA and just how out of touch Vern was.

And Heyman's like, we're doing something to New Jersey.

We should get like Bon Jovi or something.

And Vern was like, How about Jerry Vale?

I think Jerry Vale's from Jersey.

Thank you, God.

So I was, I'm sorry,

I call a Heyman.

I call a Heyman.

Wait a minute.

Hold on here.

Why?

You don't think Vern Gagne would add match for Paul Vale?

Oh, come on.

That's love that Paul.

Anyway, back to this show.

So

the big rock package that makes him look like the goddamn most known human being in the history of the universe.

He's the most followed man,

followed American man in the world.

How many agencies are on his trail?

He's on every talk show, the highlights of him doing this and being there and all that type of thing.

And the point where he loves being the final boss.

boss and

and old Ari Emmanuel

Emmanuel Emmanuel

there was a series of movies in the 70s Emmanuel but she looked nothing like him

but anyway did you enjoy the the self-gratification package afforded to the the final boss there as a member of the board of directors and the most famous human being on the planet uh taking over for jesus in second place.

It's ridiculous, but it's weird.

I expect it, but when you're watching it, you're just trying to understand how it fits into the context of the show.

He's a heel.

So is this propaganda that he has produced?

He's a heel.

It's the most popular son of a bitch in Hollywood.

So that's my point.

Why would you show the video the way it was framed?

That way you made him a big babyface.

Is the idea that he's, because he's in charge producing these videos about himself?

Well, see, then the commentators all put him over.

There isn't like a commentator like, oh, the rock's disgusting.

Like, that's not.

Yeah, he talks bad.

I mean, said we had syphilis.

Here's the thing is

if this was a normal,

any normal mindset used in any other normal business, I think having

one of the most famous human beings on the planet now, we can agree on that.

Absolutely.

To be on the company's board of directors, to be the public face of the company when they go on Jimmy Kimmel and they can talk about it along with their other projects on the WWE and the blah blah blah.

All that's

that's wonderful.

And that would have been worth that.

That was worth $30 million to them at their fucking

level of income these days.

Plus bonuses.

But what he's done

to turn heel is because he still wants to perform and he still wants to be on the show.

And he still, who knows whether, how true it is, Brian, your aspersions that you cast that he was trying to revive his fucking image or show biz career or whatever after people are screaming that he pisses in bottles, blah, blah, blah.

But those two things, he's, you know, he's a...

And I've always said he was a great performer.

Lately, he's seeming to go out somewhat unprepared or

as Mama Cornette used to say on some of these promos, he protests too much.

He tries to get the

point over so much, he's repeating himself.

Point being, I think it's at cross-purposes for him to be a heel

on the actual program that drops in once every blue moon for the biggest show ever

instead of being the babyface ambassador and board member and face of the company that he could be

every place all year long.

Do you see what I'm, do you smell what I'm cooking, Brian?

See, that's the problem with these scrums, and we'll talk about the latest one later on.

And he did the one the other day.

He shouldn't be in a rush for a victory lap.

Not to say he doesn't deserve it when there's big success, but how does that help when you see the nice guy, Dwayne Johnson, performance right after you saw him as the most diabolical heel there is?

Yeah.

To me, it's counterproductive.

And again, if we're doing with the whole thing where Kayfabe's completely dead, the only things that matter aren't even what happened on the show, just what happens in individual matches, and then everything else could break Kayfabe.

That's an interesting road to go down.

I guess maybe it's just him going down that road, but we'll see.

That dusty road.

Alrighty, up next was the star-crossed lovers that are Kevin Owens and Sami Zane.

As the history package remind us, they've turned on and rejoined each other more than Liz Taylor and Richard Burton.

You know, I thought they may go with this last because when they did the rock video, I was like, oh, are they going right into the main event now?

And then they're going to do the unsanctioned match after the show.

That'd be interesting, but obviously they didn't.

Well, and see, how are you going to follow the final boss?

That's why the final is before boss.

See, that's very important to remember, Brian.

I'm the last boss

well but if you're the if you're the last boss on the left and he's the final boss on the right then which one gets their mail first

see think about the one who could throw knives i'll win well now you have knives but how good are you at throwing them when the other motherfucker is running away from them i have no comment in fact let me say the opposite i have no skills whatsoever if anything happens it's pure lucky i have no idea what i'm doing i just was trying to defend myself.

The U.S.

District Court for Northern New Jersey is hereby put on notice that Brian Last's knife-throwing skills are a deadly, deadly weapon.

Come on, I throw knives like I play piano.

No, I can't.

Oh, okay.

Well, you're getting off then.

You don't have to worry.

All right.

Anyway,

Sammy Zane and Captain, started to say Sammy Owens and Kevin Zane.

Sammy and Kevin.

The ring announcer by the way is ridiculous the hairdo is ludicrous she forces everything the voice is highly put on and unnatural

and we need old samantha stevens back or samantha irwin irvin irwin we need sam back i don't think she's coming back it's unfortunate and you know she was kind of

you know a part of the whole winning team it felt like and she just didn't want to do it and i don't think she's going to be coming back especially i mean she's married a ricochet

oh well well then she ought to bounce back

so okay

god damn it

think about that now brilliant brilliant so Sammy and Kevin is what we were trying to talk about

And I said right at the start, right at the start, I jotted this down, my observation.

I said, these two are either going to have a great wrestling match or an outlaw garbage match stunt show.

And it's Canada, so people are going to love it either way.

But I'm wondering, can they help themselves from being too indie

and try to have that?

Because they're both great workers athletically in their own way.

Neither one of them looks like they

ought to be able to jog their memory.

Zane looks like he went to give blood and forgot to say when, and Owens looks like he ate Zane.

But

they can work.

When I watched this match, my big thought was

this match is Jim Cornette's nightmare every night in like 2009 years.

Well, and that's the thing.

That's the thing.

They were in front of 800 people in a goddamn rec center somewhere doing this shit.

15 years ago.

And they've got a story behind them.

And they got that wicked ass pile driver that Owens does and that he's done on Sammy.

And Sammy can sell his ass off

and

exhibit pain and get sympathy.

And they can, I'm not saying

go back to the 1975 Harley race pattern and, you know, then one headbutt to the table.

They could put a couple of their tricks, as the kids say, their tricks in

but it and especially in Canada the people as I said are going to love it either way but they that's because they're into both these guys

but they went in they went for

they went in the other direction of the athletic contest between two bitter former friends now blood enemies And instead, they said, we're going to do every indie wrestling thing that we've ever liked, that we've seen or done before.

Now we get get to do it on the big screen.

They were whacking each other with chairs, multiple chairs in the ring in the first two minutes of the fucking match after fighting on the floor.

And then they got a hockey stick and they pulled out a table.

And again, I'm not picking this apart with the vehemence that I sometimes would have because

Once again, there's 40,000 people there and it's Canada and they're Canadians and they're loving it.

And

a lot of these people now

think that that is what wrestling is or that's supposed to be involved in a wrestling match is all this barrage of shit.

And these guys do it well.

I mean, it's like, you know, it's, is that like kind of like a parent praising their kid's poop?

Oh, look at his, he poops so good.

It's still shit,

but they do it better than the fucking delinquent kids down the street whose parents didn't teach them to poop properly.

And they're pooping out on the porch.

Brian, you've had that problem with your kids, haven't you?

Not pooping on the porch, but having better poop than the kids down the street that are pooping on the porch.

I think it may be a southern thing.

Well,

must be because of the weather.

And I've enjoyed Owens lately personality-wise.

I thought it was hokey when they were doing that thing with him where he would just flip out and want to fight and start screaming like a maniac, you know, with the drop of a hat.

And I think he did too, thought it was hokey because he was doing it in a hokey way.

But now he's he's insidious and he feels wronged and the whole thing.

Wonderful, but goddamn it.

They go through the crowd.

They go into the back of the arena.

And Sammy throws Owens through not one, but two tables, one at a time,

set up as you know, concession stand areas.

And then

they get back to the ring, and Owens pushes Sammy off the top rope, flipping through two tables stacked on top of each other to the floor.

And then they wipe the referee out.

But Owens hits the stunner and gets the cover.

The second referee slides in and it gets a two-count.

And so Owens levels referee number two,

and number three comes in.

And

at that point, Kevin's bringing in another table and there's another chair shot and it's dragging

because it's all stunts.

They're going from stunt to stunt.

And to me,

part of the thing that made the wild furniture brawl of...

the territory days more exciting.

If you watch the

old videos on YouTube again, comparing them to the modern crowds.

Not only had they not seen it so much back then, but also there was

usually more of a frantic pace going on.

It's like, oh shit, it's three wild minutes like tornado went through instead of,

damn, they're setting up a lot of shit and hitting each other.

You got some popcorn over there, honest so then.

What was next?

Ah,

Kevin gave Sammy a fisherman's suplex buster off the top rope through a table and got a two count.

At two, four, five, six, about six tables in.

Sammy pulled out more chairs and then a barbed wire wrapped chair.

Where then

at some

Sammy dropped toe-holded Owens face first into the barbed wire-wrapped chair, which Kevin sold

brilliantly, screaming, but

there's no blood, Jerry.

There's no, no one is bleeding.

He just went face first into barbed wire, allegedly.

Trademark.

So, what I don't,

and why is the chair wrapped in barbed wire?

Is that to discourage people from sitting during their match?

Oh, we don't want to sit down, we better give them a standing ovation.

And then

Sammy stacked

chairs up and made a bridge with the barbed wire chair in the middle and gave Kevin a blue thunder bomb onto the barbed wire chair stacked on the chairs to count.

And then finally, Kevin ended up putting a chair around Sammy's neck and running him into the post a couple times and power bombing him on the apron.

But then Sammy fought back.

So Kevin powerbombed him on the apron again and then rolled him in and covered him one, two, three.

All that shit that they had done.

And

it didn't build to a

Peter North-ish explosion

rather than

Sammy went down with a fight and a slight whimper.

I would have liked a match better than a 30-minute long

collection of stunts involving doing as much damage to various pieces of office furniture as they possibly could.

Am I being too critical?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

I mean, this was clearly a very,

is it self-indulgent if it's two people?

Is it more than self-indulgent if it's two people?

No, it's duo-indulgent.

You know, and I'm not saying there aren't tons and tons of fans who like it, but it's hard for me to watch something when, you know, these two guys are best friends who just love doing this shit to each other.

And they've been doing it and trying to do it for, I mean, 20 fucking years.

Let's say it's close to 20 years now.

Yeah.

So,

you know, the fans were really into it.

I was surprised when Owens went over, although there was obviously a...

Bit of an afterbirth that explained,

didn't explain why Randy Orton doesn't wear clothes, but it explained why

he went over.

Well, yes, and they've got, and

Owens is doing some great work.

Sammy is always a guy that can lose in these situations, and it still doesn't hurt him because they like him as the underdog.

And if the underdog wins all the time, then he's not an underdog.

And well, then what would Polly Purebred do?

Much less Simon Barr sinister.

What's he going to, how's he going to support himself?

What are you people trying to fucking pull here?

anyway so owens went to get more heat on sammy because he's nefarious that way when suddenly music played and here came a randy orton played by wally cox

just to finish uh what we were doing doom doom doom doom doom doom doon all right

So Orton comes out and gets in the ring, and they have the big face off him and Kevin, and they get in a fight, and Randy hits the RKO on Kevin, boom, and gets a big ovation and the Randy chance.

And

Orton goes for the big kick to the head, but the agents and security kind of ran in right as Owens rolled out,

disoriented and fucking taking off, heading for higher ground, as they say.

And then Orton RKO'd every single member of the security force who were kind enough to come at him one at a time and then stop, throw up their hands and remain immobile while they were delivered their punishment.

The first guy was the best because he went down and he was kind of curled up in an unnatural position and then he stayed there like that.

Everyone else took it and then rolled out of the ring.

Well, also, do you know why the first guy was the best?

Why?

Because the first time you see it, you have

you might know that it's coming, but you can't invisualize it.

The second time you see it, you start noticing things.

When you do something five or six times, that's when people

can pick up on if there's holes, if there's daylight, if there's anything untoward about it,

or just the exaggerated amount of cooperation from

the folks taking it, they're all trying to get over and do the best job they can, but as a result,

when you repeat something like that, you give the people more chance to see through it.

That's the succinct version of what I was trying to say.

In some fashion.

With the Randy Orton return, and I get the idea that there's a philosophy that wrestlers should always be seen in their wrestling gear and Jade returned earlier in her Dominatrix gear.

But would it have made a bigger impact if Randy Orton showed up in street clothes?

For this kind of thing, where I'm showing up to kick the shit out of the guy who injured me?

He was dressed for a match.

And again,

oh, go ahead.

I'm sorry.

Well, I was about to say, remember now, he is one of the original Rip Rogers disciples.

And Rip was not only a body guy, but always like, go out and look your fucking best and fucking wear your gear and show the fucking body off.

And Orton looks phenomenal.

And I think he looks more of a star that way.

Than he does in the normal street clothes that he wears.

Now he could dress up in street clothes like Seth Franklin Rollins custom-made shit and look like Elvis or whatever, but that's not Orton.

So I think in his case, it doesn't work for everybody, but in some people's, like his, I think it works better if you always see him in his gear as a fucking

giant fucking jacked-up wrestler.

But now if he if he changes and starts teaming up with Don Fargo and they go to the Hell's Angels or the Chain Gang, then then he can just come right in wearing what he's wearing.

They should do some kind of angle where all the heels get together, women and men, and beat the shit out of the sound guy who always has a heads up who's going to run in and hurt them.

You're in on it, you son of a bitch.

Of course, you know what that sound means.

We need to take a short time out, and we weren't planning on it, so we're completely out of wits, and we don't know what we're doing.

And when you're like that, when everything's just hitting you hard and you don't know what to do, and there's still so much wrestling to watch, sometimes you just want to sit back and have a drink, a nice classy drink, a nice classy wine.

And here to tell you about that, Mr.

Class himself, Jim Cornett.

That's right.

Because we're classy wineos, I'll have you know.

And we're out of wits right now, is what we are, apparently, Brian.

Is that what you're saying?

I'm still in possession of my wits.

You know why?

Because I can tell you where the smart people are going to get their wine these days.

Have you heard about our new friends over at nakedwines.com?

Nakedwines.com.

More on that in a minute, why that is the way.

But

Brian, you and I have told you this.

Stacey is a more accomplished connoisseur of wine.

She knows the reds from the whites and the rosés from the Perignores and...

things and such of that nature.

And you know, I'm just

give me the standard little sparkling martini and Rossi.

You know, that's about as far as I go.

So she, whenever she tells me to go out and get wine, I walk in the store is what I do.

And I'm staring at the giant wall of wine.

I have no idea what's what.

I don't know whether to wine my ass or scratch my watch.

Have you ever had this feeling or are you a connoisseur of the Vino?

Suzanne knows her stuff.

I'm not really as knowledgeable as her, but she loves wine and she was extremely happy when a package from Naked Wines recently arrived and and we were so happy we got naked

well there you go and see that's part of it because once you can get them a couple of drinks in them boy i'll tell you what well no that was what i was saying no no that wasn't what it wasn't induced by the alcohol it was the happiness at the arrival we don't want to say this

that the alcohol brought from naked wines and but the point being you don't have to worry about all that stuff now picking out the wines and you see obviously we're saying the the wives like the wines wines or know the wines better than we do.

So

leave it to the experts because the people at Naked Wines,

apparently, they directly connect you to the world's finest independent winemakers.

Now,

apparently, you've seen where the winemakers, they stomp the grapes in the big vats, right?

Well, since they're indie winemakers, they're actually, there's barbed wire wrapped around their feet and they're jumping off scaffolds to stomp the grapes for the wine.

But you can get award-winning wine, folks, delivered straight to your door with nakedwines.com because, like we said,

they've been around 15 years.

They fund over 90 independent winemakers.

They got no commitments, no membership fees.

You can pause or cancel anytime if you've got a delivery coming up, but oops, I forgot I'm going on vacation that week, or I've got to report back to my parole officer to serve the rest of that time.

You can put the thing on pause.

Well, that happens to everybody sooner or later.

There may be a very, very, very, very, very small part of the audience.

Let's talk about

everybody.

Let's connect with the people that get off the train after a hard day's work and they just want to go home and see their wife, see their family, and sit down and enjoy a nice glass and get snookered.

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No, it's not the trademark and no one will be, first of all, I don't even know how that would work, but no one will be delivering the wine glasses.

They're actually allowed to, they're allowed to take their clothes off in the truck and then just hop out naked right in front of your house.

They don't have to walk down the street.

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And you do not have to worry about a nude free show.

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Do you have the well depend?

Depending on the driver, some people look forward to the shows.

It just, it's about 50, 50, maybe 60, 40, folks, that you're going to get what you wanted.

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also, there's a place.

If you go to the to the Naked Wines headquarters, they have a gift shop where they have videos of the naked girls stomping on this wine.

No, it's naked wines.

If that was the case, it would be nudist wines.

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Wait a minute, D.

Do that.

Do you want them stomping on the grapes with their old dirty shoes, or do you want them the nice bare feet like Tony Atlas would want?

That's

pushing a naked foot and a naked, naked everything.

Well, and then how far up are you willing to go?

Back to you, Jim.

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And it would be nice if you do tip.

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I don't think you have to tip the guy.

He enjoys it.

No, well, first of all, I don't even know what any of of this means but there will be no one that has nothing to do with naked wines they are not the courier they are just the supplier of the finest wines for you at a great price especially if you're a listener of this show promo code jce at password and uh is the password i should say and yes yes yes yes and a lot of these a lot of these delivery people are working their way through film school and they need the extra tip so they will occasionally they'll at least you know strip down to the waist again no but uh I'm trying so hard, ladies and gentlemen.

Let's get back to the elimination chamber.

Welcome, Naked Wines.

We're very happy to have you on board.

And Jim, some people think The Rock drinks before he goes out.

I don't know what's going on.

Let's go back to the Elimination Chamber.

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All right, speaking of being in on it, should we cover the men's Elimination Chamber contest at this point?

This was the main event match for Elimination Chamber, the men's match, where we were not only promised this match with big stars, but obviously a big post-match with Cody Rhodes and The Rock of some sort.

So let's talk about it.

Well, Ian, and we weren't promised a post-match, we were promised that Rock and Cody would interact.

And we found out as we went along that it apparently was going to be after this match because there wasn't nothing left.

But

the men's elimination chamber featured Logan Paul

versus Damian Priest versus CM Punk versus John Cena versus Drew McIntyre versus Seth Franklin Rollins.

And

in all honesty,

Priest still ain't quite there.

And they're trying and he's trying.

And it just something's happening.

He might be, you know, a little too flowery sometimes when he does the jump down, spin around, and slap my leg and nail you type of thing.

He's trying a little too hard with that prettiness.

Maybe I don't know.

Something's going on.

But everybody else you could buy

as being the winner of this thing, you know,

because of their star power, the way that they've been presented, their current positions, and everybody had an issue

with each other pretty much going in.

And then Cena's got the story of

his retirement tour and everything.

So there.

That's what I was saying earlier in the show.

There's a reason for these individual people to be mad at each other.

They didn't fall into the trap of when there's it's a multiple man match, like five or six guys that there's more baby faces than heels.

And you put the baby faces in the position of having to fight each other, you know, and try to rip each other's eyeballs out and not even have an issue with each other.

That wasn't the case here because everybody had a goddamn issue.

And they're all either heels or shades of

something,

right?

And then Logan Paul, who came out waving the American flag after they'd already booed the national anthem,

he is a fucking he, what a heel.

And again,

all you have to do

nowadays is wave the American flag, and you're automatically a heel everywhere except Russia.

They like us now over there.

But But

again,

as I was saying earlier, even though there's reasons, issues amongst all of these guys why they should be fighting, as well as fighting for the title shot.

And you got a couple pretty much full-fledged heels in there.

It's six sides against each other in an enclosed environment as they feed them in gradually, but it becomes a series of moves.

It doesn't have the drama of

a match, a contest, a fight between

two opposite sides or two entities

where you have the dramatic ebbs and flows, and you can lose yourself in the art of wrestling.

It's more like, oh, shit, who's going to dive off the top of the pod?

And Punk's a great storyteller, and he and fucking McIntyre were incredible.

And

Rollins can do quite well and cena

has the

experience to be a storyteller and

hopefully logan paul can be told stories because he's still green but you know what i'm saying it's just it's just stunts of people doing things to each other involving the cage and the pods and the

and the lions and tigers and bears you know so that's I would typically agree with you, but I actually, it didn't bother me at all here.

I thought the match was good because of the story.

You know, who's getting the title shot?

We assumed it was Cena, but as the match was happening, I'm like, well, you know, Punk is an interesting thing in this whole thing.

And, you know, the anticipation of when guys are going to come out, the way Rollins and Priest went at it in front of Punk, you know, that was a good, that was pretty cool.

Actually, just seeing him root on both guys, kicking the shit out of each other.

So I thought there was enough little anticipation.

And like you said, other than Priest, who

was in this match, but really doesn't have like a, I guess they're trying to do something with him and McIntyre, but

everyone had something going on.

Even McIntyre, the way he was eliminated, it was all part of like the storytelling with these guys in this match was really good, I think.

Yeah, and that's what I'm saying is the issue amongst the guys I liked.

I know they work hard and all the shit looked good.

But again, the elimination chamber to me, we've gone so far into is this game show

on nickelodeon you know gone wrong is this a modern day rollerball

the the pod opens when the overhead shot and the horn sounds and uh

did you see the fan camera footage of punks they've got like a couple of fluorescent lights in the top of the

the pods right that the guys are in and every time somebody would hit or jostle whatever punk's light was falling and he was picking it up before he got in the match he was picking it up and sticking it back in the socket.

And then they'd hit it and fall down again.

He was put it back up again.

It's just, it's a little too much for me.

I'm sorry.

Just, you know, good Lord, just because we have all that money doesn't mean that we have to do all the special effects.

Nevertheless,

Drew and Seth started us off.

And they kicked the shit out of each other.

And then here came Priest.

And he beat up Seth and Drew, but then they stopped him.

And I'm blowing through this like this, and then we'll talk about the general analysis.

But

you can't really,

you know, jot down the high points or call a blow by blow on this thing because it's just it boom and it takes a while because of the time for everybody to come in.

Logan Paul, number four,

and he does his shit.

And then finally, number five,

it was down to Cena and Punk, and it was Cena, and he gets the big pop you would expect.

And he got the biggest, really the biggest comeback so far.

He came out of Seth and Priest and Logan Paul and hit the AA on LP.

as they say, the attitude adjustment on Logan Paul, but Drew hit Cena with the kick and went for the cover.

and priest got Drew from behind and rolled him up in kind of a little crucifix one two three

and I

as you said they're trying to

and they have set something up with Drew and Priest but that seemed

it seemed sudden it almost seemed like one of the you know the

the the junior heavyweights as they used to say stealing something real quick

instead of the

Drew's because Drew got his elimination in the rumble stepped on didn't he and now he gets fucking crucifixed from behind boom one two three

no wonder he's feeling like he's being screwed I was gonna say he needed a new grievance and now he's got it and he's great with facial expressions too when he has to express express when he has to express I can't believe this happened to me I can't believe I'm out of here already

I thought that was great well but you know what they say about grief You can't grievance forever.

But then as Drew was shocked,

he got up and fucking ran over and fucking Claymore kicked Priest and knocked a shit out of him

and left.

And Logan Paul

got up on top of one of the pods and did the

frog sprash.

The frog sprash is what he did on Damian Priest and beat him one, two, three.

So now

there went

Drew and there went Priest, and we've still got

Punk to go because he was number six, and he joins Logan Paul and Cena and Seth.

And then they get in a dagum fight, does Logan Paul and Punk, and Punk beats up Logan Paul.

I think everybody enjoys kind of beating up Logan Paul.

And then

Punk sees Cena and and they have the face-off, and the crowd is up.

And what's going to happen?

And Seth spoils it and levels Punk.

So then Cena and Seth get in a fight and they do a big yay boo

because now they were taking

vast majority of were taking Cena's side over Seth in that exchange.

Even though Seth is still the darling of the fashion set.

And

Logan Paul broke that up and Punk hit Logan Paul with the go-to-sleep.

Boom, covered him one, two, three, and got a big pop for getting Logan Paul the fuck out of there.

So now we were down to Cena and Seth and Punk.

And Cena and Punk took Seth out and went back to their face-off.

And then

Cena offered his hand.

Punk came in for a hug.

They hugged and then they got in a fight old frenemies you might say

and they go back and forth and cena foils the go to sleep and gets the stf but punk reverses to the anacona vi anacana anacana on account of he could do it the anacon device

punk hit a crossbody off the top but cena rolled through and gave Punk the attitude adjustment, got a two count.

This was good shit.

Now that it's down to a couple or three people, you can get into

the turgid rock-hard meat of the matter.

And so Seth buckle bombed Cena into the cage and ran him through the pod door.

And then went back to Punk and pedigreed him and got a two count.

Punk hit the elbow off the top rope on Seth, but Seth hit the buckle bomb and the curb stomp on Punk.

Two count.

Punk with a go to sleep on Seth and Seth sold into Cena's attitude adjustment and then punk covered him one two three

so Seth took the the finisher of both the the top guys boom before it could take him out

and we were about 30 minutes in which for this thing wasn't wasn't the worst thing ever I've seen worse

and we're down to punk and Cena

and now you okay how's this going they've They've teased it.

How's it going to go?

Cena offers his hand.

Punk takes it and pulls him into the go-to-sleep and hits it and gets a two-count.

But their punk was opportunistic at that point.

And then Cena hit a surprise attitude adjustment and got a two count.

And then Punk kicked.

Cena off, but

Punk's head was over the bottom rope as he turned around and was selling up.

And Seth was still on the outside and ran down the apron or the ramp or whatever they call it and hit the curb stomp on Punk

on the hard rampway.

And Cena pulled him into the ring and got the STF.

And Punk passed out.

And the referee rang the bell because of Seth again.

We still got that.

We still want to see that fucking match.

Seth and Punk.

And he caused Punk to lose this thing.

And you could even say at this point,

Cena was still a Raven babyface because the little detail that Punk had earlier taken his handshake and jerked him into his finish.

So why shouldn't Cena

have jerked Punk into his after

he got curb stomped?

Yeah, yeah, you hear me what I'm telling you, Brian?

I hear you.

A lot of fans jumped on that and said that that was

the tease that

Hina, that Cena was about to turn heel,

was the idea that he was so opportunistic with the punk pen.

But it had just happened to him by this guy just moments before.

Jerked him right out of a handshake.

But again, this stuff, it was very, very

the stories and the interplay and the issues between everybody going in this thing was very well done.

And I like what they did.

I guess the best way to say it is the atmosphere in which they're doing it has gotten a tad ridiculous.

Maybe that's the best way to.

I thought the Cena and punk stuff was great.

Yes, because we finally got down to nut cutting time, as they used to say.

Mama Cornette never said that.

She was not an advocate of the cutting of nuts of any description.

But speaking of nuts, we get back to this.

Cena

has won this thing.

Cena has won the Elimination Chamber and will go on to

face Cody

at the big WrestleMania extravaganza.

And they did the replays of

the match and the finish and the celebration there.

And then, boom,

Cody music hits.

And Cody comes to the ring.

And they're Cody and Cena, a couple different generations, but the guy in the company.

And they're, you know, Cody's gesturing you and me at WrestleMania, and Cena is, and they shake hands.

Looks like it's going to be a friendly contest, Brian.

And then suddenly,

the rocks music hits.

And you look, and it ain't the rock,

it's Travis Scott

And with his own title belt,

and apparently coming to the ring accompanied by some of his own shitty music.

If this was his music,

I don't really care to see any more of Travis Scott.

But it didn't look like that he was bringing the house down in the Toronto Sky Dome either.

Until

after a bit of milking, the rock stepped out.

And then I thought his,

you're biased, but tell me what you think.

Was the rocks ovation kind of muted because they had seen Travis Scott there and they thought they were being fucking zoomed somehow?

I thought it was a little bit, but I don't know if that was the cause.

I think it's a bit of a misstep.

I understand leaning into celebrity, and Travis Scott wants to wrestle, and they're

all about TKO's all about embracing celebrity, but this isn't Mike Tyson, and this isn't Dennis Rodman.

Like, this is not someone who all of America knows.

And

it just seemed ridiculous that he was a part of this whole thing.

Yeah, well, standing in the ring during an angle, which we'll get to in a minute, and trying to get physical.

I think, did I see footy?

Did he slap Cody in the ear?

Well, I saw it when it happened, and then we'll talk later on about the press scrum, what was said about it.

But it appears he shoot, slapped Cody in the face.

And it appears the rock told him, you know, you better get blood on your hands.

And he did.

He took the rocket as his word and he actually hit Cody.

If I was Cody, I can't wait for my fucking receipt.

Oh my God.

Fuck on his ear drum, he might have got the blood from.

He slapped him in the ear from what I, if I'd have been Cody, I said, fuck it, I'd have got up and made Rock knock me out again after I killed that son of a bitch.

But nevertheless, so point being, we're

getting ahead of ourselves.

The rock came out with Travis Scott and his Mark Belt.

And they took forever to get to the ring.

And there was a lot of milking of this.

And

The Rock did the, tried to lay down the premise again where, you know, I want to open my arms and Cody Rhodes will come into my arms and I will embrace him as his brother and my brother.

And we're all brothers.

And just in return, I want Cody's mind and soul.

And this got to the, did you hear?

it?

Wasn't

it, they didn't rock the house with it, but the crowd was starting to what the rock.

And it not in places it was.

I actually didn't hear that.

I didn't notice that.

There was a bit of them starting to what the rock, not in places designed to be what it.

It was, it was like the who's in Whoville.

It was faint, but it was there.

And it was starting to get bigger.

I think that's why he switched up gears.

But

if the answer is yes, then Cody will live forever.

And if it's no,

then tonight the dream dies again.

And the people didn't respond to that.

He was obviously talking about Dusty because he has a weight belt with the date of Dusty's death and Cody's soul written on it.

Rock loves visual aids.

And I mean, they are

quite good.

But

so

I was getting

the impression from this because nobody is screaming at Cody, no, no, don't do it, don't do it, no.

It

like they would have in previous generations that it would have babyface would have to make a choice at a crossroads.

And I don't think they've wanted to,

I don't think they, the fans I'm talking about, they,

I don't think they've liked the pitch of this.

I don't think they liked what it came up to begin with.

I don't think they wanted to see Cody involved in this.

And

then when Cody milked it, I don't think they've wanted to see Cody seriously considering this, which is the way it's been portrayed, that

he would be seriously considering it.

And considering Markov.

That's my whole point.

Considering this.

Well, considering this,

the idea of selling out to the

man and becoming the rock's puppet is what's implied with, I want your soul.

But again, it's such a nebula, I'll give you everything you ever dreamed of if you'll just go in the sauna with me on Thursdays.

What does he have to do differently than what he's doing right now to sell his soul

and be his champion?

That has not been delineated as to how he would have to modify his behavior, which is another one of the reasons why I don't think people have really been into this, except to see it over with.

And that's why when Cody finally says, I want it all, Rock.

I want it all.

I want all of the fame and fortune and blah, blah, blah.

But my soul no longer belongs to me.

Why?

Because I've already given it to this ring and these people.

And they said, ah, hey, Rock, go fuck yourself.

And they didn't even bleep fuck because it's a premium live event.

A premium fucking live event is the way they ought to sell them now.

And he got a giant pop with that.

Hey, Rock, go fuck yourself.

Because that's what they wanted to.

What is my number one

rule of a babyface promo?

Going back to

anything I've ever said in public about it.

The babyface at some point needs to say what the fans want to say about a guy or to a guy or about a situation or whatever, but they don't have the platform.

And a lot of people want to say, hey, Rock, go fuck yourself.

Yeah.

They love that.

And then the rock kind of stood there

somewhat dumbfounded.

And

that's when Cena comes up and he hugs Cody.

They're laughing about what he said to the rock, and he hugs Cody, and they're all smiles and everything.

And then they get the, and again, you know, Brian, I wonder if they have those things in the WWE call production meetings.

You know, the things we were talking about recently that that AEW doesn't have because their show isn't finished in time for them to have one?

I wonder if WWE has production meetings.

Or do you think the handheld camera

guy is just so he's nostradamus, he knows exactly where to be to get the over-the-shoulder facial shot of the change in expression that can then be cut to the shot of the rock where he gives the signal

and Cena frowns

and that frown is turned upside down when he stands up and he kicks Cody Rhodes right in the balls.

That was again, they're cutting back and forth

of a live event that is happening in real time and they're getting close-ups of people's facial expressions.

This is goddamn major league shit.

Kevin Dunn

was in summer school, maybe

when they taught that stuff, or he was in detention or whatever.

But that's what happened: is as soon as Cody said, go fuck yourself to the rock, Cena hugs him for it and looks at the rock.

The rock gives the signal.

And Cena stands up and kicks Cody right in the balls.

And then

Cena grabs Cody's watch, I believe.

Who was it?

Was it Michael Cole or somebody?

He's got brass nucks.

He obviously picked up a watch.

You could almost see Timex on it.

But he picked up the watch and put it on like Nux and punches Cody

and hits him with the microphone and hits him with a title belt and hits him again with a title belt.

And by now, Cody's bleeding.

And Cena rips Cody's shirt off and he chokes him with his tie.

Brian, do you think they thought to fire him like they did Danielson

with the choking with the NXT announcer or whatever with the tie at that time?

We got a fuck.

The commentator said shit, and then we got this.

I think it's a whole new era.

I thought you meant the commentators actually had took a shit.

And then the rapper, as we mentioned, tried to do something and was very awkward and potatoed Cody.

And then The Rock whipped Cody with the weight belt, and then they stood on him.

And the one thing, again,

there should be,

there's enough attention to detail in this and with

the rock that it's something that they didn't want to do and they made the choice rather than nobody thinking about it.

Nobody tried to fucking stop this.

You've got

in what other business anywhere, Hollywood to fucking

Manhattan, Wall Street, do you have

a member of the board of directors of a company beating up one of the most valuable employees of the company?

And nobody else of any kind of goddamn standing in the company is even trying to get in to separate them and help save it.

No, please let's not hurt Cody.

He has to maintain a $100 million show in six weeks.

If there was some effort,

it would be nice.

But

it went for quite a while because the final boss, I believe, likes being

the final boss.

But now we got John Cena

in the grip of the corporate puppet masters.

And before we get to my thoughts on that,

this angle in your mind.

I think the moment was exceptional.

From the go fuck yourself to the rock to the rock standing there to the Cena hug and Cena's face.

This face that we've seen smiling for years, all of a sudden, he turned into a cop who's been on the beat for way too long.

His face dropped.

And again, they shot it well, but he did great.

The rock doing the signal.

Somebody on Twitter said Jim Varney has turned into a sullen bastard.

The rock doing the cutthroat signal was perfect.

It was just vicious the way he did that.

And it was great.

I agree with you.

No one ran in to make a save.

I know Triple H can't get physical, but he could be at ringside ordering people to save Cody.

Something.

I didn't like the idea that no one saved Cody.

And, you know, that's the way the show ends with them standing over him.

With Cena turning here,

potentially you also give him a reason to turn back at the end of his year because he gets fed up with The Rock.

Because I can't imagine he's going to retire as a heel.

That would be the most stunning thing of all, I think.

Yeah.

And obviously he's sick of Make-A-Wish as the other big takeaway.

No,

I thought the...

Oh, and now he's going to start another organization called Take-A-Wish.

He wants some back.

That's funny.

They should do something.

Yeah, we're going to have to go to his place and start doing shit for him.

Cody, the only way you're going to beat me, a mania, is if you make a wish.

But I think the angle was great.

I think the moment was great.

I wouldn't compare it to the NWO, which a lot of people have done, the Hogan turning heel and joining with Holland Nash.

There, the reaction was very different.

And although Cena's been a babyface forever, although you got to see him as a heel, obviously, he's been a babyface forever.

It's different than when Hogan turned.

I wouldn't compare the two, and I wouldn't compare the visceral reaction.

Also, he's turning kind of under the rock as opposed to Hogan turning to be revealed as the leader of something.

Well, and besides that, Hogan was was reviving his career at that point, whereas Cena was already hot and he was about to leave anyway.

And that's what

I agree.

And again, I said earlier, I believe I did in the course of this diatribe,

The Rock, I've always thought was a great performer.

I think probably said he could come out and read the phone book.

But lately, he's been coming, he's been reading the same page as the phone book twice, or he came out on NXT just not

knowing what was going on and he seemed somewhat both somewhat full of himself as a

as a heel on camera that's fine but also quite a bit full of himself off camera as is this another

russo-esque type of thing where i invented air and water and i have an opinion on everything and i'm making everything better because i'm in it

And the way that they got here, I know everybody said, well, just enjoy the ride The Rock rock has taken you on.

He insinuated himself into this thing,

kind of switched back and forth a couple of times between, are we supposed to like you or not,

then establish that we're not supposed to like him on TV, but we're supposed to like him more in real life because

he's doing such a great job of being an asshole on television.

And turn John Cena heel.

If they were going to turn John Cena heel, I'm not sure they needed the rock in the middle of this.

It was done brilliantly.

But also,

business-wise, I'm thinking, and I'm not even talking about what's best to make the best show or,

you know,

what will win angle of the year,

but they've got a lifelong babyface, the most popular

guy that they had at one point for a 10-year-long period, John Cena,

who's announced he's going to make one more appearance in 30 cities or whatever.

And

some of those are going to be on premium live event.

And the kids have always loved him.

And as a channel, merchandise and, you know, he's taking a farewell lap.

If this,

I would have said, yeah, go for it wholeheartedly and without reservation.

If it, if they hadn't already said he's only going to be here for for another fucking 30 shows this year and he's done

a turn this big with somebody of that stature

you could almost you could get a few years out of it and but they've got a limited amount of time are they losing millions of dollars in merchandise sales do they think the people are smart and it doesn't matter but does the eight-year-old kid that they might have caught this time around because of their parents do they want the john Cena?

Is it hustle loyalty and respect?

Or is it

hot lesbian action with the rock?

I don't know what the fuck's going on.

They've turned a guy that's almost done.

I guess is my thing is,

would they come out as well or ahead

if they had just had the John Cena retirement tour?

and sold all that merchandise, sold all those tickets, seen one more time,

instead of doing an angle that would set him up as a top heel normally for the next two or three or four years.

Your thoughts?

I mean, that's more of a question for you because you are really more of the expert with this stuff.

That's the question.

You're doing the scene a heel turn now.

You know, we heard from a lot of people that are like, you see, you see it all?

It all gave us this.

And you're right, it's going to run out pretty soon.

It would have been a lot different if he had turned in 2015 or something.

It would have been a lot different.

It would have been under Vince, too.

But it's still big and it has a big impact.

Again, he's kind of the champion for The Rock,

which is interesting.

Cena is big enough to turn heel and be his own guy.

It's an interesting role for him to have right now, and that is what it is.

It's a role where he's going to kind of be working for the corporate rock, I guess.

And he's a movie star, too.

He doesn't need the auditions.

Obviously, The Rock can't work.

I don't even know if The Rock could bend over and touch his toes at this point without going to the hospital and needing surgery or something.

So it's interesting that they're going to try to incorporate him as this heel

over boss,

but he can't really do anything in the ring beyond injuries or anything.

And the real reason why the injuries would matter is they would screw up his films.

And that's the priority, not this.

So it's going to be very interesting.

I think the moment and the angle was great.

For everyone who tweeted at or something, you need to apologize to the rock.

You need to get off his dick.

He's not going to buy you a fucking truck unless he can film it and unless you're famous already.

Seriously, the way it was set up to this, like, see, it made complete sense that he was incoherent in the ring on NXT.

No, it doesn't.

I'm starting to wonder if he's drinking when he comes out because he's drinking during the scrum.

The angle was great.

The moment was great.

Let's see where they go with this.

But don't try to sell me on everything making sense or being good

up to this point.

The reaction he's come out to the last couple of times has told the story.

You can get the murderer

in a fucking murder mystery

without the fucking story leading up and it being an exciting finish without the story leading up to it making any sense.

If you pick it apart, well, what about all these loopholes?

The guy couldn't have, he was in Phoenix the whole day the murder happened.

But it does

The point is, it's a good fucking deal.

That

it was executed exactly as they wanted it to be done.

And the people reacted to it live, and they've been talking positive or negative or indifferent.

They've been talking about it ever since.

But it started off a little shady, and I think they polished it based on what was being talked about was going wrong.

Based on the way you're reacting, do you think it's crazy they're going to have Cena as a heel for his last year?

i

i would i say crazy or just i don't know

i don't know you know

if that's a thing that they should have done or not it's probably something and again it's probably something he wanted to do he's probably gonna have a great time doing it well yeah because he'll have fun you know because he don't give a shit he's he's done at the end of the year and it's not like john's a guy that takes you know

He's not Bruno in terms of taking it that seriously that he would always be a babyface.

I think he'll drink wine around children.

But

I get, you know, that's the thing.

I'm not saying that he doesn't want to do it.

I'm just saying if I was running the business and what would I get the most out of,

I don't know that it needed to be done at this point

or whether he should have been allowed to go ahead and ride off into the sunset after having sold $17 million worth of merchandise or whatever.

It'll be interesting, too, because one of the things we anticipated was all the merch for the goodbye tour, like Derek Jeter coming to every stadium for the last time.

Cena was going to go to all these different places.

The final time, it'll be the, you know, the last time here t-shirt in every single town.

I guess they still could do it.

They still may do it.

But now the people are going to be saying, yeah, good riddance.

Or they, for the first time, will ever do heel Cena merchandise now.

I mean, it's a very interesting thing.

And, you know, you say that a lot of guys are kind of riding that wave where their heels are babyfaces based on a situation.

This is clearly someone being a heel.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

He absolutely

looked at a guy and kicked him in the balls at the behest of another man

or another person.

It wasn't in a sexual way.

No.

Man, the way his face dropped, that was the best acting.

That's the best acting he's ever done.

That was amazing.

And again, the rock, the viciousness with which he delivered the cutting of the throat, the whole way that was done was perfect.

And they shot it well.

If it was AEW, we'd see Christopher Daniels punching himself in the head.

Well, Jim, from there, let's go to the media scrum, the press conference, whatever they're calling it in WWE.

Triple H spoke.

Some of the wrestlers were there.

But the story was really about The Rock

who

went for a long time, took questions when they told him to stop, drank his tequila the whole time, drinking his tequila.

So let's go to this and as always, treat it like it's Tony Khan.

Stop me when you want to mention something, but let's go to at least the first few questions.

It may be some things that answer questions we've had.

Well, that was a fun night.

Yeah.

Hey, everybody.

Am I picking?

Everyone's, I'm happy to pick.

Sure.

Ladies first.

We have them right here, second row, left-hand side.

Denise Alcato, Instinct Culture.

So I'm going to start off with the big moment that just closed out the show.

A historic moment leaving so many fans completely shocked.

From your point of view, being in there in the ring as this unfolded.

Talk to us about how you felt.

Is that Fran Drescher?

This is a wrestling reporter.

Oh, these are not people from like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Dallas Times-Herald, the Atlantic Constitution, the Pixley Beagle.

I think it's a mix between wrestling journalists, local news and radio up in Toronto, and websites.

So let's go back to this.

Okay.

And coming out of it, of course, and seeing this different side of John Cena.

It was an amazing moment.

Lisa, is it?

Sorry.

Denise, sorry.

Denise, it was an amazing moment.

And, you know, we as entertainers, whether in pro wrestling or whether in film or television or whatever it is that you do, you really live for moments like that where

you can hopefully create something that could be very compelling and moving for the audience and take tonight 38,000 strong here in Toronto.

And

what we have collectively thought about and talked about in the back, before and certainly after this moment,

is no one knew really what was going to happen.

Maybe a few called it, but for the most part, I thought the moment was incredible.

And

I personally love that.

And I've been around the block in terms of being a pro wrestler and being, I grew up in this business, so I love this business.

And

I grew up in this business and I love this business.

So that's why I want to go out and do something and then

go to the press conference and tell everybody how great it was, pat myself on the back for me and all the people in the back making it up to surprise everybody.

So

he's looking for Emmy nominations or whatever for his work here rather than wanting to be a heel.

He wants to have his Kate and Edith too.

You rascal, you hard lady who?

He wants to be both a heel and a baby face.

You think of like the Undertaker who we never heard a peep from until that was until the end of his career.

We never heard him talk about, oh, yeah, me and Vince were talking about that.

We never saw him in documentaries, nothing.

Imagine if during his career, he came out.

It was really, it was a lot of fun flying to the ceiling tonight.

And I finally got to work with Kabuki.

That was a dream of mine.

Like, it would have killed it.

But let's go back to

Dwayne The Rock Johnson.

Tonight, and I've been a part of some really phenomenal professional wrestling angles.

And as a kid growing up, I've seen some, we all have seen some amazing professional wrestling angles.

I felt like tonight

stood beside all of those that were the iconic angles.

So it was really incredible.

So I was very proud.

But overall, I thought the performances by everybody across the board, all the women, all the men, they

the choreographer, the set designer.

I'd like to thank all the little people.

What do you think of him already thinking minutes after it happened that the angle he just did is one of the all-time great angles?

That's what I'm saying.

And I don't remember any of the all-time great angles where one of the participants 15 minutes later was saying, yeah, boy, we fooled all you guys.

We thought of some good horse shit tonight.

Out there.

And I'm very, very proud of them.

I know their schedule.

I know it well.

I lived it at one time for many, many years.

I grew up in it with my dad, my grandfather, my uncles, my grandmother.

I mean, everybody, my cousins.

So I understand the grind of the schedule and what everyone was able to do tonight from top to bottom, from the opening match to the final match, was

really phenomenal.

And I was very, very proud of everybody.

So what a night it was.

Let me stop it there before we get to the next question, even though we stopped it a few times.

Do wrestlers want that or not want that?

The idea that here's the rock who just shows up whatever.

And he's saying, I understand.

I've done the grind, my family, everything, my family.

I guess you didn't know.

I grew up in a wrestling family.

Yeah,

I've kept it a well-kept secret up until now, but

I don't know.

Again, I don't know what more to say about this.

That he's just, he's treating this like it's a movie role, and he's talking to the Hollywood press.

And

he seems again to want to insert himself.

under the guise of, well, I'm the, you know, the biggest in the business, so it'll do the biggest business.

But every WrestleMania when

he ain't been part of the fucking story thus far.

Well, let's now go to some more audio.

The next question

of The Rock, and apparently this one, according to the notes here, he discusses the criticism of being a babyface and a heel, and then a babyface, and then a heel, all in one long, long promo.

Trading side.

Thank you.

Sam Roberts from Not Sam Wrestling.

I have two questions if you'd bear with me because one I woke up with and one I came up with on the floor as we just watched, you know, this huge moment in wrestling.

But my first is about the final boss.

And

I've been pretty public about how much I've loved the character and

how much it kind of elevated storytelling in pro wrestling.

But at the same time, when the final boss is

back

last week on SmackDown,

One minute, the final boss is thanking everybody for the amount of money that Moana made and helping people with their phones that had fallen on the floor.

The next minute, he's talking about syphilis and

he's asking for Cody Rhodes' soul.

Sorry, Sam, for the record, not that I have syphilis.

Oh, sorry.

I was pointing it out to a fan.

All right, sorry, go ahead.

Poorly phrased question.

That's fair.

My question is: for us,

are we to take the final boss as a babyface, as a heel?

At this point, who is the final boss?

Good question.

I feel like, Sam, in a way, perhaps, and I'm not knocking you at all.

I listened to your podcast, and I feel like there is a...

that might be a little limiting.

And what I mean by that is, because the final boss is a lot of things.

He's a heel, he's a babyface, but also he's one,

he's a brother, he's a man

who

doesn't adhere to the typical professional wrestling tropes that we find.

Anybody that uses that phrase is too full of his own self and loves the smell of his own brand.

Yeah, that's when Cody was the most full of himself.

Then he backtracked off that.

But let's go to this.

Talks like this, or babyface talks like this.

I feel like I've reached this point in my career where

I'm able to go out there as the final boss and address the crowd.

Hey, New Orleans,

2026,

you have WrestleMania 42 coming to the Super Dome.

Final boss starts singing.

Oh, and the Saints come marching in.

They start singing with me.

And I tell them, no, you shut your mouth.

I'm going to sing by myself.

It's not going to happen like that.

So I like vacillating between a heel and a babyface, but also I feel like it's important to, I have reached this point in my career where I feel really comfortable in my own skin when when I go out.

I can do whatever I want to it.

I don't give a shit.

Film or whatever it is I do where I say what I want to say and I say, but more importantly than that, and I don't mean to be defiant or sound defiant about that.

I say what I feel.

And in that moment, that's the luxury and the brilliance.

And that woman really did have syphilis all over her face.

And in that moment, I felt I've never been to In-N-Out Burger before.

This must be the very first time.

I need to let the world know.

I think of, I'm sorry, that's the luxury and the blessing of being in pro wrestling when you have a live microphone that you could say what you feel.

And in that moment, if I feel like having fun with the crowd, I do it.

If I feel like telling them to shut up, the final boss is going to sing or asking their champion, hey, you're going to give me your soul.

So I like that.

And I like, and also, again,

I'm comfortable, man, in being in my own skin.

And I like that.

That's why he sticks needles in his ass all the time.

Let's say now when you first met him in like 96 i guess it would have been yeah was this the way he talked i mean is this just the way he explains himself and talks

no

i mean he

he he's always been a smart very articulate you know young fellow Not saying he was the, you know,

wrestling been very, very good to me, but he wasn't,

he was more humble about his position, first of all.

And then even if he was, you know, when he got on top, a witty,

you know, sharp-tongued, great promo, whatever,

there was not this element of

how great I am, how great I am.

I'm going to say how great I am.

He sounds like Hogan.

Like when Hogan would be like, and you know, the family were there too, they're all hocomaniacs.

And, you know, I did that.

Like, it's just this way of talking, all, doing all the talking himself to say all the things he wants people to think.

Let's go back to this.

With the final boss,

there are no constraints and there are no handcuffs.

And we can go out and have the reaction that we had tonight to final boss because people were waiting and create an experience with Travis Scott and going out and

embracing me, Cody Rhodes, and then eventually putting his blood on this belt and beating him with it.

And more importantly, Travis Scott deafening Cody Rhodes with a slap to the eardrum.

I would say that regarding being a heel or babyface.

And lastly, Sam, I do want to say that I encourage that where we can.

And that goes for all the other talent in the locker room, women and men.

If we could find that place, and that's a really special place, rare air, where you can

like

don't think about, well, a heel should say this or a babyface should say this.

It's old school and it worked for decades and decades.

But today, it's okay.

Stretch Stretch the aperture out and go out there and say what you feel.

Bring it from here.

Let me stop it there before Sam gets a second question.

What are your thoughts on

heels shouldn't worry about how heels, I guess, what heels should say and what baby faces should say.

What are your thoughts?

Well,

there's no

script or guidebook or rule of thumb on what a baby face or a heel should or shouldn't say past

somewhat common sense in that

a heel should try not to be too likable.

Now, you've got,

you know, we've said the

great heels or the great heel turns or whatever, they feel they're in the right and they've been wronged.

And we're seeing it with varying degrees with Drew McIntyre or Kevin Owens to some degree.

But they still have to come off as whining about it as they remind Drew that he's whining all the time or etc.

it's not you can't go back and forth between making the people cheer and love you and then suddenly saying they have syphilis on their face but then back to but you like me now

it it's it's confusing

you're bouncing back and forth between polar opposites there can be some shades of gray but let's not ricochet too far back and forth without putting somebody's eye out.

Is there anyone in that company that could put him in check and say, hey, Dwayne, this isn't good.

Do it a little differently, or maybe you should try it a different way.

Is there anyone who gets consulted?

And is there anyone who could actually do that?

Nick Connor Triple H, I guess, or Ari Emmanuel?

Well, apparently, Ari Emmanuel now

might be the one because since they're best buds, that's probably why

The Rock is, you know, convinced and rightfully so that he has carte blanche to do whatever.

But at some point, if if triple h and a contingent of people from the company went and said hey can you calm him down a little bit we're trying to plan this six months in advance and he walks in with this great idea

that you know creates a domino effect

and say what you feel bring it from here i appreciate real quick i appreciate you saying that you should come by the basement sometime but john cena yeah you have this moment right and i think one of the uh criticisms that has come up up about The Rock and the final boss, whether it was January on Netflix, whether it was whatever, is this idea that where is he going?

Is he the guy who's going for Cody the night after WrestleMania?

Is he this?

All of a sudden tonight, I feel like one of the things that made this moment so significant was that everything got tied together from John Cena's promo in the press conference.

It wasn't even a promo after the Royal Rumble to you showing up at Bad Blood, which at some point people said that meant nothing, but the same throat slit we got tonight.

How long, for lack of a better term, has this been cooking?

It meant something.

And you said a word, it's long, and that's what it is.

I'm a long gamer, and I like long gaming, and I like...

creating with Paul and with Brian Grewertz and Maya Lazry, who's on my side of the team, and I like creating with Paul and his team as well.

We're long gamers.

And so what a lot thought, well, of Bad Blood, when it was a pay-per-view that The Rock attended and I just did a very small, subtle thing,

there was a lot of criticism.

Like, oh, it didn't mean anything.

Well, it did.

It's okay.

It's okay if you're not thinking about it now, but just trust me when I tell you, we are thinking about this stuff and long gaming this.

And I love that.

Same thing last week, same thing when we opened up with Netflix in LA, where I came out as the director of the board and welcomed everybody and welcomed the Netflix executives.

I thank Cody Rhodes for carrying this company in such a tremendous way on his shoulders.

I gave him dap.

I gave him a big hug.

Well, I knew this night was coming.

So

we're long gaming, Sam.

And by the way, I hear you on your podcast.

Well, let me stop it there.

That's why the game was so long last year when they came out and made their brilliant announcement and the people fucking almost rioted until they changed it.

And then they tried to make it seem like that was their idea the whole time.

Does what he just said justify the way it's gone?

Again, it's one thing if you say, okay, make an appearance at Bad Blood.

That teases something going forward.

Do the segments, the debut on Raw, the debut on Netflix, I should say, the NXT,

the previous one with Cody on SmackDown,

the angles or the moments may justify things, but the actual execution from The Rock

and him clearly, I mean, he said it here, our side of the team.

He has his own writers that he works with, and then Paul and his team.

So it's all of the roster under Triple H and his team, and The Rock under him and his own team.

And I wonder what happens with those teams when they are at cross purposes and are not together.

Whose team wins?

I don't know, but let's move a little bit forward.

We'll get a couple more things in here.

Here's The Rock being asked about, apparently, Travis Scott.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Third row, right hand side.

Raj Prashad from Uprock Sports.

Hey.

Hey, man.

Travis Scott, we see him tonight, obviously.

He's had this incremental involvement, right?

He's in the crowd, and then he's a part of Entrances.

Now he's in the ring.

Could we eventually see Travis Scott in the ring, perhaps as a partner with The Rock and John Cena?

Yes.

Yes.

That's why we're doing it.

Absolutely.

It's a great question.

Long gaming.

So, look, I love Travis.

That's my guy.

Where we have expanded to, I think, in the WWE, I feel like professional wrestling has always been,

has always found its unique place in culture throughout the decades.

I grew up in the business, right?

We remember rock and wrestling, Cindy Lauper, Hulk Hogan.

We then remember the Attitude Era, et cetera, right?

So I feel that...

Why did he have to say I grew up in the business again?

Because I think he forgot between

the time he said it and the last three shots at Tequila.

Professional wrestling has had its place in culture for some time.

And I think we are tapping into a unique time now.

I'm not quite too sure what we name this era.

We'll all figure it out.

Someone will come up with something cool.

I'll say it out loud and I'll take credit for it.

But

I feel like with Travis, Travis loves the business, he loves pro wrestling, and he's a culture guy.

Travis Scott is

one of the greatest already of all time.

He's a goat, he's a legend, he's an icon, he loves the business.

So we get guys and girls like that who want to come in and who are already tapping into culture and disrupting culture in their own cool way.

They want to come in.

I can't believe this guy disrupts culture.

At the show, maybe they want to sit.

Maybe they want to enjoy.

Maybe they want to be on camera.

We're here.

We're supporting.

But then some want to get involved.

And then some,

like Travis, deeply want to get involved.

And that's what you saw tonight was this, oh, we have this opportunity to create this big moment in pro wrestling that is arguably one of the biggest, maybe the biggest.

Some fans' words, not mine, tonight.

And we also have an opportunity, I think, to bring Travis Scott in too as well and start to form a union, an alliance with the final blockchain.

Why is Travis Scott so important to this fucking guy?

What does Travis Scott have on The Rock?

What is he the greatest of

all time?

His relationship with The Rock is the big thing.

And, you know, the difference between a Travis Scott and

you know, someone with his popularity today versus Cindy Lauper and Mr.

T in 85 or Mike Tyson in 98,

they brought people in.

I don't think Travis Scott will.

I don't think anyone's going to say, Travis Scott's wrestling, I need to watch.

Those other examples, that's what happened.

People had to see what was going to happen.

Yeah, I think it's doing more for Travis Scott or

Puffy or Poppy or Poppy or...

poopy or whatever.

It's doing more for these people than it is for the WWE.

Well, let's go back to more from the rock

scott

and

he wanted to get in a way

to steal a term he wanted to get his hands bloody

and i whispered to him as he was going out i said if you get your hands bloody make it count

make it count

He slapped the shit tonight.

He slapped the shit out of Cody

but

he was really really hyped up I mean it was really amazing when Travis landed by the way I went in we had some words we just chopped up what the night is going to look like and I caught a contact high for about three hours it's like crazy and I loved it

all right let's stop it there for a second the rock telling him hey you want to get your hands bloody you want to get them dirty you better make a count what do you think

better lay it in again he's not the one that this fucking mark was hitting

you can't say something like that yes you want to lay slaps in but i don't think that it was particularly safe or well placed and you can't just say that to people but now see that's the final boss

aka dwayne the rock johnson working with a little bit with people when he's when it's convenient for him maybe he said that maybe he

Maybe the guy just said, can I hit him or slap him or whatever.

But now he's making it sound more grandiose because now

he works when it's beneficial to him, not to make people believe that the wrestling matches are anyway real, but to make people believe that he's the greatest thespian in the world.

Well, Jim, let's go back to one last thing from The Rock here before we move on.

This is The Rock talking about the plan all along, if it was the the plan all along for John Cena to sell his soul to the rock, which I guess is technically what happened, I don't know.

Let's go to this.

We have time for one last question.

What?

That's it.

That's what they're telling me.

Let's do two more.

Two more.

Hello.

Mona noas.

At the one, Mona.

It looks like you have it out for Cody.

First, you put blood on about for Mama Rhodes.

Now you have something with

his father.

So, was it your

influence, and was it the master plan all along for John Cena to sell his soul soul to you?

I don't know if I was the influence, but I will tell you this, is that

it's the part of the business that I love, two parts of this.

It's a part of the business that I love.

And I grew up in this business, as we know.

I was very fortunate to grow up in this.

And the part of the business that I love is that we can create things like this where I can create this belt,

but I just didn't want to put a belt that said Cody's soul.

I need a date that memorializes things, but also a date that means something to me, but really means something to me.

It's going to tie into my second part of this answer regarding John, which was, you know, June 11, 2015, when Dusty Rhodes passed away.

For those of you who don't know, Cody's dad, Dusty Rhodes, Cody's dad and my dad, Rocky Johnson, they were best buds.

And we're both

busy.

Riding horses, et cetera, especially down in Florida, we would go to Dusty's house all the time.

So, but right before Cody was born, because I'm about 10, 12 years older.

Hold on one second.

Did you ever hear that Rocky Johnson and Dusty Rhodes were best buds?

No, I can't

just flat out categorically state that that was not true.

But I, at the same point, they were together in Florida.

on the roster together.

And some when Dusty was booking, they may have been to each other's house, but I don't know if they were like, you know, lifelong close companions.

If they were best buds, Dusty would have booked them.

Let's go back to this.

Anytime I come back home to WWE and I do something,

I got to have skin in the game.

I got to have like really sink my teeth into something.

And what's real?

What feels real to me?

Well, your dad was one of my heroes.

So I'm going to put his date here.

And if I get the opportunity, and if you tell me no, and if you tell me in his very eloquent way, he told me no to

Bates, that was their bleep.

I don't know how they said that in front of 38,000 people like that.

What a moment.

But as I was saying, like, it's the most fun part

about our business that we love in creating moments.

So with John, I think you said that.

If I was the influence of this, perhaps, maybe

I was a conduit

to help him, in a way, in my small way.

I want to take any credit for this because this is John.

In my small way, a conduit to help John get to the place he's gotten tonight.

So, storyline

fiction,

this young pup get over.

What you guys felt tonight out there

was

decades of

what John has experienced as a performer and as a human being.

And I felt it in the ring.

I've had conversation with John.

We're good buddies.

I knew what his why was going into this.

And

it is so incredibly moving and compelling.

And it just, it grips you by the neck when he talks about it as he's talked to me about it and this is why I'm doing what I'm doing tonight and again storyline no storyline fiction non-fiction

the greatest I think angles in wrestling

is when it's anchored in some sort of authenticity and what you felt tonight he said and then

and then you don't blow that authenticity by analyzing it and how great you were to have thought of it and performed it so well 15 minutes later.

And I just, he's putting me to sleep because it's just more about, oh, it's wonderful, it's wonderful, it's wonderful.

You know what?

Hold on.

It's great.

You told me to treat him like Tony Khan.

Well, you know what?

We can stop it here.

It goes on and on and on.

I'm sure it does.

He says two more questions, but he ends up, he keeps adding questions to the thing because he's having a good time and drinking.

But what is your takeaway?

Hearing the rock?

Again,

it's one thing down the road if you do something,

analyzing what you did.

Nowadays with wrestling, that happens.

But to turn around and do it right away.

Right in the middle of it.

And

the issue, the angle itself may have been over, but the issue is not over.

Yet, and already he's just...

He wants to be a babyface to heel at the same time.

He wants to play a heel on TV because it's fun.

And he wants to be praised as a great guy for doing such a wonderful job of it.

And at the same point, it confuses people and gets in the way of the goddamn story in front of them when he's back and forth like that.

And what the fuck?

And again,

there's a lot of repeating himself lately, not only in the press conference, but on television.

And a lot of really,

you know, it's not the goddamn

greatest promo in the history of the world as it normally would be.

So I'm just wondering,

I don't know.

I don't know that John Cena needed the rock to turn.

If he was going to turn heel, he could have done it on his own.

He's one of the biggest stars ever.

If Brian Gewertz and whoever else is on the Rocks team were doing just the greatest shit of all time,

wouldn't it still be just an issue, the idea that Triple H is here all year round with his team, his producers, his writers, his wrestlers, and then someone comes in again, even if it is the best thing ever, how does that not disrupt everything?

It does.

There's no way it doesn't.

And because if you change

plan to include or disinclude even one major person in something

to do something else, then

that person had a dance partner was married to somebody as they say that changes them well then they got to find somebody well then you got to switch somebody out of something else it it it's not that fucking easy

well there it is tony kahn and chris jericho balled up into one the rock at a media scrum Having the time of his life, we will stay on top of this.

But with that, ladies and gentlemen, we return to your normally scheduled drive-through.

All right.

That's fitting.

Here we are back in where we are.

That wasn't leaf fitting.

I'll tell you that right now.

Well, Jim, any final thoughts on everything we saw, everything we heard from Illumination Chamber?

Yes, I think we need to get in a new business.

We need to get in a new line of work.

We need to have some way to make money where we don't have to watch the wrestling.

It's going to drive us all just stark staring mad.

I wish there was somebody that could build us some type of platform to where we could have our one of our genius ideas and put it into practice and build and grow and take over the world and become megalithic corporate overlords, telling the peons where to go and what to do, having thousands of people depending on us for their families' welfare.

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Well, Jim, traditionally, after a big pay-per-view, you can't wait until raw.

It used to be a Sunday night pay-per-view.

You couldn't wait till the next night.

Now we have a couple days to sit there and ruminate and think about what could happen.

And this was the big raw after elimination chamber.

Well, and

they were in Buffalo.

They shuffled off to Buffalo.

So

they had, they were sold out there.

They said, I don't know.

You might be able to find out through your sources how many people they had, but they had Toronto.

They ran SmackDown Friday night in the arena.

Then they had almost 40,000 in the stadium.

And then Buffalo and Toronto,

as I recall, are what, is it 120 miles?

Something like that.

And they've got a giant mob in Buffalo.

Pedro Martinez probably spinning in his grave at seeing this house.

And

the emphasis all night, obviously, with the packages and the recaps and, you know, people keeping

going back to the topic was Cena turning and the shock and the

so get, let me get this straight now, Brian.

They are.

showing reactions of people who broadcast their reactions to shit that they see on television on the internet.

And people apparently watch

the people reacting to something that the people are watching, the people reacting to something that those people are watching.

But can the other people see it too?

How does that even fucking work?

I think it depends on the person.

It depends on the platform, but I will say this.

And a lot of them look completely pretentious.

Like, you know, again, you're filming yourself waiting to react to something.

You're going to react a little different when you know you are filming yourself.

Well, yes, they're jumping up and down like goddamn chimpanzees in the fucking zoo.

But this is WWE's continuing attempt to infiltrate and have relationships with anyone who's a star on social media.

And

while it may seem crazy, it's one of those things Tony Khan and AEW need to do better.

WWE's owning this right now, and they're getting anyone, some of these people you see, I mean, I don't think most wrestling fans would know them.

And they're boosting people that also do their PR work, which is what this really is.

I don't have time

to watch all the things that I might want to watch on television, much less watching other people watching fucking television.

I don't have time to do that.

I'm not sure how that becomes a thing.

I did see

I show speed amongst those people.

I remember him from the speed.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

He, they showed him the door.

But

I can understand if many of these people, well, not many of them, but I can understand if a few of these people are watching TV and they're naked at the time.

And then it's on OnlyFans if there's a whole TV department over there.

But anyway, I was just wondering about that.

And I guess we've had Pat McAfee had to apologize to Canada.

You were complaining to me off the air about McAfee's commentary, but I've pretty much zoned out on the commentary trying to keep up with the tomfoolery in the ring and thereabouts.

But I know he was mad because

Canada booed the national anthem.

But that's the other thing.

Was he mad or was he just doing an over-the-top performance and now he can't walk it back?

Well, that's what I'm saying.

He was mad that, you know,

whoever, the character Pat McAfee,

the announcer character Pat McAfee, who I understand has a 12-inch dick,

but not the real person, Pat McAfee.

I haven't measured his, but yeah, go back in the old episodes for anyone's going to miss that reference and wonder what the hell is he talking about with the 12-inch.

Well, see, they should have been here since the start.

They would know these things.

I thought he was unbearable on commentary.

I think he's getting worse and worse because he's just screaming words.

He's like a

young, coked-up Shivani.

It's just there's nothing in what he says.

He's more of a cheerleader.

And again, I think

the main stuff of Elimination Chamber at the end with The Rock and Cena and Cody,

I thought The Rock and Cena and Cody all hit home runs.

Travis Scott didn't need to be there, and the commentators needed to shut the fuck up.

Yeah.

But Pat McAfee's getting on my nerves.

And I'm not the only one on commentary.

Well, he

had to apologize to some degree on his show for getting carried away with knocking what a rotten, horrible country Canada was.

Well, they were booing that they're booing the national anthem at hockey games or the U.S.

national anthem at hockey games up there now because of obvious reasons.

Everybody's booing us, again, except Russia.

And by the way, as we're recording today is the day that the tariffs go into effect, and that's what's causing all this.

So it's not about wrestling.

And apparently some wrestling journalists had no idea that it was happening outside of wrestling.

But to answer your question from earlier, people, people have,

are they that insulated that they didn't know that this is the market knows for the past couple days?

It's been in the newspapers.

It'd be pretty hard to miss, but I got to confirm it.

I heard

a certain observing wrestling journalist had no idea what was happening in the real world.

But, Jim,

to answer your question, Key Bank Center, Buffalo, New York, as of 7:30 last night, according to WrestleTicks,

13,861 tickets distributed, 82 tickets available.

Jesus Christ.

On one of those, I would have, if I was the promoter, I'd go to the box office and buy the 82 tickets as they fuck it, just shut it down.

Here we go.

Anyway, this opened

with the best

segment of wrestling television that I have seen in

many a day, young young feller.

I remember back in the old days,

it had,

and I will sidetrack for a second because we're not going to talk about much of Raw because the rest of it was quite sad for the most part.

And something made me sad at the end, but I want to give some context to the first part because it was fucking beautiful.

A member of the cult of cornet, who's, I don't have his name here in front of me, but I did send him a thank you in the mail, sent me brian

a uh i don't know how many discs is there like a six or eight disc compilation of of early 80s georgia wrestling of tbs when it was georgia championship wrestling 1980 81 80 you know the era great stuff yeah

and and

some of this i had seen some of it i have on a vhs tape somewhere in this house that i probably won't live long enough to find.

But here it is all together.

So as a palate cleanser from the modern wrestling that I've been watching, which good, bad, or indifferent,

you have to, everybody has to admit that

it's mostly either one style or another today.

Either you got the WWE product or you got the

AEW slash ROH slash even TNA, a lot of those guys, it's the more indie.

style product and there's not a lot of variety anymore.

And I put

one of the Georgia DVDs in, and just not only the variety, the different kinds of matches,

but

the faster pace and the level of aggression

or level of simulated aggression.

But it didn't seem simulated.

It just a more,

and you can go back some of the hot stuff in the attitude era with Bret Hart and Sean michaels imagine that legitimate aggression but

you know flair and ronnie garvin in the 80s we were talking about on tbs legitimate aggression

and finally we see some modern

legitimate aggression here that gets the people up and it doesn't

I guess that's what I'm saying is the pace for everybody that says old time wrestling used to be so slow when you were watching TV matches with the top guys and TV angles, they were fucking moving.

And whether it was the high spot match where there's Terry Gordy at 300 pounds taking those fucking arm drags from DB Ossie

or

Steve Kern and Kevin Sullivan doing the fucking mix of amateur and pro wrestling where you can't kind of can't see through it

or

the crazy bullshit and there's plowboy frazier dropping legs on people it was all different but there was aggression and there was a pace to it and there was legitimate urgency when people were trying to do things to each other that now everybody they bonk they bonk them on the head once and they're laying there and now everybody's taking their time and they're milking more than the american dairy association

Have I established this

state of mind that I'm in about the modern stuff?

So now when it was different,

when you see people that actually are trying to get people into a fucking fight

and look like they're trying to get at each other, and everybody's playing their part

to use the Hollywood reference, it's refreshing, right?

And I mean, have you ever done that and gone back and looked at one of your old tapes or videos or whatever and immediately said, God damn, it's just, it's a different level of animation amongst the participants.

I think a lot of it goes back to Vince McMahon and the whole idea of drawing everything out forever.

And as the shows got longer, everything got longer.

Because when you really think about how many hot things you saw for so many years that lasted five minutes or less, actually, The actual fighting part may have lasted a minute or two minutes or less.

There was buildup around it, but now things go on forever.

Guys from the world champion to anyone else on the card could just be laying there dead and no one comes to check on them.

And then they get security guards that are clearly wrestling students.

On Raw this week, at one point, the security guards are running around and behind the barricade, you see the real security guards who are all old men.

They're all old men who look like they're six foot six.

And I'm like, you know, I'd put my money on that old man against all those wrestling students running around there as fucking security guards.

And the people in the arena can see them and they're like, send in the fucking reinforcements over there.

The fight's right in front of them and they're had their back turned and their arms crossed and they're looking at the crowd.

They're like, man, those are the tough guys.

But, but that's the thing is that,

and yes, Vince, and a lot of people with a superficial understanding of the wrestling business are going to say, but Jim, we've been told by the veterans that less is more.

And then you'd say, don't do everything.

And I'm not saying doing every move, or I'm not saying hitting people with a goddamn weapon 15 times.

I'm saying, even when you're

the level of aggression and

animation

is even if you're in a fucking hold or somebody's got your arm, you're fighting it, and you're trying to get out of it, and it looks like the other guy's trying to keep control of you.

And then you, when you burst into the running spot, one guy's off balance while the other guy's in control, but there's the arm dragon, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Then you pay the spot off and give them room to breathe.

Or maybe the baby face needs to fucking approach you with heels leaning through the ropes.

And then they get into something to keep the fucking pace going.

Doesn't mean commit aggravated mayhem and attempted homicide every 30 seconds.

And in angles.

Again, like you said, don't just have people laying there while you walk around and you just know that nobody's ever going to stop you from doing this because it's all fake.

There needs to be senses of urgency.

And that's when

in this first segment, which we'll finally get to here now,

with punk

and with Seth Rollins,

the people were reacting to it because when you get them to a place where they legitimately

they can suspend their disbelief and they can say, this shit has gotten out of hand.

It's going to go on.

Oh, shit.

Look at that.

That's where, that's where you get them.

And also,

by both people being

legitimately over and

not just some fucking average simpleton on the

indie level show, having another of the constant pull aparts that they have in every segment, the people sit there with their hands crossed and look at that.

But when it's two top guys on a hot show and they lay it out and execute it this well,

the people were going, they were chanting for a pull apart.

This is awesome.

But I've got ahead of myself.

We got to talk about the promo first.

Punk comes out, walks through gorilla,

clears off the desk, stands on it.

He's pissed off.

He's going to give the his state of a union address and address his enemies, which right now is everybody.

And he starts with the rock, who he calls a bald fraud.

And

again, it's

you, you would like to think that,

you know, that everybody was in on this, but I'm thinking that maybe he might have slipped one or two of these in.

Dwayne hasn't seemed like he wanted to participate in anything that makes him look bad these days.

And Punk was getting to the meat of the matter.

So again, we're skirting the lines here, folks.

We're walking a tightrope.

But Punk's story is that he marched through hell for opportunities.

And Mr.

Midlife Crisis walks in and thinks he's a bigger star than everybody.

And a blah, blah, blah.

I'd say it to his face, but he hasn't graced us with his presence to do.

Then he was looking at the camera.

He hadn't graced us with his presence.

He said, to do your bullshit, hit your arm and pretend you care care about this business.

Do you again, Brian, we talked about it earlier.

Do you think that The Rock has one of those Danish electric fucking stimulators up his taint that he can hit and get the goose bumps, the goose pimples, as Mama Cornette would say?

I think Punk has gone too far.

I mean, who is he to question one man's excitement over and over again in a really pretentious and fake manner that never seems genuine and everything about him just seems to be completely full of shit?

I think, who the hell is Punk?

If not me, who?

I don't know what the hell I'm saying.

But

I agreed with everything he was saying.

And, you know, we just saw The Rock at that press conference say, guys, have to go out there, say what you feel.

I want you guys to say what you feel.

And Punk was the next promo we saw on TV.

So maybe, maybe he felt a lot of this.

And of course, Punk is really good about saying shit that either he feels or we think he feels and then going right back into the story seamlessly.

And he did it either.

Yes.

Well, and he also

said, I've never been so desperate as to have to wear a fake title belt and blah, blah, blah, and sell my soul.

And then he goes to Cena.

Now

you can't see me.

We can all see through you.

And this was great.

You stole something from me.

And that now is proved that John Cena has been selling all these kids bullshit.

And that's kind of, you know, that's a shame.

Again, I wondered why if it's not a guy that's got a three-year run with a spot like that, instead you turn him to Babe Ruth, suddenly it's revealed that he's a goddamn horrible human being before he plays his last game for the Knickerbockers or whoever the fuck.

The Yankees?

Whoever they were.

And then he says,

I'm going to get my hands on both of you bald frauds, and you're going to make make a wish I never did.

And I'm shocked.

And I was wondering who's going to use make-a-wish, and he was right there with me.

And he was the next promo.

But the thing, his delivery and his tone, and the way he's animated, and he's spitting these words out with some contempt when he's met, you feel it.

This is what I'm talking about, people.

This is how you do it, uh-huh.

And then finally, he gets to now the man of the hour, Seth Rollins.

Becky Lynch, come get your man before I do, or I'll put him in a wheelchair.

And immediately the music plays.

And even though Seth came out hot, I wish Seth had just run on.

They don't need the music.

People would have recognized him.

And Punk ran to meet him in the entranceway.

And boom, boom, boom, here they started.

And that's what I'm talking about.

The pull apart with the breakaways and the into the ring and out of the ring and across the desk.

And

they had peaks and valleys and they kept, and Punk's facials are so

animated and

there's animosity in his animation.

And fucking they're snatching and grabbing at each other.

And all the agents and the referees and Pierce is out there trying to get them apart.

And they kept it going.

And the crowd, as they kept going,

got more into it.

And they were chanting, holy shit.

And

this is awesome

from a fucking, you know, a pull apart is something that

the wrestling fans, unfortunately, see a lot these days, but this had,

as I said, all of the elements.

And

they did this for about six or seven minutes, which is a million fucking years, by the way,

even for well-conditioned athletes in a fucking pull apart.

And it's more energy than you would think.

They'd rather be in there hitting the ropes and taking hip tosses and backdrops and in zugiris and things like that than that pull apart because it'll fucking drain you because you got all those people are on you in some cases almost for real.

And I've seen.

wrestling school students that weren't exactly smart to the fucking program that actually pulled the fucking guys apart and wouldn't let them fight when they wanted to and were supposed to

so it but point is they kept this going the people were into it and finally they split them up and

you know seth was in the entranceway and they had punk over at the ring but this now

again

we got to see this fucking these two

Say what you want about the rest of the business, but I think these two are mad, Brian.

It was a week ago that I was looking forward to a potential Logan Paul CM Punk thing.

I said, you know, I'm kind of sick of the Rollins stuff and the McIntyre stuff, and I'm not sick of it anymore.

They did the stuff to heat it up because of what happened at the Rumble, and the Rumble, the Elimination Chamber, which Cena took advantage of.

Punk was right there in the mix.

He could have won.

And, you know, we talk so much about Cody's chase

for whatever it was, his dream.

CM Punk's been talking about wanting to be in the main event since he's been back.

So there's that whole big story that can go on for a while.

I thought this was tremendous and the fans were super into it.

It was super hot and it kept going and it was action.

And because there were so many people there, the action seemed so big.

I thought it was great.

This is a great opening.

Yeah,

again, it was a scene of chaos that even the people up in the

cheat seats, they cheated to get in.

Up in the cheap seats,

they can see all of that fucking scurrying going on.

And it's just, it adds to the excitement and it builds if the guy, if they care about the guys involved.

And if they

again, if it was just guys

taking bumps and falling through furniture, they couldn't do that for seven fucking minutes at that pace.

But this was orchestrated.

to where that it had its peaks and valleys.

You think it would be over and then it starts back again.

Excellent timing on everybody's part.

And

again, we want to see that, but now I'll spoil it now because not to be disconnected.

And later on in the back,

Seth cut a fucking promo screaming at Adam Pierce.

And Pierce said, okay, next week.

On Raw in Madison Square Gardens, Seth Rollins versus CM Punk in a cage.

They're giving it away.

Well, I mean, they get paid $500 million for television, but they're giving it away.

What are these guys going to be doing at WrestleMania if they've got a cage match next week on television on Netflix?

Well, again, it's from the garden.

I think there is still a special connotation about anything that's from the garden.

Well, yes, but now that we've seen, is this...

Are they going to do an angle in a cage match that might potentially, I want to see Punk and Seth probably more than I want to to see either one of them do anything else at WrestleMania

after all of this nonsense going on, all of this bullshit taking place.

Hey, can I ask you a question?

I wish you would.

As a side topic from this, what's Roman Reigns doing for WrestleMania?

Boy, wouldn't he could come over here?

We're going to have dip and chips.

Have I asked you who he's working with?

Do you have any idea?

Because I don't.

No.

But they got

six or seven weeks to tell us because they're in the middle of or toward the end of April this year.

Is it going to be

what's going to go on with Solo and Jacob?

Is Roman going to get pulled into the Roman?

Is he going to get pulled into the Roman to the Roman, to the Cody Cena rock stuff?

Would he

potentially

be the special referee that Rock would assign and then have a moral

dilemma in front of him, whether to follow his family and the final boss or do what he thinks is right, blah, blah, blah.

That'd be tough having a moral dilemma and turning to Heyman for advice.

Well, that was

a memorable Raw.

Again, that was the highlight of the show, not to take anything away from all the other people.

I thought Gunther and Otis was really good.

I doubt you watched really any of that.

Well,

it's Otis and etc.

And,

you know, also, Braun and Finn are mad at each other.

And, you know, they had a back and forth promo situation with

Braun is put in the babyface position here.

And I just wanted to note this.

Basically, Finn goads him into the ring and he beats up the Judgment Day affiliates, Carlito and Dominic but Finn gets on him but he comes back

but you know they Finn escapes and Braun levels Carlito

Braun

I think we've been talking about this was going to be a babyface sooner or later but he hasn't turned and I think this is good because it's just

He's still being himself, but him being himself

lends itself to an easy transition

into people's eyes.

I don't know if I'm explaining this right, but since he can be a, he was being a heel by being a surly, aggressive, physically dominant

brute of a person with amazing speed and cool moves.

And now he's just being that way to the other heels.

And so he's one of those guys.

And I think they've realized they've got a fucking,

well, I know they've realized for a long time they've got, but

apparently they want to

want more people to start aligning with Braun.

So they're leaning him in that direction.

I thought that was interesting.

Carlito has become one of my favorite characters on the show.

And

since he's the flunky of the thing, and that's his gimmick.

You can do anything to him and he can take the bullet for the other guys and

he's still enjoyable.

He's not going to draw on his own.

He's like, he's the croutons.

He's an important part of the salad.

But if you just got the bowl of croutons,

you think, well, fuck, I need some goddamn dressing at least.

So there you go.

All right.

Noted salad expert Jim Cornette.

Well, you know, I gain weight when I eat salads because

the salad is only really there to hold the dressing up.

And I like the good high-fat.

Anyhow,

so we'll get to the main event of Raw.

Or should we?

Are you ready to go there?

I'm dying to know what you thought.

I watched it.

I thought it was a good match.

And I was shocked by the ending.

And I immediately thought about what you would say.

Rhea Ripley versus EO Sky for the women's title.

And we talked at the Elimination Chamber,

EO had come out when there was Rhea and Bianca face to face because EO,

as we were asking, what the fuck, has she got a matched negative?

Well, it's on wrong.

And

I don't know what to say.

Yes, it was the last 25 minutes of the show.

So as much as I love Rhea Ripley, I did not want to watch this blow for blow and move for move

for that long.

But the point of the whole thing was at the end of it, because Bianca is sitting at ringside

trying to find out who she's going to face at WrestleMania.

And

as I'm sitting, I thought, you know, I've sold myself on Ria

and

Bianca.

Because, you know, as athletic as Bianca is, and Rhea is a master, and, you know, boy, they could put something together, right?

This will be a confrontation.

They're both baby faces, but

and then

Rhea gets in an argument with Bianca at ringside here because Bianca was cheering for EO.

Oh, you want to fight EO instead of me, huh?

I don't know if that's a significant enough reason, Brian, to you for a professional in this situation to turn around.

leave her entire goddamn match, leave her opponent laid in the ring to engage in an extended shoving match back and forth with somebody for cheering for the other person.

Did that immediately strike you as what the fuck is going on here?

It was the first sign that, you know, they're doing a lot for Rhea to go over.

Maybe there's something else going on.

Well,

and the other thing that went on was they shoved each other.

Rhea and Bianca shoved each other back and forth a couple of times, and then the referee got in between them.

So then Rhea goes in and said, well, i'm gonna do something to her because it's your fault and goes to give eo who's another baby face right eo is a baby face

the riptide off the top rope ria's a baby face well that's what i'm saying eo's a baby face rhea's a baby face bianca's a baby face yes but but but she's Now one of the baby faces is mad at the other baby face, so she's going to take it out on the innocent baby face.

And she goes for the riptide off the top and EO EO turns it into a Havakarona

off the top rope on Rhea, and then does a moonsault and pins her one, two, three, and wins the title.

And I,

what purpose could this have been done for?

Because now we've got Bianca against EO Sky at WrestleMania.

And Rhea is

Rhea going to take time off to shoot a movie?

Because what the

and I'm not even saying EO Sky is horrible at it.

Yes, I'm sure for the people who like that kind of thing, it was a wonderful 20-minute back and forth match.

But you got Rhea Ripley, who is more over than many of the guys

on the roster, who the people chant for mommy, mommy,

who is a goddamn superstar and a movie star.

and you got bianca who is a multi-time champion

and has been there for you and has a fan base and is athletic and looks the part

and then you have little teeny beady beady eo sky

who can't speak english well enough to do

the promo that the women's world champion, in my opinion, should be doing,

and is also microscopic And in the

in between Bianca and Rhea Ripley,

don't look like she needs to be the face of the women's division.

So, how have they,

if it's now going to be EO Sky against Bianca, does that mean Bianca now has to switch heel

between now and then to make this make sense?

I've been starting to wonder if Bianca's switching heel coming out of the jade thing.

Well, that's what I'm saying.

I was disagreeing with you because she looked so shocked

but she was shocked that her her accomplice got the shit kicked out of her that's the way i kind of saw it but maybe i'm wrong

well no not her she was shocked at naomi that she was doing that to naomi right but if she's turning heel not her accomplice if she's turning heel either she's the one who set up jade or she was in on it with naomi and they're best friends and they didn't give a shit

okay see it's starting to get too complicated anyway but back to this other deal

what the again what the

yeah i could see ria ripley and bianca bel air as a wrestlemania match but io's guy and bianca bel air and what's ria going to be doing

and

and the other with tiffany

is facing charlotte correct

as of this moment

correct yeah

but i don't know i mean the rock may decide he wants to be in the women's division, and then it could change everything.

The Rocket.

So,

yeah, yeah.

But that's what's happened on Raw, ladies and gentlemen.

And I don't know what the purpose of that is, but business-wise, how the fuck?

I don't understand that.

Well, a big surprise.

I think everyone was kind of shocked by that finish.

I thought it was a little telegraphed beforehand in the match, but everything is less about the match and the finish and more about the story and where it it goes.

And we have no idea what's going on with Naomi or Jade.

Now, what's going on with Rhea for WrestleMania?

Does she get back into the mix?

Is it a three-way?

We shall find out.

But, Jim, yes.

When you think of the various women in the history of the women's division in WWE, or even the Divas Division,

you could probably close your eyes and think of all the different hair color.

We've seen red, we've seen white, we've seen blonde, we've seen brown, We've seen all colors of the rainbow in the hair of Asuka and everything in between.

And of course, what I'm trying to do is set us up to talk about our new friend, a new sponsor here on the program.

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And you see, you know what color you never do see, though, don't you, Brian?

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Now, for me, I've pretty much given up.

People know what I look like, and they, what the fuck?

It would be jarring at this point.

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No, he didn't.

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But with simpler hair color, it was started by a couple of folks who appreciate better dyeing options for hair and beards.

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Well, that bleach can go right into your brain and make you stupid.

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All right.

Well, let's get some questions.

Oh, bye-bye.

I got some news here real quick.

Brian, you don't know about this,

but basically, we've been wondering where we haven't seen seen camille except in the movies but we haven't seen her on tv in a while you know what happened to her i found out what happened to camille why she disappeared oh she married married sam miniker and moved to el paso

all right this has been

humor for the wfia convention hosted hey i'm telling right now tom burke is slapping his knee and blowing snot all over himself.

I'm telling you right now.

There's a lot going on here.

Ladies and gentlemen, Let's get a few more questions before we wrap things up, Jim.

This one sent via the Cult of Cornet Facebook group by Daylon Berry.

Is there a wrestler?

Wait a dingle Berry.

What?

Daylon Berry.

Why do you have to make fun of this man's name and make it fun?

Doctor, I don't know what is his

parents had a grudge against him that early?

Go ahead.

Here's a question from Daylon Berry.

Is there a wrestler that Jim would say he was completely wrong about?

Hmm.

Well,

a recent example would Drew McIntyre count, but not really because I never said he was just worthless and should go away and

submerge in quicksand.

I said it was, it was boring.

I didn't get the sword and the fake ropes, all that stuff.

He changed him.

They allowed him to change himself.

I wasn't really wrong.

He was boring then, but now he's not.

Help me, Brian.

Who have I was there anyone ever who have I changed my mind and come around on that I was just convinced was not worth a flying French fried titty fuck?

Was there anyone that you could think of that you ever said, I'm not booking this person?

I will never use them on my TV.

I will never book them.

And then you ended up doing it and

it worked out better than you thought.

Well,

until you got to that last line, I said, I'll never book Jake.

And then I booked him in Smokey Mountain, but it didn't turn out better than I thought.

I think in your head, you may have at one point said, I'll never book Eddie.

And then you did, and he did exactly the same thing.

Yeah.

I don't.

And again, wrong about.

It can be applied in different ways.

I might have been wrong about a guy saying he's a shits and he'll never get over.

He might have got over, but he still be the shits.

I don't know the answer to that one, and I'm not trying to just

look good.

Is it fair to say Dominic Mysterio?

Because when you had only seen him as the baby faced, smiling son of Rey Mysterio, who towered over him, you didn't see much of a future for him at all, did you?

No, not really, because he was just kind of

bland and lumpy, Rutherford-ish, just kind of hanging around there.

But as he,

you know, going to prison for that stretch, where he did some boarding with the warden and lived on the bounty of the county, that, that, that grew him up.

So yeah, I was wrong about Dominic because I thought it's just, this ain't going to last long.

All right, Jim, our next question sent to...

sent via the Culture Cornet Facebook group was sent in by Johnny Sousa.

Jim, I've heard this.

i remember him and his brother him and his brother philip john and philip sousa they used to do good marches i've heard the story of you being somewhat struck by lightning while on the phone with whitey caldwell's widow

what happened afterwards did you eventually call her back and tell her

i never thought about this and tell her the crazy ordeal that you had experienced

Yes, I did.

Actually, sometime after the fact, I was, you know, know, the last time we were talking, you know, because obviously the conversation ended abruptly.

And it's not like, because the power was still out in my house, it's not like I could call her right back because the phone was plugged into the daba to die.

But basically, for those of you who have not heard real briefly, this is one of the reasons why I have hearing issues.

I'm living in Morristown, Tennessee.

I'm running Smokey Mountain Wrestling.

I'm doing the

setting up the Night of the Legends show.

I'm talking to Whitey Caldwell's widow, Nancy, about her participation while a thunderstorm is going on.

And the phone that I'm talking on is the

combination telephone answering machine and fax machine

that old

White Lightning Horner got

at Smoky Mountain Wrestling.

Also, that was the fax machine that we all had, me and him and Sandy Scott, the famous fax.

And lightning hit my house and suddenly

it sounded to me, it sounded like somebody shot a gun off next to my head and punched me in the side of the head at the same time.

Because

I had the phone receiver up to my left ear.

But it damaged the hearing because I traced my right ear hearing problems back to this incident.

Somehow, even though it was on the left ear, the right ear is the one that got bad from it.

And I remember falling over on the couch.

And then the next thing that I knew,

I was in my, it was an office that I had in the house I lived in, then downstairs, and I was walking around in a circle behind my couch, just in the area where I was walking around in a circle.

No electricity in the house.

Come to find out later on, it fried,

see, what was it?

Um,

a cube refrigerator that I had down there.

One of the things that had plugged in in the kitchen, a couple of, it blew the lights out of the bulbs in three or four lamps,

and I think fried one of the TVs upstairs.

And so I was like, well,

I was a bit disoriented, but I said, well, fuck, I got no fucking electricity and I got this ringing in my ears.

And I got to go to a town tonight anyway.

So I'm just going to leave now.

And I drove down the hill to the next intersection where

the convenience store was.

And I'd always stop and get something to drink or whatever.

And went in.

Two guys were talking as I went up to the cash

register about the weather.

And they said, the one guy said, yeah, I saw a big bolt of lightning go right over the hill a few minutes ago.

And I said, yeah, it hit me

what did they say

they looked at me like i'd been hit by lightning

all right well that's what did whitey caldwell's widow think of this action later on well i i believe i had screamed as i went over the couch

and i don't know whether she didn't admit to hearing that or not

When I talked to her the next time, she's, oh, yes, the phone went dead.

She's such a pleasant woman.

But I don't know if she heard me scream, fuck.

But it ain't fun to get hit by lightning.

I would encourage people to try to avoid that most of the time.

Our next question, Jim, sent via the Cult of Cornet Facebook group by Alex Hedges.

Is there any hope saving the current state of tag teams?

Does Jim think it's possible to rehab the current state of tag team divisions?

I mean, it's possible that it would take time and a concerted effort, but I don't see that the effort is going to happen.

And it would have to, it can't be.

AEW had a nice little tag team division there for a while till

they dismantled it.

Where is Juice Robinson?

I still think back to FTR against Jen and Juice being the best tag team match of modern times and how that stands atop the

AEW match cannon like a goddamn monolith on top of a fucking anthill because it's a fur drop from there.

It would have to be the WWE, and they would have to start

not just putting top singles guys in tag team matches against each other, but having

at least a couple of tag teams that were good enough and were pushed in the spot and were treated as main event guys on the levels of the Punks and the Rollins and the Reigns and the,

et cetera, like it was in

most companies, in every territory,

with maybe a few exceptions.

You know,

Sam Mushnick was not, you know, he liked to feature a singles main event.

But for the most part, the NWA World Tag Team title was seen as on a par with

the world heavyweight champion.

They could be co-main events or, you know,

one could be on a main event of one show and the other could be the main event of the other show on another town that same night.

But that's because the guys in those tag teams were seen as big stars and presented that way.

So the reason why that

And I'll shut up,

that the tag teams are so

now is because look at the fucking tag teams.

Compared to the quality of the guys at the top in any company, the tag teams are a secondary.

And it's not just because all these guys are not talent, many of them aren't that fucking great, but none of them are presented at that level.

So

which comes first, the chicken or the fucking embryo?

Have you ever heard an argument from someone you worked for, worked with, against pushing tag teams for strictly budgetary reasons?

Because if you have two babyfaces who were over, you need two heels, as opposed to having a top babyface and a heel in that spot, two less people to pay.

Well, no, because for one thing, in the territory days,

it didn't matter.

That's why our main event payoff for the Superdome was $2,000, whereas if it had been a single match, instead of split five ways, including the manager, it'd been five grand a piece.

The promoter would just split the main event money between however many people were in the main event.

Now, with the contracts, but

if it's a company that's got guys under contracts, whether they get paid, whether they work or not, then they shouldn't be worried about the goddamn budget on two more guys.

Jim, our next question sent via the Cult of Cornet Facebook group by Nick Bennett.

My uncle Jack passed away a few weeks ago, and he always mentioned that his favorite wrestler was the mighty igor

i was wondering

i was wondering if jim had any stories about the mighty igor as i've seen that he wasn't as big a name as others were back in the day thanks

well he was but it was a day the day was far enough back that people don't realize it

uh but the mighty i never met the mighty igor

nor did i actually get to see him in person, but I saw him on TV, especially when I first

found wrestling and would go to Ain't Lola's and get the Sheiks TV off Cincinnati television.

But the

gotta get a lot of people still, it may be think even Ivan Putski is the bodybuilder,

you know, that teamed with Tito Santana or whatever in 1981.

But

the mighty Igor

was a he was a Polish descent for real, I think, right?

Because Dick Garza, what would that be?

Is he Polish or was he maybe Greek?

Greece.

I don't know.

I don't know.

But nevertheless, he was a bodybuilder and a weightlifter in the 50s

from somewhere in the Detroit area

and ended up getting involved in the wrestling business.

And he was a good-looking, well-groomed young man with this nice body.

But that was when he didn't have a gimmick somewhere along the way.

Pardon me for not having boned up on the mighty Igor,

but they gave him the gimmick that he's this simple-minded Polish,

you know, he's a big muscle-bound character, but at the same time, he's very childlike.

Boo Bradley was an homage.

And he dressed in kind of a funny outfit with the long johns cut off and over his shoulders the

little top and he had a cap and he would come to the ring eating Polish sausage.

And in some cases, his

manager was,

oh, goddamn, Ivan Kalmakov, right?

Oh, that's right.

Early on, yeah.

Yeah, who was an old-time wrestler.

And then

he would speak for the mighty Igor because the mighty Igor would go, oh, yes, Igor like, because he's simple-minded and he's Polish and he can't speak English.

And, but don't get him mad.

And what a babyface for the kids.

And the kids like to.

take a bite of his Polish sausage.

I don't know what's going on, but he was strong man and he was especially over

in detroit and michigan and the sheiks territory where he was a main event babyface made big money

and i think other like toronto he was over there

um he was one of the guys pushed on the eddie einhorn tv show yes

when eddie einhorn ran the iwa and tried to run

opposite of the whole country for a while there in the 70s.

He was with Ernie Ladd, Mil Moscaris.

Mighty Igor was a major name.

And he was so big, and the gimmick was so over.

Wherever I think he had a run in,

oh, goddammit.

Didn't he have a run in Georgia?

Am I thinking about Putsky?

But nevertheless, I was getting confused too because I was wondering which one was in Texas and when.

That's what I was just thinking.

Well, but Putsky got over, Putsky got over in Texas

with the gimmick

because that's when Paul Bosch

Paul Bosch said when they made him just Ivan Putsky with no gimmick and he could speak just fine in the WWF, they ruined him.

But the Mighty Igor gimmick was over so good that Ivan Putsky,

was it Joe Bednarsky, right?

He came along as

a copy of the Mighty Igor and did it in Texas in the 70s and various other places.

And then,

as I said, you know, when he went to work for the WWF, they dropped the simple-minded Polish guy, but they would pull little toys on ropes to the ring or goddamn have the stuffed animals.

This was all

so much of this was Boo Bradley, right?

But the Mighty Igor just came along in the 60s and early 70s, where there's still not really any

footage that exists where people have heard of Putsky because of his modern run, but they might not know that he had that gimmick.

All right.

Well, let's get another question here, Jim.

This one sent via the Cult of Cornet Facebook group by Aiden Hardy.

Why isn't West Virginia wrestling as talked about as other territories?

With the amount of territories and outlaw promotions that used to run it, it surprises me we don't talk about them.

Well, brief and to the point question.

You know, one of the reasons, honestly, is it's been so long and there's so little that exists.

I mean, there was a

studio wrestling show out of WOAY, Channel 4, Oak Hill, West Virginia,

that ran for years and years in the 60s and into the 70s.

And the guy who announced it.

He was a guy, but his name was Shirley, Shirley Love.

He ended up as somebody in the state legislature, some elected office.

He's known or was known throughout the state.

But the thing about this, the people that were watching it were the people in and around Oak Hill in Beckley, West Virginia.

And,

you know, before Stephen P.

New grew up and started sowing his wild oats and made a population explosion out there in Beckley,

it wasn't that big of an area.

So these people were watching a local TV show with,

you know, I don't want to say unheard of talent.

Gypsy Joe worked there for like,

yes, the Cuban assassin.

He was from that area.

But, and those guys,

along with more local crew and some smaller known,

you know, guys in the wrestling business from the southern territories or the outlaw promotions,

it was a ICW, the Pafos,

had a heavy presence in West Virginia because there was no athletic commission.

Those small towns didn't get a lot of entertainment.

They had the TV in,

I think they, at one point, they had TV in Charleston and Huntington, but they definitely had it down in Beckley for a while.

But the West Virginia,

until Crockett kind of annexed it in the early 80s, because he originally only had North and South Carolina and Virginia.

When he moved in there, it was,

you know, a variety of promotions coming in from Sheik would run part of West Virginia because it was next to Ohio.

But the WWWF in the 70s might run

a few small towns in West Virginia for spot shows that were adjoining Maryland and fucking that area.

And the locals that were set up there for a long period of time were maybe a step above outlaws at some point because they had TV.

But it was still, it was a

smaller time thing, but you could make money on a small time basis with wrestling in those mountains at that time because the people had no other live entertainment.

And the economics were

very different than they are today, trying to rent

small town buildings or get sponsored shows at these little high schools.

You could do that then without having a bank loan behind you.

A lot of the guys who worked Pittsburgh obviously worked West Virginia.

Well, and some of those outlaws is where when guys graduated DiNucci School in Pittsburgh, Mick Foley, Shane Douglas, Brian Hildebrand, Mark Curtis,

those guys would

get experience by working on those outlaw shows in West Virginia.

Zoltan the Great.

There you go, Kenny Jugan.

There were outlaw promotions all over the place in West Virginia because no major promoter had claimed it and didn't give a shit what went on.

So

you could do what

you want to do.

Go where you want to go.

Well, actually, Jim, to correct that, if you're in West Virginia, you can't just do what you want to do.

You can't just go where you want to go.

Because if you go against the law, if you go against the people,

there's a man in West Virginia there to take you to task.

That's right.

And if we had the law and order music right now, we would play it.

But instead, we'll just play this funky tune.

If you need

to

see

news, to be new,

news, to be new, sticky, news, to be news to an outlawmod show for Tuesdays.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen.

Stephen P.

New at newlawoffice.com, 87750 Steve.

He is the law.

He is the order.

He is the hammer of justice.

And

he will plead the case.

He'll decide on the case and he'll administer the justice therein

because he is the judge, jury, and executioner around.

As a matter of fact, you know, he sent 17 people to the gallows last week.

That's what Stephen P.

News doing.

He's cleaning up West Virginia.

And if you have a problem, if you've been wrongfully terminated, abused by a major corporation, poisoned by somehow against your will and better judgment, or some of the many ways that people can screw other people around in this day and age, and you want representation in court, Stephen P.

New, new lawoffice.com, 87750 Steve, is the man for you, the compassionate hammer of justice.

He's got a hammer, Brian, but he keeps it in a velvet case.

Well, I always encourage him to take out that hammer and smash away, but let him smash for you, Steven Pinu.

877-50 Steve, new lawoffice.com.

Jim, a couple more questions.

We get the hell out of here.

This one from the Culture Cornet Facebook group was sent in by Warren Howler.

Can Jim explain the purpose behind a tape fist match?

I saw footage of a tape fist match from 1986 between ronnie garvin he wrote ronnie marvin ronnie garvin and tully branch

and i was curious you know that that hands of stone ronnie marvin he was a hell of a guy i was curious as what was special about those type of matches

well it depends on the setup and i'll explain a few of the for instances

In some territories, they would call it a brass knucks match, but then you would end up, you'd think, well, they're going to have brass nucks.

And then they would come to the ring, their fists would be taped, right?

And Cyclone Negro in Texas, or,

oh, Goddamn, who else was Don Fargo would do those guys?

Don Fargo actually, I think, had a few matches where the brass nucks matches, they had real brass nucks, and they were just trying to work and hoping for the best.

But in other places, it was more, you know, realistic, a taped fist match.

Ronnie Garvin was the man with the hands of stone.

They said he had a knockout punch, right?

That's what he was using as his finish.

But I can't remember what specific angle they did for Ronnie and who was a Tully, right?

To be in a

taped fist match, but it might have been that Tully knocked him out with a fucking roll of quarters in his fucking hand.

Yeah, see, I got hands of stone too, motherfucker, because that's an angle that you would do.

The heel used brass nucks or uh some type of chain around his fist a dog chain or quarters or whatever so now the baby face says it then you want to fight we'll just tape our fists up and go at it bare knuckle so taped fist match and

theoretically the guys would tape their fists like the boxers do before they put the gloves on because

The gloves are to protect your opponent where you're not punching him in the face in boxing, where you're not punching him in the face with your bare knuckles.

But the taped fist underneath it is to protect the fighter because it's easy to break your fingers or your knuckles or bones in your hand or whatever when you're punching a guy in the face.

So the tape prevents you from having such fragile hands and being able to punch harder.

And that's why.

guys would sell the punches bigger or get color from them or whatever.

But point being,

that match would probably be instigated when

one of the guys was noted for his knockout punch, had a boxing background.

The other guy had done something with a forehead object where he had punched the babyface and knocked him out or something like that.

And that's why they're going to settle it that way.

Is that, Brian, fairly succinct and adequate explanation?

I think so.

And if you grew up a WWF fan, especially in the Northeast and, you know, eventually when they spread beyond that, it was a gimmick that you never saw.

You never saw that kind of match.

Especially

now that you mentioned that, I realized, yeah, I never even thought of it specifically that you never saw that in the north.

That's right.

What a sad you didn't get coal miners' glove matches either.

No, and I still think that one.

Man, I was at Halloween Havoc 92, spin the wheel, make the deal.

They were building up,

but no, it oh, and then it was that match, and oh my God, they had like the most amazing.

Again, you know, everyone's a mark, but especially back then before you saw everything, they had everything that you were going to see in the next decade.

Barbed wire, this, and all sorts of gimmicks.

And then Coal Miners Glove won.

It was the worst stipulation.

But here's the thing.

If you were, again, if you were in a territory where they not only did them on a...

somewhat normal basis, but the guys knew how to do them.

They were fucking great.

It's only because people,

even in the 90s, were booking shit from memory that they'd never actually seen, they'd heard about, or trying to fucking gimmick it up with gimmicks and a bigger budget.

One of the best Coal Miners glove matches I ever saw was a tag team with Phil Higgerson and Dennis Condry against George Gulis and Pez Watley.

in Louisville.

And they had to go like 45 minutes and they made that fucking thing entertain with George Gulis in it.

Because Higgerson and Condry were great, but you could work the pole and trying to get the glove and the whole nine yards.

But you have to know how to do that.

And the people have to understand what they're seeing.

They can't just see it out of the blue and have never seen it before and don't get it.

And you didn't educate them and it's over.

And it's goofy.

You can't do that.

All right, Jim, our next question sent via the Cult of Corner Facebook group by Benny Shaw.

Why do wrestling promotions put commercials during matches?

Wouldn't it be better suited to place them at the beginning or end of the segments?

It just tells me that the match doesn't mean much if I can miss parts of it.

Well, you are correct, sir.

Yes, sir.

And

here's the thing.

It has evolved.

It used to, again,

when

wrestling promotions started having

longer, more main event matches on television.

By the nature of television, especially when the shows were only an hour long, you had to take a break in a match that was 20 or 30 minutes long or whatever.

That's understandable.

And,

you know, even back when they showed the Briscoe and Dory

Hour Broadway from St.

Petersburg on Florida TV, they still had to take commercial breaks, right?

And go in and out.

And that was the early 70s.

So it's not new, but it's been overused because

again, I think as Vince went along, even in WCW and when I was on a creative team in 1990, only

the main events, the main event on the Clash of Champions or the main event on Saturday Night TBS, we had two segments, maybe three if we put the the entrances and the introductions in a segment and then had two full segments of match.

And that was for long main event matches.

Otherwise, you'd try not to to not break it up.

But finally, Vince started

redoing all the rules.

And they were convinced that, well, if we go to break,

you know, with something big happens and we go to break, it'll hook the people and they'll stick around till we come back and we get all these breaks in.

And then it just became a matter of course.

And then they lost sight of, well, something big has to happen.

And now a break spot sometimes is the guy gave the other guy the finger and then they just crashed a break with no pitch or whatever.

Hate that.

So,

yeah, it's one thing being in the middle of the match.

It's another thing when the commentators don't even reference that there's about to be a break.

Well, yeah, and then that was a Vince thing that he didn't like.

I just said they know, well, god damn it.

But also, when you go 90 seconds to the bread, that's ridiculous.

When the last TV that I

formatted

in the modern era was the Ring of Honor TV, and they had to have long matches.

So we would try to figure it out where

we could get the match in the ring without ringing the bell, and then come back and ring the bell and give them

six or seven or eight minutes or whatever we could give the segment, and then have the turning point of the match, the heat spot where the heel takes over.

When that happens, then you can say, oh my God,

babyface Bill is in jeopardy and we've we've got to take a break, but we'll be right back.

Is he going to be able to come out of this and create some goddamn wonder in their mind about how Bill is going to do?

So they'll stick around and then come back on the other side and recap it.

During the break, heel Hank has really put the pressure on babyface Bill.

And

at least then you had a turning point to go to break on rather than, oh, now we got to go sell some fucking douche cream.

They've had 90 seconds to wrestle.

Because then it's just in every match, whether they're long or not or whatever.

So yeah, overdone, too much.

Takes you out of it.

And we would also try to purposely save,

if we were going to have a long match,

save as much time as we could for the end of the show to give it to them

so they had time to establish what they were doing.

then hook the people and then come back and have plenty of time to get some fucking heat, go home, have a finish, whatever.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

Well, Jim, our final question here this week, sent via the Cult of Cornet Facebook group.

And thank you for all the great questions.

Send them also to corny drivethrough at gmail.com along with your songs.

This was sent by Ryan Sorrell.

Ted DiBiase.

Is he the son of Buddy Sorrell?

I don't believe so, but Ted DiBiase bumped by throwing his arms up over his head instead of to the side.

I've never seen anyone else take a back bump like this.

Has Jim got any background on why Ted DiBiase bumped like this?

You know, it's not something that I've particularly noticed.

Now, I might not be able to unsee it the next time I watch any of Ted's matches.

But

when he first switched heel, he really worked hard and he was a guy that took more of the

rolling bumps where boom, he'd go down, but he'd be rolling into the position to get up to feet or take the next bump.

But I didn't see anything

odd enough to, do you remember anything odd enough to cause the or attract the attention of people to break down his flatback bump, Brian?

Like you said, I've never thought about it.

Now maybe I'll see it and never

unsee it, but I've never noticed it.

I can't picture it in my head, for instance.

And I mean, a lot of that's another thing is that, yes, there is a correct way to give a guy a bump and to take a bump,

but there's room for interpretation based on the individual human anatomy of different people.

And

even though you should try to land as flat as possible and distribute the

force of the landing across as much of your entire body as possible, and et cetera, it's all these little rules of thumb.

There's always guys.

that for one reason or another, their size, the way they were built, a previous injury, they're going to take bumps differently.

From we talked about Eddie Gilbert having that neck injury, and he never,

he took big bumps after that, but he was never a head snapping guy.

His whole head and body went straight because he couldn't snap his neck.

Flair took the backdrop on his side.

for 40 fucking years that everybody's like, oh, Jesus Christ, you're not supposed to do that.

But after the plane crash, that's the way he ended up doing it.

You know, there's numerous numerous examples of Bill Dundee, because when he would go over the top rope,

he was short.

His arms were short.

He couldn't go over the top rope the way that most guys did, grabbing the top and going over and putting a hand on the apron.

He developed this way of going over that was 20 times more dangerous and looked great.

But goddamn, he was going over head first and then doing a handstand on the apron of the ring and fucking going over backwards from there to the floor.

and

for a while he wasn't holding on to anything

but it just the way guys do things and it works out for them

well with that the drive-through is closed that's the way we do things

all right

yeah i don't know whether that sounded like some wind chimes that were running out of steam hold on i'll give you some new sounds to hear and the oh no no new sounds.

There you go.

It's heavy.

Well, there'll be more heavy talk on the experience in a few days.

And of course, next week, back here on the drive-thru, we're on the road to WrestleMania.

And we're not actually on the road.

We're kind of on a different road and watching everything happen.

Be there with us on both shows.

The official Chim Cornet YouTube channel, just go to YouTube and search for Jim Cornette.

It'll come right up.

And of course, patreon.com/slash cornet, go through the archive, $5 a month, going back to 2013.

Cornettes Collectibles, JimCornet.com.

What's going on, Jim?

Well, I've told them earlier, but it bears repeating that if you order now any tag team or single action figure set in the month of March, you get a free two-hour DVD along with it.

And the behind the curtains are on sale, $5 off, only $19.95 autographed

at JimCornet.com.

Of course, the drive-thru is brought to you by the law offices, Steven P.

New, 877-50 Steve.

Get even with Stephen at newlawoffice.com.

But until next week, back here in the drive-thru and a few days on the experience, it's a rushed ending.

It's a long day for Jim Cornette.

I'm the great Brian last.

Tallyho!