Episode 379

You're juggling a lot.

Full-time job, side hustle, maybe a family.

And now you're thinking about grad school?

That's not crazy.

That's ambitious.

At American Public University, we respect the hustle and we're built for it.

Our flexible online master's programs are made for real life because big dreams deserve a real path.

Learn more about APU's 40-plus career-relevant master's degrees and certificates at apu.apus.edu.

APU built for the hustle.

Hello again, friends.

And you are our friends, and we are here.

We have arrived.

Welcome to another edition of Jim Cornette's drive-thru.

I may be loud, but we're figuring things out today.

I'm your host, the great Brian Last.

Did I mention we have arrived?

It took a while, longer than you'll ever know, but here he is, the leader of the cult of Cornet, Mr.

Jim Cornet.

The second time around,

can you hear me?

Can you hear me singing?

They couldn't hear us yesterday when

I was singing and you were cussing.

Brian, I get to brag and boast.

I don't, you know this better than anybody.

I'm not a person who likes to say, I told you so.

But in some cases, I have to say, I told you so to certain people who have many people in my life who have been hounding me saying, oh, you got to, you got to upgrade, you got to change.

I said, change is bad.

And every time there's a change, something goes wrong.

But finally,

Finally, I was forced into the

chain, my old computer that you have browbeaten and we've cussed the spectrum and

they were shitty also until we found the fella that fixed that and then the computer's the shits and my speed's still not right and my monitor keeps blacking out.

So finally, Hotchkiss Featherbottom came in over here and revamped everything.

I got a screen, a monitor that's as big as a drive-in movie screen here.

It's so bright I could actually see and read things off of it without having my glasses on because the vice-like headphones that you've forced me to wear

and the computer is the most powerful

bad boy and it and it's a third of the size of the one I had previously.

So I've got more footroom and it's lightning fast and I can now publicly state that mine is bigger than yours.

My speed.

He flushed out all the wires over here.

He stuck his head in the wall and had a trowel in there just hacking away for the better part of a half an hour at one point.

I got to get that drywall fixed.

But now he's got my speed.

I am 980 over 960 at my highest point.

I didn't know they made numbers that high.

All to the genius of Hotchkiss Featherbottom.

But at the same time,

You decided to upgrade, got your new microphone and all your new fancy NAND programs.

And is that what they call them?

The programs, the applications, software, applications, the software.

Well, it ought to, it's appeared to be soft.

You ought to give that stuff some Viagra, harden it up a little bit.

Because we got all this new shit and we sit down yesterday to do this program.

And we got a little ways into it before we realized that all our new shit didn't like each other.

And we had to properly introduce it and start over again.

And because of that, you have now said, well, you know, if we just upgrade to one more program, well, what the fuck else can we, are we going to hack into the goddamn,

you know, NASA fucking control center to do this program?

Now, I know we have a big listenership, Brian, but do we really need to do the whole NASA master control setup to do this program?

The NASA master control?

I don't think we have to do the NASA master control.

I think

we might be talking to people on the moon.

That's probably where they're going to start sending people next.

Well, there's nothing wrong with that, but I think we have one more little tiny upgrade for your audio, and then we'll be set.

We'll be able to roll for a while with that.

You won't have to touch anything, think about anything, do anything.

You could just be, and everyone could enjoy your being.

Just, I'm being right now.

It's just everybody said, well, you could sound better.

Well, I could sound worse too.

I could be dead.

You're telling me to roll with the changes.

You're telling me if you're tired of that same old story, boy, turn some pages.

And I'll be here when you're ready to roll with the changes.

Well, I'm rolling here with you today, Brian.

So

which direction are we rolling here on the drive-thru today with our brand new equipment that I guarantee you somebody's going to say, well, I wish they'd go back to the old way they were doing it.

It sounded much better.

We still have a little bit of an upgrade for Jim's audio for anyone here who needs issues there, but we are here.

We are on the road to WrestleMania.

I don't know where we are, but we are on the road here on the drive-through.

And

there's so much to talk about.

We have a dynamite review.

We have, of course, the usual week of everyone behaving like a maniac and quotes about you, actually.

I was about to, everybody's pissed off that Tony Khan listens to the program, apparently.

But they're pissed at me.

Because he listens.

They're like, well, fuck him.

Well, what the fuck do I have to?

I can't.

Do we have to vet our entire listenership?

That could take a while going around the globe.

Well, you know, since you opened this topic, why don't we just open with this topic?

Let me pull up the actual quotes here because again.

I didn't mean to take over your program, Brian.

I'm just, I'm a humble public servant here trying to do the best I can to

make myself

fucking silly and happy today.

Well, I have a quote here.

This is a quote from Jimmy Jacobs.

Remember Jimmy Jacobs?

He was a

Jimmy Jacobs many, many times.

Well, he previously had been working for eight years.

He was my producer at the WWE Hall of Fame Ceremony 2017.

How did he do?

He's

great.

He said, can we go over your speech?

I said, I don't have one.

I've got this fucking handwritten, you know,

legal pad paper with some bullet points that I could kind of tell stories in the middle of them.

And he said, don't thank Vince.

I said, I didn't plan on it.

He said, well, he doesn't like that.

I said, I know.

I've been through it 20 years ago.

And then I said, don't worry, I won't say anything that'll get you fired.

And then we chatted about Ring of Honor and went on our way.

But he's a nice young man.

I won't do anything to get you fired.

You can handle that yourself.

Yeah, well, yeah, you know, it's up to everybody.

Everybody's an individual.

But I didn't want to take it upon myself, you know, just be greedy or anything.

Well, Jimmy Jacobs was working for AEW.

He was Tony Khan's shadow man, body man.

He was with him everywhere.

And then he was gone and we saw a lot of finger pointing at that point.

People saying he was responsible for this or he wasn't responsible for this.

But of course, he's not the overall booker.

You can only blame him for so much.

Here's a quote from an interview Jimmy Jacobs did with Body Slam.

Whatever that may be, not the movie, not M.

Harrison Smilak.

We would drive for hours from one show to the next.

And Tony would always be there talking about wrestling, his vision for AEW, and just soaking in everything.

It was a chance to really bond over the things that matter, like how we want to shape the future of wrestling.

Tony and I would listen to Jim Cornette's podcast during New York.

You know, I...

See,

I'm wanting to be with him because he's talking about listening to the show, but right after you say

how we want to shape the future of wrestling, well, I know how I'd like to shape the future of the stock market, but I've got about as much chance of doing that as they do of shaping the future of fucking wrestling.

When you think about it, but go ahead.

I just, I don't want, you know,

don't want that to go unrecognized.

Tony and I would listen to Jim Cornette's podcast during those drives, and it became a thing.

Sometimes we'd agree, sometimes we'd disagree.

But what was most important was the passion behind what Cornet said.

It was always about respecting the history of wrestling and understanding what makes the business work.

Cornette's a polarizing figure, but you can't deny that he knows wrestling.

Tony would often ask me, do you agree with Jim on this?

It wasn't about agreeing with him necessarily.

but more about understanding where he was coming from and applying that knowledge to what we were doing in AEW.

So let's stop there, get your general thoughts.

The fact that A, they're going town to town, working one show a week or another, going down to town.

They're going town to town in the car, listening to the podcast,

and

Tony would literally quiz Jimmy Jacobs.

Do you agree with him on this?

So what are your thoughts?

Well,

without knowing a specific,

for instance, as Ain Lola would say, give me a, for instance,

what this matter or this topic or whatever, who was with it and who was again it.

I don't, but I just overall don't see how

if they're

if they're listening and just 50% of the time, somebody ought to, you know, on average, right?

Unless you're

just completely diametrically opposite on opinions of everything, you ought to agree.

And then why are they listening if they're diametrically opposite?

And I know Jimmy Jacobs has

some element of old school philosophy in terms of logic because he's been around for a while and he worked in the evil empire and you have to develop

some of that there.

So I can't, I don't know if Tony says, well, you know,

I don't agree with any of this.

And Jimmy's like, well, you didn't want to fucking die on that hill.

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

But it seems like if they're listening, couldn't something register just in terms of the

excess or the unnecessary risks or the self-inflicted wounds, as they say,

that or just the talent management.

I don't know what.

Is it the old Steve Allen line where, you know, they say, Mr.

Allen, do they get your show in Cleveland?

He's, well, they watch it.

I'm not sure they get it.

What's happening here, Brian?

I don't know how to explain it.

Maybe it's that other famous Steve Allen line.

Hey, where's my hair piece?

I don't know.

I think my question would be, it's not a surprise that Tony listens to the show.

And quite frankly, if you pay close attention, it shouldn't be a surprise that things that have been said on this show have found their way have found their way onto AEW.

Into the presentation.

Yeah.

It may not be applied the same way that that it was supposed to be, but there have been things said on this show directly

have affected things on TV and been things on TV.

Knowing he listens to the show, he's driving around with his writers, his main guy, Jimmy Jacobs, at that point, listening to the show.

That's not the only person who has listened to the show with Tony.

I can tell you that.

Does it bother you that

Although they apply certain things said on this show to the television show and have for four or five years, the big points don't seem to sink in or

the big issues don't, nothing seems to change Tony's path.

It's just that he'll wonder what a booker he admired like you would have done in that situation.

Well,

you know, at first it was the mocking stuff like, you know, when the Kookamonga kids have the fight out in the parking lot and in the back of the truck is the you know, the little stand-up sandwich sandwich sign, outlaw mud show, arrow this way, or whatever.

They're little inside jokes when they first started and they were full of piss and vinegar.

And then

more recently, it's become,

you know, they, as remember, we call it every once in a while.

They're trying to take the constructive criticism.

This guy actually sold something, but in the midst of the shitstorm, it was, you know, lost in a shuffle or whatever.

They've tried to.

An individual talent, I think, tries to up their presentation, as they say, or

their game, or certain things they do that potentially we may have called upon so it's more positive.

But overall,

as I said a few weeks ago, they've dug themselves such a hole where the people perceive they have no

real stars except for the bubble that put them over as stars and have convinced them that they are bigger stars than they are.

And the

fact that they have numbed the fan base to

every angle, you know, possible to be done to human bodies and endless multiple man chaos over and over in the arenas.

So you can't really shoot an angle.

You know,

so it's just

the

bad booking has come home to roost.

That's, I don't know

what else to say.

Well, hopefully Tony, if he's listening, will keep listening and heeding what you say

and apply some of it to his programming because obviously

it's not a secret he needs help.

And it's also not a secret that he's pretty stubborn about it and he thinks he knows best.

But boy, do they need help right now.

It's sad.

But then there is the problem that we've talked about before on a talent roster.

But otherwise, who is the help?

Which one of these creative geniuses

that have his ear or

any others out there?

Who is the guy that can come in astray?

Paul Heyman would go, oh my God.

Well, Jim, on the topic of things before the dynamite review, as we are recording, news keeps breaking.

We have a bunch of WWE releases.

Let me get your thoughts on these.

Oh, shit.

Sonia Deville has been released.

No.

Yes.

Well, I'm going to argue with you.

No, take it back.

It can't be.

Well, that surprises me because they've used her fairly well whenever, you know, she's been around.

She had to take that sabbatical for a while.

And, you know, she's got the look and maybe just

go away and learn a new hold.

How can we miss you if you don't?

That type of thing.

But that surprises me.

Paul Ellering and the authors of Pain have been released.

That doesn't surprise me.

And again, I'm not insulting Paul Ellering.

He's a number of years older than I am.

I don't know what his age is.

I don't think he counted on this as a long-term career.

He's probably,

you know.

He knew it would be a short run, but those two guys, I just, I didn't see what was going on there.

and

then they stuck him with

what's his name carrion cross there you go well exactly and he's still there he has not been he was just on uh who is he torturing or harassing on monday uh me sammy me i was trying to fast forward through him

he was on there for like a minute

well jim another release cedric alexander formerly of the hurt business has been released

well

that might not be a bad thing there because that might be a benefit to Cedric and AEW if he's a former member of the hurt business and they would like him to be a current member, since that's the only group they've got that's getting over.

But I didn't even realize he was still there, to be honest with you.

And I think a lot of these releases end up kind of being that situation.

No disrespect to any of the talent here, but Blair Davenport has been released.

Blair, we hardly knew ye.

Wasn't she in a draft of something?

She was in the draft the last time they drafted or drifted.

Was she the one who had like the Jamie Hayter old look, like with the hair, like the black hair with the light streak?

The Sputnik Monroe look, I guess, more than Jamie Hayter.

I thought she was the one, Blair Davenport.

She was managed by

the lady on fucking,

oh, goddammit, this would be hilarious now if I hadn't lost the goddamn TV series.

The fucking Blair.

Blair and the kids.

Oh, the facts of life.

The facts of life.

The facts of life.

Yeah, well, I'll see.

I'm off my game today.

New equipment.

Jim also released Isla Dawn.

Oh, we'll never find out if it is La The Dawn.

Again, was she in NXT?

Where was she?

What was happening there?

She was a tag team partner with Alba Fire, wasn't she?

Well, yes, but where is she?

SmackDown is where they were.

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

They were on SmackDown, I think, weren't they?

Well, I don't know.

Who's on third?

Well, I can tell you who's not on third.

Gallows and Anderson have been released.

You know, where have they been?

Didn't think about them for a while.

They've already gone away.

Did we miss them?

And that's one of the problems.

Like with guys like that, who have a history with a lot of guys in AEW and they were there previously, and that was not

a great period of time for AEW-TV.

It would almost hurt AEW, I would think, to bring them in because of the way people perceive them, don't you think?

Well,

I mean, right now,

Anderson

may be more the Anderson is more of a normal-sized human where he wouldn't tower over

the entire roster like Andre or, you know, Gallows would, but but they've been back and forth, as you said.

And

should they explore their Japanese options to just freshen up and work out some kind of new thing instead of trying to look the same as they've looked when we've seen them last?

I don't mean looking in the red, but I mean their gimmick, their presentation-that's the word of the day.

Work something new out to get something fresh going before they go to any domestic national television promotion.

Jim,

release today as we are recording, giovanni vinci

oh i i forgot about him

apparently him not being german

uh just doomed him you know i'm i'm sure that what happened because he brought him back with a new gimmick

aligned with the germans no but they brought they brought him back with a new gimmick for like two weeks wasn't it like he came back as like an italian playboy and then he immediately lost And then he did it again with the next week, and then we never saw him again.

But they re-gimmicked him.

He got a new gimmick, and they brought him back.

And it didn't work.

We'll see what happens.

All best wishes to Giovanni.

AEW has announced that they have signed Elijah, formerly Elias.

So

he's going to kind of almost be what he was there, but if he was really over as what he was there, wouldn't he still be there?

According to the image I have here, AEW Elijah is all elite, and then it has the Ring of Honor logo.

So I'm not sure if he'll be playing his songs on the Ring of Honor show that has no television show or

for AEW, but that is roster news, Jim.

Well, we wish everyone the best in their present endeavors.

I'm not even talking about the future.

Who knows?

There may be no future.

So we wish you the best in your present endeavors.

Well, Jim, on the topic of roster news,

let's talk about Asuka.

You haven't seen Asuka on TV lately?

Have you been following what's been going on with her on social media?

No, I've not been following the Oscar news while I've been following the roster news.

And actually, you haven't been following social media now that you got the new computer.

Maybe you'll be a little more up to date with what's happening, but you've kind of been restricted in what you could access.

Well, just it made me mad, so I would just walk off from it before I threw it off the deck.

But yes,

on January 29th, Asuka tweeted out:

I've been feeling in danger recently.

I've already consulted the police.

The fuck?

At this rate, even if fans approach me at the airport or in the city, I will feel the possibility that something might happen and it will scare me, making me unable to respond.

And then

she also tweeted out that night, I absolutely reject any romantic or personal approaches towards me.

There is absolutely no possibility for others to interfere in my private life.

So let's stop there for a second because there's a little bit more.

But obviously,

there are issues with female wrestlers and

disturbed fans, I guess is the best way to put it.

I mean, any wrestler, any celebrity has it, but I think specific.

Well, it might be the nicest way to put it so we don't get kicked off YouTube or whatever.

But what kind of, she's obviously got some,

as James Gregory, you said, some nut

that's been in some way, messages or contact attempts of some kind has scared shit out of her.

And

hopefully, yes, cops are on, but who, you know,

do the cops take some of this shit seriously when you get, you know, a letter in the mail looks like a fucking ransom note from some nine-year-old or some shit like that.

Like, you've seen some of the fucking mail I used to get from fans.

I don't know if that's what she's getting.

Cause again, I don't know if she's getting mail versus actual, you know, DMs or people writing crazy stuff on social media.

Well, yeah, well, whatever, but I'm saying sometimes, you know, I hope the police are on it, but sometimes they don't take it seriously.

And it's wrestling or whatever.

I hope they're addressing it legitimately.

Well, two days after those tweets, she tweeted out, WWE and TKO are taking action to protect me.

I appreciate it.

So obviously they take it seriously.

And we talked about Sonia DeVilla earlier.

I guess that's the best case.

Maybe that's not the best way to put it, but that's the case you look at where a fan literally broke into her house looking to harm her.

Mandy Rose, I think, was living there at the time too.

And luckily, nothing happened, but there are fans that cross boundaries, whether it's at the airport.

I mean, I guess the nicest boundary to cross is just the weirdo who wants you to sign everything so they can resell it.

Yeah.

which is, you know, that's one type of harassment, but this is a whole nother level.

You know, you're talking about the angry mail you got and people taking it seriously.

We have more tweets we'll discuss.

What about like crazy fans who fall in love with you or just in their own head, they've imagined they're your wife already or that you should be with them?

I don't know how often you would have had that, but maybe Stan Lane had that happen a lot.

I don't know.

No, hold on now, cowboy.

It's two different types of things.

The anger heat.

Where they want to get you because you're a heel in the building or they did in the territory days.

That was,

yes, you had heat, but it was more instantaneous.

There's that son of a bitch.

He's right in front of me, going to the ring, type of thing.

If, you know, some heels had so much heat, people would take swings at him going to the ring, but he was right in front of me.

Or he's just fucked my fucking hero.

I'm going to take a swing at him.

It's more instantaneous because it's anger.

It's hard to keep

that level of pissed offness in a fucking fan to where he will

go out and plan to reshoot, you know, targets by Peter Bogdanovich or whatever.

So it was more of an instantaneous type of thing.

But this with

these

guys

falling in love with these girls, it's a love thing,

sort of like a male-female, you know, John Lennon fucking Sabada guy type of thing where they're infatuated and it's that then they they begin to imagine some kind of personal relationship or something or whatever, depending on their level of,

you know.

So that's

that not only

you can keep that level of heat, whatever it, if that's the proper way to measure it, and it can grow and grow without these people ever even having met because it's in their fucking mind.

Well, on February 7th, that's not good.

On February 7th, Asuka tweeted at again:

there are still people who have romantic feelings for me and are making advances.

Please stop immediately.

And then someone named Chuck Cun

responded, not sure if they actually mean it, Asuka, but this has more to do with the whole rejection thing.

See, when you make a statement, in this case, a romantic conundrum, People will only see that as a challenge.

It screwed up logic, yes, but this is internet culture and then she responded and by the way i don't know if i agree with all that but then she

i don't even know if i understand all what the fuck uh their chuck connors just said if it's only the internet i don't mind that much

so that would make you think it's something that's maybe happened in person or maybe it is a letter that she's received or something as opposed to something over the internet.

Something's being sent or somebody's trying to present themselves in some kind of fucking way.

And,

yeah, and this poor girl, you know, just, you know,

again,

she's on television.

You know, whether it's the people that believe that, you know, these people on the internet impersonating

people on television, oh, I want to marry you, send me money.

Or

whether they get in their own minds, oh, if only I could meet her so-and-so, then

we'd be just wonderful together.

It is, you know, that's the kind of people you need to be keeping an eye on.

Somebody somewhere in the community needs to be notified that those folks are around.

And so you would think that

there is some way that law enforcement would be able to figure out who is

doing whatever they're doing.

Can you trace a fucking package?

Can you follow a fucking guy?

Can you put a security camera up, trace a license plate?

I would assume that one of these things could be done.

But who, I'm just a small-town bird lawyer.

I don't do the detecting.

I do the defending.

I also wonder, does she live in Florida like everyone else?

Because the Sonia Deville thing happened in Florida.

Wasn't there also like a crazy fan?

That was showing up at the performance center.

Didn't someone like shoot up the performance center?

Am I thinking about that?

Yeah, well,

hold on now.

Wait a minute.

And then they set off a neutron bomb.

And then Harley Race lit the ring on fire.

Yeah,

the whole place was in flames.

It was on the Orlando news.

Let's not.

No, they shot the, I think the police shot the fucking guy.

But yes, there was

a guy who was showing up at the performance center down there several years ago.

People can Google it and get the story told.

to them by the you know news reports better than I can recall it blow by blow, but

he was convinced he was going to train there and that he was supposed to be a star.

And then he got mad at him because they were fucking him around.

Some kind of who's this fucking guy?

And they called the cops because he was trying to beat on the door or whatever.

I think one of the cops ended up shooting him.

But nevertheless, yes, he went to court and

in jail and other types of unsavory things over that.

It's,

I mean, again, go out in public, walk down the street and take a good look at the first 10 people you see and then say do I really trust any of them to come and sit on my back porch

That's my new philosophy ship features multiple times a day without waiting on days-long regression tests QA Wolf's fully managed AI-native QA service builds, runs, and maintains your end-to-end tests so your engineering teams can focus on shipping, not waiting.

Engineering teams using QA Wolf reach 80% automated test coverage in under four months.

All tests run in parallel with no flaky tests, ever.

Feedback arrives in minutes, not hours.

That means fewer bugs, faster releases, and a more efficient team that builds, not fixes.

QA Wolf customers ship up to five times faster by eliminating slow QA cycles.

With over 100 five-star reviews on G2, QA Wolf is trusted by teams like Salesloft, Drata, and AutoTrader to deliver speed and reliability in every release.

Go to QAWolf.com now to squash your QA bottleneck and start shipping faster every single day.

Well, Jim, one more thing here on the legal beat from, I guess, Florida and Wrestling.

AEW has fired Bear Boulder

Thomas Wansaw.

According to Fightful, an article here by...

I thought you were going to say Thomas Wang.

According to an article here by jeremy lambert of fightful warsaw okay well wait a minute hold on now i'm i'm i'm waiting with bated breath to find out what you have to do to get fired from aew there's only been like

four recorded instances and one of them involved physical assault at least so give it to me there fella this one has an attached affidavit Wansaw was arrested on January 13th and charged with battery by strangulation.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

The victim.

Did he fucking front face like Jungle Boy?

The victim has been identified as Wansaw's fiancé.

Feightful will be withholding the victim's name from the court documents, as they should, and it has the entire report here.

So

the team of the bears, what were they?

They were Bear Mountain or was it.

It was him and the other guy, right?

The other guy was the one who was a pervert in the ring.

What is what?

Didn't they have like a thing where like, remember on TV, the guy was like, I want to eat your ass, or he yelled something at the other guy?

No, no, yes, it was the bear guys.

Yes, it was.

War Horse was the guy that,

no, he ruled ass.

He ruled ass.

But no, it was the, it was the bear guys' manager that wanted to eat your ass or something.

He ate ass, or he,

I can't remember how he phrased it, but some way or another, he announced to the world that

he liked to eat some ass.

But these two, they were the two fat guys,

the Boulder and the Bronson of the Bears.

That's right.

They're bear country.

Bear Country is what it was, not Bear Mountain.

So this fucking,

but remember they're two big giant fat fucks.

So this giant 300 and whatever megaton fat fuck was choking his girlfriend or wife or whatever?

Fiancé.

Fiance.

Okay, well, it's somewhere in the middle there then.

They were betrothed, but what the fuck with this guy?

My investigation revealed: here's something from the affidavit.

On January 13th, I responded to an apartment location, Winter Garden, Florida, in reference to an aggravated battery.

Upon arrival, I made contact with several deputies who had already

had the suspect in custody.

I interviewed the victim, who informed me she was physically battered by her fiancé.

I observed what appeared several

injurison.

I'm not injurious.

Injuriousin.

No, there's an O-N.

That's what I'm saying.

Well, and folks, again, for those of you who may not have been as unlucky as me to see a number of police reports about myself and others, they're handwriting it on a fucking metal pad on the scene.

So a lot of this shit, you got to read between the lines.

Photographs were taken and uploaded to be attached to the report.

According to the victim, she sustained injuries around her neck, including red marks as well as scratches just below her neck, just above her breast.

The back of her neck was red, also, and appeared it was battered as well.

Also, she sustained a bruise that appeared to be bright red on her right hand.

According to the victim, she was in a verbal argument with the bear guy that escalated into a physical altercation when he pushed her to the ground.

He then placed his foot onto her throat,

causing her to lose consciousness and black out.

Jesus Christ.

She stated that she gained consciousness approximately five to ten minutes later and was able to retreat outside to a patio and call 911.

She believes he picked her up and placed her on the couch, as this is where she regained consciousness.

She said it was not the first time he had been physically.

Now, wait a minute.

What?

She just called 911 and then she regained consciousness.

No, no, no.

She's saying that when she regained consciousness, she was on the couch before she ran out to call 911.

He just ran out.

Okay, all right.

And it goes on from there.

It sounds like this is not.

It sounds like, according to her, this was not the first time it happened.

So Bear Boulder, and I guess the team of the Bears will no longer be around.

We'll see how they repackage Bear.

What's his name?

But Bear Boulder, fired from AEW.

Well,

you can't even, the size of him, the sheer girth and mass of him.

in court is fucked

because you can't stand at his size on some.

And do I believe she was unconscious for 10 minutes?

No, because if he'd have stood on her throat until she was out to the point where she was out for 10 minutes, her decedents would be,

her

heirs would be filling out this police report.

But you can't

sell any jury or any legal system on the idea of this guy this size standing on whatever fucking this girl's throat is for any amount of time, and he's not completely cooked.

You can't even make it all.

I was just trying to hold her from injuring me, standing on her fucking neck.

This will be

where do we get the opposing viewpoint from?

I wonder who's going to hire that Greek guy, Kairos, that fucked up the fucking brain suit because he hadn't none.

Maybe he'll go work for Vince's new company.

We'll see what happens.

But

bye-bye, bear.

Bye-bye, bear.

But Jim, on the topic of more about something in the future, it is around this time where I would usually transition to something.

And unfortunately, I didn't open any of them up in front of me.

So I got to see exactly what I am thinking about right now.

Well, you want me to tell you what you're thinking?

I could just tell you what you're thinking, or you could think something.

I'm tired.

If you could tell me what I'm thinking, I'm really tired today.

I'll tell you what, folks, if you need like me to start thinking about getting into a new business, because maybe there's something like your partner's having a mental breakdown or they're just upgrading the equipment that you just can't keep up with anymore.

If you've got an idea for a product or a service or a dream, because it's America, baby.

Ain't that America?

You and me, baby, ain't that America the home of the free where you are free to open up your own business, but you need somebody to help you because you can't do it by yourself.

And who do you need to get to help you to open up your new business and realize your American dream?

Shopify.

Because that's what you're going to be hearing when you use the folks at Shopify.

They're the professionals, all the big boys.

They do the deals with Shopify because nobody does selling better than Shopify.

They're the home of the number one checkout on the planet.

They boost conversions up to 50%.

Now, I'm not sure what conversions are, but if they can give you half again, as many as the next guy, well, fuck yeah.

And the people are going to stop abandoning carts.

Once they put something in their cart, Shopify puts that little ding ding on, and they got to pay for it whether they change their mind or not.

They're stuck with whatever.

If they accidentally press that button,

there's going to be a guy knocking on their door with a pig in a box saying, hey, they got their hand out.

You're going to get some money.

That's not the way it works.

And again, the vendors aren't Shopify.

Shopify is working with the vendors to sell you the products.

And none of those vendors are going to come to your house asking for money.

You're going to pay in advance.

You're going to pay the way you pay normally for everything else online.

But with Shopify, it'll help you.

It'll help your business easy process, easy checkout, Shopify.

You viewed the business and you viewed the customer there, and you viewed us into the point where we made a U-turn.

And I don't think people understood what you said.

Folks, if you're into growing your business, your commerce platform better be ready to sell wherever your customers are, whether they're scrolling or strolling on the web, in your store, in their fields.

I'm sorry, in their feed and everywhere in between.

And if you're going to sell more, you got to sell on Shopify because that trademark.

So once again, folks, right now, we can save you some money and then Shopify can make you some because you can upgrade your business and get the same great checkout that all the big boys use and this platform that has multiple ways for you to just take people's money like you're shoving it into your own pocket, pulling it straight out of theirs.

Sign up for a $1 a month trial period right now at shopify.com slash JCE.

That's all lowercase, shopify.com slash JCE.

$1 a month trial period.

How can you lose money if you get a dollar a month trial period, you only have to sell a piece of bubblegum?

What in the world?

There's unless you're just

sell someone else's dog.

There's no way you can't make money.

You're going to make your own bubblegum?

Huh?

You're going to make your own bubblegum?

You're going to make your own ice?

How are you going to do this?

You could, you could, you could actually, you could make bubblegum flavored ice or ice-flavored bubblegum, see?

I just, I don't know.

What's ice flavored?

What the hell would ice flavored be?

Just cold?

Well, it depends on what color the ice is.

Oh, come on.

You're one of those sleepy boys.

You know, about don't drink the yellow snow.

It's just Gatorade.

Anyway, depending on what the Gator has done,

you never know.

But right now, Shopify, that's uh, that's the thing you need to do.

That's right, that is indeed the thing you need to do.

And Shopify is there for us, it's there for you, it's there for the vendor, it's there for the customer, and it's there for the listener of Jim Cornett's drive-through.

They're omnipresent, They're there for everyone.

They're all around you.

Their name used to be Big Brother Incorporated, but they changed it.

Well, we like Shopify over here.

One more time, Jim, for anyone looking to sell their goods, anyone looking for easy checkouts, Shopify is there.

What's that promo code?

Well, if you're just looking to sell your goods like a yard sale, I don't know if they want to talk to you, but if you're engaging in an ongoing business enterprise, shopify.com/slash JCE.

That's right.

And Jim, on the topic of Shopify,

perhaps someone at Shopify can host a seminar to teach some of the wrestlers in AEW about selling because that may be a lesson they need.

But we're going to talk about AEW Dynamite this past week.

The outskirts of Atlanta, right?

Or was it Atlanta?

Is it in Atlanta or right outside of Atlanta?

College Park is.

As I recall, unless I'm having a brain fart and thinking of another suburb, it's right in the middle of Metro Atlanta.

Well, I don't know about the middle if somebody's going to be, you know, throwing a fucking dart, but it's in the glob.

It's inside the fucking

loop.

So

they weren't far.

It just, a lot of people didn't want to come.

No, I think they sold out the phone booth, didn't they?

Do you think AEW should do dynamite at center stage?

No.

Why?

Because

here center stage was a great look for TBS when they upgraded from the Techwood Drive studio, and it was close to the office, and it was a great look for Ring of Honor when you've got 800 rabid people, and it shoots well.

But at this level that AEW is at, and the level, more importantly, that their competitor is at.

You can't look like you're shooting TV, even TNA in the Universal Studios in Orlando, that setup, the impact zone.

No, it looks like a fucking game show.

And unfortunately, AEW started out in the big buildings.

It was filling them up and it looked kind of big league.

And then

we have spent the past several months saying you got to go smaller buildings, you got to go to smaller buildings, which they have done in large part.

And if they can get 2,500 people in half of one of these smaller buildings or fill up a phone booth, as I said, with 2,500, they still kind of

can pull off.

This is a real arena, Pinocchio, and we're really a televised professional sport.

But if they went down to a center stage setup and doing interviews on the side of the stage, they've admitted their

ring of honor with an unlimited fucking budget.

And by the way, you asked the Gateway Center Arena, College Park, Georgia, February 5th, Wednesday night.

According to WrestleTicks, the final count, tickets distributed, 2,718.

And is anybody also finding it odd

that in every town they go to, big, small these days, not in everyone, I don't want to be accused of exaggeration, but in many of these dynamite

towns, tapings, buildings.

It's right at about 2,300, 2,500, 2,700 tickets.

Where do you ever see

in any of of the territory days, even towns that were getting the same TV show and the same matches at their live arena?

The attendances varied wildly from town to town over the course of the year.

So, again, I'm wondering: what are tickets distributed and what are tickets sold?

And what is,

oh, God, we got 1,800.

We need to get 700 more people to hit the 2,500 people level that we have configured this TV to look

so that we can shoot it where it looks like it's full.

But if we don't have 2,500, we can't even do that.

Is there an element of

trying to hit a quota on the crowds, whether they're paid or not?

I'm just wondering out loud.

But you know me, I'm suspicious of everybody, Brian.

Anyway, you want to talk about this TV show?

Let's talk about it.

I was going to just say, I'm not sure, but obviously they seem to be at a certain level where they kind of of don't go below a certain level they don't go above a certain level and that's where they are right now and a lot of it's because of the tv show let's talk about how it started out all right well

their guys are walking in now like the the other show

and uh but then renee

catch uh catches jay white in the back next to the one of the production trucks as he's about to walk into the arena and he starts doing a promo and it was starting to get too long for the top of the show in my opinion.

It was Jay White talking.

I don't know that he can command the attention of a room or a parking lot.

But then, suddenly, here comes Dick the Boozer and the Boer Horseman are walking up to menace him.

And in effect, Moxley's walking up to menace the guy that's being interviewed by his wife.

And, but then, right up behind them are Edge and FTR.

And suddenly they just all have a fight.

But they, again,

still cannot keep a straight face on this thing because they have the sight gag

in the front.

Marina Schaefer just walks over and bends over and picks up Renee and puts her over her shoulder and carries her out of the frame.

And you don't see them again.

And

it's like they're silent movie comedians.

They just want a fucking sight gag.

And they wish it was silence.

I wish it was in silence.

That'd be better.

Well, it kind of is, actually.

Think about it.

Oh, yeah, no, we were listening to it all right as well.

Into the big door of the back of the arena.

And then

they did the fight walk where they were kind of fighting and kind of walking because they got to go through the backstage area and get into the arena.

And then they have an eight-way fight all over the arena and they couldn't shoot at all because then they would have to be shooting parts of the arena they couldn't shoot and or they couldn't find these people anyway.

And it the fans are standing there and they'll react if somebody takes a big bump, but they've seen

This has become the normal thing to come to a live AEW TV show and just see a bunch of fucking people fighting all over the place.

And they don't react.

And the fans don't react.

And, you know, I said it to you a little bit off air.

You look at Raw or SmackDown, the top people being featured.

And I hate to even compare the two companies at this point, but Jey Uso, CM Punk, Owen Zane, a variety of McIntyre, a variety of people.

Nobody's young.

Nobody's in their early 30s.

No one's even close to it.

Yet no one feels stale and everyone feels fresh.

And I know this is a weird thing to say, but if you look at the five people I just named, by and large, maybe some guys both wear black, but everyone looks and feels different.

The opening of this show was the least marketable amount of wrestlers or group of wrestlers you could put out there, despite what Hobbes has as potential.

Moxley, he's always in like fucking green or just a white t-shirt.

And the rest of his crew dresses the same except Pac, who doesn't wear clothes.

And then Cope and FTR,

nobody's invested in FTR at this point.

FTR's biggest fans aren't invested in them anymore because of the way they've been treated.

And also they're, you know, they have a lot to do with that as well.

But the way they've been booked has not helped anyone.

Same thing with Cope.

And beyond that, I just don't think he has the star power outside of WWE that he did or was supposed to have in WWE.

So this whole opening thing, everyone was old and

slow.

I just, this was not good at all.

And I said it to you last week with Moxley.

This guy's the top heel in the company, trying to murder people, not put them out of action, murder them.

He tried to put bags of the hair of porrido down their throat.

He stands in the crowd.

He stands in the crowd with Marina Schaefer.

No one's going after him.

No one's even near him.

They don't even have to send him out to security guard anymore.

No one goes anywhere near him.

There's no heat.

This Death Rider stuff has been an utter disaster.

And then having them in a feud with Cope and FTR, I'm glad they started the show off with this to get it out of the way.

But

you want to look at the dichotomy between WWE and AEW.

Look at these guys versus any, any top push guy in WWE.

These people aren't marketable.

Well, yes.

This is not appealing.

The point you just made that all those guys, Drew McIntyre, and

Some have not been there for years and years, like Punk came back and it was off for injury.

But a lot of those guys, they've been there for years, but you're interested now in all the new shit they're doing.

And they do seem fresher and they're not young people, but

they're attracting young people

because

they're old enough to be good performers for one thing.

These guys have not even been there as long as some of those guys have been in WWE.

And you're like, oh, Jesus Christ, these people again.

Yeah, and again, L.A.

Knight, I think, is in his early 40s, and he's someone who got to the game pretty late.

He doesn't feel old.

He doesn't feel stale, unless you just hate, like, you know, you do hear from people that don't like that kind of performer, but the fans love him and they react to him, and he feels somewhat fresh.

Everyone on this thing was wearing like fucking dark colors

and like no one pops out against the fans.

It's just terrible.

It's terrible.

It's terrible wrestling television.

And I've seen more wrestling television than most people.

It's terrible wrestling television well finally all of these individuals in this big fight got to ringside and

again and by the way the signs of the night in this same segment boar horsemen

and covet fears cornet

so at least we got some entertainment out of this segment.

You know, Boer Horseman being held up at any point in the show would be an accomplishment, but holding up while the the Boer Horsemen are in the middle of whatever they do,

that is a major, major accomplishment.

Congratulations, whoever you are.

Yes, congratulations, oh, Seinfellow.

But then Edge speared Claudio, and the Heels kind of awkwardly tried to walk off, but Edge did the promo

challenging

Dick the Boozer for the AEW World Heavyweight Title match at Revolution, which is their pay-per-view in March, correct?

Whoop-de-ding.

And the plumber milks it and then says no

and tries to leave again.

And I'm thinking, please let him go.

And then White

gets on the microphone and screams something at him.

I have something.

down here in quotation marks in my notes because I don't know what between the way he was shrieking and his accent.

And then

he asked for a tag team match in Australia at Grand Slam or whatever that wing ding is, a Brisbane brawl.

Guess what it is, Brian?

No DQ.

Anything goes?

Lazy booking.

You bet your, you bet your bippy

is

sweet bippy.

You bet your sweet.

Well, I don't really.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to hurt your feelings, feelings, but I've never thought your pipe was particularly sweet.

But so it's going to be white and edge

or edge and white.

I don't know who gets top billing against apparently Claudio and Dick the Boozer in Brisbane at their at their brawl.

Yeah.

This

Australia show,

we've heard feedback and we've seen feedback that didn't even come to us.

That's just out on social media it feels like the australian fans feel let down they're ticked and i know people are trying to defend tony saying he never promised it was a pay-per-view and typically grand slam has always been a dynamite

but for it to just be an aew collision with no main event matches well hold on here i actually i have an email would you would you like me just to

report in on what the australians our friends danunda are saying about about the whole thing?

Yeah, I'm assuming.

Oh, yeah, let's hear this.

Well, yeah, you're assuming this is assuming it's real.

You could hear it.

This is from

a fellow in the Australian continent.

What is it?

De Niro is his name.

Certainly not.

Robert lives in New York City, doesn't he?

Yeah, Tribeca.

Okay, well, and it's not him, but De Niro.

He wrote it.

I'm just basically,

they're saying

it'll be his first, or he's saying it'll be his first live event of any kind for any sport, music, or festival.

I was so excited.

And lucky me, I live in Brisbane.

Not just a house show, not just a TV, but a fucking pay-per-view.

It was reported to be a pay-per-view event on announcement, not a special episode of collision.

I convinced a bunch of non-wrestlers.

By the way, I don't remember.

I'm going to take this person's word for it, but when they announced it, I don't remember off the top of my head if they said it was a pay-per-view or a TV or anything other than we're coming to Australia.

So I don't remember.

Well, but here's that were you in Australia?

No.

What were they saying over there?

Goodbye, Mike.

Did they even get, did they even have their story straight?

But anyways, I convinced a bunch of non-wrestling friends to come with me and some to fly here.

And

you probably heard Brisbane.

This is worded, well, it's his second language, it's English, because he's from Australia.

Brisbane in a stadium is a terrible choice, but

they've

near sold out the new arena.

And I, for one, see it as a huge upgrade.

All seats are closer, louder, more atmospheric.

And apparently, he says, now air conditioned for this insane, aussy heat.

It's the middle of the summer over there.

In February in a stadium, it's the summer over there.

So they were going to be like, you know, cooking.

But here's what he says.

I was a little annoyed.

There have been next to zero feuds going into this.

I was excited to finally get to see Story Resolutions Live.

AEW isn't quite known for their fantastic storytelling, but we're happy to get what we can until the recent announcement that the show has been downgraded to a TV taping

from a four-hour pay-per-view to a two-hour collision.

That's a kick in the balls.

Apparently, he's saying that he and his friends are hearing that they're going to get the lead, the lead-on

from an NBA All-Star show.

So they decided to spit on all of us to grab an opportunity to squish this event into their TV slot to try to grab as many new fans and add revenue as they possibly can.

I don't know if they're still going to make any different on that, but basically, the fans they heard they're going to get a giant stadium show, and every big AEW event that

we can certainly testify to goes over four fucking hours.

And

then they find, well, then they're moving to this arena.

Okay.

And now they're an episode of collision.

So

they're just now,

this is February 15th, and we're talking about the TV show

on February 5th, that was, and they're goddamn challenging for and announcing main events on this goddamn stadium show or arena show or collision taping.

Do you think they're going to boo Tony when he comes out to give his like rah-rah speech?

I don't think, I don't believe Tony needs to go out that particular night.

I think he could hand that off to one of his subordinates.

That's never stopped him before, whether Tony needs to do it.

I think, well, send somebody with sunglasses and the fucking wig with the curly hair and of his build with his jacket out.

And if they make it all the way across the stage without getting dropped by a fucking stray sniper, then Tony could come out.

But yeah, so they're not happy down under.

Can't blame them, can you?

I mean, we didn't even know what time it started until like a week ago.

We didn't know how we were going to watch it.

We didn't know how we were going to watch it or what time it started or any of the matches.

And then we found that up at the women's match.

I know for the last week I've had shit going on.

I haven't really paid close attention.

So it is now going to be the collision for when

the because the 15th is a Saturday, or is it before

Saturday before it's Saturday here, Saturday, when it's Saturday there?

Did I clearly and succinctly ask that question?

No, but I somehow knew exactly what you were saying.

AEW Grand Slam Australia will be airing.

Does it say how it will be airing or where?

It will be, well, it doesn't say it on Wikipedia.

Let me go to the official aew page 5 30 p.m

australia time

and we have five matches here on the page okay but what is it what

is it in goddamn louisville kentucky where i am

it doesn't say and if it's going to be an episode of collision it's not going to air live anyway it's it's going to

What it they're if they're following a ball game, what day is it going to still be on the weekend of the 15th?

How are they going to broadcast this fucking thing to be an episode of Collision after a ball game emanating from fucking Australia?

And by the way, it's not just a ball game.

It's the NBA All-Star Game.

They will be airing at 10.30 p.m.

Eastern Time or whenever the All-Star Game finishes.

On February 15th.

On February 15th.

So again, I mean, you talk about priorities and how you manage things.

When Tony announced Australia,

he made it out like it was a big deal, and it is a big deal.

It isn't anymore.

Like they somehow, before the event even took place, made it so that no one,

I shouldn't say no one cares.

People are interested now to see how it's going to work out, but he's pissed off the Australian fans.

The American fans aren't really pumped up for it.

Everything on TV now is revolving around it, it seems like.

Yet no one's really clear on how they're going to watch it.

It's a disaster.

And

after

that takes place, they've got two weeks or three weeks to turn around and sell their pay-per-view.

Well, Jim, continuing.

Continuing.

So the next of the next match, the first match on Dynamite was Birdman Osprey.

Good Lord, he reminds me.

I think I said this to you yesterday when we were talking about it.

He reminds me of the always sunny episode where they're dressed like a kakawa kakawa and he's got the feathered

entrance robe

the birds the birds of prey birds of prey.

That's what it was.

Birds of prey.

He's a bird of osprey.

And

you made it work.

So then

he is supposed to

wrestle a member of the Don Fallus family and Don comes out to give this guy the big intro and the fans chant, fuck Don Callis.

And they caught the censor unaware because they tried to say that later in the program and they were bleeping him, but they let this go by because it wasn't that loud.

But Don announces that Osprey's mystery opponent that Osprey is supposed to face from the Don Callis family gets the big buildup and announced it's Mark Davis.

And people are,

ready, ready.

And this is the guy

that was the ex-tag team partner of Kyle Felcher.

And

how did this go?

Again,

and again, I think you told me this yesterday.

And I swear to God, I can't remember it yet.

Felcher didn't turn on him because he was already gone somewhere.

Did he get hurt?

And then Felcher turned heel and then Davis came back to get even with for not calling him while he had diarrhea.

I don't fucking know.

And then Davis was a babyface, but nobody gave two shits and a fucking taint tickle about him.

And then he went away again.

Or can you do that better than me?

They were a tag team.

They were Aussie Open.

They had wrestled a few matches in AEW.

And then Mark Davis either got hurt or had a visa issue.

I don't even know.

But they broke away Fletcher first as a babyface.

Was he a babyface?

I don't know.

Yes, yes.

Yes, yes.

And then he turned on Will Ospreay and he got screwdriver power with Don Callis.

Then Mark Davis showed up again, dressed like a homeless man,

and no one really knew who he was because he wasn't established.

And he was upset with Osprey because he never heard from him.

And then he aligned himself with the babyfaces.

Then he was off TV again.

And now he's returned seemingly as a heel

with the people he was confronting a few weeks ago.

Did his ass used to be the size of Atlanta, Georgia?

Because I swear to God, did he go down early and spend a couple of days at the varsity doing an all-you-could-eat hot dog challenge?

Well, he's a bigger guy, but I don't know if I want to.

He's a bigger guy.

His fucking ass is as wide as a drive-in movie screen, but it came in handy.

Because nobody could possibly care what happened in this match, so I skipped that.

But after about 10 minutes or so,

Davis hit this flying pile driver

where

Osprey was bent over, and Davis kind of jumped up and landed on his back and turned in midair and planted him with the pile driver.

And it's the goddamnest thing I've ever seen.

That could be a finish anywhere in the world in any company.

It was fucking beautiful.

And because of his big ass and thighs,

everything was safe.

And he just nailed it perfect.

Cover, two count.

Osprey kicked out.

And then I've, goddamn it.

And then within

I swear, 15 seconds of this devastating maneuver, Osprey is up, runs across the ring, hits the only good-looking hidden blade I've ever seen him hit, that back elbow thing, because the guy was standing up and took a hell of a bump and stood on his knees and shits.

And that got a one-two-three.

So

the best-looking move of the night, osprey kicked out of after two and then davis who i think is i i won't call him a complete idiot because nobody's ever learned him

and we need to learn you but if you got a move like that if you're not winning the match don't do the move

but then there becomes a problem that he probably is never going to win a match in this company But if you if you don't win with that thing, you shouldn't do any any old-timer would tell you that.

But

but that wasn't all, Brian.

Do you have any thoughts so far?

Should I get to them?

Now they're going to get to the meat of the matter.

Do you have any thoughts in general on the idea whether here or anywhere else on a surprise opponent being brought in to lose right away?

Well, I guess I'm just kind of used to it in this environment.

It doesn't really make any sense.

But

yes, there could be, obviously,

an element of

it will bring this surprise mystery opponent in.

It's a guy from your past, and you conquer that guy, but it furthers your angle within this other guy comes out or whatever.

So, yes, a mystery guy, surprise guy can be brought in to lose in the right framework, but just

has this guy ever fucking won?

That's the thing, just to bring a guy that nobody ever cared about to begin with, and he's been there and gone, and as we explained, back and forth and hither and yon.

And then,

you you know, they have a good match for 10 minutes and then he fucking gets beat.

And then other people come out and start fighting with each other and he's forgotten.

No, this is just, this was just a ratings ploy, a mystery.

In Tony's mind, he thinks that if you stipulate everything,

every match has some

incredible implication that we will list to you.

And then this guy will face a mystery member of the Don Fallus family and these people at an eight-man tag against so-and-so with the winner to go on to Wrestle Dream to compete against the stardom champion of the fucking

butt fucking, I don't know.

But when you hit people with that much shit,

then they're just, they tune out and they just watch people fucking bounce off each other.

And that's when you lose the ability to create those individual personalities.

and get the individual guys over because they're just watching people bounce off each other because they're overwhelmed with this just endless bombard of people people bouncing off each other.

Am I digressing?

No, and I believe the stardom champion a butt fucking jumped to Marigold for the record.

Well, in that case, if you

get stuck to the ass, go to Marigold.

Or gleat, maybe gleat.

No, that's that's well, that's the noise they make after they've been to Marigold.

But anyway, so after this match,

Osprey took the microphone and at least he kept it brief, bruv.

But he rolled out his partner at the the grand slam.

He said, it's Kenny.

It's Kenny.

Here comes Kenny.

And Kenny's got the microphone.

And then, and they gave him time.

And I'm like, oh, fuck.

And he came out, as you mentioned, raggedy jeans and an olive drab, olive green drab t-shirt with some,

I don't know, it's an anime character or something on it.

But they all just, they look like the people in the fucking stands.

And,

you know, the people going to look at the people in the stands to fucking see that.

And I won't even belabor the point.

Kenny has the least amount of menace or aggression or emotion or intimidation or conviction or anything else in his voice.

He just sounds like a computer tech that you might be forced to speak to about your ailing laptop.

And

it just blase and wishy-washy, but then here comes Tegashit and Kyle Felcher out in the entranceway, and they're trying to promote a tag team match at Grand Slam.

And Kenny did try to fire up, but he still just to me sounds like a nerd.

And then he literally blew the fans a kiss and told everyone good night and bang, and they blew off some pyro.

And there's another tag team match that we get to see is

Fletcher and Tegashit and the super, the dream team of Kenny and

Willie.

You want to bet that match is going to get a better reaction than Moxley and Claudio versus Jay White and Edge?

Oh, no,

I don't want to bet with you on that, but that's like saying you get a bigger reaction for being spit roasted by two fucking rhinoceroses or goddamn burned in a pit of boiling oil.

Well, we'll see what happens.

And, of course, Kenny's.

Do they have rhinocera in Australia?

I don't know if they currently do.

It is the land of plenty, so they may have plenty of those.

And, of course, Kenny always ends his promos or his night with

good night and auvoir.

What does he say?

He says, um.

And I'll see you soon.

Get home, Sam.

No, have a pleasant tomorrow.

And then bang.

The point is, he's signing off that's the sound of the fans shooting themselves in the head well no that's kenny signing off for the night and a lot of people when they hear the sign off they say hey it's time for bed i need a good night's sleep maybe some people in aew could use a good night's sleep instead of staying up all night partying

but i digress helix sleep yes you digress over to helix and that's where you need to digress when you digress yourself at night Folks, you digress, you divest yourself of all of your dressing, and you lay down naked in a bed.

You don't want to feel like, wait a minute, I'm exposing my naked human body with all of its frailties and ailments and potential weak points to some unauthorized surface.

Because, you know, a lot of these mattress companies, they just don't give a shit.

You've heard this, Brian.

It's been in the news many times.

You'll find.

I don't know, you know, used razor blades and stuff from the city dump that they use to stuff some of the big name mattresses.

Occasionally, some junkies leave their hypodermic needles stuck in the middle of it.

You know, they get a lot of the labor of some of these big companies comes from a poor part of Pakistan.

So you never know what you're laying on.

And that's why our friends at Helix Sleep have taken it upon themselves to save people from sleeping on a surface filled with horrible tetanus-ridden substances.

And instead, get a beautiful night's sleep like you're laying on a fluffy cloud.

And again, no matter how you're shaped or figured, whether you're unnaturally tall or morbidly obese or in some way deformed at any stretch of the human experience, Helix Sleep has a mattress that will even make a hideous thing like you comfortable in the privacy of a dark room in your own home.

by yourself alone where people don't have to look at you.

So right now, folks, all you do

is you go to helixleep.com

and you take their little quiz where they ask you how in what position you like to sleep and

you know and different things that you like to do in your life and what you might be wearing at that particular point in time.

And then they're going to send you a mattress or they're not going to send it to you.

You got to buy it first, but then they're going to hook you up with one.

They send it after you buy it.

They are sending it.

Well, they send it after you buy it, but you got to buy it.

Then they send it.

It's the buy-send relationship.

But they're going to hook you up with one that is all to your to your preferences, whether you got the snoring, the back pain, the sleep apnea, problems with.

As a matter of fact, now they have that new incontinence mattress where if you piss the bed instantly, you get an electric shock to wake you up and let you know to stop doing that shit.

But you know that they, let me just stop you right there.

They do not have anything like that, and you do not have to worry about any sort of electrical shocks with Helix Sleep.

Is that still in development?

I must be confusing an advanced memo.

I'm on the board.

You are not on any board.

You don't get any memos.

Will you stop it?

You have no idea what you're talking about here.

I'm bored right now.

Didn't you get the memo?

Anyway.

Go to sleep.

Helix sleep.

If you go to helixleep.com slash JCE.

We're going to save you money because you're going to get 20% off site-wide and two free dream pillows.

That's the pillows.

When you put it on the comfortable mattress, then you lay your head down on the comfortable pillows, and boom, you're going to dream.

You're going to be a dream machine floating away on a cloud.

Just be careful when you wake up the next morning.

Don't go to bed naked because you might have to wander back to your home from some undisclosed location.

What?

Right now, again, Healy.

Well, if you're dreaming and you're floating,

HealingSleep.com

slash JCE.

Yeah.

20% off side-wide and two free dream pillows with any mattress purchase.

Boy, howdy,

that's a deal you just can't beat with a stick.

Well, leave the stick outside and go to bed with Helix Sleep one more time, Jim.

We love him here at the house.

I know you love him over there at Castle Cornet.

What's the promo code?

HelixSleep.com slash JCE.

Good night.

Well, the night was about to get better over on AEW Dynamite.

The only stars they've got were about to come out.

Well, Jim, hold on.

If I can give you some breaking news that I'm just noticing online right now, talking about stars, someone that you've always said was a star.

I have a tweet here.

Uh-oh.

Jeremy Spoken.

R.I.P.

Now, wait, no, wait a minute.

I have never said that Jeremy Spoken was a star.

R.I.P to a radio and Tulsa legend.

Roy D.

Mercer himself,

Brent Douglas.

So Roy D.

Mercer, someone you've talked about in the past, the voice.

The voice of Roy Douglas.

Now,

hold on now.

Now, we don't even have time, and I'd have to have

even some reference material in front of me to say that there's been more than one Roy Mercer.

And

the

There's a story behind this, and people can Google it and look it up, but the Roy D.

Mercer tapes

originated with a guy in East Tennessee that apparently, as I remember the story,

was sick, possibly had cancer, and was just calling people up, jacking them around.

And then

they found their way to some radio station people, and then somebody became a new, or maybe there was a different middle initial Roy Mercer.

And then they started selling commercial tapes and everything.

It's a whole saga, Brian.

So we don't know exactly.

I think this is one of the pretenders, not the original fella that was the first one to ask about how big a boy is he

or

what time does your brother get off?

Things like that.

This is a weird situation right now where, you know, we want to say something nice about someone who passed, but you're kind of putting him in the uh that's not gorgeous George Grant.

I don't know.

I think that's not the gorgeous George I saw on TV.

Who's that?

I think this, I think this was gorgeous George Grant.

I'm i'm just telling you

all right well rest in peace curly joe but let's get back to dynamite

well getting back to dynamite here came the hurt syndicate

and now they come out they've got the suits they got the sunglasses they got the tag team belts the manager's carrying a cane

they're full-grown adult males they look

great

and mvp is the announcer gives the big introduction to Shelton and to Bobby, and each one of them gets a big pop, and the new tag team champions gets a big pop.

And the fans have started chanting, We hurt people, we hurt people.

I don't know, that's an odd rhythm.

However, they were doing it.

And MVP cut a promo putting everybody on notice because

if you have any championships or anything that we want, eventually we're coming to see you.

And, you know, boom, as as we get then of course the lights go out and music starts playing but the fans are with them because they've they've acted like looked like and been treated like stars

yes i i can't disagree with anything i mean the reaction from the fans is the biggest thing because for

a fan base sick of former wwe guys and older guys And these guys all fit into both of those categories.

They don't feel as tired and lame as everyone else, and the reactions keep growing.

Again, this is a new lease on life for Shelton Benjamin altogether.

Obviously, Tony treats him with a lot more respect than Triple H or Vince McMahon or whoever did.

And I think it's been a good run so far, and they really haven't had a good feud or anything yet.

It's all just been establishing them.

Now you got to go somewhere.

Well, and now the lights go out and the music plays, and here come the gunboys.

And you know what?

This might not be bad because the guns, we've always said they're incredibly hard workers and

they were naturally animated in the, especially early on before they got lost in the shuffle and been gone or hurt or whatever the fuck's been going on.

But they.

They take big bumps.

They work hard.

They scramble across the ring.

They put a little extra into it.

And they can learn from both Shelton and Boyel from all three: Shelton, Bobby, and MVP.

But Shelton, Bobby, and the ring,

if they listen and follow and have that natural, youthful enthusiasm channeled properly,

these could be some good matches.

But the guns came in and they said, We want to come in and talk business.

You're a businessman.

An MVP invited him in.

And the guns deal it, they want their belts from two years ago back.

And

they cut the promo.

And

the guns need to be the heels in this because they're going to be whether they like it or not.

But at the same time, it's going to be kind of interesting because you don't want the Hurt Syndicate to be put in a position of, you know, selling like Riggie Morton.

So they've still got to be strong in this as their heelish selves because that's why the people like them.

But MVP said he appreciated the moxie and the courage, but he respects their father, or they would have already been choked out.

But he shook their hands and said, next week, we'll defend the tag team title against a couple of ass boys.

And then the guns, as the hurt syndicate had already left the ring, said something that got bleeped.

And

I got two words for you.

Suck it.

Yeah, what did they say?

But

I don't know because they didn't,

like the old days, they did the audio scramble where it just.

But he said something about,

possibly did he say, you're fucking right, we're the ass boys.

I don't know.

That was a good line, though.

When MVP walked out after calling them the ass boys, that disrespect.

Yeah.

It set them up.

I mean, they're set up to be babyfaces.

I don't know if they'll get that reaction, but they're set up for it for the first time.

You know, I got to be honest with you.

I think if

they were heels because they've got that smart ass, those smart ass expressions and that smart ass kind of promo delivery.

And if they were heels against the hurt syndicate, we might actually have some tear-down the house reactions one way or the other, whereas now it might be split at best.

But nevertheless, the other issue will be interesting.

Well, the bigger issue, even than the reaction, and like you just said,

it'll be very interesting because even if they're baby faces and the the hurts indicate are the heels, even though they're cheered, they're cheered heels,

that kind of match will be a little different for them.

But they're going to the match next week.

Like they're not giving the guns like a week to shine on TV and look really good.

It's

boom, they're back.

They get the challenge.

So now next week, one of them has to lose already.

Oh, well, the guns are not going to win the belts or elsewhere.

And I'm not saying they should, but maybe they should not go to the match right away is my point.

But yeah, well, no, I mean,

I'm interested to see the match, but I don't think this is going to be a long program because obviously then they wouldn't just say, hey, we want a match.

Okay, and have it next week.

This is something, I guess, to build,

you know, the Hurt Syndicates had their resume, you know, but

of course it's all rushed, but what are you going to do?

But you need a tag team.

What are you going to do?

You need a tag team division.

And for

the new freshness you're getting with the Hurts Syndicate, to have the guns all of a sudden in there, that does liven it up.

They've been gone a while.

Every other tag team

feels either makeshift, like two guys thrown together, or

just a team that you know is not going to win.

That's why I just wouldn't have gone to it next week.

I would have given the guns, even if they're not going to win the belts.

I'm not saying they have to win the belts.

I'm just saying.

They should look like a team that could beat someone before they get a chance to get killed by Shelton and Lashley.

Well, that makes way too much sense.

You know what they ought to have had, though?

Also, they missed an opportunity here.

When the Hurt Syndicate came out, they should have come through velvet ropes operated by Private Party is now dressed as security guards.

Oh, yeah, where are they?

I already forgot about Private Party.

Where are they now?

Well, so did everybody else.

You know, they came off looking like fucking grade schoolers against these giants.

Because they were just, they're green and nobody'd ever fucking developed them.

Does Billy Gunn need to be in the corner of his kids?

To offset it?

Well, MVP is never in the corner.

MVP's on the commentary usually, right?

Well,

if they want to stretch,

you know, stretch this out over a few matches and they would have Billy Gunn offset MVP because he did make the mention that he respected their father, blah, blah, blah.

That might be something.

But I think at this point, for the same reason, I think that, well, it's too late now, but the acclaim needed to get away from Billy Gunn.

I think the Assboys need to get away because what's left of the fans they had when Billy and the Acclaimed were the most popular people in town, they're still going to fucking cheer for Billy Gunn more than anybody because he's out there 60 years old, looks like goddamn Apollo.

And so I think they need to.

Billy overshadows all these other guys.

He's bigger than everybody and looks better physically than everybody.

He can still work better than most of them.

I'd stay away from it.

Harley Cameron's puppet.

Harley came out with the puppet of Mercedes Moon.

And she is doing it.

And then, you know, then you see Harley and she's throwing her voice.

And

then Mercedes came out with her four belts.

So you've got...

Renee Moxley Good stepped aside when Mercedes came in, wearing four title belts that together weigh more than she does, while Harley cameron was operating a

puppet and i thought that i was on acid that's what happened next

i think the puppets i think the puppets more over than the real mercedes

and she's a better promo she's more realistic she can put a promo she'd probably work better and people would people would be more forgiving if her hair fell off harley cameron's really entertaining and really talented and she just doesn't belong in aew there has to be a better way to utilize that talent i know vaudeville's not a thing.

You can't just say, like, get on the bus, go.

But there has to, I mean, she has the ability to put together like a real, I hate to use the word dynamite.

I was going to say a real dynamite act, but a real spectacular act.

She can be Bafo.

I don't know.

I mean, she would have been on Ed Sullivan if Ed

were alive today or 2025.

If Ed Sullivan took over Sunday Nights from the Dead, I think Harley Cameron would be one of his first guests.

If Ed Sullivan was alive today, I'm going to say he'd be about 120 years old, wouldn't he?

That's going to be an interesting reaction in Australia.

Harley Cameron, hometown girl against Mercedes Monet?

Does she bring the puppet to the ring?

Should the puppet now be like her Mr.

Sako?

Should they get different puppets that attack the wrestlers?

I think they should set two rings side by side and have Tony Storm and Maria Mae going in one and Mercedes and Harley going in the other one so we can get it over in the same amount of time.

How about that?

Well, we'll talk.

I want to hear your thoughts on that segment when we get to it, but

Harley.

Yeah, the whole thing there with the puppets.

And then Hangnail Page

doesn't regret crippling Christopher Daniels.

Remember, we thought, well, is this the first time anybody was ever shamed into turning baby face, but now he cut the promo with Renee

that he doesn't regret it.

He did what he had to do,

and then suddenly Max Caster is sitting in a chair off-camera.

And just you hear this voice, hey, Renee, can y'all hurry up?

And what the fuck?

And the camera widens out.

I've been waiting here,

you know.

And hey, he starts talking to Paige.

He said, Paige,

if you hurt Bowens or put Billy Gunn in the hospital, you know, that'd be great too.

You know, I wouldn't mind.

And then Paige,

who we just thought wasn't being shamed and being a babyface, said, well, how about if I fight you and I put you in a fucking hospital?

And they both did some comedy with Castor running off and Paige taking off after him.

And that was the end of that.

For them.

No, it wasn't.

Well, I said for then.

But it's

Designed with intention and loaded with power.

The Jeep Wrangler 4xE will help keep you moving towards endless coastlines without sacrificing the comfort and legendary capability you expect.

Thanks to its hybrid powertrain, the Wrangler 4xE delivers the same epic off-roading endurance as its gasoline counterpart.

And with three different driving modes, electric, hybrid, and e-save, versatility follows you at every turn.

Visit your local Jeep brand dealer today and take advantage of the EV lease incentive going on now.

But hurry, this offer ends soon.

Right now, well-qualified current FCA lessees get an ultra-low mileage lease on the 2025 Jeep Wrangler Sport S4xE for $189 a month for 24 months with $3,079 due at signing.

Tax, title, license extra.

No security deposit required.

Call 1-888-925-JEAP for details.

Requires dealer contribution and lease through Stellantis Financial.

Extra charge for miles over 10,000.

Current vehicle must be registered to consumer at least 30 days prior to lease.

Includes 7,500 EV cap cost reduction.

Not all customers will qualify.

Residency restrictions apply.

Take delivery by 9:30.

Jeep is a registered trademark.

So then

we had Brody and Buddy, the hounds of hell.

Wouldn't the names of the hounds of hell be like fucking Satan and Beelzebub instead of Buddy and Brody?

You have a good point.

The name Buddy has never worked for him.

It worked for Buddy Rogers, Buddy Colt, Buddy Austin, Buddy Landell, Buddy Landell.

It doesn't work for Buddy Matthews/slash Murphy.

It didn't do too good for Buddy Diamond either.

But and Brody King is he's named Brody because he's a big guy with long dark hair and probably at one point had a beard and a wolf.

Looks like Bruce Brody.

But if they're going to be that instead of the house of Blech, they're the hounds of hell.

Can we get a full paint job?

And they wrestled Felcher and Tega shit.

And

again, who are the heels?

But the fans have nominally decided that the

hounds were the babyfaces here.

But you've got your choice of the babyface or the people from hell or the henchmen of the evil manager.

And I'm thinking, why beat?

The hounds of hell in their first TV match.

The leader of their failed former group bailed on the company and they do videos to say that they're repackaged and carrying on and they come in and lose the first time that you see them as a team again on the main television program.

Help me.

There is no explanation for this.

They're a team that, I mean, we'll talk a little bit more about this in a moment.

But they are a team that needs more wins because they had no wins.

And they need tag teams.

Fletcher and Takeshta, Takeshta,

I brought up makeshift tag teams before.

I mean, they're part of the Callus family, but they're both singles wrestlers.

One's a singles champion and they're having a tag team match in Australia, but beyond that, they're not a regular tag team.

I mean, it's not Triple H beating the tag team champions on Raw or whatever they used to do.

But still, one tag team's a priority.

Why beat them right now, right away by a team that's going away after that match?

Or they're not going to be a steady tag team.

Well,

the match was an indie tag match, but there's talent here if it was being booked and produced properly with clear direction in

both of those things, clearly defined roles, personalities that click.

So random observations real quick, and then we'll get to the fucking mess it all turned into.

I think Buddy, again, is one of the four or five best in-ring guys in the company for athletic performance and execution.

And physically, he looks fantastic.

He's got that fucking caveman aggression type face.

Kyle is close.

He needs to pick a good look and stick with it.

I think they fucked up when they shaved his head.

At least with that mop of blonde hair, he stood out.

Our boy Take there, I don't know.

He looked cooler a year ago in the black trench coat and the sunglasses and he was doing some things.

And now he's

here.

He's gone.

He hadn't developed.

Brody King wasn't even bad here.

And he looks like he's trying to get a tan.

And, you know, the fans liked the match.

But

finally, Brody gave Buddy a blase, nonchalant cold tag, and Buddy made a great comeback and fans got with it.

And Buddy hit a flip dive over the top on both of them and then hit the meteor

on Kyle, and which looked incredible, even in slow motion.

And the people were chanting, This is awesome.

But then the problem was here they continued to go because the problem now is both Brody and Take a shit weren't even visible in and around the ring forever, like they had been taken out by hidden guerrilla warfare in the jungle.

And

Buddy goes to the top, and Take comes up to the apron and Buddy kicks him back off, but they play Okada's music on the screen,

which distracts Buddy, but Okada doesn't come out.

And then Kyle stopped him, but Buddy came out of it.

That spot killed the momentum, confused the people.

It was stupid.

It hurt the fucking match.

Then Buddy tags Brody back in.

They had it going

with Matthews' comeback,

but they got to get fancy and they're throwing a bunch of bells and whistles and they fucking, they lost it.

And then they double-teamed Kyle, but

Take saved him by doing a missile dropkick on Buddy, but landing flat of his back on Brody's back while he was covering Kyle, so he killed his own partner.

Because that was the guy underneath all that shit.

And it looked stiff, too.

And then

they did some goofy stuff on the apron and some false finishes back and forth.

And finally,

the heels double-teamed Brody and gave him a double brain buster.

One, two, three.

If they'd have done buddies, come back, tag Brody in and

just go do what, double brain buster, whatever, three minutes before that, they might have blown the roof off the fucking place.

What'd you think?

I've liked Brody King a little more than you, and Buddy Matthews is really good.

That's undeniable.

And I really like Fletcher and Takeshta.

I thought it was good.

I thought it was misbooked.

You know, I'm not trying to take anything away from the wrestlers except for maybe, unless Tony told them, hey, don't go to the finish there.

Wait a while.

And then go to it over here.

You know, that's the wrestlers' fault.

But other than that, I think everyone's good.

The problem is,

how does it help the hounds of hell, hell, who you're now re-establishing as a new thing?

They got a promo video.

This is their match.

They lose.

And then right away, Buddy's getting a match against Okada.

You think he's going to win that?

You think Okada's going to lose the buddy?

So, I mean, it doesn't really help these two guys who...

You know, I'm not saying they're the most marketable guys in the world, but I think they're a whole lot more marketable than a lot of other people there.

There's a lot of people on this show that belong on collision.

I mean that as an insult.

And then there's a lot of stuff that's been on collision that should be on this show.

These guys are ready to be repackaged as the hounds of hell and do something.

They immediately lose.

So

I don't know what to say.

It was a good match

that was like baffling from a booking perspective.

So it's hard to ignore that.

Why do you build me up, buttercup, baby, just to bury me and beat me some more?

This may be a good time in the show to talk about this match.

Did you hear the latest Dave Meltzer Brian Alvarez argument?

Oh,

are they fighting again?

You know, I hate it.

Somebody needs to regulate Dave's medicine because he wouldn't get cranky.

Then maybe it's his blood sugar.

Or could be he needs some metamucil.

What are they arguing about now?

Well, they're arguing about this match.

So let's go to this, the Meltzer Says What Twitter account, which follows Dave Meltzer all around the country or specifically at home, I guess.

And they pay attention to what's going on there.

Here is from Wrestling Observer Radio, Brian Alvarez and Dave Meltzer discussing the Hounds of Hell versus Takesha and Fletcher.

Wrestling Observer Radio, February 6th.

We'll stop it along the way.

Then we had Takesh and Fletcher versus the Hounds of Hell.

And

it's a hell of a match.

This was quite a great match.

It's a hell of a match.

But, but,

I thought they had a few near falls too many.

Because at the end of the day, Takesh and Fletcher are facing the two biggest babyfaces on the roster at Grand Slam.

Yeah, but they didn't want to, they, they, they, I know, they never want to beat the hounds of hell, but you know what?

Sometimes you gotta beat people.

We just were talking about that.

They did beat him.

I know, but, like, they're hitting all of their moves, and these guys keep kicking out of everything that they've got.

But they still lost.

And finally, we want to get the brain buster.

I actually thought that, like, they did the best job.

I know you're going to put this over.

I know you like this stuff.

I don't like it.

Sometimes it's time to get over a team and not the other team.

But this is not one of those times.

This is the time where you have to get over both teams.

No.

The hounds of hell are just getting started.

And they should face somebody else and get over.

Well, Takesh and Fletcher are coming to Australia in two weeks against Will Ospreay and Kenny Omega, the dream team.

And they won.

And they won.

Yes,

after after not being able to beat them with one near fall after another.

And you can even hear the crowd.

They had a spot at the end

where there's like Takesha rakes buddy's eyes.

Fletcher hits him with the draping DDT.

They go for the cover.

Brody kicks out.

And you can hear the crowd like,

okay, he kicked out of that one.

And then they do another one, and they do another one.

And then finally, they hit that combo brain button.

And you can listen to the crowd.

You can hear the crowd hit a peak, and then they kicked out of one too many near falls, and they lost the crowd.

I'll have to to watch that.

Go watch it again.

I'm telling you,

I certainly did not see it that way.

Well, you can watch it again.

And I mean,

the thing also is, is again, it's like this was a they wanted to give those guys a win over somebody credible, but they didn't want to.

Look, they won.

That's all that matters.

At the end of the day, they got the win.

In WWE, they would have done it the same way.

No, it would have been much more dominant.

When Jey Usa is going to the title, he is not going to go there and go.

That's the story, though dave that's the story yeah oh good lord we're going to stop it there for a moment we have more audio to play but what are your initial thoughts again alvarez makes a lot of sense he still won't say anything bad about chris jericho or britt baker but otherwise he's come around on a lot of these things dave still has his

His feet in the ground, his head in the ground.

I'm not exactly sure, but what are your thoughts?

I think he's doubled over.

Both ends are in the ground.

He won't get off, but it is a great match.

It doesn't matter.

But Alvarez looking at the other side of the coin that we were looking at.

How does it help the hounds of hell to come back in and get beat

when they've just been repackaged?

But from the other side of the coin,

he's right.

Old Kenny and Willie

are apparently their two

premier baby faces that they want to try to push in that spot.

So they are, and they should be beating

people in quick and dominant fashion, coming up on a big show where they're against the evil heel manager's two fucking henchmen.

It's the same way on the other side of the mirror of looking at the thing.

That's why we were saying for a variety of reasons, it didn't make any sense to have this fucking match.

But Dave will not.

will not get off.

Well, they did beat him.

Yeah, after they pulled out a goddamn bazooka, but it was a great match.

But it doesn't, sometimes the match doesn't need to be great.

They need to have a great match that people paid to see in the, I started to say the stadium, in the downsized arena.

You know what?

Some company named Downsizing ought to buy arena naming rights and we could be the downsized arena.

Who the hell names their company downsizing?

Well,

people that want to fucking make more money.

What?

They could get rid of all those extraneous expenses.

I'll tell you who's not downsizing.

Tony Kahn.

Let's go back to this discussion.

Brian Alvaros, Dave Meltzer, Wrestling Observer Radio about the match we just reviewed, the Hounds of Hell versus the Callus family.

Okay, what about Sami Zayn and CM Punk?

Sami Zayn got all kinds of offense on CM Punk.

Are the Hounds of Hell on?

He got all kinds of offense.

If they're not, it's not the same as Jay and Gunther.

Okay, because that's the story that he came to me.

What did I say about that guy?

What is the story?

Sami Zayn and Punk.

Sami Zayn and Punk.

Yeah, Punk beat him.

He did beat him.

Decisively.

Clean.

Right.

Right, clean.

After how many near falls?

He did.

One nearby.

Maybe not.

They did all kinds of near falls in that match.

They did all kinds of close calls.

Yes.

But when that match was over, Punk was clearly the better man.

Yes.

Punk was the guy you were like,

get the shot.

And Fletcher and Skesch are heels, so they have to show more vulnerability.

And at the end, they won.

I didn't like it.

Okay.

I grew up on Stevens and I thought the match was great.

I thought there were too many near falls everywhere.

I grew up

in a Stevens and Patterson car.

They did.

That's fine.

I grew up on 70s.

Hold on.

That's what they did.

Stevens and Patterson kicked out a non-stop near falls.

Well, yeah, body slams.

Not fucking super pile drivers from the balcony.

Yeah, no DDT off the top rope on Ray Stevens ever.

Hold on, let's go back to this.

70s, but that goes today.

We gotta make stars.

We have to make stars.

Who's we?

Well, he's taking the viewpoint of the company that he's fictitiously running now.

To make guys that are at another level than other guys.

That's what we have to do.

Otherwise, we're not going to have stars.

Guess what?

Guess what?

Guess what?

Guess what?

Who's wrestling Okada?

Who is our buddy?

Yeah, Buddy.

Who's wrestling Okada?

So he has to be protected.

Okay, so put him in another match.

They decide to make it.

I know they did.

That's my point.

That was a mistake.

If you want to protect two teams, have them each do different matches.

We have 220 guys on the roster.

Don't tell me there's not another team that Takesh and Fletcher could beat that's a named team.

Don't tell me there's not another team that How the Hell could beat

or buddy because there is Okay, but guess what?

They also did the spot with the Feiko Cottage spot in the match.

If you don't have Buddy Oh, that one even made me more angry.

I wish you hadn't mentioned that.

Oh my gosh.

So they're doing this match, and they're like halfway through, and Buddy goes up top, and they hit Okada's music.

Okay?

They hit his music in the middle of this match.

So Buddy gets distracted, and he's looking to the back, like, where is

and that's the end of that clip.

Let's go to the next one.

This is the last one from this.

Well, yeah, I know, man, and nothing happens.

Cut off.

Yeah.

And then he gets the heat back again.

Yeah.

And they just kept going.

And I was like, what did we do that spot for?

What was the point?

It didn't cost him the match.

He got the heat right back afterwards.

To

set up Okada and Buddy.

Okada and Buddy.

Hey,

stop it here, Brian.

Because this is the problem.

We know that Uncle Dave gives quite

considerate counsel to Tony Khan.

They think because their minds operate on the same

wavelength, shall we say?

That you have to tie everything into everything.

And they couldn't have had that match unless that the tease of the upcoming Okada and Buddy epic encounter was included,

even though it was a screen door on a submarine and got in the fucking way of everything.

It had to be in there.

And Dave sees that the same way.

That's because their minds work in a very technical fashion.

Well, the other thing is,

how did it build up the match?

Again, it's one thing if Okada interfered and then Buddy was pinned.

Although he's eating a pin, he has a reason to be mad at Okada and he's an imposing looking guy.

Again, we're talking about how this match didn't build up the Hounds of Hell.

We didn't even talk about the fact it does really nothing to build up Okada and Buddy, which is, I guess, a feud centered around the fact that Buddy called Okada a bitch.

Well, yeah, but that's what, again, Tony thinks, oh, we got to remind him about that.

And he just, he'll throw it in, whether it fits or not.

And it didn't matter.

And Dave thinks the same way.

Well, that's the problem.

Dave justifies the way Dave never flat out says the truth or calls out Tony Khan.

He also will excuse things or justify them.

Let's go back to this.

It's to remind people Okada and Buddy are doing a match in 10 days ago.

We just saw an interview five minutes earlier.

So that's more to add to it.

If the music or Okada would have cost him the match, then fine, okay.

That makes sense.

Well,

they did music, and then it led to nothing.

It was just something in the middle of the match that led to nothing.

It's part of the deal of Don Callis being really smart.

Don Callis, you know, came up with something to help his team.

They didn't win the match with it, but it was a spot in there.

It's part.

Don Callis, is there anything wrong with making the evil manager?

smart?

If the music would have led to the babyfaces getting the heat, or the heels getting the heat on them, then that's fine, okay?

But the music hit, the guy's distracted, and literally the spot was he gets cut off, and then he immediately slips out and gets back in control again.

So it didn't even distract him.

He should have sold it longer.

I do agree.

Yes, that's exactly correct.

I will agree with that.

He should have sold it.

He should have sold it.

Because otherwise, it was a pointless distraction.

If you're good at distraction, the distraction has to lead to something.

Not the guy just getting back in control again.

It led to something.

You know who it distracted?

Who?

The fucking people.

The fans.

It distracted the fans.

They were into the match, and then suddenly, what's going on?

And oh, nothing's going on.

Where were we?

That's what it did.

Well, Jim, on that topic, real quick, we have a follow-up apparently that has been sent to us.

This is from

Wrestling Observer Live.

No Dave Meltzer, Brian Alvarez with a wonderful guy, Mike Semper V V.

Let's go to this.

Jones, you you are on the air.

Who is this and where are you calling from?

This is Michael from Rochester.

Thank you, Brian and Mike, for taking my call.

And I 100% agree with you about your points about AEW that you had at the beginning of the show.

And I also heard the argument that you and Dynamite Dave had on the Russian Observer Radio the other night about the tag match on AEW Dynamite.

And I just, it feels like to me, as someone who has read Dave's Dave's stuff since the 90s and has listened to both of you guys for over 20 years, that ever since WWE has gotten better, basically since late 2022, that Dave has become much, much more of an insufferable jerk.

And I listened to that argument and you made like really solid points.

And instead of like him just maybe disagreeing with you and moving on, he just went on and on and on.

And I got to give you credit because I could never put up with that.

And I feel like the Dave Dave has just become more and more unhinged the more WWE gets better and better.

I don't think he's unhinged.

I appreciate the call, but I don't want to do me a favor.

Call him a solo show and say all those same things about Brian because I agree with all of them.

Oh, how dare you?

How dare you?

See,

the thing with that argument, I don't want to get into it here because I got into it on the board.

Is like

Dave is right

that

there is a template to booking certain things, okay?

But,

like, he brings up, you know,

what's his name?

He's like, Bill Watts, and, you know, they would have done it the exact same way.

Bookers, like, yeah, bookers in the past would have booked it the exact same way.

And it's like, hold on a second, okay?

If you have a template that Bill Watts used, okay

The idea that you can just do that for any group of people at any any time, okay?

If it were that easy, every company would have tons of stars.

You just copy a template, but it's not about just the template.

It's like the right person in the right match at the right time.

If you use the same template at the right place at the right time with the right people, it works.

If you use that template in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people, it doesn't work.

There's no template that is universally going to work.

And that template didn't work for that tag match I thought.

Back in a moment, Observer Live.

Well, there it is,

from A to Z of that.

I agree with Alvarez.

I can't wait to see the thumbnail of the non-working template

with a sign around its neck.

Will not work for Tony.

Back to Dynamite.

Who did work for Tony?

Actually,

we were up to MJF's working at that point when he

came to the ring to almost silence,

it's come to this.

Eddie did the promo geriatric Jeff Jarrett just had to stay out of his way, but he wouldn't.

So he got taught a lesson that this was not all elderly wrestling.

But now with Jeff Jarrett out of the way,

It's time to get the big burgundy balloon or what the Triple B back.

What was the the big

buffoonery belt?

I don't know.

The triple B, he wants his belt back.

He's like El Higanti.

He wants the belt.

I want the belt.

Nobody.

I want the belt.

I love the belt.

I want the belt.

And he started to say because nobody is on the level of the depth.

And Max Caster hits the ring.

and scares MJF from behind.

Like, what the fuck?

And he's hiding behind MJF while MJF is screaming at him get out of my ring what are you doing remember when castor was running from

hold on adam page hangman adam page but i'm just trying to however far back it was like 30 40 minutes ago

he's had time to run to marietta on foot but he's just made it to the middle of the ring

in a live national television show to try to get away from somebody that's chasing him.

Let that sink in for a second.

Who he's bigger than?

I actually would put money on Max Caster against Adam Page in a fight.

I don't know if I'd put money on either one of these fucking clowns at this point.

Unless they were valet parking my car.

Certainly not in a race.

And then they play Adam Page's music.

So he had.

Apparently he chased Caster all the way to the goddamn gorilla position and then said, but wait, I can't follow unless you play my music.

Eddie gets in the ring and gets nose to nose with MJF and they exchange dirty looks.

And then he goes out the other side and through the crowd after Castor.

And then

MJF starts picking back up with his promo.

But now the fans are chanting, shut the fuck up.

And they're bleeping or trying to bleep fuck when it comes up every four or five seconds or whatever it is.

And he says a nobody on the level.

And Dustin Rhodes's music plays.

And out comes Dustin to the ring with a microphone.

And

Dustin cut a hell of a fucking promo.

It was at the end of this inanity.

So I'm not sure whether anybody was still paying attention.

But he told MJF off, he says, shut up.

Look me in my eyes, you son of a bitch.

You talked about Owen Hart.

You've talked about people's wives.

You've talked about people's drug problems.

I was one of them that had drug problems.

But I'm 16 years clean and sober.

I crawled out of hell, Max, and you're not the devil.

I'm better than you, and your bitch ass freaking knows it.

And the people started chanting dustin', dustin', because at least it was something to listen to, right?

And then MJF starts answering, and I'm thinking, oh, no, and he starts making fun of it.

And I'm thinking, that was too good.

It was almost too good to have responded to without them just getting in a fight.

And it was definitely too good to respond in a smirking fashion too, because it just didn't.

Did you feel a gear shift that wasn't called for there

when Dustin was finished and MJF started again?

I mean, that's kind of what I expected here,

but I see your point and I don't disagree.

I mean, it would have been, I don't know how you would have left it there.

Would MJF have just left the ring?

Well, no, I mean,

at some point, they either need to get physical or need to get separated or something or some point needs to be made to get them away from each other.

But

MJF had to call Dustin a worthless drug addict and tear Dustin down.

He's been living in daddy's shadow.

And now he's in the shadow of your, or he's in the, you're in the shadow of your widow baby.

And he's going to say, brother.

And that's when Dustin nailed him.

They have to go back and forth so long saying such horrible things to each other.

And

your intensity with the people can only stay up so long.

But nevertheless, there comes the security.

There comes the fight, the pull apart.

And it was the best promo exchange that MJF has had in a while.

And as they get them separated, then MJF runs back in and knees Dustin in the balls.

And that's where, but

has it come to this that

we want to see MJF against Dustin Rhodes, but it's more appealing than a lot of this shit.

I wish they had gone to Dustin instead of Jeff Jarrett.

I think this exposed the Jeff Jarrett debacle.

Dustin's all emotion.

I mean, there's nothing he could say that you don't just believe it's like completely emotional.

And he has fire.

Jeff was out there with

like, it was like monotone.

It was like his dad saying it, you know, these awful things to MJF.

Yeah, except when he tried to be Andrew Dice Clay.

Yeah, that didn't work at all either.

But Dustin, I mean, he immediately gets the crowd into it.

You could argue that Dustin's been underused, misused, however you want to put it for a while.

He's currently one of the Ring of Honor tag team champions with Sammy Guevara.

Why aren't they on this show?

They're wrestling on a show with no TV show?

Why aren't they on this show?

Dustin Rhodes is still a name.

Rhodes means something.

On that topic, I want to ask you about a tweet, a Twitter exchange, I should say.

Jimmy Corderis,

the referee?

Yes, longtime referee for the WWF/slash E and etc.

He tweeted out the other night.

I don't have the exact time.

Great job, MJF, of reminding your audience about the man who was on top in the other company.

To which MJF responded,

his brother, my mentor, a guy who helped shape me early in my career.

Your old boss brainwashed you into believing we need to treat the fans like morons and pretend other wrestling companies don't exist.

You dumb, ignorant, bald, grifting fuck.

Jesus Christ.

Respectfully.

Respectfully, MJF.

So where do you fall in that argument?

You can't ignore that Dustin's Cody's brother.

I mean, that was one of the highlights of early AEW before they even had TV.

Do you think it's bad form to talk about the WWE champion, one of the biggest stars in the industry, who's not going to be here anytime soon?

Or do you think it works because of the history?

Where do you fall on this?

Well, everybody knows who everybody is here in this, but what I was saying is

here's another point.

The point where Dustin nailed MJF was when you're in the shadow of your widow, baby, and he didn't get to say brother.

But that's worse than being in your father's shadow with Dusty having passed away.

And don't you put my father's name in your mouth type of thing.

I just thought it was by, and I think that with what Dustin had told MJF, the thing maybe for MJF to do, being a heel, was when Dustin had said, I'm better than you and you know it, so or your

punk bitch ass freaking knows it or whatever.

Let MJF look like he's trying to cower down for a second, and then neem in the balls.

He's a heel.

Did he have to come back with that material?

And is it worse that Dustin is in the shadow?

Could MJF beforehand have said

you've never been as good as your brother and now look at him and look at you don't talk about my brother my brother's younger my brother's more successful and i love my brother

but what about your father and then what there's different ways you could have constructed this where you don't have to hide that cody is dustin's brother i believe you have a mother too Yes, and I believe, from what I understand, that someone

comes over and cuts your grass once or twice a week.

From what I understand, you have other family.

Yes, there's people all over your home.

It just, it's constructed in an odd and unwieldy, and there was, wasn't a lot of flow to it.

Dustin was fantastic.

Do you think?

That's what I thought.

What do you do about MJF right now?

Because obviously he's at a point where it's almost like no matter what he does, he's kind of stuck in a trap.

And

he had been off TV for a while.

The Jeff Jarrett thing did not work out, however, anyone thought it was going to work out.

And the Adam Cole thing went on too long.

And

there's certainly a cooling off from the AEW fan base.

What do you do?

I don't know.

I really do not know because

nobody that has ever been that over with a fan base has suffered through

this kind of booking for the past two fucking years back and forth as a babyface he's a heel the last thing that was working was him and adam cole and the kangaroo kick

but

is part of the reason he hadn't been able to come back from it because the the kangaroo kick was that like the jumping the shark was that his fonzie moment

the the whole bro chacho thing

i don't think because at the time it was working, but I think the bro chacho thing never ending

well past the point where anyone wanted to see any of it or any of these people interact together ever again.

I think that's the issue.

There was a point where everyone was ready for MJF to kind of move on and do other things.

And he got dragged back into

that shit with Adam Cole for way too long.

Purgatory.

It did irreparable damage, I think, at this point.

You know, I mean, well, I shouldn't say irreparable, though.

Time could always heal things.

Another contract in another company

can always.

Well,

that's what we're waiting on right now, honestly, is I think,

you know, at some point, however long it takes, when he signs another contract with another company, that's when,

because I don't know what they can do in this environment with the people they have access to to do anything about this.

See, I think maybe some of these things with MJF, it would be a nice change of pace if they just got to it.

You know, if Dustin had hit the ring and within a minute just explained why he's fed up with MJF and what he's sick of hearing, and then it just went to action, or like you said, guys hit the ring and broke them up, it would leave you wanting to hear what the fuck's going to happen next week.

Why did that happen so quick?

What was said?

It would leave you wanting more.

I think some of these MJF segments have to leave you wanting more.

what about if mjf was just talking about somebody in the ring one night and all of a sudden when he was got to a certain point that person just wandered out and headed to the ring and mjf looked like what the and the guy came in and said no no i said don't say that we sat back there and talked for 20 minutes i said don't say that about my aunt susie

you and they get in a fist fight

And then the story is MJF has gone too far.

This guy's mad because Aunt Susie was supposed to be off limits and make a fucking promo or they make an angle out of the goddamn promo becoming a shoot.

Yeah, see, MJF has to get to someone who's not going to stand in the corner and listen to the insults.

If I, if I wanted to stand mute and be insulted and browbeat and called names, I didn't have to leave my own home.

You know, so what the fuck?

And they all do it.

Of course, Jim, they all do it.

And what they all do.

Birds do it.

Bees do it.

Even the

flowers and the trees do it.

I think if you look at an athlete like at MJF or perhaps a hurt syndicate or anyone else who looks like they lift weights in that company, protein is a key component

of

a weightlifter's lifestyle.

I don't know what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is we all need protein.

If you try to take care of yourself, if you want to make your

flabby body look better, if you want to be, you know, a fucking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed type of individual, you need the proper nutrients and

the calories and the proteins and all that stuff.

You don't need the sugar and the carbs and the

drech and the processedness that they put in the foods and the drinks today, Brian, is what you're trying to say, aren't you?

There was an attempt.

We all heard the attempt.

There was an attempt there.

Yes, that's right.

Well, and like the Hurt Syndicate, they consume a lot of protein.

And I told you, Shelton Benjamin in his younger days, he could go to McDonald's and do the Big Mac and not work out.

And he would just, but now, you know, even he has to occasionally pick up a weight or watch his diet.

And folks, all of you out there in the cult of Cornette, in our various vast audience around the globe, well, look at the state of you guys.

Holy shit, I've seen pictures of some of you, and you need fucking help.

So the first thing you need to do is put down the chocolate milkshake and pick up an incredibly delicious and wonderfully tasting, good-for-you organe 30-gram protein shake because they got 30 grams of protein and less than one gram of sugar.

That's right.

So you get all of the good stuff, but none of the bad stuff.

And as we've mentioned, it tastes just like a chocolate milkshake without the ice cream, but you can add that.

But that kind of defeats the whole purpose.

Yeah, there's no reason to add ice cream to the wonderful, delicious protein mix that is organe.

Well, what if you were talking to Colonel Sanders and you said there's no reason to add a pressure cooker to chicken?

There'd be no KFC now and people wouldn't be fat and diabetic and need protein shakes.

But this is not one of those protein shakes that tastes like a man eating from Monda cheese to septic tank of a slaughterhouse.

Or it's not one of those chalky type of protein powders that you mix up.

It comes right in its own

little container there

and you just pop the top on it.

Well, what is this?

It isn't plastic.

It's a carton-like container filled with a liquid.

It is, and the liquid is in there.

I suggest chilling it, put it in the fridge.

That's what I do.

And every morning.

Oh, well, yeah, we can't live like savages.

You got to keep it cold.

I pop one of those after I work out.

I feel great.

My muscles feel great, and I'm ready for the day, ready with organe, wonderful chocolatey protein.

Yes, and they also have the protein powders and bars and shakes and tons of other nutritional products.

But of course, since I'm not working out, I just go straight for the shot.

Boom, take that.

Well, there, there you go.

And I've worked out for the day.

But if you want more protein, folks, because after all, that is

this, we're talking premium ultra-filtered protein with all nine essential amino acids involved.

So you can aid in your muscle support and recovery and maintaining your healthy lifestyle.

30-gram protein shakes, go to orgain, O-R-G-A-I-N dot com

slash gym and use the code Jim

30% off your order.

So if you order 10 of them, then that's you're getting three of them for absolutely free.

Or if you order 20, you're getting six or 30.

If you order a thousand, you're going to save enough money to pay off your house.

So right now, organe.com slash Jim, use the code Jim for 30% off your order.

And all of the various parts of your body that likes protein will thank you for that.

Your body will thank you.

As will we, Organe, a wonderful friend of the show, wonderful because it's delicious, and I love it.

Jim, one more time, what's that promo code?

Organe.com/slash Jim.

Use the code Jim 30% off.

Football season is here, and now you can legally bet on football in all 50 states with Cal Shi, the nation's largest legal prediction market.

Every game, every prop, every parlay, Cal Shi has it.

And it doesn't stop at sports.

You can trade on elections, the Oscars, and more.

You can finally bet on football in all 50 states.

Download Cal Shi today at ka L S H I.com.

Use code RADIO for $20 when you trade 100.

Calci, get in on the action.

This is an investment that carries risk.

Calci.com.

San Jose's airport is a simple airport to fly through, which is great for travelers because you can get from curb to gate in minutes, connect to lots of places around the country and world, and you can even wash your car while you travel so you can take off dirty and arrive clean, which is pretty awesome if you ask us.

A simple airport is a better airport.

San Jose Moneta International Airport.

Fly Simple, FlySJC.

Visit flysjc.com.

Well, back to dynamite.

Before we

lose track of where we were, it was time for Queen Yada to face Tony Storm with Maria Mae on color.

But there was a twist, Brian, because Tony Storm came out dressed like and acting like Maria Mae, licking various things and making the

same movements and gyrations and things.

And then after the match, which obviously went Tony Storm's way with Renee Moxley good in the ring, Tony did the promo like Maria.

And to, because she was so incensed about this, Maria got up on the apron of the ring and then got down and took her belt and left.

So we're going to have to wait until Grand Slam in Australia, the smaller arena from the larger stadium show to see what's going to happen between these two.

That was thrilling.

I was on the edge of my seat.

This gives us a lot of hope for future feuds in the women's division.

Tony Storm could just impersonate anyone she's going to feud with.

You get at least one week of television out of that.

And it will be weak television.

She did a good Mariah Mae.

She kind of pointed out how easy it is to be Mariah May.

You know what I mean?

Like, you couldn't just go out there and impersonate anyone.

She nailed it.

She got it right.

Maria Mae should have said, it's not easy being me.

And then she could have said, yes, it is.

She did a good job, too, at the desk with her facial expression selling, what the fuck am I seeing right now?

She did a good job.

Yeah, okay.

I will admit that, you know, Maria May is better with her facials, but

nevertheless, then we move on.

Nevertheless, it's always the less.

It's always the less.

There was more Chris Jericho nonsense with him doing the

New York, New York, New York minute and the promo.

But suddenly in this one,

here comes Powerhouse Hobbs,

who has apparently not been cleared

the last we heard to wrestle, but he can come out and have big fights.

But he came out, and here came the Outriggers,

and they had a big brawl with Big Bill and Brian Keith, and here came the security, and it was a horrible, sloppy fight.

But then they concentrated on Hobbs and Big Bill

doing a grudge choke slam duel where each one of them got a security guard on either side of the ring, but on the floor.

And

they shed these poor security guards.

I can't remember which one went first, but one choke slammed his guard.

So then the other one said, Well, I can do that too.

And he picked him up and chokeslammed him harder on the floor.

And then Hobbs and Big Bill get in a fight and go over the announced desk.

And you can hear a fan yelled as they're scrambling in the wreckage of the desk and the chairs are being turned over.

You're going to hurt each other.

And then they knocked over the camera and went to black and went to break.

Is it wrong that I'm hoping that's how they write off Chris Jericho from

wrestling?

No, going to black and going to break, I think that's a big,

yeah.

That is terrible.

But poor Hobbs.

Poor Big Bill.

Poor Big Bill, too.

You know what?

Him having to do these stupid promos because Jericho told him this will be a great thing to build them up for the future.

Get out of there.

Go somewhere else.

All righty.

And finally,

the main event was Swerve Strickland versus Ricochet.

And

by the way, for one thing, I forgot this week to do my due diligence as a broadcaster and record the show that comes on after the show that we're supposed to talk about so that I can see the rest of the show we're supposed to talk about, which runs over for no good reason every week now.

But

I didn't record that and I didn't feel motivated to go back and

try, but I will make a couple of observations

that I didn't give a shit about this match anyway, because

Swerve is making his entrance and halfway down the ramp, Ricochet comes from behind and whacks him with a chair.

Boom.

And this way we start the fucking thing.

And then a second chair shot, another third chair shot

and rolls him in the ring and taunts him.

And the referee asks Swerve, you want me to ring the bell?

Swerve says, yeah, and he does.

And then Ricochet hits a finish on the guy and gets a two count.

And we're five minutes till 10.

And then they go to the floor and they're doing a balancing act and a choreographed fight on the barricade.

And then Swerve power bombs ricochet onto the top of the barricade, which is like what?

It looks like it's about a foot wide and no give,

but then rolls him in the ring and they continue immediately

and swerve boomerangs him into a metal buckle for a break spot.

And when they went to the break, it was an AEW spot.

with all the action clips promoting their programming.

So they broke into what they were showing us to promo what they were showing us.

And they were still in break at 10 o'clock.

So there you go.

Very postmodern, very postmodern.

Yes, it was really, it was right on top of the whole thing.

Yeah, let us not show you what you've never seen before that's going on live now.

We want to take a break so that we can show you some canned shit that we've done previously.

What happened in this or do you know or care?

I think much like the audience, I didn't care.

I saw it,

but I was also falling asleep, and I don't remember.

I just don't remember.

And I didn't care enough to go back and check.

And I'm sorry.

But I didn't care enough to even do that.

Yeah, yeah.

So that was AEW Dynamite.

Anybody watch it?

I think Ricochet, you know, the thing I like about Ricochet is he kind of walks around like, have you ever thought, like, what if there was a wrestler who's the illegitimate son of Billy Paul?

Have you seen him in the back?

Like, he just, he looks so out of place.

He just looks like a failed soul singer.

Like, it's not working out.

Are they going to bring in Mrs.

Jones for the DNA test?

They could bring in anyone.

Uh, Swerve Strickland has really cooled off for him.

Let's talk about AEW Dynamite ratings.

I have them right here.

AEW Dynamite, February 5th on TBS, 8 to 10:09 p.m.

Good lord.

Was watched by

605,000 viewers on average.

Oh, wait a minute.

That's last week's number.

Isn't it?

Last week's number, hold on, let me open up.

WrestleNomic says last week was 604.

Oh.

Although it's up technically, they're plus 0%.

But minus 5 on the trailing four-week average of 638.

And of course,

just as every single week since the beginning of the year, this does not include max.

But now, wait a minute.

Can they have 605?

You got that trademark.

They have to go back to 604.

Well, they can't land on it again next week, or we're going to have a problem.

One time is coincidence, second time you're fucking with my trademark.

No, but all kidding aside, no max viewership.

However,

the numbers are exactly the same as they were before Max.

It has had no effect on these numbers.

Somebody, we got to get a mole in Max.

Well, Jim, let's go to the quarterly hours.

These were compiled by wrestle nomics quarter one eight to eight fifteen p.m

the jay white death riders rated ftr angle

the doncalis live promo and the start of will osprey versus mark davis

763 000 viewers

Okay,

they're not starting in the eights like they were for a while there, but that's that's a high enough number that I have a feeling we're going to see some level of attrition here over the course of the program.

Well, we go to quarter two, 8:15, 8:30 p.m.

The continuation of Davis versus Osprey with picture-in-picture ads.

The Will Ospreay, Kenny Omega, Don Callis family live angle,

694,000 viewers.

Okay, now to be quite honest, that is nowhere near the amount that they normally lose.

That's only

69,000 people.

So

maybe all this chaos was keeping the people on the edge of their chairs, as they say.

Well, so far, our first two quarters up on the 90-day trend, but quarter three, 8:30 to 8:45 p.m.,

the Swerve Strickland Ricochet Recap, an ad break, the Hurt Syndicate Guns Live Angle,

632,000 viewers.

Ooh, so some people were just slow to do what they normally do every week in quarter two and didn't do it till quarter three.

Now they're down 131,000.

We go to quarter four, 8:45 to 9 p.m.

The Harley Cameron Mercedes Monet backstage angle.

With Puppet.

With Puppet.

The Adam Page Max Caster backstage angle.

And the start of the Hounds of Hell versus Konosuke Takesha, and Kyle Fletcher,

571,000 viewers.

Oh, good lord.

And there's another

32, 61,000.

That brings us down to

minus 192,000 people in the first hour.

Well, we go to the big nine o'clock hour.

Quarter five, nine to nine, fifteen p.m.

The continuation of Hounds versus Takesha and Fletcher with picture-in-picture ads, the Samoa Joe Hook Patriarchy backstage angle.

Fuck, I forgot about that.

They went back and beat up some people in a very small locker room.

And Christian and Mama Wayne looked on and then went in to help after the good guys had left.

Yeah.

And the start of the MJF Live promo,

561,000 viewers.

They lost 10,000 at the top of the hour.

Now they're down 202,000.

It can't get much worse.

Well, we go to quarter six, 9:15 to 9:30 p.m.

The MJF, Max Caster, Hangman Adam Page,

and finally Dustin Rhodes live angle,

and an ad break during the entrances of the women's match coming up.

622,000 viewers.

Holy shit.

So they picked up 40,000, 61,000 pit two.

What do they attribute that?

And by the way, in the key demo, 9 o'clock hour, 216.

This quarter, 247.

So big pickup there, too.

This whole quarter was the MJF Dustin thing.

Wow, well, there you go.

He's still got a little something.

We go now to quarter seven, 9:30 to 9:45 p.m.

Tony Storm versus Queen Amanata

with picture-in-picture ads.

The post-match with Mariah May,

Dustin Rhodes's backstage promo, the powerhouse Hobbs Big Bill recap, the Learning Tree Live promo,

571,000 viewers.

And they're right back where they started from.

They lost everything they gained.

Well, we go to quarter eight.

I remind you, we have a nine-minute overrun.

9:45 to 10 p.m.,

the learning tree outrunners powerhouse hobbs live angle

an ad break and the start of ricochet versus swerve strickland with picture and picture

501 000 viewers oh good lord nine minute overrun continuation of the match 480 000 viewers They've killed poor Joe Schmo on at 10 o'clock.

You're talking about Swerve or the real Joe Schmo?

The show Joe Schmo that now nobody's even tuning in to see Joe Schmo.

They're like, oh, shit, we might catch that wrestling.

That is the lowest overrun in the history of running over, isn't it, for them?

I would have to double check that, but it has to be

in the running, I guess.

And the main event that...

was Swerve Strickland, who was the most over guy in the company several months ago, and Ricochet, who they treated when he first came in like he walked on water.

And now

that's the main event of a show that had lost 262,000 viewers.

And it lost some more.

Well, so.

And next week's a taped show, I believe, because they're traveling to Australia.

So I think they're taping it on Tuesday for Wednesday.

I could be mistaken, but I believe they're.

No, that's right.

And somebody on this show said next Tuesday.

I'm trying to think of who it was

when they were trying to promote the thing.

They said next Tuesday, when they're really going to do it instead of when it's going to air.

Well, wherever it airs, we will stay on top of whatever Foucault numbers we get.

Those were the AEW dynamite ratings.

Jim, let's get some questions here on the show.

This question

was sent to Corney Drive-Thru at gmail.com by Jeff Pollard, Leesville, Louisiana.

You know where that is?

Leesville?

I'm thinking we may have run a spot show there once, but I could be mistaken.

With his classic matches with Ricky Steamboat and Terry Funk, was Ric Flair's 1989 the best year any wrestler has ever had in terms of in-ring output?

No.

I mean, to be honest,

you can qualify that by saying, as far as any any wrestler, you know,

has had output that videotape still exists of those things.

But I mean, Flair and Steamboat had house show matches

that were,

in many cases, as good as

the trilogy they had on the big shows that year.

So,

for Flair's television year, that may have been the best TV year that anybody had, but there have been wrestlers in the days, you know, when everything wasn't recorded, where

including Flair himself, where he could have matched it or topped it.

But I mean, I'm not taking anything away from those matches.

It's just that

think of how many Ric Flair and Barry Wyndham matches weren't

taped or televised.

And,

you know, do they think that the only three great ones they ever had were the Battle of the Belts and the Worldwide Show and the Crockett Cup.

It just that those are the ones that people saw.

Do you think Flair in the Ring was better at, I think he was 40 that year, right?

1989, yeah, than he was, let's say, in 85 or 86, where it wasn't just Wyndham, who he was wrestling regularly.

It was Kerry von Erich, it was other von Ericks, it was people all over the place.

If you think about it, he had classic matches in almost every territory he went to.

Yeah, I think anything from

80 to 90 with Flair, that was his, you know, best period in the ring where he had progressed enough to know what to do and how to do it and what was going to get over for him and then still be young enough and in a place where they were using him properly where he could still do it.

So that was kind of the period of time.

But no, I mean,

there's been a lot of wrestlers that have had.

Dynamite Kidd in fucking Calgary probably had a wonderful year for any normal human, but nobody, you know, is alive that saw most of that these days.

So it just depends on what parameters you're

applying.

And stuff you've actually witnessed and seen as a fan and then later on in the business.

What's the best one-year run you've seen someone have in the ring?

And again, are we talking quality of matches or are we talking an incredible box office?

We're talking quality.

This was specifically about in-ring output.

So if we're looking at Flares 89, you take the box office out of the window anyway.

If you take, you know, Dusty's 1974 and Lawler's 1974 and, you know, etc.

You know,

I hate to be less than humble,

but the Midnight and the Fantastics had a string even better than the Midnight and the Rock and Roll, where the stuff in the matches in the ring

were just not capable of most people following them.

But at the same time, we didn't draw as much money with the Fantastics as we did with the rock and roll because it came after.

But we had a lot of great matches with them for about six fucking straight months in WCW.

All right, Jim, our next question sent to corny drive-through at gmail.com

from Corey in Atlanta.

Hello, Jim and Brian.

Love the podcast.

I came across an interview stating Ole Anderson wrote in his book that the Steiner brothers killed the mystique of the Road Warriors.

I would love to hear your opinion on this.

I can see,

I've read Ole's book, and truthfully, I've read a lot of books, so I can't remember that one line in that 200-page book, but I can see him thinking that because the Steiners,

the way Ole would have thought, the Road Warriors gimmick,

the

post-apocalyptic future, Mad Max and the Road Warrior and all that stuff, the spikes, the leather, the motorcycle, the whatever.

And in here come a couple of fairly clean-cut, Scott was at the time, college kids.

But they're jacked up to the point the Warriors are, and they're legitimate shooters, and they can move Hawk and Animal around.

And

for once, Hawk and Animal had to give somebody some ground.

But the Steiners still looked like normal guys.

They didn't work with the Warriors like Jack and Jerry Briscoe would have.

Smaller, more technical guys.

They worked, you know, smash mouth offense, as JR would say, right?

Even with them physically.

And

that told people that, well, here's these, the Steiners,

they're not normal people in terms of you don't see people walking down a street like that, but they're college graduates or college athletes.

These guys are supposed to be these fucking monsters, but

kind of look the same.

That may be where Ole was.

Does that make any sense?

I think so.

Maybe not.

I think so.

I mean, it was a weird time in 89 and the early 90s because you had both of these teams.

I mean, they met each other at Starcade

at the buckle.

I argued against that Iron Man and Iron Team tournament till I was blue in the face and

Heard was sold on making that an annual attraction.

And that's the one annual time they ever did it.

Yeah, Muda was red in the face.

He went home.

But the Steiner brothers were kind of like the next generation of the Road Warriors.

I mean, the Road Warriors were timeless in a sense, but they were also a product of their time.

And they fit into the 1980s perfectly.

The Steiners, in a lot of ways, the early 90s Steiners

are kind of like the the face of things to come, both in terms of what they're doing in the ring, but also just that kind of athlete.

You know, with the rise of UFC and everything, it's not a direct line, but the Steiners fit the 90s better than the Road Warriors did.

Yeah, it's kind of like when

the Road Warriors met Bruiser and Crusher in Chicago.

It was the end of one era and the beginning of another one.

And the previous era

didn't hold up well.

But Bruiser and Crusher had 30 years, whereas the Road Warriors only had fucking, what, six or seven.

And again, the Road Warriors had an interesting career because it was almost instant.

Of course, Hawk wrestled some Indies and Indies.

He wrestled for some territories, small territories in Canada and stuff.

An animal that had like a brief cup of coffee in Atlanta as the Road Warrior.

Once they became the Road Warriors, they took off from there.

They had not been in the business long.

What would happen if two guys like that came along today?

How long would they be in NXT?

Would they get to NXT?

Would guys like that get the opportunity they got today in any way?

Well, no, because it was

only by necessity, Ole needed a heel tag team like now because he had fired.

Well, Matt Bourne had either been fired or taken off or whatever, and it was supposed to be Matt Bourne and Arn Anderson.

And so he got these guys and pushed them to the moon because he had a hole he had to fill and the company was in need.

Holy Anderson.

Say it again.

He said he had a hole he had to fill, Holy Anderson.

Oh, for heaven's sake.

But the point is, no, they wouldn't because

on any level now that

people would see on any kind of widespread basis.

You know, they've already got way too many guys.

They don't need to bring anybody in as an emergency.

And let's just push them tomorrow.

They've They've never wrestled.

We don't care.

We're desperate.

And if it was anybody, Hawkin Animal succeeded where there was that was tried a number of different times in a number of different places in wrestling in the 80s.

The big muscle guy, push him to the moon, have guys bump off of him, whatever, try to get him over face paint.

They're the ones that really got over.

The other ones, even whether they were imitations of the Road Warriors or not in the fans' minds, they still weren't Mike and Joe.

Those two guys did something with that gimmick, and

they grew into it.

They didn't become

goddamn Johnny Saint, but they grew into it enough to be able to work and do the gimmick and not kill everybody instead of fucking killing everybody.

Poor Dennis Condry, that was the last year that the Road Warriors 1986 were really just fucking brutal in the ring.

And then they started picking it up.

So Stan came in right about the time they learned to work dennis had a lot of the brunt of the

the greenness so did stan him and steve in the awa working with those two oh yes they stan had already gone through it in 1985

we don't like the finish we're not going for it do it our way and nobody gets hurt

what is it a story that steve kern's response because he didn't hear them was what and then it's like what well

kern had a thing that he would do where he would just wander around in the ring during the introductions.

He's kicking the mat and wiping his boots and he's looking at girls in the front row.

And that's when when they went up to the meet in the middle for the referees' instructions, they didn't like the finish that Vern had given or whoever Vern's representative was.

We're not going for the finish.

Do it our way and nobody gets hurt.

And Kern looked up and said, what?

Like that didn't register.

And they just fucking hauled off and jumped him.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

And Stan's like, God damn it.

I'm not involved in this whatever you want to do

you know and one last thing on this everyone brings up demolition as being a road warriors ripoff to a wwf fan it didn't feel that way the powers of pain it absolutely felt that way yeah when warlord and barbarian showed up as baby faces with their baby face manager the baron in a hood

It felt like they were trying to fool people into thinking they were the Road Warriors.

Yeah, and I can see see that.

And

they weren't trying to fool people into thinking they were.

They were just trying to take the gimmick and, you know, put it on somebody that they had and could,

in all honesty, pay less money to because Hawk and Animal and Ellering at that point had gotten a certain cachet in the industry where they could demand some big money places.

And, well, we've told a story.

Dusty put Warlord and Barbarian, the powers of pain, together to do an angle against the Road Warriors.

And then,

I guess, went out of his mind, tried to hotshot everything in the summer of 88, and wanted them to do scaffold matches at the bashes.

And that's when Warlord and Barbarian said, fuck.

And they gave their notice and

went to the WWF.

Because neither one of those guys were going to be taking a fucking 20-foot drop.

Even if they landed on their feet, they were 325 pounds apiece.

Well, Jim, you know, a lot of people, when they think of the Road Warriors, they think of the hairdos.

But an underrated part of the look was the facial hair,

the Fu Manchu mustache, which is almost hidden by the paint.

But they have to spend a lot of time, and I have to imagine it must have been hard on the road in the 80s, grooming their face if only they had a service, a friend with a service like Harry's.

Well, that's right, because not only the grooming of the face, but the grooming of the head, because they had the stripes, the Mohawk stripes, and they had the sideburns and the mutton chops and the

all those various forms of hair patches.

And you ought to seen the inside of their ears.

And Harry's can help you out with all that stuff.

You can just take and draw a circle around your head.

And our friends at Harry's have the razor and the gel and the all the good smelling stuff and the deodorants and everything where you can remove hair where you don't want it.

You can make things smell good and feel soft.

And I don't know if they have a thing that'll put hair on where you want it and don't have it.

But I would bet you if you got on Harry's.com, that's H-A-R-R-Y-S Harry's.com, and looked at their said, maybe they've got some hair glue and some, maybe, you know, people donate hair for charitable causes.

Maybe they can sell you some bulk hair and you can glue some back on different places.

But you can definitely take it off.

That's no problem at all.

And you're right, Brian.

Sometimes you wouldn't have a mirror in a locker room because you wouldn't have a locker room back in those days.

You might be in a broom closet or you might be in a boiler room.

You might be trying to look at a shiny metal cabinet to get some kind of reflection so you could shave.

Well, Harry's helps you out because they've got the five-blade razor with the German-engineered blades.

Not only do these German blades stay sharp longer and give you a smoother shave, but they will not talk under interrogation.

All they say is, I know nothing.

I see nothing.

And

they got the foaming shave gel.

Yes.

So you can

foam that up and spread it all over you.

And be careful now because don't put it anywhere you don't want to shave your hair off because it feels so good shaving with this fine razor.

Again, we're not talking about hair.

We're talking about facial hair.

We're talking specifically about

the hair on your face or your sideburns or even the top of your head.

You can use that.

Well, no, again, let's not worry about the top of your head.

Let's worry about the grooming of the face with Harry's.

In your face, part of your head, it just depends on what side you're on.

But all over your body, you've got places that you need, might need some attention.

And Harry's can give you the best attention to your face and your chin and your cheeks and your sideburns and behind your ears too.

That's another place where hair grows.

But they've got, and I'll tell you what now,

they've got a trial set.

If you don't believe me, and I'm the soul of probity and also the picture of honesty, but if you don't believe me, you can try all of the Harry's razor and weighted handle and foaming shave gel and travel cover so you don't slice your fingers off.

And you don't have to pay the normal price for the trial set, $13.

You can get it for $3

at Harry's.com slash JCE.

Again, the trial set comes with the razor, the handle, the foaming shave gel, and the travel cover.

And that way you can get an idea of how wonderful it feels to glide this thing around your face.

Just be careful when you're going up under your nose.

You don't want to stick it too far up your nostril.

But right now, the highest customer satisfaction of the shaving industry is waiting on you, a no-risk trial.

Don't like your shave.

No worries, it's on them.

And you've got a convenient subscription option that you can cancel at any time, but you can schedule refills for as low as $2.

Have you paid the big money for that stuff in the stores these days?

I think not.

Anyway, try it out for yourself and see how wonderful you will feel.

Harry's.com slash JCE, the $13 trial set for $3.

That's right.

Get your face smooth and kissable with Harry's.

One more time, Jim.

What's that process?

Well, now it depends on who you're talking to is whether you're going to get kissed or not.

What's that?

You might get slapped.

Valentine's Day is approaching.

What's that promo code, Jim?

Well, I guess you should

shave some of the weeds off.

Harry's.com slash JCE.

All right.

Well, let's

get ready for our final section of the show.

Hold on.

You know what that means?

That sounded ominous.

That means we are ready for the final portion of the show, the airing of the grievances.

Uh-oh.

No, let's get a few more questions and a few more things here.

Jim, this email was sent to corny drivethru at gmail.com

by Scott Eddis, Nottingham, UK.

Jim and Brian, don't know what they are feeding the talent over there in Tonyland,

but this is the best one yet.

Does he really believe what he is saying?

Jim, you know him.

Is he really this delusional?

I have an article here.

I need to have some details here.

The article is from Wrestling News Source, established 2006, whoever this may be.

Chris Jericho responds to please retire chance and reflects on AEW's biggest feuds.

Apparently, he did an interview with Chris Van Vliet

on the fan perception of the Jericho Vortex.

Here's a quote.

It's funny how I've become public enemy number one as a heel, by the way.

Isn't that kind of the idea?

Aren't you supposed to be public enemy number one as a heel?

Aren't you supposed to not like somebody's character when that character is a heel?

Maybe I'm actually smarter than everyone.

Oh,

oh boy.

And I'm manipulating people to what I want them to do.

Well, fuck off.

Just retire already.

It's like, okay,

doesn't that make you mad?

According to the article here, Jericho pointed to his strong TV ratings,

adding, what?

He was just on a show that lost 250,000 fucking viewers.

What I look at is the ratings.

And nine times out of ten, my segments always go up.

And they're still some of the biggest ones on the show.

So that tells me.

that whatever it is I'm doing is working.

I'm a bad guy on the show.

We just went over the ratings.

Were any of the segments that he was in up from the previous segment?

I thought that was only MJF and

Farquhar.

Well, first of all, we do the ratings every week.

And if there was a big jump for a Jericho segment, we would point it out.

We've joked about the fact that he's no demo god any longer.

He hasn't really done on AEW-TV too much beyond these short comedy segments, the New York Minute.

It's not even a full segment usually.

Now it was this week and the rating went down.

And then he killed the next segment.

That's the thing we always talked about.

Every Jericho segment was so bad, it would kill the next segment.

But I guess he's saying that his segments are up.

That's not the way I remember it.

But the idea that he's a heel and that please retire chants are a good thing for a heel to get.

What do you think of that?

No, no, no.

Because the please retire chants that were directed at him were like, we don't want to see see more of this.

The things that you're doing are not pleasing us.

It's not like booing.

Nobody's chanting, please retire at Dominic Mysterio.

Nobody's chanting, please retire at Solo Sokoa.

It's not a chant you hear very often, actually, ever.

No, and not the heels that are drawing money today in the wrestling industry or are being featured and are very heelish in nature nobody's saying, please retire.

They're just booing them

because they're bad guys, not bad performers.

Well, let's go back to some of the quotes here in this article.

The so-called Jericho Vortex.

I always loved the concept of the Jericho Vortex.

I think that was our concept, by the way.

Thank you, Chris.

And how anybody that works with me gets dragged down.

Name one person that got dragged down from working with me.

Maybe afterwards they don't go higher, but that's not up to me.

I'm not in charge of booking the entire company.

So now he's throwing Tony under the bus.

Yeah, I do the best I can, but as soon as they're out of my hands, Tony's going to kill him again.

According to the article here, he gave credit to the wrestlers he's worked with, pointing out people like MJF, Sammy Guevara, and Danny Garcia.

Oh,

wait a minute.

So MJF is colder than he's ever been.

Sammy Guevara is not allowed on mainstream television, and Danny Garcia

has been pushed down our throats and has yet to

sell, you know, 15 cents in Chinese money worth of tickets.

And by the way, where is he?

Is he on collision?

Is that why we haven't seen him on Dynamite?

Not that I'm asking for more Daniel Garcia.

I didn't want to stir anything up while everything was going smoothly.

Here's another quote from Jericho.

I think Big Bill and Brian Keith have grown by leaps and bounds from working here with me.

I'm not going to go through the entire cast of characters, but I definitely know what my intentions are, and it's not to bury anybody.

It's to build as many people as I can and give them the experience so that they can learn how to start shouldering things on their own.

Let's stop there.

He's a very beneficent man.

Even if his intentions are right, the problem again goes back to the execution.

If your idea was, I'm going to elevate Daniel Garcia and Anna Jay and Matt Menard and Angelo Parker.

You did a comedy angle where they were doing fake-sounding promos that didn't get over.

That's not how you help talent by having them be the ancillary characters in your bad comedy segments.

So, any thoughts on that?

Yes, I agree with you.

It's so silly.

When you're not only doing this silliness, but you're changing your shit all the time, trying to stay ahead of the fucking law, and you keep drawing these underneath guys in to be the

stooges around your Ted Healy,

it's not doing anything for him.

He put Action Andretti over.

Where's he?

He never got any other push ever again.

He just did it so that he could say, look, I'm putting the young guys over.

No, then we saw him with Leo Rush a few months back wearing big coats.

And we said, oh, what are they doing?

And then we never saw them again.

But

that's the thing with

Chris, you can't just take these young guys that, you know, oh, he'd be a funny sidekick for whatever reason and put put them in a group like that and expect they're going to be learning at the highest level of what goes on in the wrestling business.

I'm, I'm sorry.

Jericho revealed that while he might suggest opponents, it's primarily AEW president Tony Khan who decides who Jericho works with.

Quote, I don't choose anything.

I might have a suggestion, but most of the time, it's Tony coming up with who he wants me to work with.

He gave the example of his feud with Mark Briscoe, explaining,

both of us wanted to work with each other and knew we could have some great matches.

I loved working with Mark, and what a great kind of mini feud.

Or, I guess it was a feud.

It was a couple of months long, so that was something that we both wanted to do and suggested to Tony.

But most of the time, I mean, this whole thing that started working with raided FTR, that was Tony's idea.

So, yeah, I still work for my boss.

And I have never once, as far as I can remember, in the six years I have been in AEW,

ever said no to something.

So let's stop there.

Should Jericho say no?

Oh boy, yeah.

If this is the result of him not saying no, yeah, I think he should be a little fucking stingier with his time and attention.

And finally, Jericho also addressed the infamous please retire chance.

When they were really at their peak, of course I'm always thinking, okay, I could make a t-shirt out of that.

I could make a whole angle out of this.

He noted the chance eventually faded away, recalling how he would use his microphone skills to

shut them down.

New York, please retire.

I take the mic and say, I know why you want me to retire.

Because you want me to go pitch for the New York Yankees so they could possibly win a World Series.

But that's not going to happen.

Boo!

And they stop.

That's delusional.

Now finally here, Jericho tied it back to comedy, quoting Seinfeld.

It's something that Seinfeld said years ago, or any great stand-up comedian, I've got the mic.

You can't heckle somebody.

when the guy has the louder voice.

So yeah, the please retire was a good one.

That was fun.

Is this whole thing just him trying to talk around?

Him trying to talk people out of doing it because it's not getting to him.

And it's absolutely getting to him.

Yes, yes.

How delusional is Chris Jericho?

The problem is his instincts, but beyond that, His desire for wrestling fans, especially smart fans, to see him a certain way.

That's why he's out there dissecting this like Quentin Tarantino doing a director's commentary of one of his things.

You know what I mean?

He always wants people to think that he's a thinker.

But when you look at the thoughts and the execution, you question if there's a brain.

So you're saying he's not as much of a thinker as he is a stinker?

He may be a stinker.

Any final thoughts on Chris Jericho's role in AEW?

I wish I had some final thoughts on Chris Jericho's role in AEW.

I wish we could put a nice bow on it and wrap it up.

No,

I I mean, he's got to do something because Tony's got him for what, seven more years?

Wasn't that a 10-year contract two or three years ago?

We said he'd be 64 or whatever by the time it's done.

So he's got to

keep fucking

fresh on this thing for Tony.

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

How were botches treated by promoters back in the day?

What now?

How were botches treated by promoters back in the day when there was a botch?

Well, I mean, what?

Like somebody fucked up a hip toss or what that kind of botch?

I guess you could have a couple different options.

Either that

or something that is booked to do something and the guys don't,

I guess they botch it up.

Any example?

Well, you know,

that's so wide-ranging.

There was always shit that didn't work in a match, because especially in the days when it was, you know, called on the fly at the time and

you just tried to cover it up.

But

there weren't like,

I remember going to the matches as a fan

and going weeks and weeks and weeks of the weekly cards with five, six, seven matches on them.

and not seeing people

try to do something that just totally collapsed, like trying to do two people something off the top rope, but everybody just fell off of it, or just something that just completely fell to shit past

one move falling apart or missing or whatever.

And there's been all kinds of

things go wrong in angles that you did on TV or fucking fights or whatever, but

you cover them up and go on.

You know,

in those days, there weren't,

to answer his question, the promoters dealing with botches, unless you went out and completely fucked up the angle and missed a guy with a chair or something was obviously fake

and was going to kill the town if you aired it on TV or whatever.

You know, different promoters would yell at you for different levels of shit.

But

I never even heard Bill Watts say, God damn it, you fucked up the elbow drop or whatever.

It might be, oh, Jesus Christ, you lost the gimmick and didn't fucking knock him out with the nucks or something like that.

Did he say anything after the Wrestling 2 JYD thing?

The knee lift?

Oh,

yeah, that, you know, that type of botch where it's something that looks phony and

is going to hurt business or hurt the town or whatever.

That, you know, type of thing, promoters would always fucking be upset about.

And depending on which one of them it was, they would yell in their own particular style.

Jerry Jarrett wouldn't yell at you, just starve you out and fucking make sure you didn't have enough money to fucking live there.

So you had to go find another job.

Whereas Watts would have grabbed your bag and thrown it out in the parking lot directly.

But you know, there was not these intricate

shop class projects full of, you know, tables and chairs structures being built or elaborate four and five man fucking moves being pulled off at the same time and dives off the balcony.

So

it wasn't so obvious when somebody just completely fucked up what they were trying to do.

Hey, I know I don't have the video footage in front of you, but there's a match that people have been sending around this last few days, and several wanted to know your thoughts on it.

Yes.

Ron Simmons and Eddie Gilbert tag team match in the studio of TBS.

Yes, against Big Bear Collie, and I can't remember who his partner was.

But

part of it is,

because I haven't seen the whole match.

That was 1989 or whatever.

I haven't seen the whole match in a long time, but I think Ron Simmons had done something to poor old Big Bear Collie that rang his bell.

And then they kept trying to continue, but at one point.

Ron shoots him off and he fucking hits the ropes, but goes under the top rope, almost falls through.

And then Eddie tries to hot shot him, but he trips on the drop down over Ron Simmons and just falls on top of Eddie.

And fucking,

then they try to do something.

Finally, they threw him out on the floor.

And Eddie was going to give him like a suplex on the floor, and he couldn't go up for that.

So it turned into like a super DDT.

And it,

again,

the...

The job guys that came to Atlanta TV in those days were not all

the highest quality, most, you know, extensively trained workers.

A lot of them were the guys Mike Jackson smartened up how to write a check and he'd get them booked and take 25% of their money or whatever.

But, you know, that's why we had funnier matches when that wasn't really a, the Midnight Express being weave, when that wasn't really the.

the thing to do, because you couldn't have serious matches with these guys.

So you had to be heelish and make fun of them and demean them.

but we you know when things and we never hurt anybody either

but

when the guys tried to do too much stuff with them and the guys that they were doing it with couldn't take it couldn't go upright didn't know how to take the bump whatever they'd fucking hurt them or land on their head or it would all just turn to

and

And that turned to shit there.

That's what that clip is from.

But in fairness to Big Bear, I think Ron had already knocked him goofy before that clip started.

Well, Jim, let's get another question here.

This was sent via the Cult According Facebook group by Adam Meyer.

Who does Jim think is the unluckiest wrestler ever?

Between bad gimmicks, stop-start booking, injuries, real life hitting them exceptionally hard, or just being born in the wrong era,

who was one or two bounces going their way from being a much bigger star?

Oh, good Lord.

That's completely out of the blue.

I mean, to ascribe the all-time champion of that,

I don't know, because remember, there's been some guys here over the past few years since we've been watching that

had some really rotten gimmicks.

The jury may still be out on them as to whether they're ever going to make it, but trying to go back in history,

boy,

oh, God damn it.

They earthquake, poor earthquake, when he left

the WWF,

he was a shark.

He was the

whatever.

He had a lot of bad gimmicks in WCW.

They gave Big Bubba a lot of bad gimmicks in WCW, but they had already made it originally, and then it was just a

trademark infringement problem where they had to change.

I'm trying to, who had a series of bad gimmicks and never got anywhere?

Well, even beyond gimmicks, a wrestler who

or bad booking or bad boy.

Was unlucky.

Just unlucky.

I mean, it can't be someone who just did damage their own career, you know, through drugs or alcohol or anything else, but just someone who's who the luck never worked out for.

Well, Troy Graham, the dream machine, we talked about it all those years.

was in the business for eight years, making almost no money.

Had a good run in Memphis, but never

got the big spot.

And finally, when he was going to go to Louisiana, mid-south, and as part of the Bruise Brothers, he broke his ankle and never really recovered his career from that.

We were just talking about that.

That was pretty, and he went through all kinds of gimmicks.

He was Troy T.

Tyler.

He was Troy Graham, Troy Hippie Graham, the Dream Machine

with a mask on, the Dream Machine Unmask, the Bruise Brothers.

He was Dr.

Troy Graham in a wheelchair after he broke his ankle as the manager of the interns.

You know, and

he was one fucking good break away and then he had a bad break.

Well, Jim, that's where we'll call it a day here today.

Again, we wanted to have some from the files and a song or two, but it's...

Well, we need to hear feedback from the listeners on our new setup and how it's progressing.

And that at least my shit works quicker.

Even if it sounds the same, it works quicker.

So it's less stress for me.

Well, progressing is the right word.

This is a work in progress.

So bear with us as we deal with all this.

But geez, a work in progress.

So is the fucking pyramid.

How long is this going to take us to progress?

The experience in a few days, wherever you find your favorite podcast.

And next week, right back here on the drive-thru for more fun and hilarity.

The official Jim Cornette YouTube channel.

Subscribe today.

Patreon.com/slash Cornette for the archive.

$5 a month.

He's Jim.

I'm the great Brian Last.

Tally Ho!