Episode 372

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Hello again, friends.

And you are our friends.

Welcome back to another edition of Jim Cornett's Drive-Thru with the official Theme to Brian Last right there.

The theme to Brian Last.

It's Brian's song.

And it's as sad as the original.

It's the theme to Brian Last.

It is not Brian's song, but this show will be

Brian's Piccolo.

This show may be as sad as Brian's song here today.

I'm your host, the great Brian Last.

We have a review that'll be a mighty sad review.

There's no way around that.

And we also have questions and wrestling history talk and all sorts of the usual shenanigans with this man, the star of the show,

Mr.

Jim Cornette.

I just heard your pen fall on your desk.

Like that.

That's a demerit.

Jay Shark NATO is going to scream at you.

I said he was cussing me because

I ruffled my papers and ruffled his feathers the other day because I'm a prepared son of a bitch.

We do these programs.

I've got notes.

I've got letters.

I've got documents and information, facts to back up my shit that I say.

It sounds like you're ruining everything right now.

You're just banging and clanging.

I'm holding up and shaking and making evident all the various preparation that I go through to talk on these programs here.

And he was

because he uses the AI and the interweb and

all that stuff to do.

Well, I've got documents here.

I've got proof, facts that can be held under people's noses.

You'd love to

love that, wouldn't you?

You'd love to be an interrogator, wouldn't you?

Oh,

I will get that information one way, and I will say, and when you were seven, did you indeed draw this cartoon cartoon of Santa coming down your mother's chimney

stuff like that that's what you'll say stuff like that I'll say stuff like that

all right well this is uh this is my show

well hold on I'm clapping my hands together now to get the

and I'm breathing on them because I got to get the feeling back in my extremity it's cold outside it's horribly cold the wind was blowing and it's cold anyway I got propane this morning the propane truck pulled up the drive and

dispensed the propane into my propane container.

And then I got the bill.

And now I know why I'm a heat miser, Brian.

Now I know why it's as cold as ice because I'm not willing to pay the price for propane.

You want warmth at a price that costs more than ice.

I know.

I just got the bill.

$800 for 300 gallons of, $800 and something dollars for 300 and something gallons of propane or something like it.

It's about $3 a gallon almost.

Is that a lot?

Well, it's goddamn more than it used to be.

But you know, the price of things goes up, I've noticed.

That's why they have that inflation calculator.

Seems like people don't understand that inflation has been with us since.

Do you know?

Do you know, Brian Last, what the Ark of the Covenant, what the Ark of the Covenant, the religious artifact that people are always, including Indiana Jones, chasing all over the goddamn world.

Do you know what the original list price on that was?

The original list price?

Yeah.

No, I don't know.

I don't know what a denomination of uh one fucking one fucking drachma.

One fucking now.

Look at how much it'd be worth if anybody could find the thing.

We've always had inflation,

but it's cold.

We've always had cold too.

But it's it's getting colder.

It gets colder when you get older.

And for some reds, I'm a poet and don't know it, but my feet show it because they're longfellas, like Mama Cornette would say.

It's because you've lost so much weight.

Well, that's true.

I don't have as much padding as

I used to.

Before, I wouldn't even turn the heat on in the house or a hotel room or anything because, oh, God, I'm stuffy.

But now I'm wearing three coats right now in my own home.

I'm addicted to heat now.

my hands are numb my feet are cold

my tongue is froze i'm getting old

so when are you getting a place in florida no fuck that i they

i would have to be able to figure out a way to jack this entire piece of property up on something and either have it flown or trucked or shipped or whatever to wherever because no i forget I forget which family it is, but one of like the famous mansions, you know, before Manhattan really got built up, there were just mansions all over Fifth Avenue and all over Central Park or, you know, surrounding Central Park.

And one of the mansions, the woman sold the property for a high-rise to be built, but they had to re contractually, they had to rebuild her house, her three-story, four-story mansion, exactly as it was on top of the building.

And they did.

Oh, it's nice.

And she had her own private entrance, like everywhere.

Like it was such a great deal.

It's like Gorilla Monsoon or Bruno negotiated it.

It was a great fucking deal.

She got everything.

I was about to say, it's nice to have some goddamn leverage.

You can get stuff like that.

But anyway,

it is your show.

It is your show.

See, I'm still cold.

And

why were we just as we went on the air and I said save it because I'm going to ask you a question.

Why were we talking about the Tesla vehicles?

Oh, but

to me.

You said something about like you lost your head and that got me going.

Yeah, well,

apparently there is a problem that I have not been aware of of the Tesla cars

leading to people getting their heads cut off.

That's one of the methods of death, yes.

One of the methods, well, what are the various methods of death here?

Because a Tesla is basically a big computer that you're driving.

So sometimes the computer doesn't cooperate or the computer doesn't necessarily see things that an awake alert driver would.

It doesn't necessarily see eye to eye with what's really happening.

I want to say, and if I am wrong, I apologize, but I believe I've seen this on several things.

There's been a few deaths at least of Tesla drivers who either fell asleep behind the wheel because the car drives itself or

They just weren't

they were trusting the car more than they should have.

I'm not not exactly sure, but where like it t-boned a truck and decapitated the person.

Oh, Jesus.

And then there are other cases I think, I think it just happened where

people burned up to death because they couldn't.

Hold on now.

I got to get to get picky with you.

That's not a T-bone.

That's when they run up under the truck and the only thing that doesn't clear under the truck is your head.

Right, but it's not from front or behind.

I think it's from the sides, yeah.

Or from the side, yeah.

Not a Jane Mansfield type of thing, but a fucking sideways type of thing.

No, what other famous, uh, not a James Dean kind of situation

or a Jan Berry kind of situation.

What other famous dead man's curve?

Well, I was about to say nobody comes back from dead man's curve.

But here was why I said, well, save this and just tell me on the air because now I'm completely fucked up because I thought the Teslas were the electric cars.

See,

think about this.

The only car

that I've I bought in

a long time, 20 years was, well, two for Stacey in that time, but she picked it.

Hers is not a self-driving car, but it has the screen and it has the sensors and it has the cameras and it has the beeping and the alarms and whatever the fuck.

And if somebody tries to veer over,

it will

move for you.

And or it will break for you if you're coming up too fast on a thing too close that it feels or whatever.

And it scares a shit out of me, and I don't want to be anywhere in it.

She'll drive me from one side of the

subdivision over there back home.

And that's about because it scares the shit out of me.

The only other thing is that.

Is she breaking that much?

Is it such a frequent issue?

No, it just wouldn't that it will do that.

Then I don't ever know when it's going to do that on its own.

And that it has the capability of doing these things.

She told, bro, it broke.

It breaked, Bracken, whatever.

It did that thing on the interstate on her one time when this guy fucking swerved over in front

doing something.

And she said, Whoa, you know, like, shit, that happened quickly.

And, but it dings and all the cameras and the angles and the screens as big as a goddamn drive-in movie.

And I can't stand that shit.

Tesla's known for their big screens in the car.

But that's, but that's not even a self-driving car, and it scares the shit out of me.

I can't imagine any human being that was concerned with their self-preservation riding in a car that was driving itself,

and you didn't have anything to do with it.

Well, you see, I think

you have the option to drive.

And

that's the other thing.

What really scares me is I have heard from friends in the past.

who got stuck in their Tesla.

They couldn't get the computer to open.

I believe there was just like a couple of deaths of people burned up in their car because there was some kind of accident and they couldn't get out of the Tesla

because

whatever happened triggered the wiring or whatever.

I don't know what happened.

Yeah, but they couldn't get out of the point of fuck the car.

Try to be smarter than me.

If you do not have your feet on the pedals and your hands on the steering wheel, And sitting behind the fucking controls of the goddamn thing with your eyes open, you ain't driving a fucking car.

and if you or i ain't either one ain't driving a car i ain't riding in the car that we're in because that's ridiculous and they shouldn't allow like that if i think it ought to be a goddamn deal that if you see one of these self-driving son of a bitches where he's taking a nap while the car's doing all of its own thing you ought to be legally allowed to run him into the median Have you ever seen those videos like people on the highway and they film the car next to them driving by and it's a Tesla and the person's asleep at the wheel.

They're like the sleet is the sleet, the seat is reclined.

Yes.

And like they're, they're passed out.

Well, and here's the thing is that,

and I got a caveat I'll give you in a minute, but

no, just no,

there's no replacement for a human being.

And even then, many of them are not qualified, as we see daily in the country and the world, to operate heavy machinery or a mechanical vehicle of any kind,

but you've got to have a human in control of it, if nothing else.

And for liability, if the automatic car while you're asleep runs over somebody, who gets sued?

Fucking you?

In that case, I keep my ass up for that fucking trip.

And that's why I'm saying, what the fuck is the liability on shit like this?

Besides it being scary and bullshit.

And I've driven,

as we have established,

I think before, like 2 million miles in my life.

And there's

very few incidents.

And

I think, besides

one car accident being me

and another fucking bumping into the ass into the guy, nothing was ever my fault and very few accidents.

And I'll take that fucking record, right?

But what the the fuck?

But do you know

that

for people who live in Charlotte or Columbia, South Carolina, or anywhere in between, you'll know what I'm talking about.

If you were there 40 years ago, I don't know what the traffic's like now.

But if you left Charlotte about 4 o'clock and got on I-77 going south to Columbia,

Well, there wasn't much traffic and it was a straight shot.

And we were just doing the last show we talked about where I said, said I was always sleepy during the day and I drove the boys at night so they could drink.

And they usually drove during the day and I'd sleep in the back seat or whatever, right?

Me and Bobby Eaton are going to Columbia.

And at the time, Bobby didn't have a driver's license, right?

And because of, you know, the very North Carolina was more anal about tickets than a lot of other states.

And he didn't have a license and I was fucking sleepy.

I could barely keep my eyes open.

He said, Courtney, take a nap.

I said, what?

We put the cruise control on.

He sat there

in the passenger seat, but held the fucking wheel.

And I lay back and took about a 15 or 20 mile nap.

Jesus, now that's scary.

But no, because, you know, he was right there.

And there was nobody on the fucking road.

And it was straight.

There was no, you know, what the fuck?

Now that's responsible fucking tag team work in a car

but then these self-driving things

have you

no

have you heard about remember the lawsuit

big this is why you again you can't have these self-driving cars because they're smarter than the fucking stupid people in them

the lawsuit against some

I don't want to say Winnebago because it was with them, I'm slandering them, but some

recreational vehicle type company the campers and the you know

sport vehicles right

the lawsuit was over the idiot woman put the cruise control on and then got up and went in the back to make a cup of coffee what

and that was to make a cup of coffee in the car No,

it was a camper.

It was a, what do you call them?

The RVs.

And it had cruise control for the speed, right?

For the, you say, okay, I'll go 50, and you set the cruise control, and you're on 50, you don't have to have your foot on a pedal, right?

She thought

that it was going to take over now, and she went in the back and goddamn started making coffee in the back of the camper while the cruise control is on.

And the first time the fucking interstate turned, and she didn't, whoosh,

they went off the goddamn

wheel there off the side of the road, and boom, boom, boom, boom, you know.

And

yeah, this, this so they had to start explaining to people who'd she sue I don't remember whether it was her or her family somebody that's better on the Google than I am because this was years and years ago before there was a self-driving car that's the thing it wasn't like she thought she just bought one kind of car this was years ago when it was just a goddamn cruise control on the speed

And she got up and thought she was just going to, I'm on autopilot now.

I'll be back here.

so you can't fucking give people technology like this because they don't deserve it anyway

well that was auto news and Jim on the topic of auto news how can people drive on over to Coronet's collectibles and get their favorite collectibles

I'd prefer nobody drive on over I don't think the feather bottoms want company either when they're in a last-minute scramble to fucking uh fill christmas orders But again,

folks, if you haven't ordered by the time we're speaking now, you're not going to get it for Christmas.

But we're still in business and we'll take your order and we'll happily send you the merchandise.

But at this point, Merry Christmas, everybody.

Oh, and I will say one thing, because we had a last-minute run on t-shirts.

And so we said we would.

bring the thank you fuck you buys back for Christmas, but since we've run out of a couple of different

popular sizes of those,

we're restocking as well as some of the cornet face shirts.

So, if you see those

are sold out, they will be restocked after the holiday period by the time we get them in.

Because these are not just

printing these off in the basement now, these are professionally done.

So,

we can't just will it to happen.

But we're going to restock all of those if you missed your last-minute crack at it, it, jimcornet.com.

All right, well, it does not need theme music.

No, no, that was not the theme music of jimcornet.com.

That was an introduction to the next segment of the show.

Oh, good.

We're moving on.

That was leaving the castle of Cornet and getting back on the golden road.

You know what I'd like is a da da da da da da da da da.

I always, when I was a kid, wished that some way or another that we could construct or reconfigure the garage at the castle to where that it would come out of a fucking secret hatch in a hillside like the backmobile.

That's the dream.

You know, 12 miles from Gotham City, and it's a dirt road.

Is there a, was there even in the 60s, was there a dirt road?

within 12 miles of New York City?

Within 12 miles of New York City, meaning...

But, well, because Gotham City is New York City, right?

I mean, it's just, you know, correct.

We all know that.

And

there's a sign that says Gotham City, 12 miles, and he's out in the woods, and it's the side of a hill and a fucking gimmick traffic blocking thing that flips up and down, and the road is not even paved.

How are you getting away with looking like you're at Hooterville?

12 miles away from New York City.

No one ever figured out that Batman's driving out of some weird tunnel underneath Wayne Manor?

Well, that's what I'm saying.

How can Wayne Manor be in a place, that giant estate with the beautifully manicured grounds?

How can it be in that remote a location that these things can happen just out in the middle of nowhere?

12 miles, as I mentioned.

When we used to drive to New York for fucking Ring of Honor shows, Stacy used to have to start handing me Xanax

fucking 60 miles out

just so that I wouldn't have a fucking conniption fit trying to navigate that goddamn open-air pinball machine.

So

that's a loophole there, isn't it?

What's a loophole?

How about for that matter?

I mean,

when Lucy and Ricky moved to the country and they were in Connecticut, they were raising chickens down the road from where I fucking lived in the middle of that goddamn lunatic asylum.

And it was the country in the 50s.

What happened?

Huh?

Civilization.

Well, fuck them.

Any other things?

They put the fucking Merritt Parkway at I-95 on top of Lucy and Ricky's chickens.

That's the worst place in the world, the Merritt Parkway.

If there's no one on it, it's wonderful.

If there's one other car on it, you're fucked.

Oh, yes.

And then when you get trapped under the bridge, but I digress.

So we're moving back to Gotham City.

So that's, I'm just saying there's a loophole there somewhere.

Where in the world did they find that?

But it was a cool entrance, an exit.

An entrance, you never saw the Batmobile going in the tunnel, though, did you?

Not that I recall, no.

There's another thing.

Well, you would think with a hit television program that was on two nights a week on network when it meant something, that they would have spent the money to have the fucking car come out of the tunnel and go back into the tunnel.

How come no one was ever like, you know, Batman has that Robin?

Well, who's that

billionaire, Bruce Wayne?

Why is he hanging out with a boy?

What the hell?

Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

Oh, come on.

Now, that was explained.

Who's that boy?

That was explained.

He was the youthful ward of Bruce Wayne, Millionaire Playboy, because every Millionaire Playboy that was out trying to get all the pussy also had a young boy as a ward.

When did that go out of fashion?

The word ward.

Word ward, well, about when Burt Ward took it over.

And

then there was nobody.

Here's a guy who's named Ward who was hired to play a ward.

He pretty much closed that fucking chapter up.

You couldn't do it after that.

But no,

you never get a ward anymore.

I think it's got something to do with goddamn custody laws and potential child protective services rulings

well jim on that note

you don't hear too often about mental wards anymore

but if you did perhaps you would find the creative staff of aew aew dynamite another week another dynamite another

another

uh this december 11th aew dynamite oh boy

I mean, it's not even as much fun

as it used to be if you're watching it to laugh at it.

Because now not only is the, the stars are gone, the life is gone, the crowds are gone.

And now, I mean, there's still things to make fun of because boy, Howdy, especially at a couple of these, but

it's gotten sadder, hadn't it?

It's like

you're watching, you know, somebody

suffer the death of a thousand ratings points by their own hand all at the same time.

And they're about to go to Macs.

And, you know, that's really what the deal.

I actually heard from someone this week, a television executive, who was saying that.

What the deal really is, it's not about them being on TBS.

Let's see how much longer they care about TBS.

It's about Macs.

It's about the streaming platform.

But the interest is in there, even amongst their fans.

And we said it before, even if you want to dismiss television ratings because of people dropping cable.

Look at YouTube.

Look at their videos on YouTube, how they perform today versus several years ago.

The audience is only bigger.

Like you don't have any drop-off rate on YouTube.

It's about the interest and the booking.

And

it's sad.

You see those fans.

They had a good crowd there.

It was their first time in that building.

And they were dead silent at times.

There's no energy.

And this Moxley thing has sucked the life.

Oh, boy.

As I said it would, not just out of the show, but even out of the fans.

I didn't think the fans were going to reject this to the level they have.

They hate this.

Well, and here's it.

This was not like the Nassau Coliseum or, you know, a major metropolitan, the Los Angeles Forum,

a notoriously jaded crowd.

It's Kansas City.

It's Kansas City.

They pop for Bulldog Bob Brown.

But winter was coming, and that's all the people, you know what?

Winter is coming.

It was Kansas City.

It is brutally cold in the Midwest this week.

and all the people were wearing thick mittens.

That's why you couldn't hear them clapping.

And they started this thing off.

Could I just say one thing, though?

Because I don't remember when it was.

At one point, something happened that the fans got a little excited for.

And some fans must have stood up.

The only thing I saw was in the back, one of the security guards told me, well, sit down.

Sit down.

They finally got up and got excited.

And this guy's telling them to sit down.

Sit down.

Wake up.

wake up and take your sleeping pill

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They started the thing with a sleeping pill.

Again, like you said, the Moxley and company, you know, writers of the new Purple Sage whole thing,

they walked through the one side of the arena with people in it.

And it was...

Everybody but Claudio.

You got Wheeler, you got Pac, you got Marina Schaefer and the plumber himself.

And then here comes light switch Jay White, and then they gave Pockets the second entrance after Jay White.

Poor Jay White would be like, what the fuck?

Even he's got to realize that he's been fucked in this company.

They brought him in and tried to push him.

without success and for obvious reasons as a really a top heel.

And

but he and Juice as a tag team

could have been entertaining for fucking weeks, weeks, weeks, weeks, but we hardly ever got that.

Then one or the other one's been hurt.

Then they bring him back out of nowhere.

Now he's a baby face.

And he's he enters before the fucking mascot.

And he's left on his face every fucking week.

So Plumber and Pack versus Light Switch and pockets

and that's the way they started the show and we were

by the time they were done with this we're going to be about 25 minutes into the fucking thing but

they immediately the four-way into the floor surprise

nobody ever starts a match here like that they stay on the floor in a four-way

doing almost nothing for three minutes and then they cut in the ring and the referee rings the bell to start the match.

That was awkward.

When he all of a sudden rang the bell, the place was silent.

Like what?

Well, yes, because we're like, what?

We thought that had happened a while back because they've been fighting for fucking ever.

What is the matter with the

people in the wrestling business act like they've never been in the wrestling business before and they don't know how it works, what the rules are, what the fuck you do.

And then Moxley and White traded chops.

I have observations, not play-by-play, because

this is ridiculous.

Moxley genuinely believes that he is the toughest man on the face of the planet.

That's right.

And somebody has to.

There's got to be one person and he's it.

But are you seeing now the gyrations and the twitches and the muscle spasms he's going through to try to look like some kind of unhinged psycho-serial killer?

Well, there's that.

And when we talk about it, we'll talk about it.

His promos,

it's like he really has a lot he wants to say, but none of it makes any sense.

None of it goes anywhere.

What is he talking about?

He gets amped up and then he slows down and

he's a mess.

And this is all him.

This is all him.

Well, no, no, this match also, some of it with Pockets is embarrassing in his work and his appearance and everything, but he's supposed to be a joke.

But Moxley is in there in his own way looking and working just as badly, and he's supposed to be the world champion.

But then the mascot's getting two counts on the world champion.

And the fans were just...

At one point, they were sitting there, they were kind of staring in silence or whatever.

And then on the screen, they got a shot of Christian Cage and his his bunch in the sky box, and that got a pop in the middle of the match going on.

Because they were like, oh, hey, somebody we might like somehow.

So

none of

the

none of these people or nobody in this match

knows how to fucking set up or execute a fucking hot tag.

They got heat on pockets and then pockets super kicked

Moxley, and they both staggered phony

without going off their feet, really.

And Pockets just turned around and cold tagged White, and Moxley tagged, cold-tagged Pack at the same time.

And, but then Pockets had tagged while he was standing on his feet, but then he rolled out on the floor and laid there like he'd been shot by a cannon.

While

White made his comeback, but then the two heels took over on White, and this fucking idiot is still laying on the ground.

Oh, Christ.

But when they're actually in the ring beating on him,

they put him through a goddamn

table, and he'd be up on his feet in 15 seconds.

But when he stands up and tags out, suddenly his goddamn respirator fucking quits functioning

to the break.

And then they came back.

They got heat on fucking white.

Now we got a second set of heat.

And it's long.

And

I just started skipping ahead at double speed to the end to see:

will it ever end?

And we got two more simultaneous cold tags.

And then

they traded forearms.

Every goddamn goddamn match is the fucking same thing.

And then they did a spot, and I'm talking about Pockets and Moxley.

They did a spot where somehow Moxley finally took a bump for this fucking idiot.

And then he hits the ropes, Pockets does, and comes running for the big windup and a big football kick.

He's going to put Moxley's head off.

And he whiffed right past him.

And Moxley sold that.

He won't sell being hit by a goddamn mid-sized late model SUV, but if you fucking swing your foot within a foot of his head, he'll sell it.

And it was so bad, even

oh, goddamn, who'd they have on color?

It may have been Nigel, the old

with half a mind said, well, I don't know if he got him full force.

It may have been the wind.

So,

I mean,

if he had tried to just sneak it in, it wouldn't have been so bad.

But he hit the ropes and he ran 10 feet and he drew way back and he came

right past him with everybody's attention on it.

God damn it.

Okay, I said we weren't going to have too much fun making fun of it, but this shit, I said there was exceptions.

And then I wrote this Will Not End because they did some more.

And Pockets was hitting everybody with those buggy whip arms of his that, to quote Jerry Lawler in 1975, looked like mosquito bites on a strand of spaghetti.

And then suddenly they're having a man.

Pockets is going to fucking hit Moxley with another one of Roman Reigns' finishing moves.

And suddenly, out of nowhere, hangnail Adam Page just tackles Moxley and gets on top of him and starts hitting

his

own forearm and Moxley's forearm and a lot of fake punches in the area of Moxley's head.

But Pockets is

shocked at all this.

So

he turns Paige around and Paige and Pockets gets in a, so

Pockets gets in a fight with a guy that just tackled a guy that had been kicking his shit out of Pockets.

But then

Jay White gets mad at Paige, and he and Paige start having a fight.

But Pockets is still up, so Pockets goes to Superman punch Moxley, and Moxley moves out of the way, and Pockets hits White instead, but he actually missed him again.

By the way, I'd double-dog dare anybody.

You ain't got no hair on your balls, as Bobby Eaton used to say.

If all of you out there who have the capability

that the DVR gives gives you of slow motion,

I could hand out $1,000 every time that fucking Orange Cassidy's fist came anywhere near a motherfucker's face on that goddamn fly swatter fucking Roman Reigns finish rip-off that he does,

and I'd still be a wealthy man.

He misses it every time.

So Pocket Superman punched

White, his partner in this thing, accidentally when Moxley moved.

But then

Pockets Superman punched Paige, the guy that ran in

apparently to help his team.

And then White grabbed Pockets, who was his partner in this thing, and gave Pockets his finish.

And then while everybody was down in the ring except for Moxley, who had left and had rolled out on the the floor with the other heels.

Everybody was down.

The fans were staring.

And then Moxley and all his heels rolled back in and kicked the shit out of all the babyfaces who were laying there having just kicked the shit out of each other.

And the fans did not want to see more of the Moxley beatdown stuff, so they groaned audibly.

Yes, and then they're doing it.

And finally, the fans came back with, fuck you, Yuda.

Fuck you.

That's a fucking flunky in this.

And he's like, I want to just say fuck you to him.

This was the biggest goddamn mess I've ever seen in my life.

And

we must skip ahead a little bit there with something else in the middle.

We'll come back.

Because when then Moxley and his bunch just walk off and leave, again, the baby faces just flat of their faces, laid out, stretched out, pissing their mouth while they're down there.

What the fuck?

And then they did a promo after the break and some other stuff.

They come back, and

that's where Moxley was doing that promo.

I'm a marked man.

I'd have it no other way.

What?

Who's marked you?

Who's marked you?

Who?

You're a mark.

In his mind, he wants all these opposing forces to come at him so that he can turn them back.

And

he is a mark man.

I'll agree with you there.

I'm a marked man.

Nielsen keeps trying to kill me.

Fucking Nielsen.

Put in turn, I killed him.

And I mean, here's the

thing.

He's drooling and he's snarling and he's doing the twitching.

He's trying to do a little homage to every

crazy guy that's ever been in wrestling, all the shit they did all at the same time.

And you can believe that this guy is unhinged.

You just can't believe that he's a good wrestler or he's a big badass that's going to really fucking kill people.

He's drooling and sniffing

and twitching and shaking, and he's saying shit that is

mostly incomprehensible.

So the quay is, is he,

drunk?

As one of the

fucking people later on in his program has alluded to his time in rehab.

So, that's open season now.

Or is he tweaking?

You can call me Dick the Boozer.

He just found a new profession.

He's not the dick the boozer.

He's not a plumber anymore, folks

he's the world's most dangerous drunkard dick the boozer the world's most dangerous plumber

yeah the promo makes no sense stopping this pal kids as we go along here and then he kept touching himself like lex luger back in the day but that was in the middle of a match it was so weird well no he was no luger

on promos he had a nervous for the people who haven't been around for 35 years and were paying attention to this luger had a nervous habit when he was doing promos in the tbs studio at the podium he would pick with one hand while he was pointing with his right hand he would reach down and he would pick the tights off he's loosening the tights from his that are squashing his dick kind of that would be probably the easiest way to describe that motion right I'm pulling these things off because they're tight on my cock.

And it was, it was, it wasn't really a broad type of motion, but you could tell it was there if they happened to, so they started shooting him higher up.

But in this case, Moxley is leaning over at the waist and he's drooling and slobbering and having a meltdown.

And with both hands, he's grabbing his pants and pulling them off his dick.

And apparently in this

exhibition,

The heel world champion challenged the two baby faces that he just left laying and the heel that he just left laying also

to a four-way at the pay-per-view.

So the world champion wants to now fight these three other guys.

And even if one of them, according to their own rules,

even if one of them were to beat the other one, and Lord knows they've been left on their face every time we see them, then he'd lose the belt and nobody has to beat him.

so

which may be maybe a godsend after all but also

why would you want that match if you're the heel champion and why would

he scream

here and when he screamed it out he put all the emphasis on fatal he's like i want to fatal for away four way yeah i don't know again when the baby faces all started beating each other up The fans, they already didn't want to react to anything.

Now they didn't know how to react because they kind of, you know, the people that are there, the people that are susceptible to rooting for an Orange Cassidy, they didn't know what to do.

He's beating up the other baby faces in the map.

And then Moxley, them going for the beatdown again.

It's awful.

This Death Rider stuff,

I don't think there's anything that has united the hardcore AEW fan and the AEW dismisser more than the people who say the Death Rider stuff needs to come to an end and Jon Moxley should never, ever be involved in creative ever again.

Well, Well, and his or anyone else's.

Well, now, no, I think if he does go back for a stint at the farm, that maybe if they do

plays and things, you know, he might get some input there.

But and then before we go backward, I got to go ahead again

because it tied into the same angle somehow.

Remember, Paige,

he,

Christian Cage is saying that if Paige hadn't fucked up and lived up to his part of the deal, then I'd be the world champion.

So we, but that deal has never been goddamn actually spelled out to people.

They didn't even do a graphic like the Continental Classic chart where you can't tell what the fuck's going on anyway.

It looks like somebody fired buckshot at a sheet.

But Cage was in the sky box reacting

to the whole

exhibition we just saw,

and that Moxley wants a four-way,

and he's got a problem with everybody in the match, and he wants Moxley, or whoever wins, or whatever, and he's going to send Moxley back to rehab.

Of course, it was Christian,

the

dead parents' society president that also brings up when a guy's been a rehab.

So

at this point, Christian has been addressing the people in

the front of this luxury suite or whatever they call it.

It didn't look too luxurious, but we are in Kansas City.

So

at some point, you have to relinquish some standard.

I'm just kidding, Casey.

But what he did was he walked from the

front of this box area,

suite area, where he could address the crowd and they could see him.

He walked back into the room and then turned around and started talking again specifically.

So that was the spot where they could get the camera shot

of Hook showing up on the other side of the door behind him through the window in the fucking door.

You see what I'm saying here to you, Brian?

I hear what you're saying.

I saw it actually happen, yes.

Yes, and there did that not look as awkward as fuck because there was no reason for him to back out of the lighting and everything oh and then he starts talking again so you see hook standing there

and then hook breaks the glass out of the door so he can open it from the inside looked like he had some experience with that too if i was taz i'd i'd be keeping an eye on that young man when he goes out late at night

but then he jumps on cage and they start fighting and they he

beats on him all over the box.

And I would have to think at some point, if I was one of the building building representatives,

unless I had Tony Khan's credit card on file, I would have been somewhat offended by shit they did in my fucking suite, wouldn't you?

Yeah, especially if they're the only people who have a suite at that event.

Well, Jesus Christ, it wasn't just knocking over some popcorn and shit.

They were slamming each other into the custom cabinetry.

But anyway, Pip Sabian and Nick Plain ran in and hook,

you know, pickled them and ran off.

And

so, again, that's we're half an hour into the show, and this has just been just

chaos with everybody beating everybody up.

And with Christian Cage getting the title shot, if they get the belt off Moxley, if someone like Darby wins it, if anyone wins it, and they immediately go to Christian Cage after all this, that'll be a problem.

So, how long is this going to last?

He's been doing this for months now.

I wonder what there was.

When's Darby get his title shot?

Darby gets a title shot, doesn't he?

Well,

that's the thing.

No, he remember he gave it up to

fight Moxley when Danielson was okay anyway and then wrestled on the same show.

And I don't, I don't know.

But one would think out of this band of merry pranksters that as odd as it sounds,

Darby Allen may be their best choice to be the next fucking champion, just in terms of if people are interested in him, because the rest of these dumb fucks have just nullified themselves into the ground.

Well,

you know, Jim, when you nullify yourselves into the ground or when you are a wrestling fan, watching Jon Moxley's Death Riders put you to sleep.

Yes.

Like Moxley putting you in a choke or...

putting you a plastic bag over your head or trying to pour drain or all the usual Moxley antics, you may just want to go to sleep and give up on wrestling for the night.

You need a good mattress.

You need a great mattress.

And I'll tell you what, that's why you and I have them.

Boy howdy there, friend Brian, because we need to fall asleep.

We need all the help we can get to sleep after we have to watch these nightmares of epic proportions.

But you folks out there, let's say.

That life is beating you down.

Life is wearing you out.

The fickled finger finger of fate is giving you the old proctological exam every morning when you wake up.

You feel like you've been overnight dicked by the dangled dong of destiny.

Well, that's because you're on these old sack of wheat mattresses.

It might be straw in there, might be asbestos.

You remember a lot of these mattress people use asbestos in the mattresses, Brian.

You remember hearing about that.

I remember hearing about it.

I can't speak for the current situation.

I could say that Helix has none of that shit.

Well, that's what I'm about to say to you.

None of that shit's going on.

You're not going to be sleeping on old tree bark recycled with, you know, tampons from the nuns downstream of the monastery.

You're not going to be,

you're not going to be doing that.

You're going to be sleeping on Helix mattresses that are custom-made from their own manufacturers and suppliers with all the finest and highest quality ingredients and no barbed wire, no broken glass.

And whether you're a big and fat person,

well, they like to say big and tall, but if you're a tall person, you could just get two mattresses and put them end to end.

But if you're a fat person,

well, you need extra help.

You can't just be sleeping on a Ziploc with a bunch of jell-o-brand gelatin in it.

So whether you're big and tall or fat and corpulent, or whether if you sweat at night, you need a cool-down mattress.

I didn't believe it was possible, Brian, until we got ours here in a castle.

But if you sweat when you sleep, this will cool you down.

And you can still bundle up under the covers, but with the feeling that you're not dripping and exuding

bacon grease from your pores in the middle of the night, where when you wake up, there's a wet ring around your chin.

You know what I'm talking about?

Certainly this happens to you.

What?

No.

Well, it's gonna with the older you get, but you can sit on this mattress in the middle of the summertime and your balls will shrivel up and your peat will go back in the shed.

That's how cool down it is.

It's amazing.

I didn't believe it was possible.

They got a mattress that can help everybody.

All you do is you go to helixleep.com,

H-E-L-I-X sleep.com slash JCE,

And you look at the mattresses.

They've got the various deluxe collections, the mattresses for the kids, the adults, the odd-shaped people,

man's best friend.

They got one for everything.

And you take a little quiz.

How do you like to sleep?

On your back or on your side or curled up in a ball, in a fetal position, shivering, shaking, and crying yourself to however you like to sleep.

The normal way, yes.

Yes.

And then they will detect for you the kind of mattresses they have that you'd be most interested in and boom goes the dynamite.

And then it comes to you in a box and just poof, there it became.

You put it right on the bed and poof, there it became.

No more of these delivery men.

As I've mentioned before, sometimes three or four strange-looking men in an unmarked panel van.

No, which would show up to deliver.

Well, my previous mattresses, you know, because they were big big and they were cumbersome.

The men?

It would have both the men and the mattresses.

And then they would be in the house for hours bringing that mattress in because they'd have to stop in every room and for some reason or another take pictures of everything.

But now you can just bring it right into your own home by yourself because it's in a box.

And then you open the box and you poof, it kind of comes to life.

It doesn't.

It doesn't come to life like an I Love Lucy life raft.

It more of it it just expands.

It's like time-lapse photography of watching your children grow.

Take video of it, and then you can have the family over at Christmas and you can say, watch how big our Helix Sleep mattress became.

Anyway, so you do that, and that's the best mattress you're going to, and nobody has been laying on these, unlike in the mattress store.

You know, you got all kinds of, you got, you got blood, you got skin oils, you got sperm,

got a variety of things on those tester mattresses.

You don't want to lay in that.

These things are wrapped up in plastic by cracky.

Anyway, right now, go to helixleep.com/slash JCE.

You're going to get 20% off

and two free pillows for all the mattress orders.

20% off, two free pillows.

Go to sleep and style.

Lay your weary head down on one of of these wonderful pillows that complement one of these gorgeous mattresses, and you'll just melt.

You'll just turn into butter, and you'll look like a fucking stain on the thing by the time you wake up the next morning.

Just melted, just melted butter into the middle of it.

But it's easy to clean on a helix sleep mattress.

They'll clean you off, and the next owner of the house will take over.

Once again, it's a wonderful mattress.

We have them here.

We We love them.

The kids have them.

They love them.

Just watch out for the melting.

There's no melting.

There's no melting.

And you will.

You don't have to get hot.

I'm trying to think of a transition from melting to melting away the prices of the bullshit mattresses and getting with Helix Sleep.

Jim, how can the listeners do that right now?

Well, they can go to helixleep.com/slash JCE.

Helixleep.com/slash JCE.

Oh, well, that was a very nice ending.

We will stop there because that was appropriate.

Helix Sleep, friends of ours, they could be friends of yours slash JCE.

Jim, back to Dynamite.

Wake up.

Yeah.

Well,

let's go backwards now because we skipped over, trying to keep all the programming in an understandable flow there.

We skipped over, okay, last week I missed it because I was zipping.

I thought it was a commercial, obviously, or something because I didn't even know it was on until you

mentioned it in the ratings analysis.

But this week I was looking for it.

The Bandito video.

Brian, I don't want anybody to ever make fun

of any

low-budget video that

I did in Smoky Mountain Wrestling with a

behind the dumpster.

Well, me being my own camera.

There was no video there.

Me being my own cameraman, and/or maybe Brian Hildebrand running camera and having a Radio Shack microphone, and/or the

low-budget

extravaganzas that Jerry Jarrett and Randy West used to do in Memphis.

Or

holy, this was the hokeiest.

They've got brand new cameras and they obviously have a fucking budget

because they were, you know,

at least able to rent this roadside fucking old west town.

I don't know where this is.

Probably one would think out west somewhere, but they used to have an old west town down 65 from Louisville here in Kentucky.

And Kentucky is not part of the old west.

It was pretty pretty cheap.

But it was really, it wasn't even,

this wasn't even Pigeon Forge Tennessee-level,

you know, resort area Old West town.

Oh, look, mommy, there's a blacksmith.

Oh, and it was obviously closed because there was not a human being in sight except for these four outlaw wrestler-looking fucks dressed up as cowboys.

And they've got wanted posters out for Bandito.

And

they're acting and talking like they're desperados.

Well, actually, they're not the desperados.

I'm mixing up my Western terminology.

Like they're the

law that's going after this desperado.

Hell,

you know, they say he's a fierce one.

They're making a Western movie.

These fucking morons are making a Western movie to if Bandito was cool or did have any kind of cool personality or did do any cool moves.

They've hooked him up so bad.

Now,

this looked like when the Brady Bunch or the Partridge family would go on location to an amusement park for a couple of episodes, right?

Yeah.

It was just, it.

Bandito rides into town on a fucking horse.

The cowboys try to arrest him

and Bandito beats him up, but it was shot.

Not only was it

shot in real time, it was a montage video of him beating them up so that they could shoot it close and the camera angles wouldn't reveal that they

weren't taking bumps on the goddamn dirt street.

They had crash pads out, you could tell.

You never saw anybody hit the fucking ground.

And the whole thing was

it, you would probably see a

oh, god damn it.

What was the old

was it Guntown on the river?

They used to have a western place, as I said, not far from here, something like that,

where they would actually do a re and they had one in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, now that I think about it, an old West Street shootout.

When I was like nine years old, I saw one down that you saw better bumps from the fucking Yahoos working at the amusement park.

And it looked more real.

So Bandito kind of beats these people up and then rides off on his horse.

And there's a line there somewhere about him and the horse he rode in on.

And this had to be the fakest thing I've ever seen on wrestling.

And

what is our cowboys cool now in hokey

roadside Old West, you know, nostalgia towns to the key demo

cowboy mask muted cowboys

because he doesn't he doesn't talk right is he from mexico well yes he didn't speak in this and i don't know that i've ever heard him speak if you know to the people who say aew needs to do a better job of introducing people they need to do vignette videos they need to do things every wrestling company has successfully done them for at least 40 years

There's an argument that some people are making that this was great because that's what this was.

Now I want to see Bandito once he gets off the dirt road and gets off that horse.

Wait a minute.

Maybe he can mosey or tope his way right into our hearts.

People are saying that's what this was.

This is Tony trying to do like a WWE style in the day.

Razor Ramon walking around Miami.

Yo, Chico.

My name is El Bandito.

That shit was borderline phony, to be quite honest with you, too.

But it had a fucking guy that could talk with charisma, and it was shot professionally, and it wasn't done in a goddamn closed-up fucking roadside amusement park.

This was so fake, fake.

And the acting wasn't good from whoever these

cowboys or deputy sheriffs or whatever were.

And

again,

is the key demo clamoring for a Zorro

remake out of this

supposedly cool, flashy Mexican Lucha Libre star that

they're taking him to gun town on the river?

I don't understand.

I thought

the height of the Westerns era in the United States, at least in pop culture, was the 50s and 60s, was was it not?

I would say so, based on television, yeah.

So what the fuck are they doing here for the kids?

Yeah, Zorro did promos.

I wouldn't say that's a well and Zorro did speak.

Okay, all right.

Anyway,

I've beaten that horse he rode in on enough.

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Would you like to go now to the tournament match they did between Will Osprey and Claudio Castiganoli?

It's the Continental Tournament Round Robin.

Three people have six points now.

I saw on the fucking crap.

And you got to think there's in the old days when there was 10 million people and a bunch of them were guys 18 to 34

watching wrestling on Monday nights of some kind or another, raw or nitro, right?

If they'd have showed some shit like that, half those guys were people that had already drunk a six pack of beer just waiting to see Austin come out and stunner somebody.

And they'd been sitting looking through bleary eyes at the what the fuck is that?

Yeah, it's not like brackets.

It's just, you know, here's points.

Yes.

Well,

when you also, I'm sorry, but when When you have a match in a tournament where if you lose the match, you're still in the tournament, you've automatically lost most people, haven't you?

I've not even lost them as confused him, but just lost them to give a shit.

Again, this is something from Japanese wrestling.

I don't think that American wrestling fans,

I don't think that sort of system has really worked yet for American wrestling.

Despite the success of the Continental Classic last year,

was it successful last year?

I think the ratings may have gotten a little bit better for like a week or two.

Good lord, the first week or two, or the yeah, the ratings got better weekly, very weekly.

No, but I'm just

nothing's getting better about their ratings right now.

I don't think this tournament's going to help, but when you're taking random matches amongst heels or babyfaces or just cold matches in general, and you're having a tournament, and then

if the person loses the match, he's still in the tournament,

you have lost the most people to give a shit about that particular fucking match.

Well,

he can't grieve forever.

He'll live to fight again.

That type of thing.

It's just people who want to see these random fucking matches with guys,

you know, doing a bunch of the same shit for no fucking reason.

And

they rang the bell on Osprey and Claudio, and Osprey did a flip and a dive to the floor in the first 10 seconds.

And then I saw that Rick Knox was the referee, the corpse.

So I wrote down, I bet this will go forever.

So I fast-forwarded the son of a gun.

And I was right after 13 minutes of this.

Will Osprey won with a jackknife one, two, three.

But then Claudio jumped him and beat him up

and went outside to get a chair to come back in and beat him up some more.

And Darby's music played for five seconds, and Darby came out with a baseball bat, and Claudio just hopped off and hopped off.

Here comes Claudio's tail,

hopping down the Claudio trail, hopped the rail and ran off.

And

when he did that, then Darby turned around and fucking left.

And

Osprey,

I thought,

would have probably been a choice to be their next babyface champion.

But is he now just another one of the boys where he's just having these 15, 20 minute matches with everybody?

And he Felcher beat him.

And

he kind of beat Claudio, but then Claudio beat him up.

he's one of the guys now isn't he yeah they had a moment there where even with the bad booking the fans were treating him differently they were popping for him differently

and since the MJF stuff they did the stuff with him and Fletcher maybe some good wrestling but

you know they immediately used him to elevate someone when he still needed elevation and now he's in this tournament So now you're just seeing him against, oh, you put anyone in there with Claudio for 10 minutes or more, and it's going to cause people to want to jump off the roof.

I just think that's the, that's the reality of Claudio.

And Osprey's not special.

He's just Ricochet is not special.

Ricochet keeps one.

And, you know, same thing.

But I think Osprey's now become just one of the AEW guys.

Dave Meltzer said this week something like, you know, no one books the matches.

The guys decide what they want to do in a match.

There's no one saying like, you should, you know, this should only be five minutes and you should go over strong.

It's just everyone doing what they want.

And I think Osprey will do the stuff he wants and he'll be exactly where he is.

Well, funny you mentioned the other guy because Ricochet followed this up.

He was in the back with Renee Moxlegud.

And I wrote, oh, God, he's going to talk.

And he was talking about Brody King and his tournament match tonight.

But

what was the comment that they were making on Twitter about Ricochet and his interviews?

This is why WWE never gave him a mic.

Yeah.

They should have given him that Twilight Zone episode surgery where the guy bet the other guy that he

couldn't refrain from speaking for a year.

And he'd give him like a life-changing amount of money.

And then after the year, the guy had never spoken.

He said, all right, you won.

You beat me.

But I don't have the money.

I can't pay you.

I never thought you'd be able to go through with it.

I'm broke.

I'm destitute.

And then the guy fucking pulls his shirt open and revealed that to win the bet for the money that he wanted, he had his vocal cords severed.

I'm surprised they didn't have somebody cut Ricochet's vocal cords.

He might be a bigger star if you didn't hear him spend and maybe break his fingers so he can't talk on Twitter.

If Ricochet could not communicate in any way with the fans, I think he'd be a superstar.

See, Lucha Underground had it right.

They made him a masked Luchador with a manager.

He didn't talk at all.

Well, remember, that's the idea when I saw him as Ricochet in NXT or whatever.

That's the idea I had for him, not knowing that they'd already done it.

He just

doesn't do himself any favors, not only when he doesn't argue and whine and bitch at random fans on Twitter over and over, but also he just sounds like such a fucking

goofus or a doofus?

What letter would precede oofus?

I think you could use either one of them.

If you're a goofy and a doofus, it's goofus.

So it depends on what you think.

The other thing is, if you notice, they're doing more of those WWE-style introductions that they were doing on Raw under the previous regime where Renee, it was even her back then doing it, says, Ladies and gentlemen, here is my guest, Ricochet.

And then the person awkwardly walks in from a foot away and they can't say anything for like a weird second.

And then, all right, you got no pop.

Let me go into the questioning.

Yeah, well, see, they're thinking the people at home are in their living room are popping.

Guy's sitting there in his fucking

semen-stained underwear with his hand in his crotch, the other hand in a fucking bag of microwave popcorn.

And hadn't shaved in three days, but he's going to start cheering, and you don't want your first words to be drowned out by

the people at home popping.

It's

odd, very odd.

They're all odd.

They're all odd.

And then an SUV pulled up and MJF, part of MJF, got out.

We saw his finger with his ring.

We saw the back of his head.

I think somebody shot his left kidney for a second.

And then he, and that got the biggest pop so far on the show, didn't it?

I don't know, actually.

It was in the back.

It It was on the video screen, I guess, to the front.

Couldn't really tell.

Well, no, all of it, they just had the back door open and all the people could see in the parking lot when the SUV pulled up.

And I'm being a wise ass here.

But yes, it was, that's the point: is seeing a part of MJF's anatomy and not even the best part

on the screen got a bigger pop than most of these yahoos kicking the shit out of each other live in front of these people.

And I think they're going to fuck that up too, aren't they?

Is MJF the star he was, or is he the star, but he has no other stars in which to interact with?

You know, we've seen more feedback about this lately than ever before.

I think MJF, based on the booking, based on the stuff with Adam Cole, based on the fact it's still going on,

I think MJF lost a lot of goodwill with the fans in terms of you could rely on his segments being the

kind of wrestling you want.

We definitely have seen a lot of feedback about it.

And

they've heard him.

He's not as strong as he was.

They forced the babyface turn.

Jericho brought it up.

Jericho started throwing it out there all the time.

Tony was hearing it.

MJF went along with it, obviously.

And there are good things about that.

You know, the Bro Chacho sold a lot of shirts.

But in terms of long-term, what it meant for AEW,

MJF should have been the forever heel,

and they needed to find babyfaces for him.

And they blew that, and I just think all the stuff with him and Adam Cole, it's as endless as the Jericho stuff was.

Remember how badly we wanted all that to end?

Oh, yeah.

Well, this has gone on so much longer because

everybody needs to stay healthy long enough for him to resolve it.

That's taken two years.

So, yeah, you say, are they going to ruin it?

Yeah.

Because MJF's back, I didn't pop because I know he's about to interact with Adam Cole and Kyle O'Reilly.

I don't want to see this.

Well, as a matter of fact, that interaction was about to come up, but before we got the nine o'clock hour with Adam Cole and Kyle O'Reilly and the winner getting MJF, we were in the back again with Renee and Matt Cardona.

And he said it's great to be back.

The people were shocked when he showed up.

So was I right then.

Has he been

here?

Did they preface this by saying this was on Rampage?

Where did he?

He's fighting Jericho at Final Battle, but where did he show back up?

I don't know.

I mean, he's made an appearance or two way back.

I think even when Cody was there, because he's friends with Cody.

Well, yes, but I mean, like, last week or whatever on Rampage that was viewed by 114 people and two second-story men in Otumwa, Iowa.

I don't know, but I saw quotes a while back from Matt Cardona in an interview he did somewhere just saying how he's surprised based on what he's done in the Indies the last few years that AEW and WWE haven't given him a call.

And I was actually surprised too, especially when it's AEW and they're desperate for anyone they can get in there.

So

it's probably a good move to do something with him.

Well, would he have heat because he was friends with Cody?

Well, I think the other interesting thing is, isn't he one of the guys who wrestles regularly?

I say he does stuff on the indies

for GCW,

who

AEW apparently just pulled Willie Mac

like a week before those two shows coming up.

Wait, wait, ho, ho.

Willie Mac?

How did AEW pull Willie Mac?

Does Willie Mac work for AEW?

And have we seen him in

five years?

Well, here's an article real quick from the Wrestling Observer.

This shows the rabbit hole now.

Find the AEW employee.

The Wrestling Observer website is.

It's harder than looking for Earhart.

Listen, the Wrestling Observer website has an article here by Brian Rose.

Willie Mac pulled from GCW events.

Willie Mac apparently won't be appearing for GCW anytime soon.

The promotion told Feightful on Monday that Mac has been pulled from his upcoming events, scheduled to face Sidney Akeem Scripps

at highest in the room three.

What?

That's the name of the event, highest in the room three

on December 14th.

So, I mean, that's.

They pulled him a couple days before the show.

GCW claimed to Feightful today that Willie Mac has been pulled.

The company is under the impression that this stems from Effie's comments as AEW has no shows scheduled next week.

Willie Mac is under AEW contract.

Okay.

Been used primarily for Ring of Honor.

His last match was in October, losing to Commander on an episode of Ring of Honor Television.

Jesus Christ, isn't Willie Mac like 300 pounds?

So a guy that you're not using, who you last used a couple months ago on Ring of Honor, says Ring of Honor Television.

There is no television.

Ring of Honor streaming show,

they pulled him after they pulled Ricky Starks.

But yeah, Cardona had been wrestling for them for a while, so I don't know what, I don't know if one thing has anything to do with the other.

He's kind of the war of the outlaws.

No wonder Bandito is being sought after.

He's going to be the top outlaw.

But again, this goes to the idea of the problems with AEW, one of the problems.

You bring in Matt Cardona.

This is a guy who has been working his ass off, apparently, on the indies to build a name and come up with a new gimmick, just do his own thing, and it's worked.

You're bringing him in not to be featured on Dynamite.

You're bringing him in to feud with Chris Jericho or have a match with him over the Ring of Honor, a promotion that doesn't have a TV show, the Ring of Honor Championship on that pay-per-view.

You know, to me, that's part of the problem.

How many things on this show promote things that sound kind of more interesting, maybe, on Collision or Rampage, but not interesting enough to make you want to see it?

They're always promoting these other things instead of just, here's our brand, here's our show, here are our stars, you can see them again next week.

Well, and you would have to devote on the week that they do the pay-per-view, if you were to watch all the shows that they're trying to get you to watch, you would have to devote, let's see, four,

six, eight, nine hours to just watching the programs that they're doing that week.

And so you have to

tell some kind of coherent

story from show to show with

talent that, you know, that people are familiar with in the company, not just on this particular brand of pro.

Oh, he's with AEW, not, oh, he's on Rampage.

You know, and you can't just do shit mostly on another program and then have this guy pop up and say, that's great to be back.

When'd you come back?

Oh, I'm going to be on

pay-per-view from a streaming show on a secondary promotion

on the first day of a three-day stand in a small building in New York.

Kind of hard for most people to keep track of.

Did you see the FTR promo?

Did you skip past that?

I skipped it because I was afraid that somebody was going to try to pour bleach down somebody's neck again.

What did they say?

Well, what they said was surprising.

They said, you know, Death Riders, we don't really have a problem with you.

I'm like, you don't have a problem with them.

You just stopped them from trying to murder someone backstage with a funnel.

They had a funnel.

So, yeah, they're going to be wrestling.

They don't really,

we don't really want to piss you guys off because we know how bad you are and y'all kick the shit out of us.

What is with these fucking babyfaces in this company?

The other O'Reilly

came out and told Adam Cole and the rest of them: stay away from MGF.

He's going to kick a shit out of you.

You don't stand a chance.

Now, FTR is like, hey, now,

guys, we don't have a problem with you.

We don't want this to escalate any further.

In the opening match, you had three of the babyfaces just kick the shit out of each other.

Yeah, yeah.

At least they found somebody they could whip.

So, anyway, back to some of these baby faces.

So, now

the nine o'clock hour was entrusted with the winner gets

MJF, Adam Cole versus Kyle O'Reilly, and Tabin and Bennett had tried to talk O'Reilly out of it.

Don't do that, but he blew them off, right?

And so,

I mean,

as an independently viewed wrestling match, just on basis of execution, there was nothing wrong with this, obviously, but

it's just, I sat back thinking,

when they were tag team partners in Ring of Honor in

2000, what, 10, 11,

and they were, you know, Kyle was legitimately

Davey Richards, you know, second in command in the car from St.

Louis, an understudy, and they were going to MMA classes.

And so they had a

tag team, but we made Cole

kind of, you know, Eddie Edwards's guy so that we could have that rivalry.

But they were talented.

They were the next stars of Ring of Honor in 2011.

They were the next stars of wrestling in general.

But now,

unfortunately, their careers have mostly come and gone at this point.

The height of it was in

NXT during the undisputed era, where

I think all of those guys probably could have

had a good shot at the main roster as a unit and been entertaining.

They didn't miss any,

you know, long-term WWE champions out of the group.

I'm not saying that, but

God, ever since that fell apart, the NXT group and they trickled to AEW, it's been the death of both of them.

And Bobby Fish is a corpse floating in a river these days.

But the booking, the injuries, the bad luck, the

who knows what else.

Their strengths have been

mostly negated or, you know,

nullified, and their weaknesses have been

accentuated O'Reilly has always done

an MMA influenced kind of wrestling style that I think would appeal to a modern audience better than most

with the the flexibility that he had and still has but he's had a serious neck injury

But with the way that he incorporated that shit into a pro wrestling style and the things he could do and the kicks and the knees and blah, blah, blah.

He did it better than most people.

He looks like Hoyce Gracie next to Jon Moxley, but it's never been booked or exploited right

to me because that needed to be.

You don't just make a guy like that that really is not impressive physically and can't cut

a real commanding promo, but has a unique kind of work style that looks good and believable.

You need to make that style more of the story of him

and

cater to it and exploit it and

hide the weaknesses, which is the promo and the fact that

he's rangy.

So you have him doing a variety of those stretch moves, the shoot moves, so that his height is accentuated by the announcers and his thinness and ranginess, etc.

But that's never been done.

And since we started doing it 15 years ago or whatever.

And Adam Cole is a tremendous promo.

That was always his strongest point.

But he could also work, and he used to be in great shape.

But now, a guy that can work and do things while looking like he does now

just kind of makes it look like anybody can do this shit.

And we've gone over and the injuries, unfortunate freak, whatever, and

the bad booking, and the devil, and the,

etc.

So now you've got two guys that, holy fuck,

have they, could they have been treated any worse by the matchmaker of this organization having a solid indie style, modern style match that needed a lot more sauce to make it interesting.

Would you say that my valuation is somewhat correct?

I'd say this was like Ring of Honor Slamboree.

And,

you know, again, I'm sick of both guys.

I agree with you about Kyle O'Reilly.

That's why I never completely give up on him, but time's running out.

Who's going to book him?

Who's the person that's going to book him well?

There is no one.

And Adam Cole, I'm completely done with.

I don't want to see Adam Cole anymore.

I don't believe there's a single person he wrestles that he could beat in a wrestling match.

And now he's going to, and now if he beats MJF, you ask about if they've done damage to MJF.

If MJF loses to Adam Cole, if that's the final ending of this, does that help anyone?

No, no.

The fact that they're even going to touch each other again does not help anybody.

And that's what happened here.

Cole super.

And here's nothing on his finish.

What the fuck?

Cole super kicked O'Reilly on the floor and enrolled him in the ring.

And as the referee was checking O'Reilly, and I've seen goddamn

complex proctological examinations done in less time of people than this referee was taking with the

but MJF appeared and swung at Adam Cole with the diamond ring, but Cole ducked and super kicked him.

And then

O'Reilly schoolboyed,

after you couldn't see MJF anymore, he was off the edge of the ring.

Then O'Reilly schoolboyed Adam Cole and got a two count.

And then O'Reilly spun around and got him in an ankle lock.

And Cole small packaged him.

One, two, three.

And what the fuck?

Because

if MJF does not want Adam Cole to win,

and that's why he came out to try to interfere.

The thing that got the pop here

was Adam Cole super kicking MJF because,

you know, it's MJF taking a bump.

But then they just finished the match flat.

If

they'd have thought to themselves,

you do the super kick, boom, he gets nailed onto the apron.

Then O'Reilly comes up from behind fucking

Cole with the fucking schoolboy, right?

And as O'Reilly's got him stacked up, MJF is clambering back up on the apron.

And just as he gets up there, Cole kicks him, kicks out of the pin, and O'Reilly flies backwards

into goddamn MJF.

And boom, and he takes another bump.

They get another pop, and then he falls forward into the goddamn deal.

But instead, they had Kyle get back on the offense by himself

for Cole to reverse, which meant that Cole just beat him.

But anyway,

and not surprisingly, Kyle O'Reilly then walked off from Adam Cole without shaking his hand.

Oh, good Lord.

Keep walking.

Back to NXT.

Get the fuck out of there.

I don't know if he still has the keys.

Do you?

Can he get in down there?

I was actually hoping O'Reilly would win.

I'd rather see him against MJF.

It would have been different.

We haven't seen it.

Well,

that was that exciting segment.

You know, you have to wonder what it's going to be like one day.

I'm wondering right now which way this will go.

Well, it can go a lot of ways, and you have to wonder which way will it go one day?

When Adam Cole says, you know,

who am I fooling?

It's time to do what wrestlers do when they grow up.

I don't know, become a substitute teacher, whatever it may be.

I need a haircut.

I need a shave.

We know who can help him get that first shave of his new career.

Well, as a matter of fact, we're talking about some of these guys.

It may be the first shave of their life.

Because I don't see a lot of

hair follicles on some of these boys' testoculars, but I'll tell you what.

Our friends at Harry's, folks, if you want your face to be slicker than a con man on Bourbon Street, if you want to look good and smell good and feel good and project an aura of handsomosity

and beautifuliciousness and attractiveness to the opposite sex or even the same sex or any kind of sex for that matter,

no matter what your standards are, you're going to look pretty good if you let the folks at Harry's fix you up with their fine quality products and

especially the Harry's holiday craft set.

Have you heard about the craft set for the holidays that's now being offered by our friends at Harry's makers of the finest shaved products?

Oh, of course it's craftacular.

It's craft as opposed to craptacular, which many of

the items are that you come across at the holiday time.

Harry's has put together an incredible gift box.

It comes in a rich, sleek green box that's going to stand out.

No gift wrapping is required.

And it contains one of the craft handles, the weighted razor handle, the ergonomically designed to fit comfortably in your hand handle that is the key to the excellence, one of the keys to the excellence of the Harry shaving experience because

it's a no-grip slip or a no-slip grip.

You won't slip with the grip on this tip right here.

You get a secure hold on it, is what I'm saying.

That's what you're saying.

You won't slip with the grip here on the tip.

Here, I won't slip with the grip here on the tip because you're going to get a good grip on this handle.

And you can engrave the handle.

It's engravable.

You can personalize this with available engraving options.

I had the handle of my razor engraved to look like one of the statues on Easter Island.

But that's just really.

But anyway, besides the stone sentinels?

Yes,

the big heads, the big heads, the big chins, the Antonio Anokis of Easter Island.

But in addition to the weighted razor handle, ergonomically designed to fit comfortably in your hand with a no-slip grip and

that is engravable and has a flexible hinge designed to fit the contour of your face.

And you're going to get the German-engineered blades made in Harry's own factory

in Himmelberg

that stay sharp longer for a smooth shave every time.

So, Harry, straight from Himmelberg right there to your face.

And

you're also going to get your choice of foaming shave gel or shave cream

and a travel blade cover.

So a craft handle, the shaved gel or the shaving cream,

two

blades, two extra blades, and they're multi-blades.

You know, you got, it depends on how you're quantifying this.

You get two of the blade cartridges that have several blades because, you know, that's the thing that they do these days.

And you get the travel blade cover.

And

it's a risk-free purchase because Harry's offers a hundred percent money-back guarantee.

And you all you do is go to Harry's H-A-R-R-Y-S dot com

slash JCE.

That's how you get the engraving and the various.

You know, actually, if you didn't use the slash JCE, they'd probably just put it in a garbage bag and send it to you media mail.

Once again, slash away that facial hair with Harry's, Harry's.com slash JCE for the Harry's Holiday Craft Set.

I just

say they have also at other things at Harry's.com the amazing smelly good things that they have, the deodorants and the lotions and potions and things to take the scent out of your taint,

body washes and a variety, a variety of things to keep you smelling good and feeling good and looking good and clean and organized.

And you can actually, I understand, you can you can

bleach your butthole with some of their products also.

Again, I don't know where you're going and we were so close to the end and getting out on a good note.

Harry's.com.

You say it.

What's that promo code, Jim?

JCE.

I'll tell you what.

You'll get out a good note if you get your butthole bleached.

It'll be a high C, all right.

Once again, that's not what they do.

What's the actual link, Jim?

Oh, the actual link, Harry's.com/slash JCE.

But about these buttholes.

All right, it's a close shave, but we're back.

Oh, for heaven's sake.

AEW Dynamite.

You're playing a Stingers coming out of the Ad breaks, huh?

AEW Dynamite now shaving away the ratings.

Well, I'll tell you,

Tony Schiavone,

he looks like he should be in a Volkswagen Beetle following the Grateful Dead around half the time, doesn't he?

He's got an earring sometimes.

He's very hairy here suit for an older.

He's an older man than I am, trying to regain his former glory with a little hair dye,

some shoe polish.

What was I talking about?

What was it on this show that happened?

And then they cut back to the desk and Shivani's like, what a great AEW moment.

Shut the fuck up.

Well, he was sitting down with Darby Allen here, and Darby was talking about Dick the Boozer.

The world's most dangerous plumber.

I really want you over with that one.

And oh, I'm telling you, Dick the hold on where I'm writing this down, Dick the Boozer.

But anyway, I thought Snoozer Brody was going to be the winner this year, ladies and gentlemen.

No, no, because I don't want to make fun of Brody.

But anyway, you know,

this

epitomized to me, this Darby Allen interview, how they don't understand how to present themselves.

How they just can't figure out that

only their small indie audience is as smart as they think everybody is.

And to the rest of a television viewing audience, they come off

goofier than a fucking rainbow trout in a car wash.

Darby is talking about how everybody's scared of Moxley's bunch, first of all, but he says, you know, I understand why the young guys here don't want to get involved because this is the first time they've made a living off pro wrestling.

Did you hear that line?

Yes, from seasoned veteran Darby Allen.

I did hear it.

And

what the fuck is wrong?

But yes, we can tell that it's the first time they've made a living off pro wrestling by watching them.

You don't need to back it up verbally.

That's what they don't understand how to present either themselves or some of the other people on their roster as stars.

Remember what we were talking about?

Vince wasn't his last few years there.

Everybody that was coming out to do a promo in the WWE

was, oh, this is my childhood dream.

I've always wanted to be here.

Vince loved that.

I went through the childhood dream in 1996 with Shawn Michaels.

Vince loved that, and he got stuck on it.

He was like,

what are they, when they spam the thing, his button was stuck.

But do you hear?

My childhood dream was about shitting on an egg.

And that's where his button got stuck.

The egg.

But now that the WWE is so successful, do you hear people go, I'm so happy and lucky to be here?

And I'd be nothing with that.

No, they're being presented like fucking stars of professional athletes.

Point is.

Darby here not only says that

all the babyfaces and all the young talent and or all the people that might stand up to Moxley, they're scared to do it because they don't want to rock the boat and lose their jobs because it's the first time they've ever made a living off pro wrestling.

What kind of amateur hour bullshit is this then?

And then

he started punching himself in the mouth.

And then he spit blood out of his mouth because this, I don't care about this, the violence, but I care about.

Number one, there were, if you notice, there were a lot of edits in this piece that were covered up with B-roll because

I guess he couldn't get this whole thing out

all at the same time, but also so he could slip the fucking

blood into his mouth because where he punched himself, he'd have done a better job of knocking a tooth out, and then he just kind of spit this big clump of blood instantly and then no more.

I don't know what the fuck's going on.

And why are we supposed to admire a son of a bitch that will punch himself in the face and draw blood, not trying to get out of a fucking arrest or lawsuit?

See, I put that caveat in there because I've done that before

in search of one of those goals.

But

what the fuck was this?

This is the kind of interview they used to do with Jim Ross, remember?

He would sit down with the talent and have them awkwardly try to explain whatever it is they're trying to say.

What have you got to say for yourself?

The more Darby talks, like he gets you for a moment.

He gets you with the whole rah-rah feelings.

And then he loses you, and you're like, you know, I don't really want to stand with this guy.

They had a moment.

You know, it's interesting looking back now, everyone who thought he should have been the person to defeat Danielson for the title instead of Moxley.

Here we are a few months later.

It couldn't have been any worse.

Well, moving on, it can get worse.

Oh, yes, it can.

Another tournament match, Ricochet versus Brodie King.

So I decided when the bell rang to fast-forward 11 minutes in and see what would happen.

Ricochet foiled Brodie King's superplex off of the top rope by hitting him with repeated fake blows to the back.

He looked like a small child having a temper tantrum.

And

it's not like you could cover this up.

There was nothing else to look at,

right?

It was just them on the ropes, and he's going wah, wah, wah, on the guy's back.

And then he hits him with a power block, power blomb, a power blomb.

He puts some extra mustard on it, a power blomb off the ropes,

and then he goes to the top rope, Ricochet does on the other side.

And

Brody King has to lay on his back, but squirm

about five or six feet to the left to put himself in the right place.

So Ricochet comes off the top rope with the shooting star press.

And that's the

famous, made famous by Brock Lesnar, where you jump off, you do a backflip, and you land smack dab on top of the other guy, right?

And he does this.

He does the shooting star press and he lands right on top of Brody King and bounces off of him a little bit, even, and he goes to cover the guy.

And Brody King grabs him by the throat like the Undertaker and no cells getting landed on by that fucking splash and just stands up and slaps a sleeper on him.

And

way

again, Ricochet came in

with all this fanfare

and he had some some goodwill and people were interested.

And now

he's giving these big finishes off the top rope to middle card guys that are just, ah, fuck you.

You're a gnat.

I'm an elephant.

There you go.

The other thing, too, is Brody King here,

this is the second time on the show.

I think Adam Cole did it earlier.

Noticeably, and again, a lot of it's on the camera people, I guess, but still it's happening.

Noticeably put himself into place.

I mean, with Brody King here, it was basically as the move was happening, he was still putting himself into place.

But Adam Cole did it earlier for the O'Reilly match.

Well, I mean, and there's a lot of that

that goes on that people don't notice or it's not worth calling attention to.

And it's, you know, part of half-assed being professional.

But when

you've got to traverse five or six feet while you're supposedly laying immobile and stunned, that starts to stretch things.

But

because the guy didn't land in the right place and he looked up, he's like, oh shit, maybe he could have stood up and, or not stood up, but sat up and fucking rolled a minute, or I don't know what the fuck, but he's just squirming.

But anyway, then

they had removed one of the turnbuckle pads off the top turnbuckle in the corner.

So

Ricochet

he figured out they're fighting on the ropes and he DDT'd Brody King headfirst onto the bare turnbuckle

while Brody King was still standing on a second rope.

Well, then he kicked Brody King's foot off the rope so that Brody King dropped face first on the exposed buckle again.

And then when he took him up back in the ring and was on his knees, he clotheslined him twice while King was on his knees and couldn't even take a decent bump.

One, two, three.

It took almost 15 minutes and another one of these fucking flat-ass finishes where the guy just beats the fucking guy when there's no

pop to it or no unexpected, you know, or no twist or no.

But that was that.

I know you'll disagree with me, but I actually don't mind Brody King.

He's been growing on me.

I think he's pretty good for a big man.

Like a tumor?

He moves around really good for a big man.

Does he need to be produced?

Sure, he does.

But he's not as bad as I remember him being when he first got there.

Well, maybe Ricochet was bad enough for the both of them.

But the point is.

Wait, has his stock fallen?

Has Ricochet's stock fallen in the last.

When did they do the angle where he got laid out and everyone was wondering if he was ever going to come back?

Was it July?

June?

Something like that.

Yeah.

Well,

he's pissed off all the people that he's argued with individually on Twitter.

That's a couple of hundred thousand.

Think about it.

Yeah.

He just, he's not a,

he's not an interesting person when you see

who the person is.

That's why he needed a gimmick and to be protected, which he kind of was over there.

Did you ever hear him talk much,

if at all?

Oh, well, speaking of talking, if not, not much, then not at all.

Did you see the pitch out of this match where this show was continuing to fucking head down to Porcelain Throne?

I don't remember.

What was after this match?

Well,

it was an interview in the back with Private Party.

Oh, yeah.

I'm glad you saw this.

With Leo Rush and Action Andretti walking in, but our friend Sockface, the lead announcer on his fiasco,

did the pitch to the, well, let's go backstage to hear from Leo Rush and Action Andretti.

And they go to the fucking promo and it's a, it's private party saying, hi, we're private party.

And then they start talking about being the tag team champions for a second.

And then

in walk Leo Rush and Action Andretti to confront them.

So apparently we can also call Sockface Nostra dumbass.

Did you see what they were wearing?

Well, yeah, were they inflatable octopus outfits?

What was that?

Whatever it is, I definitely want to see this tag team.

Anything Leo Rush does, it'll last weeks, and it'll be something you'll smile about when you remember it.

But it's like if you were wearing,

well, you know, remember the kid in Willy Wonka that inflated himself and floated up to the ceiling.

If you were like wearing something like that, only with spikes all had like shards or I don't even know if you want to say spikes, but just it looked, they looked like swimming pool toys.

Didn't they?

Because when we say spikes, we're talking about inflatable spikes.

We're not talking about actual metal spikes.

They seemed very comfortable.

What made it work was they seemed very comfortable wearing whatever they were wearing.

I definitely want to see.

Put that on Dynamite instead of the Moxley stuff.

Leo Rush and Action Engretty's all-star tag team.

As the lifeguards?

As whatever they want to do.

They're wearing pool toys.

It's AEW.

Let them book their own segments.

Well, they came in and argued with Private Party.

And then

have Top Flight, Dante, and Darius Martin, have they become heels now?

And they walked in with some girl.

No, that's Layla Gray.

You pay your respects.

Is that Layla?

I don't

know if I can't.

I don't fucking know.

But they're their heels now, right?

Because they've got a snotty girl and they're talking in a snotty fashion.

I don't know.

I couldn't tell because she immediately went to the other side, if you notice, notice.

When everyone was arguing, she was standing next to Leo Rush and Action Engel.

Well, no, but she was standing next to him, but she wasn't looking at him.

She was standing there because she could pose for the camera and turn in a seductive way better.

She didn't have any idea what was going on behind her.

She had maybe the best side boob in wrestling history going on here, if you notice what was going on.

That's why she stood at that angle.

But, Noah, I'm intrigued by anything going on with this Leo Rush action and ready.

Action Enge Reddy looks like the illegitimate child of Jimmy Del Rey.

And that's all I think about whenever I see him.

He's kind of a scuzzy Jimmy Del Rey kind of character.

And Leo Rush is always like weeks away from falling out with someone.

So I want to see more of that

TT.

I want to see more of that TT.

I want to see more of that tag team.

TT.

Well, I guess we're going to see him on something because they all insulted each other and everybody argued, but Leo and one of the Martin brothers shook hands before they walked off.

And that's the thing.

It's ridiculous because he leans his hand in the shake and you're looking at his jacket and the fucking inflatable spikes or whatever they are.

And you're like, he's acting so serious while wearing the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen a human being wear.

That's why Leo Rush works.

He's serious about the ridiculous.

And ladies and gentlemen, the Leo Rush Fan Club, Brian Last has sent in his permission slip.

All right, are we going to talk about the all-in Texas on-sale package?

Oh, boy.

How many fans did you count in those very closely cropped shots at the fans

right at that barricade?

That's that's that's the thing.

It was sad.

That's what I was talking about earlier.

You know, you start to not even take any pleasure in pointing out the

ludicrosity of what's going on here.

They tried to put a package together of the

on-sale extravaganza they put on with the talent outside the stadium that they're still saying they're going to run next summer.

And it was, it was TV action footage, shots of the stadium empty, just it's a great-looking stadium.

And here's the drone shot from overhead.

There's nobody in it and it's just sitting here.

And then the talent.

I mean, Lashley was there.

Brian Danielson was Sting was there

in face paint?

I got a problem with that.

Brian Danielson, the last time we saw him on TV, he lost his final match to Moxley and almost died.

They tried to kill him again.

This is the first time we've seen him on TV since then, isn't it?

Happy as a pig and shit.

Raising his arms up like he has no neck problems or no problems with anything whatsoever.

First time we've seen him since the Death Riders

rode death on him.

Yeah, and broke his neck.

But all that talent was on a stage talking in front of a nice little press conference backdrop, talking to 25 people in a parking lot.

When you saw the

either the still pictures from people or unedited

phone camera footage from people, they had like a bicycle rack barricade that

there were people lined up two abreast for like 20 fucking feet.

And Sting was there.

How do you advertise a Sting

autograph session, even, and only get 25 people?

And that's why I said, in face paint, I talked to a fucking guy that did a lot of

booking of talent at conventions.

He ran conventions, so he booked a lot of talent.

He knew what he was paying people.

And he said, yeah, he said,

I have to pay Sting.

I can't remember what he said, 10, 15, grand or what, but it's five grand extra if he puts his face paint on.

I said, wait, he's charging you five thousand dollars to paint his face

yeah otherwise he wears the sunglasses i go god damn it

how can you have all those people there

and only get 25 people or whatever the fuck it was

help me

i think you're on mute the no i'm trying to think of how to even say it anymore the product is ice cold nobody cares about it i don't know how much local promotion they did for the on sale, but considering how bad they've been with local promotion for all sorts of things, who knows how it was.

You could have stood up on fucking Interstate 35 and flagged people into the parking lot and got 200.

You could have done a lot of things differently than the way they've done it so far.

And again, Brian Danielson, the last time we saw him,

we didn't know if he was going to live.

And here he is.

He's just happy to be there.

It's nice to see that, you know, it's the miracle of modern science and modern medicine, Brian.

Brian, it's Tony.

I need you to get out of bed for these 35 people here at this barricade.

Fly to Texas.

That's the other thing, like you said.

They moved Australia indoors.

How the hell are they going to run

a stadium?

That's what, 40,000 capacity, not counting seats on the floor.

And they're set up for 25,000.

And what would you say, 20 if they're lucky right now?

That'd be a.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

How are they going to get 20,000 people right now anywhere in this country?

If they were lucky, if they were able to get people to just say, hey, this is my summer vacation,

a nice trip to Arlington.

Perhaps that's what they're thinking.

I don't know.

But what do they have to fill?

I mean, they had Sting there.

Sting's retired.

You can't bring him back because otherwise you fucked everyone who bought the biggest pay-per-view you ever had.

Brian Danielson, they said it was his last regular match, so you at least have the out there.

But who the fuck do you want to see him wrestle?

You don't want to see him wrestle Moxley again?

Like, it's not about I need to see him get his revenge.

Just like, you know, if he could wrestle against anyone and function, I'll be happy.

There's nothing, they have nothing on the horizon to get into that stadium.

Well, speaking of nothing on the horizon, unless you were looking for a moon, you probably didn't like the main event of this television show.

The women's title on the line, Maria Mae versus Mina Mellons.

Good God, I wrote this is the main event.

And I started watching this thing, and

if I want to watch two clumsy, drunk strippers, they need to be wearing less clothing.

And otherwise, they had an overrun for this.

And

they fucked up the overrun because the whole idea is to get people

hooked at the top of the hour, right?

They went to break at 9.58 and came back at 10.01.

They were in break at the top of the hour on a fucking women's match.

Then in Maria May won, and Thunder Rosa was in the front row, not happy with a sign and pissed off.

And then Toni Storm walked out in her old outfit and in color

and stood there.

What a way to end the show.

It's breaking down in fucking Kansas City.

What are they going to do about Luther?

Where is Luther?

I don't know.

He was her butler when she was black and white and crazy.

I know.

And he did a lot of buddling.

He was the butt of many jokes.

And

they've got to still be paying him.

I bet they've made him some kind of producer or flunky or something.

Well, he may not be her butler, but maybe he's still Jericho's ward.

I don't know if he was ever actually Jericho's ward or if he was just like the

Quaid brother that, you know, has the issues that they just tag along with him.

Well, that's AEW Dynamite.

Some bold moves there, starting the night with Moxley, ending the night with Bosom.

We'll see how they do in the ratings, which we do not have as of present.

Because we are recording in such a timely fashion, they have not even been issued or disseminated to the general public yet.

That's how on top of this thing we are.

Well, Jim, knowing that we have to travel through time at some point, can we do one classic wrestling thing here before we wrap things up?

I think, well, not before we wrap things up, but before we travel through time and then reconvene to continue this program that will be seamless in terms of the listener experience.

I call it wrap things up because I have to, you know, tie everything down before we, you know, hit the air.

But Jim.

Tommy Kangaroo Dort.

Tommy Kangaroo Down.

If this works, this is a new segment.

If this is bombs, this was Jim's idea.

Hey, what, huh?

The other day, I was out, I was smoking a joint, I was hanging out, and I decided to just start going through the files.

The files of the Wrestling News, which comprise Ring Wrestling, Wrestling Review, Wrestling Monthly, various other publications, as well as correspondence.

And I have a file here.

This is from the files.

Yes, from the files.

So we'll see if this is interesting because I have not completely looked through it.

I just saw that it was thick and filled with correspondence.

This is the Christopher Love file.

Oh, my God.

Okay, and for those of you who might not know,

Christopher Love was the managerial nom de plume and persona of promoter Burt Prentiss.

And at various points, he was queen Christopher Love, especially in the LPWA where he managed Leilani Kai and Judy Martin, the Glamour Girls.

And

Bert, during his manager days,

Honey Love was another persona.

Bert was a very flamboyant individual during his younger days and also his manager days, but Bert was

gay.

And he wasn't even like Ronnie Gossett, where Ronnie Gossett would say, I'm not gay, I'm just friendly.

Burt was gay, but

he didn't let that get in the way of business most of the time.

And

he ran great shows.

He was the classic definition of an indie wrestling promoter and a hustler and a go-getter.

He could.

Well, remember, I did,

this was even, this was after you joined the podcast.

I did a show for him or went to a show that he ran.

He was on the show.

Yeah, down in Jackson.

And we talked about his operation and everything

that he had down there.

He was working with the city, running regularly.

And,

of course, he passed away a couple of years ago.

He won me over

because he ripped off Howard Baum and Howard Baum's dad in like 1984 or 1985, somewhere in there.

Took a bunch of money to help them run shows and left town.

And when they opened his briefcase, it was like filled with women's underwear.

The briefcase that he had left as collateral for the money, right?

Yeah.

And years later, he was on social media and Howard brought it up.

Like, hey, that was a real scumbag thing to do.

Burt Prentiss sent him a check and it cashed.

Yes.

So he made good on it.

So that impressed me.

That was that was actually really classy, I think.

After ripping him off initially and leaving him all that underwear.

But the interesting thing about this file, as I look through things, there's a lot of different addresses and names.

Oh, he was all over the place.

Burt started Music City Wrestling in Nashville.

He had Ozark Mountain Wrestling and I can't remember where he was headquartered over in Arkansas.

He had a territory in Kansas briefly for a while.

I mean, he was just, he was everywhere.

Well, in 1988, Christopher Love was at Box 201.

Is it

Gretinger, Iowa?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Well, that's where he was in 1988.

This is, what year is this?

This is 1990.

The envelope says the International Association of Independent Promoters, Wrestlers, and Fans.

Greensboro.

How does that abbreviation break down?

The IAIPWF.

In Greensboro, North Carolina.

Yes, he was in North Carolina for a while.

Norman Keitzer wrote his reply on here.

Christopher Love, received your brochure on your 1990 convention, April 13 through 15.

Unfortunately, since the wrestling news is quarterly, it didn't come out in time.

So I could plug it in the next issue before the date, as Wrestling News 131 won't be out until late April at the earliest.

Anyway, for the future, send us info well in advance and we will plug it.

Or if you wish something on what happened at the convention and your future plans for organization.

I don't know what the hell that's.

Also, would appreciate your payment of the $225 that you owe me for the magazines you got from me in 1988.

Wow.

And here's a letter from the organization.

For Bert to send out stuff plenty in advance in those days, he may not have known what state he was going to be living in three months out.

I have a letter here on the official letterhead of the International Association of Independent Promoters, Wrestlers, and Fans.

February 15th, 1990.

Dear Wrestling fan, I have enclosed for you all of the exciting information on Convention 1990.

Please read it over carefully,

and I sincerely hope that you will make every effort to join us in Greensboro in April.

This will be a dream weekend for many wrestling fans.

Additional wrestlers that will be at the convention that we did not get to mention in the brochure

include Tully Blanchard, Tim Horner, Hector Guerrero.

Now, wait a minute.

Hold on.

on now.

Pause one second.

Chris Love at one point in San Antonio actually managed Tully before Tully went to

Crockett, but go ahead.

Did he manage him again at this point in 1990 when Tully briefly...

Did he manage him for Vern?

Or what am I thinking of him and Tully in 90?

But anyway.

I don't know.

And the list grows each and every day.

There will be fabulous exhibits.

And if you would like to reserve a booth for yourself, please call us today.

Christopher Love, 1990 convention host.

And when they called him Honey Love, because that was a thing he did when he was cutting promos.

And let me tell you this, honey.

And you know, here comes Honey Love.

Convention 1990, April 13, 14, and 15th.

The holiday in four seasons, Tower Center, Greensboro.

On the front cover, Buddy Rogers, Lou Fez,

and Bill Apter.

And that was

when he was in, I'm going to say it was 1995, 96,

because right about the time Smoky Mountain closed down, Burt was doing, I think that was when he was Ozark Mountain Wrestling.

He was in Missouri or wherever he was, a boot heel down there.

And a bunch of the, you know, he brought Buddy Landell over and the headbangers, Thrasher and Mosh, Glenn and Chaz.

He moved them out there at one point.

I'm trying to think, was it when they were still the spiders?

Maybe I'm confusing, but the point is, there was like eight ten guys somewhere in missouri or iowa

working this little small wrestling territory with this little small weekly tv or whatever for burt prentice

and suddenly they got up one day and burt was gone and the town

there was no promotion anymore and they were all living in fucking iowa or whatever And started calling around like, can anybody book us so we get the fuck out of here?

I have here, this is from 1983, June 6th, 83, the postmark.

And it has his business card as well as the official envelope and letterhead of Shirley Dillon's Mid-States Championship Wrestling.

2315 South 58th Court, Chicago, Illinois.

The business card says, Chris Love, event coordinator.

Yes, and Shirley was

Bert loved to find an angel.

When you found a financial backer, both

on Broadway and the carnivals and in wrestling, you were finding an angel, and Bert loved to find angels.

America's fastest-growing wrestling organization, Mid-States Championship Wrestling will bring you the top TV stars available with the best percentage paid per show offering anywhere.

Well, no, best percentage.

That's a

diving.

That's yeah, that's uh basically looking for sponsors for spot show type of things.

We will pay more.

In those days, if a local group wanted to sponsor the matches of a territory, we've talked about it.

They'd do a 75-25 split or an 80-20 split where the sponsoring group provided the building,

sold the advanced tickets, did the, you know,

the grunt work of whatever, and they'd get 20% of the gate.

But Burt would give them bigger percentages, but it was still,

you know, 80% of Jack's shit is still fairly shitty.

We also also provide top-of-the-line advertisement promotions, including window posters, newspaper, and radio features.

We will guide you through an exciting promotional event that will want you to make it an annual happening.

Say, again, this is written really weird.

We require no large deposit money in advance.

It's like a translation from...

And see, I guarantee

Bert even had because burt was better than that burt had people doing this shit for him

because you know because remember he could write better than that the the promotions that burt started doing in the late 90s especially with music city in in tennessee and some of the other things he was doing he had some longevity with and drew some houses and was doing some business But back in the 80s and 90s, because he wasn't that much older than me.

So, you know, in his younger days, he was all over the page.

Once again, we require no large deposit money in advance.

And with our stellar lineup and your enthusiastic support, together we will make this a gigantic success.

This reads like a Ponzi scheme letter or something.

Professional wrestling is drawing bigger live audiences now than in the history of the sport.

Mid-States Championship Wrestling is a consistent winner at the box office.

Depending on the general population of your city or town,

Mid-States Championship Wrestling can offer you up to 30% of the gate receipts.

See, there you go.

Not to be matched by any other reputable organization.

However, some crooked ones will give you more.

When booking a live wrestling show, make sure you are dealing with a legitimate promoter.

Check other local organizations for references.

We will provide you with excellent references.

Yeah,

we'll tell you exactly who to ask about us.

The wrestlers photographed here on this copy.

Fabulous Mula, the assassin, I don't know who, but it's an assassin mask.

The mighty warrior, appears to be a little person.

Bambi, I never saw her last name before.

Montage.

Wait, what?

You know Bambi, the women's wrestler?

Yes, but what's her last name?

It says M-O-N-T-A-G-E-S.

I've never heard that before.

I never saw it before either.

And finally, Mr.

USA Tony Atlas

for Shirley Dillon's.

I don't think that.

I don't think Bambi ever used that name.

I think he probably may just gave it to her.

Well, this is 1983.

That's early on.

You know, hold on.

The other side here, there's a poster.

What's this?

I know her real name, and that ain't it.

Oh, this is a different organization.

And

it has the results of the TV taping and a poster.

Oh, boy.

Bloomington, Minnesota, the Carlton Celebrity Room, USA Pro Wrestling TV taping, February 27th, 1984.

The results?

Todd Cooley defeated Rick Rinslow.

That's Wendell Cooley, by the way, because it has his photo here.

Seriously, Todd Cooley, 666,

defeated Glenn Liske.

Okay, as strange as this may sound, that could possibly be Jungle Jim Starr, one of the interns with Dr.

Ken Raimi, because I think he worked that gimmick in the central states at one point.

Jerry Valiant defeated Bobby Colt.

That would have been Guy Mitchell and Bobby, and they were both in Indiana at the time.

Bill Ashe defeated Patty Ryan.

George Wells defeated Joe Stark.

Good lord, what date was this in 84?

February 27th.

That's before

George Wells got booked by Mid-South when they were trying to replace Dog.

The New York York Doll defeated Tom Zink.

Listen to this fucking match.

The amazing Zulu, Ron Pope,

and Bill Dromo defeated Mike George and Mark Crowell.

Tommy Gilbert.

Wait, wait, wait a minute.

Hold on, back up.

Mike George, obviously, again,

most famous in the central states, but he wrestled Louisiana, that territory for a while.

I don't know who Rodney Crowell was or his partner or whatever.

But can you imagine the team of the magnificent Zulu and Big Bill Dromo?

Dromo was one of the best big guy workers in the business at one time.

What year?

Oh, in the 60s, late 60s, early 70s.

But at the same time, Zulu was the worst big man worker in the business.

And this is 10 years later from both of it.

In Minnesota.

Not like this was like a hotbed for this promotion, but anyway, the remainder of the card, again, from Minnesota, Tommy Gilbert drew Bill Howard.

Good lord, Bill Howard was Radamias in a lot of places.

666 defeated Mark Crowell, and Mike George defeated Rick Rinslow.

The poster here,

USA Pro Wrestling, featuring wrestlers from around the world,

body slamming.

These are the body slamming men you've heard so much about.

Who will emerge, the USA Pro Wrestling champion?

And the photos here,

Gary Lawler.

It's spelled L-O-W-L-E-R, but that's Gary Lawler, dressed like Jerry Lawler with the little beard and the entire look.

Yeah.

Patty Ryan, Korstia Korchenko.

Oh my God.

6'5, 300 pounds, Moscow.

Glenn Liske, the amazing Zulu, Todd Cooley.

And again, that looks like Wendell Cooley to me.

I could be wrong.

Tom Zink,

George Wells, Joe Stark.

Joe Stark was a Memphis job guy that, again,

as I recall, was from somewhere around Missouri, down at that end, close to Memphis.

This has a very Kansas and Missouri central states flavor for something going on in Minnesota.

There's a pudgy referee without a name here, Bill Ashe, Rick Rinslow, and finally this.

Bill Ashe was from Paris, Arkansas, by the way, and he was famous at that point for making the boys' boots rather than wrestling.

Go ahead.

And like you you said, and this is so interesting to me: Minnesota 84, 666, Dr.

Ken Raimi, manager.

There you go.

Wow.

So who was the promoter that was trying to fight Vern Gagne with guys from the Kansas City Territory from 10 years before?

Dr.

Ken Raimi, Reverend Pro Wrestling Manager.

Reverend?

Excuse me.

Revered pro wrestling manager of such greats as superstar Billy Graham.

And now 666 offers $1,000 to anyone who can stay in the ring just 10 minutes with 666.

All right.

Well, that's this promotion.

Again, it's like stuff from all over.

So, is this working so far?

Are you interested in this?

I'd like to see the show now.

Oh, you mean the segment?

Yeah, I'd love you to pull things out of your files.

I don't know who this is, Cecilia Fontana, Lady Cecilia Fontana.

It just looks like a woman's.

Cecilia,

you're busting my balls.

Here's a picture of Peggy Lee being interviewed by Chris Love.

Here's Chris Love early in his career with Sherry Martell in Texas.

Photo by Sue Carpenter.

Well, here's some really flamboyant ones.

Norman, story for magazine.

Thanks, Christopher Love.

He was sending in his own stories, obviously.

Christopher Love, Iowa, Shirley Dillon.

Christopher Love, here are the 50 copies of the wrestling news, 123 you wanted.

I'm sending them in return for the story you sent that appears in that issue.

As far as additional copies purchased in bulk, the cost is 75 cents per copy for 10 or more copies purchased at one time.

Thank you again for your help.

I apologize and always being behind in everything recently.

Norman Keitzer.

And then it's just, it's just like almost like a pen pal thing.

There's tons of like, this is an orange marker.

Well,

the guys in a lot of cases in those days would try to stay up with the

stay caught up and in contact with the people that did the magazines because that was the way you got publicity to the wrestling fan base.

There was no internet.

If you weren't on TV in a particular market, you had to rely on the magazines, not only the newsstand magazines, but the ones that were sold in

the arenas in various places.

I don't know what this is about.

Let's see.

There's a lot of things attached here.

This is from December 23rd, 1986.

Burt Prentice.

Per your recent letter about not getting the latest issue of the wrestling news, I checked our files, and the only issues I can find that you ordered were number 120 in April and 121 in October.

Both those issues were mailed out long ago.

As far as I can determine, Your previous subscription expired with issue number 24.

And these are the only two issues that you purchased from us since that time.

100 issues ago.

Now, you know, it's interesting, too.

He's writing this in 86 to Burt Prentiss.

A lot of the other correspondents from before this and after it is to Christopher Love.

Would Norman Heitzer have already known that?

Well, the first time that I heard that Burt Prentiss was trying to get a hold of me to book me, I didn't know who the fuck it was.

And then I found out that it was Chris Love because i had known him as queen christopher love in the lpwa in 1990 this is almost 10 years later burt pretense is running nashville he wants to get a hold of you who

but he you know it it changed over a period of years whatever the case and because it is cheaper than writing back and forth i've enclosed a copy of issue 122 which certainly should square us on everything

Per your comment about rumors,

I've been publishing wrestling magazines for over 20 years and have no plans on quitting, nor did I ever tell anyone that I was.

I think that is just some more of the garbage put out there by a former editor who worked for me, who I caught trying to pull a fast one.

Oh, who would that be?

In any case, the magazines continue to cost in bulk.

That is for 10 or more copies of the same that's the same thing he said before.

I hope that answers all your questions.

I apologize for the recent delay.

Did he do it on the same typewriter, Norman, that

filled in one of the zeros or one of the O's and dropped a letter every now and then?

Here's an address in that is the one here, but this is an address in Birmingham, Alabama now,

Highland Avenue South.

Now, here's a photo of Rick McCord with a bow tie on.

Why do I have this here?

Maybe

so.

Well, it was either in San Antonio or the Central States that

they tried to make some type of male stripper gimmick out of Rick McCord, which I don't think it fit his personality.

He was a very nice, polite young man.

I have the picture here, July 6th.

I don't know why this is in this folder.

July 6, 1987.

Mr.

Keitzer, thank you for your prompt response to my letter concerning the Rick McCord picture in issue 123 of the Wrestling News.

I am anxiously awaiting the next issue of your magazine.

Sincerely, Janet Ray Banks.

Sedalbum, Missouri.

Sedalia.

Sedalia.

It's hard to read what she wrote here.

Sedalia, it's right around Gus Karris's backyard.

So, yeah, this is the kind of...

Oh, here's a Christopher Love envelope.

Here's the kind.

It's the laugh riot that you'll experience every time you go down Last Alley.

Dear friend, this is June 29th, 1987.

Dear friends, a big hello from Birmingham, Alabama.

Things here look great for a BIG summer.

I am now working with a very competent and new wrestling organization presented by North American Sports.

And who was running Birmingham in 1987?

We will be running regular shows.

Besides Southeastern or Continental, is what I'm talking about.

We will be running regular shows throughout Alabama.

We premiered in Birmingham on Sunday night, June 28th.

We were at the Boutwell Auditorium, home of Fuller Wrestling.

We had expected maybe 200 people our first show.

Surprise, surprise, we had nearly 800.

Fuller sometimes doesn't do that good.

Their average is 950 to 1,100.

Rumors about that threats were made to all boys working the show that if they showed up, They would not work for Fullers.

Who cares?

Fullers are not doing.

He doesn't say the Fullers, just Fullers.

Fullers.

Fullers are not doing that great of business now at all.

Also, the supposed sale of this territory to Ron West or anyone else at this time is just a work.

Totally untrue.

Wasn't that about the time David Woods bought it?

Not to say they are, you know what?

That's right.

Not to say they aren't wanting to sell and don't have anyone interested.

It's just that no sale has been completed.

Then on the side, it says, direct all my mail to Chris Love, Milford, Iowa.

It will be forwarded.

Thanks.

And then he has the results here of his show.

And Birmingham, the Blue Infernos, beat the Duke Boys by this qualification.

Okay, who the fuck are these already?

The Blue Infernos, unless it was Gypsy Joe and Frank Martinez from the 60s in Memphis.

That was a gimmick.

Well, Well, don't forget about the Duke Boys, but also Nikki Leathers drew Larry Clark.

Mike Jackson beat the Midnight Cowboy in a fabulous match.

That's all in caps.

The Mass Nightmares beat Ranger Ross and Dino Minelli.

Butch Rhodes beat the Terminator.

Wendy Richter beat Joyce Grable.

Ricky Gibson and Randy Rose, no contest with Gypsy Joe and Joe Rossi.

Holy shit, I was right about Gypsy Joe at least.

Wow.

This is 1987.

Okay.

Gypsy Joe was even old even then, but Joey Rossi, Lynn Rossi's son, had been retired for over 10 years at that point.

I was surprised to see Ricky Gibson on the show, too.

Well, I was about Ricky Gibson.

That may have been.

One of the last matches he ever wrestled, if that was either right before or potentially right after the car wreck that he had.

I can't remember exactly, but he was almost done at that point.

Or Randy Rose turned on him in this match.

Also, J.T.

Southern was incredible with a win over Goliath,

Adrian Street, Pinken Tims.

And Southern and Gibson won a 16-man two-ring battle royal.

Jesus Christ.

How did he talk all these guys into being on his show?

He had a two-ring battle royal right away?

Did it really happen?

I guess that's the other question.

Well, I don't remember ever hearing.

Why were these people working opposite Ron Fuller at that point?

Why would Adrian Street and

Rose

have been working opposite Fullers?

I think we need to back up that this actually happened.

Here's a postage due envelope sent to Keitzer Publishing Company, Mankato, Minnesota,

1988.

Christopher Love, 904 13th Street, Milford, Iowa, undeliverable.

This was said, whatever, whatever he said that Chris Love was undeliverable and it came back.

To the address that Chris Love had said, please send all my mail to this address.

January 20th, 88, encloses 124 Wrestling News.

Just want you to know I have another issue available.

Also, a reminder: there is still due $225 on the stuff I sent you in Alabama in July.

March 88th.

So this is a few months later.

Christopher Love, per your calls, your check arrived on Saturday.

I tried to call you this morning and left a message.

I'm sending you the magazines you wanted via UPS this morning.

Since your shows are on April 8th and 9th, they should be there in plenty of time.

I've, and he blocked out the word, so I don't know exactly what it was, three boxes of 75 copies each, which totals 225 copies.

The extra 25 copies should more than make up for any spoiled copies or miscounts.

Your bill, $150 for 200 copies of the Wrestling News 124 at 75 cents each, would appreciate prompt payment.

Thank you, Norman Keitzer.

Is there any evidence that the bill was paid there?

You know, he usually does have receipts.

I don't see one here.

But that's one of the great things about these files.

He kept everything.

This is going to be like the Pfeffer collection at Notre Dame.

Instead of it, it's going to be the last collection under Nutter Dome.

Well, speaking of Nutter Dome, any closing thoughts on this?

Christopher Love, Burt Prentice, did this work?

Should we do this again?

What do you think?

Well, I don't think we'll do it again with Burt.

I think we've plumbed that well.

But yes, we should open up those files every now and then and see who the deadbeats were.

Well, actually, you know, I just follow up real quick.

March 21st, 1988, from Christopher Love, Gratinger, Iowa.

Dear Norman, received the latest issue of the wrestling news.

It was the best.

Four exclamation points.

Thanks for remembering me.

I had no idea that you had not gotten paid for the magazines you sent to me in Birmingham.

My roommate was to pay you way last August after we sold them.

But there were also a lot of things he didn't pay, so I guess I'm not really that surprised.

At any rate, Norman, here is a money order for $225.

I'm sorry for any confusion.

If you would like to send me 200 magazines, I will gladly sell them for you.

Is my cost still 75 cents?

Please enclose an invoice if you wish not to send them.

I understand.

And then he wrote in hand, this is typed out with an arrow where it says, please enclose an invoice.

Send them soon.

I have shows 4-8 in St.

James, 4-9 in

Pupstone with Zinc.

So Burt Prentiss was making some big moves in 88 with Tom Zinc, apparently.

But there it is.

I think now we'll travel through time, mercifully.

Hopefully, this was a little bit interesting to everyone.

I'll start revving up the motor.

Well, with that, we go to time travel.

All right.

Actually, that wasn't time travel.

That was the drones, ladies and gentlemen.

Here we are in drone-filled New Jersey.

And of course,

I'm not even going to.

It's the future.

If I only had time.

Well, you got time.

I'll give you all the time you need.

Well, you just gave us some time travel there.

I think it was a little bit lengthier than was called for, but you do you.

But

we have now obtained the information that we didn't have before back in the past, and now we're back here in the future to continue with the information that we have gotten.

You know, sometimes you and I, I brought it up, sometimes you and I talk about things, things that happen maybe in Louisville that become national news, sometimes things that don't.

I brought up the drone thing to you.

Look at it now.

It's everywhere.

Yes.

I think I said earlier in the program before we traveled through time, that will do a number on your short-term memory, folks, this time travel.

But it was on the local WDRB news here

just earlier, and, you know, people demanding answers.

People want to know what's going on.

I think my idea was best.

I think, you know, send up the cargo helicopter and just suck them up in the cargo hold, one of them, and take them off and examine it somewhere.

Take it to the factory.

They can't get near them.

They don't know where they're coming from.

If it has a goddamn fully equipped military cargo hold helicopter, you see, it's carrying fucking 50 goddamn people in it or whatever.

Have they just pulled one of those up next to one of these son of a bitches and opened a goddamn door and said, come on in?

According to local officials I've seen on TV, and this is one of those things that crosses political spectrums, Republicans and Democrats united in confusion on what's happening here.

That there have been times that they've gotten within sight or within, you know, close sight of one of the drones and it goes dark and disappears.

It is, it flies away undetected or it disappears.

That's right.

No, I'm asking you.

What is this happening, Costello?

What's the guy's name on that?

I'm not asking you.

Are they saying saying it literally disappears or it just flies away undetected or it just vanishes in front of their fucking eyes?

It's right in front of their eyes.

They have a shot on it.

Not shot.

Oh, shit.

And then it just goes dark.

The lights go out because it always has blinking lights all around.

Well, yes.

Well, at night, when I turn the lights out, my house goes dark, but you can still fucking see it if you try.

It stands still.

Your house isn't zooming at all different angles at all different speeds.

Well, somebody would be able with a flashlight would be able to say, hey, look at that house zooming off into the goddamn stratosphere.

Not if you were running in circles.

If your house was going in circles or going up and down, you wouldn't be able to capture it with the flashlight.

You would think maybe it's there, but maybe it's not.

Wait, if it just gives, I would be able to say, hey, there's a house going up and down in circles.

What the fuck?

Can we animate this?

Look at here.

God damn you.

I'm just saying

that there's there's something going on here because if

the United States military really wanted to know or didn't know and wanted to know about what was going on here,

somebody would have done something to where that that would have happened by now.

So

you can't mean to tell me that

if it's a foreign government or a foreign fucking intelligence from outer space, that the United States military would not have some inkling of.

We have to fucking find out what this is.

Because the way the federal government is playing it off, no, it's nothing to worry about.

We can't really tell you anything about it.

We don't know exactly where it's from, but it poses no threat.

Okay, that does not sound assuring at all.

The local people around here, from the governor on down, are saying, no, this is really happening.

These things are all over the the place.

They're gigantic.

They're fast at times.

They're slow at times.

I captured one going over my house the other day,

but we can't get answers.

And the worst case scenario is that it's a foreign entity, and our government's allowing them to do it.

Well, but the point being,

it does, it just don't add up.

Uncle Huck, explain it to me.

They're obviously not they.

Too many pronouns, pal.

Whoever is

government.

No, no, not the government.

Whoever is operating the drones are not doing a good job of K-fabing the drones.

So, wouldn't you think that if the government was doing it, or if for any reason the government was allowing somebody to do it,

they would have pre-planned and thought, well, if

everybody sees these fucking things, what's our story?

So, that doesn't make any sense that they would go you know nobody's gonna notice what

and again

none of the local mayors who are getting more and more angry in every tv appearance you see from them none of the local mayors none of the local officials police

police police police officials no one you're seeing including the governor phil murphy no one is happy with the response and no one believes the idea Apparently, one of the congressmen like stormed out of a meeting the other day when they said it's nothing to worry about.

It's like, bullshit, I've seen it.

Who was the guy up there that said a mothership from Iran has parked off the coast of the East Coast or whatever?

And it's sending these things out.

Who was the one that said that?

It was a, it was a congressman from Jersey.

I forget his name.

And this is really going to challenge my trademark.

The idea that the Iranians are coming with their own mothership.

With the mothership.

What the fuck?

Hey, you've got a kid.

Do they have any money over there?

You got a case.

Well, we'll see.

They may have a change.

They may have a change of administration soon.

We'll see.

But then here's the thing.

No.

Again, a giant Iranian mothership of some description off the coast of the United States would have been seen, would have been tracked, would have made news in various places around the world.

Not just if the government wanted the goddamn Carnival Cruise Line would have blown by and seen it, right?

So you can't.

K-Fabe something like that anymore in this world.

You could in 1941 1941 for a little while.

But there's no surprises anymore.

So this is a surprise.

And

if it was anybody, would it be Iran?

Do they have technology where they could just say, fuck it, we're going to take a cruise around Jersey, see what they have to say about it?

They ain't going to do nothing.

Are they there yet?

It smells like the Russians, but who knows?

Who knows?

It could be a hobbyist with a fleet of gigantic drones.

Well, it's over a military.

They park at sea.

They park at sea or wherever they're going.

It's over a military base so they could be doing something, or it's over

Pigshit's golf club so his Russian overlords could be keeping an eye on him.

You never know.

Well, we will stay up to date on this drone issue.

I'm looking for the perfect world where one of these things like the drone issue confronts like Ray Gun or something head on.

Super segment here on the show, but Jim.

If you show the aliens a clip of Ray Gun, they will go back to their home planet and say we couldn't find any intelligent life.

Well, Jim, we will find out if there was any intelligent life on December 11th.

AEW Dynamite, the ratings are in Wednesday, December 11th, 2024, AEW Dynamite, 8 to 10.07 p.m.

Oh, boy.

All right.

Well, on average, AEW Dynamite.

I'm flipping papers, Jace.

I'm going to note these numbers as they come in.

Just don't attack the page.

The flipping of the page at the right time is a certain amount of time.

It's about the attacking of

the page.

That's the paper.

Sometimes I'm aggressive with this paperwork.

All right.

Well, let's see how these numbers were for the paperwork.

On average, AEW Dynamite.

December 11th, 594,000 viewers.

Oh,

so orange is the new black and 500 and something thousand is the new 800 and something thousand.

You know, this was up 1% from last week.

It's down 2% from the trailing four-week average and this was winter is coming.

And I think maybe the fans came as much as they're going to for any of these AEW seasons.

I think it's going to be a long, hard winter.

It's going to be blue balls January and February, ladies and gentlemen, as AEW goes to max.

But let's go to the quarterly breakdown.

Ooh, boy, that's going to be strange.

Alrighty.

No, there's some interesting things here.

I mean, there's some good things for AEW in a sense, but there's some interesting stuff here, too.

These were compiled by WrestleNomics quarter one, 8 to 8:15 p.m.

Jay White and Orange Cassidy versus Jon Moxley and Pack with picture-in-picture ads.

675,000 viewers.

Wow.

That is the lowest open in

the history of opens in a regular time, right?

WrestleNomics has a trend line that's dotted, so it's hard to see exactly where it goes.

It appears to be about 100,000 off the trend line average of the first quarter.

And by the way, we love his numbers.

I love them when you read them to me.

But if I try to look at one of those charts or graphs or

PowerPoints or whatever the fuck, it looks like Tony Kahn's Continental Classic graphics to me.

Well, we'll have more about that.

Our new feature, You Pay Us, and I Read Things to You.

But ladies and gentlemen, quarter two.

Did I give the number?

Yeah, I did.

Quarter two.

Yes, you did.

Quarter two, 8:15, 8.30 p.m.

The continuation of white and orange versus Moxley and Pack.

White and orange.

The post-match with Hangman Adam Page and the Death Riders.

Followed by an ad break.

And then a Jon Moxley backstage promo, followed by the the

Dick the Boozer.

Followed by the beginning of Christian Cage's live promo where he calls him a drunk.

633,000 viewers.

Well,

it

wasn't anywhere near their normal first quarter drop.

We can say that for them is only 42,000 people, but they started 100,000 down to begin with.

You know, it's interesting, though, Moxley has been over the last month, I think he was one time in, or maybe two times in the last segment, he was in the nine o'clock hour.

Now he starts to show

he's dragging down the interest in every quarter he's in.

I think it statistically can be shown here.

But let's go now to quarter three, 8:30 to 8:45 p.m.

The Christian Cage hook angle and the start of Claudio Castignoli versus Will Ospreay with picture-in-picture ads,

619,000 viewers.

Well, again, the positive news is that's not many.

It's only another 14,000, but it's not precipitous.

We'll be going out of quarter four, 8.45 to 9 p.m.

Claudio Castignoli versus Will Ospreay continued.

The post-match with Darby Allen.

Ricochet's backstage promo.

MJF.

This is MJF angle.

MJF getting out of the car.

It's not an angle.

We got an angle of MJF from behind, the camera angle.

An ad break.

The Zach Ryder backstage promo.

Zach Ryder.

Matt Cardona.

Matt Cardona.

It says Zach Ryder here.

That was his slave name, wasn't it?

His backstage promo.

The Kyle O'Reilly Undisputed Kingdom backstage angle.

596,000 viewers.

Oh,

so

there's another 194, 23,000, and

they got to pick something up at some point because they're not going to be able to make their average at this rate.

But they are

right now 2,000 viewers off the overall average of the program in quarter four.

Well, Jim, we go to quarter five.

You know what that is?

The big nine o'clock hour, nine to nine: fifteen p.m.

The big Kyle O'Reilly Adam Cole match with picture-in-picture ads.

With MJF hanging in the ballot, they should have put MJF on a poll.

The post-match with Undisputed Kingdom and MJF

and the FTR backstage promo,

554,000 viewers.

Oh, good lord.

The Adam Cole effect.

So that was a drop of 42,000 more at the top of the hour, and

now they're down 121,000.

And again, how are they going to keep this up and get that average?

Does a bus pull up in a parking lot?

With talent?

They'll just come out?

Let's go to quarter six, 9.15 to 9.30 p.m.

By the way, that used to be when we'd run spot shows at schools.

Nobody was there.

We'd stand out there wishing all of a sudden a school bus would pull up.

And then finally, some bit when we opened the new Davis Arena in 2002 for OVW,

I'd been wishing that for 20 fucking years that I'll be a son of a bitch if a school bus didn't pull up when we were already turning people away.

Anyway, we go down to quarters 6, 9, 15, 9.30 p.m.

An ad break.

The Learning Trees backstage promo.

We didn't even talk about how awful this is.

Now the joke is that he just

gives subway paths that don't exist.

He just names random places and random orders.

Yeah, I just skipped over it for lack of space.

This is why he's in Ring of Honor.

A recap: the Darby Allen backstage interview and the start of Ricochet vs.

Brody King,

558,000 viewers.

Well, they're headed back in the right direction.

They lost

121,000 and then picked up 4,000.

Well, let's see what happens next.

Quarter 7, 9.30, 9.45 p.m.

The continuation of Ricochet versus Brody King with picture in picture.

The private party, Leo Rush, action ends ready, top flight, and Layla Gray, who look fantastic.

Backstage angle.

Followed by.

Backstage angle, it was a pissing contest at best.

They argued with each other and all walked away well that was a pissing contest

two of them shook hands and then all in texas video

594 000 viewers holy what again what now

594 44 the 36 000 came back out of nowhere

son of a gun who was the main part of that segment again after all that gibberish uh once again ricochet versus brody king continued from the previous quarter, which was 558.

The private party Leo Rush action and ready top of

Taylor Gray backstage angle.

That wasn't it.

And the all-in-Texas video.

So does Ricochet still have a little cache with this audience that people got on the phone and said, hey, the fucking kids flipping around?

Well, if it means more promo time, we'll see what happens.

Let's go now.

Because now that is their actual, their overall average, 594 in quarter seven.

They nailed it.

Let's go now to quarter eight.

I remind you, we have a seven-minute overrun.

Quarter eight, 9.45 to 10 p.m.

An ad break.

Mercedes-Monet and Anna Jay's backstage angle.

The start of Mariah May versus Mina Shirakawa with picture-in-picture ads.

549,000 viewers.

Oh, they flipped that four and that nine.

And then seven-minute overrun,

the continuation, and the return of Tony Storm, 533,000 viewers.

189,000 in the key demo.

So

go ahead.

201 for quarter eight.

For anyone who thinks like these women angles are really connecting, that was the low point of the regular not overrun show, 201 in the key demo for Dynamite.

The good part, they only lost in regulation from start to finish 126,000 people, which is less than they normally lose.

The bad thing is they started with 100,000 or so less than they normally start with.

And

by the way, do you know what's scheduled now after

AEW's regulation period on TBS?

Yeah, because my DVR recorded until 30 minutes after the hour, so I got to watch a bit of Wipeout.

It was actually enjoyable.

I liked it.

Wipeout with John Cena.

Yeah.

John Cena follows AEW and they ran the wrestling audience off.

They started out with

533,000 people.

So

yeah, there's that.

I mean, what did they expect with this?

You know, again, this was for Winter is Coming.

I think they thought this is a big lineup.

I think they think the Continental Classic is good for business.

I think they think they're elevating their young guys.

I think they think that

with the Moxu thing, I don't know what they think.

I don't know if they think it needs time.

I don't know if time is going to be.

It does need time.

Whoever came up with it needs to be given three to six years in a federal prison.

I don't think you can get away with home incarceration on an offense like this.

I don't know if time's going to be favorable to

this angle, but time

ain't on his side.

No, it ain't.

So AEW is kind of in an interesting position.

I don't know if you saw

the main story in the Wrestling Observer newsletter this week was kind of Dave Meltzer

not avoiding that AEW

has issues while also pointing out, you know, positives and putting a real positive spin on them.

They're still going to make money.

But at the same time, not just saying outright

who's at fault for all of these problems and why the problems are there.

And I guess this comes on the heels of we talked about in advance all in Texas.

I guess word is that maybe they sold 6,000 tickets.

They got like a $1.2 million gate.

So you think, wow, a million-dollar gate.

That used to be a big fucking deal.

You got a million-dollar gate day one, 6,000 tickets.

But what are your thoughts on the state of AEW and what's going on?

And that's one thing they've mastered: fewer people will pay an

overall larger amount for each ticket or whatever.

Dave's column or piece, article, whatever the case

talks about the ratings drops that have happened and talks about that

the arena attendance drop had happened before the ratings drops.

And he goes into a lot of detail on previous promotional wars in the territory days,

whether it be St.

Louis in the 40s, Montreal in the 70s, the IWA, all that we've talked about in various points in time.

Yeah.

Sheiken Bruiser.

But you can't compare

anything happening today to the,

and he even mentions that, of course, that's all ancient history.

Well, why did you spend half a page?

Although that's the most interesting part for me.

But you can't compare that, anything now to the Territory Day wrestling wars because

it was two different groups fighting over the same specific towns, fighting over the same specific buildings, fighting over the same specific TV stations and the same specific fans.

It wasn't,

except for WCW and WWF in the 90s.

Really, it started with Crockett and Vince, you know, but two national national promotions from the start, it was WWF and WCW,

and

they were even more equal in terms of star power when they finally, when WCW finally started bringing the names in, Hall and Nash and Hogan, et cetera,

after that horrible early 90s period.

That's the only thing you can compare to

because it wasn't they're fighting for the whole country and they

they're not fighting for a specific handful of TV stations, you know, in broadcast stations in specific markets and only one or two suitable buildings in any town for wrestling.

That was that's why those wars were so fierce and they didn't last long.

But now with TV networks and corporate ownership and fucking billionaires,

it can go as long as whoever's paying for it wants it to go, pretty much.

But the WWF and WCW War, as I said, was more

competitive because

they kind of started,

you know, somewhat equally back in the 80s with Vince and Crockett's numbers.

And they always stayed somewhat comparable, except for that shitty period in the early 90s.

And then they were kind of comparable again.

And then everything went crazy.

But

the problem here is

not

that people wouldn't maybe watch a second wrestling show, but this second wrestling show has gotten shittier and shittier.

The talent being picked to be pushed is not competitive.

Dave says you got to make new stars.

Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.

But you've got to be able to pick the right people to try to make them.

And Tony has not done that from the start.

He has bought stars and brought stars in and diminished them.

But he hasn't made one from scratch.

If people could say MJF, he made himself.

And

it's not about

two promotions going in with comparable talent and loaded up shows and hot shotting and burning something out.

It's about

Tony just couldn't do this.

And

the stars that he did get that were meaningful, the few,

ran counterproductive to his indie wrestling mindset and crew of EVPs, one of whom escaped to become the biggest babyface in business.

That's.

Dave won't say that because that would be directly offending Tony.

So he will speak in generalities

about you got to make stars and there's got to be the interest in this and that.

But

that's the problem.

And

people have figured out that this thing is run like romper room because all the backstage drama

and people blame punk for that.

There have been people who have punk.

No!

It's punk!

Oh, HR!

Before Punk got there, there were people punching each other.

And after he's gone, there's still people fucking pissed at each other and suing each other.

So, but

that's the thing.

It's turned out to be

a big budget national version of a local fucking indie with a bunch of goofy indie fucking people.

And that's kind of shit that happens in the goofy indies.

Unless you glue yourself to an indie message board, you don't hear about it.

But only this is hundreds of millions of dollars.

But you see, there's a couple of things.

I read that article because, you know, the same way you saw it.

A lot of the listeners sent it over.

I think the disconnect is, one, when you say, well, things are great.

The matches are great and the pay-per-views have been great.

They're great to a smaller and smaller audience for a reason.

And part of the reason is that the matches that are great to some people are maybe not what, that's not what's going to do it for a bigger audience.

And secondly,

in terms of the people Tony Khan has to elevate, he has to elevate young stars.

They've spent so much TV time on Wheeler Yuta.

That's maybe the worst case scenario, the worst example.

Daniel Garcia, not as bad as Yuta.

You know what they did?

They had it with Wardlow.

And then as soon as the next night or the Wednesday after MJF fucked off, they blew it with Wardlow's booking.

Yeah.

But that was the best case scenario because he looked like a wrestler.

He was big.

The fans took to him.

They were chanting his name.

He was super over.

But you know, in hindsight,

I don't know.

Yeah, obviously they botched it, but I don't know if he would be any better off today because I don't think since we've heard him lately, or not lately, since we've heard him since then talk, and

I don't know whether he would have had the ability to grab it by the balls, but I think that fucking Hobbs is maybe who they really missed a boat on.

And can you imagine

as much TV time as Garcia and Wheeler and

Commander or whoever the fuck they're

morons are.

Talogram.

Yeah, where did he go?

Did he disappear?

Into gravity.

Gravity pulled him down.

But, you know, Hobbs has everything.

But nevertheless, that's, you know, that's the thing is

these matches are repetitive and redundant and indie.

Indie level matches.

The people that they had that could have non-indie-level matches, Cody Rhodes, CM Punk, MJF,

FTR,

few and far between, and for various reasons have been nullified or left the building.

Hey, look at Ricky Starks.

You want to talk about a younger wrestler, I don't know, was ageing, maybe in his 30s now, but a younger wrestler on terms of exposure on the national stage who the fans took to as a heel and as a babyface.

And who knows what the fuck happened?

He all of a sudden he just went home and never came back.

But that's another example of someone.

And has mentioned lately, yeah,

I'm ready to come back.

I can't wait to tell everyone what's going on when I can.

That's the other thing.

For anyone who already doesn't have some sort of NDA in place, Tony's move now is going to be making everyone sign everything.

His biggest fear is ending up in the shoot interviews he watched as a kid.

Yeah.

And he's going to do everything he can to get all these guys who have plenty to say to shut up.

That was the big thing with Cody.

All of a sudden, there were NDAs in place for Cody to leave.

What were you so afraid of?

What was Cody going to say?

You smell like weed?

I mean, what's he going to say?

I mean, you know, what's he going to say?

I don't know.

That's the thing.

I want to hear what Brandy has to say, not Cody.

Well, you see where Tony's.

Oh, come on now.

Come on now.

You see where Tony's soft spot is?

As soon as the guy said, hey, his father pays him to stay home.

Oh, fuck them.

And then pull all the guys and everything.

He doesn't want people to

tell people that he's

not able to do this because he's always thought he could do this.

And Dave has apparently propped him up all this time.

You can do it.

You can do it.

And now Dave has to figure out a way to write about about the fact he can't do it while not telling him to his face that he can't do it but it's the picking of the wrong people to push talent judgment is the biggest part of being a booker it's the repetitive indie style matches that now nobody gives a shit what happens to the human body because they've seen it all

it's the nonsensical booking that can only be kept track of by people who spend hours a day in a notebook with friends on the internet keeping track of the points in the tournament type of thing.

It just makes no sense to normal people.

And

the ability not to be a boss, but be a friend and have your backstage be a shit show where the boys can say what they'll do and not do.

come up with their own shit and stick it in the program and work with or not work with whoever they don't want.

And And if nobody's happy, well, go home.

Just your check will be in the mail.

Just go home because I don't want to have to argue with you because we're friends.

Go home.

Just sign this, though.

Just sign the and never say my name ever again.

And but that's that we've been saying this, and that's what's the matter.

And there hadn't been any new developments and anything that's the matter.

It's the same thing.

It's just a cumulative effect of

losing the fans and the viewers' patience

because they have to put up with this one after another after another.

And now they're left with, you know,

and

they're still, you know, losing them, but

they've run off all the people who wanted to watch wrestling.

And instead, it's this indie fucking mindset bullshit

that is continuing to run people off and continuing to not make the

program successful.

And everybody thinks they're making fucking movies.

Well, on the topic of the state of AEW and looking at the indies, too, this thing with GCW, because you brought it up,

they've now pulled, well, we brought it up together, I guess, because they pulled Ricky Starks.

They pulled Willie Mac.

They're running the Hammerstein, which, you know, obviously people there saw as an issue.

No communication.

What came out that I thought was the most interesting was the promoter saying he's never heard from Tony Kahn ever.

Because they've had a lot of things with Moxley when he was AEW's top star

where he was showing up there

but now AEW seemingly looks like they're trying to punish them for the comments one of their wrestlers Effie

made

if you're AEW right now with everything WWE's doing

do you want to push away

one of the larger indie promotions and again we may not be fans of the stuff we've seen but they're one of the bigger companies getting fans to see the wrestlers who they're bringing into their shows out there.

Well, do you push?

Because do you want to?

Because AEW needs relationships in this country, and all their relationships are like New Japan, AAA,

Stardom, like all these companies that

are going to help them.

Why do they need relationships with

people in this country?

To help get future talent.

If WWE is right now actively locking down every talent pool they can, either by going after the schools, the promotions, or IDing the individual wrestlers.

AEW, the goal of that is to shut AEW out of talent.

Okay, well, then here's an idea.

Because before, and in the past, I have been

a proponent of different promotions working with the smaller cut ring of honor, working with smaller regional, local guys, and booking some in the Carolinas or in the Midwest, booking some of their guys on our cards, not to just make them look like jobbers, but so that some of their fans will want to come and they'll look like bigger stars, whatever the fuck, or at other places.

But

that was because everybody was doing legitimate business

and

trying to make a profit.

And

right now, you can't,

there is no reason.

For Tony Kahn with national cable television and streaming coming up and a billion dollars in a bank, and this level of talent in this production to work with a fucking indie that has the bank-addicted drug robber is the best friend of the promoter, and they do death matches.

And I'm sorry, fuck all of you who wants to see that shit.

Something the matter with you mentally.

But

they do need to, what are the what kind of talent are they going to get from there anyway?

They spent $50 million on a video game.

So why don't this guy

take,

and maybe Ring of Honor should be that, but that's another toy for him to book or let Will Wheaton or Alexander Pepper Day maybe pitch in or whatever.

Maybe some of the boys can make it up and he'll bless.

I don't know what's going on.

But just start a fucking training program.

And sign up some of these goddamn, just the same thing the the WWE's doing.

Sign up some of the goddamn indie-level guys for a

not a life-changing amount of money, but for a legitimate amount of money that they could live on and train and work out and not have to wait tables and et cetera, and they're beholden to you and you get first crack at them.

But that would mean that he'd have to run a subsidiary of a business professionally and successfully when he can't run the goddamn main business professionally and successfully.

But that's

he doesn't need to work with every fucking body.

You want to bring in Japanese talent, work with New Japan.

You don't have to work with every goddamn girls indie that fucking does

fetish matches in somebody's apartment with a curtain over the fucking door, Emmy Sakura.

What the fuck?

Remember seeing that?

I just heard some clip.

I just heard a clip of Brian Alvarez and Dave Meltzer arguing again because

I guess the day before, or whatever it was, right before Mina Shirakawa was going to get her world title match,

she got like the shit kicked out of her by Emi Sakura in a match on Collision or whatever.

And again, we don't care, but Alvarez is like,

how could the challenger get the shit kicked out of her by Emmy Sakura?

And Dave's like, well, you know, Emmy Sakura has never won a match in AEW.

Again, there's a a lot of problems there.

But at least they had a ring

and they weren't in somebody's apartment with no furniture in it coming out from behind a fucking shower curtain.

That's what I'm saying.

Tony didn't need to go.

That was Kazakini's thing with, oh, these Joshi princesses should be seen.

Have you a Japanese talent pipeline for major Japanese talent and maybe one in Mexico, although I have not seen

any Mexican talent since Alucha Brothers on his roster that made any difference because there's 18 million of them.

They're all presented the same way and doing the same shit.

And you've got a hundred and God, what did we say, 200?

Did we figure that out?

Wrestlers under contract,

concentrate on 80 of them before you worry about where am I going to find my new talent.

What the fuck?

A lot of them are working, though, in the at-home program.

Well, and there's no way

that I would have been letting the plumber, Dick the Boozer,

he wouldn't have been working independence even for a legitimate professional promoter, much less the guy that does garbage matches.

Because I would say to him, I'm sorry that you have this fetish, John, for whatever this fucking

garbage, hardcore, fucking death match wrestling bullshit is, but I pay you millions of dollars a year.

I don't want my world champion on a fucking show that does that shit.

And I don't want you getting hurt on somebody else's show doing that shit when I'm paying you.

So you will work for me.

The guy making $125,000 a year, I'll let him do some outside dates because he needs the extra money.

And if he's only making $125 for me, I don't give a fuck whether he gets hurt or not.

That's the way a fucking promoter talks.

Sorry if I offended anyone.

Well, real quick, we'll end with this in this conversation about the state of AEW.

I have a quote here from an interview Tony Kahn did at the all-in Texas ticket on sale event with Mr.

Rightway, whoever that may be.

Wait, what?

What now are they?

Are they having a drugstore fucking sponsorship now?

Oh, that's right-aid.

I'm sorry.

It's spelled W-R-I-G-H-T.

So, right way, Mr.

Rightway.

He asked if AEW would produce another

console game, and if so, when?

Here's what Tony said.

Let me read this to you.

Well, it's a great question, and I think it was a great experience for us.

And now it's going to be something for AEW as a multimedia conglomerate, a worldwide corporation, definitely.

It was a great first entry with AEW Fight Forever.

Wait a minute.

Hold on.

I zoned out earlier, but let me catch up with you.

You missed several.

People could still play AEW Fight Forever all over the world.

And I think eventually, absolutely, we'll keep putting AEW games into the world.

But right now,

right now, we're fully supporting AEW Fight Forever.

And I'm excited about AEW Fight Forever.

There's still more wrestlers and exciting things happening with the game.

And, you know, I think there's a lot of opportunities in the world of gaming.

To your point,

what, what, what,

oh,

it's you know, as soon as you hear, well, it's a great question.

He starts so many of his answers that way.

Did it

bring me up to date?

Did this thing suddenly start selling the video game they did, The Fight Forever, or is it still on sale?

We saw people tweeting pictures of it on clearance at Walmart or whatever.

It didn't do what they had hoped it was going to do.

I think everybody agreed on that, but is it still out there or is it just now just floating around?

It's still out there.

Technically, they could still update the game, but no one bought the game.

The people that did buy the game seemed to return a whole lot of those games, the physical units, the people who had digital downloads.

Maybe fuck.

I got a copy because it was free.

It was part of the PlayStation Plus free games in a month.

So I was able to download one.

I didn't pay for it, but you could pay for, I guess, packs where you get different wrestlers, maybe pack, actually.

You get different wrestlers and you get to use them, but apparently the game itself sucks so bad that no one wants to do any of that.

So they have a game that no one plays that they still fully support.

It's a great question.

Definitely.

AW as a multimedia conglomerate.

A multimedia conglomerate.

So he owns the Dallas Times-Herald now.

A worldwide corporation.

Because my dad got me an apartment in London.

Great part.

A worldwide corporation.

Hold on, hold on.

If you mentioned his dad getting an apartment at London.

I didn't mean that in a bad way.

I meant that in a pleasant way.

That, like, oh, come here, son.

Let me buy you this penthouse.

Give you an apartment.

Let me get you this penthouse.

Meet your new doorman.

Cadbury.

So

we'll see what else Mr.

Rightway can find out about this in the future.

But that's the state of AEW.

And Jim, do you think AEW right now,

if everyone knew about the wrestling business the way we do, would AEW right now be able to go out and get insurance?

Well, it depends on what kind of insurance, Brian, because I don't, if they were,

if they were to try to go out and maybe get fire insurance, I don't know because.

Sounds like they're about to have a fire sale over there.

But I think health insurance, that's what they need because they're risking their necks out there.

And who knows what Tony Kahn's insurance plan is, but I'll tell you what, folks, if you want to go to one of America's leading insurance brokers with nearly 40 years of experience helping over 2 million customers find over $700 billion

in coverage since 1985, and I'll tell you what, how did those people afford $700 billion in coverage?

And it seems like when they passed on, the family would

would have thrown a party.

But nevertheless, it's the people at SelectQuote, because other

run-of-the-mill ordinary life insurance brokers offer impersonal, one-size-fits-all policies that may cost you more and cover you less.

I mean,

you're paying for the whole suit and they're giving you a fig leaf.

But SelectQuote's licensed insurance agents work for you to tailor a life insurance policy for your individual needs in as little as 15 minutes.

That's if you don't have many needs, but they will tailor it for you, folks.

And I'll tell you what,

if you have high blood pressure, no problem.

It's not their problem, it's your blood pressure, but they can get you coverage.

If you got diabetes, that's fine too.

Well, actually, it's probably again a pain in your ass, but they don't care because they can cover you.

And even if you've got heart disease, if you've still got a pulse, folks, select quote, partners with carriers that can cover those conditions and others you might find laying around your carcass or the corpse, it may be.

After you're gone, they'll do a complete post-mortem and they'll find out everything that was wrong with you.

Let's focus on the living.

Let's talk to the living.

Well, they have insurance brokers that they work with that they will

have you covered for the complete post-mortem and the autopsy, and they'll send all your organs back in a nice gift box.

Folks, even if you have all those troubles, or even if you don't have any major health issues, they work with carriers that can get you same-day coverage with no medical examination required, although they are optional if you would prefer to have someone come to your home and

stick something in various orifices to just, you know, check your oil and

to see about the state of things.

I'm sure we could work that out.

I'm sure you can't work anything out and i'm sure we there is no we here and i'm sure that people should just go about things the normal way and if you need insurance and you need help select quote is here for you tell them about it without anything else additional to that jim we

that means yes in french folks head to selectquote.com and a licensed insurance agent will call you right away with the right policy for your life and your budget and if you're trying to get your husband insured without his knowledge just give them a wink and knock three times and they'll know what's going on there too.

Select quote, they shop, you save, and get the right life insurance for you for less at selectquote.com slash JCE.

That is selectquote.com slash JCE right now to get started.

And you know, it's that time of year.

You got to get the health insurance.

You got to check into that type of thing.

So now's the time.

You're only going to get sick and die from here, folks.

There's really not, it's not like anybody ever feels better as they get older.

Again, let's focus on the positives.

And if you need insurance, once again, Jim.

Yes, selectquote.com

slash JCE.

What are you?

Are you laughing about the fact that people are going to deteriorate?

This is not a laughing matter.

This is a serious matter.

Age, I'm telling you, when age sets in, you deteriorate.

You're right in front of your fucking very eyes.

Look in the mirror.

You'll see shit falling off of you.

All right.

Well, we're going to say select quote.

Once again, what's that link, Jim?

Well, it's not a link.

It's a slash, selectquote.com/slash JCE.

Well, that is a link for the record.

Is that a link?

If there's a slash there, it's still a link.

Well, it might be the missing link.

I don't know.

If there's a, if there's a dot-com, it is definitely a link.

Oh, well, I thought that was a dot-com, a website, not a link.

All right.

Well, let's

link ourselves back to reality here.

Jim,

several listeners sent this in a couple of weeks ago.

ESPN has put together their list of the 30 best pro wrestlers under 30.

Oh, I can't wait to hear this.

The author of the column is ESPN.

What if the whole company contributed?

It was such a massive project.

The next generation of professional wrestling is already in peak position to be the future faces of sports entertainment.

Oh, good Lord.

So already we're adopting a tone of calling it right down the middle, the positives and the negatives.

Last year, ESPN took on the unique task of highlighting the young stars, the top young stars, excuse me, across WWE,

AEW,

New Japan Pro Wrestling, and other wrestling promotions worldwide.

The result was the inaugural list of the 30 best professional wrestlers under the age of 30.

Why under the age of 30?

In wrestling, the sports.

Who under the age of 30?

Why under the age of let me clarify this?

The sports top stars usually peak in their 30s.

John Moxley, formerly Dean Ambrose, won his first WWE Intercontinental title at age 30.

Charlotte Flair won the first WWE Women's Championship at age 30.

Swerve Strickland won his first AEW World Championship just this year at age 33.

You know what?

Charlotte started late to begin with, and the rest of them spent 10, 15 years on fucking outlaw shows before anybody noticed them.

Below is our second edition of the 30 best pro wrestlers under the age of 30.

The rankings were based on merit rather than future potential, which is far more subjective.

The criteria included drawing power, popularity, skills, position on the roster, and accomplishments.

Well, hold on here, because position on the roster.

If you've got Pavarotti

and you're fucking booking him to be the, you know, one guy in a 15-man chorus then that's not Pavarotti's fault is it so they shouldn't consider position on the card because that's not up to the talent and secondly what was the last criteria

the criteria drawing power popularity skills position on the roster and accomplishments including championships and tournament victories again

What the fuck?

You could have the greatest wrestler in the world and they never fucking put a belt on him or had him win anything.

But go ahead.

A dozen different promotions were represented in our voting across multiple countries.

Oh, and here, I guess, here's the list: the people who provided analysis on the final list: Andreas Hale, Mike Coppinger,

David Dennis Jr.,

Arda O'Cal,

Brandon.

I heard of him,

Brandon Caldwell, and Eddie Masonet

provided analysis on the final.

I've heard of Arda O'Kal because he has done

MMA and/or wrestling commentary in a variety of places for some time, right?

Or

talk shows about same and things like that.

He's done something, and I know he's done something because his name always stands out because it's the only name I've ever seen like that in my life.

Yes, yes.

I always think of Alan Alda, but otherwise, who are these fucking people?

Editor's note, along with the writers above, special thanks to Mark Raimundi and Sashin

Shandan for their voting participation in this year's list.

Well, Mark Raimondi is.

What connection did he have with the UFC?

Oh, I was thinking he was like the sports media reporter.

Why do I, okay, then maybe he's the UFC beat coverer then.

The other person, I don't know.

But nevertheless, okay,

top 30, 30, under 30,

number one is Braun Breaker, correct?

Number one, age 27,

Dominic Mysterio.

Okay, then the whole thing's fucking blown already.

Promotion WWE last year's rank number five.

The son of the legendary Luchador Rey Mysterio has become the ultimate heat magnet in pro wrestling.

From his mullet, and cartoon villain mustache to his dastardly relationship with Liv Morgan.

Dastardly.

Which only didn't say bastardly, maybe?

What?

Which only amplified the hate.

Mysterio has cemented himself into a full-blown heel in an era where there are too many cool bad guys.

He's easy to hate, but has quietly improved his in-ring skills to match his persona.

He has become a constant presence on WWE television, who never wears that as welcome.

Instead, showering him with deafening booze has become the best part of the show for most.

Well, there it is.

There's the reasoning behind it.

What are your thoughts?

Well,

and also the pointing out the, but I guess this is

an analysis of people for the layman in the audience and not a professional,

on either side of professional analysis, but you know, mentioning his cartoon villain mustache or whatever.

I love Dominic.

He's a heat magnet.

He's done a great job.

But if they're trying to assess a list of the 30 best pro wrestlers, meaning the ones that right now are tremendous and are going to get better, and they're all under 30, and you don't have Braun Breaker as number one, your whole fucking list is goddamn caca.

Well, number two on the list at the age of 28,

MJF,

last year's number one.

He's number two this year.

And I agreed with it last year, and this year I agree that he ought to be probably

highly placed, but behind Dominic, but not behind Braun Breaker.

And they wrote

a very, very glowing review of MJF.

Number three on the list, age 29, right at the limit.

Tony Storm.

AEW, last year she was 16.

Storm is the perfect example of a wrestler reinventing themselves in a post-WWE world.

In this postmodern society, I think what she's done is spectacular.

They're writing for Marx now, and this is not a serious business analysis.

Number four, age 28.

Rhea Ripley.

WWE, last year she was number two.

Okay, didn't even think about Rhea, but yes, since she's under 30,

then she should have obviously been ahead of Tony Storm as she is in every other fucking category in the world.

But

you've got Braun, you've got Rhea, and you got Braun, Rhea, Dominic.

I would go with one, two, three,

based on anybody that I'm not thinking of.

I could buy that, but, you know,

they're starting to bore me.

Well, number five on the list, age 26, Mariah Mae.

Oh, Christ on a Cracker.

Mariah May.

It says here, known for her Christ on a Cracker move.

Yeah.

She was not rated last year.

Number six on the list, age 29, right at that limit.

Last year's number eight, Konosuke Takesha.

Kenose Kenoske.

I can't say his name.

Konosuke Takesha.

Well, and I agree that he should be on a list of top 30, but now that he's behind Maria May, it's somewhat of a goddamn embarrassment at this point, isn't isn't it?

Number seven on the list at the age of 27.

Jack Perry.

Jack Perry, last year he was number 13.

Did Braun Breaker, was he born out of wedlock when his father was only like 13 years old and is 35 secretly?

Number eight on the list at the age of 25.

Kyle Fletcher.

Kyle Fletcher from AEW.

Last year he was not ranked.

But last year ranked, number 29, was number nine on this list at the age of 26.

Daniel Garcia.

Daniel Garcia, the new million-dollar man for AEW.

Jim, number 26.

There are really

one,

two,

there are three legitimate superstar level talents that are

that are right now superstar level talents and one that can be on this so far.

Dominic, MJF, and Ripley are there, and our boy Take might can be.

Otherwise, they're just jacking off the fans that buy the magazine now or the

website or whatever.

Number 10, and this is a real big story.

Last year, number 30 on the list at the age of 27, it's Shoda Umino

from New Japan Pro Wrestling.

Shoda, who the fuck have

we seen him

from AEW?

The fans of New Japan.

What is this picture?

They got a picture of him holding up like a vibrator or something.

Oh, no.

I don't know too much about him.

Number 11 on the list, age 27.

Braun Breaker.

Well, thanks for stopping by, Braun.

Last year, number 16.

What do they have to say about Mr.

Breaker?

Breaker is both Steiner brothers in one.

He has the explosiveness of his father, Rick,

and the charisma of his uncle, Scott.

He's one of those professional wrestlers who looks like he should be on Sports Center for his real-life speed and athleticism.

His rise in NXT was meteoric, but Breaker showed his main event potential in his feud with Sami Zayn in a best two out of three falls match for the Intercontinental Championship, which he won in August on Raw.

Braun jumps off the screen and should be main eventing WrestleManias in the next few years.

I don't disagree with any of that.

But yet he's six spots below Maria May.

And, of course, right behind him, number 12, as you would probably guess, Jim, age 28.

Kaito Kiomiya.

From Noah and

NJPW.

He was 21 last year, so he's really climbing high.

Number 13 on the list, age 27,

El Hijo del Vicingo.

He was number four last year, so he's really starting to slip, just like when he runs across the top run.

Number 14 on the list, Jim, age 29, not rated last year,

Chris Scatlander.

I didn't realize she was still in her 20s.

That's interesting.

Well, and, you know, again, again, somebody with a lot of potential if she could get out of her current environment, but apparently not as much as Coyote Come here and see you.

Number 15 on the list.

Last year he was number three,

age 27, Austin Theory.

Boy,

remember when he was fucking great?

It seems so long ago now.

He's the one casualty of Vince McMahon leaving that didn't come out better on the other side.

There's a story somewhere.

We'll find out at some point.

Number 16, age 28, Jordan Grace from TNA and WWE.

Followed by at 25 years of age.

Number 17, Hook.

Hook.

Hook, everybody.

Hook, everyone.

He was not ranked last year.

Number 18,

age 25, Tiffany Stratton.

Tiffany Stratton of SmackDown last year not ranked.

Followed by, of course, at the age of 23, number 19, Mascara Dorada 2.0.

What?

The son of Luchador Legend of Festo and not Mascara Dorado, which could be confusing

because he's Mascara Dorada 2.0.

Well, we'll see what else we can find out about him.

Number 20, at the age of 23,

Roxanne Perez from NXT.

Not ranked last year.

Number 21,

28 years of age.

So for everyone who says he'll fill out as he gets older, 28 years of age, Wheeler Yuda.

Oh, good Lord.

Wheeler Yuda.

He's almost 30?

Almost 30.

When he's drinking some milkshakes.

Number 22, last year, number 10 at the age of 29, Logan Paul.

Number 23, Yuma Aogi from All Japan Pro Wrestling, not ranked last year.

Followed by number 24 at the age of 27, Gabe Kidd.

Gabe Kidd from New Japan Pro Wrestling.

Followed by Utami

Hayashishita.

26 years of age.

That's a tough one.

I've never read that name before.

From Marigold.

Marigold.

Not to be confused with Gleat or Marvelous

or any of the other.

What has happened to Japanese wrestling?

This guy could be going back and forth amongst all of them.

At 26, 23 years of age, Julia Hart, AW,

27, 21.

Wait a minute.

She shot herself.

She shot an arrow in the air and then it stuck her in the hair.

And then she did some other stuff.

And then we hadn't seen anything in a while.

What happened with that?

Well, she was just doing vignettes where she was interrupting number 27 on the list, Jamie Hayter, at the age of 29.

And then number 28, we're almost here at the end.

Shun

number 28 from DragonGate.

At the age of 28, it's Shun Skywalker.

Shun Luwer.

Shun Luke's Japanese cousin.

Followed by at the age of 29, number 29, Dragon Lee.

And finally, as you all probably guessed, number 30, Yuma Enzai from All Japan Pro Wrestling, number 30 at the age of 25.

The top 30 under 30.

Jim, do you have a lot of faith in the future of wrestling?

This is looking pretty fucking dim.

Look on this list, Braun Breaker.

I'm going to list people that could be, have the potential to be, and/or possibly, or probably will be, major stars in the wrestling business.

Braun Breaker

still got faith in Austin Theory one of these days.

Logan Paul's already there.

Poor Statlander needs help.

You got Dom Mysterio is already there.

You got MJF.

You got Rhea Ripley is

already there.

And I've mentioned Braun.

And

holy shit.

So that's one, two,

three,

four,

five,

six,

maybe, maybe seven people on a list of 30 that are actually going to be legitimate stars in the wrestling business.

And when they say AEW needs to develop stars, and they do, the people that they have on this list that really represent them,

you know, MJF, who is a star already, he doesn't need to be established.

He got there early.

That's the difference between him and a lot of people on the list.

But We Were Yuda and Daniel Garcia.

Come on, against Dominic Mysterio and Rhea Ripley

and Braun Breaker.

AEW is developing the wrong people.

But again, who would develop them?

That's the other thing.

The developing the wrong people, but if they had the right people, they'd be wasting them.

So it's not like there's a real loss anywhere.

Well, that's

what I'm trying to get.

It's like,

I don't know how many times you can say this, that

it's not contradictory by any of the objective evidence, whether it be gates or ratings or crowd response or YouTube views or whatever metric you're trying,

the hottest that anybody is when they come into AEW is when they come into AEW.

Right or wrong?

Always, yeah.

Because people like the idea of them

and they want to see more of them

and they appreciate some talent of theirs.

And then

so it's not just the talent, it's the presentation.

But was anybody clamoring

the first time they saw Wheeler Yuta on television to see more Wheeler Yuda?

I remember the first time we saw him.

It was that Ring of Honor tournament during the pandemic.

The Pure Championship, maybe?

It was just, it was all like, you know, guys who could grapple nicely in front of no fans.

Right.

And we said, oh, he's.

He's all right.

He's really, really, really skinny.

And he looks almost exactly the same today as he did then.

He just has facial hair now.

But that's the point with these new, the new talent.

It's not only whether or not

they have talent and potential, but whether they're used properly.

And,

you know, Mark's made up this list,

and it shows because two-thirds of the list are not

anybody otherwise than people that might go on the card somewhere.

And that's the problem.

We need 30 fucking potential superstars over the next five years, not seven potential or present superstars and a bunch of fucking indie darlings.

And the wrestlers need to step up because they would mostly rather be indie darlings

than be professional fucking wrestlers.

You can tell because there's so many indie darlings

or ones that work like it and there's so few legitimate professional wrestlers

jim let's get a question here from the cult of cornet facebook group this was sent in by

joel clemenson

is austin versus hogan the biggest match to have never happened

well my god ever we might be here pouring through tim hornbaker books for fucking and brian solomon books for you know several days um

well you know but the other thing as you were evaluating this

the interesting thing is the what if it had happened if it had happened

it probably would have been within that window where they would have made the most amount of money possible for that match yeah

So

yeah, I think that may have been, certainly it would have grossed more than any other what if match.

You can go back and say, Bruno and Fez, right?

They would have done that in Shea Stadium, and they would have drawn 30 or 40,000 people, but it wouldn't have grossed nearly what

Hogan and Austin would have, you know, 25 years later, 30 years later, whatever the timeframe was.

Bruno versus Andre, which Bruno always wanted to do, and Vince Sr.

wouldn't let him do it.

Again, that would have been Shea Stadium, and that would have been probably 40,000 people.

But

at the same point, the tickets would have still been, you know, back in the normal days.

Can you think of

Fez and Rogers for the NWA title happened

on a number of occasions?

It just Thes controlled the finish.

That was a big match then, but that's a different thing.

And

I'll work with him.

He's just never going to fucking beat me.

So

that's happened in numerous occasions, and the match has happened.

So

Bruno Andre, Bruno Thes,

Hogan Austin.

I'm trying to think of whether the biggest match, again, it can't just be like wrestlers from different generations, guys that in their prime.

Like you guys never worked with the Hart Foundation or the Bulldogs.

Those are matches for tag team fans.

Those are some of the biggest matches that never happened.

And that would have been possible because we were both active at the same time.

You can't say Jim Londos versus John Cena.

Right, exactly.

Huh.

And maybe it.

Yeah, you know, the other thing is, if you think about like changing history around altogether,

if Flair had come in to the WWF

in 85 or 86

or 87,

would a program with Flair and Hogan have actually done more business?

Because I don't know if it would have.

Then everything with Hogan leading up to Orendorf and then Orendorf and then Andre.

Yeah, no, because

Flair had more,

maybe respect might be the word, but Flair had more respect and cachet and notoriet with the fans of the early 90s from that run on TBS and with Crockett and WCW.

By the time he got up there,

I'm not saying the booking wasn't mismanaged of when he got up there.

They could have done the outsider thing better and had the dream match on at WrestleMania and all that stuff.

But

I don't know that he would have gotten over,

Flair being he, would have gotten over as strong as Flair did

from 1986 to 1990 if he'd have gone to the WWF.

Because Flair became the guy.

Well, they already had the guy up there.

So

he was only going to, at best, become the co-guy or the second guy.

What do you think?

As far as matches,

I don't think he would have, I don't think anything was going to do more business than the Orndorff turn did, which was coming off everything from WrestleMania.

Yeah.

Which, you know, led into everything with Andre, which then led into Hogan doing no holds barb.

And also, Flair got over because of the NWA style of wrestling and the Crockett style of the program and the promos and the matches and not, you know, Vince's style.

i'm trying to think of any other good examples of the you know i mean one that it wouldn't have been the biggest match if it had happened or it's not the biggest match that didn't happen but in terms of matches that were teased and you never got it lawler and piper

not like when oh yeah in 82 yeah not the stuff in wwf in 94 95 whatever it was but the stuff in georgia and memphis hey at that point in time That's when I was going to Norman Dooley's house to watch Georgia wrestling every week because Piper and Lawler were promoing each other, and there was going to be a fucking match.

And holy shit, this was great, and the interviews were great.

And then

all of a sudden, Piper's gone.

And

that was the period of time where was it Oli fired him?

Or he believe so, yeah.

It was either an Oly, you're fired, or I quit anyway, because somebody told me that Roddy at the time wanted to just sit on the beach and partake in his substances.

But so the match never took place in the Omni and you never got the, you know, the payoff of that.

But yeah, for promos,

we were dying to see that.

And Lawler was the heel, right?

That's the way I remember it.

Lawler was the heel in Georgia.

Yes.

In Memphis, Piper was the heel.

Well, and the same thing would happen later on with Lawler and the WWF guys that would come in.

Brett would be a heel.

Vince would be a heel and whatever.

But because you couldn't

it it wasn't exposing the business as much as people think it was for lawler to be a heel on national tv and be a babyface in memphis because the people in memphis loved him because he had been the biggest heel in memphis and then he switched and he would tell everybody i'm going to do whatever i'm going to be the old king when i go to georgia or when I go up to the, you know, Minneapolis territory, when I go to Florida, I'm going to do what I've got to do to beat these guys because I don't care about those people.

I love you.

And it fucking worked.

Well, Jim,

the match may not have worked out, but you have to think back then, fans.

They couldn't call each other.

Some fans were going to Norm Dooley's house.

Fans did not have the means to connect the way they do today to say, something's happening.

I had to call somebody.

That's right.

They couldn't just call each other at the drop of a hat.

You had to go find a pay phone and have change in your pocket, or you had to borrow your friend's mother's phone and charge a long-distance phone call.

Remember, long-distance phone calls, Brian, they were expensive.

Well, all that stuff doesn't happen now.

You can call Zimbabwe or Zambodia on a Mint mobile phone plan.

It costs you the same thing:

$15 a month, call wherever you want, do whatever you want.

Imagine if there was any other service in the world

that for $15 a month, you could use it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and do whatever you wanted on it, and they weren't going to charge you anymore.

Brian, would that be the hottest product in the history of the world?

Hot stuff.

Hot stuff.

Then why are people not talking about the $15 a month phone plans at Mintmobile?

Well, I guess they are talking about it because that's what we're doing.

Mint Mobile has the premium wireless plan starting at $15 a month for the three-month plan.

They got the high-speed data, unlimited talk and text, and the nation's largest 5G network.

Did we ever figure out what the 5Gs are?

The 5Gs?

It's one of my favorite soul groups, actually.

No, no, that was the 5G.

Oh, child, things are going to get easier.

See, I was just making up a song.

You just went right with something that's out there in the public.

Out there, it's out there.

I'm telling you what, it's out there, and you can hear it on the Mint Mobile phone plan because you can look up the goddamn

YouTube on the phone and just play it to your heart's content.

Hold that phone up next to your head.

Use your own phone so it's already got your stink on it, your fingerprints all over it.

With any Mint Mobile plan, bring your phone number.

Hell, we'll all just jump in the pool and have a big party.

All your existing contacts, tell them to come over too.

As soon as you get 30 or 40 people in your house, Mint Mobile will come and they'll fix them all up with a phone plan for $15 a month.

Have I said that amount enough, Brian, where they understand how any, that's 50 cents a day,

except in,

well,

January, March,

October, within this 30, so it's less than 50.

Can you, are you doing this math?

Was I supposed to be doing math?

You're supposed to be doing math because in a day, in a day with 31 months in it, in a month with 31 days in it, this plan is less than 15 or 50 cents a day.

It's $15 a month.

Now, in February, you're getting fucked.

No, let's not look at it that way.

Well, there's only 28 days.

The average goes way up.

I mean, it's still cheap, but in the long run.

Let's look at it over a one-year period of time.

It will equal out in the end.

And in the end, we're $15 a month for your plan.

You're the winner with Mint Mobile.

Tell them about it, Jim.

Well, you only have to look at three months because that's the new three-month premium plan is just $15 a month.

That's $45.

See, you do the math that way, but you only have to look at three months.

It's still going to save you money.

And for heaven's sake, then,

you know, at some point, you can just say, well, if the month is a few days longer this month,

then I'm just, I'm even better off.

You go to mintmobile.com/slash JCE.

That is mintmobile.com/slash JCE to cut your wireless bill to $15 a month.

And again, you can call people to the point where they get so fucking sick and fed up with you, they'll never speak to you again.

It won't cost you a penny more.

You can text photos of your sphincter to people all over the place.

Why note, Cook?

We're right at the end of this.

Come on, again, of all the suggestions, you have the weirdest sicko, sicko, fucko purvo

ideas

that's like that that time that i signed a thousand pictures right

i autographed a thousand color eight by tens

for for a guy you know your friend jim cornet

but in one of them just because i was getting a little slappy along about 784 i signed it something like you know, fuckwad McGee.

And I'm just, because I, then that kept me going for the rest of the time thinking that one person out of a thousand is going to get a picture in the mail that says fuck Wad McGee.

Once again, Mint Mobile, one more time, one last time, Jim.

Tell them anything you have to tell them and let's get going.

Mint Mobile.

Mint Mobile, the sound of an orchestra swells in the background.

Mintmobile.com slash JCE.

$45 upfront payment required, equivalent to $15 a month, new customers on first three-month plan only.

Speed slower above 40 GB on the unlimited plan.

Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply.

See Mint Mobile.

For details.

All right.

That means it's time to move on.

So

now it's just moving on music.

Moving on, moving right along with the, of course, the theme to the Great Brian Last.

Jim, let's get some more questions here before we wrap things up.

Here's a question that was sent via the Cultic Cornet Facebook group from Joe Morris.

Where do all the dead birds go?

Billions upon billions of birds in the world.

Shake a tree and they'll be there.

Look in the sky, likely too.

Where do all the dead birds go?

So, Jim, you're Mr.

Nature.

What are your your thoughts on this question?

They go, they fall down and go, boom.

You've never,

what's his name, Joe?

Joe has never

been along and seen a bird laying on the ground.

It happens.

Most of the time, they probably drift into unoccupied areas of

the world.

But yeah, you can walk around out in the woods and you'll see a dead bird every so often.

So

it happens.

But then they don't stay there long because then

you got your turkey buzzards and your vultures and your other big birds.

Haven't you ever seen, Brian?

Well, you got every time you see roadkill up there in New Jersey, there's birds eating on it, right?

Not every time.

Sometimes.

I mean, usually it's by the side of the road.

That's where you see it.

Well,

it's fresh bird.

If it's in the middle of the road, the birds aren't stupid.

That's why the thing got dead because it was in the middle of the road.

But on the side of the road or out in the fucking yard or whatever, the big birds are going to come down and eat the little bird.

The big birds will come down and eat a fucking rabbit.

Oh, I found a rabbit last summer, part of a rabbit out in the yard that after it had been

somebody's dinner.

But

which part?

It's it, well, there were various parts of it, but a lot of parts were missing.

You couldn't really have reassembled anything,

but it's part

of the cycle of life.

That's what happens.

Harley found these moles I've got.

Ever since they started putting a subdivision in across the road from me, they ran the moles from that 26 acres all over on this side of the road.

And now I've got moles everywhere.

And I'm always tamping down mole runs while I'm walking Harley.

But she found one of them last summer.

Again, it was just with its feet up on its back in a mulch bed, laying there deader than four o'clock,

deader than Kelsey's nuts.

And

I don't know what happened to it, but something happened.

And then it wasn't there the next day because something came along and ate it.

It's the cycle of life.

So in conclusion, Jim, where do dead birds go?

In bigger live birds' stomachs, or potentially raccoons, or

minks, or coyotes, or

things of such such of that nature.

Jim, another question from the Culta Cornet Facebook group.

This one was sent in by David Bromley.

We get this one every few years, it always changes.

If Jim started a promotion now, who would be the floor?

Shoot me.

Who would be the first five wrestlers he would sign before being shot?

All righty, god damn it.

Braunbreaker.

Because now we're talking about signing now and starting now.

So Randy Orton would not be on my list because,

you know, he's closer to the end than the beginning.

Some of these people, you know, that you would think would be

like, is he going to fucking want this guy or that guy?

Well, they might be too old to start right now.

Well, you want, obviously, a veteran or two.

Well, he's only five, so I guess one veteran, maybe at five.

are we picking Braun Breaker?

We're picking Cody, we're picking Gunther,

we're picking Rhea Ripley,

we're picking are you wasting that pick?

I love Rhea Ripley, but if you're not going to have a women's division, or if you're not going to, I mean, again, you're picking a woman in a spot of five.

Well, I'm not going to start a promotion with five fucking people,

but who's the if anyone could do it?

You could do it.

All right, well, I believe in you.

You know what?

They used to have cards with four guys on the card, two singles matches and a tag team match, and that was enough for people.

Hey, why does that mask jobber have a tattoo on his neck?

He looks familiar.

But no, you want Cody because he's

the hottest babyface right now in a business.

You want Braun Breaker because he's a future babyface or heel.

You want Gunther

because he's a tremendous heel right now, but people respect him.

You want Rhea Ripley because she's a fucking movie star.

And if you're going to have any women's wrestling, you feed all the other girls to her.

And then now I'm just going blank on because we do like other people

and I don't want to leave anybody out.

MJF would be a consideration if

we thought that we could make people forget the way he's been booked for the last

few years.

Well, that's a good question, too, with MJF.

If you know you have a wrestler who's still young, but also has desires outside of wrestling, if you could only pick five people, are you giving one of those spots to someone who may want to film a movie for half the year?

Well, but if I'm goddamn starting a promotion, there's going to be enough money involved that maybe he might not want to do that fucking movie, or

maybe I might want him to do that movie if I think it's going to make him a bigger fucking star.

But I wouldn't want him if,

despite how fucking great he may be, if everybody in the world thought he was a fucking putz because he's been booked like an idiot.

And fortunately, none of the four people that I just mentioned have suffered that fate.

So I don't know about the fifth spot.

Because

if he's not coming to my mind immediately, then maybe there's something wrong.

All right.

So it will be a four-man card, ladies and gentlemen.

That's conversation.

Well, no, it won't be a four.

It'll be four, four, four people, three people or a woman.

Two people and a woman.

Yeah, no, but

I mean, who would you put, who would you, who am I forgetting that we love and think has nothing but a bright future ahead?

See, that's the question.

How much of a future do you need?

If you're just trying to establish your company,

you're not really worried about the wrestlers' future.

You're worried about the wrestlers now and tomorrow.

I hate to say something like this, it's a goofy pick, but I get Juice Robinson's the kind of guy that you look at and you say,

if he was done differently.

Well, yeah, I know, and there would have to be more of those because there would have to be

30 or 40 guys instead of, but who are the top five, the first ones you'd go after without question?

This is.

I'll tell you what.

Since you took Rhea Ripley, I would take Bianca Belair.

Just so I know I have another woman at that level in the ring with the fans in terms of how they're over, that I always have that to fall back on.

Well, in that case, then I'll take Charlotte.

All right, I'll take Greensboro.

Some people might say, why don't you take Roman Reigns?

Well, he's already part-time to begin with, even though he's a little more part-time.

That's a whole nother level of part-time right there.

Brock Lesnar,

there's the thought that, boy, that would make an impact right off the bat.

Well, that's the other thing.

If you're starting a promotion, hypothetically, the idea you're going to be running six days a week is ridiculous.

You'd be based around.

Well, who are you to tell me what kind of schedule I'm going to run?

You're going to probably be based around big shows, and you need guys for big shows, even if, you know, that means 12 times a year.

That's all you need them for.

So someone like Lesnar isn't ridiculous.

You don't have to worry about Raw.

Yeah.

The Ric Flair Smoky Mountain Wrestling offer, just

10 grand a month for one show.

Give me 12 a year.

Only it would be more than 10 grand.

Thank God you had Smoky Mountain in the works.

Otherwise, you would have been the Kentucky Colonel.

He loved that idea.

We'll call you the Kentucky Colonel.

Were you going to dress like that?

Do you think if

Ric Flair told Vince McMahon, I want to bring Cornette in to make him my manager and call him the Kentucky Colonel, you think I wouldn't be dressed like Colonel Sanders with a bucket of fucking chicken?

Would Vince McMahon have done it, or would he have said Kentucky sounds too small time,

knowing how Vince is?

Well, but then he would have gone with the Colonel Tom Parker thing anyway,

much as they did with Robert Fuller in

WCW a couple of years after that.

Which was an abrupt turn from when he showed up with slaves or whatever it was when Harmony

were brought in.

That's how he was

like, here they are.

They came out with chains and everything.

He had to redo that gimmick pretty quickly.

But I thank you for your question.

Yes, fellow.

Who are you?

David?

Fellow question asker.

Mr.

David.

Jim, another question.

This one sent in via the Cult of Cornet Facebook group by Louis Cardenas.

Cardenas.

Cardenas?

Cardenas.

I mean, it could be pronounced a whole bunch of different ways.

Luis Cardenas.

Well, now he just moved across to Argentina.

First, it was Louis.

Well, it's L-U-I-S, Luis.

All right.

Well, what is Lou's question?

In the 70s and 80s, serial killers were everywhere, especially in the territory areas.

Did it affect the business?

Did it affect the business in any way?

Or was there any interaction between wrestlers and promoters and those killers?

That's the end of the question.

Okay.

The people need to know.

So, like, what?

Well, remember, wasn't that an excuse that they used when Rep Arena in Lexington, when AEW ran a couple months ago?

And they said, well, the guy that shot the

highway was still on the loose.

That's kept it.

It was 100 miles away.

And it was on the side of the road in a fucking county that didn't have as many people as were in

fucking downtown two blocks of Lexington.

No, I mean, there may be, who knows?

Has anybody ever asked or done any research?

Did David Berkowitz, the son of Sam, ever go to Madison Square Garden to see wrestling?

Did Jeffrey Dahmer ever stop by to see the Crusher in Milwaukee?

But to my knowledge, to

anyone's reporting so far, I don't recall

any wrestlers or wrestling personnel or people having any interaction with noted serial killers.

Now, I will say,

we're sitting in a fucking locker room one time, like 1996-ish.

Me and Chris Candido and Tammy and Barry Horowitz, and Barry Horowitz is telling a story.

But, guys, did I ever tell you this?

No, what are you going to tell us?

Well, you know, my aunt lives down in St.

Petersburg.

And

where she lived, if you climbed on a shed

in her backyard and got on the roof and looked across the neighborhood, you could see the backyard of Ted Bundy's cousin.

Dad got about that response, too, when he told it.

Wow.

But no, I don't know of any.

Didn't someone have a John Wayne Gacy connection?

Well, no, that was, oh, goddamn.

Help me.

It wasn't Bobby Fulton, right?

No, no, no.

What?

It sounds like one of his stories.

Where did that come from?

No, in Philadelphia,

who was it

around Dennis's shows that was selling like art and odd stuff.

It wasn't Professor Ouch.

This was

in like 1989, 88, 89, 90.

Somebody up there in Jersey that was associated with Dennis Coraluzzo was selling the John Wayne Gacy clown paintings

or selling silence.

I don't know who that is, no.

Because I had an opportunity to get one.

And my wife at the time was like, oh, no, we don't have that.

I got Newman.

Never got one

uh

but i'm trying to think are you a big fan of a big fan of clown murderers clown well i just it's one of those things that who has something you know one of those things yeah so it's one of those who ha situations one of that who has one of those things well i do i who

who me

who you who me

who dat

All right, well, this has been serial killers in wrestling.

Another segment that murdered here on the show.

Let's get another question.

Did I drop my thing?

I dropped my thing.

I dropped my thing.

Confirmation.

The thing has been dropped.

Jim, this question was sent via the Cult of Cornet Facebook group by Christopher Bennett.

In the late 80s, early 90s, there was always a little old lady with a monkey puppet in the front row of shows at the Asheville Civic Center.

She'd use it to talk shit to the heels.

They'd jaw back.

It was always a big hit with the other fans.

Does Jim remember this lady?

And if so, any stories?

So, Jim, at Ringside, did you ever confront a little old lady with a monkey puppet?

Well, yes, actually,

that was a thing.

And

we never spent any time

in the Carolina territory when we were living in Charlotte.

Asheville is only 140 miles away from Charlotte.

It was usually

a Sunday afternoon show.

Every once in a while, it was a TV taping.

We never stayed over in that town

and never really, you know, got to know any of the fans on a personal basis.

So I don't know what the story was, but

it wasn't uncommon for there to be the,

in any town, in any territory, for there to be the local

character.

And I don't, you know,

in the old way of saying it, boy, what a character he is.

Remember, they had the twin old ladies in Kansas City, Murdy and Gertie Height,

that were identical twins and they lived to be like in their 80s, and they sat ringside every week.

And there was Bouncing Beulah in Knoxville that

famous for that clip that's on Twitter every so often where she's leaning over the rail trying to swipe at Hulk Hogan.

at a WCW taping.

But Beulah was there.

Beulah Beauchere.

She was there in Knoxville for years and years and loved the baby faces and used to have the Armstrong family over for dinner.

The chicken lady in L.A., there was a fan who had a chicken.

And then later I read something Mike Lano wrote that allegedly she gave Dino Bravo V D.

That's all I can think about now.

And I'm like, at least he button the bird flew.

That can't be true.

Can it be possibly true?

I don't know.

Of course it can.

Absolutely it can.

And I mean, but that's, you know, there was, there were local character, you know,

when I was a kid at the Louisville Gardens, not only was there old grandpa who was there every week for so many years, I mean, decades, that one week he actually wasn't there

because this was in the 90s.

He wasn't there because of some

medical procedure he had undergone and they had to have the ring announcer announce he was okay and he'd be back next next week because so many people were asking.

And

there was this woman.

I don't know how old she was.

She looked like she defied time.

And she had round glasses that were as thick as,

I don't, you couldn't imagine somebody could see through glass that thick.

And old straggly hair.

And we called her fish meat face because she was so pale and had so many wrinkles, it looked like her face was just put together out of fish meat.

And she had a voice.

And the only words you could understand were the cuss words.

God damn you.

And, you know,

they were there every week in the same place in all these buildings, week after week, year after year.

And it was.

My mom, when she started taking me to the matches, she didn't really particularly care for wrestling, but she loved to watch the people.

Jim, our next question via the Culture Cornette Facebook group was sent in by Blair Reganwetter.

Oh, come on.

Or

Reganwetter.

Or Bedenwetter.

He wants to know: what is Jim's opinion of Jesse Barr, aka Jimmy Jack Funk?

I managed Jesse Barr in 1982 in Memphis when I first started.

After Dutch fired me, I briefly signed Crusher Broomfield later to become the one-man gang.

Yeah, how briefly was it?

God, he wasn't here, but like six weeks after that.

And then he went to Mid-South, worked for Watson.

They made him the one-man gang.

I always said,

you know, what I'd seem, you know, in later years, I'd say, when I managed you, I set your career back five years.

You'd only been in the business three.

But Jesse, they brought him in.

Jesse Barr was the brother of Art Barr, older brother of Art Barr, Beetlejuice for the fans of that generation in Portland, and Sandy Barr's son, who was the referee and wrestler and promoter out there.

And Jesse was

a fairly high-level amateur, you know, on a local state basis or whatever.

And so they brought him in with the gimmick that he had

the 1980 Olympic boycott.

He had been screwed out of going to the Olympics, but he was like the greatest amateur wrestler of all time.

And bless him, Jesse was a lot bigger than Kurt Angle, but he wasn't Kurt Angle.

But Jesse, he was 6'2 or 3' and 250 pounds or whatever, and he was in good shape, very green at that point.

I think he'd been working like a year.

And I was brand new.

So they put us with Dutch Mantel.

I don't know if Dutch had heat at the time.

And

Jesse was powerful.

He could soup.

people weren't doing shoot-style suplexes in wrestling then.

So

anything he did was unusual in terms of amateur throws and things.

And he could fucking throw you because

he was stout.

But it was just, it was a mid-card thing because he was so green at that point.

And,

you know, it wasn't like it was featured or whatever.

And then I think he went

from Memphis because he was part of the

mass exodus when

Dundee had brought in Adrian Street and Miss Linda and

had been booking him.

He brought Jesse Barr in and the sheepherders.

And when Lawler took the book over, they all had an eight-man loser-leave town match with Lawler and the Fabs and I think Dutch and beat my whole fucking crew all in one night.

I was the only one left.

And then I think he went to Florida from there.

But

what do you think?

Right where they pushed him as a top guy.

He had a feud with Brian Blair coming off Brian Blair leaving WWF.

Yeah.

And then he got the spot in WWF as the

unknown funk brother with the Lone Ranger mask.

What, 86, 87-ish when Dory didn't want to

keep going or what?

Tell me better now.

Terry went home.

His horse was sick.

That's right.

Terry went home first.

So Haas Funk, a.k.a.

Dory Funk, continued with his brother Jimmy Jack.

And the only reason he was named Haas is because he had the bald spot and Vince had watched Bonanza.

Vince didn't want to call him Junior.

That's the only reason he was called Haas.

Well, no, he could have got away with Dory Funk and left off the Junior if he'd have wanted to, but he was a Dan Blocker fan, Vince.

But it would have been Jesse, yes.

Had fun.

He ribbed me.

And see, we're both green, but I was greener, so he ribbed me.

And then he tried to rib me again and it backfired because he invited me.

He had moved his wife was with him and they had moved to an apartment in

Nashville near where I was living.

And since I was his new manager, he asked me to come over and have dinner on, you know, Sundays or off night or whatever.

Okay.

And just, I haven't smartened my wife up, so don't talk smart.

You're really my manager.

And I've just gotten a business.

I'm like, oh, now I'm going to be lying to this guy's wife, but I understand, you know, sometimes they didn't smarten family up.

So

I'm sitting there for like 30 or 45 minutes and I'm, and, and he's starting to ask me questions that I would have to answer smart.

And I'm looking at, I'm looking like, I don't know what to say.

And I'm thinking, this woman must think I'm a fucking idiot.

And then she started laughing because it was a rib.

She was smart.

They just wanted to see me sweat.

But then at dinner.

Yeah, how'd you turn it around?

Well, at dinner, he gave me a gimmick fucking piece of garlic bread.

There was one piece of garlic bread that they had covered up with all kinds of garlic powdered everything, like a loaded one, right?

And they put that one on my plate.

And when I ate that, I said, man, this garlic bread is great.

I haven't had garlic bread because I love garlic.

And their faces fell.

And they were like, fuck, we were trying to fuck with you.

Then I had one of the regular pieces.

And it was like shit.

Tasted like goddamn regular old bread.

Did you have enough garlic from the the other piece to spread it on some of the other pieces?

Well, I was wanting some more goddamn garlic on the other pieces of bread, so sees, but at least I foiled their rib.

You can't over garlic me.

So, what happened to Jesse Barr?

I mean, everyone talks about the Haku thing, whatever really happened in that bar.

They say that Haku bit off his nose,

but you don't really hear too much about him after that, do you?

Well, I think part of the problem was he got caught up in the

territory of

constriction, where

being Sandy Barr's son and being from Portland, he would have always had a spot there, but

the business there just kind of went.

And

there was really no other place to go.

I don't know why he

maybe he did and you know, it wasn't successful or why he never tried to go to WCW, but I bet Frank Culberts, Mike Rogers, somebody out there that listens to the show from the Northwest, did Jesse get in another business, become a successful businessman?

Or what's he doing these days?

Because he doesn't do conventions.

You haven't, like you said, neither to you.

Neither do you.

So how do you know?

Well, no, I mean, for the past 25 or 30 fucking years, I have not seen Jesse Barr doing a goddamn autograph signing or convention.

And he may not be world famous because of his run with me in Memphis, but he was Jimmy Jack Funk and people with less credentials than that are getting booked regularly.

So where's Jesse at?

Tell him I said hello.

He was in my first match also, me and Jesse against Jimmy Hart and Coco Ware.

Heel and manager against heel and manager because Lawler's just like, fuck it, let's see if that works.

And I'd never had a match before.

I said, Jimmy, what are we going to do?

He said, when I grab you, just go down and we'll roll around.

Just roll around, baby.

Just roll it.

That's

Jimmy wanted to learn enough to work to take the bumps and not get hurt, but he was never really,

he never aspired to want to, you know, start from scratch and go, you know, well, let's have a match.

Whereas,

you know, that's why you just kind of fell down and rolled around.

And that's what I was capable of at the time.

But then later on, so, well, I'd like to.

do a little bit more than roll around.

All right.

What were you going to say?

What was I going to say?

I don't know.

Oh, you knew what was going on when you got into the business.

You were a fan that was following everything happening.

Where did you think Jesse Barr's career was going to go?

Well,

at that time, there was, you know, 20 different territories.

I got to be honest.

And now that I put him over and also said, oh, tell him, I said, hello.

I don't want to hurt his feelings, but from evaluating, even at my status at that point,

from evaluating Jesse's work, he was was very big and very strong and very green

and

wasn't a great promo, but he could get the physical part of it.

And

a guy like that in those days, if nothing had changed with the territories, could have worked in the middle in the big territories and on top in some of the smaller ones after he had a few years' experience for the next 15 or 20 years.

So it wasn't like,

oh boy, he's doomed.

It was like, I'm just, I'm getting this guy.

He's a fucking rookie.

All right, Jim, our final question, and then we'll do something else real quick before we wrap things up.

This was sent via the Culticornet Facebook group by Nick the Bruiser.

D-E-B-R-E-W-Z-E-R.

Jim has said before.

That the crusher was one of his childhood idols.

I don't know if I said idol.

I'm not sure about that, but go ahead.

Jim has said before that the Crusher was one of his childhood idols.

When would you have seen The Crusher?

Well, no,

Bruiser's TV.

Was he on Bruiser's TV a lot?

Yes, well, not a lot, but it was like Roughhouse Fargo in Memphis.

It was a big deal when Crusher came back.

But even when Crusher wasn't there, Sam Minoker would drop in comments about, you know, the great teams like Bruiser and Crusher.

It was talked about, and

they were paired up in all the magazines together, the pictures of Bruiser and Crusher.

They were supposed to be cousins, even though they weren't, but because of their similar appearance and similar style, but they were a top 10 tag team in the business for years in the 60s.

Even in the early 70s, when Crusher would come in, it'd be Bruiser and Crusher against the Valiant Brothers or Bruiser and Crusher against the Blackjacks.

That was a big fucking deal.

Once again, Jim has said before the Crusher was one of his childhood idols.

I am the current reigning champion of the Crusher Impression segment

from the Mr.

Saloon contest at Crusher Fest in South Milwaukee.

Those are all real things, by the way.

Well, yeah, because that's the thing.

As big as Bruiser was in Indianapolis, the Crusher was, I think, even bigger, maybe, as a cultural icon in Milwaukee.

And didn't he have a

run of sellouts in the Milwaukee arena?

Like six years, every show he was on sold out.

They have a statue of him in the park.

You know, even I did a show in Milwaukee for

Dave Hero and,

oh, God, who else was there?

Well, it was, it was a hockey game.

This was 20 years ago.

It was a hockey game, the Milwaukee Milwaukee Admirals, maybe.

And then Jack Koshick and Dave Hero put on an autograph signing with wrestling legends.

I was one of them, but the Crusher was there.

And this was 2004,

2005, 2006, that era right there, right?

And he was goddamn as over as anybody.

More over, actually, than us, than the rest of us.

So the people there, Crusher was a big deal.

Yes, I'm sorry, I'm droning on.

I would love it if Jim could say a few things about the Crusher.

The first time he saw him, his impact on the business, how he was received in the Southern Territories, which I understand was quite different than the AWA,

etc.

Well, the only time I can think that the Crusher worked

a Southern territory was he was working the late 70s.

He made some shots in Atlanta.

In Georgia, in 79 Georgia, all of a sudden, the Crusher and Bobby Bobby Heenan were regulars.

Well,

from Bobby, I don't know about the Crusher, but from Bobby,

the deal was that Vern, especially in the summertime, he only ran 15 days a month.

And he didn't run a lot of small spot shows like the other territories did because he was so big geographically in the Midwest.

He only ran the bigger towns.

And that's why Nick Bockwinkle told me he loved working working there and never really left on a full-time basis because you had a quality of life.

You were home a lot.

The weather was cold, but you'd work 15, 17 days a month and he could make on top 150 grand a year.

And this was in the late 70s, early 80s.

Bobby Heenan had told me that because of the schedule, He got an offer to go to Georgia.

I think it was with Oli.

And

he moved down there and was thinking about staying because he liked the weather better.

And, you know,

they had told him something like, oh, you could work here as long as you want.

And then something happened that, you know, three months later, four months later, ah, we can't use you anymore, whatever.

And he was glad he didn't move.

But at that point, some of the

some of Vern's guys from the AWA started going down there and working Atlanta on a brief period.

But as far as Crusher...

But I guess that's part of the issue.

In Vern's territory, in Milwaukee, any of the stuff you would have seen for the Bruiser, you kind of got to see him grow from being the big, tough Reggie Lasowski, the crusher, to an old man with a bowl cut.

Yeah.

And then all of a sudden you just drop that into Georgia or anywhere else.

It doesn't work the same way.

Well, yeah, and that's also the reason why that the schedule up there was easier for Jared Jarrett to get Nick Bockwinkle as world champion because he wasn't working as often as the NWA champion.

And Bockwinkle and Lawler had better matches anyway.

But nevertheless, that was the thing with Crusher.

He was a notoriously bad worker and nice guy.

And because of the gimmick,

he and Bruiser were heels, but it was like a tag team of Steve Austin's.

They beat everybody up and didn't sell anything until the people started liking him, And then they started working against other heels.

And in the 60s, especially against a Japanese heel team or a German heel or whatever, they were easy to pick as the babyfaces.

And Crusher had had 20 years of TV and 20 years, you know, like you said, in that territory where

people saw it change gradually.

But then all of a sudden you take a guy that's in his early 50s with a bold bowl haircut and talking like this and wanting to go to do the polka with the cuties and a beer barrel over in Atlanta.

And they're like, what the fuck's going on?

And he was teamed up with Tommy Rich.

So Crusher was over twice as old as Tommy Rich was at the time, but they were both blonde.

He's like, they were the cigars.

Outages.

Yeah.

And because only,

remember, Ole was from the AWA, from Minnesota, and he had seen the Crusher, but

that's the thing sometimes people overlook that for certain talents, you need the history.

You need the history behind them that they had in that one territory they were over.

They can't just go and replicate things the same way.

But Crusher, great gimmick, great promo, tremendous box office draw.

He and Bruiser were in the top 10 box office draws in the business as a team.

Rotten worker, but it didn't matter in the day because of the gimmick.

All right.

With all apologies to his friends and family for that comment at the end there.

Well, no, I think, and that's he, I think he knew that.

You know, but it didn't matter because he made nothing but money.

He drew, you know, huge crowd.

I mean,

in the early 60s, he was working with Bruno in Pittsburgh and stadium shows.

I mean, he was big in a variety of places.

So

the fact that he wasn't a dropkick artist, I don't think offended him too much.

And when I saw him and he was almost 80 years old,

I showed him a wrestling life magazine that I wanted him to autograph for me.

And he glanced at it, not even time to see the date.

And he said, ah, that picture must have been 1954 or so, at 1954.

Well, Jim, on that topic, real quick before we get out of here, because we've got very limited time.

Quick round to guest the program.

Oh, here we go.

You ready?

Guess the program programs for my collection.

I asked Jim for the day,

the territory, and of course

the time.

And of course, the time and the day

that we have to get for this.

3 o'clock on Tuesday.

Jim, the opening bout.

Red Lions versus Johnny Rico.

Red Bastine versus Dory Dixon.

And the final prelim, Jose Lothario versus Roy Dupree.

A special event, Tommy Siegler vs.

Chris Colt.

Semi-final tag team bout,

Ernie Ladd and Bearcat Wright

vs.

Mike the Alaskan York

and Frank the Alaskan Monty.

Frank Monty.

And finally, the main event, there must be a winner.

If the match ends in a draw for any reason, the referee can add additional falls.

falls.

Crusher Stasiak versus Wahoo McDaniel.

Okay, well, through the first three or four matches, I was like all over the fucking place with this.

Billy Red Lions, is it Toronto?

Red Bastine, is it the AWA?

Dory Dixon, it could be Jamaica.

Jose Litherio brought me back to Texas, which Red Bastine has a history in, and Billy Red Lions

had popped in there a time or two.

Tommy Siegler and Chris Colt, I was like, wait a minute, Siegler was big in Florida, but he had a run in the Dallas Territory also

in the mid-1970s.

And so,

coincidentally, I believe, did Mike and Jay York were the original Alaskans, but when

one of them would be

indisposed or whatever, Frank Monty, who also teamed with Nick DiCarlo, would become an Alaskan.

Ernie Ladd and Bearcat Wright,

that may be the last full-time run that Bearcat Wright had as a wrestler because he showed up in the summer of 1975

in Memphis as the Mongolian Stompers manager.

And then Stan Crusher stays acknowledged and Wahoo McDaniel tips me off that it's the Dallas, Fritz von Erich world-class territory, big-time wrestling then, before it was world-class.

And

the question is:

I think it's 1975.

Is it Dallas or is it Fort Worth?

I'm going to say Fort Worth at the Will Rogers Coliseum.

What time?

8:15.

Jim, the date, Friday, September 15th, 1972.

Houston, Texas.

Houston.

Son of a bitch.

What surprised me and what made me go to this one before I filed it away was Chris Colts.

Chris Colt being on the card in a special event.

New faces see action in the prelims tonight as the fall season brings a crop of aspiring heavyweights to battle for top honors here in Houston.

Headlining the list is colorful Chris Colt, a man who motorcycles his way around the country, gunning his bike and roaring his way from city to city, where he roars his way.

Sounds like some Peter Burkholt's copy.

Where he roars his way through his matches.

Colt, a Canadian, could be the most dangerous of those who make their debut here tonight.

But Roy Dupree,

it's supposed to be Montreal.

who hails from Montreal

will be closely watched.

Johnny Rico, the Puerto Rican, has a lot of people.

So was that Ron Dupree?

I don't know.

There's no picture.

It had to be.

Chris Colt and Ron Dupree.

It had to be.

There's a picture of Chris Colt here.

But there's that program.

I guess.

All right.

Houston, not Dallas, and I was three years off.

But that's a

Ernie Ladd being together with Bearcat Wright threw me off somewhat.

And I was thinking that Stasiak, which he may have, had a run for Fritz in 75.

But anyway.

The next one I'm taking out is interesting more for the actual historical importance, the information that's here that I thought you'd get a kick out of.

The card, best two out of three falls, 60 minute time limit.

Limit.

Limit's the word.

60 minute time limit.

Sputnik Monroe versus Eddie Sullivan.

Billy Wicks, two out of three falls against Luigi Massura.

A 10-minute intermission where there will be lucky numbers announced.

And finally, the main event, two out of three falls, 60-minute time limit.

The Corsican brothers, Joe and Gene versus Red McKim and Lester Welch.

Okay.

Now,

are you trying to swerve me?

Because I would say Memphis in a heartbeat.

Except I'm afraid of a swerve here.

No, you know what?

Mobile, Alabama.

Follow your heartbeat today.

Well, I'm following my heart.

Yeah, I see you.

Yeah, because you got a phone call coming up.

It is Memphis because obviously Sputnik Monroe, Eddie Sullivan, was a huge heel in the Mobile, Alabama, and Gulf Coast territory in later times, but he was very young in his career at that point.

Billy Wicks

indicates a narrow window along with Sputnik in Memphis.

This was at the Ellis Auditorium.

And

the Corsica brothers, Jan and

Corsica Joe and Corsica, Jan and Dean.

Corsica Joe and Corsica Jean

were a top tag team for Nick Gulis and all over the place in the South for many years.

And Corsica Joe ended up marrying Sarah Lee and was the guard on the dressing room door in Nashville for years.

And Lester Welch, of course, one of the Welch Fuller family.

Red McKim was a big name at this period of time around the southern states.

And

it's got to be, it well it's either 1959 or 1960 and has this got to be 1959 it's early in sputz's run or is it when he was on his way out

and let me just add this too it says here baby blimp is booked uh tonight george harris george harris and it's signed on the back baby blimp it may be his signature i bet you it is but he's not listed obviously uh on the card here

george harris was a longtime friend of roy Welch's.

He was like a sidekick to Roy Welch.

Roy Welch loved him, and they always found a spot for him.

All right, Jim, the time?

Or anything you want to guess?

Oh, well, I said Memphis, 1959 at the Ellis Auditorium, unless it's 1960.

Beautiful job here.

Memphis, Tennessee, Monday night, November 2nd, 1959.

Let me open this up, listen to this.

TV wrestling on Channel 13, Saturday afternoon, 12.30 to 1.30.

Promoter Buddy Fuller has moved our regular Saturday afternoon television wrestling card to channel 13.

It will be aired every week from 12.30 until 1.30 p.m.

The reason for the change was that Channel 5 could not guarantee that wrestling would be on every Saturday as they had a series of football and basketball games scheduled.

On channel 13, from 12.30 to 1.30, no interference was foreseen, and wrestling will be a regular feature on the station.

WMCT realizes the terrific amount of viewers that are interested in wrestling, but chose to let Mr.

Fuller move to another channel instead of working the wrestling card in their time schedule.

And that grudge would last for 18 years.

Occasionally, they plan to run films of wrestling that were actually made from four to eight years ago in Texas.

They call it the best wrestling in the USA.

Maybe that was right four or five years ago, but here right now, the best wrestling in the USA is here in Memphis at the Ellis Auditorium and on Saturday afternoon on Channel 13.

So there's the official the week it happened.

That's incredible.

Because that's the thing.

Channel 5, when there was no TV in Memphis for some time, and I'll make this quick, but early in the 1950s, like 50, 51, WMC would go down on Monday nights to the Ellis Auditorium, and they would show a 30-minute or one-hour program of the matches going on live at that time.

And bless them, no footage of that still exists.

But then there was no TV wrestling in Memphis for a while.

Then...

When Nick Gulis and Roy Welch, Roy Welch mainly, took over the city of Memphis from the previous promoter, Les Wolf.

They got the TV, but it was Channel 5, and it was iffy, as you just heard.

Was it going to be on or was it not?

And then the golden moment happened where in late 1959, not only had they got Sputnik in there, but also, and he was doing huge business, but then Lance Russell.

was the program director at Channel 13 and was more accessible.

And Lance started the run and the whole nine yards and it all came together pretty much at the same time.

Well, so you know, you know, I didn't even think about that, but he's not named there, obviously.

But Lance Russell is kind of the person not named in this thing here in the program at Channel 13.

Yeah, well, they didn't know how important he was going to be yet.

So that's the thing.

Lance had done...

wrestling commentary in Dayton at a local studio show in the early 50s before he moved to Memphis.

See, he knew how strong wrestling could be for the local TV stations.

Yes.

He knew before most people did.

But the wrestling company and the people writing that program had no idea that they had just found the guy that would be their announcer for the next 40 fucking years.

Well, how about that?

You know, I never realized exactly how it happened, when it happened.

It happened right after the, you know, two months after, three months after the Billy Wicks-Sputnick Monroe match.

That broke the attendance record that still stands, I believe.

Yeah.

But see, that's the thing is three things happened in a short period of time.

Gulis and Welch annexed Memphis in 1957.

Originally, it had been its own,

it had been separate from Nashville, and they'd been using talent from St.

Louis and Kansas City, whatever.

Roy Welch took Memphis over and then put his, you know, Buddy Fuller in charge of it for a while, and it took it away from Buddy and took it over himself.

And then they got the stable TV, they found Sputnik Monroe, and they got Lance Russell.

And it all happened in like an 18-month period.

Well, like I said, it was a quick round to guess the program, and also

name that tune.

Jim was telling the truth.

I really do have a phone call we have to get to, so let's wrap this up quickly.

Of course, we'll be back on the experience.

Oh, I have to do it officially.

Where's uh, here we go?

Oh, good lord.

There are people who look forward to those soothing tones every week.

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Uh, yeah, JimCornet.com.

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