Episode 364

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Hello again, friends!

And you are our friends.

Some of you are sick.

Some of you are sick O's.

Some of you are just fine today for another episode of Corney's drive-thru right here.

It is the fall, the fall of many things.

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

Jim Cornett.

You've heard of the fall of the house of Usher.

Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you to the fall of the house of last.

You are falling apart.

You are, you are, you are pressing on despite your condition.

Look, here's the thing, Brian.

To clear your sinuses, to clear your just do this along with me.

Take your thumb and your forefinger and pinch the bridge of your nose.

And

do that, and you're going to be fine because you said, hello again, friend, and you are our friend.

Get that stuff back up.

Can you do that for me?

I've been on mute the whole time laughing.

You know that that makes me laugh.

And also, if you laugh, you will again start wheezing.

And we don't want that.

So don't laugh.

All right.

Well, if I'm going to be talking to you, I think we can assure myself I won't be laughing.

Oh, oh, we are back with another episode of the show here.

You see that?

You set me up.

Ding-dong, right out of the ballpark.

Ding-dong.

Hello.

Well, see, I'm still trying to warm up here.

I may build a small fire on the desk because it's freezing in Louisville, Kentucky here this week.

I'll have you literally, it got down

not at the official temperature of Louisville because they measure it at the airport in the middle of a goddamn concrete heat island and nobody lives at the airport.

So we're about five degrees, seven degrees cooler than the airport usually, but it got down to freezing here yesterday and it was nigh on close to it today.

And I am wearing a, I am wearing a, I squeak there.

I'm freezing when I go outside to take little Harley and

inside I refuse to turn the heat on in the office this early in the year.

So I'm sitting here wearing a coat.

But just

keep doing this.

It'll be fine.

Well, some things may be fine.

I don't know about this show here today.

And of course, there's a lot of wrestling to talk about, a lot of wrestling to review.

We're going to get some questions in by God.

Yes, and apparently no other conversation to be had between you and I.

Well, what do you want to talk about?

Hello, Cody.

What do you want to talk about?

It's story time with Courtney.

Remember when we didn't think that he was ever going to be able to get that over?

I still don't think you and me disagree on how over it is.

Well, now he could come out and say, you know, blow me, blow me, fuck you.

And then they'd start chanting, blow me, fuck you.

I don't know.

You can't really tell whether anything's over or not because everything's over.

But

you know what?

It used to get dropped like a turd in a punch bowl.

And now, yay.

Who's more over right now as a babyface, Cody Rhodes or Roman Reigns?

You know,

they're two different

slots of babyface.

And honestly,

I still think in terms of overall popularity and

driving to business on a regular basis, it's Cody.

But Roman, as we know, works a limited schedule anyway.

And

that's perfect for him because they got the champion

that's into the grind.

and doing all these things.

And then they got the

Bruno San Martino figure, living legend that can come in once twice a year for the big mega main event whatever the fuck or however many times a year you see you see what I'm do you smell what I'm cooking Brian

I do

what do you

who do you think is is on top there right now I think there may be some Cody fatigue setting in soon if they're not careful and if he keeps you know he's like a well-behaved Moxley on the microphone sometimes some of the big words he's trying to use and trying to unnaturally speak.

You know, you have to be direct sometimes.

And eventually, you know, Dusty can get away with it, but Dusty was flamboyant beyond the language.

Cody, you know, it's more, you know,

Dusty's was more Jive, and Cody's is more thesaurus.

Yes, that's a wonderful way to put it.

So, well, thank you.

Thank you very much, baby.

I appreciate the way you appreciate me.

And I think him and Roman Reigns and having their recent interactions kind of exposed a little bit of the fact that

Cody may not be.

Well, Cody wasn't as over as Roman in those settings.

Roman, the fans saw Roman as the babyface, and Cody having to acquiesce to him.

Almost like they still thought he was the tribal chief.

Well, it just depends on what tribe Cody's from.

I think he's, he,

he's actually, he's a member of the Georgia tribe, even though the family comes from the

the Texas tribes of Texas natives.

But

if he ever wanted to go to Hawaii, he'd have to bow down to Roman, wouldn't he?

Either that or buy a surfboard from King Curtis.

You see, you wanted small talk.

This is what we got.

Very small.

Well, let me just talk about it.

This is tiny, minuscule.

Let me be minuscule, diminutive.

Microscopic, amoeba-like, and its minutia.

Let me then mention and get it out of the way, since apparently something needs to be got out of the way, that the merchandise sale at JimCornet.com for the holidays is going on now.

And thank you very much, folks.

It's been, as we speak, what, not even two weeks, 10, 12 days or whatever from our initial on sale.

And already,

due to the Feather Bottom speedy service system, the first

I've lost count, 100 or so packages are going to be going out this week and more to follow quickly.

We're dividing everything up so that everything gets individual attention.

And

as I mentioned on the last program,

you can sign up now if you go to the jimcornet.com homepage, go down to the bottom, says sign up for the newsletter.

You put your email address in there.

It is free, and we will not sell your information to any foreign countries.

You're starting a newsletter, I see.

Well, it says newsletter.

I don't, that's a Hotchkiss thing.

Oh, really?

He invented the newsletter now.

Well, yeah, it's something that we're going to come up with here it is in very short order uh but he's invented a thing called a a newsletter where i can send out letters with news

it's like and it's going to go in conjunction with the email blast that he invented so you will get email blast from hotchkiss featherbottom because one item

from our immense merchandise catalog is going on sale each week in November at deep discounts up to half off.

I'll have you know, well, actually, you get the whole piece of merchandise.

We're not going to cut it in half.

We're just going to charge you half price.

And each week he will be informing the people that want to know which item is on sale and how much fur.

So you just go and put your email address in there and you're fixed.

Or you can just go and order now and take your chances.

There's so many items.

What the fuck is the odds that you're going to order the one thing that's going to be on sale that week in in November or whatever?

JimCornet.com.

What a great selling point.

JimCornet.com.

Well, yes, that's where you're supposed to go to buy the stuff.

They know that all the stuff is there.

They just need to know where to go.

So I'm telling these people where to go.

All right.

Well, it's my show.

Where are we going to go from here?

I will decide where we will go.

And actually, Jim, before we get to some of the reviews, and there's a little bit about Raw.

Luckily, it's only two hours, and Dynamite was filled with all sorts of,

I guess, wrestle crap is a copyrighted term, but all sorts of nonsense we'll talk about.

But let's start with a serious topic.

And obviously, it's one that when the news broke, a lot of the listeners started reaching out, wanting to hear what you had to say, because it's a name a lot of people first heard from you in a lot of ways.

Joe Koff,

former head of Ring of Honor.

He had been a vice president, and then I believe a senior vice president for Sinclair Broadcasting, just passed away.

And obviously, you worked with him and you knew him.

Well, and

he had cancer.

That's, you know, been mentioned.

And

it had been known

by myself and, you know, certain people for a little while now, but he hadn't made a public issue out of it.

And I guess it was probably about

six weeks ago that he decided to stop treatments because he wanted to,

you know,

they were not going to be successful and it was diminishing his quality of life to where he couldn't spend time with his family and his grandchildren.

You know, I think I was thinking about it in my mind.

I think besides delirious Hunter Johnston,

Joe Koff is the only person I didn't yell at the whole time that I was there with that

Ring of Honor period from 2009 to 12.

He was a,

every one of the wrestling fans, if you're an AEW fan, especially,

but every wrestling fan should be grateful to him if for nothing else than he kept Ring of Honor alive a couple of different times.

First, in,

you know, when they bought it originally from Carrie Silken.

And then

secondly,

when he made the decision to sell it to Tony Khan rather than just sell the tape library to the WWE, they wouldn't have picked up anybody's contracts or hired probably, you know, a good portion of the talent or whatever.

But

he

was a tremendous,

and I don't want to say this the wrong way, he was a tremendous fan of wrestling, not that he was a mark or that he was trying to throw money around or whatever, but he was a tremendous supporter of wrestling.

And he appreciated the wrestling business and he always had.

And

he didn't go crazy.

He wanted to be involved in it just to be a mark.

He was involved in,

as we mentioned long ago, the Florida office, the Battle of the Belt specials they did syndicating those.

And

it was to the point where Eddie Graham wanted...

Or

Eddie may have been dead, but whoever was running the office.

Yeah, Eddie was dead already.

Yeah, they wanted him to continue working for the company and trying to get him TV deals.

And he just, well, I, you know,

he was more established in the career trajectory he was already taking.

But

so he provided a service for a lot of the guys in the business in that they had a place to

grow and

progress and flourish or whatever.

And at the same time,

he did everything he could.

And when I've I've talked about all the chaos and the misery that whole period cost me,

it was never Joe's fault.

He's the one that got him to buy it, but even he

couldn't get him to spend any amount of money.

And, you know, part of that, they had the overall Sinclair broadcasting, the bigger vision of buying up all these television stations.

And

Well, Brian,

you know more about the business world, but Sinclair Broadcasting had, like at one point, a number of years ago, last time I checked,

hundreds of millions of dollars, if not a billion dollar in dollars in debt, right?

They had taken on an incredible amount of debt, trying to put together these regional sports networks and buying up all these television stations.

And it fell apart.

It's not something that's very easy in this market, in this day and age, to do.

If they had tried it 20 years earlier, it would have been a different story.

But Sinclair, you know, in an era where less people than ever before watch network TV or local TV, they still own TV stations all over the place.

Well, and when we started, and again, let me go back and start at the beginning.

It basically started with

when Carrie Silken

called me after

TNA had decided to let me go.

Yeah, with after the whole Jeff thing and Dutch was gone and they found found and then,

you know, Russo had his way for a month till Hogan came in, whatever, that whole bunch of chaos.

Kerry had talked to me about coming in and

what can you do for it.

You know, he was losing money and

he

loved the thing also.

He loved Ring of Honor and Wrestling and wanted to keep it going.

And I was pissed off, you know, at these other yahoos who were wasting all these opportunities.

And I said, carry i'll i'll find you something i'll figure out a way to get you on television or a sponsor or

help some way talent whatever

and you know that because we had some conversations in new york but one of the people

that i talked to was gary jester who i'd known from the 80s and crockett and etc

and he came to one of the shows and He said, this is an amazing live atmosphere.

I said, how do we get it on television?

He said, I know a guy that works for Sinclair Broadcasting in Baltimore because Gary had lived in Baltimore for years before he moved down to Atlanta and had run the Baltimore Civic Center and bought time from Joe Koff that many years ago.

So we went and that's where the talk started with Joe Koff.

The idea

originally was just to get on those television stations.

And the reason why I talked earlier about how many stations they ended up buying at this time,

I think they owned like,

was it 55 or 50 something television stations?

And they would get to where it was, what, what did they get up to?

Like 130 or 40 something?

Am I exaggerating that?

I don't think you're exaggerating.

I don't remember the exact number, but I remember being over 100.

So the idea was that, you know, as they got on more stations, we didn't know they were going to get on that many.

It would increase the coverage of Ring of Honor.

And Joe got so interested and started talking.

And they ended up buying the company outright from Kerry.

But the problem was,

as we mentioned, they didn't want to spend a lot of money past that.

It took a number of years

for them to start spending any money on the thing.

You know, that was my issue.

You don't get a second chance to make a first impression sometimes.

But also,

you know, that was the thing is that

the corporate world always has a problem mixing with wrestling.

We've seen that.

And Joe was probably the greatest guy

that has ever been the conduit between

the corporate world and the wrestling people.

He was gentlemanly and nice and articulate and smart,

and he tried to do the best he could.

But,

you know, that's, that's sometimes those worlds just don't mix.

So Joe, I never had an issue with.

And,

you know, he did the best he could in those early years while I was around.

And he always did the best he could.

But that's, you know,

his

primary

position in Sinclair had been that he was the guy who trained, and I don't know whether he oversaw him on an ongoing basis, but the different local sales departments at all the stations, he trained them.

He had regular two-week seminars where they would bring all these people together and he'd teach them how to sell television and sponsorships and value-added packages and et cetera.

And that was another

part of

the idea for Ring of Honor originally

was not to just suddenly make tens of millions of dollars with live events, but be a value-added thing for the local television stations.

And that's what he was so good at because he had trained a lot of people in the sales departments.

He regularly talked to all the

local sales managers and everything in all these stations.

So that was

Again,

that was part of the original plan.

I knew we found out later on St.

Clair wasn't going to give us the credit, Ring of Honor credit for the sponsorship money that the local television station took in in conjunction with our live events.

We've gone over that many times in Ring of Honor talks.

The, you know,

this is not the spot for it here, but that,

you know, Joe sent me off and.

to a number of stations to talk to the sales departments about how specifically to sell wrestling.

And I enjoyed doing that because you could get them excited and go out and motivated.

And boom, boom, boom, it made the program more

profitable and more important for the local station if they were getting revenue off of it.

But anyway, you know, he just, just a nice guy.

And,

you know, I think, like I said, not only were he and Hunter the only two guys I don't think I ever yelled at, but when I cracked up and I had all I can stands, I can't stands no more moment with the whole thing.

The only two people I felt like I were letting down, or I was letting down, poor grammar, were Hunter and Joe.

You know, I felt bad because Joe had done all he could and got him to buy the thing and was trying his best he could.

And Hunter was there left with,

you know, a lot of stress on his hands.

But so I hated to hear this news.

You know, another thing about Joe Koff, Jim, is that he is one of the people responsible for all in.

And

I don't think he ever felt that he and Ring of Honor got the credit they deserved because everyone pretended like it was just the Bucks and Cody doing the show, not that it was a Ring of Honor production produced by Cody and the Bucks.

Well, besides that,

they were all under contract to him.

So he had to let them do the thing to begin with.

And then, yes, they used their office infrastructure and,

you know, the ticket master things, all the details of running a show and their production

equipment and or department and et cetera.

It was just, it was produced by the talent, but the whole thing basically was pulled off by the Ring of Honor infrastructure.

Who got no credit for it, really?

When you think about it.

I mean, right, there's a lot of people

who then had a billionaire come along and sign up all of the guys after they, you know, hey, thanks.

It's a nice audition tape you made for me.

I think a lot of people that were involved with Ring of Honor behind the scenes for those couple years there have a good deal of resentment and for good reason with some of the people involved with all in who went to AEW because it was basically they gutted Ring of Honor.

Well, yeah, they

basically held the company hostage because they

Ring of Honor was still small enough to where when they brought their, at the time,

what, you know, audience of a few hundred thousand indie fanatics to a company that size, it made an instant difference.

And then they held the company hostage to do all of their cartoonishness

and build it around them.

And then they bailed.

as soon as they helped them make an audition tape for the billionaire that was going to spend a fucking fortune.

But otherwise, the net it it was great.

Yeah, there are a few people

who stayed behind who were like, What the fuck?

But yeah, Joe Koff deserves a lot of credit for all in.

And of course, Ring of Honor does, but he was the person in charge.

But anyway,

you know,

that's why they owned it.

That's why they owned the actual footage until Tony Khan bought Ring of Honor and Cody said, What the fuck?

Yeah.

But anyway,

you know, I hate to hear this news.

It's bad news.

And Joe Koff has a couple of different places in wrestling history, which

I think overall, I think he'd be proud to be included in.

Well, there it is, Joe Koff and...

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Of course, you worked with Joe Koff for a long time.

You talked about how he...

You know, again, he was a vice president, then a senior vice president of training.

And it wasn't like, you know, him going there teaching people how to build computers.

He was training the sales departments.

How tough is that to teach people how to sell wrestling?

Forget about sales for a television network in

2010 or whenever he was doing that.

But to actually sell wrestling, especially if it's not WWE.

Well, see, here was the

plan or the idea or the concept or whatever you want to call it for Ring of Honor to have a somewhat profitable place in Sinclair, as I've talked about before, was to get ratings for the local television stations, which at that point in time,

what is this, 15 years ago now, or almost or whatever,

a good local professional wrestling program on a local station could do a one rating.

And

again, some people are so stupid about TV ratings.

They go, well, a one,

that would be 5 million people or whatever.

No, a local rating.

A one.

And I've mentioned that OVW and Louisville did anything from 0.6s to fucking 2.8s or whatever.

We were,

you know,

over the years in different ballparks.

But if you could do a one rating and you could sell time on that, it wasn't like

doing a one rating for, you know,

a ball game or doing a one rating for a

rerun rerun of a sitcom because the stars of that program

could actively come to town, could be involved with the car lot or the furniture store or the check caching place or the

wacky car dealer or whoever in town is sponsoring.

They could be in their commercials.

And that would air on the show where the fucking wrestler is a star on.

And when we run a show, not only are we selling tickets, but also we can sell banners for the sponsors of the commercials on the walls and on the ring.

You get the whole drift, right?

It's all integrated.

And Joe loved that

because of his, you know,

position training and working with the local sales departments.

And especially now, but even then in local television,

really what the local sales departments had to sell were if they were, especially network

sports on the weekend, your local news every day,

and your primetime programming.

And they weren't even really trying to sell other shit.

It was a wasteland.

So

if you could get them motivated, they could really produce revenue off the wrestling program.

And I went to...

Charleston, Huntington, West Virginia.

I went to Richmond, Virginia, the stationary, I believe we talked to, I know we saw the manager of WLOS 13 in Asheville.

And a lot of people are going to say, oh, he was going to the old Crockett towns.

Well, it wasn't just because I was a Crockett celebrity of the era, but because

those stations had been Crockett stations and that area of the country was still strong enough.

In Charleston, Huntington, they had an incredible, they were winning the time slot

on Saturday night at like 11 o'clock.

I think it was 20-something, 30-something thousand viewers in that market.

And they were doing a two-point something or a three-rating in Richmond.

And so

you could do something with that on a local basis to generate revenue for the television station.

I've told when we went to Charleston, we did

advertised a wing eating contest at Hooters with the guys and had the car dealer have the brand new car in the lobby of the civic center when the people came in and banners everywhere.

And it was $28,000 of revenue for the station in advertising on top of

the gate that we did for Ring of Honor, right?

But then we found out, like I said, corporate, oh, we don't count that.

Wait a minute, what?

If we had to come and run this show, they wouldn't have got that $28,000.

But we didn't get credit for it somewhere or another.

But that was the idea on once again, trying to generate more revenue.

So I was going out and talking to some of the sales departments on the specifics.

I mentioned you always want the wacky car dealer.

You always want a furniture rental or check caching or pawn or jewelry.

You always want,

you know, the basic shit that everybody needs.

And now these days with sports cards.

And at one point it was video stores and video game stores.

And, you know, but whatever the

whatever the general populace that watches

either wrestling or television in general at that particular time of the day.

And you get these people involved

where they can be not only in their own commercial, because you see that all the time, right?

Even up there in New York,

big fucking TV market, but there's a lot of local yokels doing their own commercials, right?

Non-stop local attorneys.

Well,

and I didn't mean to call any of the attorneys up there yokels.

Don't sue me.

You know what's just the stupidest one?

1-800.

I'm going to give them a free plug because it's so stupid.

1-800 pain law.

And their tagline is: because if you're in pain, you need law.

What the fuck is that?

Lazy assholes?

Pain law.

But, well, then, like in Smokey Mad Wrestling, I've told the stories about classy motors and,

you know, of Mrs.

Winter's chicken, whatever the fuck, and fast food places.

We had, oh, who was the fast food place?

We had to do something.

Goddamn, I can't remember.

Anyway,

you get those people,

those businesses, I should say.

And then they can buy into the program, but instead of just getting a commercial, they can have the wrestler come down and we can advertise an autograph session.

And as I've mentioned, they can have banners and a presence at the live event and they can even do the commercials and blah, blah, blah.

So that is something that he wanted to try to spread.

You know, and that's why we wanted,

once again, with some of the indie guys that were just darlings,

either they looked like Ned, as Christine Jared would say, they look like Ned,

or

they'd they'd be a half an hour late if you had them show up.

Okay, seven o'clock, you're going to be on the live local news.

Because some of these guys weren't as big as the goddamn newscasters, or they'd show up at 7:30 to be on 7 o'clock live local news, or nobody'd ever heard of them.

That's why we wanted guys like Jay Lethal or Charlie Haas and Sheldon Benjamin.

guys that could still go in the ring, but had some level of presence on national television and were also responsible and would show up and

had

an aura of professionalism about them.

And, you know, or in the case of the Briscoes, who were

obviously guys that would show up on time and, you know, do whatever the fuck, but they had an aura of unprofessionalism, but they were real, right?

They loved them on TV in Baltimore.

They'd have Mark Briscoe do the fucking weather.

But that's how, you know, know, you're not creating

a star nationwide, but you're creating a local name and celebrity that people know that they might want to buy tickets to see.

And you're integrating it with the local television station and the local businesses.

And it gives the wrestling business in that particular market a little more aura of respectability.

Does that make sense?

I think it makes sense.

Because if you're running a show at a rec center somewhere that you're just renting and setting up the chairs, that's all fine.

But if you can go to other businesses and say, yes, we're on such and such television station and we're working with Hooters and

this other company you've heard of.

And,

you know, we're going to be on the newscast in the morning if you want to check it out.

Well, then they're like, I might be able to work with these people.

They might not be goddamn complete shysters.

So, and that

still today,

if anybody could figure out a way to just put together a regional network in a manageable, populated area

of local television stations, especially where in some of these markets they've got a TV station and a radio station,

and look at 2,000-seat buildings where they may exist

and do promotions.

You know, this shit's sellable, but nobody tries to sell it to the,

well, the WWE does.

They try to sell it to everybody.

As Christine Jarrett used to say, they'd sell you the glasses on your own face.

But AEW

and a lot of these other companies don't promote the local markets because they're too busy thinking about their television and, you know, the TV rights deal or whatever.

That's why they've got 3,000 people in a 20,000-seat building.

When in some of the size of these cities, you could draw 3,000 people to watch dogs fuck, couldn't you?

I don't know.

I mean, the other thing is that you're...

If they were good-looking dog.

The other thing, if it was advertised on television and radio now, I don't know if it would.

Because you're not going to get anyone young.

You're not going to get anyone under the age of 25 if you're relying relying on television and radio.

So you limit your audience completely.

Well, how many people under the age of 25 can afford the goddamn tickets?

The tickets to see the dogs fuck?

How expensive are these tickets, Jim?

How expensive do you envision these tickets?

Are you talking thoroughbreds or are you talking, you know, just mutts?

Do the dogs fucking get the big building like dynamite or are they a small building like NXT?

That's why, you know what?

If you go to a dog fuck and you you see them doing cover pitches.

Yeah, if you go to a dog fuck

and you see them doing cover pitches of the ceiling, you'll know that they didn't draw a house.

Or one of the dogs took a shit.

One of the other.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

You know,

you're making more noise than some guy trying to promote on the fucking internet.

You know, if they can see me in Ireland, I don't care if I'm promoting Pocatello, Idaho.

I think they need to do, I mean, specifically AEW,

they need to do worlds better promoting locally just based on what I see here in the tri-state area.

And this is one of the big, this is the biggest media market in the world.

And they need help here, let alone everywhere else they go.

Local TV,

you know, well, I mean, you're talking about just putting people on local TV, not actually trying to get local TV, like a regular weekly local TV show.

Well, here's the thing.

Here's the thing.

In theory, again,

the thin,

the thin, here's the thin, Lucy.

The thing with Ring of Honor and Sinclair could still work,

except it would need to have more commitment from the broadcaster.

Yeah, you need to.

And it would also need to be in a concentrated area

because,

you know, that's one of the problems.

We had TV in fucking Las Vegas and Tampa and fucking somewhere in Minnesota, but God damn, we, you know, it's not like you're going to run the whole country.

We see how that turns out, unless you have national television.

But if you had

a regional sports network

in the Carolinas and Virginia,

or potentially just the state of Texas, or what about

the old Barnett, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan?

And you had

15 stations, 15 markets in a geographic area like that,

and they shot their own wrestling show,

and they put it on their stations, and they put the wrestlers on their local news because the one thing that people still watch on local TV is their local news, whether it's the fucking weather, the sports, or the fucking U of L game or whatever the fuck.

And then you have,

again,

you're you're competing for a smaller pie than it used to be, but it's more doable than before.

Because

when would a television network ever have paid what WBD just paid AEW

for the viewership they're getting 20 years ago?

Well, again, it's hard to compare the television world today to then.

No one is.

No, that's the point I'm making.

No, no.

The 20 years ago, 600-something thousand people would have been like, fuck you.

That's an infomercial at three in the morning.

But since it's all down,

the value of having a television program that does, that you own,

that you're establishing a library, that there's ancillary revenue like DVDs or streaming video now,

you can watch the catalog.

and that can go on your stations instead of you having to pay for programming.

That also you can go and sell to the local fucking fast food and car dealer or what that is already doing business with your station because they still run commercials on local TV.

And it, then the

added value thing is still

you're going to generate more money for your affiliate there with that program than you would with fucking Seinfeld.

Because Seinfeld ain't coming to goddamn Akron.

Yeah, but you could run the tape of Seinfeld and not have to hire anyone.

All these stations, it seems like every time I see anything, they're laying people off.

It's never like anyone's expanding, anyone's doing anything creative to try to grow things,

which technically is what this would do.

Everything that's more about

slicing everything as much as you can.

But that's where,

if you owned a wrestling company and you owned TV station, the wrestling company people in a manageable area in contiguous states that are in a region.

The wrestling company can have a guy that goes around to the local sales departments, even if there's three people selling time.

There's always going to be a couple of salesmen at a TV station, trust me, and say, hey, let's go over and talk to this fucking guy that has this pizza place, and he will give us a fucking fortune.

Boom.

And you just get your local sponsors, just like that.

Every other goddamn

the University of Louisville basketball team

is not playing in

Portland, Oregon.

So they don't care if anybody's watching them in Portland on the team, but by God, we can sell some fucking chicken by showing them on TV right here.

It'd be amazing if someone can get talked into a studio wrestling show.

I mean, studio wrestling was shot in the, you know, where they shot the news.

Well, and that's Joe had just,

as the pandemic had just come on or was about to come on, Joe Koff had talked him into a live,

I don't know if it had been studio, it wouldn't have been a giant building, so it would have been some type of center stage apparatus of nothing else, a live weekly program that would go across all the stations.

And that ended up getting blown up by the, along with, that's what doomed Ring of Honor was that they paid every Joe made sure everybody got paid the contracts that they had signed, and they did the strictest COVID protocol.

And, you know, so they spent a bunch of money in this, and then they were like, well, shit, since we already owe billions of dollars, you know,

this was not our first love.

But, you know, it's like I always say about Tony Khan.

That's the sad thing.

With Sinclair, it would have really been just a drop in a bucket to improve the production.

Yeah.

Or improve anything or have a real person managing it other than Greg,

whatever his name is.

Yes, the office boy.

That's yeah, I mean, they could have done it.

It's not like that, that was the thing.

I agreed to work for Joe Coffee.

I never knew that I was going to have this 27-year-old kid try and tell everybody what was going on.

That was the beginning of the end, but that was corporate.

But anyway, that's that I still maintain because I loved

the act and the process of going out and selling the show to everybody.

You don't just want to run

the show.

You want to have the fucking banners.

You want to have the companies trying to, you know, buy commercials on your TV show.

You want to have the meet and greet catered with free Mrs.

Winter's chicken

or whatever the fucking case is.

I love that shit.

And you can still do that on a lot of people local events do it all the time.

I agree with that.

Just not wrestling anymore because they don't look at

the only wrestling that they look at like local events, the promoters do are the ones that are really too fucking local to generate any major income.

The other problem is,

you know, if you look at the independence 30 years ago versus now,

In terms of the presentability of the promoters and the ability to

correspond and deal with regular everyday society.

You know, even the territories, I mean, these were gruff, dirty men in some cases, but they knew how to deal with the establishment to get things done.

You know, of the current crop of indie promoters, who's going to be able to dress nice, talk the right way, and get shit done in the community?

Probably not too many people, but they could run a show in a barn.

and light each other on fire or whatever the fuck's happening.

You know what I mean?

Like that's the easy road out.

And then people come and they find your barn.

But the real play, and it's a long-term play would be what you're trying to say.

And it's not just TV and radio, it's the community.

It's making, making it so that people who have credibility know who you are.

So they would tell people about your show.

Well, yes, because that was the whole reason to get television.

Because then once you got television, then you could go anywhere else and say, yes, I'm on channel so-and-so Saturday afternoons at two o'clock.

And that immediately,

especially in the 80s or 90s, that immediately, you know, told somebody that you weren't just some fucking jack off who was walking in talking about some kind of wrestling.

Maybe they've seen some outlaw shit.

And

then

it's even better that most of the time in those days, television stations, they would work with radio stations in the market.

So you could say, oh, I know so-and-so over at blah, blah, blah.

And then you get guys on the radio.

And then you can go to,

as I said before, any of those number of businesses, and you can say, yes, we're on such-such TV and we're doing the radio.

And then you put all these things on your poster.

You mention them on television.

And all of it is, and

short of Eddie Graham doing the old deal where every time he got an award from a civic group, it was on TV,

that made you look as legitimate as possible in that market so people would spend money sponsoring your fucking show.

And I,

again, with Tony, since he's obviously got the room

in these buildings, why don't they go to

in Houston?

Remember the gallery furniture guy?

Oh, yeah, he's Mattress Mac.

Mattress Mac that now

he used to sponsor Paul Bosch's, and I think he just passed away not long ago, but this is an example.

In the 70s, he sponsored Paul Bosch's TV show when it was,

he had a store in Houston, right?

And 40 years later, he's a goddamn multi-tens of millions of air

that he bets a million dollars on his favorite sports team to win and does all these things for charity and has umpteen major stores.

Why not go to that guy guy and say, hey,

we will promote you

as the sponsor of AEW All Tuckered Out in Houston

on TBS on such and such a day.

We'll be talking about you for a month on national TV

and how great you are.

And well, and say, give us goddamn

$50,000 and we'll give you 5,000 tickets.

And just put them in all your stores.

Well, again, using this specific example, but using this as something that could speak to the bigger question, the difference is Mattress Mack was dealing with Paul Bosch.

One person,

maybe he dealt with Peter, maybe Bruce answered the phone in between coffee runs,

but he dealt with Paul Bosch.

There was a relationship.

It wasn't just, hey, we're coming to town.

Will you deal with our local sales guy?

And,

you know, Paul Bosch was a unique character and you ended up on houston you know that wasn't the only one what was it iw marks

oh yeah there were long-term sponsors of houston wrestling that were there yeah because wrestling had an audience but it was really based around the relationship with the promoter and that's what would be missing nowadays well

again are there no prisons no workhouse is nobody in the company willing to fucking get a decent haircut and put a halfway decent looking suit on and go

in these markets that they book six months ahead of time.

Well, they can.

I mean, that's the problem.

Paul Bosch could go there and sell his product or someone could want to be involved in everything.

But you know what I do?

Once we got this person,

because they, AEW, wasn't it?

Jeff Jarrett?

Wasn't Jeff Jarrett supposed to be doing this?

Jeff Jarrett.

Well, no, Jeff Jarrett was going to do something with the live events, maybe the buildings or whatever.

That's right.

That's right.

That Jeff Jarrett is sitting there with RJ City and Renee Waxley Good

instead of going out and selling.

Think of who else has sold any more shit related to wrestling over the last 20 years than Jeff Jarrett.

He's sold these networks on putting on TNA and Global Force Wrestling and

all this other stuff.

And, but that's the point is you know you're going to be in

Pickettown, town chicago at a at a building six months from now because they booked that far out they have to book these buildings out because they need dates for their television so right then

if i'm tony kahn i send jeff jarrett or whoever

to chicago and who is the

the cable company that

handles the majority of chicago i don't know but i'll find that out and i will go to them and i will say i am a representative of one of the highest rated programs on TBS and TNT.

You carry us on your goddamn service here.

Tell me who the major advertisers are in town.

Who wants to get their name out?

Who spends a lot of money with you?

Who's a big fucking player around here?

And then you go to those people and you say, we will give you.

And it'll help if they're, you know, of a major local concern, because then you don't have to go through corporate.

But since you're offering national advertising,

you know, maybe something can be done through corporate.

But you don't just say we're going to sell you a minute of commercial time.

We're coming to town with this show, and we want you to be our corporate sponsor.

They fucking corporate sponsor the arenas.

Why can't they corporate sponsor the event?

So instead of the Dunkin' Donuts arena,

it would be Dunkin' Donuts presents AEW, stick a syringe in your face.

Yeah, that's what WWE does, and AEW doesn't.

And, you know, especially with AEW,

who have these issues with drawing fans, but return to the same markets over and over again,

you would have to think they should have local reps in every single one of these markets who are working all year round on relationships.

And see, the WWE gets Snickers to present a pay-per-view.

They don't have to do any work on the ground.

But what I'm talking about, because Tony needs needs help filling a building and making it look palatable for television, I'm talking about going to that, going to

gallery furniture in Houston, or going to a big company in Chicago, or going to a big company or whatever, and say,

you sponsor this event that we're having at the Rosemont Horizon in Chicago or the fucking

whatever they call the big building in Houston these days or wherever.

You're going to be the title sponsor, but we're going to talk about you on national TV for the next month as we promote this show.

And then that night,

you're going to have banners everywhere, whatever your product is.

If it's fucking fried chicken, we'll pass out your fried chicken.

If it's goddamn cars, we'll have cars everywhere in the fucking arena.

We'll shoot them on TV.

We'll have the fucking guys play bumper cars.

We don't give a shit, right?

And also,

we will fucking give you 5,000 tickets to give to your customers that come into your businesses around town as a thank you.

And all we wants, like it's a 50 grand, 100 grand, whatever the fuck it is, right?

Because then

they not only get some more money,

but they also have another several thousand people that come in the goddamn building just to see what the fuck might be going on.

and it might look better for television but but to wrap this up to finish it with aew as we are i think they've been trying to do that we've seen things that people send us on twitter and various other ways various other ways via email too yes man

many many were wrapped around a rock and thrown through my window you know photos of you know come in buy one get one free come in free tickets if you buy you know a burger or whatever the fuck free tickets here so obviously they're trying to do something on a,

something on a grassroots level.

It's just not working at all.

It's not, you know what?

I shouldn't even say that because whenever we see these tickets distributed things, we don't know how many tickets are sold.

Maybe it's working great.

Maybe they're getting 1,500 people of the 1,800 people in a building from the free tickets.

We really don't know.

And, you know,

also,

depending on how they're giving the free tickets away, we might not be hearing from that segment of society because they may not be regular fans.

Maybe that's why the reactions have quieted down.

Maybe these are regular people wandering in because Hardy's gave it with their burger, gave them two wrestling tickets.

It could be that.

Another thought I had, and then we'll really wrap this up.

You know, the people that were going to Ring of Honor shows in 2014, 15, whatever it was when the Young Bucks were on top,

these are those fans, and they've aged out of the enthusiasm.

So they're sitting there watching the same people they were watching all those years ago who were doing everything they did then, just slower and with no reaction.

And you've seen them do it.

I think that's the problem.

They need to get past that audience.

And whatever they're doing to try to drag people that aren't already predisposed to liking AEW in, it doesn't seem to be working at all.

And based on who they're pushing and what they're doing on their show,

I mean, there's nothing creating a buzz outside of their audience, and half of the buzz that their audience has is how bad it is.

So

we shall see how good they'll do when they're drawing of local shows.

Yeah,

a lot of the indie fans now have got to the age where they're more worried about their cholesterol.

Jim, speaking of selling things, do you think you could do a good job selling a wonderful chocolatey protein drink to our fine audience?

A tasty beverage you're talking about?

A delight.

There I say.

A delightful beverage.

Our friends over at Orgain

have come up with the most delicious protein shake in all of protein shake history, and we've been talking about it for weeks now.

It tastes amazing.

Even I like it, and I don't like anything that's healthy.

But I chug this right down.

And as I mentioned, Brian, it is great over vanilla ice cream, too.

Defeats the purpose.

Well, nevertheless, well, it's, you know, you got your dairy there as as well as your protein.

But, you know, in all honesty, I am going to, for the next couple months, I'm going to be trying to eat better.

And that's why I'm glad I've got the organe

because

I got to cut down on, I'm, I'm, I've gotten bad on candy and or cake

every night after after dinner.

And this way, if I, if I drink an organe, it's kind of like I've had a chocolate milkshake, which is some type of sweets, and at the same time haven't had the sweets because organe has 30 grams of protein, but it's only got one gram of sugar per serving.

And a serving is not a tablespoon.

A serving is the goddamn container.

So you drink the whole container, you only get one gram of sugar.

I have,

I'm pretty sure I haven't added up, but I've had some 30 or 40 fucking grams of sugar evening desserts here lately.

And it can't, and I got to go to to the doctor in a couple of months, have my annual checkup.

So I'm not just,

I've already got my weight under control.

I'm 188 pounds.

As old as I am, all my contemporaries get fat, and I remain

thin and

spunky.

But I got to get, my cholesterol was creeping a little bit, and my blood sugar.

What do they call it?

The your glucose.

It was creeping a little bit.

It was just across the border.

So on this next one, I'm starting to eat clean.

That way I can drink one of these organes, the chocolate fudge shake, 30 grams of protein, one gram of sugar, no artificial flavors or sweeteners, and I'll feel good about myself.

And then when the doctor tells me I'm okay, then I can go back to a bag of Reese Cups.

You don't want to do the Reese Cups right before the doctor.

No.

And again, screw uh that other brand let's talk about organe we love them here in the house i have to order another case and suzanne i probably shouldn't say this but she started to like one of their other flavors the vanilla but organe very popular here do they have strawberry i don't know you could check your local organe authorities well i we're going to check that at organe or g a i n dot com because i've i thought of that if they have strawberry that tastes as good as the chocolates it i might even switch up but the vanilla you say is tasty and good for you oh suzanne says it i've only uh stuck with the chocolate chocolate chocolate i've only stuck with the chocolate i'm very loyal to my chocolate

do you like the chocolate i i'm i'll tell you what i'm not gonna i'm not gonna chuck it because the chocolate is chock full

of wonderful things that you can eat.

As I mentioned, it's made without soy ingredients.

So there's no soy sauce in this.

That would just, that would ruin the whole thing.

You don't want to put this stuff over sushi.

You know, Dr.

Andrew Abraham, the man with two first names, it was a genius in this field.

He's the one that developed this stuff.

He left his medical practice.

He's alive.

He's still alive.

I'm sorry.

You said he was.

He's still alive.

He's not dead.

Well, but he's slowed down.

He slowed down

in his old age.

He's not old, is he?

I don't know.

It was a picture they sent at some point of him.

He looked relatively young.

Oh, I thought that was actually just a logo.

I didn't even pay attention.

But anyway, he left his medical practice.

He wasn't run out, ladies and gentlemen.

He was not disbarred.

He did it on purpose.

And he founded Organe to create foods and beverages that offer better nutrition for people everywhere.

And the nutritiousness and wonderfulness of this drink cannot be overstated, especially from a junk food junkie.

Oh, Lord, I'm a junk food junkie.

Like me, if I like it, well, then you're just a prick if you don't like it.

Are you, are you, uh, are you a prick, Brian Lass?

Remember a funk?

Are you a sissy lance?

Well, I know you remember that.

You went for the run of your life, but no, I love Organe.

I love Organe.

I tell all my friends about it.

I'm telling all my friends right now about it.

Organe, organe.com/slash JCE.

What's that promo code?

That's a giant group of people, your friends.

You could tell everybody, all of your friends, about it if you were standing in a phone booth.

But you know, I've found that if you just walk down the street and when people walk coming the other way, walk up to you, you just start telling them about how great organe is,

they look at you strange.

But if you do it on a commercial, they believe you.

So

these organe

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Organe.com, they're available there.

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Use the code JCE for 20% off your order.

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Well, Jim, let's move on here with the show.

And before we get to Raw and Dynamite, it's become a popular thing whenever these come out, so let's do it for the listeners.

The latest Observer star ratings for the AEW Spectacular Wrestle Dream just outside of Seattle in Tacoma.

Just outside of Seattle and down the road and across the bridge.

And I know it's popular with the listeners, but it gets redundant with me because he just does the same thing every time.

But

maybe it could be different this time because a chink has appeared in the armor, the mirror has cracked, and

Dave is even starting to

slyly and subtly give Tony some nudges on, well, you ought to be doing this, you ought to be doing that, because this shit's not working.

So did he

finally break down and give an honest appraisal of any of the matches?

Well, see, there's a difference, though.

There's a difference between trying to give Tony Khan tough love and giving a fair appraisal of this generation of wrestlers and what you've convinced yourself is the modern style.

And also, their feelings are so easily hurt.

So, yeah, he wouldn't want to do that.

Brian Cage defeated Atlantis Jr., the Ring of Honor TV title on the line, three and a half stars.

That was the opening match.

Anna Jay defeated Harley Cameron, 818.

Just barely, remember?

That's right.

Two stars.

Referee had to put her shoulder down.

Two stars, you're saying?

Two stars.

It says nothing here about the pin.

I don't know how you leave out that detail.

Again, if you're writing details of the match, how do you leave out that detail?

The acclaimed beat the Eminem collection.

11 minutes, 23 seconds, two and a quarter stars.

Boy, he's not being real kind on his current scale to

the dark matches or the pre-show or whatever they call it.

I don't know if he's ever given an acclaim match a good star rating.

On the original scale, two was about right in the middle.

Here's an interesting description.

Tell me if you think this is an accurate description of what we saw.

Okay.

Tony Khan came out with Hirota Inoki and Naoto and Antonio Inoki, excuse me.

and did an Antonio Inoki celebration.

He wanted everyone to do the itchi Ni Sanda chant.

If these people know New Japan, and obviously at a pay-per-view show many do, it's going to be from the A.J.

Styles era at the earliest.

So most did not get this.

That's it.

That's the entire description.

That's it.

Not Tony was out there out of his freaking mind.

screaming

and and nobody knew why and i don't think he realized he was doing it.

Nothing about the behavior, nothing about the awkwardness, nothing about

potentially needing someone to come and take Tony in for testing.

That's where, when we say that he deals with Tony with kid gloves, there's the perfect example because he could put whatever gentle criticism months after everyone else came to that conclusion in The Observer.

Tony is not a camera-friendly personality.

But when he doesn't say Tony looked unhinged, Tony looked like he needed a bath.

Tony looked like a mess.

He was screaming.

Tony looked like he needed a canvas jacket with long arms.

We've heard from multiple people in the room, and I got to assume that means Dave did as well, that he did not come across well in the room, and that segment died.

If you're reading the Observer for details of the pay-per-view, how do you leave out all of that?

Jay White defeated Adam Page, 1629, four-star match.

Oh, come on.

An exciting, hard-hitting opener.

A flare and steamboat presentation.

Mariah Mae defeated Willow Nightingale, 10 minutes, 51 seconds.

What is that?

Three and three-quarter stars.

It was almost as good as the previous match that was better than anything that the WWE has done in 15 years.

Jack Perry.

pinned Shibata to retain the team to TNT to retain the TNT title in nine minutes and 16 seconds.

Three and a quarter stars.

Oh, come on now.

Seriously?

That was not good that match.

Tekesta won the international title over Will Ospreay and Ricochet, 20 minutes, 41 seconds.

Every single bit of it.

Hold on.

I got to see one, two.

I think it's five and a half stars.

Five and a half.

The stars are very little, so I'm trying to determine if it's five or six.

I think it's five and a half stars.

Oh, good lord.

The greatest three-way match in history, I believe he called it here.

Oh, Christ on a cracker.

And again, whatever era that you prefer, he's saying that that

exhibition of aggressive parkour was better than anything that Sean Michaels or Kurt Angle or Ric Flair or Buddy Rogers or anything that anybody's ever fucking done until about five years ago.

Yeah, I mean, look, that's just the way things.

If Buddy Rogers had done a good shooting star press, maybe you could talk about this, but you, you know, you can't bring up Buddy Rogers, unfortunately, in a conversation by the greatest workers of all time.

Let me continue on here with the star ratings.

Hologram defeated the beast Mortos, two out of three falls, 16 minutes, 44 seconds,

four Four and a quarter stars.

Oh, come on now.

What?

At some points, weren't they just running past each other and waving as they went by?

The crowd was dead early because it's like there were no moves possible that could compare to the prior match.

They had to work really hard to get the crowd, but they did.

And this was a great match.

The next match, Darby Allen defeated Brody King, 12 minutes, 26 seconds, 4.5 stars.

Another excellent match.

Jim,

so far, the last three matches have been better than Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker.

The Young Bucks defeated Private Party 15 minutes, 50 seconds,

4.5 stars.

Oh, what in the world?

Mark Briscoe defeated Chris Jericho.

This was your favorite match, I believe.

15 minutes, 20 seconds,

four and a quarter stars.

And finally.

Well, wait a minute.

Now, for the people who haven't heard the clip, I said of all the matches, it was the only one-on-one match where they actually did the right fucking finish

and put, got somebody over in this case mark briscoe

but it no it it

it wasn't better

than anything that was ever done between the goddamn you know giants of the industry

oh christ

all right and finally jon moxley defeated brian danielson to win the aew world title and end Brian Danielson's full-time career.

And try to commit attempted homicide three different times in the course of an overly long 45-minute plus fucking presentation.

With my pals.

26 minutes, 55 seconds, four and three-quarter stars.

Oh, for

see again, he doesn't rip on the things that are rip-onable,

like that Tony Khan segment.

It's impossible, even if you're friends with Tony.

I've talked to friends of Tony since then.

They thought it was cringy and laughed about it.

Dave didn't even mention that everyone reacted that way.

And then everyone got four stars.

And listen, anyone who wrestles from nine o'clock on, you get four stars.

Everyone else, look, I can't help everyone.

What is he?

It kills any credibility that he might try to establish at this point.

When just everything on that, the one, two, three, four, five, the last six matches were better.

What do the kids generally consider the greatest match of the last 20 years?

I don't know how to answer that.

A lot of people thought Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker.

I mean, that was a big one you heard for a very long time.

I think Brett and Steve Austin stands the test of time.

Well,

that's been 26 or 7 now or whatever.

But to point it, no.

Yeah, I guess so.

Yeah, yeah.

But still, all of these that are demonstrably, observably

incredible matches pale in comparison to these fucking guys doing this shit with furniture over and over again.

Because

he don't want to hurt their feelings.

That's got to be, that's the only

explanation, or elsewhere, is there

is there some medication

that they give to senior citizens or some chemical in hair dye that would just make you love everything, some kind of skin-absorbable ecstasy?

Again, I think

AEW

gets away with a lot of stuff that if it was on WWE TV, they would get killed for, or made fun of at least.

But AEW is still the little underdog, and some people are personally invested with the people involved at AEW.

And when we say that Dave handles Tony with kid gloves, and then Dave says, I call him out every week in the observer.

I say all the he says everything we've been saying, and others, it's not just us, for a very long time.

A lot of people are late to the dance, pointing out the problems with the booking, with everything.

Now you can't avoid it because the crowds are so low and the ratings never came back.

But these are all things that were said and a lot of people avoided.

But hey,

we got one email from one of the listeners that was there live that said with that finish to Danielson and Moxley and the whole thing afterwards that the people were

just disgruntled enough.

The quote was he may have killed Washington State as a live event market.

Yeah.

And that match got four and three-quarter stars.

See, that's the thing, too.

There's a difference between heat and it's like,

there's a difference between acting like a heel.

And I was, I'm not a wrestler.

I'm just someone who saw good shit.

There's a difference between acting like a heel and having heat and any of those things actually happening.

There are fans who insist that the ending of that pay-per-view, it's good when the heels win.

You can't always have the fans go home happy.

They were getting heat.

There's heat, and then there's reasons people don't want to come back to your show again.

People know wrestling's a work.

A lot of people thought Moxley's going to probably win the belt.

To go out like that,

that goes past heat, that goes to a slap in the face to yourself.

It was the, we left the house and spent this money and sat here all this time, and that's what they did, heat.

And they used to call it disgusting heat, where the people got disgusted, not mad.

Someone, it may have been the email that you have too, because I've gotten a few emails in the last day or so about it.

Someone said one of them that as all this shit was happening and the cameras went off and, you know, everyone's still around, Ringside all beat up from the vicious neo-Nazi gang or whatever the hell's going on.

Justin Roberts is like, Thank you, Tacoma.

Get home safe.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Pay no attention to the corpses before you.

Just drive home safe now.

Don't get a ticket.

Hey, is that Jeff Jarrett covered in blood?

Come on, buddy.

Get out of here.

Come on, go home.

Have a safe ride home.

Well, that was AEW Wrestle Dream.

We'll see what comes next.

But, Jim, let's get after Wrestle Dream in this past week was WWE Raw a fine two-hour raw.

Well,

it's a two-hour raw.

I'm not sure about the fineness.

And again, you know, I was thinking, honestly, I'm looking over my notes here on what happened.

We had a nice conversation, the next big star in wrestling,

Rhea Ripley, and then,

yeah.

And I'm kind of likening this now to one of the old daytime soap operas.

I don't brian, did you ever watch a soap opera in your life when you were younger and they still had those type of things?

I mean, I've seen bits and pieces of them.

I think I've seen a couple episodes.

I mean, I've seen episodes of Dark Shadows.

I don't know if you count that.

Well, as a matter of fact, Dark Shadows was just a regular soap opera for, I don't know how many years until suddenly, in what, the 1968 season or whatever it was, a distant relative shows up and he turns out to be a vampire.

And for two years or whatever, that was the hottest thing.

And the kids wanted to get home by 3.30, I think it was Eastern to see Dark Shadows.

Well, you see, too, it was part of a block on ABC.

You had Dark Shadows, and then you also had Where the Action Is.

The Dick Clark produced show that had Everyday Paul Revere and the Raiders and all the top musical acts miming their songs.

Because that's where the action was.

So if you were a kid and you watched that, and then you end up watching this show about this fucking vampire.

Yeah.

And then they made the movie Night of Dark Shadow, House of Dark Shadows.

And then it was Night of Dark Shadows.

But for two or three years, it was hot.

But the point is, if you go back and try to watch it now and it's not the phenomenon and you're not used to that, I've used to watch The Edge of Night

ever so, especially, you know, you're home all day in the summertime or whatever, eight years old.

There wasn't anything else on television.

The Secret Storm,

but they were five days a week.

And

they filled their 30 minutes, but almost nothing happened of any major storyline progression.

It was like

Bert didn't drink his coffee.

Not, nah, nah, nah.

And you had to watch every day for a couple of weeks for anything to fucking happen, right?

Has Raw really become a male soap opera now?

Is this because

all their

talent is so over,

the fans chant the shit that they want them to chant without them even telling them to, or half the time, even leading them that way.

And the buildings are selling out or close to,

and the sponsorships are through the roof,

and nothing fucking happens.

It's like watching a soap opera.

Rhea Ripley tells Liv that Dominic didn't drink his coffee.

Do you see where I'm going with this, Brian?

Yeah, but I think with WWE, in a lot of cases, based on who's going to these shows,

the ticket prices for these shows, again, it's not, hey, I'm going to see

Dominic Mysterio versus Damian Priest.

It's, I'm going to wrestling, and they're going to remember who they saw.

It really, in a lot of ways, doesn't even matter at this point what they do or who they do it with.

It's like going to a restaurant and seeing Elizabeth Taylor.

You have that story for the rest of your life.

I went to to the Barclays and I saw Cody.

That's what it is because nothing happens.

I'll tell you what, for the ticket prices they're charging now for some of these guys to go and look at some of these girl wrestlers, about 40 years ago, they could have had the girl wrestler till next Tuesday for that same amount of money.

Does that include Moolah's cut or is that the girl pay the cut?

Well,

she could have been going into business for herself and cutting Moolah out.

But even with Moolah.

She's an outlaw.

I understand.

Yeah.

But anyway, Raw on October 14th.

Raw Rolls On, yes.

Raw Rolls On began with Rhea Ripley

coming to the ring to talk about Liv and Raquel, and she wants the belt back, and she's great.

But all she had to do, all any of them have to do, they come out, big entrance, they briefly mention the name of the people they're talking about, and they call them out there, and then music plays, and people are happy with it.

But this time,

she called out Liv and Raquel, and Tiffy,

Tiffy's music played, and she came out.

And she opened her mouth, and it sounded like somebody stepping on a cat's tail.

And Rhea didn't have time for Tiffy

because she wanted Liv and Raquel, and they argued until Liv and Raquel attacked both of them.

And

I think that there's plenty of potential in Raquel.

God damn it, they changed her name a while back, and then she's been gone.

Did they change it from Rodriguez to Gonzalez or from Gonzalez to Rodriguez?

I think they made it Rodriguez.

Okay.

Well, anyway, she's got potential.

She's got size.

She's got an intimidating look.

I'm not sure her current ring attire is flattering

especially because to me it accentuates

you know what to say it i think we all understand we all agree and uh just that that that just that you know she used to focus on her back you she used to show you her back yes if if if she ever gets thrown into the bay she she needs a life preserver because she's got no buoyancy it's what you're trying to beat around the bush and save.

I'm not beating any bush.

You're beating the bush.

Now we don't even know.

You're

know about the status of the Bush.

Wait, not till Netflix.

It's a graphics program.

Wait till Netflix.

Oh, you think with Netflix, are we going to get Bush?

We'll get Bush.

If that happened, that would be an industry-changing moment, don't you think?

I'd even settle for Cheney, much less Bush.

And then you could sell it to Manscaped.

There you go.

Or woman's.

But anyway, Raquel somehow tried to choke slam Tiffany, and it didn't work, or Tiffany couldn't take it, or whatever, but they kind of fell in a heap there.

And

the heels left both Rhea Ripley and Tiffy

laying.

And then they go to the back after the break, where Raquel is highly pissed and tells Adam Pierce that she wants Liv and Raquel

in the ring tonight.

But Pierce said, well, you got to have a partner.

And then Tiffy came in and started prattling on, and Adam Pierce had an idea.

The old Grinch had a stupefying, astonishing idea.

What about her?

And Raquel, or not Raquel, but Rhea rolled her eyes and said, oh, fine.

So now we've got Rhea Ripley and

the babyface, annoying Tiffy teaming up in the main event against Liv and Raquel.

And they set that up and then they they they got out of it

that wasn't bad

um

well did you think it was bad you're laughing i thought it was good i laugh at you because you are spitting out the name tiffy you're like tiffy

tiffy her name's tiffany stratton fucking annoys the shit out of me

but anyway it wasn't a it wasn't a bad way to set up the thing that they set up for the the later time that they set it up for

But now we know, okay, we've just seen

four girls.

We got four girls in the main event.

What's the next match?

Four girls.

Bianca and Jade

versus damage control.

And by the time that it was over, we were half an hour into this program.

And it again

is there.

It's more than 50% women now, isn't it?

It's a lot.

It's a lot of women.

You know, I've been saying here for a while.

I don't want to just keep saying the same thing over and over.

I'll take a week off, but it's a lot.

And I like Jade and Bianca.

Let me ask you this: because

every week it's all I think about when I see them together.

When the turn finally happens,

and I'm assuming Jade will be the heel.

Maybe that's not a fair assumption, but I think so.

Does she need a manager?

I don't know who I wouldn't say yes, and I wouldn't say no, but I don't know who it would be that would fit.

But I'm

I think she needs somebody with her

to do a little speaking or to be a flunky or to

her just there on her own at this stage right now.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know.

Raw rolls on.

Raw rolls on.

And they had a brawn breaker package that, again,

he can fucking talk.

He's talking about Jey Uso.

He wants his belt back.

They were showing highlights as B-roll with this.

The point is, this guy is the future of wrestling.

He's a star.

That's what we, unfortunately, he is unique,

you these days.

But, you know, anyway, he's going to wrestle later on,

and we look forward to that.

And then Adam Pierce had a sit-down with Bronson Reed to try to get him to come to Jesus on all of the chaos and the destruction and the

heartache that he's been causing.

And

Adam Pierce does a great job.

What did you think of Adam in this, first of all?

I like Adam Pierce in his role as general manager.

I think

in general, I think the general manager does a good job.

Well, generally speaking, but here he really, he pitches.

I mean, he's no Ross Abrams.

Well, no, but nobody can be.

Who could live up to the

bar that was set by that genetic jackhammer?

But anyway, but Adam Pierce does a great job here, but Bronson Reed says that everything I've been doing,

the splashing of the people on the cars and the mayhem and the destruction, was to get in the main event.

I want to be the guy around here and he wants Seth Rollins.

And, you know, he's the one that put Seth out with the injury a while back.

And

he promised Adam Pierce that there'll be no trouble.

He won't be doing these things anymore if he gets the match he wants.

So they're building that now.

And that,

again, I look forward to seeing that because Bronson Reed with a smaller guy that's more agile and provides a contrast.

You know, the littler they are or the bigger they are, the harder they fall, but the littler they are, the further they fly.

That's an old saying.

What did you think of this particular thing there?

I thought it was good, and they've done such a better job lately with getting Bronson Reed as a character interesting and over than everything they did before.

He's been around for a few years on the main roster, and he was, you know, mama's boy or whatever his gimmick was, mama's favorite boy.

What was it?

Yeah, you know, what uh, mom says I'm a good boy, whatever.

Mama says, Mama said, There'd be days like this, there'd be days like this.

My mama said, Mama said, Mama said,

and then he was um, he was also very well dressed at one point.

Yes, looked like a fashion plate Or a gangster.

Mr.

Nice Guy.

Mr.

Nice Guy.

Mama said he was a nice guy.

Yeah, whatever the Jesus Christ.

So they finally, they've got it.

And I get Triple H probably always had it, but we needed

the stench of the rotted adult brain of Vince to fully leave the building.

Really makes you wonder about the years of frustration for Triple H.

Like you and OVW, I'm sure you are the one person who could relate.

You develop people, you believe in them, you think they're ready.

In your case, a lot of times they weren't ready.

You think they're ready, and they get called up and misused from the jump, and it never recovers.

And that happened so many times with guys from NXT, so many times from OVW.

You can understand them, Sheriff.

I'm sure you can relate.

Well, and

then later on, I'll skip over this because it happened later, but Seth came out or didn't come out, but Seth just told Pierce that he wants Bronson Reed too.

It is going to be no trouble to set that up.

So I assume

we've got Survivor Series coming up, but we got to get by a crown jewel.

But are they going to.

Is that a place for feuds or is that a place for let's do big matches?

Well, that's what I was saying.

They're going to do the champion versus champion gimmick.

And so are they going to give Saudi Arabia all these big matches with Survivor Series so close?

Maybe that's why they're doing champion versus champion.

So they could tell

Mahala Hala Akbar bin Salamander

that, oh, we've got the biggest match possible, champion versus champion, when

we know the people want to see other matches more than that.

So who knows?

But it's coming up soon.

I'm interested.

That's the, you know what?

I haven't thought.

I can't think of a Rollins match recently I was more interested in seeing than this one.

They've actually done a good job of building it up.

And then, and building him up, Bronson Reed specifically.

Yeah.

And I hopefully in the next couple of weeks, they won't tear it down.

And then we got the Vikings against Otis and Tozawa.

And the Vikings are not the Vikings anymore.

They have moved from Norway

and now they are the War Raiders.

And

remember what I said

that I actually managed these guys on an independent show back in like probably 2016-ish or whatever, and they were war machine.

And boy, they were impressive.

And they could move around and they did all this great shit.

And then I saw them up there.

I'm like, what the fuck?

And then this Viking thing has been.

Well, now instead of the Viking Raiders or War Machine, they are the War Raiders.

And they don't, they're not,

they're not dressing up like stereotypical vikings and and painted faces and all that shit anymore i bet you

that they got complaints from the anti-viking defamation society

because i mean those people are poorly represented as it is well this again this goes to our prior conversation in nxt

they were the war raiders

So when Triple H had them, and when Triple H was using them well,

they were the War Raiders, and then Vince brought them up.

Remember, at first they were the Viking experience.

Yes, that's right.

And then someone must have pointed out, what the fuck?

What the fuck is a Viking experience?

We're going to put you on a fucking old boat and run you through with a sword?

So they got changed from the Viking experience to the Viking Raiders.

I guess.

Maybe he thought he could have a fucking amusement park ride.

Again, some of the ideas of old man Vince in the last several years were astounding, but it is a Triple H NXT name for the tag team.

So they're reverting back to, you know, they're doing the Bobby Ewing thing.

The last several years of not having.

It was all a dream.

Well, they look a lot better and they won quick.

So they got that going for them.

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And then at 9 o'clock, the 9 o'clock hour, we got

the American nightmare, Cody Rhodes, in the ring.

And since they were in St.

Louis,

he got to name-drop Sam Muchnick in the Keel Auditorium and the Wrestling at the Chase, etc.

He said, I'm a traditionalist.

But recent history, St.

Louis was where the fans first started chanting, we want Cody.

And of course, that got the people to chant, We Want Cody, or Cody Cody, or whatever.

So then he says,

So, what do you guys want to talk about?

And Gunther's music plays.

And

here he comes.

And again,

yeah, love Gunther, love Cody, love, love, love is in the air.

But they've just, they've got to do this because they're not building Survivor Series.

They're having to build.

They're under the burdensome chore of having to promote this show.

They're getting paid $50 million for before they ever do a goddamn other thing.

But they got to do the champion versus champion thing.

And they've just had Owens beat the shit out of Cody.

They can't have Gunther coming out and beat the shit out of Cody.

And who knows what Cody at Survivor Series could,

is it going to be a team of four trying to settle a score or a team of five striving to survive?

They may be setting some shit up here.

So the point is they can't be doing angle, angle, angle.

So

Gunther comes out and he does a promo.

I respect you, but you love to be everybody's darling.

I want you to sort out your issues with Owens and be at your best.

And Cody tells Gunther that he gets uncomfortable and he breaks when an opponent keeps coming.

And you've never been in a ring one-on-one with me before.

Because I've already slain a beast.

And then they shook hands.

And then that was it.

And it was well done.

They're both great stars.

It looked wonderful, but

this was a long time to talk to get to a handshake, wasn't it?

Yeah, and it had a kind of a stale ending.

You needed some, I know you can get away with that, but it needed something else.

And I've become a really big fan of smug Gunther in a suit on a mic.

He's been great lately.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, like you said, they're building to this, and then they're building to,

I mean, I guess this is all just for Survivor Series.

There's nothing with Gunther or Cody continuing after that.

So I guess maybe.

Or not Survivor of Saudi Arabia, rather than Survivor Series.

You know, to your earlier point,

they're giving saudi arabia that match and they're going to do the absolute minimal amount they have to do to have these guys do anything that would hurt the other

in terms of like an angle or just any you don't even need to why do any angles this is it that was the angle yeah there's the angle the handshake what if one guy wouldn't have let go of the other guy my god that would have been killing heat people would hit the ring

But but and honestly, as you said, they don't have to do anymore.

They shouldn't do anymore in this situation.

But, you know, it's on a show where they're already not doing a lot more.

Did you watch Braun Breaker and Kofi Kingston?

Yes, I did.

Again, I just think this guy is a fucking prodigy.

And he's already, we talk about working to a guy's level, and we'll talk about that.

We get the AWE, AEW show.

But with this, you know, and I'm sorry for fans of Kofi Kingston who say, well, he was a champion 10 years ago or whatever.

I'm talking about right now.

Braun's on the way up and Kofi's hanging around waiting on his partner to turn on him.

So Braun

controlled a lot of this, had a nice deliberate heel pace and attitude.

Everything he does is pretty crisp, a nice charge into the post to give Kofi an opening for a comeback, which was

sloppy at best, kind of all over the place.

And then they go back and forth, and Braun hits him with a big belly-to-belly and a super spear one-two-three.

It was a good win.

He didn't give Kofi too much, but he didn't squash him.

But he shouldn't have

given him any more because of the plans that they've got for him.

And that's what with some of these guys in the other company,

it's just impossible for them to understand.

Your friend may be able to do all these moves.

I bet y'all could go all night.

But your friend is the guy parking the cars, and you're my main event attraction.

So beat him in three minutes.

The fuck, how hard is that?

I'll save my thoughts for what we saw in Dynamite on what we saw in Dynamite because it applies to this issue right here.

But yeah, Ron Breaker looks good and Kofi,

you know, like you said, he's been there a long time.

How long has he been there?

Like 15 years or something?

I don't know.

They're about to give him a gold watch.

But anyway, then, and then Braun went back to Kofi like he was going to do something else.

And Woods hit the ring, and Braun bails so that, you know, Woods can take care of his partner.

And then he comes back and gloms him

and goes to spear him.

And they play the Jey Uso music.

And Jay came out and super kicked and speared Braun, who went to the floor and then

jumped back up and Jay super kicked him again.

I'm not looking forward to any matches with Braun and Jay just because of the

shortcomings of Mr.

Uso in terms of his sloppiness, sloppiosity.

But that's what they're built.

Well, you have to figure he's going to get the belt back from Jey Uso and then Jey Uso can

spend his time dealing with the bloodline stuff.

Can yeet on off?

No, that's the thing.

It looks like they're.

I believe the forces are starting to assemble.

Is this the origin story of the Avengers where now Cody and Roman have at least had one tentative alliance, and Jimmy's trying to talk to Jay?

And,

you know,

the teams are starting to come together.

Rhea Ripley and Damian Priest had some more dramatic dialogue in a scripted exchange.

And

R-Truth had a match with Miz.

They were partners, but Kerry and Cross got involved.

That's why we didn't pay any attention to it.

And before they even

locked up in the match, Cross and...

Why are they doing this to Paul?

Poor precious Paul Ellering?

He could say no.

He could say, I don't want to do this.

He wants to do this.

Well, Cross and I don't know what he's doing, but he wants to do this.

I do.

He wants to not do this, apparently, because this is not doing something.

But

Cross and the two fat guys and precious Paul come down to the ring and Miz turned his back and hard truth just schoolboyed him one, two, three.

And then hugged the Miz and hugged the referee and jumped out on the floor and fist bumped the heels.

And then Cross told the fucking fat guys to get him.

And they grabbed him and threw him in the ring.

And Miz gave him the facebuster.

So now Miz has gone from

being a superstar to joining this sideshow group.

He's been there.

Anyway, he's been there a long time, too.

And it seems even longer, doesn't it?

How long do frogs live?

What is the lifespan of a frog?

You and this thing about him being a frog, I guess, is he going to become like a demonic version of himself?

Well, they're not really demonic.

They're kind of like biker, but they don't have bikes.

They're not really bikers.

They're

do they have mystical powers across his group, or are they just they wear black?

They're just they're they're they're wearing black and being spooky.

And and Scarlett wasn't with them, was she when they came out?

Oh, she may have been.

I don't know.

I don't know.

See, that's the bad thing.

They're so boring, we don't notice her.

They used to have smoke, right?

Didn't they used to have smoke everywhere?

I think they started testing for that again.

Oh.

But anyway, and then Jimmy was in the back looking for Jay, and he found him.

And he said, just listen to me.

And Jay said, get out of my face

and get off of my cloud.

And off he went.

And then we got the main event.

Rhea and Tiffy

versus Liv and Raquel.

And

they rang the bell.

They had 11 minutes on the air, and there was a commercial break in that.

So they didn't drag this out or anything.

But basically, I think they're setting up

some kind of Survivor Series

business with the females also, because

there's multiple

baby faces and heels mad at each other in this thing.

Where

finally, the finish of the match, Rhea and

Rachel.

Rhea and Raquel finally got in a fight, but Tiffy missed a moonsault.

And the refrigerator, Nia Jax, came down and nailed Ripley and got the disqualification in.

But then...

As the fridge went to Tiffany to help her,

Rhea came back in and went for a slam on the fridge, but Liv clipped Rhea's leg so that the fridge fell on Rhea.

And then Fridge grabbed Liv and head-butted her and leg-dropped her and bonsied her.

And then told Tiffany to cash in her briefcase on Liv, who's another heel.

And she, oh, she grabbed the case, but there was Dominic.

to pull Liv out of the fucking ring before she could be cashed in on.

These women can never get along so are we setting up some some kind of multiple person

fucking round-robin fiasco to go on here also i don't know about that they're setting up naya versus live for saudi arabia in the middle yes in the middle of all the live and rhea stuff they have to somehow get naya mixed in just because of saudi arabia but we've also got tiffany she's nia's pet on smack and we also got raquel she's live's muscle yeah and and well, and the Love Muscle.

And

I don't know what the hell that means.

But anyway, I think we ought to just put them all in the ring and give them all

a big bat with spikes like Ox Baker had in Escape from New York and let him sort it out.

And that was raw.

It certainly was.

That was raw.

Jim, did you place any bets on Raw?

Did you make any wagers about

how many segments there would be with women's wrestling on Raw this week?

Well, I did not.

I did not because I was afraid to find out the answer.

But you know what I found out?

I'll tell you, I was watching the news, the NBA.

Have you heard of them?

Of course.

The National Basketball Association?

Yes, of course.

Well, you might have confused it with a boxing organization.

But the NBA is finally back.

And apparently, from what I understand,

the NFL, you know, they came back and did another season.

They did well last year.

They came back and did it again.

And now the NBA is copying them.

And they're going to come back and do it again this year, too.

Can you believe that?

Yeah.

Well, you don't seem to be astonished by how they're just doing this every year now.

They're playing National Basketball Association games all over over the world.

You've got the

Harlem Globetrotters and the Kentucky Colonels and all those other teams.

Well, they're not in the NBA.

They're not professional organized basketball teams.

They're more of a show team.

They're more of the WWE to

the NBA's NBA.

When I saw the Kentucky Colonels in the ABA down at the Louisville Gardens in 1968, they were playing some serious b-ball, I'll tell you what.

In 1968, how old were you?

I was seven years old.

You were not at the age to evaluate a basketball player.

Well, I certainly evaluated the ball because the ABA was using that red, white, and blue ball, not that boring old orange thing that the NBA uses.

But anyway, folks, the NBA is back.

And that means that you can get the action at DraftKings Sportsbook because they're an official sports betting partner of the NBA.

And, you know, for example, you can bet on who's draining threes from beyond the ark.

Would you, who would you pick for that?

What the hell does that mean?

Beyond the ark.

Who's draining threes from beyond the ark?

That's what the copy says.

I want to know who's draining the main vein behind the goalpost.

But who is crashing the boards and grabbing rebounds?

Folks, you can get behind your favorite players,

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You know he's such a polite fella.

He's always here, says all that, leaves.

He's always in a hurry.

Well, he's got a lot to say, a lot to do.

He's a busy man.

The crown is his, and yours, and whoever's with DraftKings.

Ain't that right, Jim?

That's right.

That's right.

Well,

why don't we move across?

That's a deep subject, as Mama Cornette used to say.

Why don't we move across the country to California, where this week AEW

returned to the Golden State

for another action-packed episode of Dynamite, a highly anticipated episode coming off the big pay-per-view,

the ending where there was almost murder, and

various other people turned or won.

Lots of things happened.

We figured there'd be lots of answers on Dynamite.

And only there were more questions.

That's what the problem was.

Questions, questions.

And California, here we come.

I heard there were 30 million people or more in the state of California, and they couldn't get

what is 3,000

going into 30 million.

Is that

a tenth of a percent?

Or is that how many fractions of a percent is that?

I don't know.

Well, why don't you know?

Because ask your question again with English.

Well, see if you do the ciphering.

Use your words.

Use my own words, Very.

Well, those are my own words.

I just made them up on the spot.

So, what I'm saying to you is: if you're doing your ciphering, how many times does 3,000 Gazenta

30 million?

It's like a tenth of a percent of the population of the state showed up.

Or is it even a 10th?

Would it be a hundredth?

You should know these things, Brian.

Are you finding your calculator?

3,000 goes into 30 million 10,000 times.

So what percentage then would that be of...

God damn it.

You know, I can guarantee it is a percentage.

Oh, no, my calculator broke.

Oh, God.

What will I do?

We'll just have to guess.

That's a small percentage of the.

Okay, then answer me this while I'm talking about this show open.

How many people

does that building in San Jose, California that they had this event in, how many people does it hold if you're running a regular event where you just don't block all of it off?

How big is that building?

Let me get you that answer right now.

This was their debut in the market in San Jose for the record.

In San Jose, right on top of

the Lollipop Guild's headquarters and right where

the the home of their mouth organ, I mean, house organ,

the wrestling observer editor Dave Meltzer lives in San Jose.

They couldn't figure out a way to strong arm, bully, intimidate,

or otherwise ship more than 3,000 people into this building.

I believe it is, I believe this capacity number is for

the NHL games, the San Jose Sharks, but the SAP Center capacity, 17,562.

Jesus Christ.

All right, so three gazenda, they had about a sixth of a house.

But they started out not going directly into the arena, Brian.

They started out with a cold open,

a package, an interview with the plumber, Jon Moxley, and his crew.

in the back of a pickup truck riding around.

Apparently, they were just going around in circles in the parking lot of whatever arena they shot it in because every once in a while, when they drove by what apparently was a group of fans, they would cheer a little bit, standing out in the

chilly California night.

But Moxley recites, again,

lines from whatever movie or movies that he's been watching and studying

that are like indie underground cinema.

And it sounds like something

the words as they come at it sounds like something until it ends up never making any sense overall or really explaining anything

but it's it's the

some of the most wonderful verbiage that anybody's ever used to not say anything he's like a bar fly bray wyatt

nonsense just talks nonsense clearly it's based on him wanting to be an actor i don't know what the hell this is supposed to be.

Whose idea was the pickup truck?

By the way, what does Jack Perry think about that?

Hey, Jack, can you sit down?

Moxley's decided he wants to have a vehicle they drive to every show in now, and it's going to be a pickup truck.

Is that okay with you?

Well, but the thing is, you never see the front of the pickup truck.

You only see these bunch of stooges in the back of it, whereas you never see the back of Jack Perry's.

bread truck.

You only see the front.

So they probably got a, you know, I'll just stick to your ass and you stick to my front type of thing.

I don't know.

But this Moxley thing, when I was waiting for something to make it better, the pickup truck, their new mode of transportation.

Because that's the other thing that's funny about the whole thing.

Moxley's this philosophical white national.

I'm not exactly sure what the gimmick is, but it's also,

he can afford a bus.

You know what I mean?

He's making millions.

The whole idea that, like, even with Darby, like the whole, everyone's like still down and out.

No one's like, yeah, I'm rich.

I'm rich as fuck.

I can do whatever I want.

That should be, I mean, that's part of the Moxley thing.

He's acting like he's some street guy.

He's making millions.

Yeah, well, and they're showing the B-roll of the Danielson murder plot

from the pay-per-view while he's doing this promo and he puts over.

You know, AEW was the place where everybody could come to be the best.

This was the dream.

And wrestling gave me everything and I want that for other people.

So now he's,

is he a fucking sympathetic, empathetic heel or a babyface or what the fuck?

And he said, he starts saying,

there's 150 wrestlers on the roster with big fat paychecks.

Where are they supposed to go?

I hate what AEW has become.

Egos are out of control.

All the dancing and the partying.

Well, I'll burn down the forest to plant anew when I'm not sentimental.

Is this angle?

Is the story of this that Moxley is mad at Tony Khan's shitty booking?

Or it?

No, I think it's going to be like Fight Club.

Moxley's actually fighting himself.

He's mad at all the spoiled, rich millionaires who are lazy and selfish with big egos and bad ideas.

Turns out he's been punching himself in the mirror.

Claudio, make sure you rent a truck.

I'm thinking that maybe Renee is trying to do the thing.

Have you heard where these the wife slowly poisons the husband over a period of time to try to avoid detection?

How come there isn't a babyface who when they're interviewed goes, hey, Renee, before I answer that question, what the fuck?

Like, what's up with you and your fucking husband?

Well, yeah, well, that would, you know, beating up everyone in the company and you're just standing here like nothing's going on?

Like, you're not going to go back to his room tonight?

That would be too obvious to ask a guy's wife why that he was doing all the things he's doing and beating up me and everybody else that that she's talking to

they should announce that they're separated

well there you go they're a character right that would make sense they ought to pull the old john lorinitis and uh kathy

bella thing the bella well i guess that although that's not a work

right that would get people talking you know it doesn't have to be real renee i want to talk about your husband well actually i don't approve of any any of this, and we're in the midst of a divorce.

Yes.

You know, I can't explain what's going through his mind.

Every time I want to be intimate, he runs around with this stone-faced Moldovian girl.

And yeah,

what about when Renee has to interview Marina Schaefer?

What's going to happen?

Yeah.

Well, let's hope Marina Schaefer's not doing any Shafir, not Schaefer.

Let's hope she's not doing any interviews anytime soon.

She found a role that requires her not to talk.

Will Renee have to climb up in the pickup truck to interview this group, or do you think they're going to be smart enough to keep them apart at least?

Man, she's on every one of these shows in like a flowery dress and dressing like it's her Oscar night.

Like every week's a fancy outfit.

Meanwhile, her husband's showing up in his green pants and doing this whole thing.

And we're supposed to have ignored the fact that they're...

The interview, it could be like a segment after he jumps the entire locker room.

And then it's like, let's go to the the remarkable nibbigan.

And then she's in the back doing some hammy interview.

She looks like she's gone to the prom.

He looks like he's just climbed out of pump in a septic tank.

That's my thing.

Anyway, that's he closes the thing up.

We'll do what has to be done.

If you're not with us, run while you can.

Get out of the way.

What is the new paradigm?

You work for me now.

That was his closing line.

You work for me now.

What did I say to you, Brian, last

on the very last program that we did?

There ain't going to be no Shane McMahon in this because

Moxley is not going to

come up with or approve or participate in a goddamn deal where he's not the boss.

And

I think I even said that, where he's not running things, where he's not the boss.

And his exact words were here, you work for me now.

He is a

no good reason.

I've given no reason at all.

Just accept these stupid ideas I have.

He is a delusional fuck.

He thinks he's a badass.

He thinks he's a great wrestler.

He thinks he's some kind of goddamn Orson Welles as an actor.

And he thinks he's a superstar.

And he's not going to.

Have you noticed that now he used to just not sell because his work was bad.

But now he's shrugging shit off when grown men do do it to him and just not even register in it.

And

because he thinks this is going to be the thing that turns the company around, you can tell this is the big angle.

He's finally said, fuck it.

It's falling on my shoulders.

I'm going to have to save this thing and my star power.

Well, the bigger issue, and we'll see how this plays out.

From what we've seen,

there is a good percentage of the AEW fan fan base that is diminishing.

It's a smaller fan base now than it was.

They're into it.

They think this is great.

The problem is there's an equally big, if not bigger, audience at this point who think this is some wannabe bootleg NWO with bad acting and bad dialogue.

It's not connecting.

Again, it didn't connect with those people in Tacoma.

They didn't leave saying, let's get tickets for the next show.

That was the last thing on anyone's mind.

When can we come back and see more of this?

So I don't know.

This has a chance to be the thing, especially because it's going to be the thing to drive the Bucs to be babyface again.

So then they're thinking, you know, it's going to end up being the Bucks and Kenny and whoever have to save AEW,

have to step up from Moxley and the Green Card Express or whatever the fuck his team is.

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But anyway, then they went to the building.

The SAP Center.

That's what the name of the building is, right?

The SAP Center.

That's right.

I believe it's owned by Fightful Sean Rossap.

In San Jose, California, as we mentioned, the capacity for hockey, nearly 18,000.

They had about 3,000 tickets distributed.

We do not know the

sold numbers on these things.

And here came Adam Cole

to do a live in-ring promo.

And we have always said,

Adam Cole can talk.

That's probably the strongest part of his game.

And he could do it.

When he was 19 years old, I remember he was doing doing interviews, Ring of Honor in one take,

and sounded convincing and sounded like he meant what he said.

This was like Pavarati

singing happy birthday to me.

The material

is

they have tried to now

tell this story like Adam Cole

was the babyface all along and did the whole devil thing

with his cohorts, Taven and Bennett and Roddy or whatever, because MJF was such a rotten human being all along

that we did it to get him.

This thing has been cursed.

It's been snake bit, the whole thing between Adam Cole and MJF.

They started it, and remember when it was over?

What, about a year and a half ago?

It was the most over thing on the program.

They couldn't wed the kangaroo kick and the tag team matches and the

comedy videos.

And we hated a lot of it, but this group of fans that likes silly, phony wrestling were goddamn over the moon about it.

And then

the devil program, which got who got hurt first?

MJF was gone, then Adam was gone, or was it Adam gone, then MJF gone, then Adam gone again?

Adam got hurt jumping off the stage and he broke his foot, which required like two years worth of snow,

which he was out for for a while.

And then I think MJF

got hurt because MJF was there through the end of the year, wasn't he?

And then Adam Cole made an appearance as a heel

doing a promo, and that's when MJF made his surprise babyface return.

And then Adam Cole returns again now as a babyface

because MJF's now a heel.

Because MJF's a heel.

And again, the promo that Adam Cole did so wonderfully and performed so well here made huge liars out of both of these guys multiple times over in this story.

And if you actually watched the whole thing from the start

on video culminating in this

and through their last interactions and then this promo, it would make not one one fucking lick of sense, would it?

And the only reason that they think they can even get by with this is because,

like you and I, a lot of people have forgotten,

it's been so long, what the order of events was and who did what to who.

But this is, it doesn't make any sense at all, does it?

I don't think there's any way they can make sense of it.

That's the dilemma.

They want to address it.

They want to have something to do with it.

I guess you kind of need to if both guys are there at the same time for even a second.

There's no way to, there's no way to talk through.

Bill Watts couldn't make sense of this if he was in commentary.

And but then not only that, that's not the only problem.

Because also this promo and did you get this

vibe off of it?

It reminded me of a Sean Michaels Bret Hart exchange where they were

nominally keeping in the angle so they couldn't technically be screamed at, but they were still saying shit that they knew would piss the other guy off for real.

Why would Adam Cole be saying these things?

Personal issues draw money, but when you call MJF fake,

phony,

an insecure little boy who will cry in the corner of his room if you fuck with him on Twitter

and talk about his hair transplant.

Does that help this issue draw money and

be a personal issue?

Or does that diminish the guy?

And why was he constantly

hammering home and putting an exclamation point on,

trust me, Max, I'm telling you the truth.

Everybody in the locker room hates you.

Well, there may be something to that.

I don't know.

Well, that's the thing.

But he was going overboard than if he was trying to convince the fans of it.

It was like he was trying to make that point clear to his opponent as a shoot.

I lost sunny days or whatever the case.

I don't know if Adam Cole and MJF have a problem.

I haven't heard that, but

there are certainly guys there that are resentful of MJF because he's either at the same age or around the same age as them, but he's accomplished a whole lot more.

I mean, it's not just that he's gotten a push, lots of people in AEW got a push.

MJF produced ratings, merch, ticket sales.

Look at New York.

Look at New York.

We're not at MJF on that show.

But I've and I think there are a lot of guys there, similar age, without naming names, who may have a bit of resentment towards MJF for being successful at his age,

you know, and not being at their level.

I've never been able to

work up being mad at somebody else for being more successful than I am when they were better

at something.

It's only when some jack off gets propped up that you get indignant or should.

And

I'm sorry, but if all these guys can't see, well, you know,

I'm good, but I can't talk like MJF or I can't have the fucking match MJF can have, but I'll keep trying and I'm still better than most or whatever, then fuck them.

Can't handle the fucking truth.

But that's the point.

Was I going around telling people, well, fucking Heenan.

Boy, he couldn't talk as quick as I or whatever.

What the fuck?

No.

But that's the point, though.

Whether MJF is liked or not liked by the locker room or whatever factions in the locker room, who is that for?

How does that make the fans interested in this?

Yeah.

And so anyway, that was the thing.

The story nonsense.

And this went on a long time.

This went on a long time.

Very long.

Story nonsense, been fucked up for a while, tore MJF down in a weird way to diminish him instead of making him a bigger heel or getting

interest focused on this issue.

And

then he called MJF out

and MJF's music plays and then MJF pops up on the screen.

And obviously

wherever he was, he was not in the building.

I don't know of any major hockey arenas that have a room set up that looked like the goddamn

you know,

the club room back in the fucking 50s in New York on Broadway somewhere, some opulent gentleman's mansion or whatever.

But he obviously had not heard any

of what Adam Cole just said

because he had the wrong tone and attitude if he had and didn't refer to anything in specificity.

So it was a pre-tape.

Right?

That was obvious to anybody.

And his story was, Adam Cole, it was all your fault.

Which it was because Adam Cole was the goddamn devil.

And

it was all your fault.

And

I'm going to get even with you.

You will never get me in the ring.

So they're obviously going to milk this until, what's the date of their next pay-per-view?

Are they

at the...

I want to say it was November 23rd, maybe?

Sometime at the end of the month.

So they're going to milk this for a few weeks.

But again, MJF, great material, fantastic delivery.

Nobody talks like that.

It's just, it's not even a fair contest anymore.

But the story behind it was incoherent to begin with.

And then MJF is obviously, that's a tape.

He didn't refer to anything.

But then when that was over, Adam Cole in the ring responded.

Well, let me tell you something, Max.

Like, he's talking to the fucking guy on the pre-tape.

I'm going to give you the ass beating of a lifetime.

I don't know, but if you stood Adam Cole up next to MJF these days, I know which one's been doing push-ups and sit-ups, and I know which one has been fucking up and throwing up.

So,

I don't know if he...

I don't know if he ought to be bandying those threats around when right now, MJF, one of his arms makes a good goddamn thigh for fucking Adam Cole.

Since there are no rules to this feud and kind of you could just erase the past, MJF should make up with Wardlow.

Come back to his side.

That was the best usage of Wardlow.

Can anybody find Wardlow?

No.

I don't know where he is.

So, but

and the fans didn't go crazy for the story that Adam Cole told either.

They were happy to see him, but when when they heard what came out of his mouth, it was more like just,

what?

The Brochacho thing getting over

the way it did for the short period of time that it did

disguises the fact that Adam Cole's entire AEW run was a complete disappointment.

And I think he turned off a lot of, I mean, I know he did because he did it even with me.

He turned off a lot of Adam Cole fans.

So the reaction wasn't what you would expect from a big returning,

so I have to say baby face, big returning wrestling star who could fit into any genre of babyface review.

It wasn't that.

And the other thing is in terms of them doing something together, in a time where it seems like everyone in AEW is getting a

very, very fast is getting a better physique.

If Adam Cole looks like he used to and doesn't have a tan,

For that reason and a variety of others, there's no way he could do something with MJF and MJF doesn't go over, right?

Well, one would hope, but, you know, look who we're dealing with here in this environment.

But I think...

Vince was right.

I hate to say it.

Vince was right.

Adam Cole would be so effective as a manager who never took off his clothes, who ran his mouth, and every now and then you get past this big beast and you get to punch him in the face.

Yeah.

That would have been the best use for him.

It really would.

But if he hadn't changed the way that he looks physically and he gets in the ring with MJF,

it's sad.

All right, real briefly, until we get to the next major event.

Chris Jericho says Mark Briscoe cheated and he wants a rematch.

And Mark Briscoe is mad that Jericho keeps talking about Jay and is going to give him a rematch.

And next week, they're going to have it on TV.

In a ladder match.

Oh, Christ.

You know what?

Give Jericho credit other than the stupid thanks guys at the end.

And again, it wasn't the usual one, but the whole thing is just a bomb.

Doesn't work.

This is one of the best promos I've heard from him in a long time.

Well, but now I'm afraid he's going to win the goddamn belt from Mark Briscoe.

Oh, yeah, I think so.

Well, that's the problem.

Take away the face of Ring of Honor.

He realizes how bad things are getting in JEW.

Hey, Tony, I'll just work for Ring of Honor.

What was the one thing that I praised about that over long, overdone, overbooked fiasco of a pay-per-view?

They had a single match between Jericho and Mark Briscoe, and Mark Briscoe won with the J Driller, and that was the right result.

The one thing they did right, they're going to bring it back, and I guarantee you now, Jericho is going to beat Mark and win this fucking belt.

Anyhow, how long has it been since we saw FTR

on dynamite?

Have they not, they've been exiled to Rampage or something haven't they

they uh very proudly i think were a part of collision and maybe some of the uh creative muscle behind collision at times and they've been stuck on collision and we've rarely seen them on dynamite maybe i think the build up to wembley or something they were there for a little while and i know i've heard that uh they've been and aew had some stuff on the show very active about raising money for all the victims in Asheville and all over North Carolina and beyond, I guess, people that were affected by the round of hurricanes that just hit.

But other than that, no, we never see Montinoite.

Well, at least we saw him again

because

they had a match with Big Bill and Brian Keith, and

I was scared because they're in the Jericho periphery.

But it was a tag team match.

That's the thing.

Brian Keith ain't bad.

He's just painfully small.

But

all of a sudden, shit was getting laid in.

Wrestling spots were being done.

Tag teams were doing double teams.

There was crisp work.

There was no gymnastic bullshit.

The big seven-foot giant was being kept strong.

It was,

what the fuck is this in this environment?

It was professionalism being exhibited.

They kept Big Bill strong,

and they had to work to get anything on him.

And then they got some heat on cash.

Big Bill missed a charge into the turnbuckle.

Cash scampered past Brian Keith and dove and made a hot tag.

And Dax came in and did a comeback.

But again, Big Bill is the one.

If they need stopping, he stops them.

And they...

They did some back and forth.

Bill dumped cash over the top.

He took a tremendous bump.

And then Brian Keith hit some kind of fucked up move.

And

Big Bill hit a boot and a cover, and Cash saved.

And then they went to the floor.

And they did a beautiful blind tag spot.

And where one member of FTR, I can't even remember now which is which, but one member of FTR

had the guy that was in the headlock.

And he backed up and they blind tagged and shot Brian Keith off, a double drop down, a leapfrog, and into the shatter machine.

One, two, three.

That's the first tag team match I've seen in wrestling in weeks.

They've had some they've called tag team matches, but they don't do tag team shit.

So I liked the match.

And then

as they're celebrating, music plays, and here come

the Outrunners.

And they got in the ring and danced and posed and danced and posed.

And

I don't get it.

What are they saying?

The Outrunners are allegedly a throwback to an 80s tag team.

Is that the gimmick there that I've read on the internet that that's what they're doing?

I think that's the gimmick.

The only problem is, as someone who's not going to be able to do that, what team in the 80s ever did any of that shit?

Yeah, no one ever behaved like that ever.

No.

No.

They're like an 80s video game tag team.

Well, whatever it is,

I don't get it.

I don't get it.

But this is, well,

I'll say what I do get, though, is that because the fans have decided that they don't like what they're being given in large part,

they decide

they're going to get somebody over just because they want to work with themselves to get them over, to cheer them or to chant for them.

They did it with Hook.

We had a guy in OVW

years ago named Rod Steele.

Rip Rogers trained him.

Don't hold that against Rip, but he was a big guy, like six feet five, and he had a good body.

He was like 250 pounds.

But he was already, I think, like 40 years old.

This was 20 years ago.

And

he wasn't going to be a big star, and the WWF wasn't going to sign him.

But he was local, and the crowd liked him.

I'd put him in a dark match, and his big thing was he would pick a guy up and slam him like five times in a row.

And the people would go, scoop,

slam, scoop, slam.

To listen to the reaction, you would think Rod Steele

was the goddamn biggest star in wrestling and would sell you out any building you went to.

But no.

Ben, sometimes the people just decide

if we're already here,

we're going to like somebody for some weird reason.

But if you try to put them in a spot where you actually put them in main events, and maybe that was the thing with pockets, maybe even the

indie fans knew, okay, this guy's a fucking joke, but let's, as a rib,

let's cheer for him.

And then

the bubble-brained fucking promoters and other boys thought the guy was really over.

You can't put some of these people in the main event, or it wears off because the whole idea of the fans liking doing that is they're cheering for some

underneath guy that doesn't look like you ought to be cheering for him.

Does that make any sense?

It does.

And again, it's the team, it's the act, to use a Dave Melcher term, that the AEW fans have decided right now that they're going to get behind.

I mean, it's another team that

maybe once, twice, have they ever been on dynamite?

They're never on dynamite.

So the reaction is from the AEW hardcore fans from seeing them as a cult act on the show that you have to be a diehard fan to watch.

And obviously, they were on collision.

That must mean they're FTR guys and they probably all want to work together.

Well, anyway.

Renee Moxley Good had the acclaimed and Billy Gunn in the back.

And the question was posed to them: what's next for the acclaimed?

And Billy Gunn said, Well, we're going to the gym right now.

And as a matter of fact, I'm going to go get the car ready.

And he left the interview so that he's not standing there.

But think about this, Brian.

They can't work hard and talk about lazy booking.

By the way, folks, some shirts are still available at gymcornet.com, but that's been discontinued now that we brought thank thank you, fuck you, buy back.

So get your lazy booking shirt.

Why?

He's there at the show.

It's like the other night somebody pulled up and then decided they were going to get in the car and leave again.

Or they went to somebody else on an interview and they said, well, we got to catch a plane.

At fucking 8.30, the TV show comes on the air at 8 o'clock.

So they had a, they couldn't even come up with a better excuse for Billy Gunn to walk out than I got to go get the car ready because we're going to the gym.

Do you see why I'm insulted here?

No, they've established this on the show.

Remember, Osprey was going to drive to the arena once the show started, even though he didn't have a license and never drove in America.

And then

I think Don Cowis and Takesha left at the start of the episode a couple weeks ago.

Because they had to catch a plane.

Their travel agent fucked up and booked them to leave in the middle of the show.

It was Bryce Remsberg.

No, whoever's booking AEW's travel is obviously screwing with all the heels and babyfaces.

Yeah, so anyway, so Billy leaves and the acclaimed and especially Castor

did a promo and they're acting very heelish.

I don't know whether they're trying to get more balls and bass in their voices, babyfaces or what, but MVP and Shelton come in and offer the card, the business card, to talk, and the acclaimed say, we don't need anything from you.

But apparently, that was enough reason to run Billy Gunn out of a fucking backstage one-minute pre-tape.

And then

Mercedes Moon

and Queen YIATA had another chapter in their vicious blood feud.

Remember when I mentioned

last week, who was it?

It was the ah, Margaret Cho

that,

or was it

Emmy Sakura?

Same difference.

They've established Camille as this giant that towers over Mercedes.

She's very

voluptuous, the opposite of Raquel Rodriguez.

She's the bodyguard or whatever she is.

She's got a striking look.

And the first thing they do

three weeks into this thing is have Emmy Sakura fucking pushing her around and bumping her and she gets no retribution.

Now this girl got to bump Camille around and

woman handle her in some fashion with no retribution.

And then Mercedes is the one that turns around and stops the girl for the heat.

It ought to be the opposite way around.

That's the opposite of correct.

Get your babyface over

by establishing that Mercedes can't handle her straight up, one-on-one, eye-to-eye,

and have Camille do something from behind to allow Mercedes to be able to take over.

Camille earns her money as the bodyguard.

Mercedes gets more heat as the heel.

The babyface gets more sympathy as a babyface.

And you're building Camille

for the eventual showdown with somebody that may be her size and as physically intimidating as she is.

Or just have every one of these goddamn middle-card miscellaneous girls pushing her around.

Which would you pick, Brian?

Obviously, this doesn't do anything to help Mercedes-Monet and nothing to help Camille.

So Mercedes won with a fucked-up move of some description and and a chin lock.

She's a member of the Gracie family now.

Mercedes Moan Gracie.

Moan is her maiden name.

She gets the same reaction Hoyce Gracie got when he won the first UFC when people didn't know what the hell was happening.

All that money, no one gives a shit.

She's on this show.

She doesn't matter.

She doesn't help the business.

And the fans sit there silently.

Otherwise, Net, she's doing great.

Well, we can get get through the next part fairly quickly because Private Party and the Hardley boys were in the back in some

storage room where there was such an echo, it was hard to make out all the scripted verbiage.

But Private Party wants a rematch, and the buckaroos take a long time to cheesily tell them never again will they face Private Party.

And then Stokely Carmichael came in and told told him that they were just

he basically tore them down some more.

Private, yeah, you should have listened to me.

You guys, you're just done.

You're just.

I don't even, I don't know what that was.

Did you get any

insight

into why they just decided to just tell private party what pieces of shit they were?

The Bucs can't book a tag team division.

The Bucks don't know how to

be wrestling performers on a national stage.

I mean, there's a variety of problems here.

None of them are private parties.

Well, and then they went to a break and then came back, and there were the Hardley Boys again with Jungle Jack off and their bonus baby O Cody.

And they were doing a promo.

It's Kenny Omega's birthday.

And since he had 20 feet of his putrid intestines out,

we got him a little gift.

So happy birthday, Kenny.

And they dumped a bunch of like

pig intestines or whatever they got from a butcher shop out on a desk.

And

O Cody

earned his

$200,000 or whatever this month by saying, Get well, bitch,

so everybody can laugh at it.

What a waste of fucking money for this broken-down, colorless, tasteless, odorless,

cake, charisma-less fucking cake.

No,

I'm talking about O O'Cody.

Oh,

what the

and then the next match, and we're going to skip this one to the end real quick, but it was the Hardleys and Ocody against Kyle O'Reilly, Rocky Romero, and Pockets.

And obviously, the mascots matches are unwatchable to anybody with any respect for the business.

But again,

I tried

to see something

worth any amount of money to sign

this broken down

shell of a human being.

There have been people that have just come out of a medically induced coma that could move around the ring better than Okada.

And I'm saying, focus on him in every match, the crumble bumps, the slow-mo, the concrete shoes, nothing gets laid in.

He takes every shortcut imaginable.

And they're paying him millions of dollars.

Bitch.

Anyway, bitch.

I mean, it's embarrassing.

Can you tell me?

What's embarrassing is the lack of reaction all of this is getting at these shows.

Because the one argument to shut you down would be, well, you don't like it, but everyone else does.

Well, there's no one there, and they're barely reacting.

So

all this stuff with the elite

and Jack Perry.

Jack Perry is

the most cringeworthy promo in wrestling because you don't believe anything from him at all.

I mean, Okada's a problem, and he's certainly not the Okada of old.

He's the old Okada, all right.

He's positively retirement-worthy.

Yeah, I mean, I I don't know.

I'm, there's nothing I can really say to save any of this.

It's not good.

Well, it's not good.

They had a match, and then suddenly Wheeler Useless came in and leveled pockets and got the disqualification.

Remember when they would never disqualify anybody for anything?

Yeah, for like the first couple of years, AEW never had any disqualifications, right?

And now they've just said, oh, fuck it.

As soon as we're ready, just run in and we'll just ring the bell.

It's gone from one extreme to the other again.

So then here came the Moxley.

Moxley, Moxley, Moxley, Moxley, Moxley.

The whole crew

and the

heels led by the Jackson kids

go to the entrance and Mox and the minions beat up the babyfaces.

All of them beat up pockets.

And then here came top flight and action and ready.

And they got the shit beat out of them.

And by the way, those three now are a thing, apparently.

They're together.

I know that the Martins are brothers, so they should have

similar size, similar features.

But Action Andretti, he's about the same size.

He's got hair when they're all three out there running around doing the old shell game.

I can't tell which one's which.

And then Moxley was not registering anything.

A guy sprung off the ropes to give him some kind of flying ding bat, and he just reached up and just knocked the guy out of the sky.

And other people will come up and he'll just grab him and hold them.

And then the dork order came out and they got beat up.

And Moxley choked out Fat Uno.

And then Marina Schaefer hung one of the dork order jobbers from the ring post with a belt around his neck.

And then Moxley said, if you're involved with AEW, you're under attack.

And then they squished him

in between the stairs and the ring post

while Moxley was slobbering,

this is the cost of doing business.

So they beat up all these jobbers.

And

again,

they go to the back, and Garcia and Private Party are yelling

at the Hardleys and Jungle Jackoff for letting that all happen.

They're fucking heels.

Why would they stop anything from happening?

It doesn't.

So this is supposed to trigger them to all of a sudden become responsible businessmen.

They're doing the same shit.

They beat up the owner of the company and spiked him on his head.

So why would they stop these psychopaths from?

Why doesn't someone make a deal with Don Callis to stop them?

Tony's got money.

Callis's stable seems a whole lot more badass.

Yeah, and he's got a screwdriver.

Yeah.

What would you have brought me if I'd asked you for a Bloody Mary?

I am a plumber.

I don't have a screwdriver.

Don't.

Don't even say that.

He'll come out with a wrench next to one of the fucking

monkey wrench gimmicks

anyway

what do you think of the aew civil war whatever is this that's happening where all of a sudden the guys who have been on the roster forever have decided that everyone in aw works for them for no definable reason or for any cause and we were yuta who

last week got the shit kicked out of him by the blackpool combat club is now in their little group.

Did he dye his hair?

Was it like grayer or was it just the way I was

was it just my monitor?

It may have been your monitor.

It may have been,

I don't know what it might have been.

But this is just not good.

And again, it's Moxley just jerking off all over himself.

When you watch him no sell,

guys jumping at him.

That's not done for any other reason than.

Self-pleasure.

There's no booking reason that doesn't help anyone.

That helps no one.

He sells nothing.

Remember last week on the floor, he front face locked two guys and just held them there while they were trying to fight.

Private party, I think.

Private party, yeah.

I saw someone write, and this made me laugh: they should get that guy that made him lose, or one of the guys that made him lose in the grappling tournament.

If this is what Moxley's doing to the roster, that other guy will kill everyone.

This is a great way to make someone new.

Tony Khan could say, I have found the guy that beat Moxley.

And it could be anyone.

It could just be anyone that no one knows.

And there's your new star.

And this isn't even the end of it.

Oh, no.

I'm sure it has much more left to go.

After all this, what do you think of what I said earlier that this is all to set up the eventual babyface turn of the Bucs to help save AEW?

Well,

it might be.

It might be.

And actually, now that you've said that, I hope it is because then we can hear the people not cheer the Bucs as much as they've not been booing them.

Because Kenny's obviously on the way back.

They wouldn't have bought that cake if Kenny was.

They were setting up something.

It may not be imminent, but he's coming back soon, I think.

Have you priced pig intestines lately?

I mean, that is not as cheap as it used to be, inflation and all.

So if they spent that much money, he's got to be coming back.

I think that's what they're going to do.

It's going to be Moxley and his crew versus the reconfigured elite eventually.

You could have, you know, Moxley and Omega, the Bucks and Pack and Claudio, Marina and Jack Perry.

Oh, poor Perry.

But then does that mean that Tony will have to make up with the people that Spike Powell drove him because they're fighting for the company against the evil people that want to take it over rather than the evil people people that already run it?

Maybe they can knock on Tony's door.

Boss, can we talk to you?

She's got something to say.

We were really inspired by you.

So why don't we all come together and together do that famous catchphrase, all together now?

Are you ready?

And I think that's how you make it up.

You do his favorite thing.

You start screaming at each other, yelling catchphrases of Antonio and Oki.

All right.

Can we get to the one highlight of the program?

Blame Shinma.

I'm going to Iraq.

Sorry, I'm just doing various Antonio Anoki catchphrases.

Yes, the highlight of dynamite.

Leo Rush versus Shelton Benjamin.

And now they can't say that none of them know how to do this because they got a tutorial on their own program.

If anybody was watching the monitor, this is what it looks like.

Leo Rush came out with a girl in his corner.

I don't know who the fuck.

Layla Gray.

Okay, well, there you go.

This match had everything I like.

Layla Gray and Leo Rush has always entertained me.

Wait a minute.

I thought she was a porn actress.

Layla Gray?

Layla Gray.

No, but every woman in wrestling is kind of named after, like,

they all have porn names.

Sasha Gray is who I'm thinking about.

Oh,

that's who you're thinking about, really.

A fine young woman.

Where is she today?

Many talents.

Where is she today?

I don't know, but if anybody's got any phone numbers or contact information, keep it to yourself.

Or any drive-through at Gmail.com.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, at gmail.com.

Anyway, so the point is

Shelton's got MVP with him.

They're reforming the hurt business under another name.

And Bobby Lashley is imminent.

But Shelton looks great.

He's in shape.

He's a grown man.

He's a veteran.

And this was very close to perfect.

I think he was a little nice to Leo at the finish, but nevertheless, the whole story of the match: Leo Rush is smaller than everybody, so he's also quicker than everybody.

He's using the speed and agility to duck and dodge and stick and move.

And the only chance he has to

rock Shelton Benjamin is to catch him off guard.

And Shelton Benjamin dominated him physically.

He'd take him lightly every once or twice and get rocked, but he never took big bumps

or was what you could call in serious trouble.

He worked to the level that Leo Rush is presented at on the card and his size.

And he still gave the guy stuff and he made it work, but he didn't

make it ridiculous.

And

even though Leo got some hope spots, really the outcome was never in doubt.

And you didn't want it to be

because this is Shelton's first appearance on television.

And because he was trained by very smart people and he's got a smart guy in his corner.

I'm sure they set this match up because it was different than every other debut of a big star that you have seen on this television show.

Because the big star

got over

for the good of the business.

He didn't go out there to fucking have the greatest match his opponent had ever had because he's such a nice guy.

So anyway, everything looked good.

They were serious.

It made sense.

Power slam type of suplex, one, two, three.

Shelton wins.

That's what I'm taught.

That's the way you debut on television, for fuck's sake.

Is this hard to figure out?

Well, Shelton looked good.

He looked gigantic in AEW.

My only complaint would be I thought it went slightly too long.

Well, that's what I say.

I think he got a little nice to him at the finish and gave him a few, a couple more extra Zabada's, but overall,

you know, that's the picture.

And Leo Rush did great.

Every time Shelton threw him around, just his facial expressions, the way his body folded up,

you know, beyond just the natural folding for being thrown by Shelton Benjamin.

Yes.

Yeah, Leo did great here, too.

Well, that's why we said that kid could be a million-dollar manager

because he's got a slappable face and a loud mouth, and he's so minute.

Nobody will ever take him seriously as a wrestler, and he'll never be in the main events.

But as a manager that could be pressed into

getting his ass kicked when it called for it, it, you could make a fortune with that guy.

But apparently, he's convinced he's going to be a wrestler because it's more fun.

I don't fucking know.

And then MVP cut a promo

that was, again, very good and heelish, and you believe him.

And he called out Swerve to,

well, he didn't call him out, but he

told Swerve to reconsider his offer.

Kind of an or else type of thing.

And then

I can't remember whether it was after a break or just in the back, you had Renee Mox Lugude with Swerve and Nana.

And Swerve basically said, anywhere, anytime, any place, make it happen.

Maybe happening very quickly, but I guess they need something for Swerve to get into.

But

I'll be interested to see Swerve and Shelton because I guarantee you

there will be no hypodermic needles involved on Shelton Benjamin's part.

And I bet you that he will get the best match out of Swerve Strickland

that anybody has because they won't be doing

bookous of gymnastics or tons of dangerous indie shit.

They're both athletic and Shelton can channel him

to where he uses it as a strength instead of as a weakness.

The on-the-match, the promos, the look, everything.

What have you thought so far of the presentation in AEW of MVP and Shelton Benjamin?

They're making them look like a big deal.

And they're making him look like a main.

And MVP hasn't been like Mark Sterling or Stokely Carmichael or, you know, Don Fallus or any of these.

Stokely Hathaway for those new listeners.

Stokely Hathaway.

Sorry.

Well,

the more famous Stokely wins out.

But he's not been a silly,

flippant, frivolous comedy figure.

He's been a fucking star from a big company that has a big track record of putting together stables that has come in and it's being serious.

And you know that MVP or Shelton, either one,

are not really going to do it any other way.

So

we'll see what happens and how many people that they can find that can actually work with serious professionals in this company.

And then we, speaking of serious professionals, we went the other way.

Tony Schiavone was in the ring with Don,

the leader of the Phallas family, with his new men, Brian Cage and Lance Archer.

And of course, Don said he thought they should have a press conference, but there's no real journalists in pro wrestling anyway.

So we'll just do this.

And

was Dave there, you think?

They were in San Jose.

How far is the building from his tiny one-bedroom apartment?

He doesn't live in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, but we heard.

I thought he moved in with Don LaPrey.

He not only was there, but we heard that he stayed late after the show talking with Talon.

Well, then Don was sending him out a message there.

You know, no real journalists in pro wrestling.

So those two are going to take the tag team title, apparently.

Brian Cage and Lance Archer.

That's what Don says.

And then he brings out Kyle Felcher and our friend Take.

If they ever get Take out of this and start using him every week, I'll actually learn to pronounce his real name.

But the surprise of this was, did you hear the promo that Take did?

Well, it started in Japanese, and then it switched over to English.

And although not perfect, it was perfect for what he needed to sound like.

Plus, he's got good facial expressions, too.

This guy, I swear to God, this guy's bigger than Okada.

He's younger than Okada.

He's much better in the ring than Okada.

He can talk better with less of a goddamn accent than Okada.

Why aren't they paying him the money they're paying Okada?

The fuck.

If I was our friend Take, I'd get somebody like Barry Bloom on the phone, or maybe even Matt Bloom.

And then,

so Kyle Felcher then stepped up and spoke, and he needs a manager.

He's done wonders with his physical

appearance.

He's building himself up.

He's got a little bit of a gimmick going on, the hair and everything.

But

I don't know about doing promos.

He said he needs a manager.

His manager's right there.

Oh, fuck, I forgot.

He has a manager.

Well, the manager didn't do the promo for old Mr.

Felcher.

So,

but anyway, so now it's Cage and Archer and Felcher and Take.

That's the Phallis family.

You know, this ended up being like my favorite thing on this episode.

I think out of all the Heel Stables, this may be my favorite one right now.

I like Takesha.

I like Kyle Fletcher.

Even his promo, I like it because I like that weasly little voice.

It lends itself perfect to him because he looks like a big kid.

And then Brian Cage, all of a sudden being there, I'm all for giving him a shot with something, I guess.

And

Lancer.

We haven't seen Jake since Jake make that deal.

Was he killed?

Shut up, Jake.

He's in Mexico.

He's doing background on his new team.

He's going to all various places in Mexico that you go to do background.

I like this segment.

I mean, the problem is you have this strong, or they're trying to present them strong here.

Heel stable, feuding with Will Osprey, maybe the best presented babyface of 2024 in AEW.

And you have all this other shit happening in every other segment, independent of this.

The Bucks and the Moxley crew, all that stuff's going on.

And then you have this and it's its own separate universe.

I like this.

This is the best stuff on the show.

It's a good heel crew if they only had a manager.

The manager was there.

I forgot.

I forgot.

But anyway,

so in the back, Maria Mae wanted some competition, and Anna Jay came in and they just started arguing and finger-pointing.

And Chris Daniels came in to try to separate him, and Anna Jay went to slap

Maria Mae and clocked Chris Daniels.

And she, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

And he's like, oh, I'm okay.

Renee Moxley Good was in the back with Ricochet.

He looks and talks like a substitute high school science teacher.

That's perfect.

Oh, my God.

It's not that he's not well-spoken.

He's not an unintelligent individual.

It's just like, what the fuck?

Did you guys have the new sub?

Yeah, is he cool?

He seems young.

Well, he's young, but he's boring.

Yeah,

very boring.

And he'll be on collision Saturday.

So watch out for that.

But suddenly, in the back of the building, again,

what is the name of the group that Moxley is Moxley's Midnight Runners now, or whatever they are in the back of their pickup truck?

They were in the back of the building again, beating up

the same job guys that they had beat up before.

And round two.

One of top flight,

again, I can't tell which is which when they're moving around so quick.

But one of top flight did a dive off an equipment case onto the pile of people in a straight fight.

They're doing dives.

And

there's Marina Schaefer beating everybody up.

But have you noticed somehow nobody ever even takes a swing at her?

How is that possible that nobody has had an opening to take a swing at her yet?

I'll tell you, it'll be an interesting thing when one of the baby faces gives her a kick right in the pussy.

What kind of people that get?

See, this is another, it's like when they had Stephanie just telling off all the babyfaces and the heels and everybody on the WWE program and emasculating them and cutting their balls off.

And nobody would ever do anything about it.

And I said that one time years ago on a show.

And people say, well,

how dare you advocate for the punching of a woman or the beating of a woman or what?

Well, then don't put the woman in that position because it is no win.

If your TV network will not allow you

to draw back and haul off and punch a woman in the face, then don't have the woman telling off, especially the baby faces.

Because then

the baby faces are diminished because all the guys in the audience are are reminded that they can't do anything about it when their wife or their girlfriend tells them off either.

And now my hero won't punch Stephanie McMahon in the left tit.

So I'm doubly upset.

Well, Marita Shafir is not cutting promos on them.

She's actually kicking the shit out of them.

She's beating the shit out of them.

And if it was legit, I'm sorry, I don't advocate for male-on-female violence either.

But if the female in question

is a trained jujitsu expert and is currently beating the fuck out of me, I'm going to haul off and do what needs to be done to get the fuck away from this.

And

it's ridiculous.

Yes, jump from behind or put the choke on or as part of the, but just over and over.

And everybody's ignoring her.

and staying away.

And that's not natural.

If this was real, somebody would come from the side and clock that bitch.

And if this is real when they're fighting like the 20 people they were fighting, one of them would have broken away and cut the tire.

Something.

The Jeep was right there running.

Yeah, you know, flatten their fucking tire so they can't get away.

Anyway.

And again, every time any of this is happening, in the middle of it, Moxley finds time to like turn to the camera.

And, you know, like he's Confucius or something.

He has some kind of fucking expression he needs to make.

We warned you, we're coming, and you can't do anything.

Also, you should have known.

What?

What are you fucking talking about?

And but now, and here's the other thing about this, even in their own world of insanity,

this is a top heel group, Moxley and his gang.

And they're beating up jobbers.

It's dork order.

It's top flight.

It's whoever, miscellaneous people.

And they get in the back of the pickup truck and they drive off.

And then,

of all people, Fat Uno

is on his feet and starts cutting a promo on the fucking heel group, Moxley's group, to the camera.

And I wrote, my God, it's a shitty heel group, yes, but totally, totally out of place to let jobbers.

still be standing on their feet cutting promos on them when they've just kicked the shit out of them.

And then Top Flight and Andretti did the same thing.

Well, if you're so tough, start running, catch that pickup truck.

Don't be telling the camera, what the fuck?

They get beat up and they're down long enough for the guys to get in the truck and drive off, and then they're up cutting promos.

All righty.

And again, this wasn't like the top baby faces going down.

Private party and the dark order.

No, private party warning.

Excuse me.

Top flight fight action and ready, the Dark Order.

John Silver went running after the Jeep.

And then...

Oh, yeah, I forgot.

One of them did go running after it.

No, that was Little Brutus.

Yeah, that's John Silver.

I thought John Silver was the one with hair.

No, see, that's the thing.

That's Alex Reynolds.

Oh, okay.

Well, see, there, it's been years since these motherfuckers have even been on goddamn television regularly.

Thank God.

They're down to the core.

They're down to the core people.

It always comes back to it.

Moxley and what he wants, the Bucks and Dark Order stuff going back to the very beginning.

They're down to their people.

Jack Berry getting a push.

There are certain things outside of that window,

but we're going to get to see these guys destruct this company altogether.

I want to see Shelton Benjamin in a shoot

four-on-one with Moxley,

Yuda.

Fuck it, what's the other one?

Pack Claudio.

Pack,

not Claudio.

Now, he's guilty, too.

But I wouldn't want to see Claudio get stretched.

And

I might at least have to save him for last.

He might give Shelton a

brief skirmish, but the other, what the fuck?

That's the move.

You want to get the hurt business over?

Dynamite opens in a couple of weeks after Lashley shows up with tony khan walking down the hall and he knocks on the door and insides mvp welcoming of course tony khan in and tony says i'll give you guys whatever it takes clean up my locker room done

and then mvp and lashley and shuttle kick the shit for two hours they kick the out of everyone on the show

Last man standing gets the stay.

Everyone else goes the ring of honor.

Well, there you go.

And I'm trying to think who would be just on this show.

Would anybody be the last man standing?

Let me find them.

Yeah.

There's no star power.

They wonder why their numbers are going down.

They're trying.

This is not an indictment of like MVP and Shelton who just got there.

MJF wasn't on the show, but that's Star Power.

He wasn't on the show, despite the tape.

No,

I'm not even talking about Star Power.

I'm trying to find somebody on this show that could actually

compete with Shelton Benjamin, much less Bobby Lashley.

Because Lashley, the size difference is incredible.

Shelton's more human-sized, but he'd still put a ham sandwich on their back and starve them to death.

You know, that I'm sorry, it got me thinking about the Moxley thing.

That could be long-term booking.

And we were so stupid we didn't know it.

Tony Khan can't stop these guys from taking over his show.

What's he going to do?

He starts calling in all the guys that he sent home.

Miro,

Wardlow, Ricky Starks, like this whole crew crew of people that have been gone, re-emerged to rid the company of Moxley.

And I know somebody's out there going, well, Cornette just loves Shelton Benjamin.

He ain't that big.

He ain't that tough.

Do you think, has it been long enough that people don't know that Shelton was a goddamn amateur and was Brock's coach at the University of Minnesota?

Shelton was an assistant coach at that point.

He'll fucking stretch your ass from asshole to appetite.

Anyway, are you ready for the main event?

As ready as I was when I watched it.

Jay White, the light switch himself with Juice Robinson and one gun.

He wasn't the two-gun kid.

Where was the other gun?

Did they ever say, I can't listen to the announcing?

Well, I don't know, actually.

Why would you send one gun out there?

Seems like it'd be like having one midget.

You can't really do anything.

Anyway, Jay White with Juice and one gun against Christian Cage with Nick Plain and Nick Plain's mom.

And the match started at eight minutes till 10.

And

I swear to God, Christian, at least he knows.

He's like, fuck it.

We're just going to walk and talk, as we used to say.

And nothing really happened before the break.

The referee kicked Juice and gun out of ringside, and they grabbed grabbed Nick with them and drug him by his feet.

And Nick's mom went after them protesting, so they got all the clutter out of ringside.

And they went to break and came back right at 10 o'clock.

They're back from the break for the overrun.

And finally,

Christian was ready to spear Jay White.

Pip Sabian jumped up on the apron.

and drew the referee and Adam Page came in and hit the buckshot on Jay White and Christian covered him one, two, three.

And that was it.

Now,

we've just got used to

Light Switch being a babyface, but

is he the kind of person that gets any sympathy at this point from people?

No, absolutely not.

With the guns who are full-fledged heels.

you know, still involved with them.

Were they full-fledged heels?

Were you getting?

Well, I thought they were, weren't they?

Last time we saw them, weren't they the heels?

When is the last time we saw them?

It depends on who you feud with.

I don't know.

When was the last time we saw them?

I don't know.

But anyway, you gotta.

I don't know what the ratings are.

I'm blissfully ignorant.

You're about to tell me here shortly, but

I don't know how anybody made it through to this point, this program.

Well, I have the ratings here, and actually, just so we could do an honest comparison because we've been doing it lately.

Let me pull up what NXT

this past week on CW did.

We won't do the quarter hours, but just in terms of, because I didn't watch it, and I don't know if you watched it.

Well, no, but they impressed me the first two weeks, said,

We have been corrected apparently all along.

The Mafia hitman was the babyface, and the giant, muscular,

good-looking fellow with the weird name was the heel.

So it wasn't a double turn.

Tony DiAngelo was the babyface.

That's why

he puts a mint on your pillow when he makes you sleep with the fishes.

And Oba Femi

is apparently the heel.

Well, NXT, October 15th on CW, Tuesday night, 8 to 10 p.m., on average, 639,000 viewers.

Okay,

after the first two weeks, that is a drop,

as everybody figured it would be, even the first couple weeks being loaded up.

27% drop.

But

$639,000 is still in the ballpark for the developmental program with no names

as to what Tony's been doing on his flagship show with all of the

captains on the ship.

Well, Jim, AEW Dynamite, October 16th on TBS, as reported by WrestleNomics,

from 8 to 10.09 p.m.

on average, 633,000 viewers.

Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

What is that down from last week?

From last week, that is up 92%.

Last week was 329.

Oh, okay.

But no, that was Tuesday.

That was last week.

It was a Tuesday.

8% off the trailing four-week average of $690.

Yeah, they

so they've lost another.

Was there an all-night gas station open up across the street?

What's the excuse that Dave Meltzer is giving?

Well, according to WrestleNomics, Dynamite was ranked sixth amongst cable originals in primetime in the key demo, outranked by Dodgers versus Mets,

Fox News, and the WNBA Finals on ESPN.

So it's come to to this that the WNBA is drawing a better rating than their wrestling program.

Well, again, these quarter hours were compiled by WrestleNomics, Jim, 8 to 8.15 p.m.

quarter one.

The Jon Moxley promo, the Adam Cole confrontation with MJF's video, and Chris Jericho's promo,

766,000 viewers.

Okay, and apparently, since they're starting much lower than usual,

the Big Bang episode before them was not as appealing as normal, or what's going on there?

I don't know.

That show's awful.

I can't believe anyone watches it.

But let's go to quarter two,

8:15 to 8:30 p.m.

The Mark Briscoe FTR backstage angle.

FTR versus Big Bill and Brian Keith with picture and picture.

The post-match with the Outrunners.

The Billy Gunn acclaimed MVP Shelton Benjamin backstage angle.

679,000 viewers.

Ouch.

Okay.

So 21,

87,000 people in 15 minutes.

We're the same pattern as normal.

The pattern continues into quarter three, 8.30 to 8.45 p.m.

Mercedes-Monet versus Queen Amanata with picture and picture.

And the post-match with Camille.

A recap.

The Young Bucks in private party and Stokely Hathaway backstage.

665,000 viewers.

Well, that's only

14,000 more.

Nothing to really get too upset about yet.

Well, quarter four, 8.45 to 9 p.m.,

an ad break, the Elite's backstage promo, and the start of the Elite versus the Conglomeration.

With Picture and Picture,

603,000

Okay, remember when I said nothing to get too upset about?

Yeah.

Start getting upset.

So

these fucking children that have conned this guy into not only paying them more money than they've ever seen before in their life, but making them officers in his company

with their

intestine gift and their whole thing

come on a screen and they've already lost 101,000 people.

And in 15 minutes, they help them lose another 62,000.

Now, certainly,

oh, but I forgot.

I was going to say it might be better at the top of the hour, but that thing with the Lollipop Guild and their ilk ran over the top of the nine o'clock hour.

It is going to continue into quarter five.

Well, the big nine o'clock hour usually does a bounce, nine to nine: fifteen p.m.

quarter five.

The elite versus conglomeration continued.

The post-match with Jon Moxley, PAC, Wheeler Yuta, Claudio Castignoli.

Saw a plane going over my head.

What the fuck is that?

Marina Shafir.

And a pickup truck.

Top flight.

Action Andretti.

And the Dark Order.

That's a long list.

Plus, the Elite, Private Party, Daniel Daniel Garcia, backstage angle, a recap, and Shelton Benjamin vs.

Leo Rush, or at least the start of it.

628,000 viewers.

They got 25,000 back.

That was 1,000 viewers per person in that segment.

Well, we go now to segment six, quarter six, 9.15 to 9.30 p.m.

Shelton Benjamin vs.

Leo Rush continued with picture-in-picture and full-screen

The post-match with MVP.

The Darby Allen promo.

And an ad break.

603,000 viewers.

Damn, they turned around and lost them again.

Well, Jim, we go now to quarter seven, 9.30 to 9.45 p.m.

The Swerve Strickland Backstage Promo.

The Don Callis Family Live promo in the ring or celebration, whatever it was.

In the ring.

The Mariah May, Anna Jay, Christopher Daniels angle, and an ad break.

627,000 viewers.

My God.

So

they're stuck in this pattern.

When the people see

the Buckaroos and that gang, 25,000 of them leave.

Then they come back to leave again before the last Weasels, and then they've come back.

Are they going to leave again or are they going to stick around?

Well, let's go to quarter eight.

I remind you we have an overrun, but quarter eight, 9:45 to 10 p.m.

Ricochet's promo.

Moxley Pack and Yuda and Castignoli and Shafir beating up Top Flight and Reddy and the Dark Order backstage before leaving in a Jeep or a pickup truck, I guess.

And they left in a huff, too.

In a minute and a huff.

Christian Cage versus Jay White with picture and picture.

563,000 viewers.

Oh.

10-minute overrun.

Cage versus White continued post-match with Adam Page.

521,000.

Oh, my God.

So, not only did they lose for that last 15 minutes when

here was the plumber's crew beating up some more people, and in that dry main event, they lost

37,

64,000 people there, and then the overrun lost another 42,000.

So

from where they started to where they finished, they lost 245,000 viewers, if my math is correct.

To 76,000.

Yeah, so

what percentage, Brian?

You're a mathematical genius.

What percentage of 766,000

is

521,000?

They lost 40%, didn't they, of their viewership?

Give me those numbers,

well, if 761, how do we do the

761?

They started at 766 and they ended up at 521.

That means they lost 245,000.

What percentage of 766,000 is 245,000?

It's 245.

Okay, hold on.

245.

That would be 31.98%.

You're not as bad as I thought.

Only a third of the audience decided, fuck this, we can't take it anymore.

But like I said, with all the stuff with Danielson leading up to the pay-per-view a few pay-per-views ago, maybe it was Wembley.

I'm not even sure.

It's the main event stuff that people are tuning out for.

You know, whatever we want to say about some of these guys out there, like the Commanders and the Heliums and the whoever the fucking everyone is.

They don't just actively drive people away while being the main focus of the show and the main angle on the show.

And being paid all the money.

The Bucs do it.

We've seen Jericho do it.

Jericho took himself off the show, or he's not there right now.

But the Moxley stuff

drives people off.

And Danielson.

They did everything to Danielson and people were losing their investment in Danielson.

So not good.

This is not looking good for the future.

Yeah, you know, that is true.

That's something a lot of the show is rotten, but the only thing they really tune out big is the

Kookamunga contingent that are the main event and the most highly paid fucking guys.

That was AEW Dynamite.

And ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to blame this one on me.

I said questions and we have questions and we're going to do questions.

Even if we have to drag them over to the experience, we're going to do them.

But we've been recording a long time.

You're sick.

You're puny.

I'm still feeling, I'm sweating right now, and I'm afraid to turn on the fan because I'll hear the sonic noises that are coming out of it.

And I'll just want to help all the people because that's the kind of person that I am and not let these be in the production.

So I guess the point is we're going to close up shop early.

Hold on.

Where is

I'm available to make custom songs for people.

And for

weddings, bar mitzvahs, and birthday parties.

That's well, certain birthday parties.

Some of you are freaks out there.

Of course, you can hear more of this freakdom on the Jim Cornette Experience.

Are you accusing some of our listeners of having diddy freak offs for their birthdays?

I resemble that remark.

Well,

get your freak off or on or whatever it is on the experience in a few days, wherever you find your favorite podcast.

No pay-per-view this week.

It's nice.

Yeah.

Of course, wherever you find your favorite podcast, we'll be back next week with the drive-through,

patreon.com slash cornet.

Go through the archive $5 a month.

We sound much better than I feel right now.

We were younger then.

Patreon.com slash cornet.

Of course, the official Jim Cornette YouTube channel, the Travis Heckle artwork, George's artwork, and of course, full episodes, clips of the episodes, omnibus collections, and so much more.

The official Jim Cornette YouTube channel.

Why do you say George like he's Madonna or Elvis, and everybody knows it's George Living on the Edge?

Yeah, I just, I feel like I get his name wrong.

Livinitis, I believe.

It could be Livinitis, but I believe it's Livinitis.

Now it's Living on George Living on the Edge.

Basically a wrestler, Khan Cavitas.

Remember?

He was from Australia.

Anyway.

All right.

I don't know where we're going.

And of course, that's the best way to get to a place you've never been before by Cornett's Collectibles.

What's going on, Jim?

I'm selling stuff.

Please go there and buy a few things.

And if you have a problem with those things, you could sue the law office of Stephen P.

New 8750 Steve.

No, you can't sue the law office of Stephen P.

New.

No, well, you can't sue him.

You'd have no reason to.

Well, that's what you said.

If you have a problem, you can sue the law office of Stephen P.

New.

No.

You could sue, and then as an implied, you must call or you should call.

You can call 877-50-STEVE.

Get on your telephone and call somebody.

Get even with StevenNewLawOffice.com.

Until the experience, in a few weeks, a few weeks, a few days.

And next week,

please, can it be a few?

And next week, right back here on the drive-thru for Jim Cordette.

I'm the Grit Brian Last.

It's late in the day, folks.

Tally ho.