Episode 362

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Hello again, friends.

And you are our friends.

The Gardeners are buzzing like flies in my head, but we are back with another edition of Jim Cornette's drive-thru.

A look at wrestling old and new.

Fun talk with

me, your host, the great Brian Last, and this man, the leader of the cult of Cornet,

Mr.

Jim Cornette.

Oh, the gardeners.

Oh, the pain, the pain.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd just like to tell you that I apologize if I'm off my game today.

But you see, the great Brian Last over there has me so perplexed, I don't know whether to wind my ass or scratch my watch.

He's hearing gardeners over in his neighborhood.

He's asking me, what noise are you making?

Whenever I look, move my notepad.

He's saying, you're swallowing too close to the mic.

I'm leaning so far back away from the microphone.

I can't see my computer screen or my notes on my desk.

And the thunderous sounds in his head have gotten me so bum-fuzzled and perplexed.

and gobsmacked that I don't, I don't know what to do.

I'm afraid to swallow.

I'm afraid to breathe.

Did you just hear my back crack?

You're allowed to breathe.

Did my back just crack too loud for you?

No, but your liver quivered a bit too loud.

Well, at least you didn't hear my spleen turn green.

Ladies and gentlemen, right now, take a break in the show and go listen to any other podcast.

Anything at all.

And then you can come back and say thank you.

Well, I know everything else sounds like Neil Armstrong long-distance calling from the moon.

I understand that.

But goddamn, we've got to have normal fucking noises going on.

They're the dangerous

air conditioning.

Well, normal fucking noises around here.

Like this.

The air conditioning running in the summertime.

It's bad enough.

I had to turn my heat off in the wintertime for you.

Anyway, we got a jam-packed episode.

Here, I'm going to put my pad down and

we got a jam-packed episode of the program today.

Do we not?

We're going to have fun, fun, fun till daddy takes the t-bird away.

And by the way, the t-bird is the only thing that's not on sale right now at jimcornet.com.

Let me just get that out for everybody.

The holiday sale has begun.

The final Jim Cornette action figure variant is on sale now.

You can get all the details, pictures, everything at jimcornet.com.

And

don't forget the thank you, fuck you, buy t-shirts are back on sale.

After the last couple of years, we've had a moratorium just because we had so much shit.

But now we've got less shit, so we got more shit.

And you can get the just in time for the election.

So we can say goodbye to the orange menace once and for all.

He won't be running anymore, except if the escapes bondage in the courtroom at the sentencing.

But nevertheless, and also.

If you

buy a Jim Cornette action figure, the final variant, or I'm sorry, I'll say this the other way around.

If you buy any of the Midnight Express or Heavenly Bodies tag team sets, you will get the Jim Coronet action figure at half price.

How much more can we give to people for Christmas, Brian?

I don't know.

I will say we have recently, I don't know what's caused it, received a bunch of feedback from people.

begging you to bring back the burger towel.

You know, the problem with the burger towel was we, they discontinued

the original type of towel that we were getting, and we got another type of towel, and it wouldn't hold the ink as well.

And for people who were just buying it as a souvenir, that was fine.

It was very lovely and attractive.

But for people who were actually buying it as a functional burger towel, I didn't want to give them something that was going to self-destruct very quickly.

We might revisit that.

Yeah, I mean, I think if you label it, it's a self-destruct version of the burger towel, people won't feel like they're being misled well i don't know if we should call it that because then they'll think that if they put it on their lap once it'll

burn up into flames like you know peter graves's cassette tape so display version of burger towel and workable version

for for display only

that might be something that's right not a towel to be used as a towel 18 plus not a towel a collectible

what do you mean 18 plus well that's what all the toys say now they So they don't have little kids playing with these things.

It says 18 plus, not a toy, a collectible.

But it's a toy.

But it's a toy.

My grandfather would have called it a doll.

Well, that's what we called it when Vince first told us about him in 1986.

As a matter of fact, I think that what

did he, had he mentioned, had he coined the term action figure?

Or did he coin the term action figure?

Who coined the term action figure?

I would have to go back and check, but in the early 80s, before Vince hit the market, that's when He-Man, Star Wars was the late 70s, Star Wars, He-Man, G.I.

Joe hitting what, 82, 83.

So all of a sudden you had, and this is everything missing today from things that kids can get, you had this entire section of action figures for boys and some girls, I guess.

But it was perfect for kids growing up in the 80s.

However, when I was playing with him, my grandfather would say, you know, Brian's with his dolls.

They're not dolls.

And I would tell him they're not dolls, but he insisted.

And Brian's with his dolls, and it took him two hours to blow them up.

Yeah, if you could see how many dolls I had now.

I think Vince was still saying dolls back then.

I don't know.

It's been 40 years.

You know, I'm getting older now.

Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

Every year is getting longer.

Never seem to find the time.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

This is happy talk.

Yeah.

Before we get going, because we have a lot of wrestling to discuss, the first episode of NXT on national TV, Dynamite, the AEW rights renewal, a bunch of things, maybe some questions.

It's a lot of stuff today.

I wanted to ask you a question I've had since we watched Mr.

McMahon.

So in the documentary, Vince McMahon says something that we've presumed, he said it to Brian Solomon 20 something years ago, that Dusty Rhodes was the first pick, the first choice to be the face of WWF on the national stage.

Yes.

We don't know exactly when in 1983 that happened.

I mean, Dusty did work the garden in 83, but we don't know if that's when it happened.

Towards the end of 83 is when Vince approached Harley Race,

tried to get him as NWA champion to no-show Starcade

to drop the belt to whoever the WWF champion would have been at that moment.

Didn't work out.

But Dusty turned him down.

Vince...

said, and you have to think that he believes it because he said it like this,

Dusty turned him down because he didn't believe in it.

He didn't believe in Vince.

He didn't believe in the vision.

He didn't believe in going national, going against the NWA, whatever it was.

The way Vince says it and believes it is Dusty didn't believe in it.

Yeah.

So much has been made over the years about the polka dots and how it was a shot at Dusty because he was the booker for Jim Crockett Promotions, the only national company to go head-to-head with Vince to the very end, the prime competitor, whatever it may be.

Looking back now, everything from Ted DiBiase's servant being Virgil, Dusty Rhodes' real name, obviously, to even Akeem,

they made the one-man game the African dream, not the American dream, the African dream.

Even things like in NWA, there were the superpowers.

In WWF, there were the mega powers, but of course the polka dots.

Looking back now and knowing what we know, do you think the polka dots were a rib on Dusty because of his role in Crockett promotions?

Or was it because

he had the opportunity, Vince gave him an opportunity, and he said, I don't believe in it?

Oh, and Dusty's words were not

under any circumstances to Vince.

I don't think, I don't believe in it.

No, that's the way Vince heard it.

That's the way Vince.

That's Vince's impression.

Right.

And see, a lot of these things can be, and you've raised a very good point.

And it probably, you know, because it was, it was so much, would

he didn't ever take

that much time to do that many different little fucking ribbish things to anybody else that came from the other company, right?

But Dusty.

But at the same time,

he still later on gave him a job in NXT or

FCW, what became NXT, training guys.

And,

you know, he had respect for him.

I think,

personally, because you know, you've seen the

examples of a lot of these guys' memories of that time that did this stuff for 40 years and never got away from it.

And they remember things happening, but the chronology or the timeline or whatever is sometimes skewed.

And I'm thinking that Vince McMahon,

Jr.,

when he had the plans and when he was first starting to formulate, it's not like he bought the company from his dad in 82 and then had the idea, well, here's what I'm going to do with it, right?

Can we agree on that?

He had these ideas of what he wanted to do first.

He was sitting in Cape Cod promoting concerts, thinking about what he wanted to do to wrestling.

And so when he saw Dusty.

And remember, he also had said,

unlike his father, he would have never taken the belt.

Well, not never, never, but he wouldn't have taken the belt off superstar Billy Graham when his father did.

He said that well after the fact, of course, yes.

Well, but, you know, he wouldn't have because

the first thing he did practically was fucking find a way to get rid of Bob Backlund.

So,

but at the same time,

Billy, by that point, age and things.

and mental were catching up, right?

So what I'm saying is, I bet you, and then you can respond with whatever you're going to say, but let me at least make some of this make sense.

I'm thinking Vince had the idea for Dusty

80, you know, sometime earlier on when he saw the flamboyance in the garden when they did the matches with Billy Graham, when Dusty was working up and down, going back and forth from Florida because of the father's relationship with Eddie Graham.

But then I think he probably at some point,

maybe going into 83,

had made some kind of pitch to Dusty and not told him

everything he was going to do because then Dusty would have, you know, warned some people before, you know, he would have.

But I think he probably

wanted to make Dusty a big offer to come in and was thinking that.

It would evolve into that.

But at the same time, Dusty was trying, he couldn't, he couldn't be the booker for Vince because Vince was, you know, that

you were, you, Vince had bookers in those days, but Vince was still calling shots.

So I think Dusty,

having worked so much in Georgia, so much in Florida for Eddie Graham, getting an opportunity, seeing something going on in the Carolinas,

I think he saw that he could be

the movie producer, baby, down there where he'd always be

underneath somebody else's thumb with Vince.

Does that sound fair?

It does.

And if you go back and watch, it does and it doesn't.

If you go back and watch any of the 77, 78 Billy Graham, Dusty Rhodes matches at the garden, everyone always talks about how smitten Vince was internally with the look of Billy Graham, but he also was for Dusty.

Look at the glee on Vince's face

when Dusty's cutting those promos in front of the garden crowd with him.

Because he wasn't in love with Dusty's look, but his personality was so big, he was in love with the personality that he wanted the entertainer.

That's what Vince wanted.

See, the question comes down to 83.

Vince buys the company in June of 82, takes over completely by June of 83.

I'm looking at my book right here, Wrestling in the Garden by Scott Thiel and J.

Michael Kenyon.

We talked about it a long time ago on the show.

Trying to see when Dusty was in the garden.

Dusty was there

because I know he was there in 83.

While you're looking for that, I'll make the point that May, May 23rd, 83, Dusty Rhodes beat Samoan number three

nine minutes and 10 seconds.

Let me see if

remember at the time, Hulk was Dusty was already developed.

He was a star.

Hulk was developing.

He had been a heel for Vince Senior, obviously.

At that point, remember, Hulk's promos were not what they would become a couple years later.

And when he started really developing in Japan and the AWA, that's when he started getting on the,

I'm sure, on Vince's radar as somebody to take seriously.

And then

it could be that, you know, then Vince had a choice.

Do I want the entertainer?

and try to make him get in shape or do I want the fucking giant muscle guy and try to make him more entertaining.

You see, the thing that's interesting too, he's there in May of 83, June of 83 is when Vince has full control.

And Vince is, you have to think at that point, Vince is already thinking, how do I get the belt off Backlund?

I can't put it on Snooka.

There's no way.

Yeah.

So

Dusty could have been there because if Vince didn't take full control, Vince Sr.

was still working with Eddie Graham.

Right.

Eddie Graham was the last outside promoter outside of Japan,

I should say, but outside American promoter.

to book someone on a garden show.

You got J.J.

Dillon on a show in the spring of 84 against Tito Santana.

That's the last non-WWF wrestler other than Japanese wrestlers to appear on a garden show in forever.

Yep.

And you have to think if, well, and I'm sorry, but just if Eddie Graham wouldn't live another full year, if he had, there would have been something going on early on

with

Florida and the WWF.

But again, Eddie Graham and Dusty Rhodes, we know the relationship wasn't as strong in 83 and 84 as it had been 10 years earlier or nine years earlier, whatever it may be.

But

if Dusty, it always appeared to me in 83, he was looking at his options.

Of course, he booked Starcade.

He's not even on the show.

He booked Starcade for Jim Crockett, building a relationship with Jim Crockett.

He's booking Florida for Eddie Graham.

Whatever was happening in Florida, he was there to see it.

He shows up in Mid-South at 83 at the end, saying that Mid-South Wrestling is going to be booking him.

And then he's not really there ever again.

But obviously, him and Bill Watts had a long relationship.

George is falling apart at that point under Ole Anderson without Jim Barnett.

It's interesting that Vince would offer this to Dusty.

If he offered it that early

and Dusty said no, because also when was it that Vince sent Steve Taylor, the photographer, to an AWA show to contact Hogan?

That was right after this.

Yeah, and backing up to Dusty and Mid-South, at that point, Dusty wasn't, I don't think, ever going to go to Mid-South as a roster regular and make HOMA.

But for Houston, for the Superdome, for, I'm sure he had in mind Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

I don't remember if he ever made those towns, but

even in

Eddie Graham, a lot of times it would tell like Kevin Sullivan, I got to get Dusty out every once in a while so I can get somebody else over.

Right.

So he'd book him to New York because it made Dusty a bigger star, but it also, for a few days, somebody else could be on top down there.

Right.

And

Paul Bosch would love to have Dusty in Houston.

And he did make Superdome shows going back to the early Superdome shows because he was a big star.

Him and I would have had tournament at the Superdome.

I think what Dusty was trying to do

was set himself up where he was the booker and the star in a certain territory, but was of the

traveling, you know, Andre the Giant or in the day Ernie Ladd or top star category where he could go and make the biggest towns in the other territories where

if he was just booking and working in Florida on top.

but making the superdomes and making big shows in the Carolinas or Madison Square Garden or whatever.

You're talking about in those days being able to make better than a quarter of a million dollars a year and what is that's today almost a million.

So that's what he was at the very least trying to do.

But booking the biggest company was his goal, which is why he was, I think, went to the Carolinas.

And then and then that was.

At first, he would still make, like in 84, he was still coming to mid-South.

That's when we worked with him in the dome.

he was still making some other shots in major territories not affiliated with vents

but he was so busy in the carolinas that he had to cut back on that because he's making a fortune over there after setting it up in 84.

by 85 on

i told you in in march of 86

when the midnight and i made one week like 4 500 bucks a piece because it was our first run with the rock and roll express and there were some big towns i saw Flair's check and he was at every town with us and his was 13 grand for that week.

So

he was working with Dusty.

So that means Dusty got same money, plus he was getting paid as booker.

So what's,

I don't have any idea, $15,000, $20,000 a fucking week equal to in today's money, as they say.

A lot of fucking money.

So again, going back to the question, Vince knew him.

It wasn't like he was the booker for a competitor and Vince had never met him.

They knew each other.

They got along in the past.

Vince brings him in and puts the polka dots on him.

Now, you have to think if Dusty Rhodes had taken Vince's offer in 1983, 84, there would have been no polka dots.

There was no need for the polka dots in 89 either.

But he did it.

Do you think it was because of Dusty's role with Jim Crockett promotions?

Or do you think Vince has a bug up his ass in some kind of way, even if it's not something where he hates the person?

Because Dusty turned him out.

Vern Gagne turned down Vince and laughed at him.

And Vince destroyed the AWA.

Yeah.

Dusty Rhodes turned down Vince and it doesn't sound like he laughed at him.

No,

Dusty would have done that.

Again, I'm sure that Vince didn't tell him, Dusty, I'm going to take over every territory and run national, because then Dusty would have told somebody when the, you know, war as well that's what vince told me he was going to do and he never went on record as saying that that vince told him beforehand because then everybody also would be like why didn't you tell us

but i

i think that probably yeah vince has a bug had a bug up his ass and

by the the time 1989 came

you know not only was it

As we've talked about, Dusty was older and bigger and, you know, slower and he needed the the history of being the American dream from the day to really get over fully with an audience.

But besides that, Vince had established the Hulk Hogan model and then the bodybuilders.

And

then, you know, there was no bringing even Dusty in and not doing something

to make it, you know, kind of hokey because of, you know, that's the pattern that Vince had set for the previous five, six years.

Here's who we push, and oh, here's the fat guy.

I mean, Sapphire,

that was a rib, too.

Everything, everything was a rib on him, even if it wasn't.

And I'm not knocking poor Juanita.

I'm saying it was, you know, the

pairing was a bit of a rib.

When did you first meet her, Sapphire?

Juanita, right?

Um,

I,

she had to be

at one or more of the WFIA conventions, didn't she?

So, because I know I never.

From St.

Louis, right?

Yes, she lived in St.

Louis.

I had never been to St.

Louis, but until

we went for Crockett in,

or actually, I'm sorry, we were booked out of Dallas and went for the Bulldog Bob Brown and the gang in 85, but I know she was at least at one of the WFIA conventions, the fan conventions.

So 78, 79, 80, somewhere around there.

And, you know, no, she's a wonderful person, but

they just completely gimmicked Dusty up to within almost unrecognizability of himself, a drastic change, and then let him keep his name.

But here he is.

But there's the thing.

Vince McMahon always says everything's about what's best for business.

And that really means what's best for his business, but it doesn't always appear that that's the fact.

Dusty Rhodes came in doing really stupid vignettes, but you get past that wearing a tie-dyed shirt

and no polka dots and started getting a reaction.

And then all of a sudden they put the polka dots all over him.

It was unnecessary.

It didn't help him get over.

It doesn't lend any, the argument, there's no argument that says the polka dots lent something to Dusty that would help him get over.

It was just something applied to him.

because they wanted to embarrass him.

I mean, that's really the only.

Well, and now,

see, here's, I wasn't there then.

So was it Vince's idea or was it one of his brain trust at the time that may have been like, ah, Dusty,

who knows?

And they, but they, you know, sold Vince on it because you could,

well, Vince, you know, he's old and he's, he's big and he needs to be entertaining or whatever.

But polka dots, again, no one gets over with polka dots, but he did as well as you could with it.

But again, knowing what we know now, and you brought up Sapphire, I forgot about that.

Everything they did to Dusty.

And Sapphire had polka dots.

That's right.

She did.

She had like a polka dot outfit that he wore polka dots.

They were matching.

She wore sheets.

No,

he wore.

Wasn't it?

He wore yellow with black polka dots and she wore black with yellow polka dots or some other way.

I don't think.

Oh, no, they went out there at times wearing the exact same, you know, color scheme, polka dot scheme, whatever you would call it.

But again, knowing what we know now and looking at everything as a whole, Virgil, Ted DiBiase's servant, the African dream, the polka dots,

sapphire.

Is it about Jim Crockett promotions?

Or is it about,

all right, you didn't believe in me before.

You didn't want to come with me in 1983.

Now you're here.

I'm going to have some fun with you.

Yeah.

It looks, boy, you've made a heck of a case there, counselor.

I have really good lawyers.

We have really good lawyers that I get to listen to at work a lot so i boy you've been

you have been taking some notes i i would have to say guilty now that you've laid the case out in that fashion all right there's the first conviction of vince mcmahon and joining 24 ladies and gentlemen but you know hey real quick more to come more to come jim if dusty had taken the offer if that had happened today

Do you think he would just be going crazy, drinking the organe, trying to get in the shape, get the protein in him, make sure he has the Vince McMahon look?

Well, I believe he would have because I think that, you know, let's face it, Dusty wasn't one to do all of the

Diana ball and the Deca Durabalin and all of that type of thing that was going on in the 80s.

Dusty would have wanted to drink a delicious milkshake.

And that's the way now that you can do it.

You can get all your protein.

You don't need to go and wrestle a steer to the ground.

and take a buoy knife and slice some meat off the carcass and gnaw on it to get your protein.

You can do it with our friends over at Organe.

And I tell you, you know, Brian, I

hate to say it again.

I have to apologize again.

I had confused the issue when Organe first came on.

I said they're a delicious 30-gram protein shake.

Tastes like a delicious chocolate milkshake you'd get down at the dairy freeze or wherever.

And in addition, it grows hair.

And you quickly pointed out that, no, this is not to grow hair.

It's organe.

So, you know, other than having to shave my palms now, I've noticed that it's true, it doesn't grow hair.

However,

I'll tell you what, folks, you want to eat better.

You want to be healthier feeling and have better energy and et cetera that all the real nutrition and wholesome ingredients give you instead of this.

pre-packaged crap that you get at the store.

You know, I just had a hostess apple pie for the first time in 20 years the other day, Brian.

Really?

Why?

Well, that's what I was asking myself the day after.

Because instead of loading myself up with all the sugar and the carbohydrates and everything, if I drank an organe 30-gram protein shake, it has all nine essential amino acids.

And you need your amino acids to eat up all the bad stuff.

It gives you energy to keep you going.

It provides muscle support and recovery, maintains a healthy lifestyle, manages hunger, and promotes healthy weight management in combination with diet and exercise.

I'm going to get to the diet and exercise part soon.

But in the meantime, I'm getting convenient, real nutrition with only one gram of sugar per serving and made without any soy ingredients.

There is no soy sauce in this.

I found out the hard way when I poured it over sushi.

It doesn't go with sushi no no don't even bring up such a disgusting thought ladies and gentlemen start your day in the middle of your day at the end of the day you just need to pick up whatever it is a delicious whatever time a delicious chocolate fudge protein shake 30 grams of protein I've been drinking one in the morning every day and I'm very happy with it and Organe's founder Dr.

Andrew Abraham I saw him on an infomercial.

He was selling crystal balls.

No, he wasn't.

Why would you say that?

No, crystal balls.

Maybe it was Dr.

Abraham Andrew that was on that.

But anyway, he believes that real nutrition has the power to make a difference in people's lives.

And that's why he founded Organe to create foods and beverages that offer better nutrition for people everywhere, not just limited to some kind of gymnasium or fitness clinic.

Now, even if you're a fat fuck,

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Start with one.

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And Ronnie said, when's the last time you saw your dick?

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Well, Jim, Organe is a wonderful way to make sure you have the right protein, a good supplement to your regular protein intake, and some people need a cash supplement to

get in there and justify lots of things.

I don't know what the hell I'm saying.

Jim, the big story this week, AEW, the official announcement, Warner Brothers Discovery and AEW have come to an agreement on a multi-year extension.

We'll get into what's known about that in a little bit.

But AEW, staying on Warner Brothers Discovery, we've kind of said that we thought that was the way everything was going.

We thought a deal was done.

They weren't going to go anywhere else.

Although, as soon as this happened, all the AEW fans are like, you see, we proved everyone wrong.

We were able to...

Get Tony a TV deal.

I don't know what they proved.

They proved nothing.

But what are your thoughts before we go through some of the details and what's known?

And there's a lot that's unknown.

But what are your thoughts on the AEW Warner Brothers Discovery Renewal?

Well, yes, everybody on Twitter is like, see, we told you they were going to, we didn't say they were going to get canceled.

We said they were probably going to stay with TBS or WBD or

M-O-U-S-E or whatever.

And apparently they have gotten an influx of cash.

But as you said, we don't know for what I am.

Listen,

that's all paper.

Paper, paper.

I've printed out

paper, paper everywhere.

Can you hear the paper?

I hear paper.

There's paper.

It's like fucking six pages of, well,

it's probably this, but it might be this.

And it's rumored to be close to this, but something else is included, but we're not sure what.

And if they do this, then they won't do that.

What the fuck is going on here?

The conditions lined up perfectly for boy Tony,

where

they got a renewal despite declining numbers, because apparently the rest of TBS and everybody's numbers is declining too.

But

we don't know what they're paying and what they're paying for, and

we'll get into it.

There's also confirmation in here somewhere, I found it, that WBD does have some type of ownership of AEW

or gets some kind of proceeds from it.

So if they're

is

if the if WBD is paying

a company that they own part of,

then don't they get some of that money back somehow?

So

what's the goddamn deal going on here?

And again, we'll go through it, but it's also not a straight up, it's not straight up the same kind of deal they structured a few years ago because of the Max component, because it's not just we're giving you X amount of dollars to air your broadcasting on TBS or TNT.

Forget about even the pay-per-view cut or anything else.

That's what we're paying for.

Now it's your two shows will air on these channels.

Also, it'll stream for our subscribers over here.

Also, your pay-per-views will now be offered at a discounted rate, whatever that means.

Wait, okay, I didn't even muddle that out.

So

if are the pay-per-views going to be on Max?

Now we got to get another thing.

We had to get the Netflix and the Peacock.

Now we got to get the Max.

I already have the Max.

Let's real quick discuss this.

It was HBO Max, and then they got rid of the HBO, and now they just kept the Max part.

Don't you think HBO would be the stronger brand to get behind?

Well, yeah, because unless you're an MJF fan, Max doesn't really have a lot of cache A, does it?

Home box office, HBO.

It was the

number one cable channel for movies movies and original programs, and bad management led us down the road to where it's now max.

Well, but nevertheless,

so if the pay-per-views

are going to be at a discounted rate, then that is

got to be balanced out by them.

They're paying more money, but they're not just, then they're not going to be taking in the same amount of revenue on pay-per-view, but it's guaranteed through WBD, right?

So this is.

Well, let me.

which pockets are they pulling all this money out of, and which pockets are they putting it back into?

Well, I have here with the Wrestling Observer newsletter, what Dave Meltzer's reported in an issue that just came out.

So, in other words, straight from Tony Khan's mouth, exactly.

So, at least we'll get that perspective here if we're going to be honest about it.

We do want to hear something, and he gets it right from them.

The official announcement of AEW's media rights deal with Warner Brothers' discovery was made on October 2nd, a few hours before the company's fifth anniversary of dynamite in a very quiet Pittsburgh.

Sources close to the negotiations said that this was a three-year deal, which will total $555 million.

This is broken down as $180 million in 2025,

$185 million in 2026, and $190 million in 2027.

Warner Brothers Discovery has an option year built in for all of 2028 at a significantly higher number.

Well, but now wait a minute.

That's even more than what they said originally and everybody was reporting yesterday, isn't it?

We heard, I think yesterday the reports were in the range of 155 million.

The reports beforehand were that it was going to be 170 million.

This says in the observer, 180, 185, 190, and an option year at an increase, a significant increase over that.

Well, wait a minute, but here we've got

from this is from Thurston Howell III over there.

At

he said Variety reported upwards of 150 million.

Sports Business Journal estimated 170 million.

Fightful

reported closer to 185 million.

Do we yet know what the fuck's going on here?

Do we yet know who's giving out the figures?

Do we yet know what, again

they're getting a lot more money but they're giving them a lot more programming so we understand that but what i'm interested in which makes a difference is

if wbd has equity in the company as is equity stake a minority equity stake at aew

then it's to their best interest for them to make money, but they're going to take some of the money back from the pay-per-views and other things because they own part of it.

So they're robbing Peter and paying Paul.

Well, and it also is important to note, all things considered, the world of television, AEW under the previous deal was cheap programming.

It still remains relatively affordable, cheap programming for a network.

Even when it comes to getting the rights to a show and syndication that's really, really popular, it's not.

a crazy deal.

At the same time, Warner Brothers Discovery's management has been a complete disaster.

The stock's been a disaster.

The company, I don't know how many billions in debt.

I mean, it's a disaster.

The management team there, but they gave AEW this deal.

And let's go through again what Dave Meltzer has here.

The number,

far higher than was expected by those in the sports media business world and by other business analysts, is for a combination of dynamite and collision on TBS and TNT respectively, believed to be remaining on Wednesday and Saturday,

as well as moving the complete video library to Macs.

In addition, Dynamite and Collision will simulcast on Macs at the same time as they do on TBS and TNT.

While not 100%,

the belief is the simulcast will be in the exact form as the American television product with commercials and not the triller form with no commercials for international AEW subscribers.

So let's stop there.

You ask what's causing the increase.

It's not because of TBS and TNT, it's because of Macs.

They're still trying to get subscribers and boost Macs and offer content.

They're paying the premium to get all this stuff on Macs.

Well, and as well, we asked the question on what was it last show we did, a show before that, Where is the existing AEW library?

Does it reside anywhere?

Is it their YouTube channel or whatever the fuck?

So they're going to have a place for it now.

And let me just say this before I go forward and we'll break this down and talk more about what I have in front of me, what you have in front of you.

But nowhere in any of this does it say Ring of Honor.

Because remember, we were led to believe that Tony wanted Ring of Honor baked in.

Any deal for AEW would include Ring of Honor programming.

Ring of Honor didn't get baked.

It got burnt.

Well, Tony's baked.

So, I mean, it works one way or the other, but no Ring of Honor, no mention of Ring of Honor, even for the streaming for Max, no mention of Ring of Honor.

Well, no, because,

again, if you,

you know, if you were to start some outlaw promotion now and call it Mid-South Wrestling, it wouldn't be Mid-South Wrestling that people

have in their mind that I don't know that even the Ring of Honor fans that used to be around

10, 5, 10, 20 years ago or whatever, are they even watching whatever Ring of Honor is now with Tony's B team or C team?

Forgot the B teams on Collision and Rampage.

The deal carries with it that AEW will no longer share an advertising revenue with Warner Brothers Discovery as it has since its inception five years ago.

Let me stop there.

What do you think of that?

Okay, well,

is that included then in the

figure, or

is that in addition to the figure that they're paying?

Well, I think that's that AEW doesn't have to pay them.

No, that whatever advertising Warner Brothers Discovery sells during Dynamite, there was a revenue split, it sounds like.

Oh, wait, so Warner Brothers was splitting with AEW rather than the other way around?

The deal carries with it that AEW will no longer share in advertising revenue with Warner Brothers Discovery as it has since its inception.

I thought you said share advertising revenue, not share in advertising revenue.

Boy, those small words are important when you're half deaf and can't hear.

So yeah, that's right.

We heard at the start that

some way or another there was some type of

sharing program going on with the commercial time, but now that's that's come to an end.

But we don't know what kind of number that was.

We don't know how significant or insignificant the advertising number was, but you have to.

Well, they ran dominoes off

seriously.

Is that the last time you saw a dominoes commercial on AEW?

I don't know for certain, so I can't say.

I'd like somebody, I'm more than willing to be corrected, somebody in the cult that pays attention.

Have we seen the noid

on the nerds show lately after the pizza cutter incident?

Let's avoid the noid and get back to Meltzer here.

The entire video library will also be on Macs.

The deal starts in January, and the library will start to migrate at that point.

Now, is that the pay-per-views too?

It says the entire video library.

So it's.

Oh, let me just finish this.

Because they have to go through things, the entire library won't be up at first, and new shows will migrate to Macs as the year goes on.

Ah.

But that's TV and pay-per-view.

Well, I was about to say, it's starting to sound like maybe WBD didn't get that bad of a deal.

Every time somebody wants to watch one of the old pay-per-views, on ongoing pay-per-views, they

apparently they're going to get the money right because they're paying for this stuff outright.

And then they would take in the, isn't that kind of like the deal that UFC has with, well, no, with ESPN and

whatever the fuck.

ESPN gets their pay-per-view money.

Yeah, that's right.

So, but I mean, well, we don't know because nobody's clear about that.

Again, we don't know a lot.

AEW is a private company.

So whatever information gets out is either what they let out or what gets out from someone else or what is just complete bullshit.

Loose lips sink ships, I'll have you know.

Rampage will be discontinued.

Thank God.

While the company is shopping around.

You know what?

I would have kicked in 25 grand just to come to that fucking conclusion.

While the company is shopping around the new shockwave show to other networks, notably Fox, as we previously reported.

SE Scoops reported that the Warner Brothers Discovery deal was exclusive for cable television and likely streaming, meaning Shockwave could only air on a broadcast network.

We've confirmed talks with Fox and that Tuesday and Thursday are the dates most likely if a deal is finalized.

Oh my God, day before or day after Dynamite for another show?

Oh boy.

Oh my God.

Well, but also,

aren't we just taking a massive broad jump into what-if land?

Do you see Fox?

They just got rid of the number one wrestling program.

Even if they could get

AEW much cheaper,

do they, is Fox in a, because see, here's the thing.

CW, we talked about this.

They

have an average of 300 and something thousand people watching them most nights in prime time.

USA, they have to have some type of WWE presence to maintain their positioning on cable because of the sad state of affairs.

You know, it comes down to everything on television is abysmal.

I think that's why nobody's watching it.

But would Fox want a prime time

program that would do

maybe 500 or 600, 700,000 people at this point in their life?

Or are we talking about FS1 or FU1 or whatever?

Well, according to this, we couldn't be talking about FS1 because that's cable.

Oh, that's right.

So it would have to be Fox or nothing.

It would have to be Fox or CBS

or China.

Well, but I mean,

it would have to be a network.

Well, you know what I'm saying.

No, but that's the issue.

And the other question is, if Fox was going to air AEW Shockwave, whatever that is, I'm assuming it's going to be a live show the day before Dynamite.

I guess we're also assuming that it'll be Tuesday or Thursday.

So it wouldn't be.

I was going to say, you know, who knows?

Like, CBS all that crap on Sunday afternoons we always talk about.

I always say, why isn't AEW in a spot like that?

But if it's Tuesday and Thursday, it wouldn't be.

Well, but then we also found out that the fucking Bronco bull riding inseminator people from Branson, Missouri are paying for that time.

Well, let's go back to the.

And again, look at the abysmal numbers of television.

I am shocked every time I see these numbers.

And wow, this was the number one program with almost a million people.

And by the way, once these shows are streaming on Macs,

HBO, it should be,

that's going to definitely change the ratings because people are going to start watching it there.

And also, it's going to be live on the West Coast on Macs.

So you're not going to have to wait.

You're going to be able to watch it live if you got home early from work or school, I guess.

Well, now, come on.

School, I believe, but do any of those fans work?

Well, let's go back to the reporting here in the observer.

The deal also includes pay-per-view events on Macs.

This will start at some point in 2025,

as Macs, as of right now, does not have pay-per-view capabilities.

The pay-per-views will be.

Oh, God, I went through this with Ring of Honor and Sinclair Broadcasting in 2011.

The pay-per-views will be discounted from the $50 price charge currently, and in return, AEW will focus its pay-per-view promotion in the U.S.

on Macs as the prime distributor.

However, to order pay-per-views from Macs, like with UFC, you have to have a monthly subscription to the service at $9.99 a month.

Well, $9.99 a month, or if your cable system gives it to you for free like ours does.

Well, but see, and I'm not part of the HBO package.

I'm not talking about, you know, we've established that the people likely to follow AEW will spend an extra 10 bucks to to do it, but just you have to go through more steps now.

Oh, we got to subscribe to this to get that to when they figure out how to do this and that.

One would think that will have an effect on what the 10% of people and just kind of,

you know, maybe wing it and just

get that right now or whatever, whatever that percentage is.

Well, again, if they're selling it at a discounted rate on max, that will no matter what, cut into the pay-per-view revenues.

and we've been led to believe at least

so they're still going to be able to sell a pay-per-view right like WWE is doing with Peacock and and so you can see it on real television but it's going to be cheaper over there with the the Macs people I'll be watching it on Macs it's just like Peacock I mean for WWE

I'll be doing this I'll be watching on whatever I can fast forward the easiest

all right well let me go back to this

Warner Brothers Discovery has shared in pay-per-view revenue by having a cut of the gross revenue when they were on BR Live,

since discontinued, and Bleacher Report, which shut down.

For now,

they won't have a cut until Max is equipped with pay-per-view capability, and the pay-per-view shows will air on regular television and satellite, cable, thriller, pay-per-view.com, and YouTube pay-per-view until Max goes up.

Just list everything, Dave.

When the shows go up on Max, it is not exclusive, but Warner Brothers Discovery would get a cut of the Macs buys.

But pay-per-views will remain on television pay-per-view as well as other carriers, in addition to Max.

He's now waiting for it over.

But wait, but back up.

So now, wait a minute.

Are they putting them on Macs cheaper?

But Max gets a cut, or AEW gets a cut, or who gets the money here?

What is he saying?

If it's on Max, you're going to have to subscribe for $10 a month.

Then you're going to have to buy the pay-per-view, which will be cheaper than $50.

Right.

Whatever you pay, Max is getting a cut.

They used to get a cut from Bleacher Report.

This is their cut.

But

if they're already paying AEW this massive rights fee,

then wouldn't they get all of it?

We're buying this product from you to put on our fucking deal, so we're getting the money back this way.

Or how.

And what about the idea too?

What did it say?

So wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Now who's on first?

If, if, if AEW

is being paid by WBD a big rights fee to provide all this programming for

Max, but when they put the pay-per-view on Max, Max goes ahead and gives AEW a cut back.

But since WBD owns part of AEW, they get a piece of that back.

Boy, howdy, there's going to be some busy fucking accountants around here.

And what do you think about the idea that, what did it say here?

AEW will focus its pay-per-view promotion in the U.S.

on Macs as the prime distributor.

So everything's going to be, watch it on Macs, watch it on Macs.

They're going to drive away to the level WWE did most of the pay-per-view.

the cable television pay-per-view buying audience.

And everyone's going to move to Macs.

So it's going to cut their pay-per-view revenues.

But they're getting the money guaranteed from

WBD, but it's got to be offset by the revenue that they're going to lose on doing it themselves and selling a bunch of TV pay-per-views.

Because that's pretty much their strongest.

Oh, well, let me go on here.

Sub-genre, I should say.

The deal for pay-per-view will not be like WWE with Peacock, where Peacock purchased the rights from WWE to the shows in the U.S.

market for far above what WWE had been making from all of WWE network revenue, which led to the WWE network being shut down in the U.S.

It will also not be like the UFC deal with ESPN Plus, where UFC continued fight pass,

but sold the U.S.

pay-per-view rights for a figure said to be based on what UFC was earning in the U.S.

market on pay-per-view.

during the Ronda Rousey, Connor McGregor era.

But ESPN which would

Austin era, right?

But ESPN Plus charged extra for the shows.

Plus, you had to be an ESPN Plus subscriber.

And if the price per show rose to $79.99,

although they are now discounting $10,

if you order more than a week in advance.

Good lord.

I may have read that a little wrong there, but hold on.

I bet he's written it wrong, too.

In this case, Max and WBD are not purchasing the pay-per-views nor guaranteeing any money for them.

They are just a distribution arm and make their money off the end of the revenue split.

AEW is getting a more favorable split than they have traditionally gotten from television.

But the five hundred fifty five million dollar deal does not include a pay-per-view money guaranteed, and the hope is AEW maintains or grows its total income on shows with the promotion on Max.

Max.

Huh.

What do you think?

I think it's confusing.

And

like you said, if they're going to,

they're going to lose most of the domestic pay-per-view television audience because they're promoting the Macs.

Now, if they promote the Macs and the Max gives them a better cut

than they've been getting from the

TV

pay-per-view distributors.

Then it basically comes down to whether they can get enough people to subscribe to Max to then buy the pay-per-views that they've been buying, whether they'll make as much or more money off of it.

Yeah, you have to.

Did I summarize that correctly?

You would have to think the AEW side would have wanted them to purchase the pay-per-views outright.

Well, of course.

But

this is what WBD is is doing, like you said earlier, is trying to get everybody to

jump on the max train.

But my point is, they don't even have the capabilities.

Well, but that's probably why they're getting them because they're like, fuck, we got a piece of this company and they got all this program and we need to do pay-per-view.

So they're going to try to figure it out with AEW and this might be fun.

They're going to, well, that's interesting.

If they're going to...

figure out how to do pay-per-view or event purchasing on their platform just because of AEW.

That is interesting.

We'll see how that works out.

There are still...

Because think about this, a wrestling company, even at AEW's level, much less WWE's level, they can guarantee you a half a million people that are just goddamn chomping at the bit

to

see them wherever they go, right?

So that may be

the thing, well, we'll get them in the door.

It's a loss leader.

We'll get them in the door and then we'll show them whatever their other other programs are on Macs.

That, like I said, almost everything on television these days is fucking rotten, but, and, and try to get them hooked on that to where they become part of the family.

Well, those are the majority of the details that we now know.

I does say here, and we'll discuss this,

the new deal would make the company very profitable going forward.

Even if no deal is made for a third weekly show that is being shopped around.

If we go with estimates that the company lost between 20 million based on our estimates and 34 million, Brandon Thurston's estimate, in 2023,

I would expect similar losses in 2024.

Well, how can they only be losing 20 or 30 million dollars when

they spent $50 million on a video game that went straight to the clearance bin.

And

by their documentation, is he spending a hundred million dollars a year on talent with as many people and as much money as he's paying them probably

how do you and those contracts

and those contracts are all going up yes here comes mvp in the hurt business uh folks but also the nba arenas and etc i'm

and then how long is it going to take them to make if they've been losing 20 or 30 million dollars a year for the past five years

i would think more at the start but let's just say that that's $150 million.

How long is it going to take them to make that back?

Is it profitable like we're breaking even and making money now and we got to recoup the losses?

Or is he trying to say?

Well, it's profitable before you look at the losses.

If that helps.

Boy, that's a great fucking way to lay.

We made a hell of a profit before we looked at the losses.

Exactly.

God damn it.

I don't know what's, I don't know how in the world that any of this needs to cost this much money or make this much money.

but it's a whole new world it's a whole new world aew not going anywhere and i guess either are we we'll be discussing it we've been documenting it since its foundation and we will talk about it until tony khan blasts off to the moon but aew and tbs or warner brothers discovery see i mean yeah again before we end i just got to say the max component is the value i said that beforehand if they don't come away with a max deal they got nothing if they were going to get a rights renewal just based on TBS and TNT,

it would have probably been a lot closer to what they were getting last year.

But it's all about Max, getting all that content up there, the live streaming, everything.

They're paying for the rights to be able to use that content across the board.

And now AEW is going to be advertising Max nonstop.

So that's the value.

It's all about that.

Do you think that they would have got any more money than they've already been getting, and maybe even that much if WBD did not have Max?

No, if WBD did not have a streaming platform like Max?

No, no way.

Yes.

No way.

No way.

It's a son of a bitch.

They snuck in there on the streaming.

Well, no, I mean, that's just the coin of the realm now.

It's the future.

And, you know, that was what it had to be.

It does make you wonder stuff like, you know, if a TNA 20 years ago existed now,

what kind of TV deal would they get just because they would have all this content?

You know, it makes you really wonder, you know, look throughout wrestling history, all the hot shows that existed

that got no money.

And even TNA at that point was doing

they were doing numbers.

That's why I use

example before the Hogan era and what was that, 2010, 11 or whatever,

2008, 2009 was doing a million people, 1.2 million for the, for TNA and had all that content and there was no

streaming or YouTube or whatever the fuck.

So they were always looking for rights fees from Pakistan or whatever.

And I guess we shall see if anything happens with

Ring of Honor.

We'll see.

I mean, they're cutting Rampage, but they're adding Shockwave.

So I don't know.

Well, they're adding the potential of Shockwave.

If they can only be on broadcast television, that way way narrows it down

for any type of wrestling programming, unless they're like they're doing the bull riding thing on CBS.

They're going to pay for a Sunday at noon.

You know what's going to probably happen next now, Jim?

They're going to be listeners overseas and stuff, and they're going to want to access all this content on Macs, and they're going to be locked out because of wherever they are geographically.

They're going to need a service.

They're going to need a friend.

They're going to need someone to open a door and say, here's that content you've been meaning to watch, all that wrestling action.

Someone like ExpressVPN.

Well, that's right, because they're the skeleton key.

Boy, you just shove that thing in any hole and give it a quick crank.

And boy, howdy, you'll be giggling because you will be able to see whatever you want to see that's out there in the old wide world.

Express VPN can change your online location.

And they can, let's say, fool the people at Netflix or over there at the Macs or whatever into showing the movies and TV shows that are not available here in the United States because of some odd reason that all these billionaires are making money on and jacking us little people around.

So instead, you can say, I'm going to go to France and then I'm going to watch the great French lickoff or whatever the case that you may be interested in.

Well, I don't know what they watch in France.

You certainly don't.

Well,

I know what I'd watch if I was interested in France.

The Jerry Lewis Festival?

There you go.

Let's say you want to watch The Nutty Professor, and it's not available in the United States because of standards.

Well, you can change your location, go to France, or you can go to Japan and put on this or that or the other thing.

Well, you could probably watch the Japanese wrestling.

And it also,

if you don't have Express VPN,

then you would have to basically just be be reduced to living in Hogwaller, Tennessee, where you live in squalor right now.

But you can make people around the world believe that you live in the south of France or the north of Alaska or any other kind of resort area.

And you can watch everything you want.

Resort area.

Yeah,

that's sometimes last resort.

You can use it to get more movies on Disney Disney.

No, that's on Disney Plus.

Use it to get more movies on Disney Plus or the BBC iPlayer, where they're very polite to you and have a pleasant accent.

And ExpressVPN also is going to mix up the bad guys.

They're going to confuse the criminals.

They're going to confound the crooks.

They're going to protect you from real-life monsters like hackers and data thieves that are waiting to stick their hands in your internet pocket.

and pull out your guts.

And

it comes with Password Manager, which helps you manage unlimited passwords and credit card detail.

You can have all the passwords you want now, and this will manage it for you.

You know, I can never remember that my password is 123.

Fuck you.

I guess now I'm going to have to change it.

I don't think I'll ever forget it.

It's the best way to protect your privacy, folks, from the creepy stalkers and the spooky creatures out there at Halloween time, Express VPN.

And when they put people in your walls, they will come from now till October 31st with candy.

They'll give you a Reese cup before they jump in and wall themselves up in your walls to protect your first line of defense when all that evil tries to come in across the various wires into your home.

What are you talking about?

Express VPN.

How can they get it?

Well, I'll tell you how they can get it in a second, but I'm saying to you, all these hackers and these people are trying to steal your shit are coming through the wires.

So, the people inside your walls from ExpressVPN, they're going to block that.

They're going to have a big fight in between the studs behind your drywall.

And right now, all you got to do is go to expressvpn.com/slash JCE,

and you're going to get three months of ExpressVPN for free

on top of whatever you want to get going from there.

Expressvpn.com/slash JCE, three months free.

That'll take you to New Year's.

So nobody will be able to hack into your computer and blow up your house until at least January the 7th.

No one will be blowing up your house.

Don't worry about that.

Don't think about that.

Well, that's because

the VPN's going to be on the job.

Hey, if you just, if you want to keep your house standing, folks, that's all I'm saying.

You got a nice house there.

You have a very nice, I don't know who we're talking to, but don't worry about your house.

Worry about not worrying about what you're going to watch and how you're going to Express VPN, Jim.

How do people get it?

Well, you go to expressvpn.com/slash JCE and you're going to get three months extra, absolutely, positively free gratis.

That means you pay nothing.

Express VPN?

Not sponsored by AEW, apparently.

Not the official home of AEW.

No, no, no.

You know, I guess you could probably,

if you get ExpressVPN, they could figure out a way where if you're in the right place, you could get Max before it happens.

Because

you could go to another

across the international date line

and tell them that you're there, and then you could watch the show the day before they do it.

See, that's another service that expressvpn.com will provide you.

They don't provide you with that, and they don't have a time machine, to the best of my knowledge.

But Jim, before...

Well, no, it works that way.

It's like yesterday in Australia now.

That's the way it works.

All right.

Or maybe it's tomorrow.

You know, I really, I like you more today than yesterday, but only half as much as tomorrow.

Whether yesterday, today, or tomorrow, let's move on here somehow.

Jim,

yesterday.

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Before we get to the debut of NXT on Network TV, let's talk about the little bit of WWE Raw you watched, which included one of the most highly anticipated matches of recent times.

You have gone completely, absolutely burjork over Brown Strongman and Bronson Reed, haven't you?

Braun Strowman, for those who have never heard Jim's nicknames before, Braun Strowman.

Well, that's what I said or thereabouts.

Well,

point is, you've gone completely.

No, I haven't.

I appreciate entertaining TV.

The crowds are reacting.

You don't necessarily see that on all the wrestling shows.

You never know what's going to happen when the freaks fight.

You want to see the Winnebago run into the fucking hatchback soccer mom's van.

This is the kind of match Jack Pfeffer would have been in the back watching.

Okay, I'll give you that.

I'll give you a little bit of a

fan.

And he would have done the poster.

I was just going to say, can you imagine the program?

See Fat Man Fly

against Giant Freak.

He has to flap his arms so you can tell whether he's rolling or walking, ladies and gentlemen.

Top attraction in all of Europe, no matter who it is.

Fresh off sellout crowd in Fresno.

Yes,

yes, yes.

You've gone crazy over this program.

And by the way, the rest of Raw,

it's not that there wasn't anything good.

Punk and Drew had a good promo, but nothing really happened.

They just got a promo on

the match coming up, and we already want to see it.

And there was some other thing.

It's a long show, but here, oh, the big news.

Hold on.

Got to go back to my notes here before we talk about Bronson and Brown.

Where do they?

Hold on.

I made sure I write this down.

God damn it.

Yes,

it's next Monday.

What is next Monday?

Next Monday, October the 7th,

Raw goes to two hours.

Oh.

So that's why I wrote that down.

What do you think of that?

Well, hopefully we'll get shorter matches amongst mid-card people and maybe not so much backstage foolery where they just stand there and fucking meander on for a few minutes.

What's it going to be like going back to three hours after they do that?

Because

this is a temporary thing I think they announced, right?

Well, maybe if we all write in and say, boy, we like it so much better that way, we'll watch more of the cock if you'll just

or the Netflix, whatever it's going to be on.

I guess this is that gap period where they had to sign a new short term short term.

Short, short-term agreement.

Short-term agreement with the USA Network, and it wasn't for the three hours, it was for the two.

Yes.

And so we get a vacation.

Vacation, all I ever wanted.

Are they on the air at eight or nine?

Well, now that's a good question.

Is it going to be eight to ten or nine to eleven?

Yeah.

Well,

you'll have to find out.

You like the Go-Go's?

You like Belinda Carlisle?

I love Belinda Carlisle.

What about Jane Wheedland?

Jane Weedland is probably my favorite.

The other one, what was her name?

Twiggy McCarthy.

What was the long, the big, tall, blonde one?

I don't know who Twiggy was.

I don't know.

I can't remember.

Charlotte may have been her name.

I don't think it was Twiggy McCarthy.

Charlotte Flair?

No, it was a different Charlotte.

I think it was.

Charlotte, North Carolina.

Charlotte's Webb.

Charlotte Bronte.

Whoever it was.

How deep can I go?

You were about to insult her, whoever she was, but you like Belinda and Jane, is what you said.

Yes, yes, Belinda and Jane.

But back to Bronson and Brown.

So they've been doing the thing where they're splashing the cars and they're wrecking things and they're just killing each other.

And so they booked them in a last monster standing match where

there's no rules, ladies and gentlemen.

I know as hard as this is for you to believe, there's no rules.

Anything goes, no disqualification.

And you got to to be down for the 10 count

to lose the match.

And within

the first 30 seconds,

Braun

had chokeslammed Reed through the fucking announce desk and they'd gone to the break.

They build this thing up.

They get him in the rig.

And they'll go 30 seconds.

They break the fucking desk and we'll be right back.

That's like if...

If Mickey Mantle was playing for the Mets and he fucking broke his leg sliding into second base, Would you go right to commercial or would you hang with it to see if everybody was still breathing?

I think this is more like if you knew Mickey Manel was going to strike out, would you just stop and go right to the commercial?

I don't think it's like that, but

nevertheless,

so they came.

No, it's like Heyman.

Heyman used to hide everyone's, you know, what they couldn't do by like selectively editing.

WWE just goes to commercial.

Well, either that or I saw,

God was it on one of the girls' matches, or maybe it was on NXT or whatever.

This girl was throwing kicks that were so bad, they had to cut the camera just every time because she wasn't even coming within the zip code of these people.

But anyway,

so they come back from the break, and just in time for us to see Mr.

Strongman knock Mr.

Reed off the apron through six chairs that they have carefully set up into a geometric pattern on the floor.

I hate you.

So I'm going to set up all these chairs so it has a perfect landing for you, right?

I'm in a fight of my life.

So while you're over there unmolested, down and potentially, you know, able to be victimized, I'm going to spend my time setting up like the fucking Rubik's cube of goddamn folding chairs.

So then...

And by the way, in between all of these things that I'm talking about, they're moving like they're wearing concrete fucking boots.

And Brown was actually, he was walking like he was stove up when the thing started, wasn't he?

Or does he always walk like that?

By the end of it, he looked, you know, he was walking like maybe he was feeling it a little bit, but I didn't notice it at the beginning.

Well, they are two hard-hitting

giants of the mat.

Giants of the monsters of the mat.

There you go.

They fought back to the entranceway, and Bronson Reed

picked up Brown and gave him a DVD off an equipment case through a couple of tables.

And then they went back to the ring.

They took another break.

And then they came back in time to see Bronson Reed tackle the big SOB

through the barricade between

the ringside area and the

timekeeper pit.

And then

he broke him through the other one

into the people.

And then they got back to the ring.

But then, and this is the longer this went on, the more entertain, the more entertaining I found it.

Because early on, I was like, you know, Jim was right.

This sucks.

This is like plotting.

And this sucks.

And then the longer it went on, it became such a freak show spectacle.

Yes.

It was like, what else are they going to do?

And here was the thing I didn't.

Actually, it was getting good.

It was getting so bad.

It was good like you said but

when they broke through the barricade the referee jumps down there and he's consulting with 15 security guards right

and that's what

this is when it got good when there's just people running around all over the place well yeah but why why did the the referee was the only one who spoke

you know, Bulgarian to be able to tell the foreign, you know, security crew what needs to be done.

Why did the referee, they're back in the ring.

Bronson Reed does a splash off the top there's no referee

and then he does another splash and there's so then he goes out and starts throwing security into the ring but why did the referee not be why would he leave the ring when there was 15 people addressing the broken barricade see i have a problem with that

apparently you didn't I'm not disagreeing with you.

I'm just saying I was entertained by this whole thing.

All right.

Well, then.

I will admit, this is not a match match that I watched looking for logic.

This is an example of the opposite.

Well then here comes the spot because now

the referee is in the ring or is out of the ring and Bronson Reed's hit a couple splashes.

Well, he can't get anybody to count.

So he goes out there and starts throwing security into the ring.

But did you notice?

Sometime he'd just grab them and just either headbutt them or just throw them in the ring.

But when he threw them in the ring, wherever they ended up rolling is where they laid there like they were dead and they were unmoving for the rest of the night.

There's still three of them in there when this whole thing is finished.

So then

Bronson Reed grabs Adam Pierce and is going to throttle him, but suddenly

Mr.

Strongman is on the top rope and he dives off onto the group of 15 people.

Now,

here's the goddamn thing.

Yes, there's 15 people down there,

but he's only going to hit about four or five of them.

And who are those unlucky son of a bitches in the middle?

I would dive off the top rope onto 15 fucking people.

I'd be covering my nuts.

But goddamn, what could that have felt like to those people on the floor when this flying greyhound bus comes at them?

Seriously, the elbows, the knees, the whatever the fuck.

Yeah.

So

then everybody sold that forever.

And probably some of them meant it.

And then they get back in the ring.

And like I said, that's when the security guys are still laying there where they've been.

And Bronson Reed goes for the superplex.

And

he gets it.

And as they go over, boom,

they land and the ring collapses.

And the fucking referee takes a bump out onto the floor.

I like the referee's bump the best.

And somehow they had,

if you watched it back in slow motion, which I did, they had gimmicked two of the ring posts to

fold in at a certain point, which dropped the ropes and

it gave a hell of a collapse, you know,

illusion or whatever.

And I don't know how they do this shit, but they've got.

more money in the federal government now so they can do anything they want.

But then everybody's laying there selling immobile, right?

Oh, my God.

And the stairs are in the ring, and the dead bodies are in the ring.

And then here comes Seth Franklin Rollins.

He's back, ladies and gentlemen.

You remember that no-good Bronson Reed

splashed him and hurt him.

He rolled in the ring and curb stomps Bronson Reed on the stairs

and then fucking jumps out and

Brown Strongman gets to his feet by the 10 count to win the thing and he wins the monster mayhem or whatever the fuck this thing was.

But yes, it was a spectacle, wasn't it, Brian?

I

thought I really got into it just because it was such a mess.

And then, you know, it was one of those things where the guy interferes and costs the guy the match, but it made so much sense it didn't bother me at all.

Seth Rollins got a major reaction.

Oh, God.

Yeah.

I mean, that was perfect.

At least they, you know, they tied up that loose end.

And, but now,

hopefully,

we may see some Seth Rollins and Bronson Reed rather than having the

MAC truck and the fucking U-Haul dumpster, you know, have any more of these matches.

I like Bronson Reed, but I like him when he can be big against somebody and use the power stuff.

And he's so impressive with that and have the other guy be the smaller guy that used the speed, et cetera, instead of the two Mac trucks bumping into each other.

And,

you know, Brown, I understand, you know,

they made money with giant people in wrestling since the dawn of wrestling.

So it's not that I'm saying there's no place for him, but goddamn, the more you see acceptive, he needs to be a special partner, a goddamn

attraction of some kind.

Did you say the other night,

a week or two ago on Raw, Raw, he's doing the choo-choo running around the ring to shoulder tackle people.

And he ran and missed the fucking guy.

And the guy took a bump anyway.

But you could even not slow-mo, just watch it.

He missed the fucking guy who was standing there stationary, ready to be run into.

And he just waved his arm as he went by, and the guy took a bump for him.

I'm like, you got to

small doses.

Don't like the single matches.

Make him a special tag team partner, etc.

Brown strongman should be seen sparingly and hurt a little bit less.

And maybe run less because

it's not like he picks up speed.

It looks like he hurts himself every time he starts to run.

Maybe he was ruptured.

That's why he couldn't run into the stationary target.

But Jim.

But Jim, that was WWE Raw.

It certainly was, Brian.

Let's now travel to the past, where you and I had a discussion about wrestling's future.

NXT on the CW.

Let's go to the time machine.

Jim, you know what that sound means.

It's time to move on, and we're going to move on now to the future.

The future of wrestling, wrestling on network TV.

WWE left Fox, but NXT has found a new home on the CW Pixel here in New York.

Jim, everyone knows what you have done to help wrestling's future, the wrestlers you train, how much you love helping the future of wrestling.

What did you think of the future of wrestling on display, NXT on the CW?

I think the future is looking very, very dim.

I think we're headed for an apocalypse.

And by the way, this is network in name only.

I have seen what has happened to the CW network.

And did you see they had

right before the top of the nine o'clock hour, they had four or five of the CW network people in the front row that they

you know, had waved to the camera and they talked about them and they looked like a goddamn subdivision homeowners association.

What?

Apparently, CW Network had like 1.6 or 7 million people on average watching their prime time programming like six, seven years ago, and now they're down to 300 and something thousand.

What the fuck is going on over there?

There's a lot of channels that have been mismanaged.

And I guess whatever they're trying to do hasn't been connecting with a broad audience, but that's why they got NXT, a sweetheart deal.

What is it, it like 25 million a year or something a really nice deal i wouldn't be surprised if these if this network wasn't trying to pay in

food coupons and gift cards what in the world who's the producer of this thing the zero mastel well the other thing too is they introduce these five or six white people at ringside as cw network and they just stand up and they're waving and clapping you know no one knows who the hell they are well then and they weren't all white either oh there was a i believe there was a woman of color a wok as they say no one says that who says they don't i've never thought that people of color pock women of color wok men of color mock i've never heard of any of these things have you heard people use these well you have now

but anyways i was jacked up to watch this thing because

We watched NXT back in the day when the Undisputed Era and Adam Cole was good and there was things going on.

And then

Triple H had a heart attack and Vince went in there and made it unicorn vomit and turned it into a Nickelodeon game show.

And we saw, oh, fuck this.

And we hadn't watched it in a while, but now new show, new debut, they're in Chicago.

CM Punks on the show.

And

they got some more of them bronze breakers over there.

Or maybe just let's see what

they're going to do here.

And maybe this will be easier to watch than three hours of raw

or you know just fresher or whatever

the all the talent was in their 50s well punk's in his 40s i guess he is isn't he early he's in his mid 40s well mid

well that's younger than michaels and triple h but

god almighty i couldn't wait for this thing to be over

what what is this what was this

well let me just say also the steady

during the entire switch over from Triple H to Vince, even though it technically was all under Vince the whole time, was Sean Michaels.

And

when we have heard compliments from people in the last few years saying NXT is better or you guys should watch it, why aren't you reviewing it?

It was always Sean Michaels is doing a good job.

It's definitely not Triple H's NXT.

And a lot of it feels like Vince McMahon's.

It feels like if Vince McMahon had a developmental 30 years ago, you know, like Tony D'Angelo.

Yes.

Yes.

I swear to God, I wrote that in my notes.

We'll get there.

But I said, this is a 1995 Vince gimmick.

But, well, Sean Michaels, we'll stay.

And by the way, the program has the worst theme music ever.

I said that about SmackDown last week.

I changed my mind.

This was, what the, Jesus Christ.

What were you going to say?

What What was I going to say?

I don't know.

I don't know either.

I didn't give you a chance to say it.

So Sean Michaels came out,

the senior vice president of talent development and creative.

And I was thinking, good God, if in 25 years ago, if you'd have told me or Gerald Briscoe or Jack Lanza or Jim Ross or

a variety of people on the roster, in the company, in the office, we're going to make Sean Michaels a vice president of this son of a bitch.

We don't know what the fuck is the matter with you.

The most,

the most unreliable pain in the ass ever to the WWF.

Well, no, all the Warriors got that spot, I guess, but one of the most

has now become

not only a senior vice president, but a bald cowboy.

The irony.

And

is Vic Joseph brand new?

Did they just start him now or has he been doing this a while?

The announcer?

He's been at it for a while.

He's been at it for a good while.

Well, he ought to quit.

He wasn't that bad.

You thought he was that bad?

I don't.

Well, what's Booker doing?

Booker T ain't that good on the mic.

With all due respect, he seems like a very nice guy, great wrestler.

Booker T should not be on commentary.

But

what bothered you about Vic Joseph that's worse than...

And I'm not defending him.

I'm just curious.

Everyone else we hear on these shows.

Well, I just, he's he seems like he's younger and greener at it.

Uh, wow, he sounds so much better now than he did a few years ago.

It's even funnier.

Was he the guy?

Was he the commentator when we were watching before?

He did something before.

I almost feel like he may have had a run on one of their main shows, but maybe I'm wrong.

But he's been in NXT for a while.

He was, he was definitely, we've definitely heard him do commentary before.

I don't know.

Maybe, maybe part of it was Booker.

I don't know what's

a lot of times you have a guy that can do a great promo for himself, but that doesn't translate to being

an announcer or a color commentator.

And

there you go.

So Michaels comes out and he's got the

little table in the ring.

No,

I wasn't even going to go there because the

the fact that he now looks like, you know, he looks who again, who would have thought I, today at 63 years old, have more hair than Shawn Michaels and Triple H combined?

Yeah, but with Triple H, it's by choice.

Would he have made that choice if there wasn't patches up there that couldn't be fertilized?

Would you just shave everything off when you had hair like that in the past unless it had left to an embarrassing degree?

The last time I remember him having noticeable stubble on his head, it didn't appear like there were just wide patches of baldness.

I think it's a look.

He couldn't pull off his look with hair.

He needs for the strength, for all the hair to be on his beard, not on his head.

Otherwise, he just looks like some long-haired weirdo

at his old age, you know, starting to bend over a little more.

And everything else.

Well, nevertheless.

But anyway, so Sean, back to middle-aged weirdo.

So Sean

has a table set up in the ring and he presents new championship titles,

which is like saying, I'm going to give you a new jacket coat

or I'm going to go out and buy a new automobile car.

Vince is gone.

They can say belts.

Why, of all people, a guy who was in the business back when things were called what they actually are, why can't he say new championship belts?

Is there a chance that Vince convinced some of these other people that this was a smart thing to not use the word belt?

Do anyone else?

Does anyone else in any does a lot of people don't think it'd be like it is, but it do.

Does anyone else at WWE actually believe what Vince was preaching?

I don't.

I mean, yeah, Diddy got some people to come to his parties, apparently, so some people will believe anything.

But you would have to know that it was just the weirdness of Vince and his,

you know, old billionaire mind that didn't like the word belt.

There's no other reason to call a belt a title.

Because, as we've mentioned before, a title is what you,

the position you win, and the belt is emblematic of the championship or the title that you hold.

It's not that fucking hard, but because Vince, now you've got grown adults handing people belts and said, Here's your title.

The fuck.

Anyway,

so then Triple H comes out

and says, are you ready?

Well, they teased it.

Sean Michaels said, I have one question for you.

Well, yeah, I have one question for you.

I thought he was going to ask people to suck it, or were they ready to suck it, or whatever the fuck it was.

I don't think they're going to debut on national TV like that, but then Triple H surprised everyone by being there to ask the question with Sean.

The middle.

Well, he asked it off camera.

Are you ready?

And then Sean turned around and there was Triple H stepping into the big roar.

Everybody, these guys, they get a big pop, they're over.

But then, when we were ready,

here's what we got:

Julia.

And

I'm thinking, okay, horrible theme music.

Sean Michaels is a star.

They're bringing out all the names.

Not really sure yet about the commentary team.

Here's Triple H, another big star.

What are they going to start out with?

The women's title, Julia versus Roxanne Perez.

And I wrote, God damn it.

So.

God damn it.

She's fine.

No, goddamn it.

I wanted to see a fucking match.

Give me some brawn breakers.

I want to see what the future of wrestling is, not what the future of pissed-off middle school cheerleaders is.

And by the way, Mike Rome is the ring announcer.

He looks like a brunette, Beavis, and butthead character.

Is it going to be one of these?

Are you going to beat up every single person you see on the show?

I'm not going to beat him up.

I'm just going to give an evaluation of him.

What's the fuck is with his hair?

Is he upset?

He's not tall enough.

He's got to fucking tease it up like goddamn state fair cotton candy.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Any problems with the timekeeper?

Did the timekeeper do anything to possibly?

Didn't see him on camera.

I'll let you know, but old Roxanne Perez, she's the NXT women's champion.

Julia is the girl that we've we've heard that they signed from Japan to this big fanfare.

Well, Roxanne Perez needs a

step stool

to see over the top rope.

And as I said, it looked like two junior high school cheerleaders trying to

do an interpretive dance, but they got pissed off at each other in the middle of it and started pulling hair.

Why junior high school?

Why not high school?

Because they're not that big.

Oh, come on.

They're that big.

it looked to me like darling dagmar versus diamond lil with better hair and makeup

i'm so i've seen smoother street fights i've seen ridiculous did you see when rox

dwarf wrestlers you're comparing these people in height to them yes

oh come on

it ain't a foot difference between roxanne perez and and either one of them well look that's roxanne perez she was shorter and i think that led to some sloppiness during the match because julia wasn't working with someone her size.

Oh, come on.

Someone significantly smaller.

Roxanne Perez did a head scissor.

She rolled up and put her legs on either side of Julia's head and then whipped them down.

And when she whipped them down, Julia stood there for about a second and a quarter and then dove headfirst through the ropes like she was trying to commit suicide.

And at that point, I started fast-forwarding.

I had seen enough.

Oh, come on.

Oh,

what did I miss?

More

comedic effects?

There were no comedic effects.

It was a good back-and-forth match.

They got the fans into them.

I think a lot of people thought this was maybe a way that Julia in her first match was going to win the title.

And it wasn't that, then it was an exciting finish.

Well, she didn't.

It was an exciting finish.

It didn't make any sense.

Roxanne Perez is the babyface, right?

No.

One would think.

No, she's the heel.

She was the heel.

Julia comes out there with the bleached blonde hair and the big outfit and everything, and blah blah blah.

And here's this little tiny, teeny, tiny.

How old is Roxanne Perez?

She can't be 19 years old.

Oh, see, now you're being ridiculous.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna guess 26.

Let me look it up.

Oh, bullshit.

Roxanne.

I thought she was the little teeny tiny babyface.

And why was she doing all the head scissors and everything?

Based on what Wikipedia says, she is 22 years old, 5'1, from Laredo, Texas.

Well,

anyway, the point is they had a double knockout.

They're both down.

And Roxanne Perez rolls out and walks around the ring on the floor and gets the title belt and rolls in the ring and the referee stops her.

And while that is happening, a hooded woman runs from the entranceway and pulls Julie out and gives her a DDT on the floor.

And then I believe she chucked her back in or whatever.

But Roxanne Perez did some kind of souped-up sunset flip one, two, three.

And then the hooded woman pulls her hood off.

And the announcer said it's Cora Jade.

I have no reason to doubt them because apparently they know who the fuck she is.

But Cora Jade

is the one who screwed over poor Julia.

Blah.

You mean to tell me that you thought that was a way you should debut a brand new network?

I absolutely do not think that.

I think it was a good match, but I don't think if it was me and I was debuting my show and my brand on a new network, that is not the match I would start with.

And I probably would have had less women on the show, actually.

Boy, well, we'll get to that.

23 minutes in, by the way, for

just what we've talked about.

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Void ReProhibited.

The fans were pretty into it.

What did you think of the crowd?

Well, what building were they in in Chicago?

Was that the now arena?

Give me a second.

Well, while you're checking, I will bring up that

some people pulled up in their cars.

They're doing that thing on this show, too.

But then

there was a video

of

two guys on a couch playing video games, a midget in a mask and some

bummy looking guy with an accent.

And they were playing the NXT video game.

And then they're playing either for or against Grayson Waller and Austin Theory.

And then you see, I looked up and there's the NXT tag team belt sitting on top of the couch.

So apparently the midget in the mask and the fucking

long-haired bum with an accent on the couch playing video games are the NXT tag team champions.

And the bum got mad because the

midget in the mask distracted him.

And therefore, he lost against Theory and Waller in the game.

And apparently they're going to wrestle him for real next week or sometime.

Did you see that segment?

You know, I missed that segment, actually.

I did not.

Well, boy, howdy.

The bum and the midget.

I don't know who this team is.

I don't know who the fuck they are, but they're seriously presenting their tag team champion sitting on a couch playing video games.

And, oh,

you caused me to lose.

I got pinned.

You want to play another game?

All right, Jim, as of yesterday afternoon, there were 7,089 tickets distributed, distributed and it was the all-state arena rosemont illinois the state oh shit according to wrestle ticks so they they would have more than filled up i believe the now arena but that the rosemont horizon

so they had for nxt 8 000 people that they probably ended up with or thereabouts ain't bad even in the rosemont horizon which i believe seats about 16 or 18 but

The people that were there apparently have been watching the NXT television show because they actually liked some of the things that were going on here.

Yeah, see, that's the weird thing.

Even more than like an AEW situation where we see it happen in real time.

We haven't watched NXT in a while and the fans there are into it, it seems, and not a lot of it seems very good.

Yeah, I think it's the idea of that they want to like it, so they're overlooking some things.

You would think with Triple H back in charge, well, not back in charge, in charge of WWE,

that maybe developmental would look a little bit more like what his vision of that wrestling product was,

not,

you know, this where, you know, it's a superstar training program, not a professional wrestling developmental television show.

Well, but let's think about this.

Let's say you're a movie producer and you want to remake Gone with the Wind, but the only actors available to you are Mo, Larry, and Curly.

I don't think those are the only actors available to WWE.

Well, then why would they?

Who's on this show is who they chose to be on this show.

Well, why would they pick these people to be on the show if they had some more of them brawn breakers?

Well, there aren't a lot of brawn breakers, but who knows who's in the pipeline?

Well, I know who's on the pipe, apparently.

So then Punk was in the back.

He's pulled up earlier, and he was talking to Ava.

Not Ava Gardner now, mind you.

Not Ava Gabor,

but Ava Rock.

Could you understand a word she mumbled?

She was about the size of punk.

She doesn't really speak in a coherent way.

She doesn't have any charisma or personality on the show.

And she's the general manager.

A position typically given to former wrestlers with lots of experience, not the daughter of a wrestler.

No,

you know, it's weird.

You could see, and someone said this to me a few weeks ago, but I don't watch too much NXT.

Sometimes they'll have it on in the background.

You never see her on the show.

They've clearly found a way to keep her on the show and minimize her on the show by making her the GM in one segment every once in a while.

Well, the deal, they were setting up for Punk to be the referee in the main event and call it down the middle, but, you know, she had marbles in her mouth.

And then Brian Pillman Jr.

walked in.

He's Lexis King now.

Got very weird hair.

And he, you know, he said something to Punk and Punk said, well, out of respect for your father, oh, no, I'm trying not to be like him.

And then Punk gave him some advice.

And I can't remember what it was, but basically it was either, you know, admit that you have the genes inside of you or fight against them or whatever the fuck.

Well, thank you for giving me that advice.

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

Any comments on Brian Pillman Jr.'s hair?

Not really.

I mean, I don't know why he didn't wrestle on this show.

They had a lot of people I would have liked to have seen wrestle on this show instead of some of the other people that wrestled on this show.

Well, that's a perfect lead-in to the next people wrestling on this show.

They did a history package on Zachary Wentz and Wes Lee, and they're they used to be partners, and there's been ill feelings and bad blood, and et cetera, and now they're going to have a street fight.

And do you, I remember,

if I'm not mistaken, these two were when we started watching the Nickelodeon version of NXT,

these two were the tag team that I said, what the fuck?

They were just one guy would do a standing backflip and the other guy would shove him down on top of the other guy, just clumsy ass tag team shit, prison tattoos and bad hair.

And apparently they're still there three or four four years later.

Well, no, the one guy was fired.

He's now working for TNA.

But because TNA works with WWE now,

he's able to, you know, do stuff like this.

They fired him, but he came back?

He's the one.

Do you remember they signed them and they were giving him a push and we checked him out and we really didn't like it.

It was worse than AEW from what we saw.

And then turned out he was married to some wrestler because they all just fucking marry each other at this point.

And it never turns out well.

He was married to a wrestler and they had some kind of breakup.

She alleged it was abuse.

He said there wasn't.

And then she put up a picture of him with a Hitler mustache.

He's the Hitler guy doing a Hitler salute.

WWE fired him.

And then I guess as time has gone on, maybe he's recognized how ignorant and wrong that was.

And he's been wrestling for TNA.

And that led to the natural, let's get him to work for us without working for us situation.

Well, Zachary Wentz and Wesley.

Maybe this was the the Nazi.

Well, I couldn't tell, actually,

which was which here, but, you know, well, he's a reform Nazi.

That's right.

We don't know what's going on.

So Zachary was introduced at 185 pounds.

Wes Lee was introduced at 178 pounds.

If they introduce them at that, doesn't it mean 165 and 158?

They're not going to shave the weight, that's for sure.

Well, what the fuck?

You can't tell me that you're introducing somebody that legitimately weighs 178 pounds, has 178 pounds on a pro wrestling program

and expect people to, what the fuck are these children?

And again,

these two and everybody in their history video look like juvenile delinquents with prison tattoos and bad haircuts.

And they're wheeling a shopping cart full of...

shit to the ring for their street fight.

And

40 minutes into this program,

the first two men that we've seen wrestle are having a garbage match.

And I was bigger than both of them when I was 16 years old.

So, just

real quickly,

at one point in the ring, they had six chairs.

They set a giant plywood sheet up on four chairs on the floor, and then both of them got on the apron and jumped off together so they could break it.

And then they used the garbage cans and the kendo sticks and the hoop law.

And then they had a table set up on the floor.

And

I don't know which the black guy pushed the white guy off the top rope and he flipped to land on the table 10 feet away, but he overshot it and just landed on the fucking floor.

And the tables got him knocked over.

Yeah, that was bad.

And bad for him.

Bad for him.

And all right.

Whichever one was which?

Wes Lee was the one with the dreadlocks who works for NXT.

Which one got up on the ropes and wrapped the logging chain around his knees?

I think that would have been Wesley.

Well, he jumped off and double-knee-dropped the other guy who was sitting waiting for it in a folding chair.

conveniently enough, and then pinned him one, two, three.

And my comment comment was: somebody should call juvenile haul.

How does this compare to an AEW match of the similar?

I mean, we see matches like this on AEW where it's just weapons up the gazoo for no reason.

How does this compare?

This was better because it was shorter.

It didn't take as much time.

How long did it go?

It didn't go as long as those AEW fucking fiasco's go with the gun, and nobody shoved a hypodermic needle in anybody's face.

Otherwise, it was, you know, what's the difference?

Well, so far, like you said, on NXT, women's title match, and now we have a garbage match.

We had Punk and Ava and Pillman Jr.

in the back.

What's next?

Well, the nine o'clock hour with the CW network executives.

And then we had Ms.

TV.

Mid the Miz.

Jesus Christ.

We can't get away from him here.

Ms.

TV, the special guests were Oba Femi

and Tony D'Angelo.

And you said, oh, we got to watch Oba Femi, right?

And I said, okay,

here he comes.

He's the North American champion around there.

He's got size.

He looks good.

He's got some oomph to him.

He has two names that nobody has ever been called before.

And as he sits down, I'm thinking, okay,

they might have something here.

And then here comes Tony D'Angelo.

He's got two Stooges and a girl, but they just come out with him and then send him to the ring.

He goes to the ring alone.

He's the dawn of NXT.

And

he's a bargain basement Danny DeVito.

It's like a Vince McMahon gimmick from 1995.

He's doing the wise guys, the fake wise guy accent.

It's an Italian gimmick before the Sopranos.

Yes.

And

the only excuse for this program and the unprofessionalism and the stupidity involved with the video games and the small children and the fucking rotten music is they're trying to appeal to young people.

Because all those things appeal to young people.

But how is this fucking...

This would have been goddamn cliché when the Godfather came out in 1972.

What the fuck?

It looks like a 1995 Vince McMahon gimmick next to the goon and T.L.

Hopper.

Well, the other thing, too, is,

and maybe I'm wrong, because I know we saw some of this guy way back when we stopped watching NXT.

This was one of the reasons we stopped watching NXT.

I thought he was like a Brooklyn, New York gimmick, which made it particularly offensive because no one is that gimmicky ever.

Trust me, I got a lot of friends, North Jersey, all over New York.

No one is that gimmicky.

But he said here, he's from Chicago.

But I,

you know, the first thing Oba Femi said is what I was thinking.

I don't believe anything you're saying.

And I don't think you believe anything you're saying.

And that's what I think.

Speaking of what Oba Femi was saying,

so I said, okay, he looks great.

He's got size.

They're using him.

He's the North American champion.

And when Danny DeVito or Tony DeVito or Tony D'Angelo

or whatever his name is started talking.

I said, oh, no, I'm just going to skip ahead to Oba.

So I skipped ahead and Oba opened his mouth and I said, oh, fuck no.

God damn it.

What's the problem with him?

I'm thinking, I'm looking at this guy.

If he could talk like Ernie Ladd and just work a little bit, holy mackerel, you can draw some money with this guy.

He opens his mouth.

He sounds like Prince Nana.

What kind of accent is he?

He sounds like Eddie Murphy and coming to America?

It's probably an accent.

Can we go to Queens?

What the?

It's his accent.

What do you want him to do?

I don't.

I want to know where he's from.

First of all, that he's got that accent.

Is that a real accent or is that a put-on accent?

If it's put-on, he needs to drop it.

He's from Nigeria.

Oh,

he's the real deal.

It doesn't matter.

Well, he's the real deal, except Obafendi, it turns out, is not his real name.

His real name is Isaac

Udugbison.

Isaac, who dug this one?

Udugbizon.

Okay, Isaac.

What about Isaac Hayes?

Oh, they already got a Carmelo Hayes.

But

it's just, it was fucking hilarious that he opens his mouth and sounds like Prince Nana.

or Eddie Murphy in coming to America.

And from then on, I just, I couldn't.

The two examples you have of people from Africa?

What is this?

Well,

hey, more people have heard Eddie Murphy and coming to America in the United States than have spoken to somebody from Nigeria.

Yeah, I agree with that.

What's Prince Nana doing on the list?

Prince Nana is trying to do that accent as a fucking real.

He has done one promo in 10 years.

Oh, he did.

Well, he did him in Ring of Honor.

That's the way he sounded.

It's not my fault they won't let him talk.

But I gave up on this whole thing.

I'm like, I didn't want to laugh when Oba Femi opened his fucking mouth.

And all I can think of is, you know,

goddamn him and Arsenio, you know, cutting up around town.

All right.

So they're going to fight next week.

So can he wrestle?

Well, I wanted you to see him wrestle.

I didn't know they were going to have him in one of these stupid Ms.

TV segments.

Well, we've...

Maybe I will watch it.

Check out the match next week at least so we can see that.

So then the next contest was Jada Parker and Lola Weiss versus Fatal Influence, who is Jane Wayne Gacy.

Remember her,

and Fallon Henley.

And they have a girl in her corner, and I couldn't understand the ring announcer.

Who's the girl in her corner?

Oh, I didn't pay attention to any of this shit.

Kaylani Jordan, I think is her name, was at...

She was on color.

Very attractive woman.

Very, very attractive.

But no, I wasn't.

This is where they go too far.

I think the opening match shouldn't have been the opening match, but having that women's title match was a good match.

The crowd liked it.

But they don't need to be for every men's segment, a woman's segment.

And that's what it felt like.

And that's what NXT has felt like the last couple of years when I've watched it.

And a lot of this shit just doesn't appeal to the male wrestling fan.

It really makes you wonder why they're doing it.

Well, you know, you know why they're doing it, don't you?

Why?

Because whatever Lola wants, Lola gets.

Oh, boy.

Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets.

And I wanted to fast forward, and I got it.

So the Heels won, and then Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill came out as a surprise and just beat the teetotal shit out of them.

So I don't know what heat they got there because then they got spread all over the canvas or Kansas.

Or Kansas.

Every segment so far.

Sean and Triple H, Intro Julia's match.

Punk and Ava backstage with Pillman Jr.

Not the Zachary Wentz match.

Missed TV in the previous segment.

And then Jaden,

what's her name?

Bianca

got here.

They had someone in every segment almost from the main roster.

Well, and that will continue

because

like Mussolini

saving shitty TV,

CM Punk came out to see

what the fuck was going on.

And you know what?

Like Punk Satawnee Phil,

he should have seen his shadow and gone back in the hole.

And he wouldn't have had to fucking be involved in this next match.

Oh, boy.

So I take it you liked it.

Trick Williams made his entrance and the people chant, whoop that trick.

Now, if they like him, why do they want people to whoop him?

No, a trick is

a hooker that works for a pimp, right?

Well, no, that's back in the old days when people used words that people knew what the fuck they mean.

Now they change them every five fucking minutes.

I guess the trick would be the customer for the hooker, right?

Well, yes, but still.

I don't know how this works.

There is a thing they chant at ball games now.

Whoop that trick.

I don't know why,

but Trick Williams is his name.

But the people chant whoop that trick.

Apparently, they want people to whoop Trick Williams.

And Booker wouldn't shut up here.

Whoop that trick?

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

What the fuck is going on here?

So, but the people like him.

And then remember Ethan Page from AEW?

Well, here he became, and he now is the NXT champion.

So, how the,

I would say how the mighty have fallen, but actually how the small have risen.

So, another guy that

Tony couldn't figure out what to do with or how to keep or whatever, and I never particularly liked him anyway, but they bring him over here and make him some kind of fucking star for these people.

But

Punk was the referee, and he was going to call it right down the middle.

Brian, give me your

interpretation or impression of this contest, if you would.

I don't want to be the one to hog all the spotlight here.

I will now do my interpretation of this match.

Ask him!

Ask him!

How was that?

That was pretty good.

Thank you.

It was a back-and-forth match between Trick, who I believe they said was a former champion, and Ethan Page, who came over from TNA, that TNA boarding school that's now producing so much talent for them to have lose on national TV.

I like Ethan Page.

I always did.

I know why you had a problem with him.

I understand why.

I looked past it partly because I didn't watch that.

I never saw it.

But I always thought he had talent.

I always thought he could do a good promo.

I always thought he was a natural heel, and I always thought he was misused in AEW, whether it was him and Scorpio Sky with Dan Lambert or him with the Hardies.

He never had a chance to give him a chance here.

Well, then, what do you attribute the blondness of this match to, Trick?

I thought,

and again, I haven't watched a lot of NXT.

I thought Trick was quite sloppy.

Or at least.

Sloppy Trick.

Or at least

there was a sloppiness in the way these two work together.

At least that's what I thought.

Now, I don't know if it's, I'm just such a cynical fan now that I pick up on more sloppiness than I used to, or if there's just more sloppiness than there used to be.

Well, here's the thing: Trick Williams is one of these guys that is very athletic and has a lot of leaping ability.

And,

you know, he's in good shape and he's got, you know, lean physique and everything.

And he's awkward at pro wrestling movement.

You can be a great athlete and be awkward at the same time, depending on how you're trying to apply the athleticism, right?

And he's green and

maybe he's got happy feet or he's just

he doesn't.

Here's a guy who can leap up in the air and spread his wings and clothesline a guy and whatever.

And that looks, you're wow, athletic.

And he can't throw a punch.

He's standing flat-footed.

He's throwing his arm out in a circle.

That awkward movement when it comes to applying shit to wrestling stuff.

And he went at one time.

He was running in and went to do the goddamn reverse neck breaker, running reverse neck breaker, and he missed Paige's fucking head.

He just, he just, he maybe went to grab it and missed it, went right past it, just land.

And Paige took the bump anyway.

But

that's the thing.

They established Punk as the referee.

There was some story to it.

He separated them.

He counted a couple, two counts.

He blocked a punch.

He caught the guy with his foot on the ropes.

And then they just had a

match that was kind of a, it was a match.

And at one point, Paige powerbombed Trick through the announce desk.

And I swear to God,

Trick momentarily rolled back into the ring and jumped up and knee-lifted Paige and missed him.

But then Paige fell on Trick and got a two count.

I don't.

So then Punk helps them both up when they're both down to continue fighting.

And that's where they did the sloppy 1-2 into a hockey fight, missed the neck breaker, several false finishes.

And then

Paige gave Trick the go-to-sleep in front of Punk and got a two-count.

What did you think of that?

That spot where him and Punk were jawing at each other.

And then, what did he say?

Punk said, You're a son of a bitch.

And he goes, I'll show you how big of a son of a bitch I could be.

And he does the move right in front, not facing the camera, but facing him.

Yeah.

Well,

that's bringing, they tried to do something here

where that Paige would have some kind of goddamn bitch, but

I don't know what to, I like the idea of doing the guys move in front of him, right?

And he did that and got a two count.

And then Paige goes for the razor's edge.

And at this point,

Trick kicks his feet and gets out of it and lands on his feet and just goes into Punk's arms like he's giving him a hug.

And then Punk turns him around and sets him in a corner.

And Paige charges, but Trick moves and hits him with another knee lift and pins him one, two, three.

So if you're trying to set up

that when Paige gave the guy Punk's move in front of Punk,

that Punk would then

do something to

Paige in some way, he didn't do anything.

Trick just came down in his arms and there was no...

Do you see what I'm saying here?

Did that look awkward to you?

I mean,

it looked awkward.

It didn't look super awkward, but just regular awkward.

Well, but the thing is, Punk didn't do anything to

influence the match in any way.

He didn't pull him out of the corner so that Paige missed.

Right down the middle.

That's what he said.

He didn't pull him out of the fucking finish that Paige had him in,

but Paige had done the thing to do his move in front of him to piss him off so that it

There wasn't even anything that was done where Punk was still neutral, but he made a difference accidentally in the thing.

He just caught Trick and turned him around.

It was an odd finish to me.

But now there's a new champion.

New champion, Trick, and the people really went crazy.

That's probably why they were there, because they were already crazy.

You'd have to be crazy to go to this fucking show on purpose.

How long can they tour with this?

Till next week.

After they get out of St.

Louis, I hope Randy Orton knows maybe they're giving away tickets out there at Emo's Pizza.

There's as many Emo's Pizzas in St.

Louis as there will be fans in the fucking building.

Probably about 5,000 or 6,000 of them.

Any closing thoughts on the main event?

Trick Williams, Ethan Page, Punk as the referee?

I just.

This wasn't

like, you know, the glory days of the Attitude era where Sean Michaels, Bret Hart, and the Undertaker were all in there and the referee was involved.

It was just kind of like blah.

it was a blah match

and a blah finish.

And they

they, the biggest stars on the show

didn't wrestle.

They refereed,

they ran in, and they

ran the show.

But everybody else was, gee, money, Pete, I'm sorry, I don't mean to be negative, but I was looking forward to it.

And with half the thing being wow to begin with, women of wrestling or whatever,

there wasn't a, and the children's street fight,

are we going to give it one more week because St.

Louis and Randy Orton?

Well, I don't care about Randy Orton being there.

I want to see the Oba Femi match.

Well, I mean, I'm just going to watch that.

If we know that Orton's going to be there and it's in St.

Louis, there's going to be some other names there.

They'll have a crowd.

That's always the worst thing when it's like Randy Orton in his hometown for some other show.

He just comes out and gives a nice little introduction and then interacts with one of their stars.

It'll be the same thing it always is.

Maybe he'll talk to Ava.

Oh, boy.

Are they flying her to each place?

Jesus.

No, they're putting her on a fucking Greyhound.

What do you mean?

Are they flying her to each?

The only appearance she made was in one little tiny backstage segment for a second.

Look at him.

The money they got.

You're worried about Ava's fucking plane ticket.

Even if she's in business, I think they can hide that expense at this point.

I'm not saying she's earning her keep or in any way necessary, but I don't think we ought to worry about them being fiscally irresponsible because they're giving her a plane ticket.

I don't think that was really the concern, but

I know what you mean.

Either way, that was uh, I was about to say AEW Dynamo NXT on CW week one.

There will at least be portions of week two uh reviewed, and then we'll see how it goes from there.

I would double-dog dare

any son of a bitch out there

to watch this two hours of television and then watch any of the two-hour OVW specials that we did and tell me which was the better television wrestling show.

Honestly, not talking about production budget, but which did you rather enjoy watching?

And holy shit, what the fuck?

This is up.

And we were at least on a WB affiliate,

not the CW.

Where did UPN go

WB and and what was the other network that merged to become the CW

there was a WB network there was the UPN network and there was another network and that other and they merged to be CW and I can't remember

what the fuck

help me are you on mute I'm on mute, but I don't have the answer, so I can't really help you.

I have no idea.

There was UPNet.

they kept the w from wb network what was the other network

there was three of them

i don't know but that was nxt on cw

and yeah i think uh aew may have uh a better show but we'll see you know boy i'll tell you what

that is at least now tony kong can be proud of something

However rotten his show is, it wasn't this rotten.

At least we had more things to laugh at on Tony's programs.

We are in the future, ladies and gentlemen, a warm and fuzzy future.

Jimmy, there.

Yes,

I heard that sound once before as a small child when I got trapped in a septic tank.

Oh, how'd that work out?

Well, fortunately, I was able to be

expelled.

Well,

we will talk about that story, I'm sure, in Happy Talk at another time.

But, Jim, we mentioned before,

there are more things to laugh at than just Tony's program.

There's NXT.

But what if you want to get away from the laughter?

What if you want to get away from the ridicule?

What if you want to just listen to some fine tunes, walk down the street snapping your fingers?

Hey, man, what's happening?

That kind of stuff.

Just kind of walking down the street, just grooving, grooving

on a Sunday afternoon.

The rascals.

Feeling.

You don't want to get away from the laughter and the frivolity and the jocularity and the merriment and the mocking.

You want to embrace it, but you don't have time because there's so many.

Rotten programs to watch.

How in the world do you have time?

Well, folks, with the Raycon Everyday Wireless Earbuds, I'll tell you what, you can do two things at once.

Even if you can't walk and chew gum at the same time, you can walk and listen or ride and listen or sit and listen or even lay and listen.

We don't care what position you get in as long as you listen.

And we've established, Brian, several facts about the Raycon earbuds, right?

We've established that

they cost less and they sound great, right, than any of the other brands.

Right.

We've established they got the 32-hour battery life.

We established they've got a bunch of new features I'm going to go over because I think that we can apply them to something that our listeners are very interested in.

And we also, we've established that they are available in a variety of vibrant colors to complement any and all skin tones.

However, they're still working on the heartbreak of psoriasis.

So you folks stand by.

But think about this.

No, I'm telling you, this is that.

Think about this.

I've come up with this.

You're telling me.

These things, you can listen to podcasts with these things.

You can listen to music.

You can listen to basically anything you can listen to on any other earbuds or headphones or things like that.

And you can pair these things up with your Blue Teeth, right?

Right.

I'm sorry.

I didn't realize that was one of those ones you were throwing to me.

I thought it was.

Yes, no, it was not a rhetorical question because, you know, I don't know about the technology here.

So I got to make sure I'm talking correct to the people.

I don't want to lead them down the primrose path.

If you can, and and you can connect, you were talking about connecting your TV to the Blue Teet, right?

You can do that too.

You can, you can.

Your, your smart television there.

You could connect your smart television so you could hear it on your Raycon, of course, yes.

Well, yes, so what about this then?

See, I've just thought of this idea.

You connect your Raycon's blue teeth to your TV's blue teeth.

And that way, while you're walking down the street, instead of snapping your fingers.

Blue tooth.

Well,

if you're poor and you only can afford one, it'll still work.

But

instead of snapping your fingers walking down the street, you're laughing and entertaining yourself at all the bad wrestling.

But at the same point,

the new features like the active noise cancellation, if you're listening to the bad wrestling show, hit the noise cancellation button.

You won't be able to hear the commentary.

So, right there, that's a feature that you can use.

And the quick charge function.

Let's say that

earbuds are as dead as fucking AEW.

Well, you can plug them in for 10 minutes and you can get 90 minutes to zip through more than enough of AEW to satisfy your needs.

And for any of the promotions, any of the programs, the earbuds are weatherproof and/or sweat resistant.

So when these people give you a bad segment, they're just basically pissing right in your face.

It won't short-circuit the earbuds.

So all all of these features, Brian, they're applicable to the wrestling shows.

But so you think that idea that I have will work?

Right.

Where you could actually listen to television on your earbuds?

Well, I think you could listen to what you're watching on your TV, on your Raycon earbuds, the finest earbuds, as you said before.

Should I trademark that idea then and start leasing it out to Raycon and all of the people that...

That's not your idea.

You and Hotchkiss.

I just came up with that.

You and hotchkiss and whoever you have in your little circle of technology goofs i don't know what this is gurus gurus gurus

technology gurus they show you the path they enlighten you

having meetings in front of radio shack at three in the morning well there's it's a smaller crowd that way we didn't want everybody to know what we were up to

but anyway the idea that i just had would work then is what you have to admit that you can wear these things up and listen to television.

It works with Raycon, and ladies and gentlemen, you can work with Raycon because they are fine and they are ready for you.

Jim, tell them how people can get them without saying anything else that is not helpful.

And I'll tell you what, you can make, you can save a lot of money too.

You can get half price if you play your cards right.

Because right now,

if you go to buy Raycon, B-U-Y,

R-A-Y, C-O-N, buyraycon.com/slash slash JCE right now.

This very second, drop your baby if you're holding it.

Throw it out the window.

You won't need it anymore.

You're going to get earbuds.

You're going to get 20 to 50% off site-wide.

It's like you're just, it's a smash and grab.

What the fuck?

You're just, you're breaking into their theoretical brick and mortar store and you're only leaving half the money.

Up to 50% off everything

site-wide on

slash JCE.

When you use the slash JCE, of course, that's how they know to give you the discount.

Otherwise, they're going to just, they're going to charge you through the nose.

All right.

Well, that's Raycon one more time.

Concisely, what's that promo?

Concisely.

Buyraycon.com slash JCE.

Well, there we go.

We love Raycon.

And speaking of love, there's a lot of love being spread this week, Jim.

Between Warner Brothers Discovery and AEW, the big television rights renewal deal, the news came out earlier in the day, just before Dynamite.

And of course, AEW Dynamite had a big show in front of a big crowd for Dynamite.

Where were they?

Pittsburgh.

They were in Pittsburgh.

That's correct.

I remembered that because Britt Baker had her hometown colors on.

But what kind of audience did they draw for this

fifth anniversary event on October 2nd?

I did not get a crowdage

or an estimate of the crowdage.

Do you have any such knowledge as that?

I am right now looking for the crowdage.

What was the name of the building they were in, Jim?

The crowdage, the crowdage arena in Pittsburgh.

I don't fucking know.

It's not the igloo anymore.

It's not the old civic arena where the crusher and Bruno wowed them.

One of these newfangled arenas, probably named after some kind of hoity-toity fucking company or maybe some cheap fast food.

According to WrestleTicks,

at least as of Wednesday,

they were at the Peterson Events Center,

4,425 tickets distributed.

Son of a gun for them these days.

They shot almost one side of the building.

What's that place hold?

Do you have any idea?

Because I've never heard of it.

It's a new one.

I'm looking at the market-to-market comparisons.

Hold on.

I don't have that in front of me.

Well,

we came unprepared.

Yo, wrestle ticks, you should always include the capacity.

Actually, it does.

Yeah, actually, that's the info.

Yeah.

As I've mentioned, that is one of the things we had to write in our books.

Vince insisted.

You got the town,

you've got the date of the last show, the date of the next show, and the building capacity.

And or if it's set up for something different, you've got that slash the building capacity.

Building capacity, at least for Pittsburgh Panthers men's basketball, 12,508.

Ouch.

All right.

Well,

they had 33% of a house then this week, as opposed to we were always knocking them for a quarter of a house.

Hey, give them credit.

They may have been bigger than the average dynamite audience, but they were also as quiet as them.

They were trying to fit in and act normal.

No,

there were moments of raging cheeriness in between moments of sitting there going, what the fuck is going on here?

And let's get to it.

Jesus Christ.

They started with a cold open.

I'm not sure this was.

They'll either start out with, here, the fucking match is starting and we're going to start hitting each other with chairs, or they've got...

the plumber and his gang in the back in a warehouse somewhere with ominous music and speaking in

riddles and or tongues while being shot in an artful way.

I'm talking about not shot, but it's not the St.

Valentine's Day massacre, shot video-wise, shot with a camera.

And at one point there was a second camera all of a sudden.

Well, there's a second camera so they can get the sideways shot so that they can.

You think they're doing this in one take?

Well, they're like doing not only a promo where they're speaking in complete fucking riddles, but they're doing some kind of fucking temptation.

Eddie Kendrick's David Ruffin fucking choreography stepping up and back to the camera.

So you think they're doing that in one take?

They got a second camera so they can fucking cut.

That's a very good point.

I mean, everything is so rehearsed and it's definitely just all performance-based, but it's one thing when a wrestler does a promo and they're facing the camera or facing even slightly towards the camera like that weird Vince angle they used.

But when you're watching them talk to the camera from the side and you're really they're talking to no one, it takes away the effect there's some drunk guy in tyler texas going who are they talking to move the camera around man so we can see who they're talking to

so anyway hold on hold on

first of all marina shafir did her promo in uh

forgive me i don't know remember uh what language she i was i was guessing hungarian would it be hungarian where is she from I don't fucking know.

It's not my week to goddamn do her biography.

But that's the thing is between Pac's accent and they're talking in the scripted verbiage that fits whatever the fuck's going on with this thing.

So it's riddles.

But between Pac's accent, I was like, what the fuck is he saying?

And then Claudio, the one I understood, but he's talking.

He basically said, Wheeler, Wheeler, useless.

Why didn't you come with us?

Or I know you can call me or whatever the fuck.

The first thing we hear on their fifth anniversary is, where's Wheeler?

And then Marina Schaefer came up and spoke Hungarian or was it Peruvian?

I don't fucking know.

And the whole time, Mox has his back turned to the camera because obviously he's spending a lot of time rehearsing his lines.

I see it.

He's going over to his head, but also he's the star.

So then he makes the grandiose turn in this art house project

and he tells Brian Danielson that he's going to have the belt one way or the other, and there will be casualties.

There will be casualty.

He thinks he's goddamn

John Rambo.

They keep killing off the viewers.

There will be casualties.

Keep letting me do my shit.

They're dropping like flies.

But

basically,

Moxley, who

was some kind of quasi-babyface with the whole BBC combat society.

And they were quasi-babyfaces.

Then he went away for a while to do who knows what or not do who knows what.

And then he came to wrestle for New Japan, I think.

Well, but no, he was gone for longer than that from AEW TV, like two months.

But he comes back quoting the

Australian indie movies and being the neo-Nazi character that people have

alerted us to.

Yeah, d Neo Moxie.

Moxley.

My name is Moxley, not Moxley.

Whatever the.

But the point is,

he's talking about burying Brian Danielson in his backyard on October the 12th.

Danielson was part of the group.

They never broke up until...

Moxley just came out and put a plastic bag over Danielson's head the other night, right?

That's after Claudio would give him the

upper flipper.

So, has he yet said, do we know?

No, we don't know, because he hadn't said anything intelligible.

Why do they suddenly hate this guy that was in their group for so long?

That they've now tried to kill him and he wants to bury him, and there's going to be casualties along the way.

And the pay-per-view is next week, and we don't even know why he's fucking mad.

What the fuck sense does this make?

I don't think Claudio knows either.

In fact, trying to figure all this out.

This is

stuff that you come up with and the booker doesn't tell you no.

And instead, he feeds into it.

The Moxley stuff is.

We'll get to his actual wrestling a little bit later.

But he may be my least favorite wrestler in the entire business.

Yeah.

And it's so ridiculous and over the top.

And he comes back and every version of him is like the same.

It's the same same thing, but after watching a few more movies.

And I don't know, you know, again, everyone's thinking this is leading to Shane McMahon.

I'm sure we'll talk about that more later.

Well, if it is, then boy, howdy, would this be the worst ever angle or since the gobbledygook are leading up to a fucking payoff?

Well, we'll talk about their appearance again later on.

Anyway, and Nigel, by the way, was in for Taz, and they announced that Taz was in the building earlier, but was attacked by unknown assailants and was taken away to be treated and potentially has gone home to his doctors.

AKA, like me, he wanted to watch the mech game.

Well, I'm hoping that's what that is.

Yeah.

But

couldn't they just say he's on assignment?

They have to make an angle about everything if this was unless this was some kind of pre-planned.

Did you see the hook promo later?

Well, yeah, kind of.

I'll get you.

But it was because someone beat up his dad.

Someone attacked Taz.

Well, yes.

So they say that here, they don't say why, but later they say he was attacked.

Well, yeah, but at some point throughout the fucking night, they said that he was attacked and Hook's going to get even.

But

who the f?

All right.

Anyway.

Wouldn't it be funny if he shows up on Raw?

No, it's not going to happen.

All right.

All right.

The match that everybody's talking about,

we're not going to give a blow-by-blow description of this.

We don't have 36 hours, but Ricochet versus Osprey

for the international title.

And some people,

as you would predict, are like, oh, this is so great.

This is a five-star, six-star, whatever the fuck.

And some people, as you would predict,

are like, what the fuck are they doing?

And

you can't fault these guys as athletes they are tremendous athletic performers

right they can do all of those things they can do too many things as a matter of fact

but

first of all the

the whole idea of this this match happening how long has ricochet been here has it been three weeks In 80s?

No, it's been longer than that.

It's been at least two months.

Okay.

I don't know.

I'll split the difference.

He's been here for six weeks.

Which pay-per-view did he?

He debuted in one of the pay-per-views, right?

Was it in England?

I think so.

In the big multi-fucking gauntlet casino.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that was the last week of August.

Here we are at the first week of October, six weeks.

He's already wrestling.

Osprey for the international title.

They're both baby faces nominally because the crowd likes and cheers both of them, even though Osprey had a heel manager and mostly teams up with other heels.

And they have a history

amongst the or between each other

that none of this audience has any idea of except the really hardcore ones that we talked about on the last show that watched the Danielson and McGinnis matches in Ring of Honor, that watched these fucking guys wherever they were having these gymnastics meets that they had on the Indies.

And instead of establishing ricochet and then beginning to tell a story of a rivalry with Osprey and then

establishing more of a rivalry here leading to a match, they just say, okay.

Everybody traded the tapes seven years ago from fucking,

you know, Beirut, wherever they were.

So let's just just go ahead and have the match now.

They're both baby faces.

There's no build or issue on this programming besides them coming face to face and being snagged with each other last week or whatever.

But because it's a

banger of a match,

they'll go ahead and

give it to us now when

it means nothing.

And they announce it with, you know, a week or two in advance, which is better than how they announce the

world title match later on in the program.

But do you see what I'm saying here?

Is that what the

ricochet, the way you introduce anybody

into a new company is bring them in, give them some wins on television, get them in a program with a guy that they can get the last word on, whether heel, babyface, whatever fits, and get over with, and then move into the main event mix.

And instead, in six weeks,

what are they doing here?

That's my point, or one of my points.

I can't dispute anything you're saying.

They rush a lot of things

to have them happen.

On the other hand, with AEW, if you're going to make it happen, you almost have to because everyone always gets hurt.

So if you have a chance, if you have a window, you kind of have to go for it.

Well, with the way that they're having these matches, I can understand why.

Here's another thing.

In the back,

Don Fallas and Kyle Felcher are telling Osprey

that they can't talk

because they need to catch a plane.

It's 8.02.

The show just fucking started.

The first match is going to the ring.

Why did they come?

Why are they there if they have to catch a fucking plane now?

And there's our boy, Tega Shit,

giving Osprey the dirty look like, I don't like you

and again who's the fucking heel

why why

why is is osprey the the good-looking guy with the the fucking good hair and the nice physique and he's got a pleasant smile even though the fucking gravel garbledy fucking voice but he and he's athletic and flashy So he's just, I got to talk to you guys.

Why we don't, the top heel manager and some fucking blonde asshole that's in his group.

We don't have time to talk to you now.

We got to go catch a plane.

And our other guy doesn't like you.

And then, so everybody's confused.

Who are the, the faces are teeming with heels.

The faces have heel managers.

The faces fight each other.

The faces have rivalries that nobody has seen.

They've just been told about.

And apparently, due to the commentary, they've had nine singles matches and Osprey's ahead five to four.

Why did they have those matches?

What is their issue?

What did one

turn on one another or they were best friends and somebody took somebody's girl?

Whose side are we supposed to be on?

Who's in the right?

They're just, again,

they're great athletes.

And they could work a hell of a contest

if they could contain themselves from doing all the gymnastics and the cartwheels and the ridiculous overcooperation that takes it from a wrestling match to a floor routine.

But Osprey is the guy.

Ricochet can be very popular, but he's never going to be the guy in this company, especially if they're taking in $100 and something billion dollars a year.

They better never make Ricochet the guy in this company.

Do you hear him on the mic?

Yes.

But Osprey can be the guy in this company.

So, but we need to

please establish some goddamn logic as to who is mad at who and who is on whose side and why these things take place.

We don't care about bangers.

You're going to have the same audience,

dwindling audience that you've got now if all you're doing is bangers, because after a while, just a bang for the sake of it without any emotion involved gets old.

Haven't you found that, Brian?

I saw some of their matches.

You know, the famous one where

the clips were going around at the time where they did the opening spot where they both do the exact same thing on the other side of the ropes and then meet in the middle and then do the same thing on the other side of the ropes and flip, do the same flip at the same time, ending in the same pose.

And there are people who love that stuff, and they don't understand why we don't.

Well, they did that stuff here, and it wasn't as, to me, it wasn't as good as it was years ago.

Well, yeah, because they're fucking seven or eight years older or whatever.

And it's almost like a step back for Osprey, in a sense, because, you know, he needs to work on being a, he can't just do that forever.

And they did that here.

It was filled with spots that drive me crazy.

But I guess because there's no feud and there's no problems between the two just out of the friendship of competing against each other it makes sense when the one guy turns around while the other guy's facing him still and lifts his hands in the air and

points yeah like kenny does like kenny omega does osprey was doing that

so it was i would i was a very guy from behind in between the legs writing the fucking balls it looks ultra cooperative to people who are not wrestling wrestling fans.

And to wrestling fans, it's split amongst people who think it looks ultra cooperative and not what we want in even our high-flying matches.

And people who think it's the greatest thing ever.

But again, you look at the crowds they get and you look at the reactions these bangers are getting.

They have bangers with no emotion.

And

whether it was this.

And it wasn't as bad here as it was later in the show, especially during that Danielson match.

When the announcers have to start doing their golf commentary

because the crowd is not making any noise whatsoever, there's a problem with what you're doing.

No one has any passion or investment in anything you're doing.

And they had this match, and

what are they going to break next in terms of furniture or whatever is what they're waiting on?

Or what flip is going to be

unless you're a fan who is expecting and wanting,

you know, a high-flying match.

There's nothing to want in this.

And I'm not saying you shouldn't have main event style matches on television anywhere, but I'm saying, why

take Osprey 20 fucking minutes or however long this was to the limit and do everything and make him just one of the miscellaneous mid-card spot monkeys that populates everywhere instead of focusing on him as either the guy or your next guy or whatever the fuck.

And

as I said, you know, he's got a nice body, decent look, and nice hair, expressive face, horrible voice, but he needs a producer badly to teach him how to get over in America, which he would have gotten in the WWE.

And he'd be in front of a lot more people, but I don't know whether they would give him as much money in the schedule that he's got now.

But his matches would be better because

you could use the athleticism.

I mean, in this match, he did 10 things that could be an angle that either could be done to him or he could do to somebody else

that would carry you for a goddamn six months or a year on a professional television program.

And they just pop up and continue to do shit.

They did everything.

Nobody could beat anybody with anything.

And at one point, again, the psychology, because there is none, because they've been in Japan and they've been in England.

Ricochet obviously chafed against the goddamn training that he got

because

he knew he was going to get a bunch of money to do his flippy shit while he still can with his friends here because he's right back to doing it.

But at one point, Osprey was away.

He was working heel.

He was, he had Ricochet down and he was taunting him and he was bullying him.

And Ricochet was selling.

And then Osprey did a flip off the top where he got a hurricane rana, but he flipped and landed on his feet.

And the crowd gave him a standing ovation.

Now they're cheering the guy that was being the heel.

But then 30 seconds later, he's flipping Ricochet the fucking double bird like, fuck you, Sidney.

Is he a heel again?

And then

the finish they did,

they did two finishes,

but Osprey gave Ricochet the reverse Hurricane Rana, dropped him right on his feet, and Ricochet popped up without selling it and gave Osprey a reverse Hurricane Rana.

And he popped up and they did,

they basically just kept jumping up and doing the same move to each other without selling it.

And then

Osprey stood up and gave Ricochet the elbow and then fell on top of him where they were both down, except Ricochet had to kind of put his hand over the top of Osprey's neck.

And the referee counted both men down and it was a draw.

Don't worry, that's not the end of it.

But do you see what I'm saying?

Why would you do that move and then just stand up and then just hop up in the air and give the same move to the other guy and drop him on his head and have him not sell it?

Isn't that just telling everybody everything we're doing is complete bullshit?

See, what they do is impressive, but the idea that you jump up, there's a lot of just jumping up and doing something and then falling back down.

Because I guess we're supposed to believe that you get a burst of energy that propels you to do an RKO on the apron or whatever the fuck happened here.

Every time somebody in a riot gets hit in the head with a goddamn baseball bat, that suddenly for the next 10 seconds, they can whip anybody.

is what you're saying.

It's less than 10 seconds.

It's seemingly, no matter what move is done to you, if you have the, I don't know what, the fighting spirit, whatever it is,

you have three seconds to jump up and do something.

It sounds like they've had plenty of spirits.

I don't know if they're fighting any of them.

So then, of course, Tony Khan by mental telepathy sends Smiley Roberts, the ring announcer, the message that this match will continue.

And I'm like, God damn it.

And they get up and start trading forearms in the middle of the ring.

But 30 seconds later,

so they did a double pin finish and a restart.

And 30 seconds later, Tegashit jumps in and just starts beating up both of them.

And it's just, it's a double disqualification, no contest or whatever.

And he gave Osprey a weird-looking knee that looked like

maybe somebody wasn't ready for something or it looked different than what they envisioned.

It might have looked like.

I don't know what happened.

And then he just rolled out and got the

title belt.

And what belt was on the line in this thing?

There's so many of them I've forgotten.

This was the international.

Yes, international.

Yeah, that's it.

Well, he got that belt and stood over both of them.

Analyze that finish for me.

Great Brian Wyatt.

Christopher Daniels was in some pre-tapes later on.

I guess they didn't fly him in because why would you do that?

Tony Kahn has announced this from the back that he's just going with it instead of having like the money.

Well, because no, this is Tony's fucking.

He wanted to make sure that everybody knew that he was saving this match.

The match they all wanted to see because it was going to be a banger because they had one in a

fucking hockey building in England seven years ago.

He wanted to make sure he was the one known for saving it.

That's my opinion.

They did impressive stuff and the people were into them, but you get a lot of these moments of silence.

And again, you're having matches just to have matches.

There's no...

The only reason for them to wrestle is that they wrestled each other in front of a pretty small, all things considered audience

eight years ago or whatever.

Before Ricochet was in WWE.

Before Osprey had muscle,

like a long time ago.

And they did the same moves moves that they did here.

But in between those moves, it's just you sit there and you wait for the next move.

I thought this entire show, but here, and especially in the Danielson-Okada match,

watching the fans watch the wrestling while reacting to nothing.

And then all of a sudden a channel break out, like, this is awesome.

And you're like, oh, where's that coming from?

And then it goes away and everyone's still sitting there.

back into dead silence.

There's no emotion.

There's no, it's not you know i hate ricochet for any reason or i hate will osprey for any reason it's no let's just have a match where we're going to do a bunch of moves so as a fan you go into it knowing oh they're just going to have a match where they do a bunch of moves and kick out of everything and see that's the problem that i have is that it just devalues everything for people who are trying to evoke some emotion and get over and do this stuff the right way when they're just out there playing video game characters and none of this hurts.

They don't even sell the shit that really hurts hurts enough that you would somewhat visibly sell it for fuck's sake.

But it's impossible for, you know,

it's impossible to follow some of this stuff because what are you going to do then?

That's why, unfortunately, they're in the position they're in

is that

they've matriculated.

A pretty big section of the audience they had when they started because how do you follow what they've already done?

They've set people on fire and blown them up in these video game gymnastics bullshit matches where nothing can hurt anybody.

Then they don't believe when they really do do something

to one of the few people on the roster they care about.

Then it is like that was all.

All they did was double pile drive him off the top rope, threw tables on the floor.

Well, the girls did that last week.

It just nullifies impact of anything, which makes all these people get hurt more often because they got to do more shit for these fucking people that expect if you're not crashing through furniture every 30 seconds, it's not a banger.

Anyway.

On the bright side, at least it looks like Tony's going to do something with the Keshita.

Well, now we think maybe.

It looks like it.

Let's see if it lasts three weeks.

It doesn't even deserve its own review, but Mercedes Monet

introduced a highlight video of Dynamite on the occasion of the fifth anniversary.

The greatest moments, and it was all her.

And I just made the observation that she is the first

personality that I can think of in wrestling

that is totally unlikable,

but not necessarily in a heel way,

but just

even pockets.

I hate his gimmick.

It's fake and phony and bullshit.

But he doesn't come off like he thinks that he is the goddamn biggest superstar in the world and still have a goddamn rotten fucking phony gimmick.

She does.

But is that

it's the classic heel characteristic, but the problem is you don't want to see anything she does because it's all so bad.

So is this brilliant heel work or shitty heel work?

It's shitty wrestling work.

Because it's so fake.

It's

fake past what's acceptable for wrestling fake.

The way she talks, it's like it's every promo is a dressing room mirror promo.

She's doing it to herself in the mirror.

The way she talks.

Now, wait a minute.

Stop it.

Stop it.

The way she talks, what she says.

The way she wears her hair.

Outside of the WWE ecosystem, and even that has kind of moved on from a lot of what she did when she was successful there.

I'm sure she would still be over.

I'm not saying that, but

she's doing a Vince McMahon-style women's wrestling character in terms of the hokiness and the gimmicky-ness of it.

And it's not connecting with AEW fans.

Though this shit wouldn't connect on WWE television either.

This wouldn't connect with anything, but nevertheless.

It's really bad.

It's cringy bad.

You watch her and it's like, it's cringy bad.

These promos.

Camille just stands there.

But well, yeah, sooner or later she'll get to do something.

But also, you see the quotes from Mercedes on, you know, that she does interviews or on social media or whatever, where she

speaks like that she has been some

savior of women's wrestling and some trailblazer, and that she is able to do more now to,

just talks like she's goddamn

Madonna or what.

And it's fucking ludicrous.

Don't they hear the crickets?

Or are they drowned out by the piped-in CEO in the music?

Give her credit because there have been crickets.

No one reacts.

People don't like her.

People boo her.

And she still has the confidence to go out there and go, I'm your CEO.

Man, people don't give a fuck what you are.

You may be

conniving, egotistical, and overpushed.

I'll say it here,

and I think it can apply to AEW more than WWE because WWE has some really talented stars in the women's division.

But how much more successful would AEW be, just ratings alone, if they didn't have a women's division?

We know what drives off the viewers.

We know what segments do that.

Again, why do it if, you know, why?

Just why?

Yeah.

You know what they did next?

Renee Max Legoud is standing in the back with the gunboys,

and they said three words, and Hangnail Page came in the back door and beat them both up with a chair.

And that was it.

Did you see the first chair shot?

It looks like he actually didn't hit him with the chair.

He hit him with like his forearm.

Well, yeah, because he was coming in instead of whacking him with it, he was coming in with the edge of it and just body-checked him and, you know,

had the chair in his hands.

But I mean, still,

why can't these guys at least even get a chance to speak before somebody just beats a piss out of them and leaves them laying there and they get no retribution?

And in every segment,

every time they're backstage, somebody will talk for

five words and then get the shit kicked out of them to the point where it's just ridiculous now and nobody cares

because it happens constantly.

It's not out of the ordinary.

Here's the guns that you haven't seen on this show in weeks.

And there go the guns.

And there go the guns.

Okay, you mentioned segments that drive the viewers off.

The learning tree with Chris Jericho, with Big Bill and Brian Keith, and Mark Briscoe, and Kyle O'Reilly, and Rocky Romero, and our little puppy Pockets.

I just couldn't.

And

I saw as I was fast-forwarding that Mark Briscoe was cutting a promo on Jericho, but the opportunity for Mark has been wasted.

And this is so bad.

And Jericho's disingenuous, meh, I just, so are you going to crucify me here because I didn't fucking watch this thing?

How could you not watch this?

Because it was rotten.

You didn't see a second of it.

You went right past it.

As soon as I saw that it was Chris Jericho, I just wasn't in the fucking mood.

I don't know how to apologize any further.

All right.

What happened?

I'm not going to tell you.

Well, all right then.

I don't care.

But I did watch Darby Allen

in the woods on a bunch of junk cars at night wearing a pink furry house coat

telling a story about three guys bullying him and spitting on him on a bus.

And one of them had a switchblade, but he jumped him anyway.

And I swear to God,

he said, and it felt good that I did something about it.

I was waiting for him to say, God damn, when I got out of the hospital, he stabbed me 17 times.

But

either that or then we all got sent to the principal's office.

But

Darby does a good promo, especially if you're a young person who can overlook that he's an idiot

and

with himself physically, and you can find some admiration in the homelessness and et cetera.

I see that young people are a lot more accepting of people being fucking homeless than my generation.

And then talking about it on television, at least.

I don't know, it might be something you have to experience.

I'm not sure it's something you need to brag about years later.

But he issued an open challenge for the the pay-per-view, I'll fight anybody.

And then he beat up a car with a rock.

I go back and forth on Darby Allen, whether I think you dumb, stupid son of a bitch, if you were smarter and you could apply your talents and eliminate your stupidity,

you wouldn't be a crippled 35-year-old.

You'd still be making a lot of money.

But then other times I think, oh, fuck it, let him goddamn

knock his head off.

What'd you think about this promo?

It's an interesting promo, an interesting story about people spitting at him.

And

he just got his ass kicked by Moxley.

Now he just has an open challenge to anybody.

As long as they don't spit on him, because that's going to piss him off.

That would be great if whoever he wrestles, they do the spot where they sit him down in front of him and they start spitting on top of his head.

All right.

Juice Robinson is back, ladies and gentlemen.

And apparently he's a baby face now, I guess, I think.

And I'm excited.

And he's going to wrestle hangnail page.

I'm still excited because at least Juice is back, right?

Something about, we both like him, Brian, you're a fan.

The way he talks, the way he looks,

the way he wears his hair, whatever.

So they're okay, maybe let's see a good match here.

We got Juice.

It's a jump start in the entrance.

Juice Robinson pulls out a belt and starts whipping Paige.

Paige takes it away from him and whips him.

So now I'm like, wait a minute, that's backwards.

If Juice is the baby face.

And then they fight into the arena.

Paige pulls several sections of railing loose and uses it on Juice.

He pulls a table up, but they get misdirected from the table.

They fight,

in quotation marks, they fight up the stairs, into the stands,

throw some soft drinks in each other's faces,

come back down the same way.

Juice hits Paige with some popcorn.

They roll into the ring, and Aubrey Ed rings the bell to start the match, and they go to break.

So, one guy that I'd like to see have a match on this show, and this is what they do to it.

And they're still doing this thing where, okay, they can come out,

they can start fighting anywhere in the building.

They can go 15, 20 minutes with sledgehammers.

No matter what happens, if they get in the ring, then we'll ring the bell.

This is a rule that they have invented that has never been a thing in wrestling before.

So at that point, I said, well, fuck, now it's ruined for me.

And I just got to fucking watch Hangnail.

So I skipped ahead another 10 minutes.

10 minutes after they...

This was long.

This felt really long.

Yes, after that whole thing, 10 minutes.

And finally,

Paige Mule kicked.

Our boy Juice and the balls and buckshot Lariated him one, two, three.

Now there's more to come, but continue your thought on that match.

There's not much more I could say.

Juice Robinson looked good.

The little bits I watched, but it went a long time, and the pace of it was just deadly.

And the crowd went silent, and so did I.

So, uh.

Well, but more noise was made at the end.

It went way too long.

It doesn't have to benefit anyone involved in this that it went that long.

Whatever.

Well, they had an overrun.

They snuck a two and a half hour show in on us this time.

So the point is, Buck shot Larry at one, two, three.

Well, the heel wins.

But again, the heel, goddamn, every,

is there ever a match here without goddamn afterbirth?

Paige now is going to hang Juice Robinson.

Grabs his rope and throws him over the top rope with the rope around his neck.

And here comes...

Light switch Jay White.

And he rolls in and beats up Hangnail Paige.

And they fight out into the arena.

And he runs Paige through the table that they had set up in the match with Juice

a while ago.

Huh.

So that was that.

You excited for the return of Jay White?

No.

I wasn't excited for the debut of Jay White and everything else in between.

Remember when he was doing those 20-minute fucking promos?

See, that's what I'm waiting for.

Next week, when we get the promo, I'm assuming it'll be next week.

It'll be more of the, oh, I am the greatest, the man who is number one.

Like just all talking about himself non-stop in that weird tone.

Yeah.

Poor Juice can't get a break, can't get away from these people.

And then

Rene Moxley Good with Jungle Jack off in his Chester the Molester van.

Are we expected to believe that he's driving that

coast to coast and top to bottom, north to south, all across the country.

Who is driving that?

Are they putting the van on a truck or has somebody got to drive that ugly, uncomfortable fucking painted over bread truck

to every city they go to?

Because that's awful big to put on a fucking flatbed.

Especially for Jack Perry, who's just not doing it.

Well, yeah, why does he have to have this?

This is an example of, you know, he said it would be cool if I had this ugly van.

And Tony Khan is spending a fortune so that this little idiot can pull up in an ugly van every week on TV for 10 seconds.

So he walked

into the shot and Shapupi.

came up to him and had his phone translator

and his phone challenged Jungle Jack Jack off to a pay-per-view match.

And then he accepted and then

ran back in behind the guy and ran his head into the van.

Should he be running Shapupi's head into a van with his history of brain surgeries?

You know, the only bigger question, and why is Jack Perry getting this push that isn't really working out too well?

Is why would they book a feud with Shibata?

Or is this just for the Wrestle Dream pay-per-view in a week?

Well, yes, because this is everybody's dream to see

a guy without a brain wrestle a guy with brain damage.

Yeah, not good.

Speaking of both,

brain damage or no brain, Brian Danielson was in the back saying, fuck Jon Moxley.

Of course, they bleeped it, but

And I will amen to that.

But he cuts the promo on Moxley, but we still don't have any insight as to why

Moxley did what he did.

And then Danielson promoed OCody

for the main event tonight.

He's a great promo when he's fired up.

But again,

even worse with Danielson and O'Cody in the main event

is with

they announced it on Twitter five days ago or whatever, but another banger, but this time with a guy that's too banged up to bang.

We'll get there.

But anyway,

did you watch Britt Baker versus Serena Deeb?

A little bit.

It's the first time we've seen Britt Baker since, I think, Wembley.

It's her hometown, so I guess she has to be there.

Serena Deeb, the little bits I watched, looked really good.

Serena Deeb looked really good.

Serena can work.

She's a Rip Rogers disciple.

She can work.

work.

But of course.

You could believe in her in the ring, you know?

Yes.

And Britt Baker, the hometown girl, came out with the Pittsburgh towel on her back or whatever

that was.

And she won with the mandible claw.

And then Serena gets heat on her every fucking match.

Serena just gets back on her.

And then here comes Queen Yayata

and makes the save.

And then everybody left.

But did you see

what somebody put out on Twitter, like from

wrestling source of reporting or dot-com or some, maybe even a completely phony site?

It had to be a made-up deal.

But the reason for Britt Baker being suspended,

did you see this?

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

No.

I saw that one person tweeted it.

It was a made-up, mocked-up news headline.

Britt Baker suspended.

They said the reason because

she was using nitrous oxide

in the locker room and that she was suspended for.

She would have been the most popular person in the locker room.

I'd be calling her up right now.

But again, because she's a dentist, she was able to get...

Obviously, we are not saying.

that that was in any way truthful.

I thought it was funny and it's bullshit.

But can you imagine that nitrous oxide, for one thing, is not a performance-enhancing drug, but it's not necessarily something you'd be sitting around in a locker room doing before you go out to work either.

Although the famous story my dad's friends always said is that backstage, I think at the Nassau Coliseum, he said to Jerry Garcia one time, hey, Jerry, if you're captain trips, why are we doing nitrous oxide?

Jerry didn't have an answer.

Or if he did, I don't know what it is.

But anyway.

Her and Dr.

Lano, I'm telling you, that's the big thing.

Next time they go to the West Coast, they should have Leno come out as her manager for one night.

And then he could do it.

He did at the Gordon's Caesar show, get on the mic and just do running commentary of the match.

Yes, and he could have a big tank of nitrous oxide on his back.

Isn't there one already?

Yeah.

So then, continuing in the female genre, Renee Moxlegood was in the back with Maria May, and Willow came in and they argued and they fought and they got pulled apart.

It's the same.

Every segment is just, it's like

these kids have seen highlights of wrestling from years gone by and think that that's all that they ever did.

And then...

But who's there to coach them?

Pepper Day?

A bunch of people that they aren't listening to that have been there in the past.

I don't think Arne Anderson told them or taught them a lot of these things.

He's not there.

He ain't there.

Cody wouldn't probably teach him a lot of things.

He's not like that.

He's not there.

William Regal probably.

Well, he's not there.

Yeah, he's not there.

He wanted to be closer to home.

I'm getting closer to my home.

Smartest guy in history.

He went to AEW.

He's like, I've made a huge mistake.

What will I do to get out of this mistake?

I will find a way out of this mistake.

I will polite my way in an English fashion out of this mistake.

He polited himself right out of the company.

Private party beat two fat guys.

Did you see the botched double team where the guy that can jump actually for the first time ever couldn't jump and missed the fucking guy and he dove off anyway?

And

then they're cutting a promo in the ring.

They want to be the tag team champions and they call out the Hardley Boys.

Let's do this thing right now.

And then the Hardley Boys, of course, the spotlight on it.

They are more more and more with every passing week.

Maddie and Nikki are like the South Park episode where the kids created their own wrestling federation, the WTF.

They're sitting in.

That's their whole life.

They're sitting in a spotlight and, you know, as they're opened on, and then they start talking their way to the ring, and they tease a match.

And then, well, but we're on limited dates because they got to be inside.

And then suddenly in the ring, Jungle Jackoff jumps private party and then the buckaroos roll in and start getting on him.

But then music plays and here comes Shapoopy.

And all three of the heels bail

because Shapoopy ran in and then and the fans are sitting there like, what the fuck?

And then Daniels comes out and makes a six-man tag for Rampage.

So the show that's not even going to exist any longer,

that nobody watches to begin with, is dominating the promotional time on this television show when they're a week away from a pay-per-view.

Did you see Jack Perry's?

I don't know if they were supposed to be

punches.

I don't know if they were supposed to be punches and they looked like forearms or if they were forearms that looked like shit.

I'm not sure what it was.

Where he just was waving his arm in the general direction of the fellow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that's what they do now.

And to be honest and be fair, they do it in the WWE too.

They just, these guys cover up in a ball and somebody on top of them just waves their arm potentially with a closed fist somewhere in the area of their head and upper body.

It's fucking ridiculous.

I've never seen sloppiness like this.

And we didn't have high-definition television.

So it's even worse now.

That's why I talk about all these guys covering up.

If you, if you're all covered up and you're blocking and you got your hands over your face, then there is no target.

And anything that's thrown at you looks like shit.

If the guy holds you down and pins your arm and throws an unobstructed punch to the face, it's better than 10 windmills.

And it gets the point across.

I'm sorry.

I digress.

All episode, they were showing highlights of five years of dynamite, the biggest moments, and they showed Private Party defeating the Young Bucks.

I forget what they said.

It was either episode two or episode three.

Like, early on, five years ago.

They're revisiting their feud now, five years later.

The Bucks don't matter.

The Bucks can't, the Bucks just don't matter.

The Bucks don't matter, and Private Party's not as over as they were then.

Yeah, the only thing that could help Private Party right now is leaving AEW and hoping WWE would be looking at them.

Again, back to this tag team division, this awful tag team division.

They booked it into the ground, even with some talent.

And again, the Bucs,

they get that go-home heat reaction from a lot of people as soon as they come at more and more of the AEW fans, too.

It's not about bangers.

It's about more than that.

But it doesn't have to be now because along with Tony's dad's bottomless pocket, they're getting paid to just

do what they're doing.

So there's no incentive to get better.

That's the problem now is

they've been somewhat validated.

There's no incentive to get better because

they're guaranteed whatever.

I mean, Tony will still spend more money than they take in somehow, but they're guaranteed a shitload of money to just do whatever the fuck they're doing.

And the crowds are getting smaller and smaller.

The crowds are, you know, going to be where they were when they were on the Indies, when they were main eventing for a Ring of Honor with Sinclair Money behind them.

And they had plenty of time to try to

say in everything they've done.

They had plenty of time to try to do anything to drum up interest in anything.

And instead, they were left to do their best ideas and look at the state of the tag team division, look at the state of AEW.

They're getting there, making it about five years ago.

We started this thing.

There'd be no AEW without us.

AEW would be better without you.

Yes.

Look at the landscape.

I'm sorry, but I have a feeling that Cody would have probably pushed this thing through even if there weren't any buckaroos around.

We've seen who the go-getter is, and he went and got it.

But anyway, one more Renee Moxley good

with

MVP,

who started speaking, and Nana came in pissed off and said, I used to be a wrestler, you know, at least they're letting him say something.

But then MVP told Nana,

you're going to have to deal with the complaint department.

And the camera widens out, and there's Shelton Benjamin, Shelton Benjamin.

Shelton Benjamin standing behind Nana.

What did he goddamn beamed in on the,

you know, the fucking beam me up, Scotty?

Nana wouldn't have seen Shelton Benjamin standing anywhere around there.

But again, I love Shelton, and I'm glad Shelton is making, I'm sure, a lot of money.

And we might be able to see him on television every once in a while.

But this is the way that you debut him in a fucking pre-tape late in the show where the camera widens out and he's standing there.

Is that a big fucking reveal?

And then Shelton drank Nana's coffee and stole his coffee cup.

And that was it.

I'm glad they're putting the hurt business together, but don't

we need to make it a little grander than, oh, and here's another backstage segment where we'll introduce a guy that's been a star in the business for 20 years.

Well, that's the thing.

Shouldn't any of these segments be in front of the live crowd?

And if you say Shelton Benjamin couldn't be there this night because

for whatever reasons they had to pre-tape it, then do it another week when he could.

Do it next week.

Do it next week.

Where are they pre-taping these fucking things anyway?

God damn it.

Well, you know, Jim, with all the buzz about the hurt business being now on TV,

reuniting in AW, they all look gigantic amongst the smaller wrestlers there.

You may want to get on the phone and call somebody and say, hey, MVP is back on TV.

They're going to be in the MVP arena at some point.

MVP is at the MVP.

The Hurt Business is on TV.

And I got a good phone plan with Mint Mobile.

Well, you've said it all.

Now, I'll tell you what, the phone lines were burning up.

The party lines, people were listening in.

One ringy dingy, two ringy dingy.

Everybody said MVP is in AEW and Shelton Benjamin is back with MVP and Bobby Lashley can't be far behind.

They were all burning up the phone lines, but it didn't cost people a lot of money because they had the premium wireless plan from Mint Mobile starting at $15 a month.

And I'll tell you what, that you can, as a matter of fact, you can get three months for only $45.

That's even cheaper than $15 a month or thereabouts because Mint Mobile, see, they're cutting through all the middleman and they're giving you proper service.

You know, Ryan Reynolds started this thing, you know.

I saw him the other day up on top of a telephone pole.

He was stringing wires himself.

No, that's not how this works at all.

See, no, they're eliminating a lot of the overhead by doing a lot of the work themselves.

They're entrepreneurial Americans.

Ryan Reynolds?

Yeah, he was up there.

He was straying in line.

He was climbing that pole like he'd been working for the telephone company for 25 years.

You should have seen him.

And that's the way that they can pass the savings on to the consumer.

Oh, yeah, he's out there.

He's working early in the morning, works the early shift, six to three.

So that way he's got the evenings off to make.

movies and TV shows.

But folks, if you want to switch your high-price plan that you've got on your telephone where they're just raking you over the coals over to Mint Mobile, it's easy.

Like we said, $15 a month when you get the three-month plan.

And it comes with high-speed data, unlimited talk and text, and

the nation's largest 5G network.

Ryan put three of those Gs in himself.

You can keep your own phone.

You can keep your own phone number.

You can keep your hands in your pockets and your ideas to yourself too, there, fella.

But you can ditch the overpriced wireless that you might have now with Mint Mobiles deal, three months of premium wireless service for $15 a month.

And Brian, of course,

I was erroneous when I earlier said that also the additional business they had started was Mobile Mint,

where they had a truck outfitted with

minting equipment.

You did say that.

And they'd come to your home and they would mint you your own money.

Ridiculous.

And well, unfortunately, I didn't get the updated memo because that

idea, that concept didn't get out of development because it was not clinically validated when they did the clinic.

So now what they've got is mobile mint where they have a truck outfitted with every kind of mint.

You got breath mints and peppermints if you want some peppermint schnapps.

They got that.

Anything with some mintiness to it.

The green stuff that you

mush up and put down in the bottom bottom of the Moscow mules, all kinds of mint, and they drive that truck around to your neighborhood, delivering mints in a mobile fashion.

Why, why now?

Why, why?

No, they don't.

But they have great phone plans.

There's no trucks.

You sound like one of the Bowery boys.

But, folks, right now, if you want to save some money and have your breath be minty fresh, go to mintmobile.com.

No,

David Gorsey.

Mintmobile.com.

Sunshine Sammy.

Slash JCE.

What was his father's name?

Gorsey's father's name.

Yeah.

He was in a bunch of people.

He became the

Louis Sweet Shop owner.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't remember.

Mint Mobile.

They're still here.

Mintmobile.com slash JCE.

You can cut your wireless phone bill to $15 a month when you get the new three-month premium wireless plan, mintmobile.com/slash JCE.

And of course, they don't trust you, so a $45 upfront payment is required, which is equivalent to $15 a month.

New customers on the first three-month plan only,

don't try any of your shenanigans.

Speed slower above 40 GB on the unlimited plan.

Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply.

See Mint Mobile for all the details and and ask for some peppermint schnapps.

Well, see all the details and use the promo code with Mint Mobile.

Yes.

And now back to Dynamite.

Well, now it's time for the main event, isn't it?

We've been waiting a long time.

As a matter of fact, the bell for the main event to start rang at six minutes till 10 o'clock.

They said, We've got a significant overrun

for you tonight.

We've already gone through it.

Why can't they just schedule the shit?

I mean, even

cousin Brian Alvarez is getting frustrated because he's got the apparatus that you can't easily set.

And he's going out of his mind trying to keep up with these things.

Well, the other thing is, except for the rare week, like last week, I think, with Moxley versus Darby, it loses viewers.

So if you're doing something that doesn't benefit the programs, the matches, the feuds, the viewership goes away.

You put main event stuff at the end of the show, no one sees it.

There's no reason for it yet.

They double, triple down on it, 30 minutes this week.

Well, and at least, we'll get to that in a second, but it was the world title versus the

oh god, intercontinental title.

No, the international title is Osprey.

Continental.

Continent.

Okay,

WWE has the intercontinental title.

AEW has the international title and the continental title.

So

am I wrong?

Did they not just announce this on Twitter like about four or five days before the show?

I saw this on Twitter because MJF retweeted it.

And then I got retweeted.

You know, people copied it and quoted it to us where he couldn't understand the stipulation.

That was the first time I heard of the match.

or the stipulation.

Well, it was a double title match.

The world title was on the line versus the continental title, but the continental title was only on the line for the first 20 minutes of the match.

Now,

again, we know that Tony has liked to watch old wrestling tapes.

And,

you know, there's some of the other guys that go back and

they watch, but they don't get the old wrestling.

The deal they were doing here originated,

I believe, in the Carolinas territory.

I think, although you may be able to correct me because other territories may have done this.

But the deal was in the Mid-Atlantic territory, the television title had a time limit of 20 minutes on championship matches.

If you were the TV champion and you defended the title on TV,

It was a 20-minute time limit because it's an hour fucking program in total.

And so that was more befitting

a television match, right?

So

then

if the

let's say Ricky Steamboat is the mid-Atlantic TV champion and he's in a program against his ex-tag team partner, number one Paul Jones, who's the U.S.

champion,

then if they had a match in the arenas,

the TV talk, or even if the other guy wasn't a champion and just the TV champion had a match, a special arena match, house show match where there was some issue, the TV title would be on the line for the first 20 minutes only

in a match with an hour time limit or whatever the case, because that was the time limit of all TV title matches.

So it made sense.

And that way they could work the deal where the TV champion got beat in the house show match, but it took 23 minutes.

So he would still be the TV champion.

And if it had been on television, he wouldn't have been beaten, et cetera.

Simple but effective.

But there's no reason

for the continental title to be on the line for the first 20 minutes only because they have not established that the time limit for every continental title match is 20 minutes.

So he just did a stipulation that he's heard of in the past without bothering to figure out why the fuck that it was done that way to begin with.

Did I lose anybody or did I explain that properly?

I think you'd explained it as good as you can.

So, I mean, there was no, that's where it was done and why it was done and why it made sense to do it there.

But it didn't make sense to do it here.

He just wanted to.

have these guys wrestle and be able to have a winner without switching a belt.

So

we already know that it's going over 20 minutes due to the stipulation.

They start at six minutes till.

And

again, Danielson is a very talented guy, and he gets more than most people out of other people.

But this fucking Japanese certified public accountant, he is rotten.

He is broken down.

What?

No, this went forever.

At the top of 10 o'clock, they were in break.

So anybody who was switching over would see picture and picture at best.

And then on my local cable, it went to full commercial.

And then they went on and on.

And by 10.15 p.m.

The Continental title was off the line.

And at that point,

O Cody gave Danielson a tombstone pile driver on a chair on the floor.

No, he didn't.

What?

If you watched it, his head didn't come anywhere near the chair and the camera was right on it, so you couldn't miss it.

Okay, but the point being,

it wasn't for lack of trying.

All of his shit looks bad, but it was a tombstone pile driver on a chair on the floor for a break spot.

To where by the time the

three-minute break was was over with, the guy that had to retire because of concussions and needs neck surgery that just got tombstone pile driven on a chair on the floor was back beating the shit out of the other guy.

And that was 26 minutes into this fucking thing.

So, I mean,

did you see?

I couldn't watch all of it.

I was trying to see because they were laying around for so long, but was there anything, again, I've tried to watch that

the multi-million dollar acquisition of Kaza Chuji Chuji Okada

moves like a ruptured moose.

Anything?

Well, did you see anything?

I hated this match.

I hated this match.

And quite frankly, it's not just Okada.

Brian Danielson has had some really great matches,

but he also wrestles a really boring,

slow-paced, for no logical reason style.

And even when you want to say he's too hurt to throw the kick, so he has to take five seconds to do it, everything took forever.

And then they were on the floor for forever, and the referee did nothing.

He would check on them.

And Jan was dead, and the crowd was dead.

And the crowd was dead.

Did he bring anything?

And the crowd was dead.

I hated this match.

I thought it was terrible.

Okada has not looked good in AEW.

This was the worst of Danielson in my eyes.

Just a slow match with the things that you see in every other match.

But it took forever to me.

It was a long match.

It did not serve anyone's best interest being a long match.

Well, and then, as I mentioned, after the tombstone pile drivers and the other type of things, Danielson won with a backslide.

And then here comes the plumber and his group of pipe fitters.

And

I don't know.

Moxley said a bunch of shit to him that not just me, but nobody understands what he's talking about.

It's supposed, I assume there's going to be some grand reveal

of what the fuck his deal is or what's going on here.

But he kept saying, it's not about me.

I wish it wasn't about you.

Apparently, this is all about you.

But it's not about me.

I didn't want this.

And whatever the fuck, but they're holding him, holding Danielson down

while Moxley is verbally

doing whatever, chastising him.

And they're going to fuck him up as the threat.

And then here comes our boy Wheeler.

Wheeler useless hits the ring with a hammer in his hand and all four of them bailed.

And I mean, this is again,

well, hold on, all four of them bailed.

And yes, it's a guy with a hammer, but he's also, he's the size of a 12-year-old with a hammer.

But then

Moxley just gets back in the ring and is standing there looking at him.

And there's Wheeler with the hammer.

He's holding it and he's exhibiting the excitement of a cabbage

as he is conflicted.

and Moxley's just standing there, not even really daring him, just staring at him.

And he won't do anything.

And he's holding the hammer, and he's looking at the hammer, like, should I hit this guy with the hammer?

And then finally, he didn't sell for a hammer.

No, he's just Moxley's just standing there, but the other guy is not

making any motion like he's going to hit him.

Why did he bring the fucking hammer in there if he wasn't prepared to hit some of these motherfuckers with a hammer?

He chased the four of them out of the ring ring with the hammer and they just watched as Moxley walked right back into the ring.

And then, why are we supposed to support this babyface that will let the heel just stand there while he, while a babyface has a hammer in his hand and is

kow-towed into

immobility and won't do anything because the baby or the heel is so fearsome standing there?

And then finally, Danielson had to tackle Moxley.

And then Claudio glommed Wheeler and he dropped the hammer.

So now they've neutralized Wheeler.

They're back on fucking Danielson.

But then the plumber gets out and Marina Schaefer, because she's his bodyguard, rolls out with him.

And so it's a four-way with Danielson and Wheeler against Pac and Claudio.

And then the heels bail out.

And then I thought, thank God that's over.

And then Wheeler gets the microphone.

And he says in that whiny, pleading, plaintive voice, I'm sick and tired of you two treating me like a child.

And then my DVR froze because I recorded the program after AEW Dynamite.

And these son of a bitches ran over the fucking overrun.

But basically, he's tired of them treating him like a child, even though he's the size of one.

And Brian, did you hear anything after?

Did you tape two programs after Dynamite so you could see everything?

I don't know why, but I got the hour after Dynamite recorded on my DVR.

And him and Danielson are going to team up and challenge the Not Blackpool.

I don't know what they are.

They don't have a name.

They do their promos and riddles.

It was pointed out here and it's true.

You know, this is never about me.

Okay, what's it about?

Just tell me now.

You got me down.

Your friends are holding me.

Why wait?

Why delay this any longer?

Well, just say it, man.

Just say it.

To my earlier question,

because enough people keep talking about it.

We're going to keep asking about it.

If this is an angle to bring Shane McMahon to AEW, is this the way you would do it?

What?

No, No, how did they?

They're really

going through massive leaps and bounds of twisted logic to try to get this.

What the fuck would Shane McMahon,

why would he deal with this group of

half-over misfits and this fucking bald-headed dimwit that runs the thing if he was going to come in and try to take over AEW?

because that would be the only reason to come in and do anything is try to take over AEW, wouldn't you be up at the upper echelon?

And the first thing that would happen is Don Fallus's guys would be signed away and some

off-screen entity was assembling.

people that hadn't been together before into some group for some nefarious purpose, but they'd all be main event guys.

And they might even be asking,

why is I being asked, I'm being sent money and asked to fucking talk to you about teaming up to one of their enemies?

Why the fuck is this?

Or some shit, but not just this idiot coming in and speaking in riddles about bad independent movies from foreign countries.

Here's the problem.

There's now people expecting Shane McMahon.

So let's say it's not Shane McMahon.

Who's this mystical leader that Jon Moxley's talking about?

Well, it's not that is he even talking about a mystical leader when he says it's not about me.

I wanted something bigger.

Is he talking about people who let him down, but let the concept down, let the thing that they had planned down, and now he has to get even, Danielson wasn't on board?

Why are they mad at Danielson?

Didn't Shane McMahon say, hey, Brian, you're in the group.

I'd like you to come aboard too?

What sense does any of this make?

What about Dabocato?

He would show up ahead of

Shane as the advance guard.

See, there's the biggest argument for Shane being involved with this.

Wasn't Shane the mastermind of Raw Underground?

Yes.

Come on.

It's the same thing.

Moxley is the walking embodiment of Raw Underground.

Well, if anybody will put Moxley underground, I will support it.

Maybe it'll be Dabokato.

See, that's all all I think.

When I think of Raw Underground, I just think of the look of it.

I don't remember anyone doing anything other than Shane kind of jumping around yelling, Dabocato, Dabo.

Yes, yes, and boom.

And boy, the Booyah.

Hey,

remember the Booyah thing?

When fucking,

when they were trying to make Shane an announcer, remember this was, what, late 98, early 99?

I was still in Connecticut.

And they made him the announcer, I think, of Sunday Night Heat.

And they had me not not only do commentary with him several times on air, but I was going down

on like Sundays off or Saturdays off or when we didn't have to travel or whatever.

I'd have to drive an hour to the studio and do two or three hours of practice commentary with Shane that nobody would ever hear

because Jim Ross had too much stroke to be made to do it.

And

I can't remember.

Honestly, they wanted a color guy with him rather than, and Michael Cole, Kevin Dunn, had him too much favoritism, so he didn't have to do it.

And Kevin Kelly was a play-by-play guy.

So I ended up with doing color with Shane for practice.

And it was brutal because he'd never announced before and he thought he was a personality or should be.

And I love Shane, and I've talked nice about Shane, but he was a rotten fucking announcer.

And he was always going, and booyah, boo ya.

I said, what is booyah?

That's a shotgun blast.

Booyah?

Oh, it was brutal.

Brutal boo ya.

A little dab will do me.

Well, if he comes to AEW, they'll certainly boo him.

But we shall see.

That was AEW Dynamite.

Yes, it certainly was.

From Pittsburgh.

It certainly was the Pitts.

Jim AEW

just announced their new deal with Warner Brothers Discovery.

Why don't we talk about the ratings ratings that were for the night of the announcement?

Ah,

forgot about them ratings.

What in the world went on in the real world?

Not how much money they're getting paid, but how many people are actually watching?

AEW Dynamite, Wednesday, October 2nd, 2024,

8 to 10.31 p.m.

On average, watched by 680,000 viewers.

Ouch!

They went down on their fifth anniversary?

Well, you know, a lot of people have done that, I guess.

So I guess I shouldn't.

Come on now.

Well, you know what?

Honestly, they promoted Grand Slam a lot better than they did this, don't you think?

Well, that's true, because it was a Grand Slam, whereas this was only

barely a blowjob.

Well, these blowjob numbers were compiled by WrestleNomics.

Quarter one, 8 to 8:15 p.m.

The Pat Claudio Casagnoli, Marina Shafir, Jon Moxley promo.

Please get a stable name.

Will Ospreay versus Ricochet starts.

801,000 viewers.

Okay, and

one would think that if any match would keep the AEW audience placated, satisfied, and warm and fuzzy, it would be this one.

So I wouldn't think they would lose too many viewers, but at the same time, with that overall average and starting at 800,000, by the end of of the program, it's not looking too rosy.

So go ahead.

Quarter two, 8:15, 8:30 p.m.

Will Osprey versus Ricochet continued with picture-in-picture ads.

The post-match with Takeshta, the Mercedes-Monet Camille backstage promo,

743,000 viewers.

Okay, so

58,000 people did not

like all of that banger.

That's more than I thought would have left in this situation.

But it does get repetitive after a while.

And so far, and the trend will continue at least in the next quarter, it's in line with the 90-day trend that WrestleNomics has compiled here.

Quarter three,

8:30 to 8:45 p.m.

Starts with an ad break.

The guns getting attacked by Adam Page.

The learning tree with Mark Briscoe,

702,000 viewers.

Ooh.

So that followed, you had Mercedes, then you've got, well, the thing with the guns was meaningless because it was a minute or less.

And then Jericho appears.

You've lost now 99,000 people from the start of the program and another 41,000 from the previous 15 minutes.

And as I said to you before, that's in line with the 90-day trend.

The 90-day trend is losing 100,000 viewers within the first two quarters.

Jesus Christ.

All right.

Quarter four, 8:45 to 9 p.m.

The Darby Allen promo and the start of Juice Robinson versus Hangman Adam Page with Picture and Picture.

704,000 viewers.

Okay, that's just people coming back from the fridge or the bathroom, I guess, at this point.

It's almost the same.

From the learning tree.

Quarter five, the big nine o'clock hour, nine to nine.15 p.m.

The continuation of the Hangman vs.

the Juice,

the post-match with Jay Ping Pong White,

the Jack Perry Shibata backstage angle, and another ad break,

670,000 viewers.

Oh, good lord.

So S34,000 at the top of the hour, they didn't pick up anybody.

Again, the Met game is on.

Maybe all of a sudden everyone's watching the Mets.

Quarter six, 9:15 to 9:30 p.m.

Serena Deeb versus Britt Baker with Picture and Picture.

And the post-match with Queen Aminata,

669,000 views.

Okay, so they're pretty flat there, but everybody in Pittsburgh was watching.

So

they've gone 702, 704, 670, 669.

Whenever they drop, at least those people are sticking around for two quarters.

Well, we go now to quarter seven, 9:30 to 9:45 p.m.

The Hook backstage promo, the Christian Cage promo, an ad break, the Mariah Mae Willow Nightingale backstage angle, private party versus Iron Savages, the post-match with the elite Shibata,

Christopher Daniels, Jack Perry,

708,000 viewers.

What?

So 30 with 30, where did they pick up 39,000 people on that?

That's odd.

That's something there.

I don't know what, but we go now to quarter eight.

I remind you, there's a long overrun, so we got a ways to go.

There's two overruns.

Technically, three quarters here, actually, it goes into.

9.45 to 10 p.m.

The MVP, Prince Nana, Shelton Benjamin Benjamin debut backstage angle, an ad break, and the start of Brian Danielson versus Kazushika Okado, a picture in picture,

642,000 viewers.

Overrun.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, hold on here.

We went from 660.

What was in quarter seven again?

Quarter seven was

Hook's backstage promo,

Christian Cage's backstage promo, or tape promo, an ad break, Mariah Mae and Willow Nightingale's backstage angle, private party versus the Iron Savages, and then the post-match with the Elite.

That quarter hour went from 6.69 to 7.08, and as soon as that quarter was over with, Danielson and O'Cody start in the main event, and they lose 66,000 people.

You think there was a power surge on the Nielsen box in quarter seven?

Yeah, it came from Kookamunga.

People saw that and turned out.

Well, let's go overrun.

10 to 10:15 p.m.

Danielson vs.

Okada, 596,000 viewers.

Oh, good heavens.

10:15 to 10:30 p.m., the continuation of Danielson vs.

Okada with picture and picture.

The post-match with Moxley, Claudio Pack, Marina Shafir, Will Ryuda, and the Hammer.

574,000 viewers.

Oh, good God.

One-minute overrun.

10.30 to 10.31 p.m., 561,000 viewers.

Jesus Christ.

So the longer that thing went, the more they lost.

So what value does the overrun have?

And it's happened to Danielson a bunch over the last year.

They went from 642 to 561 from the start to the finish of the thing.

Okada's not over with anyone except the most die-hard AEW fans.

Danielson's not as valuable as he once was.

There was a time a few years ago, five years ago, in fact,

if AEW had had Danielson versus CM Punk, it would have really meant something.

Punk means more today.

Danielson doesn't.

Danielson's value has been devalued in AEW.

He's happy, so you can't take that away from him.

And he's getting to do what he wants.

But the overall value to the average wrestling fan, to the wrestling fans that watch wrestling and choose what to watch or not watch, it isn't there anymore.

So they started with 801,000, and over the course of the thing, the very long thing, they lost 240,000 viewers.

That means 240, 480, 720.

They lost

30% or high 20s percent of the audience.

And by the way, for the key demo, just to point this out, they started 333, but that's skewed a little high from the previous show.

302, 279, 275, 267, 266,

278, 272.

So they're consistent.

And then here's the Danielson-Okada match.

240, 233, 226.

So even those fans were tuning out.

If they had really got an hour, they would have really tested some

limits.

You know, they're next week.

I think they're on Tuesday, Title Tuesday.

That may end up being the lowest rated AEW Dynamite ever.

Well, yeah, and it's not fair.

I'm sure it'll be rotten because all of their shows are rotten, but it's not fair to hold that against them if they're being switched over on a different night.

If that was Title Tuesday, what was this?

How many title matches were on this show?

Oh, no, no, there was a girls' match that wasn't for a belt on this.

So they'll close that loophole up next week.

But there's AEW Dynamite off their big renewal.

Any final thoughts about the numbers here?

I'm not surprised because Jesus,

again, everything that happens happened in the previous segment and is going to happen in the following segment.

There's nothing special anymore you need to sit back and wait for because it constantly the same shit happens.

So you could afford to drift off to sleep after you've seen some of it.

Well, we shall see what happens next week.

That was AEW Dynamite, and you know what?

We're going to call it.

This is the drive-through.

All right.

You know, there was a lot of people in the wrestling business paid a lot of money this week and a lot of big debuts and a lot of, you know, network switching and everything.

And I don't remember a week here lately where all the shows have been so fucking boring.

Tell me about it.

We got to get questions.

Next week, questions.

And of course, we have a pay-per-view coming up on the experience, Bad Blood.

And next week, there'll be even worse blood.

AEW Wrestle Dream will be on the show after that.

Do you think they'll get Neil Sadaka to come out

for this one?

Although Tony would pay for it.

I'm talking about the WWE.

They got enough money now.

You know, Neil don't come cheap.

Yeah, bad blood.

Yeah.

I don't.

We shall find out.

We shall find out.

For everyone who keeps emailing us articles about the Jaguars, we got a few.

Unless something new happens, please stop for now.

But the drive-thru is closed.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

What?

What happened?

Oh, no.

What happened?

Someone.

Oh,

the last one is fucked up.

Ah, this is my

favorite one.

Oh, all right.

We'll be back.

You got a fucked up key?

We're on Twitter.

The official Jim Cornette YouTube channel.

Go through the archive.

Patreon.

Ah, fuck.

Patreon.com/slash Cornette.

I've never heard you so much.

$4

a month.

Yeah, $5 a month gets you access to the archive.

Travis Heckle artwork on YouTube.

Somebody buy Brian a new Kalimba.

I can buy my own.

I'll find the right one.

And you can find the right one at Cornett's Collectibles.

There's a t-shirt.

It's not a t-shirt.

It's a figure with a shirt and a coat.

And it's not a t-shirt at jimcornet.com, but it's white.

And

yeah, the drive-thru is brought to you by the law office of Steven P.

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Get even with Stephen

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We're back on the experience for Jim Cornette.

I'm the great Brian Lass.

Tally ho.