Episode 410

Let's be real.

Life happens.

Kids spill.

Pets shed.

And accidents are inevitable.

Find a sofa that can keep up at washable sofas.com.

Starting at just $699, our sofas are fully machine washable inside and out, so you can say goodbye to stains and hello to worry-free living.

Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics, they're kid-proof, pet-friendly, and built for everyday life.

Plus, changeable fabric covers let you refresh your sofa whenever you want.

Neat flexibility?

Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa anytime to fit your space, whether it's a growing family room or a cozy apartment.

Plus, they're earth-friendly and trusted by over 200,000 happy customers.

It's time to upgrade to a stress-free, mess-proof sofa.

Visit washablefas.com today and save.

That's washable sofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Tired of spills and stains on your sofa?

WashableSofas.com has your back, featuring the Anibay Collection, the only designer sofa that's machine-washable inside and out, where designer quality meets budget-friendly prices.

That's right, sofas started just $699.

Enjoy a no-risk experience with pet-friendly, stain-resistant, and changeable slip covers made with performance fabrics.

Experience cloud-like comfort with high-resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing.

The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity, and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime.

Check out washablesofas.com and get up to 60% off your Anabay sofa, backed by a 30-day satisfaction guarantee.

If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund.

No return shipping or restocking fees, every penny back.

Upgrade now at washablesofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Life's messy.

We're talking spills, stains, pets, and kids.

But with Anibay, you never have to stress about messes again.

At washablesofas.com, discover Anibay Sofas, the only fully machine-washable sofas inside and out, starting at just $699.

Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics.

That means fewer stains and more peace of mind.

Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers, allowing you to refresh your style anytime.

Need flexibility?

Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly.

Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes.

Plus, they're earth-friendly and built to last.

That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch.

Upgrade your space today.

Visit washable sofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life.

That's washablesofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Life's messy.

We're talking spills, stains, pets, and kids.

But with Anibay, you never have to stress about messes again.

At washable sofas.com, discover Anibay Sofas, the only fully machine-washable sofas inside and out, starting at just $699.

Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics, that means fewer stains and more peace of mind.

Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers, allowing you to refresh your style anytime.

Need flexibility?

Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly.

Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes.

Plus, they're earth-friendly and built to last.

That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch.

Upgrade your space today.

Visit washable sofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life.

That's washable sofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Hello again, friends.

And you are our friends, unless I take my ball and go home.

But welcome to another edition of Jim Coronet's Drive-Thru right here on another fine day.

We have a lot of fun in store for you today.

Fun and wackiness and hijinks and so much more.

I'm your host, the great Brian Last, and here he is.

That sounded bad, but he's going to sound good.

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

Jim Cornette.

Hi, Jinx.

How are you?

I'm just fine.

You know, you got me there with that dude, dude, dude.

See, that was one I was missing the other day here

that you didn't hit you got me back with it well that always just makes everything all right when you hit that uplifting note

to bring us all into the uh the occasion

yeah

yeah right over the edge pod piper right over the fucking edge just keep going that way

ah so how are you doing today Oh, pretty good.

How about you?

Not too bad.

Seems like I got.

I don't have too many aches and pains.

No, shut up.

What were you going to say?

Everything seems to be moving along swimmingly.

I think we're going to have a lot of fun today.

Happiness.

Yeah.

Guaranteed.

We're swimming along in deep water.

I hurt myself.

I'm going to be,

as we sit here right here, right now,

in one day, a little over 24 hours because I was born at night, but not last night.

I'm going to be 64 years old.

And Saturday more, the Monroes came over to work in the yard.

I said, I'm going to get out there with the pole saw.

I'm going to hack some dead limbs out of the trees in the back and get out there and clear a little fence row and do things that I haven't done all year mostly because it's been so fucking hot and oppressive, but it's decent weather lately.

I'll get out there and do that.

And Brian, I'm pulling the trim cord on the pole saw for the snipper, not the saw, but the snipper that's on the end of it.

It's a 15-foot pole, and I was having to pull hard.

I've injured somehow the tendon or muscle or whatever in my arm, the forearm of my right arm.

And you would think that would be the most well-developed muscle on my body.

Yeah, I was going to say, last time I heard about trim cord, I think Stan Wayne was talking about something.

Oh, would you quit now?

It's the trimming cord where you got the trimmer, the lopper there, and you pull the cord, and it it successfully completes the game.

How do you trim your trees?

I don't personally do it.

What is your pulseaw laid out like?

I don't personally do it.

I love nature.

I don't want to do anything.

So I have the gardeners do it.

No,

you're taking the dead stuff out of the tree and allowing it to flourish.

And you can't leave your trees in the hands of strangers, except for the big professional jobs.

And then you got to have them checked out thoroughly.

It's like leaving your children in the hands of unknown babysitters.

You don't know what you might come up with.

I wouldn't say they're strangers.

They're here regularly and they have been for years.

And

they do a fine, noisy job every time they're here.

But you've been just lopping and trimming and hurting.

I'm a longtime lopper,

but I hurt myself out there.

I'm not as young as I used to be, as I mentioned.

I'm going to be 64, but I'm still out there.

contributing to goddamn moving around and keeping my wits about me.

And I just realized something that we talked about the other day and i it had to be on your show because you brought it up and i don't know why you would be allowed to speak on my program

but

remember when you were talking about the the the woman or the nurse or the person whoever the person's status was

you saw on the news was giving the CPR to the to the raccoon.

In Kentucky, that's right.

In Kentucky.

In the middle of daylight, too.

It wasn't like some dark video.

It was like perfectly shot in the middle of the street, sunlight coming down.

Sunlight coming down.

This is like a partridge family lyric.

It was just a very

they were pumping the raccoon's chest when the sunshine was coming down.

Other than the raccoon and need a CPR, it seemed like a fine day.

I think I love you.

You're just a raccoon right now, but you'll be dinner somehow because it's in Kentucky.

Now, you had a follow-up apparently to this.

What happened?

Well, yes, I was just, I was grooving out to the thought of the whole thing.

I mentioned to you

before you told me where it was, I said, I bet you it's in Eastern Kentucky.

And you said, well, it's in Letcher County.

I said, that's in Eastern Kentucky.

Well,

it bugged me.

Why am I thinking about Letcher County?

After the show was off, after we had finished recording, and I realized when I saw a news update yesterday,

just type into your Google machine right now, Brian.

This is a news story that we have been

getting periodic updates here in Louisville on because we are the biggest city in the state for like a year now.

I can't remember when it happened, but you hear about it, you know, every so often.

Let's

in eastern Kentucky.

It's right over, it's old, it's old Smoky Mountain territory.

I think we ran one of the towns in Ledger, Kentucky,

Right next to West Virginia and Virginia, the corner over there, one of the most rural, as they generously put it, counties in all the state of Kentucky.

I don't know that there's 10,000 people in the whole thing, and it's hard to get back there.

But, Brian, Google Letcher, it's L-E-T-C-H-E-R Letcher County, Kentucky Sheriff.

Because I finally realized why the fuck I was bugged by Letcher County.

Okay, I've Google it.

And oh, oh,

I saw this on the news as a separate story a while ago.

Yes.

And for the benefit of the hearing impaired, now that you've deafened me, but for the benefit of people who ain't next to their Google machine and haven't heard about this, the sheriff of the ex-sheriff of Letcher County, Kentucky, Sean Mickey Steins.

How do you get the nickname Mickey when your name is Sean?

Sean Mickey Steins

shot and killed one of the county judge in his office on camera, on the security camera,

and with in the middle of goddamn daytime during business hours.

for who and whoever was around and then walked out and just yeah i just shot him don't y'all kill me now what was the story though was it that the judge was abusing nobody nobody knows the the story as they say has not been adjudicated

and nobody knows all the facts but you've you've got a variety of stories there to choose from on the google machine but the early reports

were

that for whatever reason

The guy had walked, old Mickey, I guess, had walked in to the judge's office and started talking to him they don't know i guess there was no audio on this security camera whatever

and then somehow called

got the judge's phone and hit a button and called his daughter's number the sheriff's daughter

and there are rumors and rumblings that we don't want to again

Fuck, Brian, you and I could probably chip in and buy Letcher County, so we don't care if they sue us or not, But the rumors around

the county

were that the judge was letting people off

in exchange for favors or young ladies around town.

If they got in trouble, well, come on over to this party or do these things and

it'll be fine.

And

in some way or another, the

sheriff discovered that his daughter's number was on the speed dial in the judge's phone and was saying, Well, fuck it, and just shot it.

Yeah, I'm looking here on Wikipedia, and again, it's Wikipedia, but there's a couple things here.

Then again, it's Letcher County.

Sexual extortion allegations.

In the months following Mullins's murder, a Kentucky woman made statements to the media that Judge Mullins had used his power to extort sex from women.

A former corrections officer said that Mullins was known to be one of the many local officials who treated the lockup, quote, like a brothel.

And then in a related case in 22,

Steins was included in a civil suit by Sabrina Atkins against Deputy Sheriff Ben Fields.

The suit alleged that Fields had extorted her and other inmates into having sex for favorable treatment while on house arrest.

The suit stated that the abuse occurred in a restroom in the chamber of Judge mullins

oh not even in the chambers but they had to go to his bathroom that's low class even for lecture county fields was sentenced to prison in 24 for rape and sodomy of the inmate in 22.

stines was alleged with the suit to have not trained the deputy properly

and to not have responded to reports appropriately And he had given a deposition in the case three days before the shooting.

But now hold hold on here, Cowboy.

How do you, how do you train somebody properly?

And by the way, don't commit any like goddamn felonies.

Do you have to go through a training program for that, or does that just kind of have to be assumed?

And now, not

trying to take up for the sheriff or anything.

Didn't train them properly.

If you're going to abuse the inmates, please do not do it in my restroom.

Thank you.

Don't, yes.

Don't be.

Wow.

So they've got judges extorting women for sex and raccoons getting bombed in the middle of the day on the street.

Well, there you go.

Because the raccoon was drunk.

And we've,

we opined that

we opined that the raccoon may what if.

What idea it's the middle of the day as a drunk raccoon?

And it's like not, like no one treated it like, oh my God, what the fuck is happening here?

It's like, oh my God, he needs help.

Well, because we opined that it was a still, a random still out in the woods that the raccoon had got into, or somebody was brewing their own

medicine.

And it's not that uncommon of an occurrence.

And now you see in Letcher County, they got all kinds of things going on.

And there's not that many people there overall.

So some of these people

involved in the

Mickey case may also be involved in the...

fucking

mickeying of the raccoon, making him drunk in the middle of the day, necessitating CPR from a fucking passerby.

It's clear that someone's trying to silence that raccoon.

They don't want him talking.

He must know something.

They poured the moonshine down his throat and then cut the brake line on the car as they sent him down the side of the mountain.

Here, have another drink, Rocky.

No, you're doing great.

Tell us more.

What the judge be up to?

Rocky Raccoon was sent to his doom because he was going to tell on Judge Mickey.

wow when's the sheriff's trial i already went past the page so i don't have in front of me is the sheriff's trial coming up soon i i don't know these things sometimes especially in letcher county justice moves slowly what town did you run there

i'm trying to i think is it's a is it whitesburg kentucky well wait a minute what is the biggest town in that's the largest uh whitesburg kentucky is in letcher okay well that

i can't speak whitesburg kentucky is in letcher county the largest city is jenkins Jenkins, Kentucky.

That's where we ran.

Not Whitesburg, but Jenkins.

We ran Jenkins once or twice.

And as a matter of fact, I think probably if we did 500 people in Jenkins, would that have been 25% of the population of Jenkins?

That ain't bad.

That's pretty good.

Do that in Chicago.

See there, you ever think about that?

I have not thought about that.

No.

You know, we see see we in Smoky Mountain Wrestling, we should have been graded on the percentage of the population of the town that we were drawing.

In Saltville, Virginia, I think we did

27 to 30 percent one night.

We had like 1,200 people at the goddamn football field.

Yeah, but imagine if someone walked in in the middle of that and said, now do it in San Francisco.

Well, see there, that's exactly my point.

Saltburg, Virginia.

I was there.

Saltville, not Saltburg.

Was that what the TV taping was?

Don't insult the fine people of Saltville.

Was that the fan week TV taping in 94?

Or am I thinking of that?

You know, it may.

I can't do that off the top of my head to that fine a point, even with my incredible memory for a senior citizen.

Not annunciation, but memory.

The debut of Boo Bradley.

Oh, God damn it.

Again.

It's not like it was a turning point in my life that I would remember the.

I was just working on my brand new book with this giant section about Boo Bradley.

I think it would be worth it.

Well, no, I didn't.

I didn't narrow it down to tell the people that his debut was in Dunganon, Virginia

at 7.30, and the weather was fucking cloudy and 68 degrees.

I'm sorry.

I can't remember that one little detail.

Well, Jim, on that topic.

A lot of big details and little ones too will be in your brand new book, which will be available soon from Cornettes Collectibles.

Yes, Yes, now that you've set the expectations so low here for my research on the Boo Bradley piece, which people are anxiously awaiting.

No, and

you got to read it, folks, because it is one of my favorites.

But

nevertheless, that is correct.

You are correct.

So,

Saturday, October 11th at noon Eastern at jimcornet.com, the Cornettes Collectibles holiday sale begins, and the

star attraction is my new book, Heroes and Friends.

It's a series of 12 pro wrestling remembrances.

As I've said, part historical piece, part biographical, part personal interaction.

And, you know, we've talked about some of them, but

I couldn't do, a lot of these guys have books, Brian, or have books written about them.

So I couldn't do everything on everybody.

So I tried to concentrate on, you know, weaving in and out the personal interactions.

And when I sat down at the Bobby Heenan chapter, which leads the thing off because, as I say, I make the case,

he

formed in my mind what it was like to be a wrestling manager when I first saw him in 1972 on television.

You know, it concentrates on his time in Indianapolis and how important he was to the promotion there

and then

goes into a bit about him.

But it also goes into our brief interactions because that was the of all the ribs

that you could

pull,

it's almost like it was purposeful that fate kept us away from each other.

I remember when

He left Indianapolis before videotapes.

So I got to see him like

two years and then boom.

And then he's gone to the AWA.

And I get a glimpse or two in Georgia until finally videotape comes in, but I get in the business and he goes almost immediately after that to the WWF, whereas I work

everywhere else but the WWF until finally

1993, I go to the WWF.

He introduces me.

I said, oh, great.

Now I can hang out with Bobby.

And he quits and goes to WCW two months later.

Not because of my presence, but that's been covered in his book.

And then we never got a chance to actually work together again.

And the majority of the time that we spent together was either the Ring of Honor shows and tapings we did or the

legends reunions there for a couple of years until, you you know, Bobby's health problems got worse and he slowed down and wasn't, you know, performing on shows anymore.

But it was, you know, every time we saw each other, it's like we picked up from last week instead of, oh, eight years ago.

And so,

you know, I enjoyed looking back at that one.

And you've seen

the illustrations in the Ray Stevens chapter, which I think are cool because it's color from the early 60s, the San Francisco period.

And that's kind of what that chapter

talks about is his San Francisco dominance, but also

the fact that I only got to meet him

over one 48-hour period and got to spend four hours in a car with him from Atlanta to Charlotte one night.

And he's one of the most entertaining people I've ever ever met in my life.

I got a factoid.

Did you know, Brian,

that on

the night of the biggest drawing of the many Ray Stevens and Pepper Gomez matches at the Cow Palace in San Francisco?

In 1963, they drew over 17,000 people.

It was not only

a record for attendance at any event at the Cow Palace.

And the Beatles didn't break it when they came to town.

But because of this, it shows you how

much that

overall the entertainment business, sports business, Whole Nine Yards has changed.

But that match that year, according to the arena managers'

notations,

was the largest

arena crowd to see an event of any kind that year

west of Chicago?

Think about it for Ray Stevens of Pepper Gomez in the Cow Palace in San Francisco.

Between Chicago and San Francisco,

what were the biggest buildings being used for wrestling?

Well, at that point in time,

therein lies part of the the issue

is that at that time in 1963, and it wasn't just big buildings used for wrestling, it was big buildings.

The modern day sports arenas

had not been constructed yet.

And to be honest, there were, you know, you could count,

well, now without doing research, let's say there was a dozen

indoor facilities in the United States that could legitimately seat

over 17,000

and

most of them were on the East Coast.

Yeah, I just looked it up because for whatever reason, it was one of the places that popped into my head.

St.

Paul Civic Center didn't open until 1973, and that was 16,000 capacity.

See, the cow palace, because of that fucking floor,

not only because of the seats in the building, but that giant floor area that could be used as

not only as

ringside floor seats, as far as you wanted to fucking put them, but standing room

gave it an advantage for wrestling over almost every building on the West Coast and for a while.

And Reunion Arena was not open in Dallas at that point.

Again, this is on the other side of the country, but still just for this equation here.

What year was Rupp Arena opened?

1970, well,

1977,

I'm going to say.

I'm pretty sure.

So what was, like, if everything had gone.

But the reason why they were able to build that was because the University of Kentucky basketball team.

Right.

Because 50 years later, Lexington, I don't know, has a population of 200,000 people, but it's a 23,000-seat arena because, you know,

they just had to.

That's why Jarrett was able to get a good deal on it.

Because who else is going to run a 23,000-seat building in Lexington, Kentucky, 50 years ago?

So in the early 70s or even late 60s in Tennessee and Kentucky, what were the biggest buildings?

Not necessarily the biggest ones that wrestling ran in, but if wrestling wanted to upscale, where could they have run?

Until the modern era of the big yum center downtown in Louisville, the biggest building was Freedom Hall at the fairgrounds.

And for basketball,

originally it wasn't this big, but I think they made renovations.

Freedom Hall opened

in, let's say, 1957, but 16,000

and change.

Wow.

That was the biggest building in Kentucky.

Before that,

Memorial Hall in

Lexington, again, because the University of Kentucky was 12,000 seats.

That was the the biggest building.

And before that, it was the Louisville Gardens, aka the Armory, which in those days back in the 50s could seat 8,000 to 9,000.

In Tennessee, the Mid-South Coliseum

opened in 1964,

and that was the biggest building in Memphis.

The downtown municipal auditorium in Nashville,

I can't remember when it opened, but it wasn't as big as the Coliseum.

And I don't know when

the

University of Tennessee building in Knoxville opened.

Oh, God, why have I blanked on the name of the big building?

Not the Civic Coliseum, but

son of a bitch, that's going to bother me now.

I live there.

The big building in Knoxville, Brian, you know it as well as I do.

Oh, the big one.

I've never seen anything like that.

Help me.

I don't have my keyboard in front of me.

I won't be able to continue now.

Type in Knoxville.

Hold on, type it in.

University of Tennessee basketball.

Jesus Christ.

The football stadium is Nalen Stadium.

I have a list of tallest buildings in Knoxville.

Is that what you're doing?

The Sun Sphere.

No, that's the goddamn World's Fair.

Stop it.

it.

Hold on.

University.

It's the,

goddamn it.

It's exciting audio here today, ladies.

Exciting.

I didn't know it was going to take you that long.

I didn't know either.

They play at the Thompson.

Thompson Bowling Arena.

Thompson Bowling Arena is exactly what I said.

I don't know when it opened.

Maybe you do now since you're on it.

But

that's the biggest body.

1987.

Yeah.

So,

but now if again, this doesn't count for outdoor facilities.

Nalen Stadium can seat 100,000 people in Knoxville, again, for their football program.

How big was Chilhowey Park and how big in Nashville was the Hippodrome?

The Hippodrome, which is detailed heavily in my book, which we originally started talking about, Heroes and Friends, available Saturday, October 11th at noon Eastern at jimcornet.com the hippodrome could max out at 3 000 people depending again on

you know if the fire marshal was there christine jarrett used to talk about it being such a mad panic to get the tickets sold because 90 of shows then were walk up and get everybody in the doors they could start and

bobby said the old timers would tell stories of Nick Gulis out in the lobby, actually cussing the fans.

Go on, goddamn it, boy, get in there.

God damn it, get in there now.

We got to stop this show.

And they jammed 3,000 people in this thing, give or take, every fucking week.

Chilhowie Park in Knoxville, the indoor building,

I've heard varying reports, but let's say they could get 4,000 people in there.

It was kind of a

ag hall type of setup, a fairgrounds building that they had the bleachers and the seats.

And Chilhowey Park outdoors

was a natural amphitheater that they had put stone bleachers into a hillside out at chilhowey park which had other features also

and you could put 6 000 people in there with that ring on the stage i worked it 25 years ago it was cool

With the ring on the stage and all the people up in the stands and in a small ringside.

Les Thatcher, you say that

they would have three match cards cards in those days.

And because people were so into Whitey and Ron Wright and all those guys, they'd have 6,000 people sitting in the rain to see three matches, just to see what the fuck the main event was going to be or going to do.

But

that's the thing is the southern buildings

were smaller, and that's why they ran weekly and they cultivated the regular clientele with the return matches and the stipulations

because

not only could they not afford in some cases the big building in town because it was so much bigger but there

in in a lot of the days when they started these traditions

there weren't any bigger buildings the reason why that knoxville they were outdoors in chilhowee park seven months the year

is because

In the late 40s, the previous building they had been running was the Lyric Theater downtown, an old vaudeville theater.

And they started selling out and turning away almost as many fans as they could get in the place.

And

they actually thought about just not running wrestling anymore because what the fuck?

When the city made the upgrades, it allowed them to go out to Chilhae Park because it had not been anywhere near that grand a facility before.

So there was really nothing at that point in the way of sports facilities in Knoxville.

Well, like you said, you can read a lot more about topics like this in your brand new book, Heroes.

And even interesting ones.

Much of them, even more, more than just this, stuff that you'll really find exciting.

Yes, you will.

Along with many other things.

And I'm being told by Hotchkiss Featherbottom that the banner.

that will tell you what this thing actually looks or show you what this thing actually looks like and

and or some excerpts from inside or whatever will be available at jimcornet.com in in in the coming few days is what I'm being told.

So we'll get back to that next time on the draw on the experience.

Let's be real.

Life happens.

Kids spill.

Pets shed.

And accidents are inevitable.

Find a sofa that can keep up at washable sofas.com.

Starting at just $699, our sofas are fully machine washable inside and out.

So you can say goodbye to stains and hello to worry-free living.

Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics.

They're kid-proof, pet-friendly, and built for everyday life.

Plus, changeable fabric covers let you refresh your sofa whenever you want.

Neat flexibility?

Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa anytime to fit your space.

whether it's a growing family room or a cozy apartment.

Plus, they're earth-friendly and trusted by over 200,000 happy customers.

It's time to upgrade to a stress-free, mess-proof sofa.

Visit washablesofas.com today and save.

That's washable sofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Let's be real.

Life happens.

Kids spill.

Pets shed.

And accidents are inevitable.

Find a sofa that can keep up at washablesofas.com.

Starting at just $699, our sofas are fully machine washable inside and out.

So you can say goodbye to stains and hello to worry-free living.

Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics.

They're kid-proof, pet-friendly, and built for everyday life.

Plus, changeable fabric covers let you refresh your sofa whenever you want.

Neat flexibility?

Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa anytime to fit your space.

Whether it's a growing family room or a cozy apartment.

Plus, they're earth-friendly and trusted by over 200,000 happy customers.

It's time to upgrade to a stress-free, mess-proof sofa.

Visit washable sofas.com today and save.

That's washable sofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

All right, well, this is my show and we've got a lot of big topics and big things and even some modern wrestling to review.

But Jim, why don't we start with something that's a bit of a follow-up from a previous episode of the drive-thru when talking about retro figures and specifically the plight of one toy company after we put up the video of you discussing the situation with power town

apparently it triggered them to actually come out and address this you would come out and play

i don't know if i would say they answered anyone's questions about the situation or made anything better but they indeed appeared then see that's the thing you're gonna blame me for this people like god damn it Why didn't you keep your mouth shut, Cornet?

We wouldn't have had to sit through an hour of that.

No,

we talked about this because I had had

peripheral involvement in this original concept of this thing because I was one of the people that Greg Gagne called, and along with trying to get.

the Midnight Express signed up, and we graciously declined because we were doing our own figures,

which are, as a matter of fact, still on sale and make great Christmas gifts.

But at least we've got them.

They're not in China, they're in fucking Kentucky, by God.

But I'd been contacted and I said what I knew about this whole thing that apparently now, four years later, has

not gone as smoothly as most people would like, especially the people that have sent them a lot of money and haven't got the figures and haven't got a lot of definitive, concrete answers,

details, whatever.

And so we did this, and then apparently they popped up and did it.

And

Brian, you sent me the video because I did not,

I haven't had time lately to seek out, you know, these type of things.

But apparently nobody else has either because it'd been out for three or four days.

It had like 1,100 views.

I don't know what platform.

And that was more views than any other video on that channel has ever had.

It's, it's not necessarily a place that people go to check out content.

Was it the host that is that his thing or whatever?

Because

it was like, I mean, we're not going to show pictures of people while we're maligning them,

but it was like that

suddenly this guy had been left in a 1991 time capsule buried in the basement of a juvenile hall.

What he just,

what the this guy was who they chose to

be on a program that he hosed this slimy-looking fellow that then was buried because he was trying to ask them questions, but he had,

he was scared shitless to try to ask them any questions that were scrolling on the screen from all of his live commenters.

Where's my shit?

Where's my money?

Where's my figures?

And it's for an hour.

It's,

I don't know what the fuck I was hearing.

And I,

again, all I knew about Magnum being involved with this was I had spoken to him by the time I spoke to Greg,

and he was one of the original series of figures.

And

he was just one of the boys at that.

The only difference difference was I think he was one of the one or two that was still alive.

Because he told me, he said, yeah, I'm going to make some decent money on this because the guy at high spots pre-ordered some and he's going to pay me to sign them.

I think it was just even Stan Hansen from that first set that were alive.

That's right.

I didn't mean to

kill Stanoff.

But that's he had nothing to do with the office.

And Greg was already telling me they had 200 people signed up

200 talents to make figures of them to represent now

from their own mouths here

greg said they were her ta said they were originally

only going to do the first six figures but then when they're doing like

20 or 30 figures, their business model didn't work.

But before he was even in the business, Greg had told me they signed 200 people up.

So, what's it?

Brian, try to describe what sense this video

did not make, if you can.

This video was amazing.

You had Greg Gagne, who has like all the charisma of like a corrupt Little League umpire, just not.

You mean he's taking a bribe in Little League?

He's sitting there smirking, and you're just wanting any kind of answer to anything.

A lot of people, and myself included, have pre-purchased these figures and we just want some kind of answer.

He just sits there and, you know, he's been busy talking to all the families and talking to all the wrestlers.

Why are you signing up that many wrestlers?

That'd be my, well, I'll get the Greg on you.

Magnum TA,

who is as happy as you remember him.

And the host who...

Correct me if I'm wrong,

maybe a candidate for the worst wrestling podcast host of all time.

at least professional, no presence, no knowledge, no balls, couldn't ask a serious question, just wants to kiss the wrestlers' asses.

There's a reason you have no views, and there's a reason no one cares about your content.

It's because you're an ass-kissing bozo who shouldn't be doing this.

It was like they had taken Michael J.

Pollard and poured grease over his head and put him out there to host a fucking program.

I just had to bring that up.

So these guys have a lot of money that people sent to their company the host is the only way that we're going to get anything out of this and people are paying on youtube to have their questions pop up on the screen and have them asked i think it's a super chat they're paying money and they're not getting their questions asked at one point the question was just where are the figures

and magnum ta's answer was Well, when they ship, you'll get a notification through PayPal.

And then when other people pointed out, that really did not answer that question, where are the figures?

The answer was, well, we already answered that.

Yeah,

no, because I was like, wait, I don't understand.

You didn't answer anything.

There are so many questions.

No one has been, where did the money go?

Who has the money?

And by the way, if you're pre-selling figures, let's just use Wrestler X as an example.

If you're pre-selling figures of Wrestler X, when does he get a royalty?

Because if the wrestlers aren't getting money from this based on the sales that happened, they're not going to make money when the items are shipped, are they?

Because that's already been sold.

You can't sell it a second time.

How does a wrestler make a royalty from this, or did they already make their royalties and they're just not being given the money?

Magnum TA seemed to indicate on this.

He's waiting for,

again, he couldn't really just say anything in plain English.

And at one point, he threatened to leave, take his ball, and go.

No, no, no, wait a minute.

He threatened to take his ball.

And, you know,

he got mad at the people maligning him.

And we're not suggesting that anybody malign anybody on social media, but Magnum was mad at the people maligning him on Instagram or whatever it was.

And he said, boy, if you poke me long enough, I'll just.

I'll just take my ball and go home.

And it is like he almost said, where the fuck will y'all be then if I don't give you shit?

Yeah.

I'm promising y'all give you a shit now, but I won't even promise then.

I'm like, what the, here's the thing.

I don't want either one of these guys to defend me if I'm up on criminal charges.

I would prefer to just throw myself on the mercy of the court.

They can't even

tell their own stories.

Magnum said, this was a quote, at the end of this fiscal year, everybody will have everything that's been purchased.

Now, I don't know when the fiscal year ends because that's different than a calendar year.

It's different from company to company.

From company to company.

Yes, but it could have just started or it could be about up.

But then

when he's asked a straight question, where is the stuff now?

The best answer you get is it's not here yet.

Where does it exist right now on the planet was specifically asked.

But well, it'll be in, and you'll get an email.

And then Magnum said he got the administrative role 18 months ago, now that come to think of it.

He said that because I

remember him saying that, because that's where he said, now we're going to be doing some different things different business-wise.

People keep asking where this Steve Rosenthal is.

When Greg Gagne was talking to me four years ago, last month

about this whole thing, and I was trying to,

as I said, panic because he said he'd signed Stan Lane up and undermining the Midnight Express figures until I realized he hadn't signed Stan up.

This Steve Rosenthal was the guy that was the goddamn Colonel Tom Parker of wrestling figures, baby.

He was just, he was the guy, the expert, the bees knees.

He invented the action figures in the 80s and he's got all the contacts and he's a.

toy and merchandising genius.

And we're going to do all, we're going to do the

action figures and cards and different types of merchandise.

This guy, now they won't even answer the question, where is this fucking guy?

Yeah.

When it's on the screen.

And a lot of people were asking, where is Steve?

Where is Steve?

They wouldn't answer that question.

Steve's not here, man.

He's either sick or busy or we don't know.

They alluded to like, don't bother Steve.

What the fuck?

Don't bother Steve.

Like, where is the money?

Where are the figures?

Magnum TA said that one of the line of figures is done.

It's ready to ship.

And it just hasn't.

And they said that they're going to eat the cost.

And for all the pre-orders, and I don't know how many they made beyond the pre-order, but for all the pre-orders, they're going to fly everything over via air.

I've said, Jesus Christ.

Again, I've been dealing with.

the toy company importing shit by boat from China for 10 years now.

And I know how much the costs have gone up.

Eat the cost of flying this over if there's 18 of them great

but and who's eating the cost when does when does ricky morton

when does poor little ricky get his penance there his pittance and again they pre-sold those rock and roll express remcos if they already sold them and collected the money when is ricky morton or robert gibson supposed to get that money Well, see, he might have been able to answer that.

He said, now I jotted this down, Brian, because Magnum said that

there are NDAs in place with quote unquote financial people.

So they can discuss the inner workings of the company to explain why that they've kept people's money for a year and a half.

Yeah.

What financial people?

What money is that?

Where's that money?

I mean, there's nothing that's been answered.

It only made everything seem shadier.

I don't think there's a single person who

is involved in business.

who would have seen this and said, I would like Greg Gagner or Magnum TA to work for my company, let alone lead my company or represent them to the public?

Well, now, hold on, hold on now.

Greg Gagne has mastered teleportation.

You're talking about that.

I don't see why in the world he wouldn't be able to do that.

No, when you, it comes up, the video comes up, and they're in the triple box because they think that people have to see their

close-up faces.

And Greg Gagne is sitting there in what looks like a fucking giant mansion with the big room and the fucking giant front door and everything.

But

he can't hear and he's got audio problems.

And he's this whole

the host asked him to leave, as in leave the fucking chat gimmick and come back in, but he thought he meant leave the room.

So he picks his goddamn, apparently his laptop up and carries it with him.

And come to find out he's he's got a green screen gimmick on his computer he's walking but the room is not moving

and then when he sits down he's still in the same goddamn room

and then he still can't hear right so he turns something else off and now he's in his kitchen He's suddenly gone from a goddamn chalet in Switzerland to his fucking kitchen.

Again, this was not necessary.

And

Magnum, well, that's the thing.

Magnum, half of Magnum's answers.

The audio of Neil Armstrong from the moon sounded like the goddamn vinyl pressing of Dark Side of the Moon.

Next to Magnum.

Fuck all y'all.

Everyone wants to know where the figures are.

I'll tell you right now.

Yeah.

But yeah, but I mean, I don't know what they're doing to themselves.

I'm not glorifying in Magnum's misery.

Greg, maybe a little.

But why are they doing this for Magnum to say, well, God damn it, if y'all don't quit poking at me over where the money is that you sent me for nothing that I've sent you, then I'm just going to say fuck it and throw my hands up and we won't do this.

Well, what does that mean?

What in the world?

And the host, again, being too petrified as he's reading the comments, you see his soul leaving his body as he's, his upper lip is quivering everybody's going ask these motherfuckers what this shut up this word salad where's my money

and he's like so many people have brought up that uh that was the best thing the live chat if you can go back if anyone wants to go back and see this and watch with the live chat replay there is not a single positive comment These are people who want answers or want their money or maybe just the figures and not one person is on their side.

And it just, it's so negative.

And then you watch the video and the host who was, again, as bad as any wrestling podcast host I've ever seen.

Yeah, I can't believe he's ever done this before.

Certainly they just, this is the guy that would sit there and just let them drone on.

Yeah.

And he's drinking beer, too, in the middle of it.

It's all on video.

Wouldn't you be?

You know, I don't know if I'd be involved with any of these people in a podcast, to be quite honest with you.

You know, one of the things, too, that Greg Gagne said, again, 240 people, I think, was the number that he signed up.

You talked before about Eddie Auger and the Rougeau family, Armand Rougeau, Jacques Rougeau Sr., Johnny Rougeau.

Like he signed up all of the Rougeaux, I believe.

And there are other examples like that.

And I advised people when they asked me about these contracts years ago.

I said, unless you see a way to make money that I don't see, I wouldn't sign this.

You're giving away rights for nothing.

I know they wanted to do t-shirts.

Apparently, a lot of the shirts are on some website being sold by someone else now.

Oh, that's that's right.

They the unclaimed freight, the old sponsors of Dick the Bruisers TV late at night.

Unclaimed freight.

Price is 10 cents on the dollar.

They said that, you know, to you previously, they may do other things like cards or whatever.

They have these figures.

I don't know if anyone who's ever bought stuff from them will ever buy from them again, even if these figures do come in.

But what Greg Gagne was saying was he's been busy and the families are so excited.

Charlie Fez was excited, and Barb Goodish, the widow of Bruiser Brody, was excited.

And then he brought up Don Leo Jonathan.

And that one really made me think because I was fortunate enough to interview him on the 605 Super Podcast shortly before he passed away.

An all-time legend.

And have you ever talked to wrestlers like Bruno San Martino would always mention Don William Jonathan?

Or one of the great big men.

Yeah, great name, grew up in the business.

I mean, he's, Don Leo Jonathan's the real deal.

I don't know if Don Willio Jonathan is going to sell too many action figures.

Yeah.

And when you sign up a Don William Jonathan, you're using that.

And then you're saying you're doing this all for the boys because this is a way to keep the past alive and make sure.

I don't know who, I don't know who's going to discover Don Leo Jonathan through a figure that won't be in Walmart or Target.

I don't know who's going to discover him and learn about wrestling history through.

buying it from a website from a company that has a horrible reputation because of their own behavior and lack of answers.

But the other question I have is: you know, you threw around some numbers before.

I'll make it a very simple number: $1,000.

How many Don Leo Jonathan figures would have to be sold for that royalty rate to produce $1,000 to the family of Don Leo Jonathan?

Well, now that you've asked that question off the top of my head, and you know how bad I am with math to begin with, but I figured out,

again, I'll use the figure that I talked about with Stan.

When Stan showed me the contract,

roughly

they would have had to have sold $2 million of Fabulous Ones

figures for Stan to make $50,000.

So,

I mean, Donnelly O'Jonathan, again,

Hall of Fame talent, hard sell as an action figure when

you're going that deep down the bench of

history.

I'm the audience.

I would buy a Don Leo Jonathan action figure, but I'm a fringe audience when it comes to collectibles.

Modern WWE fans don't know who Don Leo Jonathan is, and they're not going to learn about him through a figure they're never going to see.

And

the big takeaway is that Greg Gagne

shouldn't be involved in this.

He shouldn't be calling up families, promising them anything or offering them anything if he can't explain any of this.

And Magnum TA, I feel bad for Magnum.

I know a lot of people want him to be the bad guy.

And I saw based on his behavior and his attitude here, I can understand why.

And his obfuscation.

He can't answer a single simple question.

And when you call him on it, he's either going to take his ball and go home.

I think at one point he said he was going to like bow up.

He's going to fight someone.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He said, I'll still bow up for what we know.

But

Maggie, Maggie, you ain't got a lot of leverage on this one.

Cause,

you know.

Just say the truth.

You made X amount of dollars from pre-sales.

Where is that money today?

Where are the Remco figures today?

Why have the TNA figures and your number two of the Ultras, why have they not even been produced yet?

Explain any of this.

And instead, they give us this bullshit of we have NDAs or I answered that question or you'll know when you know when the ship.

Give us some fucking questions or you're going to get sued.

sued it's going to be a class action lawsuit you idiots all right now calm down cowboy that's what i was going to take your side here a second ago why is it that this business didn't even exist until they had the idea for it four years ago and there's already ndas signed yeah

how often brian again

We hear a lot about them these days, but how often in the course of your normal life have you had to sign NDAs just just to try to get a business off fucking ground?

Not too often to get a business off the ground.

It's different if you're an employee working somewhere, but.

Well, and besides, to get a fucking toy business off, we got

the plague of NDAs in the toy business.

What the fuck?

You know, the other thing is, the other thing is important to note out, we've done the retro figure segment on this show for a while.

I collect these things.

I collect figures outside of wrestling too.

I collect a lot of weird stuff.

I'm a weirdo, but I like all these things.

I've received just about everything I've pre-ordered from various companies who deal with wrestling or other toys over the last two years.

These are things coming from China.

These are things that are using the pre-order model, which I'm not a fan of.

You're not a fan of, but they're using it and it's operating and it's working.

I talk about Hastel toys.

Man, they have hit me with more of their toys in the last year than I know what to do with.

They keep delivering.

How come everyone else, everyone else is getting their figures to the shore and distributing them except Powertown?

Everyone else is.

They're the only ones who seem to be having this problem.

And then they can't give you any answers.

And then we're the bad guys because

we ask questions.

It's insane.

It's an insane.

I kept hearing something about tariffs also, but I couldn't.

I was reading the comments about tariffs in

the comments section, but I must have zoned out when they went down that alley.

But that was a story that was prevalent.

But well, it's the tariffs.

Yeah,

it started six months ago.

Yeah, I don't think the tariffs, again, I've had other toys and other things I've ordered since the tariffs have gone into place.

They've come in.

I've had things I've ordered after the tariffs came into place come in.

So they have a unique problem.

And it seems like they don't want to say the real deal out loud.

But I think they owe it to people.

They owe it it to people.

I want to know where Steve is.

Where's Steve?

Where's the money?

Start apologizing to people who you took money from.

I mean, geez, this whole thing is such a mess.

Magnum said they have unlimited warehouse space in Alabama.

Yes, the reason why they have unlimited warehouse space is because there's nothing in it.

What does that mean?

We have unlimited warehouse space.

I don't care.

What the fuck does that mean?

It Because you got a big empty fucking building.

Fill the building up.

Well, we'll see what happens.

It's not a problem storing the oxygen.

All they had to do on that thing was apologize, admit what's going on, give any sort of explanation.

And

this attempt to pacify their

buyers, the people who have already bought product from this company, their attempts to pacify them failed miserably.

People came out of that thinking more than ever before, these guys are full of shit.

I don't want to do business with them.

It's the worst defensive job I've ever seen in my life.

So, obviously, congratulations to you.

You made a good decision four years ago.

I know.

But yeah.

I'd say that's the other thing.

If, you know, Ricky Morton is the example, because that's the one where him and his son have spoken up.

If the Ricky Morton figures are already sold,

what needs to happen for him to receive his royalty rate?

It shouldn't matter when they're shipped or anything.

It's sold.

The money's in.

That's what I don't understand.

You know what?

Well, they're going to go ahead and they're going to hire the, to straighten this whole mess out, they're going to hire the official head of Jim Crockett Promotions merchandising section that took care of their...

their

Rock and Roller Express fan club in 1987.

Crockett took in fucking seven figures.

They got like 21 grand a piece.

Here's the other question people have to ask.

What if everything had gone right?

If there weren't any of these issues, if everything had gone right and all the figures had arrived and figures are regularly going out to people, why did they sign so many people?

What's the true intention of we don't have a company?

We intend to start a company.

What we need to do right now, Greg, if you can handle this, is sign up every single person you know, get them all in here.

And then once we have all these contracts, we have something we can go to investors with and say, hey, look, all these wrestlers signed these royalty deals where they're going to get barely anything, but we'll be okay.

If this had all worked out, what would have happened?

See, that was the thing that when he's saying, well, I've already signed to so many people.

And in my head, obviously, I'm not going to argue with him down to the bone because it would have taken much longer to hear this.

But I'm thinking, number one, how long is it going to take to make all those figures you can't just

here let's make a couple thousand of 200 different figures and sell them all at the same time and they haven't obviously but it's going to come out in waves what about number 188 when does how long does he have to live to see his dreams come to fruition

and secondly the whole idea that this was

This guy was, Steve was in the toy business in the 80s.

I'm thinking, how old at a high level, made the decisions on the REM codes and things.

How old must he fucking be?

And how long has it been

since he's been in a wrestling in the toy business, just like a lot of these guys

don't know what the fuck's going on because it's been so long since they've been in the wrestling business.

Greg thought Stan Lane should be half of the fabulous ones and figures instead of the Midnight Express.

Steve called Greg.

I mean, that's part of the issue.

Steve said, I want to get back into doing wrestling product.

Who can I call?

Who's attached to the business today?

Greg Gagne?

That's the point is

it was a company that had not even existed until they just started this thing.

They hadn't produced shit.

They had no ready platform.

And I'm like, I don't want to be involved in this because it's going to be a mess.

And

I don't know what their plan was, as you you said, to be Chris Hanson on NBC.

I don't know what their plan here was to,

because obviously nobody got any kind of advance.

They signed all these people up for this royalty rate based on these sales,

but nobody got any advance.

So now all these,

and I mean, the contract might not be hard to break if you wanted to.

in court because

few, if any, terms have been fulfilled for the vast majority of them.

But it's just an example of tying up

the rights

of retired wrestlers and or their families in some specious enterprise that could be a legal stumbling block.

And Mattel said, hey,

we're going to do every goddamn wrestler that's ever worn boots

or something.

Again, messy situation, self-induced.

All you got to do is give some answers.

And if you can't explain why you can't, if Magnum TA can't explain any of this, why can't he?

And who can?

And where are they?

And why are they?

There's NDAs.

Well, you know, Jim,

NDA or not,

there's a responsibility here to deliver the product to the people that paid for it.

And these people can't even give a straight answer.

We may be getting to the point where the consumer is fed up and they may want to sue.

Oh, I didn't know which way you were going.

I thought we were going to to have to sleep on it first.

But I'll tell you what, ladies and gentlemen, if you want to get together in a class action suit, either small or large, if you want somebody with high class to take somebody down that's got low class and turn them into a motherfucker that's got no class,

this is the man to call.

News to reduce

news to reduce to news news if you need

to

see

news to be news to the news to news to reduce to the news to renew an outlaw much show for Tuesdays

of the rest.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Stephen P.

New at new lawoffice.com, 87750.

Steve

can give you the beat.

But it a doomed,

that it doomed, that it

march.

No, no, that's

see, that's that's not as intimidating.

Hey, he's going to march you right in that courtroom and he's going to throw you on the mercy.

No, you're going to be on the good side there.

He's going to be in front of you.

He's going to be a swinging and a whomping and a stomping and a romping all over your opponent in court.

If you've been wronged in some way, damaged, terminated,

wrongfully.

Has he done wrongful insemination yet?

I'm telling you, if there's a way, he'll find it.

Well, you know what that means, Brian?

That means it's time.

What does that mean, Jim?

That means it's time to call Stephen P.

New

at newlawoffice.com, 877-50-STEVE, for any of your legal difficulties or issues of the course of the day.

Thank you very much.

That's right.

Stephen PNU, the Law Office of Stephen Pinu, 877-50 Steve.

Get even with Stephen.

NewLawOffice.com.

Tired of spills and stains on your sofa?

WashableSofas.com has your back, featuring the Anibay Collection, the only designer sofa that's machine washable inside and out, where designer quality meets budget-friendly prices.

That's right, sofas started just $699.

Enjoy a no-risk experience with pet-friendly, stain-resistant, and changeable slip covers made with performance fabrics.

Experience cloud-like comfort with high-resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing.

The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity, and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime.

Check out washable sofas.com and get up to 60% off your Anibay sofa, backed by a 30-day satisfaction guarantee.

If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund.

No return shipping or restocking fees.

Every penny back.

Upgrade now at washable sofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Stop settling for weak sound.

It's time to level up your game and bring the boom.

Hit the town with the ultra-durable LGX Boom portable speaker and enjoy vibrant sound wherever you go.

Elevate your listening experience to new heights because let's be real, your music deserves it.

The future of sound is now with LG X-Boom.

And for a limited time, save 25% at lg.com with code FALL25.

Bring the boom.

X-Boom.

All right, obviously, the show continues.

Oh, it doesn't want to stop.

The show continues.

Tiger Don.

It's definitely not Arigato.

For everyone who thought that, you're dead wrong.

But, Jim, we're back here on the show.

But I'd like from now on, call me Mickey.

Well, listen.

I'm going to take that nickname.

Call me, even though my name is Jim.

It has nothing to do with Mickey.

Just call me Mickey, like old Sean.

Well, I do want to mention something here before we move on.

A new book has arrived here at Last Manor.

I want to thank Sheldon Goldberg.

for sending it

his new book, The Family Business.

We've mentioned some of his other books in the past.

Wrestling fiction from someone who knows wrestling history former publisher of matt marketplace check it out it's on amazon his uh former book former his previous book he's no longer associated with these

previous books a mad dog's tale and uh various other ones are also available they were they were separated in court but this is on right you mean a matt marketplace when you talk about sheldon goldberg like his con that's his main contribution to the wrestling business after being a promoter and all-around gatabout for 40 marketplace years.

He knew where to get lucha figures before anyone, Sheldon Goldberg.

But the book, The Family Business, a sequel to the acclaimed novels, The Last Fall and After the Bell, by Sheldon Goldberg, available at Amazon.

Let him know you heard about it here.

You know, I always thought that he lived on a beach.

Why?

When I was a kid, because Shelly and I are around the same age, and I've purchased some valuable items that are in my vault from Sheldon Goldberg in the past, preserve history, something that,

you know, the kids don't take enough time to do these days.

But for heaven's sake, Jamaica Plain.

I was like, wow, he must live with the coconut trees and the hoochie-coochie dancers.

And I found out it was in Massachusetts and they just lied.

Once again, a very nice guy.

I appreciate anyone who puts their face on their letterhead.

That's my kind of man.

Thank you, Sheldon.

Jim.

He's proud of that face.

We're going to somehow get away from this and move on.

I promise it will happen.

Time now.

Andrade.

Formerly Andrade El Italo.

Speaking of promising to move along.

Formerly, Andrade El Italo.

They've sort of extorted that promise out of him.

Look, you've got to promise us you're going to leave.

Andrade had...

Ben La Sombra in CML,

joined the WWE, was in NXT with Zelina Vega as his manager, became

Andrade.

He had a first name at one point, didn't he?

I don't know, but he was even more somber.

Well, then later on, he went to AEW, and that was sort of where everything went completely sideways.

It was a weird run,

which was like kind of start and stop, promos that you couldn't understand.

It was a weird run.

And then he was a...

He was told, do not punch Sammy Guevara or you will be fired.

And then he punched out Sammy Guevara and wasn't fired.

No, he wasn't fired.

He wasn't fired.

They sent him home to disappear.

That's what it was.

He stayed on the payroll for another couple of years after that.

But he returned to WWE

after Triple H took back over or took over.

And with all the commitments and future projects in Mexico with Triple A

and the way they've really gotten so many Latinos on their television show,

he somehow got lost in the shuffle and he was in the background.

And you wondered what was going on with him, if you wondered about him at all.

And now we find out he was asked to leave.

Any thoughts on this?

Well, I was one of the category who didn't wonder about him at all because when I heard he was fired, that's when I remembered that he was still there.

But

the problem now is: is he the first guy that's gone through both companies?

And they pretty much said, nah, we're good.

No, Galos and Anderson.

Ah, well, well, but

they're gainfully employed, I guess, with TNA, aren't they?

Oh, are they?

I don't know.

I don't watch that.

I thought they were there with them.

Maybe they're not now.

Possibly they're just floating aimlessly in a sea of obscurity, clinging to whatever life raft can float their way.

But nevertheless, The pool is small of people who have been through both the big companies and both of them have said, we want you to leave.

Tony's was just a little bit different in that he just, he continued to pay the guy, but he didn't want him around

for a long time.

But that's the weird thing.

He would come back around and he would reappear on the show.

I mean, again, everyone, even people that are in good graces with Tony, seem to disappear off that show randomly at different points.

But he was there.

I think he may have, as crazy as this sounds, he may have left them to good terms.

Him and Tony may be cool.

Oh, good heavens.

But we don't know what Tony thinks.

Should Tony consider bringing back Andrade?

I don't know if Tony does think.

But now, well, let's go back to the previous thing.

Basically,

they're not releasing the exact

reason for the termination, whatever.

People have floated wellness policy violation.

I guess that's possible.

He doesn't look like a red flag.

Well, that's out there, but I guess what they're saying is that the rumors, when I say they, that it's a disciplinary issue,

not due to drugs or alcohol.

Well, that's what I was going to say also: is that that was one story that was floating,

but then also it was something disciplinary.

Well,

what did he fucking do?

I don't know.

I mean,

he's one of those guys I never got because he can't speak.

When they brought him back, remember we saw the first

few matches or first few promos when he first came back where they were producing him.

We made the comment.

They had him slow down.

They had him stick to shit that he could halfway pronounce.

I'm still up in the air as to whether he's a fireball promo in Spanish and his accent is just so thick you can't get it in English?

Or is he

a guy that can't talk at all?

But I didn't get what made him stand out in any particular field that he's been in.

You know, he

didn't stink, but he wasn't all that great

with as many guys as Tony's got.

Do you think he?

I mean, now talk about how it looks bad if Tony takes the ex-WWF stars.

What about if Tony takes the guys that the WWE just fired and said, we don't want you anymore?

And again, we've come a long way from the way Tully Blanchard got screwed over in 89, but it's a disciplinary issue that's not public.

Not to say that Andrade may not say it to Tony if he was trying to get hired there, but do you worry about that?

Do you worry about hiring someone who failed the wellness test and then had some kind of disciplinary issue?

Do you worry about WWE putting it out there if it's bad, what he did?

Well, again,

if it was a wellness test violation, and I think somebody said that might be his second.

Somebody again said it might be his second, but still, unless it was like

you were goddamn comatose in a shower,

you know, I think they would probably handle it a little bit differently than just you're done.

And again,

depending on what their

motivations were as far as did they find something that was normally not a fireable offense, but boy, we've been looking for, we got buyers remorse on this guy.

Or did he do something that was bad enough?

They just say, you know what, fuck it, but they've managed to keep it quiet.

I don't know.

Andrade took to Instagram.

and sent out a photo of his hand, seemingly wearing an expensive watch with a pen in it, a piece of paper under it that just says, Thank you, with an exclamation point.

And there's a cigar and a lighter and a cigar cutter and a whiskey drink.

A very posed shot, but obviously just to show his gratitude.

What the fuck is going on here?

Do you think there could be any issue, if not this in the future, with

guys because of their lucha libre,

what's the word I'm looking for?

Because of who they're loyal to in Mexico.

If you're a CMLL guy or from a CMLL family and WWE wants you to start doing stuff against them with AAA,

do you think that could create problems?

Well,

probably hurt feelings, but problems depends on

if a guy comes from a CML family, but he's at a spot in the WWE where he is making literally multiple multiple times per year, probably what his entire family was making working in Mexico.

You know, maybe

just spread it around a little bit.

I don't know what to tell you.

Normally, loyalty to promoters when Vince was first running the

national expansion was rewarded and

appreciated and/or

respected by guys, whatever.

But now,

does this poor schmuck, whoever this poor schmuck A or poor schmuck B or any poor schmuck in that position,

does he give up a job where the

middle card and underneath guys are making several hundred grand a year

to,

you know, take up for the family tradition when if a member of his family is working for CMLL, he may be making a tenth of that.

in American funds.

If that, I don't know what the

what the pay scale and the transfer rate is like these days, but you know what I'm saying.

Yeah, and we'll see what happens here.

You know, WWE

used Andrade.

I think they brought him back at the Royal Rumble at one point.

They used that as kind of a, look what we did to AEW, and that's the way a lot of fans took it.

Wow, AEW lost Andrade, not even dealing with the fact that Andrade was not a big player in AEW.

But it looked good for WWE bringing him in from AEW.

I don't know if it looks good the other way from AEW's side, bringing them in from WWE after he was already there.

But they also need anyone they can get.

Well, but no, here's the problem: they've got plenty of anyones they can get.

They just need some stars.

They've got more than enough anybody they can get.

Well, Jim, speaking of stars, why don't we discuss what you watched on WWE television this past week?

Well, boy, howdy, I'll tell you what.

SmackDown

on September the 12th from my old stomping grounds, the Norfolk Scope.

My, how the is still one of the classic buildings.

It's actually still in existence that they haven't steamrollered over or whatever.

I even got on the show, Brian.

Did you see my smiling face?

In the package about Brock and Cena?

Yes, I have you know that nobody held a microphone for one and a half seconds with the panache that I had.

But there was two things about SmackDown, like there was last week.

There were two things that stood out.

And

one of them tickled the shit out of me.

And the other one was, I can't believe they made a rare mistake with Brock Lesnar.

Could it be because Heyman's in the hospital and he couldn't be there to stop him from doing anything stupid with Brock?

I just think WWE is on a weird role of weird TV where you you kind of want to get into things, but they're not giving you the next step that kind of gets you more excited for something.

Instead, they set something up.

You think, oh, this could be good.

And then they find ways to like not get you excited in the weeks leading up to the match.

Well, here with they showed the footage of Cena and Sammy's match from last week and Brock coming out and F5 and everybody.

And he's a badass.

And they got Russell Palooza coming up.

And so they play Brock's music and he gets a big pop.

It's a roar, even.

He's a star.

And here he comes, cowboy Brock Ellis, baby, and the bulldog in headlock.

And when, as soon as they bring the music down, now they boo and they chant, you suck, because he's a heel, but he's still a star.

And he.

He waited and he was kind of milking it.

And before he said anything, music.

And here comes R-Truth

rapping his way to the ring, doing his whole deal.

Is what's up song.

That was number one on the charts, right?

And

well, some kind of chart, maybe a pie chart.

It's impressive.

He's better than all these fucking

alleged real rappers that they've had guest star on the program.

But

I'm like, what the fuck are they doing?

This is Brock Lesnar.

This is a serious deal.

Our truth

gets in the ring

and he's doing a what's up and Brock says, shut up.

And then I'm sure they had

a script

that they had gone over that

had some witty banter and snappy repartee.

But I think, number one, Brock didn't look like he wanted to have a lot of it.

Brock is not a goddamn comedian.

Brock does not, that's why Heyman was integral to a lot of Brock's success because Brock doesn't need to be out there

doing wordplay where exact lines have to be given and responded to, and et cetera, to get a point across.

That ain't Brock Lesnar.

Have I made the point, Brian?

I think so.

So.

From the time that R-Truth is supposed to say, hey,

first of all, he says, legitimately, welcome back.

And people are like,

but then he started to say, you know,

I used to be scared of you, but I ain't scared of it.

And Brock says, stop, stop talking.

I don't even know who the hell you are.

And of course, the people boo that.

But you better have a damn good reason to be coming in here and interrupting me.

And R-Truth's deal is, well, you've been disrespecting my childhood hero and my older brother, John Cena, for 25 years now.

And Brock has to say, well,

how old are you?

And what is your name?

They've got Brock fucking Lesnar playing Bud Abbott for R-Truce Lou Costello here, feeding him the fucking straight lines.

And it is minorly amusing to see Brock look at him again, like, how old do you think you are?

But

you don't need to get silliness on Brock, and he's not good at it.

And

the fans would chant our truth, but Brock would

shut that down.

But

he kept going back to, I'm looking for John Cena.

Do you know where John Cena is?

No, then why are you in my ring?

Well, I've got to defend John Cena because I'm Ron Cena.

Brock, I think, then got lost and had to go back somewhere.

So you don't know where he is.

Well, why are you here?

Because I'm here to defend.

I swear to fucking God.

It didn't go that long, but it seemed like it.

And then Ron said that Super Cena was coming for Brock and

some gibberish.

And Brock did a couple of scripted lines where

I think at one point, Brian didn't even.

He made R-Truth forget what his name was supposed to be

because he said, what's your name again?

He said, R-Truth.

But I thought it was Ron.

Oh, it's Ron Cena.

What the fuck?

And then

Brock F5'd him and split his pants.

And that was the end.

Brock split his pants, not.

Yes.

Well, I'm sorry.

Too many pronouns, pal.

Brock F5'd R-Truth, Ron Cena.

And in the process, Brock split his own pants from asshole to appetite.

The end.

And he said, no, he shook his ass at the announcers.

The end.

Yeah.

Did that get you excited for Cena versus Lesnar?

No.

I don't know what the fuck.

I thought when they brought back Ron Killings, when they, I'm doing air quotes here, re-signed him, whatever the fuck happened.

Yes.

They brought him back and he cut his hair and he renounced his comedy stylings.

Said, I'm not R-Truth.

I'm Ron Killings.

What did that last?

Two weeks?

Osbat said, got over, got a big pop.

We're like, hey, boy, this looks like it's going to be, have we seen him since?

He just reverted back to everything he was before that point.

Yes.

And this was the usage of Brock Lesnar here.

Hopefully he's not getting paid per date.

Oh, I guarantee you he's getting paid per date.

He's getting paid for every time he takes a shit in the fucking arena bathroom.

He's also paying someone to film that and send it to him.

Hey, goddammit.

I'm sorry, that was urine, not shit.

Well, this one's mine, but that one's urine.

But I'll tell you, they did a nice history package, as I mentioned

before.

They do great packages and they've got all that footage, not only the OVW stuff, but just all the backstage stuff they've...

compiled for a year.

They must have two and a half million fucking pieces of video.

Just way too much.

But I, you know, it occurred to me watching this because they told the story: Brock, two years in,

can't handle the travel.

Snaps got to get out of here.

Cena steps up,

says, I want to be the guy.

If only somebody could have told him that was the way it was going to be in 2004 or back in 2000.

Oh, well.

Anyway,

the main event of smackdown brian

was drew mcintyre versus randy orton

and it was a normal match that i was

you know i mean it was very professional both these guys look great they know what they're doing they know how to work

they're over as stars the people were into it

But I had one observation at the start I was really going to go off on.

But then by the time I saw the finish, I was so fucking tickled.

And you didn't really catch this.

And truthfully, now that I think about it, unless you knew what to look for and you happened to be paying real close attention, I don't know that you would have seen it.

But if anybody wants to go back at it,

there was about two and a half minutes at the end of this thing where Randy Orton, I think, went to just kick the shit out of Drew McIntyre.

He was pissed

off.

And he, let's put it this way, he hit it better better than the old Randy would have.

But

they started the match.

The entrances,

Drew McIntyre's entrance started like before 9:30 Eastern.

And they rang the bell at like 9:45.

It took 17 minutes to get them in the ring between part entrance and break and then backstage clip and plug and da-da-da-da.

Then they ring the bell.

They go one minute minute to the break.

So, in like a 20-minute period, you saw one minute of fucking match.

But when they came back, it was a good match.

Orton sells his leg, believably, almost got me

because he was,

you know, like at one point he had tweaked it, but then he came back from it.

But then he did a knee drop and sold the left knee again so he could sell it.

And they worked a figure four and

all this other shit.

It's classic old wrestling.

And then,

did you see the spot where I've seen

the younger generation do this, right?

The modern wrestlers.

I've seen this happen before, not many times, but I knew what he was trying to do.

Drew McIntyre is working the leg.

Randy's selling the leg.

So McIntyre picks Randy Orton up and gives him a body slam slam where he puts him down where his leg hits the ropes.

Did you see that spot?

I did not.

Well,

because it didn't really look like anything major to you, but goddamn, Randy was trained in OVW.

One of the main trainers in OVW at the time was Rip Rogers.

I can tell you this from.

Being around the guys from the business in those days,

if you slammed a son of a bitch where his legs were caught in the ropes and he couldn't take a bump properly on a slam which includes getting his feet under him then that was about

a goddamn ass whipping about to happen

that was the most unprofessional thing you could do is slam a guy or backdrop a guy or suplex a guy or whatever where his feet landed in the ropes and he was not in full control of his fucking bump.

And as soon as that happened,

Randy leaves the, he rolls out on the floor and he walks halfway down the entranceway and he starts leaning on the fucking railing like he's selling, right?

But

it looked kind of like Drew's like, well, where the fuck's he gone?

So Drew is, Drew's in the middle of the heat.

So he comes down there and he fucking

walks up to Randy and he's going to, Randy makes token resistance.

He's not gonna blow a comeback on him there.

But Drew punches him, and Randy just does the thing where he turns around and he just starts walking back toward the ring.

And he punched him again, and Randy just keeps walking back toward the ring.

And as Orton gets up to the front row, there, right as they're going past the railing, he looks at a kid in the front row and he gives him the fucking hands out like, I don't know what the fuck he's doing.

God damn deal.

And then they roll back in the ring.

And as soon as McIntyre stands up, Orton says, fuck this and poked him in the eye and started his comeback.

That was entirely not the goddamn way that they had worked out that Drew was going to fucking do whatever and then Orton was going to start his comeback, right?

And then he gave him the old comeback where he just grabbed Drew's head and ran him into the top turnbuckles like six or seven times in a row around the ring, each one.

But then

they go back and do the back and forth and all the other stuff they're going to do, and the Claymores and the finishes, and not the Fed, but the false finishes and the big moves and everything

for the next couple minutes.

But then

if he's still fucking pissed about it because Orton

goes after him and gives Drew the draping DDT, you know, the thing he does on the ropes, right?

Ah, boom.

And as he's getting up, some way or another, he's busted his head slightly in this last little sequence, but the floor camera's right on him.

And you can hear him because I turned it up to make sure the second time.

He said, 25 goddamn years and nobody's ever slammed me in the goddamn ropes.

He was still pissed about it.

And so then, but yeah, it just, they're going along.

He's selling his ass off.

The match, and all of a sudden, if Drew slammed him in the ropes, he rolls out.

He says, fuck it.

Should I be the old Randy?

I'm trying to cool off here.

Drew comes and gets him, punches him.

He's like, fuck it.

He walks back in, pokes him in the eye, and makes his comeback.

Fucking hell.

So then

after he said 25 goddamn years and nobody's ever slamming it, goddamn ropes.

He milked going for the punt, but the referee stopped him because, you know, goddamn,

this is only a fucking promotion where they have the elimination chamber and hell in a cell.

You can't kick a guy in a fucking head.

But Orton went for it anyway, and Drew moved and shoved Orton toward the referee, which was awkward positioning.

I think that was probably something else that didn't come together properly.

And then Drew claymored him one, two, three.

And the reason why that they put Drew over, obviously, he's got the big title match with Cody coming up.

But then Drew went for a kick on Randy, like he was going to do, where he kicked Cody through the desk.

And Cody came back out and fired up a big comeback, and the place was going nuts.

And Cody grabbed the microphone and started to speak.

The credits are up on the screen, and my DVR froze.

I don't know what the fuck he said, but he didn't have long to say it.

But that was the funniest fucking thing I've seen in a while.

That is the way

that the guys of the previous generation

would react to shit that they were not happy with when it happened in a ring.

You wouldn't even,

if you didn't know what to look for, or you sometimes even if you did, you wouldn't really know.

But if you caught on to it,

they're fucking pissed.

They've had all they can stand.

They can't stand no more.

Even if it's fucking Drew McIntyre, you know what the fuck.

Don't slam me in in the ropes, dude.

That's just unprofessional.

How would Randy Orton have reacted 25 years ago?

Give or take?

He would have rolled out on the floor and he would have screamed right then, God damn it, what the fuck are you doing, you stupid motherfucker?

But now he waited until they did the majority of the finish and then only said, God damn.

25 goddamn years.

Nobody ever goddamn slamming the goddamn ropes.

You know, I can't even hear you say that without going to 20 goddamn years, and it's Bozo Brazil.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no,

that was 30, 30 years in the business, and it's Bozo Brazil.

All right, well, that was SmackDown

as it was.

And

we're going to go to Raw in a second.

Jim, what do you think about the

state of WWE TV?

We do this all the time for Dynamite.

It's a different animal.

WWE is making money hand over fist.

They They also have a lot of debt, if we're going to be honest about it.

But the stock price is over $200 a share now.

Have you seen this?

I have.

Meanwhile, all these financial barometers are being hit or surpassed.

The TV, to a lot of us, is boring.

Maybe you'll get a big angle or a big moment on a show, and that may be an upgrade from the Vince era at times.

But it seems like there's a whole lot of nothing unless you're incredibly dedicated to WWE and invested in everything on the roster.

Well, I mean, we've talked about part of what they're doing here, and I mentioned it.

And I

appreciate the one person who commented on Twitter, I think it was, said that

nobody else had put it the way that I put it.

when I talked about Cena and Sami Zayn's match last week.

With what kind of pressure

do you think is on Cena when

he's going to headline shows, the next six shows that he headlines are going to gross tens of millions of dollars for the WWE?

And what kind of pressure is on Sami Zayn or anybody that's working with him

when

you're working with the guy that's going to draw these tens of millions of dollars and you're picking him up and you got to make sure you put him down right?

Well, it's gotten to the point now

where

the top stars in the WWE

are worth so much money

that whether they want to go out and work or not, and whether, you know, they

regardless of what they want to do,

the WWE's getting by with sending the stars out to talk for 20 minutes and do a flurry of physical activity.

And then the middle card folks and the

guy, the young folks that we're building,

they can go out there and have these matches where if they get hurt, well, you know,

geez, that's shame, but it ain't going to affect the gross,

which is pretty goddamn gross.

So I think that's another reason why they're not doing anything they don't have to do until they see a

disturbing trend downward

in viewership of anything.

They're not going to shoot more angles and hot shot when they're already goddamn making more money than most

small and mid-level Latin American countries gross in a fucking year.

But they also

don't want their top guys hurt.

And that's why they're

very seldom in action and a lot of talking.

So they're just giving us the bare minimum

that

they think that the fans need to keep them hooked.

And they're having the top guys do the bare minimum physical damage to their bodies, which you can't argue with.

But

another reason why wrestling was better in the territory days, maybe not for each individual in it, but for the fans watching it is

you had to work your fucking ass off.

and not be dangerous and stupid, but

be exciting.

And it was goddamn physical.

And people are out jumping up and down.

And every minute, our show was two hours in and out.

TV, every minute was precious.

Keep fucking pace up.

There's no pressure to have an angle that touches people like no other.

And my God, they're waiting for the heel in the parking lot.

We've passed that.

It's like, just don't anybody goddamn shit themselves on live tv

is really now you know

is anybody gonna lose money if the house is down

depends where the house is i guess

my p of veterans like me should join a company that has their back that's why i joined verizon here exciting benefits like tuition assistance help me stay focused on my growing career not stressing about the costs Now I use my master's in global security for a role I love as an equipment engineer.

That's life in the the V-team life.

Head to mycarearedivevorizon.com to explore opportunities to join a team that supports your development.

A happy place comes in many colors.

Whatever your color, bring happiness home with CertaPro Painters.

Get started today at Certapro.com.

Each Certipro Painters business is independently owned and operated.

Contractor license and registration information is available at certapro.com.

Hello Jim, on the topic of houses and WWE, WWE Raw, last night as we are recording, at least one big angle, I guess you could say, if we call that an angle.

And what are your thoughts on Raw?

Well,

again, they were in Springfield, Massachusetts, by the way, not John Cena's hometown, but home state, so close enough.

And I assume that's the old building they used to have there in Springfield.

It looked like it.

They had no stage,

small aisle, full house.

People just jammed in.

And I did wonder, Brian, how did we ever do TV shows without drones?

Back in the day, how did we do a show without a drone?

Back then, the drones were the announcers.

We would just drone on.

I remember we had to call the

Chamber of Commerce in Knoxville to get an aerial shot of fucking Knoxville for our Night of Legends fucking build.

But never, maybe that's why the shows didn't last three hours, though, because we didn't have the drone footage.

But they brought out Cena

for just it was a 20-minute interview.

And it was the best 20 minutes pretty much of the program.

And again, I can't believe they wasted all that time making him a heel.

He got a big pop.

He got the Cena chance.

He speaks to the people.

He's an incredible speaker.

His history in Springfield, his old football teammates were there.

And, you know, he got

into Brock Lesnar and their rivalry.

And when they started chanting, fuck you, Lesnar, he shut it down because at Netflix, they're saying, talk to Lesnar.

And that's what I'm about to do.

Because that way it wouldn't fuck up the audio when they were trying to,

you know, when he's trying to do a promo.

So he was so smart, he had them, and they changed it to whoop his ass, whoop his ass.

Why do they have those issues on Netflix?

I understand it on broadcast or even basic cable, but why would they have those issues with that to bleep the audience on Netflix?

I don't know.

And I don't know why the TBS has quit trying,

while at the same time,

USA and Netflix are still doing it.

And even if it's USA, because of it's still cable and,

you know whatever netflix shows

a variety of shows at all day parts that contain the word fuck don't they

oh yeah nevertheless we'll never know until somebody tells us but cena did a great babyface promo

and he starts them slow and he takes them on the ride

And then finally he fires up and he gives them the big one and the hustle and loyalty and respect.

And the fans were with it every bit of the way.

And am I afraid of Brock?

Yes.

Can I fail?

Yes.

But will I give up?

Hell no.

And a big plug for Saturday.

You want some?

Come get some.

Masterful babyface promo.

But I'm just wondering that the people in Springfield

might have thought they were going to get more out of the last time they ever see Cena than him come out and talk to him 15 minutes.

And that was it.

And now he's gone.

William Springfield, they should have paid more money to WWE for more of the show than they were getting.

What do you think now?

When they get the next big crowd in, are they going to before they start the show?

Looky here, we've decided we're only going to give you half of it tonight.

But if y'all come up with another 20 bucks ahead, we'll give you the whole thing right now.

Get in your pocket.

We have a brand new late arrival program.

You pay us a few extra $100 and we'll give you any one seat in the house you want.

And then they could pay to come back in.

Everything's a money grab.

But fans were so into him, it made it work for me.

It would have been maybe a little cheesy or something at times, but those fans, his hometown fans, were as into him as any fan base we've seen for the

last year, I think.

And that's, again,

they have got, and we are jaded, Brian, because we've been around for so long and seen so much stuff, good, bad, and indifferent.

And a lot of the

folks that listen to our shows,

we've seen some real wrestlings, you know, so yes, but

they have an audience that will pay these ridiculous prices to come to these TV shows where they sit through

the commercial breaks and the interminable entrances and whatever to see the stars in person, even if they're not wrestling on a wrestling show.

And they don't.

I mean, we wanted to have the.

It's like an old charity show.

Come have a night with the stars.

We'll be in town.

Doesn't say they're going to do anything.

They're not going to be in a movie that night.

And that's the thing is that we didn't always have the Undertaker or Steve Austin or whatever on Raw when we wrote Raw, but we had dark matches where you could advertise to the people, yes, Steve Austin will be wrestling so-and-so.

Now they don't even do that.

Just come see the stars.

So, what do you think of this last week leading into the pay-per-view WrestlePalooza, the build for Cena versus Brock?

Brock had a confrontation with Ron Cena, and Cena did this promo.

What do you think?

It would, well, the promo by Cena was fine in a vacuum when you're and really, again, it's the last match ever between Cena and Brock.

So, they know it's made anyway.

Why

overextend yourself?

Do anything that's unnecessary?

But instead of Brock playing with Ron Cena,

I would have rather he just took three minutes and told us something

about

why he did what he did when he did it and what he's going to do on Saturday.

I decided I had enough.

I had all I can stands, I can't stand no more because you said or did this, Cena.

And I'm going to be remembered as the all-time greatest.

So I came out here and dropped you on your head.

Any

motivation that he had or what his purpose is on Saturday, besides having the last match ever he's going to have with, you see what I'm saying?

There's no fill in the blank as far as why Brock

returned past he's going to beat up Cena and why he returned at that particular moment.

Past they gave him a new contract, a bunch of money.

They've missed

the story.

They're telling the story.

They've been a rivalry for 25 years.

What instigated the final chapter?

Do you think we see The Rock and Cena together on WWE TV before Cena's retirement?

The new skinnier Rock?

Only if The Rock feels like he needs publicity out of something.

You think it's best to just avoid the whole thing and pretend pretend it didn't happen otherwise?

Yes,

because they already are.

And that's why I'm thinking is that the only way that they would show Rock and Cena together at this point is if Rock came in and made them.

Why else would you do it?

Because obviously all the fans wanted to forget about it as quickly as they could.

Because they did as soon as John came out.

I said, you know what, never mind.

Okay.

So, why would you bring it back up?

It's like, hey, honey, I fucked around on you with a goddamn, you know, Brazilian hooker last week.

What'd you say, dear?

Never mind, nothing.

Why Brazil?

Where did Brazil get implicated in this whole thing?

Well, they've got good wax down there.

I guess so.

Well, Jim, obviously that wasn't the only thing you watched on Raw.

What else did you say?

Obviously.

That's most obvious because it is time

for the

update in the saga of the battling Bickersons.

The

boy, I tell you, it's like the Cramdens and the Nortons just can't get along anymore.

Now, this is what's carrying the whole thing for me: Seth and Becky, and Phil, and AJ.

And the mixed marriage tag team match.

And

again,

this could have been shorter,

but it also could have been other people and it would have been even worse.

So I'll take what I can get.

And the fans again, but as soon as Seth and Becky come out, before they even speak, the place is chanting CM Punk.

And

I think I like Seth better with Becky there because...

They were wearing the matching black leather, but Seth does his promo shtick, the

revolutionary and the preposterous and whatever the fuck, but there's no crazy cackling and weird dancing or feathers.

They look like a cooler couple.

And Seth gave Becky the big introduction, the big buildup.

And of course, they start chanting A.J.

Lee at her.

And then

she said, well, unlike other people, I won't say anything.

behind anyone's back.

And as soon as she says that, play A.J.

Lee's music.

no Mussolini.

We don't get no cult personality.

We get, is that a popular song or a song that was once popular that AJ comes out to, Brian, or was that a WWE?

It's lighted up.

What is who lights it up?

I light it up.

I light it up when Raw's on usually.

No, I don't know.

No, I'm now.

Come on.

I don't think it's a straight edge in this segment.

I don't think that it's a commercial song.

I believe it's a WWE-funded song or however you want to put it.

That was her theme song years ago, and the fans of A.J.

Lee and the fans of

10 years ago really like it so far.

I thought that was what it was light it up was a Taylor Swift thing.

Or was that Shake It Up or Light It Up?

Shake It Off.

Throw it down.

Shake It Off.

Shake It Off.

Who did that?

Taylor Swift.

You said it.

Okay.

Well, that's what I was.

Well, I thought that was who it was.

She's the babysitter Jeff Jarrett.

I've heard that before on many of the finer podcasts.

When they got to the time he was ready for his breastfeeding, boy, that's when things got.

But anyway, so

we don't get no cult personality like Mussolini.

We get lighted up.

But here they come and they chant Punk again.

And Punk introduces himself.

I'm A.J.

Lee's husband, and I don't need to give her a big buildup.

And they start chanting AJ's husband.

And I mean, you know, Punk was kind of sitting back in this one and smirking and throwing in a little line here every now and then, like, who's the team leader here?

You know, like, look at you, goofs.

And they said, goof, goof, goof.

And he said, we had to listen to two crappy songs.

I have no problem putting cult of personality on the shelf.

And the whole meaning of the promo is: you guys share one brain cell in a wardrobe, but can you share the spotlight?

And they went back and forth for a long while.

But finally,

Seth told

fucking Becky or Seth told AJ

or Seth told Punk about AJ that, you know, you made a great decision in your personal life, but not in your professional life.

It's a mistake you're going to regret.

And Becky's asking AJ how she feels physically,

you know, after 10 years.

And Becky's a better heel promo than Seth is.

And AJ then told Becky that she had a constipated face and they chanted constipation.

I wondered how far we could get them to go with these chant things.

Boy, I'm glad I'm not.

They will chant anything through anyone.

They were literally repeating Seth Rollins' taglines to him.

He's the heel.

They sing his song, they say his taglines, and then they wait for the next person to come out, babyface or heel, so they can participate in that part of it.

And I'm seeing

they're paying a lot of money.

They want to participate.

Well, yes, and it's very participatory, but usually you'd have to take somebody to dinner before you'd say, bark like a dog for me, and they'd do it.

But nevertheless,

so finally, Seth told AJ

that punk leaves everybody when things let him down.

So when Becky Lynch rips her to shreds, I hope he doesn't leave you too.

And AJ slapped the

Jesus out of Seth and the crowd popped.

And Seth said, I never put my hands on a lady, but luckily, I've got someone who will.

As you remember, Punk said the same thing.

And he turns to Becky and Becky's standing there.

And he gives her the Iggy.

Like, oh, she's standing there.

And he's like, What the fuck?

And they start arguing.

And Becky's like, You got us into this.

And she leaves the ring.

So they were Seth's like, What the fuck?

Punk starts chasing Seth.

And then Becky sneaks in and gives AJ a rock bottom so she can get a little heat on her.

And then when Punk goes in to help AJ, Becky slapped Punk again and left.

And Punk was there

left helping AJ up,

which I understand they had to get

a little heat

before the

match, but

it was a little flat at the end, I guess is what I'm saying, Playa.

A little flat at the end.

I won't disagree with you.

A long buildup for very little.

It was like you're seeing the balloon expanding and it's getting bigger and it's getting bigger and it's getting bigger and you're expecting the bam, and all of a sudden you get the poof.

And it kind of went,

you know, I'm in the minority, and you'll probably disagree with me too, but I'm not into this.

And again, I wasn't into AJ Lee's original run.

And I think if you were, or if you just became a fan when it happened, you may see it differently than me.

But her skipping out there and that song playing non-stop every raw, which is what it felt like back then, to do the crazy act, didn't appeal to me because I'm an adult.

Like, I hate that kind of fucking bad acting.

She's not doing it as much here.

But still, this whole thing to me was a little too cutesy.

And I'll give you a couple of examples.

They all hate each other.

And you bring this up with AEW and even WWE.

And I think it's true here.

They all hate each other.

What's stopping them from just fighting right away?

Just tackle a motherfucker.

They're standing there smiling at each other doing one-liners.

I thought that bothered me.

And the other thing that hit me watching this, Becky at one point brings up AJ's book.

She says, I read your book.

I know about your neck.

And it just got me thinking, you know, I think the build to this in some ways would have been more effective if that was a promo itself.

Becky coming out there with the fucking book, reading from it, Andy Kaufman style.

Will you all quiet down?

We have a long way to go.

Yeah.

And then having AJ respond with a response, which I thought was good.

I haven't read your book.

but that could have been right there or something.

Instead, it's just one of the things thrown into this thing that went a long time without any physicality.

It happens

so, well, and we've talked about it.

It happens so often that in trying to send the stars out for a gripping segment that will not only get ratings but promote the match, but they can't actually just have them beat each other up every goddamn week, or it just degenerates into

AEW nonsense.

So

it dulls some of the issues

having to spend 20 minutes on promoting them when you don't have 20 minutes worth of promotion to do on them, where they just have to talk back and forth till it's like,

goddamn, you can't be that mad.

Is that what you're saying?

I mean, I think it's kind of like that Seinfeld thing.

What did you do today?

I woke up.

I went to work.

Good, that's a show.

How's that a show?

Yeah.

I watched this and and I said, that's a promo.

The Becky thing, that one line right there was a good three-minute promo.

I guess they don't do those, so it doesn't really count.

And then AJ's response was a separate promo.

Like this thing could have been broken up into several different things that may have been more enjoyable.

They're all face-to-face.

When you do promos to build up an event or a pay-per-view, people do their promos to talk you in.

It's never face-to-face and then nothing really happens.

What happened?

There's a little physicality at the end.

And then Becky again kicks the shit out of punk.

This time he looked like he really was going to hit her.

I believed it.

This time, and I was thinking, maybe if he just, oh, if he just reached out there, but here's the thing:

that's the problem: to keep the ratings and have the ability to, because I've been a promoter also in written television, and you got to have something to advertise.

Sometimes they're advertising too much.

So-and-so will be face-to-face with so-and-so

because you can't really advertise an angle, even though the kids misuse the terminology these days.

You can't advertise an angle because that's an unadvertised, unscheduled, unscripted, real event that happens in the middle of the normal programming that we don't expect, right?

But they have to be able to advertise something.

They're sending people out there to kill time talking to each other.

And in

under the pretense of of promoting the match, sometimes they take

the bloom off of the match.

I still want to see this thing because that's the angle to me.

This is the personal issue that has got some oomph to it.

But I sure wanted to see it more after last week when we just had the goddamn AJ Lee double-legged her, had some fucking blows thrown, and out we go with everybody screaming and yelling rather than them standing here and discussing it for 20 minutes.

Yeah, I agree.

And if they wanted to do something like this, they should have given this more time.

But again, it's a pay-per-view they threw in the middle of the pay-per-view schedule just to fuck with AEW.

But I wish they had given this a little more time.

You really think about it.

She just returned last week and they're going right to the pay-per-view.

But they had to do an angle in between and was this.

And again, it had its moments and it was fine.

I agree with you about Becky and Seth both in the leather outfits.

That looked great.

That worked.

They seemed like a sleazy couple in Queens.

Hey, now the people in Queens are fine folks.

They seemed like a sleazy couple renting out their apartment in Astoria.

But

no, I mean, but it was all right, but it went a long time.

And

you know, but that's the nature of the beast, I guess.

They have to.

Well, there was one other thing on Raw.

Well, go ahead.

Well, before you got there, I was going to just bring up, you know,

projections.

Well, yes.

Projecting the future is a big part of the future.

Projections can be made.

What I'm saying is projections can be made, Jim.

I could say, Jim, this big match is coming up, or perhaps we're going to talk about the match.

The big game, the big, let's say, football game is coming up.

Yes.

Jim, do you have any projections for it?

Well, I can tell you one of the things that you can do is that you can wish in one hand hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up first.

But

if you go to Prize Picks and you download the Prize Picks app

and you work through it that way, that if you predict the future, in effect, wishing that something will come true, and it does, your hand will fill up with money instead of caca.

Because all you got to do is

project,

just

think hard and those thought waves will go through the atmospheric continuum folks

and if you say well

old saquon barkley he's going to have more or less than one touchdown

or old joe burrow

get out of his way because if he has more or less than two and a half passing touchdowns,

well, then you're going to win money.

And if you know who these people are, it's even easier.

Are you a big Joe Burrow fan, Jim?

I've actually, I enjoy a lot of his work as playing donkeys offseason in fucking Mexican nightclubs.

The Burrow show,

it's the Joe Burrow show.

But anyway, prize picks is simple to play, folks.

You're just going to pick more or less on two to six player stat projections.

And if you get your picks right, you can cash in.

And right now, prize picks is also the best way to get action on sports in more than 40 states, including California, Texas, and Georgia.

There are still a few states you can't get action in, but believe me, nobody wants to go to them anyway.

And

all of their withdrawals are fast, safe, and secure.

Every time they make a withdrawal, a guy just pulls open his coat, shows you the gun and his holster underneath.

Again, secure.

not.

No, the withdrawal is done in

digital sense, the way that people can feel secure and that there is security and your money will be protected.

Not a power town kind of situation, a prize pick situation.

Jimmy, you hear that?

That means more.

Let's say it.

Let's say more, man.

Let's go.

Here's a way you can win more because if right now, if you download the prize picks app today and use the code jce you're going to get 50 in lineups after you play your first five dollar lineups that's 10 times they're going to give you 50 bucks to squander any way you see fit as long as you play one measly little five dollar lineup that squanders any way you see fit So that's 10 to one with the code JCE.

Let's not talk about squandering.

And I guess, Jim, it's important to say this weekend, the max discount is Patrick Mahomes 0.5 passing yards.

Patrick Mahomes.

Mahomes.

Is he here, Holmes?

Mahomes.

You know him?

Patrick Mahomes.

He is Mahomi.

Patrick Mahomi.

His dad was on the Mets.

Why did that stop you?

That shouldn't put you on the battlefield.

Because this is football we're talking about, right?

His father was a baseball player.

What kind of traitor is he to his fucking family lineage that he's goddamn turned his back on the pastoral profession of baseball to go out and be a fucking football player.

Stabbed his father in the back.

Because the son became a famous football player, they brought the dad back to the Mets Old Timers Day game a few years ago, even though he was kind of, you know, he was there, but he wasn't a big star on the team.

And then like a few weeks later, I think he got arrested for drunk driving.

And I was like, I wonder if they would have brought him back after.

But anyway, back to this.

That was the cause of it because he was still celebrating his return to prominence.

But folks, right now, regardless of what Patrick does, I know what you need to do.

Download the Prize Picks app, use the code JCE, get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup.

Because at prize picks, it's good to be right.

And it's even better to be rich.

Once again, prize picks.

Download the app, promo code JCE.

Get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup.

Why did you say that like that, JCE?

Top-tong, Teleton.

All right, we are back.

There's so much happening, Jim.

It's a packed show, as you can tell.

This Sunday shows.

There's people coming in and out, going everywhere.

Yeah, I don't know what's happening, but I know we have a little more raw to get to.

Very little, because here's the main event was Bronson Reed and Braun Breaker against L.A.

Knight and Jimmy Uso.

And

they had been teasing through the show.

Jay was telling Jimmy, don't team with L.A.

Knight.

We got our our match on Saturday.

Don't worry about him.

And Jimmy's been telling Jay, don't be telling me what to do.

You're not wearing the oola fala,

fella.

And so they have the match.

And I like the bronze.

I want to see where this is going.

Right before this, I had been interrupted by a phone call

from someone from sunny New Jersey.

When I went back to it,

started watching the match, it started buffering again.

The stream on Netflix, and I've not only been watching Netflix, I've been watching Raw, but also I watched that Charlie Sheen documentary on Netflix.

I broke down and actually watched streaming for my own pleasure.

How was it?

I've been meaning to watch it.

Well, he was really fucked up, but he's all right now.

But boy, he had a lot of fun and

made a lot of money fucked up.

Was it well done?

It was his fuck up original?

No, the actual documentary, the film.

Yes, but he fucked up really good too.

He fucked up about as good as you can fuck up.

Hey, while you're on a string of watching documentaries on Netflix, there's a really, really, really good Devo documentary they just put up.

Well, the problem is my relationship with Netflix has devolved.

Because when I went back and I started watching this match, it started buffering and it would just freeze up and the little circle and it would say 25% and and then 50% or whatever.

And it would start up again, and then it would go another minute, and blah, blah, blah.

And I'm trying to watch this thing.

And by the way, before anybody says, oh, Cornette, he's got shitty internet.

My speed is 941 over 918.

And if people know what that means, it's even more profound.

So below me.

I got all the speed they can give me, Captain.

So finally, they hit simultaneous cold tags to L.A.

Knight and Braun Breaker, and L.A.

Knight made his comeback, but they stopped him, but he came out of that and hit the elbow drop off the top on Bronson Reed.

And then Uso splashed him one, two,

and Braun Breaker saved.

And L.A.

Knight and Braun Breaker go over the top rope to the floor.

And Uso does a dive on Bronson Reed.

And then it started buffering again, and then it just stuck there.

And I finally said, What the fuck?

It has taken me almost 30 minutes to watch a fucking 10-minute match.

And I read on the internet that after the bronze won,

L.A.

Knight speared Jay Uso,

so he may be turning heel.

Or did he spear him or he blunt forced trauma?

He didn't spear him.

He got up behind him with the chair, teasing he would do something.

The fans started reacting.

Jay turned around and saw him there.

And then they had a moment moment of brotherhood.

He put down the chair, and he came over, and they did the handshake.

Everything was good.

Brotherhood.

Brotherhood.

He turns back around, Jay, to check on his brother Jimmy.

And L.A.

Knights spins him around and hits his...

It's not exactly a stunner.

And I forget what the real name is.

The BFT, the Blunt Force Trauma.

There you go.

That's his thing.

Now, but again, Jay.

Well, I would have watched that if Netflix hadn't had a prostate problem with their stream.

But again, Jay hit la night last week so do you think it's as simple as la night's turning heel and by the way thinking about it makes me think it should happen maybe it'll heat them up or do you think it's just they're going back and forth doing it to each other because jay didn't hit him on purpose last week so if he hit him on purpose he who him he too many pronouns pal If LA Knight hit Jay on purpose, then he's being an asshole about it.

That's the way I think, for heaven's sake.

You got to have some kind of pride.

But yes, you're right, because

the babyface side is crowded.

And poor L.A.

Knight, as much as people have liked him,

has not been able to let them

get him in that mix.

So maybe as a heel,

this might be some upward momentum.

And you saw a lot of him, or at least more than me, before he was L.A.

Knight when he was Eli Drake.

Was he a babyface or was he a heel?

He was a heel.

No, he was a heel.

He was a heel.

And because he had the promo and,

you know, he had that attitude

that

remember L.A.

Knight, the megastar, before the people started getting behind him in the WWE, was

a heel, was he not?

And then because he was,

yes, he's got that natural cockiness, blah, blah, blah, that then people started getting with, but they just didn't have time to get with it in TNA, at least at the time that I was there with him.

They hadn't.

Well, that was WWE Raw.

And it's all going to be streaming pretty soon.

And

are we at the mercy now of if they decide to goddamn buffer us or not?

I never liked them buffers, Michael or his brother, either one.

Here's a question for you.

Do you think they did a good job or have they done a good job so far in the shows you've watched recently of explaining the ESPN app and how to get it and let alone the cost of it?

But have they done a good job?

Because it feels like they've rushed right into this pay-per-view.

I wonder if there's going to be any kind of hit because of people not being acclimated with the app.

They've done a great job of telling people it's going to be on this thing.

I don't know if they've done a wonderful job of telling people how to get it if they don't have it or what the fuck to do with it.

And I'm the wrong person to ask because

I don't know what to do with any fucking app.

But again,

just go back to the Powertown USA conversation,

something that didn't exist before last month that's now going to be carrying these major fucking events.

I would think there's probably going to be some issues either with the service or with people trying to figure out what service it is and or how they get it and/or whether they have to pay for it.

Stacey says,

and she is the expert in this house, that our spectrum cable, we already get this thing without having to

sign up or pay extra or whatever.

It's going to be installed on my TV room TV so I can operate it, hopefully.

But other cable systems, you have to pay extra.

And how do you do that?

Are people going to find that out at the last minute?

And then are they going to say, oh, shit, I better better hurry and do all this that I didn't expect to do?

Or are they just going to say, well, fuck it, I'll figure it out later.

Anytime you change

the television station, the air day, the airtime,

the manner that somebody is accustomed to watching whatever they watch, it's going to take people a little while.

Yeah, and you know, I'm not getting the app for free as of this second.

Obviously, that could be something negotiated between now and whenever.

But for this pay-per-view, it's not looking likely.

Honestly, if it wasn't a business expense, I probably would skip it.

I would probably just skip it to wait to see the highlights online.

Because the idea I would have to pay $30 for an app that I have no other use for.

I'm not going to use it to watch anything else.

So we'll see.

And therein lies the problem.

And,

you know, another thing that goes into the totals that people were talking about, well, how much is it going to cost you to watch just the WWE programs or just the AEW programs or whatever?

I had the UFC in that.

And it gets up into thousands of dollars a year to have all of the services to

entail you to be able to watch all these things.

Or there used to be this service called television.

That's right.

Well,

that is WWE Raw.

There's nothing like sinking into luxury.

At washable sofas.com, you'll find the Anibay sofa, which combines ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price.

And get this, it's the only sofa that's fully machine washable from top to bottom, starting at only $699.

The stain-resistant performance fabric slip covers and cloud-like frame duvet can go straight into your wash.

Perfect for anyone with kids, pets, or anyone who loves an easy-to-clean, spotless sofa.

With a modular design and changeable slip covers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style.

Whether you need a single chair, love seat, or a luxuriously large sectional, Anibay has you covered.

Visit washable sofas.com to upgrade your home.

Right now, you can shop up to 60% off store-wide with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Shop now at washable sofas.com.

Add a little

to your life.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

jim

yes let me grab this

let's go to the files from the files

moving stuff around sorry for all the noise here i apologize that's because you've got files

yeah oh boy he's re-emerged

this one in honor of the upcoming 75th birthday that you'll be celebrating We're going to go

from the files, Jim Cornet.

Oh, boy.

Oh, boy.

From the files, of course, of the incomparable Pro Wrestling Illustrator, Pro Wrestling Enterprises.

Pro Wrestling Enterprises.

It's the proper enterprise, Pro Wrestling Enterprises, the Wrestling News files that you possess now from Norm Keitzer and his various publications.

That is correct.

And of course, your file is an interesting one because there are photos here of your career.

And then correspondence from your time as a photographer.

If I open the photo portion here,

some photos you probably recognize of some

you and the Midnight Express posed.

Here's one of you guys at Ringside.

Midnight Express, Dennis Condry, manager Jimmy Cornette, Bobby Eaton, March 13th, 1984, Lafayette, Louisiana.

Good heavens.

Who was there?

to shoot pictures that night?

I'm trying to think and remember.

I don't know.

Let me move this.

Here is Midnight Express.

Jim Cornette with his Midnight Express photo copyright 1986.

Paul Heyman.

That was in the Meadowlands.

Were we sitting on a table?

No, you guys, I think you're standing up.

Stadio with the belts in front of a concrete wall.

Yes.

Yes.

And then here I have, and I think I may have asked you about these before.

These apparently are Midnight Express 8x10s.

You, Dennis, and Bobby.

You're in a rather subdued suit.

Bobby and Dennis on one knee with belts.

Do you remember these?

Midnight Express is all it says.

And it's spelled M-I-D-N-I-T-E.

That is correct.

Yes.

That was, I believe,

taken by Alice Marie Nelson in Houston, Texas.

We did a photo shoot very early on in our run there because Alice was the most regular, reputable photographer in the territory at that point.

And they got like a bejesus bunch of those things

printed up as publicity pictures.

Not that they were selling a bunch on the

merchandise tables, but they, I, I,

I'm wondering

if Norman may have, Keitzer may have printed them for the office.

Oh, interesting.

And I'm wondering also if Jack Curtis may have have

his

wife or girlfriend, I can't remember what their legal status was at the time,

manned a lot of the merchandise stands.

I'm wondering if Jack Curtis may have snapped some of those pictures at Ringside.

Well, Jim, here I have

the Smoky Mountain Wrestling Souvenir Brochure for Wrestling Fans and Collectors.

This would be from 92 because the last show listed here.

Wow, this is a great episode.

9-1992.

Title match, first ever meeting, Rock and Roll Express vs.

Heavenly Bodies.

Non-title match, Horner vs.

Dirty White Boy, plus Stalker attacks Brian Lee in wild brawl.

That's a great.

This is my favorite.

I think still my favorite period of time is Smoky Mountain Wrestling, the end of 92.

The most interesting Brian Lee ever was.

Just because if these people are attacking him, they must have a reason.

They find it.

He must have a reason.

There's a goddamn reason that the son of a bitch, he's been hiding this all from us.

Yes, and that was

a production of Brian C.

Hildebrand, a.k.a.

Mark Curtis, who would do our merchandise brochures and et cetera for us.

And we were selling the TV shows on VHS tapes.

You'd get four shows, the month's worth of shows on a tape.

to people outside the territory that couldn't get the TVs.

Who manned the post office box, P.O.

Box 1279, Morristown, Tennessee?

That would have been either me or Brad Hildebrand, depending on who went by there that day.

Let's see how well you remember the prices.

How much was it to order a souvenir program?

Oh, God.

$2.

$1 each.

Shit.

$92.

How much were t-shirts?

$12.

$10.

Son of a bitch.

Photos of the stars.

4x6, 5x7, 8x10.

How much would a 4x6 photo of one of the Smoky Mountain stars be in 92?

That's going to have to be a dollar also, isn't it?

$2.

$2.

Oh, we've raised the prices.

I think the 8x10s went up to $5, didn't they?

They are $5.

$5x7 are $3.

Baseball caps, $7.

Videotapes.

And the baseball caps and t-shirts were being printed over at Horner's screen printing Dodge he had over there.

Oh, by the way, also, any of the photos can be personally autographed by the star.

Simply add a dollar to each photo.

Photo order over $15,

all will be autographed for free.

Volunteer slam.

Yeah,

we didn't get our lady takers on that.

I think, and

I think because they didn't consult me on that one,

but I was like, you realize how much trouble that's going to be?

They cut it out after that

after that brochure you've got there.

Volunteer slam, $15, 90 minutes.

Fire on the mountain, 120 minutes, $17.

It says only $17.

That's right.

Well, there we go.

Because see, we gave an extra 30 minutes for only $2 more.

Here's more photos of you by Heyman.

There's a lot of photos of you by Heyman in here.

This is a photo.

He was always trying to suck up, wasn't he?

Here's the photo.

You know this photo.

It's from the session with the blue backdrop.

It's Bobby on the left, you in the middle, Dennis on the right.

Yes.

This is for program 1154.

It just says, be sure to show two men on left only.

I guess Dennis is being edited out of the program by that point.

So let's go ahead.

Like I said, a lot of photos.

Here's one.

You know, I asked you the other day about a photo of you, the dynasty of champions, you, Adrian Street, Miss Linda, and Jesse Barr.

Here's another one.

I don't know if it's the same day

because they're they look like they just worked and they're smiling, and you're in a suit, a different one, but it says photo by Steve Curtis.

Who's that?

That's that's Brian.

That's Hildebrand.

It has to be

because

he

without seeing it, but he was down there at that period of time.

He came down a time or two while I was managing that group to shoot pictures for various magazines.

And

if it's in front of my background, he'd been the only one there with me.

I don't know where he got Steve instead of Mark, but

who knows?

Here's a picture of you at Ringside and Midsouth wearing the mask.

And again, same handwriting as that one from March of 84.

Manager of Midnight Express, Jim Cornette, wearing masks because he had his hair cut.

Yeah,

it was over at Great Clips.

It was a terrible haircut.

So I wore a mask for about three weeks.

It grew back out.

All right, well, let's open the files here.

And there's a lot of correspondence with you and Jim Melby.

Did you end up corresponding with him more than Norman Keitzer at some point?

Yeah, Jim was, I forget what title they gave each other, but Jim was more of the editor

during those years that would actually be

putting stuff together for the magazine or asking for things or whatever, whereas Norman was the head of the whole shebang, the whole empire.

Here's a letter to you from Jim Melby, December 30th, 1982.

Hi, great hearing from you.

Thanks for the check.

The business, as always, is appreciated.

I owe you some money now, but need your social security number to have the check issued to you.

Please mail that info to me as soon as possible so that you can get your loot.

Would you call it a loot?

I don't know.

I don't know if they ever reached an amount that I would call loot.

Jim Mitchell said to tell you hello.

He seemed quite surprised that I was going to get a tape of him in action.

I saw him work a spot show match against Steve O a couple weeks ago.

He seemed pretty green, did a lot of walking and talking, but took some good bumps.

Now,

hold on.

A lot of people out there are going to say, Jim Mitchell, the manager, the sinister minister, this was a guy from Minnesota that had come to Tennessee.

And this was December of 82.

So this was right after I got into business.

And he came in right beforehand.

I was still taking pictures.

But his advanced publicity was Jim the Claw Mitchell, right?

That's the way he was advertised.

When he came out, he had a mask on.

And

when have you ever

heard of a guy, you know, being advertised under his real name while he has a mask on?

But the reason why they called him the claw

was because one of his hands, he had a birth defect.

And instead of a hand, he wore a black

glove and a sleeve up his forearm.

And it is like he had like a thumb and a little finger and nothing else.

Oh, wow.

So he, in effect, had a claw.

So Jim the Claw Mitchell.

Well, as I said here, he didn't last long.

He was surprised to hear from you.

He sure he was.

The marks here hate him so much because his refereeing that he automatically got a lot of heat.

The photos of Kamala and Lane and Kern are great.

We will definitely use them in our magazine.

By the way, when you send me my tape, can you dub that Buddy Rogers vs.

Pat O'Connor match on it also?

I would really appreciate it.

I told a couple of friends about it, and they are really anxious to see it.

I've seen it a couple of times years ago and I felt that both men for being great wrestlers really didn't work that great of a bout.

I'll be looking forward to hearing from you, your friend Jerry.

I forgot Melby didn't like Rogers and O'Connor.

P.S.

Oh, by the way, I need pictures of you with Broomfield and Barr.

Howard Walsdorf wrote a story on you, but I need pictures to go along with the copy.

At some point, I would like you to do a more in-depth story on yourself so we can use my byline on that.

I will make sure that all your future stories are credited to a house pen name such as Larry Cranston.

All right, let's break down some of this here.

Harry Walsdorf, do you know who that is?

Howard Walsdorf.

Howard Walsdorf, excuse me.

He was a fan in Nashville that started

and for a brief time was around writing.

he might be still around, so I don't want to insult him, but he fancied himself a

very

talented writer.

And,

you know, it was very flourishy, very flowery.

But he was doing stuff for the wrestling news magazines at that time.

And he had even written me, but he was another person.

He would write a typewritten letter like six pages.

I don't know where these people got time.

But I don't mean to be stepping on your toes.

I know you cover the Tennessee area.

I'm fine.

Because I think he started out.

Nick was still in business.

And he was covering Nick's end in Nashville.

And then I said, we're fine.

We're fine.

Believe me, I got, I'm good.

But he was just, you know, a fan that started writing for the

wrestling news.

Here I have a bill for you.

Color separations for Cornette book number six.

$96 for Stan Lane, $136.80 for Bill Dundee, $114 for Jerry Lawler, plus $1,870 shipping, $365.50 minus $120 C-letter equaling $245.50.

What can you say about that, the color separation bill?

See, that, again, because of the printing in those days, compared to, again, the book that I've got coming out.

It's all digital now, and you just put it in the file or whatever to reproduce

the color pictures on the cover in those days, much less inside, which was all black and white.

But you had to take the picture and have a color separation made for the printing process.

And that's why, and depending on how big it was, they were at different

costs.

But that's why Norman would often reprint color pictures of guys in programs or in different magazines that you'd seen before because he didn't have to pay for a new separation.

But because I was doing my

championship wrestling magazine, I wanted the guys that were, it had to be my photography and I wanted the guys that were currently in the territory and I wanted pictures that we hadn't sold on the table

on the merchandise stand so that they'd be more likely to buy the magazine.

So that's why I always got fresh ones made for the front and back cover of every magazine.

And it cost,

and then they, they took off 120 because they would then get to use them in their magazines, right?

So they'd pay some of it.

But it went from,

you know, they were selling 500 of the wrestling news each issue

to my magazine was selling 2,000 copies is what with the print run that we were getting

because it was fresher shit.

I actually have here your hand-drawn, if you want to use the word draw,

layout of issued.

The layouts.

Yeah.

I've got some of those too

that I put in rags, paper, and pens when I did the book on the Memphis merchandising.

But yeah, I would just take a ruler

and a pen, and this is the way I'd like it to look on the page.

And then

it looked a little bit better when they finished with it than it did a very little bit.

than when I drew it out.

Yeah, I got to go find the finished copy of this to see if all these names got on here because you have a photo of Bill Dundee from a 5x7 print on the right.

You have a small corner in the left-hand corner, Steve Kern picture, the logo at the top, issue six, and then

best issue ever: Jerry Longer, Bill Dundee, Dutch Mantel, Outlaw Ron Bass, Steve Kern, Stan Lane, Terry Taylor, Carl Ferge, Kamala, Jimmy Hart, Sleep Round Sugar, Bobby Eaton, Condry and Austin, and more.

All on the camera.

And every single one of them was in there.

That was all the guys in the territory at one time.

All those names.

And more.

I'm going to go back in time.

Let's go here.

Now this is 1979.

Dear Jim, this is from July 20th, 79.

$50.

I have enclosed payment for your last package of material.

As you are probably aware, Starting with issue 54, we are doing only one edition of the Wrestling News.

We will also be on newsstands shortly.

Right now, Mrs.

Jarrett and Mrs.

Malone have decided to suspend doing special issues for their area until such time as attendance picks up again and makes it worthwhile.

I used most of your last package in issue number 50.

What was the date?

What was the date on July 20th, 1979?

That actually...

That's when everything was...

Yeah.

Well, business was picking up, but it had been crummy for the previous couple of months that's when robert fuller went back to knoxville the talent went back with him jarrett brought in

brought fargo back and did the tupelo concession stand thing but that was right about the time things started picking back up again oh actually i just found here this is interesting so this i'm not to jump ahead and i'm going back and forth like a time machine october 8th 1980 this is uh

Let me see, this is four pages.

This is from Melby.

You know, you said multiple typed up pages.

Dear Jim, hi.

It was real good talking to you on the phone on Monday.

I will try to go over everything we talked about on the phone in this letter, so we both have a copy of it in writing.

First of all, what you propose was a monthly Memphis Area Wrestling magazine.

It is to be 16 pages inside with a wrap-around glossy cover, such as the Madison Square Garden and AWA Picture Book type of magazines that we are already printing.

I've enclosed a sample of each so that you know exactly what I'm talking about.

By that point, you would have already known, though, right?

That you already seen those other programs.

Oh, yeah.

Well, and that's the thing is that I wasn't looking to do an entire magazine.

And he said monthly, and we were just like, let's do it and see what happens.

But

it was 16 pages.

There was no advertising.

It was just like a souped-up program magazine with color pictures on the cover that we could sell at the matches.

And that was the format for the first

three or four issues.

And then they came to me and said, well, now the problem is we're selling no wrestling news in the territory because everybody's buying your magazine.

So for the same price,

we will print you an entire full-size magazine if we can put our advertising in it.

So I got like, they got 15 pages of advertising or whatever, and I got an extra 15 pages or whatever of content.

So it made it harder to fill up.

But I got a magazine that was more than twice as big that we could sell for the same price.

And I did two of those.

And then

the number six was the last one because I was in the business.

I couldn't put my name on it.

And I didn't have time for it now.

Now, it is my understanding that you will be taking the pictures and writing the copy.

You, of course, can use anything we already have on file, including color separations.

Our job would be to set the type, do the actual layouts, and have them printed and shipped to you.

You, of course, will have to work with me so we get on a set schedule and also supply me with a rough dummy of how you want each issue to look.

From what you have told me over the phone, it is my understanding that this publication is being done with the permission of the Jarretts, that it will be sold alongside Jerry Lawer's program, which you do anyways,

and also our two magazines, The Wrestling News and The Rings Wrestling Magazine.

I don't want to cut in on any of the deals already existing or cut anyone out of money they are already earning.

I'm particularly interested in seeing that Pat Malone gets a fair shake on this deal, as he's been very loyal to us and has always sold a lot of our two magazines.

Was that something that came up?

Well, you know, plug in your book, Heroes and Friends, Cornettes Collectibles at jimcornet.com.

You talk about Pat Malone, the Green Shadow.

Here he is referenced here.

Was there any heat around this period of time with the idea that you were going to do this?

No.

And

at that time, Pat was getting the magazines, but he wasn't in charge of actually physically selling them in Louisville because.

That was the deal Teeny had with whoever was her driver, whether it be Sammy Malone or whether it be her niece, Donna, or earlier on Petey Welch or whoever it was,

is that they would get the percentage of selling the merchandise off the stand, and they had the wrestling news there along with all the pictures and everything else.

So

Pat really just, you know, came up and he got paid to come up and watch the locker room door.

Pat was so important

and had such history with, and he's the guy, as in my book, The Case is Made.

He built the Tennessee territory when they first started.

So

he was mostly selling his magazines down at the Memphis end where he went also.

And eventually, to be honest,

they just stopped selling as many of the wrestling news as wrestling news was.

only partially about Tennessee, whereas my magazine was all about it.

But

in a way, everybody was still making money because

if miss jarret was i wasn't selling them on my own she was buying the magazines from me and then turning around and selling them at the

at the uh merchandise stand to then turn around and add money to louisville wrestling enterprises that was paying pat to come and watch the door you see where i'm going with this yeah yeah it wasn't enough that everybody was like oh you're me it's like well this guy's going to make a hundred dollars over here we're going to make 150 over here everybody's

it's still going.

Remember, we had an issue we encountered in the Pat Malone file where I forget if it was Dick Steinborn.

It was someone where Pat Malone had like the Tennessee rights and they wanted to sell it in Knoxville.

Yeah, Steinbourne was working for the Knoxville office and taking pictures for them after he had retired from the ring.

And, well, but wait, Pat's our Tennessee representative.

Well, it's a completely different territory.

Pat doesn't go to Knoxville.

So they had to work those things out.

Here Here I have what I guess, I don't know if you had ever received this.

Here's what they sent to

the House of Print.

Championship Wrestling Number One magazine covers, same size as Madison Square Garden program.

1025 run nets to 2050 covers.

Delivered to House of Print.

Use blue type on yellow background.

House of Print.

Enclose are the inside pages for Wrestling Magazine Number One.

16 inside section on white, 50-pound paper, black ink only.

To be stapled and trimmed inside covers, you should already have received from Media Graphics.

Print run, 2,050.

25 copies to me.

2,025 copies by United Parcel Service as soon as you can to Mr.

Jim Cornett in Kentucky.

And it has your address here.

Boy, it was a whole lot easier communicating with the printer back in those days.

Yeah, just use some black ink.

It'll be all right.

I'm getting shit back and forth from our printers.

I don't even know how to fucking read it.

If I go back to the very beginning, I wonder what the very first thing in here is.

Again, it's a big file.

We can't go through everything, obviously.

We can't do this all day.

This is not dated, but the

letter after it says November 22nd, 76.

Oh, good lord.

So this is 76.

Dear Mr.

Keitzer, a short time ago I wrote you about contributing some photos to the Wrestling News NWA East Edition.

You replied that contributing photographers usually get a free classified ad.

It took me a little while to get together a list, prices, etc., so I could sell by mail, but I am ready now, so I've enclosed some sample photos as you requested.

They are all from the same card, as we recently had a spectacular here.

I have also enclosed my classified ad.

I

general.

Is this correct?

Question two,

how often should I contribute a photo or an article?

And question three, will you return any unwanted photos or keep them for future use?

I thank you very much for the inconvenience this letter causes.

Such an incident.

Hey, I'm back.

I'm 15.

I'm trying to fucking act professional.

I thank you very much for any inconvenience this letter causes you, and I hope my photos are worth the trouble.

Thank you again, sincerely, Jim Cornette.

And also.

And remember, we talked about this a few shows back

because they didn't pay.

They gave the classified ad, but then the boys didn't want their pictures being sold, you know, just in a rogue fashion.

And so Miss Jarrett called him and said, just send him some money.

Don't do the classified ad.

And it would have been a nightmare, not only getting that list together, but then filling all those individual orders and individual prints and everything.

It'd been chaos.

She sent him $25.

I thought you might need the full card and results that go with the photo story I've enclosed.

So here it is.

July 11th, Louisville Gardens.

Southern Heavyweight Championship match.

Jerry Lawer with Sam Bass, the champion, versus Gorgeous George Jr., the challenger.

That was two weeks before Sam Bass got killed.

Wow.

Wow.

NWA World Tag Team Championship bout.

The Assassins, the Champions, versus Tojo Yamamoto and Jerry Jarrett.

Who are the Assassins?

And the Assassins were, I don't know.

I think that was the two guys

that were the massed superstars for Nick Gulis at that time because

they weren't the real assassins.

They weren't even Roger Smith and Donnie Bass.

They were two guys.

that they put some belts on from the drawer of the office to have an all-title match card.

For the NWA Mid-America Championship, and I have the results here at the bottom too.

Roger Nature Boy Kirby, the champion, versus cowboy Frankie Lane, the challenger.

And those guys were working primarily at that point for Nick's,

the Birmingham end of the territory, Nashville, Chattanooga, and Birmingham.

But they came in because, again, that was Nick's belt, the Mid-America belt.

And as I recognize, Frankie Lane was a tremendous worker and Roger Kirby was great.

They had a fucking hell of a match.

How much did you get to see Roger Kirby?

Just that year.

In person, I've seen a few tapes here and there, but he was in both ends of the Tennessee Territory that year, and he was very good.

Very nice, high backdrops, you know, good physique for the time, very poised.

Jim, we have a return grudge NWA Southern Tag Championship out.

Phil Heckerson and Dennis Condry, the champions, versus the former champions Bill Dundee and Tommy Rich.

And that one was good.

That was the star of the night

because Hickerson and Condry were tremendous.

And Dundee, at that point, that was his first

babyface break.

He was working his fucking ass off.

For the NWA Southern Junior Heavyweight Championship, the champion Roy Lee Welch

versus the challenger Tommy Gilbert.

And again, that was another made-up belt because the Southern heavyweight title until 1974 was the

Southern Junior heavyweight title.

That went back to the origination of the belt in 1952.

But when Lawler got it, the matches with Fargo were still billed for the Southern Junior Heavyweight title.

But then

here's the Mongolian stomper, right?

And here's...

These other guys challenging for it, and they just slowly transitioned to the southern heavyweight title.

So,

again, this one was just another one.

So, they wanted six title matches, and I think Roy Lee was in Knoxville at that point.

Well, we'll get to that in a second when we go through the results.

The final match here, Jim, for the ladies' NWA U.S.

Championship, the champion Sylvia Hackney

versus the challenger, Don Marie.

I remember it, yeah.

And I got a nice little pose of Sylvia Hackney, as I recall.

Yeah, it just was that a real championship anywhere?

No.

No.

But here are the results you listed.

Lawler versus George, belt held up.

Tojo and Jarrett over the Assassins, DQ.

Lane over Kirby on DQ.

Hickerson and Condry over Dundee and Rich on DQ.

Gilbert versus Welch.

Welch didn't get there.

Yeah.

And then Hackney over Marie.

That's a lot of DQs.

And they held up the belt.

What was the reason for such a big card?

You know, July 11th for Louisville.

They had run the week before on July 4th.

And you would think that would be the super spectacular.

But every once in a while,

it was a thing that Nick would do when.

I mean, there were a couple of matches there, Hickerson of Condry against Dundee and Rich and Lawler against Gorgeous George, based on the television and the things they had going on.

That was, you know, two good main events.

But Nick would just do something every once in a while where, if he didn't have faith in the card or whatever the case,

night of champions, super spectacular.

And he would literally do what he just did there: make up a bunch of titles and have somebody come that weren't regularly defending the territory and have somebody come in from just

the neighboring area to defend it.

And it's, he thought that was going to be the big deal.

deal six title matches

but you know but to be honest i was there in the crowd the people didn't care about the the title matches that they didn't know the title they just treated them like regular matches

maybe that's a lesson tony kahn could learn yeah let's see if he learns it this literally has like every envelope you sent a letter in

every it's it's insane like how much stuff is here some stuff he typed on the back of your letter His response.

First, got your letter.

This is April 7, 77.

Glad to hear you are satisfied with everything.

I have your negatives of Rocky Johnson, and as soon as I am done with them for cover of issue number 42, I'll be returning them.

I've enclosed a print you sent me of Harley Race, but I would like to borrow the negatives for use in color in issue 43.

There is no rush on this, but I would like to use it.

If possible, can you send that to to me?

When you send the negative, send the print along back as well so I can use it.

I hope that covers everything for right now.

Thank you for your great work.

I am rushed as usual and really appreciate your help, Norman Keitzer.

That's very nice.

And then I have this letter here, and we'll probably end with this, if not the thing right after it.

Not dated.

Dear Mr.

Keitzer, as I know you are busy, I will make this short.

Two things have arisen I must inform you of.

Number one being that Miss Christine Jarrett asked me to send you a negative of Rocky Johnson with his southern title belt, excuse me, with his southern title belt to use on the cover of the next Wrestling News NWA East Edition.

Or, if that cover is already set, then the issue after that.

If it is at all possible, I'd like the negative back, even if it takes three or four months, Just as long as I get it eventually.

The second thing is, due to several circumstances which have come up, I will not be able to sell any photos through the mail for the time being.

Yeah, there you go.

So if it is possible, I would like to have my ad dropped from the magazine until this is cleared up.

However, I would still like you to use my photos even without the ad, if this is acceptable to you.

I expect to send you some photos of Harley Race with the NWA World Title Belt very soon.

I realize I I have been delusion.

I have been delusioning you.

Deluge.

I have been delusion you.

I have been delusional.

I've been delusion you with photos, but I feel these are more important than the others, as it may enable you to get the jump on all the other wrestling publications in the matter of race winning the belt.

Thank you for your time.

Forgot one thing.

I think either negative number 11 or 13 would be best to use.

Thank you.

Signed sincerely, Jim Cornette.

Well, there it is.

How's your friend?

How do you like this look back at your past?

The trip down memory lane.

I'm just trying to remember now whether or not that they ever sent me that negative back of Rocky Johnson with the southern title belt.

If not, I may have it here.

Hold on.

What is this?

Well, if you do, I'm going to sue you.

Here's a photo of you, Jim Cornett, WFIA Photography Award.

Posed.

Boy.

In parentheses, posed, winner 1977.

And it's the pose shot is you standing there holding the award.

Yeah.

They had to label it just to make sure you know he's posing.

Well, you know, Jim, this look at memory lane, of course, from the files.

We'll have more of this in the future.

And of course, more of the Pfeffer files that Jim has gone and researched at Notre Dame.

But all this research, all this looking back could make someone tired.

Well, it could.

It could make you tired enough where you wanted to go to bed and go to sleep.

But what would you do, Brian, if you wanted to go to bed and go to sleep, but you had no bed to go to?

You had maybe you got a bed frame, but you don't have anything to put in it.

You don't have that big giant marshmallow-like thing

that you can just fall back in and like floating on a cloud.

That's where our friends at Helix Sleep come in.

Because folks, they make things.

If you tried to use it like a marshmallow, it would take you months to eat one of these mattresses.

Brian, I think you'll say that's a fair statement.

I'm not in any way engaging in hyperbole that it would take you three or four months to eat one of these mattresses.

They are not edible.

Let's not think of them as marshmallows.

I don't think that.

Well, that's another reason it would take you a long time.

It may take you longer than that because it's not food and you wouldn't be able to.

Let's not.

Let's, whoa, what's that?

It's helix.

I'm just saying, I'm not suggesting you try to eat it.

I'm saying it would take you a long time, but it's like laying on a giant marshmallow or possibly a cloud.

Maybe it would, how long would it take you to snort a cloud?

It would take you months.

Well, you can't snort a mattress, but you could lay on it.

Folks, right now, you're probably thinking to yourself, how do I get the Helix mattress?

What you need to do.

So many things.

Yes.

Yes.

Wondering things.

You go to helixleep.com.

That's H-E-L-I-Xsleep.com.

And you pick out the mattress that you want.

They'll help you.

They'll make suggestions.

Depending on how you like to lay around the house, how you like to sleep, what kind of position, whether you're a corpulent individual or real bony.

You know, they've even got a special mattress for people with bony knees.

You've seen that.

I do not know that because I do not believe that is true, but they have great mattresses for everyone, no matter how much weight you have in your knees.

Or how many bones you have protruding from your sack of flesh.

I'm telling you.

What are you telling me?

Exactly.

I'm telling you that no matter how deformed or misshapen you are,

you will find comfort on a helix mattress some way or another.

All you got to do is take the quiz, pick the one that's best for you.

Do you sweat profusely when you sleep?

Well, they've got ones that'll cool you down.

Or if you're just a shivering bone-chilled creature at night, they got things that'll heat you up.

They've got things that'll just do all kinds of things to you while you're asleep and don't know about it and won't have any memory of it.

These mattresses,

they'll treat you right.

Whether you got snoring or back pain or sleep apnea

or all these other things, you just dive onto a helix mattress and it's like you've been put in suspended animation.

Studies have shown that your cells actually grow at a slower rate while you're laying on a helix mattress.

There are no studies that possibly help with aging.

Helix has not supplied us with any of these studies you quote here.

And I know that you don't have to.

No, I've been studying on it.

I've been thinking about it.

You know, if they made one of these mattresses that would slow down your cellular aging,

then you could actually be younger.

You thinking about it is different than the declarative statement saying that it is in the middle of the day.

Well, I'm studying on it.

Where do other people's studies come from?

Listen, I know someone who studies all sorts of numbers all the time.

And i think if you asked him or asked anyone else if you asked people here at last matter if you asked people at castle cornet who aren't on the line they would tell you how much they love their helix sleep mattress we're probably going to be getting another one pretty soon here at the house because we love them so much yes

yeah well that one that one guy you're talking about

people can't understand what the fuck he's saying to begin with.

So anyway, go to helixleep.com right now

and use this special code helixleep.com jce

helixleep.com slash jce.

The labor day sale has been extended.

You're going to get 25% off site-wide, no matter how many of these mattresses you buy, the small ones, the big ones, the thick ones, the thin ones, the lovely ones, and the ones that are just a little homely.

25% off every single thing on the site.

That's the Labor Day sale extended.

Helixleep.com JCE.

And I mean, boom,

flat of your back, you go, and you're just laying there.

And they don't even have to strap you in.

You won't want to get up.

However, if you do want to be strapped in, they have a mattress they don't know.

I'm going to try to get ahead of you here.

They do not have that.

What they have are some handles on the side where you slip the handles.

They need mattresses for everyday people like you and me, folks.

We all need a good night's sleep.

No matter who you are, how you are, where you are.

You need a good night's sleep.

We can get you on with a great deal.

Jim,

that's the official.

Let's wrap it up with the promo code and the link and nothing else.

I

love everyday

people and mattresses they sleep on at helixleep.com slash JCE, 25% off side-wide.

Use the code to save the money or elsewhere, fuck you, you'll pay full price.

A great

I'm thrown off, but it's a great bed to throw yourself on.

He would sleep.

And with that, Jim, we got some questions.

We better.

Let's hurry.

I've got a lot of questions.

Well, I ain't got many answers.

This question was sent via the Cult of Cornet Facebook group by Christopher D'Onofrio.

Jim, during his WWF run,

Mr.

Perfect was one of the most gifted workers in the company, but he always seemed stuck in the upper mid-card instead of breaking through as a top champion.

From your perspective as a booker and a manager, why do you think Vince McMahon never pulled the trigger on pushing Kurt Hennig to that next level?

And do you think realistically he could have carried the WWF title in that era?

Last question first.

Kurt was, as they said, probably the best worker in the ring.

His shit was, you know, flawless and he had a style all his own and he was so effortless and natural.

But I don't know,

because think of how few champions Vince had from the time the Hogan era started until

the time that the attitude era, you know, they were winning it on Monday and losing it on Friday.

You know what I'm saying?

Just constantly switching belts.

I don't know that Kurt

had the

Randy Savage look or the Hulk Hogan look or the Ultimate Warrior look that Vince wanted.

I think that Kurt would have probably, had the NWA progressed

in the latter half of the 80s as it was in the last half of the 70s and the first part of the 80s.

Kurt would have been a fine NWA champion.

I don't see him as a WWF champion because of what Vince was doing at that period of time and

who he was featuring, how few people he was featuring, and that most of them had to be a dominant baby face.

Kurt,

and as an AWA champion, Kurt was the only good thing about the last few years of that company.

But it was a different philosophy about who to put the belt on.

It was the guy to have the best match with a variety of people, like a lot of times the NWA was, and who

could draw money and who could,

you know, take the schedule.

But with Vince, it was a whole different thing.

And Kurt was not,

I don't want to say Randy Savage was a cartoon character, but

he looked like some kind of goddamn celebrity.

Kurt was more

just a great pro wrestler.

You see what I'm saying?

Am I rambling here?

No, and I think, you know, he did get a good push in 1990.

They gave him a run with Hogan.

He wasn't the guy to take the belt off Hogan, but he got to work with Hogan.

That still says a lot about what Vince McMahon thought of him.

He got the Intercontinental title and Bobby Heenan after that.

You know, you only do that to someone in 1990 that you had plans for.

Yeah, I mean, it wasn't that everybody respected from Vince all the boys in the ring.

Everybody respected how good Kurt was.

I think it just, you know, it's almost unfair to say, well, why didn't he make him champion?

He didn't make almost anybody else champion either.

But in 92, he makes Brett champion.

And in 91, Brett beat Kurt for, or Mr.

Perfect at the time, for the Intercontinental title at SummerSlam.

And that's the last time he wrestled for almost a year and a half.

He became Ric Flair's Bobby Davis because Bobby Eaton didn't want to go on the road.

And then, by the way, that was one of Bobby Eaton's favorite matches.

When I went over to his house one day in Charlotte, he had that SummerSlam match with Brett and Hennig on, watch this.

These guys are great.

And they were.

It was.

But, you know, even though he was around and he was on TV and at times, he was a commentator.

He was on primetime wrestling, again, with Ric Flair.

But as like Brett Hart and Sean Michaels are finally Brett first, obviously, but getting their chances singles.

to get a push, Vince has to change things because of the steroid controversy.

Hogan's gone.

It makes you wonder how different things could have been in that few-year period between SummerSlam 91 and the end of 92.

If he hadn't gotten hurt, if he had been an active wrestler, that may have been the window, like to kind of build it up and set it up right there because it happened for Brett right after that.

Yeah, and the back problems, you know, were what his downfall was.

But

have you noticed that everybody that was a great worker or performer in the day,

they eventually, oh, gosh, but then they blew their so-and-so

when the big chance might have finally gotten there.

Well, when you got there in 93, he had returned and he was working with Shawn Michaels that summer, had some really good matches.

And then he was gone.

And then he came back when you were on the booking committee, right?

In 96, 90.

I think it was 96.

Yes.

Yes.

What was the story there?

Did Vince ever like what were Vince's plans or how did Vince see him at that point years after this early part we're talking about?

God, I'm thinking he was one of the guys with the Lloyds of London insurance deal, right?

At one point.

Yeah.

At least because that's that was the thing is

there was a similar thing going on with Rick Roode at one point with Animal of the Road Warriors who everyone from Minnesota.

All these guys, all the Minnesota guys had got the Lloyds of London policies.

And

Animals was somehow settled that he was injured where he he could never have a single match again.

But if he had tag matches, it was okay.

They they wouldn't ask for their money back.

And so every once in a while, we'd try to book him in a single match to set something up for

a house show or a pay-per-view.

No, no, I can't do a single.

And I'm trying to remember

at that period of time in 96, but I think the idea was

that,

you know, Kurt has so much to offer, but even if he's injured, let's, you know,

he can still be a personality of some description as they tried him,

you know, in different

capacities, manager,

commentator, whatever.

And

it just, I think at that point, like with Roode, a lot of those guys, they were handing out bigger checks and more checks in WCW for guys who had a name but couldn't wrestle, but we'll find something for you to do.

And that's why a lot of those guys gravitated.

down south at that point.

But of course, when he did, he couldn't use the name Mr.

Perfect.

He had to go back to being Kurt Hennig.

But everybody kind of knew, you know.

Jim, our next question sent via the Cult of Cornet Facebook group by Phil in Whitehall, Pennsylvania.

I'll get right to it.

Can Jim just come out and admit that The Undertaker was one of the biggest stooges ever in wrestling?

The obsessive Vince loyalty and stories that have been shared over the years sure make it feel that way.

And personally, I will never forgive him for snitching on Jim and ruining a new jack and bullet Bob Armstrong talk show appearance from happening.

So, Jim, is the Undertaker one of the biggest stooges in wrestling history?

No, my God.

And imagine how much territory that takes in, too.

No, Undertaker was...

loyal to Vince McMahon.

There's no doubt about that.

And we've talked about that here with a number of these guys.

And

I don't blame them.

And I don't,

you know, I can understand it when

here's a guy who in Undertaker's case for 35 years,

in John Cena's case for 25 years, and some of these other guys' case, however long.

He gave them a spot.

He gave them a push.

He made them more money than they'd ever dreamed of in their life.

He made them international superstars.

He's had a close personal relationship with them.

And

I'm pretty sure that they can probably

see that his face has melted and his mind is whatever.

All the things that have happened to him at this age, but

you know, same thing happens to your grandfather, unless you didn't like him to begin with, you probably feel bad for him.

So I don't see Undertaker as a stooge for continuing to support Vince.

And Undertaker was not a guy that went and told on other guys to get them in trouble or to

take their spot away or whatever.

Where I've seen Undertaker get involved is where he thought that something

might be detrimental to business.

or something that the boss needed to know.

And

let's bring it out so everybody can talk about it rather than making any mistakes.

And the talk show thing, for the people who might not know,

is the week after Taker was at our Johnson City show where we had the

Pikeville show where we had the match with the gangsters and et cetera.

He had heard that Bob Armstrong, the gangsters, myself.

Some of the other Smogy Mountain guys were going to do a Jerry Springer show.

And because I was with Vince at the time, also, he said, Does Vince know about it?

I said, No, because I didn't really think about it.

He said, He should know.

And he talked to those guys.

He's probably not a good thing you do it.

All right.

And then Vince called me and talked me out of it.

But,

but it wasn't like he was running around trying to get people in trouble.

His was on a level of,

is this good for business or is this guy fucking around?

If he's going to be a problem,

do we, same thing as I talked about when

these guys have pressure on not hurting John Cena because he's worth $50 million now, even though the monetary amounts were smaller.

If this guy that we're about to push and other people are going to put him over is going to be a fuck-up, we need to know now rather than after we do it, that kind of thing.

So I think that

is probably the only stooging that I know of that's come into play.

Where's the line that separates, you know, the guy who is a stooge, who just runs to the office and tries to get people in trouble, you know, whether it's Chief Jay Strongbow or whoever it may be, plenty of people throughout the years.

What's the line between just being a stooge and being a top star, keeping your boss informed?

It seems like it would be a hard distinction to separate.

Well, sometimes you know it when you see it.

You can't even say one, but it's sometimes even the boss might go, oh, Jesus Christ.

I don't have time to mess with that.

You think that's worth it type of thing, stooging.

But it's one of those deals where you know it.

If you see it, you can justify it on a case-by-case basis.

This was important to know, or what the fuck.

I don't care.

All right.

So I guess that's a vote for no.

He is not the biggest stooge of all time.

Not nearly the biggest stooge of all time.

Jim, who's the tallest stooge of all time?

Now that.

No, wait a minute.

That might have been Plowboy Frazier.

All right.

Well,

we may return to this topic again.

But only if Lawler was booking.

Jim, our next question sent via the Cult of Cornet Facebook group by Craig Churchill.

Does WWE have a babyface problem?

It seems to me like Triple H doesn't know how to book babyfaces.

Either they're losing clean the heels in competitive matches, they're being completely dominated in a post-match after birth, or they're just idiots,

or they're just idiots in whatever angles they're involved in, except for perhaps the main eventers.

Do you think the average babyface's ability to keep things even with the heel side of the locker room has been diminished?

I think everything he just said describes AEW.

Rather, the WWE has a pretty goddamn heavy list of top babyfaces these days.

Okay, hold on, Punk.

Fucking Roman.

But again, using the Cody.

Using the criteria,

this side.

Using the criteria that Craig Churchill had here.

Well, and who are we not to use the Churchill criteria?

Either losing in competitive matches, being dominated in the post-match, or just idiots in the angles.

Would you say that about any of those guys?

I don't think so.

Would you?

What about using here?

I'd say it about one guy, but not really falling under this being a babyface problem.

But either babyface or a heel in the last year, John Cena.

He's been the king of, I come out there, do something, get knocked out, get laid out, he's down.

And then that's the end of the segment.

That's happened a few times.

Yeah, but

when he was trying to be a heel, he was trying to do that and get the babyface over.

It just, they didn't want to see it.

And

I'm glad you mentioned his name because there's another babyface, even though they tried to sabotage it.

When you've got CM Punk, Roman Reigns, Cody Rhodes, Jey Uso, and John Cena

for a little while all in the same place, I don't, you know,

the problem with the babyfaces may be on the undercard, but nobody gives a shit about the heels on the undercard either.

Jim, our next question

is sent via the Cult of Cornet Facebook group by Scott Gilliland.

Let me get that right.

Scott Gilliland.

I wonder if he's related to Greg the Office Boy.

He should have put that here.

No relation, but he didn't.

So we will just have to guess.

In the days of strict Kfabe, how was travel handled for savage or wild men type wrestlers?

Example, Kamala or the missing link.

The story of Jerry Lawler pulling over Kamala.

Yes, that's what it says.

Pulling over Kamala.

Yeah.

Made me think about this question.

I can't imagine James Harris just strolling out of the back of the Mid-South Coliseum and hopping in his car in front of fans.

Well,

do you know,

have we told the story of Lawler and Kamala?

I'm not sure if I know it.

So I don't know if I can.

All right.

Well, first of all, to answer the question, then we maybe we'll end with the story because it's better than the answer to the question.

In the territory days, it was easier.

for the crazy wrestlers to travel because most of them had a manager or they could hop in a car with one of the boys.

They weren't sitting at the goddamn Cinnabon at the airport, right?

Where you could go up and, hey, your flight's late too, huh?

So it was easier.

In the territory days, Kamala

in the Memphis Territory and then in Louisiana had Friday,

had his attendant, which.

Because when they started the Kamala gimmick in Memphis, his manager was J.J.

Dillon.

They were working with the Florida Territory at the time.

Lawler was making shots down there.

And to make Kamala different and even more dangerous, instead of giving him to Jimmy Hart,

they said he was sent in by J.J.

Dillon.

And J.J.

sent in videos and came in to work a couple of days.

They even got Lawler and Hart together for a gimmick with Kamala and J.J.

And then, of course, Hart turned on him again.

But point being, so Friday was Buddy Wayne in a fucking military fatigues and a beekeeper's mask, but he was the mute handler for Kamala at the start.

And he'd take the

mask and the spear and all that stuff.

And then later on, it was

Frank Dalton in Louisiana.

And didn't they have a Kim Chi

in the WWF for a while with him?

Steve Lombardi.

Yes, brawler.

So

point being, a lot of the guys,

the crazy guys, as he said, would have managers or you wouldn't just see them really

traveling in society.

But the story.

Hey, what do you like better, Friday or Kimchi?

Actually,

I don't know that I liked either because the My Man Friday was not really fleshed out.

We just kind of called him that.

I don't even know if he had that as an official name.

And then he was Friday in Louisiana, but that didn't make sense because

Friday was not the

assistant of a jungle beast.

Friday was the guy from the jungle that was

the assistant of who the fuck was it?

Where are we going?

Where am I going with this?

In literature, My Man Friday.

It was a famous book.

You know, don't you?

You're an educated man.

I don't know.

Jacquesau?

I don't know.

No, it was, it was

the hit, the hitchhike, the

goddamn shipwreck.

Robinson Crusoe.

Robinson Crusoe and my man Friday.

There you go.

Robinson Crusoe wasn't a jungle beast.

He was the guy that was shipwrecked in the jungle.

So it didn't really fit for the jungle savage to have Friday.

You know, anyway, nevertheless.

And Kim kimchi is a fucking Chinese dish, isn't it?

I don't know if it's Chinese.

I think it may be Korean, but I'm not sure.

Whatever the case, it doesn't apply to Uganda.

No.

But the point is, a lot of times you would have to, unfortunately, drive your own car in those days, but

the fans were kept away from the back door of the building in a lot of places because of security reasons, the heels having to be walked out by the cops.

When he left the Mid South

we had fenced in parking in the back of the building there.

So most of the fans didn't see it.

But

the story with Lawler that he alluded to, and I swear to God, this is famous in the Tennessee territory.

Lawler back in those days, and I think Danny Davis may have been in the car with him.

He may have had.

That was when he was using Danny Davis as his babyface manager.

But Kamala's in the territory and he's driving one night late after the matches.

It's pitch black after midnight down Interstate 40 between

Memphis and Jackson or whatever it is.

And Lawler, because he,

all the guys that drove the Tennessee territory, when you made

the same towns every week for year after year after year, you knew all the stops.

You knew all the exits.

You knew the twists and turns in the road.

And you also had

equipment along with you where you could play ribs on people because the guys lived in their cars.

You literally, if you worked the Memphis territory for one year,

then you did

20,000 miles a year in your car just going from Nashville to Memphis and back.

And that was just on Mondays.

So anyway,

Lawler sees Kamala in his old car driving down the road, and Lawler pulls up behind him.

And Lawler's got the flashing red light.

That was a big deal back in those days.

You get a flashing light, so you can act like a cop or the CB radios,

whatever the fuck.

Guys would orchestrate ribs with each other.

So, Lawler pulls Kamala over with the flashing light.

And there's Kamala.

He's huge, and he's a black man, and it's in West Tennessee and it's after dark in the middle of the night.

And he's got the window rolled down because Lauder can see Kamala's arm resting on

the door there.

And

he said, I now, I don't you get out of the car, boy.

Sound like fucking

Sheriff Buford T.

Justice, right?

And Kamala gets that, don't look back here.

Just keep turned away from me now, son.

And Kamala stands up beside the car and he's facing away from Lawler.

And all he can see is that red light.

He hears that southern sheriff's voice.

And so Lawler comes up behind Kamala.

He's now, don't you move?

And he starts patting him down.

And he pats him around the waist, right?

Make sure you ain't got no gun.

Pats him around the side of his pockets there.

And then he reaches his hand in between Kamala's legs, grabs his boss.

And Kamala turned around and looked down.

And there was Lawler looking up at him, going, hi.

Oh, goddammit, King.

This wasn't really about him driving a gimmick, though, was it?

No.

But it's just a funny story that, you know, the caller happened to mention there.

But yeah,

Kamala thinks he's got goddamn god pool connor of the birmingham police department pulled him over in the middle of night side of the road fucking pitch black nowhere got nobody to turn to and then the cop reaches in and between his legs and grabs his balls who was longer with

and that's why i say i think it might have been danny davis was in the car with him

but

I mean, that's it was ribs that you would fucking pull on guys.

Anything for the Fargo's having the naked midget in the trunk at toll booths?

too i've told some of the stories about the

the naked girls and or things going on with the dome light as you pass the and it it just depended on what came to anybody's mind when they saw one of the the boys going back to the original question in terms of the traveling for savages or wild men like what about like the mongolian stomper Did Bearcat Wright drive him when he managed him?

That's the thing.

Archie was a bit of a loner and quiet kept to himself, but he always had a manager.

And if he wasn't riding with a manager, he could ride with one of the other heels.

And if he, again,

if you were at a spot show and the parking lot was around back in the dark underneath an oak tree and you snuck out or whatever, but it wasn't like

it wasn't like today where

there's a drone shot of all the wrestlers, you know, appearing in front of the building 10 hours before the show is going to start.

Guys were fucking pouring in between 10 minutes to seven and seven o'clock for an eight o'clock show.

And boom, you get there, you park, you rush in, and do the same thing on the way out.

It wasn't a big prolonged.

But now, talking about flying, I've told this story before, but

in the days before

all of the security restrictions,

Jim Crockett Promotions used to fly fly the barbarian

under the name

A/slash Barbarian.

That was the way his ticket was made out.

I've seen it.

And I heard him paged when they had to change the gate of a flight and they were alerting the passengers.

They paged is a barbarian at gate 24.

A barbarian at gate 24, please call.

And then he stands up.

Yes.

Your name's Smalak.

That's my impression of him and Body Sham.

Body Sham.

Body Sham?

And I know people are going to say bullshit, but I flew as Ole Anderson twice because if they bought tickets and the card changed or somebody left the territory, they would just, here, you take Oli's ticket and fucking go.

But again, to go back to the original question, should the barbarian ever be seen driving a car?

Should Abdullah the butcher be seen by a fan ever behind the wheel of a car?

Well, if you shuck

the corn right down to the cob, no, that does kind of give it away.

But that's the thing.

I've said it wasn't like a habitual thing where they were

widespread being seen going about their own business like they were just normal, like you and me.

There were managers or other heels or groups or people,

you know, bopping out in the darkness where it wasn't just on display,

you know, for a widespread audience.

But no, if anybody did see them, and sometimes you did, that was

kind of a dichotomy in terms of what, how they were presented versus what they were doing.

But you be the one to go up to Abdullah and tell him, don't drive that fucking car.

I'm the one who ran into Abdullah coming back from Fan Week at 95 in the airport in Atlanta.

Me and Marty Gorman, Abdullah was there in his white suit.

He stood out like a sore thumb.

So

I've seen it in real action.

That's an awful big thumb.

Jim, one last thing before we get out of here.

I see this is a couple people have sent this over.

Keith Lee

tweeted out.

My God, I forgot about him.

You honor me.

I appreciate you for that.

All my gratitude.

I'd like to take this moment to remind you that you also are boundless.

Additionally, I'll take a moment to reassure you that a return to the ring will certainly happen,

though I won't post how or when.

Much love.

So, uh, what in the world?

Um,

don't you think it's it's maybe time that

he might

just not be thinking about doing that anymore?

The only thing that will be weird is if, in, let's say, the next year or so,

if he shows up in WWE or TNA,

that's really it.

WWE or TNA.

And he starts appearing on TV regularly

and doing good, it's going to just make people wonder what the hell has really happened in AEW.

Like, what he's doing.

He's been there.

There's got to be something going on.

with his health.

And there's been rumors of his health, you know, not being good and he was sick that we know of at one point in time and came back but

i mean

if he was able to wrestle in any way shape or form and wanted to

then you would think that he would have done it in the last couple of years wouldn't you

you know again aew needs stars They need people who could at least look like stars.

And,

you know, Keith Lee was tag team champions with Swerve, and then Swerve went one way.

Keith Lee left the television show after being called a big motherfucker by Rick Ross.

That's right, he was a big motherfucker, and then he disappeared, and so did the tattoo guys that beat him up, and so did Rick Ross.

Only Swerve.

My God, I've, you know, what you have brought back that entire angle to me.

Now,

none of those people were ever seen again.

No,

but Swerve's all right.

And I guess we'll see him again.

Well, no, he's not.

He's hurt.

He's out.

Well, we'll see what happens with Keith Lee.

You know, he was impressive in NXT when we saw him there.

And apparently, he was even more impressive before that in the Indies.

Apparently, for fans of Pro Wrestling Gorilla, he had like one of the best matches ever there.

And he just has fallen off the face of the earth.

Yes, something.

Something happened.

He didn't

thrill anybody the last time that we saw him either.

And I'm not trying to bury the guy if it's a health issue.

And he's also,

he's older than we thought he was because, and he made us check when he let his hair go gray and looked like suddenly like fucking father time or,

you know, Fred Sanford's best friend, Grady.

So I don't.

He looked older than Grady, I think.

Well, Grady had a little pep at his step.

Yeah, Grady, I think, looked younger than he was.

I'm not even sure that that's gone the right way.

But nevertheless, point is: I don't know what's going on with Keith Lee, but if he wants to do something, he better hurry up because his clock is probably ticking unless it's already tucked.

Well, Jim, with that, we'll tuck it in.

Our drive-through is closed

and shake it off,

yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, more action next week

here on the drive-thru.

of course, go through the archives.

Patreon.com, Mick.

Patreon.com slash Coronet.

$5 a month gets you access to the archives.

Going back to 2013,

patreon.com slash coronet.

And of course, the official Jim Cornette YouTube channel.

Just go to YouTube and subscribe today.

Full episodes, clips of the episodes, omnibus collections, that great artwork by George Levinitis, other guest artists.

And of course, you can hear how Jim got the nickname Mickey only on the official Jim Cornette YouTube channel.

Coronets Collectibles at JimCornet.com.

What's going on, Mickey?

Heroes and Legends by Jim Cornette goes on sale Saturday, October 11th at noon Eastern at jimcornet.com, along with discounts on action figures and other merchandise that we're going to be talking about in the coming weeks.

Hey, Mickey, that's what they're going to be saying.

Give me another one of those books.

At jimcornet.com.

You know, Tony Basil was dating Jerry from Devo.

I found out just, I'm on a real Devo kick right now.

But years ago, not recently.

Yes.

Yes.

If I had an organ, I'd play it in the morning.

I'd play it in the evening all over this desk.

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, we want to remind you that the wrestling news is there for you each and every day, wherever you find your favorite podcast.

Look for Arcadian Vanguards, the Wrestling News, for your wrestling news without opinion, conjecture, paywall, or any other crap.

Just the wrestling news.

The drive-thru is brought to you by the law offices of Steven Pinu, 877-50 Steve.

Get even with Stephen at newlawoffice.com.

And with that, that's it for Jim Pegan.

I'm the great Brian Last.

We'll see you in a few days on the experience.

And next week, back here on the drive-thru, Tally Ho.