Jim Cornette Experience - Episode 541: Behind The Curtain

Episode Date: July 19, 2024

This week on the Experience, Jim reviews WrestleMania XL: Behind The Curtain, as well as Smackdown! Plus Jim talks about The Iron Claw, Afa in court, Khan money, Nevada, and more! Also, Jim reviews classic audio of Dream Machine quitting Jimmy Hart's First Family in 1981! Follow Jim and Brian on Twitter: @TheJimCornette @GreatBrianLast Join Jim Cornette's College Of Wrestling Knowledge on Patreon to access the archives & more! https://www.patreon.com/Cornette Subscribe to the Official Jim Cornette channel on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/OfficialJimCornette Visit Jim's official site at www.JimCornette.com for merch, live dates, commentaries and more! You can listen to Brian on the 6:05 Superpodcast at 605pod.com or wherever you find your favorite podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Like the midnight and the rock and roll. He's in a fight for wrestling soul using a racket and some mind control. He's Jim Cornett. The keys to the future held by the past and with tag deep art. Kind of a slow week in wrestling and nothing important going on in the real world. So it's a calm and cool edition of the Jim Cornett experience. And joining me today, Hawaiian Brian the podcasting Lion, the King of the Arcadian Vanguard.

Podcast Network, Mr. Co-host to you, he's so cool, he's a Chili. The great, Brian Last, everybody. Aloha, Jim. A pleasure to be here once again. Chili Willie has been airing on Me TV tunes and, of course, even on Me TV with the Woody Woodpecker hour in the morning on Saturdays, but it's a pleasure to be here once again. I think we're going to have a good time talking about who knows what this week. You didn't even talk about my accent. Am I doing him well? Who are you doing exactly? Nikola Vokoff. That was not Nikolai Volkov. Well, it is the way I do him.

That was the worst Nikolai Volkov ever heard. Well, you know, these goddamn accents, you know, see, I don't have an accent. I'm one of these people who just has a flat voice. You can't tell what part of the country I'm from, right? But Nikolai, go ahead. You could probably say the South. I would say people would probably guess. No, nobody would ever guess that.

So when we went to Mid-South in 1984, the nicest guy in the locker room was Nikolai Volkov, right? Just a big kid, he's so funny. He's always playing the practical jokes. I'm talking about the exercise tube where he'd have somebody stick it to guys here and then he'd blow in it and scare him to death from behind or whatever. And so the sleeves of my jacket together before I'd go out. So when I tried to put it on, my arms wouldn't go through.

but he when I got there and there was Butch Reed and there was Hacksaw Duggan and there was Junkyard Dogg and there were a lot of strong promos right and Nicola bless him

he had the accent and he really he wasn't Russian but he was like Jerry Novak the bounty hunter he wasn't Russian but he was from somewhere in that geographic part of the world that the accent sounds the same and they could kind of speak Russian and or what...

Do you remember what Nikola was, was he? What Czechoslovian, was he? That was going to be my guess, but it's something in the Eastern European block. In the block over there. No K. They got the K out. But anyway, so he hears all these promos, and Butch Reed is just slaying the guys, right? With his material like, you know, I'm standing here, I'm so cool, I'm chilly.

Or Butch, one time he said, Taylor, you got two chances of beating me slim and none and slim just left town. So Nikolai, he starts using this, kind of in the locker room, he'll drop it in every once in a while. He's taking the lines, but he's trying to do him with his accent. Then he does it on TV one day. He stands up here and he cuts the promo. He says, and let me tell you this, you have two chances of beating me, Slim and Nunn, and Slim has walk away from town.

And Watts stood up and said, Goddair's 10,000 comedians out of work and you're telling jokes. We don't need a funny Russian. And then another time he and Darso were doing the, you know, the promo and Nikolai said, we're so cool, we feel chilly.

It was funny to me. No, it's funny. I mean, you don't hit how badly he spoke English well enough. well that's true he did have a very thick accent and it wasn't like a really a put on thing or anything as a way he would talk to you in the locker room also but a very nice guy wonderful guy how big was he in person oh my god see he wasn't like a bodybuilder where he had the abs and he was all cut and everything so that it you know it was a different time he was closing in on six five or six six, well, maybe six. He was so wide and broad that you didn't get a good idea of how tall he was,

but he was at least 3.30. And with that big chest, he was strong as a bull. And, you know, he could still move. And even at, when we got there, my God, he had to be 40. He'd been in the business since the late 60s. And he could still, you know, he wasn't a Chris Colt style of bumper, but he could move around and he was quick for a guy that size. And he had to be 40. And he had been a boxer, shoot, real boxer. It is younger days. So those fucking fans that wanted to mess with, they didn't have any idea what fucking hit him.

He'd just walk away from people and they'd be laying on the ground. But he was just a big, big pussy cat. Did you ever meet Nikolai Volkov? Yeah, several times because he worked for Dennis. Oh, that's right. He had a long-ass career. If you really think about when he started and how long he worked, And the different periods of time he was on top,

it's a pretty remarkable career. Yeah, he was one of the Mongols when, and they were a top tag team when he'd only been to business a couple of years. Yeah. And he was, you know, he was the, he sounded enough like a Mongol, even if he wasn't of Asian descent or whatever with that accent for the 60s. They didn't know where the fuck Mongolia was.

And the other guy, the other guy, Bola was from, or he was He was the promoter He was, well, yeah Newton Tatry He was from like Pittsburgh Wasn't he? He was so he was even further from Mongolia

Did they do promos? I don't know There's very little footage out there that I've said, have you seen footage of any of their matches or anything? I've seen some footage and it may even be 16 millimeter from like the old garden

not even not the old garden but the garden and the uh the garden after they moved to the new garden it's the garden now it's the current gardens but i saw some footage i know i've seen but no promo footage and you know i don't know i don't know how again too there was a period where they didn't have tv but i think this was a period where they did have tv well but also they worked they were big in pittsburgh for for bruno that's right right so anyway all right before we get in of the program today. It may be shorter than normal. We don't know what we're doing actually yet.

And thankfully, there's not a lot that's going on. We apologize if anybody's disappointed that we're potentially in and out here and only a few hours today. But this story has a silver lining. It will perk up at the end. So don't anybody just jump off a bridge in the middle of it thinking, what the fuck? but I want to send a special get well out to Stacey's mother Jan who flew all the way across the country to visit us to be admitted to the hospital

for the past couple months we've been planning a vacation for Stacy's mom and stepfather to come out and visit for a couple weeks and see Louisville and all that stuff and they get here they landed Friday night at 8 o'clock and we had time to take them to dinner and everybody tried to go to bed and her mom started getting stomach pains

and real just uncomfortable Bob and it got bad enough that by 6 o'clock in the morning we had her down here at the urgent care where they did tests of various kinds and I'm not going to

read this woman's medical chart on the air in front of a million people but they diagnosed her with some things there and then by early afternoon had transferred her over to Baptist Hospital a few miles away, the big hospital, where they diagnosed her with some more things and she's in the hospital now with a serious kidney infection caused by a kidney stone that's been

forming for some time unbeknownst to anybody and a variety of assorted things related to things like that. And it's going to have to be in the hospital for a number of more days. And then she's going to have to go back in a hospital in a couple weeks and have surgery and some period of recovery. And this was the way she started her vacation. But the silver lining is that apparently she has been relating symptoms to her doctor. in California that one would assume would indicate them to look into her kidneys better,

and they told her to drink plenty of water. And so she got out here at immediate, because, you know, California has a lot more people in it than Kentucky. And Brian, now from what I'm hearing when Stacey told her sister that, yeah, we had moms the urgent care at 6 o'clock, and they'd done this for her by noon, and they've transferred her into this room at Baptist at one, and she's had this procedure to help the kidney infection by 6 o'clock, they were shocked that she had got out of urgent care in 12 hours. She'd still be sitting somewhere waiting for somebody to look at her out there.

So the silver lining is, and here's another thing, where they live, they are not as close to, because of the traffic and the highways and these... I saw a subdivision that looked like it was computer-generated the last time I was out there. We got subdivisions over across the street, the thing I fought for so long,

like 75 houses. I think they've got subdivisions on the side of those mountains out there with a thousand fucking houses in them. I don't know how these people ever find their way home. So she was right on top of the urgent care right on top of the hospital with doctors that actually have time to, you know, do some tests

and diagnose what's going on. So anyway, we're monitoring that situation, but we've been back and forth for a couple days. That's why this show may be delayed a little bit. That's why my voice sounds like shit, because I've not been sleeping properly. You know, I'm elderly myself, Brian. You're aware of that. You're not 65 yet.

I wouldn't call you elderly. Hey, I got the AARP card. That means nothing. Well, they just let anybody in now? I thought that was a closed society. You had to attain a certain age to get membership. I think they lowered the age. Isn't it like 50 something?

You get that? Well, yes, I got it when I was 55. You weren't a senior citizen then? Well, they say I was. I was entitled to a discount at goddamn Olive Garden. Oh boy, what a deal that is. Well. Some Hospitaliano.

Don't have to pay extra for breadsticks. Anyway, so that's the, that's what's been going on here. So we're going to go through a few things. We're not going to talk about the real world until at least next week, because the mood I'm in, right now, people would be talking to me from certain federal agencies. But I've got a,

an email Brian from from Brian not you though no certainly not somebody stole your name it's Brian from Reno and he says dear Mr. Cornett and I want you to help me understand this Brian last not Brian from Reno because I don't know what he's fucking talking about here you got to help me I just finished listening to episode 339 of the experience and about wanted to tear my ears off

Well, that's a promising start. When you were discussing AEW's budget in Nevada, remember we were talking about that, how much money they spent on doing the TV and everything. Yeah, and I guess that was part of the story, was it kind of exposed potentially what the overall talent budget was annually. Yes, yes, and all that stuff.

Well, Brian from Reno says, I would almost rather hear Vince Russo read the Bible with a hot poker up his ass than hear you pronounce Nevada. Aside from screenings, in Carson City when you thought my beautiful hometown of Reno was our state capital

well I don't know just this guy's really into it well you know goddamn our state capital is Frankfurt I don't expect most people not from Kentucky to know that but anyway he was also screaming

Nevada Mr. Cornett please it is not Nevada is an N-E-V-A-W-D-A-H it's Nevada N-E-V-A-H-D-A-H I mean, it's not spelling but

pronunciation. I think that's wrong too well he says ah as in McMahon not awe as in Khan I thought it was Nevada I thought it's I'm but he's saying I'm not saying Nevada and I'm saying Nevada

I don't know how else to say now I've scared myself into thinking that I now am trying to pronounce it right and differently from the way I've done it before but I always say Nevada Nevada right that's a lot of people say that but I think it's actually Nevada well he says Nevada it's Nevada it's Nevada not Nevada that's what you said wait what what he says I'm saying it's Nevada and it's Nevada Nevada. Las Vegas, Nevada. No, you're saying Nevada. How does he phonetically spell this out? He says it's not N-E-V-A-W-W-D-A-H. That would be Nevada. Nevada, yeah.

It's Nevada, N-V-A-H-D-A-H. Nevada. Nevada. No, that'd be Nevada. How would it? If it was Nevada, how would you spell it? It's the same way. I'd spell

Nevada Whoa What are you ripping up to? I don't understand It's fucking Las Vegas and suburbs How's that? I have an email here

Jim from Sam He says It's Missouri Not Missouri Oh god damn it Down there in old Mississippi Mariah not Maria Well you say Maria

I say Maria And I say Maria Maria and you say Mariah let's call a whole thing off. How much time have you spent in Nevada, specifically, I guess, Vegas. Have you been to Reno? I've never been to Reno.

What about Carson City? No, I've never even, nobody talks about Carson City. What do you hear? Never. You hear about Loughlin, I've been to for the LPWA, you hear about Loughlin, you're about Las Vegas a time or two, Reno, hear about that,

fucking Carson City What the fuck's going on there? Do they have casinos in Carson City? I don't know. Hold on. Let's do a deep dive real quick into Carson City. No, not the Johnny Carson fan site.

Let's go to Carson City, Nevada. You know that, God damn it, Johnny Carson was making more money at one point than anybody on television. And he should have bought a bunch of property in the 60s and 70s in California and they could have turned it into Carson's and made a fucking fortune.

He got sold it every night on TV. If you really think about it, he doesn't have the rights or his estate doesn't have the rights to the actual name the Tonight Show, but all the existing footage of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, they own. And whenever he renegotiated, remember, he was doing like a 90-minute live show every night or at five nights a week,

I think sometimes six nights a week, and then he got it so that he had four nights a week for 60 minutes, he owned the hour after his show and he owned all of his master tapes and he took off Fridays. Do you remember what his first power play was though? That wouldn't it be the move to California? No.

No, what was the first one? The very first power play was and I'm old enough that I remember some of the local stations still doing this. But in the, he took over in what, 63 from Jack Parr or 62. 62, yes, from Jack Parr. And still to buy 64, 65, whatever,

the Tonight Show technically was an hour and 45 minutes. Because a lot of the local 11 o'clock news was 15 minutes in those days. Not as much happened, right? So the Tonight Show originally came on at 1115 and went to 1 o'clock. but as the local stations started switching their newscast to 30 full minutes some of the local stations would preempt the first 15 minutes of the tonight show and join it at 1130 and when he got wind of enough of it he said why am I going out there and doing my fucking monologue

when not everybody is listening or watching so he he wouldn't come on until 1130 they'd would have Ed McMahon and Skitch Henderson, who was the bandleader then, go out and play a song and do the audience warm up. And they would introduce Johnny Carson at 1130, 15 minutes into the... And then they just said, fuck it, we're just going to start at 1130. And they got them to actually shorten his show on purpose. If you ever see any of the old footage from when the show was longer, maybe at least 90 minutes,

I don't know if they have any of the footage from back then. It's such a better pace for conversation. Yeah. And, you know, at that time, too, they're smoking. And they literally have time in the show to, like, light up, sit back, think, and ask a question. It's remarkable. And you don't have that anymore. I mean, you don't even have talk shows.

They have that girl they gave a show to after Stephen Colbert. And again, like Johnny and, like, Letterman, Colbert has the time slot after him. He owns that. Her, you know, his production company does. So they got to pick what was going to be there. And it's not a talk show. It's some kind of bizarre game show for an audience of I don't know who. it's a dying art form and I think a lot of the problem is no one does it right.

Craig Ferguson did it right. That was the last guy that really did it right. Tom Snyder, where's he when you need him? He died, unfortunately. Well, we could try to find his kids. Did he have kids? Did you ever see the Tom Snyder episode with John Liden, Johnny Rotten, and Keith Levine from Public Image Limited? Oh, God, I didn't see it live. I saw the tape at one point in time. and it's been many, many decades. That is maybe one of the single greatest heel performances

in rock and roll history. And anyone who's learning how to do promos or wants to learn how to be just a real fucking heel just to the core. Like you're really like, oh my God, this guy just hates everything. Watch this. Watch John Leiden on speed and jet lagged, do an interview with Tom Snyder,

and he's just not playing along. It's hysterical. Amazing. And Tom Snider, was one of the more sarcastic individuals on network television at that point, too. The other ones I would say, yeah, and that's why they didn't jive at all. And they actually ended up right before I think Tom Snyder left the air, they had a reunion like in the 90s.

And it was very chummy and very, you know, I'm sorry, you know, I was a jack, you know, just all of a different tone. I will just also mention that I got it real quick from Frank Culbertson. You know Frank. Oh, nice guy. Frank and Mike Rogers and those guys out there trying to keep Portland wrestling alive and in the news. He said, hey, Jim and Brian, I just checked the Forbes updated daily list of billionaires. And once again, Tony Kahn is not on it.

However, Shad Khan is $11.8 billion. There's still no sign of Tony. Well, that's because Tony's billions are included in Shad's billions, that's really what they are. So you mean that when Shad has billions and billions, then that may it just cat, it's the, that's where trickle-down economics works. That's the true trickle-down economics. I mean, when people come out and tell you that Tony Kahn on his own as a billionaire,

or that Tony Kahn on his own as a successful businessman before AEW, any of these things, it's laughable. His father's a billionaire because of his patent. They have spent the money they've made, and it's a lot of money on various things like sports teams and super yachts. And because he's the son of the guy with the money, he's been put in charge of all these things, given his own little analytics company,

you never hear anything about that anymore, and given AEW with a budget of reportedly $100 million or so for talent, that's the reality of it. You know, I don't know why they feel like they have to hide from and pretend like Tony is an independent, self-made business man. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And there's nothing to be embarrassed about it.

Look, I wish my dad had Shad Khan's money and just left it to me. That'd be amazing. I'd right now be sitting in my library made of limestone. It would be amazing. But instead, I'll be here. Wait a minute. You would be in a library, made of limestone?

If I had Shad Khan's money, if I inherited it, I would buy a giant property of land and kind of start rebuilding Manhattan from 1920. And I would just have these beautiful limestone fucking buildings and Gilded Age mansions all over the place.

See, no, no. And no horses. See, that's the benefit of it. You could have all of that, no horses, no early cars and all the pollution. It could be a utopia. What I'm saying is give me your money, Tony.

No, but see, now, look, you're so, you're, your, your, your, your, your material there. What? You're living in a material world and you, Brian, or a material girl. Because remember we talked about this a few years ago. Yeah. What? Didn't that Madonna do that in a song? She says she's a material girl?

It sounded more like Michael Jackson. Oh. Spinning around getting ready to beat it is what it sounded like to me. but nevertheless, we talked about this years ago on the program when everybody was talking about a billion, a Tony Kahn's a billionaire, Vince McMahon is a billionaire, the other guy is a billionaire, whatever.

I say, why does anybody need a billion dollars, and we broke this down? Okay, here's a billion dollars. So immediately you give 35% over to the various state and local and federal tax. A.k.a. the crooks. And you got $650 million. Not enough. Now hold on now. Not enough. Now let's say you've got 25 friends you want to give them a million dollars. Now you got $625 million. Now you say you got 10 family members. You give them $5 million. Now you've got

$575 million. Let's say give $100 million to cure crippled children. $475 million. $100 million to cure cancer. $375 million. I mean, goddamn $100 million for innocent homeless animals. Where was I down to? Is that $375 or $275?

I don't know. I don't like this charitable. Jim Cornett shit. What is this? Then you say, well, fuck, I'm still going to, how am I ever going to spend 275 million? I'm going to give all my friends another goddamn. Two million dollars, there's 50 million dollars and 25 more million. There's 200 million dollars. And how can for the rest of your life? Could you ever spend 200 million dollars? I would buy a giant piece of land and I would start reconstructing 1920s, Manhattan. Limestone buildings, libraries, the old Penn Station, all these things that are gone,

bring them back because I have limitless amounts of money. And you know what else? I can control it. It's my land. I can control everything. Have my own police force. Kind of like what Disney tried to do with Epcot before he died, my own private Epcot, where I can make a better society for everyone who I'm allowed. Okay. How about this? With the 200 and whatever million dollars that I had left over that I just talked about, I could spend... $25 million and buy the acreage around me to where that I could just flatten everything, plant trees, and live in the middle of a fucking 500-acre central park, and I'd still have $100,000 whatever, million dollars.

Yeah, I'm not going to stop until I have a giant limestone mansion. I'm not going to stop until I have like 75 acres and like a 40,000 square foot. Limestone Mansion. And before you say a goddamn word, my lawnmowers just showed up. You see, and the unprofessionalism once again on his own show from Castle Cornett. From Mr. Charity here, that's why he has to give away so much money because of how much damage he does to everyone's ears listening to this show. The screwy weather last week, they couldn't come, and the lawn is shaggy. Are you wanting me to get one of these tick-borne illnesses from having overgrown grass

because I told them not to come when they could come because they couldn't come last week? Yeah, do you want me to be in hospital too? All kidding aside about giving away all this money, which is just ridiculous. You're already given away enough of it to the federal government, no give away anymore. If you had, let's say... I don't mind giving it to people who deserve it. That's why there's so few of them. basically the crippled children and the homeless animals

and the people that have cancer. Give them enough time, they'll disappoint you too. My point is, let's just say Jim Cornett has $600 million at his disposal. Yeah. Would you build like a giant wrestling museum and a hollow, like you have to... A museum? You have to think about all the things you have. Where are the people sending emails talking about how I pronounce Nevada?

Nobody says anything about you saying museum. I have a New York accent. People are used to it. We rule the world. New York's number one. What was your question? Would you build a wrestling museum library with your collection,

with other things you can get? We need an independent body that's not WWE to do something. And if you had Tony Kahn's money, wouldn't you try to do something to preserve wrestling history, the real history? If I were a king of the forest,

yeah, as a matter of fact, if I had hundreds of millions of dollars in my disposal, yes, I will make it no secret. I probably would buy a number of other vintage wrestling collectible items and things and such of that nature. And I would probably endow, since I would be so well endowed, I would probably endow a foundation after I'm gone, because I would make me too nervous to see the general public wandering around through my collection. But after I'm gone, they could set up a fucking brick and mortar, as they say,

museum and let people, museum, and let people come in there and look around at all the wonders contained their end. Yeah, when I was a kid, we used to go sometimes with camp to Sagamore Hill, which was Teddy Roosevelt's home on Long Island, and they preserved it. You know, they made it look like the original, on the inside, they looked like just a giant log cabin in a lot of ways, but just dead animals everywhere, and it was... Now, what? On the walls, it's Teddy Roosevelt's place.

Oh, I thought you meant there were, it was like just been the old days where it was just dead animal carcasses lying around the fucking living room or some shit. No, a bull and moose party. That's what Teddy Roosevelt was known for. Just killing animals, cutting off their heads and hanging down on the hole. Stop it now. But it's a very nice place. You have a barbaric, animalistic tribute to a animal murderer up there. We have Farmington down here.

They've, they've renovated that also to be of the period, like 1812. It was built by a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln's, big mansion with these high ceilings and the wonderful antiquary. And no one was slain and had their heads put on pikes and stuck out in a front yard, like whatever your people did up there. We had a place, well, they're still there on Long Island, Old Beth Page. And it's like a village. I remember Old Beth Page. You know what? As a matter of fact, Ricky Morton told me one time.

said he walked into a bar and there was old Beth Page. And she was a looker in those days. And he went up to her and he said, you know what, Beth, I'd like a little pussy. And she said, I would too. Mine's as big as a hat. But go ahead. All right.

Well, let's get away from Old Beth Page that hangs out in the bars with Ricky Morton. Old Beth Page on Long Island is like a village that I guess is from like 300 years ago or so. So they have like all the old houses and all the old beds. and they're just people wearing outfits. Wait a minute. Is it the same mattresses? I don't know. I mean, it's replica at minimum,

but, I mean, they've had this stuff there for a long time. They're not living there. It's just kind of they're showing you how people live, but they have people dressed up and acting roles. Well, people, if they've got beds in there, somebody's going to lay down in them, eventually if they're showing you how they lived in the old days, then that would be part of it.

And here's a person sleeping in this shitty old 300-year-old bed, made out of goddamn goose feathers, and fucking spit. One day years ago, we needed something to do. It was me, an old ex-girlfriend of mine and my brother.

And we were, hey, why don't we go to old Beth Page? Like, we used to go with, like, camp and stuff. We went there. There was no one there. It was just us.

So all these people are like, putting on the show, like house by house for us. Here's the woman churning butter. Here's the guy milking the cow. It was just, there was no one else there.

It was bizarre and cool. How did, how did the cow feel about being milked for an audience? I don't know. I don't know. Isn't that something? they'd rather do in private?

And you wonder what they think. They're just staring. All this is happening and people staring at them. I remember the first cow I ever milked. What was her name? Well, actually, come to find out it was George. Old Beth Page. So that was a disappointing experience.

It was Old Beth Page. It was Old Beth Page. That's going to be DDP's manager in a few years. Diamond Dallas and old Beth Page And they'll be very positive They'll be very positive I've got one more We've got to be corrected here

Brian before we go any further We've got to be corrected Someone save the show Travis Travis rode in Hi guys You gave me a hell of a laugh On your commentary about Sika

Mouthing not guilty To the jury at Vince's trial Remember we were talking about the Sika, unfortunately, passed away a few weeks ago. And we were mentioning that story. But Travis says, since this is a story I happen to have looked into at great length. I wanted to add a few fun tidbits in case you weren't aware. The accused intimidator was AFA. It was AFA, not Sika.

We do apologize. Which makes more sense because AFA also lived in Pennsylvania. Sika, I don't think, was on this coast. well he might have this coast yes he was was he in Florida was he in Florida he's in Florida he's lived in Pensacola for years and years and years I was like in San Francisco

yes that's the same coast it's just the other end of the coast that's right but anyway the person who reported it in court was a guy named Dory de Quatro who purported himself to be a journalist but was actually a swing musician in New York City

Sounds like wrestling Well a lot of people You know They cross over from music to journalism But if basically he was a John Arese Type of Opportunist Who was the leader of one of the groups Trying to ride the Fed's coattails

In taking down vents Under the guise of cleaning up wrestling Like a Rezzi He seems to have been a mark Doing the bidding of bitter Whether justly or unjustly wrestlers. I don't know anything about this guy.

I mean, it's interesting because I don't even recognize the name at all. Well, it's Dory D-O-R-E. D-Quatro. De-Quatro. No relation to Susie Quatro. Can the can. Well, you do and you'll clean it up. So the judge actually put Dequatro on the record in the case.

Dequatro got very uncomfortable and changed the story a bit to Afa and his friend were mouthing not guilty to each other. The judge asked the jury, and specifically the individual juror who de Quatro pinpointed, and none of them had any clue what he was talking about. So I'm guessing it never happened, although the story is incredible either way. So now we have another viewpoint on this. Who is off his friend? Well...

He's just in the middle of the case, he's just turning to him? Yeah, not guilty. Not guilty. I'm thinking there was probably a contingent because the Anahuahi family there was a number of them living in the, what is that, eastern Pennsylvania and I'm sure they went in solidarity

so there were probably a lot of members of the family there and many of them don't look as imposing as Afa does and probably some of the kids and who knows, maybe they made a day of it I'm not sure there could have been a picnic. When Vince was going to fire Fatu and Afa showed up with Fatu and a couple of his other family members

That was that was Rosie and Jamal And whatever names that they That morphed into That was their first trip up there Yeah that was around the time They became the Samoan Gangsta Party in ECW Yes But do you think that was the conversation

Like look you know what I did in court What the fuck? You can't fire anyone Ever from my family No I think it was more that Offa was like you know your father he was so good to me and my brother and I know these guys

you know that that type of thing and Vince had a sympathetic streak for the talent that had meant something to his father so you could you could always do something with that but anyway so there you have that Brian but you know

and there's always a new kind of character popping up on television, sometimes popping out on television. Brian, you've heard me mention many times before that anybody that comes out of a box is over, right? I've heard you say that. That's correct.

That's an old wrestling rule of thumb. It's been passed down from generation. I think the first person to say that was probably Joe Stecker in 1917. Oh, give me a break. Give me a break. Anybody that comes out of a box is over. What, he said about Clara Morton's

And that's exactly. Well, he said something about her box being over. But anyway, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, I'm changing it today because actually he was saying it was awesome. And that's what now, anybody that comes out of a box is awesome and anything that comes out of a box is awesome. Ladies and gentlemen, it's just, it's a box of awesome. And you can get it in your mailbox.

See, the box of mail and a box of awesome in the mail. See it all ties together. They've proven my point. Our friends over at Bespoke Post and their all new premium lineup of box of awesome collections. And we have been mentioning the incredible set of knives

and sharpening tools and oils and things in the custom-made wooden boxes that I've just received. Brian got the same thing. Usually he's the one that gets all the knives and I get all the cooking stuff. and in this case, our worlds collided. But all you got to do is go to boxofawsome.com and take the quiz,

and then you will tell them what you are interested in, the genres and categories and items and fun things. And in every month, they will send you up, whether a standard box or a premium box, it's up to you. And all these items come from the dear old mom and pop store, that are the backbone of our democracy. And Brian, you know that democracy ain't got much bone left.

Osteoporosis is set in. So get these things while the world is still turning and you still have money to spend. Go right now to boxofawsome.com and enter the code JCE at checkout. You're going to get 15% off your very first box. And that could be,

who knows how much. Because it depends on what you get and every box you get is already at a 30% or more discount or thereabouts or in that neighborhood across a plethora of products because they're already giving you money off and then you save more. They're coming now on lawnmowers up my front yard to... I don't hear anything. You don't hear that. It's in your head.

No one's here. No, no, no. No one hears it. You're lying now trying to get back because they were right under my goddamn window. They're riding lawnmowers trying to get these boxes of awesome. And you can too. Brian, tell them again. You didn't tell them to begin with.

I did, but you tell them again. How they can go to Box of Awesome. You can go to Box of Awesome. Box of Awesome.com promo code JCE. Is that right? That's right. Yes, that's right. That's right.

That's right. You can be right, too, with a box of awesome. It'll show up at your door. It'll be awesome. Unfortunately, the knife will be inside the box likely, so you can't use it to cut into it, but you'll rip open that box. Because whoever's in the box will use the knife

to cut themselves out and they'll pop out and they'll be over. There'll be no one in your box. There'll be no one over. Well, it depends on how they ask when they come out of their box as to whether they get in your box or not. That's wrong. Get over. with yourself.

Get yourself the Box of Awesome today. What's that promo code? Wait a minute. What are you telling people to get over themselves for? I'm not saying get over yourselves. Get over with yourself. Be impressed with something you did and something that arrived and something you'll be able to do all sorts of wild and wacky things out in nature or inside away from nature with Box of Awesome.

There's a promo code. Jim, what is it? JCE. And you know what? You don't have to get this stuff for yourself. You could get over with somebody else and send them an awesome box of box of Box of Awesome. See?

So again, that's charity, Brian. Something you know nothing about. You're against the whole concept. That's not true. Send somebody else a box of awesome.com code JCE. And when somebody pops out of their box and it surprises a shit out of them, they'll be over with them too. And for every five boxes you send someone else or other people,

we will say your name within the last three seconds of something at some point. But how would we know? I don't know. Box of Awesome. See, we need to workshop that. Yeah, this show has really gone downhill today. Well, I'm glad it's mine. Should I try to save it? Go ahead.

You know what that means, ladies and gentlemen? It's time for something that will lift up all of our spirits, starting with the leader of the cult of Cornett, Mr. Jim Cornett. Jim, how about some classic audio? From before you were in the business, but just slightly before, but you were around, so maybe you'll have some insight.

Here's a video, some audio here. What? From March 7, 1981, the dream machine quitting the first family. Ferris tojo Yamamoto, Jimmy. Can we slow down to cheerleading a minute? We've got the situation pretty well to find in here. Tommy Rich is unable to be here today,

which leaves the options as follows, the fact that the Southern Tank team champions will forfeit the titles to your challenging team today. This is not going to happen. The second thing, Dundee has already said that he would wrestle against both of them in this special one fall 30-minute championship match. But the third thing, and I ask you this, and I would give you some very good advice, that if you went in there today in a handicapped match and won it, the fans are not going to respect you. They're not going to respect the team or the win, even if they did take the title away from Dundee. And the real, the reality.

reasonable thing it seems to me to do and good advice would be to postpone it till Tommy Rich can be back. Dundee and Rich can then to defend against him. Nobody's trying to get out of the match. But I think that a postponement would be the very wise thing for you to do in here. Can we get a postponement on the match today? Let me stop it there for a second. He's amazing. What incredible. He laid the whole thing out for everybody so they could understand it. Obviously, if you're somebody hearing a lot of these names for the first time, it may have gone past you, but for the viewers of the program 40 years ago, they knew exactly what's going on. It's presented so level-headedly, so reasonably, conversationally, Lance was, and, you know,

and he sounded genuine. Yeah. That's why he was everybody's, you know, favorite uncle. Well, you know, the thing, too, is he was never hyperbolic. He was never like a Chivani out there, like, oh, this son of a bitch or whatever. And because of that, he's talking to the lead heel manager. He's just talking to him. Jimmy Hart's standing there staring at him.

It's not like they have to go out there and fight right away. Right. Even when Lawler would make fun of Lance, you knew that you could stop and listen to him. He was a reasonable guy, and that connected with the audience. Lance didn't go with the heels first. Like, you know, how dare you come out here unless they had just done something heinous, but he would start an interview being the broadcaster,

and then the heel could be the dick. Instead of Lance trying to steal a fucking, He would explain things and bridge to things and transition things and you could bounce things off of him. He wasn't trying to be the baby face. Well, he just laid out the whole thing. The studio audience listened. Ferris and Yamamoto are out there with Jimmy Hart.

Here's Jimmy Hart's response. Oh, you really would. You think that we should postpone it, right? If you want the respect that these men, I'm sure, are looking for as champions, that you would postpone it until you can win it rather than, trying to beat one man you know what i think he wants us to postpone the match can you believe that Russell that's why you're an announcer and i'm a manager are you crazy you know if the fans didn't respect me you know how much sleep i would lose over that you know actually how much sleep i would

lose over that man tell you something man why don't you overlook the buck for once and do the oh yeah thing about it and postpone it let me tell you why because jimmy hard has worked hard all this life man i've been in memphis tennessee's my whole life i've thrown papers i've worked at I've got service stations. I've had gold records. And for 14 months, I've been in professional wrestling. And it's been the greatest thing to ever happen to Jimmy Hart. And do you think actually, that's what those rules are for, you fool, because of people like Dundee and Tommy Rich, man.

I got a toothache. I'm sick. My wife's sick. I can't be here. You're an idiot, man. He's not making any excuse. He got caught in the middle of a contract situation. And he couldn't be here today.

It's that simple. Yeah, okay. Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. Bill Dundee is a superstar. If he's a superstar, well then let him get up in the ring and earn his status. He's supposed to be big macho man. So Dundee, come on up. The title match will be today, and we will be the new Southern Heavyweight champions.

He said that he will wrestle your two men. If that's going to make you feel like a big man or these two guys going in there. Let me stop it for a second here. It's interesting to hear him say it. This is 14 months into his career as a wrestling manager. Yes. And the first bit of that, he didn't do any promos. Really?

Because he was Lawler's manager, which Jerry at the time liked to have managed, whether it be Mickey Poole or some of the other guys he would have to second him, private buddy diamond at one point, just a guy that he could use as a stooge at ringside to pass him the gimmicks and, you know, throw the boot in or whatever the fuck. and it was another toy that Lawler had to get heat. He did all the talking, but he still got so much heat on Jimmy. The fans were beating Jimmy up before Jimmy didn't even said anything. And then, obviously, when Lawler got hurt, that's when Jimmy had to carry the ball. And all of a sudden, as Mama Cornette used to say,

we found out he was vaccinated with a phonograph needle. And he started talking, he couldn't shut him up. And it was, you know, this was old. only a little over a year into him starting into wrestling business from scratch. Let's go back to this audio right now. I've been back here watching what's been going on. He's going to fight Jerry Lawler. He's beat me by the skin of his teeth.

But he also, he's whooped a lot of people. He also whipped Joel a Duke. He whipped Austin Idol. He whipped Jimmy Vann. He's whipped everybody. He's whooped everybody. But you've been giving me the run around for a long time. And now today, I can't believe what you're doing today.

You've got this title match right here. I should be in there. I've been loyal to you longer than Togu Yamamoto, longer than Wayne Farris, longer than Dutchman Pah. I've been loyal to you longer than anybody, Jimmy. I've been with you since dope. And now this, now this comes about. I can't believe what's going on.

I'm tired of sitting in the back seat. You're playing with my head. You're playing with my pocketbook. You're playing with my money, man. Hey, I don't like it. And I want to know today. I want to know today. You know that Bill Dundee can't whip two men.

Can't know guy whoop two men. But I want to know today, where you change that match and put the dream machine in there where I'd rather belong. You change the match today. That's all I want to know. Are you going to change it? No. No, listen to me. I've got something.

Oh, come on, man. Okay. Looks like the Jimmy Hart organization has a little disorganization. No more. No more. No more. I'm not under you. No more.

Let's see. Let me stop it there for a second. I was about to say, hold on to it there because. The people are screaming, yay! Just because he came and said, I quit. I'm done and walked out. That's, again, that's, maybe they should have taken a page out of that for Will Osprey when he had his little conversation with Don Callis instead of,

oh, I really would like to go out on my own. Well, you mean so much to me, boy. What the fuck? No one or nobody gives a shit. And he said the little thing there that connects with anyone. Dream Machine's a ridiculous character. The way he talks in the mask. you're messing with my head,

you're messing with my money. You know, actually, but actually, that was the way Troy talked. There was not any element of, you know. How'd you say tired? Tired.

Tired. I'm tired. I'm tired of it. I'm white past tired of it. That's, there was no accent put on nor television verbiage there, but go ahead.

If this was AEW, not to compare anything to AEW, but if this was modern wrestling, they would have already been a brawl, the breakup would have already happened. Everything would have already happened. This speaks to not just the importance of letting things play out, but also the importance of having different tones of the commentators and of the entire show. The audience in this segment alone was loud at the beginning,

got quiet to hear things, reacted to Jimmy Hart, and then reacted to Dream Machine. That's what you want. But if everything is just screaming at the audience all the time, it goes right past you. And or, God damn it, you didn't hand me my mail in time, let's fight, boom. It just, things have to, well, continue with this because it's not over with. There's a little bit more here. Let's go to this.

I don't need the big good year of blimp any. He's been eating out of house at home, so who really cares? But let me just tell you right now, baby, you're looking at the next Southern heavyweight champion. So superstar Dundee, come on, pack your lunch, baby, and come on out, baby. Well, it didn't over with yet. Remember this.

I would bring to your attention, the fact that Dundee clearly stated it, He does not have to win the match. All he has to do is avoid being... And that's the end of this clip right there. But now, well, do we have the end of the match? Hold on, let me go to the match. Because you got to hear what happens,

because we brought them this far, and you got to hear these people screaming and squealing like pigs stuck under a gate. Well, Jim, let's now go to part two. This is the match. Bill Dundee handicap match for the tag titles against Tojo Yamamoto and Wayne Farris. The honky talk man.

March 7th, 1981. We're going to join the match in progress. Lance Russell on the call. Bill Bundy getting his ass kicked. And I didn't want to interrupt any of that because that was like listening to the old boxing films or the boxing radio broadcasts of the 40s. With Lance, you can hear the inflection,

the emotion, the ups and downs, he calls it, he lays it out, he lays out when necessary. The details that aren't there, but you can't tell, even when you're watching tell a Dundee bleeding from both eyes now. No, he did a regular blade job. But nobody knew what that was then, but just that he said, bleeding from both eyes now, oh my God, Lance is there, he can see it, he's in person. Little details like that and just the, the, the, credibility in his voice and the concern that he has when people are doing something wrong.

And then, you know, you could hear the people living and dying with every time that Dundee would fight back. And then, of course, the heels still have to fuck him, Tojo through the salt in his eyes. And then you're hearing the people when Dundee's showing the referee, look, it's salt, it's salt. And then when Dream comes out, those people in that studio, they would literally scream so loudly in that television studio that they normally did news in or you'd do a cooking show in that it would distort the audio of the microphones. It would peek out all the fucking meters. They wouldn't be able to handle it. And that kind of excitement translated across the screen to the people watching that show.

That's why Memphis TV was the highest rated television program in a country. And you can feel that, you know, they're screaming and shit. They're screaming. They're just jumping up and down and fucking screaming. You were taking photos of this period of time, were the fans ready to turn the dream machine? What did you think? Yes.

I mean, they weren't ready in terms of, oh my God, we want to cheer this guy, but he was over as a heel. And he had been Lawler's original opponent when Lawler had come back from the broken leg. And the reason was that was before they started bringing in Lawler's historic rivals, Austin Idol, and there was the Hulk Hogan

and Joe LaDuke and all those guys. Because they knew that Lawler's return from a year off with a broken leg and the chance to get five minutes with Jimmy Hart was going to be what drew. And so they put the mask on Troy, who, as we mentioned before, had been, you know, he was from Memphis, but he'd been working Mississippi and outlaws, and he'd been trying to get booked, and he could do the promo, where there he was playing it straight. And that's another thing, there was a Jerry Jarrett kind of touch.

you could hear in the way that Lance explained it so logically and a believable point of view, Jerry Jared would have laid that out for him in Jerry's words, and then Lance put it in his own words. And there was another Jerry Jarrett point. Don't go out and be Dusty Rhodes. Don't go out and be the Dream Machine. Go out and be Troy Graham. You're really upset.

And that's why he didn't do the patter there, right? But they knew the dream could talk and put it. under a mask is the dream machine. Will somebody think it's dusty roads? Maybe, maybe not, and they sold out. That was the first appearance of Troy Graham in the Memphis, Mid-South Collis.

I take it back second. He had worked there one time before, about a year and a half before. The second time he was ever there, he was in a main event on a complete sellout. He was Troy T. Tyler the previous time? He was, Troy T. Tyler, when he was working in Knoxville, for some reason,

and maybe they were just taking a look at him at that point, but they teamed him up with the assassins at a six-man against Sonny Kung, and I can't remember who. And then you never saw him again until the dream machine and nobody knew it was him. They didn't remember him anyway. But then, because he was such a great promo, right?

And then at that point, I think they, I can't remember who had just turned or who had left, but they were kind of short on baby faces. And so they did that turn. And Dream was automatically, he and Dundee became a team, won the belts from Ferris and Tojo, worked with Onita and Masafuchi when they were here, managed by Tojo.

And Dream was the number three baby face for a while behind Lawler and Dundee. And then they turned him again back heel. that fall and he teamed up with and he was back in the family. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Jimmy Hart's little kicks when he gets in there and starts kicking Dundee

when he's down. No one kicked like Jimmy Hart did. Like these fast kicks that were just coming out of them. The little parapetetic kicks and it was because Jimmy was his, you know, he was so skinny if he got sunburned.

He looked like a thermometer, as Lawler would say. And he didn't try to look like he was hurting anybody. He looked at, looked like he was trying in his own way, but he was completely ineffectual at doing it. And I kind of stole some of that stuff for my repertoire also. I'll hit somebody, but I don't want him to sell it. The date's interesting, too, because this is March 7th.

They're doing this angle that starts with Tommy Rich being knocked out of action. Less than two months later, he wins the NWA title. Well, as a matter of okay, then right there. And I don't know why I didn't realize it at start. That was when Tommy had left. or was in the process of leaving and going back to Atlanta, and they needed a new baby face because Dundee and Rich had been teamed up at that.

See, Tommy had come back in late 1980. That's a weird run right there as a heel. Well, yeah, see, that's the thing, is that Jared was trying a variety of things while Lawler was out of action, and he called Barnett and said, can I get Tommy Rich back? And he had come in and he tried to run. Tommy was a tremendous fucking heel. It was a revelation.

If anybody said, the problem is the houses were at, you know, record low levels because Lawler was out and it wasn't, that period is not well remembered. But he was a revelation as a heel for the first time in his life for about three months there. Late 1980, early 81, and then they switched him baby face. And then he was on his way back to Georgia. They did the angle with his mom on TV, remember? Yes.

Like Tojo attacked her. And they switched Jimmy Valiant heel, and he started wearing that dark eye makeup and Miss Piggy, Piggy Rich. Tojo slaps it, and Tommy's mother probably weighed about as much as he did. She just was shorter. But Tojo slapped her. I think she swung back at him. There was some bizarre shit going on at that point,

but it was just, it was trying anything that might catch on because Lawler had been out for so long and had so many setbacks with the leg. You know, it's interesting, too. It's a weekly territory, obviously, with his strong TV. But Jimmy Hart's a manager that,

for the most part, you never had to, like, build up to the big moment where he gets hit. Every match he was getting punched and taking a bump, and it never took away from his heat. Well, that's the thing. it wouldn't have worked in Louisiana.

It wouldn't have worked with Watts's approach to things because they were used to the big buildup. So if you had done it just every week, it probably would have killed a guy. But in Memphis, because it being weakly, as you said, and because, you know, a small crew and everything had to be wild,

the managers got the shit kicked out of them too on a regular basis, which flies in the face of and contradicts normal wrestling philosophy, but that's why you got so good as a manager, because they let you get heat too. And you got a lot of practice. Not only did you get the shit kicked out of you, but you were in every finish,

or you were passing gimmicks, or they put you on TV and let you talk and get your heat back. And they were figuring finishes where you'd be actively involved. So there was always something going on and a baby face has got a lot of you but you got a lot of the baby faces too. And I mean, and you know if you did it right the baby faces could sell for the manager

long enough through nefarious means with gimmicks and cheating and whatever the fuck that you know, then when he made the comeback you just, you didn't want to take them and Jimmy about every once a year or so he would get actually just carried the fuck out right

otherwise he'd be bumped around and punched and maybe pinned or spanked or whatever but he would be able to scamper away yelling at people as he did it and that's that was kind of the you had to be on your toes but you had chances to keep your heat

if you were good at getting it to begin with well there it is some classic audio to break things up, and we'll probably do this again pretty soon. Well, but in the meantime, Brian, we can do other things, like talk about Smackdown. Well, Jim, let's talk about Smackdown. Smackdown for, I believe, Friday, July 12th, and in a lot of ways, nothing happened, but in other ways, what happened was kind of perfect.

The important shit happened. Oh, my God. And then they gave us a... I thought it was an episode of Glow for... for a while. I was saying, where's Dave McLean? Thought they'd have him out on commentary. By the way, they were in Worcester, Massachusetts. Am I pronouncing Worcester right? You're closer than I am up there. I've been there. I believe so, but I'm not certain. I believe so. I like their sauce. The Worcester sauce.

Anyway, apparently you're not too saucy today. Or is it, is this your material? What's going on? Is it still, I've had a trying weekend? Is it still the scent from, um, Up there, the Worcester Centrum, or have they got a, is it the Duncan Donuts Memorial Coliseum now? Give me a moment, I'll find out what building they were in. Because the old Worcester Centrum was the scene of some of the great WWF events of the past. They seem like they've gotten too big to go to a place like Worcester anymore, but they made this building look like Madison Square Garden.

So what is the name of the arena now there? Hold on. I'm accidentally on the wrong You're on the wrong Worcester? I'm on the wrong Worcester right now. Well, I'll tell you what, that's what they told that chicken. Don't get on the wrong Worcester. Apparently it's a long, it takes a long time to Google the name of the arena. The name of the arena, excuse me, the name of the arena, the DCU Arena.

The DCU Arena. So this wouldn't be the old centrum, the Worcester Centrum. The last time they were there for Smackdown, October 7th, 2020, 6,261 tickets distributed for this event, 9,203 tickets distributed. They were up by 3,000 people. That's up one third. According to Russell Ticks, 47% increase. Well, yeah, 3,000 is a third of 9,000, but if you take that they had 6,000 before, well, then that would be a 50% increase to 47% of the 3,000 that you got a 33 and a third percent chance of

the record going round, round, round, round, like a record baby, round, round, round, round. It's crazy to think about it. Look, things could always happen. No one stays hot forever. But when you know on the horizon, they have a year of John Cena goodbyes, and Lesnar at some point, and Haman's return, because now let's just treat him like a draw. And Roman? And Roman, and the rock. It's one thing after another. The CM Punk Drew McIntyre feud,

we haven't even had a chance yet to see how that does on its own. Their biggest star, they're doing record business and their biggest stars aren't even on the goddamn shows. So like I said, you can never predict what could happen.

In 2001, people thought WWE may stay hot forever, and it came quickly down to earth for a number of reasons, even though it was still relatively hot. But WWE, barring some kind of really bad shit like a scandal or something

I mean I can't see anything stopping this right now and again they have all these things on the horizon those aren't even in front of us right now those are things for next year and there's not even a chance of the global economy crashing until at least January anyway back to Smackdown in Worcester

the opening was the live in ring program with Tiffany Stratton. Brian, are you keeping Tiffy time? I'll watch her matches, but I don't really, you know, this, again, I ask the same question I ask about AEW women stuff. Who is this for? Is it for the women's audience?

Is that what it's being written for? Or is this being written to entertain me? A 44, a 44 year old male who's married and has kids. Am I the audience for this? Or is it someone else? Who is the audience for this? Now, look, there are a lot of people who really like this stuff, apparently. So there is an audience.

I just don't know what it is. And I like her, Matt. She's good in the ring. But I'm out of the whole promo personality, whatever you want to call. She's a very athletic young lady. She's very attractive. She does have some meat on her bones. She's not, you know, the anorexic type.

But the voice is a female Russo to me. If that I can't I can't not on my wrestling show I just can't listen And then Bailey came out And you know what She's a lovely yukin A lovely yukin

Oh I say so Popeye She's a lovely yuccan girl She's a lovely yukin young lady Oh I say so yeah Yeah see But why the fuck does she have shave half her fucking head Oh that's the thing It's an observation.

Yeah, it's been a thing for a little while for some women. Well, I don't know why. And then the refrigerator came out, and she started talking and made Tiffy sound like Meryl Streep. And then they beat up Bailey until Mia Yim saved her with a Kendo stick. Saved her with a Kendo stick. And then we had a... Do you have any comments on this,

the interview that I just referenced. No, not really. No. Okay. No. Because I didn't want to get ahead of you, but then we went to Chelsea and Piper doing a promo in the back where they're upset about something

and they want to see Adam Pierce and there's going to be things happening. And then we go back to the ring and it's the refrigerator against me a Yim. And that's why they went a while. And what is this fucking glow? I know there's a werewolf lurking. That's the only thing keeping me around. But I will say that the refrigerator won with not only a Samoan drop,

but also the bonsai drop, and both of them were fairly safe. It's nothing that I felt the need to cuss this woman over. So apparently she likes me a yam. And then she went for another bonsai drop, but Bailey ran out and saved Mia. But then Tiffy was there, and they beat up Bailey. And then the refrigerator left, but while Bailey was down, Tiffy had her briefcase for the money in the bank, and she started to cash it in, but the refrigerator came back in to look at her like, what the fuck are you doing?

and she backed down and put the case behind her back so the refrigerator couldn't see it and they left together like Brute Bernard with the two before stuck down to back of his tights telling the referee don't see it oh Tommy Young hated that Tommy at Corny

I'll tell you that Bruce Bernard that brute Bernard would go out of the ring and get a tub a tuba for Corny and put it in the back of his tight it would be sticking up over his head a foot and a half and he'd get in the ring and just tell tell me don't see it don't see it don't sit don't see it

so they were 30 minutes into the show and it was all the all women brigade that's what kind of started this off on a on a slow roll downhill for me but anyway I was on that same hill I was humbling to tumbling, tumbling, and in a landslide brings me down. But then the bloodline package was solo doing to talking, he's the man now. And when they do the interviews in that, instead of the House of Black,

looking like they're trying to reenact the goddamn video for Bohemian Rhapsody in somebody's closet, it looks like kind of a cool room that has dingy lighting and they're all dressed up in their Samoan gangster outfits and it looks like a mafia meeting and Pago Pago. And I like this look and Solo says he's built a whole new more powerful family and it's more aggressive and blah blah and says everybody is going to acknowledge him tonight. So that means we're getting some bloodline tonight somehow. So that's keeping us going, right? Right, that's the promise.

And they fulfilled it. They did. That was when you knew, okay, there's going to be shit. I really don't care about that would normally drive me up, but they're promising me something's going to happen. And so, and for completionism, we should acknowledge that Baron von Corbin and Apollo Cruz had a tag team match with the lucha heels. and they beat Apollo Cruz.

They used to like him, didn't they? The office, I mean, they pushed him for a while. And then he pops up every now and then and you don't know why, and somebody beats him and he leaves again. Did you like the sit-down with Cody and Orton in the back? It was very interesting. You know, we just talked about that recently.

I said, at the end of a conversation, how big do you think it'll be when Randy Orton turns on Cody and you reacted, you know, you thought about it. And they kind of referenced that idea here saying it won't happen. Yes. And that's the way you know it's going to happen. Well, it doesn't have to happen right away. I guess it's the point. No, of course.

No, this is what they did here was they did a kind of a, you know, a story moving little promo for a minute and a half sitting in the back and locker room, but this is something they can clip in a year or whenever and say, remember when you told me this, Randy Orton, because Cody was sitting there and Orton comes in and says, hey, I know these Samoans are around tonight. Well, I'm going to have your back if you get surrounded by a bunch of Samoans. And when this whole bloodline thing is finally over with, I know you're going to have a lot of guys coming for that belt. And the belt's sitting there.

if you know, Orton's always looking at that belt. And Orton tells Cody, he says, I promise I'm going to have your back then too. When all those people are coming out. And he wants him to have that belt. So he can beat him for that belt. And they don't even have to do this for a year. It's fucking great.

So, yes, but you see, every time that that belt and Orton are in the same place, there's a point where he looks at it with lust in his eyes. And just long enough for you to notice and then it's gone. It's a great story that could play out, you know, right towards the end of the Sina run of Randy Orton, someone who started around the same time but was younger, sitting back and watching all this,

he realizes he only has so much time left. Unlike Sina wanting to kiss babies, he just wants that belt. Yeah. men make a few more million dollars on the way home to St. Louis or wherever it is he's living these days. And then we get to the 9 o'clock hour and here comes L.A. Knight. And again, they're just playing to guys' strengths. We've seen at this point, remember we said he needs to beat people.

That was months and months ago. now the idea of L.A. Knight talking to us and talking to the people live in the arena so they can yeah back to him is better than just seeing him in a match for no apparent reason and he's building the match with Logan Paul for the U.S. title

and he pitched to the VTR of him beaten Logan Paul in the three-way a couple weeks ago to get into money in the bank and he's already got a folder there talked to Aldus. He's got the contract for the U.S. title match at Somerslam. And he's signed it.

And he would love to have Logan Paul come out here and sign it. And they start, oh, but he's not here. But he will get it signed and he's going to own that belt and say it was just straight ahead. SummerSlam promo sell the match. But that's what we need to hear from L.A. night now. And what do you think? Logan Paul as U.S. champion is wonderful.

L.A. Knight's going to need something at some point, isn't he? As popular as he is to remain popular. That's the thing. And, you know, he's defied the odd several times. Yeah. Coming out of that Bray Wyatt feud for the better, coming out of the male models,

somehow to get set up to have a run. And now, you know, we're at a point where he hasn't really done or won anything in a while. However, he's still super over, and he should be. He connects, but they got to do something with him, whether it's the U.S. title or something. He's still one of the most over guys on the entire show. Yeah, but how many lives does he have at this point that he doesn't succeed somehow with some gold at some point? And, you know, and they go, well, you know, and they quit saying, yeah, as much.

Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. So you think he's got to beat Logan Paul? I don't, I would like to see, I don't think Logan Paul needs. Especially considering Logan Paul's schedule?

Well, let's say, I don't think Logan Paul needs the belt now. He's already got heat. He's a tremendous heel. He's a tremendous talker. As much as L.A. Knight needs to do something, you know, positive for himself as we just mentioned.

so we'll see what they do because they you know Cody's not losing the belt at SummerSlam and whatever you know who's the other goddamn priest may lose the belt at SummerSlam imagine if they did that

imagine if Cody did lose the belt yeah but that ain't gonna happen but anyway back to Smackdown what do you think about young Blair Davenport I think she reminds you a lot of Jamie Hater. That's a good thing, actually, because Jamie Hater's really good.

I think she's all right. Well, she, you know, I thought that was the character that Lisa Welchell played on that Girls' Boarding School show that was borderline pornography for 1978 or whatever. Girls in a boarding school all by themselves. You know, the strict rules they have at Girls' Boarding Schools, lights out at nine, candles out at 11. That show was something. And then Blair Davenport

wrestled Naomi and we were back to glow. Really? Naomi was glowing. I like Naomi. She makes you just want to get up and move. Just get up and jump around. And she glows. Makes me want to get up and change the fucking channel. And I don't even have to. I've got the remote.

She's built like Mrs. Met. Like no one, I've seen no one Mrs. Met, the female mascot wife of Mr. Met, the original baseball mascot. Wait a minute. Now, hold. Let's back up a second. So there was a baseball mascot called Mr. Met. There is currently still. There is currently. If they've been divorced or is he still married to Mrs. Met? No, all of a sudden, like a decade ago, it went from Mr. Met. See, Mr. Met was there, like in the early days, he had a giant paper mache head. Like in the early days of Shea Stadium. and then when the Mets started winning,

suddenly Mr. Mett kind of disappeared. And then throughout the 70s when things got bad, Mr. Mett kind of wasn't around. And when the Mets took over in the 80s, there was no Mr. Mett. But when they fell on hard times and they were desperate to get kids back to the stadium, Mr. Mett reappeared in the early 90s,

and he never left. And at some point, they introduced a wife, a woman, giant baseball head mascot who would run around with Mr. Mett. And she just had a dynamite body. I mean, that was the thing. It would throw you off. You're like, man, look at that body.

But there's a giant fucking baseball head. What does she look like? Yeah. But so the, Mr. Met was to draw the kids and Mrs. Met was to draw the horny fucking fathers. I don't know if that was the intention. I think they just needed someone

who was willing to wear this giant fucking head on a hot day and run around a baseball field. With large upper frontal protuberances. Well, I'm not going to. female. I'll just say she had, every Met fan had to notice it. Were they bigger than baseballs?

Of course, yes. Well, were they bigger than softballs? Have you played softball? Yeah, I'm aware of what a softball looks like. I'm not going to judge the body parts. Were they bigger than cantalopes? What is wrong with you? I'm just asking.

For who? For what? To determine what she would look like with a giant round paper? paper mache baseball head. I'm trying to determine if she was balanced with... I don't believe it's currently paper mache. The original head was paper mache. They hopefully better put a catcher's mask in there

so somebody didn't come up and punch Mr. Met in the fucking face. The Cincinnati Reds kind of stole the Mr. Met look. They just added a mustache to it, but that's kind of bootleg. But there are other, obviously the Philly Fanatic, the San Diego Chicken, there are other masks. You should have had... But Mr. Met is the first. He's the original.

He's the greatest. Good Lord. You should have had the Mets call down here, one of our local television personalities. Famous man in the Louisville area from the 60s and 70s could have come up and helped you. His name was Milton Mets. Milton Mets. And he had a baseball or a baseball-shaped head and glasses. You want to know how bad things got for the Mets right before they sold the team at the end of the 70s?

Mr. Mett wasn't around. They introduced a new mascot. Metal the Mule. And it was a fucking mule. They named Mettle that would just graze around the Delfi. What the f- In New York We're known for a little of mules

This is a professional baseball team Making these decisions What do mules have to do With anything in New York And why? What did he have to do? Did he bang his head The metal mule?

Did he bob his head up and down To Ozzy Osbourne? Well, Metal the mule was only there For a very short period of time But it was a questionable decision You made to tell me that But that actually got out in front of the people

Before somebody with some semblance of sanity meddled with metal. I think metal was there for at least a season, maybe longer. Well, let's get back to Smackdown. Why, it's so much more fun to talk about baseball mascots, even though you know nothing about that, but it's more fun. Well, I know, but we got to get to the werewolf, you know, because we're still in Glove, because after the Davenport and Naomi match,

then in the back, we saw Bianca and Jade and Naomi, and they immediately started squealing. at each other and hugging each other. And then they did a bunch of scripted shit that I, and they, and in the process of this, you see Chelsea and Piper sitting in the back out in front of Nick Aldous's office with Aldus on the door, and Bianca and Jade and Naomi say out loud that Nick Aldus is not there. And then they fucking freak out Chelsea and Piper and rush into Aldiola.

his office and then Bianca, Jade, and Naomi keep squealing at each other until Naomi sees Blair and Jade and Bianca walk off and Blair doesn't want any trouble. She tells

Naomi that maybe the best person won and she offers her left hand to shake it and they shake left hands and then again is this a new Blair Davenport is from across the pond.

Is this a new thing they're doing over there shaking with the left hand? I have not seen people do that. I would not accept that. That's disrespectful, I think. Well, then Chelsea and Piper came back out of Aldous's office, and you'll never guess he wasn't even there. And then they walked off, and then while Naomi is standing there contemplating with the situation,

Blair came back from behind her and just leveled her and walked away from her. And again, besides for an L.A. night interview and a goddamn tag team match with the underneath folks, it's been all women all the time on this program. And then in a related instance, we get a tag team title match with Waller and theory against Champa and Same Face, where it's kind of like a mixed tag team match because there's pretty much a female on both fucking teams. Waller on his and same face on his. Why, you're still killing Waller?

Oh, fuck him. Give him a chance. He's ruined me from watching my boy theory because of his flabby fucking physique and his nerdy goddamn haircut and his general fucking cheesy goddamn fake heel fucking promo delivery and his lackluster work. Well, if you can get past all that. If I get past that, he's fine. He's going to give you the Austin Theory Babyface run.

What do you think of that? That seems to be coming. I don't know if I like that. I think theory, because theory to me is like Lugar was when he started, except not work-wise, but he's so big, he's got such a good body, he's got such a fucking, not only a nice face, but an arrogant smile. And he's so good at what he does at such a young age. He's a natural heel.

I don't know if I see him as a baby face, right? and we'll find out. He does. Don't you think he does need to change things up, even if you don't see him as a baby face, because this is where he's ended up right now as a heel? Well, yes. Something needs to be done.

Yes, well, I think something definitely needs to be done. He needs to throw his tag team partner at the bottom of Lake Michigan. But, yeah, well, let's see what happens. Let's see what happens. DIY won, by the way. They did it themselves. So anyway, now we get to the point because as soon as Champa and Same Face win a thing,

they beat Waller, thankfully, out comes Jacob Fatu, and he levels theory on the floor, and Waller runs away, and that fits his fucking gimmick. And then Fatu rolls in the ring and levels Gargana and levels Champa and hits the incredible pop-up Samoan drop

and then does a springboard flip on Johnny and does a triple jump moonsault on Champa and then starts the weed whacker right underneath my office window. Can you hear that? Yeah, I can't even lie. I hear that. Okay, good, good. Everyone hears that. Yeah, well, and that's capitalism at work.

They're out there working hard trying to earn a living. That'd be Jacob Fentu's biggest enemy, the weed whacker. The weed whacker. But basically he came, he laid out both of the tag team champions and one of the ex-champions, and the other one ran away from him, and looked good doing it. And that, again, it's not just about the moves because somebody out there is not going to get it. And they're going to, well, why he did the triple jump moon salt? You don't like it on AEW.

No, I like it when a fucking. main event guy that they are pushing that is coming out and getting over by laying out people can all of a sudden uncork a move like that when he doesn't look like

that something like that should come out of that fucking badass body it's all part of the package you've got to have the other shit too and then once he lays everybody out here comes so long music and solo

comes out with the Tongas. And he does the in-ring promo. And as soon as he does the deal where Roman used to do where he's to acknowledge me, immediately the fans are we want Roman, we want Roman. They've,

again, remember when Roman Reigns was a baby face and he was the most unpopular son of a bit? They fucking hooted at him, right? And now they've worked it to where he became, came such a great heel that now that this other shit's going on,

the people can't wait for him to come back, and he hasn't even done anything nice yet. It's brilliant. And, you know, and that's as Solo says, Jimmy didn't acknowledge me and he's gone. Heyman didn't acknowledge me and he's gone. And Roman reigns, if he decides to come back, he will acknowledge me.

So this is just, Solo has gone mad with power now. this is the new generation. This is Gotti. He's the flashy fucking Don that wants everybody to know it. Whereas Roma was one of the old-fashioned guys, like the Salernos and the fucking Capistranos and all those people, where they wanted to lay back and run things in an orderly fashion.

And then he basically said, tonight is Cody's turn to acknowledge me, and they play Cody's music. And he comes to the wrong. ring four on one. They're not even pretending anymore. It's like, yeah, we know you want to just see Cody come out and get in a fight,

so here we go. And they have the face off, and the people are chanting Cody, Cody. And Cody says, we want the same thing. SummerSlam, the WWE title. I'm going to talk to all this, but if I could make any decision, I wouldn't

way till SummerSlam, we do it here, right here and now, as a baby face, right? And the bloodline starts circling him. And he starts throwing punches. And grabs solo for the crossroads, and Jacob Fatu stops him with a super kick. And as soon as here comes Orton, he promised he'd be there. And he beats up the Tonga's on the floor. And ducks under Jacob. So Jacob goes over the top rope and he goes to DDT,

solo and he hits it. And Solo didn't know sell it like Jacob Fatu did. And then Randy goes to help Cody up. But there's Jacob back and he stops Orton. And he fucking heals on him.

And then dives out on the floor on him. And they tie Cody up in the ropes and they get heat on him and they beat up Horton with the stairs and then they make this is right out of Dusty's playbook. They make Cody watch while Jacob Fattu superkicks Randy Orton over and over,

and then they triple power bomb Orton through the table. And then once Cody's seen all that solo spikes him, he's still tied up into ropes. And Brian, not only is this a mid-south wrestling kind of angle to go off the end of the show with off the air, but going back to what we said earlier, in a year from now when the time is right, Orton can show that video and go, look, I saved your ass from these Samoans. And what happened because of you? That's what I got fucking, the shit kicked out of me. And what were you doing?

You were just hanging in the ropes, not doing a goddamn thing. It all is going to work in whatever way they wanted to work. Yeah, because eventually they got to kind of bring, you would think, the bloodline stuff all internal. Once Roman comes back, unless Roman's tagging up. with Cody, which could be something that builds into something at a later time. They've got that, they've got that too. But, you know, when Roman comes back, you would think it's Roman and maybe the Uso's and

whoever else they have there and they're stable versus the modern bloodline, Heyman comes back. Cody's going to need something non-bloodline related. He's going to need several things. So there's that. Yeah. Once Goethe's the other champion, there's another thing down the road. But that's the thing.

whatever they've got the island of relevancy all the occupants are battling over that Cody's got other things going on and Orton could potentially be for next year's SummerSlam if they wait that long and you talked about Sina coming back earlier and what's

you know all these people and they're setting everything up where this is really incredibly like Dusty Rhodes aka Eddie Graham Bill Watts style of book where I'm not suggesting Cody's doing all of it,

but it's the same philosophy where Watts and Eddie Graham in their territories, they had decent-sized rosters for those days, 20 guys, 22, 24 guys, but they had, and then Dusty had more with Crockett. But you could go to, for the World Tag title, the Midnight Express versus the Rock and Roll, versus the Road Warriors,

fucking Dusty and Magnum. Everybody had different ways they could go. The different horsemen could break off in different combinations and work with the top baby faces because there was always some element of an issue kept going amongst those people, some bad feelings, some bone of contention. And it's the same thing they're doing here

where Tony Kahn makes a million matches, right? and they come out of the blue and it's not necessarily ones anybody was asking for it's just ones that appeal to Tony and they're not milked till the people want to see them before they're even signed it's barely that you want to see it after it's announced but this they're creating interest in what would happen

if so-and-so wrestled so-and-so before they even get there in the story and giving everybody multiple interesting opponents that they haven't even had to announce yet. That's booking. It's not matchmaking, it's fucking booking. One question about all this before we wrap up Smackdown. With Jacob Fatou

and how spectacular he is and the reactions he got and how different he is and how really seems, Do you risk, for lack of a better term, him becoming a Jimmy Snooka? Bob Backlin worked with Jimmy Snooka. Eventually, Bob Backlin was getting booed because everyone had the cheer Snooka. He was the cool wrestler. He was the one doing the cool moves. It hurt Backland.

I mean, 1983 was miserable for WWF fans. What do you think? I mean, when I say Jimmy Snooker, it's make himself a baby face just because it's impossible to boo him, the more you see him. But here's the beauty of this. He's inside a group that you don't want to see succeed, even if you like him. And also, with all due respect to Mr. Backlin, the baby faces of today are a little bit moreover with this audience,

and they're not as tired of them as the WWWF fans may have been tired of Bob as he entered his fifth year as champion. and they've got more charisma and the promos are more important. It's a different audience. What you maybe want is for the people to start at least, well, they already probably do

anticipate Fattu's, you know, involvement. And if they're starting to cheer for him inside of this goddamn bloodline group, at some point, you've got Jacob Fattu versus Solo. if they mistreat him as the enforcer, if they don't give him the respect he deserves. And one day he says, no.

So, I mean, that's, it's not, they're not making Jacob Fatu a top single heel right now, challenging for the title of a, to be quite honest, pretty bland, you know, white bread baby face. He's the enforcer of an evil group, that's fighting a lot of baby faces with personalities.

So he's going to get over, but it's not going to distract. And down the road, again, you talk about things down the road, down the road, him and solo having problems. Yeah. And that's, you know, that could be two years or however. I mean, they've got, there's no reason to rush any of this. But right now, they don't have a problem with anybody being over in the wrong way because it just almost everybody's over.

Well, Smackdown was over. That was Smackdown. But you know, Brian, I'll tell you what, if in the old days, back in the old days of the wrestling business, when somebody like Jacob Fai Tu came along and the fans saw him on television, they'd get on their telephone and they'd call somebody. Generally, their friends who watched wrestling, did you see that guy? If they didn't see that guy, you got to see this guy. But it would all be by telephone, the old dial up, the rotary dial. You stick your finger in the hole and you spin it around.

It was good practice for a young teenage boy back in those days. But now there's all kinds of ways to call somebody. Brian, you can punch buttons and call them. You can talk into your phone and call them. You can text them. You can write something down and send it to it. You can take a picture and actually just send it right. over to people these days and you don't even have to wait to get it developed.

It's an amazing time we live in. I'd like to go back to the old simple times, but we're not going to do that. So we're going to save the fans money. We're going to save the listeners money. We're going to save the cult of corn head to people. We're going to save them money. You can call somebody. You can text somebody.

You can take a picture and send it to somebody. You can take your cell phone. and just sling it like a frisbee and it'll come right back to you. Yeah, don't do that and that's not what a frisbee does. That's what a boomerang does. Well, a boomeranging frisbee, you can sling it like a frisbee,

but it'll circle around like a boomerang and come right back and land in your hand. But only if you get the deal from Mint Mobile, because that includes the boomeranging frisbee attachment. It does not include that in any way. Fucking app. No, it does not include that, no. Well, yeah, because Mint Mobile, they want to, he, the, the, the, the, the, the, the Mint, yeah, Mint.

Mr. Mint. He's all over the world. Mr. Mint. He's, he's, he's going mobile. He's going mobile. He is a guy who wants to give everybody everything. Yes. Who's next?

I'll tell you, Bob O'Reilly is next. Mint Mobile. Anyway, so Mr. Mint wants everybody to have the telephone service that they've got the technology for these days at a fraction of the money that you pay these other big box providers with their big overhead and their big advertising budget and they're just big but that means they charge you money big money you want to go with mint mobile because they won't charge you a mint they've already got one mr mint and they're going to sell you actually they're almost going to give it away. A wireless plan, a premium wireless plan for three months for $15 a month.

And that is, that's a significant savings from what I understand over the other big box retailers. I've still got my wall phone. I just crank the crank and it rings and Sarah picks up and gets me numbers. But if I was to go to one of the new phones, I would go with Mint Mobile. You can agree with that, Brian. I could agree that if you were going to have one right now, you would have Mint Mobile. There's a lot of things you said that I don't necessarily agree with, or at least I wouldn't apply here, but I agree with that. Well, I don't know what I've said that you could possibly disagree with. You get the unlimited talk and text where you can write and talk to anybody you want to, as long as they'll suffer your presence and talk to you, anytime you want,

and it's got the high-speed data, so you can send those pictures of your genitals to everybody in your fucking social circle. And it's got the attached with this special app where if you sling that thing like a frisbee, it's going to come right back to you like a boomerang. Just try it and see. Just take your phone and just skip it like a flat rock across the lake. You'll watch it come back to you. I bet you.

Anyway, right, you want to know how to do this thing, Brian? You want to know how to get this deal, save this money. How do you do this thing? I'll tell you how you do this thing there. You go to mintmobile.com slash JCE. That is mintmobile.com slash JCE and they're going to give you this three month, well, they're not going to give it to you.

But like I said, it's almost giving it away. But they're going to sell you this three-month premium wireless plan $15 a month total of $45. That's $15 times three. And, well, you can just talk your, little head off. You can just natter on, natter on like a nattering nabob all you because it ain't going to cost you a single penny more.

No, it won't. No, it will not. It won't cost you a mint, but it will be mint. Mint mobile. It's in mint condition. Mint condition. Well, what's in mint condition? Well, the phone plan. It doesn't have any dings or scratches. It works perfectly. And you can take it around different places. That's why it's mobile. See, you don't have to just sit at home. You could actually take your phone with you and use it in other locations now.

Thanks to the cutting-edge technology that Mint Mobile has fucking broken through with. Hey, as a collector, what's the history of the word mint being applied to perfect condition? Oh, silly. Where does it come from? Silly boy, because the original collectible that depended on condition was coins. were coins. And in mint condition means they are the exact same condition, no scratches, no dings, that they came from the mint.

That makes perfect sense. And then near mint would be, well, it's almost there, and then you go down from there. But that, because that, people have been collecting coins since the 1800s. That was the first grading system. All those coin collectors like sitting there cursing these fucking stamps. Everyone's now jumping on this shit. Yeah, because, and actually, stamps should be not mint but print.

But that's a whole other thing that you can debate this on the message boards on mintmobile.com with your $15 a month phone plan when you meantmobile.com slash JCE. There are no Mintmobile message boards for the record, at least not covering this area. They've got them on the fucking phones all the time, the message boards. People are on the social phones all the time. Okay, one more time. Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry.

Well, they're the social phones, right? Where they're on the social media and mobile with them, where they just go everywhere and just, they go out and parking lots and talk to each other. The kids do. You know what that means? It's time for the promo code. What is it, Jim?

slash JCE. And there is a $45 up-front payment required, which is $15 a month for three months. And it's new customers on the first three-month plan only. We can't just double dip and speeds are slower above 40 GB on the unlimited plan

I still don't know what the fuck that means additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply if you live in the wrong part of the country where they monitor your communications and things like that. It's all coming to us folks. We're going to be living in a police state but see MintMobile

for all the details. Well, what in the world is happening at the Arcadian Vanguard network this week? I haven't been able to keep up with it since I've been otherwise occupied. So much going on. Again, get details. It's late in the day, and I'm kind of talking slow. I realize it out get details on Twitter. Get details on the Twitter.

At superpodcast or Facebook.com slash Arcadian Vanguard. Of course, every day, get the wrestling news. wherever you get your favorite podcast, free daily morning wrestling newscast. Get your news from the wrestling news. No paywall, no clickbait, just the wrestling news, the wrestling news.com, or wherever you find your favorite podcast. I want to make mention of the latest episode of Shut Up and Wrestling with Brian Solomon. His guest, Mike Edison, I remember him.

He invented the electric light. I think this guy invented the guitar bomb, but that's a different story. here at S-U-A-W-Pod.com or shut up and wrestle with Brian Salman, wherever you find your favorite podcast. And, of course, the 605 Super Podcast, The Mothership! 605Pod.com available wherever you find your favorite podcast. Listen to Scott Cornish, omnibus of his impressions and characters, the funniest stuff. I had so much fun going back and listening to it. 605Pod.com.

Available wherever you find your favorite podcast, The Mothership. Hey, it's not nice. See, that one was natural. It wasn't even pre-recorded. That sounded fake. It isn't that funny? It's like wrestling. It was the real one, but it looked fake.

Yeah. That's the first thing I learned when I got into business. The guys would say all those old timers, they threw punches. It looked like shit and hurt. Anyway, speaking of, if it didn't look like shit, I bet it hurt some people's feelings. The WrestleMania documentary. We finally got a chance to catch up with that. and we want to close the program out with some thoughts on

on exactly what went on there I'm going to say this top of the program and then we can delve into the minutia of it but the first thing you see on this thing is Bruce Pritchard sitting next to the head guy laughing and nodding his head some things haven't changed for 40 years he used to do that at 1919 Carolina at Pierce

and then he used to do that in Stanford Well, I guess he's still doing it in Stanford. Well, at 1241 East Main Street, and then over there at, I don't know, bug tussle way, I don't know what their fucking address is now. But this thing was incredibly well shot. The camera work was art. It was edited seamlessly. The voiceover was done so professionally.

It was a piece of art as a visual documentary. of something that allegedly occurred. Visually, it was stunning. In content, now I know why they took two months. Remember this was supposed to come out the week after, because they were just going to put it together. But they had to take two months to figure out a way to make it look like the rock somehow did this whole thing by himself,

you know, from start to finish. And I know now I sound like you. Because the rock is my guy as far as as talent goes, as far as he can come out and talk for 20 minutes. And you feel like you got your money's work. Incredible talent. But God almighty, have the years in Hollywood, now that I get a good look at him speaking as himself instead of working on television, have the years in Hollywood made him full of himself or what? He's the male J-Lo.

I said it last time, and it rings true. Well, see, I know who J-Lo is, and I can point at her picture, but I don't remember if I've ever heard her speak in any kind of, I don't give a fuck about J-Lo. So it didn't really register to me what you were saying until, if this is the male J-Lo, then, boy, she must be huffing a lot of her fucking. fucking methane gas, too. No, he's completely full of shit.

And it's a thing where the character doesn't end. The rock may end, but then he begins the character of Dwayne Johnson for the public. Well, that's the thing. It wasn't like he was keeping up being the rock. He was being Dwayne Johnson almost, it was like an eloquent Vince Rousseau with a good voice at a nice looking body and face and some intelligence still claiming credit for inventing air, water, and oxygen. You see, he could say a lot of things, and he sounds very nice saying it, but I don't know

if he really has great ideas or anything. It's just that he knows how to present himself, although considering all the editing problems and the delays or whatever it was, and a lot of people point their finger directly at seven bucks on the rock, the fact that he said, I need to look good in this thing, let me wear this shirt, let me have this look. that's where there's a disconnect. Like even Hogan never really presented himself like that to the public. Not that they would speak the same way,

but, you know, with the Rock, it's like he's trying to, he's trying to be something that it doesn't seem like he really is. He was executive, remember when Uncle Dave started calling Sting, real estate Steve, when he would show up places in a suit, he looked like just a normal guy because staying in a suit didn't really translate it looks like he's trying to be

executive Dwayne and and did you catch the one wait a minute it was later on but I made a note of it yeah when they talked about the rock

joining the board of directors of the WBE he called himself director of the board as director of the board not a member of the board of directors D-O-R-E-D. Well, but no, but seriously, there is no such thing as director of the board, is there?

But it sounds like the fucking head guy. There was no such thing as Muhammad Ali making him the people's champion until all of a sudden he got a belt at the Hall of Fame ceremony for Muhammad Ali. But here, the thing, it started out, Triple H basically, and you can tell the Triple H had to,

negotiate all this because he knew what was going on. You could tell that he's the real deal, that he understands what needs to be done, and also to this day, he is still a masterful wrestling politician. Yes. Because it can't be easy to manage Dwayne Johnson. He said it several times there. And I just decided, we'll do this. So I called Nick and Ari and Paul, you know, and Triple H.

They called the guy runs the entire company over his idea. That's what you have to deal with. If you're running creative, you now have someone who's going to run not just above your head, but to the top of the entire conglomerate. That's where they started because the Triple H talking about Cody and Roman said, we had that story and match laid out. And then The Rock comes along and he's, well, I had dinner with Nick Con and his sister, my childhood friends from Hawaii.

And he threw a wrench at a whole thing. And at the same time TKO was buying the WWE. and the Rock was going on the campaign and showed up on Smackdown. And the way they were telling a story, Rock was like, yeah, we've, we'd been working on this thing with me and Roman for quite some time. And yeah, and it hadn't come together. And in the meantime, something came along that the regular viewers of the television program wanted to see more.

And then Rock was like, it was almost like he was talking like he didn't really have any idea that it was going to be Cody and Roman all along. He thought everything was falling into place. And then he said, oh, yeah, they've been working toward the other thing for a couple of years. But we have the opportunity to create another main event. And they used the head of the table line when Rock came and did that surprise interview. And remember we say he was down the road with the Pat McAfee show. it apparently he thought I'll just try this out.

And when he said the head of the table line, of course the fans popped. They wanted it in addition to, not instead of, am I wrong about that? Did people, did they say, if we pop on him saying that line,

that means we vote for Rock and Roman and against Cody and Roman, they just, yes, we want that too, right? It was a great line. the delivery was really good. I don't remember the exact date, but I believe it may have even been before the Royal Rumble.

Yeah. So it's not like everything was a direct line to WrestleMania at that point. Also, if the Rock didn't know what they were doing with Cody and Roman, I guess he just wasn't watching the TV. Well, he knew what was going, but he was like, well, we'd been talking about this big thing,

and then now they were doing something else. But I'll bring it up now, because I don't know if I agree with it, and I may be one of the few who doesn't, naturally. but the idea that Dwayne Johnson, the Rock versus Roman Raines, because the Rock would be in a singles

one-on-one main event versus Roman Raines would be such a big draw for people who are not wrestling fans, people on Peacock, because it would be the image of Dwayne Johnson there on a title screen. I don't buy that. I don't buy...

See, that's where I hate when people try to market things, like baseball's marketed for people that don't watch baseball and don't get to show at it. They don't like baseball. Yeah. In this case, the idea that Dwayne Johnson being in the main event was the best thing according to him initially because

people who aren't wrestling fans are going to watch, but you piss off the entire fan base. Yeah, it's absurd. That was shit-stain's whole MO for all of his life. Oh, I get the people and piss off the people that actually are watching your program and don't get the other people.

But that's the thing you could tell by this. Cody realized he had to finish the story at WrestleMania things were up in the air suddenly you know when they at the rumble when they tell him it may be rock and roman but Cody wins the rumble anyway because triple h knew that it would bury him not to and

to comment what you said rock and roman may have been the same business wise viewer wise ticket wise because it's WrestleMania and it's peacock and all that it may have been slightly less it may have been slightly less it may have been slightly more.

But what it would have done is it would have devalued and damaged Cody to the point that it would have taken more money away cumulatively from the house shows and the TV ratings and the blah, blah, blah, that would be negatively impacted by Cody not being in his position he's in right now where they're setting records, that it would cost them money if they had done Rock and Roman, even if it would have gotten more publicity on entertainment tonight or fucking TMZ or whatever.

Do you think that's a fair assessment? I think Cody Rose, I don't think The Rock was going to draw a ton of extra people. I don't think the Rock being in the tag team match before, night one, was anything that to the casual person? No, no, no, no, I disagree with you there because it's still the Rock coming back in wrestling. No, no, I agree with that.

I agree with that, but I'm saying, I don't think that is any weaker than a one-on-one match for people who are not wrestling fans. The idea that the Rock's wrestling in that tag match means just the same to the person who's not a fan as the Rock main event night two against Roman. I think you are correct in that there was going to be a negligible amount probably of regular people that aren't watching wrestling

at this point in time that would tune in for the Rock, but it definitely added to WrestleMania because he was wrestling on Saturday night. But anyway, that's where they were. And then they had the injuries to punk and, you know, they tried to re-rack that whole thing. And Cody even commented before he did the promo before he said, I want you, Roman, but not at WrestleMania. He said, I was not overly excited about this.

He knew. He knew that this had to be the way it was for him. it was going to cost him and the company a lot of money if that didn't go through. But the, you know, here's the thing. I said I wasn't going to like this documentary

because they were going to, oh, this is how we worked out this violent fight with my good friend and we'll show you how we did it. They did and they didn't. Did you notice you didn't see Cody Rhodes hugging Roman Raines or the rock? because he's smart enough to know that there's money to be made with those guys

and it would have hurt him. But you saw Rock and Roman hugging and kissing after their promo where they had done it, where they got in each other's face and they thought they had switched the match. And that's what I hate about these shows is the love you brother

from these guys who were out there are either fighting or yelling at each other or insulting each other. insulting each other. But Cody was smart enough to not do it because he knows because of his lineage. And he was rightfully afraid of losing to fans' faith if he didn't finish the story in the appropriate venue.

You know, the other thing is, the big history-changing moment or one of them was Cody Rhodes when he gave up the match to the rock with the rock and his team's intention of it making the rock the accepted baby face and Cody slinking off to wrestle Seth Rollins. Yeah. When Cody didn't smile, when Cody didn't embrace it, when Cody didn't act in that moment, one of the biggest actors in this company, all of a sudden there, that was his reaction.

That was the thing that put it all to bed. There was no way at that point the fans were going to let shit go down and let Dwayne Johnson be the baby face going into a main event against Roman Raines. They didn't want that. They knew Cody was getting horn swagled. Now, they showed a bunch of video, I imagine, of personally selected podcast marks, people not affiliated with the wrestling business

that have their own little podcasts and they dress them up with the video and they have little costumes they wear because they're playing a part. They were popping for the Rock versus Roman because I'm thinking that they probably had to guarantee Rock that there would be a certain amount of before they talk about the fans blitzing Twitter

and social media with We Want Cody and Rocky sucks they had to prove the Rock's point that a bunch of people wanted that match but could you believe they put a bunch of I'm not talking about a podcast from someone actually in or formerly in the industry I'm talking about a bunch of fucking who the fuck are these people's is that a plural thing

reacting like children again there's one watching these things and talking about it's another thing oh my god look at his way that! No one reacts like that for real on camera they were jumping up and down like school girls with shiny new vibrators and so

and that vibrators name was the rock yes that's the thing did Dwayne I know he got Gerwitz from romper room somewhere but did he also sign on some people from the Kremlin in the propaganda department? Triple H was diplomatic,

but you knew he knew what the fuck needed to go on. And then I started writing this down. The Rock's sitting there. I called Nick. I said even if Rock versus Roman is the bigger real world match out there in the real world.

But my gut says I don't like it even if it's a segment of fans up set. So I went with the ladder and I told these guys and he laid it all out like it was his idea and he told all of them

what it should be and would be and could be, which was what they goddamn had originally plus a tag team match on Saturday night for him to be involved, make money, and save some face.

And again, I disagree with the idea that it was just the biggest, it was the bigger real world match. If Cody Rhodes wrestled... But what a condescending way to put it? Yeah, you know, at normal people out in the real world, I'm a big deal,

but these guys, you know, for their audience, a little small audience, it just, he didn't come off good trying to come off good. He came off like an asshole, trying to come off like a beneficiary.

Yeah, and by the way, who do you think was going to win that match? Roman versus the Rock. Roman's been gone for months since then, apparently working on some problems, projects, the Rock went right to a film project and got hurt. Who was going to win that match? I think probably both guys' bank accounts and nobody else.

And he tries to pretend like it was all his idea, it was just a big pivot. The biggest real-world match, honestly, was the Rock against anyone. Didn't even have to be Roman. For the casual person who's not a wrestling fan, Dwayne Johnson's at WrestleMania against the Miz. It didn't matter. For the wrestling fans, it would matter who he wrestled. Oh, come on now.

The Ms. I'm serious. For like the average person who doesn't know anything about wrestling, doesn't know what any of these people are. Well, that's true. Then they wouldn't know who the fucking Ms. If that's the idea, you're going to get people who are Dwayne Johnson fans on a worldwide level

because of all those films, they're not wrestling fans. It doesn't matter who he wrestles. It doesn't matter who he wrestles at WrestleMania. He just wanted to be in the main event against Roman Rain so he could say he drew the house. But anyway, random observations when we get to the meat of the matter, there were more office people wearing suits in this one hour than in the first 90 years of pro wrestling combined.

Well, that was always a Vince thing, though, wasn't it? I know, but, yeah, it just looks so, so professional. It's not the business I knew. Everybody's wearing a fucking suit and tie. Any Terry Funk coming in and goddamn flip-flops. Where do you think that comes from events, though? Just the idea that for appearance sake, everyone has to be wearing. a shirt and top. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah.

It was been, I gotta be professional, pal. But anyway, here's another rock quote for you. Becoming this new version, talking about being a heel, the final boss. Becoming this new version is the most gratifying decision I've ever made. I'm telling you, he's huffing his fucking flatulence. So anyway, they have the show.

And one of my favorite things that they showed was Triple H producing the entrances as well. I don't like it when they go behind the scenes and the guys hug each other after they beat the shit out of each other. And I don't like talking about creating them and booking the match and all the inside shit. But I like it when one of these programs shows you the work that goes into laying this shit out as a television program and as a live event production. and going over it and anticipating problems before they happen or answering people's questions that they don't know to ask, that talent wouldn't know until they get in a position. Oh my shit, what am I supposed to do now?

Well, hopefully as the producer, I've already told him four hours ago. Look to that camera. Don't step on that spot or it'll blow you up. The music cue is here, whatever. and they're not just walking out there blind with no preparation as television performers in that slick of production on that biggest stage and you can tell the difference when a lot of the guys on the other program just walk out and don't know where the goddamn camera is and so it's they are a level above

I hate the overly produced matches that take the life and the spontaneity out of it but I love the fact that this is a professional television production and they're not going to build fake drywall

walls with no studs that are attached to nothing and they're not going to have rooms with windows that don't have a door to get out of and the Pyro is not going to blow the fucking guy's head off or set him on fire most of the time. And, you know, this is a whole different level of production. And that's why that a lot of the guys are shocked when they go up there and say,

wow, this is a machine. We were in chaos. We don't know what the fuck. Because they know what to do because people that are in the position that they're in know how to produce shit, whatever they're given, whether it's television, live event, the entrance, the pyro, the finishes, or whatever the fuck. Less room for error.

And did you see the shot of Seth Rollins limping in for the run-in? They showed a ringside shot that wasn't on the mania pay-per-view, and he was using the folding chair as a crutch. Did you see that? I did see that. And then remember that angle or that, footage we saw of him taking the bump and his leg kind of just...

Flopping. Flopping. You could kind of see that from the side angle from what they showed. Yeah, but because remember we had said at the time Seth barely had gotten in the ring and didn't even stand up and they walloped him with a chair and I said, why the fuck? Not really, because somehow he was out there, he couldn't walk by that point.

So, anyway, spoiler, Cody won the title on Sunday night at WrestleMania. And then the documentary ended with the Rock telling Cody that their story had just begun. Who's going to win that match? Well, we'll see. If the Rock was as Hogan-like as he seems lately, he would propose or be up for a two-year program, and then he would win match one and then never come back.

Or insist on winning match one, match two, and match three. Hogan may have learned that from the Sheik. I think Cody Rhodes has to beat the Rock and the Rock as a member of the board of directors would have to be wholeheartedly on board with that to make a bigger fucking star for the company that's carrying the company not the one that bops in and serves on the board

I'll say this now whenever the Rock comes back let's say for instance next winter when they start building up for stuff whenever it finally gets to him and Cody, Triple H and Cody Rhodes are going to be as frustrated as any two wrestling personalities in the world, putting that together. Having to deal with the little goerts and his bad ideas.

Boy, he looks like one of the fucking little rascals, doesn't he? When they were little or when they were grown up and they were still little? Well, no, kind of when they were delinquent children. I don't know, alfalfa or fucking, you know... Foggy? Maybe George Foggles. Hoghorn Winslow with that nerdy little fucking haircut.

I don't know. But if Cody Rhodes wrestles the Rock, Cody Rhodes has to win or they're all completely out of their minds. So again, I've been talking about issues behind the scenes and personality and fakeness from the Rock for a while now. Are you starting to see it a little more? I said that earlier. Don't ring it out of me again.

I hate to admit when I'm... But as a performer, he's brilliant. Yes. But when you saw him sit down and talk like a normal person allegedly is supposed to talk, he's about to award himself the Nobel Prize for literature for this whole thing. He's responsible for everything. I called this guy and told him this. That's while the memes are out.

I said this to the other guy I told Lincoln don't go to the theater the plays the shits whatever and see watching this I end up feeling bad for Triple H I know it's crazy to say because I think he's doing a really good job

and watching just the limited footage and again it's company footage seems like he's the man for the job yeah and he's got it down and look at the direction of the good stuff on their TV everything's moving along like a wrestling company nicely

amongst that stuff, not the uncle howdy, shit, and everything else. Right, but overall, Triple H, boom, no complaints. He's doing a better job than anybody's done there in quite some time. So now it's the Rock, whenever the Rock comes back now, he's technically Triple H's boss, or not even technically, he's Triple H's boss, he's one of his bosses.

But now, hold on. Also, he's going to be a top talent, and also he wants to go directly to the people who run the company to make sure his stuff happens. he's the biggest star in the business to the mainstream population and he is old childhood friends with the guy that is running the company now on behalf of the conglomerate but is he technically really triple h's boss because if you're on the board of directors you still can't if somebody that sits on the board of directors couldn't have in the old wwe would one of those people have

never heard of before. They were just put there because they had a business background. Would they technically have had the power to go into a raw taping if Vince wasn't there and tell people what to do? No. So, Rock may be on the board of directors and obviously he has a great amount of sway and, etc. But he's not technically Triple H's boss, which I think makes the idea of a Triple H in rock issue on television at some point when he comes back, even more, you know, something to look

forward to more, because Triple H can come out and say, no, you're on a board of directors. You ain't my fucking boss. Well, Nick Kahn's my childhood friend. We'll tell Nick Kahn to come over here and tell me something then, motherfucker. And by the way, Nick Kahn works day to day with Triple H, day to day. Well, yes. And then Nick Kahn could come out and say, you know what? Dwayne, I never really thought all that much of you when we were kids or whatever.

I don't know. But the point is, there's conflict that can be manipulated there that's real in some respects but can be turned into work. Well, that's the thing. It's going to be real. Because the only reason the Rock is doing all this, the only reason he's back, it's not just all the money. It's the idea that he's going to get to do his stuff the way he wants to do it. If that starts getting rejected, you're going to start having problems.

problems. Big stars... I'm not going to start having any problems. They all do what they want. I don't give a shit. Big stars are not used to being rejected when they have their ideas out there and the rocks on a little bit of a role with this. And again, look at just the change in public perception and reaction from people over the last year between the Cody stuff, the in-and-out burger stuff, the Hawaii stuff, the Black Adams stuff. the articles, and then whenever he has a chance to go out there and make himself look good, his choice is to present himself in a weird condescending manner that looks bad, I think, to almost anyone. That's a good word.

It seemed he was condescending like he was above everyone else and sending out directions on, well, I have a grip on all of this, and this is what we should do. It just, he was too full of himself. And you said he was the biggest worldwide star they have. I don't know. It's an interesting question, him or Sina. Because Sina doesn't have anything negative really. He's really good at shaking shit off.

And he speaks as fake as the rock in a lot of ways. But there's also a genuineness there, I think. Well, but no, but I think just because of seniority, more people know of, when I say biggest star, I'm talking of most well-known personality. whether you're a fan or you just know who he is or you recognize him or whatever the rock is that i agree with that i agree with that the rock is i think john sina might be a more popular personality amongst the wrestling fan population at this point but more people know who the rock is see it's going to be interesting if that switches because he's filming peacemaker uh season two right now season one people loved you got to think season two has a chance to be bigger than that you He's dedicating a lot of time to that. There's going to be a publicity machine around his name for the next year. Yeah.

And again, he doesn't have the baggage of Dwayne Johnson. He's impressed a lot of people with his roles still the way you used to hear Dwayne Johnson. Like in the early days, when he first went to Hollywood. You know, remember he played a homosexual in the sequel to Get Shorty? I forget the name of the movie. Well, you don't have to just goddamn label him as that. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. No, I'm not labeled him.

He's often been struggling with his sexuality. But it was a big deal. I didn't say that. Again, this is Jim Cornett, Dwayne. But he played a role that was outside of what you would consider to be something that the rock would do in Hollywood. He lost a lot of weight. He was trying to be a serious actor. And for a while there, for a little while, people were impressed with him.

And then he realized where the money was, which was taking every fucking steroid known the man and doing action movies, wearing the same outfit in every single movie and playing the same role and being the same character. in just about every movie you do, and it worked for him. But it's like a wall. There's a wall that he hit. Meanwhile, Sina is now emerging. And again, as season two comes out, sometime next year, I would assume, and is it hit? Because of the nature of streaming and where we are as a society right now, movie stars versus streaming stars are just stars in general,

Sina will probably surpass the rock within a few years if things work out. I think it was that nude scene that Sina did that propelled him over the top. Oh, with, uh... We still haven't seen the rocks ying yang. His ying yang? His well, or Pattaliwacker. Dingling? I don't want to phrase it.

Dingling. My dingling. Him and Chuck Barry. We haven't seen any of one. Chuck Barry's last hit. That was his last hit. That was his last hit and his favorite thing. My dingling.

Have we, have we dinglinged enough yet today here on this program? Any closing thoughts on the WrestleMania document? Did you see the part? One of my favorite parts, when Cody, they film him coming out of the bus and the dusty truck is right across from him. And he explains it.

I never heard it laid out like this and I was losing it. That smile Dusty would do. He says he goes, he would call that as million-dollar smile, but nobody smiles like that. And it was such a funny observation. I really laughed at that. That was good.

He did that. One of the first times I saw Dusty was I had gone to my Uncle Harold's house in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and they had cable. And it wasn't like they had cable because they were a big city. It's like some of those towns down there

had cable first because that was the only way you could get fucking television. Oak Ridge wasn't bad, but further up in the holler, you needed some type of assistance. And TBS had, what was that? 76, 77, brand new on the satellite.

And there's Dusty Rhodes doing the promo and he said, and I want to say my million dollar smile, I'm going to give it to you right now, a psychedelic camera lady, turn your camera on a close-up of this and hit the million-dollar smile.

And he'd do that, like the photo op. And nobody smiles like that. And he was just doing bullshit, you know, that nobody else was doing with the felt hat and the tie-died shit

and the psychedelic fucking robes and whatever. Anyway, yeah, the documentary, visually a piece of art, somewhat rewriting history, trying to sanitize Wayne Johnson's reputation as almost fucking his whole thing up. Yeah, and this is the best case scenario. This is after months of edits or whatever the hell was going on behind the scenes. What do you think of that? The idea that this was supposed to come out,

they advertised it almost right away, and it took them months, and everyone's pointing to Dwayne Johnson, this was the way he was presented in the finished product. Yeah, and I think they kind of probably realized

as they were going through this, they intended to do a documentary on WrestleMania all along and they were shooting from the very start, but they didn't realize that all this shit would go on in the middle. And then somebody, because I'm sure they were also editing

some rough cut as they went along, they weren't just going to start from scratch on Monday. morning after WrestleMania. They had some of the story put together if they were going to release it that week. But then somebody probably brought up

and said, you know, it looks like we really didn't have our shit together at all. If we tell this whole story, warts and all, we look kind of fucking foolish and the rock looks like he got in the middle of something and tried to take the fan's enjoyment away. So they had to... Then they had to start from scratch

you reevaluate everything, and that's why it took, what is it? May, June, July, three months instead of the week of. Well, you know, it's close. But that's what I think. Well, there it is, the WrestleMania behind the curtain documentary. And also, I think they owe me a fucking some kind of payment because they took the title of my best-selling graphic novel available at Jim Cornett.com, along with so many other fine pieces of merchandise.

and used it for their documentary. Well, Stephen Pinoo could probably take care of that. On the topic... Yeat! Yeat! On the top... Don't say that. He can't help you now. On the topic of reviews real quick before we close up, people keep asking the Iron Claw.

What's the status? Oh, God, I saw that. And I guess we're going to have to talk about it at some point. Here's a tease. The best thing was they got the Sportatorium to look ring to look almost exactly like the Sportatorium ring looked. But almost

none of the things in that movie were ever said by any of those human beings to any of those other human beings. And none of the people in the movie looked like any of the human beings that were saying those things or weren't saying those things. And

they used your time machine to hop back and forth chronologically and mesh together some other fucking items, and it was driving me crazy and I was screaming at the screen, that's not what happened. Or they would not use those words. Or they did not say these things to each other.

But otherwise, not it was wonderful. Is that the review? Are we going to do a real review? I guess we got, well, I didn't take notes. I just actually, Stacey popped it up one night on the streaming. You saw it from beginning to end? Yes. No, actually, I started at the end that I watched.

it backwards. It was easier that way. Okay, that's hysterical. So what did you think of the casting? Well, let's just get this out of the way, because this may be all we get from you about this movie. Well, I, none of those people look like any of those people. You didn't think the guy who played Fritz was kind of

as good as you can get for Hollywood? Well, Fritz, I guess was as close as you could get. But, you know, Kevin was bigger than Carrie. physically, I mean, you know, the body. And then also, it just, I guess, if they used real wrestling terminology,

then maybe the general viewing populace might not be able to understand it, but no, they, Fritz wasn't going to talk that way to his kids. His kids weren't going to talk that way to each other. It was like a bunch of marks discussing wrestling that had never been in a locker room before. And they, I appreciate they tried to make it seem like a shoot

except when they didn't but it just I cannot enjoy a movie a television show a documentary well I won't say a documentary I can but a movie or a television show based on

something that I know anything about when they fucking make shit up that's what kills it for me because I'm like, no. He wouldn't talk like that. He didn't say that. He didn't look like that.

These things didn't happen. They didn't say those things to each other. Whatever the fuck. The dramatic license kills me. I cannot fucking get past it. And then, for good reason, none of the wrestlers in the movies or TV shows about the boys look like the fucking boys.

And the reason was because that was the whole idea nobody looked like these guys you had to buy a ticket to see them but am I wrong in this was the casting of Mike Von Eric the worst oh boy howdy or what did you think of the flare

and Harley Race didn't bother me the way it bothered some other people no the flare I think was the worst wasn't he as I'm trying to say yes the flare was pretty much goddamn rotten someone said that it was almost like he was doing an impression of the flare on young rock as opposed to the real Flair.

Yes. I mean, it just, that's the thing is you've got, I'm sure some of the actors, the actors that were the Von Erick boys, they're not bad actors. Now, like this Flair or whatever, he's just some fucking clown

that watched three of Flair's interviews on YouTube and he's trying to play heel wrestler that he's seen on TV once in a while. But, you know, they get him a lot of time for that promo. And that's the thing is that it just, if you saw the real people do it, and especially if you knew the real people, that's why I don't like any of these dramatic renditions of, you know, the wrestling business, because it's not real. They don't look like it. They don't talk like it.

They don't act like it. And a lot of these things didn't really fucking happen. And then that just bugs me. Let's talk about a positive before we get back to more negatives. The Sportatorium, the look, and again, the Sportatorium has been torn down, it's not there. The look of the building that they presented as the Sportatorium, the Freebirds, what did you think of it? You worked in the real building right around the time of the prime, or the peak of the company, I guess I should say. What did you think of that?

They got the ring down, and the Sportatorium didn't look bad. Obviously, they couldn't have, they couldn't construct a 5,000-seat arena and put 5,000 people in it for extras. I understand that limitation. I think the wrestling scenes were probably the highlight of the movie, both in terms of the way the ring looked, the way they shot it, the way the television looked, and also they were somewhat exciting, the wrestling scenes in the movie.

And, you know, so, but that's the thing is that, you know, they were trying for that detail to get to the wrestling fan, but I think I just don't see any way that a professional in the business that knew these people and was there for

some of the things that happened it has to drive you crazy no, this is not right, it's completely wrong. Is part of the reason it would drive you crazy because if you know the real story, the real story is kind of better than or you could argue maybe better than the movie version? Well, yes

and I know again time limited and they can't put everything in. But they they wrote the boys and Fritz conversing with the boys and the boys conversing with each other like fans would about it's hard to explain, but this would not be

the way that the boys were talking about to wrestling business. I'd have to get a get me a copy of the script and I'll translate it into wrestling lingo. You know, that would be fun, actually. Now, how would they say this in the locker room?

And then you have a paragraph of regular English spoken by a normal person than translated into wrestling language. How would you say it in the locker room? The biggest star in the movie, Zach Ephron, playing Kevin Von Erick. He received a lot of praise for his role. How similar or not similar at all was his presentation of Kevin Von Erick from what you remember being around Kevin in 1985? No, none of these guys were anything like the Von Herrick boys.

I mean, they, again, they made the, they did the moves and the matches and they said some of the, you know, the things that they said in promos and in the story, you know, the okay, they'll take a line here or there. But none of these guys talked like or acted like any of the Von Erics in person, in real life. And that's, I've never known anybody else that did. Do you think David was well-cast? I never met David. He's the only one I never met. Just in terms of a look at least. Well, no, because nobody looks like these fucking people.

And David was like, what, six foot four? Six five, maybe. Six, five, maybe. And like I said, the ripped one in this one was Kevin, and Kevin was in great shape, but Kerry was the fucking bodybuilder. And he looked like the, you know, the little guy there. I'm not trying to pick it apart, but no, because it's people that I knew in a place I was, it, it's not like that. But they, it wasn't, they didn't make fun of the wrestling business or knock it or make it like that it's so simple, anybody could do it or be disrespectful to it.

I'm not saying that. I just, it was just, ah, no, no, no, no. All right, well, there's the review of the Iron. call that everyone's been waiting for and yeah boy see aren't you glad you waited all right well this is your show okay well then it's over with i'm sorry guys i've got a lot going on here hopefully everybody will be healthier uh when we get back together on your program brian the drive-thru it a few days from now but uh until then get well mom and uh everybody else enjoy democracy while we have it It's not going to last much longer.

And we will see you on the drive-thru. Thank you. Fuck you. And bye-bye, everybody.