Jim Cornette Experience - Episode 556: Fear & Loathing

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

This week on the Experience, Jim talks about Vince McMahon & the writer's room, WWE's ring boy lawsuit, and much more! Plus Jim reviews WWE Smackdown and WWE Raw!  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 Connest. The keys to the future held by the past and with tag deep art. ...WW writers' room, who's Sue and Vince McMahon this week, and all the latest grappling news. And to join me in all this and so much more frivolity. Hawaiian Brian the podcasting lion The King of the Arcadian Vanguard podcast network

Mr. co-host to you He's the Hunter S. Thompson of podcasting The great Brian Last everybody Aloha Jim, a pleasure to be here once again Of course Hunter S Thompson was from Louisville, Kentucky So maybe you're the Hunter S. Thompson of wrestling podcasting. No, I'm the one with the loathing

And you're the one that should have the fear You're Dr. Gonzo, I guess. Oh, I'm on a Gonzo, you're bongos, pal. I'll tell you what. At circus, circus? Where are we doing this? You know what you have done to me,

and I'm going to reveal to the people that I'm fucking, I'm about to pull my hair out over the goddamn internet situation. Here's what to be. You're blaming my headphones. Because, folks, I'll tell you right now, there is no sound coming out of one of the sides of my headset. my headphones, only a little bit of sound coming out of the other side. And it's actually the one that the sound comes out of is my bad ear anyway, because you know

I'm half deep. And so I've had to turn my headphones around so they're not shaped for my head that way, and they're fucking about to fall off the back of my head. And I've been driven through a goddamn procedure for the past nigh on 45 minutes. It's made me want to put my fist through this fucking monitor and reboot this computer with my goddamn foot, but I'm afraid I'll break my toe. What about electrocution?

You're not afraid of electrocution? If I can kill this fucking thing by electrocuting it, I'll try that. No, by yourself getting electrocate, you stick your foot into a monitor and all of a sudden... I'm going to take this son of a bitch with me. But you laugh. you are blaming my headphones, but this has coincided with a website that will not be named

maybe until later in the program when I get really pissed off. You had me go to this particular website to research one of the big breaking topics that we're going to talk about on today's program and doing that, it froze my fucking computer up and I couldn't get any, couldn't get the goddamn shit off the screen

and then finally it all went away and then I couldn't reconnect to anything and it took forever to click on enough things that would come up that I would be back on the goddamn inner webs and then we discovered

when we tried to get on and do this thing almost an hour ago that when I tried to call you somehow I could only hear as I've mentioned out of one side of the headset. And I said, it's the website that you sent me to that had poisoned my computer because it worked perfectly yesterday, hadn't been touched since then, except for that incident. So I said, I'm going to restart my computer. So I go, I get down and I fucking punch the

goddamn button to turn the thing off because I know there's a way to do it on the screen, but I come figure it fucking out. So I just, I figure I'll just turn the goddamn thing off with the button, right? It's got a power button on it. And usually, when the power goes off and I have to turn it back on, that's the way I turn it back on. And sometimes when I have to turn it off, that's why I turn it off. So I turned it off that way.

But then I couldn't get it to come back on. I tried to try to turn it on about three or four times. Like, oh, fuck, now it's fucking dead completely. Then it turns back on. Then it gives me the goddamn screen and I got to do all the bullshit to get into the thing to where it reconfigurates and confabulates and the wheels are turning rolling down the river until finally you get all the shit back up to where you can click on shit again. I didn't go over the people's heads with that description. Did I, Brian? Did I get too technical?

Rolling down the river? No, I don't think so. And it's taken, man, it says it's frustrating. and I'd like to know what you're going to do about. How are you going to compensate me? What I'm going to do about it? What? For poisoning my computer wherever you sent me to this place, fucking read this shit,

and that was the beginning of the troubles. And now I can barely hear you to begin with. Why am I screaming? Because I can barely hear you. Can you hear me? I can hear you, grandpa. You're screaming at me. I'm coughing at me.

My voice. I'm losing my voice at you. I'm out of breath because I can't hear you so I think you can't hear me. He's like Jay Uso coming through the crowd right now. You heard that. No, listen. All kidding aside. Some of the show, I'm out of breath.

All kidding aside, it's not me. It's your computer. Well, what? No. Yes. Because it was working fine until I went on that website. And that website clear as day. said not responding and all that fucking screwy shit that fucking goes on.

For the record, the website was not any kind of nefarious website. It was a nationally known news site. Yeah, but it's not one that I ever get. I had my news that I was reading up on that subject on another nationally known site. But you know, we should look at the same thing. My nationally known site was just popping up and down just fine. How secure is your computer? Are you up to date with your security settings?

Security updates? For what? For what? I've got the ExpressVPN. They take care of all that thing. The guy comes in here a couple times a week. It's not the way it works exactly. Yeah, no, he's got a big nameplate.

It says ExpressVPN. I'm certainly appreciate to mention, but this is not how to work on anything. No. Well, nevertheless. Why are you trying to avoid the fact that you have now rendered me where I'm at a handicap here on the audio here because you've done something to my computer with this half off-brand news site you had me go to? There is a chance that the website caused computer issues on your computer for one reason or another that would have necessitated a restart, which is what you did. The headphones are a separate issue. Yeah.

Yeah. You hear out of one of the ears on there, not the other one. I think it's a wiring issue. Hold on. Wait a minute, hold on. I would... I will grip tightly. I'm just... I was just making sure that I hadn't gone deaf and was having some kind of stroke.

I can hear if I don't have the headphones on, I can hear out of that ear. So that's a good sign. Can you hear this? I think everybody can hear that. Hey, all right. Music brings us together. Anyway, well, speaking of bringing us together. Before we go any further with the broadcast today,

this probably, I can't keep track. The days are blurring, but I believe this will be the last podcast that they, the folks hear my voice before the election. And last week we covered quite a bit of grounds, and I'm not even going to, I'm going to be brief, number one, and number two, I'm not even going to talk to anybody who's made up their mind because obviously I don't want to talk anybody out of voting for Kamala Harris

and you can't reach I've just seeing Twitter after the last week and I think everybody else would probably realize that too you can't reach the Trumpers anymore they have left the building they're not living in the real world they don't plan on moving back anytime soon these people are going to go to their graves

however old they are believing this fucking guy's horse shit and nothing's ever going to show even history books will never change that in their minds but there are a segment Brian and you may have heard of them have you have you heard got feedback from the

they're all the same crowd have you if you wouldn't they say the politicians they're all the same oh yeah yeah of course I'm not going to vote because it doesn't matter because they're all the same, which is a ridiculous statement to begin with, but I tell you what, I want to argue with anybody that feels that way on any of them except this one. If you guys will agree to not even meet me in the middle, but meet me 90% on your side, and just this time, they're not

all the same. Nobody can claim that they're the same. And if you're not going to vote, because you think they're all... Then meet me. Oh, I'm all the way over nine out of ten parts on your side. Just meet me that far and say this time, I'll go vote to save the fucking world. Because I know that a lot of people around the world think, well, these Americans in their politics,

they're fucking nuts, and we are, obviously, but they laugh at us and they shouldn't be laughing. Because guess what, folks, the President of the United States could not only fuck up the United States, he can fuck up the world. And this guy's fucking way out of control. So admit one time,

they're not all the same because never in the 250-year history of the United States of America has a former president's chief of staff, a four-star general, come out and said, he's unfit, he's a fascist,

he is a danger, a clear and present danger to the country and should never be allowed near the Oval Office again and a dozen of Trump's former administration official. have come out publicly and put their name to agreeing with the fucking guy. That's never happened before ever.

For good reason. So, and these are four-star generals and people who, if they say that this guy should not have the fucking codes and not be let in on the secrets publicly, attaching their names to it, I think the whole world better listen and they better have their fingers crossed and it's still half and half for some reason

so basically we're going to find out two things number one can the United States of America's citizens live up to the responsibility that we have as the most powerful nation in the world by not fucking the world up and secondly, what Mama Cornett used to say, whenever something

would happen in the world that this saying was applicable, just remember, there's more good people than there is bad people. And I hope she was right. We'll find out on Tuesday. But anyway,

before that Trump, has potential chance to destroy the national and global economy while you still got some money and you're going Christmas shopping, do it at Jim Cornett.com. What kind of transition is, before the end of the world spend your money here? What the hell is that? Well, fuck, we either ain't going to have it or we ain't going to need it for very long. It's all coming to an end, so give it to me. Well, and hey, I'll tell you what, fuck, if he loses, I'll give it all.

back. Don't commit to that. That's a bad business decision. Don't commit to anything. Well, I could, I could send it back in CornyCoyne. Oh, no, no, we're not legally allowed. We went through this off air a while back with the attorneys. We're not legally allowed to distribute, disperse, have anything to do with any sort of currency or bullshit currency, such as CornyCoin. So we got to go through the people at Mint Mobile and their subsidiary Mobile Mint. Again, that's another thing that's not real. There's no. mobile mint, or at least there's no mobile mint applied to Mint Mobile, who has nothing to do with this?

Well, then, then who had those printing plates and that green ink in the trunk of that 78 Osmobile? That was Blackjack Mulligan. Oh, okay. I'm saying, you know, actually, he just, he got that payoff from an independent show. I said, what, what'd you do, sell out the orange bowl? It's $2 million.

But anyway, if you've got $2 million, then say, Even if it's phony, send some of it to me. I'll figure out something else to do with it. But at Jimcornett.com right now, the holiday sale is going on, including the last ever Jim Cornett action figure. Once again, if things go the wrong way, I'll probably be outlawed and stuck into a gulog or a stahlog or one of them.

I'll have a log stuck in me. So anyway, just help a brother out, as Tracy Smothers would say. Do your Christmas shopping at Jimcornet.com. if you've already ordered a figure we believe around about the time you're hearing this in the next seven to ten days everything we should be through our backlog and remember there's less waiting on a non-figure order because they're easier to process and the big weekly sales are coming up every week in November another fine item is going to be on sale and if you've entered your email address on the homepage at jim cornet.com down to bottom you will get email notifications of how much money you can save on that week's particular feature item only at from and with jimcornet.com now with hotchkis feather bottom

soon the feature show use computer equipment well you know how many pieces you think I could break this son of a bitch in and just and include them anybody spends over fifty dollars you get a hunk of my fucking former computer. Why do you think that's the way to go? I think maybe selling it as one piece, you can get a bigger amount of money.

You think breaking it up and not even selling it, but doing it as a giveaway? Well, yeah, because I'd rather take a sledgehammer to this son of a bitch for all of fucking frustration and aggravation and prostration it has cost me than actually have somebody buy it and pay me money for it. I want, at some point, take a hammer to this thing.

Well, stay tuned to Jim Coronet. You never know what you'll find. You never know what you'll get. You never know what will happen. And you know what? You never know what's going to happen in the wild world of the WWE. All righty, I guess, Brian, it's time that we get down to work here and talk a little bit about the wrestling now. And before we actively talk about the wrestling that's been perpetrated, let's talk about how the wrestling is created.

See, I'm a poet and don't know it. but my feet show it because they're long fellas. There was an article in Rolling Stone of all places. God damn, is everybody now sold their soul for wrestling instead of rock and roll? Wrestling gets and clicks more than rock and roll does. Well, I guess that's true these days. But anyway, they've done a story on the writer's room in the WWA. Apparently they have their own room like Wally and Beaver.

I wonder if they're sleeping in bunk beds. But the writer's room at the WWE and specifically one one former writer person, what were you going to say? They didn't have a bunk bed. Well, there's more writers than there was Wally and Beaver. That's true. And how do you know what they were sleeping in when they were younger

before they went on the air and went Hollywood? They could have been sleeping in the chest of drawers. That was them going Hollywood, having two beds? Well, yeah. All right. Well, let's go back to... Back in the 50s, you had to... You kept those kids in a compact area where you could keep an eye on them.

Well, let's go to the complete opposite of Hollywood. Stanford, Connecticut. All right, anyway, apparently there was a writer named Michael Leonardi, who is mentioned here. A lot of the others are just a former writer or, you know, unnamed people. But this guy, they lead off with him. him, he was fired in 2016 and told by an HR representative and the head writer at the time that he was not fit for the role. First of all, do we ever know who the actual head writer is?

Do they publicly admit that? Well, again, things may be a little bit different now than they were under Vince McMahon, but in the past, you know, there were certain names that we knew, Brian Gawertz. I believe it would be one of them. He was the head writer after Vince Rousseau and Ed Ferreira. We knew their names. They were, I mean, there wasn't really a writing team then. It was a smaller group of people.

And then after that, it became, I think, you know, Vince McMahon convinced himself with all the success they had that, you know, we're making movies, that all bullshit line. And all of a sudden, he had a team of writers who. Yeah, but how many movies have 27 different writers? Not many. One guy wrote Rocky, right? Stallone. yeah so have

that's the point I was going to make as we get later on in this is they say there's a room of you know all these various writers what they fucking writing I don't know but anyway that's the thing is it it starts out with this guy getting fired

and he said well I've gotten a promotion and a raise and positive feedback he'd been there for 10 months but then a week prior to his dismissal... John Warrenitis asked to sit on his face, and then there was a big problem. Did you say sit or shit?

It's a WWE. Anything could happen in the WWE. Anything could happen. Expect the unexpected. I certainly wouldn't expect that. But anyway, he says a week prior to his dismissal, he was dressed down by the company's then-CEO Vince McMahon for making a last-minute minor change to a script that he and the other wrestlers thought was racially

insensitive. Other wrestlers, not other writers, other wrestlers, okay. Yes, other wrestlers. But then when it's when it's, I'm trying to see because this is a very long article, folks, and we're not going to read you everything, but I'm trying to see when they recount it in the body of the story.

Ah, here is where it is explained to the body of the the article during the taping of a Monday Night Raw segment that aired on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2016 he was producing on the road with Our Truth, Titus O'Neill, and Mark Henry and Neville. Neville is now

PAC, is he not? A bastard, yeah. Well, now we don't need to be vulgar about it. But anyway, so, as Leonardi described it, in a video he posted to LinkedIn this past February, So he put a video up about this on the internet. For potential people to hire him, I guess.

LinkedIn's where you go to try to find jobs and shit, don't you? Well, then why is he talking about why he got fired? Anyway, he said the script called for Neville to speak up and tell everyone else that he's got a dream to and that dream is to win the Royal Rumble, referencing the civil rights leader's historic 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Leonardo says Neville told him he was uncomfortable delivering the line and with a limited amount of time there usually is. The bit was changed so that Artruth said the line instead. And Leonardo, Leonardo, Mr. DeVici, no, Leonardo says his boss at the time, Dave Kapoor, approved the change.

Kapoor could not be reached for comment neither Neville and Our Truth either. but anyway, after bringing the change to McMahon's attention, he says, the boss became furious and following their confrontation, Leonardo was let go. But a spokesperson for McMahon denied the account. And wait a minute, that's why the idea of him, wait a minute, the quote from McMahon's spokesperson, that's why the idea of him suggesting or approving the use of a famous Martin

Luther King Jr. quote for a punchline to be used by a white British set character is so ridiculous, it simply didn't happen. So that... Well, but there's more to the story because at the top when they first started the story, again, it's in different parts of the Rolling Stone article. Here's what Leonhardy said. Vince McMahon turned to me and he said, so you didn't give me what I wanted? Leonardo tells Rolling Stone. I said, I understand. I'm sorry. we all went over it and felt good about it, and we just made a small tweak. And then he started just yelling at me.

It was such an intense moment. I walked out with my tail between my legs. So they're saying Vince didn't want it and the proof is into putting it wasn't on Vince's show and this guy's saying there was a writer's mutiny because they thought it was so racially insensitive, even pacted, and Vince McMahon was upset about it not being used. Well, but the...

Funny thing to me was two things. Number one, that of all the blatantly outright, offensive and horrible things, you know, he had people punt babies. I mean, of all the things that Vince had done and said or had done and had said by people that this guy was, you know, over this, right? it wasn't that fucking extreme. And secondly, there is something,

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a big deal to Vince McMahon. And if you notice since well, since the 90s, I don't know when they started doing it, every time that Monday Night Raw falls, well, falls on that day, it's always on a Monday, but there's a graphic every year.

And there's some type of recognition every year. And I bet, you this was a thing like Vince got with other things where it was in his mind that this is exactly the thing that needed to be done for this thing that means something to him

and somebody changed it and whoa boy that ain't going to fucking fly with Vince McMahon and this guy just walked right into it it's an awful idea well many of Vince's were having a pack saying I have a dream on Martin with the King Day's a bad idea

Anyway, you slice it. Well, or actually. And he was a baby face, wasn't he? Well, I assume he's with these other baby faces. But point being, whether good, bad, or indifferent, putting those things together, I get, you know, they always say that Vince's personal ideas and his personal things or his pet, but those are the things that he cares the most about.

or if he wanted to produce L.A. Knight as a fucking male model manager company, whatever the fuck, personally. Those are the ones that can get really fucked up or he can get really mad over is what he told somebody to do personally. So that's, and this guy walked into it like a helicopter blade. When you were working on the writing team, when you were helping book the show, was there ever a point where Vince reacted in any negative way because the same reason? in here. I didn't get what I wanted. Something like that, someone else produced that was out of his hands, that he saw

the finished product and he was, or something live that happened, just something where he didn't get what he wanted. Oh, yes. You know, well, I mean, every show, you know, you would see him, he would have the pen and he'd throw the pin down or he'd look over the fucking glasses on his

nose or whatever, or roll his eyes if he's sitting at the monitor, watch it. I mean, that happened to some degree. You know, and every shan it happened. to everybody that's producing a show in every show. But here's the thing about the writer's room. And before I even say this, let's go a little bit further to just pick some things out of here that people are saying,

the majority of the writers ask to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution from the WWE, their former colleagues and rabid wrestling fans. Number one, what do they think? They were a writer on the WW television program five or ten years ago for fucking six months, and they're going to put a hit out on them? You'll never get out. You're never out.

You're always in. Fear of retribution. If you're not currently wanting your head. If you're not currently in the wrestling business or want to be in a wrestling business again, and where would any of these writers go to stay in a fucking wrestling business? Nobody else wants goddamn miscellaneous fucking TV writers. But why would you be afraid of retribution? What are rabid wrestling fans going to do if you're a faceless person with a name of John Smith quoted in a Rolling Stone article?

How are the wrestling fans going to track you down and take a stick to you? What, is this the producer of General Hospital? I'm just a fan. You better not hire George. But anyway, no, here's a cut. One former writer tells Rolling Stone, WWE is a kingdom ruled by fear. It is the motivating factor everywhere.

Fear. Now, that's not something only writers have said. That has been said a lot about the way Vince, especially in the later years, ruled WWE. That people walked on eggshells. Right? I mean, you've heard that before. Yes.

And, you know, if, again, you don't want to get heat with the boss, right? But I'm just talking, my experiences, this is, I know he's, he went nuts, we established that. But my experiences are nothing like any of this. And I don't know what, I was in the writer's room. And I say that because we were writing. It was Vince's goddamn dining room on the table. But me and Vince and Bruce, or me and Vince and Bruce and shit stain

or me and Vince and Bruce and Jim Ross. And, you know, occasionally, somebody might wander in like Paterson or, you know, whoever that would stop by. Who just wandered in? Oh, it's Paterson. Just wandering on your streets. Pat wasn't writing the TV at that point, but he would stop by when a pay-per-view was coming up

and we were talking about finishes or something. Nevertheless, it was a group of between three and half a dozen people. And there was no, even with us, except for me and shit stain, I don't remember any outright yelling, like yelling, like, what the fuck? I remember people getting you know enthusiastic and say oh come on you really mean you don't think if he punches him in the face

with a fucking toilet seat that's great whatever right but nobody was nobody was mad nobody was being personally belittled nobody was a scared of anything what to fuck frustrated yes

tired yes burnout yes mentally ready to do anything else but, yes, all those things I have felt, but not scared or bullied. And so I don't know. You think Vince treats wrestling people differently than he would treat generic writers? Well, but hold on here. Where is it that they got to stand up? God damn, this is a long article.

I'm trying to. With the six writers who used to work at WWE tell Rolling Stone they regularly witnessed were on a receiving end of verbal abuse, the allegedly hostile conditions permeated not just the writer's room, but the company in general, everybody was getting yelled at all the time in the room. It was more saying shit that was humiliating or mean

that was then couched as a joke, but it's a nasty joke. Now is somebody joking with somebody and they're just pissed off and they don't like it? Well, yeah, I mean, read the rest of the question. quote, if you're being targeted in a room, nobody stands up for you. But that's because if they do, they'll get the bullet in the head. The bullet in the head, too.

You don't stick your head up out of the foxhole for anybody because nobody wants to take a bullet. I don't. Jesus. Good Lord. I didn't know what I did. It was so intense. Well, and that's the thing. There's the, the, the quote that I was talking about was it's a deal where, the writers are told when Vince walks into the room

you've got to stand up and you said well maybe it's not it's wrestling people that he doesn't talk to like that but no number one I never stood up when Vince came in a fucking room and nobody ever told me to and nobody ever asked me to but I'm not even talking about the writer's room now I've seen Vince in the general production meetings

um I don't know how many three in years we had two of fucking week hundreds of production meetings with the people that work at the studio or the people

that work in the office in Stanford the old Titan Tower but in different departments like marketing or somebody that's going to be there to the event market reps that help sell the tickets and work with the buildings

regular employees right I don't remember anybody given Vince's standing ovation when he walked in a fucking room. And in many of those cases, I was walking in the room with Vince because I was stuck in the car with him. And nobody fucking stood up for me either when I was buying Vince. I don't know what is going on here.

Well, according to the article here, well, actually, that's the way the paragraph begins. According to the former WWE writers who spoke to Rolling Stone, the TV writer's room was unlike any other they'd experienced. for one thing, the fact that McMahon himself, the CEO of a company of more than 800 people, regularly joined and supervised the small staff of writers, around 20 to 25 people. A small staff of writers around 20 to 25.

Depending on whether the show is being produced at headquarters or on the road. Good Lord. There were also unconventional rules. Well, wait a bit, hold on what you just said. They thought that Vince McMahon was not going to be in charge of the booking of the WWE? How did they make it after the first 24 hours under that ridiculous assumption? What the fuck? There were also unconventional rules, including a formal dress code

in a document detailing the dress code obtained by Rolling Stone, the company required men to wear suits, and women to wear skirts, dresses, or pantsuits. In addition... Hold on, hold on. No blue jeans. Well, I've talked about this at the production meeting or at the arena, at the building, from the time you go in the arena until the time you come out.

Yes, he wanted... The way he didn't want suits either, but shirts, plants, you know, a jacket. There were no women of... on the writing team at that point, thankfully. But any of the women that worked in the studio again, I mean, they wore what they wore, but I don't know, I don't remember anybody dressing like they were going to a goddamn board meeting at the office

to go to television when you were on a production crew. But no, at, when we were writing the show, and again, we were at Vince, Vince was wearing a goddamn sweatshirt and sweatpants with his fucking hair all sideways because he just worked out for two hours before we got there at 9 o'clock to morning. So I was sweatpants and fucking t-shirting it even at that point. But at the officer at the building, you know, he wants you to perk up a bit. Well, let me continue here.

Okay, well, you can. In addition, all employees were instructed to keep. keep their shoes shined at all times. Was that a rule when you were there? Yeah, I didn't have shoes you could shine. I wore dress shoes for the first two months that I worked in the office, and with my flat feet, I got up in the morning and couldn't fucking put weight on them. So I went and got a brand of Nike hiking boots that looked like black high top leather tennis shoes,

and that's what I wore. And I wore those for the next 15 fucking years. They were comfy as fuck. Do you think that's the reason there's the rules, the Jim Cornett incident's where he wouldn't wear? Well, maybe, you know, maybe I caused this. But no, no, what I do? What, uh, okay.

I don't know. I shall continue. There were other policies the former writers say were a typical compared to entertainment industry standards. The writers allege they were told not to sneeze in front of McMahon because he saw it as a sign of weakness. and to always push their chairs in when they got up from a table.

Well, now that's just good manners. Yeah, that's just manners. I don't know what the problem is there. Who's the jerk leaving their chair out? That's what I want to know. Yeah, you know, and we know about the sneezing thing. Although that was, actually, I've had a cold and sneezed a fuck out of Vince McMahon one day, trying to fucking illustrate to him how miserable I was

and see if he would tell me to go, it was one of those deals where, well cordonet you think you can make it I'll be okay Vince trying to get him to say just go home but he wouldn't be the first one to crack that's one of the more underrated Vince's completely insane stories the idea that like when he would sneeze

in front of people he would be like god damn he just get mad at himself or having a reaction that is involuntary that's part of humanity it's part of living he's nuts but anyway I'll go back to this

the writers say they were also instructed to stand whenever McMahon walked into the room and to sit down only after he took his seat. I think they used to write for the Pope, didn't they? Yeah, really, is this like Vince's courtroom fantasy? What is this? He's the judge. And now, you know, somebody says, oh, they're taking up for Vince. No, we're admitting that Vince McMahon is a very bizarre individual,

but some of this stuff is not my experience, at least in, Back in the day. We have a quote from a Vince spokesperson. Many of the anonymous writer's claims bear no resemblance to the reality of the writer's room. Vince never told people to stand up when he entered the room. That's ludicrous. The former writers who spoke with Rolling Stone say that

while they did not hear the directive from McMahon himself, they were instructed by their managers to follow this rule. Do you think, what do you think that Vince Stubborn? when one day out of the blue, all of a sudden it had never happened before it. He walks in the fucking production meeting or whatever or the writers. And they all just stand up. Do you think that maybe he was like, well, I don't want to hurt their feelings. They're trying to show me respect.

So he let him keep doing it. Because I, again, I'm the managers. Is Bruce Pritchard the manager? Well, I don't know. Instructed by their managers. We didn't have fucking managers for. one thing when I was there. Would J.R.

at the head of talent relations, would he have been managing us? Most unorthodox of all was McMahon's direct say in the final scripts, the writers say. Until he stepped down as CEO and chairman of the company two years ago, McMahon was closely involved in every single script. No shit, Sherlock. The former writers describe a process that was hardly collaborative.

writers would pitch story ideas to lower-level supervisors and head writers, and on days McMahon was in the room directly to him. They would sometimes produce multiple versions of scripts. But ultimately, they say, McMahon changed storylines, even ones he previously approved, and entire scripts on the day of the taping. He, quote, destroyed every single. by the time we got to air.

Seemingly just to exert his dominance, one former writer says. Again, please tell us something that we don't know. What, remember, I've called it the ceremonial turning in of the papers. Okay, we spent Wednesday, we talked about all these things, we got, okay, now we do the formats,

and we fucking take them back. Let's do this. See, that can't be healthy for a right. the idea that you're constantly submitting things and even collaborating with the person in charge on the ideas and then like the day of they're just like fuck it we'll do something else every week and now to be honest sometimes it was because one of the

you know one of the the main players in the fucking on the talent roster had some issue back in those days whether it be attitude issue or substance issue or whatever the fuck but most of the time it's just been oh let's do this a yeah and this guy will do this over here, blah, blah, blah. It just changed everything.

Another quote here. It doesn't really matter what he said in that creative room, or if he loved it at an earlier point, it was still going to get torn up before the show. By the time Monday rolled around, and we were all in the production meeting, something else was going to happen. It almost felt like a joke.

Like we were just there to satisfy Vince's whims. We were all Vince's whims. We were all Vince McMahon transcribers. There you get. That's it. We, and that's the point I've been trying to make, and I've used 18 million words over the course of the years, but that's the best description.

You don't, you don't take a job as the Booker or even as a Booker in the WWFE. You, at least maybe now you might, but then you didn't when Vince was around you were a Vince McMahon transcriber. You started. with his murder mystery, with him figuring out who was getting killed and who the fucking perpetrator was, and you filled in all the scenes where they used the fucking phone booth at the drugstore. I think Vince enjoyed the manipulation.

He liked changing things. He liked keeping people on their toes. I genuinely felt like this isn't the benefit the show or the storyline. Vince just really enjoys making people squirm. Okay, here they've gone too far because no, it was always it's what Vince thinks will help the storyline or benefit the show

and he's changed his mind again and he knew he was omnipotent but he wasn't making the show potentially worse or just to make people squirm. That was not happening. It's just that he knew better than anybody else did whether he did or not. but still knowing how he knowing how he dealt with people,

you don't think he was dealing with some of these writers and he enjoyed kind of fucking with them in a way? Well, yeah, and I think also a lot of this is these are people who have apparently had normal jobs and or were kind of normal fucking boring people and they don't get to fucking ribbage that goes on in the wrestling business. I'm not even talking about from Vince,

but I just think if, you know, if Michael Hayes or even Bruce Pritchard or, you know, anybody, I don't know who else is there that's ever actually been in the real wrestling business are going to bust somebody's balls and they're not capable of coming back or don't feel comfortable with it because that's not what they did and when they worked for Exxon or whatever the fuck, I can say, yeah, they probably wouldn't enjoy themselves.

But if you fucking fire back and do the same goddamn thing, people leave you a fucking loan, or they just continue to joust with you and you joust back with them. But again, things are probably a lot different today, and Vince is a lot different today, or today, the last 10 years or so.

Then when you were there, here's another example. Well, this is coming up, yes. Writers say it was commonplace to wait around the Stanford office late into the night for McMahon to show up to their scheduled meetings about that week's scripts. One former writer says,

They would often wait for hours and you wouldn't know why you were waiting. The writers claim meetings sometimes did not start until midnight and did not wrap until two, three or four in the morning. See, this. And Vince McMahon's spokesperson basically confirmed it and said this is part of working in the entertainment industry, long hours, crazy days. But that's very different than you and what you experienced. Well, yeah, and this is what surprises me because Yes, Vince could be late if he was already in another meeting or on the phone with somebody.

I've talked about a million times you'd be sitting around waiting for him to get off the fucking phone, but you had already started. He wanted you there at 9 o'clock at a morning on Wednesday at his house. And as I've mentioned in Connecticut, that required you to leave from where I lived 40 miles away at about seven o'clock, two hours on that goddamn miserable highway. You missed the Merritt Parkway? Oh, fuck. Yeah, I'd like to, like to fucking miss it for the rest of my life. But anyway, if, when I would roll in about 920, I would get the goddamn glasses on the end of the nose

and the fucking look at the watch or whatever. And I guess this fucking traffic, it's insane. You people live here on purpose. What the fuck? But, you know, no. And yes, that was his house. But if you showed up for a goddamn meeting at the fucking office 15 minutes late, he was going to be sitting there at the head of the table or wherever he was,

the meeting was happening, and you were going to wither and die at the glance that he gave you on the way in. You know, another big difference between what this story's talking about and when you were there, Linda. Linda was around Yes But But goddamn

Again The production meetings I have a fair If you had to shit yourself And You were five minutes Away from the building In a car

Vince would let you shit The upholstery Rather to stop to be late To the fucking production meeting Because it was my own company Can't be like to moan meeting And he was an early morning guy All these things started in the morning.

We were at the studio in some cases till midnight, but that's because we were doing a live television broadcast. Like the voiceovers for the show, remember I've talked about that, how to make it more topical. When Raw was first transitioning to live every week, they would have the show taped, but we would do the commentary live in the studio on the feed.

And that way we can talk about, what happened that day. Big fucking whoopty shit, I know, but they were convinced that made a difference. So we'd be at the office all goddamn day. And then we'd go over to the studio and wait for nine o'clock to roll around. So we would be,

but he would have been working the whole day. He never started shit at midnight because he'd been working since 7 o'clock that morning. So I don't know what the fuck is going on here now. It wasn't just McMahon. who was the problem, the former writers say. One former writer says that while they didn't have any negative experiences with McMahon directly, they thought the other writers in the room who were in positions of power could be bullies,

motivated by fear of upsetting McMahon and losing their jobs. Those who demonstrated this type of loyalty to McMahon tended to be avid fans of wrestling who spent their careers inside the world of WWE, the writers say. Well, now, what? Now, that's interesting. Avid fans of wrestling or... Is that Bruce? Well, I see, that's what I'm saying.

I don't think you could call either Bruce or Michael Hayes avid fans of wrestling first and foremost, instead of, you know, veterans or professionals or whatever. are they talking about? Was there a section of the writers that were actually fans of the business and another section like that Alexander Pepper Day

that had never fucking seen wrestling before and did no shit from Apple Butter about what it was about and there was a divide there, I can see that. But again, bullying amongst the writers in the writer's room

because they're jealous of the other fucking guy or whatever, Well, there's too many of them for one thing. And secondly, who is this scared of losing a job that's apparently this miserable? Well, speaking of that term miserable, let me continue on about the miserable people in charge. Okay. Those people were the most miserable people I've ever worked with. But that's where a lot of them had worked their whole professional lives, and that's the only game in town.

They didn't know what it was like working on a regular television show. One former writer claims they witnessed a colleague in a leadership position tell another writer something to the extent of I wish your dad pulled out and came on your mom's tits instead of having you That sounds like Michael Hayes That sounds like a Michael Hayes And if you responded well he was saving the good shit for your mother What the fuck it's

God damn it Yeah that's the thing To something like that, you respond. You jab them back. It's words. Come on. This was like good old boys locker room talk, the former writer says.

The more somebody was promoted and the closer they got to the innermost circle, the more volatile it got. And the more you dealt with some of those good old boys. That's absolutely Michael Hayes and Bruce and maybe someone else were not, thinking of, but... I'm trying to think of who is a legitimate wrestling personality and has ever actually

been in a real business and is on the writing team in the WW, because the producers that used to be wrestlers, they don't get in the writer's room, do they? I don't think so. So, or not considered writers, so what... But... What are the jokes on us in with Stephanie? one of the writers compares the WWE writer's room culture to a mafia style of leadership

in which if you do one thing you're pissing off three other people who are higher up than you who are going to chew you out and get angry and seek revenge but I couldn't understand what the hell was going on because nobody made eye contact nobody talked to you it was so odd everybody's scared and the only laughs are at someone else's expense everybody is emotionally shut down because of the verbal beating that they take and the humiliation I mean Vince pushed me in a swimming pool one time

is that considered bullying but that's happened everybody got pushed in the pool but only once once you had your dip in a pool you know then it was on to other people didn't Shane get Vince Shane got Vince one time Yes I think But and see that's the thing

They had a routine That they would work people with Like Bruce got me Because we were sitting out by the pool one day And I can't remember how it came up Or how he presented it But Bruce was dead serious That there was something

Vince had had something written on the bottom of the pool That coincided with some fucking big show or something. I said, I don't see anything. So, no. If you look close, it's right in the middle. And I'm like, I don't see it. And that's how they get you to get closer to the fucking pool and they shove you in. Or whatever. But I don't,

again, why is everybody so scared if they're so miserable? And I'll say, hey, you know what? Fire me. Because I'll tell you what, I was treated the best. And, you know, pretty much acknowledged in my complaints, the times that I'm, I said, you know what, I can be fucking back in Tennessee in 12 hours. Tell me now so that I could gas up my car.

The famous thing where you yelled at Kevin Dunn in the meeting. Yes. And told him about his teeth, which caused him to later cry. Yes. Vince was there when that happened, right? Yeah. I mean, this is an example of a writer's room technically. You didn't call it.

Well, no, that was a production meeting. Okay, but there's an example of something Vince is supervising and there is some sort of, like, how did he react as it was happening in real, time. Well, remember, as I said, everybody that was in the room, and it would have been me and Bruce and Schittstein would have been there, and Vince, and I think Shane was there, Kevin Dunn, Jim Ross, a couple people from the studio, a couple more people. The only one that didn't start smiling when I first said it was JR because he knew that I was

mad from the start, everybody else thought I was going to bust into some entertaining something. But then when I finished standing up and uttered the words, I will drag you over this desk a beat the fuck out of you. Then everybody's expression soured. But nobody had any time to say anything because that's when I fucking closed up my fucking shit and threw it in my goddamn briefcase and said, if anybody wants to talk about the wrestling show, I'll be in my room. You guys continue on and fucking left.

and then they let me stew and then as I've recounted before, Vince, you know what? What did he say to you? That's kind of my point. Well, that's, I'm trying to think the next day because I know that he, he, I'm trying to say that he wanted me to apologize to Kevin Dunn, but that was at his house the, you know, following Wednesday or whatever. But maybe it was at the show then, but I

didn't, the point being, I didn't speak to Kevin Dunn. That was a Saturday night. The pay-per-view was on a Sunday night. We did TV, I believe, on a Monday. That may have been before we were doing live TV every week, so we might have done a taping on Tuesday also, but when we got back to Stanford,

Vince arranged it where Kevin Dunn could come over to his house so that we, me and Kevin could sit there privately and I could tell him I was sorry for insulting his teeth. Oh, I never realized it happened at the house. I thought you guys ended up meeting at the office. No. Oh. He had Kevin come over to the fucking house.

And the way that, again, Vince's Jedi mind tricks, I wanted to apologize this motherfucker, like I wanted to cut my right fucking arm off. but Vince said he's important to the company he's been here a long time and he's very sensitive and you've hurt his feelings I said well he fucking hurt mine too

but nevertheless if it means this much to everybody I'll apologize so I was going to go through the fucking motions which I kind of still did until the fucker started crying and talking to me

about how the kids used to to make fun of his teeth when he was in school. But then I was thinking you make hundreds of thousands of dollars this was before the stock deal. You make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year get your fucking teeth fixed.

But nevertheless. But no, that's, you know, that was pretty much in my experience of being there for three years the most heated or aggressive than any meeting ever fucking got.

And, you know, and again, I was never, I never felt scared, frustrated, fed up, pissed off, burn out, all of those things. But scared of reprisals. I'm not sure what the fuck's going on here. I mean, the only reprisal is you're fired. I mean, really, you're the way of the day. That's it. They're not going to follow you home and kill you. I said, well, that's what they said.

They're already ex-employees, scared of retribution of what? They got a hitman on call? Is that what Howie, the mailroom guy's doing now? Go to this guy's house, kick the shit out of it. I'm afraid of retribution because Vince McMahon and his good reputation will call someone up and say that I was like, I was the problem. Yeah. But anyway, would you like to delve into the former female writers comments? Oh, let me get to that.

Again, it's a lot of stuff here, and it's all very long. Here it is. women in the WWWWW writers room face specific challenges. Of the former writers who spoke with Rolling Stone, the women say they felt othered and became hyper aware of their gender because of how they were treated by male writers. One former writers...

Okay, if they already don't know which gender they are and that they're the other gender from the other gender that's opposite them, then I'm not sure... That is funny wording. What's happening here? You became hyper aware. You know, I always knew I was a girl, but now I'm super aware that I'm a girl. One former writer says people would comment on her outfits and touch her in ways that felt unnecessary.

Even though the behaviors weren't explicitly sexual, she says that Swami will bark. She says it felt like a means of controlling her in a way that didn't happen to the men in the writer's room. Here's a quote They would touch me Where they would have me come closer to them They would pull me by my waist To come somewhere or move closer to them I'm just super aware

That it's kind of close to my butt And most people don't touch me by the waist ever I thought This is strange And I have to say she's not wrong That is fucking strange Yeah And again,

Especially if it's Bruce or Michael Hayes that we're talking about again. Yeah, yeah. And it's creepy too. And if you were Bruce, would you want to touch Michael Hayes by the waist or anything else? But, okay, again, there were no women writers, but there were women working in the production department in the studio. Jennifer Good was a producer there for years. She was at all the major meetings. She handled a lot of the shows.

I don't remember anybody ever still. and her around the room by her waist, so maybe this person should have said something about that person, because, you know, that doesn't sound kosher to me. Well, I will continue here with this. Two former writers tell Rolling Stone they took their complaints to human resources. One was subsequently fired from her position, a decision she interpreted as retaliation. According to former writers, enough female writers complained about their treatment to WWHR in 2020

that leadership held a Zoom meeting they referred to as a woman's forum in which the affected writers were encouraged to collectively air their grievances. One former writer says she grew emotional when she told everyone in the meeting that she didn't feel safe with her co-workers. The other writers Another woman who attended the meeting

Says the leadership staffers There were dismissive of women's claims They did it just to appease us But they didn't take it seriously at all By the way, that's 2020 In terms of all the Vince and Janelle Grant stuff That's right in the midst of it, isn't it? It would seem to be

So in terms of culture that in terms of the culture around Vince and Vince's and neighbors and everything else you would have to think that's kind of like almost the end of this kind of shit, this period of whatever the fuck was going on, grabbing women by the waist to move them. Move here.

What the fuck is that? Move there. You know, again, I don't know what they started doing up there. But at the same time, Here, continuing on, and I'll make this point, they say, oh, you know, one male senior staffer said, come see me if you have a problem. You people are acting like middle schoolers, whatever.

There may be an element of all of this in there, but one former writer who says they have a history dealing with anxiety also says their mental health was impacted by their time working at WWE. They say they were allegedly driven to having crippling panic attacks because of the job. But when they brought the concerns to HR, nobody ever followed up or took any course of action, maybe that's because you need to not do this job. If you are having a crippling attack because of the job you were doing, but the descriptioners, you're kind of getting yelled at,

you don't and and I know I have a hard time and I'm trying to sympathize with the writers and you shouldn't be being steered around by your waist but a lot of these people are talking about well the wrestling culture and the good old boy network and blah blah blah they obviously don't have any they don't have any motivation for being in a wrestling business they got a job with the because they're TV writers, they want to write a TV show. So if they're not in love with the business

and under its spell, why are they putting up with this? And part of the problem with the product is that there are so many people that they have allowed to become writers that have never seen a goddamn wrestling show before. And I've been in contact with a few of those in my time. And, no, the other side,

the good old boys and the writer, the wrestling people, feel the same way about the writers. What a bunch of fucking nitwits. So that's what they've done. The company, if anything, has put two completely different kinds of groups of people in the same room and expect them to work together.

And the regular TV writers think that the wrestling people are crazy. But the wrestling people think, the TV writers are fucking idiots because they don't know anything about wrestling. On the other hand, if it's Bruce or Michael Hayes that we're talking about who are saying you're all acting like middle schoolers, if they go to HR, trying to talk them out of going to HR

or come see me if you have a problem, one former writer alleges, which is such bullshit because he's part of the problem too. He enabled Vince with everything that he did. You know, it was a really, A really unhealthy, you know, a really unhealthy last several years of Vince McMahon's run. And, you know, the other thing is, this is coming out now. You would have to say this is not currently reflective of what's going on there in WWE.

So it's kind of we're talking about almost like a dead company or, you know, a different regime. It's a different world altogether right now with WWE. Well, yeah. And, you know, again, it was different when I was there. And it's different now that Vince. is not there. But I just, I don't see how things got to this point that people are walking down the hallway. Like, oh shit, somebody's going to fire me or yell at me.

You know, there was none of that, again, everybody was always scared of Vince, but scared of events like you're normally scared of pissing a boss off, not like you're he's Don Corleone. and I think this is a combination of some people in that company apparently went fucking berserk when they became publicly traded and a lot of these people don't need to be in the wrestling business.

Both of these things can be true. To tell you as a pimp, what I didn't know until now was it was Triple H all along. Well, there it is. the topsy-turby world of the writer's room under Vince McMahon, although again, some of his enablers are still in the company, and Vince does still own stock, so it always makes you have to question if he does still have a voice in the room, if the people that were his voice in the room are still there. But that was that story. That was that story, and I'll tell you

what, by Cracky, if you want to tell other people what the story is, you need a good phone plan Brian? Yes, you do. Yes, you do. You need to tell anybody anything, you need a good phone plan. And Brian, guess what I got? You got a good phone plan? I got a good phone plan. What's about time? Mint Mobile's phone plan, $15 a month. It's the cheapest in town. It's the cheapest in town. It's the cheapest in the country. Now, they may have one on the Arctic Circle that's cheaper than Mint Mobile's $15 a month phone plan. but who the fuck you're going to call in the Arctic Circle? An explorer. Admiral Peary maybe.

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Well, Brian, now we got to talk about something that's not as entertaining as the writer's complaints, which is the new lawsuit filed against Vince McMahon, Linda McMahon, the WWE, and parent company TKO group holdings. And there's been a... a lot of coverage of this. We're looking at articles from the New York Post, articles from CNN. But basically, the five former ringboys

claim they were exploited and sexually abused during their time working for the wrestling giant while scandal-scarred ex-CEO Vince McMahon did nothing to stop it. According to the New York Post, the men who were underage boys at the time of the alleged abuse, filed suit anonymously at a Maryland court against McMahon 79, his wife Linda, and WWE parent company TKO group holdings. But I've seen in another report, they're suing WWE and TKO. Is that correct? Yeah, that's the way I thought I saw, too. Yeah, well, you know,

I mean, it's the same thing. We're suing, we're suing another arm of the same Medusa. The thing that makes it a little different is obviously Vincent Linda McMahon were in charge when it happened. They ran the WWE when it happened. This all happened under the WWE's auspices. However, TKO didn't even exist at that time. That's the first thing I was going to ask you. I can understand how they can sue Vince and Linda, and there's more than enough evidence to support that.

And I can understand maybe how they could sue. the WWE because it's the entity the entity that exists today is kind of the entity that was existing then but to sue TKO is sort of like if I go and buy a bakery from a guy and start running the bakery

and then somebody 30 years later comes to me hey the guy that used to run this bakery used to take me in a back room and do whatever and fuck you I'm suing you. How does that work? I don't know. And obviously, we'll find out as this, you know, one way or another, as this takes place. But, you know, this is this another case of somebody's got a good case and a bad lawyer?

Are they leaving themselves open for a loophole here? I don't know enough to say that. And, you know, based on what we know so far, I don't know if we could say that. But you don't want to say anything bad about any lawyers unless you know who they are first. Well, no, because we really don't know. I mean, this all comes back to Mel Phillips. It's not. like this is an unknown thing. When this story came out that these lawsuits were about to happen, it wasn't like it's out of left field. Like, this is stuff we've been hearing about publicly since 1991, 1992. Yeah. So it's not like this is an unknown thing. For those who don't know, Mel Phillips was a massive wrestling fan. He was actually WFIA fan of the year.

Was he really? In like 73 or 74, yeah. Thank goodness he predated my involvement in the organization. Fan of the year. And, you know, he had friends who were the inside wrestling fans of the day. And then he somehow infiltrated the WWF. Specifically on those Philadelphia shows, he was the ring announcer at the spectrum. He was a ring attendant. He apparently was helping organize the boys that would build the rings.

And one thing that comes out in this latest round of, of ringboy stories is that Vince and Lyndon knew he had an issue with young boys and they fired him over it and then they rehired him. And then brought him back. Now he wasn't an employee.

You know, this goes to the whole employee independent contractor thing. He only worked for them and he was their ring announcer and he was on TV on wrestling challenge. Like he wasn't an unknown face but he wasn't an employee. Well, and not,

Not only did he ring announce, like you said, the Philly House shows and some TV, but apparently he traveled to some of these northeast towns and was in some way or another supervising or responsible for ring boys. We'll talk about that concept even in a second. Who would help set up the ring in these various towns and he would drive them or transport them to these towns. He would have them stay in the host. hotel room with him or in the hotels where he was staying and where I guess the wrestlers

stayed. And obviously they have pictures here in the New York Post of some of the things that he's accused of wrestling with these kids. And, you know, he was furnished with a private locker room. I don't think he was furnished with one. I think that he would just go and find a goddamn room in the building somewhere that nobody else wanted, and that's what he would use. But, you know, we've heard, yes, these things happened with this guy.

Nobody is really disputing that, that I've heard maybe the company is now. But this article cites Vince McMahon telling Phil Mushnick in the 1980s that he and his wife knew that Phillips had a, quote, peculiar and unnatural interest in boys. and during a TV interview in 1993, Linda McMahon admitted that Phillips had a foot fetish, which was a running joke in the WWE. The McMahon's actually fired Phillips in 1988 amid sexual abuse allegations,

but within six weeks, they rehired him, warning him to steer clear from the kids. At a time where WWE, more than any other time in its history, was marketing itself to kids. Yes. And they say that the five plaintiffs met Phillips between 1981 and 1984.

So this is even before the expansion. And, you know, as you said, this really didn't start becoming a thing that got talked about publicly till the early 90s. So that, but this was going on for some fucking period of time. But anyway, and, you know, we won't get into the. rubbing the feet on the crotches and, you know, the various accusations, but this guy was a fucking weirdo. And, but the same stories, he'd do something, drop the kid off at home and give him money. And or he would get him drunk and then get him front row seats or whatever and then drop

them off and give him money. But, again, the point is, How can you sue TKO for buying a, for their part in buying a company 40 years after this took place? I think this wouldn't this have to be a Vince and Linda because she's on the record talking about it. Even WWE, because Vince and Linda were executives of WWE. So, I mean, you could sue WWE and the two top executives because of their enabling of it. there, whatever it may be, but WWE could be sued too, but TKO,

just because they own WWE now, that seems like a bit of a, of a stretch. Bit of a stretch, but here's what's not a stretch, is why did this kind of shit ever go on it? You asked me earlier before we went on the air, what was this, did they have ringboys elsewhere? Yeah, because you never hear about it. You only hear about it with WWE and the ringboy scandal.

and you know, WWE had referees putting up rings, ring boys, I guess, were helping them or just doing it themselves under Mel Phillips at that time.

But what about everywhere else? Like who was putting up the ring and were there ring boys? Well, that's the thing is, this as a concept didn't exist anywhere else in fucking wrestling. The idea

that the Stoge ring announcer would have autonomy to just recruit a bunch of underage kids and bring them to the show and put them to work setting up the ring and giving them tickets or seats

or all this. I have never heard of any setup like this in any other wrestling promotion in a goddamn world. And that's why even when I first started hearing about it, you know, in the 90s of the Donahue shows or whatever, I'm like, what the,

how did this even become a thing? Because why would you, you want small underage boys to be carrying fucking 500 pound fucking steel ringposts or giant 20 foot fucking you know one by twos lumber or the

framework of the ring I do or just the responsibility of putting up the ring that everyone's going to be working in yeah the responsibility of that the why would you transport these people from out of town, what were their parents doing? They're going to go

with this fucking shady looking guy out to Poughkeepsie. But no, in every territory things were different in terms of the ring set up, and I can tell you in the Tennessee territory,

the regular towns, Memphis, Louisville, Evansville, Nashville, the towns that were run every week, they had their own ring in the building. Instead of hauling one, you know, up and down the road and set it up every week. You knew you were going to be there every week.

There was a ring in the building. And in Louisville, it was the Louisville Gardens maintenance crew, old Alvin, and, you know, some guys that he would find that would set up the ring before the boys even got there. And now, I saw him a few times, the guys he had helped him, and they were way long years away from seeing the sunny side of under 18 because it's heavy fucking metal and steel and lumber. And the idea was you wanted guys that could fucking help you. And in Evansville, same thing, some people with the, oh, God damn it.

What was the sponsor over the VFW post or whoever the, because in Indiana you had to have a a sponsor of an athletic event or a boxing wrestling thing that was with a civic organization. On the spot shows, it depended on who was running the, who was promoting the show. But Buddy Wayne and not the Northwest Buddy Wayne that has family members in AEW, but the Memphis wrestler and promoter from the 50s, 60, 70s, 80s,

buddy Wayne, and when he would promote a show, he had his own spot show ring and his own truck and his own trailer. And either he'd have a couple guys from Memphis that did it with him regularly that would ride up there with him or the only time I ever saw any underage people

putting up the ring was when his sons were doing it. And he had Aubrey out there and he's like four, but you know, what fuck? It's a family business. And so, no. And I mean, any other territory I can think of, Mid-South wrestling, there's a lot more towns. They still had rings in a lot of those buildings that they were in all the time.

But you had usually a crusty old son of a bitch that had a truck and a trailer, and they drove it, and they usually had helpers, and you, okay, the ring crew is 200 bucks or whatever the fuck. but no promoter wanted his ring crew guy coming up saying hey I need a couple of tickets for these kids that no tell him sit out in a fucking general emission seats we're not sold out

we're not putting him at ringside what the ring announcer is trying to bring miscellaneous ring boys into the locker room to meet the boys that wouldn't have fucking flown much less him having his own fucking room. Yeah, the whole thing about him have his own dressing room is a bit, uh, if that's true in any way, that's fucking odd.

Well, no, again, that could have been a fucking broom closet in the arena. Because I mean, even some of the guys that really need a dressing room sometimes wrestle dress in a broom closet in the arena. But what about like, maybe I'm remembering this wrong, you will know. Wasn't it like Bobby Eaton, the story that like he first

got in like helping set up the ring? Yes. And that's another thing. that kids sometimes would hang around the back of the arena trying to run errands or something to get in if they couldn't afford to get in. And Bobby, big kid when he was 15, still six feet tall, 200 pounds or whatever.

Yeah, you can carry some shit. Okay, we'll let you in to watch the matches if you help us put the ring up. And that wasn't unusual, but at the same time, this was in a high school gym where everybody was in probably the same locker room you couldn't have privacy and ease type of situations and nobody was trying

I don't understand why this became a thing that was even allowed in this company to begin with when that certainly didn't go on anywhere else and you asked me earlier also what were there boys hanging around Pat Malone had boys in Memphis You know what he did?

He's, hey, boy, come here. He'd see some kids. I mean, they could be nine years old. He didn't matter. Boy, come here. Take these 10 magazines. Go out and sell them. Bring me the money back.

I'll give you a dollar. If Pat Malone was like 80 years old and you do a fuck with Pat Malone and he wasn't going to be diddling any kids, right? But that's how the kids got to see the fucking matches if they sold their 10 programs or 10 magazines or whatever and brought him the money back. but this is just insane.

I've never been in a territory. I didn't work everywhere, but I'd never been in a territory where they wanted to bring small children in from out of town to help set up the fucking ring. And it was never attempted or brought up or pitched in any way as far as I know. So again, to go back to the lawsuit,

with Vince and Linda, again, as the, whatever Vince was at that time, the CEO of WWE or WWF, Titan Sports, actually. Yeah. And Linda eventually took over that role when Vince got into legal trouble, but she had a top position before then. Why did they put up with this guy and rehire him? You know, there's no good excuse for it.

Terry Garvin, you know, also was accused of fucking around with Ring Boys or trying to. You know, that's where the whole Tom Cole thing started. Yeah. It was Terry Garvin. And I believe it was Terry Garvin. See, here's the thing. They don't have Vince and Linda saying these things between 1981 and 1984.

They have them saying these things in the late 80s, early 90s. And I'm thinking, because they did rely on Terry Garvin for stuff, and we know what Terry Garvin was doing. And apparently we know what Mel Phillips was doing. I'm thinking, did they, they being Vincent and Linda, were they just unaware of what the fuck was going on, nor give a shit about the ring or the ring set up, or they got other fish to fry or other things going on?

And then they start finding out about it and they go, I shit, fuck. You know, tell this guy to get the fuck out of here. And then he begs to Garvin. And Garvin maybe come back and said, oh, bring him back. He'll be okay. And then all the shit hits the fan. But I don't know.

They went in the business together. there. I saw the business cards once. After they got fired by W.W.E. Garvin was an employee, I believe. Oh, actually, I don't even know if that's the case. He was an agent. He was a producer, but I don't know what is, I don't remember exactly, but him and Mel Phillips got fired, and they started another wrestling company. It didn't do anything. Like in New England. Yeah, they did something in New England. I saw the business cards one day.

But see, that's a thing. You know, in hindsight when Gorilla Monsuit would make the joke well he went behind him he must have gone to the Terry Garvin School of Defense or School of Self-Defense and it looks bad everybody knew about Terry but nobody knew well I won't say nobody everybody knew about Terry Garvin but not a lot of people knew

about what Terry Garvin and Mel Phillips were doing with these kids but that's the thing too Terry Garvin it wasn't just kids Terry Garvin would sexually harassed wrestlers as well as kids. With Mel Phillips has never been like a wrestler that said that Mel Phillips tried to do anything. It's all kids. I don't think Mel Phillips had to fucking

guts for that one. But anyway, the point is now that they've made all these jokes and they've said these things, Vince and Linda, they've buried themselves because whether they knew when it was going on or whether they found out later on,

later on and just didn't do enough to fucking put it into it until they had to, they pretty much buried themselves, not only with the, they have pictures of Mel Phillips with these ring boys wrestling and ringboys holding belts. And, you know, again,

these kids are not anybody that you would want to try to have carry a ringpost. It's just, it's a complete bullshit scam. So I think they're fucked. And according to this, Phillips would strike up conversations with boys outside of the arenas before WWE events, and he would cruise their neighborhoods. You're carrying WWE championship belts before inviting them to events. Then the sick man would abuse them, sometimes traveling with the kids to events in different states. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing.

And staying with them in hotel rooms. That's the thing, you know, he was a fucking whacked out pedophile. that they knew about, got rid of, and then rehire. It's just, that's the thing that's the most questionable. There's no good reason for it. And then what? Turned a blind dive? It's not, it's not like this guy was fucking, you know, Michael Buffer or something

as a ring announcer and, you know, is indispensable to the company. He was a shitty ring announcer too. And he was there another three years. And he was still abusing boys during that period of time. It wasn't like he's like, okay. I'm reformed now, no. I mean, they still shouldn't have rehired him, but they did. I mean, that's the thing that gets me.

Why would they rehire this guy? It ended up costing them a lot in bad publicity. In a lot of respects, they got away with everything, but it hurt the company for a while. And you would have to know that it would hurt the company if you brought the guy back. And they still did it. It's so weird that they did. And I just, again, I start thinking about if the same situation was, to present its head in Louisville, Kentucky with Christine Cherit around.

My God, I never saw her get violent, but she would have run this guy out of the building in 15 minutes, much less 10 years with a goddamn stick in her hand. And she would have let everybody know, from Jerry to Lawler to anybody that would listen, that that person was never to be around the fucking building again. But yeah, no, ringboys didn't, again, kids that wanted to get in the back, they were hanging around the back of the building, whether it be a high school gym in

Tullahoma, Tennessee, or the Memphis, Mid-South Coliseum, yeah, you know, sell some programs, bring me the money back, and I'll let you watch the matches, or occasionally on a spot show there's going to be a couple hundred people there and they got one you know one stooge helper for the ring guy and he wants some help yeah I'll let you in you can see the matches if carry this ring post

but as far as an organized recruiting system or people traveling back and forth what the fuck no because no promoter would have paid them and if they were doing it for free riding around with this guy from whoever or from wherever

somebody would have asked about it. So when did the referee start putting up the rings for WWF or WWE? You know, well, I don't know for sure when that would have started because I was surprised when I got there in 1993, that was the deal. Every referee except for Earl Hebner and Timmy White, who had seniority, and, you know, they were the top main event referees. Everybody else was part of the ring crew. They drove the ring truck

They helped set up the ring And I was like fuck A company this big and the referees have to do double duty And are not only Putting the ring up but are driving his fucking truck Hundreds of miles from place to place That's odd But maybe that's what they

Came up with after their previous system Was so obviously a fucking failure But no Every territory had guys with a pickup truck at a trailer or an old U-Haul truck or something, and they had their own... Oh, yeah. I met the guy at Smoky Mountain Fan Week, who was the genius behind Smoky Mountain, according to him. What was him?

Harold. Oh, Harold Varner. He was really the guy. He knew everything about Smoky Mountain Wrestling. Yeah. He and DeLo Brown were quite good friends when they were riding in a truck together. Oh, boy. But that's the thing is some fucking...

redneck with a couple of stooge's in a fucking truck it's going to either that or the actual promoter of the spot show himself Paul Morton Ricky's father used to haul rings but it was again it was always somebody

that was involved with the promotion and or their regular stooge helpers that they gave 25 bucks to or 50 bucks to or whatever the thing was come right right up to this town and fucking set up this ring.

And then, well, and then in modern years, it's become the wrestlers. Instead of, hey, kids hanging around the back door, if you want to get in and see the matches help set the ring up, it's, hey, wrestlers, you're lucky to be booked on the show, so set the ring up first and try to earn your money. And now it's, hey, kids, hanging around here at the back. You want to work? Yeah, yeah. Now, now, you got a mask?

Mel Phillips would be getting them on the TV to do jobs now. but anyway I'm thinking Vince better be glad he got that $2 billion and I don't know how Linda's fixed these days I assume she's fairly well off but they might if this lawyer has anything going on at all they might need some some fucking money

but I don't see how they're going to get away with TKO being involved in this when they bought a company 35 years out after it took place. That's the only other question I have is just about the time frame, because obviously what happened to these kids is awful, and there should be, you know, someone's got to pay. But this is 35 years ago, you know, and give or take, you know, even longer. I mean, the kids who met him in the early 80s were talking 40 years ago.

You know, that's the only thing. I don't know if that helps or hurts. Why did they wait this long, right? Either that or they waited so long that there's only so much that could be. I mean, Mel Phillips has been dead for over a decade. Terry Garvin's been dead for a while. You know what I mean? Like, Vince McMahon is a shell of himself from what we've seen publicly. But that shell has two billion dollars hanging around his neck. But yeah, I, you can't say, well, they just did it now that TKO owns it because there's money there now, because the WWE has been a billion dollar company for a while. did they pass a law in New York, one of those laws that the the statue of limitations, as some people say, has run out? Well, do we know where this took place? I don't remember. Did it get filed in

New York this lawsuit? Well, hold on. Let's go back up to the top and see if they gave us this. It was written up in the New York Post. CNN says Baltimore, for the byline at least. well you know what they were filed in baltimore county maryland yes because remember they were doing tv production in post production editing etc in baltimore at that time period so they opened up the new studio that's right they did it there until 88 well and now of course the new york post has frozen my screen so i can't move anything and i can't get out of this Well, this will be interesting, and it's another, I guess, another egg in the Vince McMahon

Phil Mushnick feud basket. We'll see where this goes next, but that's the, the Ringboy story. We'll follow up on this whenever there's something. Well, I'm not going to refer to any more of this particular website either as well, because, you know, what you did to me earlier in the day, Brian, before the program, I'm not going to forget about that. If it hadn't been for our friends at ExpressVPN that I mentioned earlier

why this pirate website that you sent me to could have come through the walls and taken over my, my, all of my being here. See, you should have used ExpressVPN. It was your problem. You're fine. Well, no, I've got ExpressVPN. They protected, they protected me from being hacked

and encrypted and glossed over and fucking smashed and tons. and et cetera, all the things that people do, but, you know, you can't go to these off-brand websites, and now that's a whole other thing. But I'll tell you, what, you know what doing, going without Express VPN is like,

it's like leaving your door unlocked when you leave your house. You're not protecting your things. It's like leaving your laptop unattended, at the coffee shop or wine bar or local, dive tavern. It's like leaving your kids with the nearest stranger. It's like walking down the street wearing only women's underwear. What are these examples?

I guess it's not like that. Yeah, not really. Well, but if you do the other things, you're probably more likely to do that. But going online with that Express VPN is like doing all those things. You're not being protected. You're not being secure. you're not being safe. That's why that they say,

do you know what the ExpressVPN says? They say that hackers can make up to $1,000 a person selling personal information on the dark web. You, Brian, last, and each one of your minions there at Last Manor could be worth a thousand bucks apiece. With as many kids as you got, they could come up with fucking 10 or 12 grand.

I'm sure I'm worth a lot more than that. well that's on the black market now you know you do have to mark these things i'm sure you could get $2,500 retail what about on the green market well on the green market you're going to have to install solar panels first but it doesn't take much technical knowledge to hack somebody but once you've got express VPN on the case it would take a hacker with a supercomputer over a billion years one billion years to get past ExpressVPN's encryption. So you got to have a dedicated son of a bitch that is willing to work a billion years to make a thousand dollars.

I think we can all agree with that, can't we, Brian? No, we can all agree with what? Well, we could all agree that you'd be a complete, just blithering idiot to work a billion years to make a thousand dollars. You can't live a billion years, so the whole example doesn't make any sense. You can't live on $1,000 either. So it proved my point. There was some woman in the paper today.

She's 107 years old. She has a horn growing out of her head. Well, what does that have to do with being encrypted on the internet? I'm saying you're not going to live to be a billion. Imagine how many horns you'd have. I don't think. I think you could have those things removed at a regular interval by a qualified plastic surgeon. And as a matter of fact, if you do, then ExpressVPN will protect your information

from being outed as an ex-horn person that was dehornified and is no longer horny. That's not what they do. They don't deal with the horny. Let's get back to what they do. Express VPN. Well, a lot of people on the internet are horny. I'll have you know. But folks, it works on all your devices, phones, laptops, tablets, and more so you can stay secure.

You can carry some of these things around with you. You know, the portable things that you see people in the coffee shops. A lot of people mention coffee shops. you see people on these things the screens and everything that they carry around with them it works on them too and they're out there in public you're just waving those around in front of god and everybody so lord knows that needs some pretend what if you have pictures of your nether regions as a screensaver on your device when you're sitting at the coffee shop just idly sipping an espresso and there's wally and the beaver out there for all to see

Why would someone have their own genitalia as their screensaver? Well, maybe they're proud of it. Not even someone else is their own. Well, you never know. It depends on what they look like. Do you tell the person sitting next to you? Excuse me, don't worry, it's mine. Well, yeah, I think that's the polite thing to say.

Elsewise, they'll think you're weird. But ExpressVPN is rated number one by top tech reviewers like CNET and the verge. If you've ever been on the verge, you'll know that they're not. number one. And so at any rate, right now, folks, secure your online data today by visiting expressvpn.com slash JCE. That is XPR, E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash J-C-E. You're going to get an extra three months free.

So how much would it cost you to hire a bodyguard for three months? you're going to be protected for three months for free if you use the slash of JCE. ExpressVPN.com slash JCE. And of course, as I told you, Brian, earlier, I got the custom service where the guy comes over a couple times a week and he fiddles with the connections on my internet and he makes sure that everything's plugged in tight. and he takes a large light and he looks behind the computer make sure everything's okay there

and then there's a series of exercises that I have to go through where he wants to make sure that nothing no signal has come from the computer to invade my body of course I'm doing this naked because we're in the sauna but it's a whole thorough thing you did tell me this before

and as I told you before that person is not from ExpressVPN. He's got it written right across his shirt and Sharpie. Express. Express VPN. I'm thinking maybe it's someone else or you got some other problems. But Express VPN, ladies and gentlemen, don't worry about anyone coming to your house. That's one of the things that they promise.

Well, they won't be able to find you. One more time, promo code, Jim. ExpressVPN.com slash J-C-E. All righty. Anyway, should we get to the wrestling on the television? The wrestling on the television. They've been saying that for about 70 years now. Well, and it's about time we got to it then.

The show's been going on like 70 years now. Yeah, I agree. What? This particular podcast. It seems like, well, I can't hear you, Sonny. Can you speak up? Good Lord. You know, this is going to throw my equilibrium off,

only being able to hear in one side of, of my head, one ear of my head. An ear, is that a phrase, an ear of your head? Keep going, this is going well. Well, I'm just trying to explain that you, that's why I'm for climped, as Howard Finkel would say, because I can only hear in one side of my head. All right, well, let's use both sides of your head

and your left and right turn indicators, and let's talk about the wrestling on TV. Yes, a smackdown, October 25th. See, I went off microphone and actually sneezed. You didn't even know that was happening. On October 25th, they were in Brooklyn, New York. And that's up around your neck of the woods. Indeed.

Is this the, was this the Barclays Center I've heard so much about? It was indeed the Barclay Center in Brooklyn, yes. And they had 12,000 or more, I believe they claim. Do we have any reason to doubt them these days? They pretty much are doing these type of crowds. I don't have the numbers in front of me. I can get them, but usually they do really well in New York, and they're really hot right now.

So, yeah, I'm pretty sure. It looked pretty good. Just so would we get to your show. Later on this week, we can talk about Tony Kahn's very, very bad week. Cedar Rapids. Anyway, on Smackdown, they did the thing where everybody walked in, and then Orton came into gorilla

and basically, you know, where we left it last week was that he's going to have to go over Nick Aldous's head. As Aldus can't make the match between Orton and Kevin Owens. So Orton goes to the ring,

makes big entrance, and he says he's been trying to get Owens, but for some reason he's off limits. So Triple H, come on down. you're the next contested on can they talk us to death he says if I didn't know better I would say that you're protecting Kevin Owens and then they play triple H's music and out he comes as as an executive it you know I want if they ever if they ever do something with Nick con you think they'll give him music Brian no I

I can't imagine him coming out unless it's like just generic WWE music or... I think they got to give him a theme song. Like every few years of random babyface would get the theme music to the young stallions. No, what about if... No, they can license music now. They can spend money.

What about don't call us, we'll call you by Sugarloaf. That would be perfect. Think about the lyrics. Really? Think about the lyrics. Anyway, so here's... comes Triple H and he didn't want to do this

in public but since you never show up to work on time Randy I'm not protecting anybody I'm doing my job and Randy persists in this this line of you know of discussion with Triple H

where you know Triple H trying to say look the match isn't going to happen no no no it's going to blah blah and finally they get hotter you're protecting Kevin Owens and Triple H says, I'm not protecting Kevin Owens, I'm protecting you. And

did you feel like that the people particularly were worried about fucking, when they did that big revelation, right? Was anybody worried about Orton in this situation? On the face of it, no, probably, but that's why Triple H had to explain it and to the best

of whatever he said here. Well, I know, but I'm thinking that Because it didn't seem like they were more like, who, how dare you say that to him, right? Then it seemed like I'd like to see Orton and Triple H after that word. I want to see Orton Owens. Anyway, Triple H says,

Owens has always been about business and he's got no friends, but he trusted you and Cody and he let his guard down. He liked and trusted you guys and he thinks you turned on him. So we're almost going. into the, at least they're doing it in a professional way, but we're almost going into the whose friends are you that AEW's been doing for five years. Do you think they're starting to do their own shit just to draw with it just to show AEW up? I don't know. I mean, it's not exactly the, you know, you were my friend, I want you to be my friend, I wanted a hug,

you didn't hug you, whatever the hell's going on over there. You know, the idea that Owens is saying the Triple H, the boss, that Cody and Randy turned on him, it kind of gives him a little bit of a nutty edge right now because how the hell did they turn on him? A nutty edge. It sounds like you've been to a wine tasting. It has a hint of garlic and a nutty finish. With him, it's a hint of mildew. You still get a nutty finish, though. But anyway, so Triple H is saying he's not the same guy. and I don't want to put him in the ring with you because you've been out where 18 months with your bad back and you've come back

and I just got you back and I don't want to lose you. And again, I think, God, there's Randy Orton is six foot, it looks like he's grown taller too, but 6, 3, 4, 280, jacked and there's fucking Owens, not as tubby as he used to be, but, you know, there's Owens, right? if you left pudding sitting out in the sun,

it might form in the same shape as his physique. Yeah, because of Orton's height, he's one of the more physically imposing guys on the roster. So, but maybe they said, well, Owens could potentially bring in a hand grenade or run him over with some type of SUV. But anyway, Orton said, hey, I didn't ask for Paul LeVec,

I asked for Triple H, the game. What would you do? And then Orton makes the big. big pitch. The big sales pitch give it to me and the people want it. And actually, this was done excellently, if you accept a preposterous premise. That was very illiterative. In that once they started, Orton made the pitch and Triple H is thinking about it. And the crowd is cheering. Let them fight. Let them fight. And the way that they built this, they got the people into the idea of Orton versus Owens more by the time they finish this thing than

they probably would have been beforehand. And finally, Triple H says, I hope to God you know what you're asking for because you've got it. Protect yourself at all times. Like, fucking Owens is Mike Tyson. Yeah, because even he like said there during the thing, he's like he wanted, when he came there, he wanted to be called a prize fighter. A prize fighter.

And all I'm thinking is, did anyone say you're not a prize fighter? You're not in any respect to the word a prize fighter. Well, the thing is, that's so ironic because Kevin Owens, whether you like him or not, and this is not even an insult to people, depending on your mode of thinking, Kevin Steen was one of the more indie-minded guys that ever got onto that roster. And so the idea that he's only about business. and I think the guy was trying to tug me into

letting a motherfucker dive off the balcony on him you know in front of the 600 people so the idea that he's only about you know Orton's the one that's all about business and getting the most out of the least

prolonging career making the most money selling the most tickets have the little things of the art he's the one that's about business he's the prize fighter. Owens would do this with fucking Sammy Zane and a

goddamn flatbed truck moving down the highway just for fun. He's not the prize fighter. He's the Booker fighter. And that's not a slight at Booker T for anybody who just wandered in this place accidentally and is not with it.

And it's not a shot at Hunter. And I don't mean this Hunter. I mean the other hunter that was Booker. The Booker Hunter. Anyway, so that was good. What are your thoughts on that being okay and or good? I thought it was all right.

It was a good wrestling segment on the show. In between the matches that, for the most part, most people probably aren't really invested in. But who knows, actually? I'm not. I know that. Well, no. I like these kind of segments.

You know, and that's the thing is that, you know, you wait for the... I don't know about doing the match at Saudi Arabia. that's probably my biggest problem with the whole thing. Well, I guess they're loading Saudi Arabia up more Saudi Arabia up

Arabia up. They're loading up the card in Saudi Arabia more than we thought they might for a sold show but then again they sold it for 50 million fucking dollars. So I guess, you know, let them drop

the cow over there. but anyway, that's where I was going with this program here that we're discussing is that that's the thing. It's kind of like the bookends of the first hour is the big talking segments and then you get the main event with usually the main event people fighting each other in an unauthorized fashion at the end of the show and the rest of the stuff in the middle is kind of to be in the middle of it. such as Andrade and Carmelo with L.A. Knight as referee. And they were, they're tied three and three. And we haven't gone in a detail on any of them, so we ain't going to go into detail on this one. Let me just say one thing about it.

I've enjoyed some of their stuff, some of their matches. When I say some of, the ones I've actually watched. This was the worst finish I've ever seen on one of these matches. There's no, I don't care how over L.A. Knight is. There's no excuse for this finish. This was the biggest bunch of bullshit I've ever seen. Everyone's invested into seven matches and this is how it ends? That's the thing is that this was not,

who was it, Magnum T.A. and Nikita Koloff U.S. title Best of Seven or whatever. This was six previously fine, technically fine wrestling matches between a couple people what I ain't particularly fucking interested in, right? And again, and for whatever reason, L.A. Knight has been intertwined with these two, you know, which it's got to, sooner or later it's going to affect L.A. Knight's over if he doesn't work with people that are over. I don't know why he's, you know, being asked to be drug through the fucking, you know, the salad,

bar here but anyway the finish that you of which you speak oh great Brian last is what was it how did they they hit Carmelo

hit L.A. Knight with a super kick when he was trying to hit Andre because they did kind of a tipsy-turvy thing and L.A. Night goes to the floor and Carmelo hits something sloppy and covers the guy and then L.A. Knight pulls Carmelo off the cover and throws him over the fucking announced desk.

And then Andre gets mad at L.A. Knight, and L.A. Knight gives him the BFT. And here comes Carmelo, and he gives him the BFT. And then he goes down and rings the bell and cuts the promo and declares himself the winner. Of the best of seven. And now here's the thing. I love the deal for the finish of a match. And of course, then L.A. night leaves and in the back, Nick Aldous tells, well, it's going to be a triple threat match at Crown Jewel.

So great. Again, now he's stuck in with these two fucking schmows. And, you know, and it's a three-way match that is never any good. Anyways, now it's going to be worse. But nevertheless, for just a TV match, if they were building to a three-way already, that was a cute finish. And because he's the biggest star, I don't mind him, beating up both of them and just doing that because we're going to keep the fucking guy over.

But as you said, Brian, for a best of seven series where... For the people who have liked that kind of thing, that's the kind of thing those people have They've set through this for six fucking weeks, and now week seven, and this is what they got, right? And oh, by the way, they're going to have a triple threat. Well, do they still have, winning the triple threat is not the same as beating this other guy.

So you've gone this far. It's like kissing your sister and she's not even topless, a draw, three and three. I don't know what the hell that means, but. Well, you never heard that old expression? I have not heard that old expression, no. Where'd you hear that? Give me a name. Everybody used to say it, down around the schoolyard.

This finish was astoundingly awful. The idea that the baby face referee declares himself the winner, even some of the fans there are like, some of them popping, you could see them like, what are we popping for? Well, but which one of these other schmose is, are it supposed to be, the baby face anyway. Well, I mean, I'm not disagree with you about that, but someone has to win the fucking match. You can't have the referee announced that he's the winner. Well, God, who would know better than him?

He knows all the rules. That's a dangerous precedent. Can other referees do that? Just stand on the commentator's desk and announce they won the match. Hey, I guarantee you, if it was possible for a referee to win a match that he wasn't wrestling, Thomas Marlin in Tennessee territory, would have found a way to fucking do it in 1972. But yeah, that's what's happening now at the Crown Jewel.

Boy, do you think those guys in those fucking tuxedos and goddamn Mr. Bones' outfits are carrying that giant case with that massive fucking trophy-style belt that for the Crown Jewel champ? They're going to be happy when this thing is over with and they don't have to lug that thing in and out of elevators, aren't they? Yeah, I mean, they're making a big deal out of it. they're showing the class that they're showing this title as opposed to all the other titles that are

thrown in bags and bags are thrown around and everything. So they're really paying attention to this? Well, they've gone from, once again, like you said, sometimes they're just popped in a bag and thrown in your bag, but they've gone from that to handle it like

as a Faberger egg. I mean, who's going to wear that thing, by the way? Are they going to have to hydraulically support whoever wins it to put it around their waist for a picture. Do you have to use it again after the pay-per-view? Or is it just you win it at the paperview you send it home?

Well, I don't know. They both already have titles. I mean, it's not like a lock thing. As a fucking rib, they ought to say, oh, you got to take it with you. You know, you got to have it on TV. You got to show everybody what you got, right? They did that to Roger Smith and Donnie Bass in Memphis in 1983.

They made the Assassins World Tag Team Champions, but they didn't have a set of belts handy, so they had these giant six-foot fucking trophies. and I think Donnie had to carry him around most of the time but they'd be sticking out the window of his fucking backseat of his fucking car these two six foot fucking trophies and then they dropped them to the fabs and the fabs they just left them somewhere

so they wouldn't have to carry him around and then they had Naomi versus Candy LaRue your thoughts no thoughts didn't watch okay dokey so now it was the time for the time it was the time. So now it was time

for the 9 o'clock hour, the bewitching hour to strike for Cody to make his entrance. And he came out to the ring and he was ready for all the people to go, when Gunther's music interrupted it and they didn't get there,

and out came Gunther's so now they could just Cody can just walk out to the ring and fuck it, they've seen enough of him, let's get to get, send Gunther out there and they do the promo and again that belt

is gigantic and ugly to me it's too much it's too large it's too whatever the fuck it is it's too what do you think

you're an old belt officinado is that too much of a good thing yeah maybe the Saudis requested green I don't know but I mean besides the green fuck I It's a gigantic eyesore.

Yeah, you'd have to be six foot five to fucking put it on and not cover up your chin and your nuts. So anyway, Gunther says, so, Cody, what do you want to talk about? And Cody says, it's obvious. Why do you think you're going to leave Crown Jewel as champion? And Gunther says, well, let's talk about you first. And then it got long. and

I mean you know Cody was born a small black child in a log cabin and whatever I mean they just it's you know it was a long story that Gunther was telling he won WrestleMania for the legacy of Dusty he said

hey give me the Sina schedule Cody you always make things more dramatic than they are said Mr. Pot to Mr. Kettle and but all Gunther wants to win the thing for is to live up to himself and the magnitude of him, right? But Cody, what's your real reason why?

And then Cody, well, that's the dumbest question anybody ever asked me. And he went into a dissertation, and I wrote, they're speaking well and saying nothing of note. Cody put fans over, gave him their woe, talked about how much harder he works than Gunther.

And they just said they put in the time. It's going to be a big match in Saudi Arabian on Picac. And so they put the time in to talk about it. And then

Gunther said Cody was gutless and Cody said, well I've got the guts to take the first shot and boom and they had a fight. And Kaiser came in and they beat up Cody. And then Orton came in and the heels bailed. And then Orton picked the belt up and handed it to Cody. So I didn't feel the earth move under my feet.

I didn't see the sky tumbling down, tumbling down. But they spoke well, but they said nothing. What do you think? I mean, it was all right. I think Guther is really good in these situations. I think Cody is going to talk himself into being. food pretty soon. He's not talking at the level that people, he's talking above people, but not in a real way. He's starting to get too fancy. And there's no reason to. And this is what

happened in AEW. And I said it early on, he's going to, he's going to turn himself heel without turning heel because the fans, it's going to be impossible to cheer for him. And there are more restraints, there are better controls here for both. looking than AEW. However, you know, at some point, if he keeps talking like this and not connecting while there are people like Roman Raines that people are really getting behind, he's going to have a problem to be a top baby face. Well, and I can... Bob Backland. Bob Backland. Well, oh, good, good Lord. I don't think that far,

but I can see what I can see what you're saying is that he's almost, he's, he's, he's, it's kind of like an oral, verbal version of, you know, just because you do, you can do all those moves, doesn't mean you should. Just because he knows a lot of these words doesn't mean he should use them, does it, sometimes? It's not just the words, it's the way he delivers them.

It's his body mannerisms. It feels very practiced. If you watch him, it seems like a guy who did this promo in the mirror. Gunther doesn't have that. Gunther seems like a smart ass who's out there willing to say anything, even if it's in like the WWA, Cody seems rehearsed, and he's speaking unnaturally. He's going to be a well-dressed mock sleeve. He keeps saying nothing. Oh, I don't think it's gone that far.

But Gunther, and plus it works for Gunther that he, English is his second language because he's allowed to, you know, misspeak a little bit and it's part of the charm, right? With Cody, he is being a bit, as you said, you know, polished. It's almost like, my name is Rhodes, Cody Rhodes. Anyway, that's what went on there. But then, big news. Brian, big news.

They were shaking some stuff up what I thought was going to be kind of an, okay, Motor City machine guns, Alex Shelley and Chris Saban match with Tomaso Champa and our friend old Johnny same face turned into a pretty goddamn

rabble-rousing angle. Did it not over the course that you didn't really see coming? I asked you, when the Motor City Machine Guns made their debut and they got a big pop and obviously a lot of fans were really interested in them coming up or coming up, coming to WWE,

I said, what does this say about the way WWC's tag teams right now and how is this different than what they've done before and here we are week two. And they've really done something where, you know, again, they didn't win the titles without help, but still it's the titles from the main event heels. I mean, they've done more

with the Motor City machine guns and any other tag team that's come in in a long time that I could remember. Well, and part of it is, again, as Abdullah the butcher used to say, timing is every. When the time is right, Shelley and Saban have showed up, boy, that's a lot of S's. But they've showed up at a time where, yes, not only is competition in the tag team field, somewhat lackluster. and even though that they're challenged size-wise, that's not as big of a drawback as it used to be 15 years ago,

and they're in tremendous shape so they don't just look like children, but also the time that they have come into this thing because it's brilliant the way that they've woven them in where the bloodline cost Jay Uso his title so Jay was able to immediately turn around and cost of the bloodline a title and at the same time

the only people that need to get beat was the Tongas because we've established that's who you need to beat in that group and it ties into the main event angle and it gave them a tremendous boost again this is booking that benefits multiple participants in it and in multiple stories.

This is not Shelley and Sabin, I don't think, are now, maybe they will be with the Tonga's programmed regularly, but it's not like they're going to be members of the team and the war games or whatever the fuck, the Survivor Series, whatever's coming up where there's going to be multiple men teams. They just got the rub.

But they got the rub. and they got involved and they can work now with the Tongas who can also be involved with the other guys of the other bloodline and the blah blah blah so again

this is shit that Watts or Dusty used to do where the you had multiple programs where you could book a match between two entities and it was already you'd done something on television

to make something out of it however I would still love to watch Champa work sometime on television without this garden gnome partner of his but anyway and the tag team match against Shelley and Savant they've been together for so long and they actually

became a tag team and trained and were trained when people followed the rules so they know how to do it like they did a blind tag correctly hand-to-hand on a headlock shoot-off behind the guy's back perfectly and then Gargano and Champa do one minutes afterwards is completely fucking wrong and illegal, the backslap, right?

So it's that five-year gap or whatever in the middle of these guys' generations that makes the difference between whether they do it right and whether they give a shit, whether they do it right or not. and anyway, they had a match that I liked Shelly and Saban's teamwork. It felt very rushed, and I think it probably was. They were probably trying to do maybe a few too many things in this segment because they were, you know, had to save time for the end, obviously. But it just, it didn't seem like that they didn't have a lot of,

long set of heat and then a big comeback. They didn't really take time with this. They run through some stuff. And finally, they hit old Johnny with the neck breaker and splash off the top combination one, two, three.

And, you know, again, it was rushed and there's no like really clear heel, baby face dynamic here, but they looked very good and then shit started to happen. But before we talk about that, Brian,

any comments on the business so far? No, they look good and the fans seem into them so far. And they've been used well. They haven't been made to look like fools yet. So, so good. They haven't had time to do that yet, but we still don't have faith. No.

But no, I think they might be going to do it right because at this point, boom, they play the music and here comes the bloodline. and they go to the break on that because you're thinking what's going to happen so when they come back from the break the Motor City machine guns are still in the ring but now Nick Aldus is there and the bloodline's there and the fans are chanting OTC

OTC and by the way there's a pest control company around here and I see their trucks go by with an OTC and a dead bug but anyway the fans are booing to shit out of solo and when he tells him to acknowledge him they they boo him even more

but here's where they obviously the Tongas are the tag team champions that Shelley and Sabin had won this match they won the shot at a tag team title match anytime whatever but here they gave Shelley and Saban an interview

but I would assume at this stage of the game that they weren't just going into business for themselves on what they said and that they were requested to say this but it, to me it was too healish and it made them come off as people want to say you fucking idiot to the baby faces when Sabin talked to just confidently

said well let me introduce we're the Motor City machine guns and now we're the number one contenders and any time that you're ready to hand the belts over to us we'll face you anytime, any place anywhere.

And that turned it to me to the psychology of the goofy little job guy heel almost saying that to the baby face. Do you see what I'm saying? Not really.

actually. Would it have been better if Shelly and Saban either one had said, we're the Motor City machine guns and we worked long and we worked hard to get this spot. And you guys may be on top of the world, but we will take you on anywhere and we'll give you the damnedest fight of your life because our goal is those tag team belts.

Instead of, oh, whenever you're raging, because it's the fucking bloodline. Do they walk up to God damn Brock Lester and say hey, hey, Brock, whenever you're fucking feeling froggy, lace your boots up and I'll put a ham sandwich on your back and starve you to death? Would you have sympathy for that fucking guy when he got his ass handed to him? I don't think it was that bad, but what you said for them was better than what they said. I agree with that.

Well, at least now, see, again, you prove my point. What point is it? I lost track of what it was, but you proved it. so anyway and solo made fun of him then solo even said you want to make an impact and they all got a little tickle at that how about right now

and then Alda said no no now wait a minute they're not I don't want this to happen unless they're 100% they've just had a match and Shelley says no and this was correct for baby face psychology no we'll do it while we got the chance we'll do it and the fans cheered and all to

disagreed. So again, I just thought that they were having Sabin a bit a little too cocky, like, you know, well, he's just going to come in and waltz over these motherfuckers. And that was not a realistic appraisal of situation until other people get involved. So as Bobby Eaton, you say, well, you got a frog in your pocket? See, that proves my point too.

What point does that prove? At point that you can't talk tough if you only only, got a frog in your pocket. So then for the tag team title, they had the Tongas, Tama and Loa, Tonga, Loa. They both should have the same last name. But now, anyway, we'll go over it later.

Against the Motor City machine guns. And they go into a four-way and they go to the break in like 30 seconds. I'm like, Newman, what the fuck? Stay with this. So they get, finally they come back and of course it's almost the end of the show. so they're moving at a pace.

And they get some heat on Shelley, and then the Tongas miss a double splashy thingy, and a hooded figure jumps on solo at ringside, and it's Jimmy Uso. And then Jimmy super kicks Jacob, and solo stops him, and they're going to get Jimmy down, but Roman's music plays.

And here comes Roman out and gets a big pop, and he Superman punches Jacob in the Owway or whatever. Jimmy gets on solo and Roman gets on Jacob, but guess what they did, Brian? They fought off. They fought off. Do you have a problem with it? It was a good fight off, but they still, they fought off.

But it was necessary for what they tried to do, or that doesn't justify it? Well, it was fairly necessary, but they're starting to get a little busy. I'm afraid that there's multiple hats being worn here. But nevertheless, the people are liking it. So who am I? It's not for me to say. So as they fought off, then the match is still going on. So Shelley tags Sabin and Sabin makes a comeback.

But Tomah of the Tongas pulls the referee in front of Sabin and they squash him. And then Loa kind of hits a spinebuster on Sabin. and the Tongas immediately go out and get chairs. Because why wouldn't you, since the referee is down? But there's another hooded figure at ringside. Do they sell these hoodies at the merchandise stand? I don't know. They have them at Nemo's Army Navy store.

I don't know where else they have them. Well, I think they ought to sell them at a merchandise stand. I guarantee you they will sell a ton of them because everybody will know if I put this on, I can just hop the rail and they'll let me. but this hooded figure is yeat it's yeat now boom and super kick and chair shot and spear on

Tonga Loa and then the machine guns hit their finish again on him boom one two three and they're the new champions and they were they did cook with that and it was a great deal and an upset and it yeah it as you said earlier it put a lot of spotlight on the new kids in town

and then since Jay is in the ring and Jimmy comes to the ring and they hug and there's a big pop for that they're back together and then Roman is staring in the entrance way

staring at what's going on in the ring and we fade to black what a production so we're We're forming the bloodline to reforming, I should say, the bloodline to face the bizarro bloodline. Now with machine guns. And, you know, we keep hearing that there are other family members that have been signed, so you kind of wait for them to be introduced into this, you wait for Heyman to return,

you wait for the Rock to return and have something to do with this. There's a lot going on. You know, it's been years now of us talking about the bloodline like this. I know how much. We were saying like a year and a half ago, how much longer can they keep this going like this? But, you know, now a lot more family members may start stretching it. I think in the extended family, there's a few that they could, you know, Ava,

maybe it's time for Ava to go on vacation or a three-hour tour on a boat somewhere or whatever. But that's the extended family. If you were the rock, why would you even want her on that? TV. Like, I understand wanting to hook up your kid, but... To have them do something that they're obviously not in any way, talented at.

Good at. I did... I just wanted to kind of say good at. That would cover it. You know, be like, kind of like, ah, no, ain't Fannie, don't sing. But anyway, that was Smackdown. You know, would you like to

hear Aunt Fanny sing? No, not now, no. You would, well, I tell you know, she was great when she sang far, far away, but nevertheless, if you want to hear any kind of music, you know what you need to do, Brian. You need to get the Racon everyday wireless earbuds. And it's not even limited to music. You can listen to podcasts. You can listen to talk radio. You can listen to the sounds of the earth, the nature sounds, the swishing, and the, you know, the winds and the surf and the beach and all that stuff. The things that people listen to when they go to bed, you can stick these things in your ears, and you'll hear that all night. But unfortunately, they've found in studies that if you listen to the waves crashing on the beach all night,

you're going to piss the bed 75% of the time. So just bear that in mind. Have you found that, Brian? I was part of their survey. I have no idea what you're talking about, so no. If you listen all night in your sleep to the waves crashing onto the beach, there's a 75% chance you're going to piss the bed. You didn't know that was scientifically proven.

I don't know how scientific that is, but why don't we talk about Raycon? Well, it was a non-clinical survey, so that means you know those people weren't sick. But nevertheless, they've got a deal, and here's what they're doing. You've heard of Black Friday. heard of Cyber Monday. Well, this is Raycon every day. Right now, we're going to get you hooked up

with a deal where you're going to get 30% off sitewide. It's an amazing offer. Everything that you want to buy, you will take 30% off of the entire total of this thing, which means you're going to save 30% of your money. And with that extra

money that you have, they're just basically going to write you a checkout for 30% of whatever you spend. That's what they're doing, where you could go and spend that 30% on something else, and you'll still be even. It's amazing how they've done this bookkeeping. But the Racon everyday earbuds come with the active noise cancellation, the 32-hour battery life,

the amazing, vibrant colors to match any skin tones, you don't have just white or black sticking out of your ears. Because the ink is black, the page is white, but together we learn to read and write. And when they mix those colors up, you can't see them because they're sticking in your ear and they look like your skin. And 30% off. Did I tell you about that, Brian? Indeed.

You've gone to sleep on me. Indeed. You told us about 30% off. Yes, and Raycon offers a 30-day happiness guarantee. So whatever you would like to listen to. I'd like to listen to you in both of my ears. I'm going to start pairing up the everyday earbuds with our sound apparatus instead of these dadgum headphones I've got on where I can only hear out of one side of them.

Well, folks, don't have that problem. If you can't hear, and that's another thing, if you can't hear, you put the racons in and just turn them up all the way and you'll be able to hear them. Even if you're stone cold deep, just turn them up all the way and it'll it'll rattle something around in there but go to buy raycon dot com slash j C-E today that's B-U-Y R-A-Y C-O-N dot com slash J-C-E today and you're going to get up to 30% off sitewide do it right now before you forget about it put us on pause and then come back

to us But up to 30% off sidewide. How much more can they do for people? They're doing plenty, and you can get, once again, a great deal. 30% off sitewide with Raycon one more time. What's that promo code? Well, it's up to 30% off. What's that promo code, Jim?

Go to buy raycon.com slash JCE today, right now, any minute, up to 30% off sitewide. on whatever you want on their very wide site, you're going to get up to 30% off. With Racon! Yes, that's who I was talking about. Well, now that we've established all that, Brian, what in the world is going on

in the Arcadian Vanguard Network production house this week? Another fine week of programs. I feel like I hear noise in the background now. I may have to clean that up. You can get all the information on all the shows on Twitter at Super Podcast or on Facebook. Facebook.com slash Arcadian Vanguard every day. Get your news.

Get your wrestling news for free. No clickbait, no paywall. Just the wrestling news from the wrestling news.com. Wherever you find your favorite podcast, no opinion, no conjecture. Just the actual news, ma'am. The wrestling news.com. Also want to make mention... Have you ever thought of starting a podcast called your favorite podcast?

Because then whenever anybody looked up where they would find their favorite podcast, that would be the first thing that popped up. That's an interesting thought. We will talk about off air, I assume, but also want to make mention of some real-world news. Jim, they just announced Terry Gar has passed away. What? No.

Yes. How, well, you're going to argue with me now? How old was she? Oh, that's not on the screen currently. That was on the screen before, but I forgot what it was. Well, at any age, that's terrible. Terry Gar, I said, not Terry Bull. No, now, or Terry Boulder, or Terry Ballea.

You must have an enormous schwansticka. Well, I hate to hear that in the middle of your announcements of your shows. Well, we always try to bring you the news. We always try to bring you the latest news. And, of course, want to make mention of some of the other shows on the Arcadia Vanguard podcast network. Is Terry Gar on any of them? Not that I'm aware of, but you never know. Well, you've lost your chance now.

Well, I want to make mention of a couple appearances that recently were made on shows by Greg Klein, talking about the Junkyard Dog and Morris Siegel and why they should be in a Hall of Fame. You can hear, shut up and wrestle with Brian Salomon at suawadwpod.com, or wherever you find your favorite podcast, and stick to wrestling with John McAdam. He was on both shows. Here's the discussion. See if you agree or disagree with those shows. That's at McAdampod.com.

And, of course, the 605 Super Podcast. The mothership! Thank you, ma'am. Go through the archive. She should screen for a long time there. 605Pod.com. Wherever you find your favorite podcast, The Mothership. That's the first time you've ever said those words before.

And you know, it wasn't that bad in one ear. That's the first time you said those words before. Your statements today, they're going in one ear, but they're not coming out the other. But they're just going in the one ear. because of my audio problems. They'll get stuck in your head, that's what I want. Well, it's rattling around now like a BB and a box car. But anyway, speaking of box cars,

you know, now I see this brand new, big old state-of-the-art arena in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Hershey fucking Pennsylvania. Who would have thunk? Now, they'll build an arena anywhere. I'm not trying to alienate our friends and fans the people, the cult of Cornett members in and around the Hershey area.

But when I think, you remember, I've told you about the Hershey Park Arena, as Davey Boy would say, oh, that fucking Hershey Park. Does that sound like Davey Boy? No. Fucking Ashipak.

See, that sounds more like you. No, not at all. But no, you're going to argue with me again. Well, that's what he'd say. You can't deny that. He'd say the fucking Hershey Park, because it was a, shithole. Now they got this big brand new building. How many people did they have in Hershey,

Pennsylvania? Brian, do you have that information or can that be obtained from Thurston Howell the 3rd? Do we have him on a ticker? No, we do. We don't have anyone on a ticker, but hold on, I'll see what I can find out. Well, they were in the, whatever the new building is called. I was just amazed that it wasn't the Ashipaer. Because Hershey Park Arena was the arena in Hershey Park, the amusement park where that old man Hershey built to celebrate his success in the chocolate industry

and they have this five-star hotel the Hershey Hotel and they have all these attractions that you can go and see you know you can have your children I think up to the age of 12 or 14 drowned in a vat

of chocolate and wrapped in gold wrapping paper and they've got the road that leads to it, the Hershey Highway. It's an amazing complex up there, but the old arena. There's an amazing complex going on here, that's for sure. Yeah, so have you had time to find out the crowd? According to this, according to Wessel Ticks, the Giant Center, Hershey, Pennsylvania,

as of yesterday, but this isn't the final number. 7,763 tickets distributed. The setup was 8,266. So they drew about 8,000 people in Ashi, Pennsylvania. Fulkin Ashi! What wrestler like chocolate the most? What wrestler liked chocolate the most? Oh, good Lord.

I would have to rack my brains to think of a chocolate fanatic in a wrestling. I probably ate more candy than anybody I was around in those days, but that's because of my superior digestive system and amazing genetics that I was able to still maintain an amazing physique. Anyway, speaking of amazing physique, Jay Uso gets his cardio. When he does his entrance, boy, they did it to him again.

He comes from the outside, the opening shot, down the fucking stairs, everybody's yeating and waving. And by the time he gets an or wrist, you can tell it's good that he can only say like three or four, he blurts out three or four words and they'll go yeat. So he has time to breathe in and then,

and then I want a title, yeat! And then I beat his ass, yeat! Because that's all he's got to win for after he goes through this whole thing. And basically he just said, I lost the Intercontinental title so I cost them the tag team title. And now I want to talk to one specific ooze

and boom and Jimmy Uso's music plays and out he comes. And Jimmy thanks Jay and says, we need to be together because they ain't the ones. And then Jay says, well, we not the ones either. And that is a quote, we not the ones either. Because a lot of people don't think it'd be like it is, but it do. But then, Brian, did you listen closely to this or did you kind of zone out with the eating?

Because it seemed to me that Jay cut kind of a confusing promo. You couldn't tell whether he's happy with Jimmy or not. Through this middle part here. Yeah, I mean, I thought, you know, he was acting like he was still kind of mad, but it was also apparent that he was going to forgive him in his own unique way. Well, and the fan started chanting Uso. And basically, that's the thing is that there's still some tension here. wasn't the

you know the most succinct of promos but Jimmy tells Jay to come to Smackdown to talk to Roman and Jay says that he will

be there and once that they got that bit of news out here came the Tongas and they jumped them and but the Usos were fending off the Tongas until Solo sent Jacob in and

Then they beat him up a little bit and they tied Jimmy up into ropes and they were going to bash Jay's head in with the ass in the face and the chair and the ass in the face in the chair. And we could make a children's song out of that. No, we can't. Well, you could pitch in two and can you got... I will not have anything to do with this song, no. Do they like the ass in the face in the chair and the ring and the... Must be a southern thing.

Anyway, the ass in the face or the... chair and the thing in the ring. Either one. And the skies up above in the chapel of love. Let me tell you about the baby. Okay, okay, okay. Okay, but anyway, so what happened was Jay clocked Jacob in the face with the chair and the Uso's cleared the ring.

And we were nearly 20 minutes into the program by the time that this whole thing resolved itself. That's my comments on it. that. Yeah, I mean, it was good storyline stuff. They both got the intensity down. They're over so they could say nothing and it seems to work. I'm just thinking of any other television show that I've ever been on in my life, they would be screaming if to say what needed to be said if the guys took 20 fucking minutes to get that accomplished. And Raw's only two hours now, but they're still milking.

They're utterly milking the cow for everything they get. And who can blame them? They're swimming in money. They're building a money bin, a Scrooge McDuck money bin right next to the mountain where they keep the tapes in the fucking cave. Did you hear about this? I had not heard of this. This has been proven. They're building a money bin. Proven. It's been proven. Well, everybody else gets to believe what they want to believe. Why can't I believe some bat-shit-nuts stuff? Speaking of being bat-shit-nuts,

Seamus wrestled Ludwig Kaiser. And by the time that was over, we were 35 minutes into this program. But we were ready for another installment of as the bloodline turns. Because the Uso's, Jimmy and Jay, were together when they saw Sammy Zane. And Jay hugs him and Jay, my dog, my blood, my brethren. But Jimmy was not happy to see Sammy,

but Sammy wanted to talk to Jay alone and Jimmy took off. And then Sammy asked Jay if he was really going to make up with Roman. And Sammy tried to talk Jay out of making up with Roman. because he shouldn't trust Roman or solo. And he told Jay he shouldn't get involved because he's his own man now. But Jay told Sammy that you don't understand

because you're not family. So now this is obviously, there's still some ill will here. And I'll tell you what, that's Sammy Zane. He doesn't forget very easily. What are you trying to say? I'm trying to say that there's going to be something going on here.

Hey, listen, Owens has all of a sudden gone kooky and turned on his friends. Well, we'll see. Well, but nevertheless, here's another great wrestling segment, and then they put a match in a ring. And it was, oh, fuck. It was Zelina versus Ivy Nile. So I just went and grabbed a VHS of Darling Dagmar versus Diamond Lill and watched that until the bloodline came. back on the screen. And it was the Uso's in the back, and Jimmy asked Jay, how did it go with Sammy?

And Jay says, hey, when you left, he stepped up. And he's kind of shaming Jay. So, or shaming Jimmy, rather. So Jimmy says, all right, I'll go find Sammy and I'll go talk to Sammy. They need to get Leslie Nielsen back looking for the Undertaker, apparently. But anyway, this thing is going on throughout the show. Should we go now to the 9 o'clock hour, Brian? Because that's where we were.

That's all we got in this program, an hour into it. Are you detecting a pattern here? Yes, let's go to 9 o'clock. Seth Franklin Rollins comes to the ring. He's back to being a visionary and a revolutionary, and he's never stationary, and he's hunting monsters, because Bronson Reed is a monster,

but so is Seth Rollins. He says, so am I. Because Bronson Reed has reminded him of what he's capable of and he likes it. Does that mean he's reminded him he's capable of dressing like a normal human being? But nevertheless, Bronson Reed interrupted on the screen and says, well, I promised I wouldn't come in there and get to fight with you tonight. But I'm out here on the parking lot. If you want to come out here, well, come on.

and Seth goes out to parking lot and the camera follows him and Adam Pierce is trying to stop him and he blows past there they get in a fight and Seth gives Bronson Reed the curb stomp on a car hood

and then rolls off of it and starts cutting a promo to the camera but in the background you see Reed gets up and there's more fight and they go into the back of a production truck, so just a big, empty, you know, not a flatbed, but a giant like a U-Haul truck, and they have more fight, and then Bronson Reed picks Seth up and gives him the Death Valley

driver out of the back of the truck through at least four tables, side by side, and end-to-end, that had been covered with a giant black sheet and had some cardboard boxes set on them apparently for just such an occasion and could there potentially have been a hint of crash pad underneath that, Brian? And then boom and there they were. So,

why did they have the fucking whole giant thing set up and dressed with a tablecloth out in the middle of the parking lot? but everybody got to see them take a big bump catering's really gotten out of control I know well they could that was the kids table out there they couldn't seat everybody anyway what did you think of the whole idea

we can't do anything there come out to the parking lot well that's kind of egregiously exploiting a loophole that I'm sure that Adam Pierce never intended when he got Bronson Reed the heel's solemn word that he wasn't going to do anything wrong so we can't fault management in any of this. Why is he taking Bronson Reed's word on anything?

Well, that's why, you know, he's a nice boy. That's what his mother always said. You're such a Mr. Nice guy. If you can't believe Mr. Nice Guy, who can you believe, Brian? Anyway, so then they had a three-way tag team match with Mysterio and Dragon Lee and the New Day and the Viking War Raider Machine Experience. and the Vikings won it.

But now we get back to the bloodline. Because in the back, Jimmy Uso is still looking for Sammy so he can talk to him. And as he's looking around, he sees something. And then Jay comes in and says, hey, you talk to Sammy, and Jimmy's like, and he points through the fence,

and the camera zooms in and out in the parking lot, there is Sammy Zane standing there, talking a solo. And Jimmy said, I told you so. And Jay said, Yeat. Is it, again, in a serious moment,

could he not say yeat? Could he maybe just hang his head in shame? But now, what do you think Sammy's talking a solo about? Probably the Middle East, I have to guess? I don't know. I have no idea. No, no, because Solo comes from the South Pacific. Sammy is a pacifist as a character who wants everyone to be friends, although this is wrestling.

He's probably trying to talk solo into, could it be healing the family up? Could it be, I don't know, what do you think? Family healing. Because when I get that feeling, I want family healing. got to, got to. If I hear you sing, I want some of that Marvin gay family healing. Well, regardless of whether you want my healing or gay healing or anything else, I think that Sammy is, is you're right, he's going to be found to be innocent.

He's going to be trying to be the peacemaker. But I bet you that Jimmy ain't going to believe it. And then we were ready for the main event. Brian, you're ready for the main event. Oh, yeah. As you will recall, Dominic had to wrestle and defeat a former world champion to be the number one, or to get in the number one contender spotter. He's trying to climb the ladder to the world title.

And this was just pulled out of the blue. Next week, he'll face a former world champion. And it turns out to be Damien Priest. Wouldn't you know who won the pony? and this started they didn't have much time on the show it was basically Dominic beat their Dominic

Damian Priest beat the shit out of Dominic through the majority of the match as he should in the way that they're presented and then suddenly at the end of the thing Liv and Raquel come out and draw the referee and JD and Carlito attack Damien and he levels both of them

with a chair numerous times, multiple shots, and then just as he's finished beating them into powder, Dominic rolled him up from behind, he got a one, two, three. And then, like, priest pulls Dominic back in and gives him a razor's edge. And then he starts to leave, but he goes back, and he wears him out with a chair about five or six times. And then he walks up, but he goes back in,

and he grabs Carlito and choke slams him. and then chokeslams Dominic. And then he stood up and said, well, I guess I'm done. So, technically they got Dominic past the hurdle there, but they pretty much had Damian Priest beat up every male member of the Judgment Day

except for Finn Baller. I'm not sure. He was there earlier backstage. Maybe he didn't want to come out and get beat up either. And that was the main event. Well, that was raw. I see you You were full of fucking

righteous indignation on a number of things that happened in this match you would like to go over them in detail Is that correct? There was nothing that happened on Raw other than the bloodline stuff which is all drama-based There's nothing that was happening on Raw.

Drama-based. I need some drama mean after a good segment of Raw there but anyway that's the Raw program that's our program That's everybody's program for this time and this week and this episode. Is that correct? That is correct.

Wrap it up. Well, now you're giving me orders. Okay, folks, come back when we'll take our time on Brian's program, the drive-thru in just a couple of days, and then back here next week, hopefully still at a free country on the Jim Cornett experience. Until then, thank you, fuck you, please go out and vote. Bye-bye, everybody.