Jim Cornette Experience - Episode 563: Saturday Night's Main Event

Episode Date: December 22, 2024

This week on the Experience, Jim reviews the return of WWE's Saturday Night's Main Event! Plus Jim looks back at his Mid-South schedule from the end of March in 1984 & reviews Smackdown! Also, Jim talks about Jim Londos, Tony The Snowman, Sweet Soul Music, ratings and more! 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.

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 Connett The Keys to the Future Helped by the past and we're tag deep part On it Well he's next

An anticipation of our holiday break I have done no preparation whatsoever For this show today So we're gonna And here he is to join us Hawaiian Brian the podcasting line the King of the Arcadian Vanguard podcast network, Mr. Co-host to you, he's over-prepared and underappreciated, the great Brian Last, everybody.

Aloha, Jim, a pleasure to be here once again. I'd like to thank the orchestra for greeting me with the theme to the Great Brian Last. It's wonderful to be here. I'm so happy it's your show today. I'm happy it's your show. Well, you can't go into things like that. Because, you know, I'm looking forward. I'm looking forward to a few days off also, to be quite honest,

whether it's a Christmas break, Hanukkah break, winter solstice, Kwanza of, what do they celebrate in Satanism, whatever, it's a chance for us to take a couple days off at this point. Does Satan have a birthday? You know, that's a good question. I mean, everybody has one. I never thought of the question before. I think you never hear like, well, they're celebrating the birth of Satan today. Like, you never hear that.

No. It seems like that side of the population's getting short change, come to think of it. Unless Satan's a Jehovah Witness or something. Well, in that case, he deserves it. He deserves what, being Satan? Well, being burning in hell, I don't know. I chased a couple of those son of a bitches off my porch naked one morning. They were naked?

Have I told you this story? No, I was. Oh, no, I don't think I know this story, no. This was, my God, it was almost 20 years ago. We hadn't been living here back here very long. And I can't remember what we, it was the OVW days. I'd probably, I think maybe a TV the night before, up late, editing, whatever. It's like 8 o'clock in the morning and it's cold weather and somebody, boom, boom, boom, before we had the gate.

That's the reason why we got the gate. on the front door and I'm in bed and stays in bed and we didn't even have Harley then and I'm like what the fuck what could be going on and I've crept down the stairs because I had no clothes on but I wanted to see who was on my front porch and peaked out and there's this man and this woman standing there and I'm like what can this be and I cracked the door open and I said can I help you and whatever they're however they open their spiel

and they had some material in their hand written material whatever and they identified themselves in some way or another as Jehovah's Witnesses to speak to me I said are you completely fucking out of your mind it is just minutes past

eight a fucking clock at a morning. I've had no fucking sleep. I'm a goddamn atheist to begin with and I will kill you people. Jesus Christ. If you don't get the fuck off my porch, you have woken, you son of a bitch. And they began

backing up like in disbelief but not going and I flung the door open. I was naked and I said get the fuck out of here. It is 35 degrees. And then they started running. And I changed. I said, get the fuck. You wake me up out of Suss, leave with this bullshit.

Fuck you. Did they leave a pamphlet? Yeah, they left a few floating in the breeze behind them as they scurried on. And they parked at the road and walked all the way up here in their car. Not in their park, their car walked all the way up here and had cold weather. And they were ever able to run again down to the... Look at that nice old house. I'm sure it's a very lovely family that lives there.

Let's go say a little. Nobody's lovely at 8.15 in the morning after doing a TV taping when you're the Booker. So there you go. Well, forget about that. In life in general, that's too early. Anything before 9 a.m. is too early. Well, no, in those days, anything of that nature come knocking on my door before fucking noon. And even then you wouldn't have got a warm response, but I'd have been dressed.

Do you think there should be enforceable no solicitation lists? Like, I don't know who you'd register with, the local authorities, where it's against a law to solicit on certain properties if they deem themselves? Well, who the, these people believe in whatever the fuck it is they believe in, which is even an off-brand offshoot of the bullshit that everybody else believes in. You think they're going to be checking local fucking lists? They think they have the approval of, is Jehovah God for them? I'm not exactly sure, but I know they don't celebrate their birthdays.

That's the part I would have loved to have heard them try to sell you on, the idea you would be dropping your birthday as a celebratory event. What the fuck has that got to do with any? thing. Why don't they like birthdays? I think you're only supposed to celebrate Jehovah, not yourself. Well, Jehovah can go to fuck himself. Who the fuck is Jehovah anyway? Well, hold on. Let's find out. Can you Google Jehovah? I was going to, I was going to, while you're Googling Jehovah, let me just mention that I have a bunch of notes here for things that we're going to talk about and no particular order for things.

So we're just going to do this until it comes out of our crotch and we're done with it. And we're going to talk about Saturday night's main event. I know that. And we promised to people some Mid-South wrestling. So what's going on with Jehovah? All right, a little bit of information from Wikipedia because they always get everything right. Jehovah's Witnesses are a religious group that grew out of the Bible study movement founded by Charles Taze Russell. the 19th century. Taze? Is that,

in quotation marks, like a fucking nickname, or is that his middle name? Russell co-founded Zion Watchtower Tracked Society in 1881 to organize and print the movement's publications. A leadership dispute after Russell's death resulted in several groups breaking away with Joseph

Franklin Rutherford all these names. Retaining, everyone has their middle name, retaining control of the Watchtower society and its properties. Rutherford made significant organizational and doctrinal changes, including adoption of the name Jehovah's Witnesses in 1931, to distinguish the group from other Bible study groups

and symbolize a break with the legacy of Russell's traditions. Jehovah's Witnesses are... So this is all just a bunch of people for 2,000 years, getting mad at the other guy and making up their own shit. Jehovah's witnesses are considered to be... All right, this may take a second. Are considered to be

non-trinitarian, millennarian, restorationist Christian denomination. Say that quickly. In 2023, the group reported approximately 8.6 million members.

They consider the use of God's name vital for prosa... process for proper worship. They do not observe Christmas, Easter, birthdays, or other holidays or customs. They consider to have pagan or origins incompatible with Christianity. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Pagan origins.

I mean, I know that, you know, Halloween, you might be able to make a case, but what's a what are they mad at Thanksgiving for? We know that started with the, the, the, the, the, pilgrims? Dumb white people. it came over here and stole the Indians property. But at least they fed them once. Jehovah's witnesses believe that the destruction of the present world system

at Armageddon is imminent, and the establishment of God's kingdom over earth is the only solution to all of humanity's problems. So these are the people that go around knocking on your door at 8 o'clock in the morning. They're always pleasant, I'll say that. Well, yeah, why would they be in a good mood? they think the world is coming to a fucking end

and they've got to personally go out and goddamn round up people to fucking stop it. But isn't that the thing sometimes like when you see with some of these cults were, what was the one where the guy was going to go on the comet? Haley Bop was that it? You remember what I'm talking about?

The guy in all of his cult, they all killed themselves very happily thinking they were going to just ride this comet through time. I must have missed that one. Well, all right. Well... Was that the Kool-Lade guy or was that the fucking... No, no, no, no.

or not him, not that. Oh, Heyman found work and put an end of that plot. But, well, anyway, how did we get started talking about this? You were talking about chasing Jehovah's Witnesses naked. Well, you brought it up. So, this is my show. Quit trying to steer the conversation. So, you know it would be a great documentary.

If you found all these different people and interviewed them, without any of them knowing they're talking about the same person, like the cop from Mustang Hill and the Jehovah's Witness person who ran from the crazed naked man and... And the guy from Virginia Beach. Yeah, what if you put them all in a room?

They all tell the story and then the big reveal is, it's one man and here he is. He'd that it'd be like the testimony in the last episode of Seinfeld where everybody that they'd interacted with came together to say what a... Anyway...

What's your take on? Hey, I don't think I've ever asked you now. What's your take on the Seinfeld finale. A lot of people like myself at the time were disappointed in it. Not to say it's not a funny episode, but it was the final episode, and it was a little different than a lot of the other episodes. What are your thoughts? Well, I liked that they brought everybody back. They had the guest stars. You know, and it did have, it did have its moments, but I didn't want to see them end up

in the fucking jail cell. There should have been. It was a flat ending to a, they built and built and it was a two-parter, was it not? It was. So they built over two weeks and they had all the, had all the talent on a card. It was like the Cleveland Super Bowl of wrestling, but in the end, the finish was kind of flat. I think it became a two-parter in syndication.

Originally, I don't think it was a two-parter. Well, yeah, there you go. Yes, they wouldn't have broken up the big main event on network first run, but yeah, but it became a two-parter in syndication. But yeah, flat finish. they they they put too much time and effort into getting all the all of the co-stars in instead of maybe coming up with a some kind of of funny fuck finish see i complain about finishes all the time it needed to be funny

in a funny type of way oh larry david made up for it with curb your enthusiasm oh yeah but it eventually but it took all those years to get them all back they should have only been in jail if they were going to do a fucking two-hour special the next year where they got out of jail. How did it wing get to share the same cell with the boys?

Well, see, that's a loophole also. But it was a small town. So maybe they had the sheep in the other cell. I got notes here. Oh, boy. Yeah. See, I like that.

That's a comforting sound to me, the sound of paper. I want to thank John Fell and Boland The Sound of Paper. The Sound of Paper. John Fell and Baltimore sent me a bunch of it. The Mighty Marvel Calendar Book as a Christmas gift, and it is a 12-inch-by-12-inch hard-bound heavy.

Hold on a trip. Oh, it's a heavy tome. I would say this thing weighs in the area 5 to 7 pounds. Wow. And it's full color and slick. paper as they say in the advertising and it is full reprints with the story and et cetera and peripheral information

on the annual wall calendars that Marvel used to do from about 1975 to 87 I think or thereabouts full reprints of though with the they did all the top artists at the time did special art just for these

calendars and then the actual calendar has various important dates in Marvel history or characters or whatever. And it's like the wall calendars were like instead of the pictures of the sexy firemen or the kittens climbing a tree, you had the Hulk versus Spider-Man. So he sent me one of these for, I just hurt my back trying to pick the thing up. It's so, it's so, it's so heavy. I got to clear my throat because I'm going to sing, ladies and gentlemen. You know what?

Let your throat get bad. Just let it. Well, ladies and gentlemen, while he's doing that. Yeah, no, you're not getting out of it. Because this is starting to be an annual tradition since this will be the second year. But I was straightening up the office here, the shelves on the periphery of my desk here. have gotten clogged up with program notes and magazines and things and such that we have done research with and everything about the podcast.

And this is something I found in this stack of stuff from last year's Christmas show. Can you hear it? Last year's Christmas show was a mess. Of course, you remember, ladies and gentlemen, Hotchkiss drank too much of the punch. Oh, come on. That was the Christmas party, not the Christmas show. I don't remember the Christmas show. I don't even remember the Christmas show. Well, that's because you got into too much of the punch.

The Maui-Wowie punch. But no, this was a fan submission. And it is not, I don't remember if I read who sent it or put it out there or whatever last year. Because there's no name on this, but I'd printed it out off of the interwebs because I wanted to save it. So I thought I would just make it my annual remission. Oh, but you remember Brian Tony the Snowman, don't you? I do. I do remember Tony the Snow.

Was that one year ago? I believe it. I thought it was. It might have been a couple years ago. I don't know how long a stack of shit's been sitting here. That's no way to talk about Tony. No, I'm not talking about the... How dare you?

I'm not talking about him. They don't stack shit that high. But ladies and gentlemen, just for the sake of the holidays, my remission of Tony the Snowman, uncredited author. Tony the Snowman has a holly jolly soul, with a rolled-up bill in a real red nose and pupils like black holes. Tony the Snowman dreams a fairy tale today. His bookings bad and the content's sad,

beat W.W.E. one day. He thinks there is some magic when the snow goes up his nose. For when he takes a little sniff, he thinks he books like roads. Oh, Tony the snowman, he's alive as he could be. He jumps and shouts and stompes around, hugging talent awkwardly. Merry Christmas, Tony, from us and whoever wrote that. Yeah, that's a shame you don't remember who wrote it. Well, it's not that I don't remember. I don't think I ever knew. It was, it's like one of those songs.

You never know where it came from. Well, there's no byline here, see. There's no byline. It was just, it was out there on the interwhip. Anyway, what? Ah, we don't have time for that today. What is going on? What's going on?

I'm out looking through my notes. It's the matter with you. I just... What? Try to be. professional over here. Let's dig out of the snow. I got another email. And this is actually, we want to send good holiday wishes, greetings, whatever. However, they say it in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Belfast, Northern Ireland, do they say Merry Christmas,

happy Christmas? As they say, happy Christmas over in England, do they say, Happy holidays, cheers, or does that work or whatever? But Phil from Belfast, Northern Ireland. They say, buy me a pint. Well, and how much does that cost? I don't want to commit to anything before I. But nevertheless, Phil sent us an email, both you and I. And I'm not going to go through.

He's had a lot of health issues with folks in his family, especially his grandmother and his father. and so he's been, as the quote goes, going through a lot right now, but he's escaping with our podcast and getting a tickle about hearing about Plummer Moxley, who's recently been renamed Dick the Boozer, the world's most dangerous plumber, Tony Kahn, Uncle Dave, pockets, and the whole gang. But Phil, we hope that 2025 treats you better.

Don't you, Brian? without knowing anything about Phil's character, yes, I do. Well, God, did you have a question? Everybody? I don't know. I don't know Phil. He's had bad things happen. Are you saying he's trying to bring this on himself because of his bad character and conduct?

A lot of people say Phil is the problem. Well, it depends on what Phil you're talking about. There's a lot of people blaming Phil. You talking about, you talking about one bill, Phil or Phil McCracken? I'm talking about Phil, one pint, Phil over in Ireland. That's what I'm talking about. Anyhow. Get well soon, Phil.

No, he's not sick. Assuming you're a good person. No, he's not sick. He's down in the dumps because everybody else has been sick. Oh, Phil, it's going to get better. And at least you got your health. Well, that's a way to look at it. Thank you for contributing something positive.

So I got another email from a friend of yours also, Dolf Ramzer. Did you get this? He sent me one. He's a great guy. Yes, I probably did. I don't know what it is. Is it money?

No, it's an email. Oh, yeah. You've had things going on. You're behind on your paperwork. But, and Dolf, of course, the head of Ramser records and represents many fine musical artists in the musical work. including the Abbott brothers that he he got me in for free to see several years ago they're still sending me bills for those tickets but anyway um he heard uh the other the other week on

the drive-thru what what episode are we on now of the drive-thru what number do you have any idea uh as a present 372 oh jesus christ well he said on episode 270 either he made a mistake and It's 370 or elsewise we did this about 100 weeks ago. Well, we're backed up on email. He, well, no, it's a new email. It just came in fucking last week. But the episode might be old. Anyway, I serenaded the folks with a line from Arthur Conley's sweet soul music.

Do you like good music? Sweet so, et cetera, et cetera. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, no. I mean, I like his version. His version I like. Well, whose version?

Arthur Conway's version, not Jimmy Conley's version. I thought you thought Dahlf did it. But no, he says, Dolf says, because he knows his music. You're tickling me now. That song was written by Otis Redding and Arthur Conley. Together, they actually took a Sam Cook song and reimagined it. Otis was a mentor to Conley. and after Otis died into plane crash

Conley never was able to get his career back on track. He was gay and had kept it a secret all of his life and he moved to Europe, changed his name to Lee Roberts and died in obscurity. Arthur Conley. I Google that. Yeah, no, I mean, I'm a big Stax Records fan. When you really think about it,

he just drops off the map pretty quickly when a lot of those, I mean, the backing band he had kept going. That was Booker T and the MGs backing him, I believe. Yeah. Well, well, Europe is still on the map, but he dropped out of sight, changed his name, and died in obscurity. Did you ever see the video? I want to say it's, because Otis Redding dies in 67. It may have been early 67 or late 66.

The Stacks Records goes to Europe concert. Yes. Oh, it's incredible. Incredible. And is that available on DVD now that you bring it up? It was on DVD. I just don't know if it's on anything since then. I don't know if it's available on streaming, probably not because of rights.

Well, no, I want the DVD. I don't want this streaming nonsense. Yeah, I think maybe Shout Factory put it out. I don't remember. And Dolph Ramsor, I will get back to you. Thank you for your interest in distributing Arcadian Vanguard records based on the success of the theme of the Great Brian last. Well, he's not done yet.

We look forward to the vinyl release. He's not done yet before you make your pitch for him to make you a fucking Grammy award-winning artist there. Don't call us, we'll call you. Sugarloaf. Remember those lyrics? But he continues. Recently, I had the great fortune of meeting the booking agent

for Otis Redding. His name is Alex Hodges. He's 83 years old and he first met Otis in Macon, Georgia in 1959, and booked him until his death in 1967. And he actually quit the music business for two years afterward.

as he was so distraught after the plane crash. But listen to this now, about how things could have been different. A few days before his death, Otis came to see Alex and played him two versions of sitting on the dock of the bay. Otis said that the guys in the studio were making fun of the whistle at the end of the tune. So he had a version without the whistle. Alex told him, you have to keep the whistle in there

and as you know, Brian, and everybody, that turned out to be Otis Redding's only number one hit posthumously. Yeah, and that whistle ended up being used later on a lot in various hip-hop samples. Yeah, so the thing is, if he'd have listened to the fucking guys in the studio, sometimes they'll ring the fucking uniqueness out of something, but thank goodness he had old Alex Hodges there. Can you imagine without the whistle?

but anyway, now sell your fucking music to dolls. Can you imagine you talk about what ifs? What if Otis Redding hadn't died in 67? Because I mean, things were really just beginning to take off and things were starting to get more experimental and, you know, there were more doors opening for soul music. Oh, well, but just the career he would have had from 67 to 75 would have been insane.

As a songwriter, I mean, who knows who would have been performing his songs and, of course, as a performer, because you see everything with him at Monterey Pop and, you know, the Europe video, too, he's explosive, he's incredible, especially with that band. I mean, he had the greatest band behind him. And again, you know, the whole funk music movement of the early 70s, he would have fit right in. So, yeah. But, well, now, why are you bumming me out?

I was trying to end it on a positive note about Alex Hodges keeping the whistle. I enjoy talking music. It's more fun than talking AEW. Well, talking about your goddamn colonoscopy is more fun than talking about, there's your whistle. Anyway, you know what else is happening? No. The Jim Landoz book has been released.

Steve Johnson, we've talked about it here on the program, I think, before. I remember talking about more of it than you do, but Steve Johnson has authored the definitive biography of Jim Landoz called Jim Landoz the Golden Greek of Professional Wrestling. It's on McFarland, M-C-F-A-R-L-A-N-D, McFarland books, and they are now taking orders.

Apparently it may have been delayed somewhat because I think a printing factory or something in the chain, well, the McFarland Books is located in western North Carolina. So they had weather issues that everybody's aware of. But finally, the things are on track and they're taking orders. And I'm just, you're a big Landoz collector. Did they send you one of these, Brian? He sent me one.

I've known Steve for years. No, I have not received one. I have a pre-order in. So when it finally comes out, I've received several Amazon updates saying it was delayed, it was delayed, it was delayed. But I guess now it's finally coming out. I'll finally get to read it. See, I got mine from the author, but, you know, he's an elderly man like I am, so he probably forgets about the whippersnappers like you. They just come along the scene the last 20 or 30 years.

He probably doesn't know who I am. I'm just one of the biggest Lundas collectors out there. Well, you know, you've... Did you tell the people about how you actually won the auction and got Jim? Lundis's jock strap that he used in 1934 in the match with Lewis? That's not true. That's not true. I lost out to John Pantosie on that auction, as everyone knows.

But, uh... But hey, John Pantosie may sniff jocks, but they're the goddamn finest, rarest jocs in the world. That's not what I said either, but, uh, yeah, Jim Londas, this should be interesting because, you know, you always have him in the argument, who's the biggest star in history of wrestling. Now they'll finally be a definitive, I would assume, a definitive biography. to kind of wrap up the argument. Well, see, and I read the manuscript,

but the book has pictures, so it's even better. But no, this is an amazing story. Lando's is the biggest mainstream name in the history of professional wrestling in the United States. And yes, I am including Hulk Hogan and Steve Austin and The Rock and et cetera

because of his era until you read the book, well, we've known because, you know, we look into these things, but when you read this book, you will understand that he was one of the most famous celebrities

in not only the United States, but in Europe and Greece and around the world because of the newspaper coverage of wrestling at that time, would everybody everywhere read the newspaper and newsreels and things of, you know,

it was a big deal when Jim Landoz came into town on the train. So he also transformed the wrestling business with really being the first big major drawing card champion that was the worker that would sell and get sympathy and bring emotion from the people. Go ahead, I'm sorry. Well, two things on Landa's. One, I don't have it here because it wasn't something

I was going to keep in here for guest to program because of the nature of it. But I have, I recently purchased just someone and I forget even the town actually It's in the other room They cut out everything That was in the newspaper About Londis coming to town

And then they got a press pass To go to the event So it was everything about the coverage And about how radio was going to cover it In 1935 I want to say And it had the press pass That was pretty cool I'll grab that during our next break

And tell you about it But also Due to the interest in Jim Londis right now I'm going to probably reissue That Tijuana Bible I have Jim Landis, which is the filthiest fucking thing you've ever seen. That was obviously not an authorized product of the Golden Greek. Yeah, for anyone who thinks like pornography just started with like Larry Flint and Hugh Hefner.

They were making the filthiest cartoons with all your favorite cartoon characters and apparently professional athletes just fucking and sucking and doing all sorts of shit. But stay tuned. Coming out from Not McFarland Press. Well, yeah, I was a lot. about to say we've gone to Tijuana Bibles from this wonderful new book. Again, Jim

Londos, the Golden Greek Professional Wrestling which is available at McFarlandbooks.com. But again, another one of these great looks like we've talked with Tim Hornbaker about and talked with Brian Solomon about the

early days of wrestling, the history of wrestling, the pioneers of wrestling, the people who established it and transformed it over the years and this is a big piece that has I mean just I'm surprised because of the level of his celebrity when he was literally you know along with the world heavyweight boxing champion the most famous professional athlete in the country in the 1930s I'm surprised somebody hadn't done a book before not even from the wrestling world but from the general sports world because of

you know how fucking mainstream Landoz was. You know what, though? You always have to be careful of those because if it's someone coming into it looking to do a biography of a figure without any understanding of wrestling, they're going to fuck up a lot of stuff. Yeah, you're right.

It's impossible to wrap your head around it unless it's, you know, something you've been trying to wrap your head around for years and years and years. But fortunately, Steve Johnson has a warped head because he's been wrapped around wrestling for, I don't know how long now. But anyway, so, and we encourage everybody

to read this thing because it's just swell. What else have we got going on here? You know what? What? And what wasn't swell, in my opinion, was Smackdown on Friday the 13th. But then I think, you know, I've got to hold on here. I get it.

They've got this fucking thing so wrapped up. This is like, goddamn one of those Abbott and Costello movies where Costello is wrestling the fucking world champion and he's just tied him up in a knots. And then the champion or the big, maybe the big boxer has his hand on Costello's head while Costello's just windmilling around can't hit anything.

There is no wrestling war, Brian. They put Smackdown on Friday, night before the big Saturday night's main event on NBC. And it's a two-hour infomercial with some wrestling matches thrown in. There's no contest. They're going to get one point, what, three or four or five million viewers for that. And Saturday night's main event will be, I would assume, more than that. And they're not, because there's nothing happening on this show, but I,

applaud them because they are in such a position that they're drawing fucking big crowds, they're selling pay-per-view well, not even selling pay, they're big premium live events, they're on the cock, they're setting gate records everywhere, sponsorship, TV rights, what the fuck, it's the U.S. Mint over there.

And they can afford to whatever they feel like it, just say, ah, fuck it, we'll just fill the time. It ain't going to hurt. you see where I'm going with this yeah smackdown kind of sucks and I didn't really give a shit about it but it's amazing that they're in it doesn't matter I mean that's the point it doesn't matter

again when I was sitting across the table from Vince McMahon if you'd have said let's have Jimmy Uso do a promo for 10 minutes and then Drew Magintyre's going to beat him up we'll have a girls match for about 20 minutes we'll have a VTR with our top guy and his manager talking

we'll continue to bury L.A. night for about 15 minutes we'll have another girls match and then Cody come out and do a promo so that Owens can jump him and they get to pull apart in 280 and say what the fuck is the matter with you every minute there needed to be something going on

or there used to be something where some of I mean, it's a well-done program. It's just beautiful. The building is full. What did they come to see? Did they get a goddamn hour Broadway between flare and steamboat afterwards? The people in the arena to sit through this fucking thing, did they get anything else? I think they do get dark matches.

Of any caliber? I'm sure they do. They have the stars there. It's just they don't wrestle on TV. Why waste them? them in TV matches when you can have them wrestle for the house, have the house leave happy. I don't hear any more about, you know,

that we used to actually book and advertise the main event stars in dark matches to allegedly draw the house. I don't, I don't know what they're, are they just saying good night after the closing promo segment? Thank you for coming. They've had four matches. I don't know. I don't know.

Anyway, the things that I liked about it, after Jimmy Usso came out on a crutch with a broken toe at least he can still walk Bronson Reed will apparently be out until after WrestleMania for those of us who were all becoming

big fans of his till he decided that it was a good idea for him to jump off top of the cage and well Tonga Loa take all the time you need brother we want to make sure you're healthy but Jimmy has a broken toe and

he spent 10 minutes talking about how proud he was of his family and what's he going to do? I don't know but it'll be a big year until Drew Magintyar showed up and leveled him with the fucking Claymore kick and bam and got some heat on him

and all this and all the agents came out and Drew left smiling and again where was this guy hiding all our lives Drew McIntyre has become ever since

Vince McMahon left who were the greatest wrestler in the world and he he's fucking fabulous and what do you think about what he's doing here it seems that he's now kind of the OG bloodline hunter well yeah

kind of like Kevin Owens a lot of these guys when the roles were reversed and Roman was the heel and they were the baby face obviously had problems with the blood line and now they still have a problem with it but roman's the baby face and now we got to wait for see if drew's going to get the roman well and there is some overlap between owens being a guy that won't let shit go and whining about being screwed and drew that's what he was a master at that but because they're obviously back and forth on mostly different shows and or

they're so different nobody's going to mistake kevin owens for drew magentire uh or vice versa you know, it works, but I just, McIntyre is fucking great. It just, his delivery and his facials, and his whole personality and the shit that he's, you know, and his matches, but that, again, that's who Damien Prey should look to for someone who seemed like he was getting the water and cold

and there was no fire there and look at him now. He's got to find the, you know, and they got to let him find it. But anyway, we got that, And then we got Tiffany against Mia Yim and the U.S. title women's thing or Mabobby or other. But then we got Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman

going not only now for an Emmy but also potentially an award in cinematography. Paul looks better in soft focus, doesn't he? You just kind of know that that that obscene, obese, blob with the glowing light cranium in the back of the shot is Paul

but you don't have to zero in to see every disfigurement on in Pockmark on his face and you actually like his work now and I think he's brilliant but no they had Roma were they in a boat were they on a gondola

in Venice where were they they were somewhere by waterside seaside that's right there was she was selling uh uh uh uh uh ulafala's by the seashore but roman talked about his rough year and spring and summer it all fell apart he lost the uhula which he didn't take he earned and apparently they're going they're going to hot shot january sixth and what a what a day it happens to fall on they should have

done the raw Netflix debut from the the lawn at the Capitol but they're hot shot in January 6th Sina's coming back all this other stuff and now it's going to be Roman versus solo

in a tribal combat match which no DQ with the tribes on the side of things one on one and Roman says he's going to take it all back. So they're hot shot in this thing. And Solo just lost at the end of war games. Again, he got every single baby-faced finisher.

It wasn't just one guy beating him. But he just took the pinfall or lost the end of that match. What do they have to do here? Well, I think Roman's got a win, but also it ain't going to be the end of the story. And they are a man down, but they have a, don't they have a giant Samoan somewhere? That's, Hicolayo. That almost sounds like redundant, like jumbo or not a, uh, fucking, um, not a redundancy, but it, a giant, a giant, Samoans are always giant. In terms of height.

In terms of height, he's a giant. Hicolayo, yeah. Maybe I don't know, I haven't seen him, so I don't know. You know, whether he's ready yet or not. You could have him pop up through the ring because he's a giant. And then you can say he's the brother of Tango Lo and he runs the wrong direction. all right i don't think they're going to do that that's probably not a thing they're going to do but anyway i do you know but hey they've been fooling us for about three years now so maybe roman

gets beat on this one but maybe he gets beat in such a way that if he wins solo's dead it would be hard to figure out a way to keep solo scary if he just got beat at survivor series and now he gets beat on this widely watched special. Because then if you do the heat afterwards, you're just doing the same thing. And again, it's Royal Rumble season, which is the lead into WrestleMania. If you're going to, and it's the Netflix debut,

if you're going to start doing stuff, including not just going with a finish, but going with some kind of big spectacular thing to lead to other things, now's the time. Potentially, is there, someone else that gets involved in Roman's business that pisses off one of these two disgruntles

Owens or whatever, Cody could be involved, we don't know what the fuck they're going to do. Brock? Is that, that's almost Right now I think that's almost overkill, isn't it? What if he was on, we're assuming he comes in with Hayman that join the Roman Rainside? What if he didn't? well then boy paul would be in a pickle because he's already used his favor with punk and now punk

he owes punk a favor but where will that favor figure in this is good booking in a sense we have no idea where anything's going i'm intrigued to see what happens but yeah now of course now on the other side of the street they don't know where anything's going over there either but we don't care because we don't understand it to this point yeah over here we've got a bunch of options and we're asking questions. No one's saying, where are they going with that death rider stuff?

I hear they have a giant plumber in development. They call him monkey wrench. All right, and Carmelo Hayes got beat in very quick fashion by Brown Strongman.

Have they given up on Carmelo Hayes? And why did they ever have the confidence they apparently had to begin with? I don't know if they've given up. I wouldn't say that. but obviously this was

Bronz Stromand's big return from tearing whatever his groin or his he tore something in that match with Bronson Reed on Raw that prevented him from running I don't remember what it was though I thought it may have been his groin he shows up every now and then and at least it was over quickly

so it was merciful You know what though the fans I was surprised how into it they were like they were really happy it seemed like that Brons Strowman came out and like wow everything's all over right now, except for some of the women's matches. But here's the

thing. For the past 45 minutes, they'd had Drew McIntyre kicked shit out of one of the baby faces at a girl's match. And that's pretty much all they had seen the list came on. And then L.A. night.

L.A. night. He does a promo about solo because he's about to wrestle solo. And he did a good promo as he always does, but now it's got to the point where I wrote you. I don't believe any of this. I don't believe he's going to beat so low because he never wins. And they went out there and he didn't fucking win. I mean, it was a good match. He got offense.

You know, he got to backdrop Jacob over the announced desk. He did his elbow off the top. and then Fatu came back over the desk and jumped on LA Night and well they got disqualified so he won by disqualification until they beat him up and spiked him and then Andre and Apollo Cruz came in and they beat him up too and left them laying so LA Knight is in a heap with other middle card talent and the people continue to yeah and continue to like him but I don't I'm not seeing it as enthusiastic as it was several months ago

were you? No, it definitely is it and how could it be? I was at the point where I'm thinking now they should turn him heel just so at least he if he's a baby face any longer. But then they don't want to do it. They don't want to do those stuff and you know that defeats purpose.

I don't know. This ain't working right now. bummer man so then Bailey wrestled Chelsea and I zoned out and they had a Nakamura video with subtitles

that I didn't care to sit there and read and then it was time for Michael Cole to introduce Cody because it had been a two-hour show and there were two men's matches and one of them was under five minutes

and Cody came out and called Kevin Owens' out so that he could tell him off and there was no Owens, no music, no nothing. So Cody started doing the promo and then Owens interrupted from his car on the screen and you know, told Cody that he was way more interesting as Stardust and you know, how can Cody, how can you be okay with using your friends to finish your stuff? stupid story.

And so Cody says, well, I'm just going to go back there right now and get him. And Cody leaves and goes to the back. And of course, when he gets in the back, Owens jumps him from behind and they have a fight. And they fight through guerrilla back into the arena and go to the ring so security and the agents can get in a big pull apart with him. And Owen's knocked Cody out with the title belt. So the last five minutes were wonderful. But it took a long time to get there. And that obviously was to lead to their big confrontation

of the following night on the return of Saturday night's main event. But if I was Cody, when they walked through it, I'd said, fuck, why do I have to blow myself up, go all the way back there for him to fight me all the way out of here, just have him jump me from the desk? I didn't really take it too seriously, Brian. No, I don't take the, I've learned not to take, Smackdown too seriously, for the most part, the day before a pay-per-view or in this case,

Saturday night's main event. Because by then, the cake is already baked. It's almost always a throwaway show. I figure you're trying to transition to something and I'm not exactly sure what, but I'll keep playing along. I'm just saying that the cake is already baked there. That's right. It's a mighty good cake. And when it comes to cakes, Jim, we know where people can get a cake.

Well, no, it's not a transition. I was just using a phrase of a figure of speech. The cake is already baked. There's nothing more they can add to it. It's Friday night. It's 24 hours ahead of time. The cake is baked. It's as easy as one,

so you might as well go to bed. That's right. Go to bed. That's what you got to do. And wake up and not have to worry about that cake. What's the promo code, Jim? Because is it time for a commercial here? I'll tell you what, friends.

Are you feet? feeling listless. Do you poop out at parties? Do you stoop and strain? Well, try a bottle of Dr. Proctor's red rectum rockers. They're good. That's a Boyd Pierce radio read. But folks, if you're ready to have a good night's sleep

after the boring conversation that Brian I just had, you've got to be on a helic sleep mattress. Remember, folks, it's the holiday time. It's the holiday time. Treat yourself. Don't cheat yourself. Because now we can save you a bunch of money on the finest mattress that you will have delivered to your home or your apartment or your door.

Maybe you've got a place that you rent on the side where you shack up with somebody. I don't know. But if you want a nice mattress for any of those places and for the kids, and not the same one, you don't want to mix that DNA, but you want a mattress for the people who like to sleep firm or the people who like to sleep soft or, I didn't say that right, but you know what I mean. The big and tall folks, the folks that maybe not normally formed in some fashion,

they got a mattress for everybody over at Helix, and you need to be on it because you will, it'll cool you down if you're hot, it'll heat you up if you're cold, it'll support you if you're fragile, and it will feel like a bushy cloud inside a puppy's belly on top of kitten. with duck feathers. There's no duck feathers in a mattress, but that's what it'll feel like that you're surrounded like

when you fall into the comforting embrace of the Helix mattress that you're going to get from helixleep.com that we've been talking about for years and years now here on a program. If you snore, if you've got back pain, sleep apnea, sleeping too hot, trouble sleeping all the way through the night,

if you've got night flatulants and abdominal cramps, they've got mattresses that'll help them. They've got a fart absorbing mattress that you can fart with six inches of this mattress and it'll just suck it right up. These match, no, these much. You'll hook up a tube to the side and you can blow it out the window. It's your neighbor's house. The comedy portion of The Spot has ended.

What they really have, they don't have that. Ladies and gentlemen, what they have are fine matters. mattresses, fine for you, fine for your family, your loved ones. Hey, let's go with it. Even your mistress. Helix Sleep. They've got what you need, Jim? Well, now, what if it's the other way around?

What if it's a woman messing around, then it's a master? You could have one for your master, too. Folks, you're going to get 20% off, regardless of which end of the relationship you're on. And two free pillows. If you go right now to helixleep.com slash JCE, you go to the web. website, you take the little quiz about your sleep preferences, they match you up with the mattresses that they design and manufacture all by themselves. They have their own plant, their own manufacturing facility. That guy's busy this time of year. He's stuffing these things

as fast as he can. And they're going to send it right to your door. And it's going to be in a box that you can easily maneuver to the place it needs to be and then just poof, watch it just come to life in front of your very, just get the children back several feet. But right now, 20% off and two free pillows if you order any mattress in the shop,

as they say, helixleep.com slash JCE, helixleep.com slash JCE. What more do the folks need to know, Brian? What more do they need to know about this, that they will have a good, comfortable night sleep and apparently some pillows are going to be thrown your way. Throw them under your head.

They're not, it's not a pillow fight. They're not throwing them. They'll be shipped normally. Now you sound like me. They'll be shipped normally, ladies and gentlemen. You have no reason to fear any type of great injury from having pillows flung in your direction. They're going to be thrown right into your lap in terms of a wonderful deal. Well, now you're saying they're going to hit you in a crotch with something. No, nobody's going to hit your nads. They're not going to be beating Mr. Johnson and the twins

are kicking you in between the goalpost ladies gentlemen with these things. They're not just going to bring it up on your porch and shove it right into your fucking groin. Ladies and gentlemen, the Helix sleep is a fine mattress. It's a mattress for me here at the house. The kids love them, and it's the mattress for you

one final time. You can put these pillows in between your legs up in your crotch yourself, and that's a way you can actually sleep and support your hip bones and joints and sockets. But don't hit anybody in the nuts with anything. That's not recommended.

You know that tag that you're not supposed to tear off a mattresses? That's one of the things that says, do not hit anyone in the nuts with the mattress or the pillows. With the mattress, not just a pillow with the mattress. Yes, well, you should know, it's even worse, hit somebody to nuts with a fucking mattress. Well, how the hell is that going to happen? Someone's going to pick up a mattress and throw it?

Yeah, that big motherfucker at swinging it's going to be a problem too, even if he puts it down. Someone's, wait, so there's a big motherfucker Swinging the mattress around? Swinging that, if a motherfucker's big enough swing a mattress and hit you in a nuts with it, you don't need to fuck with him anyway. I have never seen this.

I've never seen this in a wrestling ring. We need to get a big, strong wrestling that can get a mattress in there, just to swing it around. But you can swing it around yourself. Well, wait a minute. And that happens every time somebody wrestles refrigerator jacks. All right, all right.

Well, once again, let's wrap it up. you can swing around yourself, swing on your bed, have a good time with Helix Sleep the final time. What's that promo? Final time today. What's that promo code, Jim? And don't miss the Swingers mattress at HelixSleep.com slash JCE 20% off two free pillows. Buy yourself a Christmas present.

And sleep better. That's right, Helix Sleep. But Jim, it's time to wake up. And before we get to the next thing, If you don't mind, I know it's your show, but can I interrupt with something to follow up on something? Oh, good heavens. I'm following up. I'm just following up on something.

All right. A redirect. Redirect, ladies and gentlemen. I grabbed this. This is the thing I was telling you about earlier with Jim Lundice. Oh, yes. The date of the show, the press pass for the wrestling show, Lee Darsst promoter, is February 6, 1935. It appears to be Rockford, Illinois.

to broadcast Londis bout Brisk Advanced Sale is reported for Match Show The Championship Wrestling match between Jim Londis World Heavyweight Champion and Oli Olson The Milwaukee Swedish Heavyweight At the Shrine Temple on Thursday evening Will be broadcast over WR-O-K

With Brant Blumquist At the Mike Mike in quotes M-I-K-E The Londis Olsen bow will be the only one broadcast. Meanwhile, the advanced sale of tickets continue to be brisk, and promoter Lee Darsst is confident that the shrine will be packed to capacity when Lundas and Olson crawl through the ropes.

Monday, the first day that general mission were placed on sale at the cigar counter at the Nelson Hotel. I thought that, again, that's so great. In the 30s and 40s and 50s and even later in some places, remember the Holland Hotel in Manhattan was the booking office for the WWWF. They would have the wrestling office at a hotel, and you would go and you would get the tickets there at a window for it. Well, in this case, it was at the cigar stand,

the cigar counter at the Nelson Hotel, and that saw over half of the pasteboards grabbed up. up while yesterday's demand was almost as great. Reserve seats are on sale at the State and Madison and Grand Recreations, Henry White's Arcade, the Westside Smoke Shop, and this one's a little hard to read, Kidderhan and Snyder.

Londis tossed Jack Smith, who appears in the semi-wind-up here Thursday night against Hans Bauer in a little over 44 minutes in their title match in Chicago Monday night, using a body slam to gain the fall after a whirl in Londis' famous airplane spin had Smith groggy. Pat Mulligan, a light heavyweight champion

who mingles with Rudy Hoffman on the shrine card, had an easy time defending his title on the same card when he pinned Gus Clem. What a name. It's 17 minutes and three seconds. There's also something here. Again, another thing announcing it'll be heard on the radio WROK. Wrestlers to weigh in at WROK Studio.

Something new in the weighing in ceremonies for a wrestling show will be tried this evening at 7.45 p.m. When the eight big boys on tonight's card at the Coliseum will be given the once over by the examining physician and commissioner before the mic again in quotes in the WROK studio

each wrestler as he is weighed and examined will speak a few words as will the physician and the commissioner good way to get points there following the way in the wrestlers will be rushed

to the Coliseum in cars Brandt Bloomquist will conduct the broadcast And, you know, so they mentioned the Monday night match in Chicago. At this time, Landoz was by far the biggest draw in wrestling. And I know it doesn't sound like it, but Oli Olson was a name at that point also that, you know, he was a main event guy in a variety of places. But since he was in Chicago, this is a Rockford, Illinois, not exactly, you know, a major market

especially in 1935, but the promoter would book Landoz out for these spot shows when he was in the main town and people would go crazy because it was the equivalent of the rock or Austin coming and they would do the radio

remote and they'd do the I'm sure the arena did sell out in Rockford for Londos when he's drawing you know, tens of thousands of people in Chicago but that's an example of a 1930s-style spot show.

And that promoter was probably the promoter in Rockford and maybe another town or two. But they were, who was, who was promoting Chicago at that point? Was it, it wasn't Coler yet? Coler was still wrestling. Was it Ed White? I'm trying to, why does that name pop up? I'm not sure.

I want to look in that. I mean, you know, it's interesting, too, what else is on here. the Jack Dempsey Luis Furpo heavyweight championship out in New York several years ago labeled the most exciting and thrilling heavyweight bouts in the history of the boxing game will be broadcast over WROK tonight Brant Blumquist WROK's sports announcer

will give a blow-by-blow account of the historic ring battle with all the sidelines that surrounded a championship scrap he will go on the air at 10.30 p.m. Well, that's crazy. That's just a recreation of the fight. Yes. Lance Russell used to do those.

As he said, when he started on television, it was called radio. He would do recreations of like football games or boxing matches or whatever based on the wire service reports before there was, you know, just instant communication everywhere. and that's how he was able to, when they did the WCW Hotline, you could call up and you could hear Lance Russell calling the action for house shows, right? But the problem was he realized that they were cookie cuttering the house shows and the lineups were all the same. So he would sit at ringside and he would call the match with different people in it than were actually having it and use the ring noise.

and he'd just call a match at his head, but you heard it happening in the ring. You know, this is, there's a lot of mentions on both sides. It is a Brant Bloomquist, so this is either a big fan of his or considering the press pass here. Maybe it's from his estate. I think it might be him, yeah. One last one here. Wrestling promoter to broadcast today. Lee Darsst, promoter of the heavyweight wrestling show at the Coliseum Wednesday,

will be introduced to sports fans of Rockford this afternoon in a radio interview over WROK at 5.45 p.m. Brant Blumquist, sports announcer for the local station, will present the likable newcomer from St. Louis, who established residents in Rockford three weeks ago and plans to make the Forest City his home. Dars, a product of St. Louis, We'll discuss the highlights of Rockford's first big wrestling show, which offers the following high-class card.

Hans Bauer, 212, Germany, versus Jack Smith, 210, Chicago. Lou Plummer, 230, Waukegan, versus Jack Zarywich, or Zarevich, 215, Russia. Holy Olson, 2.30, Milwaukee. versus Harold Methany, 210, Wood River, Illinois. And finally, Jim McMillan, 22. Is it Antok, Illinois? Something like that, versus George Mack 205 out of Chicago. So I guess this was the start of wrestling in Rockford.

They got Jim Laundas early on. Well, what a way to kick it off. They should have got Laundas for, you know, Saturday night's main event. Maybe they'd have had a big crowd. Well, Saturday night's main event, I think, this past week was a resounding success. Anyway, you look at it. I saw someone post this. I'm being a smart ass.

It may have been King Chivas. I saw someone post this where they said, I can't believe they got whatever it was, like 15,000 people into the Nassau Coliseum. I used to go sit ringside at those shows when there was no one there and it was loaded with stars. So it's pretty incredible. Well, that's the thing also. Remember, I've talked about this. the Nassau Coliseum was noteworthy in the industry

for having a hard crowd if there was people there to begin with. And I mean, whether it was the bunk out stampede that Crockett tried to do in 88 or at WWF shows in the 90s, you know, whatever would have them setting the seats on fire in other places, they'd give you a polite nod and a wink in the Nassau Coliseum. and these people were fucking lit up to see that it it's the nostalgia factor

and the network TV, the return of an old institution, whatever, they're your people up there. New York Yankees, son of a bitches. Well, you explain them. Explain the people on Long Island? Yeah. They expect things to be good, and very often it felt like MSG would get the really good shit

and Nassau Coliseum would get just kind of the other show. Ah, so Nassau Coliseum people felt like Winston-Salem people. The garden anyone can get to. You could take a train right to it

if you live in New York City itself. It's pretty easy to get to. Nassau Coliseum, you know, you're driving there. No one's taking the bus. I mean, I'm sure there's a few people, but no one's taking the fucking bus or the train to East Meadow or whatever. However, that would work.

it would work. Yeah, no. So, I mean, you're getting a driving crowd from Long Island. And in a lot of ways, that's the barometer of how hot things are or aren't, is how many people you can get. Because Long Island is a hotbed of wrestling

fandom. But a lot of those wrestling fans... But it's also rotten traffic. But a lot of those wrestling fans are willing to stay home. That's the point. Yeah. You got to give them something where they're going to want to be a part of it. And they did it here.

Boy, did they do it here. Well, can I go on an editorial rant here before we talk about the actual content of the program for Saturday night's main event, which was on December 14th on NBC. Did we identify that? Two things. Number one, in the 80s, it was on at 11.30 p.m. in the Saturday night live time slot and did better numbers than Saturday night live in the 80s at 1130. on Saturday night, they had between 15 and 17 million people. And remember they did the one in prime time, the Hogan and Andre rematch,

and that match peaked at 32 million viewers. That's the most watched match in history, isn't it? Yeah, because NBC was a game changer. They throw that word around a lot lately, but it was a game changer for WWE, because even the first clash of champions, on TBS with the Flair versus Sting match only got to 9 million

because at that point the difference in availability between NBC and TBS was like two or three to one, right? Right, but just to clarify what you're saying, at that point, that match, that 9 million was the most watched match in history of cable television, correct? Yes, but you couldn't compete with network television

and even Saturday night, late night in those days. So the point is the old Saturday nights made events did 15, 16, 17, 18 million people. When they were on at 8 o'clock, they did 32 million people. And this one, I bet you they're going to be turning cartwheels. And what do you think is it? Because it's just happened over the weekend. There's no numbers yet. but you think they're going to be pissed themselves happy

with two and a half million or three million or what's the standard these days for NBC? I would almost wonder if it's a whole lot less than that. I mean, would they be thrilled at 1.5? I'm not sure. I mean, again, it's primetime NBC Saturday. Well, goddamn they were doing better on Fox on Friday than 1.5. Well, we'll see.

I mean, it's going to be very interesting. They did a really good job of hyping it up. And in a lot of ways, they did a great job of making it so that if you're someone who was checking out the product because it was on, or you remember the old Saturday night's main event, they kind of made it so that it felt right. They probably could have leaned into that a little bit more with a few things to really nail that. I think they did a good job. I mean, the reality of where people are and there were fewer channels, there were fewer options. There were still plenty of people who didn't have cable. Right.

in 1986. Plus you had Lauren Michaels returning to S&L after the Ebersol years. And, you know, people look back on a lot of that stuff finally and there's good stuff, but the first year was fucking awful. And then after that, a lot of these guys like Dana Carvey and Phil Hartman

kind of started getting their stuff over, but it took a little while. And that's when WWE was outperforming Saturday Night Live. Well, and to be honest, also, in a lot of cases, there was a different audience that Vince is the one who brought the Saturday Night Live audience and the wrestling audience together because in Dallas,

world-class wrestling on KTVT from Fort Worth, the Monday Night show that was taped and broadcasts following Saturday, was also doing better than the first half hour. No, I tell a lie, it was doing better than all of Saturday Night Live. Central Time, it was on 10 to midnight, but that was a completely different audience watching wrestling in Texas and watching Saturday Night Live at that point in time.

Vince is the one that got them together because of that fucking deal. But nevertheless, let me editorialize about one more thing. The retro look and they did a good job as you mentioned and we'll talk about the theme music and all that stuff, but you love it.

I like the look of it, but I didn't like experiencing it but the the owlway they brought back the goddamn the old aisleway the bicycle racks and it's six feet wide and the people on either side all the way down can reach out and touch somebody

it makes the guys look like bigger stars it really does and between that I love the aisle like that I think that's the way it should be by the way it cuts down on your costs if you don't have to lug around that big fucking stage if all you need is that and you're going to and have people, just by being fans, giving you the appearance you want, where everyone looks like a star with people reaching for them, they should do that.

I also like the red, white, and blue ring ropes. Well, but, hold, before we talk about the color scheme, let me just remind you of this, though. Would you say that right now, probably in all of the history of professional wrestling, right now, there is the least chance that any, any of the talent, any of the heels are going to be attacked by fans

who are mad at what they have done in the context of the wrestling business in their match or their promo or what they did last show or whatever. Has there ever been any time where there's been less chance? There's always a random nut, John Lennon, right?

There's always some guy tackled Brett Hart at the Hall of Fame. But on a realistic level, been any less chance of heels being punched, assaulted, stabbed, cut, or otherwise maligned by a fan than any time in history right now? No, and again, it's easy for me as the fan to say, I love that look. Now, also, if you notice, there were two security guards behind everyone. It wasn't like they were next to them.

Sometimes you would see wrestlers come out at the garden. I know who the head of security was. He was the head of security at Long Beach High School, Teddy Suba. And they would come out there. They wanted to swarm the wrestlers and walk them into the ring. You didn't have that. Probably because they didn't want the visual of it.

But you'd have to do that. You would have to do that. And even then sometimes it didn't work. And that's the thing. The business has evolved to where now none of the fans are going to fuck with any of these guys. They don't believe anything. The heels don't have any legitimate heat.

The booing while you're smiling about booing is not heat. And they've got 15 foot wide owlways. and these goddamn custom-built barricades and everything. You can't get within binocular distance these motherfuckers in any setup today. But in the territory days when we stood a legitimate chance of getting punched or kicked or stabbed

or fucking shit flung in our eyes or whatever, that's what the goddamn always looked like. And it didn't make any sin except the promoters wanted to sell as many tickets as they possibly could, and the most expensive ones were on the floor where you had to walk through.

So, sometimes they would make a change in a town because you'd had lawsuits or police trouble, or sometimes the building would make you. That New Orleans police barricade you saw at the downtown auditorium in New Orleans was

instigated by the police because they were sick of the fucking issues. but we used to take a fucking pummeling just to get to the ring and now nobody wants to fucking hit anybody and they've got a bobsled run it just drives me out of my mind

but that's the other thing if they reintroduced barricades maybe not as tight as they were here maybe a little bit in between somewhere you know there is going to be some crazy fan and feels encouraged to grab one of the girls by the hair or something you would think is

once you start making a little bit a little looser, a little easier to get them. You know, they're still crazy fans. They may be crazier fans today, but just more like in the perverted sense, not in the dangerous sense. They're crazier. They're just not as pissed off. Right.

They don't get laid. Imagine the crazy hill back then who didn't get laid. But yeah, what the hell are we talking about? The weight of the ring, yes. The irony of, and the retro, so that kids, young, young people out there, that's what it looked like if they had those side railings sometimes we were in buildings

where you just had the fucking cops how many of them there was to get on either side of you and hope that there was enough because there was three of us and I was always in the middle but you would hope but that's what you would

get beat up more on the way to and from the ring than you would actually performing the match so nevertheless but yeah I mean I saw Piper I think there's probably footage of Piper in that very same building walking to the back with security on both sides of him

all people are throwing shit at him and people are trying to get to him. I mean, it's a different animal. Oh, Cincinnati Gardens didn't have, I saw this in person. They didn't have any railings. They had the cops walk you down the fucking crooked aisle and ringside, right?

Facing a corner post. And this guy on the way to the match, This guy took a swing at Piper, and Piper dropped him and got on him. And I've never seen punches thrown so quick. I was looking down the aisleway. And all you saw was his elbow go up in the air and his fists come down about five times in two seconds. And then he got up and walked to the ring, and the fucking cops tried to pick this guy up that had jumped him. And they quit trying to pick him up and just drug him because he was twitching.

but it was always fun what did you think of the ring ropes well again yeah you know they they still did the the fancy railing around the ring the barricade there with the padding and everything but they they did the old time color scheme the referees had

the blue shirts with the bow ties on like the 80s and they brought the graphics back and it looks right you know, the obsession for the theme, say, you're my obsession. And they mixed it, they did an open where they mixed the retro clips of the old show on a TV screen, kind of corny.

But then they went into the new footage, which looks so much better because it's, you know, 40 years newer and it's high-deaf. And then they did the old style pyro also. They did a professional job. of making it look like it did in the old days while at the same time not making it look as cheap as it may have looked in the old days. You know what I mean? Yeah, although I actually thought it was a missed opportunity to begin the show with the promos, the style they used to do it, especially in the later half of the run of Saturday

night's main event where you kind of had like fast-paced music going on and everyone stood in front of their logo and had like 30 seconds to tell you why they were going to kicked the shit out of the brain busters or whatever it was. That was kind of the intro. I thought they should have done that. I thought it really would have worked too, especially considering, you know, you had Sammy, you had Drew, you had Cody, at Owens. Would have been a good introduction.

Well, but I think, because from what they did here, and I jotted down a note to remind myself to look for this, and they did, it was the Vince approach that he always used, which this wasn't bad. was when he, you know, was reasonably only partially insane. If he went to a new network or even on a new night or a new program or something where you could construe that you may pick up new viewers, he would do the show for the fans,

but he would gear it more in terms of, in terms of the announcing, in terms of the packages, he's appealing to a new audience. There's another level of explanation in the announcing. There's in the packages, anything is geared to making sure that you don't leave anybody behind that doesn't know who these people are or why they're mad, which again, when old Joe Tessatori,

I don't think his voiceover opens have the urgency of Jim Ross's voice but he's doing a great job of explaining things and when you would see somebody walk in here's Joe he just won the title from Tom by fucking him with a

red hot poker there was it wasn't like sock face does over in AEW where there it's just a rapid-fire gibberish delivery of Japanese names and moves that you've never heard of and

tournaments and indie promotions. It's basic shit. This guy fucked this guy out of this because of this reason. And this guy wants to get even with this guy because he did this. That's what you saw because they're wanting to pick up and appeal to a new audience Saturday night NBC television 8 o'clock that might not normally be watching and they want them to understand what's going on, which makes so much fucking sense, I can't believe I'm having to explain it.

Speaking of Joe Tessatori, did you see his introduction with Jesse Ventura? Well, yes. He mentioned he was wearing his red bow tie in honor of Mean Gene Okerlin because Mean Gene War I. Brian Solomon tweeted it out. That wasn't Mean Gene Okerlin that Jesse Ventura used to stand next to at Saturday Night's main event. It was someone else can't quite place the name. It's so many names running through my head right now.

Something Irish, I think. But yeah, I mean, there were a couple people not mentioned. A lot of people thought it was disrespectful, whatever you think of this, that there wasn't anything about Hogan, but specifically, obviously, no mention or reference to Vince McMahon at all. Even the classic clips they showed, it was with Jesse's voice. Yeah, well, and I didn't expect any, I didn't expect any reference to Vince

and they shouldn't have. I didn't notice that they didn't have any reference to Hogan. You could make a case either way. It could be called for. It could not be called for. But there was other things going on on this program. But Jesse, since you mentioned it, besides the, you know, the announcers being,

telling the basic story, has a reason everybody has a goal, but then Joe introduces Jesse. And people loved seeing him again. He comes back. He hobbled. How old is Jesse Ventura? Oh, we just did this. Uh, hold on. Because I don't remember. Did we just do it about Jesse? 73. God damn it. Is that what I got to look forward to in 10 years? No, you were never a Navy SEAL or a bodybuilder? Or, or a bodybuilder? anything? Well, what about his mind? What about his delivery? Oh, will you leave him?

You are a bully. You are a bully. No, I'm just saying sometimes that's why people need to retire or come out and wave. And because he hobbled to the podium where then they have him and Joe Tessatori set up at a podium in the back of the arena with the camera shot shooting the crowd in behind them. That's the way they used to do it, which looks great. Which they used to do at the time that he was there. And then they had Michael Cole and his cohort, which we'll get to in a minute, down at ringside to do the actual play by play in color of the show. But Jesse kept turning his back to the camera to address the people behind him and they had no shot. He was so happy. And he had the hard camera to fucking shoot. It was a rotten shot.

He was the happiest man in pro wrestling on that day. He was so happy. He just wanted to feel the energy of the feds. He kept turning around on the camera. And Joe tried to guide him back a couple times. Yes, he redirected him. Well, let's work this way and let's talk about Cody. And then Jesse made the jokes that didn't get over. He must have insisted on saying his own shit. Nobody wrote that for him. Or if they did, they ought to be fired. but goddam i mean i'm not trying to he was quick he invented the heel color he was the best commentator business he's the best ever when he was on he was the best but would we say the same thing about babe ruth if he was trying to hit a home run right now

at the age of 126 again being on the mic is a little bit of a different thing even some of the best slip yes even some of the best who work regularly so very few didn't Lance Russell didn't. Everyone else I could think of did. Well, anyway, so it was brief. It was brief with Jesse. And then he'll be back. But then they pitched to Michael Cole Ringside

and they played the music and they brought Pat McAfee back. And again, this is brilliant because this will be the team on January 6th when they premiere on Netflix and they're putting them on network TV so that, yeah, and live from New York at Saturday night's main event. So again, they set this thing up perfectly and they're gearing it to a potential new audience

and they're promoting the shit they've got coming up and they've got a jam-packed crowd in the Nassau Coliseum and it looks fantastic and you can see people everywhere. And then here comes Drew McIntyre. And again, as we said earlier to show, he's one of the top superstars in the business these days. And, you know, again, everybody's over.

And he gets in a ring and then Sammy makes his entrance. And then Sammy jumps starts it and off we go with Sammy and Drew. And again, the formula that Sammy has that works is he fights from underneath. he uses the speed he'll catch a dive every now and then and he sells his ass off and that ragdoll body language it's perfect because Drew's such a big bully and the people are but there was a huge Sammy Uso chant and that's where I jotted down that the crowd was the livest ever in the Nassau Coliseum and this match got over better than any of them didn't it was it just because it's the first one they saw or were they just

this was a good fucking match and they kept it moving. I think a mix of both. But being on first and having a hot match in front of a Long Island crowd significantly helps. Well, and you could tell also that they were at a different level

of pacing here than on a long raw or a smackdown match. They kept it moving. It looked like one of the old Saturday night's main event matches or one of the the pay-per-view matches back when you actually had to get in there work your ass off rather than yeah we're getting paid the same regardless so they were just up and they

boom boom boom and they had the chops were stiff the pace was quick the work was serious the crowd was with everything you know again and i'm sorry i got to apologize that when we did the question on your show a couple days ago what five wrestlers would I pick? Did I mention Drew McIntyre? Did we gloss over him? You may not have, I'm not sure.

You know, because he, well, he's been gone for a couple months and he had just come back. So regardless, again, he's a guy that has just transformed himself. So boom and the announcers are telling the stories and by the time that Sammy turned his, Drew's finish off the ropes into a power bomb and got a two count.

The crowd was going crazy. And then Sammy hit the Blue Thunder bomb two count, got a big pop and this is awesome. And they just had them jumping up and down. And then McIntyre rolled out of the ring. Sammy rolls out to get him. Drew rolls back in. Sammy goes back to fucking try to get him

and McIntyre hits him with a Claymore, boom, knocked his head off one, two, three. And, you know, Drew had to win, but Sammy can lose without it hurting him because of the way, not only the way that it's done,

but also because the way that he, the way he works and his gimmick. He does, they like him and his never-ending underdog quest. It always works. Sammy can lose to anyone. And Drew is,

Drew's really good and now I'm intrigued by where they're going with Drew. Once again, complete recovery from how boring he was at the end of the McMahon booking run. Good heavens. Was Austin Theory the only one that prospered by Vince and last... Lacey Evans. Well, I forgot about... Where is she? Talk about disappearing off the face of the earth.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't have an answer for you. It took me longer to mute myself and open my Sprite Zero than I thought it was going to. So I left you hanging there. Well, you know, maybe we need to start some kind of campaign, Brian. Campaign.

To find Lacey Evans is obviously missing. Maybe she's been abducted. Maybe, you know, could she be in danger? She's in a national park somewhere. Maybe she's stuck in a ravine. Maybe Turks and Kikos. Oh, maybe she's one of the kittens. Oh.

That got brought back and adopted, but... You looking for a kitten? I'm wondering, oh, ho, ho, maybe a... I wonder, is there such thing... Is there such thing as a real pussy hound? Maybe he found one of those, but I'll tell you, folks, we need to find Lacey. You know what we need to do, Brian?

We need to start a campaign of text messaging. Get the word out there. On the 5G network. that's the largest in the world. We need to get the word out. Everybody, text everybody, you know, we got to find Lacey Evans, send pictures, paste them on the side of a milk cart.

This is taking a dangerous turn. Everyone, leave her alone. She's heard from enough of you. No, I'm not saying, text her. We don't know where she is. We need to text everybody. Someone does. We don't know because we haven't cared

until this very moment. They can't say that really anyone's been looking for her. We can't waste any more time. It's still creased. Just lay around inactive with an ever-developing situation like this. Folks, if you want to have the capability to find Lacey Evans, then you need to be hooked up with your telephone. You need to be locked up.

You need to be hooked up with your telephone to the nation's largest 5G network. And we're not asking you to spend a lot of money. To do this, you can help your fellow woman. And at the same time, you don't have to spend a lot of money. of money because if you go to Mint Mobile, you're going to get unlimited talking text and high-speed data for $15 a month. So, let's say that you know 10 people, and those 10 people each know 10 people.

Well, if everybody texts, hey, where the fuck is Lacey Evans? Have you seen this woman? And then everybody text everybody else? Well, that's a lot of people. It'll just keep multiplying until I can't do the math. and sooner or later somebody will find her and bring her to safety. Well, again, I don't know how this has anything to do with Mint Mobile, who is a fine, fine supply, all your mobile needs from texting to calling

to very low-price plans, Mitt Mobile is there for you. Now, it's not all your mobile, and they do not sell gasoline nor trip insurance. However, it's reaching the people. You've got to be able to reach a lot of people, because with Mint Mobile's unlimited talk and text, it's delivered. On the nation's largest 5G network, that means that it's beaming into everybody's home. It's coming into people's homes, whether they're asking for it or not, their signal. Your signal, if you're hooked up with Mint Mobile, you can beam your signal into the homes of everybody in America

without them even knowing about it until they pick up the phone. And then you can say, hey, where the fuck is Lacey? So, at $15 a month, I mean, that's a loan right? there that ought to sell you that you can find a missing person and you can call and text everybody you want to for $15 a month all you got to do is go to mintmobile.com slash jce it's a three-month plan $15 a month for three months that's $45 over one quarter 25% of the year you're only going to spend $45 to find poor Lacey and call your mother on her birthday. Right there, those two things alone are worth $45, aren't they, Brian?

Leave Lacey or any other person you've seen on TV who has no connection to you alone and call your mother more often. Let's try that. Same difference with Mittmobile. Well, it's completely different, but it's the same. It's the same difference. Well, it's different in the same way. Mintmobile.com slash JCE $15 a month for the three-month wireless plan, $45 up-pfront payment required, to $15 a month. New customers on the first three-month plan only speed slower above 40GB on the unlimited plan additional taxes. Fees and restrictions apply.

Seament Mobile for details. Well, let's get back to Saturday night. Yeah, let's get details. Details on Saturday night. There were 14,186 fans there in the Nassau Coliseum. I thought, I thought it had. held 16,000. I have been wrong all these years.

Well, they redid the building a few years ago because it was such a dump for so many years. So now it's a cleaned up dump. Well, you know what? That does happen where if they renovate one of the older buildings, they find that codes or restrictions

that have been grandfathered in if you do a rehab or a remodel, you have to follow current codes. I bet you that if they made it wheelchair accessible, and everything else that they had to take seats. They did that with the Louisville Gardens when they renovated it in 64 and made it the convention center.

It was originally the armory, and we've seen old pictures now from the 40s and 50s with basketball games and everything where they could get 9,000 people in there for wrestling. But they put a drop ceiling and skyboxes in and reconfigured everything with a stage for concerts and fucking graduations, political conferences, that type of thing. So these things happen.

Did the show still happen? Yeah, I mean, you watch it. We started reviewing it already. We should talk about the show. We've been talking about it. Well, we should talk more about it instead of my renovation tips. Tito Santana and Jimmy Hart were at ringside and Rich Herring. Rich Herring is a heck of a guy.

I haven't seen him in ages, but he was one of the... the saner individuals that I had a chance to speak to working in that company. But they were at ringside to see the women's title match between E.O. Sky and Liv Morgan.

And at least they gave this one the one minute to break treatment. Hey, let me tell you something. Liv Morgan coming down that small aisle, whipping her hair around being a heel, that was something to watch. You waited for someone that just grinned. Everyone was so close and her, she

so close to everyone's hands. I enjoyed seeing that. Just, you know, you never get to see the heels that close to fans. Well, and like you said earlier also, the people, if they'd have had time to realize, hey, we could fucking pull some shenanigans.

They probably won't do it again. Do you think the next Saturday night's main event will be retro? And when is going to be the first time they have an incident? I kind of think you have to keep all of them this way. Well, in that case, sooner or later, the people are going to figure out, hey, we're way too fucking close.

But anyway, Live won this one in under 10 minutes, so it didn't, again, you know, get too burdensome, but did you see the slow-mo of the knee lift? To the nose, yes. Yes. I thought you've been telling me, oh, you know, Sky is so good. She's such a good worker. She's good. She has good matches.

She's the genius of the sky. The land is. the problem. Well, I don't know. Her surf and turf ended up fucking blistered. She knee lifted

Liv Morgan right in the face and nose, the face-old nose-o-nozzle area for no reason. Liv was on her knee. She wasn't moving. And Eos guy just grabs her arm and just knee-lifted her right in a fucking face. Just careless.

It's one of those. classic baby face moves. Let me break your nose. Well, yeah. In the old days, there would have been more discussion about that in the locker room because that was so blatantly unnecessary. What did you think of Liv Morgan considering the fact she broke her nose or whatever that was? It looks like it was a broken nose. And she continued on. Well, yes. I mean, you know, and that's what, it's on network television. You know, you got to, I mean, if she'd have broken her leg in half, I wouldn't expect her to hop on one

leg like goddamn Zach Gowan, but you know, well, I'm just saying there's limits to this, but no, a fucking potato in the nose you soldier on. I had to work with Paul E with a fucking torn cartilage of my knee, so these things happen. But God damn, it's like, what the fuck?

What could have possessed this girl to just knee lift her right in a fucking face? I don't know what's... Ugh. Anyway, would you like to move on to the next contest? Yes. Well, it was a triple threat match for the world title between Finn Baller, Damian Priest, and Gunther.

And this is... It's starting to get embarrassing because this is kind of two, three ways in the last, what, two or three weeks that they've had that I kind of liked. And also, Gunther's... getting over as a baby face. Well, yes, he's, you know,

again, tremendous and the background they gave on him. Brief factoid that you can understand, Gunther has been a champion for 80% of his time in the WWE. Gunther has been pinned twice in the last three years.

And, you know, again, they had a quick pace to this, but it wasn't gymnastics. It was just fighting in a back and forth struggle. They weren't, okay, I'll grab your foot and spin you around. You kicked the other guy in the head and he'll fall into my arms where I d-D-team and round and round.

Docee-do, spin your partner. It wasn't bullshit. And each one of them are doing their stuff. Obviously, Finn is trying to do the quick things that he does so well and priest is a kick-ass and Gunther is the Dering General. But again, you know, I love Gunther. Finn is a great worker. He's been there a long time, and they used him for so long

and the Judgment Day thing and his whiny voice. You know, maybe he'll revitalize himself, but he was good. Gunther was great. Priest again had a chance to kind of keep up and shine here and I don't know if it's coming across. And he doesn't need to do flip dives over the top rope. Can we establish that now talking about priest?

Did you see that one? I did, and a lot of big guys like to show that they could do some of the stuff that the slider guys can do. Well, then they need to do it. He, when he pushed off, it looked like he pushed off in a bed of quicksand. Folks, for those of you did not see this, I mean it was like he's running a good

Gunther is on the floor and Priest turns his back and runs all the way to the other side of the ring so he gets the head of steam so he can run all the way across the ring and when he pushed off to dive over the top it looked like just a flat tire happened and he barely

cannonballing over the top rope barely cleared the top rope and landed in front of Gunther Gunther bent forward trying to get under him and all it ended up doing for Gunther was Priest when he landed in front of Gunther he kicked Gunther in the back of the head

on the way down and it was like priest just gave himself a backdrop over the top rope into a flat back bump on the floor and I've again anybody in the business when I got in the business

if you said just take a backdrop over the top rope flat back to the floor and then fuck you I quit he did it to him self on purpose. But on a more positive note, it wasn't over choreographed.

And they kept a good pace up. And you really couldn't keep up with a play by play of it like so and so did this and that. But they went back and forth and you got a lot of two counts. And they nailed it after that. There was

not, I make fun of poor old priest, but he just, he's too big of a guy to be doing shit like that. But they nailed the rest of it and they got that this is awesome chance and then Gunther ended up power bombing priest

on the stairs to take him out of the thing and then drop kicked and power bombed Finn and pinned him one two three which was a perfect finish because they're saving priest Guinther had to go over and Finn can drop the fall because he's the worker That's the

kind of the rule of thumb that they use. So I liked it. A triple threat match. Are you going to make mockery of me now, Brian? No.

It was going through. He's one of your guys. You give him a pass. He was, oh, come on now. No, it was good. It was fine. It was fine. I like Ballar.

Baller's been doing it for me a whole lot more than Priest has in terms of, you know, he gets the fans into his stuff and I don't know, there's something I compared it really to Drew McIntyre to something with Priest, they made him the world

champion and I don't know, are there any fans clamoring for Damian Priest? Of all the things happening in WWE, I don't know if anyone cares right now without Ria or Dominic involved. That's, that's a, there needs to be something going on there. It needs to come out of him like it came out of Drew.

Or maybe he can just, be a white meat baby face and they could have all the the little kid you know the Hulk had the hoaxers and macho man had the macho maniacs maybe Damien priest could have the little kids in the priesthood. That may not be uh that probably will not fly. Think we need to workshop that? That one, that one may be a tough sale. I don't know. If Vince was there, if Vince was there, you'd have a shot. they could they could they could come in and get communion from him at his knee

that may cause a problem so on NBC you think on NBC and on Netflix yes and with society as a whole well then we move on unfortunately we're stuck with this no no priesthood for Davian priest did you hear about the priest that got collared on the street. All right. Anyway.

Uh, so then they went back to the podium with Joe Tessitori and Jesse Ventura. And Jesse Ventura turned to the crowd again and fucked their shot up while he was talking to the fans. And they pitched back to the ring. And I'm looking at it. Oh, and then, yeah. And then basically it's not until the main event that we see Jesse again.

So he got two minutes. in the first hour and 45 minutes and then they brought him out there and set him in between two guys with a breast still left in their body and some type of energy. They used them right. I've not heard anyone other than you

and I can understand what you're saying. I haven't heard too many complaints about Jesse's performers. I'm not blistering Jesse. I've just, it's father time waits for no man. But no, they... What was Vince thinking?

What was Vince thinking at home watching this? Oh, he was thinking I should be there. I could control him. Is Joe Tessitari dressed like him? And as Jesse Ventura returning, celebrating, turning around like 40 years, I'm back. Well, but besides that, then they had a clip of him from a Saturday night's main event in 1988. So is also Alzheimer's? You know, probably it can't.

I think he meant it was 40 years from when he first came into WWE. No, he said it's 40 years since I've been here. That's what he said. See, that's what I'm saying. I'm thinking, they used him right. They may have, could have used him a little less than what they even... I hope next time when they bring out the legends, they get Ivan Putzky, just so we can hear Van Tiro call him, Ivan Paduski. Boy, have you seen Ivan Puttki in the last 10 years or so?

No. Well, I have, and I didn't even know it. And... Was he a ghost? No. there was a wrestling store up in Allentown, Pennsylvania at one of the malls there. Bud Carson was the guy that ran it.

He closed it up since then. But there, almost 10 years ago, I was on my way back from a convention or something up in New Jersey and stopped by there and did an autograph thing. And Ivan Putzky was there. And, you know, he was so jacked during his career and so muscular.

and you didn't notice that he was only 5 foot 6, right? Well, now, I don't know how... I think everyone noticed. I think everyone would have guessed 5-5. Well, but, you know, it wasn't as striking because he was 250 pounds or whatever in all muscle and had the physique, right? Even though he's very, very short.

But boy, when he's... God damn, 80 years old, what would he have been? 10 years ago. Would he have been 75 and he weighs about half of what he used to weigh? I didn't know it was him. And they had to tell me and then I felt bad. I went, him to say, hello, Mr. Putzky.

Now, because I'd never met him. 83. Okay, well, then he was at his mid to late 70s when I saw him and he's very he's not as muscular as he used to be. Thank goodness for his health. But yeah, if he turned sideways, stuck his tongue out, he'd look like a zipper.

Chico Santana. We didn't get to hear any of his famous insults. Well, Tino was there at Ringside. I know. Put his camera shot in the main event. That's right. Greg Valentine. Did you see Greg Valentine when he showed him?

He was so happy to be there. It's the only time I've ever seen him smile. I've never seen him that happy ever. I've never seen him happy ever. I mean, there's, he's various stages of morose, usual. with a resting uninterested face. But anyway, they had the U.S. title match, but not tweeting the men, tweeting the women,

Chelsea Green and Mia Yim on NBC. They went one minute to the break, and then Chelsea Green came back and hit some kind of finish or other after Piper did the distraction. It was such an easy crowd. There was a big pop for this even. No, the fans were into it

They were into the idea of Chelsea Green winning the title and they got what they wanted And Meachin, not Mia Yem I thought Chelsea Green was a heel Boy, she sure acts like one She's a heel, but she's a lovable heel And like the kind of way she's a heel But she'll walk into a puddle

She's a heel but she'll slip on a banana peel A heel that'll slip on a peel That's right I know plenty of heels That have been on appeal has a Peel but this is a new one

well maybe just because all the people on Long Island are assholes they like this smart ass show off here maybe well and by the way it's speaking of stepping

in things if you hear the rain it's raining outside rain in cats and dogs I know because earlier I stepped in a poodle and you might hear that so then Greg Valentine and Coco where was it

ringside also, just as happy as Greg Valentine was. So that's interesting because, I mean, like, you know, Greg Valentine doesn't live in New York. Coco doesn't live in New York. They actually brought these guys in, like, they sought them out and brought them in for this. Yes. Tito's in New Jersey, so that's easy. Well, but, you know, again, maybe they had them do a sit down and do a video shoot or do a autograph thing or some kind of legends, you know, roundtable or, you know, whatever. But if I was any of these guys and they said, well,

we want to bring you to Nassau Coliseum for Saturday Night's main event. What would you like me to do? We want you to sit in the crowd and we're going to give you it on camera. That's it. I'm going to get on a goddamn airplane. I'm going to fly from wherever to fucking New York. I'm going to stay at a hotel. I'm going to endure that traffic

I'm going to sit in a seat at ringside and you're going to shoot me waving on camera yes and then we're going to ask you to get up we're going to get a seat filler and Jimmy Hart's going to take your place then in that case I say here I will send you an 11 by 14 high resolution photo of me

stick that thing in the fucking chair I mean what the but anyway but it was it was nice to see those guys but I didn't have to work to see those guys. I just had to turn on the TV. They had to take two days out of their fucking lives to go sit in a fucking chair.

I'm serious. You are a fucking grub. What are you? But why would you do that? Why would you do that? I would have traveled 2,000 miles and sit in a chair so you can play a tape of me. They'll remember what I looked like.

Why do I need to be there? I mean, it's just Anyway, and then Jesse joined Cole and McAfee at ringside so McAfee could do the Telestrator bit with Jesse

and they played a package on Kevin Owens so the audience potentially knew could understand the issue that he's in with Cody and why he feels the way he does and it's a refresher for the regular audience, so it wasn't offensive to either one.

And then how do you feel about this that you're the president of the Jesse Ventura? Oh, you're going to rip on him again? Well, I started to say Jesse Owens, but I guess that's conflating the two. But the Jesse Ventura fan club, you're the head of the chapter.

I think you're Akami. He was taking Owens' side as the heel as he would have. of in the old days, but since everybody was so happy to see him back because it's nostalgia now, should he have been a baby face to somewhat degree or should he had just done straight old fashion? This was the best stuff he did because they played off him well. That was what killed him in WCW.

No one knew how to play off him like Vince McMahon or Gorilla Monsoon or anyone in WWF did. They played off him. And he was always good at supporting the heels and pointing out the bullshit. in the baby face side so that even if you're rooted for the baby face you kind of knew well he's not wrong he's telling the truth and then he would point out like

that was not popular with the baby faces by the way yeah and then with the heels he saw the heels side he presented their point of view and he did it better than anyone else he was as sticky as he kind of seems he was less sticky than everyone else doing it he was less sticky you believe he was you know

that guy he was I'm a Jesse event to remark and I thought he did really good during the main event here. And if he had all of a sudden started rooting for Cody, that would have been the kiss of death. He had to, yeah, that wouldn't have been right. And anyway, they, they brought the main event out. Owens made his entrance, Cody made his entrance, and the, I think they revealed this on social media and they referred to it, or hinted at it at least on social media, referred to it without

saying what it was on the show the other night, but Cody came out wearing the old winged eagle belt, which ran from 88 to 98, the Reggie Parks belt. Still the best. That's still the best belt they ever had for the world title. And it's nice to hear Reggie Parks get a plug, too. Bless him, may he rest in peace. But I've had that belt on numerous occasions in my car

taking it from one place to another. I never actually won it in the ring. Right, that's the belt that Yokozuna had. Yes. But anyway, then it was time for the WWE title match between Cody Rhodes and Kevin Owens and

they started, Owens was rolling out and stalling and getting on the bicycle. He did it twice and Cody then said fuggett, he rolled out on the floor, went after him, then did a big dive, and started selling his ankle from the gable, Anka Lock the other night on Raw.

And again, that's brilliant because I don't know that anybody was expecting the title to change hands on this show, right, even the devoted fans, whatever. Not that you want to see the heel beat Cody in theory and psychology, but a title change is a big deal. And this is a write a page out of Dusty's book.

Cody seemed to be the dominant guy from the way that they've been presented. So you give the dominant baby face a fucking weakness that the heel can work on. And oh my gosh. And then the people start thinking, well, is this his out? Are they going to explain that he lost because of this? And you're just creating a little doubt as the match goes on. And as annoying as the fucking fat son of a bitch is, Owens can work when he wants to

and they kept this thing going this was like a 90s television show match rather than the raw Monday Night Wars rather than the pace you see today and they were cooking and I'm not going to give you the blow by blow but they did a great job of going back and forth getting a big move and a two count

and then letting it breathe and then another false finish and it just I thought it was a good match overall and they didn't have to go too long they didn't ring the bell to like 15 minutes on the air and then finally Owens shoved Cody into

Little Natch referee Charles Robinson boom and Charles goes down and rolls out on the floor and then Owens hits a stunner and has the cover but there's no referee and he's got him. There's no referee. And finally the second referee runs in, starts to count one, two, and he kicks.

And fucking Owens is hot. Like, God damn it. God damn it. How's so care. Sound like Brut Bernard now. So Cody went for the cutter and wiped out referee number two when Owens moved out of the way.

And then Owens posted Cody. and went got a chair and swung at him but Cody ducked it and hit him with a cutter and then grabs him for the crossroads and looks down and sees the chair there and I mean they even put the gimmicks into perfect places and he gives him the crossroads on the chair, boom and cover and Charles Robinson is back up by that point

one two three from the floor Charles Robinson's on the floor counting the ring. Well, yes, but he was back up on his feet, is what I'm trying to say. Yeah. But they were right next to the ropes, and there he saw it. It was in front of him. Boom. Again, the positioning.

Everything they did, and they had to wipe out two referees, but they didn't botch any of that. Everybody was in the right place. And then when they worked their last spot, the chair ends up right there, and he planted him on it perfect. and then they're right in front of Robinson on the floor where he could just stand up and count, Bing, Bing, Bing. The baby face had a weakness to create doubt, but they did a roller coaster with false finishes and then back and forth with the referees.

Oh, my God, there's a second row. Oh, he's down. The first one's back. And the baby face won, but the heel has a bitch. He had an out. So I love this one too. before we talk about what happened off the air what did you think of what happened on the air

I enjoyed it good main event I enjoyed the commentary with Jesse Ventura there I enjoyed the look and feel of it it felt different than Ron Smackdown and that's what it needed to do very much enjoyed it okay now good match

did they run long on time or did they mean to do what they did after the show went off the air well you know they've been lately doing stuff where there were things happening after the pay-per-view, after the event off air. They did it with Owens and Cody Rhodes in the parking lot,

Owens and Randy Orton. So, I mean, with these specific guys, they've been doing it. Well, it was tremendous, and we'll find out on Raw, and obviously they're going to show, you know, footage of what happened, et cetera, but after Saturday Night's main event went off the air, in some fashion, Owens got back on Cody. and ended up giving him a package pile driver, which was fucking perfect.

There's not only the WWE's released a clip on, I guess, their social media, but there's a fan cam of it. And it was fucking perfect. And they taped Cody to the backboard and stretched him out. And then Owens gotten a shoving match with Triple H in the aisleway,

and they were cussing at each other. But somebody on Twitter had a, slow-mo of the pile driver. And I hate, as somebody said, Cornett, what do you think about this? They tweeted it to me. And I hate to ruin the magic and explain why it wasn't dangerous.

But it wasn't dangerous, but you couldn't see through it. It was beautiful. It was perfect. So. Because of his belly. He was able, I mean, I'm not even joking. He was able to use his belly to rest Cody's head and shoulders. as he took him down.

Well, actually, then, if you're going to spoil it that far, I'll say also his fat ass had a lot to do with it too. But, you know, sometimes you need some cushion. But, but, but yeah,

so this will continue with, with Owens and what's going on there, apparently, and I don't mind it. They had a great match, and they've got me into this. And Orton saw us to come back. yes and and again the pile driver these idiots over on the other channel are killing themselves

on a weekly basis and not selling anything and nothing means anything and everybody expects them to get up and just do some more of it and over here i would have taken that pile driver and they carted him off on a stretcher and people are fucking going crazy about it But one side's playing chess and one side's playing checkers. Did you hear that, Steen? He'll take the pile driver. I would have taken that particular one. I might not take the one he'd give me,

but I'd take the one he gave Cody now. See, you got to remember whose head stuck between whose legs. Well, that was Saturday. I had my head stuck between Kevin Steen's legs one time. Oh? He was milky. Oh. At the Hammerstein ballroom, a ring of honor show,

he was milking going to give me the package pile driver when somebody was going to stop him in some fashion. But goddamn, at that time, I was 250 pounds, even though this was 10 years ago, but I also, that's what I was about to have physical therapy on my bad hip, and when he bent me over and drew my fucking arms back while my head was down that low, and I hadn't been over that far in a long time,

I thought he'd killed me just grabbing me in position. I was, oh, fuck, he just cracked everything in my goddamn body. But I'm more flexible now. But you know what, Brian, the pile driver can be dangerous. Yes. It can be deadly. It can be injurious to your health. And you know what?

It can also injure. It can injure your bank account if you don't have insurance. Well, let's say you go to the hospital from a pile driver. And you want to sell the angle. So you get the whole works done, the x-rays, the backboard, the fucking MRIs, the whole nine yards. Who's going to pay for that shit? The wrestling promoter isn't, I'll have you know. So you're going to have to have insurance.

And this is the time of the year, Brian, for the folks around the world, the United States of America in December, gets to pick what insurance they're going to pay for for the following year. Only one month. You only get one month. Then if you don't have it, well, fuck you. So that's why everybody needs to get a hold of a select quote over at selectquote.com in the month of December because they will save you money. They will work with licensed insurance agents to tailor a life insurance policy or a health insurance policy or a variety of policies. and they will do it better than anybody else because they're select quote.

They've been selected to give you a quote. Who selected them you might ask? Well, you, would you go to selectquote.com? Have you ever worried about getting coverage with a preexisting health condition? Well, they got carriers that provide policies if you've had high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, Dick droop, bladder problems, incontinence, hooping belch.

But if you don't have major health issues, it's even better. They work with carriers that can get you same-day coverage. No medical examination required. No fingers will be stuck up your ass. Because that's sometimes a very sticky part of the examination. Again, let's get back to what can be provided

for the listeners from select quote. Well, if you go to select quote.com, a licensed insurance agent, he'll have a driver's license, and it'll be good in most of the 50 states. He will call you right away with the right policy for your life and your budget. Select, quote, they shop and you save. So get the right life insurance for you. Is it life? I thought they had all kinds of insurance. They got all kinds of insurance.

get the right life insurance for you for less at select quote.com slash jCE that's the place to get started select quote dot com slash jcee it's all about insurance you can be here today Brian and gone tomorrow and then who will carry on and how will they afford to you know it'll probably cost a lot of money by the time you go

for a human being to be buried because there will be no room left. See, I'm going to get in in the nick of time, and I've already purchased my real estate. But you, Brian, by the time you're gone, they're going to be burying people standing up in shoeboxes in a subway. I want to be shot into outer space.

Well, we could all hope, but it probably won't happen anytime soon. Select quote.com slash JCE to get the right life insurance for you. that's right they're there for you select quote well brian we have done it we have diddled around and malingered until the ratings for the wwe saturday night's main event on nbc have come in at least the overall number is in our hands we don't have the quarter hours yet but i am i'm not disappointed because i didn't have you know a dog in the fight as i was just

holding its head, but 1,590,000 viewers. That seems low to me for something of this magnitude of this nation. They were doing more than that on Monday Night Raw on USA. What's happened to the NBC network? Where's Seinfeld when you need him?

Well, again, too, that's about what I said I thought they would do as a number. Oh, well, yeah, Mr. Smarty Pants. Well, the point is, you know, the idea that they were, going to pop a huge number, it's on traditional television. That's the other thing. It's like, because of the state of fandom now and the ages of a lot of the fans, if you go backwards and everything's just broadcast, I would love to know what

the streaming numbers for any of this was, because WWE's moving one way and then all of a sudden, what was once a big deal, a prime time, it was 8 o'clock, it wasn't even 1130, primetime network television on Saturday, and you got your, wrestling audience. You didn't get too many people outside of your usual wrestling audience, the people you were promoting the show to. And it's come to this that... The one's mighty peacock network is happy with 1.6 million people in prime time. Did they do anything on NBC to cross-promote? Like was on the Today Show or anything,

did they have anything about this? I don't know. But I would think even if the kids are streaming stuff, who doesn't have a telemed? in their home. What kind of weirdo from Mars would that be? A lot of people. If you want, seriously? Oh my God, yeah. Maybe a monitor. At best, a monitor. No wonder the country's in a sad state it's in. Fucking hell. But in other primetime broadcast, we are told the Heisman Trophy presentation on ESPN average 2 million to a 151,000 viewers.

So ESPN was the good heaven. And the NBA Cup semi-final game on ABC got 1,890,000. That's pretty sad. That's pretty fucking sad. There was other competition that you did not list. Again, it's cable, not network TV, but it was on at the same time. AEW collision.

Their normal time slot, their normal time slot, of course, 8 to 10 p.m. They were being invaded. by Saturday night's main event than Jesse Ventura. Yeah, so that's why Saturday night's main event didn't perform to my expectations because they were bucking the established show on Saturday night and its normal time slot on cable. What did they do there, Brian?

A.W. Collision on TNT Saturday, December 14th, 8 to 10 p.m., according to WrestleMania, on average 246,000 viewers. That's minus 12% from last week, which was 278. It's minus 22% off the trailing four-week average of 317. Last year, same period of time, it would have done approximately 442,000 viewers. And it's all just dropping and dropping and dropping.

And the other thing is, you know, it's interesting. how quickly they announced the second Saturday night's main event, isn't it? They didn't give the first one any time to breathe. They already, like, announcing the second one. Well, I think they, they've got a set number. They're going to do once a quarter or whatever next year, right? Well, in this case, it's going to be once a month. It's going to be December and then January.

Well, no, but it's not going to be once a, it's going to be one, once a month for a two-month period. But what they're doing is they're doing January, then they're doing a second quarter, then the third quarter, et cetera, next year, right? This deal has come together, and they probably wanted to kick this off two weeks before, three weeks, whatever it is, before they start on Netflix, because they're all in the same pocket now. And they're loading that show up, too. Oh, my God.

Yeah, so they got NBC television network to promote not only, you know, the NBC Universal family is still with fucking U.S. USA Network, but also the Netflix and all that other. Everybody owns every goddamn thing, don't they? Who owns what now? That's a big question. I don't know how to answer that. The point is they promoted the fuck out of, on network television, outside their normal

cable spaces, they promoted the fuck out of their Netflix shit too. So, I mean, they're just, they're going to be on every, they're going to be be beaming in on the fillings in people's teeth by next year. So I don't think that to answer your question that they're going to do once a month or they're trying to, you know, they just, that's the way it worked out. They figured, okay, we'll get a special to kick off this series on NBC. It'll promote the Netflix debut in January. You know, we've got the property on Smackdown on USA on Friday nights.

Everybody's happy. you know bringing jessie ventura back's a big effue to vince they should go all the way bring back david shultz and apologize to him on air for the way he was treated i don't know maybe he could book stossel stossel's not really like doing that great career wise right now no fuck stossel no you let him be in a goddamn subway station selling apples with worms in them but i don't know if the combined forces of nick con dana white Mark Shapiro and, you know, fucking's big new Berzinski

could possibly fucking control David Schultz to put him on any kind of national television. So I think we better let that one lay still. Well, that was Saturday night's main event to return one more Saturday night coming up, but this is your show. But what is going on with your shows? That's what the viewing population is wanting to know.

It's almost holiday time. How are we making? Mary on the Arcadian Vanguard Network this week. There will be merry... I don't know what I'm saying. This is going to be a good time. There'll be lots of merriment. On the Arcadian Vanguard Podcast Network,

wherever you find your favorite podcast on Twitter at Super Podcasts on Facebook. Facebook.com slash Arcadian Vanguard. Of course, every day, the wrestling news is there for you. Wherever you find your favorite podcast, no clickbait, no paywall. Just the news. No opinion.

No star ratings. Fuck that shit. Just the news. The wrestling news.com, wherever you find your favorite podcast. Want to make mention, shut up and wrestle with Brian Solomon. A couple of big episodes, including a look at Portland Wrestling with Kirby Strom and his big episode 150 with Dave Meltzer. Check it out at suavewpod.com.

Wherever you find your favorite podcast, shut up and wrestle with Brian Solomon. And of course, the 605 Super Podcast. The! Mothership! Let's make that a little happier. go through the Archive-605Pod.com wherever you crumble your favorite papers, the mothership. All right, well, we promised the people something last week, Brian.

And one thing, well, we never go back on our word, except when we say it's going to be a great show. Sometimes then, you never know, but we're going to wind the program up. It's headed into the holidays. This is the last experience before Christmas. and our little break. And as I said earlier at the top of the program, I've been looking forward to taking a few days off,

but I don't want people to think that we don't like talking to them because we both, probably the most fun that you and I have at this stage of our lives is when we're actually, you know, jacking up the jocularity here on the program. But I found last year that when we didn't do something every two fucking days, that after about a week or so, I said, you know, I can't wait to talk about this thing. I've got to bring that thing up.

It recharges your battery. I think back, because we're going to go to Mid-South Wrestling as we promised last week, I think back to the words of the big cat Ernie lad who say your brain is like a sponge. And when it has absorbed all the knowledge it can, you must take the time to ring it out. That's what he told us when he was leaving Louisiana

where he'd been booking and Dundee was taking over. And I think Ernie went to work for Crockett for a little while. He was winding up his career that year because, you know, he was about ready to retire. But, you know, that was his, after you've been a booker, you've got to ring your fucking brain out. Ernie, were you fired? No, no, I just got to ring my brain out. That's all. Well, no, he wasn't really fired.

So, you know, Watson. Ernie, we need to change things. up a little bit. He said, what the fuck are you doing, Ernie? I got to get someone else. But I always thought,

actually, instead of ringing your brain, when you've been a booker, it felt like somebody has rung your neck. That's more what it feels like. But anyway, we're going back to 1984

to finish my schedule in Mid-South wrestling with Midnight Express and our various antics. For the last week of March of 1984, we did the previous week last week on the program, you can catch up on the YouTube channel with all of the various episodes that have brought us up to this point chronologically. And this is the last

week before the start of the last stampede matches, which would change everybody's finances for the better. And your life, actually, if you really think about it. Yes. And, you know, again, as we talked about before without that you know we probably if we had not done the deal with Watts we still would have made money with the Rock and Roll Express and we still would have had a good run there but it might not have

lasted so long and it might not have been where you know flaring and dusty or you know shaking hands pat us on a bag you got to come to the Carolinas and that type of thing because it was this thing you know we we had already drawn some money with Wrestling 2 and Magnum TA as we've gone over.

And it was working, but it wasn't, you know, it started off here with the last stampede was the big bang, was the big, holy shit, that ever, you know, not just wrestling fans when they heard about it in the magazines or whatever, but people in the business started the Middod Express, what the, who the fucker is?

they? How did they just put 23,000 people in a fucking super dome? And that's always good. You know, we did the same thing a few years before with the freebirds. Here with J.Y.D. Where other people in the territories, big promoters, bookers, whatever would all of a sudden, hey, Watts just fucking did this giant house and who was on top? We don't fucking know. We never heard of this guy. How'd he do that?

that's the way you wanted your name around in the wrestling business in those days. Does that make sense? It makes a lot of sense. And again, it all happened so quickly for you. This is, is it two years or is it a little less than two you? When did you start managing in 82? No, my first day on TV to announce that I wanted to be a manager and begin that weekly journey of, you know, goddamn embarrassment and heart-eastern.

that wasn't until the end of August 82. So this is less than two years into your career. You're 18 months. Yeah. And that's incredible. And beyond you not being proven as a draw or as someone who could cause a combustion like this, Dennis, although he had done stuff with Hickerson and Jackie Fargo, for the most part, Dennis was kind of an unknown entity.

And Bobby Eaton, you know, I'm sure there were plenty of people who didn't know who Bobby Eaton was in the business. Yes. So you guys took everyone by surprise. And well and again Dennis had been in the business longer and he had been used on top very early with

from 75 to 78 he and Phil Hickerson were the main event heel team either for Nick Goulis or in Nashville, Ron Fuller in Knoxville or Jared in Memphis and they would rotate between those three territories.

Scott Teal told me that was the hottest thing he remembers from his years of shooting photos in Nashville was Jackie Fargo against Hickerson and Condry in 76. And it, you know, they drew sellouts in Nashville at Fairgrounds or in Chattanooga or whatever. But think about this, that was 1976, 77, 78, whereas we're talking about 1984, where a dollar in 84 equals $3 today. So if you made $100 in, it's like making $300 day. That was almost 10 years before. So Dennis's big weeks in the business in the 70s, a top heel team even selling out with the Fargo's $1,000 in that territory,

maybe big week, but that would be like $4,000 a day, but Nick was not a notoriously great payoff guy. And where Dennis had been with Norville or Randy Rose in the Memphis territory before, in the early 80s, they were probably making $800, $900,000 a week, $1,000. Again, like $3,000, whatever today. But that's why I said earlier in this series we started, when we jumped in to Mid-South and on the underneath matches

just to get over, we're making better than $1,000 a week. It was okay. And the same thing for Bobby. And, you know, it was kind of a thing. where in the early 80s when when he was working for Nick in the late 70s he didn't get a chance to work

with that many different people the people who came through and worked for Nick at that point knew about Bobby Eaton but a lot bigger names and a lot more people came through working for Jared in 81, 82, 83 and that became the thing where the fuck has this guy been?

You know everybody would come into territory and be like how the what the fuck he's the best worker we've ever seen he's fucking you know in the third match or whatever but then you know nobody had a track record past of drawing money past Dennis really in the Tennessee territory a generation before and they hadn't been used on top in the Memphis territory in a while at that point so it would and and who the fuck was I right they'd never even seen me before anybody in a business.

Anyway. But that's one of the reasons it worked too. You weren't the same tired old manager. No, I was a tired young manager. We weren't getting a lot of sleep, but no, I mean, the people in Mid-South had say, Skandor Akbar, who was an ex-wrestler

and who they knew was a, he had heat and he was an oil sheik or whatever the fuck. And yes, they hated him, but they didn't think they could whip him, because they'd seen him. He was a wrestler and a kick-ass badass badass before that what rock hunter a rock hunter had been been there and and same thing with that craggly fucking face they had not you know and they hadn't had a ton

i mean ken ramy in a seven early 70s for mcirk but that was before louisiana you know was really a big money territory and they hadn't seen a lot of you know the Bobby Davis, Bobby Heenan, Jimmy Hart, Jim Cornett lineage type of manager down there who they thought they could fucking assassinate with no problem. So it was working. And as we've said, we had shot the angle with Watts on TV in mid-March, but they did it so that we had an issue with the Rocker Roll Express also because they had smashed my face in our celebratory.

Tori Cake when I had the party for us win in the tag team title. So now a couple weeks later the people have started seeing that program around some of the towns because the tape

was on a bicycle. But we also had not only the issue with Watts percolating, he was about to announce his return from retirement in the last stampede. We also an issue at the Rock and Roll Express that was just starting and the Bruce Brothers, Pork Shop Cash and Dream Machine Troy Graham, Dundee had brought them in from Memphis and was trying

to establish them as a baby face team also. So we had a lot of things going on. And you've asked before about what would have been the, how would the Bruce Brothers have been used with the rock and roll there and what were the plans for them? here our last match with him shows you what Dundee was thinking and what confidence he had in him we've already shot the angle with Watts right

and the next show in New Orleans is going to be the Superdome and on Monday March 26th we're in New Orleans at the downtown auditorium and were booked in the main event against the Bruce brothers in a non-title match because they hadn't established themselves yet.

They just got there, so they're not going to get a title match, blah, blah, blah. But Dundee thought they're perfect, not only for the Louisiana territory, but for New Orleans. It's like a tag team version of YD, and this was for Doghead left. They didn't know he was going to leave, right? But a tag team version of YD. Porkchop's work was fucking fantastic. the big bumps he took and his body looked great and he had that fucking face expressive

and Dreams promos and you know Dreamy's call himself the blackest white man in the business it was tailor made for the black audience in New Orleans the Bruce brothers with the fucking whole gimmick and the videos and the music and they would have gotten over like crazy right so we work with them cold match no angle but booked in the main event and did $18,000

which at the downtown auditorium with prices not regular prices that was more than a couple thousand people and we got the heat on dream and then pork shop made the comeback and they got in a four-way and Dream and Dennis had a double knockout, but when Dream flew back off of Dennis, he took Carl Fergie the referee out. And Dennis fell on top of the dream. Well, Bobby grabs Pork Chop and held him, but when I swung the racket,

he ducked and I hit Bobby, and Porkchop blistered me and covered Bobby, and Fergie rolled over, not having seen all of this, and counted with Dennis on top of Dream Machine and Pork Chop on top of Bobby counted a three count and raised their hand. They won the match. And at that point, we jumped them and kicked the shit out of them

and got our heat back. But that he put the Bruce Brothers over the top heel team in a territory that was about to work with the owner in the Superdome because he wanted to establish them and it worked. The people fucking loved it. They went crazy and then we kicked shit at them.

People wanted to fucking knife us. But that's where he was going with them and that was the last match. They wrestled in Mid-South wrestling. They were booked back with us the following Saturday and they went back to Memphis and I think it was in Evansville which would have been on Wednesday night

is where Dream broke his out. ankle and it fucked his entire career up not only in terms of ending it, but also the biggest break he'd ever had. Listening to you describe it, you know, pork chop did this. Dennis fell on the dream.

It's like S.E. Hinton wrote the description of this match. Well, you know, it's... And then Pony Boy, and then Pony Boy wrote off into the distance. Well, I've got the notes, but it's in shorthand, you know. But that's, you know, I kept

track of all of our finishes so that we wouldn't redo the same thing in the same town or whatever. When Dream Machine gets hurt, does Pork Chop cast just grown and go, ah, I guess I got to call Boyd? Like, what happens next? Um, well, I mean, you talk about it ruined his big break. Porkchop goes in a year later. He goes in a year later at Mad Dog Boyd. He'd been wrestling a long time. Who knows what would have happened if he had gone in at that point in 84? well and that's a thing and bless him uh mad dog boyd was not to dream machine he

physically you couldn't find anybody that really looked worse and he couldn't talk and his work was I mean it just he was a nice guy bless him bless his little pepig and heart but uh but yeah I'd fuck porkchop too because that would I mean porkchop he had been the America's champion in Los Angeles back in the early 70s when it was a kind of a big deal instead of what it later became. He had worked at a variety of places all over the world, but this was going to be

and would have been his last big run and they would have got over. So even though he survived to wrestle another day and like you said, they came in like a year later because I think of pork chop went back to Memphis. I think it. I don't know if he stayed there for a year, but Mad Dog Boyd had been one of the original Bruce Brothers because I've told the story before, but I will segue slightly.

It's been a long time. And you don't need it anymore. So it's been a long time in his recent occurrence. Whatever you just said. Pork Chop Cash and Iceman King Parsons were supposed to come into Memphis as the Bruce Brothers. with the black suits and the hats and the sunglasses and the briefcases full of blues in the spring of 1983.

But that was when, or maybe the late winter, whatever the case. That was when Parsons, I guess, got the deal to go to Dallas, where he got over and became a big deal in world class for a couple of years there. You remember that. So he didn't show up. Pork chop was there. And it's what, we got two fucking suits, and we got two fucking hats. And there was a guy named Mad Dog Boyd that was working like an outlaw group in Mississippi or whatever

that would come to Channel 5 and sit in the parking lot and try to talk to the boys and talk to anybody could to get booked whenever they'd come in the TV station for the tapings every Saturday morning. Did you know him already? No. No. I you know the first I heard of it was when Lawler it was Jimmy Hart

that was scurrying around Lawler had told Jimmy Hart and said go out there and get that mad dog boy guy and see if the fucking jacket fits and Jimmy was scurried around with the goddamn Bruce Brothers jacket I had been alerted that Parsons was not there and that's all I knew about what was going on

right and he actually sent him out in the parking lot And if the jacket had not fit, then they would not have acquit. They would have said, Fuggett. It just won't do the gimmick. But he barely got him, got himself into that fucking jacket

and got the job as one of the Bruise brothers. And as a result, within a month, Mad Dog Boyd was in the ring with Andre the Giant. It was, because it was all of a sudden he's in Jimmy Hart's family and all this other stuff. And as I said, bless him, he just couldn't.

He couldn't really hold up workwise, you know, that standard. And they switched him baby face because I think Jimmy kicked him out or whatever. And I don't know. But somehow he was still in the parking lot, I guess, at Channel 5 when Portschob said, hey, you want to be my partner now as the Bruce Brothers and we'll go to Louisiana. And it didn't work out. They did the big gimmick where they stole Eddie Gilbert's portrait. I remember that.

That was their big angle. And probably that was, Eddie might have asked pork shop, hey, you got Mad Dog's number. But anyway, but that was New Orleans that night. And like I said, you know, a nice house for the weekly Monday night, the previous week, with us against the Rock and Roll Express at the Lakefront had been $14,400. dollars. This did 18. Now the previous week, March the 12th, when we were on the card

with the with the Bruce brothers, but that was the oh god damn, what was the main event that night? March the 12th at the downtown auditorium. Was that the dog in wrestling two or? Yes, dog two beat dog to win the mid-south North American tag team title

and that was a single title. Not that tag team title. North American heavyweight title, I'm sorry. That was a sellout 36 grand. So they opened up both sides of the building. So nevertheless. To deflate everyone with that finish, the idea of it, and then the way it was executed.

For us to come back and draw 18 grand after that fucking thing. Anyway. You know, I always ask you about all the time you guys spent on the road. Is that the reason why Jim Duggan had such a long beard and why Dr. Dett's beard got longer and Dennis Conjury had a long, thick beard? Was it you guys didn't have time to go home and shave? Exactly.

That was, you know, the time was valuable, Brian. And we couldn't just do frivolous things like personal grooming in the very few minutes that we had to spend in the house. But it was so much harder then. It was so much harder than to get a good shave because you had to find an Italian guy with a straight razor that could sing opera to you while he was strapping that strap and lathering you up and then giving you the outside.

Capone job in the barber chair. It was like an all-day thing for men to shave back in the 80s. But now it's a boom, it's as easy as going to Harry's. Because then you won't be Harry. Because harries

dot com, not only, no apostrophe by the way, just H-A-R-R-Y-S. Harris makes it easy for you to get a nice clean, close shave, Brian. Even you, a man who has no free whatsoever, you can just go into your bathroom, grab that ergonomically designed handle, put on some of those German engineered blades in the cartridge on the top of it,

slather on some of that, ooh, so soft, shave gel or shave cream, and, like Zorro, you can the whiskers right off your face, cutting them like Jack the Ripper, but with no damage to your own skin. And right now, our friends at Harry's have a Harroday, have a Harrodays. That's what they call their breaks for the employees. It's another

Harry Day here. It's the Harrodays. Happy Harroday! Happy Harri Day to all! You see, what it is is the Harry's Holiday Crafts set. I defy anybody to say that three times fast, the Harry's Holiday Crafts set, but

it's custom value for you here for the holidays it's a custom green gift box and it contains the weighted razor handle that can be engraved for free and it includes the blades and the gel or the shave cream what's what are you laughing oh it includes all that that is true i'm laughing at the honesty you're laughing at my my goddamn flummoxness and no give Ruff wrapping is required because did I mention it comes in a rich, sleek, green gift box that'll stand out, and you can personalize it with the available engraving options if you go to harries.com slash JCE. Harries.com slash JCE and then give them this wonderful holiday package of goodness, and it's a way to tell somebody,

hey, spruce up your fucking look, you haggerty bastard. without actually coming out and saying it. It's a way of taking care of yourself and making sure you look good for yourself and as well as for others, as well as not embarrassing the people who care about you by looking like a slob with Harry's. Yes, you know, you won't look like Howard Hughes

in the penthouse into casino in Vegas with the... I don't know what they can do at Harry's about your fingernails but your face will look clean. And after all, that's the thing that most people are looking at. So if you've got a cubby equation, nesting in your chin whiskers, flush them out and shave them off with the holiday craft set from Harry's in the custom green gift box. Harries.com slash JCE and again engraved that thing

personally for no extra charge. The handle engraving, it's incredible. Did I told you I got one of the statues on Easter Island. That's my personalized engraving. Of course, it's goddamn I'm 20 feet tall. It's hard to lift to get it to my face. Yeah, I'm not sure how this works, but you could do you or you could do you. With Harry's, one more time, harries.com slash JCE, but Jim, just like Mid-South Wrestling. Not a lot of time to stop and shave. Let's get back on the road.

But now, here's the thing. We had been in Oklahoma, right? On Sunday, we ended up on Sunday the previous segment. So we had flown. from Tulsa to Dallas, because you had to connect through Dallas, and then Dallas to Alexandria on, as I've mentioned before, the commuter plane business there, the American Eagle, the prop jet thing that they had going,

because Alexandria didn't have jet service. And I think we were going to do that one more time, and then remind me to tell you what made me decide never to get on a goddamn commuter plane again at that point. but we did we flew Tulsa to Dallas Dallas to Alexandria and then got in our cars

and drove to New Orleans which was 200 miles only half of it was interstate and we had the match with the Brews Brothers then we went back to Alexandria back home which was another 200 miles the following day Tuesday March 27th

we were in Little Rock Arkansas and I believe I've mentioned of all of the trips even the Oklahoma trips that were twice as far Little Rock was without doubt the most burdensome it was a two-lane state highway from Alexandria directly north all the way to little 270 miles through every

podunk town and fucking you would be behind cattle trucks and horse-drawn vehicles and crop dusters were trying to land on this road. I mean, it was just ridiculous. And it was literally, even though it was 270 miles, it was between a six-and-seven-hour drive, right? So we got back from New Orleans charitably, let's say,

132 o'clock in a morning, we got to be back in the car between noon and 1230 to head north to go to Little Rock. At the wonderful Barton Coliseum at Little Rock State Fairgrounds where we had a match with the Rocker Roll Express. Now, Little Rock had not even seen them smash my face in a cake yet. This was just based on... Remember Brian, we talked about it in an earlier segment.

we'd had a cold match with them on TV just to show the people what it might look like and then the Russians ran in after six minutes, right? But the people already, when we were wrestling, Mr. Wrestling 2 and Magnum T.A. and the tail end of that program

or when we'd have TV matches, the people were chanting Rock and Roll Express during our matches. Rock and roll, rock and roll, rock and roll, rock and roll to get and course i'm selling it so we've been promoting a match organically as the kids say because the fans wanted to see it and you know now we're starting to get into it so that night we got the rock and roll express when we first started going to little rock remember on new year's little rock the house

was ten thousand dollars and i think the next time we were there it was like 14 or 18 or something like that. This night, we did $25,000 with a cold non-title match with the rock and roll. The only house the entire year so far

in Little Rock that was bigger was us in the main event against two and T.A. with the loser gets the lashes with the leather strap and all that stuff had beat this by like $2,500. So Little Rock was not only responding to us, but he was starting

to respond to the rocker roll and that would end up being one of their most popular towns and it makes sense because little rock was only 140 miles from memphis and people who lived let's say 40 miles 50 miles on the northeast side of little rock could get that strong-ass channel 5 Memphis TV signal So they kind of knew some of us That was kind of the line of demarcation between the Mid-South territory and the Memphis Territory was right up above Little Rock. Anyway, on this one,

we did the old powder finish. Ricky Morton and Bobby Eaton had a double knockout and I bust a bag of powder and put it in Bobby's hand so he can throw it in Ricky's eyes. But when he stands up, Ricky kicks it. and the powder goes in Bobby's eyes and the referee sees it and disqualifies us. And then boom, boom, boom, we get some heat on them and with the racket and the baby faces make the safe. Because there's no reason to resolve anything because we haven't started it yet.

But starting with Monday morning, we've been on two airplanes, a 200-mile drive. worked the main event in New Orleans. We drove 200 miles home. We made the worst 270 mile drive in the territory. We worked the main event. And now we got to go not home, but to Shreveport, because there's no physical way to return to our homes from Little Rock and have time to then go to Shreveport for interviews the next morning.

So we had to go to the, to the, what we needed to do the next day we had to go that night. All three of you? All three of you went for interviews? Well, because it was TV the next day. So even though Bobby, and that was another thing. Boy, when the heels knew that Bobby and Dennis were in town

and asleep in their beds because they didn't have to do interviews when they were at Channel 3 on Wednesday morning at 9 o'clock, that was fucking heat. They were like, nobody was mad like going to shit in their bag or fucking try to get them fired, but it's like, you mother, butch Reed, you motherfuckers, you dirty motherfuckers, you get to sleep all goddamn day.

We, I'll tell you, you dirty motherfucker. Anyway, so we go to Shreveport from Little Rock, that's 200 fucking miles. And then we get in you know,

Wednesday morning. We get it probably around two o'clock. and we had to be at Channel 3 for interviews that we've talked about that we do every Wednesday, the local promos for all the markets and all the towns on the shows. And we do that from 9 o'clock until 3 o'clock. And then we've got two whole hours to kill before we go to the Irish McNeil Boys Club,

there at the fairgrounds in Shreveport, and take two hours of Mid-South television. and the first show that they taped that night was where I opened the show you remember seeing this I opened the show with Jim Ross and they do the recap of the happenings between us and Bill Watts where we'd had snide words before

and then finally the thing with the party and the slapping me and us beating him up with the blackjack and then they plug in the interview with Watts where he lays out the deal for the last stampede. Not only does he announce, as a man, he can't be treated like that, he's coming back one time and one time only.

Not for a long campaign, but one time only in every town and the territory. But he didn't say that part out loud. One time only, the last stampede, no titles on the line, because we're the Mid-South Tag Team Champions, people, if the title had been on the line and he'd won it, what the fuck? Then he'd have to defend it.

He said, no titles. This is personal. And he did the, you remember the interview, Brian, with the dress and the diaper. That was the stipulations because they couldn't, we couldn't start with a match and then bring it back with no disqualification and then, or two out of three falls. And then, well, a special stipulation, you've got to do. this because it was one time. It was a

self-contained blow-off. So they worked it to where they wouldn't overlap stipulations when the towns were too close. But he was going to humiliate me for talking about his family and saying that I was going to have his no good

son, Joel, selling Midnight Express T-shirts and swabbing out toilets and all that other shit. And they were either going to put me in my mother's frilly dress and they held up this moo-moo, this pink and fucking flowery moo-moo

or they were going to strip me down and put me in a fucking baby diaper and feed me milk out of a baby bottle. Folks, if you pay for a ticket, this is what I'm telling you I'm going to do that fucking cornet.

And this was Memphis TV all the way, but it never had a delivery. Memphis Memphis Angles never had a delivery by Bill Watts. Can you vouch for me that he made even this sound like something that he wanted to do? Yeah, because they gave him, I mean, it's him, it's his show. Yeah. He had enough time to stand there and explain every single thing to the point where you couldn't believe that he was actually going to do these things.

You had to see it. And then... When did you find out these were the stipulations? Um, maybe when I got there to TV, that night, I don't really remember I think you know, Dundee may have said yeah, we're going to put you in a diaper in a

Superdome. But I don't, you know, I don't remember getting the whole fucking layout with the, you know, all the stipulations and everything way in advance. Remember, we talked about, we knew we were going to do the thing with Watts, maybe the week before, whatever it was, as we were going

through the book, I said, yeah, yeah, we had to know. But you didn't, you didn't, they didn't hand out all this information to every fucking body at that point. And Dundee knew, well, they can do it and they will do it. And they'll be happy to do it. That's all he needed to know. It's not like he was going to have to talk to send anything. So, there you go.

And then right after that same show, this was half an hour of the program. They did the deal where they went on the, search for Stagger Lee. In the fucking wind with no windscreen on the goddamn microphone. And Jim Ross's hair, it looked like about to blow off his head. But so the only thing that they regretted in hindsight was that somehow, because remember Dundee was still new to the tape bicycle thing. And even you had, like I've got right here, Wednesday, March 28, we're

doing tapes 238 and 239. And then if you go to April 7, the night of the Superdome, I've got noted tape 238 plays tonight. Because the time

slot of the program in New Orleans was 6 o'clock on Saturday. So he mis-timed it. He should have done everything he did on 238 on 237. See what I'm saying?

Because they only had an hour before the show was starting at the Superdome before they saw the last week of the goddamn promotion, where they found staggerly. And we still did 23,000 people. I guess that's the big mystery. How much bigger could it have been if you had another week or two? Or was this what it would have been? I think the dome would have been.

everything else pretty much was what it would have been, the dome would have been bigger. And even if it had been 11 o'clock that morning, I think people would have had time. I mean, are we talking, it wasn't going to be 30,000 people. Might have been 25. We would have done that extra 6 grand

and beat Michael Hayes and Y,D, and the dog collar match, God damn it. But nevertheless, so we did that that night in Shreveport, and then the following tape, The midnight gets a win over Mike Jackson and a kid named Jeff Young, and then I did the deal where on the Rock and Roll Express's match. I was out taking notes on them at ringside as potential future challengers.

And when Robert Gibson's about to hit the ropes, the referee's misdirected, I jump up and pull the rope down and he takes that fantastic backwards over-the-top rope spinning thing he used to take, which might be why he has a bad back today. and it caused them to lose the match and, you know, just kind of continue our little thing. And by the way, have I told the folks what you got paid for Mid-South TV, haven't I? But I'll tell them again. We got $40.

Because for Mid-South television, the job guys got more than the top guys. The top guys got $40 basically to pay for their room at the Alamo Plaza. and otherwise television, most in those days, in almost every territory was considered your promotional vehicle for you. So Flair and those guys in the Carolina's work TV for $60. Anyway, but it was shaping up to be a busy week, and then we left Shreveport and went back home to Alexandria, which was 130 miles, and got back back.

probably about 1 o'clock in the morning. But then March 29th was Greenville, Mississippi. Brian, have you ever been to Greenville, Mississippi? No. Don't go. No, I'm can't. We love our fans in Greenville.

But Greenville was again in the state of Mississippi. It's only like 100 miles from Memphis. It's closer to the Memphis territory than it is to the Mid-South territory, but somewhere because of the the Culkin slash Curtis promotional family Greenville was a mid-south town so on that Thursday we were a 450-mile round trip

to go to Greenville, Mississippi for an $8,000 house, which was probably about 1,200 people you know, I think ticket prices I think probably were 10, 7 and 4 maybe, maybe not because it was Greenville, because it was Mississippi. But nevertheless, the Rock and Roll Express in the main event with Bill Dundee in their corner

because Memphis TV, right? Dundee was probably a bigger name at that point in Greenville than any of us. And we got disqualified and made $100 bucks. And again, 225 miles up there and 225 miles back. That was a dreary fucking trip. but in case you're keeping track Monday, New Orleans,

two flights and 400 miles round trip in a main event. Then Tuesday was 470 miles, brutal miles, and a main event. Wednesday was a six-hour promo session and two TV shows and another 130 miles. And then Thursday was $400,000.

and 50 miles for that aforementioned $100. It was a busy week. What about Friday, you say, Brian? Did you say that? What about Friday, I say, Brian, me. Marksville, Louisiana. Hey, what's you talking about? We were happy to be there.

From Alexandria, this little spot show was a 75-mile round trip. That was the only fucking good thing about it. We got another $100 for doing a DQ against Terry Taylor and Magnum TA, but it was a spot show right next to Alexandria. So we were home for a day, thank fucking God, right? But then the weekend. Isn't that a tweet meme and now the weekend? Remember how everybody says all of, you know,

old-timers. Well, we used to work seven days a week, and twice on Saturday and twice on Sunday. You've heard that, right? It used to be twice on Sunday. Then it became twice on Saturday, twice on Sunday. Well, I've got proof. This was twice on Wednesday, twice on Saturday and twice on Sunday. In this fucking town or his fucking company, on Saturday, March 31st, they booked a spot show at 2.30 in the afternoon in Jenna, Louisiana. And it was 45 miles away from Alexandria, but it was on the way to the town that night that we were going to. So again, the Roger Roll Express, disqualification, $4,000 house.

So at ticket prices of the day, they had at least 6,700 people in Jenna, Louisiana at 2.30 on a Saturday. And we picked up $100 on the way to $1,000. Monroe, Louisiana, which was another 70 miles. And that's where we were booked with the Bruce Brothers. And that's where it was pork shop and Bill Dundee. Dundee filled in because they'd just heard about it two days beforehand. And they'd have any fucking standby wrestlers, you know, for real in those days,

going to the house shows. So Dundee, I think, filled in for the next week or 10 days or whatever. but that was, you know, that was the end of that. Now we're just, you know, we're beating them. And we're beating pork shop because Dundee's the Booker. And goddamn, you know, he's going to be there that Watts may want to let him wrestle one day, which later on in the year happens. So, and they knew he wasn't, they weren't going to keep pork chops.

So now we're beating poor pork shop. Did Bill Dundee seem happy as just being the Booker? Did you see that he had the itch to get back? the ring and do stuff. Oh, he, oh, Dundee loved to fucking wrestle. And it,

he didn't even, it wasn't like he wanted to book himself in the main event and put himself over. Now he did, plenty of occasions in Memphis, but he should have gone over because besides Lawler, he was the fucking guy.

But no, when finally later on in the year, uh, he talked Watson to letting him bring Adrian Street in. And Watts saw the potential in Adrian, in Adrian's gimmick, but nobody knew how to work with Adrian except Dundee, not only because of the, you know, international background, but also they'd had the program in Memphis.

And so he let Dundee work with Adrian, and it wasn't main event stuff, but I know a lot of people, oh, that goddamn Dundee is fucking ego. He, if you put him at a spot show in fucking Jenna, Louisiana, he'd go fucking 30 minutes, not taking stupid bumps, doing spot show shit and having a time of his life and taking the piss out of the heels and making the kids laugh and sitting in the old granny's lap in the front row. He loved that shit.

Everybody was a glory hound in those days if you were a baby face. But he didn't want to abuse it is what I'm saying. He wasn't going to work the main event at the Superdome. So, but under this circumstance, he'd rather not been fucking wrestling. because, you know, there was, obviously he, you know, one of his plans had gone awry and there's poor dreams sitting there with a broken ankle in fucking Memphis.

But nevertheless, by the way, Monroe, Louisiana was $19,500. Probably would not have been if they'd advertise pork shop cash and Bill Dundee. And then the next day, April Fool, Sunday, April 1st, after Monroe that night, Saturday night, we'd gone back to Alexandria, which was 100 miles due south of Monroe, right? We had basically gone 100 miles north and 100 miles south and worked two shows in between. The next day at 2.30 in the afternoon,

we're in the main event in Port Arthur, Texas, which is 170 miles in the complete opposite direction as to where we were heading the pre-year. night. So again, the main event with supposed to be the Bruse Brothers but his pork shop in Dundee and Port Arthur

was run off of the Beaumont, Texas TV that Paul Bosch had, which was obviously the next TV market over from Houston. Beaumont and Houston are about 60 miles apart.

Port Arthur was near Beaumont. What famous rock and roll star is from Port Arthur, Texas, Brian? Janice Choplin. You are correct. She didn't come to our matches, but do you know who she dated? Well, allegedly, she lost the virginity to Paul Jones. Well, I didn't hear it.

He may have changed his story after I heard it. I just heard he went out with her. They went to the same high school. So, but nevertheless, yeah, Janice wasn't there. So we did Port Arthur on Sunday at 2nd. 230 and then we backtrack back on the way back home to Lafayette, Louisiana, which is actually somewhat out of our way, but is 130 miles across the interstate across I-10

and had another match with the Rock and Roll Express where we got disqualified. But Lafayette is going to be a town. We're going to talk a little bit more about the coming several segments. Lafayette was the... municipal auditorium and it was an auditorium imagine if you're seeing you know one of the old-time movie theaters or you're at a big school play and there's a stage with a curtain and all the seats are like auditorium seats going up like a theater right and what they would do is the stage was big enough that they would put ringside seats like three or four rows of ringside

if you were sitting out in the in the audience seating and you're looking at the ring on the stage there'd be three or four rows on the left of the ring and three or four rows on the right there wouldn't be any on the far side there's the curtain and there wouldn't be any on the near side because there wouldn't any room

it'd fall backwards into the fucking orchestra pit so Lafayette only seated a couple of it was it 2,2,200, somewhere around in there, right? So on this night with the Rock and Roll Express, we set the all-time record house in this building that they had been running for fucking years, $18,500.

And it, you know, that kind of came out of nowhere also because think about how long they had been running the town of Lafayette, Louisiana, And the old building, I think, was smaller or whatever. But still it's 2,200 people or whatever the fuck it was. But the fact that we drew a record house, you know, was gratifying. And also it led to a deal where we did the last stampede in Lafayette. We did a scaffold match in Lafayette.

They would start raising the ticket prices. And we'll see as we go through. but I think we did like four records in a row because they kept raising the ticket prices and we'd sell out again. So that town just out of the blue got hot quick. But nevertheless... I know you don't see Bill Watts much

and you're about to work with him and he gets injured pretty quickly and beyond that you're not really seeing him much except for TV, I would guess. But the way he treats you and the Express, does it change at all? not that he treated Japan, but once you guys are starting to have record business and it starts early, does he start treating any different?

Or differently, I guess, would be the word. No, not on a personal basis or how we interacted or, you know, when he's given us finishes or whatever, but maybe every once there was an aside like, well, you guys do that thing or whatever. You know, he started to know what we did or what we said or, you know, Cornets got that type of thing. He would express confidence, right? But always in our interactions, if we were talking about either going over a finish or an angle or something he wanted to accomplish or whatever,

it would be definitely a professorial or an instructional role or whatever that he would take and everybody was gathered around, whether it was the football team listened to the coach or the students listening to the teacher or whatever. But he did kid around a lot more with Bobby and Dennis

after the matches because he knew he had just beat the complete shit out of him. Everything was a potato when he tore his... The way he tore is... He's just them running into his fist at that point. Well, yeah, and that was the rib also was...

There was a story story. There was a story that I'm trying to think who he was working with. But somewhere or another, the guy was called something to be a smart ass. He called, no, he called for Watts to hit him with a drop kick. So fucking Watts, I'll hit you with a drop kick, mother of me. He hauled off and punched him right in the face. So that's what he started doing to Bobby and Dennis is he'd shoot him off. He'd called drop kick. And then, oh, shit, and he'd get punched right in the face. That was what he called for the, for the punch.

But he tore his, what, what is the muscle? The muscle, in his leg that he tore. Was it his quad? Now he didn't tear his quad. He wouldn't have been his quad. I thought it may have been as quad, actually. But if it was, is there a, or was it his calf? Oh, God damn some, a lot of athletes and anatomically knowledgeable people are screaming.

Was it his hand? Hamstring. There you go. There you go. His hammy, his moon's over my hammy. He tore his hamstring kicking Dennis Condry in the face. That'll teach him. Well, no, but that's it.

He came up with his spot, right? He said, I can do this, Dennis. Now, just trust me. Because Dennis, he knew how to do a spot where you gouged the guy's eyes. And Dennis had done this on TV. TV a lot. You can find tape

of it out there. You'd gouge a guy's eyes and when the guy bent over to sell his eyes and reached up and grabbed his face

like, oh my God, if he stiffened up his hands and made a little cage over his face then Dennis was so good with his aim that he could basically

just football punt the guy in what looked like his face, the hands served as a guard and the guy sold it it was great, right? Well, what fucking Watts was doing? He said,

now you get down on your hands and knees. This is the way you can get your juice. You get down on your hands and knees after that slam or whatever, like you're trying to get up and I'll come along and I'll kick you in the forehead. And you get your color that way. Well, fuck, that's it. He not only got his color that way, but he also fucking tore his hamstring. He kicked him in a head so hard. So then for the rest of the matches, there was no thought of what's not working or substitution or whatever.

we did the burn the buildings down. They were having, they locked the front gates of the Barton Coliseum at half an hour before bell time because so many people were trying to get in. What if we'd have said, well, Watts is fucked,

so. Yeah. Fuck you. He had one leg, he couldn't move and he was the worker of the team. Yeah, yes, because dog was in his,

in his, elements there were substances. Staggerly. We have no, we have no proof. That was the dog. Well, you know,

what, that was his excuse. It wasn't me. I wasn't even there. But yeah, so that's, you know, Watts was in, to answer your question again, he was a little kindlier to him at that point because he had, you know, beating a shit out of him, potatoed them, and then they had carried him through being a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest, but I can't imagine what would have happened if he had not made any of those matches. I mean, it would kill whatever town that it happened in. You could have gone on TV, though. Who's the sissy now?

Who's the sissy now? Yeah. Where's Joel in those Midnight Express T-shirts? I have a feeling you would be doing a memorial podcast about me now if I had the heat that I had after we got the shit kicked out of us buying. I guess I'm always just amazed and I know people, have to cycle in and out. You don't want to burn people out. Nowadays, everyone's around forever. But considering this, that we're months away, the idea that Watts, it was never, I need to

hold on to these guys as long as I can. It was, all right, I got to send them to Fritz. I have this deal with Fritz. Of all the talent, I'm going to send Fritz, it's going to be the Express and Jim Cornett. Well, but think about this. What else could we do? With the rock and roll had to win in the end, right? The overriding program, we came in and we beat 2 and TA to get over, and then we had the last stampede series, but that

led into the first round with the Rock and Roll Express that lasted April, May, June. Then we beat them in a loser leave town match, and they had to go back to the Memphis territory for 90 days, whereupon, then we worked with the

Fantastics, and we worked with PYT. PYT, Norville Austin and Cocoa Ware and, you know, miscellaneous teams here and there and then the rock and roll came back and another program that climaxed in the scaffold matches where they had to emerge victorious. Well, then, you know, now he's got Dr. Death

and Hercules Hernandez. Or was it Doc and Herk? Yes, at that point. And then later on, the DiBiase would be in the mix to work with the Rock and Roll Express. but then we would have had to be, if we were hanging around, a secondary heel team,

secondary manager, and what we've been there for a year, people are going to get used to us. And then, you know, because, well, here, and then I'll finish it up. The thought was that, because we were going to go work for Crockett as we told the story a million times,

because they said, we're going to finish you up in December. Okay, well, we, I called it got us booked. But then that's when Dundee said, no, Watts wants you to go to work for Fritz so he can bring you back because the thought was they'll be in another territory, they'll be on the world-class TV, which shows in Oak City and in Tulsa, and I believe in New Orleans, and I can bring them back for major shows, which he did to some extent, and at the same time, they can go and they can work there and be available to them.

but I don't have to have them on the card every night and beat them or do whatever the fuck. They can be over there. There was a spirit, though. I mean, 85, it's interesting how quickly things revert back to pre-Dundee, pre-Mindon Express and Jim Cornett. Akbar comes back. That's before you leave.

Akbar comes back. And then as the rock and roll, who ended up working a program with Los Guerrero's, and then after the rock and roll even go to Krocchi, Wendell Cooley and Al Perez become the top baby face tag team and Bob Sweetan and just big guys all of a sudden start filling up and it loses all the spark. Not all of it, but, and it's still a great wrestling show, but...

It did go back to a more previous era Louisiana flavor. It did, and they still had hot angles and they still had some great action. But 84 is really the magic year and, you know, so much of it centered around you get. And that's why Crockett, by the time you get to 86, look at how many of the team for Crockett in 86 came from Mid-South in 84. Well, yeah, because Fritz and Watts both made the mistake of booking either Flair or, in Watts's case, Flair and Dusty. In Fritz's case, Flair into their territories when they were hot,

so they saw all the talent that they wanted to fucking bring into the Carolinas. But anyway, so yeah, that week we only made, $1,325 for all of that shit, because it was the end of the month, there's some off-towns. That's still $4,000 in today's money, but that is not only as you saw, you know, literally working 10 times in seven days, but the mileage was ridiculous. I haven't even totaled it, but, well, 100, 230, 390, how fast can I do math? 4355-0-0-6 there's 7

1150 1280 holy shit 1480 1780 1780 good night that was a little about 2,100

miles 2,200 miles along with the two plane flights and the 10 work sessions but the following week and I'll tease it and then I'll let you ask your question as I was going to finish my statement we made $1,325 that week, right? Would you like to know what we made in the next seven days? Yeah.

$4,225 a piece. Wow. A piece. That's a piece. Wow. Oh yeah, these are all individual figures. That's like 4, 8, 12. That's 13 grand in today's money and I've been into business 18 months and I'm 22 years old. I'm what the fuck is going on here? My question was going to be,

and we could wrap up with this if you want. You mentioned that there was a reason that you would talk about later about why you stopped wanting to fly commercial early on. No, not commercial, commuter. Commuter, excuse me. Commuter.

No, unfortunately, I was stuck with flying commercial there, but the commuter played. No, we'll get to it. Well, I'll tell it now. Fuck, because I don't know. I might forget, the time we get to it.

We had done that, I think this was the second time we did it, because the boy said, yeah, if you fly from Alexandria, then you got to go through Dallas, and it's a commuter deal and whatever, but you'll save on the wear and tear on your body to go to the Oklahoma loop, right? Okay, so we had tried it, and then the next time,

which is coming up in the following segment that we do on this thing, we drove which was a fucking nightmare because we from new orleans to Oklahoma City if you care to know is 725 miles and in the rain from a night show in the main event at the Superdome to a goddamn afternoon show the next day we actually pulled up in time to change clothes we never stopped overnight is what I'm saying to you but the point is what was the point

oh the following time we just okay we got to fly right and so I'm on this commuter plane and this is 40 years ago I don't know what they look like now but it didn't look too it looked like a goddamn 15 year old model in 1984

and if it's seated 18 people 20 people the American Eagle the franchise of American Airlines they'll pick you up at a goddamn goat pasture in Mississippi and take you to Dallas I'm sitting in the front

I can't say it's a row because there's one seat on one side and one seat on the other side right but I guess that's a row and I'm in the very front where the pilot's door is I can lean up and touch it right and the stewardess

there's one is sitting in the backward seat on the right side of me in front of the person on the other side of this aisle. So I can reach up and touch the pilot's door and knock on it if I lean forward. I'm against the goddamn window on the left-hand side. You know how I'm about flying. I wasn't as bad then because I hadn't done it as much. And then I hadn't had time to think, well, goddamn, you know, the odds are against me. Now, I've done this for years.

Back then it was like, oh, what the fuck, I've only done this four times. What are the chances? So we're flying along in this goddamn can opener with wings. And all of a sudden, I was not aware that this could happen because it was the first time that this happened. You know when you hit the air pocket and you drop suddenly? Oh, yeah. Well, I'd never had that happened before because I've been on that at this point, what, three or four or five airplanes of my fucking life, right?

We're flying this goddamn toy airplane thing and suddenly it goes way down quick and I at the same time screamed at the top of my lungs and I fucking threw my feet forward and kicked the pilot's door

or the cockpit hard enough that they were convinced that some passenger was trying to possibly jihad although now they didn't know the word back then it sounded like somebody was screaming trying to kick the fucking door in

and immediately ding right behind the fucking stewardess and she has that no it's a passenger he says nothing to be what the fuck just happened well when you hit an air pocket you know that can happen and it fuck that

so that's the last time that I did the Oklahoma trip from Alexandria. The boys were just as happy to drive and save the money and we'd all be by ourselves and at the same point when they did want to fly a couple of times further I went from Alexandria to Baton Rouge

where they had jet service and took a goddamn jet to goddamn Oklahoma. Before I would get on a computer. a computer plane. A commuter plane, and that pretty much is the last time I've taken commuter planes.

It was a couple of times I had to do the fucking deal with Crocket and Dusty and the private plane, and then the plane that Crockett bought was a customized commuter plane, but I never took a commercial commuter flight

again. Fuck that. I'm going to be in a bigger fucking plane if I hit a mountain or goddamn fall into a cornfield. There's going to be a lot more... It's going to make a bigger hole. It's going to make bigger headlines. There's going to be a lot more wreckage around.

People are going to hear about this fucking thing. I'm not going to... Into a fucking mud hole with 16 people. What do you want? It's your show. What do you want? I don't know. But that was the week.

It was a very trying... week in Mid-South history, March, the last week of March of 1984 for me and the Midnight Express, the next show will start the last stampede. What a fun time we'll have. All right. Well, this is the last stampede for today, I believe. This is the last stampede. We're going to now, we're going to raise our hooves and bid everyone for, and we'll be back on your show. One more time before the Christmas break. But on... And then, big news. Well, any big news.

But, I mean, we'll be back eminently before Christmas on your show, but this is the last experience per se until the new year. So we want to wish everybody a jovial and jocular holiday season, don't we? From me and even you to all of them out there? Well, that's right. And, of course, we'll be back with the drive-thru and more surprise content probably on the YouTube channel and who knows where else. but from at least me, you can speak for yourself.

Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season. And I echo those emotions. Happy holidays, everybody. Ho, ho, ho. May your hoes be merry. And all of your Merry Christmases be hos.

Or something like that. Well, thank you. Fuck you. And bye-bye, everybody.