Jim Cornette Experience - Episode 576: Ball Of Confusion

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

This week on the Experience, Jim reviews AEW Dynamite, Dark Side Of The Ring's Ludvig Borga episode, and Ricky Saints vs. Shawn Spears on NXT! Plus Jim plays Guess The Program and much 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.

Like the midnight and the rock and roll. He's in a fight for wrestling soul using a racket and some mind control. He's in Cornet. The keys to the future. Hell by Annette. This week's natural disaster, but enough about AEW, the tornadoes didn't get me either. It's the ball of confusion episode, folks, because that's what the world is today. Hey, hey.

And joining me, Ho-I and Brian, the podcast, line, the King of the Arcadian Vanguard podcast network, Mr. co-host you, the man who never gives into temptations. Psychedelic Soul Brother, the great Brian Last, everybody. Aloha, Jim. A pleasure to be here once

again. And I think we have a very interesting show. A lot of stuff to talk about is news. AEW's got things happening. WWE, are we talking about them today? I guess some NXT stuff. Good show today. We'll see. Actually, no promise. Well, thank you for evaluating the program.

Me, while the world is in chaos, things are falling around our ears. I give today's show three stars. No, no, no. With all the furniture breaking and fire spots and everything that I'm about to tell you about, you got to give it four or five stars, especially just for all the fucking mayhem and chaos. Well, maybe you're right. I don't really like this kind of mayhem, but I'll take your word for it. Five stars.

All right. Well, we were talking, you and I, and we included all the listeners, the people out there, the Cult of Cornette, on the drive-through, your program a couple days ago, that we had had severe weather here in the Louisville metropolitan area and greater suburban environs on Sunday, where there were tornadoes uncomfortably close to the castle, like within 10 miles and up in southern Indiana and just bad weather all over the place. and we were talking about that and I said well now they're forecasting more shit well they promo this for a couple of days I have you know how I watch the weather

Brian and I've talked about this on the show for many years keeping an eye on this fucking impending doom right and I've never seen a weather forecast for this town here like this this right here town here I've never seen the amount of thunderstorms and tornadoes

and of excessive rainfall and flood warnings and temperature fluctuations. This is the most bizarre thing that we have seen. So they're saying, well, yeah, the storm we get on Wednesday, well, now that's going to be even worse. And the radar looked at, the radar looked much worse, but that's going to be worse than the conditions are going to be worse than for bad storms and what we had Sunday and also the wind energy is about double. The fuck.

So Wednesday it gets to 80 something degrees and the sun's out and it's that hot humid air is coming in from the south. But meanwhile, from the east, coming in hot, baby. That's the low pressure system. number 52 on the field but number one in your hearts it's coming in to tackle that fucking hot humid because when the cold dryer hits the hot humid air Brian

that's when his Gary Hart would say the shit's on brother and so this stuff starts firing off to the west of us right about dark or way to the west of the viewing area and you know I watch my boy Mark Weinberg

the weather the chief meteorologist and weather nerd over at WDRB. This is fascinating. To him and his team, they take this shit. Seriously, he knows all about this shit. They've got the computerized weather radar and the different screens and the double boxes and the statistics. We got a 75 mile an hour wind gust out at the airport

or it's raining buckets now on Joe's yard up in prospect. They're pinpointing this shit. It's fascinating. I would be sitting there, watching this with popcorn and just hanging on every word with happiness, because I love to learn about it. If it wasn't for the fact that they are calling, as I mentioned before, my impending fucking doom. So they're on because they've got the weather now coming into the market.

And they've, Southern Indiana looked bad. And I said, well, there's a fucking what they're identifying as a possible tornado. That's about a mile from the Featherbottoms residents. and apparently New Albany got hit and all places in Southern India, but we're watching all that stuff, right? And we're, Stacey and I, we're in the TV room with the flashlight and hand waiting for anything. But she's got her tablet.

You know what little thing the kids carry around where you got a TV screen on just a normal little fucking everyday looking box device? Have you heard of that a tablet? A box device? I know what a tablet is like an iPad. It looks like it. It looks like an etch-a-scatch. You know, it's a flat rectangular thing.

The kids call it a tablet, but you can see the TV on it. It's more than just TV, obviously, but yes. Well, she's got one of those, snazzy little thing. So she's got that ready to take down into our tornado safe space, which, as I've mentioned before, is down under the pool table, in the bar where the walls are stone and half a foot thick or a foot thick and we're half underground and, you know, that's as low as we're going to get, right? And so we're watching it while we're looking at Southern Indiana,

all of a sudden, here comes this storm coming into. Well, it's around, I think they said, Pleasure Ridge Park at first. But then they're drawing the goddamn extrapolation, the thing that showed the path of the storm and the cone out that way. I said, that's going to come right here. And it's building intensity. and then they go back up to southern Indiana telling us about that, and all of a sudden, they're back down there,

and they're like, there's a tornado on the ground. It's lofting debris. It's in J-town. I'm like, fuck! Here we go, and we go down under the pool table, and it's storming and raining and lightning and thundering outside, right? But as you remember, we told the story last summer, had a big stormy hit here,

toppled that giant fucking hook. hundred foot tree in my backyard, tore some other stuff up, just all kinds of chaos. I'm thinking, holy fuck. They didn't even have a goddamn tornado that was ever even suspected for right here where I am at that point. Shit, this thing's close. And we're under the pool table watching the tablet. And, you know, again, it's storming outside, but I'm thinking, oh, shit, what's going to

and they're talking about, oh, and it's right at Blankinbaker. Oh, wait, it's crossing the highway. I'm like, fuck, where they had this tornado crossing and where we come to find out, it did indeed cross. If I've walked out my garage door and just walked southeastwards, it's less than a mile. And went fucking right, and I, then they'd calm down a bit, and I peaked outside. and there's nothing, nothing in my yard, knocking on all kinds of wood, trees, siding,

anything disturbed in any way whatsoever. But guess what happened a mile southeast of me? Brian, you know, there's an industrial park, and I guess this is actually more just directly south, but right where it passed by, horizontally underneath my house, there's an industrial park over, there is less than two miles away.

You know those big two-story like warehouse and office space buildings, they have an industrial parks that cover like a half of football field of space, right? You can visualize what I'm talking about. Yeah, I've seen places like that, sure. There's what, they got the drone shot on the news.

It took the roof completely off of this fucking thing. I'm talking a roof, the size of half a football field, the drone shot, you can look down and see the people inside with the shovels cleaning the shit out because it's destroyed. There is asbestos, not asbestos, but insulation might be asbestos. No, this is a new park. Insulation everywhere on the streets over there hanging from trees and fucking strewn everywhere. So this giant massive structure has no roof.

There's an apartment complex, brand new complex next to it. a hundred apartments were damaged, siding torn off, roofs torn off, of fucking brick wall blown over, at the Lexus dealership, it took a string of all of the goddamn streetlights and the trees that were planted between the parking lot and the road

just took them out in different directions. Just every fucking where. Hammered the, and they're at the same time, the one in southern Indiana, there were 15,000 people out of power in southern Indiana, that's a big number, right? And I haven't seen all the footage of that,

but there was one guy also, apparently they had a nice big wooden deck on the front of his house. He still got the deck, but it's on his roof. And that was, but they said the fucking thing. I can't remember, was it 100 yards wide or whatever? That shows you the bizarre nature of these storms,

it's like just sitting in a pinball machine waiting for the ball to hit you because the tornadoes 100 yards wide if it's a mile away from you like it was me if you didn't know it on the news you wouldn't know what happened but there

there's there's fucking witches on bicycles flying through the fucking air fuck this shit is what I say so you're moving to Jersey after oh and it's not not that bad.

I mean, there's, you know, sudden death. There's some positives to it before New Jersey, but... I got a nice place in Patterson and I like to rent you. Patterson might have liked a nice place in you. Listen here is what I'm trying to tell you about the weather. I blow hot and cold about it. So this storm system passed through, and they can't even evaluate it because it's still raining and also because of course you may have heard in the news they've cut employees from the

National Weather Service the National Weather Service the people who survey this as well as forecast it and try to help people not be blown away but in the next few days they're going to figure out how many tornadoes we had Wednesday night and then since then it is mostly not stopped raining and or thunderstorming except for brief points when it still does, the sun doesn't come out, and then it starts storming again because this thing's parked on top of us. We got another little severe chance tonight, then a bigger severe chance tomorrow.

And in Sunday, it finally quits raining, and some places around here will have got a foot of rain, give or take a little bit, and just to make everybody even happier here in the Derby City of Louisville, Kentucky, Brian, do you know what a Saturday, April 12th is this year? Do I know what a Saturday, April 12th is? Do you know, do you know what? Is it a Sunday this year?

Is it just crazy? No, I'm saying, do you know what, what takes place on Saturday, April 12th this year? Is that when, uh, the horses parade through the streets? No, no. Exciting the local people as they get ready for the Kentucky movie? That's on, that's on Pamploma Day. We have the running of the thoroughbreds over the fucking homeless people. No, Saturday, April,

12th is Thunder Over Louisville, the kickoff of the Kentucky Derby Festival. Yeah. And then we have three weeks of local festivities, and Thunder Over Louisville is the world's largest, or at least the country's largest ongoing annual fireworks display. I've talked about it where they blow up the bridge downtown and the fucking local TV ratings. It's like a 50 rating and a 70 share. and half a million people, give or take, depending on the weather,

some years the weather is a little inclement, go down, down to the river. Brian, take me to the river, drop me in the water. They go down to the river, the riverfront, where the great lawn is going to be a great lake, and where they're already putting up the flood walls against the Ohio. So the people, the people, Brian, They're trying to go down to the river for the thunder over Louisville ceremony

or are going to have to wear fucking scuba fins and goddamn apparently take plenty of moisturizer because it's going to be cold and wet. And this is a big deal for the Louisville economy. And we need something right now. And the river is scheduled to be at major flood stage in various points all around the area here over the next week. So we'll continue to monitor this on the weather desk,

but I just wanted to let people know what was going on. And apparently they got fucking blistered over in Memphis and Arkansas and a variety of places also with... They showed Clarksville, Tennessee on CBS News this morning, which I know because AEW was just there. So we just talked about Clarksville. And of course, we send our best to all the listeners within the storm path. and hope everyone's okay.

Well, if they talked about Clarksville, then it's not far enough from Nashville that Nashville was all sunshine and lollipops either. But yeah, this thing went from the storm front or et cetera, went from apparently Michigan all the way down to Texas or whatever at one point, just coming across the country in an eastward direction, just blowing a fuck out of everybody.

well but you know Brian we do have some good news here today on the program the good news that now the people can be even even more demonstrative what is your stance on public displays of affection the the PDA on me or on someone else well no just the the concept of it where people publicly display their affection are you furred or again it you don't have to be involved in it I'm okay when it's reasonable when I all of a sudden it's dry-humping in public, I think then it's gone too far. No, but would you say that if the people, the people out there, the cult of Cornette, if they were, I don't know, wearing our brand-new t-shirts to show support for me, corny, as well as the corny drive-thru and all the other fine things that are in the pipeline, that would be a public display of affection for us, but it wouldn't cross the line into gross. I don't know if it'll be considered a public display of affection. Now, of course, if you wear this shirt and are seen on a wrestling broadcast, Jim may kiss you.

That's the promise that we're making all the customers right now. It depends on the broadcast. That's right. That may be false advertising. Jim's not touching any of you, but you can touch these fine shirts, Arcadianvancourt.com at the shop app or in the shop app. Just look for Jim Coronet or Arcadian Vanguard, and of course, the easiest way. Just go to the official Jim Cornett YouTube channel, any video.

We'll have a link to the store. You'll see different shirts underneath it. And click those and go right there. Support the show. And maybe if you're supporting the show and someone else is, you can meet up and make a new friend. And back to you. Well, and here's another thing.

I'm going to, don't just make blanket statements and say you speak for me when you say, well, Jim's not going to kiss you, he's not going to touch any of you. Again, this could be on a case-by-case basis. So I wish you wouldn't just. just, goddamn, you know, just rule everything out, right? Let's see what might happen. You never know about these things.

The less a man makes declarative statements, the less likely he is to be proven a fool in retrospect, Brian. Oh, no, I've learned about that. I know this one fool that makes all sorts of reckless statements and his declarations to the court. Well, more about that in the future. Well, I declare, I declare, we can't declare anything about that. We're coming through customs.

Not yet, not yet. But soon. But anyway, but yes, the new shirts, they're right there, and you click on that thing, and there they are. That's right. All righty. Before we get into the actual wrestling action that took place or the things that occurred in the wrestling industry this past week,

you want to talk about the dark side of the ring. Did you see the dark side of the ring episode on Ludwig Borga, a.k.a. Tony Holm that was on this past Tuesday night. I did see it and of course in advance of it, they were nice enough to release the footage of you going off about his no exit or exit only tattoo, I think it was. Exit only.

That was the preview clip. Jim Cornett talking about ass. And you know, the thing is, he got the tattoos strategically placed where the only way that the person or person or person's unknown could see the fucking thing is if he was bent over in front of them

with his ass unclosed. And then that's when they would be able to read it. So why would he figure, you know, it's a conversation starter. Well, he's thinking I end up in that position all the time where I'm naked and bent over to waste in front of somebody. So I better just to avoid any misconscruing of the facts. But that was just a preview clip,

and I did see the full episode. and of course you were one of the stars of the episode. And, uh, oh, you do go on. Interesting episode. Lovig Borga. Tony Hall. Well, you know, and we had talked about this with when Evan Husty was on a program and, and only part of it was his time as a wrestler because his time as a wrestler was so

brief and actually unmemorable except for the, you know, insane shit that he was able to do later on in his life that proved everybody that he was nuts. And so even the wrestling fans, you know, got to learn some shit that they may not have known. I mean, this was reported at various points on the internet if you are one of the people that keep up with that, you know, on a regular basis. But otherwise, a lot of people probably thought, oh, there's that fucking stiff that was in Survivor Series 30 years ago. Well, he got a fucking elected.

he was a politician by God he was deported he had an oozy what the fuck is going on here but did you like the way that that J.R.

summarily dismissed him as a fucking because they hired him before J.R. was the head of talent relations as I recall and he seemed thoroughly disgusted by the whole thing or even

on a on a on a on a on a on a on a on a on a scale he was still disgusting jr's been one of the positives the first two episodes because he's completely in the i don't give a fuck portion of his career now where he just says whatever the fuck and knows no one's going to punch him well especially not tony home yeah especially not tony hum and remember they brought him in i remember as a fan being kind of pissed off because marty genetti had a really good run in 93 when he came back and challenged sean as a surprise and then he just had good matches on raw and then they completely destroyed him or Ludwig Borga did at SummerSlam. And that was a sign of things to come.

The fan, they pointed it out here correctly. The fans did not care about him. No. His promos didn't, I don't even remember his promos. Exactly. Nothing about him connected. And that was where they went with Lugar after the Yokazuna match at SummerSlam.

But also, and I, honestly, he was the one, Ludwig Borga was the one that ended to Tonka's winning streak, which truthfully, I had to be reminded of by this episode because I didn't remember. That was, I got in July 1993 into the WWF, and I don't know whether this had just happened or was about to happen, whatever the fuck. But I had not been watching, obviously, so I didn't know what was going on or what had happened beforehand.

but when you see if the Tonka had a two year win streak and then this guy comes in and just beats a shit out of him, pens he with one finger Vince's fascination and I kind of explained it at the top

of this program for foreign menaces and these big foreign heels that and you said that you didn't remember you know a great Ludwig Borga promos when they asked me, what Evan and the Darkside guy said, wait, can you do something for the

Ludwig Borga episode? I said, yes, I was in the locker room with him. They said, no, you managed him. And I said, I did. I had forgotten he was on the fucking team at Survivor series that year. Oh, that's the foreign fanatics with a, the foreign fanatics. We had Canada,

Finland, and fuck it. See, that's the thing. A Moa. If they had brought him in, even though it was already the 90s, if they had brought him in as a German and given him a manager, just with that look, it would have meant a whole lot more than coming in as a finish wrestler and doing his own promos. Well, but see, Vince was still having to be good then because that was that they had hired

people to make sure that their programming was acceptable to children and the public relations, blah, blah, blah. I don't think he wanted to reignite World War II with a goddamn Nazi heel, right? So he's trying to fly under the radar. I wasn't on the creative team at this time. so I'm only, I'm using supposition. Turns out he wasn't a Nazi heel, and he just hid the tattoo.

Well, yeah, that's the thing. I don't know what was in Vince's, because I can see, remember I told you with Gunther, Vince would see either a Nazi, you know, German military general or goddamn Russian U-boat captain

or some kind of fucking thing. And who knows what else. But that's, that's why the preposterosity of it was Ludwig Borga from Finland. Like, yes, and now we've been informed because they hate it on the interwebs, Brian, when you and I don't know geography. But point is, Finland is a country that was near Germany,

but that we probably wouldn't have a fucking problem with standing on their own. But anyway, that was the point is he comes and he gives this guy the push and J.R. is like, you know, he slipped by us. We made a mistake in hiring him. See, you hear the thunder, Brian? And feel the lightning? Thunder over Louisville. There you go.

They won't even have to fire off the fireworks. But you can tell, you can tell by this program, Tony Holm as a person had issues that were going to manifest themselves. As a child, he was a broken. home, his parents were alcoholics, he was poor. He gave himself a gimmick before wrestling. Just when he went out as the Viking and he's the bodybuilder and try to get big so he can impose his will upon people, let we say.

He was impressed by taxi driver. He wanted to move to the United States because of the movie Taxi Driver. These are the kind of people that need to be on a goddamn list somewhere that the government should be keeping an eye on. So what made you want to move to America? Rupert Pupkin. I said, taxi driver, that's just such a weird thing to influence you to,

you know, maybe I can go to America and make it on my own. Taxi driver did it, I can do it. Watch out, Harvey Keitel. And, you know, Tarantino could do my life story. But he wanted to be a movie star. And he went to Goals,

Jim and started taking horse steroids and doing, he's searching for fame. He's doing TV commercials. So now you've got a giant 300 pound bodybuilder on horse steroids with a fucking

bad attitude or mindset comes from a broken home and a bad childhood. And then he gets in a wrestling business and worked for Herb Abrams. How fitting, how apropos, two seasons, two, different seasons of Darkside colliding

with each other. That's the one thing I wish they would have gone a little deeper on, just how exactly he went from Herb Abrams to New Japan to WWF. Like, we didn't find out about how he got into WWF, really, just that all of a sudden he was there. You know, Jim Ross couldn't speak to it. He wasn't in talent relations at that point. Same thing with New Japan.

How the fuck did he end up there? How did he end up on their radar when the only thing anyone knew him as was the Viking and the UWF on... what, one taping, a couple tapings in California? I guarantee you because Herb Abrams was bringing in a variety of guys of different experience levels or whatever that somebody that he met there possibly did something for, hey, you know, I'll, here's a number or I'll call, oh, you ought to go to whatever.

Because that period of time, New Japan was looking for guys that looked like that, right? That's before Inoki had scandaled himself out of a lot of control, and he loved that type of shit. And then if you're in New Japan, then somebody in the WWF is probably going to see you or hear about you. And what does Vince look for? Is these fucking guys that look like that? I got to seek out.

I don't remember that match, but the clips look great, him against Vader, or Big VanVe. at that point. I got to see that. Because that's around the time I first saw him. It was, I think, the 1992 G1. And he was the, I remember, I remember the clip vividly.

He pulled up a guy from getting pinned. And he was just like, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. I was like, holy shit, who's this guy? I've never seen like a wrestler just yell fuck a bunch of times. And it was him. And he looked impressive. You know, back then I wasn't paying attention to if he could work or not.

But he looked impressive. Yeah, to the 12-year-old eye, he was a, and that's the thing is that that's how he got, because his career, that's how he got these opportunities. His career in pro wrestling lasted from what, 1991 probably, right before you saw him, to, he was out of the WWF in 94 and did he do really anything, maybe he might have, then he went to the UFC, as they mentioned, maybe he did another wrestling show, or two somewhere who knows. I don't know.

So he had a three-year career. And remember he was kicked out at Japan, as they mentioned, before he went to the WWF to begin with for getting in the fight with Scott Norton. Yeah, where was he? They should have interviewed him for this. That's what I wanted to hear. I wonder where he is.

He's still around, didn't he always have to ask that these days, not being disrespectful. He wrote a book a few years ago, so he's definitely... Well, a lot of dead people wrote a book a few years ago. See? Think about that. But his book was titled, I'm still alive. Oh, okay.

Well, all right. Then he's got it covered then. All right. But he was, so he'd been kicked out of Japan. Now he's been fired from the WWF. So then he, you know, by the way, his wife, who was on here, that's when he decided, I decided to divorce. him because he was cheating on me and he's on painkillers and taking horse steroids.

And then they talked about, you know, briefly his run in the WWF. He didn't get over for the reasons that we mentioned. He didn't connect with anybody. He was because think about it from the look of him and what he did, like you said, if he was in a territory that had given him a manager and he was a guy that you could bring in for three to six months, depending on the size and frequency of the territory and get him over on TV and have him work a couple deals with a couple of your baby faces. And then he move on and you could have got some use out of him because it would take him

a while to see through him in the ring. And it wouldn't matter if he wasn't talking. In that environment, he could be one of the guys, right, top guys. But in the WWF, he was what? Vince looked for and liked the look of, but that's why everybody else there had it too. And he couldn't talk as good as them or, do you think now he's with that Thunder Brian and maybe Tony Holm is looking down on me trying to send a lightning bolt? I also saw the movie Cape Thea.

But he couldn't, he couldn't do the promo and he couldn't even do the promo like a fucking guy with an accent, Gunther, certainly English not his first language. He just couldn't connect with people. He wasn't a good actor. He couldn't do a promo as good as Brackus. Well, there you go. I mean, he was, he was just playing a part. He was trying to look at me. I'm famous and big. And then as they, you know, said, he was not friendly in the locker room.

You know, he didn't cause any big issues that I remember. He was just sitting over there. You're like, I don't know if I would go sit and talk to this fucking guy or not. I was in interviews with him. Besides passing conversation potentially as the producer is telling us what we're talking about and whatever, I don't recall any interaction with him personally, and I'm fine with that. Do you remember him sitting with anyone? Who did he ride with?

Who did he talk to? Well, no, not really. I mean, I didn't follow him out to watch him get in the car, but I don't, as, you know, there were a few comments from people. The talking heads were Tatanka and. and J.R. myself, but also his ex-wife and the promoter from Finland and a very weird-looking childhood friend. Oh, come on. Jesus Christ, he looked like he should star in a fucking horror movie would need makeup.

The promoter from Finland, he wrote a book, too. Was it a Scott Till? No, I'm not talking about him. I'm talking about the childhood friend. I know, I know. Michael Mahahaji, whatever his name was. He wrote a book also. Well, hey, ha, ha, ha.

That's what I said when I saw him. but nevertheless i don't remember anybody particularly you know so that fucking tony boy what a barrel of laughs he is we travel together and once he was gone he hurt his ankle and i think his contract expired they you know i they either said he was fired or what i don't think they fired him as much as oh thank god you know we don't have to renew this contract and off he went i mean if you think about it, they started giving him the heavy push around SummerSlam through Survivor Series. He was gone by Mania. Was he gone by Royal Rumble?

I got to double check. By WrestleMania, he wasn't even an afterthought. Everything had moved on. And then he exhibited incredible timing and luck. I didn't even know this factoid that his debut in the UFC,

Tony Holm, as a fighter, was also against Randy Couture in his UFC debut. That's right. And Tony Holm lost in one fucking minute. So now he's been kicked out of Japanese wrestling.

He's been excommunicated from the WWF. He's been drubbed like a drum in the UFC in a minute. And he's got married again, but the SWAT team raids his house for having whatever quantities of steroids and an Oozie

and he went to jail whereupon from jail they deported him back to Finland so that apparently was why he wasn't working the independent circuit after that point over here but then the shit really started happening again

I get in Finland I'm not trying to be derogatory toward the Finnish people but one would assume that there are not as many celebrities in Finland, as there are in some of the bigger countries that have celebrities in them. So he gets on their American gladiators and he's boxing and he's doing music videos because he's a big meathead. He is in commercials. Why isn't it Finnish gladiators?

Why is it American gladiators in Finland? I saw the clip too, obviously. Well, yeah, well, did Finland have, Finland didn't have gladiators? They had Vikings. So they would have had to been Greek gladiators, but he couldn't be a Greek gladiator because it's clearly marked on his ass, exit only. So no Greek for Tony. The thunder won't stop. The thunder from down under, baby.

What about the Finnish woman that was apparently also a Finnish gladiator? I wonder if he was glad he ate her. was that was that Pippi Longstocking on crack or was it fucking Heidi in her milf years what it was happening with that woman

that was the way she chose to appear on television it's God God's gonna get me for this that was my favorite Pippi Longstocking book Pippi Longstocking on crack what the Did you see? All right, so he becomes a celebrity in Finland, and he writes a made-up biography,

and he starts pumping the fucking crazy shit, and a fringe political party props him up, since apparently people were blaming immigrants for their own problems in Finland at this time, and so they got somebody that would say, any batshit crazy thing that he pulled out of his ass because it was exit only. And they elected him to their parliament and the guy that wrote the book on him, his biographer, one of the talking heads, compared him to our current situation.

Feelings are more important than facts. They didn't care whether what he said was true. He tied the rise in crime to the, immigrants. It's them. And the journalists were trying to decide should we write about this fucking lunatic? So

we don't want to give this bat shit stuff publicity but people are talking about it. And he gets elected to parliament. Yeah, that's the crazy thing. People heard him and I like, that guy knows what he's talking about. He's clearly a success.

Brian, we have come to the reason why that it takes millennia for the human race to make any progress because you can't fucking teach anybody anything. But nevertheless, this fucking elected official in 2003 in Finland goes full crazy and he starts even embarrassing his friends and backers and one of the guys, well, his stories changed weekly.

He couldn't keep up with what he'd said because he was by then a drug addict and an alcoholic. And apparently after a two-week drinking binge, his new wife wanted to split up with him. So he took a bunch of pills, got a gun in the struggle with his wife. The gun went off. Didn't shoot anybody, but the wife called 911. They took him to the hospital in a coma,

and he suffered brain damage. But recovered, and because the bad publicity resigned from office. So at that point, before he resigned, he was an alcoholic drug addict with brain damage that was still in office. So imagine the United States his one 79-year-old man with a stroke away from having a babbling. And nevertheless, he resigned office because his image was ruined and he became a broke, drunk nobody, which apparently that was the antithesis of what he had been working for his whole life and he couldn't, you know, pretty much stand that. And his friend and the police found him dead in, what did they say?

It was 2010. So, you know, if only his parents had loved him, I'm talking about Tony Holm again, not the other guy. if only his parents had loved him, then things might have worked out a little bit better. But I like this one because it's nice to see somebody who only had a peripheral involvement in a wrestling business and fucks up in more spectacular ways in other things for once. What'd you think?

I thought it was all right. I didn't think it was as good as last week's. I think it was so much of a focus on the non-wrestling stuff that after a while it wasn't even a wrestling show anymore. It was just about this guy. I thought it was all right. I mean, not great. Middle of the road.

Three stars. In the middle of the road. You know, Darkside, you know who I would be interested in Darkside doing an episode on if they had the guts? Because this would be a gutsy thing. Uh-oh. It sounds like a challenge to me. Alberto del Rio.

He just got in trouble again. There was some incident in Mexico where all of a sudden I saw some footage from the crowd. He's in the crowd. chairs of people are getting chairs thrown at them and chasing people. There's so many different stories and incidents and it's a live thing. It's still happening. You know what? Let's start that fucking campaign.

This is an ongoing story here. By the time they're shooting this coming next season, we could have more. And yes. He's been on WWFTV. He was pushed for a long time. You know, what, 15 years ago, 10 years ago? So if they need someone who's more recent who just seems to be trying out for the show

every time we hear a story about him that's the one I'd like to hear or see because that's it's yeah it's been 10 or 15 years now that you hear nothing but he's fucking crazy doing something in some way or another okay a cult of cornet listeners follow dark side of not follow dark but tweet dark side of the ring or contact

dark side of the ring or follow him follow Evan Husdie down the street I happen to know he carries a big wad of cash on him at all times. Follow him down the street and make him nervous unless... Hit him with a hammer. Well, don't hit him with a hand. We need his mind. Knee cap him. And fucking, and make him nervous until they do an Alberto del Rio episode.

So we can hear the story of what kind of fucking lunatic shit, what the real deal is behind what he's been doing. Like, I forgot he was even around anymore. Then I saw this clip. I'm like, man, he's still getting booked in Mexico and there's still trouble every time he's around. there was all the stuff with Page. They were the incidents with Mystico. I was about to say he was the one

that beat one of the boys up in a fucking locker room or in the back of the arena at some point. But even that one, I'm not sure the whole story because it was a match on Raw with Mystico when he had a, well, Sincara in WWF against Alberto Del Rio. And I think Sincara broke his finger and the match either ended early

or he just like walked out on a match, whatever it was. Then there was some kind of incident, but I believe and I could be wrong, I'm not a lucha expert. There was something to happen previous to that in Mexico with like Mystigo and his friends

pulling a gun on Alberto del Rio. I'm not exactly sure, my point is this needs to be investigated, is my point. Well, yes, and I see, didn't I hear something about? Wasn't he the one beat up just some random guy on a fucking card back there because he

bumped into Page or offended Alberto on Page's behalf or whatever? or something of that. People send in the stories, we'll read them. We're not going to we're not going to do any more supposition. We send in the facts and we'll read it on the air.

So we've gone from, we recommend this being the next episode to we'll just do it ourselves here on the show. That's what you're saying? Well, I'm saying to get people excited for what all more stuff they can uncover, our dark side detectives over there. And again, with Alberto, he has a wrestling background. His father was Doscarus.

His uncle is Mill Mosquerist. It goes back to the beginning and he had a look. You would have thought, wow, that guy should be a story. You could talk. Did M.MA. And then it's just shithouse crazy stories. That guy needs an episode. Maybe a two-parter.

All righty. Maybe a season. Maybe a season. The curious case of Alberto del Rio. El Patron. An ongoing series. Yes, when he became a patron because he had to watch the copyrights. Anyway, so that next week, Dark Side, I should make mention, Vader,

the man they call Vader, Leon White will be the subject. I was going to say, the guest, the star, neither, the subject of next week's Dark Side of the Ring. And I might make an appearance or two in that program also. Yeah, it's very Cornette heavy, the first. few weeks. Usually they space your appearances out. Every episode. Well, see, they want to start with a bang. The competition is so stiff in TV these days. They want to start with a bang and make sure that people realize they're going to get a heavy dose of cornet this season to bump the numbers up.

Since I, you know, became a star of the silver screen. That's like when the rock drops in. You know, just make sure that everybody knows he's there. Or maybe they just wanted to get it out of the way so people have a chance to recover. I don't know. One of those things. Would you like to talk about what our young friend Ricky Starks is up to? Did you see this bit of business they did where it was like an AEW family reunion, but the fans in the audience didn't particularly feel like part of the AEW family? Well, let me correct you. First, it's Ricky Saints now, not Ricky Starks anymore.

And I did see this. I've had NXT on one of the monitors in the office the last several weeks, so I always kind of get to see who's on it, although not every segment requires me to take it off mute or pay attention. But I wanted to see this main event because, you know, he just recently got there maybe, what, a month ago? We all agree, despite a tag team title run or anything else, he was never used correctly in AEW. I think everyone agrees with that.

So this is his first real high-profile match here. I was really curious to see this. Well, and he's going for or was going for the North American-American-trial match. there that NXT has and the champion apparently and he won this from what the announcers were saying like a month ago, Sean Spears, who I suddenly realized, oh my God, he's still around. And they still ain't done anything to give him a good hairstyle, but he's got an entourage and apparently they've put something together. And the point is, yeah, he's an okay mechanic.

He performs just fine in a regular pro wrestling match. I don't think he has a look or a presence that is going to threaten the upper echelon of the talent in the industry, Sean Spears. But at the same point, he always either he either was made to look like a complete befucking phone in AEW or when he did have a couple main event matches, they put him so, did he have a deal with Cody? At one point That's how they brought him in No but you see that was actually a chance Because the fans accepted that That's where he hit Cody with the chair shot

And he really busted Cody open Remember that And the fans are like holy shit And then they kind of made him a jerk off pretty quickly And it was It was a mistake Because it didn't do anything to help the rest of his run Yeah and and you know

He was just Eh and the E But point being In this He was presented it better, looked better, has people, or if this was a vacuum and you hadn't seen him before, you say, okay, he doesn't have, you know, an incredible physique or any outlandish, you know, look or over-the-top ability in any one particular thing, but at least he doesn't have this

ludicrous spotlight entrance with him in a chair on a revolving stage, and then he just looks like Ned, right? The presentation is better. The chairman. It's ridiculous. Yes, the chairman. It was just ridiculous. This week's got some people around him. He looks okay.

He can perform the fucking, and apparently he was a transitional champion because he won it about a month ago and then Stark, Spears, Saint, Stark Spears and Saints. Saints was marching in the challenge for it. He's just got there.

And that's what the match was. And I know this is a regular crowd at NXT, right? This was their regular audience that comes every week. It is kind of a friends and family plan kind of deal. But when you see St. St. Stanton there and Spears standing there,

the people start, Tony fumbled. Tony fumbled. And it's obvious, Tarks opened up, looked like somebody had taken a leash off of him. And he actually, he had the fire and the aggression and the, you know,

the oomph to him where you can see that he realizes he has a real opportunity to do something now. And he actually had a couple cases, he should be a little, carefully, don't get too excited, rush too much, but you can see he feels like there is a chance for upward momentum here

where he was, you know, dangling in obscurity and a malaise of mayonnaise in the other place. And so he was, again, he was really fucking aggressive. And then at the one point, old Sean Spears got on top of him and was trying to get some heat on him and Stark started trying to cover up it. Sean Spears pulled his hands apart, so he had a target because he was trying to throw a decent looking punch to his head. So bless you, Sean Spears for that one. And the fans were liking it.

Again, they're regulars, but they want these people to succeed, but it helped the atmosphere, because that's another thing. Brian, think about it, how many times was Stark out there having an excellent match technically, or Spears, for that matter, where the people were just sitting there going, eh,

because it was, you know, they were lost in the booking sea. So they've got the fans into this here, their regulars. And finally, they have the match, boom, boom, boom. One of the heel stooges outside distracts. And old Sean hits Saints with the title belt, boom, and gets a two count. And he's, oh, my God, and fucking Ricky. Riki starts coming up and boom.

He fucking basically ran wild on everybody. And I love the way they brought to people up. This would have brought any room up for the last, what, 90 seconds of their finish. They set it up where he beat up all the stooges at ringside on the floor around bang, bang, bang, bang. Each one of them speared spears. That's technically what he did. hit spears with the spear

and then picked him up and hit his finish, boom, cover one, two, three. New champion, the last two minutes especially had to peeple up, so exciting. It made sense. Everybody was in mostly the right place. And, you know, again, both these guys

produced here in a different environment. Better than anything they ever did on AEW. Did they not? Or it's just been upset. been so long since I've seen either one of them that I'm forgetting something. I think Ricky Starks has really up the fire, and I can understand why he's now doing what he always wanted to do, and he's being treated seriously right away, right out of the gate, and the fans have really taken to him.

There is something to be said, and I'm not even saying this in a negative way, like, it doesn't have to be wrong, but what NXT's doing with their curated audience, which is what it is, It's very similar to the kind of vibe, although a little different because the amount of people, like the AEW shows at Daley's Place during the pandemic, where you're able to say, all right, these are our fans, we want you to sit here, we want you to sing the Chris Jericho song, we want you to get into it, we want you to yell at the heels. It's not to that extent, but it's a curated crowd.

They pick, didn't we get a letter once, someone saying, oh, yeah, we have to line up here, and then we get on a bus, and they take us here, and then they let us go in. Yes, and there's some element of taking a family member hostage just to make sure that, you know, the whole thing. But the curated audience, you're kind of showing the rest of the audience that when NXT goes on the road, what they should react to, how they should react, as opposed to, like you said, if this match was exactly the same and it was on AEW TV, I don't know if the place would be totally into it.

I mean, they've been into more stuff lately except like Edge's matches. Edges matches, it doesn't matter what happens. They'll sing his song, and then eventually they just stand there. and stare at the ring, it's going to disappear. I think Ricky Stark's done good. I think Sean Spears has been good at NXT. The little bits I've seen of him and his stable, even the backstage stuff, him and Ricky Stark's backstage, I saw,

it's better than anything he did in AEW. And they don't treat him like a jerk off. You have more goofy shit that's booked to be goofy on shows like NXT, yet they don't treat it like it's, you know what I mean? Like, he's not treated like a jerk off. And this is a promising stuff. the Ricky Saints and the fans have taken to him. And if you really look at his style of match,

it works with the WW system, maybe a little better than AEW. But now not all is Rosie on the horizon. There's storm clouds brewing, Brian, because as he was celebrating and, you know, he's won the North American title. And again, a nice match, serious, nicely put together, not too long,

not too hot, not too cold, just right, got over. Boom, here's Ethan Page, another alumni. And he gloms old Ricky Saints from behind and hits his finish on him and grabs the title belt and holds it up and the people again start shent. Tony fumbled. Tony fumbled. And here, there's another guy that he was there. He was there. I still don't know whether I'm sold on him or not, but I bet you he'll probably look a little bit better in this environment than he did in his previous home. But it's getting embarrassing at this point

that whenever Tony loses, no wonder he wants to extend guys' contracts or pay him just to stay home. Because whenever somebody leaves that television or leaves that environment and goes to the other side, they instantly look better, and there's something better about their presentation. And we haven't seen that in the obverse or the reverse

or the reverb or whatever the other phrase is for it. Well, again, as I said at the beginning, I don't think anyone could argue that AEW Blue would Ricky Stark, they had opportunities, the fans took to them as a heel and as a baby face, and it was just never right. We'll see about what happens in the future. You know, some of the recent AEW moves like Megan Bain when we hear that she's been signed for a couple of years.

And we'll see, again, AEW is going to have to change the way they do a lot of things because of the WWE trying to lock down the industry away from Tony Kahn and lock down future talent. They're going to have to do something. But when you see guys like Ricky Starks, leave that show, leave that show. We didn't see him leave that show. He left the show and then went home for a year.

Yeah. Which is almost like a punishment. Like I don't want these guys to go to WWE right off my TV because then people will say all the things they're actively saying right now. It doesn't change it. Isn't that like being held hostage? Isn't that like being confined and say, you know, I'm going to pay you. You're sitting home, but you can't do what you love for anybody else but me,

but I don't want you to do it. We've got a fractured relationship. So you just have to sit there. Now, what are you allowed to do when you're on contract with Tony Kahn, but you're sitting there in your home and you're, are you allowed to leave? Are you allowed to watch television? Are you allowed to listen, Brian? Listen to music or listen to people from the outside world. Are you allowed to get on the telephone or listen to a podcast or do you just have to sit there in solitary confinement day after day, day after day? Brian, do you have any idea what the parameters are on Tony Kahn's contract? Could you maybe listen just to a pair of everyday earbuds from our friends at Raycon? They're small. They're unobtrusive.

Nobody's even going to know you got them in because they come in a variety of vibrant colors. You can kind of find something to match your skin tone, put them right in. Nobody will even know. Of course, nobody's going to see you if you're sitting home waiting for Tony Kahn to call you. about your contract, bring you back into the fold, you're in isolation, you can turn on these earbuds and they will play. They've got a 32-hour battery life. Now, if you're sitting up that long uninterrupted listening to something, maybe you need possibly to call a therapist. But you've also got the quick charge function where let's just say you're sitting there

and you can't take the silence and you can't take the solitude of this solitary confinement anymore you plug it in for 10 minutes, it's going to get you 90 minutes of battery so you can listen to the entire Beatles white album, or potentially the dark side of the moon twice through before it's going to die again and send you back into a chasm of black loneliness and hopelessness. And they also come with active noise cancellation, which is often difficult to find at such an accessible price point from what I am told. and that way, since you're already in what amounts to a sensory deprivation tank, because Tony Kahn has put you on ice, and you can't leave your home to interact with other living beings, not even the goats that roam freely in the field behind your backyard,

and have somehow provided companionship during your darkest hours. So instead, you just cancel all the, or you heard what I said, you just cancel all the noise, and you just sit in silence Hello, Darkness, my old friend, you can listen to that too. Because Simon and Garfunkel can't be taken away from you by a miserable dictator

like Tony Khan. So again, folks, the Raycon everyday earbuds, no matter what kind of solitary confinement your boss has placed you in, there's something to please you and he won't notice because I know, I know if Tony Khan notices those earbuds in your ear, he's going to get the whip, and he's going to tan your hat,

he's going to put, he's going to put all kinds of stripes on your backside. So you want to k-fabit. Nobody's going to know you because they're wireless. And that way, nobody will see the wires. And if they do find out about it and beat you, that is Tony Con, or whoever your boss is, if they beat you, then you call Ray Khan back and they got a 30-day happy to guarantee return policy. No, you don't want to even have to That has nothing to do with the return policy.

What are you talking about? Let's say that your boss comes and see you're listening to earbuds. God damn you. I'm going to take the leather to your and you beat you unmercifully and says take those Raycons and send them back. Well, Raycon will give you your money back if you can prove with a Polaroid that you've been beaten. First of all, there's not even a Polaroid anymore. That's a bad example.

And of course, if your boss is beating you, go to the authorities, first of all. Second of all, fight back. Well, first of all, call Raycon. No, Raycon's not going to do anything. No, Raycon will supply you with great earbuds to hear the finest things with the finest sound, and that's where it ends. Then you're on your own. Well, you mean to tell me that they're so heartless that they wouldn't help you out if you called them

and said, my boss is beating me. Please help me. Think they're just going to hang up on you? Our friends at Raycon? They would say- The assholes you think they are. They would say call 911, which is the exact thing you could have done before you called Raycon. Why you call it? No, they'd say, well, the guy I talked to said, well, how big a boy is he?

He was going to come over here and fucking help me until he found out how big he was. But folks, you can go right now to buy Raycon, B-U-Y, R-A-Y-C-O-N-B-R-A-R-A-C-O-N-B-R-R-A-C-O-R-A-R-C-O-R-E. Right now, you're going to get 20% off site-wide, everything, everything in the store, as they say. 20% off sitewide when you go to buy raycon.com slash jCE, buy raycon.com slash jCE and make sure, and they'll have a place where you can report. If you're Tony Kahn is your boss and he's been beating you because you've listened to Raycons,

you can report that. There's a box you can check. No, there isn't, but you can get the finest earbuds, of course, from RayCon. One more time, Jim, what's that promo code? Buy raycon.com slash JCE for 20% off sitewide. So if you're sitting in solitude, at least program your own thoughts. That's right.

With Raycon. With Raycon. They don't have to be Raycon's thoughts, though. They can be your thoughts. Raycon's accepting of all of your thoughts. You just turn the switch to what you want to hear. All right. Well, before we start talking about any of the actual happenings on the wrestling program,

the folks at AEW, there's been some discussion, Brian. Apparently a report was put out that dynamite their flagship program on the max streaming service. Oh, it averages about 500,000 people a week. That's the report that was put out. and people have been discussing it, and the A.W. faithful are like, see, this proves, you know, we do a million people plus every, and the more calm and rational individuals are like,

wait a minute, where does this come from, and where are we going with this, and who put this out, and is this possible? There's a ton of questions you can ask, because we don't know. And that's the whole thing. We don't know. We don't know because they don't release a lot of these numbers. And we don't know where this fellow got them from.

Or we don't know if this is for the entire world. You know, Bolivia, Brian, it's an AEW hotbed over in Bolivia. Maybe they've got... You and Bolivia. I don't know what this is. Well, I'm just saying, wait, is this the whole world? But even then, they've been available internationally and in the United Kingdom and the English-speaking countries of the globe here.

they haven't set to world on fire with numbers and they're you know is it in this country well maybe it's just all these new people that got the streaming service that didn't have cable before so suddenly if that would be it then we're expected to believe that even though the numbers way before the streaming service were right about where they are now just almost as many people decided oh shit look at this brand new wrestling show we can watch now even though the cable outlets have twice as many people involved with them as viewers as the streaming does.

A lot of these things can be asked, but we don't know. Brian, that's the thing. We don't know and we admit here on the program when we don't know anything. And that happens quite often. Well, you know, this is a unique story. We could say we don't know. But the only thing everyone can say is true is that nobody knows. And anything out there, that's why You know, anyone could say anything.

I could say AEW is getting 10 viewers on Max. I can say they're getting 10 million. Both have equal chance of being true. I mean, it's just no one knows anything. Well, there's where you're wrong. See, now you've, you've, you've, that's the only thing you've said so far today, Brian. It's wrong. It's incorrect.

I've got to call you on it. One man knows. One man knows because one man, as in his own fashion, Has it done what he normally does when there's times of strife and chaos, he cuts to the meat of the matter, he gets to the facts, and he presents a clear, concise, easily understood explanation or Dave'splanation of the whole matter. It's time for another segment of Dave's explaining here on the program.

Would you like to hear, Brian? Now, I'm not taking any, I want to put credit where, it belongs. This is the wrestling observer newsletter by our friend, Uncle Dave Meltzer. I don't want to take any credit for what you're about to hear. I don't want any crowd. I don't want to be involved with what you're about to hear. These are the words of Dave Meltzer in the observer explaining this situation for all to hear. Brian, are you ready to take notes? I'm interested to hear where this goes. Yeah, I have not read this yet. Well, this and I was sent this from the home office in Lincoln, Nebraska.

We've got stringers all over the country on this case. And it says a report this past week by B.J. Bethel of s.escoops.com listed that dynamite on max averages about 500,000 viewers. Now let's stop here for a second. If we ever heard of B.J. Bethel, is this kind of like one of those Boris K. type of nom de plumes, Brian? Is there any fefferism involved here? I don't know.

I can't say that I'm too aware of him. Well, nevertheless, apparently he got to scoop. So Dave goes on to say, The story reported 60 million minutes watching within 24 hours of the ending of the show, which translated into a Nielsen rating, would be about 480,000 if we're going by homes since viewers per home is unknown by streaming companies.

But if it's similar to television, I'm reading this exactly as he can see, you got to follow, Brian. But if it's similar to television, that would be roughly $624,000 to $672,000, so the 60 million minutes number sounds way high. Now what is your question? I just need some clarity on

everything you just said. So, I guess where I first jumped in, the streaming services don't know how many people watch the streaming services? Well, I'll say this again, Brian, since obviously you're not paying attention. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. The story reported 60 million minutes watching

within 24 hours of the ending of the show, which translated into a Nielsen rating, would be about 480,000 if we're going by homes since viewers per home is unknown by streaming companies. But if it's similar to television, that would be roughly 624,000 to 672,000 viewers. So the 60 million minutes number sounds way high. I hope that cleared that up for you.

Because there's a long way to go here. In theory, that would be equivalent to a little more, than a Nielsen number first day number in the sense it's 24 hours rather than five hours but also with a streaming number you don't know viewers per home parenthetically i estimated 1.30 to 1.4 oh the usual range and also if you watch something twice in streaming you count as two people and in Nielsen you can watch over and over and you only count as one person what we do know is very little we agree on that Max keeps its numbers to themselves. Nobody at AEW knows the actual numbers.

Top execs at WBD, ad buyers, et cetera, don't know. The NBA and NHL don't know either. Sounds like maybe Home Depot and Rocka Khan don't know either. How can he say WBD don't know if WBD owns me? Max? How can Max keep it to themselves away from their owner? Well, that's because fucking Warner don't know what Max is doing. And they like to keep it that way because it has whole thing with Marilyn Monroe. The story stated the number is considered good, but claimed NBA games do 1.7 to 2 million

in a number comparison with the 500,000. Based on those numbers, I'm even more skeptical that this in any way compares to a Nielsen viewing number because many NBA games on T&T hover around 1 million viewers and all of the media stories this year of the NBA's collapse or ratings decline, which were overblown because streaming numbers don't count, would have been countered if numbers were even remotely close to this. Bethel himself noted to us that the 500,000 viewer number

could be total viewers, having tuned in even for a few minutes, equivalent to the two minutes of viewing a show individual viewing numbers that Nielsen also has but are almost never talked about. That is believable. Can I jump in for a second? I wish you would. Because you can't think of streaming the same way as cable in terms of viewers per home. Streaming is phones. Or in your case maybe tablets. Streaming, sure you could put it on your TV and have multiple people there, but how many kids do that? Versus watch something on their phone. Stop it, return to it. It is a different experience and especially with younger people who grow up without any knowledge of cable. Everything's about the phone. Everything's

about YouTube, TikTok. That's how they consume stuff. Streaming services are a plus where you go to your parents and you say, can I please have the password? The idea that, you know, he's saying 1.3 or 1.4 people per stream, I don't think you could do that. I think that's too high. I just want to say that. Well, he goes on to say Tony Kahn responded to the report saying that it was very consistent to what we've been told and that they are one of the top sports streaming shows on the network. He said that they were told in advance that they would not be getting the kind of data on streaming

like they do on television, but that they've been told that they're doing great numbers and that he doesn't know the actual numbers, only that they are one of the top streaming sports shows on the station, and he thought those numbers were consistent with that. Based on nothing, because if he doesn't know his numbers, he doesn't know anyone else's numbers, so there's no basis for that assumption. But it sounds good.

And then there's a lot, a lot more, but my head is starting to hurt. But you get the idea, ladies and gentlemen, that a lot of people don't know. What day did the report come out? Does it say? It said, hold on here. The BJ report. You flammocks me with that.

The BJ report. Well, that came right out. Report this past week is the way that it's... Was it April Fool's? I'm not even joking asking that question. Was it April Fool's Day? Well, apparently later on, he says that he's been in contact with old I bet that's a first time in years.

And BJ is standing by his story or his hard on or whatever he's standing by. You know, it's like that old move where you could say, I'm in the CIA, and then someone calls the CIA and they ask for comment. They said, we don't comment on anyone who's in the CIA. So it sounds plausible. If you're saying no one knows the numbers and the few people that do know it won't tell anyone what they are. But this guy found out, and he put it out on the fucking wrestling website.

And it's a flat 500. You know, it's not like about 475. You know, it's a flat 500,000 people. Well, they're rounding. Now, I can forgive that. They're rounding. Because, I mean, who would have believed him if he said is 492,517? Yeah.

It's all about the rounding. The idea that the max audience would be, what, 80% of the cable audience? is ridiculous. At the same time, we've seen the cable audience dwindle. And I don't care how big the universe is. You can't use that as an argument. Well, there's 200 million people have access to this.

That doesn't mean they're watching AEW. Or it doesn't mean they can find AEW on the home screen. We hear that from a lot of people. So I think this is a way for a story to get out that paints an incredibly rosy picture and there's no one to confirm nor deny it, including Tony Kahn. I don't know anything,

but it's consistent with what I've heard from this other people who we were just told, don't know anything. And I would think... From all the people I've talked to that don't know what they're talking about, it sounds plausible.

Hey, listen, also, it's a streaming service. It's part of a publicly traded company, I think, but it's a streaming service in a sea of streaming services. If someone was getting a million viewers for the NBA every game, they'd be putting that out there. And if someone was getting 500,000 for a wrestling show, domestically, that would be put out there.

Worldwide, it's still impressive. But we haven't heard anything. And, you know, I can understand the reason you don't want people to know how few viewers you have or streams you have. Not talking about AEW. I'm talking about any of these streaming services. No one releases their... They don't want to release their numbers.

Well, but here's the thing you mentioned it a second ago, that they, Netflix and WWE engaged in a major advertising campaign. And if you get on Netflix from scratch, you see, you know, WWP prominently featured, whereas we were trying for a while to find AEW. And so other people have been, too, on Max. it wasn't like they beat people up with debuting such and such. So how would suddenly an audience of half a million people find it on this streaming service over the last few months when they've been on television for five years and those people have already been leaving before the streaming was a thing? Does it just add up is what I'm asking you?

It doesn't add up. It just don't add up. I do think AEW is having a little bit of a run right now. now where they're seeing a small bump in interest, but it's not that kind of bump. If there were that many more people watching AEW, it would be a bigger thing right now. And, you know, you see less social media talk and buzz and interest in AEW right now than ever before. It could get better, but I don't think they're getting those.

I think worldwide, you know, less time. has a fucking farm somewhere where people are just clicking on videos all day, I don't think there's any way they're getting that many. It sounds ridiculous on its face, and it sounds like Dave was doing his best to try to justify it as opposed to saying, well, first off, this sounds ridiculous. Well, he did a wonderful job with words and phrases, and there was some punctuation put in at various points, also in that statement. You should have seen it. If someone said this, a source said this to BJ, what do you think that source's motivation would be?

Well, who would the, that's the thing is, if the wrestling company doesn't even know, then who would be the source that was talking to the guy that was writing to the Westling, writing to the wrestling site, writing to the wrestling site, or writing for the wrestling site? BJ, it's Jack Warner. How are you?

Yeah, yeah. That's what it is. People are crank calling this guy, pretending their executives. I can't tell you who I am. I work at Max. They're getting 500,000. You know what? He talked to Manswarner.

That's who he talked to. All right. Speaking of people with silly faces, or whatever we were talking about a second ago, should we talk about AEW this past week and get that out of the way? There were definitely some interesting things on the show. I will say,

I've enjoyed the show lately a little bit more than I have before because at least there's a couple of segments I dig. The endings are still really awful, just that drives you away, but there's a few things I really liked on here. I'm trying to figure out what a few would be. But the start, again, they were in Peoria, by the way. Peoria, Illinois, a fine, fine place. If it plays in Peoria, it'll work anywhere. And they started the show again with this a mixed tornado tag team match with Dick the Boozer and Marina Schaefer against swerve Strickland and Willa Nightingale.

And they tried to have their Kate and Edith too because it was the guys fighting the guys and the girls fighting the girls, but every once while the girls could fight the guys, and then the guys could snatch a hold of the girls, but couldn't hit them. And then finally by the end of it, as long as it was accidental and he didn't really mean to do it, you could drop the girl on her face.

But it's ridiculous. And again, if Marina Schaefer is a real life, badass, I'm sorry I don't care, but there's happy fucking smiling, hand-clapping willow nightingale out there with the world champion. and his supposed top challenger that have been trying to fucking murder each other

and she's going through furniture just barely and there's girls and what the fuck is just visually. And again, it's ridiculous when they jump started the thing and had the big fight on the floor and swerves shit was faker than Moxley's. They were, did you see the punches? They were on the railing in front of the fans one foot away

and he's, not only is he not hitting him, it didn't look like he was trying to hit him. He just waving his arms in the air. And there's a close-up on camera. And they were on the floor with the four-way for minutes where the girls were fighting on one side, the guys were fighting on the other side, and then they pulled a table out.

And the girls then did some shit in the ring while the guys did the shit on the desk. And then the girls rolled out so the guys could get in and start doing running spots. They've had a goddamn four-way brawl with a goddamn on the floor for minutes. And they pulled a table out. And they get in and start doing one tackle drop-down hip toss. What the fuck? and as then swerve gave Moxley a backbreaker kind of it looked like he decided at the last minute to do it and then stood him up and Willow came off the turnbuckle with a drop kick but she came up short

and her feet barely touched him but he was ready to take the big bump for the babyface girl and he did the exaggerated backflip up the feet up in the air like Kurt Henning and then the heels just cut the baby faces off while the baby faces were hot-dog in and not paying attention which you never do but they did it and then marina got heat on willow while moxley just had to stagger around and it was the it was just dying and then moxley decided he was going to grab willow and give her a double-armed DDT, but suddenly Swerve jumped in and grabbed Maria Schaefer and picked her up for some big move, and they stood there looking at each other in a stalemate, so then they let each girl go.

Like, okay, I'll drop the gun if you drop the gun. And then Willow pushed Moxley into Swerve, so they had a head bong, and the guys just rolled out and disappeared hiding so the girls could do their shit. And they were gone for minutes while the girls fought on the apron and

Marina tried, they had the idea that they wanted Marina the power bomb, poor Willow off the apron of the ring through the table that they pulled out and set up. But they couldn't even go into it. They figured if Marina

squatted down and Willow went like she was going to kick her and Marina stood up underneath her that this would work. Well, holy shit. Did you see this particular spot? I did see this.

I watched this entire match intently waiting for your review. Okay, well, Marina squatted down and Willis got one leg over her shoulder and Marina's trying to grab her legs and stand up under and Willow's trying to grab the top.

rope. My God, it looked like a fucking, I don't even have a cogent simile to where Marina tried once, twice and finally three times to stand up under her and Willow's trying to pull herself up on a top rope. And on the third time, Marina just got up under her enough to fucking halfway or so and let her go. and Willow almost missed the table, but she landed with the back of her head and her shoulders on a table and broke it, but also her weight was continuing down through it. She just landed right flat of her back on it fucking ground.

And that was their break spot. A woman has been power bombed off the apron of the ring through a table onto the floor, and but don't worry the rest of the match is coming up and she's going to be involved in it she was up and just fucking kicking ass here shortly as a matter of fact when they came back from the break three minutes later we last saw Willow near death

Moxley and Marino were trying to go for the double superplex on swerve but Willow got up and got underneath them and did a goddamn tower of boot, Tower of boom. Tower of boom. A tower of boom power bomb. A tower of doom power bomb. Whatever the fuck I said on all of them.

She got power bomb through the table and now she's just thrown three people 10 feet. God damn it. Put the belt on her. Who's going to stop her? No one. And then Willow made it come back on both of them. And then they got in a four wave where that Moxley threw Willow out. and she had neutralized Marina some way

as so that the guys trade fake forearms. And this went on so long and the thing and Moxley getting a sleeper on swerve, the girls were over in the corner, lost kind of trying to figure out what to do. And then finally, when the guys got in the right place, Willow power bombed Marina onto Moxley to break the deal. But now the girls look blown up

and lost or blown up one of the other, possibly both. the guys are trading slaps and forearms again. And then finally, swerve goes for the kick on Moxley, and Marina pushed Moxley out of the way, so Swerve kicked Marina just potatoed her right in the fucking head. It was an accident. Didn't mean to do it in this highly contrived spot. And then suddenly after that happened,

there was a pop from the, crowd and the camera cuts to Moxley laying on the floor outside the ring laying in another broken table, but we never saw how it happened. And then they went back and showed that Willow

pushed him off the fucking head. He goes through the table and then Willow Power Bomb Marino 1, 2, 3. You didn't think I'd eat the pen, did you? I wish you wouldn't eat the cosmic cookie when he comes up with these ideas. So then

Moxley gets in and is staggering around like he's, I don't know what he was trying to, I'm sure he's had plenty of practice staggering. And he's obviously trying to back up toward Willow whose back is to him and he backs up into Willow to where he instantly jumps and spins around and grabs her and gives her the DDT

and then looks with the exaggerated, Oh, my God, what did I do? Like Julia Child when she went overboard on the cinnamon in the pastry. It's bleeding further now. I'm starting to get faint. That's for a small but dedicated audience there. And then he rolled out, and it was 20 minutes of this dreck. It's just, and we're not done.

done, they're going to, they're going to try to run people off at the end of the program also, our Dick the Boozer and the Boor Horseman, but your thoughts on this thing here, there. I like that at some point when they were working on this match, it was, I got an idea, we won't just hit one girl, we'll hit both the girls. I mean, you know, I remember when Jake Roberts DDT'd Dark Journey, because she threw like chocolate syrup in his eyes, whatever the fuck it was, Dick Slater was there. And they didn't even pull that off the right way.

Like they got the big pop, but like she went down too quickly. Yeah, I don't know how I feel about like what was clearly the heel DDTing. The crowd reacted very interestingly. What did you think of the crowd reaction to Moxley hitting a woman? Well, they pop for that because they knew that it, you know, that's one of the things that they know they're not supposed to do. Who they did it? I think they would have liked to have seen a live Tijuana donkey show and they'd, you know, it'd be the same kind of pop,

but it's just this show. Can you remember Steve Austin and The Undertaker days before their pay-per-view main event for the world title deciding to pick two young ladies from the fucking diva pool to have the mixed tornado tag with? No, the Undertaker waited a few years for that. well you know if if if michel mccul had been in this i'd like it better oh come on that's a ridiculous statement that's a ridiculous well all right i'll admit that but what's not ridiculous

is what they did next it was just kind of sad tony storm and penelope pit stop and by the way i'm ftr did some stuff in the back where dax and they're reading prepared statements cash is pissed at him. You didn't watch that? I watched it. I just, I don't care. It's... I, you know what? I actually think it may be the most interesting thing FTR's done in a long time. Coming off that... Well, it's not a compliment now. It's not,

but I'm not saying, I'm not saying that in a bad way. Like, coming off that sit-down interview with Cope last week, where Dax... I feel like Dax's personality when he's acting like a heel, comes out a lot better than when he's, you know, Mr. Goody Two-shoes. I well I'm not arguing with that but I think he just came off as bothersome here

I don't know I thought this was good I'm actually not looking forward to the match because I hate copes matches but I'm looking forward to seeing how they're going to do an FTR heel turn well and cash says he's going to have to talk after this thing so they may not be doing it there I don't know what they're doing I don't care anymore but when I told you earlier that they were things on the show that I like. This was one of them. I actually thought this was, you know, FTR, it's the one thing they've been lacking is anything outside the ring. And again, I don't think they'll break them up because why in the world would you do that? But then it's just the whininess. Okay, Dax does the insincere apology, but he's trying to be sincere, but it just

came off as staging, but he apologizes to the referee and he gives him the $10,000, take your wife out to dinner. God damn. I know the economy. he's bad, but that's an expensive fucking dinner. The referee was happy. Certainly he was. And then does the flowery thing, it's not believable verbiage. It doesn't

sound like it's from the heart, which maybe if it was a sarcastic apology to the referee, it'd be one thing, but then he sounds like he's talking to his partner cash and it's not genuine that somebody, he's trying to be genuine talking like somebody

that would really say this to their friend, and it sounds fucking hokey. And, and cash is like, well, we'll win at the pay-per-view, but then after that, we're going to have to talk.

Like instead of, like he, if it was, if they were really boys and he wouldn't just say, what the fuck are you doing? You, we're not going to fucking talk about it

here in front of the camera, but I'm a slap you if you goddamn, it's just, it's, by the way, you got too much money. You're giving a referee $10,000? What the fuck is the matter with you?

It's high school level, shit that they've written for a skit between themselves. That's why I don't like it. And Tony Storm and Penelope pit stop. Yeah. Because I wrote here, Tony Storm isn't a bad worker, but Penelope is. And that's, now here, you know, yes, Tony's over. They're going to give her a win fine.

Penelope is indie level. As far as she doesn't look like she's actually in this. she's doing the moves by the numbers, and she looks like she's studying to try to remember in between or going to the next thing. We talked about not connecting on a major league level with Tony Holm, even when you might look good, but if you don't connect, she's just there.

That's why she can't swim in the big pool, but she's here putting Tony over. And that's what has. happen. And in Swerve, who he does a really over scripted promo, faking concern over Willow's health, and he swears that he's going to find John Moxley and get his hands on him by the end of the night. That's their big cliffhanger. Meanwhile, they put a massage table in a fucking closet. and there's a trainer, Willow's face down on the table, and there's a trainer allegedly attending to her,

and there's, you know, they're standing there concerned, but if you look at the surroundings, the table is in front of a door in the back of this closet, there's no way that door could be open to get in this room with the table there, and on this side, the door to that room is like, within a foot from the edge of the fucking table. So it would literally be just a table in a room the size of a fucking table.

Boy, that DDT really fucked her up a whole lot worse than that table spot did. Well, and that's another thing. Yeah, she took the goddamn power bomb through the table and came back to throw everybody around and win the match. And then she gets DDTed by this fucking idiot and she's in a medically induced coma. So what do you think about the- Anyway, so go ahead. With this segment with swerve in the back,

you know, and they kind of reference it again later, the whole idea Renee's doing these interviews that it's her husband that's doing all these awful things. Yeah, that comes up again later on, but at least she's concerned about the awful things her husband is doing. I wonder, is she going to get some kind of protective order or something? But anyway, then came the other segment,

because when you said there was segments you liked, I could think of one, I couldn't think of too many more, but the continuing evolution of the saga of MJF and MVP, and that's what they did. Unfortunately, Shelton Benjamin, I guess, this was probably a shoot. They had no reason to lie because this is,

Illinois was right where their storms were coming through and Shelton lives in Houston, and that was right where the storms were ending up. So Shelton was not there due to the storms, they said, but MVP and Lashley came out to the ring. And then as Bobby was about to speak, MJF comes out. And there was one point right before he started

where he reacted to something that one of the fans said or did, but we couldn't hear it. And I don't know what to fuck it was. was. Did you catch that or were you paying attention until he started speaking? I caught the moment. I don't know what was said. Yeah, and I caught the reaction, I guess is the better way to put it. Well, yeah, and I wish he wouldn't do that because then it's distracting. But anyway, but you, to be fair, he's used to where you can hear individual people speaking

in AEW crowds. But MJF, he does the big deal where he, in a weasily fashion in his own way. introduces himself to Bobby Lashley and put Bobby over in his own way, but he told Bobby that I know AEW. I can help you and Shelton hold those tag team belts. You can help me get back my AEW world title. That's the whole pitch.

It's just good business. You need MJF. And that's his pitch. And Bobby says how to respect for MVP. I'm not going to leave you laying right now. Jesus Christ, he doesn't like MJF. He doesn't trust him. They don't need him.

And basically, you need to get the hell out of my ring unless you can prove yourself to us. So you mean there's a chance? And MJF reacts to that qualifier. Oh, he kind of snickers. And he leaves the ring. Okay, so we've got something now. where what is what's MJF going to do to try to prove himself to Bobby

Lashley and Shelton Benjamin and MVP still trying to keep the peace amongst everybody that he likes, but at least this was done professionally. It didn't take a half an hour. Everybody seemed serious with what they were doing. And, you know, again, the Hurt Syndicate is one of the only things that people are genuinely reacting to in a positive fashion as far as not just chanting their catchphrase or doing the audience participation shit,

but reacting to the matches as well. They'll say we hurt people, but they react to the matches and they pop to the personalities. So more MJF in with them and less of him playing with children and is a positive at this point for MJF. Is this the other thing you like? Yeah, I really like this. I really like this whole storyline, wherever it's going,

what it's been, the MVP MJF stuff. Last week was great. This week I thought was really good. I wish Shelton was there, but it works that he wasn't. But yeah, I really like this. Again, I said there's a couple things in AEW. They're doing right right now, and I really like it, and nothing's too predictable with these two things.

So I like it. well i'm glad you approved because you know that's the thing brian is that you know a lot of these a lot of these wrestlers in a e w they haven't been grateful for their push yeah they haven't been you know they just sit at home and don't want to say yes to creative the old mero thing and i've you know i've wondered what they're doing sitting at home sometimes tony leaves them there when they want to leave like we've talked about, but other times they just go home and you don't see them anymore.

And I'm wondering what they're doing with their time, right? How are they occupying themselves? And then I realized, Brian, you know why there's been so many people that have just gone home because of bad creative and stayed there and collected Tony Kahn's checks? You know why? No.

Because they are plotting and planning when that contract runs out, they're going to have a business on Shopify. Oh. That's what they're doing. They are setting up for life after Richie Rich when they can no longer have the billionaire boychild financing their life. They're going to actually go out there and they're going to sell their products and services and goods and furs and trappings. you know, it's first season now in the, in the Dakotas. They're trapping raccoons for pelts.

And they're going to put this all, all this stuff on Shopify, like we've done with our new show shirts. They're going to be on the shop app. They're going to be at Shopify.com. Shopify, the number one checkout on the planet, the number one selling platform is going to make these wrestlers rich in their future endeavors. That's why they're all going home because they need time to prepare.

They need time to upgrade their business and get the same checkout that the big boys use and have a major commerce platform where they can convert money from rubles and rhinestones and anything that people want to spend around the world to give you good old-fashioned American cash. That's right in your pocket with Shopify. They need time, Brian. to sign up for the $1 a month trial period at Shopify.com slash JCE, where the people at Shopify can show these disgruntled future ex-wrestlers, how they can still make money with their amazing ideas.

You know, Miro for a while, he was going to sell Bulgarian cinnibuns. Did you know that? But unfortunately, it didn't quite work. It didn't quite work out. He said he was going to glaze himself like he remembered. remember when he was going to glaze me? Okay, well, let's not talk about former threats of assault on you. Let's talk about wonderful ways to assault the wallet of the consumers, Shopify.

Yes, well, you can assault people's wallets. It's just like turning them upside down and shaking them for change, folks. With Shopify on your side, when you walk down the street, people will just, they'll stop in front of you, digging their pockets and throw money at your feet just so that the Shopify people don't have to deal with them. That's the kind of reputation you're going to have around 10. People are going to give you money just so you won't look at them sideways because they know you got Shopify.com on your side.

And once again, a $1 a month trial period at Shopify.com slash JCE to really rake in the dough and upgrade your selling today, Shopify.com slash JCE. dollar a month trial period. That's right. Just like us, we're powered by Shopify, our new store, you can be too.

Shopify.com slash JCE. And you know what? That power doesn't go out in the event of a power failure. Shopify will actually come to your home and they'll hook up this little stationary bicycle thing and this guy, he runs it and that's like on Gilligan's Island,

it revs up this battery that they hooked to it that'll power your whole house. Shopify will not be coming. During a power failure, you don't have to worry about being down and offline and everything like that so you can't sell. There's a lot not to worry about and you don't have to worry about your sales when you partner with Shopify. Once again, Shopify.com slash JCE. Back to you, Jim, as we move on here on your show. Don't worry.

No reason to worry. That guy's been doing this for years. He knows what he's doing. Anyway, then we had Big Bill and Brian Keith beat the team of tits and tainties. McGee. Do you, did you see any finer points in that contest,

Brian? No. Confrontation with a MVP and Lashley and Big Bill and Brian. Well,

it wasn't a confrontation. They looked down their nose at each other on the way to the ring. And at the

paper view, they will be beating them in summary fashion. Too many pronouns, pal.

The hurt syndicate will beat the other fellows. Whether they like it or not probably from what we've seen last week. And then can you explain to me

what in the world was the reasoning why they decided to put their again top baby face as far as I can fucking see from a combination of audience reaction and the fact that he's still young enough to be able to do some of this shit. Will Osprey, along with Kevin Knight making his debut

against Blake Christian and Lee Johnson, they had to go 10 minutes against two job guys. And if you throw in the fact that nobody in a fucker world knows who Kevin Knight is, then that makes three job guys, unknown people. But because, again, they do the cheerleading routines. Does Tony think that this gets somebody over when you put them out there to do all these cartwheels and roundoffs just because they can do it and he doesn't understand that there's a pecking order of talent on his roster and Osprey should not have been in this.

I think Tony thinks why put someone over if they can't have a good match. And this is the first time I've seen Kevin Knight. I've got to say he was impressive. Well, then bring him in and concentrate. on him instead of making him. Oh, but here's the thing. The booking reason behind it was going to be because Osprey

and Kevin Knight are going to wrestle each other Sunday on the pay-per-view in the Owen Hart tournament. So that naturally meant they would be tag team partners tonight. They're going to wrestle each other in a tournament on pay-per-view on Sunday, and that means that Kevin Knight, who got the win here, will do a job in his second fucking match

match in the company. That's what the... They just assume that if you're a great wrestler in their eyes, great, I'm sorry, then you should be just moved right into this spot, and it doesn't matter whether you win or lose because everybody already knows you're a great wrestling. And then people beat the shit out of you. Samoa Joe was still playing with children in the back. There's that.

They had a match, Brian, between Brody King and Lance Archer. Even the losers get lucky sometimes. Because all these guys have done on television is lose, so naturally they would have a fight, and the ultimate loser was decided when after plotting along for a while, I don't know whether they fucked something up and just said, fuck it or whether this was just what they had intended to do, but Brody King just clotheslined him and covered him one, two, three. Did I miss anything there that needed to be brought

to anyone's attention? I missed it too. This was one of two matches on this show. I was just like, you know, I already know I'm not going to like this match. I have no interest in seeing this match. In this case, I didn't. I didn't watch the match. Sorry. But even the losers hit the key sometimes. Well, now we were ready for the main event. Notice I said not the last thing on the show, but the main event. Edge versus Claudio Castignoli, I didn't think I'd ever say this, what, three years ago when I was still a fan of Claudios before he's done all the things he'd done over the last three years.

But Jesus Christ, I, they had eight. minutes left in the show. So I figured this can't run over. They can't be doing an overrun. But at the same time, at this point, with the weather and the, the frayed nerves and the amount of wrestling of not a good description that I'd watched,

I say, you know what, I'm skipping ahead of the finish. And I'll just see what happens and who's going to run in or whatever. And I got till two minutes till 10 and they were still going. I assume you didn't fast forward this because you watched things while they're happening. Was this as long as it apparently must have been? This was a combination of my two least favorite things. Cope and Claudio. They both bore the hell out of me.

Their matches don't do it for me. Claudio, I'm sorry. Anyone who wants to tell me, oh, his European uppercut looks great. It looks like shit. It looks like he's smacking his... shoulder into your upper chest and you just sit back and take it. It doesn't look good and he's non-stop doing it. His matches are boring as fuck.

He's got no personality. His whole personality is tied to Moxley and that's death, quite literally. And then Cope, who just has long matches that never fucking end. The fans will be excited and he'll sing his music when he comes out and then they like go to sleep standing up. It's like he has sleepwalking matches where he causes the fans that like go into a walking coma. That's called somnambulism. Yeah, I hated it. I didn't, didn't like this at all. These guys are the most boring guys. If you get past, like, again, you know, some guys have a cult of personality

and some people want to remember Edge back in the day, point me to the last thing he did that was good. Jesus, I don't want to see him wrestle anymore. And I don't want to see Claudio needs to go home. Just, I'm sorry. Get him off TV. The Death Rider stuff. Don't even send him to ring of honor you know what we've done all we can go home i'm sorry we've done all we can we can't do anymore i would like to remember that edge retired after his employment in the wwee that's the way i'd like to remember him and i'd like to remember claudio was his chris hero's tag team partner when he was full of him and vigor about 10 or 12 years ago and terrible nevertheless uh so they went until two minutes till 10 and finally

Claudio got a chair, got two chairs and put one under Edge who couldn't just roll over away from it. But then the referee took the other chair away and while he was throwing that out, Edge hit Claudio with a nutshot and speared him one, two, three and right then is when my DVR froze. But I know there's always got to be an overrun.

so I had recorded modern family. Oh, good. So go to that and, you know, Edge celebrates and he's defeated Claudio. And then Renee Moxley Good was in the back trying to get a word with the guy that was looking for her husband to kill him, Swerve Strickland. And swerved has said, I'm sorry, Renee. can't talk to you right now, I'm looking for your husband. And then he just starts walking down the hall. And the camera's following him.

And then suddenly behind him at the end of the hall, he just came from through the curtain comes hang nail Adam Page. And he's, yeah, hey, stop, hold on here. And as Paige comes up to swerve, and they start yelling at each other, all of a sudden like half a dozen security guys dressed in black run through the same curtain, and it looked like eighth grade hall monitors.

I mean, yes, they're the indie outlaw boys that they get in every town, but they were exceptionally unintimidating looking, that you would be concerned, if they were working security amongst kindergartners. And they got around, three of them got a round page, three of them got around swerve,

and they all bent over so they wouldn't be blocking the guys or blocking the camera shot. And they gave, they gave them Tony Khan like hugs around their waist and remained motionless. Looking up out of the corner of their eyes. and with the frozen hands. This is a phoniest fucking thing.

I couldn't take my eyes off these guys in these unnatural positions. It looked like one guy was doing the fucking pose for a goddamn, is he going to give him a blowjob or not? That pose. That pose. You see it all the time. And there's swerve and page yelling at each other and pointing the fingers and then

Paige says Well no No that's right Now who burned who Paige yeah Page is I burned your house down And Swirv said I deserved it

No that's no way It was How was it How did the who did what to who Adam Page said you came into my Swar said he did what he did And then he said you came into my family You deserved it

And Swirv said I know and that kind of stopped Adam Page. That's right. You burned my house down and Paige said, you deserved it. And Hensworth said, I know. And then suddenly when he said, I know, I deserved, I did something that deserved you burning my house down.

But when he said, I know, then suddenly, all the security instantly let go also because that was their cue. They instantly just let go and looked up like, oh, now they're not going to fight. And then the sun came out. The clouds went away. Oh, God, damn it was that simple. Who knew you could end it that simply?

And that's when, when Paige said, what did you say? And he looked at him, and then Paige, like, ran off. Like, oh, my God. And he ran off. And the security guys leave. And then Dick the boozer and the boor horsemen all jump swerve. Peekaboo. they start beating him up and I said my God now they're taking him to the ring

the show's not over it's going to get worse where security they were probably making sure the page had everything he needed to get out of the building because again suddenly they just they had five six security guys there for when these guys are yelling at each other and then when they stop yelling at each other they just disappear and now there's five people actually gang fucking assaulting. This one guy and there's nobody. And swerve has it. Where's Nana?

Nana was with fucking Willow earlier. But he's there. Does swerve have any friends? Is there any more security? Is there any more referees? They all five take swerve to the ring. And nobody is trying to help. and they get the boring heat that they always get

where they just hold the guy and Moxley's just doing his fucking weird wiggle and trash talking him and then they get a fucking bucket of what is purported to be broken glass and they pour the broken glass in the middle of the ring and power bombs swerve into it and then swerve as they get

out and leave swerve laying there swerve sits up so that they can see the camera the idea is he gets up and he actually stands up and he starts laughing so they can see that they have not injured him by

power bombing him into broken glass but when he sits up and from then on all the bullshit glass is stuck to his back there's not a drop of blood one again whatever the substances were that the spikes in the bat were made out of. They did stick in his fucking skin.

This had to be phony glass because there was not a drop of blood. He was not cut. He was not stuck. But it was all sticking to him. But here's the problem. Either, either, you've got two choices here. People can think it's fake, glass and look it's sticking to him but it didn't cut him it's all fake or they can think it's

real glass and look he's a what a stupid motherfucker that is he just let that guy power bomb him into real broken glass either you're a stupid bad faker or you're just a stupid moron that let somebody do something like that to you in front of this audience and in front of most audiences today one of those two things. What about option three? You think some guy said, this mox is a moron, I'm going to sell him a bunch of sugar cane glass.

Now that might be, if you're in the fucking sugar glass industry, but it's just, it's outlaw horseshit that appeals to freaks and idiots and people who want to laugh at the phoniness of this and these people. And that's why

it has a limited audience and it always will, and that's why where they are now with nobody over and the people basically having a few people that they're interested in and the rest of it is just watching stupid people do stupid things to each other. And this was another example of that. What do you think should happen in the title match, Swerve and we just previewed it,

I know, but now we just saw these hot things happening here on the show. And of course, Renee still hasn't turned heel, so there's always that. It changes nothing about what we, we said because they still haven't paid this is they got a stadium and for better or for worse nobody is is ready in a position to take this fucking thing off of moxley whether just by bad booking on purpose or bad booking by accident there's no there's no there's no for as much time and effort as they put in this thing there's no huge blow off on the horizon where you could oh my god it's the rock in austin they're finally going to collide

or there's nothing of that and this is another one of the monthly paper views where they're going to have a bunch of monthly matches amongst people, it looked like they're on their monthlies. Maybe they could do like a Cincinnati Jimmy Garvin precious sunshine thing where up a sudden Marina gets ditched for Moxley's actual wife.

Well, you know, I wish that Jerry Springer was still with us because he was the mayor of Cincinnati. you know yeah heck of a town you know why he had to leave politics in Cincinnati was it a sex scandal yes but specifically

they found out that he he paid for a hooker with a check so he actually signed basically signed a receipt to the fucking hooker while he was mayor of Cincinnati what did he put in the memo I don't know but a lot of people got to memo

Anyway, not a lot of people got this memo, but how many people watched this program, Brian, here this week on the cable now, not on Max? We know that only Uncle Dave can Dave explain that. Well, Jim, we do have the ratings, and of course, AWD dynamite, Wednesday, April 2nd, 2025, from 8 to 106 p.m. On average, watched by 594,000 viewers.

Ouch, that's going back in the other direction. Now, to be fair, that's not counting half a million people on max. So it's actually a 1,094,000 viewer Wednesday. So what you're saying is this program that used to get a million people a few years back for their major events, now gets about 600,000, that those people stopped watching and they were just wait. until that the show could get on a streaming service, and then they all jumped back in all at the same time. That seems to be the only likely story,

but let's go to the breakdown here. According to Ressalonomics, among primetime telecasting cable for the key demo 18 to 49, Dynamite rank 5 or 6, depending on if you count the late NBA game on ESPN. So that's that note. Well, that's good to know. 10% down from last week at 6.63, 7% off the trailing four-week average of 637.

Again, they've had some good numbers for them the last few weeks. Now, hey, somebody's going to bring it up. A lot of us were under the pool table during the last part of this telecast. That could have affected things. What time? Approximately what time? Approximately what time would that have been? Well, come to think of it. Let's see.

Did we get under the pool table by 10? It was after 10 o'clock we were under the pool tape. But there were storms going on. Some people could have gone early. Let's go to the quarterly numbers. These were compiled by WrestleMania. Quarter 1, 8 to 8.15 p.m., swerve Strickland and Willow Nightingale versus the Death Riders,

with picture and picture, 768,000 viewers. Ouch, okay, starting that big. and ending up with that average, they're, uh, they're going to slalom again tonight. I go to quarter two, 815, 8.30 p.m. The continuation of swerve and Willow versus John and Marina and the post match with women going down.

The FTA... Hey! In injury. FTR... Oh. You are a pervert. Well! Oh, will you let me say something.

FTR's backstage angle and an ad break. Hey, 626,000 viewers. Oh, sweet Nelly. So, the Dick the boozer and his mixed tag team tornado extravaganza ran off 142,000 people in the first 15 minutes. I'll have a shot of sweet Nellie.

That's got a quarter 3, 830 at 8.45 p.m. Tony Storm versus Penelope Ford with picture and picture the post match with Megan Bain the swerve Strickland Willow Nightingale Women going down I don't know about that here but Swerve Strickland and Willow Nightingale

backstage in the closet with the table in the closet and Willow was face down and an ad break 500 597,000 viewers. Oh, going down, down, down. I'm going down. There's another 20,000,

29,000 more making a total of 171,000 in the first 45 minutes. They have to come back up at some point to make their average. That's what I said in opposite. At the start, they've got to go down to make their average. Now they've got to come back up to make their average. Well, we got a quarter four. 8.45 to 9 p.m.

The MJF. Hurt Syndicate angle and then the Learning Tree, live angle, it says. The Learning Tree versus C.J. Espaza and Gage Noonan. Noonan! Noon! The post-match with the Hurt Syndicate, Mercedes-Money, and Harley Cameron's backstage angle.

571,000 viewers. why maybe they've invented new math and they don't have to come back up now they've lost uh fucking hold on to uh 197000 people and i don't have a direct source i can cite to you or any real proof or anything but i just want to let you know that from what i understand they held 500,000 throughout the entire show no up or down on max on max over there well those people there but but no one knows, but I don't know either. Well, they have the technology.

If you get up from the TV screen, they send you an electric shock. Well, let's see what kind of a shock we get here. We go to the big 9 o'clock hour, quarter 5, 9 to 9.15 p.m. Blake Christian and Lee Johnson versus Kevin Knight and Will Osprey with picture and picture

566,000 viewers. Good Lord! and there's another 5,000 gone at the top of the hour. Where I... This is looking very, very odd in this pattern. How are they going to get their average now? We're going to go to quarter six, 915 to 9.30 p.m. The continuation of...

Oh, no, I guess the match is over. The Kevin Knight-Will-Osprey Live Angle, the ops, backstage promo, an ad break, and the start of Lance Archer versus Brody King with picture and picture 542,000 viewers. Now they're officially down 226,000 people from the start of the program.

We go now to quarter 7, 9.30 to 9.45 p.m. The continuation of Lance versus Brody, an ad break, and the start of Claudio v. cope. I couldn't cope with that match. 613,000 viewers.

Wow! So, whether you can cope or not, that is 58, 60, 71,000 people came back and you can't tell me it was

you know, for the fucking backstage pre-tapes or whatever, they're still somewhat interested in Edge as a former star. I don't know about that. We go to quarter 8, 9.45 to 10 p.m. a reminder, we have a six-minute overrun. Claudio versus Cope, with picture and pitcher

continued. 519,000 viewers. Oh, okay. Well, they were interested at the start. They were interested in his song. So, let me get this straight. Suddenly... Oh, by the way, six-minute overrun. Swerve, Adam Page, Death Rider's Live Angle, 461. Oh, my God.

That's the biggest loss ever for an overrun. That's 30, 49, almost 60,000 people. Yeah. But here's the thing. They suddenly add 71,000 people for the start of the match. And for the end of the match, they lose 90,000. 4,000 of them they go to the lowest point

ever. How would how does that correlate to oh, we're really interested in seeing the first part of this but God damn it we don't want to see any more. They did the third best quarter and the best one since the first 30 minutes of the program and followed that

with the worst quarter of the entire show until the overrun. Well, there you have. And the other thing too, and I've criticized them in the past for not doing show. long things. They did it here and it didn't connect. The idea of Swerb was going to get his hands on Moxley by the end of the show. No one stayed around to see that.

That's the thing. They thought, okay, we got rid of Moxley. Oh, God, they're threatening us. He's going to be back. You know, I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. Another stellar week of AEW Dynamite, I'm sure we'll hear another spin this week about the rosy numbers on Max. Well, and as the rain has begun to fall again over here, Brian, why don't you tell the people what's going on this week at the Arcadian Vanguard Network Studios? Oh, well, thank you very much and good luck with the rain.

Of course, every single day, get the wrestling news for free from the wrestling news.com or wherever you find your favorite podcast, all the wrestling news, everything that happens, no matter where it happens, with no opinion, no conjecture, no star ratings, no paywall, just the wrestling news. Wherever you find your favorite podcast. Of course, want to make mention of Stick the Wrestling with John McAdam. Last few episodes have a great looks back in 1985. 40 years ago, I believe we just reviewed an episode of TBS Wrestling

from right before when you got there. Here are today, makeadampod.com. So it's got nowhere to go but up. Or look for Stick to Wrestling with John McAdam, wherever you find your favorite podcast. And of course, the 605 Super Podcast. The Mothership! Go through the Archive-605Pod.com

And of course for Arcadian Vanguard to get information every day on Twitter at Super Podcasts or on Facebook, facebook.com slash Arcadian Vanguard and I'm on all the social media stuff. And anyone who complains that, hey, I want to see some of the programs from guest to program or anything,

I put them up. I'm on Instagram, on Twitter. They're there. So that's that. Yeah. Yeah. Who are these troublemakers? They are faceless, nameless people.

I think it may be bots. Nattering nabobbs of negativity. You put these things out. I retweet many of the things that you Twitter to begin with. So together we've tweeted them all over the place. It's their fault for not following us. Naybots. Of course, if they do start following us,

we might have to call the law enforcement. All right, speaking of guests the program and all that other stuff, before we go today, we did guess the program the other day. And I got the place right on numerous of them, but I missed every single year. And I've asked you for a rematch. I want to go two out of three here to see if today I can get two out of three years correct on these fucking things.

And I guess now you're to further fuck with me, you're probably going to give me some kind of really exotic, unheard of off brand kind of stuff. But I'm going to try this here today. I don't think today will be easy for you, my friend. I think today's going to be a rough one. Of course, guess the program. I go through programs in my collection, and I quiz Jim on them.

He guesses, to the best of his ability, the territory, the building, the location, the date, the timekeeper, and the ring announcer. Jim, this... Joe Mickey! Jim, this first one here.

The opening bout, Dandy Donovan versus Pretty Pat Patterson. Okay, that would be Dandy Jack Donovan and pretty Paterson. An interesting opening match between what I assume from the time period of this would be two heels mostly, but we will see what happened. Go ahead.

The second preliminary, and by the way, both matches in the preliminaries one fall 15-minute time limit, Stan Stasiak versus Patty Barrett. we have a special tag team event two out of three falls 45 minute time limit Bob Boyer and Chief White Wolf versus Louis Talley

and Jean Telet depending on how you like to pronounce it everyone has a different one Gene Jean Telet that's interesting a special event one fall to a

finish, no TV. Baby Cheryl versus Doll Page. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha no TV on that one is gonna be too wild folks. All right, go ahead. And finally, the main event, two out of three falls, 90 minute time limit for the world's heavyweight championship. Louis Fez, the world's champion versus Dr. Big Bill Miller. Boy, howdy. Okay, where do we start here?

Orange is going to be a tough one. Dandy Jack Donovan was a southern, bleached blonde, southern heel. At one point, his wife, Vern Bottoms. That's right. She had one. Was his manager. She wrestled, too. She wrestled too.

Danny Jack Donovan was the one that got in the shoot fight. with Tojo in Louisville and they beat him up in the Jerry Jarrett, Jackie Fargo and Tojo beat him up in the TV studio in Nashville the next day before they, well, he didn't have to fire him. He left the territory. But in the opening match against Pat Patterson, Donovan was, you know, not always used as a major star, but this would be early in Pat's career. And pretty Paterson was one of his very early gimmicks. Stan Stajak at this time would have been an early

early in his career journeyman type of heel he would later on be the transitional champion for the WWWF in between Pedro and Bruno he's wrestling Patty Barrett is Irish Pat Barrett who had runs in a variety of places

was a tag team champion in the WWWF, but was big for Leroy McGirk as a single in a 70s. Louis Tillett was obviously behind the scenes he was known as a great Booker for some of the Southern territories.

He was a wrestler. Also, Gene Talette, is this one of those Rocket Flash Monroe type of things? Would that have been Gene Dundee? There's a picture of him here, but I don't know, so I can't comment. one way or the other. I don't know who Gene Tillett would have been. Chief White Wolf

are, you know, this puts it in the 60s anyway or for reasons of the main event that we're going to talk about. And Bob Boyer would later on become Bobby Bold Eagle and have a Indian gimmick, but he was Italian as Bob Boyer. The no TV match, baby Cheryl and Doll Page, they're female midgets. Baby Cheryl and Honeygirl Paige was her name in the 70s, but I think Doll Page was her first working name. And obviously, two out of three falls 90 minutes for the world heavyweight title, Thess versus Dr. Big Bill Miller, that puts this in between 1963 and 1966 because of

as his last NWA world title reign, and Bill Miller was a big, no pun intended, a big name in the Midwest, Ohio, Michigan, sometimes toward the northeast at that point in time, and was a world title contender. And he was a doctor because he was a licensed veterinarian, and he was from Columbus, Ohio. and God damn it. At first I was thinking, well, Paterson early territories, where would he and Donovan have been?

The Indians and Bill Miller makes me think it might be Ohio. And it wouldn't be out of the way for Thess to be defending there. But at the same time, I don't remember Patterson or Donovan. or is it Pittsburgh? Or am I way off? Could it be... It wouldn't be Indianapolis.

Oh, God damn it. Columbus, Ohio, 1965. The date, Monday evening, October 14th, 1963, the Northside Coliseum, Fort Worth, Texas. Fort Worth, Texas. of a bitch, Pat Patterson in the opening match in the Texas territory in 1963. I'll read you what it says about that match in a moment, but considering what he thought of things,

what do you think Luthaz thought about having his match at Dr. Big Bill Miller right after the one fall right after the OTV women's midget match? Female midgets, yeah. Probably was not one of his nights he'd like to remember. that uh so honey girl page i saw her 12 years later she looked like of just a young thing but uh i'd love to know who jean telet was at that point but yeah okay so i i fuck the i'm trying to get the years right and at least before i was getting the locations i got both of these wrong all right d jack faces pretty patterson in the second of two prelimin

Bounderite next Monday night at the Northside Coliseum, Dandy Jack Donovan will take a fling at Pretty Paterson, and this one should be a dandy. Pretty Pat is after prestige, and he figures that a good way to get it is to defeat the likes of Donovan. The dainty Boston Grappler with the mink jacket, the dark glasses, and the beret, not to mention the long cigarette holder,

is a lot tougher than he appears. to be when adorned with all the trappings of a and then it says a question mark in parentheses, dandy. But pretty pet may also find out that dandy jack is tougher than he expects. The odds are he will find Donovan plenty rough. So there we go, Texas.

This next one, Jim, should I be easy on you? Oh, now, you don't have to, once again, you don't have to just torture me, but you don't have to give me a give me either. The opening contest, one fall, 15-minute time limit. Vic Christie versus George Hagan. Lord. The second contest, one-fall, 15-minute time limit,

Pete Shue versus Glenn Wade. And by the way, there's an old timer I've been seen his name more often, and his last name was at you. So his middle, his nickname was Sneeze. Walter Sneeze at you. The next contest, one fall 30 minute time limit. Sammy Stein versus Teddy Tiny Roebuck.

The next contest, best two out of three falls. Gus Sonnenberg versus Hal Rumburg. And finally, the final contest, best two out of three falls. Jim Browning versus Ed Strangler Lewis. You son of a bitch. All right. Well, Vic Christie was brothers with Ted Christie, the Christie brothers.

And their heyday was probably late 40s, 50s, but this was earlier than that. I have no idea who the second match was. Sam Stein and Tiny Roebuck, old-timers. Gus Sonnenberg was the fucking world champion in what, 1937? No, it was before that. He was involved in one of the double crosses.

I have no idea who his opponent was. And Jim Browning and Ed Lewis again, two of the top stars of the 30s were Strangler Lewis, one of the top stars of all time. But when you've said Vic Christie, my first thought was to go. to California because they were both brothers worked out there quite a bit and were over, but that was in the 40s, and this can't be that late.

With Browning, Sonnenberg, and Lewis on the card, again, there's no way to determine with any certainty a location here. So I'm going to say somewhere in the, no, God damn it. Are you fucking with me? Could this be one of the later New York shows before they left the garden? Or is this, um, uh, 1939 in, in California? Any place? It's a big state.

Any place in, uh, specifically? Well, God, it's not as, it wasn't as big back then. Um, the Olympic auditorium in Los Angeles. All right, well, the location, the Olympic Auditorium. Son of a bitch. Lou Darrow presents wrestling. John Jay... Carnation, that's carnation Lou Darrow to you.

John J. Doyle, Leasey. And here is, uh... Yeah, this is from the Olympic, and what's interesting, I just added this to my collection. It came... It's a card that was folded up, and it was in an envelope. It's a post-date of Beverly Hills, California, June 8th, 19th, 3rd. 33, 3 p.m. to someone

named Harry Heidel, and it's a letter from his friend. He does not attach a name. But at the very end here, went to a wrestling show last night with a bunch. You should see the crowd. Over 10,000 people were there. Show the enclosed program to Irvin. So I got the place again, and I was still

way off on the year. But 10,000 people in the Olympic Auditorium in the Middle of the Great Depression. Well, again, as reported by Harry or Harry's friend to tell to Irving, so I don't know. Well, but God damn it, it wasn't 2000. All right. You ready for this next one? I guess.

You're doing good. Yeah, you're doing good. The first bout, Wayne Martin versus Billy Rayburn, a special added attraction. Tuffy Truesdale. Oh, by the way, this is one fall, no time limit. Tuffy Trewsdale versus a three. 388 pound alligator. Ha ha ha ha.

A tag team bout. Wild Bill Longson and Ali Pasha versus Ray Eckert and Frank Taylor two out of three falls 90 minute time limit. And finally, the other half of the double main event, two out of three falls, 90 minute time limit. Angelo Savaldi versus Johnny Balbo. All right.

Wayne Martin, I remember that name for some reason, and that's about it. Tuffy Truesdale, wrestling the alligator, that was his, that Tuffy Truesdale was a wrestler that worked preliminaries in a variety of places for years, but he trained bears and alligators. And he either at various points had a wrestling alligator or a wrestling bear.

Wild Bill Longson and Ray Eckers, being in the tag team match puts us definitely, I think, in the 1940s. And did this come from the Ray Eckert estate collection? I've got some programs that he had and then a mutual friend of ours. I won't mention his name. Sent me a couple of scrapbooks that he made of clippings and et cetera. But there's a lot of stuff going around from Ray Eckert's collection, old Memphis programs, of which I'm wondering if this might be.

be one of them because they didn't have wrestling alligators in St. Louis. Ali Pasha doesn't tell me much and Angelo Civoli and Johnny Balbo. Balbo should tell me something but I'm slipping in my old age. God damn it.

Would this be in 1952 somewhere in Oklahoma or Missouri. The date Monday night, April 16th, 1951. Memphis, Tennessee, you had it.

Memphis, son of a bitch. I should have known. I should have known to go with my first thought, but I'm like, no, it doesn't seem like a Memphis card, but this was early in the 50s before the Nashville booking office took over, and talent mostly came out of the St. Louis office besides the Alligators. That's right. All right, give me a moment.

I didn't get two out of three, but can I get one? Well, I'll give you one more. I'm trying to, I've got a stack of programs here. I'm trying to find the right one. Trying to make me either look worse than I already do or not look as bad as I have been. No, I'm trying to make you look good. I want you to look good.

This is your show. This is your show. Don't forget that. Yeah, yeah, I put all the blame on me. All right, hold on. I think it may be over here. There we go. All right.

is an interesting card. This is a flyer for the card. This is not the actual program. All right. The opening bout Mr. Wrestling 2 versus Les Thornton. Ooh. Bout two, Tiger Conway Jr. versus Playboy Buddy Rose. Ivan Putzky

versus Terry Gibbs. In a ladies match, Wendy Richter versus Judy Martin for a title I won't name Greg Valentine versus Tito Santana and the main event

Andre the Giant and Black Jack Mulligan versus Big John Stud and Ken Patera. All righty so I guess I can't complain because this is not as obscure as the stuff from back in the

stone age but this is obviously a WWF event, and it's obviously right after the expansion started. Wrestling 2 was there briefly, as was Les Thornton, when events after Black Saturday, he absorbed the Georgia office. There are two of the only guys that went.

Tiger Conway Jr., I didn't remember him being there and Buddy Rose not at that period of time. so I'm wondering if that has something to do with them potentially living in the area Putzky and Terry Gibbs Terry Gibbs was God damn he had a thing going on with the with uh at one point with um he was a military man what was the deal going on there I don't know Terry Gibbs was one of the privates for slaughter wasn't he Terry Daniels you're not going to give me anything huh Terry Daniels what you're talking

about Terry Daniels you're talking about Terry Daniels not Terry Gibbs. I'm sorry, okay, different guy. Wendy Richter and Judy Martin, Greg Valentine and Tito would be for the Intercontinental title, and Andre and Blackjack Stud and Petera, so it's a WWF show. It has to be either 1984 or 1985. And with Andre and Blackjack Stud and Patera, could this, with wrestling two and Thornton on the show,

would it be in the Omni? Because he was trying to appeal to some of those fans. With Tiger Conway, I'm wondering, is it Dallas, or with Buddy Rose, is it Portland? Let's go with the Omni in Atlanta, and it's very late in 1984. Ooh, I'm going to give you that one,

December 8th, excuse me, December, I can't even say it. Friday, December 28th, 1984. Aha! The World Wrestling Federation makes its debut in the Big D State Fair Coliseum, Dallas, Texas. All right.

What do you think of this show being the WWF debut in Dallas? Well, it appears to me that they just had to fill a place in betwixt and between and knew that they weren't going to do that well. Because they didn't do that well in their initial forays into the world-class territory, the Mid-South territory or Tennessee or the Carolinas. They did do well in Louisville, surprisingly, but not in Memphis. Well, I have here, this is part of the,

this is almost like a split from the files. This is part of the Eloise Mascara file. Is that how you pronounce her last name? Mascoro, I believe it was. She was going back to the, well, I don't know how long she went back with Dallas wrestling, but in the 70s, she was the biggest Von Erick fan in the world and was still a lady in her 60s at that point.

The WWF made it to Dallas finally last Friday the 28th of December, holding their matches at the State Fair of Texas Coliseum where the horse shows are held. In the write-up on Saturday the 29th, the Dallas Morning News, it stated about 2,000 watched the WWS first program. Seven events were listed. The main event, Andre the Johnson, and Blackjack Mulligan defeated Ken Patera and Bobby Heenan.

In the TV announcements from WWF prior to the date, it was announced that John Studd and Paterra would meet Andre and Mulligan. Also, women's champion Wendy Richter would meet Judy Martin for the title, but the paper listed fabulous Mula pinned Judy Martin. Greg Valentine won versus Tito Santana by DQ because Santana slugged the referee. The write-up also mentioned Johnny Valentine attended to watch his son Greg. I only know of one family that are regulars at the Sportatorium who attended.

They promised to bring me a program if they had them to sell. The WWF show that I watched Saturday said they would be coming back to Dallas on Thursday the 17th of January. Our crowd Friday night was near a full house, and the weather was far from good. Excuse me. She writes in a cursive here. Not cold, but rainy and muddy.

We do need some sunshine very badly. There is no way I can manage going to watch wrestling cards from a financial standpoint. Wait, is that what she said? There is no way I can manage going to watch wrestling cards from a financial standpoint. point. I still miss going to Fort Worth. I don't know what the next word is. I still miss going to Fort Worth Monday night for the card, but I must have, I must have within my income. Again, I may be missing. Yeah, and she was an older lady at this point, but what, I think she always went to the matches in

Fort Worth on Monday nights. That was her regular thing. And then she obviously would go to the sportatorium in the heyday, but I think as she retired and got older, she had to watch out the money she was spending the trip she was making. But now, here's the thing. This was December, what, 28th, 1984? That's exactly right. Do you know another reason why they only had 2,000 people? That was three days after the Star Wars Christmas Night Reunion Arena show. I have that right here. I have the have our debut in Dallas. We did a hundred and, $88,000 and 18,000 people. I have right here the full-page newspaper,

the Dallas Morning News, Wednesday, December 26, 1984. On the front here is Star Wars. Flair keeps world title on DQ. When is a winner? Not a winner. Kerry Von Erick knows. Tuesday night at Reunion Arena. In the Star Wars, Von Erick defeated world champion Rick Flair.

But Flair, the 33-year-old champion of the National Wrestling Alliance, is still the champion. However, NWA officials in attendance said Flair has abused the disqualification rule and that Von Erick will get another shot at the title. The match will take place in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in the next two weeks, and the disqualification rule will be waived. Flair has a move to counter any wrestling hold 18 minutes and 20 seconds into the title match He came up with a bute

For the Iron Claw A hold that has made the Von Erick wrestling clan successful Flair his forehead bloodied Threw Von Erick over the top rope While Von Erick had the claw on Flair's skull The result was a disqualification Which ensures the champion will remain the champion, the World Belt cannot exchange hands on a disqualification.

Here's a quote from Kerry von Erick. I felt ready to go, and I was strong out there tonight. When I took that spill over the ropes, it really hurt. It was an uncoordinated type of fall that I couldn't break with my hands. I'm just glad I'm going to get another shot at the title, that's for sure. I've only known the NWA to waive the disqualification rule on two instances in a world match. that's what it says in a world match. The first was when I won the title,

and this will be the second. The outcome was an especially bitter pill for Von Erick to swallow. Von Erick had... Oh, God, that's a bet. Oh, my God. Von Erick had pinned Flair for the required three count,

but referee David Manning hadn't noticed Flair's leg on the top of the rope until after the count. The match already 14 minutes long continued. Here's more from Kerry. There's a mental letdown after that occurs. When you hear that three count on the mat,

the first thing you do is check to see if everything is okay. I didn't see his foot on the rope until after the third count. I guess we'll find out on the videotape. One minute later, Von Erick applied the claw for the first time. Flair hurled Von Erick into the turnbuckle. However, three minutes later, Vonn Eric came back with the claw before Flair disqualified himself.

Linerick dominated the first eight minutes of the match before Flair seized an opportunity on the ropes. The battle went back and forth from there with each wrestler gaining three two counts on pin attempts. This is amazing the way the newspaper is writing about this fucking match. Yeah, well, they gave them the details and they went with it,

because wrestling was so over at that point. But think about this. Also, what I popped when they said, the WWF was coming back on January 17th. This is a town. Fritz was running Dallas at the Sportatorium every Friday night, seated 5,000 people, and in that era, we were filling it up more often than not.

And then every Monday night in Fort Worth at the Will Rogers Coliseum, plus the Thanksgiving Star Wars at Reunion Arena, the Christmas Star Wars at Reunion Arena, and the end of January, 1985, was going to be the special show at the Tarrant County Convention Center in Fort Worth, which was another 10,000,000-seat building.

And the WWS trying to come in and run the Fair Park Coliseum and getting two, no wonder they couldn't draw. World class was still hot, and they were all over the fucking market. So, yeah, go ahead. This article here from the paper, by the way, this is by Stan Hoveter Jr., photos by William Snyder. In another main event, Kevin Von Erich came off the mat twice, once after a pile driver,

defeating gentleman Chris Adams in a lumberjack match, in which other wrestlers on the car gathered around the ring, making sure neither wrestler left the ring. Von Erick, who had split with Adams in two previous matches, was pinned twice for a two-count, before bucking his way out of Adams' pin. Following the pile driver, which had Adams turning Von Erick upside down and dropping him on his head,

Adams paraded around the ring before going to the turnbuckle. Adams' attempt to jump off the turnbuckle was thwarted, when Vonera dashed off the mat, grabbed Adams, and threw him onto the rope, into the rope, excuse me. Both men fell to the floor, and Vonera covered Adams for the pinfall at the five-minute mark. Here's a quote from Kevin. Hey, don't sell old Kev short. I shouldn't do the voice.

Don't sell old Kev short. It didn't hurt me that bad. He held me in the air too long, and I shifted my weight to make the impact. a glancing blow. That's a hell of a way to describe. Not getting killed by a pile driver. But man, that kind of coverage. And by the way, I guess I'll read the results real quick because you're on it.

Jose Lothario defeated El Diablo, Rip Oliver, defeated Iceman King Parsons. Kelly Kineski defeated Buck Zumhoff. Mike Von Erick and Billy Jack. Defeated Gino Hernandez and Jake the Snake. For the American Tag Team Championship, the Fantastics. Defeated the Midnight Express. 13 minutes, 10 seconds, lumberjack match, Kevin defeated Chris Adams, five minutes, five minute lumberjack match.

And finally, for the NWA world title, Kerry Von Erick defeated Rick Flair via disqualification. And there you have it. And have you had enough yet? Oh, I mean, you're doing so well. I have more programs here if you want to keep it. That's all right. I think I've been drubbed enough for one day. I got one here with a link in it, I think.

Well, just make sure it was at Ford's Theater. I know how that one came out. I know the finish. We are going to come back in a couple of days with your program, the drive-through, where we're going to talk about more of the WWE wrestling. And, of course, we also have the big AEW pay-per-view coming up, as well as dark side of the ring. And holy mackerel, WrestleMania is right around the corner.

So the people are just going to have to listen to every show we do from now on to make sure they don't get left out, right? That's right. There's a lot going on. And of course, we have a lot of shows coming out. You left off the fact that the Rock will probably pop off anytime soon. He needs some attention. But stay tuned, a lot happening, and we have a lot to talk about. That sounds like a good name for a Russian wrestler, Rock Popov. All right, I'm going to pop off of here right now. If there's nothing else we need to do here, I'm done with you. Thank you, folks. Fuck you. And bye-bye, everybody.