Jim Cornette Experience - Episode 579: Stars, Superstars, and Rocks

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

This week on the Experience, Jim talks about WWE's Rock problem, Dave Meltzer's star ratings for WrestleMania 41, Los Angeles history, and more! Plus Jim reviews AEW Dynamite and Dark Side Of The Ring's Superstar Billy Graham episode, listener mail & more!  Thanks to our episode sponsors: CORNBREAD HEMP:  Save on your first order! Just head to cornbreadhemp.com/jce and use code JCE at checkout. SHOPIFY:  Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/jce Follow Jim and Brian on Twitter: @TheJimCornette @GreatBrianLast Join Jim Cornette's College Of Wrestling Knowledge on Patreon to access the archives & more! https://www.patreon.com/Cornette Subscribe to the Official Jim Cornette channel on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/OfficialJimCornette Visit Jim's official site at www.JimCornette.com for merch, live dates, commentaries and more! You can listen to Brian on the 6:05 Superpodcast at 605pod.com or wherever you find your favorite podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Like the midnight and the rock and roll. He's in a fight for wrestling soul using a racket and some mind control. He's Jim Connett. The keys to the future. Hell by net. Los Angeles history, Pennsylvania geography, a smoky mountain wrestling mystery, and Master P coming back to save AEW. From all the higher ratings.

And joining me, Hawaiian Brian, the podcast, line, the king of the Arcadian Vanguard podcast network, Mr. Co-host to you, there's no limit to his podcasting brilliance. Master B, the great Brian last, everybody. Aloha, Jim. A pleasure to be here once again. It's Silt the Shocker's birthday. It's one of those great lines from the old days of Master P's wrestling work. What are you nattering about? Seriously, a case of how can I miss you if you won't go away? I was so happy to see Master P. this week. It put a smile on my face as soon as dynamite started. So he went away for 30 years and that way you missed him?

Yeah. And you know what? He didn't let me down. He contributed this week exactly as I hoped he would. It went perfectly. Do you think if he'll go away for another 30 years, we can try to miss him again? I'll take, who do you think he wouldn't fight, Master P or Travis Scott. Well, I think Master P just with size and bulk alone could fall on the little bag of bones and suffocate him. Who do you think I want to fight Master P or Jelly Roll? I think I got Jelly Roll.

He's been in training, right? He's lost 200 pounds. That means maybe he goes on a treadmill. Doesn't mean he's out there fighting. Well, he's got, like fucking Mr. P. is out there and fucking just the mass of Mr.

What did I say what? He said Mr. I said Mr. P but he's master P master P master. Mr. Master Whatever Mr. Master's

letter is. Mr. P I believe Mr. P was Brock Lesnar's new nickname after that story he came out. Oh quit now. Would you stop it?

There's absolutely no confirmation, let's say, but nevertheless. So the P fellow is not fighting either. None of these people are fighting.

People are fighting to not have to look at these people. That was an argument this kid used in like seventh grade. Some of us are listening to Guns and Roses. I think it was seventh grade. It may have been eighth grade. We listened to Guns and Roses like, man, who do you think we went to fight? Axel Roses, the guy from House of Pain?

Like, I don't care. What the fuck? What the fuck? Let them kill each other as long as that's a good album. Who do you think's a better singer, hoist, or Carl Gatch? I bet Gatch had a probably a pretty good European-type baritone. I don't know.

See, the problem is we don't have too many hoist-gracy promos to really base a singing voice on. I thought you were going to say we don't have too many Carl Gatch's records to judge his singing voice by. And when they were screaming in pain, can we can anybody isolate those sounds? I believe that's called the Buddy Rogers song. I'm thinking probably somebody's going to want us to isolate our sounds here. So we might as well. I am just, can I mention to you that I'm fed up with watching wrestling after the hours and hours upon hours over the last days upon days?

And the length and the breadth and the height and the depth my soul can reach full of wrestling and or talking to you about the wrestling. But I think I'm even more fed up with the weather, Brian. Do you know, do you have any idea of what it's doing right now in Louisville, Kentucky? A very faint idea. It's raining again. We're all growing fins. Oh, will the rain ever end before I start cussing again?

Here's the thing. Yesterday was a miserable day in my life. life, Brian last, and I don't mean to be. That's why I asked you before we went on the year. I said, should I put all my fake cheerfulness or should I just be myself? And you said something, but just go with what you feel. I don't want to appear like I'm a persnickety individual. It's just not satisfied with anything.

But yesterday sucked big old donkey balls. And a lot of it was centered around this fucking weather we're having. We are like the city of Louisville, when I say we, I think right now it's like 11 inches heavy rain for the years so far. Basically a foot. Some places, who knows, even more around here. But yeah, I woke up early yesterday morning, worried as I usually am about what the day would bring

since there's an incompetent criminal lunatic in the White House. That's what hangs over the sword of dammed. please over everyone's head first thing in the morning. But then everything I tried to do all day, either was more complicated than it need to be, went sideways somehow or reminded me of something that I was ticked off about to begin with, including the muddiness and the messiness of my front yard near the road

where the fiber optic shit went in, and I'm just not happy. I got to redo that. So nevertheless, what, I'm thinking all day yesterday, Brian. I know you can identify with this. A lot of people think this and the course of a bad day.

I was thinking if I just go to Popeyes and get myself just a giant bag of fucking chicken and biscuits and some blackened ranch for dipping and the world will be a better place at the end of the day. Yeah, obviously you think that many times

also with a stressful life like you lead. Well, there's no Popeye's nearby. Well, then how have you avoided just committing Harry Carey without Popeyes? This pizza, I still get food sent to me from Long Island, kosher deli, and bagels, and... Oh, but... But you need more grease when things are really dire. So anyway, the point is, the last thing I was going to do was I was going to go over to the in-laws to help them with some paperwork that they needed to dress, and I was going to swing by Popeyes and just get a variety of that that crunchiness.

And as I was over there, Stace called over, she said, hey, UPS has brought your shipping supplies has left them down by the gate. And now the FedEx people, I have a problem with them. The mail trucks,

they come right up and out of the drive. The mailman, he's very friendly sort. Now we got rid of that knucklehead that we had a while back. And he's a very competent man. He brings everything to the door and saying the UPS guy normally that works, he friendly sort.

If he can't get the truck in for whatever reason, he'll park at the road, he'll wheel that stuff up the driveway, but he's my regular guy, puts it in the garage there. The FedEx people are usually the ones that will leave shit. Even if it's a box marked, this shit's on dry ice, it's perishable food. they'll leave it at the gate and just drive off with no thank you, ma'am, whatsoever. And you're just expected to know that it's there. But nevertheless, the UPS guy, the regular guy, not on duty yesterday, they have left my shipping supplies at the gate.

And I say, well, I'll get them when I get home because it's not going to rain for a couple hours. and 20 minutes later when I'm leaving to go home at first to Popeyes, it's sprinkling rain. Fuck! Because I've got a six-foot bag of peanuts and giant boxes of shipping supplies, which are more boxes and cardboard and things that can't get wet. So now I deviate from my Popeye's mission to go straight home to get there to load the stuff in the back of the truck at the foot of the road at the gate. there and I've nearly strained my milk as Mama Cornett would say getting this giant fucking box of shit in the back and then this six foot bag of peanuts and here's another heavy box oh god my growing I may have torn something and get that up up the dry and then it just

it stops spitting it stops drizzling it's not raining as soon as I've rushed to do this and get up to the top of the drive no rain and I thought, well, fuck, I could have gone to Popeyes. And but before I could get the idea about 15 minutes later that I might go back to Popeyes, I look out the window, and here comes this torrential rain. And it's a toad strangler, a gully washer. It's coming down like a tall cow pissing on a flat rock, Brian. It is, I mean, this has to be a rainfall of an inch or two an hour.

And then I look outside and I see that the back drain out my back door, I had the Monroe's redigued the whole drain thing, put the French drain in, blah, blah, blah, but the opening, the opening to that thing gets clogged up with leaves and tree gunk and debris of various kinds comes off of the roof and the skies and the trees and everything in the middle of these gully washers, and the drain is stopped up. And now I've got a fucking giant pond of water almost a foot deep, and it's creeping up toward sneaking under the back door. And I got to get to Monroe's on enlarging this hole,

so my hole has to be bigger, is basically as the moral of this story. But nevertheless, in the meantime, I got to go out there in this goddamn driving rain and stick my hands down there and free the guy. goddamn contaminants from the front of the grate of the drain that will take the water away from the goddamn back door. And right then I was thinking, I'm standing out here in a goddamn rain like a fucking idiot when I could be eating Popeye's chicken.

And that pretty much just goddamn soured me for the rest of the day. So the moral of the story is, Brian, if you want to be eating Popeye's chicken, don't be standing out in the rain. And that was the moral of the story. It seemed like a story with no morals, but that's the moral of the story, right? Well, I got a story and got no morals. Let the bad guy win every once in a while. Will he go out in the rain? Or will he go to Popeyes? Do you? So now they've, go ahead.

Usually it's later in the show when you make me hungry. I'm starving now. Well, hold on here a second. We're going to get back to that. But I'd also like to mention they canceled the balloon glow. The Conduct, Kentucky, the Kentucky Turkin. That ought to be your goddamn Thanksgiving meal. The Kentucky Turkin. I get to finally say to you, are you having a series of small strokes?

No, the Kentucky Derby Festival events are from, quit laughing at me, a fie upon you. The Kentucky Derby Festival events have been fucking hammered by the this ridiculous weather we've been having. Thunder was canceled. This weekend is all the balloon activities. They have a balloon glow or they were going to, but they couldn't because of the weather. And then this morning, there's like a rush hour race

where they do a thing 9 o'clock in the morning in preparation for tomorrow's big, great balloon race, the annual event. And they've had to cancel everything so far. I don't know what the fuck they're going to get in. and the Pegasus Parade should come off on Sunday. That's the only day that doesn't have a chance of rain in the next week and then supposedly storms and rain Wednesday, Thursday, and possibly Friday,

and Derby is next Saturday. So there's a lot of fucking soggy-ass motherfuckers wearing silly suits and wacky hats that are going to be populate in the city of Louisville, Kentucky. This is fucking horrible weather. Just horrible. just rotten. Why don't they just put the Pegasus Parade people in the balloons and free up traffic? You know, that might be.

No, they close. That's why they do it on Sunday now. When I was a kid, the Pegasus Parade, because they didn't have like a three-week Kentucky Derby Festival, you know, schedule when I was eight years old or whatever. And they didn't have Thunder over Louisville. That hadn't become a thing yet. They had the Pegasus Parade, which was obviously the big parade downtown. And obviously Kentucky Oaks is Friday before Derby

and then the Kentucky Derby Saturday. And they had a few other events. But in the 60s it hadn't got to be a big thing. But they actually did the Pegasus Parade on, I believe, the Thursday before Derby. Can you imagine in a major city, well, depending on your, your definition of major. But imagine them doing this in New York. In a major fucking city,

they just shut down like five miles of Broadway on a Thursday afternoon at 4 o'clock and said, fuck it, we're having a parade. And, you know, they put bleachers up and you just take the kiddies and line the streets and look at the fucking blend. You might see Colonel Sanders

in a goddamn Kentucky fried chicken Cadillac, you know, waving at you as he passed by. at like one and a half miles an hour. This is the slowest goddamn bullshit. I hated parades when I was a kid. I wanted them to race, watch him fucking float start turning some corners on two wheels. That would have been exciting.

What happens with the balloon race? Well, somebody wins. But only if they can fucking fly the balloons in case of non-inclimate weather. But it's a sight to behold all these high, air balloons just in the air. You would think all the hot air, goddamn Hayman was in town.

When I was a kid, I saw that one police academy movie, I forget it was three or four, and they had like a big end scene where they're all in balloons that jumping from one balloon to the other. That's the kind of race I want to see. Yeah, there's not just a bunch of people float up and then kind of slowly float to the left.

Well, they have the floats and the balloons are, you know, Some of the floats are very ornate and everything. And the balloons, they have to, you know, you've seen the funny videos of the balloon accidents when they lose track of their goddamn leashes or their tethers or whatever is holding them to the people that are holding them.

But it's just, it's a slow moving, oh, and here comes, you know, the weatherman from WDRB with the, well, now that, do they even do, like weather girls or beauty contest winners and parades anymore? I don't know if we're in America. I don't know if I did that in society anymore.

It's said. You know, I don't know if they do. So these quasi-celebrities like your books don't do like best looking anymore. Well, now in all fairness, have you seen most of the kids of this generation? Well, the boys definitely got an issue with the haircuts. That's for sure.

Yeah. So really there's fewer, fewer fucking qualifiers than ever before. But nevertheless, anyway, so that's what's going on here in Louisville. But Brian, good news. Hold on, I got my goddamn, see, I've got all kinds of documentation for things going on in the world. But I've got good news for you while Louisville, Kentucky is experiencing horrible weather and dreary conditions. Overall, you have a bright ray of sunshine. on up there in New Jersey. Did you hear about this, Brian? Oh, I don't know where you're going,

no. Well, this is from Mike, and I get Mike is up here in the Great Garden State, so I guess he's a New Jersey resident. But he says, hi, Jim, I'm writing to let you know of a recent, wonderful development for those of us stuck up here in the Great Garden State, but are pining desperately for the delicious flavors associated with the wide assortment of delicacies found in southern cooking. News broke several weeks ago that Bojangles is hell bent on establishing a strong footing in New Jersey with the first of several new stores opening up in Piscataway. Where is Piscataway, New Jersey, from, approximately from your particular neck of the woods? Piscataway?

Yeah, that's what I said, Piscataway. It's that a way. Now, I actually have no idea. I have no idea where Piscataway is. It's one of those places I have not visited or been to. I've heard the name because it's a funny name, but I've never, I have no idea where it. But hold on, I have seen signs when I would have to drive around New Jersey

for Dennis Coraluzzo and other purposes. For Piscataway, it's somewhere up there. But wherever there's going to be a Bojangles. And anyway, Mike continues, I for one, am thrilled. I personally learned a Bojangles when traveling to South Carolina for work several years back, and now make it a point to stop at least once of driving through the south.

The Bowberry biscuits are enough to lift any sad souls out of their depressive state. I feel as part of your long quest to school Brian's taste buds as to what good food actually tastes like, you should be requiring him to field trip it over to Bojangles

and report back his experience on an upcoming episode. The first location should, be too far from him, though I know the exact location of Last Manor is a closely guarded secret. So that Brian Bojangles... I'm looking at it now. Trying to see where is this exactly.

This is... Oh, you go past Bernardsville. Oh, well, everybody knows that. Bridgewater. Oh, okay, it's a little past the Bridgewater area. Okay, I kind of know where it is. I'm not going to go there for fast food and come home. That just not worth it.

I mean, is this like, is this a hundred miles or is this... More of a 50 mile or? I'd say it's about a half hour away, maybe. Oh, well, I forgot. Maybe 45 minutes. Well, you guys up there, you have to call it in time instead of distance because it could take you a long time to go a short distance. Just depending on which way you're, which way the wind is blowing.

There's a chick-fil-a over in Morris Township. I sometimes go over there because, you know, I like your chicken sandwiches. We're talking about chicken sandwiches. Or whatever Bojangles is. Is Bojangles chicken? I'll tell you what. What is it? Bojangles?

Bojangles. Oh, my God damn it. What is Bojangles? We were just talking about Popeye. I was confused. Well, but no, because Popeyes is here. We don't have a Bojangles here, but I got a Popeye's here right here. Here next to me here.

Bojangles chicken. My God. The holy grail of chicken chains. Now, there is better fried chicken to be had in some bases. but you got to go to Hattie Bees in Nashville or some other local locations but with widespread coverage, Bojangles,

they to chicken people, baby, and the biscuits and the gravy and the sides. And, oh, now that, I mean, anybody who has ever worked to Carolinas has been a, I used to take buckets of bojangles on the plane in Charlotte when we were working for Crockett. Not the commercial flights, folks, Crocett's playing, but everybody else would show up with the beer for after the show or their energy drinks or whatever,

and I had a bag of chicken. Well, hopefully it'll be on DoorDash. Oh, you got to. I want to sit down here and enjoy it. I don't want to be in my car. No, no, no, but see here's the thing. When you, Brian, I'm sorry, but you're this New Jersey, New Jersey native

who doesn't understand. the intricacies of classic fried chicken, especially the first time you experienced Bojangles. You want to be in the restaurant because you want to smell the smell coming from the deep fryers. You want to see those streaming golden brown rows and rows of pieces of chicken up there waiting to be picked and putting these boxes around these plates and these sides and et cetera, the aroma.

And then if you're lucky, and you get there, especially after they open a new one when they're really trying hard, if you get a piece of Bojangles chicken within three minutes after it comes out of the deep fryer and you just stick your face in that and you just motorboated like it was fucking Lonnie Anderson on WKRP in Cincinnati and you were 17 years old in 1978, that's going to be the best thing you ever put up in your face, that yard bird right there. so that you got to go the first time in person. Well, maybe I will think about it.

But we'll see. When are they opening? Well, he didn't say. He didn't have a date on it. But they're trying to establish a strong foothold up in that market. Bojangles chicken. Mr. Bojangles, Cluck. And I got another, I got a letter actually.

Brian, from another person up in your neck of the woods, Bobby. he says he's a cult of Cornette member and he actually wrote a letter and he had a question and he couldn't get through on the email because we get so many emails so he thought well an actual physical letter might be easier but a listener had asked a question

several years ago on one of our podcasts and the listener was from Tamacqua Pennsylvania and Bobby says I don't know what the question was but you indicated you were familiar with the town. I'm just curious how you know the town. If you have any stories about the town, I work there and live nearby.

So to hear that you're familiar with a random Pennsylvania town local to me piqued my curiosity, and he spelled peaked right. P-I-Q-U-E-D. Additionally, he's also curious if I'm familiar with Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania. That's where he lives.

And they had wrestling shows there in the 70s with Samoans and Rocky Johnson. And Bobby, I can answer very easily and succinctly the reason that I know Tamiqua and Orwigsburg is because there's goddamn signs on that interminable Batan Death March Highway, known as a Pennsylvania Turnpike, that when I worked up there, but wanted to visit my mother or wanted to come anywhere west of sanity or west of insanity, I should say. I drove across that fucking thing

and I remember all the names of all those towns. I haven't been there, and I probably now never shall. I can think I can say with all honesty that the chances of me now going to Tamiqua, Pennsylvania or Orwigsburg are fucking... But I know how to pronounce them, because I've had to see those road signs.

But Bobby, I thank you for being a cult of cornet member. All right. So today's all about towns you've seen on signs. Yes. Well, and here's another thing. Here's another. Now, this was another letter I got. And this was handwritten by Justin from Virgie, Kentucky.

Brian, do you remember Virgie? Because you've been to Pikeville, haven't you? You went to a bluegrass brawl, didn't you? No, I never went to Pikeville. You didn't experience that. Barberville, Louisville. I'm trying to think of what other Kentucky towns. Did we do Erlanger?

Am I completely? No, that wasn't. No. And, well, Erlanger is suburban Cincinnati. That wouldn't be the Kentucky flavor at all anyway. But, well, if you, Barberville is like a Pikeville starter set. You're just, you're just creeping into eastern Kentucky, but you're not, you're not all the way there yet. but you're starting to see a lot of the signs.

Virgie, Kentucky, is actually 12 miles from Pikeville. For those of you not versed in Eastern Kentucky geography, now you know where Virgie is because everybody knows where Pikeville is. How do you spell that, Virgie? V-I-R-G-I-E.

How else would you spell Virgie? I wasn't sure. That's not a name I've heard very often, except, you know. It's a common... That's what the girls used to call Dusty when he was a kid. Oh, Virgie! Well, that's the thing. That's a common name in Easter.

There's old Virgie. Anyway, Justin is from Virgie, and we ran Virgie as well as Pikeville, Smoggy Mountain Wrestling. And anyway, he sent me, well, first of all, I say I appreciate to. He acknowledged Harley Quinn and her passing, and I want to do the same thing for his deuce that he lost around the same time. He was a Doberman. But he sent me a box full of Sprite Zero and paper towels. Actually, the rolls of paper towels. Because I mentioned I use a lot of paper towel.

He heard the show during the pandemic where I was, I think, trying to find paper towels. It registered with him. He even said, I don't know why I'm sending these. I just know other people have sent them to you from time to time. But nevertheless, he had a very very. interesting Smoggy Mountain Wrestling related question, Brian. I thought we would go. Would you like to hear it? Yeah, let's hear it.

Okay. He says, can I ask you a question I've wondered about for roughly 30 years? You may literally be the only person alive today who can give me an answer. I'm 37 years old. I'll be 38 this year. Back when you would bring Smoggy Mountain Wrestling dot, dot, dot, dot, I fuck it. Let's save us all a lot of time. my friend Joe Fleming and I

were at the Pikeville College gym when you brought the Undertaker to main event at the Blue Grass Brawl 1995, Brian, as you will recall. That's right. Joe and I were in about third grade and we strongly remember that Undertaker was going to fight Mabel in the main event.

I don't remember that part. Well, Mabel still ain't showed up. If he has, we ain't seen him. Where the hell was that some bitch? And why didn't he make the show? Joe and I have wondered ever since that night at the Pikeville College gym, what the fuck happened to Mabel? Corn, could you please help me and Joe out and tell us why Mabel

no show to Smoky Mountain Wrestling event in Pikeville, Kentucky roughly 30 years ago? We will be thrilled to finally find out what happened. And P.S., I'm sorry, Corn, for my below-average handwriting. I am also a dyslexic some bitch. So if my spelling was bad, I'm sorry for that too. I went to public school, so I'm sure my grammar is fucked, but you'll have to take that up with the Pike County Board of Education. Thank you again, Justin and your friend, Joe.

Now I'm going to have to answer where was Mabel? Mabel was in, I don't give a fuck a stand at the time, because I never, Mabel was never supposed to fit. Mabel's name. Mabel's name was never mentioned on Smoky Mountain Wrestling television over 200 episodes, whether we had a working relationship with the WWF or not. I never attempted to book Mabel. We never advertised Mabel, not only for that show,

but any show that we ever did ever in the history of ever. And there was no picture in any program. I don't even know who you could possibly see and confuse with Mabel, but the match was, the gangsters, New Jack, Mustafa, and D.Lo Brown against Bob Armstrong, Tracy Smothers, and the Undertaker. And the way The Undertaker figured into that was because since the gangsters had beaten me up, it was that like four months I was.

was a baby face. The gangsters beat me up. And then they turned around and they beat up Bob and Tracy. So we all got together and I said, I know people in the WWF and I arranged with Paul Bearer to bring the undertaker in because we went to sell out the Pikeville College gym, which we did. And that was a six-man tag of me and Paul Bearer. We're in a quarter.

We've talked about that. We talked about Percy before in a past. but that that was the match and it was always supposed to be the match. I'm so I don't know where the, but do you think it was some of them nasty fourth graders, the big kids, Brian, that were yanking Justin and Joe's fucking chains there?

I mean, one of the things I remember the promos with, uh, maybe I don't remember if it was even multiple ones, but the one specifically with the gangsters in the cemetery. So I mean, yes. You know, was always gangstens. as an Undertaker. It was never Bob and Tracy are bringing in, or it wouldn't be them, I guess. It would be someone on the other side. Who would be bringing in?

The gangses would be bringing in Mabel? I don't know. I don't know whose side Mabel. Well, Mabel was big enough that we could all be on his side. Well, Dilo was bigger in those years. Maybe he was confused, this kid. Delo did use to like to wear Zubaz who were kind of baggy like Mabel. No, I don't know. I mean, it's, you know, sometimes, when you're a kid, you just hear things, I guess. Well, nevertheless,

have you heard the big news, Brian, that I'm going to bring up before we go on any further and talk about some wrestling? Well, this is wrestling too, but it's wrestling news. The big news about Saturday, May the 3rd, is the debut of Corny's Vault Sale at Jimcornet.com, whereas I've been mentioning over the past few weeks,

Hachkis and I have cleaned out, polished off every last remaining action figure trading card program well not every last one of those but you know the the limited number editions of a number of merchandise

so you've got classic promotional photos from the WWF the last 10 hardcover editions of behind the curtain we've got some old magazines from the 50s to the 80s a variety of oddball cornet

items that either have been sold out in the past or have not been on sale for a while. And of course, the last remaining of the bloody variant original red and yellow and raw debut action figures and more is Saturday, May the 3rd at noon Eastern at Jim Cornett.com. And there's something for everybody, but there's not enough for everybody. So if there's something you're thinking you're really going to want, jump in early because it may go quickly. There's anywhere from one to 20 or 30 of any of these items. There's just a lot of items. That's why I had to have it all on paper. That's right. All right. We've got an actual history email here from something that we were talking. Remember the guest, the program that we did,

gosh, maybe three or four weeks ago now. It's been so long since we've been watching the wrestling. But one of them that you hit me with was, that I couldn't get was in the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, April 11, 1945, which I believe I did mention that was the day before Roosevelt died,

but go ahead. And if anyone wants to see that, I actually have put that on my Instagram, but that wasn't a program. That was actually, I believe, a postcard with a coupon that you could rip off for a discount. Well, thank you.

You know what? You missed your calling. You should have been a goddamn argument argumentative attorney it was we were playing guest the program it was a lineup it was the overall segment is what we were talking about so the attorneys say as a matter of fact well we we'll talk about that later on when we do the true crime podcast series but nevertheless uh someone named adam who i don't know whether i should give him give his name or not i think he's got an inside source or something he is

sent Adam from East Yorkshire, England. You figure it out. But he has sent several emails in the past, and he's got amazing sources. He's been doing a variety of research of all kinds of wrestling history. So would you like to hear we were right, or I was right, you had the thing in front of you. But I was right that that was during a down period in Los Angeles business in

1945 and he wrote an email of how they turned the fucking business around to all-time record business three years later and I thought it was interesting as some of the kids may not recognize all the names but this is kind of a great example of how in the days before national television and national promotions when things either before television entirely or on a regional territory basis, wrestling could be on fire in one part of the country and completely dead in the other. And you really had to work on the markets by markets,

even in the territory days with television. Every territory had a stinky town, right? And it just couldn't get it to go. So you really had to work for your crowds in those individual markets as individual towns, and it was much more fragmented at that point. Would you like to hear this history, Brian? Yeah, I'm actually really curious about this.

Okay. He says, as Jim rightfully pointed out, the war years were a down period in Los Angeles. Wrestling at the Olympic had particularly fallen on hard times at the end of the Lou and Jack Darrow era. Remember, Carnation Lou Darrow was the promoter for some time back in those days. He says, Jack Darrow was forced to give up his license in August 1940 due to the Athletic Commission uncovering financial corruption, which included taking liens against the box office take. Following the Darrow departure, George Zaharius took up booking the arena using talent supplied by Nick Lutz.

George Zaharius was obviously a wrestler, but he was famous for at the time marrying Babe Diedrickson, who, I guess at some points with all apologies to Mildred Burt, she may have been the most famous female athlete, but they were one and two in those days, right? But anyway, Zaharius struggled to get the box office up to anywhere near respectable and eventually handed over the promotional reins to former Philadelphia promoter, Ray 5th. in August 1941. Fabiani was still promoting in Philadelphia at that point, right? Yeah, I mean, he was around for a while longer. It wasn't like he... Yes.

Yeah. Well, because I've got to the first... I've got a 1938 Philadelphia program. Ray Fabiani was the promoter. It was the tournament to see who was going to face Landa's. And he'd

been established already, even though that was the first edition of his program. He would be there for years, but the point being, in those pre-interstate days, and air travel was not convenient yet or necessarily reliable, and he's promoting in Philadelphia, but he's taken over Los Angeles. Those old-time promoters could figure out a way trains, whatever the fuck, to take these major markets, and there was no need to, for television, purposes to time together geographically. It was, I guess, wherever you could get an opening.

But anyway, Adam goes on. If Fabiani promoted the venue for the next two years, during 1943, he gave a huge push to the masked heel, the masked cougar. Remember, I think that's where he was on your program? The Cougar headline shows for the first seven months of 1943 had defeated every baby face who tried to unmask him. He was eventually defeated but not unmasked by George K.O. Coverly.

Coverly was another of Fabiani's bigger draws at the time, most famous for his St. Louis rivalry with Bill Longson, where Longson and Coverly met on ten occasions in St. Louis between 1942 and 1946. And longtime listeners of this program will remember that during World War II, the only markets in North America that were really doing incredibly big business for wrestling were Toronto,

Houston, and St. Louis, and Longson was main eventing regularly in all of them. He was the biggest draw in a business for like a six-year period. And St. Louis was on fire not only from the the original Tom Pax promotion,

but Sam Muchnick opened his company in 1945 and really business just took off from there with the competition and then that's when they decided to get together. So they were doing tremendous business even after that period in St. Louis, but Longson was huge. Anyway, going on with Adam, the masked cougar was not seen. at the Olympic in 1944.

Fabiani attempted to push Jim Casey, the younger brother of Steve Crusher Casey, who, as we know, was pushed as the world champion in Boston with Paul Bowser, and Seeley Samara, who was one of the first African-American stars, but he found that the box office was still sluggish.

Fabiani's marriage fell apart over the course of 1944, and he departed in September. Maybe it was those trips to Los Angeles. Anyway, Walter Miller became the promoter at the Olympic. Miller tried to promote legitimate wrestlers bringing in an aging Ray Steele and Minnesota amateur standout Cliff Gustafson, but the attempt to change

things up was a disaster. The box office fell apart with crowds of under 2,000 paying 50 cents each. This was the Los Angeles Olympic Auditorium, and the prices were to lower. than they were for the fucking hippodrome in Nashville, Tennessee. And the crowds were too. Because at the same point, wrestling in Nashville was on fire because of Roy Welch and Pat Malone.

But can you imagine that, Brian, that they were charging less for tickets in Los Angeles and drawing bigger crowds in Nashville than at that time in Los Angeles. That is pretty incredible. And, you know, we had that other card that read from guest to program was attached with a letter that someone sent they weren't a wrestling fan but they went to the card they sent the program they was 10 years earlier 10,000 people at the Olympic for Strangler Lewis yes but see that was the thing is the reason why the

promoters were the promoters were always fearful all through the early days of wrestling and into the territory days of two things one is somebody stealing their territory and the other one is if you if it for some reason business falls off and you let it go too far then it's a year's period to get it back which is why sometimes they'd start hot shotting which would either work or make it worse and hasten the decline but now listen to this so from that point where they didn't have 2,000 people paying 50 cents the olympics boxing promoter cal eaton later to uh be the, well, maybe at that time the father of, or was the husband of Eileen Eton,

who was the father of Mike LaBelle, who was the modern Los Angeles promoter, but they always had the deal with boxing and wrestling in the Olympic. The Cal Eaton pulled the plug on the 26th of February, 1945. It was shortly after this that Johnny Doyle, who had been previously been promoter at the Eastside Arena, became booking agent and supplied Eaton with talent. And Johnny Doyle would later,

the 50s be Jim Barnett's partner in that big Midwestern territory. So the 11th. And then went to Australia with him. That was the end. He died in Australia, right? Yes. And went to Australia with him. So they were together for, you know, 15 years or so.

And Doyle was involved heavily in Los Angeles 10 years before Barnett became a promoter. But the 11th of April show that we talked about was an attempt. by Doyle and Eaton to bring back former stars to see what stuck. The Cougar was unmasked by the Golden Terror and revealed to be the famous heel Ted King Kong Cox. Golden Terror was a famous masked wrestler. I'm paraphrasing some of these things because I want to get to the point.

But anyway, he gave the history of the terror and the cougar how they came to be unmasked for that April 11th show. And he mentioned also that the super Swedish angel had some success when he had competed in the Olympic in Ray Fabiani's 1942 international tournament. So that April 11th show drew 6,000 fans, the biggest crowd since Fabiani had left. And ending up with this, it took some time for Doyle and Eaton to make the box office really catch fire. Enrique Torres debuted in July 1946 and was the top star by the end of the year,

drawing the biggest crowd since the Darrow era. Credit should also go to the tag team of Ernie and Emil Ducek, who in July of 1947 tore into the Southern California scene and had five weeks straight of near-capacity crowds at the Olympic. They remained a popular act in the years that followed. By 1948, Gorgeous George had taken over as the headline act, headlining the Olympic 23 times that year, and being responsible for the majority of the 452,000 tickets sold at the Olympic

Auditorium in 1948. So in 1945, they couldn't sell 2,000 tickets at 50 cents each. And three years later, for the weekly, events at the Olympic Auditorium, they sold 452,000 fucking tickets. That's amazing. That's what everybody was always looking for to pop the territory.

That's why Bookers went into territories working for promoters whose business was down. That's why promoters tried to open new markets. That's why guys tried to branch off and go into business for themselves. Everybody always wanted to pop a fucking territory. That's why wrestlers wanted to go in and work for a booker that they thought might

pop the territory. Because then all those people get made stars as well as money and then they go on to make more money. And the promoter of it always wants to use those wrestlers. Why do they bruiser you and chic? They used the same guys for 20 fucking years because those were the guys that 15, 20 years before had drawn them all that money, whether it was loyalty or just trust or whatever, but that's an example of what you could do in those days with a change of talent and

sometimes promoter or strategy or whatever. And boom, and then Los Angeles is one of the centers of wrestling for the television era, Hollywood wrestling. See, that's the thing, too. This is all pre-TV. And then, you know, by the time. Can you imagine if wrestling in Los Angeles had been as dead in 1948 as it was in 1945, would anybody put that shit on TV?

Yes. It would have changed the whole course of, well, you know, I think at that point, if you were in New York, if you were in or near Los Angeles and Chicago, you had a good shot of getting your wrestling on local TV when they were looking for anything they could get on TV. Even if the Olympic died, doesn't mean that wasn't the only. Well, I'm talking about on network television, though. See, that was one of the network shows.

If they'd had fucking no people in the buildings and it had not been a popular thing, it would look dead for television too. What do you think about, you know, I think for a lot of fans, it's probably hard to imagine doing angles without TV. You know, I think it's almost a thought that angles are a part of wrestling on TV,

but obviously, you had to do things before TV. You had to hope it would get in the papers or the people there would leave and create buzz, but you always had to do something. And, yeah, I mean, to your point, 48, they get it going again. You know, by 1960, you have Fred Blassie, you have the destroyer, you have Ricky Dozan,

you have so much happening. We have footage that survives from the late 50s, the promos, the local promos, hosted by Jules Strongbo in Los Angeles. But, yeah, I mean, I, you know what, I think about it to your point. They had to get to TV if it had completely died.

I was thinking of Hollywood Legion and just all the different things they had. But yeah, if they all didn't have crowds, it may not get on TV. Well, that's the thing. If, you know,

if they can't get 2,000 people to the big Olympic auditorium, or they're going to get 500 people to the smaller Hollywood Legion and it just, it wasn't a hot product. But before television, the angles were the finishes

of the matches at the, the match the week or the show before, if it was weekly or biweekly territory or whatever. And as you said, the promoters all had, you know, somebody to get something in the newspapers, whether it was just an advertisement that they had to buy or whether they had columnists that were friendly and would write about it.

But that was, it was finishes in the, and challenges made in the building the previous week and reported about in the newspaper. And you really had to, have somebody that interested the people and got over in some kind of way to really do big business. And that's why, again, when Gorgeous George became a thing, in L.A. wrestling got on TV, I think, and it may have even been late 46 or 47. And Gorgeous George was made for that.

But the Torres brothers, the Ducs, they did it the old-fashioned way, because that was the word of mouth and the finishes and the heat in the building. And you just had to give people something different that they responded to. But then things could turn around in a heartbeat. You know what? Think about the other side of that.

You know, they got TV. We're talking about, you know, things picked up. It became a really successful territory. The WWA was one of the major titles. When they lost English-speaking TV, what was it, 73 or 74, that changed everything. They were still on TV, but all of a sudden it changed the makeup of the company

because you almost needed more luchadors or just Spanish-speaking wrestlers because it was on Spanish-speaking TV. And, you know, it didn't die right away. But the crowds weren't as hot as they were, and eventually, you know, by the early 80s when LaBelle sold out to Vince, I don't mean that, like, he sold out.

I mean, he sold his company to Vince. Yeah. I mean, it was down to almost nothing. Well, see, the thing is, it was the same thing that happened in New York at one point where they, they had lost television, but they only, they had TV on a Spanish language station. In L.A., you may think, well, you know, there's a tremendous Hispanic population anyway, but that station was also weaker than the English speaking station they had been on. and they just, they shrank in terms of overall eyeballs being able to see them at all,

whether they could understand the commentary or not. And that was bound, especially in the 70s in Los Angeles, the home of TV. In the 40s, there was no goddamn, there was a Hollywood film industry, but there was no TV industry in Los Angeles. Now 30 years later, they're being seen by less people than ever before, since television started when there's more competition. They just, they shrunk.

And LeBelle wasn't, from all accounts that I've read, he wasn't in love with the wrestling business that he felt some need to continue for love of the game. He didn't give a shit. He was also apparently one of these business guys that loved collecting the money from being the owner and making lots of money, but never saw a reason to really reinvest in his company

or do anything to build anything. Yeah. You really think about L.A. from the mid-70s on, and I love a lot of that stuff at Roddy Piper. It's not to take away from that. But it was almost like he was just happy to hold this territory. And, you know, the money will come in and we'll do our weekly shows. But there was never an attempt to try anything or do anything, bring in top name.

He wasn't going to pay for top talent to come in there. That's how Roddy Piper got his break. It was just the fact he was a kid and he could work cheap. Because at that point, LaBelle, wasn't going to be able to get too many top guys. He'll pay Mill Mosquirus every now and then for an appearance. But not too many high-paying guys were working L.A., especially after 78.

A lot of guys that I know were broke, like Chris Adams when he came to America, went to L.A. There was no business. Adrian Street, same thing. Adrian Street. Ken Wayne. Ken Wayne worked in L.A. I don't remember that.

I believe, I think he did at one. he may have been a mass gimmick, but he went out there for one point. But point being, a lot of people now are thinking, oh, my God, I thought there was big money in L.A. wrestling, we're talking about this point in time. LaBelle was a cheap promoter, but all through the, you know, especially the 60s and early 70s with them doing the closed circuit feeds of the sold-out Olympic shows and Blassie and Tolos and the all. all that stuff, guys could still make money there.

They just weren't getting paid what they should have been paid. Imagine that. But the stars also could, and Sheik, sheik would go out for the payoff and go shopping on Rodeo drive or whatever because he was a promoter would talk to LaBelle about talent and et cetera. But when the business went down instead of trying to invest in getting it back up, he just cut it down to, well, here's what we'll, fucking do. And then it kind of trailed off to

non-sensibility by what 1980 when they had the monster and all the other bullshit. Yeah. And then he sold his company to Vince and then Vince did what he would later do to Stu Hart and other people just decided not to pay him. And he sued Vince and I think Vince actually, I think Vince won. Like LaBelle never got anything for the LA territory. Well, by then though, he got what it was worth. So see how that happens. And then look at the Olympic in the 80s. I mean, WWF did great in L.A. for the most part, in the 80s. WCW, California Championship Wrestling, like Polynesian pro wrestling came to the

Olympic. There were lots of things that came into the Olympic, and for a long time, L.A. was dead for a lot of companies. I've never been there. Never seen it in person. When Crockett debuted in Los Angeles in what was it, 1987 by that point, I think early, it was the forum. Went straight for the most expensive building.

And we did 100 grand at the gate for the first show and never did that again, went back a few times and then Oh, I thought they should run the, maybe I am thinking of a Polynesian pro wrestling. I thought Crockett ran the Olympic ones too. Probably not.

We weren't on the card, but I don't think. he did it all. Yeah, no, he read the forum because it was, and I was thinking, well, this is, this is great and all, but boy, this looks like an expensive, by the time, no, you know what? Was it, it may have been the first time may have been in late 86. I don't have the midnight book in front of me, but nevertheless, the last time I was there for Crockett, it was a sparse crowd and I'm thinking, we've come all this fucking way and rented this fucking building.

And we would have had a bigger profit margin in Gaffney, South Carolina. I remember having that thought. But I would have liked to have seen the, I got the Cow Palace. I worked in the Cow Palace. For the WWA, I worked in the Cow Palace

while Paterson was still agenting and working there. So I got to actually experience that. What was that building like? That's a big old fucking building. The backstage area reminds you more of a cave. Then it's concrete and paved, but it's got sloping ramps that you can drive vehicles in

for the big cow shows that they did. And these circular kind of walkways that go up and everything. So it looks like you're going into a cave in the backstage area and then a variety of little locker rooms, but you go out in that thing. It's like, holy fuck, this looks like the inside of the spaceship on Independence Day or something.

It's just massive. The floor area is bigger than any kind of modern sports arena because it was built specifically for the rodeos and livestock things, which are bigger. That's why it was so dangerous for heels to be able to get back to the locker room because especially on a big house, there was so much floor area,

not just talking about getting through ringside, but then floor area that would be clogged with people and you couldn't control, and that's where they'd get you and run. So it was a very interesting place. To circle back to where we started, it's just interesting because that's the last period of time before TV,

where you really weren't devastated when you lost TV. You know, because after that point, if you were a promotion, and you had TV and you lost your TV, that could be the end. I mean, New York survived. There were other towns too. But, you know, Roy Shire lost his TV and that was it. Boom.

Boom goes the dynamite. Well, anyway, so that's a jaunt through California wrestling history that we entertained you, me, and Tom Burke with. Good email. Thank you, Adam. Good email. Oh, yes. Thank you.

Adam. But we can decide who was entertained, or Uncle Dave can decide, Brian, who was entertained. Which one would you like to go for? In terms of entertainment value, I trust my entertainment value system more than Dave's. What kind of question is? Isn't Dave's entertainment value system more entertaining because it can't be trusted. It certainly is a very entertaining series of events lately watching the star ratings for the AEW events, but I guess we have WrestleMania we can talk about. Yes, yes, because

he has rated at long last, he has rated the efforts by all the top stars, the guys and gals on both nights of WrestleMania, and he's decided, you know, he's going to bless him or curse him or let everybody know what he thinks. And since, you know, I'm thinking that all the AEW matches get four, four and a half, five, five and a half. Since, you know, these matches are goddamn on an international stage in front of about 20 times as many people. It took in about 50 million more dollars.

That means he'll probably rate him about fucking two and two and a half, right? Well, let's go to these star ratings for WrestleMania 41. Let's start with Night 1. Jay Uso defeated Gunther, 16 minutes, 22 seconds, 3 and 3 quarter stars. On a normal, sane, rational four-star, like in TV guide scale, I think that's a little high, but it's not outrageous because it was a moment. We mentioned Jay's not to smooth this guy. He's not slicker than come on a gold tooth in the ring,

but he makes support with exuberance. Guthr's very good. Nobody shit the bed. I would have, I would have said under a normal circumstance, three stars. So for once, me and, me and old potato head ain't too far off. All right. That's our potato head caught me by surprise.

The new day. You think you should imagine what he thought when he looked in the mirror one day? The New Day won the World Tag titles over the Viking Raiders. Nine minutes, 11 seconds, two and three quarter stars. I can't really comment because we didn't fucking watch yet, did we? Not much of it, no. I would imagine it's probably about a star less than Jay and Gunther. So so far he appears to be grading this like some kind of

kind of rational adult. I wonder what the difference is. Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot it's a doubt, but go ahead. We'll see where he goes. Well, match three, Jake Cargill defeated Naomi, nine minutes, 20 seconds, two star match. And as far as I remember that it was a little roughen spots, dog, a little pitchy.

I don't know that maybe he's being a half a star generous. might have been right in that wheelhouse or that fly wheel. What is, has David adjusted his medication? No, you didn't watch AEW, watch WW. Match four, Jim, Jacob Fatu, defeated L.A. Knight to win the United States Championship. 10 minutes, 38 seconds, three and three-quarter stars. Boom again, for a logical person using a four-star skis. I don't think that L.A. Knight and Jacob Fatu

is one of the all-time classic confrontations a la Flair and Steamboat, but it was pretty goddamn good and the people got into it. And it was exciting and I don't think that rating's that far fucking off either. El Grande Americano defeated Ray Phoenix 7 minutes 55 seconds, 2 and 3 quarter stars. Again, wasn't that one of the ones that we glossed over in passing? I enjoyed it for what it was.

Again, it was a short match. It didn't even make it to eight minutes. But if Ray Phoenix had done the things he did in there with Kurt Engel, Kurt Engel, Chad Gable, Chad Gable, O' Grande Americano, if he had done that in AEW, do you think Dave would automatically ranked it higher? I mean, Ray Phoenix is one of those guys that was... Oh, shit, I forgot as one of his boys. Yeah.

but here well i guess and and meanwhile from what i've seen of both penta and phoenix i've liked them both better in two times in the wwe than i have in five years in aew so maybe that's a dave's turning against them for it for being better in a 19 minute and nine second match i didn't realize it was that long oh my god tiffany stratton defeated charlotte flare, one and three-quarter stars. I got to admit, I really did disagree with that either. Remember we said it was, it was, would J.R. have said Bowling shoe ugly? They tried to work a fight, which was neither one of their strong points and didn't get,

didn't get much better as it went and it went too long. Yeah, yeah. We didn't even really mention it during a review. what did you think of how beat up Tiffany was at the end? Their teeth was, it looked like one of her teeth were chipped, but I saw a picture of her later and she had her teeth, so I don't know if they just got her some work quick or it wasn't chip, but... Well, you know, they can...

They make fake teeth these days. I've heard all about it. I've seen Roman rains. I know all about it. Uh, how, oh. No, I had... I saw a scuff on her head that, I say a scuff.

You could do the red mark and the bump or whatever that I assumed she might have conked the apron or something, got a combination of a goose egg and a mat burn. But apparently from what I saw on the Twitter, she did the moonsault and Charlotte raised her knees and her face crashed into Charlotte's knee brace. So, and I can tell you, from having worn similar, those fucking knee braces don't have a lot of give if you hit them the right way.

That's the fucking idea. So, yeah, she may have, I didn't know about the tooth until afterwards, yay or nay. Jim, the main event. Well, I was just going to say, but I think that was entirely fair also. It just, it didn't, it didn't work, dog. The main event of night one. Seth Rollins won a three-way match over Sam Punk and Roman Raines, 32 minutes, 39 seconds,

four and three-quarter stars. Well, do you think that? Uncle Dave is trying to court the other side, or is he just scared of the wrath of Heyman? I honestly could say I don't have too much of a problem with any of his star ratings for night one. You know, I still have four and three quarter stars may be just almost goddamn too good for anything in a rational scale except for something that happens every year or two,

right? but it's not preposterous like when he gives the same thing or better to, you know, the indie kids that are flubbing as much as they're nailing. So, you know, maybe he still is a rational human or just feels like he has to tell somewhat of the truth when it comes to any other company besides one owned by his billionaire friend. And I don't have it here in front of me and I wish I did, but I saw it the other day. someone had a list of the time in between the matches at WrestleMania. You don't realize it.

I mean, it feels like it's a long time. It's like 20, 30 minutes sometimes in between these matches. Oh, yeah. There was more time in between the matches than time in matches. Think about that. Christine Jarrett would go out of her mind. Ring the bell. The people are getting restless.

Well, Jim, let's go to the star ratings. Let's review these star ratings Dave Meltzer did in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter for Night 2. of WrestleMania 41. Eoskeye retained the women's world championship over Ria Ripley and Bianca Bel Air 14 minutes, 8 seconds, five-star match.

I'm not going to disagree with them. I thought that was the best three-way match I've ever seen in the women's division, and I really liked it. Well, no, I'm laughing again, because now, you know, it was the best women's three-way, I think,

of all time, we can say that. I'm just the over the top-edness after we just talked about the four and three quarter with three of my just favorite people in the world and Roman Raines in there also. I've never met him. But I, you know, I would even say, okay, four and a half,

let's just, I don't think it's, I don't know, the last thing I saw that was five stars was FTR and Jen and Juice on TV that night just because it came out of nowhere and so vastly exceeded expectations. I just think you should be more judicious with that type of thing.

But I'll go four and a half and as Davis said, if we're arguing over half a star, it's the same thing. Well, here's one I definitely disagree with. Drew McIntyre defeated Damian Priest in a street fight, a Sin City street fight, 13 minutes, 54 seconds,

four and a quarter stars. Oh, Jesus Christ. I did not like that much. Well, I mean, again, besides it being, even if you like the stunt show and the garbage match and the trash cans and the lions and tigers and bears, oh my, I don't think it was a classic of that genre either. But since, you know, it just felt like, oh, we don't have a match where somebody's getting

hit with a toilet seat, so we'll make it this one. Well, Jim, our next match, Dominic Mysterio won the Intercontinental Championship over Bronbreaker, Finn Bauer, and Penta, 10 minutes, 30 seconds, 4 and a quarter stars. Jesus. Yeah, maybe he's just, you know what, Dave is a slow starter, as Lance Russell used to say. Oh, that luller, he's a notoriously slow starter, but when he gets kicked in, now he's, sprinkling out those stars like sprinkles at Halloween. I think of it more like Greg Valentine.

It takes some 45 minutes, just to warm up. Yeah, well, most people are cold by that point. Again, it's good, and Brown Breakers is the future of the business, but are we talking that? That's a little grand for me, but, you know, whatever. Randy Orton defeated Joe Hendry, three minutes, eight seconds, no star rating given. Oh, you know what, why couldn't Joe Hendry get a star?

everybody else gets a star. Fucking the three-way got a star. The fucking women's match got a star. Everybody gets a star. Joe Hendry don't get no star. What do you think of the criticism this week? And I think Dave actually may have been one of the people really saying it, that this was WWE, this was Triple H, squashing TNA.

Of all the things you could have done, they didn't beat Joe Hendry. They beat the TNA world champion. Really, when you think about it, I mean, that was the kind of thing they did back in the heyday at Triple H. We got the ECW world champion. Let's have Hunter beat him. We got Benoit coming off being the WCW world champion. Let's just have Hunter go out and beat him. What do you think?

Is this a positive or a negative for Joe Hendry and for TNA? Well, hold on. That's cross purposes, different things. First of all, back then it was at least a foot race. You know, when you're talking about WCW and WWF and ECW was in there because of their, you know, chameleon-like ability. to kind of graft onto whatever. But it's not a foot race anymore.

TNA's business is going to be what TNA's business is. And maybe a little bit bigger because of the crossover, maybe potentially much bigger on specific shows because of the crossover with the WWF or WWE and if they get talent on their shows, whatever the case. But what it was was, they want Joe Hendry sooner and later. They see some kind of

talent for something. I'm not knocking Joe. I'm just saying, I don't know what they see in Joe, whether it's the music or whether it's the wrestling or whether it's the personality, but they see they want him at some point, and they're going to get him at some point, if they want him. And from

what I heard, Orton pitched the idea, hey, that kid, he's in the system. I've seen him. I'm a fan of what he's doing. Let's put him on the show. and yes, they squash Joe Hendry, but Joe Hendry's that by the time the people see him in the WWE, he's going to be that entertaining guy that sings and smiles and does the pose and everything.

And it was on WrestleMania. That's fine. For T and A, that's the reason I laughed at it when we talked about it originally. It's embarrassing. It's, you know, but what? are they going to fucking do and their business is going to be what it's going to be it's not like the old days where anybody in any fucking universe thinks that the t and a world champion is in any way competitive with the w w that's why i didn't have the w f stars that came to o vw most of

the time beat the ov guys because if the ov guys beat them then it's phone because elsewise, why aren't the other guys in wrestling school and the OVW guys are on them raw, right? But they don't care whether they're pooping on T&A. They're doing them a goddamn blessing by allowing their greatness to spill off on TNA. In the meantime, they did a thing with a guy that they're going to end up with sooner or later, and it didn't hurt him. But as far as if it had been 25 years ago and it was WCW and WWF, my God, that would have been the biggest fucking burial in the history of company world

title burials. But now you'd have to be alive to be buried in this instance. They're not anybody that it matters. Was that clear enough? I think that was a good answer. By the way, someone you worked with once is on TV right here in the background. Remember the announcer Joe Fowler, Somerslam? Joe Fowler.

Yes, he was there. when I first got there and I lasted longer than he did is all I remember. I don't know if he was there past SummerSlam. He was there for like a month or a couple months maybe, but here he is hosting some commercial for the Giddy Up grill cleaner. I saw him some other commercial. He must be doing this. Now, the new Billy Mays, Joe Fowler.

Gitty up. Gitty up, baby. So now they're just showing you how messy you can make your grill and how this will just clean it right away. All right, well. But you know what they're doing? No. You know what they're doing right there.

They're selling things and they're making money because they're talking about products that you might want in your life. That's right. Let's get through this star rating where we go there. Oh, shit. I'm sorry. I forgot we weren't done. Well, Jim, let's get back to these star ratings.

Logan Paul defeated AJ Style 17 minutes, 44 seconds. Three and a half stars. I mean, that's not outrageous. It was very well worked. People were kind of blasé, but I don't have an argument. Becky Lynch and Lara Valkyria defeated Raquel Rodriguez and Liv Morgan to win the women's tag team championship. Eight minutes, 40 seconds, two-star match. Oh, I can't argue with that at all.

But how about one star for the match and three stars for the match? the pop that Becky Lynch got when she beat up the bird of war. How about three stars for Liv's shorts getting shorter and shorter every week. Jesus. Now, you've always got to go there. Why you got to go there? Give me a hell yeah. Oh, okay. Then Steve Austin drove into a woman or drove into a barricade. I think she was working. And finally, Jim. Well, definitely. It was a delayed Ox Baker bump. But how many stars did the ATV run get? It didn't get any here. Although, Dave did right, and other people who pointed us out,

nobody explained how they drew 1,800 more people in a building that the night before they said was sold out. Night 1, Sean announces a crowd. It's a sellout. Night 2's a bigger crowd. It's also a sellout. How did that happen? They went down to Home Depot and got some folding chairs.

I'm telling you. That Basil de Vito, or Basil? We had to do it at the Davis Arena. Got to go out and buy 25 more folding chairs. Jim, finally, the main event. John Sina defeated Cody Rhodes to win the WWE championship 25 minutes and two seconds a star in three quarters. Oh boy.

When was the last time a main event got a rating that low? And he's not wrong. Yeah, that's a thing. He's, you know what? As a matter of fact, he probably rated everything after he said, that match and that's why those first few matches looked even better after the experience. And I mean, we weren't expecting. And he's also, Dave is grading on in-ring work as he always does, which it wasn't the greatest. But what I was going into it with realistic expectations

was that it wasn't going to be the greatest match ever because John Cena is almost 50 years old and he wasn't going to be you know bumping like a goddamn madman or you know just flying off the top rope that wasn't going to be the thing they were going to hopefully have the

people and the interest to go back and forth and it would take them on the ride and you know they would do it that way with a lot of Shakespeare as we say back in the territory days but that

I was just going to say, but that, you know, unfortunately, and if that had been done to where Cody didn't look like, as Adrian Street would say, a spay a prick at the wedding or just some kind of goofball for having a chance to hit this fucking guy over the head after all he's done and choosing instead to be, stand there and be kicked in the balls, I would have given it two and a quarter or two and a half and said,

okay, they accomplished it. right and at least we didn't have to fucking and Travis Scott with that that wasn't the boy's fault in the ring neither Sina nor Cody that he decided he was going to take same time Lewis and Clark did to get to the fucking West Coast to get to the goddamn ring um hey wasn't what Dave wrote because I actually agree with him here then Rhodes refused to hit Sina with the belt in 2025 you want to make sure a baby face doesn't get over have him do that spot boom I couldn't believe that Rhodes would agree to that. Not 1% chance Dusty Rhodes in that situation isn't hitting the guy with the belt and getting the pin and then a second ref comes out and tells the first rough what happened. But that's true. Dusty Rhodes would have done the exact opposite. Yes.

Because John Wayne would have done the opposite. That's... But you know what? That's, as James Gregory, my old friend of comedian once said. That's the difference. Back when people were raised on grease and gravy, that's where they had babies like John Wayne. He said, John Wayne's mom ate grease and gravy all her life,

and then she squatted down and out popped John Wayne. And Dave just squatted down and out popped those ratings. I was wondering where you would go. I don't know where I was going till I got there. I never start with a plan, Brian. After every period, it's an all new thought. Why would Cody do that spot? Just to end this with that, I mean, as I'm thinking about it,

because again, it's not just like it happened organically, I wouldn't think. It was planned out. One would imagine. Why would Cody not recognize that's a mistake? Or could he not veto that? Well, I mean, I don't know. I'm not in those negotiations to know who has the power to,

down to the fine-tune that, who's got the power to say no to that or this. I don't know why that Cody, I would almost have to think that he offered some type of what he thought was suitable alternate to doing that or something because, you know, or maybe he's, maybe it's just that there couldn't make a lot of money either way,

that these things don't matter anymore because they're just, to everybody because they're all stars or whatever, but that is, that was one of the first major flaws to me. And people have talked about it. And I was willing to overlook the fact when, when Cody came back from being kicked the balls the first time, they didn't come out like dusty with a fucking cowboy boot on his fist,

wanted to hit somebody over the head, because you couldn't do physical angles with Sina constantly leading up to WrestleMania because it also would have exposed a lot of his shortcomings that we just saw on full display in that match. And they're both such great talkers, okay, we'll have a promo battle. I was, I've overlooked that because of the conditions of the situation. But then to have Cody B, he wasn't necessarily a sucker before because he turned the rock down and then fell for Sina, but fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

When he falls for Sina again, he gets kicked in the balls again. Then you're just one of those people that likes to get kicked in the balls. You don't want to be bob back on crying when your belt gets destroyed. No. You know, there's certain moves that baby faces once you open that door, and I worry about Cody and his instincts with this stuff. And, you know, again, he has a team of people he's working with. Triple H, but, you know, sometimes you want to be a baby face more than

than reason would allow. You know, you can't just be like, I'm a good guy through and through, no matter what. It just doesn't work. But that was WrestleMania 2. WrestleMania 41. Two nights that didn't work. Yeah. But that's your show.

Well, you know, Brian, what they need to be doing is they need to be out on the street selling themselves these wrestlers the men and the women they need to be out beating the bushes out in the public selling themselves sounds like tom cassati's wet room getting themselves over and putting themselves up for the highest bidder no they need to be selling their images and their likenesses and their personalities and growing their brand and that's what everybody needs to do you need to grow your brand because if your brand is real tiny then nobody can read your brand. And if your brand ain't reaching a lot of people, then nobody can see your brand. And then you got an off-brand brand. And nobody wants an off-brand brand because the brands that

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They're going to send one of them up there, Brian. On the very next shuttle. We don't know anything. You can't just make statements like this. No documentation. I see, I got a cousin that works at NASA. No, you do not. They're going to, well, you don't know who my cousin works for or may have had dealings with in the past.

It could have been some pillow talk. You heard about that astronaut that worked for NASA that drove across the country wearing adult diapers to fucking kill her boyfriend's girlfriend. Well, if that happened for real, then I could have a goddamn cousin working at NASA. Was that it or was a pillow talk? You just, you just opened the window to a whole new argument. Whether he was with NASA or his pillow talk? It could have been pillow talk with somebody that was at NASA. See, you don't know who's.

I'm broadening this thing that way that you won't finger anybody for being the guilty party that revealed that Shopify is going to send somebody up on a space station and they're going to set up a platform on there so that they can charge every citizen on Earth a special fee from the space station and they're going to give you a piece of it. So you'll make one quarter of one cent for every human being, each country on earth. It's a new deal they're starting. No. Again, we don't know anything.

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One more time, that promo code. Let's end on a positive note. Shopify.com slash JCE. Well, Brian, this past week on Vice TV, Tuesday nights at 10 o'clock Eastern time, that is, the latest episode of Dark Side of the Ring was on superstar Billy Graham. And again, besides the fact that I love to watch these old clips of stuff that has not

been shoved down our throats and Graham was made for television, can we ring the bell on one fucking debate right now, the best-looking belt that the WWE, WWF, WWF ever had, was the Billy Graham belt that was one of those Nikita Malkovich belts. It just looked phenomenal on all this stuff. It was a great-looking belt. I love the way that belt looks, and it was perfect for its time. I do like the winged eagle belt, but again, I grew up during that era, and that was the belt for, you know, what, almost 10 years?

Oh, yeah, easily. So, I mean, that was kind of the belt of my childhood, but I really like that one. Do you think that one looks better than, let's say, the NWA Globe, what did they call it the the globed dome the domed globe the domed globe yeah I love those

Malkovich belts and the the world tag team belts we had for Crockett were made by him also and they hadn't been kept up as well as that one was but I had replica sets made of those things is the only replica belts I've got just because I love them so much but it just looked it looked like a big piece of

jewelry. And you don't get that look anymore, the texture and et cetera, but with Graham, everything just looked so good. And they had video where they juxtaposed him and Dusty, him and Hogan especially. I mean, it was. The point of the episode was that if he'd been the superstar Graham of 1974 in 1984, Vince would have made him Hulk Hogan. But, but, But Hogan took his gimmick, Ventura took his gimmick, Dusty took some of it. And I know people are going to say, what the fuck? Not body-wise, but the promo and the tie-dye.

I mean, Graham was doing even tie-dye before almost anybody in wrestling. His wife was doing the tie-dye. That was news, too, that she was the one doing the tie-dye stuff in the bathroom. Yeah, but that was, it was his, it was his gimmick. that he put together and now so many people, Scott Steiner at one point and everybody on a wrestling show

now is kind of doing something either from Graham or from somebody that did it from Graham and but at the time that he was doing that in wrestling even when I first found wrestling magazines, the pictures of him, 1972

they're fucking tremendous he looked different. It was a whole different thing. And one of the talking heads was his friend Steve Strong. They were workout buddies, but I didn't, Steve Strong got runs in smaller territories as superstar Steve Strong, didn't he? He did. And, you know, so Bill Dundee. He didn't do it directly, but Big Bad John, when they teamed him up with Bill Dundee, he started doing the promos. That's right, Big Bad John and my friend Billy

superstar Dundee. He was doing it after superstar Billy Graham but nobody at that time in Memphis had seen Graham. And Dundee looked at it was just the idea of the nickname. It's everywhere. But and Dundee decided to wear

macho man trunks and it wasn't because he was stealing from macho man. He'd have probably rather have fought Billy Graham than Randy Savage but but that was the kind of the the overall scheme of the piece here was that they didn't delve,

they got him in the business, and we'll talk about it, but they didn't delve too much on his career before or afterwards as much as his incredible run where he was not only the longest running WWWF heel champion ever at that time and for a long time afterwards, but he was also the biggest box office track. in the business. And just because Vince Sr.

had decided he was going to do something, he took the belt off of him, and he sent Graham into a depression that he never recovered from. And that was defined the rest of his life practically. But they had more of his family on this one, Brian, than other documentaries we may have seen, including I didn't know he had a,

son. I remember seeing pictures of him and his daughter vaguely, but his daughter, Capella, great personality, well-spoken, and she was seemed like she was more hurt about the fact that, as she said, he loved us, but he loved being superstar more. And he wasn't there for them, and he split up with their mother. And the son, until the end of the episode, seemed to hold it more against him for not being there and even said, you know, he hated him for years over that. But there was more family involvement here than on any of the other retrospectives or anything we've seen about Billy Graham. But the talking heads were strong myself. I've made a few cameos. Billy Anderson, who is from Arizona, Arizona expert, Ken Patera. Well, Billy Anderson was

In between trips to the loo. Billy Anderson was really close with Billy Graham for years. Yes. And, well, as I said, they're both from Arizona. And because a lot of people may have thought, well, how did Billy Anderson, I don't think ever intersected career-wise with Graham, but, you know, they were, they were hometown buds. And Steve Kern, who worked with him in Florida, Steve Strong as we meant,

and Uncle Dave, really, I'm glad to see him doing that well. They've got a new treatment for brocolitis, where your head slowly turns into a head of broccoli. And I think they're reversing some of the earlier fucking damage. Anyhow. Brocolitis. Brocolitis, yeah. Well, it comes from not washing the broccoli.

Ah, naturally. Naturally. Naturally. So he trained in Calgary with Stu Hart. He meets up with Dr. Jerry Graham, who's a legendary figure in the business and is also a ragingly dr. dr. and he ought to be my brother. And that lasted about two weeks in Los Angeles.

And then Graham got fired. That was when he was trying to, Graham had made a comeback, I think around 68 for the Sheik in Detroit. and this was like 6970 in Los Angeles. And anyway, they got the photos. They got the pictures enough to prove the providence. And I remember one of the first magazine covers of the London publishing magazines was this Billy Graham preaches violence.

And it had him hitting the double bicep with the fringe jacket and the whole thing. And but, you know, while we knew that, at the same time while he's in Los Angeles, he's working out, and we've knew this, so he's working out with Arnold Schwarzenegger and their friends, but they were such good friends. See, you'd always think exaggeration in wrestling, right? They were such good friends.

They had pictures where Arnold picked his wife and daughter up at the hospital when she was born when he had car trouble or whatever. So then he's holding the baby and things. So they really, they skipped over, everything through what his first run in the WWWF, really, the AWA entirely, but he had already been on top. One of the top heels made your name in the AWA for Vern and worked programs with Wahoo and Crusher and all those guys.

Marty O'Neill. Marty O'Neill. I feel bad. I'm sure he was a legend, you know, over there, but whenever I see footage of him, he just looks, maybe it's the glasses, he looks lost. And then you see early Gene O'Kerland, like this guy's got some life to him. Yeah, Marty O'Neill looked like if Roy Orbison had a blind grandfather.

Was he blind? I don't know, but he looked like it from his last. Was he blind? No, I don't think he was, how could he be a blind wrestling announcer? Well, he was just holding a microphone looking off like he was blind. He did commentary too back in the day on those shows. No, he just had the weird glasses. But anyway, he's so sorry to his fans.

I just want to say. None of them are listening to this thing. Are you kidding? Probably by this point, half our regular listeners have given up. So anyway, he's in the WWF. And remember it was him and Ernie Ladd and Ivan Koloff that were the revolving trilogy of top heels

in the WWWF at that time that we're drawing big money anyway. and Vince Sr. made the call to have him be the champion in between Bruno and Backland. And that's what Graham's son on this said, I hate Bob Backlin. Even though he was mad at his dad, he hated Bob Backlid for beating him for the belt, like poor Backland called to finish. Because that started the downfall, was Backland. Well, yeah. And, and, I mean, that was the thing.

It could have been Steve Kern. Did they say that in this? They didn't say that in this. It could have been Steve Kern. No, they didn't bring that up. Maybe they thought nobody believe it. But Vince Sr. wanted an all-American boy, and Kern was already established, and it's not like they were going to send Briscoe,

but they had just started Backland, and he'd already, they had plans for Backland in the NWA, you could tell because he'd already worked St. Louis. Yeah, he'd worked Texas also for the Funch. Graham had, that was a classic sign of, we're sending him trying to teach you something

to work for the Funks, but Graham had already obviously had plans with him, but he recommended him to Vince Sr., not knowing that that would pretty much be Bob's run and the NWA never get another shot at him. When Paul Orndorff, when Graham sent Paul Orndorff to Memphis in 77 when he was a rookie to work for Jerry Jarrett, the footage they sent of Orndorff was working out doing those

hero Matsuda fucking badass calisthenics with Bob Backland. because they was the only guy in shape enough to fucking, you know, follow that shit with, because it was the thing where they intertwined legs and did sit-ups together and all that shit. But anyway, they couldn't talk, Graham couldn't talk Vince Sr.

Out of it. Couldn't talk him about he thought for sure we're selling out, we're turning him away. He could, he tried to even claim that his knee was hurt or his leg was hurt to match a couple nights beforehand and Vince wouldn't buy it. Yeah, what happens then? Do you just give that up? Like if it's like, oh, fuck, he doesn't believe me. I guess I'll just walk around regular again.

Yeah, well, you kind of, you don't put as much effort into limping and, you know, you work out the kinks. Because if, you know, if you know, it ain't going to work. Because he had, Graham had made a mistake he had worked the night before in Toronto and he didn't think he might know. But, but, yeah, they were, and it wasn't just the garden. He had just had. had the rematch in, I think it was a rematch, or maybe it's the first match in Philadelphia with Bruno. And they'd sold out the spectrum and turned thousands and thousands away. But anyway, they were going to do it, so they did it. And Graham was already taking pain pills. Google, if you can, because I don't remember

what year Graham was born in. How old was Billy Graham in 1978? but he was already taking pain pills and he always looked a little older physically than he was to begin with and he was getting older by this point. And he had already ODed a couple of times according to a couple people's testimony, including his second wife's Valeries. So from that point, he kind of left the wrestling business and was just in this depression over having, the belt taken away from him in that spot taken away from him. And I think, did it? Was it Uncle Dave said he was doing like lawn service or whatever in Arizona? But have you found how old was it?

He was born June 7th, 1943. Wow, he was 35 years old. But between the steroids working on the joints, the premature balding, and just having a mature, face and demeanor, you thought he was older. Because, see, I had seen the magazines and seen him in the wrestler, the Vern Gagne version in 74. There was no home video then.

The first time I got to see Graham really wrestle that he had lost the belt to backland in, what, was it, February of 78? in like October 1979 he shows up in Memphis and Jared Jarrett wanted to establish the CWA World Heavyweight title and have a real name hold it and drop it to Lawler

and it was maybe August he showed up I've got pictures of him and Bachwinkle holding their belts on the same fucking show but at that point in the ring you know you could tell and I know now with hindsight, this guy that was used to these fucking giant houses and crowds, he was in Memphis and wasn't the top guy in Memphis

and the fans weren't taken to him like the top guy. And he was phoning it in. And he wasn't taken in really any bumps. And he was, you know, he was doing the promos, but in the ring, the people here in this territory had never seen him before and he didn't impress anybody. But he had, That's the only place he worked for like a two or three year period.

Jared was able to talk him into it. And it was just kind of, you know, being there. When you say he didn't impress anyone, you're talking obviously as fans, as fans that don't look at it as critically as today, was it in the ring he didn't? Was it that the promos he was doing for the local shows didn't connect? I mean, what was it impressive?

The promos were great, but the matches weren't any good, because he didn't, besides the fact that he didn't work the Memphis style, he wasn't going to be taking a lot of bumps. He wasn't going to, I don't remember he, you know, he was a big bleeder, but I don't remember Graham ever getting juice in Memphis. His work was more see-through. It was in the 70s in the AWA when he had more oomph to him 10 years, you know, or maybe six or seven, he aged quickly.

Years before that, he wasn't a polished, in-ring performer, but he had more motion to him and working those wild matches with Crusher and Wahoo and all the guys in the AWA, there was movement. And up there in the WWF in the 70s, when it was all about the bigger guys and the slower matches, he kind of could hang in the ring. The promos were incredible. The look was off the charts. But when he got to Memphis, he was cutting the promos, but the life wasn't there.

And he didn't get, he was brought in as this guy was the biggest star in the business. You've all read about him. It wasn't like we're going to start from scratch to get this guy over week after week, month after month. He wasn't going to be there forever. And the in ring just compared to the guys that were in a Tennessee territory at the time was just slow and the shit didn't look right. It didn't look believable.

It was a little weaker. And you like that Nikita Malkovich belt. What did you think of the CWA belt when they whipped that out? Oh, good God. I can't remember who it was that they found some guy. It was the only wrestling belt ever featuring stained glass. And they found somebody, I think, in Tennessee that made that thing. And it certainly had a different look.

But I can't remember. I think Robinson ended up making off with it. I don't think they ever got it back. Billy Robinson, that is. But nevertheless, that's. was Tennessee. And then he went back to the WWF in 1982

with the bald head and nobody and the karate gimmick. And again, when he came to Memphis, he didn't look in 1979, he didn't look like he did in 1973. But he still had the body and he had blonde hair

and he was still wearing the tie-dye. But then when he had got back out of the business, and that's when they said he really was bad on pills and his wife or daughter, his daughter said that she was sad looking back on this era because my God, in 1982, he would have been 39 years old and he would have passed for 55, right,

with some of the old timers that still stay in the ring. That mustache added like 10 years to his life. But the physique, not only did he lose weight, but everything drooped, and he would get it back later on a few years later. is somewhat not, you know, all the way, but that was, you could tell he just, he was not a well person. Well, plus the karate gimmick. Oh, God, yeah.

You know, karate kid hadn't come out yet, but Bruce Lee had. I mean, there was enough people that had seen enough stuff. No, Bruce Lee was 10 years old at that point. Yeah, exactly. You couldn't fool anyone that Billy Graham actually knew karate. So that thing also was, you know, it's not just that he showed. up looking like that. He showed up pretending he knows karate. But you know what? That showed that he was so, his confidence had been shattered,

that he felt so rejected by that, because they said he'd had a, you know, his father was never affectionate to him and his childhood, he was poor and blah, blah, blah. So the rejection of Vince Sr., he wanted to change his whole fucking thing. And, you know, we know Vince Jr. has said, you know, when that Graham showed up, Vince Jr. was like, what the fuck? That was his prototype for a goddamn pro wrestling champion. And if it had been Vince Jr. instead of Vince Senior, he'd have been Hogan. But instead he gets, you know, Foumanchu. And then by the time he gets another run in what, 86 and 87, his body had given out. And he's he was 43 years old and he's hospitalized for the start of all of the hip replacements and joint givings out and hospitalizations and health issues and

livers and kidneys and everything and that was pretty much him as far as a career but then you know he worked florida with kevin solvin a bit which i'm sure if you were partying at the time that territory may have not been the best place to go. No, not after the before. I'm saying before he went back to. Yeah, but beforehand. After he went back in 86, 87, that was it. He was still there when you were there. When you first got there, he was there, right, working for Crochet. Oh shit, no wait. Yes, because he went, he went from Crockett back to Vince for that last run. Well, we worked with him. We worked with the Midnight Express worked with superstar Billy Graham and Jimmy Valiant. That was in 85. he went from there to Vince for the last run

and then that's when his body started giving out. But I mean, and let me just say a superstar Billy Graham in 1985 cutting the promos for Crockett, he had the tie-dye, he had the goddamn body, he had gotten his shit back together and he was working at least harder and some better

than he had in Memphis six years previously. and that Billy Graham, if you'd have kept the one that was in Crockett in 85, he might not have gotten over from scratch if nobody'd ever seen him. But that Billy Graham, with that name, he could have fucking had another number of years in the business at that age if his body had not started falling apart. And the hep C and the liver and the joints and everything. I remember the video of him, I think it was like him giving Steve Lombardi a bear hug and his back just went out. Like all of a sudden he's giving someone a bear hug and it's like he's almost like using him stand himself up. Yeah. And that was it.

And I have actually worked in the ring with superstar Billy Graham in handicapped matches. Even the Grand Wizard didn't get to do that. There you go. See, that's another thing to mark down for me. But that was the last. But you know what? Yeah. His hair wasn't coming back. I mean, the reason he got rid of it was it was going, I think.

It wasn't coming back. But when he grew the goatee and he had like kind of the look that Scott Steiner would later steal, you know, the multicolored goate, he looked cool again. Physically, though, he, you know, he wasn't as withered down as he was as karate, Billy Graham. But he was so pumped up, but he was also just so much older. His body looked older than he was. Now that you know what his age is, like his body looked like Dick. the bruiser era. Yeah.

Look like bruiser in the Tindle Armory era of the 80s. I just popped Dave Dynasty and nobody else. But the last scene of this was really sad because his son finally, you know, he was in the hospital in 2023. He'd lived for 20 years after a liver transplant. They were always hearing he's, remember we were talking about it, we're always hearing. he's near death, he's on death's door. He's been dying since 89.

He's been dying for 30 years, whatever. But finally, his son said, well, I've got to go see him because his daughter had. And they had a last visit. And the last then phone call that he had with his son was really sad where they said they loved each other and blah, blah, blah. But the way the son told it, it was a sad ending to that. But, you know, that was, you know, that was, you. can look invincible like Graham did on the outside, but when his confidence was broken or when

his self-esteem took a shot or just, you know, having something like that taken away when that was your goal that, you know, that pretty much wrecked the rest of his life. You know, again, it's that weird thing of being told you're going to have this great thing happened to you and it's going to end at this date, you know, I'm sure he made it much worse than it had to be. But still, it's something that's a crushing blow. It's not like he left the WWF right away. You know, he was still there for a little bit.

But, you know, whatever he was on, and he may have been on everything at one point in the 70s. Not like the 80s when shit got almost clean. Yeah, no, the 60s. Yeah. They were mixing it up in toilet bowls. You know, physically you have to wonder, you know, where he was at that point. But, you know, people use the Billy Graham thing to dismiss Backlin's early years before he became really too goofy or the goofiness didn't work anymore.

The howdy-dutyness wore off. Yeah. But Backlin was super over, but they were worried. You know, they had Dusty coming in a lot. They had Mil Mosquirus obviously there the year when Billy Graham was champion, but he was still in the end. air, so to speak. Bruno was, you know, around, like,

they were trying to make sure there was enough around Backland to prove himself. And Billy Graham was like the first one of those guys that kind of disappear off the scene. And, you know, Dusty liked him, obviously gave him the chance at Mid-Atlantic

and he went back to work for Vince O'German. Then he became a manager. And again, he wasn't, you know, he managed the Rock Don Morocco. It was a baby-faced manager. It just didn't work. And then he was on commentary. And, you know, there's a lot of,

a lot of guys. I think Rick Flair's one of them, too. The greatest promos in wrestling history. Can do color. Yeah. Yeah. It's a whole different thing. Yeah.

And, you know, but that's a thing. Dusty loved him because, you know, he influenced Dusty. He influenced everybody. And from what I recall, he was a fun guy in a locker room to be around. He just, you know. couldn't take the fall from the top and a lot of health issues that were brought on or as a result of, you know, some of the various chemicals that he needed to do to get to what he needed to do. But next week on the program, Dark Side of the Ring, Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert.

And I'm looking forward to this one because, again, this is going to be, we're going to see some footage that hasn't been beaten to death and overreact. overexposed and we're going to hear Eddie's story that ended unfortunately about 10 years before he would be a household name now. It just right before that fucking hot period in the 90s. That is interesting. That's always the big hypothetical. What would have been, you know, people presume because Eddie was a smart guy,

he would have been set up for life. You know, he would have been great during the Monday night war, but he had burned a lot of bridges. He was in Puerto Rico because of, it was the only place that would let him book. And he definitely was one of these guys that once he was Booker, he couldn't turn it off. I'm sure you could relate.

You know, once you're doing it, it's hard to not do it when it's all you're thinking about nonstop as he was. And the thing is with Eddie, with Eddie and me, the difference was I could hold blowing up for longer. Eddie would have the blow up quicker. and sometimes over, you know, stuff that in the long run might have worked out. But that's explained a lot in the piece.

Good. But not only by me, but by everybody involved, because I think Dutchman tells on they're saying, I think the longest Eddie booked anything was six months. And I think he's right. Yeah, I think he's right. Mick made the point. Mick Foley makes the point that, you know, he would be looked at as one of the most creative minds today.

by that next generation that he just didn't quite make. But the thing is on talent and creativity, would Eddie have made it anywhere most certainly, especially when the attitude era things got hot, would Eddie have stayed anywhere long term because of his disposition, maybe another question, and we'll let everybody get their,

form their own opinions when they watch the show? You know, a lot of people always compare you to hand. And it's a natural comparison just because of everything you guys did in the business. You started as photographers. You ended up running your own companies. But in a lot of ways, you know,

you and Eddie Gilbert is kind of the weird dichotomy to look at just because you both grew up idolizing Lawler. Well, now, hold on now. I idolizing, oh, yes, I pray to you, King. No, our favorite wrestler. Your favorite wrestler, besides his father. Yeah, I mean, you both were photographers. Because he was the guy in our, yeah, he was the guy in our territory.

Really, Eddie and I were more. similar. We're both from the same part of the country. We both knew each other for longer than Paul and I never met till we were, till we were grown folks. But Eddie and I had a similar background in what, and philosophy of what kind of wrestling worked or didn't work. And we did more of the same kind of stuff than either Eddie and Paul or me and Paul. Eddie and I were more similar in the wrestling product. Like that Lawler's Army. thing that was a big influence on both of you. Well, at some time or another, it becomes easier

instead of buying new suits and going through dry cleaning, you just go to the fucking Army surplus store and get the goddamn... Now, you didn't make yourself a king. He did that. He made himself a king of Philadelphia. No, I couldn't pull the king off, but I could be the general of the army. I just found one last thing about this, and I am curious to see how this Eddie Gilbert thing is going to go. I wish they had included Missy Hyatt, but I understand why that may have been an issue. Also, I wish there was a better narrator for all these than Chris Sherricko.

He's horrible at this. But I just found in the Eddie Gilbert file, like 8x10s that were made up when he was like 14 shooting photos at rain. It's just him holding a camera wearing a sweater in the back. And it says Eddie Gilbert. I mean, it's a professionally done 8 by 10. He always knew somehow he was going to get in a wrestling business. And the difference in the two of us, because we were. were a month apart in age.

And from the time we met, we were 14, 15 or whatever, the difference is he knew he was going to be a wrestler and be in the business. And he was just doing photography until that point, and which shortly before his 18th birthday came around. Whereas I was doing the photography, and I had no idea anybody would ever ask me to be in a wrestling business. And I was too scared to fucking volunteer the idea. but I would be a wrestler anyway.

So, but we both ultimately had the booking thing is what his true goal was. And because that was the influence of watching Lawler and Jarrett work. You know, when he was coming to the matches with his father, Tommy. And I was just fascinated in the match, not to think anybody would ever let me do that either, but that was what fascinated me that I thought, well, I could potentially do something like that and or manage. But that was our trajectory some way. He knew he was going to, and I never dreamed I would until I did,

but we kind of did the same thing to get there. Yeah, several 8 by 10s from clearly before he was like in the business, when he was just shooting photos and, yeah. You know what, because of the dark side coming out, I'll put a bunch of that on Instagram, maybe we'll talk about any of the letters in there on from the files next week. Well, I guess, Brian, before we go any further, we got to, I don't know if it's check in or if it's just hover in, zoom in on the Rock's latest antics.

Now he's arguing with podcasters and the podcasters that he ain't arguing with. He's leading down a path that would make one think that he's trying to challenge Hulk Hogan in terms of the prevarications and preposterizations of some of his comments. In other words, he's pulling some of this shit just right out of his ass, Brian. Were you right all along about this whole thing again? I'm in a weird position. It's kind of like when you discover a band and you really like them, and all of a sudden, like months later, other kids are listening to them.

And you're like, no, you guys weren't here at the beginning. But yeah, everyone's catching up because it's... No, actually, you know, I think you're wrong there, Brian. I think it's more like it's a hot new burger joint that everybody's going to. And the first time you go there, you say, well, this shit sucks. And they're probably cooking it in a microwave. And then after a few months when they quit trying, because they've been doing good business, then everybody figures out, you know, this shit sucks and they're cooking it in a microwave.

That's more apropos to this situation. Well, yeah. But who am I? I guess the point is everyone's catching up to what I said. I always say I say the truth. Even if you don't like what I'm saying at the moment, it'll catch up to you. And it's undeniable what's going on with the rock and it's undeniable the short term and potential long-term issues they're going to have because of a weird dynamic that they've put in place with the rock there. Since we last discussed it in real time on the drive-through, you've seen some of the quotes, you've seen some of the different.

perspectives on this, correct? Yes, well, because when we were doing the previous show and we'd been talking endlessly about that which was WrestleMania weekend and then suddenly he's on the Pat McAfee show and he's blurting some things out that we're seeing in real time.

I want to talk about that in more detail than we did previously, but also is he apparently he's arguing on Twitter with what's his name? I thought when he was saying Dave, I thought he was mad, at Uncle Dave. I thought that chain had been broken,

but it's Dave, Dave Lagana? No, no. The busted square or what is it? Dave LaHoo? I think it's Legreca, because I think he's related to that Don Legreca guy.

It used to be on WFAN and then does that unfortunate show with Michael Kay. But, yeah, he's on serious, I believe. Is he serious about it? Well, apparently he's serious about it. He's a wrestling fan, and he was, like everyone else with their eyes opening, noticed what happened with everything

leading up the WrestleMania and how disjointed everything got and the disastrous feeling they left people with at the end of night two. And he got mad as hell and he couldn't take it anymore and he made inflammatory comments.

I don't know how inflammatory. He's a podcaster who expressed... Well, they inflamed the rock. What, did they? See, that's the thing. Let me read this response and tell me, does he mean to be condescending

or does he not even realize he's being condescending? Let me know what you think here. Hi, Dave. The business is a complete work. Always has been. Always will be. Every aspect of it.

Every match. Every interview. Please join me, Cody, Sina, Brian, and the rest of us for our creative discussions. So you can expand your perspective. Until then,

stop ranting. It's not healthy, my friend. should have been a comma there before my friend. Enjoy the show. And then he had a little, I guess, cutesy message for Bubba because they used to work together. But what are your thoughts on what he said there, the response, the fact that he did respond,

and the tone of it? I don't think, as you said, he realizes how he's coming off to people as such an insufferable douchebag. He's become such an autour. He's one of those fucking annoying French directors at this point instead of a Hollywood action star. He's constantly got to beat people over the head with this is all, it's all to work, it's all fake, it's all planned, it's all written, it's all scripted. Because he, it's the same, he wants to straddle his worlds between, he doesn't want to insult his Hollywood people that he's actually trying to make, you know, wrestling fans.

believe this stuff is real. He's showing his incredible creativity and production capability and starring roles. And at the same time, he wants to be rewarded and given praise for the incredible rise of the popularity of the industry at his not only in-ring, but now that they ain't no in ring, he wants to be the face of this thing. Like I can move and shake when I come in. And but at the same time, he says he, and he always has loved the business from when he was a kid. That part's absolutely true and studied the business and studied the guys.

But now that he's in this position, he wants to just tell everybody, no, we're making all this shit up. and here's exactly how it happens. And, you know, because I'm an actor and a producer and a Hollywood megastar now instead of a wrestler. And indirectly shits all over the fucking business. Well, not maybe indirectly, directly. Do you see what I'm saying here?

You know, to me, the rock, it's very similar. It's just going to sound like a crazy comparison to you, but to like Cody Rhodes when AEW started, I want to be an executive. I want you to see. see me as an executive, but where's the actual executive skill, executive talent? You know, the rock is really talented. He's maybe one of the all-time, not maybe, he's one of the all-time greatest when it came to having a script, when being told what to say, when sometimes having

the notes on his hand, he could do that. He's a great performer. But when the performer thinks they're brilliant creatively and they have never, ever really shown that ability, yet they're insistent on having the capabilities to be as creative as they want whenever they want, however they see fit, even with their troll piss boy who used to live on Planet McMahon 25 years ago and hasn't done a fucking thing in wrestling forever. It creates an impossible dynamic, whether you like Triple H or not, again, if you're booking everything throughout the year and someone just swoops in, tries to take credit for everything, fucks up all long-term long-term storylines.

And again, whoever doesn't think this fucked up the whole scene of thing, it did. It clearly did. And they doubled down on it with having Travis Scott through the walk-in at WrestleMania. This whole thing has been a disaster

and it's only going to get worse. And, you know, again, the rock, if the rock thinks he could swoop in with Goertz and his team and just do whatever they want, that's gonna, eventually there's going to be a showdown.

This is like fucking punk the bucks in the bat. I'm not saying it's going to be a fight, but this is, this is the billion dollar mega conglomerate version of that. Yes. Yeah, it's coming though. And, you know, again, I'm not saying triple H is perfect.

And there's plenty of reasons to question the booking leading into WrestleMania in, you know, various ways for various things. But this was just out of nowhere and at a distraction and not followed through on and just odd, and then they attempt to claim that it was meant to be, or some people, aka the Rock, claim that it was meant to be this way all the time, or this, same thing two years in a row. But if there is a fight, I hope Gerwitz gets kicked into balls. What do you, but anyway, what do you, go ahead.

Back to this tweet, though, just the idea that the Rock tweeted out, whether condescending or not, the business is a complete work, always has been, always will, be every aspect of it, every match, every interview. You know, Frank Gotch, maybe we want to have a word with you, Rock. It always has been. And a couple of the guys that got double-crossed would like to speak as well. But those exact words coming out as someone who's at very best a part-timer as a performer and, you know, who knows how involved on a day-to-day basis he is.

He says Ari Emanuel called him up to save elimination chamber. Well, that's what I wanted to do. One of the things that I wanted to mention. Because it wasn't the ticket prices that was causing people not to come. It was the rock company there. But no, there wasn't, it wasn't even anything causing people not to come because someone retweeted the folks at Russell Ticks. They do their regular reports, right?

And a tweet from like the end of January or whatever saw that Elimination Chamber had 26 or 7,000 fucking tickets sold already. It only had like the two or three or four thousand left available a month before the show. It was, it, that's, it, basically I think that the Rock saw Hogan's deal where the WrestleMania documentary where Hogan's deal was that,

well, you know, it was kind of, the advance wasn't doing too well. So Vince called me. It just stole it. he was the same fucking week he said this that we you know that thing came out it was not weak nothing they were doing at that point was weak as i recall weren't they selling a bunch of shit out still yeah and that was before they went to europe and obviously the rock wasn't there

and it sold i mean they didn't sell out it looked like it sold out everywhere god dare people gave them money and didn't even come they just here take my money that's how money for money. Take my money. I just want to sing. Yeah. But on the McAfee show, besides the overall theme that he's always doing now, well, it's all a carefully crafted or organized story that, you know, where we write that whole nine yards

because he's Hollywood, he told McAfee that he wasn't at WrestleMania so as not to take the spotlight away from Sina and say oh Sina's the great the greatest of all time the goat right but if he didn't want to take the spotlight away from John Sina at WrestleMania then why did he insert himself in the goddamn finish of the pay-per-view the previous month that was leading to the match at the god-day do you see what I'm saying here if he could he was already incertified yeah listen from the beginning of Netflix beginning of the year And if he could show up drunk to NXT, why can't he show up to WrestleMania?

In Vegas, if he was in L.A., there's no reason why he shouldn't have been there. If we find that he was in L.A. just sitting there, he could have been there. You can drive that, right? Yeah. Well, the words can drive. You can sit in the back and go. Well, yeah. Piss.

I mean, can he see over the fucking steering wheel? They're booster seats. They make booster seats for people. Oh. Uh-oh. It's the rock. Uh-oh. you got your bat phone line.

But then also on the McAfee show, that's what he said, well, the advance was slow for elimination chamber, so Ari called me, and we're looking for a way to, you know, jazz this thing up a little bit. And he said he pushed the story that final boss wanted the soul of Cody Rhodes.

But then he said, well, we tested it with the fans and found a lot of the fans did want him to, sell his soul to me. Where would who were those people? Where were those people hiding? Were those people in San Salvadorian concentration camps or whatever

that we weren't able to hear from them freely? I don't know who's been giving feedback to the Rocks camp. It is an interesting take that I don't think anyone else had. But sure. And then he actually said eventually down the line Cody will be a heel.

But not, you know, it's not the right time. That's Jericho and MJF. That's what Jericho did to MJF. Yes. To cut his legs out from under him. So now, so the fans that are listening to Rock, oh shit, we shouldn't trust Cody. It's going to happen anytime. See, again, it's one thing, you know, he's an executive, he's on the board. It's one thing if he wants to call up there and just say too much, but it's another thing when you throw someone under the bus like that, because that's what that is, once you plant that seed in people's heads that the boss of the company or one of the bosses

or if you believe bullshit, the final boss, Ari signs the checks, Rock doesn't sign the checks. The final boss is saying that Cody's going to be a remarkable bad guy or whatever he said. All that does is make you wait for it to happen. And it doesn't help Cody at all. Cody can't be happy about the way any of this.

For two years in a row, the Rock has had an interesting way. The Rock must hate Dusty Road. Like something must have happened. For everyone that's like, you hate the Rock, he must have tried to steal your girlfriend, or he must have turned you down. No, I just call it the way it is. Sorry, did he steal your girlfriend? I don't know what situation.

I doubt he would want girlfriends. Let's just say that. Well, and by the way, if the people think that you hate him, imagine how Cody must feel right. Yeah, Cody. Can you imagine? The Rock's going to come back. He's going to beg. I propose that I take your wife and daughter, and they join me on TV, and then I leave TV.

Now, he's going to be bad. Listen, we have a problem. It's coming. Let me plant the seed now. Smashing Machine, the movie. Oh. I think it comes out in the fall. Have you seen some of the reviews?

I have not, but I saw a picture of him, and he looked like... Ridgiveness? One of those 60s fucking bald caps on sitcoms. Hold on. I have some quotes here. This is from, what is this? MMA mania.

This is an article by Alexander Behunan. Let me get the actual quotes. Unfortunately, early reactions suggest audiences are in for a head scratcher. Because that's what you want out of the smashing machine movie, a head scratcher. Indeed, Jordan Rumi of Worldofreel.com dropped a report this week based on whispers he's picked up, and the outlook isn't promising. Here's a quote from, I guess, Jordan. A month ago, Benny Safdi's The Smashing Machine screened for a lucky few.

I kept quiet about it. However, it's now screened again. And judging by what I've heard, there's zeroed down in my mind that people are not ready for the type of film and store. I'm told what Safdi has concocted in the smashing machine is, here's a quote, indescribable in tone and style.

And that is, here's another quote, almost plays like a spoof of the biopic genre. In other words, the Smashing Machine is gonzo filmmaking and not Oscar bait in the least. Dwayne Johnson's performance runs tonally opposite to the film's odd style. It's as if his performance belongs in a different movie. In other words, the Smashing Machine is not the film any of us expected it to be, although described as a biopic a beloved MMA fighter Mark Kerr

this is not a conventional take on his life The Smashing Machine was meant to be the Rock's ticket to an Academy Award nod A lifeline to get him out of the current garbage movie slump Jesus Christ

For now that seems like wishful thinking So The Red Flag The Rock's performance reportedly feels at a sync with the film's vision? Is Safty struggling to draw the right notes from his star or Johnson's ego steering him off course?

So we have to wait for the trailer now, but if that's coming out in the fall and if he's going to get negative publicity of that, he's going to be on TV. He's going to be on TV. Think about this. Is this thing like a goddamn one of the movies, the castaways made on Gilligan's Island with the movie equipment they found floating in a box

and he's trying to play Shakespeare? What is the incomprehensible? I absolutely want to see it now, though. Part of the, God damn it, yes, this could be huge box office. So it's a biopic marker? Yes, but in the gonzo style. What? Imagine Amazel Brothers made bad biopics.

No. So, yeah, he's going to be back. He's going to be back in the fall. Maybe back on TV, yeah. SummerSlam's two nights. That sounds promising after what we do. Well, and. And also, by the way, to clear up something, also on the McAfee show,

he said as they got closer to the show, the elimination chamber, then they made the suggestion to turn Sina. But he didn't apparently say that Rhodes turned it down. But with the whole thing about the segment being moved from earlier and going at the end and the whole nine yards, they were trying to do damage control already. and but then he said the best thing for WrestleMania was me not to be involved in the finish

even though I would have done a few things differently in the finish as to how they got there best thing was for me not to then come and produce from the back right how piss would you be I mean again that wasn't your finish obviously but if it was and two days later he's on TV saying this what would you think oh my

you know what I'd think. I don't know. Triple H has a bad heart. He may not think like I do anymore or used to. But they, you know, that was the thing. They were obviously trying to figure out

how to kind of get out. And John Sina obviously realized also that it needed to be about him and not about the rock because he had the opportunity to say pretty much anything you wanted to say that it wasn't fuck. And he never mentioned the Rock's fucking name.

And again, remember, Elimination Chamber, remember the scrum afterwards, Triple H started it off, and he's done that before, you know, he kind of gives the state of the union and all the records that they've broken, all the working class fans, they priced out, he gives the whole update on everything happening with the, uh, with that night's event, and then the talent comes out. They did that last time, and then the Rock ended the night. Triple H gave all the business updates, and the rock came out for like a victory lap.

All right. Tell me how great the performance was. What's your name? What's your name over there, darling? Hi, hi. I'll remember your name. Like, it's just such bullshit. And, yeah, it's going to be a big problem.

And you have interesting dynamics there. I think they recognize Triple H's skills. I think Nick Khan likes working with Triple H. I think Ari Emanuel's the Rock's agent. And he's made a lot of money with the Rock for the last 20 years. And, you know, his daughter, I believe, believe his work. I believe his daughter, wasn't she, Bruce Pritchard's assistant for a while? So that's Ari's daughter. Now, who's now what? Someone told me that Ari Emanuel's daughter was Bruce

Pritchard's assistant for at least a while. So the point is, you might have a, you know, was that, well, I mean, was that, was that business or was it, you know, when he's in ill health and she had to, like, clip his fingernails and wipe his butt and everything? No. I told you years ago, someone I know who it's his story to tell, but, uh, so I won't say his name, but he had a meeting with Kevin Dunn and Kevin Dunn was cutting his toenails in the meeting, which is just disgusting. That is, you know, for everything you say about him, that's disgusting. Yes, disgusting. A rude, just a rude, disgusting guy, but the rock and, uh, all this, you know, again,

WrestleMania was not the greatest and you can't blame the rock for the whole card, but you could blame him for the main event of night too. and the excuse of, I don't think the final boss was needed. I called Cody and CEDA and said, I don't think I'm needed. What the fuck? What is that?

It almost seems like it was a pressure campaign without saying it actually. Now, you better call them and tell them you do need me. You better... Well, it also, I think they probably made it clear to him that they didn't need whatever his original ideal was. And so he just kind of drifted off. See, that sucks for Triple H.

He has two people in the Rock and Gowardts who are chomping at the bit to replace him and do what he's doing. And they can't do it any better. Not to say he's perfect again, but I'll take Triple H over the Rock and Gowardts every day of the week. I'll take what they're doing the 99% of the other time of the year

over the 1% when Rock shows up and does whatever Rock does. Man, if you really think about it, despite winning the title and finishing the story, Like the last five years, every, like, every wintertime Cody's life is just filled with disappointment. Every year, every year. Tony did this to me and fucking Brandy's upset about Tony and, okay, then I'm not going to get the belt. Okay, the Rock's return.

Every year. Oh, I tore my pick. Oh, my God. I wonder if he kicked Maria Ospanskaya in the Shins back in the 40s. You know, you bring up Triple H not mentioning the Rock at the Hall of Fame. When the Rock was putting over people in that three-way match, he didn't mention punk. And punk went on TV and did that interview calling him out for his bullshit. So there's a lot of interesting dynamics in play right now.

You know, it's almost, it makes you stressed, Brian. It makes you stress. It could give you anxiety. Could make you give you the nervous heibi-jee-jeebies, keep you from sleeping at night. All the things going on, the backstage intrigue, the drama, the dromedy, the wonder and the mystery, it's enough to just drive anybody into just complete crackdown. I wish that we had something that could help us out with that. Brian, don't you?

Well, Jim, well, that sounded actually negative. Hold on. Well, Jim, you know what that means? Make it cheerful. We're positive and we have a positive new friend to tell everyone about, and it is something that we're really excited about. It's almost a perfect fit for what we do here. Our new friends from Louisville, Kentucky at cornbread hemp.

That's exactly right. You know what we had to do? I had to call in because with the state of the world, and believe me, this not only fits in with what we do, but if you fit in with them, then what we do will be even better for you. But I had to call in some of my friends and my neighbors and my fellow Kentuckians here from Louisville, Kentucky to help us all out in times of trouble and strice into strice or strife in today's modern environment, which sucks.

So we all need some relaxation, better sleep, pain relief, all those things that make you feel better but with no synthetics and no dirty chemicals going on, all the natural, clean, scientific type of stuff and that's what they're doing over at cornbread hemp and you'll say corn now wait a minute i will neither confirm nor deny that i've decided to bring happiness onto the world under an assumed name these cornbread hemp people are just fine over there i have nothing to do will you admit here on the air that you are a secret investor that you may be one of the owners of this corn company from louisville kentucky something fishy is going on here it cannot make any statements about that right now just because the KFC people have deserted Louisville,

Kentucky for different environs. And the time is right for another company to take over the world based right here in the Derby City. I might or might not be involved in such a thing. Or maybe I just leased them. The right to use corn in their name because I'm so identified with corn here in the state. What is this on their website? Senior Vice President Marketing. H. Feather Bottom. Hey, come on now. Is Hotchka's taking a job behind my back? I didn't know anything about that. I swear I didn't. But I'll tell you what folks that I do know, if you go to cornbread hemp.com right now, and I think everybody pretty much knows how to spell all those words, cornbreadhimp.com, you are going to see a plethora, a cornucopia of CBD and THC products.

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That's minute. But these things will make you feel and make you relaxed, make you feel better, make you sleep better. or the THC gummies. They still only got eight calories if you're watching your waistline. But they also have bombs and oils and seltzers. Brightest matter of fact, could you bomb yourself today?

Were you using the soothing balm on your various aches and pains, your sore spots, the joints and the shoulders and the elbows you have that creak and crack? The elbows, oh, I'm knocking on, oh, there goes Popeye. I'm knocking over stuff here.

I have the bomb. Is this a bath bomb or is this like a bomb for my beard? What is this? No, it's not a bath bomb. It's a bomb. It's a soothing bomb. Did you rub upon yourself or have some loved one rub upon you that will make your sore muscles feel better? Oh, what just fell out of here?

Oh, it's the part of the lid that I ripped. Hold on. Let me open this. Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's not usually as hard for people to unbox the fine products as it is for... I have to be honest. I have issues with your honesty sometimes when it comes to these things. So I'm not going to take your word for it. I'm going to have some of this blueberry breeze THC gummies.

I'm just going to have them now. But go ahead. Well, I tell you what, they had 10, 10 grams? 10 milligrams. Is it 10 milligrams? 10 milligrams. I said, I get 10 grams, you probably wouldn't want to take it once. That's Tony Khan.

The THC or that, yeah, that's up to Tony Khan levels. But the gummies, 10 milligrams of THC or CBD, Stacey, immediately when we got the first box, she's been having trouble sleeping, she took one of the THC gummies and has never slept better. As a matter of that was Wednesday afternoon. This is Friday morning. she hadn't been up yet.

I've got all kinds of work done. That's not sure. She's been up and Adam. She's been up and she went back down and woke up again as you will with the fine product. I just, this is delicious actually. And it smells great. And also they have seltzers and they have even measured these seltzers to where if you

drink one, you'll feel in this type of mood and two you'll feel in that type of mood. It's very helpful. Their website is very instructifying and very helpful. and as I said, you can rub stuff on you, you can eat the gummies, you can drink the seltzers, you can take the various products, and they're clean as a whistle,

and they're 100% illegal shipping directly to your door, as I mentioned, with no synthetic, all organic ingredients, and real THC. From Kentucky. Perfect. From Kentucky, carrying on, by the way, a 250-year tradition in Kentucky,

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one jar of the THC Gummies contains, I believe, what is it, 20 or 30 gummies? 20 gums. Yes, 20 servings. So you eat that whole jar and you'll be on the edge of a lightning bolt. No, no, no. Once again, no, definitely not. You want to only have the recommended dosage,

which... You know what they say? this is one gummy. In case of lightning, don't get hit by lightning. So you wouldn't want to do that. I meant serving size. They only recommend a serving size of one gummy.

I just had one of this blueberry breeze, and I feel great, and I'm ready for dynamite, and you're going to be ready for whatever Tony Khan brings you. What? You still look like hell, though. You may feel great, but see,

they make, at cornbread hemp, we make, no, I mean, they... That's not nice. They, over on the other side, of Louisville, Kentucky, from where I am, they make no representation that any of their products will make you look better. There's nothing they can do about that. But if you want to feel better about how you look, boy, I'll tell you what, a lot of you need to, then go to cornbread hemp. And because they're our new friends, Brian, we're going to save people a bunch of money.

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Now 30 is closer to 50 than zero is. That means you're saving almost half. Well, you know, it's just call it 30. You're saving 30% what a great deal. Yes, but it's almost half without really being too much exaggerated. Well, then the next thing, you know, it'd be free and everybody can afford that. It's almost a third. Why don't you say it's almost a third?

Well, it's all because it sounds better. what I say it's almost a half. But again, we go back to... It's right at a third, almost. We go back to these accuracy issues we were just speaking about, and we have to make sure that people... What are you complaining about 30%?

Most people give you like 10%, 15%, 20%. It's a great deal. I'm not complaining. You're complaining about it? I'm not complaining. No, I think it's a great deal. No. Yes.

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and let's direct people to that promo code. Cornbreadhemp.com slash J-C-E-30% off. That's right. Welcome to the show, and these are delicious. Welcome back, my friends. to the all righty they had another show that never ends the other day can i take can i take a drink of my seltzer i'm going to need something well here we are again what what's a matter with you

what is a matter what's it's not you it's the blueberry breeze as well and see folks again we don't we don't lead you down the primrose path all righty let's get cracking now on AEW dynamite from this past Wednesday night, April 23rd. They were at the UNO, that's the University of New Orleans, for those of you not so initiated, the UNO Lakefront Arena, New Orleans, Louisiana. And we'll get to history in that building in a second. But Tony Chivani was standing in the ring.

They had the lakefront arena, which I think we established one time before on a show, last year. Seats about 8,000 or so, and I think it was set up for about 2,500. Tony's in the ring and he introduces Master P. And here comes, and I, what the fuck? I know Master P because he was on WCW 25 years ago.

And Brian, correct me if I'm misremembering, but didn't the fucking wrestling fans hate to fuck that he was on the TV show back then? Oh yeah, remember there was Silk to Shocker's birthday and he had Big Swole, the guy, not the woman Big Swole, but the male big swole, the guy with the big arms. No, I don't remember any of this.

I just remember that he was on... Hooty who? Hootie who? Oh, God. Hootie who? It's Silk to Shocker's birthday! Wasn't this stuff that Master P did on W. CWCW so bad that

and the group that he was affiliated with of wrestlers or whatever No limit soldiers, yeah. Yeah, well it wasn't, weren't they so unpopular as baby faces that they actually turned Kurt Henning and his crew that were supposed to be heels, baby face?

Yeah, they were singing rap as crap and they became the big baby faces. You know, look, the no limit soldiers and all that stuff in WCW was terrible. However, he is a big deal in New Orleans. So, Why didn't he draw any people? There were no people.

I don't know if they announced them. I don't know. I didn't know he was going to be there. Why was he there? All of a sudden, Master P came out. I was like, oh, this is an interesting play. You got Travis Scott. We got Master P.

Well, now I will say Master P make three of Travis Scott. But what, again, is he still in a music business? They said he's a coach in New Orleans or something's going on with the youth program or whatever. Is he still anybody in a music business? I don't, I don't really listen to the modern sounds, Brian. I couldn't tell you what Master P's been up to, but, you know, whatever it is, it led him on this road here,

and nothing will ever top him no-selling the Death Riders. Nothing will ever top Masterpiece standing down to Death Riders. All right, well, we're holding on. We're getting ahead of ourselves. Just standing there, just not even moving. Well, first we got to set a scene for the people because this thing is going to go on for a little while here. Because he comes out and he introduces the ops who are Samoa Joe Shepoopee and now Powerhouse Hobbs because Hook got taken out of the equation. And beside the ops.

think now that's some kind of young people slang it sounds like a goddamn comic strip from the 20s you'd see next to you know the fucking Andy Gump or some shit but there's so much wrong Samoa Joe is a top guy and Hobbs needs booking to be at the level of his potential and Shepoopee is an anchor around anybody's neck He's just a boring, blasé, not, doesn't even count. But unless Joe has a health or injury issue where he doesn't want to have singles matches, I don't know why you have a main event guy and a six-man tag team. But nevertheless, Joe and Master P caught up with each other and talked about the student

athletes and put New Orleans over and suddenly. the boer horseman's music plays and the camera sees marina schaefer and she's got a nice tan this week and she's coming through the the crowd the building from the she's been out in the parking lot insert your own material there ladies and gentlemen i'd like to have known her in the parking lot of the dorton arena and raleigh where they had those little ticket booths that were just like individual little hotel rooms but nevertheless i digress so she's walking out and they're watching her and the rest of the fucking idiots the heels attack the baby faces in the ring from behind and they get some boring heat while

master p stands and stares at the whole he's the biggest guy in a fucking ring except for hobbs and he's just standing there staring at it and then they that's where master p. and Dick the Boozer have their staring contest where they just stared at each other. And as Mama Cornett would say, take a picture, it'll last longer. I'm not sure this stare was so long. And then suddenly Joe comes from behind. He gets a sleeper on Moxley or the rear naked choke. And as he does that, he's got him standing up.

Master P starts throwing fake punches at Moxley trying to hit him. his midsection, but his shit looks so weak. Then you see Joe turns Moxley around. And Joe has his back to Master P where he can't do that anymore. And Master P's trying to reach

around Joe to fucking hit the guy in the ribs from around. God damn it. He almost see Joe over his shoulder going, God damn it. His arms are so long. And then P got lost and

started talking on a microphone, just ad libbing, whatever the fuck he was doing. Yeah, what do you think about that, huh? Or whatever. But then here comes the buccaroos and their friend, oh, sleepy, oh, sleepy.

And they hit Joe with a chair, and they get some heat on Joe. And suddenly, Master P apparently got scared and disappeared. If he's going to jump out when the two kids that are half his size and their bleached blonde Japanese friend come in the ring, why didn't he jump out when the goddamn top heel group, including the world champion that's been poured bleach down people's throats came in? He just stood there and stared at him. What the fuck sense is this making?

None. Say, it ain't over yet. It ain't over till the fat lady's sings. As they were getting heat on Joe, Schaefer gathers Moxley up and gets him out of the ring, but music plays and swerve from the other direction. He walks into, walks into the arena. Like, oh, appears there's aggravated mayhem and some felonious assault going on here. I should stroll down and see if I could be of any assistance. And he, walks in and the buccaroos bail out of the ring and try to go back up the ramp but music plays again and there's kenny it's kennie kennie's here he's got a chair so twinkletoes mcfinger bang is walking in with a chair and the lollipop guild has to because they can't go out to entrance

and swerve is standing on the other side of the ring about 50 feet from them they got to bail over the railing. And then while all the baby faces stood in the ring, Joe cut another promo on fucking Moxley. Well, come out I get you. Jesus, age Christ, what is going on here? I don't know what else to say. You think they're setting up a stadium stampede?

But not, not with the world. if they do not culminate whatever the goddamn failed experiment is with John Moxley as world champion somehow in a climactic fashion at their big stadium show

just for the just to give those people something for going to see this rec center product in a stadium setting I don't know what to tell you. They did they don't

I I don't think they need to have another multi-man garbage match as much as they need to pick them a world champion

such as poor old Will ostrich or one of one or two other choices and just goddamn do it I thought Master Pete did a good job he was the best in the whole thing well now i might not be able to argue with that the way you phrased it what a badass he didn't sell for anybody moxing got face to face it a bit i would put my money on master peter guy's not even a wrestler

but he is giant he's he's a huge huge man unnaturally big all right let's move on in this thing uh because ricochet i want to i want to talk about him for a second he wrestled mark briscoe in the first actual match on the program. And it's a good match because Mark Briscoe was in it. I don't know what else to say, but Brian, ricochet had scooped Mark Briscoe and a little top spread and put his feet on the ropes,

but Mark rolled through and pinned him one, two, three. And I'm thinking, what to what, two years ago, when it would have done some good, Mark Briscoe, as I recall, didn't beat any fucking body. But now, two years later, when he's put over everybody and been beaten like a rug, they give him a win over this weasel, ricochet, that they're allegedly trying to push. So I'm not arguing with the fact that he won the match. But of course, then what I am arguing with is the fact that ricochet then got a chair

and hit Briscoe twice with it and pulled out a piece. scissors and was going to stab him until music played and Kevin Knight came out and punched ricochet once and he scampered away

and the Rock and Roll Express at Ringsside applauded this effort and got a little graphic at well there's the Rocker Roll Express so but they had a good match that's the most important thing Brian, from what I'm told.

They had a good match. But here's what I'm going to ask you. Did you see where ricochet was, we've heard about him arguing with fans on Twitter before. I mean, back and forth, not like just a put down or an insult and a boom, but back and forth. And well, no, no, you're not.

Yes, I am type of thing. Remember that, right? Did you see where he was arguing with one of the fans on Twitter about whether he's better than E.O. Sky or not? I must have missed this one. No, I did not see this. I saw this a few days ago. I don't know if it's fresh or not, but there was somebody retweeted a couple of the tweets of it.

Well, basically he was saying that she can't do half of what I can do. I mean, she's good and all, but I can do all that stuff better. Now, I'm wondering, is he serious? Is he that indie-minded far gone or is this an attempt to be a heel

and be his heel character but kind of coming off as a whiny, cosplaying kid but before when he was arguing with the fans he was still a baby face. So what do you think? Did you see that Samantha Irvin video?

Oh yeah, the music video. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Before I give my thoughts, you as an industry insider. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're going to, we're going to evaluate to music here.

Samantha Irvin has done a song. I guess it's a part of a collection of songs she may have done. Sometimes, you know, Hotchka's Featherbottom, he calls those albums. Oh, get out of here. But the video, well, the song is Shottie Wana, S-H-A-W-T-Y. And the whole song is about her singing what Shottie wants to do. Now, is she shoddy or is someone else a shoddy? Is Rick-A-W-S-R-E-H-R-E-S-R-R-E?

Well, it's not shorthy, it's shoddy. It's S-H-A-W-T-Y as what she, because that's the title of it that's written on the clip is Shottie Wana. So is she shoddy and does she want to? I don't know. Or is she singing about another person named Shottie that wants to do these things? But before, I mean, it's a catchy tune. I had it in my head when after I listened to it. No, she could sing.

I actually really like the sound. And, well, and I was going to say I'm not, you know, a professional judge, but the tune is catchy, and it seems like she can sing. It's a nice R&B sound, yeah. Was the video a little, I'm not even going to say, I'm not even going to say, was it a spoof of videos?

Was the acting and or the putting together a video? Was that a little on the, hey kids, let's put on a show side to you? You know, if she's going to show it, I'm allowed to talk about it. That's my attitude. And I think she recognizes that she has assets and her ass is wild. And she got that thing all over that video.

If you love ass, watch that video. Well, I'm not going to-dice it slowly. She moves it a little fast. She does the cha-cha-cha-cha. She does everything you've ever wanted to see. I'm not going to deny that a preternaturally large percentage of the camera angles in the video are swooping up from the ground up her. naked thighs and or bloodtox and gluteus maximus.

Well, that's what the scientific biological term for your ass. And it's on prominent display in a variety of ways, but I was talking. And a variety of lace outfits. A variety of outfits and a variety from a variety of angles. Dron shots. I mean, those fucking cameras that the ear, nose and throat guy uses where he sticks it down your throat. They got one of those where you can see it from the inside. It's amazing. But what I was talking about was the performance and the production of the piece. I was trying to be professional

while you're all the time talking about people's posteriors and their hindquarters. And it looked to me like at some points, this may not have been, girls just want to have fun level production from this whoever shot the thing. The actual music video? I don't think there was anything wrong with the production of the music video. It's just fine. It's not like they air these things on TV anywhere or any anymore.

It's a little hokey. It's a little hokey. A little hokey. She's shaking her ass with her friends. Well, you can shake your ass with your friends in a non-hokey way. That was too hokey. It's not her.

It's not her shaking. It's hokey. It was the people that were shooting the thing. Oh. It was a hokey-pokey-pokey. Hokey-pokey, dude of hokey-pokey-pokey. All righty. We were talking about Rick and Shay.

We just decided to do five minutes on his wife's ass. Yeah. Well, that's more than he does. Yeah. If the song was about him, be, Shawdy want to jump off the dresser onto the bed. Shawdy want to practice his Superfly Splash.

Shorty wants to do tumble salts down the hall. Shottie don't last five minutes on my ass. All right. So anyway, so we're going to move on with this television program. that we're reviewing here now and trying to be professional for heaven's sake it's getting late yeah uh Tony shivani was back in the ring now we know we're in trouble again and he started to introduce FTR when suddenly out came Stokely Carmichael and interrupted him and we have not seen Stokely Hathaway huh stokely Hathaway stokel what I say carmichael so

this is no revolutionist this is Stokely Halfaway. Well, no, he's not Stokely freaking Carmichael. He's not a revolutionary or an anticipatory. A disciplinarian. But Stokely came out and he interrupted and he gave FTR the big introduction. Okay. Yes, they've turned heel.

But how does this happen? How did it happen? Has Stokely been on TV in a year? Has he ever been a top manager? Or did he just manage groups of people that he could do some cute little promos with and they'd do some backstage stuff? Has he ever been figured in in a main event picture? I think the last time we saw him, he was managing a heel Chris Statlander against Willow

Nightingale and then he just disappeared off TV. So now you've got a baby face tag team as former champions and they turn on their best friend whose edge, who's formerly a major star in this industry, and they come out with a manager that's underneath manager. And that's not even, I'm not evaluating his talent. I'm saying how he's been presented. Could nobody have thought ahead four to six weeks where at least you would be able to do something with this guy

where to refamiliarize people that, oh yeah, that was a guy on TV a couple of years. Well, maybe we don't want him to remember that. Who do we want him to think he is now? How do we want them to think about him now? So let's bring him out and have him do something to interact with some main event talent and be taken seriously so that then when finally he lands with FTR, oh, a big deal has been done.

So Stokely cut to promo, he can talk, upset that FTR got. fined for doing less than anybody else ever had, like arson, attempted murder. Get a good point. Yeah, and in the process, he reminded fans of all the stupid, silly, fake shit that everybody has done. And then they're trying to do a wrestling angle where they get fined for punching a referee or whatever. That's why the goddamn, your booking universe needs logic.

So Stokely's their new agent. and meanwhile Tony Chavani just turned it over to him has been standing in the corner staring off into the seats and Stokely tells him, get up here and do your job. So Tony walks up, grabs the microphone, and just sticks it out and cash his face and looks away like, I'm doing this under duress.

It's not your job, motherfucker, to do shit under duress. You're supposed to be the person in charge of the program from the announcer standpoint, not I'm going to stick the microphone over here. It's just an amateur hour production. Then cash promo Danny Garcia, nobody cares, nobody gives a shit about that guy.

And then DAC starts cutting a promo and calls the Rock and Roll Express into the ring that we saw for five seconds applauding in the previous segment at the railing. And the fans start you in a little bit, rock and roll, rock and roll. But I'm going to tell you what they did and then I'm going to tell you what was wrong with it

and what they could have done to fix it here in a second. Dax interviewed the Rock and Roll Express and he did the deal where Roddy Piper used to do. He'd ask him a question. and then he'd answer it for him. And basically, well, for Ricky, he wasn't even trying to interview Hout because nobody would have believed Hout was going to talk.

But he would ask him a question. He's automatically, Dax has been, well, first of all, when he called him in the ring, they're out sitting in the front row, and he called him in the ring as a heel, as a heel, which, Brian, could you, would you have fallen for that? Because couldn't you see this coming

a mile away. Oh, we're legends that have been stuck in the crowds. This newly turned to heel team is going to fucking call us in the ring and beat us up. But they call them in and then that's when Dax does the thing where he asked Ricky a question and answered again and being heelish right off the bat and they're just standing there like they're waiting for the time it's going to come where they get beat up. And then Dax, said, well, the Middite Express was better, and you guys are about 100 years old. And finally, Ricky bowed up at Dax a little bit. But Stokely showed him the legend killer shirt, and then FTR jumped him and nailed Robert,

and Robert's got a bad back. So he went down and stayed there. They just punched him, and he, boom, I'll be over here. And they gave Ricky a spike pile driver. and then Adam Cole, Roderick Strong, and Kyle O'Reilly hit the ring, and the heels bailed out. Could you see through this a mile away? Yes, they telegraphed every single... You could argue they telegraphed the Rock and Roll Express's involvement just by showing them

sitting at this wrestling event where they had tickets for New Orleans, nowhere near where either of them live. But yeah, I mean, you know, they... they did the FTR heel turn and since then they did the thing where they tried the pile drive Tony Chavani and they're beating up the Rock and Roll Express Randy Orton was the legend killer

the name works for him I personally wasn't a big fan of the idea of having legends come to the show every week just so they can get beaten up by someone who's much younger and better shape again it's a different animal here but if they're making t-shirts with it if this is going to be their thing

they just beat up old wrestlers for no reason I'm not a big fan of that and by the way if Stokely's their new manager why did both guys cut the longest promo they've ever done right after it here's their new manager say something for a second

now we'll talk for 10 minutes now we'll take them but here again it's not that hard if you have the pieces to put them together in the proper order and the Rock and Roll Express

that could have been easily solved if 20 minutes before on the television show, going to another commercial or whatever. They had had one minute of footage where, and here's earlier today at a autograph session outside in the breezeway of the U.N.O. Lakefront Arena, there's the legends Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson, the Rock and Roll Express. They were at the very first wrestling event held at the U.N.O. Lakefront Arena back in 1984 when they were the Mid-South Tag Team Champions and they were here today as part of a special meet and greet,

we salute them the Rock and Roll Express. Boom, go to break, come back, don't mention them again. But then when this segment comes up, as I said, I have an issue with Stokely just suddenly being with FTR to begin with, but nevertheless, when they're in the ring, FTR and Stokely, then that's, when if Dax is going to talk, he could have said, hey, you know what? We are here as the greatest tag team in AEW. Now we have the greatest agent. We want the world tag team championship.

Now that we're free from some of our former friends like that, no good Adam Copeland or whatever, but we've always said that we are throwbacks to the old days when tag teams were tag teams. And as a matter of fact, the Rocker Roll Express are sitting there at ringside and it's no secret. We patterned ourselves after the 80s tag teams in the glory years like the Rock Roll Express and Midnight Express and Tully Blanche and Arna Anderson. Rocket Roll Express, why don't you guys come in here? Because I happen to know that all of you legends think that we're the greatest tag team in the business today, come in here and tell them how great we are.

And then Riggie and Robert could come in and Dax could say, go ahead, tell them how would we do all this so much better than you. you guys did back in the day and they were the only one that has taken that and done something better with it, blah, blah, blah, and let Ricky just say, look, you guys are a great tag team, but I don't think you would have made it back in the 80s because you ain't got the guts to stand by a friend because me and Robert have had fights, but back in the end, we'd always be back to back fighting off whoever was messing with us and all the things that Adam Copeland did for you and you turned on him, I'd be out there mowing his grass.

I don't think you guys have the guts to be great in the 80s. And then let Dax and Cash beat him up. And then is it going to be somehow that the three of Adam Cole and Roderick Strong and Kyle O'Reilly are going to be in the next tag team program, with FTR and might make it even, or is Stokely going to have to put the tights on? Why would you not have the team that is going to be the next opponents of FTR

save the Rockerroll Express from the attack by FTR? Is it because they don't have any goddamn idea who it's going to be? Well, again, Adam Cole ran out too wearing his he's the, what is he? He's the TNT champion, I guess, now. And they promote Daniel Garcia here.

So who knows who they'll be wrestling or teaming with? You would think Ricky and Robert need a comeback. Ricky Morton still sells better than every single person there. However old he is, 70 years old, whatever it is, he still sells better than everyone. But does that make any sense on how to just establish somebody's in the building on an unrelated incident and how not to make him look stupid when they walk into a trap

and just to have some type of continuity to the whole thing. Yeah, because you're right. And we've seen a lot of baby faces looking stupid recently, but when they called the Rock and Roll Express into the ring, you had to know this wasn't good.

Ricky and Robert had to know that. Yeah, well, and we all did too, and it wasn't good. But speaking of not being good. How do you feel about just the Midnight Express being used in that fashion, you know, good or bad, you know, you're not as good as the Midnight Express. Oh, well, I mean, that's a kind of a natural line you'd hit to Rock and Roll Express with.

It'd be like, you know, the same thing with the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky. If you want a blister, can tell you, well, you ain't as good as the Cardinals or vice versa. It's a rivalry that people would know in the given field. I don't have a problem. and also everybody still talks about us because of the magnitude of us. Bye, cracky. We wouldn't have fallen for that

if they'd asked us to get in the ring. We would have given them the finger and walked out and got a hot dog. Speaking of hot dogging, that's a natural transition to the next segment, Brian, because they're back. They're back

from Rancho Cucamunga at the daycare Center Bouncy House, the chairman of the board of the Lollipop Guild have returned to wrestle on television. The Hardley Boys are back in action. And they wrestled Kevin Knight and his partner Hong Kong Fooey. And I got to tell you something, Brian, I can't believe I'm saying this. Kevin Knight.

No. Oh, no, well, hold on. He ain't bad. I'm not going to knock him, but I can't believe what else I was going to say was that I'm on the Hardley Boys side. I hope they hospitalized that nerdy little shit spitball Bailey. The sight of him in a goddamn wrestling ring just makes my sphincter pucker. I mean that grin and that little fucking tiny little microscopic body and that goofy gimmick and those stupid poses.

It just makes you want to just fucking slap him over and over. And then throw some water on him to wake him up and sober him up and start slapping him again. Well, he's a black belt. You don't have to be careful. Are you fucking serious? He knows how to handle himself. I'm sure he does because nobody else will do it for him. Can I just say before you rip all this apart and rightfully so,

Kevin Knight is impressive. He's got a build. He's got a leap. He needs to be produced, obviously. I'm sure you'll say, but really, really impressive. Well, and as a matter of fact, and of course, I'm not going to rip this apart

because I'm not watching these two clowns. That's the thing is that nobody's interested anymore about the young bucks. Let's face it. And as somebody said this on Twitter, I think it was Triple H's thoughts, made the observation.

So isn't it, isn't it odd? The Jim Cornett for years was saying that Jacob Fatou, with the right presentation, which goes for anybody, and is going to be a big star in a major company. And wouldn't you know who won the pony? And for years and years, even longer, Jim Cornett has been saying that the young bucks ain't worth a shit

and finally everybody else is caught up to it. Sort of like with you and the rock where now everybody else is caught up to it and it's not that they're talking about them like oh we don't like them it's that they don't give a shit anymore. They're the afterthoughts. The hysteria has passed

and the bubble has burst nobody talks about them nobody is anticipating seeing them in any kind of angle or program nobody wants to watch them on television that the numbers bear that out and they take off more than they take on to avoid being constantly criticized for not being very fucking interesting you know a lot of people always wondered what would happen as they get older are they still going to be the young bucks will they just be the bucks they're the

afterthoughts. That's what they've become. And, you know, for all the flowers, as these idiots call it, that they want for being nice to Tony when he wanted the fund a wrestling company, who has really done more damage to that company than the Youngbucks? From costing Tony's CM Punk and all of that to look at the ratings. And we'll talk about the ratings later, but they are a ratings killer. What we said at the very beginning ended up being true. AEW is one thing.

Kenny Omega is one thing. The bucks drive people away. They appeal to a very, very tiny audience. And unfortunately, they're so insecure about it. I don't think they can deal with it. That explains a lot of their behavior. But they used to at least be able to sell shirts. They used to at least be able to have people come out

just to see them. They're the after. I thought nobody gives a fuck about the young bucks right now. Triple H must be happy beyond belief that Tony re-signed them. Those are the kind of guys you bring into your company. It does no good. And they're getting paid more than anyone ever before to bring nothing to the table and stay home mostly.

The hottest they ever were was before they got on national television. Because the act played in Peoria. It worked on the Indies. when people couldn't really get sick of them and the ones that were most interested in them were the ones that the small number of people that like that kind of thing and for those kind of people

but it doesn't play on a big stage and they were just not up to it and you know unfortunately being not up to it which was obvious from the time that I saw them that's why I said it the combination of that and them thinking that they were not only up to it,

but they were the king shit of it, ran off a lot of people that probably liked him at one point because they realized, goddamn, these douchebags are sniffing her own fucking farts. Yeah, remember that, he used to have that YouTube show. And suddenly they stopped doing that right when it became very clear that each one was losing popularity, the numbers and the views were going down, down,

because people don't give a fuck. they had a moment on the Indies. They were able to time it right so that Tony Khan, who finally got his dad to say yes, could have them to start up with. And what do they bring to the table? Nothing. Nothing.

And again, they don't even sell shirts anymore. Well, but on speed search in this match, it looked like the children were having fun. And this went through the nine o'clock hour. So it'll be interesting. when we check in on that here in a few minutes. Kevin Knight is a good signing by Tony Khan. Yes, he's in shape.

He's got athletic ability. He's larger than many of them over there. And they haven't booked him into being a goddamn moron yet. So we'll see what happens with that. But I'm not opposed to him. But the other guy, if we could do an angle, I would go to work for AEW if they'd let me do the angle where I pour bleach down somebody's fucking throat

if it's him. Bailey. Don't say that. I would hate for you to do an angle that I wouldn't like. Well, just tennis racket.

This would be real bleach, though. See, that would make some interesting television. Anyway, let's talk about the Hurt Syndicate

because they came to the ring for a live promo and MVP announced that they put all the teams out of action and nobody can stand up to them. That's because there are no teams that they can, the world tag team champions can wrestle.

Apparently Cage of tore something that he's going to be out maybe a year almost. And there's no tag teams, but these guys are the stars of our show here and they got nobody to wrestle. And right as he gave the microphone to Lashley and Lashley was going to say something on the screen. Vrum, brum, here comes MJF and a sports car.

What kind of car was that, Brian? Are you a car person? I'm not a car person. I don't really. It was very nice. It looked like it cost some money. And they played MJF's music and he comes out and comes to the ring. Of course, that's where he wants three thumbs up.

You know, so he can join the Hurt syndicate. And they're going to, you know, evaluate this. again, an MVP, say, guys, you know where I stand, thumb up. And the fans were kind of chanting three thumbs up, three thumbs up. And then Shelton, Shelton, he gave his and he gave a thumbs up finally. And he says, it's not because of the broads and the watch, but it's because of MVP. I respect him. Ben and MJF makes the pitch to Bobby Lashley.

I know AEW. I know how to cut corners and win. I know the lay of the land around here, you let me in. We're going to run everything around here. And then MJF, you know, basically he was asked before he's going to have to tell Bobby that he's sorry, right? So he said, I'm sorry. I'm sure. Doing the Fonzie thing.

And the fans start chatting to say you're sorry. And they're into this at least. You know, it's something they're interested in, my God, instead of just chanting for kill him with a table. So MJF says, I'm sorry. It gets a big pop. And also, Bobby, you can have the car. Bobby, so give me the keys.

Well, the keys are in the back. Well, let's take a walk. so they leave and they walk toward the back and they have to go to the shot of the announcers at ringside you know for a minute and you know it kills some time to they can get back there and then they go to the back or they go to the camera in the back and MGF gives Bobby the keys says take a look at it

smell the new car interior or whatever and Bobby and Shelton get in the car and they're looking around and MGS like okay come on guys come on guys. You know, Bobby, give me the, and Bobby sticks his hand out and gives him a thumbs down and drives off. And MGFs go, wait a minute, the guy.

And MVP says, hey, hey, hey, remember what I said. Give to people what they want. So he's trying, but he is not yet convinced the Hurt syndicate to let him into the famed amy. But again, this is the, the weasily MJF that is trying to keep himself under control so that he can get something out of these guys has been more entertaining than him just coming out and screaming

and cussing the people out trying to get booted. I don't know. Do you think? I think it's the best MJF stuff in a long time. And like you said, it's the manipulative MJF, not the angry and you can't exactly figure out what the reasoning is or, again, no more of the emotional stuff. This has been great. The fans are super into it.

They're into this more than anything else on the show. They haven't even had a match or anything. It's just these segments, and they've been the highlight of the show. It seems like the people involved are having the time of their lives. Shelton Benjamin and Bobby Lashley are doing a great job of being amused, clearly being amused by this whole thing. and still being able to play the roles they're supposed to play in this,

while looking like they're enjoying the hell out of this whole thing. I'm enjoying this a lot. This is my favorite thing on AEW's TV for, I guess, now, almost about a month. And I've really enjoyed it. I really like it. Well, and then MJF, after I think there was a break involved, but they were in the back, and Renee was with hangnail, and an MJF comes in

and they just bicker back and forth with nothing of substance but just arguing and knocking and insulting each other and it's like, you don't want another backstage fight because there's 10 of those

every fucking show but at the same time why are these people just standing there fucking insulting each other? I wish they'd keep MJF away from anybody right now except this thing because it's distracting.

And hangnail is distracting anyway. You never know about that boy. Is he good? Is he bad? Is he, is he in the middle? What's his, what's his problem?

What's his demeanor, as people might say? Oh, I don't know. Yeah, his problem. Hairdew would be one problem. Anyway, they had a big tag team match,

Brian or playa. Do you like to be Brian or playa from this point on? I would rather just, rather just stick with what we've been always using, which is my name. If that works, playa. Hey, cornbread, baby. Telling you what, our friends here in Kentucky. Hey, listen, I'm loving the blueberry breeze.

So Will Osprey and Brody King, that longstanding tag team combination, it has so much in common with each other, took on the team of, our friend take a shit and the new member of the Don Fallis family, Josh Alexander, the lethal weapon or the walking weapon. And remember Josh came up short in his debut in the company when he got beat in a cold match. The first time we saw him. But then Don has taken him under his mud flap, I guess. And I wrote it.

when this match was starting, I'm tempted to watch to see if Josh Alexander's ear falls off. Remember, that's the first thing they told us about him? Well, he wears the head gear because he had surgery to reattach a cauliflower ear. And also he's had a really severe neck injury and has had surgery to correct that too. So the first thing is, anytime he gets in the ring from now and people only know that about him, or like scared, like, shit, he might hurt himself. but anyway, this match went on for a while. And then finally,

the heels just leveled Osprey and he just rolled out of the ring and then the heels in front of the referee just double teamed Brody King for probably almost a minute over and over until they beat him. And so Osprey was out on the floor.

for about a minute or so, and the referee just let the two heels just beat up Brody King and one, two, three. And then to rectify the errors that they had made there, they started beating up Osprey, too. And then there was music. And here came Kyle Feltcher, who had an entrance.

He walked down to the ring to come and beat up Osprey too. What? I got more people that beat up Osprey in the past three weeks and beat up Bruno Samertino in 20 fucking years. And then they played music

and hang nail page started walking to the ring but he was attacked from behind in the entranceway by Rocky Romero and Trent. Remember Trent? Yeah, where did that come from?

His mother makes cupcakes, doesn't she? Yeah, that suddenly hangnails coming out. I'm going to put a stop to this and save Osprey and Brody from Alexander and take a shit and Feltcher.

But then Trent and Rocky Romero jump hangnail and they beat him up. And the fans mostly didn't care because the baby faces are all shite. Would you like to move on to the main event, or did I miss any observations on... The show went really downhill pretty quickly after the MJF segment,

but I was shocked that the next match was the main event, that they let them go as long as they did. There was no overrun because of hockey. Hockey. But this next match was surprising, I guess. Well, it was the Owen Hart Tournament Female Division, and that's very, very important. there's people that fight and claw and scratch all their lives to get into this fucking thing, Brian.

And they gave it, as you said about the last, what, 20 minutes of the program, but they couldn't do an overrun because they had an NHL game, National Hockey League, and that takes precedent over modern family reruns or whatever. But Jamie Hater and Chris Stantlander, I can't keep track, but aren't these two both baby faces, or haven't they been baby faces? I think so. Yeah. Then what good does this do anybody to have

your two baby face girls have a match and and then just because it's another fucking tournament and then Hater won because Statlander never wins a big one and then Josephine Camel

aka Mercedes Monet came out to stare at her, and they went off the air. You know, I want to thank the people who have done the graphics of Mercedes Mone's face superimposed on to pictures of Joe Camel. They have been very entertaining on Twitter. See, this is one of those periods of time where I get frustrated with AEW because, you know, the reality is it's Tony and we've seen Tony get to the heights he's going to go. and now it's just going to be more of this endlessly until forever, actually, I guess. But like right now is... And that's a very long time.

Right now is the time if you had a serious team and you had serious management, serious executives, serious COO, serious everything. You should be making the moves right now to prepare for WWE problems in the future. Because right now you're not going to be able to do much. But there's going to be WWE issues in the future. right now it would be the perfect time to start preparing for it, but they're just doubling down on all the things that don't work. There's a few highlights like the MJF thing,

but the show, it just is not very good. And then you hear AEW fans like, the show's been great lately. Yeah, you said that during the six-month period where it sucked the last time and the last time and the last... It's always great until after the fact of like, well, maybe the storylines weren't good, yeah, because the booker is not good.

But yeah, sorry, I'm a little frustrated just because I think about that. You know, I still go back to, I wish there was a billionaire who could start a wrestling company. That could really be a competitor to the WWE in terms of at least main event presentation and talent. But, you know, we've seen what Tony's going to do. It's just... That was my original bone of contention with the whole thing. I knew this was going to be the shot that somebody was going to have in my lifetime, at least. Maybe the young folks out there that are in their 20s might see something.

and I knew that he was going to shit to bed. And that's... Well, let's not prolong this. Yeah, who watched it and why? Jim, here are the ratings for AEW Dynamite. Wednesday, April 23rd, 2025 on TBS 8 to 10 p.m. On average, watched by 521,000 viewers.

Oh, mother of all creatures, big and small. According to Russellnomics, the second lowest overall number and key demo number in dynamite history in the normal time slot. The previous record is, or I guess still the record holder, June 19th, 2024. So a very, very low rating, and you asked before about tickets. According to this, the sources, Russell ticks, 2,302 tickets distributed. And that, as we've established, doesn't mean 2,302 people in the building. All righty then. Let's go to the quarterly hour breakdown.

These were compiled by Ressalonomics. Quarter one, AEW Dynamite on TBS, April 23rd, 2025, 8 to 8.15 p.m. The ops, death riders, bucks, Okada, Omega, Swerve Strickricks, and Master P. Live promo. The Patriarchy Backstage promo. And the start of Rick O'Shea versus Mark Briscoe. 597,000 viewers. Good Lord.

They have never started that low. And can you remember a lead-in that low ever? Or not a lead-in? Well, okay, I don't know what the lead-in was, but can you remember a starting point that low ever? I can't, and it appears to be about 150, 160 or so, thousand viewers off the trend line. There's no exact way to do it here the way it's done, but it's significantly off the trend line, obviously, the last 90 days. Well, at least they don't have incredibly far to fall. Go ahead. Quarter 2, 815, 8.30 p.m. The continuation of Briscoe versus ricochet with picture and picture ads, and the post match with Kevin Knight, 540,000 viewers.

57,000 down in 15 minutes, but, well, now, again, like I said, last week, I thought they're going to have to come up somewhere to make their average. Well, we've got to quarter 3, 830 to 845 p.m. an ad break, the FTR, Stokely Hathaway, Rock and Roll Express, Paragon live promo, and an ad break. What do you think of the former undisputed era now being the Paragon? I don't think. Does it matter at this point what you call them? It's like a legless dog, it ain't going to come anyway.

560,000 viewers. Well, it came back up a little bit. The Mark Briscoe effect. Mark Briscoe gained him some viewers. We go now to quarter four, 845 to 9 p.m. The Young Bucks versus Kevin Knight and Mike Bailey with picture and picture. 505,000 viewers.

Oh, good Lord. Key demo shoots down from 212 to 184. Again, where's the Bucks audience? Where is it? We go now to the... It's right there. That's all there are. We're going out of the big 9 o'clock hour, 9 to 9.15 p.m., quarter five. The Bucks versus Kevin Knight and Bailey continued. Tony Storm and Queen Amanata's confrontation backstage.

Oh, I forgot. That was as phony as a football bat. And MJF and the Hurt Syndicates Live promo? 550,000 viewers. and MJF and the Hurt Syndicate appear to be in the well no I was going to it's the third highest quarter so far I was going to say second

well we go now to quarter 6 6 915 and 930 p.m MJF and the Hurt Syndicate backstage an ad break the Adam Page MJF promo and Will Osprey and Brody King

versus Kinosoph Takehesta and Josh Alexander with picture and picture 490,000 viewers. Oh, good Lord, and with Osprey, this is what they've done to Osprey. He doesn't deserve this. He was supposed to be the biggest star in a fucking company.

Now he's in a random tag match in the lowest quarter of the show. But wait, there's more. We go now to quarter 7-9.30 to 9.40 to 9.4. 45 p.m. The continuation of Osprey and King versus Takeshesta and Alexander. The postmatch, with Page, Fletcher, Archer, Romero, and Trent. Followed by an ad break. 464,000 viewers. The low point in the key demo, 157. Good God. And finally, the main event, Quarter 8, Jamie Hader versus Chris Statlander

with picture and picture, 460,000 viewers. So they only started with 597,000, and they still managed to lose 137,000. Beyond them. But now hold on here at just the one point I want to make is in the first five quarters of the program that were all above 500,000,

the lowest one of those was quarter four with the buckaroos in it. People consciously left at that point and came back at the top of the hour when Hurt Seneca came in. Yeah, to see anything else other than an end, they drove away the audience, they always do. There's nothing appealing about them.

They don't get pro wrestling beyond appealing to their friends and they're old fans who have gotten old watching The Young Bucks. They're not really there anymore. The Young Bucks now have old fans. Well, yeah, this is certainly not great, but I'm sure they did millions on Max. Let's just be honest about it.

Well, in a meantime, I'm thinking about cracking open another one of these jars of blueberry breeze. Do you think this... Gummies from our friends at Cornbread Hemp to take my mind off of all this. Hey, one last question, beyond the booking and beyond star power, a lack of star power, whatever it is, beyond things not connecting. Is there anything to ratings being hurt because it's a week of wrestling burnout? I know it's WWE and, you know, you can't worry about your, not can't worry, but you shouldn't focus on what they're doing, but it is WrestleMania week. And they did overload everyone who's a wrestling fan with their stuff. And, you know, you got to think that that may have caused some people to say on Wednesday night, you know, I've seen enough.

wrestling this week. Well, and I can buy that theory, but let me ask you this. Did they do two nights of WrestleMania last year? They did, yes. Did they do a Smackdown? They did. Did they do a Raw? I believe so.

Did they do a Hall of Fame? Yes. Did they do an NXT? Exactly. It's a lot of wrestling. Okay, but they did it all last year, right? Yes. Last year, did AEW do 521,000 people at Wednesday?

I don't have that number in front of me, but it wasn't that low. No, because this was the, so they do these things every year. So there is some element of correctness in what you state, but it should be from year to year somewhat comparable. But from year to year instead, it's constantly down and blow me on the max thing. If people have to try hard to go to Max and find AEW, you can't tell me that an appreciable percentage of the audience on television where it's resided for five years, an appreciable number of people are watching it on Max

where you can't find it and it's been on for a few months, just in my opinion. All right. But nevertheless, I guess we're ending on a happy note. We're ending on a happy note. You know why? Because cornbread, cornbread hemp.com, baby.

It's the way to go. Forget your troubles. Come on, get happy. You're going to call up cornbread hemp today. Forget your troubles. Come on, get happy. We're going to sleep till next week when we do this again. Well, again, that's not how it works.

But look at how happy it's made him and look at how happy. We all are to say, after five hours of drive-thru, however long this baby is, we're done for today. Yes, we are, but we'll be back in a few days with more of this nonsense on your program, and then this is my program, and the next one's yours, and then we alternate from there. That one's mine, and this one's urine.

Well, I don't want to piss anybody off, so thank you, folks. Fuck you, and bye-bye, everybody.