Jim Cornette Experience - Episode 591: Agent Report Protocol

Episode Date: July 22, 2025

This week on the Experience, Jim looks at his first TNA agent reports, as well as TNA's rules for the reports! Plus Jim talks about Goldberg's unhappiness, Jelly Roll & Logan Paul, Dave Meltzer's ...star ratings for All In: Texas, recent WWE tv highlights, and more! Also, Jim reviews AEW Dynamite! Thanks to our episode sponsor: 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.

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Starting point is 00:00:04 Like the midnight and the rock and roll. He's in a fight for wrestling soul using a racket and some mind control. He's in Cohnit. The keys to the future. Help by On it. Here with his retirement and the viewers were some ex-TNA personnel won't be happy with me again. And we all wish we were as happy as Uncle Dave when he watches the children play. And joining me to talk about all this and more,
Starting point is 00:01:19 Hawaiian Brian the podcasting line, the King of the Arcadian Vanguard podcast network, Mr. co-host to you, he's the happiest baseball fan since Happy Chandler, the great Brian Last, everybody. I came in late. I was listening to you and I was so enraptured that I forgot. Aloha, everyone.
Starting point is 00:01:40 Aloha, Jim. A pleasure to be here once again. Happy Chandler. There's a name you pulled out of nowhere when you got me with the random baseball reference. I didn't expect that. Well, exactly. because, you know, what, that is, as the kids say, it's a callback.
Starting point is 00:01:53 Because the other day you asked me, I can't even remember why we were talking about these things, but you said, who's the most famous Louisville you ever met? And I blurted out Colonel Sanders, but then I read, well, he's not from Louisville, he's a Kentuckian, and I never met Ali, so he settled on Randy at you. And then as I was talking about, or in my mind, talking to myself earlier today, you know, voices in my head. They counsel me. And happy, happy,
Starting point is 00:02:25 Happy Chandler, I should have said, but he was a Kentucky, and even though he wasn't a Louisville, but you would have known who he was. Do you know who else? Tell the people who Happy Chandler was, Brian Last. Why don't you do it?
Starting point is 00:02:42 Oh, now, come on now. Hold on. I'm looking for something that just hit me while you were saying that. Yeah, you're looking up happy channeler was besides the commissioner of baseball and why I would have met it. No. Is what you doing? You know what hit me when you said Randy Atcher? You discovered Randy Atcher died, like almost at the exact same time that Cowboy Bob Ellis did.
Starting point is 00:03:06 Wait a minute. When did Bob Ellis find out Randy Atcher was dead? Cowboy bot. Well, Randy Atcher. See, I know where you were going, but you mangled it so bad. I'm going to make fun of you. We talked about that in September of 20. 2018, and Bob Ellis died December 2018.
Starting point is 00:03:23 So within months of that. So have you Googled Happy Chandler yet? No, hold on. Let me do that for you. Oh, come on now. You don't, besides being the commissioner of baseball, you don't know who Happy Chandler was in relation to the state of Kentucky. I know him from baseball.
Starting point is 00:03:41 I don't know him from Kentucky as much. He was a senator from the state of Kentucky. And boy, what a happy. What a happy-looking man this is. in this photo. That's why they called him happy. But he wasn't just a senator. He was a multi-term senator and a multi-term governor of the state of Kentucky, 20 years apart. As a matter of fact, he was in all kinds of politics for like 60 years, lived to be 90-something years old or whatever. But my father knew him, and I was introduced to him one time when he was an old gray-haired man
Starting point is 00:04:16 with a big smile. And the only reason it registered on me was because at that time when I was five years old, I'd never I'd never been introduced to an adult named Happy. And that stuck with my little childlike brain
Starting point is 00:04:32 until years later I read something offhand that Happy Chandler was the commissioner of baseball. I had no idea that that would have happened. He was the, I knew he was the governor and shit. and happy.
Starting point is 00:04:49 I have a couple of letters from him to my father laying around here in the Castle Cornett archives. Wow, really? Is his autograph worth anything? I have no idea. Well, you're Mr. Baseball. If it was, you know, Bart Giamatti, it may be worth something. He was only commissioner for a short period of time.
Starting point is 00:05:08 If it was Bart Giamati, happy Chandler wouldn't have known how to spell that. that's why his name was happy anyway I ain't happy about the day Brian remember I was saying is it ever going to stop raining and then it stopped raining
Starting point is 00:05:30 and it wouldn't rain and it was a hundred fucking degrees and it is humid and then I said we need some rain you know because of the crops the crops need the rain right it's drying out around here Tuesday night we got an inch of rain Wednesday afternoon we got an inch of rain
Starting point is 00:05:50 and yesterday during the course of the day we got two inches of rain right here on this very spot and there's flash flood warnings out camper those recreational vehicles washed away in I believe it was a new peak in Indiana
Starting point is 00:06:10 just washed down to what used to be the road and then just it stuck under the bridge and kind of broke up. So now we're hoping it stops raining. It is a real happy show so far. I got a dodd. Well, I got to dodge my storms now to go on my trip. The big news.
Starting point is 00:06:34 I'm going on a trip. The big drive. Going out of town. And now they're saying, well, scattered thunderstorms, but we can't predict these things. The one yesterday gave us an inch of rain popped up like three miles east. of here, what our west, rather. So I'm going to leave early and try to see if I have to stop and pull over and dodge these goddamn monsoons coming through the area.
Starting point is 00:07:00 But we'll have the full report next week on the experience. And next week's drive-through is already recorded. And we have just a fun show for everybody. And that way we will fill the programming time while I'm gone on the secret. Reconnaissance mission and we'll report back on the experience next week. You feel like Black Beauty is ready? Is Black Beauty up for the task? Oh, I took Black Beauty back over to the car place and old Tyler.
Starting point is 00:07:33 My boy Tyler over there, he put an additive in the front and an additive in the rear. In the oil thing and in the gas thing. He said, now you'll get on the highway and you'll run this. It'll just be slickered and whale shit and an ice flow. in all of your tubes and hoses and things. All right. So now we know who to blame if there's a big explosion on I-95. Well, I'm not going to be on I-95,
Starting point is 00:08:01 but I'll report back in if there's any reason that I should be chasing after Tyler with a baseball bat. Word on the street is you're going to Orlando. What is in Orlando now? And what am I going to start at NXT and train? You're going to NXT. You're going to NXT. you're going to be the new commissioner of NXT.
Starting point is 00:08:20 Yeah. Get all these young people in line, in order. What do you say? To toe the line. To toe the line. Love isn't always on time. No, I'm not going. I'm going to Orlando later on in this program
Starting point is 00:08:35 where I'm going to read some reasons why I'm never going back to Orlando again. And I'll say this now just a little tease. Go ahead, go ahead. Well, I mean, now that we're about to do this one, I mean, this is going to air after the fact. Why don't you just say a little to all the people you're going to be meeting at SummerSlam? No, wait a minute. Jim's driving up here to New Jersey to get ready for SummerSlam and he will be,
Starting point is 00:08:59 by the time you hear this, I guess it may be a fan fest or two. I mean, you'll be saying this. Wait a minute. SummerSlam is not next week in all seriousness. SummerSlam's not till August. We're still in July. It's like two weeks away. Less than two weeks away, right?
Starting point is 00:09:11 Two weeks away? What the fuck? Oh, God damn it. Yeah, it's two weeks away. Well, I'll be back. It's not this weekend. It's next weekend. All right, good.
Starting point is 00:09:21 I'll be back and have time to rest before going through that. But I was going to mention that yesterday, Hotchka's Featherbottom was over here while the flash flood warnings were going on. And we had a nice day looking through negatives and going through memorabilia. And I was just wondered, Brian, would it be just swell? it may be by the end of the year somebody was to publish something with great writing and fond remembrances of major wrestling stars of the past along with reproducing photographs and memorabilia that had never been seen in public or maybe hasn't been seen for 50 years or more something like that for the wrestling fan it likes to sit down in front of a roaring Christmas fire and just lose himself in the history of our fabled sport. I wonder if somebody should do something like that. Seems like a winner to me. Well, I'll get Hotchkiss on it. If only there was someone up to the task, ready to tow the line, ready to get in line, get in order. What is it? You were towing the line now
Starting point is 00:10:35 here today. Is this a new expression of yours? You're not up to scratch. There you go. That's my new one. See? And most of the people out there have known what are, what are they fucking talking about. It's old pugilistic terminology. The towing the line means you had to step up and tow the line that had been drawn to begin combat, or
Starting point is 00:11:00 the scratch was the scratch of the line in the sand that you were supposed to meet to begin your pummeling of each other. That's right. Walk the plank is still walk the plank. There really is no substitute for the actual literal meaning of that. Walk the plank. Yeah, that's kind of
Starting point is 00:11:16 self-explanatory. Speaking of walking the plank and committing public fucking foolishness, the cold play reveal. This is the big news now. This is the, who is this fucking guy that I should care or be aware of? He's some big businessman and his whirer mistress. Well, don't say that. We don't know if there's any actual. Well, no, I know these heathens and these goddamn blasphemers.
Starting point is 00:11:46 She's married to. and worse than a goddamn blasphemer. They were both mad. Well, and that's, and they're fornicators. See? You got your blasphemers and your fornicators at these cold play concerts is heavy metal rock and roll.
Starting point is 00:12:03 It's the devil's music. Is you fucking Satanistic? Do you ever play the cold play records backwards, Brian? I don't play him forward. You hear what they've got to say? No, I don't play cold play, really, no. Well, apparently some people are playing around at Coldplay. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:12:25 So the story is, again, that they're having a Coldplay concert. They do these things around the country, apparently. And they've got a kiss cam, like the goddamn football game or the thing, wherever they have the kiss cam. I don't know. I don't follow these things but they've got it at a cold play concert and on the screen they put up a shot of this guy and this girl
Starting point is 00:12:57 with their arms around each other and loving embrace and as soon as they see that they're on the big screen he goes oh shit and he ducks out of the camera view and she covers her face and turns away like they're on America's most wanted and everybody pops. And now we come to find out again. Apparently you know the business world.
Starting point is 00:13:23 This guy is some big head honcho of some company, and this is his mistress of human relations. It is in his company, and they're diddling each other without express written permission for Major League Baseball or their spouses. Well, the New York Post is having a field day with this. This has been like seven articles because they just put up another one
Starting point is 00:13:45 in the last day. The new article is, just promoted astronomer. That's the name of the company. This man was the CEO of and this woman was the head of human resources for. Just promoted astronomer VP of HR. That's the underlink to the head of HR.
Starting point is 00:14:02 Identified by internet sleuths as the embarrassed woman on Coldplay Kiss Camp. Because next to them, when he ducked down really awkwardly, you've never seen anyone do that before. and then she turns around and covers her face as a woman next to them with her hand on our head. That's the VP of HR. So the whole department is involved in this scandal.
Starting point is 00:14:24 HR, by the way, for those of you who have never worked in a corporate environment, HR is the department that would deal with inter-office relationships. So, I mean, this thing is like- Well, apparently they do a real good job. If you need an inter-office relationship, head right on down to fucking human relations there. This is as bad as it gets for an HR professional. Her career is going to be, who would hire her now? I mean, unless you're just looking for a good time at the Coldplay concert.
Starting point is 00:14:51 Again, not. And we'll get back to this main subject here in a second, but on a separate tangent, because you know how I am with corporate environment. I don't really understand. Do people just say, oh, I'd love to have a career in human resource management stuff? Yes. I've known several women in my life who that was like their exact goal in life, yes. what how would you how do you study for that and what do you do and what qualities might you have to have to sit there and go oh you're mad at him and he's mad at you and okay we all just get along i don't what the fuck do they do
Starting point is 00:15:27 i've have i've i've saved the human department in the w i don't know what the fuck they really did well a lot of this stuff is entry level stuff when they get you in the door they help you with your paperwork they sometimes do the intro introductory interview with potential hires i mean they do things from my experience though HR people there's the way they deal with the everyday shit and then there's them just doing what the executives and the company want them to do uh very similar to like the commissioner of baseball he's the commissioner but he works for the owners so at the end of the day they're his boss it's the same thing here so the head of HR you're saying happy was just a stooge Happy Chandler. It was just a stooge.
Starting point is 00:16:12 Just a stooge for the man. By and large, that's what most commissioners have been, yes. Well, I believe he put his foot down a time or two. I bet you he was that kind of guy. But nevertheless, back to the... Yeah, what do you think about the fact that the lead singer said, well, they're either having an affair or he said it on the microphone. Did he do anything wrong as a man?
Starting point is 00:16:36 Well, no, because... And let's examine us for one thing. They get a shot of these people at their concert, and the one guy ducks like he's seen somebody firing a fucking gun at them, and the woman goes, oh, my God, and covers her face like she's just seen donkey sex with a Dalmatian on stage, and it was fucking funny. But the more important question to ask is if these two geniuses, heads of a major corporation
Starting point is 00:17:08 do not want to be seen together in public why are they in a goddamn building with 20,000 people standing there with her, him groping her upper frontal protuberances and her possibly standing there with the old reach around grope action. What the fuck?
Starting point is 00:17:27 They could be in a work environment, they could be sitting next to each other in this box, in this public setting. But they have to be hanging on each other in front of 20,000 people. And I assume the town they may live in, where are these people from? And where did this happen? This happened in Boston, I believe. Is that where Astronomer Jones there operates?
Starting point is 00:17:53 I am not sure where, I don't know too much about the company Astronomer. I know that maybe they need better executives and maybe the board of directors is about to do something about that. It would be my first guess. So I'm thinking if they're out in public hanging on each other like the betrothed husband and spouse or whatever the fuck in front of all those people at a public event with cameras present and I think that that's just a good rib on them
Starting point is 00:18:25 for just get a goddamn room at the Red Roof Inn, dip shit. You know, you don't expect that. You know, you go there to have fun with your mistress at a cold play concert. Obviously, you're playing right into her hands and you're taking her into a cold play concert. And it happens. It's on the kiss cam.
Starting point is 00:18:43 Now apparently a second video has emerged of someone else filming the kiss cam. Like, no one filmed them in the arena. Everyone just has different angles of them on the kiss cam, obviously. You think that would go away. The first articles are like, Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin
Starting point is 00:18:59 has fun with a couple at concert. And then all of a sudden it was like, here's who he is. Here's who she is. The wife was the leader in social media. Here's what they used to work. Here's photos of that.
Starting point is 00:19:09 It just became a bombardment. This obviously must be heating up their website right now. The fact that they've gone so deep into this. You know what? If Saturday Night Live had any balls, they would do that. Okay, they go, oh, the kiss cam. Oh, go.
Starting point is 00:19:25 They go back to the concert. They go back to the kiss cam. Now there's some woman giving a guy blowjob in the fucking seat. Oh, golly. And they jump. go back to the stage and then they come back to the kiss cam and now there's a fucking guy fucking a sheep oh golly and just you know there there see i've done 15 minutes for nbc i think so yeah it sounds like you just wrote kentucky fried kiss cam i'm not sure
Starting point is 00:19:48 exactly what you did there what do you do if you're this guy how do you recover your career fuck the career everybody's not having career career what about their goddamn husband and or wife I'd be, that would cause more fucking strife and concern. Oh wow. Oh, it's on TV now. I've seen it on one of the monitors in the background. Here's the new angle of it, of the woman turning around. Oh, bullshit.
Starting point is 00:20:16 Yeah, it's on TV right now. Going viral in the worst way possible. It'll be on after the commercial break. That was just a teaser to the commercial break. And I had that off for a minute. All right. It's a big news day, ladies and gentlemen. What I tell?
Starting point is 00:20:32 Well. There you go. But anyway, no, you should go to concerts with your approved significant other or anyone that your significant other is approved. Or elsewise, if you are in an unapproved significant other situation, then I only have sympathy if somebody releases the goddamn security camera footage from the red roof end. Because even if they want to deny the affair, even if they're like best possible excuses,
Starting point is 00:21:01 No, we were just cuddling a little bit during this song. They weren't even playing a song, yes. It was in between songs, wasn't it? I was trying to get a tick out of her pants. I just, you know, I love, I'm drunk, and I just love her, and her working here has been so wonderful. Her HR work is the best HR work I've ever HR'd. So I just wanted to give her a big hug,
Starting point is 00:21:20 and I was so embarrassed by this hug that I ducked down like a villain. He took like imaginary stairs out of there. No, no, no, wait. wait, wait, wait. Here's what it was. Yeah, I got to see, Brian, you are an amateur. You're an amateur. You got to have the wisdom of experience and age to come
Starting point is 00:21:41 up with it. Here's the story. Honey, I was standing behind her just because I'm taller and I put her in front so she could get a better view. And suddenly, you know, it was hot in that stadium and they gave a shrimp cocktail and that cocktail sauce, boy, it was a little spicy
Starting point is 00:21:57 and I think the shrimp were warm and all of a sudden I started getting a little woozy and I threw my arms around the person in front of me just so I wouldn't, you know, pass out. And at that point, right as we got on camera, I realized I was going to vomit and I bent over. I thought she was so. That's what you should say on it. She was so mortified by the stench of it that she had to cover her face and turn away.
Starting point is 00:22:29 The media doesn't tell you these things, honey. No. They don't tell you about the throwing up. Looks like he's giving her the Heimlich. See, I think that may be a better, a more plausible excuse. I don't think he ought to use the word lick in any context when talking to his wife about this. The other thing is, they weren't the first couple, I don't think, on the kiss cam. From what I read in the first article about this, if you see they're doing a kiss cam, don't you say, all right, you know, let's just separate for a minute. There's a chance here at the top in these very nice seats. if you're not given any more thought to what you're doing
Starting point is 00:23:04 than to go out in public to begin with, then also you're probably thinking, well, there's 20,000 people here. And we're just here minding our own business. What are the chances? You think the stars lined up? You think the HR department had a lot of applicants like when they came back to work today?
Starting point is 00:23:24 I like to work there. It looks like a lot of fun. It seems like there's a lot of positions to be filled in the human resources. department there, so I'm sure they're probably, right now, bending over backwards, try to take all the applicants and entrance. All right, well, this has been music news. For music news, I'm Kurt Loader. Thank you, Kurt, very much. He always seemed like a creepy older guy,
Starting point is 00:23:54 even when he was a younger guy. Yeah, he was out of place, and when I was a kid, he looked at he was so old, and now looking back, it's like, he wasn't really that old. He was just something about him, seemed old. He looked off-putting. Here with Jesse Camp is Kurt Loder. You know, at one point it got really out of control, but yes, I'm sorry to interrupt. Yeah, well, I just,
Starting point is 00:24:15 speaking of people that have been put off or are off put, or maybe pissed off might be better. You know, we said on whatever show we just recently did talking about the Saturday night's main event events with specifically Goldberg, and they went off the air on his speech, and it was not a shining moment of broadcast for the WWE's history as far as putting a show together with all of the cockah that went on.
Starting point is 00:24:46 Ed Goldberg is coming. And I just saw something before we get into this. I saw something where he was quoted as saying, well, I got about two more weeks and then I can say what I want. Like he already hadn't been saying what he wanted. Yeah, I saw that. But he's like, yeah, what is that? I don't.
Starting point is 00:25:03 Maybe he signed a two weeks. non-disclosure if they fuck up my retirement. I have no idea, but he's already said, well, I would have wanted it on pay-per-view to begin with, which again, to be honest, is kind of a thing you would have expected, you know, for a guy with that name, if they were going to do this at all, right?
Starting point is 00:25:28 And he's complaining because Sina had a, has a year, you know, retirement tour going on, making a big deal out of it. There, that's a little much, as Mama Cornett used to say, because Goldberg's not in shape. Cina's in as far as being able to still work a schedule and blah, blah, blah, and all those things. Yeah, Goldberg actually makes contact with the people he works with,
Starting point is 00:25:50 so he gets hurt too. Well, yeah, yes. And by the way, get well, poor Charles Robinson, 60 years old, who got a cracked rib from that spear. God damn, we're too old for that. but Goldberg has valid complaints that he has been registering in that they did rush it. He said, you know, he would have loved to have announced it
Starting point is 00:26:17 three months ago and done some kind of build, not to dominate television every week, but Jesus Christ, with all those hours of TV, and as we've talked about, many of them with plenty of travelogues and spots and backstage Vignette, but they could have spared a little time for something like that, but they kind of rushed it and they put it on Saturday night's main event and then somehow managed to mismanage.
Starting point is 00:26:51 And everybody has pointed out that, and we'll get into what Dave thinks about Seth Rollins at a second. But as we're talking about one topic, one conspiracy theory here, Goldberg, go Berg, if the thing went wrong in the Seth Rollins match, then
Starting point is 00:27:13 they should have had more time. And theoretically, they still had enough time to do you know, we were thinking before we said this, Brian, it needs to be hard-hitting you know, exciting, big moves quick in and out and don't let, you know, don't let it drag type of thing.
Starting point is 00:27:39 And they didn't, they've 15 minutes. And so was the time of the match, if they planned his speech in the ring and all those people were in the ring and he was saying shit. And it was recorded for YouTube or whatever the fuck. It's not like they all went into business for themselves. And why would you not
Starting point is 00:28:02 have some type of acknowledgement like that on Goldberg's retirement. So the point being, how did they botch this unless the match went twice as long as it was supposed to and they didn't have time for the interview? But Goldberg is acting like it was a complete surprise to him that that happened. And I got to be honest with you, from having been in multiple companies, including that one in the truck,
Starting point is 00:28:33 if they had even a three-minute interview speech planned at the end and had to do a break before that, they would have been screaming in the referee's ear. Tell them we're going off the fucking air if they don't go home in one minute. But you didn't see any semblance of panic in the finish of that match. Like, oh, shit.
Starting point is 00:28:59 Like they just started rushing. shit, right? Not at all. So regardless of what's going on with Seth Rollins and regardless of what the timing was or wasn't or whether they went short or long, I don't understand how this happened. Either they weren't supposed to have a goddamn ceremony in the ring at all and just decided to do it or, but even then, they were almost off the fuck because they still had another a break to go in the program.
Starting point is 00:29:32 So they were buttoned up on being off the air with just a match. Again, they would have been signaling in the truck if there was some issues. But was it what I said the other day? And I hate to be rambling here, but none of it makes any sense. It was just a sloppy television production. Was Gunther having to slow down and wait for Goldberg not to vomit possibly, if he was blown up before that he could
Starting point is 00:30:03 pick Gunther's big ass up and fucking jackhammer him. Who knows what the fuck. But anyway, I don't blame Goldberg for being pissed, do you? Not one bit. And, you know, not that this is the same thing,
Starting point is 00:30:20 but it's not even the same person running the show, but there's a history of WCW wrestlers kind of being diminished. Remember the state? Triple H match at WrestleMania, which was kind of bizarre. It was really entertaining, but it was a weird way to finish things off. And then Sting was like, you know, that's not the way I want to go out. Let me ask you this. And no,
Starting point is 00:30:41 I don't think Goldberg is wrong to be upset. I think WWE should have built this thing better. That was the thing that really got. Goldberg was a draw on pay-per-view, even. Again, it's a different audience. It's a different time. Goldberg was a draw. Build this thing up. people care about the last match, it just popped up. They did the angle way back where Gunther hit Goldberg's son or whatever. But then it was like six months between that and Goldberg appearing again.
Starting point is 00:31:12 And then it was a couple of weeks until the match on a Saturday night's main event in between pay-per-views. And then they screw him where they go from the finish right to a commercial, as quick as they've ever done ever in history of WWE. and then they cut off his speech, which obviously meant a lot to him. Taking all the negatives of Tony Khan out of the equation, an AEW and any issues, you know, just the way they do things.
Starting point is 00:31:39 Should Tony Khan, if Goldberg's upset and Goldberg's talking like he wants a final match that does it right still, is it worth it even for the positive publicity of doing something right for a wrestler after WWE did it wrong? is it worth trying to do something? I think then you're opening up a can of peas where because if Goldberg is pissed off about, you know, the unprofessionalism that he feels like he's dealt with up there,
Starting point is 00:32:14 imagine what he'd feel like when he was having to try to deal with these people. Tony would make him feel like a king. There'll be chaos all around and it's AEW and the system of AEW, and that is what it is, but Goldberg and his family will have never been treated better in his entire time in professional wrestling. I know it's funny, but I'm being very serious. No, maybe in his entire life,
Starting point is 00:32:40 I was envisioning they were going to carry him on a giant pillow like a fucking sultan into the goddamn... First of all, we, again, I'm not trying to say, after we acknowledged some of his shortcomings that he did seem, the aura was not what it once was because how could it be, he's almost 60 and he was kind of limping around.
Starting point is 00:33:06 So he couldn't do like a Sina thing. And we acknowledged that, you know, the reactions were not like stone calls, stone calls, because it's been a while. Maybe network was a better presentation for the age group and the older people that would be, be Goldberg's base audience. So that, you know, it wasn't like he was going to have a big pay-per-view built around him.
Starting point is 00:33:33 But as a network television program, if they're going to do it, that they didn't, and I forget, who was solo and fucking Uso or whatever, did that need to be there rather than on raw or whatever, if they weren't going to do it to where they, they formatted it where not only there would be a match but there would be some kind of
Starting point is 00:34:00 celebration, acknowledgement, whatever the fuck you want to call the deal. And with honoring with the clips throughout and et cetera and building up to be a bigger thing because that still could have been a major NBC television program
Starting point is 00:34:18 in his hometown. Where was the mayor? was the mayor of it God damn it get the mayor of Atlanta to come out and say it's Goldberg day or what it just some kind of shit as a presentation
Starting point is 00:34:32 it was sloppily done so I don't blame him for not feeling like well that was my fucking retirement so if if he wanted to do one on any kind of main platform paper view national television
Starting point is 00:34:50 whatever he would have to talk to Tony, who I, as you said, and I am sure, wink, wink, nod without revealing any confidentiality. He'd love to speak to Goldberg. But does Goldberg want to fucking then again just take a chance on Guitz are all this bullshit again? Who's he going to fucking jackhammer down there? And again, there are different people and different people react to situations in different ways. but look at the way Sting was treated on his way out. Look at Sting's retirement match,
Starting point is 00:35:25 which was such a big deal for them, even though, again, a lot of shortcomings in terms of promotion and different things. But obviously, other than the paper view cutting off in the middle of the speech, I guess it's just a thing that happens when you end the show with that.
Starting point is 00:35:40 They did better by Sting than W.W.E. did by Goldberg. And again, I'm not saying have Goldberg out there every week, and I'm not saying anything, but they rushed, like you said, And NBC Goldberg retirement should be a big deal. You know, Saturday night's main event when it originally aired, it didn't start with the main event, and it didn't end with the main event.
Starting point is 00:36:01 The main event was usually time to be around midnight. And then there was still more show after that. They didn't do that here. They started with the jelly roll thing, which in terms of... I can't believe you said those words. Well, in terms of mainstream acceptance, that's a big deal.
Starting point is 00:36:17 So you can't really blame them for starting off the NBCRs. show with people that maybe people who aren't wrestling fans would, whoever actually flips through television channels nowadays would see them and go, hey, what's going on here? But like you said, there was other things on that show that didn't need to be on at least before that. They should have gone to the Goldberg match second. And I don't understand why they didn't. You can't tell me that the solo match would have done as well in the ratings as a Goldberg speech with random people in the background. You're trying to figure out who's who? So they did wrong by him. I actually think Goldberg's right.
Starting point is 00:36:50 right to be mad and there's going to be some TV nerds and then we'll talk about who else has chimed in with his fucking two cents and I think he needs some fucking change back but some of the TV nerds out there are going to say well the original Saturday nights made a minute it was 1130 to 1
Starting point is 00:37:09 so the big match was about midnight and then it slows down you're fighting sleep there's attrition in the hut levels this was different it was 8 to 10 and they wanted to peek with the big, you know, blah, blah, blah. But again, then manage your fucking time better and lay the thing out better and or have a better format to fucking begin with
Starting point is 00:37:35 to account for these things. And you can't mean to tell me that if they'd have had three or four extra minutes at the end, that it would have been, it looked as bad and as clunky and as unprofessional with them just filling time with an ounce of reactions and the people cheering and drop some fucking balloons, whatever, then just going to a break out of the middle of nowhere
Starting point is 00:38:01 coming back to see the guy in the ring for 10 seconds and it was just, yeah. For a company that has since Kevin Dunn was removed or since Kevin Dunn left and they replaced him and changed the production, has really done a great job of capturing big moments, big feeling, a better job than WW had been doing just making things sometimes feel like
Starting point is 00:38:22 it's in a certain place, not just generic arena one or two. But they blew it. You would think WWE would have figured this is a big deal, but they really did blow it. I mean, I think anyone could have come up with a better way to handle the Goldberg retirement than a rushed feud, a match that cuts off, a speech that cuts off, an angry wrestler after the fact.
Starting point is 00:38:42 That's the other thing. He's a guy who has been disgruntled in the past. he's very good at gruntling Yeah I mean the only person who got a kick out of this whole thing was probably Brett Hart Brett Hart was the one who pulled the plug actually The WDG gave the game like him The memes of Brett in the production truck
Starting point is 00:38:58 with the yeah but So But anyway Out of all of this Controversy over Goldberg Not Being happy in the show Blah or whatever This guy
Starting point is 00:39:14 I don't want to I don't want to cuss early in the clip, but I'm just seeing how long I could wait before I call him what I want to say. This Nimrod, Peter Rosenberg, came out and made some statement somewhere just basically taking a piss out of Goldberg said, well, he ought to be lucky.
Starting point is 00:39:33 He was on television. He should have got speared and beat one, two, three. Who the fuck is he? Like this fucking guy is somebody. I'm already saying fuck anyway, right? You can curse as much you want as part of the Goldberg clip. Go for it.
Starting point is 00:39:48 Oh, I'm sorry. I thought we possibly might have a new topic here. I don't know if anyone would tune in for a topic about Peter Rosenberg. That's true. So, point being, Peter Rosenberg, who says he's in wrestling? It's come to this now, that the people on the periphery who talk about the people who talk about wrestling,
Starting point is 00:40:11 kind of, the commentators on some, sub-platform of something or in wrestling and he said Goldberg should have done a job but he ought to be lucky that they called him what the fuck is this guy's issue
Starting point is 00:40:28 you know I think people who kiss ass for work typically have a very difficult time accepting people that don't and when people have to constantly go out there and just blow the companies that will actually give them money for being mediocre That's what happens.
Starting point is 00:40:45 There are a lot of people that just kiss WWAS. If you don't think Goldberg is entitled to be upset about his Mike being cut off, you're a fucking cunt, Rosenberg. And what to bleep that?
Starting point is 00:40:54 Jay's bleep that. But I called him a cunt. And, you know, just the whole thing is ridiculous. It starts over with him saying, listen, Bill Goldberg, I have the quote here. As a Jewish guy
Starting point is 00:41:04 who's in wrestling and loves wrestling myself, obviously I appreciate his contribution. He's a Jewish guy in the wrestling business compared to Goldberg? he's in the wrestling business he's a New York radio guy
Starting point is 00:41:15 desperate for gigs and WW likes him because he kisses their ass let's stop playing games fucking suck on the air you have to kiss WWE ass for employment say something negative about the company just once yeah see where he are then
Starting point is 00:41:32 seriously oh there is just that's one of the reasons why New York radio was dead they have found just a crew of fucking simpletons and put them on the air over and over year after year and then people stop listening
Starting point is 00:41:47 to the radio. And this is a great example, this idiot. But this fellow is putting himself, this fine fellow is putting himself, yeah, me and you, Bill, we're both in the business so we can talk to each other. He's
Starting point is 00:42:03 got himself slotted in right there. The man got a 15-minute match. It should have been a squash. Let's be honest. He should have gotten Goldberged. He should have been speared and taken out. The man's pushing 60 years old. Hasn't looked good in the ring.
Starting point is 00:42:21 Some would say ever. But certainly not the last few years. Got to have a 15-minute match, a battle with the world champion, and get a few words live on television, and complains about his mic getting cut off? A few words. Man, this idiot.
Starting point is 00:42:36 You're not in the wrestling business. You lick their ass so they keep you around. Well, but apparently in all seriousness, he's a asslicker. I don't have to listen to New York radio, therefore I don't have to listen to the people with taint on their tongue. But how can he with a straight face? He's not a promoter either as well as not being whatever the fuck else he's not. Because he doesn't have any idea what he's talking about. He should have squashed him.
Starting point is 00:43:08 No, he was an attraction. We've just got finished saying this guy was a huge star and they should have made a network television show about his last match and built something out of it and work around his limitations. No, it shouldn't have been 15 minutes. But a squash, what kind of fucking moron is this guy?
Starting point is 00:43:29 Oh, there's more. He still got in a nice little moment and got to be celebrated on. Do you know how many people better than Goldberg? He got celebrated on all right, but usually you get a separate payoff for that is at the end of the shoot. Do you know how many people better than Goldberg?
Starting point is 00:43:47 Their send-off was, we wished him the best in their future endeavors? This guy got to stand in the ring on national television and have a send-off. You should be thanking your lucky stars for the money you've made and the appreciation you've gotten, which many don't even feel is fully deserved.
Starting point is 00:44:06 Now we're holding on again. I'm so disappointed. Hold on. again. The money you've made. A good portion of the money that he's made in the business was with a different fucking company. He's made a number of healthy payoffs with the WWE, but he was making some fucking money before that. And this fucking guy, is he that desperate for a good review from human relations? Clearly, this guy is desperate to stay in WWE's good grace. and have them think that if we need someone to kiss our ass and suck our dick in public,
Starting point is 00:44:47 this guy's ready to suck our dick. And that's what it's about. And that's why this guy's been on these shows. And that's why no one takes them seriously. And that's why people joke about him. And I'm wondering if he ought to be trying to stay a little bit on a good side of Goldberg, just in case he does show up again. Yeah, that's the last match Goldberg should have now.
Starting point is 00:45:04 Goldberg should call him out. He's next. Can you imagine if they made up with Goldberg that said, oh, we botched it. Come on back at the fucking Royal Rumble. whatever the fuck it made me. Oh, is Peter going to be there? I'd like to see Peter.
Starting point is 00:45:19 I'm sure at that point he'll drop to his knees and ask to see Bill Goldberg's Peter because that's the kind of guy this is. No fucking credibility, ass kisser, sucks on the air, brings nothing to the table, go home, shut up. That's my opinion. Jeez.
Starting point is 00:45:35 The nothing happening shitbags that infiltrated radio and bring nothing to the table. Hey, I talk at my radio, but they have like nothing. They bring nothing. And this guy is all that kissing ass. See?
Starting point is 00:45:48 See what? There you go. The same goddamn, I thought you were going to say, nothing happened to suck up kiss asses that have infiltrated the wrestling business. But it's the same principle. Same thing. It's the same thing. And does some of the same ones infiltrate both?
Starting point is 00:46:05 Yeah. Horrible. He's making comments about Goldberg's retirement. Like he knows anything. He exposed in his comment there. He doesn't know anything about promotion or booking. But, you know, he has to rush to say something that WWE may like. Anyhow, speaking of things that the WWE may or may not like being said,
Starting point is 00:46:27 how's that for a transition? I understand that some valuable, well, not valuable per se, but some confidential, possibly before hidden information has been resolved. released the wrestling version, perhaps, of the Epstein files. They've somehow got a hold of. Is that our friend Thurston Howl? Is he a second story, man? Did he climb into an office at night or how?
Starting point is 00:46:59 Did they find this? But they got the Netflix numbers for the WWE programs on the Netflix around the world. Is this correct? This is correct. I believe it's public information because Netflix is, is a publicly traded company, so they disclose information about various aspects of their business, from the financials to actual viewing numbers.
Starting point is 00:47:20 But they just disclosed a bunch of it all at the same time. Because I got a thing with a chart and graphs and fucking colored, coated poles and then very small print that I cannot read. But some of the colored poles look like they're getting shorter. That's all I know. Can you interpret any of this information? This is a hell of a setup here. Ladies and gentlemen,
Starting point is 00:47:52 how did they get this information? Is this valid information and is this information good or bad for anybody? That's what we need to know here. It's hard to say good or bad. I think it, I wouldn't say, is bad, but it definitely paints a more accurate picture of WWE's viewership on now.
Starting point is 00:48:11 Netflix than we've had. A lot of it's been guessing. A lot of it's, you know, there were arguments between Dave Meltzer and AI, if you remember, about the Netflix numbers for WW Raw when they did you. Like Dave needs any artificial people to argue with when he's got enough of the real ones. Like Raw on Netflix, if you look at it here, the opening episode 6.9 million viewers, the second episode 4.4, then 3.6. the last episode here, which was for the end of the second quarter, June 30th, 2025, through seven days it did $1.4 million.
Starting point is 00:48:46 Oh, no, excuse me, through seven days it did $2.5 million. This was a little less than that. So it's a declining viewership, but not gigantically, but this really just shows, well, go ahead, I'm sorry. Well, I was going to say, taken, I mean, the first episode was like the big thing and the Rock's here and fucking Schwarzenegger's going to get fucked in the ass by Martha Stewart or whatever the fuck they were promoting, right? It's the first time.
Starting point is 00:49:13 That's right. The Rock was there. If you throw that out, well, you didn't like Martha Stewart getting fucked by, who did she fuck? Well, nevertheless. Yeah, never. You start, the next week did $4.4 million because there's still, there's some new people, and then you settle into 3.6.
Starting point is 00:49:30 And then, from what it looks like to me, stayed between 3.1 and 3.6 all the way through, well, the end of May. And then since then, June has been 3 million, 3.2, 2.9, 2.7, 2.5. So there is some attrition, but to be honest, June, July, and August sucked for television. more people take vacation and do bullshit. I assume that's still true back when 100 million people watch TV, even though there's only 2 million of them now, they still take vacations at the same percentage.
Starting point is 00:50:19 So, I mean, they're between, for six months, between 2.5 this past week and 3.6 or whatever, that ain't bad. I don't see any cause I don't I don't see them doing anything that's going to spark anything up unless it's SummerSlam
Starting point is 00:50:41 over the next few weeks but it's the same time it's summer and again Raw is available only in the US but they've also worldwide have other content and they've had the premium live events
Starting point is 00:50:55 Royal Royal Royal Royal. Now wait a minute you can now you can't raw is on Netflix but nobody besides the United States or people that patronize some of our sponsors and know how to do it
Starting point is 00:51:08 can watch it, is what you're saying. That is right. So we have global view. Well, I shouldn't say that, but that is what's only available in the United States. There's still the peacock deal, which cuts into other things. And obviously, SmackDown
Starting point is 00:51:24 here isn't on Netflix. It's still on the USA Network. Ah, yeah, all this other shit. But worldwide, Royal Rumble, did 3 million viewers 13.3 million hours viewed with a runtime of 4 hours and 16 minutes but yeah they're disclosing
Starting point is 00:51:45 again these are their worldwide numbers. I mean the Smackdown numbers here are not actually Smackdown domestically, this would be worldwide? Huh, interesting. Will, tell us more. Unlike this segment. Here's something now.
Starting point is 00:52:02 I'm looking at the purple, at the purple poles. The Royal Rumble did 3 million. Elimination Chamber 1.9, WrestleMania, 2.4 million the first night, 2.8 million the second night. One would have thought that that would do better than the Royal Rumble, but in effect it did twice as much almost because there's two nights. But then backlash, 1.5 million money in the bank,
Starting point is 00:52:32 1.6 million. Night of Champions, 1 million. Not a lot of people who are into the night of champions. But this is, when you take into account that a gigantic number of buys for a pay-per-view in the glory days of WrestleMania or Royal Rumble
Starting point is 00:52:55 was going to be, you know, six, seven, eight hundred thousand closing in on a million paper views in that stratosphere, or buys rather, a lot more people are seeing the big shows, is my point. NXT looks like they've flatlined. I don't, well, I don't even mean flatlined.
Starting point is 00:53:19 It looks like they never registered. What the fuck? They got very teeny tiny little fucking poles. And again, that's all international. That's not counting the U.S. for NXT. It's interesting, though, when you look at Royal Rumble 3 million views worldwide, or at least international, not counting America,
Starting point is 00:53:40 and then WrestleMania, 2-4 and 2-8, you know, again, the build was clunky, there were extra weeks added, the Rock and Travis Scott thing had no payoff. The Sina heel turn had just started, but I don't know about you, I'm surprised WrestleMania. I mean, I shouldn't be surprised. I guess it seems like WrestleMania should have been bigger.
Starting point is 00:54:02 especially coming after the last year WWE just had and they really dropped the ball. Yeah, I mean, especially night one being 2.4 million when elimination chamber was 1.9 million. One would think there would be a larger discrepancy between that and WrestleMania, but maybe I'm just old-fashioned.
Starting point is 00:54:27 And again, that's not counting America. That's not counting whatever they did on Peacock, but this is everything else. When do we get the peacock files? I don't know. The peacock files. Who's named in the peacock files? I don't know.
Starting point is 00:54:40 We'll see who says the media is against him for publishing the peacock files. Well, somebody's got to threaten to first before we get to the bottom of this. We need somebody to say, we're going to publish the peacock files before somebody's going to say, don't publish the peacock files.
Starting point is 00:54:58 It can to be stupid to bring it up first. What are we going to get the Max files? HBO Max, I should say now, I guess. I was about to say if you're talking about Maxwell Jacob Friedman, I'm not sure we're going to get his files. All right, this has been ratings talk. Yes. By the way, all of this is easily digestible.
Starting point is 00:55:20 Resslemics put something out, so go check them out. They have all this. I can't get out of this screen is my problem. There we go. That's their tagline. Resslemics. I can't get out of this screen. where's my other thing?
Starting point is 00:55:33 I was lost there for a second because I couldn't click on it. See, you've thrown me all off. All right, we haven't covered the WWE television programming as much lately as we have the goings-on of other things and people. And we're going to get back to that in more length. After my trip next week, but there was a few things going on in WWLAND, we're apparently coming close to SummerSlam. My, how time slips away when I'm not thinking about something.
Starting point is 00:56:09 So we're going to have to catch up with the programs and go forward with our recommendations on the big two-night SummerSlam. But there were a few things, as I said on last week's Raw. And they have made me a fan of Naomi, Brian. I'm saying that she has made me a fan of Naomi. what the where did this all of a sudden come from she comes out she's the new champion we know that you know she won on the deal and the cash in but she cuts this heel probo where she's just got all kinds of fucking bitchy attitude going on and telling people off i didn't betray bianca how i out
Starting point is 00:56:56 grue her. She wanted me to be a flunky. All you raggedy heifers in the locker room better proceed with caution. I mean, she hooted them down from Whetner? It was, where the fuck did this come from?
Starting point is 00:57:15 Has she ever been that interesting before when doing anything? I think she's been pretty good as a heel, but the promos of late, and especially that one, after winning the world champion as a surprise when she cashed in at the evolution show, I thought she was great, and the way she handled the crowd, like you said,
Starting point is 00:57:35 the attitude, she seemed believable, even though she's wearing a ridiculous outfit, you believe her, and I'm ready to say she's the best promo in her family. Yes. You know, I don't have the tree right here in front of me, so who knows we may be overlooked at somebody, but it, that comes to mind, yes. that's the kind of heel you don't like, but you want to watch them talk and do that stuff and just be a heel.
Starting point is 00:58:03 So I really like it. Well, and see, the fans were cheering her when she came out because she's the new champion and you know, and you deserve it. Everybody, you know, is that just happy to see the happenings. But she and she cut a heel promo on them and they still kind of cheered, but it was good, like you said,
Starting point is 00:58:23 it was, it was there. we're seeing, you know, some good shit, and she meant it, sounded like she meant it, and people could see some truth in it possibly. But then when Raggedy Hefers were mentioned, Rhea's music hit, and she got a big pop. And of course, they love her because she's a movie star, appearing at a theater or drive-in near you. And she came out. And there's a, obviously, big response. And, you know, I'm not proceeding with caution because I'm not cautious.
Starting point is 00:59:03 I'm reckless and I'm pissed. And she wants the title back. And she looks great. And she lays down her statement with conviction, briefing to the point. And I want to see this. And then E.O. Sky's music plays. And so everybody can go ahead and say, start getting mad early.
Starting point is 00:59:28 She got in a goddamn way again. Because you've got Naomi, this brand new champion of recent heel, she's being elevated, she's cut this fucking promo. And then here comes the top woman in the business, the most popular female performer
Starting point is 00:59:49 in the wrestling business on the planet. And she can talk. and they're about to go out and here comes little fucking Annie Fanny and she looks like she's dressed for a picnic at the park come on she doesn't look anything on little Annie Fanny she's got again she's got a matching little cute little checkered outfit
Starting point is 01:00:16 like she's going to a picnic and she's a foot shorter than both of these raggedy heifers and she comes and it just she doesn't look intimidating and she's coming out and smiling and shaking hands with the people when these two behemoths have set this mood of confrontation and when she gets fed of shaking the hands and smiling at everybody she gets in the ring and she takes the microphone and the promo goes to shit because she can't speak
Starting point is 01:00:52 and she doesn't look intimidating and she can't speak, and it appears she just wandered in. And then as soon as she tries to get the challenge out, and Naomi says, okay, look, I don't understand anything you just said. Because then Ria starts arguing with Naomi to make sure that everybody knows she's on the baby face side by kind of taking up for the little little sister here. It's still a little brother, little sister. And then Pierce comes out and announces,
Starting point is 01:01:30 in three weeks at SummerSlam, it's a goddamn three-way. So what the segment did was make me want to see Naomi and Ria Ripley have this fucking match, and then they stuck in, Eyo Oh, Eo So she can
Starting point is 01:01:57 You know satisfy the longings and pangings of the grade school crowd and getting away and have another three-way Like we need more of those, your thoughts Yeah, that was the same thing of WrestleMania that was setting up Bianca and Ria
Starting point is 01:02:11 or at least it felt like it seemed like it should have been the setup for it And then EO was involved. EO ended up winning. They got away from Bianca and Ria. And now we have this natural thing, you would think, between Naomi and Ria. Ria was about to win. Eio got lost the title, so she cost her it.
Starting point is 01:02:31 But it's going to be another three-way. And I feel like there are way too many across wrestling. It's not about the women's division. It's a wrestling-wide problem. It's a triple-H problem and a Tony Kahn problem. Way too many three-way matches. It seems at times it's a crutch. But that's what we'll get.
Starting point is 01:02:50 I'm sure it'll be a good match, too. Why not have the single match before you have a three-way? I agree. You know. You completely agree. You know, normally. Three singles, there should be different singles matches between the three competitors before the three-way.
Starting point is 01:03:05 When you start with a three-way and then you just go back to a regular old two-way, well, your, sometimes your expectations have peaked early. Anyway, I love Ria and now I love Naomi. I love Eo. I don't care if she can do the moves from the sky and fly and be free and fly away. All right, but you like the segment overall because of Naomi's performance? Yes. I love me some Naomi.
Starting point is 01:03:43 and I haven't been this happy about Naomi since she was with the flying burrito brothers. Well, again, that wasn't her. I don't even necessarily understand the reference, but did you see anything else on wrong? Is that Naomi? Yes, I did, by the way. Do you think they're taking somewhat of our advice on what we said about with Paul and Braun during Seth Rollins' absence, which we got to discuss here in a second. But Gunter does the promo.
Starting point is 01:04:17 He comes out and basically it's a ha-ha, you know, I have continued to see. I sound just like, Gunter. You okay? See, I sound just like Gunther there. You know, who's next? Who is next for me? Because I have beaten the Goldberg
Starting point is 01:04:40 and the Bill Goldberg thing. and he basically said he's going to sit there that night and watch the gauntlet match that they have. You know what that adds? They ought to call it the king of the mountain, but that one guy will sue him. We're going to see who's going to be the next challenger at SummerSlam. I don't care who it is. They're all the same to me. And in boom, out comes Braun Breaker and Paul Heyman.
Starting point is 01:05:12 And I was hoping he'd say, well, what do you do with a horse when he breaks his way? But they didn't go that far. But Paul cut a promo on what's going to happen when Braun wins the gauntlet, and he's going to be the challenger at SummerSlam, and he is going to be the next big thing, and he's going to be the big dog. And this is his yard because he's not a contender. He's a Steiner with another name.
Starting point is 01:05:42 name breaker. It's a weird line to use when they don't actually use the name Steiner. I know they can come out and say that he's a Steiner, but his name is not Steiner. I'm getting confused, but nevertheless, you know what Paul does? He's going to break through the glass ceiling and break your
Starting point is 01:06:03 ass at SummerSlam. So you're thinking, okay, this is the direction they're going to go in with this gauntlet thing or whatever, but more importantly, you know, Paul is stepping up and being a spokesperson for Bronbreaker. It worked for Brock,
Starting point is 01:06:21 and Braun's a whole lot more natural pro wrestling talent and Brock Lesnar was. So that is good, and that's what, you know, we were hoping would happen in Seth's absence. But then this was a little bit of a swerve, as we'll find out here in second. It didn't quite go this way.
Starting point is 01:06:41 but you want to see Braun Breaker and Gunther, don't you? Just because of the smash mouth offense? Yeah, and it's something that may not happen right away, but it will happen. It has to happen. And I think Gunther has been one of the highlights on this show
Starting point is 01:06:59 for a while. His promos have been maybe the best promos of anyone in wrestling all year. And the confrontation, it felt like one of those moments where the fans were kind of buzzing. a little bit. You know, what could happen here? Gunther has always been a heel, even though they're starting to like him a little bit. And, you know, he smirks so much when he delivers these nasty lines,
Starting point is 01:07:22 that it makes you like the guy. He's got a good smile. I feel like Vince, you've got a good smile, smile more. Yeah, he's a, he's a U-boat captain with a sense of humor. That's right, that's right. And the Braun Breaker thing, you know, and again, we'll talk about the Rollins thing momentarily. the show may be better without Rollins and the development of Braun Breaker or the time frame it takes
Starting point is 01:07:48 and everything with Hayman may be more interesting all this may be better without Rollins around whether that's going to be the case or not, time will tell, but I actually thought this week's Raw... They have to. I just thought this week's Raw that you're talking about the clips from beyond the usual matches that you wouldn't care about
Starting point is 01:08:09 that fill up the majority of the show. But the moments that you wanted to see after the fact, I thought it was actually one of the better shows in a while, and a lot of it was because who wasn't there? Filling up a lot of screen time while people sing a song. Well, they have to, in someone's absence, they have to have somebody step into that. And let's not overlook Bronson Reed, by the way,
Starting point is 01:08:35 because, you know, more Bronson Reed is good. He's not going to be the top guy. Braun Breaker will be. But Bronson Reed as a top heel and then probably at some point again, a baby face in the W.W.E has years if he's injury-free and et cetera. He's a main event guy. So, yes, more of him. But with Paul being a spokesperson for Braun standing in front of Gunk,
Starting point is 01:09:05 or standing in front of any of the main event guys, it fits. You're not, you're not instantly put off like, what is this? It works. But can you, before we move on to another thing on Raw, can you tell me, what is Dave saying now about Seth Rollins? First, he said it was a work. Then it was a work, but he's really hurt. But he worked being hurt.
Starting point is 01:09:35 hurt so that it would cover for him being hurt. But then he's maybe hurt, but he's not hurt as bad as what you would think he was hurt so he can surprise people and come back early. But God damn it, a lot of the office and the talent is going to be mad when they find out that they've been worked because he's not hurt bad enough. What is he fucking saying? I'm not sure what you just said, but let me try to summarize. There's a lot there, a lot of different viewpoints in a small period of time.
Starting point is 01:10:05 Dave Meltzer, I saw, and I believe Brian Alvarez, two separately, said that they heard, and I believe John Pollack was the person who's a credible wrestling journalist, they heard what was going to happen to Rollins in advance of what happened. And that there is a knee injury, but it wasn't injured when he feigned the injury, according to them, or according to whatever the story is, at that moment in the match. They had planned that out, and it went the way they expected to, so they could surprise people. And when you think it out, you know, yeah, you know, I guess, I guess if they get surprised. Well, I guess if the main event of SummerSlam is Punk and Gunther, and the CM Punk Seth Rollins' view doesn't seem like they ever want to end it ever. There's a natural way for Rollins who everyone thought it was a torn ACL, it was just he got a scope. and he comes back, cashes in, that's what makes it, I think, logical to people
Starting point is 01:11:10 that it may be a work is the idea that it fits in line with what they're booking is the main event of SummerSlam, and now there's this story that apparently some people believe they knew exactly what was going to happen before it happened. So there's something going on. Okay, and if, you know, if he runs out
Starting point is 01:11:32 and does a leaping series of jumping jacks, and everything's fine at SummerSlam and cash is in or whatever, then I will come out here to me, but you know what? I got fooled. I'm an idiot. I don't know what I'm talking about. But until then,
Starting point is 01:11:47 if they were, even if he was, if he has a knee injury already, and they want to do an angle to cover up for it, as I'm following this story, because it's minor, he needs to take care of it, whatever. then why does he on a knee injury want to injure it by doing a leaping fucking moonsault and
Starting point is 01:12:15 landed on it in the middle of the ring? That might be a good way to fucking injure it for fuck's sake for real. Yeah, that's the other question. But secondly, why even with Haman involved, I say even with, the opposite of even with, with Haman involved, I would have to think they'd be able to come up. with a better way to do it than to just have a shitty fucking match
Starting point is 01:12:43 on a big network TV show that they're going to shit to bed on later on with everything else to begin with anyway. Instead of, yeah, we're going to go fucking two minutes because apparently it wasn't bad enough if it's a work.
Starting point is 01:12:58 It wasn't bad enough that he didn't think he couldn't do a goddamn springboard moonsault off the ropes, land on his feet and do whatever the fuck, right? So why couldn't they have a halfway decent five-minute fucking match with some goddamn regular spots and then do some kind of moonsault outside through the desk, which would be probably safer than what they were doing there on a bad knee, and he can't get up from it.
Starting point is 01:13:29 They go, oh, shit. And then they do the, oh, my God, we're all shocked and we've got to call an audible and whatever the fuck. instead of just making it flat and fucking what the fuck and calling attention to that it's a bunch of fake bullshit that we didn't even bother to make exciting because they still know it's a bunch of fake bullshit but we can make it exciting. I don't see how that with the minds involved
Starting point is 01:14:00 that would be the best thing that they could come up with to do on purpose. is what they did there. Right. And it was right after a commercial break. So the match had been going a little while. The announcers were talking about the fact that he has bad knees or has a bad knee. And then they do that.
Starting point is 01:14:20 If you're going to do a knee injury, why wouldn't it be something simpler? Why wouldn't it be something? Could have been anything. Could have been more, again, more exciting. The match hadn't been going on television that long because the commercial break. Did they format it? We'll go 90 seconds. We'll come back and then we'll do this boring fucking flat finish
Starting point is 01:14:42 about 60 seconds from there and just really fuck the people. Well, here's the other problem. Well, you know, again, you're trying to think about how this could work, if it was a work. What's the finish of Gunther versus CM Punk at SummerSlam? I honestly... How do you get there? That's the issue.
Starting point is 01:15:03 I honestly believe that Seth, may have been going to be involved in the match. I don't know now whether he will be or not. We'll wait and see. But that is a conundrum without Seth, but I think that it possibly comes down to Paul and Braun. What if they did what you suggested? Last time we talked, what have they cashed in right there?
Starting point is 01:15:36 That's, well, I'm thinking something may, they may do something. I don't know if they'll cash in, although that would be, that would be glorious. And that would shake people up. And now that you've said it, I'm fucking thinking I like it better,
Starting point is 01:15:50 but at the very least, they will, they will fuck with punk because by then they will be, you know, pressing Gunther a little bit more. And we want to see that match. So that would help that match.
Starting point is 01:16:04 And it would give punk a reason to be mad at, at Paul's guy, like he's mad at Seth if Seth is not around. If that makes any sense. But again, I just, I don't care if they were trying to make it look like a shoot or not. The thing that still sticks with me is that is the crumbiest,
Starting point is 01:16:27 boringest looking, trying to make it look like a shoot that I've ever seen anybody come up with. So there, there's that. We shall see. And we go to the end of this thing where punk won the gauntlet. Wouldn't you know who won the gauntlet? Our boy punk. And brawn was a tease, but it turned out not.
Starting point is 01:16:55 But the two bronze then beat up Punk and Jay Uso and got heat on them and stacked them up and went for the tsunami. and then you heard the music and it's Roman reigns return. And Paul put his best, oh shit face on for this. And he got a huge pop. He's still over. The place went nuts and it hadn't been teased. They didn't know he's going to be there. And he came out and hit the ring and made the big comeback,
Starting point is 01:17:31 Samoan drop on Bronson Reed and the Superman punch on and Breaker and Speard Reed and all the heels bailed out. And then there was Jay laying there and punk laying there. And Roman helped Jay up to his feet and dusted him off. And my brother, and he looks at Punk, and punk's looking up with his hand like, me? And Roman just looked at him. But punk had to get up on his own.
Starting point is 01:17:59 And they kind of were staring at each other. But of course, the fans were singing, Roman Red. a Roman rains, Roman rains, Roman rains, that tune. But Roman's back, but there's tension with him and the punkster. And, you know, there's another, again, they've got all of the top guys. There's some guys that they know they are aligned with that are their friends. And other guys, even if they're a baby face or a heel, they don't. like or they don't trust for some halfway legitimate and rememberable reason.
Starting point is 01:18:43 And so they can go a bunch of different directions. What did you think of that pop? What did you think of that pop when he came out? Well, yes, that's the thing. I mean, he's still massively over. It's not like that anybody's, you know, slacking off on Roman. Pugs over. Roman is over. Drew's. back in a picture now. They've got a lot of guys that are over in a lot of ways that they can go.
Starting point is 01:19:11 So to your earlier point, you know, I hope it would be nice that Seth wasn't hurt for six or nine months or whatever if it's not bad. So I'm not wishing that on him. But if he is, then they've still got guys that take a reposition and bringing Paul Heyman up with Bronn Breaker. I think that's going to be, it's going to be fresher. It'll make them have a little bit newer look
Starting point is 01:19:39 in different combinations. I agree. But if Seth Rollins comes out, like I said, doing goddamn ballet dancing at SummerSlam, then I'll eat my words. But until then, below me, those of you who think, it was too boring. It was too blah.
Starting point is 01:20:02 It was too, well, we can't do this. on network TV on purpose, they could have come up with a better way if they could have planned it. Yeah, I mean, unless we hear that there's a surgery planned in the next two weeks, something's up. Because he said he couldn't get an MRI, it was too swollen. Well, let's see what happens within the next two weeks.
Starting point is 01:20:21 We have to hear about something. Well, no, and to be, no, he didn't say he couldn't get an MRI because it was too swollen. He said they'd had a test and the results were inconclusive because it was too swollen, which honestly was told to me one time in one of my ACL injuries, well, it's really swollen, so we can't tell for sure. We think due to the, what was it, the fat cells that are in the blood we drained off of it.
Starting point is 01:20:50 That's what it was. We think there's a tear, but we're going to wait a couple of days. But point being, we're not even going to know it a couple weeks if a surgery isn't scheduled. we're going to know if he's gone four to six months, then it was a serious injury. And if he's back in a couple months, we might not know for sure, because things happen.
Starting point is 01:21:16 And if he's back at SummerSlam, it was a big fucking rip. That's the way we're going to be able to tell how this thing worked. WW TV seems promising if Rollins is going to be out for a while. Again, you get to save some time. Goldberg would have gotten this. speech if they didn't have to sing his song Sutherland's on that same event.
Starting point is 01:21:38 But those were the highlights of WWRWA. But that wasn't all the highlights of the WWE this week because they were on or several representatives of same were on the Jimmy Kimmel show now not featuring Jimmy Kimmel.
Starting point is 01:21:55 Because apparently Jimmy Kimmel got wind of what they were trying to do, took the night off, and the guest host was jelly roll, jelly roll. And can we go ahead and talk about it right now that everybody's been sending us and he's made a comment.
Starting point is 01:22:17 And I don't know what to make of it, that Jelly Roll, when doing one of his media interviews or the publicity of wherever it was, he said, oh, a bit of wrestling fans. I was a kid, you know, my family, we grew up, we were wrestling fans. just go to Smuggy Man Wrestling. And he'd even move on.
Starting point is 01:22:37 That's all he said. He didn't list any names or dates, places, anything like that. But he's from Nashville. And we didn't run Nashville. And our TV show didn't air in Nashville. And so I will call out to the Cult of Cornett now. Does anybody out there, has he provided any further details? on was he a big fan of killer Kyle or was he at the Newport,
Starting point is 01:23:12 you know, Tennessee fucking armory or the some county fair or has he gone into more detail? Because I don't remember a six or eight year old fat kid with a bunch of tattoos on his face wandering around back then. He was born in 84. So he'd have been 10. In 94, yeah. I don't remember a single 500-pound 10-year-old with tattoos on his face. You sure?
Starting point is 01:23:40 I mean, you ran a lot of interesting towns. Now, a couple of 400-pounders, but not five-up, but what is his real name? His real name is Jason Bradley the Ford. Jason Bradley, we never had any entrance from him in our dream match contests. you wouldn't know those names now thinking back to it I was the one that was reading the mail didn't ring a bell
Starting point is 01:24:11 anyway jelly roll hosted Jimmy Kimmel who wasn't even there it was jelly it wasn't me I wasn't even there and he had Randy Orton as his guest and Orden is good on like mainstream talk and television shows
Starting point is 01:24:29 even if you know his friend is not interviewing him but he you know is a typical talk show segment he's talking about his kids and he put jelly roll over for how hard that he's working for summer slam and this big tag team match they've got and again orton looks good and he's well spoken and personable in those situations so there's nothing out of the ordinary and they showed the video of the angle they did on tv where jelly got claymore kicked by drew and the whole thing would love Logan Paul, and then suddenly Drew McIntyre walks in. And at this point, they just kind of had to go into it. There was hardly any preamble whatever. I guess what I'm saying is, even though we knew everybody was going to get in a fight, they couldn't have worked it where he had, they had another minute before they had to get in the fucking fight.
Starting point is 01:25:28 You see what I'm saying, Brian? Because by the time of Drew walked over to it, they're already ready to fight. on network TV on a talk show. It was not, it was like, this escalated quickly. And it did. And it did. And there was a lot of balsa wood destroyed in the process.
Starting point is 01:25:45 Well, hold on now because first, it's got to de-escalate quickly because Drew came in and cut a little promo, said, Jelly Roll, you lost 200 pounds, you're an inspiration to trailer trash around the world. How's it feel to see? your little tootsy roll for the first time
Starting point is 01:26:04 in 20 years. And an orange just stands up, hey, don't do that. He shoves him and he shoves him back. And they get in a fight and they fight through the back doors where they hit the double doors and they open and they fight through the doors and they close and they have fought off.
Starting point is 01:26:20 And you don't hear anything else and you don't see anything else. Neither one of them ever comes back nor is there anyone rushing after them. It's like, okay, they're gone. So then jelly roll starts pitching to break, well, you know, sorry that happened. You know, and as soon as he starts pitching a break, Logan Paul comes out and starts cutting a promo on dummy roll.
Starting point is 01:26:51 And then he slaps him. And fucking jelly roll takes it and he kind of sells it for a minute while Logan Paul's berating him. and then he grabs Logan Paul by the neck and choke slams him through the announced desk, the host desk there, folded him up like an accordion, and then he cut a promo, promo into match and pitching a break.
Starting point is 01:27:23 While Logan Paul is laid, they're probably legitimately unconscious because that was a goddamn gimmick. That was a gimmick desk. You know, now you, you hear all the time the people saying, oh, they gimmick the desk on raw or they got a gimmick table or whatever. Well, the desk, yes, you can, or at least when I was there in the old days, you could pull some pins on the desk so that it would collapse if landed on, but it was still made out of the same material. The goddamn desk was made out of, right? and the tables sometimes they need to be gimmicked and that there is a
Starting point is 01:28:11 is some of them have a kind of metal band around that'll slice your goddamn head off just if in the wrong way so sometimes you have to take something like that off or whatever but there are tables that also serve the function of tables but Brian I can't believe that every every talk show television talk show host desk is made out of
Starting point is 01:28:41 balsa wood and paper mache can you no way did you see that it didn't break his fall at all he went straight through the goddamn thing it looked like it just disintegrated they actually had a gimmick host desk.
Starting point is 01:29:01 It was so thin. You could see how thin the wood or whatever it was was when it went through it. Yes, and that's the thing. I bet you being a real television show that they heard that somebody was going to be thrown through a desk and they got a legitimate fake fucking desk made not knowing
Starting point is 01:29:21 that it, that's worse being thrown through nothing on the back of your head on the floor is worse than goddamn being thrown through something because the something hopefully will somehow impede your progress to the fucking floor. It softens it a bit when the thing, you know, if all conditions are right. But I don't know, blah. I was like, God damn, I'm surprised you ever got up. But anyway, I can't wait to see this big grudge tag team contest if they ever find
Starting point is 01:29:56 Drew McIntyre and Randy Orden. do you think where do they tell are they a new york show or are they a los angeles show that's an laa show that's hollywood well fuck they need to get they could be out there in the hollywood hills just fighting amongst themselves drew and that's how they should open smackdown they should open smackdown they just brawl into the building they've been going for days don't steal that from kevin sullivan and blackjack mulligan all righty anyways so that was our WWE report, we'll have more on this as we lead into Summerslam. Should they call it PowerSlam?
Starting point is 01:30:39 No. How about one night would be SummerSlam and the next night would be Power Shlam? Why? Just could, just to change things up. I don't know if they get the copyright on PowerSlam. They may be tied up. From Rocky Kernodal? President of Power Shlam magazine. All righty, Brian. Well, before we we talk about some more of the new stuff. We got to go back and talk about some of the old stuff.
Starting point is 01:31:07 And it's been quite popular here lately on the program that we've been going back through some of my file drawers and looking at the old paperwork and the TNA agent reports and various communication that I had there and some of the WW stuff, the OBW stuff. I had, again, something else I forgot about. we had done or I had done an agent report before that last set that we've been talking about, about seven or eight months beforehand, and I'd forgotten that they were trying to make that a thing at one point. And I'll explain as we get through this how it didn't become a thing.
Starting point is 01:31:53 But also, because everybody still asks or wonders or they can't get a grip on what is the job of an agent or a producer and wrestling on the TV shows and everything? And T&A tried to put it down on paper. And I thought if you want to learn something about the job description, you're going to, but at the same time as they put it down on paper
Starting point is 01:32:24 and they kept going with it, it becomes more and more obvious how fucking ridiculous that it is to try to write it down on paper. Does that make any sense to you, Brian? It does. I should say it doesn't, it doesn't. But no, I understand what you're saying. I can't wait to hear how they put it down there.
Starting point is 01:32:43 It is one of those jobs that people wonder about, a producer, an agent. How much of that was a Vince McMahon creation? Probably all of it, really. they started doing it in WCW when Turner Broadcasting had taken over. And it still wasn't as many people and wasn't to the degree. It was more like, you know,
Starting point is 01:33:09 somebody on the creative team or whatever, you know, give these instructions or whatever. And then, you know, Vince, of course, took it and ran with it because it made everything more like television, more like movie, making, more like entertainment. And then with the way that the programs evolved and at the same time as the TVs were getting more and more intricate and more and more complicated and you had to know where everything
Starting point is 01:33:39 was and what was going on, the talent started getting less and less experienced as one increased, the other decreased. And then it became like, you almost can't do this without it. There's not one person doesn't have the time of the day or the capability to deal with everything, right? So that's, and now we're stuck with it. But this agent report sent to my old friend Terry Taylor. You remember us talking about him, Brian. This was Friday, January 16th, 2009.
Starting point is 01:34:13 And this was about the pay-per-view that was done on the 11th and the TV tapings on a 12th and 13th. and not real long, but this was actually, I made note at the top of it, this was the, for when I got the website, remember I told you it was 2009, this was the very first email I sent all by myself without Stacey helping me. How about them apples? I've got it documented right here. I've been doing this for 16 years now, the email thing. You should sell copies of that, Jim Cornett's first email.
Starting point is 01:34:52 well and as a matter of fact I might when I read it see if you think there's anything to that rookie year email so this was for the genesis paper view as I said January 11th and I'm just I'm going to hop through a couple of things but uh sheik Abdul Bashir against Shane Sewell and they were a pleasure to work with attentive did their best do exactly as told following Shelley versus Sabin the crowd was tired but they worked hard and got the into it by the finish, good match, Earl Hebner did well, crowd pop for the finish, blah, blah, blah. Rano versus Sting, they went in with a lot of handicaps,
Starting point is 01:35:35 Sting's knees, having to follow Angle versus Jeff, which was impossible. That was the night, and this pay-per-view, by the way, was not for once in Orlando. That was the night that we were in Charlotte on location at the old Charlotte Coliseum. Jeff Jarrett and Kurt Angle had the match that night that was the best match that I ever saw in the history of T&A wrestling. Anyway, here's the problem. They had booked Sting versus Rhino. Sting at this point was in the main event mafia. Do you remember that thing?
Starting point is 01:36:18 Where he was in the group of top heels, even though he wasn't a heel? Yeah, again, this is a period of time I would read about, but I didn't watch it. It didn't seem like I should watch it. And I kind of know about the main event mafia. Yeah, Kevin Nash, right? Booker T. Yes, yes.
Starting point is 01:36:33 Somebody had put together a group of heels called the main event mafia because they had been big stars on the big television programs, not our little T&A production. And Sting was in it, even though he was a baby face. And even though when he was booked
Starting point is 01:36:53 against other baby faces, and you would try to come up with a finish, he wouldn't cheat. He'd say, but still you can't beat him with a way, I'm not a heel. Then why are you in the heel group? Ask Vince.
Starting point is 01:37:10 And then everybody would ask Vince. And he would explain it. And then we still wouldn't know what the fuck he was talking about. So we had a top made of it, a heel that a top main event baby face
Starting point is 01:37:27 in the heel group but he is a baby face so he wouldn't cheat and Vince will explain everything so they had booked Sting versus Rino Sting's knees were bad he had to follow angle against Jeff Rhino
Starting point is 01:37:47 because of again someone's stories that they wrote and had to be perpetrated and all the time that effort goes into the backstage interviews, Rhino had to do a pre-tape. No, I'm sorry.
Starting point is 01:38:07 Well, they may have done a pre-tap, but Rhino had to go to the ring for the match selling an attack from earlier in the day, which meant that he had to get color in the locker room for the pre-tapes. And then again in the match. Oh, man. So I said he deserves special attention, special mention for him to get color in a
Starting point is 01:38:35 fucking locker room to satisfy the goddamn production demands of this demented weasel booking this thing. And he had to go in selling the storyline beating. So he's selling, he's hurt. The heel he's facing is staying in Charlotte. So he was a huge baby face. and I said so all said the match was not very good but it wasn't their fault so then Brian whose fault was it Jim
Starting point is 01:39:08 I just said it wasn't their fault but then we were in Charlotte for a pay-per-view on Sunday night 8 to 11 p.m. And then everybody had to go to Orlando the next day for TV. So everybody was goddamn tired and beat up and wore out. And not including me, I wouldn't beat up, but I was double war out because I drove. So I got in about 10 o'clock in the morning.
Starting point is 01:39:39 I took Stace with me so I wouldn't run off fucking road and fall asleep on the way. And we checked in about 10 o'clock in the morning at the hotel, got a couple hours of sleep, and it was over at this goddamn amusement part. I wasn't amused. So we do the TV on January 12th. And this was, remember I said the goddamn,
Starting point is 01:40:06 a lot of the problems stemmed from having that match between Hernandez and Sting, you know, and in that tournament. Well, in January, they had a match between Hernandez and Sting, but this was when Sting was actually in the heel group, before he had broken out of it or whatever, and also with 18 million people running in, and before they had decided to fully do the, you know, the whole supermex thing,
Starting point is 01:40:41 but they wanted to make something out of Hernandez. So Hernandez versus Sting also involves Sewell, Homicide, Angle, Booker, Steiner, Devon, A.J. Bubba and all the referees. Between the late arrivals, tons of pre-tapes, and general talent malaise after the trip from Charlotte, I was unable to get all these people in the same place until 5.30 p.m. At that point, I got less than halfway through laying it out before Booker started his usual complaining. It was too busy. It buried the referee. It didn't make sense. It wasn't real.
Starting point is 01:41:25 the problem is he had valid points about much of it. But nobody liked the manner he complains as well as that the time to do so was not 30 minutes to showtime. At 4.15, he was eating a salad and not even dressed. Anyway, I got Jeff, who gave them a stern talking to and told them they were grown men, work it out. And it was finally a point where I said, fuck it. Let me go see if I can get someone to lend some authority to this and get everybody on the same page to figure something out if they didn't like what shit stain had wanted them to do, which was the shits, right? So we changed the finish from a go ahead. But Jeff was there.
Starting point is 01:42:19 This is before Jeff was gone. That's the big difference between this round of reports and the other ones you did. Yes. And this is an example of what he was doing on a regular goddamn basis. And why that when he was not there, everything went to shit. We changed the finish from a pinfall to a disqualification, eliminated some extraneous spots written in on the format, and upon execution it turned out to be a wild segment with lots of heat and Jeff was happy.
Starting point is 01:42:50 Match-wise, Sting did great, and Hernandez looked his best ever as a single. And the crowd took him as a top guy. But that was the kid. This is one goddamn match that we had to do on a taping of a two-hour TV show. It involves 15 people. Nobody involved in it likes what they're being told to fucking do because it doesn't make sense, et cetera, et cetera, because it didn't. Booker's a pain in the ass about it.
Starting point is 01:43:19 And then we got to go get Jeff who says, God damn it, take this out, take that out, do this, put that in. and it's you guys, your grown men, work it out. How often were spots written on the format? Whenever dipshit we could think of them. You know, there'd be bullet points for the promo and it'd match starts, and then every once in a while, it'd be a bullet point would be,
Starting point is 01:43:43 so-and-so gets put through a table. So-and-so and so-and-so get involved. How? Why? For what? It just different bullet- what the fuck? Because he sees in his head, he replays over and over his greatest
Starting point is 01:44:00 nine months of fucking success in his 40-year career, a bunch of attitude-era bullshit with no context. Everybody running around, everybody running in. Does this sound familiar? Except the talent on the TV shows these days and AEW is not smart enough to be able to tell that it doesn't make any sense
Starting point is 01:44:20 and they can't fucking do it. They just try anyway. Anywho. So then here's the TV, the January 13th, the next night. Because I'm just at this point, I'm just doing the matches that I was given. And as I mentioned before, they would give me either the matches with the young guys that they wanted to elevate or the main event guys that they wanted me to referee and try to, okay, what don't you like about it? what don't you like about it?
Starting point is 01:44:55 Okay, let's figure out another way to weasel out of that, that type of thing. I had success with that. But nevertheless, so the following day, I had Pedy Williams and Eric Young versus Booker T. and Scott Steiner. And Shane Sewell was the referee,
Starting point is 01:45:16 Glamour Boy Shane from Puerto Rico, blonde man, very, very nice and polite, good work. and they were going to do an angle with Booker and Shane, whatever the fuck. But can you imagine how easy it was to get Booker, T, and Scott Steiner set down with P.D. Williams and Eric Young in January of 2009. Did you like to hear this? Let's hear this.
Starting point is 01:45:44 This was bloody rotten all the way around. Eric, Pedy, and Shane were all ready to go over it, but we waited an hour until the heels were finished with their pre-tapes, then all sat down. And see, here's another thing. Because the thing that shit-stain could control almost in their entirety of all the things that went into the show were the pre-tape interviews, because he could be in the back with the talent, he could produce them,
Starting point is 01:46:15 he could make sure they're exactly like he wanted them, and they took for fucking ever. And even at a rule one time, the pre-taped, when we were formatting the show, well, I say we, it was formatted by the time I got it. But I believe Mike Teney was doing the timing. When the show was timed, you had to leave a minute and a half, minimum for each backstage pre-taped, even if they only had to say, hi, how are you, see you later, minute and a half.
Starting point is 01:46:47 when we would do them in less to save time for live content, for more matches, for fucking live promos in the ring in front of the people. He would get mad. Well, they didn't say everything. Nobody gave a shit whether they said all that shit or not. They got the point across, we got back out to live. So he made a stink about it. It was hanging up crews, crews that were in the back,
Starting point is 01:47:14 not only a crew in the promo room, but if something needed to be on location, he had an E and G crew hanging around and he's producing them all himself so he's got to run from one thing to another and there's nothing but pre-tapes the whole goddamn show because he wanted to hear everybody speak his fucking stupid words and that's why it took so long
Starting point is 01:47:33 because nobody could deliver that shit. It didn't make any sense. So we're all waiting to go over the shit that's going to take place in the ring in front of the people for 10 or 15 minutes while these minute and a half pre-tapes are going on. Anyway, then we all sat down.
Starting point is 01:47:53 I gave him the outline of the match exactly as written. Savio sat in and witnessed. I asked if there were any questions and everyone said they had it. Booker's only change here was I wanted Shane to hit Steiner once on his comeback, but Booker said he wanted to keep the, quote, unquote,
Starting point is 01:48:12 big comeback on him. Once they got in the rig, it was a different match. The heels ate Eric up for three minutes, then Booker beat him and never let Petey in the ring. And this was an elimination match, apparently, as you'll find out, they keep going. But yeah, boom, boom, boom, bam. Then they ate Petey up. And once they'd done that, then they started giving him hope spots, which was exactly backward from the way it was laid out.
Starting point is 01:48:42 Then Booker beat Petey too instead of Steiner as it was supposed to be. Booker said afterwards he forgot because they were on a roll. The match was boring and crappy and Jeff was pretty much disgusted. I remember walking around shaking his head a lot. How often do you ever hear that? Like we forgot what we were doing because we were on a roll or some variation of that. Is that a common excuse? Not, not very.
Starting point is 01:49:10 No, I think that's the first time I'd ever heard it. I've heard, yeah, we were on a roll. really kept it going, but not, we were on such a role I've forgotten, did the wrong fucking thing. Then Shane's big comeback, because they wanted the referee, they'd been milking this for where this is finally when Shane goes crazy and makes a comeback and reveals that he can take care of himself and he's going to transition to a wrestler or whatever. Shane's big comeback consisted of four punches Booker staggered for before Steiner stopped him,
Starting point is 01:49:44 which was what I had predicted to Savio after. heard what Booker had said earlier. Afterward Eric and Petey were depressed about their showing in the match in general and complained that Booker would not go over anything beforehand, which is his usual MO as he just calls it in the ring to make it quote unquote real. And that's what he'd do because again, as I've said, a lot of the guys would try to dig in and overcome the obstacles of having an idiot in charge of creative and a fucking bigger moron owning the company.
Starting point is 01:50:24 And a lot of guys would try hard and then zone out. But some people were sometimes there because they got to go to the amusement park until about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. And they lived very close by. Anyway, I told him not to worry as Jeff knew it wasn't their fault. And I tried to come up with some suggestions for what they could have done to make it better without cooperation from their opponents, but I couldn't. It was clear Booker, and to somewhat lesser extent,
Starting point is 01:50:52 Steiner did not see these guys as belonging in the ring with them were worthy of selling for, and so just ate them up and did just enough of what they were supposed to do to get by without being yelled at. And truthfully, there's a point of legitimacy to that, too, because it's Booker T and Scott Steiner against Pedy Williams and Eric Young. And, but anyway, I said, Terry, let me know if this is the kind of thing you need going forward or if you need anything else.
Starting point is 01:51:23 I'll talk to you soon about my contract. And he wrote back, said, this is exactly what we want. Well done. Please contact me any time regarding your contract, which I then renewed, and I think it had a raise within the next week or so. And then that's why in the following end of the September season, and I was doing a lot more work. I was thinking about another raise when we talked in January, which we didn't end up talking in January. But Jeff was there, but it was starting to be an issue,
Starting point is 01:51:59 the younger guys, the older guys, who's laying on their ass, who's really contributing. You know, there was the Kurt Angle couldn't have worked any harder if he was a goddamn ditch digger, and McFoly overworked himself for the physical condition. in while he was there, a lot of the other guys sometimes didn't want to do that. And so Jeff was trying to keep control of everybody,
Starting point is 01:52:26 and at the same time, you know, as we've said, the creative was just, it was a bone of contention with everybody. Both the television production crew trying to shoot this shit and trying to be in 18 places at once, because, you know, the famous request, it wasn't in T&A, it was in WCW, but a number of the crew in T&A were there in WCW
Starting point is 01:52:51 when Schittstein called him up on Friday and said, yeah, in Boston on Monday, we need a Partridge family bus. Like there's a store for those things. So every time that would Shark Boy needed to live in a fish tank, there would have be actually people that were being paid to produce this television program in some respect or another, that instead of concentrating on shit that needed to be done, they were out trying to build a goddamn apartment
Starting point is 01:53:20 that looked like the inside of a fish tank because somebody thought they were goddamn orson wells. But anywho, so that's why that these agent reports were called for, were asked for, whatever, we're going to start doing this. And Brian, you may say, well, where's the rest of them? I think that was it until, again, the ones I've just read after Jeff was gone, and Dixie wanted to know what was going on in her own company,
Starting point is 01:53:55 and everybody's got a fucking report in, because from what I remember, I wrote this, which this was two and a half or whatever pages typewritten, sent it in. I think they got a lot of agent reports either turned in on McDonald's napkins or not turned in at all or told verbally at the bar that night at the hotel. And so they didn't get to cooperation.
Starting point is 01:54:29 They wanted on that. So they went and they wrote a kind of a, well, it says TNA official agent producer guidelines and report policy. Does this sound like it might be anything you'd want to hear? Oh, yeah. So this is basically after that last round of reports, someone there, maybe you know you could tell us,
Starting point is 01:54:51 but someone there said it was a good idea to put together an actual protocol for all the agents to know how to submit these reports that they were going to have to start submitting. And how to do their job and when they're going to do it and who they're talking to and everything. Because my report was sent in on January 16th. This is dated February 19th. So apparently they didn't get the fucking cooperation they wanted before.
Starting point is 01:55:17 So they sent this out. This is to all T&A agents producers, BG James, who could road dog, Jim Cornett, Juan Rivera, Hussein O'Vega, Jeff Jared, Dutch Mantel, Vince Russo, Matt Conway, Bob Ryder, and Terry Taylor. immediately following each impact taping, a report, either verbal or written, will be given or relayed to Rudy for documentation by each producer-agent on the individual matches or in-rings they agented that night. This report will be given before the agents leave the grounds of Universal. In this way, agent reports should be in the system before 12 midnight.
Starting point is 01:56:02 In cases of paper views, agents will be given 24 hours to submit the report in order to have the agents fresh when they deliver the report. On T&A live event shows the agent should submit the event report within 24 hours. Okay, we got about five pages to go, but already they've shot themselves in a foot. And here's the thing. What they're saying is that yes, after the TV taping, after you have, have gotten here at noon and you have sweating this goddamn miserable Orlando, Florida weather, and you have run back and forth in these sound stages and you have done all the shit that we're about to fucking document that you need to do, then we want you to go and sit down and write
Starting point is 01:56:48 a goddamn report and hand it in before you go to the hotel or wherever you're going where you can get some fucking food because it's already 9, 10 o'clock at night. But on a pay-per-view, since you've been here since 11 this morning and it's already 11 at night, you got 24 hours. That means you can leave here because you don't need to be back here for 12 hours to do the whole thing over again.
Starting point is 01:57:13 So you got plenty of time to write your report, right? So they effectively not only shut everybody else down from doing any kind of written report, but they even turned me off of it because ain't no way I was going to fucking do that, right? So they immediately never got any more agent reports. But any questions before I continue on?
Starting point is 01:57:39 No, no questions right now. So what? And do you see that? Because I said to Terry, I said, how the fuck are we going to sit after our brains are fried and we just need something to eat and some sleep, we're going to sit down and write this before we come over here and do all of this again?
Starting point is 01:57:58 And then again the next day, I said, are you out of you? Nobody's going to do this. Guess what? Nobody did it. So then only agents listed above will be allowed in the room for the agent meeting immediately following the production meeting. So after we have the production meeting with TV crew and announcers, refereed, various people going over the show, then all the agents are supposed to have a meeting. The meeting room will be completely clear. so as not to have any other distractions.
Starting point is 01:58:31 All agents' producers except Jeff Jarrett, who will be holding a similar meeting on production issues with Keith Mitchell and Dave Sahati inside the Impact Zone, will meet with Dutch and Vince as a group for storyline and match purposes. All pertinent info relating to the matches will be written out on the impact format sheets that each agent will have that we just went over in the production meeting. any questions that arise should be and will be hashed out with Dutch and Vince at that time.
Starting point is 01:59:02 When all questions have been answered and each agent is satisfied that he has enough info, he will then take the information and convey it to the individual talents involved. All agents will also be informed as to whether they will need to meet with Keith Mitchell or Dave's hottie later in the day for extra elements involved in a segment match such as outside the ring activity, lighting, music cues, special camera shots, or special entrances such as lights out, or the suicide entrance. Agents.
Starting point is 01:59:35 Marriage. Agents will inform talents early in the day if there is a walk-through scheduled for their match and a time will be given for the walk-through. All talent will be expected to meet the scheduled time unless a valid reason prohibits them from attending. such as a pre-tape, photo shoot, or other pending company business. Talent should inform the agent as soon as possible.
Starting point is 02:00:02 If there is a conflict with the meeting the specified time, agent will then reschedule the walkthrough. Failure to meet the walkthrough time can result in a warning or fine. And then parakeets are going to fly out my ass as I whistle Dixie on a xylophone while eating Christmas fruitcake, my Aunt Fannie baked me. Nobody was ever fined. Nobody was ever disciplined for not
Starting point is 02:00:32 meeting a time of a walk through because everything was always behind, because everybody was wandering around with their own grumpiness going on in a fucking amusement park, soundstage, with their own agendas and doing shit stains pre-tapes all fucking day.
Starting point is 02:00:51 There was no fucking time schedule for any day. You could say that. Any of you'd be standing out there with your dick in your hand. If a walkthrough is not scheduled, Brian, the match will be laid out by the agent as prescribed by creative and talent will then take charge of the execution of the match. Talent will then relay back to the agent how the match will be executed and the agent at his discretion can suggest changes and make sure that the match meets with what creative
Starting point is 02:01:21 has laid out. Agent needs to know from talent any special moves or looks so that the truck needs to be alerted. And I mean, there's more and more about lighting effects and etc. And Mike calls and talk to the floor director. And all talent should be, no talent is to leave the go position unless Bob Ryder instructs them to do so. All talent run-ins will be directed from the truck and relayed to the go position. All agents are to be, this is, and you're supposed to be.
Starting point is 02:01:55 to brush your teeth in the morning and you're supposed to eat lunch before you starve to death. These are all details that go into the job. But what they did was they ran a disorganized operation in many ways, especially on TV days, because of the somewhat short staffedness of production crew and the short mentality of the creative department and nothing ever hit a fucking schedule and you're running back and forth doing all this shit
Starting point is 02:02:32 but nobody could ever I mean it goes on for pages and pages do you know who actually wrote this like who put the words to paper? Yes what Dixie again said oh we got to have a standard procedure for all of this and then they all sat down everybody in the office and she fielded all the ideas and all the input
Starting point is 02:02:58 and then had somebody write this all fucking out like anybody was going to enforce it or could even ever remember it. Failure to meet the guidelines set forth by the agent producer can result in a warning or fine. In case of a fine, it'll be up to each individual agent to suggest a fine within their report. However, before a fine is levied, a warning will be issued by talent relations to the talent via email and phone call. Talent relations will then copy creative and the individual agent on the warning so that communication is maintained in this manner. Both talent, creative, the agent, and the individual talent, sounds like more than both,
Starting point is 02:03:43 will all be aware that a warning has been issued of a second warning is issued. a fine could be levied. In the case of a fine, the procedure above will be followed. What the fuck is it? Jesus. You know how many people I ever find in TNA as the head agent? How many? Nobody.
Starting point is 02:04:03 Because they don't fucking laughed at me. Because they're like, we're out here in this goddamn fucking zoo in the middle of this shit. And you're fining me because I didn't show up at 3.15 for the in ring walk through. I mean, it's just, it's what in a perfect world everyone would do at a wrestling taping for five pages, ignoring the fact that their world wasn't perfect and that nobody was ever going to get to anybody. Even if Jeff Jerry, if Bill Watts was there, they couldn't follow this. This would have been a memo that Watts would have fucking torn up. and to make it easier to give the talent reports is the other reason why they're never any more done
Starting point is 02:04:55 i got the form over here i can't reach it but instead of making the agents right god forbid that happened they came up with a form that you could just fill out like agent name match and it's like a report card thing attitude and a little box that you could like write four words in or check or make a comment attitude, performance, like grammar, congeniality, how are they groomed,
Starting point is 02:05:31 well-groomed, well-dressed, and then sign it at the bottom. That's make it easier to hand in. I can't fucking do this. How the fuck could I write anything meaningful on this? This is caca. So it just all went away.
Starting point is 02:05:46 Well, so did you from TNA. And apparently any Christmas cards I'm going to get from Booker team. I'm not mad at him. I'm not knocking Booker, but he was the one that just wasn't going to put up with this foolishness. And he let everybody know how miserable he was about it. Was he liked that from the moment he got there? No, I think he liked it to first month or so.
Starting point is 02:06:12 I think it. And it's like, oh, God damn. I was like, I used to, with road dog and fucking Savi, I said, God damn, I'll flip you all for Booker's match or I'll buy y'all's cheese steaks at the commissary. If you take Booker's match, because he would point out every goddamn thing that was wrong with the stupid shit that was on the format
Starting point is 02:06:38 and was told to us by creative to do. And a lot of people would do that. But then we would sit down and be constructive to find ways around it, everybody working together. Booker would pick everything apart and take the piss out of it, but not be interested in solving it in any way, just telling us what's wrong with it.
Starting point is 02:06:57 Come back, when you fix it, come back to see me. Well, fuck, throw something in here. Did he ever say anything to Russo? I don't know, because I, you know, if, I was never around, the only time I was ever with any talent and Russo is when we would have to go get here. Remember that time I told you his story was,
Starting point is 02:07:19 there was somehow he had written, something where the match had a finish, but the match had never started. There was never an official start to a fucking wrestling match. A fight broke out and somehow they're doing a finish with a referee. And I asked in a production meeting, how can we have a finish when the match never started? Nobody will notice. So to a man, to a single breathing human, every time that I got somebody in the segment,
Starting point is 02:07:51 and explained to him what we were going to do, the first thing they said was, well, the match never started. So I called him over. And in front of the talent, I said, how can we finish the match when it never starts? And he said some shit,
Starting point is 02:08:08 and when he left, they all looked at me and said, we don't understand what the fuck he's talking about. So we just made up a goddamn start to the fucking match and put it in there. So I was never in a lot of joint meetings with talent with Rousseau. I don't know whether. And Booker, he wouldn't say any specific person.
Starting point is 02:08:34 Maybe he didn't know that, you know, who was behind it. Dutch was on the creative team. One would think that everybody would know well enough not to blame Dutch. And I, you know, Jeff would come in. Whenever you would have to call Jeff in, he would just simplify it like it should have been to begin with, take out the really stupid parts everybody had a problem with and just tighten it up and go the same direction.
Starting point is 02:09:01 But it, you know, it just, there were varying degrees of who was helpful bearing up under what we all had to bear up under and who just, you know, was pissy about it because they were pissy about it. Anyway, that's more of that type of TNA paperwork. And that's what, you know, it was a mark owning a company that would make to say, well, we ought to do this. Send everybody out of guidelines. So then everybody's got to sit down and, well, what should the guidelines be? And then when you realize to write down a wrestling producer or agent's job or booker's job,
Starting point is 02:09:40 you could just sit there and write until the day, you know, is over with and you've done nothing because it could be anything. you have to know what when you talk to guys and they go over a match, you have to know what then would need to be relayed to the truck. I don't need to tell the director he's going to grab a headlock right before the hip toss, but I do need to tell the director and so he can relay to the cameraman if the guy's going to jump up to the top rope and dive out into the fucking crowd. They might miss that if they don't know what's coming. or if I'm talking to the guys and they want to do something
Starting point is 02:10:19 and there's going to be a big run in, well, maybe they want to do it in the wrong place. Maybe it needs to be on the other side of the ring with their back to so-and-so so they don't see something coming. But then I've got to go tell the goddamn director that you need to be shooting with your handheld on the right side of the ring post instead of the left like normal
Starting point is 02:10:38 because if they come that way, you won't be able to see them. And it's just endless running back and forth all goddamn day with details that you have to know who needs to know this in this chain of command of chain of events of things and who doesn't need to know it and you need to know how to tell the people that need to know what they need to know and don't waste the time of the people it ain't going to matter anyway and that's being a wrestling agent
Starting point is 02:11:06 the head agent well I didn't get enough head not for that job I've had easier jobs where I got more head but Brian would you like to know how to get ahead? Yeah. Don't get in a wrestling business
Starting point is 02:11:29 here's the thing folks right now do not get in the wrestling business instead what you need to do is you need to come up with a dream you need to have a dream you need to have a product in mind or a service in mind or something that you can release upon the world, goods and services and things that will make life better for other people
Starting point is 02:11:54 and will make you a shit ton load of money in a process. And I can't think of anybody better to, yes, as you hear the ringing of the cash register that is on the bicycle connected to the basket of the old woman who lives down the way. Oh, come on. I can't think of any better partner that anybody with a dream could have than Shopify, because Shopify, they're the dream factory, baby. They're like the MGM studios of 2025, more stars than there are in the heavens.
Starting point is 02:12:27 They are going to take, and they're going to put a marketing team behind you. They're going to put expertise in websites behind you. They're going to use a commerce platform that's a heavy-hitting platform serving millions of businesses around the world. They're going to put it behind you. and you better hope that nobody starts fucking throwing shit because you're going to be hit first,
Starting point is 02:12:53 but you're going to be the face. It all goes right of this dynamic new company that's going to make you a ton of money. Because also Shopify, they're already known around the world, the purple button that people love to punch. Brian, what happens every time somebody punches a purple button somebody else makes money
Starting point is 02:13:17 somebody else there you go see they're doing it already every time somebody punches a purple button an angel gets his wings and somebody else gets one of your products whatever it may be
Starting point is 02:13:33 I guess they could get more of your products if they want to they can buy as many of your products as they want would you just stop that now I think we've got the idea The point is Shopify is your commerce expert with world-class expertise and everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns. They've got a marketing team. They have got AI tools.
Starting point is 02:13:58 They've got ready to use templates. They've got design studio experts. All they need is you. Turn your life over to them. Repent. Change your ways. Get on the wagon. Stay away from demon rum and turn your life over to Shopify,
Starting point is 02:14:17 and in turn, they'll be your sugar daddy. And they will pay for everything because they'll make you a ton of money. You'll be rolling in filtheta luker. You'll be able to have the absolute best cosmetic surgery. If you want something taken off, you'll be able to afford to have it taken off. If you want something put on, you'll be able to afford to have it taken off. you'll be able to afford to have it put on and get the extra large. I don't know what.
Starting point is 02:14:46 That's all because you're going to make a fortune with a, you're going to be a big business typhoon with our friends at Shopify behind you. And right now, you can turn your big business idea into reality and, cha-ching, chiching. There you go. With Shopify on your side by signing up for a $1 a month trial period, and start selling today at Shopify.com slash JCE.
Starting point is 02:15:19 You sign up with Shopify, you're going to be selling like an auctioneer. You're going to be screaming. Oh, my God. Oh, I can't take it no more. It's not what you're going to be screaming. You're going to be screaming. I'm sorry, long kind of selling.
Starting point is 02:15:32 Enjoy metaphorically inside your head because there are all those great sales and the great partner you have building up your store. Of course, Jim, Shopify powers our online store. And they can power the listeners, our good friends at Shopify. They can power you too. So power up, folks, Shopify.com slash JCE, a $1 a month trial period. Of course, you'll never want to let them go.
Starting point is 02:16:00 Never want to give you up. Never won't let you. You will never want to stop fondling your representative of Shopify. Let's not put it that way. well you're you're gonna praise them and make over them and pat on them and hug them and kiss them and squeeze them and call them george at shopify.com slash jcee for that for that one dollar a month trial period you ought to somebody's gonna at least have to put out once aren't they to get a deal like that the deal is based around the wonderful help you'll be getting in this new partnership with shopify again they power hour store and there's no sexual quid pro quo it's just about commerce and business and doing the right thing for your business, our friends at Shopify, who are going to say nice things about our friends at Shopify, yes. Yes, there's no quid pro quo.
Starting point is 02:16:53 They don't have to do anything dirty back to you, but it seems like for them giving you such a good deal, you ought to at least a little hand action under the table. Again, one more time, Jim, that promo code for that great deal. For that hand action under the table, Shopify.com. That wasn't the deal. That wasn't a deal I was speaking of. No. There's another great deal I was specifically speaking about.
Starting point is 02:17:16 Do you know what it is? You're speaking about that deal. Shopify. Shopify.com slash JCE is the $1 a month trial period deal type of thing. Five knuckle shuffle option. That is what it is, of course. Shopify.com slash JCE. All righty, Brian, I guess while we're talking about stroking organs and pleasuring people
Starting point is 02:17:46 and giving them all kinds of good feely, feely, rubby rubs, Uncle Dave is at it again. He is graded. Would you call it like a gymnastics scoring system in the Olympics? He's giving out report cards to the children on their cheerleading routines, or how would you describe the the over-effusive verbal and potentially manual fallatio that he gives
Starting point is 02:18:17 all of these matches on these AEW pay-per-views, Brian. He's done it again. He's overdoing it. He's just gone off the beam again. Well, you would have to think if there was ever a show looking at the lineup all in Texas
Starting point is 02:18:33 may cause the most private orgasms of any show in wrestling other than maybe DreamSlam or DreamSlam too. But now, but I thought I thought that Uncle Dave is all about the athleticism and the flippie flops and the cheerleading routines and the gymnastics and the roundoffs and the Japanese fighting spirit. I didn't think he liked the garbage rassling and the broken glass and the barbed wire and the fucking Drano down the throat and the flame throwers and the tomfoolery.
Starting point is 02:19:03 he says sometimes it works for that room but does he really put on the same level as his precious gymnast the kind of guys that you know fucking bite the heads off chickens and do that type of thing he's still supporting this just because it works in the room well was a big room did rex read when he was reviewing movies say well i hated god damn behind the green door, but everybody around me was jacking off, so it worked for the room. I missed that Rex reed column. Wondering. Well, let's go to the story.
Starting point is 02:19:43 His era, as Siskel and Ebert weren't old enough to get in at the time. Let's go now. Did you hear about, let's talk about the injury list first now, Brian? Okay. Because some people are hurt after the pay-per-view. Now, they did 18 hospitalization angles, but son of a bitch, one at least, one of the people they carried out on a stretcher is actually hurt. Now, apparently they carried Joe out, Samoa Joe,
Starting point is 02:20:13 but he's going to go do promotion for a television program that he's involved in. So they broke his neck and carried him out on a stretcher. Unless he does that promotional tour with a goddamn neck brace like I did, after Bullitt Bob Armstrong Powell drove me, then it's just bullshit. You have a talent in that company where nobody thinks anybody is a star
Starting point is 02:20:43 in the real world because they're not. Right? They don't have movie stars. They don't have MJF is going to be unhappy Gilmore number 17 or whatever, and that's a big deal for them. But they can't just say,
Starting point is 02:21:01 hey, Samoa Joe's in a TV show. He's going to be going around the world tour, and they have to hospitalize him on their TV so everybody sees it. Oh, yeah, he's supposed to be in a hospital. So that's Joe. Did you hear about Osprey, Brian? You know, I had just heard about this, actually. Funny you bring it up.
Starting point is 02:21:20 I had just heard that he apparently is really, really banged up, as you would suspect someone who wrestles the style he does would be. So apparently it was a good thing they didn't put the world title on him. Because now he's taken off of a month or so. And the guy only, I say only wrestles once a week, but honestly with that, like you said, the shit that he does of his own volition, I'm surprised he's not in a goddamn iron lung already. But now they've lost Osprey for at least the next several weeks. And their big pay-per-view in August is the forbidden door.
Starting point is 02:21:59 All them furriners like Osprey, they love to come through the forbidden door. now he can't come through the forbidden door because it's not handicap accessible but the one that really kills me brian oh i didn't know there was another one mina melons you didn't hear about mina i have mina sherikawa for the record i have no idea what you're talking about no she broke her hand she is out with a broken hand so they did some kind of angle or said something they blamed it on Athena. But do you know how she broke her hand, apparently? No. Giving Thunder Rosa a spinning back fist. She broke her hand on Thunder Rosa's head. Wow. How's Thunder Rosa? Nobody said. They didn't think to ask. they did not think to ask about well how's how's a bridge of thunder rose's nose or whatever that didn't come up
Starting point is 02:23:04 is that a tough move to work a spinning of course that's why you're a fucking idiot if you do it or take it it's more of this japanese shit where again i'm sorry but for the past couple of generations over there if you get brain damage they take it as a fucking badge of honor. No, the discus punch for Carrie was of work, but spinning around backwards where you really are swinging a fist
Starting point is 02:23:37 when you can't see where it's going. Fuck you, I'm not going to be there when you turn around. It's fucking stupid. But anyhow, we wish them all the best in their future recoveries. But now, at least Moxley isn't the champion anymore.
Starting point is 02:23:59 but now it's page, which is shite, but should have been Osprey, but now he's fucking hurt anyway, so he'd be out. So what did Uncle Dave think about all of this? Certainly he took a stand on the distastefulness of the final contest, but we'll find out when we get there. Well, we have it here. This is the new Wrestling Observer newsletter for,
Starting point is 02:24:25 what's the date on this thing? July 21st, 2025. the star ratings for all in Texas, the day-long extravaganza, you could have fit every parade of champions inside of the length of this show. The opening contest, Jim, Marshall and Ross von Erick,
Starting point is 02:24:47 and Dustin Rhodes, and Sammy Guevara, beating Shane Taylor, Lee Moriarty, Charlie Bravo, and Sean Dean seven minutes, 12 seconds, two and a quarter stars. we didn't see it so we can't take them to task for that, but one would one would think with the way that he just bestow stars like Tinkerbell sprinkling a fucking fairy dust that you would give the Von Erick's
Starting point is 02:25:12 a few more stars and in the heart of Texas, but that's just me. Well, again, we didn't see it. Something's causing Swami to go ape shit in the background. See, Swami doesn't even agree with these things. Big boom, AJ. And hologram. and Tomohiro Ishii and Kyle O'Reilly. There's a team for you. Defeated Rocky Romero, Trent Barretta, Lance Archer, and Hacichichero, who just signed a contract. Okay, hold on. I'm going to say, obviously, you have to think that anything that the earlier guys were involved in,
Starting point is 02:25:50 the Von Erickson, Texas, a few of those Dustin Rhodes' great worker got two and a half stars. this conglomeration of mess, the only reason it's going to get more than that is because there's a Japanese fellow in it. I don't know if that's the reason, but in 12 minutes and 50 seconds, three-star match. There you go. Jim, FTR, defeated the Outrunners,
Starting point is 02:26:18 16 minutes, 18 seconds, three-star match. I would think that's kind of right down to, the middle. FTR can get something out of most folks didn't go overboard but didn't say it stunk. Maybe he's going to be realistic today. Says the Outrunners dressed as Newport
Starting point is 02:26:37 menthol cigarettes. There was actually a Newport chant during the match. It was good, but nothing compared to their TV match. So apparently they had a match, I'm going to guess, on collision. That was better than three stars. Samoa Joe
Starting point is 02:26:53 Katsyuri Shabai. and Powerhouse Hobbs, otherwise known as the Ops, defeated Gabe Kidd, Claudio Casignoli, and Wheeler Yuda, 14 minutes 30 seconds, three and three-quarter stars. Oh, good. All right, here we start again. Now, if it's on the main show,
Starting point is 02:27:14 everything's got to be three and a half or above. Another multiple-man match, but we saw that, and now I guess that means, all the pre-show matches stunk if this was better than them. MJF won the Casino Battle Royal 34 minutes 51 seconds four-star match.
Starting point is 02:27:42 They had the ingredients of something in there. They got sad tracked and it went a while and et cetera, et cetera, but again, you know, this is, we're not talking about Undertaker Michael's Angle fucking flare steamboat territory in any of this shit and it's just
Starting point is 02:28:06 it's embarrassing at this point for Uncle Dave this is what he wrote about the Adam Cole promo he apparently seriously considered announcing his retirement but said that he's just not in the frame of mind to say anything about it yet this shocked the crowd's silent and they stayed that way for a while. Dustin Rhodes won the TNT Championship
Starting point is 02:28:28 over Sammy Gavara, Kyle Fletcher, and Daniel Garcia, 15 minutes, 21 seconds, three-star match. I mean, I would think that that one would have been better than the opening match, and we didn't even care for it, but nevertheless. Swerve Strickland and Will Osprey defeated the Young Bucks 26 minutes 17 seconds here we go
Starting point is 02:29:00 5 and a half star match this was one of the best tag team matches ever held in the U.S. Oh my God and it was particularly impressive the way they turned the crowd around and had them heading for the owls what is he talking about how they turned the crowd around
Starting point is 02:29:22 I guess because they were dead silent for the young Bucks coming out there and for the early portion of the match before they started kicking out of every single move they could do, the crowd wasn't as into it. So this is what you have to do to have the... Now, by the way, the best tag team match in the United States, at least in 35 or 40 years or so, did come from AEW, but as we recall,
Starting point is 02:29:49 it was FTR versus Jay White and Juice Robinson out of nowhere on collision. and that two summers ago, I still have that show on my DVR. That was one of the best matches I've seen in years from anybody, any company. This was not that.
Starting point is 02:30:06 This was a collection of fucking amateur gymnasts trying to land on their feet whenever they wanted to and show everybody that this is a bunch of horse shit instead of a goddamn legitimate sport. And you see it more and more today than ever before. The people don't react to the bucks. They react to the spots.
Starting point is 02:30:25 Well, yeah, because nobody gives a shit about these two turd blossoms, and they haven't for a long time. And when they start doing all the flips, they're like, ah! And then it's over with, and they wait for people to do more flips or fall through more furniture. But, no, that this was the best of anything, no, except, again, if they're auditioning for America's got talent, the tumbling routine was wonderful.
Starting point is 02:30:55 but this is Dave's issue. Yeah. Yeah, this is Dave's issue. He likes to watch children play. I'm beginning to worry about him. Has he got a raincoat? Jim, Athena. I don't know if he has a raincoat.
Starting point is 02:31:11 Athena won the women's gauntlet match for a title shot. 26 minutes, 59 seconds, four-star match. Of course it was. I mean, again, this was in the middle of this seven-hour fucking journey through misery. We didn't watch it. I don't care what he thought of. All right, well, the next match.
Starting point is 02:31:33 Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin the Hurt Syndicate won a three-way to retain their titles over Christian Cage and Nick Wayne, and Mike Bailey and Kevin Knight, 18 minutes, 59 seconds, four-star match.
Starting point is 02:31:49 Oh, Jesus God! Was he also grading on the, the ridiculous, of the multiple angles at the end of the thing and the whole awkwardness of this whole quasi turn that somebody is doing? It appears he just recounted what happened without any opinion or conjecture. Okay. I mean, I love the Hurt Syndicate.
Starting point is 02:32:20 They did the best they could, but this was a mess. Tony Storm defeated Mercedes Monet to retain her AEW Women's Championship, 25 minutes, 12 seconds, four and three-quarter stars. It never ends. Every match is just greater than the next. Just absolutely greater than the next. And now they're almost at five stars.
Starting point is 02:32:54 Okay. Kazushko Okada defeated Kenny Omega, 30 minutes, 31 seconds to unify. All right now. Here's the table. test. Here is the fucking test. He's seen great American matches. He's seen great Japanese matches. This was neither. It was two guys that used to do great things that can't anymore and one of them doesn't try, Okada. Certainly he had to be disappointed considering what they have done in the past,
Starting point is 02:33:31 what they've been capable of with what they turned out here. Four and three-quarter stars. The strategy was to treat this not as match five of the 2017-to-2018 series, with the idea many people watching had not seen that prior series, but as match one of the AEW 2025 series. Well, they did that. It was a match, and you don't want to see it again. I think even fans of Omega, and I guess even maybe Okana, I think even they think the interference was a bit much for the match.
Starting point is 02:34:14 But, the main event, Adam Page, defeated John Moxley to win the AEW World Championship Texas Death Match, 35 minutes, 53 seconds, 5 and a half stars. This convoluted mess, this garbage-minded wrestling match, alleged wrestling match between these two dipshits who don't have any idea how to put anything together, the multiple hospitalization angles, multiple referees being buried by people wandered around just doing shit for the sake of it, people running in, diving in, repelling in,
Starting point is 02:35:02 blood being splattered everywhere, people being stabbed with forks and thrown through furniture and goddamn carried out on stretchers and falling in broken glass and didn't they have something they had the chair wrapped in barbed wire? And he thinks this is somehow a great accomplishment in our dear sport.
Starting point is 02:35:31 According to Dave Meltzer, this was... And the work is rotten. And the work... When you talk about Moxley, his work is rotten. Go ahead. According to Dave Meltzer, this was an epic Texas death match, perhaps the best one I've ever seen.
Starting point is 02:35:51 Oh. And it's not the kind of match I like at all. But given the story, the interference was part of it and not a crutch for it, and the weapons were also part of the story. The story being that Moxley's a moron who likes these stupid weapons, I guess. And likes to slice himself up on purpose in front of people.
Starting point is 02:36:16 Well, there they are. And just to complete the night, real quick, I'll give you the star ratings for Saturday night's main event. Orton beating Drew McIntyre, 8 minutes, 24 seconds, 2 and 3 quarters stars. Not to say it was any better than that or worse than that. Solo Sacoa defeated Jimmy Uso. 10 minutes, 48 seconds, 3 and 3 quarter stars. Oh, Jesus Christ.
Starting point is 02:36:41 L.A. night. That wouldn't 3 and 3 quarter if the first one was 2.5. No, I don't think so. L.A. Knight defeated Seth Rollins, 11 minutes, 36 seconds, 3.5 stars. What? And Gunther defeated Bill Goldberg, 14 minutes, 19 seconds, 3.5 stars. I think he's gone out of his mind for everybody, but he just loves the other folks more. But it's just, it's ridiculous that suddenly this one company has done what no other wrestling
Starting point is 02:37:16 promotion to history of the world has ever done. And that's put on like 18, five-star matches over the course of this. All of it with bad work, holes you could drive a semi-truck through in the booking, unconvincing promos, and a bunch of fucking children out there. they're doing their tumbling routines, and this is his dream wrestling promotion. This is why, because they listen to him, because Tony's a mark for him,
Starting point is 02:37:47 Tony's a mark for everything, and the boys just want this praise. They'll never get any better because they won't change anything because he's telling him, this is all great. And for the record, a match that I thought was really good,
Starting point is 02:38:02 Women's Evolution Main Event, Naomi winning the world title during EO versus Rhea, 26 minutes, 18 seconds, four and three quarter stars. Almost there. Almost got it. It's as good as five, but it's not five. But it's as good as five if you learn.
Starting point is 02:38:20 What would you like to learn what they did on AEW this past Wednesday briefly? No, please. No, no, no, professor. We're going to just run through a bit of it. There's a couple things I'm going to comment on. And otherwise, again, I'm in the malaise like I am with the WWE. It's even harder to watch the WWE because the regular television programs are longer.
Starting point is 02:38:42 And on the streaming, as we know, it's harder to skip through things. But now apparently AW, this was July 16th, they've landed in Chicago for their residency at the Aragon Ballroom. And I got to be honest, we had actually looked better. it's a smaller crowd but it's a loud crowd they can get some good shots because the room is kind of picturesque you can't tell there's nobody there like you could when they were in the bigger buildings or just the nondescript empty exhibition hall kind of buildings but they're going to do like eight shows over the next three weeks or whatever in this in this building in Chicago shouldn't they have before they booked eight shows in a row in Chicago thought, well, I guess we shouldn't
Starting point is 02:39:38 have run punk off? He could have goddamn turned them away from all of these shows. I have to say, look cool. I know it was kind of a mental block to go to the smaller buildings and eventually they did and it's been hit or miss, but I think it looked really cool. It looked different. You wanted it to look different to WWE, not like you're trying to have that kind of production when you can't. And I thought it looked really cool. The only thing they missed was giving everybody a special Owls number one Chicago Italian beef.
Starting point is 02:40:13 I think that would have made the experience. But here's my problem. That's why I was kind of burnt on this show. Nothing has changed. After that marathon pay-per-view, at least we'll get rid of Dick the Boozer as world champion or we'll get rid of the goddamn EVP bullshit or whatever. Well, the same people are on a show doing the same
Starting point is 02:40:36 things. It's just they moved them into a different position. And Adam Page was first out, the new world champion. Going to do a live interview. They made sure to mention the new world champion. He's in a six-man tag team match tonight. And he gets in a ring. Tony Chavani hands him in the microphone and just wanders off.
Starting point is 02:41:07 What a fucking great interview. Barbara Walters, move over. And Page does the same thing that he always does. He's memorized a very verbose statement with a lot of eloquent, meaningful things that he memorizes and delivers with the fake tough guy voice and face, voice and face. And nobody really talks like that, and he sounds like a douchebag. It's the pandering to the pandering to the audience that actually I found.
Starting point is 02:41:43 Well, that's the thing is nobody goes, yes, you deserve it with their chant. You deserve it. No, you deserve it. Okay, he's a baby face. That's great. He never smiles. He goes through this statement. You are the ones who demanded a fully realized pro wrestling.
Starting point is 02:42:02 What the fuck is that? That was a quote. You were the ones who demanded. a fully realized pro wrestling. And then he said a do it yourself pro wrestling. And I could buy that. It does look do it yourself. But why is he saying these things?
Starting point is 02:42:24 Is it we do this all because of you? Now it's our fault. You see, that's where that's where it's born. We do this all for you. Tony should cut a salary then. That should be the next move. Yeah. You told me what your motivation is, buddy.
Starting point is 02:42:38 Half off. But that was the whole promo. He said nothing to set up nothing besides the overflowery thank you to the fans and the rah-rah speech for AEW. Because we're the greatest company. And he thanked a lot of people. But he started, I want to thank Orange Cassidy. Where the fuck did that come from?
Starting point is 02:43:05 It made no sense. I'm sure he did something a while. back and this guy's a friend of his, but goddamn, he thanked Orange Cassidy, Jay White, Edge, Shippoopee, Hobbs, Samoa Joe, Brian Danielson, Darby Allen, Osprey.
Starting point is 02:43:22 And then the fans chanted Swerve's house and he had to thank Swerve. Well, you know what that was? That was him running down the people that have tried to knock off Moxley since he won the belt. Wasn't Orange Cassidy one of the first? I don't know or care, but this
Starting point is 02:43:37 went for fucking ever. And then finally, he said, you know, I bled and I sweat. And yes, I cried it all in. And they say that makes me weak. Yeah, it does. You're a fucking weak pussy. But he says, they say that makes me weak. But I have a wife and two kids who love me and millions of fans.
Starting point is 02:44:00 So he didn't actually say it didn't make him weak. He just said, I don't care if it makes me weak because I've got a wife and two kids. The millions of fans, I think. was an exaggeration. And then he got bleep for saying fuck and it was over. I'm the fucking world champion. There's no,
Starting point is 02:44:21 he doesn't, I see people saying, oh my God, he's connecting with the fans. He doesn't connect with people verbally. Maybe these people, they're already connected. They're very easy to plug into. But if you're talking about a widespread audience, He's not a CM punk.
Starting point is 02:44:40 He's not a Drew McIntyre. He's not a, he's not an MJF, if you're talking about this company verbally. He does the same shit and he sounds the same way. He has same fucking look on his douchebaggy face. Same fucking rotten haircut.
Starting point is 02:44:56 Does the same stupid shit in his matches. This looks like it'll be a successful title run. Yes, yeah, it's going to be great. Cal Feltcher beat Masquerita Dorito in 11 minutes. So now they're doing the thing where the Hardley boys are being bullied and made fun of and talked down to because they're not EVPs anymore. And now everybody can say what they really think like they couldn't have begin with, right? Renee Moxley Good made fun of them. and Marina Schaefer blew him off without speaking to him
Starting point is 02:45:40 and they found their locker room door and a guy was crossing out EVPs with a black Sharpie. But they can't even do this. Yeah, why would they have the locker room then? Well, but besides that, they're acting. And that's what it was, acting, they act because they're trying to be funny somehow. They amused themselves, I guess.
Starting point is 02:46:03 But they were trying to be funny with the bad acting and so it's not even convincing that they're really upset or that anybody's do anything to them. It's just bullshit like in one of their little YouTube videos. And they tell Don Phallis, well, we're not going to join your family,
Starting point is 02:46:25 but we might be friends. This is, I wrote, this is continuing. I thought they were writing them off the show. I foolishly hoped that they'd realize nobody wants to see two fucking jackoffs. But no, they're going to continue if they're just not EVPs anymore.
Starting point is 02:46:44 So they're going to be phony in a lesser role. Because then they come out for their match with Josh Alexander and Chichichia. Isn't Josh Alexander a heel? I thought it was part of the college table, wasn't he? Well, hold on. This is what I'm writing.
Starting point is 02:47:06 I said they come out for a match with Chichichia, Alexander. And I wrote, isn't Josh Alexander a heel? Then I realize it's an eight-man tag team match. I saw the other team come out. Then here come these two nitwits. Say it, okay, no, it's an eight-man. But they get a separate entrance where they don't get pyro. The video shows them getting beat up. And they get a phony ring announcement where the announcer is like he doesn't care about. So now these four have to go in an eight-man tag with Hong Kong Fooie, Bandito, Kevin Knight, and Brody King.
Starting point is 02:47:49 Another eight-man tag. Why don't they try to set something up or get somebody over by having a straight tag team match? We forgot because they can't. The Hartley boys need multiple people to play with and bounce off of and alley-oop them up in the air. So everybody in the match finally hit somebody with everything while that hollow-eyed, hairless, slack-jawed, imbecile Rick Knox
Starting point is 02:48:19 just stood there and gaped at them. And they did some really phony shit and beat Bandito. And the heels beat the baby faces. I don't think they cheated. You can't really tell. They just kind of beat them. but that was 15 minutes. Are they not even smart enough to realize
Starting point is 02:48:40 now they did a job on the pay-per-view so now if they're going to still be on a program, they should come out and kind of get a win back in a tag match and do something to impress someone somehow? That's the boring old way they used to do things, Grandpa. We do things differently. We don't rely on those old wrestling tropes
Starting point is 02:49:01 until everything doesn't work. well it was at nine o'clock now brian halfway through this son of a bitch edge came out and the crowd sang to him and he thanked the fans we do this all for you so now here oh god
Starting point is 02:49:22 edge on the pay-per-view came out when Cage had been attacked by his own minions Nick Plain and Nick Plain's mom and Pip Sabian and they beat the shit out of Christian Cage after they had lost the tag team match and Edge came out, ran the heels off, picked up Christian and said,
Starting point is 02:49:45 go find yourself, which was not what Christian said to Edge, which was go fuck yourself back before. So now Edge says, I didn't come out to save Cage. Cage has made me miserable done a bunch of rotten things to me, all because of jealousy. And I don't blame Nick and Pip for what they did.
Starting point is 02:50:09 So now he's agreeing with the heels. You should have turned on my old partner. There's nothing untoward or out of the way about that. He said, I told you they'd do it. I told you so. I hope that Christian pulls his head out of his ass. But I came back to get FTR. Boy, this is a convoluted turn of somebody.
Starting point is 02:50:33 I think it's the baby-faced turn of Christian, if anyone's turning. Well, but wouldn't he be mad at goddamn, then the baby-faced turn needs to be. He's mad at his former cohorts that turned on him and beat him up and left him laying there. But if Edge wants F-T-R and they're trying to get Christian and Edge back together, then does it Edge have to help Christian kick the shit out of Nick and Pip? before Christian will help Edge kick the shit out of FDR. I don't know if there's an order of events. It's just revenge, kind of like kill bill style.
Starting point is 02:51:12 One by one, I'll take you all down. Edge is mad because FTR helped him get back in shape so that he could come back to wrestling, and then he came there, and they formed rated FTR, and then they started complaining. And they put me on a shelf for four months. Well, I've been doing this for 33 years. I don't have four months.
Starting point is 02:51:34 I'm like, oh, way to remind people that you're even older than you are. They don't know he started when he was 16 or whatever. They, God damn, what is he fucking 60? Then FTR's music plays, but FTR is not there. It's Stokely and Security guys.
Starting point is 02:51:54 And Stokely comes out and starts doing a promo. The problem is nobody would listen to him because now, they've decided that it's fun for them to boo over Stokely like they do over Dominic and they were doing for a while over Don. They ain't going to listen to him. They're going to boo over it.
Starting point is 02:52:17 But Stokely needs time to cut promos and he needs things to say and events to be constructed to where he's taken seriously because nobody takes him seriously. He's dressed in the fucking warm-up suit and he can talk and he's got to, some facial expressions, but he has never, ever been allowed to do anything that would seriously affect anything serious. He's never been the reason why somebody won a world championship
Starting point is 02:52:48 or something important. He's never been presented as a legitimate top manager. Well, neither is Don. Don just does shit to look like a clown too and over-funnyny every single. thing. But FTR needs a fucking Heyman, not a goddamn scatman crothers. So then they don't listen to him.
Starting point is 02:53:15 But it's probably a good thing because the message that he was delivering was he's gone and pulled strings and if Edge attacks FTR, then he's fired. So let me get this straight. Everybody else in the company
Starting point is 02:53:32 could just come out at random. in the back, in the parking lot, the goddamn hotel rooms in the ring, and just lay waste to whoever the fuck they want. But Stokely's important enough that he made him, made Tony Kahn say, well, if Edge fucks with FTR,
Starting point is 02:53:51 I'll just fire that fucking Edge. They just make rules when they want them. The rules where nobody can interfere in this kind of title match. And we'll have it on, the show and everybody's away you can't interfere in this match
Starting point is 02:54:07 and then you'll have a match in two segments where everybody interferes why couldn't you fucking stop them oh it wasn't the right kind of title match what the fuck so nobody listed to Stokely Edge is fired if he attacks FTR
Starting point is 02:54:23 Edge didn't sell like he was upset mad or in any way offended by anything that Stokely said he got the fans to chant upalumpa at him. He wasn't upset about the stipulation that he would be fired. He then booted security,
Starting point is 02:54:43 threw him all out of the ring. Stokely, for some reason, turned his back, I think to look for more security who ran off. And then, instead of just jumping out of the goddamn ring and running away, when he saw that there was no security and he was in the ring with Edge alone. He did a funny take,
Starting point is 02:55:10 turned around, saw Edge, and then ran toward Edge, so Edge could spear him. And he speared him. That's not how you would have handled it. I don't. What the fuck? The first thing, if I,
Starting point is 02:55:30 if that had been laid out to me, the first thing I would have said was, okay, when Edge dumps all the security, out of the ring and I turn around to fucking see that the security on the floor is running away,
Starting point is 02:55:46 then if Edge is going to back up in the corner and milk that he's going to spear me, what is keeping me from leaving? Why would I turn around and be speared? That is the first thing that I would have asked, and to be perfectly honest,
Starting point is 02:56:03 I would have suggested that maybe, just maybe, Edge fucking tosses these security guards out of the goddamn ring and boots the guy or whatever. And my other security guards, I wave them in and they run that way. And I say, yes, I've got him. And he ducks them and bumps them out. I turn around and go, oh, shit.
Starting point is 02:56:31 And start to leave. And he goddamn grabs the back of my jacket. And he flings me into the ring. where I goddamn get on my hands and knees like, oh, God, don't do that. And as he grabs me, I try to pull out of the fucking jacket and he pulls the jacket off and throws it. And as I stand up like, where'd my fucking coat go?
Starting point is 02:56:52 Then he can goddamn spear me. And then you've got some movement going where I'm trying to escape the inevitable and we're milking it to where it doesn't happen right away, but I don't look like an idiot for just standing there and fake for just standing there and letting him do it. But that's just me. anyway do you have any comments on that thing we just talked about no i'm with you i agree with
Starting point is 02:57:23 everything you just said and the way you're making time made a lot of sense that's right they had another four-way match the winner gets a hundred thousand dollars which i guess is better than what was it the other day four million pesos or four hundred thousand yen or what I think it was like six million pesos or four was something, pesos for sure. Yeah, whatever. Anyway, Queen Waiyata and Fekla and Chris Statlander and Willow had a four-way where they did stuff to each other until they were done. And in the end, Statlander and Willow fought off and then blue sky came down to draw the referee.
Starting point is 02:58:04 Julia Hart rolls in the ring and blows the mist in Queen Waiata's face and Thecla beater one, two, three. Did you see the mist? Did you actually see how she did it? How did I, I saw that she blew it and I saw it landed on the face, but I didn't. There was like no cloud of anything. It was just like she spit it in her face. Just like a clump.
Starting point is 02:58:26 Yeah, with mood like it would be like a mist. Like you would like, ooh, something happened there. This was just like a direct shot. A boom right to the face. Well, remember last time she missed completely. So I guess this time she just wanted straight to the. Tony Storm did an interview in one of the opera boxes. She would be a tremendous actress on some type of television show.
Starting point is 02:58:56 Maybe she could be the center square on the Hollywood squares. She's entertaining. You can't believe some of the sexual double entendre that gets thrown out and is allowed on. network television. Thankfully, no children are watching. They're just participating in the show. But I got to say if AEW is a parody of pro wrestling,
Starting point is 02:59:24 which it is, she's the best addict. This is entertaining in some fashion. I'm almost willing to say that if this was a legitimate, straightforward wrestling promotion, and she was doing the same shit and where it stood out as she's the only crazy nut and not just it's constant, I think I'd like it.
Starting point is 02:59:51 But on a show that's already a goddamn glorified Saturday Night Live sketch, isn't this just, isn't this just too far, too much, too ridiculous? It never, it never, you don't have comedy relief in a serious program with them. You every once in a while get, some element of seriousness like Adam Cole's speech in the middle of a goddamn donkey show
Starting point is 03:00:16 that never ends. I would like it if it was on a, as part of some kind of legitimate promotion, I think. She's doing something. Yeah, listen, you know, I would like it as a recurring character on like a talk show. I think it's funny. I think it's really great performance art.
Starting point is 03:00:37 It's entertaining. She has some clever lines. She has some really clever lines. I find myself laughing about after the fact. It's not two different things I've seen where she talks about eating Mercedes out during the match. But, you know, everything's in black and white. It is one of those things that from like the early days
Starting point is 03:00:57 or pre-AEW that we always hated, the ironic wrestling fan, the fans that launched Orange Cassidy and people like that because, you know, they like the idea that here's this un-wrestler on this wrestling show. She's really talented and really entertaining but I'm with you.
Starting point is 03:01:17 I enjoy what she does, except for the fact that if I watch it during the wrestling, I'm like, this doesn't belong here. Okada beat somebody that didn't even mention his name. He can't even make a squash match entertaining for a minute. Remember in the old days when that's all you got on TV, but if somebody came like, oh, here comes Terry Funk, or here comes the Sheik or Abdullah or goddamn somebody that's just going to do their shit,
Starting point is 03:01:43 and we get to see it, right? No, you blah. Blah for a minute match, got on the microphone, gargled a little unintelligible phrase and said, bitch to swerve. And then swerve came out and called him a bitch. So what are you going to do about it, bitch?
Starting point is 03:02:04 And he didn't do anything about it. He left. The end. The fuck with Okada. God damn, why don't they just mail him his check and let him send a, goddamn cardboard stand-up in. It'd be more exciting.
Starting point is 03:02:24 How are you ready for our main event? Oh, boy, we got there quick. Let's go to the main event. Yeah, we did. Mark Briscoe, Powerhouse Hobbs, and the new champion Hangnail Page against Dick the Boozer, Claudio, and Wheeler useless. It's the same shit they were doing.
Starting point is 03:02:41 They just switched the belt. We're not going to get rid of these guys. We're not going to not have to look at Moxley. every fucking week, they're going to do the same shit. The new world champion and a six-man tag still can't be rid of the boar horsemen. And they went for an extra runover this time because they didn't even ring the bell till five minutes to ten.
Starting point is 03:03:06 They went to break two minutes later, came back at 10 o'clock, the crowd was deathly silent. They go five minutes, take another break. They're taking breaks in the overruns now. And finally, I have never, I don't know if this may be the stupidest thing that anybody's ever done in a wrestling ring because it wasn't just one person going into business for themselves. Multiple people had to plan that this was going to happen and think that this was a thing you should do. Brian, I will tell you what they did. And then I will let you tell the people why that it's fucking stupid.
Starting point is 03:03:48 rather than me the the experienced veteran i'll let you the talented amateur claudio gets page up on his shoulders for the doomsday device like the road warriors right oh wheeler comes off the top rope with the clothesline for the doomsday device like the road warriors right and he hits him with it guess what page did he flipped backwards, landed on his feet, no sold the clothes line, and made a comeback, followed by a back flip off the top to the floor, where then five other people did moves to each other, and then page jackknifed Claudio, one, two, three.
Starting point is 03:04:37 Brian, what's the stupid part of landing on your feet from the doomsday device and making a comeback? I don't know. If they would bother to stop and think, think for one second, they would realize that it's not the goddamn bump that is supposed to be the devastating thing about the doomsday device. It's the clothesline. That's right. You're being you're being held up in the air and a guy's flying off the top rope and clothes lining you. Eddie hits you so hard, it turns you a flip and you land on the fucking ground. But apparently,
Starting point is 03:05:21 Wheeler is so weak he couldn't pull a greasy string out of a cat's ass because he just clotheslined the guy and the guy just backflip, landed on his feet and made a comeback. The wrestlers don't even know how wrestling works. Because they're so indie-minded, they're more worried about, oh, I can do this rather than, well, wouldn't it be stupid if you did? So then Moxley jumped on page. and the heels got heat.
Starting point is 03:05:58 The same shit they've been doing for months and months. And then the lights go out and Darby Allen is in the balcony. And while Darby Allen is in the balcony and Moxley is staring with that stupefied look on his face, Paige buck shots Moxley, even though they had just beaten him up just seconds before. And then everybody left. 15 minute overrun. They're doing the same shit they've been doing. Nothing has changed, not even the people.
Starting point is 03:06:32 They just switched to fucking belt. They've learned nothing. Those are my thoughts. Another banner episode of AEW Dynamite. What do you think about this as a episode coming off the pay-per-view? Well, I don't, I didn't think much of it as an episode anywhere coming off of going into it did nothing. What are we, what has changed? What are we looking forward to?
Starting point is 03:07:03 Osprey's gone. One of their big baby faces, like see what he's going to do. No. Fucking, all we saw was six-man tags, eight-man tags, four ways with girls for 100 grand, more multi-person gaga with the same people that we thought we might get rid of in favor of some new people that we don't see enough up.
Starting point is 03:07:30 I guess Darby's back. Darby's back. and Moxley appears to be petrified. It's good to see Darby's back, especially after seeing it as front. All right, well, that was AEW Dynamite for July 16th, 20205. What about the Arcadian Vanguard network
Starting point is 03:07:48 of programming for this fine coming week of July of whatever through whatever? I got to come out of a dead dog dedication. What the fuck? Another great week on the Arcadian Vanguard podcast network. Get information at all the shows on Twitter at Super Podcasts or on Facebook. at Facebook.com slash Arcadia Vanguard.
Starting point is 03:08:06 Of course, the wrestling news is there for you. Each and every day, each and every morning, wake up and listen to the wrestling news. Everything had happened without opinion, without conjecture, without paywall. Just the facts, ma'am, or man. Whoever is listening to this, probably man. Thewrestlingnews.com directly or wherever you find your favorite podcast, look for Arcadia Vanguard's, The Wrestling News. Want to make mention of Stick to Wrestling with John McAdam.
Starting point is 03:08:34 a big look at 1978 WWWF with some rare audio not heard before on a podcast, I believe. That's the best way I can say it. McAdampod.com for stick to wrestling with John McAdam, wherever you find your favorite podcast. And of course, the 605 super podcast,
Starting point is 03:08:53 The Mothership! Well, Swami's barking, I got him going. One of these days, folks, 605Pod.com, available wherever you find your favorite podcasts. The Mothership. one of these days, my friends, the ratings never end. And we're going to tell you before we go whether anybody watched AEW this past Wednesday night. Yeah.
Starting point is 03:09:20 Yeah, we are. AEW Dynamite for July 16th, 2025, Jim. You got them numbers there, Brian? I got the numbers here from 8 to 10. Got some of them. I got some of them bunch of numbers over there. You looking for some numbers? I can get you some numbers.
Starting point is 03:09:35 8 to 10.14 p.m. On average, watched by 58,000 viewers. What's it? You know, it seems like they're almost coordinating things now, that they end up with very similar numbers from week to week, almost like they're comparing notes, the viewers. Are you going to watch this week? Well, if you watch, I'll watch,
Starting point is 03:09:59 but if you ain't going to watch, I ain't going to watch. And it either goes up together or down together. This is it back down. And weren't they up last week or was that the week before? Last week they were 637. And the four... That's what they go they go 630, then they go 580. Then they go 630, then they go 580.
Starting point is 03:10:19 That's the cable audience now. I mean, I don't think you could expect. If you get anything in the 700s, it's amazing. That means you actually have some interest beyond your audience. But the audience now is between 640 and 550. So let's go to the quarterly hour breakdown. These were compiled by Resslenomics. Quarter one, 8 to 8.15 p.m.
Starting point is 03:10:43 The Adam Page Live promo, 747,000 viewers. Okay, that does not bode well for the rest of the program. Maybe he ran them off early. I don't know, we'll see, but that's a decent starting point for lately. But they're going to, they're going to have to dropaways to hit their average. We got a quarter to 815, 8.30 p.m. Mascar de Radha versus Kyle Fletcher with picture and picture. 602,000 viewers.
Starting point is 03:11:19 Oh, good Lord. Okay, so people really don't like Adam Page. 145,000 people in the first 15 minutes after he opened his yap. Well, we go to quarter three, 8.30 to 8.45 p.m. The Young Bucks and Don Cowell is backstage. An ad break. The MJF and Hurt Syndicate promo in the back. And the start of Hetchichiro, Josh Alexander, and the Young Bucks versus Bandito, Brody King, and JetSpeed. Five hundred and fifty-six thousand viewers.
Starting point is 03:11:58 Good Lord. Okay. Well, there's the page effect. followed by the buck effect, which was another 46,000 people. Now they're down 191,000, but now they're going to have to come back up to hit their average. Well, we go to quarter four, 845 to 9 p.m.
Starting point is 03:12:21 The continuation of that match with Hachachacharo, Josh Alexander, the Youngbucks, and Bandito, and Brody King, and Speedball and Kevin Knight with picture and then ad break. 555,000 viewers. As long as the buckaroos are on the screen, nobody's coming back. So we're at the top of the hour at 9 o'clock, quarter five. They've dropped, as I said, almost 200,000 in the first hour.
Starting point is 03:12:50 They've got to come back up, and they've got edge coming up. So this would seem to be the place where if they were going to get some people back, they would do it here. Well, we go to quarter five, the big nine o'clock hour, 9 to 9.9.15 p.m. Cope and Stokely Hathaway's live promo. It's really Cope's promo and confrontation with Stokely. And Mark Briscoe's promo,
Starting point is 03:13:17 620,000 viewers. There you go. We got 465,000 back. At least we're up over 600,000 again, but what have they got to climb with? Very little. Well, the little continues in the quarter six, 915, and 9.30 p.m. Thetla, or Tecla, excuse me,
Starting point is 03:13:41 versus Queen Amanana versus Quis, versus Quist, Missis Statlander. Go Quistatlander! This is Chris Statlander and Willow Nightingale. She's in that, too. Picture a picture, and an ad break. 582,000 viewers. Mm, yeah.
Starting point is 03:13:58 that wasn't really anything to gain viewers or write home about. So now they're back down under six. I think they may just limp onto the finish here. Well, we go to quarter 7, 930 to 9.45 p.m. The Tony Storm Athena live promo. Kip Sabian, Nick Wayne, and Mama Wayne in the back for a promo. And the Kazushka Okada entrance and live promo, 563,000 viewers.
Starting point is 03:14:30 Still not the show low. That was quarter three and four with the Hardley boys involved, but they're getting there. Well, we go to quarter eight, and I remind you, we have a 14-minute overrun, so that's basically another quarter right there. 9.45 to 10 p.m., Swerve Strickland and Okada's confrontation,
Starting point is 03:14:50 an ad break, Adam Page, Mark Briscoe, and Powerhouse Hobbs versus Moxley, Claudio, and Wheeler with picture and picture, 526,000 viewers. Oof! 14-minute overrun, 10 to 10.14 p.m.
Starting point is 03:15:06 Match continues, and picture and picture, 536,000. So 10,000 people that tuned in to see impractical jokers were like, what the fuck is this? It's Moxley. Good Lord.
Starting point is 03:15:20 It's Moxley, that's what is. Yeah, they're back to their old habits. they lost over 200, that 211,000 viewers or almost 35% of their audience, I believe, judging from the math in my head, which is what they used to do. But they started with bigger numbers and finished with bigger numbers in those days. And the three, four lowest quarters out of nine either featured Moxley or the Buccane's. so ha good to see
Starting point is 03:15:57 they're making changes and the key demo relatively steady 221, 212 203, 201 219 for the big 9 o'clock hour 203
Starting point is 03:16:07 201 195 204 that's the only thing they're holding steady on really everything else is well they're holding steady
Starting point is 03:16:15 on exactly where everything falls apart and where everything comes back I shouldn't say they're not holding to be a number
Starting point is 03:16:20 but that's the that's the facts ma'am A.W. Well, in that case, ma'am or man or Ming or whoever, we are done for today. We're coming back in a few days with a drive-through that'll be a special
Starting point is 03:16:36 fun episode for everybody while I'm on my little fact-finding mission and then we'll be back with the experience next week. We'll tell you all about it and so much more and preview the excitement that is the coming of summer clam.
Starting point is 03:16:52 And in parting, we wish you love, peace, soul, and a lack of modern wrestling to hang around your neck. Until next week, thank you, fuck you, and bye-bye, everybody.

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