Jim Cornette Experience - Episode 593: Unreal

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

This week on the Experience, Jim reviews episode one of WWE Unreal, as well as AEW Dynamite! Plus Jim talks about Vince McMahon's car crash, Cody Rhodes' comments about AEW, Jack Pfefer's letters, NYC wrestling history, ratings, and much more! Thanks to our episode sponsors: RAYCON:  Go to buyraycon.com/jce to get 20% off the fan favorite Everyday Earbuds Classic! BEAM:  Visit https://shopbeam.com/JCE and use code JCE to get our exclusive discount of up to 40% off. Follow Jim and Brian on Twitter: @TheJimCornette @GreatBrianLast Join Jim Cornette's College Of Wrestling Knowledge on Patreon to access the archives & more! https://www.patreon.com/Cornette Subscribe to the Official Jim Cornette channel on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/OfficialJimCornette Visit Jim's official site at www.JimCornette.com for merch, live dates, commentaries and more! You can listen to Brian on the 6:05 Superpodcast at 605pod.com or wherever you find your favorite podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Like the midnight and the rock and roll. He's in a fight for wrestling soul using a racket and some mind control. He's in Cornet. The keys to the future. Hell by On it. Fans on the highway to hell. AEW's on the road to ruin. And WWE Unreal takes us on a trip up the riding team's Hershey Highway.

And joining us for all this and more, Hawaiian Brian the podcasting line, and the King of the Arcadian Vanguard podcast network, Mr. Co-host to you, he doesn't swerve when he drives, he's got a chauffeur. Be great, Brian Last, everybody. Aloha, Jim, a pleasure to be here once again.

I do my own driving for the record. I think we're going to have a pack show. Everyone's been wanting to hear what you think about WWE Unreal. Everyone wants to know what every promoter in wrestling history thinks about WWE Unreal. I may surprise some people. with a couple of things. There's the highs of the highs

and the lows or the lows. And we'll try to thread the needle kind of in between those. We talk about that. But it's getting harder, Brian, to watch the actual wrestling these days. And usually when I say that, you don't know about this,

this story I'm fixing to tell you here. When I say that, usually it's how all this show was hard to watch. I mean, now it's getting hard to actually watch the shows. Do you know now what my spectrum cable people have done to me on the eve, on the vestige, on the near climax of SummerSlam weekend? Do you know what's happened here? I have no idea, no. Well, I will tell you, I don't know.

I've even called them and they gave me some bullshit. Here's what normally, if there's a paper, view coming up so that I don't forget, right? I will go three or four days beforehand, Tuesday, Wednesday, whatever, and I'll get on the pay-per-view channel cable guide and I'll order the pay-per-view and I'll DVR the pay-per-view and that way I know I'm going to see the pay-per-view, right? I go to do that this week on my Spectrum cable guide. I go to the pay-per-view channel and I'm going through it.

It's got, you know, all the outlaw wrestling from, you know, this guy's, third lesson in wrestling school is now a pay-per-view because he became a star and comedians you've never heard of and the umpteenth rerun of a e w all in right and i'm going that i get to can't get to saturday wait a minute what it's the guide suddenly on like friday morning this morning as a matter of fact just said sign off and what's what the fuck and there was no more programs listed for the next successive days. It's like the channel just signed off. I go to the other pay-per-view channel.

Same fucking thing at the same time. So I call Spectrum on the convenient number they give me on my bill every month. And I asked this guy when I finally got a hold of him, I said, hey, what's a gig here, Slick? Why can't I order the pay-per-view of the wrestling on TV? me this weekend. Oh yes, sir, I see you are a faithful customer. You have ordered the double or nothing in the night of champions and the thank God I hadn't been ordering Dumbo does it donkey style. I'm talking to this guy directly, right? But it was all in the

wrestling vein. And I said, I'm describing to him the situation. Well, he's not in town here. He can't just hit his cable and see the guide right. He said, that does sound. Very surprising, I think, is the way he phrased it. And he puts me on hold and he comes back and he gives me this fucking deal. Oh, sir, from now you have ordered the pay-per-view 48 hours in advance. So if you wait until Thursday evening and you go to order the pay-per-view for Saturday, this is 20 minutes of my time on the phone with this fellow to, okay, all right, I'll wait until Thursday evening. It's Friday, past Friday morning now, going on to Friday afternoon,

and it still says sign off, channel off air, there's no info, nothing for anything, not just Summer, but a SummerSlam, but another pay-per-view of any description. Can I be ordered somehow? Here, I can't be the only one in Louisville, Kentucky, Derby City followers, Colt of Cornett members in the Derby City area report in and tell me that I'm not alone what the fuck is going on here so I'm going to have to watch this thing

on this pissy-ass streaming business what's it on the cock Peacock I believe has the WWE pay-per-view events primarily still and it's a good way to watch it you just have to watch it live and you can't fast forward live and no, I'm going to watch it. It's on after.

It's up from then on, right? Well, yeah, but why wouldn't you just watch some of it? I mean, it's two days of stuff. Because it's going to go to goddamn midnight on and also Saturday. WWE. Tomorrow. No, it's not. Well, it's close enough.

Me, anything of ass nine o'clock is midnight. But tomorrow, I'm going to be laying my weary bones down early because it's the first day in three months. it's been suitable weather because of the temperature or the lack of rainfall to be able to actually do labor in the yard. And I'm going to be tiring myself out. But I hate the streaming. But now, but what about the people who did want to order the pay-per-view of the comedian that nobody had ever heard of or the guy's third wrestling school lesson? What about that market?

I think the lesson is the reason that content is available. is because there's very little content that actually still uses traditional pay-per-view. And you're one of the very few people that probably still purchases traditional pay-per-view. What about AEW? AEW doesn't purchase their own pay-per-views.

Tony's smart like that. No, no. He pays for him. No, I'm trying to, you know, he purchases them in more ways of one. I know what you're saying. I'm saying to you that they still have a pay-per-view model if everybody just stops carrying the paper views,

but couldn't the thing that carries them on the stream go out of business? Or one of the big one? Didn't they have some fiasco with that? What was it? Weren't the pay-per-view supposed to be available on Max? Well, that was long ago and oh so far away when he fell in love with him after the second show. But what I'm saying is there was a big entity

that suddenly stopped carrying their paper views, or am I crazy? Feel free to tell me, I'm crazy. No, I think you're talking about... If you need to Google it, get started. I'm not going to Google that. It's not worth it. You're talking about one of these streaming services

like DeZone or... Was it DeZone? Or was it Trellar. Triller. They were with Bleacher Report, but I think... I'm not sure if they still are. I think that actually shut down.

And then, yeah, then they have a traditional pay-per-view. So if I don't have a pay-per-view... channel here. How am I going to watch these? They're also on YouTube pay-per-view or YouTube TV, I guess. To fucking hell. At least when we were on low-power television years ago, we still had a signal going out

through the air to people that had few choices, but to watch the thing. Now you don't even know where to find these people. All right, anyway. So that's somewhere or another I'll see and or here, SummerSlam. or shummerslam, as it's called in the Rocky Kernotal household. Would you like, Brian, before we go any further, we've been taking a task, a couple of the listeners that we've caused some problems. I don't know anything about this.

Actually, this potentially could be a litigious situation. If they talk to the wrong people, hopefully they don't contact Stephen P. New, because we might be found liable for some damages. The first one from Chris, from Troy, Indiana. Actually, he begins this, sir, not even like Dear Jim or Hey, Guys, or what a, sir. I'll have you know that comments made by you on a recent episode of your podcast, specifically saying the wrestler looks like a stringy-haired, slender-bodied guy who works over at Ken Tauri Auto. remember when I said that, Brian,

I don't know who it was saying about. I don't, because I don't even remember who you, again, you don't even know who you're talking about, so I don't know, no. Well, it was some job guy. But nevertheless, Chris continues, it caused me to laugh so hard that I missed my exit at 65 North

and the Waterson westbound, which then forced me to endure downtown Louisville traffic at 4.30 p.m. The comment was so comically specific that I immediately and precisely knew what the guy looked like. I hereby demand a disclaimer, before any further comments like this are made.

Chris, I can only, both of us, we apologize because we have forced you to endure a fate worse than death if you were on 65 north past the Waterson at 4.30. Brian, do you think we need to law you're up? Yeah, I don't know what's happening right now. This show got very local very quickly. Well, here is in this.

Downtown today, Jim. how's the weather, Ali? It's fucking cold. Well, I'll tell you, then we need to branch out. We need to lawy Europe in Nevada. Because there's a problem out there we've caused. This is personal injury if I've ever, it's got it written all over it, Brian. Stephen from Las Vegas, Nevada says,

Aloha, Jim and Brian. I was listening to the YouTube clip, Jim Cornett reviews WWE's roster K to Z. while drinking a cup of coffee. At the 1132 mark, I started laughing so hard that I began choking on my coffee. I then fell down and slammed my chin onto my dining room table. I just got back from urgent care

where I received four stitches to my chin. Please see the attached photo, which was a picture of this motherfucker with four stitches in his chin. What did we say at that point in the show that made them do that? I don't know, but you need to get to. to get Jay Shark Nato on editing out, whatever that was. Make it a goddamn description of a funeral. So we can't be held liable for.

But he does say, I guess I should be more careful the next time I listen to the show. So we've got some type of exculpatory. That's what we really need. The listeners to have to wear helmets to listen to the show. Well, that wouldn't really work because your chin's still sticking out of the helmet. It just got the strap underneath it. That's true.

How did he do what did he said he stood up and bent over and hit the chin on the table? No, he wasn't being butt-fucked by some type of random escape convict. That was very specific. Okay. He choked on, well, it's in Las Vegas. So, but he choked on the coffee. Oh, it was the coffee. Is what led to the lack of oxygen, which then I assume caused some type of blacking out or lightheadedness,

which then led to a disorientation similar to vertigo, which then caused the trajectory of the chin into the table and the subsequent tearing of the flesh because of the sharpness of the bone inside. Is that enough information for you? It's definitely a lot of information that you somehow know a lot about. Anywho, before we go any further,

we've got to talk about Vince McMahon's driving, and we'll discuss the latest incident. and the coincidence that I've just now heard reported, but we may be off YouTube here for a few seconds, folks. I'm not going to curse a lot, but they don't like some of the content. But again, I was gone last week and all these things happen, et cetera, et cetera. But one of the things that I got inundated with tweets, et cetera, review the new South Park.

Review the New South Park. I'm not going to, I watched it, and as everyone predicted, I thought it was the most hilarious thing ever, and I can't wait to see the next 50 episodes, and I encourage everybody to DVR it and show it to your friends and put it in a time capsule. It's going to be the greatest television program on the air. But I'm not going to review the writing and the animation

and the structure of the show, but it's part of, A bigger thing that's going on. And again, this is for, I'm going to go back a little bit and be a little elementary. The citizens of the United States know what I'm talking about. But for our international listeners, I may have to bring you up to date a little bit because you don't follow all of our news. Thank God.

But the South Park season premiere episode was a response on the part of the creators of the show. to the news story that came out very closely before that, that CBS was canceling the Stephen Colbert show or the late night with Stephen Colbert, whatever the franchise they've had on the air for 30 years. And many people, a lot of people saying it, were pointing the finger at the fact that Brian, you help be, CBS.

and Paramount and however many of the multi-billion-dollar conglomerates that own everything these days were having a merger and they needed government approval. Is that basically enough for the sake of this story? Yes, and they just got the approval. And no one really knows anything about this company that they've merged with or that they're having all these dealings with. But yes, it's been approved now. Yes, it's been approved right after, you know, and a lot of people were pointing a finger

it well they needed the approval from the government for this giant merger and oh Stephen Colbert is not he's not Schittler's favorite person he's been knocking him so let's get that out of the way and I know and I brought this up to you because Colbert's show me loses money and it's a sheds well that may be and actually I haven't watched Stephen Colbert since he was on after John Stewart on the daily show but point being it's part of a larger issue here. Bigga, did you hear today that the Smithsonian institution has had to

change one of their exhibits? They had an exhibit on presidents that had been impeached credibly in the history of the United States, which was Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton, and Trump twice. They'd take Trump out of it. It was an exhibit? How do they what do they exhibit exactly? There was some type of exhibit or historical fucking tableau.

I don't know. Go to the Smithsonian. You're closer than me. You said exhibits. And now I'm like, do they have the phone? Like what do they have there as part of this exhibit? But they had to take Trump out of it.

And it's part of a larger thing. For 10 years since he inflicted himself on our politics, he came up with the fake news and the don't listen to the news people that tell the truth about me and it was don't listen to ABC CBS NBC CNN MSNBC Washington MSNBC Washington Post to New York Times this paper that newspaper the kid with the lemonade stuff don't listen anybody tells truth about me anybody knocks me they're full of shit just listen to these fringe right outfits that that you know they think think I'm great. That's who's telling the truth. And normally, that would have been dismissed as the

bloviations of a grifting con man that was afraid that he was going to get exposed. But a lot of people bought it. And that's existed since then. And now, when they present facts and video and testimony on the news, people go, oh, that's all that's bullshit, because they believe this guy. And then lately he's been suing colleges and universities that threatened to withhold federal grants. Don't go be teaching that stuff. I don't want you to be teaching. Because there's another thing he loves.

Well, I think a lot of it's because they allowed anti-Semitism to run wild on their campuses. Well, but it just so happens. Well, they're accepting lots and lots of tax dollars. It just so happens that in many cases, also he's fucking getting his shit at the same time and bullying these people and making them. afraid of whether they're going to cross him or not. Maybe so, but fuck the university. Why are the universities the good guys in anything?

Fuck that. When is the last time it's a federal government sued? College is over DEI fucking curriculums or whatever the fuck, is what I'm saying. It's a new thing. I don't think it's ever happened before. But again, one way or another, it's not like they're the good guys. Even if you have a problem with Trump going after him, don't make it like they're the innocent good guys.

needs to be the Justice Department, not the president. He can't just, there's a lot of bad guys they could go after. But he wants to go after the ones that's going to get him votes. Or he's suing the networks. He's suing the network. And that's the biggest shakedown ever. That's the biggest shakedown we've seen ever. That's Al Sharpton-esque.

When was the last time the President of the United States sued the goddamn Woodrow Wilson didn't sue the first radio station. Well, suing the networks is bad, but the problematic part is more of the settlements, because when they settle, you're basically setting everyone up behind you to fail. It's hard to have the battle. I agree with that.

They're capitulating. And whether you like what the universities were doing or not, It's a separate issue than all of this stuff together. Don't say bad things about me. Don't fucking report bad things about me. Only listen to what I say and what I tell you and who I think you ought to listen to. Don't let this fucking campaign of Trump doesn't know what the fuck he's doing get too far. Because it will.

But here's the thing. The comedians are banned. this may be the best thing yet. Because think about it, logic and reason, facts and evidence, video and testimony, eyes and ears have not done any good. He's not a funny person. He's dangerous because of what he can do and what he's allowing to have done. He has got these people so convinced that he's this meme of Schwarzenegger

and fucking Rambo or goddamn being sent from God with a halo on that they can't see that he's a bloviating fleshbag and a pathetic human being in real life in front of them. The emperor has no clothes, needs a moment. And since all of that stuff didn't work, and even his own mouth doesn't work,

what he says, boy, I had to break it off with that no good Jeffrey Epstein because he poached an underage employee for my spa to take to his sex island. That's going to be what does him in. That's the only thing

that could actually hurt him with his base. That was the best thing that you could say, no, she was my underage employee at my spa. And he posed her. So even though this motherfucker was so heinous that his co-conspirator got 20 years in prison,

he broke up with him because of that. And that's what he says. Jeffrey Epstein did an interview where he claimed there was a fight over property in Palm Beach a few years later. Trump was still giving quotes about Jeffrey Epstein a few years after this alleged thing. The other story that came out of the White House was he got banned from Mar-a-Lago for being a creep, which contradicts Trump's story. That was because he was stealing people. And the other question is, Mar-a-Lago is a club. what was what did he think Jeffrey Epstein was stealing these people for he didn't own a club

right it's one thing it was like hey you're stealing my wrestlers and going to your promotion that I understand where did he think he was taking these girls right off to the island he never had the privilege he never had the privilege he goes I never went to the island never had the privilege what so the point is ladies and gentlemen everything else has not worked sanity has not prevailed. It's comedy. Treat him like Charlie Chaplin treated Hitler. Make him a laughing stock. Take away his credibility. Bring about the emperor has no close moment where they begin laughing at the pompous douchebag.

He's not funny. He's dangerous, but the most dangerous thing about him is the amount of people who are still believing this shit, no matter what. And apparently the best chance we have may be to remind people over and over that in real life, he's a pathetic, preposterous person. It may loosen this grip somehow, but he's censoring the media. He's restricting what people do, what institutions do. He's changing history at the Smithsonian. He's a repulsive, repugnant moment in American history. that as soon as he's out of office

will be immediately rewritten to restore fact, but until then, kids are going to grow up believing this shit. So anyway, yes, I love South Park. Well, you're going to be seeing a lot more of it. They got a big renewal. Colbert may be leaving,

but South Park is going nowhere. Yes, and that's the best part. The same corporate conglomerate just gave them $1.5 billion to tell us for the next 50 episodes, that Donald J. Trump has a teeny weeny peony. So, all is not lost on the resistance front. Brian, would you like to keep talking about lunatic billionaires?

Vince is lucky to be alive today, I guess. Well, I read this story, and I thought of you right away, not even because of your car stories, just because you're one of the people I've commiserated with in the past by how much we hate the Merrick Parkway. And you and I both had the same reaction about when we heard this story like on the merit

wow yeah let's and let's start out with that because most of the people that are listening to us right now no matter where you live or what country you've not had you don't have a firm grip

on the kind of highway that they were traveling on I'm assuming a lot of people are thinking oh they're out on the interstate somewhere and a big boom did no fuck no hell no I am amazed and they said it was somewhere around 9 o'clock in the morning, right?

I'm amazed that it was physically possible for a car driven by goddamn evil coneeble to make it to 80 to 90 miles an hour on this road, on 9 o'clock on a fucking weekday morning, had to be the most chaotic fucking looking scene, and there was already an under, not an undercover, but an off-duty cop following him that was going to attempt to do something, pull him over. I don't know. That guy may have been in his fucking station wagon if they still make those things.

But it was such an issue. He was trying to do that, right? Because think about the Merritt Parkway, Brian. If you saw somebody commit homicide and you called a cop at a certain time of day, how would a cop get there within the next fucking half an hour, if the police station was, you know, two miles away. If there were three cars on the Merrick Parkway, they wouldn't get anywhere. That's the problem.

No. I think fills up so quickly. This is not, ladies and gentlemen, an interstate highway. That's I-95 goes up and down from New York to, you know, Boston and all those, goes through the Stamford area. That's an interstate highway that is a giant, massive, packed highway, but they allow the 18-wheeler's. and on the Merit Parkway, that's, I am assuming, from having lived there and driven up down that miserable son of a bitch so many times, that's the highway from what would it be the 30s, 40s that was first built to be the road that I-95 now is. And it's a two-lane each way road. You can't call it a highway.

Open the Open the 1938 But there you go So when Lucy and Desi moved to Connecticut In the late 50s for the last season of I Love Lucy and it was out in the country This was a fucking functioning highway, right? There are

It's two lanes each way But it's like two lanes of a city street Not even Maybe just a regular County road With very limited shoulders if that. And in some places, as I recall, Brian,

you've been there more recently than I have, the median in between the north and south was like a concrete divider. Is that still the case? At different parts, different points, yeah. And then in other places, there's, you know, what, 10 feet of grass? You know, just depending.

And those underpasses where the bridge for the old Connecticut Post Road or whatever, the locals call it, just goes over the things in heavy traffic, you're sitting underneath this bridge that looks like it's out of a Monty Python movie. Right? The cobblestone thing, you're like, what the fact?

The traffic going over the top of it and your car is shaken. Am I overstating any of this? It is very beautiful. If you go early in the morning and there's not too many people on it, it's like, wow, this is really, this is Connecticut.

I get it now. This is Connecticut life. Yes, about a Sunday morning, about 5 a.m. when the sun's coming up and the fucking roosters are coming out. And also here's another thing. You can't see a lot of it is 30 feet off the road because you're going through the Connecticut upstate woods or whatever the fuck they call it. There's trees. There's trees hanging over.

And then it just, it's tight. And most of the passenger cars, they avoid I-95 if they're not going from city to city with all those fucking trucks, but then you're jammed. It's it, it has taken me up to two hours to go 25 miles on that thing at certain points of time. And that was 30 years ago, so I can imagine. So a point is, how was he going?

But in case you're living under a rock, Vince McMahon was ticketed, cited for causing, this accident when he was being followed by an off-duty cop who was apparently going to try to flag him down or do something and didn't get the chance before he maneuvered in such a fashion around to other cars he was cutting in and out of cars but he what a maneuver and he runs in the back of this woman and in his is it a Bentley is that what he was driving yeah he was in a Bentley, yeah. About 250 grand? Yeah, boom, in the back of this woman,

and they go into one of the guardrails they have. It's lucky it wasn't just a bridge abutment, because when you're going underpasses, you're 10 feet tops away from this goddamn concrete structure. Boom, and then another car hits them, I guess, from behind. So they hauled off, they hauled off the Bentley. poor Bentley, we knew him well. And apparently, Brian, did you hear this part of the story?

Some of the debris, because they're going north, they were going away. So Vince McMahon was traveling at a high rate of speed away from downtown Stanford, away from New York City, going somewhere farther up into Connecticut. They were in Westport. You know where Westport. They were Westport. Yeah.

So they were miles up the road. but the debris goes over into the southbound lane because like I said they ain't much median right it goes over to the southbound lane and hits a car that apparently was being driven by a WW employee on his way to work in Stanford get out of here I didn't hear that part of it no

that's like a goddamn Fats McMahon trick billiard shot it's like I got him I didn't hear that cram off the fucking ladies BMW but I this is is what is it's it's being reported by by so you know the usual sources but a a person of that name

about that age who was reported that the car was damaged by this flying debris works in the w wwee office in stanford and it wasn't like a joe smith name so we're we're open to well we're open to correction here but it it seems like that's the case which is and that at nine o'clock in the morning, they'd be a little bit late for work. Well, this was 9.22 a.m. when it happened. I have a comment here, or I guess a post that was made by Barbara Dolan, 72 years old, founder and CEO of BD8 Capital Partners. Lucky to have survived a horrific car crash on the way up to catch a ferry to Martha's Vineyard last Thursday morning. Both cars totaled. Vince McMahon, former chair of W.E. hit me going 80 to 90 miles per hour as I drove in the right lane of the narrow Merritt Parkway,

she wrote Merritt Highway, built in the 1930s. I and the dog are mostly fine, but was lucky to have kept control of the car, more or less, as I shot off the road after being catapulted over a hundred yards. Jesus Christ! An unmarked state trooper had been following him as he, He sped in and out of cars down the highway and had just turned his lights on... Okay, so he wasn't off duty, he was unmarked, I apologize. Had just turned his lights on to pull McMahon over, but he was not in time.

Both front wheels of McMahon's Bentley were sheared off, and his airbags deployed, probably saving him from significant injury. The trooper told me afterwards that McMahon saw me last minute and swore. smashing into my left rear, but that if he had hit me full on, there might have been a very different ending for me. Amazing that no other cars were hit, and that I got out of the car,

hands shaking for a good 20 minutes, but otherwise seemingly unscathed, and then in parentheses, to protect your lawsuit rights, stiff neck later, etc., and a full battery of hospital scans and blood work time will tell I'm told Oddly

We're leaving that door open Oddly Hulk Hogan who made McMahon's fame and fortune died about the same time as the accident And that's the quote

from Barbara Dolan who was the person Vince McMahon slammed into on the highway Well but now we must make the point for anybody that wants to say oh he was rushing to his bedside He was going the wrong way

I just wanted to make that plane. Yeah. Hulk Hogan, for the record, died at 9.51 a.m. in Clearwater, Florida. Vince McMahon's car accident was 9.22 a.m. Westport, Connecticut. Where was Vince going? I mean, you know he's not going to the office. I got to get there.

Well, here's the thing is, I don't know. it would have depended on his mood, not his destination, I think, as to why he was driving that fast. If he was, he apparently had an intent of getting somewhere that he wanted to be or possibly pissed off going to straighten somebody out,

I don't know, or pissed off at himself or not, in some way or another, he was attacking the road to get to his destination like he did everything. And with the stories I've told, which I'll refresh here at a second, but just overall, Vince, I think it's a macho thing with him, as much as I'm important and the things that I'm going to do are important,

so I need to save time and get there about everything. work longer, do something more, whatever. But it's a, I'm the best driver. Was he envisioning himself that day as Steve McQueen in one of those fucking 60s movies where he can do this? He's at a Bentley and he's the best goddamn driver in the world. He's fucking, somebody's pissed him off. It didn't have to be important.

It just needed to be important to him. Is that, have I said that in any way, legibly? He's a self-centered guy. We all understand who Vince McMahon is. The idea that the cop had been following him for a while, we don't know how long that had been going. And again, it makes it sound like there wasn't too much traffic. And then the cop said Vince didn't see it when he slammed into you.

Did the lights trigger Vince to have the accident? Or was it a coincidence of timing? First of all, I think you've said something foolish. Has there ever been a time on a weekday morning at 9 to 10 o'clock? where there wasn't some significant traffic on the Merritt Parkway. How is Vince going in and out of the lanes? Well, that's what I'm saying

is you can't just fucking Z. You have to goddamn maneuver. He was caught up in his fancy fucking maneuvering, maneuverifying. Hey, you know, in the days when we were all scared, oh my God, we're going to be late, we're going to fuck up the show, we're going to get fired, we're going to get fined.

The Midnight Expressing idea, had some dodgy driving. The trip to Houston for Easter Sunday, 1985 is one I will never forget with Dennis Condry driving. But we had some type of really dire personal skin in the game, right? He is just, he's going to get somewhere and he will do the fancy maneuver. And I think when the lady said,

the unmarked cop had been following him for some time, I don't know how long, but I would assume that if he'd attracted enough attention with his driving to have this guy start following him, that it had been a brief follow. Westport, where would he have gotten on right below Westport? I can't remember. But nevertheless, the guy, the cop was probably like, shit, I need to, and he needed to get closer to him.

He had to do some maneuvering too. He's trying to get up there. And he's watching his fucking guy and boom, boom, boom, shit happens. I can see that on that road. Yeah, I'm looking at a map of Connecticut right now. Westport, you know, Greenwich is obviously nowhere near there. Stanford's not anywhere near there. It's next to Norwalk, next to Fairfield, towards Bridgeport.

He was at Bruce's old place. Well, never the point being, he, you know, I'm going to kick God. I'm going to find myself. Vince is 80 years. Vince is 80 years old with, I would assume some cognitive issues at this point, if not certainly he's had some health issues and he's a billionaire.

And he's driving himself in a fucking $250,000 car, 80 miles down a fucking Connecticut highway and quotation marks in some type of traffic, because again, didn't see him indicate, or didn't see her, and what, hit the left side. She was in the right lane, hit the left side.

That probably meant that he had swerved into the right lane to go around a car on the left but didn't see her and tried to cut back and didn't make it, something of that nature. But point being, why? Jesus Christ, Savage had a fucking heart attack driving and hit a tree

when he was 20, something years younger or whatever. You think his lawyer will use the Hulk of Manny of Defense? Vince heard that Hulk was really sick and he just had to get in his car and we didn't know what he was going to do. We were all worried about it. What airport was he heading to? Is he going to hop on a goddamn crop duster? Like I said, he was going to Cape Cod.

He was going to fucking, I can't think of a pun. So I will just say that it, again, it doesn't surprise me. And everybody started talking about what we've told stories about Vince's driving. And I hate to chew my food twice, but there are the kids out there that have not been listening that long. I'll try not to make it boring, but that's the thing to illustrate how Vince attacks driving like he attacks everything else in life.

Remember the garage story. I've told you this. It's been years on the show. but he just by himself, he told me and Bruce this one day, admitted to it. When you get in the car and he had his garage door, his power garage door wired up to the button on his little, I can't remember what he was driving, but it was like one of those late 90s sport GP vehicle things, right? Got the garage door opener on his thing. He reached up and he thought he'd hit it, but he didn't.

and he put it in reverse and backed up into the garage door. And then he got mad at either himself for not being perfect or the door for being in the way or whatever. So he put it back and drive pulled up and it put it reverse and backed all the way through the goddamn thing. And just said, fuck it. And it called somebody come and replace this. He is in control of the goddamn vehicle.

there were people on Twitter that got the stories confused, though, or conflated at least, because they had said that I had a story of when Vince was pulled over for driving 90 miles an hour in the rain and then blew the cop off. And that's not true. I need to correct that record. There were two separate times. It wasn't raining when he got pulled over for speeding and blew the fucking cop off, but he was driving 90 miles an hour in the rain after the,

the authorities had talked to him about potentially having hijacked the plane. So have we got that straight? I think so. So the hijacking the plane day was when we were flying back from TV somewhere, right? And we're supposed to fly into one of the New York area airports. I mean, usually it was either, it was normally, it was Newark, but it might have been a LaGuardia. I don't fucking know. But they get on the PA and the pilot announces that due to bad weather in a New York area,

they're going to be diverted and land in Albany. And then apparently, of course, by now, I'm not listening because I'm saying, oh, bad weather, that's all I've heard. I don't care where we're going. Land it right now. Put me to Cornfield, Kansas. I'll find my way back. I don't care, right?

But Vince gets hot because we're supposed to be able to get back in time for him to go to the office and work some more. And now Albany is 180 miles for blah, blah, blah. So Vince gets up. And, well, at first, he's talking to the stewardess. And then finally, and I'm sitting there, I don't know what's going on anyway. And finally, he gets up and goes and knocks on the door. this was before 9-11. Yes, this was like 1997 or whatever,

but still, he knocking on the cockpit door because he didn't get a satisfactory explanation. He wants the pilot to come out and explain to him, why can't we go to White Plains, pal? Because it's fucking 40 miles away from the same fucking thing. So the pilot came out and talked to him, And then as we all hung back when he got off the plane, because he's in the front row anyway at first class,

and the authorities were talking to him. And whatever was said, he went right on. He just needed an explanation. So now we got to rent a car. And now he's mad and he's motivated to get back. So he's going to drive. Because did I mention Brian? I think I did earlier.

He was Steve McQueen. and goddamn bullet, right? And so it's still raining in Albany. It just wasn't like socked in like it was the New York area, but it's on the, it's the interstate, but it's raining. And he's doing 80 in this Lincoln Continental Town car, biggest goddamn thing I've ever seen,

diamond in the back sunrooftop. And he's, I mean, he's, again, it's frustrating because he's not dangerous in the fact that he's inattentive as a driver. He actually is goddamn good. He's just convinced he was 30 years ago. He's 80 now anyway. But he just kept a high rate of speed and didn't give a fuck about the weather. And by the time we got back,

there wasn't really anything meaningful to be done at the office. Anyway, I remember getting in my car and fucking rushing home to goddamn get oxygen. because my asshole had eaten up all the upholstery in the back seat. Jim Ross was in the front, me and Bruce were in the back, and I'm looking at Bruce, like, Jesus Christ. But if he was driving like that in the rain, because he was motivated, the day that he got pulled over, it was just normal bright blue skies on the highway somewhere on the way to a TV taping,

me, Bruce, JR, Vince driving. That's why we always tried to hop in one of us to get there before. Vince, you got so much work to do. He wanted to drive, boom, he's doing 85 or whatever on the interstate, but at least his goddamn good weather. The cop that pulls him over. If it wasn't his first day on the job, it was his first week. This kid, he still had placenta hanging off of his fucking chin.

and he Vince is fuck when he pulls over anyway and this guy comes up and in this Archie Andrew's voice he gives him that I need to see your license and registration or whatever

and the whole thing and Vince is just sitting there fuming and he just hands him stuff he went uh sir do you know I clocked you and such and such so he takes his shit and he writes it you see Vince is tapping he's biding his time

the guy comes back up and uttered, and this became a hell of a line with me and Bruce Pritchard and Jerry Briscoe, Jack Lanza, Paterson, et cetera, et cetera. The kid said to Vince said, it gives him the reading on what you need to do. You can mail this in and pay this or you can do that. Vince is sitting there silent. And he ends with, if you don't have any questions,

you're free to leave. And he's got the, ticket in his hand and Vince snatched the ticket and frisbeeed it up onto the fucking dashboard popped that big rental car into drive

hit the fucking gas and peeled out on the side of the shoulder of this fucking highway the gravel and I heard gravel fucking flying I don't know what to say was it hitting this cop's car that was behind us was it hitting the cop in the face

I don't know I was scared to turn around. I didn't know if he might start firing. And Vince pealed out and got back on the highway and I looked at the speedometer. I said he's going 80 again and the guy can still see him. If I looked back and that cop was just standing there slack jawed, dumbfounded in the distance. Like, what the fuck is this? He didn't even try to get back in the car and pull him over again. You think this is all the influence of Dr. Jerry Graham? I'm not joking

I think some of it is the influence of some of the same psychopathy is that a word psycho something or other they both shared the destrucity that both Vince McMahon and Jerry Graham might have shared

and not wouldn't alcohol alcohol it wasn't being drunk sure you're not drunk there it wouldn't be in drunks but there had to be some kind of pithee going on some word in front of pithee with both of them he got into some other kind of car accident and i just tried to google it but everything that comes up is the one that just happened a few days ago but wasn't there one like 10 years ago

or so give or take yes was it in stanford was it in front of w yes yes yeah i've and i can't quote it chapter and verse i know that a bunch of the bunch of the kids that out there listening will jump in with it. But there was some accident he had in Stanford and they had pictures standing there in front of his car. The car is being jacked up and taken away, whatever. He doesn't allow a lot of room with a lot of things. And that's why Jim Ross said, you know, Vince, I love you,

but I love my children also and I want to see him again. And he quit riding with him. And I just, I never actually officially resigned from like, Vince, I can't do this anymore. I just always found a way around it if there was a chance that he would be driving for anything. Now, like we'd get in a car with him and go down the street to the little lunch place, right? Well, fuck, it wasn't far enough way to get to 80 degrees, to 80 miles an hour. and there was nobody on that road anyway. It is, you know, that was fine.

He was very pleasant and personable as far as Vince went on a trip like that. But get him out on the goddamn any kind of stretch of highway, and he's Mario Andretti. Well, maybe not. Maybe that's the problem. That's why he slamming into things that haven't cops follow him. But there is the Westport escapade of Vince McMahon. Was he going to Bridgeport?

Was he going to Mystic Sea Port? Who knows? But this is your show. Was he going to possibly drinking some port, perhaps? That's what the old aristocrats drank was the port, right? The brandy and the port. Would you like a glass of port? That'll be the interesting thing.

Where was he going? Well, you know what? Here's the problem that he's always had, though. You know Vince never sleeps. Vince McMahon, sleep is the enemy. He's always wanting to work. He's wanting to do something. Apparently, he's wanting to play in modern times also,

maybe to make up for all the time he spent working. Who knows? Linda sure wouldn't go for a lot of those things, but I'll tell you what, he's never had a good night's sleep. That's because he never got introduced to beam. That's why he's been off the beam for so many years. See what I did there, Brian?

Ryan? Because Beam is improving everybody's sleep. And if Vince got a good night's sleep once and a while, he wouldn't be out there just doing crazy shit all the time. Think about that. He's been revving his brain for the past 65 years or so. And he just burn out all of his his cognitive radiators. You know, those cognitive radiators, they need to be serviced every now and then. You got to go to sleep so that the little people in some, your brain can tinker around with shit and tune it up. Well, your doctor will tell you that, won't they, Brian? I don't think any doctor will tell you that, and of course this is not exactly how it works,

but what you do need to do is take care of yourself and everyone, every expert. Even Helio Gracie back then used to say, A Good Night's Sleep is the key to longevity. Well, and that's why that Helio's still around. No, he died. He died several years ago. Well, we can't all be perfect, ladies gentlemen, but I'll tell you what, dream, the dream powder from Beam is an all natural sleep blend with science backed ingredients.

And they got science behind them. So you know they're good. Designed to help you fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up refreshed. And stay asleep, it depends on just set an alarm. You know, 8 o'clock in the morning, 9 o'clock in the morning next Thursday. You'll just be there until it goes off. And then when you wake up, boom, you'll think, holy, a macro? Well, I'm just ready full of piss and vinegar to take on the world. And you'll walk

out in the front yard and start punching the first son of a bitch you see. Nope, that's not what you'll do and that's not what you should do. That will get you in trouble. You don't want the cops to chase you like they chase Vince McMahon. What you want to do is once again get a good night's sleep. Yes. And our friends at Beam can help you get there. And unlike other sleep aids, there's no next day groginess. Just real deep. sleep that helps you feel good in the morning. You'll wake up with Willie and full staff. And I'll tell you what, you won't be tossing and turning.

No, you'll look like you're ready to be laid out and have words spoken over you. You'll just stay there in the same position. You will sleep normally and comfortably. Just leave a mirror right at your table there at bedside so that your immediate family can hold it in front of you just to make sure that. And then otherwise, there's no maintenance needed. funny but not needed. And of course, what is needed is a good night's sleep.

I've said it now several times, and we can all use it from Beam. Well, they've improved over 17.5 million nights of sleep. And that son of a bitch ought to be well-rested and ready to go back to work by now. 92% of the users surveyed, ladies and gentlemen, reported better sleep and waking up refreshed. 6% reported no change and 2% Unfortunately were unavailable for comment due to the fact that we couldn't hear what they were saying past the tube that was down their throat

There is no tube but what we're talking about is beam And of course the first stat may be true Some may be for fun but what is not a funny game What's not a game is sleep Jim Just help out in some kind of way, Beam. Well, for a limited time now, listen to how much money you're going to save. Beam is giving our listeners their best offer yet up to 40% off. Stacey uses it. She's been subscribing for quite some time now. Susanne too. Suzanne loves it. We unfortunately never get

the opportunity to sleep and well, I'm old so I pretty much can't wake up anymore. But if you're having problems, folks, 40% off, up to 40% off on the Beam Dream Powder for a limited time, shop beam, B-E-A-M dot com slash J-C-E. Use the code J-C-E at checkout for up to 40% off on the BeamDreamPouter, shopbeam.com slash J-C-E, code J-C-E, sleep the sleep of the angels. And you can get the wings taken off surgically. No wings needed. Sleep, a heavenly sleep here on Earth.

friends at Dream, they will get you there. As Jim said, they love it over there. We love it here at Last Manor. They are there for you. One more time, Jim, that promo code. They're here, there, and everywhere at shopbeam.com slash JCE. All righty, well, Brian, would you like to go back in time and talk about a little wrestling history? Oh yeah, absolutely. I have got a couple of that. We're going to play a different game today.

normally on your show the drive-thru, we play guest the program and you ask me the lineup and I try to get the year and the place and all that stuff. We're going to play a different game today based on my trip to the Jack Fever collection

at the Notre Dame Hesburg Libraries just last week or week before now as you hear this. We're going to play guess the letter writer. I am going to read a letter to Jack Feffer and see how long it takes you to guess who wrote the letter.

Does that sound fair? Does that sound fair? Is that a nice parameter for the... I'll give you the date it was written, too, the year that it was written. I think it sounds like a lot of fun, yeah. And it won't be like from the dry cleaner, sir, your tucks is ready or whatever. This is somebody, I believe you, a historian such as yourself, you are going to be able to divine the answer to this.

This letter was written and my copy cut to date off, but I jotted down early 1947. Okay, early 1947. Okay, I think I got it. Keep going. Get your dinger. And when you want to ring in, just ding and let me know.

How about that? This is to Mr. Jack Pfeffer, care of the Milby Hotel and Hugh Houston, Texas. My dear friend Jack, it was good to hear from you and to learn that Sam Avey can place me in his territory. And as a side note, obviously, Brian, you know, but some of the folks may not know that Sam Avey was an old-time wrestling promoter, most famous for being based out of Tulsa, but this letter does not say specifically that's where Sam Avey was promoting at the time, so I don't know.

I am enclosing a carbon copy of my reply which I sent to him together with pictures by airmail today. Let me say, Jack, that I am deeply appreciative of your efforts in my behalf and hope to see you soon to thank you personally. My fiancé Helen joins me in sending kindest regards. I think I got it. Okay, I'll finish.

It's almost best. of luck to you and again many thanks jack your friend who stewhart you are correct sir yes sir this letter was mailed from stewhart care of h smith 636 westchester street long beach long island new york yeah harry smith and westchester that's uh not necessarily the west end of long beach but the west side of long beach at least uh wow very cool And that was Helen's parents, correct? Her father. Harry Smith was Helen Smith's father.

That is correct. And the Chief of Lifeguards was Paul Bosch, for real. Like, that's not a gimmick. He was the Chief of Lifeguards. And the story always was that he told his friends in the office, come down, I'm the Chief of Lifeguard. You'll have a great time. Beautiful women.

And it was Stu Hart, Lord James Blears. Was it Sandar Kovacs? Was that the third person? I think so because, and he's all over the Pfeffer files too, so that was a close group. And all ended up as promoters. And Lord James Blears met his wife and married her in Oceanside, New York. And I know this because I wrote a letter to him in the 90s. And he wrote back to me, give me all the details, and he signed off with Tally Ho, which I stole from him.

And Stu met Helen. And that's why whenever I've met a member of that family, the first thing I ever said is I'm from Long Beach. well now and and we'll deviate from the rules of the game for a minute because i'll read you a follow-up letter written january 24th 1960 by stew hart to jack feffer uh 13 years later basically right and this is is it foothills athletic club foot hills athletic club steward e hart president and uh he addressed it to jack feffer care of the hotel piccadilly in new york we talked about that. And it's a long letter and he's thanking Fever for sending Ricky Starr out to work his territory and

blah, blah, blah. But the last paragraph is, we had our 10th baby, a boy on last January 3rd. He is the seventh son 13 years later. And Jack, as you know, my wife has always had the highest regard for you from the first time she met you. And you, and you've been kind enough to always remember her in your letters. So she has asked me to be sure I include in this letter the special request that you do us the honor of being godfather for this baby boy now three weeks old

named Ross Lindsay Hart. This can be done by proxy because we know how busy you are. We would be very happy if you would consent. So Jack Pfeffer was Ross Hart's godfather. In writing. Like sometimes, you know, that's just something, you say to someone, you mention it to them, but it's actually in writing. No, and the thing is, this was the thing about Feffer is that to some people, he was their best friend and a genius,

and they were so loyal he had done such good things for him. And to some people, he was a necessary evil that they had to deal with because of the ideas he'd had and the talent that he controlled. And to some people, he was a scum of the earth. They wanted to run him out of town. all at the same time. And just the most unique individual. Anyway, let's get back to the game.

How about guess the letter writer from 1963? You're ready for this? I'm ready for this. Mr. Jack Pfeffer. And it's spelled P-H-I-E-F-F-E-R. So that might not have got over with him already. I have been working for about six months now, and several of the boys have advised me to send you some pictures and a short history. I am 23 years of age, 6'3, 280 pounds, and I wrestled and played football at Oklahoma University.

I got it. Where's your horn? It's actually Scott Cornish's horn. Well, no, you're wrong. This is not Scott Cornish. Should I say who I think it is? Oh, who do you think it is? The Oklahoma Stampeeder himself, Cowboy Bill Watts. You are correct, sir. But I'll keep going with the letter.

I also wrestled in high school. I represented the U.S. against the Japanese in 1961 when they were here. I have a good background of wrestling in case it's needed. However, I am more interested in working underlined and earning money underlined. And I will do anything that's good for the business. you still had to tell the promoters someday in those days if you were a legitimate wrestler that you were agreeable to working to make money. My neck is 19 inches, bicep 19 inches, chest 54.

He wrote 52 and then turned it into a four, I swear to God. Waste 39, if you think you could help me and you're interested, I would sincerely appreciate it. Some of the boys that you could ask about me are Luthez, Art Nelson, Bill Miller, Leroy McGirk, Tiny Smith, that was Grizzly. Because he was still at that point,

McGirk's top guy then. Carl Krauser and the Scott brothers. I'll try to contact you by phone about a week after these pictures are sent. So that's fascinating for a number of reasons. Obviously early in Watts's career, 63. He would go to the WWWF. He would go to New York.

a little bit after that, have a big baby face run, and then turn on Bruno. And that was like one of the big highlights of the early years of Bruno, and they did big business. Watts may have been one of those guys that, if he hadn't become a promoter and a booker and been involved in the middle of so many things, maybe they would have brought him back for a run against Bruno

every now and then, or even against Backland. But he got chased out in New York, I think there was a lawsuit because he hit a fan in West Hempstead. And then he had his career, but the idea that right before then, in 63, I mean, Pfeffer, I guess he had just had New York. He had just had New York. I shouldn't say. Pepper, as we'll talk more about in a second, had in very recent memory, been the guy booking guys into New York, into the garden.

And we'll talk about that because everybody thinks that, you know, if they think of the garden, they think of Vince Sr. He started it. There was a long road a hoe to get there. I think there is a fan base, you know, just because they're never told anything otherwise

that actually believes, like, it was Jess McMahon, Vince's grandfather who ran wrestling at the garden, and then his dad took over, and then he bought the company, not realizing Jess had like nothing to do at wrestling, and then there was still a battle for the garden into the early 60s.

Well, before we get there, I got one more letter, and this isn't, It's something you're going to have to guess because it says the name, but this is a letter that is in the Feffer Files that caught my eye because, you know, I was in that major motion picture, Brian. I was on the silver screen here not long ago, Queen of the Ring. You remember that, my starring role?

Of course. How can anyone forget your starring role? How could anyone, I'm timeless. I got the, you know, the perfect face for black and white movies. but it was about obviously Mildred Burke and her tempestuous relationship with Billy Wolf and the Battle for Supremacy and the Girl Wrestling Business and how all the dirty laundry that came out and the invadility and the fornication and things and such of that nature, right?

So I don't know why this letter was written or this statement was made or whatever, but I'm assuming why Jack Fever ended up with it, except that perhaps Fever was trying to assist the Mildred side in this split and discredit. You know, Billy Wolf, after he allegedly sold the girl wrestling business to Mildred, then started up under June Byers and Nell Stewart's name.

Part of that was in the movie, and that's obviously in the book. And they ended up fucking Mildred out of the girl wrestling business. but there were girls that were on her side too. So you remember Coracombs, lovely lady from Eastern Kentucky. It used to, she was a big main eventer for Goulis in a day in Nashville.

This letter is written, Houston, Texas, August 29th, 1953. To whom it may concern, I, Bula Mae Combs, known as Coracombs in the wrestling profession, and this is typewritten, by the way. have personally known Billy Wolf, Senior, June, June Byers, and Nell Stewart for three years.

I wrestled under the management of Billy Wolf for about two years and personally know and will testify that he has lived with Nell Stewart and June Byers for the full three years and have heard many girls testify to the fact that they had lived together for years before I knew them, including Billy Wolf Sr.'s' own testimony. Billy Wolf read his business entirely on an immoral basis and tried to get me to participate in immoral conduct

with his lawyer during the time I worked for him. The lawyer is not named here, but since Billy Wolf signed out of the business for five years, and that was an awkward way of saying he sold the company and agreed not to compete, right? he has offered me 85% to quit his buyers and return to him under cover of Nell Stewart and June Byers Girl Wrestling Enterprises.

In English, that means that he offered to give her 85% of the money that she earned as a wrestler to be represented by his new company under Stewart and Byers instead of Mildred, who bought his company, but apparently was taking more than 15%. He has made this same offer to practically every girl in the business. Some of them were possibly stupid enough to fall for this line, but I and many others are not.

I personally witnessed on several occasions Billy Wolf and Nell Stewart in bed together when he was still married to Mildred Burke. Oh, wow. One of these occasions was at Rock Village Courts in Springfield, Missouri. Another time was the Park Hotel in Columbus, Ohio. But this is 1953. It still was like a big deal in court in a business dispute

if one of the people was fucking somebody, right? Anyway, I personally don't believe these four characters, Billy Wolf Sr., Billy Wolf Jr., June Byers, or Nell Stewart should have the right to talk about anyone no matter what they do. Sincerely, your friend and made voluntarily by Coraco, I thought that was a this was no wonder that they

the established promoters after all this drama went on for like five or six years just said Tamula here you fucking do the girl thing and keep an eye on it because they don't want to fuck with it anymore because of all this chaos

because these you know this Billy Wolf character was not making a lot of friends. Babies, apparently, but not friends. I'm looking right now to see if I have a digital copy that I may have taken when we did the segment,

but I don't appear to. When we did the Mildred Burke file from the files, it wasn't it a similar thing? It was like Nashville, similar time, girl wrestlers writing in one on the side of Mildred, one against Mildred. Yeah. And they, you know, pitted them all against each other

in this whole hoo-ha. And, but as a result of it, regardless of whose side you were on, the promoters didn't want to fucking deal with it. And they kind of made it a subgenre of the business for mostly one entity for the next 30 years. Well, there you have it. There you have it. Anyway, I need some help with New York geography from you now. You know, I want to. One last thing on all my head.

I guess it's just interesting when you think about, you know, Corricorn. Combs was really kind of shut out in a lot of ways for the rest of her career. And you could argue whether it affected Debbie Combs's career or not. I mean, she was doing stuff with the ICW guys who were considered the outlaws when she first was really getting going. But do you think that had anything to do with, you know, Cora being on the outs with everything? Or is it just as simple as Mula took over, she had her own people? I think a little bit of Cora possibly having just gotten a sound. taste with the whole thing with Mildred Burke and Billy Wolf and et cetera, et cetera,

and Mula having her own girls. Cora didn't need to be beholden to Mula. Because if you notice there was a drastic shift in all of the girls who were really already established in the business in the mid-50s by the early 60s, they were gone. And all the girls that were really used in the 60s for the most part, except for like the Mary Jane Moles in Indiana or Cora Combs in Tennessee, they hadn't been in the business since the 50s. There was a changeover in the roster there.

So part of it was just naturally that. But Cora was a tough old bird, I'll tell you that. But speaking of tough old birds, if we get back to Feffer and you talked about New York a few minutes ago, and folks, we could be here, Brian and I for hours and hours, trying to explain what we referred to a few minutes ago, how that Vince McMahon Sr. was not the original wrestling promoter in Madison Square Garden,

or not even during, you know, the first, most of the time the first 10, 15 years of its modern heyday when it became sellout business. The book that is indispensable if you're a fan of the WWF, WWWF, WWF, WWI, whatever the fuck, New York Wrestling, from the history of it, the cards, the gates, the backstage information, who was promoting Scott Teal at Crowbar Press did wrestling at the garden with the historian J. Michael Kenyon, who's since passed away, but it has at crowbar press.com,

pretty much all the information for wrestling in Madison Square Garden through 2016, from the late 1800s. And you get the story because it was so complicated. But the the Pfeffer files have reinstigated in me just how fascinating it was that even in the modern era, New York was the city, the garden, was the last major city to still have people jockeying for power and control and in and out.

and it was all because of the the way the garden was set up and Brad you probably remember there was a in the 30s, 40s, 50s up. It wasn't like today where the WWE could just go and rent Madison Square Garden and bring their show in and promote it or even that UFC could do the same thing

or Don King or Bob Aram could have brought boxing in and just done their own thing. The garden had dedicated in-house boxing and wrestling promoters named the Johnstons. It was a family, I think brothers, a brother-in-law, potentially an uncle, whatever. But the Johnstons were able to control, because they had the contract for boxing and wrestling

at Madison Square Garden, what talent was brought in, what promoters that they got talent from, who had input. it. And they had, from the late 40s revival, which we'll talk about in a second, they had a staff of wrestling advisors. And one of them was Col Aquariani, the old wrestler and strong man, because he had a piece of Argentina Rocca. And Rocca became the Golden Goose. So he would advise the Johnstons and some of the, you know, other old timers that were around.

I think Milo Steinbord may have still been involved. And then the Tutsmont started the Manhattan booking agency and Pedro Martinez in the 50s bought in and then felt like he got screwed and sold and got back out and went to Buffalo. And all that Jack Pfeffer was in the middle of this, as was he on the inn as an advisor and a talent agent? Or was he on the outs?

When Vince Sr. first got control, it eliminated Pfeffer. but because Vince Sr. couldn't, his capital wrestling from Washington, couldn't just take over the garden. They still had to work through the Johnstons. They fell out. Feffer got another little run.

Within Vince Senior and Toots got together. It was a goddamn Game of Thrones with, you know, gangsters and floppy fucking men's hats, right? So the point being, we go back to when, Brian, I'll bring you up. on this for a second. I've droned on long enough. But we've talked about there was no wrestling in Madison Square Garden from the mid-third to 1937 until 1949, 12 years. Because the business had

been drooping and the exquisites, the bad press, the double crosses, and all the shit that had been done to hurt the business. They didn't have wrestling in the garden, but they did have it in all of what they called the small clubs around the city, the smaller arenas, the suburban places, the old, you know, the Marigold Gardens of,

you know, like Chicago, they had the, in New York, the Jamaica Arena. Brian, that's in Queens, right?

And they had a Ridgewood Grove. They had a Queensboro Arena, St. Nicholas Arena, an eastern Parkway Arena in Queens, I would assume probably all those buildings are gone from those days. Would you think by now, do you ever see anything of that? Oh, certainly. I mean, the most famous case, I guess, is Sunnyside Garden became a Wendy's.

And then the rumor for years was that it was Bobby Davis's Wendy's, and it turns out that wasn't true, but that's at least a location that's still there. Yeah, his were in Columbus, Ohio. But the point is, there was still wrestling, and there was still a New York circuit. And we'll go back in time with some more papers. I haven't even had time to copy yet, but there's documents on the buildings around the New York area

that were being run in 1940. And how they were paying guys on those, it's fascinating. But nevertheless, they had been still running these small clubs and there was still different booking agencies, trying to get power and pull and get their wrestlers over. In 1949, they decided to try it again in the garden with gorgeous George off television. And George bombed. They drew 4,400 people, and the gate was $13,000.

And so they didn't try again until December. That was 10 months later. But by then, they had brought Raqa in, and Raqa was a hit. And I know people are saying, well, how did he get over if they didn't run shows? they not only ran the live shows around New York City, but Brian, would you like some TV information on what the wrestling fans could watch on television in New York City from 1947 to 1950?

There were seven TV stations on the air in New York City. About 1950, seven of them. That's twice as many as probably anywhere but Los Angeles, I would think. Can I think a guess? and again this is early on but channel two which would then become wcbs down the road channel four wnbc which probably wasn't wnbc yet it was w nbt channel five which had several different uh call letters i don't think it would be wabd that would become fox five many many years later channel seven which would become a bc but definitely wasn't in 47

Channel 9, W-O-R. W-O-R. Channel 11, P-I-X, but it probably wasn't P-I-X. W-W-P-I-X still was. And I don't know, I mean, there wasn't PBS on 13 then. I think that's it. Well, W-A-T-V-13. Huh.

I don't know about that one. So a point is, almost nobody had televisions, but they had been showing regular wrestling programs locally since at least 1947. There were seven TV stations in New York City in 1950. All seven of them had a wrestling show on the air weekly. They were, Dennis James had the Jamaica Arena and Queens on Channel 5 from Fridays from 830 until sign off. So just the rest of the night, however long they were on the air,

was the fucking wrestling. And then that switched to WR 9. On Thursday nights, they had shows on some station, from Columbia Park in North Bergen, New Jersey. They, in the wintertime, WPX would have shows from Ridgewood Grove. In the summer, they do the Queensboro Arena. Tuesday night, St. Nicholas Arena on Channel 4, Eastern Parkway Arena Queens on WPIX.

WJZ7, that's what that was, aired the TV from Washington, and both of the Chicago TVs, from the Rainbow Arena and the Marigold Arena aired to Marigold was on the Dumont Network. And on Saturdays, they had a Broadway arena in Brooklyn, apparently, that had matches on W.R. And they also, at some point, had matches from Sunnyside Gardens.

They had a series of shows from Jersey on Channel 13, etc. Connecticut, too, Bridgeport. There you go. So it dominated the airwaves. And when they brought Raca in and got him on television, they go to the garden in December and they do 17,854 people, which was a sellout at that point in time, $50,639 at the gate. That's $650,000 in today's money for a house show. And all of a sudden they had a hit where the was doing turnaway business, but they were still running the small clubs. So this is a sample of information that I got. And Jersey. You know, Willie Gilsenberg, we talked about him previously, he was running a bunch of towns in Jersey all throughout these years. Yes. And at the same time,

and Willie Gilsenberg is all over the Pfeffer Fowls. He was writing him. They were close personal friends. And he would talk about his. my God, what was the main town here? Newark. Newark was his town, which is right across the river. That's where his office was, yeah. But the point is, in December, they drew almost 18,000 people and 50 grand at the garden. They were all over the newspapers, wrestling is back in the garden. But then the first week in January, this is just, this is a sample of the kind of regular business they were doing after the big garden card just what they were doing every week. The St. Nicholas Arena, where is that?

Was that Long Island? I thought it was Queens, but maybe I'm wrong. I'm actually, I don't, hold on. What is it say up here? I don't know, but I thought, I'll defer to your geography. How far is that from the garden? Again, I don't know. St. Nicholas Arena was 69 West 66th Street and Columbus Avenue.

So that was actually in Manhattan. wasn't too far from the garden. And that was not the garden where it is now. That was the garden on 8th Avenue. Okay. Well, apparently these were weekly towns that they were running, but they on the first week of January, they ran the St. Nicholas Arena and did $5,000 with Raka on top. And that might not sound like a lot except the ticket prices at the same time. And the garden in the mid-50s, when they were selling out and turning them away was a $5,000. dollar front row ring side. So with the St. Nicholas Arena

down the street or whatever, tickets were like 3-2-1, if that. The point is they're drawn a couple of thousand people at St. Nicholas Arena to see Raca. And by the way, 65 grand in today's money, go ahead.

The St. Nicholas Arena would become the location of ABC's television studios in New York City. Oh, well, there you go. And what about Hempstead? that's on Long Island. This is the way it was written. Hempstead or West Hempstead? No, it just says Hempstead.

Okay. If Hempstead's on Long Island, that's still, that's up in the region, right? The same week, possibly the following night. I just, again, this is the first week in January. They did $3,500 with Raka in the main event. And again, that's probably at the ticket price of the time, 1,500, 2,000 people. Then they go to Jamaica. That's in Queens, right?

That is in Queens, yes. Without Rocka, they still do $1,500. Then they, the Bronx Winter Garden, right? That's a thing. Bronx Winter Garden. They did $1,100. And then Asbury Park, New Jersey, they did $700. Poor Asbury Park.

But in January. Point being, they did $11,800 at the gate for five events. in the metropolitan area and poor Olasbury Park, which is the equal of 150 grand in today's money, and that was one of their weeks. So if they could do the equivalent of $600,000 in today's money every month in these weekly shows around town, and they were doing the equivalent of half a million plus

at the garden once a month, it says $10 or $12 million. and today's money out of the New York metropolitan area, and how many thousands and thousands of tickets are we talking about? Yeah, and again, the spot shows that were attached at territory go up into Connecticut. At this point in time, they go into New Jersey. It's a lot of towns, Long Island.

With Raka, I don't know what you saw that, I don't know what Pfeffer had, but I'm curious about the coverage. I've actually never gone back and checked out the coverage he was getting in the New York papers before he arrived. I've seen some of the coverage in the papers, and I have the programs for Texas when he first arrived, and he was a sensation there.

But that's the other thing I'd like to see, is just how was he presented in the New York papers? See, the papers scoffed at it. The papers, when the second time that they, you know, when they bombed with Gorgeous George, right? Because the papers had kind of scoffed because wrestling's going back to the garden, and then they were kind of like, I told you so, right?

It bombed. and then it wasn't until after that they sold out, turned people away, and created chaos that the paper's like, shit, this rocka guy. And then it was like they still hooted at wrestling, but they had to acknowledge or somehow recognize that all of a sudden this wrestling stuff, the old grunt and grown stuff, is the hottest ticket in town. And the cops on a horseback are turning thousands of people away from

Madison Square Garden. They had to acknowledge it while they, at the same time, a lot of them were like, can you imagine they're, you know, all this bullshit is causing this chaos, but they had to acknowledge. So what year are we talking about? But beforehand, it was all, it was all the television. What year are we talking right now? Arraca started, he was introduced in later in 49. In 49.

In New York. The riot is in 57. We did a guest to program where there was a separate riot at a policeman's benevolence. Benevolent Association show in New Jersey a month later, that's how Hottie was almost a decade after arriving. Yeah, and

now to be fair, he cooled off, they went a period, I think it was from 55 to 56, where they stopped running shows in the garden again for a year because the crowd was starting to dwindle. And again, they could just do that.

The Johnstons could do that because, you know, it wasn't like, oh my God, this is my main town in my territory. It was more primitive than that at that point. But then they opened it up again, and this is where again, the Feffer groups and the Vince Senior groups and all the other groups kept trying to get in and get a hold. But when they opened up again, not only was it fresh, but that's when they hit on Raqa and Perez.

Because now, Raqa had drawn all those huge houses in the single matches, but he was so limited people had seen the routine. They freshened it up. Now, he has this young protege that the heels are going to beat the shit out of and he's going to then get the tag and then he's going to beat everybody.

And Raka got another five years out of that. And at the same time, that's when Fever, I didn't look at the Raka foul, but there's a lot of people writing him about Zuma. Because for that brief period of time, he got Zuma over as the second coming of Raka to the

point where they had to work with each other when Pfeffer was in control. Because it sold out, I can't imagine how hideous it must have been. Sold out twice, didn't it? But, you know, but after Pfeffer was gone, you didn't see Zuma no more.

So that was the, Fephyr was the at steel in a house, but people would smarten up, and that's why he needed to move the freaks and the knockoffs and the, you know, gimmicks around a lot. But nevertheless, the point is that at that point in New York City, I know everybody's saying, oh, wrestling's more popular than ever, even if it was more popular in the 80s or whatever,

or the attitude error or whatever. but if you were in New York City in January 1950, you could watch wrestling multiple hours on every TV station that existed every day of the week and go to shows in the metro New York City area, whatever they call the big apple in its environs, four or five nights a week. And they were turning them away from Madison Square Garden

and it was making the newspapers. How could something be more mainstream in the biggest city in the country than that? Also, it makes you wonder what kind of different business that potentially could have done if they brought gorgeous Georgian in 50 instead of when they did bring them in, just based on how much TV there was in 50 versus 47, let's say.

Well, no, because he didn't come in. See, that's the thing. They'd still been seeing him for a while because of the network broadcasts and because the tapes going in, but they were at the point where they needed the ethnic superstar because they'd been trashed so long

in the mainstream press in New York, that's why once that Raca got over like that, they wouldn't get off of them. Bob Backlund was the next All-American boy 30 years later to be the champion because that's where they found the niche and that's where they were turning them away, and that's where they were,

they did the same thing with Bruno, except gradually the appeal went to everybody, but they felt like they had to have the ethnic hero. Pedro Morales, too. Yeah. And everybody else was just, you know, a transitional cog in the wheel to get there. That's the most interesting life story

that could probably never be fully put into, a book, Antanina Raqa, because the more you find out about him from sources outside of wrestling who wrote books, you know, he may have been involved with like the CIA. I'm serious. Like, he was, like, he was, like, there were years where he disappeared where he may have been, like, just helping the government and, like, South America. Like, there's all sorts of weird stuff around Raqa who did just disappear at a certain point.

And that's the thing is you have to. I know he was almost like the wrestling version of, you know, the old Primo Carnara. They cut up his money until there was almost nothing left. A lot of people had a piece of him, especially during that run. But the money that he generated has to be a thing in 1950. Let me hit. I won't make you guess all these. But guess what the average family income was.

the United States in 1950 per year. 1950? I'm going to get this wrong. $7,000. $3,300 was the average family income in 1950. So when Raqa goes to, what was it? The God, oh, what arena is St. Nicholas Arena and draws $5,000, that's more than most people make in a year.

And out of 40 million families in the United States, States, $1.3 million made over $10,000. 140th. The average price of a new home was $7,150. The top Ford car was $2,300. Minimum wage, if you qualified for it, a lot of jobs didn't, at that point, more didn't than did. 75 cents an hour, and steak was 77 cents a pound. So when Raca... Wrestling programs, 10 cents. Yeah. With Raca, and I've got documentation,

Jackie Fargo made $1,000 for one of his Madison Square Garden appearances in 1960, against Raca and Perez. That's the equivalent of $11,000 in today's money. Well, 10 years earlier, Raca is the guy that suddenly, all these fucking crowds are being drawn by and he's the golden goose of the promoters

and the horsemen or the cops on horses are beating people away from Madison Square Garden and they've all got a piece of him. So of course he was making if he sold out the garden he probably made the same thing in one night before deductions that the average family made in a year.

And somehow the, even though they They say the guys are making them millions of dollars these days. The pay scale has not kept up, it doesn't seem like, with the other escalating expenses. I saw somewhere on social media, someone jumped on me for, you know, they make millions of dollars. You don't know what you're talking about, Brian. Compared to other athletes, they don't make the same amount of money.

It's not even close. Compared to athletes in their profession many, many years ago, they do not make the same percentage of money, you might say also or adjusted in however is what we're trying to say. Is that, and here's, I'll leave you with one more thing and then we'll move on to the unreal world of the WW. I found out also, do you know when they quit paying the guys

per night in the Tennessee territory and cash and started paying them with weekly checks? No. 1965. So that it was still the old way of doing things back where you worked a town

and the promoter came in in the locker room and paid everybody in cash. And remember Sam Much Nick still did that in the 70s. That was one town, but we're talking territories every night you'd wait to get paid, but you would get paid in cash. And how did you find that out? Was there actually, I go,

are saying that goos or changed away their paying? It was from Jackie Fargo to Jack Feffer listing because he still had a piece of him. When we do the Fargoes in the future, we'll go into all of this, but Fargo would write and give him his payoffs for the week. Here's what town I worked. Here's what I made.

Here's my bookings for next week because Feffer was his manager. He is the one that had placed him. And that's why, because Jack Feffer apparently saw the second coming of Buddy Rogers and Jackie Fargo in the late 50s, early 60s. He made him the world champion in Chicago and in Boston and got him those main events in Madison Square Garden where Fargo is making $400 in Boston, which is equal to, you know, four or five grand a day and one night or a couple grand in Chicago in those shots. and a 10 grand in the garden.

So he's beholden to him. And in Tennessee, the point is, I make it, he wrote and he said, yeah, they're going to start paying us by check next week. This was 1965. So I'll have to send you your money in a different fashion or a different schedule or whatever. So those guys have been 120 bucks in 1960 when you sold out the hippodrome in Nashville. is the same goddamn thing as $1,000 or whatever today. And they're just running around with this money in their fucking pockets.

Maybe a weird question, but based on what you know back then, mid-60s, were there still a lot of wrestlers that didn't have checking accounts? Oh, I would, yes, I would have to think, because in a lot of cases, like Fargo was sending Feffer his money by money orders. Because that's the thing, it's a deal that, Pepper made. Now, he didn't do this with Buddy Rogers in the 40s and early 50s before they're falling out. He had a piece of Rogers, but by the time he got the Fargoes, and he did make them World Tag Team champions in the Tennessee territory, and they were on top in main events in Georgia

and Atlanta and in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and all over the place and got all these other shots. But whenever he would place them somewhere, the deal was that he would get the same payoff they got. So if one of them got $100 or both of them got $100 each, then he'd get $100 too. And it led finally to the breakup, but later than I thought it was. But they would honor that. And they, Fever called them bundles instead of payoffs or whatever. So Jackie would write, you know, had to leave and get out of the show before the count.

I didn't get your bundle. Or we got big bundles this week. Jack. But that's, you know, he had the Fargo's in a spot where they were making $300 a week, $400 a week when it was the same thing as making $3 or $4,000 or $5,000 a week. So they're fucking riding up down the road. Don't give a shit. Anyhow.

Probably a question answers itself, but he's booking Jackie Fargo. Does that mean he was booking Sunny Fargo too at the same time? Well, the thing, he had Jackie and Don. he saw them as tag team nature boys, Buddy Rogers' is. And Don broke off early to the point where I don't want to spoil anything when we get to them, but there was heat between Jackie and Don in the mid-60s when Don would go in some places of Fargo. Because Jackie didn't want him using the name.

But Sonny came along, apparently when Don was on the outs or wanted to go somewhere else on his own or do something else. and they needed a tag team. And Sonny, I can't imagine the sight of Ruff House Fargo, even 15 years younger than I first saw him in Madison Square Garden. But he didn't have the gimmick that he was blonde and strutted and spangly tights because he was Jackie's real brother.

But it wasn't until he started coming to Tennessee. He'd been their manager and he'd been the, partner and you know it worked because it was the fargoes but he didn't become roughhouse until like 64 i think and then that gimmick drew better than fucking jacky did sometimes but it had to be brutal just seeing him be a fargo all right well i can't wait to hear when you finally get to that fargo's uh segment because i'm feeling that could be really good good lord i got to transcribe a lot of notes but again i'm fascinated by the the The payoffs that any guys got are a good indication of how the houses were, how much money was being drawn.

And in that time period, what was, if you know what a main event guy made for a sellout, then you can kind of extrapolate what other guys were making, what the standard of living was when business went up and went down. And all these promoters letters are fascinating because they, the first thing they do before anything, else has talked to each other about how their towns are doing. Yeah, you know, we did six grand in Portland the other night, or Ray Fabiani's like, well, not bad for Landos and Alibaba in Philly, we did $6,000 when tickets were 50 cents or whatever it was. So that kind of shit is fascinating to me.

I'm a behind-the-scenes nerd, but they got a program, Brian, on the air today for all of the behind-the-scenes nerd of this boring, stressful modern shit. The WWE unreal. Everybody wanted us to watch and I gotta be honest

I can't hate this show. I hate some parts of this show but I can't really hate this show because there's parts of it. There's the element of something there that I wish they could

do more, I wish they could do more of the good stuff and less of the bad stuff. Does that make any sense? I guess so. I will try to explain that there are certain people that can do this, that are on this show that are in their own way, whether they're being told to or whether they're just coming up with it, they're good at blurring the lines because we all know in this modern day and age, that a lot of this shit's bullshit anyway, most of it, but they are able to blur some lines and leave some doubt in whether they're bullshit or not. And then there are aspects of it where, you know, when one of these bland, boring peanut-headed writers is either being talked to or is giving anybody an instruction of anything,

then that to me destroys some type of illusion. Ed Kosky is the most bland epitome of a white person I've ever seen. I bet his sweat isn't salty. There's no spice to him at all. And for him to be somebody that would be able to tell the WWE superstars or any wrestlers what to do. I think it just sucks. But I can see Triple H in a corner with

fucking CM Punk or Seth Rollins either one saying, look, I know you hate that fucking guy in real life. Y'all really just don't get along or you never like or whatever the fuck. So let's make some money with this. Let's put you guys in the Dana White kind of thing that they're trying to do with Triple H anyway here. make him the Dana White of the concept of the thing

I don't want to see these fucking writers because it's an insult that any of these bland white fucking guys and girls could tell CM Punk or Drew McIntyre or any of these big kick-ass fucking wrestlers what to do

do you feel me you know like what you said at the top how your reaction is probably not what people expect or things you liked. I found it to be an interesting look. Again, we could argue about what was real and what was done for the cameras. But on the other hand,

it still to me looks like an unnecessary convoluted setup for the writing team, for there to be a writing team, for that many people to be in the room to the point where some people aren't even there, on video screens. I just think that's completely unnecessary and it's falling

into the trappings of Vince. I think there's a lot of things that Vince normalized in terms of wrestling production that people still do, that WWE still does because he did it. The way he did it. But I think it's

completely unnecessary that many people to be contributing and Triple H to sit there. A lot of people thought this whole thing was about Triple H blowing himself. but Triple H to sit there as the ultimate judge of, you know, what would work and what wouldn't work. It's... Well, no, that's not true because after his heart issues,

he's not allowed to exert himself like that anymore. And it's hard for him to bend at this point as age has crept up by it. But no, in all seriousness, this show is incredibly well shot. It's well produced. It's well edited. And what I would love to see, because they're trying to make a show about how, difficult this shit is that everybody thinks it's so easy and we've tied they said what a producer

did we've talked about that here on the show it is a complicated production but Cody is great at what he said I play myself he blurs the lines punk he's a master at it you can't tell ria Ripley is fantastic because she was talking about oh when you know I become real but I've got a letter Ria in me, that type of thing. The personalities are coming off well, except for me, is seen as well-spoken in deals like this. I thought the pictures of the rock hugging, or pictures, the video of the rock hugging people and telling Ria, hey, thank you for carrying the company.

I was phony as a football bat. If you notice every single thing with the rock, like behind him or next to him, was like two different members of his team filming it. Yeah. Like Gowertes, his phone out, he said, another guy with a camera. It's like everything is being done for the camera, him walking around like, hey, how you doing?

Like, he's the boss who's there all the time. But that's the thing is, is, I like seeing Ria and Cody and punk and the, the talent that they're focusing on, and they do this well. And they, and obviously, Ria Ripley is somebody,

that they're really concentrating on for the future. And they worked the shoulder separation in. They weaved real and working together, and it is interesting. And Triple H is being made the benevolent father figure, right? But that's the punk profile. He always wanted to main event WrestleMania. And they told the story of the real heat between him and Triple H,

where they didn't trust each other. and then finally they get together. I can buy the, that's the kind of interesting things with these personalities where people really do get hurt and people really do not like each other. And I can buy the Triple H being the Dana White character that, you know, is trying to wrangle these wild personalities and keep them in line. Yes, they're admitting it's a work, but they have done that long ago. but when you see

I wrote her name down a woman named Alex Williams senior WWE writer standing in the back giving punk some instructions on whatever the fuck he was doing and he's quietly humoring her and he's going to go out and do what he wants anyway

but that's why I don't want to see that I don't want to see all these miscellaneous bland production people and writing people who went to school and wear ties and sweaters and sit at the board table and take notes on their laptops, if you want to see inside a pro wrestling booking meeting,

then you're still waiting if you think it ever looked like that until modern times. But that's what to me is the worst thing about taking the mystique away from it, is not even that it's a work, but how these insides, significant little twats are behind telling your stars what the fuck they're going to do that's where i think it hurts am i being too critical here no i mean because ria came off she's got a shrunken head she's got a cool house she's got three dogs she's great you know the uh the whole thing with punk and and the real life heat with triple age that's great the the punk telling Seth the starters back.

That's the kind of shit. Yes, it's a work, but we're competing. Jerry Jarrett would like shit like that. But then they, you know, when they go to browbeating Abyss because he's calling the moves what they're going to do ahead of time and, you know, they're over time, God damn it, Abyss, that's too much inside the sausage factory to me. to me.

And I know that the reality TV people think that it's humorous drama that goes on, but fuck that. That's what makes the business look bad. I want to think that they're going over time because they've got caught up in a moment and they can't control themselves. Maybe something's happening. I don't want to, oh, don't grab him in your hold because we don't have time for that. That's too much micromanaging.

Again, is that unreasonable for me to make. that comment. I don't think so. What did you think of, I thought he came across incredibly likable, but what did you think of his interaction with Bruce where he was profusely apologizing the Bruce? Unfortunately, I think that's one of the things, Abyss wasn't working, but Bruce was winding him up for the cameras because I remember I've said this about Abyss. He overthought a lot and was constantly trying to please, and it was almost like a rib on you if he asked you what you thought of his match and you said anything like boy I missed the second drop kick for a week he would be apologizing over for getting that second drop kick and to the point

he'd be following you around I love him but the guys sometimes used to wind him up because he's really like that he was shooting but Bruce was doing that so they could get that video I'm pretty sure but goddamn abyss he takes this shit as seriously as anybody and like I've said before he was a savant at remembering these matches move for move

and foot by foot and other people's matches too that he just listened to I don't know how the fuck he did it but goddamn at the same time he could wear you out apologizing for doing something that you didn't really think was that bad but he had taken it to heart

I guess is what I'm saying. So that was a little of that. Speaking of Bruce, he is a man who loves wearing suits. That's just the impression. He loves wearing that fucking suit. They showed the guerrilla position being built. We've explained it before, but actually seeing it. Brian, in the 1990s, the guerrilla position was maybe in the back of

or sometimes underneath the stage. It had four black curtains on either side of it. It was about 10 feet square so we could get an eight-foot table, three chairs and two monitors, and two headsets in there. And everybody else stood alongside and got out of the fucking way when somebody had to go out. And now it looks like goddamn the Biltmore estate. Jesus. In the 80s, they didn't have curtains. They just stuck gorilla in a hallway.

Why does Michael Hayes wear those clothes? Why does he shave his mustache like that? There's a lot of questions about Michael Hayes. He came off pretty reasonable all things considered in this. Well, no, actually, Michael, I think I figured it out. I think that they told him a long time ago, you got to wear a suit. And Michael couldn't bear the thought of actually looking normal. So he said, okay, this is a suit.

Fuck you. Yeah, I'm wearing a suit. It's a fucking suit. but anyway it was I didn't like the referees everybody's good he's just selling no I don't want to hear that

that was the female referee I remember that part yeah yeah I don't want to hear that but anyway but I've said I liked a lot of this the main personalities are getting over I hope they do less writer's room and referee interaction or whatever than they did in the following episodes that are to come.

But here's one of the things, these guys and girls seem to have more pressure or get more stressed about the big shows than I've ever seen anybody before. Is it because they have more time to dwell on it that they're sitting out there from 11 o'clock that morning, just thinking about, oh, my God, oh, my God. Or what?

More time to dwell on it and also more spots that they're probably thinking about to do that will lead to someone being banged up. I mean, I worried for a few days about Starcate 86, and I was, I was wound up a little tight for my WWF debut. I don't want to shit to bed in front of Bobby. But goddamn, if I'd have ever, had to get stressed about shows.

I don't know if I could have fucking done it. The biggest part of the stress was getting to the fucking town on time. Once we had there, okay, we're good now. And it just, it seems stressful. Anyway, they, I don't like, I didn't like when they had Rhea going over the match verbally for priest. Besides, as I said, I don't know how they remember it. God damn, don't do that.

You don't need to show the people that everything is plotted out beforehand step by step, leave some mystery, even though you're telling them it's a trick. But I did like the end of it where Punk and Seth had their match on the Netflix premiere and they went long and everybody panicked and Bruce made Abyss miserable, but the fans were channing fight forever. and the thing is I don't know how much they were exaggerating it because we all know

they didn't have a hard out on Netflix or elsewise they would have gone off the air Bruce is saying for the sake of the program here well everybody thinks we can just go four hours well no we didn't say you'd go four but I bet you can go 236 instead of 233 So and also punk knows

The Cardinal rule with the top guy is If it's long and good, you're okay But if it's long and sucks, you're probably fired. So, but that was That was a little way to show some strife and concern over this mad thing that we have on, you know, that we call live TV that we're doing every goddamn day.

They wanted to have the pressure. it's a heaviness Brian it hangs over you doesn't hang over me hangs over them but I mean again I can't eviscerate this as just being complete horseshit because they had so much in there where they weaved the real injuries and the real strife and the real

bad feelings into what was going on they just dropped the ball when they get away from that and it it still makes the guys is interesting and it doesn't you know slap the fan in the face with yeah but this little meat casper milk toast motherfucker with balls the size of a kernel of corn is pointing his finger telling these guys what to do but that's just me what should we do should we continue watching this thing i definitely think we have to the rock and goartes haven't come in as full-time players yet oh i forgot about goerts the classic example of the little milk

Casper Milktoast motherfucker with the Colonel balls. You know, it's just interesting. We're at a time where this doesn't hurt the business. It makes people who are into the business one way, maybe start looking at it another way. But it's not going to hurt things, but this is the biggest expose ever. Even if, you know, they have made up segments,

this is still such an expose of everything from a few months ago. So it'll be, if this is more than one season, or if they keep doing this, It'll be really interesting. And again, we're at a point where it won't hurt their business. But to me, it's counterproductive when you advertise this on a show where the K-Fabe is supposed to be intact. You would wonder, wouldn't you, why that they're, it's like a guy trying to con you in a card game, but telling you he's going to do it first and showing you how he does it.

And then you're still supposed to fall for it. I don't know. but again the problem is is that they've exhausted everything that you can do to have physically to a human being to get heat or to make a point or to be shocking they've set people on fire whatever so the only way to make it interesting now is that there's more goddamn gaga going on in the locker room in the gorilla position than there isn't a ring let's focus on at least maybe the if they have a real fight when the cameras are around that would be great then they could start

to wrestling business all over again wait a minute these guys really don't like each other if we give them have a chance they're going to punch each other in the fucking face then we've got another hundred years or do you think we should just listen

to happy music Brian I mean that's always a good option every day of the week you should listen to happy music that makes you happy music just bippity boppity going down the road. Just, hey, just all kind of nice tunes in your head.

Not the heavy, death-defying metal stuff like, I want to slaughter children or something like that. I don't know what song that would be. But again, it's whatever music makes you happy. I don't know what Vince was listening to as he drove down the Merritt Parkway. Well, he probably wasn't listening to anything happy and peppy on his Raycon everyday wireless earbuds. For the record, he wasn't wearing.

wearing Raycon earbuds when he had the accident. I was talking about music in general. Well, I was saying he wasn't doing that. He wasn't listening to happy peppy music on his Raycon everyday earbuds. He was driving down a road in a fit of peak without the calming effect of the music that plays into your ears and your head and your occipital protuberances over the racons. You know what he was doing, don't you?

He was muttering to himself over and over. I got to get there, I got to get there. Maybe he was driving to his Rekons. He forgot him. He had to get back and get him. He can't stay in life without him. Maybe that's what he was saying. Oh, mother, mother, mother, where are you?

I'm your little Vinny boy. But now, folks, the Racon every day here, buds, you got them. You take the active noise cancellation that they've got, where you can just press the button and instantly, everything active in the world is silent. Active noise cancellation. boom, you're going to be in a vacuum.

But you pair that with eight hours of playtime and a 32-hour battery life, you're never going to have to take the racons out of your ears. You just sleep with them, you eat with them. Every once a year or so, you have to go to the hospital and make sure your skin is not growing around the buds. But otherwise, you don't have to take them out.

They come out, you will take them out, nothing will be growing around them. They are comfortable, they are easy to use, they are fit for your ears, you have options to get them in the right fit, and of course they are safe and they have great sounds and that's really what this is all about ladies and gentlemen the sound great sounds abound with Raycombe

the sounds the sounds abound a good god almighty the great round mound of sound and don't believe me check out their tens of thousands of five star reviews of course you do have to take them out every now and then to trim the hair in your ears the hair can interrupt the signal ladies gentlemen to act as small antenna No, this is not.

Other radio signals, so keep your hair trims. Scientifically, this is not what will be happening, ladies and gentlemen. Don't worry about your ear and hair, but deal with it. Romantically, romantically is your spouse going to want to stick their tongue in your hairy ear? You got to keep that thing cleaned out. Nothing has nothing to do with the other. How are you going to have sweet nothings whispered in your ear, whether you got a Racon everyday wireless ear butt in it or not, if you got a hairy ear?

Don't worry about nothing being whispered into your ear. worried about, again, music you like being played by you in your ear, at your choice. Remove when you want. Enjoy that music, Raycon. Yes, and you can set it on whisper setting or the same vocal can shriek at you. It just depends on how loud you like it. You can... In the God of Deveda, or Enagada da Vida.

You can see, you can set it either way. Well, no, that's not how the track would be adjusted. It's not all of a sudden it would be whispering to you, but once again... No, no, the singing. you can set it where the singer actually just starts screaming at random. It's really wild. You ought to hear you ought to hear Anne Murray. And Murray.

Sounded like fucking, yeah, sounded like goddamn Joan Jet. I'll tell you what. There will be no Anne Murray. There will be no Anne Margaret. But what you need to do is add this to your cart. Add this to your ears. Raycon, great sounds. Once again, Jim.

And from what I understand, if I can hear correctly through this great music, that is obviously not playing right now because I'm talking to you. Jim, what's that great deal we got for the listeners? Well, I'll tell you what, get your head out of your ass and get your earbuds in your cart. Go to buy Racon, B-U-Y-R-A-Y-C-O-N dot com slash J-C-E, and you're going to get 20% off the fan-favorite everyday earbuds classic. The best one, it's classic, they can't improve it. So they're just going to sell you the finest thing they have.

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One last time, Jim, what's that promo code? That's right, and she doesn't even have to shave her ears. Raycon at buyraycon.com slash JCE 20% off the everyday earbuds. Well, you know, Brian, before we do the obligatory AEW section of the program, and it won't take too much time this week, but we have to talk about some AEW-related comments that were made by the current biggest baby face in the wrestling world, Cody Rhodes.

You know, he has kept whatever the personal reasons were, whatever the instigation was for him to leave, AEW and go back to the WWE he's kept that locked up behind the wall hasn't commented very few illusions

he's he's had it locked up behind a suit of armor but now recently a couple of comments he's made there was just some way I could think of to describe what it's like when a suit of armor gets a not a crack but maybe a little dent or a

ding or a hunk taken out of it that's a bad good you could stop there something like that but he made some comments that give us a little bit more insight still a little cryptic but on why he left

AEW but Brian do you have those comments handy with you yeah I have some audio here apparently this is from the Bill Simmons show I don't know what the exact name is on the ringer just a reminder to people we put Bill Simmons through the ringer that's the name of the show

we told the listeners way back, whatever, the fall before he left that we thought, I said I thought it, I'm not going to let speak for you. You could say what you were. Well, I concurred. I don't recall having a big major argument with you about it. That wouldn't be surprised if Cody leaves. And people thought we were crazy. People thought we were against the bucks. This is once again, they're speaking out, and they can't say anything positive about AEW. And then Cody left. And wouldn't you know who won the pony. We said that there were issues between various parties, groups in AEW, and a lot of that had to do with what was actually the makeup of the show and the way things were being run.

Then other people said, no, you guys made that up. There were never problems. Everything was great. And then he just got the WWE opportunity. So there it is. That's the precursor. And to be honest, hold on. I would say one more thing, regardless of what issues in terms of the view of how the way things ought to be, as they say, there was one guy that had the final say, and, you know, apparently he didn't say to write things either, just from what I'm reading between these lines, but go ahead. And there's one guy who has the final say who has people sign NDAs,

and there is an NDA in place, they've admitted that publicly, I believe. So whatever Cody does say, as I'm sure is, something you're aware of from previous conversations here on the show. Oh, they, they will end DA you. They will, they will definitely end DAU. You just have to find ways to actually say whatever it is you're trying to say without getting that phone call. But hold on, let's go to this audio here. Cody Rhodes talking about AEW, leaving AEW on the ringers show with Bill Simmons. There's clearly bad blood, but there's also clearly respect and love. And in the end, the way I kind of see it is if I felt disrespected ever at WWE, that's one thing.

That's a company that was built. Look with this glass. You know, that's the Yankees. That's the flagship of it all. If I ever felt there, you know, I was a number on a sheet maybe. But feeling disrespected at something I built. Yeah. With my friends and with us that we built, feeling disrespected there, I wouldn't stand for.

And I think Brandy and I both, I'm so blessed to have her. It was one of those where it was, I did way more here than you think. And you're going to find out the moment I'm out the door. I don't believe in like the cold-hearted, backstabby type of revenge. The greatest revenge on earth is success. And I felt like we were sitting on something wonderful, something great, a huge, potentially with what I was doing with the American nightmare as a bad guy, as a good guy, as something in between.

We're sitting on something magic. and if I'm not going to do it in the house that I literally with Matt Nick and Kenny built, then buddy, I'm going elsewhere. Well, there it is. That's the most Cody has ever said about the reasons for not being an AEW. What are your thoughts on all that?

Well, I saw a clip on Twitter that somebody sent of something they had done several years ago where there is Kenny on a letter. left, there's Cody and there's Maddie and Nicky. And Kitty is dressed like he normally dresses with his legs hanging out of

his jeans and, you know, whatever. And there's Maddie and Nikki in their seersucker outfits and there's Cody in a suit. And he's groomed. He looks like an executive. And I'm like, how did this guy get dropped into this

hotel room in between these three characters? It's just, one of these things is not like the other. I never saw how that was ever going to work. And I don't see how their vision for what wrestling is or could be or should be or whatever could ever be anywhere close. So I didn't see how it worked to begin with.

And again, if you remember the shows of that era, Cody never did anything with Kenny Omega the Young Books. No, it was the separate, the version one of the separate universes before the other separate. separate universes came about. And the other thing is Cody's stuff, that was clearly his stuff, a lot of it stopped working. The Anthony Ogogo feud in the speech about, you know,

saving America and stopping racism by having a daughter or whatever the hell he was trying to say there, you know, that turned a lot of their fans, like, what the fuck is this guy doing? And then they kept being things like that. It was the best thing for him, best thing for WWE, I don't know how it would have worked out with Cody and AEW at that point if he had stayed. Oh, I, no, no. He would have missed out on a lot of opportunity.

Everybody would have missed out on a lot of opportunity and money. He didn't fit there in that presentation. His story was for the big leagues. His place was to go after the title that his daddy didn't win in the garden. It needed to be the big presentation. He couldn't do that in a secondary organization filled with pygmies. But do you also think some of it's the harsh reality that, yeah, you and the Bucks and Omega working together on the Indies really got a big following going.

At the same time that Tony Khan convinced his dad to let him fund this because he had a reasonable path that he could show to profitability if he could just get television rights renewals down the road. So all this is happening at the same time, for Cody to say, disrespected, that him and Brandy felt disrespected in a company that they saw that they built but was actually Tony Khan's company. That means they felt disrespected by Tony Khan. What do you think that is?

Because remember, Cody had, was it a, was it an option year? Was it a renewal year? Do you remember what it was when he left? It wasn't like his contract was up. by, Tony chose not to renew him, right? Yeah, that's the way that I remember it. And again, we can go back and look at all the notes and everything. But there was obviously the option for him to stay, but he chose not to.

Do you think that was probably a hard thing to realize that, you know, this really is Tony Khan's company? At the end of the day, that's the wall I'm going to hit. I don't know. I don't know. I wasn't in the room. But I would think that equally, weigh in on his mind was, Jesus Christ, look at what they're doing, and it's turning into somewhat of a

mess here, you know, creatively and or with the talent. And let's face it, Cody, he needed people to work with because it wasn't, it wasn't working with what he was doing there. And he needed, he needed not only the structure and the presentation and the big company and the story and the whole nine yards, but he needed other people that were over to work with and that were able to get this shit over. And that wasn't Anthony a go-go. Going to WWE was clearly the best thing for Cody. If Cody had not gone to WWE, would AEW be that much different than it is today in

in terms of popularity, in terms of pay-per-view buys and everything else. Would Cody have made that big a difference to them? Obviously, it's the best thing for Cody in WWE, but it was Cody being put into WW's system that made it all pop. What do you think? Would it really have made a big difference where we are today, 2025 at AEW? I don't think their business would be doing remarkably different to anything either way, positive or negative.

I think maybe some of their productions would have looked better. You know, we talked about Cody trying to go around and do things on a producer's basis and to be one of the EVPs and help guys at entrances or lighting or, you know, the flow of the show, whatever. Some of that could have rubbed off and maybe the shows would have looked better or been presented better, but I don't think it would have affected their bit. We've said they couldn't get the reanimated. corpse of Luthez and make an appreciable difference in their business. It is the people who like the idea of that kind of thing and the constant nonstop barrage of

indie type of stuff. And for the record, I don't know if I'm going to concede that I don't think zombie Luthaz could be a thing that would get some interest. So I'm not going to agree with that assessment. Well, they might steal a pay-per-view. Come on. They might steal a pay-per-view with him. But I don't think for the long haul, because, you know, he is slow.

That's the one thing. You can outrun zombie Luthet. So there has, they'd have to be, they'd have to reanimate a bunch of other, you know, old shooters from George Tragos's gym. Strangler Lewis actually looks like he would be a good looking zombie. If he put some makeup on him, kind of looks like he would fit imperfectly as a zombie. But yeah. And the Tor Johnson sounds. Well, now, Tor Johnson, I don't know if you could use him as a zombie.

I think he'd have to be the fucking space creature, wouldn't he? See, now we're getting back to some Feffer ideas. But yeah, that's that poor Cody. You know, I think everything's worked out for the best, but I'm sorry that, you know, he had to realize that his friends were a bunch of jackoffs. Well, his friends are still in business. and they are. They are his friends.

And they're still in Chicago. They are still on TBS, AEW, Dynamite this past week. How long are they going to be in Chicago? I don't know. Well, okay, they opened up the show on July 30th. This is, we're going to, we're going to hit a couple of high points here. And I'm going to ask you some questions about, is that it? Is that fucking it?

Because that's what I was writing. but first the opening match was the Hardley Boys against the Outriggers. And in case anybody hasn't been tuning in, no, they beat the Hardley Boys so they can't be EVPs anymore. And we thought that would mean that we didn't have to see them, but we still have to see them. Now they're just doing bad, unfunny comedy about how they're getting disrespected because they're not EVPs.

And they don't get a graphic. And they don't get, And it's the Hardley Boys against the Outriggers who are also a spoof comedy team. So was this the wrestling equivalent of Abbott and Costello against Laurel and Hardy? No, they sold tickets. You got me there. Spoofery is what they did. Spoofery!

So then Ocada came out and they got some fake-looking heat on the Outriggers. and then swerve came in and swerve and the outriggers beat up Okada. Did you watch this at all? Did you did this register on you? No, watched all of it. Okay, how embarrassing. And I mean, again, there's people I don't like on here, but it's embarrassing. It's so fake that Okada is not even trying that he's just standing there when they hit him

doesn't change his facial expression, and then he makes a funny face every once in a while. He stands there, and then he takes a carefully controlled little bump and goes, it screws his face up. It's so fake and slow and embarrassing, and he's not even trying, and he's worse than Moxley in that respect. Moxley's the shits, but at least he's working hard. Did I mischaracterize anything that you saw from Okada in this deal? just that I work hard.

No, um, Okada, I think even Okada fans, a lot of them think he's just coasting on Tony's dime. And you'll get matches that on paper to a certain fan base seem big, and more than likely it'll go 20 minutes, and you'll get about 90 seconds of fast-moving action. And then a lot of Okada, who, how do I phrase this? He's never looked less marketable than he does right now. And, uh... You know, Swerve, you think Swerve's going to beat O'Kada for the Unified Championship?

Well, good Lord, I would hope. Certainly to God they can't have this. Talk about a perfect zombie. Okada. He's already fucking there. If you put him over Swerve, then I mean, yeah. So anyway. But who wants to see that match?

Why would you want to see that match? So anyway. And by the way, is he part of Okada joined the Callas family, right? So he joined the Calus family, now he's just back out here with the Bucks? Well, yeah, because the Bucks weren't around then. So he joined the family just to have some place so people could carry his bags and he wouldn't have to fucking sweat. Who knows? Who fucking knows?

Here's what I'm pissed about. Did you see the second? the segment with MJF and Shelton Benjamin. I did. No Bobby Lashley, no MVP. Well, I mean, you know, they probably didn't want to stay in Chicago for three weeks for this nonsense. But folks, for what was presented on television, MJF is in the back. And he knocks on the door of the Hertz Syndicate locker room because he's going to put these rumors to rest that there's problems in the, in the,

in the in the group as you will recall for about four or five weeks there the only entertaining interesting watchable thing on this program was mjf trying to get into hertz syndicate they were all stars people were into it and finally get mjf in the theory is they're going to help him win the world title he's going to help them retain the tag team titles it's going to be a super group immediately then put the tag team champions in matches with fucking job midgets and underneath preliminary guys. They never help MJF in any way that I remember. I don't know that I remember him helping them, but maybe once, kind of, sort of.

And now, MJF knocked on the door and Shelton came out and said, MVP in here because he's disgusted with you. And to see this watch you gave me, it's fake. It's fake. And we knew it. We've been on to you the whole time. We've been on to you all three weeks that we've been together that we've done nothing. We've been on to you the whole time. We knew you were full of shit. Get out of here before you end up in a puddle of your own piss. And as far as the hurt syndicate, you're out. And he walked off in a pre-tape in the locker room, no Lashley, no MVP, after all they did to get there, that's it. That's it?

Are you telling me, Brian, that that's it? No, because later on commentary, they said, well, MVP still has to weigh in. Well, God, what does that mean? MVP's going to pick fucking MJF and then Shelton and Bobby are going to beat him up? Maybe MJF has to prove himself again. Women, cars. They didn't do anything yet. They didn't do anything yet.

Nobody helped anybody. They just put them together. Talked about it for a week. They got grumpy and they got kicked out in a pre-tape. The fuck is going on. What was this originally supposed to be? Before they changed their mind, obviously. Did they realize that

Lashley and Benjamin have no credible team to work against and adding MJF it makes them too strong of a group or they get cheered since they get cheered which that was the best part of it people liking them and not like an MJF but because they get cheered they kick MJF out because they don't want them to help him beat this fucking uninteresting boring fake cowboy

that's now their champion, who relieved that belt from the disgusting garbage match-minded idiot that had it for the previous six months? What was this originally going to be before they realized they couldn't do it? It's what I'm asking you.

I have no idea. I have no idea if this is the end. I don't think it is. But it was just Shelton out of nowhere, telling him completely off, and then shutting the door. now is it. And again, no Bobby Lashley, no MVP. I don't know what else to say about it. It was a weird, weird thing to do.

And MJF is in the movie. Happy Gilmore 2. Is that out yet? They said it was the biggest movie in the world. Did it outgross Queen of the Ring? Because now me and MJF are going to have this rivalry going on because we're both stars of the silver screen. We had major motion picture roles. Well, you can watch it right now. It's available. on Netflix. The fucking didn't even get in the theater? No, Netflix has a deal with Adam Sandler, where they get first run movies

that they finance with Adam Sandler. I thought this was going to be a real movie and you had to go by and see a ticket and see it in the theater and get some popcorn. You may be able to do that too. Yes. The movie that I was in

is outgrossing MJF's movie Happy Gilmore 2. I would presume based on theaters. If they are not in theaters, then yes, but again, it's a movie that's probably done a lot of streams. Well, you know what? A lot of... I streamed to myself the other week in the car on the way to South Bend. You can just stream anytime you want to, but when you make a

motherfucker buy a ticket, go park and walk in to see that movie. Hey, MJF kid, I'm sorry. You're not as over as the old man yet. I got people paying to see me, but it'll come. It'll come. All righty, remember about five years ago when Christian Cage's promos were good? You don't remember that? I'm not going to answer that, no. I don't remember that exactly.

I remember him having like a week where he had a good promo, and then he just did the same thing over and over. And, you know, your mother's dead. Your father's dead. Way before that. Way before the dead mothers and the dead fathers and the dead people and the grateful dead, dead, when they first started this show and he first got on it he was cutting a pretty good promo

maybe it was just because he was more used to it and nobody else had ever been on television but this is another turn I don't understand whose side I'm supposed to be on this was the worst promo

he's ever done and I like the guy but it not only was trying to be another one of those dramatic introspective flowery verbiage promos that attempts to be artsy and make these idiotic angles somehow makes sense and he was trying to do it but at the same time it either he was being thrown off by a heckler that we couldn't hear or he was doing that on purpose for what reason i don't know he'd do it five times when he would stop talking and in a silent room there was most of

not reacting. Yeah, that's the thing right there. He would suddenly stop and turn around, hey, I'm conducting business here. Like people were hooting at him, like he was Dominic Mysterio, but he did it five times. And I didn't hear any hooting.

And am I lying? No, that's exactly how it came across, because you're thinking, if I'm not hearing this, he could just keep talking, I wouldn't even know, but then he kept doing it. And it went on and on

where he was the material, is horrible. And he was reminding Edge of all the shitty things that he said about Edge, but Edge, you've done some shitty things too. And then he got distracted again. I'm conducting business here.

But I'm like, what kind of baby face turn is this? Are we supposed to feel bad for him because this is so awkward? The patriarchy embarrassed him, but he's still acting like an ass and he's admitting I'm an asshole. But he's not acting like an asshole like I'm your asshole to the fans. He's just being a prick to everybody.

Fuck you, Edge. You've done shitty shit too. And the patriarchy, well, I told Mama Wayne, I've been in holes before none is deep and gaping as last time with you. But I've always clawed my way out. On the double entendres, it's kind of supposed to work both ways, where it has two meanings. but that pretty much just specified that Mama Wayne, her pussy is the equivalent of the Holland Tunnel.

There was no double meaning there. He was stumbling. I think it's almost because he was trying to explain this, but he didn't understand it. But again, Nick is going to have to go through him to be the face of AEW. but Christian, as I guess the new sympathetic baby face who we're supposed to get behind, reminded Nick that he's got two dead's dad, two dead dads now. His real dad is dead and he's disowned Nick and Pip so he's got two dead dads. It was a dud is what it was.

Before we get to the afterbirth, which of course has to happen, That was the best part. Tractually in AEW. But am I overstating this promo? I don't know what else to have. I don't know what happened here. Well, you know, I have not been high on Christian Cage's promos for a while. I thought the whole thing was kind of lame.

And then they set up the babyface turn. I might expect him to go out there and just be babyface Christian right away. But this promo was way too long. He kept stopping at the yell at fantasy audience members. It was a small room and no one was making any noise. They were listening to him. and then he just did not make anyone want to cheer him. The whole thing we saw happen was the patriarchy turned on him

after he was a dick to all of them. Yes. For multiple weeks, he got his comeuppance, and now he comes out here, no remorse whatsoever, and he gets his comeuppance again, although this time, luckily there were different camera angles so you could see just how beautiful a scene this was. Oh, talk about the comeuppance.

So he leaves the ring, and he's walking up, up the ramp and here comes Mama Wayne with her tickets prominently displayed. And then he sees her and she goes to slap him, but he blocks that, but then he realizes that somebody must be behind him. So he turns around and there's a little Pip Sabian

and he's going to face him down, but suddenly for no apparent reason he spins around and runs as fast as he can behind him, where there's Nick Wayne and hits him over there with the title belt. And then they get two chairs, do Nick Plain and Pip Sabian. And they stand on either side of Christian. And he obviously cooperates with them

to stand up in between them in the right place and bend over and get in the right position and they go for a standing concerto and they swing the chairs, and they slam the chairs into each other, and they completely miss Christian Cage. Obviously, on any camera angle that you looked,

there was the camera angle they showed on TV, there was a fans camera from the stands, it was even worse. He crumbled. The fans at first went, and then they realized, well, he missed him. And they got, oh, because they saw the miss 50 feet away. And down he goes and they stand there.

And again, some wise ass on Twitter was like, well, did you expect him to cave his head in? No, then just don't fucking do it. Don't do it if you can't do it and you can't do it. They can't do it when the guy's on the ground. looks like shit. Nobody can make it look good. But it at least you can't see through it like this one. It, I don't know how that anybody could have thought that this was something

that two people needed to do on national television that you couldn't see through this a mile away, Brad. I mean, it just, it was it was very, very not good. Well, what made it worse was the fact that naturally, because it's 2025, someone was filming it in the crowd. Probably plenty of people were filming it in the crowd, but someone, I saw footage from right in front, almost by the ramp.

And it was just then like, giving a high five with chairs while Christian fell down. Nowhere near it. That's the way the arena saw. They actually did a better job on TV of hiding it, which they didn't hide well at all, than they did in the arena where everyone just saw that was a clear miss.

Well, that's what they thought. can tell you from a production standpoint, they thought, okay, we'll shoot it from this way. And because of the perspective, you won't be able to tell. Well, the goofs didn't even do it as good as it could be done or as close as it could be done so that that might have been the case. But no, none of that worked. All righty then. The AEW World title was on the line, Brian, we got a rematch of that classic from all

in with Dick the Booth. and hangnail page, and nobody was allowed at ringside. Apparently that's because they decided to go the opposite direction from when they had 14 people run in on the last match. I mean, did anybody want to see this again? What was left for anybody to do to another human being after their last one? And nobody was hurt, nobody sold anything,

nobody registered anything, nothing was capable of beating anybody. So they go out and they do the same shit for about 25 more minutes. A break spot was Moxley, Powell driving page on the metal stairs. And then we go to break. And the same indie bullshit that they're known for, then the referee gets bumped. And then here comes Wheeler and Claudio.

But security stops them. Because they're not allowed to ringside. So behind security's back, Marina Schaefer comes out, gets the belt, slides it to Moxley. Page goes for the buckshot, but Moxley hits him in a head with the belt. Cover one, two, kick out. Every fuck finish ever in the world can't stop Paige. So then the referee sees Schaefer and kicks her out, but she won't go.

So the three adult male security guards come up at our, acting scared of this woman. Yes, she's got an MMA background. All three of you are also a foot taller, 75 pounds heavier, and your goddamn security, and you're male.

You fucking pussies. Nothing happened forever while this was going on. Then the heels finally, all the security, got them all in a group, and they took them all to the back so that Darby Allen could dive out of one of the box seats

on all of them. They had to get in the right place. It looked like John Wilkes booth diving out of the box at the Ford's Theater. Then they went back to the match after a few minutes intermission there so everybody could catch their breath.

Brian, have you noticed that now a show doesn't go by where they don't just break out into an extended fight involving people that are not even involved in the match that's allegedly supposed to be still happening? and suddenly as soon as they stopped fighting, the match starts right up again like nothing happened.

Yeah, it's a generation. I had a problem with all the tropes of the previous generation, yet their tropes are constant and nonstop, and then get in there after murdering each other and do a yay boo spot for 10 minutes. You know what I mean? It's the same thing every time. They got some trippy tropes, is what you're saying.

So they went back to the match, they went back and forth, Paige hit the dead eye to Buckshot one, two, three. 27 minutes altogether bell to bell of these two, Christ. Any thoughts before I continue? I did not really like the match. I'm not a fan of John Moxley's work.

Everyone knows that. Won't even blame Adam Page here for that. When Marina started interfering, I think there was a segment of the fans that I feared, oh shit. they're going to because you heard like a deflated audience for a second. Yeah. Like, oh, they're going to screw page out of the bell and go back to Moxley.

And thankfully they didn't. And it's a clean win over Moxley on TV. We'll talk about how many people watched it later. And now it's time to move on. Everyone just needs to go. There's separate ways and do something. Yes. I think I told you that on last week's show,

one of the letters from Willie Gilsenberg to Jack Pfeffer was about the lawsuit between Buddy Rogers and Bill Miller and... That's right. Carl Gotch, where, well, now the boys can go their separate ways. The lawsuit settled. Buddy's such a great worker. It's so bad he can't get along with the real wrestlers. Speaking of real wrestlers,

we then had a girls tag team match with Tony Storm and others. And after that, in the back, MJF was now telling Adam Page off. And you're a coward for not facing me unless I sign my contract. Because MGF wants him just give him a title match and then he'd still have the contract. And Page told him you need to earn it.

Mark Briscoe deserves it more than you, so go fight Mark Briscoe. Why? Mark Briscoe never wins. Why does he deserve it? Well, he's fixing a win, but not in the end. But besides that, he told MGM go fight Mark Briscoe.

Mark Briscoe's about to wrestle ricochet. So the baby face champion told the fucking top heel to go interfere in the fucking All righty So ricochet and Mark Briscoe was the main event And of course they gave him plenty of time I love Mark Briscoe but I just can't Stomach's sitting through that long of ricochet and he's got a group of stooges now Whatever the fuck their names are I can't remember

but at some point in the overrun the stooges just started got up on the apron started getting in the ring in front of the referee like they're just going to beat up Mark Brisco so here comes Brody King and Bandito down and got to fight with them and they threw one guy

over the railing onto the fans in the second row some old woman I don't know what a fucking old woman was doing in this crowd and she's like and they all fought off and then the match continued and mark hit the j driller of one two three so the right guy won as i've mentioned mark's on this winning streak now wish they'd had done it two years ago when would have been easier to capitalize on things so then mark gets a microphone and cuts a promo on mjf and i love mark's promos but this was not only

going long, but it was awkward because this after the main event match is not the time for the long storytelling promo. But he's like, I never felt like this before. I need help.

I don't know what to do. My brother's in heaven. But if I follow my worst instincts and kill your ass and cold blood, I'm worried I won't see my brother again. I think it's a little too much on this fucking clown show, don't you?

Yeah, I mean, that's the only reason he wouldn't commit murder after pronouncing it on TV. It's a, you know, they've been playing with the whole idea that MJF talking about Jay Brisco would get him triggered. Is that something that should be used or shouldn't be used? It should have been used once. And the big one, Elizabeth,

when you've built these two guys, and we're not done yet, by the way, with this, but I'll just sideline here. here. When you've built two guys up to where people know they don't like each other, know there's been some bad words, bad blood, maybe a physical incident or whatever, the time to take advantage of that and only do it once is whenever you have decided to pull the trigger on a big angle for a main event match in a meaningful show, and then that's what pushes the baby face into finally attacking

and then somehow when his dead brother is mentioned and somehow the tables are turned and the heel gets the heat. But now the baby face has more reason to get even and there could even be discipline brought down by the promotion on this fucking heel for these goddamn horrible, repugnant comments, but it's too late. You can't unring the bell.

They've already been said. the baby face is going to goddamn get even one way or the other. And we may even turn our backs a little bit on how he does it. But not every fucking week. And not on the goddamn show where, while his dead brothers getting brought up every goddamn week, the other guy's been bringing up the dead father for months. And like you said, dead, dead, everybody's dead.

then it's just bad taste and no it doesn't register as an impactful thing just as an annoying distasteful thing so mark calls mjf out there and mjf music plays and he doesn't appear and then he's on the screen doing a promo and i swear to god it's the same shit they've been doing for five years he's on a screen doing a promo he's obviously not live and he's cutting a promo on Mark where Mark's got to stand there and just stare slack jawed. And he said next week, I've already agreed Mark Briscoe versus MJF, if you make it. And then suddenly MJF is in the ring. We've never seen something like this before.

He nutshots Mark, gets a little heat, pulls out the ring. He's going to clock Mark. Page music plays. He comes out carrying the title belt, but drops it to get in the ring, goes for a buck shot. MJF ducks it. Mark Briscoe's already up from the nutshot,

grabs MJF, but MJF slides out and bales, and that's the end of the show. Now the baby faces have friends. Page has Brisco, Briscoe as Paige. MJF's heel friends have just forsake. have just forsaken him. So I feel bad for that poor outnumbered heel.

What the fuck is going on with all this shit? Hey, he really could have used the Hertz syndicate, who are, of course, that popular baby-faced egg team doing the dirty work for Adam Copeland last week against FTR and JetSpeed. Jesus Christ. It wasn't much of a follow-up to all that. I can't explain it. I will say this.

The show's been more. interesting lately, if you can get around, sometimes the wrong match goes 25 minutes. You know, if you can get around that, there have been more interesting things and one thing flows right into another, but like you said, the principles behind the booking, the foundation, the psychology behind it is all off, it seems. Well, that was the program that they presented, and before we find out if anybody watched I'm just wondering what the counter-programming will be this week on the Arcadian Vanguard network. Another fine week of programming on the Arcadian Vanguard podcast network.

I'm losing my voice. I'm going a little slow. Get information about all the shows on Twitter at Super Podcasts or our Facebook, Facebook.com slash Arcadian Vanguard, the wrestling news. Each and every day, get your wrestling news for free with the morning wrestling newscast, the wrestling news.com or wherever you find your favorite podcast. both stick to wrestling with John McAdam and shut up and wrestle with Brian R. Solomon

had Big Hulk Hogan retrospectives. Very different shows, too, over the past week, including one with Craig Peters and Bob Smith from PWI. Check them out, shut up and wrestle, SUAWPod.com, stick to wrestling with John McAdamampod.com. And of course, the 605 Super Podcast,

The Mothership! You see, my voice went out just like your little spring there. Go through the archive. 605Pod.com, the mothership. All right, Mr. Pfeffer. Let's go through the ratings and see what happened on the fine AEW Dynamite program

from Chicago's Unicorn Ballroom. All right, give me a moment here while I pull these up. These were kind of a day late. Were they a dollar short? We will find out shortly. AEW Dynamite. Wednesday, July 30th,

2025 from 8 to 10.13 p.m. on average, watched by 612,000 viewers. Ah, so they were right in the middle of the 630s and the 580s they've been doing. They can't... That's their pocket now, isn't it? 580 to 630, and they're right in the middle. Last week was 608, the four-week average is 604. Oh, I thought they'd been doing better than that. Let's go to the quarterly hour breakdown. These were compiled by WrestleMania.

Quarter 1, 8 to 8.15 p.m. Adam Page and John Moxley's video. And the start of the Young Bucks versus the Outrunners with picture and picture, 684,000 viewers. Okay, and again, it's become the new normal. They're not starting with the big number anymore, so they don't fall as far, but they're starting with a smaller number.

Well, that goes into quarter to 8.15, 8.30 p.m. Continuation of Young Bucks v. Outrunners, the post-match with Okada and Swerve, Mark Briscoe, Rick-Ashea, and the Gates of Agony backstage angle, and then ad break, 649,000 viewers. So that's not as bad as normal at the drop of 30,000. 35,000, simply because as we said they started low, but it's still, is that what they call the kookamonga effect? I would assume now that the bucks are safely out of the way, that we might get a, might get a little increase. Well, you'll see, because the thing that you may or may not

remember from your studies of the kukumanga effect is that when you mix it with the Moxley effect, uh-oh, it's an interesting dynamic. But we go to quarter three, 830 to 8.30 to 8.45 p.m. the MJF Shelton Benjamin backstage angle, the Christian Cage live promo, and the ramp angle with the matriarchy, which I guess is now what they're calling themselves, I didn't realize that. The matriarchy.

641,000 viewers. Oh, well, only another 8,000. This isn't, again, as bad as normal with the attrition. We go to quarter 4, 845 to 9 p.m. an ad break, Stokely Hathaway and the FTR and the FTR, Stokely Hathaway and FTR and the Young Buck's backstage angle, and the start of Adam Page versus John Moxley, 577,000 viewers. Oh. Low point in the key demo, 176,000.

There is the Moxley effect, and I missed the FTR and Buccaroo's interaction, thank good but you think that the people saw they thought they were done with the buckaroos but they popped back up and then it's followed by Moxley that's uh 41 60 64,000 people left in in that quarter so now they're down 107,000. And we go from there to quarter five, the big nine o'clock hour nine to nine 15 p.m. The continuation of Adam Page versus John Moxley with picture and picture 519.9.5.9.5.9.5.5.5.5.5. So they got 22 more back at the top of the hour for a world championship match and still can't crack 600,000. We go now to quarter six, 915 and 9.30 p.m.

The continuation yet again of Adam Page versus John Moxley, the Dustin Rhodes Kyle Fletcher video, and an ad break, 647,000 viewers. Now, when, didn't they do that a couple of weeks ago? We're just out of the blue in the second hour they hopped up at the end. A large chunk of viewers. That's right. Yeah. Did the gas station down the street close up at 912 or what can we attribute this aberration to? Hey, listen, it was 641, the segment before the Bucks FTR and the start of Moxley versus Page.

and here at 647, I think it's a lot of people coming back. Is this match over yet? I got you. Three segments. I mean, come on. Yeah. But we go now at a quarter 7, 9.30 to 9.45 p.m. Athena and Billy Starks versus Alex Windsor and Tony Storm with picture and picture ads.

And the MJF Adam Page backstage angle, 6366. thousand viewers. So they're going back down, but when you look at it, they're still not at the depths of the Moxley business in the middle of the show, 577 to 599. Well, we go to quarter eight. I remind you, we have a

13-minute overrun, so almost the full quarter. Quarter eight, 9.45 to 10 p.m. An ad break, Willow Nightingale's backstage promo. and the start of Mark Briscoe versus Rikaschet with picture and picture. 557,000 viewers. Oh, okay. 13-minute overrun continuation of Briscoe versus Rickaschet, post-match with MJF and Adam Page,

503,000 viewers. Oh, good Lord. So they went from 636 and poor Mark Briscoe, but what do you expect? and I think ricochet has the go-away heat at this point. They didn't know MJF was necessarily going to come back out. So they lost $4,000, $79,000 from quarter 7 to quarter 8, and then the overrun lost $54,000. Because they had, instead of a six or seven-minute overrun,

they had the whole quarter, and people got tired of waiting on impractical jokers. and the people that they had didn't stick with it. So... That's one of the problems with Tony thinking that it doesn't matter that Mark Briscoe lost. He's over. You know, now I can give him a push

because everything that happened doesn't matter. He's over. But to the people at home, they're not tuning in. He's in the main event of the show and people decided to do anything else. You don't want that. And they tease that there would be something because MJF was,

MJF and Briscoe been doing something for weeks. And Adam Page and MJF just had that confrontation about Brisco. So they teased it. You know, I think the booking is part of the problem. Again, I don't remember an overrun dropping 54,000 viewers, but that's just me. But anyway, they start at 684, they end up at 503, and nobody wants to see moxley, the moxley in the middle. Now it's the Moxley effect.

It's like, it's a curve. Instead of starting at the top and slallowing all the way, slallowing, slaloming, a really big slalom. Is that Rocky Cornel? It's that rocky granola? It's going all the way to the bottom.

Yeah. They dip in the middle and then come back up once that disreputable Creighton is finished. All righty then. Well, they get to do it again next week, don't they? so do we

yes yes but we're gonna we're gonna do it before next week with you I'm gonna do it with you in just a couple of days and you're going to do it with me again next week we can say that in a much kinder way

we'll be doing the drive-thru we'll be recording the drive-thru the drive-thru the drive-thru will be performed in a few days where you find your favorite podcast and of course next week back here on the professional show yes and until then

if you have no more questions you're free to go thank you fuck you and bye bye everybody