Jim Cornette Experience - Episode 599: 100,000 Watts Of Power

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

This week on the Experience, Jim talks about WrestleMania going to Saudi Arabia, and reviews AEW Dynamite! Plus Jim previews WWE Wrestlepalooza & AEW All Out, and talks about WWE ticket prices, Bu...ford Pusser, Nielsen, Gary Burbank, ratings, and much more! Thanks to our episode sponsors: HELIX:  Go to helixsleep.com/jce for 25% off sitewide! PRIZEPICKS: Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/JCE and use code JCE to get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup!  The max discount this weekend is Patrick Mahomes 0.5 passing yards!!! @TheJimCornette @GreatBrianLast Join Jim Cornette's College Of Wrestling Knowledge on Patreon to access the archives & more! https://www.patreon.com/Cornette Subscribe to the Official Jim Cornette channel on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/OfficialJimCornette Visit Jim's official site at www.JimCornette.com for merch, live dates, commentaries and more! You can listen to Brian on the 6:05 Superpodcast at 605pod.com or wherever you find your favorite podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:04 Like the midnight and the rock and roll. He's in a fight for wrestling soul using a racket and some mind control. He's in Kornet. The keys to the future. Helby Annette. Families hard-headed Samoans, the case against Buford Pusser, and AEW's headed into a war, but they forgot to bring the army. And joining me for all this and more.
Starting point is 00:01:18 Hawaiian Brian, the podcasting Lion, the King of the Arcadian Vanguard podcast network, Mr. Co-host to you, like General MacArthur, he has returned. Be great, Brian Last, everybody. Aloha, Jim. A pleasure to be here once again for what sounds like last week's show. Are we doing it a second time? Have we traveled through time to last week's agenda?
Starting point is 00:01:38 It sounds like everything we talked about. Well, because we have got people, the people out there, the cult of Cornett, you know what the difference is, Brian Last, between a know-it-all and an expert. No, what's that? A know-it-all knows something about everything, but an expert knows everything about something. And that's what we've got out there in the cult of Cornet,
Starting point is 00:02:07 and I have got an incredible document that I'm going to read you from a listener who I believe used an assumed name for obvious reasons on what's going to the whole story of what's going on and what it possibly is about to be announced we may have a scoop here from real news not even a fake shit we usually talk about what might be about to be announced on
Starting point is 00:02:35 on Beaufort Puster this was sent to me on Buford Puster that's what you're talking about here yes yes breaking news yes well it ain't it ain't broke yet it's still all in one piece here. We're going to talk about it here in a second. But we got all kinds of, and I've got other news, and this is sad news. Brandon, you don't even know this. You might.
Starting point is 00:02:58 I just, because it happened before, but I just heard it, but we've lost a broadcasting legend. And I just found out about this right before we were scheduled to go on the air here when I was zipping through the Twitter and I accidentally came upon it. Gary Burbank died like two weeks ago. Really? I didn't hear anything about it. You know who Gary Burbank is. Who's that? Oh, God damn it.
Starting point is 00:03:34 You have, again, a broadcasting legend yourself in your own right, Brian. You don't know Radio Hall of Fame member Gary Burbank. Gary Burbank, who was at one point, I believe nationally syndicated from WLW in Cincinnati, or at least widely heard, but who became famous right here in Louisville, Kentucky, at WACI, 790, and he went on to greater things after he was a Louisville radio radio legend here,
Starting point is 00:04:11 and he fucking died like two weeks ago. And I didn't even see anything on the news about it here. it was it was disheart another voice of my childhood I have a crack in my voice well rest in peace and we send our condolences to the Burbank family well it's his real name was not do you remember
Starting point is 00:04:37 Gary Owens no that's what I thought of when you brought him that's exactly who I was thinking of when you brought up Gary Burbank I'm thinking of the intro to laugh him well that's where he got his radio name i did katie ramiro his real name was they said in the article that didn't register with me because it's gary burbank but his his voice sounded a lot like gary owens his radio voice on
Starting point is 00:05:03 laugh in and so and they were from beautiful downtown burbank so he took a guy berbank and he was big here on wacky in the early 70s and then came back i think on w hasas right before he went to WLW the big time up in Sincey, they're 100,000 watts, whatever the fuck. But with
Starting point is 00:05:28 wacky radio... 100,000 watts, really? I think WLW, what's the max you can be these days legally or back in the 70s? Was it 50 or 100,000? I always think of 50 is just the most powerful because that's what the most powerful ones up here are, but maybe there is 100,000. I just don't know.
Starting point is 00:05:44 Well, no, I'm trying to ask you to, I'm a senior citizen now, thank you. I may be having a senior moment. Whenever they put the FCC regulations in place because of their kerfuffles with the fucking half a million watt Mexican stations or whatever the fuck was going on down there in Del Rio, Texas, it was either 50,000 or 100,000, whatever the maximum was, WLW was it. You could hear that in Canada on the fillings in people's teeth. Yeah, that is the, according to a, once I tried to Google this, 100,000 watts is significant power.
Starting point is 00:06:22 The actual maximum power for a radio station varies by type and location. In the U.S., the maximum power for an FM station is 100,000 watts, though grandfathered stations can have higher power. Well, no, did you say FM? That's for FM. And then for AM. Okay. At the time.
Starting point is 00:06:43 50,000 is the maximum. 50,000. Okay. Yeah. That's right because WHAS here in Louisville It was 50th because they called it a clear channel That's where clear channel radio came from And other Do we have time to get into this for the kids? Because now I'm having fun
Starting point is 00:07:03 XEW AM in Mexico's 100,000 watts And there are other stations there that are 150,000 watts. Wow. No, but that was the deal that Wolfman Jack Wikipedia him and see what the fucking measurement was back in the 60s or whenever that was they were literally broadcasting to Canada and it was fucking up radio stations in the United States right and left because that's what I'm about to tell you young Brian
Starting point is 00:07:34 is it back into 60s and 70s and I assume before I don't know I wasn't around but some radio stations that were broadcasting at a certain system signal strength like 20,000 watts or whatever the fuck we're dealing with here, had to actually at either 6 o'clock or at sundown or whatever the fuck the measurement was, basically about time to get dark, they had to reduce the power of their signals so that the 50,000 watt clear channel stations
Starting point is 00:08:07 that were strategically located around the country could have freer broadcast for some goddamn purpose. I'm sure one of our listeners is going to send us the history on this, but when you watched, when you listened to Wacky Radio, you could hear when they had to cut their power if you on your home radio or in the car, whatever, all of a sudden it get lower, but everybody listened to the radio in those days, and that's where Gary Burbank got over and he did comedy bits and all these different character, the right Reverend Deuteronautonomy Skaggs, your hands on the radio. And
Starting point is 00:08:49 he went on to become a member of the Radio Hall of Fame, and he was like 84 years old. Well, back to Wolfman Jack, he asked me to look that up. In 63, according to Wikipedia, he took his act to the border when Inter-American Radio Advertisans, Ramon
Starting point is 00:09:05 Bosquez hired him and sent him to the studio and transmitter site of X-E-R-F-A-M, Ciudad, Acuna, in Mexico. A station across the U.S. Mexico border from Del Rio, Texas. Across the border from Del Rio, Texas. Whose high-powered border blaster signal could be picked up across much of the United States.
Starting point is 00:09:28 In an interview with Tom Miller, Wolfman Jack described the reach. Quote, we had the most powerful signal in North America. Birds dropped dead when they flew too close to the tower. A car driving from New York to L.A. would never lose. the station. And it says here also, many Mexican stations were at 150,000 watts, three times the U.S. limit, meaning that their signals were picked up all over North America, and at night, as far away as Europe and the Soviet Union. Wow. Jesus Christ. And they made a lot of their money by renting their time to Pentecostal preachers and psychics. And then
Starting point is 00:10:11 eventually they stopped working with the preacher. and the psychics, I believe. But that's a powerful thing. It seems like the psychics would have seen that coming. In a day and age now where radio is dead, it's incredible to think about that kind of reach when radio was a viable thing. Oh, and, you know, again,
Starting point is 00:10:31 well, there's another connection with radio and wrestling here in Louisville with wacky radio in that not only for a period of, God, I guess, six, seven years, all of the ring announcers at the Louisville Gardens were DJs at Wacky Radio, Johnny Randolph and Bob Moody. Johnny Randolph was the program director at the time. And Johnny Dark from Memphis, we've talked about him, the Sputnik Monroe fan club when he was a kid, and he got over in radio as Johnny Dark in Memphis. He worked here as Dude Walker.
Starting point is 00:11:07 And I remember listening to him as a kid before I'd even seen wrestling. and you know but he they always had an end with wacky and that's why the the biggest crowd pretty much in the modern era of Louisville gardens wrestling was Jerry Lawler against coyote calhoun who was the six to ten guy on wacky radio at the time and now is in the country music hall of fame um or country music radio or whatever the he was a country DJ after he was in rock and roll. He changed his gimmick, but they drew a complete fucking sellout.
Starting point is 00:11:49 Lawler and Calhoun in that gimmick match they built up for weeks on the radio. You never know about these things. If we'd only had the reach of Wolfman Jack's radio station, we could have gone national 30 years for Vince did. Next week, we'll cover the big feud between Wolfman Jack and cousin Brucey here on radio news. Clap forward to Wolfman Well we have to
Starting point is 00:12:16 No more radio personalities I mean there's so many different reasons And I don't want to go too deep into this But there's so many reasons why radio's dead You're already in there now try to climb back out But there's so many reasons why radio's dead And one of them is the lack of real personalities Just personalities
Starting point is 00:12:32 There are none anymore But that's not even the biggest problem But yeah radio's dead I'm sure there are many corporate level problems with radio now as they are with any other entertainment form. But at the same time, you're saying they need us, right? Because they're just a boring bunch of simpletons, and they need us to just be able to extrapolate out of the pits of our colon's
Starting point is 00:12:55 these wonderful entertaining programs that we do. Am I saying radio needs people like us? Yeah, the problem is no. You need us. They can't get people like us. They can't pay people like us. That's right. We're not going to be fucking sellouts.
Starting point is 00:13:10 God damn it. Well, no, I'm saying they can't afford to make us sellouts. That's the problem. They know. They don't have those millions of dollars that it went millions and millions of dollars. Because the executives are taking it. About $14.7 million. That's just Brian can make his own deal, but don't say anything.
Starting point is 00:13:31 What? I was just, it's backward masking. Anyway, on to the net. We have to. issue an update here because I asked for various comments from the listeners and they have sent me some. And remember we, on the
Starting point is 00:13:49 drive-through, that's your program that people listen to, not obviously as many as listen to this program, but close. And we discussed the email from Farquhar
Starting point is 00:14:05 in Germany, I can't remember now, but about the racist undertones or origins of black people and Samoan people using headbutts in wrestling. And we had established that, yes, that it was of the origin of a racist, or not the origin of, but originated from a racist stereotype about black people. However, we didn't think that Bobo, Brazil, or anybody was mad about having to use that finish since it was easy.
Starting point is 00:14:36 but I said that it probably wasn't stereotypical in the Samoan community because it would seem to be that every member of the various Samoan organizations that I've ever met had a hard head as fuck. So now we have... Did you get an email from Softhead Sam? No. No, I got an email from, well, I can't pronounce his name. But he signed it, I am the Pelican, which is kind of like, yeah, I know him.
Starting point is 00:15:11 You know, you know the Pelican. He's the sending songs, send in more. Yeah, he's a very talented guy. Okay, well, that's why, okay, that's why he's got the, he's got music in his email address. I'm not going to just publicly reveal that, but, but anyway, it's, see, I am the Pelican is kind of a takeoff of how his real name is written at nevertheless. He says, I grew up in Auckland. New Zealand, which is technically the world's largest Polynesian city.
Starting point is 00:15:42 Our population is somewhere around 16% Pacific peoples. And that's somewhat odd, wouldn't you think? But I guess, I mean, Auckland, New Zealand, a well-heard of place. It's a big city. But anyway, a few studies have been carried out in New Zealand to observe the bone mineral density, B.M.D. And body mass of Polynesians.
Starting point is 00:16:12 Studies have found that when age and weight matched with Europeans in New Zealand, Polynesian adults do possess a higher BMD. They got harder bones. It isn't definite why this is, but
Starting point is 00:16:29 hypotheses, this is, range from possessing different bone-forming cells to an are often getting hit in the head by falling coconuts. Oh, give me a break. What the hell? What kind of explanation is that?
Starting point is 00:16:45 I'm, from a native, I'm sure, of the, of the, that's probably the local joke, right? Dr. Whoopi, what do you think is the cause? Well, you know, maybe the coconuts fell in the head. Then it's the coconuts. And the coconuts. In my younger years, he continues,
Starting point is 00:17:05 I actually conducted my own research on the topic by way of head-on collisions with my Polynesian friends on the rugby field. My findings were inconclusive as I'd black out after the impact and wake up being picked up and hauled off the field by the very same guy with whom I'd just collided. Those are the findings. And he's, so that's, uh, at least now we have some type of scientific reporting on this thing. But that's why I'm saying there's somebody in the cult that is an act. we don't have know it alls out there we've got experts they chime in when it's their
Starting point is 00:17:42 their time to testify and they keep their mouth shut well thank you for that email if there's any other concussed rugby players who want to send in their thoughts on would you quit evolution i guess i don't know what it's no it's scientific he's lived there he's observed the scientific research people taking measurements and shit now we need a rugby player from san jose get in touch Well, you said that you wanted a doctor, right? What was the doctor's name that you just quoted? Dr. Lano? No, no.
Starting point is 00:18:15 You said, Dr. Whoopi. Dr. Whoopi. See, no, we've got an actual doctor chiming in now. We got this email from Dr. Mark Whizpip. Oh, yeah. Dr. Mark Whizpip from Los Angeles, California. He has checked in before. What are you?
Starting point is 00:18:37 Are you suggesting that that may be some kind of nomad of view? Whizpip. W-H-I-Z-P-I-P-P-I-P-P. I've never heard of that name ever. Have you ever heard of that name before? Yeah, he's written. He's written to you under that name? I'm sure he's written.
Starting point is 00:18:55 I remember that name, but he's writing now. That's what counts. Because if you've read what he's written, you'll know it's really well-written writing. All right. Let's hear what the doctor has to say. Greetings, Jim, Brian, and the people inside of Jim's walls. In my past life, I was a programming executive in Southern California radio and television. So I'm quite familiar with Nielsen and its personal meter. Because you may remember I was chosen recently, Brian,
Starting point is 00:19:27 to have the opportunity to become a metered Nielsen household household household house home. Well, it's my house and my home. I was chosen if I wanted to participate. And now, as I just told you a minute ago, they won't stop fucking calling me because I could have forgot where this fucking number was coming from. It kept popping up because they didn't leave a message. One time they left a message, and so I got smart to the area code. But we talked about how preposterous it was that you wear this,
Starting point is 00:19:58 like an ankle monitor type of device, like you're on a home arrest, but you wear it on your person. If you're six and over, as you go about your day and what did they say, was it messages encoded in music or people inside your walls will then be picked up on the monitor as far as what media you're consuming.
Starting point is 00:20:23 And so, you know, we had some fun with that. Well, as Dr. Wispip will continue, the personal meter, also known as the portable people meter was developed by Nielsen's old competitor Arbitron to more accurately measure radio station listenership in response to advertisers balking at the antiquated handwritten diary system. And remember we talked about that. At one point you wrote it down at, well, that's easier at home if you're watching TV
Starting point is 00:20:57 rather than you're in the car, listen to the radio, blah, blah, blah. in 2013 Nielsen bought Arbitron in order to gain the stronghold on audience measurement across many media formats, everything from radio, television, film, and even supermarket store music. The personal meter is listening for inaudible tones, inaudible to the human ear,
Starting point is 00:21:25 kind of like a dog whistle on the frequency we can't pick up, Brian, you get right? that are unique to each media outlet. Those tones are broadcasted by the various media outlets and are collected by the meter's proprietary electronics. I knew I was hearing tones. If you think about this, everything is sending a different signal
Starting point is 00:21:49 that can be measured by a thing you've got on your wrist or around your fucking, you're hearing it along with goddamn stairway to heaven for the 7,000th time. and this is going on. What signal is this giving off? Boy, apparently negative ones a lot of the times.
Starting point is 00:22:08 But hold on, get back to this fucking deal here. And you know, Nielsen used to own Billboard. When I was at Sony, they owned Billboard, I believe. So, well,
Starting point is 00:22:17 we ought to start buying some billboards. They're in the walls. But no, come, hold on, I've lost my place now. Oh, so, based on how many times the meter receives the tones over a period of time, it allows Nielsen to know what audio you were exposed to in a given day part and for how long.
Starting point is 00:22:39 The downside to this measurement system is that it can't actually tell if you're actively listening to that audio or just have it in the background as you go about your daily life. Can you think of the clerk at a porn shop? What the fuck would that fucking do for you? So, as you can imagine, Dr. Whizpip goes on, audience measurement is really a metric important to advertisers. Advertisers are always wanting more and more accurate methods of knowing which ads are being seen or heard by the audience. As to why media companies aren't up in arms about the personal meter, they are and have been for over a dozen years. When Nielsen bought Arbitron, they bought the only real competitor they had in audience,
Starting point is 00:23:28 measurement which gives them a monopoly. Wouldn't you know who won the pony, Brian? Nielsen sells their audience data via subscription models that media outlets and advertising agencies buy into. With the advent of streaming, that monopoly has been broken as streaming services can now monitor their audiences
Starting point is 00:23:50 via their computer servers. That's what Dr. Wispip has to say about this. And who are we to question his? word. Another example of an expert out there in the cult. And I think he kind of hit on a big thing here, which is Nielsen is right now fighting for their relevancy in a changing media landscape where content is consumed over different ways. And like he just said, and not everyone's honest, but streaming platforms have their own numbers. They don't need outside companies telling them what they think their numbers are based on a calculation
Starting point is 00:24:28 on how many people they think are watching it, which is completely inexact. Like, there's no way to really... That's the one thing that's always bothered me about TV ratings. It's just, there's no way to really wrap your head around how accurate it could be. And it seems like it could be more accurate.
Starting point is 00:24:43 Now we can get accuracy unless it's on max, of course. But we could find out from the streaming platforms how things are doing. Nielsen is trying to find ways to stay alive. Like we said before, radio's dead. and a large part of what they're trying to do is monitor what you're listening to on a dead format, a dead platform. TV, young people don't watch TV.
Starting point is 00:25:09 So, Nielsen, Nielsen has a lot to... No wonder they're so dang stupid. But Nielsen's trying to find ways to keep up with the Joneses, but the Joneses are over here now. Well, I'll be right here then. Because I don't want to be anywhere near the Joneses. We heard from a bunch of listeners who said one of their big things is secrecy. They don't want people revealing that they are Nielsen Holmes or a Nielsen family or whatever it may be. Oh, yes, yes.
Starting point is 00:25:35 I saw that also on a couple of comments that we got. Yeah, and I do not. They say, oh, boy, you may have blown it. Well, I wasn't going to wear this goddamn monitoring device. For all I know, it could be programmed to fucking blow at any point if you say the wrong thing. about the fucking various entities that have a piece
Starting point is 00:26:00 of this goddamn racket. You should open up the negotiation. Next time they call, not that you're going to do it, but actually see how much they can negotiate. Well,
Starting point is 00:26:10 they did mention cash awards and prizes. But no firm amount. So let's say the guy says, we'll give you $50 a day. You go, well, you know,
Starting point is 00:26:18 a thousand a day seems more what I would accept. Well, no, no. I do have their range because we got so many comments on, you know, the talk that we had before that people said,
Starting point is 00:26:30 oh yeah, I made $350 in one year. Those crisp $10 bills don't ever become crisp $100 bills. It's like finding fucking change in the couch if you added up over the course of the, well, I don't mean to make mockery. People in Pakistan,
Starting point is 00:26:51 300 bucks a year to wear this thing around your neck, maybe one of the fucking sweet deals of all time now. It depends on the, on this location. Well, it's your show. Well, it's now time for the musical intermission. We'll be giving you 20 minutes straight of the Happy Organ. Hold on. Hey, wait a minute, what happened?
Starting point is 00:27:21 You said it's my show. I'm taking it over. Not for 20 minutes, you're not. You know who's taken over? I'll go out now. Don't make me, don't make me puncture the, I was happy,
Starting point is 00:27:35 I was getting happy. Don't make me puncture the bag on your fucking wind pipes there. Or your, wind pipes or goddamn pipe organ, bagpipes, whatever, what are they?
Starting point is 00:27:48 I'll take the wind out of your sales. Unfortunately, this is not a pipe organ. I would love to have one if Tony Kahn's looking to spend some money. Well, either they, or just possibly the pipe
Starting point is 00:27:57 and not the organ. He may have, have a pipe already, I would guess. Anyway, what I was talking about earlier is the fans out there, they're experts in their chosen field, and we have had a couple people now since we mentioned the scarcity of pictures of the green shadow. And of course, folks, this revolves around the stunning release of my brand new upcoming book, Heroes and Friends,
Starting point is 00:28:26 pro wrestling remembrances. It's Saturday, October 11th at noon eastern at Jim Cornett.com. We talked about it last week on a program, Brian and I. So I'm proud of it. It's my little baby. I'm seeing grow up and go off to college or to your home. My child is growing up to go to people's homes for money, Brian. But that's part of it is we talked about,
Starting point is 00:28:54 I did a chapter on Pat Malone, the Green Shepard, who only listeners of this program have heard anybody talk about ever on wrestling podcasts, but who, in effect, and I make the case in writing here, built the Tennessee territory. It was its first great star when it was originated. As the Green Shadow, he had this incredible sellout streak and this incredible main event run, and it lasted for years and years in multiple cities. and in trying to put this thing together between Scott Teal and Nashville and bless him Chris Swisher,
Starting point is 00:29:33 who has one of the biggest vintage wrestling photo collections known to humanity, we can find only on posed photos, and I'll get back to that in a second, but posed photos of the green shadow during his main event run from 1940 until 1948, three different posed pictures taken at the same photo shoot. And two of those have been, two of those at least,
Starting point is 00:30:05 have been preserved only because they were in newspaper advertising at the time. It's like he went out of his way because so much of the draw that he had for such an incredible stretch of time and all the riots he caused and et cetera was because, people wanted to see who he was. They had apparently fooled the people enough that nobody knew who this fucking guy was. There was no internet
Starting point is 00:30:32 in those days. And for years they milked it. And there was one dead giveaway about Pat. When you looked at him, even if he had a mask, he had the thickest eyebrows known to man. And you could just
Starting point is 00:30:49 tell if the trained eye, if you knew what you were looking for, but a couple of listeners have sent in pictures of I found another picture of the green shadow well in one case it I believe it was Pat as the green shadow but it was a newspaper picture in ring action of him with his head behind the opponent that he's wrestling and another one is of Pat Malone but in his later years when he was wrestling one of his bears one of Ginger the because you can tell it wasn't the original run.
Starting point is 00:31:29 He had identifying tattoos on his arms. So during his big main event run for those years, he wore long sleeves on his outfit. But when he got to be 50 and he's like, fuck, I'm just, yeah, I'm doing this now every once in a while, you know, under the hood. He just didn't wear the sleeves. You could see the tattoos.
Starting point is 00:31:52 And sometimes, Brian, there are pictures where they didn't have a picture of the green shadow and they had to advertise him so they just took some generic mask guy picture or even as you pointed out the other day somebody had just taken a black marker and drone a drone
Starting point is 00:32:12 drawn a mask on this whoever this fucking guy was. Yeah, I've seen that in like Pfeffer programs for Tony Santos where yes, they're listing like wrestlers who either will be coming in or wrestlers that you're supposed to know from the past or wrestlers that Jack Pfeffer can bring in
Starting point is 00:32:31 and there'll be like, you know, various takes on wrestlers' names and people sometimes who later became famous wrestlers and then it'll be just like a drawing of someone. It'll be just like a drawing of a mask. You're like, that's not even a real mask. What is that? Or this, he would cut a picture of a belt out of another picture of a guy
Starting point is 00:32:53 and paste the belt loosely around the waist of the guy he was pushing. But anyway, we don't do any of that in this book, by the way. Again, heroes and friends. And it's not just all obscure folks, but it's people that have unique and fascinating stories that I had personal interactions with at various points in my life from the time I was a teenager.
Starting point is 00:33:18 It's part biography, part historical, perspective and part personal interactions. But Bobby Heenan, the Sheik, Bruno Samertino, Ray Stevens, The Dream Machine, Paul Bear, Vader, Boo Bradley, AKA Balls Mahoney. I'll always think of him as Boo. Sputnik, Monroe, Lance Russell, Ron Wright, and Pat Malone, and some of my photography,
Starting point is 00:33:45 some of stuff in my collection, Brian, some of the stuff in your collection, much of it never before seen, some of it hadn't been seen in years and lots of it's in full color. And they can be autographed for 2495 by 10 of them, ladies and gentlemen, and you've got your entire Christmas shopping done for your entire social circle that likes classic wrestling. Jim Cornett.com Saturday, October the 11th at noon eastern, and thank Hotchka's Featherbottom also for his wonderful assistance in the scanning
Starting point is 00:34:21 of my negatives as we have been praising so many 10. Now I've got to go back and just have him do that to everything. You know, he's given me a pain in the ass. He likes to sleep every once in a while, Brian. I'm not sure about these employees that like that's the good thing about
Starting point is 00:34:40 George Laurenitis, our new artist. That ain't his name. That ain't his name. Oh no. No, no. He doesn't sleep. He never sleeps. He's always up drawing the picture. That's why our clip turnaround on the YouTube channel, for those of you who
Starting point is 00:34:56 consume us on YouTube, hopefully you're wearing your monitors, it's boom, it's boom, because he doesn't sleep. He's up all night because night is day and I am we and we are all together. You're saying, thank you, George Laurenitis. Well,
Starting point is 00:35:15 there you go. Again, not Laurenitis, though. George Livonitis who's been our fine. That's what I said. Artist in residency for the official Jim Cornett YouTube channel go and subscribe full videos, full videos, full episodes, clips, omnibuses, and George has been doing a bang-up job. And so of other guests, we'll have more guests artists and a lot of people have submitted their art.
Starting point is 00:35:37 There'll be more people, more art styles you'll be seeing in the future. More people, more art? But George has been doing a great job, and we really do appreciate it. You know what you call a guy with no arms and no legs hanging on the wall? art art you know what you call a guy with no arms and no leg you keep going
Starting point is 00:35:59 you know what you call a guy with no arms and no legs sitting on the porch what's that Matt that's a see that's awful that's awful all right what do you say a woman with no arms and no legs
Starting point is 00:36:12 oh well nothing she won't come anyway nice tits oh I think I mixed up the other punchline from the other thing. I don't know. Maybe you mixed up the punch bowl. I don't know what's happening here this week.
Starting point is 00:36:26 All right. Anyway, are you ready for our big investigative report here? What's this about? Sure. This, I've told you earlier we're going to break news here. Well, we're not even going to break news. The news hasn't broken yet. We're going to prelude and predict the breaking news.
Starting point is 00:36:44 Because we mentioned Sheriff Buford Pusser the other day. on one of the programs, and they have released the information that they suspectify that he indeed murdered his wife, and now we got to details here from someone, Jake from Starkville, is what he called himself. So I'm assuming that's a cover name. Or do you know, does Charlie have family? Is it Charlie changing his name? Well, no, because it's not his email address either.
Starting point is 00:37:19 but I can't make any goddamn sense out of the email address, so this person doesn't want to be fucking quoted except anonymously. Anyway, this person says, I recently assisted in the years-long investigation into the murder of Pauline Pusser. I assure you the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is correct in their findings. For 30 years, I was a huge fan of Sheriff Pusser, Pusser. It was hard for me to accept the truth when I first became aware of this investigation three
Starting point is 00:37:54 years ago, but I can't deny solid evidence, common sense, and simple logic. I present this to you because I know many of your listeners will find the accusation hard to believe, but they will not be able to provide any evidence to the contrary. Also, Bruce Pritchard is a huge Beaufort Pusser fan, and I guarantee you he will dispute these findings up and down. What? In the conversations I've had in my life with Bruce, never once did the topic of Beaufort Pusser come up, but nevertheless.
Starting point is 00:38:34 I never think of Bruce Pritchard with the words walking tall. Well, sometimes you would think of not walking at all, but no, nevertheless, back to this, I guarantee you he'll dispute these findings up, and down, well, we'll present this evidence. Arm yourself with facts, my summation of the murder of Pauline Pusser. Everything I'm about to say is backed up by documented evidence. Much is available at Beaufort Pusser, the other story.
Starting point is 00:39:06 I don't know what that is exactly. The rest is in the hands of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, who are currently preparing the case file well over a thousand pages, for wide public release. This is what the files will conclude regarding the events of August 12, 1967. I'm not making a prediction, I know. So now, that's pretty much a declaration right there
Starting point is 00:39:35 that this unnamed person who sent this email is obviously legitimate, right? Obviously, you're not going to reveal their name and they have an alias. Did they indicate or say anything in the email that would make you think that this certainly is the legitimate investigator into this? Well, listen to this story and then you tell me, young Brian, because all things are as they were then, except you are there.
Starting point is 00:40:06 Beaufort and Pauline Pusser were separated. Pauline was fed up with his infidelity and abuse. She was having affairs of her own living out of a mobile home and a motel room in Savannah. and for those of you not familiar with West Tennessee geography, it's not Savannah, Georgia, Savannah, Tennessee. Where is Savannah, Tennessee? Say again. Where is Savannah, Tennessee?
Starting point is 00:40:29 In West Tennessee. Down near McNary County where he was sheriff. What is it? Is it 75 miles from Memphis up above the Mississippi state line? I can't remember exactly. I can't reach my Rand McNally. but somewhere in that area, right? Anyway, Pauline didn't have a car and relied on her friend Levan Plunk,
Starting point is 00:40:58 wife of Buford's chief deputy Pedy Plunk, to give her transportation. Now, this may sound like a goddamn episode of Green Acres, but I swear to God, knowing West Tennessee in the fucking 60s, these are the names of these people. So her friend Levan Plunk was the wife of Beauford Pusser's chief deputy Pedy Plunk and was driving Paulied around. She confided into Levant that she was leaving Beaufort and planned to get out for good the day of the 12th. Beaufort was afraid that Pauline could turn him into the feds due to his numerous corrupt dealings as Sheriff of McNary County, Tennessee.
Starting point is 00:41:46 Just a few days prior to the alleged ambush, Beaufort was overheard by Barbara Bivens and Shirley Smith telling Pauline that if she ever said anything to the feds about him, it'd be the last thing she'd ever do, and she'd be dead by morning. hours prior to the alleged ambush, Beauford was observed by Dennis Hathcock and Johnny Harrison receiving two... Haffcock?
Starting point is 00:42:15 Dennis Hathcock. He didn't go off Hathcocked. Dennis Hathcock and Johnny Harrison observed him, Buford, that is, receiving two high-powered rifles from an unidentified male at a state highway maintenance lot in the town of Eastview. This is so fucking old Tennessee bullshit. In the early morning hours of August 12, and by the way I mean bullshit,
Starting point is 00:42:44 I don't mean it's bullshit, I mean, this is so fucking real old East Tennessee type of shit, or West Tennessee. In the early morning hours of August 12, Levant drove Pauline to the home she once shared with Beaufort to collect some things before departing. she knew Beaufort's regular hours and didn't expect him home. Pauline instructed Levin to park down the street and wait.
Starting point is 00:43:11 Pauline indicated she would flash the porch light twice to signal all as well. Pauline walked down the street and entered the home. Diane, Pauline's 17-year-old daughter, was home at the time. Diane would say Pauline was very anxious and was trying to tell her something when they heard a car pull into the driveway. Levan Plunk, still outside, down the street in her car, saw Buford Pusser's Plymouth Fury pull into the driveway almost as soon as Pauline entered. LeVon would say she felt pure terror in that moment.
Starting point is 00:43:53 Pauline told Diane to hide. Diane went into her room and closed the door. She hid under the bed but could hear Buford and Pauline violently arguing followed by a loud noise. Outside, Levin heard what she described as a gunshot. Fearing for her life, Levant drove off. So she left Pauline. But she can't call the cops.
Starting point is 00:44:19 The cops are committing the crime. She was so afraid of Beaufort and all the things she had heard through her deputy husband that she never revealed this information as long as Beaufort was still alive. inside Diane would hear Buford go in and out the front door several times. She crawled from under the bed and looked out the window. Diane observed Buford carrying Pauline out to the car and placing her inside before driving off. During the initial investigation, a law enforcement officer gave a cursory glance at the pusser home and noticed blood, but didn't think anything of it at the time. So you got the scene, right, Brian?
Starting point is 00:45:05 Yeah, I mean, the question still comes to shooting himself in the jaw, however that worked, but keep going. Well, hold on here, because Beaufort's version of the events, which then was dramatized and extrapolated in the movie Walking Tall, he and Pauline were asleep and he got a call about a disturbance at the Mississippi State line. And awakened, Pauline spontaneously decides to accompany him for a ride-along. He claims she finally wants to see her husband at work. So the first time in the middle of the night, he gets a call and she ever wants to go with him, didn't end well for her. But never let me get editorial comments. But instead of taking either Highway 64 or Highway 45, which would have gotten Beaufort to the state line in about 15 minutes,
Starting point is 00:46:02 He drives a very out-of-the-way remote path consisting of unincorporated back roads past the small New Hope Methodist Church on New Hope Road at 4.30 a.m. Beaufort claims that approximately one mile past the church, a dark Cadillac pulled up beside him and fired two shots, one striking Pauline in the head. Beaufort would insist they were waiting behind the church and he didn't see him because they were driving without their headlights
Starting point is 00:46:34 and didn't hear him until a shot was fired, although they would have had to greatly accelerate a 1960s Cadillac engine to catch them in a mile. Modern reenactments have shown it would be almost impossible for a car to overtake another in that distance, especially without headlights, in such conditions. And in 1967, the road was poorly maintained and unincorporated.
Starting point is 00:47:05 And again, folks, if you're not familiar with Tennessee, in the 60s and 70s, an unincorporated road meant it might not be paved. It might be goddamn gravel. Any ambush party lying in wait would have had to have known that Beaufort would take this exact route to get to where he was called to go. Buford claims he floored his Plymouth Fury and outran the Cadillac.
Starting point is 00:47:37 He stopped approximately two miles further up the same road to check on Pauline. At this point, the Cadillac reappeared, pulling alongside Beaufort's car, and 12 more shots were fired at essentially point-blank range. Buford claimed he reached out and grabbed one of the barrels of the gun from the other car. of the 12 shots, one hit Pauline in the head again. And Buford suffered a wound to the chin and mouth. The Cadillac sped off.
Starting point is 00:48:13 Beaufort pulled himself up and continued driving towards Selmer, Tennessee. I've worked there. He stopped at a store and radioed for help. This is where the Selmer chief of police found him. And that is one of the most of the most, main parts of his story, as you mentioned earlier, Brian, or one of the main reasons why maybe he didn't have as much suspicion is because they shot him in the face. They shot him
Starting point is 00:48:46 in the face, right? But as we go on, there is more to the story. Modern analysis of the crime scene shows no evidence of any third party. The shots to the car don't match a rolling ambush at close range from multiple shooters, but do match shots from one individual from a distance of 15 feet. Bullet holes to the interior of the car do not align with Beaufort's version of the events. Significant blood splatter on the hood indicates Pauline was killed outside the vehicle and placed back inside. Interior bloodstains do not indicate anyone was shot while inside the vehicle.
Starting point is 00:49:36 The wound to Beaufort's chin and mouth was self-inflicted. It is indicative of a close contact wound from a revolver and not a high-powered rifle slug. After this supposed attempt on his life, Beaufort would get rid of his regular revolver and began carrying a smaller caliber. All evidence suggests the crime scene was staged. He shot himself in the face, Marvin. That's crazy.
Starting point is 00:50:09 And any of the clothes, at the time it was determined an autopsy on Pauline was unnecessary. Everyone accepted Buford's version of the events. Initially, Buford claimed he would recognize the shooters if he saw them again. a claim he'd quickly take back by then saying he didn't get that good a look. No one was ever prosecuted for the murder
Starting point is 00:50:32 and the case has officially remained unsolved for 58 years. Well, thank you, Jake from Starkville. But also, if anybody wants to sue you, it's his fault. But now we got to jump on him. Makes you wonder when the next movie's going to come out, right? Someone has to do a movie of all this,
Starting point is 00:50:55 the fact that they made a movie of this guy's life, made him into a hero. and it turns out there were people who knew this then didn't say anything. When did he die? Well, he died in 1974. In, I want to say in a car wreck, geez, can you type,
Starting point is 00:51:13 you know, I don't have room with all this expensive audio equipment you may be used to have my keyboard up here. Type in Buford Pusser and see, he died in 1974 in a car wreck, I'm pretty goddamn sure. and I think he was possibly drinking when it happened and driving. Actually, he wasn't drinking and driving. He drank and then he drove.
Starting point is 00:51:35 August 21st, 1974, one car automobile accident, four miles west of Adamsville. Yeah, so Carver came back and bit him right in the balls, didn't it? Because he didn't make it seven more years. Hey, listen, earlier that day, he had contracted with Bing Crosby,
Starting point is 00:51:55 productions in Memphis to portray himself in the sequel to Walking Tall. The day he signed that deal is the day he died. There you go. No, but he was, oh, he hit an embankment in his Corvette and was ejected from the vehicle, and then the car caught fire and burned. So a pretty spectacular way to go. In the words of Bobby Eaton, Fuck around, fuck around, pretty soon you won't be around.
Starting point is 00:52:30 Well, I'll tell you one thing, Brian. It ain't going to take almost 60 years of detective work to figure out who's going to murder who on September the 20th, is it? You couldn't get a more diverse philosophy and approach of whatever between the two companies. And the winner is, I said at the top of the show that AEW is forgetting to bring the army. Actually, they are bringing an army
Starting point is 00:53:00 and the WWE's bringing like, here, get a good basketball team together. And that'll do. That'll be fine. WWE has like fucking 10 people on the card that's going to kick the complete shit out of this AEW show with everybody that's ever bought a pair of boots.
Starting point is 00:53:21 Am I lying, Brian? Am I lying? Am I lying? Are my feet flying? have they left the ground? Well, you know, AEW already addressed this somewhat by moving their show up, hopefully alerting all those ticket buyers they have in Toronto, but they are now not competing necessarily head to head, although you have to think they may turn their event into like a nine-hour pay-per-view,
Starting point is 00:53:43 just the fuck with WWE. Do you think it does that? Do you think if they run along, it hurts WWE? No, I think it's like a bunch of outlaw guys flyer in the parking lot. is what it amounts to. That used to be a thing when outlaw promotions became a thing, where you'd leave the reputable event. There'd be flyers for the fucking outlaw group.
Starting point is 00:54:09 They even tried to flyer the OVW parking lot one night for the garbage wrestling down the road. And that's, it's going to be a minor annoyance. ESPN and their publicity machine, is behind this. The WWE and they're talking about it on all their programs and platforms. They've got Brock Lesner
Starting point is 00:54:34 versus John Sina. They've got the fucking mixed tape. They've got all the matches that we're going to announce or talk about with these stars and this giant promotion of the start of a new era, the dawn of a new age. I'm surprised they didn't pay for a goddamn moon rocket to plant a flag on a fucking moon.
Starting point is 00:54:55 and then over here on the other side of the street on welcome back baby to the poorest side of town do do do do do do you got the same bunch of mangled shit that they've been doing
Starting point is 00:55:13 because Tony's hit the fucking wall on this TV show what's the main event an eight-man tag or a thin man tag how many thumbtack screwdrivers Pork screws, goddamn hypodermic needles. Can we jam into the program this week?
Starting point is 00:55:33 They might as well do it from the studios of MTV. What network is jackass reruns on these days, Brian? I don't know. I didn't know they were in reruns. I didn't know anyone. It used to be MTV2 that you would put the fringe young people doing stupid things to their own selves, as Mama Cornett would say.
Starting point is 00:55:57 There the phone is ringing. Are these the Nielsen people again? It's the goddamn Nielsen people again. Shut up. But nevertheless, go ahead and if you would, Brian, illuminate the fans. Eliminate the fans?
Starting point is 00:56:14 What is it going on over there? The Nielsen. Illuminate the fans on what the lineups are that are that are competing with the wrestling fans attention for September 20th and let's examine
Starting point is 00:56:28 who's done what to who here. Who's about to get their fucking toes stomped. Why don't we start with WW who, after AEW announced our event, announced that they were going to do an event, which will be Russell
Starting point is 00:56:43 Paloza. Also promoted as Russell Paloza Indianapolis. And it takes place at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, Indiana. here are the matches announced and we have a potential extra match, but we'll get there momentarily. And unfortunately, Dick the Bruiser was not available to be a special referee. For the vacant Women's World Championship, Eoskeye versus Stephanie Vaccare.
Starting point is 00:57:16 That was vacated due to the insemination of the previous champion. Correct? That's right. Well, then we wish these young ladies all the best. And is this like catching a bouquet as soon as whichever one wins? Are they going to be impregnated next? That's not how it works. But do me a favor.
Starting point is 00:57:39 Can you watch this match? Stephanie Vakere's really good. I think you should walk. You know, I'm having a tooth pulled until like two days after this show. This will get you ready. This is like pre-op. Put me to sleep? All right.
Starting point is 00:57:51 Okay. All right. All right. It'll be worth it. What else we got to look forward to? A tag team match, the Uso's, Jay and Jimmy, versus the Vision,
Starting point is 00:58:06 Bronson Reed and Bronner, I could honestly do without the name the Vision, but we love the folks on the heel team, especially Bronbreaker. The Uso's getting back together is a big deal. I don't expect to smooth. I don't expect
Starting point is 00:58:26 Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rogers level fucking work out of them, but because their reunion is going to be over because it's kind of like a Hardee's thing, where now they're back together after going on their separate paths.
Starting point is 00:58:43 And that's going to obviously be the interest of the match, but this is a chance for these young heels again to shine with guys that are over with the people. Now, Jim, as we said before, there's only four matches currently announced publicly as we are recording, but as Dave Meltzer reports in this week's observer, Cody Rhodes defends the WWE title against Drew McIntyre, not announced, but was confirmed early in the week.
Starting point is 00:59:13 And they have this week, and I would expect that that would be imminently being announced, right? we're speaking here, what, five hours before Smackdown. So it could happen at any time. It could happen at any time. The time has come. Cody and Drew, that's a big name deal at a big title match. And I would have loved to see it a little more build for it. But again, it's not like they're throwing out Pete Sanchez against a Brooklyn brawler here.
Starting point is 00:59:49 And then, Jim, we have two big matches here at the end. John Sina versus Brock Lesner. You know, that's the indication that they consider this more important than anything else they're doing for a while, that Brock's first official matchback is here. And they wanted something blockbuster, and they want to turn it into a goddamn you know, annual thing is I believe one of the the many suit wearing multi-millionaires that now work for the billionaire corporation
Starting point is 01:00:34 that now owns all these people. They want to make this a big annual thing. So Brock Leicester and John Cena for the one would assume the last time. John Cena will win if it's the last time. Brock Leicester will win if it's not the last time. that would be big enough for anything else under any normal circumstances, but Brian, holy mackerel,
Starting point is 01:01:00 it just keeps coming. There's a double main event. Well, Jim, before we move on, you just gave your prediction for that match. We didn't give your predictions for the other matches so far before we get to the final main event. E.O. versus Stephanie Vakere, vacant women's title. I got...
Starting point is 01:01:19 I have no earthly idea, but let's go with E.O because all the people on Twitter just seem to love her. I'm going to go with Stephanie Vakere, because the same people seem to love her, and Eio has already had the belt a few times. Stephanie Vercour may be ready. Well, then let's love on her for a while if she's ready for love. Uso's versus vision. Do you think she is ready for love? I mean, ready for love?
Starting point is 01:01:44 The Uso's versus the vision. Well, I can, I can, I can. see things both ways, Brian. I think it's kind of an opportunity, and especially if they have some kind of drama that's the subtext of the story with
Starting point is 01:02:04 L.A. Knight going on with Jay. It would be a nice step up for the heels to take this one, especially because I believe it's going to be baby faces at the top of the card. And Cody versus Drew? I think the belt is safe in the road.
Starting point is 01:02:20 household right now. It doesn't have to leave the bus. And then we get the final match, Jim, the mixed tag team match. C.M. Punk and A.J. Lee versus Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch. And now we're doing this one last, but we have no, we don't have a run sheet. We don't know what will go on last. It might very well be seen in Lesnar. But I got to be honest, we, I think this one has as much. if not more interest, and especially amongst the people that are going to really want to watch this show.
Starting point is 01:02:59 The idea of, you know, the Rollins family and the punk family, it's a personal issue. And yes, I know with Brock and Sina, he came out, he f-5ed him. That's the, he came out and f-fived him, and then he came out of, was it a month or was it six weeks later? and F-5ed him twice. And then said, I'll see you at Russell Paloza, bitch. This is not exactly a memorable build to a match
Starting point is 01:03:31 that will be remembered down through the ages. So I think it's the idea that it's two big names, and it's, you know, we're going to see Brock another handful of times probably wrestle. We're going to see Sena another handful of times. But with the personal issue between these guys and girls,
Starting point is 01:03:50 that are happening now. They're the happening kids. They're with it. There's more emotional investment from the fans, just on one, especially one to see the baby face girl get her hands on the heel girl, as it should be. Because they've seen the,
Starting point is 01:04:11 that's what the experienced veterans, one of the things that they taught me when I first got in the business. If you're the manager or the vans, at that point or the female half of this mixed tag, they get to see the fans get to see the top guys get beat up and take bumps and even bleed and whatever. But the fans didn't used to get to see the manager get beat up all the time
Starting point is 01:04:40 or the valet, anybody gets hands on her or the girl or whatever. So you keep that as special and it means more. And now they've incorporated that. into a modern bit of business here. So I guess what I'm saying is, yes, they're going to love Ciencina against Lesnar and it's a Battle of Stars and blah, blah, blah, but they're really going to be jumping up and down
Starting point is 01:05:06 and just cheering for the sake of it for the mixed tag. Does that make sense, Brian? Yeah, it definitely feels like the hotter match. It definitely feels like the one that has actually had some angles building up to it other than just he shows up, he does something and then they'll do some other stuff in between
Starting point is 01:05:25 and he'll show up again. He's a man, a few words. Who do you think is going to win this match? Again, I could, if I was sitting in the room, I could entertain a pitch either way depending on where they're going with it.
Starting point is 01:05:44 And I would think that there was a creative, or I would hope that there would be a creative way that everybody could agree on that the baby faces could win somehow, but possibly get that rug pulled out from under them, which may be possibly a reason why Sina and Brock may go on last if it wasn't going to already, where the heels got some kind of, you know, cheap shot or whatever, you know what I'm saying, and especially amongst the girls to keep it alive
Starting point is 01:06:20 because they've got legs with what they could do with it based on this interest. AJ's just got back, obviously. So, but I would, I would entertain something either way, depending on where they were going after this, and we don't know which is the great part about it. Well, that is the lineup as of now as we are recording for Russell Paloosa. Of course, they may add some stuff in the next week or so,
Starting point is 01:06:47 but we'll stay on top of that. What a show. See him punk. The return of A.J. Lee after 10 years. Seth Rollins is a star. Becky Lynch is a star. John Sina, Brock Lester, the return after a couple of years. John Sina is about to retire Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre in a WWE title match.
Starting point is 01:07:08 The Uso's reunite. That's pretty fucking loaded. How loaded was Tony when he put together? what they're trying to steal some attention away with. Well, again, they announced their card first. A.W. All Out. No, they announced the show. They announced the show first.
Starting point is 01:07:39 Right. They've announced the date. A number of matches. They announced the date, exactly. But, you know, they've had a lot of time to get here. So what are they putting on their big show here? that would be in opposition or combat or try to steal thunder from
Starting point is 01:07:58 that loaded lineup over there. All right, and I actually have a few different things open here because there are matches that are official and then there are matches that are rumored to be or alluded to be. It seems like they will be happening. Are you talking about the AEW mouth organ, Uncle Dave? Well, and the observer, he has matches
Starting point is 01:08:21 that obviously wouldn't be on a Wikipedia. let alone an AEW website. No, they wouldn't lower themselves to being on things like that. But this is a big lineup here. Let me start with what's official. In a tag team match, Adam Copeland and Christian Cage versus FTR with Stokely.
Starting point is 01:08:44 Okay, and they are in Toronto, by the way, we should mention that. And Edge and Christian reuniting after all these years in Toronto for the live house that would probably be the thing that's going to bring the house down and I would assume are they going to sell out
Starting point is 01:09:07 and wherever they're at in Toronto up there for this certainly to God. I would have to check the ticket sales but I would think that they would do it's the hottest wrestling market traditionally Toronto. One would think we'll find out if they do but nevertheless, the point is, and again, every time I say
Starting point is 01:09:26 and they can have a good match with FTR, people, again, freak out and go, he'll never give up on FTR. He glazes them, like the kids say. I do like a good donut every now and then, but it's no, they can functionally have a better match with most people in the ring than anybody in AEW,
Starting point is 01:09:48 but I've also made it clear that they completely meaningless at this point and that they've done nothing to help their image that they once had, which was better than it is today, with the creative and et cetera. And the bill to this, they've already given away, Edge and Christian's reunion, and that's just our first time back in, back at home, and against the nitwits they had to work with. It's just the, the So the promotion has been fumbled, but I will say that's going to be their, in the building,
Starting point is 01:10:26 their biggest thing. I said it the other day, they'll probably be the best match on the card. How long do you think they'll give them? Knowing how they... Well, as long as they want. What do you think? 30 minutes or more?
Starting point is 01:10:39 Yes or no? Well, no, because I don't think Edge and Christian are going to want 30 minutes because I think they're not going to want to fucking take a chance I'm just thinking their hometown reunion out. I think they will realize that they've got wonderful opponents in Dax and cash, and if they do 16, 18 minutes with a whiz-bang finish, it'll just be just lovely.
Starting point is 01:11:06 I don't think they want to go 30 minutes, or they shouldn't. Jim in a big trios match. The Hurt Syndicate of Bobby Lashley, Shelton Benjamin, and MVP. versus Ricosay and the Gates of Agony comprised of Bishop Kahn and Toa Leona.
Starting point is 01:11:30 I've now discovered why they named them the Gates of Agony because that's what you feel like you're passing through every time you watch their fucking matches. Jesus Christ on a cracker. What they have I don't know what they've done
Starting point is 01:11:46 here, but let's examine what they've done here. The Hurt Syndicate were over as heels in a popular fashion because they came out, they looked professionally, they threw people around, and they dominated physically, and they looked good doing it, and they just come off as a big deal. And so people get into it. But then they completely have no baby face team whatsoever ready to face these guys and give them any kind of goddamn legitimate,
Starting point is 01:12:22 believable challenge. Instead of just, they focus elsewhere on a bunch of children. So when it comes time to have somebody to fight these fucking guys, nobody can stand up to them. So then, instead of do it again,
Starting point is 01:12:38 you do something with FTR just because at least they could pick Shelton and Bobby up, believably. They go through this round robin fucking business to get the belts off of them and now have turned them baby face,
Starting point is 01:12:52 apparently, against whiny ricochet and these two fat fucking guys that they've goddamn found off the fucking indie somewhere. They're not fat. Bishop Kahn's in pretty great shape, it seems like. And the other guy is just a big guy.
Starting point is 01:13:10 Then the one fat guy, the other fucking jacked up guy, I don't care. They're black holes of charisma. Not only do they have no charisma, but they suck in the charisma of those around them. As we'll talk about on television, the fight where they're trying to fight even with it was just, it was an even fight.
Starting point is 01:13:29 And it exposes that Shelton Benjamin's the only one that can really fucking move around out of the four of them. But the point is now they're being put in, I guess, a baby-faced position against whiny ricochet and his two stooges that were jerking the curtains until three weeks ago. And Rick O'Shea ain't set the world on fire unless he's a goddamn arsonist in his double life.
Starting point is 01:13:58 So an MVP's already in the ring. The men, while they were heels, nobody got the goddamn manager in the ring for any baby faces and try to get evil with him. And now they're baby faces. he's already in the ring after their baby faces for two weeks. To fuck. Help me.
Starting point is 01:14:23 Please don't beat up your microphone there. I think MVP did wrestle a few times in AEW. I remember seeing him in a match. I don't remember what the setup was or who it was against, and that's a big part of the problem. I don't think there was a setup. I think they just had him wrestle somebody, and I commented on it then. There was no setup, but it wasn't like anybody was even trying to get even with him. Any prediction on this big man?
Starting point is 01:14:44 Yeah, it ain't going to be real good. Hopefully, somebody in the Hurt Syndicate will beat somebody else, but it won't happen that way. I bet Rickshay will do something because he's the tiniest person and the thing. Well, Jim, in a match for the TBS championship, a match I'm looking forward to seeing maybe more than anything else on this show. Mercedes Monet, the champion, versus Reho.
Starting point is 01:15:19 Oh, I can't get it. This is the perfect example of, as I said the other day, the snake bit promotion. Even when they try to do things, and they're just, it's bad luck. They've been cursed by an old gypsy. Maria Ospanskaya. They get Rejo and the day,
Starting point is 01:15:43 WWE gets AJ Lee. So, no, I mean, we have no reason to believe that anything but a carefully orchestrated seal team mission can beat Mercedes Moon. So I don't think Rio is going to. Rio's indestructible. Are you kidding me? Except when she gets hurt, I was home for a couple of years. You know what?
Starting point is 01:16:07 Then this is going to be the irresistible force, the immovable object, matter and antimatter. and something may blow up, and between the two of them, they're almost 200 pounds. So reinforce the ring. Rejo has just returned, of course, former champion, I believe the first women's champion
Starting point is 01:16:28 and a storied career in AEW. Do you see her losing in her first big match back, and if she wins, is she the person to take any of those belts off Mercedes-Money? You, again, Rih-ho, she's not a serious professional wrestler. It is a weird fondness for fringe gimmick re by Kenny Olivier that caused Riho to be inflicted upon an American television audience.
Starting point is 01:17:07 And I don't care how bad shit fucking crazy that Tony Conner and the rest of these people about anything else, there's no way that they could possibly after all they've done with Mercedes Mone, who has been a giant flop for the money she's been paid and turned in embarrassing
Starting point is 01:17:26 acting fucking rehearsal performances and a ridiculous amount of self-love in her various activities. But there's no way they would, in any way, put Rejo over her with the investment they've made so far
Starting point is 01:17:48 and her beating everybody else. And at some point, somebody would say, but you realize that Rejo is not, this is not, nobody's going to take this seriously anymore, not even our fucking people. One would imagine. We will see what happens. Jim in a coffin match.
Starting point is 01:18:11 Oh, Christ. John Moxley. versus the AEW ratings. No, John Moxley versus Darby Allen. Well, why wouldn't they? The Undertaker invented the Coffin matches, and now the Coffin matches are being carried on by a guy that's pretty soon going to need an Undertaker.
Starting point is 01:18:32 Haven't they been building up it being a body bag match? If you think of the angles they've been doing on TV? Well, but how can you fucking take a bump off the top rope to the floor into a body bag? You can take some cool bumps into a coffin, but you pretty much just goddamn dive into a fucking hefty bag. That's true. Wouldn't end well for anybody.
Starting point is 01:18:56 Wouldn't make good television. The fuck. Of course, these fucking nitwits. Jesus Christ. So I know they like the weird little thing. I guess I should be more specific. The weird smaller, the littlest thing, Darby, they like that weird little thing.
Starting point is 01:19:16 And he does the collar. and they've been bodybagging each other. So now the next thing is they can take some wonderfully fun bumps into a coffin. And I just have to think that if Darby doesn't win this, that there might be some goddamn retribution on Moxley from some of the fans just, no, go away. We can't take it anymore. he's got to put this kid over in the coffin match, doesn't he?
Starting point is 01:19:51 I mean, who knows? We have nonstop interference for horsemen style in every Moxley match. So he really can't predict that. But just did they brought him, but you see, he spent $160,000 Darby Ellen did to climb that fucking mountain. Jesus, H. Christ. What about if he did this? Did Tony pay for any of it? Because it was promoting AEW technically.
Starting point is 01:20:13 Well, no, Tony paid for all of it. In fact, he put, had him on contract, sent him a goddamn check. But Darbya could have collected the same goddamn check sitting at home eating fucking Fritos. Instead, he went and climbed a goddamn mountain for 160 grand. But the point is, how about this? Couldn't he have gone to his local skate park and climbed the biggest fucking thing
Starting point is 01:20:39 and then donated $159,9955 dollars to feet? hungry children or something for fuck's sake but nevertheless what is that is that airfare plus mountain fair sherpa sherpa fair i don't know like what else see what are the hey have you said have you fed a llama lately you know what the fuck i'm telling you they'll eat you out of house and home after a few days that llama becomes your food and only a properly cooked but anyway Do you think they're just going to destroy each other? It'll be a really brutal match. And then after like 20 minutes of that,
Starting point is 01:21:19 they'll get in the ring and start trading blows back and forth, like every Moxley match? Well, of course. But I don't say destroy each other. Moxley will beat the shit out of him and he'll let him. And then Moxley will just in some way incite his own blood, but he'll do it in the usual style of shitty work. And some way or another, some other baby faces will help foil his,
Starting point is 01:21:45 heels and there'll be a big schmaws and Moxley will end up in the coffee. That's what I'm saying. Well, Jim, the next match here in a I guess they're still doing this, it hasn't ended yet. Thumbtacks and tables match for MJF versus Mark Briscoe. Oh, boy. What Jesus Christ?
Starting point is 01:22:10 Thumb tax. MJF is not going to lose and Mark never wins a big one. The Gipper would have been ashamed of him. I can't. Maybe is MJF going to take time off to go
Starting point is 01:22:29 impregnate his new wife or something, if that's the case, and Mark might be going over, but if MJF is going to, why is MJF? Time off from what? Time off from one day a week. I mean, he's filming a movie right now too, isn't he?
Starting point is 01:22:44 Well, Okay, well, and there you go. He's going to a movie set. Mark might win. He might knock him into the Thables and the Tumtacks. MJF has been so diminished. And it's just now it's the repetitive, mad promos. And he has no direction and no opponents.
Starting point is 01:23:08 And they try to do this with Mark, but it was unfortunately quite late. and muddled in the middle and I, you know, and thumb tacks. So whatever the fuck. I would think M.JF would be winning, but you never know. Jim and a four-way for the AEW Women's World Championship. Why wouldn't it be? Timeless Tony Storm versus Jamie Hader versus Chris Statlander versus Teckla.
Starting point is 01:23:45 Remind me who's got a... it now. Timeless Tony Storm. She's got the, which women's title is this? Several of the women have belts. The AW women's world championship. What's Mercedes got?
Starting point is 01:24:00 The TBS Championship. Well, she's got nine of them, though. She also has nine, eight other belts that we don't know. Yeah. Well, you say, I mean, out of those names, I would,
Starting point is 01:24:16 think that they would take care of Tony Storm because she's like the closest thing they have to a star on the women's roster, even if she is preposterous. They love her. They love her little, bless her little heart, unless they're going to try to get old Thetla over in some fashion. I'm hoping that Tony Storm would retain out of that clustered crew. for the AEW World Championship Don Callis family banned from ringside Hangman Adam Page versus Kyle Fletcher
Starting point is 01:24:57 I will save my comments on Kyle Feltcher's appearance on the TV show the other night for when we talked about the TV show the other night but I understand they were originally going to have Paige defend against Wardlow until Wardlow hurt himself his first night back by clotheslining the manager. Apparently that's when it happened. And that would have been a real blockbuster of an event.
Starting point is 01:25:32 But they're going to do move after move after move, and they're going to go 30 or 35 minutes to prove that Kyle is ready to be a main event player. And Paige ain't ready to be a main event player. So how's he going to make Kyle ready to be a main event player? They're going to do more things than you've ever seen anybody do to each other to each other. And then Paige is going to win, but somehow they think that is putting Kyle in this position long before he's ready. And he looks like he's a 12-year-old fucking bookworm. we'll get him over if they do a lot of moves.
Starting point is 01:26:11 So, yeah, Paige is going to beat him eventually. And there's one more official match. Jeez, how many is this now? Well, this is official matches. There's eight of these. For the AEW Unified Championship, the champion, Kazushka Okada. Oh, Lord.
Starting point is 01:26:31 Versuski Takesha. Versus, either Masse, Mascara Dorada or the beast mortos. Oh, God. Well, old Tagashet will not do anything to Okada that Okada doesn't want him to do because of his respect for his elder, which means that Tagasit will do almost nothing to Okada. and they got the other guy there, whichever one of it is, to drop the fall. And I don't know why that they would put poor take in that position of having to be the guy in the middle of the laziest, boringest, carefulest,
Starting point is 01:27:24 lack of working hardest, laziest, as I mentioned, wrestler in the in the business, but Okada will still win. Because he, it's like they dug up Mickey Mantle's fucking corpse and put him back on the goddamn Yankees. Is he still going to be allowed to hit home runs? Well, according to Dave Meltzer here, this will be the first ever meeting between Okada and Takesha, along with, of course, either Dorada or Mortos.
Starting point is 01:28:00 I bet you Kiefer Sutherland never met, goddamn John Wilkes booth either, even though they were both actors. Well, there's some more... See, yeah, you can't argue with that, can you? I don't know how you pulled that one out of your took us, but let's go now, Jim. Took us. Took us. To the observer. Where are you going to take us?
Starting point is 01:28:22 Well, Dave Meltzer says, from television, it appears they will add Bandito and Brody King, the team of Brodito versus the Young Bucks for the tag titles. Okay, that... will be longer than it. It's not even necessary, and it will be longer than necessary
Starting point is 01:28:41 because of the Harley boys being involved in it, and they got to do all of their trampoline stuff. But again, the bro-ditos are their tag team champions, and they're not going to drop them to these two at this point because Tony's in love with the team name. Well, we'll see what the result is. here's another match.
Starting point is 01:29:05 Not sure I want to watch this one. Samoa Joe and Katsuri Shabata and Powerhouse Hobbs versus Daniel Garcia, Claudio Castignoli, and Wheeler Yuda for the trio's titles. Now this is just maybe a possibility. That's what Dave Meltcher thinks they're teasing on TV.
Starting point is 01:29:26 Is there still time for a write-in campaign? Does please don't do that? Please. And this may be the most interesting. interesting one here. Dave Meltzer wrote that he thinks that, well, Dave Meltzer wrote, perhaps perhaps Big Bill
Starting point is 01:29:42 versus Eddie Kingston in Kingston's return. It's happening soon, but not confirmed for this show. So it could happen, but also, if not now, soon. But also, since
Starting point is 01:30:03 Eddie Kingston hasn't been anywhere around. Has he made appearances on the program we don't watch along with everybody else that doesn't watch it on Saturday nights? I don't think so. And done something with Big Bill. Why would you book him to come back against Big Bill? He's going to reenact the Hogan Andre body slam and body slam and pin the seven-foot giant? Why is Big Bill Eddie Kingston's sacrificial lamb when he comes back?
Starting point is 01:30:33 That seems odd. One would think that Eddie Kingston could do more things to a guy he could pick up and move around a little bit. Just, all right. And we haven't seen Big Bill in a while either. Well, I mean, again, I'm not saying that he's, you know, shouldn't be beaten or, you know, is in dire need of a push or whatever. But it just out of nowhere, why would you match him with Kingston on Kingston's return to
Starting point is 01:31:04 he's the guy to make Kingston look good when he's he's a foot taller he's got a great body and Kingston's a foot
Starting point is 01:31:10 shorter he looks like shit the fuck I don't well of course we'll see what becomes official they always have
Starting point is 01:31:20 a zero hour pre-show filled with other multi-person matches AW all out Toronto
Starting point is 01:31:27 the day of wrestle Paloza say something help me yes I'm put a period on it.
Starting point is 01:31:37 Period. Period. All right. Well, then I'll tell you what, after watching the AEW in the afternoon for about five or six or seven or eight hours and then the WW at night for a palatable three hours, don't you think we're going to need a good night's sleep, Brian? Yes. Yes. How you say something. Well, I'll tell you how you can get one.
Starting point is 01:32:03 You can rest in peace. Rest in peace on a helix sleep mattress. Because, Brian, is that not what you always want to do? You always want to rest in peace. You don't want to go to sleep and toss and turn and wake up screaming and shit the bed. You want to rest in peace and quiet and comfort and luxury. I wouldn't phrase it that way necessarily, but everyone deserves a good night's sleep. And if you have the wrong mattress, you're going to have the wrong night's sleep.
Starting point is 01:32:33 You need the right night's sleep. And of course, Helix Sleep, a mattress for everyone. You find the mattress that's right for you. They sent it to you. Magic process of opening it and whoosh or just the unfurling, the magical unfurling of your mattress, you watch it come to life and then you get to create new life on it. Or whatever it is you do on it, Helix Sleep. Do I have to bring you back to the ground now on this one for heaven's sake?
Starting point is 01:33:04 No, you, here's what, and you are still resting in peace. That's what I say to Stacey every night. Rest in peace, dear. Because I know she's on a helic sleep mattress. Okay, Beaufort. She's going to be floating. And she's got one of those watches. You know, it tells you the things that you're doing with your heart and your lungs
Starting point is 01:33:25 and your liver and your kidneys and when you sleep and everything, one of those high-tech space age type of deals. and she got that. And of course, every night when she used to go to sleep, she'd wake up and it would just say 666. But now when she wakes up off the Helix mattress, it just says ZZZZ. Of course, Jim, that ZZ Top always liked a good night's sleep.
Starting point is 01:33:53 All three members and the audience out there want to get the Z's when they go to sleep. All three members of the audience out there? All three members of ZZT, top and the millions and millions of sleepers. One thing I could tell you about everyone listening to the show, they all go to sleep every night, they all need a good mattress. Let's tell all about that, Jim. Yeah, we did a survey one time, and it was over 94% of the listeners often go to sleep.
Starting point is 01:34:21 Folks, right now there's a big sale going on, because what is today? I'll tell you what it, it's time for you to save money. The Labor Day sale has been extended at Helix. sleep.com, you can get 25% off site wide. That is an entire mattress for only the cost of three quarters of a mattress. Or you do the math if you get more than one. From now until September 30th. And that's because the Labor Day sale has been extended.
Starting point is 01:34:54 They've gone into extra labor. They might have that some of these mattresses will be delivered by Caesarian. But nevertheless, right now, healing. sleep.com slash jCE and make sure you use the code jCE and enter our show name after checkout so they know that we sent you but you will get one of these fine custom made beautiful spacious mattresses you can actually sometimes rent space in these mattresses I know this one couple rented the bottom of their mattress to this college girl and they it was just when she
Starting point is 01:35:33 had to stay up late studying it was a problem but otherwise there was plenty of room for everybody jim you hear that you know what that means that's the official it's about to happen we have to let everyone know and i knew that it was it was going to come in i knew when it was i was bringing it in like a ship from the sea helix sleep dot com slash j c e 25% off site wide the labor day sale is extended now of the Angels and rest in peace. A normal night's sleep and a great night's sleep. With Helix Sleep, we love them here in my house. They're big fans at Emacastell Cornet.
Starting point is 01:36:15 Let us know what you think. helixleep.com slash JCE. Well, what do you think, Brian, about the big events that are going on in the TKO world of the big corporate entity now that controls the strings of all of our favorite wrestlers, our beloved sport, the sport of kings. And now the insignia piece of the whole company, WrestleMania, the rage that started at all,
Starting point is 01:36:57 we've lost it. We lost it to the dagam Saudi Arabians. What the heck? Are they just going to, Why don't they get a stadium show? I'm talking about the WWE office. It could be in Pittsburgh if they want to wherever. And just hold all the fans that come hostage and make them pay like
Starting point is 01:37:17 their families pay five or ten grand apiece to get them out. They'd probably end up with too many leftovers and nobody wanted. But I mean, how can they make any more money? All of these are questions. By doing more business with the Saudis, by doing more business with the Saudis is the only guaranteed way to make more money. And they are trying to pump this thing with as much... With as much revenue-producing opportunities as any business ever.
Starting point is 01:37:49 I mean, it's astounding. We'll talk a little bit later about what Mark Shapiro of T.K.O. I had to say about ticket sales and past ticket sales. But WrestleMania, that's the biggest one. That's the name. even people who don't know wrestling. Mr. T's daughter the other day, my dad and Hulk Hogan
Starting point is 01:38:07 would go do a WrestleMania. You know, for a lot of people who don't know wrestling, they think every event is a WrestleMania. It's like a Kleenex. It became just a catch-all term. It's one thing when there's the Royal Rumble and then there's the Saudi Arabian Royal Rumble.
Starting point is 01:38:22 But when you actually just take the event and you're putting it over there, that also means, if it's two days of WrestleMania, it's days of WrestleMania. That's WrestleMania airing here in the United States in the middle of the day and you have to wonder about
Starting point is 01:38:37 I mean I can't imagine it would probably be the smallest amount of fans to travel to a WrestleMania ever including the first one including the first one including the first one but no I think you're right there because there's going to be a lot of people's streaks
Starting point is 01:38:54 come to an end at WrestleMania as far as all these fans that have fanatically gone if you go to Saudi Arabia for a wrestling event or something wrong with you, for God's sake, that is this taking, and you brought up a variety of things, and we're going to get into the details,
Starting point is 01:39:17 including that apparently they didn't mean to announce it, but they sent out a press release in Arabic, and people caught onto it. It was a couple of days early. Actually, as we are recording right now, I believe their press conference, which everyone thinks is to announce, this will be taking place in 15 minutes or so.
Starting point is 01:39:35 Yeah, but it has already been pretty much confirmed. But again, 2027, it would be WrestleMania. One would also think that that will be the Smackdown and the Raw and the, you know, whatever they have to do over the course of that weekend. And they're just about to announce it. And that's after they pulled out. of New Orleans for next year to give it back to Las Vegas because they could get more money out of Las Vegas.
Starting point is 01:40:12 Now, 2027 is going to Saudi Arabia for what is apparently over $100 million, depending on whether the rock wrestles. And these people can just buy anything. And by the way, that's the 300th anniversary of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Oh, well, we can't let that go by unmarked. So in terms of them spending money and them trying to get, they're trying to get everything over there. But they're going to, you know, spare no expense
Starting point is 01:40:40 when it comes to making WWE happy for this. But that's, I mean, even over here to an extent, they are now having cities bid on whether they get pay-per-views or big events. Hey, Boston, you don't want to pay $5 million? Well, God damn it, Cleveland will pay $5 million. I mean, we used to have to get it. Coming to town under cover of darkness,
Starting point is 01:41:02 and now the goddamn mayor has to authorize the funds to bring us. Good Lord. But that's, so that's the thing. Is this an example? Is this going to be a taking Starcade out of Greensboro type of moment for the WWE fans or at least the significantly hardest core portion of them? You know, and you may want to answer that phone and maybe Nielsen. I don't know
Starting point is 01:41:30 I don't know if there's anything that could really be at taking StarCade out of Greensboro moment for the modern day WWE the way it's concocted the way it's run by TKO Did they not care enough
Starting point is 01:41:42 these days? You know, Greensboro, the reaction from the Greensboro wrestling fans, correct me if I'm wrong, to losing Starcade was the reaction of in a lot of cases
Starting point is 01:41:55 regular fans, working class fans, fans who felt like the wrestling was more than something they every now and then went to, it was something that was part of the community in a sense. Yeah. And you're right, there is not that anymore. Yeah, well, WW is chasing that away, it would seem.
Starting point is 01:42:17 That's why I always said that that was one of the big plays. Tony kind of never figured I had a book or had the right talent. That's the one big thing to play into because they're pricing people out and people are noticing it. but, you know, I said before that I think at the end of the day, the Saudis are going to end up owning WWE. And maybe I should rephrase that, I think they'll probably end up owning TKO. Because there's no one else who's willing to just splurge like that.
Starting point is 01:42:46 And they're really trying hard to make Saudi Arabia a serious destination for sporting events, events featuring Hollywood, film festivals. They want everything. Well, now, when they have bought these other companies, they still keep the people in charge of them that are in charge, that are familiar with the particular business and market that they are in rather than, in other words, they wouldn't just send, you know, six, six guys from the sheikh's fucking sports council to just start running TCO. They would still keep management in place. We don't know that. even close to that happening. I'm not saying we know it, but would that be their track record? Is that what they normally do? Hey, listen, how many of these guys are used to hearing the word no?
Starting point is 01:43:37 When they have a booking idea that they want to come with that they own the thing, there's going to be a lot of problems, but we'll get there. So you're saying the next, the chic, Sali bin, Tony Khan is going to be even more dangerous than the other one we got. You know, I just think that we're on an interesting road with WWE where, you know, it's just so weird and we'll talk about Vince McMahon in a short while. But for all the problems with Vince McMahon's creative and certainly his behavior from what we've learned, there always was an element of, you know, he's the modern day P.T. Barnum. and P.T. Barnum was built on touring. You know, wasn't just having something and, you know, every now and then doing it. And WWE is losing any domestic local feel they still had, even though they didn't run places regularly.
Starting point is 01:44:36 You know, but little things. You know, Madison Square Garden's not going to have their annual Christmas show this year because they're doing a show in November instead. Or they don't come back to towns as much. They've cut house shows because they don't make enough. money. It's a dangerous point when the people in charge are chasing every buck because eventually it's going to interfere with things that people can't ignore. When business decisions are starting to be made about whatever area of their business they're trying to prop up. You know, I think it's a scary road. And again, it comes back to the Saudis. This is a Vince McMahon
Starting point is 01:45:10 thing that started under him. They paid a lot of money. And by the way, his agent at that time, I think was Nick Con. If that was before Nick Con was working there, he was their agent. So they've been doing deals with Saudi Arabia for a while, $50 million a show, whatever, $100 million for two nights of WrestleMania, they'll go to wherever someone will pay them. I'm sure if any country right now said,
Starting point is 01:45:37 you know, I'd love that WrestleMania here, I'm going to outbid the Saudis. They will get WrestleMania. It's that simple. And, I hate to say sad state of affairs, it's capitalism, it's commerce, it's business, but, you know, when you're going after every single dollar the way they are, you're going to burn something out soon, I think.
Starting point is 01:45:58 But that's just the way I feel. Well, that's what they're doing, and not just getting $100 million plus for WrestleMania in 2027. That's if the Rock agrees to wrestle. These negotiations seem to be going well, though. And whatever else they're going to do for the other shows around that, it's going to be a multi-gazillion dollar deal. But who had another one of these suits that run this operation,
Starting point is 01:46:31 that are running this fleeting market? Was it Shapiro or I can't remember which one? Mark Shapiro. Mark Shapiro. C-O-O of T-KL. Well, there you go. oh, oh, oh. He came out and said,
Starting point is 01:46:48 well, Vince McMahon wasn't maximizing the ticket prices and like we are because Vince McMahon was still pricing for families. So basically just say, no, we're going to make it so expensive. You can't even bring the rest of your fucking family if you want to.
Starting point is 01:47:06 This is just for a bunch of self-absorbed dicks to go see. I have the quote here. This was from the Goldman's, Sachs Communicopia and Technology Conference on Wednesday. WWE is not where the UFC yet is on ticket yield. We have our work to do there. We know we have a lot of room there because Vince McMahon was primarily pricing tickets for families and wasn't totally focused on maximizing the opportunity there.
Starting point is 01:47:38 Now that we've seen what we can do at UFC, we're replicating that in terms of ticket. yield and holding back and advanced sales when it comes to on location on the WWE side, and it's working out really well. There's Mark Shapiro. And again, you know, it took this guy to make Vince McMahon a good guy for the first time and forever, the idea that Vince McMahon, again, however bad the creative was, and however bad he personally was, you know, WWE's national expansion was built on the idea
Starting point is 01:48:15 we're getting families in here. And that's still what he priced for. Well, and at the same point, and I guess it's an indictment of the way they sell tickets to everything these days. But there was never a time in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. I mean, I was running
Starting point is 01:48:35 shows in the 2000s. And you advertised the goddamn ticket prices, and that's what the ticket prices were. You remember them days, don't you, Brian? $12 ringside $10 general admission $8 kids under 12
Starting point is 01:48:50 whatever the fuck it was that was what's the price the tickets was and now not only are they jacking them through the roof but they've got all these strategies with all the online sales where they can
Starting point is 01:49:05 it's like a goddamn airline now you can be sitting in row 14 section or seat seat C and pay $500 more than the fucking person sitting in seat B. They're just trying to get as much as they can get out of whoever the fuck is poking around. And that's, you know what the problem is? Somewhat bullshit.
Starting point is 01:49:27 It's a shakedown from both sides because they're trying to get as much as they can out of whoever will come and pay for these tickets. At the same time, they're doing the same thing to the local municipalities. Yeah. They're doing a same thing. Listen to these quotes here from the same thing. there are no shortage of countries that want to see us bring our show to town
Starting point is 01:49:48 if we have St. Louis going up against the Des Moines, Iowa and you want us back there and you've broken records and sold out both your arenas you have to pay for us to come back or else we'll take it to another town and that goes for NXT, raw and Smackdown on the WWE side. Good God.
Starting point is 01:50:11 You're saying it out loud. I mean, that's the agreement. Yeah, again, it's gone from, what goodwill does that set up with any city? Hey, you want us to come in? You got to pay through the nose or we'll take it somewhere else. Wouldn't a lot of people just on attitude alone? Well, fuck you then. But besides that, again, it's gone from a business where you wanted to establish a good relationship with a local building
Starting point is 01:50:40 and try to get a discount on the rent. if you rent it on a regular basis to now they're extorting the local cities to, you know, pay them to come to appear for free in their municipally owned arenas. The Christ. You know, we're talking ticket prices. I have here something someone just posted, John Fichera in the Colts of Cornett Facebook group about WrestleMania 42 ticket prices, or at least ticket packages, some of them. The silver ticket package in Las Vegas, a two-night ticket, and a priority pass. Two nights of premium seating, you also get to go to the Friday kickoff party at Area 15 with a live Q&A from Cody Rhodes and Superstar appearances.
Starting point is 01:51:32 A four-day priority pass to the WWW World and Superstore. That's a great bonus. We're going to give you a pass to go to the store and spend money. I was a bit of say, the priority pass to give us your money before we let anybody else give us their money. Also, dedicated priority pass entrance to Allegiance Stadium, the WW World, and the WWE Superstore. Sounds like a great deal. That is only $1,600 a ticket. Jesus Christ.
Starting point is 01:52:07 ticket is it well it says buy ticket and pass I guess the package
Starting point is 01:52:13 the next package is the gold package you get all of that plus you get an all
Starting point is 01:52:19 inclusive pre-show hospitality with on-stage appearances by the Undertaker Paul
Starting point is 01:52:25 Heyman and the Steiner Brothers also a limited edition collector's item and a
Starting point is 01:52:33 ring mat plaque 2750 a ticket. And again, when you go through that, they've got practically nothing in it in terms of an investment of money that they have to spend to give you these things.
Starting point is 01:52:48 They're already renting the building and putting on the show. They're just doing auxiliary things around it for you for no extra expense to them. And the mat plaque is where they take a three square inch piece of canvas and put it in a frame with a nice label on. Well, Jim, you get all of that
Starting point is 01:53:09 And these other items in the champion package You also get a ringside photo op At WrestleMania 42 And a five-day VIP priority pass To the WWE World and Superstore access Where am I going to go? I've spent all my money on WrestleMania What I was about to say besides it
Starting point is 01:53:32 How many days could you go to that fucking store? 5,150. $50 a ticket. Boy, howdy. And then finally, Jim, there's more? The Elite Experiences package. Now, wait a minute. Can they legally do that?
Starting point is 01:53:51 I don't know. I don't know what exactly what ways of using the term elite AEW would have any claim on. You know, that's what, you know, as a matter of fact, they can legally use it because remember we heard about that, the young bucks his lawyer made a mistake and trademark the term effete. So go ahead. Well, this package, Jim, the Elite Experiences package, is everything you got in all the other packages, plus an on-stage and in-ring photo op at WrestleMania 42,
Starting point is 01:54:27 the superstar walkout experience on the WrestleMania stage, where people in the crowd go, who the fuck-up is there? that. Yeah. I'd hurry up, hurry. Get out of this. I got a Christmas story getting the Santa Claus line through. I think I mentioned the other packages.
Starting point is 01:54:43 You get to go to the Friday kickoff party. This one, you get to be in the reserved section. The reserve section for the party. I thought you were going to say you get to work at the kickoff party. You can serve the fucking
Starting point is 01:54:58 pigs in a blanket. And finally, Jim, five-day VIP for the world. And fast lane access. So you get to go faster than the others. $37,500 a ticket. Jesus, H. Christ. If you go with anyone, do you want to go?
Starting point is 01:55:24 Do you want to go? Do you want to go? Do you want to go to something like that by yourself? Or do you want to have at least one person that you can speak to that you know is not some goddamn strange weirdo you're going to be sitting next to it random. That would be 75. How is that even possible?
Starting point is 01:55:43 Who is spending $30,000 to go to any goddamn show? I've run fucking shows I didn't spend that much money. I've run many shows I didn't spend that much money. But who are these people? Who has $35,000 to spend on a goddamn right? And that's the other sad thing. You think about it and you're like, oh, it just has to be a bunch of rich people
Starting point is 01:56:11 who don't give a shit. They have endless amounts of money, unlimited capital, they can go and do these things. They love wrestling. What about like the fan who mortgages his house so they can get a picture in the ring at WrestleMania before WrestleMania
Starting point is 01:56:24 leaves the States forever? But where did these people come from all of a sudden? People weren't that anxious to part with anywhere near that amount of money in the old days. anything, wrestling or otherwise. I'm talking about the old days like 20 years ago. Who the fuck? Yeah, see, this wouldn't have worked 20 years ago.
Starting point is 01:56:44 Who paid that much money to see anything? Who paid half of that 20 years ago? For anything? I've looked at some of the comments here. One of the listeners, Tony Chavez. I went last year and sat in section 201 row one. It was $1,725 per cent. seat for the silver package.
Starting point is 01:57:10 Same seats this year, $2,900 per. Fuck TKO. There you go. You're going to start hearing more and more of that because it's not just that they're pricing out the longtime fan or the families. They're pricing out the fan of last year. They're pricing out the fans who already overpaid last year. They're pricing them out.
Starting point is 01:57:34 I remember who was it? I'm trying to think, God damn it. Was it, it may have been Bob Collins, who was a long time. Bob Collins in the WWF office in the 80s and 90s was the guy that was the local promoter for all the WrestleMania's or the big events. He was the guy.
Starting point is 01:57:59 Ed Cohen booked the buildings, but Bob Collins was a guy who went out there and did the local promotion on everything. and it may have been him that came up with the idea hey for WrestleMania we're going to check for front row or the first two rows or whatever we're going to charge like $250 or we're going to let them take home their chair and Vince heard about it he's like uh huh oh what are you think pal? they're only going to pay that I've got a couple of the chairs they're nice padded folding
Starting point is 01:58:37 chairs, right? You got that and front row at at WrestleMania for $250. Now you get the opportunity to give them more of your money for $2,500. And you can't even carry the chair home. I'd actually love to hear what Vince thinks of that. You know, it's been very minimal criticism in the very minimal times he's grumbled something out publicly over the last few years. but, you know, more than the direction of the TV or the production or anything,
Starting point is 01:59:13 I would love to know what he thinks of the monetization of things he didn't monetize, like the advertising on the mat, not running house shows, pricing families out. I think on the mat, see, that was a thing that, again, it was a different time because Vince didn't like, for those of you who don't know what I'm babbling about, Vince McMahon didn't like didn't ever want to put the sponsored logos on the mat. He wanted to keep the mat clean. It just, it's one of his things like shaving constantly.
Starting point is 01:59:47 He wanted to see the ring like he saw the ring. He thought it was cluttered up, whatever. But at the same point, even though they did some pretty major for the time sponsorship deals through the 80s and 90s and 2000s, there was never as much money as there is right now resting on that so he may have been persuaded but that's a small part of the overall thing
Starting point is 02:00:16 I think that he still if he was running the company still might not have the shit on the map but also if they were if he was running the company now and they were making a hundred million dollars for WrestleMania and these billions dollars for streaming he could again afford to have that little Piccadillo, leave out the $40 million for Matt advertising. I think it looks cluttered.
Starting point is 02:00:41 But if somebody had offered him $40 million to advertise on the mat 25 years ago, he'd probably put a porn site on it if he had to. So it's all relative. I think the main thing is, I think Vince is as business-minded and avaricious and megalomaniacal and wanting to be the conqueror of all as he was, he probably has a grudging admiration for what they have done, and he's justifying it that he could never have done it because he was only one man,
Starting point is 02:01:18 and they were the tentacles of multi-global corporations, but he can reconcile that. But I made the decision to put it in those hands, so it still wouldn't be doing this without me. that's the way I think he's thinking of. Well, we'll see what happens as we are recording. I'm glad you were, I'm glad you were all fired up by that fucking analysis I just gave.
Starting point is 02:01:44 You know, again, it's just a change. You appear dubious. It's a changing face of the business, a changing face of the industry. In a lot of ways, it should open up opportunities here in the States for more serious minded wrestling promoters. The problem is there aren't any. Yeah. That's the defleasing.
Starting point is 02:02:02 deplating, depressing thing. Well, we'll stay on top of this and see who they price out next, WWE. Well, you know, that's the thing, Brian. It's all about more or less. It's always all about more or less. Do you have more about something or less of something? That's what it's always about. And the whole world operates on more or less.
Starting point is 02:02:26 You know, you can make money, depending on whether things are more of something or less of something. what I'm talking about, don't you? Our friends over at prize picks. Oh, they're great friends. The big prize picks app. The day, you know, so as soon as I heard it was daily fantasy, I was sold. Of course, I didn't realize if they had the more or less projection on measurements like
Starting point is 02:02:49 that, but you got to get in on the inside circle. They're going to start you out with stuff like football because they're doing that all over the place these days. But it's all of the big sports, the footballs, the baseballs, the baseballs, the basketballs, the disc golf, anything that you like, all you've got to do is download the prize picks app. And then it's simple to play if you pick more or less on the player stat projections,
Starting point is 02:03:17 and you get your picks right, then you can cash in. It's like being a Nielsen family. You can get cash rewards. Boom! Right there. And they offer Venmo, Apple Pay, and MasterCard.
Starting point is 02:03:35 Brian, when I was a kid, we used to send money to MasterCard. Now they send it back to you. Is that how that works? It is, you know, again, let's not talk about things we're not certain about. Let's talk about the certainty. Let's stick for the facts.
Starting point is 02:03:50 That is the love of fantasy, daily fantasy has become a love of our nations. So many people love to fantasize daily. Yes. And thankfully, and I'll tell you what, You used to have to have a bottle of Juergens lotion right next to you. Or a bowl.
Starting point is 02:04:08 And that was the most important thing. But now it's the phone in your hand on the prize picks app. That's what you need for your daily fantasy. Don't make a mistake and try to grab anything else while a phone is in your hand. It will hurt. But you download the app. You pick more or less on the stat projections. And you know the rest of the way that everybody plays these games.
Starting point is 02:04:32 because it's amazing. And it's the best way to win cash this football season. Which players are going off? You never know when one of these motherfuckers is going to flip. Or which ones aren't? Make your picks in less than 60 seconds and turn your takes into cash all season long on prize picks. Or prize picks. It's prize picks.
Starting point is 02:04:56 It's prize. Ladies and gentlemen. And, of course, Jim, want to make sure we let everyone know the match. everyone know the max discount this weekend is Patrick Mahomes. Point five passing yards. The max discount this weekend is Patrick Mahomes. Point five passing yards. Well, right there, as you can see, folks,
Starting point is 02:05:20 an updated string of English words from our correspondent Brian Last for the prize picks app and use the code JCE. You got to do that. and you're going to get, guess what you're going to get? Besides that thing we just talked about, you're going to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. So if you've ever wanted to be in a lineup, and most people I know their parents said they would be,
Starting point is 02:05:48 you're going right now, the prize picks app, use the code JCE, $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. You've got to just put up a little good faith and then we'll do the rest. You're going to get 50. That's 10 times what you need to. Boy, if you always got 10 times what you saw up front, I know a lot of girls that have been happy.
Starting point is 02:06:14 Prize picks. Prize picks, once again. Yes, it's good to be right. It's good to be right on prize picks. It's good to be right. Prize picks, good friends of ours. Once again, download that app and use the code JCE, price picks.
Starting point is 02:06:34 Okay, well, now that we've talked about all the big business, let's talk about the teeny tiny little business that is, Tony Kahn has hit the skids, hit the bricks, hit the wall, he's hit something. If we don't know when he comes out and he makes these long-winded statements about how he's taken back over the creative, we don't know what's going on with how this program is put together. But if this is him and it looks like it might be,
Starting point is 02:07:09 because it's just the same thing for two hours every week. I think I said something earlier in the show, you know, is the main event an eight man or a ten man? And is it for $250,000 or $500,000 play dollars? How many segments can we have multiple people run in and do shit after a 20-minute long match? and then disfigure each other in some different fashion. It's the same show.
Starting point is 02:07:39 He's just doing it over and over with names and people and matches and clutter. And it's, I don't know how it's going to pull out of this. Do you? As a product, I'm not talking about their rights fees or they were in Philly. I think they've finished up there now, but they're in a closet again in front of 900 people. It looks like, you know, let's make a deal was the last show
Starting point is 02:08:11 that shot in that fucking studio. It's a claw, Tony, Tony, come out of the closet. And this show is the same every week. The guys do their dramatic soliloquies at each other. And then it's a mess of fighting and brawling in mayhem.
Starting point is 02:08:34 I think it's two different walls. I think it's the creative wall, and you could argue when Tony has hit that wall. But again, even if you're a big fan of A.E.W., the guy's been booking for six years now. And every time over the past six years he was asked about it, it's the greatest it's ever been, everything's great. Here's some reasoning to justify why I think I deserve to be doing this other than I own it. So I think there's that wall, but the other wall is the talent wall. between injuries and lack of free agents that matter. You know, technically speedball was a free agent, and they got them.
Starting point is 02:09:12 But there aren't any, like, big free agents that you're like, man, he should have been free. Like, there's no one out there that you're like, man, I hope they get them before WWE does or hope, you know, whatever it is, there's no one. They've got who they've got. This is Anne Gunkel at the end. They've got who they got. and a lot of them are injured and the show you know I see how much some people really love it and I don't get it
Starting point is 02:09:38 I don't get who's pushed I don't get I don't want to just go off on another rant but yeah they've hit the wall they've hit the wall well at Lee but Brian Danielson on commentary may say what do you think will this be the turnaround um bless him
Starting point is 02:09:55 he's been named as the new announced team member replacing Tony Chivani, which I don't have any argument with that, considering Tony's contributions to play by play over the last several years. But once he was introduced as set down, I'm so used to not listening to the announcing because either Sockface is screaming at me or I'm so busy trying to write down who all these people are that are running into the ring and doing shit that I don't list of the announcing, did you catch any pearls of wisdom? I thought he was okay.
Starting point is 02:10:34 Not great, but not terrible, and certainly something that could be improved. I think the issue is more who he's teamed with. I think if you put him out there with, you know, prime Jim Ross, it probably would have been one of those things where everyone was talking about his commentary the next day. You have to team him with the right people, and unfortunately, as long as Excalibur is the lead commentator on this show, the show's lacking yeah
Starting point is 02:10:59 not to mention tas just giggling at everything as it happens or what what's going on there's but even Taz and Danielson you've got two color guys so there's no there's no Vince to tie them together there's two co-pilots there's no pilot yeah and
Starting point is 02:11:13 and a thing everybody says oh sock face will really get the yeah it's six years now he still sounds like he's screaming on VHS from the basement where they do their mail order tapes Even if you're a fan of his, I think the honest appraisal is that he's not a good voice for big moments. Whether it's what he says or how he stumbles over what he says or the inflection, whatever it is,
Starting point is 02:11:43 he's not the right guy for that role. He's still pretending to be the announcer that like when they pretended to be the announcers on their in their PWG or whatever it was 25 years ago, he's imitating the announcers that he saw then and trying to get all the words right
Starting point is 02:12:01 and then plus trying to throw in all the Japanese names for everything. But nevertheless, Brian Danielson, good luck in that environment. Hey, did you see this? One of the listeners posted this in the Colta Cornet, I think. Brian Danielson had a quote
Starting point is 02:12:16 about the AW pay scale. Did you see this? I did not. he was doing an interview where was he doing it with John Bernard whoever that may be AEW
Starting point is 02:12:30 existing and being this Challenger brand and being as successful as we've been has changed the landscape for wrestling for the wrestlers themselves wrestlers are being paid more now than ever from a sports rights perspective so
Starting point is 02:12:47 for example in most major sports in the United States, the players get anywhere between 40 to 50% of the revenue. WWE was paying their wrestlers nowhere close to that. Now keep in mind, they're still not paying anywhere close to that. But they do have to pay more because if they don't, the talent is going to leave and go to AEW, AEW does pay.
Starting point is 02:13:19 at 40 to 50% of the revenue. Whoa! To the wrestlers. Whoa! You know, despite making much less money. Oh, boy, howdy. So, I think he just told us that Tony Kahn lost a lot more money
Starting point is 02:13:41 than we thought he did for the first few years. Jesus, H. Christ. 50% of the revenue, up to 50% of the revenue. Up to 50% of the revenue is paid to the wrestlers. I mean, for the wrestlers, that's incredible, especially if you had the roster to really get your bang for your buck out of it. But that's incredible. Has anyone in wrestling ever paid that percentage of,
Starting point is 02:14:07 if that is indeed true? And again, he's become somewhat of a mouthpiece publicly for AEW. Well, yeah, and the thing is, these are the same things that Uncle Dave has written. So we wonder, did one tell the other which one, which was the chicken, which was the egg, but it's the same. the same story, but no, in the days of Strangler Lewis when getting those two specific
Starting point is 02:14:30 wrestlers was the chore and it was like an old-time world championship boxing match where, yeah, you know, then those two guys might get, you know, 50 or 60 percent of the house or whatever, but it hasn't happened from a company per se over an entire talent roster in wrestling because again now with the TV rights being paid by
Starting point is 02:15:02 networks, etc., etc. Things are different, but no territory, even, no matter how successful in the territory days could have paid 50% of the revenue to talent and still stayed in business because that doesn't take into account the building rents, the advertising, the transportation, the commission costs.
Starting point is 02:15:27 And most importantly, if you're shooting your own television and most of the promoters paid for the production in those days. So that would have meant that you were spending the 125% of your fucking revenue, which would not obviously have been. have lasted very long. But now with these, again, with the WWE, 50% of their revenue would still be hundreds of millions of dollars and it would be ridiculous to pay the fucking guys that much money, but they could still make money even if they did it.
Starting point is 02:16:07 And it's only ridiculous because it hasn't been done because technically it's the guys generating that money. What's the current royalty rate for T-shirts? at some point if you were if they're if they make a billion dollars a year and they paid out 500 million to the talent i you'd have a hard time making a case to me that many of the talent were worth 30 or 40 million bucks a piece per year even in that uh in that environment there's a lot of guys on the card there's only a few that would be in that stratosphere.
Starting point is 02:16:51 Anyway, back to the fucking surface of the ground, because boy, that's where this program was and it's headed even further south. Did you notice that the crowd pans could show literally each individual person's face in the building? I did not notice that, no. When they did the crowd pans while the announcers were billboarded the show,
Starting point is 02:17:13 they showed every son of a bitch individually that was in that building. And the first match was Adam Page against Josh Alexander. And Brian, did you see the open of this contest? I did? This was, without doubt, my favorite Adam Page segment, because this thing's, and it's going to be the first 30 minutes of the show. My favorite one he's ever done.
Starting point is 02:17:44 Because I couldn't stop fucking laughing. everything this was snake bit everything that he could have done stupid or that went wrong or that could have been funny it all happened here the bell rang for the match and they locked up and page punched josh alexander 20 times and alexander not only didn't take a fucking bump he sold all 20 of those punches by sinking to his ass on the bottom turnbuckle and then he immediately stood up, kick page in the gut, and took over on him. The new world champion punched the fucking heel 20 times, and he sank to his ass on the turnbook. So it was more of what you'd expect. I zoned out. Their thing again where they feel like,
Starting point is 02:18:43 oh, it'll get this guy over if he has a long match and does everything in the world and then gets beat, So after about 15 minutes, they did a long, contrived struggle on the apron of the ring. And in Brian, this is how smart the new world champion is. Page gives him the dead eye on the apron. So drops him on his head on the apron, right? And Alexander rolls off to the floor, Paige climbs up to the top rope. and 10 seconds after he gave the guy the dead eye on the apron,
Starting point is 02:19:20 Alexander has to be back on his feet and standing there so that Paige can backflip off the top rope on him onto the floor for no reason. That's his thing. He has to do that. Then don't give him a goddamn finish that should paralyze the fucking guy before he has to stand up and catch you. You fucking idiot. This is the guy that everybody says, oh, Paige is great.
Starting point is 02:19:42 Oh, he's the next generation. and oh my God, he's exceeded all the people that are saying that are the people in the locker room with him, that are his friends. He's an idiot. So he gives the guy the dead eye on the apron. Guy rolls off, he's up 10 seconds later, get moon-salted off the top onto the floor. Then Paige rolls him in the ring. But then here comes Lance Archer jumps up on the apron.
Starting point is 02:20:11 And Paige turns around and misses his. with a punch, just whiffed him as big as Archer's head is, couldn't hit it with his hand, and Archer bumped anyway. And now Page turns around and there's Romero on the other end of the apron and he runs at Page and Paige is supposed to backdrop Romero onto Archer. But when he backdropped Rocky,
Starting point is 02:20:40 Rocky just missed Archer and just landed right on his ribs on the floor at Archer's feet. Like, oh, shit, he went down next to him. That looked bad. Yes, I'm sure it felt even worse. Now, within 30 seconds of being dead-eyed on the apron and moonsaulted off the top by the world champion, after he's dispatched these other two,
Starting point is 02:21:04 Josh Alexander standing up in the ring waiting on page. And so they did some doce-do shit with his foot to kick and the block and whatever. And then Paige hit the buckshot, one, two, three. That was one of the worst finishes I've ever seen in my life. If they'd had done it right, it was stupid. If they still had executed all the moves properly without hurting anybody or exposing the business,
Starting point is 02:21:36 Paige looks like an idiot. And that was his shit, I'm sure. Anyway, with thoughts on the match before I go on. You know, Josh Alexander was a, a name I had heard a lot, but I don't watch TNA, so I didn't really ever see him until he came into AEW, and I've never seen him win a match. He's in there with the world champion. Other guys can't get title shots. He's in there with the world champion. I've never seen him win a singles match. I've never seen him win a tag match. One of the issues with the Calus group is there
Starting point is 02:22:08 are just guys in it that never win? Just all of a sudden, hey, you're part of this giant heel stable going nowhere and then Adam Page it's like the biggest divide like the classic AEW divide the way it used to be with like the people who worship Omega and the bucks and the people who didn't
Starting point is 02:22:27 I think now it's like that with Adam Page there are fans who really believe in him and think he does great promos and that he's a great fired up baby face and you kind of said it and I've not thought of it and just saying it like this you said it in a way that I think kind of is.
Starting point is 02:22:45 To his friends, he is being now who they wanted him to be. From the moment AEW opened up, their plan was, we're going to build eventually to hangman being our guy. And what a build it was.
Starting point is 02:23:01 And now that's where we are, and we get giant, long-opening matches with guys who never win anything. That Rocky Romero spot, man. Oh, boy. I hope he's all right. right but uh and by the way you said you'd never seen josh alexander win and that's true and
Starting point is 02:23:18 what does his voice sound like i don't know there you go but we know what page sounds like and he started talking as soon as this match was oh we're already 20 minutes deep in the fucking program and now he's going to cut a promo and i swear to god i wrote this down he said because you know he makes up these grand sounding dramatic promos in his head and he delivers him in the same scowling, mean fashion. But he said, I did not spill a gallon of my blood to win the title just to have MJF change the stipulations of my matches by threatening emulation. And then he mispronounced emulation and nobody got it because I don't think they knew
Starting point is 02:24:11 what emulation was anyway. crickets they didn't even know it was the end of the fucking sentence what did he say instead of saying he threatened to set Mark Briscoe on fire he had to fucking deliver the goddamn
Starting point is 02:24:29 say Patty Shiafsky would have been proud of this dialogue in his head no he wouldn't know he was a good writer he knew what in Adam Page's head he would have emulation
Starting point is 02:24:43 by the way, the threatened emulation of Mark Briscoe. So then he saved it by stealing some of my material. He called Don Callis a foulus-headed dumbass. But what he did, he put so much venom into foulus-headed dumbass with all the words that he accidentally spit his gum out and bouncing. off his fucking chest and a drool fucking oyster came out and stuck in his beard. And then he keeps talking, but all I can see is the drool bubble. I swear to God.
Starting point is 02:25:33 And then they play the music. And here comes Kyle Felcher. And have they shaved his head again? Why did his head His head looks Three sizes smaller than it used to Is it because he didn't have his big video game Warrior
Starting point is 02:25:52 The bonnet and sun dress on With the thing is his head always that small Maybe because you're seeing less neck Because he's wearing suits now And he has his collars up But no still his hair was shorter than ever He's wearing librarian glasses He's coming out
Starting point is 02:26:11 wearing librarian glasses like he's a goddamn 14 year old bookworm staying after school and his head is shaved he's got a peanut head he was wearing a suit that at least he's trying to dress up
Starting point is 02:26:29 instead of these nitwits had come out in their jogging pants or whatever but it looked like he was ready for his high school yearbook picture and then they let him talk because they're trying to elevate him into a pay-per-view main event attraction.
Starting point is 02:26:48 But when he talks, he sounds like a fucking Australian Alvin the chipmunk. I swear to get, if it wasn't, you would think he has some, he's a 12-year-old with some kind of pituitary issue that's made him six foot three and 200 whatever pounds. But facially and vocally, he's got a manager, the did none of the talking for him, because the whole thing about this is that Paige did the whole rehearsed promo about how Kyle's got all this potential.
Starting point is 02:27:26 You know what I see when I look at you? I see myself six years ago, dreaming and hoping, and I'm like, oh, holy shit. But I wasn't ready then and you're not ready now. and then Kyle comes back at him again looking like a 12 year old with chemotherapy and he's screaming at Page that he I'm ready to be the world champion right now but he'd be carded at the bar so page agrees to give Kyle a title match at the big payper view if Kyle will do it all himself and promise
Starting point is 02:28:13 not to have the manager out there and the Stooges out there and fighting... So basically, this was the equivalent of Dusty Rhodes being the world champion and telling Flair, okay, I tell you what, if you promise to leave JJ and Tully and Arne in the back, I'll believe you, and I'll give you a title match.
Starting point is 02:28:37 You remind me so much of myself. You remind me so much of myself. And of course, old Kyle gave him his word man on man. But they both at the end of this thing, that weird thing that Page does now, Kyle did it too, where they say the AEW men's world championship, like somebody's going to confuse and think that Kyle's going to fight Mercedes-Bone. But they also, I think it's some weird thing that Paige has
Starting point is 02:29:09 because he's weird like that, that he wants to somehow verbally put the women's title on the level of the men's title, which is preposterous, even if you're a fan of women's wrestling, the world title is the men's title. Sorry. And you're just being an idiot when you're the men's world champion and you're in the main event
Starting point is 02:29:36 and you're trying to put anybody else's belt on a lot, level of yours, much less to be sexually equal. I have a feeling that maybe the only way Paige ever will be sexually equal anybody. This was 30 minutes into the fucking program, Brian. 30 minutes. We had to watch Paige botched through a match with a guy that never wins anything and then have a fucking promo with a guy that sounds like he's fucking 12 on helium. and I said last week,
Starting point is 02:30:15 Kyle has all the tools and he's got a lot of potential and he can do moves, but I said then that he should, you know, get in the NXT training program to learn how to think about the business, and I've rethought that because to be honest with you, there's a hundred guys in NXT. Kyle needs an OVW. Kyle needs a wrestling school where they have people who know how to fucking think about
Starting point is 02:30:46 to wrestling business at the top and like 30 guys and where there's a structure and where everybody gets a chance in one market without being seen by all the prying eyes around the world to fucking be on the bottom of the card and the middle of the car and then the top of the car to be a baby face and a heel personalize the instruction because he's a special student.
Starting point is 02:31:11 He's a lot better physically and athletically than almost anybody wants to get in a wrestling business. He's learning nothing mentally, and he will never be a main event guy to match his physical potential unless somebody that knows what the fuck they're doing with wrestling books him, instructs him, takes him under their wing. So it's a The longer he is here, the more he's going to think that any of this shit is the right way to do it.
Starting point is 02:31:45 And that's what's going to hamper him from ever reaching his potential. I yield the floor back to my colleague. You know, he's still one of the younger guys there. And when you think of the younger guys there, or at least the guys that look young, he look wise physically is the most ready for a WWE system. He noticeably,
Starting point is 02:32:07 got into much better shape since he signed full-time with AEW. They got him with Callis. The Callis group in my eyes is just a complete joke he can't take seriously. He shaved his head in the ring. He had the feud with Osprey, his former friend.
Starting point is 02:32:24 And then they had those crazy matches. You know, he stands out in AEW because he's tall and he's in shape and he could do stuff. But he's doing his own stuff, obviously, because producers don't matter over there. but also there's no one else that kind of looks like that, you know, Daniel Garcia, Wheeler Yuta, Jack Perry.
Starting point is 02:32:46 Think of the younger guys or the guys who look young who they've signed and put a lot of time into who still just don't look like TV wrestlers. It's a very cosmetic injury. It's a very cosmetic industry, is what I meant to say. Kyle has the look, but, you know, right now he's going, right now he's working the Indies. That's what you got to look. AEW is like you're working in the Indies for the next three years. And then I'm sure he'll do all the things he has to do.
Starting point is 02:33:16 And the thing is he's got more than the look. He's able to pick people up and put them down and move himself around safely and all these things. He just can't put the things together because nobody's taught him how to think about it. And it just, it's the video game style of wrestling that, you know, people get bored with and that's why we're seeing what we're seeing. It's hard to keep booking it because how do you ever do anything different? And it's hard to keep watching it because how do they ever do anything different? Anyway, moving on to do something different.
Starting point is 02:33:53 What? You know, Jim, what are you going to say? I paused the TV in the background, the news I had on CNN. And there's some breaking news here I thought I should break in with. Oh, boy. Nurse does CPR to revive drunk raccoons. in Kentucky. This is national news.
Starting point is 02:34:12 Now, again, it's towards the end of the hour when they get the wacky news stories. And have you seen this story locally? No, no, I have not, but what? Do you know the town in Kentucky? This woman is doing CPR on this raccoon. It had to be the eastern, the eastern part of the state,
Starting point is 02:34:30 the raccoon got into a still. Letcher County. There you go. Where's that? It's in the eastern part. part of the state. It's down south and a little bit to the east. I can't give you exact mileage from here, but.
Starting point is 02:34:49 She's doing chest compressions, and she just tried to breathe air into its mouth. Does it come back to life? I guess it did. Did it make it? Good. Otherwise, this would be a really depressing us. Because, you know, well, that's been a thing going,
Starting point is 02:35:03 the raccoons don't want to drink. It's forced on them when the stills are out in their neck of the woods. Is this something like you know, like, not that you know, but this has happened regularly, like animals get drunk and pass out in Kentucky? Well, if they find us still in the woods, it's not just limited to Kentucky, but that sort of thing does happen here on a more regular basis than. But yeah, boy, think about a drunk bear.
Starting point is 02:35:31 Think what might happen there. He might be writing the next episode of AEW Dynamite. Can you explain to me, Brian? No. Why that they did the whole thing to relieve the hardly boys of their executive vice presidency ship in what was supposed to be this big violence-filled match. And then now they're just, why are they showing up to get this ridiculous, guaranteed money, whether they draw or not or work or not that they get, to just, to just be. be made fun of in unfunny comedy that it's poorly delivered and not witty in any fashion and nobody in catering wants to eat with them it's like a fucking teen comedy in the 80s from john hughes
Starting point is 02:36:24 and they're giving them funny kairons with their real names making fun of them what will this lead to how could this possibly in any way enhance this program it's just these two witless nitwits jacking off and they put up with it and then they're sitting in catering by themselves and Dick the boozer comes in and gives them a pep talk if you come to win tonight
Starting point is 02:36:56 he's going to give them the 500 grand because Moxley's not in it for the money that's not his motivation he's going to he's supposedly got this club of trained assassins that he's running, but he needs to appeal to these two 40-year-old fucking high school dropouts to come to win and he'll give them
Starting point is 02:37:19 all the half a million dollars. Who is writing this shit? Who's supposed to believe this? Why would this be good if you know it's a work? If this was a pilot for a TV show, it wouldn't make the air. So when Vern Gagne did those $100,000 battle royals in the AWA at the end. No, they're in Philadelphia and they're doing this thing where they have $500,000 on the line for this match that just popped up out of nowhere.
Starting point is 02:37:49 And Moxley, you know, it's interesting, baby face or heel, it doesn't matter. You will give a pep talk to your opponent or your friend, whoever it is. I've seen the heels and the baby faces give pep talks to people. and Moxley did it here. The Bucks, I remind you, beat up Tony Conn with Jack Perry. The AW fan said,
Starting point is 02:38:12 oh, it all works out. You guys are wrong. It all makes sense. How did that work out? And look at where we are today. They mean nothing. And they're doing bad comedy. Tony Con did that
Starting point is 02:38:24 because he wanted to have fun taking that bump and wearing that neck brace. And they knew it. And that's how they got that. in there. Imagine if they had done a Tony Khan gets beat up angle, knowing that he's crazy enough to just wear that neck brace everywhere and play into it
Starting point is 02:38:40 if some real heel had done it and then built upon it. But instead, we're back here and the Bucks doing their bad comedy which has been rejected categorically by a national television audience. Well, speaking of being rejected categorically,
Starting point is 02:38:56 they had a girl's tag team match with Alex Wendonel and Rejo against Mercedes Moon, and Emmy Sakura is back. Is she the house mother, the mama son? For Rejo's escort, that's what I was thinking. Reho's escort. Yeah, well, you can't let her out on a street alone.
Starting point is 02:39:20 A strong wind would blow her away. Maybe I should say chaperone, not escort. Well, it just depends now on your way of looking at things. How can they do this with a straight face? They're in a barn in a bad neighborhood in Philadelphia in front of 900 people at the same point in time where their opposition is in these major goddamn stadiums and internationally. And then they bring in, Alex Windsor ain't bad. She's not tiny. She looks like she can execute some moves and put her in with.
Starting point is 02:40:01 two fucking outlaw niche fetish objects from Japan and the biggest ego maniac on the block. But again, I said the same thing about Rio earlier, she's not a legitimate
Starting point is 02:40:19 professional wrestler. It's a parody. And Emmy Sakura is the same thing. Margaret Cho and a goddamn wrestling outfit. And they put this on national TV and expect people to take this company seriously. Moving on.
Starting point is 02:40:39 What is the deal with FTR and trying to make the fans back down? Did you see this thing where they came out and it's all I focus on now. As soon as they came out, I'm like, are they going to dare do it again after it has not gone right one time
Starting point is 02:40:56 leading the fans blowing kisses at them, taking drinks right in front of them, or sips of their drink? They would certainly not do it again if they can't. turned it into an angle. They turned it into an angle that nobody is afraid of them. The shit says like the,
Starting point is 02:41:16 the angle is we can't scare anybody. We intimidate no one. We move no one. We strike fear in the hearts of no one. They come out with Stokely, and Stokely does a little bit of a promo as they come down the aisle there, on the match in Toronto.
Starting point is 02:41:40 And he knocked Philly a little bit. And then Dax started doing the promo and the fans were not listening to him in the way that we've talked about where they've just sat and we're just going to boo over all the show we don't care about and it's fun to boo over the heel and chat app. But now he's challenging the people to fight.
Starting point is 02:41:59 Any of you, I'll fight any of you. And he goes out and starts getting up into people's faces on the front of him. front row by the rail and they're laughing at him and not backing up. And he's cutting promos at him trying to get nose and nose and instigates whatever. And at one point, well, first he tried to make one fucking guy flinch and got bleeped by the camera. The handheld was right up on them so you could hear on the microphone on the camera what they were saying and there was something that was bleeped.
Starting point is 02:42:38 But he tried to make the guy flinched. the guy didn't even spill his drink. And the people next to it are laughing. It's sad and embarrassing that somebody had the idea that they should be doing this. So then they go further back and they got another guy's face. And I'm thinking, not only is the camera shot so good on this, but this guy isn't back and down, he's got to be a plant. They're going to pull him over the rail.
Starting point is 02:43:07 Something's going to happen because they got a great shot of it. and this guy's right up in Dax's face. Well, turns around, I guess the guy wasn't a plant, he just didn't give a shit for Dax the pussy because the fan didn't back up an age and Dax turns around and shoves the cameraman down.
Starting point is 02:43:30 Don't you dare, don't you dare get a good shot of this guy not scared of me, motherfucker? What else reason was? He turns around, bumps into the, cameraman it's there, shoves him down. And then the camera shot, they keep taking it from the truck. The cameras laying sideways on the ground.
Starting point is 02:43:48 And Cash, cash gets on the guy and starts beating him up. And here comes referees and security. And I'm like, what is this? But was the story that Dax got mad because when he turned around, he bumped into the camera and then beat the guy up, or he just got mad because the fan wouldn't back up from him? so he beat up the cameraman. What is the story here?
Starting point is 02:44:16 I don't know what the story. Why are they leaning into this? Why are they leading into the fans? They should have just stopped with the interaction with the fans and gone to their promo or gone to their matches, but they keep getting in fans' faces and fans... It's like if he came and whipped his dick out and said, I'll measure my dick against every fan in the building
Starting point is 02:44:34 and every fan in the building's dick was bigger than his. Would that get you over? It's an interesting example, but no. I mean, you said it best at the beginning You've never seen a team get over where the gimmick is that no one's afraid of them. Yeah, right. And folks, we're going to have the masked infernos on later on
Starting point is 02:44:56 and find out who else doesn't give a shit whether they try to intimidate them or not. So on the road to FTR versus Cope and Christian, last week we got FTR having some kind of side feud with some guy from Ring of Honor. Challenging job guys. I don't know what that was or where it went. And then this week we got them in a feud with the fan.
Starting point is 02:45:16 It wasn't exactly Hillbilly Jim sitting in the crowd, but just some... And the cameraman, I guess, if you want to make it a tag team situation. You got the cameraman and the fan. Takes away, again, takes away the focus from the match that matters. I... I... And okay if Edge and Christian weren't there.
Starting point is 02:45:39 I, you know, maybe do something else. I don't know. Rickashay faced Shelton Benjamin. And they also agreed earlier. I forgot about this. They agreed to leave the others in the back so that Shelton doesn't have MVP and Lashley and Rickashay doesn't have who's he, what's he, and what's his name. And they legitimately had Shelton Benjamin go 12 minutes with Rickashay.
Starting point is 02:46:11 and he tried to figure out ways not to beat this little dwarf and make it somehow plausible and he could last 12 minutes. But finally again, Brian, how stupid can a babyface be when he believes the guy, the heel, says, oh, yeah, I won't cheat. This is fucking wrestling. So, so finally, I know you're going to find this hard to believe, Brian,
Starting point is 02:46:48 but Rickashay went to stab Shelton Benjamin in the face with scissors. But Shelton blocked it. And the referee. Which I think it was the Bryce Rimsberg, but in case, I'm not sure I don't want to call his name, because I don't want to embarrass him if it wasn't, but he stood there with his slack-jawed mouth open like a raging dumb fuck while this guy is holding this other guy's fucking arms above his face
Starting point is 02:47:19 is he trying to stab him in a face with a scissors and doesn't call for the bell and Shelton clotheslines ricochet gets the scissors away and then the referee is standing there waving his arms said no throw those scissors out it's been a disqualification in wrestling since the dawn of fucking time if the referee sees you with a foreign object intent as good as a goddamn accomplishment,
Starting point is 02:47:49 you're disqualified. Has it not? Always. Besides the insanity of all the rest of this? Of course. Okay, so you can get rid of the scissors now. Tony Khan, come out of the closet. And I wrote, what the fuck is the matter with these people?
Starting point is 02:48:06 So Shelton, being a now a baby face for the last week and a half, is too honorable and breaks the scissors and the fans boo him. And then Ricochet Stooges come out and one of them draws the referee and the other one turns around and headbutts Shelton and ricochet rolls him up, one, two, three. And then here comes MVP and Lashley. And they get in a fight with the Stooges and it not only was an even fight, but it was a bad fight. The big new guys can't give any ground because they ain't over, they don't have a lick of heat, but they, the Hertz can't give any ground after their guy just got beat, so it just blah. This doesn't do the Hertz Syndicate any good at all, as I said at the top of this
Starting point is 02:48:56 statement or earlier in the program, and Jesus H. Christ on a cracker. What in the world? It's come to this. I can't explain anything that has happened with the Hertz Syndicate since, I mean, we were waiting for all the stuff with MJF to come together and it kind of didn't, and they just ended it, but nothing has made sense with anything around them. And there's nothing going on, and now they're feuding with ricochet, who doesn't matter in AEW. They had a chance, and he's cooled off completely, and is stable of guys that we've seen every now and then on this show lose, but now they're with ricochet.
Starting point is 02:49:37 I don't know. Weren't they managed with NAA? They were not a stable, weren't they when he first started managing swerve? I think they were. Well, they ain't no more. Is Nana hurt now, too, because Swerve is hurt? Shouldn't Nana come back and try to find somebody to take Swerve's place? Nana's probably just sitting home thinking,
Starting point is 02:50:00 Jesus Christ, he's just going to send me a check for the next six months or whatever. I'm not saying a goddamn word. There's a guy dancing up a storm in Queens right now, and he's on Tony Kahn's dime. Actually, I think he's on Tony Kahn's dollar at this point. All right. it's time that we referenced just for a couple of minutes
Starting point is 02:50:22 because seriously and when we give the ratings I don't know what the quarters look like but this either people couldn't turn away with it much in the you know often referred to and famous
Starting point is 02:50:39 two dogs fucking on a side of the road analogy or they turned away from it in droves because it was the most ridiculous low-class, low-rent, outlaw, mud show, amateur hour, horse shit. I would expect it from Saturday Night Live in the 70s
Starting point is 02:51:01 when Saturday Night Live was somewhat funny. But for an actual program that's allegedly a pro wrestling promotion putting on a pro wrestling program, this was fucking embarrassing. Nobody has any goddamn integrity over there that just we will stoop to any links. We'll go to any fucking sideshow links. We will get down in the mud and grovel with the worst-tasting,
Starting point is 02:51:36 low-class trailer park bullshit in the world. What did they call the, it was a garbage weapons match of some kind because it's Philly, in a toilet with Tony Storm and old blue sky what did they call it it may have just been a Philadelphia street fight or something
Starting point is 02:51:57 I'm not sure well sky blue is looking good isn't she oh Christ on a cracker well I mean here the only problem is it would be a step up for either one of these girls to do goddamn you know
Starting point is 02:52:11 German torture porn at this point that would be somewhat that they could something they could point to with pride on their resume after being involved in this thing. I don't know whether it's more an indictment of the stupid, indie-minded people behind this program or of these small group of stupid indie-minded fans that like this kind of shit, that they even do it. But it's not even violent in a simulated,
Starting point is 02:52:47 violence way where these people are actively mad at each other and wanting to tear each other limb from limb and it can't be contained in the rules of sport and it must be a fight to the finish and bring what you want and do what you want. It's a goddamn clown show of unfunny comedy spots where they jackass each other and staple each other's fucking tongues. or in this case, their tits, their ass, and their pussy. And here's nothing. In 1989,
Starting point is 02:53:28 TBS sent us a fucking memo, which I still have a copy of, mattered a goddamn pig stuck under a gate because Terry Funk put a plastic bag over Rick Flair's head. And the same network allows one girl to take a staple gun and staple another girl's nipples, buttox, and labia. You know, I think the, I think the buttox was acceptable, but they really crossed the line once they got to the titties.
Starting point is 02:54:02 But where do you lie on the labia? That was after that. They already crossed the line. The line had been crossed. It wasn't the first time in that building. Did they come back or did they further exceed the line? I don't know if anyone came with this, but let's get back to the match here. All right, well, a point is there's tables and chairs and Kendo sticks and the staple gun.
Starting point is 02:54:23 And that made Twitter, of course, with a lot of people, what the fuck is this? It just looks so, it looks like jackass. Like just a bunch of fucking friends get together to clown each other. There's no professionalism of this whatsoever. It makes the Harlem Globetrotters look like NCAA ball. And then they had a table with mouse traps on it with Swiss cheese in it. So the Swiss cheese were in the mouse traps that were covering the table. And they also used an allegedly electric bug zapper paddle.
Starting point is 02:55:07 Actually, I've seen some catalogs with electric paddles before, and they didn't look that cheap. But it's just, it's ridiculous. And this wrestling promotion is collapsing in front of our eyes right when they need to be stepping up and they're doing this kind of shit. And then eight different blonde girls
Starting point is 02:55:31 and Jamie Hader jumped in at the end of it and beat each other up. What purpose did this serve? Why would this make anybody want to watch your TV show? Why would it endear any sponsors to you. How does it get anybody over when, again, Tony Storm is the closest thing they've got to a star on her female roster, and she's in garbage matches in a fucking toilet with underneath talent. And it makes the business not only look silly, but local, if it's possible even more low class
Starting point is 02:56:16 than it already is. I'm sorry, I'm repeating myself. I'm just astonished. So you liked it. Oh, loved it. Why did they have a street fight? What led up to this? Did I miss that? Well, nothing, because they're in Philadelphia, so they got to have the hardcore match
Starting point is 02:56:32 in the fucking cathedral of hardcore. You know, Madison Square Garden is noted for the Ali Frazier confrontation. Or, you know, the fucking forum is noted for a great Lakers game, and the ECW arena in Philadelphia is noted where a fucking drunk used to bust himself open with a beer can. Good God.
Starting point is 02:57:02 Jamie Hayter's still rocking the, I'm a waitress at the pancake cottage, just struggling to pay my bills look. Well, as a matter of fact, you know, Mel, when Flo left, they should have brought Jamie Hayter in instead of that other one they replaced her with in the final season. You see, she just died, Polly Holiday? Polly Holiday died.
Starting point is 02:57:22 I didn't know she was sick. Well, she's gone. She was a hot little piece of, you know what, back at one time, boy, back in the early 60s. Back in the early 60s, boy, with those poodle skirts, those goddamn cashmere sweaters. All right. All right, this is taking a turn, ladies, gentlemen. The sock, all right. Well, let's get away from the bobby sockers.
Starting point is 02:57:49 And my sock got crusty. So then. The main event was here a 10-man tag team match for half a million dollars, but Dick the Boozer, as generous as he is, he's not motivated by money because he drives around in a pickup truck with a bunch of other hairy unwashed men. He's going to give it to the Buccaroos if they win. It's the Buceroos and Claudio and useless and boozer
Starting point is 02:58:17 against poor old Samoa Joe. powerhouse hob, Shepoopee, Bandito, and Burger King. And Brian, do you know the first thing that I wrote down? No, I was trying to write down
Starting point is 02:58:34 the people in the match and you threw me off with your nicknames. What did you write down? I wrote down, I wouldn't watch this if they were going to give me the 500 grand. And I wouldn't watch it
Starting point is 02:58:45 if they were going to finish the match with a human sacrifice, which I was not ruling out at the time. But this, I don't know how long the overrun was, but this was another, they're just going to send 10 guys out there to do some shit for no purpose for 15 or 20 minutes, and then they're going to have a fight afterwards, regardless of what the goddamn finish is. Now, how close did I get to what actually happened with that prediction there?
Starting point is 02:59:17 Well, there was a big turn at the end. You didn't see that? That's really the big story. No, I didn't watch this whole goddamn thing, because why? Because it's the same thing every week. Did they turn somebody? They turn someone to the dark side or the Moxley side. Who turned?
Starting point is 02:59:32 Daniel Garcia. So he will now be finally united with We Were You to the two youngans that were brought in around the same point in time and one went with Jericho, one went with Moxley. Now they'll be together finally under one umbrella. Together, wherever we go. Danny Garcia is a heel now. well now I'm ashamed I missed that. My goodness, this is going to transform the whole company.
Starting point is 03:00:04 They don't know when to quit with these fucking guys, do they? Can he possibly be any more of a boring heel than he was, a boring, bland vanilla fucking baby face? And again, it's another one of the things where the baby face is down on his luck, and here comes the great motivator, Moxley the heel, to pick him up and get him fixed up. You know, you said it earlier. Kyle has put on size.
Starting point is 03:00:32 He's made some very strange wardrobe choices, but at least he's gotten new gear. He, again, the hairstyle, what the fuck, but he's trying to do some, the glasses, I don't know, he's trying to do something. But he has put work in to transform his body. Yuda and Garcia are the same blah-looking, in fucking parking attendance that they were
Starting point is 03:00:58 when they came in here three or four years ago. They do the same shit in the matches and they look exactly the same. Yudah's grown some hair. So he looks even more unkempt. He looks like a goddamn bloated string of spaghetti that got stuck in the bottom of the fucking pot after everybody had their fill.
Starting point is 03:01:21 And fucking Garcia, is there a... Could you actually... X-ray him and find a muscle or a tendon. Is there any delineation like he's ever done a fucking sit-up? Has he ever tried to get any kind of goddamn outfit to make himself look like something? And he's got that, I don't know, we debated one time. Is he from Virginia, like that coastal Virginia kind of weird accent?
Starting point is 03:01:52 But he just sounds like a goddamn schmo. and they won't back off. And meanwhile, when's the last time you heard Hobbs speak? Was he in that Twilight Zone episode where he won the bet for 100 grand that he wouldn't speak for a year, but he had his vocal cords cut? Yeah, he hasn't really spoken.
Starting point is 03:02:16 I mean, the ops haven't had a lot of promo time in general, but usually Samoa Joe does the talk. Well, why is it an op? What does Shepoopee have to do with Powerhouse Hobbs and why is Samoa Joe saddled with either one of them? Jesus, H. Christ, you can't make groups that are completely disjointed. You can't get them over and you can't. If there's a group, whether it be DX or the four horsemen or the goddamn bloodline or whatever,
Starting point is 03:02:49 they have common threads running through them, even if they're disparate personalities. This is a goddamn collection of people that Tony Kahn wanted to, make six-man tag team champions, and that's where their connection ends. Nobody knows what they sound like. Joe, well, Joe, from when he used to talk, Hobbs, I bet people can't remember ever hearing him talk, and Shepoopi was talking through his fucking phone. If you don't know what a guy's voice sounds like, unless he's got a manager and he's eating the fucking announcer's tie while the manager's,
Starting point is 03:03:28 doing all the talking. If you don't know what a guy's voice sounds like, he ain't a main event fucking guy. Sorry. Anyway, welcome to the club, Danny Garcia. You dastardly heal you.
Starting point is 03:03:47 Well, there it is, AEW Dynamite for, what were you going to say? I apologize for cutting you on. I was just going to say, and I was wondering, before we talk about the ratings,
Starting point is 03:03:56 see, I was going to give you a chance to just jump in here. If you've got some more exciting programming on the Arcadian Vanguard Network this week than they did on AEW. Oh, you hear that noise. That means something's about to happen. Another fine week on the Arcadian Vanguard podcast network. Get information about all the shows on Twitter at Super Podcasts or on Facebook.
Starting point is 03:04:18 Facebook.com slash Arcadian Vanguard. Of course, this week, like every week, the wrestling news each and every day. There for you. The morning wrestling newscast, no paywall, no clickbait, just a wrestling news. No opinion. Just the wrestling news. I said it. The wrestling news.
Starting point is 03:04:34 Yes. Or wherever you find your favorite podcast. No more, no less. Want to mention, Shut Up and Wrestle with Brian Solomon. This week's guest, Sean Delaney, talking about Evansville, Indiana, and so much more.
Starting point is 03:04:46 Where he is. My man, Sean Delaney, going to tell some stories about E-Ville. Here it at S-U-A-W-Pod.com. We'll look for Shut Up and wrestle with Brian Solomon, wherever you find your favorite podcast. By the way, his book just arrived here.
Starting point is 03:04:59 I know Jim just got it. Of course, we're talking about Irresistible Force, the guerrilla monsoon biography. What a fine looking book. And it looks even better. Oh, my gosh, it's a beautiful book. Yeah.
Starting point is 03:05:10 I read it, but I read a manuscript. This is an actual book, and it's even better. Well, once again, get that at Amazon or wherever you get your favorite books. Of course, stick to wrestling with John McAdam, a look at 1985, 40 years ago, in the WWF, a pack month, September, 1985.
Starting point is 03:05:29 McAdampod.com or stick to wrestling with John McAdam, wherever you find your favorite podcast, and of course the 605 Super Podcast, The Mothership! Go through the archive, 605Pod.com, available wherever you find your favorite podcasts, The Mothership. So I can sneak that one in there. All right, well, the question is,
Starting point is 03:05:53 how many people watched this fiasco this week, and they were having to rebound from, I believe last week was the record low ever in the normal time slot. So how's the bounce? Was it like a rubber biscuit? Did it bounce back? Well, we shall find out
Starting point is 03:06:12 AEW Dynamite on TBS Wednesday, September 10th, 2025, from 8 to 10.06 p.m. On average, watched by 584,000 viewers. Ooh, well, they bounced back up from four-something-something,
Starting point is 03:06:32 back into the record lows that they have been achieving before they hit the real record low. So they're still down below 600 and down below their average. A 24% jump from last week's all-time low of 472 and
Starting point is 03:06:48 for the failing, for the trailing four-week average, it's up 1% over 578. So that's the overall number. Let's get these quarter hours here. Jim, were compiled by Wesslenomics,
Starting point is 03:07:05 quarter 1, 8 to 8.15 p.m. Brian Danielson entrance. Josh Alexander versus Adam Page with picture and picture. 665,000 viewers. Ooh, again, they're not getting big lead-ins. They're not getting big first quarters
Starting point is 03:07:24 like they used to, and this is, remember when we used to do the math where we would take out the first quarter to get a more accurate audience measurement, because the first quarter was always an aberration, it was abnormally large from the Big Bang theory or whatever. This is kind of more in line with what we were getting a couple of years ago, but apparently they've killed the Big Bang's business, too.
Starting point is 03:07:53 Well, it actually makes me wonder if there's a difference in the way things are being measured, because for a long time, the Big Bang theory was going to 801. I feel like it ends a little closer to 8 here now that it used to, you know, that it used to to. I don't know if that means... I don't know, but when you think about it, they ain't making no more Big Bang theories, so people have seen it 17 times now. At some point, it's not I Love Lucy. It ain't going to last forever. Well, Jim, quarter to 8.15.8.30 p.m.
Starting point is 03:08:19 The continuation of Josh Alexander versus Adam Page and the postmatch with the Page-Kyle-Fletcher live promo, 636,000 viewers. And they, you know, again, they dropped 29,000. They used to drop 100 to something thousand, but they start with fewer, but they're,
Starting point is 03:08:39 they still lost in the start of the program. They lose almost 30,000 people when the world champion is in the ring. Yeah. Jim quarter three, 830 to 845 p.m. The MJF backstage promo, an ad break, the Young Buck's confrontation with Brandon Cutler
Starting point is 03:09:00 and John Moxley at catering, and the start of Emmysakura and Mercedes Monet versus Alex Windsor. For those complaining about the way I've been pronouncing it, I apologize, and Rio. I just thought she was chapped from the wind, wind soar. 601,000 viewers. Well, and is anybody surprised?
Starting point is 03:09:25 They put the outlaw girls in that early in the show, and they lose another 35,000 people, and I mean at this point they're going to have to level off because they won't be able to make their average, but it may very well get worse. We got a quarter 4, 845 to 9 p.m. The continuation of Sakara and Monet versus Windsor and Rejo, the ricochet and Gates of Agony backstage promo,
Starting point is 03:09:54 an ad break, the Adam Copeland Christian Cage video, and the start, or no, all of, I guess, the FTR Stokely live angle, 573,000 viewers. Jesus Christ, so there went another 28,000, and now they're 65, 80, 92,000 down from the start of the,
Starting point is 03:10:19 again, they've got to go up here somewhere, but they won't make their average. So what is, are they going to gain at the top of the hour? Well, we go to the big nine o'clock hour, quarter five, 9 to 9.9.15 p.m. the Hurt Syndicate backstage angle, and Shelton Benjamin versus Rickashay with picture and picture, 618,000 viewers.
Starting point is 03:10:44 Well, there you go. The top of the hour, the Hertz Syndicate, you've got 20,000, 45,000 people to say, okay, here's Shelton, something's going to happen. Question is, did they keep them? We got a quarter 6, 915, and 9.30 p.m. The continuation of Benjamin versus Ricochet. The post match with the Hurt Syndicate and the Gates of Agony.
Starting point is 03:11:13 An ad break. The dog callous Kyle Fletcher backstage promo. And the start of Tony Storm versus Sky Blue, a picture and picture. 558,000 viewers. Ouch, okay. Well, now we don't want to say that they just, just immediately all switched off, even though Shelton and Rickashay's match wasn't going on, but by the time they got to that outlaw girl shit, they just dropped them 60,000 people
Starting point is 03:11:44 in 15 minutes. Jesus. All right. Did it pick up any for the titty stapling and the labia licking and all the things that went on? I don't think that went on. Quarter 7, 930 to 9.45 p.m. the continuation of Storm versus Blue the postmatch with the Triangle of Madness Jamie Hater Oh and Jamie Hater separate segment now Willow Nightingale Harley Cameron backstage angle
Starting point is 03:12:14 and an ad break 535,000 viewers Ooh so the women's garbage match lost them more viewers in basically the time that they were out there, then they'd lost in the entire show up until that point. And now they're 130,000 down from the top, and they started kind of low.
Starting point is 03:12:38 Well, we're going out of quarter eight. I remind you a six-minute overrun. 9.45 to 10 p.m., Bandito and the ops. Versus the Death Riders and the Youngbucks, 513,000 viewers. Six-minute overrun, post-match, with Darby Allen and Daniel Garcia, 514,000. So a thousand people were standing by in case impractical jokers came on.
Starting point is 03:13:11 They still managed to lose 150,000 viewers from the top, and only started with 665 to begin with. They're lucky it's not lower. It's a bad show. It's just not a good show. Right now it isn't. Well, hopefully next week's 12-man tag team match we'll bring the numbers back up.
Starting point is 03:13:31 But, I mean, you know, we'll see, but I don't see them cracking 600 again consistently, unless they make changes in this programming. What else they're going to do? What else are we going to do? We're going to say, we'll see you on the drive-through. We'll see you on the drive-through. Thank you.
Starting point is 03:13:56 Fuck you. And bye-bye, everybody.

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