Jim Cornette Experience - Episode 606: Fright Night

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

This week on the Experience, Jim reviews AEW Dynamite & WWE Smackdown highlights! Plus Jim talks about Dynamite ratings, Mike Rotunda, Braun Strowman's eating show, Andrew losing his crown, and much more! Thanks to our episode sponsors: SHOPIFY:  Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/jce. DRAFTKINGS CASINO: Download the app or go to https://casino.draftkings.com/ and use code CORNETTE at sign-up. HELIX:  Go to helixsleep.com/jce for 27% Off Sitewide exclusive for listeners of the Jim Cornette Experience!  RAYCON:  Go to buyraycon.com/jce to save up to 30% off on Raycon audio products sitewide during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. @TheJimCornette @GreatBrianLast Join Jim Cornette's College Of Wrestling Knowledge on Patreon to access the archives & more! https://www.patreon.com/Cornette Subscribe to the Official Jim Cornette channel on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/OfficialJimCornette Visit Jim's official site at www.JimCornette.com for merch, live dates, commentaries and more! You can listen to Brian on the 6:05 Superpodcast at 605pod.com or wherever you find your favorite podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Like the midnight and the rock and roll. He's in a fight for wrestling soul using a racket and some mind control. He's in Connett. The keys to the future. Hell by Nets. The episode of the J. The scariest thing about AEW's Fright Night was the ratings. Brown Strowman is eating well in unemployment and Smackdown proves less is more, more or less.

And joining me. Hawaiian Brian the podcasting line The King of the Arcadian Vanguard podcast network Mr. Co-host to you he's the 2025 competitive eating champion French Toast Division The great Brian Last everybody Aloha Jim, a pleasure to be here once again

We just got French Toast the other day My son is starting to like it This is one of the big moments in parenthood for me But it's a pleasure to be here We have a great show, a lot of big topics, a lot of big things happening Such a happening is big your new your version of tony's great now a lot of big big things big it's my great

big is my great hold on let me do it right big is my great there we go well ring a ding dong dandy um and i'm glad your your children are now being introduced to the the french variety of the toast that's heartwarming to hear earliest I've ever hit you with. It's your show. Well, there you know. No, I got to, I don't want to start laughing too much here. I got to do something at the start of the program. I got to recognize somebody. I think about about a year ago, some of the listeners may remember I wished well to a young lady, a three months younger

than me, so young, young lady out in White Plains, Kentucky named Melody, who was a long time, old time, Memphis wrestling fan from the days the Evansville Coliseum on Wednesday nights and Madisonville, Kentucky, first Saturday of the month that nobody came to. She was having some health issues and what she had was cancer. And I got the news from her sister, Pam, this past week, that she passed way on October 24th. Oh, no. And, you know, again, I didn't think I was going to, when I say it out loud, it's worse. But the thing is, I mentioned my mother thought a lot of her.

She was friends. She used to come up after I'd already gotten to business and moved away. She'd drive up every now and then. Or if she happened to be, have to be in Louisville. I don't, well, she didn't have to be in Louisville. She just came up on purpose to see my mom. And what I hate about this is. is again, it reminds me of when normal people, Brian, were wrestling fans.

And I'm not, I'm not saying that all the wrestling fans these days in our audience that they're just all weird, although AEW does brag about theirs, but no, I'm not saying that. I'm saying the fans then, the 70s, the 80s, they were normal people. in that they watched the TV show for an hour on weekends, Saturday morning, whatever the case, and they went to the matches three hours on Wednesday night or Tuesday night or Saturday night,

not only to see the show, but also as their social evening out, to see all our friends, we've talked about it, how that, you know, everybody knew the ringsiders and they all visited and, well, there's Mrs. Zimmerman, well there's old Pat over there, blah, blah, blah. But otherwise, they didn't know every wrestler in the world. They didn't know what was going on in the AWA or in Florida, except if they happen to take a vacation and see a newspaper ad is how they found out.

They didn't follow everything to where when, well, nobody came out as a goddamn surprise back then. you advertise people, but you had to get over new talent, new, in front of a new audience, because they didn't keep up with the world of wrestling. There was no way for them to do it, and there wasn't any time because they had normal jobs. And it wasn't a goddamn financial class situation. You had doctors and lawyers, and he had a lot of people who worked at the store, or down the street at the gas station, or was a fucking clerk somewhere, whatever. but they they didn't

they didn't know the word Booker much less know what the fucking Booker did they knew something was going on many of them but they didn't know what or how and since there was no way to find out they didn't bother to dwell on it and it there were people of all ages because it was accessible to people of all ages and all income levels.

And, you know, I said the teenage girls, you know, they were rock stars, the boys, to the teenage girls, they wanted to come to get with the wrestlers, and the boys wanted to come to get with the girls that were coming to get with the wrestlers. And the married couple came because they were, might have met at the matches, and they bring the kids because it's cheaper than babysitting.

And the old people, been there 40 years, could tell you what, Aluth is his fucking, first match was. And the promoters weren't trying to gouge people out of every goddamn dollar because they needed them to come back every

week for the next 20 years. And because it was so mainstream and so accessible, many people around town wherever you lived, I'm coming back to Melody. You would have friends that were

watching the TV show or going to go to the matches. And with Melody White Plains, I don't think there's a thousand people in it yet. I bet you not. So it's a little town in Kentucky, but it's over toward the Evansville, Indiana end. And, you know, 40 years ago, however many people were there then, but sometimes her sister would drive her up on Wednesday nights as often as she could come. and Madisonville, as I mentioned, was a regular spot show that didn't draw.

So my mom would be sitting there at the gimmick table. Melody would sit and visit with her half the show. Because it was not only coming to see the guys in person that were in your territory that you saw on TV, that you knew who they were, but it was also just coming to visit people. And Melody was a nice girl and didn't mess around with any of the boys or whatever. but there was tons of fans like that that just needed to get away for a little while from their normal everyday routine instead of goddamn worrying about who the gleeet world junior featherweight featherweight featherweight champion is in Osaka

do you see what I'm saying Brian who is that champion Jim I have no fucking idea And what can Mercedes Monet do to get that belt? No, I see exactly what you're saying. It's one of the things missing from mainstream restaurants, well, especially WWE right now with the ticket prices and just everything else. Their schedule. It's one of the things that the Indies, as small as they may be, have that you don't really see anymore,

which is a community around the show, an ecosystem of regular fans, regular people. You don't get that anymore. You know, I know it's not the biggest, thing in the world, but they're not running the garden their normal annual December Christmas spectacular. May not be on Christmas, but it's an annual

thing. Right. The day after Christmas, usually. They're not doing it this year, and it shouldn't matter in the general scheme of thing, but there are fans who are like, they've taken that away from me now. You know, one of the few things I was already spending money on, not

only did they not just not do it, but if they did do it, they would have raised the prices. It's a different animal with WWE because it literally is like old Hollywood. You know, watch the stars, see the stars, and then go home. Yeah. But it used to be you could linger around, talk to people, meet people. You know, how many listeners out there have friends who they met at wrestling?

Just another person standing around, you start talking. And, you know, a lot of times in life, not at a wrestling event. If you meet someone and they could talk wrestling with you, you kind of stay in that conversation as long as you can. You kind of want to talk to that person. Because there's plenty of people in our lives that hate wrestling, dismiss wrestling, make fun of wrestling, whatever it is. Well, and also, you mentioned, first of all,

you mentioned earlier mainstream wrestling. Wrestling actually isn't mainstream anymore. Well, you know what I mean. But the point I'm going to make is when wrestling was mainstream, when a good percentage of people in your hometown were casual fans. They watched the TV show if they didn't go to the matches every week or whatever. They watched the TV. They knew who the people were.

And in a town like Memphis where you stood pretty much a one in three chance at most, if not one and two, of talking to somebody who watched Memphis wrestling. in Charlotte it was a little bit greater than that. But again, back to Melody in White Plains. She, her sister Pam mentioned she had several of her old friends over the week before she went in the hospital. And they talked about the old days of going to the wrestling matches and or watching the TV show together.

And that may have been, if there was five more people in town, that was fucking 50% of the population. of every one of these little towns. But they went about their routines of their jobs or their family or their lives. They didn't have to dwell on who every wrestler in the world was because if they were ever going to see them in person, the TV show they watched for one hour on Saturday would fucking tell them. And it was just, oh, that's why that there were a lot more fans then,

not only because of the performances, as we've talked about in the presentation of the whole business then versus now, but because I don't know how people have time to keep up with this shit now. We barely do, and this is our job. So it just, you know, that reminded me, but nevertheless. And it's funny too, because if you ever look at the people

that get like the most upset, like the ones that you could tell probably you're not listeners. Sometimes you hear from listeners that are complaining about something. I can tell this person's listening. But people who just don't like the complaints or anything, it tends to be the person who has to, based on how much there is, dedicate so much of their life every week to wrestling, to watching things, to reading about things, to writing about things,

whatever it may be. You know, it's not the fan who watches it and moves on with their day. It's the fan who watches it and then immediately turns on the New Japan show. and then is getting ready for the CMLL show, like they're going to stream everything and watch everything. They're really dedicated to that. They like everything. Those are the ones who generally have the biggest problem

if you complain about anything, because you're taking something from them almost. I was one of the biggest wrestling nuts in the world, and I've mentioned at the same time that Melody and I would speak at the matches. I knew what was going on in the AWA. I knew what was going on everywhere, because I was that one of the small number of those people, but at the same point, if there had been,

if I had been able to see that just the sheer hours of coverage of everything that is available today, I don't know, number one, I don't think I could have, and number two, it would all have blurred because it's so similar. Everything is so similar. and at least at that period of time, we've talked about this, was getting tapes from different territories and et cetera. Not only were the rosters different,

the presentation was different in terms of the announcer, the location of the show, the look, whatever the case, the style of the angles, and they still had the pro wrestling logic. But I don't know. know if as nerdy of a super fan as I was then, if I could take, well, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be a fan at all watching what is presented today. But if, if I had this many hours of the shit that was

presented then, I don't think I could have fucking stood it. You see what I'm saying to you, boy. Yeah. And that's also why it was such a big deal and how it would build up anticipation in someone when you saw the one hour of wrestling that aired every week, which included, I mean, depending on where you were, let's say at least six minutes, maybe too much, five minutes of promos just for you, just to tell you what you're going to see at the arena this week or next week. You couldn't wait to go see it. You couldn't wait to go see.

I mean, there were matches when I was a kid. I couldn't wait to go see that on its face. there would be horrible matches. They built me up into it. I couldn't wait to see it. You don't get that anymore. I mean, it goes to that conversation we had about the changes in promos

and format, everything else, but, you know, again, the community around a lot of these shows, it may be there for Indies, but it's not really there for WWE right now. Well, and the problem is the Indies don't have the type of product

that's going to draw thousands of people per week in a given city over and over, and therefore that goes back to the problem of wrestling not really being mainstream anymore. The W.W.E. is mainstream wrestling, but wrestling of any kind isn't really mainstream anymore as it once was.

And again, the Indies are a small example of what would have happened in the territories, but if you go to an indie show and let's say it draws 400 people, let's say it's a really good indie show, maybe there's five people there, maybe 10, somewhere in that range, who are always there. They come to every show. They get to know the wrestlers. Sometimes they bring a friend. You never know.

WWE now, if you're one of those fans, you're a fan spending six figures to travel around with them and they'll let you do some stuff. They'll give you some perks, which you'll pay for. and then you'll get to go pay for your pictures and everything else that you'll do. It's a money grab there. For the Indies, it's, you know, it's almost like going to a rock club

and seeing like a band, you know, seeing just bands, like not bands that are famous, just bands, it's the people around that. It's going to comedy. That's, you know, that's the way it is for smaller shows, but WWE doesn't have what you guys had in Louisville, which is a community around the show. Yeah.

And, but anyway, back to community, I wanted to recognize melody. I was sorry. And here's the kicker. I knew she would be interested in my new book. And therefore, she was one of the people in the first round of stuff. Before her orders that as soon as we got to book, I gave to Hotchkiss to send out. And the book got there the day that she passed away. So she never got a chance to see it.

But I wanted to recognize her and just, again, my mother thought a lot of her. She thought a lot of my mom and we've exchanged cards and notes between us over the last year or so since she's been sick. But I wanted to mention that and it brought up the subject of when there was a lot of wrestling fans because it was easy for everybody to get into. That is what made wrestling popular around the country, and I fear that we have, you know, we've lost all of that. Nevertheless, on a more positive note, Brian, I'll have you know

that I did something yesterday as we sit here, Halloween day. This is the following day that we're recording this. So on Halloween, I did something I haven't done in a long time. Would you like to know what that you already know? You're going to cheat because I've already told you. But I'll tell everybody else, I took the day off, which I have not done in a while, and I know people that have ordered books,

you're going to goddamn you. But as many people know, it's mine and Stacey's anniversary on Halloween. And so I took the day off, and we watched Turner Classic movies with all the universal classic horror, horror creatures, horror characters during the day and relaxed.

And I, we were going to have a Halloween Eve and a Halloween night dinner. And she got screwed on hers because the night before Halloween, she said, hey, I just saw the sign out at the mall, St. Matthews. There's a Texas D. Brazil. Brian, are you familiar with this establishment? I've never heard of that specific one. Is that like one of those Brazilian meathouses? No, I think you're thinking of that,

they have that kind of thing down in Rio de Janeiro, those meat houses. And Queens. But you don't want, you don't want to go there. But you're talking about a Brazilian steakhouse is what you're talking about. Those are the words I was thinking of. they're the the the churiscaria or whatever the fuck is the meathouse the technical term again going back to the meat house look do they give you a steam first a little rub down but anyway she saw the sign it's out let's go that's what she picked and then what i picked was you know i love the g and m crab cakes from g and m restaurant in maryland and she mail-ordered some of those and I got the bacon-wrapped fillets

and I made us our anniversary dinner. However, I mentioned she got jacked out of hers because when we went to look up, reservations required with, you know, just some information on this thing. They've got the sign up, but the goddamn restaurant's not open yet. Oh, that sucks.

It's actually in the mall. They put the sign on the side of the, to sign on the side of the thing, but it's just coming soon. They don't even have a phone number yet, which we had intended to go there for like two weeks before we found out that information the day beforehand. But nevertheless, so she's got a, what,

the rain date to go to Texas D. Brazil. But yes, I hate to just sit around Brian and not be as productive as normal, but I had a nice time with us just lolling around watching television. And she got me the nice cards and I got her the nice flowers and we had the nice food. And then we made the one decision that I'm not sure yet whether we've decided was positive or not. Have you heard about the new Netflix show Ed Gein? the monster Ed Gein.

Have you heard about this? I have heard a little bit about it. I've not seen any of it. I don't. I've seen two of them now. I went sleep, knotted off on a second one, partway through,

and then woke up at the finish because she heard me snoring. She's like, hey, I don't know whether I like it or not, because I like the story. And I like the guy that's playing him is a spooky,

eerie son of a bitch, right? And he's giving him a voice where he kind of talks like this. You know, he's just like, he's, and then he takes an axe and fucking chop somebody in a fucking head. But it's all over the place. There's flashbacks and there's,

they brought Alfred Hitchcock into it. Because Ed Gein, for anybody who's wondering why, who had lampshades and things made of skin in his house and who had committed these murders in Wisconsin was the basis for the story psycho with Norman Bates and his mother because Ed Gein had dug up his mother's body and blah, blah, blah. You can read it on the internet. But the guy playing Alfred Hitch, I'm fatter now than the guy playing Alfred Hitchcock.

He's like pushing his cheeks out against his neck to try to fucking look fat. and there's all these and then Anthony Perkins is in a subplot flashback with a gay lover while he's auditioning for a skinny Alfred Hitchcock who's meeting with goddamn Robert Block, right, wrote the screenplay for Psycho.

But at the same time the girlfriend that Ed Gein allegedly has that he never really had or they're doing things that he never really did with this bitch of Buchenwald book about the Nazi

it's very complicated you see what I'm saying to you yeah it sounds very complicated I have no interest in seeing this based on anything you said so far and he didn't really they don't know that he killed his brother for sure

his brother died under suspicious circumstances, but in this show, he just clocked him right over the head with a goddamn stump, and left him in the barn for a week, so there's no doubt. So I think they're taking liberties on Ed Gein. It's like the Hulk Hogan principle, the true story. It seems like it'd be enough, right, without having to go all over there. They're trying to be artsy. They're going for some kind of award or certificate of honor. I recommend it highly. Yeah, sit down

and watch all eight shows. We got through two. I don't know whether we'll come, but maybe there's, is there highlights on YouTube of these shows where they just show you the Ed Geeney parts and leave out to subplots? Hopefully that's not the only thing you watched on your head of, but hopefully you watch something you actually liked. Well, we had done the universal horror thing through the day,

but we waited until it got dark and thought we could curdle up and watch a new spooky show that we hadn't seen, and it was confusing. It was confusifying. Do you ever do Abbott and Costello and Meet Frankenstein when you do the universal horror thing? I think it's on Spingooly this weekend. Is it tonight?

Oh, no shit. I think it's tonight. As we are recording, of course. Oh, no way. Well, but yes. not out as they're out there here. Why? You have a... Tonight sucks now, because that's something I would love to watch

and I'd love to watch it with the kids. I used to watch out my dad. That's just such a classic movie and it may be the best appearance in some cases of some of those monsters. But I have Game 7 of the World Series. It's been a great World Series. And Saturday night's main event, which we have to turn around and record about.

Well, Saturday night's main event's going to be on the cock. You can watch that later. If anything good happens, though, edited out. If anything crazy happens, though, but nothing crazy is going to happen. Unless Jesse Ventura, you know, just says some wacky shit. Do you think Jesse'll even be there? That's a good question. They haven't announced them or anything, right?

I think they've shied away from that the last few shows. But, well, I hate it that you have such a programming conundrum. I would watch Swingooley Live with the kids, and then watch the baseball game without anybody speaking to you, and then tomorrow, watch the Saturday night's main event. See, the problem is I hate watching baseball after the fact. That's a case where I'll just watch highlights. To watch a game and get into every moment and really feel it,

you got to watch it live. Why, it's new to you? You don't know what's going to happen. It's game seven of the World Series. As soon as there's a finish, it's going to get out. It's going to be everywhere. how the I got news for you about 7 o'clock at night comes and unless something happened that was loud enough or shook the earth

outside my fucking place of residence here I would not know what fuck was going on until I decided to check in the next day so you're just you're doing it wrong you need to tell me

that if I if I can sometimes go two days without, especially if Stace might be on, well, formerly when she would visit her folks or whatever, and there was absolutely no, because she would be the only person that would be able to let me know that goddamn, you know, new Pope had been elected or whatever in the outside world. I don't, I don't check in that often. What are your thoughts on the Sven Squad? They've been doing that all for October where there's a second Spangouli, but he's only like a cameo appearance.

It's... It's the House of Svengui. House of Svenguli. That's what it is. Yes, because the House of Frankenstein was such a gathering of all of the characters. I said, Gwenguly's quite pleasing. She's good, too. She's quite energetic.

She's very peppy. She's actually very good in that role, I think. She's happy and peppy and bursting with zip. And I've not sold on the little peanut-headed character yet. Yeah, that's the worst one. See, at least nostalgia for Ratu. You're like, you know, that's the same guy from tune in with me. So obviously, you know, at least he's creative.

At least he's trying to do something. And he has good punchlines. The imp, whatever it is, I don't, I'm not into that. Yeah, I want to say Montel Von Tavius Porter. I don't think that's. I don't think so. That's, yes, he's some anagram, but it's obviously not MVP anyway. Hey, can I ask you about something just as a follow up to a,

conversation we previously had. Well, quit following me. In the section of the show here, The Crown News, what are your thoughts on Prince Andrew, now not allowed to be a prince? He has a new name. They actually put out a press release. Buckingham Palace put out a press release to announce his new gimmick. He's been stripped of his IP because he left the territory.

He can't take the gimmick that he was handed. He can't take it with him. He can't take it with him. He is. what is now that he's supposed to call himself something in particular do you have that in front of you let me pull it up here uh because it was obviously but before we were joking is he just going to be andrew and apparently fergie was highly pissed and they kicked him out of the house and and he's got to live somewhere else and they were about to take that out from under him

if he didn't fucking tow the line well jim i have the statement here from buckingham Palace. His Majesty has today initiated a formal process to remove the style, titles, and honors of Prince Andrew. To remove the style? What is, how do you take somebody's style away? What are you going to maybe wear baggy clothing? This is like Razor Ramon leaving WWF. He couldn't have a toothpick. Everything was somehow, you know, the IP of WWFs. Is some bitch not allowed to wear a crown anymore? And the title. They've taken the title off them. That's a drastic move for the promotion. Prince Andrew will now be known as Andrew

Mountbatten Windsor. What a gimmick change. His lease on Royal Lodge has, to date, provided him with legal protection to continue in residence. Formal notice has now been served to surrender the lease and move to alternative private accommodation. These censures are deemed necessary. notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him.

Their majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been and will remain with the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse. And that is the end of the statement, so he's no longer Prince Andrew, he's now Andrew Mountain Batten, Windsor. So the... Like a serial killer, they've given him a middle name now. That's like the middle of the middle name of every serial killer in the United States is Wayne, like John Wayne Gacy. That's right. But over there it's going to be Mountbatten.

This is a fucking Chauncey Mountbatten fucking Froghorn. So he denies everything, but his own family, the royal family of England, who has not always been noted through history for being the most most. forthcoming about exposing their own public or exposing their own private problems in public has kicked him out of the goddamn house. That would indicate that they probably believe that he could not win a jury trial over this, wouldn't you think? Yeah, I think he's in a lot of trouble. I mean, this is great.

Again, imagine if like Vince McMahon showed up at your house and said, you have to get out of my house immediately and you're not about to call yourself that name ever again. I don't use your style or your title or anything else. But I have another article here. Again, these kind of articles may be why this is happening from the New York Post. The article, disgraced ex-Prince Andrew had 40 prostitutes brought to Thailand hotel on taxpayer-funded trip. Myographer says. Wait, okay, there's so many things. Just all in one. sentence there. That's the headline, yeah. And we've established a part of why he's the disgraced ex-Prince, but 40 prostitutes brought to a, brought to a hotel in, where was it? In Thailand.

Thailand. That's where Kevin Von Erick was selling one-way tickets a few years ago. Remember that commercial? Quit now. Don't link Kevin with any of this. But look, he's. But look, he. here, look you here. Yeah. I can understand, first of all, that if you're a rich and powerful person, you can do some things that you could probably get away with because you could either pay people to not talk about it or you can afford to do it off out of the public eye. How do you cover up having 40 prostitutes brought anywhere to do anything with, and with him, or were there other people involved? And if so, you've got a fucking human circle of a hundred people or more

that how the fuck is he think he's a fucking prince? That's not going to get out. So was there details on this? There are some details here. I guess this is from an interview that was done on the deep dive, the fall of the House of York podcast, with Royal Historian and author Andrew Lowney, and his quote was

There was a famous trip to Thailand For the birthday celebrations of the king Andrew is representing his country And insist on staying in a five-star hotel Rather than the embassy Which he always did Andrew had 40 prostitutes Brought in the space of four days

This was all enabled by diplomats and others And uh... Lownie has... Hold on, hold on, hold on, what year was this? Was there a date on this? Yeah, because, oh, there's more details. In 2001, Andrew's 41. He's having his midlife crisis,

and he basically starts chasing lots and lots of women. He uses the excuse of his role as trade envoy, paid by the taxpayer, to go on these trips. He always puts in two weeks of private time. So we pay for his holiday, and then he goes off and does things. Andrew was sending a list of people

he wanted to meet for his own personal business interests. That's not prostitutes. That's business. Yeah, so. But this guy, so this was 20 years ago or whatever, a little more, but this guy is how old is he? Well, he was 41. He said, so he's 41 year, but.

He was 41 in 2001. Okay. Well, yes, I know. That's what I'm saying. He was 41 years old is what I'm driving at. So it's not the old decrepit son of a bitch that we're looking at today that got 40 hookers. but at the same time a 40-year-old man or any man,

40 prostitutes in four days, was he just having them brought into window shop? Because you can't tell me. Yeah, maybe that's it. Maybe he likes, like having a selection. Like, not everyone gets picked, but he just has them, like, you know, do contests, like some kind of obstacle course or something,

and the winner gets to him. Yeah, something involving pudding. they're big on pudding over there they make pudding out of everything and no wonder his family is kicking him out of the fucking house and this is one story this is one story

it's not even the most salacious it's not even about everything that has come out or will come out about Jeffrey Epstein and him and different women in him from that you could understand why Prince Charles who has never really seemed like a loose guy

You can understand why Prince, well, I shouldn't say Prince Charles, King Charles, you can understand why King Charles and his kid, Prince William, would be like, I don't want this guy anywhere near us. I don't even want him to be able to say he's a member of the family of the kingdom. Imagine when those miserable and insufferable fucking douchebags don't want you anywhere near the goddamn family. You could only imagine. It is like, I don't know, Arthur or something,

just the idea that like the family has this one fucking wild unhinged lunatic who, again, thought he can get away with all this forever. I'll just do this. I'm Prince Andrew. Who could stop me? Send me 40 hookers, please. It's my twisted Alibaba. Send me 40 hookers.

You know that he is, goddamn peace. This motherfucking brother of mine is the king, and king, and I'm over here having to move out to alternative private accommodations. Oh, that's got. got to eat him. And he's living with his ex-wife,

which that alone can't be an easy situation. I just saw Fergie you're talking about. Yes. Remember I said, oh, Fergie, I remember Fergie, Fergie, oh, yeah, that was 40 years ago. Ooh, Fergie looks like she's fermented at this point. I, no, and I did the wrinkles if she was wearing long earrings. she looked like Venetian blinds.

So I take back what I'd said earlier. I was remembering the Fergie of days gone by. And those days have certainly gone by. What kind of job can this guy get? He's going to have to do something, right? I guess they're going to still like let him live. They're going to still pay his. Oh, God.

I bet by the time that he could just sell the goddamn silverware he's taken out of the castle and putting his fucking second apartment somewhere he could probably live for the rest of his life. I don't think we need to worry about him going to work to become a clerk at boots. See, I've been over there. I know what these fucking little local fucking phrases are. He should run for prime minister. I would assume that with the average population of the United Kingdom, that he's about as popular as crotch rod.

He's not like some kind of populist hero that they're, doing wrong he's a gadabout. That's why a lot of people think all this is happening right now. It's Prince Charles. Again, I did it again, but it's King Charles saying enough of this. You know, just the, it's all coming out, more is going to come out, they know what he's already like. But, uh, yeah, that's the story of Andrew Mountbatten, Windsor.

What a sad tale. The prince who lost his crown, you know, kicked out of the house? He needs to write a children's book. The Prince who lost his crown. Brian, you know, now I'm just, fucking, it just popped into my head. The big problem I got now,

the big worry I've got for him, is it he's been kicked out of the royal residence. He don't know where his, where his next fucking 40 hookers are coming from. Is it, where is he going to, sleep? Is he homeless? Is he going to be out in Hyde Park? Where is he going to be sleeping? And what's he going to be sleeping on? Who's he going to be sleeping next to? And what are they going to be sleeping on?

Because, you know, he could sleep on Fergie. But at the same point, she looks like she's bony as well as lumpy. And then there's there's the, well, some parts of her are fat and some parts of her look kind of bony and lumpy. You could say that nice. She looks bony and Frank Bank. There you go. So you might have to fluff her all night long. So I'm just wondering,

you mentioned he's not going to be able to get a job. I don't think he's going to be hurting for money. But do they have Helix sleep mattresses over there in the United Kingdom available to people without royal titles? Because you sleep like a king on one over here in the U.S. so do you have to be a member of the royal family to get a Helix mattress in the United Kingdom? That's my question.

You know, I don't know. It's a very interesting question. We should certainly focus on the people who aren't derelicts here in the United States. You need a good mattress. A good place to sleep. Whether you are bony or lumpy, Helix sleep has the mattress for you. Well, and we don't want you derelict now to listen to this, because if you are completely derelict of any,

money or credit or any way to pay for this shit, well, fuck you. But I'll tell you what, if you're, it's a dereliction of your duty. If you're not passing the word, folks, about the helix sleep mattresses that help everybody sleep better and feel better, and including you, if you're one of the few listeners out there in the cult of Cornett audience that have not already availed yourself of the opportunity to sleep like you're sleeping in the arms of the angels with the best darn mattress that will ever be delivered to your door, well, then you need to start. And that's, you know, we've been saying it all along. If you're sweating at night, well, if you're on

a run from the law, we can't really do anything about that. You're going to have some sleepless, sweaty nights. But if you're otherwise unencumbered by any legal issues, you don't have anybody trying to hunt you down and climbing your window, you're just sweating like a fucking pig all night long. They got a mattress that'll cool you down. If you got back pain, they've got a mattress that will ease that in whatever fashion it needs to be eased.

You've got to go on the helixleep.com website and take the little quiz about which positions you'd like to get comfortable in. I understand reverse cowgirl position has made it up to number three. Regular sleeping positions we're talking about specifically here. Regular sleeping positions. Yes, people sleep in a variety of ways and who are we to judge. And they've got the small, the small, they've got the soft, the medium, the firm, the extra firm, all that stuff.

But they got ones for the kids. They got the mattress for old people that doubles as a body bag for the crematorium. No. If you, what? Ladies and gentlemen, you hear that funky sound, and what that means is we got a great deal for you. Of course, we love Helix Sleep. I have several Helix Sleep mattresses here in the house. Hey, Jim, look at the little bird.

I have several mattresses here in the house. Of course, a Castle Corvette, very popular. We're both looking forward to getting new Helix mattresses. Yes, as a matter of fact, we went ahead and ordered about four more, and what we're going to do is we're just going to put a sign down on the highway mattresses for rent, for travelers. I want to come in. We put them all lined up side by side down in the bar in the basement. No. And what we're going to do is we're just going to have people come in and rent those for three hours at a time.

So it's a money-making opportunity as well. Again, we could all have fun and games, tell jokes. We should also remember we live in residential districts and be very careful. But Jim, what we really want to talk about. Oh, I'm back in the woods. Nobody knows anything about this. We really want to talk about. Matter of fact, that's one of the questions we ask people when. they come in, do you have any family or close friends that would be wondering where you are

in the next year or so? They check the appropriate box, but right now you can check the appropriate box by going going going. Going to helix sleep.com, H-E-L-I-X, I'll have you know, sleep.com slash j-C-E-E, and you're going to get 27% off sidewise. 27 by gum percent off of anything they got on the site. And, you know, once again, some of these items can be used for different purposes. So if you order eight or ten mattresses, well, that's a good way to just line the back of yard in case of a house fire.

You can jump out of a top window and your entire backyard is covered with these helix mattress and you'll just bounce right up. so while you can get them 27% off, I'd say go for 10 of them, at least. Helixleep.com slash JCE is the code to get the discount of 27% off of four said mattresses. Brian, do you agree with that? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Inoki. Great mattresses. Again, we love them here at this house, and we're pretty sure that you'll love them to check

them out. Helix sleep, once again. Pretty sure. You're not convinced. I mean, I would think so. There's some lunatics out there. You never know, but what we do know is healingsleep.com slash JCE. Well, anybody didn't like one of these. I would have to take them to court on that for some kind of slander, malicious prosecution of some description. All right. Anyhow, back to what I was saying, do you know, hold on here, I got to get the name. Do you know what Eric from Maryland sent me in a mail

and I just went to the post office box and it jumped right out at me just a couple of days ago and I could not believe it. Guess what he sent me? I don't know. An autographed picture of Adrian Barbeau. Ah, ooh-la-la-law. To me, to Jim.

and pictures of her signing the picture at a horror movie convention that he had gone to where she was appearing. He's met her a couple of different times and he came up to her and started the conversation by mentioning her asking about her days as Miss Wrestling for Roy Shire in San Francisco.

Same thing I would do. That's awesome. That we had just been talking about here on the program a few months ago, whatever it was. Look it up on a YouTube channel, folks. And she popped apparently from what she told Eric, that is the first time

that in all of these, she's never done a wrestling convention. Why would she, right? But of all the horror movie conventions and fan fest of that chiller, theater, whatever, of that type, nobody has ever asked her about being Miss Wrestling. So

she signed it to To Jim best whatever the fuck Adrian Barbou Miss Wrestling Oh that's so cool And she told him It was her first job She had just become a model

And her mother actually drove her To the TV studio to do the TV shows Did she say anything about Roy Shire His language, his spitting, just his behavior? He didn't If he if she had of He would have mentioned it Because he wrote me a letter along with this

and she must not have because he didn't. But she chuckled, she popped about it. You know, she was like, oh, yeah. Yeah, she's always seemed cool. And you could almost imagine, you know, she would say that Roy Shire was a filthy, filthy man. But I guess they didn't want to bring up any horror creatures like that at the creature feature convention.

She was in Swamp Thing, escaped from New York. She was in a bunch of cool thing. Yes. Well, she married John Carpenter, remember? Yes. So the fog? almost as she was in a fog while she was married to John Carbett. No, I'm kidding.

But anyway, so thank you, Miss Wrestling. If you're listening to our show for the autograph picture, and Eric, you will be getting eventually a copy and return of my new book, Heroes and Friends, which brings me, Brian, to mention very briefly, before we go any further, that it has been a complete success. We officially sold out of the first print run. we're having more done. Nobody will notice an interruption in services, they say,

because it is going to take me a while to sign the remaining backlog of books. Now, however, the good news is, by the time the folks hear this, everything, all the orders, anything you ordered from the first days on sale, October 11th will have been handed to Hotchkis that either sent or is about to be sent. it's going to label whatever the case. That was almost 1,000 individual orders. Plus, because of Hotchkiss's super computerized space age technology, he has been able to pull out if you've just ordered like a t-shirt,

and you just wandered in trying to get a t-shirt, got in the middle of this onslaught, there's no reason for you to wait two months. If you ordered anything that I don't need to autographs like a t-shirt or the wrestling in the garden book by Scott Teal just individually. Some people just got that. He's already pulled that out. Your stuff is on the way.

We've pulled out if you ordered a book and T-shirt or a book and DVD, boom, that stuff has been handed off to him. And now I've got a big old stag of books to sign. But if you want it by Christmas, don't worry about the reprinting, worry about my carpal tunnel syndrome and tendonitis, Jimcornett.com. But that is a good point if you just want a T-shirt or even the tag team action figure sets and Midnut Express 4-pack that just requires an autographed picture from me. He's putting those things together while I'm signing books.

So if you want something non-book related, you will not have to wait so long. But we're making good progress, Brian. and hopefully these these wonderful, wonderful reviews will keep coming for a whole other print run. Yeah, we've been overwhelmed. Call to Cornet Facebook group, just people loving the book, so happy they've received it.

So I think you've made a lot of people happy, and there's still a lot of people probably that aren't going to receive it, because even if they've gotten it, their wife purchased it for them or someone, so it's going to be a Christmas gift. They have a month to wait until they get the gift. Well, fortunately, there's not like it's spoilers.

Like, oh, he revealed it. who killed Kennedy or whatever. So, you know, you can read the reviews of it and it won't spoil anything. And I, which I have to do because I got to take a break from signing books to go read the reviews on the Culta Cornette Facebook group of my book. And I appreciate everybody who had. I'll be interacting at some point with that, whenever. And I got to have Stacey show me how to get on there also. But do you know, Brian, switching gears.

here before we go to the programming again, that we got a bunch of smart asses listened to our program. Were you aware of this? I'm shocked. I'm talking smart. They are a smart ass son of a bitch is what they are. Do you want to hear this email I got from David in, I don't know,

well, wait, he doesn't mention where he's from. Wait a minute, because it's one of those dot edu email addresses. That's from an institution of higher learning and knowledge. UICEDU is one of these things. Do you know what that's code for? What's that? No, I'm asking you.

Do you know what that is code to the dot? EDU is like a college or education. Would it be the University of Illinois at Chicago, like the UIC pavilion? I don't fucking know. I'm asking you. I don't know. Back to you.

Well, you should know because you're a young urban professional. Anyway, David says, Dear Jim, I just wanted to thank you and Brian for the amazing work every week on the podcast.

Over the last few months, I've been working on completing my PhD in nuclear astrophysics. Oh, wow. He legit. legitimately is a nuclear business. What do you think? You're a rocket scientist?

Yes. Yes, I am. Yes, yes, yes, I am. And he says in both the drive-through and the experience have been perfect to have on while I've been working on my thesis. Can you imagine listening to our juvenality and tomfoolery while you're working on a thesis in nuclear astrophysic? That's wild.

During many a long night, your podcasts have given me energy and allowed me to keep grinding and finish many a long chapters. So in some small way, didn't have to capitalize small David. You and Brian can take you and Brian

can take joy in knowing you have helped advance science. Thanks again for all the work you two put into the podcast. Cheers, David. So now it sounds like he's from across the pond. But nevertheless,

it never. doubt again the fact that we not only have a large and influential but an educated and and smart type of audience out there, Brian. Dr. David. Dr. David. Well, as he's doing his. He's going to get it. I have faith in it.

Yeah, he sounds like he's going to get it. But you get that from the Ph.D. Right. And then you go on to, or is that a doctorate? What is that? If you're a PhD. I know this will shock many people. I never went to college.

I don't really know how this shit worked. Hunter Thompson became doctor when he got like an honorary PhD. So I thought he became doctor when he went to doctors regularly to prescribe him acid. Maybe so. Anyway,

speaking of a person on I can't even make the transition, a person on barbecue. I don't know if you've seen it yet, but I had to watch because also it was only 20 minutes long if you recorded it and took out to commercials. But Brown, Braun Strowman,

the former WWE giant, he's got a new show on USA Network. Have you heard about this? Everything on the menu with Braun Strowman. I've seen commercials for it, and I actually saw a few minutes of it because it aired, it must have been after Smackdown one day,

and I still had the TV. on and I got to see, or yeah, it must have been SmackDown. And I got to see a few minutes of it. And yeah, I was a little surprised because we didn't hear about this being a WWE thing and WWE released him and it's a WWE name that he's using. So that's the big surprise there. But what did you think of the show? Well, I think I may know some of the reasoning behind it because they shot this

when he was still with the WWE. You know, sometimes they pre-tape the, even the reality shows or whatever. they're taped months before they actually air. That's the fucking one of the ribs about this program to me. And I'm not going to knock him. I mean, he's a very personable fellow. And this is this show. Well, hold more on that in a minute, though.

The show is a basic, if something that would be on the food network, or it would be diners, drive-ins, and dives, or it would be, you know, man versus food, where the host goes to a town, they take him to a few restaurants with the camera crew. You see the ambiance inside, a little bit of the history of the place, whatever, they talk to the chef, go in the kitchen,

put the food over, then they sit down, and either they just try it, or if it's like eat a lot, they eat it, or whatever the fuck, right? Standard Food Network type of show, very well done nice peppy editing 22 minutes with no commercials so it's not too long he's a very talkative fellow

then I've said before his problem is in wrestling was and they started paying him so much money he just wasn't worth that there's a reason why that Andre traveled the globe because if you saw Andre every goddamn show for a long time you kind of seen it this guy is not a great wrestler he's got a great personality but they

hadn't really booked him interestingly and so if you could only see him every once in a while if i was him i'd have pitched him just fuck give me you know a little money for 10 dates a year and i'll come in to do whatever the fuck but otherwise i'll do my own shit But the USA Network obviously thought that they were getting a WWE personality because that's all they talk about on the first show. I watched the first episode that did, by the way, 400 and something, it did the ratings of a normal dynamite these days after Smackdown the first week. And then I think it's dropped since then.

When did he eat? Where was he eating when you saw him? It was in Texas. Angelo's barbecue and, oh, goddamn, I didn't even write it down, but a fancy restaurant that I had not heard of that looked like they just had wonderful food, but the pork chop was $50. So one kind of barbecue place and the other kind of fancy upscale place, but the point being, they introduced it. They were in Fort Worth, Texas because he was there for,

Smackdown and they had shots of the building in Smackdown is full and so is the restaurant and blah they all through the show that he identified himself as the great reason or the great thing about me being a WWE wrestler is I get to travel around and see these places and go to these restaurants and after they'd come back from every break they would show some WWE clip or whatever the fuck and we're in town for Smackdown so they thought they were getting a tie-in by the time that he gets

on the air he's not there that's what I'm like what the fuck it was they really must not have wanted to keep him that is weird because they would know this show was in the can and they still it was all in because it was obviously done in cooperation

with them but how long has he been gone now when did they cut him geez i don't remember it has to be right after rustlemania maybe if i had the guess okay well this was done late last year early this year and he didn't know apparently they didn't tell USA whatever the case but so anyway back to the to the show itself nothing wrong with it he

you know he does a good job that's why i'm saying is we didn't want to see wrestle all the but it doesn't mean he's a horrible personality, but it's misleading. He orders everything on the menu. You do not see him eat everything on the menu. Can you, and they made him.

What do you mean? What do you see him eat? Well, at the first place he went to a barbecue place, they just fed him the brisket and oh, he loved over that. and talked about he did a regular food network type interview with the people there. And then he went over to the fancy place. And so I'm just going to have everything. Everything on the,

and they bring him out everything. He's sitting at the table. And he's tasting each thing while they have the close-ups. I mean, somebody paid some fucking money to get to. I think this fancy place was like, oh, yeah, we'll goddamn do something. but the lingering close-ups of the food as he tastes everything. And I'm thinking he better get started because he's got two minutes to eat a whole table full of food. And that's what he said, well, I got a lot to do.

I got a lot to eat here. See you next time. And he starts like he's going to dig in. And that's the end. And I'm like, motherfucker. I'm going to see some Kobayashi shit going on with these goddamn $50. pork shops. So I don't doubt

that he can eat a ton of food, but he did not. And I don't even know if any of the competitive eaters can. If you ordered a full dinner of everything on the menu, because they brought the plates with all the sides and all the shit and everything, I don't know if that's possible in a

restaurant with any kind of variety. But it's still, it's misleading. he orders everything on the menu but he doesn't eat everything on the fucking menu Brian You know I was thinking about it recently because obviously CNN for years had Anthony Bourdain and his show which became pretty popular

and since he passed it's like this really stupid trend because I think he was a personality people liked it wasn't like the concept's great it was him like it was him in the concept but like they have celebrities I do shows where they travel and try food. And I don't know if there's any audience for this.

They did Stanley Tucci going to Italy to passively eat food in every place. It was the most boring show. I think I've seen a clip of that, yes. Yeah, it made me hungry when I saw some of the Italian food. And then they did Ivo Longoria going to Spain. And I'm seeing all these commercials. I'm like, who is watching this?

And now it's Tony Shalub, the guy who played Monk, doing a, you know, miniseries about bread, where he goes to different places and you'll never guess it. Eats bread. Again, I don't know why, I don't know why any of that's on CNN, and I don't know what the market is for that for just kind of celebrities randomly doing shows where they travel and eat, but maybe that's what they thought they were doing with Braun Stroman here. Again, you know, swerve, he's no longer Bronz Strowman.

He's now, Braun. Montbatten, Windsor's his new name. Well, no. That's the thing. The WWE had to have signed off on all of this because I can say, because they are calling him Braun Strowman, or he's acknowledging that he was Bronn Strowman. They have the WWE footage.

His real name is used also, but I'm almost. positive if there was even any talk of, you know, hey, we can't do the air. You can't, you USA can't air this show because we fired this guy. I'm sure the USA network told him motherfuckers. We have, we've sent these camera crews out and paid for these $50 pork chops and all of whatever the fuck,

right? And shot all his footage, put this show together. Fuck you, it's going to air, whether he's there or not. And we're going to act like he's there. they may transition away from it as the show continues for however long it may continue. I understand the first episode that aired after Smackdown did, as I said, 400 and something, and then a second episode aired at 1030 right after that and dropped to 200 and something thousand. I don't know if this concept has legs, but you can tell that WWW was not about to tell USA,

don't, you know, just go ahead. You know, he's, he's, tell him he's with the WWE, whatever you need to do to get out of this show. The fact that there isn't footage, you know, from what you saw, of just him gorging himself on food, which is kind of what you think it would be. Makes you wonder how much time was it. Like, does he hate food? Is he like one of these big bodybuilders that actually doesn't like to eat a lot of stuff?

No, no, he ate over, I mean, he ate with convincing gustow the samples that were set in front of him and put him over and he knows a little bit about the terminology oh this sauce is spicy but doesn't overpower the taste of the testicles whatever the case but it wasn't like you know any kind of competitive situation where it i was expecting you know is he going to the big texan and an amarillo the 72 ounce steak dinner whatever but yeah that's kind of where i thought it was going to go too when you he was in Texas. They need, you know what,

Klondike bill came along 40 years too soon. If they, well, maybe 60 years too soon, but a lot of years too soon. If there was a Klondike bill now, because he would, he would be with whatever the Turner company was,

so they'd be able to get him on reality television. Then you'd see some goddamn eating. Brian, do the kids remember, Klondike Bill and have I told the story about Klondike Bill and the Big Texan steak ranch? It's a famous story and you've told it definitely in the past but it may be years at this point. We certainly have a lot of new listeners who may not be aware of

I just I'll make reference to it and then I will tell another one or two but at the big Texan steak ranch and Amarillo is on side of Interstate 40 and they've been on diners drive-ins and dives or one of those programs. It's a big tourist thing. They sell all the gimmicks. They got all the pictures. It's West Texas. You can get the cowboy hat, blah, blah, blah. But it's also a steak restaurant. It's been there for 60 or 70 years or whatever the fuck it is. And they have a contest if you can eat the 72 ounce steak dinner. That's a 72 ounce steak, baked potato, salad, roll butter and shrimp cocktail.

You eat the whole thing in an hour, you get it for free. And over the years, this has been going on for 60 years. Thousands of people have actually done it, but, you know, multiple thousands of those have tried. But Klondike Bill, my old friend, when he was there in the early 60s, I think, he's still up on their wall. Last time I was there, he was. In 1962 or whatever, he was.

He took the challenge, ate the dinner, within an hour, got it for free, and then asked for another one and ate that too. And he's on the wall for being the only guy to ever eat two of them. But when he was into Carolinas back in the 60s again for old man Crockett, Jim Crockett, Sr. On Wednesdays, they'd go to Raleigh and then they'd travel the state highway, him and guys like Johnny Heidman and those old timers. and there was a family buffet in one of the small towns between Charlotte and

Raleigh and the boys found it and Klondike Bill and his car started going in there every Wednesday afternoon they started it was all you can eat buffet this is 1966 or whatever was it a dollar 99 all you can eat a dollar 99 bill and them's come by for a few weeks the signs of all you can eat two ninety they still keep going all you can eat 399 they still keep going finally there's a sign all you can eat

199 no wrestlers and but he was he was I mean he was the real fucking deal and he was a strong man in his youth and he was like 5 foot 9 but he wrestled at 320 pounds or whatever he's built like a barrel

but he was legendary he was the real thing he didn't have to he didn't look like like Brown Strongman, but he could carry the part off, the Alaskan strong man. I got to eat at the Big Texan one time when I was in Amarillo, was me, Harry White, Bob Barnett, and Scott Cornish, the afternoon of the Terry Funk versus Brett Hart match. And his picture was on the wall. We saw Klondike Bill's picture on the wall. Did you also see the big stuffed bison head? Yeah, of course.

It's on the wall there right by the door when you come in. and the game machine and everything. I have a picture, a profile picture of Bobby Eaton, standing under that, turn to the side, just as we made fun. Stan started just ribbing Bobby that his head was so big, he had a bison head.

And he started calling him bison eaten. And then in the matches, and go, bison, give me the tag, whatever. We walked in there, and I took a picture of Bobby standing under. It was like family tree, thing. There's the bison head off the wall and Bobby's similarity underneath it. Anyhow. All right. Should we go to the segment where we did a segment, but then by the time we did the

segment, the segment needed to be updated, so now we're going to update the segment. Should we go to that segment? Yeah, this has become a semi-regular feature here on the show, the updated segment that was originally recorded for the drive-thru. Well, if people would just speak more clearly, if we could love me more dearly speak more fucking clearly every day so the news came out several days ago news i will say news came out several days ago that mike rotunda who was obviously you know legend from the 80s and the hall of famer and his family tree and etc that microtunda was obviously you know legend from the 80s and the hall of famer and his family tree and etc that Mike Rotunda was in hospice care was what the word was at the time. And we had, Brian, you and I had not heard anything about any serious health problem

that would cause something like that. We were shocked and we talked about hearing that and about Mike Rotunda in general. And the way that it had come out was that Barry Windham, who I, obviously is Mike's best friend and brother-in-law, but also he's the Wyndham and Rotunda and Wyatt families. We talk about the various branches of that, but are all connected. So when Barry said, whatever he said, which I really haven't heard the original interview, but people either interpreted it as Mike being in hospice when he was truthfully in the hospital. or potentially someone said that Barry was speaking about some of Bray Wyatt's health issues,

maybe people got the comments transposed, I don't know. But people got the impression he was in hospice. He is not in hospice and hadn't been in hospice. He has, however, been seriously ill in the hospital. And so it's not like, never mind. I mean, he still has had a serious health issue. It's just not what we reported. So we took the segment out of, because by the time that we were finished recording the

program that it was going to air in, the news came out that it wasn't true. So we took it out of that program. But now that we have brought the topic up, Mike Rotunda still deserves being discussed and talked about, which we did at length. So we want to play our thoughts and comments, but we want to try to update people on what the newest information is, which was that he had apparently a serious heart attack back in the middle or end of September and has been in the hospital and then recovering from that.

and, you know, I think you even have a statement from the family to clarify everything. I have a statement that was issued by Mika Rotunda, I assume that's his daughter, public statement on behalf of the Rotunda family. Our family would like to take a moment

to clarify some information currently circulating online regarding my father, Mike Rotunda. Yes, my uncle Barry did make a comment mentioning that my father is in hospital, care while answering a question about my late brother, Wyndham, whom we lost two years ago. My father is not in hospice, but rather in a rehabilitation center. He suffered a massive heart attack on September 20th, was in a coma for a week, and spent over a month hospitalized.

By the grace of God, he has now transitioned to a rehabilitation center, where our family remains present, hopeful, and focused on his recovery. It has already been a long road, and we know there is still a long road ahead, but our faith in God remains strong. Anyone who knows my dad knows that it's his strength, work ethic, and athleticism that have carried him throughout not just this, but every challenge life has thrown his way. If there's one person I have faith in, it's Captain Mike. We are deeply...

Swami's going, I apologize. We are deeply grateful for the outpouring of love, prayers, and support from the wrestling world and our local communities. At this time, we kindly ask for privacy as we continue walking this journey together, but we warmly welcome continued prayers, good energy, and healing thoughts for his recovery,

signed with love and great. gratitude. So that clears that up. And I assume and hopefully that means that Mike is out of any kind of woods, but he probably still has, you know, work to do in front of him to get back in, you know, in a place he needs to be. But having said that, Brian, did you want to at this time? go to the nice things that we said about him when we didn't know what was wrong with him. Let's go to this right now. This was originally recorded for

Drive-Thru 416. Here it is now Jim Cornett's talk about Mike Rotunda. One more topic before we get to whatever you watched on wrestling this past week. As we are recording today, news broke this morning, and I wanted to give you a chance to say a little something about it, that Mike Rotunda is in hospice care. And this is sudden news to us.

We had not heard that this was happening. But what are your thoughts on? What's going on? Well, and I, like you heard this morning also on the internet, and like you, I didn't know that he'd been ill. I mean, I hadn't seen anything reported. and I'm sorry, you know, if this has been going on for some time that I had missed it, but just a really nice guy.

And except for that one job guy that they replay the clip on Twitter over and over, that he had to kind of take down, goozle, stretch, and pin on that one WCW match back in the late 80s. Nobody that I've ever known had any problem with Mike Rotunda. you know, a really great amateur wrestler, a hot shot amateur in school, and then used a lot of that in some of his gimmicks. I don't know where Captain Mike Retunda came from that time with him and Norman and whatever.

I'd never known him to be a ship captain. But the varsity club thing, that's why they put that together. Him and Rick Steiner, they were both hot shot amateurs, in their school days. So anyway, I worked with him in Crockett, and he had already been pretty much a star in Florida at that point in time, and I think it already had maybe his first run with Barry Windham as the U.S. Express in 85, right?

That is correct. Yeah. He stayed there. Well, I mean, it's a weird thing. Him and Barry Windham get the mega push managed by Lou Albano as a baby face with Born in the USA as their theme song until they replace it with real American which was going to be theirs

and they win the belts, they lose the belts, they win them back. The fans are super into them. Windham leaves. And I think it goes that like Mike Rotunda left with him and they quickly returned, but Wyndham didn't. And that's when they started teaming him up with Dan Spivey as the second version of the US Express

up until the very beginning of 87, and then he went back to Florida, which at that time was about to be absorbed by Crockett. Yes, and, you know, that's how Barry was bouncing back and forth regularly at that point in time. But that's the thing. I think Mike's, he was the kind of guy that they were always trying to give him a gimmick because he had a certain, he had personality, but it was more reserved. and he was a good worker and a good talent, but they were always trying in those days to give him a,

a gimmick or personality of some kind, and Vince came up with the idea of, you know, a tax agent is not supposed to have, is there supposed to be like the stern-faced, look over the glasses type of personality. So that, that, I think, worked. but anyway, I sure hate to hear that. And, you know, we send the bet to the whole family because I guess most people know that Barry and Mike were brothers-in-law because Barry's father, Blackjack,

and had another daughter that Mike married and the Bray Wyatt and Bo Dallas. and I can't do the whole family tree off top of my head, but they're all related, is what I'm trying to say. And so they've obviously had a lot to deal with. You know, I know you couldn't keep a gimmick forever of being like an angry college athlete. But Varsity Club Mike Rotunda is one of like my favorite things. And for all the doom and gloom about 1988 NWA,

when I think about it, I think about the things I really loved, the stuff you were doing with the Fantastics, and then I can't even really say the horseman stuff, because that really wasn't on cable. It was only on the worldwide stuff, which eventually had to get. But there was good stuff happening, too, and I think throughout 88, the varsity club with Kevin, Mike Rotunda, and Rick Steiner. I mean, that's what got Rick Steiner over as a star was that run. And it wasn't just by being himself.

It was the interaction with him and Mike Rotunda. You know, when they finally turned him, that. was the match at Starcade. It was Rick Steiner versus Mike Rotunda, and the place went fucking crazy for Rick Steiner. Well, that's, Rotunda was perfect as the, not I don't want to say,

prissy heel, but the stick up his ass heel that was even more straight-laced because he was the, you know, varsity-type athlete. And there's Rick Steiner as the dog-faced gremlin, and he just, you know, nutty as a fucking fruitcake. And then there's Sullivan who's crazy

in a completely different way, trying to keep them both together and corralled, and that's the differences is what made the angle. And then, you know, it got weird because after Rick Steiner left, the thing continued, but like Dan Spivey, I think joined again, and Dr. Death was a part of it. And that was my first exposure to Mike Rotunda was the feud with Dr. Death

in 1989. Yeah, that was, again, they were playing off the fact that they both had the amateur backgrounds and everything, but that, it wasn't the best use of either guy at that point in time. And, you know, that was the thing also was the, remember when he was coming out to the entrance music was when he was Captain Mike Rotunda when they switched him baby face? And then he was trying to smile at me a baby face. And, you know, I think he spent some time as, didn't he do scroftain? school teaching after he got out of the ring or something. He just wasn't a, you know, like a Tommy Rich wildfire fucking baby face. But he was, the entrance music was, that's what I like about you.

You really tell you. The romantic, the old friends from Michigan, right? Yeah. They were big fans of ours, but I don't know what that that had to do, that song had to do with Mike Pretenda or what he was the captain of, unless they'd give him a girl named Toneal. See, within six months he went from still being the angry jock, doing stuff with Kevin Sullivan,

to he was a baby face, and then all of a sudden his hair started growing, and then all of a sudden he's wearing a windbreaker. And then all of a sudden he was wearing a captain's hat. He went from being the wrestling team captain. Somehow that transitioned to being a yacht captain. And who's on his yacht? We talked about this the other day.

Abdullah the butcher and babyface Norman the lunatic. It was just such a weird, what is going on here? What is happening here? And then many people don't know this, but then later on he had Michael McDonald on his yacht and they invented yacht rock. Well, I don't know about that, but obviously Mike Rotundas and everyone's wishes and everyone's thinking of the family right now. Well, there it is, Jim, the conversation we had about the career.

of Mike Rotunda, we're happy to hear that he's in a rehabilitation center, and as his daughter asked for, we're certainly sending positive vibes. You know, I wrote up the varsity club, and I hate to obsess over the varsity club, but they were so cool. It's a case where you have two guys perfectly cast. It made Rick Steiner, and there's no one else who could have done that. But Mike Rotunda was so perfect in that gimmick, so believable, it was like another person from the curly-haired baby face of a year and a half earlier. The straight man. There was no one who could have done that better.

I'm convinced that Rick Steiner and him were like the perfect two guys for that. And it worked perfectly. Yeah, because Mike was legitimate and fit the varsity club thing and was like the school jock and the, you know, superior type of, you know, guy. with a stick up his ass and here's this crazy fucking gremlin partner. If they'd have both been wacky or even if Mike had been a regular wrestler, it wouldn't have worked.

It had to be the contrast. And it was, it was Abbott and Costello, but in, in the ring without trying to be funny and Steiner was. And Rotunda's reactions made him funny. And it was a little less than a year earlier. He was in a feud like Ed the Bull Gantner in Florida. Yeah. You know, and that was right after he,

been, again, a curly-haired, smiling baby face. So just the recreation of him and a gimmick that worked perfectly, it's kind of amazing because he had been another guy completely, yet it worked. But big fan of Captain Mike Rotunda in the varsity club. And, you know, I don't know if I've told you this, but the Wyndham thing, the idea that he said hospice and, or Barry Windham, I should specify with the family, that he said hospice when it was actually not that. Did I ever tell you about when I was involved with managing a rapper? No. With Gene Simmons? With the Black Gene Simmons?

No, there's a Black Gene Simmons and you co-managed a rapper with a guy named... Briefly. Help me understand. How did you get... Did you lose a bet? Well, no, I didn't lose a bet, but I'll explain how this all ties did the Barry Wyndham thing, which made me think of it. So when I was working at Sony Music early on in my career,

I had become friends with various people in the industry. And I had met a guy who said he was managing a rapper, and his name was Gene Simmons. It was a famous name in music, but this was not the guy from Kiss. It was a black guy from, I believe, Northern New Jersey at that time. Really good guy. We became really good friends.

The Jersey branch of the Simmons family. And again, we became really good friends. he would come out and hang out with us on the beach. We had some really fun times. And he was later in the movie American Gangsta, if you ever see that, when they walk into the room where they're preparing the drugs, all the to topless women.

He's the bodyguard by the door, which caused me to pop in the movie theater when I saw that. But he comes and we're talking about this rapper he's managing, named Shade, at the same time that was Slim Shady, but that's a whole other issue. But this guy, Shade, had a lot of talent, a lot of skills, had a really good producer he was working with that I was doing some stuff with.

And there was one song that was intriguing at that time. It was called the HIV song. And it was him rapping from the point of view of being the virus. It was a socially conscious rap song from an artist who didn't have a lot of like socially conscious material typical. From a virus's point of view. Well, the story was, and I actually thought this was a heck of a little hook, the story that Gene Simmons told me

was that Shade's mother had AIDS and it was his reaction to this tragic news at that time he wrote this rap and it was a interesting song and it was actually a well-done production so I said let's see what we could do

if there's anything to be done and at that time I had it brought to an A&R guy at Sony named Keith Naftily who from the Bay Area he's kind of I guess a legend for dance music and hip-hop on the radio. He was doing A&R there at the time. And he didn't see it, and it ended up not working out. But the day it went to him, I'm on the phone with Gene Simmons in my office at Sony, 32nd floor. And I tell him, yeah, I'll let you know how it goes, but we're going to play in the song, talk to him about it, see what he says. And I said, you know,

I just think, hopefully they understand, too, there's a great story to be told. about this guy reacting to his mom's illness and writing this rap, you know, there's something there. That's what people, if anything happened, is what they would be hanging their hat on. So then Gene says to me, yeah, I forgot, I'm meant to tell you about that. It's not his mom, it's his aunt. And I said, oh, all right, you know, that's not the biggest deal. And then he says, it's not AIDS, it's lupus. I said, what the fuck?

I mean, we just, the whole pitch is, it's the HIV songs, his mom as AIDS. Not his mom as lupus. How did he write the song? His mom is lupus. Yeah. What did he hear? And now, on American Top 40, we wrote this song because his aunt has lupus. Yeah.

I mean, it's so fucking funny because how the hell does this happen? Why was I told the exact opposite? But that's my story about brief. co-managing a rapper with the HIV song. At least you didn't get either lupus or HIV from this experience. It's not AIDS, it's lupus. I was like, what? Like, that's not even close.

It's not even close as diseases go. What the fuck? It's way, way off on the disease emeter. It's on the other side of the scale. And then there's lycanthropies in the middle. See? and you never know what'll happen. Folks, here's something that I've said many times,

if you have to lay in a hospital bed for an extended period of time in traction, immobile, hooked up to machines, being monitored by electronic devices, what's going to make you happy? The right pair of earbuds. Haven't I said that 100 times, Brian? Oh, I don't know, at least 90.

every time I hear about somebody that's laid up in some kind of body cast that's hanging from a system of wires and pulleys from the ceiling. Wow, you know, you're like a wind chime in the hospital room. When they open the window, bells go off on your ass. You need the right kind of earbuds to put yourself in the right frame of mind in a situation like that. if you're in that particular situation, what I'm saying is morale could be low. I think you'll agree with that, don't you, Brian, that if for some reason or another, you were poured into a cement overcoat to where you couldn't even scratch your own balls or asshole, and then you were strapped to a goddamn plank while being plugged into a wall,

and you got to stay there for six, eight, ten months, while they're rebuilding the iron lung to get it ready for you. You need earbuds. Or you're going to get in a grumpy mood, right? Again, maybe not the best example, but earbuds are good for everybody. I would say that. And of course, I love a certain pair of earbuds that we're going to talk about right now. I know those Raycon to everyday earbuds classic is what you're talking about. Bingo! No reason to be bashful. I love my Raycon. I think the listeners who have gotten their Raycons love their Raycons, and of course, you don't need to be in an iron lug, and no one is currently, as we record right now.

You don't need to be like that to enjoy good sounds. I don't want to go on with you like that. What I want to talk about is the wonderful everyday earbuds classic that are loaded with the upgrades like the active noise cancellation, the multi-point connectivity. that pairing of two devices at the same time. It's Kismet, it's magic. And an ergonomic fit that stays put inside your ear canal, no matter what you're doing, whether you can be physically assaulted on the street,

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down a sidewalk? He just skipping down a, he must be the happiest son of a bitch in the world. He's skipping down a sidewalk. Shit, he ran the red light, that rainbow bread truck just ran him over. Again, not the best example. And they've got an awareness mode. They've got an awareness mode. See, that's, that's, that's, that's, up to that guy that just got smeared by that bread truck because the racons have an awareness mode that if he'd have had to sense to act a sense that God gave a goose, as Mama Cornett would say, to have activated that awareness mode or when he's walking a dog or running errands, then he would know what's going on around him without missing the meat instead of boom,

getting your meat beat by a truck. Again, that's not what that means. But ladies and gentlemen, what we're talking about here, you hear what that means. That means it's time for the truth. We're talking about a great ear, bud. Well, boy, hell of you. I'll tell you what, it is true.

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All right, Brian. Was that ringing in your ears last night the sound of the Halloween Smackdown from Salt Lake City, not your Racon everyday earbuds? No, it was my tinnitus, my WWE tinnitus. You know, I just realized that they're in Salt Lake City for Smackdown,

and then they're in Salt Lake City for the Saturday Night's, main event, same building, two nights. But the poor people that got tickets to this Smackdown, again, they just, I know in the early days of television wrestling, they used to show public workouts. That seemed kind of boring, but people watched them. But they just came to watch them warm up the fucking television equipment

for the big show the following night here, didn't they? And I don't know when in the night it's from, but there's a picture circulating of someone saying they were at SmackDown and here's like opposite camera side and it's just a bunch

of empty seats. Now again, it's so much you think you would notice it so you don't know when if it's like, you know, an hour before Showtime or whatever. Well, I think,

you know, they're doubling down not just on high prices but on doing multiple things in one town over a weekend. And, you know, you have to wonder how many people attended Smackdown that are also going to

attend Saturday night's main event. Well, and that's the thing. I was trying to remember, and I didn't have time to go look at my books, but if I've been in Salt Lake City, it was only once, and I did every TV taping that the WWE did for almost everyone, from middle of 1993 to the early part of 1999. And they didn't used to get a lot of TVs because in the old days when they would route the tapings with, you know, house shows and, you know, tapings like a Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday grouping, you can't route Salt Lake City with much. It's just out there.

There's not a lot, you know, comfortably drivable. And I think they're, they also, they need to realize that the population, of the town may be, you know, large, but they're depending now, I think they'll find out on a lot of people that drive 100 miles, 150 miles, maybe 180 miles, the more dedicated people to these TV tapings and live events. And I don't have my Rand McNally within reach without getting off of headset, but Salt Lake City is in the middle of fucking nowhere. so not to knock the town, but they don't have a lot of suburbs. You see what I'm saying.

So anyway. It's a hotbed of decency. And then there's that. A lot of white people out there, just decent white people. And they got a decent Smackdown. No, they didn't. Everybody may have exhibited decency, but it wasn't that. So the first thing right off the bat, Tiffany Stratton comes out.

She's mad at Jade Cargill. Jade turned on her. They'd showed that highlight. She called Jade out. Here came Aldus instead. Now we can't have physical contact until our match tomorrow night. And this was going to be a theme that all these people are thinking, God damn, if we don't have tickets for tomorrow night, we should have got them.

And then Jade came out. in a full-body scuba suit. And here came security. The indie guys that do the statue poses and make the exaggerated phony facials. And they wouldn't let Jade through, so Tiffany went to Jade, but a security guard caught her and picked her up,

so they ended up staring at each other from a distance. until tonight, or as they said last night, tomorrow night. And that was that whole segment, Brian, wasn't it? Pretty much. Again, I don't want to start going off on a rant about the same things keep happening on both shows with different people, sometimes the same people, but it feels more and more like a road to nowhere. Okay, this happened again. This is happening again. Oh, I'm surprised the general manager just, came out to do so.

Everything is like the same trope that they've been doing forever and, you know, it's weird that they haven't, I don't know, they got so much credit when they changed the production after Kevin Dunn. When Lee Fitting came in and really upgraded everything. Well, they're still shooting it a lot better.

Right, but I'm saying, Triple H got a lot of credit to. It's the same milk it's going into the new bottle. And everyone was raving about Triple H, in part because everyone was happy that it was someone other than events and in part because things were hot. Things felt, it felt like things were happening, and if you think about like the

core period as the bloodline was taking place, it felt like the big one hasn't happened yet. Like the big thing, it's building to something. Something has to happen. It must be huge what's going to happen. Nothing happened. Soul broke off and had his own bloodline. Jay Hussle became a big baby face.

Roman disappeared. You know, nothing happened. And now they're trying to rehash a lot of that, you know, with some things, but nothing happens on these shows. You know, so I'm at the point now where I don't watch them live, SmackDown, specifically. I'll wait to hear what happened, and then I'll go check it out. Well, I always accuse AEW of doing this, and since they did it in the WW, I have to call them out on it also. We love

Elia. Ealia is great, right? We were digging Ealia. So Elya comes to the ring for a U.S. title match, his open challenge, and they're going to give it to this Nathan Frazier character with his masked partner

Axiom. And I thought at first they were going to swerve it, and I was going to like it, because Champa came out, blew right past those guys got in a ring and said, you can't be serious. You're going to give this nerd pointing to Frazier a shot at the U.S. title. And I'm like, okay, Champa and Gargano are heels now in this

universe somewhere. And I'm like, okay, I love to see Champa and Ilya. Let's do this because Frazier does look like a random UPS driver. But then no, Frazier bowed up at Tampa and Elia interrupted the open challenges for everybody, but Nathan Frazier was here first and he called Tomaso a jackass, and Tomaso left. And then now I'm thinking, Jesus Christ, we're going to have this match where they're going to do the same thing they do in AEW. This guy with no body, no tan, no charisma, no personality, a bad haircut,

is going to be competitive with Elia the new U.S. champion who can hang toe to toe with Gunther and, well, 19 minutes later, including two, three minute breaks, they were still going. And boy, they were having a barn burner with this oil salesman, whatever the fuck he is. And then, again, another thing, nobody's learning from Abushi and Alexander

they go to do a deal where Nathan Fraser is going to the top he's going to moonsault off backwards and Ely is supposed to grab him and germany him off but they tried forever to set it up and then at one point that Elya was ready for it but Frazier

wasn't so Frazier stopped him. Elia got down got back up, then they go to do it. And their timing was off, and they fell in a heap, and Frazier almost landed on his fucking head. And Ilya covered him two count. I thought, Jesus. And then Ilya power bombed him and hit his forearm finish, one, two, three.

So the last minute of the match is supposed to be one of the most exciting minutes of the entire match, if not the most. and all these guys are doing something where they have to be almost stationary for a minute or longer to set up one bump for a three-second pop and it's not even the finish. And then Champa came out and leveled Frazier and here came Gargano and Axiom got involved and they all fought to the back. But, Rod, do you see what I mean about it?

They're trying to, they spend a minute, trying to set up three seconds of pop instead of tearing the house down for a minute and getting a pop. Yeah, I mean, I think the bigger issue is just you're trying to establish Ilya. You brought up the Gunther matches, great matches, we loved them.

I don't presume that the majority of the Smackdown audience saw those matches. You're still establishing him. He just won the belt. My gut would tell me, don't put him in a long competitive match with one half of one of the tag teams on the card. that would just be your gut long competitive man i mean just why how does that help anyone if you look at

the other options against it have him win quickly over someone have him win decisively in 10 minutes but we go wwe pace whatever you want to say every other option's better get get any anybody else on the roster that can do a job for him that is not a wet dishrag and that and and frayjeet does moves, but look at the state of him. Speaking of the state of people, then they had Kent Wilson against Carmelo Hayes. No more needs to be said. At the 9 o'clock hour, it was refrigerator jacks versus Alexa Bliss.

My God, 100 pounds against 400 pounds. It looked like Vader against Darland Dagmar. So we're already an hour, and by the time that's over an hour, 10, hour and 15 minutes in its show. Then they had a package. Apparently there was a big college football game this weekend in Salt Lake City. And they had the mascots for the Cincinnati Bearcats

and the, well, the Salt Lake City mascot was a bird. What is their team? The condors, the fucking birds of prey. the vultures, the teradactyls, what are they? The Salt Lake City team of what? Of whatever the fucking football,

these mascots are having a wrestling match over. I don't know. Oh, he's typing it in. Yeah, come on. The Salt Lake are the real, there's a soccer team, there's no football team in Salt Lake City. What the college?

They had the mascots where they were all three. the show they were pumping his fucking college football confrontation and the belts that the football team has that they've given them the championship belts. You have no knowledge. Oh, here we go. Again, this is not the part of the sports world.

I tend to pay attention to. You're not up on a Salt Lake City college football teams. Ahead of the Utah Utes College Football match. Wait a minute. These two Utes? The Utah Uts. ahead of their college football matchup against the Cincinnati Bearcats,

their mascots faced off in the squared circle on SmackDown. Okay, I can understand what a bearcat is. And old Corey Graves, he even plug, you know, like in the great tradition of Bearcat right, Bearcat Lee. But I know what a great tradition of Bearcat League. Yeah, he said that.

What is a Ute? According to Mississippi. it appears to be a bird, because I'm watching the match right now. Oh, my God. I've never seen anyone take a bump like this. What is that the problem? This was all the show? They aired this?

Yes, they had a package. You missed this? It was like two minutes long. A package of the Cincinnati mascot, the bear cat, in the ring earlier that day, with people there, though, but before the actual live show started, obviously they didn't want to leave that to chance. This was heavily edited as. it was and the bird from salt lake and they were doing and then the bird won with the people's

wing he dropped the elbow like the fow it was and it was you know it was not long enough to be an expose because it was so ludicrous but it was an illustration of how guys never been in the ring before tries to hit the ropes it's it's ugly it's ugly I apologize for not being familiar with the Utah Uts. Well, you know, you can't control these Uts anymore. They get all hopped up on him marijuana pills. Then they had this is SmackDown on what's left of national television. Then they had J.C. Mateo and Tomatanga with the rest of the other

motherfucking Tongans against Sessions. Selly and Shabin. Shelly and Sabin the machine guns and they have about a 10-minute match which the Tongans won and then all five of the Tongans with their faces painted like panda bears tried to get heat on the guns

but all these heels are on different pages. At one point one guy just grabbed Sabin and shoved him toward the other guy and the other guy wasn't ready. Sabin's like, what do you want me to do here? What the fuck? And they just, they can't get heat.

And they're not coordinated in a group fashion. And then Phoenix came out. And they stopped him. And then Nakamura came out and made a comeback. And they stopped him. Then ever they stopped him,

there were four baby faces laid out. They just stopped and they played the music and they all stood there. The run. path of destruction of the Tongans is waiting through the undercard. I don't know what the fuck. All righty, are you ready for the main event segment, Brian?

What we've all been waiting for. I mean, I think it's all been a main event so far, but yeah. Well, all these matches are made events in any, any territory in the country. They got 17 minutes left on the air. Nick Aldous is in the ring. He is going to have the, they got the table, they got the chairs. the contract signing for the World Championship match that is going to take place in 24 hours

from the contract signing that's already been advertised for two weeks. I know we've established that they're ceremonial. But isn't this lazy booking again? Oh, there's another reason for them to get out there together and talk to each other. we've seen more contract signings from both companies in the last like three years, four years than I ever did growing up watching wrestling.

It wasn't like a thing all the time. We've seen more than I ever did 25 years in wrestling, either on camera or off. But we're going to sign the contract for tomorrow's main event on Saturday night's main event. And he introduced Cody. and Cody made his entrance and three minutes later Cody said happy Halloween to Salt Lake City

and then Drew or oldest introduced Drew and Drew made his entrance he made it in under a minute and a half he wasn't dicking around and then this went back and forth but the whole problem was that

Drew didn't want to sign it because the contract was lopsided oldest kept trying to talk him into it but no, Drew's point was if Cody gets disqualified or counted out, he retains the title. If I get disqualified or counted out, Cody retains the title, there's almost no way for me to win.

Like it has been for every goddamn match that don't. But nevertheless. But he put it well. I mean, that's the thing. He did put it well. When you actually lay it out, yeah, you know, he's right. He really is at a disadvantage. He did lay it out where he was, and that's the brilliance of Drew McIntyre,

is that he does have, he does have a legitimate complaints, but he's such a fucking whiny baby about it in his own way. That's what gets the heat. And all this threatens, I'll just take you out of the match, get somebody else, and Cody just said, no, what the fuck. Sit down, Drew. I know what you want. You want a match where if I get disqualified, I lose the title,

and if I get counted out, I'll lose the title. lose the title and I'm fine with that. And Aldous wasn't sure about it, but Cody was adamant and that's when Drew signed and he cut to promo on Cody. He's the real American dream. And Cody cut a promo on Drew saying that I walked out to find my own way, but you got fired.

And nice guys used to finish last till I showed up, which was good. And then Drew mentioned Cody's daughters, and Cody attacked him, and Drew bailed. And then as Cody was talking to oldest, Drew came back yet and hit the kick on him and powerbomb him through the table. The kick used to it a bit enough, but they can't not break a table. And that was the show. And, you know, the top guys get 15 minutes to say three or four, five minutes

worth of stuff and they break a table and, you know, there's some long matches and, yeah. Is Triple H a creative

genius because he gets away with doing less than right now, less than you should be able to and they're still doing good business or his triple, I don't even know if that's the best way to put it. Is he the lead booker?

Is he just ahead of the creative group who makes the choices? But you don't need to have guys, taking a million bumps or doing all kinds of dangerous shit to make this show or any of these shows move faster or be more exciting. And they've got a large roster. And if they would expose another 10 guys over a course of a month or two, then they could, instead of Elya and Frazier for 20 minutes, they could have four guys for 10 minutes each. They could open up the show instead of the travel log and the drone shots and the constant

glorification of look where we are. Establish where they are and then we don't care where you are. Have the announcer stand up at the start of the program with a big fight. We're here, it's Ali and Frazier in the garden. Start out with a fucking hot match. even if it's only for eight minutes, get some action going, then have your long interview segment,

but Jesus Christ, you don't have to play the disco single of everybody's entrance music and it take five fucking minutes. Just keep it moving and have more of a sense of action, action, excitement, and urgency instead of commercials,

infomercial, and travel. and look at all our fancy shots. Love the way the show is shot, but don't rely on it as the calling card. That would be my thoughts. I don't know. Am I crazy? No, I saw someone post something, and I don't remember the

exact quote. It was someone in the Cult of Cornacro, but it was something like, right now, they're not giving you, they're not giving you like hot feuds, they're giving you vibes. You're going there to kind of just be part the vibe and you know you know which parts you could sing along to you know because at this point it's not just like it's about a song it's about there are various things throughout tonight that

you can participate in and it's a fair whether that's because of the way they're booking or whether the booking you know is following that i don't know but these shows are not the more weeks they go by that i don't feel an urge to watch smackdown the less likely i am to say hey let me change my Friday schedule this week. And watch Smackdown. Yeah. And, you know, just again, it's about action. There's a lot of Memphis wrestling episodes I loved

where I couldn't even tell you, like, you know, they were just squash matches. You know, it wasn't like there was a big, big match. The action wasn't always there. I may have ended up in the ring, but it would start over by the announcers who had credibility. And they would usually start with the baby faces, having a conversation, and then shit would happen.

or the heel would come out and whatever it is. And then one thing would lead to another all in one episode. Now, Memphis was only 90 minutes. This is a two-hour show, although with commercials. And the rest of it around the territory was an hour. But the 90 minutes was still exciting, but the hour was even more, you know, fast moving because you had less time.

And even in any territory, you had a limited amount of time. be going to get the most out of it. And the squash matches. For three or four minutes, the stars doing all the cool shit that they did to some fucking crash test dummy was entertaining, but you couldn't do it for 10, 12 fucking minutes. It just, the pace of everything was increased. And that's why I don't understand what.

Everybody talks at, Cornett loves the days of 30-minute headlocks. What the, I wasn't around for Strangler Lewis. I appreciate him for historical value. I'm not sure anybody should imitate the style today, but where was there a 30-minute headlock in the territory days, especially on television? You know what they didn't have either? Ten-minute fucking entrances.

Well, they have certainly decided to go down a road that they're not looking to get off right now. We'll see what happens after the senior retirement. it feels like everything right now is in a holding pattern. I mean, that's really what it feels like, actually. Ron SmackDown, it's like a holding pattern. Well, that's because the air traffic controllers are all pissed off and looking for another job.

That's right. So it doesn't, don't nobody land nothing, just everybody be right there. But, you know, that's the thing, Brian, is if you're looking for excitement, where you can't go to the wrestling show anymore because that's just too much discussion. We need a little less talking, a little more action.

you know where you go to have the real hot action go on brian the casino you go to the casino things are happening things are popping you got frank sinatra the fourth in the lounge singing all the swinging hits and you got the the cigarette girls with the trays around their neck and the volumptuous breastages out hanging all over everything and you got the prime rib buffet all you can eat for $2.99. Now you've gone too far. Now you've gone too far. Well, Tomein may be included. At the casino, everything's always happening and only occasionally do the feds come in and accuse you of counting cards.

But let's say, you take this to task, you have doubts about this? Well, again, I don't know if that's the best example to use, but we're not talking about what you're talking about. We're talking about a more practical. Well, see, the feds can't come into the, to the, online virtual casinos, that's the best part about them. Well, no, first of all, that's not the best.

As a better fact, you can be carrying any kind of contraband on your person when you go to the Draft King's casino because they can't search it. I mean, you could be sitting there in your own home with who knows what in your pocket or potentially your hands in your pocket. You know, Jim, a little pocket pool. Jim, sometimes you get on the road. Yes. And sometimes you start going to your location.

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You can't encourage. No, you can't encourage that. That's not right. Well, you can't have a casino without hookers. They've got to be standing by watching you do this. You have them come over to your house. Just keep an eye on them. Again, one of the beautiful things about D.K. Casino, disease free, nothing to worry about.

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send oxygen for the announcers or do a pre-recorded spot for your fine, fine advertisers. Like you used to. Like you used to, because this commercial may be void when I fucking pass out from oxygen deprivation. Ground's yours, baby. The crown is yours, and I'm going to give you a second to make sure that your oxygen is yours, Jim.

And of course, this has been just such a fantastic show so far. And yet we haven't even gotten to AEW. but we're all hoping that the air has returned to your lungs. How are you feeling? Yes, yes. I'm doing fine now. I'm finered and frogs hair and ready to hop, is what I'm doing. And I'm ready to hop over, Brian, to AEW's Fright Night.

The ratings are scary. We're going to catch people up on that here just in a few minutes, but we got to talk about it. They were in Edinburgh, Texas. if they said I missed it, what part of Texas is Edinburgh, Texas in that we would the Houston, the Dallas,

the San Antonio, the Amarillo, the Lubbock, the San Angelo, the Corpus Christi, where the fuck is Edinburgh? Hidalgo County. That would be way down south in South Texas, way down yonder into Paw Paw Patch.

Renosa is nearby. Rinoza, Texas Is that near Harlingen? Brownsville? Is that part of that's way down there? That is actually, there are parts of Texas that are further south

than many parts of northern Mexico. Yeah, this is as close to the Mexican border as you can get. So the point is, it wasn't a big metropolitan area, is what I'm trying to say. And I wasn't sure where it was. But tonight,

tonight, tonight being the night that we're talking about. They did what I said they ought to do, kind of. Remember I said the other day, geez, the show came on, and by the time they showed clips and they had matches announced and billboards and graphics and then a low energy behind the backstage promo, whatever, well, this time they went straight into action. And the first thing that you saw and heard was pockets coming to the ring. So they went straight into a match, straight into action,

but they did it where you can't take it seriously from the start. And compound that, they teamed up Darby, their top baby face that's not out injured, and they teamed him up with the mascot. So if you're just watching this show come on the air, why should we take this guy seriously if he's with Nimrod? And then the opponents were Danny Garcia and Wheeler Yuda. And they gave them a long walk and spooky lighting with dreary music. And the fans are sitting there going, what the fuck?

Seriously, Garcia, and you to both. They've got no look. They've got no physique. They've got no aura. They've got no charisma. They've been shoved down everybody's throat. It's overexposed on this program.

So fans are sitting there like, what the fuck? And again, it looks like the children are at recess. A trick or treat tornado tag team match, no tags, no rules. The rule was the pin or submission has to have. happen in the ring. Otherwise, just here they go. The kids are at recess, and the visual of it is

ridiculous. I think Pockets is the biggest fucking guy of the bunch here. So, at least they kept it to 11 minutes, but Darby got the scorpion on old Wheeler useless and he

tapped out. what do you think of the scorpion deathlock being Darby's new finisher? Well, it works because I don't mind that because it ties into staying. And at least that's telling some type of coherent story through the thing. But again, I don't even mind. That's what Yuda and Garcia ought to be there for at this point is put over top baby faces. But you mean to tell me you can't get a more serious partner for a guy that you're pushing to Darby's level than the unfunny joke and Tony still has not realized after six

years now that what the fuck if this guy was going to be anything he would have been something and he's never been anything except a curiosity so yeah but I know what you're saying Brian, what we need is we need to discover who the number one contenders for the tag team title is. Isn't that what you're saying? Is that what you're saying to yourself? Naturally. Well, naturally, then we're going to find out with a four-way. It gets better later on in the program when you find out folks what else they did.

But now it's time for a four-way tag team match to determine the number one contender for the tag team title that I, I assume, then we'll be defended at full gear, which is their next pay-per-view in a few weeks. And, boy, they brought in teams from all over the world, Brian. The Hardley Boys, FTR, Kevin Knight and Hong Kong Fooey, and Jungle Jackoff and Dino Dooch. The same for fucking team. Can anybody do that?

the math, by the way, out there. We got nuclear astrophysicists in the audience out there. What percentage of AEW television matches are actual like regular matches, one against one or two against two? And what is the percentage of some type of multiple man, three-way, four-way, battle royal, gauntlet, scramble, whatever the fuck they call them? Do you think it's 70-30 for the Multimans? It may be.

There sure are a lot of them. So four teams here, the three contingents of children, including the patient zeros of trampoline wrestling, and there's FTR, they look like two truck drivers at a casting call for a Blue Boy magazine shoot. and they're going to do this for a long time. They opened the match. Dax backs old Hong Kong fooie up into the ropes

and hit him with four chops and eight punches in eight seconds. And I swear to God, spitball didn't go to a knee. He came off the ropes on office. offense. He then hit hit Dax with 19 kicks. And Dax is just leaning up against the ropes and he didn't go down. And he just kind of slumped on the middle rope. The toughest guy in the lollipop guild

cannot knock a motherfucker down with 19 kicks and Dax couldn't put this guy to a knee with eight punches and four chops. So the break spot, I wrote this one down. I was trying to fast forward through as much of this possible. Dax is going to superplex Kevin Knight off the top turnbuckle onto the floor, onto the covey of quail that Jim Ross phrased it a few years ago.

And they got under Dax just fine. since he was taking a flat back bump off the top rope, I'm glad they did. But he suplexed. Kevin Knight went past him. And he over rotated and it bent his left leg underneath him and he sold it. And it obviously didn't injure him badly because he got back in the match later on after a while. But it should have broke his leg.

Either he's just flexible or he didn't land with just enough weight. But when they came back, they bore shit. The kookamonga kids like to play with their friends. The fans like the lizard, but they won't feature him because he's always with the children. Perry, I think even the AEW fans are like, fuck, we don't care anymore. And they did the Alleyoop stuff they always do. and then finally FTR beat night with the Shatter Machine, about 15 minutes bell to bell.

So now they get the title match with, what is their team net, bro-dildo. Bro-dito. There you go. I mean, did anything about this stand out because it's the same shit they all always do and more of it? You know, it's one of these matches.

I never knew what the name was. I saw a clip because a lot of the listeners saw this and were so offended. They had to send it overendless. where I guess Brian Alvarez declared that the Youngbucks are the greatest tag team of all time and he was referring to like this kind of match he called it the party match

party match he said it a few times so I'm like is that what they consider it like that's their style we do the party match where the referee's there but it's not like he's doing anything and lots of people get ready to have people land on them and stupid things happen and everyone waits for their turn to do something shouldn't they have a big bowl of dip in there if it's a party match? Well, I think we've seen all this, but some people still really seem to be into it. As I will say something after I just crucified the WWE earlier for being boring as goddamn

the growth of pubic hair, they at least don't do so much that the guys are always trying to kill each other and still nobody remembers what the fuck happens. it's just they just they'd hardly do anything instead of so so mind-numbingly much so then the don fallous family brian is numerous and they had to have a summit and they had to all come out well i say all they had to all come out except whoever's injured and i don't even know if there's any others that they didn't have besides that, but there was already a one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. So there was Lance Archer, there was Kyle Feltcher, there was Josh Alexander, there was Rocky

Romero, there's Mark Davis, Oblada, the two mass guys that I had no idea. And then they said that it was Chichia and clone. And they made a big deal that Take a shit wasn't there because of transportation. difficulties and who else is hurt there's a couple more that's in it that's hurt Trent Beretta what I didn't know he was in it yeah I think he joined when Rocky Romero joined what the fuck happened to him goddamn brain transplant we have seen him in ages not that I'm complaining but anyway they all sit down and it's all the group of miscellaneous heels and we've mentioned all the problems with this

organization and wondered why Don doesn't actually manage anybody. And then they gave Don a painting of all of them, which was very homoerotic in nature. And then they had several of the members speak, like Rocky, is the one that presented the painting. And then Josh Alexander pitched to the screen for a highlight video, which, had great highlights about how dominant the Don Fowles family is and no mention of any detail about what the

why the fuck is there 15 of you and nobody ever fucking actually gets managed by this guy and he can't be bothered to go to ringside for your matches he just sits on commentary and he's always making matches where guys in his own group have to fight each other or can't get a lot. So then Cal Feltcher squeaked

and the fans chanted asshole at him because he's got a little heat. But he started reading the oath that they all had to take before they joined the family. And it was getting into the, you know, we must put Don before all else and we agree to save any member of the family

from any danger at peril to ourselves. and then out all of a sudden to music came take a shit who was there after all didn't have travel difficulties and he came out with what belt is that brian the iwgp championship okay he's got the i wgp title and oblada has the unified title and kyle has a belt and They all come out and they've all got a belt and the same thing. Take and Okada stare at each other. And Don tries to get take to take it and say you got to settle down. And it was long and boring and slow where Don's like,

I make the decisions in the family. I need you to shake his hand. And the fans were getting into it. they don't want him to see him shake his hand. They could turn, take baby face fairly easily here if they capitalize on it,

but then at the same time, I was about to say that he can't fucking talk or do a promo, but none of the other baby faces can anyway, so that wouldn't hurt him. But Don's like it's for about the honor. It's for me, do it for me. And then Take puts his hand out

and Okada gives him the finger. So he kind of, again, shit in his face because then take care, he's not supposed to hit him. The others get in between them. And Don announces, I'm going to make you work together, you're going to team up on collision Saturday.

I think when he got that finger, if fucking take it, it turned around and slapped a shit out of him, he just showed he had something. Then they could have got in between. And as far as, if they're going to do an angle where they team up and then break up, make up to break up, then don't do it on collision, then nobody's going to see on Saturday against the World Series game

and Saturday night's main event. Otherwise, that, it was a wonderful segment, Brian. I rest my case. What do you think? It's the World Series Saturday at its main event. And Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein on Svengouli. It's a really tough night. Yes.

A lot of competition. I don't know. They've been doing this for a while. It used to be, obviously, when punk was there, and then for even a while after it, it was almost like collision was its own universe, but now there's so many things that, it's like, oh, they're actually doing an angle

that leads to the show I don't watch on Saturday. They don't do things that, like, build up the next dynamite. It's to build the show that no one is, like, you're not going to get more people to tune into that show. Because have you read what they're presenting on the rest of that show lately. I mean, it's fringe names at best for this company. I had not seen the names, but I don't take you at your word.

I'm just saying, I read the recap of either last weeks or the week beforehand, and what the fuck? It's just, they got no, they got no mojo going. But the eventual breakup between Take a Shed and Okada will, I'm sure, lead to, the dream match that all the AEW fans that are already watching and absolutely nobody else wants to see when they break up and fight each other because, I mean, even for his countryman, I don't have faith in Okada to try to work in any way hard

to get this guy over, despite the fact he's being paid millions. He's going to lazy through it and lounge around like he always does. He's like the wrestling embodiment of Triple H's booking. And just get by with it. And then, you know, good last 30 seconds. Well, and sometimes that doesn't come off. You know, I'm telling, I think, to be honest, a lot of the members of the Don Fallis family should have something to fall back on

because they're being misrepresented. Nothing worse than a crummy accountant or an evil manager or agent. Somebody doesn't know what they're doing, draining your money, not getting you the representation you deserve. And then there you are just cast aside like a crumpled Kleenex on the peep show booth floor of life, Brian. With no skills to back you up. Wait a minute now.

That's Harpo Marx, not the sound of money being done. made. You know what you need. Oh, wait a minute. I know. See, you had the wrong money. That's the, that's the sound of what do I do now in a panic because you're broke and then chiching, chiching, chiching, that's the sound of making money. Well, you can't make too much now you're making way too much money. If you get four chichings, the IRS is going to investigate you. Ladies and gentlemen, you can turn your dreams into reality and money by teaming up with our friends at Shopify. If you've just been, as I said, lingering in obscurity as a member of the Don Phallis family and you don't have anything to back yourself up in the world.

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the good, classy people who do their job well at Shopify. I understand you have to be over 21 to be able to sell pussy on the internet courtesy of anything to do with Shopify. That's why the purple pay button... No, I don't think that has anything to do with Shopify. And again, Shopify is someone you could trust,

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not having to worry about working for the planetarium or NASA or the Russians or the the little Dutchie of fucking Fenwick you can work for yourself and build your own goddamn atomic bombs well you can work for yourself and not do that

you can work for yourself and study and work hard and create a great problem on Shopify they can press the purple pay button to pay you not to set your nuclear missiles off over major metropolitan areas of the world again we were at the

I don't know how we had to drag ourselves back to nuclear annihilation. I can't speak, but I can notice a good deal, and that is this deal for Shopify, Jim, one more time, with a soothing tone. What is that promo code? Shopify.com slash J-C-E. That's right. I remind you we, you Shopify ourselves,

so we like them, you can too. This is Jim's show. Well, you know, before we go back to AEW, just for the hell of it, because we're coming up on that point, what is going on at the Arcadian Vanguard network this week? Oh, now? What's going on? Might as well. There's great programming, as always. Go through, go to, I wasn't prepared.

Of course, on Facebook, Facebook.com slash Arcadian Vanguard. And on Twitter at Super Podcasts. Want to be mentioned to the wrestling news? Each and every day get your wrestling news for free. The Wrestling News.com wherever you find your favorite podcast for the morning wrestling newscast. Stick to wrestling with John McAdam, macadampod.com. And of course, shut up and wrestle with Brian Solomon, S-U-A-W-Podd.com. Check out both shows where you find your favorite podcast.

Brian Solomon has just had on the family of Gorilla Monsoon. So if you ever wanted to hear his late wife, what she had to say, if you ever wanted to hear his daughter. These interviews have been on, shut up and wrestle. You should definitely check them out, especially everyone who's bought the new book. And we should mention she did not do the interview posthumously. These were interviews conducted for the book

that is now out and on sale. The new book coming out, which is The Seance of Gorilla Monsoon, starring Brian Solomon. No, listen to the show, S-U-A-W-Pod.com, and, of course, the 605 superpodcast, go through the archive, 605 pod.com.

mothership. I realized last week I forgot to ask you that question, so I want to make up for it. Get it in. Back to AEW. A rematch was up next between Kyle O'Reilly and Dick the Boozer. Again, again. You know, this would have been a great thing to do with O'Reilly when he first came in about three fucking years ago, wouldn't it? This is the best thing they've done with Kyle O'Reilly in a long time. I watched a match thinking they have to do something. They have to do something because it stands out that Moxley couldn't beat him, that Moxley had to hit the referee. It wasn't just Moxley cheating. It was Moxley not being able to get away from Kyle O'Reilly.

This has been the best thing he has done in AEW by far, even though the matches may not necessarily be the best of times. Well, obviously you can only get what you can only get with Moxley, right? But the point is, yes, this is somebody. came up with the idea for a little TV program. Imagine that, where Kyle O'Reilly faces Moxley, and Moxley, as you said, has to punch the referee to get disqualified because he can't get away from the ankle lock,

even though as somebody mentioned, as Moxley was staggering to his feet to punch the referee, he grabbed the top rope to steady himself. So he technically could have got a break, but he wasn't that quick. He doesn't think that quick. But nevertheless, they bring it back. And this time they go about 10 minutes,

wasn't burdensome. And O'Reilly gets the front face lock on him, on the guillotine, as they call it, on the floor and had him scissered around his waist with his legs, and Moxley couldn't get away, and Aubrey had counted them both out. So again, Moxley, that, this is if you brought Kyle O'Reilly in,

you give him, a win on television, maybe two wins on television over three or four weeks and have him say something to people so they know what his voice sounds like. And then you put him in a little program with a guy that you featured in the main events so the fans know where to take him as a main event guy also, and that's where you do this. And now it's still, it's better than things they could be doing, but it's an example of O'Reilly has the talent to do this, but they have wasted it over the last three years with the goofiness

and the, him being a part of the goofy group with the goofy angle and the whole thing with Cole and the devil's MJF and all the other stuff. You get the people used to. Okay, it's Kyle O'Reilly. The rest of those guys, they're nothing happening. And then you do this. And it has to, just because you can put together all of the puzzle pieces, for a certain part of the puzzle doesn't mean that the whole picture is a masterpiece.

And it, nevertheless, and then Marina Schaefer knocked Aubrey Ed out. So Claudio came in and leveled Kyle and then Roderick Strong came in and then Wheeler came in and Garcia came in and Darby came in and Briscoe came in. And it was same as always. And then the heels bail out and wait for the baby faces to berate them on the microphone. And Darby got the mic good. And it was short and sweet. And he made a little point.

And then Briscoe took the microphone and beat around the bush a bit. And then he was trying or supposed to send. up for pockets of all people to make the challenge for blood and guts. That's a pay-per-view. He gives the microphone to pockets and he said, well, uh, blood and guts. He ruined the pay-per-view main event challenge. Why would they let this dipshit speak? It just shit all over the whole thing.

However, let's remember the whole thing is now they've got a blood and guts match on pay-per-view with the boar horseman against Mark Briscoe, Darby Allen, Roderick Strong, and Kyle O'Reilly, apparently, right, in pockets. So now they're doing underneath preliminary blood and guts match, I think Tony sees the death riders and Orange Cassidy as not being underneath

preliminary guys. I think you could definitely argue in terms of who's a star in AEW, Moxley, Darby, you know, Briscoe, again, you want to talk about people, if they had only done this in the beginning when they came in,

but they're setting up blood and guts. The interesting thing is, when is blood and guts? I think November 22nd is the date of their pay-per-view, if I believe. And so that's November... Memory serves.

And then November 20th. is WWE Survivor Series war games. So what do you think that says? It says that we're going to see a bunch of the same old shit. And yes, I agree. The way he's been used, Moxley is the worst wrestler in the world, but the way he's been used, he's a main event guy. Right, right.

And Darby is a main event guy. Briscoe was on that precipice where he could or could he's, and the people still like him, but you got Wheeler useless, you've got Garcia, you've got Roddy bless him. Again, great worker presented like a dipshit.

Claudio. What? And the mascot. So then they went to a commercial break. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Yeah, so we're about to get three war games matches in a week because it's going to be men's and women's at the end.

at the WWE Survivor Series. Well, no. And if they only do... There's going to be four. There's going to be four. They're doing a women's one, too? Okay, great. I was going to mention that they're doing, yes.

This company, as bad as it is when the WWE does a men's and women's war games and takes all the fucking steam out of the real men's war games that is the real one, at least they've got some women that are not going to fall on their face

to embarrass themselves. I understand they're going to do a women's war, a blood and guts match. So in the space of seven days, we're going to see... Actually, I'm wrong about seven days, because the AW one is on a 12th in Greensboro. November 12th? November 12th in Greensboro. I thought that was the 22nd. No, it's not going to be a weekend.

It's going to be... Apparently it's going to be on dynamite. Oh, Jesus, age Christ. So it's not going to be on... a pay-per-view. They're just going to do women's blood and guts on TV. Yes. What the fuck. The point is it's the same old shit. Women's blood and guts, men's blood and guts, women's war games, men's war games. We're going to get to see the WWE version and the fucking great value generic version of all of these matches over a two-week

period, Ojoy O Bliss. It's like when the NWA came to National Colise with the bunkhouse stamp and the WWF all of a sudden had the bunkhouse brawl at the NASA Coliseum, won by Jim Duggan. Well, at least he knew his way around a bunkhouse. All right, so they came back from a commercial break and there was Mercedes Moon and Chris Stadlander already in the back fighting, and they fought out into the arena and into the ring,

and then Athena attacked Stadlander, and they beat Stadlander up until Willow ran out and the heels ran off. And there's more of that particular story. Athena has now become Mercedes Moons partner in crime. And then the women's tag team championship tournament match was up with Jewelie Hart and Blue Sky against Jamie Hader and the Queen. What happened, Brian?

Action-packed wrestling spectacular. and one tries to remember the finish. I believe that it was the team with Tecla. But then I'm thinking did the other team win? I don't remember what the result was. Well, good, because nobody gives a shit. There's two more belts that are going to go to two more interchangeable people. Damn, I can't remember who won the fucking match.

Who moved on in a tournament? It's a big tournament. It's big. It's huge. You know what the big next match was? Brian, I know you're going to find this hard to believe that they would give something away like this on free television, the magnitude of this. A four-way match to determine the number one contender for the person who gets the title shot at the pay-per-view. They just did this with the tag teams an hour previously.

and the last match is the same thing only with the singles instead of the tags Samoa Joe and Rickashay and Bobby Lashley and hook bless the young man I think his father's just a wonderful fellow but everybody even these fans knew he didn't belong in the fucking deal and they'd put him in it so Joe could choke

somebody out and because of the connection that they've had previously when Hooke was one of the ops. But again, is Tony just lost? Is he just stuck? Oh, 4-way. Has he just thrown his hands up? The same goddamn thing, the same show.

And then they went 11 minutes just long enough to go into the overrun, And one minute into the overrun, Joe was choking hook out. Because they had some bullshit angle to do. They protected Lashley as well as they could, but he was chasing a ricochet off who had taken a cheap shot on him or whatever. But Jesus Christ, to pick, why would you, in what logical world would Tony even pick these four guys?

to be the number one contender when he's got 18 people that are already holding singles belts and these ain't none of. It's just meaningless. So, comments on the match before we talk about the angle, if

any. No, I mean, you know, again, it's not even just the two on this show. I'm sick of the multi-man matches and it always seems like it's just you talk about lazy booking being the no-d-Q, no time-women match, is this is the laziest thing in wrestling. The, we'll have a three-way match.

We'll have a four-way match. I mean, just, it's the laziest thing in wrestling. It was something unnecessary until 1993. Hey, watch out now. It's not my fault. I didn't know. I was like, what was Oppenheimer? All the people have worked on the fucking nuclear fishing and shit.

We didn't know all this information. would be used for evil. So anyway, Joe and Hobbs and Shepoopy are in the ring. Tony Chivani has been dressed as the Phantom of the Opera like he did on a Halloween havoc for WCW 30 fucking years ago that only again the smallest subset of people remember. And they've had people in costumes in the back of the building through these little backstage vignettes.

So Tony says, okay, well, now we've got our challengers. So now we're going to bring in our Halloween crew with the contract for the title match. This, then you could immediately see something was coming from a mile away because here comes the giant stay puff marshmallow man and a giant cow and a giant chicken and a giant bull and others in costume into the ring. and again Adam Page was the stay puff marshmallow fellow at one of the Halloween shows they did a couple of years ago

and surprise somebody whoever the fuck. So when they all get in the ring Joe tells Hobbs and Japoopee beat all them guys up in the costumes and they do and they grab the marshmallow man and they pull his head off and it's some nobody.

So then Joe signs the contract, and then they stand there, and you could tell they're trying to get everybody in the right place, and Joe gets a microphone and cuts a promo on Adam Page, who's not there. But he's talking about what he's going to do to Page, but they're all standing awkwardly, and there's some awkward waiting. And then from the floor, because Tony Schavani's got out of the ring, from the floor, they get a shot. shot from behind the phantom and you hear Tony's voice, let's propose now a toast to like he's

it's what Shavani always does. Toast Samoa Joe. That's ever happened ever. I toasts the wrestlers. And yet let's have a toast now that he signed the contractor after he beat up our people in costume and they hand in bottles

of champagne where the heels now are going to toast each other. And the phantom gets in the ring now and has the microphone in front of his face and Tony's voice is playing and he repeats the same goddamn message

but you can tell that the jaw movement from the fucking guy in the ring as dressed as the phantom is not matching this and to be honest if nobody was watching

if you weren't paying any attention at all you wouldn't really know what was up but because it was so glaringly obvious, when they say, let's bring out the Halloween crew, you knew something was going to happen. So they switched. Chavani switched on the floor with Adam Page, who was dressed with a wig and a fucking fake beard

as the Phantom of the Opera instead of Chivani, and he breaks a bottle over Joe's head. But then to show you, how goddamn lost they are, how fucking lost they are. Adam Page breaks a champagne bottle over Samoa Joe's head, and Joe goes down, and then Paige jumps out on the apron, and Joe has to stand up so Paige can hit him with a buckshot lariat. And then he gets on top of him and hits him with 16 fake fucking punches.

that never came near and were in no way convincing. He broke a bottle over the guy's head, break the bottle, the guys laying there immobile, take your fucking wig and mask off and get your pop. You fucking idiot, you complete moron, you imbecile. So it takes you breaking a bottle over a guy's head, and he gets up, you hit him with your finish. And then you got to get on him and punch him 16 times in a way that looks like a pussy girl because you're weak.

I don't know why else, what the fuck? So they can't even do an angle without doing too much and making the baby face look like a moron. But that was, it was a cute idea. And the people popped in the building. and there's ways they could have not telegraphed it that would have been better, but it wasn't bad. But then the payoff of the whole thing is the phantom breaks a bottle over the guy's head

and that's forgotten five seconds later when they go to the wrestling move followed by the weak shit. So you forgot about the bottle. Yeah, you know, I had forgotten about the bottle. I remember the surprise, not the bottle. And actually, it was a surprise to me because I wasn't paying enough attention to the Chavani Carri.

I was waiting for something to happen because it was obviously telegraphed something would happen, but I wasn't paying attention to Adam Page or Chavani at all. What called my attention to Chvani also was when I realized that you were hearing his voice and him making this statement, but they were trying as best as they could not to show him until he got in the ring and then the jaw was not matching the voice over, which was he was saying the same thing again anyway. I'm like, why, what? Then I realize it's not him.

So should Samoa Joe be mad at Chivani for obviously participating in this and lending his voice? Yes, I think he ought to kakin a clutch Chivani to fucking Kingdom come. He had to be in on it. Or maybe he's stupid, because who would fall for Chivani saying, and now a toast?

When has that ever happened? Never. Well, but at the same point, you had Chavani and Page, they obviously had to collaborate and cross-dressing with each other. So I think he's guilty. So anyway, Adam Page is going to wrestle Samoa Joe again

on the pay-per-view after he just beat him. But I guess just to wrap this up the specific point when it comes to a weapon that's not typically used that should be devastating, that should be the out. Not that and then more stuff that's not needed. And it's, I know the old saying is that what you're following a shooting with the stabbing.

And there's, you know, there's a moral to that story. But when you think about this, yes, the break of the bottle over a guy's head, that'll do some damage. Okay, the buck shot. That'll hurt a guy too. But the guy that you just broke the bottle over his head has to stand up for you to do that. so wasn't no reason to do it except it's fancy and you wanted to do it and then when you get on top of a guy and hit him 16 times and they all look like shit and his face is not caved in

then you've just started out running over a guy with a fucking car and now you ended up farting on him while you're going in the wrong direction they've been going in the wrong direction for quite a while though speaking of direction before we get out of here the direction of the ratings has not been promising and if anybody out there missed it when we went over it on shows a couple weeks ago and the clips are on YouTube

where the our YouTube channel if you want to go back and refresh yourself but the Nielsen people have switched to another methodology of gathering the ratings and since then a lot of the pro sports and football have shown kind of increases. And most of the other programs were a small variation either way. And wrestling has gotten slammed.

And it's been down 15%, 20%, whatever, from the old methodology just a few weeks ago. And also, there being more brown. is it stingy or proprietary with their information we don't even get the quarter hours anymore hey, oh fuck that nobody's going to know about that

who was threatened oh yeah, no this is an interesting thing and we'll see going forward what happens here Brandon Thurston of Wesslenomics posted something for subscribers on their Patreon note for readers

I don't expect to publish quarter hour TV ratings for the foreseeable future. Our sourcing that had provided data appears to have been asked to stop sharing it, likely as a result of pressure connected to Nielsen.

Last Friday, I received an email from Nielsen in response to an earlier media inquiry about HBO Max viewership, which Warner Brothers Discovery had by that time answered. The message copied several members of Nielsen's legal

and policy team. The media relations representative stated only that the team had some questions and that's in quote about the data I've reported Nielsen hasn't followed up and I haven't received any threat or warning based on the tone and timing I suspect the email was meant

mainly to signal concern and then he explains how what they're doing is transformative it's fair use under the First Amendment and he doesn't think there should be any problem, but, and this is a key phrase here probably, I also recognize Nielsen's clients may have contractual obligations with Nielsen.

The timing, especially around Nielsen's recent rollout of its big data plus panel methodology, suggests that Nielsen's sensitivity about how their data is perceived, particularly as the Media Rating Council is reportedly reconsidering whether to accredit the new methodology, after initially granting accreditation.

So that seems to have stopped the quarter-hour ratings, not just for WrestleMania, but everywhere. We have not seen any quarter-hours from any source. Well, and that's, again, it ain't a good long-term thing for wrestling, for any wrestling company or the wrestling business in general if they continue to use these ratings in this fashion and wrestling is the one that got the drubbing

of all of the other programming on the world of the television and streaming today. So while they're using it, this is what the advertisers and the networks are going to go by because they're not going to have anything else. And with that being said, we had been talking about dynamite, you know, looking kind of pitiful.

when it was down in the 600,000s, and then they got into the 500,000s, and every once in a while would bust back over six with the old methods. And we were like, you know, can the network be happy with this? And there's all these rumors that more people are going to buy Warner Brothers Discovery, including maybe Netflix now. They might buy it.

But now they're down in the fours. and how much how low can you go how much more can they tolerate October 22nd October 29th Brian do you have those numbers because I meant to have them and I don't have them

yeah I have pulled up the 15th the 22nd and the 29th well what were all those numbers dynamite on Wednesday October 15th 2025 8 to 10 p.m what was that hold on I'm actually going to tell you what the lineup was or at least what the main thing was because I got my notes here, as well as this.

So this would have been two weeks ago. Jim, I got my notes here. October 15th was dynamite with... Let's see, you had... Tony Storm and Statlanders sit-down interview and then brawl, followed by the Gates of Agony versus the Hurt Syndicate. Darby, Allen, and Moxley's cinematic jails sit-down.

Claudio versus Roddy. Callis Birthday party at a restaurant. Omega Jurassic Express versus Callis family. ops match and then collision built into the show. They did 534,000 viewers from 8 to 10 p.m. Now, was that the first week of the new method or the last week of the old method? I think that was the first week of the new method, wasn't it? Oh, no, no, the new method had been in place for a little while.

I believe it started September 26th. Good Lord, how time is flying. Yeah. All right, well, then, and do you have, by the way, what did dynamite do? on September 19th. I would need a second to pull that up. Well, no, September 19th. September 24th.

It would have been September 24th, that would have been the older than new method. September 24th is 636,000 viewers. I think that may have been the last week with the old method. Okay, that's where I'm, that's what I'm driving at. September 24th was 636. That's the old method.

The new method kicked in. Well, what was the next two weeks before October 15th? Uh, hold on. Well, Jim, I have here Wednesday, October 1st, dynamite 8 to 10.30 p.m. 465,000 viewers. This was Big Data Plus Panel Methodology. Okay. And what about October 8th?

October 8th? Or actually, October 8th. Or actually, October 7th. They aired Tuesday. Titty Tuesday. Title Tuesday, 8 to 10 p.m. Tuesday, October 7th, 321,000 viewers. Okay, and that's an off night. But nevertheless, so we've got September 24th, the last week of the old method, 636.

Then the following Wednesday, 465. Following Tuesday, take that out of the equation. Off night, 321. They come back on October 15th. 534 over 100,000 lower than the big one in September. What was October 22nd? October 22nd dynamite was San Antonio. Ops versus Hertz Syndicate, Derby promo,

women's four-team tag match, Mercedes Monet cake celebration, Moxley versus O'Reilly Part 1, and Fletcher and Callis promo, and that's about that Bandito main event with Brisco, Bandito versus Okada made of it. Excuse me. 8 to 10 p.m., 477,000 viewers.

Okay. And the 29th, the show that we just talked about, those numbers have come in. What did they do there? The most recent AEW Dynamite, October 29, 2025. This is reported by WrestleMania. 8 to 10.08 p.m., 459,000. and viewers.

Not counting max. So in the four Wednesday nights since the new method, they've gone from the last week of the old method 636 to 465, 534, 477 and 459. Now, same things happen to the

WWE. They've lost a good 10, 15, 20% of the audiences last time I checked that were being measured under the new method, but they start with bigger numbers, and as well, they're more diversified in that there's some programs on streaming and some programs on cable and some programs on broadcast. But this can't be in any way good for AEW's interactions with WBD potential sale or not

coming up. they just keep getting lower. Again, it's important to note that AEW, although getting hundreds of millions overall over several years for media rights, is still a fairly cheap program for TBS, but that doesn't always save something. You get what you pay for. But I don't know if it's unfair to wrestling or more realistic to wrestling,

the new ratings methodology, because also it's happening in the middle of a downturn. if not business-wise for everyone, just general vibes-wise. AEW does not feel hot. WWE feels hot and you don't understand why, because you don't feel it. It looks hot.

I guess it's maybe a better way to say it. But right now, I think we're in a downturn. So that's the other thing that, whether it's AEW or WWE, you have to account with the ratings. Well, you know what you have to account with on this program, Brian, don't you? What's that?

Well, what that is is no matter when we finish one, there's always going to be another one coming up soon. And that's the case for this one. We have finished one but there'll be another one coming up soon. We're going to talk about I guess

Saturday night's main event and Monday night's Raw and whatever else happens during that time period. The World Series, Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein Prince Andrew Oh well Andrew

Just Andrew sorry I'll have you know he's Andrew Mountbatten Smythington But we're going to talk about all those things On the drive-thru Because this episode of the experience Has officially expired Do you have any closing thoughts

You're going to find out he's related to the Batten's Wouldn't that be hilarious Oh Mountbatten We have we have have traced the royal family of Windsor all the way back to West Virginia and the Baton family. That's where they live, Mount Baton. All right, we ain't going to top that. Folks from Mount Batten, West Virginia, and Louisville, Kentucky, and the Wilds of New Jersey,

this has been the Jim Cornett experience. Join us in a few more days on the drive-through. Until then, thank you. Fuck you. Bye-bye, everybody.