Jim Cornette Experience - Episode 630: Does Anyone Know What They're Doing?

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

This week on the Experience, Jim reviews WWE Smackdown & the 2026 WWE Hall Of Fame Inductions! Also, Jim reviews Darby Allin vs. MJF from Dynamite, and Ronda Rousey's press conference promo! Plus Jim talks about Dave Meltzer's star ratings for AEW Dynasty, WWE talent pay, the business of WrestleMania 42, and much more! Thanks to our episode sponsors: SHOPIFY:  Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/jce WILLIE'S REMEDY:  Order now at drinkwillies.com and use code JCE for 20% off of your first order + free shipping on orders over $95, and enjoy life in the high country. PRIZEPICKS:  Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/JCE and use code JCE and get $50 inlineups when you play your first $5 lineup! Follow Jim and Brian on Twitter: @TheJimCornette @GreatBrianLast Join Jim Cornette's College Of Wrestling Knowledge on Patreon to access the archives & more! https://www.patreon.com/Cornette Subscribe to the Official Jim Cornette channel on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/OfficialJimCornette Visit Jim's official site at www.JimCornette.com for merch, live dates, commentaries and more! You can listen to Brian on the 6:05 Superpodcast at 605pod.com or wherever you find your favorite podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Like the midnight and the rock and roll. He's in a fight for wrestling soul using a racket and some mind control. He's Jim Cornett. The keys to the future. Hell by Cornet. In Las Vegas and foolishness in Florida, so it's the, does anybody know what they're doing addition of the Jim Cornett experience? And joining me to discuss these very topics.

Hawaiian Brian, the podcasting line, the King of the Arcadian Vanguard podcast network, Mr. Co-host to you. He always knows which way the wind is blowing. Be great, Brian Last, everybody. Aloha, Jim. A pleasure to be here once again as we are recording a big week of non-stop wrestling action.

And it all starts now. Well, what we are going to try to attempt to do, our mission here today for the people, the cult of Cornett, the listeners out there, is to bring you up to dead because we are just 24 hours away, a little more from the actual kickoff of the first pyro at the WrestleMania event itself. We're going to bring you in this program by the time we get finished with it, everything through Smackdown on the Hall of Fame weekend,

or the Hall of Fame weekend, the Hall of Fame ceremony. And then we're going to take a couple of days and watch endless amounts of wrestling, and then we're going to come back and talk about all that on your program. So it's a fun task we have in front of it. You know what a lot of people are saying? And I didn't realize that I knew some people listen to the show because they don't want to watch this shit anymore, but they like to listen to us,

talk about it and in some cases take the piss out of it, as they say. I didn't know how many people that was. They're like, Jesus Christ, you watch it so we don't have to. almost like we're throwing our bodies in front of a projectile. See, we're heroes, Brian. There's a lot of people out there that you suffer for them. And then you report back and they're really grateful for it. And you escort them through their daily lives with your reviews of the wrestling shows.

It's funny, too, the people who get the most upset, like amongst the AEW fans of what you say, they're upset with you when you like you said take the piss it's not even the critical reviews it's when you laugh at it and have fun with it and it's like who the hell is the audience of Orange Cassidy and Tony Storm to be upset with someone else laughing maybe not at the product maybe more the people behind the product but still it's the same thing

well what no say it's a very simple little psychological tweak that is very important to that these people laugh at the show and the foolish, but they're laughing with their heroes, the guy that sticks his hands in his pockets, and the guy that looks like Ricky Steamboat's daughter and the fucking guy to blah, blah, blah, aren't they great?

Yeah, but when we actually laugh at them because they're fucking pathetic, then that by osmosis transfers over to, well, they're saying I'm pathetic because I dream of being the guy that can stick my hands in my pockets. I'm just going to go home and take it out on that woman I have in the basement. I can't come out.

Now, come on. Now, that is a small percentage. That's only happened a few times now, yeah. That's only, what is it now? It's only three or four. Caught on camera. There was the one that had the guy caught on camera, right? They had like a sting operation.

Yeah, yeah. And the t-shirt. And then there was one guy wearing the AEW t-shirts. There was the other guy who was watching AEW in the back. background. Yeah, that's the one I'm thinking of. That's the guy I was thinking. Yeah. But that's a very small percentage, Brian. What, you know, what's, what's five percent of a million people? What is five percent of a million people? What, what, what are you using as a million?

What's the number a million from? I'm just saying, if you just said, okay, here's, the dynamite gets 650 and the collision gets a couple of hundred. Just say a million people. Is there a million AEW fans? what's 5% of that that's all we have to worry about that would be like what 25,000 fucking people the sickest of the sickos anyway speaking of sick I'm just I'm just I'm pulling my hair out I'm biting my fingernails Brian I'm on the edge of my seat because I told you a couple days ago they were calling for storms and thunderstorms and maybe severe weather and heavy rain for thunder over Louisville Day, which as we sit here right now,

beginning this episode, is tomorrow. And now in the last couple of days, they've backed it up to, well, it's going to rain, but it'll be on and off. And the problem is the cloud cover now for the air show. They do this massive air show where they do the loop-de-loops

and the flips with the jets and the things and such. and here comes Orville and Wilbur Wright with, I don't fucking know. But they're going to have the low clouds. They can't do all their maneuvers. But the rain, which will not be severe, it will hopefully be through by the time the fireworks are set to go off. So now we're, is it going to happen? Well, they're going to blow this shit up one way or the other.

But is anybody going to be down here to see it and what's it going to look like? forgive me if you've answered this before or if I've asked it before, but when you were with OVW, was there ever, did you ever think that maybe we could do something with Thunder over Louisville? There's like some kind of way to attach yourself to it or, you know, some adjacent event?

Fuck no. Because, I mean, if we were a food truck or a goddamn something like that, but, you know, then we might have made more money and running a wrestling show. no it would be insane to try to have a goddamn ring any every conceivable place that human beings can occupy on a downtown waterfront on both sides of river

Kentucky and Indiana if it's not blocked off to the public because it's part of the goddamn you know show then it's packed with people and then nobody would be. want to watch wrestling matches while they got a goddamn air show with 50 fighter jets and various fucking people doing stunt work and drones and then it gets dark and they blow off fireworks for 30 fucking minutes straight. The second street bridge has been closed for two days because they load it up and fire a

lot of them off of the, well, most of them off of the bridge and have a waterfall off the thing across the whole Ohio River to the soundtrack of the oddest collection of music you've ever heard in your life from all, they appeal to all ages. So, no, they've tried to do a fucking outlaw wrestling show in the middle of that. I mean, most people wouldn't notice it was there. I wasn't even there. So, yeah, a good idea, Brian. I'm sure Oneida could have made it work.

Oh, he would have had them fight onto the bridge right when the fireworks went off and fucking blown up into the river. But anyway, but now the problem is we are almost in a drought. Last year, we were eight inches of rain heavy for the year already and had 10 feet water downtown, and now we're five inches short and are heading into a drought with exceptionally warm weather for this time of the year. So pick your poison. anthrax arsenic for me thank you but

all right so I said what we're going to do today and of course we have to talk about Tony Kahn's latest I don't know is this part of the most brilliant idea he ever had or are they just all

completely fucking insane this is what we're going to try to figure out about that but i wanted to make mention of emails for lee who is from michigan he says i recently celebrated one year of sobriety and congratulations lee and i wanted to thank you and brian for providing me with quality entertainment throughout the past year and several before that i was going to say throughout just the past year he must be new but he says several before that but jim once blocked me on Twitter for wishing him a bad Thanksgiving and that his turkey was dry. What cost that?

I don't know. It was unsolicited, but I believe I remember it. And that's why, you know, I call attention to this because he says, I just want to apologize for that. That was before I discovered our common hatred for John Moxley. Fuck that guy. All right. Well, there you go.

Bonding over hatred. So, Lee, but it's not near Thanksgiving, but I hope your Thunder Day hot dogs are greasy. How about that? Yeah, keep it up, Lee. And also another from a kind of a member of the cult, a daughter of a member of the cult, Lola. L-O-L-A-L-Lola. Hi, Mr. Cordad.

This is, of course, this came through the official channels and was across my desk, so she's properly, you know, respectful here. Hi, Mr. Cornett. My name is Lola. My dad has been your biggest fan since he was a teenager. Oh, my God, damn it. How old am I? And the last end is near.

My dad has been your biggest fan since he was a teenager. And he listens to both of your podcasts every week. He met you many years ago at the Fairgrounds, I believe, but he was stoked. I even got him a signed autograph and copy of your new book last Christmas. Thank you, Lola. We're having a 50th birthday party for him Sunday, May 17th, at the Highland Community Ministries in Louisville.

He would be so excited if you were able to make it. So I wanted to see if I could get a hold of you. If you can, the party will be any time between 3.30 and 7.30. If you can't make it, would you mind maybe shouting him out on your your drive-through. His name is Jeremy. It's a happy birthday, Jeremy, dad of Lola, and I'm sorry that unfortunately because of prior commitments, I will not be able to make it to your birthday party in Louisville, Kentucky on Sunday, May 17th at the Highland Community Ministries between 3.30 and 7.30 p.m., but I'm sure a bunch of other members of the cult are going to drop by and say hello

and bring you a nice present. On Sunday, May 17th at the Highland Community Ministries in Louisville between 3.30 and 7.30 p.m. for Jeremy. Happy birthday. We'll be sending Norman Dooley in our stead. Norman will stop by and he'll bring the punching pie. And that's right. As a matter of pay, anybody that does stop by, I assume they're having refreshments. So if you're just in need of a warm place, a roof over your head or some free food. now, come on. Now that you're determined to ruin this party, let's stop for a second.

Well, I'm not trying to ruin that party. What you're trying to do? You're trying to destroy this man's birthday party. No, no. I'm sure they're going to have food. What kind of party would it be without food and drink and all that type of stuff in long, tall glasses? I know I can dance. I know I can dance.

If a listener of this show showed up at that party, do they have to do the cult of Cornette handshake or any sort of sounds, anything to indicate who they are, the outsiders to this crew? they should come dressed as one of the cult of cornet wrestling integrity watchers like sergeant at arms nick barrett with the white beret the white sash the saber and the in the the shirt and and and do the woo-woo with each other and then automatically you can get into

jeremy's 50th birthday party sunday may 17th at the highland community ministries you plug this thing more than you've plug your own stuff well i want him to know how loved he is is. He's got a big turnout. Just bring in extra KFC. If you would, there, Lois. Nothing says happy birthday, like extra KFC. Well, you're going to have to feed the whole fucking neighborhood. Have you been to that neighborhood? I don't know. That's a hungry fucking neighborhood. All right. Well, happy birthday. They're big fat people over there. Happy birthday, Jeremy, and, of course, good decision, Lola.

Happy birthday, Jeremy. Happy birthday to you. All righty. I understand that before we get to what Tony's done now, let's talk about what Tony has previously done as seen through the eyes of a child, through the eyes of a child on the arms of an angel or whatever the play. Dave Meltzer now goes into hypnotic trances where it takes him far, far away, to a land that he only dreams of, whatever he watches an AEW pay-per-view,

and he sees different things than we do, Brian. So just to put a button on the AEW Dynasty Paperview, I understand you have the official star ratings that everybody clamors and craves to get from Uncle Dave for the AEW Dynasty pay-per-view where they just went out. hours and hours and hours, and then followed it up with a cool TV match

where they switched to world title in two minutes. But more on that in a moment. What are these fucking ratings, these stars, these... And again, a lot of the listeners like hearing your take on this because you are one of the co-creators of the star rating system. Oh, quit. People like to hear what you think of the bastardization and, I guess, turning into a whore of the star rating system.

rating system. Oh, my God, the horror of Babylon was Mother Teresa compared to what he's done here. But now, I was not even the originator of this. I was the instigator of the application of it to wrestling. But it was it, who was it that, or did the movie you star rated? Was it Leonard Malton? That's the guidebook that I used to have. Up until the time that I was, that I, got into wrestling business and started traveling on the road. When I lived here at home, I had a copy of the TV guide next to my TV and a copy of Leonard Maltons,

which I've still got around here somewhere, movie reviews, the big paperback books or whatever, a movie was coming on goddamn TV. You could see what Leonard had to say about it. But did he invent that? When I was a kid, I thought Leonard Moulton was John Landis.

Well, they did look similar, but Leonard had him by a few. years. But the point is, whoever did that invented this and then I made a wise-ass comment that, you know, well, you ought to do the, and here we go, but Dave, there's nothing in your life

from when you walk back from this. No, but I'm just, because now it's so ludicrous. Norman and I were 17 fucking years old. And now there are people in the business that are actively trying, instead of thinking about doing business, they're trying to get validation through multiple stars by a 65-year-old fellow, like me. I don't even give stars, because I'm not

17. Well, let's go to the reviews from Forever 17, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Jim from the pre-show, Alex Windsor, defeated Marina Shafir 8 minutes 51 seconds, three, and a quarter stars. Well, we didn't see it, so I'm not going to take the, I'm not going to just go into detail on why he's crazy for that. But I don't know about Marina Schaefer having any kind of three and something star match, but Alex Windsor's not bad, though, but we'll talk about that another time. Camille defeated Big Ann.

One minute, 22 seconds, no star rating for this. Jack Perry defeated Mark Davis, eight minutes and 28 seconds, three and a half stars. So, oh, geez, I know you probably said this and I just blocked it out, but I'm just thinking of this small child with the Shirley Temple hairdo

beating up Mark Davis and his big fat ass. You know, Tony's whole philosophy that I could bring guys in and anyone can beat them and it doesn't hurt them, which I don't agree with. but that idea even if you did believe it I would think it only works to a point specifically a point of like

6 foot 1 Mark Davis is gigantic I've not seen him win a match and I think in every tag match I've seen him in he's eating the pin so what the hell is that he's gigantic well I mean you you can have it doesn't matter about the size

you can have old Slim the hillbilly from fucking Albuquerque or whatever we were talking about. He was 6'3 and 320 pounds with his big flabby fucking gut that he couldn't work a lick and he could barely flap his arms. But Mark Davis, again, was halfway credible and they were going to push him in a top team

and his partner gets hurt, so that just keep beating him as a single. And why do you have to have that fucking match if you don't want Jungle Jack to do the job, for Mark Davis, don't book the fucking match. You've got 150 fucking wrestlers. I'm sorry, I'm bogging us down. No, that's fine.

Jack Perry retained the national title. And then finally in the pre-show, Megan Bain and Lena Cross, retain their tag team titles against Maya World and Hyon. And that was two and a half stars. Well, now, wait a minute. Is that, because now,

are they the world sisters? Because I've seen it written Hyen and. and Maya World. So that... Oh, no, that's not what it says here. It says Maya World and Hyan. So I don't know if they're sisters.

I don't think they are. Oh, see, I thought they were the world sisters, because I saw it the other way around once. They are the stupid name sisters. Maya World and welcome to it. Jim, let's get to the main card. Oh, go ahead. Yes, that's where is the main card starting?

Any time now? The Young Bucks defeated Konoske, Takeshta and Kazushka Okada, 20 minutes, 10 seconds, five-star match. Rickishol. Oh, go ahead. Wait a minute, hold on. You'd think that he'd just pull back on it just a little bit,

just because of the, the criticism he gets, and the people obviously going, what the fuck with this, over and over with these guys? and you'd think he'd pull back just a little bit. Every one of their matches can't be the best match that's ever been held. And again, I'm not saying anything bad about poor old take a shit besides the fact that he's been floundering in mid-cardity and don't know what the fuck he's making funny faces at Okada for,

but is he still trying to support Okada as being, when people are seeing it now, he's lazy, he's broken down. There's no physical charisma to him. He has no motivation. He does the absolute least he can do. And he looks like fucking just some slub off the street. how is this a five-star match? Because in his mind, he's still the,

he's still the, you know, the ex before she gained all the weight and fucking got pissy with him and ran off with the fucking plumber or whatever? I can't tell you, Dave does a move-by-move breakdown, but he starts off by saying, The Young Bucks after the match called this bout a career highlight. All four use their regular moves. But there was a lot of new creative stuff in there. This was also the best babyface reaction

the young bucks have gotten anywhere in several years. Wow. At least he admits that. It was just an incredible performance. Other than the referee standing there, not doing anything, no DQ, fucking tornado rules. Give me a break. And again, just the,

there's nobody in the business. that is consistently more choreographed or just looking like children playing in the yard than the Buccaneos. And he can't get over it. All right, moving on. Rickashay defeated Chris Jericho, 19 minutes, 11 seconds. I didn't realize it went that long. Wow. Three and three-quarter stars. Actually, that's a tribute to Jericho that we didn't really realize. it went that long. Remember I say he didn't do anything he had to do either,

or didn't have to do either, but he covered it well and let the other guy provide a lot of movement. It was smart. I agree with that. I would say three and a half, but if we're arguing quarter of a star, Brian, then we're not really arguing, are we?

That's right. I would say that was at times a spot show match where Jericho got the most out of the least and the fans ate it up. And that's, and that used to be half of the goddamn matches that got rated were exactly that kind of match. Jim Darby Allen defeated Andrade in a number one contenders match for the world title, well, a number one contender for the world championship.

16 minutes, 32 seconds, four and a half stars. You know, I know you didn't watch this. I forgot to mention something to you, and I saw other people mention it too. for whatever reason after the match Andrade and Darby shook hands, I guess because of the competitive nature. Andrade had an erection. What? Andrade standing out with a fucking chubby while he's shaking Darby's.

But Dave didn't write anything about it. Obviously, Dave, didn't notice. Hey, Dave, my eyes are up here. Um, wait, after, after, after, Making bumps being blowed up after going 20 minutes with that little human ping pong ball. That's admirable, I guess, on his part. Yeah, how many, well, we'll give a couple of stars credit for that, so I'll agree with that one. Four and a half stars and three and a half inches.

FTR retained the tag titles over Adam Copeland and Christian in 21 minutes, seven seconds. Four and a half stars. Okay. Again, that's, it's still excessive, but he's on the normal scale, but he's expanded the scale to the point where we, until they just went too far and did too much, as you'll remember we spoke about, it was still, there was no furniture, there was no bullshit.

On the normal scale, that would be a three and a half star match. It wasn't the blow, out of all time, but on his scale, that's probably one of the more legitimate numbers he'd give. Jim, Kevin Knight, won the casino gauntlet match for the TNT title over Tomaso Champa, Roos, Bandito, Speedball Mike Bailey, El Cohn, Pack, Daniel Garcia, Anthony Bowens, and Wheeler Yuda, 22. minutes, 35 seconds, four and a half stars.

Of course it was. If you don't go 20 minutes and get at least four stars or above, then you should just quit and go to NXT. That's what I say. Well, and actually, I think he ought to start giving it. If the match has six people at it, they ought to at least give one star each. So it becomes a six star match and then go from there. Now, if they do better than that, maybe he could do seven and a half.

would Dave honor it if one of the AEW wrestlers had a stipulation for a big match? Let's say Kenny Omega versus Will Osprey. The stipulation is, can't be less than six and a half stars. Would Dave honor that and use that as the basis to start the star rating? Now, wait a minute. Now, what are you saying?

Help me out here. I lost you around a far turn. Are you, if you wanted to make it a stipulation, then you'd have to have them come out there, and say, Kenny, and say, if this isn't a six-star match, I will leave AEW forever or something like that. And then they'd have the match, and then they'd have Dave in a, like a Plexiglass box at ringside,

tabulate with one of the, like Matt Brock in the old after magazines with the visor on in front of a fucking typewriter, tabulating, and he's got an adding machine with the paper coming out. And he, and then he's, presses the button and it shows up six and a half stars, Kitty can stay, Kitty can stay. And then Meltzer keels over of a heart attack from all the excitement, boom, and they can't get into Plexiglass of Glass.

And they're trying to get the crowbar to pry him out to get the resuscitating paddles. This went from fantasy booking to snuff film booking. Let's get back to the star ratings here, Jim. Tecla retained the AW women's title over Jamie Hater, 16 minutes, 31 seconds, 3 and 3.3, 3 and 3. quarter stars. So just almost as good as most of the stuff Kurt Angle used to do. Okay.

I mean, they didn't even get 20 minutes. It really shows you what Tony thinks of the women's division. Yeah, he should have given them at least 30, because they've got a song, they've got to sing. Jim, John Moxley sang his song, defeating Will Osprey to retain the Continental title in 18 minutes, 13 seconds, 4 and 3 quarter stars. Oh, good Lord. Besides the rotten booking and the idea that they would beat poor Mr. Ostrich, who is apparently stinging his head in the sand over this whole thing.

And, nah, nah, no, bro. Nah. Nah. Nah. Jim Roderick Strong, Orange Cassidy, and Kyle O'Reilly won the AW-Trio's titles over Clark Connors Gabe Kidd and David Finley, nine minutes 58 seconds, three star match.

Well, yeah, he had to deduct at least a star and a half because one of the fucking guys didn't make it all the way through the 10-minute match before they were carried out and putting an ambulance. So that deducts a star. If it's a six-man match and it ends as five men, you've got to take a star off. Yeah, you got to take a star off anytime they lose a competitor in the middle of the match.

Finally, Jim, MJF defeated Kenny Omega to retain the AEW World Championship, 38 minutes, 55 seconds, 4 and 3 quarter stars. Oh, boy. So the only ones to get 5 stars were the Young Bucks. But just right underneath it was the ridiculous match where the Tony shit to bed on his top English baby football.

faced three months or whatever before a stadium show that's going to have an arena crowd. And then the main event that proved that pretty much nothing in wrestling can hurt anybody is bad enough to put him down for five seconds. And that was the car of AW Dynasty 2026. Well, speaking of things that put me down, Brian. and I almost hit my jaw hit the floor. I did one of the cartoon things. The jaw hit the floor and the eyes went goo-goo-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d when I saw what Tony had done

and not on television. I read about it on the Internet first, and I said if I would watch portions of AEW dynamite that contained if any of the guys actually had projectile diarrhea in the middle of the ring on live TV, I'd watch it. Well, this was kind of, kind of sort of similar in that right after the pay-per-view, the AEW Dynasty, where MJF goes through 40 minutes and nearly kills Kitty Omega and almost kills the wrestling business as well in the process, doing every goddamn thing in the world, and beats him.

and we were just saying, well, goddamn, Osprey, why would you beat Osprey? This is a tailor-made story. Have MJF keep getting heat and be a fucking prick all summer and have Osprey come back from this neck injury and have a road to the title and you can build it and blah, blah, blah. Four days after they beat Osprey, they beat MJF. The new. the new AW World Champion

is now as of last Wednesday's dynamite on free TV with four days notice that the match was even going to happen, Darby Allen who won it in approximately two and a half minutes. Two and a half minutes

and this is from the work rate promotion that a goddamn underneath preliminary between Tits McGee and Arnold Finsder has to have 15 minutes to fully develop What the fuck are they doing, Brian? I can't explain it. Obviously it was Darby's hometown.

It seemed like the fans they were really ready for a big Darby night. It was Darby's home to Everett, Washington. They had 3,000 people. They had like 10,000. thousand people a fucking weekend before and they could have they were going to do it done it there but no they just oh and we're going to add this match to wednesday and change the title because it's the guy's hometown in front of a rotten crowd i'm sorry other than that i can't explain it i would

think if there was a time to do it with derby i would have pulled the string i don't know if that's the right term but i would have i would have done it with moxley it would have yes made sense in their world, it would have been the right guy. It would have all worked perfectly. I would have done Moxley, not Adam Page. And over Moxley, it would have been Darby. But now I think even AEW fans, a lot of them were questioning. There's some that really love this. I saw someone compare this to a UWF episode where Bill Watts had all the title changes. Not exactly. But this is puzzling because if business is really moving up, why would you change your world champion? That seems to be the thing working right now. Whatever we think about MJF kind of turning more

and more into a guy who just wants to do all the stuff everyone else is doing, it's working. If we're to believe what they've been saying about every metric of their business being up, ratings, ticket sales, everything, why make a title change? I mean, maybe it'll be a quickie. but I don't know, they got Wembley around the corner, and a lot of people thought it'll be MJF and Osprey, because it makes sense. They just beat Osprey, and now they got the belt off MJF.

It reminds me of when we complained to Ken Mantell in Dallas, because I can't remember if it was Brian Adias and who somebody, mid-card baby faces and a tag team man, we're going to, we're going to, put them over for some reason. While we were working a program with the Fantastics and the American tag team championship was held up

between us two teams. And we said, how we're doing this thing with the Fantasticics? How are we losing just a match to these guys? And Ken Mantell's answer was, don't worry, the Fantastics aren't winning tonight either. I thought, what you have

or what you had was a story. that at least you could have got people behind for a long, long-term storytelling. MJF wins the title, okay, that's where we are, things are coming back up. So I'm not saying that, you know, that it's just about the business metrics now, which I have been good, like you said, but where are you going? where's the next place you're going to and you need to start that now

and it was perfect they've got a stadium show in August in the guy's home country or home nation UK wherever the fuck those people are from over there you know the point I'm trying to make MJF is the prick champion he beats Kenny

he beats fucking peat beats all these people and meanwhile Osprey comes back from near career ending neck surgery and you tell the story is he going to be the same yes you tell that story and he might have doubts or whatever but he triumphs over adversity and not beating the other

fucking baby faces he's beating some fuck he's getting even with people that hurt him and he's then beating fucking other people that you want to see him beat and it's and then the the talking starts between him and MJF. And then you put the stumbling blocks in Osprey's path. He's got to prove himself in a match with this guy,

or this comes up or they do this angle where maybe for the first time, you drop him on his fucking head with something really dangerous after he's been back from surgery, not four in the same match in his return match. This is where you do the angle. a flare at the fucking great American bash

of angle for 89 then he's fucking jammed up in the neck brace and MJF can crow about it and then he's got to come back again and that's at Wembley and for his countrymen and the fucking red

well there's his red white and blue too but God save the queen and or fuck the queen God save the sex pistols or whatever their theme is over there. Do you see where I'm going with this, Brian? This is four or five, six months instead of they beat Osprey. Then they beat MJF, but the world title is now on a baby face.

So if they still want to put it on Osprey at Wembley, now another heel has to come along and either beat him or win it back. If he wins it back and it's MJF, Then Osprey has to be the first guy to beat MJF in six weeks. I don't, what the fuck? Now, Tony did get the wrestling world talking the week of WrestleMania, so if that was the goal, he... So did the guy that had the fucking beef stroganoff fart in the middle of the goddamn elevator. He got everybody talking.

You want those people talking like that? You know, you have to remember, too, we're at a point in time where Tony, and he said it now in a few interviews. He's talking about the fact that things are so great right now, not because MJF was the champion, not because of any particular person other than him. He says he's listening to himself, he's following his instincts, which he says he's never done before.

He's finally doing it, and he thinks that's why things are happening like this. So this was a Tony Khan decision. Tony Khan really believed this was the best thing. well of course it was I didn't think MGM say hey let me drop it to the kid what the fuck what did you think of the way they did it

the idea that it wasn't just a competitive match it was a squash that you know had a reason why it happened but what would you think this wasn't a squash in the strictest definition before it was used by everybody in the world just inside the business this was not a squash match this was an angle this was an angle is what it was to do something else god knows what hopefully quickly but it wasn't a squash match because a squash match is a star versus a fucking nobody who just

beats the shit out of the guy and convincingly and beats him with no trouble this was an angle as i said again to lead to who knows what out of the blue it's like the fact that fans of the WW. He said, where the fuck did Pat McAfee come from in this whole business? They don't do that in AEW and Tony said, hold my pencil. Where the fuck did Darby Allen get in the middle of this? So they have us believe that MJF shows up at the building right as they go on the air,

on live television, and he hasn't been answered his text. he's been out of touch, he's been what they said incommunicado, they used another phrase also for he's been in hiding, whatever, but he doesn't know what's going on that he's

wrestling Darby that night, which is already, Brian, on the scale of the believometer from the Sunday, their pay-per-view was Sunday. He didn't know he's supposed to defend the world's

title on Wednesday and also he shows up at live at Showtime. Where, where's that come in on the scale? On the logic hole scale? There's a big logic hole there. I knew the match was happening based on the pay-per-view. I knew it the night of the pay-per-view that, well, MJF's wrestling Darby on Wednesday. They said it. Well, we're going to, well, let's get to that next.

But just the idea that he, MJF, a fucking 20-something-year-old man in today's environment, hadn't looked at Twitter or whatever the fuck. He started cutting a big promo where he's obviously trying not to listen to the interviewer, René Mawkslugood, and he's ignoring what she's trying to, and then Don walks in, old Don Fowles, and tells him, hey, sorry about, you know, Andre last movie. What do you mean sorry about? Well, he lost, he lost last Sunday on a show that M. Jeff was at on a match earlier before him, right?

Don didn't come to apologize until Wednesday. And then that's when Renee says, Max, Darby is challenging you for the world title right now. And he's like, what the fuck? And Darby's made, they're playing the music. Darby's making his entrance. and then they play the, they do,

chowland now for the AEW World title and MJF's music. And he comes out, cut the goddamn music. And boy, they won't bleep the crowd chanting fuck or these guys saying, God damn. I think next we need to have somebody just come out and tell the aristocrats joke for 10 minutes.

And he, he cut for about 10 or 15 seconds, he cut a loller promo on Darby Allen from 1977. It said it like you little punk

you little midget. And he refused to wrestle. And then he said, and I recognize

this bit also, I'm going to sue the skank Aubrey Edwards. I'm going to sue you pervert, Justin Roberts.

I'm going to sue Tony Khan. I'm going to sue Warner Brough. I'm going to sue all

the fans. And I'm my back hurts and I'm not dressed. And he's doing a better job again than

almost anybody they got could at all this, but it's just the way they always go into it with some element of logic lacking that you realize that they're all just play act.

Anyway, and by the way, did you notice in Everett Washington, the front row of fans across from the hard camera looked like the fucking casting call for a remake of the Hills Have Eyes. What the fuck is going on up there? Did they have free tickets

for people from a home or what? I don't know. Obviously, it looked like Darby knew some of the people in the front row, but that was the other side, I believe. Darby may have been homeless with some of the people from the but nevertheless. And in MJF's

Mike went out, he had to throw that one out and get Roberts's and he's basically telling Darby off he's not going to wrestle because Darby, you're not ready to be world champion. And Darby snatched the microphone. And I thought he was going to start dry heaving from nerves and emotion. But again, this is real to him, isn't it?

It's still real to Darby, damn it. He was crying. He's like, I've killed myself for this company. Monday, I hung posters. He spent so much time on the posters at first. He thought he was having some kind of fucking drug-addled experience. But I hung posters for the show. And I climbed Mount Everest and put the flag on top.

And I've killed myself for this. And I love this company. I said I'd never change. And I didn't change myself. And God, if I'm not ready now, never be ready. and ring the bell and he was broke up about this thing, wasn't he?

It was a big emotional night for him. Obviously, he knew what was going to happen. We'll talk about the match, but as soon as he won, he was very emotional right away. Interesting to note that he was putting up posters for the show. I mean, it's nice to stay true to yourself or your younger self, but usually you don't see wrestling superstars like M. Harry's Smilak putting up posters all over town for rocket wrestling.

Well, see, that's part of his appeal and that he's still the normal guy that will, he'll either go and he'll be on one side of the other of the table at the soup kitchen. He could be serving or he could be, you know, fucking eating. It just depends on circumstance. He's a person of the people. But, you know, he's not that good a worker. So the kids, the belt is a big deal for the kids these days. However, having said that, he's demanding the bell to be rung.

And Danielson interrupted and said, wait a minute, wait a minute. And I like the way. Danielson did a great job on this as far as cadence for the people and revealing the information. He said, Tony Kahn agrees with MJF. he's not prepared so MJF go get yourself prepared because you're tonight's main event and then they chanted yes yes yes and if you don't do it you'll be stripped of the title so that was and then Darby jumps in and says I'm going to beat you with a headlock takeover and I must admit if I hadn't read the result before I went back and watched this by the time they finished with this I was my God he's going to win this fucking thing some way because anything else would have buried

Darby Allen deeper than the fucking Mariana Trench. So, but that was the way they set it up, Brian, your final thoughts on that segment of the programming. You know, it's a big main event. It's a, in a lot of ways,

looking past the finish and the controversy around it and the decision behind it, this is a good way to set up a wrestling show. You set up an angle at the beginning for a payoff at the end. Gives you something to look forward to. There's a lot of AEW shows that just begin with either a match taking place and then you never see any of those people again the rest of a night. Yeah. Or something else. This was, I mean...

Though this hooked them great. It was able to the format. I think the four... I'm trying to give some compliments here. In terms of the formatting, I think the formatting was good. The Stewie Griffin compliment sandwich. But no, yes, this is the way to hook people for the big match later on and I had the people in the building jazzed up and it's just what happened after. Well, but that's all you were going to say about that. That's all I was going to say about that.

I know there's other things on Dynamite you may have seen, but why don't we get right to the main event just because that's what we're talking about here. Well, and just in a related note, I didn't watch it, but just the idea of it, Osprey wrestled, Hitchitche, yeah.

So they beat him on pay-per-view flat with Moxley in his comeback redemption match, and now they get a chance to redeem him a little bit, and it took him 18 minutes and everything that he could do to beat old Tits McGee here by the skin of his teeth. And then Davis hit the ring, and they laid him out and stood on him. So by Wembley, is he going to be, goddamn, he'll be Andy Cap. see now I just popped everybody in the UK anyway then so what's the reference he's going to come home late to his angry wife how's he going to know he's just going to be some

fucking drunken schlub on the street he's nobody he's nobody just my god and anyway then in the main event which they managed to figure out a way to start right in the overrun so now he's just fixated on this overrun thing. We don't get the quarters anymore. I can't imagine it's helping him at this point. But nevertheless, Darby's walking to the ring, and there's Renee with him, and they're on the way to the ring,

and suddenly they see Sting's grandfather. How old is Sting, Brian? Look that up for me, please. While I described that he was in face paint, and he had part of his beard painted black, basically, but otherwise his hair was as snow white as Colonel Sanders in his 70s. And 67. Oh, he's two years older than me.

And he's, he's like, it's, if you were going to do TV, wouldn't you, you know, is there, isn't there of just an easily washable, outable hair color so he could be Sting instead of grandfather time? Well, you know how much he charges just to paint his face? Imagine how much he charges to hit the just for men. Well, I'm sure Tony'd pay it. But anyway, he gave Darby the big pep talk.

You know what to do, get out there and do it. And Darby said, it's showtime. No, Sting says it's your time. and he got Darby all pepped up and off Darby took to the ring and there's a big close-up of staying looking like a fucking albino raccoon. And then at 10 o'clock this thing starts and MJF gets his entrance and the in-ring introductions and they got the big Darby chance. I mean, with the setup and that it's his hometown and where he started training,

I mean, they should have, but they did. did the people were into fucking derby all three thousand up and derby darby darby fuck him up darby fuck him up and so mjf said oh golly wait he takes a diamond ring out of his tights and he's going to hand it to aubrey he says here i forgot it is he hands it to old obri ed who immediately of course turns her back and walks the ring out of the ring, MJF turns around, it kicks Darby Allen square to balls, right between the uprights.

Whom! And then she turns around and MJF has grabbed a headlock. Darby's just been kicked in the balls, Brian, correct? That's kind of what happened there, wasn't it? That's what started it off, yeah.

MJF gets a headlock. As soon as Aubrey turns around, Darby is shooting MJF off like he's going to throw him into the ropes, but it's toward Aubrey Ed, so she turns around and covers up. And Darby kicks MJF into balls. So shouldn't it have been something about Darby taking a goddamn metal frying pan out of the front of his fucking pants or something?

He got kicked into balls and just five seconds later, he said, well, here, I'll kick you. of alls. And then he gave him the Scorpion death drop. And then he climbed to all four quarters and gave him the coffin drop. But

Max couldn't be at the same place. So he had to coffin drop and drag. It's like a you know, one of those things on the computer, Brian, the cut and paste and the drop and drag and drop. This was the drop

and drag. It was a classic shimmy and a little shimmy from my sister kate and then after the scorpion death drop drock fucking hell after the scorpion death drop and the four coffin drops then he got a headlock and took him over and pinned him one two three only actually because the way he was bowing fucking mjiv's head up he really have the shoulders down but they counted it anyway one two two, three. How? I cannot come up with any rational scenario why that this is happening

and why that they still don't have a clear path to Wembley Stadium and why that they have neutered Osprey's comeback like this. And then suddenly Darby Ellen comes in out of nowhere, Cinderella story, and wins this thing. And every job guy in the company, although that may have been just their baby face roster, but every job guy in the company came out and confetti and pyro and sting came out and hugged him and it looked like he'd just been cryogenically frozen. but help me understand why this is a good thing to do

this thing's starting to look like the shrouded turen I don't know why it's a good thing to do I'm not saying it's necessarily going to be a bad thing we kind of have to see how it plays out it's interesting that in the middle of this company show which despite what they think to the average person that's just match match match match they did an angle at the start and they did an angle at the end it's different than everything else they do.

I wouldn't have taken the belt off MJF. I think he's stronger with the belt. We've seen him without it. We've seen it with it. Things are working right now. There's things you could do. There's plenty of ideas you can come up with for guys for him to feud with. I don't know if it'll be a hot shot title change.

If it'll be going back to MJF or someone else next week. And then you're going to ask yourself if that does happen, what was the purpose of this? is Tony going to hot shot the championship? We don't know what the road to Wembley is going to be, and at this point it may not be a safe bet to think Will Osprey is going to be the main featured thing. Good Lord.

But again, the positives are Tony got everyone talking about this. We heard, we saw the most feedback we have seen in quite a while saying Jim has to see this on Dynamite. We have to hear what Jim thinks of this. So that says something. People want to talk about it, but it may not be, and time will tell, may not be for the right reasons. Well, I'll tell you what, I think at least somebody in this equation may have woke up

the next day, Brian, and regretted what had happened the previous night. Have you ever been in that kind of a situation where you woke up in the morning and you regretted what happened the previous night? And maybe you were a little droopy eye and little headache, little vibration, little hungover, that type of thing. You know, that's not a good feeling, Brian. You can testify. It's not a good feeling. It's been a while, but I remember that feeling. It's not a good feeling. Back in those, a horrible feeling. Well, now you can do something

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How old is he? Is he 104 by now? You just attached a whole bunch of ages. Hold on. Willie Nelson is 92 years old. Well, see? And just think. And he's been drinking this kind of stuff.

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Well, Brian, you're really going to have to work on your singing. We can allow you to do that. It was suddenly out of nowhere that you can't, you got to excuse that. But you can't be doing that unless you're a professional like me. I didn't get a chance to warm up. I'm sorry. I didn't know that we were going to go in this direction. Maybe I'm crazy. Crazy.

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So apparently you guys had a nice evening because of Willie. What happened? Did Willie come over and take you away so she could have a quiet evening watching TV? That's not nice.

That's not the way things work. Hey, Jim, one last thing before we move completely on from AEW. I just told you about Camille's big return and her big match with Big Ann. They had an angle

where she beat up Willow Nightingale. Wow, they're actually doing something with Camille. She wrestled on Dynamite. Did you get to see any of that? I did. They beat her, didn't they right away right

boom she hasn't been here a year and a half let's remind everybody she can't beat anyone except big anne who I'm sorry I don't know her pedigree possibly she's a great champion in another sport

but again at the same time as I don't know whether I didn't breathe a study the whole match with Willow and Camille, I looked at some of it briefly and got to the meet of the matter, the result of the thing.

But I said watch Camille work in the ring when we were doing the movie with some people that weren't necessarily that experienced, and she did a great job. And I watched her and Willow, I'm like, this is a fucking style clash. And I think it's to the point now that some of the modern indie graduates have trained in such a way that some of the graduates of more traditional methods, it's just a style clash and try to figure out what to do with these fucking people. But nevertheless, so she bit the dust.

But well, maybe she's got a clause in her contract. She has to come to work once every year and a half. that might bet but there was another segment between the females on the show that I watched because you had me last week watch the the the Pekla promo because there was speculation from people that oh if she drunk or oh they're hotter or she showed up drunk and it was like the best promo one of the girls is cut that we can remember for like a 60 second promo So this time they had the confrontation between Thekla and Alex Mountbatten, Windsor. And again, I'm not completely sold on old Thetka's wrestling.

I'm not even sold on her as a wrestler, but she is some kind of a fucking personality. I'm just not sure what yet. I think she may be a gray doe. She may be wrestling for a little while. while I just get on TV as it's as some personality over in the UK or even even here and just not do wrestling but this reminded me the they had her Thetla up too many pronouns pal up in the stands and the spotlight on her and doing the promo walking down talking about how great she was and then Alex Mountbatten came out and

she's answering her and and the the Thetla's got a bit of an accent you can almost hear a little Gunther just but not as much as Gunther and Windsor has the you know a pretty stiff accent but then they go they do the back and forth where they're you know debating each other about their various merits and Thetka, at one point the best line was, I didn't get fired from Japan. Well, okay, I did get fired from Japan. See, she's a personality of some kind.

She's going to find her niche in entertainment. But the feeling that I was having was not like, oh, this is a wrestling confrontation. I'd like to see these two fight and get resolved. it was like watching a play. They're doing a community theater in the round presentation. And oh, look, it's cool when they come from the audience. They should have had the wireless headset with the microphone in front of their mouth, like the stage folks do in these modern times.

But back in my day, they used megaphones and had to project. But you know what I'm saying, Brian? Like the goddamn, the little microphone like they're on stage with the Broadway plays, and they've got the spotlight here, and this, the protagonist and the antagonist, it's a fucking play, isn't it? It is. And that's why it stands out when anyone actually delivers anything, and it doesn't seem like it's pre-written and pre-planned.

I like Teckla's promos. I liked her matcher Jamie Hayter at the pay-per-view. I want to see her and Alex Windsor, but did they put that on Collision? Because if they did, I'm not going to see it. Oh, wait, hold on here. Notes, oh, a challenge for collision. Oh, wait. So am I going to see the match?

And then Julia Hart and Blue Sky jumped Alex from behind, and she beat them both up, but Thethekla took off. So that was that. Well, that was AEW dynamite. That was AEW blowing its own brains out. I don't know what they've fucking done that. Because I'm not even saying that Derby would never, should never be the world champion.

It didn't deserve it. At one point, we had just finished saying, I think in the last show we did, you don't remember when they had him ready where he could have beat Moxley? But this is just, you're doing nothing but beating all of your baby faces, including Osprey, who should be the focal point

of the Wembley Stadium. And I know some people, well, that would be predictable. You think, was it predictable? when the British Bulldog was the fucking focal point to God damn Wembley Stadium. Yeah, then. So instead of trying to, again, as I said before, build Osprey

and throw stumbling blocks at his path, but let him slowly overcome those and earn his way to be the only person that might rest the AEW crown from this evil devil-like MJF in the biggest stadium in my, God damn it. He gets to tell, I'll burn my boots if I don't fucking win or whatever the fuck.

And you've got months to get that instead to just muddy in this thing all the fuck up. Well, that was dynamite. Well, Brian, I guess now we ought to talk about this big financial disaster that's about to face the, the WWE this weekend. You know, everybody's all, WrestleMania tickets are down. they're just they're going to shit to bed and let I know everybody's been analyzing this and writing this and trying to do the mathematics on this and everything

and we've talked about yes they have sold fewer tickets because of the various reasons that we've talked about tourism to Las Vegas being down a second year in a row the creative the this and that there's an all-night gas station open down the street but also last year basically to summarize all the reams of paper and countless keyboards that have been worn out from people writing about this last year they had about 60,000 people each night and this year they're going to have fucking 50,000 people each night, give or take. it's still a ridiculous amount of people, to be quite honest with you, at these prices, because they're expecting they might not break last year's record,

but they'll probably come close to it because the prices are higher. $33 million per night. So that's $66 million bucks together. That's the gate. I wonder how much the fucking hot dogs and the fucking Coke are going to bring in. But that's, for example, bigger than any UFC gate ever

and bigger than any boxing match, apparently, except for Mayweather and Pacchio, however long ago that was. That's fucking ludicrous. It is. It's incredible about money. A lot of it's going to go right to the TKO debt. But, you know, it's kind of like Wembley.

We just talked about it. That first year was like, holy shit, look at how many people they got there. And the second year, which I will argue looked better on TV, the second year, it was down. But if it had been the first one, you would have said, wow, look at how many people they got there. Right. But you notice it's down, but it was still an impressive gate and an impressive house. Same thing with WrestleMania right now. We could say, why, they're going to do this amazing gate,

and they're going to have all these people in Vegas, and it's true. And it would be anyone else's record. But it's down off the peak. And it comes at a period of time where people are focusing on that, the downward spiral of the creative, of TKO's involvement with the creative. Well, now, downward spiral may be dramatic at this point. They haven't really hit fucking the, bottom of the bowl yet, but it's a natural ebb and flow of the wrestling business that you're

going to have popularity peaks and popularity valleys, but in some cases, the WWE has been in some cases bulletproof to a lot of that because of just the machine and the numerous ways they have to make money and et cetera, et cetera. But of some of the modern problems are self-inflicted. They've shot themselves in both feet. One side is the ticket prices and the second side is the creative. They can't just they can't solve that by just getting more publicity.

You see what I'm saying? They can't, okay, well, have Pat McAfee involved and we'll have, we'll bring Stephen A. Smith. I've yet to see him on a television program. I don't watch ESP. in, but I hear his name constantly. We'll have him come into a fucking match with somebody. We'll fucking publicity is

not going to solve everything. The people that need to know this fucking thing is happening, already know. And you might, at this point, and we've been talking about this in the last week, they've sold a few thousand tickets. That's

the people that live in Las Vegas that are waiting maybe to see how cheap they can get in with all the discounts. But it's not like massive amounts of people are going to make a huge difference

in the last week or two in a destination like this, etc. But instead of getting more publicity and more crossover mainstream attention, they probably should have concentrated on more our fans that are going to actually pay money

and already know this is happening and really want to see it are going to get pissed off if we just turn this thing into a goddamn side show. I've ranted and raved, Brian, but you get the point. Look at Oba and Brock. I think we could both agree that match has more buzz than anything else at WrestleMania, right?

Yes. And that's just two wrestlers and the anticipation of them actually going at it. The match may not even live up to the hype. It may. It may not. But that idea is fueling a lot of desire to see things. No one is saying,

oh man, maybe jelly roll can get involved. And then Pat McAfee. And then Stephen A. Smith, I mean, I didn't realize. See, this is the other problem. He had done some interviews saying somebody asking him if he was going to do something. He's like, no, I'm not as brave as McAfee. You know, I don't want to do that stuff. But it just, it's everybody's talking about it because that's, that's, they bought ESPN now basically.

ESPN instead of becoming the, or the sports network has become the sports entertainment network. And that's part of the issue too. Because again, going back to Brock and Oba, wrestling fans. which is your audience. Want wrestling angles and wrestling stars. They don't want all these celebrities all over the place. The right celebrity at the right time, yes, always. But just celebrities up the gazoo is WrestleMania 2

with Herb and fucking the Wendy's... Where's the Beef Lady? They weren't allowed... Clara Peller. Yeah, the old-fashioned burger lady, because they weren't allowed to associate Wendy's with any of this. But like the B level, C level,

like all of that, as opposed to what was special in the corner. It wasn't like the fucking, where's the beef lady was helping the British Bulldogs because she was taking the place of the injured Matilda. No, but it was just all over. It was just desperately, let's get anything we can. Cab Calloway and Joan Rivers.

Like just anyone we can find, get them here. Vyra, you've got tits. Please come to WrestleMania. Ady-ho. My point is they should get Elvira. No, my point is that wrestling fans want wrestling stuff. When you overload it with all the celebrities the way they are right now, you're not making the wrestling fans happy.

But on the other side, you're also pissing off the other person's audience. There's plenty of people don't like ESPN becoming the WWE state media. and that's going to be an issue. That's going to be an issue. And there's so much invested with WWE, they have to do that. But if you are a sports fan, you don't want to see wrestling angles

in the middle of your sports talk show. You know what I mean? You don't want that. And that's the thing is that it's two groups. Number one, like you just said, a lot of the baseball fans and football fans of the real, you know, stick up

the ass type of serious sports fans are going, what the fuck with the pro wrestling? Although it's not like it used to be. Because now they're saying, oh, well, I guess it's fun. But at the same time, you've got that audience and you've also got what is the one network

in history that wrestling fans have never watched except incidentally to any of their other interests? ESPN. They did World class reruns on weekday afternoons and what the late 80s. The legends of world class championship wrestling. That was my introduction to it.

Yeah. Yeah. And the, you know, Vern's show in the dying days in the late 80s, but ESPN, the wrestling fans never went there for their wrestling. So it's two completely different worlds that have now been smashed together. Respectfully, though, it wasn't easy. Again, I liked it because I would come home from school. they'd be wrestling on at 4 p.m. every day. Every day. I mean, just think about that every day,

but it was the GWF. And despite the stars they became like Booker T and JBL and all of these people, it was a rough show to watch. And beyond the production and the lack of fan energy, and at times the lack of fans, the darkness of the build, just, beyond all of that, it had the ESPN crawl the whole time at the bottom. You would get the do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do, and then updates also in the middle of the thing. They would cut away from anything. Back then, ESPN was like the early financial news network, but the tickers and everything. And then like anything violent that happened, they would cut away and just show a fan sitting there watching it. They wouldn't show like a steel chair shot or anything. Like, that was too much for ESPN.

so if you were a wrestling fan you watched it but it was a frustrating watch well but and also and and we could do a whole show on the various reasons why that pro wrestling for a few years was on weekday afternoons on ESPN 35 years ago or whatever but when they showed the the old like in 1990 when i was living in charlotte they were showing the world-class shows from when we were there at 85. And I was like, oh, I even got some of them because the quality of my picture was better at that point. But see, that's what threw me off too, because I would see, but even before GWF, when they had USWA Dallas on there. And then I would see like the legends of world class, it took me a minute to be like, is that the same building? Because it was brightly

lit and there were fans everywhere and it looked great. And now it looked like a dump. Even if it was one back then, it looked like it now. Well, but nevertheless, now that you've aligned a cultural institution in the city of Dallas, we'll move back to WrestleMania and basically say that they're going to malign a cultural institution there in Las Vegas. I'm maligned it. They raised it. But at least we know that they're not hurting for money, which brings me to another thing that crossed the news desk here over at the castle. apparently now there's court filings.

They have to tell the truth about these things. And our boy Thurston Howley, aka Brandon Thurston, stays on top of this stuff. And by extrapolating from numbers that they had to give, he's figured out kind of what the WWE paid the main talent roster guys for the years 2020 through 2020. and obviously not each individual,

but like, well, there was 122 main roster guys and they got paid X amount of money so you can figure out an average, but that, you know, at least gives you a ballpark. But basically, in 2022, WWE spent $195 million on talent, including the development, wrestlers, which was about 15% of the company's overall revenue of 1.29 billion.

So stopping there for a second, that sounds like a lot of money to most folks. I mean, you know, I can write you a check, Brian. But no, it sounds like a lot of money until you realize that it's only 15% of what they took in. And then it doesn't sound like it's a lot of money. because isn't it hasn't that always been the gripe and the bitch? Well the UFC pays

the fighters more a percentage of their overall revenue or football, baseball, basketball, the players get a bigger percentage of the overall revenue than wrestling. And that, since there's so much revenue, that does seem kind of fucking harsh,

doesn't it? Yes and no. Because it's a ton of money that they're paying out. But it's also just a fraction of what they take in. Again, they have a lot of debt, and they're planning on WWE financing a lot of that debt or paying off a lot of that debt. It's a ton of money.

And then the boys will say, well, is that my fault? No, the boys are going to say, is that my fault? You're so far in fucking debt, motherfucker? Go ahead. And you said it includes developmental. Those guys, I mean, unless it's like someone they have signed for a good deal, usually that's the people making no money. Yeah, well, and I'm trying to read this goddamn chart here that I've got, but basically,

uh, the developmental talent was a small portion of the overall, but here's another statistic that WWE's pay to main roster talent, just the main roster talent also nearly doubled between 2020 and 2022 from about 890. to 1.5 million on average. So that means that the average main roster talent in 2020 was making 890 grand a year. The average in 2022 was 1.5 million. But the high paid guys that make 7 million or whatever the fuck these guys are making, that skews your average.

Not everybody is making that's on the main. roster is making $1.5 million. But to point is, between those years coming out of the pandemic and with the billionaire boychild in Jacksonville, spending money like a drunken sailor's son, they almost doubled the fucking pay. But it's still 15% of the revenue. And also what may skew it, I mean, not a big amount, but were those also the years that like Vince and Triple H and probably

Stephanie too all had performance contracts even if they appeared on camera one time the entire year but they all had like high six figure or maybe even seven figure like performance contracts to you know Vince would make like one appearance a year on TV and look awful

and then you never see him and then you'd find out he got like $800,000 as annual salary. Well yeah but still that would be three or four million dollars out of $129 million or 175 million or $194 million over these various years. In 20 and 21, it was pretty dagum steady what they spent.

And then suddenly 2022 increased like $50 million. And 2023 was up another 20 above that. When did they start going to Saudi Arabia? Shortly before that. But that's the thing. As Vince was, it looks to me like Vince may have been a high. shoting and making sure guys were signed up and trying to fucking just get revenue, get everything going as hot as he could to sell the damn thing.

And that's what happened. But nevertheless. Brock Lesnar Renewal, $4 million. A drop in the bucket. A mere bag of shells there, Brian. Celebrity talent pay 3 million And that's only due to the shift of Logan Paul To main roster talent

As opposed to celebrity talent He paid celebrities as much as Probably every celebrity in the first 10 WrestleMania is Made as a congregation Well this has been Where does your money go When you're a publicly traded company

But you know somebody, Brian, that is not particularly pleased about fighter pay and talent pay and all the things that are going on in a wrestling business and the fighting business in general. The business of the combat business is our old friend Rhonda Rousey. And I asked you, because I've heard she made the comments, but I haven't heard her say them yet, but people are saying Jesus H. Christ, if she had cut promos like this when she was in a wrestling business,

she'd have been the biggest star we ever had. What is there? What is she's usually pissed off about something I've noticed. But what particularly triggered her to be pissed off about pay and opponents and various people in the in the current society? Yeah, I have a couple bits of audio we can play here from the press conference for Ronda Rousey versus Gina Carrano on Netflix. Ariel Hawani is the MC of this event.

A couple of scantily clad ring girls stand behind him, hands on hips. I don't know why I'm giving on whose hips. On their hips, not Ariel's hips. Oh, I was going to say, well, you know... That'd be the story then. You know, this, real quick, I just want to say

you say she didn't do this kind of promo in WWE. They didn't let her. or set her up to do this kind of promo. They tried to make her, you hear this, and you realize they tried to make her something that she's not. Especially when she was the smiling Rhonda Rousey. Jim, this first clip is Rhonda talking about the minimum purse for the upcoming MMA card.

MVP is the promotion. Here is Rhonda. I think it's really important that we raise the ceiling, but also that we raise the floor. And one thing that I'm really proud of in this fight, is the absolute minimum that anybody will walk away with, even if they don't have a big, long record, and even if they lose, is $40,000.

And if you fight three times in a year, that is much more than a living wage, and that is something that the UFC cannot say. And I hope that everybody sitting here today is getting the biggest payday of their career. And, well, maybe not for you. Maybe you've done better before. But in MMA, hopefully, not against I'm going to-

She's talking to Nate Diaz. And I hope that after this event, we can keep raising that ceiling higher and higher and higher until it is on par with the highest-level boxers, because that is really where the Holy Grill, I think, for us is, and this is just the beginning. Well, there it is. That's Rhonda in a good mood during the press conference talking about the base salary. What do you think? Yeah, but, you know, she's okay.

And again, I'm not an expert in the fight business, but I've read numerous accounts of guys in the UFC or girls, whatever, fighters in the UFC, who had to pay expenses of their camps, had to pay training expense or had whatever. If you fight three times a year, you gross 120 grand. If you got to keep much of that,

past taxes, that might be a living wage. But if you're paying for training camps or your transportation or whatever the fuck, I've not heard it established that now that that's all free to all those fighters. So even that ain't, you know, at the bottom, it's like indie wrestling.

But again, you talk about, we just talked about WWE pay. UFC makes a lot of money. They don't pay their fighters a lot of money. Well, no, that's what, but when they were separate companies, the comparisons were done, and they,

UFC was lower than, again, difference in terms of individuals versus teams and rosters, et cetera, but percentage of overall revenue was lower than basketball or baseball or football. And then the point was the only thing lower was the WWE. They were lower than UFC. And now they're both owned by the same miserly Scrooge-like conglomeration. Well, Jim, the big part of the press conference, wanted to hear your thoughts on. Rhonda was asked about

Kayla Harrison, who is a current fighter, a current champion in the UFC, who Rhonda knows from the past, who did an interview saying that this fight and these fighters, they're both irrelevant. So the fight doesn't matter. They've been way too long

they're irrelevant. Here's Rhonda Rousey's response. Well, Gina is so relevant that she's the whole reason that the 145 pound division even exists. And I am so relevant that the only reason she has a job at the UFC is because of me. And Kayla is so irrelevant that she couldn't even keep the 145 pound division around. And honestly, she's just sour because no matter what she does or what she accomplishes,

she can't change the fact that she has the charisma of a wet towel and will always be in me and Gina's shadow. So the next time she wants to talk shit, she should look down her feet and consider who paved the road that she's walking on. Oh, wait. She can't look down on her feet because she's too busy holding onto the belt and a neck brace. And then she goes on and says that I lied about training in judo in Canada in like 2006.

Like, what the fuck are you to call me a liar? Okay? I was training there for five months. Bitch, you weren't even there. Okay? Over the last decade and a half of being a public figure, I have cultivated a reputation for being unabashedly truthful. This bitch just got here and was already caught in a lie.

What did she say after she won the belt? She had, oh, I'm never going to say anything bad about Ron that she took care of me when I was broke in Japan and bought me groceries. I want to shut the fuck up and eat your groceries. Jesus Christ. Let me stop there. There's more. There's much more. Shut the fuck up and eat your grocery.

What do you think of this so far? Well, obviously, this has been simmering for some time in, in her mind. Because immediately she went back in 2005 when I was doing. there's some obviously they've been friends in the past and now there's they're on the outs and there's been some bitter shit for a while because they're going back 20 years already but that just that delivery and that vehemence and that aggression we would have done great to see that kind of ronda rousey into w e but she means this she's not a great worker but she's very bluntly honest when she's telling the truth and saying what she means.

And as she's doing this, there's a split screen. Gina Carano is laughing. She's clapping. She's having a great time. But let's go back to Rhonda Rousie. And also, you can tell that MMA is still something important to Ronda Rousey, but she dabbled in the wrestling sector

as well that Brian Gerwitz phrased it one time. She did it as a lark because her friends and she used to watch it. But she's keeping up with everything these people are fucking doing and knows exactly where to drill this girl. Trying to act like her next

upcoming fight is the biggest women's fight of all time. Then why is it being booked as a co-main for a men's interim title fight? Okay? The bitch isn't even bigger than Patty the Batty. No offense to Patty. I think he's got more potential than anybody in the UFC and he should call me when his contract runs out.

But here's another contradiction that I think is a fucking kicker is if she thinks that her fight is the biggest women's fight of all time, why is she getting paid less now than I was 10 years ago. Don't! Are you overvalued or are you underpaid?

And what really pisses me off, with anything else, yeah, I'm not fucking done, is how small she thinks. This is not just the biggest women's fight of all time. This is the biggest MMA fight of all time.

It's going to get the most views on the biggest platform, on a card with the biggest stars, and it was all assembled by, and will be headlined by, two women who dare to dream big. And this dream is going to to bring more opportunities and greater revenue share to fighters than they've ever had before

because this fight is bigger than just me and Gina and it's bigger than anybody on this stage. It represents an unstoppable force of change in this industry spearheaded by the fighters themselves. Bet your fucking ass is the biggest enemy fight of all time. Bart Nile. Jesus Christ! What the hell? Can I hire her to hype my next fight or to just do promos for my promotion? Can you imagine if she had believed in anything in the WWE with that passion or that emotion

or was able to channel that kind of rah-rah? When she was heelish at work because she's kind of naturally heelish, when she was a baby face, she didn't look like she wanted to be there, and she didn't want to emote like that, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. You know, the first time they used her, I think, was WrestleMania, right? The Rock walked over to her at Ringside, and then her and the Rock confronted Triple H and Stephanie, and then the next year she had there. And the mixed tag.

Yeah. They used her as a badass. They used her as who she was as the celebrity fighter she was. she became a celebrity because she was a fighter, not that she was... And if for the younger listeners, I thought at the time I reviewed it, that was the best debut match in history of pro wrestling. Oh, she was incredible. She was incredible.

And they put it together incredible too. And she performed it the way that they instructed her because it was her first fucking fucking match. But coming out of that, was she ever presented that way as a badass really ever again? Did she get fucking Vince-eyes? McMahon got his hands on her and all of a sudden she's smiling. Now wait a minute, don't put it like that. You know what I mean, though?

She's smiling. She's saying words that she wouldn't naturally say. This is how she naturally talks. Did we ever get this ever? No. And at the start, there was still an element of Rhonda Rousey baddest woman on the planet, but then it started being washed and watered down and vincised and then she went away and then she came back

and really did not enjoy herself. and you could tell and diminishing returns, so a short period of a career with a break in the middle. But it went from, her first match was still the absolute greatest thing she ever did. And what was her last match? I don't remember it. I don't, did she, was it her and Shana?

Well, we may have just made our point without even trying to go any further. I mean, she wrestled at a ring of honor match. Well, but I mean, not even those because that was just for a hoot. But to point everybody remembers her debut match. And what was her last match? We didn't care by that point. That's the moral of this story. Well, there it is.

Once again, Rhonda Rousey versus Gina Carrano coming up on Netflix. I will be watching. Are you going to watch this? When is that again? Mid-May. I want to say like May. 18th or something. Well, we got plenty of time. I may have to

see what happens because I don't know about this. It probably won't go long, one way or the other. Let's put it this way. But I would have to think that just at this point in both of their lives, the younger, the younger stallion

will win the race. We'll see what happens. So, Brian, between Rhonda and Gino Caruso. I did that last time. Gina Carano. Accidentally, and now I can't, I just love to do it.

Between Rhonda and Gina Carano, who you pickin? Oh, come on now. It has to be Rhonda Rousey. Who you pick it? You ask you, who you picking? It has to be Rhonda Rousey. It has to be quick. I can't imagine it would, I can't imagine it's going to go more than a minute. And I can't imagine it's not going to be an arm bar. because you agree with me that at this point at both of their careers age may play the most predominant factor

and level of inactivity of one versus level of inactivity of the other I think at their peak Rhonda was the better fighter than Gina Carrano not taking anything away from what she was but just Ronda at her peak before people... Was she a fighter or was she an armbarer? Well, I mean, that's kind of what cost her everything. What Holly home was she had never really taken a punch and she wasn't prepared for? What if Jita just kicks her in a fucking nose? I mean, maybe.

Maybe she, boom, just lucky kick. Boom, what if it's over in five seconds? Boom, down she goes. Kick to the nose. Down she goes. Kick to the nose. Folks, who are you picking between these two titans of modern combat sports? I don't know if you can go to our friends at prize picks and pick between these people's picks,

but you can go right now to prize picks and you can become involved in the NBA finals. The regular season is over with. That's done. And now we're getting down to nut cutting time, down to the meat of the matter. It's the NBA playoffs and prize picks, now a preferred partner of. the NBA, I'll have you know. They've made an official arrangement. So every bucket, every dime, see that that's basketball terminology, and every win means more when you're playing on prize picks and you can get $50 instantly in lineups when you play your first $5. And I'm going to

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Well, what kind of fucking home cooking is this going on? If it's the Knicks and the Lakers, it would be in New York and Los Angeles at their arenas for the series. No, see, when the TKO buys the NBA, they'll fix that, where they'll bid it. They'll have the finals wherever we'll bid highest. Las Vegas or Saudi Arabia. just like God intended professional sports. But folks, if you want to cash in on some of this,

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it doesn't have to be the NBA, could be baseball, hockey, UFC, soccer, college basketball, tennis, golf, e-sports, and more. And now, Brian, none of our followers out there, none of the cult of Cornette are excluded. Prize picks is in all 50 states. The people that were being discriminated against have now been been allowed to access their prize picks. So do it with abandon and download the prize picks app. today use the code JCE to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. So it's 10 to 1, 10 times what you will get for what you give with the code JCE. A fantastic deal for the listeners. Tis the season to make your picks, the NBA playoffs, and of course the finals coming up.

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Back to the underwhelming build to WrestleMania. Oh, I forget. Now is the time that we are going to talk about, Smackdown, which is transpired between the time we started this program and now. And folks, you never even knew it. You never knew what was going on in the background in life while we were doing this program for you. They were in Vegas. They're never going to leave Vegas.

Smackdown in Vegas. Two nights of WrestleMania in Vegas. Raw in Vegas. Hall of Fame in Vegas. Apparently, whoever goes to Vegas stays in Vegas. as well, right? Are they ever going to get to fucking leave? They have burnt that town to a crisp.

Did they ever, did they crack 10,000 on this crowd? Because that was a topic of contention. Is it even last year, but traditionally the Smackdown and the Raw sells out, they 17, 18,000, whatever was last year, they were at like 8,000 tickets out for raw and smackdown less than a week out. And those are usually the shows where you get the rowdy international fans. Sometimes they're just playful international fans, but less international travel to WrestleMania this year.

Well, yeah, that's why that the whole crowd didn't erupt into fucking song every five seconds. Because we got the musical furriners. See, that's what we got the furriners out of here. So we don't have to listen to the crowd sing. also the crowds are half of what they were. You ever feel like when you watch some of the crowds when they're silent, that the only thing they could be thinking of is like just a cash register

and their money flying out of their pocket into the cash register? I don't think they're, I don't think they're examining it like that until they get home and they have the buyer's remorse after the end of the whole experience. I think in the middle of it, it's the dusty principle. They're sitting there going, when will this bullshit be over with? Why is this bullshit on my fucking TV,

except it's live? Did you see any good matches? No, not really, but I got to see Randy Orton do Othello. All right, well, speaking of Randy Orton, that he opened the show, him and Pat McAfee pull up in their red truck at showtime. We used to get fine if we didn't get to TV at call time. God damn, it's a big production.

And there's Nick Aldous with a contract for Pat who says, I've got to read it. And of course, he never did read it. It was signing it by the time that this little shot was over with. Pat's trying too hard. He's an annoying heel and not in the good way. He's trying to be so over the top with this. He's trying to get his line.

he called, what does he call Aldous, foreign Adam Pierce, but he did it twice within 30 seconds to just make sure everybody heard it, I guess, because it's so funny. Do you see what I'm saying here? There's an annoyance factor about it. He completely sucks.

I completely see what you're saying. He's like a, like a low-class Dan Lambert. Or at least, you know, the character, the character Dan Lambert played on AEW. Like, just, it's awful. And now Dan Lambert, low-class, Dan, already Dan Lambert is somewhat of a bar that's been set for low-class, and then you've submerged past him now.

I love you, Dan, if you still listen. Is Dan Lambert still around? I don't even know. I believe he is still breathing, yes. Hopefully he's healthy. We haven't seen him on AEW television. With the fans, I wanted to remember that stellar run. If he came back today and they were, oh, no.

I think they may remember it. They may remember it. But the point is the McAfee stuff is pretty cringy. It doesn't seem like you said it's getting the right kind of heat. People are rejecting it and rejecting him, not booing him because he's a heel that they want to see get his ass kicked by the baby face. They literally want him to go home. The chant that Cody Rhodes is trying to get going is the feeling. Yeah.

It's just leave TV. Don't wait for beating, leave now. And I think it's cringy, you know, just the whole idea of, you know, calling the televised wrestling fans marks, which is a term that's never been introduced really on this show. I mean, maybe every now. And that's another thing is that, again, it just because it's said on the internet,

doesn't mean that you introduce it into a television show with no explanation that where it's never been said. before. And, you know, again, is Marx spreading out

into the general populace like K-Fabe has, but still it's just, it's so trying hard to, it sounds like

they're venting their fucking own hatred at the Marx by Marx, Marx, you don't hear K-Fabe.

Because you shouldn't. Most of the fans are not going to really be, it's like not if you called my mother a whore if you call him a mark. But I think the boys in the office hate the marks more than the marks hate being called marks. And he keeps going off about the IWC. I can't even tell you how small a percentage

of wrestling fans even know what that is. It almost feels like a wrestling term from another era of internet wrestling talk. Well, I mean, up until it was not really a thing anymore, I still thought it was some kind of goddamn federation in fucking McKeesport or something. But anyway, nevertheless, here's the point of this, is when they have this interaction, Orton goes to the ring and lets McAfee stay there and deal with Aldus. Because if they weren't smart enough to call this ahead of time, I would imagine that probably Orton highly suggested it,

I need to go out there and fucking talk. He's doing the best promos of his career. And he sounds like he means everything. And now they've thrown him this, you know, fucking unwanted baggage, but he's caught it at least. He's making the best of it for what he can. He's making the best of it.

Yeah. But at the same time, when he goes out, they're cheering him. and but they put him in a position where when he said, I don't need Pat McAfee, they're like, yeah, I want him. Aw. They want to cheer him more than they can because,

you know, now he's saying McAfee's the only straight shooter in the company and tells me what I need to hear and all I needed to do was be me. They don't want to hear that. and he told the story he knew he could beat Drew for the title, but when Cody won it, every time he would mention Cody, there'd be big booze when he'd mention Cody's name, boo. They want to ignore the McAfee thing

and just cheer Randy and boo Cody, and these stumbling blocks are being put in their way. And he did a great promo about, I couldn't hurt Cody, I do my friend, whatever, but then Cody gave me permission to be me, who the hell is Cody to get me permission? And they're like, yeah.

And he cut to promo where all he ever did was take and all I ever did was give. And he gave the back, the whole backstory that they're telling without McAfee involved is exactly the fucking story that we've been talking about. Here's another thing. When they do this, they're going to tell it, right? When Cody needed help two years ago,

he called Seth Rollins. But as a friend, I helped him against the bloodline, and I got put through a table. And he gave a WWE title match to Owens, and an Owens turned on Cody, and I had his back, and Owens pile drove me the whole goddamn deal. It should have been Owens. Not McAfee.

Yes. Should have been Owens. Because McAfee wasn't even there. It should have been Owens. But he put, every time he told the story and he's, again, he has a point. He's right in his mind. And the people are with it. But every time he talks about McAfee and puts McAfee over, he gets booed.

And so it's. Yeah, they cheer the heel who's saying, I got to be me. Yes. They boo the baby face. And when the heel mentions the baby face's name, they boo, but when the heel mentions the guy that's in his corner, they boo worse. Amazing. So that was the opening segment there.

And then Orton and Pat drove off in their truck, exceeding Nevada parking lot speed limits. Of course, I didn't watch the eight-man street fight garbage match with trash cans and chairs between the mud line and the Wyat's. And then they did a package again on our friend Roy's Keys. I didn't, his mother overdosed in 2021. That's what it said on the screen. I remember they did. That was after they told the story briefly once on AEW where his brother got shot or some. This guy is cursed.

But what a story. But they're doing. another package. They're again telling this sad, dramatic family story and he's emotional and a blah, blah, blah. And it's a great story because it's true and they can show the pictures and it makes him a sympathetic person. And I know somehow, Coronet, he's, here's this big guy, he's crying.

Well, yes, over his mother dying or his brother getting shot or whatever the fuck's going on. That's fine. but that's why I say when he gets in the ring, he needs to be explosive and as aggressive as possible, because this is what he's fighting for to make all of his family proud of him, blah, blah, blah. But they've done a better job in two weeks, and they did an AEW in five years, haven't they? Yeah, I think they've done a great job with the exception of, I know I'm in the minority, and I know it means something, but the name, even in the promo I thought about it

because one of the women in it called him Will. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, his name isn't Royce, it's Will. We know that, but even if you're not going to use that Powerhouse or something, it just, it feels like his name is missing something still. And I'm sorry to say that, because I know his name was put together by him

when they said, you got to pick a name. But that's the only thing missing so far to me. But I think he's, obviously someone they're taking care of and they're giving time to. They didn't rush it after the Royal Rumble. They shot these videos. They gave a lot of attention to the podcast interview we did with Stephanie. And now the big Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal,

which was introduced several years back as a memory, a tribute to Andre that will always be a part of WrestleMania. And then they said, well, why don't we just move it to Smackdown? and that's what's happened. Well, originally it was a tribute to André and also a way to get everybody else on the fucking show. And now that they've got two nights, there's multiple ways to get everybody else on the fucking show.

But they still don't. So then... But they still don't. There's only like five or six matches or whatever it is. Each night, there's a lot of people not booked. If you wanted to do the Battle Royal on one of those nights of WrestleMania, you could? Oh, please. Why don't they do it after the Hall of?

of Fame. About three in a morning. Anyway, so a cop car pulled in. As the Las Vegas Police Department is known well for doing, they have brought in a celebrity, escorted him in, and

limoed him into the arena. And obviously, Drew McIntyre has been making fun of Jacob Fattu's checkered past his time in prison. And so Jacob pops out of the cop car and stands on a top of it at the entrance way

to do his promo. Well, the cops guard to make sure that how are they going to explain all those goddamn deaths from that 300 pounds Samoan when they get back to the precinct? But Jacob, again, he cut the promo on Drew McIntyre.

And I don't know if he quite got into it at first, but he got more into it, more comfortable. I think they're trying to, for whatever reason, possibly sponsors or corporate involvement, as soon as they've revealed his prison background and brushes with the law, whatever, which I said, that's what, you know, made him real as the Samoan werewolf.

Now they're punching him to say, but I don't live that life no more, because he got to end about, three or four times. So apparently we don't, we don't want to, I mean, just because you saw the Samoan werewolf on wrestling that used to be in jail, does that make the young people,

I want to go out and commit crimes. Anyway, he's a very, he's a very clean werewolf, but he cut to promo, and he's got, still got oomph to him and intensity. and he cut to promo on Drew McIntyre and he's going to dogwalk his ass at WrestleMania. But this was just like a three-hour infomercial as we are starting to see for the eight hours of extravaganza

that they expect us to pay for, of infomercials for the various products they're selling us there, but go ahead. That's their whole business model now. It's an infomercial to sell you on other infomercials. that you can spend money on. And if you buy preferred access, you can spend your money even earlier.

Yeah. And take a picture smiling while we collect your money. I think this was Jacob's best promo. I think it may be actually the highlight of the little feud with Drew, even though it's been a lot of action. I have not been into it myself. It's a little ridiculous,

the idea that the cops drive them in and then let them stand on top of the car while they are on both sides of it guarding the car. Yeah. I guess they thought it was a cool visual, but the promo itself was, I think, his best promo, in WWE, at least. And we'll see what...

I would... I like both Jacob Fatu and Drew McIntyre, and I think they should both be in positions where they're either in, you know, a money match, or able to, they both need wins, whereas some of these other people, you know, may not need it as bad, but now they're in a position

where one of them's going to have to lose something one way or the other. Anyway, speaking of losers, next we had Grace and Waller and Kofi Kingston against priest and truth. And I thought at least theory is away from Waller. We got that going for us. And then Jade and Rehn's, Rio Ripley, I don't know if it was long. It seemed like it on fast forward because I just, I don't care.

Again, either Rio is it a tag team with EO for so long that I've just, you know, I've lost the habit, but also I'm not particularly interested in Jade here. And they talked for a long, long time. Yes, they did. Was there anything in that? this that contradicted my opinion of not watching it. It's been an awkward build, awkward promos, awkward energy. If coming out of this thing with Jade at some point the next few months,

Ria turns heel and attacks EEO, would that make it a little more worth it for you? Because at least then I think it would revitalize Ria a little bit, but also obviously it ends the whole thing with her and Ria. Ria, Rio, Eo, Rio, Rio, Rio. All their names together. Fuck.

The team of Rio. I don't. I think I don't want to see Ria turn heel. I don't think people want to boo her. I think she does need to get more bite and more edge and be featured more prominently and win some things. And hopefully she'll beat Jade and move on to something that would be more interesting. and speaking of which the next thing was Tiffany against Jordan Grace and that wasn't any more interesting. And to be honest with you, the next thing, Trick Williams came out with no little yachtie.

He came out all by himself and then they like him. They love to say whoop that trick. Then he brought a gingerbread man out, a guy at a gingerbread man cookie costume thing. and representing Sammy so he could talk to him as if he's representing Sammy which of course Sammy's name is already getting booed every time it's mentioned and then Sammy came out and he got booed himself and then this went on and on and I just finally at the end of it Sammy shit canned Trick Williams out of the ring and the crowd booed

and then Sammy knocked out the gingerbread cookie guy with a kick to his giant oversized mascot cookie head. Which, what the fuck? And then Tric hit the knee on Sammy. But he didn't, then Tric didn't go over to check on the cookie man. Were you hoping, I was hoping, were you hoping that the cookie, the gingerbread cookie man was going to be Lil Yadi? Well, at first it seemed like it, but then,

at the same time when it never happened, it seemed less likely. The guy did a good job as a mascot. He was hamming it up. I thought he actually did a really good job. He could definitely apply for like a San Diego chicken or Mr. Met. It was his big chance.

But at that point, that took 15 minutes, what we just talked about. I'm turning my page. What happened next? Charlotte and Alexa against Bailey and lyric. And then they had the Andre, the giant battle royal,

which featured every job guy in the fucking company. They started, they only had two entrances, Royce Keys and Hendry, right? And then the ring was already, it was filled up. I don't know how many people were in there.

Did you, could you spot a star? I mean, I knew who some of the wrestlers were, but it wasn't a star. studded battle royal, like some of the ones we've seen in the past. But shockingly, Roy's Keys won. Cinderella story out of nowhere, nobody was thinking that it would be him, even though they mentioned that it would be him. And then, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, are you ready for the main event, Brian?

I don't remember what it was. What was the main event? Well, the big main event was Cody's interview. Oh, the promo, yes. Yes. I didn't know if there was another match. We didn't really, there weren't really a lot of matches. No, why? They don't have to have very goddamn matches. These guys have shit to say. They have got a song, they've got to sing, and we're going to let them sing it.

Cody came out and it was not the overwhelming show of love for the American nightmare of days gone by most recently. It's not like they're just fucking throwing shit. at him, but, you know, with all this that they have done. And, of course, he said, I'm not going to talk about the controversy theories, the last three WrestleMania is whether somebody's messing with me. And he mentioned the Rock and Travis Scott and the guy who needs to just go home. And the go, even though they, they can't stand McAfee, the go home pat was not as louder as long as I might have thought it, it would be.

And of course, maybe this is just another one of those, it's the most jaded people who are here to see, you know, moments. They're also not as behind Cody as they were. And the booking has hurt Cody. That's true. The booking has hurt Cody. So he did the promo about his match with Orton. And he says, Orton has never taken responsibility. Randy said, all I do is take and take.

Well, he's never taken responsibility for anything that he's done and blah, blah, blah. And it sounded like he was going to start to make a pithy comment and suddenly, like Mussolini interrupted Cody. And I don't know what he was going to say because it's cult of personality. And here comes one. it's C.M. Punk to save the day because everybody likes

the way he play. Something did not rhyme there, but C.M. Punk came out, yes. In a suit. Punk came out in a suit, and now we got a big pop because he's the only one

that really hasn't done anything to fucking piss people off and or be involved with goddamn, you know, any of this. and he's singing the song and they're singing the song and they chant see him punk see him punk and i wrote down i said he's past cody you can tell and of course cody asked punk well hey if i shake your hands or shake your hands both of them all three of them if i shake your hand are

you going to kick me in the balls and turn on me or did and no no no punk said there's a lot of guys around here deserve to get kicked into balls but you're not one of them. There's one of them like a tourist in this business. It's not worth our time. And the fact that they're making the pointed comments as inside little shoots indicates that's the way they all really fucking feel. But if a pug said it was the first time that he'd worn a suit since Teddy Long got married. I knew Teddy Long in 1986 and he had a fucking son that was like 12 years old,

so I don't know how old punk is. It must have been a storyline situation. It must have been, yeah, something else. But punk did a great job here, I believe, by he's pumping Cody up, but he also, the promo was geared to kind of get people back on Cody's side. And at the same time, it's the two champions

going into WrestleMania, both defending it. It looks like now, because punk said, hey, come with us on this adventure, and I don't know what's going to happen this weekend, but we'll still be here on Monday. I think they're switching both of them. And I don't know that I'm interested

in seeing Roman Raines as a champion. And I think punk could, at this point, he's probably got more credibility with that belt and Cody and Orton's. So I think point, point, I think point, I think punk. I think punk could anoint what I was trying to say, you, you've no good dirty, like a snake feces. I think punk could anoint a younger man at this point. He's got so much credibility. but nevertheless,

punk, try to get people on Cody's side and hey, come with us for the adventure, we'll be there Monday. And then Cody kind of tried to do the same thing, Pump punk up and put Punk over and he got the fans chanting

because they want to chant for punk anyway. I said punk's the new Mr. WrestleMania and he thanked him for everything and Dusty would be proud. And then they hugged and Cody's music started playing and punk stopped it and he got the last word. He said,

and we're here to celebrate with the people. Oh, yeah. Maybe Cody should have said that. I don't know if punk reminded them, whatever the fuck. But out in the people they go and, well, just happy, happy. Just everybody's happy.

Brian, they're all happy. They may not be happy on Monday. It's looking bad for our side. It is. This is also just the worst build to a WrestleMania. ever. I think Roman Raines did a promo or at least I saw something going around where it was attributed to him where it said that if I don't win the title, I'm going to leave WWE so that would almost telegraph something if that were indeed the case.

I think they got to do something with Cody. The problem is I have no faith in their creative team, understanding how to refresh Cody unless they turn him heel and he's always been resistant to that. So who knows? but they're going to do something big you got to imagine try to tie this together. Punk losing the belt to Roman. I'm okay with, listen,

if it leads to more angry CM Punk promos, sign me up for it. I'll take that. But, uh, they had, underwhelming, this is a go home show. This is the show the day before night want of WrestleMania.

Well, but let's face it. No action. No action. No action. Anybody that's going to watch it is already, already watching it. And I don't know how you could really talk anybody else into it at this point. There was nothing on this show, for instance, like anyone was like, I got to share this

on social media. Like, there was nothing on, there was no big moment. There was nothing, they didn't even try to get buzz. They were just like, all right, I guess we sold a bunch of tickets. We got to do a show. Who can we get out there? Do you want to talk or wrestle? Talk, yeah, that's what everyone's saying. You can go talk. But it just, It feels like it's an under... I want to see Brock and Oba. I want to see Punkin'Roman because I figure

that has to have some sort of interesting storyline. I don't want to see the Cody Rhodes-Randy Orton match at this point because McAfee's all over it. I want to see Liv and Stephanie. What else do I want to see?

There has to be more. What am I forgetting? You've already named more than I want to see. I don't want to see the vision I show speed, Uso's L.A. night. I'm not interested.

I mean, I'm going to watch it, but I don't care. I don't care about the women's four-way fatal tag match. I don't care about Becky versus AJ. Dominic versus Finn. Actually, I do want to see that. I guess Finn's going to be the demon again, which

I don't know if it gives him extra powers, but at least it puts makeup on his face and lets him crawl around a little bit. And, yeah, an underwhelming WrestleMania for sure. Trick and Sammy. You know what, Trick and Sammy. I want to see Trick and Sammy.

Oh, Tricken Sammy. That sounds like some kind of vaudeau. team. Trick and Sammy. I think at some point after WrestleMania, some of the individuals involved are going to have to face the reality that maybe Brian,

they might need a new line of work. You think? Maybe they just change, change their marketing strategy and start selling homegrown apples. I mean, they're making a lot of money. I don't think they're going to have to

necessarily go right into another line of work, but maybe they want to increase the time they spend on their hobby and develop a business. Well, see, that's the thing, though, every time you see one of these wrestlers threatened we're getting fired on TV, oh my God, how am I going to feed my family? So you know, they're living hand to mouth, one step away from the poor house. And folks, that's a bad place to be one step away from the poor house, because everybody comes past your front door is either headed to the poor house or just got out of the poor house. You want to live many steps away from the poorhouse. And our friends at Shopify can help you do just that because they can take the innocent little sperm of an idea that you have.

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with Vanderbilt and Morgan and Roosevelt and all them other belts. He wasn't really a titan of industry. he was more of a once again he wasn't a titan of industry more of a politician he will no they were the roosevelts they were high toting society people they were farting true silk from an from an early age when you say roosevelt i feel like you mean one of the famous ones not the entire family and everyone in it well let's not get bogged down with the roosevelt's that's that's what the rockefeller said but nevertheless shopify can do all they remember we were still talking about shopify taking that

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It's like a flywheel. It's a widget on a flywheel. That's not how flywheel works in any way. When the flywheel turns, it just flings all the sperm off incessantly. This is the worst example. We already established that. Let's get away.

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Jim? Yes. You know what that jingle means? It's time for the Shopify promo code. Shopify.com slash JCE for your $1 month trial period. Well, now, Brian, we come to the Hall of Fame, the once mighty Hall of Fame, the Hall of the Immortals, the Pantheon of pro wrestling greats, has been reduced to, well, I would say the Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight,

but those crowds are rowdy and the shit gets over. This is what... You know, they just brought Rocky Horror back on Broadway, some form of it. I haven't completely read up on this, but the controversy I saw on the headlines was they want the crowd to kind of simmer down and just relax and not be... be as involved and not be as involved in certain parts of the movie. So even that's starting to change. Well, the point being something needs to change with the Hall of Fame.

We'll debate and litigate the Rocky Horror Picture Show at a later date. This was horrible. I felt bad for the people involved. The ushers were holding mirrors in front of the fans' faces to see if they were still breathing. I didn't watch it at midnight, Eastern Times. I waited until the next day. I had a good night's sleep, and it put me back to sleep.

And again, they were in the little theater. It's been crowded out with all of this other WrestleMania weekend stuff. Maybe if they moved it to another pay-per-view annually where there was more time. But even 2017, when I was there, they were, what was it, the Friday night before the Sunday, WrestleMania?

Because it was only one night of WrestleMania. and they were in the NBA arena that they were doing raw in that weekend also. And yes, all the boys and the talent was there, but they had thousands of fans. And but who, even if they're on, what are the Pacific time out there is the time I'm looking for,

they're starting a thing at nine o'clock at night. And for people, people watching on the East Coast, they're probably already asleep. And it's not the show that it was. And it doesn't have the stars that it had. It doesn't have the oomph that it had. It doesn't have the crowd that it had. So would it be fair to move it to another weekend or have they milked

what they can milk out of the Hall of Fame? That's a question. I don't think they're going to give up on the Hall of Fame. I don't think they're going to just stop doing it It definitely has been better in the past Again, we were on the East Coast I was on the East Coast I was dead tired, I made it two hours

And then I was fed up And the first hour was the Stephanie McMahon show We'll get there But the energy was kind of missing I like seeing demolition You know, I like when they reference The old old stuff still because this is kind of the last chance, you know, the next remaining years of them actually doing that.

But there was no energy in the room, it didn't seem like. It used to be you could hear people. Sometimes that was the worst thing. We're just fans yelling. But it sounded dead and was late. And there was a lot of time focused on one specific person. Well, yes. And then this was not the way to start the day or the night.

or the fucking morning or whatever time it was. This should have been the end. If they were going to give it this much time and really just make it Stephanie's coming out party, they should have made this the main of it. This should have been the end. And it should have built to this. It may have been the end.

This segment right here may have been the end. Well, first of all, Ms. and Michael Cole were the host. And God were all missing Jerry Lawler. because it this is forced Martin and Lewis you know buddy comedy etc they reminded people that Ms. actually beat John Sina at WrestleMania which is should be one of those things that's is quietly never spoken of so we get past this they do the Stephanie package and she's the most iconic female in the WWE.

And we're reminded that she slapped everybody in the world and apparently just potatoed the shit out of them and what are they going to do about it? As we mentioned as a performer, she was a great heel with great facials. She should have never tried to wrestle. But they covered that. They covered her as a great businesswoman.

They cover her as a church. charitable person that works for pediatric cancer. They credited her or blamed her with the fact that now we get women's Royal Rumbles and women's elimination chambers, women, this package was its own show. I've thought it was a Ken Burns documentary. And then here's the thing. another part of the Hall of Fame

and I hate to say this I may be going to agree with Kevin Dunn remember when if you were being inducted it was because you were a star but the inductors had to be stars even celebrity stars but some type of level of star remember when Lawler

wanted Lance Russell to induct him Kevin does that nobody know who he is and he got William Shatner but nevertheless so after the Stephanie show package her three daughters and Linda inducted her and I'm not going to insult her children who are not public figures but they're also not public speakers and I don't want to hear anybody's kids talk about their parents unless the kids are stars too. And the kids took 10 minutes.

And then Linda stepped up. And my God, her face, her fucking eyes don't match. Her eyes are at different level. You could put a T-square on that woman's face and she'd be looking up over it on one side and down under it on the other side. The hell has happened to these people. We know how old she's. is. Anyway, so then Linda read from a teleprompter for 10 solid minutes. I think that's the longest I've ever heard her speak. But I had to fast forward through some of this, but I would

stop just to see if anything was getting a reaction. Did anyone ever burp while she was speaking? It seemed like the room was dead. You have to wonder how much of it was the way it was miced or how much of it was the room was dead. No, you heard people actually react in other places briefly when they briefly reacted in other segments, but there was just, no. And then after Linda introduced her and Stephanie came out,

there was two minutes of hugging the family. and then she started putting her kids over and I started to pass forward and again the same thing, brief stops. She's reading from a teleprompter, the speech was not bringing the house down. She named 600 people at the end of the speech and then it ended up putting Triple H over.

And then as if someone was demanding it like she was Bobby Heenan. She came out in front and cut a promo as herself as a heel to finish it up. Like, you know, she said, yes, of course I deserve it. So stand up and welcome me. And that was 20 minutes. So 20 and two minutes a hug and 10 and 32 and 40. With the package, it was over 50 minutes.

Should we move on like they didn't? There's no doubt she's a Hall of Famer for WWE. based on her role on their programming. Should she be in the Hall of Fame for them? Sure. Should she get an hour? Which was everyone at her family giving a tribute to her? Just about how she's the greatest mom and how she'll do. None of this relates to what we're,

it's not an award for the greatest person. It's the WWE Hall of Fame. And they turned it into the Stephanie show for one hour. And they have done everything they can to make people like her, care about her, want her around, like for the last couple of years, showing up in weird places at weird times on WW TV and with projects that are suddenly WWE priorities. But this was the kicker. They kicked Mr. T off the stage for less.

This thing went non-stop. Didn't they give Dory and Terry Funk? 90 seconds. Seconds. Demolition got a few. Demolition had three people induct them. They each got like a minute and a half. But this thing went almost an hour.

And then the promo, it was almost a shoot. Because much like what she used to do on Raw, as a shoot, no one could like not get up. They had to get up. Yeah. Who's going to be the one? I'm not going to stand up for this. She told them to give her a standing ovation.

That's the thing. perfect way to do it. And they had to. And it was, to me, cringy. She's deserving of being in the WWE Hall of Fame. But this was like, you know, you get to sit in on your funeral. You get to sit in on everyone giving the speeches about you, and then you get to do whatever you want. Horshit. And then it's the beginning of the fucking thing. And then we still have all this other stuff I actually want to see. And I had to sit through an hour of this at midnight. It's 1 a.m. before I get anyone I care about on this. I believe you have discovered, Brian,

the general reaction from the fans why the Hall of Fame ain't a bigger deal these days. Because they've started stroking themselves a little too hard and too late at night when people are, they've got to get up and go to work in the morning. They're tired. They've got a headache. They're not in the mood for the stroking. They should have started with demolition. Well, moving on.

Do you like that big ceremony for bad news, Allen, where he got a brief package and his family waived from the crowd? They only referenced him as Bad News Brown. They didn't reference him as, if they referenced him of a Bad News, Alan was briefly, but they talked about his career, like he did nothing.

In the, he, his career in the WWF for what we established, what, a year or so. And nothing of bad news. Well, whatever. Bad News Island. The one Calgary clip, but they didn't identify it. Japanese, no, whatever. They didn't even reference the 1979 run, really,

where he was up for WWF or WWW. That's right. I think they had a picture, but didn't even talk about that. Well, anyway, but now to your precious demolition, Brian. Yeah. except to be honest the video was not as impressive as most of their videos that I always praise

how oh my God they edit these masterpieces they had a lot of action footage but it was like all the modern guys sat there and oh they were my favorites they scared me it's not exactly a deep deep dive into their careers or you know impacts on on the industry but I think, you know, they knew, well, Stephanie, we need to do that package,

but these other guys, well, we'll just show highlights. But anyway, you said they had three guys, Haku, Arn Anderson, and the Warlord. And Terry's a warlord is a really nice guy. He's very well-spoken. He kept getting bleeped for saying WWF, but the fans were sleepy. and Haku looks like the president of Samoa in a fucking suit, doesn't he? This fucking wild crazy, the toughest man in wrestling and vice people's faces off. Now he's in a suit, his hair's slink back, he's got glasses.

He looked like a goddamn prime minister. His accent's still too thick, but, and Arne got a reaction because he's the, you know, the guy that of the three of these folks that people most remember of the modern generation, blah, blah, blah. And he can speak and tell a story. So, of course, he got 90 seconds. And then they introduced demolition, Barry Darso and Bill Edie. And Darso is huge now, my God.

But he still looks and sounds like a big kid. And I love Barry. He was a great guy. And he did an okay job, but it, again, it was late. He introduced his entire family. Bill Edie got up there, and he's a very intelligent, well-spoken guy. He's very smart. And he kind of worded it in a way that he got the you deserve it chant.

Was that the only one of the night? Because nobody else gave him a spot really for it. No, the only other chant we didn't even really talk about, but, you know, a lot of people are upset about the thank you Vince chant that broke out in the middle of Stephanie's speech. Oh, I've fucking skipped over that. Yeah, the fans started chanting thank you Vince when she mentioned him. You know, not even trying to build up to that, but just mentioned him in her speech.

Yeah. The fans went to thank you Vince, the brainy. Well, they don't care. Anyhow. Um, so Bill Edy got the you deserve it. He thanked Gito Mongol, who trained him, and George Scott gave him the superstar gimmick, Andre, both Venses, Inoki, and Mr. Fuji. And, you know, and thanked the fans in his wife and kids.

And I was skipping through a bit of that at the end also. And then out of any closing thoughts on demolition taking their place in the pantheon of the immortals. They deserve it. I mean, anything I say would be better than the little video they did for them there. It was nice to let them have their moment. It seemed to mean a lot to them. And to me, that's the best benefit of the W.W.E. Hall of Fame more than anything else is when guys like that get to have those kind of moments with their families.

Well deserving, and obviously they feuded with Vince McMahon or Bill Eadie didn't. It affected Barry Darso, too. Over the demolition gimmick, they didn't mention a lot of, Randy Colley, I don't think. No. But, you know, there's a lot to be said about the creation of the gimmick and eventually it ended in lawsuits that Bill Edie had going with WWF for almost 10 years before they finally settled.

And obviously he got the rights to the gimmick that he said he created. But they were great. For a few years there, they debuted his heels. They got Fuji. At first they had Johnny Valiant and that didn't work. Much like Hogan. Like, what, this is... I was about saying, have you noticed everybody that ever was managed by Johnny Valiant became a superstar once they left Johnny Valiant?

Yeah, so they were with Lushes Johnny V, and then they went to Mr. Fuji who started painting his face like them. And they were really over his heels, beat Strike Force, who were the big baby face tag team, had WrestleMania 4, and then Survivor Series 88. they did the weird double turn where they were the like leaders of the heel tag team Survivor Series team and the Powers of Pain

who had been managed by the Baron the Baby Face Baron Vyraški with a hood over just running out with them they were on the baby face team and Fuji turned on demolition and what were powers of pain and then they became the most popular baby face tag team I've seen in WWF

I'm sure there may be someone else I'm not thinking of, but there's a lot of teams I love the Siner Brothers, even the LOD. There was a period there, especially in 89, going into WrestleMania 6, where they were so super over, and their feuds and their matches were typically the highlights of these shows.

If you were watching Saturday Night's main event, the Hogan match or the Hogan angle, whatever it is, you in the door, but demolition and the brainbusters, that's the one you're going to talk about the next day. And they were great. They were absolutely great. Go watch the pops they got at WrestleMania 6 in Toronto. And then Vince immediately fucked it up because he had them turn heel and brought the road warriors in immediately his baby faces, but feuded them with demolition who had just been the most popular baby face tag team. And that's towards the end

of demolition. They mentioned Brian Adams. That was nice. crush. And yeah, that's I'll get off my soapbox once again, the greatness of demolition. You know what, to be honest with you, imagine if it had been reversed, if instead of the road warriors ending up

going to work for Vince down the road, went to it, 1990 or whatever, imagine if demolition had come to WCW to fight to road warriors, that would have been the main events on all the cards and probably would have well I probably would have drawn money but WCW

would have found a way to fuck that up too but you know what I'm saying but it would have meant more than the other direction nevertheless you know what else the other direction they then took did you give two shits about seeing Dennis Rodman inducted in the WWE Hall of Fame I did I actually enjoyed this I thought this was kind of an emotional train wreck and it kind of got the room a little bit alive because he was pacing around.

He could just, you know, go off at any moment. I thought this was one of the highlights of the event. Dennis Broadman was obviously very emotional about being inducted into the the WWE Hall of Fame, got to see Sean Waltman and Kevin Nash. That was kind of cool. I liked it. Well, that was the thing is that Nash and Waltman came out. I'd like, okay, Nash is going to do something here.

or say something to, you know, with an entertaining nature to wake people up a little bit. And the first thing you said was, well, you know, my voice is gone. I don't talk to people anymore. So he can barely talk. And then as he starts reading the teleprompter, and I guess,

I guess it's a thing now you have to read the teleprompter because remember, as I said from experience, when I was there, they, they kind of wanted to see your speech if you had written one or they gave you a writer to help you, you know, go in a producer, to go over it or whatever. And that's why I said, I got my bullet points.

I'm just going to talk and not let it drag. But they're all reading. So the point I make it is, I swear to it, and I love him. He's a nice young man. but Sean Waltman was lip-reading Nash's words off the teleprompter and I couldn't take my eyes up of him for a second. It was like, he's saying that. That's Jesse Ventura disease.

And so Nash couldn't talk and it was fucking late and it's Dennis Rodman. I saw him come out and I don't give two shits about Dennis Rodman and I skipped all of this. I just, to be honest, I don't care. I liked it. well good i'm i'm glad that it found an audience somewhere and then they inducted the hulk hogan andre the giant match russamania three into the moments hall of what is it the hall of fame

moment of the thing of the time great moments in sports whatever the fuck it is i don't remember the exact can you tell i'm losing my fucking patience it was a nice little trophy they gave them or did they give it? It was only one. I don't know who gets that actually. Well, yeah, that's the thing. Who gets it? Who's going to carry that fucking thing home?

Hold on. They did a nice package, the footage of the match and the buildup and everything. But the thing is, the inductors were Jimmy Hart, Nick Hogan, and Andre's daughter. Poor Jimmy's 83. He looks younger than Nick Hogan. But this, the, he's the one that unveiled the, trophy in the ring of Hogan body slamming Andre. I'm thinking, Andre's daughter, like, what the fuck?

Why is my dad getting beat up? But Jimmy ain't going to carry that fucking thing off. It had to be Nick Hogan. That's probably what they paid him to come. Didn't you think Jimmy would say, and now a few words from the kids wrestlers instead of... He may have been told not to. What did he say?

He was like, hey, guys, I got something to show you over here. Yeah, let me come over here. here away from the microphone. Hey, you kids, come over here. I got something to show you. It's closer to get you off the stage that way. But that's the thing

is they never spoke and Jimmy spoke briefly. I think they were getting the fucking rap. It had to be at this point of the night. But they played and that's the thing, Jimmy's entrance music with each your hard out Rick

Springfield. Because she's by girl and she always will be the only one for me. Ain't no rock and roll singer gonna take her away from me. Dide, de, deed, de, deed, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, de, it should have been, we hate school. Well, I don't think they want to give a bad, hey, they've already said Fatu ain't living at life no more. They don't want to encourage truancy or incurringe,

or incurringe, truancy, whatever the fuck we're talking about here. So anyway, but Jimmy Hart is 83 years old. Can you believe that? He's timeless and ageless. I can see you're stunned. No, I mean, he's looked the same going back to at least the late 80s. He doesn't look any. I mean, if you get up close, you could see the wrinkles, but, you know, from a fall.

But he had, he had wrinkles when I was working with him in Memphis 40 years ago. He had wrinkles around his eyes. but that's it's the same fucking I'm certain there's probably some hair dye going on but most certainly as it has to be of course but well you never know about these things but Jimmy is Jimmy is always not only been a proponent of the clean living

but also he's got so much energy he just gets up and goes everywhere so anyway that's the secret he keeps on dancing he keeps on doing the jerk shake it shake it baby show us how you work because now you're in motion

oh god I didn't know I was going to trigger this come on well keep on doing the locomotion as we go to the next segment there was a brief Cid package I mean about as short as they could get and his family waved from the cheap seats

and one of them posed and then did your feed go black for like five minutes through AJ's package? My feed went black because this is when I went to sleep. Hmm. Well, did it really go, but you lost it? No, it really went black for about five minutes and came back as most of AJ's package was over with. And then, because I was, I looked down, I was looking at my notes and I didn't hear anything. and I looked up as a black screen.

I'm like, did I miss the finish? What the fuck? And I'm fast forward and fast forward and through black, black, black. And finally, boom, they're just in the middle of it. But nevertheless, AJ Stiles, it's the main event induction. It's two o'clock in a fucking morning

for a lot of people or they're going to watch it later. But for them, it's nearing midnight in goddamn in the time these people are in. And Gallows and Anderson inducted him, which again, they're very important to him, and they're his good friends, but he's not really following the star fucking principle that will get people on their feet in the building

at nigh on to midnight. But I think they got an egy too because both of them only went like five minutes together. So is a big intro, nice response. Stephanie's daughters went longer than every wrestler. Yes, yes. But it was, you know, it's late. And AJ did a nice, heartfelt speech about his family and his kids were there and his wife.

And, you know, how he gets, he said, this is the one thing, though. I was like, what the fuck? He said, I missed the soccer games and I missed this. that, but now, now that I'm not wrestling anymore, I get to come home to my family every night. If he's not wrestling anymore, where's he coming home from? What the fuck is he just leaving for no reason just to come back at night? All right, mother, it's morning. I'm going to leave the house now. It's daylight. I got to get out in the field and stand around.

So again, this speech would have been a lot. great if it had been delivered before 10 p.m. at the fucking time that it was in the room. but since it was midnight there and 2 o'clock the morning at eastern time for people watching you know yeah maybe he's is he really secretly we think a j's a family man then he's so devoted to his wife and family but he tells him every morning he's got to go somewhere they don't know where he's going then he gets to come home to him at not and what the fuck's AJ doing? Now that I'm off the road, I need a good lunch pail

to leave the house with for no reason. But no, AJ deserves it and everybody, it's a big deal for all these people, but God damn, it's just a hard show to watch now. It could be a fun show, it could be a better show, it could be a priority, it's none of those things. They know they're going to get a dead crowd because the entire floor section are all tired wrestlers.

Well, yeah, they had to come from fucking Smackdown. Yeah, that's why Cody had a bow tie on Smackdown. And by the way, it's not legitimate. It is part of the television storyline, as they say, that guys show up at 8 o'clock for the fucking show. The guys have to be there at like noon. So, what the fuck? Well, I look forward to seeing all the inductees and their families at WrestleMania when they did the big Hall of Fame introduction of everyone.

And of course, that's later today to anyone upset. I didn't watch the AJ Stiles speech. It ended at 2 a.m. and we're recording this the next morning. So give me a break. Yes, and we'll be able to see all these people, as you said, wave at the fans at WrestleMania. They told me when I was down there after the Hall of Fame, same thing. They said, now, you know, you can, or you get here at such and such time on fucking Sunday or whatever it was. And I said, what? So yeah, you can be introduced. I said,

do I have to be introduced? And we're like, no, we don't think you. I've said, I'm not going to be introduced. Then I've done, I've done my job here. I can't fuck this up anymore. I'll, I'll see you later. How would they even done that? They don't usually introduce the inductees or the inductors, I should say, at WrestleMania. Well, I don't oh no, you know what? They were going to introduce the Rock and Roll Express, but they just asked me to come. They just

say, oh, you know, you'd be here at such and such or there's a bus from the hotel and you can watch the thing. I said, what am I going to fucking do? Well, just watch the thing. No, I'm good. Hey, one last thought about all this or one last question. Did you hear, I don't know how much of Stephanie's thing you heard because you fast

fast forwarded and who could blame you. And again, you didn't miss the thank you, Vince chant. But she was saying something there that reminded me of something you've talked about Vince saying to you at the Hall of Fame when you saw him. It was kind of like the, no matter when any of you think, this is home, this is all of our homes, we're all home together. What do you think of that, McMahon philosophy?

Yes, that's what you will welcome home. Al always knew he would get you to come home. You've heard countless guys say that, right? Didn't he say to Cody, we need you to come home. That's a thing that he, one of those verbal tactics that Vince would use that I think he did for years and years based on the feeling that it would create in the boys. And oh, you know, he welcomed me home. It's like, this is my home?

Yeah, it's your home if it's a goddamn abusive. parental relationship. That's one of those things that Vince would do verbally that Stephanie has picked up on that would try to warm the cockles of the boys' taints or whatever so that he would be, they would be in some way beholden to him or grateful to him or, you know, feel more comfortable with him. You know what I'm trying to say. It wasn't like glad you came back to work, pal, or.

You know, whatever is the welcome home. Bullshit. It's my home. Why am I sleeping in the garage? Just shut up, bitch, and eat your groceries. Well, that was the Hall of Fame. That was the end of Friday night, and there's a lot of things happening in and outside of the world of WWE.

It's WrestleMania weekend. This is your show, but we've covered a lot and we have more to come. Well, and we're going to take a break, and we're going to watch this Wing Ding, and then we're going to be back at a couple of days on your program, the drive-through to discuss same. And in the meantime time and in-between times, folks, wake up if you were at the Hall of Fame. It's time to watch more wrestling.

Thank you, fuck you, and bye-bye, everybody.