Jim Cornette Experience - Episode 635: Love In An Elevator

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

This week on the Experience, Jim reviews A&E's Road Warriors Biography, and Mason Rook's NXT in-ring debut! Plus Jim talks about Ludwig Kaiser's arrest, the passing of Phil Hickerson, AEW Dynamite, the closure of the Heart Attack Grill, and much more! Thanks to our episode sponsors: HEXCLAD:  Find your forever cookware @hexclad and get 10% off at hexclad.com/JCE! #hexcladpartner THE PERFECT JEAN:  F*%k your khakis and get The Perfect Jean 15% off with the code JCE at theperfectjean.nyc/JCE15 #theperfectjeanpod 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.

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 Connett The Keys to the Future Kaiser experiences loving an elevator You gotta be how to like the blob that ate NXT And a deep dive into a shallow biography of the road warriors

And he's cracking up already, folks joining me Hawaiian Brian the podcasting line and the King of the Arcadian Vanguard podcast network, Mr. Co-Oost to you, he provided the voice for the dummy of Rocco. Be great, Brian, last everybody. Hello, hi, Jim. A pleasure to be here once again, Rocco the Dummy. We could talk about that a little bit later.

Ellering's still holding on to the idea. It could have worked. It could have been a contender. He saw the Twilight Zone episode. This too. this too well the one the dummy that turns into the actual ventriloquist is the one that i was thinking of and then you see at the end and the the rolls have reversed no i love precious paul he's a wonderful person we're going to talk about good people being done wrong by the biography people in some cases

but brian i i just want to let you know i may have to leave at any second leave mike's side and hopping a boat. We've got a flood warning, flood alert. I mentioned to you when we were talking about the weather a few weeks ago. Last April, 2025, we had all that rain and flooding and canceled thunder and eight inches of rain heavy for the year by the time we got to the end of April. This past April was one of the driest on record. Just like three inches of rain all month. And then a couple weeks ago we got a couple of good downpours but it's been that Louisville is about 6 to 7

inches short of rain for the year so far it hadn't rained substantially more than a couple times in quite a while but up in southern Indiana they're getting plenty of good rain and down south of us like 75 miles they're in extreme drought so

as of two days ago you could go 120 miles down Interstate 65 through Louisville and you would leave from normal to kind of dry to extreme drought. Then two days ago

Palmyra, Indiana got six inches of rain in one fucking day. And now they got a flood alert up there so you could go from flooding to extreme drought. And now over the past couple days and for the next week apparently it's just going to

rain every fucking where. Better chance than not every single day. Storms and rain and downpours and and now we've got a flood alert here because it may go from it's feast or famine, Brian. You just can't always get

what you want, but every once in a while you get pissed on incessantly. Wasn't that the way that song went? That's right. Then, now, together, forever. In a flood. In a flood. Pissing on you endlessly, WWE. Anyway, is that way, bring your pool down here. You still need any water?

No, we can get you some water down here. The weather turned, now it's cold or chilly. It was 95 degrees for a few days, and now it's highs in the upper 60s. And the other day, the high was 96, and the overnight low was 54. Same day. Oh, that's nothing unusual. while have you know that in hell Michigan, it can be 116 degrees underneath an apple tree.

See, I bet you didn't know about that weather statistic. Hell Michigan, otherwise known as Michigan. All right. Hey, let me tell you what I got real quick and make you jealous. And Simon from Northern Island, he's the Northern Island. The Northern Island, duh, I see. Simon from Northern Ireland. Ireland. Umlau. Umlau. Simon from Northern Ireland sent me a package completely unsolicited

and he is going to get a return communication for me with something of value. But guess what was in this package? Great Brian last. The jockstrap of Dano O'Mahoney. No, the estate wouldn't let that go. I couldn't get them to part with it. But Simon sent me the complete, the book, I should say, the complete science of wrestling by George Hackenshmit. Man, son of a bitch, I just saw another, a picture of that book recently. And I was like, you know, I need an original with, I need an original of that. And you just got one. Son of a bitch. This is, well, now hold on here. Let me nail it down for you. This is, this is the, the London edition because

Simon being from Northern Ireland he's closer to London than he was to New York because the health and strength company do you remember health and strength it was like for the primitive bodybuilding and physical

culture that existed in the late 1890s through like the 1930s where they didn't really there wasn't modern gyms and weight training but like Haken Schmidt was a bodybuilder. Health and Strength magazine

was the magazine that featured all of these people and also was, even at that time, very popular in the gay community for obvious reasons. But this is a London publication. It was copyrighted in the United States by Health and Strength Limited in 1909. And this is published from the London office apparently. on Burley Street.

So we got that going for us. But Bradbury Agnew and Company printers, London and Tonbridge. But this is, and it's a bunch of pictures of George Hackenshmit demonstrating wrestling holes, which I'm pretty sure

all fucking shoots, but nevertheless. I have a complete set of the Billy Sandow, Ed Strangler-Lewis series of books that were very similar to that, like teaching you wrestling and how to defend yourself leather bound, they're beautiful. How to defend yourself against bad payoffs and crooked promoters?

But anyway, so this is a hardback book. And then also from the same publishers, health and strengths, and there's no date on this, but its same era, is the textbook of wrestling by Ernest Groon, G-R-U-H-N, late amateur champion of England. this is the second edition that sold for one shilling at the time have you heard of Ernest Groon because that's what Simon was like who's Ernest Grun?

I'm not familiar with the Grooenster. How do you spell the last name? Hold on, G-R-U-H-N. H-N, okay. And also, to complete the trilogy, he sent me a program from England from 1962 with young Adrian Street on the cover with dark hair and flexing his

enormous chest and tiny little waist. So anyway, Simon, thank you. And Brian is now going to tell you all about Ernest Groon. No, I'm not. There's not too much out there. Out there, what are you looking out the window? Expect the birds, the little birds,

going to tell you? There's obviously reprints of that book that are around, but there's not too much information about the groomster. Yeah, I don't know. Can't tell you. I'm going to start pitching to you. And now Brian Last will tell you all about so-and-so. Like the fucking Burns and Benny deal, they would do at parties.

George Burns always crack Jack Benny up, but just he could do anything. And Benny would roll on the floor. one night they're at a party and burns looks over and sees benny pulling a cigarette out and he immediately burns says ladies and gentlemen ladies and gentlemen please you have an opportunity here jack benny is about to perform his famous cigarette bit and all eyes turned to biddy and bitty what's the fight he just started rolling on the fucking floor that is funny so anytime you're want to know about Ernst Groon, Simon just asked Brian last. Anyway, but thank you so much, Simon, for this stuff. And folks, if you would like a book about wrestling history, that not quite as old as this, but there's color, there's pictures, you can go to Jim Cornett.com and pick up a copy of my book, Heroes and Friends, because we are down to, I think, the last 900 and whatever copies. this thing has kind of run away.

But for the month of June, as I mentioned on the last program we did, Brian, all the sales, all the proceeds from sales of heroes and friends for the month of June, we'll go to the WHS Crusade for Children. Crusade weekend, everybody around Kentucky Anna knows is June 6th and 7th. I think this year they're doing Saturday the telethon is from Paris Town Hall. and then they're going back to the studios on Sunday. I've mentioned it's gotten so big they can't have everybody even come to downtown Louisville anymore,

so there's going to be remotes everywhere. But we all know this around the area, but if you are anywhere else, if you look up WHS crusade.org, you will find out about the oldest and largest local fundraising event of its kind in the country with all the shitty things going on in the world, there's one place you can put your money knowing it's going to a good cause.

And that's a crusade for children. So I'm going to make my annual contribution, but the heroes and friends sale for the month of June will be above that. And obviously, every little bit helps, and they take not only contributions on telethon weekend, but any time of day or night. And anybody, as we mentioned in Kentucky, anybody in Kentucky and or Indiana

almost definitely either knows somebody or has a family member or some relationship with somebody that knows a crusade kid after all these years. So buy the book and have the money go to a good cause instead of lining my pockets. Have all you people that hate me.

Here's your chance to get even with me. Buy the rest of my books and I won't even get to money. kind of fuck of revenge would that be huh that Brian I think anybody that despises me ought to buy one of my books in June don't you I don't know if that philosophy or that sales tactic will be working with the people who despise you but I'm sure there's plenty of people who love you who would love to buy a copy of that book well that's got to be a better idea than corny coin

well yeah anything's a better idea than corny coin I agree all right now real quick I got to correct you something I like doing often. Actually, you corrected yourself. This bear controversy, the koala bears, come to find out, as you mentioned, on your program, koala bears are not bears. They are marsupials. Marsupials.

I was thinking they were Methodists, but they're marsupials. But did you, have you heard about the other fact about the, the cute little koala bears that you'd like to snuggle up with? and kiss and, and, and just hug on. Have you heard what the koala bears other problem is? What's that? 88% of wild koala bears are riddled with chlamydia. I'm not kidding.

I have heard that. No, we had a bunch of people. I had a bunch of people, Twitter, emails. I just, this is from Jeremy and Dayton, but this is just one of many. He says they are marsupials like opossums. Opossums are marsupials, I guess also. But the more concerning thing, he says, about koalas, is that up to 88% of wild koalas are riddled with chlamydia.

And which begs several questions, one certainly uppermost, is what the fuck are the people in Australia doing with their koalas in a past that has caused this situation? but apparently this has made them somewhat of an endangered species among I'm sure many other things, encroachment of human beings and they're trash and filled. Can you catch chlamydia from a marsupial? I'm not going to try. I can say that that's one thing that I can say that I've never engaged in is male to marsupial relations.

come on not even in Tennessee no it was legal until 92 but not no just because something's legal doesn't mean you have to do it but anyway so we extend our sympathies to the koalas in this time of strife anyhow

also stop fucking how about the time of well it's not their fault it's a natural marsupial urge are the marsupials do it the birds do it and the bees do it even the marsupials and the trees do it anyhow um and real quick matthew hello matthew matthew from wherever the fuck he's from

he doesn't give a guy he doesn't want to be known or found but we're always talking about my god it takes so long on the the WW television, the guy starts the entrance, it's forever they go to break, they come back, they're still playing the music, and blah, blah, blah, right? Well, Matthew says after attending a recent WWE show, because I had more money than brains, given the ticket prices the WWE has,

since helped me with one of those. And basically, once the entrance is broken up by a commercial break, once the camera cuts off, the guy does not stand in the, ring for three minutes with his music playing. They cut his music. They cut the ring lights. The guy gets out of the ring and talks to the announcers or referee or other people at ringside. And the video screen displays clips from recent premium live events or instead of the clips, the ring announcer will encourage people to hold up their signs or have a rock

people's eyebrow raising contest. Once the break is over, almost over. The lights come back up. The guy gets back in the ring and their music starts to play wherever they cut it. And he gets to start all over again with a crowd that's cooled off from their entrance, but at least

happy to be out of the commercial break filler and back to the show. That's awesome. As as a, I'm not even going to say, I'll say that in a minute as a performer. I'll save that. As having dealt with some of the biggest stars in the business which some of these people are today if 25 years ago if you'd have told the

undertaker okay you get about halfway down the ring we're going to go to the break just fucking dick around for a few minutes and it will come oh my god my god there would have been shoot tombstones if you'd have told steve austin part of my can you imagine a steve austin entrance in that fashion. In the days when Austin was so over, the people were throwing their goddamn clothes in the air to fucking when he came out. It kills everything that you're trying to fucking produce and gender, accomplish, build, whatever, however you want to phrase it.

That's so, oh, my God. remember when they when I made my entrance at Fort Worth at the fucking Tarrant County Coliseum and the thing was sunshine

and they ran fucking Chris Adams out to do or whoever yeah it was Adam to do a promo about oh my God it's bruiser Brody's

returned to the parking lot even though he hadn't because they wanted it on TV but they didn't tell us I was starting to do my thing with her I got so goddamn mad I cussed mantell out afterwards that's why I'm never

going to be back to this son of a bitch and never returned what did he say you well what could he say i'd already given my notice i was doing that date for him as a fucking favor to begin with they didn't have the courtesy to tell me that they were going to run somebody into the middle of our deal that we were in the middle of doing on television in front of 12,000 people in the arena and then i told him that's one of the reasons why we fucking already quit and left And then I left. But that's the point is

even that's even disrespectful to like anybody but a job guy that's just there to be already in the ring. Right? If you're going to give somebody an entrance, you can't fucking leave them out there to just anyhow

Brian here's more bad news in the world especially in Las Vegas. And this ties into again, the WrestleMania controversy and who was it Shapiro that admitted the went to the well once too many times?

Guess what closed according to our Ace Cub reporter J. Shark Nato, he monitors the fucking fast food news. The heart attack grill, the main heart attack grill in Las Vegas on the

the Fremont experience or whatever it is, the big street thing they got there, closed permanently, closed down permanently. And because the owner said that Las Vegas is too expensive. He can't sell decent food for affordable prices to regular fucking people. Because he said the casinos after COVID and the pandemic, so, okay, we're going to make our money back. and now everything in town costs through the big wigs or the corporate

whatever corporate bigwigs he said everything costs through the roof normal people are not going anymore he don't have the traffic and he'd have to raise his prices to the point where he just doesn't want to do that to people can you have business owners saying that? You know on top of all the other issues people are not wanting to travel to America inflation, everything else. Also the ease

to gamble from home has to probably be a big hit on Las Vegas, which for years was the only place you can go or one of the only places to gamble. Well, and now, yeah, that's the thing, is now it's commonplace. But it was a tourist experience

when it was affordable because after they they had the perfect fucking deal when the mob ran it, right? Hors fucking gambling and goddamn sin. And then they fucked that up but they revitalized it

as a family tourist attraction the world of Coca-Cola. Take the kitties to Vegas. So the kitties might wonder what all those fucking newspapers advertising and lingerie are on the corner every once in a while, but it was a family place.

Now, what family is going there? The goddamn Rockefellers? But I went to the heart attack grill in Phoenix. When we were out there years ago, I've told that story, Brian. It was 2011, I believe, WrestleMania weekend, but I went out for the Ring of Honor events. sound like the year that

WrestleMania was in Phoenix? Possibly. It sounds like when you were still with Ring of Honor, I guess that's the key. Yes. But it was 2011, 2012, whatever. No, it's 2011 because St. Clair hadn't even bought the company yet. Maybe it's 2010. I don't know. Point is, we went to the heart attack grill

and I had the quadruple bypass and got the free wheelchair ride. They had the sluttly dressed nurses that had the short skirts on that, you know, that fit the medical motif of the thing. And if you finish the quadruple bypass, they would give you a free wheelchair ride to your car. So I done did that because it was after the second show

of Saturday night and a Sunday afternoon. Can you imagine how hungry I was? Oh, Jesus Christ. But nevertheless, I think they closed that one too. and if Google Heart Attack Grill just real quick just to if you would just to see if there is there still one left what an amazing place it was each paddy was a half a pound of pure beef and they would put two or three pieces of cheese on each paddy so if you've got a quadruple that was two pounds of meat and about a dozen pieces of cheese with your choices of all toppings that you would put two or three pieces of cheese that you would would care to have. And they had fries made deep fried and good old regular lard with all the fat you can

imagine. And they even sold coax and soft drinks from Mexico with real sugar in them and unfiltered cigarettes at the front counter. Interesting business model, but here's the information you were asking for. The heart attack grill was an American Indian. independent restaurant in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada. It was formerly located in Chandler,

Arizona. There you go. The restaurant served junk food, deliberately high in fat, sugar, and cholesterol. And its staff wore hospital-themed uniforms. There was only one location, and that is now closed. Well, shit. It started in Tempe, Arizona, so it started

in Arizona that went to Nevada. I thought there were because the same I did it. What's his name? John Sumpfaso. There you go, but he was Dr. John, and he would have like the stethoscope and the all the people on the grill had stethoscopes and the white coats on, but the nurses, the waitresses had the short mini skirt nurse uniforms.

And the boss would do the commercials. Anybody weighing 350 pounds or more ate free every day? And it was, what a fucking gimmick. Some interesting facts here. The restaurant spokesman. Sixman, 575-pound Blair River died on March 1st, 2011 at the age of 29. Oh, from complications of pneumonia. The Arizona location closed shortly thereafter.

May 31st, 2011. Son, but so right after I was there. Oh, shit. On February 11, 2012, a customer suffered what was reported to be in apparent heart attack. While eating a triple bypass burger at the restaurant. It was bound to happen mathematically. Restaurant owner John Basso, or Basso, called for emergency services,

and the customer was taken to the hospital. Well, wait a minute, you mean he didn't just jump in and start giving him CPR himself? He's the doctor. Reportedly patrons thought it was a publicity stunt and started taking photos. Basso later said, I actually felt horrible for the gentleman

because the tourists were taking photos of him, as if it was some type of stunt. Can you imagine? If people go home, they don't know the rest of the story. They're like, and look, here's our pictures of the heart attack grill. They even stage heart attacks. Look, here's the guy down on the ground. Look, look at, they even gave him the Alka-Seltzer, because he's foaming from the mouth. Even with our own morbid sense of humor, we would never pull a stunt like that. On April 21st, 2012, a woman fell unconscious while eating the double bypass burger,

drinking alcohol, and smoking. And finally, all at the same time? Yeah, she'd go for the hat trick. And finally, February, 2013, the unofficial spokesman and daily patron, 54-year-old John Alleman, died of an apparent heart attack while waiting at a bus stop in front of the restaurant. Well, now that's not their fault. What now are they getting blamed? Hold on, I've got to spit some phlegm. Oh, Christ, that's funny.

What time do you think they do the heart attack? What time do they do the heart attack? No, but the guys walking by down the street by the place. How is it their fault he had the heart attack waiting for the bus? I got an official spokesman. Unofficial spokesman and daily patron. Well, uh,

well, well, Vegas was too expensive for this kind of public. service where you get good food at affordable prices and have experiences you couldn't find anywhere else. So we can thank the corporate overlords in Vegas for that. Customers over 350 pounds in weight could eat at the restaurant for free, not including beverages. But see, now that's just a lost leader then because those, you know, those big fat people

after a quadruple bypass, they're going to have to down at least a bucket of beer or fucking two gallons of fucking Coke. And it's like people from Japan sitting in the corner like, which one do you think's the one that will have the heart attack? Is it that one or that one? Hey, that's, it would have been a good training ground for sumo wrestlers. You need to bulk up quick, baby. None of this modern type of skimpy food here, just good fat grease and gravy, the way. God intended it. Each patient donned the hospital gown and wristband before ordering.

Oh, yeah, because, well, no, here's the thing. You get the wristband because that also helps the waiter, or the waitress or whatever identify you. But also, the hospital gown is because everything is so greasy and sloppy when it's fallen out of the fucking burger, and you've taken it to the topping bar, and you put on a pound of bacon and a bunch of pickles and grilled onions and everything.

The hospital gown is like your, your tarp, your burger towel, but you wear it around your neck. So that poor guy had a heart attack? He was already dressed for the hospital. They'd have to, they've wasted no time. They put him right in and took him right there. He's already fucking dread that and had a wristband on. That's the kind of service these people were providing. Those who did not finish their food would receive a paddle spanking by one of the nurses.

with the option to buy the paddle afterwards. They didn't tell me about that. See, now here, I'll tell you something. They didn't, that was not on the Phoenix location. That was not on the menu, or I would have left just a little smid, just a little drave of my quadruple bypass because I had been a bad boy.

But I got the wheelchair ride instead. Well, again, started in 2005, a good run. But I guess they finally had the big one. They didn't, at least they, they didn't even last as long as their spokesman did. That's only 21 years. He was 29. So,

fuck. Well, all right, Brian, I get, now that we can move on from fast food, food news, I just got my new crown. By the way,

I don't know if you can tell. Let's move on from the fast food. news to the police blotter. We've got a legal situation has occurred. And now I'm just, you just told me right before we went on the air that it happened a few weeks ago, people are just hearing about it. But whatever the case, the news has eeked out over the last couple of days, Ludwig Kaiser has been arrested for basically punching some guy out and threatening to fucking

kick his ass further if he had anything bad to say about it. And where did this happen again? What city in the United States? It was in Florida. Let me look that up. It's always in Florida. Orlando. Of course.

Why wouldn't it be? Oh, good Lord. And here's the thing. What was first reported and what I believe, and now some people that have taken this story and run with it, it have now kind of reversed order on some things, claiming that Kaiser and his female accomplice came into the guy's elevator.

But the original reports, based on the police reports, I saw said that the complainant, and I'll let you read the official stuff here to Sagan, but just to boil it down, the complainant walked into the elevator while Kaiser and his female accompanier were being aggressively intimate. And when he got out of the elevator, he said, you know, you guys should get some better manners. And for that, Kaiser halfway beat the shit out of him, told him he was going to go further if he didn't get to fuck out of there.

Basically, it sounds like. And then later on, as I've said, some people have said, some people have said, said, oh, well, they came into the elevator, like groping all over each other, whatever, regardless of the order of entry. Well, Brian, do you want to read the officialness of it there? And then I can tell you why that this is going to be a bunch of bullshit. Well, Jim, I have something here. This has been reported by Sean Ross Sappafeithful.com.

Some of the details from the Ludwig Kaiser or Marcel Barthel, arrest report or affidavit. Richard Reep is the name of the person who was punched. Of course it was. Reap stated he was battered by an unknown white male just outside the elevator on the 12th floor. Reep advised that at approximately 1830 hours, he entered the...

That'd be 6.30 in the evening, for those of you who may have been in the military. He entered the elevator and was followed by an unknown white male and an unknown white female. Reap stated that as the elevator ascended, the male and female began acting in an, and this is a quote, uncontrollably intimate manner, which he described as aggressively kissing.

Reap stated that once the elevator reached the 12th floor. Wait a minute, is that a, is that a felony in Florida, aggressive kissing? Because I'm, I'm afraid I may need to turn myself in a time or time. To. Reap, a self-identified prude. But let's go back to this. Oh, okay.

Even better. Reap stated that once the elevator reached the 12th floor, he exited the elevator and told the couple, quote, to please have some manners. Reep advised that immediately after making the statement, the unknown male began attacking him. Reep described the attack as the male punching him multiple times and pushing him to the ground. Reap further stated the male made threats of additional violence towards him.

Reap advised he believes the suspect is a resident of the apartment building and stated he wished to pursue criminal charges. And this is from the police report again, I observed a large fresh scratch on the back of Reap's head, along with a redness

in the same area, consistent with a recent physical altercation. And there's a mugshot of Marcel Barth a. F. L. F. L.V. Kiser, aka. El Grande, Americano, about to have his biggest match. I think probably ever. What do you, uh, what do you think of, and, and you know what popped me? Also, that's the first time I've heard the self-admitted prude, like, which makes it even better. Oh, no, no, I added that, for the record. That was not. Oh, okay. I thought that was in the police report.

Oh, no, no, no, I'm saying, I clearly, if you get an elevator and two people are making out, and you feel the need to turn around and say something when you get off the elevator? Fuck you, I'm sorry. You can be like, you know, it's kind of rude that these people are fucking or getting ready to in the elevator, but you don't need to get out and turn around and be like, I need to make a statement. You people need manners. Fuck you, Richard Reap.

But here's the other problem is I don't even believe it's that, because there's more to this story. Because I've seen guys through the years make issues in fucking hotels and And then also I've seen people make issues with guys at hotels where there weren't any or shouldn't have been any. And depending on, in this case, it's not a he said, she said, it's a he said only, and we haven't heard what the reply is. But here's the thing. This is not goddamn Ming. This is not got to hawk the road warrior.

This is not one of the boys in the 80s out partying. This is a guy who is in his mid-30s, and apparently now we know for sure, because they've run him, has no criminal record anywhere, and is, like you said, on the best run of his life, and is not going out and looking for trouble, and that nobody's ever had anything to say that he's a problem of any kind.

Well, you know, one person did. One person called him a lot of names. Right around the period of time this fight happened, one person also named Richard was running his mouth about Ludwig Kaiser. Who? What? Rick Flair. Oh, my God.

Okay, but you know what? I'm talking legitimately. What the fuck? You're killing me here. But the point is, the fucking guy in the elevator whether he was bothered by them kissing it wasn't a blow job was anybody naked

what is his problem anyway but I guarantee you that the verbiage and this will come out probably hopefully when they adjudicate this thing if they don't just outright dismiss it I guarantee you the verbiage was not, please.

That's probably not the first word. And it certainly wasn't all the words. Because this is a guy that probably fucking bowed up and fucking said some shit he shouldn't have said to start something with Kaiser for Kaiser to leave what he was doing, which was obviously more fun than what he was about to do. and to go and goddamn punch this fucking guy out?

Was it directed at just, oh, you guys? Or did he make a sideways comment about the young lady or whatever? This is not like a Sputnik-Manroe story where he was using bad language in front of a woman and the cowboy

decked him or whatever the fuck. It's just some guy stepping out of line and obviously Kaiser felt like he had to do something about it. He'd never been in trouble before. Why would he want to get in trouble for this bullshit? It's 6.30 in the evening, and in his own elevator, it is own apartment building.

It's not like in the goddamn elevator of the airport, Marriott and Philly at fucking 2 a.m. So suddenly, for no reason, this guy flips out and starts punching people. No, I think Reaper had a full. fucking mouth on him and he ran it in some fashion and again if Kaiser was going to hurt him seriously i haven't seen a picture of this guy but i would have a hard time to believe that if Kaiser wanted to hurt him the only thing he'd have is a scratch on his neck he might be holding his head under his arm if Kaiser had wanted to hurt him so maybe it was more of an attitude to just

thing like whack and here would you like six more you could get to fuck out of here and quit running your dick liquor good day just the so I don't just I'm sorry but I just don't think that anybody ought to be

slandering this fucking guy on the internet based on some fucking goof that didn't like him kissing his girlfriend in an elevator and I've heard so many of these in lawsuits the remember remember the guy that came over the rail and tackled Bobby Eaton that I cracked over the head

and Altona in the paper. He said I was standing at the railing, taking photos. Bligh, whatever. Go ahead. Yeah, you go up in the elevator with a couple that are at it, even if it's a 12th floor, you get out and you say, have a good night. You don't get out and make a speech. You don't get out and say, oh, I think I have time before the elevator door closes to say

something obnoxious. well and also we don't know and and nothing matters and what if it did but we don't know how aggressively they were because any fucking grown man that says they were what was the quote not aggressively intimate but uncontrollably intimate uncontrollably intimate sounds like he hadn't seen a lot of uncontrollable intimacy if he thinks they were doing it in a fucking elevator while he was standing there Sounds like he may be uncontrollably celibate. That's, and

therein might lie, part of the problem. Jealous? Are you jally? But it's just, you know, this is, I'm sure the office will not penalize him or, or take this seriously in terms of a

problem with Kaiser's behavior. But it's just fucking ridiculous. Yeah, nevertheless. Ludwig, we, we, we applaud. you for being uncontrollably intimate. And we will wait to hear the clarification and the vindication and the thing of your, I'm sure that you will get off, Kaiser.

Let's just put it that way. And we're going to watch the mask versus mask match, right? Yes. When is that happening? I think it's the 30th. Well, keep me apprised on that. I'll set that on my calendar. Should WWE, or do you think they will penalize them in any way,

or do you think they'll see this the way we kind of do? I don't. I don't think they will. Well, Jesus Christ, Dana White slapped his wife in public on video. So, but no, I think they will see this is some fucking asshole stepping out of line in one of the boys, probably more chance than not, taken up for his betrothed. or whatever. You know, those women, though, they can be feisty too, Brian.

If you say the wrong thing to a woman, you know what she's going to do? She's going to hit you over the head with a frying pan. You've seen those movies, haven't you? How do you, the Maul and Paul Kettle? What did Maugh Kettle always do to Paul if Paul got out of line? She whacked him over the head with a frying pan. You know what you can't do anymore? You can't hit people over the head with a frying pan.

if you're a hex-clad customer, because our friends at X-clad make pans and pots and a variety of implements, well, Jesus, these things, they're lethal weapons. This would be like a safe falling on your head. These things are built to last.

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but also oven safe up to 900 degrees. I didn't know that my oven went up to 900 degrees. What have you ever cooked, Brian, at 900 degrees? I didn't know my oven, I don't think my oven can go up to that high. Well, it needs to, because we got to melt one of these sunbishes just to see how far it will go. But I'll tell you what, folks, Hexclad has changed the game by combining the performance of stainless steel with the convenience of non-stick all in one pan or in the case of the Hexclad 12-piece set, a bunch of pans.

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And they're all coming with a lifetime warrant. You won't be any SARS. Let's just correct that. Well, whatever the thing is that I'll be getting there. It's when you char, it's what I'm looking for. Sears and chars. There you go. I guess the SARS is another thing completely.

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Well, you can cook, you can cook your ass off. You can cook anybody's goose. Hey, good looking, what you got cooking? Well, it's good looking because it's hex clad. See, I'm just trying out all these various ladies. They're going to pick one up and pay me royalty. I think you're being uncontrollably intimate about your hexclad here. We need to get to the point.

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Well, you have time to take advantage of this great deal. Once again, hexclad.com slash JCE. time time everlasting time to blay b sides time ain't on my side so we should move along all right all right we'll settle down cowboy for a second because we've got to talk about something serious here on the program it was a few days ago the news came out as a matter of fact I heard before I even saw on the internet my old friend downtown Bruno Harvey Whippleman called and left me a message. He had just sent me a card and a blah, blah, blah,

and I got his email address, long story. But nevertheless, he left me a message. I just wanted you to know if you hadn't heard Phil Hickerson passed away, and he was 79 years old. And that made the news here over the last couple of days because, I mean, let's face it, obviously, because of the time frame that he worked. and as we'll talk about he had an interruption in his wrestling career

and he didn't travel but it made news because for one thing let's face it, any wrestler that dies now kind of gets news because it gets clicks, but also, you know, Dennis Condry had just passed away

what hadn't even been two months ago. So they were kind of linked in everybody's mind. But Phil, actually started a couple of years before Dennis did. He was, I guess, four years older, give or take, whatever the birthdays were. And I don't really know. Now that I think about it, and I don't know if even Scott Teal has done like a little bio or anything or Ed Diver did a long form interview with Phil, but I don't know really

the details on how he broke in. it was in the early 70s and I don't know if he may have done a little outlaw work but he didn't start with the Goulas office until 74 and being from Jackson, Tennessee, he had moved away for a while. He was in the service for a while in the 60s. but I have to think that Herb Welch had some part to play in it because Herb Welch out of Dyersburg was still in those days was still wrestling a few local matches and ran Blytheville, Arkansas and broke guys in and that type of thing.

And Phil was a couple of years before Wayne Ferris, Honky Talk man, David Schultz. I think he was a, Phil was a year before David Schultz with Herb Welch and Danny Davis, nightmare Danny Davis, not the referee Danny Davis. Those guys all were broken in at that period of time by either Buddy Fuller or Herb Welch. And I don't know exactly what triggered something, but I went back and looked at my records. And the first time I ever saw Phil Higgerson wrestle, was on a TV, one of Nick Gulles's TVs that aired here in Louisville in like a March-ish of 1974, and he did a job for Bearcat Brown.

And suddenly, by the beginning of July, they had brought him into the Memphis territory and paired him up with Al Green, and he was managed by Sam Bass. so he may have done, you know, a few jobs around the territory or on TV or whatever, but almost instantly somebody said, wait a minute, we got to use this fucking guy. And that's why I say, I don't know how much, you know, experience he might have had on some kind of outlaw show in, you know, Maldon, Missouri or whatever. But pretty much as soon as he started with Goulis Welch, he was a main of. event guy. It was almost immediate. And the thing is, and I know people are going to, we'll talk about our friend Mason Rook here shortly, but fat guys in wrestling. Well, but Phil

Hickerson, the reason, one of the reasons why they teamed him with Al Green was because they both looked the same. Brian, you've seen the publicity pictures. They were both like five, ten, five, 5-11, 260 pounds, big broad arms, big fucking chest and big bellies, mean faces, and they looked like they kicked the shit out of you. I mean, just, you know, it was a completely different presentation, but for Tennessee wrestling, it worked perfectly because they wanted big, mean, ugly heels. And Al Green had been a star for almost 20 years at that point. Don and Al Green were probably the most steady, consistent heel team drawing money in Tennessee

for like 10 years from 57 to the late 60s. And then Al had gotten a drinking problem. And Nick Goulis switched Don Green baby face and used him as a single and with other baby face partners for years. and Al kind of didn't get booked. And then one day, Jerry Jarrett told me a story himself. He saw Al came to the office trying to get booked. And he knew Al had problems, you know, et cetera.

They sat down and Jerry Jarrett said, Al, because he loved the greens like he loved the Fargoes, right, Jared. When he was, that was his formative teenage years where he was starting to figure out what was going on. those were the guys. So he told Al Green, if he would promise to quit drinking, he would bring him to the Memphis territory and use him. And so he used him.

At that point, maybe it took about a year, and Al Green and Jackie Fargo was the first complete sellout for wrestling in the Mid-South Coliseum in 1972. So he revitalized Al Green's career. and with Don working again mostly with Nick and a baby face Jared put Hickerson with Al Green as Al was starting to wind his in ring career down because that way here's a veteran that can teach you blah blah blah and they gave him Sam Bass as a manager at the same time as Sam Bass was managing Lawler

in his first main event run so it was like Bobby Heenan and Bachwinkle is the AWA champion and the tag team champions too. And it gave him credibility. And that lasted about, I would say about a year before Al was kind of tapering off to maybe become a manager. And that's when he started teaming with Dennis. But do you want to know the first time that I ever saw Phil Higgerson live in person, Brian, and I hadn't even realized this until I looked back.

Yeah. May 14th, 1974, the very first wrestling card I ever went to live in my life at the Louisville Gardens, which was then called the Convention Center. And do you know what the match was? Let me give you the rest of the card and I'll give you Higgerson's match. Charlie Fulton and Frank Morell, who I would later go on to manage in Georgia as the Angel, with their manager Sir Steve Clements against Eddie Marlin and Don Green,

the Infernos with their manager, J.C. Dykes against Bearcat Brown and Derek Lewis, the Southern Junior Heavyweight title, Matt, it hadn't become the heavyweight title yet. Tommy Gilbert, who was the... challenger with Eddie Marlin in his corner against Jerry Lawler, who was the champion, with his manager Sam Bass, and a 15-man battle royal. And that's how I talked my mom into going to, it had taken me to go see it because I made her promise if there was ever a battle royal

she'd take me, right? And then she found out later on in the Tennessee territory, they booked battle royals like every fucking six weeks. But guess what Hickerson's match was? singles or tag tag team match 74 you're not going to get it i'm not going to make you try i'm going to guess to joe was in it no ricky gibson robert gibson's older brother and at the time he was about to be the top baby face to territory and jerry jarritt who had been the top baby face in louisville and was the booker against phil higgerson who they just had to come in to do it

job and his partner was Lou Thess. Wow. Wow. At the time, Thes was a heel. He had a little heel run in Tennessee at that time period because, again, like Jared, like the greens of the Fargoes, he loved Lou Thess as the, in the 50s and 60s as the epitome of a world champion, the way he carried himself and et cetera.

Well, now Fez is like 58 years old, and he had had some financial issue, whether it's a real estate thing and the apartments in Phoenix or the horse, whatever. Powertown. It wasn't Powertown, but he needed, you know, some work. And Jared brought him in, and he didn't fit the territory, but at the same point, he still had credibility and gave the business credibility. to have him on a card, but he was a heel for some period of time by just being a rough Luthez. But he still didn't do any of the shenanigans, but there were some amazing fucking combinations. And again, there was, you know, Ricky Gibson is thinking, my God, I'm in a ring with Luthis.

And Gibson was about to be the Lawler's opponent for the Southern title. But that was the first time I saw him. that was the first time I saw the Loch Ness Monster but that's that's a thing is he was a good worker pretty quickly and he did what you believed he didn't do shit that you know just to be able to do it that you didn't believe that he was doing but he still he came off the top rope with a big leg drop

and double leg he didn't drop a leg like Bobby Eaton he would fucking either jump up in the middle of the ring or come off the ropes, the turnbuckles, with a goddamn double leg drop with that big giant ass landing right on the one side of the guy and it bounced the ring and looked like it

killed a son of a bitch. And he was the first guy that I saw do not a clothes line, but the flying clothesline thing where he put his arm around a guy's neck as he came off the ropes and kick his feet out and fucking drag the guy down. He could move

for his size. There There's a tape from a Memphis match in like 76 when he and Condry and Lawler were a six man where they fucking drop-kicked Hickerson and he just spun over the fucking top rope like a top at 100 miles an hour and then grabbed the top rope and spun right back over and came right back in.

So he could move around, but he threw fists and kicks and backdrops and body slams. and just beat you up. And the promos, again, it wouldn't have worked in New York or California or Canada or whatever. People might not have understood what he was saying. But with that fucking West Tennessee accent

and the emotion he had, and when he was a heel, the surly way he delivered shit and the fucking facial expressions, but also just that you believed every word that he said. And he was just the epitome of a bully. Everybody in any southern state knew an old cantankerous, fat ham-fisted

fuck like that that was always getting in fights and cussing people out. And he just magnified it. And it especially, again, with Dennis, which was such a contrast because he was 225 pounds in a fucking paisley singlet with bleach platinum hair

and like, you know, they didn't know what fucking thing. And, oh, a couple of corrections. Al Green and Phil Higgerson never worked as the team of the Sherman tanks. I've seen that in obituaries. That was a line from the baby faces. that Tojo Yamamoto is one I heard say it,

but he called him the tank brother, Sherman and Septic. It was a fucking, and then Sam Bass might have said, well, there are Sherman tanks, but they never build them that way. But as I said, you know, they wanted to do things with Phil. So there was a period of time after Al semi-retired or whatever he did, they switched him baby face to work with George Barnes and Bill Dundee in the early part of 75. And then he was a fiery fucking baby face.

Not a fiery, you know, good looking underneath Ricky Morton baby face, but he fucking, he could fight. And they had nice matches, but that's about the time he got hooked up with Dennis. And by the fall, they were working with the Fargoes. and they had that run that we discussed, you know, when we talked about Dennis a couple months ago. But then I mentioned when we talked about Dennis that Phil, it was late 78, he had some kind of injury or health issue. And at one point it said it was a knee, whatever,

where they did an angle where he was pile driven on a concrete and blah, blah, blah. And he was gone for like the next fucking six years. And he quit a business at that point to deal with whatever it was that he had. But he also, he had a business in Jackson, Tennessee. You ran a nightclub. And then he got a spot as a radio personality on Jackson Radio and did that for years and years and years. And so it wasn't like after the initial run he had with Dennis, where they traveled all around the, you know, Tennessee territories, all three of them and

circled around there, he was always able to remain somewhat in Tennessee. And so he picked up with all those things. But when he came back, what was it, 85 in Memphis, he came back still doing these things in Jackson and having the other businesses and just didn't want to travel. so when the territory started you know there wasn't really any money and i say he just said i'll just step back again but for that period a lot of time he was a baby face and you remember the promo he cut on when they brought sting and warrior in as the freedom fighters and the the biggest attitude sting didn't really know what to fuck but for all from all accounts i've heard from

everybody he was a nice enough guy but warrior was the one had somewhat of an attitude and they weren't smart to the business really and i don't know if warrior ever got that way but when they first came in hickerson was a baby face and they switched them heel and put them with buddy wayne as their manager try to train them to do something remember when i came home christmas of 85 and went to the gardens it was lawler and dundee in a 30-minute draw with the blade runners or whatever they were after they were the freedom fighters. And that was the worst match I've ever seen either one of the Lawler or Dundee in and the curtains were sold out on both sides because they were just so bad, so bad.

So they did the thing that we're going to do a thing with Hickerson was a baby face. And Warrior actually asked, I don't know who it was, because I heard the story from Randy Hales, couple other guys, but whether it was Guy coffee or whether he might have been Jerry Jarrett. They asked, well, why, why should we let this guy, this fat guy win? And they had to tell Warrior that that fat guy over in the corner could kick the shit out of both of you guys if you piss him off and it's a fucking work. So smarten up. So then Higgerson comes out and cuts the promo on live TV and said, the only thing,

thing you two are good for us sticking steroids in your booties. I have some audio here if you'd like to play it, Jim. Oh my God, I sure would. Of course I would. From December 7, 1985, Memphis Wrestling TV, it's Lance Russell interviewing the freedom fighters who have just turned heel, Jim Hellwig and Steve Borden, when Phil Hickerson comes out.

Let's go to this. We've been at the top of the card yet with some of the top guys. It's Phil Hickerson. Well, it takes a little time. Jim, I mean, you know, this doesn't happen overnight. Well, we understand we're a little green and new to the area and stuff like that, but when you take in account what we look like our physiques and the rock-hard muscle that we're carrying, you know, that should add up to some of the disadvantages compared to, you know, the fat people,

the king of all the fast food restaurants, Jerry Lawler, and Phil Hickerson spends his days. He never goes to the gym, never seen the inside of a gym. Yeah, but he's held a lot of titles now. Let me make that difference right there, that Hickerson, and I have always agreed with him, but the son of a gun has been at it a long time, Jim, and you and Steve, I think, got to take that in. I'll shot. I think they're probably in a hurry, Phil, and... Hey, man, I ain't got nothing against you, you know, and since y'all've been here, I've been trying to hit y'all, you know.

I've been talking, everything. You ain't got no rights to come out here and say, hey, I hadn't seen the inside of a gym, and I'm fat, and then I said you don't have a right to say that. Let me tell you something. You know the reason why you had to wrestle against Lawler and any, like Dundee, Mantell, myself, or Coco, the reason you two have not ruffled in them matches because you're green and you don't know how to wrestle.

The only thing you know how to do, brother, is to pull them fritzers down and put them steroids that booty. That's the only thing that you do, he did it, no. You know, this 22 is John. I'm going to put your head in there and smash it like I'm got you some men. Don't scare me one damn bit, brother, because the one thing about it, I can wrestle and I can fight, and that's something that you can't do. You can't do either once, and that's the reason why you're going to rest of your damn life. All right, sir, I think they heard it out there. I think they got the point.

You don't have no rights to come out here and say anything about anybody, brother. Yeah, we do. We have a lot of rights. All the help and stuff that you can. That's right. Yeah, I'm telling you. Right now, boy. Let's go. Let's go. Well, stop it there. Things are getting out of control in the studio, but there it is Phil Hickerson coming out there.

And Hellwig, it's weird. He has, like, his arms in front of him, and he's kind of bobbing back and forth. You can tell he's kind of rocked. Like, there's no comeback from, you're taking steroids. Yeah, well, they were so uncomfortable, as you heard in their voice,

they couldn't, in the ring, they were awkward. They were unconscious, or unconscious. He actually, self-conscious and awkward and on the promos they didn't know what to do and they're trying to insult people like they've been told to and it just, you know,

and then here's it comes in, it just blows them away. And then they did the angle where they, he tried, as I recall, tried as best he could for a little while to fucking have some kind of match there and they got some heat and

it was just, it was brutal. So that's why that, you know, they didn't even last in Memphis because it just, everybody saw through them at that point. The fans, I mean, it was just like it was so bad. But nevertheless, and Phil, I should say, also he had singles runs there at that time. And I remember when we went back for one of the Great American Bass shows where Crockett worked with Jared in Memphis, he was. come. Who did the song Party Train?

Oh, God damn it. It was a fucking early 80s soul fucking classic, but there was Phil dressed up in a goddamn tuxedo tail jacket and coming out to this fucking, it wasn't, was it cooling the gang? The Gap Band, Party Train. And the fucking black fans loved him. And here's, he's a goddamn redneck from West Tennessee. but he was just he was a personality and how much of uh because you were obviously working and

busy and eventually in the office but how much of the p y chew high run did you get to see oh i saw some and that was the period of time also he had come back i think that may be what running off was the travel when jared it was working with dallas and they went to they took the crew they had a bus or they actually bused the guy from Memphis to Dallas and back to make it more palatable, but they were trying to revive the Sportatorium, and Tojo was being used as a manager, and P.Y. Chu Hai was a takeoff on P.Y. Chung,

which was Tojo's name in the Carolinas years before. But Phil Higgerson was impersonating or masquerading as a new Oriental, cohort of Tojo's that he had brought in or whatever. And it was kind of a rib. And also, to be honest, while I always enjoyed Phil as a personality as his personality himself, but at that point, he was just 79,

so I'm trying to do round math, but he was in his early 40s at that point and had already, you know, his best days in the ring were passed. I think between, again, 76 and 78, there were very few heel teams in the business that could touch Hickerson, Condry for just having an exciting match. I'm not talking about doing all the moves that Stevens and Patterson could do, but as far as tearing a house down with a tag team match with a variety of styles of opponents,

they just did great shit. Just great shit. He was supposed to be at the Night of Legends, the Smoky Mountain Wrestling Night of Legends. Oh, really? As one of the guests, but I can't remember now whether it, because of, I believe it was his radio gig at the time,

or whatever, the business, he either couldn't get away in time to get there or couldn't get back from Knoxville in time to get back to work or whatever and didn't get to come. But, but anyway, What did I miss? I think he covered pretty much everything.

The Spirit of 76, Phil Hickerson. Oh, and that's another thing. They did do, he and Dennis did do the Bicentennial Kings, which I think basically was instigated by Phil getting the most ridiculous set of tights. Because imagine here is, when he was with Al Green, and especially after Higgerson and Green dropped a hair match, I think, to Tommy Gilbert and Eddie Marlin, he and Al Green both had big, thick, dark beards and mustaches and bald

heads and big hairy chests and bellies, right? And just looked like that. And then by, he did it in late 75 when he and Dennis had first started teaming, he bleached his hair platinum blonde and long, and I think shaved most of the facial hair off and had like a double tank top, candy striped top made in red and white with blue trunks and the red and white striped tights and just a red, white and blue outfit and a headband, the flag headband or whatever, and did the Bicentennial Kings because all the news at the time was coming up on the Bicentennial. and that was before Big Bad John

came in as a bicentennial baby doing the same thing except in an Uncle Sam top hat and the tails and the whole thing. But have I dispelled all the Phil Hickerson rumors at this point? I think so and again there was those gaps in his career

and he didn't travel so he's not as well known as he probably should be but you look at some of the big guys from that era or a little bit after it like Jerry Blackwell Phil Hickerson didn't go everywhere. Jerry Blackwell went to so many different places. Phil Hickerson didn't.

Again, it was a look. Well, I'll tell you what, Hickerson also would be cussing of you right now because he was saying, the fucking Blackwell outweighed me by 150 pounds. Well, he looked at her, I guess. Yeah, well, no, but that's, no, Phil, see, that's the thing, is Higgerson just looked like that big guy at the fucking truck stop that would just beat the fuck out.

of you. And that's why the people believed him. And he made it sound like that. And he could. He wasn't like a fucking wrestling shooter. But, you know, don't piss him off. But he fit the part and talked apart. And that's the thing. And now when you look at pictures and, you know, they say to me, Cornynett, everybody's got to look like an athlete. Well, now the standard, yes. That's the thing is even

Hickerson probably wouldn't be able to get over now, especially not on a national basis. Just simply, he wouldn't get the opportunity that they gave him then because he just looked like he could beat the shit out of somebody. Anyway, I hate to see him go to. But nevertheless, you know what else I hate to see, Brian? I hate to see Mason Rook's NXT in-ring debut,

but I saw it anyway. because we just finished talking about Phil Eggerson and fat guys and Crusher Blackwell and some people, have you seen the people, try to tell me that I shouldn't be knocking old Mason Rook? Because, well, you managed Vader. Can somebody please fucking stand a picture of Vader next to a picture of Mason Rook? And tell me what the fuck you're talking.

talking about they have been competitive it's like when you criticize marco stunted everyone said well you like ray mysterio yeah exactly or they what about dusty i know that everybody you know doesn't do their homework but dusty was only pleasantly plump until the late 70s when he got over even more than but he was already a star for 10 years and and there was a whole lot of difference in the verbal delivery, as well as the overall psychology of the man. But nevertheless, they are comparing this guy to some of the more famous, I saw a Bam Bam Bigelow comparison, but some of the more famous big men in history. So when we heard that he was going to have his in-ring debut on the NXT show,

the match was Miles Bourne and Tony Dangelo against Cam Hendrix and Mason Rook. I said, okay, I saw Crusher Blackwell in his prime athletic years when the bell would ring and he would win in the first two minutes blow you away and people, and same thing with Bam Bam Bigelow, saw that too. and I've seen other athletic big men, as we've mentioned in the past, and all kinds of people that make an impact and get over and people's jaws drop on first sight of them.

They compared, there was a Yocuzuna. Somebody compared him to Yocuzuna. So I said, I'll watch this, and I will wait to be amazed. And I'm still waiting. Folks, it's not the weight of the man. It's the entirety of the presentation. And I don't know if the loved child of Chas Bono and Roseanne Barr

can clear that hurdle. I'm not sure of his sexual orientation, but I believe his pronouns are gravy and cholesterol. He's got the Pirates disease, a sunken chest. What'd you think of his gear? I don't. This visual, this Dennis Corleuzo would be embarrassed to book this guy in Vineland, New Jersey, if he was selling tickets.

It looks like a fan just wandered in with his fantasy wrestling costume. But I was okay. I was waiting to be impressed by what everybody says is. these blowaway moves and athleticism and blah, blah, blah. He got in, he traded blah punches that nobody sold with D'Angelo. He couldn't do a body slam. He jerked the guy up, hooked his head, and slammed him on his left hip. And I know there are a lot of proponents of the head hooking.

Have I gone past everybody? Well, explain. When you pick a guy up. for a body slam and your left your right arm is in between the guy's legs right and your left arm has him around the shoulder and neck and you pick him up the traditional way and the way that most of the old timers did it was to turn the guy over and slam him like that but it became a thing oh a mere 30 years ago or so ago but now it's it's more common where once they would pick the guy up the guy that's slamming him would take his left hand and let go of underneath the guy's chest

to put it behind the guy's head and turn him over that way on the theory that, oh, well, you want to turn him over nice and flat so you don't slam him wrong, ignoring the fact that whether the guy's posted up or not and you're sweaty, you've let the fucking guy go in midair. and that scared the fuck out of me the first time somebody did it to me and I don't like it. How about that? But besides that, he slammed him out his leg,

he just spun him up and slammed him on his left hip. The fuck. And then he's doing this thing where he puts the guy on his back and cannonballs the guy into the fucking turnbuckles. And I don't know if I'd be taking that. from that fat ass either. Because there's a lot of things that can go wrong and you're

also traveling at a high rate of speed with your neck in a compromised position. And also, while I'm on a subject, he and his partner went, he and his partner went shoot the guy off for a double elbow. And the fucking partner hit the guy with the elbow and Mason

Rook was three feet short and just stood there and looked at him go down. So the other three guys had an okay green guys tag team match and they look like athletes but this looks like somebody tagged in the stay puff man it's just him and he did a head palm shoot off for fuck sake the only other thing he could have done is fucking jump in a voting booth and vote for trump to make me hate this fucking guy oh and when he when he's made a save after his his partner was being covered by DeAngelo or whatever, he just jumped up and landed on both of them in their

fucking stomach. So this guy needs a lot of fucking work. And to be able to control that big ass that he's throwing around. So the finish, he hit the guy with a Death Valley driver and covered him, but his partner had tagged in, unbeknownst, and he pushed Mason off and covered him. And Mason stared at him while he got the three. account. So there's obviously

he was making a pouty face at the partner behind him so there was obviously heat and then later on oh Cam I get he came out to cut a promo about how great he was and Mason Rook came back out in sweatpants

and a goddamn ill-fitting sweatshirt or some top like a fucking mooch out of the goddamn parking lot and turned on the guy, well, didn't turn on him, he's already mad at him, and just beat him up and hit him with the thing. Why do they let him in front of a camera with, he shouldn't take a mug shot in street clothes?

That just may, oh my God, this is embarrassing. I'm sorry, your thoughts. When they signed him, I saw photos, and I saw photos of him with his previous name, he had longer hair. Can't do anything about the baby face right now unless he wears a mask or, you know, grows facial hair suddenly. It doesn't look like that.

What about a good car accident where he's thrown face first through the windshield? Yeah, I wouldn't recommend that. I wouldn't recommend that, but... I'm just trying to help. The point is, he got this haircut, and he doesn't look scary or tough or imposing, whether he is or isn't, whether they think he is or isn't. he doesn't come across and it's just bizarre that they would immediately put him in there and this is the big push he's been beating up Tony DiAngelo his first match to this tag match there were a few points in there where he ducked something and he went for a clothesline

and the guy was just ready it was like they've rehearsed everything nothing felt natural and you know he didn't blow me away you know the way like you said others have Now, others usually the first time you see him but was in a squash match and they really were impressive. But he's a big guy doing the moves other guys do, and I can't tell how tall he is. How tall is he? I don't honestly know.

How tall is a fucking bowling pin? Apparently he's six foot four. Oh, bullshit. Bullshit. Apparently he's 29 years old. Holy Christ! he's either going to live to be 150

or he's got that Benjamin Button disease what the fuck that's 29 years old he'd get carted to buy bubble gum what in the world shocked I did not know

I'm still telling you the Chernobyl Cherub the 11 year old mutant from Chernobyl is the only gimmick and he needs to come out there and almost talk baby talk Like he, you've been mean to me, big man. I crush.

And that would get over. And they could, they could even, they could put the Geiger counter on the screen. When he comes out and they can glow the whole arena. The whole arena starts glowing green, right? And the green lights. And then they got the Geiger counter on a screen. And then as soon as he comes out, it fucking, it flat lines off the charts. And the fucking shit starts.

starts melting and here he comes, the Chernobyl chair of the giant fucking mutant 11-year-old. Yeah, and that was the highlight of NXT. Beyond that, it's an awful show. I don't care what anyone says. Let me read you some of these names that we could see appearing on NXT. We got Keelani Jordan, Izzy Dame, Lola Vice. I got a minute, that one's got a little kick to it. Kindle Gray, Renn Sinclair, Romeo and know them, I don't know who the fuck they are.

Layla, Diggs, and Jada Parker, Tristan Angels, Romeo Marino. What the fuck is this? Wait a minute. Lizzie Rain, we saw her, Tatum Paxley,

didn't she get an Oscar was starring in Paper Moon That's Tatum O'Neill Oh, okay She was brilliant as a child actress Bad News Barretted Yeah, Tatum Paxley not so much Kinnonu

Kino Carver Tate Wilder What the hell Sequan Sugars and Dionne Lennox is a tag team, Ricky smokes and Brad Baylor. Yeah. I'm sorry we're missing all that.

That's a shame. Well, Brian, you know, the thing is, poor old Mason Rook, the one kind of constant thing that I've been noticing since he's debuted on TV when he came in and did the run in and moonsaulted the guy. And he had the giant 18-inch plumbers crack, almost lost his drawers when he come off the ropes and his belly flopped out another time when he did the other thing in street clothes and then just this this past show we were just talking about where he came out and street clothes he he looked kind of like a fucking explosion in a Salvation Army dropbox

he needs better clothing that's that's the problem because you know if you're a really full let's say you're an athletically sized guy Brian you know the athlete you know the athlete size where you've got bigger, bigger things in some places. Well, you know what it's like to have a bigger thing in some places. And sometimes these athletic guys are also just downright fat, just corpulent, just out of shape. You're goddamn just big. And when you're trying to wear blue jeans or any type of clothing, it has to be baggy or elsewise, it's just, it's every time you sit down and your shit spreads south, well,

you're just cutting your blood flow off and you're restricting your testicular fortitude up in your sacks so bad that you'll never have grandchildren. You've been there, haven't you, Brian? You lost me somewhere around the bend, no. Well, nevertheless, the point is, normally fat people would just prefer to just walk around naked

because all of their pants are just pulling and catching at them in the wrong directions and they're binding up into cracks and crevices in the grand canyons of your mind. they pull at the crotch, they dig at the waist. You can't squat. You cannot squat down and have a full squat in most blue jeans these days. I think that no, everybody will agree with that because they're too stiff and they'll cut you.

They'll cut you like a knife. Well, our friends at the perfect gene, they ain't going to do that because they make fake jeans. See, here's the thing. They looks like genes, but they ain't genes, because they're made out of better material. And they make different fits. And they have you pick whichever kind of body type that you have so that if there's certain code words, if you go to the perfect gene. dot

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And these things, they're soft and they wash just fine, but they're already broken in. No pull when you squat or dig when you sit or when you bend, you can still breathe. That's why they're the person. perfect gene. Brian, you as a gene wearer, because most people know I go around pantless most the time, I'm in my own home, free to pursue a life free from testicular restriction, but you have children, so you wear clothes. Yeah, hence no video, ladies and gentlemen,

but yes, that's true, and these jeans are comfortable. The perfect gene is comfortable and wonderful, and I'm very grateful that I have these because sometimes you want to wear jeans, but it's hot out, Or you want, like you said, to do a million squats. Yeah. Whatever the situation. Sometimes you just want to bend over every once in a while. You see, normally, Brian is, since he's a trophy husband, he goes to all these school functions with his wife and he's got these really tight jeans on to show off his physique. Well, he wants to have some goddamn breathing room.

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well you know who was based in portland maine this past week our friends over at a e w and i know somebody's going to say bright oh no oh no he's gone back on his word he's started watching this dog and pony show again no we have had a morbid fascination with keeping track of how bad they're bungling up their world title picture and since this was the go home show for their big pay-per-view extravamaganza this coming weekend. I thought they'll really probably shit the bed here, so I wanted to see what went on with the World Title Picture with Darby Allen and MJF.

And of course, I had to zip through a lot to get there, Brian. So I do apologize if I make a couple of random comments. But old Chris Jericho now, He is teaming up with the Buccaroos and has got matching ring gear made. It is dressing up like the kids. And it's on a much more small-scale basis, it's kind of like when the road warriors were so popular and Dusty would team with him and a six-man,

he'd wear the paint, or if he'd team with the rock and roll, when they were the hottest, he'd wear the bandanas. But now Jericho's dressing like one of the, the buckaroos so he can leach off the heat of the kitty wrestlers that the kiddie wrestlers like, but he's, that time has already passed that they like those kiddie wrestlers, hadn't it, the buckaroos, so shouldn't he be trying to leach off of somebody more popular these days? Maybe he's not leaching off people anymore. Maybe he's just really going with the flow, but still contributing his bad ideas and willing to

participate in bad, bad segments, like whatever the pre-recorded thing with him and the Bucks was here. Awful. Well, terrible. Stop doing skits. They had to have a six-man tag for a reason to run in the other eight guys that's in their 14-man tag team match that they're going to have this weekend. And the highlight of which apparently I had to stop it and back it up, this is why I saw that

Jungle Jackoff came in and hit one of the heels over the head with a back. of onions. A bag of fucking onions. Is Portland Maine the onion capital of the world or something? Or has he just become a vegetarian? I don't know. Anyway, so they went all over the arena and gave him the pay-per-view match for free, and it was about a half an hour into the show before that was over with.

And then I said, oh, I'm going to have to watch something, because the next match was Tomaso Champa against Mark Brisco. Oh, this fucking thing. There's no way you watched any of this. Well, no, I'm like, hey, two of the best talents on the roster, grown men, oh wait, it had to be a garbage match. And by the time the bell rang, they had a garbage can, Kendo sticks, a lead pipe, a cookie sheet, and a ring.

And as I hit the fast forward button, Tomaso was pulling out another garbage can, more Kendo sticks. and got his hand caught in a mousetrap. So that eliminated my interest in those two gentlemen that I've been a fan of their work for many, many years, like Joe Franklin. By the way, two guys who are not involved in anything that's a priority right now with the company and you're building up a pay-per-view, even if you were going to do this match,

why do it here? Like, nothing that matters for the pay-per-view is early in the show. I know you could say Stadium Stampede, but that segment and that match was not good. But no MJF, no Will Osprey, no Darby Allen, not even Moxley. It's all this stuff. This is a go-home show.

The first hour. They don't treat it like that. Yeah. Well, no, also in the first hour. They had one more thing in the first hour. Swerved, came out for a promo, and Bandito jumped him in the entranceway and just beat the shit.

out of him. And then swerve turned it around and beat shit out of him and the fans were just staring and then bandito turned it around and beat up swerve. And what was the awkward moment where they tossed a chair back and forth

to each other and the fans were dead silent because they couldn't figure out what was happening and then swerve just rolled out and left. Makes you really excited for that match at the pay-per-view. Oh, that was the first hour, so I don't know what they were doing there.

But then, at least on a second hour, we got a big star. Dick the Boozer. They had an eliminator match for the Continental title shot thingy that they do. Moxley versus Kyle O'Reilly. Did they not do this several months ago and O'Reilly beat him and then nothing ever happened again? I think he beat him twice and then Kyle O'Reilly got hurt. I think he was going to be in the Continental Classic Tournament, and he got hurt, so he got replaced, and now he's back, and they found a way to somehow make this show even worse.

And do it all over again, a 20-minute draw. They already made Kyle meaningless. I like Kyle. I like his style. It's different. But that horse left the barn when they just beat him like a drum when he first came in and put him in the comedy. group. And they've got one of the

heels that's training the top baby face for the stadium show this summer and they go 20 minutes Moxley can't beat him and Kyle gets a title shot. And we're at 9.30. These are the fans like at the Billy Joel concert in Russia.

Like before they did that they dance, they just sit there and stare. There was no there was no energy from the crowd for any of this. And it went a long time and this show was a bad go-home show, a bad, bad, bad, bad-go-home show. Bad show, bad show.

I'm going to get the newspaper. So then they had the World Title match, which, again, they threw a wrench in their, what there should have been their plans for their big stadium, which is not selling like hotcakes. Do they have hotcakes in England? I'm not sure. not selling like blood pudding, I'll tell you that.

They botched up their world title picture when they put Darby in it so he can fucking win in his hometown or whatever the fuck was going on. Why that he came into this picture, I have no idea. Then they're having matches with Darby every week where he beats middle card guys by the skin of his teeth after surviving ridiculous punishment to the point where you know everything's phony. And meanwhile, MJF is doing whatever the fuck they've had him doing while Osprey has been getting a shit kicked out of him.

And so now their world title match on TV before the pay-per-view, where it's Darby versus MJF and the hair versus title, blah, blah, blah. Darby versus Hong Kong Fui. not only that they gave this thing a shot at the world title, but that again, I know they're the same size, but Darby's supposed to be the world champion and this little troll from under a bridge. It looks like an escapee from a reformatory

fighting a Catholic schoolgirl. And so they went past, 10 minutes and fine, and they're both baby faces. Darby got Scorpion on for like 45 seconds. They were immobile in the middle of the ring, and then the other baby face tapped out. They couldn't even say, okay, let's make this exciting and just get a quick one, two, three on young Fooey.

They have to get a hold like it's dramatic, like it's goddamn, the main event of a UFC fight and their drama is in the middle of, no, fuck, beat this little fucking Creighton and get to the business. So then, after one of the baby faces tapped out to the other baby face, another baby face, Kevin Knight, then gets in the ring and cuts one of the most awkward promos where he's telling his partner, little Mikey,

that he should be proud and he's putting Darby over. And he tells Darby, hey, I beat MJF. They reminded them of that. I beat MJF. If I can do it, you can do it. God damn.

Way to build fucking Saturday. It never made a point. It was just, it was awkwardly delivered. Everybody was holding a title belt. Knight has a belt. fucking Darby's got the belt. I think Fooey's got another belt.

Then they all shook hands. I'm like, this is the worst of indie wrestling. Right here. This is what it's come to with these fucking play wrestlers and their pretend bullshit. And then Kevin Knight and his little sister leave. And MJF comes back out. He'd been doing commentations.

Terry, which I didn't listen to. He came back out and beat up Darby and got hair clippers and tried to shave Darby's head. Like, that's the worst thing that could have ever happened to Darby Allen. With the fucking look of the hair he's got on his head anyway, and he flings himself off skyscrapers. But Darby got the clippers away, and MJF ran away, and so did I, because they had already gone past the 10 o'clock hour. and but they still had collision left, which then I understand that Osprey actually did win a match in the last hour, which nobody watches.

So that's good to know that he's finally started winning again, but what is going on with this thing? You know, I always go back to them getting 140,000 pay-per-view buys on average. If that is indeed true, and that's a big if, I don't know if any of these TV shows do anything to sell any of those, because I don't think this did anything to sell the pay-per-view. I know they've done some angles with MJF and Darby, but other than that,

it's just a bunch of matches. The matches are what their fans care about, not the silly segments or the bad comedy, the bad angles. The show's, it's a terrible show. Man, there's no good wrestling on TV. There's just nothing good right now. And this is their go-home show. But they already sold out, I mean, they sold out the live show and, you know, who knows what the hell?

I don't know. What do you want me to say? Yeah, what do you want from me? well we shall see how MJF fares or if he's going to be going back to Turkey for more hair but we don't again we still haven't determined how does that work if you get a Turkish hair transplant if you shave your head what happens like what is what is seen and then what happens to what's there is it like a chia situation where it'll just come back out water it and just kind of regrows and everything else

else does its own thing? I don't have an answer for that. Do you get haircuts in regular places? Well, if it's hair, it ought to be able to be cut by any regular hair expert. But, you know, just the shaving might worry me if I'd spent

a lot of money and time and effort to get that shit planted. If you remember the wig-making lobby, wouldn't you be fighting hard against this being allowed? It's taking away all your business. Well, the thing is, male wigs and toupeees, I don't think, are a thing like they used to be anymore, because everybody now is just comfortable walking around looking like a fucking bald-headed moron.

They've got hair. Thanks, Steve Austin. That's a thing. There's been like, what? Telly Savalas, Steve Austin, and Goldberg. Like three people that actually looked good bald. You, Brunner. You'll brunner. There's four. And then suddenly everybody's got to do it. And they shave it off when they've still got some left. That used to be the worst thing that you could do to a person. I'll shave your head, you son of a bitch. Goddive you know you won't. Now it's like, yeah, I'll go to get my head shave. Cowboy Bob Ellis must be bad. He's bald. Because he's bald. He's bald. Shut up.

All right. Was that it? Did you watch that? That's it. No collision. I saw no more. I saw no more. What did you see the news that Mick Foley will be co-hosting the pre-show with Renee

Paquette? What are your thoughts on this? And obviously the beginning of a Mick Foley-A-E-W relationship. Well, I've said this before. Mick is too nice. He's too nice of a person. And I know he's still doing. doing his one-man show where he tours and does the comedy clubs.

And I'm like, Jesus Christ, I'm glad he's got the energy and the dedication. And maybe the, you know, the travel for the one-man shows, whatever that's, but at this point, I just think it's sad when respected veterans give some type of seal of approval to this foolishness that they're doing over there. but as I said, Mick is a, and always has been a very nice guy and I'm sure he loves all of the

kids and getting a chance to live their dreams. But on the other hand, if you want to stay active in the business, on TV. Why? He's almost as old as I am and he's made a lot more money. Why would you want to be a part of this fucking foolishness

that's going on these days? That's what I cannot figure out. I don't know. I cannot figure it out. Because Barry Bloom can't find another gig. No, I don't know, but... These are people. He's the guy.

He doesn't need gigs. But he wants him. And he lost his WWE deal or he chose to not renew it, whatever it was. I think that's what it was. Well, no, that's the thing. And I admired him for that. And I said that when he made that statement, he'd become my favorite person. So...

Because he said, I'm not going to sign another deal with them because they're infested with Trumpiness. In his own words, is what he said. So he walks up. away from that, but if there's an option... Why go to a unsurious way past second place

fucking deal where you can't wrestle anymore and you know, and it's a parody of wrestling to begin with, I don't know why he wants to bother. Signing with AEW, hypothetically, would give

him an avenue for merch, figures, just lost their figure deal apparently, or they choke. Whatever's going on. Whatever's going on. They're apparently not working with He's going to get on their TV right before they lose it. No, but I mean,

you know, there's probably things that this would help him stay. He wants to stay active. There's a reason he's on the road going to comedy shows. Well, yeah, and doing his own thing. I can understand that. I wouldn't be traveling around the world his and my both advanced age, but I could understand

him want to do his own thing. But to lend Cretens to this fall or all, and have some principles and standards of professionalism, but he's too nice and he likes all these fucking kids. Are you going to check out the pre-show to see what kind of job he does in his hosting capacity? Not to be rude, but no. Do you think we're going to get Mick Foley versus MJF? I hope not.

I sincerely hope not. I mean, not even not even being funny. Mick said, well, we were going to do it, but I realized I shouldn't do it. And hopefully he doesn't change his mind because he shouldn't fucking do it. There's no reason to take a risk on his health at this point in his life. Maybe he wants to scare his kids. Like, ooh, you better do what I say. You're out of the will.

Listen, yeah, well, I mean, that's the news. Mick Foley will be involved with AEW. We'll see how that works out at the pay-per-view event. and that is the A.W. Corner of the World. Well, speaking of corners, they've backed Baby in a corner on another episode of AEW. God damn it. I'm going to do it again. A&E biography. The Road Warriors, but it was on last week. We're just catching up with talking about this because I know also it was going to take a while.

But I'll say it as I say every time at the top of the program, Great to see the old footage. But boy, howdy, this was disappointing and confusing, I think. Confusing to the people who didn't know their background and their story and disappointing in that I think they made the point over and over that Hawk was the wild one, an animal was the family guy, but they spent the first 30 minutes on the best seven years of their career and the last hour and something on the WWF run

and their eventual demise as a team. And in the middle of all that was, it wasn't that they were outright stating lies. They were again just mixing shit up together, leaving stuff out, editing things to where comments are made that would lead you in an inappropriate direction. about what really happened. Brian, am I describing this in any way correctly?

I'm always really critical about wrestling documentaries because of, you know, for a lot of reasons. Usually it's based on accuracy. This may have been the worst one I've ever seen from WWE. It was so beyond the focusing on Hawks issues, which was something they mentioned in almost every scene they talked about Hawks. The point was more than made.

Oh my God, nonstop. But the inaccurate history, the chronicle, I just, it wasn't just the talking heads. It wasn't just Peter Rosenberg being a bubbleheaded, no nothing. It wasn't just Bruce Pritchard being a slimy, you can't trust a word out of his mouth, a guy. That's a good description. But like they put pictures up with dates that were wrong. I mean, maybe I'm the only one who saw that.

I doubt it. It was almost like they put something out without proofreading it. The best thing was the interviews with animals' wives and his daughter. The family, yeah. Just like the Von Erick thing. That was what stole the show for me here. But this thing was completely inaccurate. This thing was crazy.

Nikita Koloff and Paul Ellering did a good job. Paul especially. he's a very intelligent, well-spoken guy, and he was real close to him. But you could tell also that they edited a lot of their things to leave out parts of the story that they left out that they would have told. But nevertheless, that's a thing. They gave the briefest description of how they got in the business. They started out talking about their young family lives, and they had Hawks brothers, the members of the family

and that was great. I've never seen so many pictures of either one of them with hair when they were young. But then it was just like they got into wrestling by mere happenstance completely untrained. It's like they met at the gym. They started bouncing at Grandma Bees,

the bar in Minneapolis. And then Oli came up and looked at bouncers. And that was, that's the, impression they didn't say that outright, but that's the impression they gave when they said, while they were working there, Eddie Sharkey was working there too, and then only called up Sharkey and said, hey, you got any guys? Eddie Sharkey, first of all, had been a wrestler in the 50s and 60s in the Minnesota territory before Vern owned it, but it hadn't expanded into

as big a territory as it, you know, was in the 70s and 80s. But and Sharkey had had a falling out with Vern told the story when the story was the story was that Vern was messing around with Sharkey's wife and Sharkey came down to the office and fired several shots into the ceiling of Vern's office with some vehement conversation and he never worked for Vern again

but he was still in a wrestling business and he would train guys and or sometime, you know, send them to Canada or, you know, whatever the case, with other organizations. So when Hawk and Animal were training with Sharky, Hawk had already gone to Vancouver to work for, who was promoting in Vancouver at that point? God, I can't remember, but he was Crusher von Haig. Al Tomko, that's right. Crusher von Haig. This was in like 1982, but he came back after some short period of time because he

wasn't making any money. And Animal had gone to Georgia because I've got publicity pictures. You reminded me of that when he was, he was called the Road Warrior, but he had like denim shorts and a denim vest on and a biker cap. And that lasted about six weeks, but Oli had seen him already. See, that's the thing is that when they finally decided that the team was decided on because Arne Anderson and Matt Bourne were going to be Oli's top heel team, but Matt Bourne got in one of his predicaments and had to leave the state.

And that caused Arne to get moved out of the top spot and Oli needed a tag team instantly. and that's what he already knew about Joe but he got need a partner and he went up and got hawk and at the same time or very similar times Sharkey was also trading Nikita Barry Darso Crusher Krushev and recruit or no uh rude maybe uh maybe yeah maybe yeah at the same time but the point is, and I think Root had gone early down to the Carolinas and nobody saw him, and then he ended up in Mid-South and blah, blah, blah. But they had already kind of been in the business, even though they had no success and hadn't been a team,

but they just glossed over that and you were left with the impression that only went up and looked at a couple of bouncers and just said, hey, those are my guys. but when they brought them to Atlanta, it was summer 83, because that's, that was the same time as me and all of the castoffs from the Tennessee territory went to Georgia to work the local circuit when they were putting the TBS guys on the northern tour. So we were there, but kind of like in a separate office when the road warriors showed up on TV

and started beating a piss out of everybody, but we'd hear about it, Like we'd see some of the guys, Pat Rose would be on our opening match in Chattanooga or whatever. And he'd say, oh, these guys at fucking TV, they were, it wasn't like they had never been trained, but they were so green at that point. And we talked earlier in the show about Sting and Warrior at the same point in their careers, hawk and animal were much better than Sting and Warrior, but they were also much stiffer. And it got to be a running thing. The job guys that would come to TBS, whether there's guys with Mike Jackson or the South Carolina guys or the Brody Kings or whoever they got, cars of guys would pull up and come in with their bags and look at the sheet on the wall and see they were working with the road wars and they wouldn't put their bags down. They'd turn around and get back in the fucking car. So, but it was a classic monster push.

That's how you get guys over and people had never seen anything like the combination of these guys' physique and the outfits and the gimmicks and they were just killing people and you could tell they were just throwing them around. And I think they should have fleshed out Ellering more also because they just entered out. Paul Ellering was their manager and he said, well, you know, only came to me and said, these are your guys. Paul had been, not only was Paul of really good pro wrestler till he had the injuries, but he was from Minnesota too. And he had come from Vern's camp, you know, God, what was it? 77, 78, 78, right? The first place they sent him, I think, was Tennessee, was Memphis. So he came in as a brown-haired baby-faced green bodybuilder with a great physique,

and he was green as grass. And Jared used him for a little while and then switched him heel because he saw the athleticism. And with the bleached blonde hair and Jimmy Hardin a quarter, a precious Paul Ellering, and he got to the promo down. From what 80 through 82, he was, he had good featured spots in Georgia and Mid-South and Tennessee and various places as a wrestler. And then it was, it was both knees and something else at almost at the same time that just

finished him off, wasn't it? It all started happening in Mid-South because if you see any of the footage from 81 or 82, when he's around, he's getting a big push on TV. Yeah. And he's pretty flamboyant. and then he would disappear and he got hurt several times within like a year and a half

I think two or three times he was at least two maybe three but he kept getting hurt he was taken he was a bodybuilder that was also taken big bumps and really animated and it just you know and bad luck but they should have fleshed him out more I thought to explain you know

or the fact that it was called the Legion of Doom it wasn't a Vince McMahon creation they're like we were able to copy write Legion of Doom. They took that from the Super Friends cartoon, but that was the name of the stable that the road warriors were in. That was Paul Ellering Stable. Yeah, because at one time or another, Paul also had Jake Roberts and Bundy, King Kong Bundy at that point in time, right? And maybe somebody else. Spoiler. Spoiler. And that group was the Legion of Doom, which came from one of Paul's promos. So, well, Bruce is full of shit as a Christmas turkey, but we'll get there here in a few

minutes. But the classic monster push and everybody knows what was going on with Georgia wrestling at that point in time by Black Saturday of 84. That's when Oli had lost the TV and all the shit happened with Vince. But when the road warriors, through the period of time in 83 that they had debuted and were getting over like that, they'd started going out because Jerry Jarrett was sent an Oli talent. So Oli sent the road warriors to Memphis

to work with Lawler and Austin Idol. And they drew big crowds off the TBS TV. And Lawler's the one, because of Hawks' traps, his trapezius neck muscles, Lawler's the one that told him to no-sell the pile driver. That's the first time they did that spot in the Mid-South Coliseum because it made sense with Hawk's neck.

And as George's, was going down, they had this hot attraction, and they ended up going to work for Vern. Because they could, I mean, the money had to be, the difference had to be, what, five times probably, what they were making in Atlanta at that point, still working for Vern, who was still doing major business. But with the pro wrestling USA thing,

where Vern and Crockett and Jarrett had all gotten together to try to fight Vince, they were using them as an attraction in, you know, in those territories. So where Rosenberg said, oh, they could, they could wrestle in Georgia, the AWA and Crockett all at the same time. No, technically not, because they left Georgia as a territory to work for Vern. but because of pro wrestling USA and Crockett absorbing the Georgia end of the territory, they were doing double duty working for Vern and Crockett, which was sometimes a source of consternation.

When we got there in 85, they wanted the road warriors more than they could get them. But they had the big program with the Russians, which drew money because, and that really... cemented the Warriors for Crockett because the Russians were, you know, top guys there. But also it was, it was another thing where they, they didn't really turn the Warriors baby face until the fans had already turned the Warriors baby face. And that happened just because they were so dominant and so unstoppable, right? Well, I mean, there's a lot of stuff again, they left out.

I mean, they went in 83 to Mid-South for some TV tapings because Bill Watts had previously owned a piece of Georgia. He's the one who sold only his piece, and he's also the one who recommended face paint, I believe, originally for the Road Warriors. So he was invested in them early on. In a lot of ways, I always saw it as the Road Warriors were Vern's answer to

Hulk Hogan leaving. Yeah. Because it's right after Hogan leaves that he gets him. And although Bill does being from Chicago at different times, they were local guys working in AWA schedule even though they were expanding a little bit, making great money,

they were about to go to Japan, you know, shortly after this, what, 85. Yeah. And they made incredible money there. But they, in a lot of ways, were the AWA's replacement to Hogan. And, you know, we talked in the past about them and the fabulous ones.

Who the hell was going to cheer the fabulous ones over the road warriors? And they were the baby faces. The road warriors were the heels, but they became the baby faces because they were, they were cool badasses and they had the music and they had everything.

Well, we talked about it long ago on one of the shows, we talked about the fabs not getting over there because Vern didn't get the fabs. He wanted to make them like full-fledged Hollywood, you know, fucking glamour guys or whatever. The Fargo influence meant nothing.

The whole reason why the fabs worked in Tennessee was because it was Jarrett's gimmick. Fargo endorsed them and Jared knew how to book them and they drew nothing but money and girls, girls, girls, girls. But coming in as what looked like male strippers with no background in the AWA, and they, you got these guys with the fucking spikes and the Iron Man, wow, you know, yeah, we like them. Here's the thing, the Midnight Express, you talked about Chicago and Minneapolis, we had to work with the road warriors

in their real hometown and their gimmick hometown. In Minneapolis they had all of their buddies from the gym and all the weightlifters. The front row looked like it weighed 7,000 pounds. And they just, and they were fucking had goosebumps, right? It was 86. They were still green. And they got carried away there. And then we had them at the first show of Crockets at the Rosemont Horizon.

I did like 10 or 12,000 people and fucking they played that music and we saw the goose bumps on hawking animals' arms when they hit the ring and Dennis Condrey was like, oh shit, they're going to kill us.

And they were just all fired up in their gimmick hometown. So, hey, you know, they didn't bring it up in this, but you could speak firsthand. There were a lot of things that Vince McMahon was doing. There were a lot of issues that hurt StarK-87.

but was there anything that killed Chicago more than the road warriors not winning the belts on that card? No, that was, that was Vince's sabotage of pay-per-view and all that stuff was real but it had nothing to do with hurt in Chicago. That finish hurt Chicago.

They did, and they showed the tape here again on this program, like they won the world title from Tully and Arne and they didn't mention that no, they didn't. That was the finish where they won the world title but the second referee came in reversed the decision and blah, blah, blah, at the Starcade match

and disqualified them, the old dusty finish. We had sold out the Rosemont, not the Rosemont, but the UIC Pavilion in Chicago, I think seven times in a row. And that was the last one. They hated that.

And the problem was the road warriors would not do a job and it wasn't because they were pricks and it wasn't even the level of the sheik where they wouldn't do a job for a 15 year period or ever the road warriors

shouldn't have gotten beat that was part of the aura especially when they were still green the thing that was you couldn't beat to road warriors and that's what got them over better than any tag team in the business as far as drawing money. But also, as I've mentioned, it eventually came to pass that, you know, when nobody could ever beat them,

even the barbarian, a warlord, and et cetera, it did get a bit old. But they weren't doing that just to be pricks. And for quite some time at the start of the push, nobody asked them to do a job. but then you've got the old Lawler in Memphis or Dusty in Tampa conundrum where we'll draw money if they challenge for the belts, but we can't beat them, but we don't want to put the belts on them because we won't be able to beat them to get them off of them. So we'll do a screwy finish. And the thing is, if that hurt the town of Chicago,

as you mentioned, against all the other troubles that we were having with pay-per-view and everything else. But if you notice when they did do a job, the second time, after they beat the Middine Express for the titles in 88, they dropped them to Rick Steiner and Mike Rotunda, the varsity club in spring of 89, but that's when Teddy Long was still a referee

and Teddy Long fast counted them and then became a heel manager. So they would do business if there was a way out, if they had a bitch or a gripe or whatever. And it wasn't Steiner. Steiner had already turned baby face at the end of 88.

Or who would know? It was Rotunda and who then? Steve Williams, wasn't it? Steve Williams, that's right. I'm sorry. I keep putting Steiner in the varsity club. And I know somebody's going to say, well, you know, fuck would they have had a choice?

Well, no, Retunda and Doc, they were all friends. It wasn't going to be like a fucking shoot. That would have been somewhat interesting. The one team would have had an advantage of a wrestling match, and if they weren't adhering to rules, it would have been quite the show. But nevertheless, they would do business. And because there's the story of when they didn't like the finish with the fabs

that Vern gave them. They weren't going to do it. and so they came to the middle of the ring and Stan and Steve are there for the old referee's instruction and Steve is not paying a lick of attention. Any animal said or hawks one of the others said, we're not going for the finish, do it our way and nobody's going to get hurt.

And fucking Kern just hears the words but doesn't register and says what? And they thought he was bowing up and they start beating his shit out of him. Stan's like, I'm not in this. and the bruiser and crusher when they had the match in Chicago and neither bruiser or crusher in 1985 had been body slammed in like 15 years

and they started picking them up and body slamming them and bruiser's like what are you doing and hawk said anything we want but as they got more with Paul and they got more in the NWA and they got a little more experience they were easier to work with if you understood how to work with them.

And that's why I always praised them. They never no sold the Midnight Express. They sold their asses off for us and made the matches good because we always did things that they should sell. And we never tried to, neither Bobby nor Dennis nor Stan Lane ever tried to make themselves stronger or better than the road warrior face to face. It was double teaming.

It was manager interference. It was using a gimmick. It was behind the referee's back. And animal would go down for the racket like he was shot by a fucking shotgun. And because they knew that the midnight would make them look like a million dollars and then get a bunch of heat. And then their comeback would look like another million dollars and we'd put them over. So it was easy in that regard, but it was tough at first because they were still.

still finding their way around. But of course, as we all know, as Bruce Pritchard said here, eventually they did everything they couldn't in the NWA. They really had to be able to prove they could be all they could be. Well, here's what happened there. The contracts that Paul mentioned was correct. Because Crockett... He didn't mention how much he got, though.

Well, I will. It crocket to get them away from Vern and Vern's business was starting to go down and to get them full time. He didn't give them a Lugar contract. Remember, we talked about the Lugar contract $350,000 a year for one fucking guy. But because of their box office potential power, rather, they got a deal where they had to work a maximum of 250 days. and actually it was a minimum. They got paid for 250 days, whether they worked it or not,

at $2,000 a night. So that was $500 grand apiece. And Paul to be their manager, because he was figured in, and not only did he help train him with the on-the-job training, and he was a Minnesota guy, and they felt good, and they became friends,

but he became their legitimate manager. Paul's brilliant. and he made their deals and reservations and invested money for them and the Wall Street Journal thing was not just a prop, right? So he got, because they wouldn't sign without him, 250 grand too. So Paul was making more money than almost any of the wrestlers on the roster for Crockett, except for like Flair and Dusty, et cetera. So that three years,

they, I think they started in 87 because that was the three years that was up in 1990. And that's when, and by the way, the story when they went to talk to Vince before they signed the contract with Crockett, when Vince told Paul what used me in the negotiations with Crockett and try to get more money, he told us the same thing. That's what he told all the guys, because his plot was I'll either get them, they'll sign with me or they will go down there and they will strong arm Crockett for more money. But either way, I'm either getting what I want or I'm costing Crockett more money. But that was Vince's thing to also to get in good with the guys. Hey, even if you don't want to work for me right now, we'll do business one day, but use me as leverage

in the negotiations. Get all the money you can get out of him. So he would just, every little thing, every little trick, Vince knew. So when the deal was up, heard he, there are the other guys that he wanted to fuck because in, and that was the time I was on the booking committee. So I had, and I think I've read the list of what guys were making here on the show at one point. But besides for staying in Lugar and Flair, The road warriors were the highest paid guys in a company, hawk and animal, and Paul,

and then it was me and Bobby and Stan. So, Herd knew that he needed Sting and Lugar. They were the young guys he was going to count on for the, you know, future, right? And he and Flair were already at odds. This was February 90th is when Flair quit as Booker because of Herd. and this was in like April, I guess their contract was up, whatever, April, Mayish, I'll get the date here in second, but he knew he needed Lugar and Sting. He had been trying to fuck with Flair and he begrudgingly knew that he needed him around,

but he was still going to try to undermine him. And the next fucking six guys on the roster making the most money were the road wars and a Midnight Express, which is why when our contracts had come up the year before from Crockett, that's why he had cut him and low-balled us and caused all the initial ill-will.

And now a year later, the Road Warriors deal is up and he was not going to pay them the same amount of money. Or probably anywhere near it. I don't know how the negotiations went, but that's why they didn't want to leave because they

had all those years there and they were iconic and Vince had already ripped him off with demolition. And what's more, Vince was not going to pay. In those days, he didn't give guarantees yet. It was still a short time away that he would start. And he wasn't going to pay Paul Ellering that much money to be a manager. And truthfully, I don't know whether he ever wanted Paul to come to begin with or whether Paul, because at that point, Paul could retire.

He was a financial genius or whatever the fuck. Because Paul in the documentary said, my boys, I let him go. They were my kids, but it was best. But it wasn't like that, you know, he wasn't turning down a huge offer because Vince didn't get, which we'll get to in a second, Vince didn't get the whole gimmick and never did and fucked the whole thing up. However, just that Bruce was saying, oh, well, they had hit the ceiling in WCW, you quoted him, and they wanted to be more.

Bullshit. They weren't more. The WWF fucked up the legacy of the road warriors. And Hawk didn't contribute to the successful stay either, but Hurd ran him off like he ran off Flair and me and the midnight and everybody else that left in that next 18-month period or that two-year period there. And none of the talent wanted to go along with it and cut their money when they weren't the reason

that the company wasn't drawn. It was Jim Hurd, the guy telling him he wanted to pay them less. So that's how all the talent was going at that point in time. But that's just that now they wanted to go. And of course, when they've done, WWW sponsored documentaries in the past they've said oh yeah we wanted to go here

but no that was not a thing that they wanted to do until they weren't going to get fucking paid by this prick but I told you I'd tell you the date hold on here I've got it Capital Combat I think

no Capital Combat was their last big show it wasn't their last date with WCW. That was, Capital Combat was May 19th, and I can't even remember

what the Warriors did that night, but I've got the Middite Express book here. I think was it them in Doom? Or was it, yeah, I think it was them and Doom, and then it was Teddy Long versus Paul Ellering in a boxing match or something. Oh, God, I remember that.

Oh, that was sad. What did they do for a finish with Doom, by the way? I don't know. Can you look that up in any fashion? Because I'm going to continue setting up the story. on May 19th, 1990 in Washington, D.C., we did the Capitol Combat pay-per-view, and that was also where Robocop came out and fucked with the horsemen on behalf of Sting. And the Midnight Express, for some reason, who actually won like the first match that they had won that year,

and it is already the end of May, when they beat Brian Pilman and Zeman, Tom Zink, for the U.S. tag team title, OLLie had made that decision because Oley was the new Booker after Flair had quit and then we were the U.S. tag team champions and as I've told the story many times proceeded never to win another match until we fucking lost them to the Steiner's like several months later. So have you found by now what was the finish?

I got it all wrong. You know what? Now seeing this again, I remember it, but I got it all wrong. The opening match of the pay-per-view, which was the last Road Warriors match seen on TV and the NWA, Kevin Sullivan, Cactus Jack and Bam Bam Bigelow with Oliver Humberdink lost to the team of the Road Warriors and Norman the Lunatic. That's right.

And then Paul Ellering defeated Teddy Long. It wasn't boxing. It was hair versus hair. And by the way, Norman the lunatic was... Paul Elring won the hair versus hair match and then he left town. Yeah, and also Paul was bald, so there's that. But also, Norman the Lunatic. would soon become trucker Norman because

Olli thought he wasn't believable for him to be a lunatic, but he looked like a truck driver. But the Warriors still had dates the rest of the week, because I've got the midnight book. We were off the next day after the pay-per-view. Then we did a TV taping in Montgomery, Alabama on the 21st. On the 22nd

in Ozark, Alabama, we put to Road Warriors over in a non-title match. It's their last week. They're leaving the company. We just won the U.S. tag team title, but the office,

aka O'Leave, on behalf of Hurd, sends the fucking finish. Okay, yeah, they didn't even question. So Road Warriors beat the Midnight Express. Then we did TV in Gainesville, Georgia the next day.

And in the next day, we were in Memphis. And it was another non-title match. They sent the finish, Road Warriors over Midnight Express. and hawk and animal and paul all three came to us in a locker room and said what to fuck this is bullshit we're going to change it and they went to whoever the agent was on behalf of the office at that point only wasn't on the premises and said hey i can't do hawk but we're leaving these guys are staying they're from memphis why the fuck we'll put them over so that's

change the finish and put us over. It is the, there was all kinds of tables being thrown and Hellering was chasing me and all that shit. But as far as I know, it may have been the only just plain one, two, three job without a fast count by a referee turn and heel or some other shenanigan that the road warriors did their whole time in WCW. It's like a write-up passage. If you're going to leave, they go to the WWF to do a job.

to the Midnight Express. Well, yeah, but here's the thing. The next night, we're booked with them in St. Louis, same match. Guess what they came in and said. The office was mad because they changed the finish. There had been people in the wrestling business trying to figure out a way to fucking coerce, bribe, con, or pay the road wars to do a fucking job

for the previous seven years. and they volunteered to do one on their own and wanted to do another one, and the office wouldn't let them. Because Herd apparently just hated us so bad that they said, no, have the Warriors beat the midnight in St. Louis anyway? And then Hawking Animal got pissed. All right, motherfuckers.

So we came up, and I bear in mind me and Paul are the managers, right? We're not in the match. they came up with a finish where at the end of the match, instead of beating Bobby your stand, they jerked me in and Paul beat me one, two, three. And the fans fucking, yeah, they loved it. And they stills were like, fuck you to the office. And that, I believe, was their last night in the territory.

Can you believe that? That's how fucked up that Jim heard and WCW as a creative whole was, at the time that these guys are late it wasn't TV it wasn't pay-per-view but it was house shows there was people there but hey these guys have been good to us we'll put them over oh fuck no we hate them too I think that's one of the biggest losses too of all the wrestlers to defect or leave WCW they felt like major stars to me as a kid yeah and it was noticeable when all of a sudden they weren't there. Yeah.

And that's the, that was the nail in the coffin because we talked the other day about the road or the four horseman biography when how it hurt when he heard screwed Tully and Arne. And we didn't get Tully.

And we had a roll going with the ratings and all that other shit, right? And everything was coming up. And then heard screws Tully. And then he won't leave Flair alone and Flair says, fuck it then, take the fucking book back. And then he screws the Warriors and they're leaving.

And just hear a couple of numbers. Remember I mentioned Flair in February had gotten as Booker and he was also wrestling in the main event of the Sunday show. The Saturday night TBS show did a 4.0 and the Sunday night did a 4.4. two months later when they run flare off and the committee and gone to oly sunday was 2.7 and saturday was 2.6 and then it got worse from there over that summer so anyway

no horsemen and then no road warriors and then a neutered midnight express and at the same time, that's when Sting was out for six months with goddamn knee surgery. There was an uptick with, you know, somewhat summer business, but it never came back again. But anyway, they never came back again either because they went to the WWF and debuted in June 1990 without Paul. First mistake was they were changed to the Legion of Doom, which Bruce was saying, well, you know, the Road Warriors was identified with the movie, and we needed to have something we could copyright.

Well, they also had the ultimate warrior, and Vince was enamored of him. But the first mistake was changing to Legion of Doom instead of acknowledging Road Warriors. second mistake was Bruce trying to justify it. The third mistake they had already made was already having demolition because that took the edge. And I know as over as demolition got and as good a job as they did,

it was like the fantastics following the rock and roll in those places where it just was so similar that it didn't have the impact. Well, they also rushed a demolition heel turn when demolition were at the height of being over. Right at the WrestleMania 6. They bring in the road warriors to make them the Legion of Doom. Another thing they did him, it seems minor,

but all of a sudden it became a red-themed tag team. You know, everything was red, red, shoulder pants, red pants. And, I mean, it's fine. And, you know, I like them, I like them just the same, but they look cooler and more badass and black. And even the little bit of footage they have in this documentary, from when they first came into the WWF, first taping, they still wore black,

and it looked better. It just looked cooler. They looked, again, it's like everything that Vince got a hold of, they looked cleaner. They looked new without a scuff on them. They looked less dangerous, whatever.

He cleans everything up. And, you know, Hogan, by the way, Hogan managed to tell lies from beyond the grave here in this one. inserting himself and did he save Hawk from drowning in a swimming pool? I've never heard that story before. At Bushwacker Luke's house. Bushwacker Luke's house.

Apparently he was having a big party and Hogan and Linda thankfully pulled up just in time to run into the pool and save Road Warrior Hawk. Who knows? I haven't heard that story, but I'm sure there's plenty of Tampa Beach party stories I don't know about. But, you know, that's the thing is they did get over at a level. in the WWF. They won the title at SummerSlam, 91. See, even that,

even that, and I love the Heart Foundation who won the title at SummerSlam 90, but they made the Rogue Warriors wait over a year to win the tag titles. That was a mistake, too.

And then they showed the WrestleMania 8 thing, which is when they came back after Hawk was suspended, and then they kind of rushed the tag belts off them, which led to the big money-ink and natural disasters few.

But they bring up to the him back at WrestleMania 8 Indianapolis, Gene Ogreland brings him out by saying, get ready, here they come! And the music hits and they come out. Paul Ellering, who had never been on that show before, and certainly didn't look the way he did there when he was in the NWA, you know, in the black suit,

with, you know, hamming it up with the facial expressions like he hadn't in a while. His first words were, I am back, I have returned. He's never been there before. Well, the thing, first off, Vince didn't, as I said, he either didn't understand or didn't want to use the Road Warriors the way that they had gotten over. They come in, they are dominant. If you don't want them to win the belts,

it's only because they ain't going to lose them. But Vince insisted he treated them like the regular wrestlers. And it didn't work that way. way. You couldn't just, you know, make them part of the roster. They had to be special. And Hawks' behavior by that point did not help. And they really did say, look, with Ellering around, it's easier to keep control of him. And they brought Ellering back to juice them up and keep an eye on Hawk. But that was too late. And the Rocco thing, which apparently, unless it was an editing trick. Paul does take

blame for but it was just it was more that was more reason I remember because now when this was happening I was in Smoky Mountain and you know hearing people talk it was

more reason for WCW fans to not want to watch the WWF because they make all of the fucking great stars look like goofballs and it's cartoon and it's phony and it's whatever the fuck

and then again Hawk to the SummerSlam 92 match in Wembley and disappearing for a month afterwards or whatever didn't endear them to Vince. It just didn't

work. That whole thing compared to what they had done and the magnitude that they had been at in the business they just became two guys on the roster and you know, just that. They looked so cool at Somersland-92, but the one thing they cut out of this thing,

you see them coming out in the motorcycles to the ring at Wembley. Paul Ellering was on the first motorcycle with Rocco the dummy, like on the front of the motorcycle. Yeah, yeah. Takes it down a notch. Yeah.

Six years earlier, the people legitimately believed that they were going to throw the Midnight Express off the scaffold and kill them. And they were waiting for that moment and now they're coming out with a ventriloquist dummy. You know, they addressed some of the stuff in between.

Hawk obviously worked the independence, worked ECW, worked a lot in Japan with Kensuki Sasaki or as I think Peter Rosenberg called him Kenzaki. Kenzaki. Yeah, oh, Kinsaki. You don't even know who he is. Oh, Kenzaki's a hell of a guy. Well, remember

Hawk was on the Night of Legends in 94. Yeah, I was there. Yeah. And again, let me just say this was a pleasure to work with was not I don't know what he did after the show wasn't impaired

caught a fucking pop was willing to do anything he loved I liked both those guys and we always got along but I think I was friendlier with Hawk and I've told a story before

when Crockett got that fucking plane and we started flying around to that goddamn converted Gulfstream of questionable the service record. I didn't know what the fuck was going on. I always told him,

Hawk, if this plane ever starts going down, just knock me out. As a, make sure, don't just jump to conclusions, but if it's going down, knock me the fuck out.

Jimmy, I got you. I'll take care of you, man. And he was just, he always appreciated us. And if we put him over in the match or whatever,

and what he, what I called him to work the night of legend, show. Jimmy, you guys always made us look like grab million dollars. I'll come down. He liked that we had, you know, a big crowd. We had the 5,000 people or whatever in the Coliseum and other names that he knew, the Armstrongs. And so he liked doing that kind of thing and was, Terry Funk was there. He was no problem at all. And, you know, and did a great job. But that was the thing is, during the time that he was.

doing his own thing without hawk he wasn't just always just a you know drunken lunatic or whatever like they made it you know what animal was animal was you said without hawk i'm saying without animal oh i'm sorry okay well i'll back that up without they're saying without animal hawk was just always a raven lunatic and he wasn't he was great on that particular night is what i'm saying and the as a matter of fact, the only time that we didn't even have words, but when we had first started working with him in 86, do you remember Brian Bosworth? Oh, of course.

Yeah, the boss. Well, he had gotten in a deal where he had been busted with steroids or some kind of thing going on. And I cut the promo on TBS one day. I said, after we could finish with the Midnight Express, after the Midnight Express gets finished with the Roadway, Warriors, and we do this, do that, do the other thing. They ought to get a copy of the autobiography of Brian Bosworth to see what they're in for,

some shit like that, right? Because then, and I know this sounds like one of the Vince McMahon lines from the trial, but steroids weren't illegal or had not been, you know, at that point. The stigma was on yet either, really. Well, and there was no, nobody knew really what the fuck. Remember, I've got an interview with Hercules Hernandez from mid-Sat, and 84 where I'm cutting a promo for him and he's standing there doing the double bicep and he says look at this guy's tin diana ball a day and what's aired it because nobody

knew what the fuck right but hawk came to me the next week after it aired because he didn't hear it he said jimmy said now we're traveling through these airports and look at how we look we can't hide if we got shit in our bags and they're looking through lay off the the stairwell stuff. I said, point taken. And I apologize. I didn't even think about that. You guys having to, you know, potentially be searched. So, and boom, we shook hands, no deal.

They were, they were easy. Who's the informant? He was a man named Jim Cornett. We saw an interview. Yeah. We were watching TV the other day, and he said you'd come through. You know, they made it sound, though, like Hawks Independent the period in Animals thing. All, you know, animals thing,

Animal had a back injury. We had a Lloyd's of London. I don't know if they said the word Lloyd's of London in this thing. No, that's another thing. They never did. See, here when Animal did have a back injury, and he decided to take time off

and his ex-wife had said, yeah, he spent more time with the family, taking time off and with the kids. But it had become a thing sometime around the early 90s that several of the guys took out Lloyds of London, insurance policies. The Minnesota guys.

The Minnesota guys in particular. And I think Flair was the only one that never cashed in on his. But Rude had one after his back deal. That's why he became an enforcer but didn't wrestle. Kurt Henning had one. Kurt Henning had one that he cashed in. And then what, that was the reason, that was his departure from the WWF, wasn't it?

that they wanted to fucking, they wanted him to start working again and they were going to make some arrangement, but they jumped the gun and it cost him some payments? I can't remember. But also Animal, he cashed in on his, but now here's the thing,

I know this for a fact, because when I was on the creative team in Stanford, whatever settlement he made for his career-ending injury, they paid him, and you couldn't book Animal in a singles match. He could have a tag team match, but he couldn't wrestle a singles match or he'd be in violation of his settlement.

I never understood it, but I couldn't get around it, right? Also, Lloyd's of London eventually said we're not insuring any more of these wrestlers. Yeah, no, that hadn't happened for a long, long time. But anyway, so when they were apart, they didn't mention when they got back together, they did three or four months in WCW.

And then they got, yeah. Completely left out. They were a part of the WCW roster in 1996, you know, the year of the NWO. They were there that year. And then they went back to the WWF, not that they reunited and called up Bruce or whatever. Yeah, no, I wasn't seeing.

They only went in for a few months in WCW because Bischoff, allegedly told them that they could still do Japan as well as be there. And then later on, he had no recollection of that statement. And they, well, fuck you.

And they left. And then that's when they came back to work for Vince in February of 97. And again, Bruce's statement was telling. He said, well, we'll try it. And if it doesn't work out,

we'll cut bait. and that was the attitude they had. Vince and Bruce and I think Pat was around at that point. And then Schittstein was just soon to come in. But they didn't trust Hawk. But also Vince didn't get him in 1990 and 91. He wasn't going to get him in 97 and 98. And Hawk was out of shape somewhat.

compared to his heyday. But it was still the road warriors. And my thought and estimation was, let's make this a big deal at the start, because if we don't, they're going to get over at all. And if you just treat them like all the other guys and, well, let's see how they work out and then maybe we'll do something,

then you've shit the bed on having the road warriors. so they shit the bed on having the road works and it reduced their aura and then by that point shit stains in vince's ear oh this is a hawks a drunk it's a cheap jerry springer shit that he and his dreadlocked cohort fat boy ferrara at the time we're doing and it killed all their careers. It stuck draws in there. At one point, and then Sunny, at one point, remember they made Sunny, the Road Wars manager,

the Legion of Doom 2000? LOD 2000, yeah. In 1999, she looked great in the outfit, but no, that didn't work, putting draws in the team with animal. They were going to try to,

because they figured that Hawk was not going to straighten up and they will have draws an animal. Well, what the fuck was that? Nothing against either guy. But even as Bruce said, well, it wasn't their guys. It wasn't the originals. No shit. But the draws pushing hawk off the Titan Tron

was universally shit on by everybody inside and outside of the business and you know whose idea that was. But this is what I was really, disappointed by this time because like I said, they were gone from WCW in 1990 in the first 45 minutes of the program. And that was the seven best years of their goddamn entire career. And it just clips, no meaningful long-form promo or just any of whatever. Or they got the family side, but the talking heads were, with the exception of Ellering, were mostly basically as introspective as they just beat everybody up.

They were great. And then they've done an hour on this shit, the things that killed their career. Anyway, Hawk had a heart issue in Australia in 2000. They acted like at that point they were done as a team, but they did do a few more Indies and they even did a match in the WWE on Raw. in the early 2000s. Hawk got married, but we didn't hear anything from his wife.

I don't know. I wonder if she's still around. We're all getting older. But he got cleaned up and sober the last couple of years of his life. And then I remember hearing that he just had a heart attack at home, sat down on the couch and was about to or had been in the process of, he had his wife moving from one house to another or whatever, but after all he'd been through, boom.

And then, you know, the animal had the heart issues and finally had a heart attack in, what did they say? 20, he was 60. He was a year older than me. And the last time I saw him. Hawk was my age. That's kind of crazy to think about. Oh, my God.

Well, you mean when he died, not he wouldn't be now, but when he died. Yeah, 46. And the last time that I saw Animal was at one of those legends of the ring conventions at that Monroe, New Jersey, remember that hotel that is off the side of the turnpike? And they would just have this convention twice a year in the middle of nowhere, but people would jam the place. But I went in a restaurant and said, the service. was incredibly slow at this place.

And he was sitting there. He said, hey, so I sat down. And while we waited for the world's longest cheeseburger and french fries, we must have talked for two hours. That's when he had, his son was about to make millions of dollars in the football business. I don't know how that turned out.

But we talked about the old days and, you know, Hawk and just, you know, shot to shit and same guy as always and good lord now that i look back on that couldn't have been more than two or three years before he died maybe two i spoke to him in 2017 on austin idol live and at that point he was looking for any wrestling fans interested in investing in an opportunity to export lumber from africa i don't know how that worked out but that's what he was looking for at the time well maybe that's what after zoobaz kind of went away that's another thing they did mention and it's true and it's not as big a deal now as you know it was then but those zoo bas pants

they were the rage of all the bodybuilders and everybody in a gym and all the you know the 80s and early 90s fucking flamboyant fashions or whatever animal and hawk And I think at one point, Barry Darso even had a teeny tiny part. But I think it was maybe Ellering that got the Minnesota guys, the opportunity to invest in that clothing company. And they made Buku amounts of money off of that. But every time they would actually, I'm forever until the crotch wore out and holes and everything,

I had threw them away. But they gave the boys Zubaz at various. points in time, I had some of their complimentary Zubaz I wore for quite a while. But anyway, I, this, the, the biggest drawing tag team of the modern era

and probably in the history of wrestling only second to Raka and Perez and on a national basis, even more influential, and generated more copycats than any team, even the Rock and Roll Express, and this was just a disappointing kind of surface level blah type of biography except

it get great to hear the family but I think we got the point that Hawk was the wildwood and animal was the family man I think they spent well enough time drilling that into our heads yeah there are better ways to fill up two hours than the way they did it here. They got so much wrong. And again, it was infuriating when they would put up a photo and it would say like 1991.

Like, no, it wasn't. What do you? But they did that several times. The experts, Pete Rosenberg and Sam Roberts, were talking about the Road Warriors like they knew them, but it sounded like they literally

just watched a previous WWE documentary and remembered what they were supposed to say from there. I wonder how much of it is like, how well, but Hawks been, dead for 23 years now. How old are these fucking guys? Would they have met them? Would they have been around back then?

I don't think they would have, but I think they're around my age, so they could have. But, yeah, very disappointing in that aspect. And I feel like if it was a good, honest documentary about the impact of the Road Warriors, the business they did, none of these things were really brought up. I mean, it was just kind of, you know, it was all building to them going to the WWF and Hawks drug problems, not about... Look at what they accomplished.

They were the biggest draws in terms of gate attraction for Vince's competition for a long period of time. They didn't say that. Oh, they beat everybody up. Did you see the controversy with Road Warrior Animals? Well, third wife, I presume. That's what I was going to say is that all the family was nice to hear from, and I mentioned we didn't hear from Hawks' wife, Dale.

We heard from animals, first wife, and second, and again, isn't it? It's odd that, and I'm not, again, casting aspersions on either guy, but the guy that was the family man that wanted to spend time with all of his kids and the guy that was the wild man, the wild man got married once and his wife straightened him out and got him clean and sober, and the family man was married three times. I don't know what to think,

but apparently Animal's third wife that was married to him when he passed away was very displeased by, and I'm not even sure what, I think, what of her opening lines was, God damn you all to hell, you lying bastards or something like that?

I'm like, well, that's fucking strong. They didn't slander any, here, particularly, and Hawk more than anybody else, but was it that she was left out? Or what was the bone of her contention that had her go on social media and give some statements? Yeah, and by the way, they also left out another name, John Laurenitis, the guy who got his brother a job in 2000s. Remember him in Heidenreich, right? They were the LOD for a little bit. That's right. And, well, and actually, and there's a third brother. Mark Laurenitis was the Terminator for Crocket back at 8788.

Nice kid. I think he retired from the business early and got a regular job and as a stand-up fellow. As we all know what happened to John Laurenitis, who, as you said, was never mentioned or referred to in this program. But what did Animal's Wife say? This is from Facebook, the page of Kim Termin Laurenitis. this appears to be before it aired. There's two different posts here.

For all of you, reaching out to me right now, asking if I'm a part of the A&E biography, and then this is in caps. No, his actual wife, and then in parentheses, the one that was with him when he died and years before was not contacted to film, believe it or not. the one that pays for the trademarks,

and is works to continue his wishes and legacy with the LOD experience and many other things. And there's a few emojis there, but this is supposed to be about respect for Joe and the LOD Road Warrior, right? Laughing emojis. Yeah, okay, believe what you want. I can guarantee you my husband is not happy in heaven.

But his story, the real story, and truth of all of it, will come out. This is disgusting, literally disgusting, at his expense and I will not be quiet anymore. Shame on all involved, the truth will always come out. A few mad emojis there. they only did it this way because he was not here but I still am and will fight for his wishes do they give out Oscars for acting performances in this wow some of the people on here never kept in touch

wouldn't even walk over to speak to him and talk so much shit phony ass is getting their irrelevant moment there's lots of emojis sprinkled throughout I mentioned. Besides his family, Paul Ellering, Nikita Koloff, I mean, I could, you know, you could knock Bruce and the other twits, but they didn't say anything bad. The worst stuff was said about Road Warrior Hawk in this thing. There was almost nothing bad said about Road Warrior Animal, right? Nothing.

Well, that was the first post. That was 860. Maybe she had a child. change of heart after seeing the entire program. Well, that was 8.16 p.m. And then after it aired, 10.07 p.m. I will raise my voice a little bit for the caps part. What in the fuck am I watching?

Oh my God, I am so done. This is not how my husband died. And, FYI, he died 922 in our hotel, not a hospital. They never took him to a fucking hospital. had to try to save him in our hotel room. I was the only one with paramedics. Are you serious right now? I held him for over an hour,

trying to wait for Jessica and Lindsay, both daughters, to get there before they transported him to a funeral home. What the fuck is happening? I'm about to lose my goddamn mind right now. I have never been so mad. That's the end of the caps part. Can anyone tell the truth anymore?

What fake-ass, phony people? People pretending to be friends. People pretending to tell the truth at my husband's expense. God Almighty help you all that you have used him for the last freaking time. What in the world? Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow! No words!

All of you know, y'all just put on a fantastic performance. No, we don't know! Standing ovation for that bullshit show! I'm sorry Standing ovation For that bullshit show Why didn't we talk about How disrespected my husband was

During his memorial planning Let's talk about the struggles And how much he went through And cried over the past 10 years About how he had been treated By the people he loved so much Y'all want to talk about shit That's not true

Let's talk about the truth And what was really important to Joe. Shady-ass produced show not endorsed by his wife, the one who pays for the trademarks, bills, taxes, etc. And she's paying for trademarks and taxes and et cetera. And the first reply here is Bill After who just wrote, ouch! Well, God damn if she's paying for the trademarks and the tax, what is, on what? the taxes on what everybody pays taxes

is there some special tax that you're allowable for because animal died that I'm not aware of and what about Dale you know in terms of the rights and who's doing what I mean what you would think the rights of Road Warrior Hawk or Mike Heggstrandt would go to his widow

especially in Florida So they ought to be working together on the Road Warrior legacy instead of his animal's wife is winning some friends and influences some people with that statement. Wow, wow, wow, wow. Sounds like a fucking siren. No, I mean, she comes across, you know, a bit unhinged in these. Again, she's writing about something she's obviously very passionate about, but for the life. I have no idea what made her this man.

Yeah, I mean, unless it's just, unless it's just, unless, she has a problem with one of the two ex-wives being interviewed. I can't understand what problem she has with this. It wasn't an accurate documentary, but nothing was said, nothing was said to make animal look bad at all. Maybe that's the problem. Nothing was said to make animal look bad, but nothing was said about wife number three at all.

So it may be that her problem was nothing was said. but that was the first message you put out there. People have been asking, no, his actual wife was not interviewed. The real one. Well, thankfully, the voice of PWI's past, Bill Apter was here to add his two cents. Ouch. Ouch. Lady!

Lady! What are you saying that for lady? Well, that was the Road Warrior documentary, Legion of Doom, the Road Warriors, and we'll stay on top of this story and see what else we can find out. Have we worn out our welcome yet? I got to go check the weather. It's raining again. I may need to catch the next arc.

We're coming back on the drive-thru with pay-per-view news and Saturday nights, preliminary news from the WWE and all that type of stuff, right? It's going to be a slam-packed next few weeks. We got a lot of events. We got a lot of documentaries. Dark side's about to come back. So it's a great time for wrestling talk. It's a great time to be alive.

And until then, folks, imparting besides the love, the peace, and the soul. And wow, wow, wow, damn you all. Thank you, fuck you, and bye-bye, everybody. Ladies.