Jim Cornette Experience - Episode 636: Heat With The Judge

Episode Date: June 2, 2026

This week on the Experience, Jim talks about Vince McMahon & Nick Khan being sanctioned by the court, Ludwig Kaiser's elevator ride, Meltzer & Alvarez bickering again, New Japan's sale, the schedule for 1987's world champions, Double Or Nothing's star ratings, and much more! Plus Jim reviews AEW Dynamite highlights, and looks at another of his TNA agent reports from 2006! Thanks to our episode sponsors: RIDGE:  One thing to pack, five ways to power! Get up to 40% off @Ridge during their Father’s Day Sale at https://www.Ridge.com/JCE #Ridgepod HELIX:  Go to helixsleep.com/jce for 20% off sitewide FACTOR:  Head to factormeals.com/jce50off and use code jce50off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box, with a new subscription only SHOPIFY:  Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/jce 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 Working world champion in the 80s And who was hardly working Plus Vince McMahon and Nick Con have heat with to judge

TNA Creative had heat with me in 2007 And so many more things In joining me for this Hawaiian Brian the podcasting line the king of the Arcadian Vanguard podcast network, Mr. Co-host to you, he's got so much heat you can fry French toast on his forehead. Be great, Brian Last, everybody. Aloha, Jim.

A pleasure to be here once again. You mentioned French toast and now I'm hungry, so let's get through it. We got a lot to talk about. We got a lot to talk about. I didn't mean to take you away from your French toast that you have intravenously applied every hour. We got a lot to talk about you. I had a number of... ventilating things jotted down that I thought, well, this will be a nice show.

And then we talked here a little while ago. And you said, what did you hear about this? No, I didn't hear they did that. Well, we got to talk about that. What did you hear about this? I didn't hear about that. I guess we got to talk about it. And now I've got all kinds of shit just piled up here, notes and papers and things crossed

out. Bad penmanship. It's all because of you, sir, you. trying to tell me what's going on in the world when I was blissfully ignorant of the whole situation. I'm speaking to you on behalf of the audience when I have those conversations with you because they want to hear your take

on the latest happenings in the world of professional wrestling. I'd rather be like everybody else, blissfully ignorant. I am the fans' man. Well, hello, Joe Pedicino and your bulbous nose. Joe Petasino's nose was how we actually started writing a kind-hearted rib. Oh, well, I like Joe Pedicino.

He's a very nice man. But his Joe Pedicino nose segment was constantly pitched to and or referred to as Joe Pedicino's nose. I think even once on color, I said, where's he stuck it this week, Gordon, or something like that? Anyhow. Johnny Blackstone, I believe. Hey, now, come on now.

His face was a crimson mask. Jesus Christ, what did poor body ever do to you? A suplei. That's true. She did have a wicked side-russian leg sweep also. Real quick, I raised a question several weeks ago on the program. We got an email from a lady named Rose, who was. was saying her mother, Lynette, who lived in Minneapolis, who I've also heard from,

she had had health issues. Lynette had, and we wanted to wish her well. And Rose said she had moved to Saipan. And do you remember me questioning, why the fuck? Oh, yeah. Unless you're, you know, I can't remember what line of work we determined you'd have to be in to move to Saipan. But I have the explanation. Would you like for you? to hear. Oh yeah. I'd love to hear. This is partially funded by the Saipan tourist industry. By the way, the segment you did introduce the audience to the country of Saipan, no one had heard of it before. Well, it's actually, it's an island, which I guess is a country also, but it's, it's an island out there. And as I recall, that was either where Amelia Earhart and her navigator,

Fred Noonan, by the way, when a tribut. you a question with that one kids uh that was either where they were going or where they left before we never saw them again so that's how i knew about sipan but nevertheless rose said dear jim and brian thank you so much for reading my email on the show my mom popped hard and thought your commentary was very funny to get her mother as linnet who sent me a long uh email and actually even used to live in Louisville here for about a year, but she's had a bunch of health issues and still battling that, but sounds like she's just, as we said about Marlena one time, full of spunk and piss and vinegar and everything else. But nevertheless, back to Rose. Rose says, I am not in

the military or a pro golfer. I just live here because it's nice. Rent is cheap. The people are all friendly and it's 85 degrees every day all year. The beach is four minutes away from my house and I can see the Pacific from my front porch. Plus, it's only a four-hour flight to Japan, so I don't have to deal with any extra days like Hogan did. So it sounds like a great place, right, Brian? It does, yes. Well, she goes on and there seems to be a fly on the ointment.

The only real problem is that a month ago, and she wrote this in middle of May, a month ago we got hit by Super Typhoon Sinlaku and experienced multiple days of heavy rain and a hundred and seventy-plus mile-and-hour winds. That's a goddamn F-4, or maybe a five tornado. Multiple days of that, a tornado last. in one particular spot for about fucking 30 seconds. The storm started on April 13th, and as of May 17th when I'm writing this,

we still do not have electricity. It's the first time in decades I missed WrestleMania, but it sounds like I didn't miss much. And then she enclosed a picture of her puppy Helena. She'll be two in July. And also said she loves your organ, I'm sorry. Love your organ playing.

Don't they all? It was a double line there. And I'll frequently hum the tune to myself out loud while running errands or at the beach. But the fuck, a typhoon with 170 mile an hour winds for multiple days. And her performing my song without paying any royalties. What the fuck's that about?

Oh, God damn it. You're allowed to hum. Besides, heaven. Out loud. Out loud. That's performance. To myself out loud. Say there's nobody there. So if a performer performs in front of nobody, then is it a performance? Let's ask some of the indie wrestlers. But no, it's not a performance.

And if it was a performance, when you're the only one there, then everybody that's ever jacked off would be a fucking adult performer. Not necessarily. Would you have a 10? did the venue you were singing in if you weren't singing in it. You drew yourself. You drew one. You yourself. No, it was being done as just as a way to a while. It was being, it was a procedure that was being done as a way to while away the time while being otherwise occupied. So that doesn't count. It wasn't the sole reason for the performance. Sounds like the hurricane was a good reason to get the hell out of Saipan. Well, that's where I was going

until you got bogged down in your goddamn publishing rights. Well, you got to protect your content. Well, you know what it's about. Oh, for Christ's sake. Nevertheless, Rose, we love that it's 85 and the red. I know why the reds is cheap, maybe now. The people are all friendly because you may need to save their life

in the next fucking catastrophe, and they want to make sure they haven't pissed you off. But we wish all the well, wish all the well, wish all the well. Wish all the well for you. And Lynette, you rock too in Minneapolis. You just stay away from Saipan, make Rose come back and see you.

All right, the next email, Brian, I'm going to read because I like it. And this is again something that we have lost in professional wrestling with the death of the territories and the death of being able to go see your local fucking

superstars wherever you might be. It didn't have to be Chicago and New York and Toronto and L.A., Hollywood. It didn't have to be the big cities. The stars, the big names still came to the hinterlands, to the people, to the heart of America, Brian. The common folks out there could still see a wrestling superstar back in the territory days. You'll agree this is true. Yes, I agree.

Well, Luke from Boonville, Mississippi, agrees with all of us. Because he recently talked about Boonville. This was a while back on one of the, possibly the drive-thrues that we were discussing old Memphis wrestling. Anyway, I'm a proud native of Boonville at a lifelong resident as a 50-1street. year old, I attended all wrestling events hosted in Boonville in the 1980s and have fond and somewhat great stories of the time. Shows in the early 80s were definitely held at, remember I talked about the college gym there, Northeast Mississippi Community College, originally in the Bonner Arnold

Coliseum, which was the basketball gym, and then later moved to the football field. Later 80s, early 90s, were moved to a ball field at the city park, but tickets were advertised heavily on local radio station WBIP from Boonville. And this is, again, we talked about spot shows in all the territories, but I can especially address the ones that I either went to as a photographer or a fan or worked as a performer.

And literally in these towns, everybody would know if you have, had a good local sponsor, the local JCs or the football team that wanted to buy new uniforms, wanted to raise money, they would get the fucking people to turn out. And like Brian, you remember having gone to Barberville, Kentucky. Our sponsor, Dennis Chestnut there, was the local gadabout, and he had the radio station involved in every store on the main strip had the posters. So the radio stations would pump the shit out of this,

it was half the people at the radio station had some kid going to the school it was raising money or the fire department or whatever right and he says the advanced tickets were sold at a local fish and steakhouse called the chicken hut in boonville would the local fish and steakhouse be called the chicken hut but the chicken hut would also host wrestlers before the events for meat and greets I had my picture made with Lawler as a nine or 10 year old boy and remember the fabulous ones being there as well as Randy Savage. And again, that's, you know, that's, these people were like, hey, there's Randy Savage.

In Boonville, Mississippi, it was like God dropped in. Well, actually, Lawler was bigger at that point in that spot. Anyway, they got to watch Memphis wrestling on Saturdays. and then TBS out of Atlanta because they had cable. And he said, give me my bicycle and some money for baseball cards. And I had it all. And, you know, again, I miss the idea that, you know, a lot of these kids in these towns all over the country

will never get to go to see a fucking wrestling show and meet a wrestler and a blah, blah, blah, unless their father is a banker for J.P. Morgan Chase and they win a contest. Anyhow, speaking of kids that can win a contest, it's the Crusade for Children Weekend coming up bright this Saturday and Sunday, June 6th and 7th, WHAS crusade.org, as I've mentioned, for more information.

but these kids can win something and that's hopefully another five or six million dollars like they raise every year to help with their medical needs and you can find all about what they do at the website but I've got to modify what I've announced already about the fundraising thing we were going to do on Jimcornet.com because I've been announcing over the last couple of shows we did, right, have released that all the seals, all the sales from heroes and friends, see, I got all the vowels in there,

all the sales from heroes and friends in the month of June at Jimcournett.com would go to the crowd, would donate 100% of that crusade for children. But as soon as I announced that on like May 27, suddenly sales, goddamn heroes. and friends have gone not through the roof, but there was a significant spike. So apparently some people got the concept of the thing, but not the timing.

So I am modifying to make sure that everybody does what, and gets what they thought they've done and got, even if it wasn't the time frame of them getting it and doing it, all the proceeds from the last week of May through June 30th on heroes and friends at Jim Cornett.com will be donated to Crusade for Children. Because there was intent there. They just didn't listen to the fine print.

You said, have I explained this correctly? I think you, I hope you have. I hope you have. Well, apparently I didn't the first time around. But I'm not turning down the money. you could just, you know, I'm just saying it was, it was timed in correctly to meet the principle of the thing. Well, get your merch and support the crusade for Corny.

Yeah, no, for, oh, come on now. What did I say, children? I meant children. I meant children. I meant children. It's not some kind of fucking deal here. Oh, and we have an update, which we were going to talk about this on the drive-thru, a couple days ago and we talked about everything else.

But Ludwig Kaiser's legal issues on the police blotter, when we talked about it and the clip is on the YouTube channel, folks, if you want to go and refresh yourself of what we said. But I said this, no, there's something else that's going to be said or some other new information is going to be released as to why. this happened because this wasn't somebody said the wrong thing to road warrior hawk in 1992 or you know it's two o'clock at the airport marriott and philly and all the guys are drunk and somebody said wrestling was fake to ming this is this was a guy who you never hear

anything about's never been in trouble obviously has no criminal record of any kind It is own apartment building 6.30 in the evening with a young lady and somehow manages to end up punching some guy that lives in the same building. There's more to the story than, hey, please show some manners or whatever the original quote was that got this fucking guy pickled from Ludwig Kaiser. And it just didn't make sense. I've been on both sides of the accurate. and the lawsuits and or the testimony of people,

well, he said this as he was striking me about the head and face or whatever the fuck. It didn't add up. And then the story came out that apparently from Ludwig Kaiser's, well, he hasn't said anything, but... He's not said a word. Not publicly. Obviously, you got, well, Walter, our first, friend Gunther, but under the name, Walter, because that's his legal name.

What is it, Walter Hahn? He's the one that bailed him out. And so you don't think the first thing, again, people have some goddamn common sense. First off, common sense, the guy's never been in trouble, you never hear anything. It's an evening time. Nobody's been drunk out of the fucking. club in his own place he gets in a fucking scuffle he's not i don't know what his citizenship status is but he ain't born here he's on tvs in the middle of biggest run of his life he's not just

going to be actively running around fucking assaulting people second common sense what is the first thing if ludwig called guinther to bail him out and gudson oh fuck i'll be right there. And what's the first thing that Gunther says to him when he comes out to fucking door? What happened? I guarantee you

Ludwig Kaiser told Gunther. So he's told somebody however many people we don't know, he just had to say anything publicly as he shouldn't because he's smart and he's probably got a lawyer by this point. But the story going around

is that, oh, Richard Reap. That's the guy's name. Apparently, instead of saying when they were in the elevator kissing or whatever, uncontrollably intimate in this guy's words, and he said, please get some manners. Apparently, the other side of the story, maybe it wasn't all that big of a goddamn grope fest and the guy as he was getting off the elevator said have some fucking respect or I'll call ice on that bitch now things become more clear well let me just say that sounds so over the top and I know that a lot of people are skeptical that that was said and the person who first reported it may not be the most credible of wrestling online reporters so

I'm a little careful to run with that. I mean, we could talk about it because it's a story out there, but I'm sure something more than have some manners was said, but the exact phrase, you need to show some fucking respect before I call ice on that bitch.

That's just, that's crazy over the top. I don't know about that. But having said that, it is Florida. And apparently this was, The Redneck Riviera. No, that's actually, they're in Orlando, which is just Florida. But the Redneck Riviera is like Pensacola, Fort Walton Beach, that, you know, that's a whole,

that's actually Lower Alabama. Nevertheless, besides that, apparently he was with, I don't know the young lady's name, but she is the commentator for AAA that they did the angle with, with him and Americano Gable and all that stuff, and they are a couple. And she does appear to be from when I saw her the one time on television, a Hispanic person. But the point is, whether that's the exact words

or whether the exact words in between, please, sir, show some respect and I'll fucking call ice on that bitch. This fucking guy said something because otherwise it doesn't make any sense. And to be quite honest, if what he said was I'll call ice on that bitch, then yeah, he's going to get the fuck pushed out of me. by Baku, what choice has he left old Ludwig Kaiser? It's not I'm going to call ice on you, well, Nan and Boo Boo. It's I'm going to call a group of armed masked fugs

who are noted for assaulting, pepper spraying, and even murdering citizens and non-citizens alike and tell them to come find your wife, girlfriend, sister, mother, whatever. at that point you're getting fucking knocked out and I don't see that a depending on where you go now if they try to get a bunch of maggots on a jury that but otherwise a group of level-headed people are not going to convict Ludwig Kaiser on that

but again there's video footage apparently and the cops have it so whatever but no audio is that what it is there's no audio I just heard there was Well, is there audio on a goddamn hallway apartment building security camera or elevator camera? Usually not. And again... That's the point. It does play into his character right now in Mexico, although I don't know how it really affects anything in Mexico, him getting arrested.

If the guy really made the comment about ICE, I mean, the next best thing would have he said, I hate luchadors. Well, I was about to say, it would probably get him over at Mexico to definitely. but the court case will be here and again, you know, what was he, if that was said, what was he supposed to do? If that was said that, listen, I actually think it's deserving of at least a shove if you say anything, you know, but even if it wasn't ice, if I'm making out with my girl in the elevator at the end of the night that we're going up just a few floors, shut the fuck up.

Unless you're a little old lady with a gang of little old lady. and you are really into etiquette. A gang of little old ladies. And you're really into etiquette. You're on the way to the opera. Shut up. Shut up. And wearing their leather colors.

A gang and little old lady. No, I'm saying, even that. No, you can't end most people, I would think, with level heads. Well, he said something while we were kissing, so I punched him. No. I won't even go for that. But if he actually, in front of, said young lady said to any fucking grown adult man's wife mother sister girlfriend whatever

i will sick fucking armed thugs on your significant other there and have them ban from the country then that's justified them's fighting words fuck you motherfucker what am i spiv will embarrass me in front of said lady if i don't punch you in a fucking face why you think i told brock i didn't him shoot him when he and stacey were fucking arguing and he said in front of me fuck you to her i said oh you can't say fuck you to her in front of me i will shoot you i wasn't going to fucking fight him but there had there is something has to be done because then you're just burying me too no fuck that so therefore Richard Reap, buried himself by Barry and Ludwig.

What's he going to do? You reap what you sow. You reap what you sow, baby. And he got sewed up for it. It is important, again, to note, in terms of the mental space, this is right after Rick Flair had threatened the young 23-year-old British wrestler Ludwig Kaiser on social media. And no, on the Arianne show, actually.

And then it got around on social media. So who knows what frame of mind he was in, he yelled that by an elderly white man. Now, wait a minute, we have to say, we don't know who this guy was elderly. We don't know when he's what you're doing. That's like, you know what? It's like fucking, I swear to it, Gary Capetta, I love him to death. But he hid when we've laughed about it since then.

But he got damn, he remembered he was there when I hit the fucking guy and Altoot over there with a ragged, busted him open, right? And he was like, the guy was, he wrote in his book, but Jim, he hit this elderly guy. I sent him the fucking newspaper article,

or is it, the guy was in his fucking 30s. I said, God damn it. How, you know, how elderly could he be? I'm sorry,

Corny. But we don't know how old this fucking guy was, but, again, I said, if Ludwig Kaiser had wanted to hurt this guy, then he would have called the cops from the ambulance on his way to the hospital. Hallways should hold. Well, I mean, it, no, in all seriousness, what the fuck, the guy had a scratch on his neck from having his fucking scruff

snatched and bop and hey, motherfucker. adjust your goddamn fucking attitude. Hey, how about this from the police report? Ludwig Kaiser, Marcel Barthel, 6'4, 200 pounds. He's lean. That's very lean. Jesus. But that's another thing.

Look at, he's one of these fucking young age, you know, fucking healthy, goddamn law-following fucking wrestlers. He's not out there, carousing and pulling people's eyeballs out in nightclubs and eating them. Throwing people over the bar. He's a fucking slim young, prim young bodybuilding fellow. It looks very fastidious. And all of a sudden here comes this guy and is fucking maligning his girlfriend.

You go, Ludwig. I'm in for the first five grand on to go fund me for your legal fees. Oh, my God. And when you lose your mask, maybe your next gimmick can be the elevator fucker. Keep the women away from Ludwig. He's on the loose and looking for an elevator. You know, he could start using, what was that goddamn finish that Matt Morgan did it, called the elevator.

Here he can. He's hit him with the elevator. But anyway, and plus, we know he's coming back to court. Because if he jumps his bail, Gunther, he'll chop the shit out of him. So it's bullshit. Let's see if it's dismissed. Let's see. Let's see. I'm on team Ludwig with this one.

I'm sorry. And speaking of people who would call ice on somebody, I just would bring this, have you seen this Freedom 250 concert fall apart in front of our very eyes if you couldn't follow this? I really didn't know anything about it until this very morning as we are recording.

I saw something in the New York Post that Brett Michael of poison, who apparently is poison to deal with, if you've talked to anyone's ever dealt with the guy, but apparently he just pulled out of the concert today. And that was the first time I heard about the concert, and then I saw a list of like, here are the other people that, like, in the last day have pulled out. See, here's the problem.

The Freedom 250 concert is supposed to be a part of the big Freedom 250 fair or whatever they're doing to try to fucking milk the rubs into thinking that the United States is still not in deep fucking shit. And I think they got Marvin Ward to book the talent on the concert. Because apparently a variety of these artists were contacted and they heard, okay, big summer festivity, freedom, whatever the fuck, okay, nonpartisan is the way it was sold. And a bunch of them agreed to sign up to it.

And then they were all told and or inundated with comments that it was a Trump backing entity that is trying to put this thing on and then they turn around and then they turn around as oh fuck no so we have lost from Freedom 250 Brian at least this is as of this recording we've lost Morris Day in the time

I thought he was dead for whatever reason I didn't realize Morris Day was still in he's got he's got more time and we've lost young MC see that's because bust the move holds up. That is still one of the greatest hip hop tracks ever.

Well, he busted and moved because he didn't want to be part of it. The Commodores are out. You know, Young MC was a very successful rapper in his early 20s, and then he went to law school. When I was working at Sony, he was a lawyer. He was representing artists. That's how he was able to get out of this contract. I guess he went back to perform.

The Commodore. Who's in the Commodores at this point? The Commodores. I don't know, but they're not going to be there either. Brett Michaels, you just mentioned, he said, oh, no. Commodores. Martina McBride. She is of the country persuasion, I think.

Sounds like it. And listen to who else pulled out. Millie Vanilli. Well, there's only one Millie Vanilli. One of the guys passed. Whichever, Millie or Vanilly, whichever one it is. I believe it's Fab was his name, Fab. but what but the point is how bad must this fucking thing be when milly vanilla doesn't want

whichever one doesn't want to be a part of it he could blame it on the rain but you know you know who we still got brian still the the two acts that are still but he's only two acts left on the show this was reported by USA today I'm assuming they they don't have a dog in his hunt They're just trying to report the facts. We still get vanilla ice and flowrida. Oh, this is a disaster. Oh, my God. I'm surprised. I'm surprised there's no, like, Beach Boys or no Ted Nugent or just, I don't know.

It seems like there would be Trump-friendly performers willing to do something like this. The fact that everyone has pulled out is crazy. Well, why would they not? have again, I know that he buddies up to those people that you mentioned. Kid Rock every time you see him, looks like somebody vomited American flags on the corpse of Greg Alman. But the fact that these people were, this is a variety of, our flavor genre of artists, and they were all booked, but they were booked under false pretenses and lied to about

who was putting it on. It sounds like a wrestling fucking fiasco. Speaking of a wrestling fiasco at the White House, before we move on to wrestling fiascos amongst our colleagues, the UFC, did you see Dana White said he's going to lose $30 million putting on that fiasco

of a fight at the White House? I did not see that quote, no. They're going to lose. This is after whatever sponsorships and whatever they were able to raise on the thing, it's still going to cost them $30 million out of pocket just to stage this thing. And I know he, again, he's a billionaire too. I know he gambles millions of dollars and he's infested with Trumpiness and joined at the hip, Schittler, but they're going to spend $30 million of company money, not out of his own pocket,

of their company's money, to do this to praise Trump's fragile ego and pet him and tickle his taint. Oh, look, sir, look what we've done for you. And do the thing that all these fucking stooges and sycophants and cretons and, Washington are doing and praise the dictator and tell him how good he looks and how much he's done for him. And then he'll give him the $30 million back in either our money in some type of convoluted tax break or whatever.

But just the idea that Dana White's enough of a sniveling dickless, can't say coward, nobody'd be afraid of Trump. physically, but a sniveling dickless, what do they call them, the cucks, that has to get down on his knees and suck the balls of Trump for tax breaks and to be paling around with the guy running the show. A time will come, Dana, when those balls are jerked out of your mouth, whether you like it or not. And that was supposed to be the biggest thing that's ever happened.

But there's no Connor McGregor, there are no John Jones. We didn't talk about it because it's not our field, and I don't give a shit about the UFC anymore. But when they announced that card, only MMA fans were like, so that's going to be a disappointment, apparently in terms of star power. Maybe they'll have some great matches.

So they're putting pictures of aerial shots of the White House grounds in vicinity, half of it's a complete pile of rubble from this bullshit that he's trying to pass that will never get done, this ballroom fiasco, and the other half, they're going to have a UFC fight on the front lawn.

The only thing left is, where's the fucking trailer park? No, it literally, I saw before and after, like what the White House typically has looked like over the, you know, the last 80 years or so. And how it looks right now, and it's almost like a parody, like a mad magazine. You know, I think they did it at one point.

Like in the early 90s said, what would it look like if Donald Trump was president? What would the White House look like? Just construction cranes. Here it is. Yeah, it just, it looks horrible. Somebody said, the only thing left was for them to put the scent of, what was it, child support checks and regret in the air.

And it would look like a fucking trailer park. It's going to be interesting what happens when a, Tamini Hall falls, but I guess we'll get there. Oh, come on now, Doddow. You, you, Tammany Hall, trying to tell everybody that you read all thousand pages of that book. Well, anyway, Brian, we have our contemporaries. See, that's just right in there for you.

Just a little body shop. We, our contemporaries, over at another channel, are arguing again. They can't get along. It's like it's the odd couple. I'm not sure which one's Felix and which one's Oscar. I don't know what's going to become of them when, and what's going to happen to the children,

all the listeners when the eventual breakup comes, because I understand that cousin Brian is beating his head against the proverbial wall over Uncle Dave's, inability to, I don't know, come to a conclusion that one plus one equals two, it doesn't always have to be that way? What are they up to these days? Well, again, in the past week, we had the AEDAW pay-per-view, and apparently Brian Alvarez, much like myself, thought it was one of the best AEW pay-per-views that they've done. So if you're a fan of AEW or a fan of that kind of wrestling, a lot of high-quality matches.

but Brian Alvarez also watched Raw, and I know you didn't watch it, but Javan and Penta had a really good match. Javon's very good. I can see that. We like Javon. He's excellent. He's really, really good.

I'm in a Javon fan club. Very good. He has these, the fire, for all the reasons who we've talked about. He's got the fire, and he's got the underdog appeal and the charisma and the facials and the struggle in his body language,

and he leaps a little bit higher and he does a little bit far and that's he's the guy. Well, Brian Alvarez, benignly mentioned that it was a really good match, and Dave Meltzer, will play the audio shortly, decided to use this as an example. He really got on it. It was bizarre over the fact that he's the one who sees all the wrestling. So maybe if Brian Alvarez saw as much wrestling as him, he would judge the match better.

What's the fuck? Dave's been pretty unhinged isn't even the word, a superhinged, maybe the word on Twitter, just battling with people and making assessments that are opinion-based and trying to make them facts about who's great and who's this. Well, but he says, there's somebody else saying that one of the other young fellows is great and now, well, no, you can't just be great if you're having a great match. This is the guy that's I heard he was bragging to people

that he was on vacation and the guy at the fruit stand in Honolulu said, oh, I'm your biggest fan. And he took to Twitter with that. Again, bizarre social media behavior. You could either think that he can't stop himself or that it's some sort of business strategy. But let's go to this audio.

This is from Wrestling Observer Radio. was tweeted out by Meltzer said what? And here it is, May 26th. The conversation will break it up along the way and review what we hear. We had Penton-Javon for the Inter-Continental title, which was a freaking great match. Actually, I...

Okay, so I thought the last two minutes were fantastic, but up until then there was no heat. It's like they... Well, that was a problem with the entire show. Yeah, the whole... But as a match itself, these guys were great. I was actually underwhelmed until the last two minutes. Then it was great.

It was like, I thought it was just a normal. It was tough critic today, brother. This match was really good. I see matches. I know, I know you saw lots of great matches the night before. Not just the night before. This match was good. I see matches up until the last two minutes.

I see matches every bit like that, every single week, multiple matches where you do a few flips and things like that. And just as good. actually better than that one. But the last two minutes, man, they turned it on and they were great. All right, let me stop it there for a moment because it's bizarre hearing him dismiss something and say, well, I see great matches all the time or matches where they just do the flips. Yeah, that's what we always say. You grade those matches in AEW super high when it's just a run-of-the-mill,

middle-of-the-road kind of match right now. Oh, my God. He's actually arguing with himself. You could probably piece together audio of Dave arguing with himself here, with arguing with statements he's made in the past. But I just thought, like, no heat, and they're just doing a, they're doing a lucha match, and it's not even a spectacular luchamatch. What are you talking about?

The very first spot was an attempted O.G. cutter, and it got cut off. Javon then hits the giant, enormous undertaker dive over the top. then he goes for his springboard and he gets super kicked out of mid-air, which is literally a spot that Sean Michaels and Shelton Benjamin did 15 years ago that is legendary. That was a really big spot. But yeah, but guys do that. Then he got sidestepped and this poor fucking guy hit his spine on the corner of the announce table. I thought he was dead. That sucked.

They go to break and come back and we got to. Hold on. I love him barreling over Dave. That's what Dave does to everyone. Here's Alvarez. He's not stopping for any reason. And then every movie calls Dave S and say, well, now that was great. Well, that was great.

But, you know, when they took a breath in between, it was horrible. The giant springboard cutter and then a destroyer, which was countered. And this is awesome chance and an OG cutter on the apron, which almost killed the guy again. And then they had like, it was the OG cutter attempt. Penn of Super kicked him into midair. Then there was a driver, but Javan hit a kick. And then an OG cutter. And then Penn hit a backstabber and then hit a destroyer.

and pinned him. It's like, God damn, what a match. And then Pentegosa raised his hand. Those matches where you just do move after move after move, those matches are like, that's, that's modern wrestling now. There's nothing. I mean, it's like, not just A.W, not just T&A. I mean, you see that like in Frickin AAA and CMLL. You see Matt. All right, let me stop it there because it's almost like you said, he's arguing against himself. And the thing is, he values the move, whether you, whether you nail it or not, or whether it looks like there's cooperation or if everything falls apart once, but you do two things he likes.

He'll forget about the once. It's Dave on American Idol, if you just went out there and was loud and made shit up, if you forgot the words, but you tried hard. he would fucking pass you through. And that's not what Alvarez is talking about here because he's illustrating that all these guys, boom, boom, boom, they did this great shit, not, well, he missed the thing or Saul Snatcher or fucking fell in a heap or whatever.

Well, we have some more audio. It's important to note you joked about it at the top, but you were telling the truth. Apparently in the video, Brian Alvarez starts banging his head on the microphone while going on and on. But let's go back to this. And then Penta goes to raise his hand. Those matches where you just do move after move after move,

those matches are like, that's modern wrestling now. There's nothing. I mean, it's like, you see, I'm not just AEW, not just TNA. I mean, you see that like in frickin' AAA and CMLL. You see matches like that constantly. And they're very good, you know. But as far as being out of the ordinary, I mean, it's the last two minutes were great.

But even that, you know, it was, I didn't think it was anything special based on what I see today. Other than, like I said, like, they really did get the crowd at the end because it really was good at the end. But there other stuff, you know, flips with no heat. I mean, it's like, I don't mean to be bad about it or anything like that. Too late, brother. But he's not. Again, he's criticizing flips with no heat. He sounds like he's making my point.

Yeah, this is all this. That's what they do, the furniture or whatever, or the flips. Whether it's a flippy match or a furniture match, this is all they fucking do all the time. So then why does he give everything five fucking stars? It doesn't either have my opinion. Yeah, that's what they all do all the time and it sucks. Or it or it's, that's what they do.

I love it, but not, oh, that's what they do all the time. But yeah, I mean, I don't know what he's making everybody's point. But it's, but no, but the thing is, it's like, that's, this is what I see all the time, multiple times a day. Well, it's not, it's, and with guys, multiple times a day. There's the problem. Multiple matches of this a day every day. he needed to go to fucking the tropics for vacation or whatever maybe he should have stayed there like giovon's really athletic but he's not nearly as smooth or even as fast as the guys that

i see but he's really tall and he's really athletic and he's got some great charisma hold on giovon evans is not as smooth and fast as whatever dave's watching multiple times a day did he hit the fucking fast forward speed search button and he just thinks that they're that fast. How can you be any faster than? Yeah, Javan looks smooth in there, but let's go back to this. Enta is very good,

but he isn't near the top Lusador, you know, as far as doing that style. You know, so it's like, I mean, whatever. Well, God damn, and I thought this match was great. And then afterwards, that's because you're not watching everything anymore. I just watched the best

A.W. Paper you I've ever seen 24 hours ago. I still thought this was great. Okay, but you're not seeing Mexico where this stuff is, there's matches like this. Oh, God, damn it. Three, four times a night. I'm not comparing him. I just really like this match. Okay.

I did too. And then. I did too, but I'm just telling you that like, there is so much great wrestling right now. I didn't say it was five stars. You can say it was five stars? I didn't say that. I just liked it. I didn't see.

I liked it too, but I'm just telling you that it's like, you're going like this is like this unbelievable match. And it's the, this is my, this is my argument. There's magic, like literally, like literally all the time now.

Okay. Literally. So anyway, afterwards, penetriser raises hand, but Javan pulls a Dave Meltzer. He's like, God,

fuck it, and he doesn't like it, and he storms out all angry. Yeah. So now they're going to do it again at some point. And that's where the clip ends. Oh, God.

I'm sorry, but I think, I'm, this could be the, the precursor to domestic violence. There is a level of frustration here. He won't get off of, but Mexico.

Oh, Mexico. Dave's like, you don't see enough good wrestling. I'm wrestling. I just watched the greatest paper view of all time that I perform. This feeds into the argument that Dave has a bias against WWE matches. I mean, it's hard to argue

against that when you hear his argument. And then it's hard to argue for the way he has ranked a lot of things like Young Bucks matches. If he's talking about flips, they get no reaction. If he's talking about guys just doing the same thing over and over again, it's a modern match, it's not that special, then explain the way he's ranked their matches endlessly over the last 12 or so years. That's what I couldn't figure. It was like he was trying to literally make, there's like three or four sides of this argument. He made every single. single one of them. I,

I, I, well, how can you disagree with that? Like, you could honestly see a headline

and says, Dave Meltzer agrees with Jim Cornett. How about the quality of modern wrestling? And based on what he said there, it would be honest. It would be a very honest headline.

It, I, I just don't see how anybody could disagree with everything that's ever been said about a subject all at the same time. I'm on team Alvarez. He wins me over,

more and more every time we hear the frustration because it's impossible not to display that when you hear what Dave is saying it's incredible it's incredible you should I think Alvarez should get the Nobel pride from putting up with it well you know that's the thing Brian is I'm just worried is that you know there's going to there's going to come a time where this just didn't going to work out this domestic union they have here and they're going to have to go their separate ways. And then I'm not sure which one of them does the cooking, but whichever one it is, the other one's going to be just left all alone with nobody to care for them and also nobody to cook for them. You know what that means. Brad means unless you come up with a backup plan,

you're going to be eating a lot of junk. You've got to have good nourishing food, especially at Dave's age. What if Brian is the chef? He seems like a chef. And Dave, well, I don't think Dave could find the kitchen with written directions. So he's going to need something easy. Do you think we should refer him to our friends over at Factor? Oh, that's a very good idea. I mean, talk about easy. They deliver you chef-prepared meals. They're fresh. All you got to do is heat it up. It's easy as it gets and it's delicious and nutritious. Yes, Factor. That's right. Every meal crafted with functional ingredients you know what that means that means ingredients that means ingredients that work lean proteins and colorful veggies all different varieties of colors you'll taste the rainbow

whole foods even healthy fats which i found out there's some of those and they're good and they're fresh no artificial colors or sweeteners no high fructose corn syrup you don't want that just i hate it when i'm eating at a restaurant somebody just comes up and pours a jug of Kero syrup all over my plate. But basically, Factor has over 100 rotating weekly meals, a variety of tastes, and Mediterranean and Asian, and fresh, never frozen, and salads.

And, of course, you love the terriaki salmon. And I like the garlic, parm, shrimp, and filet, et cetera. But nevertheless, if you are like Uncle Dave is going to be sitting alone in your home or a home, some type of something with home in the title is probably where he resides. And you just, you just, you've run off all of your friends. And you just there alone watching Mexican wrestling all day long. And you just want to pop a chef approved meal in and heat it up in a microwave

and somebody that wants to take care of you and give you good, wholesome things to eat while you waste away shorter of breath and one day, to death. Go to our friends at factormeals.com right now. You're going to see all the fine food that they have that you can just heat up and stick down your gullet. It'll probably be the best decision that you've made that day. Elsewise, you wouldn't be in a position Uncle David be in. And if you use the code JCE 50 off, you're going to get 50% off of your first order and free daily greens per box with new subscriptions only while supplies last until 927, 27th, September 27th is what that is, 26.

You know, over in the UK, they do it opposite. They put the day in the month, and it just throws me the fuck off, because I never know what the 16th month is. But factor meals.com slash JCE 50 off. That's the code JCE 50 off. you get 50% off and free daily greens where you just, once again, the greens, that's what turns your poop brown.

It would be black without the green. See, when you add green, you come up with brown. Except green sometimes turns red or red turns green. I don't know what you're doing or what you're trying to do here. Yes, well, see, I could always, like with Harley, when she took her little poops, I could tell by the shade of her poop, whether she had been eating the carrots or the grains or whatever,

because it would color your product. All right, well, we're not talking about that, or we're not talking about when pink becomes blue or when blue turns to gray. We're talking about factor delicious meals crafted by a chef, fresh food, pit, pet, and lady, get the meal that's right for you, is what I'm trying to say. Just think about Brian Alvarez in a chef's outfit, standing over the minions as they prepare all these factor meals.

He's standing over, keeping a watchful eye, trying to make sure that everything is just like you like it. And you folks, they'll bring it right to your home. The only thing they won't do is put it in the microwave for you. I asked the one guy about that, and he took off of my microwave while my back was turned. So factormeals.com slash JCE 50 off. You're getting 50%. That's half off. Food or free food.

Half of this food is free. Who the fuck are you to turn down free food in this environment? Assholes. Once again, get some great food, food that we love in this house, and food they love at Castle Cornette. Food you can eat. From our friends at Factor, food you can trust.

Factor Meals. com slash J-C-E-50 off. I don't know if you can trust that food. That meatloaf was one of the biggest liars I've ever seen. Trust the food, trust the factor, and factor meals are there for you. We're going to end on a high note, Jim, that promo code one more time. You know that was just a modified punchline about the sheep. I'll tell you one thing, folks.

That sheep's a biggest liar you've ever come across. Anyway, let's talk about your meat. Meals.com slash JCE 50 off. Yeah, fuck her. Well, you know, Brian, after a good meal, sometimes that makes you creative, makes you think I might want to go out and buy some kind of major organization.

Wonder if any of them are for sale. Come to find out, New Japan Wrestling has been sold, and we didn't even know it was on the market. You and I could have gone in. could have split it. How the fuck did they just

we awoke to the news. What was it yesterday or day before yesterday? Well, they sold New Japan wrestling. How did this happen just out of the blue? Can they K-Fabe in Japan? Apparently better than we do over here anymore because

the WWF was, the rumors were out months and months and months before the eventual scam occurred. How did this happen? Well, I'll read you the report from the wrestling news. Of course, you can hear the wrestling news each and every day, The Wrestling News.com or wherever you find your favorite podcast.

This was by Mike Semper Vivi. It was announced on Wednesday that controlling interest of New Japan Pro Wrestling was sold to its television partner, TV Asahi, with a minority interest being purchased by entertainment company, Cyber Agent. In a filing statement, Bushy Road announced over 10.5 million shares. And by the way, I'm sorry, I've never been able to take them seriously. Was they 15 years ago or whatever?

Bushy Road. Once again, 10.5 million shares equating to 70% of New Japan would be transferred to TV Asahi and Cyber Agent for 3.597 billion yen. which equates to just over 22.5 million U.S. dollars. Subject to review, if the sale is approved, on June 30th, New Japan would become a consolidated subsidiary of TV Asahi. That right there sounds shady. The all-women's group Wonder Ring Stardom is unaffected by the sale and will remain wholly owned by Bushy Road. Oh, shoo!

A press release issued by New Japan noted, Quote, currently we have no plans to make any changes to our various business operations, including the events we organize as a result of this share transfer. Cyber Agent is the entertainment company which also owns the promotions Pro Wrestling NOAA, DDT, and Tokyo Joshi Pro Promotions. Oh, good Lord. Bushy Road had purchased New Japan Pro Wrestling in 2012 for approximately $6.5 million U.S. from video game developer,

Yukes. Now that was in, wait a minute, hold on here. So that was in 2012. They paid, what, six and a half million?

Six five, yeah. For, and now TV Asahi has always been involved in this, going back to the 70s with Inoki. So we know that,

so they had whatever share they had. But this amount that Bushy Road paid, 6.5 million for in 2012, 14 years later, they got how much in good old-fashioned American Uncle Sam money? $22.5.25, $22.5 million. Well, boy, that don't hardly seem like a big fucking in these, in this day and age. That doesn't seem like a big profit on something after 15 years, but was there a story I heard that, in 2019 right before the pandemic and etc. That they valued this company at like $200 million or close to it?

I think it was around $150 million maybe. I saw that in the observer because they followed that with. The valuation came after the Young Bucks, Cody Rhodes, Adam Page, Kenny and others left. But the Young Bucks never meant anything to the New Japan business. So the fact that he went with them first in that list is better. That's amazing. St. Kenny Omega is one thing,

but the young bucks, I don't know about that. No, he just had to get them in, well, these guys. But how can something be worth six and a half million in 2012 and 22.5 million in 2026, but seven years ago, they said it was worth $150 million?

I know the pandemic hit people hard, but besides that, I don't understand the valuations that they give these companies sometimes, but I think even Uncle Dave and the rest of, you know, his minions have to agree that it's, While New Japan may be the most successful of the Japanese promotions, none of them are as popular or as widely viewed or as known or noted, not only as they were in 2019, but certainly as they were in the days when they were on network television,

and Baba and Anoki were on everybody's consciousness. and I know it was a different time period. They have multiple revenue streams and et cetera now, and corporate America has gotten into it. But still, it's the same kind of niche product now over there as it is over here. And it's just as corporate now there as it is here. Yeah. But I don't know about anybody's valuation.

But maybe 22 and a half might be. closer than 150 million. And again, TV Asahi owns, as owned a piece of the company going back, they own the catalog, or their partnership is the reason why the catalog isn't just sold to WWE or whatever.

It's because the television network actually owns it, and in a lot of respects, has cultural significance, especially the older stuff with Anoki. Well, besides that, they're apparently notably finicky because when we were trying to get whoever that might have been in 2012 from New Japan to make a Ring of Honor show, can we get some tape? Well, no, the TV network owns that we can't show it over here. Oh, no.

So they're picky about that stuff. But they'll now have a bigger percentage of the company and Cyber Agent, who owns these other Japanese promotions. they'll have a piece of this, and I believe they're a streaming platform or they own a streaming platform, so obviously, you know, it all comes down to the content. How does this affect the New Japan archive,

if at all, and it may not affect it at all? But, you know, I think it's been a sad decline of Japanese wrestling, and I hate to say it's as simplest since, you know, Baba and Anoki left us, but, you know, it's not that simple, but since that, that crop left, the standards have gone down,

and maybe you get some moments where the Tokyo Dome draws a big house but it was bigger, it was more acceptable, it wasn't ever treated as a joke, really, other than maybe the opening match on an All-Japan show. And that was in-ring comedy. That wasn't whatever DDT does.

Yeah, and also that was a way for Baba to still be involved because the people loved him so much past his physical prime when he could get in there with his guys and do the spots and things. But not shitting on the whole business.

It was something that was looked forward to rather than, oh boy, here comes some more of this. You know, we've been in the Bufant era where it was all about the look. I'm not saying anyone couldn't work. They all worked the best they could. But it was the look more than it ever was in the past where it was serious.

You could argue about the, you know, the way MMA decimated Japanese wrestling, which a lot of that was brought upon itself by Japanese wrestling's involvement with all that. But, you know, I have no interest in New Japan now at all. That's ironic, by the way, that all that pro wrestling promoters were taught was that somebody was going to come in and try to steal the territory and run against you or whatever. and they just didn't think it would be from another fucking form of sport entirely rather than somebody try to do pro wrestling. And so that's why they worked with it until it ruined them in some respects.

But is this like a miniature version of TKO? Now where instead of bull riding and MMA, they've just got a couple of outlaw promotions and New Japan and the, the TV network just owns more of it than it did, but it's, I guess, completely above any of the wrestling people now to make any decisions in this company, right? Yeah, we're going to find out who the Japanese Jim Hurd is very soon, I think.

Oh! Japanese Jim Hurd, there's a character we never thought of before. But, you know, the other thing I question is, obviously they want to keep the majority ownership. Well, first of all, the television station has their interest, and they want majority ownership to be clearly a Japanese entity. There's no way Tony Kahn can have jumped in for that low price and bought in just so you would have the American rights or the distribution rights of some sort for

my AEW. You talk about someone who owns a bunch of promotions and needs content. Now, but there would have been some. some type of political upheaval if they had sold to an American entity. And it probably would have definitely hurt them with their fans. And there may even be, you know, laws against something of that nature. They don't have Delaware corporations in Japan?

I do. No, because they, they don't have Delaware. I'm registered to Osaka. See, if they had, you know, if they had a Newark Delaware, then they could fucking, not to mention Wilmington. But nevertheless, but I think that Tony now needs to, because it's obvious, this is just a business, he needs to go to them and say, look here, I am successful American. Say it like that. Let's see how that goes over.

Yes, it would be hilarious if he started talking to him, like we used to talk to the guys we were trying to give finishes. Right. Okay, you take arm. But anyway, he ought to try to go to them and make some kind of deal. I can be your official American distributor and you can, I got a brand new pair of roller skates, you've got a brand new key, that type of thing. But no, if I can't imagine the variety of offense that it would have caused if they had just sold the thing to an American company,

or Tony Kahn or anybody else. Well, cyber agent just sounds so sketchy. it just sounds like, yeah, they're under investigation. You can hear it at any point. This could explode at any moment. This whole thing could evaporate. They had on the news here locally, this couple owned this car lot where they would go to these cars

auctions and they would buy cars and then they bring them down here and sell them on their lot. And they had a complaint. A bunch of people were complaining. They couldn't get the titles to their cars and come to find out they investigated when the, They bought the cars at the auction. They sold the cars these people,

but these people could get the title because they never paid for the cars from the auction. They bounced the checks. So the news went to the goddamn car lot. Guess what they found? A completely empty slab of concrete, the size of a car lot. There's not a pebble on it.

Oh, my God. Except for one building, it looks like a goddamn twice the size of a normal port ofjohn. it says buy here, pay here. And it's completely empty. I don't know why that came up, but it's fucking funny to me. The New Japan metaphor, we call it. Yes, cyber security there will be...

Cyber agents. Secret agent, man. Secret agent, man. They've given you a number and taken away your Japanese wrestlers. Do no, do, do, do, do. All right now. So anyway, it will keep up on the comings and goings and doings over in New Japan as they get used to their new administration. But meanwhile, Brian apparently Vince McMahon and Nick Kahn was not as smart as they thought they were.

When they were using the mission impossible method of communication, this tape will self-destruct in five seconds. that generally means you're doing government espionage or some kind of shit you're not supposed to be doing, right? And now this big lawsuit has, they've been chastised for running this alleged major publicly traded company like goddamn mob outfit. Well, they're in some trouble here when I say they. Vince McMahon and Nick Con, not T.K. But Vince McMahon and Nick Khan, I have the headline here from Post Wrestling Brandon Thurston, who's been all over this story. Vince McMahon and Nick Khan sanctioned by judge in WW merger lawsuit, heightening their burden to prevail at trial,

in a new ruling in the WW merger lawsuit in which the shareholders challenged the endeavor deal that created TKO. Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster. Oh shit, the vice chancellor? He's right next to the Bergamister, inny. He found that Vince McMahon and WWE president Nick Khan destroyed evidence. As a consequence, the court will treat five damaging facts as presumptively true when the case goes to trial next month.

Let's go to these five facts. So even if it was... If it wasn't true, it is true now in their eyes because they destroyed the evidence that would have determined whether it was true or not. And you and I had talked about this when Brandon Thurston previously reported about the text messages that had gotten out as part of this lawsuit and discovery, where Nick Con told Vince McMahon backwards, go to signal, and Vince was like, what's that? Yeah, no, I swear to God, I could hear it in Vince's voice because when Nick Conn said,

go to, he wrote signal backwards and it's like lagnons or whatever. And Vincent, what in the blue hell is lagnan's? Just to call attention to it. What crime would you like me to commit here? Oh, I see.

Well, here are the five presumed facts now that they, they, the defendants, Vince McMahon and Nick Khan, have the burden of trying to overcome these, it is presumed true that Ariammanuel's promise to provide Vince with a continued role at any post-merger company after a transaction influenced Vince's decision-making with respect to the merger. Also presumed true, Ariam Manual's offer of indemnification

and other legal support related to pending federal investigations of Vince's alleged misconduct, influenced Vince's decision-making with respect to the merger. Also presumed true? Vince decided to pursue a transaction with Endeavor in 2022 before the company initiated the strategic review process. Boom! Again, this is a publicly traded company. There are things they have to do.

Also presumed true? Nick Kahn communicated with Ari Emanuel between August and December. 2022 to facilitate a transaction between WWE and Endeavor. And finally, presumed true, Vince McMahon and Nick Conn worked with the advisement firm, Rain, to steer the process towards a deal with Endeavor and away from other potential bidders. So we could stop there because I think...

Well, that's the crux of the situation. You know, usually it would be the plaintiff's job to prove these things. Now the burden is on Vince and Nick Conn to prove the opposite. Well, because they can't really at this point, because they're presumed true, because they destroyed evidence that people could have reviewed to find out. But that's so usually the burden of proof is on the plaintiff in this case. the fucking defendants or what had proved them, they divined themselves is what they did.

They stooged themselves in effect. And that's, if there is the lawsuit, the crux of it for the laymen out there, and the people like me who just can't stand this minute, legalese bullshit, these people are suing because they say it was a set-up deal. it wasn't really the finish was called beforehand it wasn't a legitimate sale and that Vince steered it the way he wanted it to go and therefore the shareholders were potentially shortchanged

or whatever harmed in some fashion and we had been saying it's going to be hard for them to prove a case like that because the stock is worth twice as much as it was before. and the company has exploded after their new, newfound ability to squeeze blood out of a fucking turnip and all that type of thing. But in the process of this, they're uncovering that this was, a lot of this was done in a way that technically violates,

I don't know, federal law, state law, the laws of goddamn how you do this with a publicly traded company. So even if they're not going to make their one, point, they're airing everybody's dirty laundry out on the goddamn public line. And somebody potentially could get in some kind of goddamn trouble over this, couldn't they, Brian? Well, again, certainly they'll be held liable for a fine. It'll be interesting to see how much of, it'll be interesting.

I mean, it's the same judge that's overseeing the case that just sanctioned them. when he said it's going to be presumed true, he's the one who's going to be presuming that. Yes. And I'll tell you, it's a hard thing to get over with the judge once they think you destroy evidence. Trust me, we're dealing with some situations that we may talk about in the future

where this exact situation may have occurred from the other party. You can find out all kinds of things in discovery in a lawsuit that we mention regularly, and that's what this, but that's the thing is, you would think that these grown adult criminals, graduates of major universities, and well-versed in the art of stealing people's money and business deals, would have been able to, goddamn, be better at covering it up

in shit that might come out in the course of a fucking brew-haha like this, than to give these poorly-coated lignans. What in the blue hell's lignans? and doing it on shit that self-destructs after five minutes or whatever. And they're proving their own, the other party's case against them for them, is what I'm trying to say here. Yeah, and again, why would you even use Signal?

Were they arrogant enough to think there wouldn't be anyone looking into how this deal happened all of a sudden after Vince McMahon left the company? All of a sudden he comes back because he says that the board can't do anything without him. They need him there for media rights or anything else and to facilitate a sale. And then it quickly happens to Ari Emanuel. Wouldn't you know who won the pony? And like you said, the stock is through the roof. But it's not about that.

It's about how much the stock, it's about how much the shareholders got when the deal was made. Would Liberty Media, for instance, have paid more to the shareholders on the purchase date than Endeavor did. That's what they're arguing, and again, the shady behavior. If you are the head of a publicly traded company, let alone one going through a merger or a sale, why the fuck are you on signal with auto-delete? And they constantly are updating,

I mean, there's a whole list of like, Nick Conn on this day changed his delete settings three different times in the same day, and on this day, four times in the same day, they're constantly Why can't they just talk on the goddamn phone like normal criminals did from back in the 20s and 30s?

Or just text? I mean, at this point, I mean, well, they're going to deal with it. It's going to be a big fine, I'm sure. And I know somebody's going to say, well, you can bug a phone. We're not talking about an FBI investigation

in a goddamn mob. Their phones weren't bugged, but you would think that they wouldn't leave all this shit in effect written down. and remember I told you one time I don't I don't know if I have one piece of paper

in my possession that was actually written by Vince McMahon he would write shit in his book or notes for himself but he would have memos done or things sent out or whatever so all of a sudden

he's just willy-nilly pulling this high level white-collar crime bullshit on the interwebs where the documentation is there. I don't get it. And by the way, again, Brandon Thurston's done a great job. I know he's with Resslemics, but these articles have been with post-wrestling. He's done a great job covering the story. It also shoots a hole in the whole argument of Stephanie McMahon is disgusted by her father

and would never behave this way. And that's why she's around. She's different than the rest of them. she was mixed up in this whole fucking thing. She was at every lunch. She was at every lunch. She was also changing her delete settings and signal. She was also getting messages.

She was mixed up in his whole thing. She's just as bad as the rest of them. Well, and when she came back, or when he came back and she left, it wasn't apparently out of protest. It was just like she was keeping his seat warm. I'll give you the board, Dad. Do what you got to do. That's what it was.

But this is going to be. interesting. This lawsuit's about to come to trial. There's no jury. It'll be just a judge making the rulings. And I'm excited to see what happens. I mean, a lot of people have to testify. Triple H. Stephanie, Ari Emanuel, under oath about this deal. And a lot of these people deleted all their messages. That's going to come up and the best part of it is they've all already showed the referee they're trying to cheat. And now they get to try to win him over again. I don't know, Bride, if this thing turns out wrong for him in court,

does this mean, is it possible? Is it up in the air? Could any of them get the chair, do you think? No, Sparky. It's not, again, this is not a criminal complaint. This is a simple trial. Well, but now, you know, they've changed a lot of the. penalties these days you know we're going to try to crack down on crime does anyone

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Get powered up today from our friends at Ridge. Zap. All righty, I have here, where are they? There it is. I have a couple of thoughts on, again, the AEW program we are coming off of, it was the Wednesday night, May 27th, coming off of the,

what was apparently to some people, the greatest AEW pay-per-view, extravaganza of all time, to where they set to God, on fire in the first match and it went from there. But I again, I'm trying to follow what they're doing with their world title and their participants in the big stadium match this summer.

So I have a few thoughts on this past Wednesday night's dynamite effort concerning those things and a couple other things that I've couldn't help but notice on the way by. but did you see any of this program, Brian, before I begin? Do I have to tell you everything or do you kind of, were you up on it? I saw a good deal of it at least for the first hour or 50 minutes or so. I didn't watch any collision.

So I saw most of the show. It was three hours. It was three hours this week. I took it off mute when it was like talking by someone other than the commentators and then I muted and had it on. There's a lot going on. The Knicks are in the playoffs. The Mets are doing their thing.

There's a lot going on. The all night gas station. down the road. But no, in all seriousness, there was a couple things that, like I said, pertaining to the world title situation that I wanted to see, and I'm trying to give an opportunity to, rather than going back in this with both feet and watching the whole thing again. So at the top of the program,

what's Will Osprey doing well? At last, this was last, you know, Sunday at the pay-per-view, he walks by René Moxley Good and the accent in a hallway with echoing is

very hard for me but I think he was I'm all right, I'm all right, I'm good, something like that, right? I'm just going to go over here and get an ice pack. I can't do the fucking accent, right? And he walks into the medical

office and there's Kenny sitting there with an ice pack on him. And they sit there and have a talk and by the end of it, I don't know if I really like either one of them if I'm the average fan. Because while Kenny is sitting there saying, what did you call me, bro, you needed help you go train with the death riders. You can't trust them. And he reminds Osborne. that, you know, they're the ones that broke your neck.

So maybe instead of training with them, maybe they ought to be paying court-ordered restitution. I don't know. But Kenny says they broke your neck, you can't trust them. Why didn't you ask for my help? But then the same guys, and why did he ask for my help proceeds to tell, well, you know, neither one of us are what we used to be.

What the fuck? Is it just because that's your story? It doesn't mean you have to bury the goddamn top baby face in the big stadium show he's a fucking washed up has been i'm i'm serious this is what they're doing and they're sitting there all slump shouldered with ice packs on had the shit kicked out of them and kenny's being prickly at fucking osprey because you didn't ask me to help because the same guys that broke your neck they broke my neck too i could have helped you and then Osprey got prickly back at Kenny

well you're not here every week you don't show. And then Kenny's fucking response to well you're not here every week was well well I can't be here every week. Yeah what the hell is that response? Don't know. I don't fucking know. Where else do you have to be on Wednesday? Yes, for your millions of dollars you get a year this job from this guy. Where else do you? And that's the point. It's to beat up mush-mouthed baby faces moaning at each other like old washwomen. It makes their

baby faces always look washed up or impotent or stupid or gullible or feckless or bring up a whole other string of synonyms. It just, just so that was Osprey in the back and I think that's pretty much what we saw of him. He must have just well he you know fuck he can't just be here every goddamn

week. Anyway then Kevin Knight came to the ring for a heel promo and because this is also part of the title picture because MJF's going to show up here at a second but this was I genuinely

wanted to see because I think there could have been a middle ground where instead of being part of a tag team with a goofy partner that Kevin Knight could have expanded on his own as a singles baby face, he's got physique, he's got charisma, he's got athleticism, he's had fucking Steamboat's daughter hanging around his neck,

dragging him down. after an initial run is a more upper card baby face, then I think they could have planned some type of heel turn for him that fit into, I don't know, things that he may have been involved in for a month or two. But instead, when somebody said, hey, we ought to switch him heel. They do it, okay, let's make him jealous of somebody.

And he switched heel. So the fans are pissed at him and they were chanting at him an asshole, asshole, and he had some good stuff. He knocked the 76ers and Darby. They let us all down. This was better than what he did the other week.

Oh, yeah. I mean, that's not a high bar. No, that was one of the worst, and he was a baby face, but that was one of the worst on-air promos I've seen from anyone. This was worlds better. Well, yeah, but at the same time, they short-changed him because they gave him no,

there's no reason for, well, Darby let us all down. I'm not here to take part, I'm here to take over. And why did he just suddenly, in the space of two or three weeks, essentially changed the goddamn entire outlook he had on fucking life with no warning whatsoever, just suddenly

oh shit, y'all let us down, I'm going to be a heel now. That's what the little nuances would have helped because it would have added to his explanation. He really had nothing he had words he wanted to say and he tried to

say them here because he's still inexperienced. He let the people get to him. It's good that they're reacting like that, but I think he also let them get to him a bit in terms of the flow of his delivery.

With more practice, he needs to watch that and nip up out of that, but there needed to be something that he could actually talk about here besides I mean, it was just so out of,

do you get the idea it was just out of nowhere? Oh, let's turn him heel. Here we go. I don't know how much long-term booking there is with anything in AEW other than, you know, the main event picture and kind of where Tony wants things to go, not the ins and outs. It did seem kind of out of nowhere. You got a big reaction when he beat up Darby. That's the way you get hate in AEW with those fans. Really hurt Darby.

You know, I thought this was promising. I thought it was a promising promo and, yeah, maybe kind of out of nowhere, but it was. and then here came his old partner spitball. And they made him some kind of suit. God damn it. I've never. It was like tan camels. It was a tan camel's hair business suit styled after a karate ghee.

I don't know what. This had to be custom made because I guarantee you not a single. solitary son of a bitch has ever worn anything like it. And he came out with that douchebaggy delivery where he sounds like a kindergarten teacher. And you should apologize to everyone. And Kevin Knight goes to blow him off and turns around and takes a big swing.

He's going to blast him over the head with the microphone. And boom, and down goes Bailey. except he missed him completely a foot over his fucking head with the microphone and hit Bailey with like his goddamn elbow on the way by. It was just. And then he gave him something else and left him laying. This is where if guys are just not natural, you know, extemporaneous speakers, they need not too many details.

Then you get into a goddamn where they're trying to remember a legal deposition, shit, whatever. But there needs to be a basic reason that they can convey to the fans that people would understand why that this has been coming for a long time or I had to do it or the breaking point or whatever. No, you know, hey, Darby let us down and I beat everybody. I beat MJF, so and that's

they're reminding everybody a lot of people beat MJF. Anyhow. So that was that segment which we will revisit here in a few minutes next part of this, but Jericho I know went about 20 minutes

with ricochet and then Tomaso Champa kicked a shit out of Jericho. And they have a four-way with various people. And then 9 o'clock came around, Brian. You didn't get to see Leo Rush? Well, I saw him, he's wandering around like a fucking

gremlin that lives in a fucking haunted house. He's very committed to it. He's very good as a little goblin or whatever the fuck he is. Goblin. There you go. That would be Leo the Goblin Rush. He's in a four-way match. one of the other competitors was Roosh.

So you had Leo Rush and Roosh in the same match. Okay, well, let's just say it was Pockets and Leo Rush and Brian Cage and the other Rush. And ended up Rush and Rush finished the match when a bunch of other people ran out and carried pockets out and Cage fought off and then Rush beat Rush. Did you see Rush getting an MJF's face? we haven't got there yet the horns the horns and you know it sounds even it it sounds cool when he sets up the line and when you mess with the bull and then the people say you get the horns it sounds cool and then when he says it after that it sounds stupid because they just said it but nevertheless, at 9 o'clock Eastern,

they carried MJF out on a throne. And he did the in-ring promo. He's got the title back again. He's one of only eight men to be a three-time world heavyweight champion by the time they were 30. We get a lot of qualifiers in there. Huh, that's interesting. This seemed longer than it was.

And it's, I mean, MJF is, a bad promo is better than most anybody in the business, because let's face it, regardless of how he's been booked or what else you think of if he can talk, but it ain't new anymore. And he's got, he's got no dusty to his flair. He's got no Austin to his rock. He's got no something to his something, something. He just has to come out and do basically his own shit and the same shit every week.

Am I being too hard on it? But it just, it was taking a while. And then it wasn't over because Mark Briscoe then came out to interrupt, which I was like, well, we've seen this before, but I guess, you know, it's a good match and he's got to now defend the title against somebody. And not only were they in Philadelphia where they're predisposed to like Mark Briscoe,

but also he's just ever popular, as they used to say, but then that took a while because they were just going to talk to each other. And there's already plenty of heat, but they've got to do the performance. and Mark wants us a shot at the title and MJF says no this is a business right no shot for you it would put us out of business and then he's going to the back and then here comes rush not Leo but the other one and if they he's a heel first of all isn't he if he ain't he ought to be because he's an obnoxious acting son of a bit but now he's up in MJF's facing. Well,

Mark Brisco's a chicken farmer, but you're a chicken shit. It's the only thing he said all night you could understand and they bleeped it. And then there was more back and forth here. Okay, well, MJF is going to give Rush a title shot next week. And Mark Briscoe's still standing in the ring like,

everybody forget about me? And MJF and Briscoe would have been a better match. And you'd have somebody you could really cheer for. But at the same time, they didn't want to do that, I guess, because they've done it before. So now MJF's going to beat this other guy. Did they switch him baby face? And I just didn't notice because they liked the catchphrase.

Or why would he not? He's the one that used to just beat up and take advantage of all the poor baby faces. wouldn't fight back, right? Oh, you get the shit out of Jack Perry that one time, yeah. Yes. Yeah. I don't know if he's a baby face or a heel or one of those. It depends on the circumstance, but, again, MJF and Mark Briscoe, I'm sorry to say,

I'm not excited about that. We've already seen it. The MJF segments, what you asked before. I don't know we're going to see it again, because we never had any closure to that whatsoever. He just blew Mark off and left. But I agree with you. They feel like they're going longer.

He doesn't get to the point any. prolongs things and things go forever. There's a lot of like time just standing. Not talking, just people standing there, it seems like. Also on the other hand, he's one of their biggest ratings movers

so I could understand wanting him out there for longer. But, uh... That's why I said there needs to be a rival. And somebody that... Why I said a flare to a dusty

or Austin to a rock, somebody that can push him verbally, that they can sit down, and if nobody's going to give the fucking baby face something to say, the guy that can come up with it on his, remember the promos between punk and MJF, but it needs somebody to be on the level of the devil, to make these things interesting at this point,

or else wise it's just him coming out and being surly and knocking everybody. And again, I said this a few years ago. He doesn't always have to out and out insult to people. Like it's obvious he's trying to do that. He could, there could be some wise cracks or the fucking dig, or he doesn't have to just full on, you know, you people eat shit and live in hovel.

he could switch it up because it sounds like a guy that's instead of being MJF like he used to be he's acting like MJF does that make any sense it makes a lot of sense I think so he needs he needs somebody to where he can really go back and forth with it and people are interested

and fucking boom and it's pressing each other and some noose and some changes in the flow and potentially it doesn't take fucking 20 minutes every time. I think in the long run, it'll be Darby, maybe. I'm not saying it'll be the promo battle back and forth, but in terms of having that steady opponent year after year who could always be there, there's always a story that's never over. Again, it's not perfect, but there really aren't any other candidates.

Well, speaking of candidates in this program, there weren't a lot of others because they had Claudio and Brody King, the Owen Hart Tournament, that prestigious thing is going on. And then one more thing I wanted to talk about because that was it with Osprey and anything involving MJF, but

Edge and Christian came out for a promo in the ring and Brian, prove me wrong here. Are they the oldest combined age? of major company tag team champions since bruiser and Crusher?

I'd have to go through the AWA tag team because it would definitely be from the AWA. It had to be in the AWA. They got Medicare in the AWA for they retired. But what is the combined age 107? Yeah, they may be. And I'm glad. I'm glad for.

Didn't Flair and Piper get a run with the WWF tag team titles in like the early 2000s when they were both at least in their late 50s? Oh, hold on. Am I wrong? In the early 2000s, Flair wouldn't have been in his late 50s. Rick Flair, Roddy, Piper. As crazy as it sounds, I bet you that Edge and Christian are older right now than Flair and Piper were whenever they were the tag team champions. They defeated the Spirit Squad, who were the tag team champions. Boy, this is a real lovely time in WWE history.

Does it say what year here? It does not. Well, Spirit Squad, that would have been 2006 or 7-ish, because they didn't do that to those guys until I left. November 2006. Okay, Flair would have been 57. Piper 55, something like that. Yeah, in that range.

Okay. what are edge and Christian, right? And I'm not trying to dump on them. And while you're looking at that, I'll just explain it. It's just, it's so, it's such a rib to me that in the company that everybody talked about, these are the new guys, these are the young guys, these are the people of big companies didn't have the guts to put on national TV and their fucking tag team champions now are two of the oldest active wrestlers in the business.

and 25-year veteran WWF superstars. They're both 52. Okay, so close. 104 instead of 109 or whatever. Well, there you go. But Bruiser and Crusher were younger. Anyway, they're doing the deal where Cage tries to act like a heel, and Edge tries to keep him from doing it.

and they did the thing where Edge got a big bag and dumped out a sack of disposable cameras. I don't know where they got those. Was that some kind of storage wars find? And to do the five second pose for flash photography or whatever they used to do,

but after Edge blew himself up, running around, giving the cameras out, Finley and Chuck Connors ran in from behind and beat him up with a shalely. And then just kept beating them and just gave him this move and that thing. And nobody bothered to help. No referees came out. They have no friends. Long way from Asheville, I guess.

And then they posed for pictures over the heels or the baby faces, prone dead bodies with the disposable cameras. That's the tag team title scene over there. Oh, yeah, it is. But at least they still have the greatest matches ever seen in the history of, more times than Nick Gula said, this is the greatest card I've ever signed. That's how many great matches they have in AEW.

according to Uncle Dave and many of those people. And you even, Brian, you're breaking down. But you didn't actually say, you just said it was the best AEW pay-per-view they ever did. Of course, now that's like telling, you know, fucking Jaja Gabor, that's the best English she ever spoke. It still might not be too clear.

But Uncle Dave loved the pay-per-view matches, didn't he? He loved it, darling. He loved them, darling. I'm making some hotcakes. We have here the star ratings for double or nothing 2026 from the Wrestling Observer newsletter. We always cover this. The listeners love it. We have to start with the pre-show.

And by the way, this from the guy who said Javon Evans and Penta did too many flips, and he sees better than that all the time whenever he's in Mexico. Jim from the pre-show, Megan Bain and Lena Cross, won a non-title five-minute time limit proving ground match over Zeta Steel and Vivavon in four minutes and 46 seconds. And the rating for that, I'm going to say,

was two and a quarter stars. A star and a quarter. Oh, my God! Is that the lowest modern era rating in history from Uncle Dave Nelson? What did poor, did one of these girls is uterus just fall out in the middle of the ring? What the fuck could have happened?

I'm not exactly sure. That Zeta Steel is a mighty good-looking girl, but let's go back to the next one here. Jim, Claudio Castignoli, and Wheeler Yuta, and Daniel Garcia defeated Hook and Shabbata and Anthony Bowens, 10 minutes, 31 seconds, three and a quarter stars. Okay, we're heading north again.

I hear many of those names, and I think that probably wasn't three and a quarter, but who am I? To make a comment, I didn't watch it. The guy who developed the system, but let's go back to us. No, I didn't develop it. I just, I just, I shot the original picture, then other people took the film and developed it from there.

Jim, the final pre-show match, Orange Cassidy and Roderick Strong, and Big Boom AJ and QT Marshall and Mark Brisco defeated Shane Taylor and garlic not garlic

Charlie Bravo it's across the thing over here I thought it was said garlic it says Charlie Bravo well he wrote Carly he left out to H Shane Taylor Carly Bravo

Sean Dean and Anthony Agogo and Anthony a Gogo Wow and Lee Moriarty six minutes. I know, he's still paying all these people. Two-star match. Good Lord.

So three and a quarter to the other thing, but that thing, okay, that must have been a pretty much a scrambled egg type situation too. Jim, in an I-quit-street-fight for the tag team titles, Adam Copeland and Christian Cage defeated FTR. 19 minutes, 36 seconds. and a flaming table and five stars. Oh, good Lord. All right. Wait a minute. I know you don't know the answer to this question,

but I would be willing to bet that this is one of, the only five-star matches that Edge have ever gotten, if this is not the first one, would have happened in AEW. when he's in his 50s. Oh, I would be very interested if somebody who knows about these things or could do this research, has Edge ever had a five-star, or Christian, for that matter? Edge or Christian in their 40-year careers ever had a five-star match in the WWF

facing the biggest stars in the history of the business? or now in their early 50s, because it's on an AEW pay-per-view, do they get five-stars? And by the way, in my eyes, they didn't. I don't think there's a five-star match in any stretch of the word. No way, no way. Jim Konoske Tekechhta defeated Kazushka Okada to win the international title, 19 minutes, one second. One second longer than the tag match. Five-star match.

Oh, Christ. I'll agree with Dave on this. This was really good. You're going to tell me that Okada was in something as good as flare and steamboat and Michael's and Undertaker and all those people at the peak of their powers. No, I'm trying not to think of the other good things I like to compare it against. I'm trying to look at it in a vacuum just on its own and pretend nothing else in wrestling history exists so that I can enjoy it properly. Does that make sense? No.

Jim, the next match, Athena defeated Mina Shirakawa in the first round of the Owen Hart Cup 10 minutes 46 seconds. Three-star match. Sure.

Just the path of least resistance right down the middle. John Moxley defeated Kyle O'Reilly to retain the Continental title. 18 minutes 44 seconds. Wow. four and a half stars. Now, again, I have a Moxley rule, but didn't you tell me that you actually watched this

and people were either sleeping or praying during much of it? See, I wonder what the thought process is. I think it gets boring, and usually that's right around the time the fans aren't reacting, but I guess you could argue that they're so entranced with John Moxley's Gracie gimmick or whatever it is that you called it the other day. Han Gracie, we'll call him. Maybe because of that, they like watching him do that stuff. I think his matches are so bad.

The layout is so bad. And he got the big win over the guy who beat him by using his own move. And then that caused him to shake hands. He was so scared. Oh, don't do that to me again. Here, all's forgiven. Will Osprey defeated Samoa Joe. First round to the Owen Hart tournament,

13 minutes 51 seconds. And hold on here, because this was the match that I actually enjoyed and thought was the premier wrestling match of the program because they didn't have furniture, nobody got set on fire, they didn't

fight outside the ringer in the crowd for ridiculous amounts of time, and they were serious and not doing stupid juvenile comedy. so Dave gave it, well, I would say two stars, except he don't want to hurt Osprey's feelings, so he gave it three.

Four and a half stars. Okay, I'm sorry, I apologize. He's a bigger fan of Osprey than I thought. Jim Swarbr Strickland defeated Bandito. First round of the Owen Hart Cup tournament, 15 minutes, 28 seconds, four and three-quarter stars. Okay, but these guys have to be better.

Almost five. Four and three-quarter. Tecla retained the A.A.W. women's title in a four-way over Jamie Hater, Chris Statlander, and Hikaru Shita, who stinks. In 13 minutes, 59 seconds. You used to yell at me for saying ad back when I said every week she tries to jump off that stupid chair. Wasn't she the one jumping off the stupid chair? I don't know, but she's not good. I'm sorry, she isn't, but she also got a three-and-a-quarter-star rating for this match.

Oh, geez, well, that must have stunk, because that's first time he's dipped below four and a half since the thing started. Jim, in a stadium stampede match, Chris Jericho and the Young Bucks, and Jack Perry, and Kenny Omega, and Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin defeated ricochet, Toa Leona, Bishop Conn, Clark Connors, David Finley, Mark Davis, and Andrade 31 minutes, 11 seconds,

4 and 3 quarter stars. Okay, okay, at this point, now he wants it to be a self-fulfilling prophecy that it's the greatest pay-per-view of all times, so every match is rated. How can you even look at something like what that was and then say, look at something like Joe and Osprey

and say these things were equally as good as each other? Well, what Dave wrote here, this was just craziness. It was too many people and so much to keep up with, but in the end it was a great spectacle. and Jim the final You wouldn't believe the way the fucking projectile diarrhea blew out at all angles

from his asshole and Jim finally MJF won the AW World Championship from Darby Allen 24 minutes one second title versus hair match that's got to be five stars four and three quarter stars oh good Lord

all right so okay was MJF and Darby or Okada and take the better match? Oh, you know, I'm actually going to go with Okada and Takesha because... Oh, God,

you've become one of them. You've inhaled a space pie. MJF and Darby, there was too much shit on the floor where they just looked the other way. You know, at least Okada and Takesha was just in the ring. They were wrestling. I liked it better, I think. O'Cada was breathing. O'Cada put in an effort.

I saw him I saw a drop of sweat on his forehead somewhere. Manifest itself on his hair. Well, then okay, in that case, then I like him even less because if he's actually been capable all this time and he's just been tanking it. So he can't wait. And he's just a lazy fucking ass stealing his paycheck.

He shouldn't have outed himself as being able to still go. But I do think MJF and Darby was better than Coping Cage versus FTR, which was the other five-star match. Well, they got a half a star for Barbecue and Stokely. But those were Dave Meltzer's views or his ratings of AEW Double or Nothing. Of course, he did not think Javan and Penta was all that special because he watches so much great wrestling all day, multiple times a day. But this show really hit a home run still, notwithstanding all those facts.

You know what the thing is, Brian? Here's the problem. I've now just seen what Dave's issue is. He does nothing but sit there and watch wrestling all day. He never goes to bed. He never goes to sleep. He never recharges his brain. That's why his brain is so fried because it's just been working nonstop in some fashion for 45 years. Dave needs to be in a medically induced coma for about a month or so.

Let's not say that. That's maybe a step too far, Jim. Well, because he's lost so much sleep. That's the thing is he's got a long way to go to catch up now. It'll take him longer and he's going to live to do it. Naturally, I think he hit him with the Propa Fall for about 30 days and he'll be right as rain. But folks, don't be like Dave.

Don't let your sleep go. Don't get so far behind that they need to call Dr. Conrad Murray to give you a real good nap. You just catch up with it every night. Like nature intended, you just got to have the right thing to sleep on. you don't want to be out there laying in an alley sleeping on rusty coffee cans you don't want to be whining with kings and dining with queens and sleeping in the alley

on cold pork and beans like dusty used to do you want to go to bed on a just a cloud just a soft surface that you can float away to never never land in propofall free might I add because that'll cost you extra if you use the propapol. They have that on the website. Oh, God, damn.

No, they don't. Can we get to the product before you start listing things they don't have? No, they don't have that. Well, I'm just trying to tell you. You shouldn't use that, ladies and gentlemen, unless you're... No, you don't need it anymore. Because, well, and Dr. Murray's book... A legitimate doctor in a legitimate medical facility.

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we love them you will too helix sleep all righty bryan i got an email from one of the cult of cornet listeners that i thought might provocate some scintillating conversational amongst us because this was this is right down our alley he went and he looked up the different schedules for march 1987 the the time of ressomania three right for the different champions ho kogan the w fd bachwinkle the a w a w a champion rick flair the n w a champion. As he says, three different champions with three distinct schedules. And at the top of this, I have to say he said he went to the cage match site. Now, I hate to impugn the integrity of cage match,

but this isn't complete in all forms because I have records that would indicate that they didn't count TV tapings for flare. He might have wrestled. He might have just spoken, but there's no there's no way to tell because he appeared there, but they don't have it on cage match. So they may not be complete, but this is kind of representative of what the schedules were in the different companies at that point, and also with Hogan, bear in mind,

this was March of 87, so he was probably doing not only publicity, but, you know, television appearances and et cetera, but this doesn't, I would imagine, take into account every house show he made because he's including TV dark matches and WrestleMania. He's only down for 12 matches. Would that be a full month for Hulk Hogan? Brian, in March 1987, you probably have a. a better knowledge than I do of that time period up there.

And again, I haven't had time to look to supper or anything, so I'm just going off the top of my head. It does seem rather light. Again, this is WrestleMania 3, him and Andre, that period of time. I don't recall what his schedule was on the house shows the month before that. It seems light. But like you said also, it doesn't take into effect or take into account. waking up at 6 in the morning to do morning TV in some town

or whatever local promotion he was doing or national promotion he was doing. Right. So that being said, let's start with Old Hulkster. On March 2nd, he was in Uniondale, Long Island, Nassau Coliseum, and he beat Hercules Hernandez.

And then the next recorded match is March 6th in Birmingham at the Boutwell Auditorium, where he beat Hercules and, Bobby Heenan in a handicap match. But again, the third, the fourth, and the fifth, in those days, I find it hard to believe

he won somewhere. Then March 7, Boston Garden, six-man elimination tag with Hulk, Billy Jack Haynes and Roddy Piper, over Adrian Adonis, Hercules, Hernandez, and Paul Orndor.

And then again, March 10th, so we lose the 8th and the 9th. March 10th, he's in Dayton at the old Hara arena, which was a dark match against Paul Orndorf and a superstar as a wrestling taping. And that's, I guess maybe some of the kids might not even understand the concept of dark match back then. Now they think of dark match as like a tryout

or something that's not televised. They're just taking a look at somebody. But in those days, They couldn't advertise, hey, we're going to give you 28 fucking squash matches on this shitty TV taping we're trying to get you to come to. They would advertise a couple of main events, Hulk Hogan against Paul Orndor for whoever against whoever. And you would have to sit through all the TV to see those goddamn matches. And then that's what drove me crazy. in WCW, yes, we had the main event dark matches and TVs, even back to Crockett,

but we never had four or five-hour TV tapings. And then the match still was a match. They didn't, the WWF would do a TV taping that started at 7.30 and at quarter to midnight. After these, you probably went some of them, you saw the results of some. they would do, like I said, 28 squash matches, and then you'd get the main event dark match and it would go for 90 seconds. And I'd like, fuck if I was one of those people, I'd be pissed.

But nevertheless, then on the 11th in Columbus, Ohio, in a wrestling challenge dark match, he beat King Kong Bundy. Then we go to March 14th in Philadelphia at the spectrum, and this was apparently broadcast on Prism, the old cable network up there, Hoke and Roddy Piper beat Kamala and Paul Orndorff. And then that's the 14th. We skip a day, but in the 16th, we're in Denver,

where Hulk and the Crusher beat Kamala and the Honky Talk Man. Wow. I would like to have seen that. that's what Vince had absorbed Vern's top guys. The Crusher meant so much and Denver was an old AWA town. So, you know, even in 87,

the Crusher still meant something and enough to team with Hulk Hogan. Figuring that'll draw a house. But just that combination. And Wayne Ferris in there trying to figure out how he's Kamala's partner, Kamala don't bump. How am I going to not take a bump?

Anyway, then the 19th in Chicago at the Rosemont Horizon, he beat Paul Orndorf, the 20th in Omaha, beat Hercules, 21st in Las Vegas, in another dark match at TV beat Hercules. The 22nd in Phoenix, Arizona, another TV dark match, he beat Harley Race. and then Harley set to ring on fire.

And then one week later, after Phoenix, the 29th in Pontiac, Michigan, he beat Andre the Giant at WrestleMania. So that was Hulk Hogan's march according to the fine folks, whoever they may be at Cage Match. And again, you know, it seems light, but it is possible that Vince was holding, him back and just a lot of tag matches here, dark matches at TV that would go probably a minute or two and in a couple of big events that, you know, they needed him,

Chicago, Philadelphia, whatever, he was probably keeping him light for WrestleMania just to avoid catastrophe. Well, how does that compare with where are we going to go next? NWA. Well, let's go to Nick, Tricky, Bokwinkle. because now this was not fair, really in that this was Nick's last run with the belt. It was 1987. Vern's business was rapidly declining.

But in the glory days of the AWA 70s and early 80s, when they really got the whole territory established, because in the 60s, remember it was, they had an annexed win. And they hadn't gone out to Denver and Oakland and they'd all the places at Salt Lake City. Originally, Minnesota and Wisconsin and Illinois and, you know, maybe some surrounding border towns in the different states, that was the core territory. But when Vern expanded, he still didn't run every night like Crockett did or like, you know, Georgia did when they started doing northern tours, he just picked the big towns.

And he stopped running so many spot shows. And so even though they had all this ground to cover, they would only run. I've talked about Bokwinkle City, loved it because in the wintertime, they only ran about 18 days a month. So you still had plenty of days off. and in the summer they lightened up even further.

And a lot of guys took outdates in other territories. Nick liked to go to Tennessee and Houston. So it just wasn't smaller shows. It was all bigger shows in big buildings, the Denver's and et cetera. But remember, Brian, in the 70s and the glory years, when they were drawing major money, a big card for the AWA was five matches, with one tag match on the card.

Everybody was a name. All the guys were over. They were world known wrestling talent, but there was 14 guys on the card. So they could either take the, you've heard the private plane stories with Mad Dog Vashan or whatever, or they could take commercial flights

and they didn't have huge transportation bills. So anyway, it was a lighter schedule to begin with, but then by 87, unfortunately, it's sad when you read this. March 1st, they were in Minneapolis at the Minneapolis Auditorium. It wasn't even, you know, like the St. Paul Civic Center anymore for the big show. And it was Nick and Greg Ganya and Ray Stevens losing by disqualification to Zubisco, Saito, and the Super Ninja, who was Shunji Takenakano, possibly Bulls brother. By the way, Nick's 53 here.

Yeah, and it was still one of the best workers I've ever seen in the business over 50 years of age. And actually, when he was over 50, he was one of the better workers of guys who were in their 30s. and on March 2nd, as I mentioned, because he liked to take out dates. He was still the AWA title was what was being recognized in Memphis at that point. And he went to Memphis on the second and beat Soul Train Jones,

who would later become Virgil, but they were giving him a push as a big baby face at the time there in Memphis. On March 7th at the Las Vegas showbo Pavilion, he beat Kurt Henning by disqualification. And that's where they were doing their TV tapings for ESPN at that point. And I don't know whether that was a TV taping or just a house show, but

then you go from March 7th to March 21st. Maringo, Illinois at the Meringo High School Gym. Oh, my God. beat Colonel Debears by disqualification. And they were back to doing spot shows. 30 years later after they quit. On March 22nd, he was in Denver with Greg Gagne and Ray Stevens. They beat Zabisco, Ryuma Go, and the Super Ninja.

On March 27th in Milwaukee, he did a double countout with Kurt Henning. on March 28th in Wausau, Wisconsin. He and Ray Stevens lost to Larry Zabisco and the Super Ninja. Wausau was the town, I'm sure it was a different place, but that was the town that was right outside Milwaukee, that MLW did a TV taping in several years ago. I was there, and it had to be a high school or something or other. and then his last date, March 29th in Rockford, Illinois,

at the Boylan Catholic High School. He and Ray Stevens beat Zabisco and the Super Ninja. It wouldn't have been that way. That would not have been the schedule for the AWA champion five years previously, 10, 15 years. But that's where they were at at that point. baby-faced Bokwinkle at the end.

Yeah, and it's sad that I love spot shows and I've just praised them, you know, many times there's nothing wrong with them, but when you went from the schedule that they had in the big buildings and the Chicago's and the Minneapolises and Winnipegs and et cetera and Denver's and Salt Lakes

and you're at the Catholic high school in Rockford. It's, you know, anyway. But now we come to the main event, Rick Flair's schedule for March 1987. And I'm able to go back with my Midnight Express scrapbook and see, you know, a little bit more information on a couple of these things. But he started off March the first in Richmond, Virginia. Richmond Coliseum, that was, let's see, that was a Sunday because we did two shots. Richmond was 2 o'clock in the afternoon and he beat Barry Wyndham there in front of a $77,000 house. And then that night we took Crockett's plane for an 8 o'clock show with the Omni in Atlanta, where he also beat Barry Wyndham, and the house in Atlanta was 52 grand.

So at that time, that's when things were just starting to get a little funky, and Atlanta was not doing well. Richmond did better than Atlanta. During that period of time, when Rick Flair was working with Barry Windham, what's the shortest length of match they would have had? I mean, I never thought to sit out there with my watch, but I don't, on a house show in a major town like Atlanta or Richmond, I can't imagine them going less than 20.

But you're talking, but see, that's a thing. This was not unusual, as you will see later on, the double shots in the big houses for, or the big cities for Crockett, he did these all the fucking time. But anyway, that was March 1st. And then cage match has nothing until March 6th when he went to Japan for Baba. However, on March the 2nd, we were in Greenville, South Carolina,

and I know that this was a period of time where Crockett was running more than one town a night, but we were in Spartanburg for TV on the third, and ain't no way that Flair missed the TV, and you could get from Spartanburg to Japan in three days. So I have a feeling that again, there's TV tapings that he was at that is not listed here. And then this was a, let's see, he went to Japan from the 6th through the 12th. In Akita, he beat Yoshiaki Yatsu on the 7th. And on the 8th in Togain, Rick Flair, Art Cruz, and El Olympico.

lost to Tenoru, Wajima, and Takashi Ishikawa. Remember, that's when they were still trying to push Wajima. That's when they were still trying to push Ark Cruz. God bless him, yes. On March 9th in Takasaki, Rick Flair beat Tiger Mask. That was the Masawa version of Tiger Mask. On March 10th in Coriama, he defeated Jumbo Saruta by his squad, on March 11th in Shuzooka,

Flair and Art Cruz and Mike George, what the fuck, lost to Tintaru, Wajima and Tiger Mask. Why are they giving Flair the Kansas City guys for partners? On March 12th in Tokyo for All Japan Television, he beat Wajima, and that was the last night, and he just went to Japan for a week for the all- Japan Excite series.

So he wrestled in Tokyo on the 12th. Meanwhile, we had been, between the 6th and 12th, we'd been in Morganton, North Carolina. He did miss an Atlanta TBS taping, Norfolk, Virginia, Greenville, South Carolina, Fayetteville, South Carolina, Greenwood, South Carolina, Thomasville, North Carolina, and Raleigh, North Carolina.

and then the 13th, I assume, was a travel day for Flair. We were in Washington, D.C. And then he returns on the 14th, according to this, in Greensboro. But Atlanta TV was that morning. I bet you he got back for the Atlanta TV and then went to Greensboro that night where he beat Barry Windham at the Coliseum. And that was the, this was the goddamn thing.

Think about the week he's had. He left, he wrestled six nights and six times in six nights in Japan, flies back, whether he does the TBS TV that morning or not, the Greensboro match that night was against Wyndham for the NWA title and sold out Greensboro.

15,000 plus paid $130,000. And they tore the house down that night. They came to see that fucking match. And then the next night from Greensboro, North Carolina, we were in Bloomington at the Met Center after doing another two TBS tapes that morning. So whether Flair made the one on the 14th or not, I know he made the one on the 15th. So in effect us guys, us guys,

on the 13th, 14th, and 15th, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. On the 13th, flare flew back from Japan while we worked Washington, D.C. Then we all went to TV on Atlanta on Saturday morning. Then Greensboro on Saturday night for the sellout. Then back to Atlanta for two more tapes on Sunday morning. into Minneapolis. And I remember that fucking trip. And the house in Minneapolis was only 25 grand.

Dusty beat Bubba in a fucking cage match. Anyway, from there, from Bloomington, Minnesota on a Sunday night, guess where we all were on Monday, Brian? Maybe in the... Bye, blah, blah. Back into Carolinas. Back in the Carolinas, yeah. The Midnight Express was in Lenore, North Carolina,

and Flair was in Greenville, South Carolina, and he beat Barry Windham two out of three falls. So right there, every night since he's come back, since he's come back from Japan, every morning he does two TBS TV shows, and every night he goes 20 minutes with fucking Barry Windham. At least 20 minutes. At least 20.

And then from Greenville, we did China Grove, North Carolina for TV the next day. That's not listed on Cage Match, but he was there because then we made one of those goofy Crockett trips that he was starting to book. The 18th, we went to Las Cruces, New Mexico. And a flare there lost by disqualification to Nikita Koloff. and the following day the 19th we were at the forum in Los Angeles, Englewood, California, where he again went however long with Barry Wyndham. And this was what Los Angeles loved Crockett promotions the first night in. And we went back enough times they wore out their welcome.

And it was the $32,000 house. So we literally were doing. doing almost equivalent houses in goddamn, you know, Lenore, North Carolina, as we did in Los Angeles. But nevertheless, then the next night, Albuquerque, New Mexico, he beat Barry Windham again. The house was $37,000. It was $5,000 more than Los Angeles in Albuquerque.

Dusty beat Bubba in a cage. Garvins beat the Midnight Express. Flair beat Barry Windham. Then the 21st was a double shot, not a split shot. We went to Cincinnati, but Flair went to Chicago and did a double disqualification with Nikita Kowoff. So Crockett ran both those towns same night.

Then on the 22nd, this is where again, Cage Match has him in Waco, by disqualification to Nikita while we were in Houston. And I don't know why the fuck that they ran split cards in Houston and in Waco when everybody had to go to Texas to begin with. But guess I don't know how Waco did, but guess what Houston did, Brian? I don't know.

in the summit, the big building, the NBA building, $15,000. That was barely over 1,000 people. It's a worst house I ever saw in Houston. Anyway, then, following that up, let's see, that's why the next match they have for Flair after the 22nd in Waco is the 25th in San Francisco. but we were back in the Carolinas for a couple of days at that point. I don't know if they just gave him time off to rest. But then the 25th in San Francisco, that was the night or the day that we went to the airport

and Dennis Condry didn't meet us. Because we had been in Lincoln to North Carolina the night before and said, well, we'll see you in the morning. And we didn't see him to get for a year and a half. But that night in San Francisco, we did a $32,000 house. Flair lost by disqualification to Nikita Kohl-off. And then my record say we were in Amarillo the next day, but Cage Match has flare off.

I don't know why they would send him all the way to San Francisco and not picked up Amarillo on the way back because I believe that's when Crockett had his jet. but nevertheless, we finished the month. March 27th in the Atlanta Omni, he defeated Brad Armstrong. The other town was Norfolk, Virginia, that we were in that night.

Then everybody did Atlanta TV on the morning of the 28th and then flew back to Philadelphia to the Civic Center where he beat Brad again. Then we all came back to North Carolina, and he beat Brad in Asheville, North Carolina, at 2 o'clock, and beat Barry Windham on a 29th in Charlotte at 8 o'clock. So, and that was a, that was only an $85,000 day. Charlotte did 72 grand and Asheville did 13. But since that was 1987, then you figure that amount of money times, what, a little over three,

Crockett was still, when business wasn't that good, taking in the equivalent sometimes of a quarter of a million dollars a day. When you hear the argument, and Rick Flair always makes it, that if Crockett hadn't expanded West, they just stayed where they were, they'd still be in business today. Did that argument start around the time of these houses where you guys saw the business you were doing at small shows in the Carolinas and then going out west? Yes, that's exactly where it started.

And it's an oversimplification, but it definitely would have saved a lot of fucking money. And that was the problem when they started expanding to these places the first time in would usually do, well but then you're fighting the incumbent in a lot of places whether the incumbent was Vince who had already got a

foothold or your TV hadn't been on that long or whatever the fuck, bad local promotion. You can't just expand everywhere all at once and the farther we went to the west

or the farther we went in the northeast that was diminishing returns. as the south, the Midwest, obviously the middle part of the country, Texas, et cetera, and even the Toronto's of the world could have been just fine,

but, you know, Los Cruces, New Mexico wasn't going to fucking make it. And they didn't give shit in Los Angeles. But we'd go to Richmond, Virginia, and do two or three times the house you'd do in Los Angeles, California. And as far as Flair goes, That's a rather light month for him as NWA champion, actually.

Yes, that's what I'm saying. If the Japanese trip hadn't come in, he wouldn't have had two or three of those days off because he wouldn't have needed travel days. There were days literally in the months where Flair never had a day off. Well, like what I've talked about, we didn't either. But I mean, in some cases, it was not only just in the Crockett territory, but around the country in the early days

where he'd be back and forth. There was one night in, I swear to God, it was a Wednesday night and somewhere or another, he'd been booked in the main event for defend the title in Raleigh, North Carolina, and in Tampa, one was an 8 o'clock bell time, and one was an 8.30 bell time.

He made both of them. He went on, and it was a, fucking continuing rib in Raleigh that night. Because he got there, they had a private plane at the airport already because they didn't want to no-show the world champion in either town, right?

And this was after Eddie Graham had died, but still Crocket didn't want to do that to the Florida office before he even bought it. So they had a private plane at the airport. They rang the bell in Raleigh. They put the first match on. Then they put

Flair and whoever he was working with on second. He fucking finished that match. He didn't even change. He went straight to the back door, grabbed his bag, got in the car, went to the fucking airport, got in the private plane. In Tampa, they were not only putting the matches in, but having them go longer to stretch it.

And some way or another, he got there and without ever even taking his tights off. And they shot him straight into the fucking ring. main evented with whoever the fuck he was supposed to work with and defended the title there. So however far it is from Raleigh, North Carolina to Tampa or whatever town it wasn't to Florida territory, if it wasn't Tampa, and eight o'clock bell time on one and eight 30 on the other, he made both up. And again, just a few years earlier before the NWA title was completely controlled by Jim Crocket, his schedule would have been crazier.

Yeah. So anyway, that's what it was in the old days, Brian, back when the business was a business. But now it's just, it's a fantasy camp. People can just come in and get paid whether they draw, get paid whether they show up, get paid whether they know how to do this or not. What a business. You know, the only thing that could be better than that is if you had your own business, where they paid you to be incompetent.

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Before we leave today, I've been cleaning up the office, Brian. I mentioned this to you. And I found some more paperwork that we got started with some of this, several weeks ago and then things started happening and we got away from it but i thought we would fill the people in with another little a little soups-on of t-na agent reports from years ago this is 2006 still so 20 years ago my how some things haven't changed but i solved something that we didn't

know the answer to but i remember when i said i was reading the agent report from the two-hour primetime debut of and my date said it was 2006, but everybody said, oh, they didn't start two hours until 2007. Do you know what the solution of that was? It was a special primetime showing? You are correct, sir. The primetime debut where they moved us from 11 o'clock at night into 9 o'clock was a two-hour special, and then it went back to an hour until the following year when they expanded it to two hours. so everybody was right

don't you love it when that that happens like that anyhow as you may recall that started out I was just telling Jeff Jarrett what I thought of the television program when I started

and innocuous little comments and brief little quips or whatever and then as things started happening and the news was released that Mr. Rousseau had been rehired and I wasn't allowed to quit. Instead, Jeff said, will you be an agent, producer,

whatever they were calling him those days? All right, so then I started giving actual agent reports. And then as things started progressing, the way that they usually progress when you know who takes over creative, things started getting more complicated. So I don't know where we were up to last time, but the next... Go ahead.

First, let me just say the gardener showed up because, yeah... Oh, good Lord. That's my life. I think we were up to, I want to say it was like July 13th, beyond the two-hour or beyond the primetime special. Well, we started in fucking May, so we've long since gone past July. I've got December here. I think there was a remember I said there was a there was a hole in the dates based on what I got pissed and wanted to leave and then when I started doing this again right so what I've got after what we did last time comes up December 28th maybe I'll find more of the future but this is like he came in October right it's like three months into this.

this thing. So they did a, on T&A impact for December 28, 2006, they did an opening where they recapped LAX, the Latin American Exchange, and Santa Runt. Spike Dudley was there as Runt, but he was at a Santa Claus outfit, and Joe and Angle were involved. And I don't remember a lot of the details on this, but I'll just read what I wrote and Brian, see if you can pick out fucking details. This was awkward as shit. The whole Santa thing looked clownish, especially to a new viewer

complete with these sexy leg lamp saves. Somebody got to hit over there with a leg lamp. And then we're asked to get serious about Samoa Joe and Kurt Angle. This was a problem they kept having. They were trying to do serious stuff in their main events. Joe and Angle really caught on, and that trilogy they had on pay-per-view meant something,

business-wise, as well as in-ring, but then you'd see just lunacy surrounding it, and it drugged the whole thing down. Anyway, first match, Chris Saban and Storm. That would have been James Storm, I guess, at the time, wouldn't it? Against Williams and Daniels. That would be P.D. Williams, and Christopher Daniels. Storm's entrance looks good,

surly for a heel, and the people take Daniels as a real star. The other two don't look tough, in quotation marks. Sabin and Williams tried to work a little too pretty as well. Nice action on comeback and great finish, except the referee saw the chair laying in the ring, left it there and then was off camera for the chair shot.

so while Don West said he didn't see it for the viewer it looked impossible for the referee not to have seen it. Jerry Lynn's comeback on Sabin and Daniels was the best thing in the segment. Then we have a bumper. Brian, do you remember when Samoa Joe got a girlfriend? No, actually, I don't.

Well, you don't because it only lasted for like two weeks. They announced or didn't even announce but just you see Samoa Joe in a bumper with his girlfriend. And I wrote this whole girl thing was so sudden and left field, getting ankle locked the same show we find out she exists, that it was pretty much useless. Samoa Joe for the first time ever, shows up with his girlfriend,

and she gets ankle locked an hour later, right? So anyway, segment two, Letitia with Samoa Joe. remember Letitia, the interviewer? Yeah, I do. Yeah, she was actually, she was at a serious car wreck with the guy from American Pickers. Because he was based, I guess, at a store in Nashville. And she was some kind of actress or whatever in Nashville. And they picked her up to be the girl interviewer, Letitia Klein.

Hopefully she's recovered from her accident she had recently. Nevertheless, Letitia was Samoa Joe, a place. from having a pissed off Samoan shooter being interviewed by a half-naked bad actress, Joe did a great job with this. He was making serious points about the pay-per-view main event, and I was looking at her tits, which they couldn't understand. This was again, Rousseau's got to have all the women either scantily clad, calling each other sluts, or were shooting on location in the women's bathroom. You've got this badass Samoan guy having an issue with an Olympic gold medalist

and one of the biggest stars of wrestling. And but he has to be standing there next to this, you know, flunk D actress in barely clothed. It just, it, ah, team 3D enter. Bubba Ray was doing a good program. when Santa Runt showed up. I liked

I like Spike Dudley's a nice guy, but it was always a fucking a sight gag with him. The guy's delivery and emotion was very good here until it got old with the sight gag of Runt looking silly. The drinking problem comment about Runt was uncomfortable and unnecessary,

much less the beer bottle. They may have poured it down his throat or broke it over his head. But again, where do we just see this on the Road Warriors biography? You know who is incorporating into the television program because a guy had a drinking problem. 3D beat up runt, L-AX-N for heat,

3D quick comeback, security pull apart, quick and confusing. Segment three, up with runt clearing ring of Hernandez and security with a chair, are bad to have a top heel selling for this shit, devalues chair shots, no upside, then all put homicide on a table and power bomb their own man through all of it. Stud show, preposterous, indie bump stuff,

buried LAX and was rushed because it was so bloody long live, it had to be heavily edited because they couldn't stick to their times. This is what we, I was dealing with. with now. Do you see why I was starting to get grumpy, Brian? Yeah, the reports are definitely getting a lot more entertaining when you first started out doing them. Letitia with Cage and Tomko Cage was very good here, told the story well. Rude entrance, he looks great, but where is Ms. Brooks?

Backstage shoving Eric Young into the men's room. To me, this is more silly than funny and does nothing to make. either Rude or Young into bigger players. Men's Room Comedy. Then we have Lance Hoyt. Lance Archer was Lance Hoyt back then. Remember him? How could anyone ever forget the biggest man you've ever seen with a tramp stamp?

Well, it was Lance Hoyt versus Bobby Rood. They had truth, Ron the Truth Killings on Color, which overshadowed and ignored his partner. by the book match. Hoyt reminds me of Brian Lee and I don't know if that's a good thing but he has all the tools. He just,

he could never just get there, right? Ms. Brooks, I love Tracy Brooks, but Ms. Brooks' interference was stagy. And then Jesus in capital letters, rude super German suplex is a six foot eight guy off the top rope into mid-ring and this was not an angle or a hospitalization. Rude wins.

Lackluster. I liked Rude, but they were not doing him any favors in this early part of the time. Anyway, we're at segment five. Abyss and Mitchell enter the arena, and we have a nightstick on a pole match. Sting versus Abyss versus Christian Cage. because of course all of them are noted for their expertise with nightsticks.

This is what I said. Having this match and stipulation on free TV and then coming back on pay-per-view with the same match for the title is not an ideal circumstance, especially if the first match isn't really any good. Sting was pretty lackluster here except for his superplex off the top, and you can't tell a three-way story with a gimmick on a point, hole in four minutes no matter who you are. Problem, capital letters.

Tomko blatantly attacks Abyss in front of the referee, no call. Tomko rolls in the ring and attacks Sting in front of the referee, no call. Tomko gets the stick in front of the referee. Sting bumps him and hits cage with it once and wins. Just rotten. The referee was impotent, gave the match no credibility. people didn't understand it and all that billed to just one shot

with the stick without a pinfall was flat as shit then Tomko glomsting heat Abyss saves and clears the ring Sting gives Abyss the stick and we've used four weeks of TV at eight minutes here

and one more segment and I'll make a comment segment six was the 2006 awards package the end of the year right and it was me and Mike Teney in the ring after the package was very nice. I commented and we introduced Samoa Joe and the highlights and inserts earlier were nicely done. And then Joe apparently came out and Angle came out and ankle locked the girl. And I said, angle using Joe's quote unquote girl, as described earlier, really had no impact.

but both these guys did an awesome job. And Joe was very emotional, so this worked to a degree because Angle and Joe were overcoming some of this foolishness, much like guys like Taker, Austin, those guys did a few years before. If you found a really good performer, they didn't really stink as badly as everybody else did. And the bottom of the comment, this was, still a six-six segment one-hour program.

I said only two matches, need more wrestling. Because it was all this backstage bullshit and gaga. There was stuff that I didn't even, you know, little backstage things. I had one word or one line to comment on. But when I started calling attention to the fact that the goddamn matches were out of control, it was bearing everybody. The finishes didn't make any sense. As what Jeff said, well,

help but basically start fixing them then so that became the thing where after the fucking production meeting i'd have to go sit in a quarter and well how could we do this without looking stupid and then go back and pitch it and jeff would say oh yeah do that or if the talent would complain i would come up with a goddamn alternative that they were happy with and then i'd go clear it with jeff yeah okay and in shit stain would get pissed because I was changing his shit by popular demand. So it's starting to get a little bit more interesting. We'll do some more coming up now that I found this stack of paper again.

Did Jeff show these to Russo? I don't know. I don't have any idea. It wasn't like I was making a goddamn secret out of it. I just at this point, I still didn't, I don't think we spoke at all. I think he just sat down and I sat down. It may have been the first four or five months before I would say, hello, Vince. But I guess Mike, but so it, it, the point is,

he asked me to make these reports and I made these reports that I either faxed him back in the old days before I had email, faxed him these reports. I don't know who he showed him to it. I don't give a fucking Rousseau saw him because this is my fucking opinion. if I can give the guy that owns the company this information, then I don't give a shit if the other guy sees it. But did he even know about it? I'm trying to talk to the horse's head. I don't need to know what the ass is thinking. But did he know about it? Did he know that while he was writing

these TVs that he was so proud of, that you were actually asked by Jeff Jarrett to submit notes about the exact product he was writing? Did he know that it was even happening? Again, I don't know. But agent reports is not, a goddamn unusual thing. But most agents send the reports where they rip apart the TV every time. Only if I was the agent. But that's what I'm saying. I've never made a secret of what I thought about any of this in the goddamn production

meetings. I would ask, how does this make sense? Why would you do this? Why would you say that? Or with these finishes, I would say, why are you bearing the referee? Or why are you doing this thing that you shouldn't be doing in a finish? with this guy you shouldn't be doing whatever because better to say something beforehand than do it later on like I'm doing here when it's already been done it and it already sucked

and I'm trying to call their attention to the shit that has been done that sucked so we don't do any more of it I Kansas city myself I got too involved and then Jeff wanted me to do more and then eventually I was linked in there and I had to coexist with son of a bitch but it's not like I have never once said to Vince Rousseau to his face I think you're great I like your stuff

I think you book great wrestling and then gone behind his back and said no this motherfucker that that that that no he's known since the days we sat in Vince's office or in Vince's living room dining room at every

production meeting we ever had. And every statement I've ever made and his presence are out. I don't have any respect for anything he's ever done in a wrestling business. I think he's a complete imbecile.

I think he Jerry Springered his way to two years of accidental success by having people take open shits in the middle of the ring. and then nobody's ever been able to follow it

because people got tired of looking at shit, which he's still trying to give them. So no, it's not like I've ever been two-faced. This has never been a goddamn debate or there's been no question in anybody's mind about how I felt about anything that he's ever done. Well, there'll be more happiness like this

in future TNA reports. Yeah, we're almost after I do the January pay-per-view, I write Jeff a letter. Just, you know, again, we'll get to that later on. But we've been going a while today. What the hell? Give the people a chance to go out and eat their dinner from Factor and start their company with Shopify and get a good night's sleep on a Helix mattress and then get charged up the following day with a Ridge Power Bank.

There you go. And in a meantime, while you're at it, buy a copy of heroes and friends with the money for the Crusade for Children at Jimcornet.com in the month of June. And while I'm telling you what to do, come back and listen to the goddamn drive-through where Brian will try to top this.

Oh, yeah, we got Clash in Italy. We also have Mask versus Mask, Mask, El Grande-Americano versus Richard Reap's best friend. Loser gets deported More like that and questions and who knows what else Words are I'm done goodbye Words, words speaking out loud Thank you for stopping

Folks, we'll see you next time Thank you, fuck you and bye bye everybody