Jim Cornette Experience - Episode 637: The Worst Finish I've Ever Seen

Episode Date: June 9, 2026

This week on the Experience, Jim looks at his TNA Agent Report for Final Resolution 2007! Plus Jim reviews AEW Dynamite's MJF & Will Ospreay matches, and Meltzer & Alvarez arguing over Raw's viewership! Also, Jim talks about WWE & AEW's market-to-market comparisons, star ratings for AAA's Mask vs. Mask match, PRODUCE, and much more!  Thanks to our episode sponsors: RAYCON:  Upgrade your dad’s everyday routine. Go to buyraycon.com/jce to get 15% off. Thanks Raycon for sponsoring! HEXCLAD:  Find your forever cookware @hexclad and get 10% off at hexclad.com/JCE! #hexcladpartner 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 Connest, the keys to the future. Does the worst finish I've ever seen, T&A did the worst finish I'd ever seen 20 years ago, and Uncle Dave's given out more stars than there are in the heavens. We're going to talk about all that and more today with this man, my co-host and cohort Hawaiian Brian the podcasting line

the King of the Arcadian Vanguard podcast network Mr. Co-host to you he's not finished he's only getting started in fruitless great Brian last everybody Aloha Jim a pleasure to be here once again for another one of the shows Oh come on now You're lying as nothing is a pleasure for you right now

You are fruitless You are fruitly you are absent of fresh fruit without the nectar that comes from your fresh fruit supply, and you're all cranky over it, and you're puny and pissy. Don't lie to these people and say it's a pleasure. You're craving some vitamin C. You don't want to get scurvy. I typically like to have fresh fruit in the house,

and usually there is, and I'm always surprised when all of a sudden, behind my back, it's not there, and no one alerted me to this, and I didn't have a chance to rectify the problem, but right now there's no honey crisp apples, there's no cantaloupe, there's no pineapple, there's no mango, there's no blueberries,

there's no strawberries, and there's some other stuff in the fridge, but I don't know how long it's been there. So, yeah, I don't have anything. And you're saying, you're saying that there's no alarm bells in your home that go off or you don't have a good fruit monitoring system to where when you get to like a

20% level in the fruit subsistence ratio, then the pooh! And you know to immediately run and climb a fucking coconut tree or whatever it is you do to get your fix. Unfortunately, they don't grow in this climate. Otherwise, I would have several coconut trees on this property. I promise you, that would be a lot of fun. And delicious.

There is nothing on the planet. planet earth that I hate worse than coconut. Really? It's wonderful. Coconut in a cookie, coconut in some kind of pie or a coconut in any goddamn thing turns my stuff. Have you ever heard me talk about eating coconut anything? Have you ever seen me in the times that we have partaken of sustenance and mass

quantities of food together, eat anything that is. had even touched coganut. I don't think so. I mean, it's a healthy thing to eat. I don't think you would have been eating it, no. You know, it's one of the most deadly of the, of the, is it a fruit or is it a nut? It's your fat. I don't know.

It's the most deadly of the one of the nuts? Well, it's one of the most deadly of the fruits or nuts. Because think about this, what other fruit or nut can kill a son of a bitch by falling out of a tree? So there's numerous people in the, in the. coconut tree-bearing regions of the world that are killed on an annual basis by these rogue goddamn combination fruits and nuts. So they got dual citizenship. So the nut people can't crack down on it because they say, well, he's a fruit.

And the fruit people can't crack down on it. Well, he's a nut. So then, you know. Sometimes you feel like a nut? And sometimes you don't. Yeah, that's right. So anyway, we got a show today. And hopefully you can get through it before you pass away of the scurvy.

That's what I never knew what scurvy was when a kid when I was watching the Errol Flynn movies and everything. And then I found out that scurvy comes when they were on the ship out in the middle of the ocean for long months at a time on the voyages. They couldn't take fresh fruit. They got no vitamin C. and they got scurvy, where I guess the bones get curvy,

and then you do a little hervey-durvy. Hey, you're doing a scurvy, baby. No need for that. Were you going to bring something up? Yeah, on the topic of fruit and stuff, did you see there's a wrestling promotion now called produce? What is that about? Produce.

Wait a thing. The wrestlers are dressed as Mr. Potato Head characters. They got to remember the Mr. They had Mr. ketchup bottle and Mr. Pickle and Mr. Potato and Mr. Mrs. Onion. I think the onion was female. They had a set of female lips and you could stick on. They actually had a female potato also. I'm sure there'll be lots of potatoes at produce is big of that coming out.

Produce wrestling. Sponsored by. the Idaho Potato Growers Association. And I'm not joking, A and B, if you want to see them, they'll be on the MyAEW.com app. Oh, that's the name of the website. What?

Produce and now is a deal with AEW to be their official produce supplier. Wait a minute. Hold on. What are you telling me here? They've announced that there's a produce wrestling comp promotion, and it's partnering now with AEW on their streaming platform? Hold on. I have a press release here. I'll read you right from it.

Oh, Christ. Produce wrestling announces pay-per-view distribution deal with MyA-E-W. Produce's full summer series to stream live globally via MyAEW.com and the MyAEW app. And again, for the record, it's spelled all in caps, P-R-O-D-U-C-E. Produce. New York, New York, June 5th, 2026. Produce Wrestling, the new wrestling and live entertainment company founded by the creative director, curator, and independent wrestling entrepreneur Adam Abdala.

Oh, Christ. Today announces a pay-per-view dish. Hey, hey, hey, hold on. First of all, already, this isn't a press release. This is a press escape. Secondly, when this fucking guy has already given himself three glorifications in his job description and one of them is curator. You know he's got his head up his ass so he can get to first half of his own fart. But go ahead. Oh, it got me with independent wrestling entrepreneur.

That's the phrase. Entrepreneur. Like Ben Lagerstrom back in the day, but let me go back to this. He announces a pay-per-view distribution partnership with my AW, the global streaming platform powered by Kisway, and all-elit wrestling. Beginning with Producers' debut event, Volume 1, The Octopus. Oh, what? At Pioneer Works on June 29th at 8 p.m. Wait a minute. Is this produce wrestling or Kalimari wrestling?

What is the octopus is not in the produce section? Featuring a live musical performance from New York City Grindhouse Autaire, Abel Ferreira. What? I don't know what any of this is. Fans worldwide will be able to purchase and all upcoming produce events live via myAEW.com and on the MyAEW app. The partnership marks a significant milestone for independent wrestling,

bringing produce's talent-first curator-driven model to a global audience through one of the- Curator what? Driven? That's what it said. Curator-driven model. That's what a booker is. He's a curator. That's the new term for a booker, I guess.

Curator-driven model to a global audience through one of the sports most expansive digital platforms. Each individual's supercard will be available for 1495 where fans can purchase all six for a $50 season pass. I'm sure they can. Here's a quote,

we're honored to bring Produce's pay-per-views to my AEW. Like Tony Kahn, we believe in the artistic spirit of professional wrestlers. Oh boy. I couldn't think of a better partner to share our unique vision for the sport with, the best fans in the world, said Adam Abdulla,

founder and creative director of produce. That's another title he just gave himself. In a first for professional wrestling, each edition of produce is co-produced by an active professional wrestler. Co-produced. Who co-headlines and helps shape the undercard, integrating original music, art, and film. alongside world-class in-ring competition. What do you think of this concept? Bloody fucking hell.

First of all, anybody buys a season pass, assuming there's going to be six of these some bitches. I'd love to have your optimism and outlook on the world. They're running smaller venues, not in a bad way, but they're running reasonable-sized venues in Brooklyn. care for a run in a goddamn closet and queens.

No, they don't have that on the schedule. If you think they're going to do six of these like, I don't know, Google Adam Abdullah, is he worth millions of dollars, or is he somebody that's given himself 16 titles and fancies himself a fucking curator

and co-creator in a wrestling business with the arts and the songs and what about a plate spinner? you know what something you don't see enough of anymore is a goddamn guy spinning the fucking plates i think they ought to at least here at produce wrestling they would be open to the idea of the fucking best plate spinner in the world coming out and he's spinning the fucking plates spinner in the middle of the ring

The fuck is these people talking about? I'm not sure who this guy is. There's a guy with that name who has a sports radio show, it appears, with Westwood One. But I don't know if it's the same guy. Radio don't pay what it used to, does it? And I don't know, again. What about Google?

The fucking guy that's supposed to be the special guest? Has anybody heard of him but his immediate family? The special guest, well, this, uh... The octopus features a super fight. a headlining match between former Ring of Honor World Champion Jonathan Gresham and Japanese technician Fumanori Abei. Legendary New York filmmaker Abel Ferrarah, whose films include Bad Lieutenant, Mr. 45, and The Addiction,

will perform live, making his first appearance at a professional wrestling event. Well, wait a minute. Because typically there aren't concerts in the middle of professional wrestling events. You're going too fast. He's the guy that did the movie. What was it? Bad Santa? A bad lieutenant.

But he did these, he produced these movies or directed these movies. Or what did he do with these movies? He, what does it say here? His films. They say that they are his films. He's a filmmaker. I assume they. Well, then how is he going to perform?

Is he going to go make a fucking movie in front of the people at intermission? How does a filmmaker perform? Well, everyone wants to be a rock star. Also, the event will feature appearances. by AEW Women's Pure Champion Deanna Parazzo, Zach Saber Jr., jelly Nutella, Effie, Mance Warner,

Steff DeLander, hot sauce Tracy Williams, LeBron Cozone, Mad Dog Connolly, an amazing red. Wow, he's still around? Holy shit. Tickets are available, obviously.

It's a literal, who's that of professional wrestling? No, I mean, when you go from Zach Saber Jr. to jelly Nutella, they're encompassing the entire spectrum of the wrestling industry, aren't they? And all the styles they're in. Well, you know, there's only X amount of people available for stuff like this. Once again, plate spinners. Brian Wood, did they still have plate spinners when you were a kid on TV,

or did you miss out on that great American institution? I could be wrong, but I think I may have seen. one on the Jerry Lewis telethon. Just one. I mean, a group. One time that I saw it live, not like,

no, that's what I'm saying. Just one, just one, on one occasion, as you saw the plate spinner, it wasn't like you looked forward to many,

many times, twice, three times a month, somewhere you'd see a plate spitter. See? Somebody ought to investigate why these people have been put out of business. Much like produce wrestling is going to be. if not by their own weird ideas,

probably by popular demand of the fans that don't go. I thought Gleet was a bad name. It's... The produce... It sounds like a cry for help, whereas produce just sounds like cabbage. You know, like pro wrestling gorilla, when that first started, it was like,

okay, that's a unique, a unique take on wrestling, but a unique name for the company. and then all of a sudden you started seeing like progress and I guess I can kind of see where you could associate that with wrestling but they go from progress to produce progress at least it indicates some type of moving forward but I've never got pro wrestling gorilla

because when I heard it said I was thinking of what the fuck you know a giant ape who's the referee Dr. Zayas yeah so you know it's just the whole thing and come to find out it wasn't the planet of the apes, it was the land of fruits and nuts. But nevertheless, the produce wrestling business model to me sounds like this guy's got more artistic sensibilities that he's got common sense and he better have some fucking money. How about that?

That's my take on it. Independent wrestling entrepreneur. I love that phraseology. I've never heard that before. Dennis Caraluzzo would have called himself an independent wrestling entrepreneur. I mean, you know what I mean? I've never heard anyone use that before.

He had business cards printed one time wrestling czar. Oh, I have them. Wrestling Zahar, yes. The Carluso building. Downtown, downtown Camden, New Jersey. Oh, good Lord. All right. Hold on here.

We got some updates. I got to try to figure up what, what I'm going to. I'm leaning away from the microphone. There's things that we've been talking about we have to be updated on real quickly by our listeners before we can move forward. And from Emmanuel, not the 70s soft porn type of Emmanuel,

but E-M-A-N-U-E-L, which is Emmanuel, but is more of a masculine application of that. Was she French, Emmanuel? What was going on about? That was before you were born, wasn't it? No, but I remember it airing. I remember seeing it on TV, and even for a perverted young me,

it was like, this is too slow and European. Yeah, because it was definitely produced in the early 70s when at least they didn't have gardeners to interrupt them back in the 70s when they made porn, but nevertheless, Hi, Jim and Brian, this is Emmanuel originally from Portland. living in the Netherlands. Hair transplants work. It said for the people are going, what the fuck?

Since everybody on national television has been talking about MJF flying to Turkey, whether it was Istanbul or cock and bull or whatever it was to get a hair transplant, we said, well, he wouldn't shave it because then would it grow back or did they just like stick permanent fake hair? How does this work, right? We don't know. I've resigned myself to just stick with whatever happens here next. Hair transplants work in a way that the doctor removes a hair follicle one by one from another place of your body,

such as your back or arms, from the root, and implement it where it is intended. Of course, Emmanuel, you know, translating this from Portuguese into English. But nevertheless, they're pulling your hairs out of somewhere one by one and putting them back in one by one where you want them to go. He says after that the hair grows as normal as the rest of the hair. Think of it as moving a plant from one pot to another. Do you think, I don't care with, I move the fucking magnolia or the dandelion or whatever from one pot to another because it's not being ripped out of me. Are they going to start hair matches you think now, Brian, where they put, it's going to be a hardcore hair match.

Instead of shaving it, we're going to pull it out one at a time. That's amazingly tedious, the idea they not just take them out one at a time, but put them back in one at a time. and you say they take a hair, but I would assume it has to be from your head. You don't want to start planting pubic hair on your. No, no. It says they were from back or your arms. So you've got back hair on your head.

So, again, you know, some people may go for the pubs because they do, they give you a little more bush, a little more height. But Emmanuel says, if you shave transplanted hair,

it grows back again because what you transplant is the follicle and not the hair itself. But instead of pulling them out one by one, I'd think if you just took like maybe an inch and a half square off of my fucking back or whatever and put it up there, something.

So why was MJF so upset about losing, potentially losing the hair versus hair match? If it would just be normal if it got shaved? Well, no, he wasn't. wasn't completely bald. The whole idea is to avoid being completely bald, but since they've fucking made the hair match goddamn meaningless, society,

society and Steve Austin made the hair match meaningless because when guys decided that it wasn't the biggest humiliation in the history of their goddamn life to be seen completely bald, that's what ruined a hair match. And go back and watch an episode of Gilligan's Island. When Skipper and Gilligan had the fucking accidental goddamn mishap with the hair shampoo that made their hair fall out, they exiled themselves to the other side of the island rather than be seen as bald-headed geeks by the rest of the castaways. They didn't want five people to see them.

if this technology existed 50 years ago or 60 years ago, do you think Bruno San Martino and Killer Kowalski, a Ron Fuller, do you think these guys just jump on a plane and go to Turkey to fix whatever's bothering them? You know, I don't know that Bruno would have gone to that extent, but, well, I was going to say, I bet you Walter Kowalski would have, but then again with the amount of money that he spent on the toupee,

I'm not sure he'd spend that much money on a plane ticket. There would have been a few of the boys that might have partaken in that. I wonder would that have made Dory Jr. a goddamn sex symbol? And if he hadn't been bald when he was 28? See, that's the thing too, like Dory Funk looking like Charlie Brown, Dory Funk Jr. looking like Charlie Brown is kind of part of the, I guess, Dory Funk Jr. appeal. If he had shaved his head, Steve Austin style, I don't think it works. Oh, no, my God. He'd look like Alfred E. Newman losing a hair match.

No, but that's the thing is that that was even a line in Bern Gagne's movie, The Wrestler, when they were the, in the script, as well as in some of the high-level promoters meetings. He was in 1974. They were already talking about. Well, Vern, his character was Jack Bullard. Bullard's too old to be the champion. And fucking, he's going bald. And what about, they said, what about Dory Funk Jr.?

He's bald too, but he's only 28 or whatever. Oh, God damn it. See, that's what Jack Briscoe really had going for him. It wasn't the amateur credentials. It was that hair. He had a big... That sweet 70s head of hair. Yeah.

well speaking of people from the 70s i was going to say sweet but that wouldn't really apply here but remember we talked about here a few weeks on a program the Cuban assassin the original angel isavito oh yeah and mike from lethbridge Alberta wrote in said heard you guys on the drive-thru a couple weeks back talking about angel and one to let you know he's still with us and living as good a life as he can here in Lethbridge, Alberta. And Mike said that he was helping Brett Hart with an autograph signing there. An angel and his daughter came down to see Brett.

And Mike says, Brett spent a fair amount of time with him. And it was one of the best moments I've spent with him. For those who think Brett is just this angry, bitter guy, He's not just that. He's just honest and blunt as ever, but he's just fucking great. And he sent a couple pictures of Brett with the Cuban assassin,

who is, as we said, is doing well in Lethbridge, Alberta. So we got that update. It's going to be interesting. He may outlive the, he may outlive Cuba. He may outlive the revolution. And it never did get televised.

After all this time, everybody's saying it was going to did you ever see the revolution on TV I've seen a few well I mean but the the one that they said wasn't going to be televised or was going to be televised never actually got televised

which wrestler had that as his intro the revolution will be too who was there oh Ricky Starks Ricky Saints yeah but before that they were Conan that was his tagline for as something we'll talk about later on for LAX Hernandez and Homicide

He was saying that in T&A in 2006 or whatever the fuck it may have been. Anyway, here's another update real briefly. From Eric, I won't mention a last name, just in case his comments narrow it down and people come after him. But he says, Dear Jim and Brian, I live in downtown Orlando. I'm so sorry. Well, but that's what his sympathy is. side now. He's got a, he's got firsthand knowledge of these things. Maybe three miles from where

Grande Americano does. I know people who live in that building. Here's what really happened. Of course, we're talking about the Ludwig Kaiser elevator incident. And this is again from from Eric, the expert, from Eric, you know, and now let's just see. But here's the thing. I know more people than Eric in Orlando listen to the program here, right? So if we want everybody in Orlando to write in, and if Eric is full of shit

with what he says here and you're a citizen of Orlando and say, bullshit, then you write and tell us. And we will read that too. How about that? But he lives in Orlando three miles from the building,

knows people that live there. Americano and his girlfriend were making out in the elevator when Richard Reap entered. Dick proceeded to make some bullshit comment under his breath about it, which got their attention. Upon hearing their accents, Dick said something about calling ICE and having them deported, and that's what caused Americado to hit him. But now, here's what caught my attention to this. That's why I'm asking, I want feedback from Orlando.

because Eric goes on, Richard Reap is a well-known mega fucktard here in Orlando. Whenever there's a maga convoy going through the Afro-Caribbean neighborhoods just outside of the downtown corridor, Richard and his wannabe clan buddies are part of it. However, he owns a very nice condo

in one of the few buildings that aren't absolute shit, here in Orlando and likes to pretend he's some country hick. I want to know some things from our friends in Orlando. First of all, do you actually have well-known mega fucktards, quote-unquote, by name in your town? Secondly, do you have mega convoys going through these neighborhoods and because, I mean, I live in fucking Kentucky, which obviously is as red as you can get. And I, okay, I obviously also live in Louisville,

which is about as blue as you can get in Kentucky, but I've never seen a MAGA convoy. Are they convoying down there? And has anybody heard of this Richard Reap outside this incident. Or look him up. Do one of those background checks on him. Report in.

We want to know these things. See, I think it's Ludwig's fault because why would anyone want to live in Orlando? Well, he had to go there because they determined they'd put the goddamn performance center in the middle of one of the worst places in the goddamn world for young people

making too much money to live. Why did they put it there? Was it just because of taxes? Originally, it was because, well, Steve Kern with Florida Championship Wrestling, because that's where Steve was. He wasn't going to move. And Triple H wanted to set something up to replace OVW that they could micromanage. He was still, he was lobbying for that even back then.

And there's no, there was no basically, not only no taxes, which is why a lot of the wrestlers lived there, there are not no taxes, but no state tax and blah, blah, blah. So many of the ex-WWF superstars lived in Florida that they were sold on the idea that all these people could come and guest coach in this training center. So they located the training center based on wherever, so nobody had to fucking move.

It was, anyway, but that's a, that's a whole other story. Anyway, a report in Orlando. We want to know about these things. Oh,

good heavens. All right, real quickly, real quickly is, is what I'm trying to say, yeah, son. I got another letter

from our friend Chad, Chad Keeney out there at West Virginia, the nation's foremost blind vendor, if you ate a honey bun out of a vending machine in West Virginia, chances are Chad's had his hands all over. Chad thought it was a granola bar, and he put it in there.

And, and, you know, the thing is, Chad is charitable and kind and well-spoken and articulate and also writes a wonderful letter. And I ain't going to read the whole dagum thing, but the upshot of it is, because he's been doing well despite the oppressive policies forced upon him by this presidential or criminal administration. He has sent a check to the Crusade for Children,

the WHS Crusade for Children that we've been talking about for several weeks, for $250. And he said, originally he was just going to get 10 copies of the book, because as we mentioned at Jim Cornett.com, all during the month of June and the last week, because some people jumped the gun, the proceeds of sales from heroes and friends will go to the Crusade for Children, which is, oh, by the time you hear this already happens, so we cannot give you any updates. on anything that happened because it hadn't happened yet. But he was going to get 10 copies for his friends and then he said, well, heck with it.

Here, I'll send you the check and you just give 10 copies to people that you select who are deserving. Well, here's the thing. I'm trying to think, are there, this is ridiculous. Are there 10 people in the world today that are actually truly deserving of anything other than a stray ass whip it? and then I would need to interview these candidates and select them based on the amount of the deservingness or, you know, whether anyone would bribe me. And then, so what, I'm going to donate to 250. And then I'm going to, because here's another thing, I don't know that Chad has 10 friends. See, now he may have been exaggerating there.

But whatever, I will donate to 250, and then Hotchkisk will come up with some way where we can, we might just take 10 copies and run up Hodgkis neighborhood and sneak them up on people's porches. So they see them when they wake up the next morning. They'll certainly be deserving. Oh, look, it's a new phone book. What's that? Well, they can get some interesting numbers.

gate figures at least anyway but that's what's happening besides all of the t-shirts and the pictures and the action figures and more more more at jimcordet.com all during the month of june and uh we will have by your show brian the drive-thru we'll have an update on what's crusade actually did after it's happened but speaking of monetary issues because you know, the WWE, let's face it, folks, they have

they have important CEOs they've got to support. They have mouths to fit. They've got to make sure that these CEOs are making tens of millions dollars. If they have to throw another couple wrestlers through a table,

we got to meet these demands of these people. How do you expect your goddamn self-respect and CEO to live on less than $20 million a year, Brian. It's just it's insane. So I wanted to check out, our friend Thurston Howell, put up the WWE live event market-to-market comparison for May, 2026 versus the last time that they had been in a particular location, whenever that may have been, or in that particular location.

Did I say that correctly? I think so. Well, it's very surprising because shit's going to hell. Just to give you the headline there. They're down pretty significantly in most everything they did except for one, which was the anomaly. but they were in Tulsa for Smackdown on May the 1st and were down 41% from the time they had been there

almost two years previously. 10,68 people to 6333. And well, two years, you know, yeah, because they were kind of hot, blah, blah, blah. But Omaha, May 4th, 3, 3. for Raw was down 23% from just exactly one year previously, 11,606 to 8931. Jacksonville, Florida, was down 28%. I'm ready to 10,000 to 7,300 around these things off.

Columbia, South Carolina, May 15th, was down 9%. So they went from 102 to 9%. 92, so they were down 1,000 people. Greensboro was only down 6%. Lexington, Kentucky was down 26% from less than a year before. They were at 12,270 in June 2025 and in May 26, 9,030.

And Columbus, Ohio, pretty much same thing, down 26%. from 13,000 to 9,800, but Knoxville, the only one, they were up way up, but that's because that was the first time they had been to Knoxville, Tennessee, which blows my mind in four years. And they went from 5,700 last time to 9,300 this time. but obviously, you know,

they're visiting Knoxville on the way up and on the way down. Yeah, that's, well, that's the thing is they were starved at this point. Anybody that wanted to go to see them think, well, finally they, finally, they came back. But, I mean, with the astronomical ticket prices, the gates may be approaching the same or better, but is that what's keeping people away? Is it just that it's kind of fucking boring to go watch these shows these days or a combination?

Probably a combination. I mean, I wish there was something here that also said what the ticket price is now versus the previous time that you would quote here, but, you know, it's not here. Because that's part of the story. And again, if you're selling those high-priced tickets and giving them this show,

even if you have a great time, if you're not totally hooked are you coming back? Are you coming back again at those prices or higher? Have they gone down anywhere? They only go up. I think that's part of it. I think the booking

being complete shit for over a year is a big part of it. They completely cooled off Cody Rhodes. The Sina retirement was a letdown in every way, the booking around it. Jay Huso winning the Royal Rumble, then the fans kind of turning on Jay Huso. You don't know how much of that's

you know, you didn't really hear too much of that on TV. You would hear it elsewhere. But then the crowd start dropping. So you start wondering if each one of these little things tax onto it. And then just what is the buzz around WWE from outside of WWE? It's that they don't care about the fans. They're jacking up prices.

You know, but are they going to care? If they're making the same gate, if not more, with 41% less people in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 41% for Smackdown. Not for a house show. There are no house shows yet. Those are for Smackdown. These are all TV tapings.

And a few thousand people in each one of these towns are saying, you know, I don't need to go back to that. Well, that's the thing is that the old, again, fashioned methodology to get people to come back to the arenas because it was a more regular thing was to do finishes, to lead to returns and have cards booked, etc. They, you go to a lot of these shows

and with the barest knowledge of who might be on it, much less a goddamn specific card, you see what there is to see it you know it's following the whatever the pay-per-view or premium live event of the month is going to be and that storyline so you might leave with heat you might not

but by the time you come back in a year nobody's mad at anybody anyway so it that's the point is there's no programming to lead to a particular everybody in a market coming back except it was a good show but you know a lot of delays and it's getting more expensive

and the parking it's you know it's not a I got to see this type of thing anymore but AEW Brian would you say that AEW would be up down or in the middle from on their comparisons with the what they did in May

2026 versus the last time they were to market. They returned the markets more frequently than WWE does, I believe. So I'm going to say it's mostly holding steady, maybe some slight declines in markets where they're now running smaller buildings, and then the outliers like New York, where they obviously just ran a big show, but it was their big stadium show and everything.

That's what I'm saying. Well, but that's not down here. Just the fucking stadium show. What was the date of the stadium show? It was May something. Over the pay-per-view is not dead. This is TV tapings. There were collision.

Collision, dynamite, dynamite, dynamite. That's what I've got here. At least that's what Thurston has here. And the answer is they're kind of even except way down and way up. But listen to this. they were on May 2nd, they were in Peoria for collision, and they were down 11% from 3,000, they were 2,700 from two years before that.

In North Charleston, South Carolina, they were up 5% from a little over two years before that, 2,300 from 2,200. In Asheville, North Carolina, for dynamite on May 13th, they were down 30%. 2389, and they had 3,402, about a year and a half previously. And in Philadelphia, they were up 321% on May 27th for dynamite, because they had 3,856 people, and the last time they were in town,

they were at the fucking ECW arena or whatever they did and did 916 fans. So they're doing what they're going to do and they're always going to do that unless they do worse. WWE, I think they need to keep an eye on their asses that it doesn't become a disturbing trend and people are just saying, oh, fuck these things.

I'll watch it for free. And then eventually they'll give up on that. It's not an easy, pleasurable experience to watch these shows. Raw is a slog. Smackdown ain't easy. NXT's probably the easiest to get through just because it's on network TV,

so that it's like you have two hours, you've got to get all this done. But the pay-per-view events are loaded with 10 to 15 minutes of commercials and preservatives in between each match? It's not fun to watch from home. It may not be fun to watch in a building either.

There's too much. I would start using that in production meetings. Too much MSG. God damn it. Too much of the modus sodium glutamite. You know, there are people who want to say that AEW is on the way up and things are going great again. No, they're holding steady.

they're not catching up to WWE. WWE is starting to clip off their own audience and they're coming down to earth. When you started to say clip off their own audience wasn't the next word I was thinking you were going to

but yeah they are, they're doing it. Even for the people that are used to kind of this soft emotional type wrestling that they've at least they've given them more action up until the past however long this administration has been going on.

It's just now it's just this. As Dream Machine used to say, sad singing and slow walking, baby. Anyway, would you like me to start singing? Would that make you sad, Brian? Or instead, should I tell you what made me, I don't know whether it's laugh or cry. I think at this point, I just, I can't take any of it seriously anymore. So the AEW program this past week, which again, I'm not going to mess with all the other people's bells and whistles because there's enough to this, but I am fascinated with watching them with how they are treating, developing, managing, booking, however you might phrase it, Will Osprey, their alleged top baby face, and MJF, their alleged top heel world champion,

leading up to the goddamn, I love the empty Coliseum match. I don't think they're going to like the empty stadium match. It'll look good on TV. I mean, they're going to get $30,000, you think? Well, it depends on what they start doing. They had, what, 22, 23, and what they usually have? Somebody did the math.

read it, that at this point, if they increased the same percentage they usually did, they would have 25,000. Has that pace picked up yet, or do we know? The last number I have reported from Russell Ticks is 24,901 tickets distributed. They are set up for 35,151, 87 days until the show. Well, we shall see. But the point is, I'm trying to keep an eye on MJF and Will Osprey. And I am, I'm dumbfounded, I'm amazed, I'm intrigued in a way at what in the world. This was handed to him on a platter actually when Osprey had the surgery and all the other medical issues. And it was like, is he ever going to wrestle again? You could have told that story.

No, he's not. Or at least we don't think he is or whatever. And meanwhile, boom, MJF comes back and takes the thing and goes on a reign of terror, holding the AEW World Title hostage by torturing the fans with good logical wrestling matches, not involving trapeze artists. and then Osprey is,

they could have even goddamn had him come back, now that I'm blurting this out of my ass, they could have had him come back against medical orders by having MJF piss on his mother's face or something on a goddamn TV show, giving him an award for his goddamn contributions to the sport before he had to retire. I'll come back and kill you for pissing on mum's face.

I don't fucking know. And you goddamn have Osprey come back and have to prove himself. Is the neck going to hold up? And you got MJF beating all the baby faces and laughing at them because they're fucking indie-minded children instead of a goddamn grown adult. And by inference, all the fucking AEW goddamn Gaga fans would be offended. and you have the goddamn match you put Osprey over in his home country

at a goddamn stadium. How hard is that to do in six fucking months, Brian? Well, I think the pissing in the mom's face angle may cause some problems with Warner Brothers' discovery, but other than that, I think you're on to something.

I've just opened a new Sprite Zero in honor of Mum's Piss. Well, it's not Mum's Piss, it's Piss for Mum. No, this about to be Mum's Piss, as soon as I process it. Well, mum's the word. So they were in Richmond, Virginia at the Siegel Center,

which I guess is a new place. It's certainly it's not the old Richmond Coliseum, but I haven't heard of this joint before. But they opened the show with the world title match between MJF and Rush that MJF had agreed to last week after he wouldn't agree to fight Mark Brisco. And they did a pre-tape or a backstage deal from whenever the fuck it was

where they got in a goddamn beef, rush his marbles in his mouth. You can't understand what he's fucking saying, and he looks like he's trying to pass a goddamn cactus through his vaginal canal. and MJF walks up and stops his catchphrase and slaps him in a face, they get in a fight. So now their world title match has been made no countout.

What the fuck did that have to do with anything? It doesn't even make sense. You've had no disqualification. That might make sense, but just no count out. And the announcers even said, well, it's not no disqualification. And then they did shit that you should have been disqualified for. But yet they weren't.

What the, no count it. Was it because MGF said, oh, my God, I got to make this fucking bullheaded motherfucker entertaining for 20 minutes. Just I can't impose any rules on him. He doesn't know how to follow them. I'll take the easy way out. Just let's do everything.

What, the first five, minutes of the show was mostly these and then Andrade came in and gave Russia pep talk so you could understand what either one of these two fuckers was saying and that I have known Hispanic people whose first language was Spanish who I could understand goddamn perfectly when they were speaking English. Savio Vega had a thick fucking accent. But he sounds like James Earl Jones next to these two motherfuckers. So they had this match.

MJF came out in a Matador outfit, which, Brian, do you think this is where everybody, just every week being allowed to be a comedian? I mean, there's been shows. where funny costumes were in multiple segments. Everybody does this type of thing. When the top heel does it to get the smart-ass heat, it doesn't matter that goddamn Carl Fergie's done it in the opening match.

Do you see what I'm saying? Well, it's the opening match, but it is MJF. I do think maybe... Well, I mean, I don't mean opening match. I mean the preliminaries. There's always something. Not the opening match of the TV show. when the underneath preliminary guys are always dressed in some goddamn outlandish costume

here comes the world champion trying to get some heat with it and it's just it's another thing that it just everything is visually silly that's the point i'm trying to make or do you think anybody cares these days i don't know how much people care but that doesn't mean you shouldn't care well god damn it i don't care nobody's going to tell me I care God damn it anyway MJF told

Justin Smiley Roberts to announce him insults to the crowd and he kind of stalled at the beginning and I'm thinking it already looks like he's going to try to eat some time up since he's got to go however long with his guy without getting killed and then they went to the floor and stayed there because it was no countout.

But there, that's what Rush starts using the camera cable and choking him in front of the referee. And then I was saying, well, it's not no DQ. Okay. Well. And then they, he backdropped MJF through a table. And then beat him up some more. And then MJF ran Rush's head into the bare,

turnbuckle that Rush had taken the pad off of while they had done the deal where they take the referee and shove him aside so the referee immediately to portray to the masses assembled that he's not going to see what happens he throws his arms up over his head and staggers forward in a series of stutter steps while bending over looking over. looking down from somebody shoving him. Like, look, I'm not looking. Fuck. And while he runs a goddamn guy's head,

and then Rush gets color from the bear turnbook. And again, this is, it's not just that it's a television match because they're still in the pay-per-view business. So they got to save their big attractions. as long as they are, but I know they get a TV rights fee, so I'm not against,

you know, just incredibly close competitive world championship matches between two top names, obviously one would be the world champion on TV, but Rush ain't one of these fucking names. He pops up every once in a while.

You don't know what he fucking said, except for getting a fucking or, he beats the piss out of whoever he works with baby face heel or whatever he disappears again he's never going to draw any fucking money he will never impact AEW's business financially in any way shape or form yet right now he's given the AEW champion everything he can fucking take and they're pulling out all the stops MJF track to use the bare buckle and again

and fucking he reversed it and sent MJF into it and then made a comeback. So now he's beating MJF up again. He gave him a pile driver on the apron for a break spot.

And then apparently whatever the fuck they did during the break which I fast forward even though they've got a picture and picture, it's goddamn ridiculous. I don't want to listen to the goddamn audio of the commercial. But apparently in the break spot, Rush ended up with what the announcers

were saying was a dislocated left shoulder, but he had apparently blown off the doctor and is continuing and he was, he was kicking his shit out of MJF and covered him. And MJF got the goddamn rope. So you've got a one-armed bleeding man beating the piss out of the AW World

champion and then Rush went for a drop kick on the floor and MGF moved and he dropped kicked the barricade down on the floor and MGF gave Rush a tombstone pile driver

on the barricade on the floor and hurt his own knee hashtag storyline he's selling his fucking knee and I wrote at this point this won't end and if they get back to the ring

and MJF is trying for the heat seeker but Rush foils that MJF is too hurt to beat the bleeding one-armed mid-card bandit. Well he's not a bandit, that's bandito. Oh, what a he's stealing a paycheck here. And then finally, Rush missed a drop kick and M.JF got a hammerlock cross face and Rush looked up at him and gave him the finger and then passed out.

So M.J.F. barely beat this motherfucker. It'll never mean anything in the main event picture in this company on pay-per-view or anything else. In like 20 minutes, it... Oh, God, damn it. And then Mark Briscoe ran out, and MJF hit it. him and the balls, but then all the preliminary baby faces, Roddy Strong and pockets and Kyle O'Reilly and Ishi. They all came out at MJF, ran limping off to the fucking netherworld.

The worst group of baby faces. And so that's what's happening with him. That's like, again, did Sean Michaels run from Kai and Thai? when they went to make a fucking save for, but at least that wasn't the worst finish of a match I have ever seen, Brian. Well, what did you think of this? First of all, I didn't give you a chance and opportunity to comment in any way

about this whole thing that we just talked about there. That's more than all right. I don't think there's too much more to add to the expert opinion you just gave there. It was a long match. I was surprised how long it went, but I don't know why I should ever be that surprise with it. AEW. And with MJF being one of their biggest television draws, he kept him on TV for a while there. But again, it went a while. I think Rushie's okay, but this just match, this match just

all of a sudden popped up in the last few weeks. It went a long time, like you said, the one-armed baby face couldn't beat the world champion, who then ran away from the fucking opening match baby face comedy group with Orange Cassidy. So not good. Well, so they're really just putting the boots to MJF over there. But certainly one would think they're going to treat Osprey. The miracle boy, the boy who came back, it's a miracle. He's a miracle.

He'd worked for Mike Von Erick. It should work for Osprey. He came back a medical miracle. He's raised. in fighting fit again and certainly they're going to just make him look like a million dollars, right? Well, when we see Osprey,

he's in the back with Dick the boozer and all of the boor horsemen around him and Marina Schaefer is supposedly giving him some kind of goddamn state-of-the-art medical neck treatment by putting the point of her elbow in the side of his fucking collarbone. I don't, what the,

and one of the stooges, I think it was Garcia or somebody started kind of berating Osprey a little bit and they called him a young boy. But then old, old boozer himself came in, Dick. And he was just lecturing Osprey on how he's gonna, he's gonna beat Mark Davis. Mark fucking Davis is now

suddenly someone that Will Osprey in the pecking order should have to worry about and it's up to Moxley to be able to tell him how to pep him up on how to beat this guy and it was a meandering promo

but the tone was he was talking to Osprey like the guy that Moses lawn and Osprey was standing their mute taking it in. With his hair, he even slicked his hair back where he doesn't even have his boyish curls anymore. He looked like a British Shirley Temple with a dick. And now he just,

they've taken all of his goddamn, any appeal away. You never saw that movie with the British Shirley Temple with the, never mind. I thought you would have said maybe it looks like Buster Brown with that haircut. but surely Temple with a dick works. More like Buster Hyman. Well, I would just say I'm waiting for you to tell me what you,

uh, we're going to tell me. What was I going to tell you? I don't know. You hadn't told me yet. I don't have to tell you anything. Well, you got, I have ways of making you talk.

So, anyway, no, the what I was saying to you. Yeah, what were you saying? me. What I was saying to you was, is there any way to make Osprey look like more of a fucking stooge and just, and just standing there like a goddamn moat-faced idiot?

Again, it's AEW. I think for those fans, the angles don't even matter. It's all about what match you're going to get and who's going to be able to do all their moves and kick out of everything and just false finish, false finish, false finish, and Ospre is the champion of that. And in a flip or two, he's a flip or two. He's like, why don't they have to talk to him like he's a humble and lovable Shushine boy? Thank you, sir. It's just, they're making it look like a complete dip shit.

And then that's why I think the title of this discussion on the YouTube clip ought to be Jim Cornett on the worst match finish ever. Because this set up to unleash upon us, goddamn most ridiculous thing I've. ever seen in wrestling. They have this match with Osprey against Mark Davis, who apparently now is a pirate. Remember when, for whatever reason, in the midst of a schmaz in the catering room at the spring stampede in the stadium or anarchy in the UK, whatever the wild match was,

the 14-man tag match on a paper view. They were fighting and catering, and Mark Davis takes a drop toe hold onto the corner of a chair in catering, just out of the blue. And it's, I don't think it was ever referred to again after that. I don't think we saw him after that. Now he's wearing an eye patch

on the eye that he took the drop toe hold into the chair on which end of, you know, and he, I guess, thought, That might be a gimmick to make him look tougher or give him something distinctive or whatever. Did you see the eyepatch brand? Well, it's a popular thing in AEW. They don't do it as frequently as they used to, but Moxley had an eye patch for a while. Adam Page had an eye patch for a while.

I think there were a couple other Rocky Romero. Didn't he have an eye patch for a while? Did any of them ever do it this way, which is kind of a twist on the way of doing it, where you start wearing an eye patch because your eye was damaged and your opponent within seconds of the bell takes the goddamn eye patch off and you see there's nothing wrong with your fucking eye. And the rest of the match, he's fine? He's fine.

I've never seen it like that before. It's a new treatment of this. Maybe that fucking creator and curator and whatever the fuck, taxidermist that was with the other produce wrestling. Maybe this is an idea like that. or they all collaborate on the eye, hey, let's just have him miraculously healed and not do anything with it whatsoever. And I swear to get, so anyway, I'm watching for Osprey anyway, right? They ring the bell, they charge at each other, Osprey drop kicks Davis's knee and missed.

Davis took a big old bump for him if you look, he never actually touched his fucking leg. and that's when he took the eye patch off immediately the eye was unmarked and they had they didn't have a match they had a series of moves against each other they were all unrelated they just did shit back into arm the leg the back the fucking hip the balls the taint whatever it may have impacted they were at a couple minutes at one point

out on the floor with the referee just staring. There was no, this wasn't no countout. And they went to break, by the way, it was five minutes to 10 p.m. Eastern when they started the match, and they went to break at 10.01. What the fuck? You couldn't even have, you get an overrun, but you can't get your last break in

before you do what, the overrun and what the top of the hour in television for decades is goddamn it's supposed to do you're not supposed to be in break brother that's the whole idea right you got damn you're not in break at the top of the hour that's when people say well fuck it it's a commercial i'll look at some to see what else is going on and they get an overrun to uh Jesus Christ they go to break So they came back and Davis beat the shit out of Osprey.

Ed Osprey finally hooked up a bit and started hitting Davis with fake forearms that Davis didn't sell. And he does the video game karate kid comeback where it's just all kicks. I'm sure he's, the Davis is from Australia, so he's known this guy. so they think the things they do here are cool or whatever, but he looked like the fucking karate kid. There's no wrestling to a lot of this, and nobody was bumping.

Davis hit again. A tremendous pile driver. That's, he's got a, the best pile driver I've seen in ages. Got a two count. Why? If you're not going to beat somebody with it,

why do it? And if you've never beaten anybody with it, then why just do it to a top guy that's got to kick out of it anyway? And then they did the long fight on the apron.

And but the Hurricane Rana Davis off the apron and Davis crawled back in and he picked the old boy up and got the styles clash on him. Osprey did two count. And I thought, by this point my god

they both champion and challenger in the same show can't beat the fucking mid card guys and for anybody who was offended about my comments about who was the fucking guy in the first match

Rush Rush exactly Davis has a better chance of getting into the top of the picture than Rush does but he ain't there yet, and this didn't have to be the goddamn most titanic struggle since the Hulk versus thing. So here we go. This is the finish. Davis ends up trying to do a flying kick,

and Osprey moves, and Davis wipes a referee out. Down he goes. And Osprey hits his elbow, is finished, the hidden blade. Covers a guy, but there's no referee. Here comes Trent and El Clown. They're from the Callus family. So they're taking up for Davis, and they get an A start beating a shit out of Osprey. But then Garcia and Useless, who are heels from the boar horsemen,

getting a rig and save Osprey by beating up the other heels. Then Lance Archer, who's a heel, gets in and starts beating up Garcia and useless, who are heels. Then Claudio, who's a heel? Gets in and beats up Archer, who's a heel? Then Brian Cage, who's a heel? Gets in at F5's Claudio, who's a heel. Then Pac, who's a heel?

Jumps in and beats up Cage, who's a heel. And by the way, that's one, two, three, four, five. six, seven, eight. I can't read him. That's eight or nine people that have already run into this thing. Poor, the referee had been obviously sedated with some type of propofal after that kick, so it wouldn't be in any pain. But all this shit is good.

It's not as exciting as I read it on paper. because literally the next guy will come in and they'll do the thing boom and then he'll stand up well here's the next guy it was one after another and then finally davis leveled cage but osprey cuttered davis and in pack rolled the referee in as osprey has covered davis one two jake doyle is there and he pulls the referee out and he's back down i swear to god he's going to be down for another five fucking minutes here from being pulled out of the ring and we got guy number ten involved and then doyle leveled osprey but then marina schaefer jumped on doyl's back and doyle gave her the big flying mayor but then Schaefer looked up at Doyle and spit right on him

and here came Dick the boozer who DDTed Doyle or where it's 11 and they bumped him out and then Pack climbed up to the top rope and did a moonsault off onto his friends and foes alike and everybody just got up and immediately all dozen people fought off at the same time. The match has been stopped for like five minutes at this point. But now in the ring, Osprey grabs Davis and is going to give him the big wang doodle.

But here's Kyle Feltcher, who suplexes fucking Osprey and pulls out a screwdriver. because he's been working nights at fucking Ace Hardware. It's a fluorescent green screwdriver. And he goes to stab Osprey, but take a shit is there and pulls Kyle out by his leg and they get in a fake fight on the floor. Meanwhile, Davis sees the screwdriver. I wish I had one right now.

picks it up and goes to stab Osprey because the important thing, even more than an attempted murder charge, is to goddamn win this match by stabbing this man in the face. And when he does that, Osprey hits his elbow finish on the arm holding the screwdriver so that he must drop it. And then he hit him with a fucking elbow finish, boom.

And then the second referee runs in, and there's the cover. One, two, kick! What the fucking God, Jesus! Fuck! That one was certainly unexpected. It unexpected. Unexpected. It wouldn't be as unexpected if you went to your grandmother's funeral

and she kicked the cover off the coffin and set up. Hey, Granny! sorry we rushed you oh got a cramp so then davis ducked two elbows he's back to ducking elbows i wish i could have ducked this match he ducked two elbows and hit another pile driver on osprey and got a two count and then he went to clothesline Osprey and Osprey got his arm and Davis fucking tapped out.

25 fucking minutes and to counteract MJF who by the skin of his teeth beat a mid card fucking heel he responds by having an upper midcard guy

kicked the shit out of him to withstand everything he can do for 25 minutes. and needs the help of half the roster to clear this whole thing up. So they're both going into this big stadium show just as strong as they possibly. It's like Andre and fucking Bruno, baby.

Yeah, I don't know about that. I'm going to look at this match as an isolated thing away from the build to Wembley just as a thing. This was, for an AEW Will-Osprae match, If you're into just, you know, again, move, move, move, move, kick out of everything. Then it was a Goodwill Osprey match. And then the five-minute interlude of...

It's just... We've seen it before. We've seen it a lot with the Young Buck stuff, though. It's my turn. Now it's this person's turn. Conveniently, the next person's right here. And now, wouldn't you know it, it's this guy's turn. And one after another, it's lazy and it's shitty.

I complained earlier about the baby-faced group of orange. Cassidy and Roderick Strong running off MJF Imagine you're in a match in the heel stable that hit the ring is Trent Beretta and El Clown and they're run off by Wheeler and Garcia

who they're still trying to stuff down everyone's throat and no one gives a shit Tony has a lot of guts to do things he doesn't have the guts to tell Moxley to Death Rider sucks maybe one day but Do you think this is somehow

Moxley imposing his brain damaged demented ideas onto the Osprey thing or is this something that Tony has forcust

Tony has forced on Osprey or I'm sure Moxley gets in there with Tony and says this is how we're going to do this and Tony just nods along it'll be dope. Well, that certainly will be dope. Especially if it was, yes.

It stands out more in every way, just because the big thing with AEW has always been the match quality. The fans who are in the match quality wrestling love AEW because they get, even though it's almost always illogical, endless matches where everyone kicks out of everything. finishers don't really mean anything. Near falls up the gazoo because the point is to get people

to scream as opposed to have a story you're going to tell that will continue in the future. It's about the matches and the match quality. And then the angles and the things they do like this match. But then you look at what happened with AAA, and it's like, fuck, I hate to keep going back to the best thing I've seen in forever.

But what if Will Osprey was booked well? What if MJF finally, for the first time in a while, was booked well? You know, I don't know. I guess that's the thing. It's hard going from something like that, which was a great match, also a great angle, also a great moment. And then you just see a typical AEW match, a typical kick out of everything. Take your turn run-ins.

I'm kind of rambling, but just it stands out of it. Well, so are those matches. that's it's it's just it's just a bunch of these indie-minded guys that think they're still in a rec center and they want to include all of their friends and pop the people until they can't be popped anymore and it loses track of all point or logic or reason and you can't remember at that point I would have been surprised if people remember the fucking match was still going on but nevertheless you know that's that's that's the thing. the problem, Brian, is that at the end of these things, generally somebody looks like the old

cartoons of somebody, when they got hit over the head with a frying pan and they had the little bird chirping in their head and the stars rotating around their skull while their eyeballs went like that, you've seen that. Do you know the brand of frying pan that was used in those cartoons to hit that cartoon character to make that sound clang! To see that little bird chirping and all those stars rumming around, do you know what brand that was, Brian? I believe it was Acme. No, I'll have you know that Acme,

that's why the coyote is suing them, because Acme was using hex-clad products with their name slapped on it, and that's what the problem was all along. those were hex-clad frying pans that was hitting Elmer Fudd. Ed was hitting Daffy Duck. Ed was hitting the coyote over the head because they knew back in those days that a hex-clad pan was going to hit a cartoon character harder and last longer than any other frying pan.

That's been proven by all the studies that have covered the Chuck Jones study and the fucking UB work study they've all said that hexclad frying pans are the hardest pan if you want to hit a coyote over the head with and folks you can have your own at home

and hexclad sauce pans who you can use to well they're a little smaller so you'd have to find something with a smaller head play whackamo no don't play whackamo let's get back to food and by the way it's Ubai works but let's talk about food

Let's talk about his friends called he moved. Let's talk about let's talk about burgers searing on the hex clad. Let's talk about eggs being cooked in the hexclad. Let's talk about sex. That's what you don't want to do is have sex on a hex clad because boy howdy, that would be hot. That'd be hot.

That'd be sex clad. That would be sad. There you go. But you can wipe these things clean, folks. Listen up. summer cooking season is officially in. You might have steak on Tuesday. You might have a burger on a Thursday afternoon.

You might want breakfast before you go out and face the world outside like a lumberjack. If you're a lumberjack, you need a good breakfast. And all that time that you're cooking, you're not wanting to do a lot of cleanup. And, of course, many of you out there are not gourmet. to begin with. You want pans that make it easy for guys that don't know what they're doing to cook, and you can clean them up in the whisk of a hand and the twinkling of an eye

and potentially the pissing of a little faucet on a pot. You don't have to worry about scratching these things, because even though they're non-stick, this is hex-clad. Their special hex-clad design is not only metal utensil safe, but non-stick so the grease and the grime and the dirt and the and the filth and the mess whatever the fire are you cooking an old boot what's the matter with you people how much damage can you do anyway but it comes right out it's dishwasher safe you can put them in the oven all the way up to 900 degrees so brian you and i both said that um our our ovens don't go to 900 degrees but i found if you

take your hex-clad pan and whatever you want it to cook in it, take it to your local pizza place and just tell them that you need to borrow their oven for a second, put your shit in their pizza oven. It still will be oven safe. Of course, there's probably not a lot of chance they're going to enjoy you doing that. Let's get back on track here. You're probably going to have to take another pan for the other hand to beat them over the head with so they don't take your fucking pan out of the oven for your food is done.

Pans for food pans we love here. Always just be panned up, whatever you leave the house. In Jim's house, pans. Yes. We're talking about pans for food. And of course, you need food, and you need to eat food, and you need to heat it up. But let's find a way to save the day, Jim. Everyone prefers to eat food and heat food before they eat food.

And now you can do all these things with Hexclad's 12-piece set. the ultimate all-in-one cookware upgrade with three versatile pans, two sauce pans, and a family-sized stockpot. And once again, if the kids get too fat, your whole family might not fit in this thing, folks, so just remember. But each of them comes with its own lid, and you're going to have every tool you need to cook for a crowd or master any recipe. And I can tell you, again, from I just the other night scrambled eggs, the softest, fluffiest, to just scramble the egg up, pop a little fucking milk in there just to give it a little lump, dump it in there. It had like a medium low heat.

And it distributes the heat so evenly and you just, oh my gosh, they were so fluffy. They almost floated off my plate. I had to hold the goddamn eggs down with a piece of toast so I could eat them upside down. That's how fluffy they were in the hexclad. It's a patented laser-etched hexagonal steel ridge that boosts. the searing power also. Did you know that, Brian? I did, and why don't we tell the listeners about that great deal?

Tell them how they can do it. Well, for a limited time only, right now, don't wait any longer. You can get 10% off your order. Go to hexclad, H-E-X-C-L-A-D, Hexclad.com slash J-C-E, and that exclusive link is going to get you 10% off your order. hexclad.com slash JCE. These are the finest, indeed,

the last pans you're ever going to need. You'll never need another. Shame on you. If you ever want another, these are the best there are. Hexclad. Hexclad. I said that. Well, Brian, you know,

a lot of times we give our opinions and thoughts and critiques on the various matches and the big shows here on the program, but the real important thing, the critique of record, the Rex Reed of the wrestling industry, is, of course, our friend Uncle Dave Meltzer. And we would be remiss if we didn't keep the people up to date

on exactly how he has dissected these great, great matches that he sees regularly and what he rates them so that the wrestlers know it's not about the paycheck. It's not about the crowd. It's not about the house. It's not about whether you live through it or not. It's how many goddamn stars did Uncle Dave give us? So we want to keep the people up on that with what they clashed in Italy. And normally Dave is a little conservative, shall we say, people have noticed lately when it comes to the ratings of the WWE events. But how did Dave feel about the clash. And by the way,

Rex Reed just died. I don't know if you knew that. Well, that's because he figured with Dave around, there's no reason to go on living. But he could have been more than 90. Well, I don't have the fucking, I bet Rex Reed still

had some piss and vinegar and venom in him. All right, well, let's, uh, speaking of piss and vinegar and venom, let's head back over to Italy. The clash in Italy. Jim, Cody Rhodes retained the WWE title over Gunther

11 minutes 34 seconds Very quickly Dave Meltzer gives it three and three quarter stars You know I've got to say he's Well is Dave being generous By giving that kind of Okay good for main event on TV match

With not a lot going on but everybody, nobody shit to bed. Is that generous these days, three and three quarters? Because it was close to a four-star match, or is that, is that shitting on it these days? Because it's not a six-star match or whatever. I thought it was kind of their dog. It was just kind of a match.

I guess that's the question. Middle of the road, is it three stars? Is it forced? Is it just under four stars? One would have, one would have, one would have given just a regular old match like that about three stars back in the day. All right, so first match, we think Dave may be too nice to Cody Rhodes here. He's, well, he's probably not wanting to upset Cody.

Match two, Ria Ripley beat Jade Cargill to retain the W.W.E. Women's Title 16 Minutes 56 seconds. Three-star match. he's being halfway cognizant of their feelings also to be but this is his new scale where there is no limit the limit is only your imagination you know I know you'll disagree with me

I would flip them I would get a Ria and Jade three and three quarters and I'd give Cody and Gunther three well you know actually considered what you would have expected from Cody and Gunther and what you got versus what you would have expected from reading Jaya or Ria and Jade for at what you got.

I'm inclined to agree with you. Jim Brock Lesnar defeated Obafemi six minutes, 20 seconds, four star match. You know, that may be it is what it is because it works for, and everybody live, you know, was satisfied while at the same time

the people at home, the average folks were like, wow, holy shit, you know, that may have been the most impactful thing of the night. I think it was certainly the most impactful. Again, short match, but we've seen short matches that can be four stars or higher. You know, Brock and Goldberg, I'll always go back to that one. I don't know about this one. I don't know. Let's go to match four.

Saul Ruka, or Sol Ruka, excuse me. me everyone who is just obsessed with her name. Sol Ruka defeated Becky Lynch to win the North American title. Was it the North American? I thought it was intercontinental. Well, whichever. 14 minutes, two seconds. Three star match. Oh, come on now. That's trying to protect people's feelings, isn't it?

It was a little rough there. Yeah, I mean, I don't think... I wouldn't compare it to It's not compare it to It's not like either one's a classic But I thought Ria and Jade was better than that Not that they would both get the exact same thing, three stars But we have a big main event, Jim

Roman Reigns Retained the WWE title in tribal combat Over Jacob Fatu Although Dave wrote tribal warfare I don't think that was the name of it Three and a half stars as a match, I, you know, I don't think it was three and a half stars either as a match or as what it should have been. I think it was just kind of there for a while, as I recall, and that's my big takeaway is, boy, this thing lasted a while.

And, yeah, but, you know, again, Dave is grading on the new scale. So pretty much all of that except Oba and Brock, he thought kind of half-ass sucked and he was just being polite to not put him into something. Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. Is it acceptable to give Romans versus Jacob two stars? Not really. It's not acceptable. He would get banned from all of the better.

places. Well, Jim, that isn't the only, or those aren't the only star ratings we have. We also have for the AAA Mask versus Mask match. Well, and of course, now this is going to be a little bit more down Dave's flywheel or up his Hershey Highway or whatever the fuck it may be. And one would think that since all of his worlds are converging, you're smaller guys, You got faster pace, you got lucha, you got the wonder of the entire crowd reaction. I would think that Dave is all on board with this.

Well, Jim, El Grande Americano defeated the original El Grande Americano Masked versus Masked 33 minutes, 19 seconds. And it didn't seem like 20 minutes that we see from these other people. but go ahead. Let me count them up to make sure I get it right. Uh-oh. Five and three quarter stars. Whoa!

Almost six. Whoa. What are we argued about? Is that, that is even better than anything he is given, his personal longtime good friends, the Buccrues, and their ilk, is it not? I want to say, oh, Omega and Okada exceeded six stars.

And I don't think they were the only ones, or at least that was the only match of Dave's favorites that he ranked that high. Certainly nothing outside of Japan has scored six or eight. Dave wrote, this is the best AAA match I've ever seen, arguably the best WWE match, and a top-tier match of all time. And then he goes into the cage match ratings for it, which we're not going to waste their fucking talk about. You know, I've been to the cage match, people just are allowed to write in and give their ratings on this. That would be like, let's find, you know, six people at a goddamn job site laying pipe for the water company and have them grade the root canals that the dentist at the corner did. What?

And then if you don't do it the way everyone else does it, you're the weirdo. And you're here. You know, I guess my only question will be, why is in this? six stars. If anything else has been higher, this should be there. What, what, what, what was the fucking goddamn straw that broke the Campbell's back that he said, God damn it, if only they hadn't done that, I could have given them the six stars. Even Omega and Okada, the best stuff they ever did didn't have the emotion of the fans and everything going on here. This was better than those matches. And also, you didn't have to look at either Harpo Marx or,

goddamn, you know, Charlie Chan's favorite number one son. Well, there it is. The best rating, I think, a WWE promoted match. Obviously, they own AAA has ever received by Dave Meltzer. Five and three-quarter stars. Well, at the same time now, I wonder what Uncle Dave's miscreant cousin, Brian Alvarez, thought of the whole thing. But I'm sure he liked the match also, but they have been having

their little episodes lately. Brian and it's almost getting to be a regular part of the program here where people are, they're starting to enjoy the various byplay between Uncle Dave trying to defend the indefensible and Brian Alvarez for whatever reason is suddenly decided to become the voice of reason, but it's taking on an ever more adversarial element to it with the Are they going to come to blows, is what I'm asking you? No, I don't think so. They're in different states. No.

The state of euphoria and the state of denial. The state of confusion? Can we get them in the same room? Can we get them in the same room if we pay to see who takes a swing first? Yeah, I think money talks. I think actually money would do it. But it's at the point now where wherever they bicker and it seems to happen more and more, whether that's strategic or not, who knows.

But everyone, as soon as they hear it, and Meltzer said what puts it up, and now they put it up, everyone says, oh, I can't wait to hear what Jim's going to say about this. And Dave loses every argument. If you notice every time we play these, Dave loses the argument. He may not admit it. He may not see it that way. But he almost always loses the argument, and this one...

To Dave, an argument is like a... an AEW match. No matter how hard you get hit with something, you continue on. Now, this one was about the raw viewership on Netflix. And obviously, we haven't really talked too much about or followed too much the ratings or the viewership, as it were, on Netflix.

But we know what they were previously, and obviously Netflix is a major platform. Anything you want to say about this? Well, yeah, all the fun has been taken out of the ratings for me just because they just decided to start changing them all. And then, well, some people didn't like those. We'll change them the other way. Well, they don't like that.

Well, we'll change them again. And meanwhile, Netflix and the number one streaming show in Poughkeepsie and all of this other bullshit, it's taking all the fun out of it for me. It's a bunch of gaga. Well, Jim, let's go to this audio now from Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer and Brian Alvarez talking about the raw ratings or the raw viewership and what Dave's been reporting and what Dave thinks they are. Let's go to this.

Dude, these raw numbers, Dave. Yes. What about them? I'm getting... 700,000 people are watching raw. In the United States on the same day, yeah. I don't buy that. It doesn't make any sense. I'm sorry.

And you say everyone... Well, I'll stop it there because I heard the first was. Dave is saying... Dave is saying... Dave is saying there are seven. 100,000 people in the United States watching Raw. I think you said first day, same day, when it airs, live, only 700,000 people. I already find this very hard to believe since, God damn, the show has never dropped below a million viewers, regardless of what it was on.

and now Dave is trying to say it's down around, well, because is that conveniently, that's around where AEW is so he can try to make this a horse race? Or where does, how does he arrive at this? I need to hear more. Week that these, these raw ratings, these Netflix ratings are wrong, their work, they're whatever. Right. How does it make sense to you that 700,000 people are watching raw? Because that's the most, that's giving them every minute for the doubt. That's the most I don't give them any benefit for that because I don't believe they're numbers.

That's the point. Okay, well, the point is... However they're telling them. Their numbers... How can 700,000 people be watching Raw? It doesn't make sense. Um, if you... Why would it not make sense?

They draw 11,000 per show. They outdraw Smackdown. It means nothing. That means nothing. There's... Let me stop it there for a second. What the fuck? It means nothing.

What do you... Again, let's stop for a second on its face. And Raw isn't... how popular it once was, clearly. But that seems excessively low, especially if NXT is doing just around 600,000 on a CW, or whatever the hell it is, and there's a bird outside the window chirping. Oh, don't get mad at the birds.

An AEW does between 500 and 700,000, not counting max, which Dave has always indicated was this big boost, and why wouldn't you think they're getting 500,000 people per week watching on Max? He's saying only 700,000 for Raw. Same day watching live, here's the one problem now is that you can just start watching the show and watch it from the beginning whenever you want. I mean, it's obviously with DVR, that was always possible anyway, but now there's no

between DVR and streaming, et cetera, there's no appointment viewing, there's no urgency to, oh my God, I got to get home by 8 o'clock. I'm going to have a wreck. If I don't get home by 8 o'clock, I've got to see the show. So are people waiting until midnight

when they get off work the next day when they get a chance because it's not urgent? I don't know, but you can't tell me that, the WWE program that started it all, Raw, the flagship of the thing, on that big a platform with that history of always having some level of millions of viewers is doing less or the same or a little bit more than the NXT show on a CW network. There's never been a correlation between one and the other.

I mean, how is it? How can the raw brand outdraws, And SmackDown is doing double the viewers on television. Because Raw is the A brand and the younger... They can't be the A brand with 700,000 people watching. Yes, it can. Because you're only on Netflix, you're not on television. You don't have the exposure.

You don't have the... If you don't have the exposure, how are you drawing 11,000 fans of television shows? Because most of the TV viewers and most of the TV viewers are over the age of 55, And they're not the ones going to the live shows. The idea that Smackdown is going to be doing well over a million viewers, and Ra is going to be doing well under a million. Because look at...

That makes no sense. Of those million viewers, $650,000 probably are over 50. So it does. Think about it. It does. No, it does not make sense. We'll go back a few seconds. Think about it.

It does. Think about it. No, I'm trying to think about it. And it doesn't. it doesn't make sense that besides that raw draws 11,000 people to the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It doesn't make sense because of the reasons that I mentioned. Raw is the flagship program. And just by comparison sake, whether it be NXT or whether it be SmackDown,

which is on cable, not even broadcast, a streaming service, whatever, the, fuck these numbers are all horseshit from the Nielsen people these days to begin with the streaming people they've got a way i'm sure to know exactly what's going on but they don't release anything with any specificity but no you can't ted and if david has been trying to make the claim that the max audience would somehow double aEW's number then he ought to realize that there'd still be more people, many more people, multiple times of people watching Raw on streaming, is watching AEW on streaming.

He's making whatever argument that he wants to make to fit, whatever the fuck he wants to fit. Over 50. So it does. Think about it. It does. No, it does not make sense that 700,000 people are watching Raw. That doesn't make sense. I don't care. what Netflix says. It does not make sense

that 700,000 people are watching Raw at all. Does it make sense that 700,000 people are watching A.W? And they can... If 700,000 people are watching AEDW, I cannot believe that 700,000 people are watching raw. Because it doesn't make sense that the same number of viewers are watching these two shows, yet one

show is drawing 3,000 to TV every week, and the other show is drawing 11,000. That doesn't make any sense. I don't care what Netflix says. Okay, can I tell you something? That doesn't make any sense. Okay. There's never been correlation. And that's where it cuts off there, the audio. Oh, good Lord.

It is a double standard. It's becoming more and more apparent. Dave has a complete double standard for, it's not just match ratings for everything with AEW and WWE. Whether that's because he wants to protect the little guy to help the industry or he has a bias against WWE, I don't know. But Alvarez got heated here. I mean, you watch the thing.

He's exacerbated. Tony Kahn is Dave's number one disciple and pupil. And if he fucks this up, then, you know, Dave takes it personally, I guess. I have no idea. But if Raw's only getting 700,000, you would think Dynamite's getting like 300,000, maybe. At best, like, not that they would be getting the exact same amount. Alvarez brings it up if it was that hot. Well, no, dynamite wouldn't even be getting that much because they're also available on television,

whereas raw is only available on Netflix. That's the... You know, you do have to wonder what kind of hit they did take and how they are feeling it because obviously they did lose some people going to purely streaming. There are still our people who are just basic cable.

There's still our people that don't even have cable. Oh, yeah, and I would be too if we didn't have to do this, but they had nearly two million and better on the big shows to start out with, I don't think they lost, what would that be 65% or whatever? Because if the people were already watching fucking raw, they would have probably kept watching raw.

I don't think that they gained, certainly there was all the rosy talk they had that they were going to gain, oh, all this new audience or these new viewers with this worldwide reach, I don't think they picked any up. I think they probably lost some, like you said, because they just didn't want to fuck with a streaming service.

But, you know, wrestling fans have always found a way to watch the show if they were going to watch the show, including me when I was a kid putting an antenna on the roof of my fucking house, right? But, no, they didn't gain any appreciable. New fans probably lost some, didn't lose any, we're near 65%. What do you think of the new defense tactic from Dave

of think about it? If you can't I think he just, he sounds so maybe he got some kind of B12 12 injection or something because he sounds so chipper and youthful

now. But he's though, think about it. Think about it. Problem is if you think about it, makes you not want to think about it anymore. I think Dave Dave listens to his own logic a lot. And I'm wondering

if what he does, Brian, now follow me on this. I'm wondering if what he does is he records all the things that he wants to tell people and then he plays them on his Raycon everyday earbud classics so that he can hear himself over and over,

and he convinces himself that he's right. What do you think? I just don't know if Dave Meltzer would appreciate the classics. Well, come on now. The strawberry alarm clock, vanilla fudge, those type of classics. I'm sure the nuggets. Uncle Dave is into that stuff with the cool kids and the hepcats. But folks, if you'd like to be with the cool kids and the hepcats,

and get Dad a wonderful gift for Father's Day, the everyday earbuds classics. That's what I'm talking about because Dad's old. He's set in his ways. He wants the classic earbuds. They stick right in there. And that's way he can hear them good, just like he likes it,

relaxing at a park, going for walks, traveling, unwinding with music, sitting on the porch, at the memory care home with the other Alzheimer's patients, you can just stick these things in his ear and just tell him to hum to himself, but he'll think he's listening to a symphony choir. But the active noise cancellation is so good,

it will block out background noise and make everything feel more immersive. So think about this, old dad is sitting on the rocking chair on the porch. You put these things in, you press play on some a good old fashioned vanilla fudge album and you leave him sitting there while you go off partying or whatever and he's immersed in the whole thing

it'll keep him hanging on oh there you go and if you want to pair for yourself too so you can listen to the fudge you can pack them in there it's all 15% off so for Father's Day for dear old dad in his senile golden years. And if you turn him up loud enough,

he won't be able to hear himself when he shits on himself. But the everyday earbuds classic, they're packed with upgrades, got the active noise cancellation, the multi-point connectivity to pair with two devices at once. I'm not sure where you put the other plug and the other, you've got your ears filled up, but hey, you've still got holes left.

and a super comfortable ergonomic design that stays put in your ear, no matter what you're doing. Gymnastics, deep sea fishing, roller coastering, some fucking, you know, basic rides at the amusement park. Going for a walk. Just hanging out, going for a walk on the beach, and of course, going for a run. Everyday typical things, nothing extraordinary needed to point out that these Recon earbuds are fantastic, yes?

62% of people who are mugged and by being hit over the head say that their racons never fell out. That is not a statistic that we know for sure, so we should be sighted. The other 38% weren't really sure they were wearing them to begin with. And 10% of those couldn't remember their own name. A margin of error of 100% ladies and gentlemen. Yes, that's the margin of error. But you won't make an error when you buy your recons. 3 million happy customers, a 30-day happiness guarantee.

Happiness is in the air. So right now, upgrade your dad's everyday routine for Father's Day or just get yourself something to listen to because you deserve it because if you're not going to get yourself something, who the fuck will? Because most people don't like you and think you're either self-centered, obnoxious, you're a bore, you're a buzzkilling parties. So just buy yourself something.

Yeah. Go to buy Raycon, B-U-Y-R-A-Y-C-O-N, buy Raycon.com slash J-C-E, and you're going to get 15% off all of the Raycons that you buy, whether you for yourself or dear old dad or, and now remember, if Dad's deaf in one ear, they got a special discount because they're only going to need to send you one. So be sure to mark that down on the form. and tell them which ear because sometimes

it's hard to fit the right bud in the left ear if you're deformed in any way. Byraycon.com slash JCE That's right, we love them and we're not deformed

but even if we were, I don't know what I'm saying, I don't know what you said, but they're great and they're loved and lovable and we wear them and use them and love the music. here, Raycon, Jim, one more time that promo code. We're not deformed, but even if we

were... Well, you wouldn't know it. What's it get, Jim? promo code! Yes. Yes, that would be by raycon.com slash JCE. If

an animal, I'm a human big. Oh, speaking of human beings and what they do for entertainment, what's going on at the Arcadian Vanguard Network this fine week? Another great week, another great batch of shows, the Arcadian Vanguard podcast network. Follow along on Facebook at facebook.com slash Arcadian Vanguard and on Twitter at Super Podcasts, also wherever else we are.

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Directly from the wrestling news.com wherever you find your favorite podcast. Shut up and wrestle with Brian Solomon. Check it out today. His NWA championship series continues. Hear all about the great NWA champions of the past. S-U-A-W-Podd.com. I hope for Shut Up and Wrestling with Brian Solomon, wherever you find.

Your favorite podcast. Of course, stick to wrestling with John McAdam. A look at what was going on 40 years ago. The NWA, the A-W-A, world class, the WWF, hear all about it, McAdampod.com. Available wherever you find, your favorite podcast. And I'm losing my voice. And, of course, the 605 Super Podcast,

The Membership! Oh, my God. That helped clear it up, actually. go through the archive 605 pod.com available wherever you find your favorite podcast and you never know maybe something in the works the mothership I'm glad we were able to clear that up all righty well moving forward here with something else thankfully you know Brian it was a bad week for some of the the new wrestling with AEW botching MJF and Osprey and making them look like imbeciles and some of the other things that go on. We saw the good El Grande Americano match, but a lot of people again have previously thought,

well, Cornett just says this stuff. He just knocks it now because he's a grumpy old man. Well, we have been proving with our ongoing segment of my old T&A agent reports that I was a grumpy young man too. but at least I hadn't changed my story. And I thought we would revisit a couple of these because they have been somewhat popular with the audience. But in case you haven't partaken of these,

folks, you can go to the YouTube channel official Jim Cornett and Jim Cornett looks at his TNA Aager reports for whatever date we were talking about, such and such period of time, you can search for them that way. But Brian, I thought we're starting to get to the point of time now where I was getting a little frustrated, a little flustered. Because, again, it became a rib on me that at first Dutch Mantel had been calling me about,

hey, come down here and do something. We're in Orlando to blah, blah, blah. For about a year after I got sideways with the WWE, and I was burnt on, especially burn on booking, but I was burn on wrestling. And I was doing a few Ring of Honor things for Gabe Sapolsky, but mostly I was doing those, you know, early Midnight Express reunions. And not terribly many of those. But finally, okay, go to work for Jeff Jarrett, hang out with Dutch Mantel,

help him with his new company. it'll just it'll be swell and as we know within about three months here came our friend vinny ru at which point see a lot of people Kate they say well cordad you were openly critical of the guy well I felt I'd earned the right to be because to not get in the way of business to not make it become a distraction Brian as you recall I offered to fucking quit I offered to go

the offer I made to Jeff and Dutch in person at the room and the next to the production meeting at Universal Studios in Orlando was let I'm the director of authority or whatever the management figure

let Abyss go crazy and give me the black hole slam and I'll be gone for three months. And by the time that, you know, three months is up, hopefully you will have realized what a mistake you made. He will no longer be here and I will come back. And they wouldn't, they wouldn't do it.

They wouldn't take my resignation. So at that point, how much more can I register my feelings on the guy than trying to quit my job because they've hired him? So at this point, I'm going to be honest from here on out. Can you blame me in that mindset? Maybe. Let me ask you this.

I never thought about it until right now. What if you had quit and gone home? What if Jeff and Dutch couldn't have talked you out of being a good team player, which you always were, at helping out? Yeah. What if you said, fuck it, I really am going home? Would it have changed the way they, saw things, would it have made things harder for them right away?

I mean, would that have done anything different than, again, trying to be a good team player and working alongside someone who was actively emailing Dixie about trying to get rid of you? Well, I didn't know that then. I don't, I think it would have made the tapings harder and their jobs harder, potentially because of the various sundry things that I was doing. whether it be on-camera role or producing or laying shit out for some of the guys or whatever the fuck

that they had me doing or working later on in the truck this is just when I had become an agent over the previous few months and I was starting to get more involved and it would have made it harder to do the show but at the same point I have no goddamn confidence that the actual end result would have been any different

because I didn't do anything except try to make his shit make a little bit more sense and make it more palatable for the talent without

and I'm not saying I could have done it but without some completely different creative from the start. Instead of Vince Rousseau's, they did not stand a chance of becoming any kind of a player on pay-per-view

or generating revenue at that time to compete with Vince or whatever. If Spike hadn't jumped in because they were getting a rating on TV and helped them pay for some of the top guys, they would have been able to afford the talent they had. So I don't know that I ever was able to make any difference in their business by staying or if I would have left, besides it being harder for them to do their jobs. Because it was just a flawed mess at that point and it didn't get better.

Was that the question you asked me or did I somehow not answer it while answering something else? I just don't know if there even is an answer. you know, but obviously you stayed there, you were brutally honest, and, you know, very selfishly, Jeff and Dutch wanted you to stay there. Well, it wasn't so good. You going home would have been the best thing. Oh, yeah, for me, me going home for my blood pressure and just my general level of aggravation, that would have been the best thing by far.

But I was still of the mindset, because this is 20 years ago, that I'm in a wrestling business. I want to, okay, they got a good TV. We can do something, you know, blah, blah, blah. But it, unfortunately, for the variety of reasons that we've covered, it was more difficult than that. But having said that, so, okay, see, we got to coexets when Jeff says, we'll start punching up the finishes and blah, blah, blah, or whatever. but January 4th, 2007 is picking up where we left off last time with a T&A impact program.

So basically we are still now at this point, the one-hour show. We explained that last time. It was when they debuted in prime time, it was a two-hour show. And then we went back to one hour to the following year. but what's starting to happen here is that we're starting this has been now like October November D.C. This is 12 weeks of TV

into all of the Jerry Springerish elements and the just the chaos and the wall-to-wall crash TV as he called it when they really haven't had established haven't had time to establish on the program a lot of these young guys and why we should really like them, right?

And it's automatically going into this shit where it's just everything is chaos. So the opening match was Rhino against Robert Rood, Bobby Rude, and they were trying to do, they were upgrading him. But instead of looking at Bobby Rude and more, what he would later become with the robe and et cetera was more him but they again rousseau going back to 90s w w w eighties w w f he was from wall street robert rude and suddenly got a suit on him and all his shit and he he had tracy brooks with him and i love tracy brooks too but i didn't see Robert Rude is a goddamn second coming of Warren Buffett. And nevertheless, here's what I said,

Rude will never draw money with few wins and a girl with big tits that are more over than he is, which was true because at the time, Rude wasn't over at all. He never beat anybody. And Tracy was popular with the fans because of her large upper frontal protuberances. Rhino and Rude work well together and had a good match.

Ms. Brooks' interference backfired. Rude loses in three minutes. The only way this match could have benefited anyone is if Rude had won on a fuck of his own in eight minutes. Because Rino was over at the point in time, Rude was not. But it wouldn't have fucking made any sense to beat Rino. So don't have the fucking match. anyway rude yells at miss brooks for 15 seconds before styles attacks rhino on the floor and gets heat

rhode or rhino makes his own comeback rude glums rhino both heels get heat are a j and rude friends now this deal assumed rude was already over and he's not a lot to absorb in a short time and that's again that was the problem and you'll see when we go through the format for this entire show there was so much that was written to go on amongst everybody that there was no room to actually have the goddamn match to get anybody over

and it was just a bunch of busyness with people acting like they were trying to do a 90s WWF TV show and not of their own volition I'm not blaming the talent um seg 2 vkm enter

and that was brian james Brian Armstrong and Billy Gunn who were no longer DX but they were the voodoo kin mafia of course because Vincent Kennedy McMahon's initials are not VKM he wasn't Billy Gunn either

was he? Um yeah he was Billy then was he Billy Gunn? Okay yes he's always he's always He's always been the Billy Gun. Sometimes they just made him look like a Billy Goat. Anyway, VKM come out in sombreros and ponchos. And I wrote,

Brian does a great job with this stuff, but to me they just got downright silly with this one. Where will this eventually translate to a program or a match in TNA? This is a lot of time to give a match that won't take place and plug footage on TV of something not happening. So again, this was more of their challenging of WWE or blind referrals to smart inside shit, right? And that was, and that was Seg 2.

Seg 3, Borash with Gail Kim. She is steaming hot and was very good here. But when Storm comes in, James Storm, even though he's very good as he, heel when the ominous dumb dumb music is played underneath, it made it so cheesy and staged. Remember when they would do that,

they'd have a backstage interview and suddenly the tone would change and they would pipe in the dun dun dun dun dun dun underneath. I do. It's, and then a storm getting heat bullying a girl is fine,

but the uncle's golden white. line was way racial for no reason. Golden walk. I don't remember what this was, but I have quoted the uncle's golden walk line was way racial for no reason and shouldn't have been allowed to air because there was no upside. I don't know what to, but look who's writing the show. That's what I'm telling you. They're going to be fighting in the girl's fucking bathroom and Gayle Kim has to listen to lines about her uncle's golden walk, whatever the fuck. All right.

Segment three continues street fight. Homicide versus Runt. Homicide, who everybody remembers, I hope, of L.A.X. He was big and bring a bonner. This is 20 years ago when he was young. And Runt was Spike Dudley, who again, as I said the other day, was a very nice kid. but ridiculously small not i mean spike dudley now that marco stunt has come along

spike dudley could have just beat the shit out of marco stunt and stole his lunch money but at the time it was ridiculous and they did him as a a gimmick with the dudleys and the w f and it worked but they were trying to recreate this shit here where they couldn't use the name and they're putting him in fucking matches against the LAX is supposed to be these badass, you know, Hispanic street thugs. And so street fight, homicide versus runt.

And I kept thinking for people who were trying to get to tune into our show, right? And this is what they see. Even a guy named runt at all. and it wasn't his idea but they couldn't use spike anyway I wrote once again a top heel selling for a guy who looks like this is too much even if homicide isn't very big

this just makes it obvious instead of helping these guys do all the street fight spots with chairs ladders etc and devalue them for when the money matches need them run bleeds from an unnecessary hard way and devalues blood on TV for a garbage match. Conan barely distracts the referee while Hernandez power bombs runt onto the ladder, and Rudd should be paralyzed, but he won't be.

Team 3D saves runt and the whole stunt show is over in three minutes. The whole match. Three minutes. He got blood in three minutes? It got blood and beaten three minutes. This was meaningless and, and did nothing to sell the 3D versus LAX tag title match on pay-per-view. See, that's the thing.

Vinny Rue would write so much into the show. There wasn't room for these little things called matches, and he would have everything else timed out first. What does the interview need? What does the backstage need? What does the tape need? What's left over? Four matches on a show, you got 10 minutes, split it up.

What the fuck? I never wrote a format for a show, and I've written, what, 300,000 of them, that I didn't time my fucking self to see that everything worked out. Nevertheless, they're timing his formats at the production meeting and said, well, we only got 10 minutes left for four matches.

Well, split it up. Anyway, Seg 4, James Mitchell with Abyss in prison. Two thoughts. Mitchell slapping Abyss around and or Abyss Cowering and whimpering for this long was way too Hollywood and phony. But both guys did do a great job, especially Mitchell. We leave thinking Abyss is going to kill Mitchell.

The secret, there was some secret going on, is a B-movie to my taste. Again, we're going to find out that Mitchell inseminated somebody. I don't fucking know. Cage with Tom. The next match is Cage and Joe, right? Or supposed to be, I believe. No, Cage and Angle, whatever the fuck.

We don't really have a match. Cage with Travis Tomco entrance. It's Christian. I pop up on the big screen with an announcement and I said it seemed to work well and save TV time to have a big screen segment to the guy in the ring. And then Kurt Angle entered, but Samoa Joe attacked Angle. Great brawl here, security pull apart to break.

Joe sucked it up and did a great job with his bad knee, which was legitimate. He went in with a bad knee, but he was trying to get through it. So then in segment five, we come up with a pull apart. and it says J.C. rules to let them fight. I don't know who it was that I ruled to let fight, but they all just had gotten a fight. This was some wild shit.

They beat the piss out of each other. I believe Joe and Angles three pay-per-view matches would have all done better had they been spread out over a year. Oh, what to break at the TV truck, but great brawl. So we're outside down to parking lot. Segment six was up with J.C. talking angle down, brawl again. J.C. makes Ironman match to Big Pop. Cage attacks angle. Angle makes comeback. Tomko gets on angle.

Blackout. Sting appears. Sting and angle clear ring. Too far, too quick, rushed it closed, should have gone off the air selling the Iron Man at the pay-per-view. bottom line at the end again two matches and six minutes of wrestling in the hour that was kind of what he was doing it's a very rousseau show very different show than the first shows that you were reviewing from what the late spring early summer of 2020 of 2006 summer and it going into the fall and then this came up But it was all about trying to sell the big pay-per-view, right? Brian, would you like to hear about the paper view that we were trying to sell there, the big final resolution show? Well, we need some sort of resolution. So let's talk about final resolution 2007.

So this is January 14, 2007. And this has been now, I believe, three months since the Russo experiment has begun. Let's see what the pay-per-view product looks like. right? And we open with a last man standing match between Rhino and AJ Stiles. And one would think, you know, again, again, you would think these two guys athletic, young at that point, boy, they can really go. And while I wrote the rules of pinfall bin ten count, I thought, infringed on the Iron Man match later, because in the last, in the last man standing match, the way they were doing it, if you got a pinfall on somebody, then you had a 10 count. If you could get back to your feet,

then the match would go on. And there's nothing to matter with that, except on the same show, they have an Ironman match where if you get a, if you get pinned, do you have a rest period? If you get back on your feet, you see what I'm saying here. Right?

Just, nevertheless, these guys had a real good match. Hebner's counts were buzz-killingly slow that this was a work. Finish was great in theory but flat in practice. It took Rhino too long to set up the table. Hebner's count was in obvious slow motion. AJ clearly pushed out, but instead of getting heel heat,

and I'm telling AJ didn't push out of anything he was supposed to do, AJ is trying to get heel heat here. instead of getting heel, it just pissed the people off that they got fucked on a stipulation. I thought it ruined the guy's hard work. Then they fight back out. AJ takes a pile driver on the ramp

that should have been a stretcher job, but he's up less than 60 seconds later to move on the table gore so the heel is tougher and smarter than the baby face. Some things never change, do they, Brian? If you don't know history, you're doomed to repeat it. So again, I think they should have been focusing more on a lot of these guys and less on some of the things that we will see later on. But Russo never got the guys that you, he never looked at the business like, how do I push that athlete?

how can I get something out of that guy who is such a good athlete and works hard and has attributes, how can I make him more attractive, entertaining, whatever? Instead, he wants to go for guys that are just, the only reason they're there is to fucking jack off or entertain from the start. and oh yeah he's a made it look like shit or whatever the fuck but he's funny or it's entertaining that's what he looked for that's why we were focusing on in a lot of cases completely in course he'll push a guy that's already on top and a big main event guy but he has more time for the fucking ha ha that he does for the serious legitimate guys that you could move up

that's why he never made any stars he had stars that he got and then he wrote for underneath guys anyway uh the ex title was next with chris sabin versus christopher daniels versus jerry lynn and remember this is 19 years ago so the three way wasn't completely just goddamn worn out yet so I could still somewhat enjoy the action, especially when they weren't automatically garbage matches with ladders and chairs and everything else at that point in time. So, however, there's still same problem.

Excess. Here I said two three-way matches on the same show also to me caused both to supper and usually hurts the second one worse. This was inventive, sharp, good action, great till the finish. It was performed well, but once again,

I don't think it gets the right heat for the heel or the title when a title change happens without the champion dropping the fall. Jerry Lynn was the star of this match. And the three-way was never meant. Well, I don't know what Paul did. What did Pauley do?

I did the three-way, then he did the three-way dance. I did the triple threat rather than he did the three-way dance. Did the champion have to lose? Or what, it was, it was elimination, right? So one way or another, the... Yeah, actually, now I don't remember. I thought it was just one, whoever got the pinfall won. Because remember, the three-way dance went to a draw.

So it was no finish. Well, but that did mean it wasn't going to be eliminate. Mine was elimination, because that makes sense. If you're beat, you're out. But when they started doing three ways where one guy could just win and whether the champion was beaten or not, so blah, blah, blah. But anyway, all righty, here we go. We now have succeeding sessions of Russo-Riffic pay-per-view.

Jeremy Borash with Kevin Nash. I looked at the clock when this started. This is what I wrote. The world's tallest grandfather introduced Bob Backlin. A little comedy is fine if it's short and funny, but the majority of the next 28 minutes of pay-per-view time was neither. We did a recap of the paparazzi championship series or whatever where the thing, Nash and the X-Division guys had the camera,

and you remember that. Nobody ever knew what the fuck was, and I think, I don't think they ever even blew it off before some of the time. got hurt, they changed the ending anyway. But I wrote, a new viewer would have had no idea what the fuck they were being shown here, and I'm not understanding why we make fun of sensitive spots in our own business when we're mostly the only ones who understand it anymore. And then they had the PCS series final, where Nash and the judges were introduced.

and the judges were of Bob Backland. Who was the other one? They did a Somolian Joe joke, and they had the fat oily guy. Remember the fat oily guy in TNA? I remember the fat oily guy in WWE. What was it? Chris DeJoseph?

Yes, but they did a fat guy that wore a thong and TNA also because... Was it the same guy? I don't think it was. I think it was just another fat guy, but Russo got a kick out of seeing fat guys almost naked on TV. So here's what I wrote. Intro Nash and judges, if I had paid for this pay-per-view, I'd be hot right now. Why are we doing Somoli and Joe when Joe is our top guy? Fat, oily guy, are we trying to run off the whole hardcore fan base?

this looks like WWE Backland got a polite legend reception and then the match was Alex Shelley against Austin Star who was Austin Aries now that I think about it no wonder Aries is a miserable human being with a piss poor outlook on life and the business

he had to work here so anyway, Shelley versus Star if Nash is going to do color can somebody wake him up no energy didn't care inside jokes people don't get just rotten shelly and star deserve credit for trying to actually have a real match in the middle of this horse shit the live crowd was into them at first because they're regulars but i don't know how it played at home

shelly's been with nash so long he's just gilligan star has a good look the fans patient patients got thin and ten minutes ran out It was now 20 minutes since Nash's promo started as we go to the judges. Borash reading them as Sirius killed his credibility. Backland then entertained a lot of the boys at the monitor and went forever. When Nash called for five more minutes, I feared a riot might start. They had a quick fall at a celebration. Nash buried

Star by selling his shove like a five-year-olds then shoving him for two flips. Stars promo about this being stupid, I'm sure, was echoed at home. Backland's chicken wing got a surprising pop and this whole mess went a total of 28 minutes on pay-per-view and to me was embarrassing.

This is what he had turned. This is why nobody. And I mean, you talk, about conversion rate on pay-per-view and people have been saying and we've said Dave and Tony act like AEW is selling 150 or 200,000 paper views when even before streaming became a thing before it was even up and serviced when they were just on television they were doing 7 and 800,000 viewers, but they're supposed to be doing 150 or 200,000 pay-per-view buys.

T&A at this point had a million viewers. And by the time that Rousseau got finished with their pay-per-view business, it was down to 8, 10, and 12,000 that they were selling. So TNA of this. It's the same thing to happen in WCW. It's the same thing to happen in WCW. It killed the pay-pviews. And T&A paperviews.

was one extreme. That's probably the worst conversion rate of any wrestling company that's ever done pay-per-view that had a television show. But AEWs, if it is to be believed, would be beyond belief.

It would be multiple times, multiples of multiples of times. The conversion rate of any other WWF, WCW, whatever the case. So, but the point of, is this kind of shit.

When they could have at least had the T&A was the appealing promotion to the hardcore fans that have now devolved into the AEW fans. They wanted the alternative. They wanted the good matches when they were still able to have good matches without having the furniture store and burying every referee and ignoring all the rules

and these guys work didn't all look fake like most of the guys now. So we could have at least had that audience, but dip shit ran them off to do goddamn comedy routines. Anyway, James Storm and Pedy Williams. I said, if we could just bless Williams with an extra six inches, the crowd seemed to have the sour belches after the previous segment. James Storm is a good heel,

but the heat started 60 seconds into this match, so Williams had no chance. too bad as this match had a story and an angle. Storm got a nice win in six and a half minutes. Rudy and Petey could have milked way more out of the crowd, but the angle with Jackie was hot. So I don't know what all they did there. And then we go to more VKM stuff.

And they did a package where it was like the, their war on VKM or whatever. They were making fun of bad wrestling TV by doing bad wrestling TV. VKM in-ring interview on a pay-per-view. Once again, great delivery by Brian on a subject that won't sell any tickets or ever come to fruition. This was another one of these challenges, but now I think they declared victory. It says they declare victory without ever doing anything to anybody. and then talk about Sina doing a job for Britney Spears'

his husband. That was when Sina had done something and took a bump for Justin Timberlake, right? Or do you even remember that? No, I think it was Kevin Federline or actual husband. Oh, well, I thought the other one was her husband. Was he just fucking her? I don't know if they ever, who knows? They dated when they were young.

Well, somebody that both fucked and married Britney Spears bumped Sina and they did a promo about it. So it says they talked about it. about Sita doing a job for Spears' husband. Now are we supposed to think, all wrestling is fake or only matches with white rappers? And if it all is, then why do they get mad when they lose? And why do we care?

They talk about WW fans booing WWTV. Then TNA steps in and hits the line about the TNA chance right before Brian. Brian says the fans don't like to have their intelligence insulted right after the PCS segment. The We're Not Gonna Take It Sing Along was actually classic, and T&A Chants came up, and VKM looked pretty good, great place to get out. No!

Eight minutes after this talk segment started, here comes Christy Hemmy. I remember they had actually turned some kind of goddamn chicken shit into some chicken shalid and had the crowd singing and it had been a great place to just get the fuck out of that and here came christie hemmy and i wrote hemi screechy voice and channeling her high school drama class there were so many reasons this was going to bomb too much talk already too much ha ha and these people don't give a shit about the plight of women in wrestling because he had again he had her doing some kind of promo about the plight of women's wrestling and mentioned it a bunch of WWE names.

I said when she got to the Man Beast China, I thought we'd see snipers. Why can she say Hunter and Sean and nobody else can? We also talk about a competitor's tag team like they're the gods of wrestling. So Hemmy goes on forever about women's dignity to chance of show your tits boring and we want wrestling at an amusement park.

They managed to get people to chance show your tits. Billy was the baby face for cutting her off. This was 13 minutes of hell on pay-per-view. Anyway, so then we go to the World Tag Team title match and we do the LAX 3D VTR recap. I wrote the visual of Runt dressed as Santa kills any heat or attention this might get. All emphasis on 3D and Runts interplay

and the tag champs were a side note. For the World Tag Team title, LAX versus Team 3D, I produced this so I'll bury myself too. But some of it was wormed in on me and some of it surprised me. 3D has the same match every time. Eat up the heels. LAX has lost all their heat and with no Conan,

they're just blah. I can't remember whether this was when Conan was injured or sick or when he decided that he was going to try to sue him for, because he tried to, Conan tried to sue TNA, it did sue him. filed papers, it was, lawyers were speaking because he was incapacitated because of his years of

steroid use. Like, how the fuck was that T&A's fault? They just came around in 2000. And it was some fucking goofy lawyer got a hold of him, whatever the fuck. But anyway, LAX has lost their heat with no Conan. They're just blah. We really missed the boat on a topical new heel team here unless we can juice these guys up.

They have no leader. But by the time the bell rang to start this match, we had been without wrestling for 20 minutes, so the crowd was pissed too. Point is, this match sucked. LAX looked like an ineffectual job team for the first five minutes, then got to hit a lackluster heat spot in front of the referee.

after a minute of heat on Devon, he made his own comeback and cold tagged Bubba who beat homicide up like a small child. Then tag Devon back in. They stopped Devon and got another 60 seconds of heat on him until Devon made his own comeback on both heels. Then LAX took over double teaming Devon and Bubba didn't even worry enough to try to stop him.

Then they got lost. then they cold a cold tag to buff they didn't ever get heat on bubba they got heat on devon twice and devon gave bubba a cold tag twice to bubba who touched hernandez for the first time in the match and to give him a body slam Hernandez was eventually a few years later they wanted Dixie wanted him to be the big Hispanic baby face

but here's a 300 pound guy six three whatever that's super strong and the first time that Bubba Ray touches him he picks him up and body slams so the people knew the Dudleys from the WWF they didn't know these

fucking guys and a homicide looked small anyway and then they've lost their manager who was the only guy that had been around a business for a while enough to speak up so homicide

this is my I'm telling you this now not on this report so homicide and Hernandez were going to do everything they were told by the veterans anyway cold tagged above a body slam 3D does what's up for the millionth time 3D on homicide shit can Hernandez

runt is late, showed up and gets them disqualify. Poisonous! This was doomed because a drunk midget and a santa outfit causing a cheap disqualification, it a match that rotten in front of this crowd was death. And when I say drunk midget, it was storyline. He wasn't really drunk, but since you know who's right in his shit,

he had drinking problems on TV. It just... So, yeah, so we got the... We got the inside jokes, the referral to the other company, the talent with drinking problems, the fucking lack of wrestling logic at all, the whole night, it's all manifesting itself, right?

Before I get to our double main event, would you like to ask, any questions. No, I mean, this is as bad as I remember. I stopped watching, you know, TNA at various different points. I would always give him a shot. I remember the big Christopher Daniels, AJ, style, Samoa Joe three-way match, had to see it. And then eventually, a lot of those guys were all still there, but the booking, it was like a relic from 10 years earlier, a little less than 10 years earlier. And it wasn't good.

And yeah, I'm not surprised. I mean, hearing this does not make me want to go back and see it. Well, and then they had something going. Remember, the first Samoa Joe and Kurt Angle match when Angle first came in the company. Yes. That was the biggest pay-per-view buy rate they ever did. I think it was like 50 or 60,000. It was the only respectable when they ever did.

And that's because they had just built it. like a fight and they didn't really do angles where they touched. And Dutch Mantel really, he shepherded that thing and kind of looked over it. And once it did that success, and of course, Russo had just come in, oh, he's going to get involved in this. And he started gimmick it up on TV where they're fighting all the time and they're doing this and that and Samojo's got a girlfriend and whatever the fuck and got ankle locked. And now it's the third Samoa Joe and Kurt Angle match on pay-per-view in three months,

and it's an Iron Man match. So they were, and it was, if they'd have spread it out over a year and kept them, you have the match and there's an open, ended finish that leads to a rematch, but you don't do it right away because one or the other gets distracted, but there's always that tension. you could have done better with it, but they, you know, shit it out three in a row. And ending with the Iron Man match, Joe had a bad knee.

And Kurt, I wrote, even with handicaps, parenthetically, Joe's knee, Kurt's bell rung. Kurt may have had a concussion. Having to go 30 minutes, this was a very good match. I was concerned about too many falls, but they did it well, and it worked. the drama of Joe with the ankle lock and Kurt tapping after the bell worked great, good job by all. And that's part of that you can't,

I didn't need to critique stuff that was good that people were obviously interested in, that the guys were working hard and being serious and participating in. And, you know, just a few words of encouragement. But there was, except for those. brief shining moments, there was just something with everything because it was this verbal diarrhea that Rousseau gets when he has to throw everything out there and make everything meaningless. So anyway, the big main event for the NWA world title, Sting versus Abyss versus Christian Cage. And that's why I mentioned our main event for the

world title, and it was the NWA title then, not the T&A title. The main event was a three-way, so we had a three-way on the undercard. It just didn't make sense. And as I mentioned, second three-way on the show, and with different rules. Tom Co. in a cage at ringside would have been fine if we hadn't just done it on TV and it didn't work. All three of these guys worked hard. Abyss was eliminated early and cleanly and just left. He should research euthanasia.

They just beat that fucking guy. They would beat him all the time and he would leave like a puppy, the big fucking monster. I couldn't understand why they, with his size and the ability he had to move at the time and the look. And he had a manager, you could get something out of Mitchell. He could speak.

He wasn't great physically, but he could speak. And they could have been produced, and you could have had a fucking monster. And you could have built him up to where it would have been like an abyss versus Vader kind of fucking thing with another monster. And instead, he got beat up all the time and fucking left with his head down. Anyway, and he was the champion. Now that the champ was out,

the two challengers were left to fight for the title. As a match, this was not as good as the X3 way, but had the star power. Finish picked up in pace and crowd, but a referee bump got them pissed expecting to be fucked. Not a fuck as in a cheating heel, but to be fucked as in out of a finish. The referees are so limp anyway, we should bump them sparingly. Mitchell and Abyss interfered as the referee was down. Sting wasted time putting Mitchell and the Scorpion when both of his opponents were on their feet

waiting to attack him, and they did. Cage did the splash off the top and got the referee who has now been motionless for over one minute. Some things never changed. The referee immediately revived and counted three. Way too busy. This pay-per-view showcased T&A's best, Joe and Angle, Rino and AJ,

and the X-Division three, and the worst, Nash and PCS, VKM and Hemmy, and 3D. And to me, once again, the NWA title match was gimmicked to the point it lost the aura of a real prize. The WWE is handing us a disgruntled fan base who don't really like their product, and instead of giving them an alternative, they can also be somewhat enjoyed if not respected by the average spike viewer, we're trying everything at once at 100 miles an hour and a lot of it comes off as outdated WWE. A lot of those UFC viewers and pay-per-view buyers.

And remember, this is when we were back-to-back on Spike with the UFC, we're tough enough from all goddamn things. So I said a lot of those UFC viewers, pay-per-view buyers that might want to see Kurt Angle or Samoa Joe are going to sit through Santa Runt for about two seconds. And once again, all of the prophecies come true. Their pay-per-view business never got any goddamn better.

Because they didn't change a lot of that shit until it was too late. Questions or comments, young Mr. Last. No, I think you pretty much summed it all up. No questions about this period of time. It's just not a... Not the kind of wrestling I liked. Well, anyway, we will revisit some more bad wrestling in the future on the program. And what in the world, is there a pay-per-view?

A paper-view, as the kids say, P-A-P-E-R, paper-view? Is there a pay-per-view this weekend, or can we just have fun speaking about old-fashioned wrestling on the drive-thru next week? Nothing to review that I could think of, but we'll have plenty of questions about modern and past classic wrestling and maybe some topics. Songs? Possibly. We'll see how you behave. What about a bear? Can we have a bear? Not funny. Too close to home.

Oh, I forgot about the bears dropping from the trees. All right. Folks, if you're ready to drop from exhaustion, so am I. So we will bid you adieu. Bang, bang, good night. Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite. Whatever the fuck it is, he says. until next time on the experience and a few days on the drive-thru for Brian, I'm Jim.

Thank you. Fuck you. Bye-bye, everybody.