Jim Cornette Experience - Episode 638: Arbitration

Episode Date: June 16, 2026

This week on the Experience, Jim previews Dark Side Of The Ring's 7th season with the show's producer! Plus Jim talks about CM Punk rumors, WWE & TKO's legal issues, the last months of Jim Crockett Promotions, Mark Shapiro, and much more! Also, Jim reviews a few things from AEW Dynamite! Thanks to our episode sponsors: SHOPIFY:  Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/jce WILLIE'S REMEDY:  Order now at drinkwillies.com and use code JCE for 20% off your first order + free shipping on orders over $95, and enjoy life in the high country. Follow Jim and Brian on Twitter: @TheJimCornette @GreatBrianLast Join Jim Cornette's College Of Wrestling Knowledge on Patreon to access the archives & more! https://www.patreon.com/Cornette Subscribe to the Official Jim Cornette channel on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/OfficialJimCornette Visit Jim's official site at www.JimCornette.com for merch, live dates, commentaries and more! You can listen to Brian on the 6:05 Superpodcast at 605pod.com or wherever you find your favorite podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The midnight and the rock and roll. He's in a fight for wrestling soul using a racket and some mind control. He's Jim Connett. The keys to the future. Saving his ass, he don't have to testify. Plus, C.M. Punk has landed a new role as the Invisible Man, and we're going to talk to Dark Side of the Rings Season 7 creator Evan Hustney right here on the program. today, his actual voice will be broadcast today.

And joining me an actual person. Hawaiian Brian, the podcasting line, the king of the Arcadian Vanguard podcast network, Mr. Co-host to you, you can't see him, but you can't hear him. Be great. Brian Last, everybody. Aloha, Jim. A pleasure to be here once again. Another one of these episodes where we don't have a big review,

but we have lots of little topics and I think a lot of fun in store for everyone. We think you're just lowering the goddamn expectations already before we get a chance to give the people the idea that it's, this is just a bullshit show. No main events, but lots of three star mid card matches. Hey, they're all main events, baby. They're all main events. Every time you ring the bell over here, it's all a main event. How about them, Nicks? Huh?

Oh, oh. See, I didn't know. Let me answer the question. All this quick. What is why I didn't watch Dynamite when it is? aired. The Nick, the greatest thing happening in sports right now. As a Knicks fan, I never have seen them win a championship my entire life.

I was so invested in the mid-90s and fucking Olajuwon. And then, you know, 99. And then just years of misery where it was easy to forget about the Knicks and not care about the Knicks. I wasn't a Carmelo Anthony fan, but I enjoyed Linsanity. And right now is the most exciting basketball they played in forever. and they just had the greatest basketball game. Willis Reed aside,

greatest basketball game in their history. I just, I didn't watch, you know, the, the, the Knickerbockers and the other team they played, because I've heard the news story. I've heard like the, it's the Spurs because the Knicks fan beat up the fans beat up the Spurs fan on the street.

That made the news the other night. And then they're calling it the, the greatest comeback. They dropped the strap. greatest comeback in the history of basketball. I saw that on the news. I'm really, another way, if it's not the Louisville Cardinals, I'm not really that invested in the, in the basketball. But I knew it would please you because of your lifelong drought of seeing them actually do anything important. I mean, this is just the start. Hopefully the Mets will really

turn it around next. But it's been incredible. And it was the greatest comeback. It was just implausible. They got their ass kick so bad. in the first half, the garden was silent. And I'm sitting here and I was like, you know, I'll be honest. I was thinking, I'm going to go outside and smoke a joint in between, you know, the first and second half. Which is probably what the players do. And I said, I'm not going to do that.

I just, I don't feel it in me. I'm so upset right now about how this is gone. And then they came back, the greatest comeback ever. They got that last shot off. Greatest thing ever. Now they have to win the next game in San Antonio. and I'm surprised you haven't watched. I know you're not a big basketball guy beyond the Cardinals,

but, you know, it's the championship, and it has been a great run for the Knicks. Well, actually, Wednesday was the day that somebody around here ran it over a phone pole or something, and I didn't have goddamn cable or internet, either one, along with electricity for a few minutes, for about eight hours that day. So I missed a lot of that stuff anyway.

But you realize, Brian, if this was back in the ABA days, the Kentucky colonels could have kicked the shits out of the New York Knicks. You realize. Get artists Gilmore out there, Duncan, get a little Louis dampier out there with the

damn three pointers all night long. They would have just wiped the floor because they had the red, white, and blue ball and the best afros in the business on the Kentucky Colonels. That's what they had. And they, Dr. J would like to say hello.

Dr. J would like to say hello. Oh, fuck, Dr. J. They wouldn't let him in to Louisville. They wouldn't let him in a Louisville. He would have disrupted. We had a great team. We didn't just rely on one guy. You had a great team so you would turn down Dr. J?

Certainly. There's no eye and team. What are you saying? There's no eye in team. It was a great combination they had there. What about a J? Is there a Jain team? Well, no.

There's certainly not. I'll have you know. And how many championships did the colonels win? What about the 1980 NCAA champion University of Louisville Cardinals? Darrell Griffith, Dr. Duncanstein, could have torn the house down into Madison Square Gardens over there. No, that's a great team. That's a team that made everyone say, hey, remember Magic and Bird? That was really exciting.

Now we're doing this. Yeah. Well, but now here is the big question. relates to the wrestling world, is this going to, from what I've read on the interwebs, propelled Danhausen to superstardom, the likes of which we've never seen before, because he is in some public place uncursed them. And so if they win the thing, he's going to take credit for it. And he's, he can, he can put them on and he can take them off.

much like John Holmes much like John Holmes I'm just you know so is Danhausen is there as much riding on Danhausen's future in this as has been predicted or Danny Wad as he's known in some quarters you know it's interesting I see a lot about

like this is going to make Dan Housen a star as if he isn't already the Knicks winning I haven't seen him on one thing, one second of TV. I've been watching these games. So I don't know where any of this is happening. I will say that I saw that nerd go works months ago, because people are tagging me in it like, I would want anything to do with that guy.

And they were like, look, he's a Mets fan. He's asking Dan Housin to help the Mets. And then the Mets just have had a disaster of a season so far. So obviously the cursing or uncurcing hasn't really helped them. But I did see now where, I guess it must have been the NHL championship, he was on the screen in one of the arenas,

putting a curse on one of the teams. And that's now like multiple sports that this guy who debuted earlier this year has been involved with, he's apparently their best-selling merch guy, and they have so much merch of him. There are still indie toy makers making Danhaus and stuff.

He is a license to print money. And I guess the interest thing is for all the things we've talked about why we don't like a lot of what he does on a wrestling show. And it's not about him. It's about it. The gimmick, the character, the tone of it. Yes. They've created a star that, like, in a previous generation would be a semi-regular on the Tonight Show. But there is no, the Tonight Show doesn't matter. And the Tonight Show doesn't create buzz as well as a Danhausen on WWE does right now. And So you're saying he's Professor Irwin Corey.

Yeah. I'm saying WWE right now is the home for brother Theodore and the old. Yeah, that's the guy is on TV. He's advertised on the show. You know his name. He comes out and he does his bit. And you don't really know what it actually is that he's not really a comedian. end he's not really a

he's just does that and it's a thing unto itself so now he's on the wrestling show and people at the hockey game see this and they turn to the person next to him say who's that oh that's some guy from WWE he's a wrestler

no well kind of but he more does a faux magic in the bat like what how do you explain it to anyone but he is like that weird like you know not Charo but you know what I mean There you go, Joe. It's a personality, ladies gentlemen. We're not sure why.

Like Creskin, you know what I mean? He would be a semi-regular on one of these shows and be like, what are these characters? You know, you can call me Ray or you could call me Jay. He would just be that guy for a few years. Bill Saluga. That's right. You know, he did a 12-inch disco single

recording of that. It's like 10 minutes long of that song. I possess that, as a matter of fact. See, that's how hot that was. That's what's next is the Danhausen song, just him saying the same thing on repeat over and over again. You are cursed. It'll go to number one.

But that's what, that's the state of wrestling now, though. It's like he's super over for none of the wrestling reasons. He's super over in WWE for nothing that pertains to, like, wrestling. or particularly anything else. Maybe that's the secret of it. It's just, it is its own thing. You know what else helps him though, too? He's clearly, I don't know if I want to say brilliant, but maybe.

He's really gifted when it comes to social media and getting himself out there. And I think a lot of that isn't WWE. I think a lot of that is just him. It's who he is. It's what he did when he wasn't in WWE. it's what for whatever reason Tony con didn't want him to do that's still one of the most confusing things ever yeah because it he just walked right in there and he he's on just enough every week that like you said he's selling boo coos of merchandise and yet doesn't really have to do anything much

and Tony just disappeared him wished him into the cornfield so you're going to watch some of the Nick game on Saturday? No, no. I'm getting ready for the big announcement that I announced would be a big announcement on the show that we did of yours, the drive-through, just a few days ago. And I'm going to make it on the next drive-thru because that will be the next time after this thing has happened that I would

make the announcement of. So I'm announcing that now. So you've got to have to look forward to, but I'll be tied up Saturday, getting ready to make the announcement about announcing the announcement. hope we got that straight. You know what else I did on the drive-through, young Brian? I told the people with the update on the crusade for children, but it bears repeating because, you know,

since my name is more prominent on this program than technically it gets more listeners than yours does, I want to make sure that, you know, the people that listen to only this program because I'm a bigger, you know, draw than, and maybe didn't hear your program, hear this, that the crusade for children that we've been plugging for the past several weeks, the telethon raised $6.2 million, almost $6.63, I think, almost for the special needs kids in Kentucky and Indiana. And as I've said, the sales June, all June month long,

that was very unwieldy in English all month long in the month of June. The proceeds of the sales of my book Heroes and Friends at Jim Cornett.com will go to the Crusade for Children because they do accept money all year long, WHASC crusade.org. And we are up over 140 copies sold in that period of time. So at the end of this month, we will give you an exact. tally and then I'll be rounding that up with something and we'll announce that here on a program. But right now and continuing on until the end of June, Jim cornet.com for heroes and friends

and as well, you can pick up any other little thing that your heart desires while you're over there shopping. But I saw something else, Brian, on the news besides the Knicks come back. and in related to the crusade for children also announced that over the 73 years that they've done this they've raised $228 million for special needs kids which sounds like a massive amount of money and it is and it's just that probably by this point over the years I mean everybody from the kids that are 10 or 12 years old that get $2.17

from a lemonade stand and give it to the crusade and dump it at the fireman's bucket. When you add all of those people, that's millions of contributions, and it's over a period of almost a century, and the people that have worked

onto the fire departments and the people who do their own collections and the companies who, and the people, the on-air personalities, everybody that contributes their time and effort, literally tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of those people, have raised $228 million for handicapped kids. And they said today on the news, and all, you know, all I know is what I read in the newspapers

as a equally famous man as me once said, Elon Musk is about to be a trillionaire. that means that this creepy plastic face drugged out Batman villain if he's worth a trillion dollars he could write a check for the $228 million that the crusade for children has raised all those millions of individual contributions and tens of thousands of people kids with lemonade stands and fire departments and all these people's effort.

He could write that check and he'd say, tell you what, I'm going to do that for the next four years, every year, I'm going to pay you as much as you've raised all those people all that time. That would only be a billion dollars and that would be one thousand. of what he's fucking worth. And I'm talking about financially on paper and not as a fucking human being what he's worth. On paper, obviously, it's not in cash. They had some kind of crazy.

But still, it's not what he ain't worth. It's what you can borrow against is what it is. As Mama Cornett would say, he ain't worth dittily squat, in my opinion. But if anybody wonders why I don't appreciate like or think anyone should associate with these billionaire motherfuckers. It's shit like that.

I haven't heard of him writing this big billion dollar check to any appreciable good. Have you? I haven't. Also, I haven't looked into it, but I haven't. But, you know, there was some kind of crazy stat on TV before. And I'm going to get it wrong. But it was something along the lines of what is, they were trying to explain or trying to make it reasonably something.

you can wrap your head around, what is it to be a trillionaire? And it was like, he could spend a million dollars a day for the next thousand years. It was just something outrageous. And it's like, man, you've got that much money. You know, even if you want to get past billionaire, trillionaire, you really could just say, fuck it. Here's a few hundred billion dollars to fix this and do something. Yeah.

That's what I will do. One day when I'm a billionaire, that's what I plan to do. Oh, cry. You don't get to be, if you have any decency in you, I don't think you'll get to be a billionaire. Well, maybe on my own. When I sell my music publishing, we'll see what happens. Uh-oh. Uh-oh, it's the music.

The music gets us every time. All right. Before you start fiddling with your organ, a couple of emails real quick. James from, well, I'll tell you in a second. James writes, let me preface this by saying I'm a big fan of both the experience and the drive-thru. I listen to you guys regularly while I'm at work delivering for Amazon in the greater salina rhymes with vagina, Kansas area.

I just wanted to tell you from experience that it's really fucking difficult to explain opening my door just in time for Jim to yell, Crotch, rot! During an ad for the perfect gene or Brian to yell about midgets jerking off in trash can. Did I yell about that? What the hell? During a segment on whatever you guys were talking about.

For the record, I haven't learned my lesson. It's probably going to happen again. Oh, well, thank you very much. Young fellow, we appreciate it. Thanks for listening. That's the kind of feedback we like to get. Yes, we normally feedback is fed back to people. But in this case, it's positive feedback.

And real quick, well, I don't know how quick it'll be, but moving along, we got an email from Kevin, and he says, your shows of the highlight of my work week, given I spend most of it driving. And Jim has mentioned the old Richmond Coliseum recent. in some of his stories. The old Coliseum shut down for good in 2019. It has been left unattended and is now a dilapidated shell.

And he sent me a picture of the inside. And it's the Richmond Coliseum was the arena in town. That was the NBA arena, as they used to say. And I think the, didn't the Virginia Cavaliers, the ABA, they probably played there. But it seemed like 12, 13,000 people. It was a beautiful facility. And if you were a major act of any kind, music, entertainment, whatever the case, you know, that was where you went in Richmond.

And Crockett obviously ran there, you know, between 12 and 15 times a year in the glory days. But it's a beautiful building. And now he sent a picture and it looks like a bigger version of the Louisville. gardens or the Mid-South Coliseum now where there's just shit sitting on the main floor and there's kind of stuff obviously wrong, although this hasn't been closed down as long as the Coliseum or the Gardens. But anyway, he was mentioning or asking what might be some of my memories of the Richmond Coliseum, which actually, as I got started thinking about, I jotted a couple of things down,

and it not only, there's some memories of matches in Richmond, but also I kind of identified a booking pattern in Dusty Rhodes' booking as I was looking through this. And it seems like it's something that worked. Because I mentioned before, Richmond, as I said, the building was beautiful, big arena. If in the Crockett territory in the mid-80s, if the guys were going to get a big payoff,

it was going to come from Richmond or Norfolk, Virginia, Charlotte or Greensboro, North Carolina, Atlanta, Chicago, Philly, or Baltimore, generally. I mean, there were, you know, Pittsburgh's there every once in a while, right? But Virginia was a hotbed of fucking wrestling and had gone way back, back to the Crockett Senior Days as some of their best towns. and I guess Brian, it was during the George Scott era that they finally went to the Richmond Coliseum as the regular buildings, so they had been running there

since the mid-70s. So this was 1986, what I'm about to talk about. So they were a fixture there. This was a local institution, and they were on one of the strongest local stations with huge, ratings at that point. And you remember the Mernick brothers, right?

Carl and Elliott. Yeah. They were the local promoters going back to when their father, Joe Mernick, had been Crockett Sr.'s partner in the Virginia and I think some of the western North Carolina, or eastern North Carolina towns. So anyway, when we first went there, the Midnight and I, when we started working for Crockett in late 85 when we went to the Charlotte end, Richmond was kind of, eh, did the first house there was not that impressive.

I didn't even look that one up in my Midnight Express book, but it would probably be like 15 grand. And the guys were saying, oh, yeah, business is down. but what Dusty did coming out of Starcade 85, he booked in all of the arenas, himself and flare in rematches from the main event for the world title, rematch from Starcate, right? Off their hot angle.

And at the same time, he booked the midnight and the rock and roll and their first go-around as the co-main event for the World Tag Team title. So off of those two top matches is what we hit our hot period in the early part of 1986. But I don't know what's going on over there today, but Richmond and Norfolk, Virginia, were not Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, major cities, right? I don't know, you might, if you have the population figures in front of you for Richmond, Virginia, today, subtract 20% or whatever. But at the same time, it was so ingrained in the culture that everybody was watching the TV and they were aware of the matches at Coliseum.

They just hadn't necessarily been going. So January 17th of 1986, we go there with that double main event, flared dusty, midnight rock and roll. and we did an $88,000 house, which was an old-time record for the territory money-wise at that time, and that was a sellout because they were still, Dusty and Bill Watts both learned this from Eddie Graham, I believe. When we first went to Mid-South, the territory had been down and the tickets were like 10, 7, and 4. and then things get hot, midnight, rock and roll and magnum and all this, you know, various stuff. And then the next time we go back, the tickets are 12, 8, and 12, 10, and 8. And we still sell out.

And the next time we go back and tickets are 15, 12, and 10. They started raising the prices. And it was an example in Richmond, January, $88,000 was the record gate in the building. and that was a sellout. And we come back a month later, February 21st, and the midnight was with the rock and roll again, I don't have the whole card. It might have been a rematch with flare and dusty.

It might have been the horsemen, et cetera, tag, whatever. It was $103,600. That was the record. That was a sellout. And at the same time, Norfolk is only geographically, and right down the interstate, it's 80 miles from Richmond. So the Norfolk Scope was another building

that was the state-of-the-art building. It was even nicer and newer than the Richmond Coliseum and seated about 12-13,000. And Norfolk was a bigger population area with Virginia Beach and the whole tidewater, but still, you know, it's not goddamn Boston. right so two weeks after we've done a sellout in richmond we go to norfolk with the basically same card and do a hundred and four thousand dollars and do a sell out and set the record gate there

and then come back three weeks later in richmond and did another hundred thousand dollars So, I mean, there was other Norfolk's before that, but just in those four shows within that little 90-mile radius, we did like fucking over $4,000 and sold 50,000 tickets in just these two buildings. Hey, real quick, because you brought this up, this is interesting. The historical population for Richmond, from obviously the census, but it's for every 10 years. 1970, 249,621. 1980, 219,214,

214, 1990, 203,056. And if I go to 2020, the most recent, 226,6,610. Well, but here is the people are scratching their head going, what the fuck, the people that have left the city for the suburbs. And I mean, I'm not saying that Richmond has grown exponentially as a city itself, but the area has somewhat grown and people leave the actual city for the suburbs. And I'm not sure how they calculate here in Louisville.

It's the Jefferson County metro area. There's a million people in our metro area. and I know Richmond's got to be somewhere around there, but point being, it was a hotbed for wrestling, and those two buildings got big cards and drew big crowds, and they were run regularly.

And then that summer, the bash in Richmond was the Middite Express and Me against Dusty Roads, Magnum, T.A. and Baby Doll, and because the bash was bigger, bigger, bigger prices, bigger prices, the bash was higher prices. We set another record.

We did $115,000. And it was not completely sold out because finally the raising of the prices that they got to people. And then at the one week later, after drawing $115,000 gate in Richmond, We went to Norfolk, 90 miles down the road, flare against Dusty and the rock and roll and baby doll against the midnight and me,

and did $157,000, sold out 13,000 people, and set the all-time state of Virginia gate record for wrestling. And again, there's over 20,000, 23,000 people in the space of a week, in these two buildings 90 miles away. So it was just when you got Richmond and that part of Virginia hot, it was fucking gold. And that's what I noticed one of Dusty's booking patterns

because what happened to Crockett, Brian, in late 87, early 88 business went poo-poo because of all the things we've talked about, the buying the territory, behind the plane, spread themselves too thin, losing key talent, booking getting stale, being blocked on pay-per-view, you know, pick it. It's a goddamn game show.

But the signs were there in 1988, as I've said, that Dusty and the booking, and we as the talent roster, had got the thing, started to get the thing back. and that's why there was such uprights why David was crossways with Jimmy Crockett and that's why that there was debate on both sides about whether they ought to sell because they'd already initiated the sale process with TBS but then things were coming back but by then it had got too far because as Jimmy Crockett said for he died he let it get too far right but look at what dusty did two years later when he never he when he needs business to be as

strong as possible for the new owners in 86 he booked himself and flair for the world title in rematches off of starcade along with a tag team program that was brand new and hot as it could be in 88 coming off of the Great American Bash, he booked the rematches with Flair and Lugar. Remember the Lugar Flair Baltimore Bash? They stopped it on blood,

right? When there was barely any blood, yes. Well, exactly, because and I'm not, I love Package. I'm glad he's a happy guy now, but he was never known as a swordsman. I'm not trying to knock

but he got, as they used to say in the business, a pap smear. The idea was that originally Dusty's finish, I believe he wanted it to be a sort of a standard old-time, Bill Watts, Roy Shire, Eddie Graham, whatever finish, where Lugar would get cut and would be bleeding so bad that even though that he had a fucking flare in some precarious position, which would later turn out to be the torture rack, that the referee would be, you know, oh, my gosh, I take pity on you.

But the Baltimore Commission really banned blood at that point because Vincent got them all smartened up, riled up, whatever the fuck. So they said, okay, well, the commission can stop it on blood. It would be even better. And the only thing was Lugar just, how many pictures of Lex Lueger, or bloody have you ever seen? Not too many. He was, as I said, not an experienced swordsman.

And if he had been, if that had been Tommy Rich in the Omni or, you know, handsome Jimmy Valiant in the Mid-South Coliseum or Level Blood, it would have got over when he's got Flair in the torture rack, and he's sinking, but he, Flare won't, can't get out and the referee fast to stop it or whatever the fire the commission to anybody stops it police whatever it was it well i don't think it dripped to his cheek i can't it just oh and everybody farted and we thought that that it actually and at that time uncle dave so here we go they've shot the golden goose here but the rematches drew

that's the the flare and luger rematches drew and i think they could have rehabbed that right it was disciplined but because they weren't replaying it over and over every week people's minds they move on and so what dusty did was he came out with the of the bash with the flare luger rematches and the brad brad new brand new Midnight Express Tully Blancher and Arn Anderson program for the World Tag title. Same kind of principle. And Richmond specifically at the July 15th, 88 Bash, the gate was $109,000, which pretty

good for what we'd been doing and for the bash even pretty good. we came back on August 19th with the Flair Lugar rematch and the first midnight Tully and Arne match and sold the place out and did $141,000. The August show was better than the fucking bash by 30 grand. And the same thing in Norfolk, a week before we did 140 in Richmond. We'd done 98 is the same thing.

And in Charlotte, the debut at the new Charlotte Coliseum, we did 102 grand, Baltimore, Flair Lugar, Midnight Tully and Arne, we'd $123,000. It was coming back. But then Philadelphia that night did $72,000, which we were disappointed by and thought that the rematch would probably do better, but was wondering why, it was only 72 grand. And that was Tully and Arns last night. And I don't think Crockett ever did 72 grand there again.

Or the NWA or whoever was running that joint at that point in time. Am I droning on here? Is this of interest to the classic wrestling nerds out there? No, it's of interest. And thank God it went past Richmond. You know, to me the thing that stands out, especially, you know, as you're talking about this, is just how quickly it happened. You say that David was like, oh, things are starting to turn around.

The fact that they got so in bed with the talks with Turner so quickly is kind of interesting. 87, they thought everything was great. They purchased Watts's territory and all that syndication and the plane and the second plane and move the Dallas. By early 88, they're told that everything's falling apart. apart after the Starcade debacle and everything else and whatever else they were told about spending. And they immediately said, we got to turn it.

Not, we can turn it around. It was immediately we got to sell this. It all happened so quickly. They went from one thing to another thing and there was no chance for any recovery. Well, I've always tried to narrow down. I don't even know whether the particular crockets might even know exactly, but they found out. It was right after you negotiated your contract. Well, that's what I'm saying.

They found out they were in difficulty between the time that we started negotiating, where everything was sunshine and lollipops on everybody's part. And either right before or right after Jimmy signed it, that's what he stopped talking to Tully and Arne about their new deal. And then that's when obviously they knew something. So somewhere in. late Marchish, 1988.

And I think he signed the deal with us because he couldn't afford to after he'd already made an offer suddenly go, oh, but we, hey, cut that in half. So he figured, well, if I have to fucking go out of business, I won't have to pay it, or if Turner Broadcasting buys us, they'll pay it. I don't know what he thought. But I have a feeling he knew that something, was up when he signed ours.

And that's why to go from a contract where he'd said, yes, 100, 125, 150 per year for three years in 1986 to in 1988. Okay, 225 grand a year apiece. And that was splitting in the middle because, you know, the old 2,250, oh, how about 225? It was that easy suddenly. But I told Stan, Bobby in the parking lot when we walked out.

I said, I don't know if we'll get all of this or not, but we've got it on paper. That ought to be worth something. But nevertheless, where was I going with this? So the point is, that's when March-ish of 88, and

you had April, May, June, they had already started talking because the summer pay-per-view, the bash pay-per-view, that was the first time that we'd had full pay-per-view clearance. And that was because Turner, home entertainment,

at all used their muscle with the cable companies because Vince had, you know, was blocking Crockett, but he couldn't block Turner. And then all of a sudden, boom, the shit is coming up, but it's like, it's too late and

it's too late to turn back down. I believe, I believe we're just going to shit. Well, the other problem was it was probably too late to turn back once you open that door with Turner. If all of a sudden you say, you know what, we're not going to sell the company, they could turn around and say, well, we're not going to air you on our network. Yeah, never mind. Well, okay, nice knowing you. So it just, but nevertheless, it was an interesting booking pattern. It was a hot area for wrestling, the state of Virginia. And that's not even taken into account row and oak in the middle of the state had regular shows they used to in the old days the

crockett days run lynchburg on a regular basis the lynchburg armory i think i graced that place one time he i could see where you could just get all kinds of stabbed and back in the day there and into the east the western part of virginia had a variety of spot shows that would draw, you know, right over the North Carolina state line, you'd go and draw 1,500 people in a school gym. So just Virginia was, and that's for the more modern fans, when Owen Hart wrestled Sean Michaels on Raw, and Sean sold the brain damage he had from the Marines

and passed out in the ring and everybody thought it was a shoot, or were debating whether it was or not, or the big controversy, that was in Richmond in front of one of the smallest fucking crowds I'd ever been in front of in that building. I bet you there wasn't 1,500 people there that night for Raw. It was embarrassing. Oh, what do you think? I think it was embarrassing.

That was the height of the Sean Michaels run on top, and obviously the fans said, I'll stay home. He was running away from being on top. I got one more email here that will lead us into what I think we're, one of the things that we got to talk about. And this is for, hold on, do I need to withhold this name or there's got to be more than one Matt and Hershey, doesn't there? I would assume so. Certainly.

Well, in that case, Matt says, corny, I worked for six flags when that pile of incompetence and narcissism masquerading as a human being named Mark Shapiro was the CEO. So already this got my attention with the professional delivery of the first line. But when we were talking about Mark Shapiro, who is now along with Ari Emanuel and Nick Condis, the whole Hollywood Wheeler dealer set that came in and owns the TKO bunch, he's one of the ones that gets one of the big multi-million dollar payouts, right?

That's who the fans should remember Mark Shapiro, but he was once and I think we talked about this when you, one time you read his resume, he was once the head guy at six flags.

Do you remember that? I remember that being one of the things on there. He was at ESPN and then six flags, I believe, yeah. Yeah, well, I looked at a thing on there and come to find out that he was part of the company that took over six flags from their previous company kind of against their will. And then he's a hot shot in charge of six flags. Is this a, this would be what the fucking Sherlock Holmes set would call a pattern,

wouldn't it? He's always part of something taking over something and he's a big wig in it. Taking over something and sucking the money out of it. Was this during the period of time where you were running Six Flags in Louisville? Well, hold on here one second. There's more to this story. Matt goes on to say,

his plan was to reverse engineer Disney by using the Six Flags Parks to create intellectual properties that he could then turn into a cable network. It was demonically stupid, so stupid it had to have come from another dimension. of course six flags tv is something nobody has ever heard of the people he hired had zero amusement park experience and were arrogant ass hat empty suited vapid duds one of his stooge's tried to argue

with me that the college i went to was in kentucky when it was actually at ohio when i said trust me dude i spent like five years there it was in ohio the stooge literally yelled in my face Kentucky but he didn't mention what fucking school he sold every inch of the park to commercials and partnerships

he had the parks hanging advertising from roller coaster lift hills nothing says Batman the ride like a hundred foot banner of the gecko

or gecko gecko whichever one of those things that gets your goat at one point Shapiro made Papa John's the official pizza of six flags, but this was not the Papa John's sold at Papa John's locations. It was quick service personal pizzas that tasted like cardboard, tomato sauce, and your grandmother's ass on a summer day. Needless to say, the company went bankrupt and he was

unceremoniously eliminated. Post-firing, we were told to notify corporate if Mark Shapiro contacted us in any way. and apparently also he says p.S. almost forgot Shapiro was the CEO when Caitlin Lasseter was brutally injured at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom. After the incident, Sapiro to Sapiro, Shapiro decided to close the park and move the rides to other Six Flags facilities. And that's true, it was closed for several years, and they would do a news piece every once in a while

that you would just see the weeds were grown like three feet up cracks in a concrete concourse in front of the old vacant bullshit. And then several years ago, however many, a new management came in and opened them up again, but it's not six flags. And for the people who don't know what we're talking about, but it's a story around here

that people don't forget. This fucking girl was going up with her friends in what's the ride, Brian, where you're in a seat and it lifts you straight up the thing and then drops you. And for whatever reason, people do this and you go, oh shit, and then it slows down before you crash land.

What is that called? I know what it is. I just don't know the name. Well, whatever it was, when they were going on the way, way up, this girl supposedly, according to news reports I heard, had told the guy operating the ride said, hey, or somebody had said, hey, is that cable supposed to be swinging around? Oh, you're all right.

And when they dropped her, there was a loose cable somehow that as the drop happened, got whipped around her ankles as her feet were sticking out in his seat. and cut both her feet off. And it was like such a quick thing that apparently it gave a, it cauterized the whole thing at the same time. And when she landed, it was so quick,

she was able to look and see that her feet that were just disappeared. But there was no blood at that point or whatever the fuck, right? And there was a, there was a settlement or a judgment or somebody paid some money and then we lost kentucky kingdom i blame shapiro he should have fucking been more on the ball in in these things by the way you hear him talk on these tapes we've heard you the way you hear him talk to students or when he's interviewed about this stuff just imagine him like in front of the six flag board of directors like yeah then we're

going to introduce characters and it's going to be great we'll be like disney we'll have our own characters. We'll sell advertising. Advertising everywhere. Where have we seen that before? No care for the consumer or the fan. He'll make a lot of money, but again, everything with WW right now, you have to kind of look at it and wonder what's really going on behind the scenes in terms of how this management team sees it. Well, speaking of this management team, Brian and many of their individual personas as well as the company and all this other. They've been in a lot of legal jeopardy, as the commentators say lately, over these lawsuits for literally hundreds of millions dollars in the shareholders case.

And who knows what the fuck is the Janelle Grant case is going for at this point. And guess who don't have to go to court, because guess who's going into arbitration? Vince McMahon at all, the WWE, both these cases, just were imminently about to come up and suddenly, magically, it's magically deliciously gone away. did they finally just say all right we're as close as we want to get to fucking actually going on a stand with any of our lying asses how many hundreds of millions of dollars do you people want yeah i think there'd be a lot of trouble if they put vince mcm or nick con on the stand right now under oath they'd be in a lot of trouble and again there's no coming back from the judge saying that it's going to be a proven fact unless you

could disprove it in the case that you destroyed evidence. And then because of that, all of these things will be assumed as being true. And every one of those things that were assumed to be true hurt the Vince McMahon, Nick Con, T.K.O. side of it. So they had every incentive on settling. And it appears that what that settlement did, and that's not final. We haven't heard a final decision on anything, just that they have a preliminary agreement, maybe, but that caused the Janelle Grant case to all of a sudden go to arbitration,

where Janelle Grant's team is all of a sudden not against the arbitration, which they've been fighting since day one. Yeah. Clearly they thought a lot more stuff was about to come out in this trial for the shareholders, and once that went away, I'm not going to say it hurt their hand, but their hand isn't a strong, I would say. well and at the same time there is obviously an element from the w w that has said we can't let several of our people speak on the record about this because and already i don't know if i'm jumping around on topics but who was the lady the i don't know what you're supposed to call a regular grown woman anymore without being sexist.

But she is a former board member of the WWE who was testifying already under oath. And they were asking her opinion, although she did not know, but her opinion of who might have written these letters to the board of directors people that alerted them to the Vince McMahon-Genelle Grant situation to be. begin with when all this thing started. And she said, they asked her, was it this person, no, or that person, no. But she said, did you think it was Nick Kahn? Yes. Do you have this name?

There's a few different things. And actually, this comes from Janelle Grant. She's on Instagram posting things now. And we're getting to see a lot of her stuff. She also flatly denies that whoever wrote the letter to the board of directors exposing everything with her and Vince denying that it was a friend of her, saying that there was no friends she has that would have anything related to any of this kind of information.

Well, and not only that, but if you look at the verbatim transcripts of the emails that were sent to the, it's like a person trying to be an illiterate bumble fuck, maybe crazed person or not even crazed wrestling fans, just crazed person. And that's what, you know, one of the statements from either Nick Conn or one of the other upper echelon was, well, the first time we saw it, we really didn't pay any attention to

it because it looked like a fucking nut, right, which they get a bunch of, we can, we know that to be a fact. But this is like somebody's pretending to be a fucking moron and also at the same time, subtly planting things about Janelle. Like, yeah, we were homeless and on perks together, like percocetts, pain pills, together, and which Janelle Grant denies either and both of those. So this is, it's some kind of goddamn Pink Panther plot from the beginning.

Well, again, I have here, and actually she posted other ones too, this is from the deposition of Frank Riddick, who I think was another one of the board members. Question, in terms of the top email, why did you send the email to yourself? Answer, I have no idea. Okay, do you recall, with respect to the June 15th, 2020 Wall Street Journal article,

that Wall Street Journal reporters based their information on a source within the company? Answer, I don't remember the article saying that. Did you have a view one way or another on whether there was a source within the company that was talking to the Wall Street Journal during June of 2022? His answer? I felt so. Do you have any guesses as to who it most likely was? He tries not to answer. He says it would be pure speculation. Did you think it was a particular board member?

Any response? I thought it was one of several potential. Again, this is just my personal opinion. So he doesn't name anyone, but there's a board member saying that he thought it had to come from inside. The person was trying too hard to be a whack job. Was the idea of that maybe to get it out there, but like it's coming from a whack job and you shouldn't believe it? Or is it just, oh, nobody will ever think this is me because I can spell type of what was going on there? And again, Janelle Grant has posted a bunch of stuff here. This is from the deposition of Michelle McKenna.

Question? I'm asking. You were curious. You were thinking about it at the time. What I'm asking is, I know that you don't know, and she said, uh-huh.

Do you think it was one of the outside directors? And there's an objective form. Let me scroll down here. I agree with you. Do you think it was Stephanie McMahon? Answer, I do not. Question, do you think it was Nick Kahn? Answer, I do.

When you first joined the board, was there any form of briefing on what the non-public information was regarding the McMahon investigation? The answer, yes. Just a couple questions earlier today. Do you recall talking about someone inside WWE who may have been feeding information to the Wall Street Journal? Answer, yes. And do you recall Mr. Timlin asking you whether you, you thought that might be Nick Con? The answer, yes. And you recall saying that you think it was Nick Con, answer yes. You have no actual knowledge whether it was Nick Con, correct?

And she says, I have no actual knowledge. He asked my opinion of who I was like. But a lot of people saying it. He asked my opinion of who I was likely. And I said, yes, Nick. Well, Triggin'niggy. Again, there's that. And she's posted a whole bunch of things on here.

is these people are all fucking business predators they figure out some way Shapiro and Khan and

Musk and all of them they figure out some way to goddamn insinuate their self into everything

and take it over for the inside Janelle Grant posted two days ago as we are recording topic the anonymous emails

reading these for the first time took a sledgehammer to my mental health. I feel like a Taylor Swift lyric and wonder if someone caged me just to call me crazy. See, you know, she doesn't do herself any goddamn favors. If she was a poet living in Cape Cod, that might be a great style she's adopted for herself,

but she's in one of the most high-profile sexual abuse assault cases in modern memory, where she already is having a lot of people thought that she's... So, I don't know that she should do these types of, but go ahead. I'm not wired to understand why someone would write them, but I am trained to notice the use of hair splitters and spin. And here's the first anonymous email. Wait, wait a minute, apparently I'm not trained to understand what a hair splitter?

Hair splitter. So here's the first email March 30th, 2022. Again, an anonymous email sent in to whom it may concern. This document is a confidential filing. Okay, here we go. My friend worked at WWE. She is, name withdrawn, and we live homeless for a while on perks, etc. Et cetera.

We went to get cleaned up together, and she met Chief Chairman Vince McMahon not too long after that. Vince McMahon gave her... As he was cruising by the methadone clinic. Chief Chairman. Vince McMahon gave her a job and paid her $100,000 every year until he started fucking her. Then he paid her $200,000 a year. He is 80 years old and took my friend's soul just because he could.

Vince McMahon gave her like a toy to his friend John, who works at WWE, to John as 70 and her boss too. Oh, excuse me, I was supposed to be two over there. That was one of the misspellings, and I didn't catch it. My friend was so scared. She quit after Vince McMahon and lawyer Jerry paid her millions of dollars to shut up. I am going to the media as well. I don't want anything from from.

I just want the world to know the truth about this pervert. So that was the first letter. And to be honest, if you were a person who we have come to know with hindsight these figures were these things were factual in between the grammatical errors and misspellings. But if you just saw that out of the blue and you're

in the wrestling business as we've read some of the letters or the lawsuits they've gotten from people, you would probably, yeah, right, here we go, boom. But then there's more. April 11th, 2022. The board of directors for a major company like

WW8 is not care that the old founder and his old sidekick Johnny Laronitis, and let me just spell that. L-A-R-O-N-I-T-I-S, took advantage of a blank who only worked hard. She would be angry that I wrote this, but I want no money.

I'm sending this out to your stockholders tomorrow, and to all lawyers my friend worked with. The lawyers know of the settlements investigate, and you will see W-W-E-paid-her-for- silence. Blank is her name Very good lady Treated like an animal by Vince McMahon and Johnny

Laranitis And now it's L-O-R-O-N-I-T-I-S Sent with proton mail Secure Email And then three days later The Final Anonymous Email Deadspin is surprised That Board of Directors has not checked

Vince McMahon's phone Which will show all of his Hurtful pictures back and forth To Blank these include pictures of his privates to a 25-year-old employee and them in sex together and with Johnny and sex acts with her gross old men abusing a 25-year-old

and now that's where the initial reporting came out that she was 25 years old but she was 41 at the time that this was this was happening so again this person knows the facts and the figures and the kind of story and it's related in a bizarre ransom note kind of way but there's enough the homeless and on perks Janelle grant

denied that the wide disparity in age nobody has to deny that it's just it's there so what were they trying to throw you off the story by giving you the story or were they trying to give you the story or were they trying to give you the story, but they wanted some inaccuracies so that it would exclude people saying, well, that's so-and-so talking, because so-and-so wouldn't know, would know

better or whatever. I'm confused. Who was Vince showing his phone to? That's another, I mean, if it's referencing that Vince has photos of John Laurenitis and blank and sexual acts and him and his privates,

you would think that wouldn't be a guess. You would think that was someone. that if Vince really was showing people things on his phone, you know, it has to be one of those. Well, or Janelle Grant would know. If this person is on her behalf, it still fits that, you know. But it reads like someone is trying to, someone is trying to do something to cause them to have to have to look.

Do something about Vince. And at the same time, almost using Janelle, again, it's sad. they're using Janelle Grant and her things with Vince to get a bigger thing done, which was to get Vince out of the way. And if it was Nick Kahn, that raises a whole number of questions because that all ties again to the sale of the company. And I believe there are still other shareholder lawsuits out there, right? This isn't the one that's settled or about to be.

Well, I think if this one goes that way, these others will go. But Brian, really, I don't know, we should talk about this here of Langus. Signal, yes. We know you're supposed to say, what in the blue hell is Langus? Oh, what's the blue hell is Langus? That's right. And see that,

what kind of fucking apple dumpling gang fucking level crooks do you have to be when you're doing as multi-billion dollar stock scam deal, whatever the fuck it is that they're fraud? And Langus.

What the bloody hell is Langus? Rate it backwards. Go where we can... Again, for the people that don't follow this like it's their blood, they were deleting all their shit on this signal messaging app thing

that could set to auto delete so that they would leave no trail, and that's where the judge basically told them they were fucked, because you deleted evidence. therefore you are presumed to have done these things. But, I mean, just what kind of fucking, with all this money on the line and all these Harvard educations,

and they just bumble-fucked their way through that? You know, again, it's hard to be a, you know, whatever you want to say, not a digital criminal, but it's hard to be doing your thing with the latest technology, dealing with an old man like Vince McMahon. You have to lay things out. Hey, one more bit here, Jim. well Nick con was the fucking wizard

over there that was deleting his own shit and put in a you know Langus is not exactly the goddamn Navajo code talkers level cracking right you know it wouldn't be like if you saw that in court which they did

you'd say well he's obviously instructing this senile old man who still can't figure it out and if why would if they would ask on the stand. Why did you write the word backwards if it wasn't something you were trying to hide? One more thing here, Jim. This is from the deposition once again of Frank Riddick.

Okay, so you were included on that initial March 30th email. I was. Do you know who sent these emails? No. Do you have any guess as to who sent the email? No. Do you have any idea how whoever sent this email had the email addresses of the other individuals listed here? Do you know whether they were able to determine who sent the emails? I don't. Okay. What was your reaction to these emails when you received them? Well, in total or one by one? Then they go down a little bit further.

And again, Janelle Grant posted this. Question, and then how? What was your reaction to the second one, April 11, 2022? Answer, because of the, as the information got more, specific, I think we, I realize that I think, you know, I won't speak for others, but I realized that this, this was not a scam, that this was real. Okay, what did you do? I, well, my initial response was to the first email. Okay, what did you respond to the first email? So the first email I immediately contacted the general counsel's office and sent them a copy of the email. So, it

again, whoever sent the anonymous email and whoever contacted the Wall Street Journal, they had the email addresses of every board member. They made sure. And, you know, that's why everyone, I think that's why everyone thinks it's an inside thing. It had to be someone on the board, because who else would be motivated and who else could have done this? And what does that say about things now? If, you know, again, I don't know how much of all of this they've all shared with each other, but if people there think Nick Con was the source for all this, what does Vince McMahon

think now? I haven't been in a about Triple H and Stephanie and Nick. These fucking you know, it's much better to just sit on your back porch and read a

good book than to live in this world of cut throats and sharks and con men and frauds and shysters and flywheels and all these other type of things. I don't trust anybody with a flywheel. Do you?

You know, we'll see what happens here again. Now, the Janelle Grant thing, we're not going to find out as much as we're not going to find that really anything. It's in arbitration. There's a reason companies want arbitration is a reason they do because it'll usually get the result that the person who initiated the arbitration wants and also it'll be private. Well, that's the big thing is there's going to be no, because even these hundreds of millions of dollars or whatever and how much they'll dribble out to poor Janelle, they don't care because they're going to make hundreds of millions of dollars more.

They'll play it off on an insurance company or some of it or whatever. Vince may get zapped a little bit, but the most important thing is they don't have to speak the truth in public. and that would be like throwing a bucket of water on the wicked witch for all of these crooked son of a bitchies. Brian, it's enough to give you a headache. It's what it is. It's enough to give you just a throbbing type of headache. It is. I don't know.

It is. You can just agree with me and move on. It is. You know what else gives you a throbbing type of headache besides doing these programs? Alcohol. You go out there and you're drinking the, the demon rum and you're being intoxicated and inebriated in the next morning, you got a throbbing head and a tongue with a sweater on it to taste like a sandhog

just pulled his foot out of it. And you may have done something questionable, something that you'll regret. You may have run over some innocent bystander at a bus station. You may have impregnated some trailer park whore from South Dakota. And now for the next 18 years, you know where your Christmas money is going? And, you know, that's just, it's for no reason, just for no reason, Brian, when everybody could sit down without worried about a hangover, worried about what happened last night, relax and have fun without any of the regretful incidents with the Willies, the Willys, T-H-C-infused social tonic.

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Well, they certainly don't say it tastes like THC, because THC is not like it's not MSG. but this willies this third-party lab tested for accurate dosage so it's not like oh i'll drink one sip and whew and i'll drink another sip and where'd it go you're you're tested for accuracy which means a feeling of calm and clarity and euphoria and relaxation or relaxation you'll really you'll be relaxed and your tongue as well it will not work at all With the Willie's unique blend of THC, CBD, CBG, why can't they just use words to describe these things? Again, one shot of Willys will help you relax, unwind, and de-stress,

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A Willie could blue skies. Oh, full. Staring at me. Shining on me. Shining on me. No, they're staring at me. I see the sky is staring at me. You're all watching me.

Yes, suddenly, why do I think everyone's watching me? You know, I get the feeling. Once again, Willis. Willys, that's another song that's not Willys. That's Rockwell, I believe, the son of Barry Gorman. but Willie's Willie famously said hello walls but with Willie's remedy

say goodbye walls I don't know how that works actually but good songs and good music I think that's what we're talking about here Jim Willie's remedy we got some in the fridge right now Suzanne loves it yes put a chill on it that's what we are doing

serve it over ice yes put a chill on it serve it over ice you can actually you can use this as in an enema bag, you're going to administer it a variety of ways. That's not what you could do, and that's not how you should do it, and don't do that. But no, this is a chili-willy in the fridge.

Make it chilly-willy, and of course, Jim, on the topic of willies, loved at Last Manor, and of course, a Castle Quarionette, we have a special deal and a promo code for the listeners. Yes, we do, and it is, and that's what they are. They're chilly-willies. Just go anywhere and ask for a chili-willy. and they'll say, what the fuck are you talking about? You got to make them at home at drinkwillies.com and use the promo code JCE for 20% off your first order

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Well, no, you can just drink it all day long. Just drink it until... It's chilly to... Just drink it until they have to come get you. Don't do that. Can we end on a high note and, of course, do the right thing? That's what we're trying to do with Willie. I'm appropriately with Willys, drinkwillies.com.

Code J-C-E. Brian, I wonder if Willie would make a remedy for AEW. You think there's something where I could just take a swing, and make it go away? If he can make a remedy, Tony would pay for it. All I need is a remedy. Now, actually, I'm...

That's not how that song goes. I'm drinking less of AEW and enjoying it more. And again, I'm trying to keep an eye on the World Title situation in the two participants, MJF and Will Osprey. They got the stadium show, they got 25,000 tickets sold in a 95,000 seat stadium.

So I'm trying to keep an eye on what it is they're doing. And it wasn't hard this week with Osprey because apparently he got tired of the grind this week, Brian. And he was in a VTR from last week in a stairwell where he was selling that he got the shit beat out of him by Mark Davis, but I'm still going to win the tournament and go to Wembley. And then suddenly a girl comes in from off camera and we never see her face and she just grabs him and they're hugging and she's crying. And he never says her name. And then the announcers tell us afterwards, oh, that's Alex Mountbatten Windsor. So they've saddled now the baby-faced superhero.

Oh, and he did thank the death riders also. He couldn't have done it without him. So they've saddled the baby-faced superhero with an emotional girlfriend while he's being trained by the fucking obnoxious surly top heel to be able to overcome the fact that he's a loser after he overcame a goddamn career-rendic injury to come back to begin with. Bro. And that's what happened with Will Osprey on this entire television program.

Not better than House Show Randy Savage. I mean, that guy was working like 14 days every two weeks. Yeah, he might have had, when he got to be a top guy, he might have got one day off and had 13 matches and 14 days. But nevertheless, so now we're going to talk at more length, but not much. about two other things they did on this program. And first one, they were in Cincinnati, by the way, at a music hall or a music theater or whatever,

1200 people from what I understand showed up in Moxley's hometown. Good God, they could have run Mudlick, Kentucky with Hillbilly Jim and outdone that, couldn't they? But nevertheless. There was some video going around a mile. Oxley doing local TV, and he's like wearing a hat sideways, he just looked ridiculous, and I'm like, yeah, this ain't going to draw.

He was telling the young lady that was the host of the program, apparently, the proper way to pluck somebody's eyeball out of their head. For like, on the clip that I saw on Twitter for like a minute when he could have been, I don't know, telling the people how to get their tickets. I had to just crazy, I don't know. and nevertheless

so I wanted to see what MJF was doing but as soon as this program starts Tony Chivani's in the ring he introduces Tomaso champa and Tomaso

he looks great physically I mean he's in shape he got a big entrance so they seem to be trying and I've always been a fan of his work because he was good and solid etc but he just never happened really for him and and they he came here and he wins the whatever belt one of the

many belts his first night in and now they're my god they're going to they're going to get tommasso over and he lost it in his second match so that it was after that it's game over as the kids say so now he looks great he got the big entrance absolutely nobody seemed to care. Brian, am I exaggerating? When the people were just standing there. It was a problem with the fans just standing there a lot of the night, whether it was hometown boy John Moxley or

the main event stuff or allegedly main event stuff. There was a lot of standing around silently. It was like these people had a grudge and they were like made to come. Okay, it's either spend three hours at the DMV or

this. But anyway, Tomaso's whole thing was he wants, or he wanted Tony Chivani to say that he was better than Chris Jericho. And he's bullying Tony until finally Tony starts to and then Jericho's music plays. And he comes, but he does his normal entrance with his pose, with his back to the camera and he spins around. And by the time he walks out this short little ramp and gets and the ring, Chavani has disappeared. So it's not like he's making any kind of urgent save or don't bully Tony or whatever the fuck. And Tomaso then starts screaming to cut Jericho's music, but they take a while to cut it. So Champa comes off looking like a goddamn whiny, ineffective goofball.

and then Jericho the first thing he does is make a ball joke and then it's comedy like no let we got off on the wrong foot let's start over hi I'm Jericho and the people started laughing not much though but there were chuckles instead of goddamn any type of there was no it was just comedy and Jericho calling Champa names and getting the crowd to chant it, Tommy, Tommy, and Champa's got to get mad about it. And then Jericho starts making mother jokes and Tommy's mommy.

You're a lot more entertaining doing it than he was in the segment, just for the record for people who did not see this. It's not like you're toning it down. You're more entertaining doing it than he was. but besides that I'm thinking my God this it made Champa

look like some flunky it just buried him might as well have backed up a fucking dump truck and and I couldn't understand why they took this after apparently two weeks ago

Champa laid Jericho out so then he started trying to get serious and sound mean but it was too late. And then I don't know, apparently the story is that Jericho says that Champa's just jealous

because he did, Champa debuted and then Jericho came back and stole his thunder and they just started a fake fight. And within seconds, a dozen security guys flood in and separate them. They were ready. Within

seconds. Oh, they were, it was like the FBI had received a goddamn credible threat. They were on high alert. Other times, they'll take a chainsaw to a motherfucker for anybody goes out there. But this time, the first fake forearm brought to goddamn cavalry.

And but the thing is, while they're having a pull apart, I wrote to complete silence and indifference. Yep. They were just standing there. Yeah, they're not invested in any of this. They're watching it.

and even if it got a few laughs maybe early on, this was cringy. This was really bad. And they champa look bad. And I've given Jericho a chance since he's returned. He doesn't need to ever be on TV again. He's so, he's so bad.

These are all clearly his ideas. And it was bad. It was stuff that wouldn't have made raw in terms of like that Vince McMahon comedy lines and bad shit. Bad. There's no emotion. Bad. There's no, it's just, they're just joking through it. And how bad does it sound just calling him Jericho?

It just, it doesn't sound right. It doesn't work. We know he's Chris Jericho. And that's, that's the thing is most people would say Jericho anyway, like Brisco, Jericho, Cornette, last, whatever, but just to never say Chris Jericho is just odd. Because he had another bad idea. Again, I gave him a chance with this comeback. It's as bad.

It's not as bad as ever. It's worse. It's somehow worse. Because he's baby face. He's trying to be a baby face. Like, these are his ideas. I'll come back and I'll say things. And in between everything I say, I'll throw in a comedy line.

Get the fuck out of here. Even the fucking opening of this thing. Where obviously they wanted it to be where the music would hit, right as Chivani was going to say, Jericho. And they mistimed it. It just... Yeah. All right.

I'll say, you are better than... And he had to say Jericho because they waited to. Oh, yeah. No, this was bad. This was bad. This was bad. This was the best opportunity they had all night. Because the NBA, the coverage had started on ABC, but I don't think the game started until, like, 830.

So, like, this was the window. This is the start of the show. Let's give people at home something good. Let's show them what AEW is all about. Let's make them even think about staying here and watching this show. And this was the bullshit segment that they put out there. They should all be embarrassed. This was awful.

And people at home sitting there saying, when would it bullshit be over with? People at home said, I'd rather go listen to Charles Barkley talk than watch this shit. And that's what happened. This is so bad. This was so Jericho. This was Jericho. Was it a Charles Manson talk than this? This was Jericho Unleashed.

This was so bad. So bad. Well, but now it's not over, Brian, because there's still, I finally as I've made my way through the program, I found the other half of the World Championship match

equation, MJF, of course, the world champion. And it was after a Mark Briscoe match with PAC where Mark Briscoe, go ahead, I'm sorry. Did you see how that started, like what actually kicked off that match? What happened? I did not. I was zipping to try to find MJF. They come back from break and it's a close-up and it's Mark talking to Tony Khan.

And it's, you know, Tony Khan, you know, like a ventriloquist dummy. His head's going, his eyebrows are going. Like, it doesn't even seem like a real person. And he's saying something to Tony and Tony. agreeing with him. He's like, that's a great idea. Go out there. And then they hold the camera on Tony for just a second. It's so funny. And then Briscoe wrestled Pack and then coming out of it, they go into that match and the stipulation. But it was a conversation with Tony Khan that set the whole thing up. Well, he says that later on, but I didn't know that Tony Khan did his version

of Freddie Prince's fucking Chihuahua on the rearview mirror with the head going up and I'm down on it. I hate that you miss a Tony cameo. They're so good. see that's the you know that's to get people hooked to next week i'll have to watch every frame like the zepruder film but anyway so mark briscoe beat pack and he's cutting a promo on mjf he still wants a title shot and i got a way to get a title shot come out here and i will explain it to you mjf's music hits immediately but they go to break i'm like jesus christ we had a chance of might be an interested here and this thing and they go to, so they come back three minutes later, the music is still playing, like on Raw.

But MJF appeared in the crowd with a microphone. And again, he did the same thing he always does. And it went on kind of long, and he basically refused to give Mark Briscoe a title shot. And then he makes the, you know, comment, I'm paraphrasing, but I got a lot of money. And suddenly then hear Jay Lethal, Lee Johnson, and a little white guy. Blake Christian.

Blake Christian. That's the name of the little white guy would have. They attack Briscoe in the ring. And Briscoe, apparently MJF doesn't have too much because all he could afford was the job guys. So they attack in all respects to Jay Lethal, but that's, where he's at these days. Fans are just sitting there. Just sitting.

And Briscoe fights back, but they get heat on him, and here comes to save Roderick Strong, Pockets, and Ishi. But it's worse because by the time that Pockets got in the ring, since he was just strolling, the other two had already made the save and beat up all the heels. And that's where Briscoe cuts the promo. And said, well, I talk to Tony Kahn.

And the main event, the main event at Forbidden Door will be a 12-man tag team match. I'm going to get five guys and you get five guys. And if my team wins, then I get a title shot. And it's a cage match. What the fuck? they have put their world heavyweight champion in a 12-man tag team match inside a cage with

charitably a bunch of mid-card fucking guys and I love Mark Briscoe but look the way that they've used him he's the cream of a sour crop and I've heard that Brian, I'll let you give your thoughts, but I've heard that somebody said, well, they've changed plans

because MJF hyper-extended his knee. So the world champion got a knee injury, so to make it easier, we're going to put him in a fucking 12-man tag team match with 11 preliminary guys on the main event of a fucking pay-per-view? I can't believe that. I mean, I know they said that,

but it's hard to believe that's the main event. There'll be other five-profile singles match. It was stated here. But remember when goddamn Steve Austin hurt his neck and we put him in a bunch of six-mans with Kai and tie to cover it up? The fuck is going on here. And again, the lack of reaction from the fans in this segment, as it was throughout the show, but, you know, this is not riveting.

Forbidden Door, wasn't at the pay-per-view, like, the whole idea was the forbidden door was the relationship between AEW and New Japan, and it was like... Yes. Inter-promotional dream matches that, you know, had never been held or seldom held anywhere in the world. The door was open. Anybody could come in from any promotion. And now he's just bought all the guys from every promotion.

You can bring in outlaw girls from Japan all day long, I assume. The baby face running. Fucking Roddy Strong's in shape. He gets to the ring, you know? Ishii can't run. so it just looks bad him trying to run because you realize

how slow he is it's almost better for him to walk because then you're like oh this guy's tough but he can't run but he's trying to run looks like he's in slow-mo

and then his pockets just strolling to the rig how can you take any of this seriously Jay Lethal I had no idea he was doing anything right now but apparently this heel faction's lighting it up

in NXT or whatever the hell's happening over there I don't know are they gonna be in the match are they part of the game Who the fuck no? Well, no, later on as you'll recall

I didn't make it in the back well you didn't know okay later on in the back this finishes up the MJF segment later on in the back MJF goes up to Don Callis who just happens to be standing there with 12 of the guys in his

goddamn group right awful everybody from O Boring on down and he's he's like, hey, Don, I need,

I need five of your top guys. And Don's like, well, this isn't some meat market where you can just come in and order a pound of, and then MJF flips open a briefcase and he's a pound of,

that's a lot of money there. So they're doing this for comedy. And MJF has given Don Callis a briefcase full of money that they're going to go and spend and he's going to think about which guys he wants, he wants until next week.

But Kevin Knight, who's apparently joined Don Callis' family earlier in the show or tried to or is on probation or guy don't know, maybe early release, he's got an ankle monitor, whatever the fuck. He wants to be on MJF's team. But if they win, he wants a title shot. And And Andrade is upset about his title shot that he wants because they don't like each other, MJF. So it's confusing, muddy, cluttered, and played for comedy in all the wrong spots. So Osprey is licking his wounds this week from getting a shit kicked out of him by Mark Davis.

And MJF, the world champion, needs five goddamn partners for a 12-man cage match against, I don't even know. They've also ruined it for me. I can't stop looking at MJF's hairline now. I can't stop. Whenever he's out there, am I trying to figure out exactly what's going on from the storyline

they put in my consciousness. You know what I've just realized? You know what? This is the perfect thing. This is the stipulation now. Every time MJF gets in the ring, if he loses the match, he's got to wear the turkey suit.

See? Because he went to turkey. I was wondering what the time is. what the hell was there, okay. And if people can share turkey, turkey. You know, they spend a lot of money, the Turkish Bureau of whatever. They spend a lot of money. The anti-Turkish defamation league is what you're saying.

It's spending a lot of money on these fucking cases. God damn it. We're going to call the home office in fucking Istanbul on you. Kevin Knight just turned heel. We're real quick to wrap up this segment, but Kevin Knight just turned heel. he's got a lot of potential in the ring on the mic It's been hidden miss And I thought he was kind of shitty again here this week

And they put him with Calus Who is as tall as almost every member of his stable Which I think is a problem I just don't think it looks right And as a comedy manager And his stable Consists of Without exaggeration

Is it 15 fucking people It's a lot of people Yeah, and he just joined. They have the worst groups there. The Death Riders, the Callas group. I saw the Shane Taylor group on this show. The fucking conglomeration. Just the worst fucking factions in wrestling history.

And that's a fact. Sean. Did you watch any more Dynamite? No, I didn't. Well, that was dynamite. So that's dynamite. But in a, in a, in a summer, related note, Brian,

one of the big fish that got away from the AEW lagoon is now is missing and rumors are flying and abounding. Where is CM Punk? He's the invisible man. He hadn't been on television

in low these many weeks now. Although I think honestly, my opinion is we're going to find out the red when he shows back up whatever reason if even one is given that he hasn't been on television is going to be so mundane or whatever we're going to be like what that was it but while he's gone and not saying anything and the only thing the w w is said over and over is creative doesn't have anything for him i guess they're making

enough millions. They don't need a goddamn top star. They do these things. But in the absence of any goddamn real information, people have said everything. And it even went to some knucklehead, one of the underlings over there at Uncle Dave's site just took like a list of rumors from some random source and ran them all down and put them on the website and they had to actually take it down from what I understand. Yeah, this story kind of got really going one night the other day and then a bunch of people started emailing us. One night the other day?

One night the other day. That when it started? That's my new album. Stay tuned to Arcadia Vanguard Records and tapes. But all of a sudden we started getting a lot of emails about it and then people started trying to post about it. everyone's been wondering where CM Punk is. He did a promo on Roy.

He did the Austin Idol promo. I'm here and I'm here to stay. And then we never sell him again. And then the only time I've seen him is video, you know, other than the WrestleMania incidents, I think one of them came out after that. And he was at the Rousie and Gina Caruso fight or whatever. Gina Carano, Gino Caruso.

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, that's right. He was there. And there was video of him in the gym, with people were remarking about how big he was now. And that was it. And for a guy who apparently is really into social media, he knows how to go radio silent.

He does it. He's done it before. But of course, that causes rumors to start. And I think while everyone's asking where he is, it seems that this is the tweet that kicked it off. Someone named J-Cup 2013, their profile says, I'm an actual aggressive progressive,

sicko, father, Mrs. Jacobs, S.O, and lover of pro wrestling, WWE supports fascism. That's what his profile. Obviously a normal person here. Very varied interests there. But he posted there absolutely is a CM punk story

going around with like a million different versions of what happened. Where there's smoke, there's fire, lots of smoke here. Now, when you hear that, and I don't know who this person is or what kind of sources they claim to have, but it makes it sound like something nefarious

is going on with CM Punk, right? Yeah, oh, there's some big secret going to. This is going to have to go into arbitration. Well, then someone responded to him, the same wrestling media that was reporting every detail of the punk AEW drama has now gone completely silent with an emoji of someone looking at their chin wondering, the thinker, I guess emoji.

And this J-Cup 2013 responded, here's what I'd say. I'm pretty confident all the big guys know exactly what I'm talking about, but there has been a hard line regarding reporting on it. what I'm going to say are the rumors, and that's in caps, I've heard over the last few weeks, so everyone please keep that in mind. And by the way,

I love the way he says, like all the big guys, like any of these bumble-fuck want-to-be sports illustrated journalists can keep any secret or have any collusion amongst themselves. And he's teasing a big announcement. Like it's going to be some sort of big reveal of some sort. You know, it's not like, hey, I saw this happen today. Here's what happened.

It's like, there's something around the corner. And if you get me a nickel. I'll show you what it is. It's the strange, incredible thing, 10 cents of view. What is it? So while all this is going on, apparently this guy is a regular on the wrestling observer newsletter message board. Of course he is.

And he was posting all about it there because there's a thread. A CM Punk trolls internet fans with witty remarks, I'm going to crash out at any moment. Well, obviously it's a punk obsessed thread. A lot of the fans over there, a lot of the readers, a lot of the members, I guess, don't like CM Punk because, you know... They tried every way of the world to justify the behavior and the fucking actions of the buckaroos and all of their ilk, and that because their leader,

Uncle Dave, still can't report on a story about punk in almost any fashion without reminding everyone that, well, he was, you know, most unprofessional in the one company and the brawl and the blah, blah, blah. He's always got to, and

they're parroting this, parroting and mimicking this behavior. Well, apparently this person, Jacob 2013, posted, I've spoken to roughly five to eight people over the past several weeks.

Five to eight. And all of them have heard a story about punk politicking for something related to WrestleMania. I've heard whispers about what exactly he was politicking for, but I've been flat out muzzled by multiple people.

Wait, what the fuck? Is this the guy that emailed the Wall Street Journal about Vince? It sounds like it. It sounds exactly like it. If he's talking now, how has he been muzzled? And if he's heard whispers, what are they whispering? Didn't he just call himself the aggressive, progressive?

I'm aggressive. If he's so fucking aggressive, well, come across with the information. You can't say, well, I have information from multiple people that I've spoken to, and I'm telling you that I have this information, but I can't tell you what the information is, because they won't let me. What? I think there's a strong likelihood of it being revealed,

sooner than later, too, so don't get too upset. Punk's alleged attempt at politic and quickly spread amongst the roster, and he allegedly gained massive heat from WWE and TKO execs. Well, what happened almost immediately

after mania. Punk gets into it with a fan, sure, but I'm asking about the big picture here. What could have made punk even angrier than not getting what he wanted? Again, the whole phrasing of this, this person hates punk, obviously. Some have told me

he was allegedly asked to take and declined a significant pay cut. It's been suggested to me that punk is so angry that he allegedly may be threatening legal action against TKO in order to secure a release though someone else threw a little bit of cold water on that specific point. Let's stop there for a second. Who was the person throwing the cold water, the fucking orderly at the mental hospital

where this was being written? And here's the thing, if they weren't asking, and And it's already been talked about that they were asking overpriced guys on the upper midcard that they probably didn't have long-term plans for. Yeah, take less money. But they've not tried to cut any superstar level contracts. And if how can I say this properly in the right order, if punk has a contract for a million dollars and they say,

well, we're only going to pay you 500. that we only want to pay you $500,000. And he says, no, I want the million. And they say, no, we're only going to give you $500 grand. Then he doesn't have to, God damn ask for a release from his contract because they're breaching it. And unless there's a new contract coming up and a blah, blah, blah, but nevertheless, go ahead. And by the way, there's a difference between cutting the new day. When I say cutting the new day, asking the new day to take a cut, they say no, you say goodbye.

And see him, punk. who's a merch seller, who's a draw, in terms of viewership and in terms of actually people want to go pay to see him, that doesn't sound right in any way. That doesn't just, that just seems ridiculous. They're going to ask him to take a pay cut? The guy who's caused problems or been in the middle of problems everywhere, who's been happy as could be for the longest time,

let's go ask him to take less money. Yeah, that'll set him off. This person also in the same thing I'm seeing here. I've been largely against speaking on unverified rumors, but I believe there's enough smoke around this story and others. Yeah, boy, and I know what it smells like, too. That warrant acknowledgement and discussion. However, I'm also tired of certain WWE rumors being kept so hush-hush.

I understand journalists can't break confidentiality. I'm in the same boat but I decided to start publicly acknowledging the more salacious WWE rumors in an effort to force any sort of discourse so I'm just gonna

find the dirtiest shit that I can find and throw that out there and see if anybody but killing puppies I'm for it call 1-555-1-2-1-2 so then as this was going on and the discourse was growing apparently in the Wrestling Observer newsletter's message board,

one of their writers, Jake Scudder or Jake's Scooter, either way he needs to scoot his way out, he put up an article on the Wrestling Observer newsletter website. Now, Dave Meltzer publishes the Observer and does audio with Brian Alvarez, but he's not writing all the things that go up there, and Brian Alvarez isn't either. They have a team of, I mean, I hate to say it, but clickbait driven junior staff members that are looking for anything they can put up there to get clicks. Is that where Howie the mailroom guy went when he lost his job in Stanford? I don't know, but this person here, according to his profile, he's the head of audience at F4W online. That's his job title over there.

Head of audience. Does that mean he gives the audience head when they come in? What is that? the head of the audience. I have no idea. All right, well, that's the head of audience put up an article, and now they've changed it because it got a lot of controversy, and even Dave Meltzer, who probably had no idea this was going up, when it was brought to his attention, said it should come down, and it did. Say, yeah, I hate him, but we've gone too far.

This is bullshit. So the article is now, CM Punk rumors flying around that are currently unsubstantiated. and it hears all the slander, but we've labeled it unsubstantiated. There are a lot of CM Punk rumors doing the rounds right now. Doing the rounds. Doing the rounds right now.

I think somebody's been doing the lines. Regarding his absence from WWE programming. That circle doesn't quite square. It don't go all the way back to where it starts. It's just a straight line. The claims are... Like Dave's family. tree. The claims are completely unsubstantiated right now, and we are treating them as such. Just

rumors. There have been rumor accounts on X and Twitter in the past that have got some scoops here and there, but we're trying, what is this? But we're working to try and find out more. That blind squirrel found that nut last year. But we're working to try to find out more from our side. The initial rumor. main source of this rumor appears to be from an X account, which has been claiming to be a scoopster for some time now. We haven't had the chance to verify what the account has and hasn't gotten right so far. Are you a verified scoopster?

So please take these rumors as such. Rumors. And then there's a thing here that says, edit. We have updated this article to remove the name of the X account that claimed these rumors. again, they are rumors. Oh my God, how does that get on your front page? And it has now come out that apparently WW is working on new CM Punk merchandise

and they're waiting to bring them back. They have some kind of angle. But in the meantime, they're just rumors, folks. But you can still read them. him right here. We're basically telling you this is bullshit, but it's detrimental to CM Punk's, we'd still like you to be able to read it. I don't agree. I don't think anyone would agree with everything CM Punk has said or done, but there is an audience out there that just want his scalp. It's clear.

It has not gone away or dissipated. It's only gotten worse. He doesn't do anything, and they find ways to create stories. Not on TV. And, you know, again, this fucking WWE, when you've got five matches on your big shows and, you know, you're just making money hand over fist, I guess you can just leave one of your biggest stars off for no apparent reason until creative finds something for him.

We'll see. Hey, beyond the punk thing, what do you think about the fact that this is the state of the Wrestling Observer newsletter website, the figure four online website? they do their audio shows and now video shows. They have a paywall for some of that content. They have a paywall for their message board, which has been a complete shit show for almost 20 years, I guess. Just a complete shit show.

You have to pay to be on their Facebook thing? Not Facebook, their actual message board on their website. You have to be a member to be able to access that. But if you just want to... the observer, you're getting this website with all these other things, and they seemingly will put anyone on that front page putting non-news items.

And whatever you want to say about Dave Meltzer, that ain't the way Dave Meltzer would do it. So it's kind of weird, like, he's the face of that website. He's a partner in that website, obviously. But they're just...

But he's letting Howie, the mailroom guy, put articles up. But they're chasing clicks because that's where the money is. So they're going to put up clickbait. And in this case, someone who doesn't seem qualified to be writing for the Wrestling Observer Newsletter website saw a bunch of shit on a message board and on Twitter and created an article out of it and then it had to be immediately pulled down and edited to almost nothing.

Yeah, let me just put all this bullshit together in a good article for one of the main sites and I'll just stick it up without the knowledge of my superiors. Way to go, Scooter. Little Scooter wrote some stuff. But that's, again, it's like feeding the stray puppies when a lot of these people are, and hey, dedicated wrestling fans, I was one, they're great. But a lot of these people are dedicated wrestling fans in the idea of I'm going to get into this and be a big deal and look at me, look at what I'm writing and doing,

rather than just being around and helping out for the love of the game. And that's when you get into trouble with these people. It's a bad business plan, Brian. I'll tell you, they could use some help. They could use some help with their business plan. I wonder if there's anybody that we know you and me, Brian, that we know that could help people with their business planning and their business execution.

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They've got 24-7 customer support. You mean to tell me that it's three o'clock in a morning and you call some customer support and got over there and say, listen, here, I'm I got a little deal. You want to do, and they'll cut you a little deal. You give you a little slack, whatever. Maybe a little payoff in a brown paper wrapper. A funny story,

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Right, Brian? These examples are not endorsed by Shopify or Brian, for that matter, but of course, as I said before, all fun and games aside, we trust Shopify and you can too. If you have an online store, you want to be in business with Shopify. Jim, one final time. And of course, I think you've said it all.

There's nothing else to add, but... Nothing more. What's that promo code with a great deal for the listeners? Shopify.com slash JCE. Don't blow it. All righty, young fellow over there. What's going on in the world of the Arcadian Vanguard network and the wrestling news staff this fine week.

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The mothership, that felt good. I'm glad you were able to clear your sinuses out. Well, folks, now we've saved it for the main event of the program, but naturally we had to save the best for last, and this is the best because I'm involved. And season seven of Dark Side of the Ring is coming back to Vice TV, and I sit myself down. yesterday and had a conversation with the creator of self-same said series, Evan Husney,

and Brian, if we are ready with the videotape that you won't see, but you will hear, can we roll the tape of myself with Evan Husky? Let's go to it now. All right, without further ado, season seven of Dark Side of the Ring is about to debut upcoming on Vice TV, and we went straight to the horse's mouth on this one. We've got once again joining the program, the creative force behind the whole dad-gum thing, as Mama Cornett used to say. Evan Husney, Evan, thank you for being back and joining us again. Hey, thanks, Jim. We have another season and another appearance on the experience. Thank you so much.

I really appreciate it. See, this is a way I'm forcing myself to stay employed. I've got to do something. You know, I can't just fade away, so I've got to keep this machine moving. But we want to start off. We're going to talk about all the episodes in season seven, and there are seven subjects, 10 hours of programming, which we'll get into.

But I think the biggest thing is, and I was telling you this on the phone, there's a misconception in a lot of people's minds when they heard three parts on Jeff Jarrett and T&A, they said, what the fuck they think somehow that this is three hours of Jeff Jarrett's life story and we're going to be treated to footage of him playing high school basketball and this detailed thing. And to be honest, you know, I would love to see an hour on Christine Jarrett on national television,

the most successful female promoter in history of professional wrestling and et cetera, et cetera. and the whole lineage, me and five other people, would be just tickle pink by that. But I've seen, thanks to your generosity, screening copies of the first two of the three parts, and you're out of Jeff's, Jeff is out of WCW and starting to form TNA by like 18 minutes into the first hour.

This is not some goddamn biography for the glorification of Jeff Jarrett. For the first time, the guy who founded T&A Wrestling is telling the story behind it and the trials and tribulations and the backstabbing and the financial crises. But there is also a vast array of guest stars who were involved in this thing along the way. I think more of the talking heads than you've ever had before. And some of their opinions seem to be contrary to each other. So this is, it's the dramatic story of how this was a dream that turned into a nightmare for a lot of people. And how it all happened from various perspectives.

So I think people are missing a boat. Tell me if I've encapsulated that correctly. Oh, no, that's 100% right. That's 100% right. Yeah, it's like I knew once we expanded this into the third hour, because it was initially conceived to be a two-hour exploration that would, you know, open the new season. And I knew once we, you know, we had to go to the third hour, essentially. I mean, just looking at everything that we filmed and putting it all together, it would have just done a disservice to the show. We would have been trying to pack in too much. We would have breezed over too much. We would have left too much out. And so we kind of went to the network begging and pleading for that third hour so we could let the story breathe a little bit more and we could get into a little more of the side quests, you know, along the way. And I knew that it was going to, you know, people's reaction were going to be really three hours for this and that. But I think once people see it, they'll understand because we're covering a long period of time here. You know, we're covering, you know, all of the Jeff Jarrett years of TNA and of course everything in between. And so, yeah, I think what's people see.

I mean, if you bring us up to date in the third hour, as I said, I hadn't seen that yet, you're covering over 20 years. Right. But also the thing is, I mean, there's a little something for everybody, for the people who love inside gossip about wrestling. This is not, again, this is not a WWE approved biography of somebody they want to be nice to. This is a bunch of people in effect that were their ventures. sometimes, but telling their side of the story of how this thing sometimes went right, sometimes went wrong, ultimately went crazy. And you've got, as you said, there's so much subtext to it for the first time ever,

Karen Engel gives her side, as Karen Jarrett now, gives her side of that whole situation that her and Kurt's marriage was over when she was playing that part on time. television, you've got I mean, when you got Scott Steiner breaking down and crying on camera, you've got an emotional fucking piece programming. Yeah. So,

there's so much in there that I think the viewer kind of gets a sense that my God, this was doomed because there was never any clear there was no

wrestling person in involved in the ownership enough to call the shots to get anything accomplished. But I'll tell you one thing. And for the people who want to see me and Rousseau jousted each other, that's kept to a minimum because so many other people have a chance to joust. But it's there. Yeah. But the one thing that Jeff Jarrett said now haunts me when he was talking about

ultimately becoming estranged from his father Jerry and they didn't talk for years and years because of Rousseau, he originally thought that Jerry and Rousseau would balance each other out. Like the ingredients that you mix up to make nitroglycerin balance each other out. And I think that's what he was trying to do with me all that time. Oh, they're going to balance each other out. Only if we're in a fucking scaffold match. I just I picked that up and I said my God he he genuinely thought that somehow that these things could be balanced and I was the second second person to play the role of Jerry Jared I guess well I think yeah for Jeff you know creating this promotion I think that's kind of what he set out to do is to try to kind of create something that was a hodgepodge of all these different sort of ideas and creative approaches you know I've always been fascinated with

TNA, you know, for as long as we've been doing this show, we've rarely ever covered it or mentioned it on the show. But it's something I'm always been fascinated with. I'm sure everybody listening knows, you know, Jeff being a third generation, you know, personality in wrestling, you know, figure in wrestling. The idea that he set out from nothing, you know, with his dad to create this new promotion, obviously in light of, you know, the wrestling industry completely consolidating, right, when Vince bought WCW and really trying from out of nowhere to create some sort of, you know,

alternative brand. And then of course, you know, just, yeah, all the, all of the backstabbing, the chicanery, the financial shenanigans. Shenanigans that are going on, you know, with everything. And him trying to keep this thing afloat while so many, like, dramatic and somewhat tragic, and definitely got tragic things happening in his personal life. And that's what really drew me to the story is that, you know, beyond it being just a personal business story, it really is,

it has a lot of emotion in it. I mean, this is a very emotional story that I don't think people are going to be prepared that, you know, so many people break down and they cry and, you know, and going through, of course, you know, the death of, you know, Jeff's first wife during all of this stuff. Jill, yeah. Yeah, Jill. And, you know, I said all the stuff with, you know, the various financiers and, of course, Dixie Carter coming in.

Here's the thing. Most people in wrestling can't find one great backer, right? Right. Yeah. And the Jared family, and talk more about Jerry Taney and second, but Jeff has found, well, just with T&A, he found two. Hell South was a major corporation. What are the odds that the fucking guy that agrees to back and fund the thing

is going to be a big time white-collar criminal and they're all going to go down in a blaze of glory. And then he finds that this Daffy PR agent that he's hired in Nashville is the daughter of a fucking Texas oil billionaire or whatever. Right. And he gets another, but then she wants to take over

and become the real housewives of Nashville. And he's got to go through the... I'm telling you, I can sympathize to some degree. What Jeff says in this program, well, I didn't have any place to work. So I was going to go and make my own, basically.

I'm paraphrasing. I did the same thing with Smoky Mountain Wrestling. It's just, I didn't approach it at near that scale. He said, fuck Vince. I'm going to go national. And I've always admired that.

And a lot of stuff of mine is on the cutting room floor just because it was background of the Jarrett family. And we talk a lot on the podcast here about not only Christine Jared, but Roy Welch. Yeah. Christine Jarrett, Jeff's grandmother went from a job, a second job, selling tickets to the wrestling matches in Nashville out of a side room at a shoe store in downtown Nashville in like 1946. and 40 years later she had become the most successful, longest running female promoter in history of professional wrestling.

Maybe not to most advertised or publicized, but the most successful for the longest time. And Jerry started putting up posters for spot shows when he was 12 years old, and, well, he was selling programs for five cents apiece at the Nashville Hippodrome when he was six. and 40 years later he was not only had been a top wrestler in the territory but also had become one of the most successful bookers and owned the goddamn territory and so Jeff and with Roy Welch as we've said he was trained in the early 30s by the guys who pioneered the entire pro wrestling business to begin with and he passed that knowledge on to Jerry in the 60s and very early 70s so that that chain of thinking about being a

promoter own in the territory booking guys opening markets whether it was in the old days the old fashioned way or now with television and outlets it's always been ingrained in their heads and everybody's pissed us and moans about, oh, Jeff, Jared, you know, that doesn't add, well, he finds backers and he puts on shows and he makes companies. Everybody else can sit and complain about it. Where's yours? That's, that's, I'm, I'm on a soapbox now.

But the point is, this program also illustrates from everybody's standpoint, not only from Jeff's, but also from everybody else, is that the wrestling business is a great business to get into if you want to go out of your fucking mind. Right. Yeah. And Jeff seems to be, and we haven't really got, again, hour three is going to be interesting, but we haven't got to the main part of his substance issues, but he's already admitted to

him, and they've started coming into, somewhat coming into play. Oh, yeah. The third part, you know, which will be showing the week after, because on July 7th, the, you know, season 7 premiere is just going to be the first two hours back to back. And then, of course, the conclusion the following week. And that, the third episode gets into, yeah, Jeff's struggles with addiction, big time. It gets into, of course, the Hogan and Bischoff era of TNA in terms of, you know, You know, two guys coming in, not much knowledge or understanding of the T&A audience, doing what they think is best and totally changing, putting everything on its head at that point. And now in hindsight, and did this even make your editing deadline, but didn't Bischoff recently admit after Hulk passed away that, yeah, I just, he needed money. I got him the gig. Was that in the Hogan documentary? Something of that nature. He was taking credit for.

Right. What was his story here? I'm not sure, but I think something to that effect. And, you know, yeah, they came in. You know, Eric had a vendetta against the six-sided ring, wanted to change that, you know, straight up. And they made these huge changes. Hogan had a vendetta against Rousseau. Yes, there's that. All the unsettled business from Bash at the Beach 2000. And that's one thing. I appreciate you. you, including Vinnie Rue, on these programs, because every time that he airs on one of these things, I get deluged with emails and tweets or whatever said. We understand. Jim, now we understand.

That's all I'm saying. Go ahead. Well, I mean, you know, you talked about the cutting room floor. I mean, you know, this, and I was mentioning earlier that, you know, the third hour we needed so badly, but really this thing could have even gone much farther than three hours. If you, if you take in, you know, all of the different, you know, stories, uh, and side quests that could have been present here with this story. I mean, originally going way back when we did that, who killed WCW miniseries, that was sort of a separate doc thing we did,

the idea was to continue in that tradition and do TNA as the next sort of deep dive exploration that we would have done on its own. And then maybe we could have done ECW and it could have kept going as sort of like a promotion by promotion sort of doc, you know, miniseries. after miniseries. But for whatever reason, Vice didn't want to do that. And so our only chance to

really, you know, because we had done all this research and preparation and talked to a bunch of people about doing a TNA-focused thing. So the only way to really kind of keep that alive was to make it part of the dark side, you know, platform, I guess, that we have. And the only way we could kind of cut it. I mean, originally it was going to be six parts. That's what it was going to be. As a standalone thing, it was going to be the six sides of TNA is what we were going to call it. And But in order to do it for Darkside, we sort of focus on Jeff's story and tried to hone it in more on Jeff's trajectory being the person who, you know, founded the company and then being someone who's thrown out of his own company and seeing, you know, his baby in somebody else's hands and of course all the other, you know, dramatic things that we've mentioned there in between. Yeah. But then that just proved to be impossible at two hours.

Well, and also going back to start to get into where Jeff's issues came into. play. Yeah. Even going back, because you talk about Jill's passing and that he hadn't been speaking to, Jerry didn't go to Jill's funeral, even though it was six miles down the road. I was like, ah. So he wasn't speaking to his father. Taney had passed away in, what, 98?

I'm pretty sure. So in a 10-year span, he lost his grandmother that he spent a lot of time with. he wasn't speaking to his father, his wife passes away from the second round of breast cancer. Yeah. And he never stopped working wherever he was during any of those periods of time. He continued to work through all that stuff. And that's where, I don't know if you've got to mention Taylor Swift, but that's where Jeff actually needed a babysitter during that period of time because he was trying to work and take care of the kids.

and that's where he ended up knowing Taylor Swift, how the, you know, again, the Jarrett family, they have, they somehow come up with connections. Yeah, that's right. Taylor Swift comes over to cheer the family up during that time. And then all of the, you know, he gets his baby taken away and all this drama with Dixie and she, you know, that's when things started melting down. Exactly. Yeah, Jeff, you know, throughout this whole saga, you know, even,

through his career. I mean, of course, the death of Owen heart is brought up in this episode. And, oh, my God, Owen was the year after it's so teeny. So he lost his grandmother. Then his best friend. Yep. Then his wife. He wasn't speaking to his father. Jesus, H. Christ. Yeah. So having to you know, be there the night. Of course, Owen passes away, having to wrestle in the ring, you know, right after that had taken place at, you know, at Kemper Arena during Over the Edge and all of that and sort of masking that trauma that he went through. I mean, seeing your friend pass away in that horrible accident. And then, of course, you know, being at odds with your father, you know, trying to create this company and then now you're estranged from him. You're already estranged

from your mother. And then your first wife passes away. And you just keep moving forward, as you say. and you don't look back and you don't process and you don't grieve properly and you keep you know just keep the machine going keep the company going keep up appearances bury it you know and then of course eventually that's going to come back around and and it's going to come and it's going to get you you know and that's what happened to jeff as we see in the third episode when all of the all the things he never dealt with all the traumas he never sort of examined um you know comes it's back in a really really sort of aggressive, traumatic way, and he sort of crashes out, you know, with that. So that's the, that's kind of the examination of episode three. But again, I go back and say that at first glance,

you know, you may think this is sort of a, you know, this piece might be just sort of an LOL at TNA type of episode or story, but really beneath the surface is a really searing, emotional and very tragic, you know, story. That's very emotional. And so I think that's going to be very unexpected for a lot of viewers of the show. So I'm very much looking forward to people's reactions once they finally see it. And the guest stars before we move on, because can't call them talking heads because, my God, James Mitchell looks like Mel Tormay if he was a demon from hell.

I love Mitchell. But it's everybody from James Mitchell and awesome Kong to Scott Steiner to Karen Jarrett to Matt Hardy Bischoff sat down for it myself Jeff Hardy Vinnie Rue Jeff Jeff Who else am I leaving out

It's there's a bunch There's David Sahadi Dave Sahati Who is again It's nice to hear From civilians in programs like this Because the boys all

Either have a way of telling a story Or the way that they look Or whatever you think my God, should I trust him or not. But when like Dave Sahadhi's a normal human being and just a nice fellow and he says something, you're like, well, okay. Well, Karen Jarrett too. Yeah.

And, you know, I think she steals the show in many ways. I mean, I think just hearing from her for the first time, as you said, going into the whole drama with Kurt and, you know, what was, you know, what was real, what was fiction, what people thought, what was rumor, what was innuendo. and of course the storyline. That's another part of episode three, by the way, is how the very thing that Jeff was removed from power for, this idea of developing a relationship with Kurt's ex-wife,

then is used as a storyline. He's brought back, you know, which is... Because as a lot of people testify to here in the program, Dixie had been waiting for any kind of excuse to send Jeff home so she could run the whole thing. And, oh, well, you're doing this. So go. Exactly.

Yeah. So and unfortunately Dixie is not in the episode, you know, because it would have been fantastic to get her perspective because there's obviously a lot of very passionate opinions about her and the her time there at TNA. Some people probably didn't want to testify at Nuremberg either. So I'm not surprised she really didn't want to add a lot to this. Yeah, but we definitely tried multiple attempts. And, you know, from what I understand, it's not something she ever, you know, looks to talk about is the, is the, the TNA years, never looks back at it.

I can understand why, but I think it's a shame because then you're kind of leaving it in the hands of everybody else to litigate on, you know, on this program. But, yeah, if, you know, if she would have participated, it would have been just, I mean, it would have put it over the top. Well, but most people kind of have the same impression. So maybe you're getting the story there anyway. But that's, so that's July 7th on Vice TV. It's Tuesday night at 10 o'clock Eastern, correct? Nine. It's actually at nine.

Oh, because it's two hours. What am I thinking about? Tuesday, July 7th, 9 o'clock Eastern. And then the following week is the dramatic conclusion. That starts at 10 o'clock. That's the regular time slot, right? You know, we might be moving to nine. So check your local listings.

Check your local listings, folks, in the newspaper that you don't get, that nobody prints anymore. But just Tuesday, block off your whole goddamn night tune in on Vice. But there's more. Wait, there's more because there's still six more topics for the season seven. And we're not going to go in order because I want to mention a couple of it. I happened to be in, but that were people that I knew and was friends with, especially Big Bubba Rogers, the big boss man, Ray Trailer. Yes.

There's an episode on him. And, you know, again, as I haven't seen this episode yet, but we've talked about Bubba in the past here on the program. And I said the same things when I sat down. He was just, he was a prodigy. He became with the on-the-job training and the gimmick and the push and the ability to work with the top guys in the business right from the start, he became a main event, money-drawing talent in a year to 18 months, which is almost unheard of in a wrestling business. No, exactly. And this episode for me, you know, is super, you know, personal to me because big boss man is literally my conduit into being a wrestling fan when I was a kid.

When I was, I think, five, I think, you know, I was really into, you know, I don't know, army soldiers and cops and things like that, you know. People in uniform. What about the village people? Evan, how are you on the village people? Just, yeah, no, exactly. And but I think it was my mom, like, was at Toys R Us and she bought one of those Hasbro big boss man figures, you know, because it was in cop uniform figurine. And it just was like, whoa, this is so cool.

The primary colors that, you know, the yellow and the blue and oh my God. And it was so cool. And then I was like asking, what is this? You know, it's like, oh, it's this whole wrestling thing, Hulk Hogan and WWF. And then we went to, you know, our first house show, you know, shortly thereafter. So for me, personally, the whole genesis of my wrestling fandom is a big boss man action figure, you know, and I was a huge, of course, fan of his. And so this was one I was really shocked that we hadn't pursued earlier. But it was amazing. Like once we met, you know,

Ray's family who's involved in the episode, of course, you know, that's what I was going to say is the family really cooperated fully so you were able to get access to everyone and photos and et cetera. Yes, and they've kept everything, which is amazing. Um, you know, all of, uh, you know, like all of the, you know, WWF memorabilia, um, all of like the, the, the, the nightstick, the outfits, the things. And you can see them all in the episode. It's really cool to see. But yeah, um, Lacey, his daughter is also in the episode and she's, you know, she's amazing. She details, you know, so much about his career. Of course, you know, Ray was taken, you know, from her a very young age.

Yeah. And which is, you know, but she's since then really kind of rediscovered his career and, and, and, you know, totally appreciates his legacy and, like, loves the fans. And she runs one of, I think she runs like the big boss man fan account on, on, on Instagram. She's fantastic, you know, working with both of them. And Bubba and Angela had been together since, I get, before he started wrestling, because they, you know, they were a couple with. and I first met him and he had like six matches or whatever.

So and just to, you know, again, that's the thing. It was so sad that he was one of those guys that had a family and stayed together and was, you know, still lived in Georgia and it was still with his roots and, you know, not being a goddamn rock star everywhere. Yeah, they were together back when he was a prison guard, you know, when that was his, you know, that's the whole origin, of course, of the big boss man character, but way before wrestling, you know, he was a prison guard and the Cobb County Correctional Institute. Right. Exactly. And I think it was, you know, either, I think there's just kind of conflicting

stories, whether it was like actual people he worked with or like some of the prisoners there were like, you'd be great in wrestling, you know, or something. And he goes down and he tries down and he tries out and he gets into it and he's a natural, you know. It was Ted Allen, wasn't it? I think so. Yeah. And then he basically has to make a choice, right? I mean, he was doing, he was still working both jobs.

He was doing, of course, you know, when, what was the move that he took that everybody was like, oh, my God, this guy can move? Tully's slingshot suplex. Right. When there was the wombat at 511 and 205, suplexed his 360 pound guy that nobody was I'd ever seen before. Dusty said, okay, give me, JJ, get that boy the number. Yeah. And of course, the rest is history. You know, and he becomes Bubba. And, yeah, it's amazing. It's great to highlight that era, too, you know, especially for, you know, fans my generation,

who may not be as familiar with that incredible run and all the great footage. Well, that's, the footage of the chair being smashed on his head. Yeah. Yeah. You know, all that stuff's fantastic. Well, and see, that's the great part of the story in that suddenly... Again, we've told it, and we just told most of it there, is that Dusty saw this guy, said, I got a gimmick for this guy. But he was able, okay, this was in, he made his debut in, I'm going to say May without looking it up, May of 86 on Crockett TV as Big Bubba Rogers.

And by February, 1987, he was in the main event of the bunkhouse stampede final with Dusty Rhodes in Pittsburgh at the Civic Arena and sold the place out. It was a $166,000 house, almost 16,000 people. And then by what, that was February of 87, the run with Hogan was early 88. So in the space of his first two years in the business, he set records in the NWA against Dusty Roads and then sold out building. in the WWF against Hulk Hogan. Yeah, amazing.

It's never been done before. Amazing. Yeah. It's incredible. And, of course, the visual of that incredible Hogan, you know, superplex off the cage, too, is, I think probably one of the most amazing spots, you know, in that whole company up to that point. And that was before they revamped the rings. Yes.

More like for Andre to not fall through it when he fell asleep. Who else is in the episode on Bubba besides myself? There's Arne Anderson is in the episode. Jerry Briscoe is in the episode. We really wanted nails just to have, you know, that's kind of one of my pet fave, you know, cheesy, cartoony WWF angles. But he, you know, held us up, you know,

for too much money. Couldn't do it. Sorry. Who would have imagined a convict would hold you up? Yeah, exactly. So we couldn't make that happen. But Jacques Riehauds in there

a little bit to talk about the Mountie stuff, you know, the angle there. Al Snow, of course, is in the episode to talk about the later chapters. Yeah, oh, because that's one thing from the, I remember from the sit down is it, I felt like it was disrespectful. to his legacy with what he had achieved in the first

five or six years of his career that then in the 90s he fell victim to the stupid booking of the attitude era regardless of who was responsible for it and is remembered by a certain generation of wrestling fans for some of the worst things they'd ever seen

and some of the goofiest or phoniest things they'd ever seen instead of the talent that he had and the achievements that he achieved before the wrestling business went to shit. I was particularly offended by that. Right. Yeah. And it's interesting because, like, you know, a couple seasons ago, we did that John Tenta episode.

And there's some similarities in terms of, you know, their stories, making a huge impact in WWF during that era, going to WCW, getting lost in the shot. with these kind of, you know, random gimmicks, seemingly never-ending new gimmicks, and then finds their, you know, his way back to WWF, but in the case of, you know, Ray Trailer, he comes back, literally put into the hottest angle in wrestling at that time, of course, with the Steve Austin, Vince McMahon stuff that was going on. He gets the rebrand as sort of the tactical, you know, SWAT team sort of look to the big boss man, which is cool. But then, of course, And then.

All the insane, some of the most insane creative of the attitude era is, involves the big boss man. Who would have thought that, you know? I mean, you know, getting hung in the middle of the ring, hanged in the middle of the ring. Well, I guess it's better to be hung than hanged. Yes. But nevertheless. But so. Yeah.

So, and of course, obviously, the dark side of the ring. title works in this one because Bubba passed way too early. And I've always, again, I've really regretted that because he passed away literally two weeks before the first Midnight Express reunion happened. That's right. Yeah, you mentioned that in the episode, yeah. So we would have all been, because people would have wanted him to be with us, and we would have all been going around and blah, blah, blah.

But nevertheless, that is one of the episodes and another one. is on somebody that I knew at various stages in his career. And one of the great stars in the history of the business and not necessarily a dark side story except it's tragic that he passed away as a shell of the man that he once was because of his disease, Paul Orndorf. And, you know, again, Paul is one of the guys

that one of the the true tough guys in the business, not only that, but a prodigy that I saw him in his first territory was the Memphis territory right after he had trained under Eddie Graham and the guys in Florida. And he was green,

but at the same time, he just looked like such an athlete. And he did just limited shit, but it was, it was believable. And you're the okay. And then by the time that's 1977,

two or three years later, he's to Carolina's working with the top talent in the entire NWA. And he's a world tag team champion and a blah, blah, blah. So he was another guy that just took to the ring and an incredible career that was only

cut short, shorter because of his nerve injuries, his neck injuries. Right. No, yeah, 100%. And with this episode in particular, it was one that we've looked at, I think, doing in previous seasons. And with this one in particular, it wasn't until we spoke with his son Travis, who's fantastic in the episode. And, you know, it may not be obvious at first glance. Yeah, what is the sort of, quote, dark side element to this story? But, you know, Paul, Unfortunately, you know, what was happening at home during his last few years of his life is, you know, he was, he was married, of course, and his wife was just like incredibly negligent to, you know, Paul's declining health. And he was sort of left in this facility without, you know, I mean, he was basically left there with no other next of kin besides his wife to basically bring him home. after, you know, certain treatments have been done. He had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, dementia.

And, you know, his son found out about it, but wasn't on the list in order to check him out of the facility and to bring him home. And that, of course, is when Travis had to post that video of Paul in his current state, which was met with a lot of controversy because a lot of people in the wrestling business did not appreciate that and did not appreciate seeing Paul, you know, a legend of his stature in that state,

you know, one of the toughest guys ever in wrestling. you know, to how he looks now. But that was done out of desperation. It was part of an effort to call attention to what was going on to get him out of there. Correct, correct. And there was a lot of things I didn't understand about the story. Just, you know, I mean, I remember when that video came out, but hearing it from Travis, you know, like in terms of his mother, lots of drugs were involved and a lot of negligence on her part. And so then he was just trying to get Paul out of this facility to bring him.

home to give him, you know, more dignity and to give him, you know, a much nicer, the best possible last chapter he could have of his life, which he was successful in doing, of course, but it was not without, you know, tremendous effort, you know, on his part and, of course, posting that video and so on and so forth. So not just the elements of, you know, what you mentioned, you know, Paul's nerve damage, his career being cut short, that awful moment, you know, when he wrestles that match in WCW was all the way and a stretcher,

which is one of the hardest things ever to watch. Of course, starting the bowling alley and his business partner, you know, you know, pulling some TNA level

shenanigans on him. Yeah, I think all of his finances get destroyed, everything he worked for. I think he had the bowling alley when he was working for me and Spoky Mountain Wrestling.

Yeah. Seems like I remember him talking about it. Yeah. And, you know, he was trying to, trying to do other things because after that initial bout with nerve damage, you know,

he was a smart guy. He knew that he needed things to fall back on. He tried to get into other businesses. But again, as you said, you know, beware. Everybody thinks a wrestling business is so crooked.

But most of the time, the way wrestlers lose their money in business is by getting in some other business. Well, of course. And it's, but it's tragic in a way because, you know, here's somebody,

yeah, professional wrestling career was cut short from an injury. But here he does. He, here he goes. He creates a, he goes straight, so to speak, and, and, uh, gets a business off the ground. And, uh, and, you know, it's kind of a, I think it was like a bowling alley where, you know, it was like a dry bowling alley or something. And it was just like a family friendly location, but everything was great and things were

going super well. But then of course, you know, all the finances behind it are, you know, he's got a crooked partner and literally loses all the money that he worked so hard for in his entire wrestling business and then is forced to go back into wrestling because there's nothing else he can really do at that point. And of course, the rest of the story unfolds from there. But yeah, very dramatic episode. Well, and also, you know, I just, you mentioned the dementia, but I had seen him, gosh, at a fan fest somewhere. I would go to say 2015, 2016, he's was on one of my early podcasts as a guest.

And I, you know, because I had basically, I'd seen him in the 70s and the 80s and the 90s. We'd worked together, we'd in and out so many times. We always got along and he just was friendly as fuck to me. I don't know. Maybe he didn't like everybody. So, as if Paul, you got to come on to podcast. But he had, at that point, he had about with cancer. And what was it?

Was it throat cancer? or yes. Yeah. And he'd lost a lot of weight and his voice was a little raspy, but I said, come on the show. And he said, okay. And we talked on the phone and set up a day. And I called him that day so we could patch him in. Nothing.

Rang, rang, rang. I said, Paul's a man of his word. So I called him the next day. He said, oh, that's when he was starting. He was blaming it on the cancer treatments, but that may have been when the dementia started. I forget stuff, man. He said, I'm going to write. And what he did was he wrote himself a note and taped it to his TV screen.

Wow. So he would remember. And that's when I was like, oh, man, I feel so bad for him. And then, of course, you know, everything escalated. Yeah, I mean, the fact that he sort of, you know, yeah, that he beat throat cancer, just all the things that he's been through, not to mention just where he came from, too, in his childhood, you know. and coming from nothing, you know, being raised on like a chicken coop farm, you know, and making it all the way to the main event, WrestleMania 1, just everything.

Yeah, this episode is definitely a journey. And, again, very emotional. And Travis, his son is, he's an amazing guy and did a hell of a job on the episode with us. And so, yeah, very excited for people to check this one out. Well, additionally, another old, I can't say old, now she'll get hot she'll cuss me out another long-standing cohort of mine we've worked together on and off for many many years i sound like al franklin now missy hyatt is going to be the subject of one of the episodes and i'm just is there a special parental disclaimer on this one again or anything

like that i'm sure some some ribbled stories are told but missy had a long and check career in wrestling also as well. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, she, you know, she definitely helped to revolutionize the role of women in wrestling, you know, but her, her story outside of the ring is, you know, definitely rife with scandal, turmoil, of course, addiction. And it's an, it's an incredibly wild ride this episode. And, you know, we've had her on the show before, and we've interviewed her at length on another subject. I think she was on the Buffett. I think she was on the Bagwell episode and just I remember even back then just hearing just elements of her story and in the types of things that happened to her you know even in her post-wrestling

career when she when she started this sort of adult you know website you know with all the other women of wrestling and how she got again not all of them now wait a minute there was not all of them wasn't all them weren't they all in there were all signed up there okay but but this is kind of a theme for what we're talking about Again, more financial chicanery involved in post-wrest wrestling endeavors. But yeah, this episode, there's just so much, you know, in terms of her career, trying, you know, being so, you know, wanting to be someone to make it in wrestling so much and dedicating herself to it.

And then the industry, of course, turning around and exploiting her and these different things happening. Of course, there was a lawsuit in WCW. and she kind of got shoved out of wrestling there. Her time in WD, her short-lived time in WWF, where she had her own interview segment. Missy's Manor. Missy's Manor that never quite made it to air and all that stuff.

See, they never understood with, Missy was like Tammy, isn't it, Sunny? In it, they didn't understand? Missy was an incredible personality that didn't need to be interviewing other personalities. She was best used when she was the focus, when she was with the guy and she was Missy Hyatt, you know, from the rich family and was spoiled

and throwing the tantrum and she got heat like crazy. But when you, just because she was beautiful when they wanted her to be an announcer or a or a interviewer, just like Sonny was. gorgeous, but they wanted her to sell t-shirts or whatever. You had personalities there that could get over

if you did with them what they were good at and instead, oh, here's a pretty girl, let's let her stand there. But think of it. For the people now, the wrestling fans now who can't imagine this in 1980, what was the

valets in world class? 83, right? That was their biggest year. Forty-three years ago, there were like five attractive women in the entire wrestling industry. And Missy and Sunshine were in, and Precious were in Dallas and maybe, I don't, I don't, actually, I'm being generous now. Who else was anywhere? They kind of started the thing. And there were obviously a few, you know, good-looking women wrestlers, but I'm just saying, that she started that ball rolling with the valets.

And she was the forerunner of Sonny who took it to the next level because you imagine if there had been internet with Missy. She was already the centerfold of every wrestling magazine because she was the only one. So it was she was kind of as influential to females in wrestling as Tiger Mask was to the junior heavyweights. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. In a completely different performative fashion.

Yeah, no, but no, 100%. 100%. And I think, you know, that I think the episode showcases that very well. And then, you know, just getting into, you know, her run with WCW and, you know, things kind of imploding from there. You know, she was photographed during a match where, you know, she had a wardrobe malfunction, essentially. It wasn't necessarily a wardrobe malfunction.

She was just, the wardrobe was outnumbered. Yeah. And that, you know, there was a wrestling photographer there who caught a, who photographed that malfunction, said malfunction. And that was posted in the WCW offices, you know, for everybody to see. And it was very humiliating and it was very traumatic for her. and and and and you know that was just kind of one example of many of in terms of her you know trying to um just basically essentially do her job and um you know being a woman in the industry at that time you know it it yeah it you know she was she was exploited and um you know she fought that case

and then you know every every other step of the way in terms of her career that seemed to be what happened and i was just completely shocked to all the things she endured in her post wrestling career in terms of addiction. I mean, this episode goes very dark in terms of the things that she went through. But the fact that she did persevere and she came out the other side is very inspirational.

But yeah, this is a very dark story. And again, very emotional, but I think one that, you know, I think it's also great to, you know, highlight, you know, her career and also just the lost art of, you know, the wrestling valet. being a valet and getting heat at ringside and that have and people get mad at me when i say boy there's a lot of female wrestlers but if you get one personality and put them with the top

main event level guy and make them a package it can be a heat machine and and you can print money off of it if you get to right people together and people people get mad at me. Oh, you want the women to be subjected to, yeah, being in the main event. And getting paid for being in a main event as to the third fucking match. Nevertheless, Missy Hyatt, another one of the episodes. And here's one. The next episode, or not the next one, but the next one we're going to talk about.

When you first told me that you were doing an episode on this subject, I stared at you like you had a smoking turd hanging out of your mouth. Because I was not aware of the incident that took place, but apparently one of the episodes is on a match on the independent scene between Samoa Joe and Necro Butcher, where apparently Joe just beat the ever-loving teetotal All-American shit out of Necro Butcher. Yeah, pretty much. And can you enlighten me? because it wasn't my week to keep an eye on them at that point,

but enlighten me and the fans as to what the hell went on here between the two of these normally more level-headed individuals. Well, to take one step back, last season we did, we devoted an entire episode just to the Undertaker, Mankind, Hell and Selle. And focusing on just that match and all the interworking, like all the drama leading up to it, all the things that sort of, you know, were supposed to happen, the things that, you know, weren't supposed to happen.

This, you know, and it was, it just proved to be a really fun framework for us to work in, really focusing on one match and that one match sort of being illustrative of, you know, in this case, McFoly, like his, his career and his ethos and his approach to wrestling, his philosophy, so to speak. And this match, which I had seen, you know, many years ago, Necrabutcher, and Samoa Joe, it's just one of those matches or any of the, you know, internet age wrestling fans will remember. I mean, it's just, it's one of the most, it's one of the matches you'd probably put on

and show somebody who's not familiar with any of this stuff and like, can you believe it? You know, because all of the physicality is, like all the punches are connecting at full velocity, you know, the, the amount of times Necrobutcher's skull connects with the concrete on the outside. It's not really a death match per se. It's just a completely full contact insane street brawl, you know. Well, and what what led to the participants to decide that they were just pissed off and going to beat the fuck out of each other? I mean, well, what's interesting is doing the deep dive in this episode is the putting these two guys together in the ring was sort of something that the fans had demanded, if you will, for lack of a better term,

in the sort of early internet message board culture of independent wrestling. This idea of, you know, you have these two guys who are kind of at the top of their game in different disciplines. When you say the early internet culture, kind of like early Cro-Magnan man, go ahead. Yeah. Well, you know, the people on the message boards, of course, were sort of wanting to see this fantasy book of two wrestlers who are kind of that, you know, at the top of their respective disciplines, right?

You had Samoa Joe, who's, you know, tearing it up in Ring of Honor. He's kind of the top wrestler's wrestler. And then you have Neckro butcher on the complete underground, who's the crazy insane death match wrestler, right? And what would it be like if these two guys collided? And one of your favorite... Sort of like a Mick Jagger and Slim Whitman duet. Sure. And, and, you know, your favorite person, Ian Rotten, of course, took advantage of course he did of all of this fervor on the internet and put him together.

And sort of something that was revealing to me in the process of doing this is because I thought there really was heat between Joe and Necro, which we get into the episode. I won't, you know, get into it here just because it's complicated. But he basically masterminded that heat and put it together and create. sort of like some interest in this match and people wanting to see it and I don't know I think it's just kind of like something that was atmospheric in the in it like you know obviously both guys always you know I think Necro and Joe have things to prove and maybe things to prove to one another but I think it was just the spirit of what was in the air that night in the ECW arena the spirit of what was in the air of them just being down with let's fucking go you know and it's crazy and watching the it's just, yeah, it's wild. And so we forensically, you know, went through every beat of the match. And of course, it touches on, you know,

Necro's journey and where he came from. Different fellow. Very different. Interesting person, for sure. And in terms of where he came from, what was what he was trying to prove going into the match, what Joe was trying to prove, the match itself.

And of course, you know, I mean, Necro Butcher's, journey after this, you know, he kind of did have a, he had a moment in ROH. And this kind of, this is what kind of made him, so to speak. And then, yeah, getting into, I mean, the fact that he's still doing this now and still doing crazy. What now? Wait, he's still, now, what? Hello, how old is he now? 50s, I would imagine. Where is he doing this? On the Indies. What Indies? In what state?

Where? You name it. I don't know. He's doing it. Nobody ever hears of any of this anymore, but I can't. Yeah. It's brutal. It's brutal to watch.

Yeah, it's really gnarly. But he does still participate. And of course, you know, he had a major cancer moment that he also beat. And so, yeah, his story is just incredibly dramatic as well. And he was in the wrestler with Mickey Roark, of course, too, which is just crazy. Well, that was 10. Yeah. That was 15 years ago now.

That was a while ago. Yeah. That was a while ago. I didn't think he was still doing it today for him. Oh, yes. Very much. So. But it's a roller coaster ride.

The episode is, is, is, is, uh, it would be fun to see that. So you're, you're saying it after we watch it, we're going to throw up is what you're saying? Possibly. It's pretty gnarly. Well, it's terrible. Well, but nevertheless, speaking of gnarly, uh, two more. episodes and two more things. These are not in my flywheel, but one is on Zach Gowan, the one-legged fellow, the correct one-legged wrestler that Heyman wanted John Laurenitis to sign when he signed

the wrong one. Right. And I mean, I again, which is amazing, by the way. Sorry to interrupt. Well, it's such an incredible story. Yeah. If there's, if there's only two, you got a 50% chance of getting it right, you fuck it up. What in the world? But Zach Gowan, as everybody knows, obviously had tragedy to begin with. And then, you know, parlayed that for a brief period of time into an actual job in a wrestling business. And then kind of that melted down after that. Well, not just the job. I mean, he was inserted into literally from, I mean, complete obscurity and then put at the top of the main event, you know,

picture there at the WWE. I mean, with Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, and then, you know, gets into a main event with Brock Lesnar and Russell's Vince McMahon. You know, it's crazy. But yeah, the Zach Gowan story for us originated. I remember way back we were, I think it was when we were producing maybe the first season of the show.

And that whole period of like the early 2000s, WWE, you know, whatever that was, 2002, 3, 4, whatever it was, that period for me, I was not watching wrestling at a heart. at all at that time. So it's a complete black hole for me. And during the time we were producing the first season, I think we were kind of trying to catch up and watch some of the highlights from that period. And somehow we got into Zach Allen matches and they were just crazy. The match with Brock Lesnar is wild. Just all the stuff that he does to this poor kid, you know? I mean, you know, that's what it appears to be. You know, just, you know, smashing him

into the rain post. Well, in some cases, I think that's what it was. Probably, yeah. And Zach Gowen's mom is in the front row. And, like, you know, Zach gets color and he's just bleeding profusely. And he's just destroying this one-legged kid. And it's just amazing. And then you watch the Vince match. And Vince is like just, I mean, he's working heel in an incredible way in this match. He's literally doing all the, you know, he's working the one leg that he has in this perfect, hilarious way.

He's being Buddy Rogers in his fantasies from when he was a, teenager and Jerry Graham in terms of psychology and beating up a one-legged guy. To Vince, that's the perfect heat, right? For sure. For sure. And it's

amazing to watch back. And I mean, I've made no see. I was never a fan of this whole concept of a one-legged wrestler. I don't know, I may have met Zach Gowan once. It's not like I hate him as a person. Yeah. But I was never

I don't know whether I was more uncomfortable with a one-legged wrestler is visually ridiculous and it's preposterous on the face of it because of what we do that it would be an expose of the business or was I more uncomfortable because it's still a one-legged guy and are we going over the line of taste here when we're kicking a shit out of him. So I don't know which one that I was more or less. you know, leaning toward, but there was one of the two. Well, that's definitely examined somewhat in the episode. So you have, you know, he loses his leg at a young age, right?

Which he gets into, he gets into wrestling and he proves himself that, he gets into, you know, training and the indie circuit, and he proves himself there. He gets a shot at TNA, I think during a dark match. And then right around this time, they want to sign him to that contract, but then he gets the call, you know, from WWE, of course, that whole story. And he gets this run and he gets in there. He gets inserted right at the top, as we mentioned. But with that kind of comes this arrogance, you know, he comes in and, you know, he's in his early 20s. And you can imagine the envy of people in the locker room and who are feeling like, who's this fucking kid. He just shouldn't,

he doesn't deserve this chance, you know. And so there's all that. And making matters worse, he's carrying himself with that sort of arrogance and making a lot of enemies in the back. And but, you know, because he, I think the way that WW looked at him at the time is more of like an attraction, you know, there's probably a limit to, or at least they thought, like a limit to what you can do with someone like this. And because he wasn't really making any friends in the locker room, you know, they basically, all right, that's it. This is all we got for you. And, you know, It was a very short wild ride, roller coaster ride run for him. But then it's like the fall from that, you know, emotionally after you've, you know,

been a star for a short amount of time, you know, you're, you're with Hogan. You're with, you know, Piper. Like I mentioned, all those guys, Brock. And then now, now what can you do? And he falls into a life of addiction really bottoms out, hits rock bottom. Again, you know, he does bounce back and there is a redemptive story there. But again, it's like, yeah, you know, for someone who I believe that there was more to do with Zach's. I think Zach is very talented and I think he does make it work.

And but for them, you know, given where he was at and, you know, I think the way that they produced him and featured him was just, you know, here's a side show attraction. Here's the big question I've got because I thought this when. I was watching him when I first saw him. What is his, I can't say his good leg, that indicates he's got another one. What is his remaining leg? What's his knee joint like these days? Because the use and the wear and the tear of the knee joint of him doing the things that he was doing, to me, I thought it can't last. Right.

Yeah. I'm not sure. Has he had issues? I mean, did he walk? Did he hop in when? whenever you saw him or whatever he does normally. I mean, I don't know what the fuck's going on here. Well, he has a prosthetic leg that he walks around on, but he, he did appear in AEW.

I think last year, was that last year? That's hard to keep track of time these days. I think I may have put it out of my mind. I think he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He........ . But yeah, but I think, you know, for this story, this was the case of like, as I go back to when we were watching his matches, you know, from the early 2000s and being like, this is crazy and insane television and I love it. But it was when we were kind of brainstorming ideas for this season, it was like, what about Zach Gowan? Those matches were so crazy.

Like there has to be a story here. Like there just has to be. And sure enough, you know, when you start making a few phone calls and you talk to Zach, you talk to his mom, some of the people that, you know, He worked with his colleagues, and you really realize, wow, yeah, there is a very dramatic story here that, you know, a dramatic human interest story that is definitely a fit for our show and just something that, you know, without, you know, yeah, picking up the phone, making calls, you wouldn't know, you wouldn't know. I regret that Jim Cornett, the manager, never got to cut promos on Zach Gowan.

Just imagine the people that I could have offended. But, yeah, all right. And we're going to close the season. series out with again a guy that I've known about. I briefly know the story, but not many details. I was in another place at that time. But the attempt to do an ultimate warrior homage in WCW with the fellow that they termed the renegade.

And what was his real name? Because I can't even remember that now. A Rick Wilson. Rick Wilson, that's right. And the renegade was another one of those deals where, you know, you know, Stan Lane worked as a replacement in the Midnight Express and the second Darren did okay, but you could not, you could not remake the ultimate warrior.

Most people didn't understand what got him over to begin with, and they tried to do it with someone else. Yeah. With this particular episode, I remember us looking into this story many years ago when we were doing the Ultimate Warrior episode for Dark Side of the Ring. We thought maybe it could be a side quest in that episode, which there was obviously no room for. But we did start doing some interviews way back then on this subject and found it always to be very compelling. And then it really was this season in earnest that we went in to try and put it together. and we finally got, you know, in touch with people who were a little closer to Rick,

like his ex-wife and, you know, some of his colleagues and things, and that kind of filled in a lot of the blanks with the story. But, yeah, essentially the story is it's reminiscent to me somewhat. Obviously, there's very different characteristics here, but last season's Muhammad Hassan story in the idea of like, here's somebody that always dreamed of being in the wrestling spotlight, being a wrestling superstar, and finally makes it somewhat to the big leagues,

but then is cast in this almost impossible role or this impossible situation. You know, but what are you going to do? You're not going to say yes to the spot that you're going to be put in, because here again is another story where somebody kind of plucked from obscurity and is put right into the main event picture

alongside Hulk Hogan, just like Zach Owen, and has that amazing opportunity, but it's just sort of like a, It's a it's it's it's it's a lose lose situation because they're obviously trying to make a bootleg version of the ultimate warrior called the renegade. They're making all of these they're having all these promos on WCW television teasing, you know, the ultimate, you know, this ultimate surprise that Hulk Hogan has. And here he comes out and it's very clearly not him. And, you know, there is a little excitement in the beginning. But then that, that, that, you know, very soon after, you know, wears off. And for those who don't know, you know, Rick's story ends in really unbelievable tragedy as he takes his own life and really sort of spiraled his whole life and, you know, spiraled completely out of control after he was essentially, you know, let go from WCW.

But one of the things I didn't realize, and I'd never seen this footage before, is I think, I don't know, a few months to a year into his run in WCW in the mid-90s, when they disliked. decide to end the sort of Ultimate Warrior Renegade gimmick because he kind of he would go on and have other versions I guess of the Renegade but the way that they killed off the Renegade character, this sort of Ultimate Warrior version is Jimmy Hart. I don't know if you've ever seen this. I'm completely in a dark. Okay. Jimmy Hart basically after the Renegade loses the match, he wipes off Rick Wilson's makeup on

his face and starts screaming at him saying, you're not. nothing, you're nothing. You're not the, you're not the renegade. You're just Rick. You're just Rick. And it's like the most like, emasculating, humiliating destruction of a person I've ever seen during a wrestling program. And it has to be poor Jimmy Hart, they tell, because obviously that Jimmy is the nicest

human being that ever walked the earth and would not do anything he wasn't told to do like that. So they get poor Jimmy, poo, poo. Yeah, you're just Rick, baby. Drive the guy. guy to suicide. It's, it's some of the,

just, it's so dark, that footage. It's amazing. It's like, wow, oh my God. And so,

anyway, so, yeah, so for us, it was like, I don't know, this was just a complete discovery story.

And just the further we went with it, and in terms of the people that we, that we spoke with, it's, yeah, it's,

like we, we talked to this guy who was one of, of who knew Rick coming up into the industry because before he was a wrestler, he was, and I'll quote Arne Anderson. This is, I guess, what he calls them, but Rick Wilson was a dick dancer before he was a wrestler. Named Rio Lord of the Jungle, and that was his character's name in that industry. And yeah, and I was shocked that he even appeared alongside the Ultimate Warrior in one of

early wrestling appearances. I think the warrior did some sort of indie appearance in the 90s and they billed Rick as sort of his brother or something. And he came out and that's that's how I think either Jimmy Hart saw him or somebody saw him at that time and was like, oh, he could work for this. If we can't really get the warrior, then this will, this will this will this will work. Yeah, but yeah, but like as I said, you know, the story gets really into his post wrestling life. And it takes a very dark and disturbing turn, you know, as he sort of falls into, you know, again, lots of addiction problems. And then there's a domestic situation that erupts with his partner at the time.

And, yeah, he winds up taking his own life. And it's just, yeah, it's a really grisly story. But sort of, I'm glad. We can't wait to see it, Evan. It just sounds so incredibly. No, I know. but it's hard to not, you know, it's just, it is, but it's a very dark story, but it's a chapter of, you know, wrestling history that, you know, people have been wanting us to tell the story for a

very long time. And I'm really glad that we, you know, that we did to at least shine a light on Rick as a person, you know, because I think for the most part, I think people will get a sense of who he was as a person. It's, and his legacy, if you will, is not just reduced down to this, like, you know, bad idea, you know, so it does humanize him in a way, and I'm glad for that. And I, more than ever, and I'll say this. in closing more than ever, you see where the wrestlers or male or female, they have self-confidence issues and self-doubt and depression and anxiety and all this stuff. And I'm saying, Jesus Christ, it wasn't that way back in my day, but I think it depends on the person. It depends on the

person and whatever else they have going on and however else they've been forward. because you've got guys, you mentioned Muhammad Hassan, Mark Kapani. He gets the break of a lifetime and the gimmick to do what he always wanted and they fucked him and the network canceled him. But he ended up going back into school and becoming a responsible member of the community.

Imagine that for a wrestler. And having this long career in education, etc. or other people can't handle not being a star anymore. And I think that what it comes down to sometimes is, you know, people say, well, everybody should have the opportunity to live their dream. Sometimes people just shouldn't be in fucking show business. Yeah, or it's, you know, coming into the wrestling business, it's like, you know, yes, like, I mean, I don't know, could anybody have made the renegade work?

I don't think so. No, no, no, but he didn't, you know, he could have said, well, I will, I will live to fight another day. It doesn't have to, you know, just be the beginning of the downhill slide, right? It's hard to say. I mean, it really seems like they did a number on them kind of, so I don't know. But see for yourselves and see what you think. Well, we will see for ourselves. Again, it's season seven of Dark Side of the Ring.

Thank you, Evan Husty, for being here and going over all of these things. Obviously, as they air, we will be talking about them here on the program. And they begin 9 o'clock Eastern, Vice TV, Tuesday, July 7th, with a two-hour premiere on TNA through the eyes of Jeff Jarrett and an assorted cast of henchmen. Evan, parting thoughts or comments? No, I'm just, I mean, I can't believe we're here. still going at the show at season seven it's just it's amazing i feel you know super humble and that that we've been able to continue to do this um it's been awesome you know it's uh it's you know next year

will be my 10 years 10 years working on this show uh good lord which is wild but we just thanks to everybody who tunes in and is still interested and um you know um and and and thanks to vice for you know still believing in us and you know a lot of us to make the show. It's been amazing. So, yeah, that's, that's, thank you. Well, thank you. The humble and lovable Evan Husney, Dark Side of the Ring, coming to Vice TV, and we will be right back. Well, Jim, there it is your discussion, your annual discussion with Evan Husney from Dark Side of the Ring. And of course, you could hear previous conversations that Jim and Evan has had on the show on the official Jim Cornett YouTube channel. And, of course, as we mentioned,

various times throughout the interview, season seven, Dark Side of the Ring, 9 o'clock, Tuesday, July 7th is the debut and continuing on for the next number of weeks. And we will continue on for the next number of weeks at least. We can't quit. We're booked on this program, but we will be back with a big announcement on the drive-through this week as well as the normal

shenanigans, falter all foolishness and frivolity, for all. And then next week on the experience. And if you, if you miss us, go to the YouTube channel and go to sleep to the sound of our voice. And until then, Brian, it's been a wonderful show. Thank you very little. You're welcome even less. Thank you. Fuck you. And bye, everybody.