Jim Cornette Experience - Episode 639: It's The Fans' Fault

Episode Date: June 23, 2026

This week on the Experience, Jim reviews Gunther vs. Cody Rhodes with Sami Zayn as referee on Smackdown, and talks about TNA's releases & developmental deal with OVW, world champion schedules from July 1984, and more! Plus Jim reviews AEW Dynamite, and Dave Meltzer blaming the fans for AEW's bad episode! Thanks to our episode sponsors: RIDGE:  Upgrade your wallet today! Get 10% Off @Ridge with code JCE at https://www.Ridge.com/JCE #Ridgepod HELIX:  Go to helixsleep.com/jce for 20% off sitewide and bigger discounts on Luxe and Elite Mattresses DRAFTKINGS CASINO:  Download the DraftKings Casino app and sign up with code JCE to claim your Flex Spins and experience Cashingo—the feature you can’t play anywhere else! 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. My dogs are more over than AEW's dogs. TNA may need a developmental program for their developmental program. We're going to look at when the world champions defended their belts more than once a month and more. And all this is being joined by Hawaiian Brian the Pondon.

Podcasting Lion the King of the Arcadian Vanguard Podcast Network, Mr. Co-host to you, if he does a bad show, it's your fault. Last, everybody. Aloha, Jim, a pleasure to be here once again. Packed show. You hear that? The little chirping, yeah, I hear that. Yeah, that's because my boys are wrestling.

They're wrestling already, they're weeks old, and they're already pro wrestlers, Brian. Buddy and Alfie, Nature Boy, Buddy Cornett, and Alfred Pudensworth. Cornette, the twin devils, the brothers of destruction. We announced their arrival on a drive-through a few days ago. And now while Stacey is at a doctor's appointment with her mother, they are here in the office with me in the playpen, wrestling their little hearts out. Sounds like they're eating Bertie Sanders. They wrestle and they bark and their little munchkin voices and they do cross.

bodies, they do frog splashes. Alfie's a heck of a grappler. But Buddy is the high flyer. Hey, quiet down over there, you heathens. Sounds like my old chair. Well, but they're more fun to sit next to. So anyway,

they are up here with us and I apologize if anybody is disturbed by the sounds of frolicking dogs. You're going to have to apologize every clip we put up because it sounds like there's just some sort of little animal mutilation happening behind you. Well, they'll quit.

They'll quit because then they sit down and they start chewing and they chew their chew stick or they chew anything within reach. They chew and chew and chew. Their little beavers is what they are. But they get their chew stick and they don't have separate ones. They work from different ends of the same one. And already, I think this is the,

now they've gone back to chewing on their playpen. This is the rest period in between falls. but on the playpen yeah they like to chew on the playpen they like we got them 50 different dog toys and their favorite things to chew on are the play pin and any kind of they figured out how to unroll my toilet paper in the bathroom they love they love toilet paper and paper towels when you try to pick up after their little accidents but they're they're getting better with that already they know to go on on they just sometimes they mistake like area rugs for pads so it's it's a learning process but we had

them to their vet their first vet vet vet visit there you go with us uh this past week where they got some more of their little shots they got all checked out again and they're just coming along swimmingly and i got to tell you i sound like jack benny now i got i got to tell you I've plugged them before, you know, back when, you know, Harley was sick, but the Middletown Animal Clinic on Main Street, Dr. Kohler, Laura at the desk of the Chelsea, the whole staff, they loved Harley Quinn. And so we couldn't wait to take the boys in and introduce them. And I didn't know this, but we just heard a story.

Yes, I'm talking about you now. people are going to say oh cornets gone soft well fuck you I've always been soft and I'll kill anybody that says I'm not anyway they told us a story

when when Harley passed away and we did the show and I mentioned the clinic they didn't know Brian that I was some kind of quasi celebrity

all these years they just well there's Mr. Mrs. Corneth, the nice people with that beautiful little Pomeranian. They didn't know that people actually know for good or bad who I am and what's going on with me. So after the show aired where we talked about Harley, they just out of the blue started getting bouquets of flowers being delivered and sympathy cards and condolence Reese. And even they got a couple of checks as donations for the clinic in honor of of Harley Quinn and they're like, what the fuck is going on?

I mean, they love animals and they have to perform services sometimes like that, but they don't normally get like, you know, the outpouring of sympathy from people across the country for their patients. So then they kind of looked me up and figured out what the heck was happening. And actually, one of the texts that is there, Chelsea, her father, is a big wrestling fan. So I've now gotten over with her father and made her, gotten her over as well

because she, she knows me and my little poochies. Are you still awake? This is a great story. And of course, if you mentioned this story at the Pizza Place in Blue Springs, Missouri, I believe it was. You get free extra ice for your Coke. Well, I've got an update from, over, from Jim Russell over at the Pizza Place in Blue Springs.

talk about him in a second. That's fine. Anyway, so that's the update on the kids, and I apologize if they're in the background doing their little thing. They're resting now. They got a lot of exuberance and exuberism. I want to thank my old friend Jeff Katz,

an old Tony Rumble disciple from years ago. He's a big time radio personality now and has been for years and years over in Richmond, Virginia. and he had me on news radio WRVA yesterday to talk about the sale of heroes and friends and what we're doing this month for the Crusade for Children. He had heard, I sent him a copy of the book, and naturally he loved it because he's a discerning man of excellent taste. But he had me on to spread the word over there,

even though Richmond, Virginia, technically out of the WHAS Crusade for Children and area of dominant influence, as they say, in the television of radio industry. Jeff's daughter is special needs, and he's done a bunch of stuff for kids over in that part of the country, and he heard what we were doing with the sales from Heroes and Friends this month at Jim Cornett.com. If you order a copy of Heroes and Friends, it's $25.

It can be autographed as well, which just straps a rocket to the resale bag. value right there. And all the proceeds are going to the WHS Crusade for Children. The telethon was a couple of weeks ago. They raised $6.2 million, but they take money all year round. And it's a wonderful cause. You can check it out at WHAs crusade.org.

But anyway, we are, Hotchkiss is reported back in. And we're coming up on 200 copies since we have started this fundraising effort. so we appreciate everybody that is down. You can buy all kinds of stuff at Jim Cornett.com. It doesn't just have to be the book, but that's probably the place where you will, you will at least know your money has gone to a good cause instead of just feeding me.

But anyway, thank you, Jeff, news radio, WRVA. And until the end of June, heroes and friends, money to the crusade, $25 bucks a pop at Jim Cornett.com. We get commercialism out of the way here. I've got to also watch out. Now you're going to like this, Brian. I can't pound on my desk for my vehement fervor anymore because that perks them up too.

And they're like, what's going on? Somebody trying to break in, we're going to kill them. You know, the big bangs weren't the problem. It's when it would build up with like a, like it would sometimes just start building up like a Native American war dance was about to break. And then it would be like, bam, ma'am, come on, what do you do? I would start vibrating, and it would start out low, and then it would continue to grow.

Well, I'll try to watch out on that. It's like an entire Buddy Rich album in 30 seconds. Well, you know, and hey, boy, didn't he have a wonderful set of chompers? Oh, my God. What a set of teeth on, were those real? No. Could that be real on a man? No.

Did he just come from the time when dentistry was not as advanced as, as they are to and he had like, dentures carved out of a cherry tree? That was excellent dentistry in Brighton Beach in the 40s. Who knew that George Washington was chopping down that cherry tree so he could make him a set of fucking teeth? Little eight-year-old toothless lion motherfucker out there.

All righty. What's the matter with you? Well, he had to lie. He didn't want to, what could he say to his father? well if you had taken me to a goddamn dentist if you had a job that provided a proper medical plan for myself and mom and you know Martha

whoever the fuck his mother was I guess Martha was his wife did Martha have teeth? The first lady of the country for the first lady to give a gum job okay now so we got that going for it's disgusting they have relatives

they have family Jim they have family you ought to say they all they didn't have any teeth either and you know if you think That's disgusting. You ought to smell George Washington's cherry tree wooden teeth breath. Anyway, yeah, that's right, buddy. Buddy's even disgusted by that.

I got email from the listeners. Alex from Stockton, California. And I wanted to recognize him because his dad passed away last year and his mom has issues with her health. And, you know, he's just, again, you know, listening to, he did get, he did get, barked at. He did get married last year, so see the tragedies just keep on coming. But he's listed to the program to take his mind off of things. And he asked if the dogs will

ever stop barking. Is that a slide whistle? What was that? That's a little. That sounded like a slide whistle. That wasn't a dog. It's their little bark. It's so cute. I'm telling you, I'm never going to get out of this predicament here. Alex asked if I had any stories about wrestling in Stockton, California, and the answer is no. I don't know. Except did we establish,

if I've ever been in Stockton, California, it would have been for a WWF TV taping in the 90s. And was I going, was it Stockton that I was going to, or was I passing through when I had the car wreck, when I was supposed to, co-host Raw that night. And I've told that story before when the fucking

18-wheeler pit maneuvered me on the god in the rain on the highway in Oakland. But was it Stockton? I can't remember those Northern California towns because to be honest, I worked in so few of them and was

only like at each of them once. San Francisco I was in several times, but I think San Jose and Stockton and some other towns out there. It was only because of WWF TVs and I don't really, I'm not well versed in that part of it.

But if we need to talk about Northern California geography, we can talk to Uncle Dave, right? Because he's got his head in a map or somewhere. Remember years ago we said like as a kid, he would like ride his bike from the house like all the way downtown like to the arena and like people figure it out like it was just some little kid riding his bike through the city. Yeah. And his mom said to his dad one time, said, should we let him ride his bike all that way he may get lost?

And his dad said, well, we can hope. All right. See, now you know, Dave's parents did move around a lot when he was a kid. We, you know, we've, they moved like five or six times, but he found him every time. So anyway, Brody. Once again. Brody. Maroudi from Belkamp, Maryland,

has been listening to the shows and enjoys our work, especially when he had to work overnights. And he just, he mentioned that he had to lose his wonderful Sheltie of 13 years. And both the shows got him through some long nights there. At least now he's on the day shift. So he's got that.

going for him, but we wanted to send our condolences to Brody. Hey, can I mention, and as well, guess. Can I mention an email without going too deep into this? Last time we talked about CM Punk rumors on the show, the person who tweeted it out, the J-Cup, there was a number attached to it, and I don't remember what it was offhand, but Jacob will call him. Jacob number so. He got in touch, and he actually sent a pretty thorough and respectful email explaining

what he was doing, and it seems to be, for him at least, not necessarily the people obsessed with CM Punk elsewhere, but it seemed that it's less about CM Punk and more about he feels there's a hypocrisy in wrestling media and that actively stories are being suppressed specifically about TKO and WWE and, I guess more specifically, about pay cuts amongst talent. So we'll see if.

anything else ever comes out, but that was his point of view. And I thought we should at least give that. Who is the suppressors? Is it, does he, is he thinking that it's the TKO Empire trying to suppress, or is it these hypocritical, did he say, they take a hypocrite oath, the wrestling journalists, are the journalists, as they do everything else to themselves, are they suppressing themselves because they want to suck up to and get in good with the, uh, the, the, the megalopolis over there.

I don't know. I don't know. And maybe we'll hear more and maybe more will come out. I don't know. But. Well, J-Cup number so-and-so. Get back to us on that and name these suppressors because we will oppressors every time we get the opportunity. Yeah, we're not suppressing anything. We hear about it. We go on the air. We make jokes about it right away.

I think people have figured out that we don't suppress anything. Not even our fucking worst instincts. but sometimes we just don't talk about shit because either it'll make me mad and I don't feel like it or I don't know that it's happening and don't particularly give a shit to find out. But yes, there's that. And oh, where was I? Vincent from, where the fuck is he?

I don't know where Vincent is from. He's got an Italian last name, but that could be anywhere. He lost his 14-year-old Australian sheepdog, Isidore. On June the 14th, the same day that we got Buddy and Alfie. So here is the circle of life. And we were able to help Vincent, as he said, you know, listen to the show and get his mind off what happened to him. And now, and at the same day, we had our blessed event.

So Vincent, we're sorry to hear about Izzy. But these things come back around. And I want to say one more thing. and we're going to get off of the animal kingdom. But people a while back, and you remember, Brian, I didn't really say this out loud to you, but we stopped doing the Reggie's Corners. And for the newer listeners,

that was where we kind of jokingly named a segment where we would recognize the furry friends of, sometimes scaly friends, of the listeners that they'd lost. And I didn't really just have, ever say I'm not going to do this anymore, but when Harley had gotten sick. And as I realized that it probably, I didn't know when, but it wasn't going to end positively, I was doing the show to take my mind off of that by talking to you guys.

And it was a double reverse fucking whammy. It was coming back at me. I was putting my mind on something while I was trying to. do something that took my mind off something. So now that my mind is back on something else, we might do something in memory of Harley, such as Harley's Corner, because we don't want to leave our furry friends behind

without a fight and without being recognized. You know what I mean, Brian? I know what you mean, Jelly Bean. You know what you mean, Jelly Bean? Well, now we get. to what's this fellow's name this poor soul

oh Jim Russell I'll call him I'll give his his whole given name because he is the owner of the pizza place capital V THE the pizza place

out there and I'll give the address 1711 South Route 11 Blue Springs Missouri or you can go to the pizza place KC.com where I haven't yet, but try it out. If it's dangerous, let me know. But you could probably see the menu and everything.

But Jim Russell actually, what, his question was about Sting and the trademark and whether Sting the singer ever stung Sting, right? That was the question. And by the way, we heard from a number of people who said the answer is that Sting the wrestler trademarked it first, even though he took it years after Sting

and become a worldwide famous musician. and he licenses it back to the musician's sting for $1 a year. Oh, my God, but the fucking... How in the world? When did the police get hot? What was 79, 80? 709. Maybe 78, depending on, 79.

Well, whatever. The point being, Sting didn't even get that name until late 85. How the fuck did an international, god-dain? I'm, as buddy Landel would say, a international yacht broker from Toulon, France, a big time rock and roll star making millions and trillions of dollars like Sting, not think to trademark his name before some flunky bodybuilder, rookie pro wrestler.

And with all due respect to our Stinger, I love him, I'm not, but it just, what, that doesn't seem like it makes sense. Flunky, no good, Do respect to that no good sack. No, but that's the other thing, too. Sting, the musician went solo in, what, 85? So, I mean, it's a whole new thing. He's away from the police.

At that point, no one said, hey, do you own the rights to your name? The record company, the goddamn somebody doing any kind of... I guess they didn't do endorsements in those days. Maybe a sting could have endorsed horrors. Roxanne, you can call one eight hundred. blow me.

Why would she call that number? Wouldn't a customer be the one calling the number? Well, no, the Roxanne is to get the people's attention. And then you can call 1-800 blow me for Roxanne. If you want her to show me. Well, I don't know what the fuck. But the point is, it's ridiculous that that happened. It's ridiculous that that happened.

I agree. Yes. That Sting, Rassland Sting, trademarked before Rockin' Sting, but nevertheless that's apparently what what they've got worked out amongst themselves it was very what do you think let me ask you this Steve Borden Sting said okay this is Sting this is the rock star he's the

guy to police he had the name first I would just somehow this happened so of course I will lease it to him for a dollar a year or whatever the fuck right how much you think it would have cost old rocker stinger if Paul Heyman had trademarked that godd. Well, look at it the other way. How much do you think it would have cost the wrestler sting if the musician had

licensed at first and would he even have been able to call him some? Well, no, it wouldn't have cost a wrestler sting anything because he wouldn't have fucking acknowledged it. But I'm just, if, if Hayman had done that, the police would have been playing half time at ECW barely legal on pay-per-view. That's what I'm like, what the fuck?

Anyway, they might have blown a fuse in the ECW arena. Back to, back to the pizza place. Scott Cornish years ago, the late great Scott Cornish, always brought up,

I think Sting was like one of his least favorite wrestlers. And he said like the name wasn't original, even his catchphrase. Now we have to see if we trademark this. It's showtime. Like, that's not even his. he got that from what,

Batman or whatever. And then like his other catchphrase his other catchphrase was which, you know, he didn't invent a woo either. That hurt me. He could talk to Johnny Weissmuller about that one,

but it's showtime was a goddamn, what the fuck, the Joe, yes, Joker did it, but oh, God damn it. Who am I thinking? it was it a comedy movie was it Jim Kerry was it some odd thing he did? Oh you're talking about the mask years

later when all of a sudden Kevin Nash and several people started adopting things from the mask yeah yeah but that was first wasn't the mask before no Batman was 89 oh okay well see all this recent stuff you know it's happened so recently that I keep

confusing it now can we go back to the fucking pizza I'm getting hungry I wanted to read the email from Mr. Russell here because what we did was when we were answering that question and we talked about his pizza place, we made some kind of offer. I can't remember exactly how that it happened, but you said something about maybe, well, they ought to, you know, if you say that you heard this mention, they'll give you a free Coke.

And I said, fuck it, they'll give you a free pizza, something like that, right? In case of future litigation, I don't want to commit to anything. Oh, you won't answer the question. That was the past. I'm not here to talk about the past. Well, there was something in a jocular joking way is what we did. We kind of did that. We made up a deal they didn't have and threw it out there.

Yeah, we made up a deal they didn't have and told people to go get free shit. He says, you know, in episode 447 of the drive-thru, you answered a question I had about staying in trademarks. You were then very kind in mentioning my restaurant and location. Thank you again. As we are a mom-and-pop location, this was very, very good. cool to hear. You then offered up a free Coke if they mentioned the show. Corny then up to a free pizza. Nobody told me. Imagine my surprise when people called and referenced this as I had not yet listened to the latest podcast. Of course I honored any request as it was cool for wrestling fans

to call in and visit due to your mention. Thank you for that as you did not have to do it, but it was very nice. Now, who do I send the bill to? Jim Russell of the pizza place in Blue Springs, Missouri. And he offers to feed us if we're ever in the Kansas City area. But if we were in the Kansas City area, we would have already lost our appetites. But nevertheless,

unfortunately, we're not there, but in lieu of us being there, he is a great deal right now where anyone who comes in and mentions the show gets a free oven-baked cookie. Well, and actually, you can, also sit down and have a nice pizza and a cookie and and have a personal conversation with him because now he's a nationally known star. But here's the thing, Jim, I hate to tell you, but I found one loophole. See, you know, when I found out what the cost of your pizzas and everything were that you gave away for free,

I deducted that from our current advertising rates for mentioning your place and some, specificity not once but twice now. So at our current rates, you owe us about 11 grand. But we're going to wipe that off the balance sheet. We're going to give it to you for nothing. It's easy to forget that kind of thing when this is the kind of guy we're talking about who gives the listeners free cenotose dippers. That's the kind of guy we're talking about.

Well, we gave him a free plug. The pizza place. My kind of place. He's got it firmly up his ass right now. plug that we gave him. Let's be nice. Let's be nice. All righty.

Well, speaking of people that have stuck stuff up their sphincter, are you, I want to just stagger and stutter here a little while. How long is it that I have to not go without cussing before we can put this on YouTube without the annoying bleep, bleep, bleep, because then that just throws everybody. And I don't want the dogs to get woke up, my little puppies that are sleeping in their pen right now. Are they sleeping? But, oh, yeah, now they

wrestled and now they're in nap time. And they'll get up and become Tasmanian devils again and then they'll go to their respective corners and, or sometimes they'll take a nap curled up next to each other where they look like two little woolly worms. They look like tribbles from

Star Trek, actually, to be honest. And possibly we're going to find out they cause as much trouble as the trouble with tribles. You're in the clear now. I'm in the clear. Okay, thank you. Why don't you just go ahead and fuck yourself up the ass rather than TNA,

now trying to get a development deal, a developmental deal with OVW or Ohio Valley Wrestling at this stage and state of the game is their developmental program? Why don't you just go out and find a homeless person on the street with snot running down their nose, and greasy fingers covering their shabby clothes and make him your commissioner. And again, there's two reasons that I've traditionally not cut horrible promos on OVW and the state of it today, one of which I didn't want people of, oh, Cornyette, he's upset because it used to be his now. He's not. Well, that horse has already left the barn.

That was long ago and far away. but secondly out of respect for what Danny Davis accomplished and set up and etc but when you see what they've done look what they've done to my business when you see what they've done recently and I'm not talking even about the the brain damaging of the referee and that whole kerfuffle it went on a while back I'm just talking about that. a shit shape of the show. And it's just, it's a, it's a community

theater thing now on cable access and everybody's having fun and I'm not knocking any of the people involved because there's no reason to. It is, but they're just trying hard and living a dream while they actually have regular lives.

But to people that have made this thing, some kind of Ponzi scheme. Money pit, the investors, and we've gone through the financial end of it, where Danny Davis sold a company to Al Snow and a local fellow here who had some money and thought that they were going to carry on,

you know, kind of what he had established and he retired. That was almost 10 years ago. And since then, its ownership has changed and changed and changed and the mayor Craig Greenberg of Louisville before he got elected mayor. They probably could have brought this up in the campaign. He was an investor,

and we know the chiropractor or the fucking orthodontist, I don't know what that guy was, and those Kentucky sports radio people, and then they get accredited as a trade school for fuck's sake. and then now they're bought by a soccer team owner in West Fabersham, Wales. And as they exist now here, TNA plans to make them a developmental program. I don't know what Al Snow's ownership stake or even involvement is at this point.

Possibly someone in TNA is doing Al Snow a favor. But I will say two things here, Brian, then I will open. up the floor to your comments. If you are currently in the professional wrestling industry as a promotion, as a promoter or a producer of a television program that's widely distributed of any kind, any letters, any initials, and you can watch the state of the OVW television show and it's accompanying roster of everybody involved before

and in front of and behind the scenes and think that they need to be training anybody to come on your show. You're out of your fucking mind. And I will say the other thing is if people think I'm being too harsh, I'll get them some free publicity. Watch any

recent television broadcast of anything that OVW has done and from a standpoint of the technical production, the crowd reaction, the athletic and or verbal performances in the ring and the announcing of same, tell me if you ever want to watch that shit again.

So I don't know what the fuck's going on here. What do you think? I mean, I think it's a big bunch of nothing. they had a developmental deal with ovbw years ago and you could argue that ovbw then was stronger than it is now and it certainly wasn't then what it had been before and now look at it and you can certainly say at the same time at that point t and a hadn't necessarily been way but you know what i'm saying

it was it was both a meeting of the downhill slides the idea of wwe and a ewe needing developmental is legit TNA doesn't need developmental. TNA is a joke. I've been saying it for years. I've been consistent. It's a joke. And we'll talk about other things happening there right now.

But you can't take it seriously as a wrestling company. You can enjoy the show if you like that kind of shit. Because Impacts another awful show. Maybe that's why they're working together. But it's a bad show. And it just the same shit keeps happening. and it's the same people. You bring up Al Snow.

Al Snow was a very talented wrestler once people discovered him. Had a great year of 95 in Smoky Mountain was the best heel in wrestling when he was there. And he clearly is skilled when it comes to teaching people had to get accustomed to a wrestling ring. He's a good trainer. Al Snow, much like some other people who have recently left some booking positions,

has never ever exhibited any understanding of how to book or put together a show. And that's the nicest way I could say that because I'd like to be a lot harsher, but I want to not just go overboard. He can't, like the show is bad, and it's because it comes from the top. We do so much blaming the current generation

for when they get to decide and dictate what they're going to do or it's justified this kind of stuff by Tony, let's say. Al loved the modern stuff. And when he at one point had a finger in the booking of AW, of OVW long ago when I was still involved with the company, at least I was not involved with WWE anymore, but I was still a part owner and I was selling sponsorships locally and blah, blah, blah. That's what made me flip out and had to quit.

and fucking sell my piece back to Danny was the stuff that Al Snow was booking with the modern shit, the alleged comedic shit and just the shit. And that was back, but here's what I'm saying to you, though, and I'm not even talking about the booking is not the issue here. Even the, whether Al Snow has a mind for putting together wrestling programming and promoting wrestling as much as he does for training people how to wrestle and wrestling himself is not the point either. The point is that I joked about cable access,

this program legitimately, I don't know, could get on cable access, except now you can get something on everything. They're in the, on the lowest profile. broadcast station in town that can still claim to be a television station multiple times because the ion network locally, whatever the fuck that still is these days. But it's just, it's no. TNA right now is a bad wrestling program because there's a lot of stupid, goofy, booking and people who think there's funny and everybody's, all the things. things that you just mentioned that we talk about. But there are there is talent there that could

do something somewhere else. And I'm talking about anybody from wrestlers to announcers to camera people or editors, whatever, in that company. I have looked a number of times at what OVW is currently doing. And I can find no evidence that any of these people in or out of wrestling doing what they're doing now would be an asset to any other goddamn company that's why I'm what the fuck is happening here that's my I again considering the state of TNA let me ask you this if they announced this deal considering its TNA and considering its modern OVW how much money would really be at play even in this deal is there any money exchanging hands I don't I can and imagine it well, but again, remember?

What was the guy? The guy that had seizures on the wrestler's documentary on OVW on Netflix, that he was the owner then when he was losing, what a $200 grand a year or whatever? And I'm like, what the fuck is happening? It didn't cost $200 grand to run the whole goddamn thing. And he had, what was your point now that I've laughed and lost it? What question did you just ask me?

I had a question. Is it, it was any money? changing hands. Yeah, what kind of deal is this? At this point, is it a barter deal for because I said, who would invest money in this? Who would put that much money in this

that is obviously not going to generate money back? And the same thing, because we'll talk about in a minute, TNA is firing people, releasing people in order to be more I don't have the

press release in front of me with the flowery language, but fiscally responsible and eliminate and not wasting fraud, but, you know, if we're looking to be leaner and meaner, what it is is, God damn, we can't spend as much money. We need to get rid of a few people. But so, I mean, are they going to send these guys down here and say, okay, they're yours, advertise them, but who are they going to send? and what good is it going to be to advertise with a OVW at this point

literally runs almost no shows where you actually have to buy a ticket. They're at festivals in Germantown every once in a while, but they don't have an arena event where you actually have to go and buy a ticket except the TV tapings on Thursdays and I'm not sure.

Look at there is, do they charge for tickets these days for TV. Is that why there's only like 120 people sitting there when I look at it? Did I just order you to do something and not tell you even what you're supposed to be looking at? You asked me to do something in a very rude way, but it was very interesting. So I am curious. I'm looking at...

OV Wrestling.com. Let's give them plenty of plugs. If anybody wants to check it out. We have tickets available right now for OVW. Rise. Thursday, July 2nd, 2026, 545 to 930 p.m. Jesus, Christ, 545. I used to see, I was, I was working with, with,

doors open 545. Well, no, doors don't even open. At 545, I was just getting the non-contract guys rolling in from their day job where I could start giving them the finish. We didn't open our doors until 7 o'clock. Because see, here, this is like a two or three-hour television. and extravaganza that they broadcast on the side of a barn. But go ahead and charge for tickets.

Well, first of all, did they change the name? It's now the Hot Point Davis Arena. Well, yeah, because, well, I don't know for sure. I'm not involved in their day-to-day financial negotiations, but they're right down the road from Appliance Park. And that's a big manufacturing plant. I'm wondering if they got a sponsorship from the hot point of like stoves. and refrigerators, it used to be.

What is hot point now? I don't know, but doors open 545, overdrive filming at 6 p.m. and rise filming at 7 p.m. Bad Lord. Burnt motor at 8.30. Here are ticket prices. I will, well, they're all kind of the same.

Rampside seating A and rampside seating B are about $15.90 a ticket. Wow! $15 and a 90 cent fee. And as the breakdown here for those filing on their taxes. Filing on their taxes, you can take off those ticketing fees for your, but ramp side.

It's a, it's a fucking warehouse. It's an 8,000 square foot warehouse. The arena part, minus the backstage, probably 6,500 square feet. can't remember from the plans, which Daddy Davis drew up and I saw before they were built, so I'm not lying here.

We could seat 500 at first, then 450 when the fire department complained, and then back to 500 when we could get away with standing room after we'd been there a while. That was with the setup that we have. I've seen it. They've changed it around. They've eliminated seating. They've got the hard camera in a completely different angle. and they basically did it because that way they only have to shoot two sides of the building

because they've got people on only two sides and all those ain't full. So it's not rampside means the fucking play where they walk out through one of two entrances that are 30 feet apart and it's still on the fucking floor. Go ahead. Well, here's a question for you and I don't know if you would know the answer, but for instance, if I go to rampside seating A, $15 and $90 a ticket, then I go to buy a ticket, I have the option of everything from zero to 11.

And if I go to rampside seating B, I could buy anything from zero to 15. Does that mean that's how many tickets are available in each section? Premium seating A, 14 tickets. Yes, because that's how many people they can fit on one side of the fucking walkway or the other. And that's... And I mentioned premium seating. Premium seating A and B, both $15.90 a ticket.

General admission for which there are 25 available tickets as a present. $10 and $60 a ticket. $10 with a 60 cents fee. And finally, kids ate and under, free when paired with a paid adult and with a general admission ticket. Well, that's lovely. but and that's also it's a grim reaction from most people

of most things that I've seen from the people that are sitting there and it's I think it's an element of friends and family that there always was some of that in our crowd but it was mixed in with the actual fans that came to scream and nuts to go crazy and nuts

your OVW never felt trashy well but anyway I'll say say this, here's what we did and here's people are going to say, well, God damn, you know what they did? They let them in free. And you know what we did? We let them in free. But the reason why we let them in free is because at that point, this was what, 20, 25 years ago, 24. Yeah, 24 years ago. This had never been done before. The people had owned the warehouse worship. Wait a minute, an actual public event where they're going to have people coming in,

they're going to be shooting television, what the fuck. And the area technically wasn't zoned for where you could charge admission. Or there was some statute or whatever. So we said, but we can't have people in here, as long as the fire department don't complain. Well, then we had too many people that our debut, there were 1,500 people for a 500-seat building, and there was competing fire districts.

arguing about the situation. The baby-faced fire people at McMahon that we used to work with and the other, and nevertheless, so we moved the urinal two feet to the right in the bathroom and took some seats out. But we would let them in free, but we would turn people away every week and they would spend money we would do. If TV taping tickets were, because we used to charge in Indiana $5, this is 30 years ago.

same thing as 10 now. If TV taping tickets and we could seat 500 people, if it was $5,000, we'd do $2,500, right? So that's why we tricked out the concession stand with pizza and drinks, etc. We got the pizza donated from the sponsors in the whole nine yards, and we did $2,500 to $3,000 every week on pizza and concessions from having to 500 people in there.

Thank you very much. Danny Davis. He's the fucking wizard. But anyway. Jim, on the topic of TNA, you brought up earlier that there have been other changes. I have a press release here. This was sent out by TNA, June 17, 2026 for immediate release. Anthem Sports Update. TNA wrestling today announced a workforce reduction designed to

streamline operations and sharpen strategic focus and That's the one I liked. Sharpening strategic focus. You're fired. And profitability. TNA's creative leadership team will see an immediate shift. Tommy Dreamer. Get the fuck out now.

Who has worked in TNA's creative and talent relation departments is leaving the company as T&A and Dreamer mutually agreed to part ways. T&A wrestling has also come to terms on the release of Tessa Blanchard. We wish Tessa, Tommy, and others the best in their

and others. I've never seen that in this kind of thing. And by the way, there should be a comma, but and others. Yeah, well, we'll get to the other in a minute. The best in their future endeavors. Oh, that's such a smarmy, douchebaggy way of saying something. Just don't say anything unless you're going to say, look, we fired these people and here's why, because they don't know what they're fucking doing or because we can't afford it or because they

piss somebody off or whatever the case. Or just don't make a public goddamn announcement about it and embarrass everybody. first of all, Tessa, let's deal with this first because this was a actually she quit. I have a quote from Tessa if you want to hear it. Well, and that's what I'm going to say is that she asked for her release from a contract that they had her on and they weren't trying to get rid of her. But she has loyalty to the other promotion of Mexico, CMLL, and now the T&A, working with WWE, well, they got AAA and that means FU to CMLL. So she said, boy howdy, how times have changed in the American wrestling business.

If there had been somebody that was working simultaneously in America on a promotion with a TV show was seen nationwide and in Mexico, and they had to give one of them up, it would have been the bye-bye Mexico 100 times out of 100 and now she said they'll fuck it T&A I'm going back to Mexico

so she said release me and let me love again well the quote from Tessa I'm not exactly sure what it's from it's in Spanish it's her

god damn television show I believe in Mexico she speaks English well it's from a television show in Mexico here's the translation I want to sort things out

and set the record straight today. Here, I have a life, and I feel very happy. The U.S. company, which is TNA, asked me, Tessa, you need to decide whether you're a CMLL wrestler or a TNA wrestler. I took my time to think it over with my dad, whom I trust very much. My life is here. I'm not just another foreigner.

I'm the most Mexican gringa. there you go and and gets her over as a baby face because the people go, well, yes, she chose us. And at the same time, you know, if she's, she lives there, she's a regular there, she's obviously being used well. And if Tully is saying, hey, stick with this. It's a lot better job than TNA. Yes, again, it's about the choice. She's not being told it's NXT or CMLL. or WWE or CMLL, TNA is a level below NXT, which says where OVW is. But that's who's saying it.

So in what world would someone who, like she said, has a life in Mexico, but beyond that, can make money in Mexico in front of what every wrestler who works there tells you Arena, Mexico's the greatest environment to wrestling right now, versus wrestling small shows for TNA, who were getting smaller and smaller, it seems like, which I don't know if that's to get ready for a sale or what it is,

but they're clearly under the thumb. People get mad when I say this, and they keep proving it, under the thumb of WWE right now is TNA. So why would she? In what world would a Tessa Blanchard say, I'll choose you guys? And also, there's an element of not only is she home there because she lives there now, but technically she's the next state over from home because she's from Texas.

And, you know, it just makes sense if she's happy there, she's wrestling regularly. She was already getting paid well before this thing came up and, et cetera. I wouldn't uproot myself on the theory of, oh, if I get over in TNA, then maybe WWE will send me to NXT. And then by the time that I would have bettered my situation, this wouldn't be a lateral move or potentially a downward move. She's five more years older. And it's like, what the fuck?

Well, that's Tesla Blanche. Tommy Dreamer, who was mentioned in that press release, I'll tell you everything I was saying before, but Al Snow was a Booker, you could apply that to Tommy Dreamer times 10. I think, unfortunately, there's a lot of guys who rode in the car with Paul Heyman, who, because, He was nice to them because they drove him around. They don't realize they didn't pick up any of that booking sense or any of the,

just anything via osmosis from him. And I don't think Tommy Dreamer should ever be involved in creative. And that's just from seeing his stuff in the past. Starting in UVW, I think. Let me say this. I've never had a crossword with Tommy Dreamer. And Tommy Dreamer loves the wrestling business. And Tommy Dreamer loves being, he's kind of got the quality.

of the McFolies or the fucking, you know, just guys like that that love being around the business and love being involved in the business. And he's always tried to help the younger guys and he's worked hard and in his career, he overachieved probably, as he would probably be the one to recognize, not built like Lex Lugar or, you know,

possessed of some kind of outrageous nature boy Rick Flair Gimmy but still he he had a career where he was a star and I have not really except for a few fan fans I've seen Tommy in 15 years it may be longer than that so it's not like I've sat down and had multiple conversations with him where I discussed his philosophy on wrestling and his approach and how it had compared to Eddie grams or whatever but he was the one that they sent down when when old Johnny laryngitis took time out

from helping the chairman shit on people's heads to fuck with me at OVW he had suspended me for six weeks one time but before he fired me he suspended me for telling old seven that if I ever saw him

fucking wear a baseball cap on a match again I was going to cave his head in with a baseball bat you can't say that I said, well, he can't wear that. So he gave me six weeks off with pay. But they sent Dreamer down to book the show. And while I was trying to sit at home and engage in trying not to be burnt out mentally and wanting to murder these people for the constant aggravation,

I figured, oh, God, I told Daddy Davis, just don't let him fuck it up too bad, right? I'm not even going to pay attention. and then Danny call me, well, he's what? He started a mystery. Where's Cornett? Nobody knows where Cornett is because I told Danny, does it just relay the message that they can say that Jim Cornett is, I can't even remember what,

some innocuous business thing is on a tour of the West, Tour of the West Coast scouting for new talent for the program, whatever, right? he started a fucking mystery and everybody was coming, where's Cordette and calling attention to it? And I come back after five weeks to book the sixth week TV

and Dreamers already left town gone back and I said, well, what's the goddamn finish? Where was I? And they said, well, Dreamers said you could just figure it out when you got back. I was going, what the fuck?

It was like writing a murder mystery and getting all the way to the last chapter and you've never had the idea of who was the murderer was to begin with. So I just came out and said there was goddamn people trying to undermine me in the WWF offices in Stanford, Connecticut. And on the advice of my legal counsel, I stayed off the air until I was able to speak about it and prove who had been spreading horrible words about me or whatever the fucking and we went into a goddamn thing. But yeah, he did, no, it's just, he loves the, you know, the gimmick matches and the

furniture and the things that the kids liked 20 years ago and that the Mark kids still like today, the marks I'm talking about that are in the business. And no, I, no. So that Tessa quit. They specifically said Tommy Dreamer, you need to go away. And then others. And the other who they didn't mention his day

was the little fat wardhog, Sammy Callahan. Apparently they at one point made him their champion. Good God. But what was the heat so bad? there that they wouldn't even mention his name or did they just not give a shit about him anymore? He was like the professor and Marianne on season one again.

And the rest I don't know. Or fired off Gilligan. I'm not exactly sure. I don't know too much about it. I don't know if I've ever actually seen this guy wrestle. I've just seen the name. Holy Christ. I guess it says something.

Tessa. I've seen. him, Reslop? I'm seeing him wrestle, seen him get fired. But, you know, they felt all right announcing Tessa and Dreamer. They didn't announce him, he was, and others. I believe there's other office staff also that have left the company now. And there's rumors about Brian James,

Brian Armstrong being brought in to run creative. I guess currently the head of creative is Hunter Johnston, Delirious, who has been there for a while, I think. What do you, what do you think about that? And does it tell you anything more about the WWTNA relationship and the realities of it if the road dog is all of a sudden a head of creative? Well, but hold on now.

And I haven't talked to Delirious in ages and not like there's no heat. I won't talk to that guy, but just, you know, he immer. He's like me. He immerses himself in the booking and he's doing that and I'm here. And we have stayed in contact and emailed or whatever every so often. but he I always thought that Hunter was the best balance

that I've seen in modern wrestling of tolerating and even encouraging the new fangled stuff and knowing how to talk to the new boys while at the same the new generation while at the same time having some

not just some but having a good grip on wrestling logic and how to get people over and how to make the shit makes sense from show to show and month to month and etc. And

obviously as we've talked about, I don't know what anybody individually has been doing over there and what the creative situation is, but anytime you have a creative committee you don't have a booker. You don't have a fucking vision of a guy. You have a bunch of stuff being

thrown in and who knows who has final say if Dreamer was, I guess, If the head of creative is up in the air, assumingly, that was Dreamer. If he's gone, it's now open. But I would think of anybody that I've heard so far, Delirious is a keeper. And he obsesses over this shit and he's a workaholic, thinkaholic like that. I know I spent what, a couple of years working with him. With who, did you say someone else was on?

Did you mention another creative name? There's a rumor that. this is all to set up the road dog Brian James. Well, no, but I mean, was there somebody else that's currently, who else is currently on the fucking thing? I didn't mention another name, just Hunter. Okay, well, so if it's, then in that case, point is, if here comes Road Dog,

he's a member of the Armstrong family, regardless of what he may have developed an affinity for over the last 20 years, he knows fucking wrestling, he knows wrestling logic. and I think that maybe those two, if it was just them, would probably get along better, work better together, get more accomplished than three or four or five other people that all had completely different views of fucking wrestling and their different favorite

people and their different shit they want to do and they're always fucking, griping at each other if you had road dog that could give the really veteran viewpoint of the thing and from a major league television level but at the same time you've got

Hunter who can still talk to the younger generation and he was one of them he was the one in the middle of the one today and and Brian's so you've got to have people that can work together and just do something that resembles a coherent whole. It's like if one or one people or two people can write a book

and work together or make a movie. But when you get five or six of them, you just end up with a goddamn mess. So let's see what they might be able to do. But for my, if I could probably get along well with Brian in a booking room. And Hunter and I got along better than anybody. I've got along with since Danny Davis. So hopefully they could get together on things.

To my other question, then we can move on. If the former head of SmackDown's writing team and a triple-H friend ends up as the head writer, the head of creative for TNA, what does that tell you about the relationship? I don't know if it tells me much about the relationship as much as Brian may say, well, goddamn, just because I quit that fucking madhouse, I still would like to have a job. might need to, you know, have a little income. And would this be less stress or more time at home? And if so, then he might take it.

But I guess the bigger question is where the job comes from. Do you think this is a WWE thing? We'd like you to hire him. We'd like him to have this job. Well, no, I'm thinking that maybe, I mean, just call me crazy. But in the old days, old days being up until, you know, modern times few years ago, if somebody who had done something at a high level

left that place and was available, then they would be booked somehow. They'd be booked as a wrestler, or they'd be booked to do signings. Well, here's a guy that's been on WWE creative. T&A works with them. Probably some of the fucking folks in TNA know Brian. And they might say, well, fuck, he didn't want to deal with all that shit anymore over there.

But over here, it'd be fun for him. And they pitched to Carlos Santana, whoever the fucking boss is over there. Hey, what about Brian Armstrong? He has worked with the WWE. It doesn't have to come through the office. Or maybe Triple H felt bad. Well, I love the guy. He's one of my friends, but we drove him out of his fucking mouth.

so it'd probably be more fun for him over there or he could spend more time with his family. It's not like a conspiracy. And TNA is not like a wrestling company. That's the TNA business new TNA changes. Chit, chit, chit, chich changes. Well, you should turn and face them, Brian, and I'll tell you what else you ought to do.

You ought to recognize that at the end of the day, it's all about when you lay your head down on a pillow and you rest your weary bones at night, you want to have happiness. You want to have happiness in your life. All the stress, all these high stress jobs and all these pains in your ass. You don't want a pain in the ass or a pain in the back or a pain in the neck. And if you don't want any of those pains, you know what you ought to be sleeping on, don't you? A helic sleep mattress, I'll have you know and I'll tell you what.

That's right. because his mama cornet would say oh boy you know she had a slipped disc and slept on the floor downstairs on a sleeping bag for about three years on a hard flat surface to cure her back pain and that's the only thing that did it and now if she had if he had sleep had been around then

why she could have slept up in a bed like everybody else regular folks instead of being down there in the floor. Because they've got all kinds. Go ahead. I was going to say they used to be a good record shop in Valley Streams, slip disc records. Oh, I thought you meant sleeping on the floor. No, slip disc.

Oh, well, your discs are going to be turning like goddamn buzz saws on the Helix sleep mattresses because they're not going to slip at all. Because Helix makes mattresses for people with back pain or for people that like to sleep on their stomach or their side or people who sweat at night, they'll cool you down. Or people that get the jimmy legs, and it's the whole bed and the whole mattresses shaking like a dog shit and peach seeds. They'll make mattresses to calm everything down.

They've got over 20 mattress models. So you can find the perfect one for you if you want something hard and firm, but still with a little padding, unlike my mother's sleeping bag. Or if you want something so soft, It's just like jumping into a giant cloud, a marshmallow, a puppy's belly, where you'll be enveloped in warmth and cuteness. And then they'll just wad you up like a Kleenex in this mattress and just throw you out the window, never even know you're there.

Not going to happen. Anything that you want. Anything you want. You got it at helixleep.com. And right now, I'll have you know that the 4th of July. sale is in effect, Brian. And that means that not only is everything you always get with Helix sleep, the seamless returns and exchanges so you don't get bound up and all that red tape, the happy with

helix guarantee that offers the risk-free customer-first experience and free shipping. Now, for the 4th of July sale until July 6th, you're going to get 20% percent. off sitewide with the code helixleep.com slash jCE but wait there's more 20% off sidewide 25% off of the lux mattresses the l uxe luxe which is short for luxurious and you actually you get an accent much like terry thomas at a 60s comedy when you lay on it it's luxurious and third 30% off all the elite mattresses. Those are the big boys, the highfalutin stuff that'll make you sleep like the governor or a senator or even a goddamn movie star because they're elite. And that's so 20 to 30% off depending on what you're buying.

How could you go wrong at helixleep.com slash JCE? Even you, bright, bright as it, have you had any more kids lately? They got the kids mattresses too. Do you need any more of those? I'd always love to have more. It's wonderful having a big family. Oh, I thought you meant mattresses. I read, you need more mattresses.

And everyone needs a bed, yes, of course. 20 to 30% off now. Do you have the same kids you've got before, right? But they're sleeping on the same mattress? I know these things last forever, but just for the sake of supporting our sponsors, I think you ought to get a new set. I think that's a great idea.

Make them, make them like, get a, get two mattresses for each kid. You can put one under and one on top, make them like a kid ice cream sandwich. Now there's where we get to the bad ideas that we shouldn't repeat out loud. We should keep in our heads. And of course, ladies and gentlemen, well, I didn't mean to put them in the freezer, though. Just make them a little children sandwich. Well, that would keep them from wandering around late at night where they could hurt themselves. That's not how that works.

Keep an eye on where they are, prevent wandering. Those poor puppies. Oh, come on now. I don't put the mattress on top of them. They're as a matter of fact as I look in the pen now. They've both burrowed up under their little bed and the bed is on top of them. Maybe one day we could dream, we could aspire to be in a country in a land that makes high-quality dog mattresses. But until we get there, Jim, Helix sleep for you and me, loved in this house, loved in yours, a great deal for the listeners. Well, and we got the kids' mattress for the puppies.

We just were waiting because we don't want them to pee on it because then, you know, we'd have to send it back and Helix wouldn't like that. Helixleep.com slash JCE, 20% off sidewide, 25% off the Lux mattresses, 30% off the elite. You can get something off anything. So get off on Helix sleep mattress. Helixleep.com slash JCE.

Helix sleep. all right well now we've talked about one or two minor league wrestling promotions let's go to a third um a e w dynamite for wed june 17th and again and people said oh cornet said he wanted to watch the show and then he was talking about the show for the past few weeks get the picture i'm trying to find out and have been for the past several weeks what they're going to do with MJF and Osprey to get them into a main event position for this fucking stadium show. And that's why what I've been concentrating on, but then this past Wednesday after I saw what they did to them on this program,

you said, but did you see the so-and-so? Or did you see the such and such? And I'm all right, we've got a couple of things that we've got to acknowledge here. And this, we're going to talk about it here in a few minutes when we get the Uncle Dave side of the story of exactly what to blame for this show going to shit. But the crowd, it was like they held a gun to these people and said, go inside and watch this. We've got your family. a couple of times they got a little but otherwise it was

and it's not a surprise because they talked them to death with these boring contrived convoluted artistic renderings of monologues that these fucking amateur actor studio dropouts keep trying to do

instead of just giving them some reason to like people not like people and then make them fight. It's got to be there. This was the worst I've seen for the promos that started slow, slowed down, people tuned out, zoned out, they didn't care. And it killed a whole goddamn show. At one point, they had a wide shot from up high.

So you could see all the people there. It was a nice crowd. Look good on TV. but it was like they were watching a movie. When they did this shot, everything was still, like everyone was watching a screen. No one was jumping up, no one was breathing, no one was moving, no one was doing anything. And the arena looks like a little bit, a little bit larger version of a movie theater anyway. They're coming out where the screen is, there's the ring, and then it even look like exit lights,

so you can see people going to the popcorn stand. Why do a wide shot if the crowd is, still. They were still. And I think there were a couple problems. Sometimes you run into, I'm sure you have, a bad crowd. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it's just not the right crowd for what you're doing. And then sometimes the chickens come home to roost. The booking is uninspiring and uninspired. The AEW fans believe that the hot matches are the key, and they'll even try to justify the promo skills and the booking and everything else there. It was so bad this week.

I asked you to watch some stuff on this because I told you, I said, don't even watch the matches. Because no one gave a fuck about the matches anyway. But every time someone got on the mic, they somehow made it worse. They somehow took this crowd and just made everything worse. And it was a sorry, sorry, sad episode. episode of Dynamite this week. It's a sad, sad

situation, and it's getting more and more absurd. All right, well, they started the show off, believe it or not, with a promo, but backstage, MJF with the entire, at least the entire

uninjured in-town members of the Don Phallis family, and they were going to choose his teammates because they've had the brilliant idea. of the 12-man tag more on this in a minute. But they're standing in a stairwell in the building with an echo.

I know they're running smaller buildings, but is this the only place in that structure they could get 12 guys? What? When they do that, it's so minor league. I mean, I've done it in Rig of Honor when we shot with VHS cameras or OVW or Smoggy Mountain. but this production has a budget. Do you need to be in a stairwell with an echo?

Do you need to fly in all the members of the Cowus family who never wrestle on dynamite? Well, they might have been picked. See, you never know. Fly in El Clown, just in case. But of course, and poor Cowfeltcher, it looks, they've got his head completely shaved now, And there's a whole thing, and he's trying to look tough with the condescending expression.

He's holding his head. He looks like a 40-year-old truck driver. Looks like Doug Basham did when they shaved his head on me in OVW. So MJF does the promo. He knocks swerve and Osprey. He blows off Andrade because they've got that thing going that Andre don't want anything to do with him. He wants a title match with him. MJF cut a promo on Mark Briscoe and finally had Don reveal

the team. And it's Kevin Knight, Cal Feltcher, Jake Doyle, oh, boring for some reason, and Andrade, of course, because then Andre can get pissed and then Don tells him, do it, you'll get your title match later, Andre's dressed like a cab driver. But the deal is they're having

not just a 12-man tag team match at the paper view in a cage, but they're having the 12-man tag team match tonight on this TV show and then bringing it back next week in a cage on the pay-per-view. And that's like me telling you, Brian, okay, I'm going to cook you a steak dinner with all of the sides and the trimmings, and it's absolutely free. Go ahead and eat the whole goddamn thing. And you do. And I said, was it good?

Yeah, it's great. Good. Now I'm going to make you another one. I'm going to change the salad dressing. I'm going to charge you $50. You're like, well, I think I'm good. What? And the reason apparently why they're going to have the cage match that they've already

booked and already announced before this is because even in the match that they have, which we will talk about soon. It wasn't a no-d-kue match or no-any-thing match. It was just a match, 12-man tag match. And they just fought all over the building and everywhere. And on the stage and on the ramp and at the ringside and the crowd, and did-b-d-d-d-d-bye-d-d-da-bye. So now they can say, well, now they're in a cage.

They won't be able to do all that. Well, what the fuck else are they going to do now? We've seen them do 20 minutes of every goddamn. thing. Now we're going to fucking put them all in cage in the same fucking place. And they could do what. It used to be that you would have a regular match and the finish is where you would spill out of the crowd,

spill out of the crowd, out of the ring, whatever, necessitating a cage match so that they couldn't escape or get it or whatever. Not we'll book the cage match. Then we'll have them wrestle first and get out of control. So next week they'll be a cage. You do, how did you know they were going to? So, and then, because it's going to be unintelligible, Brian, if we go through this show in chronological order, because they keep coming back to this shit, should we, should we talk

about the other part of the 12 man and the 12 man now and then go back to the other thing? Because the whole goddamn thing didn't make any sense. I think we should go in order because that exemplifies actually more of the crazy. All right, well, people keep notes. This is a big time of year. Every year, the build-up to Forbidden Door produces the worst wrestling television by a major promotion of the year.

Every year it exposes all the problems with Tony's booking, the lack of booking, the lack of structure like a traditional wrestling television show in America, too much of a focus on matches, the introduction of people who have never been there before, but you're somehow supposed to understand what the hell's happening every year. This is the big... A guy comes out here a little while, folks, that we've read his name on the interwebs,

but he's never actually been on a show, to my knowledge, and he comes out and the heels or the baby faces are trying to insult him, and they wonder why the people don't care. You know, who the fuck even is? Why do you care what they say about him? All right, well, the point is,

they set that 12-man tag match up and there's more on that later to come. I'm glad you watched a lot of this episode of Dynamite. This was one of the worst episodes of Dynamite ever, I think. Well, just now keep a grip on. They're going to have a 12-man tag match with, and they're going to add a stipulation to this 12-man tonight before they get to the 12-man with the same people in the cage on the paper views. Keep that down in your mind.

Put that over, as my Medicare consultant said, put that over in your column A over there, where we're going to do that. And then here came Kenny. And they give Kenny a squash match. He's been there since the start. A squash match is going to do nothing at this point for Kenny. But when they fucking bring new guys in that ought to make a splash,

they go 20 minutes with Jack and Jill. All right, anyway, Kenny, beats poor Tony Nice, and then he tries to talk. But before he even speaks, music plays. And here comes TMDK, Zach Saber Jr., Mikey Nichols, and I thought he was a movie director from the 60s. Mike Nichols. This is his son then, the younger one, Mikey. No relation. Mikey Nichols and bad dude Tito. Brad, you've read this name to us before. I didn't have any visual representation,

but does he live up to the name? Does he pass the name test, in your opinion? Oh, I'm not the one who came up with the name test. I feel like this is the evaluation from you. That's the one we need. I haven't seen him do anything bad yet, but he didn't have much chance. But Sabre looks like the delinquent kid

in an 80s John. Hughes movie. What the fuck? Again, just unimidating and frail. And then the other two are complete unknowns like a rolling stone. And so Kenny, from there's three of them, he gets out of the ring and starts to leave, but as he gets to the entranceway and they get in the ring, here come the buckaroos and jungle jackoff. And they stand next to Kenny, and Excalibur says now they've evened the odds.

He can't fucking count. Now there's three heels and four baby faces. Why did Jack come out? He wasn't necessary, as usual. So now the four baby faces face down to three heels. So Zach Saber kicks the microphone over to Kenny. So Kenny can talk. and he reveals,

well, look, everybody, it's TMDK, and everybody, and even makes a joke out of how nobody knows that and they don't even know what it stands for. But then,

I don't know why that they keep letting this fucking goober speak. It's a parody at this point. Nobody, really, this is the way I understand how he kind of really sounds, but you cannot believe that anybody, especially

a big-time professional wrestling star, really speaks like this in this milk-soppish, douchebaggy, breathy, unfunny, nerdy, unintimidating, unaggressive, weird way. and nobody said to the crowd didn't say anything, the heels didn't say anything, nobody said, and then he did the, I'm going to kiss you and bang you and say goodnight to you. And he's even, he's winding up like this is some kind of big goddamn finish that he's going into it.

He says, and now say it with me if you know it, everyone, and nobody said it with him. Your thoughts. these are the big stars, the big EVPs and friends of AEW, and the lack of reaction to all this was telling, even if it was complete strangers who came out there to get involved in his angle. Sabre Jr.'s been on the show a few times, usually probably around Forbidden Door,

and maybe the other event they do in Antonio Anoki's name. And he didn't look any, at least he had clothes on this time, so we couldn't see that he's as fucking translucent and pale as a slu. a deli turkey. But these fans who sat there and didn't make any noise, it seemed like most of the night, didn't seem

either they didn't know who these guys were or they just did not care about this and they certainly didn't react to Omega and the Bucks, like they were anything special. Jack Perry's. You look at him next to the Bucks and he's tiny. Couldn't punch his weight of a wet paper bag. What's he

going to do out there? Well, you know, you you brought up an interesting point. Maybe Excalibur was right. The odds were even, four of them versus the three, but the three heels, except for bad dude. The other two is pretty minute also. But bad dude could have, but they did nothing.

So we don't know how bad dude is, but he's Tito. So speaking of unknown individuals, would you like to move on to the next segment? Because this, again, they get David Finley, he's got a pedigree, right? and they get old Chuck Connors and they are working hard. They're two young, small guys,

but they're working hard and I'm giving them that. And I'm not going to shit all over them for their effort. And it's just that nobody gives a shit because they showed up and they've been in and out and just part of the groups and not really pushed or focused on. but they're coming through guerrilla and see that's the thing they're presented like they're already over they're presented like you would present talent at a promotion when you've already done the had the establishment period and you've brought them in and they've gotten a string of

wins and they've gotten involved with some top talent and they're recognized now and then you would do these things with them Tony skips all that because he thinks everybody's his goddamn OCD, a fucking minute wrestling fan as he is and knows the details of everybody. And that's a common stumbling block for Mark

bookers who run indie shows, which is what we're dealing with here. So old Chuck Connors and David Fennelly are in a guerrilla position about to come out, but suddenly Edge and Christian are just they're disguised as crew people in the dark.

And they jump them and they fight into the arena. And by extension, right into the ring because it's not far away. And the fans were briefly excited, Brian, did you detect that? It was like a goddamn spike on the fucking audio level meter. Unexpected moment of excitement, yes. And suddenly they, you know, and then. The kind of excitement you need to be talked down from. Yes, well, and that's, they got them up, and as soon as the heels bumped into the ring, they got bumped out of the ring.

And then Edge and Christian got the microphone and cut the promo and that immediately brought the tensions down considerably. Because Christian did, he did a mother joke. He said, well, they named their team after their mother, mothers, the dogs. and then he said that since Finley's father was a famous wrestler or whatever, a legend, he should have let David run down the inside of his leg. No, if you're going to do jokes, number one, they should be funny, not just, this is the equivalent of ECW style shit, indie style shit, let's break a lot of furniture because we don't know what we're doing. when you can't come up with something that's both funny and lewd and a double entendre

or something to where you could get it by on TV or at least you're not just coming out there and saying, you know what, I fuck mothers. There's no, there's no art to that. What is his, I don't understand what his gimmick is that he, he can be edgy, but it needs to be, it needs to be good material. And then Edge was a little more classy and sounded like a goddamn college professor as he explained why this rivalry is even happening to begin with. And the analogy that he drew is that the dogs think that their edge and Christian from 30 years ago.

Because we got in the ring with the vets like the APA and whoever else they mentioned, we thought we'd do it all, but we had a learning curve. Well, we're your learning curve, doggies. We picked up intangibles from them. My God, it sounds like they're training to be certified public accountants instead of starting to have a fucking fight. We picked up intangibles from them, and we're going to use our old man's strength on you dogs

and you'll leave housebroken pups. That wasn't bad. And nobody gave a shit. Almost complete silence most the way through this thing, because they don't care about the insults, number one, when they're not that particularly good, but number two, as I said earlier in the program, when nobody knows who is being insulted

or has a feeling of them one way or the other strongly personally, why do you give a fuck when they're insulted and especially if the line's not funny? Go ahead. Yeah, this segment was pretty bad. Yeah, I was going to say before, you know, you brought up the audience being pretty, non-reactive, pretty quiet for this.

No, they pop for the mention of the tag teams from 30 years ago, or 25 years ago. That got a nice reaction, some of the biggest pops of the night. The APA getting pops on other companies' wrestling shows in 2026. But, uh... This was not good, man. Tell me the last time there's been anything good with fucking Copeland or Christian. Either one of them.

The Christian promos are so... Cringy is not even the word anymore, because you think he's past it, he keeps going back to it, it just somehow makes it worse. It looks to me like that Tony gives them a framework for the matches that they're going to have that he wants them to follow,

and then just lets them fill in, okay, now figure out a reason why to do all of this and just make up interviews and shit on your own that sell, and that's why it's from one week to the next. and it's either a long dramatic soliloquy that one or both members of the opposing sides are fucking given on any of this stuff, not just edging Christian,

or it's, as we'll see later on, when they give this goddamn long-winded interview where they went back and they got everything they ever did and then they try to make sense out of why they'd be mad at each other now out of that. they're retrofitting all and they have to call back to all this shit

and it just goes on and on it's convoluted it's complicated it is gibberish doesn't make you want to see more of any of these people but that was that segment I will say this fecla is the best girl promo

in a business it seems natural to her as she's got the oomph She did like a 45 second backstage thing talking about somebody. I don't care. I'm just, I like her personality and delivery and attitude.

I agree. Again, that's like being a nice guy in prison, but she's a good promo. I agree. And then they brought in another unheard of Japanese young lady to face Mercedes in the Owen Hart tournament female division

goddamn if i if owen was still here all the ribs he could do to all these people in all these matches if he was around they got 25 minutes for this didn't they brian was or did my clock just stop no was mercedes's match so so ugly it stopped my clock it went a while and although the crowd kind of got a little lively towards the end you know the crowd treated this the way they did everything else it just it went a long while well and then we get to finally will osprey what's he going to have to say for himself this week i'm thinking what are they going to do to start making him look like goddamn a world beater instead of an idiot that's following orders from the heels that hurt him so tony shivani

introduces him and out he comes and i'm thinking okay here's your channel let's burn this down. Let's start talking about the drive and determination that you have and that you've come back from a career ending injury. The doctors said, I may not ever wrestle again. I shouldn't wrestle again, but I'm not going to give up my dream. And my dream is going to be to win the World Heavyweight Championship at Wembley Stadium in my home country and a blah, blah, blah, and a rah, rah, and a cyst boom by, right? Well, he said, first of, Tony announced he got married last week. Now, that used to be a thing that you would have never, not only have asked the baby face to talk about, but you would have ever allowed to be set on television because they did, for the same

reason as the pop stars, they didn't want the fucking, and the TV stars at any celebrities. They didn't want the fans to know they were married because that meant they were unavailable. so the wrestlers would go to great lengths, the baby faces, to hide that they were married. But now that nobody wants to fuck any of these people, it doesn't matter. But then Osprey, the bright-cheeked young baby face, said, yeah, the wife said,

I should be on my honeymoon, but the wife said we could go to Hawaii anytime, brov. She said, go follow your daughter. dream. So I took her upstairs and smashed the life out of her. And then I said, clean yourself up. I got to go to Houston. What the fuck in the whole? So the baby face announces he's getting married following, announcing that he has fucked the life out of his wife, left her covered in splooge and made her wipe herself up. What audience is this for? And the wife is someone on this show It's not like some mystery woman

You're supposed to think about Now every time you see you're just going to have to figure of her Yeah, is she going to come out covered And fucking like goddamn Baby lotion to simulate spludge from now on He thought this was going to get a big baby face reaction And instead the fans of Houston are outside of Houston Sat there and looked at him like you poor boy

What's wrong with you? Well, and the thing he laughed at his own joke and then strutted. So the point is, here's a guy that we've said, needs more help being a big baby face, especially since he's letting Moxley and the rest of the heel group,

push him the fuck around like a punk. So now he comes out, announces he got married, makes sexist comments about his wife that aren't funny and then laughs at his own joke and struts over it. What a dick,

just an annoying dick. Like an Eddie, of asshole heel dick and Eddie Haskell type of dick. No, Eddie Haskell wasn't a moron. He seems to be a moron. Well, he was funny. He had his shit together. Maybe it would lumpy.

Well, nevertheless, we'll find a different analogy. But after he finished the comedic part of the program, they introduced Swerve and Nana. And Nana comes out and insults Tony's suit, which that's a manager, Stan. by and then kicks him out of the ring. Tell him, okay, we got this. And he goes. What would the reaction have been, I wonder, Brian, if at a clash of champions, if I came out for a live interview in the ring and told Jim Ross, okay, you take off, Jim,

I got this, just fuck off. Well, we're not going to do that, pal. Let me ask these guys something. Yeah, he would just completely go back to what he was going to do. Yeah. Because the announcer doesn't do what the talent takes. tells them to do. Anyway, then Swerve and Osprey got into the scripted, meaningful dialogue

where they tried to express their fake animosity in a clever way. As I talked about before, contrived, convoluted, complicated, let's figure out everything, all the interactions we've done, and then, okay, well, I could say you didn't help me there, and that's why I should be mad at you, and where were you with this happen? and they reverse engineer and retrofit their promo to make sense for why they should be mad now based on the interactions they've had in the past rather than having the interactions they've had in the past actually lead to this point.

But it doesn't matter because they're both allegedly still, isn't swerve still a baby face? Did he turn heel? Which side of the fence is he on now? I think he turned heel. Didn't he try to kill Kenny? That was a while ago. Was it? He was just...

Or did he kill him again? Because it was... Well, it's so hard to keep track, but nevertheless. So the point is they tried to gin up the reason why that they're pissed at each other. And Swerve is saying, well, because Swerve's talking like a baby face, because he's a man, you've changed. Because you're listening to the death riders. And then Swerve brings up that the death riders are the ones that snapped.

Osprey's neck, allegedly, and that's the reason he had to have this surgery and defied death and returned. And Osprey has to say, well, I've forgiven the death riders, but I've had to put it behind me because the training's working out great. But when they tried to snap my neck, you didn't try to help me. What if he's madder at the guy that didn't try to help him than the guys who actually tried to break his neck? And then he even admitted that Swerve had gotten hurt that night and couldn't come out to help him. So what the fuck's your problem, dude? This bullshit went on.

And the longer that Osprey talks, the longer that he buries himself because he's a goof. And he could be a charming goof in limited quantities. But he was more prickish than babyface here because he drones on so much and he sounds so fine. fucking thick. And then he's going to end swer, because he don't

care, he's, you're standing in my way. And then my God, Swerve is going to respond. They've already, this is going on and on. And more history. And then Swerve said something, and he set a record on an AEW

program or on any program. I've heard of people getting bleeped, getting a word bleeped or a phrase bleeped. He got a whole sentence bleeped. What did he say? I still don't know. I can't read lips.

And I, but he got a sentence bleeped. And then swerve kind of sounds like a heel, but then he also kind of sounds like a fucking nerd. Here was a quote. You and I, Osprey, we change the conversation of what pro wrestling is supposed to be. Oh, God. Did they? Just the fact that you would use that sentence indicates that you ain't that fucking mad, that you got that time to think up that fucking deep of a goddamn dramatic comment.

So swerve went on and on until finally, whatever he said that got bleeped, wasn't the straw that broke the camel's back, but when he told Osprey that he had a fragile ass neck, well, that was, I've had all I can stands. and Osprey hauled off and threw a punch right at Swirb's face and missed it. Fucking missed it. Swerve wasn't moving.

Go back and watch, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, go back and watch this thing in slow motion. Swerve is standing there right in front of this motherfucker and he draws back and throws a punch and missed his fucking face. And hit him in the chest. and then had to kind of pop his fist up a little bit higher and follow through with it. It looked like it hit him in the... Oh, my God. So then swerve on his ass looks up at him

and Prince Nannahen swerve about a 12-foot logging chain. So now Swerve gets up and they slowly start circling each other. swerve with a goddamn 12-foot logging chain and Osprey with that big right hand cocked and they circled each other until the music hit and then here came Dick the boozer and the horseman and they surrounded the ring

and they were menacing swerve but swerve says Osprey you really have changed and he stepped out of the ring and left to complete dead silence. And again, who is the baby face and why the fuck am I even asking that about Osprey eight weeks before Wembley? How the fuck did they think that it was a good idea to have five heels and an obnoxious motherfucker in every sense of the word, like John Moxley,

come out and fucking back up their top baby face against this, and then in the back after this is over with, Moxley there talking to Osprey like he's a goddamn goofy green punk. Yeah, see? You like that? Yeah,

you see that? This is it just words. They can't hurt you. We'll do it this way. Okay. Why don't they just show him wiping their feet on Osprey and pissing in his mouth while he's down there? Did you like any of this? This was one of the worst segments I've ever seen on Dynamite. This was the worst promo segment on a show filled with bad promo segments and bad moments on the mic. 20 minutes almost.

Osprey's a moron. I've been told that before, but I've certainly come away with that conclusion just from hearing him talking. But morons can be produced. I've seen it done. Well, he could be produced. They're just not doing it. Who's going to produce them there? And it can't be just one person.

Everyone has to be produced at that point. And good luck getting that through Tony Con. No, this was really, really bad. And slow. It slowed everything down. Slowed everything down in silence. No one cared. If it takes that long to explain what's going on

and you still didn't explain it coherent, there's a problem with the booking. And I've said, I think before, there needs to be a court stenographer at Ringsside to take this in their special way that they take it down so that the fans can get a transcript later on and try to search through

and figure it out. This was a spectacularly bad segment on a terrible, terrible episode of Dynamite. Well, it's time now for our main event, Brian, the 12-man tag that will lead of the 12-man tag. And they do a, but we don't even know who Briscoe's team is yet. So they do

a pre-tape again in the back, backstage, where Briscoe reveals his team, which is, he's got the members of his little job guy group there. Kyle O'Reilly, bless Kyle, pockets, that way past stale, one-note

joke. Roderick Strong, bless him, what a talent. stuck in this fucking mire. And he brings in Take a Shit, who's recently been excommunicated from the Callis family, and Darby Allen. They sense that maybe we need to get some goddamn name value on this team, I guess, in this environment.

And while they're doing the interview, Kyle O'Reilly just offhandedly says, and by the way, I talk to Tony. And if anyone in the match tonight gets disqualified, then they're out of the pay-per-view. Did you hear that remark that he made there like that? I actually did not. I did not hear that.

Exactly. I was kind of checked out on the show by this point. Exactly. Not only was it thrown out in an off-handed way, but then they proceeded to have a match where everybody, literally everybody in the match did something that if you were following the rules of wrestling, that they would be disqualified for doing it in front of the referee, and then nobody ever got disqualified. So why was that even sad?

So it would be a six-on-one cage match at the pay-per-view, technically? Well, no, well, if somebody got disqualified in that match. It would only be one. So it would be six against five, so you think, well, maybe they're going to Iggy one out or whatever. No, nobody got disqualify that. And but they all did things because it wasn't announced as a no disqualification, anything goes match, but they still did everything. normally do everywhere in the fucking building.

So anyway, so they had the scrambled egg match. I have a big schmaws. No logic, no sense. I fast forwarded to the finish because it was just on and on with that. Mark Briscoe hits the J-driller on MJF and makes the cover, but Don jumps up on an apron and draws the referee. That's the only manager thing he ever does.

So there's no count. so Mark gets up and goes to the top but there Kyle stops him but Roddy tagged himself in by slapping Mark's back at the same time Kyle stopped Mark so Roddy jumps down on MJF and MJF immediately gets an R bar on him

and he taps out. The end. And then the heels start getting Blasey kind of fake looking heat on the baby faces while they're down and they shit can all of them except for Mark Briscoe and now suddenly all these baby faces are just completely goddamn paralyzed on the floor they've been thrown from the ring for taking a bump and they're never going to get back up they've been obviously they've been slipped a Mickey Finn because now MJF wants Andre to help him by holding briscoe while he hits him.

But Andrade won't do it. And they argue back and forth. And Don convinces Andrade, well, you got to do it. So, okay, Andre holds it. Meanwhile, all the baby faces in this company were people, even Darby Allen, all the people that take bumps through goddamn gasoline blowers

off cliffs. I'm so frazzled I can't form a cogent simile. Nobody ever gets hurt in this fucking company. They chuck them all out of the ring. Mark Briscoe's all on his own. And And Andrade holds him and Mark hits there.

MJF hits him with the diamond ring and all the heels pose over the top of poor old Mark Briscoe. But Andrade is given the stink eye to MJF. So it's a muddle. It's fast. It's phony.

It's the heels are fighting the heels. The baby faces are fighting the baby faces. It's so complicated. It just, it, all righty, there you go. Yeah, not very good. That's AEW Dynamite. Not very good.

And just, not very good. Just really, really, really not on the good side. Well, but now, Brian, you know whose fault that is. Certainly not the talent's fault. It's certainly not the Booker's fault. And the fans just don't realize how good they got it

and don't react appropriately to being blessed with incredible programming like this. Like AEW Dynamite, that kind of incredible programming? Yeah, that kind of programming. They don't know when they, they don't know what they got till it's gone. They're going to pave Tony Connors. over and put up a parking lot, and then people will start to realize we should have loved and appreciated this direct that we're being shoved in front of our faces for our good, hard-earned money when we buy a ticket.

How dare they not stand up and give everything on this show a standing ovation? That's what killed the program, Brian. It's a fan's fault. That's what I've heard being said. Well, you're obviously referencing something that has been sent to us by just a terrible amount of people over the last few days. Dave Meltzer, while reviewing AEW Dynamite with Brian Alvarez

on Wrestling Observer Radio, immediately started blaming the crowd there, and as it's been put and as it's going around, Dave Meltzer blames the fans. Blaming the crowd for the lack of reaction, we'll hear that in a moment, but it's important to note, you know,

the thing you've been pointing out, you've only been watching for the main event stuff and it's to see how they're going to get to Wembley, their big show, and it's been a puzzling build so far. I think they're going to hitchhike. At the same time, the rest of the show is not very good, and all that stuff eventually catches up to you. Sometimes it's for a night,

sometimes it stays for a while, and AEW has had various moments where the stench was too much for their diehard fans. But here's Dave's take on it, and we'll stop it along the way, and you'll hear Brian Alvarez eventually get a word in, but you agree with me. That was one of the worst dynamite episodes you've ever seen, right? And imagine how much territory that takes in.

Let's go to this. Let's move on to dynamite. I've got to say one thing about dynamite. Yes. I'm going to say a lot about it, but go ahead. Okay. they put on a good show I mean actually a really good show

in front of a freaking terrible audience I mean that you know between the the Osprey thing you know you know it's bad when Tony Chivani congratulates Will Osprey you know who gets the biggest reactions on the show's most weeks about getting married and you get the golf clap

it's like it's not even big and I mean, everyone probably expected that to be huge. And, you know, that first match, stop, stop, Brian, Brian. Why would it be, get a huge pop for any of the wrestlers to announce they'd gotten married unless it was part of the angle a la Randy Savage and Elizabeth? Who gives a shit?

If Jerry Lawler in the middle of the Mid-South Coliseum in 1982 had announced, hey, I just got married, It wouldn't have been nearly as big a pop as if he'd just punch Jimmy Hart in the jaw. So why would Dave think that was huge? They haven't built to it on TV. Like, oh, my God, this is happening. This is coming. And I get everybody, oh, now it's done.

Okay. Just, yeah, you got married. People do that. Who gives a shit? And it didn't even say that it was to another one of their young lady wrestlers, Alex Mountbatten Windsor. So that might have helped a little bit, but nevertheless.

Did he have the, I smashed the shit out of her line in his head before that bombed? Like before he didn't get the big reaction, or was that a reaction? You know he had that line, because he's not just going to say that off the top of his fucking head. He's not quick enough. Let's go back to Dave, Mountbatten Meltzer. If he was coming up with shit off the top of his head,

it would sound like it every once in a while. Moxley and Daniel Garcia against Brody King and Bandito. And they did get into the last match, but the Mercedes match, like those two, my God, they worked so hard. They tried to duplicate their match from Long Beach. I don't know if it was quite as good as Long Beach, but, man, Hizuki was really good.

And they did get the crowd. I mean, it took them 20 minutes practically to get them. Let me stop for one second. Took them 20 minutes to get the crowd. was great. There is Dave's problem. Yeah. Hizuki's immediate family couldn't identify her in the fucking morgue. Nobody knows who Hizuki is. They've never had her on the show before.

And it's a couple of girls in Houston, Texas, going 25 minutes at a fucking match. They don't give a shit about after they've just seen two guys talk to each other for 15 minutes. They didn't give a shit about that either. Yeah, it's wrestling bubble talk. Let's go back. that crowd and doing everything in all these near falls and working so hard and fast. I mean, it like literally, it took 20 minutes before these people would get into these matches, other than the main event, the 12 man, which was what it was. But it was like, and that did get a pretty decent reaction.

And I heard in the, we'll talk about collision later, but I heard Mystico got a giant reaction on collision. Of course he did. You know, especially the entrance. But they didn't, I don't think that they added any specific matches on collision either. This is all one sentence. Yeah. It doesn't end it. It's the worst. I don't know what they could have done because it's like the promos didn't get a reaction.

The matches didn't get a reaction until the very end. And Tony booked a show thinking that he was going to have these three great matches on the show. because he knew the Mercedes match with, you know, Azuki. What's her name? Had been like, like, literally, literally, like, you know, people yelled at me for giving it four and three-quarter stars. That's how great the match was.

You know, if it was being too low. And, you know, it was one of the best women's matches ever in the United States ever. Oh, my Christ. And stop for a second. I just, I've given up with him. He knows better. He knows better. He's been watching this stuff.

for 50 years now and writing about it for most of that time. I don't give a shit how fucking many false finishes they did. It wasn't the greatest women's match in the history of goddamn wrestling. It was a girl who does a bunch of shit that he likes and hits half of it, wrestling somebody, that we've never fucking seen before don't give two shits about for nearly a half an hour. and he wonders why a wrestling crowd might be killed off by that. So when you have that, I thought, you know, it's going to be too bad because he's going to go and,

and rightly so, it's a TV show. Give him 15 minutes. It can't meet what the other one is. Well, he went in there and he went with the idea that I'm giving him 22 minutes. They're going to be able to come close to duplicating that match. That was the goal. And, you know, you have a Brody King Bandito match. And it's like, you know, those guys are such a great.

Well, let me jump in there. I forgot about that one before cousin Brian tries to jump in. They had Brody King and Bandito teamed back up against Danny Garcia and Dick the Boozer. Brody King for like three weeks there was a credible single baby face. He had like a gimmick baby face like Hacksaw Duggan where you could feature him at or near the top of the card. And he was going for MJF and the title and the fans enjoyed it. and now he's stuck back with this masked goof that does his little fucking,

his 21 plex looks like one of my puppies humping the other one from behind and he's stuck in his goofy tag team again and they went forever. What happened to Brody King's goddamn? He could do well as an upper card gimmick single baby face. And remember, I'm sorry.

They got Brodito over as a, a top tag team in their company and then that kind of ended pretty quickly and then Brody got the... Tony just likes a cute name. Proto Coco and fucking Prodido and fucker mucker and I don't know what the fuck these names are.

Let's go back to this Wrestling Observer Radio. Here's Brian Alvarez. Yes. This is all fine and good, but you're also performing for a live audience in a specific town. And how many people in this audience saw the first a Zuki match. Well, the,

nobody had seen in Long Beach either. Well, the point is, they got into the match in the end, but they weren't invested in the match going in. No, they weren't. And they weren't invested in the bandito match going in. And like,

I realize that sometimes I'm out all afternoon, but I had no idea that match was taking place. I'd absolutely no idea. It was just a cold match. It's just Brodeos facing the death riders. I mean,

That's all finding good, but I mean, what's the story of that match? Like, what's going on there? What's going to get the crowd invested from the beginning of this match? What's going to get them invested if the audience is great. Okay, well, going in, it's like, it wasn't even, there was no angle shot. There was no announcement last week that Brodito was coming back. There was no angle to put this match together. It just opened with a match.

Yeah, well, it had its purpose. But it was Houston, Texas, and it was Bandito, who, when he's been in Houston, Texas, gets over like crazy. Now wait a minute. Isn't that racist? Isn't that racist say, well, he's in Texas and he's Hispanic, so they got to like him. He's got to get over. Would he get over just because he's Hispanic in Texas if he got in the ring and dropped his pants and took a squirt of a shit?

Out in the middle of him, hey, hey, he's one of us. He shits just like we do. Has he worked in Houston before or anywhere near Houston? We really don't know. But yeah, Brodito was a pretty big deal, and all of a sudden they're reunited. on TV out of nowhere for a match with the death riders, which means it's literally death awful. Just let's go back to this. Out that like, you know, look, like if you, again, Will Osprey and Swerve have been building

this thing up for this whole tournament. They were out there and they got, they went, they had that long promo segment and the people didn't react. Well, it was also a very, very long promo segment. And Swirms out there talking about how one day I just was sent home. for six weeks because I don't really know what that was. I didn't either. And I'm saying, hold on again.

Hold on. I forgot about that one. He said, yeah, one time I said something about somebody, he sent me home for six weeks. Even Dave, with the encyclopedic brain of AEW details, they're talking in circles, doing inside shit trying to retrofit a goddamn grudge. If you lose both Dave and Brian in your promo, you have done something wrong as an AWREST. Let's go back to this. Proud sitting here watching these guys talk about a lot of stuff for a long time.

And I'm recapping it kind of going, okay, what are you talking about here? I mean, it was long. I agree. It was, I agree it was too long. Okay. But the fact is they're like, Swirv is one of the most over guys in the company. Will is probably right now the most over guy in the company.

And they both came out and they got a tepid reaction. You know, I mean, I don't say tepid, but they got a weak reaction. It was stunningly weak. And it's like they're already starting below zero. I mean, this was just, I don't know what it was. You know what I mean? I mean, they were into MJF, so maybe he's the hottest guy in the company. Can I tell him what it was?

He's, again, he's doing the Tony Khan thing. When he says, Osprey's the most over guy to come. Actually, at one point he was, is he right now? or has what he's been doing over the last eight weeks or 10 weeks or what 12 weeks that however long has been since he came back from the surgery and he's training with the heel group and he's doing this and he got beat and he got, he got beat his first match back, then he got beat so bad the doctor stopped it. Then he let the heels train him and tell him what to do and push him around and talk to him

like a goddamn little jackoff, a guy that runs a ferris wheel at the county fair. and now he comes out in Houston, Texas. Those people are like, yeah, that fucking English guy there, he's kind of halfway goofy is what they were doing, because it's a cumulative effect. And swerve was at one time, maybe he still is one of the most over guys. Why do they want to boo him against the British nerd,

or cheer him against the British nerd? Maybe they just don't care about it either. way. That's why they're just sitting there going, we don't want to see this. Give us a reason. Tell us why we want to see it. They can't. Right now. Well, MGF's got something simple

that, like, MJF is a champion, and he's got a whole bunch of challengers, and he doesn't want to face a particular one. Like, this is a thing they've done on TV for a long time. Like, you know, this is something the crowd can easily get into. It's something, this is what's happening. He's a champion. He doesn't want to face Mark Briscoe, but he's got all these challengers. He's got to address him. I mean, even Christian and Copeland, like, no announcement they were going to be back.

They just showed up. Backstage segment. In theory, in theory, Adam Copeland's a big star. And he's an ex-WWE guy. So if you're going in there, it's all it's the-I agree. In theory, Adam Coebbling. I completely agree. The old WWE crowd that doesn't only cares about the ex-W. You guys, they didn't, like, I mean, Adam Copeland did a very good promo. And I mean, I'm watching going, you know, he's doing a pretty damn good promo. And he wasn't getting a big reaction either. It was just, it was just a man, it was just a tough audience.

Because nobody gave a shit about who he was talking about. Nobody knew these people. It wasn't a really particularly great promo. It was better than Christians. But he was just talking about people. that, and the way that he set it up where we're going to be your, what was the phrase he used, your learning curve or whatever, why do the people want to see these two fucking, or three snotty heels get taught a lesson? It did, go ahead. And that promo was direct. Granted,

you know, they shot the angle backstage, but, but they've been building this up. They've, They've been building up the dogs against Adam and Christian for weeks, actually. So it's not like it's cold. It's not, but it's also a program that everybody knows what it is. It's a thing in the middle. The big match for Copeland is going to be at Wembley. It's going to be the Bucks or it's going to be whoever. Well, it should be a three-way ladder match.

It shouldn't. And I don't think Finley and Conner should be in there. I think it should be the FTR, Young Bucks, and Copeland Christian. Well, that's where it ends. And there's Dave recommending. Where's FTR been? I don't know. It should be a three-way ladder match.

So everyone who's going to have a nice, painful ride back from the UK, blame Dave. That's what it should be. Yeah. Because now that he said that that's what it should be, that's what it's going to be. Because Tony can't turn that down. And, of course, then you have a three-way ladder match which wastes all three-teammy, goofy match instead of building up a confrontation between two teams that people can root one for and one again.

But poor Brian Alvarez, should we open up a GoFundMe for his psychological fucking evaluations that he has to go through this with Dave? I think he's okay so far. If he ever needs our help, he could always reach out. He would always get it. But, you know, again, going back to this,

I think the thing you said before that really resonates that I think Dave kind of ignores. And I don't understand why. Just if you look at AEW's history, if you believe their pay-per-view numbers or anything else, it doesn't matter. And Dave said previously booking doesn't matter, specifically when talking about AEW.

It doesn't matter. The booking doesn't matter. The details don't matter. But it builds up. It builds up week after week. If in one angle or one feud, you kind of get the hint that you don't need to care. and then it happens at another one,

eventually you don't care. And this crowd didn't care and this Death Rider's Will Osprey thing is garbage. John Moxley, for someone who's supposed to be a major star, there are more moments of dead silence in his matches than anyone else in wrestling. Go watch any Moxley match and he'll be just standing there.

Not any sound. No one yelling, no one reacting. And besides that, I wish his interviews would have the no sound because I hear people say, oh, what a great promo he is. He rambles incoherently and we've never yet figured out what he's been trying to do for or against this company since this whole thing started. Just been gibberish.

But again, they're on the road to Wembley. We have a forbidden door as a speed bump on the way to get there. But they've done... They got one in July too in Montreal, remember that? I didn't. I didn't remember that, actually. actually. Yes, they added that. So, boy, howdy,

they got a long road to hoe. One uninspiring build to Wembley. Week after week, the show gets worse and worse in the booking. Again, this is Tony. He said it. He took complete control. So all of what you're seeing right now, this is Tony Kahn, blowing it right now, when he has a real opportunity, if he could just put together some good wrestling TV shows.

Back to you, Jim. Brian, you know what you can do to save you a bunch of money and not have to even go to casinos and not have to pay for travel and pay for food and not have to pour your hard-earned money down some of those slot machines that are of questionable validity out there and the great casino land? All you have to do is stay right in your own home and go to the Draft Kings Casino because that's the exclusive place to play Cachingo slots. Kishingo! That's where you combine bingo-style bonuses and slots. So imagine this, Brian, you're sitting there in the Ag Center or possibly the Future Farmers of America meeting, and you're playing bingo. And suddenly, when you've completed your bingo and you're about to scream bingo, they slide a slot machine in there. And you immediately go into Kashingo.

so then the slot machine starts spitting out the bingo cards and you're just covered up. Can you imagine that? Why? Why would I, why is this, I can imagine it, sure. I mean, it's a- Well, because you're going to save a bunch of money. Because new casino players right now, Kishingo style, when you play Kishingo slots,

new casino players can play $5 and get, listen to this, 1,000 flex spins. And you can get them in groups of 50 a day. You can claim 50 spins a day for 20 days on your choice of over 100 slots, including the exclusive cashingo collection. So think about that. You stick $5 in there. You're going to spin over a thousand times.

How the, what kind of loser must you be? to spin a thousand times and not come out good somewhere or another. What in the world? Well, no guarantees. Important. No guarantees. Well, there's no guarantees, but there's goddamn mathematical odds. Your grandfather would have had to kick an old gypsy woman in the teeth.

For your luck to be that bad and you don't come up with something good and a thousand tries. If you don't, folks, fucking quit. So, download the Draft King's Casino app and sign up with the code J.C. that's how you get those flex spins and experience Kishingo, the feature that you can't play anywhere else. Because after all at Draft King's Casino, the crown is yours. 1,000 spins when you play $5. Holy.

Holy free, holy. I'm tired. I don't know how they're staying in business. You'll wear the dagum thing out spending it that many times. Now be aware. You're going to have to quit your job. No, you're not. See, you go too far.

Well, because you're not going to have time. You go too far in the wrong direction. You're not going to have to do anything except live your life the way you are now and be reasonable and be careful and trust. How are you going to have time to spend a thousand times while you're still working eight hours a day like an employed person? Go in and tell your boss, hey, take his job and shove it. I'm going to Draft King's Casino and cash in on Kishingo. and in your boss, he'll have no choice but to go,

well, you've made the right decision because I'll never, I'll never give you a thousand spins. He was lucky to get one hump and a reach around at that conference in Maui. But anyway, right now, folks, download the Draft Kings casino app, sign up with Code JCE,

claim the flex spins, experience Kishingo, a thousand spins, 50 spins a day for 20 days. If you only play $5, Holy mackerel. There's some other stuff, Brian, should I read that? I believe you must.

It's mandated by the city and state government. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler in Connecticut. Help is available for problem gambling. Call 88878-97777 or visit ccpg.org. Please play responsibly. You've got to be 21 plus physically present in Connecticut. Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, only. Voided Ontario eligibility restrictions apply.

Non-withdrawable spins issued as 50 spins per day for 20 days, valid for select games only and expire each day after 24 hours. See the terms at casino.com. slash promos ends July 22nd and 1159 p.m. Eastern Time. The crown is yours from our friends. draft games. So is the oxygen tank. All right, Brian, well, before we move on to the modern wrestling section of the program with the, actually

it wasn't modern wrestling on SmackDown. It was actual pro wrestling broke out for just a minute. But I got to mention something. And I'm looking again for this, the picture on Twitter. I saw it earlier. But of course, Schittler's reflecting pool has gone to shit like everything else that he touches. He was a lunatic and made a big deal while the world is burning because of his incompetence and pigish attitude about the goddamn reflecting pool and had him drain it and fuck it up and put it back together and within days not only is the thing green from algae but also

the bottom that they painted American flag blue is peeling off. And now tourists are going and reaching in and taking a piece home as a souvenir of the goddamn paint floating in the fucking reflecting pool. But the no-bid contract that this fucking lunatic that's in charge of all of our lives now, thanks to the ignorance of almost half of our citizens,

the no-bid contract that he gave out to the guy who did his swimming pool at Mar-a-Lago. Have you seen a picture of this guy, Brian? I did, and when I first saw it, I didn't think it was real. I thought it must be like, you know, oh, someone's just finding some funny photo and saying, this is the guy. And then I saw it on the news site. I was like, oh, this is the guy. No, and there's multiple pictures that he always looks the same way.

It looks like he fucking walked into a casting call for the penguin. He's a movie villain. He's an aluminum siding salesman. And this is the fucking moron that got $15 million of taxpayers money or whatever to do a bad paint job on a swimming pool. I encourage everybody. It hadn't seen a picture of this.

What is this guy's name? I've seen the picture now, but it doesn't have the name on it. We've got to find this fucking guy's name. Hold on, I'm still looking. My grandmother had his handyman, Stanley. for years, this really cool little Estonian guy. And he would come early in the morning and do whatever had to be done in the house.

He would hit my grandfather's liquor cabinet and then take off. By noon, he was gone. But Stanley, at a certain point, he ran out of things to do. And he would just convince my grandmother, one day, I remember my dad pulling up and Stanley was painting the driveway. And my dad was like, what the hell are you doing? And he's like, I'm painting the driveway. And he said, Mom, why do you have Stanley painting the driveway?

and she said, you know, oh, he thought it may look better. He goes, what's he going to paint next? The tree? And it's like this, who thought, oh, they better paint the floor or the reflecting pool? That will fix it. It's the stupidest idea to begin with. And then you find out it's a corrupt deal where one of his stooge has got a multi-million dollar deal to do this.

The whole thing is a complete disaster. They deny it. There are newscasters on every single channel like doing live remotes from the pool. I saw what I put a plastic bottle in it and pull it up so you could see the amount of algae that is developed in just a few days. Drain the swamp, that's what I say. Well, anyway, speaking of swampiness, the swampy weather must have done something for me. Where were they in Smackdown?

Where were they at? What town was this? Oh, they said it too, and I heard it. They said it to it. somewhere in the United States, they finally got back. And the first 30 minutes of this show, if wrestling looked like this still to this day, I would watch more of it.

Kansas City. That's right, because Dusty lost the world title in Kansas City in 1981, 45 years ago, to Rick Flair on my birthday. But it's suddenly like a wrestling show broke out. And then we kind of went back to the way everything normally is. But this was a good match, a good angle, a good idea. And there was only the one little commercial break in the first 30 minutes to to fuck with you over it.

And they went to it as quick as they could. When they finally got a chance to go to that commercial break, they didn't say like goodbye, we'll be right back. They just went right to the break. If you're like, bam, here's feminine hygiene products. But anyway, if they said, started the show with a history package, and this is where the WWE shines because of their

incredible production facility. And they managed to, because still a lot of this stuff was, you know, set in long-winded promos or these incidents that were in, you know, matches or angles that took a while to get there, but they took the statement or the incident or the moment from each of those things with Cody and Gunther and Sammy that move the story along, that you could easily understand it. It was brilliant editing, but also there is a story there. It's just that they make everybody be so long-winded these days and sometimes

you zone out on it. But they can do a hell of a package of it because it point to point to point to point. So if anybody wonders what telling a story is or what a history package is supposed to be, this was a great example of it. They distilled it down to the simplicity of who's on whose side

and why are they mad? And so I thought that started the thing off right, and then they did the entrance of Sammy is a special referee, Gunther's entrance, Cody's entrance, they got the in-ring introductions. You had a big match type of feel going on.

And if you want to have a main event-style pro wrestling match that doesn't lose the appearance of a contest and don't use any furniture or do stupid bullshit, nobody in the business today is better than Gunther. Can you think of anybody? Kenny Omega Oh, come on, I'm being serious. Swerve.

Swerve. Whose house? The dog house. Gunther is a very special wrestler and, you know, it's weird. I'll just say it here. I had the thought on this show, not that it's a new thing and not that other people haven't said it, but you realize when you see Cody and Gunther and Jay Uso is one of the featured people on this show. And there's a lot of people like, you know, you wonder how many more years?

is as Gunther have on top? Like, how old is he now? Like, these guys are getting older and Gunther is one of these guys, because I was thinking about it just in terms of, does he need the belt? I was watching as thinking, does Gunther need the belt or not? And I couldn't decide it, and I'm rambling, but back to you, Jim. I think he does at some point, because he needs to be a dominant world champion to even just jack him up a little bit further. but at the same point he's so good and he's so credible

and he's unique in that he knows what the fuck he's doing in the ring and he can work his gimmick and he's kind of made the gimmick that he doesn't have really a gimmick he's a fucking wrestler and the point is he doesn't do

you don't see him doing stunts with furniture you can't imagine him Sam, gonna set this thing on fire and throw you through. It's just, he's a level above the stupidity. And he's, he's very good. And Cody can sell and can fucking come back. And their work together is good and serious. And at the same time, they brought Sammy as the referee

into the fucking match. One point, Sammy backed Cody up and Gunther cheap shoted Cody over his shoulder. And then after at one point Cody made a comeback and got to figure four, Gunther finally got to ropes and, you know, Sammy was, or Gunther would then argue with Sammy about getting him off of me and Cody schoolboyed him from behind. So the referee wasn't forgotten until. the finish because you establish

through the match that who's he going to favor? Well, he's not really favor in anybody. He's doing the same thing, but shit's happening beyond his control. It's all part of the transformation of Sammy. Does he deserve it or is he a victim of circumstance?

And then Cody hit the crossroads, just like they did in Italy. And as he covered him, Gunther got his foot under the rope like in Italy. And Sammy stopped. it too. But then Cody's arguing with Sammy. And so Sammy shoved Cody, but he accidentally shoved him backwards into the fucking sleeper. And then he's like, oh no. And Cody got the ropes. And Sammy has to pull Gunther off by his fucking face. He's fish hooking him in the goddamn nose.

And then Gunther pie faces Sammy and Sammy slaps Gunther. And Gunther says, and boots him and power bombs him. And now the referee is out. And of course, and this all plays into the things, it's not a no-d-Q match. So the referee under normal circumstances, once he regained consciousness, would disqualify the son of a bitch,

but this is not a normal circumstance. Disqualify him for the power bomb or for the shove? Because obviously Sammy hit him back. Well, for the, for the, you can't just fucking beat up the guy. goddamn referee, but if it's a special referee and he can get even, blah, blah, blah. Point is, Sammy's laying out down there. And Cody hits the super cutter and the crossroads and a cover.

Oh, here comes the second referee. I'm thinking, Dusty would be so happy right now because the shit's working, right? Second referee slides in. One, two, kick. Holy shit. and then Gunther comes back and hits his drop kick and hits the power bomb and he's got Cody and the referee goes down to count one, two, Sammy pulls a second referee out underneath the bottom robe because Sammy's up now on the floor and Gunther's pissed and he's arguing and then Cody

gets the sunset flip outside in from the apron into the ring. but Gunther is holding on to the ropes and Sammy comes in in and a simple old spot kick the fucking hands and fast count it one two three and beauty and the place blows and it's beautiful but Cody's upset like no what not that way and Gunther's pissed off and all this is coming out yelling at Sammy and that's where they went to the crash to the break because they were almost 30 minutes into the show at this point, but we're not done yet. But your thoughts so far,

Brian? Really, really good match. Sammy Zane has been excellent in this role for a little while now, where he's a baby face, who's actually a heel, resenting a lot of people, and it all played out really well here. The only thing I thought, slight, slight, slight miss, did Gunther let go with the ropes a little, like a slight second too early when Sammy put his foot up? Did Sammy get a good kick on his hands? It didn't seem like it, but I didn't replay it. You know, I don't know because I was kind of nodding at this point because I was watching it live with the Brothers

of Destruction, and I was starting to get sleepy. But this was waking me up. And this wasn't the end of anything. Well, because after they come back from the break, they're in guerrilla, they're in back and everybody's mad and they replay all the stuff and they're arguing with all this and finally Cody stalks off and goes back out to the ring and Gunther just grabs Sammy and just throws him up against the side of the fucking gorilla position and levels him on a table or whatever beats him up and meanwhile Cody's in the ring I demand a restart get the referee at get Cody or get Gunther out here it's not going to end this way So here comes Gunther and the referee.

And they start, boom, boom, boom. And Gunther gets a sleeper. And he's about to put Cody out. And Cody finally, with everything he's got, he backs him up against the corner. And right then there, Sammy has revived in the back and has dove in the ring and he's running across the ring and as Cody moves out of the way,

Sammy gives the fucking kick and the mush to Gunther. and the referee immediately, whoa, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, Cody's disqualified. Holy shit. And Sammy's now yelling at that referee and nails referee number two. And he grabs the belt and Cody comes up from behind Sammy like, what the fuck are you doing when he spins him around? Sammy just instinctively, there's a lot of these things.

If they do another one of those packages, they could show, well, was this an accident? in it because it certainly worked out well for young Samuel all these ways. Sammy spins around and levels Cody with the fucking belt. And then he's like, oh, my God, what have I done? It's like that promo Kevin Sullivan did in Smoky Mountain after he took the golden spike to O Canamura. He said, I didn't mean to stab the guy 47 times. It was an accident.

And so anyway, he leaves both of them laying Cody's down from the belt shot, Gunther's down from the goddamn boot, and Sammy just leaves and is like, I don't know how this is turned out this way. And then through the rest of the show, or at least what I was able to stay awake for, Goonther cornered Aldous and demanded a rematch at Night of Champions, of course, and then Sammy was airing Aldous out.

I didn't ask to be in this. Goonther won and blah, blah, blah. And then Cody goes to Aldus and demands, hey, I want to beat both of them. I'm like, oh, God, at least this is again, this is a triple threat match that makes sense. And they did an angle to have a triple threat match

that makes sense. And hopefully this triple threat match will actually be good because with these three, it ought to. But imagine if you didn't have to see them just meaninglessly puked out and vomited across the various TV screens while these indie-minded dumb fucks.

And it's the first one we've seen in about a year and a half or so, how much it would mean here. But Bravo, Bravo, pro wrestling suddenly took over the show momentarily for about 30 or 35 minutes

and then we went back to what we always get. Well, I'll defend the rest of SmackDown. There was some stuff that was too silly and I don't know you didn't see a lot of it, but there was a Danhausen backstage segment with his cloning chamber and Cardona and the Miz and Kit

Wilson is his last name, I believe. And it was, and I'm a fan of Dan Housin's stuff usually, but this was really bad. This was really bad. And like I said, give him his own show where he could do little skits in between cartoons or old horror movie, whatever. But this is getting, uh, yeah, well, it bad.

Now, with that said, really good, I thought, really good Jay Uso-Van Evans match, King of the Ring. You know, the thing is, I was, was nodding off on the couch about that time and the puppies were momentarily quiet. And if it, if Jay Uso hadn't been in it, I would have wanted to have watched it. But I understand. Well, we're going to get another Uso match.

But then it turns out because Javon's great, but you say it turned out to be very good. So. Yeah, I thought it was really good. You have to acknowledge that. Javon did a good job of selling. I thought Liv and Charlotte was pretty good. They did an angle right before it where Jade and her team pulled, Charlotte's wig off. No, they took at her knee. They took at her knee in the back, so she ended up

wrestling the match insisting, even though they kept trying to stop it with a bad knee. And they went a while, which is probably the wrong thing to do when you're doing that kind of injury angle, but it is SmackDown. They drew everything out. I thought it was pretty good. But the Jay Uso thing I bring up because they had something later in the show, and this in a way is like the worst of WWE production, like the backstage segments where there's a camera right in front of two guys who are facing each other and having a private conversation they don't want anyone else to hear and the camera's just there. And they did it with Cody and Jay Uso and it was okay. I don't think Cody excels in these kind of situations. He needs to be in front of the people trying to get them

to react. Otherwise he just comes across as phony. But Jay Uso and Sammy had a moment and Sammy is maybe the best person in the entire company in these kind of backstage segments because He still seems natural, even though the whole scenario is preposterous. You can lose yourself a little bit in it because he seems believable. And he told Jay Uso, I hope you win the king of the ring, because it's me that you'd have to come for the title against that SummerSlam. So I hate that it's a Saudi Arabia show that starts at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. It just doesn't seem right for like a big moment or a big angle. those shows typically feel like isolated events in the universe of WWE.

The big moments when they cash the check. Well, that's true. But they've done a better job of building up this match in just a short period of time and getting me really interested on this show specifically. I do want to see who's going to win. I can't imagine Cody retains the belt. I'd be surprised. Not that it couldn't happen, but I asked you before if Goetheer needs the belt.

The thought of Sammy getting a world title run is starting. enter my mind a little bit. Well, shame on it. So there's a lot of interesting things that could come out of this match and you really can't predict what it would be. So looking forward to it. But, you know, again, I'm sure Cody had a lot to do with this. Gunther, I'm sure has a lot to do with laying out most of his matches because they make

sense and he does a good job. But I don't understand what the thing is that people can't look at and go, okay, here's two stars that had a contest that made sense that was thrown in an extra added little cherry on top with the special referee that has some issue in some respect with both guys. And that's the story we're telling. And we get a finish in and people think, oh gosh, but then there's controversy. see and then we start it again, then we do an angle to lead to a stipulation in the paper

view that's logical in terms of the situation. Or they just want to see a bunch of fucking children that are trained by bouncing around on a trampoline break furniture for no reason. What can people not differentiate about what pro wrestling is and what recess is at great school. You know, I think it was raw, either this week or last week, and there were some stuff on there, not that it was terribly offensive or anything, but I noticed, I want to say it was like the first match on the show. They went to the table outside, the announcer's desk right away, and I think it happened again later in the show, and I just realized, not that I just realized

it, but it's not special. The idea of a wrestler going over there sweeping the table with this forearm because, you know, you wouldn't want to damage an iPad or whatever's there. And then doing them, the table breaks, and they just happen to put it back together. It happens so frequently. And it's been happening like that for so long that it doesn't matter to the point where when they do a match and they don't go to the announce table and break the breakaway desk, it's a relief and it helps the match. I think there are too many wrestlers now and too many agents.

that allow it, that think you have to be on the floor for a long time. You can't have a good match unless you have time on the floor. And again, this Cody, Guantor Sammy thing was a great match, but it was really the drama and the dynamics that made a great pro wrestling because you were waiting to see what was going to happen because something had to happen. You didn't know what it would be. And you weren't constantly sitting there going, well, what the fuck? This is just, they're just contriving this whole thing.

because it's obviously too complicated to really be happening. And, oh gosh, let's take 45 seconds to stop our contest and set up some fucking furniture for a stunt. So there's a few people that can still do this stuff, Brian, but unfortunately it's becoming a dying art. So the people that can't figure out how to do it, they better keep a close eye on their money. They better save their money and put it in a safe place.

Maybe somewhere close to their heart, like in their back pocket. And they're going to have to have something to keep it in. It isn't just going to be flimsy, and that's where our friends at Ridge come in. Brian of the Ridge wallets, we've talked about them before. You have one. I have one. Of course, every time that I pull a $5 bill out of my wallet, Abe Lincoln doesn't even have a beard.

That's how cheap I am. But if you, like to have something in your pocket that doesn't resemble a brick, ladies and gentlemen, or a giant satchel or maybe a briefcase, something nice and compact that holds all of the official things you need, your cash, your cards, it's never going to wear out stylish colors to choose from. That's our friends over at ridge.com and the Ridge wallet. Brian, you have a bad back. And it's because you have so much money that when you were stuffing it into that old-fashioned leather wallet and sticking it in your back pocket, it misaligned your spine and made your knees

freeze and your liver quiver. And that's why you walked stooped over today. Well, my back's gotten a lot better. I've been doing a lot of exercises and working out a lot. And at the same time, you slipped the Ridge wallet in your back pocket. Now you can't even tell anything's there. I certainly like my Ridge wallet. I like my Ridge wallet. I like. like being compact and I like kind of being a minimalist. I used to have a giant wallet and I kept every business card in there and just everything. My train ticket and I got sick of it. Train ticket.

Well, when I had to take the Long Island Railroad, I had my monthly ticket and then I had my Metro car. I thought you were taking the Showtime Express from New York to Los Angeles. Not yet, but there is time. And of course, with my Ridge wallet, I'll be traveling comfortably in this great example. Yes. And you folks will be traveling to in style. The Ridge wallet again, it's about the size of a credit card.

It holds 12 credit cards plus some cash. It's got that nice little strap on it. You can either strap your money down or you can use it as a super brass knuckle. We've mentioned that because here's another thing. Let's say you're walking down the street with this indestructible Ridge wallet in your pocket. It slides right in your pocket. Nobody can even know it's there. But if somebody tries to come up behind you,

and stab you in the ass, they're going to break their knife off. Because this thing is indestructible. So as a matter of fact, if you want to make sure your ass is fully protected, get two Ridge wallets and stick one in each pocket, and nobody will be able to stab you in either buttock. I think that's a foolproof plan. They've got free shipping. I don't know if I'd say.

And a 99-day risk-free trial, a lifetime warranty on all of the, it's the last wallet you'll ever have to buy. And again, if it's if you get to, them, it's the last time you'll have to protect your ass from stabbing. Brian, have you ever known a person to be stabbed in the ass while wearing a Ridge wallet? You don't have to even finish the example.

I could say no, and I've seen plenty of stuff. Well, see, there, it proves my point. It doesn't prove your point in any way. You can search newspapers.com. I don't know if I'd even call it a point. I think that's a stretch. You can search newspapers.com. You will not find one example of one single solitary son of a bitch being

stabbed in the buttock that he's got carrying the Ridge wallet in the pocket up. Now, the bare buttocks, they're exposed and ready to, you know, be assaulted. Why don't we focus on... But Ridge can cover your ass. Why don't we focus on the minimalist wallet? Why don't we focus on credit cards and cash being carried with you in an easy way? The pick pockets won't even know where to go because there'll be no bulge, no sign. Well, no.

Next time somebody sticks their hand in your pocket, there'll be... no bulge whatsoever. And folks, with the Ridge tracker card, you're always going to know exactly where your wallet is. Before you have what Kevin Sullivan used to call a bag flip, and you've lost your bag,

and you don't know where it is. You'll always, it's, actually, there's a uranium chip that's inserted into the Ridge wallet, and then you use a Geiger counter, and instantly, as soon as you start glowing, you've found it.

Once again, folks, but Ridge isn't just about wallet. No radiation involved. Let's just say that right here. Well, you're radiating confidence when you're carrying something like this. It's like the old American Express gold card. It has advantages. And it's not just about wallets. They create premium everyday carry essentials like power banks, key cases,

suitcases, straight jackets and rings all built with the same sleek and durable design, get one of each. So right now, folks, if you go to ridge.com, R-I-D-G-E, Ridge.com and use the promo code J-C-E, you're going to get 10% off. Just, again, promo code J-C-E at checkout, 10% off, anything there on the various, of the various products they have on that site,

and tell them that you heard about them here, and especially let them know or let your local physician know that if there's any problem with the radio activity that you heard about it here. Ridge.com promo code JCE. That's right.

Once again, just want to clarify here at the end, a great wallet, a wallet is what it is. A great way to carry your stuff. Minimally, they look good, they're cool,

I like them. You'll like them too. All other improvisation comedy stylings are not necessarily endorsed by Ridge or myself or reasonable people. But reasonable or not, Ridge is there for you one more time, Jim, that promo code. Yes, it's JCE for 10% off at Ridge.com. What a great deal.

Cross over the Ridge. What a great deal. A great deal. There we go. What's going on in the Arcadian Vanguard Network group of shows this fine week? A great deal. It's a great deal. The Arcadian Vanguard podcast network and information about all the shows on Twitter

at Super Podcasts and of course on Facebook at Facebook.com slash Arcadian Vanguard. The Wrestling News each and every day. Get your wrestling news for free. No clickbait, no paywall, just the wrestling news. The morning wrestling newscast hosted by Mike Semper Vivi. Hear it today. Directly from the wrestling news.com wherever you find. Your favorite podcast.

want to make mention of Stick the Wrestling with John McAdam a look at 40 years ago in the NWA, 1986, Jim Cornett's stomping ground, Jim Crockett Promotions, and the NWA. Here it today, McAdampod.com, wherever you find your favorite podcast, and of course, we mentioned it last week. Shut up at wrestle with Brian Solomon, his guest, MJF, A-E-W wrestling star, can't call him superstars, I think that's copyrighted. hear it today,

S-U-A-W-Pod.com, or look for shut up and wrestle with Brian Solomon, wherever you find your favorite podcast, and of course, the 605 Super Podcast, The Mothership! Ouch! That was an early morning one.

Didn't have a full, didn't have the full power, but go through the Archive-605Pod.com, and thank you, actually, so much to a big burst of people have been going through the archive. We appreciate it, and thank you for checking out.

The Greatest. The Mothership, the 605 Super Bowl. podcast. All right. Well, Brian, you know, we're kind of used to it these days when the world champion defends the title on maybe a monthly pay-per-view or every once in a while on a special TV match, but there are no such things as house shows anymore and there are no traveling world champions, et cetera, but back in the day there were. And here what several weeks ago, Dana, who has written in again, sent us a list of the various champions,

WWF, NWA, and AWA in March 1987, so we could see their schedules. At the time, that was Flair, Hogan, and Bockwinkle. And, you know, we mentioned that he got his information off the Cage Match website. So there was a few things left out. Flair was at some TV tapings, things we could verify. I don't have the AWA schedule, don't have the WWF schedule, but I did have the NWA schedule for that point. And Flair was at TV tapings where he didn't wrestle,

but he still made the town he was there. So the NWA champion's schedule is by far the busiest. And so Dana has come back after March 1987 got over. and so, well, what about July 1984? And this was earlier, obviously, it was in the first year of Vince's

national expansion. Hulk had just won the title at the start of the year. Flair was the NWA champion then as well, and Rick Martell was the AWA champion for Vern. He had finally gone with a youth movement and put it on somebody besides either

himself, Nick Bach, or Otto Vons if he could come up with cash payment. So you want to dive in and take a look at the respective schedules according to Cage Match. And we know that if anybody has corrections or updates, please throw them in. Dana says that too. Yeah, and by the way, I mean, even with some of these websites doing the best they can to get all the results they can, every one of them is missing results. It's just it's the nature of the beast and, you know, need to be more of a concerted effort to get complete results for everything.

So this may or may not be completely accurate, but I'm sure it's probably a good amount of them. Well, I can tell there's some holes in flare schedule that he wouldn't have gotten unless he was hospitalized. And I don't remember him hospitalized for a week in 1984. But anyway, who you want to start with? You want to start with the huckster? I would guess he may be the busiest. Well, I shouldn't say that, the NWA world champion, but let's go to Hulk Hogan.

This is in the midst of the national expansion. So he had just won the title in January. In July, he has 12 documented matches on Cage Match. July 2nd, Oakland, California, he beat John Stud by Countout. July 7. So right there, that's just one match in the first week of July and I find that hard to believe even though we we established that they were holding

Hogan back somewhat in March 87 to the major arenas and TV tapings because they were coming up on WrestleMania 3 and God knows he could turn his ankle or whatever, right? But this was in the middle of the expansion and as you'll see there's some stretches coming up where he's wrestling day after day. so I think there's more to this story, but we have, anyway, second in Oakland, stud. July 7th, Philadelphia, defeated Paul Orndorf. That was a show at the Spectrum, and it was on Prism cable network at the time.

July 10th, Brantford, Ontario for a TV taping. He beat Jerry Valiant. July 13th in Chicago at the UIC Pavilion. Now, was that because did Vince get a little bit of a taste of Crockett's medicine? Because by that point, Vern had taken over and pretty much exclusively had the Rosemont Horizon and Vince had to go to the UIC Pavilion, much as we had to go to the pavilion when Vince had the goddamn horizon? I don't know. because I don't remember the WWF doing the pavilion,

but this was early on. I think this was probably before Vince took it away from Vern and before Crockett got a chance to break into the market. Anyhow, July 14, the next day, Boston Garden beat Paul Orndorf, July 15, the Meadowlands, East Rutherford, New Jersey. This was on MSG Network. Hoke and Andre beat Adrian Adonis, Dick Murdoch, and John Studd in a handicap match. And then we jumped to July 20th.

Pittsburgh, Civic Arena, lost by disqualification to Paul Lorndorf. Then the 21st, the next day, Hollywood, Florida, beat John Stud. The next day, Minneapolis beat George Steele. The next day, New York City, Madison Square Garden on the MSGD, network. This was the brawl to end it all. So actually, this was on MTV, simultaneously, as a matter of fact. And that was where he beat Greg Valentine, but that was the Wendy Richter beating the fabulous Mullah, the famous special that did that incredible rating. So he worked the 20th in Pittsburgh, the 21st in Hollywood, Florida,

which is right next to Miami, the 22nd, Minneapolis, 23rd in New York City. That's a little hectic. And then the 28th, Landover, Maryland at the Capitol Center, and this was apparently on the USA Network. He lost by disqualification of Paul Lorndorf, and then the next day, the 29th, in Hartford, Connecticut, he beat Paul Lorndorff. So I think there's more to that,

because I would bet that Vince had Hogan doing a lot more than that at that particular point in time because he was building. It was still building. He definitely wasn't in Japan during that period of time. He had gone a little earlier that year, but he was not there at that point in time. I would have to go through my stuff and look, but I don't think there were a lot of, from what I'm just looking at online, that doesn't look like there were a lot of big shows or big towns, I guess it should say.

see this is where the city histories to me come into play that are so valuable whether it's scott teal's book on madison square garden or on nashville or whether mine on louisville or shan delaney on evansville or the people that do the histories of wrestling in the city rather than one specific uh wrestler or personality it's it's a few reference book for everybody to do those individuals. And when you, I can't believe we don't have a comprehensive book on Chicago, probably the most important wrestling city in the United States

over the last 125 years. Nobody's done it. But then again, when you would get into the 50s where the greater Chicago land area had four or five live events every week, it would be somewhat of a bear. Nevertheless, we will move on. Let's take a look at Rick Martel. What do you think?

All right. This would, I would guess, be just AWA. Maybe, I don't remember when he went to all Japan in 1984, but there weren't that many places he was going to. Hold on here, there, cowboy, because he's going to be a Globetrotter. Yep. July 2nd in Montreal. all. He was at a tag team match with Dino Bravo. They defeated someone. The record is not

available as to who, but Montreal history has been done, so cage match just ain't, ain't bought the book. Then July 12th, so that's one match recorded for poor Rick Martel in the first 12 days of July, but on July 12th, he was in Japan, the All Japan Grand Champion Carnival, Ag six tournament. And he and Stan Hanson lost to Tenoroo and Jumbo Tzeruda. But then that's the 12th. On the 14th, he's in Indianapolis beating Nick Bokwinkle. And on the 15th, he's in St. Paul beating Nick Bokwink.

On the 20th, he's in Rockford, Illinois at the Boylan Catholic High School. So even in 84, Vern Warn. was running a few of the smaller buildings. He beat Mr. Saido. And here you go, July 21st, Chicago, the Rosemont Horizon. Vern still had it locked up. He beat Bockwinkle by countout. The next day in Green Bay, he beat Nick Bockwinkle.

And then there's 23rd, 24th, no record. And the 25th, he's back in Japan. still in that grand champion tag carnival thing. But there he lost by countout to Jumbo for the NWA International Heavyweight title. Then July 27th, he's in Atsu, Japan. He and Slater beat Ashurahara. There's a name you haven't heard in a while.

And Genichero, Tenoroo. Yeah, he was Tenru's partner. And they had a good thing going. and then he ran up like big gambling debts and he had to leave All Japan. There was a big... And they ran him off. And that's what elevated Coada

who went from being a member of the footloose to teaming up with Tenbrew in the 88 All Japan Tag Tournament which was just phenomenal in the final match. You may have seen it. Kawata and Tenru versus Hansen and Gordy is just a phenomenal tag team match.

Slobber knocker, as they used to say. In-ringed Slobber knocker. Yeah. But the 28th, they were in Chigasaki, and he and Slater and Johnny Mantel lost to Tenuru, Saruda, and Kabuki. The 29th in Akawa, he beat Takashi Ishikawa. The 30th in Tachikawa, he and Slater beat Ashurahara and at Sushi Onita. and then on the 31st in Tokyo, he had a double countout with Jumbo

for the AWA world title. So most of his month was in Japan, but I'm surprised they got him to go over early and then come back and he go back again. But that doesn't seem to be typical for the AWA champion in 1984 because Vern still was doing business and had a regular scale.

of major towns, but that booking fee that he was getting from Baba probably offset not having his champion around for the month in some of his bigger towns, wouldn't you think? Because at that point, the international market and whoever would pay Vern for his talent or his belt was probably going forward, the uppermost thing in his mind. And again, they gave Jumbosaruta a title run. So if you were going to look at any year where the relationship between Vern Ganya and Giant Baba was best, you may be in 1984, before Stan Hanson ran over the title

bell the few years later. It may have been this. There was another match. When was it? I guess it would have been 85. Remember, Flair and Martel had a match in Japan. Yes. That was a big deal.

And that was, Flair was. always best against young baby faces that could, you know, arm drag and drop kick and fly around and, and he liked to call that kind of match. But anyhow, speaking of Flair, let's finish up with Flair. And so Hogan had 12 matches documented. Martel has 13 matches documented. and Flair has 20 matches documented, and there's numerous days that are goddamn missing here. So let's go through this. Because I recognize the Carolina's schedule

in the first week, July 1st in Sumter, South Carolina, he beat Wahoo McDaniel. That was an afternoon show. That night in Charlotte at the Coliseum, he lost by disqualification against Tully Blanche. lanchard. Very interesting matchup. Flair was still a baby face in the Carolina territory at this point in time. And Wahoo was the heel, remember, in 84? And then July 2nd, Greenville, South Carolina, he beat Wahoo McDaniel. So the first was a Sunday, Sumter and Charlotte.

The second was a Monday, Greenville. The third was Raleigh. That's a Tuesday night. He beat Wahoo McDaniel. And then July 4th was a Wednesday night that year, and they were at a TV taping, the syndicated TV, at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center. And on that TV, he beat Gary Royal and then beat Wahoo McDaniel by disqualification in the main event dark match.

Then the next day from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Norfolk, Virginia. God damn, I remember these trips. He beat Wahoo McDaniel at the scope. And then the next night in Richmond, 80 miles up the road at the Coliseum, he beat Ricky Steamboat. On the seventh, very next day, Greensboro, at the Coliseum, he beat Wahoo-McDaniel. The next day, the 8th in Kansas City, Missouri at Kemper Arena, he went to a one-hour draw with Cary von Erick. And then the 9th and 10th is not recorded. But since, since,

the ninth apparently would have been a Sunday. I bet there was another double shot somewhere, but nevertheless, maybe he was in, ah, this makes sense because he was at the 11th, he was in Lincoln, Nebraska. So the 9th and 10th in between Kansas City and Lincoln, I bet Bob Goggle or Bob Brown or somebody in Central State's office had him in Salina, Kansas or some shit, right? nobody knows.

But then on the 11th in Lincoln, he lost by disqualification to Harley Race, who was top guy and part owner of the Central States office. On the 13th in St. Louis at the Keel Auditorium, Flair and Crusher Blackwell lost to Barry Wyndham and Carrie Von Eric.

And then here's what I don't understand. Yeah, and that would have been interesting. But he's in St. Louis on the 13th, the next date they have is the 19th. He's in Kansas City. I refuse to believe when he'd been in Kansas City on the 8th and Lincoln, Nebraska on the 11th, that they could keep him busy for two straight weeks in the Kansas or Central States territory. So I think something between the 14th and the 18th was going on, but they don't have him, or they don't have it.

So then the 19th back in Kansas City at Memorial Hall, he lost by disqualification to Harley Race. And then we skip the 20th and the 21st. Now, Crockett didn't own the TBS show yet, even though Flair did appear on it because he was the NWA champion. He didn't do it every week like he would over the next few years. But I can't believe he was out of the Carolinas for the syndicated TVs too. So there may be some things missing. And then the 22nd in Austin, Texas,

he beat Kerry Von Erick on an afternoon show, and that night in San Antonio, he went an hour to a draw with Carrie. Same day. Then the next day in Fort Worth, that'd be a Monday the 23rd. He beat Gino Hernandez. And then it's got him in Dallas at the Sportatorium

that Friday night, the 27th, so nothing 24, 25, 26. He was still in Texas. I guarantee you. they didn't bring him down for Austin and San Antonio on Sunday, Fort Worth on Monday, and Dallas on Friday, without giving him something to do on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Then we skipped Saturday. Maybe he went to Atlanta because the 29th, he was in Orlando, beating Blackjack Mulligan. The 30th, he was in West Palm Beach, losing to Dusty by disqualification.

and the same thing on the 31st in Tampa at the Sun Dome, losing to Dusty by disqualification. So that is, that's 20 confirmed matches with two Sunday double shots. One was an hour draw with Kerry and another match with Carrie. And that wasn't his whole schedule. That doesn't take into account major gaps where he would have been working other shows. Do you think it's easy to say Flair had the most amount of ring time for the month? Oh, God, easily.

I know we only have the time for a few of those matches, but him and Harley and Kansas City, various other things, those weren't short matches. There's no way. No, no, and I mean, you know, here's the thing. I'm not pooping on Rick Martel because he had some guy, he and Bachwinkle would put some time in, especially in Chicago or St. Paul, and the Japanese matches were grueling. But when you look at Hogan's, how long you think he went with John Stud? How long you think he went with Jerry Valiant?

How long do you think he could keep up with Paul Orndorf? I'd say 10 minutes is the most for probably the majority of those matches would be. Yeah. So Flair was in the ring in San Antonio against Kerry as much as Hogan was in the ring for the next 10 fucking days. You know, it's an interesting period of time, too, because it's the beginning of an national expansion, or maybe in the middle of the national expansion, I should say. And there's no Hogan feud. Roddy Piper is feuding with Jimmy Snooka. Sergeant Slaughter is feuding with the Iron Sheik and their leading shows. They're the headliners on shows that Hogan's not on, and doing well,

especially Slaughter and the Sheik. But Hogan, and this exemplifies it, there was no feud. He was just a baby-faced champion who was a big deal and all the bad guys wanted to get him. And that's why it's John Stud and Paul Orndorf and George Steele and Greg Valentine. There was no set thing. A few years later, he would have worked the, maybe the same amount of dates and would be the same person every single night. Well, see, that's because Vince realized that if he's going to make a superhero, he can't just start out putting him in a program with somebody.

because when you're in a program with somebody, you have to treat them as someone on your level. You have to be competitive with them. You have to let them, if they're the heel, then you've got to let them get heat on you. And if you're the baby face, then the baby face has to make a comeback. He didn't want anybody being seen as on Hogan's level.

He wanted to build him for at least the first six months here, maybe the first year. I don't know. That's the thing. I think that's one of those underrated things that people don't bring up and why WrestleMania was so big, at least to just the wrestling fans. It was Hogan's real first feud in the company. Hogan wrestled the top heels everywhere in the towns and the cities they had that did big houses and some of the new markets they were going to that didn't draw that great. Every night it was someone new. And then finally when the thing happened with Cindy Lomper, and Lou Albano and Piper, that was it. That was the first Hulk Hogan feud, really. Other than I don't like the bad guys, and I'm going to get you John Studd.

But that's the thing is that Vince had put these heels over other people to get them established, but with Hogan, he wanted to establish Hogan overall, so he didn't shoot angles with the heels getting heat on Hogan. He didn't want him on Tugan. television to appear to be that vulnerable for the time it took to get him over. He's the champion. He beat the Iron Sheik. He's the All-American hero. We'll put this monster

up against him. We'll put that monster up against him. And as the results show, maybe there's a count out. Maybe there's some kind of disqualification. Sometimes Hulk gets carried away and gives the heel a taste of his own medicine gets disqualified. But nobody's fucking beating him. He's either beating them or there's some goddamn gaga going on. And that's the way you get a main event top guy over. You take all the other guys that you've gotten over to this point and feed

them to your star. But he didn't feed Piper. He held Piper back. And you always have somebody held back that's going to be your destination point, but you've got this cast of freaks and geeks that you can feed to the hoaxter and he can triumph. It's not that fucking hard to figure out. All right.

Well, this has been the champions of July 1984. We've now done two different years and different months as well, and this is interesting. And this is over, because we've done a long show today, and we got a long show to do it a couple of days, so we should take a couple of days in the middle to play with puppies, shouldn't we? Yes. Puppies. All righty. Well, in that case, then, what are, we're doing all kinds of things on the drive-through this week. Yes. We're going to finish the look at the top wrestlers in their 40s in 1984. We will have previews of the upcoming pay-per-views, spectaculars, if that's what we will call them. Questions, big topics. Some questions, once again, here we go again, about Montreal that are arising. Oh, boy. Big things on the drive-thru.

And puppies barking. And then we'll... be back here next week on the experience to do even more of the things that we talked about doing. So until then, thank you, fuck you, bye-bye, everybody.