Jim Cornette Experience - Episode 642: Total Nonstop Corny

Episode Date: July 15, 2026

This week on the Experience, Jim reviews Dark Side Of The Ring's first two episodes on Jeff Jarrett & TNA, and AEW Dynamite with MJF vs. Kenny Omega! Plus Jim talks about SummerSlam & Wembley Stadium ticket sales, OVW's Davis Arena, and much more! Thanks to our episode sponsors: HELIX:  Go to helixsleep.com/jce for 20% off sitewide and bigger discounts on Luxe and Elite Mattresses RAYCON:  The Everyday Earbuds Classics are a great option for everyday listening. Go to buyraycon.com/jce to get 20% off. FACTOR:  Head to factormeals.com/jce50off and use code jce50off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box, with a new subscription only SHOPIFY:  Start your free trial at shopify.com/jce Follow Jim and Brian on Twitter: @TheJimCornette @GreatBrianLast Join Jim Cornette's College Of Wrestling Knowledge on Patreon to access the archives & more! https://www.patreon.com/Cornette Subscribe to the Official Jim Cornette channel on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/OfficialJimCornette Visit Jim's official site at www.JimCornette.com for merch, live dates, commentaries and more! You can listen to Brian on the 6:05 Superpodcast at 605pod.com or wherever you find your favorite podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The midnight and the rock and roll. He's in a fight for wrestling soul using a racket and some mind control. He's Jim Cornett. The keys to the future. Ornett Experian. He is going to be singing the blues after their latest off-key decision. Lots of folks are whistling Dixie on Dark Side of the Ring and SummerSlam may need a serious tune-up. We're going to talk about all that and more.

And joining me, Hawaii and Brian, the podcast. and Lion the King of the Arcading Vanguard Podcast Network, Mr. Co-host to you, he only hits the notes that don't hit back. Be great, Brian Last, everybody. Aloha, Jim. Let me roll back over here. Hello, hi, Jim. A pleasure to be here once again.

Roll back over. Are you confined to a wheelchair now? Well, no. The time machine over here is on the left, so I had to kind of go over here to do this, and then what to do it right, to do it the right way. You told me the doctors now said, if you lose 20 more pounds and get down to 600, then you're bariatric surgery.

Yeah, if only. Is that to live? Why does everybody think you're a fat person? I am. I'm 600 pounds and I live in the basement and what else? My wife supports me. What else have we heard over there? Well, we're both in the basement,

even though I'm about as high as you can get. Right. I'm talking about in the house. I'm up on the top floor of the house. instead of the basement and you're kind of since you got the news spread over there, you're kind of in the middle. You're not really, you're not down and you're not really all the way up. You're right there in the middle.

But everybody think you have a fat voice. They think you sound like Bubba Ray. Yeah, that's the most insulting thing anyone says to me. Well, it's because it's New Jersey and New York and that. No, it's the difference between decency and filth. To quote Kevin Vonne. Eric. Well, anyway.

But for the record, if anyone needs any, you know, fat guy voiceover work, I'm your guy. Call me. And you also play the tuba behind the fat guy, like on family guy. Well, da-da-da-do-do. In fact, if the role of tubby the tubba is available, I mean, no, at least the voice of tubby the tuba. You don't want to be the actual tuba itself. if you'd have a lot of people slobbering all over you,

blowing into you. Which you already do right now. You know, you're a big time podcasting celebrity. See, Tubby the Tuba is one of those cartoon characters that people forget, but I knew it because my dad would use it as an insult. People's how I found that

who Tubby the Tuba was. I had a close call the other day. I'll just say this top of the program. We'll move on. As I've mentioned to you, I don't think I have a lumensual. the listeners of having a window replacement project done i got this big window in a tv room it's actually a multiple part window they open up on each side and in the middle is a pitcher

window as mama cornet called them and so it's like five feet by like 14 feet or whatever and ordered them in february to get a nice new set of windows and energy efficiency is what we're going for these old ones they were leaking leaking leaking air. And I swear to God, the one day they come to start, they get this entire window assembly out, the old one. I've got a giant five by 14 foot hole in the wall of the TV room. And suddenly the radar indicates that these pop up thunderstorms that we're only going to be sporadic and, you know, in various sparse places are going to be right over the top of us. in like an hour

and they're hustling to get the new shit in and fucking get it sealed and they got the new window assembly in the hole and got the wrap around it to watertight it so that they could

withstand the rain and we got like three inches of rain in 45 minutes flooded the roads down the street from us and everything and I did not get a drop but it was close there for a while. Didn't get a drop inside, though.

But it was nerve-wracking. Just one wall of the room was about gone. That would certainly rack your nerves, wouldn't it, Brian? Yeah, it's tough. Like, you kind of want to be there while people are doing that, and also being there is just a miserable experience because you're like, oh, my God, this is happening, and I have to stand back and just hope for the best.

Just really hope these guys really can do this. Yeah, well, it's the finest. company in town, but still when pieces of the wall are coming down and you can just walk through it, you know, speaking of walking through things, everybody could have

a worse day than I had or whoever you are out there. It could be worse. Did you hear about the flight student or the student pilot? There was up in the flight with the instructor and the instructor left. I believe it was a woman left

her to land the plane. And do you know how he left her to land the plane? I just saw this on the news this morning. It's a popular story, I guess it made the morning news. I had thought that he was being a smart ass. And when they said he jumped out of the plane, jumped out of the plane, parachuted out and left the student to fly the plane to come to find out. No, he didn't have a fucking parachute.

The flying instructor, literally told the student, okay, you know what to do, you're fine, opened the door and jumped out of the fucking plane. And he had given a lesson previously that day to someone else. So maybe that was what finally, the straw that broke the camel's back.

But does that sound like a lot of planning? In a way it does and in a way it doesn't. The planning of a suicide like that. Well, you never, in terms of the planning of it, he may have only trained this woman to fulfill this role, because if you really wanted to go out that way, you need a pilot. You need to fight someone to fly a plane and... Well, he could have called one of his pilot friends and said, hey, Joe, let's go tell you didn't have to, like, a fucking...

Maybe they would notice that he was, you know... He's not wearing a seatbelt. He was about to jump out of the fucking plane? If he's not wearing a seatbelt, maybe, you know, all of a sudden something, who knows? You never know what they would notice. They had turned the fastened seatbelt sign off. But doesn't count for them. They're the ones who control the sign.

It sounds like a very random, unplanned act, but then again, there is some element of noteworthiness. And if he will, here's the thing, if he's going to jump out of the fucking plane, what does he care of what happens to the plane after he's jumped out of it? Well, maybe he cares about the environment.

Maybe he doesn't want to hurt, you know, crash the plane, jet fuel or whatever. I think he's past the point of caring about a lot of shit at that point. If people have made him so miserably he wants to jump out of a fucking airplane, I'd be wanting to crash one on a few folks on the way out. I don't know. Maybe he cares about what people will say about him. I don't know.

Well, right now they're saying a lot about him and none of it's any really positive. It's fucked up for the student. I mean, we've got to focus on that for a second. This poor girl is just flying a plane with her and stuff. Well, we don't have an age. It could be, we can't, she might be 50. We don't know. Oh, it's a woman.

Forgive me. This poor woman. Probably not a juvenile under the age of 18. They wouldn't have been in that position. I don't know. How many women in their 50s learn how to fly planes? Is this like a thing? Well, you see on the news all the time, some 82-year-old woman says,

I'm going to skydive. Yeah, skydive or jump out of a plane. Not I've been flying, I started flying planes 20 years ago, and I fell in love with it. I guarantee you there are people in their 50s that finally now have either the time or the money or don't give a shit whether they die or not and just say I'm just going to go learn out of fly plane. I guarantee you. People in their 50s. I'm talking women in their 50s.

Oh, for heaven's sake, here we go again with you. You know, you're going to get blacklisted from some. No, no. They'll blame you. Major organizations for your grammatical views. anyhow, real quick, we got a couple of emails here lately. I wanted to recognize Thomas, whose mother passed away a few years ago. He was only 19 years old, but he's been listened and has listened to take his mind off,

you know, being depressed or upset or whatever, but he also wrote, P.S. Vince Rousseau is a bitch. So I just wanted to get that in. but Thomas, we appreciate your continued support. Sorry for your loss, Thomas. Sorry for your loss, but thank you for your PS. And Jonathan sent a picture of his new Pomeranian Fred because he had had his little baby Misty. He lost her sometime back and vowed no more,

but then he missed the pitter-patter of tiny paws. I know what you mean. Now we sound like we've got hoses. Greco in the fucking house with these two, but welcome Fred and set a picture of Fred next to his puppy kibble. The whole bag of it. The bag's bigger than Fred is. And Brian, people say that we're just

horrible people over here at the program and we just, we're just terrible and we should be eradicated, but we're actually, we're not only helping people understand pro wrestling, but we are, we're beneficial to people's health, to the listeners' health. Have you heard about this? Who's been saying this awful stuff? Just give me a name.

Let's go to war. Well, these horrible people, I can't mention them. But horrible people, you know, all the people who we tell the truth about their favorite wrestling. But we are, we're like doctors now. We're aiding in people getting healthy. We got an email from, well, he says, if you choose to share this and by no means am I asking you to,

would you please leave my name out of it? So unknown in Dayton, Ohio. But he said, he said, hi, Jim, but you're on the show too, Brian. So, you know, he listens to you in between when I'm speaking, which is what he's listening for. Hi, Jim, I just wanted to thank you for doing a huge part to save my life. This past September,

I saw my primary care physician and found out that my hemoglobin A1C was 11.5, which would be a daily average of 274, and my weight was 474 pounds. Now, the A1C is the average blood sugar for the past three months, and 11.5 is very high. Anyway, this rightly scared the shit out of the rest. of me, so I decided it was time to make some changes. I got off my giant ass and started moving and using the experience and the drive-through for listening while walking and probably with the Raycon earbuds

so that he could, well, I guess he wasn't worried about a fucking car coming at him because he's bigger in the car. They would do damage to the fucking vehicle. Let's not start insulting this gentleman. Well, but no, but he's making changes. He saw his doctor. Well, what do you like? laughing about the man's trying.

I'm just saying it's at 474 pounds if he's walking, you know, a fairly good clip. Him and a VW Beetle might be a fucking Broadway. They'd go to a draw. But anyway, Lou, using the shows for listening while walking, I saw my doctor today and had an A1C of 5.5, not 11.5, but 5.5, daily average of 1111 instead of 2,7, and he weighs 401 pounds, a loss of 73 pounds.

I've dropped two T-shirt sizes, three short sizes, and eight inches from my waistline. Of course, now is still unknown at this point. It's a coastline, but still you're working on it. You're no longer one of the bigger countries. You're now just a little tiny banana republic. He says, I have a long way to go, but feel like I have some. momentum going at, oh, I just wanted to thank you and Brian. He mentioned you, for your part in my transformation.

Well, good luck jelly roll. Keep it up. Now, he wouldn't be able to write English that good with that good of English. He wouldn't be able to write that good of English there, that old jelly roll. What was his gentleman's name? He asked not to give it. Oh. So I called him unknown. I get you call him

anything you call him Dick call him anything you want good luck Mr. X Toledo yeah keep moving don't sit down farther away keep going farther away

as we'll play the fucking the fade out music for the Incredible Hulk as he walks away do do do do do do do do okay remember when we were talking about the folks

in West Fabersham have bought OVW and then they damaged a referee's brain. And then we speculated what the mayor of Louisville had to do with all of this. Good God, he was a part owner at one time. And all of this continued drama with the little wrestling school that it couldn't. But now I got to let, because one of the things that we said, Brian, when we were talking about all these things going on with OVW was we read one of the advertisements they had. They called now the Davis Arena,

which was named after Danny Davis, obviously, Nightmare Danny Davis, who started the company and founded the organization and actually found that specific building that is now the Davis Arena and has been since 2002 and had it fitted out and et cetera, the Danny Davis Arena. We called it the new Davis Arena because the old one was a toilet in Jeffersonville.

And they were advertising the Danny Davis Hot Point Arena. And remember I said, well, you asked, I think, did they get a sponsorship? But a GE Appliance Park is just literally blocks away. It's one of the biggest employers in Louisville and maybe they did something, whatever. I got an email from anonymous anonym I there's a couple of them they're going to be anonymize but would you like to hear how the Davis arena got named the Danny Davis hot point arena I would love to hear this yes oh well this is this email says please do not use my name in my email as my husband trained at OVW and I was at one time a worker but thank God I got out

we live in Louisville and are big fans we listen to the podcast together constantly and that's something we share together but on a recent episode you talked about obw's well here AC issues back in 2023 this is apparently we were talking about how did the hot point thing come into play and maybe that did we read something that at one point they lost their air conditioning whatever the fuck but this person says I just thought it would be funny to give you the story behind that. They had to cancel shows in the summer of 2023 because there was no air conditioning. The reason was because all the copper was stolen from the HVAC unit from the lovely

Tweaker Club of Butchal. Oh my God. So here's the thing. Well, first of all, this is a modified warehouse, modified, to be a wrestling arena. And it's, it's, a string of warehouses, not just a standalone building, they're side by side. They each have their own industrial heating and air system. I know this well, because as a free perspireer, the first thing I do, whatever we got to

TV and started turning on those TV lights was cranked the air down to 60, because I was going to sweat like a whoring church that night. but the thing is the industrial units are behind the building and if you're behind this particular building you know you're not especially at night the dark whatever you're not going to be observed doing anything and they've had problems here in louisville there are stretches of the interstate that are dark because they have taken the copper wiring out of the fucking street like poles however the fuck this works. And it's like a public menace

because copper is apparently on the black market is worth something. Can you hear the knocking from downstairs my window is being tapped into place? Oh, a little bit. I thought that was my side actually. No, no, no. They're working on the ones in the garage now. But nevertheless.

So there's copper thieves all over town. Apparently they got in there and they took the copper so they had no air conditioning. and Butchal, by the way, is the somewhat less than desirable suburb that is right. I don't know technically if the Davis Arena is on the line of Butchal or overcross the line from Butchal or whatever, but the neighborhood has gone downhill the past 20 years. So, GE, she says, GE applied General Electric, paid for their replacement for a sponsorship.

So they got naming rights on an arena in a warehouse for giving them an air condition. If you were still running OVW, do you think you would use this and have a heel tag team, the copper thieves? Like with that work in Louisville right now? Actually. A couple of dirty wrestlers you can't trust. Well, here's the problem. One of the original, who shall remain nameless, I'm not trying to slander anybody, but one of the original OVs,

trainees from even before I came in 1999 has actually been arrested for stealing the copper from one of these fucking places. Oh, no. I know that. Oh, no. And he was a, he was a person who was known as meaning very well, but not of the, not the sharpest knife in the drawer in, uh, in class or whatever.

but yeah, his picture was on the news. Anyway, but this person who wrote this says, again, we're huge fans, including our infant daughter. So we're bringing them up right. We're good for people's health. We're making positive changes in their lifestyles, and we're bringing people together in marriage and procreation and fornication.

Well, that's not what they said in any way. They said that they listen, and apparently they're infant. You know that. Hey. Your infant daughter listen, that may not be the best. On their first date,

they were listening to you and me talk and they got so turned on, boom, and there you go at nine months later. That's ridiculous. And they owe everything to us. You mean to tell me, I guarantee you that many of our conversations

here on here, Brian, on this program, have caused people to breathe heavily. I know that. I've seen the emails. You know, they come in and it's kind of nuts.

And my first thought is, this can't be a woman. This can't be a woman writing this. Hey, remember, this is, you know what? Here, it's, now that you bring this up, the Midnight Express scrapbook, which you've seen and many folks out there have seen and it's coveted, but some of the reproductions of the fan mail or non-fan mail that I used to get back in the 80s from the 14-year-old girls who were practically writing in crayon, but using the filthiest, language you've ever seen and drawing pictures of donkey dicks going into me and

Bobby Eaton's mouths and sitting in here I picked this just for you and they've circled a place on the paper and wiped a booger in it and just the filthiest cussing out from these innocent young schoolgirls over what we've done it's the same thing now but now it's 35, 40 year old men who are offended of what, instead of me knocking Ricky and Robert for a work, I'm knocking Mason Rook and fucking the AEW

marching band for a shoot, and it's the same reaction but from people 25 years older and male. Yeah, that's the thing. Those girls had to put an effort. They sent letters to the office. They had to get the address. they had to get a stamp, did they get an envelope, they had to plan a trip to the post office or something. They had to realize that at some point,

people might alert their parents of the words that they're using that I can't even say on the YouTube channel now and talking about how that the donkey cum is going to be spread back and forth after we're butt-fucked in the asses and you mother. It was goddamn insane. Charlie McGowan would cave at the Atlanta TV. they didn't send as much mail to Crockett to the office as they did to the TV to TBS in Atlanta, right?

Because that address was easier to get. And that's where all these girls from across the country were mooning over Ricky or Robert. And Charlie McGowan would come in. I had more male than the fucking baby faces. But it was all people either threatening to kill us or telling us what goddamn horrible human beings that we are and all the things that were wrong with us. and what they wanted to do to us. And it's, it,

and it's the same thing, but with a different age group and gender and et cetera, but then again, when you think it's a mirror opposite, because in the case of the 80s, again, I was working, talking about their heroes. And that's why they hated me.

but now I'm shooting talking about their heroes and that's why they hate me but this time as I said they're grown adults but everybody else that gets their panties in a wad about what we say only listen to the to the the quotes or the transcripts or the oh you could believe he said this and then they go on to say a completely different thing than what we fucking said and then they get mad at us. It's interesting. It is the same reaction you would get for cheating against

the rock and roll express. It's the same reaction from an older fan base. He has to be stopped. Someone has to stop, Cornet! It's not even like, I hate him, it's, I hate him and he has to go! We have to get rid of him! And those fans were taking the

business seriously, these fans all know that it's a work and that it's been bullshit all along, but they get more wound up about it. Sometimes the nose people did. It's just, it blows my mind that the things have changed, but they remain the same reaction. And these outlaw trampoline counts, boys get mad because I don't take them seriously and how can you take it seriously? But they don't take wrestling seriously. So why should I take them seriously?

Everybody I think that gives a legitimate effort, Brian, don't we talk good about them? Most people, there are some people you just flat out hate and they could save burning puppies. Oh, no, no, no, anybody's... saves burning puppies, gets over. But no, if somebody is taking the business seriously, then I treat them seriously and critique them

in a serious fashion. I would say, for the most part, yes. But I can't take most of these fucking guys seriously because it's a fucking clown show. And they're mad because I don't take them seriously while, and their fans are mad that I don't take

them seriously while they don't take the wrestling business seriously. It's the modern style. It's the modern style. Do everything, anything, whatever you want. Screw the old people. Wait, we're old too. Screw the other old people.

It's just, it's all fucking whacked out fans. There's a lot of church ladies at the back of the PTA meeting, you know, and wrestling fandom. There's a lot of just like the fucking church lady, you know, just that Dana Carvey character. Just, ooh. Yes. Dana Andrews, Dana,

Dana Plato. You never know. But yes, that's why I, you know, I'm sorry that I don't take most of these guys seriously because they do stupid, silly, fake things. And that's not taking wrestling seriously. So I have to laugh. What else am I going to do?

You know what else I'm going to do real quick before we talk about what we're going to laugh about? Tony's out of his fucking mind. He's gumbing this whole thing up. but Jim Russell, you and your lovely wife make a heck of a pizza. I got the pizza place over in Blue Springs, Missouri. It's the Kansas City area. Just look up the capital V, T-H-E pizza place in Metropolitan KC.

Why were you not in business 40 years ago when I actually had to go to Kansas City? they sent me and they don't do this normally so don't expect this if you're just a member of the general public but because we were talking about them and gave away a lot of their product that time without them knowing about it

and then you know he wrote and thanked us for they honored it they honored it and he thanked us for the plug and he mentioned frozen pizza apparently they do sell their pizza frozen there as well if you're in that area, but they haven't shipped it. They're not set up to ship it, but for me,

he shipped a shit. And the meats is lovely. I love the sausage has, it's nice and crumbled, but it has a little oomph to it. And the chicken bacon, Alfredo, and there's different crust going on. and I would have eaten all of them, you know, one right after another for dinner every night of the week, but I'm trying to save them and parse them out like you would if you were in the desert and you only had a quarter of a canteen.

But if they're this good frozen, I could only imagine what the experience would be like to walk in and see not only the, and smell the pizza being cooked, but also the action figure of Jim Cornett on the wall that someone tweeted a picture of also the other day. So it's a very synergistic, what would make you hungrier than looking at a figure of me? Which figure?

Your figure now or your figure 25 years ago? No, I'm my action figure, not my goddamn, not my, it's not a chalk outline of me on the goddamn floor. I didn't know. I didn't know what was happening. I'm trying to sell photos of me in a skinnier position now than I used to be. But yeah, great pizza. Good pizza?

It's good. You would, I don't know what you would think. I don't have an idea of what you would think because you've got some strange thoughts there. If it's good pizza, considering I'm more of an expert than you in pizza, just because of where I grew up. The sauce was lovely. That counts. That's a big one. I've already eaten one of the thin, two of the thin crusts. And the crust was just delectable.

Stacey thought so also. It's a house-made Provelle blend of cheese. Very gooey. You see that right there. There's a big. Oh, come on. And then, as I said, the sausage has some spice to it. And there's some pepperoni involved.

You can go to the pizza place online and see all the, ingredients that they have in there. I'm sure they have great stuff. I'm pulling my endorsement because if someone's going to help propel the spread of this Prevell stuff, as opposed to real pizza cheese, the real cheese. That's what

was on, I don't know, they may have more kinds of cheeses. I'm not trying to slander them, but I'm saying on this pizza, then I like that pizza, or I like that cheese because it's a St. Louis-style cheese and it's delicious. But you, you, you

wouldn't have sausage or pepperoni. No. Pepperoni definitely not. Soxed. Sausage if one slipped on and it was all right, you know. Oh. Ground sausage or tube sausage? Sliced up tube sausage, wouldn't it be? Oh, fuck you. No.

Ground sausage? They put ground sausage on top? You, like your ground up fucking pork sausage. Like you would, like a Jimmy Dean sausage that you'd put in your sausage gravy or whatever. that's what's good on pizza. I mean, I wouldn't eat it either way. That's like eating a hot dog on a goddamn pizza. I had a choice. I've been craving sausage and peppers, like, for the last, like, two weeks, so I got to do something.

The first time that I went up there and ordered a pizza up there in the northeast of the United States and ordered sausage, and it came and it was sliced on the, I thought they'd sliced hot dogs on my goddamn pizza. When did you ever see that before? Have you had pizza in Louisville your entire life? no they didn't have pizza in Louisville my entire life don't you realize how old I am there literally was not I remember when I was like eight nine or ten that my cousin Larry met this guy through work or whatever that owned a place called Mario's Pizza here in town at the time and it was a sit-down restaurant and that was the newfangled thing in town and we went there like

That's the first time I'd ever seen a pizza when I was like nine years old. Pizza Hut wasn't here at that point. So, but no, but the answer to your question is sausage is fucking sausage. That would be the kind of sausage. It would always be on pizzas. Good old ground up sausage, not goddamn smoke sausage links. That's a completely different fucking thing.

Well, I mean, maybe I'm not thinking of, I don't know, exactly what you're saying, but back to another thing there. When did you first have pizza delivery in Louisville? Oh, good Lord. I don't imagine that anybody does, well, now pizza delivery in Louisville is one thing, pizza delivery here at this particular location is another thing. I was surprised to find out when I returned home to Louisville in 1999 that there was a pizza place that actually delivered here.

There was a couple of them, as a matter of fact, but when I left in 82, no, if when I was a kid, my mom, if my mom and dad went out and left me with a babysitter, they would fucking call a cab and go over and pick up a bag of

fucking Jerry's Jay Boys and have that brought over. That's how fucking delivery was in those days. Yeah, we had a little different here in the Northeast. Yeah, but nevertheless. the less. You've got strange ideas about your sausage on your pizza. Now it's a smoke

sausage like a barbecue smoke sausage at the rendezvous or in Memphis or something like that. Now that's a that's a great thing or a big old fucking Johnsonville and Dewey sausage. But it's a complete, then you've got to have the mac and cheese on the side so the cheese coast the meat. It has to be Italian sausage. That's the whole. No, I'm talking about if you're cooking that as sausage to eat like a link sausage. But, But if it's a link sausage on pizza, that just is just ridiculous. All right. This has been Pizza Talk, sponsored by the Pizza Place, who don't pay us for sponsorship.

This is really going well. Well, I'll tell you. Speaking of things that didn't go well, let's talk about AEW. Why don't wait? Hold on. I've got to zip ahead on my pages here. I keep my pages numbered for just so. an occasion. This episode of AEW proves once again that Tony ought to be sued for malpractice.

They had the story in front of them. And I can only imagine if they'd have told a clear and concise picture for the last six months, how they might be doing since they might be squeaking up over 30,000 tickets for this 100,000 seat Wembley Stadium show they got coming up. But if they'd have told a clear picture for six months and people had anticipated it with MJF and Osprey, because they were handed the premise, Osprey, the top young, fiery whippersnapper baby face, legitimately everybody knows is real, has to have surgery, he may never wrestle again. They could have put that doubt in people's minds easily based on everything.

And then he makes a miraculous recovery. But can he hold up to, can he be the old Will Osprey of the glory years? Can he go back to the top? And instead of the first night that he came back, beating him and dropping him on his head, probably I think multiple times, and in the second night having a doctor just say, no, he can't take anymore,

you have him come back and fight from underneath as a baby face against all these various different heels that people are not supposed to like to begin with, so you don't split your audience. And he comes from behind and underneath in every case and wins, fairly decisively, depending on the name of the heel, giving the guy an out.

But at the same time, every time that somebody tries to drop him on his head, he foils it. So the neck is still untested. Meanwhile, MJF came back and won the goddamn title. And then he should have gone on a reign of terror, which if you think about it, Brian, what action does MJF always take that gets the most heat in his matches when he puts the table back under the ring or sweeps the thumbtacks out of the ring? Right? They hate that because the AEW faithful want a freak show.

So take advantage of that. MJF wins the world tiles and now I'm calling a shot. Nobody's going to mess with Tony's world title. We're not going to have this wallowing in the muck and mire. I'm a real wrestler. I'm a ratings. The whole thing he says, every world title match of which he will only wrestle on the premium live events

or a TV show once in a while if he's paid a large cash bonus. but all of his world title matches to restore the honor and credibility of wrestling have to follow the rules and because we've seen he not only can have good matches in the ring but the people will buy them

if they're with the right people he and punk did have had a great fucking match at a mega goddamn buy rate but nevertheless let him in the world title picture deprive these goofballs that want to laugh at the business of seeing their goddamn improvised explosive devices and various comedy falderall

and have matches and beat by regular heel fuckery instead of furniture or goddamn flame throwers a succession of top baby faces that the people fucking like. And then when you establish that from both guys' parts, then a couple of months before Wembley Stadium, that's when you bring them together. And that's when, for whatever reason, MJF is able to get to drop on Osprey

and fucking drop him on his head. and the neck is in jeopardy and then you cart him out and then Osprey begins not only the rehab but the promos on a week to week basis three weeks, four weeks, five weeks, I'm going to be back, I'm going to be stronger than ever and I'm going to take that title and I'm going to out-wrestle you to do it and they go to fucking, he comes back, you can juice that up and do the last minute angles. go to the match at Wembley Stadium, and they have a goddamn classic match and fucking Osprey beats him after surviving another assault on the neck. How difficult would that have been to do?

Are you there? Yeah. I mean, I don't know, you know, what to say to that. That's the road that a lot of people, including us, have thought that they were going to go on. they started setting up something with Osprey and Omega a while back. It's been playing out in front of our eyes. They did this here. I don't want to spoil the review. That's coming a little bit later. And now we have Omega and Osprey. They've already sold

what, close to 30,000 tickets. And Osprey versus Omega may excite that fan base more than MJF and Osprey right now. Obviously there's a lot of fans who think Adam Page is going to play into this somehow because he has a stipulation. They have to figure out how to get him away from where he can't challenge for the title. But I think for the AEW fan, and they had a hot crowd.

For an outdoor show, they had a hot crowd. In more ways than one. Yeah, quite literally. The wrestlers look like they were sweating their asses all MJF did specifically. was a long match. But I think those fans are really excited about that. Why?

I mean, I can't imagine at this point, I think the fans would be more mad if Tony changed it again before Wembley and... Well, that's what I'm afraid of is now are we going to see a three-way for fuck's sake. You never know what he'll

do next, but it's ruined anyway. But I'm sorry. It's weird. I mean, what feels like the bigger story to you right now? Not like what we like or what's booked well, but what feels like the bigger story? Will Osprey going for the world title? Or will Osprey eventually turning on or being turned on by Moxley?

Like, what's the bigger story right now? The title run or the Death Rider's thing playing out with Osprey? Well, to me it would be winning a title because the thing with... actually maybe none of the above. Yeah, it doesn't feel like it's pushed as much. Well, because here's the thing. Who gives a shit when Osprey eventually turns on Moxley or vice versa or whatever the case? Because he willingly put himself in that position.

He's willingly stood there and been talked to like a fucking dip shit. It didn't make any sense from the beginning. why would he need this fucking training to do all of this when you've just they're all marks for themselves and they've all got to interject all this goddamn dramatic sub-tension and the point you made about, I'm sorry, but why, Kenny, as when we get to the review of this match, Jesus H. Christ, if they liked him before,

why do they want to see him now to a shell of his former? herself. But you've got two baby faces that are just going to go out and have a goddamn goofy-ass fucking gymnastics routine of a match and play video game characters instead of establishing Osprey as somebody that took the belt back from the biggest menace that had faced AEW that people could believe in and not this drunken fucking mope-faced bum moxley that just wanders around the fucking parking lot. See, I think to a segment of their fans and specifically the person booking the show, the bigger story is Osprey getting the title as kind of a passing of the torch from Omega,

who was the previous guy who broke his body in half in Japan and they came here. That's what, why would you, why would you want to beat the icon of the instead of beating an evil son of a bitch that had pissed in everybody's goddamn post-toasties. You've just, this is why it's so limited to this audience that wants to laugh at silly stunts. It is interesting with Omega. You know, I've noticed this for a little while now. Every time I watch him wrestle, I do have the thought, like, is this his last match? Because it just seems like, I always have that hope.

No, but I'm serious. Like, it just seems like, I don't know, you know, I'm going to turn it on while I'm out there and do the best I can. man this is going to hurt man this is all going to really hurt and it is well yes well anyway they opened with Kenny and there's that fucking Michael Nakazawa still

what in God's name are they still paying him for to do that he's still standing around he's Kenny's assistant for real I well

they just got to all hire their friends So he did a promo here, and to be honest, it was more serious and less breathy than normal. He still had to list all the outlaw groups that he'd worked for in his, you know, his history, but if it's all coming to an end, if MJF beat him, he'll congratulate him for a job well done, but you don't have what it takes. it still wasn't really as milk-soppish as normal but he still did the umwa bang good night and sweet dreams

mr miss america whatever the fuck other than the uvois i actually thought it was one of his better promos it was shorter it was to the point and it was trying to actually be serious for once so maybe that's that's about the best it's going to get probably but then the main event he's in the main event which is still to come we got to go chronologically because the first match i actually wanted to see and then the more of it that i saw the less of it i wanted to see tomaso champa and chris jericho

jericho just jericho oh god damn it Dotto and just Joe or just Chris or whatever his name is. Mr. Irvine. I, you know, again, I've always been a fan of Champa's work. He's never been at a place where they would actually feature him without him having to do indie stunt show shit. They didn't appreciate him in, you know, NXT, whatever, because they put him with that fucking same-faced dwarf.

But nevertheless, he loves. looks good. He's got a different style he can work. And Jericho is smart to the business enough to not do dangerous shit too many times in the course of a match or if it's dangerous only to the guy he's doing it to. So it's not, he doesn't have the full on outlaw matches. So okay. But I swear to God, as such Champa makes his. entrance and then goes back to the stage and hides behind the palm trees waiting for Jericho to make

his entrance because they they were a hot crowd as we said more ways of one because it was like some kind of outdoor pavilion it looked like they were in a parking lot under a tent and clear water and there's no walls to the thing so but they've got and I mean they saw spent a bare minimum. Have you ever seen a bare minimum of plastic beach furniture and some fake palm trees on the entrance

way to indicate beach break? I think it kind of looked at the old WCW beach blast. At least they're of Adirondack. See, I pronounced that. Adirondack chairs were made out of some type of balsa wood instead

of fucking plastic. Because Target doesn't have Balsallwood chairs. I said that's where they went to fucking Walmart. As Tomaso is hiding behind the trees waiting for Jericho, Jericho comes out through the people to the ring and then comes up from behind Champa down the ramp and suplexes him on the plastic beach chairs

that just snapped under him, cut his leg, and then picked up one of them and he not only working through it on him, like he was using a real arena chair and he working through it on him, but the thing bounced off of him. You could tell him weighed like eight ounces, and he just, like hitting him with a fucking birthday balloon. And then they rang the bell to getting the ring. And at first it was kind of a good old-fashioned spot show match,

too fast, not too hard. It's hot out there, I'm thinking. And then Jericho, Death Valley, drivered him on the apron. And then they stayed on the floor forever. And Champa gave Jericho a facebuster on the stairs, so Jericho got colors. So he is full on now, demonstrated Tony how much he's going to put this younger generation over and really how old is Tomazzo 42 but he's younger generation

he's he's he's grayer and granny clamp it but still but he's putting people over now so he's reformed he went to reform school learned how to be reformed but they were trying to have

at some points in this a bloody grudge match in an atmosphere that kind of looked like the Clinton County Fair and Jericho got up on the top rope and not the middle rope, but he was standing on the top rope because they had to do the thing they were going to do.

But he's trying to give the 10 punches, but he's on the top rope. He can't put any oof in the punches because he's barely balanced. So even the people were like six, seven, eight, they weren't really sure. You know, what? And then Tomaso picked him up

gave him his finish off the top, which looked tremendous. Two count. I'm like, what the fuck? And then, and I couldn't understand why that wasn't the finish with where they were going. It would have been great, but nevertheless,

they threw then a bunch of chops. And Tomaso went to use a bucket of sand in front of the referee. But, the referee just took it and Jericho hit no referee didn't take it Jericho hit the code breaker on him

and fucking threw the sand up in the hair or whatever the fuck two count and then Tomaso went for a knee but Jericho got the walls and Tomaso reached back and threw sand in Jericho's

eyes and hit the knee one two three but then Tomaso hit Jericho over the head with a metal chair, which was actually the best-looking thing of the whole match. Nice shot, safe. Oh, yeah. You know, et cetera.

And then explained to me what Tomaso was going to do. Exactly. And then he went under the ring and pulled out a tool bag and got a power drill and started spinning it and going, he's going to do a prefrontal lobonautical. of me the hard way, apparently, on fucking Jericho with a power drill and security floods in. And so

basically he beat Chris Jericho. Tomaso Champa beat Chris Jericho one, two, three on television. And that would have been great except 90 seconds later. He had ruined it by doing this bullshit and everybody's like, oh,

fuck. And I don't know what the fuck they were thinking. He got a win. He didn't need extra heat. He'd already done the fuck with the sand. That was the big enough deal. I don't think that he should have given the guy's finish off the top rope

previously and got a two count. But nevertheless, okay with everything else. And then a power drill. in the first match on the show. But, Brad, your thoughts, please. I congratulate them. They've surpassed a screwdriver as being the stupidest weapon in AEW.

But at least the screwdriver they've used as inexplicable as it is. People have been stabbed left and right with that screwdriver. What was he going to do to Jericho? It's either he was going to drill him in the head, kill him, and LeBotabon by him. Or he was going to drill his feet?

What was he going to do? do exactly. After he beat him. After he beat him. Yeah. After he, why, why was he so, I beat you, I won. Ha ha. And since he'd been in the walls when he threw the goddamn shit, he ought to be limping around anyway as to, but everybody's, after the bell rings, everybody's fine again, no matter what's fucking happened. And then he tries to fucking drill through one of the inflatable things and he can't do it. So finally, he just like stabs the thing with it

and then turns it on to get the thing to move, but... Yeah, this was four and a quarter stars in the observer. Oh, no, come on. Four and a quarter stars. He's okay with power drills now, Dave is. Well, that was post-match. I guess that wouldn't count towards the stars. Power drills, power slap, power town.

I think Dave is fucking spending too much time pointing at the star. possibly howling at the moon. Anyway, our other participant in the issue that we were speaking of earlier, old Will Ostrich, that's what I'm going to start calling him again, because now he just looks like a guy wearing a robe with goofy feathers. He was in the parking lot somewhere in front of a bunch of equipment cases with Renee Mawkes-Lugood,

and he weighed in that he's pulling for for Kenny. And again, I'll tell you what, in this interview, he slowed down, he played it straight, he didn't try to make jokes or laugh at his own jokes, and did a pretty good job. And then MJF came in and just

trashed him verbally. I mean, MJF, he can deliver it, he can tear you down. and Osprey answered back fairly well. Again, better than normal. Everybody was verbally on their game this evening. And in MJF spit in Osprey's face and they had a fight and a pull apart with security, which again is one of those things that, you know, would get over.

if we didn't see it constantly including in the goddamn previous segment where the security had to pull it to you. Do you see the point that I'm trying to make, Brian? I do. And was this a different security force? How many, because they'd only had three minutes after the fucking break or whatever

to get reset and after you fire a taser, do you have to recharge it or whatever for a late? of time. Maybe they should get one of the quick-charge gimmicks that they've got from Ridge. Anyhow, your thoughts on this particular matter? I think it was fine. Osprey's better in this kind of setting as opposed to in the ring in front of the fans on the mic, or even the MJF stuff

wasn't as good as him just talking because we've seen a lot of these segments with Osprey having conversations with Omega or Moxley or his opponent, MJF. Just casual conversations ignoring the camera. I don't like that. I thought this was all right, though. Well, and that's another thing, is Osprey gets so fired up himself

when he goes out for a live interview in the ring. Then he's breathing hard, and then he's fucking yelling louder, and then the voice, and you don't know the accent, and what the fuck's brubs going on? So this is better. He sounds like

he's not afflicted let's say the next match was Kyle Feltcher and take a shit and they had a belt on the line one of the one of the it was it national was it international was it whatever Kyle won

did you watch this I could not have cared less in the world good match very good match what did Dave give it what uncle Dave get. Hold on. Oh, you really missed one here, Jim.

Four and three quarter stars. As good as five. All righty then. But here's what happened afterwards that I try to take notes on this. Right as I bring it up and try to help me follow it. Okay? And just see if you can keep track of everybody.

McFoly came out. to the ring to interview Kyle. And you could tell him, Mick looked like he was sweating worse than Kyle was. And that's not a knock on Mick. Again, they were talking about the humidity and how hot it was out there and everything. I'd say, Jesus Christ, he looks like he just worked. And as they're doing the in-ring interview, the hard camera shot was across from the stage slash entrance way.

So not only were there no people in the background as they're getting the hard camera shot of the one of the biggest stars in the history of the industry coming out and interviewing the fucking other guy, but when they tried to get tight on them, because of the angle, all you could see was the ramp. so it looked like they were standing in front of a gray wall. Did you notice that?

That's all I couldn't. I was screaming. Get off it. Get off it. You know, I didn't even notice, no. Oh, my God. I mean,

I know I'm persnickety, but I, because I've sat in a TV truck a lot. But good God, how did nobody figure beforehand that if we have an in-ring interview and we're hard cameras positioned here, you couldn't even see the,

hind trees and shit unless they pulled back so far, you couldn't tell the expression on the talents face in the ring. Anyway, they went back and forth, and then Don said that Mick was out there trying to steal Kyle's spotlight, and Mick, he still got it, he can still talk, but on this show, it's almost because Don is a parody of a manager, and it's just parody upon parody, but he had the pictures of his old puppy dog

and his new puppy dog on each one of his slippers and he told the punchline was he was going to put one of his dogs up Don's ass and it got the pop of the interview because what else was there to fucking pop on but then it started getting

confusing because then Don suddenly out of this interview that he and his few of his guys were doing and mc foley's talking to him don introduces kevin knight who comes down the ramp with a microphone with music and everything and knocks kyle who's in the goddamn group with him again they're more they're always fighting everybody they've just turned one and kevin knight wants a world title shot but Kyle spends the whole time he's talking glaring at Kevin Knight until Andre's music plays.

And he comes out at what the, he's in that fucking three-piece suit at cab driver hat and a treach coat, a treach coat, Brian, a trench coat at Beach Break. It's 100 fucking degrees with goddamn 78 point dewpoint. and he's in this, what the fuck? And Chivani, I could be wrong, I could be paraphrasing, but Chavani said, And Trotty's so cool. Yes.

What the phone? What kind of commentator is that? Not in any manner was he cool at that point. So then Andrade starts gargling a promo, and he wants a world title shot. and also talking to Don and his heels in the rig, and I'm not sure which specifically, he said, and I'm going to take a belt from Jew.

And Don says, well, if you beat Jake Doyle next week, then you'll get a shot at a belt. I can't. You'll get a shot at a belt. And Mark Davis. What belt does he got? What belt does he have? have.

He has one of the belts. He won one of the belts from, who did he win it from? All right. He is one of the champions. He had the national belt, the national belt. Yes, well,

this is a highly anticipated fucking matchup, obviously. And people have been talking about it for weeks now. And Andre's thing now is to ask everybody, how'd you know? How'd you know? How'd you know the phone number to get hired by these, son of bishops. So then,

no, it's not over, Brian. No, the segment has only just begun to live. White lace and promises are yet to come. So the fucking, when he says, how'd you know? Well, in a bunch of the heels, but not all of them, jump out of the ring and chase Andrade to the back. And now, meanwhile, I think at that point, Mick was gone, but he never actually said goodbye.

He was, he abruptly just left the party. So, Mick Foley, again, one of the biggest stars in the industry, came out to interview the fucking guy that won the previous match that has turned into a completely different thing. And people just wander out. Now they've,

while Don and a couple of his heels are still, in the ring, Mick Foley's gone, the rest of the heels, chase Andrade to the back in what looked like the makeup room where Darby appeared from nowhere and jumped on Kevin Knight. But probably there was still like three heels, so they just stopped Darby and were holding him and went to hit him with the skateboard. Brian Cage was going to hit him with the skateboard. when the skateboard blew up in cage's hands with sparks and smoke

and the camera pans over and there's Andrade who's got the remote to the fucking pyro thing so he blew up the skate So three feet away He could have just reached out and grabbed him and said don't do that But he said he's timed it so

he can blow him up to motherfuckers this is why I don't take these guys seriously and they hate me because it's a fucking joke to them except the part about

not taking themselves seriously so then Andre jumps the heels they're having the fight in the makeup room and we cut back from this fight ongoing to the I can't remember where the security came

I don't think we got security there they were still busy breaking up the other hey rub and seg too and but the last we saw in the arena Don and a couple of heels were in the ring but we cut to the announcers at now for an on camera at the desk and nobody's out

there they've all just wandered off well Jim I think we may wander off For a moment, we'll be right back after this short commercial timeout. All righty then, the next match on the All-Star lineup had that stellar baby-face tag team of Will Osprey and Plumber Boxley, our friend Dick the Boozer, the heel group that tortures the supposed top baby face who's as submissive as a fat house cat, against two guys the one guy was a generic

looking guy and the other guy is the fat gray-haired guy that's J.D. Drake. Gee, it ought to be J.C. Drake for Jesus Christ. What? It looks like they went to the fucking home, the memory care facility.

Can we have one of your what of your larger patients for two hours just to we'll put him in some spandex and we'll wrap him in bubble wrap and send him back he'll never remember he was there how old is this fucking guy how fat is this fucking guy i don't have his weight and i don't know how did he did he just did he bring the ring how did he get booked jd drake is five foot 10 according to this uh this can't be the same guy nope this is definitely not the same guy this is a different guy wait a minute that's not even his name

Multiple J.D. Drake's apparently. No, that's not his name. His name's Henry. Henry something. Isn't it? He's a workhorseman. He's from Shelby, North Carolina. Yes, he's old enough

that he idolized Arne Anderson and the four horseman and he wants to fucking be a workhorseman because he has to work to pay for his fucking wrestling habit. I don't know what, So what is he? 55?

Actually, I can't find his age anywhere. I bet not. It doesn't appear. He's probably been, he's been shaving that, Morty's been shaving his fucking beer. 42 years old. Oh, bullshit. He's grayer than I am. He's also fatter than I am.

And the work horseman is J.D. Drake with Anthony Henry. There, that's the guy. That's the guy. Sounds like a revolutionary war gimmick. He sounds like... Anthony Henry. Tony Anthony with two first names. Anyway, Jesus H. Christ, I did not watch this.

Obviously, Osprey and Moxley win after, apparently from the time I took fast forwarding, having some difficulty in doing same. What do you think of the idea? Again, the stupidest push ever with Osprey and this guy. Yeah, what do you think of the actual idea of they team him up with Moxley and give them a match and they give him a win? it takes a little while considering who the opponents were

and quite frankly where Osprey and Moxley are on the card. It shouldn't take Hogan a long time to beat Johnny Rods, you know? Like, it just shouldn't. Java Root maybe, but not Johnny Rod. Well, Java Root was a tough competitor, as many fans read about in the magazine.

But that's your, I get your point. Yes, and that's the point that I'm making too. And besides that, again, Moxley is the guy who broke his fucking neck to have him have the surgery to begin with. And it's just kind of a gutless, dickless bastard is he? He can't come back and do it on his own. He has to resort to help from the guy who broke his neck. And his friends are saying, hey, why are you doing it?

Well, you know, I know what Moxley is, but I need the help is basically the story. I need the help. Well, speaking, I needing help, a bunch of listeners sent this over from its video released by the Wrestling Observer Figure 4 page on Facebook about this match. Because according to Dave, we don't have the ratings anymore, you know, quarter to quarter, the breakdowns. But Dave says that's what this match was all about. Let's hear this and see what you think. Was what driving the ratings down? What, how could you?

Well, let's listen to this. Dave Meltzer and Brian Alvarez, wrestling observer radio will stop it along the way. We got Will Osprey and John Moxie versus the workhorseman. We did not need a 15-minute work-horsman match in the middle of the show. It was eight minutes. It was like the show was only two hours and 20 minutes. What did we need Will Osprey selling for the work-horsman for in the middle of this show?

We didn't need it. You don't need anything. No, actually we did. We need this. Let's stop for it, Bob. Oxygen. We need oxygen, water, some type of food, we do need things. This is multiple times.

Can't always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need. This is multiple times where Dave has been, I don't even think you could say confronted, but he's discussing dynamite with Alvarez. And Alvarez hits Dave with a question about the logic or the reasoning behind something. And Dave gets so defensive that eventually it's like, nothing matters. What was that last time? It's like, yeah, booking doesn't matter. What are you talking about?

Bukki doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Yeah, and now we hear this, but let's go back. And why do we need to see these guys selling for these schlubs? Title match. We needed the international title match. And we needed this women's gauntlet. We didn't need the gauntlet match.

We didn't need the gauntlet match. That sets up the women's title match at the pay-per-view. We didn't need the Jericho match. I mean, it's like whatever. It's like women's gauntlet was way more important. and then the Work Horseman match. And I like the guys. I do think they're good work.

Well, guess what? Guess what? Okay, there's four ratings draws in the company that are the major ratings draws right now. Okay? And that's MJF. It's Kenny Omega. It's John Moxley and it's Will Osprey. So perhaps when he's trying to put the show together, especially tonight,

because obviously, obviously one of the goals for tonight was, is that we do not have a World Cup game on. And we are going to try to get, whatever the number is. So this was his ratings match? No, he put him in there with the rascals or put him in there with some team that's actually been on television.

He could have them on with them. Yes, he could have. Let's stop it again there for a moment. They've been on television as a team multiple times, and this is the weakest set of opponents that they've ever been given. so how would this be for ratings to have it go on that long

and people kind of probably have the opposite reaction like well what the fuck who are these fucking I'll check back later if you tuned in and saw Will Osprey taking a beating from JD Drake for instance just to throw an example out there I don't know what you would think I don't know but let's go back to the maybe they'll explain it but these were the guys maybe he felt that the rascals just He didn't need to put them in there with the grass.

So he put them in with these guys. He put them in there with these guys. The match was good. Like, if the match sucked, it's moving. Oh, God. These guys were good. They had a good match. And like I said, it's, it's the two of the four biggest.

This blob of shit was amazing. You've never seen a blob of shit that was shaped like this and smelled like this and looked like this. It was the most beautiful blob of shit. I've ever seen. It's still a blabba shit. And if someone says you don't need that blab of shit, well, you don't need anything. No.

What's gonna fucking defense is that? No soup for you. This ratings draws in the company. So you're gonna say like, oh, why'd you put them on? And Will's gonna main event, Wembley Stadium. And Moxley's gonna, perhaps, you know, be in a,

I mean, obviously, mox is gonna be a big match on every single show, because he always is. So you want to win, give him some exposure, and it's, there's nothing wrong with it. I mean, it's, it's not like it was, you know, I mean, Jake Doyle.

And if Jake, actually that would have been better. No, it wouldn't. This guy has been on television that's actually like doing something right now. No, I'm talking about winning. All right, let me stop it again. Alvarez has become my favorite person out there. You know he's just sitting there waiting and it finally gets to that moment where he can't take Dave's logic anymore

and he blows up. But also, and Dave has gotten so insufferable with him and he's such a douchebag about it. I feel Alvarez would have reached through the cables of the microphones and just choke him.

And it wouldn't, and Jake Dawson has not as big ratings draw. Tony was going for ratings. He's not as big a ratings draw as the workhorseman. No, I'm talking about the opponents. They could have had a better team to face. Especially if you're looking to draw ratings.

No one to turn this on and went, you know what? Workhorseman might win. I'm going to stick around for this one. Nobody. Nobody turned the match off with Will Osprey in it right now. Or, you know, John Moxley, probably not either. This is not, those are not people you turn the TV off on. Oh, good Lord. Oh, come on.

We're going to turn the clip off on that. Remember at one point when Moxley and the whole group were first running rampant, that was exactly who they were turning the TV off on. Yeah, and we don't see the quarter hours. Now, Tony Khan does. Just because we don't, don't think Tony Khan does, and he does, whether he shares them with Dave, or whether he just tells Dave what they are,

whether Dave gets them from another source, I don't know, but we're not seeing any sourced material that's saying in 2026, John Moxley has moved the numbers to any degree. But if it's there, show us. Let's see it. Yeah. Was that it?

That was it. There was no, you know what? They ought to sometime, they ought to do sound effects of like Alvarez saying, I've got a fucking club here and then just somebody hitting a watermelon with a baseball band. Everybody's got a club. Everybody's got a club. So what? You see that's, it would be infuriating.

But then you hear a wop, wop, wop, and Dave going, oh, Jesus, don't hit me. Oh, God, don't hit me again. Ow! Ow! It would just make you madder. Ow! Speaking of ow, they had a multiple-person girl's garbage match

to determine somebody to do something against someone, and somebody won. That's what I took away from that. I think Willow won. I'm doubting myself, but I think she won her big return. and uh tecla was on commentary here that was the highlight of the whole thing tequila's pretty great she does seem like she has a good perky attitude

but it was time for the main event of the evening brian for the aew w world heavyweight championship mjf and kenny and i said earlier and for the people listening on youtube you can, if you're just hearing this as a standalone clip, you can go back and find it, Jim Cornett on how they should have booked MJF and Osprey to Wembley Stadium. But I'm just again amazed that they think that the way to get anybody else to pay attention to what they're doing besides the same

group and the same group would not have been offended had they done it the other way is to have Osprey instead of beating the other baby face it's now washed up and probably best to have our fond memories of him to beat the menace that took away their fucking goofy fucking garbage wrestling and restore chaos and anarchy to AEW

and beat MJF and start having anything goes matches again they could have really pulled something off with a reign of terror of having a world champion that actually had matches that stuck to the rules and beat people. For six months, they might have got somebody over. But nevertheless, they have this match on TV for what, and again, if they're going to make it a three-way later on, and that's just further throwing, what do they call it over across the pond? Brian, a spanner in the works instead of a wrenching the plans?

I don't know. I think it's a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. No, no, no. They've been shaving their bushes over there in England since the, at least the 90s. But you talked about when you see Kenny, you think, is his last match, boy, it looks like it hurts. Okay, the bell rings. They traded punches. Kenny went for a drop behind spot and fell on his ass.

and M.JF had to stand there and look out of looking behind him and weble wobbling, waiting for Kenny to come up from behind him and waistlock him for the German. Then they did a spot where Kenny went for the one-winged ferry and M.JF was on top of his shoulders and both of them went over the top rope. but MGF went over Kenny had to help boost himself over a bit a beat afterwards and lost his grip on everything it fell flat of his back on a fucking floor from over the top rope did you see that

oh yeah that bump I saw that bump all right splat heard the fucking thing anyway I'm like what the fuck is he going to make it through this and then they went out into the fans and they did the wall fight deal down the aisle and over chairs and the referee just went with them didn't count just

walked around and watched it and they spent about three minutes on the fucking floor before they finally ever got back in the ring then when they got in the ring as mjav got about a minute and a half a heat and then they left the ring and went to the other side to the stage and so that Kenny, old twinkle toes is back, baby. Move over, Sinatra. Kenny had to do a backflip off of the lifeguard chair, which was the only thing on the stage I think constructed out of wood.

And at that point, they're into the overrun. And I'm just right, this is so bad. I'm thinking about not joining them for the overrun. But I did. and then Kenny, he did one of the huff and puff dives again. Even if you're going to do a dive, there's a way that some guys do it where it's like, fuck, I'm coming after you, motherfucker, right?

He stands there and he puffs his cheeks, and he fucking assumes the position like his butt plug is too firmly entrenched. And he hits the near ropes, and then the, after he's pointing, and the far ropes. And then what moron's not just going to move? And it's so theatrical and fake. Every movement, every idiocy of his looks so fucking stupid

and heat getting to me. With the skipping and the mincing and the pointing and the buffing and the blowing and the fucking sucking. Then, they continued on for a while. And MJF at one point gingerly cleared off the middle of the desk. I should have known, but

he went, but they did the apron tease where is Kenny going to knock him off? And finally Kenny knocked him off the aprons. And he front flipped and cannonballed through the fucking announced desk. And this was one of the single best looking bumps that I've seen through anything in a long time.

And again, this would have been September 1996, the In Your House Mind Games Sean Michaels versus Mankind match in Philly at the Spectrum. That's the one where Cactus took the bump off the apron. And I don't know that he

planned it that way or knew it was going to happen, but he went head first through the table and it made a hole in it because the tables weren't collapsible back then. This would have been kind of like that that you could replay and would have got mileage and got people talking if you didn't see it in every television show that every company does. But they were, seconds later they were back up having a fight on the apron

with the referee fucking staring at them and then back to the floor and then Kenny tried to do his fireman's carry forward roll jump up back flip off the railing but he fucked up the forward roll and instead of landing on his feet he landed on his feet

and fell over to the side so MJF had to fucking stay at the same place until Kenny can he can stand up go over there get his balance and do it anyway so he could not make he didn't want to miss a flip and then mjf gave Kenny a tombstone pile driver on a metal chair that was standing not folded up on the ground but standing on the floor and i at that point i wrote this is complete garbage they haven't even been in the ring for five minutes but after the tombstone mjf was selling his knee and kennie's

selling like he's a wet rag possibly just a limp rack I don't know Kenny put MJF on a turnbuckle like he was trying to fuck him from behind so that he could get him up for the one wing dingling but MJF

did a reverse Hurricane Rana off the top on him this one and then a heat seeker both of which looked like they could be a fucking finish anytime you would apply them two count

the reverse hurricane rana looked like it killed kennie omega it looked like he came down straight down on his head that looked really bad it got me into the match more well you were you know you had hope there somebody's going to get rid of him one way or the other anyway

two count so then mjf went out and got the title belt and brought it in the ring but the referee just grabs it and takes it away and then turns his back and begins motioning for the same spot. It's so, they're doing it constantly. Somebody has to come and get the belt from the referee and they don't. So he's just standing there with his back turn while M.GF gets the ring. But as he draws back, Osprey comes out, snatches the ring.

while MJF and the referee are yelling at Osprey, Kenny gets the bell. MJF turns around and sees Kenny, and as Kenny's swinging, MJF drops to his knees and begs, please stop. And Kenny does. He stopped the swing. He's conflicted. He wanted to do it the right way because he's a fucking milk sop and he's going to forgive everything that MJF has done dirty thus far.

But as he's conflicted, the referee is still yelling at Osprey, and MJF hits Kenny with a nutshot, then grabs the belt and hits him over there with the belt, and then covers him, referee turns around one count. A nut shot and whacking him over the head with the belt, one count. And then he got up and made a comeback. Three shitty knee lifts and the one wing Ferry Later

and one, two, three, Kenny Omega is once again the champion of the play wrestling company. Big pop from the play wrestling fans. And of course this now changes Wembley.

You would think, I mean, there's still time. They have another pay-per-view in between. Well, but now here's the thing. M. Japh is still one of the biggest fucking stars in the company, whether anybody likes it or not, and I'm not even defending him in that. I'm just saying it's not like it's a crowded field in this company of big stars. What's he going to do on the stadium now? MJF and Adam Page, MJF and, I don't know. You would think Moxley and Omega is like a

naturally set up thing because they're both fighting for the affection of Will Osprey. But if Omega's champion, it's him and Osprey, which it's either, if it's not MJF, that's the only other match that I think is acceptable at this point. Unless they make Osprey win it from Moxley. And Moxley's going to win it from Omega, but they can't do that at this point. But nothing could stop Tony. Well, no, they can do anything at this point because they've fucked up things in the past on the last second notice.

Remember when Darby Allen just got stuck in because they, I guess Tony wanted him to be world champion for a while because he really likes him. And he interrupted this whole thing back in what, January, February? that was a big match and of course the star rating for that match five and a half stars five and a half five and a half hold on I want to see what did Dave give

punk and Sammy because I thought it's punk and Sammy was excellent four and three quarter stars as good as five as good as five yeah you know well this is kind of one of those matches it's right up Dave's alley and they didn't really need to set the ring up because they barely used it You know, I'll just say one last thing.

I like the last several minutes of the match. I thought it finally pulled me in. I fucking hated the beginning of the match. I feel like both of these guys, there's too much of this, like you said, walk fighting. This isn't the first time I've seen these guys do this in their matches. Why? Why can't you just wrestle in the ring with the idea,

that a countout exists. It doesn't help the match. Unless like your ideas, the more fans we get close to, the happier they'll be. I don't know what reasoning it would be. You can even buy when they're even in, at ringside, within the railing, at least there's somewhere around there.

You can kind of lose yourself in that, not pay attention to your, but when they're out in the fucking back of the arena for minutes at a time, well, what the fuck? And if the referee's not counting, why not take advantage of it? Run to the fucking sea. Just run into the ocean.

The referee's not counting. You could make them chase you. So I hate that. And it takes down these matches to me. But the last few minutes were pretty hot and the fans were really into it. And, you know, it's intriguing. It's all been on free TV. You know, they have a pay-per-view.

Like I said, right around the corner, this could have been the main event of the pay-per-view. It wasn't. It was the main event of Clearwater. So that was AEW Dynamite. Well, I'll tell you, you know, the thing is, Tony put off really trying to put this card together. He procrastinated as what he did. He sat around.

He just, well, if I do this, if I do it, you know what the word if means, don't you, Brian? As Mama Cornett used to say, if a frog had wings, he wouldn't bump his butt on the ground. That's what Mama Cornett used to say. She didn't like excuses. Not at all. and I'll tell you one thing that's no excuse that you've got now

people out there in podcast land and around the world instead of sitting on your ass like a frog will hop on an opportunity like a frog but at least you're hopping instead of sitting because then your ass won't be black and blue if you've always wanted to start your business you've been sitting on a business idea or a plan or a scheme or a plot possibly some type of

far-ranging manifesto that you've written somewhere but you've never had the opportunity to put into motion? Well, now's the time because Shopify... Bad example. Let's not use the Ted Kaczynski. Well, if you've really gone to a lot of trouble

to figure out a fucking weight of forward in the world, then you need to let people... If you've got a song, you need to sing, Brian, and you got to sing it. And Shopify's the thing is going to take all those excuses. that you have for not getting started, just ball them up and turn them sideways and shove them right up your customer's ass, because, boy, I'll tell you what, they're going to get you

customers. That's not, again, that's not the best example. It's a relationship between the customer. Well, I don't want to tell people Shopify will shove things up their own asses. They won't want to do business with Shopify, but your customers will take a real reaming. I'll tell you what, they'll give me all their money. Oh, God. That's not how it works.

That's not how it works. Well, who gets all about getting ahead? Fuck the other guy. From the moment your first customer, from the moment your first customer is ready to pay, Shopify checkout helps more of them finish their purchase. When they come back, their details are already saved.

You can see their papers. And one tap. You can see their details. And they're done. You can see. They're not darned. with anything. You can see the details.

It says right here to copy one tap and they're done. I mean, done with the process and they can move on and complete the purchase. If that's what you want to call it, the process, but they're done one way or the other. It's over for them. Just one tap? It's just one tap? Yes, just one, not even a double tap. Shopify is going to handle everything from setup to checkout.

Folks, I'll tell you what. So you got more time to focus. on growing your business. You've got more tools to help grow your business and more time to plot and plan on how to take people's money. And that's what it's all about in the end.

It's good old-fashioned commerce. What can you take from the other guy? Hopefully he won't miss it until it's all gone. And then you'll hear the sound of money. Once again, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah. Again, these examples are not the best. millions of businesses worldwide.

That's why people are hearing their ears are ringing all the time because every time that one of the millions of businesses that is powered by Shopify makes money they hear that sound, well, it sounds like, goddamn, you're in a bell tower. And folks, take it from somebody who's contemplated many times,

climbing to a bell tower. You need to put as much responsibility as you can into the hands of other people. Elsewise, you're going to go, completely out of your mind and become some type of mindless drone, having been lobotomized in a rubber room at the puzzle factory for running your own business now that I think about it.

But it's fun. So anyway, you can get a free trial right now. And Shopify will show you what they can do for you because with Shopify, nothing stands between your idea and a real business. So go now and make it one. Go now and procreate and multiply or fornicate or whatever it is you're supposed to go and do all over the world. Shopify.com slash JCE. What the hell are you talking? What are you doing?

For you a forticate or whatever you're supposed to do. You're on a quest. You're on a journey there, a quest. You're out on a mission. We're on a mission. Shopify.com slash see you could make maple pants. Shopify.com slash JCE. It's a free trial. What do you got to lose? Nothing.

Except if you go to trial, you might lose your freedom. But this is a free trial. So you'll be okay. Shopify.com slash JCE. All righty. Well, you know, maybe that's the thing, Brian, is that, a couple of these big stadium shows that both companies have coming up, they could give out some free trial tickets.

Maybe it would help stimulate things. Tony may be doing better than expected, but that was only because everybody expected it to really suck. And meanwhile, old Nick Con, the other con, I think they may have a turd and a punch bowl shaping up here. But let's stay on Tony's case first, Before we go any further, what, Wembley Stadium, where are they at and where you think they're going? Well, let's talk about the facts as we have them right now, as reported by Wessel Ticks this morning as we are recording.

AEW All in London, Sunday, August 30th, 2006, Wembley Stadium, London. Available tickets, 8,055. Current setup. 37,182, and here's the important one, tickets distributed, 29,127. Now, at one point, it was looking like it might be 25,000. So this is an increase, and of course, we've got the same situation, tickets distributed versus how many have actually been sold,

and then also they apparently did a half-off sale here recently, and then that kind of is going to tell people, if they ever do this again, well, fuck, we shouldn't buy tickets too early because they'll put them on sale, but that's what they're, both companies are doing that these days. They're, you know, they're trying to see who will just say, I got to be there and then, oh, shit, we still need more people. Let's cut prices.

And I wish they didn't have the sale just so we would have an actual answer to this, but with the sale going on and the seeming direction of Omega versus Osprey, and I guess we can't really say for sure until it happens, they sold a thousand, 20 tickets in one day. So it did have a result. It did do something right there. Something. Something.

A thousand tickets in a day. That's pretty good. Well, yes. They're over a month away. They still have time. If I only had time. But to point being, that's their setup is 30-whatever thousand.

Wembley Stadium has 90-something thousand seats. And again, is it enough of a prestige location for the people in not only in England but greater Europe in general who are obviously going to be traveling because this is an event, does that offset the extra cost of if they'd have gone to a place that seats

35 or 40,000 and filled it up or come close? But would they have done that without being in a prestige location like Wembley Stadium? Nevertheless, they get probably get close to 35 at this point. There's nothing else they can announce. No acquisition, no stipulation, whatever, that's going to be a giant mover,

but they can get to 35,000, I guess, now. But this is after they skipped a year last year. And I guess do you think that they dare try to do, or is Tony just going to do it again, even if it doesn't turn a profit because he just wants to run Wembley Stadium. And if they can always put 25,000 or whatever in to shoot around it, it's okay with him. I don't know for sure, but it's important to note the second year they ran Wembley with a smaller crowd. It actually looked better on TV.

For whatever reason, they kind of had that looking great. Well, they had the first year as a dry run to figure out where they screwed up and plugged the hole. Yeah, you'd watch the old like parade of champions or the Cotton Bowl shows for world class. And some of the shots are like, man, there's people everywhere. And then like they'd go to the other side of the ring. You're like, there's no one there at all. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Why did they shoot it like this? Why are they exposing this? But I think they'll, I agree with you. I think they'll get at least 35, maybe more. They have over a month left. I don't know what they're doing locally in terms of promotion. I don't know what they can do. Will it be a big deal locally that a,

a London boy or an English boy, I don't know where the hell he's from. Will Osprey is going to win the world title at Wembley? I don't know. Well, but it's not like that's goddamn surprised to anybody that's predisposed to go to begin with. That they've kind of known that. It's just now the choice of the opponent

is what has been in doubt. And I just, I roll my eyes at the thought of this match. I'm not saying it'll happen. I'm not saying it should happen. But you're asking about things that would move tickets. If they announced MJF versus Mick Foley, would that move tickets? Yes. To the British fans who never got to see Mick Foley.

Or just to see him one more time. Yeah. But at the same time, it would also move somebody to try to get a conservatorship over Mick to prevent him from fucking killing himself. It'd be a bad idea. I'm just trying to think of options on the roster that would legitimately move a large amount of tickets if it was legit and pushed. Without having anybody

taken out in an ambulance. But again, they still have time, and the fans that are there will probably be really hot for AEW love. So we'll see where they go. Get some hot AEW love going on. Good Lord. The sickle variety, yes. Well, having said that over on the other side of the fence,

the WVE has more tickets sold for SummerSlam than AEW does for Wembley Stadium. The problem is they got two nights for SummerSlam. And it ain't looking good when you consider what their normal stadium crowd is for anything they've done in recent memory this far out. Can you remember lower ticket numbers two and a half or two weeks in chance? change out from a stadium than this? No.

It feels like something that's been a long time coming. You don't know if this is specific to where it is in Minneapolis versus, you know, the brand of WWE or SummerSlam. I can think of a number of reasons why people aren't buying tickets and we could discuss them, but let's talk about the actual firm numbers right now. As reported by Russell Ticks, yesterday has one. as we are recording WWE SummerSlam Saturday August 1st,

2026 4.30 p.m. U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Currently available tickets? 5,718. Available combo tickets. Whatever the fuck that means. 1,748.

The current setup. That's what I was about to say. 29,535 Tickets distributed 22,069 tickets 22,000 69 tickets 22 days to go until the show

as we are recording. What size is their stadium, oh great Brian last? Let's see. Minneapolis fucking Wally Carbo Memorial fucking football stadium or whatever. Uh, trying to see a firm

number. Because I'm convinced it's 60-something thousand at minimum. Oh, yeah, it's a big place, probably at least 50 to 60,000. I can go double check. Last year, MetLife Stadium, night one, 50,000, 493 tickets distributed. So last year, and MetLife Stadium is in Snavitzville. Jersey. Jersey

last year they had 50,000 this year two weeks out or whatever they've got 22 but again Minneapolis capacity 73,000 okay there you go

so they're going to if they can get 30,000 they're going to have 30,000 in a fucking 73,000 seat stage and if Tony can get 35,000, he's going to have 35,000 in a 90,000 seat stadium.

Both of them, as Mama Cornett, you say, are getting too big for their britches. I mean, I don't know how this can be a positive thing for the WWE, and it's not, I don't think it's a reflection on the talent

of punk and Rhodes is going to be a big match, and Oba and Brock's a big match, and it is Brock's hometown of blah, blah, blah. I think there's something, too, and maybe there's something still, too, that Vern Gagne never ran the big shows to summertime up in that part of the country

because people go out to the lakes and commune with nature and have relations with deer and things. But also is Minneapolis a tourist destination to that level that people want to go because they're, are all traveling crowds now for these stadium shows at these,

especially at these ticket prices. It's not like 40 years ago when Watts ran the Superdome and, you know, like three dozen people had drive down from Baton Rouge or whatever the fuck, they're coming from everywhere. It's more expensive to go anywhere, anywhere. It does Minneapolis rank as a destination a lot of people wanted to go to.

Have they been turned on or turned off by the show's action or lack thereof over the recent months? You know, it's just, it ain't happening. I think it's a lot of things. The creative is a big issue. It seems like a company that's more interested in how they're going to come across on the behind-the-scenes bullshit show than their actual wrestling show. Yeah. The one that's supposed to get people interested.

the creative has been lackluster. If you want to argue just at least since WrestleMania, it's been lackluster. Got a little better lately with the Sammy title win into the Cody Rhodes or into the CM Punk match. But still, these Seth Rollins promo... Well, that's been a last week or two,

and they're not going to make up that much lost ground that quick. But these Seth Rollins promos, the way the vision has been used, I just, nothing's really working great right now. And what's the big match that's going to get you to go there? The ones that we know so far, Helena, Selle, Brock, and Oba, live in EO, which respectfully, I don't think is going to be a draw. It'll be a nice match. Even if you like both of them, are you going to want to go to Minneapolis?

It's not going to make you go see that. Penta, I think, has a match, and then Rollins and Roman. there's not a lot of exciting stuff. The booking's been dry for a while. They've been resting on their laurels in terms of they think that when they, if we book it, they will come. The big stadium shows,

it's the big party of the summer. It's a gathering, blah, blah, blah. And it's just, they've done too much. They've milked too much money. And it's not, you know,

must see at this point. I hadn't thought about the fact that we haven't heard it in a while. but remember where, without exaggeration, for maybe six months to a year, every time there was a show, they announced major records being broken. Yeah. Everywhere.

I mean, it was happening all the time. I haven't heard shit about a record being broken in a long time. Well, I think some of the booking is a broken record. And by the way, just to know about record breaking. And just to make sure we get it out there to night two of SummerSlam, Sunday, August 2nd. 21,731 tickets distributed. Well, yeah, that's less than Saturday night.

But when you think, you know, people don't stay up late at night on Sunday in Minneapolis. Over there in St. Paul now, they're a bunch of hellraisers. But, you know, I think it's just how many unique special milestone events can you put up at a lot of the same people as we know go to WrestleMania every year? That's their thing, but man, now they're going to start or somebody's just going to say, I'll make SummerSlam my thing. If they could spend that much money,

maybe they'd be going to WrestleMania. It costs so much money. If you went to WrestleMania, we heard so many negative experiences, not just from wrestlers, but even from fans, would you want to go months later and spend that kind of money again?

Maybe not that kind of in Vegas, but, you know, for many, you'll be Minneapolis rich. No, go there and, you know, I don't know. It just, it seems like they're not giving anyone an incentive. I mean,

this may be the first time in a while where they run a stadium where they could have just run an arena. Yeah. And it would have looked great. It would look great. 25,000 people would look great. Well,

and now they're going to have a giant stage. They don't have a giant fucking stadium. They don't have an arena in Minneapolis. It'll hold 25,000. But I garred goddamn to you, they could rent an arena that holds 20,000 for a lot less than a stadium that holds 70,000.

thousand and fucking charge a little bit more for the individual tickets and turn a few people away and they would have come out better but they got too big for their britches I think on this one well TKO is hot shot at the business side of it now we're going to see how long it takes them to try to flip this thing and sell it before it comes down to earth before they realize that we can't stay hot forever like we were at that special moment you know what they say What goes up must come down. What must rise and fall must go on and fucking do all that stuff. That's what they say.

Indeed. All right, Brian, well, I guess it's time we head on over to the dark side with John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown band. How about that? On the dark side. You don't like my music reference today? They were a very underrated band. I just didn't like that.

Maybe I need to give it another chance, but I just never liked the sound of it. Oh, come on, especially when they did the cheap Canadian TV series, Tales from the Dark Side. And these are the Dark Side. Yeah. All right, anyway, it's time for Dark Side of the Ring.

The first two hours of the three-hour series on mini-series on TNA and Jeff Jarrett's intertwined story and they broke the budget this year with the talking heads. We had Dave Sahadi, who's one of the production gurus, Father James Mitchell, the Sinister Minister, Awesome Kong, Jeff and Karen Jarrett, Scott Steiner, Eric Bischoff, Matt and Jeff Hardy, DeLo Brown, what was presented as Scott DeMoor, looked possibly like a Scott DeMore love doll made in Taiwan.

Has he had some work done? He looks younger than out. He did 20 years ago. What the fuck is wrong with that guy? And no one's telling him you look ridiculous. Don't leave the house. Well, I'm not sure what it was exactly. But I've, again, he was 30, 20 years ago.

And now he looks kind of like Mason Rook's twin brother. Yeah, I think he may be having a little bit of a midlife crisis. No wrinkles. He's got kind of Uncle Dave's tent to his hair. Anyway, a lot of talking heads. But the story was basically, I thought, summed up by Jeff Jared at the beginning when he said, I was given the gift of desperation. Because when you think about it, the only time that you ever really want to open a wrestling

promotion in the last 25 years or so is if you're fucking desperate. I kind of did the same thing. Well, there's no place to fucking work. I'll open a territory. Holy shit. That ages you quicker than heavy methamphetamine use, I think. You could have worked anywhere you wanted. You chose to open a territory.

Well, there wasn't any place I wanted to work. That's different. Well, I wasn't quite as desperate. Jeff was really desperate. That's why he went national. But the old Memphis footage, again, is nice to see on national television as well as the pictures of Jeff was a cute, blonde-haired kid. I wonder who took those pictures and supplied much of that video. By the way, if I mentioned that people are going to have the opportunity to see more of my photography in the fall,

but we'll do the commercial plugs later on. but anyway um and that's it they told jeff's story briefly as i said when we talked to evan husti about the series when we were previewing it i would have i would have liked to seen an hour or two on the jarratt family history but that wasn't the dark side it was successful up until this fucking venture with jeff's grandmother and his father but jeff started out the old-fashioned way he started working Comfortini doing merch sales and concessions at the

spot shows. I'm sure he was at Dale, Indiana, or Russell Springs, Kentucky, or wherever the fuck. And then they had him referee in, and I think the deal was, they made him graduate

high school before he could start doing anything, I think, besides referee a little bit. And then they did that angle with Bill Dundee and Buddy Landell in April of March or April. They did the angle in March.

I think he debuted as a wrestler in April. But, you know, at that point, he got in the business the way that a lot of guys got in the business in the territory days when they were teenagers and they learned from the ground up and it's just lucky that his dad had one of the last territories left.

I love the angle that they did which they obviously couldn't flesh out here, but all the fans knew that Jerry Jarrett was blind in one eye for real. And that had been the case for most of his wrestling career, I think of not all of it. And when he came out to save his son from getting a ship kicked out of him by Dundee and Buddy Landel, they went after Jerry's good eye.

And people were screaming and Eddie Marlin, Jerry's father-in-law and Jeff's fun. and grandfather-in-law came out and the whole nine, it was intense. And that's why part of the reason why that run with Dundee and Buddy as a team and working with Lawler and Dutch was the last major sellout at the Coliseum and did the last major business there. Anyhow, by nine minutes into the program,

Jeff was in the WWF doing the country singer. And then they were in 1998 and about 30. 30 seconds, and they pretty much got to the point that the last year or so with Jeff and the WWF, things started to go to shit. Jill had her first bout with breast cancer. Jeff had been friends with Owen Hart, and they were a team at the time that Owen fell. and that last year, as Jeff said, was the beginning of breaking him down.

But before I drone on any further, Brian, your thoughts on the initial setup of the thing? I mean, it's a very, if Jeff Jared had to produce his own documentary, this is exactly what it would be. It's very, very, very, very much, I don't want to say puff piece, but it's just, it's the most rosy picture of everything,

the way Jeff Choward wants it presented. I can't say they're too far off in presenting it how that it was actually happened, though. I think one of the important things about Jeff Choward's career, and this is where Vince Rousseau begins to play in, is the fact that the fans never saw him past an upper mid-card guy and he was pushed harder than anyone took to him. And the fans didn't take to it.

It didn't really seem to be working out well in the WWE. And WCW, the same thing. And that led into TNA. And, you know, I don't want to, you're asking just about the initial part here. So I don't want to go into the TNA stuff. But, you know, again, it's a, it's a very, it was very, you know, not that there was bad stuff to bring up, but he wasn't a top wrestling star. And I feel like this almost made it out like he was one of the,

these top guys going back and forth and he wasn't. I mean, Steve Austin refused to work with him. Well, yeah. Because Steve Austin made 150 bucks a week in Memphis. And that's another thing from Memphis. I thought that should have been again, it's a pro Jeff Charrisoning, but how many wrestlers had a problem with him driving around

in his brand new sports car that his dad bought him when everyone else couldn't eat? And maybe he shouldn't have done that. and someone should have said, you know, I don't drive. Who is it? Was it Jim Crockett that was like, don't drive a better car than... Well, no, Jim Crockett, Sr. Always drove an old car because he said,

don't drive a nicer car than your fan base. Then the fans can... They don't want to see... He didn't want to see the promoter pulling up in a big Lincoln Continental. Of course, in some points, they saw Jerry Jarrett pulling up in a fucking limousine with Bubba Monroe driving. But I agree, and I agree, and also,

Jeff's initial weakness, weak spot, blind spot, whatever for Vince Rousseau is what got him in a lot of this trouble as well. But at the same time, he wouldn't find that out until later on. And there's one thing I want to explain, because I don't think they explained it well in the show here, when Jeff held Vince up to drop the belt to China on the way out. Oh, you were part of that segment in the show. Well, and I was there that night. And Jeff was saying he was owed like three or four months worth of money. And people are going to say, what the fuck?

How was the WWF that far behind on paying somebody? In those days, you got paid for the pay-per-views 90 days after the... In other words, if WrestleMania was April 1st, April, May, June, you would get the check around July 1st. And not only that, but the last quarter of merchandise money, whatever that may have been. And so Jeff figured, okay, if I leave, I drop the belt and I go, I've got no leverage. And in those days, Vince could pay you whatever he would pay you for the pay-per-view or anything else. And respectfully, it wasn't just dropped the belt.

It was dropped the belt to a girl. I know China's- To a girl, yes. And that was a big deal at that point in time in 1990, fucking eight or whatever this was. No, any guy, much less a top guy or somebody that was trying to go somewhere else and be used as a top guy to get beat by a girl. No, sorry. There was still some logic in the business. So he figured if I do this and go, I'm going to lose three pay-per-view pay. or, you know, whatever, I'll have no leverage and he can do what he wants and the merchandise

money. So that was the deal. And he came up with the idea of $100,000 and when Vince said, yes, he walked around the building again and came back and said, Vince, I think I need $200. And he got it. But that was also back when it meant something that not only the title lineage wasn't broken when it didn't need to be except at Sean Michael's whims or what. whatever, but also that they wanted China over and she needed to get over.

So it was an investment that Vince made. He was going to pay him somewhere around that to begin with if he was going to be honest about it, but it just came earlier. My guess also, I mean, it's not like Vince was past the point of fucking with someone's money if he wanted to and Jeff was going to WCW and everyone knew it. Yeah. So he could have fucked with Jeff's money. I don't blame Jeff for holding up, maybe for doubling what he asked.

for. I mean, that's a little crazy, but the idea of I know I have this money coming to me, just pay me out what I'm owed now so I can move on my life. But see, also, Vince had, remember I was sitting there with the table when he gave, he did the payoff, the WrestleMania payoffs for Hall and Nash in 96, and they had already gone. And he said, I don't want them to be able to say, I fucked him on the way out. And it's like a hundred grand. I'm like, fuck me all you want to. a hundred grand what the he's gone he quit he left

fuck him anyway but then when jeff went to wcw and vcw and vc wcw jeff got fine hey how much heat was on jim ross when that happened because he was head of talent relations it was a sore spot because the contract

happened to end at that same time and they were in talks about something else but Jim Ross was and see the thing is Jeff has said well J.R. won't go budge off that figure. Well, J.R. won't go budge off that figure because Vince wouldn't let him budge off that figure. So it came kind of came back to bite Vince a little bit too. J.R. could budge off figures if Vince said budge off a fucking figure.

And that's why Jeff knew that he could get a better deal in WCW, at least for guaranteed money, because Vince, if he wasn't going to pay him X or whatever, he only saw him in a certain spot. But nevertheless, now that was the point where Jeff came home and there's no place to work, not only for him, but for a lot of guys. And again, it was even worse than when I'd started Smoky Mountain because, you know, there were, Memphis was gone by that point and everything was gone. So he started talking to Jerry and a lot of this, people noticed this that Bob Ryder's name wasn't mentioned.

And they conceived the original T&A idea on Bob Ryder's boat when they were on a fishing trip. But again, then you're introducing other characters. I understand they already got three hours, but he was instrumental. But even the idea that it was a business model based on weekly pay-per-views at $999 or whatever it was, but weekly pay-per-views,

and then they were told by their CFO or whoever that like whatever the numbers they thought they were that they were told it wasn't even close to that all that was left out too well and that's again because they they already had one scandal to deal with when they found the backing the financial backer was health south and at Richard Scrooci or whatever his name was their original money backer is fucking crooked and is indicted by the Department of Justice or whatever and fraud and all that stuff in his real business to where they pulled the funding.

At the same time, they were being victimized by the guy at End Demand, who I think's name was Jay Hosman, who was giving them bogus figures that were inflated on their buy rates, so they thought they had more money, coming to them than what they did. But there was some scandal

and again they didn't have time to go down a side road of true crime, but that he was tied up with people that worked for the WWF that were, you know, it was possible he was giving them false information to try to sabotage. But just the idea of the original business model completely failed that it was. Well, and the original business model, Jerry Jarrett thought that for $10, and this actually they were kind of unfortunately they were too early because Jarrett thought for

$10 if people could like the old days when they went to the matches once a week for $5. Well for $10 if you could buy a ticket in effect to see a weekly wrestling show that you kind of like that you would probably do it and there was enough wrestling fans that you know, they could subsist that way. It would work now. It would work now. And that's kind of what the Ring of Honor idea was with streaming video that I had in 2011 and 12. But Sinclair cheap that to the point where they all went off fucking air.

And now the idea of, oh, somebody paying $10 a month to stream fucking professional wrestling is not so far-fetched. But nevertheless, timing is everything. but that it was too early at that time it wasn't going to fly i think jerry was smoking the opium that he could get something established for his son and i think jeff had the dream and the motivation that all the jarrots had of opening and promoting their own towns and it just it came about that the business was in too bad a shape by the time that all these things happened you know teeny was successful for 40 fucking years Jerry was successful for 30 years it just it did the business had grown away from individual people even been able to find

money backers and do this right you know but going back to the beginning the big thing was they still needed TV and they didn't have it. So they just went right to pay-per-views with no TV, so no secondary source to pay-per-view to establish anything. Yeah. You know, then eventually they got TV and they had to pay for it. I don't even know if that was covered here in this, but they paid for it and then, you know, spike, but it took a long while to get there and, you know, not every...

Well, and let's not jump too far ahead because they, the name thing, and again, this is another place where people keep tweeting me. Now we see what you meant. T at A. T and A. They had people comment on the name, and of course, our friend Vinny Rood jumps in,

it was my idea. I came up with it. Tits and ass. Yes, that was his childish contribution. And that not only did they lie to Jerry Jarrett, this was the beginning and one of the things see i said it on the show Vince rousseau as a person as the way he talked about and thought about professional wrestling and the way he presented himself i know this for a fact for many conversations

that we had years after jerry jarrott thought that Vince rousseau was offensive to him on a personal basis he was insulted by this fucking guy he wasn't as demonstrative as I am, but he probably thought less of him than I do. So imagine what kind of territory that takes in. And they had to lie to Jerry about it. No, it really is total nonstop action. That's just an accident. And when I promoted one of their first house shows here in Louisville

and had to go to the cable company and buy advertising, and they say, oh, T and A wrestling is some kind of mud stuff or are they topless or it was embarrassing but this is the mentality of this mental child and he said his concept his concept jerry jarrott's concept was a wrestling promotion that he could establish for his son jeff's concept was a wrestling promotion that would have a little of something for everybody, the Lucha, the X-Division, the heavy, whatever, tag team. And that's where Jeff and I differ on philosophy,

but that's an argument the two professionals can have. Okay, should we focus equally on the knockouts and the X division and the heavy and the tag team, or should we lighten up on this or can we serve all these masks? You can have that conversation. You can't have a conversation. with a fucking moron that wants the show to be anything goes,

there are no rules, it's an adult version of glow. And that was his quote. He just wanted to do a fucking wrestling parody. He had another stupid line too. It was like, Jerry Jared wanted to do 1970 USWA. Yes. What? And they showed the guys dressed up his dicks that they

called the Johnsons and they showed the midget jacking off in the trash can. Oh, that was what triggered it. That was what it was. I wanted midgett, jacking off. He wanted 1970 USWA. Yes. And, and also that's one of the other things that offended Jerry Jarrett. I can't imagine what Teeny would have thought she wouldn't have been able to watch the program that her own family was involved with. But Rousseau's quote, I wanted to do a midget beating off in a trash can and Jerry Jarrett wanted to do 1970 USWA what

idiot doesn't realize when he says shit like that is that what Jerry Jared, and by the way it won the USWA in 1970. They didn't have those letters then. No. But what Jerry Jared booked in 1970 alone sold more tickets than TNA wrestling has in their entire

existence since 2002. And that would be if they charged to get into Orlando when they tape at Universal Studios, which they didn't. It was free. But counting those people, Louisville was a goddamn $200,000 or $200,000 ticket a year town, the first year would it pop? Fucking idiot. But again, he's insufferable.

but more people allegedly want to watch midgets beating off in trash cans than want to watch a wrestling program when they're watching a wrestling program and then they showed tape of the midget pulling a gun and starting to shoot security but Jeff hit him over the head with a guitar and knocked him cold and he dropped the gun and that was followed by Russo's comment people want to be entertained you know it's interesting The only thing Russo can point to, really, is success past the WWE period under Vince, is like anything that did okay numbers at the time.

But the thing he was always terrible at was getting people to actually be transactional and pay for tickets. Pay for anything. Or pay for pay-per-views. Yeah. I mean, that's across-the-board WCW, TNA, anything else he's done since then. People won't pay for it. Do you watch those two chickens fucking on the side of the?

road? Yeah, boy, that was hilarious. Here's a tape of it for $10. Well, fuck you. I've seen it and it ain't worth $10. Hey, let me flip through the channels. What's this? It's like a fucking adult glow. I think I'll just go to the next fucking channel. If I want to see tits and ass, I'll go to fucking the other channel. Like, what's the- Skinimax? Or what it? But Jeff wanted, that's right. Jeff wanted the yin and yang between Jerry Jarrett and Vince Rousseau, and I'm surprised he didn't get a murder of either Yen or Yang. So then, like I said, Health South had pulled the funding and he was indicted for fraud for dirty books. And when Jeff is telling everybody, that's when Dixie Carter revealed that her parents were Texas oil millionaires.

And that saved it. Again, it was a zombie type of thing. Jeff was always one step ahead of disaster. and then they got Spike TV. That was 2005. And I've mentioned, I forgot their first slot was Saturday nights at 11 o'clock because I'd never seen the show.

That was OVW's slot. If I was watching TV on Saturday nights, I was watching my own show. But this is the thing. When TNA got on Spike and they got the six-sided ring, which again, that's a philosophical argument you could have had. You could have had legitimate wrestling or Rousseau's Springer-like stuff in a six-sided ring.

And they tried to make that like that was a Jeff Jarrett invention. AAA was doing that. It was AAA in Mexico. But that's where he had seen it because he weren't Mexico. But the point is you could have that philosophical discussion on whether the six-sided ring was good or not. A lot of the boys didn't like bumping in it. And I thought it was 200. hard to get used to and wasn't enough space sometimes, but you can't have an argument about

there's a midget drawing a gun and trying to shoot the security in the middle of the six-sided. It just, that's the stupid part. Especially when the person defending it, their excuses, it's entertaining. Yeah. And when Jeff said, I wanted a more sports-oriented look instead of the entertainment. Again, you go to do a quality movie and you hire Ed Wood. I don't so, but as we know, much of it was Dixie and come to find out after he was able to ingratiate. Jeff was his friend originally, but then he was able to ingratiate himself,

and there's subtle hints here that we'll pick up on shortly that he was doing the same thing he always did once he saw Dixie was gullible and susceptible and malleable and suggestible. So Jerry got fed up with Rousseau and had to deal with. with the Carter's and had buyer's remorse for just this whole idea. And he told me this himself. We were on the phone one day. He couldn't get it through to him that he quit. Right?

He's like, I told him I don't want to do this anymore. So he made the appointment in the WWF office with that Oleg. Ovidius. Yeah. Nice guy. Knowing that it and had pictures taken so that it would get publicity, so Dixie would get in a fucking snit. And that was kind of his indication, I'm done. That was his way of given notice.

And unfortunately out of that, that was the final straw. That's when Jerry and Jeff didn't speak for several years. And it was, it was the Carter's in some respect, because now, Jerry's, you're like, Jesus Christ, I got to talk to these people now. Yeah, what was the actual problem with him and the Carter's? Was it that they were questioning him on wrestling decisions? Were they questioning him on the money being spent? I don't know if it was the Carter's plural or if it was Dixie.

But yeah, coming in like, they were putting pressure on, as they said in the program here in terms of, well, show us something, but also when you've got some, somebody putting pressure on you to show him something, but also you're making suggestions. That's how we got a mummy and Smoggy Mountain, okay? And you can imagine, I'm sure, what kind of suggestions Dixie might have had or just the way that she went about it.

But the biggest thing was Rousseau. It was, Jerry Jarrett could not coexist with that guy. And the famous quote, reading something Rousseau wrote was like reading something written by a person on LSD. But then... I'll bet you Mike Boyette can write a better show. Well, he could have, but

I wonder if he's still around. No, no way. Good Lord. Nevertheless, so this is where I think shit really got started because now Jerry's disgruntled and he blames Jeff

for siding with Rousseau when Jeff knew that, Dixie was siding with Rousseau, and that's where the money was coming from. And Jerry said, you know, it was more like, fuck it, let's just not do this. So therefore, Jerry and Jeff aren't speaking. Jill's cancer came back. At this point, he had lost, because Tini died in 1998. Owen died in 1999.

Jerry and Jeff stopped speaking in 2004 or five, whatever it was. Jill got sick again in 2007 and died. And this fucking chaos that he's in, that's what led to the drinking issue. And as Jeff made the point, he didn't take time off. It's wrestling. There is no time off. And I mean, you know, I remember one time I just asked Dusty for a day off to go to a friend's wedding. He said, is he getting mad in Greensboro?

I said, no. He said, well, that's where you're going to be that night, baby. Okay. If I could just say, you know, this is like one of the areas where I think if you have a problem with everything Russo does, you have to see Jeff Jarrett as a giant enabler of him. I mean, the idea that. Yes. When they started TNA, the first thought was with his dad there. And again, Jerry, Jared, I don't know how up on modern wrestling you was,

but in terms of ideas and knowing how to create feuds and create just programs and stuff. He didn't need to book it at that point. He needed to shape it. But the idea that Jeff said, we need Rousseau to write the TV. Why? What would have told you in the previous several years that that would have been the way to go with a new company? Well, but also, while it did happen, the one who said, Jeff said, I need you to write my TV was Rousseau. So how strong was that request?

But again, Jeff brought him in. I mean, again, I have a tough time thinking that Jeff really saw the value in the dicks or the masturbating, gun-toting, twerph in the trash can or any of these things. Like, the idea that you could see that and defend it or not shoot it down, I think he gets, gave Rousseau enough rope to, you know, to sneak into Dixie's inbox. And, you know, that's, you know, so I think Jeff may have eventually come around on it, but Jeff is as responsible as anyone for Rousseau being in the wrestling business after WCW.

And I can't argue with that. I cannot argue with it. And speaking to Dixie, I thought the best description I've ever heard of her, when she was named president of T&A, she was the face of her father's investment. Much like George Goulas became the face of his father's promotion. And as Mitchell said, Jim Mitchell said,

she was charming, she was friendly, she didn't know shit. But then things started picking up, and TNA, we've been doing the agent reports. They got prime time. That's when they had gotten on Spike, Dutch had been calling me from summer of 2005 or whatever, and I just didn't want to do anything at that point. I just got free from the WWF. But then as I've said, okay, 2006, the summer, see, that's another thing they didn't cover.

They didn't cover Russo being fired in, what, 2005 or whatever it was, and being gone. So when I joined in 06 for that period of time, I thought it was a Russo first. zone and I was safe. They'd already tried it and it didn't work. I didn't know she's going to bring him back. But they got the spike slot. They got Kurt Angle.

That's a, as I said, why they got him. No mention of why they got it well until later on. It wouldn't, you know, they started talking about the issues that he had. But they don't bring up the fact that the issues or did they say there that that's why WWE let him go?

I don't know whether they explicitly said those words but gosh, it could be just because I just know that inherently because they were talking about his problems and that Karen came to be able to try to get him to the show and back successfully. So maybe it was just inferred.

I don't know. Let's somebody do some notes on that. but that's at that point except for the creative things looked potential looked good angle and joe that program for the title did their best pay-per-view number ever i think it was like 60,000 buys and of course as we mentioned that was dutch handling the build between those two guys and then rousseau got involved in it later on and repeated it over over and over and trashed it up and then it got down to like 10,000. But that's, they had talent, the knockout division, Awesome Kong, who was great on here.

She was great. People say, oh, he hates women's wrestling. Awesome Kong and Gayle Kim was tremendous. It was a female Vader, a brutal monster heel against a young, fiery female, female, Morton like baby fate that's wrestling and they could work you can't do it six times on a show with everybody but they had the the knockout division started which oftentimes in those early days was getting the biggest number on the show got curt angle had the rest of the names that they listed off here and had primetime television on spike and by 2007 would be expanded to two hours

so there was potential here there was a you know they did a video game and then the company went out of business and never did another one no but there was upward going on

yeah there was upward potential it seemed like things were kind of going up for a while but then also what you have is you have meanwhile the creative as you mentioned Russo couldn't

couldn't convert viewership to anything relating to money. Nobody bought to pay for views. Nobody, they barely ran house shows. And when I promoted that show in Louisville, it was the biggest live gate they'd ever done. And for quite a while after that.

And that was $32,000 or some shit. That was the problem. The creative was just because he is an idiot and keeps saying, what they don't realize is, I'm writing a television show. Yeah, and that's all you're fucking doing, and it's not a good one

and people stare at it for free, but nobody gets invested. But they never point... Meanwhile, go ahead. I was going to say they never point out in here, though, like when... You said they don't talk about him getting fired that first time.

Just when his ideas weren't Jeff's anymore, when he got to Dixie Z. When exactly did it happen? Well, it was unfairable. It was starting the next... Because when they brought him back in 2006, and then as Jeff is overworked, Jill's sick. They're doing creative at his house.

Remember when Jeff said that Russo would come to him and say, well, why would do this or that? I don't know. Well, Jeff Dixie wants it. Well, how did he know Dixie wanted it before the guy that owns part of the company unless he's talking to Dixie first? And as Jeff said, fame doesn't change folks. It reveals folks.

Dixie wanted more. Dixie wanted credit. Dixie wanted to be a personality. I've told this story. I told it for the production, but they hit the cutting room floor. But while Dixie was trying to be a champion of the knockouts and, oh, women,

and all lead strong women, there was a bunch of the knockouts rolling their eyes at her because she was on a plane one day from Dallas. Plain was delayed on the way to Orlando. She called ahead. from the plane to one of the stooges to make sure that none of the girls were in the makeup chair

when she got there so she could immediately go into makeup and go out and take pictures in the impact zone with the belt with the fans. She wasn't going to be on, she was taking the knockouts that were going to appear on the show out of the chair so she could go sit in a front row with fans hold the belt and take pictures.

Does that sound like, Christine Jarrett to you, or does that sound like fucking Taylor Swift? It sounds like a little girl whose parents bought her something to keep her occupied. And that was the main goal of it. Just keep Dixie busy. She wants to do it.

Even if you buy it, can't get rid of Dixie. Dixie has to be part of the package. Yeah. And also when Kong said, Taylor Wilde was the girl's name. Blonde girl was at one point the knockouts champion. She worked at the Sunglass Hut at the mall in Ontario somewhere.

And because she couldn't afford not to. And because, well, Sahadi told the story that they'd see Nash or some of the other W.W.E. stars, big names buttering Dixie up, pouring her a drink, said, oh, we're going to kick Vince his ass. And the homegrown guys got shit out of it. And that's, they didn't bring up Dixie sleeping with. talent. What do you think of that? Well, it's never what was my comment when they said, did you really

send a terrorist or get blamed for terroristic threatening on Russo? I said, it means depends on what you mean by terroristic. It's never been proven that type of thing. There's no photos. But that's, you know, but then also how awesome Kong said when she came to work, I didn't know who Jeff Jared was. I don't really know how Kong got in a wrestling business

and she had only wrestled in Japan, but she came to work for T&A wrestling and didn't know that it was Jeff Jarrett and not, she thought Dixie was like the boss and came from some wrestling background. But anyway, that's the thing is the problems behind the scene, there was the potential, the time slot, the talent roster, But there was also

The guy that started the company is going through multiple kinds of shit and the woman putting up the money is starting to conspire to take more credit and power or whatever and the creative is counterproductive to the bottom line

and then you've got Russo said well when Dixie had an issue with Jeff, she would come to me. I wonder why. How would you know if, well, Brian, if you're working with a guy you have an issue with, are you going to go to their alleged best, one of their best friends to complain to them? Or would you think you were going to someone who was a sympathetic ear? Bingo, sympathetic like the gardeners right behind me. I hear that now. And that's, and there, there were people. said trying to convince Dixie that Jeff was holding the company back.

I wonder who that might be. And there was an element of that with D'Amour too, because when they fired him off the creative team, when they brought Rousseau back, Dutch told me that they caught D'Mor and a couple of the other ones trying to plan to go to Dixie and take the book away from Jeff. And it just, it's goddamn, it's drama.

It's bullshit drama. It affected D'More so much, you got a new face. So no, no, he snuck back into the building and tried to steal the company again. And just proved the people right to say he was two-faced. He came up with another one. And anyway, then all this going on and a lot of their people's personal issues, like I've said, I never had a conversation with Dixie Carter, didn't have any reason to,

didn't need to and, of course, of doing my job. And whereas one of the guys, I can't remember, said there was always parties after the taping, everybody would go back to the double tree hotel, go to the bar, they'd have a party, or whatever. I think you know, Brian, I was not involved in that.

It's not that I didn't like anybody. And occasionally, me and Keith Mitchell, at one time, Dave Sahadi, some of us went over and had a run to what a burger. But if I've been in that hot, fucking sticky Orlando goddamn amusement park for 10 hours, 12 hours at a TV taping or a paper view.

I went back to the hotel and either got room service or fixed my own at Cornette's grill and watched my DVD player in the air conditioning and my underwear. That's how I went out and had fun after the fucking tapings. So I was not aware of many people's personal fucking drama.

But Karen finally sat down and talked about it. And that's a, I knew something was up between them when Karen started with Kurt on TV. And that's the thing with Kurt's issues, he needed help. And she, even though they were separated, they had a kid or whatever. She was trying to help. I enjoyed working with her because she had never, to my knowledge, been involved in wrestling before and just became a great heel performer. and she could cut fucking promos

and she had the facial expressions and the body language. So I loved all that, but then when she ended up having enough of, you know, the trials and tribulations of being on the road with this shit, doing the TVs and taking care of Kurt, when she kind of said,

I don't want to do this anymore, and filed for divorce. course, then, you know, we lost that. Nice personality on the show. But when she and Jeff started getting together, Karen said that Rousseau and Dixie and Jeff all knew that she and Kurt were split. Kurt was publicly, we knew this in the locker room

because we knew that she and Karen, or she and Karen, we knew Kurt and Karen were split because Kurt was seeing that Rocca con embecile. That's right. That tried to sue me, Home Depot, and Dan Rather and whoever the fuck else it was.

The president. She was the president. She was one of the knockouts and he was seeing her. And that a couple of times led to some inter-office strife, but she wasn't completely crazy that we knew at that point,

but there were signs. So with Kurt's seeing one of the girls on the roster, Jeff was seeing Karen away from work. Then Jeff said that everybody knew but Dixie. But how... Is there any truth to the story that I've always heard that Dixie had allegedly asked Jeff Charrard if he was in a relationship with Karen and he had denied it, and that's why she was so upset when she found out that they were?

Did you hear that at all? Well, I heard, that's what I heard at the time that Dixie found out that Jeff and Karen were together, and Jeff had said they weren't, but at one point they weren't. So I don't know at what point he said that. But the whole goddamn thing is that, and again, Rousseau even yelled, said Dixie yelled at him for not telling her about it. and it got on Bubba the Love Sploge's radio show. But what earth-shaking difference should it have made to Dixie Carter

except for the opportunity that Jeff handed her a rope that she could hang him with? Kurt Angle is, they've not only got divorce proceedings going on, but Kurt Angle is openly seeing another one of the talented, on the roster at the matches. So why is it bad for Jeff Jarrett to be having a private relationship with the soon-to-be ex-wife of the same person that's seeing one of the other members of the roster

to the point where he, even though he owns part of the company, and is the driving force behind it, you got to go. And nobody was complaining about it at that poor, initially was pissed when he heard about it. But Kurt had a lot of things going on where his emotions were taking a roller coaster ride at that point. So that was the point. Karen said that Jeff thought that Dixie would be happy for him

because after Jill, he was able to fall in love somebody else. And Dixie's response was to remove him as the executive producer and a head of creative because they got a quote from Dixie from an interview she'd done years ago, he was in a personal situation that affected the company. How did it affect the company? It was either she wanted to fuck Jeff or she wanted to push Jeff out and take his spot and take control.

Those are the two options. And I would go for the latter rather than the former, although again, Jerry, Jared was convinced until his dying day that Rousseau was fucking Dixie is the only reason why Dixie would tolerate him. and he wouldn't believe me, but I told him, I said, no, I can promise you. I've known him for a long time, and that's one thing he probably wouldn't have the guts to do. So then, September 2009, Jeff goes home. They fire Dutch within days.

They let Savio Vega and Road Dog go as agents. I made one more taping. showed up, shook Vince Rousseau's hand, said the team is in need, let's forget our personal issues. And then they called me up and fired me several days later on the phone. And Dixie gave Rousseau total creative control. Dave Sahati said for the first time he had nobody policing his work.

DeLo Brown said, well, then you'll have five minutes of wrestling in a 120-minute program. And Rousseau said, well, I, you know, I just always did my own thing anyway. It didn't really make a difference that Jeff wasn't there. Oh, my God. Then Dixie had the gall to call

Jeff in on the meeting with Hulk Hogan because she knew that she was in over her head and she didn't know what she was doing and she couldn't pull it off. But when they walk into the meeting, there's Eric Bischoff there, which Jeff was not prepared for, because he was supposed to be there,

but now we know with hindsight because of Hogan's revelations that Bischoff was setting that up to get Hogan a fucking job because he needed the money after all the shit that he'd been through. And they were like, well, fuck, we can do this again with somebody else's money.

We get to hoax or a payoff. If it works, it works. If not, did they really give a shit? and therein more drama came because Jeff knew Hulk, but he all said he'd worked with Bischoff, but he knew that both of them knew nothing about TNA. And at the same point, Hulk hated Rousseau too and wanted Bischoff in to handle his shit

because as Bischoff said, they knew that Rousseau was a fraud. What a goddamn soap opera. Bischoff saw Dixie was running shit now and said and admitted that there was a strained relationship between her and Jeff. You could tell. So he knew he was able to take advantage of it because the one with the money is not the one that's smart to the business.

And Dixie thought she had accomplished the biggest thing in the world by signing Hulk Hogan 15 years too late. And that's just the first. two hours. Well, there's still a lot more that they kind of need to cover as they tell the rest of the story. They're going to have to squeeze some in. I don't even know where Billy Corgan's going to come into this. Right?

That's the one I want to see. That's the one I want to see. Yeah. But think about this, though. Did anybody, did any of the fans, did any of the newsletters or the journalists, did us? well we weren't doing this then but I had my private opinions did anybody think that it was going to work when Hogan and Bischoff went to T&A

or as I recall was it that everybody was saying it's going to turn into the old timers tour the friends of Hogan they're going to kill this thing deader than four o'clock and make off with all of Dixie's money wasn't that the prevailing opinion everywhere correct me if I'm wrong because this is a long time ago but this was when Hogan first came in was that when they did the first ever like Monday day night show head-to-head with raw yes they went ahead to head to head and they would know they went head to head for what two months or so until they got well shellac to the point where

they had to slink back off the first week was the one I remember because that was what kind of revealed what was coming next right with the nasty boys on that show or am I thinking of something like it was just all of a sudden it probably was but yeah it was all it was the it was the Hogan retirement tour and that was their big rating also. They got it to like 2 million people on curiosity and then were crushed quickly after. And they took it on the road, which added expense. Everything that Bischoff called to do theoretically was something that would have worked and possibly did even work

when it was WCW and the WWF. What he couldn't understand was because he didn't follow history enough that even though when he took WCW over, it was in complete shit shape, they still had a reputation. They still had an audience based on the 80s and the NWA fans and the Southern fans

and the people who watched it when it was good. And they were willing to still stick around at that point until they could see something again. T&A didn't have the reputation. T&A didn't have the goddamn goodwill for years and years. T&A was not ready to compete at that level. So when they went head to head, when they took it on the road,

they got their shit kicked in. well like I said it's fun hearing some of this stuff I thought Dilo Brown was great Dilo is

I love Dilo I thought it was a little bit like a puff piece for Jeff at times and a complete hit piece of Dixie not that it wasn't warranted

but fuck I completely understand why she did not want to be interviewed for this thing she would have been completely embarrassed well

I'm trying to think of anybody that would say I mean it was Matt Hardy that said, hey, you know, I can't say it bad about her because she put up the money and saved the company. And of course, they got to do their broken shit. But what else? Who else is going to say anything good about Dixie unless they've never met her or weren't involved in this whole thing? You're not completely wrong. I know a few people

that like her and none of them are, they've done things in wrestling and none of them are from wrestling or did anything else in wrestling or, you know, it's a limited audience of people that like Dixie, and I think even the people that like her know that she was in over her head and never really had any kind of understanding at all about wrestling or certainly not for wrestling TV or personnel decisions or really any talent. I mean, she had a PR agency. I'm going to think of it. Kick her off a fucking cliff. Why don't we? Not me, just, you know, it is what it is. And yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm going to. I'm still, I've been waiting a long time for a definitive and a real deep dive into the chaos

of TNA in book form or documentary form. I'm still waiting, but, you know, there were some interesting stories in this. Well, it also, part of it, the dark side of Jeff's eventual redemption in his personal life. The fucking, the ominous music that they have to play during everything, and everything is shot to look dark because it's the dark side. And, man, those reenactments have really run its course, haven't they? They had someone at one point as Jerry Jarrett, I swear to God, it looked like Tony Con. Like, it just didn't look anything like Jerry Jarrett.

I thought one of the Jerry Jarrett's looked like Tony Fall. Well. But nevertheless, we are going to find out how all this gets tied up next week. But nevertheless, speaking of something stupid that WWE can't match, we'll be back here next week with the conclusion. of this Dark Side of the Ring trilogy and all kinds of other stuff. Won't we young man? That's right and there's

paper views just around the corner yeah just I mean there's a lot of stuff coming up and also Unreal the WWE documentary series. Oh Christ. Not documentary because it's a bullshit show but well plenty to say about that too and that's coming back. Yeah July

21st I don't want to say I mean it's right around the corner. There's just around the corner there's a rainbow in the sky so let's have another cup of coffee and let's have another piece of pie. Yeah. Yeah. All righty. Well, we'll be here to cover it.

When news breaks, we fix it. You know our motto. And until then, folks, imparting besides the obligatory love, peace, and soul, thank you, fuck you, and bye, bye, everybody.