Jim Cornette Experience - Episode 646: Remembering Dory Funk Jr.

Episode Date: August 12, 2026

This week on the Experience, Jim looks back on the life & career of Dory Funk Junior! Plus Jim reviews AEW Dynamite: Grand Slam Mexico, and Dark Side Of The Ring's Renegade episode! Also, Jim talks about recent wrestler injuries, Dave Meltzer's SummerSlam star ratings, The Undertaker's hatred of podcasting, and much more! Thanks to our episode sponsors: COVERON:  Exclusive Coveron discount: https://coveron.com/jce or use code jce at checkout  HEXCLAD:  Find your forever cookware @hexclad and get 10% off at hexclad.com/JCE! #hexcladpartner RIDGE: Get 10% off your entire order by going to https://www.Ridge.com/JCE #Ridgepod Follow Jim and Brian on Twitter: @TheJimCornette @GreatBrianLast Join Jim Cornette's College Of Wrestling Knowledge on Patreon to access the archives & more! https://www.patreon.com/Cornette Subscribe to the Official Jim Cornette channel on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/OfficialJimCornette Visit Jim's official site at www.JimCornette.com for merch, live dates, commentaries and more! You can listen to Brian on the 6:05 Superpodcast at 605pod.com or wherever you find your favorite podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The midnight and the rock and roll. He's in a fight for wrestling soul using a racket and some mind control. He's Jim Connest, the keys to the future. History show. What do you guys want to talk about? I got some topics. We'll see what makes it. And joining me to solve this mystery.

Hawaiian Brian the podcasting line, the king of the Arcadian Vanguard podcast network, Mr. co-host to you, what evil lurks in the hearts of podcasters, only the great Brian last knows. Aloha, Jim. Uh-huh, ha ha ha ha. A pleasure to be here once again.

For a mystery show, I'm not exactly sure what we'll do, or where we're doing. Nightmare in. How we'll get there. The nightmare begins now, I guess. Well, Summer Slam ended. The nightmare ended, actually, a few days ago. Yeah, well, yeah, they ought to call that Friday

the 13th part 72 SummerSlam the nightmare ends no I the nightmare in episode of Frazier by the way I recommended it to you the other day off the air I recommend it to everybody who likes old time radio

because they try to do an old time radio show with a proper organ player even unlike some other current programs that exist today and it just falls all to shit and it's just it's hilarious in its own way. Nightmare in.

I will definitely have to check that out. You know why this is a mystery show, Brad, I'll tell you. I have papers and things jotted down in topics, and normally I try, as you know, to at least have an order of events. What are we going to talk about next? What are you going to talk about? And in this case, I just got a bunch of shit written down on,

like Heyman booked his TV. on napkins and scraps of hotel letterhead paper. Because I've had distractions to try to get anything done since I spoke to you two days ago. We last did this for air. Do you know what, I don't know if they call them that up there, pavement ants. Do you know what they are? I think so.

I've never had a conversation where they were officially declared pavement ants, but I've seen ants on the pavement, if that's what you mean. Well, see, but now, why is it that you park on the driveway, but you drive on the parkway? Or what do you call a guy hanging on the wall? Art and all those other type of things. But no, the pavement ants are the little teeny tiny ants. You've been watching Gallagher?

You did two Gallagher jokes in a row. Well, just by pure happenstance, it's a goddamn, it's a daily double, folks. You win the jackpot. I hope you don't take that to Sledge of Maddox. Anyway, this is what my pest control fellow has termed them, the little teeny tiny ants that you see in a little line,

the little line that forms when you're walking across a sidewalk or whatever, and you can see them, and they just follow a formation. They're like just dutiful little things, but they're so small that unless they're on a light-colored surface or there's a lot of them in a row,

you can't even really, and they're moving, you can't see them, right? And so to the night, night before last, for my customary ritz crackers and peanut butter snack before I go and lay my weary head down to bed at night, I get to dagum peanut butter and the crackers that I put them on a tray, and I got a little plate there and my little spoon and all of the side.

There's little fucking ants. And I go back and where I've got the goddamn peanut butter and the crackers out of in my pantry closet in the kitchen. There's ants running around on just the shelf number two, that particular shovel. What the fuck? And long story short, maybe too late. After I've initially, I've cleaned up the tray and I've cleaned up the tray and I've cleaned

up the fucking taking the things off the shelf and I've got a rag and I'm whacking them little ants and boom boom and they're on my shelf liner and I'm wiping them off and I'm like where the fuck could these are because these things will appear just over something that they like to eat something sweet or tasty or whatever the fuck it is my cousin Larry who by the way is is coming home from the home. He's been in the assisted facility for memory care, but he's improved

and he's got to move home. And he's actually coming over not under his not, he's not driving, ladies gentlemen, on the Louisville roadways, don't fear that. But he's coming over with his wife to visit this weekend.

Nevertheless, where was I going with that? Oh, I was over at his room at the physical therapy center. It's a medical facility. And he had accidentally dropped a little piece of, I don't know, chewing gum or a candy bar or whatever under his recliner.

And I looked down and just from the baseboard, just the baseboard of the wall, straight to this goddamn little sweet spot was a line of ants going back and forth. So there's no hole and there's no crack. It's just they appear, Brian, is what I'm saying to you. Have you ever seen this happen where they just appear? I've never seen the hatching, but I've seen the ants where, you know, I didn't see them enter the room.

I don't know what you're asking about you. You see where they're coming from, but they're coming from something that's barely a place to come from. So the point is they left. I don't know where they went. I was up to 1 o'clock in the morning. They wiped the whole thing off. Smashing ants?

and moving everything out and I sprayed. And then the next day I get up and I meet it, I go down there, now I have to chlorox the entire kitchen. But I take everything out of that goddamn closet on all the shelves, move everything, wipe everything down, didn't find one living, moving aunt. Don't know where they came from, baby, and, ooh, they took themselves back that away.

way, maybe. How does it, but it cost me a near sleepless night and goddamn endless hours of aggravation for these phantom fucking ants. That's a good tag. Not happy. That's a good tag team name, the Phantom ants?

Well, yeah, Tony Kahn's probably got eight or ten contenders for that name on his show. They just got to be under five foot two. Orange Cassidy. Wasn't he one of the fire ants or whatever in Chicago? Oh, good. Lord, that's right.

They actually, they had a team of ants, ladies and gentlemen. I think fire ant and soldier ant and red ant and piss ant was my favorite. I think that was orange. I'm going to get Tony's money aunt. Lots of ants. But anyway, so I've had fucking distractions. So I'm not as prepared as I normally would be in this situation, but I'm trying to keep up with what's going on in the world of wrestling.

I also speak it since it's a mystery program here today, a big unsolved mystery, a big, a big caper has been solved, Brian. I don't know if you saw this on the news, but there's been an ongoing mystery as to who and how many people and how did they do it, who was responsible for the vandalism of the reflecting pool in Washington that, uh, Herr Schittler had pronounced was vandalism by people who hate America and despise this country and wanted to fail. That's why they attacked the reflecting pool.

And they sliced it with a box cutter. It was Mr. Fantastic from the Fantastic Four. He had a 350 foot long arm. And they put chemicals in there to produce algae and all this other. various forms of vandalism, and so they arrested some poor people. It were wandering by, looking at this shitty job that was done, including a former U.S. Olympian, and his case went to court, or it actually got to court, but it didn't really go in the door of court,

because Trump's own hand-picked TV judge, Janine Piro, who looks like an Afghan hound, fucking threw the case out because there was no evidence because they found out that, oh, Brian, it took Sherlock Holmes and Perry Mason, but they solved the mystery. It was really a bad fucking installation job,

not vandalism. And now he's mad at the fucking Afghan hound that he put in that position because she wouldn't lie and let other people lie in court where there are actually penalties for lying in things and transcripts and evidence and perjury rules and things like that. And they're not all willing to go to jail

so that Dicklick can fucking lie some more to people. He is the America hating individual that hired a fucking Batman villain friend of his to do a rotten swimming pool job that fell apart after being paid millions of dollars of our money by this criminal charlatan fraud and it wouldn't hold up in court

when he tried to lie his way out of it like he does every time he fuck something else up. Even his own fucking stooges of now not willing to go to prison and or face fucking any other type of charges just to keep up the fantasy that this fucking bloated flesh bag

knows what the fuck he's even talking about. So hooray, sometimes the good folks do win. You said there were people arrested. I saw about the Olympian, and I saw his attorney do interviews, were there other people as well? I'm not sure. I believe if five,

or six is what I believe that I heard. I don't want to be quoted as an exact number, but it's lookable upable because this is recently in the news. Fucking is still all these people that he ought to be in charge of the nuclear codes when he can't get a fucking swimming pool refinished.

Why hasn't he turned on that guy? He always turns on the people. Why isn't he turned on that guy? I think that guy fell into the nuclear reactor in the bat cave. Well, he looks the part. Have we heard of him? He looks the part. Have we heard from this guy?

Has he been contacted by any of you? One would think with all of what's going on that if this guy was reachable, he would have been contacted by somebody even if he said, yo, no, fucking leave me to fuck alone. Anyway, but that mystery is solved. So we can, here, I'm just going to cross that off my list. There we go. Mysteries, list of mysteries.

That one is solved. Turns out we found out who Jack the Ripper was. And did you see this distressing news, Brian? I jotted this down. Lake Mead. You know what's happening out in Lake Mead? I have not heard anything about it, no. No water.

Lake Mead is at its lowest level ever since it was created by the construction of the Hoover Dam, which at that point in time was the biggest, how do they phrase it, the biggest construction project possibly ever undertaken in the history of the world? And it's down at its lowest level to the point where you look at a picture of it, you can see the water level and it used to be as, I don't know how, many, maybe hundreds of feet looks like farther than than it is now.

And they're finding like murder victims and barrels that have been, you know, not washed up, but just left on the shore as the water has receded. Hey, you know, it's very convenient to Vegas. So I imagine there's going to be, whether it's barrels or crates or maybe just good old chains and tractor tires,

things of that nature. I assume we're going to be solving some mysteries there, but at a cost of it supplies water to 40 million people, the reservoir there, it creates power for almost a million, irrigates, I think they said, five million acres of farmland or everything. Have you ever been there? Did you ever go out there? I know you've been to Vegas, I'm sure. I've never been to Vegas. I've never Oh, for heaven, saying, a high roller such as yourself. I've never had to come to you back in your gambling days. You were such a high roller.

They just got in the Vegas bus and brought it to Jersey. But it's in the middle of the fucking desert. If you didn't have any water, you need to be a fucking cactus. Right? It's a beautiful place when you go out there and see it and it's not that far from Vegas. But you wouldn't want to be just,

hanging around like a half a mile from the fucking Hoover Dam out in the I can't say out in the woods because there are none out there looks like Mars so hopefully they can they can fix that you know there wasn't I saw something

in the paper the other day of the day the Danube River in Europe at its lowest point like in however many years they have found Nazi ships and even a woolly mammoth like bone the wool was gone the wool was gone

but the bone still remained right next to the Nazi ships but that's crazy so right you know god damn it

if the national inquirer was still around and people actually still read good quality journalism that would be a

perfect picture side by side woolly mammoths proven to be Nazis that would go right next to dinosaurs honked like Buick

say experts that was one of the headlines I read on See I'd bring the fucking things And I'd read four or five of the real headlines And then I would expose the last one And it would have something like the picture of Paul E under man undergoes sex change operation headline or whatever Anyway speaking of

Speaking of sex change operations Bree Bella Apparently has a medical crisis Did I see she broke her scalp? Her scalp. Oh, I'm sorry. It's just my shorthand. Apparently, a scalpula, scalpia, scapula.

Scalpula. It's in her shoulder. At first I thought she broke her scalp. I'm like, well, at least they hit the part of her body that wouldn't do much damage if, you know, but the shoulder, I guess she's going to need to do. That's why she was kicking with one foot and holding her arm down. I forgot to mention that.

in that fiasco of a match at SummerSlam. But apparently now she's broken that, but they don't operate on those things. They just have to heal like ribs or whatever. Have you ever broken your scapula or your scalp? I haven't. I'm surprised with doing a Brie Bella injury break. Did you see really?

I just had to jotted it down. I didn't know where this had any lasting repercussions on it. Does she have an aspiring career as a, a trapeze artist or a pole dancer? I don't know, but again, this is her comeback, and boy, has it gone great. Yes, sir, and she's gone. The other one, what's her name?

Bella Bella, Bella, Becky Bella, Nikki Bella. Nikki Bella, Bree and Nikki Bella, that's it. Didn't she come back and get hurt and then had to come back again from coming back? Yeah. You know how to call them that? The yo-yo sisters. The yo-yo sisters. What do you think about Ria Ripley?

She got surgery. I believe it was at least a torn meniscus. Well, a torn meniscus, it confused me for a while, and it's kind of the modern way of saying torn cartilage. Meniscus is cartilage. That can be a wide variety of not real bad to almost real bad. And then you get into real bad with ligaments. So even for especially for an athlete, she's young, she's in shape already.

If it was just a simple scope, then she could be, you know, comfortable at a few weeks and training and whatever and back and, you know, not that long. But if it's a more extensive thing or whatever the fuck, I would think, what is it, August, September, October, November with an R in it. you know, if she's not ready for Survivor Series, they might as well ought to keep her back for the Royal Rumble. Well, again, it goes into why make an interim champion at that point? Why not just stripper of the belt, Chelsea wins the belt or whoever?

Well, because... I mean, the interim thing is what is brand new here. I've known guys, well, and in the territory days, and with a lack of extreme caution that they go through today, I've known guys to get scoped and be back in the ring, taking care of it in two weeks, depending on what they were doing. So if you get scoped and even with a strict medical protocol

and you're doing physical therapy, you could technically work after some of them, from what I understand it, about six weeks or whatever, or he used to be able to. So this is way up in the air depending on what it is. We've never... hurt at the extent of the injury. Well, let's continue on the injury beat.

Not exactly sure what the injury was, but as if being a part of the worst and most boring double chain match ever wasn't bad enough. Uh-oh, somebody else is hurt. Apparently, Jay White got banged up. Oh, for God's sake, he just came up. My God! Yeah.

Is he going for the Nash record? Didn't Nash, like, fucking get hurt that was out for however long and then came back and that famous match where he tagged in Tori's quad and 30 seconds he was out

for another year. This, what the fuck happened to it? What the fuck is Davey would say? David, what the fuck? No, no specifics.

I haven't seen anything beyond. He was banged up and then it was, well, it's not as bad as we thought it was. Let me see if I could find any updates here. Here's some,

here's from Dave. They ought to Because they ought to call him light switch, because he keeps getting flipped on and off. Go ahead with Uncle Dave's chiming in. It was from a bump in the double chain match, and Dave said he was banged up, but he was only supposed to be out for a week or so.

So it's just a mild banging up. A mild banging of up. Within one month of returning. They didn't even need the, why the chain, just marks, play acting, wanting to do this for fun. All right, but nevertheless. This should be a championship. Like, who can get injured the most?

Or the most frequent return into injury. But no. Hold on here now. We've got to analyze this because if you're really good at getting injured, you wouldn't have a chance to get injured numerous times because you'd just be fucked up to begin with. So are you trying to just go for minor injuries where you can come back and go back again?

or the major injury, which somebody might could lap you if you're out for a year and a half like White was. So we've got to figure out how that contest might go. But I don't think it's one a lot of people are entering on purpose, but they seem to... Well, that was the injury update, and once again also, congratulations. Montez-Ford and Bianca Bel Air, who just had a baby, and I saw a picture of Bianca's finger. It doesn't look like it's healing anytime soon. Oh, good Lord.

Well, what has happened to, has it grown super large, but it gained a life of its own? Is it a conjoined twin? It's gigantic. It's double the size you would think at least that it should be, and there's a giant surgery scar right down the middle of it. So obviously they've been working on it, they've been trying to do something, and it's a shame that it's taken, I mean, I'm happy they're having a baby,

but beyond that, it's taken one of the more talented women wrestlers we've seen, completely off the table. It's going to be two years soon, right? Well, yeah, I hadn't been counting, but yeah, she's been out of well, but she, you know, she announced a while back she was pregnant, so I didn't know whether that necessarily had stopped the clock on the finger situation. Would that clock have started if she hadn't hurt the finger? Well, that's entirely, I wonder which came first the finger or the baby.

All right, all right. Well, third base comes before home, as everyone knows here. No, I'm just saying if anybody knows which comes first, the finger or the baby. So we'll know, but all good luck to her. But at some

point, do you do you look at it like the fucking Alfred Hitchcock episode that Quentin Tarantino brought into four rooms and say, well, it's only a finger, you know, I could just

chop it, just, chop it choppy choppy choppy my finger finger and go on with your life instead of having a giant deformed like elephant leg hanging from your hand i don't know i don't think anyone would willingly just say chop it off i think if they get to a point where they say there's nothing that could ever be done ever i don't know i mean again we don't know the specifics but well if the pictures i've seen more than one but i saw one recently it did not look good after two years if it's like that if they say there's nothing to be done ever, then what, you know, you might have a sentimental

attachment to what it used to be, but, you know, right now, what the fuck? And go, and which finger is it? Is it her, is it her finger given finger? Is it her four finger, index finger? I forget which finger was. It wasn't her

index. He forgot the finger. I forgot the finger. Well, you know, which hand is it? Hold on. I'm going to Google this. Bianca Bellaire. Well, because it like her, where, she'd wear her wedding ring, that finger? These are important facts, just so we can decide whether or not her finger is worth saving. You know what, I take it back? I wouldn't say twice the size, but

certainly it's somewhat... So now you change your store. It's somewhat deformed in the present state. It's somewhat deformed. Yeah, it's the ring finger. Somewhat deformed? Which hand? Which hand? left hand oh so she's montez's ring won't go on that film but is is she wearing a ring on it is she gotten like one of andre's rings and you can pass a silver dollar through man it looks i mean i

don't know if it's pain for or not it looks it looks what the well i'd say you know make a dispensation where you're wedding ring on your right hand and that way you don't need it to flip people off because that ain't the right finger and you don't need it even if you're left handed to like touch, dial a phone or whatever the fuck kids do these days because, you know, it's not your index finger. It's the only reason it's there is to wear a rent. It's not your pinky. So you can still pinky swear.

So my advice to Bianca is give it another couple of weeks and it just have them chop that sandwich off. And come back and make millions. And you can come back. I don't know. This is an open the door to bad medical advice. I wouldn't have. Well, no, because look,

that way she could have some kind of hold where the only reason she can get that hole that way is because she ain't got a finger in the way of it there in the middle. Like the middle finger can go up somebody's nostril and the little finger can have them under the tongue. Why not bring it back and make it a gimmick that's useful? Like superfinger or power finger. Like she has this finger that can lift weights on its own. It's double the size. Because it's probably fucking very sore and tender and won't bend accordingly to the way you want it.

So that's what's standing in the way. that finger is in the way of her success. I say to hell with that finger. How about a glove? But is that going to quit make it fit? I think it'll quit make it fit. I mean, I don't know what you think. I think quitting make it fit.

Yeah, that's what I think. Is that going to make it quit hurting is what I'm trying to say, or it's still going to hurt even if you're wearing the glove? I don't know. I mean, that's a question more for the, for the glove holder as opposed to the glove thinker. Or maybe she should call Bree and check on how she's feeling with her broken scalp. All right. Well, this has been no. Medical facility news. Yes, and earlier we were talking in some fashion about people who don't or do enjoy what they do. Ah, it was the marks over in the ring in AEW that enjoy what they do for fun by getting to have the chain matches and all that, even when they don't know how to do them.

But you know who hates what he does? Apparently, Brian, from what the recent quote was he did in interview The Undertaker. Guess what he hates to do. I saw this. He hates podcasting. He hates to do his podcast. He said, I would rather go to the dentist. and did he say get a tooth pulled or a fucking root canal

or just a trip to the dentist, just an all-purpose trip, then do his podcast. And when the current contract expires, that'll probably be the end of that. And because I guess they make them sign contracts and things. It's amazing. A lot of people have a lot of fucking complicated dealings going on

on with their podcast. They just forgot to have people listen to them. But I'm not. say it about taker but there's a lot of people there's a lot of people that have fancy deals and no fucking audience but nevertheless he hates it who could have thunk it

possibly because he hates it is why we we thunk it I think it's taken a lot of the mystique out of the undertaker to for everybody to know that he's just Mark Callow and not just like there's anything wrong with that. I mean, you know, to each his own, he can be Mark Callaway if he wants to.

But The Undertaker was just so cool when there was some element of mystery and he worked it so well for so long. It was a jarring departure, I believe. But you know me, Brat, I can be cranky about, oh, I got to do this, but I don't actually dislike even, much less hate. I enjoy in most cases.

When we record the actual show, I just hate the shit that we need to watch to form an opinion to talk about what the people, the Cult of Corvette, wants to hear us talk about on the show. The preparation, that's why I've done as little preparation as possible this week. The preparation is what I'm not in favor of,

but it's a joy to be able to broadcast to the people, is it not? Aren't you joyful? Well, you know, that's the most important thing I always tell people. We've been really fortunate and really successful in podcasting. And, you know, sometimes people want to know, like, what's the secret? What's the big thing? And I always say the most important thing is you have to have fun. You're not going to make money, and it's not going to be sustainable unless you're having a good time.

And I'm fortunate because, you're not. every podcast I've done just about up until the point where I kick someone off my network, I'm usually having a great time. And I think that's always come across on shows. Not every show has to be a party, but I think there are certain shows, despite the information that may be disseminated, being valuable or cool to listen to, that just seem miserable, that you say to yourself, this person doesn't want to be here. And you ask yourself, I mean, I have, I've literally had people in the business ask me about it and not the wrestling business, the podcast business. You know, what percentage of the ad dollars are they actually seeing?

Do they understand the deals being made on behalf of their show? Do they understand the value of content? Or are they just doing this because they were talked into it? They were led to believe that there'll be a big audience and lots of money. And quickly, they discovered it wasn't fun for them for whatever reason. Now, Undertaker had a co-host who he famously got rid of for Michelle McCool, his wife.

I'm not saying that's why he doesn't enjoy it as much. But that's certainly why a lot of the audience stopped enjoying it. That's why the people didn't enjoy it as much. And you started seeing more critiques about the Undertaker than ever before once he introduced Michelle McCool onto that show.

And then she went under the Hall of Fame. It was just a whole number of things. And I think you could say that the Undertaker wants to protect the mystique, which I think more guys need that attitude. The other thing is it's not a sustainable, star-driven shows where it's all about who the star is are not sustainable unless you can really have good talk, have fun talk, engage in audience, and the audience has to feel that you actually want to be there. Not be afraid to piss people off.

not be afraid to piss people off. Because you're beholden to an entity or other, which is a big part of a lot of these guys. That's right. Could be more of the way they are in the locker room. They say they give a shit about who gets pissed at them or whether they still have contracts with people. So, I mean, it's a WWE podcast that started out.

It wasn't. He brought it in-house, took control of it, put his wife on the show. Now it's going away. You probably, again, a lot of it's about the host. or the co-host, but based on the way it's configured now and has been, you probably mind a lot of what The Undertaker has to say as far as interesting or funny stories that he can go public with. I don't know that I can see, even though the Undertaker is one of the,

well, I've said the greatest gimmick of all time and definitely one of the biggest stars history of the business. I don't see him having grown up as a fan of listening to Morning Radio. No. And, you know, and when he's like, when he's like 11 years old, he's sitting there listening to the Texas equivalent of the Duke of Louisville Bill Bailey. And we've said before some great names, whether it be an acting or music, if you listen to some of these actors try to be fucking personable on a goddamn moderate,

and talk show, which I stumble across every now and then and I'm repulsed by that nobody has any personality anymore. But sometimes you can't just speak extemporaneously for a while, and there's nothing wrong with that, unless you're a defense attorney. Yeah, and, you know, the Undertaker did the show, and I think, again, there's a reality to star-driven shows, you know, where you can almost see them pop up and say, all right, I'll give it two and a half. half years. Because at that point, if they're not making money, or if they're not enjoying it, or whatever it is, would the Undertaker have enjoyed it more if it was audio and not video and having

to sit there on a little miniset and be filmed? I don't know. I'm serious. I mean, that's one of the things you have to ask yourself. And I think the Undertaker... I know, I got to be honest with you, all of the Stephanie's places or pieces or whatever Hershey, every time I see the clips on Twitter of that or just... everybody that's gone to these elaborate sets and the microphone in front of the people

have to sit there and there's even whatever drink that they're supposed to be drinking is staged there next to them. And it looks, it reminds me of when fucking Kramer found the goddamn Merv Griffin show set in the trash at the fucking TV studio and brought it home and set it up in his apartment. It's like if you ain't, If you ain't going to go to the links of having a studio audience and go all the way with this thing, just do fucking radio if all you're going to do is talk to somebody.

And again, that's all guest-driven, because no one's going to be listening to Stephanie's insights, and she's not going to be giving them. She sits there, she has like a little mini-Stefony next to her to make her feel better about herself because she's better than the mini-her next to her. But back to the Undertaker real quick, this is a guy we never heard anything from as fans. for over a generation, not a peep. Even when he was, like, in the interview with Vader in India, or wherever it was,

Vader was the one who flipped out. Undertaker was sitting there with glasses on, barely moving. And that was when he had become the biker guy, so he kind of, he was doing limited press appearances like that and could speak without having to say rest in peace all the time, but he still didn't, God damn, just go, on about the movies he saw last week. And then we started hearing him speak.

And he did the Hall of Fame speech, which was really kind of like a one-man show, like almost kind of like he was leading his own new church. It was very religious. I mean, it was a whole, it was very surprising. It was like, it was like one of those fucking things that you get flyers in the mail to attend at some local auditorium where this guy's going to tell you in some way how to fucking change your shit. And then he started doing some interviews.

And then he launched his podcast. And it was clear to me, this is a great guest. Not just because of who he is, but he knows how to tell a story. He knows how to talk. He could be engaging with the right person. But I don't know if that's a great podcaster.

And I think there's a lot of differences between great guests, great frequent guests, and great podcasters. And again, you have to really want to do it. It can't just be like, yeah, I'll do this thing on the side and we'll make some money with it, maybe. you know, you really have to want to do it, and you've got to have fun.

Because fun's what it's all about, Brian. You got to have fun. You got to enjoy things. You got to just, as they say across the pond every once in while, you've got to take the piss out of things. And jolly jokers, enjoy yourself. And with that, I think we ought to go to our latest segment on Uncle Dave's star ratings, this time for SummerSlam, the... recent two-night extravaganza.

I roll my eyes when I say that. Uncle Dave, does he still enjoy what he does for a living? Is he still enjoying watching the wrestling there? It's not his best friends. It's not his protege, Tony Khan, but I would think he would still have some appreciation for matches the, the question, quality of punk and Cody and

Goethe and all this and... You would think, yeah. Maybe another one. After that, it drops off precipitously, but... I mean, no one is better known for judging and...

Being judgmental. And learning. And learning. He learns. Learns every... Here's the thing. He learns everything that everybody tells him. Whether it makes any sense or not, he learns it.

Well, let's see what he learned or what he studied or what he observed. SummerSlam, night one August 1st, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Liv Morgan defeated E.O. Sky 13 minutes, 35 seconds. Four and a quarter stars. Well, we can't say he's, you know, shuffling off the WWE in favor of giving AEW all the stars when he starts them out with four and a quarter. Of course, it had to be E.O. Sky. I really liked it, but I think four and a quarter is a quarter too high, at least.

A quarter too high. Well, God, damn, let's Mark get down 25 cents. All right, Jim. I'm just saying, you know, would it if it was Liv Morgan versus anybody but EO. Sky, I'm wondering if he would have, but we'll find out as the pattern emergence. Jim L.A. Knight, Solo, Sacoa, and Royce Keys.

Defeated the Uso's and Jacob Fatu. 11 minutes, three seconds, three and a half stars. To be honest, that may be a little generous there. As we mentioned, they had some, they had some issues. And part of it was who the fuck are we supposed to even cheer for? But maybe Dave is coming around to see. the light.

Well, again, I think he was too kind to that match, slightly too kind, maybe, to the opening match. The next match is Gunther, defeating Nick Aldous, 11 minutes, 36 seconds. By the way, did you notice everything? It's like 12 minutes, 12 minutes, 12 minutes, but okay, this was

legitimately one of the two best wrestling matches of the weekend. So, comparing this to the six-man tag, would this not have to be like four and three quarters? Three and a half stars. What? I'm a little surprised by that.

I'm a lot surprised by that. I would think that would have been four stars. I think that would have been an easy four stars, told a story, got the fans really into it, actually made you think all this could possibly win up until the very, very age. No silly shit, nothing looked fake. You know what? I think we're, maybe this is a pattern we're going to see emerge. If it was good or great and there was nothing silly or fake looking in it,

that may take away in Dave's mind because the really high fucking numbers come with the silly fake shit involved. All right, Jim, well, speaking of silly fake shit, J.C. Jane and Fallon Henley and Lainey Reed, defeated Bree and Nikki Bella, or Bella Bella, as we called her earlier. And Bella Bella. And Paige, seven minutes, 30 seconds, a star and a half. Wow.

Well, you can't, I don't know, argue with that, but Page, Bella, Bella, Bella, Bella, Bella, Bella, Paige, Bella, Paige, there's something there. Yeah, I guess that pretty much stunk to everybody. I think that may be a universal claim, Jim. And of course, Bree Bella got hurt, but the crowd was dead whether she was hurt or not. Yeah, at least she wasn't hurt nearly as bad as the crowd's feelings at that match. But, you know, again, she broke her scalp, so we can't... That was her scapula, for the record, not her scalp.

Whatever it was. Let's get to this next match, Jim, one of the two big main events. C.M. Punk. defeated Cody Rhodes, 29 minutes, 43 seconds. Best match of the weekend. Four and a quarter stars. The same as E.O. Sky. Yes.

Although almost three times as long, or twice as long, I guess. Well, three times almost. Well, it all says, it's got punk in it. So he can't give punk more star flowers than he gives to the Buccaroos and Caney or elsewise, they won't talk to him anymore, whereas he knows Punk doesn't give a shit and probably could care less whether his publication came out next week. Oh, wow, listen to this. Now, I said it in the review.

I like the match. I thought it was a mistake for Sam Punk to do that Moonsault. I think, unless he knew he could hit it, you shouldn't have done. Yeah, yeah. But otherwise it was a good match. Here's what Dave wrote. Punk tried a moonsault Obviously it was a tribute to Terry Funk

Punk should not be doing moon salts Or buckshot lariots Or anything that requires actual athleticism Stick to the mental game tributes What the Mental game tributes Is that's what he's calling Wrestling Psychology at this point

Don't do anything that requires athleticism. That's a pretty heavy hit from senior citizen Dave. I mean, in the old days of the observer, that was a frequent kind of thing. Coming from Dave at this point in his life, I'm sure he's had a wonderful diet or whatever the fuck, but Jesus Christ, anything it requires athleticism is anything that anybody would do in the ring. And he's talking about the fucking champion of the biggest company in the world. who he has a personal problem with.

Well, who his friends have a personal problem with. Dave doesn't have really personal anything with anybody. Dave is like a bucket. Dave's brain is an empty bucket. And whatever is close to it that gets poured into it is what it gets filled up with. And he certainly has been shown on video to have a, I don't know, a short circuit when it doesn't, when he hears things that don't jive with what he's convinced himself is the way.

Jim, the final match of Night 1 of SummerSlam, Obafemi defeated Brock Lesnar, hell in a cell, 11 minutes 39 seconds. And this tore the house down and was a momentous occasion as the passing of the torch from one to another, so hopefully it would rate more than the opening women's match, go ahead. Three and a half stars.

Oh, for Christ's sake. Do you think the ending took anything away from this? The fact that they clearly missed the boards, that Brock looked at the boards, that how the fuck did Obafemi miss the boards? Like, do you think that's just went in? No, it's not like he dropped him on his head and paralyzed him, or it looked so fucking phony that, you know,

there was no contact or whatever like that. We knew it because we're goddamn, as smart as we are. But for the fans in the stadium, they were just happy. He fucking pending him with his power bomb. So, no, that shouldn't take away appreciably from especially

I don't know what the fuck, unless he's just looking at, they did a bunch more moves in the girls' match, or they did a bunch more moves on AEW. Because the guys, the guys,

guys that either have excellent, flawless, even, potentially pro wrestling matches with nothing silly and nothing fake looking and nothing stupid. If they don't do as many moves, he rates them less. And it should be the other way around, as they used to tell the guys when they got into business, just do the basic shit and make it look good. instead of trying to get fucking fancy and shit in the bed. Well, let's get tonight, too.

Jim, another big card, or at least a medium-sized card for a stadium. Kevin Owens won a four-way for the number one contendership over Gunther, Sammy Zane, and Finn Baller eight minutes, 30 seconds, three and a half stars.

Well, at least he's got Rupert. to grow. I mean, on a legitimate scale, that's probably about where that ought to be because four would be great and five would be epic and that'd be the end of that. But that was a fucking big return and one of the few four ways that you actually,

you know, you had issues legitimately between most everybody. So, but it is what it is. If three and a half would be fine for me with that on a real scale. Baron Corbin won the U.S. title defeating Trick Williams nine minutes, ten seconds.

Has he brought back dud yet? A star and three quarters. Wow, that's pretty much almost a dud for Uncle Dave these days, isn't it? I mean, just what, nobody cares about Corbin. They've changed nothing about him. and he beat Trick and they didn't want to see that, not because he's a heel and they got mad at him.

They're just like, what the fuck? Why is this fucking bald-headed, goofy-looking motherfucker beating our trick? It is an interesting thing. It's kind of like, trying to think of a great example. There's not really a perfect one, but, you know, like in 85,

Bill Watts all of a sudden brought in like Bob Sweetan and a bunch of people, and it really was the opposite of what had just come in a year before and liven the place up, bringing back Baron Corbyn and having him immediately defeat someone who, since the moment he came up has been over, and they've kind of been doing it right with him, it just seems like you're cutting out his legs for no reason.

But maybe they have good booking. Maybe they have some really great creative that'll make you want to see Trit Williams get the belt back. It's going to be a subplot on Unreal. Chelsea Green won the interim women's title in a, ladder match over Jade Cargill, Charlotte Flair, Tiffany Stratton, and Lash Legend, half of which we didn't name in our preview, because whatever we saw had different names

and people would jump around us, like, we got it wrong. Two and a quarter stars. Well, and honestly, except, as everyone knows, except for the finale, I didn't watch the thing because it's a women's match and a ladder match, so double whammy. so I don't know how good the match was, but the finish was fucking perfect. Jim, Danhausen. How many stars?

Oh, two and a quarter stars. Two and a quarter stars. So he apparently thought it fairly well sucked and didn't care about to finish. Danhausen defeated Dominic Mysterio in a human monies on a pole match. Six minutes, 48 seconds. Half a star.

that's the lowest I've seen him rate anything in a very very long time I think that's that's as mean as he can get he's afraid that there'll be online backlash if he brings back dud although there's a capital letters by the way DUD there's a separate thing here after he gave it a half a star it says after the match Danhausen started throwing the money to the crowd the whole gimmick was it was supposed to be a hundred thousand And there may have been some real bills, but it was either all or mostly Danhausen gimmick money.

He did give some of it to Nick Con at ringside one star. So I don't know if it went up half a star from the end of the match to that or if that's a set of what? They decided to give a star to. I don't know. Well, that's because Nick Con got a payoff. So... Chad Gable, Jim, defeated Pentah to win the Intercontinental.

Championship, 11 minutes, 7 seconds, four and a quarter stars. I mean, you know, Uncle Dave's much more in love with Pinta than I am, so I can see that that's the kind of match that he'd like, because they did a lot of stuff. And, you know, I have some minor disagreements with his star ratings here, but overall, with the exception of Aldous Gunther

being underrated, I think everything is kind of sort of fair with Dave's inflation. This one he's completely off on in my eyes. Roman Reins defeated Seth Rollins in 33 minutes, 32 seconds. Every single solitary bit of it. Four and three-quarters stars. Oh, you gotta be kidding. He thought that was, he thought that was better than Cody and punk that had movement

and action and... A pulse? What is he? And it's the opposite of everything that he likes, because they didn't do any of the fucking moves. What? I hated that main event. That main event made me hate SummerSlam.

It was like watching the Sheik and Bobo go to a 60-minute draw into Kobo, which actually happened at one point in time in the early 70s, by the way. What the f... It was long. It was long. boring. There was the entirely predictable called in advance Roman speech where he has to go really slow and talk. I hated this match. Four and three-quarter stars. How could that be? Well, but you know, but he, again, Uncle Dave, you know, he's friends with many in the,

in the family, in the bloodline. So maybe that's somehow what he's thinking. I mean, I'm sure it would hurt Roman Reins' feelings if he knew that Dave said he was boring too, but I guess he still try to stay in good graces. Well, that was SummerSlam, two nights of a little bit of action. Almost every match was 12 minutes or under with the exception of Roman and Rollins and Punk and Cody, a bunch of short matches and a bunch of long commercials. But you know what, Brian, I'm thinking, maybe that was a it Dave. Maybe that was not Dave saying these things. Maybe it wasn't, maybe it wasn't even Dave

right in the Wrestling Observer newsletter. Maybe it was somebody that it assumed Dave's identity. And then Eve can go around claiming to be Dave Meltzer. And for people who are lucky enough never to have seen Dave Belzer's face, they would be fooled because he would have the proof in terms of all the important information, the Social Security numbers, the names, the bank accounts, the birth certificate information, the goddamn, the sperm of the father. They can get all these things these days, Brian. Do you think that's what happened? Is somebody stolen Uncle Dave's identity?

I don't want to make any presumptions like that, but I could say that that would be a fear for anyone. No one wants their identity stolen, and it's such a scary time out there, put all these hooligans on the internet. Oh, these cyber hooligans that are cyber stealing your cyber shit. Well, I'll tell you, folks, there's a cyber cover that you can put over the top of your pot to make sure nobody dips their ladle in it. And that's CoverOn, because CoverOn is an all-in-one cyber insurance and identity theft protection service for you and your family.

Even the unsavory members of your family, they'll take anybody and protect their. Even people whose identity, nobody would ever want to steal in a million years. Cover on will protect them too, because Brian, did you know that cybercrime cost Americans $20.8 billion. Were you aware of that? I was aware it cost a lot of, or cost people a lot. I wasn't aware of the exact figure, no. and some poor son of a bitch out there wants his money back $20 billion is a lot of money

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taken advantage of. Fight back. Get someone to watch your back. Cover your back. Cover on. One more time, Jim, that promo code. Yes, just like if you're going to have sex with the... the stranger put the cover on cover on dot com slash j c e 20% off for the first 100 users and a 30 day

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Because somebody else is you now. Well, who do you get to be if somebody else is you? Do you get their old identity automatically? Or do you have to start fresh and steal somebody else's? It seems like it's only fair you could at least be them if they're going to be you. But would you want to be them? Because the thing about it is, think about, Were you really happy to begin with?

And if they're happy to be you because it was an improvement, would you really want to be them? Maybe you'd rather be nobody. Cover on. One more time, Jim, that promo code. Yes, coveron.com slash JCE. Cover on. Don't be them, be you.

And Brian, before we go any further, we've got to, we neglected the other day on your show, the drive-through. See, when you're steering a ship, we might get to the dock, we might hit an iceberg, you never know. And we left this out, we were negligent. We needed to mention a happy birthday to the parents of Captain Corum.

His real name is Anthony, and then it's Italian, it goes from there, I don't know, it's... D. Donato, I believe. Diodado. Diodado. Or was it... Or, I...

I don't know. Well, now I'm going to have to open this to see that. I don't know. D. O'Donado. Or D. Benetti. Aaron D. It's not even Anthony. It's Aaron D. Donato.

I thought it was Anthony. Aaron D. D. He's contributed many songs to the show and they're usually really, really good. No wonder he goes as Captain Corum. You can't pronounce his other fucking. Nobody can remember his names. But nevertheless, we were supposed to say,

happy birthday to his parents, Nick and Dolores. And they apparently both of them, I guess they were born on the same day, I guess. I guess they were twins. That's why they've known each other all their lives. They were childhoods, I don't think that's the case at all. Well, then why would we be wishing, is it the same time period, I guess, that their birthdays occur? It could be within the same month.

I think within the same calendar month, within the same week. well statistically i guess it could be the same day stranger things have happened because look at what kind of sunday had stranger things have happened you be nice when you put these kind of people together they're born on the same day is that is that close to being against the law if they're if you're born on the same day are you passing down some type of strange geneticism we have not heard anything about this we don't know that they're born on the same day in fact i don't think has there been testing to lead us to believe that at all But has there been testing done on what would happen if two same-dayers intermingled?

No, I mean, I don't think so. Not that I know of, and either way it wouldn't apply to the D. Donato's. Where is our tax money going? Then nobody is studying this to find out before it's too late. We could end up with a bunch of Anthony Diodadoes running around. D. Donato, Aaron D. Donato is his name, and of course his parents. Nick and Dolores, we wish them a very happy birthday. You have a talented son that we appreciate the contributions from here on the show.

Yes. On the drive-thru, on my show, not this show. Yes, well, and all the various programming, just will keep you people posted, Nick and Dolores, as to whether your marriage certificate may be declared null and void if there's a bill passed. I don't know why you have opened this door. If there's a bill passed that same dayers can't commingle. For the sake of the development of the human race, something's going to have to be done.

If there's maybe, maybe Nick wants a loophole in a marriage license. Maybe that's something he's had various attorneys looking for. First of all, it was just a simple happy birthday. That's what we had to do. Second of all, we just had to simply say happy birthday

these nice people. Third of all, you don't need to be introduced. The first two was the same thing. The first two you mentioned was the same thing. I know, because the point is, we just have to say happy birthday, you very nice people. Your son does a great job with his songs. I don't know what else he does, but he does a great job.

You think that's all he does? Are you saying he's a near-do-well? I'm not saying, I'm saying happy birthday. Some kind of just. Two people not born on the same day. Two people clearly not born. I don't know where you can. Oh, so now you know this factually.

It went from their twins. You first called them twins. It went from twins. Well, you're born on the same day. When is the last time you ever heard of a pair of twins being born on different days? See, there, you prove my point. What? Obviously, you're wrong.

Well, this has been the... You're just wrong. The birthday corner. Of course, if you have a parent, you want us to malign, you could always send an email with the show. If you're looking for a loophole in your birth certificate, just put us on the case. Guarantee you, your parents won't be speaking to you after that.

Happy birthday. The point is happy birthday. Yes. Yes, while they last, you're probably getting up there. Oh, my God. These things are limited. Enjoy them while they're still around. Or at least you're still cognizant.

Who knows some could have a small clot? A small clot. A small clot. A small clot. For the next 20 years, they could be there and being fed cake through a straw. But they wouldn't know it's, do they know it's their birthday anymore? Do they know it's their birthday? See, that's why they made that song for charity.

What song is that? Do they know it's their birthday anymore? Once again, I think the point was happy birthday. We want to wish. Yes. Everyone whose birthday it's been, happy birthday. No matter what day you're born on. And as well, if your birthday is yet to come,

then we wish you a happy birthday also not to leave all those people out. Just we're not. but I guess if your first birthday is yet to come then we're not wishing you anything because you you ain't here yet so you wouldn't know about it anyway but that how come it when you're born why isn't that your zero birthday because you get a first birthday a year afterwards

but nobody is is there a party when the actual when the thing pops out of the the placenta or the magenta or whatever the fuck is going on And then they have a party with cake for the kids' zero birthday? Or how does that... Well, you've got experience with this type of thing. There's never been a tougher segment to wrap up than the happy birthday segment.

Who knew? Who knew this is what was going to happen? Well, the magenta placenta and everyone else, happy birthday is the point. Yes, they got an exit zero. Do we have an exit strategy? Do we have an exit strategy? No, they got an exit. He's got an exit zero on the I-65 going across the Ohio River.

When you leave Louisville, go across the Ohio River, first exit you come to is exit zero, and you don't see that every day. Well, on that happy note, this is your show. All righty, let's, why don't we talk, since we're being serious for a moment, why do we talk about last week's episode of Dark Side of the Ring, which was on the renegade Rick Wilson, the WCW star from the 90s. And as I had said when we talked to Evan Husney,

you know, the producer and Major Domo of the Dark Side of the Ring, I remembered them doing the gimmick, bringing in a faux ultimate warrior. I remember it being pretty essential. spectacular bomb. I didn't know who the guy was, had no idea where he came from or where he went to or whatever. So this one was kind of open for me because it was kind of another one of these stories that Jesus Christ, this shit means more to these people it's happening to than it means to some of us, basically is why this guy

getting this knock-off gimmick that he fell into and then having it taken away, he just, he went to pieces over it because he had, this was his dream since he'd been an unhappy child and his mother had him young and he didn't know his father and his stepfather beat him. And then all of a sudden he gets to be a TV star that was you know, the high point of his life at that point. But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, Brian, how much did you know about renegade Rick Wilson

before this particular episode? I didn't know anything about his backstory. I knew that he had been real, Lord of the Jungle, and then I knew pretty much about everything in WCW, nothing about the circumstances around his, suicide. I knew he committed suicide, but I didn't know any of the other story. And also, let me say, because I'm always critical of Darkside, for good reason. And I still think there are issues, you know, with the script usually, and Chris Jericho talking as slow as he can't,

and the reenactments. But with all that said, I think this, I actually think this was the best episode of the season so far. Yeah. Really? Yeah. I really do. And I think a lot of it is, You know, again, it comes down to sometimes also the guests you get. The ex-wife was spectacular on this. And I hate to look at it that way. You know, spectacular talking about the tragedies in her life. But yes. She was great as a talking head and as someone to talk their way through the story.

I actually think this was the best episode they've done all season. Well, and also, I think part of it comes down to, since a lot of us did not have preconceived notions or having heard a lot of the story or whatever, we didn't, we didn't pick it apart or poo-poo things because it was, so much of it was new because it came from his friends and instead of all people in the wrestling business. And that's the only look you got. They had, you know, it was well-rounded. But the whole thing started. And Bischoff, what are the opening statements that he made was, well, basically, in WCW, the creative in 1994 was rotten. And then we signed hook.

And I, in parentheses, I put, and continued with rotten creative. The creative at the beginning in 1994 was the best the creative had been since the spring of 92, which, you know, was nowhere near where it had been years earlier. but the beginning of 94 was actually a bright spot that gave us hope and then Hogan came in. Well, and then, as they mentioned, WCW got the influx of ex-WF guys, the same thing that would happen 10 years later. Hogan and Bischoff were followed by every, and some, many of them were very talented in their day, and a few of them might have still been talented, but it was just always the same situation

presented the same way to diminishing returns. Nevertheless, he got all those people, but he couldn't get the Ultimate Warrior, so Hogan couldn't get his win back, because he never got his win back over the warrior from that WrestleMania. Do you think that needed to be said, by the way,

that wasn't outright said here. It was that WCW wanted Hogan to have to beat the Ultimate Warrior, not that Hulk Hogan wanted to get a win over anyone who had a win over him? I think somebody, it might have been quick, but I heard it, you know, just basically saying, you know, to get his win, I don't even know if they used the exact phrase, get his win back. But that was the point. Hogan now had a company where they were hiring not only his friends, but they had a budget

to hire whoever the fuck that didn't want to work for Vince or couldn't work for Vince or whatever. So he's thinking, oh, we can do this thing again. but this time, I can get my fucking win back. And on the uncensored pay-per-view for 1995, Hogan had been teasing the ultimate surprise, and they did the videos with silhouette with the hair and the tassels. And you would think this guy from that presentation

was the ultimate warrior. And the people at that point had no reason to think it wasn't possible for it to be. They didn't know that Warrior was still in a lawsuit with Vince and probably wasn't in a mood to come at that point anyway, whatever.

But when Renegade appeared, immediately people, ah, Superfly CV-Affi. Yeah. It wasn't even like bald Billy Graham showing up. It was still him just altered. It was, no, this ain't the fucking guy.

and that's you know that's even though he had been working on the independence for what maybe a year or two at that point nobody had ever heard of him and so that was his introduction it's like he gets swept out of community theater and put on Broadway but to play the goddamn part that you know was played by Nathan Lane

oh and here's Jack Mioff but you know what was also part of the problem not that they could have ever pulled this off and again a couple of years later we have fake rea fake diesel a fake razor well and we had some fake rezers too Reiser Bowden maybe yes you know he was in good shape obviously for a stripper he was in great shape I guess but he didn't come in like shredded you know not to endorse steroid use but the Ultimate Warrior had an Ultimate Warrior look. The idea that it was all about his hair and putting face paint on him

and he wore tassels but didn't have any of the muscles. And again, he was in perfectly fine shape, great athletic shape. When he first started, it seemed, for the average person, not for an Ultimate Warrior. You would think if you wanted to do this, you would find someone who kind of had the physique. Well, but they didn't have anybody that had the physique. So they had to make do with what they got, which was him. And that's, that's the, I mean, Jimmy hard heard about him and told Hulk, you know, because he had gone to wrestling school.

And he was a, to quote Arne Anderson and what apparently got over on Twitter, Arn said he was a dick dancer in Boston. But when he had to get in the ring with him, he expected a pro wrestler, not a dick dancer. but Jimmy hard heard about him and told Hulk and they couldn't get warriors so they got this guy to kind of sort of be warrior maybe and they pushed the shit out of him

and of course the other guys were like what the fuck and as James Mitchell said the fucking wrestlers are like teenage girls and sometimes they are but also there was a valid somewhat reason hey we've been here we actually know how to do this and you bring this guy in and give him this gimmick and push him and he's done nothing and can't do anything.

And as you mentioned, his wife at the start of the thing, I said, wow, she's really got her shit together, it seems. It is very intelligent. And that got to the point where she found a bottle of booze in their apartment, but they didn't drink. And she found a card from a girl. and she wrecked the apartment, smashed the TV,

and ripped up all his clothes. I said, well, maybe she's not so well-adjusted. The card said, I think it was, I can't wait the swing on your 10-inch vine. He was... So you're telling me that she never had an inkling

that any vine swinging might be going on when he was a dick dancer in Boston. but now that she finds this card, she destroys the entire goddamn place. Was it in Boston? I know Arns said that, but I thought this whole story was like a southern thing, other than they said he went to Kowalski school for a while.

Well, that's where Kowalski school was. And that's what they said paid for his wrestling schooling. So the geography makes sense. Maybe Tom Burke knows. Maybe Tom Burke was there. Well, Tom knows everything. thing. So I'm sure Tom probably has

polaroids of Walter putting his wig on that day. Anyway, on the 10-inch vine. On the 10-inch vine of good Lord. Besides, wouldn't that be a

that'd be a pretty piss-poor vine when you think about it. I don't know if you could swing off that thing, it'd only be 10 inches. Nevertheless, he won the W.C. a TV title from Arne Anderson. And I remember that was basically what I remembered about

the most about renegades WCW run because in the business and in the meager insider newsletter industry at the time, that both sides, the fans were incensed that Arne Anderson had to put this guy over and the boys were like, Jesus Christ, poor Arn, having to put this fucking guy

So that was the memorable thing, you know, pretty much that Renegade did in WCW. And as Arne said, he was a blank slate that wasn't filled in yet. And this was a quote I wrote down because I don't just want to keep slandering Rick Wilson here, but this goes so well right now. Arn said about this guy that did not get over that was just not able to progress. No fire, no intensity going through moves. And take that, you know, advice of a modern time also. And then Paul Orndorff told Arn and said,

Jesus, Arne, that match sucked. And on the next pay-per-view was Orndorff against Renegate. And the fans were cheering Orndorff, even though he was a fucking heel. So when Hulk lost interest, the guy was on his own. And I know somebody's going to say, well, wait a minute, if Renegade was a baby face also, how was Hogan going to get his win back? That's what they were going to do. What was Hogan's standard big money match M.O?

establish a friend slash tag team partner and then have said friend tag team partner turn on him a la Randy Savage I la fucking Paul Orndorf whatever they would have got renegade over as on the level of Hogan by being with Hogan in their dreams

and then he would turn on Hogan or whatever and they would do that deal but he wasn't getting over so they didn't do that deal what did you think of a clip of Jimmy Hart wiping his face clean and screaming at him you're nothing you're nothing

I forgot about that here's the thing they've made it like this you know and I guess this guy and his hopes and dreams were shattered of you know he was dicked by the dangled dong of destiny it was a big deal emasculating and

I think Vince would would have called like he's what did he say one time about the way that we were taunting Yoko Zuna or whatever used the R word they're verbally Ring

I don't know if I can say it now I'll get YouTube kicked off of Yoko Zuna but that's it was like this big moment and it's Jimmy Hardy's the nicest guy in the world when they say to say something, like, you'll never be anything,

you're just played old Rick. Then Jimmy generally repeats whatever they tell him to say about 15 times. He really rubbed it in, but he wanted to make sure the camera got it. But, you know, he was probably instructed. Jimmy didn't go into business for himself on very many occasions. He was instructed on what to say by the office, because they were probably like, oh, Jesus Christ,

we did all this with this guy, this is what we got, get rid of him. And poor, poor poo-poo just had to be the one to deliver the message. But then I had forgotten that they left him off and then brought him back with no makeup and put him in the team with Joe Gomez. I'd never even remember hearing of the end crowd. And that whole thing,

and they had Joe Gomez on to admit, We just kind of didn't put in the work. We didn't get better. We didn't take it seriously. But I didn't even remember that part of it. See, that's like a weird thing, too. Again, the wife kept saying it was his dream since childhood to be a wrestler. That was his dream.

And it's always weird when you hear that like someone loved it that much. And when they get in the ring, they just don't get it. They don't understand. It's not even about the physicality of the basics or anything. Just the psychology, none of it. It appears that they wanted to be a wrestler, but you can't understand if there's a understanding of the whys and the hows, you know what I mean?

Well, but here's the thing. You can narrow that down a little bit because several times they said he wanted to be a celebrity, he wanted to be a star, that was his dream. He watched wrestling, and when he got that big body, I could, you know, I could do this or people told him he could do it. But there's a difference between people that want to get into wrestling because they love

wrestling and they want to be a part of wrestling in whatever fashion. And there's a difference in people who want to get into wrestling because they see that the wrestlers at the big level are big stars and they want to be stars. They want to be on TV. if they can't sing and they can't dance but they got muskles or they got long hair or what you see what I'm saying it's it's you're doing the same thing following the same path but for two different motivations if you just want to be a star you're that's why somebody you know the reality TV show people get into wrestling or vice versa but if you just wanted to be a like me I wanted to be

at a wrestling business. I didn't even really consider until afterwards shit, that means being on the TV show too. I just wanted to do what they did in the gardens, right? When I was a kid. But that's putting a finer point on it.

You want to do that specific thing rather than you want to do anything that will make you a celebrity or known or on television or whatever the case. Does that make any sense? It does. Because that's a thing. and I'm not even trying to say he never put in any effort at all.

It obviously had to put in work in the gym, but when he got the big push and it didn't work out because he was in over his head, then instead of, as some people have done in the past, often some people don't do, digging in and going, okay, why am I so lost? Why does nobody want to work with me? Why does Arne say he's never been,

glad for a match to be over. I got to get out of the spotlight and get my shit together. He was drinking and partying and being a celebrity and hanging out with the with the girls. And that's the kind of work that he's taught Gomez is talking about they didn't put in. He didn't go the extra mile to try to go back to school or he's got a contract the power plant or whatever. ever. And then by 1998, they had gotten the real warrior

to come to WCW and hope got his win back. And then he was gone. So that's a, the They should do a dark side on that match. Oh my God. Yes, that might be interesting. Just break that son of a bitch down for, because

the real, the real warrior sucked at that point. They realized what Vince had realized a couple of years earlier, that the nostalgia pop lasted two weeks. And then, oh, my God, if a business has ever passed anybody by or a moment in time or a, he had the specific push that couldn't ever be replicated again. He just shown up. It wasn't there. And bad shit, too. I remember when Hogan was scared because Ultimate Warrior appeared in his mirror? Appearing in the mirror, yes. And but anyway back to this story as as mitchell said this guy he wasn't a bad guy you know he was he he didn't particularly have a big head or whatever he just you know he was lost and

eric bischoff said he was thrown to the wolves but when he tested positive for steroids at the you know opportune time for him to get rid of him he got fired and that's when, as they said, he spiraled into depression. But again, if his motivation was being a wrestler, this was before WWF had gone out of, WWF, let me try that, before WCW had gone out of business and been sold to the WWF, ECW was still around. There were independents like crazy at that time period,

if he had been, if his dreams had been dashed because he couldn't be a wrestler anymore, I don't think that's the case because he didn't necessarily try that much. I think his dreams were dashed because he couldn't be a big star and do what, you know, he had thought he was going to be able to do a few years before. And that's why he was in debt and depressed and moved back. back to Georgia, had stayed in contact with his ex-wife but met a stripper from the gold club. And that always turns out to be a great relationship when you're a failed wrestler meeting a stripper from the gold club.

But he split up with her and his wife had said that he had called her and she was thinking, well, maybe we can get back together and he was going to come see her. But then she got a call that he was dead and it was a suicide. but the police report said that because the stripper came to the funeral at a tight dress and high heels and the ex-wife found out that the police report said that the stripper said they'd gotten in a fight earlier fight as where he actually hit her but it was over her pain pills or whatever but she says he got the gun and shot himself in front of her. There has been more than one suspicious occurrence

where two people were the only ones in the room when one person got shot and the other person has always said, yeah, he shot himself, hadn't they, Brian? That doesn't mean he didn't. It doesn't mean he didn't, but goddamn. What the fuck? How much bad luck can this fucking guy have?

And she went to the funeral. Apparently she went and showed up dressed like a stripper. Who knew? Yes. But, you know, again, maybe, but did she feel bad about anything? So why she wanted to, when you commit suicide with somebody else in the room and they, yeah, he shot himself. I watched him bigger and shit. God damn.

Certainly they went into a deeper line of questioning. that one guy, the wrangler of the male strippers, he seemed like a nice guy. Yeah, at first I thought it was Rick McCord with a beard. And he's a very nice, pleasant guy, the stripper wrangler, the male stripper, the dick dancer wrangler. They called him Dick Desperado is what they called him. Back in the Old West, he wrangled all them 10-inch heifers. Anyhow.

So I don't know what I'm saying, but. but it's a good opportunity to ask you to say something. What do you think about this poor fella? Again, this was the chance for the ex-wife to say, I think it's suspicious or I don't believe it. She didn't. She went the other way and said, yeah, if he was really fucked up and despondent,

maybe it did happen. So I'm not going to assume anything else. And then again, if the stripper had shot him, why would she go to the funeral? in such a outfit that everyone would notice she was there like that. That's, to make sure everybody knew she was,

she was probably setting up an alibi for her next hit. Everybody will remember me here. I think, again, I'll say what I said earlier. I think this is the best dark side of the season that I've seen so far. There's more episodes to come. But it really was a dark, sad tale from what they told us.

There wasn't much beyond, you know, the stripping and the wrestling and wanting to be a star. And, you know, it's amazing he was able to pull a stripper from the gold club at that point, quite frankly. He wasn't still on TV. And the gold club, they get lots of celebrities and basketball players. It's a popular place.

But if he was still, was he still under contract in or had been under contract to WCW, he probably went in a few times with a star and got some star, rubbed off on it. But nevertheless... But I was just going to say one other thing. You know, and again, the renegade wasn't good. The gimmick wasn't good. The wrestling wasn't good.

Despite him and Joe Gomez and I think the other guys in their group, or was it Alex Wright and Jim Powers? I mean, there was a reason some things were on Saturday night and stayed there. You know, it wasn't a great career, but it was notable because of this gimmick and the gimmick, also prevented him from ever doing anything else because it was atrocious. There was no overcoming it.

I mean, you know, there's certain gimmicks you hear people talk about, the Red Rooster or Muhammad Hassan or whatever it may be. There are certain gimmicks you can't get past and if he had reinvented himself maybe, but he was saddled with something that no one other than Jim Hellwig or a Jim Helwig clone could have pulled off. well and then also he because he was trying to do that so early in his career he learned a big part of what he learned was learning to do that which was exactly to reinvent himself as what he should have never done the rope shaking and the ultimate warrior mannerisms and things so not only did they bring him in to a spot like that before he was ready but he had had to do all kinds of shit that he should never do again as a wrestler because all it would do

is remind people of the giant flop. So it just, it said him back. As Bishop said, they throw him to the wolves. Like they had that clip of him on some show where Jim Hellwig showed up. You know, maybe he changed his name legally to Warrior at that time. I don't know, but it gets on the mic and he's like, well, they say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. I mean, he's pointing it out then. That's before WCW even. Yeah, and that's probably one of the things that made Jimmy Hart hear about him was something like that happening. But, oh, well, you know, Brian, the thing is sometimes you ease into a spot,

you just kind of get a little grease or a little extra virgin olive oil and you just slide right in. And other times you're just thrown right on. the grill, just right on the grill, out of the frying pan right into the fire. And you got to be tough, Brian, to be thrown right on the grill. You got to be tough. You got to be durable. You got to be a quality piece of work to survive being thrown on that grill. You know that as well. We've been on the grill many times, but we come out unscathed because we. What is happening right now? We come out unscathed because we are hex clad. Ladies and gentlemen, hex clad. We are hex clad. That's right.

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using a bunch of aluminum foil and some fucking cheap aluminum pie pans, that's not the way to feed your children. They'll get aluminum poisoning. Do you know what it's like to eat six or eight ounces of aluminum on a growing human being, Brian? I don't. And again, this has nothing to do with

hex glad you will not have to worry about any of these. Well, exactly. That's what you're trying to get away from, wrapping all this stuff up in an aluminum foil and just setting it on the grill. You're going to give your kids fucking an aluminum poisoning. Go the professional way. This stuff will last forever and you won't poison your children. Child Protective Services are using flock cameras and backyards all across the country

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That's hexclad.com slash JCE 10% off of whatever you're going to get over there in that fine location. Hexclad! All right. Well, speaking of out of the frying pan and into the fire, I guess it's time we should bring the people up to date on what they did over an AEW land this past Wednesday night on dynamite. It was the Mexican,

what was the title of, it was Arena Mexico. Grand Slam, Mexico. Grand Slam, Mexico. I was going to say Mexican Grand Slam, that's what they have at Denny's in Texas. They had a hot crowd. Bless the people of Mexico.

They still react to wrestling, of any kind, apparently. But this was, it was a better show than normal in terms of crowd reaction. It obviously it was a novelty for the people there to see these wrestlers and for the people like Uncle Dave who just want to see matches, matches, multiple person matches, followed by multiple person matches

where you write names down at random based on who can do the best moves to each other it was great there as well, but it was the same people that we always see on AEW TV wrestling, the same people we always see on AEW television, just more of them in each match and a little bit shorter so they could have more matches. And we got the one angle, which we'll talk about with MJF and are you looking forward to seeing MJF and Andrade?

Yes, I am. And in what fashion? What is the attraction there? I've never seen MJF wrestle him and there aren't too many people there right now that I want to see MJF work with. A lot of it's been exhausted. Andrade is utterly fascinating. The push he's getting, the idea that they're getting a plant in every town to sit ringside. And it's, I mean, I'm not trying to put it in with that, but it's never like a knock.

like it's never like a 10 it's never like holy shit what's she doing at wrestling it's obviously paid programming they always stand out and it just happens and nobody there's no security there that would be intervening if it was other people crowding the rail the whole nine yards it's obviously just what they're doing as a work in the match and it's never as you said Miss Universe, it's Miss Poughkeepsie. And there's no reason why. And they establish that he does it to take a selfie with them. I mean, it's never nothing.

And they're trying to force the, what's this fucking catcher? I forget his catchphrase. How you know? How you know? How you know? How you know? Yeah, they're trying to force the how you know as a thing.

And AEW fans will eat that up. But there's just something like, I don't know, prefab about the whole thing. Just that, Then he disrobes mid-match. For who? Who is that for? What is the audience that he thinks he has

versus the audience he has? And MJF, yeah. I think MJF interacting with that guy could be fun. Well, the promos are going to be off of one-sided. And the match will be as stupid as everyone else's matches. So I'm sure it'll be good. Well, anyway, so they had the hot crowd and they went right into a big,

eight-man tag team match with Edge and Christian Cage and the Hardley Boys teaming up against Dick the Boozer and the Boor Horseman. And again, Edge, I don't know how long it's been since he's appeared in Mexico, but he was over. They sang his song, Acapella, on his entrance that you could hear, Acapella, O Acapella. and you could also tell that even though it's Mexico, it's 2026, Moxley and his heels came through the arena and not one of them got stabbed. So times have changed in Mexico too.

And they, you know, they had a match in 12 minutes. That's getting to be a kind of a standard fucking time. In 12 minutes, edge, duct, packs, close line, and hit the ropes and knocked, Matt off the apron and then turned to look at, oh my gosh, I knocked Matt off the apron and Moxley schoolboyed him, one, two, three. So Moxley gets another win over a big star. And there's another bump in the road of the relationship between Edge and Christian and the Hardley boys since they're going to have the big cataclysmic tag team match at Wembley. And otherwise, yeah, that was what.

that was. I don't know. Am I missing any nuances, Brian? Not really. Copp was super over. I mean, those people were really happy to see them. I wonder how many are Mexicans from Mexico City and how many are tourists, because we hear that there's a lot of people who go to Arena Mexico as tourists and you would have to think of AEW is going to be in town if those tickets are available and they may be a hard ticket to get. You would get some people, but I'm going to assume it's a local. How many of the tourists you get on weekends versus a Wednesday night? I don't know. It's the summer.

But anyway, I'm going to assume actually it was probably majority of local crowd. They treated him like a star and they were happy to see him. When the bucks came out, there was no reaction. Because it was noticeable. I was watching the way they had a wide shot. You could see the people, even if they were making noise, which they weren't, they weren't moving. So, you know, they usually go together with the movement and the noise. I said it was a hot crowd.

I didn't say it was a make-a-wish crowd. They're not just going to grant everybody their wish and cheer them, even if they're the Buccane. And I'm sorry, every match. Yuda and Garcia are ridiculous. It's ridiculous. See, that's why I've said, there's not a lot more we can say.

These are the same people doing the same things. And if you always do what you always did, then you always get what you always got. But then we had a three-way instead of an eight-man. Tomaso Champa against Andrade against Commander. Out of the three of these guys, Champa is interesting. Champa can talk.

Champa looks not only physically good, but weird and different. He's interested, and he came out draped in American flags. What a fucking heel. I'm surprised he didn't get cut. And so, of course, this is not the guy of their people.

pushing. Commander is the local fellow. I can understand him being involved in this, not in this country because it's goddamn ridiculous that he's in American wrestling. He's a flunked out, America's got

talent audition for tight rope walking. But nevertheless, they've decided that Andrade is the guy, so Andrade beat Commander. So he gets the number one spot in the casino gauntlet match at Wembley Stadium,

the winner of which gets a title match against the world champion, plus Andrade has MGAF's ring too. So that's clear, right, what he just won, right? He gets to be the number one guy in the casino gauntlet match in Wembley Stadium

to potentially win that and get a title match at some point down the line, and he's got the ring. Just want to make sure of my notes. That's right. And then he cut a promo, and I'm not sure whether it was in Spanish or English or gibberish.

Because basically he said some things, and then asked how you know. And then MJF's music play. And as Andrade is watching the entranceway for MJF, he came in the back door and leveled him with the belt and got the ring and punched him and got the ring, and punched him and got juice on him and beat the shit out of him

and threw him off the fucking ramp. Well, and then MJF cut a promo on that quote unquote piece of shit country. He said something about Kenny that got bleeped. If it didn't bleep shit, I don't know what is going on.

He's pissed that he's out of the Wembley main event, which we all are. and next week he's going to win the qualifying match to be the number two guy in the casino gauntlet match in Wembley Stadium to beat Andre to get the contract for the title match. So we've got a clearly defined goal here. And, uh, and yeah, at MJF who Tony Kahn just said had been dealing with, oh, major, major injuries. is now back for to risk his knee

or whatever the fuck is wrong against this fellow. Brian, your thoughts on the confrontation. Well, he just knew MJF wasn't going to miss. Wasn't a going to miss. You knew that he wasn't going to miss. No, you knew he wasn't going to miss an arena Mexico show. He actually

was a big star there last year involved with some of the best stuff in wrestling last year there. Again, Andrade's not perfect. or legible. But there's something goofy about this whole Andrade push. Again, Tony Chivani forcefully yelling, he's so cool! There's something so not cool and so prefab about this whole thing.

Hey, I'll have you know Tony was the king of the sock hops back in the day. I guess so. Well, Andrade's big with the Bobby Sockers. Soxers. The Bobby Sockers? Sockers, that's my new strip group. Hey, that'd get you in trouble with the cops in England if you were a Bobby soccer. Hey, Chavani also used to give the elbow to the fucking jukebox and it would play without putting a fucking coin in it. You brought up the, whatever you want to say, confusion or the long explanation needed to

understand the stipulations or what you're winning and what it causes, blah, blah, blah. blah. Did you see that they announced another tournament? Oh, yeah, I glossed over it, but what is that for again now? I actually have to look that up because I'm not sure. It was like the... Here we go. They announced the... I got the observer right here. They announced the details of the Continental Cup single elimination tournament. Every match is one fall, no time limit match with no outside interference allowed, and nobody allowed at ringside.

So it's a tournament to win the Continental Cup, but it's different than the Continental Classic. So now there's a road to the Continental Classic that begins with the Continental Cup. Well, that's like the Big Bacon Classic was different than the Baconator. It's two completely different fucking sandwiches. But we needed another tournament.

In between the tournaments we already have that are forced on our throats every year, multiple times a year. We needed another one in between. Just a tie to soap. Well, speaking of things that we didn't need, but we got a girl's six-man tag match with Megan Brain, what's her name, Lita Cross, and Mercedes Moon against Willow and the Battling Birds. And that was actually the hour mark.

It was 9 o'clock or so Eastern. I guess they, now that we don't get the quarter hours publicly, they've quit trying. And then for some kind of title, we had Kyle Feltcher against Hong Kong Fooey. Which one of the belts was this? Was this the Continental? No. No? I thought he had the T&T, or is it the international?

What are the singles belts? wait a minute we've got there's the national the international wait a minute no hold on they don't have a national

and an international yes they do they have a national yeah mark davis was the champion he lost it to who just won it someone just won it there's a national point is as a national champion

and an international champion national international continental continental obviously the world men's world women's world well we're not even we're just talking about men's belts right now here in general international national continental world t and t and t i don't know if you count ring of honor no i was about to say don't count ring of honor uh well anyway

one of the belts here that kyle has and again i invoked the bailey rule because this guy is the poster child for bullshit rest of and despite the fact that they don't know what the fuck Kyle is and when he came down in that outfit he looks like he just joined earthwind and fire in 1979 but if he's a main event guy it's insulting to him to book this and for it to go 17 minutes and for him to do everything he could possibly do to beat this prancing little hobgoblin. It's just, if you're going to push the guy, push the guy. Spitball is visually ridiculous on a survey. He's a foot shorter and 50 pounds lighter than Kyle.

And there's the element of him being just the goddamn milk-soppishest motherfucker you've ever seen in your life and embarrassing. in the ring with that hop-skippy fucking grasshopper bullshit. Four and three-quarter stars in the Observer. Oh, Christ. As good as five. At one point, Flecker...

Anyway. At one point, I was actually looking to see if Dave wrote anything about it. At one point, Fletcher landed on his head, that it looked bad. But I'm sure he was fine. And Suzanne was in here hanging out for a little bit while this match was on. She liked Mike Bailey's pants. He wore a special baggy pants for the occasion. Are you sure that just wasn't?

He was halfway crawling out of a fucking hefty bag. I'm not positive, but I don't think so. Well, anyway, then after this match, Kyle is still in the ring, and remember he's in the Don Fallis organization, and here comes our Japanese friend, Mr. O'Boring, who is also, last I remember, in the organization, and then they make mean faces at each other.

So because O'Borings matches up next, so he's got to pass Kyle because they formated it that way. But they just broke, take a shit out of the group and turned him baby face because he didn't like, so why are they always fighting in the heel group? Do you remember when Tully and Arne just couldn't stand each other? It was that dark journey. She's the one that caused a lot of shit.

shit. I'm telling you. So then we got a six-man tag with O'Boring and Kevin Knight and Chichia! Against Mystico, Chris Jericho, and Darby Allen. Chris Jericho has Corazon de Leon, his gimmick in CMLL before he worked for Smoky Mountain. 32 years ago. So it's nice for all of the senior citizen. Do they have a wheelchair section that would have got that, Brian?

I was going to say, imagine if Dick the Bruiser came out in his 50s, dressed like he was in his 20s, but he was actually. That's the problem. There was never a single change, not in the boots, the tights, nothing. He never owned a jacket. You see those old pictures from 1952, Crusher, when he was still Crusher Lissowski or Reggie the Crusher Lissowski. Eddie was teamed up with, who was it, Stan Nelson,

as Stan. They had nice satin jackets. Bruiser never had a guy. He didn't have a jacket and didn't have a vest. He had a t-shirt. Every once a while he'd wear a t-shirt. But he was only in the business for 30 years. So what the fuck?

Anyway, this was the big name six-man tag match with Corazon Kings of Leon returning along with Mystic Kenna fan from Mexico. Please write in and explain why Mystico uses that rotten fucking song for his entrance music. Oh, it works in Mexico. When you see it in the environment and people react to it, that's where it works.

But how does anybody like that song in any environment? So your problem is that a popular song? What exactly is your problem here? It's a goddamn horrible fucking song, especially for a wrestler to use his entrance music, but in general, the song fucking sucks donkey dick.

And I'm trying to get somebody from from Mexico to write us and tell us why anybody likes this shitty fucking song. Yes, please write. Please write us corny drive-thru at gmail.com. And put in the subject information on song about donkey dicks. Don't put that.

No, back to the match, June. Back to the match. Hex clap. Yes, well, they did a jumpstart and a six-way. Imagine that. I've never seen that before on this program. And O'Boring looked blown up 15 seconds in and through the fakesest blows that I've ever seen. And I just zipped on through same people, same shit.

Baby faces beat the heels. Darby coffin dropped one guy while the other two got their submission holes on. So they beat all three of these heels basically at the same time. And I understand, chit, chit, I mean, you should beat, oh, boring with a goddamn one of those bug zappers just continue to beat him and zap him constantly the death by a thousand zaps

night with what they're trying to do or what they have been trying to do I don't understand just feeding him in there and isn't Chichia one of CML's big big boys

they just they beat him too they beat everybody so everybody was beaten Mystigo beat Hatcherero, so that's nothing to be embarrassed about in Arena, Mexico. He's the biggest star there. Well, but the other two had the submission holes on the, they beat all three of the heels in effect.

Just, just beat them. Just beat them. I'm not going to complain about this one. I perfectly fine ten minutes. It was not too long. I'll say that for it. And then Chris Stanley, Stanler, Stanley, Stanley, Stanley, Stanley, Chris. and then Chris Stantlander

wrestled Persephone and all of a sudden it was 10 o'clock what Stephanie was there well no we used to mispronouncing people really got upset about it people who love their Greek mythology whatever the fuck it's Persephone I thought that we were mispronouncing it saying Perciphany and it was really Persephone

so you're saying it's the other way around it is could also be pronounced Persephoney well much of this was personally and then it was 10 o'clock oh that was there's so there's okay there you go yes and then we had the six-man tag team title was on the line with ricochet at his stooges against bro dildo and hangnail page who came out in sombreros and ponchos with a live mariachi band playing them and a masked midget mascot. One of his former students, put them down for the trip.

I'm all in favor of the baby faces getting in the spirit of the local culture. But did this go from, like if they'd been wearing the sombreros and the ponchos, is it an homage to with the live mariachi band and the masked midget mini mascot? doesn't then it become they're making fun of the whole goddamn thing, these fucking angry Americans or awful Americans? They're doing everything they can to get them over. Well, they ought to try helium. And the heels got jump started it and they started broke out in a six way.

Never seen that before. And when the baby faces won, it was 10.30. So now this week, their regular time, slot was 8 o'clock until 10.30. They got an extra 30 minutes so they could have so many matches involving so many people. But last week's show went really long too. I never know when it's going to end. Well, that's the thing. Last week, they were scheduled for 8 to 10. They had a 30 minute overrun and then they overran the overrun by about 4 or 5 minutes. This week, they were listed from 8 to 10.30. And at 1030, their main event was starting. The Mexico City Street Fight between

Will Osprey and Mark Davis. An English guy and an Australian are having a Mexico City street fight. Neither one of them had a switchblade. Right there shows you it's phony. But Brian in a street fight with no rules. That's for a street fight, right? No rules. Anything goes.

But they agreed that nobody would be ringside and nobody would interfere. in the regular matches people are ringside and people interfere every goddamn time but at a no rule street fight nobody can be ringside and nobody can interfere so they got the chairs they got the spare tires they got the trash cans at one point davis power bombed osprey over the railing on top of a fake fan that was a break spot do you know if you actually legitimately wanted to do something like that. You could goddamn make that a fucking angle with police and goddamn chaos. But no, it's a break spot.

So then bearing in mind, this is Will Osprey, who's in the main event at Wembley Stadium, challenging Kenny for the title, much to our chagrin instead of MJF, but he's in the main event. And the jobber with the big ass. gets juice on him, kicks the shit out of him through this match,

but then at least Osprey got it on Davis. And involving the coils of barbed wire and Osprey pile drove Davis on the apron. That didn't finish him. Then Osprey hit the styles clash on this big fucker. Big pop. Cover one, two, no. Idiots.

Then Osprey had to hit the elbow, the hidden blade finish, while the barbed wire was wrapped around Davis's head to be able to beat this fucking guy. One, two, three. The Stiles Clash looked better and should have been the finish besides everything else. But again, it took everything that he had to beat the guy that's in the middle of the heel group. And they're portraying his opponent at Wembley Stadium as the greatest wrestler of the last however many years.

A very different kind of match than you would ever see at Arena, Mexico. They even have some standards down there is what you're saying, Timmy. I'm just sick of these kind of street fights, no DQ, whatever. Too many. It used to be a novelty, but too many now. But there was the big AEW Dynamite Grand Slam, Mexico. on the road to Wembley, which is going to sell more tickets for one night, or at least distribute as many, who knows, than SummerSlam.

And bless them, bless their little peepick and hearts. You know, Brian, that's the thing, is maybe we just, our luck needs to change with watching the wrestling programs. We've had bad luck. Now we need good luck. We need to have a big win.

We need to win something. big that we can crow about. Sort of like when Osprey wins this belt from Kenny and Wembley Stadium. He's going to win something big. He's going to crow about it. But what can we possibly win? I'm wondering, hey, have you heard, Brian, about the incredible sweepstakes that our friends over at Ridge are running?

We have never had anything like this on the program. Never had any advertising for anything approaching something this big. it's an amazing, it's a monumental, it's a milestone occasion. Ridge, they don't just make great wallets. They don't just have great luggage, the power bank that you can plug in anything from your phone to your laptop to the vibrating bed in your hotel room. Now they've got a sweepstakes going on from July 24th through September the 8th. It's a big one. You've got plenty of time to get into it.

And the official spokesman of this thing is Tony Hawk. You've heard of him. He's Rip Hawk's son from Evansville, Indiana. Sean Delaney tracked him down and got the DNA test done. I don't think it's the same person, no. And two people are going to win the sweepstakes, and they get to choose between these four items. Each of the lucky winners could have one of a Lamborghini,

Hurricane Storado. See, that's just that's such a foreign car you don't recognize any of the goddamn names. A Ford Hennessy Velociraptor that apparently is a dinosaur

from the from the Henry Ford Museum. Well, no, it's from actually the Jurassic Park exhibition that they've cloned the DNA. It's from, it's the cousin of the Stegasar. or you can get a souped-up Ford Bronco or $100,000 in cash.

That's the thing. There are only 1,500 of these Lamborghini Hurricane Storadoes that exist in the world, and you get a chance to own one. It's the world's first off-road supercar, a naturally aspirated V-10 with 610 horsepower. I'm glad to see it's met its aspirations. and the Hennessy Velociraptor. Oh, it's got a 558 horsepower twin turbo engine. What is happening again?

I thought that it was a goddamn of the dinosaur. Because either the velociraptors were, they were right next to the Tyrannosaurus's, except they flew. The custom-built Bronco is croated and crooded. It sure is, folks. It's been crood. croted completely

in scratch-resistant Kevlar armor. So it's basically bulletproof. If you're unpopular out there, you might want to pick that. It's got 37-inch off-road tires. You'd think for that much money. Say it's worth like 100 grand or whatever.

If it's worth that much money, the tires ought to be able to go on the roads too. We'll check into that. And you can enter completely free at ridge.com. So, and if you want to boost your chances, you can earn additional entries, wink, wink, nudge, by picking up some ridge gear during the sweepstakes period,

whether it's the power bank, the wallet, the luggage, or something else you may have had your eye on. Now you can get that product and get extra entries with your purchase. So this could be like one of those, those lotteries where just spend the money to buy, all the tickets and you're guaranteed to win. So they got the Ridge Power Bank. Yes.

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So even if you think that these sweepstakes stakes are a little steep there's no reason not to stake your claim and sweep clean with a new broom by ordering all this stuff and having an opportunity what Brian what would you do with the Lamborghini is the Velociraptor is that a helicopter

I'm not sure but again these are fine products we don't even need a swoop stakes to tell you these are fine products Suzanne loves the power bank she stole mine I have the wallet still and again for someone Did she get the Lamborghini No, she didn't enter the con. She doesn't know about the contest as far as I know. But you had a Lamborghini.

I'm just wondering if that's hers now. I have not. That seems like a waste of money. I gave up luxury cars many years ago, and I never had a Lamborghini. You gave them up for Lent, started eating fish. But I guess the point is you could somehow miraculously get a Lamborghini if you buy somebody's fine product.

What do you do? But you don't have to pick the Lamborghini. You could get the Velocera. get the Bronco, at least you know what that looks like, or just take the $100,000 and buy whatever you want, a good Opal cadet. Well, Jim, once again, a power bank that we like here, a wallet that I like in my pants, or just in general, in general, it's a fine wallet. And now, we're not going to go into the things that you enjoy putting in your pants. There's no reason. It's a fine wallet. Jayce is so mad right now. It's just banging and clanging all over the place, but it's a great

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Calm down, cowboy. way. The last thing that we're going to do on the program, we've saved it for now because you know, it didn't seem to make sense to put the main event on first, but the most important news and the saddest news that we got this week was that Dory Fung Jr. passed away. I believe he was 85 and he had apparently been in bad health for some time. It had been in hospice and it wasn't being publicized, obviously, but he just wrestled a couple of years ago, to some extent, in a special match in Japan,

just to be the, I guess, the oldest guy ever do it or whatever the case, but a lot of people, I think, I know because he was a WWE Hall of Famer, and it made the headlines on some different sites because now, as you said, on one of these other situations. People have figured out that wrestlers passing away gets clicks not to say that he didn't deserve it

but I don't think people understand that for so many years for the first 20 years of their careers and after that inside the business Dory was seen as the star and Terry was the little brother and I'm not denigrating

Terry either. A lot of people know he's one of my old-time favorite wrestlers. But I don't think people realize that even after Terry was world champion to the fans, Dory was still the name for the 60s, 70s, and even into the 80s, Dory was the, Terry had the world title 14 months. Of course, he had to get out of it because it was killing his home life with Vicky. But Dory was the champion for four years. He's one of the few guys that the schedule didn't get to him. He didn't ask out. And his run as champion was more successful at the box office. And part of that was the boom periods that were going on in the early 70s, a lot of the territories that may not have been as strong in 76, but part of it was just

also Dory was considered at that point in time, late 60s through mid-70s, as the absolute best professional wrestler in the world. At what the world champion was supposed to be, he was the guy. And then Jack Briscoe followed, and it was a rare example of having the perfect guy to be the NWA champion following the perfect guy to be the NWA champion.

And I'll let you jump in here, Brian, on this. But I think people don't understand that maybe, and looking back, there's so little footage of Dory Sr. And especially none from Amarillo in the 60s and his prime, whatever. But Dory Sr. did not train Dory Jr. to wrestle like he did. That was Terry. Dory Sr. trained Dory Funk Jr. from the start like a science project to be the NWA champion, to be the perfect guy to hold that belt and work that style

of the time that was needed with the world title matches. And that's why you got, Dory and Terry couldn't have, they were brothers, but they couldn't have been any farther apart, not only in personality, but in wrestling style. Yeah, and, you know, again, I'm someone who came up with Terry Funk, you know, already being a legend, but also being active on national stage, 89 NWA. If you read the magazines, he never went away after that.

He was always doing something interesting somewhere. Dory was still doing his thing in Japan, but I think for a lot of people, Terry was the star, the funk. Yeah, to put it that way. But if you were someone during the era where Dory Funk Jr. was the NWA champion, from that point, I mean, you said 20 years, you know, give or take, from that point forward, for a long time, you saw him as the bigger star. an interesting thing to try to put into context today because it's completely flipped. And I'm a,

you know, diehard Terry Funk fan. And they were very different. I mean, I remember that match they had in Japan and was it 81? 81, yeah. What, 56 minutes and Dory won with the sunset flip outside end. Because of course, Dory won. There was no way Terry could win. I mean, I hate to say that, and I love Terry, but, you know, Dory was different. Terry, I mean, now we're talking about, Japan, but Terry got as over as any baby face that wasn't Japanese in the history of Japanese wrestling. But Dory had a credibility about him because of who he was and who he had been. And I think that says it perfectly.

And that's, you know, we talked about here on a program quite some time ago when Scott Teal did the history of Amarillo wrestling book that you can see. And I've, in heroes and friends, I've talked about. how Roy Welch worked the West Texas circuit early in the 1930s and took a lot of those tricks and made the Southern wrestling style because in Amarillo, those, the old timers that were doing the original Dutch Mantel and Dory Denton, who was the promoter and a wrestler there. We laughed at a city the size of Amarillo, two big stars in its history of wrestling, both named Dory.

but they taught Dory Sr. who was a legitimate amateur wrestler from Indiana. There were no wrestling programs at a lot of the schools at that point. That's why Dory Jr. didn't have a big high school wrestling resume, but Dory Sr. with the boys ranch and the things that Eddie Graham would learn from him and steal for Florida, He promoted amateur wrestling and school wrestling programs, so they finally got him in some of the schools. But Dory Sr., again, you can almost see the Terry in him.

And you know that he was not a scientific wrestling prodigy, even though he was a legit amateur wrestler because he got over in West Texas with the Texas death matches and the brawling and the blood and the wild of the chaos. But as he got stronger in the NWA and as a promoter as an owner, Dory Sr. saw opportunity for his sons, a lot like Fritz did, a lot like all the promoters did with their sons. But he's without doubt the one that produced the two sons that not only surpassed him,

which was rare for second generation wrestlers, but became two of the greatest world champions of all time. in two different styles of in-ring. And Dory Sr., having taught Eddie Graham, a lot of his shit, when Eddie Graham worked there in the 50s as Rip Rogers before he got the chance to become a member of the Graham brothers and sell out New York and go on and buy into Florida,

you can see that Eddie Graham's Florida did, from the boys ranch to the finishes, to the method of booking, the style of wrestling. Keep it credible and legitimate, but on the undercard and have the crazy shit on top. And then the world champion is the untouchable fucking wrestler. And that's what Dory Sr.

started Dory Jr. off as and continued that. He beat Kinnisky. Gene Kinnisky for a version of a world title. Dory did Jr. in his rookie year in Texas. And see that there, he pushed his sons the same way Fritz pushed his

and all the other promoters pushed his, but it was long ago and oh so far away in a territory that not a lot of people were aware of at the time, so it didn't register, but at the same time they carried the push because Dory from the very start

was seen as a kid that was a, you know, top wrestler and could beat anybody. And he was the son of the toughest guy in Texas, the fans thought. So that is why I think that Dory had that style where he could learn from the best because Dory Sr. as a member of the NWA as a promoter,

he had all that talent coming through. He had pull with the other promoters. They were certainly going to help show his kids a hold or two. and so by the time that what Dory broke in in 63 by the time he won the belt in 69 which was quick in those dates for a guy to be in the business

to be the world champion in six years that was the champion's job at that time and especially with Dorian Brisco but with Doreen and almost any of the top workers the wrestling card could be as crazy as the wrestling card

needed to be, but the fans would look at the world title matches. Like say what you want about the other shit and these local guys, but that guy's a big fucking national star. We know he has to be making a ton of money and, well, maybe this is on the level. And then Dory and Briscoe or Dori in that Japanese match with Antonio Inoki that I saw clips of on Twitter, or Dory and any top level guy like Kyniski, could go out there and make it look like it was a legitimate fucking contest. And yes, they were hitting the ropes and using tackles,

but in their own universe, you could easily suspend your disbelief because they looked like they were competing for something, and you couldn't find that many holes in their goddamn game because there was obviously cooperation to work a wrestling match, but there was an obvious cooperation where it slapped you in a face. And that's what the job of the NWA champion was at that point in time. And again, the promoters had to be happy with you,

no matter how much influence your father had, to be NWA champion for as long as he was. And Bosch didn't vote for him. Paul Bosch in Houston, because of the Texas rivalry, and that, you know, he thought that it was another, promoter's kid getting pushed. But then later on, he had to admit that he was wrong.

And Dory said, he ended up booking him as the champion. And then he'd have his own set of problems later on for doing that. But then Dory started having these matches and setting these records selling out in St. Louis and drawing money in Florida and the various places. And, you know, he had to admit that he was wrong.

But that's the thing with, at Terry's first match was with Sputnik Monroe. Sputnik Monroe was there to put him over, right? And you've heard this story. I guess Sputnik thought, well, I'll get heat on this kid and beat the shit out of him and finally give him a comeback and let him catch me. But he beat the shit out of him for so long.

Dory Sr. came down to ringside, started slapping the mat. God damn it, Terry, get him, kick his ass. He's fucking killing you here. But they, the funk family, you know, as a group would travel, like you see Dory and Terry, Dory Senior and Terry as a team in the garden during the same period of time that Dory Jr. is the NWA champion. They would send Terry in as the policeman ahead of Dory in a title defense at a territory.

If the local hero beat Terry, well, then Dory'd have to come in and give him a title shot. and they they drew all kinds of money across the country in different places for that entire period and then it wasn't it was only two and a half years between Dory and Terry but before we get into the the Houston title change controversy and et cetera just the idea that where do we start when we're talking about Dory because we've spent 20 minutes talking about what a great world change. champion he was, hadn't scratched the surface, and we're still in the early 70s, he would be owner of the Amarillo territory after his dad passed away. He'd be a Booker in more than one

place, including Florida and the Carolina's prime NWA territories. He was Giant Baba's Booker, American Booker, for 20 years or whatever, to the point where everybody from Jumbo Saruda to Tenoroo to anybody that even up to Oneida and Fucci, anybody that had any potential for Baba, they would send them to Amarillo to train with the Funks. He, even in the 90s in ECW and Smoky Mountain Wrestling, Dory was still working independence. I mean, the resume that he had over 40 years is almost untouchable. So where do we even begin to start after he was world champion? Yeah, you kind of touched on a whole bunch of things, you know.

Exactly. And I know you'll get to Houston shortly, but I think you kind of mentioned him there, things that had to happen because of the passing of his father, which was abrupt. He had to take over a territory with his brother. The relationship with Baba, you know, Dory Funk Sr. was the one who really established the first relationship with Japan. Yeah. His sons inherited it.

And they did a great job. I mean, you talked about the Von Erics before, the differences in promoting your sons. Terry and Dory independently and differently, both had a keen understanding of wrestling. Yes. And of things like booking and promoting and, you know, I talked a lot with Terry and with Dory in the 90s.

again, very different, but they both understood things. And I don't know if respectfully, Kevin or Kerry or any of the brothers ever could have that kind of conversation of deep understanding about the complexities of the wrestling business. And also, well, part of that, hold up, part of that was, let's face it. You've got Dory Funk, Sr., who has not only, you know, established himself as the top guy,

and the owner of the territory, but came in when it was really a pioneer fucking area and learned from those pioneers, the basics of the wrestling business and then was able to convey them to Dory and Terry in ways that Fritz may have been a big star, and he kind of fell into the Dallas territories we've seen, but I don't see how he could have explained wrestling to the boys,

nor how the boys could have had the understanding that the funks did. So I agree with you. Right. And they knew also how to play the political game and, you know, they ran into it a lot. You know, you talk about all Japan. Shutting New Japan out of the NWA or away from getting NWA world champion matches was a pretty big coup, actually, when you really think about it. Well, but Dory was the one that Inoki was going to double cross when they were all still with the Japanese Wrestling Association and Anoki wanted to break out on his own.

he was going to double cross Dory and take the NWA title and use that as his leverage. And the office found out about it and that didn't take place. And it was, Inoki then, Baba ended up with the NWA relationship and Anoki left to, both of them left start their own deal, but Inoki never for the next several years recovered that relationship. It was, I believe, the Funks who arranged a meeting. leading with Giant Baba and Stan Hanson at the Amarillo Airport. Any major acquisition of any American talent for the All Japan office from the 70s through the 90s,

any major acquisition of anybody from America was the funks were responsible. As well as training, you know, so many of those guys, as well as being a box office attraction for Baba in their own right for, so long and then you know Terry being a Japanese icon for multiple promotions after that but they were always respected there and that's the only i'll say this i'll let you jump back in the only reason i believe that well Terry overshadowed dory later on in their careers because dory had come first dory was a few years older dory had a massive massive of a specific style.

But as that style went out of vogue, they'd put the belt on Buddy Rogers and regretted it because even though he was a big draw, you know, it didn't, it didn't do the alliance as a whole any good. That's why they stuck with the Thesas, the Kineskees, the funks, the briskos, but as it branched out into the dusties and flares, Terry could adapt. And Dory, you could, Dory could do Dory. and be the best wrestler in the world if you're having a wrestling match.

But if you're having, you know, the old West Texas, Texas death match, that's where Terry came in. And I think that's where he surpassed Dory in the fans' minds of the modern era. He just looked more, and he was a better talker. Because again, the promoters were worried about Terry's interviews when they gave him the belt. Because they were like, can he be serious enough? But he did. He geared it back and he portrayed a serious world champion with some probably mental issues that would cause him to get overly violent.

But he wasn't crazy and he wasn't goofy as champion. But Dory could only be serious. He couldn't be crazy if he tried. It just didn't fit. after a certain point, for me at least as a fan, Dory works best as Terry's brother, as Terry's backup. I remember even when he was booking Florida, and he did a really good job booking Florida. That's what David Von Erick got over as a heel. But they did an angle where the briskos and the funks had a confrontation in the studio, and it was fantastic.

But Terry brought a lot of energy that Dory didn't. Terry was a highlight reel, whether it was his promos or his matches, his squash matches. I mean, it was everything you kind of had to see, you always had to see what Terry Funk was going to do because there was a chance and it was more than likely he was going to do something. Something strange. And where Dory could beat anybody in a wrestling match and convincingly, but it wasn't as wild and over the top. And that's the thing is that it. that's why their positions reversed the first 20 years.

Terry was the little brother. And the second 20 years, Dory was the older brother that was the backup. And, you know, they were still figured in at the top, but it was a transposition of roles. And you brought up, you'll talk about the Houston title change or, you know, what went down. That's a part of the story, not just a title change, but Dory Funk Jr., is a wrestler that at a certain point,

you know, when you're not thinking about him and Terry, he's connected pretty specifically with Jack Briscoe. And it's a match and it's a feud and it's a rivalry that kind of stood on its own and that people were still talking about decades later. Like that specific match, which is not one match, it's a series of matches everywhere. Well, that's, and I guess Funk and Briscoe,

what was it, New Year's Day? of 71 is when they sold out Keel Auditorium, turned people away and had what Larry Matazick said was the best match ever in St. Louis, which imagine that. There's a

championship wrestling from Florida show where they have, I can't remember, was it an hour Broadway now, but a great match of theirs that took up the whole program from St. Petersburg, the Bayfront Center in 72, were solely hosted it and interviewed.

Yeah. both guys and that's probably on YouTube. The Japan match. You ever see the Japan Mac? The Japanese match. It was like when I say Flair Steamboat, whatever Dave gives seven stars something. I say, what is it?

Flair Steamboat, the guys in the business, most of them, you can't get all wrestlers to agree on everything, anything, but it was the gold standard for what pro wrestling in the ring could be at that time.

flare and steamboat that was, you know, that in 1989, in 1971, 72, 73, it was Dory Funk Jr. and Jack Brisco. That was the gold standard of athletic competition in a professional wrestling form. And that's why they took it all over the country. And the thing is, as much as this is what happened in Houston, and we've talked about it before at probably at more length than we will here. but so look for it on YouTube, but it was time for Dory to lose the belt to Jack Brisco in 1973. And when Dory had won it, I think several promoters had pitched Bill Watts, but Watt was a more established star at that point, had made a vetted in several territories, but you can't see Bill Watts going 60 minutes under most circumstances.

And there was somebody else that it was Dory, and, you know, Munchnik made the call to go with Dory. And then with Briscoe, whereas Dory Sr. had trained his son, Dory Jr. to be the ultimate NWA champion, Eddie Graham, a guy who had learned from Dory Funk Sr. in his territory and gone on to be an even bigger NWA promoter. and an even more influential guy had taken Jack Briscoe, who was the 1965 NCAA wrestling champion, and turned him pro and made him his vision of the ultimate in-ring NWA champion.

And the only place early in his career, that Jack Briscoe was never treated with some level of deference, even though he was a rookie, was when they booked him in Amarillo, and they were beating him regularly. So there was, there was underlying tension, not only been,

maybe not even as much between Dory Jr. and Briscoe, as there was between Dory, Sr. and Eddie Graham, would that be fair to say, Brian? That was where the real tension lay on how this belt was going to change hands. How it was going to change hands, when it was going to change hands, who it changes hands to, if a baby face should win it. All sorts of issues were at hand.

Also, Paul Bosch was excited because he was going to get an NWA world title change, which would do a lot to make him happy as a promoter with a really hot town in Houston. And then everything went awry. And to this day, everyone has a different story of what they believe and, We could talk about it. I've even talked to, I'd never talk to Jack Briscoe directly about it, unfortunately. And I've talked to one of the Funks and one of the Briscoes. Dory Sr. did not make a secret of the fact that he didn't want another baby face beating his son.

Briscoe was presented as a baby face. And in those days, if Briscoe would come to Texas, the funks would have been the baby faces. If the Funk's went to Florida, this happened that way for years, then the Funk's would be the heels in Florida. And in some cases, in some of the NWA cities, where they headlined with that match and they were neither one regulars, you know, it was still Briscoe that was more of the underdog and Funk having to switch subtle heel like Thess used to

in order to, you know, to beat him. but Dory Sr. didn't want another baby face beaten his son clean because that would destroy the myth that Dory was the greatest technical wrestler in the world. And he wanted it to be a heel and then go to Brisco. But they'd made the decision it was going to go to Briscoe in Houston, as you mentioned. And that's when a few days before the match was scheduled to take place, they announced that Dory Jr. had rolled his truck over on the ranch

in Canyon, Texas, and they had pictures of him looking banged up in a hospital bed. But it is to the to the extent that the world title meant to people in the business and the money, the power of the prestige whatsoever, then a lot of people still thought that it was a fake deal and that they had taken phony pictures and come up with a story

so that Dory wouldn't have to drop the belt to brisk. and each side, of course, maintains their own version of the story. Which funk did you speak to about it? I asked Terry a long time ago. I said, it was easy. Well, yeah, Dory was a horrible driver, you know? And then, of course, Gerald Briscoe was like, oh, come on. You know, you know what was going on.

So, but nevertheless, so what the NWA did and what Muchnick was able to work out, that's when Harley got his first run as champion. Because Harley was dependable. He was a great worker. They knew that there'd be no ha-ha with him about dropping the belt when they wanted him to. But at the same time, they knew that if something went amiss in the ring, he was probably the guy that needed to be there to take it.

But fortunately, everything worked out. Harley beat Dory because Harley was a heel. And then Harley turned around two months later back in Houston because they had to make amends with Paul Bosch and his town that got shorted. And that's when Harley dropped the belt to Briscoe. So the lineage of the belt wasn't broken, but the lineage of going to a funk or from a funk to a briscoe was broken. was broken and then poetic justice or whatever

a couple years later when it was time it would be Terry Funk that beat Jack Brisco and fortunately briscoe stayed out of fucking car accidents but nobody will ever know at this point

exactly for sure what how much and was real and what was exaggerated etc but that was a in the modern era that was the rockiest road that the NWA title transition

ever went through since the days of you know, Thes and we can do it the easy way or the hard way or whatever. I think the fact that Harley Race was a compromise tells you that there were problems, they were big problems, and they had to figure out some kind of way to handle this.

Of course, it produced a photo of Jack Briscoll winning the belt in Houston. Harley Race shocked on his knees, but Paul Bosch looking like he's having a party because he finally got what he wanted. And although Briscoe didn't beat Dory for the title, their matches already had an air about them when Dory was champion.

And of course, now there would be rematches of Dory trying to get his belt back from Jack Briscoe. And, I mean, the Japanese match that's out there from all Japan, I don't think it's from the early 70s, I think it's from mid-70s. I mean, it was after that point. But like you said, they were the Flair Steamboat.

They drew. The rematches drew. You say that their Flair Steamboat, in terms of entering quality, they did better business, right, than Flair and Steamboat. Oh, yes. Well, because, unfortunately, well, Flair Steamboat, the first time around in the Carolinas and the 70s did big business, but it wasn't for the world title and it wasn't main eventing towns outside the territory.

So in that case, yes, Funk Briscoe did better business. In the 1989 run, obviously, the fucking lemonade stand did better business because they were in WCW and there was the limit there because of the limitations involved. But as far as the actual, the art, the performance of it, it was the gold standard of the 70s and the 80s. The the evolutions the business made were always said that. I think flare and steamboat is where it stopped, where, and maybe some stuff were like Austin and Brett in the 90s, where you'd gone as far as you could, putting entertainment in without it seeming phony,

but still saving the entire element of a contest. It was sports entertainment with as much entertainment as it could have to still be sport, but enough entertainment that it wasn't just sport. And now we just got a whole bunch of shit going on. But nevertheless, with Dory and again in Smoky Mountain in the 90s, there was a couple of times that Dory and Marty had called me and said, hey, we're going to come. I was using Terry because of his history with Bullet Bob.

But the first couple of times they said, hey, we heard Terry's going to be there. We're going to be traveling or we can come up. If you'd like to do a ross. I said, fuck it, absolutely. And then I was able to book the Funk Brothers in 1993 and 94 as a tag team, 30 years after they'd started in the business, put these some of the biggest names in the history of wrestling. And it made my cards more credible to the fans.

It was like, oh shit, he doesn't have the Zeppelin cover band this week. He's got fucking Sinatra. and I think at that point in time, Dory obviously didn't need, need to wrestle full time and didn't. But the appearances in Smoky Mountain to work with the Armstrongs, the old-fashioned matches, and then they could go to ECW and team up with the crazy matches that Paul was having. It was kind of fun for him after all that time to still be partners. and I don't know what Paul was paying them, but they weren't doing it for me just for the money.

But they were a big help with the company. And, you know, not only did they do the program with Bob and the Armstrong boys, but also they were in the main event at the Night of Legends, the six man with them and Bruiser against Hawk and Bullet and Tracy. And, you know, they were able to not, that's how Candido goes. got a trip to Japan. First time they saw him. They got him booked.

They were able to give the guys pointers, help some of them out, the younger guys, just, you know, whatever they were able to do, they were more than happy to do and didn't have to at that point in their lives. Yeah, 1994 is pretty crazy for them because they're involved in stuff in Smoky Mountain. And, you know, this is main event stuff.

And the night of legends, it was the main event match. I was thankfully there for that. But that was also the same summer they feud with a public enemy in ECW. I had the famous incident where the fans threw all the chairs into the ring. It was that. I mean, that's really what kicked it all off.

So it was crazy that at that age, at that point in time, with Terry, he was still involved in so much stuff. You brought up sports entertainment. Of course, notoriously, after being the booker for Jim Crockett promotions and still doing his stuff with All Japan, he went to the WWF after Terry. First they introduced him as Dory Funk Jr.

But then it quickly changed to Hoss Funk. Hoss Funk. After Dan Blocker, Hauss Cartwright on Bonanza, that had been a nickname that Dory had had in his young years. But that's what Vince just, I think I can almost see Vince saying, oh, God, who's ever heard of a guy named Dory? And it just, you know, he had to.

Could have been Terry. Well, exactly, because that was his nickname, by the one, dunk. But with Vince, he could begrudgingly respect Terry because Terry had the entertainment value to him and the craziness and he could adapt and do whatever. But he had never promoted matches like Dory Funk Jr. had. And I think he was just seeing the promo or lack thereof and not the idea that this guy can take anybody on your roster

and have a 60-minute match with him and make them look like they are worth a million dollars. He didn't see that because he didn't promote that kind of matches. That's why Terry would. was in and out for a number of times. Dory had that brief little flurry and that was it for the WWF. Yeah, Terry came in in 85 and he lasted through late spring, early summer, I think, of 86, maybe late spring, and then Jimmy Jack Funk was introduced. And Dorrie State. And teamed with Jimmy Jack, so we had new Funk brothers, managed by Jimmy Hart. That's what I was joking with Vince

when they brought Flash Funk in. I said, We're going to say he's a member of the family? It was also Alan Funk. That was weird when a wrestler showed up named Funk. Who's this guy named Funk? But Dorie, I saw Dory a lot in the 90s. It's kind of crazy to think, considering his peak was so many years earlier, but he was still active, and he did a lot of stuff with Dennis Carleuzo. And specifically around the NWA, I don't know the whole story, but, you know, I think he thought he was going to get the NWA title from Dan Severn at one point.

or at least do an angle for the Japanese magazines. They did a shoot angle. They did a shoot angle for the Japanese magazines and any other consumption, where they allegedly gotten a beef about who was best at an independent show, and they were taking the ring down. So without the ropes and without the mat and the canvas,

they just got on the ring with the boards and had a skirmish. And fortunately, Marty Funk was just conveniently there to take pictures. But that's the thing. That was 94. Fugget Dory would have been in his 50s and people bought him still against Severn, the people that were there watching it, at least.

And, you know, they thought that was going to pick up some traction. It didn't that much. But that was the thing is, you know, again, they had two separate eras of funk, and the first half was Dory and the second with Terry in the background, and the second half was Terry with Dory in the background, but they were together and on top everywhere, in every facet of the business for 40 years.

While still Dory lived for years in Florida, Terry stayed in Texas. they did their own thing and had their own careers. Dory had his school. Terry was a Globetrotter. Yeah. But they could come. They could come together. You know, yeah. Terry went to different offices, but they could come together and still after all that time be a big deal. But I don't know that it's possible that anybody will ever again be able to do the number of different things as successfully for as long in as many places in wrestling as Dory Funk Jr. did. Again, wrestler, world champion promoter as a Booker outside of his own territory.

And whatever booking he did there, we're talking about Florida. A really good run before 83 was Dory Funk. Trainer? And before the school, as I said, Baba would send guys to him or he would, Eddie Graham, somebody would send somebody to Texas or to wherever Dory was and say, that's why that they got David as a heel in Florida, right? Because Dory was booking and Fritz trusted him to take care of the kid.

But what, and you may know better than me, what exactly, who booked what in 83 Crockett promotions? When it comes to the slaughter and Crono Alto versus Steamboat a Youngblood match, when it comes to the road to Starcade. Dusty came up with a name Starcade and the concept. But in terms of the booking, who did what and what does Dory Jr. get credit for? Well, Dory was still the Booker of Record

in the Carolinas when they did the first Starcade in 83. And even though Dusty had, as we've said, had come up with the concept and pitched it, Dusty was still Eddie Graham's Booker in Florida. But as we've talked about, Hulk Hogan, was booked and in the program on the first Starcade. And events caused a change in plans. But for those big events, they were bringing stars in from outside the territory.

So point is, Dusty Pitch is a big event because he saw the success they had in getting people from all over the territory to drive to Greensboro for that slaughter and Kernodal and Steamboat Youngblood Cage match. But that was a period where Dory was officially the board. Booker. And since it was before I got there, I'm not sure, but I've been told at one point, they had state bookers where Dory might have been the Booker for North Carolina, but was it Gary Hart that had South Carolina or Virginia and somebody else, I'm trying to remember, may have, even though Dory was the head guy, they had, they had so many shows going in those

three states that they had a guy booking the towns in each state at one point, which didn't last an incredibly long time because it probably got unwieldy. But he was, you know, figured in in some respect in booking or training, whether his own territory or Florida or the Carolinas or Japan for 20 fucking years. And I know you're going to talk a little bit about his training and the funkin dojo. But, you know, another thing he did early on, and Marty probably deserves a lot of credit with this too, but in the mid-90s, when I was in high school, because I remember being 16 years old sitting at the computer with the internet in the library at school during my lunch break

to go to Dory Fung Jr.'s website. Yes. Where he was putting up the most amazing old stories you'd ever heard. like ribs and stories and anecdotes about wrestlers that, you know, it was unlike anything anyone else was doing, they gave out wooden nickels that had Dory Funn jr. I've got some of those. Yeah, I sold that by it over here too, and they had the website, and it was a clunky website. It wasn't just like Doryfunk Jr.com.

It was like Dory, squigglylined, like it was a hard thing to get to. Funkin-dojo.net thing. But he was early on on the internet. and his website was very unique, and it had the best stories I had seen at that point. Well, yeah, and I'm sure, you know, knowing Dory, because he was more quiet and soft-spoken, but Marty had played a big part because she was younger and more technologically savvy, but they were doing out of their own building down in Ocala, Florida, they were doing an internet television show before it was fashionable.

with their students and their school. And obviously whenever a big company would come near there, they would try to get the guys booked as job guys or whatever, but the carpet would usually be rolled out for Dory. But yeah, they were doing early internet interactions of that kind before a lot of people were. So they were ahead of the game there. But I think that's again,

you know, Dory's life centered around wrestling, he didn't have to stay in it and wrestle and be one of these old timers that, you know, sitting there falling asleep at a fucking autograph

session, but he never got tired of being around it and being involved in. Yeah, and again, he remained a big star in Japan. You know, while Terry was doing crazy shit in FMW and you know, everywhere else, Dory was still the All-Japan guy. You know, when you would see a Rob Van Dam or a Tommy Dreamer or Chris Candido,

the young guys coming up in the state show up in All-Japan, that was through Dory Fung Jr. Yeah. All-Candito was thrilled when he was thrilled just to meet him when he was on the same card. And when they got him booked in Japan and praised his work, he was over the moon. Man, he came to my hotel room in, what was it, the West Town Inn, Knoxville, him and Derry.

Because he found that I had an All-Japan tape and he wanted to borrow it because he was going over there he never gave it back. I still like Chris when he fucking stole by all Japan. Why I ought to? And that's it. Dory was also the trainer

when developmental was in its infancy in Stanford they would have Dory and Tom Pritchard bring whoever was it Edge, was it Christian Cage, was it Kurt Engel, was it the Rock, Teddy Hart. Teddy Hart, well, I wouldn't have to mention him, but

the Funking Dojo moved to the warehouse at the studios for Titan in Stanford. And that was the thing is that Dorian Tom, as I said, would train all those guys in a ring that they had set up. And that was the training that they got before some of them, you know, made their initial debut. I mean, what a crew it was. They would have spot shows that a guy that used to referee for the WWF named Fred. Sparta. Pat Patterson had been friends with him years before. He ran a couple of spot shows in Massachusetts and they'd send Kurt Angler test or I remember Nicole Bass was on some of them, age, Christian, whatever. And there would be me and Dory Funk Jr. would be a corner guy or whatever.

And Tom Pritchard might be advertised. I'm like, what an eclectic group this is to be we're going to spot show in Massachusetts. But the reason why one of them that Dory didn't continue. I had gone to JR and to events to everybody and said, look, it's great to train these guys, but in the warehouse at the studio in

Stanford, that's the same place that the crew is building television sets and they've got sawdust and they're running a power saw and you can't hardly breathe or they've painted something and you get blowed up, it's fucking poisonous. Or

all of the editors to production assistants on lunch they're just coming and standing around watching these guys who are already somewhat self-conscious can we get a real

goddamn program going and that was the thing you know when they thought about when I mentioned OVW they thought about flying Dory to

Louisville instead of fucking Stanford I said it ought to be goddamn cheaper but then they ended up keeping Tom up there, because he was working a full-time job at that time up there,

send him out to scout other places, and didn't bring Dory to Louisville, which we would have been more than happy to have. But he trained all those, or help train, all those initial guys before there was a developmental program. I know it was just a few years ago, we talked about him having another match in Japan, so although clearly not what he was,

was at his athletic peak, he was one of these guys that into his 80s could still work a match in Japan, and there was an audience to see that. Well, and just that he did it was accomplishment enough, but still the last time I saw him, you know, skirmishing with somebody, he had to be close to 70,

and he still, you know, he'd never wore knee pads for fuck's sake. It just, and he had, you watch him and Kineski, the tape of that match, I think WWE put out on the vault. Him and Kineski and Harley, those guys, their bumps were always perfect. Everything was flat. Every time they were in control of every move they made

while at the same time being in the right place at the right time to take the arm drag or take the backdrop or take the hip toss or whatever. And even though they did it over and over and over and Harley ended up, obviously, he took way more bumps than most people did, but Kineski into his elder years, Dory still ambulatory and moving around

because they did it tens of thousands of times, but every time they did it, they did it the right way. Well, I guess, you know, in a way, this is the closing of a chapter, the funk family and professional wrestling, just an amazing legacy. And, you know, it starts just talking about Amarillo, but it becomes a word. worldwide story.

And Dory Fung Jr., you know, maybe the one guy that a lot of people point to and say post-Thes, he was the ideal NWA champion. Not everyone agrees with that, but there are a lot of people who make that argument. It would be between him and Briscoe for that 20-year period until Flair took off between, you know, the last time I'm sure that Thess had it,

I'm sure he acquitted himself admirably, but he was still nearly 50. Yeah. And so when you look at Kineski could still go when he won it, Dory was only 29, even though he was balding. And then everybody, you know,

Briska, there was a younger man's game at that point. And then, but who now is the oldest living in W.A. champion? It's got to be flared, doesn't it? Let's go down our chain of succession.

Yeah. Dory, Jack Briscoe, thankfully Gerald's still around. Terry's gone. Harley's gone. Baba in the middle of all these things. Baba is gone. Flair is the last traveling NWA champion

and the oldest one or the earliest one left alive. Tommy Rich still the youngster. still still the young speckled pup of the game. Once again, Dory Fung Jr., an amazing legacy in wrestling and really, like you said before, the amount of areas he touched in the business in different places, not just under his own ownership, is pretty remarkable. Well, we could do five hours on any member of the Funk family, and we wouldn't even scratch the surface,

but at that point, somebody out there would be saying, please stop so we can go eat. so should we let everybody go eat? Yes, I'd like to eat. I'd like to eat too. I'm an ungrateful son of a bitch. I ate yesterday, but today I expect to be able to eat again. It's just the way things go.

Anyhow, what are we going to do again in a couple of days? Your show and then this one again next week is my show, and we just keep doing this, even though we have no idea of when we start what we're going to do, it always turns out well. And excuse any noise, it's pouring here now. But we have fun things coming up, lots of questions, guests to program, of course, AEW and Wembley coming up. WWE has a Sunday night's main event.

Let's see what that is. Uh-oh. And lots of other fun wrestling talk. Well, until then, folks, and Dory Funk Jr., rest in peace, and to the rest of you, thank you, fuck you, and bye-bye, everybody.