Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru - Episode 350

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

This week on the Drive Thru, Jim reviews AEW Dynamite & last week's WWE Raw! Plus Jim talks about Kevin Sullivan, Forbidden Door's star ratings, Ethan Page, syndicated wrestling history, and much more!  Send in your question for the Drive-Thru to: [e-mail]  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.

Hello again, friends! And you are our friends, and welcome back to another fun summertime edition of Jim Cornett's drive-thru right here in the summertime. I'm your host, the great Brian Last. Let's get right to the fun wrestling action with this man, the leader of the cult of Cornett, the star of this show, Mr. Jim Cornett.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the rain is so delightful, because if I get some more rain, please, then I don't have to water those trees. Brian, you know the old saying, be careful what you ask for, you just might get it. Well, yeah, and it's going to be another weather story, by the way, ladies, if you're tired of hear me talk about the weather, what, it's something we all experience, we can all identify, we have weather all around us, most of us do, and I've mentioned in recent weeks that I planted a shitload of trees in my front yard on June the 3rd and it didn't rain for over three weeks, not a goddamn drop.

And I was out there like a moron sweating my balls off as Mando, a sponsor today. Thankfully, they kept me from smelling swamp-like. but I was out there with the hose water in these trees I said please just let it rain just let it rain and then last week suddenly buckets torrential downpours severe weather warnings sheets of rain general chaos ensued for and we got like two or three inches of rain in a 24 hour period

and then it doesn't rain here again for another fucking week Now bear in mind It did rain in the area I just saw in the news a couple days ago Oh southern India Seymour Indiana Got a flash flood warning There's cars submerged in Seymour

I look outside In my yard It's as Adrian Street used to say Dry other than a nun's cunt Can't do his accent though And so then finally yesterday we get some rain and again there's warnings out to the west

there's warnings to the northeast of me I'm looking at they're breaking in they got a tornado warning out that way and they're looking at a rotation here over in southern Indiana and so I'm keeping an end and here comes the way we get wind somewhat and we get torrential

sideways sheets of rain and et cetera and it blows through but all this case up when we normally would have been recording, but it was the 4th of July. And we decided to make it easy on ourselves on one holiday in the world. And come to find out today with no severe thunderstorm warning, no tornado warning, no nothing. There was a tornado in West Louisville, about fucking 18 miles as the crow flies for me.

that touched that like it went a couple hundred yards down 28th Street apparently. It just fucked a bunch of shit up. And the only way they knew about it was afterwards when the neighbors, they showed it on the news. The neighbors ring doorbell camera or whatever was shooting off to the side, down the sidewalk, the neighbor comes running in and up the stairs and go, it's a tornado! She had a very high voice.

And that's how the neighborhood knew there was a tornado. rooted trees and knock people's roof off and then a couple of yards and then it went back upstairs up in the atmosphere. So that's kind of weather we had yesterday. So I don't know whether I want this weather or whether I'd be out there with the hose. It's hot and sticky up here as we talked about before the show. It's hot and sticky. There's a hot and sticky episode.

It's an overcast, so it's not sunny, but it's still 88 degrees and did I mention sticky? Yeah, well, I heard, that's what I've heard about it with Sunny, hot and sticky. That's what you heard about sunny? Sunny, hot and sticky. I heard about your weather. What do you, what do you think? You got a dirty mind?

That's what you just said. That's what I heard about sunny, hot and sticky. Sunny, I heard about sunny, hot and sticky, your weather up there. What did you hear about Missy? Her twisting my word, wait a minute, Missy. What? Missy doesn't have anything to do with the weather. Oh, of course not.

She would have been a good weather girl, though. Missy Hyatt, doing the Tallahassee weather, she could have become the next fucking Diane Sawyer if her life path had taken her in a different way. What did you think of TBS making Missy Hyatt or trying to get her to lose her southern accent? Do you think that was an important thing for a national wrestling company,

or is it a waste of everyone's time and an insult to her? Okay, the thing you did, Ted Turner had a southern accent. it was the whole idea of the broadcasters she wasn't going to be the next fucking Barbara Walters okay she wasn't going to be hosting ABC World News tonight she was a personality on a wrestling program playing in effect herself like everybody turned up

or sometimes turned out nevertheless So to make her change any part of herself for that reason, because that way she'd sound more like a national broadcast. No, she's supposed to sound like a gimmick. She was originally kind of a cornet, a southern, they alluded to Hyatt that she was a rich heiress. They couldn't come out and say it. They'd get sued. but so a rich southern

bubble-headed blonde that was manipulative and evil and cunning and whatever the fuck and when they make her a broadcaster yes same way that I did tone down the manager part

and concentrate on just being the heel personality part would be an entertaining heel personality what did that have to do with losing her accent they were just idiots Well, let me take a step back and ask you another thing. She was a really good valet. You know, if you look at the period from 85 to 87,

world class with her and John Tatum and then Hot Stuff in Hyatt International, she had heat, she was good working ringside, she had the Gucci purse, and it was an interesting role because she was the hot girl with heat. You wanted to see her get her ass kick by Dark Journey or whoever.

After the Crockett purchase, once Missy and Eddie and then Missy on her own I think for a little bit and then they both come back at the end of 88 they never use her the brief period of time where Crockett still had the company and then Turner they never once used her as a heel except like at the very end with the nasty boys

and that doesn't count but they never capitalized on the character she had created that works so well I never understood that they brought her in her and Eddie were like baby faces remember her walking her walk the Steiner brothers

to her, she would walk the dog. They would come to the rain. She would hold the dog. I mean, they had nothing for her to do. Gosh, that may be an essay question. And I'd have to go back and look at notes of her. At various points, they either didn't understand her or

Eddie was doing something. If Eddie had heat, she might have heat because if he goes, they may say she go, whatever. But then also, there was an element, I'll answer the last of that first. When she was walking the Steiner's, the dog to the ring and et cetera, and blah, blah, blah, it was an early example of what would happen later on to Sunny in that they're cheering her because she's gorgeous. And we're not really doing anything with her to put any heat on her anyway. so they didn't know how to get heat on pretty girls that people were cheering.

There was so few of them. That's why they started making them broadcasters or semi-announcers or whatever the case. To me, if Missy was involved with a top heel in the territory or wherever, then it worked. because then the top heel would have heat and she was good at what she did and could get heat when she was hitting people over there with Gucci purse and everything but if Eddie was never the top guy in the WCW structure and had heat at a couple of points in time

he was on the booking committee but then he was sideways with Flair blah blah blah if you have Sunny or Missy or anybody like that with a middle card heel, then everybody's looking at her, right? And just cheering her, because why the fuck not? It's more exciting than what we got here, the body donnas, right? So a lot of people didn't know how to use her. At one point, she was doing different shit with Eddie,

and then they want to make her a broadcaster and out of, you know, so we can't go point by point chronologically. I don't have the notes with me, but you are correct. the same thing with Tammy if you used her with the top heels in Smoky Mountain with focal point being on her and allow her to be herself

she'll get eat with people and but if it's just she's there interviewing people or in the corner of somebody that's not that interesting or not featured or whatever then oh yeah she's fucking gorgeous imagine if instead of replacing JJ with Hero Matsuda for that brief period of time, it had been Missy Hyatt.

Woo! Missy and Rick Flair versus Ricky and Bonnie Steamboat. Ooh. No, no. Let's cut the second half of that one off into knees. Well, Flare turns babyface, you know, May, wrestle war. So you have a brief period of time where he was a heel managed by Hero Matsuda, because they bought the four horsemen from JJ, or JJ left as part of the

purchase. I'm not exactly sure how it made sense. Well, I, we won't go back and, yeah. What if then, and again, Eddie was in that whole mix because he was the one who was Steamboat's partner when he came back. What if Missy had managed Flair instead of Hiromatsuda? That would have been not only more attractive television, but also fucking tremendous. But that's the... Could Flair have worked at that point with a female valet later on? Sherry, but would it have worked in

89, 88? Well, hold on here a second. Back up, I don't know who to blame. I don't know whether that was an early Jim Hurd or an early George Scott. It sounds like an early George Scott because he and Hero obviously would go way back

and as well you know, George Scott was just getting the memo of, you know, the Japanese buying a bunch of things that had started several years before that. And, thought, oh, this will be newsworthy, so I can pretty much attribute it to him. And it fucking sucked, and nothing against hero, but Jesus Christ, it was a bomb and dropped quickly.

But Missy would have been great with Flair at that point, much like, think about this. He went a little bit with Nancy. That's right, later in the 1990, yeah. Right, but the four horsemen at that time until herd vetoed that, the new reform since we couldn't get Tully and Arne because Herd vetoed that was going to be Rick Flair, Arne Anderson, Bobby Eaton, and Stan Lane managed by woman. That would have been an attractive combination. Instead, we got Flair and Arne and Barry and Sid and Olli and Nancy, six people for the four horsemen.

And everybody remembers that well, well, well running Swiss watch that was that organization that variously dropped people and then dissolved over time. But the difference is Nancy woman wasn't really active at ringside. And she didn't really, not that she didn't have any heat, but it was a different thing than Missy. Missy could generate heat. Yeah. And if her and Flare were both there together, both with the long blonde hair, was almost the same. I don't know. And if she was still the 1987, Missy Hyde,

you know, you know who wouldn't have liked that package? Beth Flair. Cleo, Cleopatra. Beth Flair, yeah, that's what Flair used to call her. It was Cleo. Why did he call her that? Cleopatra. She was the queen of the fucking Nile there on the hill in Charlotte, boy.

And she wouldn't have liked that pairing at all. I have a feeling. And she had lost. blonde hair also. It was about the same height as Missy. That could have been a goddamn boy. Talk about the valets in world class. Well, he had a type because remember he married Beth in 83. Those photos were in all the wrestling magazines. Rick Steamboat, Roddy Piper, and Jim Crockett is his best men. And then Beth makes that famous appearance at the end of Starcate 83, hugging a bloody and crying Rick Flair,

a very emotional and wonderful moment for those fans at Greensboro. And then early 84, he goes to New Zealand and as these articles in the paper, Rick Flair is accompanied by his fiancé and it's some other woman from Ohio. And then it's like a newspaper in Ohio that he's engaged on her.

So I don't know what was going on there, but he had a type. He had a certain types. I have a photo of this woman, sitting at Rinside next to Leah My Via. We won't get into Lincoln, Nebraska, but nevertheless. So what were we talking about? We were talking about the weather. Hot and sticky.

Hot and sticky. Sometimes the weather, the ill wind blows. Sometimes people blow hot and cold. Sometimes this program blows. But it's your show, so you determine the weather report. Well, speaking of blowing, I hear there's a lot of money blowing your way at Cornett's collectibles, Jim Cornett.com. Oh, well, thank you very much for giving me that opportunity

to let the people know that we are all caught up this week with the big onslaught of orders that came with the big action figure on sale the first of last month, but by the time that you kind, generous folks hear this, everything that has been ordered

up to date will be handed off to the feather bottom. So this is the week of July, the 7-8th century. 8th, whatever this thing comes out, whatever Monday is, we're all caught up and ready to go with another big round of championship action figure sales and everything else to the Cult of Cornett membership certificates, the pictures, the books, the DVDs.

I even have actually some of my used socks that I'm thinking about putting up for, just to see if we can sell anything here at Cornett's collectibles, Jim Cornett.com. The prices are cheap. The service is fast. And most of all, the money goes to me, because I got feather bottoms to support. All right. What a big ending there.

Cornett's Collectibles at Jim Cornett. You know, they got, they're getting more expensive that family. They're multiplying exponentially. Well, you've spoiled them. I'll tell you what, feed them one day, turn around the next day they want to eat again. They're ungratefuls. what they are. Well, Jim, we have a lot to get to today. We have Raw, which we'll talk about somewhat

in a moment. We have dynamite. I think we're going to try to get some questions here. We did both watch the Steiner Brothers biography on A&E. If we don't get to it today, it'll be on the experience. Quite the story. And, you know, a lot of people apparently right after they watch that duct tape friends to chairs and then laughed about it. It was a joke. Yes, I have some duct tape stories. We'll get to one way or the other. Well, why don't we get to a show that you probably would have had to have duct tape me to a chair to get me to sit through all the way? I don't even remember how much of it I saw, but it's certainly not as enjoyable as Smackdown. Let's talk about WWE Raw this past week.

Oh, boy, because, you know, I have to do my duty, my due diligence. And I'm going to let, because so many people have just been blistering me about, you don't like the Wyatt deal, you don't like the Wyatt deal. you don't like the wide deal. That's the way they say it too. I'm going to watch this thing and try to figure out what's going on and some reason to like it on a program

that is nominally supposed to be professional wrestling oriented. I know most of the good parts of the wrestling program are the promos, but nevertheless, the world of wrestling. If we're not watching the cars race, we're having race car drivers talking about racing cars. That type of flavor of thing. Is that clear, Brian? Yeah.

I think so, Jim. I'm not yelling at you. Don't get hot at me. I'm just yelling in general. I didn't say it was yelling at you. Well, I'm screaming and I don't know why. It's hot and sticky. The people, well, this thing is fucking hot and stinky.

But anyway, we got to get there. Raw on July the 1st. They had a red hair. here and that they start out the program again with two of the regular human performers on the telecast and then they segue into Svenguli. So they're in Boston, Massachusetts, Bean Town, and they open up with Jay Uso, who is the man of the people, entering from the breezeway into the arena where they got the lights on the phones and the waving arms.

I'm thinking they're missing a merchandise opportunity, Brian. A J. Uso Wacky, waving arm inflatable tube man. I think they could sell. The question is what the price point would be. And also, I guess that would have to be an online thing. You can't exactly sell them at the building. No, put them, but no, that's the thing. They don't have to be inflated at the building.

You can take the air out of them. You can deflate them and put them in a power. and sell them at the building that take them home, put them out in the driveway, it blows up eight feet there. And you can see the commercial. The Jay Uso, wavy, wacky, wakie, yeah, I'll try it again. I can see that commercial. You can see it.

The J. Uso, wavy, wacky arm inflatable two. I said it up again. I said it a minute ago, wacky waving arm inflatable tube band. Wacky waving arm inflatable tube band. See? But you could have one of their ten feet taller in everybody's driveway all over the neighborhood. scaring the shit out of everybody. Cause an accident.

All the people running stop signs. It's Jay Uso and he's eight feet tall and he's waving his arms at me. I got to hit my brakes and swerve. It could be fucking fun. All right. Well, hopefully I don't swerve to the right. But back to... Anyway, all right.

Jay Uso's entrance. I'm swerving back to this. At least it's a lot more excitement than the plumber going through the crowd. If they replaced Wild Thing with some fucking random generic elevator music, they'd just be staring at that bald-headed goof, right? And I don't know. Would Jay Uso's work? Why he is getting this response and he'd better take care of it.

We'll talk about a second. He feeds off that energy and then they feed off him. It kind of works amazingly. Yeah, but if they're feeding off of him, the food at some point needs to be good. I mean, there have been some bad workers that get over there. big time with the fans. I know, but gee, God damn it, it's self-inflicted wounds.

He can do better. He's just, he's hot dogging so much with the fake, I'll get there in a minute. That's, we, we're not having a fight yet. Because first he does the yeat, and they do the yeat, and they kept it short, and he's got it working

instead of they, instead of whitting him, they're yeating him whenever he wants them to. He's building his promo around it, and if you notice, because he's not good at long-winded soliloquies, so this works to his strengths also. When he just has, say, three or four words of yeet, and if there are four words in yeat, he gets a point across, boom, but then here comes Gable.

And he's like, yeet, isn't even a word. And he's going to get the money in the bank. and he's telling Jay that he's not scared of the monsters. They should be after you, the man you left your family, and I'm thinking, oh my God, now these two are going to be involved in this hoo-ha. And that's what happened. As soon as they get in a little scuffle, Gable and Uso, and that's where Uso came back with the four fakesst-looking people,

punches. It's not even slapping you know obviously when you hit the guy. It's not even slapping obviously when you hit the guy with an open hand. He's not even bothering to hit the fucking guy. He's just waving his hand in front of his fucking face.

And I would find a guy for doing something like that on television. And then the lights went out and here came the spooky piano music. And Brian Otto, did you pay, is this a part of the program you paid any attention to

or did you just leave this misery to me? I saw the J. Uso entrance. I saw Gable come out and then once the spooky shit started, I was out. So I checked back in from time to time, but I don't have any time or patience for this nonsense. So for anyone saying, oh, but you didn't say anything about the Undertaker all those years. Hey, Undertaker had some good matches. And in the early days of the gimmick, I really dug it. It went too far.

I thought it was silly. And the only thing's sillier than all the lightning and everything was the American badass. Yes. And I've said that before that I didn't endorse the lightning or, you know, being ascending to heaven or on the big screen or... You didn't say anything when Kane was shooting lightning. Yeah, I didn't have a podcast. If I had a podcast, I would have said, I don't like it.

It sucks. It's not what I like when my wrestling. And I feel the same thing about Uncle Howdy and I don't like anything. I just had to deliver it privately to the motherfucker that was writing it down. I wasn't broadcasting at the time either. But nevertheless, I'm going to tell you another reason why I don't like this on the wrestling program because of what happened next. The smoke is filling up in the ring and the crowd is chanting, holy shit, holy shit, but they're bleeping shit.

So it's holy... Holy, and it's distracting as fuck. I don't know why the people have to ruin the viewing viewing the viewing viewing experience for those of us at home to say a naughty word in the arena, but Gable goes over the rail and out into the arena, backing up, backing away, a terrified look on his face, looking left, looking right, his arms akimbo, fearfully, as he's feeling his way, through the goddamn arena filled with people.

There are literally thousands of human beings all around him. Having a great time. No one's scared. Nobody's scared. He's not in a cemetery at midnight all alone. And the spotlight is following him. There's a spotlight following him the whole way while the spooky piano. Do you have a piano that can go ding, ding, ding, ding?

Yeah, I got to get one tuned on. Hold on. because we need the ding ding. And while Brian is attempting to set up a ding ding, I will say that as Gable is backing, he's going past a bunch of ladders set up and he sees a silhouette in the light. Are you dinging yet, Brian?

Still looking. Still looking for the ding. And he sees a silhouette and a light. and then he just keeps backing slowly, cautiously, through the hallways of the arena that is obviously an arena filled with smoke from a smoke machine

with a spotlight on him and ominous music playing while thousands of people are sitting there doing goddamn nothing. Brian, do we have a ding yet? I'm still still. looking. That's not really what it's it's ding ding ding ding no I'm still looking I you know the other thing on the other side of the room has a piano this is no that's okay just stay there I'll call you here in a second all right so he's acting like he's lost in the woods when he's back in the

breezeway area or not even the just the backstage area that he sees another silhouette and then another one and then he turns around and runs up the stairs of the arena through the people to the cheap seats and he's gone out the fucking exit somewhere

and that's I've seen Barney Fife exercise more courage going through a fucking graveyard than this guy just because the arena lights went off there you go no no no

Just the, that's all it is. Oh, come on. No, I'm telling the people factually on this program, that's all it is. And then, while that's going on, the girl gives Michael Cole another box. And again, there's Michael Cole and what's his broadcast partner's name? Corey Graves. Fellow, Corey Graves. and they're sitting there at the table

but the security guys the polo-shirted security guys that they have with them again are just laid over they're still on their feet but they've bent over the side of the desk and they're laying face down on the fight just their upper bodies on each side of the desk and we've never heard any kind of a scuffle

or any kind of goddamn how do they just fall over over? How do they do that in front of all the fans? People are sitting there and all of a sudden guy just face plant like two drunks at goddamn two o'clock in morning on each end of the bar. How the fuck does that work in front of people? See, the smart thing is you've trained people now to turn their phones around and put on the flashlight so they're not actually using the phone to take a picture of the nonsense happening with the lights out. Would somebody go to one of these programs in the arena and

tell us how the security guys, do they just fall over like it's Agent Orange or something? Or do they bend over like they're looking like they're looking for something and just kind to go to sleep with nobody noticing? You know what I'd love to see in the middle of all this while the howdy people are in the smoke and crawling around or walking slowly? Some process server just comes in hands and papers. Kill the gimmick dead right there on the spot. Hey, remember Billy Travis got arrested on Memphis TV lines.

that time. Live on TV and then they filmed it. They showed it on the show in the back and, well, Billy Joe Travis is being taken away now, folks. Well, and actually, Lawler made a deal with him because they came to get him and he said, look, he said, please just let him do something on the show. And then, you know, you can take him right then. So they let him appear somehow at the top of the program and then they came and got him.

and took him away on television. Anyway, so it's another VHS tape that they're going to play later on, and this was 12 minutes in, and I wrote I don't want to watch the rest. Because that's why, this is stupid. It doesn't belong in this world.

So, and people are saying, well, they're just really demented in their minds. I forget how they're phrasing it. Then how are they poisoning the security? And why is anybody else taking that job after they've done it twice or three times now? Or do they wake up feeling refreshed?

They're hypnotized. And you'll wake up feeling more refreshed than you ever have. It's the worst job in wrestling security guard at the WWE show. Either that or you're getting a crossroads or you're getting beat up or thrown to the floor. So anyway, that was, and Carrying Cross then wrestled Xavier Woods. I'll savior the description of it. I miss the good old days when Carrying Cross was the spooky guy on the show.

Remember that? Now they gave that to everyone else. Now he's just a guy with long hair. Yeah, and he's a guy with long hair that had tremendous potential interval. For some reason or another, he became the most boring. motherfucker in the world. I did see some of that. I did come back because it was on mute. Because I remember Paul Ellering being like on the apron saying something. Oh my God, he's actually talking. I mean, hear what he said. And they didn't say anything. So I went back to mute.

No, he was he was up on the apron yelling, but there was no microphone to be. He may have just been mouthed in the words. I don't know. Save your voice, Paul. As we get older, fuck you and I both, we've yelled a lot. Save your voice. Damien Priest is mad because Liv is in the locker room or the clubhouse playing video games with the top heel group I don't know why is this god damn it is the does the audience have to be fucking 18 year old people This is getting over though

I mean it's actually probably the best usage of Liv Morgan so far Well I know that's the problem then we got to see more of her she's been all right with this I've actually thought she's done really well we've seen plenty of women that you think oh anyone could do good in these roles and they put them into something like this and they bomb she's done well with this

I hope she graduates to Hollywood quickly I can say that about a lot of people on this show and then she wrestled Zelina speaking of live and then they had a sit down kind of package thing with Drew McIntyre and I was thinking well listen

and then I realized it was a big Modello commercial. Did you see that? I did not, no. Yeah, because if you're zipping through the commercials, you would have kind of goddamn zip through this, except it's a little longer than normal, but this Modello thing was sponsored by Modelo was at the top, and the Modello logo bug was on the screen,

but he's talking about tonight with the three-way with Seamus and Elia. And again, he's such a good heel promo now that he made a glorified beer commercial sound interesting and then

are we gonna we gotta watch this how long is this WrestleMania documentary is this some kind of goddamn mini series that we're going to have to sit through or is it just a it's out there and it's of reasonable length it's out there I don't think it's

a hold on I'll tell you right now because a ton of people have been sending it to me because they want to to review it. Well, I had to hear... It's a holiday weekend, folks. We're making these plans on the air. I'm making a note now. Watch, it's an hour?

It's an hour. And it only took him four months to put it together. God damn it. And from what I'm hearing, it's just the rock being full of shit in a way that only the rock could be full of shit. And he's the one who obviously made sure all of his stuff was in this documentary to make sure his bullshit narrative got out there. So I'm really looking forward to seeing this.

Well, I can tell you're on the fence about it. Because we know what happened. We know it's just going to be him and his piss boy gorets trying to spin reality so that they look like they were ahead of the curve, that they were aware of what was going to happen, that they were, they're with it for the fans because they really believe in the fans. All that shit. He's the fucking male J-Lo. That's what the rock is. Completely full of shit to the core.

And I can't wait to see how full of shit he is in this documentary. Well, we know what happened. I can't wait to see how full of shitty is in this documentary. So you're going in with an open mind is what you're saying. That's what I'm saying. Well, good, because we are journalists. And we're going to, and I'm just, it's an hour documentary and it's been, let's see, April, May, June, here we are. That's three months.

So one would think that most major Hollywood motham pictures might have made it through the editing process in that period of time. unless they had to potentially rewrite some of the history is all I'm going to, I'm just, otherwise I'm going in with an open mind. Unless you had to figure out a way to spin the narrative so that it actually could somehow make sense as opposed to the Rock was going to completely

fuck over all the booking that had been happening for the last year and a half with Cody Rhodes to be in the main event of Mania because he thought he should be and the fans completely rejected that and now he wants to try to make sure you see him as the good guy in this whole thing.

everything with Juan Johnson. Well, now, but our... And everyone's catching up. I say it, and if people complain, but every time I say it, more people see the light. I am the guiding light when it comes to Dwayne Johnson.

So what, what, are you saying that we should potentially be watching out for any footage that might have been shot after the fact and manipulated or anything like that? Or are you just saying that it took them a while to think of the right way to put it together. Let's put it this way. Are you going to see any footage of anyone going? Where is this

fucking guy? He's hours late. Where the fuck is he? I'm so sick of Dwayne, his stooges, and his shit. Are you going to see any of that in the documentary? I don't think so. I don't think so. Well, that now, in all fairness to all parties, maybe they didn't shoot anything like that. That's true. Maybe they turned the camera off when things like that were going on. I want to see what they should show everything. I want to see exactly what kind of shit he's on. I think he owes it to the American people like Billy Gunn to say, look, I'm an older man. Hey, what did Billy do here? What are you on a rampage?

Oh, seriously, he's like at his mid-60s that he looks ridiculous and I would never be on rampage. Don't ever make that confusion. Oh, God. I will never be on rampage ever. Not just generic rampage, a specific rampage. But the rock is twice the size that he was at his athletic peak. And three times the size as he was when he first tried to make it in Hollywood. And he's in his 50s.

and seemingly he doesn't have a care in the world in terms of his long-term health, he may be onto something. I want to know what he's on so I can do it. I want to get big and pumped up like that. People get, as they get older, a lot of people gain weight. Remember, Black Jack Mulligan, you know, got quite big there.

That famous shredded period of Blackjack Mulligan in the WWF, that never happened. Well, he gained weight. He just gained it. He had dip muscles in different places. The Rock's ex-wife. You see what she looks like now? I'm not...

Have you seen what she looks like now? It's not my week to watch her either. What is the matter with her appearance? She's on the same shit he's on. That's what's the matter with it. It looks completely freaky. That's what's the matter with it. You can't just come out here.

I'm telling you what now. You can't just come out here and make these accusations. I didn't make any accusation. I said she looks like she's on whatever he's on. Well, you're casting aspersions. And he looks like... He's on everything. You know, if you look at it, she could be just, you know, she could be doing a lot of push-ups.

Oh, yeah. And chin-ups and throw-ups and things of that. Well, I look forward to watching. It'll be a fun review. No, she actually, it looks like you wouldn't need an x-ray to see the blood coursing through her veins. That's always disturbing to me on human beings when they're just. There will be a book one day about seven bucks, about this whole organization, about the movies, about the people, and I can't wait. I can't wait.

That's all I'll say for now. But there'll be more in the future. Sponsored by Modelo. Well, no, no, Jim, but on that topic of Modelo, they're not involved in us in any way. but perhaps after watching something that more than likely going into it will be completely full of shit like this documentary about the WrestleMania main event

maybe if you care about honesty and integrity and history that would stress you out maybe you need some help to deal with stress daily stress sleep a good night sleep and we know exactly the place we could send everyone well that's exactly right our friends at CB Distillery

because I'll tell you it doesn't have to be a good night's sleep. Now, see, that's where we discriminate against some people. Some people, they're working the night shift, right? They need a good day's sleep. It doesn't matter. Day or night, some of this CB distillery stuff will put you to sleep both day and night for maybe several of each if you do it right. No, that's not if you do it right.

That's if you do it wrong. If you do it right, everything will be managed and a normal, regular amount of time, not days. days. Well, but see now it depends on, you know, the days are different links on the different planets, Brian. Were you aware of this or did I just blow your mind?

A day on Mercury is much shorter than a day here, whereas a day on Neptune is much longer, so it just depends on... It makes sense, yeah. It depends on what planet you think you're on at the time as to how long the day is, but I'll tell you something else, folks. I think it's what planet you

actually are on, not what planet you wish you were on. well it just depends on again if you go to cb distillery then these things can change and we talked about people putting illicit substances and bad things in their body there's none of that here these are the highest quality clean ingredients targeted formulations with no fluff and no fillers just pure effective CBD solutions this is this is stuff that they they mined out of the ground you've seen folks these documentaries are popping up everywhere about the CBD mines

and how these people, especially in the mountainous regions of the Rocky Mountains, are going deep underground to get the finest natural CBD that they could possibly pickax out of that hard, granite underground fucking bedrock. And then they put it through the exclusive process they've got out there in the invaders' old lair. That's who they sold it to. where they process this high-quality compacted CBD, which comes, as we all know, from dinosaur excrement,

and then they compounded into a formulation that comes straight out of the earth right to you. Browder, are you still alive? I wanted to see just how far you're going to go with this. Okay, well, folks, if you struggle with a health concern and you haven't found relief, or if you just want to piss people off, Make the change like we all have to CB Distillery,

two million customers, a solid 100% money-back guarantee. They're the source to trust. They've had two non-clinical surveys. Brian, I'll have you know. So right there, that proves my point. So right now, if you want to save 20% to get you started, on your way to blissful slumber and less stress and less pain, less agony, less blues, less mud and the blood and the beer,

all those old tropes that Bill Watts used to throw out in his provos, just go to CB Distillery.com and use the promo code JCE for 20% off. CBDistillery.com promo code JCE for 20% off, anything that you want to get from the aforementioned website, which again is CB Distillery.com. That's right. C.Bdistillery.com.

promo code JCE. Check that out today. Are we finished at Raw? Can we talk about something else? No, we haven't even got halfway through this fucking thing, but we're going to move quickly from here. Yogi's gang is on MTV Tunes right now. We can talk about that.

Oh, it don't make me jealous. Seth Franklin Rollins and Finn Baller were doing a promo about their various issue. and here came Damian Priest. And Damian is upset at Finn for getting in his business, but he tells Seth that he doesn't run raw anymore. And says, well, we can do it right now.

And of course, we never hear. And then Finn jumps Seth from behind, but Damien isn't happy, so he pulls Finn off of Seth, and then Seth super kicks one of them, smack dab into the other one. and then he gives the curb stomp to Finn but then priest chokeslam Seth

and then helps Finn up and then they walked off so we're right back where we started from and that was followed by a girls triple threat match see are you regretful you didn't check back in Quigger you know with Smackdown I always feel like I better check back in

because there's going to be something that happens and there's going to be filler matches that I don't care about And lately, it seems like every filler match is a three-way match. Women, men, tag teams, whatever. And I'm sick of them. And I think they've used the three-way match at a point now where it means nothing. A singles match would do more good. But no, Smackdown's a fun show.

Smackdown's a wrestling show. Raw? It's just, it's not enjoyable. Of course, it's longer. It's three hours. But the Uncle Howdy stuff, you're sitting through. looking for things. I want to see Braun Breaker. If Goonther was going to wrestle, I'd want

to see that. If Drew McIntyre was going to talk, I'd want to see that. If Punk was there, obviously, I'd want to see that. Punk will be back sooner or later. But there's nothing else on the... And I am not looking forward to that. I'm not looking forward to seeing Punk being back on this show while they have fucking ghosts and monsters and goblins

running around. Well, I was just liking Gable until he got scared of the dark. Same thing. And by the way, they were... I mean, they're building everything up with Gable and Otis, and I guess technically they still are. But boy, what a missed opportunity. Instead of doing all this shit with Gable,

if you had just done an Otis turn, you could have something. He shoved him down. He shoved him down. And then Gable's been trying to go, you know, the monsters are after me. You want to come back? Oh, no, we're done. At that time, me, if Otis in front of people had splashed Gable

flattered a fucking pancake, flattered a plate full of piss, then that would have been a roar. And they did, it was just more like a fart, a popcorn fart. And speaking of popcorn farts, let's finish off the other part of this

effluvia with the VHS, did you watch the Uncle Howdy interviewing Bo Dallas Part 2 package? No. I did not. Okay. Well, I did and I can't tell you what the fuck it was about or describe it really in any coherent way.

There are the video effects and the glitches, the self-made glitches and the blurriness and the repeat phrases and the cool, artistic things they're doing to it. and it's Uncle Howdy interviewing Bo Dallas and Bo Dallas is a very

good performer at being a is he confused or he's sad or he's mad or he's morose or he's being psychoanalyzed here by a guy and a fucking Uncle Howdy mask and I wrote I don't know what the fuck this is

question mark question mark I don't know where this is going to go, or are they explaining anything, and I don't understand it because I don't play a popular video game. Is it one of those things? Or is it just that this is cool and it doesn't go anywhere? And it's ridiculous on the face of it that these people are just able to stop. and take over an entire arena where an event is going on and nobody knows how or why or when it's going to happen. Help me make sense of this, Brian, even though you can't because you don't want to watch

it because it's fucking stupid. But I can make sense of it in a way that a lot of the defenders of it can't. It goes nowhere. And it's the same as when Bray Wyatt records. turned last time. And he came out to the middle of the ring and he did a long, dramatic promo. And it was intense and it was great and the fans were into it and had the lights going and I have no idea what he said. I have no idea what was going on and it went nowhere from there. And now his brother is doing it. You know, again, if this leads to Bo Dallas being a top talent

in the company or something, I mean, time will tell. That's going to work. But it just feels like it's going nowhere. And it's even worse than that, actually. It's infiltrating the other segments of the show. And I can understand, I can understand why people there are into it. It's like, it's a live action play at that point. It goes from being a sports, you know, it goes from being a simulated sport, a sports oriented thing. It goes from that to being medieval times. You're sitting there while all this stuff is happening right in front of you. But it's terrible. It goes nowhere. None of the people involved in this. You know, I don't think the fans really want to see them go over all the top talent or anything. So where is this going to go? And it better go somewhere soon, I hope.

But it never did. The Bray Wyatt stuff never went anywhere and it was endless. And... Well, when Bray came back and did that intense promo that you just referred to, we reviewed that. Is that clip on the YouTube channel? Of course. old Jim Cornett. I think it was on Smackdown, yeah. It was me on Bray Wyatt's return or whatever. I don't remember exactly what I said because this came up just now, but I remember my feeling was at the time this guy can talk.

He's amazing. He has personality. He draws you in. He had the inflection. You know, you want to hear more. You want to listen to this guy. It's amazing. he has a grasp on the audience

and then like you said he never explained anything or developed anything or nothing what you didn't he if he had been of a whatever of a weird personality

a tormented personality of dark personality or whatever without supernatural you know, without them being able to set him on fire and burn him alive, without him being able to withstand being run over with steamrollers, whatever the fuck, right? That guy's a personality I would have loved to have seen. He could work enough to carry that off as a big fucking bruising guy.

And he could cut captivating promos, but you had to have somewhere for him to go. and interact with other people as a human being. And that he would have been, but it quickly, like you said, went into, what the fuck is all of this? And then the puppets and the fucking cartoons and the clubhouse and the...

All that nonsense. And you have a generation of fans who grew up with WWE and Vince McMahon's attitude of wrestling is this canvas for any stupid thing I want to do. To me, wrestling when done right means all of these things fit into the k-fayb world of wrestling as it exists.

Not, I have a character, I want to bring it on to the wrestling show, but everything else has to be different. We have to introduce monsters and smoke. No, that's not pro wrestling. That's a movie or something or a TV show. Pro wrestling would be, I have a character. How do I make the character work into the confines of pro wrestling? That's why, that's one of the many reasons why I don't like the Youngbucks.

People who love their matches, their matches don't work unless you break. every rule there is for wrestling for no reason other than they can't wrestle otherwise. They can't have rules. And with this stuff, it's the same thing. If Beau Dallas or Bray Wyatt had characters that were interesting that could mix in with everyone else without this supernatural nonsense. And again, last time, it beat down the baby faces every single time with the exception of LA night.

I hate this stuff on wrestling. For everyone's like, oh, but you like the Undertaker. This is no, no. This is not that. No. No. no and the Undertaker was established a long time before things got really wacky that's before they had a budget see so they had to just do real shit they couldn't afford to make fake

fucking lightning um but anyway so that was five minutes there of my life and i don't again i don't know i don't know what the fuck is happening there uh and then they had ray mysterio against dominic mysterio but by that point i wrote i just want to get this show over with So you'll never guess at the finish, Zalina jumped to live and Dom got crouched on the top rope when she bumped into it and Ray splashed him one, two, three. All right, the one segment of the program, you saw the Braun Breaker segment, correct?

I think so. I don't remember. It's been days ago at this point. Oh, for heaven's sake. Now you're Stugin on us that were late trying to catch people up on this shit. Sammy Zane and Braun Breaker. Sammy's promo in the Intercontinental title match

against Braun, which I'm looking forward to seeing actually, because I'll look forward to see Bronn Breaker do anything. But Sammy also cut a hell of a promo. This was the highlight of the show here. This and this angle about to come up.

Isn't it? He comes across like genuine, and not like a lot of the other people, male or female that are, you know, reciting their verbiage or whatever or just deer caught in headlights. He's talking to people. And he put Braun over,

but he promised from a baby face, Brian, I am going to beat Braun Breaker at Money in the Bank. So I'm wondering about this. But anyway, Braun came out. Because a baby face can't break their promise? Well, you're not supposed to. But maybe they've relaxed those rules too these days. But Braun came out and he's a heel, but it's too soon for him to be foiled unless there's a real good reason, I think,

that he basically said he was going to break the motherfucker to have Winnebel. But he didn't come out and just flat out swear on Rick's The Dog-Faced Gremlin's life or whatever. but Braun sounds natural he's not reading something he's not reciting something and it sounds like him talking and so they really you know because he got right in Sammy's face

said you got no guts and no idea what you're in for right and fucking Sammy he said you know how many times I've been broken in half and I get back up I want you to try your best that type of thing, right? But Braun was at first was smirking at this little, you know, a weasel that's trying to talk big to him.

But then when Sammy said, maybe you're not as smart as you think you are or as good, and Braun, he did this perfectly with the facial. You see it. It goes from, you know, smirking to, I want to kill you. and he goes to leave and then spun and speared him at 100 miles an hour and got a big pop because it looked great because he's explosive, right?

Just what was it Gordon Solius to say? He's not just quick, he's sudden. But then as he's about to leave again, Braun, he's walking down the aisleway, but then he turns around and he sees Sammy's rolled out on the other side and he gets that smirk again and he does the deal where he runs around the ring and they shot this from the air again is perfect

he runs around the ring for the spear and this time Sammy leapfrogs him and he runs into the fucking stairs bam and he fucks them up and then Sammy gets on him and they go in the ring Sammy gives him the suplex goes for the fucking kick and runs right into a spear again

so we got a little false finish there on that fucking deal but still Braun ends up leaving Sammy down tears his shirt off picks up the fucking intercontinental belt this is how you make a goddamn star now we're watching it on TV every week

so maybe Tony should be watching another program instead of his own so he can figure out what's going on but when all we've talked about on this program Brian since we've been doing it is how to get somebody over get a new exciting talent over get a guy over as a fucking star they could just watch this every week there this is what you do it's not that hard well you gotta find a fucking brawn Steiner should we start hyphenating him brawn breaker Steiner

Nah, if they're not going to do it, I don't want to waste my time. They should have done it, especially when you see that documentary, and they say Bronson Steiner. There's the name. It's going to happen sooner or later. You think it's going to happen at this point with him on the main roster already used the name Bronbreaker? I don't think it is. Well, I don't know. I don't know.

Well, maybe he's like Roman Reigns, you know. He was, you know, an Anaheahe. It's so stupid, because all you want is some guy who has not watched wrestling in years to turn on the TV and hear the name Steiner and wonder. is at one of their kids and get interested. Instead, they gave them a brand new name. So if you were a Steiner Brothers fan who doesn't watch wrestling anymore and you bumped into them, you'd have no idea. Well, but if you're a fan of people named Breaker,

I don't know if I've ever met anyone. I'd instantly be intrigued. I don't think I've ever met anyone with the last name Breaker. Well, you ought to meet more people. Have you met anyone named Breaker? I don't want to meet people. Breaker, Riker 1-9? You proved my point.

But anyway, I just wish he was on SmackDown. I just wish he was on Smackdown. See, that's the problem now. The Uncle Howdy stuff taints this show. DVR the program. So, and just zip through for the Bronbreaker. So this is when I miss like the old days of tape trading.

I would just order a custom tape from someone. Just can you record the best stuff and send it to me? Hey, I would get, I would get the best of AWA TVs from Norman Dooley. it would literally be three matches for like a five-month period, three matches and all the rest was the interviews. But anyway, it sounds about right. Yeah.

Otherwise, the Money in the Bank qualifier was Drew and Elia and Seamus and Drew won. And there was two breaks, two commercial breaks in this, and it didn't take up 15 minutes of airtime in total, so there wasn't much of the match on the, on the TV. That was raw.

All right. Now you know why you forgot it. It's just it's not good. I can remember everything to happen on Smackdown, at least in terms of the angles and the promos. Not necessarily with the matches. They don't matter. They don't matter.

Again, yes, that's the point. They've got it. That's just the intermezzo in between the second and third act. The premium live event matches matter. They've trained me. I know the matches on the TV show don't matter. The angles matter. And again, I came back...

Wait, what? Well, I was just going to say, do you mean that the more successful promotion is the one that trained the fans what to think and expect rather than the promotion where the fans trained it what to do? Yeah. I mean, that's the history of wrestling up until now, isn't it? I mean, successful promotions, any promoter, any territory, you trained the fans. They knew they had to buy a ticket to say.

see the match. That was the training, right? Well, and there was all kinds of training. There was also training of what style got over, what the product that you presented looked like, and I'm not talking about lucha or hardcore, whatever. I'm talking about whatever vein or genre of the business that the promoter and or the booker that owned part of the office was best at is the one that would be on top in the main events and that that person would have people working that style against him and interacting with the other top guys. And then the preliminaries were what the preliminaries were. So that's why you got Eddie Graham with the really the technical wrestling up and down the

card and then the fucking brawlers in the main event because it stood out and was special. And that was his thing. And you got Tennessee, you got the personal issues and the wildest, stuff, but more believable with the personalities involved. And in Watts, you had the football players and the tough guys with the smash mouth, blah, blah, blah. And Georgia

and the mid-Atlantic territory, they were very technical in their pro wrestling style, steamboat and flare. And Vern was kind of shoot wrestling in part because of him and the crusher, the complete antithesis

of that. was the most over guy so he had heels like Stevens and Bachwinkle it could do whatever the fuck but that's the way you trained your audience is what the guy that owned the territory

knew best could book best could do best or could present best so apparently this is what Tony presents best is what he's doing over here at AW but this is what the WWE is

they're getting fucking one and a half to two million people depending on the week and the occasion to watch Raw for three hours when nothing fucking happens. Well, that's the problem. I mean, the WWE2, you have Triple H at the top

but beyond Triple H you have other people with wrestling minds there. Whether they have good ideas or bad idea, there's enough people with ideas and then as someone at the top to make the decision, Tony thinks he knows as much as all these other people do. Tony thinks he knows all the ideas. And he understands all the history and all the booking.

And then look at that TV show and look at this TV show. Look at the results that each show gets. And Tony has trained his fans that you know that they're pay-per-views. If you like those kind of matches, they're going to pay off. And they'll give you the kind of matches you want to see. And he's also trained the fans that the TV show is meaningless. And we're seeing that each and every week play out. But we move on from there.

Well, here's a, let me ask you this. This may be a segue from that conversation to the one we're about to have. Is Tony in his own way very Russo-Rific? Is there always got to be something going on all the time in these backstage confrontations on a 30-second promo or every match ends in a beat-down or sometimes multiple beat downs

or people are fighting at ringside or there's got... They did a fucking... Backstage, we're going to talk about it here in a few minutes on dynamite in a 30-second little scuffle they're throwing fireballs at each other. Is this worse than Rousseau-Rific?

Where there's just meaningless shit going on all the fucking time. It's very reminiscent of... You know, you hate to say it because as soon as you make a comparison to Russo, obviously it takes on the most negative of connotations. That's the one I mean for it to take.

I was trying to be extremely negative. But I'm saying even if you don't want to go like balls to the wall, Rousseau, just like before shit. I'd like to put Rousseau's balls to the wall. What are you? My point is before shit went really bad, before like everything went bad when it was still just getting bad, that version of WCW,

that's what reminds me of AEW right now. Late period WCW. When you watch a Tony Storm promo, and then you watch just random people out in a ring doing random things when almost none of the angles work or get a big reaction

when fans are just silent and sitting there see WCW didn't have that WCW even as they were declining still at a hot fan base for the people that actually went AEW the people that are still going sit there and watch it like they're at the zoo like they're at the zoo watching a fucking show Oh, the monkeys are coming at at one.

Let's go watch it. Well, they're literally getting some shit flung at them. They are. And, you know, it's two companies going in two different directions, and the problems with AEW, we've said it for a long time. There's all sorts of problems. The big ones at the top. And Tony's not going to be someone who could walk away or step away

or run the operation away from the creative. And he shouldn't be running the operation, quite frankly. Do you think of any seasoned CEO or anyone who had the ability to be a CEO had been CEO of that company for the last five years? Do you think the infrastructure and the executives that are in place now would be there? Or would they have a better operation? Would they have a better infrastructure? Would they have a better merch operation? Would everything across the board have been done better if it hadn't been Tony and Mega and the same people fucking up shit for the Jacksonville Jaguars?

If instead Tony had said, I want to do it. want to fund it, even if he said, I may have some ideas, but he got completely involved with it. The wrestling ends fucked up, and then the business end of AEW, there's nothing to write home about. I said it from the very beginning. It's on tape. AEW is a great chance for wrestling executive development, because they're going to need to. They're going to need executives for their team, and all they do is hire people that WWE throws away. Well, and you mentioned the Jacksonville Jaguar, what about if he had said all right

he plays around in the pro football world who is a former head honcho I don't know what all the job titles are of a of a pro football team that might be out there or a high ranking executive who could even if he doesn't know anything about wrestling

put me a company together they've marketed the fucking Houston Oilers goddamn helmets or whatever. Put me a team together, help me with arena relations, and that type of thing, even if they weren't going to do anything about wrestling, put a team together to run an operation of this size since money is not an object.

And he didn't do that either. But Christopher Daniels is his vice president to speak now whenever he gets a chance to speak again. He hasn't spoken since he was nominated to speak. We go ahead. If he's as effective off the air as he is on the air, that says a lot. And we didn't hear good things about him and his job of whatever, talent relations going way back.

I mean, even like Jelly Nitello what he left. It was like, yeah, they never said a word, never heard from anyone. That was Christopher Daniels in charge, wasn't it? Well, but hold on now because Chris Daniels, at least the one that I knew at one point was a dedicated young man. however, you don't know, what the fuck did they just give, okay, you're telerelations. Well, what could I do? Well, I don't know, nothing.

So if he's not writing the show and he's not signing the checks and he's not making the deals for the contracts because Tony's got his finger and everything. And now he denominates Daniels as his spokesman on TV and then he never speaks again. Yeah, and then it's still like Tony Chivani saying, oh, Tony Kahn's just saying this in my ear set. Yeah. It's still the bucks just doing whatever they want. The booking of the show, everything that's done on that show just makes no sense. Another night, they established that Daniels was there while the bucks were still doing whatever the fuck they wanted to do.

No, it's Tony Khan can't book. Tony can't book, period. And we'll finish us talking about executives and hires. You know, the Mets used to be owned by the Wilpon family. Originally, Nelson Doubleday of Doubleday publishing bought the Mets in 1980. the previous owners, the Darylays sisters, and he had a minority partner, Fred Wilpon, who was a real estate guy in New York.

He became the president of baseball operations. Years later, he became a 50% partner right after the 86 World Series of the Mets. Years later, he wanted to put his son in charge. Nelson Doubleday thought his son was a moron. They ended up having a big fight and a big split, and Wilpon took control of the team, bought Double Day out.

for... Wait a minute, you're talking about Jerry Jarrett and Nick Goulis is what you're talking about? I'll be talking about Jerry Jarrett and Nick Goulis if Jerry had the fucking putt son at that time. Not Nick.

Because now Fred Wilpom put his son in charge and he gained the reputation throughout baseball. And I got friends who work in baseball, reporters for baseball. He had a reputation. He's the owner's son who wants the medal and everything.

He thinks he knows more about baseball than everyone. He knows more about how to manage a team than everyone. He knows more how to manage the press than everyone. We had more press leaks than any other team in baseball. Despite the fact that we were the New York Mets, it was a tough sell to get serious baseball people here because of the Wilpon family and Jeff Wilpon. And we now don't have that. We now have an owner who's the richest man in baseball. We've been able to see kind of the difference between the two things. Tony Kahn is Jeff Wilpon. No matter how well he means, and no matter how much he loves this thing, he doesn't get it and he's not good at it.

And there's still people pretending that Tony can get it, Tony has gotten it, he has to get it, Tony doesn't know how to book at all. He's not good at it. And more and more people need to say it. You mentioned the Will Pond name and of course I know these baseball people like I know, you know, NASA space technology But you may remember this I'm sure you do There was a will pawn

That was allegedly What? 10 years ago or whatever It was going to start a wrestling promotion And several of the boys I don't want to accuse anyone unnecessarily

But I believe Shane Douglas was one of the people That just glowingly pitched this to me Who was going to start a wrestling company And give the game It was, all the guys were going to get insurance and benefits, and they were going to be treated gray employees, whatever the fuck. And the Wilpon name was used because at that point they were,

is that when they owned the team around about 10 years ago in that era of time? They did own it back then, but this is a little bit before them because I remember hearing about this too, and this was right around the time that the Wilpons got tied up with Bernie, well, they were always tied up with them, but that's right around the time Bernie made off, the Ponzi scheme collapsed. Would he made off with the money?

Yeah. But that, again, and that, of course, was ridiculous on the surface of it, and I didn't believe it for a second, but so several of, many of the guys were like, oh, smoking a hopium. But was that even a,

did they find out that that was really a member of the Will Pond family directly, or was he like, cousin Wilpon. He has some relation to the family. He was a cousin in Florida, I believe. The Wilpon cousin in Florida. So then it got removed from credulity

even one step further when it wasn't the actual New York Wilpon. It was the Florida Wilpon cousin. And guess who never started a wrestling promotion? Well, we'll get to AW Dynamite shortly, Jim. But before we get there. We've cut through a lot of crap today and I can cut through more because box of awesome,

my latest box of awesome arrived the other day and I got wonderful tie knives to in the kitchen do some stuff or you never know. You never know when these things come in handy. You son of a bitch. You son of a bitch. You have ruined my surprise to you because normally and say I had to go down and get my box of awesome stuff from this month because Stays had already confiscated it or requisitioned it or whatever for the kitchen because normally you're getting these knives and these swords and these medieval devices used for restraint and dungeons and whatever the I don't know how you filled your questionnaire out or whether you went on some type of registry as a red but you're getting some deadly shit over there

Whereas we're getting the You know the Cocktail and Wine Connoisseur kits and the cooking implements and spice rubs and various culinary It's all about the culinary delights Over here at the castle But this past month

For my box of awesome I got the tie knife sharpening set And the tie I got a bend over it's almost a box of awesome of lead instead of a box of awesome. I'm bending over to pick up these heavy quality

items, but the Thai knife sharpening set, which includes a sharpening whetstone. What? A wet stone and honing oil.

Now there's a, you've heard of the term wet your appetite for something, right? That's right. Well, that's because a wetstone is what you use when you're sharpening the knives. You wet your appetite, you sharpen your appetite based on the, like honing oil, when you hone your skills, you're sharpening your skills.

See, this not only sharpens your knives, but it helps you with your grammar. And this is even bigger. Did you get the Thai moon knife set? I did These are amazing For once I got the same thing you got Authentic Carbon Steel

Made in Thailand Hence the name Thai And these things are Giant chopping knives Well one is like a cleaver But it's got you can Jesus Christ You could

You could cleave some shit with that and the, listen to that now, when they go in the custom wooden case, custom wooden case for these items, in the, and this is like a chopping knife, but that is, that's sharper than a mother-in-law's tongue, I'll tell you what. Have you heard anyone with yours so far? No, I'm very safe and very prepared, and I'm always prepared, and I'll be safe, so you better watch out. And prepare.

but I mean just the the handmade a custom wood box that they come in has the care instructions and the everything imprinted on the wooden box lid on top and you just put them right back in that thing and you hand wash and dry these to avoid rust formulation

occasionally wipe with olive oil to preserve the finish and you got the life well Well, you got the knife sharpening set there with it, which this is authentic, purposeful, and artisan. Or I called Domino's years ago when you still could just call and they'd just deliver it

with some fucking punk college kid in a car instead of all this internet bullshit they go through now. And they had the recording on that the local Dominoes in fucking Ipsilante, Michigan or whatever, had put on the recording, and the girl said, and we have the new artisan pizzas, ready for you now.

So this is an artisan box with artisan instructions on the wet stone and the honing oil to sharpen the blades. So you can tell you, if your mother-in-law has a sharp tongue, you can fix her up real good with these very,

various implements and then clean everything off and I don't, after you use this honing oil, I believe it removes any DNA evidence or blood spatters of various kinds. I don't think it doesn't. I don't think that should be a concern or anything we even talk about here. I think you can pass the CSI

standards with if you use both the wet stone and the honing oil. Again, there are no standards for crime intelligence, crime scene intelligence. Yes, removing the evidence of a crime from these knives is as easy as one, two, three, ladies and gentlemen. There will be no crime. Again, I don't know why we're saying there will be no crime unless you say cutting up some fine meat in the kitchen is a crime.

You've got to be, or in the bathtub. You've got to be prepared. The bathtub. In case, these are, these knives are going to last forever. Their quality, workmanship and materials. If a crime did occur in a. around these knives. That still wouldn't be the end of the knives. You could clean them off and start fresh with new owners, and they'll still be useful and serve their... So these knives will outlive you,

ladies and gentlemen. And basically, that's an example of the kind of quality products that you're going to get when you sign up at Box of Awesome.com. And all you've got to do is fill out the little quiz and tell them what you're interested in. If you're saying something, like if you've seen Pope fiction, you want a cleaner. You know, I guess you could put that down. It depends on they have a category on how you'd like to get rid of the evidence. And but all the interests that you have, you can jot them down and they will send you things related to those self-same interests every month at stellar discounts,

plethora of products. You're getting 30% or more off sometimes. And it's mom and pop stores that are just out there. trying to fight the man, trying to break through, climb the ladder, gain the mainstream acceptance, live a life of luxury and then debauchery ending in horrible divorce with mom getting most of the money and dad becoming an alcoholic. And Box of Awesome helps all that happen, folks. When you sign up there and right now, you can get 15% off your first box.

when you you know back when i was a teenager 15% off my first box would have been a big deal when you go oh for heaven's sake you know box was more expensive even when i was a teenager than that box of awesome dot com you enter the code j c e at checkout and well you're going to get 15% off your first box and that's again box of awesome dot com promo code jce at checkout and you know you're going to be able to just slice the shit out of stuff or whatever type of meat you're wanting to cut in the kitchen box of awesome what's that promo code one more time jim sometimes people do it out in the backyard in the kitchen what's that promo code especially around the 4th of july they do it out in the backyard brian you got the grill out there it's it's handy it's a good way

to prepare your meat indoors folks it's always smart to do that without bugs it takes all kinds of of critters to make farmer Vincent's fritters, boxofawsome.com, enter the promo code JCE. Well, you know what that means, Jim? It's time to move on. And here we are. That doesn't mean that. We move on all the time without that. Well, it's just an excuse for you to hit another goddamn cord there. Do they call them cords or is it a noose instead of a cord? Well, it depends on how you see it, That was, of course, the sign for the listeners that we're moving on past the raw portion of the show, as they all know. Jim, before we get to the AEW portion of the show, aka Nightmare Theater, I wanted to read something to you. I recently got this for my collection.

It's a book. Yes. It's a book by Hal Erickson. It's an old book. Syndicated television the first 40 years, 1947 to 1987. Ooh. This is apparently a decommissioned library book from St. Louis. St. Louis Public Library.

They're big readers out there in Missouri. They used to be the show me state, but now they're just the write it down for me state. If I go to syndicated television 1950 to 1959 sports, let me read you what they have for wrestling. I thought it was interesting. Wrestling, 1950 to 59. We aren't about to risk life and limb by suggesting that television wrestling, isn't altogether spontaneous, let's just note that

because televised matches always managed to resolve themselves within the tight time limits of 1950s television, and because the highlights always seemed to take place conveniently within camera range, wrestling was the ideal sports event of TV's first decade.

Then, as now, it was bold, bigger than life entertainment, though not as Hollywoodized as it would become in the 1980s, with just as rowdy a fan following as it enjoys today. For those early 50s TV outlets whose schedules couldn't accommodate the network wrestling events, KTLA, Los Angeles,

began distributing its filmed wrestling from Hollywood in 1950. The financial returns inspired a deluge of film grappling matches, remember Texas wrestling? And there was women's wrestling, a favorite of kids who'd come to school with tales of torn brassiers, stories just as authentic as Bozo's Cramit clown legend. For the next 30 years, wrestling would fall in and out of favor, though, of course, it never completely disappeared.

By the 60s and 70s, few rounds were, wrestling programs were nationally syndicated, most were regionally distributed to promote upcoming live events. A note, during the 60s, one brave soul in North Dakota attempted to syndicate matches featuring the sort of legitimate wrestling seen in colleges and at the Olympics. The poor guy lost his shirt. Some audiences want style without substance. So there it is from syndicated television in the first 40 years, 1947 and 1987, pro wrestling. That's fascinating.

And actually, they glossed over that Vince Sr. in the early days, some of the Washington tapes were syndicated in Washington, D.C., to narrow it down even further. The tapes were syndicated as well. He had a hand in that to different places. and after they got kicked off the network, well, the network went out of business, Dumont, Chicago still syndicated quite a few of their tapes

because of their name, right, to various stations. You know, I don't know what I have in my archives or files. I've never thought of this question until now, but I'd love to find out what information is available on how many television stations, how many markets was Hollywood Wrestling distributed it into in 19, let's say 1950, 1951, whatever.

How many actual cities was that going into? Well, a bunch of them because and I remember Tom Snyder, who did the tomorrow show, late nights after the tonight show, it started at one o'clock on, I think

they did it Monday through Thursday back in those days, but in the mid-late 70s would talk about wrestling. He worked at the Atlanta TV station and was in Atlanta television when Dr. Jerry Graham was on top. And so he would refer to him and he did the show where Vince and Bruno and a superstar Graham bunch of the talent was on before they got on network. But he always talked about it.

Back then they called it Hollywood wrestling. And that was the kind of, it was kind of a derogatory term also for people. that's that Hollywood wrestling stuff because that's what they were seeing on TV in so many places when people were just starting to get television. So it was the first kind of name they heard, name brand

rather than NWA or whatever. You know, it's interesting too because it kind of points out the turn in the business in how it started using television because whether it was wrestling on the Dumont network or the examples given here, Hollywood wrestling and Texas wrestling,

both very different. But those were televised wrestling events that existed as is. When the local promoters started using wrestling to actually promote the events is when everything changed. Well, but now that we've found out

lately with more research that's been done by a lot of the people, you know, just in wrestling in general, and some of my research, there was a local studio show in Dayton, Ohio, in like 1951, on the TV station there that was affiliated with WLW5 and Cincinnati down the road. Lance Russell did a local studio wrestling show in Jackson, Tennessee in the early 50s before he did Memphis wrestling. There was a St. Louis TV show before wrestling at the chase. that we culled from talking about the old St. Louis programs and some of the Bill Longson record

attendances and et cetera. They were sponsored by a beer company and were on the air in St. Louis and like two or three other markets in southern Illinois, et cetera, sponsored by that beer company and like what, 53, 54. So the local stations, it wasn't necessarily the territory hadn't fully formed yet based on if we get TV in Cincinnati, we're going to run Sensi and Dayton and, you know, et cetera. But these early local stations that said, well, we've got a wrestling promoter in Memphis before they got on WHBQ 13 for the glory period in the late 50s.

They would telecast on Channel 5, believe it or not. It had four call letters back then. I think it was WMCT. But they would show like 30 minutes of the main event or right before the main event or whatever from the Ellis Auditorium on Monday nights. And none of that obviously exists. It was live.

It probably was never taped. But the point is the local stations were seeing the networks are getting these big, ratings and they've got, you know, out-of-town wrestling shows from Chicago or Los Angeles, but we got a promoter right here. His wrestling is popular. We'll figure out some weight and we'll get people to watch. And so it kind of, it changed in that at first these early TV stations were kind of excited to have wrestling, but then once that they kind of moved on with other sports and technologically, and it went off network, then the promoters had to go to the local

stations to get TV to support their wrestling, which in 10 years before or less, the TV was trying to get the wrestling to support their TV. And then in terms of Vince Sr. and his show, I guess one of the first markets that would have seen it outside of the home market was when he started supplying his wrestlers and footage to Fred Kohler in Chicago. I think he may have, at least in the Northeast, they were trying to syndicate the Washington TV before that. That's why some of that footage of the Graham brothers and, you know, the Lou and the

stars of that time still exists is because, what was it, Capitol Wrestling? Yeah. With Ray Morgan. Ray Morgan, thank you. I'm older than I used to be. But I think that's why a lot of that still exists. And that was the 59 to 61 time frame. Well, I was same time as Chicago.

It's right around that same time. That's Kinescope footage. Because I first saw it. Bob Barnett got it years ago from Bobby Davis. It was Bobby Davis's footage. That's right. Well, there's more, some of the wrestling's greatest heroes and things. Right, right.

Yeah. And there's Kit Parker films, Look him up, kids. He's a fine, fine man. Some of that still exists because it was flown back and forth across the country and some of it was saved. See, if you grew up in the New York area and you were, you know, young enough back then or old enough, I guess you should say, to have some of the old timers, you would hear

about shows and you realize they weren't syndicated. They were all local shows, like wrestling from Bridgeport. That was just a local show. That was just one of the many local shows. And then, like, doing research and looking into. things. And I once asked Don Leo Jonathan about it before he passed away. He was on one of the first ever live studio shows in New York, New York Studio. They taped it on the west side of what was, later became Sony Studios. They just used the studio in New York. You never hear about that.

You never hear anyone else. I remember studio wrestling from Manhattan. Never. But that was just one of the many options that lasted for at least a brief period of time as TV was being introduced, gaining widespread acceptance and selling, according to Milton Burl because of him. But wrestling in Milton Burl. I mean, those were really the... No, shouldn't just say Milton Burl because Sid Caesar may have a problem with that.

But wrestling was one of the big draws. And again, the New York area, we had maybe a few more stations than most areas just because of the amount of people, and this was New York, the center. So we had, you know, from the very beginning, there was two, four, five, seven, nine, 11, like 13th.

From the very beginning, at all these channels, but... Hey, by the way, Louisville, which is the biggest city in the state of Kentucky, had two television stations until 1961, the year I was born. What were the stations? Channel 3 and Channel 11, and then 32, the ABC affiliate. Before that...

311 and 32 were the first three channels? 311 and 32. The... There was... no place for a Dumont network program or later on an early ABC network program so the other two stations

who were NBC and CBS would split them up at different, sometimes air them at a different time or sometimes drop one of theirs or whatever. It was just one of those things. But go ahead. Well no, that was really that was it. I just thought that was an interesting

thing as I was reading it. I thought I'd read it to you. Just an outsider didn't really seem like a wrestling fan talking about syndication. Not network TV, but actual syndicated wrestling TV and, you know, Vince McMahon's rise to prominence, so much of the strategy was built around local TV everywhere, syndicated TV up to gazoo, taking other people's TV and working with those networks. And, you know, you think back to

the days where some networks had syndicated shows from Hollywood or Texas or D.C. or Chicago and others said we could just do something locally. Some, right, some TV stations would get a percentage of the local gate for the shows there. And that's one of the things Vince McMahon, you know, really brought the prominence when he was trying to steal TV from Vern Gagne and different people. Well, see, that's the thing is that we said it started out. TV needed wrestling.

But then when the promoters started, the territories formed and the local and regional shows became a thing, the promoters needed the television. So one of the things they would go to the TV station with was if you put us on your station we're going to be running regular events in your town if we're successful you can share it

run us X amount of spots and we'll either a guaranteed spot by or you get 5% of the gate or whatever the case and then that existed until Vince started saying I'll just pay you to run my show

and then another 10 or 15 years goes by and now the TV station start paying for the fucking wrestling again. So we've got all the way from TV, we want your wrestling badly to well, fuck you, you got to pay to put it on to we'll pay you.

Yeah, I guess actually in a lot of ways it's more similar now to those days we just read about. Yeah. We're just, it's a national show, not really targeting any specific area, just a national show. And if you find a way, I mean, they don't even promote their local shows. I mean, if they have commercials running, they're not effective.

but it was a regular thing for the WWF into the early 90s not just local promos but they would have this little image of a plane flying away and you hear Howard Finkel the World Wrestling Federation coming to your hometown and they would talk about all the places and they would name every town you'd get excited waiting for something near your town they don't even do that no and at the TV tapings when I started in 93

we were still doing promos if we did god damn you didn't sleep no wonder all those guys did cocaine. Three days of television, you'd do the raw taping, and then the A show and syndication was superstars, right, and then Wrestling Challenge, I believe it was. And so that was Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, you would get there at fucking one in the afternoon if you were talent.

Office was 11 in the morning. You wouldn't leave till midnight, besides all the matches that the people were seeing, you were doing the local promos in back for Cleveland, Brett Hart versus Yocuzuna, go. Pittsburgh, Brett versus Yocuzna, go.

Fugging Dallas, Brett versus Yolkazana, over and over, and then international markets and sponsor spots and television station IDs. Be sure to watch superstars of wrestling on W-A-V-E,

whatever the fuck. So that was, sometimes, I was in the back doing interviews after midnight when all the matches were over with, the people that left, we're still in the back

finishing the fucking interviews. So they relied on that heavily until, you know, the cable war became a thing in the mid-late 90s. Well, I'm sure TV

will be an issue again later on this year. But Jim, before we get to AEW Dynamite, now is the happy portion of the show. Hold on. We now move on. to the sad portion of the show. Yeah, do a nice funeral dirge.

Well, before we get to AEW Dynamite and the, we'll see if the ratings are a funeral this week. They're not in just yet as we are recording due to the holiday. But the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Jim, has released a star ratings, Dave Meltzer's official star ratings for AEW forbidden door on Long Island. We just reviewed that on the experience.

The forbidden door is on Long Island. We've located it. Yeah, I think it would be in Suffolk County, not Nassau, but that's another story. But let's go... You'd think it'd be like somewhere like Death Valley, Arizona. We found the forbidden door. No, it's over there on Long Island. I mean, honestly, it sounds like a club in the village, but let's go to these ratings. Next to the fucking Arby's.

But before we go to the ratings, let me just... I'm not going to react in great detail to every single one of these ratings, because we know now what we're getting. And what we're getting is... You hear Dave or see Dave Wright or all the time back. There's so many great matches. Wait a minute. So many great matches today.

There's so many great people are just inundated with great matches. No, we're not. We're inundated with matches where people do a lot of shit in them. But here's an analogy, Brian. If a basketball player on a basketball team scores 20 points a game, then he's doing pretty good, right? He's doing all right, yeah. Okay, what about if he scores 20 points a game

because he takes 80 shots and he only hits 10 of them? Then is he doing well? Is that a great basketball player? Perhaps not. Maybe not a great teammate, either. Okay, so the point is, when there's so many matches where either shit just looks blatantly phony or the goddamn booking doesn't make any sense

or nobody gives a shit why these guys are having this match or nobody can tell who they're supposed to fucking root for or they're supposed to root against or everybody goes through it where they all look like they're the before picture in a goddamn Jack Lillane ad for all you senior citizens out there,

Google it kids. He was a wrestler. Well, there you, he was a pro wrestler. So see, there's even a connection. But they all survive, from a nuclear blast to a goddamn impalement with fucking hot pokers, that doesn't make it a great match if it's unconvincing and phony and uninteresting because you don't care who wins or loses,

and there's nothing on the line except more Mark statistics. So these kind of matches that were on forbidden door are right up old Uncle Dave's Great Alley. As a matter of fact, maybe Tony, Tony has just got a new uncle. Uncle Ding, Uncle Ding melts her. And Uncle Ding is going to rate highly everything that Tony does because this is the kind of matches that Uncle Ding thinks are great. So go ahead and let's hear it.

Please don't start dingin with every star. I won't be doing it. But wait a minute, is it a six-star match? Wait a minute, now my tinnitus is acting up. Oh, shit. You know what that means, folks. We have to turn off Jim's mic. Oh, dear.

Ladies and gentlemen, let's go to these star ratings. Just making this shit up we've never done before. You know what that means. Jim, I will skip the pre-show because you didn't watch it, so I don't think it would be fair to judge these. Yeah, well, I'm not judging them anyway. I'm just laughing along with you. Well, Jim, in the opening match of the pay-per-view,

MJF defeated Hetchichero, nine minutes and 50 seconds. seconds, three and a quarter stars. I mean, I will say that as we mentioned when we reviewed it, this is the only match that actually made sense was accomplished in the time and in the manner in which that it should have been and otherwise didn't fucking stink. So that's about average these days. On his seven star scale, three and a half's about right in the middle. Well, I guess that's the thing, too, you just said.

You can't look at it as a five-star scale because it isn't. It's just ridiculous to pretend it is. It's a seven-star scale now. So this is a middle, middle-of-the-road match. Mid, I guess you could say. It's mid. It was mid. Well, but it wasn't his fault because his opponent was hid.

He was hitchachero. He was hid. He was hid from people's eyesight until right before he'd showed up. Nobody ever heard of him. As Jim Hurd would say, what'd they do? Drop him out of a helicopter? Jim, the Young Bucks, and Kazushka Okada defeated the acclaimed and Hiroshi Tanahashi 13 minutes.

Yeah. Three and three quarter stars. Oh boy. We are seeing a backlash here from Uncle Dang. Because there's all of his boys all wrapped up in one pretty little package with a bow on it and crotchless panties around it. Because there's the Buccaroos as his adopted nephews. and O'Cody and O'Cody and

what's his name? Tonahashi. Well, they're the greatest wrestlers that have ever been. So it couldn't all have been the acclaims' fault that they only got a mid-rating. Is it that he's finally saying,

hey, guys, you know, you got to maybe change your shit up once a millennium? I'm just quickly looking through the review here. Bowens looked his best O'Cada was super over The crowd hated the bucks I just want to see if it says anything About it's our review

I just want to see if it says anything How bad certain people looked It doesn't say anything about how bad Tanahashi or Okada looked in there So Jim Daniel Daniel I did this last time Brian Danielson

Beechingo to Coggi What was just calling Daniel Daniel Daniel Daniel is traveling tonight on a plane I didn't understand when they made him Daniel Bryan. Why didn't they make him Danielson Brian? Like the karate kid was Danielson and you can kind of make that his thing. But let's go back to this.

Brian Danielson beat Shingo Takagi, 19 minutes and 59 seconds. Every second of it, it sure was. Who was it? Four and three quarter stars. Oh, come on now. Oh, now wait, hold on here. What? Was that, is he scoring by,

time or was they I will say that to be quite honest I didn't the only thing about Danielson and shingles was that it was longer than the previous two but it wasn't appreciably more exciting, thrilling,

chilling, bone rattling. Oh boy, but so now he's got to, he can't insult Brian his last year in the business. He doesn't want him mad at him. Tony Storm defeated Mina Shirakawa, 11 minutes 38 seconds, four stars. Oh, my...

So the same thing that he used to give an average flare and steamboat match has now been awarded to Tony Storm and Mitsuoericawa. They all hugged, and then they did a triple kiss on the lips. Well, except Luther. Well, then it would have been a quadruple kiss on the lips, but how would you have been able to tell his... lips from his goddamn eyes or any other fucking hole in his melon-like head because he barely he just kind of looks like somebody took an egg and stuck some shit in it doesn't he? Zach Saber Jr. Well, wait a minute.

Back up here a second because wasn't he taking some heat, old Uncle Dave for defending this kiss as being part of long-term storytelling? He defends AW's stories more than most. And if they really, again, if they really wanted to fucking make an impact with the kiss, they should have had some tongues lolling around. Playing some tonsil hockey. Again, hopefully without Luther. Zach Saber Jr. defeated Orange Cassidy.

They could have used his head for the puck. 16 minutes, 18 seconds, four and a half stars. Oh, is there any... Samoa Joe. Well, once, no, once that you have exes, accepted the premise that one of the competitors is a fucking parade balloon or some inanimate object that you don't, then yes, you can go ahead and grade something like that

as if it were a real match. But he dignifies one of the participants by acting like he's a living, breathing, cognizant human being attempting to be a real pro wrestler. Samoa Joe, Hook and Katsyuri Shibata Shoo-Poo-Pee, Shoo-Pee, Shoo-Pee, Shoo-Pee. Defeated Chris Jericho, Big Bill, and Jeff Cobb, 13 minutes, 59 seconds, 3 and a quarter stars. Let me read some of this review here.

What, I was about to say, that's almost down to where a dud used to be, isn't it? This was a good match as far as wrestling But the Jericho gimmick works on Wednesdays But it was going to be difficult with a New York pay-per-view crowd Basically the fans didn't react to the match Only to Jericho They wanted him to retire They wanted him to retire

They wanted him to retire And he talked about how he grew up right here in Long Island in Manhasset his father played for the New York Rangers when he was born. Yes, that's the famous Hall of Famer Ted Jericho. So he said he was a hometown hero. I was expecting they would build it around avoiding Joe and Cobb until they finally squared off. But Joe and Cobb were doing stuff with each other early in the match.

But to the fans, it was all about, please retire. Then you still got it. Then no, you don't. Chance and took away. from everyone doing good stuff the entire match, hook even pin Jericho clean after the Judas effect the win, which made sense for him to lose clean to the New York-based baby face. While it is not always the case with television,

it is clear in New York that the crowd won't let a Jericho match be good, even with guys like Joe. Wait, won't let it. Well, fortunately, they don't have to work too hard. even with guys like Joe, who is almost always over, Cobb, who is super impressive, and Hook, who has been a New York favorite. That said, the work of everyone was at the level you'd expect. What is that defense of the Jericho match sucking there?

It's New York's fault. It's Bizarro World in New York. When has it been working on Wednesday? Please retire the recent. they chanted please retire in New York is because they've been chanting that on television since this whole thing started. New York people, oh, this is where we need to chant. Please retire at this fucking guy.

Because he needs to retire. Who's doing the worst gimmick ever that everyone hates? Why would they, oh. But it's not like, oh, on Wisdie nights, please keep working. No, we haven't heard that. No. The good thing about please retire is it got everyone to forget NDA. Yeah.

Jim, Jack. Please stay busy. Go on tour. Half of your time to charitable organizations. Please tour Russia. Jack Perry won the TNT title in a ladder match. Mm-hmm. Over Canouske, Canoscay.

Konoske, Takeda. Mark Briscoe, Dante Martin, El Fantasmo from Canada, and Leo Rush. in 16 minutes. Part of the famous Canadian Fantasbo family. It's 16 minutes at 52 seconds.

Four and a half stars. This was just crazy, it says. Of course it was. How do you rate something like that on a scale of everything else anyway? Because it's just, it's endless, oh, let's figure out a way to take this bump with this piece of furniture. And I've seen this in the movies. we could do this, whatever.

I've, you know, but I'm sure it was four and a half, whatever. Mercedes Monet defeated Stephanie Vacour, 16 minutes, 47 seconds, four-star match. What? Hold on, I was swallowing. Don't choke. I didn't think that was the reaction we'd get. Four stars, four-star match.

They did a somewhat lucia-oriented match. You have to give them credit because they Because following the insanity that preceded this was not going to be easy And it wasn't And they didn't Except that the people gradually decided We We disliked this Mercedes Moon so badly

Because of her annoying presence on our television That we're going to start cheering a shit Out of this girl And we've never seen before hoping that she kicks Mercedes's ass from here all the way back to Boston. I don't know if that's a successful way to debut a new multimillion dollar acquisition, or not debut, but a way to present or promote a multimillion dollar acquisition unless it's the one that we've never seen or heard of before.

because she was the one they were all chaining for. But I'm sure it was wonderful to Dave. It was positively. Tetsuya Naito. Ah, you do and you'll clean it up. Defeated John Moxley, 17 minutes, three seconds, three star match.

Whoa! Is this, is he beginning to make little statements? I think it's impossible. to deny how bad that Moxley-Nayito match was, and it should be lower than three stars, and I think three stars is maybe his statement, but that match was a statement. Well, considering what he gives most everybody else, that's kind of a slap in a face. Yeah. I'm trying to see if he really critiques it much.

No. He doesn't really explain it. He just says what happened in the match and the music they came out to. So he's slipping it in, hoping that they won't notice. He just won't come out in words and say, yeah, there was some fake shit that sucked in this. Naido went for a Frankensteiner off the top rope, but Moxley power bombed him off the top. Not sure if this was selling, but Naido seemed out of it for a second, and took a while for him to fully recover. There were some issues in spots where they seemed not on the same page, but the match layout and build was good.

All right. And finally, Jim, swerve Strickland. And you know what? That Dalmatian shit didn't taste nearly as bad as what I was thinking it might. Remember early on? Me and Dave went at it on Twitter because I said the jelly Nutella match versus like Sean Spears was the worst match on the show. And he said, it was the least good. It's a way to look at things at AEW. Finally, Jim, Swerve Strickland defeated Will Osprey 27 minutes for seconds. Let me just make sure I got this right. Five and a half stars. Well, there was lots of the aggressive parkour. They were tumbling and catapulting and somersaulting and moon-saulting their brains.

And that's right down Dave's alley or up Dave's orifice of some description. Kazoo? Because up his kazoo. There you go. Uncle Ding and his kazoo. That is an album. I dare somebody to take a picture of Uncle Dave with his bright red flaming hair that he died recently

and mock up an album cover of Uncle Ding and his kazoo. And we will make you famous, whoever the fuck you are, send it to us. But Uncle Ding and his kazoo like this kind of thing. So there you go. I mean, it was, you know what? It was probably the least bad match. I'll say that.

After when it was finally over with, after they'd done everything to each other that they possibly could forever. And again, I have the poll results here from the Observer, and I know he sees them as being a big thing, but you look at who voted, it's less than 400 people. Well, that's, but no, that's a, that's a,

that's a landslide, compared to, he covers in detail these Joshi shows in Japan in somebody's apartment and 27 people vote in his poll of what the best thing was on it. Well, according to this poll,

309 thumbs up, one thumb down, 18 thumbs in the middle, the only match that received... Where did the middle and index finger go while the thumb was in the middle? Well, Swerve Strickland v. Will Osprey received 272 votes as best match. No other match got seven votes.

So the fans really liked it too. The observer fans who vote in this. And apparently... I'm not... Well, I'm not saying that they shouldn't have liked that match better than the other matches, but five and a half stars on Uncle Ding's part. I think he's...

On a seven-match... He may have flipped his kazoo. On a seven-star scale... scale and they kicked out of lots of finishers, and that's the key. If you kick out of tons of shit, you shouldn't at the very end, that'll give you at least another half star or so. So they should have gone further. But speaking of going further.

Yes. You know what that means, Jim? It's time for AEW Dynamite, which took place on Tibus. Nobody knows what that means. You know what that means. It's just, it's more sounds. It's time for the tale of Tony Kahn. A young bug-eyed gentleman having a tough time with his hair and his booking.

A young bug-eyed gentleman in a world that didn't understand him. Why did they do beach break from Chicago? The night before the 4th of July is beach break. I thought that would like a spring type of thing. And I know they got a beach in Chicago with those goddamn mobster's bodies. keep washing up on it. You can't really sunbathe out there. And this time it was very humid.

Also, so beach break came from Chicago on July the 3rd. And it's Shark Week. Does that make anybody want to go out to the beach? I think that's the exact thing that prompts them to make this show Beachbreak was they're promoting Shark Week. Well, yes, but couldn't it be like, summertime in Chicago. It should be.

You know, and it's shark week. Do they have sharks in Chicago? Didn't they do this once like in the middle? It was like A.W. Spring break in Wisconsin. It was just something like, what? What did you do? Spring break in Wisconsin? Yes, it was actually, it was a polar weather outpost that, and they had the announcers dressed in speedos.

so they opened this program with AEW Dynamite July 3rd Chicago Are you trying to rush me I was still talking about the beaches and the weather and do they have sharks in Chicago that's another thing I want to know

somebody needs to get back to me on that do we have the number to Bob Luce's people actually we do well I said but are they able to tell us about the sharks in Chicago All right. Tell them Bobo. Well, and hey, and here, Al's number one, Chicago Italian beef.

Num, num, num, num, num, num, num, num. So they opened up the program the night before the 4th of July, the beach breaking in Chicago with the mobster's bodies. Renee Moxley Good is in the back with Daniel Garcia and Daddy Mac. Now, I know that we can't all be stone cold. Steve Austin, right? But, and I know they wanted to start a telling a story at the beginning of the program

and carried through to the end of the program, but when the first faces you see are Danny Garcia's and Daddy Max when on the other channel it's, you're seeing the bloodline come to the rig or you see Drew Magintyre coming to the rig. Do you smell what I'm cooking, Brian? Is this the first good visual?

It was even worse what she said, because it makes you wonder what AEW is thinking right now. They introduced them. The first words out of her mouth were the backbone of AEW. Yes. Daniel Garcia. And apparently they're going to try to make that become a thing. In that case, if I would get a brace because I'm afraid they're going to develop scoliosis. And Garcia does the promo on ostrich, and then MJF walks in, thankfully,

fairly quickly. But now you've got the top guy in the company, again, basically staring these two guys in the face. It's, uh, but MJF's telling him to focus. I'm going to be in your corner tonight if you'll have me. Oh, of course. And then Daddy Mac shakes MJF's hand.

And again, they're trying to tell a story. I applaud him for that. Garcia's, I'm sorry, lost his point until he grows up, gets older, gets a physique, gets a personality, gets a gimmick, gets a goddamn face that you want to look at. And, you know, anyway, at least he'll serve a purpose later on. But that was, do you have any thoughts about the open before we get into the Owen Hart tournament?

I mean, I agree with you. I think Garcia's okay for a young guy on the card, but they're trying to elevate him and he's not ready. And that's been a story of him and Willer. to Tony and certain wrestlers decided these were the guys a few years ago that they were going to do everything they could to elevate and bring up and it just hasn't taken

because they were the wrong guys. I'm sure they're wonderful guys. I'm sure they're very nice people. But it's not taken. And he's not the backbone of AEW. And when all of a sudden you introduce someone who isn't the backbone as being the backbone, you're lying to your audience. And I don't know, in terms of his face, reactions. He kind of reminds me. Remember Uncle Floyd's puppet

Ugi? I don't know if you ever saw Uncle Floyd, the Uncle Floyd show. No, they, they had, uh, I think they'd put Uncle Floyd in the, in the, uh, in the big house by the time that I got around there. I don't know. It kind of reminds me of Uki a little bit. And, uh, yeah, I mean, this is setting up other things. And this is basically just coming off MJF establishing himself as their friend a week ago. Yeah, there's been this long, long running, bond of respect. Well, that's good Tony can't, for a person who is so detail-oriented,

Tony Khan cannot think ahead. Either that, he's never got his balance under him thinking about this week to think ahead. So these things just come up when they're necessary. Oh, I need you guys to have been lifelong friends next week. Anyway, so we go to the Owen Hart tournament, Brian Danielson versus Pack and it went about 17 minutes

and then I started watching it and I'm not kidding you know what every Danielson match is going to be you know there's going to be the slow kicks that he pauses you know there's going to be the trading strikes you know there's going to be the spots on the floor you know there's going to be more kicks you know there's going to be the submissions

you know he's going to sell either a cervical injury or a concussion because he's doing that now every match you know what these matches are going to be and you knew that PAC wasn't going to win. Well, you didn't have to sum it up like that. I'm just sick of the Danielson matches. And hey, and here's the thing.

When I go to see the monkeys, I expect them to play last train to Clarksville, right? I expect to see that, but I want to see them against somebody that I give a shit about that there's some issue on the line here. Pack, he comes and he goes. He's here.

He's gone. wishy, he's washy, and he's been around forever, and it ain't going to happen because it would have happened by now. So anyway, after 17 minutes,

Pat gave him a superplex and got a two count. And then he missed a splash off the top, and Danielson hit the big knee. And both of them sold, and then Danielson covered, and Pat got a submission hold

and cranked it for a while. and then Danielson rolled through and got the LaBelle lock, but PAC rolled back over and got a two count, and then Danielson rolled forward and got a three count. They were on the mat in the same place rolling back and forth or in a hold for a minute before the one, two, three. And then it just, well, what the, I agree that we should attempt to make things look like a shoot,

and that we should take some things from the UFC and the MMA world in general but flat finishes after you've been laying in the same spot for a minute ain't really one of them, is it? He hit it with him, he was going to win anyway, hit him with a fucking knee, people would have loved it. Boom, one, two, three, yay!

It comes out of nowhere. Holy shit, wow, it's exciting. instead of, uh, he's got him. No, he's got him, he's got him, he's got, oh, he got him. I agree with you. I can't really, for 20 minutes. I can't argue with you. Again, I've been saying it for a while, I'm sick of the Danielson matches.

I don't find them to be creative wrestling masterpieces currently, like other people still may. And, you know, the other thing, too, is knowing that he had to retire for several years and knowing that he may have, you know, issues with concussions when he's selling, like I said, the cervical stuff or every match now Doc Samson has to like check his pulse or whatever the fuck's happening there. It's every match now. I'm just not into the Danielson stuff at all, at all. We're not really rooting for him to give himself further brain damage or paralyze himself.

So it doesn't really make you excited. You want to forget that. Yeah, kind of queasy. Yeah, you want to forget the whole. part of it where they thought he was going to die if he kept wrestling. You kind of wanted to pass that. And just think of him as a wrestler. But again, I'm not a big fan of his matches.

And he does a lot of the same shit that we criticize other people for. He's gotten away with it. But the trading spots and again, the slow kick, the guy giving him his chest, just, I don't like this shit. I'm sick of me. I would, I would, like, curl up in a ball and maybe cover myself if a guy was trying to kick the fuck out of me. But that's just me.

So then Mark Briscoe was in the ring all by himself for a promo, and I'm like, thank God. He doesn't have all these idiots that he's usually interacting with around him. And apparently he's the Ring of Honor World Champion, for whatever that means. And he did a great baby-face promo like he always does, and people like him. And he declared himself on Team AEW for blood and guts, which is, they announced they were going to have this and now they're stuck with it

and I don't know if it's necessary I'm pretty sure it's not necessary and then suddenly Jungle Jackoff hits the ring and attacks him from behind and what they're doing again they're feeding

the top twinks all of the baby faces that Tony Khan's booking hasn't totally killed off because they they just like Mark Briscoe because he's great so they you know this guy fucking beat him up

and they put the buckaroos together with O'Code because people still not probably as much as they did before but they still like him that's diminishing or you know anybody that they can they can make

not make popular but not destroy the popularity of now they're starting to feed into these guys' world. And then Kyle O'Reilly came in and made a comeback on Jungle Jackoff and then O'Cody came in and clotheslined him. And then at least it's the exciting like wrestling arena sound, right?

While all this is going on. But then as soon as the buckaroos strut out on the stage wearing their finest douchebaggery, you hear the, the boo, like oh fuck not this shit. Boo's. And they have to come out and give

Mark Briscoe their little knee lift and then the acclaimed music plays and they and Billy Gunn come out, the heels just bail out, that's it. So they just, just to beat people up that the fans still give a shit about. We got to be

subject to their fucking interference in this overall scheme of things. Your thoughts. So let's talk about how bad the booking is here.

Jack Perry returned. He's never really been explained on TV why he's a scapegoat or whose scapegoat he is. Returns. Beats up Tony Khan.

Gets a neck injury from the heels who are also as executives. His dad comes out there concerned. Next thing we see is smiling and having a good time in a neck brace at the NBA, the NFL draft.

No real good follow-up on TV. Now it's going to be this blood and guts match that no one's demanding in Nashville. Team AEW is going to be random people. Because I like Mark Briscoe, and I think his promos the last few weeks have been a highlight. But he's been used like shit and he doesn't matter. He's going to be on team AEDW. Yeah, he's on team AEDW. The acclaimed, are they going to be on team AEW?

because that doesn't give you a lot of hope for this blood and guts match. No disrespect to them, but it should be big start. Team AEW. When it was Team WCW was Luger and Sting and Randy Savage, you know, the biggest guys we have to fight the NW. But maybe that's the wrong team AEW because half the people on the other team are actually vice presidents of AEW. Who, by the way, let's go back to the bad booking,

who are still doing whatever they want, they had TAS removed from the building on this show, even though Tony's established he's, in the back. He's in the back running things and he's like Christopher Daniels as a stooge. Yes. Daniels is there too. They're all there. This whole thing has been booked so bad. Look at everything with WWE in the bloodline over the last three months, four months. And then look at everything with AEW in the mudline over the last three months, four months. With Tony Khan getting beat up by his highly paid tag. The highest paid tag team in wrestling history beat up the own, the billionaire

their owner of the company and no one gives a fuck. No one gives a shit. The only way people can care less is if Sasha Banks was in this. Two, no one gives a shit about any of this. And they're going to be in Nashville. Watch, Tony should make an offer for that Huck to a girl. She lives in Nashville. She'll be at the fucking pay-per-view.

Let her be on Team A-E-W. Because you spin all over us, Tony, with this bad booking. Thank you. You know what that means. Back to Jim. Back to G. You know what that means. well that means more comedy with Tony Storm and her crew of Mary Misfits.

They just hug and do things in the back. And then Chris Stadlander wrestled Willow. And the match started on the stage. Now the girls' matches start on the stage and continue to ringside. They do take suplexes on the floor. And then the referee calls for the bell to start the match. Well, these two, there is at least an issue with these two. They've been building up the thing.

Jesus, Jesus Christ. You know what? Everyone focused on everything else. Statlander and Willow being in a feud may make the most sense out of everything they've booked in the AEW Women's Division even though there are still problems with it.

It's the one thing that makes a little bit of sense. And we like Stadlander and Willow has done well. And she's over. Willow got herself over with those fans. It wasn't the booking. Then maybe they should do something different than normal on an AEW television show and actually getting a ring and ring the bell

and start to match there. because that way it would stand out as something completely radically different. But Chris got Stokely's chain and swung it and Willow moved and rolled her up one, two, three. So poor Chris Stalander can't buy a win if she had a fistful of 50s. And then apparently I have heard that Jeff Jared did a really good promo talking about what Owen Hart meant to him. They were friends, obviously. He was there that night in Kansas City and was broken up about it. And I guess he did a really good promo that was on the internet,

and they may have excerpted it for the B show or the C show. But here what they did is they had Jeff just walk off without making any comment, and Jay Lethal did the promo for him. And that was a foreshadowing of what was going to come later on in the, in the tournament match which we'll discuss when we get there but talking about the booking

we'll be back on that in a second and let's get to the high point one of the high points there was actually two this week one of the high points of this show Britt Baker Dr. Britt, she's back

Britt Baker is back more alliteration is needed hopefully they won't sell a t-shirt of her with a black eye this time or whatever but she did the live in-ring promo explaining her absence what exactly her problem has been the rumors were she was injured and she was you know at some points but she told the story that she started feeling sick and vision blurry

and spent the week in the hospital with what they diagnosed as a mini stroke. And, you know, she was susceptible and had to stay home to get well and blah, blah, blah, which you can understand. And you got to think, not only for her and Adam Cole being, not only their young age and athletes, and they're not people with bad habits, and they got the shittiest run of fucking health luck I've ever seen. but anyway she did a great promo where she told them for real what had happened to her and you could be real here

it wasn't exposing the wrestling business to talk about her real medical condition that kept her away and she was nervous when she came back would anybody give a damn and you know you've all felt the fear of rejection at this I'm like what is it Dr. Phil

but for this audience, apparently they do fear rejection instead of feeding on it like a fucking rabid beast like I do. But what a baby face. She said, when I needed you, you welcomed me back with open arms and I'm one of you and more motivational talk, right? And they listen to her. I gather the younger generation likes to talk about their problems with anybody that will listen.

That's another thing I've learned from being around people the last few years. Well, that's true the younger generation, but it's especially true younger wrestlers. Yes, more often than not. It is also a younger wrestler. But anyway, it was a great baby face promo. And then, much like as Jerry Jarrett used to say, tell them the truth as long as you can. and then when you tie it into your business and start working, they don't know where you're leaving off.

She mentioned the new female face of AEW and got a little bit sarcastic about Mercedes and her piped-in CEO chance and how hard she's worked since Brits been gone and blah, blah, blah. And the people started getting with it. And then on the screen appears at SUV with the horn honking. Have we gone too far, Brian, with the idea that these big stars show up for a live television show like 45 minutes before it's over with? I mean, maybe.

I mean, it's also interesting. I guess she was watching the monitor or watching in her car and said, okay, pull up now. But the more ridiculous thing was the camera's filming the car pull up because the camera happened. to be there in the back. And then it goes to a tight shot, one camera of her feet coming out of the car. It's one thing if you start with that.

You saw the Zoom. Yeah, but it's one thing if you start with that. Oh, who is it? Not, you can't go to that once you've established a wide shot? Yes, I was hoping you, because apparently they only had one camera out there and somebody had told the guy,

we want the shot when the door opens, it's only the feet stepping out, so we don't know who it is. Right? For the people who didn't see this, I'm trying to describe it. Apparently that was an instruction he'd been given, but apparently also, since he's the only camera, he had to shoot the goddamn SUV pulling up, honking the horn. And what are you going to do, zoom in on the wheels? And we don't know what the SUV model made a number, right?

So he shoots the SUV, pulls up, and then as the door starts to open, there's a quick, zoom to the bottom of the for no apparent reason otherwise and I hope somebody's feet come out if they don't if I've just done this on my own and nobody steps out I'm going to look like an idiot oh there's some feet

oh they came out of the sunroof I'm an idiot yeah yeah that's the thing if they'd have popped up out of the sunroof you'd have heard a voice I'm here but it's so it's just the other fucking guys across the street, the WWE

are doing fucking Hollywood cinema and these guys are doing cable access. So then she gets out old Mercedes, Mune and the fans boo, they've got the arena audio and the fans

boo and of course who's there to meet her but the Buccaroos and they hug her and put her over and make over and everything because now they also now that the people are booing the shit out of Mercedes because they just really don't like her,

the buccaroos would be as close to her as possible to sap some of the booze off. Oh, see, Tony, they're really booing. So anyway, then they immediately, and this is the 9 o'clock hour, they go back to the ring, but the crew starts bringing out the bags and bouquets of bulls of bulls,

balloons for the celebration for Mercedes's title win. She won another belt from the young lady from Mexico. And then while Britt standing here, she just does her entrance Mercedes and does the

pole dance shimmy. And has the migrant, and Brit is staring at her. And I wrote at that point this may be the only chance they have or ever will have to get any money out of Mercedes Mone whatsoever. And then as soon as she starts talking, how did you describe it, Brian?

It goes back to performance. It goes back to, oh, now we're working again from this heartfelt promo we got that Britt Baker got over as a baby face with. Now it's back to this scripted hoo-ha that they would do on raw with a lot better producers and directors. How do you phrase it? I don't remember if I had a specific phrase for it. You had a specific phrase where they went back to

W.W.E.ish style of doing something. But it was a natier phrase than that. But the fans had a natty little phrase. Shut the fuck up. And there lies the problem. Britt Baker, this is probably like her best promo, especially in front of a live audience. And she was nervous, but she had something to say,

Sonny Kingroll, good person. promo. Yeah. Mercedes Monet, every single thing she has done, it's the same dance, it's the same fakery, and if she gets on the mic, you don't believe anything she says. Completely insincere. And when you see her do interviews, I saw one the other day, she's doing it in that character, in that voice, talking about how she's the highest paid woman in wrestling history.

And you're like, damn, you just don't draw or bring any people into the building or cause people to really care. And the big exposure is going to be her against someone like Britt Baker, who the AEW fans chose. They made her a heel. She was there from the very beginning, like she said here. So it's going to be really interesting. The matches may not be your thing, but watching how everything plays out where Mercedes Monet over the next year is going to be really interesting. I'm going to watch her and Britt. This will be interesting. And they told each other off a little bit. Brit told her off and the fans loved it

and Mercedes did another catchphrase and they stared at each other, but they're going to wrestle it all in and at least they've realized that Mercedes is a heel and they're just okay, you know, because she's a phony personality

her matches haven't been that great, her promos are bleh, and she's got that annoying dance and the piped in CEO. I don't know, and I've said this from the start, how they figured, once I saw her, I said, this is going to be a baby face. And it's plus it's the whole carpet bagger situation. She came in immediately got two belts and she's like the face of the company for the women.

Well, but I, you know, regardless, we don't have to get sexist or anything. What she does with her carpet, whether it matches the drapes or not, it's entirely up to her. That wasn't what I meant. in his Sunday, August 27th. That's almost two months of build for this match. What do you think? Well, in that case, they got plenty of time to make the carpet match the drapes.

They could remodel the whole house. I mean, I want to see the match because I want to see the crowd response, because especially I think at the big show, they will boo Mercedes out of the

arena and Britt Baker is going to be over. Unless the intervening seven weeks of TV destroys that and dulls it to where people don't care by then. Right now, I think everybody wants to see it. And that's why this may be their chance to get money out of Mercedes because after this,

because they really, they don't want to see her against people. They just, I think they're booing because she sucks. I don't know. you tell me. Well, time will tell. And it's your show. Was that the end of the night? But it's my review, isn't it?

I don't know. What are you transitioning to here, sir? I don't know. I just, I didn't know where we were going. You know what that means. Jim has lost his train of thought. Well, would you like to go on with this television program? I mean, honestly, no, but I mean, we started it.

We got to. We're duty. duty bound we got to get to the other good part it won't take long now as i'm a little more direct to go to do you understand what's going on now with rene was in the back with will ostrich and and uh cow feldcher and don phallis walks in the top heel manager the evil remember well he started out that way and now he just kind of wanders around and talks about people but the new top baby face, Will Ostrich, apologizes to the top

heel manager. But it's my fault. I hit the referee. I couldn't do the Tiger driver. I'm not that guy anymore. He thanks the hero manager for all he's done for him, but he wants out of the Fowless family.

And Don says, I'm so proud of you and I'm happy to do you the favor and hugs him. And what the that is the way that the top baby face leaves the top heel manager's group by asking in a backstage pre-tape while apologizing to him and praising him and the manager says, sure, kid, I love you, no problem. What world do these people?

What wrestling have they been watching? I'm sure that's not the end of it. Now he's going to do something to turn on Osprey, probably with Felcher helping our Fletcher helping him. Well, God damn, but already, ostrich looks like a fucking idiot apologizing to the... I'm sorry I couldn't use the screwdriver you gave me. I couldn't do the tiger driver and break the guy's neck. Thank you for all you've done for me, you evil sociopath.

But I'd just like to leave the family that nobody's ever explained why he was in to begin with. It's all been cocky. It's nonsense. It's blithering gibberish. Have I made enough similes there? And again, they teased the thing with Fletcher in the back. He's friends with Osprey, but when Callas left, He said, come on, Kyle.

And Kyle gave a sad look to his friend and left. Yeah. Because you know what also about Kyle? Kyle's mom is a bitch. Excuse me? Kyle's mom is a bitch. She's a big fat bitch. She's a big fat bitch.

Oh, yes, she is. She's a big bitch in the whole wide world. She's a bitch to all about boys and girls. That's an old school South Park hit. There you go. And it still rings true. All right. And this service...

Kyle's mom is a bitch. All right. You know what that means? It's time to, it's time to skip over. Well, what? You know what that actually means? Hold on. I don't know. I, of course, how could I miss that? You didn't hear it correctly. Well, now it's, it's all the more clear to me. It's crystal clear. Jim, we all know what that signifies. It is now time to tell everyone what Kyle Fletcher could have been doing.

Maybe the reason he looks so weird in the back was, without anyone knowing. he had his Raycon earbuds in his ear and he's listened to Radiohead. Well, I'll tell you what, if you don't want anybody to know, you know, some like Adam and Eve, they make a product that you can insert and you can operate it with remote controls and nobody knows that it's, but that's a completely different thing than the Raycon everyday wireless earbuds.

But they will still be in your ears and nobody will notice unless they come up and, well, kind of grab your head and turn it sideways to the light and stare into your ear. When people do that to me on the street, I usually take exception to it. Just last week, this woman came up, grabbed my head, turned my head to the side, and started staring in my ear. And I said, ma'am, why are you staring in my ear?

And she said, well, your asshole was covered. But nevertheless, that proves my point. So you see what I'm saying? That the everyday earbuds are easy to disguise so you can listen to what you want to listen to. Say your boss is telling you what to do. You don't need to hear that shit. Just do what you want to do, especially if you work for Tony Kahn.

Drown him out with the everyday wireless earbuds. Let's say oncoming traffic on the interstate, they're blaring their horns, they're making noise, and you're just riding your bicycle right down the right-hand lane in the slow lane. So you want to block out that oncoming traffic noise. RayCon Everyday Wireless earbuds. Folks, the 30-10.

two-hour battery life, some people may not have that much longer to live. This could be a boon to the rest of your life. Also, the quick-charging function, boom! As long as you don't touch it while it's quick-charging, because there's a lot of current going through that thing, it could kill most cattle. The ergonomic design to comfortably fit the widest range of ears, and let's say you're lobeless. These don't depend entirely on a lobe. You can get a special adjustment, kind of like

the extension on a seatbelt on an airplane, and it's got something to loop over the top of your ear and go back around to the other side if you don't have a lobe to help keep these things in place and immobile. And that's what the optimized gel tips,

you can put a little Elmer's glue on nose. They won't come out for anything. And of course, the regular feature. No, do not, let me stop you right there. Do not put any glue on these. That's a bad idea. Well, only if you're low-

No, no, there's no only. Don't use glue. The lobelous community is fully aware of exactly what they can do and what their tolerance to Elmer's glue is. We're not going to focus on the lobelous community. We're going to focus on the ear canal and the earbuds and the earbuds from Raycons. No glue needed. That's one of the great things about them.

If you're part of the lobelest community, you know, but if you're part of the overall canal community, you may be unaware of the limits of what you can put in your ear. But the everyday earbuds are definitely on the approved list. And they got the customizable sound styles, the active noise cancellation, you can just cancel that noise right. Boom! As a matter of fact, if somebody's talking to like your wife

or your significant other or a nagging neighbor or whatever, you hit that button, boom! They've lost their voice. completely, they can't utter a peep until you hit, it's like a Twilight Zone episode. It really is. You ought to see them trying to grip their throat and make the wide eyes as they

realize they can't make any noise. It's just a silent scream emanating from their tortured contorted faces as they almost have a heart attack and complete shock. Ladies and gentlemen, that's not how Ray Con will affect you. Think more of like the happy Twilight Zone

episodes like Casey, the robotic baseball player. And he could throw fastballs. And fastball was a band, and you can listen to lots of bands and lots of music with Racon. Oh, you brought it right back around. So don't worry about that active noise cancellation, folks. And remember if you want to check.

Remember that. Always remember that. If you've been wanting to check out. If you want to check out or check in, remember that. The roaches, they can check in, but they can't check out. but if you've been wanting to check out Raycons, there truly is no better time than right now, except for five minutes ago.

Five minutes ago would have been better. We wouldn't have to go through this. Their upgraded model will blow you away. Thankfully, they put away on a second line, but I was able to see that anyway, but really they upgraded if it would blow you. But nevertheless, you're going to ask yourself why. Oh, you didn't check them out sooner.

And Raycon offers a 30-day happiness guarantee. So what are you waiting for? You can't be truly happy until Raycon guarantees it. They guarantee your happiness in life. It may mean them coming and removing your wife or getting you a new house or another job or whatever, but they guarantee your happiness. They guarantee happiness with their earbuds.

Well, they guarantee happiness with the earbuds. Yes, they do. as soon as you put them in. Your earbuds will say, RACON guarantees your happiness. And it's kind of like auto suggestion. And then you'll be happy. Right now, go to Buy Raycon, B-U-Y, R-A-Y-C-O-N,

buy raycon.com slash jCE today and you're going to get 15% off your raycon order and free shipping. Not a penny will they charge you to bring these things to your location where well you have to have a legitimate address folks. They don't do street corner drop-offs anymore. That got a little dodgy after a while. They never did those. You mean it wasn't official Raycon people that were handing me those things? No wonder that other shit was in the box.

Anyway, you're going to get 15% off and free shipping at buyraycon.com slash jCE. All right, well, Jim, you know what that long noise means. The long episode of dynamite's not over yet. It continues. There was Jericho. And basically because Taz clapped and cheered for Jericho losing Lose. the match last week when Hook stole his finish the buccaroos, the lollipop

guild have told Chris Jericho that Taz is relieved of his announcing duties and he must leave the arena and security took his oath the only announcer we might want to listen to has been removed from the premises. It was a big exposure, I have to say, for the rest of the show just how inept these commentators are.

Excalibur is a piss poor communicator and a mark announcer and Tony Chavani is as useless as anyone has ever been on a microphone plus don't ever forget he is the voice of the failure of WCW in a lot of ways this was atrocious

these two on commentary together I'm hoping that Taz in the previous break said you know what my hemorrhoids are flaring up can you get me out of here because else there was no reason there was no reason where's Tony Tom well yeah he's

he's in the back. He just won't come out and show his face when something like this goes on. If you're Taz and you're removed from the building, do you say anything to Tony as you're being dragged past Gorilla? Good. Well, no, because you know that if you, if you do, he will fire you because he's feared for his life.

I didn't say lunge at him. I said, just say something. Well, it's the same thing. Well, one, I guess he did call that a lunch. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, if you get a finger point, pointed in your face with some vehemence while you're being told, you're a fucking idiot.

That's a lunge. We'll find out what happened. Taz had to go past Tony. Yeah. It's like the heels and the baby face authority figures act independent of each other for no reason. Chavani's still making, or Excalibur's making announcements on behalf of Tony Con.

Daniels is there on behalf of Tony Con. Jericho went to the Bucks and got to do something to change the broadcast. How? Why? It's almost like that, you know, things are chaotic and disorganized behind the scenes, much as some of the recent AW departees have commented. We'll mention that maybe in a little while, but, well, you know, go now to the segment, Tas gone. Yes, Joe Hook and Shepoopee beat Brian Cage, Bishop Kahn, and Tia Leone with triple sleepers.

and they've fixed it where I can't watch Samoa Joe now. And then Big Bill and Brian Keith hit the ring with chairs and stopped the baby faces, Joe and Hook and Shepoopee. But did you know, Brian King, Brian King, Brian Keith was wearing the sling on his arm that has allegedly been bad that took him out of the six-man tag match at Forbidden Door.

and he comes in with the sling trying to hit him with a chair from behind, but nobody was selling it because they couldn't feel it. And he was like hit one guy in the upper back thigh or whatever, like boom. And then he pulled the sling off and was using the arm fine. And so did they just take him out of the forbidden door to get another forbidden refugee from Guatemala, Jeff Cobb, in the match? I don't know. Good question.

Jeff Cobb is not from Guatemala, by the I think he's from California. I'm just saying he's from the forbidden door because he's from New Japan. He comes in just to do a job once a year, sort of like Roughhouse Fargo, but he didn't do no jobs. But anyway, Brian Keith used it,

pulls the sling off. They get sloppy heat on the baby faces. Jericho gets in and hits hook with a set of nucks and the fans chant, please retire. And then they slide a table in, it goes on forever. Nobody tries to help.

It's just by the wrote numbers. And then Big Bill puts hook through the table. Why did they have a big giant beat down about 30 minutes before they were going to end the goddamn program with a big giant beat down? That's just a thought I had.

I think people need to check out this match for Jericho on commentary. Unbearable isn't strong enough. I didn't hear it. I couldn't bear it. He's come up with something to make himself as insuffer. The gimmick is I'm as insufferable as imaginable. As if that's something people want to see more of.

People just want him to go away. He's fighting it. He's dragging other people down with him. But this is the single worst gimmick or thing he's done in his career. And he has done a world of stupid in just the last five years. this is the most counterproductive garbage nonsense. Talk about another guy talking fake on the show. Not good.

This was so bad. The commentary alone was awful. Well, another of our own... And the gardeners are here. They just got here, so they're going to be bothering me over here now. Now, this is a goddamn holiday weekend. How dare they? That's why they didn't come yesterday.

Well, how dare they garden on a holiday weekend when people are, or, well, you're not having any outdoor function. You're sitting here talking to us. No, but we do have some functions happening this weekend, but for the record, it is... Are you functional this weekend? It is hot. There's been rain. It's hot and sticky.

We need someone to take care of this grass before it gets hotter and stickier. Well, if it's, if it's rain, then it's wet and it's just going to clump up and they're going to make tracks. Yeah, they do that, these fucking lazy guys. I got to talk. Yeah, see, now our true feelings come out there. When you brought up the wet grass, you brought back a bad memory. Yep. See, and you know my mother used to make me eat wet grass when I was a kid. What?

Well, it was better than trying to eat that dry shit. Anyway, the next match was Jeff Jarrett versus our returning champion of the empty-headed dip shit category. Hang-nail Adam Page is back from whatever the family emergency was that he took three months off for that was recently described by, I believe, Uncle Dave, is nothing serious. What can, can I, if I've got a goddamn callous on my foot, can I go home for three months and commiserate with my family about it around here? In A.W, you can fly to Bulgaria, sure.

Well, anyway, this was the Owen Hart tournament. As we mentioned earlier in the program, Jeff Jarrett has, the only one with a connection Owen Hart, so he would be the sentimental favorite, even though he's been the biggest obnoxious heel with the big heel group of Sanjay and Jay Lethal

and the giant pinhead and the heat-seeking missile or self-care and Jarrett. And of course, Page, is the last we saw, a baby face that had had his children terrorized and et cetera. Well, I don't know

at that actually. When we last saw him, he was kind of more heelish and Swerve was the baby face. Well, that's only because the people were cheering for swerve because they liked him, whereas page is boring and dreary and nobody gave a shit. But he wasn't actually working like a heel or in a heel position.

Now he came out, and now he's pissed off and he's working like a heel, and he's kicking his shit out of Jeff Jared, and Jeff is selling like a baby face. Even though nothing has happened to go in this direction besides Jeff doing a promo about his friend Owen

and we hadn't seen Page in three months. And Paige is bashing Jeff's head into the fucking stairs over and over. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on? Because I was wondering, I watched this because I thought if anybody can get something entertaining out of Page, it's Jeff Jarrett. But I didn't realize they were going to completely do a goddamn double turn to get there.

But then when they came back from the break, there's Jeff fighting from underneath. The fans are cheering Jeff's punches on the one, two. And Paige bites Jeff's face. And Jeff gives Paige the stroke on the apron. The people cheer. And then Jeff makes a comeback with the only good-looking punches

on the whole show. It back and forth, blah, blah, blah. They did a good... Jeff foiled the dead eye and got the sharpshooter. The place went crazy. Page got the ropes and got booed. And then finally Paige hits the buckshot and another dead eye and what a one, two, three. So again, Jeff, he can get what is needed out of anybody in any amount of time or whatever and keep it moving.

But now we're going to find out here as we go to the back. I'll skip ahead one thing and come back to it because it didn't make any sense to put it there either on the show, but they go to the back with Paige and Renee, and he's still pissed off. And she's like,

was that level of aggression necessary? And the buccaroos come in, Maddie and Nikki, and they're hugging him and they're celebrating. And hey, you keep scratching our back and I'll scratch yours and blah, whatever. We need a fifth guy for blood and guts.

And apparently Page has, since he's been off, has been taking one of those correspondence courses from the Acme acting company because now he's got another demeanor. He snatched up Maddie.

And he's growling and he's snarling. I'm not your puppet anymore. I don't need any of your bullshit games. Snarl, snarl, snarl. growl growl and he shoved nicky and he walked off so what if where the fuck is this going now team AEW

but why is he working like a fucking heel against Jeff Jarrett who has nothing to this goddamn what well the other problem too is I heard like you did a lot of people complimenting the Jeff Jared interview package that was on social media and then a clip version on collision or whatever and there's a story there.

Maybe it should have played out in Calgary instead of here, where it would have meant more. You would have been able to generate more emotion. Instead, it's like everything with AEW. How many segments on Dynamite are spent promoting things on the shows with the smaller audiences that no one's going to watch? They did something on that show that no one's watching to promote something on this show,

and it's a natural story. It's like, you know, I hate the, it's not an exact thing, but Pilman Jr. When you had the chance and there was a story there to be exploited, for lack of a better term, they dropped the ball. Jeff Jarrett may have been more interesting in this because he seemed like a real person, not a wrestling character, than in anything else. And it's now over.

Now, you know, now I guess they'll go back to just being a wacky stable with a giant. I really don't know. But maybe this should have played out in Calgary for the Owen Hart finals as opposed to here. but then it wouldn't have been an all friend's final because all of the friends are figured in but what is the snarling and the growling and the

I'm not your puppet anymore but I was also mad at Jeff Jarrett Not everyone's an actor Not everyone can master having a character in wrestling and that's always been his biggest problem and how did they conquer that early on they made him a sad drunk and he was that for a few years

where he was unreliable or showing up with a drink to the ring and then he got past that conquered alcoholism I guess and then he just gets angry at times for no good reason other than seeing punk embarrassed him I really don't know

so no I don't think he's someone I think he's someone who has the right friends and someone who has a look at times and someone who could do stuff in the ring but he's got no ability to really come up with a good character or good promos or anything. It just always comes to... Remember, at one point, cowboy shit, for the fans chanting it, that was over.

And he got, let's do some cowboy shit. And then he came out wearing fucking skinny jeans with butterflies on him, like all cowboys do. But you see, there's the problem. What was cowboy shit? That was the whole joke. He didn't have any cowboy shit. Yeah, he's a guy from Virginia knows nothing about being a hangman or a cowboy. That's why he said, I'm going to do cowboy shit.

because he doesn't even know what it is. He knows less about it than I do. And I watch rodeo on CBS. Seriously? That's what it was. It wasn't like, I'm a cowboy. I do cowboy shit. It was, I have no idea what fucking cowboys do.

I do cowboy shit. I watched the riflemen, so I know more than both of you. But that's, and he started off with the blonde hair and he was kind of, you know, a tan matinee idol for the young ladies, if they had any in the crowd that weren't being brought there by the, their male counterparts. And now he's looking more like a 40-year-old. He looks like Silas Young. Remember him in Ring of Honor from Chicago?

His gimmick was the last real man. He was in his 40s with a lot of body hair at an unkempt fucking appearance. That's what this guy looks like now. Maybe, you know what, punk didn't only snatch his neck. He snatched his goddamn spirit and will to live. You can say that about,

You can say that about the whole company. And in the middle of those two things that we just talked about, I must go back here a second, because in the middle of Paige being a heel in the ring and Paige coming and yelling at everybody, they had gone to backstage with Hook and the trainer when there was like a 30-second segment out of nowhere. As soon as they go back to this shot,

instantly, Big Bill and Brian Keith burst in and jumped on hook. and started hammering him, and then Jericho threw a fireball in his face. And they went to break. That was a break spot for 30 seconds. He set the guy's face on fire. Let's make sure we get that in. Okay, boom, done. We're over.

Okay, can't grieve forever. Let's move on. If you're setting people on fire in backstage pre-tapes, don't you think you probably, you're burning through your repertoire a little too quick? Yep. Anyway, let's get to the main event so we can get past the main event.

And we knew something was going to happen. We didn't exactly know what, but the flavor of it, obviously, you could smell it from last week. And I was afraid with the people involved that regardless of how it happened, MJF might get some on him just because of the others. But I think he managed to avoid

getting any of the dreck on him necessarily in this instance. But the match is Garcia against Ostrich for the Intercontinental title that Ostrich gave him, but MJF as earlier said, kid, I want to be in your corner. And they set this up from the start of the show, I guess the question was, and we don't know yet, because they haven't got the, because of the holiday, the ratings are not out yet.

But would they hang on for two hours through the rest of this program to see what MJF was going to do? I think that's the cliffhanger that we're going to... Or would they leave and come back? And by the way, and I apologize for the helicopters behind me, but by the way, this was also the longest overrun, I believe they've ever had. It was a full 15 minutes. It seemed like it took a while, yes. But anyway, this... They had a match, and the match between Garcia and ostrich,

that may be the story for Tony's Uncle Ding, but everybody just wanted to see what MGF was going to do and, you know, how this was going to impact, because they're all nominally baby faces. Again, they love Will, he's just got there, they built up Garcia as an honorable young man, so no reason to dislike him, and MJF's the star of the show.

show. So it's again, they worked themselves in a situation where everybody's a baby face and what do you do? In this case, at least it worked out at the end. So they had a nice match. Garcia just needs a physique, a gimmick, a personality, some size, and age. Otherwise, Natty's got everything. And, you know, so they have the match.

and then by the time that it's halfway over with, you've got Will is getting heat on Garcia. And the fans are starting to cheer Garcia because they put him in the sympathetic underdog position. But now you've, I understand, if you were pushing somebody that was going to get over and be in the main event fucking echelon, that's what you would do.

and apparently they think that's going to be Garcia. The problem is what they're doing is they're burying the newest million dollar acquisition by having people cheer his opponent who they may put him in main events but he ain't going to sell the tickets to be there. It's not going to work right now. He's a darling of the indie crowd

which means you've left out everything that will make him a star and you're focusing on whether he can do the wrist lock. So the bland lump of clay kicked the shit out of the greatest wrestler in the world. But then the greatest wrestler in the world would recover instantly and kick the shit out of the bland lump of clay. So we had that going. And then did you like when Will was a flat out heel kicking Garcia in the face and then been over and offered the guy a free kick at his head?

head. Go ahead, just kick me once, mate. It won't hit. There's nothing here. And instead, you know, Will has been kicking Garcia in the head over and over. And then Will gives Garcia a chance to kick him in a head.

And what does he do? He gets up and humps his face. Do you remember when Valvena's humped Steve Austin's face, Brian, on Raw? I don't think that ever happened, no. No. So at that point, I skipped to the finish because I was tired of tolerating these children and their foolishness.

And so basically, Garcia gives ostrich a pile driver, it gets a two-count on it. And then as they're rolling up, MJF puts the diamond ring on the mat and tells Garthier, Garcia, get it. And Garcia picks it up and Will rolls him up from behind and they do about four or five different

roll-ups back and forth and then Garcia gives up, or gets it gives up, gets up and gives MJF the ring back. It's like he thinking about, no, I can't, they didn't need the four or five roll-ups, but they can't help themselves. All he need to do was pick the fucking ring up and be conflicted,

and that was what took his eye off the ball. But nevertheless, four or five roll-ups, he gets up, he gives him Jeff the ring back and he turns and eats an elbow one, two, three. And you see this constantly these days, but this was done better than most of the time where the, oh, I'm so, I'm so torn. Should I do something to this other guy?

Stab him with a screwdriver or give him the high colonic or whatever. So anyway, it was done well. And then Garcia was in the corner, and this is the one thing. Brian, did you see? Daniel Garcia is sitting in the corner of the ring, and he is crying tears. And Will is giving him a pep talk and then leaves, and Garcia is still. What kind of baby face cries when he loses a match? Cry when you win, right?

You got the title of it. But crying over losing a match. a match. He's a 25-year-old man. What the fuck was that about? Why would... I don't know. And it wasn't a world title match. It was a continental title or whatever this is. Well, it doesn't matter. You're a 25-year-old man and you're crying over losing a wrestling match and you're supposed to be a baby. That's a heel thing. A George Cry Baby Cannon made a living out of that. But a baby face crying? Kind of fucking simpering little pussy. are you? That's another reason why this guy ain't going to get over. Can you see Steve Austin crying?

Triple H just beat me with a sledgehammer. Boo-hoo. But anyway, we get to the meat of the matter. MJF picks him up and raises his hand and hugs him and tells him it's okay and then kicks him into balls. and then he puts the ring on and here comes Daddy Mac and jumps up and boom he nails Daddy Mac with the ring and nails Garcia with the ring and spits at the crowd and Garcia is bleeding and Daddy Mac is bleeding and here comes the security and he nails them with the fucking ring too and gets more heat on Garcia and at least we get somebody with some aggression and he's jumping all over the place

Kingin a shit out of people. And he's pissed off and he's mad. And he's had all he can stands and he can't stands no more. And then, I don't know if this was necessary, but he gives Garcia the Tombstone pile driver off the second turnbuckle. I guess it is because even the mascot won't sell one just in the ring anymore. And here comes Christopher Daniels and the rest of the agent. and the referees. Daniels has established his presence.

Tony Kahn has announced decisions earlier in the night through the announcers. But when the buckaroos want to run roughshod, they're in the bathroom. But so anyway, everybody's there. MJF pushes them away. Finally, Willie Boy comes out. And MJF says, come on, come on. And then Bails out and says, fuck all y'all, y'all, and goes through the crowd and attempts to inside general mayhem and some type of riot. And they get the EMT crew and the doctor and the

everybody and put Garcia on a backboard. The backbone goes on a, the backbone, I should say, goes on a backboard. So that ought to be a T-shirt, Brian, for MJF. I put the backbone on a backboard. But that way, it was, it had a lot more life and a lot more energy

and the people cared about it a lot more than most of the shit you see on the program because I think down deep even that they know MJF needs to be a heel. This other stuff wasn't working. It was just a placeholder

thing because he was the most popular guy in the company and it wasn't even close and he had nobody on his level to work with. Are you speaking on mute? No, I was waiting for the gardeners to disappear but they don't seem to want leave, but Jim, that means it's time for Brian's thoughts. This is what was needed.

It was cathartic in a way. Watch this. We need heal MJF. As soon as he hit him in the balls, it was like a breath of fresh air. That's the MJF we know and love. Yes. It went pretty far. My biggest issue is that this is all being done with Daniel Garcia.

Unless... Well, but I mean, it's, no, it's being done with Willie Boy. That's where they're good. It's being done with the idea, I think, of elevating Garcia, along with the idea of his building up MJF and Osprey. It's not for Garcia to disappear. It's for him to show back up on TV and eventually he's going to want to get MJF. I got the idea that Garcia was just the, the, the, the mcuffin, the tool, the

McGuffin, if you will, to give, because where did this come from out of nowhere, MJF challenging Garcia and in Ospre? coming in and upstaging MJF's challenge, it's MJF and it's Osprey. Garcia is just ancillary player in this whole evolving situation. Yeah, by the way, everyone thought he would probably win the world title because I didn't think they would do the match again at Wembley, but we'll see. Swerve won. No swerve.

We're swerve on the show, the world champion. Oh, well, you know, Tony has played with him a lot lately. He put him back in the chest so he can play with some of the new guys that, you know, that he's collected, that he hadn't got a chance to get a grip on as much lately. The one thing that could help AEW a lot right now is a great heel MJF run. So let's hope this is the beginning of that. There was a lot of promise at the end of AEW. We'll see how many people were still there.

Again, it was in the middle of a 15-minute overrun. It was the very end of the 15-minute overrun. But this is what is needed, MJF, returning back to who he should be. and speaking of who people should be, we should be talking about ratings, Jim. Yes, we should. But they're not in. So what we're going to do is travel through time

and we're going to go to a point in the future when the ratings are in. Is that okay with you? Oh, I thought I was waiting for the goddamn chorus to come in from the organ, from your pipe organ. No, I was asking for your opinion, your thoughts. I care about your opinions. Do you care about what I think?

Of course. Well, in that case, now fuck the ratings. Let's just move on with the show. All right. We'll be right back. With the ratings. With ratings and more. You know what that means.

It's early. It's getting later. We have traveled through later time and we are here. It's starting to take as long for the time travel as it would if we just did it in real time. Well, we need a new time machine. When the time machine gets a little older, it takes a little while to warm up and get the engines revving and the motors blasting and the engines. engines, rocketing and everything else. Get all the way up to, what do we have to get to 78 miles?

What was that? That milestone they had to get to and back to the future to get the Delorean off the... How fast was it? Boy, you know what? No, they can't drive 55. No, it was like 78 miles an hour or something of that exact nature. Well, now that's... I know it was 1.21 gigawatts.

I know that. would it be a reckless driving charge if they 19 or over over the speed limit all right this is going nowhere this is going nowhere like so much 88 miles per hour the delorion of the trouble we don't we don't recommend that to the kids out there getting their licenses

speaking of going nowhere and if we seem a little dazed here it's because we are it is early it is the next day and surprise surprise I have no sense sound working. Surprise, surprise, you know what that means. The ratings aren't in. The ratings are in, but the quarter hours aren't. Yeah, the meat of the matter is, you know, the overall is in, but the quarters aren't in. So we, we left a spot to come back and do something that we don't have much to do on, but in the interim, let's go ahead and talk about this. In the interim, we also found out

that Kevin Sullivan is in a hospital in Florida and has been for some time. Apparently the family was not broadcasting this news, but, and this is, of course, the wrestler Kevin Sullivan, not the production guy, Kevin Sullivan, sometimes there is a conflict, or not conflict, but confusion between the two.

He was in Florida for an autograph session, and we're still trying to check on exactly what more deeps. details are, but he was in a contract, uh, contract, autograph signing session in Florida back in mid-May and had an accident, had to have emergency surgery,

and has been, they saved his life apparently with what was going on, but he's had sepsis and he's had, what is encephalitis? I, you don't even need to answer that. It's, it doesn't sound good. It's some other type of infection. and apparently he's still in intensive care not able. He lives in the boondocks out in Washington State

and has not been able to travel home or even get out of the hospital and going on two months now. And even though he has insurance, his daughter Nicole has set up a go-fund me, which we're going to talk more about in a minute. But even though he has good insurance, he's been in intensive care or whatever

for almost two months plus surgery and who knows whatever other kind of treatment and obviously is not in a position where they want to get him home but he can't just walk down to the airport and buy a coach ticket to fucking sit in the back row

so that's I'm sure going to be an issue and you know so we just found out about this is why I'm mumbling here you know, last night. And, you know, I just, I hope that everybody realizes if you're listening to this show, Kevin Sullivan has had an impact on a lot of stuff you like.

Whether it's your favorite wrestling or your favorite wrestlers, so many guys he gave breaks to, he was involved in booking in various places for 30 fucking years. so many guys that he helped so many guys that he may have trained or worked with taught so you know if you can in a situation like this

you know this is not one of these bullshit deals where he oh gosh I need a tummy tuck so I can get back on television go fund me we'll go fuck you but this is serious and as I think about

it, all the things that he's done for me that he didn't have to do. I've known him for almost 45 years. And Brian, think about this. Not only is Kevin Sullivan a guy that I've never had a crossword with. He's never been mad at me. I've never been mad at him. We've never had an argument. I can't remember a difference of opinion that, I mean, you know, like,

Well, should he hit him with a chair or hit him with a board? Well, let's work the, but all in professional discussion and laughing probably most of the time as we were doing it. When he, when Flair put me on a booking committee in WCW, I had read a bunch of TV formats and seen thousands and played with my own but had never written one for public. consumption. So he was able to, I mean, obviously I could fucking write one down, but I didn't know what I was doing in terms of the order of things and the flow of things and how you deal with things. And here, that was a hot fucking angle. So leave a segment with a nice match where the announcers can react and they don't have to go in a different direction. You know, let something breathe, let something rest, follow up on something. That's a maintenance show. Here's a show to

kick the fucking promotion off for the next big event. And he didn't have to do that, but, you know, it was me, Rick and Kevin against the world at that point. So I get, you know, but at the same time, he taught me a bunch of shit that I used later on. And then in Smoky Mountain Wrestling, he didn't have to come to Knoxville and work for me, especially for the, his, the substandard wrestling. rate that I was given him that he probably wouldn't do stuff for other people for, but he got to come to Knoxville and see his son, Ben,

who once got duct taped to a railing by the Steiner brothers. Wait, what? Yes. Well, we're going to be talking about the Steiner's bio, but... Yeah. Ben was full of himself when he was about 12 or 13 years old, and he would come to the shows with Kevin sometimes. This was in WCW.

he did something and they duct taped him to the railing and then another time he threw water on me from like when I was producing something in the building it was in Little Rock Arkansas and he dumped a cup of he's like 11 years old he dumped a cup of water on me on my head and I said Kevin I'm going to spank that kid he said go ahead Connie so I chased him down and grabbed him and spanked him

and but anyway but he not only worked for me in Smoky Mountain, but he did promos from home and sent him to, you know, he would recreate scenes from the shining. He went to a lot of trouble. Nancy was his bartender one time. I said, you just saw her hands because I think she was under contracts. Whatever the fuck. But, you know, he did that wholeheartedly. He got me Jimmy Del Rey when I needed a heavenly body. And so he's done a lot for me over the year. which then helped the programs that I was able to produce, if you like those.

And like I said, some of the guys, the wrestlers that you might like folks out there, he's had a hand at almost everything and kept a lot of the Eddie Graham knowledge alive in terms of how to present wrestling. Because he worked there so closely and so long and was a big benefit to Dusty during his time in Crockett and working with Dusty in the NWA. So anyway, we're going to, have you talked to any of your Florida sources as far as any more details that we can release publicly? Because I'm just asking you this now in front of God and everybody here. Yeah, nothing else that we could say right now.

And like you said, we just are finding out about all this. And of course, Kevin has lived in different places. in the Pacific Northwest from Boston, Massachusetts originally, spent years in Florida, and apparently he was in Florida for an autograph signing of some sort when this happened, then we don't know what this is, but everyone's certainly hoping for the best. And someone who, like you said, he helped lots of people, what he did for you, he did for Paul E. Yeah. You know, he was going to ECW when, I don't know, you know, I don't know how much Todd Gordon was

paying guys, but Kevin was going up there and he was in the middle of things. And, you know, it's amazing to think he went from helping out the future minds of the business to then getting the gig back with WCW. And although it's not stuff I necessarily enjoy, I can get a perverse kick out of some of it, that dungeon of doom stuff, what he did was find a way to ease Hulk Hogan into trusting him and WCW. Yeah. Well, because Kevin was,

he knew that the business just wasn't about at that level and with those, that cast of characters, it wasn't just about doing the best angles and having the best finishes and getting the, it was placating and babysitting and navigating

all of the, as we've just seen from who killed WCW, all these people are out for themselves, as they say. And, you know, that was part of what he learned from Eddie Graham and from working so many territories is how to get around other people's

mental shortcomings to get something fucking done and a lot of that stuff wasn't his most stellar work but as we've seen one person can get you know get caught up

in the big corporate promotions but when you look at what he did as a talent individually and as a Booker, when he was actually in charge of things. You know, and was always working with a bunch of different international offices. I mean, he and Mark Lewin used to go to fucking Singapore, you know, like people go to Poughkeepsie. That's a lie. Nobody goes to Poughkeepsie.

And when I was in Smoky Mountain, remember, he was working with Victor Cunone is not only of Puerto Rico, but also the Japanese group that he was, Kevin is why I had Miguel Perez before anybody, junior, before anybody had heard of him in this country on Smoky Mountain Wrestling. Bill DeMott, Hugh Morris, crashed the Terminator he was then. Wing, Canamore.

Your Ukiro Canamore. Well, yeah, don't blame either one of us on that one. He's a good kid. Taz. Yeah. Taz maniac that came that week because, you know, Kevin recommended, well, I need another, you know, heel for that week of big shows that we were running,

blah, blah, blah. there's a great example, and I don't know how many people really talk about this, but Taz was just this guy on the Northeast Indies. If you watched IWCCW TV on Sports Channel, he was one of the guys in the dark gym wrestling Tommy Dreamer, or Ray Odyssey. Those matches are actually pretty good. Him and Surfer Ray Odyssey were pretty good for its time,

but he wasn't really going anywhere. It was just that guy. Next thing you know, he was attached to Kevin Sullivan. Not just there, but in ECW and other places. You know, it's like Kevin found guys, and look, how many guys got along with Dusty Roads, Jim Cornett, Paul Heyman, and the Sheik. He was also the liaison to a notoriously difficult leading career at Farhad. Kevin's the one that gave me Sheik's number, the only time I ever talked to Sheik on the phone. Because when I did the promo for the Great American Bash, he was at the Cobo in Detroit,

but he wasn't going to come to Charlotte to do promo. That way he didn't do promos. and so I kind of did it for him as the heel manager and Kevin the next week with that, Jimmy, Sheik loved it. He wants you to call him. I mean, you want me to call him?

I was scared to call him on the phone, right? I was still a mark there. And he said, yeah, just don't ask for Ed, ask for Sheik, or he'll hang up on you. I love that. That was a shoot. Kevin was so popular at one point from his run in Knoxville that he had a TV show there. When Fuller didn't. when they were out of the early 80s

or what I can't remember the exact time frame but one of the TV stations ran one of the tapes that kept because he was involved at Polynesian Pro and he was involved like you said the Northeast ICWT and they would he would just put together wraparounds

where it was him and you know doing things and pitching to things and doing promos and pitching to matches taped from other places and they ran it Hey, what's the last memorable thing anyone who grew up with Roy Shire Wrestling, San Francisco Wrestling, talks about? Kevin Sullivan and Bob Rup. That's right. It's the last big angle they had.

So, and I think this may be an opportunity now for some of the real fans to show Kevin what he meant to him because he's also had to go through so much horse shit over the last however many years. because of what Chris Benoit did that he didn't have anything to do with but people maybe it's a compliment and disguise that people believed his fucking gimmick well you know Solomon he's Satanistic but maybe now we can show him that no real

human people don't believe that ridiculous horse shit and we know we appreciate what you've done and we had him on a show what would that's been it was a few years ago three years ago now it was when dark side did the episode because he wasn't included

yeah well and and and I encourage everybody I'm not trying to make a commercial out of this but we've got it on the YouTube channel don't we it's there somewhere oh it's certainly there yeah well then listen to the real story

and the real reason why he wasn't on Darkside and the misrepresentations that other people gave and, you know, we try to set to record straight as much as we could. You know, he was just in the documentary Who Killed WCW that the guys from Darkside and Dwayne Johnson and his very, very muscular wife produced. And that's who killed WCW. You know, the question has to be also who built WCW. And Kevin's a key figure that doesn't get talked about enough. Again, he was the Booker. Everyone focuses on, oh, Eric Bischoff was doing this

and Eric Bischoff was doing that. Kevin was doing the TV. Kevin was the booker. So I think Kevin deserves more credit than he gets. He was just a talking head in that who killed WCW. And in a way, that's good because he doesn't really bear responsibility for killing WCW. But when you talk about who built WCW to its peak, he's one of the guys in the conversation. Well, if you want to go back even further because we talked about the two deaths of WCW, the period of time where, and I've said this before, this is not telling tales out of school. When Flair was the Booker, he was deciding the big picture,

who worked with each other in the programs on top, his shit, which was most important as world champion. And then Kevin was, you know, next in command, and I was doing the paperwork. And really, if Kevin put together most of those show, point being for that six-month period, that was the only, that was the highest point that the ratings, the houses, and the paper views achieved

during the first, as we've talked to be, seven or eight years of the TBS ownership era. and it wasn't good it was better than it had been since they bought the thing and it would it would be better than anything they did until 19, that was 1990, until

1990 fucking five or six, right? Kevin was in the middle of the periods of time when WCW was actually a fun product to watch. Yeah. Pushing interesting people. Again, you guys gave Cactus Jack's break. You know, that's a guy that most companies, most bookers probably would not give a break to.

at that time. You guys did? And that was the thing, because I've mentioned that, you know, Flair didn't, at the time, and for a while afterward,

and there was, you know, ill feelings between them over. It's see anything in Mick Foley, Cactus Jack or any other name. He just, he didn't see it. But we did,

and I'd, like I said, I'd seen the Memphis tapes, and I'd do the elbow, and Kevin loved the idea. And he just, Coney, let's do it. Let's just,

you know, not like Flair was going to get mad because we had the job guy do a fucking elbow afterwards. And then once Rick saw he, okay, keep doing that. But Kevin was the one to say, okay,

you know, let's do this with this and that and the other thing and see what happens. So anyway. You know, we'll talk about one more thing until something else pops up. We're about to review on the next show, the Steiner Brothers biography. You know,

a key figure in making Rick Steiner was Kevin Sullivan. was Kevin Sullivan. Because we're at the varsity club, I don't know what Rick Steiner's career trajectory would have been 88, 89. The varsity club kind of set him in place for the future. Kevin always worked great when he was the head of a small group of odd people,

whether it be, you know, weird monster types like Abdullah the Butcher or whatever, or it'd be Mike Rotunda and Rundra, Rick Steiner had nothing in common, but Rotunda's oddness was that he was the only normal-looking person in the fucking group, right? And Steiner's oddness was that he was a heel, but he also had that goofy personality. And, you know, Kevin could encourage that drawing from killer Carl Cox. Remember Alex? I remember 89 Alex, and I remember hearing about Carl Cox's Alex. Well, yes, that's the killer Carl Cox

had the fans convinced that he was nuts, that he was mentally incompetent in some way, and he'd carry a duck to the ring or a goose or whatever it was. One time, or he'd do this, and he had an invisible friend that he talked to named Alex. And for those of you modern fans who are thinking, well, Cornad gets on the goddamn, no, this, nobody else believed the invisible friend was there.

Nobody else talked to him. they didn't and he made it seem legitimate and so kevin zeer had an invisible friend but he started doing the senior wince's thing and drawing it on his fucking drawn his mouth on his hand and he would well you remember senior wins that's what makes it funny the idea of rick steiner talking to his hand like that yes it's all right sara and he would talk to and it's you know Kevin could draw from thursday 30 years of experience of knowing what every nutcase in wrestling had done. And so that worked with Rick.

He would help develop people by just giving them shit to do, that fit them, and they would do it, and the fans would react to it. So right? Well, again, it'll hopefully be all right. Kevin Sullivan, you know, Kevin's talked about his early days. He was very, very sick. I don't think they gave him much of a chance. And it was weight training and it was.

bodybuilding, it was the things that got him healthy, that saved his life. So it's a guy with a history of kicking out, and let's hope he does it once again. Again, go to GoFundMe, just search for Kevin Sullivan or just Google, GoFundMe, Kevin Sullivan. It'll pop right up. And we will try to keep people apprised on if we find out anymore and what progress is happening and or, you know, they've already hit their goal because they didn't ask for a lot of money. I'm I thought for a situation like this, but it doesn't mean we can't exceed that. So if everybody can check it out, we'd appreciate it. Well, Jim, before we get out of here, let's get one topic because a lot of the listeners have been sending us in.

We kind of referenced it a little briefly earlier. I have an article here with some quotes. Ethan Page says AEW was so chaotic and unorganized compared to WWE's NXT. And here's the exact quote from the Gallows and Anderson podcast. Apparently they're in the game. Pretty crazy. I went from somewhere that was so chaotic and unorganized to a place that, I mean, I'm still learning because I'm so new here,

but it's just like this is a machine and it's incredible. It feels good to not feel like I have to do everything myself or like to have people that want to. to see me succeed is kind of mind-blowing. There's another quote, but I'll start with that. What do you think of that? Well, again, it's not surprising. And for those of us who follow these type of things,

it's kind of what we knew already. But, you know, you say, more and more people saying it that have actually been in that environment and then go somewhere else. Oh, this is what's supposed to be happening? that's you know honestly that's what I was saying all along is that you can take new talent

that has never been out of the Indies and bring them up if they are coachable and if they are open enough to be trained in a proper way for a wider audience or whatever but you can't take people out of the Indies and make them management immediately of a national company because there's a massive goddamn leap that they're not, they don't have the spring in their legs for.

Let me finish. And that's what's happened. Go ahead. A little more from Ethan Page here. It was definitely time to leave. My thought was, I could sit in catering for the next three years and my career would end. Or I try and do something before my career ends. And here we are.

Now, Ethan Page is someone I always told you I saw something in. There was potential. I thought he was an okay promo. And he was saddled with nonsense. he never took him seriously I mean he started and a tag team with Scorpio Sky managed by Dan Lambert

I've forgotten about those glorious days yeah that was awful and it was downhill from there but someone who I was honestly I was mad at him because before he I guess he came from TNA to go there and he did a match against himself on green screen and I was like oh here's another one of these goddamn jolly jokers but if he's grasped enough that maybe he realizes what's going on,

you know, we can see what the future holds for him. Do you think we're going to start seeing wrestlers treat AEW, like, you know, for a few years you're showcasing yourself for WWE, for NXT or for WWE, whatever it may be? Well, but, see, here's the thing. What kind of showcase? You know, the WWE officials are going to drive by. a big muddy pit and see a guy wallering around in the fucking muck.

Oh, maybe you ought to hire him. That's the... You don't know. You don't know what kind of a showcase it is. His showcase was in catering, apparently, Ethan Pages. So, because it has worked three or four or five times now where they'll take somebody from AEW

and bring them to the WW and they'll be exponentially bigger and more impressive or whatever, that's only out of the how many different wrestlers has Tony featured or hired or paid or used on his cards

since AEW started hundreds and there's been like five so a lot more people either look like shit on a program or you don't see them that much for them to be able to show anybody anything and it's interesting too

NXT you had that scene where Cody Rhodes a few weeks ago with Pilman Jr. as Lexus King and Sean Spears is there now? Oh, I forgot about it. Well, okay, now maybe there's been between seven and eight. But we haven't really seen much out of Spears yet. I don't know if you count Gallows and Anderson, they kind of went back and forth. I forgot they were even in AEW. That was just at a period of time where they were at loose ends, as they used to say.

But Ethan Page, I guess we'll see how this works at in NXT. It seems like it's working out pretty good so far. And he seems happy, but... But yet, to button up the question that you asked with a responsible answer, it's a gamble because, yes, if they use you well and or you can just show what you can do and become interesting on your own on the program, then WW may be interested in you, but you also could be doing jobs for the mascot, you know, our little puppy pockets, or hidden in catering, or, you know, show up every three months to do something.

something stupid with some other fucking clown, and that might diminish what you look like to them in their eyes if that's the only way they see you. All right. Well, that's how you're going to see us this week, because we have no ratings, and we have a lot to do and a lot to go over. So questions, I think, return next week with all so much more. You just keep teasing us. You just keep teasing us.

Well, we keep running long. That was a long... Well, and we're going to return in about less than 48 hours with ratings and Smackdown and the money in the bank situation and so much more on the experience. Of course, that signifies it's the end of the show. Everybody knows that. Let me wrap things up. All right, a pleasant ending to a quick outro.

As Mama Cornett used to say, you couldn't carry a tune in a bushel basket. She didn't say that. She did say that. I need evidence. I don't believe you anymore. Not about you, but just about other people. Oh, as long as she hasn't defamed me, that's okay. She didn't know who the fuck you were.

Well, hear who we're going to defame this week on the experience, wherever you find your favorite podcast and next week back here in the drive-through. Cornett's collectibles at Jim Cornett.com. Go there, of course, the official Jim Cornett YouTube channel and patreon.com slash cornet. $5 a month get you access to the archive. He's on Twitter at the Jim Cornett. I'm on Twitter at Great Brian Last.

Listen to the wrestling news and the 605 Super Podcasts. The mothership! The drive-thru is brought to by the Law Office of Stephen P. New. 877-50, Steve. What do you say about that, Jim? I'd have to say, call that number and talk to that man and get him to get you some money for some different ways that you have been wronged or mistreated in the past.

That's right, get even with Stevennewlawoffice.com. But until the experience in a few days and next week back here on the drive, through for Jim Cornett. I'm the great Brian last. Tallyho!