Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru - Episode 362

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

This week on the Drive Thru, Jim reviews NXT's CW debut & AEW Dynamite! Plus Jim talks about AEW's new media rights deal, Vince McMahon & Dusty Rhodes, Bronson Reed vs. Braun Strowman, ratings... and much more!  Send in your question for the Drive-Thru to: CornyDriveThru@gmail.com  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.

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello again, friends! And you are our friends. The gardeners are buzzing like flies in my head, but we are back with another edition of Jim Cornett's drive-through, a look at wrestling old and new, fun talk with me, your host, the great Brian last, and this man, the leader of the cult of Cornett, Mr. Jim Cornett.
Starting point is 00:00:21 Oh, the gardeners, oh, the pain, the pain. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd just like to tell you that I apologize if I'm off my game today. But you see, the great Brian last over there has me so perplexed. I don't know whether to wind my ass or scratch my watch. He's hearing gardeners over in his neighborhood. He's asking me, what noise are you making whenever I look, move my notepad? He said, you're swallowing too close to the mic.
Starting point is 00:00:52 I'm leaning so far back away from the microphone. I can't see my computer screen or my notes on my desk. and the thunderous sounds in his head have gotten me so bum-fuzzled and perplexed and gobsmacked that I don't know what to do. I'm afraid to swallow. I'm afraid to breathe. Did you just hear my back crack? You're allowed to breathe. Did my back just crack too loud for you?
Starting point is 00:01:21 No, but your liver quivered a bit too loud. Well, at least you didn't hear my spleen turn green. Ladies and gentlemen, right now, take a break in the show. and go listen to any other podcast, anything at all. And then you can come back and say thank you. Well, I know everything else sounds like Neil Armstrong, long distance calling from the moon. I understand that, but goddamn, we've got to have normal fucking noises going on. The other day you were cutting my air conditioning.
Starting point is 00:01:51 Well, normal fucking noises around here like the air conditioning running in the summertime. It's bad enough. if I had to turn my heat off into wintertime for you. Anyway, we got a jam-packed here. I'm going to put my pad down and we got a jam-packed episode of the program today. Do we not? We've got, we're going to have fun, fun, fun, till Daddy takes the T-Bird away.
Starting point is 00:02:21 And by the way, the T-Bird is the only thing that's not on sale right now at Jimcornet.com. Let me just get that out for everybody. The holiday sale has begun. The final. Jim Cornett action figure variant is on sale now. You can get all the details, pictures, everything at Jimcornet.com, and don't forget the thank you, fuck you buy t-shirts are back on sale.
Starting point is 00:02:45 After the last couple of years, we've had a moratorium just because we had so much shit. But now we've got less shit, so we got more shit. And you can get the just in time for the election. So we can say goodbye to the orange menace once and for all. won't he won't be running anymore except if he escapes bondage in the courtroom at the sentencing. But nevertheless, and also, if you buy a Jim Cornett action figure, the final variant, or I'm sorry, I'll say this the other way around. If you buy any of the Midnight Express or Heavenly Body's tag team sets, you will get the
Starting point is 00:03:23 Jim Cornett action figure at half price. How much more can we give to people for Christmas, Brian? I don't know. I will say we have recently, I don't know what's caused it, received a bunch of feedback from people begging you to bring back the burger towel. You know, the problem with the burger towel was they discontinued the original type of towel that we were getting and we got another type of towel and it wouldn't hold the ink as well. And for people who were just buying it as a souvenir, that was fine. It was very lovely and attractive. for people who were actually buying it as a functional burger towel, I didn't want to give them something that was going to self-destruct very quickly. We might revisit that.
Starting point is 00:04:11 Yeah, I mean, I think if you label it, it's a self-destruct version of the burger towel. People won't feel like they're being misled. Well, I don't know if we should call it that, because then they'll think that if they put it on their lap once, it'll fucking burn up into flames like, you know, Peter Graves' fucking cassette tape. So display version of burger towel and workable version? For display only.
Starting point is 00:04:34 That might be something. That's right. Not a towel to be used as a towel, 18 plus. Not a towel, a collectible. What do you mean 18 plus? Well, that's what all the toys say now. So they don't have little kids playing with these things. It says 18 plus, not a toy, a collectible.
Starting point is 00:04:50 But it's a toy. But it's a toy. My grandfather would have called it a doll. Well, that's what we called it when Vince first told us about him in 1986. As a matter of fact, I think that what, did he, had he mentioned, had he coined the term action figure? Did he coin the term action? No. Coined the term action figure.
Starting point is 00:05:09 I would have to go back and check, but in the early 80s, before Vince hit the market, that's when He-Man, Star Wars was the late 70s. Star Wars, He-Man, G.I. Joe hitting, what, 82, 83? So all of a sudden you had, and this is everything missing today from things that kids can get, you had this entire section of action figures for boys. and some girls, I guess, but it was perfect for kids growing up in the 80s. However, when I was playing, one of my grandfather would say, you know, Brian's with his dolls. They're not dolls. And I would tell him they're not dolls, but he insisted.
Starting point is 00:05:42 And Brian's with his dolls, and it took him two hours to blow him up. If you could see how many dolls I had now. I think Vince was still saying dolls back then. I don't know. It's been 40 years. You know, I'm getting older now. shorter of breath and one day closer to death every year is getting longer
Starting point is 00:06:03 never seemed to find the time I'm sorry go ahead This is happy talk Yeah before we get going Because we have a lot of wrestling to discuss The first episode of NXT on national TV Dynamite, the AEW Rights renewal A bunch of things, maybe some questions It's a lot of stuff today
Starting point is 00:06:20 I wanted to ask you a question I've had Since we watched Mr. McMahon So in the documentary, Vince McMahon says something that we've presumed, he said it to Brian Solomon 20-something years ago, that Dusty Rhodes was the first pick, the first choice to be the face of WWF on the national stage. Yes. We don't know exactly when in 1983 that happened. I mean, Dusty did work the garden in 83, but we don't know if that's when it happened. Towards the end of 83 is when Vince approached Harley Race
Starting point is 00:06:53 tried to get him as NWA champion to no-show Starcade to drop the belt to whoever the WWF champion would have been at that moment. Didn't work out. But Dusty turned him down. Vince said, and you have to think that he believes it because he said it like this,
Starting point is 00:07:16 Dusty turned him down because he didn't believe in it. he didn't believe in Vince, he didn't believe in the vision, he didn't believe in going national, going against the NWA, whatever it was, the way Vince says it and believes it, is Dusty didn't believe in it. Yeah. So much has been made over the years about the Pocodots and how it was a shot at Dusty because he was the Booker for Jim Crockett promotions,
Starting point is 00:07:38 the only national company to go head to head with Vince to the very end, the prime competitor, whatever it may be. looking back now, everything from Ted DiBiase's servant being Virgil, Dusty Rhodes' real name, obviously, to even Akeem. They made the one-man game the African dream, not the American dream, the African dream. Even things like in NWA, there were the superpowers. In WWF, there were the mega powers. But of course, the polka dots, looking back now and knowing what we know, do you think the polka dots were a rib on Dusty because of his role in Crockett promotions?
Starting point is 00:08:18 Or was it because he had the opportunity? Vince gave him an opportunity and he said, I don't believe in it. Oh, and Dusty's words were not under any circumstances to Vince, I don't think, I don't believe in it. No, that's the way Vince heard it.
Starting point is 00:08:38 That's the way Vince's impression. Right. And see, a lot of these things can begin, and you've raised a very good point. and it probably, you know, because it was so much he didn't ever take that much time to do that many different little fucking ribbish things
Starting point is 00:08:58 to anybody else that came from the other company, right? But Dusty. But at the same time, he still later on gave him a job in NXT or FCW, what became NXT, training guys. And, you know, he had respect for him.
Starting point is 00:09:17 I think, personally, because you know you've seen the examples of a lot of these guys' memories of that time that did this stuff for 40 years and never got away from it, and they remember things happening, but the chronology or the timeline or whatever is sometimes skewed. and I'm thinking that Vince McMahon, Jr., when he had the plans and when he was first starting to formulate, it's not like he bought the company from his dad in 82 and then had the idea, well, here's what I'm going to do with it, right? Can we agree on that?
Starting point is 00:09:57 He had these ideas of what he wanted to do first. He was sitting in Cape Cod promoting concerts thinking about what he wanted to do to wrestling. And so when he saw Dusty, and remember he also it said unlike his father he would have never taken to belt well not never but he wouldn't have taken a belt off superstar Billy Graham when his father did he said that well after the fact of course yes well but you know he wouldn't have because the first thing he did practically was fucking find a way to get rid of Bob Backlin so but at the same time Billy, by that point, age and things
Starting point is 00:10:38 and mental were catching up, right? So what I'm saying is, I bet you, and then you can respond with whatever you're going to say, but let me at least make some of this make sense. I'm thinking Vince had the idea for Dusty, you know, sometime earlier on when he saw the flamboyance in the garden, when they did the matches with Billy Graham, when Dusty was working up and down,
Starting point is 00:11:04 going back and forth from Florida because of the father's relationship with Eddie Graham. But then I think he probably, at some point, maybe going into 83, had made some kind of pitch to Dusty and not told him everything he was going to do because then Dusty would have warned some people before, you know, he would have. but I think he probably wanted to make Dusty a big offer to come in and was thinking that
Starting point is 00:11:38 it would evolve into that but at the same time Dusty was trying he couldn't he couldn't be the booker for Vince because Vince was you know that Vince had bookers in those days but Vince was still calling shots
Starting point is 00:11:53 so I think Dusty haven't worked so much in Georgia so much in Florida for Eddie Graham getting an opportunity, seeing something going on in the Carolinas, I think he saw that he could be the movie producer baby down there where he'd always be underneath somebody else's thumb with Vince. Does that sound fair? It does, and if you go back and watch, it doesn't, it doesn't. If you go back and watch any of the 77-78 Billy Graham Dusty Rose matches at the garden. Everyone always talks about how smitten Vince was internally with the look of Billy Graham,
Starting point is 00:12:33 but he also was for Dusty. Look at the glee on Vince's face. Yeah. When Dusty's cutting those promos in front of the garden crowd with him. Because he wasn't in love with Dusty's look, but his personality was so big he was in love with the personality. That he wanted the entertainer. That's what Vince wanted. See, the question comes down to 83. Vince buys the company in June of 82, takes over completely by June of 83. I'm looking at my book right here, Wrestling in the Garden by Scott Teal and Jay Michael Kenyon. We talked about it a long time ago on the show.
Starting point is 00:13:07 Trying to see when Dusty was in the garden. Dusty was there, because I know he was there in 83. While you're looking for that, I'll make the point that... May, May 23, 83, Dusty Roads beat Samoan number three, nine minutes and ten seconds. Let me see And see, remember at the time
Starting point is 00:13:29 Hoke was Dusty was already developed He was a star Hulk was developing He had been a heel For Vince Sr. Obviously But at that point
Starting point is 00:13:41 Remember Hoke's promos were not What they would become A couple years later And when he started Really developing in Japan And the AWA
Starting point is 00:13:52 That's when he started getting on a, I'm sure on Vince's radar as somebody to take seriously. And then it could be that, you know, then Vince had a choice. Do I want the entertainer and try to make him get in shape? Or do I want the fucking giant muscle guy and try to make him more entertaining? You see, the thing that's interesting too, he's there in May of 83, June of 83 is when Vince has full control.
Starting point is 00:14:18 And Vince is, you have to think at that point, Vince is already thinking, how do I get the belt off backlands? I can't put it on Snook. There's no way. Yeah. And Dusty could have been there because if Vince didn't take full control, Vince Sr. was still working with Eddie Graham. Right.
Starting point is 00:14:33 Eddie Graham was the last outside promoter, outside of Japan, I should say, but outside American promoter to book someone on a garden show. He got J.J. Dillon on a show in the spring of 84 against Tito Santana. That's the last non-WF wrestler other than Japanese wrestlers to appear on a garden show in forever. Yep. And you have to think if, well, and I'm sorry, but just if Eddie Graham wouldn't live another full year, if he had, there would have been something going on early on with Florida and the WWF. But again, Eddie Graham and Dusty Rhodes, we know the relationship wasn't as strong in 83 and 84 as it had been 10 years earlier or nine years earlier, whatever it may be.
Starting point is 00:15:17 but if Dusty, it always appeared to me in 83 he was looking at his options. Of course he books Starcade. It's not even on the show. He booked Starcade for Jim Crockett, building a relationship with Jim Crockett. He's booking Florida for Eddie Graham. Whatever was happening in Florida, he was there to see it. He shows up in Mid-South in 83 at the end, saying that Mid-South Wrestling is going to be booking him.
Starting point is 00:15:47 and then he's not really there ever again. But obviously him and Bill Watts had a long relationship. George is falling apart at that point under Oli Anderson without Jim Barnett. It's interesting that Vince would offer this to Dusty. If he offered it that early and Dusty said no, because also when was it that Vince sent Steve Taylor, the photographer, to an AWA show to contact Hogan? That was right after this.
Starting point is 00:16:17 Yeah, and backing up to Dusty and Mid-South, at that point, Dusty wasn't, I don't think, ever going to go to Mid-South as a roster regular and make Homa. But for Houston, for the Superdome, for, I'm sure he had in mind, Oklahoma City and Tulsa, I don't remember if he ever made those towns. But even in, Eddie Graham, a lot of times, it would tell like Kevin Sullivan, I got to get Dusty out every once in a while so I can get somebody, else over. Right?
Starting point is 00:16:49 So he'd book him to New York because it made Dusty a bigger star, but it also, for a few days, somebody else could be on top down there, right? And Paul Bosch would love to have Dusty in Houston. And he did make Superdome shows going back to the early Superdome shows because he was a big star. Him and I was going to tag tournament at the Superdome. I think what Dusty was trying to do was set himself up where he was. the Booker and the Star in a certain territory, but was of the traveling, you know, Andre the Giant or in the day Ernie Ladd or Top Star category where he could go and make the biggest
Starting point is 00:17:32 towns in the other territories where if he was just booking and working in Florida on top, but making the Superdome's and making big shows in the Carolinas or Madison Square Garden or whatever, you're talking about in those days being able to make better than a quarter of a million a year, and that's today almost a million. So that's what he was at the very least trying to do, but booking the biggest company was his goal, which is why he was, I think, went to the Carolinas. And then that was, at first he would still make, like in 84, he was still coming to Mid-South. That's when we worked with him in the Dome.
Starting point is 00:18:15 He was still making some other shots in major territories not affiliated with vents, but he was so busy in the Carolinas that he had to cut back on that because he's making a fortune over there after setting it up at 84. By 85 on, I told you, in March of 86, when the midnight and I made one week like 4,500 bucks a piece, because it was our first run with the Rock and Roll Express, and there was some big towns, I saw Flares check and he was in every town with us and his was 13 grand for that week so
Starting point is 00:18:54 he was working with Dusty so that means Dusty got same money plus he was getting paid as Booker so what's I don't have any idea of $15,000 $20,000 a fucking week equal to in today's money
Starting point is 00:19:10 as they say a lot of fucking money so again going back to the question. Vince knew him. It wasn't like he was the booker for a competitor and Vince had never met him. They knew each other. They got along in the past. Vince brings him in and puts the polka dots on him. Now you have to think if Dusty Rhodes had taken Vince's offer in 1983, 84, there would have been no polka dots. There was no need for the polka dots in 89, either. But he did it. Do you think it was because of Dusty's role with Jim Crockett promotions?
Starting point is 00:19:42 or do you think Vince has a bug up his ass in some kind of way, even if it's not something where he hates the person because Dusty turned down. Vern Gagne turned down Vince and laughed at him and Vince destroyed the AWA. Yeah. Dusty Rhodes turned down Vince and it doesn't sound like he laughed at him. No, Dusty would have done that.
Starting point is 00:20:05 Again, I'm sure that Vince didn't tell him Dusty, I'm going to take over every territory and run national because then Dusty would have told somebody when the, you know, were as, well, that's what Vince told me he was going to do. And he never went on record as saying that that Vince told him beforehand, because then everybody also would be like,
Starting point is 00:20:24 what didn't you tell us? But I think that probably, yeah, Vince has a bug, had a bug up his ass. And by the time 1989 came, you know, not only was it, as we've talked about Dusty was older and bigger and slower and he needed the
Starting point is 00:20:45 history of being the American dream from the day to really get over fully with an audience but besides that Vince had established the Hulk Hogan model and then the bodybuilders and then
Starting point is 00:21:02 there was no bringing even Dusty in and not doing something to make it, you know, kind of hokey because of, you know, that's the pattern that Vincent said for the previous five, six years. Here's who we push. And oh, here's the fat guy. I mean, Sapphire, that was a, that was a rib too. Everything. Everything was a rib on him, even if it worked. And I'm not knocking poor Juanita. I'm saying it was, you know, the, the pairing was a bit of a rib.
Starting point is 00:21:35 When did you first meet her, Sapphire, Juanita Wright? Um, I, she had to, be at one or more of the WFIA conventions, didn't she? So, because I know, I had never been to, right? Yes, she lived in St. Louis. I had never been to St. Louis, but until we went to, for Crockett in, or actually, I'm sorry, we were booked out of Dallas and went for the bulldog Bob Brown and the gang in 85, but I know she was at least at one of the WFIA conventions, the fan convention. So 78, 79, 80, somewhere around there.
Starting point is 00:22:15 And, you know, no, she's a wonderful person, but they just completely gimmicked dusty up to within almost unrecognizability of himself, of drastic change, and then let him keep his name. But here he is. But there's the thing. Vince McMahon always says everything's about what's best for business. And that really means what's best for his business, but it doesn't always appear that that's the fact. Dusty Rhodes came in doing really stupid vignettes, but you get past that
Starting point is 00:22:45 wearing a tie-died shirt and no polka dots and started getting a reaction and then all of a sudden they put the polka dots all over him. It was unnecessary. It didn't help him get over. It doesn't lend any... There's no argument that says the polka dots lent something to Dusty that would help him get over. It was just something applied to him because they wanted to embarrass him.
Starting point is 00:23:10 I mean, that's really the only... Well, and now, see, I wasn't there then. So was it Vince's idea, or was it one of his brain trust at the time that may have been like, ah, dusty, who knows? But they, you know, sold Vince on it because you could... Well, Vince, he, you know, he's old and he's big and he needs to be entertaining or whatever. But polka dots. Again, no one gets over with polka dots,
Starting point is 00:23:43 but he did as well as you could with it. But again, knowing what we know now, and you brought up Sapphire, I forgot about that. Everything they did to Dusty. And Sapphire had Pocafair had Pocauts. Everything, that's right, she did. She had like a polkaidot outfit that he wore polka, they were matching outfits.
Starting point is 00:23:58 No, she, he wore, he wore, he wore, he wore, wasn't it, he wore yellow with black polka dots, and she wore black with yellow polka dots or some other way, but I don't. Oh, no, they went out there at times wearing the exact same, you know, color scheme, polka dot scheme, whatever you would call it.
Starting point is 00:24:12 But again, knowing what we know now and looking at everything as a whole, Virgil, Ted DiBiase servant, the African dream, the polka dots,
Starting point is 00:24:23 sapphire, is it about Jim Crockett promotions? Or is it about, all right, you didn't believe in me before, you didn't want to come with me in 1983, now you're here,
Starting point is 00:24:35 I'm going to have some fun with you. Yeah, it looks, boy, you've made a heck of a case there, counselor. I have really good lawyers. We have really good lawyers that I get to listen to at work a lot. Boy, you have been taking some notes. I would have to say guilty now that you've laid the case out in that fashion. All right, there's the first conviction of Vince McMahon in 2024, ladies and gentlemen.
Starting point is 00:25:00 But, you know, hey, real quick. More to come. More to come, Jim, if Dusty had taken the offer, if that had happened today, do you think he would just be going crazy, drinking the organ, trying to get in the shape, get the protein in him, make sure he has the Vince McMahon look? Well, I believe he would have, because I think that, you know, let's face it, Dusty wasn't one to do all of the Diana Ball
Starting point is 00:25:24 and the Decadurabalin and all of that type of thing that was going on in the 80s. Dusty would have wanted to drink a delicious milkshake. And that's the way now that you can do it, you can get all your protein, You don't need to go and wrestle a steer to the ground and take a buoy knife and slice some meat off the carcass and gnaw on it to get your protein. You can do it with our friends over at Orgain. And I tell you, you know, Brian, I hate to say it again. I have to apologize again. I had confused the issue.
Starting point is 00:25:55 When Orgaine first came on, I said they're a delicious 30-gram protein shake. tastes like a delicious chocolate milkshake you'd get down at the dairy freeze or wherever and in addition it grows hair and you quickly pointed out that no this is not to grow hair it's organ so you know other than having to shave my palms now I've noticed that it's true it doesn't grow hair however I'll tell you what folks you want to eat better
Starting point is 00:26:25 you want to be healthier feeling and have better energy and et cetera that all the real nutrition and wholesome ingredients give you instead of this pre-packaged crap that you get at the store. You know, I just had a hostess apple pie for the first time in 20 years the other day, Brian. Really? Why? Well, that's what I was asking myself the day after. Because instead of loading myself up with all the sugar and the carbohydrates and everything, if I drank an organ 30 gram protein shake,
Starting point is 00:27:03 it has all nine essential amino acids. And you need your amino acids to eat up all the bad stuff. It gives you energy to keep you going. It provides muscle support and recovery, maintains a healthy lifestyle, manages hunger, and promotes healthy weight management in combination with diet and exercise. I'm going to get to the diet and exercise part soon.
Starting point is 00:27:27 but in the meantime I'm getting convenient real nutrition with only one gram of sugar per serving and made without any soy ingredients there is no soy sauce in this I found out the hard way when I poured it over sushi it doesn't go with sushi folks don't even bring up such a disgusting thought
Starting point is 00:27:49 ladies and gentlemen start your day in the middle of your day at the end of the day you just need to pick up whatever it is a delicious whatever time A delicious chocolate fudge protein shake, 30 grams of protein. I've been drinking one in the morning every day and I'm very happy with it. And Orgain's founder, Dr. Andrew Abraham. I saw him on an infomercial. He was selling crystal balls.
Starting point is 00:28:10 No, he wasn't. Why would you say that? No, crystal balls. Maybe it was Dr. Abraham Andrew that was on that. But anyway, he believes that real nutrition has the power to make a difference in people's lives and that's why he founded Orgain to create foods and beverages that offer better nutrition for people everywhere, not just limited to some kind of gymnasium or fitness clinic. Now, even if you're a fat fuck, you can drink one of these and feel better about yourself.
Starting point is 00:28:39 Probably just one ain't going to do you any good, but you'll feel better about yourself. Start with one. If you do it every day, pretty soon you might, you know what Ronnie Garvin used to say. He was sitting in a gym one time, and this big fat guy came in. and he said holy shit look at how fat you are and the guy said I know and Ronnie said
Starting point is 00:29:02 when's the last time you saw your dick and the guy said I don't know and Ronnie said why don't you die it and the guy said what color is it now see you do not want to be like that guy you want to you want to put healthy things inside your body and right now
Starting point is 00:29:21 it's the worst one of the story I've ever heard Orgain 30 gram protein shakes are available at Costco or at Orgain, orgian.com. And if you want to get in on the delicious protein-packed nutrition today, then head toorgaine.com slash J-C-E, and you can use the code J-C-E for 20% off your entire order. Orgain.com slash J-C-E 20% off with that promo code. JCE. Well, Jim,
Starting point is 00:29:57 Oregon is a wonderful way to make sure you have the right protein, a good supplement to your regular protein intake, and some people need a cash supplement to get in there and justify lots of things. I don't know what the hell I'm saying.
Starting point is 00:30:11 Jim, the big story this week, AEW, the official announcement, Warner Brothers Discovery and AEW have come to an agreement on a multi-year extension. We'll get into what's known about that in a little bit. But AEW staying on Warner Brothers Discovery, we've kind of said that we thought that was the way everything was going. We thought a deal was done. They weren't going to go anywhere else.
Starting point is 00:30:35 Although as soon as this happened, all the AW fans are like, you see, we proved everyone wrong. We were able to get Tony a TV deal. I don't know what they proved. They proved nothing. But what are your thoughts on before we go through some of the details and what's known and is a lot that's unknown? But what are your thoughts on the AEW Warner Brothers Discovery Renewal? Well, yes, everybody on Twitter is like, see, we told you, they were going to, we didn't say they were going to get canceled. We said they were probably going to stay with TBS or WBD or M-O-U-S-E or whatever, and apparently they have gotten an influx of cash, but as you said, we don't know for what I am, listen, that's all paper, paper, paper, paper, I've printed out, paper, paper, everywhere. Can you hear the paper? There's paper.
Starting point is 00:31:25 It's like fucking six pages of, well, it it's probably this, but it might be this, and it's rumored to be close to this, but something else is included, but we're not sure what, and if they do this, then they won't do that. What the fuck is going on here? The conditions lined up perfectly for boy Tony, where they got a renewal,
Starting point is 00:31:50 despite declining numbers because apparently the rest of TBS and everybody's numbers is declining too. But we don't know what they're paying and what they're paying for and we'll get into it. There's also confirmation in here somewhere, I found it, that WBD does have some type of ownership of A.W. or get some kind of proceeds from it. So if there is, if WBD is paying
Starting point is 00:32:29 a company that they own part of, then don't they get some of that money back somehow? So what, what's the goddamn deal going on here? And again, we'll go through it, but it's also not a straight up, it's not straight up the same kind of deal they structured a few years ago
Starting point is 00:32:47 because of the max component. because it's not just we're giving you X amount of dollars to air your broadcasting on TBS or TNT. Forget about even the pay-per-view cut or anything else. That's what we're paying for. Now it's your two shows will air on these channels. Also, it will stream for our subscribers over here. Also, your pay-per-views will now be offered
Starting point is 00:33:08 at a discounted rate, whatever that means. Wait, okay, I didn't even muddle that out. So, are the pay-per-views going to be on max? Now we got to get another thing. We had to get the Netflix and the Peacock. Now we've got to get the Max. I already have the Max. Let's real quick discuss this.
Starting point is 00:33:26 It was HBO Max, and then they got rid of the HBO, and now they just kept the Max part. Don't you think HBO would be the stronger brand to get behind? Well, yeah, because unless you're an MJF fan, Max doesn't really have a lot of cash-a, does it? Home box office, HBO. It was the number one cable channel for movies and original programs and bad management let us down the road to where it's now max well but nevertheless so if the
Starting point is 00:33:58 pay-per-views are going to be at a discounted rate then that is you've got to be balanced out by them they're paying more money but they're not just then they're not going to be taking in the same amount of revenue on pay-per-view but it's guaranteed through wbd right so this is well let me which pocket, which pockets are they pulling all this money out of and which pockets are they putting it back into? Well, I have here with the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, what Dave Meltzer's reported and an issue that just came out. So in other words, straight from Tony Kahn's mouth. Exactly. So at least we'll get that perspective here, if we're going to be honest about it. We do want to hear something and he gets it right from them.
Starting point is 00:34:38 The official announcement of AEW's media rights deal with Warner Brothers Discovery was made on October 2nd, a few hours before the company's fifth anniversary of dynamite in a very quiet Pittsburgh. Sources close to the negotiations said that this was a three-year deal, which will total $555 million. This is broken down as $180 million in 2025, $185 million in 2025, and $190 in 202027, Warner Brothers Discovery has an option year built in for all of 2028 at a significantly higher number. Well, but now, wait a minute, that's even more than what they said originally and everybody was reporting yesterday, isn't it? We heard, I think yesterday the reports were in a range of 155 million. The reports beforehand were that it was going to be 170 million.
Starting point is 00:35:37 this says in the observer 180, 185, 190, and an option year at an increase, a significant increase over that. Well, wait, but here we've got, from, this is from Thurston Howell the third over there. At, he said, Variety reported upwards of 150 million, sports business journal estimated 170 million, Fightful, reported closer to 185 million. Do we yet know what the fuck's going on here? Do we yet know who's giving out the figures? Do we yet know what, again, they're getting a lot more money, but they're giving them a lot more programming,
Starting point is 00:36:22 so we understand that. But what I'm interested in, which makes a difference is if WBD has equity in the company, as is equity stake, a minority equity stake at AEW, then it's to their best interest for them to make money, but they're going to take some of the money back from the pay-per-views and other things because they own part of it. So they're robbing Peter and paying Paul.
Starting point is 00:36:49 And it also is important to note, all things consider the world of television, AEW under the previous deal was cheap programming. It still remains relatively affordable cheap programming for a network. Even when it comes to getting the rights to a, you know, show and syndication that's really, really popular.
Starting point is 00:37:09 It's not a crazy deal. At the same time, Warner Brothers Discovery's management has been a complete disaster. The stock's been a disaster. The company, I don't know how many billions in debt. I mean, it's just, it's a disaster. The management team there, but they gave AW this deal.
Starting point is 00:37:29 And let's go through again what Dave Meltzer has here. The number, far higher than was expected by those in the sports media business world and by other business analysts, is for a combination of dynamite and collision, on TBS and TNT respectively, believed to be remaining on Wednesday and Saturday, as well as moving the complete video library to Max. In addition, dynamite and collision will simulcast on. max at the same time as they do on TBS and TNT. While not 100%, the belief is the simulcastle be in the exact form as the American television product with commercials and not the Triller form with no commercials for international AEW subscribers.
Starting point is 00:38:23 So let's stop there. You ask what's causing the increase. It's not because of TBS and TNT, it's because of METT, it's because of MEC. Max. They're trying to, they're still trying to get subscribers and boost Max and offer content. They're paying the premium to get all this stuff on Max. Well, and as well, we asked the question on what was it? Last show we did, show before that, where is the existing AEW library? Does it reside anywhere? Is it their YouTube channel or whatever the fuck? So they're, they're going to have a place for it now.
Starting point is 00:38:58 And let me just say this before I go forward and we'll break down and talk more about what I have in front of me, what you have in front of you. But nowhere in any of this doesn't say Ring of Honor. Because remember, we were led to believe that Tony wanted Ring of Honor baked in. Any deal for AEW would include Ring of Honor programming. Ring of Honor didn't get baked, it got burnt. Well, Tony's baked. So, I mean, it works one way or the other.
Starting point is 00:39:23 But no Ring of Honor. No mention of Ring of Honor, even for the streaming. For Max, no mention of Ring of Honor. Well, no, because again, if you, you know, if you were to start some outlaw promotion now and call it Mid-South Wrestling, it wouldn't be Mid-South Wrestling that people have in their mind. And I don't know that even the Ring of Honor fans, it used to be around 10, 5, 10, 20 years ago or whatever, are they even watching whatever Ring of Honor is now with Tony's B-Team or C-Team? forgot the B-team's on Collision and Rampage.
Starting point is 00:39:59 The deal carries with it that AEW will no longer share an advertising revenue with Warner Brothers Discovery as it has since its inception five years ago. Let me stop there. What do you think of that? Okay. Well, is that included then in the figure or is that in addition to the figure that they're paying? Well, I think that's... That AEW doesn't have to pay them...
Starting point is 00:40:26 No, that whatever advertising Warner Brothers Discovery sells during Dynamite, there was a revenue split, it sounds like. Oh, so Warner Brothers was splitting with AEW rather than the other way around? The deal carries with it that AEW will no longer share in advertising revenue with Warner Brothers Discovery as it has since its inception.
Starting point is 00:40:48 I thought you said share advertising revenue, not share in advertising revenue. four of those small words are important when you're half deaf and can't hear. So yeah, that's right. We heard at the start that somewhere or another, there was some type of sharing program going on with the commercial time. But now that's come to an end. But we don't know what kind of number that was.
Starting point is 00:41:11 We don't know how significant or insignificant the advertising number was, but you have to. Well, they ran Domino's off. Well, is that the, is that, no, but seriously, is that the last time you saw a Domino's commercial? commercial on AEW? I don't know for certain, I can't say. I'm more than willing to be corrected.
Starting point is 00:41:31 Somebody in the cult that pays attention. Have we seen the noid on the nerds show lately after the pizza cutter incident? Let's avoid the noid and get back to Meltzer here. The entire video library will also be on Max. The deal starts in January, and the library will start to migrate at that point. Now, is that the paper views, too?
Starting point is 00:41:55 It says the entire video library. Let me just finish this. Because they have to go through things, the entire library won't be up at first, and new shows will migrate to Max as the year goes on. But that's TV and pay-per-view. Well, I was about to say it's starting to sound like maybe WBD didn't get that bad of a deal. Every time somebody was to watch one of the old pay-per-views, on ongoing pay-per-views, apparently they're going to get the,
Starting point is 00:42:22 money right because they're paying for this stuff outright and then they would take in the isn't that kind of like the deal that UFC has with uh well no with ESPN and whatever the fuck ESPN gets their pay-per-view money yeah that's right so but I mean well we don't know because nobody's clear about this thing again we don't know a lot AEW is a private company so whatever information gets out is either what they let out or what gets out from someone else or what is just complete bullshit. Loose lips sink ships, I'll have you know. Rampage will be discontinued.
Starting point is 00:42:57 Thank God. While the company is shopping around... You know what? I would have kicked in 25 grand just to come to that fucking conclusion. While the company is shopping around the new shockwave show to other networks, notably Fox, as we previously reported. S.E. Scoops reported that the Warner Brothers Discovery deal was exclusive for cable television. and likely streaming, meaning shockwave could only air on a broadcast network. We've confirmed talks with Fox, and that Tuesday and Thursday are the dates most likely if a deal is finalized.
Starting point is 00:43:35 Oh, my God, day before or day after dynamite for another show? Oh, boy. Oh, my God. Well, but also, aren't we just taking a massive broad jump into what if land? do you see Fox? They just got rid of the number one wrestling program. Even if they could get AW much cheaper,
Starting point is 00:43:59 do they, is Fox in a because see, here's the thing, CW, we talked about this. They have an average of 300 and something thousand people watching them most nights in prime time. And USA, they have to have some type of WWE presence to maintain their position on cable because of the sad state of a fair. You know, it comes down to everything on television is abysmal.
Starting point is 00:44:25 I think that's why nobody's watching it. But would Fox want a primetime program that would do maybe 5 or 600 or 700,000 people at this point in their life? Or are we talking about FS1 or FU1 or whatever? Well, according to this, we couldn't be talking about FS1 because that's cable. Oh, that's right. So it would have to be Fox or nothing. It would have to be Fox or CBS or Channel 9. It would have to be a network, but, you know, well, you know what I'm saying.
Starting point is 00:44:59 I don't know, but that's the issue. And the other question is, if Fox was going to air AEW shockwave, whatever that is, I'm assuming it's going to be a live show the day before Dynamite. I guess we're also assuming that it'll be Tuesday or Thursday. So it would be. I was going to say, you know, who knows? Like CBS has all that. crap on Sunday afternoons we always talk about. I always say, why is an AEW in a spot like that? But if it's Tuesday and Thursday, it wouldn't be. Well, but then we also found out that the fucking Bronco bull riding inseminator people from Branson, Missouri are paying for that time. Well, let's go back to the... That's what, and again, look at the abysmal numbers of television.
Starting point is 00:45:41 I am shocked every time I see these numbers of, wow, this was the number one program with almost a million people. And by the way, once these shows are streaming on Max, HBO it should be, that's going to definitely change the ratings because people are going to start watching it there and also it's going to be live on the West Coast on Max. So you're not going to have to wait.
Starting point is 00:46:06 You can be able to watch it live if you got home really from work or school, I guess. Well, now come on. School, I believe, but do any of those fans work? Well, let's go back to the reporting here in The Observer. The deal also includes pay-per-view events on Max. This will start at some point in 2025 as Max, as of right now, does not have pay-per-view capabilities. The pay-per-views will be- Oh, God, I went through this with Ring of Honor in Sinclair Broadcasting in 2011.
Starting point is 00:46:36 The pay-per-views will be discounted from the $50 price charge currently, and in return, AEW will focus its pay-per-view promotion in the U.S. on Max as the prime distributor. However, to order pay-per-views from Max, like with UFC, you have to have a monthly subscription to the service at $9.99 a month. Ooh. Well, $9.99 a month, or if your cable system gives it to you for free, like ours does.
Starting point is 00:47:08 Well, see, and I'm not... It's part of the HBO package. I'm not talking about, you know, we've established. that the people likely to follow AEW will spend an extra 10 bucks to do it, but just you have to go through more steps now. Oh, we got to subscribe to this to get that to when they figure out how to do this and that. One would think that will have an effect on what, the 10% of people, it just kind of, you know, maybe wing it and just, oh, do I get that right now or whatever, whatever that percentage is. Well, again, if they're selling it at a discounted rate
Starting point is 00:47:42 on Max that will no matter what cut into the pay-per-view revenues. And we've been led to believe at least... So they're still going to be able to sell a pay-per-view, like WWE's doing, with Peacock and... So you can see it on real television, but it's going to be cheaper over there with the Max Pea. I'll be watching it on Max. It's just like Peacock.
Starting point is 00:48:05 I mean, for WWE, it'll be perfect. I'll be doing this. I'll be watching on whatever I can fast forward the easiest. All right, well, let me go back to this. Warner Brothers Discovery has shared in pay-per-view revenue by having a cut of the gross revenue when they were on BR Live since discontinued, and Bleacher Report, which shut down. For now, they won't have a cut until Max is equipped with pay-per-view capability
Starting point is 00:48:34 and the pay-per-view shows will air on regular television and satellite, cable, thriller, payperview.com, and YouTube pay-per-view until Max goes up. When he... Just list everything, Dave. When the shows go up on Max, it is not exclusive, but Warner Brothers Discovery would get a cut of the Max buys. But pay-per-view will remain on television pay-per-view, as well as other carriers, in addition to Matt...
Starting point is 00:49:04 Well, now, wait, wait. But wait, but back up. So now, wait a minute. are they putting them on Max cheaper, but Max gets a cut or AEW gets a cut or who gets the money here? What is he saying? If it's on Max,
Starting point is 00:49:19 you're going to have to subscribe for $10 a month. Then you're going to have to buy the pay-per-view, which will be cheaper than $50. Right. Whatever you pay, Max is getting a cut. They used to get a cut from Bleacher Report. This is their cut. But if they're already paying AEW this massive rights fee,
Starting point is 00:49:38 then wouldn't they get all of it? We're buying this product from you to put on our fucking deal, so we're getting the money back this way. And what about the idea, too? What did it say here? So wait a minute, wait a minute. Now who's on first, if A.W is being paid by WBD, a big rights feed,
Starting point is 00:50:00 to provide all this programming for Max, but when they put the pay-per-view on Max, Max goes ahead and gives AEW a cutback but since WBD owns part of AEW they get a piece of that back boy howdy there's going to be some busy fucking accountants around here and what do you think about the idea that what did it say here
Starting point is 00:50:25 AEW will focus its pay-per-view promotion in the US on max as the prime distributor so everything's going to be watch it on max watch it on max they're going to drive away to the level WWE did most of the pay-per-view, the cable television pay-per-view buying audience and everyone's going to move the
Starting point is 00:50:44 max, so it's going to cut their pay-per-view revenues. But they're getting the money guaranteed from WBD, but it's got to be offset by the revenue that they're going to lose on doing it themselves and selling a bunch of TV pay-per-views. Because that's pretty much their strongest
Starting point is 00:51:02 Oh, well, let me go on here. The... Sub-genre. should say. The deal for pay-per-view will not be like WWE with Peacock, where Peacock purchased the rights from WWE to the shows in the U.S. market for far above what WWE had been making from all of WWE network revenue, which led to the WVE network being shut down in the U.S. It will also not be like the UFC deal with ESPN Plus, where UFC continued fight pass, but sold the U.S. pay-per-view rights for a figure.
Starting point is 00:51:36 said to be based on what UFC was earning in the U.S. market on pay-per-view during the Ronda Rousey Connor McGregor era. Ha ha ha ha ha. But ESPN... Which would be equivalent to the Rocket Austin era, right? But ESPN Plus charged extra for the shows, plus you had to be an ESPN plus subscriber, and if the price per show rose to $79,99, although they are now discounting $10 if you order more than a week in advance.
Starting point is 00:52:05 Good Lord. I may have read that a little wrong there, but hold on. I bet he's written it wrong, too. In this case, Max and WBD are not purchasing the pay-per-views, nor guaranteeing any money for them. They are just a distribution arm and make their money off the end of the revenue split. AEW is getting a more favorable split
Starting point is 00:52:30 than they have traditionally gotten from television, but the $555 million deal, does not include a pay-per-view money guaranteed, and the hope is AEW maintains or grows its total income on shows with the promotion on max. Huh, what do you think of that? I think it's confusing.
Starting point is 00:52:56 And like you said, if they're going to, they're going to lose most of the domestic pay-per-view television audience because they're promoting the Macs. Now, if they promote the Max and the Max gives them a better cut, then they've been getting from the TV pay-per-view distributors, then it basically comes down to whether they can get enough people to subscribe to Max to then buy the pay-per-views that they've been buying,
Starting point is 00:53:30 whether they'll make as much or more money off of it. Did I summarize that correctly? You would have to think the AEW side would have wanted them to purchase the pay-per-views outright. Well, of course. But this is what WBD is doing, like you said earlier, is trying to get everybody to jump on the max train. Right. But my point is they don't even have the capabilities. But that's probably why they're getting them because they're like, fuck, we got a piece of this company and they've got all this program and we need to do pay-per-view.
Starting point is 00:54:03 So they're going to try to figure it out with that. AEW and this might be fun. They're going to, well, that's interesting. If they're going to figure out how to do pay-per-view or event purchasing on their platform just because of AEW, that is interesting. We'll see how that works out. They were still asked- Because think about this, a wrestling company, even at AEW's level, much less WW's level,
Starting point is 00:54:29 they can guarantee you a half a million people that are just goddamn chomping at the bit. to see them wherever they go, right? So that may be the thing, well, we'll get them in the door. It's a lost leader. We'll get them in the door and then we'll show them whatever their other programs are on Max that, like I said, almost everything on television these days is fucking rotten. And try to get them hooked on that to where they become part of the family. Well, those are the majority of the details that we now know.
Starting point is 00:55:03 I does say here, and we'll discuss this, The new deal would make the company very profitable going forward, even if no deal is made for a third weekly show that is being shopped around. If we go with estimates that the company lost between 20 million, based on our estimates, and 34 million, Brandon Thurston's estimate, in 2023, I would expect similar losses in 2024.
Starting point is 00:55:33 Well, how can they only be losing 20 or 30 million dollars? when they spent $50 million on a video game that went straight to the clearance bin, and by their documentation, is he spending $100 million a year on talent with as many people and as much money as he's paying them probably? How do you— And those contracts are going up? And those contracts are all going up. Yes, here comes MVP in the hurt business, folks, but also the NBA arenas and et cetera.
Starting point is 00:56:06 And then how long is they going to take them to make if they've been losing $20 or $30 million a year for the past five years? I would think more at the start, but let's just say that. That's $150 million. How long is it going to take them to make that back? Is it profitable? Like we're breaking even and making money now and we've got to recoup the losses, or is he trying to say... Well, it's profitable before you look at the losses, if that helps. Boy, that's a great fucking way to lay.
Starting point is 00:56:34 It's best... We made a hell of a problem. it before we looked at the losses. Exactly. God damn it. I don't know what's, I don't know how in the world that any of this needs to cost this much money or make this much money. But it's a whole new world.
Starting point is 00:56:50 It's a whole new world. A.E.W. Not going anywhere. And I guess either a we will be discussing it. We've been documenting it since its foundation and we will talk about it until Tony Kahn blasts off to the moon. But A.E.W. and TBS are Warner Brothers Discovery. See, I mean, yeah, again, before we end, I just got to say the max component is the value. I said that beforehand.
Starting point is 00:57:13 If they don't come away with a max deal, they got nothing. If they were going to get a rights renewal just based on TBS and TNT, it would have probably been a lot closer to what they were getting last year. But it's all about max, getting all that content up there, the live streaming, everything. They're paying for the rights to be able to use that content across the board. and now AEW is going to be advertising Max nonstop. So that's the value. It's all about that.
Starting point is 00:57:41 Do you think that they would have got any more money than they already been getting and maybe even that much if WBD did not have Max? No, if WBD did not have a streaming platform like Max? No, no way. Yes. No way. So son of a bitch, they snuck in there on the streaming. Well, no, I mean, that's just the coin of the realm now.
Starting point is 00:58:03 It's the future. and, you know, that was what it had to be. It does make you wonder stuff like, you know, if a TNA 20 years ago existed now, what kind of TV deal would they get just because they would have all this content? You know, it makes you really wonder, you know, look throughout wrestling history,
Starting point is 00:58:23 all the hot shows that existed. Yeah. That got no money. And even TNA at that point was doing... They were doing numbers. That's why I used them as the example. Before, before, the Hogan era and what was that
Starting point is 00:58:36 2010-11 or whatever 2008-2009 was doing a million people, 1.2 million for T&A and had all that content and there was no streaming or YouTube or whatever the fuck so they were always looking for
Starting point is 00:58:56 rights fees from Pakistan or whatever and I guess we shall see if anything happens with Ring of Honor we'll see I mean they're cutting rampage but they're adding shockwave well they're adding the the potential of shockwave if they can only be on broadcast television that way narrows it down
Starting point is 00:59:18 for any type of wrestling programming unless they're like they're doing the bull riding thing on CBS they're going to pay for Sunday at noon you know what's going to probably happen next now Jim they're going to be listeners overseas and stuff and they're going to want to access all this content on Macs and they're going to be locked out because of wherever they are geographically, they're going to need a service, they're going to need a friend,
Starting point is 00:59:43 they're going to need someone to open a door and say, here's that content you've been meeting to watch, all that wrestling action, someone like ExpressVPN. Well, that's right, because they're the skeleton key. Boy, you just shove that thing in any hole and give it a quick crank. And boy, howdy, you'll be giggling because you
Starting point is 01:00:02 will be able to see whatever you want to see that's out there in the old wide world, ExpressVPN can change your online location. And they can, let's say, fool the people at Netflix or over there at the Macs or whatever into showing the movies and TV shows that are not available here in the United States
Starting point is 01:00:22 because of some odd reason that all these billionaires are making money on and jacking us little people around. So instead, you can say, I'm going to go, to France. And then I'm going to watch the great French lickoff or whatever the case that you may be interested in.
Starting point is 01:00:39 Well, I don't know what they watch in France. You certainly don't. Well, I know what I'd watch if I was in France, but nevertheless. The Jerry Lewis Festival. There you go. Let's say you want to watch the Nutty Professor and it's not available in the United States because of standards.
Starting point is 01:00:54 Well, you can change your location, go to France, or you can go to Japan and put on this or that or the other thing. Well, you could probably watch the Japanese wrestling. And also, if you don't have ExpressVPN, then you would have to basically just be reduced to living in Hogwaller, Tennessee, where you live in Squalor right now. But you can make people around the world believe that you live in the south of France or the north of Alaska or any other kind of resort area. And you can watch everything you want. Resort area.
Starting point is 01:01:32 Yeah, that's sometimes last resort. You can use it to get more movies on Disney. Disney. No, that's on Disney Plus. Use it to get more movies on Disney Plus, or the BBC I player, where they're very polite to you and have a pleasant accent. And ExpressVPN also is going to mix up the bad guys. They're going to confuse the criminals.
Starting point is 01:01:58 They're going to confound the crooks. They're going to protect you from real. real life monsters like hackers and data thieves that are waiting to stick their hands in your internet pocket and pull out your guts. And it comes with password manager, which helps you manage unlimited passwords and credit card detail. You can have all the password you want now, and this will manage it for you. See, you know, I can never remember that my password is one, two, three, fuck you.
Starting point is 01:02:31 I guess now I'm going to have to change it I don't think Oliver forget it It's the best way to protect your privacy folks From the creepy stalkers and the spooky creatures out there At Halloween time ExpressVPN And when they put people in your walls They will come from now till October 31st with candy They'll give you a Recy Cup
Starting point is 01:02:52 Before they jump in and wall themselves up in your walls To protect their first line of defense When all that evil tries to come in across the various wires into your home. What are you talking about? ExpressVPN, how do people get it? How can they get it? Well, I'll tell you how they can get it a second,
Starting point is 01:03:13 but I'm saying all these hackers and these people are trying to steal your shit are coming through the wires. So the people inside your walls from ExpressVPN, they're going to block that. They're going to have a big fight in between the studs behind your drywall. And right now, all you've got to do is go to Express. expressvpn.com slash jCE and you're going to get three months of express VPN for free
Starting point is 01:03:39 on top of whatever you want to get going from there. ExpressVPN.com slash JCE three months free. That'll take you to New Year's. So nobody will be able to hack into your computer and blow up your house until at least January the 7th. No one will be blowing up your house. Don't worry about that. Don't think about that.
Starting point is 01:04:02 Well, that's because ExpressVPN's going to be on the job. Hey, if you just, if you want to keep your house standing, folks, that's all I'm saying. Don't. You got a nice house there. You've a very,
Starting point is 01:04:12 I don't know who we're talking to, but don't worry about your house, worry about not worrying about what you're going to watch it. How are you going to go? ExpressVPN. Jim, how do people get it? Well, you go to ExpressVPN.com slash JCE and you're going to get three months extra,
Starting point is 01:04:29 absolutely positive. free gratis, that means you pay nothing. ExpressVPN? Not sponsored by AEW, apparently. Not the official home of AEW. No, no, no. They're, you know, I guess you could probably, if you get ExpressVPN,
Starting point is 01:04:50 they could figure out a way where if you're in the right place, you could get Macs before it happens. Because you could go to another, across the international date line and tell them you that you're there and then you could watch the show the day before they do it. See, that's another service that ExpressVPN.com will provide you. They don't provide you with that and they don't have a time machine
Starting point is 01:05:14 to the best of my knowledge. But Jim, before... Well, no, it works that way. It's like yesterday in Australia now. That's the way it works. All right. Or maybe it's tomorrow. You know, I really, I like you more today.
Starting point is 01:05:28 than yesterday, but only half as much as tomorrow. Whether yesterday, today, or tomorrow, let's move on here somehow. Jim? Yesterday. Before we get to the debut of NXT on Network TV, let's talk about the little bit of WWE Raw you watch, which included one of the most highly anticipated matches of recent times. You have gone completely, absolutely burjork over Brown, Strong Man and Bronson Reed, haven't you?
Starting point is 01:05:58 Bronch stroman, for those who have never heard Jim's nicknames before, Braun Stromen. Well, that's what I said, or thereabouts. Well, point is, you've gone crazy. No, I haven't. I appreciate entertaining TV. The crowds are reacting. You don't necessarily see that on all the wrestling shows.
Starting point is 01:06:17 You never know what's going to happen when the freaks fight. You want to see the Winnebago run into the fucking hatchback soccer mom's van. This is the kind of match Jack Pfeffer would have. have been in the back watching. Okay, I'll give you that. I'll give you. Can you imagine the program? Can you imagine the program?
Starting point is 01:06:34 Can you, I'm just going to say, can you imagine the program? See fat man fly! Against giant freak! Oh, you'd have to, he has to flap his arms, so you can tell whether he's rolling or walking, ladies and gentlemen. Here he comes. Top attraction in all of Europe, no matter who it is. Fresh off sellout crowd and breakfast.
Starting point is 01:06:58 No. But yes. I like it. Yes. Yes. You've gone crazy over this program. And by the way, the rest of Raw,
Starting point is 01:07:06 it's not that there wasn't anything good. Punk and Drew had a good promo, but nothing really happened. They just got a promo on the, on the match coming up, and we already want to see it. And there was some other things. It's a long show.
Starting point is 01:07:18 But here, oh, the big news, hold on. Got to go back to my notes here before we talk about Bronson and Brown. Where do they? Hold on. I made sure. write this down. God,
Starting point is 01:07:31 yes, next it's next Monday. What is next Monday? Next Monday, October the 7th. Raw goes to two hours.
Starting point is 01:07:41 Oh. So that's why I wrote that down. What do you think of that? Well, hopefully we'll get shorter matches amongst mid-card people
Starting point is 01:07:52 and maybe not so much backstage foolery where they just stand there and fucking meander on for a few minutes. What's he going to be like going back to three hours after they do that. Hell on earth.
Starting point is 01:08:03 This is a temporary thing I think they announced, right? Well, maybe if we all write it and say, boy, we like it so much better that way. We'll watch more of the cock if you'll just, or the Netflix, whatever it's going to be on. I guess this is that gap period where they had to sign a new short term, short term agreement, short term agreement with USA Network. And it wasn't for the three hours. It was for the two. yes and so we get a vacation vacation all I ever wanted
Starting point is 01:08:34 are they on the air at eight or nine well now that's a good question is it going to be eight to ten or nine to eleven yeah well you'll have to find out you like the go-goes you like Belinda Carlisle I love Belinda Carlisle what about Jane Weidland Jane Weidland is probably my favorite
Starting point is 01:08:51 the other one the what was her name Twiggy McCarthy what was the long the big tall blonde one I don't know who Twiggy. I don't know. I can't remember her name. I don't think it was Twiggy McCarthy. Charlotte Flair?
Starting point is 01:09:03 No, it was a different Charlotte. I think it was. Charlotte, North Carolina. Charlotte's Webb. Charlotte Bronte. How deep can I go? You were about to insult her, whoever she was. But you like Belinda and Jane is that what you said?
Starting point is 01:09:17 Yes, yes, Belinda and Jane. But back to Bronson and Brown. So they've been doing the thing where they're splashing the cars and their, wrecking things and they're just killing each other. And so they booked them in a last monster standing match where there's no rules, ladies
Starting point is 01:09:37 gentlemen. I know as hard as this is for you to believe, there's no rules, anything goes, no disqualification. And you've got to be down for the 10 count to lose the match. And within the first 30 seconds,
Starting point is 01:09:54 Braun had chokeslammed read through the fucking announced desk and they'd gone to the break. They build this thing up, they get him in the rig, they go 30 seconds, they break the fucking desk,
Starting point is 01:10:04 and we'll be right back. That's like if, if Mickey Mantle was playing for the Mets and he fucking broke his legs, sliding into second base, would you go right to commercial or would you hang with it, see if everybody was still breathing?
Starting point is 01:10:19 I think this is more like if you knew Mickey Mantle was going to strike out, would you just stop and go right to the commercial? I don't think it's like that. but nevertheless. So they came. No, it's like Heyman. Haman used to hide everyone's, you know, what they couldn't do
Starting point is 01:10:38 by selectively editing. WW just goes to commercial. Well, either that or I saw, God, was it on one of the girls' matches, or maybe it was on NXT or whatever. They were, his girl was throwing kicks that were so bad they had to cut the camera just every time because she wasn't even coming within the Z.
Starting point is 01:10:58 zip code of these people. But anyway, so they come back from the break and just in time for us to see Mr. Strongman knocked Mr. Reed off the apron through six chairs that they have carefully set up into a geometric pattern on the floor. I hate you, so I'm going to set up all these chairs so it has a perfect landing for you, right? I'm in a fight of my life. So while you're over there unmolested, down and potentially, you know, able to be victimized, I'm going to spend my time setting up the fucking Rubik's
Starting point is 01:11:34 cube of goddamn folding chairs. So then, and by the way, in between all of these things that I'm talking about, they're moving like they're wearing concrete
Starting point is 01:11:43 fucking boots. And Brown was actually, he was walking like he was stove up when the thing started, wasn't he? Or is he always walk like that? By the end of it, he looked, you know,
Starting point is 01:11:55 he was walking like maybe he was feeling it a little bit, but I didn't notice it at the beginning. Well, these are too hard-hitting giants of the mat. Giants of the monsters of the mat. There you go. They fought back to the entranceway, and Bronson Reed picked up Brown and gave him a DVD
Starting point is 01:12:16 off an equipment case through a couple of tables. And then they went back to the ring. They took another break. And then they came back in time to see Bronson Reed. tackle the big SOB through the barricade between the ringside area and the timekeeper pit and then
Starting point is 01:12:41 he and I broke him through the other one through into the people and then they got back to the ring but then and this is the longer this went on the more entertaining the more entertaining I found it because early on I was like you know Jim was right this sucks This is like plotting and this.
Starting point is 01:13:02 And then the longer it went on, it became such a freak show spectacle. Yes, it was like, what else are they going to? And here was the thing I didn't. Actually, it was getting good. It was getting so bad it was good, like you said. But when they broke through the barricade, the referee jumps down there and he's consulting with 15 security guards, right? And that's when Bronson.
Starting point is 01:13:26 This is what it got good one. There's just people running around all over the place. This is my favorite part. Why did the referee was the only one who spoke, you know, Bulgarian to be able to tell the foreign, you know, security crew what it needs to be done? Why did the referee, they're back in the ring. Bronson Reed does a splash off the top. There's no referee.
Starting point is 01:13:48 And then he does another splash. So then he goes out and it starts throwing security into the ring. But why did the referee not be, why would he leave the ring when there was 15 people addressing the broken barricade. See, I have a problem with that. Apparently you didn't. I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying I was entertained by this whole thing.
Starting point is 01:14:10 All right. Well, then... I will admit, this is not a match that I watched looking for logic. This is an example of the opposite. Well, then here comes the spot, because now the referee is out of the ring, and Bronson Reed's hit a couple splashes. Well, he can't get anybody to count. So he goes out there and starts throwing security into the ring.
Starting point is 01:14:35 But did you notice, sometimes he'd just grab them and just either headbut him or just throw them in the ring. But when he threw them in the ring, wherever they ended up rolling is where they laid there like they were dead and they were unmoving for the rest of the night. There's still three of them in there when this whole thing is finished. So then Bronson Reed grabs Adam Pierce and is going to throttle him, but suddenly Mr. Strongman is on the top rope
Starting point is 01:15:06 and he dives off onto the group of 15 people. Now, here's the goddamn thing. Yes, there's 15 people down there, but he's only going to hit about four or five of them. And who are those unlucky, son of a bitches in the middle? I would dive off the top rope onto 15 people. fucking people, I'd be covering my nuts. But goddamn, what could that have felt like to those people on the floor when this
Starting point is 01:15:32 flying Greyhound bus comes at them? Seriously, the elbows, the knees, the whatever the fuck. Yeah. So then everybody sold that forever. Probably some of them meant it. And then they get back in the ring and that, like I said, that's when the security guys are still laying there where they've been. and Bronson Reed goes for the superplex
Starting point is 01:15:59 and he gets it and as they go over boom they land and the ring collapses and the fucking referee takes a bump out onto the floor I like the referees bump the best and somehow they had if you watched it back in slow motion which I did they had gimmicked two of the ring posts to
Starting point is 01:16:21 to fold in at a certain point which dropped the ropes and it gave a hell of a collapse, you know, illusion or whatever. And I don't know how they do this yet, but they've got more money to federal government now saying to do anything they want. But then everybody's laying there selling immobile, right?
Starting point is 01:16:45 And the stairs are in the ring, and the dead bodies are in the ring. And then here comes Seth Franklin Rollins. He's back, ladies and dad. You remember that no good Bronson Reed splashed him and hurt him. He rolled in the ring and curb stomps Bronson Reed on the stairs. And then fucking jumps out and Brown Strongman gets to his feet by the 10 count to win the thing. And he wins the monster mayhem or whatever the fuck this thing was.
Starting point is 01:17:20 But yes, it was a spectacle, wasn't it, Brian? I thought I really got into it just because it was such a mess and then you know it was one of those things where the guy interferes and cost the guy the match but it made so much sense it didn't bother me at all Seth Rollins got a major reaction oh god yeah I mean that was perfect at least they you know they tied up that loose end and but now hopefully we may see some Seth Rollins and Bronson Reed rather than having the
Starting point is 01:17:53 the Mack truck and the fucking U-Haul dumpster you know have any more of these matches I like Bronson Reed but I like him when he's he can be big against somebody and use the power stuff and he's so impressive with that and have the other guy be the smaller guy
Starting point is 01:18:11 that used the speed etc instead of the two Mac trucks bumping into each other and you know Brown I understand you know they made money with giant people in wrestling since the dawn of wrestling. So it's not that I'm saying there's no place for him, but goddamn, the more you see except if he needs to be a special
Starting point is 01:18:35 partner, a goddamn attraction of some kind. Did you just the other night? A week or two ago on Raw, he's doing the choo-choo running around the ring to shoulder-tackle people. And he ran and missed the fucking guy. And the guy took a bump anyway, but you could even not slow-mo, just watch it. He missed the fucking guy who was standing there stationary ready to be run into. And he just waved his arm as he went by and the guy took a bump for him.
Starting point is 01:19:10 I'm like, you got to, small doses, don't like the single matches, make him a special tag team partner, etc. Brown Strongman should be seen sparingly and hurt a little bit less. And maybe run less because it's not like he picks up speed. It looks like he hurts himself every time he starts to run. Maybe he was ruptured. That's why he couldn't run into the stationary target. But Jim? But Jim?
Starting point is 01:19:41 That was WWE Raw. It certainly was, Brian. Let's now travel to the past where you and I had a discussion about wrestling's future. NXT on the CW. Let's go to the Time Machine. Jim, you know what that sound means? It's time to move on, and we're going to move on now to the future. The future of wrestling.
Starting point is 01:20:20 Wrestling on Network TV. WWE left Fox, but NXT has found a new home on the CW. Pix 11 here in New York. Jim, everyone knows what you have done to help wrestling's future, the wrestlers you train. how much you love helping the future of wrestling. What did you think of the future of wrestling on display, NXT on the CW?
Starting point is 01:20:43 I think the future is looking very, very dim. I think we're headed for an apocalypse. And by the way, this is network in name only. What has happened to the CW network? And did you see they had, right before the top of the 9 o'clock hour, they had four or five of the CW Network people in the front row that they, you know, had waved to the camera and they talked about them and they looked like a goddamn subdivision homeowners association. What, it, apparently CW Network had like 1.6 or 7 million people on average watching their primetime programming like six, seven years ago and now they're down to 300-something thousand.
Starting point is 01:21:30 what the fuck is going on over there? There's a lot of channels that have been mismanaged. And I guess whatever they're trying to do hasn't been connecting with a broad audience, but that's why they got NXT, a sweetheart deal. What is it, like $25 million a year or something? A really nice deal.
Starting point is 01:21:47 I wouldn't be surprised if this network wasn't trying to pay in fucking food coupons and gift cards. What in the world? Who's the producer of this thing? The fucking Zero Mestel? Well, the other thing, too, is they introduced these five or six white people at ringside as CW Network, and they just stand up and they're waving and clapping.
Starting point is 01:22:08 You know, no one knows who the hell they are. Well, they weren't all white either. Oh. There was a, I believe there was a woman of color, a wok, as they say. No one says that. They don't? I've never heard that. People of color, pock, women of color, walk, man of color, mock.
Starting point is 01:22:27 I've never heard of any of these things. Have you heard people use these? well you have now but anyways I was jacked up to watch this thing because we watched NXT back in the day
Starting point is 01:22:40 when the undisputed era and Adam Cole was good and there was things going on and then Triple H had a heart attack and Vince went in there and made it unicorn vomit and turned it into a Nickelodeon game show
Starting point is 01:22:52 and we saw fuck this and we hadn't watched it in a while but now a new show, new debut they're in Chicago, see them, on the show. I'm they, they got some more of them brawn breakers over there? Or maybe just let's see what
Starting point is 01:23:07 what they're going to do here and maybe this will be easier to watch than three hours of raw or, you know, just fresher or whatever. All the talent is in their 50s. Well, punk's in his 40s. I guess he is, isn't he? Early? He's in his mid-40s.
Starting point is 01:23:28 Well, mid. Well, that's younger than Michael's in Triple H, but God, don't mighty, I couldn't wait for this thing to be over. What is this? What was this? Well, let me just say also the steady during the entire switchover from Triple H to Vince, even though it technically was all under Vince the whole time, was Sean Michaels. And when we've heard compliments from people in the last few years saying NXT,
Starting point is 01:23:59 he's better or you guys should watch it. Why aren't you reviewing it? It was always Sean Michaels is doing a good job. It's definitely not Triple H's NXT. And a lot of it feels like Vince McMahon's... It feels like if Vince McMahon had a developmental 30 years ago, you know, like Tony DeAngel's... Yes, to yes.
Starting point is 01:24:23 I swear to God I wrote that in my notes. We'll get there. But that, I said, this is a 1995 Vince gimmick. but well Sean Michaels well start by the way the program has the worst theme music ever I said that about Smackdown last week
Starting point is 01:24:37 I changed my mind this one what the Jesus Christ what were you going to say what was I going to say I don't know I don't know either I didn't give you a chance to say it
Starting point is 01:24:48 so Sean Michaels came out the senior vice president of talent development and creative and I was thinking And good God, if in 25 years ago, if you'd have told me or Gerald Briscoe or Jack Lanza or Jim Ross or a variety of people on the roster in the company in the office, we're going to make Sean Michaels a vice president of this son of a bitch. What the fuck is the matter with you? the most
Starting point is 01:25:23 the most unreliable pain in the ass ever to the WWF I well now all the warriors got that spot I guess but one of the most has now become a not only a senior vice president but a bald cowboy the irony and
Starting point is 01:25:44 is Vic Joseph brand new did they just start him now or has he been doing this a while the announcer? He's been out of for a while He's been at it for a good while. Well, he ought to quit. He wasn't that bad. You thought he was that bad? I don't, well, what's Booker doing?
Starting point is 01:26:01 Booker T ain't that good on the mic. Would all due respect, he seems like a very nice guy, great wrestler. Booker T should not be on commentary. But what bothered you about Vic Joseph that's worse than, and I'm not defending him, I'm just curious, everyone else we hear on these shows.
Starting point is 01:26:15 Well, I just, he's, he seems like he's younger and greener at it. Wow, he sounds so much, better now that he did a few years ago. That's even funny. Was he the commentator when we were watching before? He did something before. I almost feel like he may have had to run on one of their main shows, but maybe I'm wrong,
Starting point is 01:26:34 but he's been in NXT for a while. He was definitely, we've definitely heard him do commentary before. I don't know. Maybe part of it was Booker. I don't know what's, a lot of times you have a guy that can do a great promo for himself, but that doesn't translate to being an announcer or color commentator. And there you go. So Michaels comes out and he's got the little table in the ring.
Starting point is 01:27:05 No, I wasn't even going to go there because the fact that he now looks like, you know, he looks. Again, who would have thought? I, today at 63 years old, have more hair than Sean Michaels and Triple H combined. Yeah, but with Triple Aitchin's by choice Would he have made that choice if there wasn't patches up there that couldn't be fertilized? Would you just shave everything off when you had hair like that in the past unless it had left to an embarrassing degree? The last time I remember him having noticeable stubble on his head,
Starting point is 01:27:40 it didn't appear like there were just wide patches of baldness, I think it's a look. He couldn't pull off his look with hair. He needs for the strength for all the hair to be able to be able to. on his beard, not on his head. Otherwise, he just looks like some long-haired weirdo. At his old age, you know, starting to get over a little more and everything else. Well, nevertheless.
Starting point is 01:28:02 But anyway, so Sean, back to middle-aged weirdos. So Sean has a table set up in the rig and he presents new championship titles, which is like saying, I'm going to give you a new jacket coat. or I'm going to go out and buy a new automobile car. Vince is gone. They can say belts. Why, of all people, a guy who was in the business,
Starting point is 01:28:29 back when things were called what they actually are, why can't he say new championship belts? Is there a chance that Vince convinced some of these other people that this was a smart thing to not use the word belt? Do anyone else? Does anyone else in any... A lot of people don't think it be like it is, but it do. Does anyone else in WWE actually believe what Vince was preaching?
Starting point is 01:28:53 I don't, I mean, did he got some people to come to his parties, apparently? So some people will believe anything. But you would have to know that it was just the weirdness of Vince in his, you know, old billionaire mind that didn't like the word belt. There's no other reason to call a belt a title. because as we've mentioned before, a title is what you, the position you win and the belt is emblematic of the championship or the title that you hold. It's not that fucking hard, but because Vince, now you've got grown adults, handing people belts and here's your title.
Starting point is 01:29:38 The fuck. Anyway, so then Triple H comes out and says, are you ready? Well, they teased it. Sean Michael said, I have one question for you. Well, yeah, I have one question for you. I thought he was going to ask people to suck it, or were they ready to suck it, or whatever the fuck it was. I don't think they're going to debut on national TV like that, but then Triple H surprised everyone by being there to ask the question with Sean. The middle-hs-
Starting point is 01:30:06 Well, he asked it off camera. Are you ready? And then Sean turned around and there was Triple H stepping into the big roar. Everybody, these guys, they get a big pop. They're over. but then when we were ready, here's what we got. Julia.
Starting point is 01:30:25 And I'm thinking, okay, horrible theme music. Sean Michaels is a star. They're bringing out all the names. Not really sure yet about the commentary team. Here's Triple H, another big star. What are they going to start out with? The Women's Title, Julia versus Roxanne Perez. and I wrote, God damn it.
Starting point is 01:30:52 So... God damn it, she's fine? No, God damn it. I wanted to see a fucking match. Give me some brawn breakers. I want to see what the future of wrestling is, not what the future of pissed off middle school cheerleaders is. And by the way, Mike Rome is the ring announcer.
Starting point is 01:31:09 He looks like a brunette, bevis, and budhead character. Is it going to be one of these shots? You're going to beat up every single person you see on the show? I'm not going to beat him up. I'm just going to give an evaluation of them. What's the fuck is with his hair? Is he upset? He's not tall enough.
Starting point is 01:31:24 He's got to fucking tease it up like goddamn state fair cotton candy? I don't know. I don't know. Any problems with the timekeeper? Did the timekeeper do anything to do? Didn't seem on camera. I'll let you know. But old Roxanne Perez, she's the NXT women's champion.
Starting point is 01:31:42 Julia is the girl that we've heard that they signed from Japan to this big fanfare. Well, Roxanne Perez needs a step stool to see over the top rope. And as I said, it looked like two junior high school cheerleaders trying to do an interpretive dance, but they got pissed off at each other in the middle of it and started pulling hair. Why junior high school? Why not high school? Because they're not that big. Oh, come on.
Starting point is 01:32:11 They're that big. It looked to me like Darling Dagmar versus Diamond Lill with better hair and makeup. I'm so I've seen smoother street fights. That's ridiculous. Did you see when Roxanne... They were dwarf wrestlers. You're comparing these people at height to them?
Starting point is 01:32:29 Yes. Oh, come on. I'm to, it ain't a foot difference between Roxanne Perez and either one of them. Well, look, that's Roxanne Perez. She was shorter, and I think that led to some sloppiness during the match because Julia wasn't working with someone her size. Oh, come on now. Someone significantly smaller.
Starting point is 01:32:47 Roxanne Perez did a head scissors. She rolled up and put her legs on either side of Julia's head and then whipped them down. And when she whipped them down, Julia stood there for about a second and a quarter and then dove head first through the ropes like she was trying to commit suicide. And at that point, I started fast forwarding. I had seen enough. Oh, come on. Oh, come. What did I miss?
Starting point is 01:33:16 More comedic effects. There were no comedic effects. it was a good back and forth match. They got the fans into them. I think a lot of people thought this was maybe a way that Julia in her first match was going to win the title. And it wasn't that, and it was an exciting finish. It was an exciting finish.
Starting point is 01:33:35 It didn't make any sense. Roxanne Perez is the baby face, right? No. One would think, no. No, she's the heel. She was the heel. Julia comes after her bleached blonde. hair and a big outfit and everything and blah, blah, blah.
Starting point is 01:33:52 Here's this little tiny, teeny tiny. How old is Roxanne Perez? She can't be 19 years old. Oh, see, now you're being ridiculous. I'm going to guess 26. Let me look at it up. Oh, bullshit. Roxanne Perez.
Starting point is 01:34:03 I thought she was the little teeny tiny baby face. And why was she doing all the head scissors and everything? Based on what Wikipedia says, she is 22 years old, five foot one from Laredo, Texas. Well, anyway, the point is. they had a double knockout. They're both down. And Roxanne Perez rolls out and walks around the ring on the floor
Starting point is 01:34:28 and gets the title belt and rolls in the ring and the referee stops her. And while that is happening, a hooded woman runs from the entranceway and pulls Julie out and gives her a DDT on the floor. And then I believe she chucked her back in
Starting point is 01:34:45 or whatever, but Roxanne Perez did some kind of super up sunset flip one, two, three, and then the hooded woman pulls her hood off, and the announcer said it's Cora Jade. I have no reason to doubt them, because apparently they know who the fuck she is. But Cora Jade is the one who screwed over poor Julia. Blah. You mean to tell me that you thought that was a way you should debut a brand new network?
Starting point is 01:35:20 I absolutely do not think that. was a good match, but I don't think if it was me and I was debuting my show and my brand on a new network, that is not the match I would start with. And I probably would have had less women on the show, actually. Boy, well, we'll get to that. 23 minutes in, by the way, for just what we've talked about? The fans were pretty into it. What did you think of the crowd? Well, what building were they in in Chicago? Was that the now arena? Give me a second. Well, while you're checking, I will bring up that some people pulled up in their cars. They're doing that thing on this show too.
Starting point is 01:35:57 But then there was a video of two guys on a couch playing video games, a midget and a mask and some bumy-looking guy with an accent. And they were playing the NXT video game. and then they're playing either for or against Grayson Waller and Austin Theory and then you see I looked up and there's the
Starting point is 01:36:28 NXT tag team belts sitting on top of the couch so apparently the midget in the mask and the fucking the long-haired bum with an accent on the couch playing video games are the NXT tag team champions and the
Starting point is 01:36:46 Bum got mad because the midget in the mass distracted him, and therefore he lost against theory and Waller in the game, and apparently they're going to wrestle him for real next week or sometime. Did you see that segment? You know, I missed that segment, actually. I did not. Well, boy, howdy. The bum and the midget, I don't know who this team is.
Starting point is 01:37:11 I don't know who the fuck they are. But they're seriously presenting their tag team champions sitting on a count. playing video games. And oh, you caused me to lose. I got pinned. You want to play another game? Jim, as of yesterday afternoon, there were 7,089 tickets distributed,
Starting point is 01:37:30 and it was the Allstate Arena, Rosemont, Illinois. Oh, shit! According to Russell Ticks. So they would have more than filled up, I believe, the Now Arena, but that had the Rosemont Horizon. So they had, for NXT, 8,000 people that they probably ended up with. or thereabouts ain't bad even in the Rosemont Horizon,
Starting point is 01:37:50 which I believe seats about 16 or 18, but the people that were there apparently have been watching the NXT television show because they actually liked some of the things that were going on here. Yeah, see, that's the weird thing. Even more than like an AEW situation where we see it happen in real time.
Starting point is 01:38:08 We haven't watched NXT in a while and the fans they were into it, it seems, and not a lot of it seems very good. Yeah, I think it's the idea of that they want to like it, so they're overlooking some things. You would think with Triple H back in charge, well, not back in charge, in charge of WWE, that maybe developmental would look a little bit more like what his vision of that wrestling product was, not, you know, this where, you know, it's a superstar training program, not a professional wrestling developmental television show.
Starting point is 01:38:43 Well, but let's think about this. let's say you're a movie producer and you want to remake Gone With the Wind, but the only actors available to you are Mo, Larry, and Curley. I don't think those are the only actors available to WWE. Who's on this show is who they chose to be on this show. Well, why would they pick these people to be on a show if they had some more of them brawn breakers? Well, there aren't a lot of brawn breakers, but who knows who's in the pipeline.
Starting point is 01:39:13 Well, I know who's on the pipe, apparently. So then punk was in the back, he's pulled up earlier, and he was talking to Ava. Not Ava Gardner now, mind you. Not Ava Gabor, but Ava Rock. Could you understand a word she mumbled? She was about the size of punk. She doesn't really speak in a coherent way. She doesn't have any charisma or personality on the show.
Starting point is 01:39:45 And she's the general manager, a position typically given the former wrestlers with lots of experience, not the daughter of a wrestler. No. And, you know, it's weird. You could see, and someone said this to me a few weeks ago, but I don't watch too much NXT. Sometimes I'll have it on in the background. You never see her on the show.
Starting point is 01:40:05 They've clearly found a way to keep her on the show and minimize her on the show by making her the GM in one segment every once in a while. Well, the deal of they were setting up for Punk to be the referee in the main event and call it down the middle, but, you know, she had marbles in her mouth. And then Brian Pilman Jr. walked in. He's Lexus King now. He had very weird hair. And he, you know, he said something to Punk, and punk said, well, out of respect for your father, oh, no, I'm trying not to be like him. and then punk gave him some advice and I can't remember what it was but basically it was either
Starting point is 01:40:46 you know admit that you have the jeans inside of you or fight against them or whatever the fuck well thank you for giving me that advice I don't know what's going on there any comments on Brian Pilman Jr's hair not really I mean I don't know why he didn't wrestle on this show
Starting point is 01:41:07 they had a lot of people I would have liked to have seen wrestle on this show instead of some of the other people that wrestled on this show. Well, that's a perfect lead-in to the next people wrestling on this show. They did a history package on Zachary Wince and Wes Lee, and they used to be partners, and there's been ill feelings and bad blood and et cetera, and now they're going to have a street fight. And do you, I remember, if I'm not mistaken,
Starting point is 01:41:35 these two were when we started watching the Nickelode, Nickelodeon version of NXT. These two were the tag team that I said, what the fuck? They were just, one guy would do a standing backflip and the other guy would shove him down
Starting point is 01:41:51 on top of the other guy, just clumsy-ass tag team shit, prison tattoos and bad hair. And apparently they're still there three or four years later. Well, no, the one guy was fired. He's now working for TNA. But because TNA works with WWE now,
Starting point is 01:42:07 he's able to, you know, do stuff like this. They fired him, but he came back? He's the one. Do you remember they signed them and they were giving him a push and we checked him on and we really didn't like it? It was worse than AEW from what we saw. And then turned out he was married to some wrestler because they all just fucking marry each other at this point. And it never turns out well. He was married to a wrestler and they had some kind of breakup. She alleged it was abuse. He said there wasn't. And then she put up a picture of him with a Hitler mustache.
Starting point is 01:42:37 He's the Hitler guy. Doing a Hitler salute, WWE fired him, and then I guess his time has gone on. Maybe he's recognized how ignorant and wrong that was, and he's been wrestling for TNA and that led to the natural, let's get him to work for us without working for us situation. Well, Zachary Wins and Wesley had a street fight. The baby face was the Nazi. Well, I couldn't tell, actually, which was which here. you know, well, he's a reform Nazi.
Starting point is 01:43:09 That's right. We don't know what's going on. So Zachary was introduced at 185 pounds. Wesley was introduced at 178 pounds. If they introduced them at that, doesn't it mean 165 and 158? They're not going to shave the weight, that's for sure. Well, what the f... You can't tell me that you're introducing somebody
Starting point is 01:43:30 that legitimately weighs 178 pounds, has 178 pounds on a pro wrestling program. and expect people to, what the fuck are these children? And again, these two and everybody in their history video looked like juvenile delinquents with prison tattoos and bad haircuts. And they're wheeling a shopping cart full of shit to the ring for their street fight. And 40 minutes into this program, the first two men that we've seen wrestle are having a garbage match,
Starting point is 01:44:05 and I was bigger than both of them when I was 16 years old. So just real quickly, at one point in the ring, they had six chairs. They set a giant plywood sheet up on four chairs on the floor, and then both of them got on the apron and jumped off together so they could break it. And then they used the garbage cans and the kendo sticks and the hoopla. And then they had a table set up on the floor and I don't know which. The black guy pushed the white guy
Starting point is 01:44:41 off the top rope and he flipped to land on the table 10 feet away but he overshot it and just landed on the fucking floor and the table's not even knocked over. Yeah, that was bad. And bad for him.
Starting point is 01:44:58 Bad for him. And all right, whichever one was which Wesley was the one with the dreadlocks who works for NXT. Which one got up on the ropes and wrapped the logging chain around his knees? I think that would have been Wesley. Well, he jumped off and double knee-dropped the other guy who was sitting, waiting for it, in a folding chair, conveniently enough, and then pinned him one, two, three.
Starting point is 01:45:28 And my comment was somebody should call juvenile hall. How does this compare to an AEW match of the similar, I mean, we've seen match. matches like this on AEW where it's just weapons up the gazoo for no reason. How does this compare? This was better because it was shorter. It didn't take as much time. How long did it go? It didn't go as long as those AEW fucking fiascos go with the, and then nobody shoved a
Starting point is 01:45:53 hypodermic needle in anybody's face. Otherwise, it was, you know, what's the difference? Well, so far, like you said, on NXT, women's title match, and now we have A garbage match. We had Punk and Ava and Pilman Jr. in the back. What's next? Well, the 9 o'clock hour with the CW network executives. And then we had Ms. TV.
Starting point is 01:46:20 Mid, Jesus Christ, we can't get away from him here. Ms. TV, the special guests were Oba Femi and Tony DeAngelo. And you said, oh, we got to watch Obafemi, right? And I said, okay, here he comes. He's the North American champion around there. He's got size. He looks good. He's got some oomph to him.
Starting point is 01:46:49 He has two names that nobody has ever been called before. And as he sits down, I'm thinking, okay, they might have something here. And then here comes Tony D'Angelo. He's got two stooges and a girl. but they just come out with him and then send him to the ring, he goes the ring alone. He's the dawn of NXT. And he's a bargain basement Danny DeVito.
Starting point is 01:47:20 It's like a Vince McMahon gimmick from 1995. He's doing the wise guy. He's a fake wise guy accent. It's an Italian gimmick before the Sopranos. Yes. And the only, the only, excuse for this program and the unprofessionalism and the stupidity
Starting point is 01:47:41 involved with the video games and the small children and the fucking rotten music as they're trying to appeal to young people. Because all those things appeal to young people. But how is this fucking this would have been goddamn cliche
Starting point is 01:47:57 when the godfather came out in 1972? What the fuck? It looks like a 1995 Vince McMahon gimmick next to the goon. and T.L. Hopper. Well, the other thing, too, is, and maybe I'm wrong,
Starting point is 01:48:12 because I know we saw some of this guy way back when we stopped watching NXT. This was one of the reasons we stopped watching NXT. I thought he was like a Brooklyn, New York gimmick, which made it particularly offensive because no one is that gimmicky ever. Trust me, I got a lot of friends, North Jersey, all over New York.
Starting point is 01:48:31 No one is that gimmicky. But he said here, he's from Chicago. But, you know, on the first, thing Obafemi said is what I was thinking. I don't believe anything you're saying and I don't think you believe anything you're saying. And that's what I think. Speaking of what Obafemi was saying, so I said, okay, he looks great. He's got size. They're using him. He's the North American champion. And when Danny DeVito or Tony DeVito or Tony DiAngelo or whatever his name is started talking, I said, oh, no, I'm just going to skip ahead to Oba. So I skipped ahead to an Oba.
Starting point is 01:49:07 opened his mouth and I said, oh, fuck no. God damn it. What's the problem with him? I'm thinking, I'm looking at this guy, if he could talk like Ernie Ladd and just work a little bit. Holy mackerel, you can draw some money with this guy. He opens his mouth. He sounds like Prince Nana.
Starting point is 01:49:27 What kind of accent is? He sound like Eddie Murphy and coming to America. It's probably an accent from... Can we go to Queens? What the... It's his accent. What do you want to be? to do. I don't, I want to know where the fuck he's from, first of all, that he's got that
Starting point is 01:49:41 accent. Is that a real accent or is that a put on accent? If it's put on, he needs to drop it. He's from Nigeria. He's the real deal. It doesn't matter. Well, actually, he's the real deal except Obifemi, it turns out, is not his real name. His real name is Isaac Udug Bisson. Isaac, who dug this one? Who dug Bizzin? Okay, Isaac. What about Isaac Hayes?
Starting point is 01:50:14 Oh, they already got a Carmelo Hayes. But it's just, it was fucking hilarious that he opens his mouth and sounds like Prince Nana or Eddie Murphy in coming to America. And from then on, I just, I couldn't. The two examples you have with people from Africa? What is this? Well, hey, more people. have heard Eddie Murphy in coming to America
Starting point is 01:50:36 in the United States than have spoken to somebody from Nigeria. Yeah, I agree with that. What's Prince Nana doing on the list? Prince Nana is trying to do that accent as a fucking real. You guys done one promo in 10 years. Oh, he did. Well, he did him in Ring of Honor.
Starting point is 01:50:51 That's that way he sounded. It's not my fault. They won't let him talk. But I gave up on this whole thing. I'm like, I didn't want to laugh when Obafemi opened his fucking mouth and all I can think of is, you know, God damn him and Arsenio, you know, cutting up around town.
Starting point is 01:51:08 All right. So they're going to fight next week. So can he wrestle? Well, I wanted you to see him wrestle. I didn't know they were going to have him in one of these stupid MIS TV segments. Well, we've, maybe we, I will watch a clip later. Let's check out the match next week at least so we can see that. So then the next contest was Jada Parker and Lola Weiss,
Starting point is 01:51:35 versus fatal influence, who is Jane Wayne Gacy, remember her, and Fallon Henley, and they have a girl in her corner, and I couldn't understand the ring announcer. Who's the girl in her corner? Oh, I didn't pay attention to any of this shit. Kalani Jordan, I think, is her name, was at... She was on color. Very attractive woman, very, very attractive. But no, I wasn't...
Starting point is 01:52:00 This is where they go too far. I think the opening match, shouldn't have been the opening match, but having that women's title match was a good match, a crowd liked it. But they don't need to be, for every men's segment, a woman's segment. And that's what it felt like. And that's what NXT has felt like the last couple of years when I've watched it. And a lot of this shit just doesn't appeal to the male wrestling fan. It really makes you wonder why they're doing it.
Starting point is 01:52:23 Well, you know, you know why they're doing it, don't you? Why? Because whatever Lola wants, Lola gets. whatever Lola wants Lola gets And I wanted to fast forward And I got it So the heels won
Starting point is 01:52:46 And then Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill Came out as a surprise And just beat the teetotal shit out of them So I don't know what heat they got there Because then they got Spread all over the Kansas Canvas Or Kansas
Starting point is 01:52:59 Or Kansas Every segment so far Sean and Triple H intro Julia's match Punk and Ava backstage with Pilman Jr. Not to Zachary Wentz match. Miss TV in the previous segment and then Jade and... What's her name? Bianca.
Starting point is 01:53:14 Bianca. They had someone in every segment almost from the main roster. Well, and that will continue. Because... Like Mussolini! Saving shitty TV! C.M. Punk came out to see... What the fuck was going on?
Starting point is 01:53:37 And you know what? Like Pugsatoni Phil, he should have seen his shadow and gone back in a hole. And he wouldn't have to fucking be involved in this next match. Oh, boy. I take it you liked it. Trick Williams made his entrance and the people chant, whoop that trick.
Starting point is 01:54:02 Now, if they like him, why do they want people to whip him? No, a trick is a hooker that works for a pimp, right? Well, no, that's back in the old days when people used words that people knew what the fuck they mean. Now they change them every five fucking minutes. I guess the trick would be the customer for the hooker, right? Well, yes, but still, it's...
Starting point is 01:54:27 There is a thing they chant at ball games now. Whoop that trick. I don't know why. But Trick Williams is his name, but the people chant whoop that trick. Apparently they want people to whoop Trick Williams. And Booker wouldn't shut up here. Whop that trick? Uh-huh.
Starting point is 01:54:50 Uh-huh. Uh-huh. What the fuck is going on here? So, but the people like him. And then remember Ethan Page from AEW? Well, here he became. and he now is the NXT champion.
Starting point is 01:55:11 So how the I would say how the mighty have fallen but actually how the small have risen. So another guy that Tony couldn't figure out what to do with or how to keep or whatever and I never particularly liked him anyway, but they bring him over here
Starting point is 01:55:28 and make him some kind of fucking star for these people. But Punk was the referee and he was going to call it right down the middle. Brian, give me your interpretation or impression of this contest, if you would. I don't want to be the one to hog all the spotlight here. I will now do my interpretation of this match. Ask them! Ask them!
Starting point is 01:55:58 How was that? That was pretty good. Thank you. It was a back-and-forth match between Trick, who I believe they said was a former champion and Ethan Page, who came over from TNA. That T&A boarding school that's now producing so much talent for them to have Luz on national TV. I like Ethan Page. I always did. I know why you had a problem with him. I understand why. I look past it, partly because I didn't watch that. I never saw it. But I always thought he had talent. I always thought he could do a good promo.
Starting point is 01:56:30 I always thought he was a natural heel. And I always thought he was misused in AEW, whether it was him and Scorpio Sky with Dan Lambert or him with the Hardy. he never had a chance and they're giving him a chance here. Well, then what do you attribute the blonness of this match to, Trick? I thought, and again, I haven't watched a lot of NXT, I thought Trick was quite sloppy. Sloppy trick.
Starting point is 01:57:00 Or at least there was a sloppiness in the way these two work together. At least that's what I thought. Now, I don't know if it's, I'm just such a cynical fan now that I pick up on more sloppiness than I used to, or if there's just more sloppiness than it used to be? Well, here's the thing. Trick Williams is one of these guys that is very athletic and has a lot of
Starting point is 01:57:22 leaping ability and, you know, he's in good shape and he's got, you know, lean physique and everything, and he's awkward at pro wrestling movement. You can be a great athlete and be awkward at the same time depending on how you're trying to apply the athleticism, right? And he's green. And maybe he's got happy feet, or he's just, he doesn't, here's a guy who can leap up in the air and spread his wings and clothesline a guy and whatever. And that looks, wow, athletic. And he can't throw a punch. He's standing flat-footed.
Starting point is 01:58:02 He's throwing his arm out in a circle. That awkward movement when it comes to applying shit to wrestling stuff. and he went at one time he was running in and went to do the goddamn reverse neck breaker running reverse neckbreaker and he missed Paige's
Starting point is 01:58:22 fucking head he just he just went to grab it and missed it went right past it and page took the bump anyway but that's a thing they established punk as the referee there was some story to it he separated
Starting point is 01:58:39 them he counted a couple two counts he blocked a punch he caught the guy with his foot on the ropes and then they just had a a match that was kind of a it was a match and at one point page power bomb trick through the announced desk and i swear to god a trick momentarily rolled back into the ring and jumped up and knee lifted page and missed him but then Paige fell on trick and got a two count. So then Punk helps them both up when they're both down to continue fighting. And that's where they did the sloppy one, two, into a hockey fight, missed the neck breakers, several false finishes.
Starting point is 01:59:29 And then Paige gave Trick the go to sleep in front of Punk and got a two count. What'd you think of that? That spot where him and Punk were jarring in each other and then what did he say? Punk said you're a son of a bitch and he goes, I'll show you how big of a son of a bitch I could be and he does the move right in front not facing the camera but facing him.
Starting point is 01:59:49 Yeah. Well, that's bringing, they tried to do something here where that Page would have some kind of goddamn bitch but I don't know what to, I like the idea of doing the guys move in front of him, right? And he did that and got a two count. And then Page goes for the razor's edge.
Starting point is 02:00:10 And at this point, Trick kicks his feet and gets out of it and lands on his feet and just goes into Punk's arms like he's giving him a hug. And then Punk turns him around and sets him in a corner. And Page charges, but Trick moves and hits him with another knee lift and pins him one, two, three. So if you're trying to set up that when people, Paige gave the guy punk's move in front of punk, that punk would then do something to, to page in some way, he didn't do anything. Treg just came down in his arms and there was no,
Starting point is 02:00:54 do you see what I'm saying here? Did that look awkward to you? I mean, it looked awkward. It didn't look super awkward, but just regular awkward. Well, but the thing is punk didn't do anything to, influence the match in any way. He didn't pull him out of the corner so that Paige missed. Right down the middle. That's what he said.
Starting point is 02:01:14 He didn't pull him out of the fucking finish that Paige had him in. But Paige had done the thing to do his move in front of him to piss him off so that there wasn't even anything that was done where punk was still neutral, but he made a difference accidentally in the thing. He just caught trick and turned him around. It was an odd finish to me. But now there's a new champion. New champion.
Starting point is 02:01:41 And the people really went crazy. But that's probably why they were there because they were already crazy. You'd have to be crazy to go to this fucking show on purpose. How long can they tour with this? Till next week. After they get out of St. Louis, I hope Randy Orton knows. Maybe they're giving away tickets out there at Emo's Pizza. There's as many Emo's pizzas in St. Louis as there will be fans in the fucking building.
Starting point is 02:02:07 probably about five or six thousand of them. Any closing thoughts on the main event? Trick Williams, Ethan Page, punk is the referee? I just... This wasn't like, you know, the glory days of the attitude era where Sean Michael's Brett Hart and the Undertaker were all in there and the referee was involved. It was just kind of like, blah, it was just kind of like, blah,
Starting point is 02:02:30 it was a blah match and a blah finish. And they... the biggest stars on the show didn't wrestle they refereed they ran in and they ran the show but everybody else was gee many Pete I'm sorry
Starting point is 02:02:51 I don't mean to be negative but I was looking forward to it and with half the thing being wow to begin with women of wrestling or whatever there wasn't and the children's street fight out of, yeah. Are we going to give it one more week as St. Louis and Randy Orton? Well, I don't care about Randy Orton being there. I want to see the Obafemi match. Well, I mean, just, I'm at least willing to watch that. If we know that Orton's going to be there and it's in St. Louis, there's going to be some other names there. They'll have a crowd.
Starting point is 02:03:23 That's always the worst thing when it's like Randy Orton in his hometown for some other show. He just comes out and gives a nice little introduction and then interacts at one of their stars. It'll be the same thing it always is. I'm more. Maybe he'll talk to. Ava. Oh, boy, are they flying her to each place? Jesus. No, they're putting her on a fucking greyhound.
Starting point is 02:03:42 What do you mean? Are they flying her to anything? The only appearance she made was in one little tiny backstage segment for a second. Look you here, the money they got, you're worried about Ava's fucking plane ticket. Even if she's in business, I think they can hide that expense at this point. I'm not saying she's earning her keep or in any way necessary, but I don't think we ought to worry about them being fiscally irresponsible because they're giving her a plane ticket. I don't think that was really the concern, but...
Starting point is 02:04:10 I know what you mean. Either way, that was, uh, I was much say AW Dynamite. NXT on CW, week one. There will at least be portions of week two reviewed, and then we'll see how it goes from there. I would double dog dare any son of a bitch out there to watch this two hours of television and then watch... any of the two-hour OVW specials that we did
Starting point is 02:04:37 and tell me which was the better television wrestling show. Honestly, not talking about production budget, but which did you rather enjoy watching? And holy shit, what the fuck? This is, I've been...
Starting point is 02:04:53 And we were at least on a WB affiliate. Not the CW. Where did UPN go? WB and what was the other network that merged to become the CW? There was a WB network. There was the UPN network and there was another network and that other, and they merged to be CW.
Starting point is 02:05:16 And I can't remember, what the fuck? Help me. Are you on mute? I'm on mute, but I don't have the answer, so I can't really help me. I have no idea. There was UPN or CW. They kept the W from WB network.
Starting point is 02:05:33 What was the other network? There was three of them. I don't know, but that was NXT on CW and I think AEW may have a better show, but we'll see. You know, boy, I'll tell you what,
Starting point is 02:05:49 that is at least now Tony Kahn can be proud of something. However rotten his show is, it wasn't this rotten. At least we had more things to laugh at on Tony's programs. We are in the future, ladies and gentlemen, a warm and fuzzy future. Jimmy, you there?
Starting point is 02:06:20 Yes, I heard that sound once before as a small child when I got trapped in a septic tank. Oh, how'd that work out? Well, fortunately, I was able to be expelled. Well, we will talk about that story, I'm sure, in Happy Talk at another time. But Jim, we mentioned before, there are more things to laugh at than just Tony's program. there's NXT but what if you want to get away
Starting point is 02:06:50 from the laughter? What if you want to get away from the ridicule? What if you want to just listen to some fine tunes walk down the street snapping your fingers hey man what's happening
Starting point is 02:06:59 that kind of stuff just kind of walking down the street just grooving on a Sunday afternoon the rascals you don't want to get away from the laughter and the frivolity
Starting point is 02:07:14 and the jocularity and the merriment and the mocking You want to embrace it, but you don't have time because there's so many rotten programs to watch. How in the world do you have time? Well, folks, with the Racon everyday wireless earbuds, I'll tell you what, you can do two things at once. Even if you can't walk and chew gum at the same time, you can walk and listen,
Starting point is 02:07:36 or ride and listen or sit and listen or even lay and listen. We don't care what position you get in as long as you listen. And we've established, Brian, several facts about the, Racon earbuds, right? We've established that they're, they cost less and they sound great, right, than any of the other brands. We've established they got the 32-hour battery life. We established, they've got a bunch of new features. I'm going to go over because I think that we can apply them to something that our listeners are very interested in. And we also, we've established that they are available in a variety of vibrant colors to complement any and all skin
Starting point is 02:08:15 tones, however, they're still working on the heartbreak of psoriasis. So you folks stand by. But think about this. No, I'm telling you, this is that thing about this. I've come up with this. You're telling me. These things, you can listen to podcasts with these things. You can listen to music.
Starting point is 02:08:33 You can listen to basically anything you can listen to on any other earbuds or headphones or things like that. And you can pair these things up with your blue teeth, right? Right. I'm sorry. I realized that was one of those ones. ones you were throwing to me. I thought it was just a right for the people. It was not a rhetorical question because you know, I don't know about the technology here. So I got to make sure I'm
Starting point is 02:08:54 talking correct to the people. I don't want to lead them down to Primrose path. If you can, and you can connect, you were talking about connecting your TV to the blue teeth, right? You can do that too. You can, uh, you're, your smart television there. You can connect your smart television so you can hear it on your Raycon, of course, yes. Well, yes. So what about this then? See, I've just thought of this idea. You connect your Racon's blue teeth to your TV's blue teeth, and that way, while you're walking down the street, instead of snapping your fingers.
Starting point is 02:09:29 Bluetooth. Well, if you're poor and you only can afford one, it'll still work. But instead of snapping your fingers walking down the street, you're laughing and entertaining yourself at all the bad wrestling. But at the same point, the new features, like the active noise cancellation, if you're listening to the bad wrestling show, hit the noise cancellation button,
Starting point is 02:09:51 you won't be able to hear the commentary. So right there, that's a feature that you can use. And the quick charge function. Let's say that your earbuds are as dead as fucking AEW. Well, you can plug them in for 10 minutes and you can get 90 minutes to zip through more than enough of AEW to satisfy your needs. And for any of the promotions, any of the promotions,
Starting point is 02:10:16 any of the programs, the earbuds are weatherproof and or sweat resistance. So when these people give you a bad segment, they're just basically pissing right in your face, it won't short circuit the earbuds. So all of these features, Brian, they're applicable to the wrestling shows. But I, so you think that idea that I have will work where you could actually listen to television on your earbuds? Well, I think you could listen to what you're watching. watching on your TV, on your Raycon earbuds, the finest earbuds, as you said before. Should I trademark that idea then and start leasing it out to Raycon and all of the people that...
Starting point is 02:10:56 That's not your idea. You and Hodghan, I just came up with you. You and Hotchkiss and whoever you have in your little circle of technology goofs. I don't know what this is. Gurus, gurus. Technology gurus, they show you the path. They enlighten you. having meetings in front of radio shack at three in the morning. Well, it's a smaller crowd that way. We didn't want everybody to know what we were up to.
Starting point is 02:11:24 But anyway, the idea that I just had would work, then, is what you have to admit, that you can pair these things up and listen to television. It works with Raycon, and ladies and gentlemen, you can work with Raycon because they are fine and they are ready for you. Jim, tell them how people can get them without saying anything else that is not helpful. I'll tell you what, you can save a lot of money, too. You can get half price if you'd play your cards right, because right now, if you go to buy Raycon, B-U-Y, R-A-Y-C-O-N-B-R-A-R-A-C-O-N-B-R-R-A-C-E-E-R-E-C-E-E-E-R-E-C-E-E-E-E-G-E-E-E-G. This very second, drop your baby if you're holding it.
Starting point is 02:12:06 Throw it out the window. You won't need it anymore. You're going to get earbuds. You're going to get 20-50% off site-wide. it's like you're just, it's a smash and grab. What the fuck? You're just, you're breaking into their theoretical brick and mortar store, and you're only leaving half the money.
Starting point is 02:12:25 Up to 50% off everything sitewide on buy raycon.com slash JCE. When you use the slash JCE, of course, that's how they know to give you the discount. Otherwise, they're going to just, they're going to charge you through the nose. All right. Well, that's Raycon one more time. Concisely, what's that promo code? Concisely. Buy Raycon.com slash JCE.
Starting point is 02:12:54 Well, there we go. We love Raycon. And speaking of love, there's a lot of love being spread this week, Jim. Between Warner Brothers Discovery and AEW, the big television rights renewal deal, the news came out earlier in the day just before Dynamite. And of course, AEW Dynamite had a big show in front of a big crowd. for dynamite. Where were they?
Starting point is 02:13:16 Pittsburgh. They were in Pittsburgh. That's correct. I remembered that because of Britt Baker had her hometown colors on. But what kind of audience did they draw for this fifth anniversary event on October 2nd? I did not get a crowdage or an estimate of the crowdage. Do you have any such knowledge as that? I am right now looking for the crowdage.
Starting point is 02:13:40 What was the name of the building they were in, Jim? The crowdage. The crowdage. arena in Pittsburgh. I don't fucking know. It's not the Igloo anymore. It's not the old Civic Arena where the Crusher and Bruno
Starting point is 02:13:51 wowed them. One of these newfangled arenas, probably named after some kind of hoity-toity fucking company or maybe some cheap fast food. According to Russell Ticks, at least as of Wednesday, they were at the Peterson
Starting point is 02:14:10 Events Center, 4,4,420, 25 tickets distributed. Son of a gun for them these days. That's good. They shot almost one side of the building. What's that place hold? Do you have any idea?
Starting point is 02:14:25 Because I've never heard of it. It's a new one. I'm looking at the market-to-market comparisons. Hold on. I don't have that in front of me. Well, you came unprepared. You know, Russell Ticks. You should always include the capacity.
Starting point is 02:14:37 Actually, it does. Yeah, actually, that... As I've mentioned, that is one of the things we had to write in our books, Vince insisted, you got the town, you've got the date of the last show, the date of the next show, and the building capacity, and or if it's set up for something different,
Starting point is 02:14:56 you've got that slash the building capacity. The building capacity, at least for Pittsburgh Panthers men's basketball, 12,5008. Ouch, all right, well, they had 33% of a house then this week, as opposed to we were always knocking them for a quarter of a house. Hey, give them credit.
Starting point is 02:15:18 They may have been bigger than the average dynamite audience, but they were also as quiet as them. They were trying to fit in and act normal. No, there were moments of raging cheeriness in between moments of sitting there going, what the fuck is going on here? And let's get to it. Jesus Christ!
Starting point is 02:15:40 They started with a cold open. and I'm not sure this was... They'll either start out with here the fucking match is starting and we're going to start hitting each other with chairs or they've got the plumber and his gang in the back in a warehouse somewhere with ominous music and speaking in riddles and or tongues while being shot in an artful way.
Starting point is 02:16:06 I'm talking about not shot, but it's not the St. Valentine's Day mask or shot video-wise, shot with a camera, shot with a camera, And at one point there was a second camera all of a sudden. Well, there's a second camera so they can get the sideways shot so that they can, you think they're doing this in one take? Well, they're like doing not only a promo where they're speaking in complete fucking riddles, but they're doing some kind of fucking temptation. Eddie Kendrick's David Ruffin' fucking choreography stepping up and back to the camera.
Starting point is 02:16:34 So you think they're doing that in one take? They got a second camera so they can fucking cut. That's a very good point. I mean, everything is so rehearsed and it's still. definitely just all performance-based, but it's one thing when a wrestler does a promo and they're facing the camera or facing even slightly towards the camera like that weird Vince angle they used. But when you're watching them talk to the camera from the side and you realize they're talking to no one, it takes away the effect.
Starting point is 02:17:02 Some drunk guy in Tyler, Texas, going, who they're talking to? Move the camera around, man. We can see what they're talking to. So anyway. Hold on. Hold on. First of all, Marina Shafir did her promo in Forgive me, I don't know remember what language she... I was guessing Hungarian. Would it be Hungarian?
Starting point is 02:17:23 Where is she from? I don't fucking know. It's not my week to goddamn do her biography. But that's the thing is between Pax accent and they're talking in the scripted verbiage that fits whatever the fuck's going on with this thing. So it's riddles, but between Pax accent, I was like, what the fuck is he saying?
Starting point is 02:17:45 And then Claudio, the one I understood, but he's talking, basically said, Wheeler, Wheeler useless. Why didn't you come with us or I know you can call me or whatever the fuck? The first thing we hear on their fifth anniversary is, where's Wheeler? And then Marina Schaefer came up and spoke Hungarian or was it Peruvian? I don't fucking know. And the whole time, Moxias is back turned to the camera because obviously he's spending a lot of time rehearsing his lines.
Starting point is 02:18:17 He's going over to his head, but also he's the star. So then he makes the grandiose turn in this art house project. And he tells Brian Danielson that he's going to have the belt one way or the other and there will be casualties. There will be casualty. He thinks he's goddamn. The viewers.
Starting point is 02:18:39 John Ramp. They keep killing off the viewers. There will be casualties. Keep letting me do my shit. They're dropping like flies. But basically, Moxley, who was some kind of
Starting point is 02:18:56 quasi-baby face with the whole BBC combat society. And they were quasi-baby faces. Then he went away for a while to do who knows what, or not do who knows what. To wrestle for New Japan, I think.
Starting point is 02:19:14 Well, but no, he was gone for longer than that from AEW TV, like two months, but he comes back quoting the Australian indie movies and being the neo-Nazi character that people have alerted us to, yeah, Neo-Moxi. Moxley. My name is Moxley, not Moxley. Whatever. But the point is, he's talking. about burying Brian Danielson in his backyard on October the 12th.
Starting point is 02:19:45 Danielson was part of the group. They never broke up until Moxley just came out and put a plastic bag over Danielson's head the night, right? After Claudio would give him the upper flipper. So has he yet said, do we know? No, we don't know, because he hadn't said anything intelligible. why do they suddenly hate this guy that was in their group for so long that they've now tried to kill him and he wants to bury him
Starting point is 02:20:16 and there's going to be casualties along the way and the pay-per-view is next week and we don't even know why he's fucking mad what the fuck sense does this make I don't think Claudio knows either he's in the fact trying to figure all this out this is stuff that you come up with and the Booker doesn't tell you no.
Starting point is 02:20:38 And instead he feeds into it. The Moxley stuff is, we'll get to his actual wrestling a little bit later, but he may be my least favorite wrestler in the entire business. Yeah. And it's so ridiculous and over the top. And he comes back and every version of him is like the same. It's the same thing, but after watching a few more movies.
Starting point is 02:21:03 And I don't know, you know, again, everyone's thinking this is leading to. Shane McMahon. I'm sure we'll talk about that more later. Well, if it is, then boy, howdy, would this be the worst ever angle or since the gobbledy gookker leading up to a fucking payoff? Well, we'll talk about their appearance again later on. Anyway, and Nigel, by the way, was in for Taz, and they announced that Taz was in the building earlier, but was attacked by unknown assailants and was taken away to be treated and potentially has gone home to his doctors. AKA like me, he wanted to watch the MEC game.
Starting point is 02:21:41 Well, I'm hoping that's what that is. But couldn't they just say he's on assignment? They have to make an angle about everything, unless this was some kind of pre-planned... Did you see the hook promo later? Well, yeah, kind of. I'll get you. But it was because someone beat up his dad, someone attacked Taz.
Starting point is 02:22:07 Well, yes. So they say that. They don't say why, but later they say he was attacked. Well, yeah, but at some point throughout the fucking night, they said that he was attacked and the hook's going to get even. But who the, all right, anyway. Wouldn't it be funny if he shows up on Raw? No, it's not going to happen.
Starting point is 02:22:27 Oh, God. All right. All right, the match that everybody's talking about, we're not going to give a blow-by-blow description of this. We don't have 36 hours. But Rickashay versus Osprey. for the international title. And some people, as you would predict, are like,
Starting point is 02:22:47 oh, this is so great. This is a five star, six star, whatever the fuck. And some people, as you would predict, are like, what the fuck are they doing? And you can't fault these guys as athletes. They are tremendous athletic performers, right? They can do all of those things. They can do too many things, as a matter of fact.
Starting point is 02:23:13 But, first of all, the whole idea of this match happening, how long has Rickshay been here? Has it been three weeks in AEW, I mean? It's been longer than that. It's been at least two months. Okay. I don't know. I'll split the difference. He's been here for six weeks.
Starting point is 02:23:34 Which pay-per-viewed? He debuted at one of the pay-per-views, right? Was it in England? I think so in the big multi- fucking gauntlet casino. Okay. Yeah. Okay, so that was the last week of August. Here we are the first week of October, six weeks.
Starting point is 02:23:51 He's already wrestling Osprey for the international title. They're both baby faces nominally because the crowd likes and cheers both of them, even though Osprey had a heel manager and mostly teams up with other heels. and they have a history among the or between each other that none of this audience has any idea of except the really hardcore ones that we talked about
Starting point is 02:24:23 on the last show that watched the Danielson and McGinnis matches in Ring of Honor that watched these fucking guys wherever they were having these gymnastics meets that they had on the Indies and instead of establishing ricochet and then beginning to tell a story of a
Starting point is 02:24:43 rivalry with Osprey and then establishing more of a rivalry here leading to a match. They just say, okay, everybody traded the tape seven years ago from fucking you know,
Starting point is 02:24:57 Beirut, wherever they were, so let's just go ahead and have the match now. They're both baby faces. There's no build or issue on this program. besides them coming face to face and being snide with each other last week or whatever. But because it's a banger of a match, they'll go ahead and give it to us now when it means nothing.
Starting point is 02:25:27 And they announce it with a week or two in advance, which is better than how they announce the World title match later on in the program. But do you see what I'm saying here? Is that what the fight? Ricketed, the way you introduce anybody into a new company is bring them in, give them some wins on television, get them in a program with a guy that they can get the last word on, whether he'll baby face, whatever fits, and get over with and then move into the main event mix. And instead, in six weeks, what are they doing here?
Starting point is 02:26:04 that's my point or one of my points I can't dispute anything you're saying they rush a lot of things to have them happen on the other hand with AEW if you're going to make it happen you almost have to because everyone always gets hurt so if you have a chance if you have a window
Starting point is 02:26:23 you kind of have to go for it well with the way that they're having these matches I can understand why here's another thing in the back Don Phallis and Kyle Feltcher are telling Osprey that they can't talk because they need to catch a plane
Starting point is 02:26:41 it's 802 the show just fucking started the first match is going to the ring why did they come why are they there if they have to catch a fucking plane now and there's our boy take a shit giving them giving Osprey the dirty look like I don't like you
Starting point is 02:27:00 and again who's the fucking heel why why is is osprey the good-looking guy with the fucking good hair and the nice physique and he's got a pleasant smile even though the fucking gravel garbledy fucking voice and he's athletic and flashy so he's just i got to talk to you guy well we don't the top heel manager and some fucking blonde asshole that's in his group we don't have time to talk to you now, we got to go catch a plane. And our other guy doesn't like you.
Starting point is 02:27:40 And so everybody's confused who are the faces are teaming with heels. The faces have heel managers. The faces fight each other. The faces have rivalries that nobody has seen. They've just been told about. And apparently due to the commentary, they've had nine singles matches and Ospreys ahead five to four. Why did they have those matches?
Starting point is 02:28:04 What is their issue? What did one turn on one another or they were best friends and somebody took somebody's girl? Whose side are we supposed to be on? Who's in the right? Again, they're great athletes. And they could work a hell of a contest if they could contain themselves from doing all the gymnastics and the cartwheels and the ridiculous overcooperation that takes it from a wrestling match to a flannel. routine, but Osprey is the guy. Ricosay can be very popular, but he's never going to be the guy in this company, especially
Starting point is 02:28:51 if they're taking in $1,7 million a year, they better never make Rickashay the guy in this company. Do you hear him on the mic? Yes. Oof. But Osprey can be the guy in this company. So, but we need to, please. establish some goddamn logic as to who is mad at who and who is on whose side and why these
Starting point is 02:29:17 things take place. We don't care about bangers. You're going to have the same audience, dwindling audience that you've got now if all you're doing is bangers, because after a while, just a bang for the sake of it without any emotion involved gets old. Haven't you found that, Brian? I saw some of their matches. You know, the famous one where the clips were going around at the time, where they did the opening spot where they both
Starting point is 02:29:48 do the exact same thing on the other side of the ropes, and then meet in the middle, and then do the same thing on the other side of the ropes, and do the same flip at the same time, ending in the same pose. And there are people who love that stuff, and they don't understand why we don't. Well, they did that stuff here,
Starting point is 02:30:06 and it wasn't as, to me it wasn't as good as it was years ago. Well, yeah, because they're fucking seven or eight years older or whatever. And it's almost like a step back for Osprey in a sense, because, you know, he needs to work on being a, he can't just do that forever. And they did that here. It was filled with spots that drive me crazy. But I guess because there's no feud and there's no problems between the two,
Starting point is 02:30:33 just out of the friendship of competing against each other, It makes sense when the one guy turns around, while the other guy's facing him still, and lifts his hands at the air, and gears up to the sky. Yeah, like Kenny does, like Kenny Omega does. Osprey was doing that shit. So it was a very...
Starting point is 02:30:50 I would kick the guy from behind in between the legs right in the fucking balls. It looks ultra-cooperative to people who are not wrestling fans, and to wrestling fans, it's split amongst people who think it looks ultra-cooperative and not what we want in even our high-flying matches and people who think it's the greatest thing ever.
Starting point is 02:31:14 But again, you look at the crowds they get and you look at the reactions these bangers are getting, they have bangers with no emotion. And whether it was this and it wasn't as bad here as it was later in the show, especially during that Danielson match, when the announcers have to start doing their golf commentary because the crowd is not making any noise whatsoever. There's a problem in what you're doing. No one has any passion or investment in anything you're doing. And they had this match and...
Starting point is 02:31:45 What are they going to break next in terms of furniture or whatever is what they're waiting on or what flip is going to be... There was no reason for this match. Unless you're a fan who is expecting and wanting, you know, a high-flying match. There's nothing to want in this. And I'm not saying you shouldn't have main event style matches on television anywhere, but I'm saying, why take Osprey 20 fucking minutes or however long this was to the limit and do everything and make him just one of the miscellaneous mid-card spot monkeys that, you know,
Starting point is 02:32:21 populates everywhere instead of focusing on him as either the guy or your next guy or whatever the fuck. And as I said, you know, he's got a nice body, decent look, and nice hair, expressive face, horrible voice. But he needs a producer badly to teach him how to get over in America, which he would have gotten in the WWE. And he'd be in front of a lot more people, but I don't know whether they would give him as much money in the schedule that he's got now. But his matches would be better because you could use the athleticism. I mean, in this match, he did 10 things that could be an angle that either could be done to him or he could do to somebody else that would carry you for a goddamn six months or a year
Starting point is 02:33:13 on a professional television program. And they just pop up and continue to do shit. They did everything. Nobody could beat anybody with anything. And at one point, again, the psychology, because there is none because they've been in Japan and they've been in England. Rickashay obviously chafed against the goddamn training that he got because he knew he knew he was going to get a bunch of money to do his flippy shit
Starting point is 02:33:44 while he still can with his friends here because he's right back to doing it. But at one point, Osprey was the way he was working heel. He had ricochet down and he was taunting him and he was bullying him. and ricochet was selling. And then Osprey did a flip off the top where he got a hurricane ronid, but he flipped and landed on his feet, and the crowd gave him a standing ovation. Now they're cheering the guy that was being the heel,
Starting point is 02:34:11 but then 30 seconds later he's flipping ricochet, the fucking double bird like, fuck you, and is he a heel again? And then the finish they did, they did two finishes. But Osprey gave Rikoshae the reverse Hurricane Rana, dropped him right on his feet, and Rikosha popped up without selling it,
Starting point is 02:34:37 and gave Osprey of reverse Hurricane Rana, and he popped up, and they basically just kept jumping up and doing the same move to each other without selling it, and then Osprey stood up and gave Rikoshae the elbow, and then fell on top of him, where they were both down, except Rickashay had to kind of put his hand over the top of Osprey's neck, and the referee counted both men down, and it was a draw.
Starting point is 02:35:11 Don't worry, that's not the end of it. But do you see what I'm saying? Why would you do that move and then just stand up and then just hop up in air and give the same move to the other guy and drop him on his head and have him not sell it? Isn't that just telling everybody everything we're doing is complete bullshit? See, what they do is impressive, but the idea that you jump up, there's a lot of just jumping up and doing something and then falling back down. Because I guess we're supposed to believe that you get a burst of energy
Starting point is 02:35:40 that propels you to do a RKO on the apron or whatever the fuck happened here. Every time somebody in a riot gets hitting a head with a goddamn baseball bat that suddenly for the next 10 seconds they can whip anybody is what you're saying. it's less than 10 seconds it's seemingly no matter what move is done to you if you have the uh i don't know what the fighting spirit whatever it is you have three seconds to jump up and do something sounds like they've had plenty of spirits i don't know if they're fighting any of them so then of course tony con by mental telepathy sends smiley roberts the ring announcer the message that this match will continue and i'm like god damn it and
Starting point is 02:36:26 they get up and start trading forearms in the middle of the ring. But 30 seconds later, so they did a double pin finish and a restart, and 30 seconds later take a shit, jumps in, and just starts beating up both of them. And it's just, it's a double disqualification, no contest, or whatever. And he gave Osprey a weird-looking knee that looked like maybe somebody wasn't ready for something or it looked different than what they envisioned it might have looked like. I don't know what happened. And then he just rolled out and got the title belt and what belt was on the line in this
Starting point is 02:37:09 thing? There's so many of them I've forgotten. This was the international? Yes, international. Yeah, that's it. Well, he got that belt and stood over both of them. Analyze that finish for me, great Brian. Well, Christopher Daniels was in some pre-tapes later on.
Starting point is 02:37:30 I guess they didn't fly him in, because why would you do that Tony Kahn has announced this from the back that he's just going with it instead of having like the moment. Well, because, no, this is Tony's fucking, he wanted to make sure that everybody knew that he was saving this match. The match they all wanted to see, because it was going to be a banger because they had one in a fucking hockey building in England seven years ago. he wanted to make sure he was the one known for saving it. That's my opinion. They did impressive stuff and the people were into them,
Starting point is 02:38:04 but you get a lot of these moments of silence. And again, you're having matches just to have matches. There's no... The only reason for them to wrestle is that they wrestled each other in front of a pretty small, all things considered audience eight years ago or whatever. Before Rick Oshay was in WWE,
Starting point is 02:38:23 before Osprey had muscle like a long time ago and they did the same moves that they did here but in between those moves it's just you sit there and you wait for the next move I thought this entire show but here and especially in the Danielson Okada match watching the fans watch the wrestling
Starting point is 02:38:45 while reacting to nothing and then all of a sudden a channel break out like this is awesome and you're like oh where's that coming from and then it goes away and everyone's still sitting there back into dead silence. There's no emotion. It's not, you know, I hate ricochet for any reason or I hate Will Ospre for any reason. It's no, let's just have a match where we're going to do a bunch of moves. So as a fan, you go into it knowing, oh, they're just going to have a match where they do a bunch of moves and kick out of everything.
Starting point is 02:39:13 And see, that's the problem that I have is it just devalues everything for people who are trying to evoke some emotion and get over and do this stuff the right, way when they're just out there playing video game characters and none of this hurts. They don't even sell the shit that really hurts enough that you would somewhat visibly sell it for fuck's sake. But it's impossible for, you know, it's impossible to follow some of this stuff because what are you going to do then? That's why, unfortunately, they're in a position they're in is that they've, they've, they've matriculated a pretty big section of the audience they had when they started because how do you
Starting point is 02:39:59 follow what they've already done? They've set people on fire and blown them up in these video game gymnastics bullshit matches where nothing can hurt anybody. Then they don't believe when they really do do something to one of the few people on the roster they care about. Then it is like, well, that was all. All they did was double pile driving off the top rope through tables on the floor? Well, the girls did that last week. It just nullifies impact of anything, which makes all these people get hurt more often because they got to do more shit.
Starting point is 02:40:39 For these fucking people that expect if you're not crashing through furniture, every 30 seconds, it's not a banger. Anyway. On the bright side, at least it looks like Tony's going to do something with the Kestha. Well, now we think maybe. It looks like it. Let's see if it lasts three weeks. It doesn't even deserve its own review, but Mercedes Monet was introduced a highlight video of dynamite on the occasion of the fifth anniversary.
Starting point is 02:41:16 The greatest moments and it was all her. And I just made the observation that she is the first, personality that I can think of in wrestling that is totally unlikable but not necessarily in a heel way but just even pockets
Starting point is 02:41:39 I hate his gimmick, it's fake and phony and bullshit but he doesn't come off like he thinks that he is the goddamn biggest superstar in the world and still have a goddamn rotten fucking phony gimmick. She does. But is that it's the classic
Starting point is 02:42:00 heel characteristic but the problem is you don't want to see anything she does because it's all so bad. So is this brilliant heel work or shitty heel work? It's shitty wrestling work because it's so fake. It's
Starting point is 02:42:19 fake past what's acceptable for wrestling fake. the way she talks It's like it's Every promo is a dressing room mirror promo She's doing it to herself in the mirror The way she talks Now wait a minute
Starting point is 02:42:36 Stop it Stop it The way she talks what she says The way she wears her hair Outside of the WWE ecosystem And even that has kind of moved on From a lot of what she did when she was successful there I'm sure she would still be over
Starting point is 02:42:53 I'm not saying that but she's doing a Vince McMahon-style women's wrestling character in terms of the hokeyness and the gimmickyness of it and it's not connecting with AEW fans. Though this shit wouldn't connect on WW television either, this wouldn't connect with anything, but nevertheless. It's really bad, like, it's cringy bad. You watch her and it's like, it's cringy bad.
Starting point is 02:43:21 These promos. Camille just stands there But Well yeah Sooner later She'll get to do something But also you see the the quotes from Mercedes on
Starting point is 02:43:35 You know That she does interviews Or on social media or whatever Where she speaks like that she has been Some savior of women's wrestling And some trailblazer And that she is able to do more now
Starting point is 02:43:51 To It just talks like she's goddamn Madonna or what, and it's fucking ludicrous. Don't they hear the crickets? Or are they drowned out by the piped in CEO and the music? Give her credit because there have been crickets. No one reacts. People don't like her.
Starting point is 02:44:09 People boo her. And she still has the confidence to go out there and go, I'm your CEO. Man, people don't give a fuck what you are. Oh, you know, maybe conniving, egotistical, and overpushed. I'll say it here. And I think it can apply to AEW more than WW because WWE has some really talented stars in the women's division. But how much more successful would AEW be just ratings alone if they didn't have a women's division? We know what drives off the viewers.
Starting point is 02:44:48 We know what segments do that. Again, why do it if, you know, why, just why? Yeah. You know what they did next? René Moxley-Good is standing in the back with the gun boys. And they said three words and hangnail page came in the back door and beat them both up with a chair. And that was it. Did you see the first chair shot?
Starting point is 02:45:14 It looks like he actually didn't hit him with the chair. He hit him with like his forearm? Well, yeah, because he was. coming in instead of whacking him with it he was coming in with the edge of it and just body checked him and you know had the chair in his hands but I mean
Starting point is 02:45:28 still what why can't these guys at least even get a chance to speak before somebody just beats a piss out of them and leaves them laying there and they get no retribution and it in every segment every time they're backstage somebody will talk for
Starting point is 02:45:46 five words and then get the shit kicked out of them to the point where it's just ridiculous now and nobody cares. Because it happens constantly. It's not out of the ordinary. Here's the guns that you haven't seen on this show in weeks. There go the guns. And there go the guns.
Starting point is 02:46:07 Okay. You mentioned segments that drive the viewers off. The Learning Tree with Chris Jericho, with Big Bill and Brian Keith and Mark Briscoe and Kyle O'Reilly and Rocky Ramirez. and our little puppy pockets, I just couldn't. And I saw as I was fast forwarding
Starting point is 02:46:28 that Mark Briscoe was cutting a promo on Jericho, but the opportunity for Mark has been wasted and this is so bad. And Jericho's disingenuous me, I just, so, are you going to crucify me here because I didn't fucking watch this thing? How could you not watch this? Because it was rotten.
Starting point is 02:46:50 didn't see a second of it. You went right past it. As soon as I saw that it was Chris Jericho. I just wasn't in the fucking mood. I don't know how to apologize any further. What happened? I'm not going to tell you. Well, all right. Then I don't care. But I did watch Darby Allen
Starting point is 02:47:12 in the woods on a bunch of junk cars at night wearing a pink furry housecoat telling a story about three guys bullying him and spitting on him on a bus and one of them had a switchblade but he jumped him anyway and I swear to God he said and it felt good that I did something about it I was waiting for him to say god damn when I got out of the hospital he stabbed me 17 times I said but either that or then we all got sent to the principal's office but
Starting point is 02:47:48 Darby does a good promo, especially if you're a young person who can overlook that he's an idiot and with himself physically and you can find some admiration in the homelessness and et cetera. I see that young people are a lot more accepting of people being fucking homeless than my generation.
Starting point is 02:48:16 And then talking about it on television, on television at least. I don't know. It might be something you have to experience. I'm not sure it's something you need to brag about years later. But he issued an open challenge for the pay-per-view. I'll fight anybody.
Starting point is 02:48:33 And then he beat up a car with a rock. I go back and forth on Darby Allen. Whether I think you dumb, stupid son of a bitch if you were smarter and you could apply your talents and eliminate your stupidity, you
Starting point is 02:48:49 You wouldn't be a crippled 35-year-old. He'd still be making a lot of money. But then other times I think, oh, fuck it, let him goddamn knock his head off. What'd you think about this promo? There's an interesting promo. An interesting story about people spitting at him. And he just got his ass kicked by Moxley. Now he just has an open challenge to anybody.
Starting point is 02:49:16 As long as they don't spit on him, because that's going to piss him off. that would be great if whoever he wrestles, they do the spot where they sit him down in front of him and they start spitting on top of his head. All right. Juice Robinson is back, ladies and gentlemen. And apparently, he's a baby face now, I guess, I think. And I'm excited. And he's going to wrestle hang nail page. I'm still excited, because at least Juice is back, right?
Starting point is 02:49:50 something about we both like him Brian you're a fan the way he talks the way he looks the way he wears his hair whatever so okay maybe let's see a good match here we got Juice
Starting point is 02:50:06 it's a jump start in the entrance Juice Robinson pulls out a belt and starts whipping Paige page takes it away from him and whips him so now I'm like wait a minute that's backwards if juices the baby face and then they fight into the arena page pulls several sections
Starting point is 02:50:29 of railing loose and uses it on juice he pulls a table up but they get misdirected from the table they fight in quotation marks they fight up the stairs into the stands throw some soft drinks in each other's faces come back down the same way.
Starting point is 02:50:52 Juice hits page with some popcorn. They roll into the ring and Aubrey Ed rings the bell to start the match and they go to break. So one guy that I'd like to see have a match on this show and this is what they do to it and they're still doing this thing where okay, they can come out, they can start fighting anywhere in the building,
Starting point is 02:51:16 they can go 15, 20 minutes with sledge, hammers, no matter what happens if they get in the ring, then we'll ring the bell. This is a rule that they have invented that has never been a thing in wrestling before. So at that point, I said, well, fuck, now it's ruined for me and I just got to fucking watch hangnail, so I skipped ahead another 10 minutes. 10 minutes after they fucking... This was long. This was long.
Starting point is 02:51:45 This felt really long. Yes, after that whole thing. 10 minutes. And finally, Paige Mule kicked. Our boy, Juice, and the balls and buckshot lariated him
Starting point is 02:51:56 1, 2, 3. Now, there's more to come, but continue your thought on that match. There's not much more I could say. Juice Robinson looked good. The little bits I watched, but it went a long time
Starting point is 02:52:08 and the pace of it was just deadly, and the crowd went silent, and so did I. So, uh... Well, but more noise was made at the end. It went way too long. It doesn't have the benefit anyone involved in us that it went that long. Whatever.
Starting point is 02:52:23 Well, they had an overrun. They snuck a two and a half hour show in on us this time. So the point is, Buckshot Leriot 1, 2, 3. Well, the heel wins. But again, the heel, goddamn every... Is there ever a match here without goddamn afterbirth? Page now is going to hang, Juice Robinson, and grabs his rope and throws him over the top rope with the rope around his neck.
Starting point is 02:52:51 And here comes light switch Jay White, and he rolls in and beats up Hangnail Page, and they fight out into the arena, and he runs Page through the table that they had set up in the match with juice a while ago. Huh. So that was that. You excited for the return of Jay White? No.
Starting point is 02:53:21 I wasn't excited for the debut of Jay White and everything else in between. Remember when he was doing those 20-minute fucking promos? See, that's what I'm waiting for. Next week when we get the promo. I'm assuming it'll be next week. It'll be more of the... Oh, I am, the greatest, the man who is number one? I'm just all talking about himself nonstop in that weird tone.
Starting point is 02:53:41 Yeah. More juice can't get a break. Can't get away from these. people. And then Renee Moxley-Goad with Jungle Jackoff and his Chester the Molester van, are we expected to believe that he's driving
Starting point is 02:53:56 that coast to coast and top to bottom, north to south, all across the country? Who is driving that? Are they putting the van on a truck or is somebody got to drive that ugly, uncomfortable
Starting point is 02:54:12 fucking painted over bread truck? to every city they go to. Because that's awful big to put on a fucking flatbed. Especially for Jack Perry, who's just not doing it. Why does he have to have this? This is an example of, you know, he said it would be cool if I had this ugly van.
Starting point is 02:54:38 And Tony Kahn has spent in a fortune so that this little idiot can pull up in an ugly van every week on TV for 10 seconds. So he walked into the shot, and Shepoopi came up to him and had his phone translator, and his phone challenged Jungle Jackoff to a pay-per-view match, and then he accepted, and then ran back in behind the guy and ran his head into the van. Should he be running Shepoopi's head into a van with his history of? of brain surgeries? You know, the only bigger question and why is Jack Perry getting this push
Starting point is 02:55:23 that isn't really working out too well is why would they book a feud with Shibata? Or is this just for the wrestle dream pay-per-view in a week? Well, yes, because this is everybody's dream to see a guy without a brain wrestle a guy with brain damage. Yeah, not good.
Starting point is 02:55:43 Speaking of both, brain damage or no brain, Brian Danielson was in the back, saying fuck John Moxley. Of course they bleeped it, but I will amen to that. But he cuts the promo on Moxley, but we still don't have any insight
Starting point is 02:56:01 as to why Moxley did what he did. And then Danielson promoted O Cody for the main event tonight. He's a great promo when he's fired up. But again, even worse with Daniels, and O'Code in the main event is with, they announced it on Twitter five days ago or whatever,
Starting point is 02:56:27 but another banger, but this time with a guy that's too banged up to bang, we'll get there. But anyway, did you watch Britt Baker versus Serena Deeb? A little bit. It's the first time we've seen Britt Baker since, I think, Wembley. It's her hometown, so I guess she has to be there. Serena D, the little bits I watched, looked really good. Serena D.b looked really good. Serena can work.
Starting point is 02:56:57 She's a Rip Rogers disciple. She can work. But of course... You can believe in her in the ring, you know? Yes. And Britt Baker, the hometown girl, came out with the Pittsburgh towel on her back or whatever that was, and she won with the mandible claw. and then
Starting point is 02:57:18 Serena gets heat on her every fucking match Serena just gets back on her and then here comes Queen Yaiata and makes the save and then everybody left but did you see
Starting point is 02:57:31 what somebody put out on Twitter like from wrestling source of reporting or dot com or some maybe even a completely phony site it had to be a made-up deal
Starting point is 02:57:46 but the reason for Britt Baker being suspended, did you see this? I don't know what you're talking about, no. I saw that one person tweeted it. There was a mocked up news headline. Britt Baker suspended. They said the reason, because she was using nitrous oxide in the locker room.
Starting point is 02:58:09 And that she was suspended for, hey. She would have been the most popular person in the locker room. Yeah, yeah. I'd be calling her up right now. But again, because she's a dentist, she was able to get... Obviously, we are not saying that that was in any way truthful. I thought it was funny and it's bullshit.
Starting point is 02:58:29 But can you imagine that? Nitrous oxide, for one thing, is not a performance-enhancing drug, but it's not necessarily something you'd be sitting around a locker room before you go out to work either. Although the famous story my dad's friends always said is that backstage, I think at the Nassau Coliseum, he said to Jerry Garcia one time, Hey, Jerry, if you're Captain Trips, why are we doing nitrous oxide? Jerry didn't have an answer.
Starting point is 02:58:54 Or if he did, I don't know what it is. But anyway. Her and Dr. Lano, I'm telling you, that's the big thing. Next time they go to the West Coast, they should have Lano come out as a manager for one night. And then he can do what he did at the Gordes-Kazars. You'll get on the mic and just do running commentary of the match. Yes, and he could have a big tank of nitrous oxide on his back. Isn't there one already?
Starting point is 02:59:16 Yeah. So then continuing in the female genre, Renee Moxleigood was in the back with Maria May and Willow came in and they argued and they thought and they got pulled apart. It's the same. Every segment is just, it's like these kids have seen highlights
Starting point is 02:59:39 of wrestling from years gone by and think that that's all that they ever did. And then... Who's there to coach him? Pepper Day? A bunch of people that they aren't listening to that have been there in the past. I don't think Arne Anderson told him or taught him a lot of these things. He's not there.
Starting point is 02:59:59 He ain't there. Cody wasn't probably teaching him a lot of things like that. He's not there. William Regal probably would... Well, he's not there. Yeah, he's not there. He wanted to be closer to home. I'm getting closer to my home.
Starting point is 03:00:16 artist guy in history. He went to AEW. He's like, I've made a huge mistake. What will I get out of this mistake? I will find the way out of this mistake. I will polite my way in an English fashion out of this mistake. He polited himself right out of the company. Uh, private party beat two fat guys. Did you see the botched double team where the guy that can jump actually for the first time ever couldn't jump and missed the fucking guy and he dove off anyway and and then they're cutting a promo in the ring. They want to be the tag team champions and they call out the Hardley Boys. Let's do this thing right now. And then the Hardley Boys, of course, the spotlight on it. They are more and more with every passing week. Maddie and Nikki are like the South Park episode
Starting point is 03:01:05 where the kids created their own wrestling federation, the WTF. They're sitting in... That's their whole life. they're sitting in a spotlight and then you know as they're opened on and then they start talking their way to the ring
Starting point is 03:01:22 and they tease a match and then well but we're on limited dates because they got to be inside and then suddenly in the ring jungle jackoff jumps private party and then the buckaroos roll in and start getting on them but then music plays
Starting point is 03:01:39 and here comes Shippoopee and all three of the heels bail because Shepoopee ran in and then, and the fans are sitting there like, what the fuck? And then Daniels comes out and makes a six-man tag for rampage. So the show that's not even going to exist any longer
Starting point is 03:02:01 that nobody watches to begin with is dominating the promotional time on this television show when they're a week away from a pay-per-view. Did you see Jack? Perry's, I don't know if they were supposed to be funches. I don't know if they were supposed to be punches and they looked like forearms or if they were forearms that looked like shit. I'm not sure what it was.
Starting point is 03:02:26 Where he just was waving his arm in the general direction of the fellow? Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's what they do now. And to be honest and be fair, they do it in the WWE too. They just, these guys cover up in a ball and somebody on top of them just, waves their arm potentially with a closed fist somewhere in the area of their head and upper body. It's fucking ridiculous.
Starting point is 03:02:53 I've never seen sloppiness like this. And we didn't have a high-definition television. So it's even worse now. That's why I talk about all these guys cover it up. If you're all covered up and you're blocking and you've got your hands over your face, then there is no target anything that's thrown at you looks like shit. if the guy holds you down and pins your arm and throws an unobstructed punch to the face,
Starting point is 03:03:19 it's better than 10 windmills, and it gets the point across. I'm sorry, I digressed. All episode, they were showing highlights of five years of dynamite, the biggest moments, and they showed private party defeating the Young Bucks. I forget what they said. It was either episode two or episode three,
Starting point is 03:03:39 like early on, five years ago. They're revisiting their few. now five years later. The bucks don't matter. The bucks can't, the bucks just don't matter. The bucks don't matter and private parties not as over as they were then. Yeah, the only thing that could help private party right now is leaving AW and hoping WWE would be looking at them.
Starting point is 03:04:01 Again, back to this tag team division, this awful tag team division, they booked it into the ground even with some talent. And again, the bucks, they get that go home heat reaction from a lot of people. as soon as they come out, more and more of the AEW fans, too. It's not about bangers. It's about more than that. But it doesn't have to be now, because along with Tony's dad's bottomless pocket, they're getting paid to just do what they're doing.
Starting point is 03:04:32 So there's no incentive to get better. That's the problem now is they've been somewhat validated. There's no incentive to get better because they're guaranteed whatever. I mean, Tony will still spend more money than they take in somehow, but they're guaranteed a shitload of money to just do whatever the fuck they're doing. And the crowds are getting smaller and smaller. The crowds are, you know, going to be where they were when they were on the Indies, when they were main eventing for a Ring of Honor with Sinclair money behind them. And they had plenty of time to try to, they had a lot of saying everything they've done. They
Starting point is 03:05:09 had plenty of time to try to do anything to drum up interest in anything. And instead they were left to do their best ideas and look at the state of the tanking division. Look at the state of AEW for, you know, again, they're making it about five years ago. We started this thing. There'd be no AEW without us. AEW would be better without you. Yes.
Starting point is 03:05:29 Look at the landscape. I'm sorry, but I have a feeling that Cody would have probably push this thing through even if there weren't any buckaroos around. We've seen who the go-getter is, and he went and got it. But anyway, one more, Renee Moxley Good, with MVP who started speaking, and Nonna came in, pissed off, and I used to be a wrestler, you know,
Starting point is 03:05:57 at least they're letting him say something. But then MVP told Nana, you're going to have to deal with the complaint department. And the camera widens out, and there's Shelton Benjamin, Shelton Benjamin standing behind Nana. Again, what did he? He goddamn beamed in on the, you know, beam me up, Scotty. Nana wouldn't have seen Shelton Benjamin standing anywhere around there. But again, I love Shelton, and I'm glad Shelton is making, I'm sure, a lot of money,
Starting point is 03:06:34 and we might be able to see him on television every once in a while. But this is the way that you debut him in a fucking pre-tape late in the show where the camera widens out and he's standing there. Is that a big fucking reveal? And then Shelton drank Nana's coffee and stole his coffee cup. And that was it. I'm glad they're putting the hurt business together, but don't we need to make it a little grander than, Oh, and here's another backstage segment where we'll introduce a guy that's been a star
Starting point is 03:07:10 in a business for 20 years. Well, that's the thing. Shouldn't any of these segments be in front of the live crowd? And if you say Shelton Benjamin couldn't be there this night because, for whatever reason, so they had to pre-tape it, then do it another week when he could be there.
Starting point is 03:07:23 Do it next week! Yeah. Do it next week! Where are they pre-taping these fucking things anyway? God damn it. Well, you know, Jim, with all the buzz about the Hurt business being now on TV, reuniting an AW, they all gigantic amongst the smaller wrestlers there,
Starting point is 03:07:42 you may want to get on the phone and call somebody and say, hey, MVP is back on TV, they're going to be in the MVP arena at some point. MVP is at the MVP, the Hurt Business is on TV, and I got a good phone plan with Mint Mobile. Well, you've said it all. Now, I'll tell you what, the phone lines were burning up, the party lines people were listening in, one ringy dingy, two ringy dingy, everybody's saying MVP is in AEW and Shelton Benjamin is back with MVP and Bobby Lashley can't be far behind.
Starting point is 03:08:15 They were all burning up the phone lines, but it didn't cost people a lot of money because they had the premium wireless plan for Mint Mobile starting at $15 a month. And I'll tell you what, that you can, as a matter of fact, you can get three months for only $45. that's even cheaper than $15 a month or thereabouts because Mint Mobile see they're cutting through all the middle man and they're giving you a proper service you know Ryan Reynolds started this thing you know I saw him the other day up on top of a telephone pole
Starting point is 03:08:52 he was stringing wires himself no that's not how this works at all see no they're eliminating a lot of the overhead by doing a lot of the work themselves they're entrepreneurial Americans Ryan Reynolds? Yeah, he was up there, he was string and line. He was climbing that pole like he'd been working for the telephone company for 25 years.
Starting point is 03:09:10 You should have seen him. And that's the way that they can pass the savings on to the consumer. Oh, yeah, he's out there. He's working early in the morning. Works the early shift, six to three. So that way he's got the evenings off to make movies and TV shows. But folks, if you want to switch your high-price plan that you've got on your telephone where they're just raking you over the coals,
Starting point is 03:09:34 over to Mint Mobile, it's easy. Like we said, $15 a month when you get the three-month plan. And it comes with high-speed data, unlimited talk and text, and the nation's largest 5G network. Ryan put three of those Gs in himself. You can keep your own phone, you can keep your own phone number. You can keep your hands in your pockets
Starting point is 03:10:00 and your ideas to yourself, too, there, fella. but you can ditch the overpriced wireless that you might have now with MintMobil's deal three months of premium wireless service for $15 a month. And Brian, of course, I was erroneous when I earlier said that also the additional business they had started was Mobile Mint
Starting point is 03:10:21 where they had a truck outfitted with minting equipment. You did say this. And they'd come to your home and they would mint you your own money. Ridiculous. And, well, unfortunately, I didn't get the updated memo because that idea, that concept didn't get out of development because it was not clinically validated when they did the clinic. So now what they've got is mobile mint where they have a truck outfitted with every kind of mint.
Starting point is 03:10:49 You got breath mints and peppermints. If you want some peppermint schnops, they got that, anything with some mintiness to it. The green stuff that you mush up and put down on the bottom of the Moscow mules, all kinds of mint, and they drive that truck around to your neighborhood, delivering mints in a mobile fashion. Why, why now? Why? Why? No, they don't, but they have great phone plans. There's no trucks. You sound like one of the Bowery boys. But folks, right now, if you want to save some money and have your breath be minty fresh, go to mintmobile.com. no uh David Gorsi
Starting point is 03:11:31 Mintmobile.com Sunshine Sammy slash JCE what was his father's name well you're Gorses father's yeah he was in a bunch of movies he became the the sweet Louis sweet shop owner
Starting point is 03:11:46 yeah yeah yeah I don't remember his name Mint mobile they're still here mintmobile.com slash JCE you can cut your wireless phone bill to $15 a month when you get the new three-month premium wireless plan, mintmobile.com slash
Starting point is 03:12:04 JCE, and of course they don't trust you, so a $45 up-front payment is required, which is equivalent to $15 a month. New customers on the first three-month plan only don't, don't try any of your shenanigans, speed slower above 40GB on the unlimited plan, additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply. I see Mint Mobile for all the details and ask for some peppermint schnops. Well, see all the details and use the promo code with Mint Mobile. Yes.
Starting point is 03:12:41 And now back to Dynamite. Well, now it's time for the main event, isn't it? We've been waiting a long time. As a matter of fact, the bell for the main event to start rang at six minutes till 10 o'clock. They said, we've got a significant overrun. for you tonight. We've already gone through it. Why can't they just schedule the shit?
Starting point is 03:13:08 I mean, even cousin Brian Alvarez is getting frustrated because he's got the apparatus that you can't easily set and he's going out of his mind trying to keep up with these things. Well, the other thing is, except for the rare week, like last week, I think, with Moxley v. Darby, it loses viewers. So if you're doing something that doesn't benefit, fit the programs, the matches, the feuds, the viewership goes away, you put main event stuff
Starting point is 03:13:34 at the end of the show, no one sees it. There's no reason for it, yet they double, triple down on it, 30 minutes this week. Well, and at least, we'll get to that a second, but it was the world title versus the, oh god, the intercontinental title, no, the international title is Osprey. Continental. Okay, it, it, W.W.E has the intercontinental. Continental title, AEW has the international title and the Continental title. So, am I wrong? Did they not just announce this on Twitter like about four or five days before the show? I saw this on Twitter because MJF retweeted it, and then I got retweeted and, you know,
Starting point is 03:14:16 people copied it and quoted it to us, where he couldn't understand the stipulation. That was the first time I heard of the match or the stipulation. well it was a double title match the world title was on the line versus the continental title but the continental title was only on the line for the first 20 minutes of the match now again we know that tony has liked to watch old wrestling tapes and you know there there's some of the other guys that go back and they watch but they don't get the old wrestling the deal they were doing here originated, I believe, in the Carolina's territory. I think, although you may be able to correct me, because other territories may have done this. But the deal was in the Mid-Atlantic territory, the television title had a time limit of 20 minutes on championship matches. If you were the TV champion and you defended the title on TV, It was a 20-minute time limit because it's an hour fucking program in total.
Starting point is 03:15:28 And so that was more befitting a television match, right? So then if the, let's say Ricky Steamboat is the Mid-Atlantic TV champion and he's in a program against his ex-tag team partner, number one, Paul Jones, who's the U.S. champion. then if they had a match in the arenas, the TV, or even if the other guy wasn't a champion, and just the TV champion had a match, a special arena match, house show match,
Starting point is 03:16:03 where there was some issue, the TV title would be on the line for the first 20 minutes only in a match with an hour time limit or whatever the case, because that was the time limit of all TV title matches. so it made sense and that way they could work the deal where the TV champion got beat
Starting point is 03:16:26 in the house show match but it took 23 minutes so he would still be the TV champion and if it'd been on television he wouldn't have been beaten, etc. Simple but effective but there's no reason for the
Starting point is 03:16:43 Continental title to be on the line for the first 20 minutes only because they have not established that the time limit for every continental title match is 20 minutes. So he just did a stipulation that he's heard of in the past without bothering to figure out why the fuck that it was done that way to begin with. Did I lose anybody or did I explain that properly? I think he had explained it as good as you can.
Starting point is 03:17:12 So, I mean, there was no, that's where it was done and why it was done and why it made sense to do it there, but it didn't make sense to do it here. He just wanted to have these guys wrestle and be able to have a winner without switching a belt. So, we already know that it's going over 20 minutes due to the stipulation. They start at six minutes till. And again, Danielson is a very talented guy. and he gets more than most people out of other people.
Starting point is 03:17:52 But this fucking Japanese certified public accountant, he is rotten. He is broken down. No, this went forever. At the top of 10 o'clock, they were in break. So anybody was switching over would see picture and picture at best. And then on my local cable, it went to full commercial. And then they went on and on.
Starting point is 03:18:19 And by 10.15 p.m., the Continental title was off the line. And at that point, O'Codee gave Danielson a tombstone pile driver on a chair on the floor. No, he didn't. What? If you watched it, his head didn't come anywhere near the chair.
Starting point is 03:18:41 And the camera was right on it, so you couldn't miss it. Okay, but the point being, it wasn't for lack of trying. All of his shit looks bad. But it was a tombstone pile driver on a chair on the floor for a break spot. To where by the time the three-minute break was over with, the guy that had to retire because of concussions and needs neck surgery that just got tombstone pile driven on a chair on the floor
Starting point is 03:19:09 was back beating the shit out of the other guy. And that was 26 minutes into this fucking thing. So, did you see, I couldn't watch all of it. I was trying to see, because they were laying around for so long, but was there anything again? I've tried to watch that the, the multimillion-dollar acquisition of Kazan-Chuji-Chuji Okada, he moves like a ruptured moose. Anything.
Starting point is 03:19:46 Did you see anything? I hated this match. I hated this match. And quite frankly, it's not just Okada. Ryan Danielson has had some really great matches, but he also wrestles a really boring, slow-paced for no logical reason style. And even when you want to say he's too hurt to throw the kick,
Starting point is 03:20:08 so he has to take five seconds to do it, everything took forever. And then they were on the floor for forever, and the referee did nothing. He would check on them. And the crowd was dead, and the crowd was dead and the crowd was dead. And the crowd was dead.
Starting point is 03:20:25 I hated this match. I thought it was terrible. Okada has not looked good in AEW. This was the worst of Danielson in my eyes. Just a slow match with the things that you see in every other match. But it took forever to me. It was a long match that did not serve anyone's best interest being a long match. Well, and then, as I mentioned, after the tombstone pile drivers
Starting point is 03:20:50 and the other type of things. Danielson won with a backslide. And then here comes the plumber and his group of pipe fitters. And I don't know. Moxley said a bunch of shit to him that not just me, but nobody understands what he's talking about.
Starting point is 03:21:13 I assume there's going to be some grand reveal of what to fuck his deal is or what's going on here. But he comes, it's not about me. I wish it wasn't about you. Apparently this is all about you. But it's not about me. I didn't want this.
Starting point is 03:21:34 And whatever the fuck, but they're holding him, holding Danielson down while Moxley is verbally doing whatever, chastising him. And they're going to fuck him up as the threat. And then here comes our boy Wheeler. Wheeler useless hits the ring with a hammer at his hand and all four of them bailed And I mean this is again Well hold on all four of them bailed
Starting point is 03:22:06 And yes it's a guy with a hammer but he's also he's the size of a 12 year old with a hammer But then Moxley just gets back in the ring And is standing there looking at him And there's Wheeler with the hammer he's holding it and he's exhibiting the excitement of a cabbage as he is conflicted and Moxley's just standing there not even really daring him, just staring at him. And he won't do anything. And he's holding the hammer and he's looking at the hammer like, should I hit this guy
Starting point is 03:22:39 with the hammer? And then finally, he didn't sell for a hammer. No, he's just, Moxley, he's just standing there. But the other guy is not making any motion like he's going to hit him. why did he bring the fucking hammer in there if he wasn't prepared to hit some of these motherfuckers with a hammer? He chased the four of them out of the ring with the hammer
Starting point is 03:23:00 and they just watched his Moxley walk right back into the ring. And then why are we supposed to support this baby face that will let the heel just stand there while a baby face has a hammered his hand and is cowtowed into immobility and won't do anything because the baby or the heel is so fierce. them standing there. And then finally Danielson had to tackle Moxley.
Starting point is 03:23:28 And then Claudio glommed Wheeler, and he dropped the hammer. So now they've neutralized Wheeler. They're back on fucking Danielson. But then the plumber gets out, and Marina Schaefer, because she's his bodyguard, rolls out with him. And so it's a four-way with Danielson and Wheeler
Starting point is 03:23:51 against Pac and Claudio. and then the heels bail out. And then I thought, thank God that's over, and then Wheeler gets the microphone. And he says in that whiny, pleading, plaintiff voice, I'm sick and tired of you two treating me like a child. And then my DVR froze, because I recorded the program after AEW Dynamite,
Starting point is 03:24:24 and these son of a bitches ran over. over the fucking overrun. But basically, he's tired of them treating him like a child, even though he's the size of one. And Brian, did you hear anything after? Did you tape two programs after Dynamite
Starting point is 03:24:42 so you could see everything? I don't know why, but I got the hour after Dynamite recorded on my DVR. And him and Danielson are going to team up and challenge the not Blackpool. I don't know what they are. They don't have a name.
Starting point is 03:24:57 They do their promos and riddling. It was pointed out here and it's true. You know, this is never about me. Okay, what's it about? Just tell me now. You got me down. Your friends are holding me. Why wait?
Starting point is 03:25:11 Why delay this any longer? Well, just say it, man. Just say it. To my earlier question, because enough people keep talking about it, we're going to keep asking about it, if this is an angle to bring Shane McMahon to AEW, is this the way you would do it?
Starting point is 03:25:27 Good, good, good. No, how did they're they're really going through massive leaps and bounds of twisted logic to try to get this what the fuck would Shane McMahon why would he deal with
Starting point is 03:25:46 this group of half over misfits and this fucking baldheaded dim width that runs the thing if he was going to come in and try to take over AED because that would be the only reason to come in and do anything is try to take over AEW. Wouldn't you be up at the upper echelon?
Starting point is 03:26:10 And the first thing that would happen is Don Fallis' guys would be signed away and some off-screen entity was assembling people that hadn't been together before into some group for some nefarious purpose, but they'd all be main event guys. and they might even be asking why why is I being asked I being sent money and asked to fucking talk to you about teaming up to one of their enemies
Starting point is 03:26:39 why the fuck is this or some shit but not just this idiot coming in and speaking in riddles about bad independent movies from foreign countries here's the problem there's now people expecting Shane McMahon
Starting point is 03:26:55 so let's say it's not Shane McMahon Who's this mystical leader that John Moxley's talking about? Well, it's not that, is he even talking about a mystical leader? When he says, it's not about me, I wanted something bigger. Is he talking about people, let him down, but let the concept down, let the thing that they had planned down, and now he has to get even, Danielson wasn't on board? Why are they mad at Danielson? Didn't Shane McMahon say, hey, Brian, you're in the group, I'd like you to come aboard too?
Starting point is 03:27:26 Is that what sense does any of this make? What about Dobokato? He would show up ahead of the, Shane is the advanced guard. See, there's the biggest argument for Shane being involved with this. Wasn't Shane the mastermind of Raw Underground? Yes. Come on. It's the same thing.
Starting point is 03:27:47 Moxley is the walking embodiment of Raw Underground. Well, if anybody will put Moxley Underground, I will support it. maybe it'll be da bocato see that's all I think of raw underground I just think of the look of it I don't remember anyone doing anything of it and Shane kind of jumping around yelling dabalcato
Starting point is 03:28:07 yes yes and boom and boy the booja remember the booya thing when fucking when they were trying to make Shane an announcer remember this was what late 98 early 99 I was still in Connecticut and they made him the announcer, I think, of Sunday night heat,
Starting point is 03:28:29 and they had me not only do commentary with him several times on air, but I was going down on like Sundays off or Saturdays off or when we didn't have to travel or whatever. I'd have drive an hour to the studio and do two or three hours of practice commentary with Shane that nobody would ever hear because Jim Ross had too much stroke to be made to do it. and I can't remember honestly they wanted a color guy with him
Starting point is 03:29:01 rather than and Michael Cole Kevin Dunn had him too much favoritism so he didn't have to do it and Kevin Kelly was a play-by-play guy so I ended up with doing color with Shane for practice and it was brutal because he'd never announced before and he thought he was a personality or should be and I love Shane and I've talked nice
Starting point is 03:29:23 about Shane, but he was a rotten fucking announcer. And he was always going, and boo-ya! Booyah! I said, what is Booyah? That's a shotgun blast. Boo-ya? Oh, it was brutal. Brutal boo-ya.
Starting point is 03:29:40 A little dab will do me. Well, if he comes to AEW, they'll certainly boo him. But we shall see that was AEW Dynamite. Yes, it certainly was. From Pittsburgh. It certainly was the pits. Jim A.E.W. Just announced their new deal with Warner Brothers Discovery.
Starting point is 03:29:59 Why don't we talk about the ratings that were for the night of the announcement? Ah, I forgot about them ratings. What in the world went on in the real world? Not how much money they're getting paid, but how many people are actually watching. AEW Dynamite Wednesday, October 2nd, 2024, 8 to 1031 p.m. on average, watched by 680,000 viewers. Ouch, they went down on their fifth anniversary? Well, you know, a lot of people have done that, I guess.
Starting point is 03:30:32 So I guess I shouldn't... Oh, come on now. Well, you know what? Honestly, they promoted Grand Slam a lot better than they did this, don't you think? Well, that's true, because it was a Grand Slam, whereas this was only a, apparently, a blowjob. Well, these blowjob numbers were compiled by WrestleManiaomics. Quarter 1, 8 to 8.15 p.m., the Pac-Claudeo, Casignoli, Marina, Shafier, John Moxley, promo. Please get a stable name. Will Osprey versus Ricochet starts.
Starting point is 03:31:03 801,000 viewers. Okay, and one would think that if any match would keep the AEW audience placated, satisfied, and warm and fuzzy, it would be this one. So I wouldn't think they would lose too many viewers, but at the same time, with that overall average and starting at 800,000, by the end of the program, it's not looking too rosy. So go ahead. Quarter 2, 815, 8.30 p.m.
Starting point is 03:31:37 Will Osprey versus Rikoschet continued with Picture and Picture Ads. The post-match with Takesha, the Mercedes-Money Camille backstage promo, 743,000 viewers. Okay, so 58,000 people did not like all of that banger. That's more than I thought would have left in this situation.
Starting point is 03:32:06 But it does get repetitive after a while. And so far, and the trend will continue, at least in the next quarter, it's in line with the 90-day trend that WrestleMania has compiled here, Quarter 3, 830 to 845 p.m. Starts with an ad break. The guns getting attacked by Adam Page. The Learning Tree with Mark Briscoe, 702,000 viewers.
Starting point is 03:32:33 Oh. So that followed. You had Mercedes. Then you've got, well, the thing with the guns was meaningless because it was a minute or less. And then Jericho appears. You've lost now 99,000.
Starting point is 03:32:47 people from the start of the program and another 41,000 from the previous 15 minutes. And as I said before, that's in line with the 90-day trend. The 90-day trend is losing 100,000 viewers within the first two quarters. Jesus Christ, all right. Quarter 4, 845 to 9 p.m. The Darby Allen promo and the start of Juice Robinson versus Hangman Adam Page with picture and picture, 704,000 viewers. Okay, that's just people coming back from the fridge or the bathroom, I guess, at this point. It's almost the same. From the learning tree.
Starting point is 03:33:23 Quarter five, the big nine o'clock hour, 9 to 9.15 p.m. The continuation of The Hangman versus the juice. The postmatch with Jay Pingpong White. The Jack Perry Shabbata backstage angle. And another ad break. 670,000 viewers. Oh, good Lord. So, that's 34,000 at the top of the hour they didn't pick up anybody.
Starting point is 03:33:53 Again, the Mets game was on. Maybe all of a sudden everyone's watching the Mets. Quarter 6, 915, and 9.30 p.m. Serena D. versus Britt Baker, with picture and picture. And the post match with Queen Amanata. 669,000 views. Okay, so they're pretty flat there. Everybody in Pittsburgh was watching.
Starting point is 03:34:19 So they've gone 702, 704, 670, 669. Whenever they drop, at least those people are sticking around for two quarters. Well, we go down to quarter seven, 930 to 9.45 p.m. the Hook backstage promo, the Christian Cage promo, an ad break, the Mariah Mae Willow Nightingale backstage angle, private party versus Iron Savage's, the postmatch with the Elite Shabbata, Christopher Daniels, Jack Perry, 7,8,000 viewers. What? So 30 with 30, where did they pick up 39,000?
Starting point is 03:35:06 thousand people on that. That's odd. That's something there. I don't know what, but we go now to quarter eight. I remind you, there's a long overrun, so we got a ways to go. There's two overruns. Technically three quarters here, actually. It goes into 9.45 to 10 p.m.
Starting point is 03:35:27 The MVP, Prince Nana, Sheltin Benjamin debut backstage angle, an ad break, and the start of Brian Danielson versus Kuzushka Okado, a picture and picture. 642,000 viewers. Oh, overruns. No, wait a minute, wait a matter, wait a minute, wait a hold on, hold on here. We went from 660. What was in quarter seven again?
Starting point is 03:35:53 Quarter seven was Hook's backstage promo, Christian Cage's backstage promo, or tape promo, an ad break, Mariah May and Willow Nightingale's backstage angle, Private Party versus the Iron Savages, and then the post-match with the elite. That quarter hour went from 669 to 708, and as soon as that quarter was over with Danielson and O'Cody start in the main event, and they lose 66,000 people. You think there was a power surge on the Nielsen box in quarter seven? Yeah, it came from Kukamonga. People saw that and turned out.
Starting point is 03:36:34 Well, let's go to the overrun. 10 to 1015 p.m. Danielson versus Okada. 596,000 viewers. Oh, good heavens. 1015 and 1030 p.m. The continuation of Danielson versus Okada with picture and picture.
Starting point is 03:36:49 The post match with Moxley, Claudio, Pac, Marina Shafir, Will or Yuda, and the Hammer. 574,000 viewers. Oh, good God. One minute overrun. 1030 to 1031 p. 561,000 viewers.
Starting point is 03:37:07 Jesus Christ, so the longer that thing went, the more they lost. So what value does the overrun have? And it's happened to Danielson a bunch over the last year. They went from 642 to 561 from the start to the finish of the thing. Okada's not over with anyone except the most diehard AEW fans. Danielson's not as valuable as he once was. There was a time a few years ago, five years ago, in fact, If AEW it had Danielson versus CM Punk, it would have really meant something.
Starting point is 03:37:40 Punk means more today. Danielson doesn't. Danielson's value has been devalued in AEW. He's happy, so he can't take that away from him, and he's getting to do what he wants. But the overall value to the average wrestling fan, to the wrestling fans that watch wrestling and choose what to watch or not watch, it isn't there anymore. So they started with 801,000, and over the course of the thing, the very long thing, they lost 240,000 viewers. That means 240, 48, 720, they lost 30% or high 20s percent of the audience.
Starting point is 03:38:22 And by the way, for the key demo, just to point this out, they started 333, but that's skewed a little high from the previous show. 302, 279, 275, 267, 266, 278, 272. So they're consistent. And then here's the Danielson-Ocata match. 240, 233, 226. So even those fans were tuning out. They'd really got an hour that would have really tested some, uh, some, you know, next week, I think they're on Tuesday, title Tuesday.
Starting point is 03:38:57 that may end up being the lowest rated AEW Dynamite ever. Well, yeah, it's not fair. I'm sure it'll be rotten because all of their shows are rotten, but it's not fair to hold that against them if they're being switched over on a different night. If that was Title Tuesday, what was this? How many title matches were on this show? Oh, no, there was a girls' match
Starting point is 03:39:18 that wasn't for a belt on this one, so they'll close that loophole up next week. But there's AEW Dynamite off their big renewal. Any final thoughts about the numbers here? I'm not surprised because Jesus, again, everything that happens happened in the previous segment and it's going to happen in the following segment. There's nothing special anymore you need to sit back and wait for because it constantly the same shit happens. So you could afford to drift off to sleep after you've seen some of it.
Starting point is 03:39:50 Well, we shall see what happens next week. That was AEW Dynamite. And you know what? We're going to call it. This is the drive-thru. All right. You know, there was a lot of people in a wrestling business paid a lot of money this week and a lot of big debuts and a lot of, you know, network switching and everything.
Starting point is 03:40:12 And I don't remember a week here lately where all the shows have been so fucking boring. Tell me about it. We got to get questions. Next week, questions. And, of course, we have a pay-per-view coming up on the experience, bad blood. And next week, there'll be even worse blood. A.E.W. Russell Dream will be on the show after that. Do you think they'll get Neil Sadaka to come out for this one?
Starting point is 03:40:34 Although Tony would pay for it. I'm talking about the WWE. They got enough money now. You know, Neil don't come cheap. For bad blood. Yeah, bad blood. I don't, we shall find out. We shall find out.
Starting point is 03:40:46 For everyone who keeps emailing us articles about the Jaguars, we got a few, unless something new happens, please stop for now. But the drive-few is closed. Oh, no. Oh, no. What? What happened? Oh, no.
Starting point is 03:41:00 What happened? Someone... Oh, the last one is fucked up. This is my... Oh, that's my favorite one. Oh. All right, we'll be back on this. You got a fucked up key?
Starting point is 03:41:13 We're on Twitter, the official Jim Cornett YouTube channel. Go through the archive. Patreon... Oh, fuck. Patreon.com slash Cornette. I've never heard you so... Five dollars a month. Yeah, $5 a month gets you access to the archive.
Starting point is 03:41:30 Travis Heckel artwork on YouTube. Somebody buy Brian a new Calimba. I can buy my own. I'll find the right one. You can find the right one. At Cornett's Collectibles, there's a t-shirt. It's not a t-shirt. It's a figure with a shirt and a coat.
Starting point is 03:41:48 And it's not a t-shirt at Jimcornet.com, but it's white. And, yeah, the drive-thru is brought to you by the law. This is Stephen Pino, 877-5-0, Steve. Get even with Stephen. Oh, at new law office.com. We back on the experience. For Jim Cornett, I'm the great Brian last. Tallyho.

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