Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru - Episode 380: Jim Reviews AEW Grand Slam Australia
Episode Date: February 22, 2025This week on the Drive Thru, Jim reviews AEW Grand Slam Australia! Also, Jim answers YOUR questions about his WWE return, better names than Cope, Gary Hart, WWE ID titles, the Batten Twins, Peel's Pal...ace, and much more! Plus From The Files: Mildred Burke, and Jim plays WWE trademarked name or porn star? 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
Discussion (0)
Hello again, friends!
It's my show you get the extended cut,
and you are our friends,
and welcome back to another edition of Jim Cornett's Drive-Thru
right here on another cold winter's day.
I'm your host, the Great Brian Last.
We're going to have fun.
We're going to talk about a voyage to Australia,
and more fun with this man,
the leader of the cult of Cornett,
Mr. Jim Cornett.
That was the Inagada de Vida.
version, a little iron butterfly
there at the top of the program.
Brian, the bouncing ball of bad luck
is now in your court over the last day or so.
We got back on schedule from things
that have been going on here, and so it wasn't nice
for you to fool with Mother Nature.
And you're apparently just, I think it was maybe
just your residence there.
I don't know if the rest of the eastern seaboard
caught the apparently not only you've had the snow
you've had the ice now you had high winds
power down your
you know it seems like a man as business-minded as you
and looking ahead with a forethought to the future
would not have purchased a palatial home
with your generator sitting on the other side
of your broadcast station
so are you back plugged into the goddamn governmental grid
at this point now
You know what?
The power was on and off because of the windstorms.
It's been very dangerous.
Stay safe, ladies and gentlemen.
But beyond that...
Yes, if you're out in a windstorm trying to get a sun tan or whatever, stay safe.
Beyond that, there was a period of time yesterday when we were supposed to record
when we had full power, no generator.
It came back.
And I'm like, oh, my God.
I almost feel like I should call Jim and say, all right, let's do it anyway, even though
like we're five minutes behind schedule,
and then the internet went out.
I was like, all right, we can't win.
Can't win today.
It'll be tomorrow with more of this.
No, no, no, no more.
No mas.
Well, down here, down south, where it's sunny and balmy,
I mentioned on one of the shows we did here lately
that Stace's mother and stepfather
have finally moved here, the plan move they made from California
to the worst winter that the state of Kentucky has had in 25 years.
We've had more snow, more rain, more flooding.
And they've stepped off the plane
and they've seen almost a daily barrage of snow at some point of the day or night.
They don't know what they're waking up to when they look out the window
and now, and we're trying to ferry them back and forth
so that they can unpack things at their apartment
while they've still got the hotel room
and they've got a day or two of that,
we're supposed to get another three or four inches of snow.
So they've, they still love the place
if they could see it for all the fucking snow on top of it.
But that's been an adventure here for the past few days also.
This should be a fun next several years,
the Jim Cornett in-law years.
all new characters.
It's like the ropers left and all of a sudden
Mr. Furley has shown up.
New characters for a new season of Corkett.
We've introduced an whole new cast of characters.
What was it?
What happened with the fucking Doris Day show at one point?
She may have had a mental breakdown.
I recall she was a successful career woman in a city
working in a workplace of some kind
and suddenly I remember she was on a farm with children.
I don't know anything about the Doris Day Show.
It was before your time, but Kay Sarah, Sarah.
I may have been watching something on one of the other networks
when the Doris Day Show was on if I was allowed that show.
Well, I think it may have followed Mr. Ed,
so I was just naturally flowing in.
Yeah, but she was on the farm with children,
and I should get one of my books down,
but I'd have to disconnect myself from this,
fucking set of headphones that you
insisted the Arcadian
Vanguard Network supplied headphones
here that not only squeeze my
head and hurt my ears, but also
now there's something
going on in the cord intermittently. I can
hear myself back
just a half a
beat, as the musicians say later
on, and I don't know if it's me
talking to me or you talking to me. I'm hearing
voices in my head.
They talk to me.
I don't think this is a Brian
issue. Where's the technical wizard, Hodgkiss?
The guy you're always saying, oh,
he invented this, oh, he invented that.
Tell him to fix whatever's going on over there.
No, he didn't manufacture these.
He's not getting into these. It'll
void the factory warranty.
He's going to drive him back to the factory
at fucking Shanghai.
But he's coming over
on Friday, and we're going to get to the root of some
of these things also, just so that you're
aware of that. And he'll have
more fingers of blame to point in the
proper direction.
We'll get on top of some of these audio things and we'll stop Jim's garage from ever opening again.
Well, it's, I'm, you know, I'm way away from it, but it's, it's, I got to get one of those new silent
openers. Oh, that can't be real. Well, Stacy, Stacy's going out in the, in the four-wheel drive to pick
up the, the folks for lunch while I'm here talking to the people. All right, it's going to be like
you're on the road with Midnight Express again. Meals nonstop driving around town.
hanging out with your new team.
Yeah, I don't know if I'd put them up against hawk and animal.
But this is your program, correct?
Can I just ask politely here if we can address something that I've just seen again?
You told me about it yesterday,
but then I've seen it on Twitter again that some Cretanist capitalist
tried purely for mercenary financial gain,
put out the story with the headline
update on Jim Cornett's return to WWE.
I actually have an article right here.
That was going to be the first topic, first question I asked you.
Well, I see great minds think alike,
and that makes me scared about my own now.
But go ahead then.
Don't give these people any credit,
but just let's tell the people what the story is
so that we can laugh together.
I'm not even sure who to not give credit to.
Again, a lot of the listeners started emailing this
and tagging us in different things with it.
The article I have is from a website
that's referencing something that was said on another website.
But we don't know exactly what they said.
So without giving any credit to any of these people, sorry.
Jim Cornett-WE return update.
Amid continued announcements of the 2025
W.W.E. Hall of Fame inductees,
questions regarding Jim Cornett's status with WWE came up.
Jim Cornett is a name currently missing from the Hall of Fame,
despite many names within the industry,
including Stone Cold Steve Austin,
pushing for him to be inducted.
And by the way, this was like,
he said this on a podcast or tweeted at one of the other,
or maybe it was a tweet with a quote from a podcast, whatever the case,
like a couple years ago, right?
This is not like he's engaging in an ongoing flag-waving campaign
and going out getting signatures on petitions
that he's demanding something.
This was a comment that he made, and I appreciate sentiment.
This is not new, is what I'm saying, basically, on Steve's part.
What I remember seeing was, I think, a tweet from Steve Austin
saying that you and the Midnight Express should be in the...
the Hall of Fame, and I think the Rock may have quote tweeted it and said, like, I agree.
That was my favorite stuff ever.
Well, see, I was trying to also mend the bridge between the Rock and Austin after their many
in-ring showdowns.
They can come to common ground on how the magnitude of me.
So again, we don't know how this came up, but I'll continue here.
I will give credit for where this came from, because maybe then we'll get an answer on some
of this. Regarding a possible
WWE return for Cornett,
Fightful Select reports
that his name hasn't come up in creative
discussions in recent years,
recent years being a quote.
The report specifies
that this isn't in a
quote, we aren't bringing him in way
just that the belief within the company
is that Cornett is successful
and content with his current projects.
Cornett hosts two weekly podcasts,
a drive-thru and the experience,
in which he reviews WW and AEW shows,
as well as discussing topical news from around the industry.
Topical. Always topical.
Cornett was on hand in 2017
to induct a rock and roll express into the WWE Hall of Fame,
but hasn't made any appearances for the company since then.
During the WWE Thunderdome shows...
Wait a bit, except for the constant...
reuse of video sit-down interviews that I shot 10 years ago
to where I was still popping up on A&E last year.
But I did sign the release.
No, I'm kidding.
Go ahead.
Stephen P. New will not be hearing about this.
During the WW Thunderdome shows in the pandemic,
a collection of band fan signs and images emerged
that featured Cornett's face logo.
There have been two members of the WWE Hall of Fame class.
Well, that way, that's because they didn't want me to be
selling any t-shirts
as I was out-selling
some of their own talent.
There have been two members of the
W.W.E Hall of Fame class at 2025
announced thus far,
Triple H and Michelle McCool.
You know,
if I had only
married
into the Hall of Fame,
think about it.
So far, everybody announced
for this year's Hall of Fame
is a spouse of
somebody. Well, there is a rumor that going in this year, and we'll see, because they just signed
Legends deals ending years of bad feelings between WWE and Bill Eady, but demolition, which from a
WWE end is a major omission in the Hall of Fame. For kids who grew up who were my age, they were
the biggest thing. There you go. There's the tag team then, and, you know, now that they've
mended that fence or whatever, but point being back to this story, so the update was, there
is no update because nobody's talking
on either side to anybody about
anything. But they had to
stick my name in the headline, Brian.
See, that's the question. Did Fightful Select, like, was it a Q&A show
where they were answering questions from my
subscribers? And then this guy, whoever
wrote this, I don't even think, does there a name? There's a name.
It's a woman. Amanda Savage.
Did she... Well, wait a minute.
It might be a way,
it might be a nom de plume. Think of Amanda Savage.
That could kind of be a fucking ring name.
Okay, look, we don't know who this person is,
but did they just hear the fightful select thing and go,
hey, there's a headline that isn't right there?
It's about Coronet.
We'll get some clicks.
Update on his return.
There's no update.
Back after this.
And again, it's, you know, it's also,
it's nice that the company appears to have a better grip on
basically what I think our relationship is than many of the fans do.
Like, oh, he's mad they won't bring him back,
or how they're trying to bring him back,
or all this other gaga speculation, as the Dream Machine would say,
you know, they're happy doing their thing and I'm happy doing my thing.
And I'm happy that they're happy, except if they start trying to do my thing.
then I'd have to do something about that.
And you'd have some help.
The idea that Fightful went to their WWE source
and was told that,
you know, however that was originally phrased,
they believe you were successful and content with your current projects.
Do you think a lot of that is the idea that
what that really means is he has no incentive
to sign one of our one-of-hour one-way legends deals?
Well, I...
And we're not putting anyone in the Hall of Fame unless they sign one?
And, well, is that a rule these days now?
There's a new administration.
I'm in all honesty.
I would like some feedback from some of the little birds that sometimes tweet in our ears.
As far as if you do go in the Hall of Fame still to this day,
do you have to sign a contract giving any kind of rights to the company for your name and likeness
for any period of time or obligating you to do certain things?
or whatever, what are the deals that's being done these days?
I'd like to hear that.
The first question that I asked him for the 2017 Hall of Fame
to induct the Rocker Roll Express was, oh, and what was the fucking guy's name?
Talor Relations guy, they fired him, a garbage bag was involved.
Oh, what was his name?
God damn it.
Was it Seaman? Was it Canyon Seaman?
No, I never met, oh, man.
Mr. Seaman?
I never met Mr. Seaman, but I, God damn, when I heard about it, I popped and I always wanted to just to see what he looked like.
But anyway, Mark Carrano, does that name sound familiar?
Yeah.
Is that a mechanic at my fucking local Valvillian?
I think that's it.
Okay, well, anyway, I asked him, I said, I'm inducting these, is there any contractual commitment?
passed the one-night appearance and signing release for any footage or whatever that I do,
the work that I do to be released on an ongoing basis, but there's no other commitment.
He said, no, you're fine.
I said, okay.
So that's what my deal was.
But I don't know what they're doing with the inductees these days.
I think that's part of the issue, why they know there's an issue, because they want guys
there's no WWE legend that does the business you do, respectfully of everyone.
You know, Rick Flair can find some sucker to, you know, say, hey, we'll slap your name on this jar of pickles or whatever the fuck they're doing.
Don't malign these people called them suckers. Some of them might be Egyptians.
No, but I'm saying your business doesn't rely on hoping you find an angel.
Your business relies on you actually have a business unlike a lot of people.
That's why you're not in a position that a lot of veterans are in where they kind of have to say yes to anything.
I think that's part of the issue with WWE because they don't have leverage over you.
Well, God damn it, that crowbar, I'll tell you what, up the ass.
Now, thank you for, you know, giving a more self-aggrandizing estimate of my current popularity and tremendous success than I would have been able to do myself.
And as a matter of fact, I didn't know I could type that quick where I could send it right to you.
You could read it right off.
but that again for guys who have gotten older that they can't wrestle anymore whether the pandemic cut down autograph sessions or the just point is they've had health issues or whatever i think that those type of legends deals are great if they could give those people them i think for you know uh the guys
like whoever the big names are,
the main event inductees,
they're probably negotiated somewhat separately
and they still have the chance to do their own things
or whatever the fuck.
But I don't want, as I've said for what,
about five years or more now.
I don't want to be obligated to anybody
to do anything that I don't want to do except me.
I make myself do things I don't want to do all the fucking time.
But I don't want to be obligated to do anything for anybody,
and therefore I don't want anybody to be obligated to pay me money
for anything that I might not want to fucking do.
And I do my own thing, and we do our own thing,
and we own things, and we play with our own things,
and leave other people's things alone.
And they should keep their hands off my things.
Did I make myself clear about this whole thing?
I believe so.
Once again, ladies and gentlemen,
all audio issues will be fixed in the future.
Oh, God damn it.
I moved again.
Here, here, I'm moving this cord around now,
and I bet you...
It wasn't that.
It wasn't that.
That wasn't it.
It was a simple issue, but I need the
brain surgeon Hodgkiss to show up first.
What I was going to say is, if I was
W.W.E. and I was trying to play it smart,
if I want you in the Hall of Fame,
I'm waiting until they do the
WrestleMania in Indianapolis,
because it's close enough.
I can convince you to drive.
I'll drive to Indianapolis.
I'm not agreeing to go in,
but I would potentially drive to Indianapolis.
See, at least there there'd be a connection to Jim Cornett.
Like, you wouldn't want it to be like,
you're going to be in the Hall of Fame.
We're inducting you in Omaha.
Like, there's no connection at all to Jim Cornett.
There's a connection with Indianapolis,
Indianapolis wrestling.
Technically, that is the first wrestling I ever saw.
That story, which we won't go into again,
because it's been told so many times, but yes, so, and also the home of Bobby Heenan,
my spiritual mentor as a child and all that.
So, yes, there's a connection there.
But what, what quota slot would I be fulfilling in the, on the list?
Do they have a category for blind people?
people? Ex-fat male managers?
They do, but it's not called that.
But technically, if you look at who's in there, they may have.
You may be in some good company.
Well, I don't know about the ex-fat.
I may be on a hill all by myself.
Maybe they don't have to put you in.
Maybe they can get around it.
They could just give you the Warrior Award.
Only if Patty Smith plays me to the ring.
They got rid of that.
They got rid of the Warrior Award.
They got rid of Mrs. Warrior, too, but.
Well, that's the update on the update on Jim Cornett's WW return.
Stay tuned.
We'll tell you more next week about his AEW return.
Well, news, exclusive news next week here on this show about Jim Cornett's AEW return.
Stay tuned for that.
Hey, Jim, you're going back to AEW?
No.
Well, again, we don't want to play spoiler.
Next week on the show, we'll talk about this.
Jim, before we get to talking about A.W's excursion to Australia.
you, I have a list of names that WWE has trademarked.
Also, I have pulled up a list of porn star names.
I'm wondering if you can guess or figure out which are the porn stars and which are the new
NXT, I presume NXT wrestlers.
Oh, God, now, are these the classic porn stars, the, the Desiree Cousteaus, the Lonnie Sanders,
is, the Sikas.
The ones you would know, no.
The ones I would know, the Kelly Richards.
None of the, is this, this is just women.
I have to find some men name, too.
Men name.
Well, you can't really tell.
You have to find some men's names, some men names.
I was going to say, I don't think any of these people.
You can't tell a difference these days in the terms of the name,
nameology.
I don't know how many of these people have actually been on film.
What is a Caden?
Caden.
Caden.
I don't know.
A male or female name?
I think it could be both, technically.
Well, see, there you go.
All right, well, let me give you a name.
Tell me, is this a WW trademark name or a porn star?
A Bella Danger.
A Bella Danger.
That's got to be a porn star.
Why?
Well, because she's probably working for Wicked Video with the last name Danger,
doing a fucking subgenre of a fucking fetish line.
Well, you're right, it is a porn star.
I don't know if wicked video is even still around,
but that is a porn star name.
Here's another one.
Sweetie Fox.
Sweetie Fox, that's got to be a WWE name.
Sweetie Fox is a porn actress.
Oh, God damn it.
Apparently she was in the series.
I assume series that says 2021 to 2022.
Let's try anal.
She was, oh, is that a question you're asking?
to me or the next
that's the series of films
that's apparently the series
of films that's sweetie
oh oh
I think
well she had that
breakthrough role
in Rebecca does
Donnybrook farm
Jim Hayes
Jameson
okay
that's got to be a porn star
because
that's a take off of
say it again now
Hayes
Jameson
Jenna Hayes
and
Jenna Jameson, right?
I know Jenna Jameson.
I don't know Jenna Hayes.
That's a porn star.
I think she wasn't it?
She's not on my list.
She's not on my list here.
I've heard that fucking name.
All right.
Well, Hayes Jameson will soon be coming to a WWE arena near you.
In some fashion.
They've trademarked the name.
Jim, another name.
Porn star or future WWE superstar.
Mason Holiday.
That's a WWE name.
There's nothing second.
about that.
That is indeed a
W-W-E trademark name
Mason spelled with a Y
M-A-S-Y-N
Mason Holiday.
No, if you'd have told me that, I would have said
porn star, see, you gotta be...
The spelling matters, okay.
If you can't, if you can't
partake the, or transfer
or impart, is what I'm trying to say,
the full
weirdness of the spelling of the name
because a lot of porn stars likewise.
They like
to put Y's in all consonants.
They like dinner at the Y.
They're all over the Y.
Well, Chip, let me ask you another name.
What about Dr.o Nox?
And I'll spell it for you.
D-R-A-K-O-K-O-K-N-O-X.
Could that be?
That's got to be a W-W-E name,
and he's going to be like fucking
Gunther's ex-General.
You are right.
I thought you would have picked porn name for that.
No, that sounds too,
much like a foreign wrestling menace.
All right, Jim, what about the name Mia Malkova?
This could go either way.
I could see, I'm sorry, I'm just, that was an unintended pun.
You hear him licking his lips over there.
What's going on?
Yeah, I just took a sip of sprite because I'm getting, I'm getting dry.
I got to have to wet my whistle there, son.
It could go either way because that could be one of these goofy wrestling names, or it could
be, you know, a headliner in Italian porn with Malco?
Or would that be more of a Russian type of sounding name?
I don't think it's Italian.
Porn star. That is indeed a porn star.
Boom, I'm doing pretty good at this. It says here she's an actress, producer, and director.
So she's a triple threat. Jim Chantel Monroe.
Oh, that sounds porny.
Shantel Monroe
Yeah, Sean tell
Yeah, that's gotta be a poor name
Coming soon to N-X-T
Chantel Monroe
What about Aria
Bennett?
Spelled A-R-I-A
Like an opera,
Aria
Uh, that sounds like an NXT type of name.
That is indeed an NXT type of name.
What about Natasha Nice?
Oh, okay, now see,
now we're going back to one of those subgenre fetish,
up the anal protrusion of the door type of thing.
That's got to be a, she's got to be like,
with the last name of nice
she's going to be six feet six
and 200 pounds and all jacked up
and carrying a big fucking club
So what are you saying?
In a porn movie
In a porn movie she...
Okay well actually it is a porn star
An actress, writer and director
It says here she's tiny
5 foot 2
but extremely cute
Busty and curvaciously brunette
A knockout
She was born in France
But moved to California
she lost a virginity at 17
why said it in her fucking bio
That's a job
communication
Oh
get a
Can we have the list of her references
on that
resume
Braxton Cole
Porn star or wrestler
Braxton Cole
That sounds like another
NXT type of
But that's got to be a guy
done it
Braxton
Wasn't there a Braxton
A wrestling Braxton
I'm not to think
there was a Tony Braxton
but what about a wrestling
Braxton?
I don't know.
I have no idea.
But that is indeed a wrestler.
That is a wrestler.
What about Tate Wilder?
Jeez,
that sounds more like a fucking insurance adjuster,
doesn't it?
Oh,
hold on,
I'm,
I don't have a coin to flip.
I don't have a coin to my name to flip.
It's a fucking porn star.
Tate Wilder is a
WWE trademark name.
What about Blake Blossom?
She's got to be
the new star of the DVD series
Jugs. I'm saying
old Blake Blossom is doing the
big bosom line for
potentially vivid or whoever's still in business
these days.
Well again, Blake could be a guy's name too,
but you are right, apparently.
It is an actress, director and producer,
star of the 2022 porno film, An Honest Man.
Oh, boy, that's a thing to turn on on the marquee
at the adult cinema.
What the fuck is a porno movie, an honest man?
Which one of these stands out?
I'm going to read you the list of some of the porn names we're here real quick
and the movies they're in.
Which one stands out?
Blake Blossom, an honest man.
Brandy Love, The Candidate.
Autumn Falls, drive,
Lena Paul, sleepless nights,
Skyler Vox, load lovers, 2021.
Jim Summer Sorrell, porn star or future WWE superstar.
And by the way, I want to go back to,
I'd like to meet Autumn Falls just to shake her hand for coming up with that one.
That was, as, bravo, bravo, young lady of, of, of, of,
whatever moral virtue you may possess.
What did you just ask me?
Summer Sorrel.
Summer Sorrell.
And I'm not going to say that you should assume anyone's a boy or girl
because we shouldn't make that assumption while playing the game.
Well, I would think that summer would be a young lady.
Like, you know, summer.
What was there, there was a summer in wrestling.
There were quite a few summers in wrestling.
Summer sounds like a girl to me.
Oh, she's got to be an NXT girl lady.
Well, apparently she will be.
Again, these are names.
We don't know if any people have actually been applied to any of these names just yet.
Wait a minute.
You mean they're just trademarking names before they even see a person to stick it on?
That's right.
I think what they do is they tell the wrestlers to come up with some ideas for names,
and then they sit down with them and they look over all these shitty names
because no one has a gimmick.
It's just names that people are concocting or going to.
to
AI to come up with.
WWE agrees and says,
hey, that one you came up was pretty good.
We'll trademark that
and we'll own that
just in case this works out.
And that's how this happens.
Trill London.
T-R-I-L.
Trill London.
That's...
Why would that be either
of these things?
What in the world?
D-N-X-T.
Once again, you got it.
NXT.
Because it's too stupid for porn.
Well, I think we've, have we gone through the...
They have a higher standard.
Now, when it comes to tickling your taint and getting the general saluted and everything, all
those metaphors.
Osiris Griffin.
That's a porn star.
That's a future NXT star.
I was just, I was missing that on purpose.
All right, let's end with this name here.
Harley Riggins.
Well, one would assume that they would stay away from Harley in wrestling right now
and because of the reputation of the legendary Mr. Race as well as the big bosomed ventriloquist.
It's currently...
So that's got to be, that's got to be.
a porn star.
Harley Riggins coming soon to
NXT or WWE or something.
Oh, Harley Riggins.
So real quick, let me read you the list of names
they've trademarked, and we'll end with a question
about him. Osiris Griffin,
Hayes Jameson, Trill London,
Harley Riggins,
Summer Sarell,
Jacks Presley,
Mason Holiday,
Draco Knox, or Draco Knox,
Tate Wilder,
Brexton Cole,
Chantel Monroe,
and Aria Bennett.
The WWE
still in this post-Vince era,
we assume,
in this post-Vince era,
is giving guys an NXT,
and again, I'm assuming none of these are indie guys.
I'm assuming these are like the people
they're finding from scratch and developing.
Yeah.
They're giving them the stupidest,
fakes-sounding names.
And if any of these people
have any sort of legitimate athletic background,
which I think is what they're going after,
stop changing their names unless it's just an awful name,
unless it's like, you know, Ken Raper.
Even if they do have to change their names,
because maybe they don't care that this guy was the champion Polvalter
in the history of fucking Idaho.
But don't give them a stupid fucking name
that people can't remember, don't register,
bland, meaningless, generic in...
Generic in not a John Smith's way,
but just generic in a way of just gibberish first and last words
that sometimes aren't even names.
What the fuck?
But when you said the post Vince era,
if indeed the heartbreak kid,
your friend and mine, Cockay Michaels,
is Chief Cook and Bottle washer of NXT,
who did he actually learn almost everything
from running a wrestling business or booking one?
I worded that very unwieldily at the same,
start. Who did he learn all that shit from? The guy he worked for, Vince McMahon. So is that
something that he's still applying? Or does he not care what? Does he not know that people would
possibly like a name closer to Ox Baker than fucking, you know, I can't even remember any of
those names? That's my point. Or himself. Press Stone Cold Steed.
Austin versus heartbreak kid
Sean Michaels up against
Boris Vladivostok
versus Caden Chance
Braxton Cole
Osiris Griffin
It doesn't help
I have no idea why they do these things
but they're going to change it anyway
when and that's what I
could not only understand
but condone
in almost
most cases
when a guy went from developmental
to the main roster
that they were going to change
some element of their name
or their gimmick or whatever the fuck
but that's when developmental
was
not on national television
when you're on national TV
or available whether it's
the third rated show
or not whatever
when you're on national TV
and you're on the same network
available to the same audience
as the main roster
then by that point
everybody ought to be who they're supposed
to fucking be from now on
is what I'm saying to you
do you hear me what I'm telling you
I mean most people don't come up
and immediately have a gimmick
but it also stands out that like no one
just has like a
like there isn't just you know you can't
just copy, but there isn't a crusher or a bruiser, like, someone who's more known by a nickname
than like by some fake sounding name. Like, Seth Rollins is a big star. And that's a bullshit
name that was like on a list of names and they chose it. And for the rest of his life, while he
works there, he'll be Seth to people. But he can't use that name anywhere else. And it's,
I guess it's better than Tyler Black. At least they think so, they own it. But there's
something about these names that just, it sucks. I really wanted Jack Double Barrel
Cannon. Is that what you wanted? Yeah, but they went with Seth Rollins. Well, there it is, Jim.
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I've hurt my side.
I'm so, you know, my hip, it's cold weather.
Why you got my chair run down?
slow, Brian?
Well, it is cold weather. I did that one
for you and Stacey. It is cold weather, and of course, if you were a wrestler,
wrestling in the cold weather, sweeping the nation,
it's probably a pretty miserable time.
So it's a good time to hop on a plane for a day,
head across the world, to the land down under,
the land of plenty, where Jim Barnett once conquered.
A.E.W. Finally. Is that what they called that back then?
A.E.W.
finally hitting Australia.
Well, I don't know if they hit Australia or just slapped it in a face.
And again, by the way, I was under the assumption that their big lead-in for the AEW Grand Slam was the NBA All-Star game.
I didn't know that it was just NBA All-Star Saturday night,
and this is still going to be...
It was a fucking dunk contest.
They had a white guy about 5'11 jumping over cars and shit.
It was highly entertaining.
He might be the next AEW superstar.
But it wasn't even the game.
It was a bunch of people in a building watching...
I guess they had various games and competitions,
and the dunk contest was the main event of it,
and it ran until about 1050,
but that was,
that's the biggest lead-in they're going to have all year
was the night before the game?
Well, again, the dunk contest is a pretty big deal,
like the home run derby for baseball.
Well, but I mean, you wouldn't think it would be
as big as some of the games
that they actually fucking have on there.
All-Star games suck.
All-Star games suck is the reality of 2025,
but let me ask you this.
Do you remember, because I don't,
when those former wrestling fans who were watching the NBA
stay for AEW and saw Chris Jericho
and went on Twitter and just attacked him.
Yes, yes.
Was that the All-Star game or was it just an NBA game?
It was an NBA game because I remember them,
people saying like NBA Twitter or something is a buzz
over discovering Chris Jericho is still wrestling
or something to that effect.
But I think it was an NBA game
and a bunch of NBA fans from the attitude era
and then all of a sudden Jericho was first.
But at least they were a buzz
because they knew who he once was
and who he still aspired to be
because they had a problem with that
on this program.
But to set the stage,
I know we did this last week,
let's just run it down real quick, Brian.
At first this was announced,
instead of Grand Slam at the Arthur Ash
tennis,
facility there in New York because they sold that out the first year and dropped said they burnt
that out they announced a stadium in Australia and we said at the time what to fuck
because how and what is their viewership in Australia that they that you know they believe
they can do this and a lot of our fans in Australia good day mates
They said, no, they're not available on any kind of widespread television.
Wasn't that basically the summation of what everybody said was people watch it,
but not in numbers that one would think would fill a stadium, is what we heard.
What we heard from people was kind of a variation in different forms of,
this is not a wrestling country, this is a WWE country.
And they've been the only game in town, despite, you know, independence that have done okay,
There really isn't a large AEW exclusive audience.
And the other thing is, you know, AWM, with Wembley, they announced Wembley
and people said, how the hell are they going to get anyone in that stadium?
And the first one, you got a lot of people there for a variety of reasons, dropped off year two.
I guess you could understand why Tony would think maybe that would work in Australia,
but it's a different kind of country, different layout.
It's hard to get anywhere there.
Boy, that's almost even like I say, well, if it works in Chicago,
will it work in fucking Knoxville?
There's just a lot more people to pick from in general in one place.
But nevertheless, so then things didn't look real good, you know,
in the way of filling a stadium even with a partial setup and they moved it indoors.
But in the process, and again, we're willing to be corrected here,
but I've seen people tweeting that it was on their AEW, the AEW,
schedule at one point as a
pay-per-view event
and the people thought
they were getting a pay-per-view in a stadium
then it was moved indoors
and then there were no big
remember how they built Wembley like they were
building the goddamn Egyptian pyramid
but there hadn't been a lot of build for this
bad boy and the other thing
is Grand Slam traditionally was dynamite
it wasn't a pay-per-view and it wasn't
a collision I mean maybe they had matches
roll over to rampage and collision, but
Grand Slam was a dynamite, this wasn't
even that.
Well, and that's where I'm going. They moved
indoors. They didn't, it ain't a pay-per-view.
They haven't had any big matches
built for it until they were
farting them out as they usually
do, you know, the past few weeks
for the most part.
And then they get a collision
taping with Ring of Honor.
A Ring of Honor and Collision
tape at the highest prices
that, I bet you're quite
a few of these folks have ever paid for a wrestling ticket
because they still didn't I mean you can correct me Brian if you
Google it but I'm not sure they had quite at 10,000 people
and they still did over a million dollars at the gate
which and here's the thing I want to know this
because I don't think we delved deeply enough into this
for the initial people
when the stadium went on sale,
didn't we hear that it was about
eight or 10,000
that bought tickets or whatever?
Is this the same people?
Did they just hold the tickets and make it good
for the new building?
Did they say turn your tickets back in
and get new ones?
How did they handle that transition?
I'm not exactly sure.
I was under the impression.
It was kind of like WWF with WrestleMania 7
where they moved indoors,
even though they had already sold tickets
for the LA Coliseum.
They just found a way to reshuffle
the arrangement so that everyone got something close to what they thought they were getting in the stadium.
So have you been able to find out any reporting on an honest basis of how many people they had in
this indoor building? Well, Russell Ticks reports that the Brisbane Entertainment Center
listed the capacity as 13,500. The venue has 11,000 tiered seats, and AWW, as of this email,
only had 665 tickets available.
So it sounds like they were in the range of 12 to 13,000.
Okay, so, but I guess what I'm saying is,
did, is that everybody that had bought tickets to the stadium and just switched over?
Did any, has there been any real movement since then?
And I'm not talking even about tickets distributed,
which is probably what wrestle ticks would have.
I'm talking, did they actually sell any new ones?
because they ended up doing a show
that they had booked in a 70,000 seat stadium set up for 40 to 50,000
that fit into a building that holds 13,000 tops
is where we went with that.
Well, the other thing was, what if the stadium had worked out?
What if they had sold 50,000 tickets?
Was this the card they were going to do?
Was it going to be just a short collision
and then Ring of Honor in a stadium?
No, if they had...
MJF wasn't there.
I mean, how many other...
wrestlers didn't make the trip.
I didn't see MJF on this show.
If they had 30,000
tickets sold two months ago,
you'd have seen a lot more than what you saw
there, but
but so that basically
they ended up with a collision in a ring of honor
taping with the highest prices ever
in a small building from
a stadium and
so I thought, I think
they thought that they would make up for it
in Tony's
mind, they being Tony, with
the all the high spot matches and the and the craziness without even any of the
bad interviews or you know a fucking filler of a regular television show so it was it was a good display
of what AEW is but I'm not sure that that's what they would need for their biggest audience
or at least the biggest audience at
start. We'll find out, I guess,
hopefully very soon how far they fell.
But it looked good
the crowd indoors compared to
some of the ones they've had here domestically lately,
but should we go ahead and before we talk about the show,
talk about the ring, the ring controversy?
Might as well get that.
out of the way. I mean, it was one of the first things
people noticed. He started seeing photos go
around before we saw any of the actual matches or anything.
People noticed that the ring was smaller.
Reports said that it may have been 16 by 16,
which is pretty small.
They had problems fitting the aprons on, obviously,
because the ring was smaller. I saw
an image with like a step stool.
Instead of a ring steps,
they had a step stool to get people in and out of the ring.
I mean, Tony's the same guy that throws money.
He just put Rita Chatterton under contract.
and brought her into Jaguars games.
He has money up the gazoo and he'll spend it.
They didn't want to bring their own ring?
Well, and again, if you're running a business
and you're running one show in Australia
and you can find a local ring instead of goddamn
either putting one on a boat for three months
or whatever that process is
or flying a goddamn wrestling ring to Australia,
if you're running a business
yes you would try to find
something over there
that would serve but
for the same guy that
fucking spends as much money
as it would cost to had one built
over there
and fucking polished and the post
powder coated and
shipped in there and put up by naked
hookers
he spends that much money on
Danielson's entrance music
for a pay-per-view
So what
It's hard to hold these folks to the similar standards.
But I didn't go ahead.
I was going to,
well,
no,
you could go ahead.
I was going to bring up the buddy Matthews tweet,
but I'll do it after you talk about this.
Well,
okay,
because I want to know more about it,
because I saw him limping,
but I thought he'd been selling his knee
from some crazy thing that he did a second before that.
But nevertheless,
the ring was a normal
fucking ring. That's what
people are so used to seeing
all the, in the WWF
it shows goddamn
Netflix trailers on
an LED screen on all four
ring posts that everything's lit up and
lightning flies out of everybody's ass.
And with AEW
they do dress up as well
but this was a regular
fucking probably Australian
Indian indie ring. The ropes were nice.
They had the AEW
turnbuckle pads. The
ring posts were neither painted any fancy colors nor particularly straight because they had the
square posts that bend without the angle iron on the outside or making a six inch round post that
won't bend unless you hit it with a 18 wheeler but I digress I didn't take a bump in it but I saw
it had some give the mat didn't look too bad apparently the apron skirt what everybody's
freaking out about is I hadn't even really noticed or paid attention but
but it looked like it was an 18 by 18 foot ring,
the same as an old WCW ring or any of the territory rings
from the days of the territories,
except for WWF and Byrne, they always used a 20-foot ring.
And Sheik and Kobo had a 24-foot boxing ring for,
we got to ask fucking supermouthed Dave Drason why that was sometime.
That's one thing I've never thought to ask him.
but this was just a regular size fucking ring
maybe it looked even smaller because they were actually
at a big building with people in it well again people were saying 16 by 16
it looked really small looked like the ring from the ICW studio
no I've seen 16 by 16 foot rings and that was bigger than that
I mean is 16 by 16 is fucking embarrassing you can take two steps and hit the other side
obviously we'll review the match later on but buddy Matthews tweeted
out. So thoughts after AEW Grand Slam Australia, if it wasn't a 16 by 16 shit wrestling ring,
I wouldn't have destroyed my ankle on the entrance due to holes in the padding.
Okay.
Okada wouldn't have been able to put his foot on the rope, and I'd be champion.
Shit happens. Now again, he said 16 by 16, but saying he destroyed his ankle due to holes in the padding,
what does that mean?
well that means that they had shit padding um and that that's the same way that i tore my left ACL in
Philadelphia and because the padding was separated there was a crack where if you put your
foot down in the wrong place you can roll your ankle or you your knee can go sideways or
whatever but that on a one of the nice rings these days whether it be aew or wwe or
the standardized big companies.
They actually, in the old days, you got
fucking indoor outdoor carpeting
rolled off a goddamn trailer that was
exposed to rain and snow.
It was the padding for the ring.
But now they have
that, what do you call it
composite material, but it comes
in rolls and they roll it all the way
across, and it's seamless
in that respect, and then it's also
straight so they can tape it down
where the rolls meet and you don't have any
holes or dips or valleys where if you plant your foot wrong you're fucking yourself up
apparently they have not in Australia invested in that type of material yet
if he had a hole in the ring that's what that means
but I truthfully as I said earlier I had seen him
limping but I thought that he was doing something from a selling
something from a movie
had just done
and might have hurt himself too.
But did he say did it on the entrance?
Yeah, he did it at the beginning.
Gee, and still got through,
and still was more impressive
than fucking Okada.
Holy shit.
Well, how was, so,
any update on the injury or whatever?
He said, more soon?
Ankle injury, more information soon,
apparently he was enjoying his honeymoon
with Ria Ripley while they were in Australia.
so he's out and about and hopefully healing up.
But there are photos.
I guess that's how we know that.
There are photos of them hanging out and he is a crutch.
Well, yeah, well, now don't call her that.
I'm talking about the crutch.
He can get over on his own merits.
No, I'm not saying she's the crutch.
How dare you?
I'm saying he has a crutch.
Well, I said, don't say you sounded like he's out and about.
He's hopping around on one leg,
but he wasn't going to let that interfere with his nuptuations.
You think hoppy's a better name than buddy?
It would almost have to be, wouldn't it?
But anyway, so here's what was wrong with this program.
At the top, they've got the big lead-in from the NBA festivities
and the fucking 5'11 white guy jumping over the cars and shit.
That was entertaining as fuck.
But nevertheless, as you referred to Jericho a few minutes ago,
when it was a few years ago, it was a big NBA game or whatever,
and then they boom and Twitter lit up.
Jericho's still wrestling,
but at least there was some buzz, some,
we know this guy, he used to be so-and-so.
What they did here was
what I termed the other day,
basically the preacher
selling religion to the choir
in that they came on the air
with the big train chimpanzee,
high spot video game match with everybody
getting an individual entrance
that they took their time on because of the big crowd
to the point where they rang the bell for the tag team match
10 minutes into the show
and their big lead-in with the first thing they saw
was our friend take a shit
long and in Kyle Felcher
and in Osprey
and took his time.
And then the second coming,
the music and the lighting,
and the pyro and the drama and the time consumption.
And then it's still just canny.
And out comes Kenny.
And they rang the bell 10 minutes into the show,
and they had the big lead in
and spent 10 minutes on people walking to the ring
that none of those fucking people
that were watching had ever heard of before.
Am I lying?
Or am I lying?
Are you lying or are you lying?
Or well, am I? Well, you well,
then you just answer the question.
Your feet are off the ground, obviously.
Yeah, just answer the question.
Don't try to dodge this issue.
The only one they could possibly know
would be Kenny Omega based on being on AEW TV,
on TNT or TBS for the last five years.
But if again, if it's supposedly bringing them a brand new and much bigger audience,
a lot of those people ain't been watching Kenny on AEW on T&D for the last five years.
Well, based on who was on this show, who would you have started out with?
Not adding people that weren't on it because we don't know who went to Australia and who didn't.
Well, based on who was on this show, I believe I would have slunk off in a corner in shame.
So you see, you had to pick something.
But this, I'm watching as well.
You know, here's the thing, Edge, they would have known who Edge was, but then they had a Brisbane brawl with the ratings killers.
So I guess maybe you're right.
I have it on in the background to watch it a second time while we're reviewing it.
My DVR, the first 20 minutes of the NBA dunk contest, you got to wonder how many people DVR did this major event from Australia and didn't get the last 20 minutes because of how it worked.
I think this ring is smaller than a WCW ring.
I mean, I could be wrong and you were in the rooms.
Well, I was looking at a big screen television.
And these are little guys.
I mean, but, no, actually,
DeCesha and Fletcher aren't that small.
I think it's, it may be 16 by 60.
It may be, okay, then I, if you think so, then I'll tap out.
Because when I heard of, I didn't notice anything.
And then when I heard about the controversy, I went back and looked and, you know,
but at the same point.
WCW was 18 by 18?
Oh yeah.
All rings
are pretty much everywhere
were 18 by 18
and then
I'm trying to think
I mean like I said
Vern Ganya
most of his were
maybe some smaller shows
would have been different
but most of his were 20 by 20
and they always used them in the WWF
and I think the first time
I was ever actually in a 20 by 20 foot ring
was what I came up to do a show for Dennis Coraluzzo
and a New Jersey ring.
I like the old 40 by 40 foot rings
at the Olympic auditorium.
Well, but they had such a wonderful apron.
You could paint a line down the middle
and have traffic going both ways.
But anyway, back to this, the match,
the tag team match.
It was the dream match of all the people
who liked that kind of fucking thing.
And it was,
it's like
you know
fucking
Pavarotti
for me trying to put up with
Millie Vanilli
watching it
a hundred miles an hour
back and forth with moves
they don't
not talking about selling like people are dead
but I'm talking about the selling and or
registering I've mentioned the
trading of blows
where they're punching each other in the side of the head
and nobody's facial expression
changes. But the
no facials, no selling, no
registering, no logic, no psychology.
Nobody's following any rules.
The referee wasn't just buried.
He was encased in concrete
like he'd crossed Capone.
At various points, two guys
would just roll out of the ring
and hide behind the apron until
their cue came up.
The four ways, minutes,
as a matter of fact, I think I,
did I make some notes here? Well, I don't want to get
head of myself.
But early on,
they've just got to do
this shit because they don't know
what else to fucking do.
The baby
faces, Kenny
and Willie, did
the double dive out of the rig
on opposite sides, but they took so
long. First, they had to get down
on their knees and
drum the mat
to get the people fired up and
then stand up and point and just
and then run the opposite way.
And there's the two heels standing there, slack-jawed,
gape-mouthed, wide-eyed,
waiting to catch them.
Fuck, the whole bill,
even if they're not on TV camera,
the whole building is looking at these numb-nuts
is just standing there waiting, oh, there you got.
The fuck, it's a goddamn embarrassment.
There's no heels, there's no baby faces.
at one point
Kyle just cut both of the alleged
baby faces off by himself
without even cheating
boom here you go
boom throw you into this guy
shit can you now
oh
it's over and over
but in between is the awkward
shit the sloppy work
the rotten basics the stuff that looks
phony
the obvious cooperation
it's like a routine by gymnasts on
America's got talent
and then they all pose and point
and turn their back on their opponent
if I was breaking this down in wrestling school
it would be a multi-part series
with two hours each day
to point out the basic shit
that these dumb nuts is either
ignore, can't get, or were never taught
and I don't understand how it's gotten as far
with nobody
correcting them all somehow
that if you just apply all this athleticism
to do something else besides pretend you're in a fucking video game,
then you would prosper much farther in this industry.
Because if they ever go...
Of course, now they got a billionaire paying them whether they draw or not,
so they don't care.
But if they were to ever go to the WWE system
and become legitimate stars in wrestling,
they would have to be completely retrained.
For Kenny, that's why he's where he is, because it's too fucking late.
For Osprey, I think he liked the idea of living in England and commuting.
For Portega shit, he was probably wrapped up because the offices were working together,
and his knowledge of the American wrestling scene may not be up to par.
And who's the other fellow?
Kyle, he's the one because he's,
youngest he's got the most potential.
The more he
does this type of thing here
the harder it's going to be
when he ever makes it to NXT, but
physically
he can do this shit.
The heels out wrestle
the faces at every turn
but it wasn't so bad
because you can't tell which is which by the work
and then, oh, here
we go. The last
11 minutes of the match
Brian, guess what they didn't do?
make any tags
correct you are correct sir
they did a tag at one point
and there was not another tag
for the last 11 minutes of the match
it was either a constant
choreographed four way
in and out at will in front of the referee
or two of the guys hiding behind the fucking apron
and then they just roll in at the appropriate point
and finally
Kenny and Willie
won.
For the type of people
who like that kind of thing, that's the kind of thing
those people like, they sure do
just jump around with a lot of
energy and enthusiasm.
For anybody who's ever worked
in a wrestling industry in a booking
or training or
any capacity for any length of
time before this mental illness
took over, it was maybe the worst tag team
match ever on television.
Am I being too harsh?
I mean, you're very, very harsh on this match.
Well, they just, they don't even try.
They don't even try.
They are, until they get to WWE and...
And one of the heels was a hometown hero,
Kyle's from Australia.
So what the...
Until they get to WWE and are told to work a different way
by the people paying them,
they're going to keep doing what they want to do
and what their instincts tell them to do.
And you brought up the spot with Kyle Fletcher before
making his own comeback against,
both guys, he's the heel without cheating, the spot where they did the double dives and you
just see Takesha and the floor looking up waiting.
Yes.
When is this going to happen?
Like, he looks bored.
This is their style.
This is the AEW style.
And that's why if you watch the match, if you listen to the match, you got moments with big pops
surrounded by moments where everyone sat there waiting for the next big pop.
Yeah.
And, you know, again, we'll see.
see what happens. I think Tekechta, I think, I think all four of these guys in their own way are
great for, I shouldn't even say great for AEW. Takesha needs to get out of there, Fletcher needs to
get out of there, Osprey is just going to do his own thing until whenever, until his body's broken
down. And Kenny Omega is probably the predominant, preeminent AEW star, but Don Callis sucks
as a manager. By the way, the commentary sucked. You got to bring that up too. Well, yeah, and-
But I didn't think it was the worst thing.
in the world? But again, also, is Don Callas the only manager ever in history that only sits
at the announced desk and never stands up unless he's going to go to the ring and interfere?
Well, he's the only manager there that's buddies with Chris Cherico and Kenny Omega. I mean,
he was a favor hire to begin with, and he is not a serious manager. W.W.E. is Paul Heyman. Everyone
takes him serious. They've got a guy playing the role of a, he's like an indie manager. You would see him
on a Dennis show. Yeah, unfortunately.
That's the state of things.
How many tickets did you sell, Don?
Okay, you can manage someone.
That's what it would be.
But you mentioned the overall, the commentary,
even though it was rotten,
I said it wasn't as rotten as it normally is,
because these people, they didn't even get the A announced team.
They didn't even get Taz and Chivani and Sockface.
They got Chivani and Nigel,
which Nigel's probably, if you know,
he was unfettered and alone the best of the bunch of them,
but they didn't even get the A team there.
They had to be thinking, what the fuck?
And then I was wondering if Tony even made the trip,
but I understand he went out in front of the live crowd
and got shit booed out of him.
Yeah, they boot them.
Because look at what happened.
They thought they were getting a big Australian AEW event.
Whoever, even if it's not a stadium,
13,000 people thought they were going to get a big AEW event.
How many people weren't there?
how many people weren't flown over,
the ring wasn't flown over,
and then you get a makeshift collision
slash ring of honor.
You can't bring the ring over,
but you can bring over the Ring of Honor crew?
Well, they had no ring of honor.
They only had Ring of Ill Repute.
All right, should we move on to the women's title match,
the big showdown between Mercedes-Mone
and Australia's own Harley Cameron?
the daughter of the legendary Dave Cameron, the historian of...
No relation. No relation. He's in New Zealand.
Well, it's not that far, right? They had to take boats back in the day in order to mate with people in nearby locations.
Technically, they took a boat to get to Australia originally, but again, let's...
That's why the sheep were so nervous out there in those days.
Harley Cameron's, again, it's a silly comedy act, and I think she's really talented.
I'd love to see her, you know, on the Stephen Colbert Show or something, not here.
But they have successfully gotten her through exposure to her over.
She may not be talented in the ring, but she is over with their fans right now.
Well, and she was even over on TV here on the build to this over the last couple of weeks
without being in her home country
and then they go to Australia
and a big crowd in their home country
and I'm thinking
is this the time
where maybe they might realize
let's get something out of the
I think we agreed
the other day Mercedes
for the money spent
and the Ballyhoo was the biggest
female flop
that they've ever flopped here
in AEW
so could they put the
the new phenomenon over and get, you know,
something out of this thing.
But they didn't do that, did they?
And, you know, here's the thing.
The match, like you said,
Harley is not,
it was like two drunk strippers
watched a tape of a wrestling match and tried to imitate it.
There's no leader here.
I know Mercedes is trying to tell her things to do,
that she thinks might be wise to do,
but we've seen what her matches look like a lot of times.
And to me,
it came down to Harley's not good,
but at least people like her where Mercedes is rotten
and nobody's caring.
So besides the fact that this was kind of phony looking
because they tried to do too much out of their depth
and Harley was using the puppet to come off the,
top rope for whatever, but
they didn't even use the puppet
creatively. At one
point Mercedes football kicked
it, but otherwise Harley was just waving it around
like it was a pom-pom.
She could have fucking
stuck her hand up the
fucking puppet and then had the puppet
fucking grab
Mercedes in the crotch or something.
I don't know. I don't know if that would
have worked on TNT.
Well, but it, well, it was late
at night.
but the
well you can't deny that
I don't know if TNT changes their standards that much later
well it's it's late night it's playboy after dark baby
you know it's not the family hour anymore
we can let our freak flag fly
that's right back to electric blue
yes well back to it is finally it wouldn't end
until Mercedes hit that shitty finish that she does
and beat Harley 1, 2, 3 also so what
is, you know, Mildred Burke going to have to come back from the grave to end this winning streak
of this obviously egotistical young flopola?
Just an honest question I ask of you.
I mean, Tony's happy with Mercedes-Money and I don't know what to say about the women's division.
They have some talent there, but it's never going to work when you just throw them on in the
middle of the show when there are other matches that people care for.
Harley Cameron's gotten herself over with the puppet.
I know it's not an easy thing to do, but they should sell the fucking puppet.
Just have them everywhere, but merch is not necessarily their strong suit.
But take advantage of this.
Right now, if WWE and Harley Cameron and all of a sudden they discovered she's a ventriloquist
and it got over, they'd be merch up the gazoo already.
Is there anything from AEW?
I don't know.
She didn't win.
AEW is on.
a run of disappointing finishes.
I'm not just saying the good guy has to win
and Tony Storm got a big win and they really like that,
but between Harley not winning
and the way Cope lost,
there was enough here to deflate people.
You know what I mean?
Just like, uh, okay, I've seen...
That fucking Cope,
let's not blame him.
The Dick the Boozer match, which we'll get to,
was a goddamn
that was the wrestling equivalent
of a tranquilizer dart
just took the fucking energy
out of everybody
oh well anyway
yes Mercedes-Money
did win she is still the
no the other ones
the women's chain
she's the TNT champion
or she's got like four belts
or whatever
only one of them is recognized or official
no believe me
she's got four belts but nobody recognizes any of
Like, what's that?
So Harley Cameron, not necessarily someone who's a wrestler.
Someone told me her husband is an athlete who was signed to WWE and that she came over here with him.
And that's kind of what her introduction to wrestling was.
So not someone with any sort of background or interest in it but got into it.
And she has talent.
She could sing, play guitar, and play with puppets.
Is that someone WWE should be interested in?
or would they say no stay in AEW?
Well, no, I wonder why that she didn't give her husband, boyfriend,
significant other, whatever was involved with the WWE system,
why they didn't get involved with her at the beginning,
or maybe they did, or maybe she wasn't interested then
and chose another path or whatever,
but she probably would have been,
she probably would have been better served in NXT
because if the only perspective she has on wrestling
is what she sees behind the scenes
and or in the ring in AEW,
she's going to have a long row to hoe
as Mama Cornett used to say
if she wants to continue in the big leagues
and go through NXT.
If she at least gotten that system first,
she'd still have a limited,
understanding of wrestling, but she would have
a better understanding of
what the fuck?
How to separate business from all of this
tomfoolery? Does that make any sense?
It does make some sense. And again,
Harley Cameron, getting over, talented,
has her puppets. If AEW isn't going to sell them,
maybe she could sell them herself, set up an online store,
make a bunch of money, control her destiny
with Shopify.
You know, I can hear it right now. I can hear it.
the cash register ringing and co-chinging
because and Harley Cameron,
she could sell her puppets.
She can sell anything.
She's had her hand stuck halfway up into the elbow in.
And she could own all of her property,
all of her intellectual property
and run her own business.
But you still need help, folks,
even if you're an entrepreneur
and you got the idea
and you got the drive and the determination,
You need the platform.
You need somebody to help you out
and navigate the interwebs
and the wide world of commerce.
Now that we're a global entity
around the world with the interwebs,
you need somebody like Shopify,
home of the number one checkout on the planet.
Shop pay that boosts conversions.
Way less carts going abandoned,
and a cart is a terrible thing to waste,
ladies and gentlemen.
And way more of the sales going
Kaching, that means money, that means
De Niro, that means pesos, that means
mula, not the female kind, you can pay for younger women,
but it means financial recompense to you in your pocket
if you're growing your business,
your commerce platform better be ready to sell
wherever your customers are,
whether it's on the web, in your store, in their feed,
and everywhere in between
from feelings to follicles
and businesses that sell more
sell on Shopify
because they take the
novice, they take the idea,
they take the concept
and boom goes the dynamite
they make it become a reality.
Brian, you have seen,
as a matter of fact,
this guy had an idea
for a theme park,
Pizney World.
And over the course of a weekend,
down there in Delray Beach,
they built.
this guy in amusement park and now he's
he's letting children come in
for a quarter ahead. I don't know what the hell you're talking about. They stay
there all day. In Delray Beach,
Pizney World. I don't know what... Well, he had to be far enough away from Orlando
they couldn't see the sign. But right now, folks, you
can upgrade your business and get the same kind of checkout and
platform as the big boys use and it's only going to cost you
$1 a month. How can you do this you say to yourself?
Well, you don't say it yourself or else why as you
be not using the word you.
You say it to me, how can you do this?
Or how can they do this?
Who's doing this?
Let me clarify this.
Shopify is going to give you a $1 a month trial period.
If you go to Shopify.com slash JCE, that's all lowercase there, the JCE.
Again, it's an important thing to them, so I went along with it.
Shopify.com.
slash JCE
to upgrade your selling today
Shopify.com, have I repeated this enough,
slash JCE
and boom, you're going to be farting through silk
and swimming in Scrooge McDuck's money bin.
Unless, of course, your business that you're wanting to get into
is illegal, in which case, they'll give you another website
you need to go to and talk about it there.
No, they won't tell you anything.
and you could talk about that by yourself.
That's right.
You know, you'll have no recollection of it afterwards.
That's what the courts say.
They will not say anything because this conversations won't happen,
but you'll be selling lots of stuff with Shopify.
One more time, what's that?
promo code, Jim.
Oh, I thought you wanted to hear this one more time.
The promo code is J-C-E.
All right, you know what that means.
We're back to Australia.
Well, here came Edge.
and this was
again, I said at the top of the program
they should have led with somebody
that maybe the new audience might know
that at the same time would still
mean something to the AEW crowd.
Edge would have been the guy
but this brutal, rotten, indie garbage match
that he was involved in
would have driven people off the fucking show
like women and children
off the deck of the Titanic.
But he was over
the fans sang his song when the music cut off they continued singing to him and they know him and he's been a star for a while even though you know he now looks like dan haggerty's elderly uncle and then here came j white and well there came jay white but he's over over there because he's he's one of those folk where is he from
I think he may be New Zealand also
He is so
Again you know
They're close to home
They don't have the loyalty
The Samoans do
But still
Where's Old Zealand
Well it's under the sea
It's next to Atlantis
That's why they had to make a new one
The other one sank
And then here came Dick the Boozer
And the Booser and the boer horsemen
Through the crowd
And they're having a Brisbane brawl
with no disqualifications, no countouts, no tags.
They even said no tags.
How was that different from the last match they just had?
Where they could have been counted out many times but weren't.
They could have been disqualified, but weren't.
They had no tags.
And the fight on this when started on the floor.
And they fought in the entranceway.
And they fought through the arena.
And they fought into the stands.
And they fought in the trenches.
and they fought on the front line.
But it's the same shift they always do,
and the pace on this was somewhat glacial.
And then we found out,
and I'm trying to think
there was
a place we went for a Ring of Honor show.
It was 15 years ago.
I want to say, was it Canada
or whatever the fuck
where they couldn't find any tables?
and I mean there were panicked faces
like oh my god we can't have a wrestling show
without tables amongst the
wrestlers believe it or not
because they
the tables that are broken
in wrestling have we ever talked
about the measurements Brian
of the tables that they break
I don't think so no
okay
I call them lunchroom tables
because that's what when I was a kid
the foldy leg tables that you see
everybody slide in the ring and set up
that used to they'd set it up in the lunchroom or in the gym or whatever if you were having the
pizza party but the tables that get broken are eight-foot tables and and now that you have heard
that can you visualize when a guy stretched out on it his head maybe almost goes to the top
his feet almost go to the bottom right right because an eight-foot table when you hit it with a
weight in the middle of it in the sweet spot it'll break clean and potentially safely but if that
table is six feet long and that's what with the ring of honor uh show i was talking about i think
all they could find were four foot tables your sweet spot almost ain't there the closer in that the legs
are to the middle of the table the more is the sturdier it's going to be the less it's going to or the
it's going to take to break it, the less likely
it is to break in the middle of you get my
drift here.
And when they pulled at
least one of the tables I saw out,
it looks like Australia has like five
foot tables, maybe
six, but they were
all so thin when Edge
got power bombed through
off the apron, I think,
and it just matched through one of those tables
and it looked like he got power bombed through a
fucking cardboard box from U-line.
It just snapped like
balsa wood
like chopsticks
the point is in other countries
they have other office supplies
with other measurements
and maybe they're on the metric system over there
I don't know what's going on
but did you notice the tables were a little flimsy
when they put
I can't remember who I think
Kyle laid on it for a minute
it looked like it was going to break in half
just from the guy laying on it
anyway
yeah
flimsy table break
just random notes
Moxley's shit looks so fake
that the power bomb through a table was the break
spot when they came back
nothing was really happening then Edge made
a comeback and Moxley stopped him
and that Jay White made a comeback with a
kendo stick and they stopped him
the road warrior sold like Ricky Morton
compared to these fucking heels
and then Wheeler
old wheelie boy he just
rolled in and started whipping people with a belt
and then Edge speared
Who's he, what's he through the fucking table
and Claudio and speared Moxley
and then Edge pulled out a barbed wire chair
a chair wrapped in barbed wire
and hit Moxley with it
is it worth Brian's stopping
and taking a moment to pump the brake
and ask this question again since it's been a couple of years since I did the last time.
What the fuck application does a chair wrapped and barbed wire have in real civilian life?
Well, there is none.
We're supposed to assume that the wrestler left it there knowing that he'll need it,
not that it was something to happen to be there, I guess.
Well, but again, so now guys are allowed to put their own personal weapons
under it's so stupid
the whole idea of the chair shot to begin with
in an arena in a wrestling arena
with spectators there are chairs around
and something you'd grab and pick up in a fight
if it's something that could be under the ring
I can go for a chair
I can go for a board I could go for an extra turnbuckle
I go for a toolbox
fire extinguisher
but a chair
wrapped in barbed wire for any
normal person
of course there are none but any normal
person that was watching this show would go
what the fuck is the matter with these people
it's just so
stupid and then
Marina
Schaefer
oh god damn it
somebody had a wonderful nickname
for that we ought to start calling her
on that they tweeted
and now I've forgotten what it was
I just remember saying I should fucking write that down
then I didn't write it down
but Marina Schaefer hit Edge with the briefcase,
but not really because she missed him.
But he sold it and Moxley got the choke on him,
and everything came to a halt.
There was no motion.
It took forever.
All of the extra people,
the heels that weren't in the match,
were holding Edge's solitary partner away
from making any kind of a save.
And then the referee rang the bell.
And the crowd booed.
Not in the way of, boo, we hate you, you heal.
It was like, boo, that's the fucking finish.
And he just, it was a garbage match with a rotten finish.
And then, before you comment, when Moxley kept choking edge, the crowd started chanting bullshit.
because it just
it was going nowhere
and then Moxley jumps up like a
maniac running around
cussed and got bleeped whatever he said
and then the heels wandered around
while Moxley acted like a tough guy
and flipped everybody the fucking bird
and it was like
garbage championship wrestling
with a budget
and after all the other
self-inflicted wounds and bad
booking decisions. It may be, after all, it may be this fucking low-class clown that kills this whole thing.
It just runs everybody off. He is the worst wrestler in the world. I'm sorry, please give me your
feedback. I've drunked on for too long. You didn't know this. I literally was going to begin by saying
John Moxley is the worst wrestler in the world. Well, I'm sorry I stole your material. When I first said that
several years ago, we would still hear a lot of pushback. Can you imagine how crazy cornet and last are?
think Moxley sucks. Everyone sees it now. His ideas are terrible. His work is terrible. The fact that
they're putting over so strongly a heel team that the fans reject. This isn't heat. Channing
bullshit isn't heat here. It is the fans are sick of this with Moxley, him choking people out,
killing people. The other thing that's scarier is what this could mean. Moxley and Edge are about
to wrestle at the AEW pay-per-view coming up.
Edge just got choked out.
Does that mean he's going to win?
Which scares me, because if he wins the title,
first of all, I wouldn't make him the world champion right now.
But second of all, does that mean Christian's going to cash in right away?
I mean, there's all these dynamics, none of them are good.
The world champion is mox, so you never see the belt.
And it's like a vacancy at the top of the card right now.
They've killed every single segment they've been in ratings-wise.
Tony has put them, if you notice, over the last like three months,
Tony has put the Death Riders in like every quarter of the show.
Just trying to find any place where they won't drive people away.
It's impossible.
The Death Riders stuff is only good to John Moxley
because he's a wrestling moron.
He knows what he likes.
He knows what he wants to be,
but he doesn't know what people want and what people want him to be.
Terrible match.
terrible. I said it the other day, none of these people are marketable.
They just put out a white t-shirt that says Death Riders at the bottom apparently that they're selling.
It's just bad. And I don't think anyone wants to see Edge. He got a great reaction here.
It was a wonderful moment. But everyone's singing his song because the Australian fans are happy to see him.
But his run in AEW has been awful. And him against the Death Riders has been God awful.
if he's about to wrestle for the AEW world title
and, you know, at least many of the AEW faithful
are on board with that, right?
How old is Edge?
Is it 53?
I'm trying to remember.
You might be able to Google it,
but the point of the matter is,
is that wasn't it just a few weeks ago
that Uncle Dave was saying,
well, about Shelton Benjamin?
I don't know, pushing a guy
that was 49 years old and wasn't used real well on TV in the WWE
few years ago.
Edge is 51.
Okay, Edge is 51.
Look at Edge at 51 next to Shelton Benjamin at 49.
Tell me who might ought to be the world champion between the two of them.
Well, that was that match, Jim.
And, of course, there was still more to go, but the fans were pretty deflated by this point.
That would be a grand slam.
Yes, they looked like one of those wind socks and a calm wind at the airport.
The international title was on the last.
Is that the international title?
The Intercontinental, the continental title.
One of the titles was on the line.
Yes, it is.
The other one's the continental, yes.
It was Okada versus Buddy Matthews, and we mentioned it earlier in the program.
This is where Buddy injured is Rick.
injured his ring.
Injured his ankle apparently in this ring.
And again, I thought that I didn't catch it
because it was on the entrance
and he made it through this whole match
and was the most impressive guy in the match.
And I'd seen him limping at one point,
but since then he was doing a running spot,
I was like, how he was selling what he was doing before,
but he's just apparently a tough fucking guy.
but it's insulting to buddy as hard as he works and as much as he tries to get his shit over
to have to work with a fucking lazy-ass piece of shit like Okada.
Be quite honest with you.
I'm just being honest.
Instead of recounting the matches and the endless blow-by-blow description,
here's what I'm saying as a person who has been involved in training programs and talent scouting
and fucking development,
invented developmental, for fuck's sake.
Because that's what I was going to say.
Stacey was watching part of this thing with me.
And I said, to her, I said, look at this guy.
I said, am I overly critical?
Am I biased?
Look at this guy and his appearance in the ring
and his work that he is exhibiting
and tell me would he have stood out
in an Ohio Valley wrestling class.
And she said, no, he's the shits.
And she reminded me of who he works like.
Do you know who Okada works like?
I have no idea.
David Flair.
Oh, come on.
No, bless him.
Come on.
Bless him, he was a heck of a nice kid.
But David Flair didn't get it.
And that's when Okada.
he's he's soft he's bland he's slow he's boring he's obviously not working any harder than he has to at any point
and there's no charisma there's no look there's no what the fuck this if i said mercedes was the
most expensive female flop that tony's ever purchased the men's title has to go to okada
He looks like a Japanese Elon Musk
And his shit is unwatchable
Did you see the elbow fall off the top rope?
He didn't drop it, he just fell.
It's
But he was again, buddies from over there, down under.
With the vegemite and all that type of stuff.
Can you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.
They want to see him do something.
The fans were with him.
And again, he's doing all this shit with one foot.
And finally, Buddy hit a superplex and a jackhammer and got a two count.
And he got Ria's clover leaf and Okada rolled through,
kicked him into balls, hit him with that shitty clothesline and beat him one, two, three.
Here's this jacked up beast hitting this fucking...
slight built
Japanese businessman
looking fuck
with all these big moves
and Okada wins with a shitty clothes line
that only got over
because buddy took a hell of a bump for it
and
what the fuck is
at some point
do you not say to yourself
I can't believe
that I paid what I paid
for what I'm staring at on this
monitor with my own eyes and I need
to either tell him start
working hard if he can or
phasing him out and get somebody over
with his name while he still got one.
I think Ibushi'd be better
in Okada and he had his feet amputated, right?
Let's not go crazy. Abushi
may be past the point of no return.
You know, Okada has not been impressive
in AW. At one point you want to talk about the ring.
at one point he did the move, the move.
He hit the mat and he tried to roll out
and he got caught on the bottom rope.
Because I guess the ropes are lower than the roof.
They are usually. He couldn't just roll out of the rig.
He got caught in the rope.
Buddy Matthews has a great look.
Has an awful name.
Was in front of a hometown crowd.
You could say the same thing about Harley Cameron.
In terms of being in front of a hometown crowd.
Now, they got the Tony Storm match,
but there was a lot of things in between
that deflated people like this match.
you're paying O'Cada all this money.
Tony Kahn could do it.
I'm not even going to blame him for that.
He could do it. He doesn't have to care.
But if you could recognize what's happening,
maybe it was worth it to kind of try to do something here
and give Buddy a big win.
Roll the dice. See if you can get something out of any of this.
Because otherwise, O'Connell just won another match.
He's kind of a nothing champion.
He's got nothing going on.
virtually done nothing since the bucks haven't been on TV.
Well, I was about saying his group, his cohorts in crime,
they just went home because they weren't over and it was embarrassing them
to go on TV and flop.
So they just went home to get paid and left him
standing around doing interviews where the only word he can say in English is bitch
and having these slow ass, you know, fucking shitty matches.
And what can he be involved in?
I don't think AEW can push people based off reputation.
It has to be based on what they bring to the table right now.
That has to be the way AEW deals with things.
Capitalize on the moment, jump on things at work, try to make something work.
Not just keep doing what you're doing.
Moxley's the world champion.
People hate him.
They hate watching him.
The Continental champion is Okada.
He's not lighting the world on fire.
The international champion, is that still Takesha?
I believe so
He just lost in a tag team
I mean just none of the champions
or the right guys are presented well
but yeah
he beat Buddy Matthews here
this was a chance to
even though he's hurt and we now know that
if they had put Buddy over here
maybe you have a chance
of having someone who could be a bit of a star for you
well but they've
and that's another reason
why is he wrestling for a singles title
when they have just, the leader of the group that he was in,
that he was really presented as the third place guy in,
has just left the company.
So they repackaged him and Brody King as a tag team.
And then beat them right away.
They lost their first tag team match on Dynamite,
and then they put Buddy in as a single wrestling for a title,
and he gets beat too.
So what?
Anyway.
Well, that was that match, but there was ever a time to do something, that was it.
We wish him a speedy recovery so he can come and put the girls champion over.
And speaking of the girls champion for the women's title,
whichever one of the women's titles that Mercedes doesn't have,
it was Maria May and Tony Storm.
And again, the dramatic return.
Well, I, Maria, where's Maria from?
You mean Mariah?
Yeah, well, you say Maria, I say Mariah.
I wish they'd call the whole thing off.
Her name's Maria.
I think she's from England.
So she's from, she's got an accent too.
So a lot of, but Tony Storm is the hometown girl here.
Let me just double chuck.
Yeah, she's from London, England.
Well, there you go.
So you got, you got Queensland versus England.
but, and I do mean the word but,
during Maria's entrance,
who comes out after she gets in the ring,
but Luther, in a bellhop costume,
comes out of the stands and gestures grandly and flabbily
toward the video screen for Tony's big entrance.
They flew Luther.
to Australia
mugged
an organ grinder
stripped his monkey
and put the outfit on Luther
but they can't get
take a ring over or bring
any of the major stars of wrestling
but Luther
you think they had to buy that fat ass
two seats on the plane
I don't know
I'll let you think of a better fucking retort to that
even all come on or something
I don't have any Luther
retorts. He's beyond
retort.
Beyond retorting.
Yes. He's beyond retorting.
We're doing the retorting on Luther.
Jericho's retorted friend Luther was on the show.
That's right. He's another one of the Winnipeg.
You got the Kookamonga Click and the Winnipeg Warriors.
And so then Tony Storm entered in black and white.
And, you know, it's better than Mercedes and Harley.
but what wouldn't be,
but they want Tony to win.
And up to this point,
Stacey said,
I think that's where she got up
because she said,
you wouldn't have aired any of this.
I was like,
because I was complaining
about the finish of the last match.
I'm just,
Tony Storm wasn't bad
until this gimmick.
Remember we liked Tony Storm.
She was a good wrestler
with a seemingly,
bubbly personality.
But then she went Hollywood and got this bald fat fuck from Winnipeg to be her Eric von
Stroheim and this whole goddamn...
It had nothing to do with All About Eve.
Come to find out.
Watch the goddamn movie, people, and compare all about Eve to anything they've done here.
And then she's got amnesia.
and then I'm so tired of amateur cartoon wrestling
that I don't care whether this match was any good or not.
Tony gave her six German suplexes
and beat her up on the floor
and three ass to faces and a pile driver.
And then Maria hit two Death Valley drivers.
It got a two count.
Then they had a girly slap fight.
So they followed up pile.
drivers and Death Valley drivers with a slap fight.
And then the weirdest finish I've ever seen,
Tony Storm hits a pile driver on Maria.
Maria rolls to the floor so she can't be covered because she's injured.
And then rolls back in and gives Tony Storm a pile driver.
And then gets up and is going to pick Tony Storm up and Tony Storm,
instead of small packaging her out of a pickup attempt,
stood straight up for a second,
looking like she was going to pick her up and body slam her
and then small packaged her there.
One, two, three.
So they each traded pile drivers
within 45 seconds of the finish that they forgot about
and then the finish was a small package.
Help me.
New World Champion.
Once again, the world champion.
That wasn't the help I was looking for.
It's not about the help you're looking for.
It's about to help Tony needs.
Tony con, that is, not Tony, not timeless Tony.
Well, there's too many Tony.
See, Tony, Tony, Tony, it's too many.
Needs to be just one.
Even if they do spell them differently.
You got a Y, you got an I, you got an E.
But you say it the same way.
Again, I don't understand the idea that you could fly over all these people.
Luther was flown over.
Tony Chavani, I guess you need a commentator, but that's who they chose.
All these people, and they didn't bring a ring, they couldn't just bring their ring.
Well, now, in all fairness, again, you can't just buy a fucking ticket on Delta for, you know, yes, I'm not saying that.
Like 2472 to fucking Brisbane in first class for the ring, you have to get a cargo.
A cargo plane.
You'd have to be a billionaire able to rent the cargo plane.
But again, that's what I'm saying.
Yes, he spends the money on entrance music and talent scouts and miscellaneous, you know,
falderall for his cast of merry pranksters.
But I don't understand why they didn't get, that's a big gate.
Didn't they want to see the, the Hurt Syndicate?
You know, fuck, just because, why are they still, why are the roster still somewhat separate
on collision and rampage,
now that punk is not there
to beat up any of the
Buck's childhood friends,
why can't all the stars appear on all the programs?
It might help their ratings.
Well, Jim, before we wrap up
our look at AEW's
Australian Vacation,
here are the results for
the Ring of Honor show we did not watch.
Uh-oh.
Bandito and the Outrunners
He's back! Defeated Bigger's
Bill, Brian Keith, and Chris Jericho.
Ring of Honor
Pure Champion, Lee
Moriarty defeated Robbie
Eagles.
Mark Davis
defeated Tommy Knight.
The Ring of Honor World Tag
Team champions, the Sons of Texas,
defeated the MXM
Collection.
And finally for the Ring of Honor
Women's World Championship,
Athena
defeated Alex Winnocet
I thought he was one of Dory Funk Jr's trainees, Alex Windsor.
He just died a couple years ago, too.
It must be a different, well, it's in the women's division.
I assume it's a different person or Alex's.
Well, he decided to make the change.
We could all support that.
So they just messed up on part of the advertising because they had promised Australia a veritable
who's who a professional wrestling and instead what they,
meant was a veritable who's that of professional wrestling.
Well, that was AEW's Australia Grand Slam.
We shall see what happens if they return to Arthur Ash and what that is,
and if they ever go back to Australia, and what ring they use.
But Jim, would you like to put money down?
Do you think AEW will return to Australia next year, yes or no?
I have a feeling who runs Australia?
Is that a president or a prime?
minister or whatever the case.
I have a feeling that the head honchos down there in Australia have already filed paperwork
to ban AEW from appearing on their soil as unsavory elements.
But folks, if you want to place a bet on it, I bet I know where you can go.
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All right, that was the worst I've ever done, but...
Oh!
We had to get here somehow.
Oh, good.
Get hearing somehow.
That's not what I said.
I said, we had to get here somehow.
We have a lot going on.
Oh, I said, I've got to get hearing somehow after you blitzed my drums with that little
serenade.
Well, Jim, let's get some questions.
This came from the Cult of Cornet.
That's not where it came from at all.
This is from corny drive-thru at gmail.
from Paul,
hello,
I had a question about wrestlers with bad attitudes.
In your opinion,
should I as a fan care
about if a guy is hard to work with?
Or should I just like who I like
and let their bosses worry about that stuff?
There are a lot of wrestlers
who are annoying backstage,
but I,
this guy must be there.
But I think,
but I think are really,
talented, should I put myself in a promoter shoes, or just focus on the TV product that they
deliver? And that's his question, but let me just add the most important thing, I guess,
just in this day and age. Well, that's the thing. That's the first thing I was going to say is
it depended on the era, because most of the guys in the old days before everybody was smart,
that were hard to work with were also big stars, because that's why,
were hard to work with.
They could oftentimes get away with it.
Or there was a reason for it.
You weren't having, you know, poor Pat Rose
wasn't going to go to Bill Watts and say,
no, fuck you, I'm not putting dog over.
So at that point, those people being hard to work with,
sometimes there was a business reason
and sometimes there wasn't.
It was only in their own mind.
But the fans didn't really realize
or know what was going on
so they would, you know,
still be predisposed to like the guy
if he had something going up,
bruiser Brody for fuck's sake.
He could get over with the people.
He was tough on the promoters.
In today's age,
when everybody knows everything
and knows who's
fucking who around backstage and whatever,
there might be an element of fan backlash
from some,
against somebody that
that they know is kind of actively
stonewalling or sandbagging
or not giving them the
show that they should like to have
because their own selfish interests
are taking precedence, such as, you know,
Dick the Boozer, the Plummer Moxley, whatever.
That may color it, but no, just like, you know,
if you're watching a movie
and you don't know that a guy is a asshole
or a convicted so-and-so
or a Trump supporter or whatever.
You like the movie and like the acting,
but once you find that out,
it's sometimes hard to forget,
you know, that you found out something
about that particular guy you don't like.
So it depends on the era, Brian,
is the answer to the question.
And what do you think about just the idea of acknowledging
I guess not all wrestling fans
care about the wrestlers
behind the scenes.
They literally just watch wrestling
or attend wrestling
and move on with their day
and move on with their life.
Because people are,
you know,
they're still fans of
Pity Ditties music
or Puffy Duty or whatever his fucking name is.
I don't know if anyone's a fan of his music, actually.
Well, there's somebody somewhere.
I guess so maybe, but...
I mean, there are people in Germany
that like to have their balls nailed to a stepstool.
Jim, our next question
was sent via the Cult of Cornette Facebook group
by Sandy Dan Rackley.
What?
Sandy Dan Rackley.
It wasn't funny, and then you had to say what?
Now I can't look at it without laughing.
Hello, Sandy Dan.
Sandy Dan wanted to know
how did wrestlers
during the World War II period?
period, managed getting to bookings when gas rationing was in effect, and most of the travel
in between shows would have been by car. Good question. Well, as I recall, of course, I was only
just a teenager at the time. Uh, no, the, yes, there was gas rationing, and most wrestlers
didn't, uh, fly in those days, except for the biggest stars the Jim Lundas is, or
or whatever, but there was also trains.
And you, and Brian, you've seen this,
a lot of the old wrestler, you know, books or period pieces,
you know, and I was on a train with Strangler Lewis.
They actually did that shit up until,
fuck the 50s, I guess, right?
When then it started getting really hard to get a train
to anywhere in the United States.
By the way, not just wrestlers
I mean, you see like Babe Ruth was on the train with people
Yeah, it was everyone
Yeah, well, and that's how the movie stars
and the studios, if they had to bring stars
across the country for a barnstorming publicity tour
for a new movie or whatever,
they'd put them on a train and have banners and shit.
Harry Truman was the end of that, ladies and gentlemen.
That was the last time it was done.
But also, in those days, except for the,
the main event,
which may be the
big stars, still except if it
was a major, major wrestling market
show, there would be
a lot of local guys underneath.
And what was the three matches on a card?
You're talking six or eight
wrestlers, it, you know,
they got around however they had to get around
and also guys weren't working
in the days before
television and before the territories
had been established.
They weren't working every day.
because of that, because of travel time,
they either had time to
or had to have time
to, you know,
get in a car, four or five at a time.
Those old,
those old gangster cars from the 30s and 40s
you could put
a two-bedroom apartment in the fucking thing
so they'd pile up in a car
and they would have an extra day in between
to drive from Rochester, New York,
to Pittsburgh because there was no interstate.
So they did.
what they had to do.
It wasn't like everybody was driving a Cadillac
and, you know, driving by themselves.
Well, Jim, our next question sent
to Courtney Drive-Thru at Gmail.com
from Jack and Indianapolis.
Was Gary Hart considered a good manager
by performers within the business?
I asked because he never seemed to do anything
during his guy's matches.
And he never went to the WWF.
Was that just his schick?
Not doing anything except look mean?
Did other performers think he was useless ringside, but a good promo?
Thanks.
Well, he did at one point.
He was about to go to the WWF,
and I think that story has been told.
Who was it?
Was it Strongbow?
He had heat with or whatever.
They didn't send anybody to pick him up.
He got mad and went back.
It was either that.
You know, I think it was that.
but I also, for whatever reason
I thought he actually showed up at the building
and pulled a knife on the Strongbow,
but maybe I'm wrong about the second.
Well, I mean, and it wouldn't have been a knife,
it would have been a razor blade.
But yes and no to all of the above
and I'll try to explain why.
And, you know, Uncle Gary,
I liked Gary when I got to know him later on
in our careers,
but I as a fan and when I first got into business,
I kind of thought the same thing.
I think the problem is that Gary had such longevity,
but he really, after the plane crash,
and he kind of settled into the sinister playboy Gary Hart,
you know, I don't want to say character, gimmick,
that he didn't really change a lot for the 80s.
Dusty thought so highly of him.
was a huge drawing manager in the 70s in Florida.
That was Dusty as a heel was part of the Gary Hart Army before they switched him baby face
and Gary had packed song and they sold out everywhere, blah, blah, blah.
Gary had learned to wrestle badly.
He was not a good wrestler, never had a physique and wasn't really, you can see the old
Chicago tapes.
But what, late 50s, early 60s?
His calling wasn't as a wrestler, but he had that voice and that delivery and that face, that expression, and he could make you believe things.
So by the late 60s, as a manager, he was getting over, and he drew money in most places.
And also, as a lot of the guys who excelled as managers were, he had a booking mind.
and that's where he got his best reputation
inside the business to answer the question more directly
I think by the 80s everybody that had to work with him
as a manager at ringside probably was like
oh this is a little difficult
but he had more respect from people from the booking he had done
and in Dallas or in Atlanta or you know
Barnett who liked Gary because of his mind
and how he could develop town
and Kabuki.
So he had a good reputation in the business,
but there was that when Flair was a baby face
against Terry Funk in that series in 89,
Gary's at ringside.
Gary wouldn't put Flair over.
When Flair's charging up to him,
Gary just stood his ground,
and Gary's bigger than Flair was.
And you see Flair'd have to grab him
and jerk him around a little bit
to get him to just leave, but...
There's a moment where you see the frustration in Flair.
I think it was the Texas Death Match,
or not the Texas Death Match,
I quit match.
I think it was that match
you see in his face.
He goes back for a second.
He's freshened and Gary
won't do anything.
Yeah.
And part of it was after that plane crash,
Gary, you know,
and that was 15 years after the crash.
Well, you can't play that card
would flare.
Hey, I was in a plane crash.
Well, guess what, buddy.
But at the same time,
Gary couldn't do,
couldn't take bumps
and couldn't do a lot physically after that.
So you had a heel manager
that was really big
and really menacing looking,
but he could do only the barest things for you to get, you know, even with him.
And he wanted to keep his heat to the point where he didn't want to look scared of the baby faces.
But like I said, by the time the 80s rolled around national TV, TBS, there's me, there's Jimmy Hart, there's Heenan,
we're bumping, we're being more over the top, so to speak.
and Gary was he was different, but it was sometimes difficult for the baby faces to work with
and or sometimes the fans by that point thought, well, he's not really doing a lot
because he wasn't really doing a lot.
By that point in 89, it was you, it was Heyman, it was Teddy Long, it was Gary,
and the rest of you, even Heyman, Hayman would at least run around.
He would move around.
He may not take bumps or do it well, but he was in motion.
Gary would just kind of stand there and every now and then walk.
And that was it.
Yeah.
And I mean, less is more, but when it's so much less, because it's the same thing we're doing 20 years ago, that's a little too less.
All right, Jim, our next question, or actually, I guess it's a list here.
Potential names for Adam Copeland.
This was sent in by Ben, the corny drive-thru at gmail.com.
He wanted your thoughts.
would these be better than cope?
I guess that's the question for each of these.
Fringe
Is fringe better than cope?
It might be.
It depends on how you cope with the fringe.
Perimeter.
I like perimeter.
Okay, so I'll put a checkmark next to that one.
Brink.
Oh, maybe even better
and it fits better on the fucking market.
key.
He can come out in a brinkstruck.
Edge.
Well, no, he could play it.
And I'm one step closer to the brink and I'm about to break.
I say, you like that one?
What about Verge?
Well, Verge is still not the edge.
Because the verge is before the edge.
I guess it's close enough to edge.
That's kind of the thing without being edge.
What about Margin?
Would Margin be a better name?
for cope then cope.
I'll go with that.
Or maybe even median.
Again, I don't know how this one would work.
Lip.
Just lip.
Followed by on the list here.
Limit.
Of course, and it says here, this one may be too political.
Border.
Border.
But now that could be his tagline.
One thing you're going to learn, don't ever.
cross the border.
See, that, wow, that is good.
You came up with that quick.
That's good.
I hope we don't convince him to use it, but what about Jim, better than cope?
Yes or no, or on par with edge.
Precipice.
Oh, can you imagine?
The videos they could build and put together about someone falling from the precipice.
What about brim?
Brim
Sounds a little grim
Advantage
Here he is
the rated R superstar
Advantage
See
Now we're getting away from the literal
description of the name
and going more to the
figurative
superiority
I don't know if that one would work so much
Head Start
I don't know if I was anybody in AEW right now
if I'd come out a T-shirt that said Head Start.
What about ascendancy?
I think that's somebody has to be a little too high.
And then finally on this first list,
the upper hand is the upper hand better than cope?
I don't know, but the right hand's better than all of them.
And then according to, what was the name of this person again, according to Ben,
I feel any of these would fit in with AEW television.
The synonyms for Edge as a verb also have potential.
Jim, what do you think of creep?
What do you think of the rated R superstar creep?
Creep.
Or skirt.
Skirt is also a verb.
What about trim?
The wrestler trim.
That may work.
Finally,
Flank.
Flank?
Flank.
And RIM.
Well, and this you've been defeated by the RIM job.
That could be the finishing move of RIM.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Rim does the RIM job against Flank.
He gave Flank a RIM job and beat him one, two, three.
It's ridiculous to have a wrestler named Flank.
although it sounds like it would be a brand new women's promotion of Japan based on the name.
They're going to be in a big war with glee.
Did you hear Julius going a flank?
She'll have gleeet.
Well, these are potential names for Adam Copeland.
It appears that maybe a couple of them met your approval.
Let's get another question here, Jim.
Yes, back to the questions.
This one was sent via the culticorne at Facebook
group by Nate Pelly.
Does Jim have any memories of Peel's Palace in Erlinger, Kentucky?
Smokey Mountain Ranch shows there in 94 and 95.
I attended my first non-WWF show there,
the night Dan Severn defeated Chris Candido for the NWA title.
Would love to hear any stories or memories Jim has of the city or venue.
Good Lord.
Peel's Palace, I wonder if the building is still there.
I bet you the business is out of business.
But it came about because
Les Thatcher, who had been friends with for ages,
and he had started doing the television program
when we originally went on the air with Smoky Mountain,
Les had a, God, he was managing a gym
or doing something in Cincinnati
where he couldn't get away on a regular basis.
but he had done some of the live events that we taped for home video
and then when he took over co-hosting the television program
he knew a guy at a low power station in Cincinnati
I think it was Channel 64 that ran several different territory wrestling programs
and we got Smoky Mountain on that station
the problem was it was a low power station didn't have a big viewership
so it's not like we were going to run the Cincinnati Gardens, right?
But Les found Peel's Palace was this kind of bar slash nightclub
slash entertainment venue that you could get,
I can't remember, I think if we ever maxed it out,
which I don't think we did, you could get 800 people in there or whatever.
And we could at least open up the Cincinnati market,
work with the local TV stations such as it was,
you know,
try to get another town on the calendar.
And we ran a couple of times there,
including, as the questionnaire mentioned,
that's where that,
you know,
we did the Severn Candido match for the NWA title.
And it was a dump,
but at the same time,
we're a, you know,
fucking independent wrestling promotion,
looking to break into a new market.
Yeah, why did you, if you don't let me ask it, and you did the title switch there,
and again, it wasn't really your title, although it was your wrestler holding the title,
and it was your show that the title change was on, but was it just that you really hadn't
done anything to establish Candido as the NWA champion territory wide?
Is that the reason you didn't do it in, like, Johnson City or Knoxville?
Well, as I recall, it was basically that maybe, because you knew Dennis,
why did they need to switch the belt at that point?
they just made the deal right with several well actually you know what it may have been that but
chris won the title november i think november 19th 94 and then was the title switch was it
february 95 was it that late i think it may have been early 95 when did he go and become a body dana
well oh that was much later on that year but see what the deal was was remember the reason why
that chris won it was because they had to have a second tournament because paul
and Shane Douglas
fucked the NWA over and
fucked Dennis over with the ECW deal.
That's right.
So then they needed a champion
so they wanted to put it on Candido
and then they made a deal with Dan Severn
because Dan had the international reputation
and was legitimate and,
you know, blah, blah, blah.
But then as far as I can recall,
the reason why it was done there is they
had a date on Dan.
They needed a place for Chris
to lose the title to Dan
and I think Dennis basically said,
where are you guys running
February 25th or whatever the date was?
I said, yeah, we're in Erlanger, Kentucky
on the outskirts of Cincinnati at Peel's Palace.
That's probably the most complicated it got.
If it had been Knoxville on that date,
would you have done something
or would that have been a problem
because it would have been out of sorts
with everything you had done in Knoxville?
It actually would have not made sense
and also would have robbed us
because Candido was figured in,
in, you know,
various programs,
whether it be with the Rock and Roll Express
or whatever the case,
so it would have hampered us
to have to take his regular program match
off our biggest town to put a NWA title match
that honestly nobody in Knoxville was going to give a shit about.
So that was,
it was lucky we didn't have to do that.
But anyway, that's,
and so Peel's Palace, the point is,
to get to the bottom line,
a couple of times
and it did okay
I can't remember
without looking at my
records whether we did
500 people both times
or whatever the fuck it was
but the last time we were going to run it
less called
I want to see either the night before
maybe even the morning of the show
and Knoxville to Cincinnati
is probably 260
260 miles whatever
but he called he said well the guy peels palace wants to change the deal he wants
x more on rent or he wants to do this or whatever
and so what's the for the day of i said no we we've had an agreement on how much the rent
was going to be on the building and the financial deal on the building and we've
advertised this show and it's tonight if he wants to raise the rent for the next show
then that's fine.
We just won't come back
because we ain't setting the world on fire there anyway
but no, he has to
stick to the agreement
that we've got for the show
that's starting in fucking less than 12 hours
and let's call back and said,
well, he won't. I said, well, and tell him
fuck him and we ain't coming.
So I called Hilderbrand
and we called all the guys
that we could get a hold of
and told him not to go
the show was canceled.
But.
Oh, I remember the,
it just hit me what happened.
Is this when,
well,
I don't want to spoil it.
The people that didn't get the memo
or actually,
they got it and they still wanted to go.
That's what I remember too.
They still went even though they knew it was canceled.
New Jack and Mustafa,
they had made plans
because they were going to go up there
and I don't know if they had girls
or they were going to fucking party
or whatever,
but they went anyway,
and Delo,
went with them. And the
fucking guy that ran the building ended
up calling somebody who knows who
and having some kind of outlaw
show there that night since people
were coming to see
wrestling. And
New Jack and Mustafa
said Delo
New Jack did it on Delo's behalf
because Delo was still new.
From what I understand, strong armed
their way onto the show to get a payoff.
And in the hotel next door
later that night that's where
Jack and DeLo got in a fucking fight
and New Jack punched him
and again
poor DeLo was new at this point
didn't want to fucking rock the boat and fight everybody
and get fired and everything but what it
and then Hildebrand calls me the next day and said well they had a show
and New Jack and Mustafa worked it as a what
yeah they went up there anyway
Jesus Christ
but that was Peel's Palace and Erlanger
Kentucky, right off the interstate on the way to Cincinnati.
How far from Louisville?
90 miles, maybe.
Is that the closest you got to home on a Smoky Mountain show?
Yes, as a matter of fact, that would be.
Technically, because even though we were in eastern Kentucky,
that's still farther away than the suburbs of Cincinnati are from Louisville.
Well, Jim, a lot of people, as we are recording their Sunday,
this in, so I'm trying to catch up on it
live. Triple H
reveals W.W.E's newest championships
for their top
independent wrestling prospects.
Oh, Christ, now they're
adding belts. This is from
cagesidesseats.com by
Sean Reuter.
WWE is adding a new
layer to their developmental system
with WWE
ID, a program
for independent wrestlers and schools
and evolved.
a new streaming show that will showcase ID wrestlers
along with NIL talents and existing members in the NXT roster
who aren't being used on that show.
But stop there for a moment.
Evolve was the promotion that Gabe Sapolsky started, I believe, after Ring of Honor, right?
Yes, and I think, because Gabe's worked for them for years now,
so I think didn't they buy the rights to evolve or,
buy something where they could, at one point they were going to do something on the early
network with some independent shows. And I think that may have been going to be part of that.
Well, Gabe's there now. You have to wonder how involved he is. Again, I don't know too much
about evolve and this. But what do you think? Well, it seems awfully coincidental.
What do you think of the idea of a streaming show, which nowadays is as good as a TV show in a
of
cases, but you're
featuring independent talent,
NIL talent,
which is basically people who have no wrestling background,
they're athletes who you tried to get and
craft, as well as
people in NXT,
but not on
NXT's TV.
What do you think of the idea of introducing a new show
and now titles? We'll talk about the titles, but
a new show for this.
There's a
wide range of competency
level among the people you just mentioned.
If it's people that have been in
NXT but aren't being featured right now
on that particular program, they've still probably
got plenty of training.
If it's indie guys,
they could be great.
You could find the diamond
in the rough, the undiscovered jewel,
or you could find the turd
in the punch bowl and MB the shits.
And if it's, you know,
name, image, likeness,
whatever, you know,
the coming generation that hadn't
been trained yet at all.
Do you want, do you not only if somebody's worth something in the future and you think
they might have potential, do you want people to see them when they really suck when they don't
know what they're doing?
And there's nothing that looks faker and more embarrassing than people who have never done
wrestling before trying to do it in front of people who know what wrestling is supposed to look
like.
So that kind of is all over the spectrum to me
And I would have to know more about what they're going to have people doing
To be able to figure out
Whether it might be fucking bowling shoe ugly as J.R. used to say
Or, you know, or what?
Well, according to Twitter,
Triple H has tweeted out this morning a couple hours ago
A picture of him with two new belts, a white one and a black one,
showing WWIID,
all the old belts on the wall behind him,
they look a lot better than these new ones.
The top independent wrestling prospects
have been ID'd.
And now we're ready to spotlight the best of the best.
Here's your first look
at the men's and women's
WWIID championships.
And then WWEID retweeted that.
The first WWID championships will be determined in a tournament
across the top independent wrestling promotions.
The WWID championships will then be defended on the Indies.
Stay tuned to this account for more news soon.
Is this an official...
It's at WWIID.
It's got 45...
I don't know if this is an official thing now that I look at it.
So let's...
Wait a minute.
Is this just been a whole fucking rib?
No, no, the Triple H thing is right, but the idea it's going to be defended on the Indies.
Let me see if I could find any...
Well, it sounds to me like they're trying to get a foothold.
They want all the talent under their auspices in some respect or another
that they can get from the locals and the Indies.
They don't want them dealing with AEW.
They're also protecting themselves even more from antitrust, monopoly,
independent contractor,
harassment, blah, blah, blah.
And they're getting the,
the nerd fan that lives on the
internet and lives and dies with this stuff.
They're getting them more
beholden to them than they are to Tony Kahn,
who was their previous darling, because Tony's fucking up.
And you're cutting off Tony's pipeline.
That's the other thing. They're locking down
all future talent.
Oh, I almost had a heart attack there.
I thought you said they were cutting off.
Tony's pipe.
That would be fake.
But they're doing all those things
and they can because they're making
all that money and for their
their main audience may not ever
even see this stuff.
Because they can't watch
three hours of Smackdown, two and a half
hours of Raw and the three hour
pay-per-view every four weeks and
the fucking Saturday night's main event and
the blah blah and the NXT
and that's special. And now they're going to watch
this. A lot of people won't see it.
but their presence is still there.
This is like pro wrestling USA for the Indies
if Vince owned it.
That's what it is.
Let's get all the Indies together
and we'll own everything.
And then we'll take all their best talent
and then they won't be drawn anymore either.
Well, you know what?
On the other hand,
again, it'll all be for a WWE system
that's an issue.
But if it causes WWE to invest money
in finding real promoters,
developing real independent,
but it probably won't.
But are they going to make that effort
or are they just finding the talent
and they don't care whether it's, you know,
Moon Mullins fucking running the show
where they found him from?
And here's the thing
there's not going to be
because a lot of people are going to say,
wait, Cornet, your promotion worked with the WWF.
Yeah, we got the Undertaker
and we got Steve Austin
and we got back at the Steiner,
brothers, you know, we got names on our shows, so that was kind of worth it.
But I don't know if getting the next generation of indie superstars on your indie show
just because they're been blessed by the WWE is going to sell a lot of tickets for you.
Well, we'll see what happens and we'll see who gets crown the ID champion, who gets carded.
but Jim
after all this talk and we're almost on the way home
you may be hungry you may need a meal
you may need the right meal for you
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or you may go to eat junk, and that's going to kill you.
Folks, it's going to kill you graveyard dead if you're eating the junk and the fat and the sugar
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You follow my logic, Brian?
I have no idea where your logic is going or where it came from.
No, what does fact mean?
Fact is truth.
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All right, Jim, let's get a few more things before we get out of here.
This email was sent at corny drive-thru at gmail.com from Zane.
Hello, Jim and Brian.
Hello, Zane.
A high school in a town near me,
Butternut, Wisconsin,
has the nickname the Midgets,
supposedly named after a famous wrestler
from the 20s and 30s from the area
by the name of Charles Fisher,
otherwise known as the Milwaukee Midget.
I'm curious if Jim knows anything about Mr. Fisher,
or if there are any interesting stories
regarding him that he has heard.
Jim, any stories about the Milwaukee Midget, Charles Fisher?
From the 1920s.
And 30s.
And 30s.
And 30s.
He had a long, illustrious career.
I've never, no.
How many ways could I say no?
Did they even have midget wrestling in the 20s and 30s?
Did they start to, was the, they started doing like the, the mud matches and the, you know,
the battle royals and the tar and feather matches and everything in the 30s and into the 40s
because of the slump in World War II, but did they do midgets until the 40s?
You know, this may sound crazy because it is.
I think I may have the largest collection of midget wrestling photos that are actually
filed in alphabetical order in the world, so I will see if I could find out anything about,
it's either one of two things.
Many of them Tony Lanzas, I bet, because he was in Montreal.
Absolutely. So we'll find out one of two things. Either there was a wrestler named the Milwaukee
Midget Charles Fisher or this Zane hates some guy named Charles Fisher.
It was like, hey, listen to the Cornette show. They're going to talk about you old man.
Little old man. How long is it take for you to live down being born in nut butter, Wisconsin?
No, butter nut, butter nut. Oh, oh, well, that may change things slightly.
All right, well, we hope we answered your question there. Zane. Zane, it was.
Jim, our next email sent to corny dry-thru at gmail.com from Barrett in Washington, North Carolina.
Jim, hope you're doing great.
My grandfather worked tugboats along the East Coast and on the Gulf of Mexico throughout the 80s and 90s.
He was telling a story over a Saturday dinner and mentioned working with dusty roads as deckhands
out of New York during the late 80s, as he recalled.
Now, wait, what?
My grandfather met him, initially playing pool with the rest of the boys,
and asked him why he was working on a boat, where his money all went,
to which, says he're Rusty, to which Rusty replied,
Whiskey and Women.
Just curious if this lines up with what you know about Dusty,
and if you know of any other lines of work, Dusty may have had.
So after the NWA, after he lost his booking job,
he decided to go out and work the tugboats
and he
you know I swear
I think I've told this story before but it's like
we went to have years ago
the heating and air guy came to
do my furnace service or whatever
and he saw one of the posters on the wall
the mass superstar
and he said yeah I used to live
next door to him I said oh really
yeah down in Bowling Green that's where he's from
said well
I think that
On a poster, that's probably a different mass superstar.
He'd say, yeah, this guy was the original.
You know, people tell their family members' stories of them having interactions with famous people.
And sometimes they truly believe them.
Like the, you know, the mass superstar, you couldn't tell.
He didn't know what he looked like without his mask on.
But the fake Stan Lane in Memphis.
But maybe there was no thought applied.
Maybe there was just some fat guy with a white afro playing pool with his friends and some guy runs up to him.
Hey, are you dusty roads?
Yeah, sure.
Where's your money go?
What are you doing here at the pool hall in New York on the dock?
Whiskey and women.
Ah, it sounds about right.
Good to meet you, Dust.
See you on the boat.
There may be an element of that also.
Remember when, oh, God damn it, who did they say it was Ozzy Osborne?
introduced him at a garden show and it looked like Dana Carvey in a wig doing a rib.
Sammy Hagar right after he was named the lead singer of Van Halen.
Yeah.
See, Cal Rudman was involved.
Whatever happened there, Cal Rudman, as soon as the guy gets out of the ring, like, gives him a hug and escorts him in the back.
So, and that's like the end of Cal Rudman's run doing anything with WWE.
So who knows what happened?
It looked like Dana Carvey in a wig to me.
Was that before Dana was anybody?
that was 1985.
Dana would go on to be on SNL maybe a year later,
but I'm pretty sure it wasn't him.
So Cal Rudman just put in a fucking fake
Sammy Hagar to give his notice.
That's what I've always wondered.
Did he tell them, I've got Sammy Hagar here.
It's great.
He wants to come out and say hello.
And it was just some fucking flabby guy in a wig
gets in the ring and
in no way was anyone who knew anything about rock and roll
because the people pop for it.
They hear there's a rock star there.
But anyone who knew anything,
based on look and sound, it wasn't him.
And for the younger folks in the audience,
Cal Rudman was a Philadelphia personality.
Cherry Hill, Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
Well, okay, Cherry Hill.
People will probably know the Philadelphia
fucking general area better than Cherry Hill,
but it's nevertheless, it's very close.
And he did wrestling announcing in the spectrum
and some of the stuff for the WW,
WF back
70s, early 80s,
but he was primarily,
you may know the exact,
but he was a music industry expert
as far as with one of the magazines
and one of the...
Friday morning quarterback.
He was actually his magazine.
Yeah, it wasn't Billboard or whatever,
but his primary job was in the
music business in that respect.
Yeah, anyone wants to learn more about it.
There's actually a great book called Hitman
about the era of,
independent promotion guys and that era of record executives.
They have a whole bunch about Cal Rudman in there.
Check that out.
But all right, let's move on now, Jim.
I don't think it was Dusty on the dock.
All right, it wasn't Dusty on the dock?
Jim, we have another question here.
This was sent via the Cult of Cornett Facebook group by Johnny Sousa.
Hi, Jim.
I've heard you speak about the many tag teams from the 1980s.
the one team that I haven't heard much about
is the team of the Batten brothers
were they good workers
what kind of guys were they backstage
also
were Dennis and Bobby fine with putting the brothers over
for the Central States titles
thanks for any insight you share
yeah
Bart and Bradbatten
were I think they were identical twins
I had trouble telling them apart
but they were twin brothers from West Virginia.
And they actually, when we opened Smoky Mountain Wrestling,
we got TV in Beckley, West Virginia,
which was right near where the batons were from.
And even though the heavenly bodies,
Stan Lane and Tom Pritchard,
were working with the fantastics in Tennessee
and Eastern Kentucky or whatever,
we did a special little program with the batons in West Virginia,
because people knew who they were there.
They were very good, solid workers, good baby faces.
They were short.
They were vertically challenged back at a time
where that meant more than it does today.
How short?
Well, I mean, like, 5-8?
I remember 5-8, 5-9, something like.
They weren't a big team, but at the same time,
they were about the same size of Fantastics.
Fantastic were a little flashier,
a little bit more, you know, widespread reputation.
But Bart and Brad were good workers,
and they were another couple of guys that were just victimized
by the constriction of the business
when all the territories went away.
They were solid territory baby faces as a team or as individuals,
but they weren't going to go up and light the two national companies on fire,
and that's pretty much most of what there was.
as far as putting them over
I've told that story when they
they sent us up there
from Dallas to
the Kansas City territory
and we worked a couple of shows with
Marty Janetti and Bulldog Bob Brown
and St. Louis and Kansas City
after Muchnik had retired
and it was so
just so depressing up there
and nobody was making any money
and we spent more
even though they got us a plane ticket
by the time that we
flew up there one day
rented a car, got a hotel room,
worked a show, drove to the next town,
worked that show, got another hotel
and turned a car in and flew home.
It was three days of our lives
and we came out in a hole
because we only got like
80 bucks a night.
And so
that when they called to book us back
we were already in Charlotte.
and no I take it back they didn't call to book us back they had booked us back from the Dallas office
but in between the time they booked us and the time that the shows were coming up we had given our
notice in Dallas and gone to Charlotte so Bob Brown calls me up and says hey you guys are still
coming right I said Bob I said I got to be honest with you last time three days of our lives fly from
Dallas up there. Now we're going to come from Charlotte.
We only got, I think we got
100 bucks a night or whatever.
I said, we've got to have 200 bucks
apiece to come to this show
in Kansas City.
Let me get back to you.
He got with Bob Geigel and I'm sure
they, you know, agonized over it.
And then called me back and said, okay, you got it,
$200 a piece. And we were just
doing Kansas City, not St. Louis.
And we get there.
it's a tag team tournament.
They had us working four times
and putting the batons over in the finals.
We beat all their other teams
and we're never coming back there.
They were just so desperate
to get their one team over
international stars as we were
that they had us beat
their other baby face teams
and their heel team
in the same night
and then put the batons over.
But we ended up getting 50 bucks a match.
So that was a rib
But no we didn't mind putting them over
Because it was Kansas City
And nobody was there
And it aired on their television
Which nobody was watching
And we just wanted to go home
But Tibetans were nice guys
You used them in Smoky Mountain didn't you?
Yeah I just said that a minute ago
Because they were from West Virginia
You weren't listening to a word I said
were you? I was. I got very into the Kansas City story.
Ah, yeah, because we can. That's where the origination of the term we Kansas Cityed
ourselves. Whenever you're going to do something that you don't really want to do to begin with
and you certainly don't want to have to do it again, don't do a fucking good job the first
time. We went in and still had good matches and they tried to bring us back. We Kansas Cityed
ourselves.
Well, Jim, let's wrap up here today with a little bit from the files, for the files,
from the files, in the files.
Mildred Burke, the file for Mildred Burke I have in the wrestling news archive.
Ah, the subject of the Queen of the Ring movie in which I am starring in a scintillating
part with the premiere taking place Tuesday, February 25th at AMC Stony Brook in Louisville
with many of the stars, including myself, where I will put my handprint, footprint, and
dick print and cement right out in front of the theater before the showing because they've just
redone the parking lot if I wait too long the cement will dry how the hell are you going to do that you're
going to just lay in the cement or are you going to individually put your put your hands down then your
feet down and your dick down i'm just going to kind of fall face first and waller around in it for a little
while it sounds like a happening be there folks but jim let's go to the mildred berg file
it's a bunch of interesting things in here here's a folded up copy sunday
July 8th, 1990 from the National Sports Daily,
wrestling with the devil by Frank DeFord.
Mildred Burke created a sport and became its greatest champion,
all in spite of the man, her husband,
who was trying to destroy her.
So there's a little bit of, from 1990,
the story was already starting to get out there.
Well, of course, Frank DeFord, the mentor
in the journalism category of our friend Uncle Day.
he was the guy that Dave looked up to.
Yeah, but when you put it like that, people are going to dismiss it.
He's a legend in terms of sports journalism.
Well, I didn't say Dave could replicate that tie said he looked up to him.
Frank DeFord was a big-time sports writer.
Dave wanted to be like Frank.
Don't be like Dave, folks. Be like Frank.
I have a stack here of original Mildred Burke 8x10s, all stamped with the ring on the back of it.
That's back from the Nat Lubet days.
Here's another one, this one, Mildred Burke World Champion Wrestler, 1955, another 8x10.
Here's an interesting letter.
It's kind of a part of a two-part thing here.
January 1st, 1973, and this is also initialed at the bottom,
I, Marilyn Bender, do hereby make the following statements of my own free will
and will declare it to be the absolute truth.
Mildred Burke, the manager for the following girl wrestlers,
Betty Mahaffney, aka May Weston,
Opel May Ernst, aka Rita Bennett,
Gilda Marie Vanyone, Marie Vanyon,
and myself, Marilyn Bender,
booked us all in the state of Kentucky,
for a Mr. Saul Wiengroff and a Mr. Phil Golden.
Phil Golden, Marie Vanyone or Vanyoni,
was the girl that Phil Golden's All-Star Wrestling
was using as their women's champion.
They would have four matches on all these outlaw cards.
It'd be a tag match, a single match, a girl's match,
and an opening match of either two midgets
or two guys from the tag match.
and she was used on almost all the shows
and May Weston,
not to be confused with May Young,
May Weston was one of the pioneer girl wrestlers
that worked with Mildred Burke years before,
but she had become Maugh Bass
and was like a Maher type
but was the manager of Ron and Don the Bass Boys.
And she used to get so much heat
she got him shot at.
Did you get to see her?
On TV, but not ever live.
But on TV you got to see her.
Yeah, she had,
God, I think it was a cane that had a lid tip on it
and dressed in the western string tie sometimes in the hat
and Ron and Don Bass were either from Oklahoma or Texas or whatever
and the cowboy types.
That was real early in both of their careers.
And, but anyway, yes.
So the point is, because,
they were an outlaw group
and Saul Weingroff was
booking probably for Phil Golden
they couldn't get Mullah's
talent so they
went to Mildred Burke who
in the early 70s was trying to train
her own girl stable
to try to replicate the glory days
and these girls that
are being talked about here
were those
girls and she did send them
at one point
on a tour of Japan for
it was the IWA at that point, right?
The third group over there.
When we go back to this letter,
Mildred Burke told May Weston
that she could keep all her money
if she would look after her business
and send back the booking fee
from the other three girls.
May Weston immediately started
to double cross Mildred Burke
by telling the girls
that our contract with Mildred was no good
and could be broken at any time.
As Mildred Burke's contracts read 25% to manager after transportation,
she said she would book us for 10% and drive us around to the matches.
Hold on. We stop there.
What do you think of that?
Mildred's deal was 25% and then May I said she'll do it for 10% and she'll drive them.
Well, Ed, could Mildred's debt, that was Moolah's deal, wasn't it?
25%, maybe a little more if she could get it.
but Mae West is like
no fuck you I'll do it for
less and I'll drive you
and she wanted to take over the girls
so she could get the girls booked in all of those towns
and Mildred Burke at the time
wasn't she living in California
that's right it was just it was her name
and her reputation
especially in Japan
but in some of these
outlaw groups that got the girls
booked but May Weston was the
one on the ground
that had been with her since the
but now she's thinking I can take this thing over from Mildred.
Back to Marilyn Bender's letter here.
May Weston also said that Mildred Burke would soon be out of business.
And no time did she let us know that she was permitted to keep all her money
and still complained about the contract.
We were overcharged on our transportation,
and at times she opened our envelopes,
and we did not even know how much we really had been.
paid, but had to take her word for it.
We did not know that we had worked for six weeks before May Weston sent any bookings to
Mildred Burke or even contacted her only one time at Mildred Burke's insistence.
Everything she did, or said, was detrimental to Mildred Burke's business and moral character,
even to the point of causing friction between Mildred Burke and the promoters.
for one thing, knocking all of Mildred Burke's other girls in order to keep her from getting any more bookings for this or any other area.
One instance, I know for a fact, that Mildred Burke had booked a new girl into Kentucky to replace me when I had to leave for Japan.
Her name was Valerie Griffin.
I know that Saul Weingroft had agreed to this booking because I heard them talking about using her in a time.
tag team match, excuse me, in tag team matches.
When the girl arrived, she was told that Mildred Burke had not booked her there,
and she was stranded. After several weeks, she was, Jesus,
after several weeks, she was given a few shows so that she could return home,
still believing that Mildred Burke had lied to her about being booked.
I know that she was booked, because I heard the promoter and et cetera,
talking about the booking of Valerie Griffin.
I personally intend to let Valerie Griffin know
that Mildred Burke did not lie to her.
Let me stop it here for a second.
Again, dated January 1st, 1973.
What are your thoughts on this women's wrestling drama here?
Outside of the Moola Camp, less popular,
less publicized than the Moola Camp, all this happening?
Well, I mean, again, it's, you know,
somebody trying to undermine a booking agent
and take their talent away through hook or crook
and then make a profit by turning around and booking them with the promoters.
That's as old as wrestling.
And the thing with Mildred,
or the girl getting stranded and not having a way home,
I'm wondering, did they just have her sleeping in a fucking sleeping bag
under the overpass,
or they let her hang around in this town for a couple of weeks
to starve her to the point,
where she'd take the job of blah, blah, blah, blah.
But the same thing happened to the headbangers once.
When they were the spiders before they came into,
I think it was before they came to Smoky Mountain.
They went to Arkansas for Bert Prentice,
where he had started a territory,
and they were working six nights a week in his territory
for very little money.
But then one morning all the wrestlers woke up,
and Bert was gone,
and the territory was closed
and some of them didn't have enough money to get home.
I think that maybe they came to Tennessee from Arkansas
because it was halfway to New Jersey,
at least they'd be further home.
But sometimes you'd get stuck in those days.
Back to Marilyn Bender's letter slash declaration,
there is no doubt in my mind
that May Weston is trying to steal Mildred Burke's business
girls and even her champion
that she has spent three years trying to build up
we are speaking of Marie Vanyone
is that how you pronounce that
I'll I'll go with that
V-A-G-N-O-N-E for those of you
who are wondering why we're
trying to figure it out
who has now sent in her written notice to quit wrestling
it is unfortunate that May Westie
and apparently she did because
he never heard from her again
It is unfortunate that May Weston is Marie Van Yon's aunt.
I'm signing, it's all just so incestuous.
I'm signing these statements in the hopes that it will stop some of the injustice
that May Weston is doing to Mildred Burke,
who has a legal contract sanctioned by the California State Athletic Committee.
These contracts are valid worldwide and apply to May Weston,
Opal Ernst, aka Rita Bennett,
Marie Van Yohn, as well as myself.
Mildred Burke has many girls,
and most of them are better wrestlers
than any of those mentioned above,
including myself.
Including me!
In my opinion,
May Westin should be made
to pay her percentage of her booking fee to Mildred Burke
for all of her matches in Kentucky,
as she did not look after the business,
to Mildred Burke, excuse me, to Mildred Burke's best interest, but to bring her great harm,
I know I was there.
I was there.
I knew that's the way it was going to end up.
I know who you are and I saw what you did.
Obviously it ended up in this file, but we don't know who it was sent to and how it got here.
So it's an interesting little artifact.
Here's a picture of Mildred Burke and May Weston.
Here's a one and only world champion girl wrestler Mildred Burke,
eight by ten with her famous belt.
Here's her sunbathing.
Mildred Burke, world champion lady wrestler, sun tanning at her California home.
A lot of these photos or photos you may have seen.
Here's Mildred.
You know, do you have any May Western bikini photos?
From what I remember, they used to put those in prison to cure the sex offenders.
Here's a photo of Mildred Burke with a headlock on Al Jolson of radio and screen fame.
and as I go through these
He said Mammy!
Again, lots of photos from all over the place
Some of these are labeled.
I am looking for
Here's an article on Queen of the Mat
but this appears to be quite old.
Here is something from the desk of Stanley Weston.
He appeared to doodle a lot.
Lots of drawings of men on here.
Here's a girl wrestler
Mildred Burke's protege
Holly Howard
girl wrestler Sun Valley, California.
It's a picture of her with a man in an airplane spin.
You familiar with Holly Howard at all?
Never heard of Holly Howard, or Holly Hawk, for that matter.
But that was, unfortunately, what the last, you know,
15 or 20 years of Mildred Burke's involvement in wrestling was,
was living in California as a kind of a kindly grandmotherish type,
training girl wrestlers that didn't really ever go anywhere or make any names because she was
shut out from booking them anywhere important.
There's some black and white photos that aren't even good or, I mean, some of them are blurry,
but they're all stamped for booking, contact worldwide women's wrestling association.
The WWWA, yes.
Van Nuys, California, or call Middard, or call Mildred Burke.
And it has her phone number with a 213 area code.
A lot of these are stamped.
And a lot of these feature women I've never seen before in wrestling.
And an older Mildred Burke, it's weird seeing her with the belt as a little old lady.
Here's a picture.
This is from a tribute to Jim Lundas.
It's Mike Mazzirke, Mildred Burke, Jim Lundas, and George Pernassas.
while Jim Landa's cuts a cake.
And then there's another one here.
George Parnassus, Mike Merzherke, Mildred Burke,
Jane Shirel, Scarlett, Hardy Crust Camp,
and Ramafranco.
So this tribute to Jim Landa, sounds like a real party.
Yeah, boy, I tell you what,
they stayed up till all hours that night.
So I got these photos here of a protest in front of the Olympic
auditorium, and I got the letters that correspond to it.
The main event at the Olympic was Rivera versus John Tolos,
Victor Rivera versus John Tolos, roller games Saturday and Sunday,
and Mildred Burke and her women wrestlers are in their,
well, they're in their gear, she's just dressed like an old lady,
but they have placards.
We want minimum pay of $50 for each girl per night.
Another sign says, unfair to local.
talent. Another sign says, we want equal rights for women wrestlers. Mildred Burke holding up a sign that says,
if you like girl wrestlers, please write to Governor Ronald Reagan, Sacramento. And then another sign,
we want a girls wrestling match on every wrestling event. These photos were taken by a photographer
Phil Miller, Highland, California.
Well, and that's the thing at that time.
That was 1975 if the main event was Rivera and Tolus, right?
73.
73.
Sorry, I was two years off.
That in 1973, if memory serves me correct, like the Iron Chef,
was where they lifted the ban in New York on women's wrestling.
Mula made the first appearance in the garden.
Was there a ban on women's wrestling in Los Angeles?
Angeles at that time, or was it just as I'm, because I remember seeing pictures of Mullah's
girls and Peggy Patterson and et cetera in the Olympic auditorium, was it just they weren't
using Mildred Burke's wrestlers? And she wanted to push the issue. Why won't you book local
talent? We live in California. They're bringing these girls in from South Carolina, that type of thing.
So the earlier letter I read was from January 73.
This Phil Miller letter is from June 11th, 73, so later in a year, six months later.
Dear Norm, got your first issue under the new format.
Looks really good.
Incidentally, I received two copies, so check your mailing list.
And close there are a couple of stories.
Norm, I wish you would really blast Mildred Burke.
for her tactics in trying to get her incompetent girls' work in L.A.
In case you're not familiar with the case, here's the background.
A couple of years ago, Mildred started a girls' wrestling school in North Hollywood.
While Mildred was a great wrestler in her day,
she's in no physical condition to teach wrestling personally,
and the girls she trained were really exceptionally poor workers.
The Olympic used two of them,
and found them so bad that the guarantee was paid after the first match and they were dismissed,
not finishing the five shows covered by the money.
Let's stop there for a second.
So they were booked for the Olympic, a five match guarantee to use women wrestlers.
They were so bad that Michael Bell, who was really famously, you know, tight with a buck,
he was like, you know what, just keep the money, don't come back.
Yeah, well, and obviously they had them come in for a week.
The deal for five shows, that would have been a week in the L.A. territory.
And, you know, they said, oh, fuck, we can't put this out in front of people again.
Here, just go away.
When the forum tried competition to the Olympic,
Mildred had several of her girls on the two cards the forum had before they shut down.
This double-cross angered Michael Abel,
and he would not use Mildred's girls,
even though she had acquired contracts
on a couple of good workers trained elsewhere.
Finally, LeBelle did use a couple of Millie's girls.
Jane O'Brien did quite well.
She had received training by Panama Franco.
And things...
Well, right there, it looked no further.
And things for Jane looked good.
Then Jane went to Mexico
where she picked up the...
Mexican style.
Too acrobatic to be believable to American fans.
Jane also brought back a Mexican girlfriend,
Perla Gonzalez,
and caused some sensation in the Olympic
by practically performing lesbian acts in the ring.
Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets.
Sure, I'll book you guys again.
Just don't do anything outrageous.
Can you just
drop the 69 spot?
She's been in that leg scissors for a long time, hasn't she?
Let's go back to this letter here.
Jane also brought back a Mexican girlfriend,
Perla Gonzalez,
and caused some sensation at the Olympic
by practically performing lesbian acts in the rig.
That finished her with LaBelle.
It's well known that except for Panama and War Star,
all Mildred's girls are lesbian.
Later, Panama and her daughter, War Star,
were used in Bakersfield, California.
After the match, which was quite good,
Modo, that's Mr. Moto,
found out that War Star is only 14 years old.
Oh, boy.
Millie's gym is open to the public
and has large signs on the store-type front.
People walk in off the sidewalk, watch the girls' training, and immediately become, in quotes, smart.
The girls bring their friends and families to watch, and they get, again in quotes, smart too.
About a year ago, Millie made a deal with an L.A. night spot to have her girls' entertainment.
The bout, bouts in quotes, ended with one girl having the top of her tights ripped off,
and exposing her breasts.
The commission stopped this performance after two shows.
Let me stop for a moment.
Once again, it sounds like a lot more fun than Moola's girls were at the time.
There's a lot going on here.
War Star and Panama are the only girls that weren't lesbian, according to Phil.
And, of course, War Star was the 14-year-old daughter of Panama.
Is that an uncommon thing?
Not necessarily the age, although...
What, for them not to be lesbians?
No, for a mother-daughter team to work together.
Well, no, I've seen a few mother-daughter teams work together, but you're talking about wrestling.
Not in the Danny Hodge sense. I'm talking about in a wrestling center.
Hey!
I actually met one of Danny's mothers and daughters.
And there was a granddaughter by that time.
But nevertheless...
Stay tuned to the Mid-South schedule as we pick it back up soon.
That's going to come into Little Rock in about May or so.
Uh, ah. Anyway, back to this, I don't know what was going on with the 14-year-old girl.
Well, I mean, see, in all seriousness, and we're not trying to cast aspersions, but Sariah, Paige, her mother is a wrestler also.
She was second generation. They made the movie, fighting with my family.
How old was Debbie Combs when she started working with her mother?
I would think she would have had to been, you know, maybe she was,
she was certainly almost 18, maybe she was 17 in a state that didn't require a,
you know, athletic commission license, but she's working against her mother
and riding with her mother's, the mother was under a mask.
But I've never heard of Panama Franco or War Star, or,
War, oh, five, neither one of them have I ever heard of.
And so they were just, it was local indie Southern California,
Lucia shows in a barn somewhere, probably.
What are your thoughts on, again, this is Phil Miller, he's a photographer.
He's not necessarily a promoter or a wrestler.
But the photographer is noticing a problem with people off the street
and then their family's becoming smart to the business.
What do you think of that?
Well, I mean, if the photographer has to fucking be the one to report this,
I've never heard of Phil Miller as a Southern California wrestling photographer,
but maybe he was just doing some independent stuff and kind of on the,
you know, you've heard of Theo Erritt.
You've heard of some of the other California photographers.
Oh, yes, what was his name?
Dan Westbrook.
Dan Westbrook, yes.
Mike Lano.
Well, let's not go too far, cowboy.
But, you know, that's why I'm saying is it's the same thing in, especially in indie wrestling,
or as we used to call it in those days, outlaw wrestling, whether it's the East Tennessee outlaws or the Texas outlaws or the,
you know, California outlaws, it's just constant drama and bullshit and infighting and
nattering at each other and trying to steal a town or steal a talent or just fuck the other person around
and you know and just trying to again poor mildred trying to regain the glory day she didn't
really train any of those girls the first go round she just sometimes you know those who can't
do teach but those who teach are not necessarily the best doers
but they're the best teachers.
Well, let's go back to this letter from Phil Miller.
In March of this year,
the front page of the sports section
to the L.A. Times Valley edition
had several photos of Millie's girls
and an article about the school.
In the article,
Millie was quoted as saying
that wrestling was a show
and that the promoter determined
who the winner in each match would be.
She also exposed all the wrestling
terminology.
Oh, Jesus.
Babyface, heal, go over,
K-fabe, high spot,
wow, et cetera, et cetera.
So this
shows one of two things,
and I don't know which came first
the chicken or the egg,
but it shows both why
the established promoters
didn't want to deal with her
and or how mad she was
that the established promoters
weren't dealing with her.
Did she say all those things
because she got shut out probably
or did they not want to use her because she was saying those things
but I think it's the other way around
Yeah, is this Mario Galento on the radio?
Yeah, it's like fuck you guys, you're fucking me around
and I've put up with this for 15 years
Well, here's your goddamn deal
In the enclosed photos, note some of the signs
unfair to local talent
minimum of $50 per night
this is disillusioning to fans who believe wrestlers have unusual backgrounds and earn thousands of dollars a week, especially girls.
Let's stop there.
That's an interesting takeaway.
The idea that them protesting exposes that wrestlers aren't glamorous, successful making lots of money athletes.
Yeah, and exactly.
And that's what even, you know, they didn't need to put a figure.
on the, you know, minimum guarantees or whatever.
They didn't need to put a figure on,
but some of the guys and girls,
especially at the indie level in the business,
they don't understand, they think that everybody,
because everybody in their social circle
and everybody on their internet bubble thing
is smart to the business and knows how much everybody makes
and what, you know, how the business works
and all this other stuff,
the average person,
especially in those days,
no idea how much a wrestler made.
And to,
they did know that baseball players and football players and Joe
Namath and these type of people, they're on TV,
they're probably doing pretty good, but here the pro wrestlers
have to strike to get 50 bucks a night.
And then the average jackoff doesn't differentiate between,
oh, but, you know, the NWA World Champions in the main event in the Olympic,
he's making a fortune and they're just paying these fucking goofy local girls 50 bucks.
It's just everybody's devalued.
Back to this letter here.
About the only place Millie's girls can work is Japan,
where they're used to make the Japanese girls look good knocking them off.
Millie has sent 14 and 15-year-old girls with only three or four weeks training to Japan
for six or eight-week tours.
The Japanese girls just beat them in almost shooting matches.
It's crazy seeing all these terms in a letter in 1973.
I don't know if I've ever really seen that before.
Millie is also the world's best double cross artist,
frequently getting a 50% kickback from promoters,
then taking 33 and a third percent from the girls remaining 50%.
Recently, two of her wrestlers traveled to Phoenix,
stayed overnight and got a grand total of $15 each.
I think she's a real liability to wrestling
and her operation should be put out of business.
You can check all the above info with Jeff Walton
and closed her a couple more photo stories.
Well, yeah, would Jeff Walt just happen to be the publicist
for the L.A. office that they were striking against, but...
I'll shoot some more color soon and send the Nags to you
regards Phil.
Once again, Phil Miller, June 11th, 73.
So they do unto others as they do unto you.
In January, she's getting screwed around, and in June she's screwing somebody else around.
That's a wrestling business.
Here appears to be the master photo of her and Jack Pfeffer with her and him in the airplane
spin.
Oh, good Lord.
Yeah, see, there's a lot of stuff here you can tell based on the handwriting it came from
Feffer.
here's a believe it or
Ripley's believe it or not with Mildred Burke
Mildred Burke Kansas City, Missouri
Champion woman wrestler
Never Lost About
Can do 80 body bridges in succession
Believe it or not
And I think that's about it
Because the rest of these
Here's a bunch of more photos
And here's a bunch of Billy Wolf photos
Have you seen the photo of Billy Wolf playing cards by himself
I wasn't that reprinted in a
a book at some point in the modern era
it seems like I remember something about it
but not specific
it may have been but there it is from the files
Mildred Burke and you know
in a period of time where people were going to learn a lot
about her you know she really struggled later in life
all because of everything that went down
everything that people were about to see in the movie
you know she didn't die right after the movie
yeah no it wasn't over at that point when did she
She lived into the 80s, did she not?
I think so.
Let me double check that.
Hold on.
I believe she did.
But that was the thing is after...
89.
Wow.
1989.
After 1956, her only involvement or presence or impact in wrestling was doing that early 70s,
Southern California wrestling school thing that didn't take off.
she never was able to get back in anywhere, except in Japan because she was the girl when they discovered pro wrestling.
She was the female champion and had a reputation there like Carl Gotch.
So that was pretty much it.
Well, you know, the interesting thing too from the two letters, obviously a very polarizing figure at that point.
There were people that were appreciative of her.
I mean, I assume this woman didn't write this declaration under duress.
and then there are people that are working with the office, I guess,
that see her a completely other way.
And again, I look at it as someone who's struggling to take the one skill she has
and make some money with it.
Yeah, and that was the thing is that she never was able to do anything again.
She was completely shut out after that split on a mainstream basis.
You know, that was it.
Well, perhaps if Mildred had been around today, she would have sued.
And boy, I'll tell you what, I know somebody that she could have called to stand up for her rights,
to fight for her justice in a court of law, to make sure that she had equal protection under the statutes.
And I'm talking about the man, the myth, the legend, the bulldog himself.
Call Stephen P. New, a mud show or two.
Folks, I'll tell you what, if Stephen P.
New Law Office.com 87750,
Steve had been around back in the days of Mildred Burke.
He would have brought her justice.
She would now be as famous as Taylor Swift.
If Stephen P. New had been running things,
and he can do the same thing for you.
he's like a New York haberdasher.
If one suit don't fit, he's got another suit that he can try on,
and he's going to keep suiting until that suit fits and sticks.
Stephen P.new, 87750, Steve, newlawoffice.com.
That's right, new lawoffice.com.
And, Jim, before we get out of here,
we promised everyone a song this week.
So let's play the one that was sent to us the most.
It was a version of Not Like Us by Kendrick Lamar,
but it's you talking about Jungle Boy.
Have you seen this?
I saw this and I retweeted it.
I didn't, I don't know Mr. Lamar,
and I didn't know this was an actual existing song,
but it just, the video that accompanies this song
was equally as brilliant and what caught,
that it must have taken hours and hours and days and days
for them to search through to find these things to fit this.
But yes, it is quite a rip snorter.
Well, let's get it queued up right now.
Can you give me a beat?
Subliminal, lyrical, rap, megastar, cynical,
here's Johnny Cornette Lamar, Jungle Jack, son of a TV star.
Who the fuck do you think you are?
I'm hearing those jungle drums.
Used to hang around with chimpanzees.
What is his gimmick?
He's a homeless bum.
Pooh flinging, swinging in the trees.
He's going to sit in one of those little kid's seats.
Jungle Jack wanted to use bro.
broken glass. Real glass. The medical staff said,
We don't think you ought to do that.
This is where this fucking clown's heads at.
Lil Jack got his panties in a bunch.
So it was brought to CM Punk.
He said we don't do that on Saturday night.
They're going to Wembley.
He grabbed him by the Gooseal Pipe.
Real Glass.
You, Dicklick.
He did not punch a person he choked one little nitwit.
Curly-headed, entitled Little Prick.
What you think he was gonna do?
Dip shit.
Rye, Rye, Rye, Rive be a river.
Mine for rest of rest.
of a slug and a sewer.
You're not a TV star.
You're tired.
What the fuck?
He looks like a miner.
Jungle boy sucks.
Jungle boy sucks.
Jungle boy sucks.
Jungle boy sucks.
Jungle boy sucks.
Jungle boy sucks.
Don't run your fucking yap.
Don't fuck around and find out.
Jungle Jack.
Boy, you gotta do something about it?
Yeah, apparently.
Oh my God.
He grabbed me.
Tony ended up firing his biggest star.
Should I send Jack off a Christmas card.
Look in my eyes, what do you see?
See em, punk, do the WWE.
What's Jack Perry gonna fucking do?
Tony. Fire the fucking little goof.
Arrogate knob.
Indy nitwit.
Here's your contract, Jack, rip, rip, rip.
Tony went.
He made me mad.
Send him another check, but don't let him come back.
Jungle Boy sounds fake and like a dork runs and hides
because he doesn't like to talk.
Homeless Jack living in a box under an overpass?
under an overpass on cocaine shot into space Jack is slapping himself in a face he's
ready to get butt-fucked by sonado the kookamonga kids mr. Okada and the
independent legal team they get through a bucket of Vaseline
hey scapegoat nanny go Billy go brick hey sweet chin music you're a fucking kid
hey he caused the thing with seeing punk which he did hey this place is a joke
you're a cloud and I quit hey he's got very feminine hips hey he might look good in a bikini
bitch hey jesus i'd want to snatch him around a neck hey bland boring mumble-mouthed
dress hey jungle boy sucks jungle boy sucks jungle boy sucks jungle boy sucks jungle boy sucks jungle boy sucks
look at all this shit that he directly caused punk doesn't have to put up with these children
anymore hey hey hey hey hey scared for his life hey hey hey hey hey scared for his life
punk can still be on our show the incident at wimbley oh no hey hey hey hey hey
Hey, hey, scared for his life.
Hey, hey, hey, hey, scared for his life.
Say, OVW.
OVW.
Say OVW.
Step this way.
Step that way.
Dep this way.
Dep this way.
Jungle boy is a bell end.
Quite the ending there.
That was by Here's Johnny TV.
You may remember some of the fine, fine submissions in the past from Here's Johnny TV.
Jim Cornett Barry's Jungle Boy.
to not like us, it's on YouTube.
You need to see the video
if you like the song.
That was amazing.
Both the audio and the video
a work of art.
Muhaha.
With that gym, the drive-thru is closed.
I promise new sounds for the year.
Hold on.
I think you can go back on a promise every once in a lot.
Real quick, a new one this week
and then a new one next week.
New sounds.
Let's see how this works.
How's that?
Sounded like a loony tune
ran out of
fucking battery.
All right, well, that's kind of what I was going for.
Of course, you could hear more of this next week here on the drive-thru,
and an even better show, promised, guaranteed.
He was saying it off the air.
It will be amazing this week, better than this, on the Jim Cordette experience.
Wherever you find your favorite podcast, don't forget about the official...
Oh, I press this again.
Let me put it down.
Uh-huh.
Don't forget about the official Jim Corvette YouTube channel,
clips of the episodes, full episodes, Omnibus Collection.
all with the very popular Travis Echo artwork
and more, the official Jim Cornett,
YouTube channel, patreon.com slash cornet.
Go through the archive, $5 a month.
Patreon.com slash cornet.
Cornett's collectibles at Jimcoronet.com.
What's going on, Jim?
The big sale for February, $20 off all the tag team sets.
If you buy a tag team set,
you get any Jim Cornett action figure for half price
and anybody that spends $50 or more
gets a two-hour classic wrestling.
DVD for free, Jim Cornett.com.
That's right, Jimcornet.com.
Of course, the drive-thru is brought to you
by the law of the system.
Pino, 877-50 Steve.
Get even with Stephen at new lawoffice.com.
But until next week on the experience,
or this week on the experience,
and next week back here on the drive-thru,
for Jim Cornett, I'm the great Brian last.
