Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru - Episode 393: AEW Roster Review, A To J

Episode Date: May 24, 2025

This week on the Drive Thru, Jim reviews AEW's male roster, A to J! Plus Jim plays Guess The Program, and reviews some of Raw, as well as Meltzer & Alvarez arguing over Solo Sikoa's booking! Also,... Jim talks about kratom, weather, crazy hotel stories, the end of WWF Superstars, and more!  Thanks to our episode sponsors: SHOPIFY:  Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/jce HELIX:  Go to helixsleep.com/jce for 27% Off Sitewide + Free Bedding Bundle (Sheet Set and Mattress Protector) with any Luxe or Elite Mattress Order Send in your question for the Drive-Thru to: CornyDriveThru@gmail.com  Follow Jim and Brian on Twitter: @TheJimCornette @GreatBrianLast Merch! https://arcadianvanguard.com/ 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)
Starting point is 00:00:33 again, friends, and you are our friends. Hopefully the show will be better than that. Welcome to another edition of Jim Cornett's drive-through, right here on another day, another weather-intensive day. I'm your host, The Great Brian Last. I don't know what we've got, but we've got lots of it today for you with this man, the leader of the cult of Cornette, Mr. Jim Cornett.
Starting point is 00:00:57 I don't know what we're full of, but we're full of it today. and when you started into that funeral dirge and then the little before you started into your theme is just when I couldn't take no more. I couldn't take no more. I had to
Starting point is 00:01:13 ah, your son, have you haven't quit your day job yet, have you, in pursuit of this music business? I still think you've got time to be an accountant, Brian. I heard this is the catchiest song in wrestling right now. Well, it's, it's, It's catchy all right in the same way as a communicable disease. But nevertheless, we're going to have fun today because, Brian, you know, you know that feeling of exhilaration that you get when you just, when you've just walked out the door and got out of jail.
Starting point is 00:01:48 You know that feeling. Every time you do that, it's like, whew, it's a relief, right? It's a feeling of really, you're floating in the air. You're relieved of all your weights and your burdens. That's right. And that's how I feel today. You know that feeling, don't you? Just getting out of jail.
Starting point is 00:02:04 That was called high school, yes. Well, it depends. Did you go to high school on Rikers Island? No, but everyone... The rumor was that the school we were in, because it was such an awful place, that it was originally intended to be a jail, although that was just a rumor that was made up
Starting point is 00:02:18 because it was such an awful place to be. But it could have doubled for one in the movies. Yeah. But, well, we got out of jail here. I am proud to tell you that there are no severe weather forecasts in Louisville, Kentucky, or its greater environs for the next seven days. And we are actually recording this show a day later that we were supposed to because after Friday, which when last we left our listeners, I was under threat of being blown away.
Starting point is 00:02:48 And then Kentucky made the national news. Thankfully, it wasn't right here on top of me, but we'll talk about that in a second. but we left them there and we got through that okay here at the castle. And then we were supposed to record this program yesterday. And they were calling for more waves of severe storms and potential fucking tornadoes and all this other stuff yesterday. And I said, I can't take it. Whether we get it or not, I can't continue to be cheerful with the fucking feeling
Starting point is 00:03:22 that any minute we're going to hear a fucking siren and go dive under the pool table. So if we're late this week with the show for the listeners, if anybody's complaining from the bottom of my heart, blow me. My nerves have been, as Dennis Conry would say, I've been a raw nerve in for the past several days. But you saw what went on last Friday. Some of it was on the news up there, wasn't it?
Starting point is 00:03:48 Yeah, it hit the national news. And, you know, we hear so much of you talking about the weather. Sometimes we close our eyes and it's almost like we could see it. This time I could see it. It was on the news. Yeah. And as I said, so Friday evening in Louisville here,
Starting point is 00:04:04 we're watching the radar. And this big line of storms is coming in. And then we start to hear the, you know, the reports as it gets to the other side of town, right, and coming across the Ohio and 70 mile an hour wind gusts and torrential rain.
Starting point is 00:04:22 And they were tracking. They had a tornado warning again up in southern Indiana, right to the north of us. And they had other tornado warnings out. It just, they were, the weather had broken into normal programming and was, was constant, commercial free, because of all this chaos it was going on.
Starting point is 00:04:40 And we're watching not only the TV, but Stace has the camera in our backyard on her phone. So we, without having to actually stick our face near a window, we can watch what's going on outside. and they're again calling down to the south of us again where the tornado went in the general vicinity a little bit farther away to send south Louisville but where it was last month and all this stuff is blowing across and they're starting to show the power outages yeah the transformers are blowing down at Pleasure Ridge Park and the power is out and
Starting point is 00:05:19 the da da and as this is going through and I I knock on wood. I said, look out there. This doesn't look anything like at our particular house what that bad storm looked like last August that took that big tree down in my backyard and everything, right? And at the same time, that storm, which was the fucking highest wind I've ever seen here
Starting point is 00:05:47 and the goddamnest scene you've ever seen, there were no tornado warnings out for the rest of the county. there but this thing varies from mile to mile so point being when they showed the power outage map after the storm had gone through and the only thing that was disturbed here was like two 15 foot limbs out of the ash tree which the size of that thing that's goddamn flesh wound it was like they put a dome over my house here for about two miles in every direction that was the only part of the county that had no power outages no lines down no major trees down, no what, every place else.
Starting point is 00:06:29 And it's fucking, because remember last month, there was an F3 tornado two miles south of me, not even. And at the same time, we didn't have any major issues that close. This is, it's like being in a pinball machine where the ball is bouncing around. You don't know where it's going to hit. Well, at least, you know, for the next seven days, you could play pinball. Full of safety.
Starting point is 00:06:56 I don't know how we compete. Yeah. There'll be no problems when you're playing your kiss pinball machine. So anyway, there were 30,000 people at one point without power in Jefferson County alone. They recorded the second fastest or highest wind gusts ever at the airport. Now, they haven't had a tornado at the airport, obviously, or it would be faster than that, but just a straight line wind gust, 82 miles an hour. That's the second fastest ever.
Starting point is 00:07:26 The first was April 3rd, 1974 at 84 miles an hour. So this chaos was going on. But in the meantime, our weathermen, Mark Weinberg, the weatherman, my guy, he and his team, they know everything. They're watching in Southern Kentucky, there's a supercell thunderstorm out by itself. with nothing in front of it, nothing to fucking sap the power out of it. And it is on, even though it's south of the television viewing area,
Starting point is 00:08:04 it's on the state radar, obviously. It's on the, you know, and they're watching this thing over the course of a few hours. It went from Springfield, Missouri, due east, 500 miles, over 500 miles, without stopping,
Starting point is 00:08:21 severe warning the whole fucking way, dumping all this shit on everything and its path, and that's what turned into the tornado that hit London. Kentucky, not England. For anybody geographically challenged about eastern Kentucky, this thing went right into London. They got a little airport down there, or they used to, they don't anymore,
Starting point is 00:08:45 and a neighborhood next to it, and that's what everybody's seen on the news, this subdivision. It looks like, now they're saying it was an EF, for winds of 170 miles an hour plus and it looks like they ran a giant bowling ball through the middle
Starting point is 00:09:04 of this neighborhood and this is not like roofs gone of houses tornado damage this like the house is gone it's a foundation and everything that was in the house is strewn everywhere for fucking
Starting point is 00:09:19 hundreds of yards just all and multiple houses killed 17 people and I think there's some still in a hospital and they say it was almost a mile wide at the worst which that's wide for a tornado but you can when you see it went through the forest do you see these aerial shots of a giant green forest and suddenly there's just a fucking path through it like
Starting point is 00:09:46 so at anyway that's what hit London was that rogue super cell that are the most dangerous because when you've got a line of them they're eating off each other and it but when there's just alone like that they've got nothing stopping them from doing whatever the fuck they want to do
Starting point is 00:10:09 so what are they saying if they're saying anything right now just because you're living through it about future prospects did I think this is going to be a more frequently recurring thing in your area well I mean the thing is this is tornadoes season in this part of the country in another week or so and then i mean shit can happen at any time
Starting point is 00:10:34 we had them in december a couple years ago but it's happening more frequently and with more of this vehemence it's slightly shifting over apparently from texas oklahoma arkansas the old tornado alley it's shifting over they said into the mid-south area like west tennessee and this the mid-south area down there in the Ohio Valley up here, which is not only more, in some cases, densely populated, because there's a lot of open space in Oklahoma, but it's more forested. These big trees, these giant forests, you know, they don't have forests like that in Oklahoma and or, you know, forested areas to the extent of this. And the trees flying around is what takes all the power lines down
Starting point is 00:11:28 and houses and cars and lands on people and everything so it can be more severe, even the same strength of storm. But because of the fact that we have destroyed the climate, all this stuff is shifting around. This one woman said, somebody, she's not sure whose washer and dryer slammed into the side of her house.
Starting point is 00:11:54 and they don't know where they came from and this other guy said he had a riding mower in his shed out back and they found the riding mower a couple hundred feet away but they still ain't found the shed that kind of shit so anyway but now we're fine if the sun is shining
Starting point is 00:12:17 the birds are singing it's the drive-through we're ready to go what about you you sound peat you know what you did earlier here. What did I do? You tried to have your lovely wife go out in the rain to scare off a bird outside your house and singing, making music, trying to make the world a more joyous place, trying to ruin the broadcast, all that noise. You sour, son of a bitch. What's the matter with you today? The bird was right outside the window every few seconds,
Starting point is 00:12:56 I can't talk to you about wrestling with Tweety Bird outside the window so I was already set up I had the headphones on we're about to go we were a few minutes late already my options were I can go outside and try to create some kind of some sonic boom some big sound
Starting point is 00:13:16 to scare all the birds out of the tree and I don't know what that would have been I don't know how I would have done that exactly or I could ask Suzanne to go do it and it happens to be drizzling after rain earlier and more rain to come. This is an exciting story.
Starting point is 00:13:32 Thank you for having me. You're using your wife as a scarecrow. I didn't think it was going to be an exciting story. I just thought it gave some insight into your personal character as far as what a level of importance you put on these broadcasts. My level of character. I want to make sure the listeners have the best possible experience and I trust my wife to do the job correctly.
Starting point is 00:13:53 Yeah, well, my level of character is I don't give a shit whether they like it or not today. After all, I've been through. I'm mentally stressed. I'm frazzled. I'm trying to make the best of things. Now that we've got the reprieve, the phone call from the governor, and here you're trying to scare the songbirds away.
Starting point is 00:14:10 All you've been through. You haven't had a chair knocked over. All I've been, I'll tell you what, I turned the chair over when I dove under the pool table. That's inside. I'm talking about outside. No, it's mental cruelty is what it is.
Starting point is 00:14:24 They're telling you this shit's coming. Shit's coming. I was sick all day Monday. sick to my stomach for the forecast for Tuesday. Then ended up the storms passed to the south, but we're shell-shocked up here. And we don't need to hear any more of this. And all of the nervous, it's mental torture
Starting point is 00:14:44 when you know that it could be, it could be you, it could be next, could be any time. Probably going to be Tuesday about 4.30. They'll tell you, how would you like it? If somebody said to you, I'm going to come over and I'm going to hit you in the head with a giant mallet and just and kill you deaderton Kelsey's nuts on Tuesday at 4.30 and it's now it's Saturday at noon. How would you feel for the next couple days? I kill them first.
Starting point is 00:15:13 Well, see, now you thank you for making your intentions known. I guess I'll have to do something first. You can't alter what if you can't do it? You can't hit the storm with the mallet. You can't alter my premise here. You're not allowed to be a premise all. I would move. I would move out to the Northeast. You move out of the premises. Move out of the premises. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:15:34 Different premises. Well, it's your show, so why don't you give us a different premise? Well, the premise of today's show is, what will this show be? And, of course, we're a little while into it. We still have no answers, really, where this is going, or where we've been or where we could possibly end up. But, Jim, where the listeners can end up. You know, you know what?
Starting point is 00:15:55 I tell you what, I got. I got an email here from something that we were talking to. You want to talk about these shady drugs that apparently according to Jelly Nettella, all the fucking kids are taking these days from truck stops and smoke shops and things of that nature? You know, after we talked about that, I heard from several wrestlers who none of them said they use it,
Starting point is 00:16:18 but they did say that it is something frequently used. One of them said it's gross. Another one said it's the new bane of this generation. That seems like a, that seems like it would be really bad, but no one's, you know, died from this stuff yet or whatever. But we've definitely heard feedback that I don't know if it was 85% or whatever he said it was, but there is a percentage of wrestlers who are using. 85% probably of his social circle and you can imagine the kind of elbows that he rubs.
Starting point is 00:16:48 But no, I got an email to both of us, but it's from our friend Tyler. He signs off much love, your friend. so he's our lover and our friend. Hello, Tyler. So why was the awkward pause there after you said that? There was no reason for that. No, because I'm trying to, no, I'm trying to find the, hold on here. I didn't mark this.
Starting point is 00:17:11 I've looked at the wrong paragraph. Oh, stop playing with your organ. I'm trying to find the, okay. He says it was jelly Nutella who mentioned that someone had taken Saboo to get cratum or something, quote unquote, to help him through his final match. While cratum in its natural plant form is often used as a harm reduction tool, especially for those trying to get off opioids, there's a more dangerous twist to the story that's not often discussed. See, it's always the dangerous twist, Brian.
Starting point is 00:17:50 That's where you get, it gets dangerous. In smoke shops and gas stations across, the United States, especially in states where Kratum is legal. So now apparently it's mixed on this, depending on where you are. It says it could be or it could not be legal. We are now seeing the rise of a highly concentrated lab isolated compound. Sounds like I'm doing one of our commercials now. This is not a highly concentrated lab isolated compound derived from Kratum called 7,000. Hydroxymitriginine. Commonly referred to as 7-0, and that's what we'll say from now on.
Starting point is 00:18:37 This isn't natural cratum, this is a chemically enhanced extract that's significantly more potent. 7-0 binds very strongly to opioid receptors and is estimated to be several times more powerful than morphine. It's available legally. in pill, vape, and candy forms
Starting point is 00:19:00 for the kids. You know, the kid, a little junior, little junior dip shit, down the street, stubbed his toe, give him some fucking supermorphine.
Starting point is 00:19:10 I'll have the Bellalogosy gummies. Tyler goes on to say, I can confirm it's being sold in nearly every shop around here in Grundy, Virginia, an old smoky mountain town, and I use the word town
Starting point is 00:19:29 kind of loosely here since there can't be 3,000 people in Grundy, Virginia. So they're selling this stuff in Grundy, Virginia. I'm sure the same applies to Louisville and countless other places. Here's the scary part. We haven't got there yet. 7-0 is extremely addictive. And because it falls under the broader legal umbrella of cratum,
Starting point is 00:19:56 it's largely unregulated. There are no clinical studies on long-term use, interactions, or safety. It's a legal gray area that's being exploited fast. From the reports and behavior described after Sabu took the substance, it lines up eerily well with known effects of 70, drowsiness, confusion, impaired motor control, and in some cases, respiratory depression. if he did indeed consume a concentrated form of 7-0
Starting point is 00:20:29 and we don't know whether he was 70 or whether he was Hawaii 5-0. We don't know what he would, but it may have opened the door to an aggressive and dangerous level of substance abuse. Well, I think that door's been off the hinges for a while there, but Tyler just wanted to put this out there in case it helps paint a clearer picture of what may have happened.
Starting point is 00:20:53 Apparently Tyler and Grundy, Virginia, you are a, just the fact that you can spell hydroxy mitragyneen indicates that you're potentially too informed about this subject to be a normal resident of Grundy. So this, this sounds like this stuff can't miss. I first heard about it about a week before the story about Sabu's last match came out. I saw an interview with our friend Theo Vaughn and he conducted with Kevin Von Erick. and I had to see it because it's Kevin von Erick and I find him endlessly fascinating.
Starting point is 00:21:29 Yes. And I believe he said in there that he got off his addiction of pain killers due to Kratum, which now as we're hearing, I guess, is it a synthetic opiate or is it not synthetic because it comes from the natural plant? No, it is, and
Starting point is 00:21:47 then we actually even had people tweeting at us and everything when we talked about Jelly's interview and that's the first time. ever heard of this shit. If people are defending it, well, I used it. I use it. Don't knock cratum because I use it to withdraw myself from this or because of chronic pain
Starting point is 00:22:06 with this or that or the other thing. And again, if there is a legitimate use for cratum because it's a plant, it grows, I'm not saying that the whole thing should be just balled up and thrown away. But I don't like the idea that you're getting it in gas tax. if it's in any way supposed to be a helpful drug, it ought to go through proper channels. And secondly, I don't care whether it helped you or not. It certainly didn't help the situation
Starting point is 00:22:40 where a 60-year-old man with a history of multiple serious injuries and drug abuse was put into a no-rope barbed wire death match with a fucking idiot. So I don't think, I don't think the goddamn, polio vaccine would have been helpful in that situation, do you, Brian? Again, the match was an unfortunate series of decisions. But, you know, in terms of this... From an unfortunate series of people.
Starting point is 00:23:09 You know, in terms of this, though, you know, the idea that it's a opioid or a synthetic opioid or an opioid derivative, and it has the same effects on wrestlers, we went through an error where that was devastating. And again, we're talking there about OxyContin, we're talking about somas, we're talking about New Bain, we're talking about all sorts of muscle relaxers and pain relievers that wiped out a generation of performers, actually. If you're a thing about everyone that died in one way or another due to those chemicals, it's a generation of performers. You know, again, I'm guessing this isn't that bad. Again, you don't necessarily want to trust something if it's sold only in
Starting point is 00:23:48 truck stops and head shops. Well, that's what I'm wondering about, is are they going to find out in four or five years that, you know, there may have been some benefit in a medical or clinical fucking situation for whatever is going on here, but not when, you know, Zippy's truck stop sold it, you know, next to the caffeine pills or whatever, and everybody's just taking too much, and it grows some kind of goddamn horrible cancer in your brain. And it shouldn't be, hey, this guy can't walk. Give him this fucking opioid so we can get him in the ring. We can get, he can hold himself up with the ropes. Oh, shit. Forgot. That's barbed wire.
Starting point is 00:24:26 Well, put him in the middle. Yeah, we'll see. I guess I don't know anything about it. Is there any kind of regulation of this? Again, it's in head shops and gas stations. Well, it says it's legal. Or Tyler said that it was legal in some states, which means some states it's not.
Starting point is 00:24:45 But the same thing can be said for weed. The same thing could be said for a variety of other things. But, you know, in this case, I think this bears a little more fucking indefiards. investigation, you know, as far as what your source is before... Should go with something more legitimate, like magic mushrooms. Well, there you go. Just, and a lot of these turd blossoms probably spend a lot of time around those things.
Starting point is 00:25:12 I guess so. They're growing under the same fucking dung heat. Same, same turd. Yeah, that's right. Well, it's your show, Brian. All right, well, this has been drug education with C. Everett Coop. We will now move on here with the show. Jim, of course.
Starting point is 00:25:26 Wait a minute, now you know, Travis is going to draw me a C. Everett Corn. He may have done that already once. I don't know. It's been a long time. I think I was Captain C. Corn guru. Captain Corn guru, whoa. Did you ever notice how much C. Everett Coop looked like Captain
Starting point is 00:25:41 Kangaroo, kind of? Never. No. I mean, the hairstyle. He looked like an evil Captain kangaroo in the fucking outfit and everything. Well, whether you were hopping around like a kangaroo. Yeah. Or doing something.
Starting point is 00:25:55 else you may want to get something or hooked on the new new bane you may want to get something from cornets collectibles oh i forgot that i'm still running a business uh yes and you're getting things from cornets collectibles because before the cataclysmic weather events of the past several days the hotchkis feather bottom family was entrusted with several hundred packages that are already being shipped out to the fine folks and more on the way we're going to be caught up to date by around about June the 1st, folks, if you have ordered anything in the last, in the month of May, it's going to be winging its way to you by June the 1st. And there's more left, including the last few remaining action figures.
Starting point is 00:26:39 There's some Smoky Mountain Wrestling event tickets. There are also some, well, just regular fine, fine products with a quality that you can depend on and a price that you can appreciate at Jimcornet.com at Cornett's collectibles. I should have done the farm report on morning radio. You know, I was born too late. I could have teamed up with my Uncle Dink over in Hopkinsville on WHOP. He did the mornings on WH. Dink Embry did the mornings on WHOP radio for 25, 30 years, however long it was.
Starting point is 00:27:18 And whenever I would visit my grandmother before she passed away when I was a little kid, we'd get up early in the morning, list the radio listener Uncle Dink. They named a street after him out in Hopkinsville, I found out not too long ago, a year or two ago. Dink Embry Boulevard outside the radio station. He was actually married to my father's brother's widow. So he was technically in the family by,
Starting point is 00:27:47 actually he was in the family by marriage, but she was in the family by marriage. So if a man marries a woman that's in the family, by marriage, then he's technically in a family by marriage, too. He's your uncle completely removed. Yes. Well, she completely removed him. That's right.
Starting point is 00:28:05 No, that's my favorite line of, he did stand up also, played the guitar and did comedy routines at the FFA meetings. I have actually an album that he recorded over in Lexington at a Future Farmers Association meeting. And my favorite line was he was talking about his wife. He said she's a great housekeeper. She was married three times, kept the house every time. Not bad.
Starting point is 00:28:31 Pretty good line. Well, not bad for Hopkinsville. Support Uncle Dink, Cornett's Collectibles at Jimcorna.com. Yeah, Uncle Dink needs the money. Well, Jim, why don't we start in a good way? I know you watched a little bit of WWE, so we're going to talk about that as little as possible. We have questions we never got to last week.
Starting point is 00:28:52 I got to see if any of them are good. I know we still have a roster of you that's going to probably be endless and then eventually WWE so we also have that potentially why don't we start with guest the program okay you're confused Brian you've
Starting point is 00:29:05 I lost you on the far turn but you got me with guest the program all right of course guest the program is where I go through programs in my collection quiz Jim about all the details he can give us the date the location the street address the phone number
Starting point is 00:29:20 the promoter the timekeeper and of course the ringside physician. Let's start with this one. This is an interesting one. I hear you shuffling your pages now. The first event, a wrestle royal. Killer Kowalski, Han Schnabel, Fred Atkins,
Starting point is 00:29:43 Roy Graham, Al Lovelock. No time limit. Match continues until only one left. The second event, Fritz Schnabel versus Al-Saz. Now, wait a minute. Was Hans Schnabel in the opening Ressel Royal, or was it Fritz Schnoble?
Starting point is 00:30:04 It was Hans in the Rassel Royal, R-A-S-S-S-L-E, and Fritz in the opening bout against Al-Zaz out of St. Louis, one fall 15-minute time limit. Okay. The third event will be the first two losers of the Rassel Royal, one-fall-15-minute time limit. The fourth event, the second two losers.
Starting point is 00:30:27 The second two, yeah. Of Rassal Royal, one fall 15-minute time limit. The main event, and there are two, the Mighty Atlas out of Chicago, he is a champion, I will not name the title he has, versus Duke Kiamuka at a Honolulu, two out of three falls one-hour time limit. In the main event,
Starting point is 00:30:51 the world champion, Lou Thess, St. Louis, versus the winner of the Rassal Royal. Oh, Jesus Christ. And I'll tell you who it was. Killer Kowalski, two out of three falls, 90-minute time limit. Oh, boy. By the way, it says
Starting point is 00:31:09 referees, there were two referees for this match. One of them, I will say, because the other one may be a giveaway. One of them is Al Lovelock, who was in the Rassal Royal. Well, and he also, Al Lovelock, worked later on as one of the great bolos, did he not? That was the
Starting point is 00:31:25 beginning of the assassins, I guess you could say. Yeah, who was the other referee, or does it name that person? The other referee is Leo Voss. Oh, okay. So, Killer Kowalski, obviously, everybody knows we need not go into his biography. Fred Atkins, later on was a popular figure around Toronto. including being in, I think, at the office for a period of time, and didn't he referee for a while?
Starting point is 00:32:01 Which Graham was this? Was this Bobby Graham? Did you say? And the Russell Royal, it was Roy Graham. Roy Graham. So might as well be telegram. I don't know. Poor Al Zaz and Fritz Schnabel were just in there to really kill some time
Starting point is 00:32:20 so that the guys didn't have to come right back out and wrestle their singles, matches out of the battle royal. The Mighty Atlas was Morris Shapiro. He was a bigger star probably than anywhere or at any other time off Chicago TV in the 50s, right? Duke Keimoko would go on to settle in Florida. Fez being the champion against Kowalski, we're in Texas because of Leo Voss, I would think. That's why I was trying not to give that one away.
Starting point is 00:32:55 You asked. But, well, but he's on the card. See? So I didn't cheat. So the question is, I don't think this is a lineup worthy of Houston, but we're somewhere in Texas, and I would have to think it's the mid-1950s, 155
Starting point is 00:33:28 Corpus Christi The date Tuesday December 18th 1951 Dallas Texas The Sportatorium Dallas okay Yeah
Starting point is 00:33:42 Now this is the end of 51 This is months before the Dallas wrestling war would break out On page two of the program here Dallas Matt fans set new records Dallas again leads state top-mat city. Dallas did it again.
Starting point is 00:34:00 Once more, promoter Ed McLemore reports that more people went to the Sportatorium Wrestling matches than did in any other large or small city in Texas. Since McClomor and matchmaker Doc Sarpolis took over 13 years ago, Dallas has shown a considerable increase. Even last year's record year was topped. The attendance average per card was 5,578. Jesus!
Starting point is 00:34:30 Tonight's parade of stars and championship program should considerably boost the average. On the last card of last year with Luthes in a title match, 6,288 was the attendance. So let's stop there. I was about to say I'll stop you there because, as you mentioned, this was before the promotional war, and it's before they said. fire to the Sportatorium, it seated more people. How many did a seat when you work there? I'm going to say, see, they didn't give us a ticket, you know, manifest or a seating
Starting point is 00:35:11 chart or whatever for the Sportatorium especially, but the money with the ticket prices that they were charging and a sellout when we were there, which they were doing quite often on Fridays, I'd have to look at my book, but I remember it somewhere around 30 grand. So I would think that probably around the high 4,000s of people, you know, some people you say the 5,000 seats, portatorium or whatever, but 40-something hundred, 5,000, somewhere around there. But the thing is, remember, we've talked about when people who have seen the world-class
Starting point is 00:35:53 TV tapes, look at the shot of the ring from the hard camera that they would use to the left, there was just a big blank wall past the ring site, right? And you would see across the ring, you'd see all of those bleachers that went all the way up and it would go all the way around to where the wrestlers would come down that hill and fight their way through the crowd, right, as far as the girls wanting to love on to Von Erickson and the Fantastics. but one side of the building is just a tin wall when they set fire to the fucking building
Starting point is 00:36:28 in 1952 or whatever it was when they rebuilt it instead of the whole place didn't burn so they just chopped off the side that burnt and put a straight fucking aluminum wall up there was another from what I understand the seats would have gone all the way around and joined
Starting point is 00:36:49 in those days of this program. So they could probably have seated you know six or seven thousand in there maybe. 14 complete sellouts were chalked up during the late winter and spring season of the year. Even during the summer
Starting point is 00:37:08 of 100 degree heat, the crowd still held up. And there was no air conditioning, not even in the 80s in that building, much in the office, in Fritz's office there was, not in a fugging arena. Headliners, the country's best wrestlers, account for this turnaround. The plans for next year are the same.
Starting point is 00:37:31 A listing of wrestlers do hear early next year isn't another story in this program. Wrestling has been good all over the country. Texas is still considered the top territory. And Dallas is, as always, the top town. Well, there you go. and they were running weekly in those days also, right? They were. Texas map promoters in meeting. Promoter Ed McElmore was host to nearly all the Texas wrestling promoters over the past weekend.
Starting point is 00:38:04 A meeting of the promoters was held yesterday at the Sepongo Club from 1 o'clock to 6. Mr. M.B. Morgan, Commissioner of Labor, and in charge of the boxing and wrestling in Texas, presided. His number one deputy, Alton Erickson, also of Austin, the supervisor of wrestling, was the first assistant. North Texas deputy Sammy George of Dallas and local deputy Bill Hughes were to attend. General wrestling business was to be the topic of discussion. Texas promoters slated to attend are Morris Siegel, Houston, Frank Brown, San Antonio, Norman Clark Galveston Dore Detton
Starting point is 00:38:52 Amarillo Owen Davis Austin Barney Myers Corpus Christi Sam Menacher El Paso El Paso Sled Allen Lubbock
Starting point is 00:39:04 Joe Ramirez New Bronfell Vic Weber from San Angelo Benny Wilson Abilene Texas Dan Menotton Plain
Starting point is 00:39:17 View, Doc Sarpolis, Dallas, F. E. Gerard, Tyler, R.G. McElie from Fort Worth and Ken Moore of Wichita Falls. That's a lot of local promoters. Well, and that's in those days. Remember, 1951, they may not have any television presence yet, right? The National TV, Dumont Network, Hollywood wrestling, et cetera. But in those days, every town, every town had a local promoter because it was primarily radio and newspaper and posters and a guy on the ground making a deal with the building and making sure the chairs, whatever the fuck. And every town was kind of its own little fiefdom.
Starting point is 00:40:05 But you bet Doc Sarpolis was instrumental in the Amarillo territory for Dory Funk Sr. for a long time. And another thing has struck me. How many guys do you know named Dory in the world? Outside of wrestling, I've never met any. Exactly. But in Amarillo, Texas, the previous promoter and top star, and he'd been a big name in the ring in his day,
Starting point is 00:40:32 Dory Denton ended up giving way to Dory Funk Sr. two guys named Dory ran Amarillo not related ran Amarillo wrestling for fucking 50 years Peanuts, popcorn, soft drinks, and coffee, 10 cents each. Popular Argentina Raqa to return. So I promising 1952 talked about here in this program. And Sam Minnaker, by the way, he was a promoter in El Paso. He had some, he lived there for years, had some connection. But Minnaker, obviously, he was in.
Starting point is 00:41:08 Mighty Joe Young when the tug of war with the gorilla with the other wrestlers, but Minnaker booked and announced for Stu Hart at various times, Dick the Bruiser in Indianapolis during his boom period. But when I met Sam Minnaker not being a mark, I got his autograph when I went to Indianapolis when I was 14. But I actually met him into business. Crockett ran. No, it wasn't Crockett.
Starting point is 00:41:35 It was the Dallas office, world class, ran El Paso actually Fort Bliss which is right next to it it's an army base and he came to visit the boys and this was in 1985 and he was living back in El Paso
Starting point is 00:41:50 just a little trivia there for you El Paso that he went to with the plane that he stole? I think it was well he didn't really steal it he just flew Stu Hart's private airplane after he gave his notice as Stu's booker he flew
Starting point is 00:42:09 Stu's plane down to El Paso, but he called and let Stu know where it was so he could come and get it. All right, Jim, let's go to our next program here. I don't know for sure that the card took place, but the program may be enough to tell you something here. This is from a file I have here of things like this. The opening back, The Butcher versus Levi Banks. Okay. The second contest. Beautiful Bobby versus Captain Soul
Starting point is 00:42:43 Okay The next contest Johnny Ringo and Frank Rogers versus Gama Singh and Tonga Kid The next contest Shotgun Austin versus Mountain Man
Starting point is 00:43:03 Goliath I'm not sure this card did take place You should still be able to guess the location in the date, I think. The Magnificent Zulu versus Big Tank Patton managed by General Homer O'Dell. A 12-man battle royal, $50 each wrestler,
Starting point is 00:43:28 $400 from the promoter, means $1,000 for the winner. Which isn't unreasonable. It's not like a $10,000 battle royal for this show. Big Jim Wilson and the Islanders, Afa and Sika, versus the medics and Dr. Blood. And the main event,
Starting point is 00:43:52 Super Assassin 1 versus Thunderbolt Patterson. I'll just, Superass 1 versus Thund. All right. Where do I start? This obviously is in the state of Georgia. One would be led to believe it was the Omni.
Starting point is 00:44:18 One would be led to believe that it was the, what was it the IWL International Wrestling League? What were Thunderbolt and Jim using for their anagram there? You know, we could talk about the IWL, but I will not lead you down the wrong path. This is before, this, oh, no, this is IWL. you're right. Oh no, never mind.
Starting point is 00:44:43 Turn the page and there it is. Okay. Yes. Well, he used it a couple times. He liked those letters. But Thunderbow Patterson and Jim Wilson were trying to run in Atlanta, and they were running shows that were basically to prove their claims that they had been discriminated against by the NWA and antitrust.
Starting point is 00:45:09 racial discrimination in Thunderbolts case and sexual end or just discrimination against anybody with bad haircuts in Jim Wilson's case. And they were able to get the Omni. I think didn't they threaten the Omni too with if you hold us out, we'll sue you. And they were actually organizing protests of the few wrestling fans that would show up to carry a picket sign. for a fucking unfair practices, unfair labor practices suit by wrestlers in Georgia.
Starting point is 00:45:46 It didn't fucking fly, but they got in the Omni a couple times. This was not the first one. So that's why you said the show may not have happened. And I was just going to say, running down the talent, the Tonga Kid and Afa and Sika, the islanders,
Starting point is 00:46:09 are the on. only, you know, recognize and Tank Patton with Homer Odell. I don't know how they got involved. The magnificent Zulu was, this was way past his prime, which was not very good in the ring. And do we have any idea who the super assassin number one was? Because again, Jody Hamilton, Tom Rennesto, the assassins were the big team in Georgia wrestling so they're trying to leach off of that but uh i don't know if shotgun austin or man
Starting point is 00:46:52 mountain goyth ever made it johnny wringo may have uh may have been a big star if he had kept with it would this have been 19 Jesus Christ that's the only thing i'm not sure of because this is not one of their later ever they tried again after this I believe I'm going to say because of Tank Patton Homer O'Dell and the Islanders at that point I'm going to say this was
Starting point is 00:47:27 1979 or is it 1980 the purported date Saturday October 12th 1974 what the city auditorium Atlanta Georgia You're kidding
Starting point is 00:47:44 Where did you find that? This program is astounding Let me read a few things in here I never knew they tried that this early Before the city auditorium Not even the Omni On one page it says International Wrestling League Limited On the next page
Starting point is 00:48:03 International Wrestling Limited So I'm not sure exactly what the name is Here's the National Board of Directors And the Executive Committee the president thunderbolt Patterson Homer O'Dell Secretary is Pansy Burris I'm not sure who this lady is
Starting point is 00:48:19 is a picture over here the Booker Dr. Blood I bet she had some money The Booker Dr. Blood Dr. Blood the Booker it's good to know that they've got corporate representation here there's a picture of the beautiful Bobby here
Starting point is 00:48:33 he's on the board I guess the public relations director and that obviously that's not Bob Harmon I don't think so. I'm not sure who this is. To be honest with you, I'll send you a photo of this. Public Relations Director, Terry Randolph, Alpha,
Starting point is 00:48:50 the legal counsel, J.O. Wyatt, the treasurer, J.T. Williams, the first vice president, Jim Wilson, and Big Tank Patton. So that's the board of directors. This is the new world of wrestling. So predating the NWO, Thunderbolt Patterson, and Jim Wilson,
Starting point is 00:49:08 here. Attend church with Thunderbolt and Big Jim. This Sunday, 12 noon. 775 Hunter Street, northwest, the corner of Chestnut and Hunter, come dressed as you are. Reverend Hosea Williams, pastor, come to the real Christian church, the church that feeds free soup to the poor every day from 12 noon to 4 p.m. The church that collects and distributes free clothing to poor families. The church that operates a poor people's bonding company. The church that operates a free legal service. The church that works with poor people from 9 a.m. to 1 a.m. seven days a week, helping them solve all kinds of problems.
Starting point is 00:49:54 The church that... But now, between one and nine in the morning, don't fucking bother us. The church that lives every day, what's preached Sunday. So Big Jim and Thunderbolt will be there. But now, and hold on, what date was this in 74? This was October 12th, 74. Okay, because Tank Patton worked in the Memphis Territory as Doug Patton
Starting point is 00:50:24 and was tag team partners with Phil Hickerson and managed by Sam Bass. And then would later on go and Tank Patton was a name in the late 70s in the Leroy-Mcgirk territory being booked by Watts and various places down south. But this is maybe the earliest I've heard him called Tank Patton. But Homer O'Dell, especially if Homer O'Dell was involved on the board of directors, that was a thing Thunderbolt liked to do. He liked to list all these people's names and to make it sound grand.
Starting point is 00:51:00 We've got a board of directors. We have a national head of this and that. It's names Dr. Blood. right but still and homer odell was always wanting to get in the office and i bet he probably had seen tank patent and said hey i'll manage you boy because homer had been a manager for years and we're going to be in on the i can hear homer odell talking out we're going to be in on the office on here boy i can i can hear it right now and i think tank patent would end up in memphis about six weeks later so that this didn't this didn't take off well the opening page of the program here
Starting point is 00:51:35 Do you need more money? Well, join us in the greatest money-making venture ever to hit Atlanta. For black and white and rich and poor. Is your future secure? Will you have to depend on old-age pension? Social security or welfare? What about your loved ones and your children? Is their future secure?
Starting point is 00:51:58 What would happen if the good lord decided to take you out of this world today? Well, And I see, going back to my tornado talk. You never know. How does it work? We are accepting 1,000 charter members in our $10 per month investment club. Oh, no. Each member invests $10 per month.
Starting point is 00:52:20 With 1,000 members in the club, we will have $10,000 per month to invest. Placing this in a bank savings account for one year will give us a grand total of $120,000 to start our business. and allow us to work for ourselves. Wait, wait a minute, a paid a savings account. I know back then they paid interest. But still, we're going to take your money.
Starting point is 00:52:43 We're going to put in a bank and draw interest. It's not even a goddamn pyramid scheme or some kind of stock scam. How will we build a major business? We will take your club's yearly income, form a legal corporation, hold an official meeting. All members of our $10 per month club will be there. and elect a board of directors. A thousand of them.
Starting point is 00:53:07 And elect a board of directors. They're going to hold the meeting in the city auditorium. The board will select a business that has a very good chance to make it and that employs a large number of people. We can then go to a bank with our business proposal and our $120,000. All thousand of us are going down to that bank. All guys. We're going to get what we want.
Starting point is 00:53:34 And our $120,000 cash dollars and negotiate a plan for at least half a million dollars to finance our business. Lord. Then the board will get the small business administration of the federal government to participate through its one to ten plan. If we have $120,000,
Starting point is 00:53:57 the SBA could loan us ten times that amount, which will be $1,200,000. We can build... This is on caps. We can build one of Atlanta's largest and biggest money-making businesses. The SCLC's
Starting point is 00:54:16 $10 per month club has the answer. How do you become part-owner in our company? Fill out the following application, attach $10 in cash, money order or check, made payable to the SCLC. Preferably just
Starting point is 00:54:31 just cash. Wait a minute. SCLC, what is he saying that that stands for? I don't know if they said it here, actually. Because that's the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Oh, well. But that ain't it. The organizer of this is state representative elect, Reverend Hosea Williams.
Starting point is 00:54:52 Oh, Jesus Christ, that's a... That's... Thunderbolt Patterson was writing up this goddamn scheme of whatever and using, this is a recognized pastor in Atlanta and the SCLC is a Southern Christian Leadership Conference. And Thunderbolt's trying to say, this guy's involved, give me $10 a month and this plan of how he's going to build the big,
Starting point is 00:55:19 if he's printing the plan about how he's going to build this business with why can't these people then just do it without him? He's let the secret out of the bag. If this worked out and a thousand people gave $10 and they finally had this big meeting, what do you think the chances are that the business they would decide to invest in would be a professional wrestling company run by Thunderball Patterson? Probably pretty good. Well, we have a letter here from the Reverend Jose Williams.
Starting point is 00:55:42 Why I organized IWL, the International Wrestling League. And this is under the rationale behind organization. Okay, now, if he was in on it, then maybe what's happened to Josea Williams in the last 45, 50 years? I don't know, but this is the rationale behind organizing like any other. human rights struggle, I became obsessed with the representation and exploitation of wrestlers. As the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, Truth crushed to earth will rise again. Well, like blacks, wrestlers are rising up in the Son of Manhood.
Starting point is 00:56:22 As I learned the truth about the enslavement of wrestlers, I could not help from yielding to what Victor Hugo said, all the armies are not as powerful as an idea whose time has come. So with my organizing experience, backed up with the ability of the SCLC and the determination of wrestlers, together we will not only economically emancipate wrestlers, but will elevate the sport of professional wrestling to a respectful height. Signed the Reverend Joseo Williams. And then here's the... Hold on. I have just typed in his Wikipedia.
Starting point is 00:57:08 He was a... Didn't die until the year 2000. American civil rights leader, activist, ordained minister, businessman, philanthropist, scientist, and politician, Martin Luther King Jr's inner circle. Oh, wow. It has background here. It has early civil rights activism, political career. He ran for senator, Georgia governor, etc.
Starting point is 00:57:38 At various points in time, I'm looking for wrestling promotion. I'm not seeing wrestling promotion. I'm saying, well, when he ran for mayor of Atlanta, I'm seeing, I'm not seeing, oh, wait a minute, hold on here. in in 1974 Williams organized the International Wrestling League
Starting point is 00:58:03 based in Atlanta with Thunderbolt Patterson serving as president and and that's all it says we have something here from Thunderbolt Patterson why I left the alliance I love wrestling
Starting point is 00:58:19 as well as OJ Simpson loves football as well as Hank Aaron loves baseball but wrestling promoters like me. It's not just me being enslaved and robbed. Ninety-nine percent of all wrestlers are dehumanized the same. It's not a racial thing. White wrestlers catch just as much hell as black wrestlers, other than in areas of promoting. There have never been any
Starting point is 00:58:47 black territory promoters. Yes, I was making 60,000 a year, but according to the houses I was drawing, I should have been making $300,000 a year. And it's not just what promoters have done to me, I am more interested in what they have done and are doing to 99% of the other wrestlers. For the past 10 years, I've seen wrestlers mutilate their bodies, break their bones, and bust their heads for salaries that barely afforded their families a decent quality of life. Yes, promoters have made millions, but the wrestlers were paid pennies. And there's an official statement from Thunderbolt.
Starting point is 00:59:32 At least he's consistent. The purpose it is to liberate professional wrestlers not only mentally, but also economically, and to make professional wrestling a free enterprise business. But, you know, at the same time, can you believe that Thunderbolt Patterson was able to sell Joseo Williams on the idea of, well, he organized the IWL and then they didn't run anything and it didn't happen,
Starting point is 01:00:04 but just that he was lending his, Thunderbolt had a hell of a line to him. That this guy that was, you know, running for fucking offices around the state was going to also be in a wrestling program where the guy said, what we're going to do is give us $10 a month, a thousand of you, and we're going to put it in the bank and then this and that. and the other thing. What the fuck? Well, since we're on this topic and it would be ridiculous to do this as another guest to program,
Starting point is 01:00:32 I have another program here from the IWL Volume 1 number 1. This is from a card that was purported to have been booked to take place at the Omni, May 3rd, 1981. Okay, I've got that one also. They may have given all the programs out
Starting point is 01:00:50 because there was nobody there to buy them. Seven supermatches, including the following wrestlers, Bob Orton Jr., Bob Roup, Ronnie Garvin, Rez Wheatley, Al Perez, great, Ma'i,
Starting point is 01:01:05 Ma'i-O-H-I-W-K-O, Big Red, Lars Anderson, Gerald Finley, Ted Allen, Terry Gibbs, and it says here, Ho-V-T-Let, H-O-V-I-E,
Starting point is 01:01:20 and then the other two matches. Louis-Tillet, by the way, And by the way, almost all those guys were people who lived in Georgia, guys in a business that lived in Georgia at that time. And the two matches listed, Big Jim and Chief Jay Strongbow versus the Samoans and Thunderbolt Patterson versus the Sheik. And they had advertised Bob Orton Jr. And some of those names at the start that were with at the time,
Starting point is 01:01:54 or possibly maybe up until that point had been with the Pafos in ICW, but that was right about the time that Rup and Orton bailed out of that and went to work for Watts in Louisiana, right? This is right around that period of time, correct? 1981. And the Sheik had been trying to help the Pafos because he and Angelo Pafo went back all those years and he had really nowhere else to work. His territory, they'd close the Coveau.
Starting point is 01:02:24 Bo, et cetera. So he was trying to work with the Pafos as well and was a big name in Georgia that Thunderbolt could bring in that was not worried about pissing off the NWA. Strongbow is that surprising because he, Jay Strongbo lived for years in Atlanta. Even when he was with the WWWF at that point, you'd know better than me. Was he still wrestling or was he already agenting?
Starting point is 01:02:58 Oh, no, no, no. He was still in the ring at that point, wasn't he? Then maybe, again, if this was really him and his photos in this program, but if that was really him booked for the show, it probably would have been right before he came back with Jewel Strongbow, not the original, but Jewel Strongbow and had that last run as a tag team as a baby face.
Starting point is 01:03:16 I guess that would have been, what, eight three? Yeah. Yeah, that's right. But I'm surprised. here's the thing if he was booked on it. He wouldn't have wanted to have upset Vince Sr. where he normally worked for all of those years. And Barnett was still involved in Atlanta at that time,
Starting point is 01:03:36 but did they just advertise him because Thunderbolt was like, ah, get strongboe, he lives in Macon. And again, the Samoans always seemed to like, or was this off and Sika by this point, but they always seemed like to help Thunderbolt and Big Jim Wilson. Say again. One more thing on all this.
Starting point is 01:03:57 I have here a page from a petition that looks for 60 signatures on this page. I support Big Jim and Thunderbolt's right to fight for NWA championships. We are issuing an open public challenge for these matches. There's a picture of Jim Wilson in the background. Wanted your support, help
Starting point is 01:04:20 to keep the American spirit of professional wrestlers alive. Excuse me, a professional wrestling. It's very faint. Spirit of America in this country alive and in pro sports in my struggle to upgrade and reform pro wrestling by cheating American spirit, dignity, and honor. All right. That's a...
Starting point is 01:04:44 But now here's the thing. That was 1981, right? That's why when I heard the other one, I was thinking it was that round and I said that sounds like an early one where I said 79, 80 or whatever but think about this. That was 19th, the first one
Starting point is 01:05:00 1974, the second one, 1988 one, same kind of thing, same names in some cases on the fucking card and Thunderbolts railing against the establishment. In between that time, Thunderbolt Patterson had
Starting point is 01:05:19 gone back to work for Georgia Championship Wrestling in the late 70 for a couple of different runs and been featured and been used on top and after this would come back and work again for OLE in 83 and every time that if you if he wasn't there permanently every time They said, well, gee, you know, you're getting older and ain't really much else we can do right now. Then he'd go back to run in opposition. But Jim Wilson never went back because he was the shits and never drew any money
Starting point is 01:06:00 to begin with like Thunderbolt did. And he had just been so stunningly full of shit and exposing to business and saying that shit about fucking Barnett that he was never able to wrestle anywhere ever again and rightfully so. But every time the Thunderbolt would get pissed at the office, he must have called Jim. Okay, Jim, I'm mad at him again.
Starting point is 01:06:23 You want to fucking do it. Okay. I'll be right back, T-bolt. And actually, on the back of the petition, it has a copy of a newspaper article, doesn't have the date by Darrell Simmons, journal staff writer,
Starting point is 01:06:36 wrestlers win rounds one and two. The antitrust suit against the National Wrestling Alliance and Georgia Championship Wrestling brought by former Georgia All-American football player Jim Wilson will continue in federal court here. U.S. District Court Judge Robert H. Hall has issued an order denying the defendant's motion for summary dismissal of complaints
Starting point is 01:06:58 brought under the Clayton and Sherman Acts of Antitrust Law. Here's a quote from Jim Wilson. This now opens the federal courtroom for us, and I'm encouraged about my chances now. Wilson and All America tackle at Georgia in 1916, and a national football league player with the Atlanta Falcons, Los Angeles Rams, and San Francisco 49ers
Starting point is 01:07:22 was a main event wrestler in matches promoted by Georgia Championship Wrestling and sanctioned by the NWA until November 1973. Well, let's stop there. That's one of the issues with Jim Wilson's stuff. Even when he has legitimate complaints,
Starting point is 01:07:38 he says he was a main eventor. He was never a main eventer in 73. No. In the middle of the wrestling war? Well, I mean, he may have main-evented fucking Sneedville, Georgia at the high school back in those days on a B show or something. I mean, at some point, anything could happen. But no, it was ridiculous. And that's why, again, another part of his story was that they told him, oh, you're going to be the NWA world champion.
Starting point is 01:08:10 We're going to make you the champion. and but you all you won't sleep with Barnett what the fuck I think Barnett could afford better looking guys than Jim Wilson to begin with but the idea that yes at some point everybody when you get into business oh you could be the champion maybe he could have been the Georgia champion again stranger things have happened but the NWA champion is what he was claiming and it was ridiculous And the only reason that he got into business was because he had been a name, a college football name in Georgia.
Starting point is 01:08:48 And that's the only place he ever wrestled. And it didn't pan out. He wasn't Jack Briscoe. But then he spent the next fucking 15 years suing everybody because they couldn't recognize his fucking greatness. Of everybody that's ever had a gripe about how they've been treated or screwed on money or whatever in a wrestling business, Jim Wilson wasn't one of them, but he was the most persistent.
Starting point is 01:09:14 The suit, which has been in litigation since 1976, contends the NWA and G.C.W. had blackballed Wilson as a wrestler because of his starting a rival wrestling organization. In addition to the NWA and G.C.W. as defendants, individuals named are Paul Jones, president of G.C.W. Tom Renesto, a Booker for GCW, James Barnett, Majority Stockholder, and Chairman of the Board of GCW, Fred Ward, G.C.W. Vice President, and Eddie Graham, President of the NWA. In September 1974, Wilson and another wrestler, Thunderbolt Patterson, who was one of the strongest draws among black wrestlers, were instrumental in forming the International Wrestling League. The league, according to Wilson, sought to compete with national wrestling and tried to establish
Starting point is 01:10:13 medical insurance and retirement benefits for wrestlers. My God, you know what? We were still hearing this five years ago, right? Ten years ago, with Shane Douglas bought that line of shit from that guy. He was telling people, oh, this is really going to happen. That's what Cody said was going to happen with AEW, if you remember those earlier interviews. Yes, it never ends. Which was unheard of at the time.
Starting point is 01:10:33 the founders also hoped, Wilson said, to develop sophisticated marketing techniques for jackets, bags, and other novelties, the proceeds of which would be used to fund the benefits. But Wilson's lawsuit maintains, in addition to systematically blacklisting any wrestlers who associated with the fledgling league, the officials of national wrestling
Starting point is 01:10:59 allegedly sabotage the league's bouts and attempted to harass or bribed wrestlers into staying with national wrestling as part of a conspiracy to restrain competition the defendant's assu I don't know
Starting point is 01:11:16 I don't know Brian how are you going to how you're going to sabotage beautiful Bobby versus Captain Soul I don't know but that's that program that went along one more program we can't end on that one should I give you a they did
Starting point is 01:11:31 Should I give you a layup? Let me see, let me see. Let me see. This is an easy one. This would be an easy. I'm revving up now. I got one. I'm going to get one here. Okay.
Starting point is 01:11:43 Well, what better time to start than now. Here's this program. Give me a second. I have to open this up. It's in plastic. Jim, the opening... Did you buy this at a truck stop or what? Jim, the opening contest listed here.
Starting point is 01:11:58 Actually, the intermission bout is the first bout listed. Jesus Ortega versus Cowboy Dick Hutton Good Lord Mr. Motto versus Rocky Hunter John Paul Henning versus Carl Von Schober
Starting point is 01:12:18 televised bouts Oh these were all televised so far Great Togo An Yoshimoto versus Sammy Berg and Don Duffy and the main event no TV
Starting point is 01:12:35 World Championship Out 2 out of 3 Falls 1 hour time limit The Destroyer versus gorgeous George Well now we fully establish exactly where we're at Don Duffy
Starting point is 01:12:55 Don Duffy worked in the Memphis territory In 1973, I think he worked under a hood as the Scorpion partnered with Jerry Lawler after Jim White left territory and then was partners with Crazy Luke Graham and a regular tag team. Luke Graham and Don Duffy. And I don't hear much about his name either before or since. Sammy Bird was a well-known West Coast name at that point in time. Mr. Motto, of course, one of the classic names of 50s and early 60s wrestling,
Starting point is 01:13:39 Dick Hutton against, is that Bull Ortega, Jesus or Jesus Ortega? It may, I believe it's Jess Ortega. I can't really. Chess Ortega. But Dick Hutton had been the NWA champion. And by popular demand, he was asked to leave that position. John Paul Henning, famous baby face, was over in St. Louis at one point, remarkably so. Some of this is TV, some of it's not.
Starting point is 01:14:15 The main event with the Destroyer and Gorgeous George for the World Title tells me that we are in the Olympic Auditorium in the very early 60s because if it was after Christmas of 63 George would be a zombie but it's the WAA title that was the California world title and I think it's the Olympic auditorium and I would say it would have to be what is this the period of time where George was
Starting point is 01:14:49 kind of needing the bookings and that's another reason why some matches were on TV and some were not because they were doing TV from the Olympic at that point, 1961. The Olympic Auditorium, the date Wednesday, November 7th, 1962.
Starting point is 01:15:11 The final match of Gorgeous George. I was going to say 62 and that I gave myself some space. Son of a gun. You're a, wait a minute, you're a very morbid individual getting all these, programs from promotions that die and then people, that's their last match, then they're dead.
Starting point is 01:15:36 What the hell are you talking about? How does that make me a morbid individual? Well, you're very morbid. It's like you want to buy the car. They shot Bonnie and Clyde in. No, I don't, but if there was a program, I may buy that program, but no, this is a famous wrestling card. I think it's an important one.
Starting point is 01:15:52 Gorgeous George loses his hair and his career is over. So this was the hair match. I believe so, yes. And finally, Jim, I'll hit you with one last one because that was rather quick. This one will be two. Unbeknownst to me, I didn't realize that I bought a lot of 15 or 20 of this exact same program I've over and over again. The opening contest, Frank Lane versus Prince Iukea.
Starting point is 01:16:15 The second contest, Cocoa Samoa versus Jack Hart. For a title I will not name, Tyree Pride versus Rip Oliver. Blackjack Mulligan and Kendall Windham versus Maha Singh in the Purple Hays. A bull rope match. Barry Windham versus Kevin Sullivan. In the main event, a lumberjack match, $5,000 appearance bond, Wahoo McDaniel versus Lex Luger.
Starting point is 01:16:51 Ooh. Well, we are definitely in the state of Florida. and some interesting names there. Frank Lane was not cowboy Frankie Lane, but it was a guy that used to work as Frank Lancaster. The prince was the King Curtis's son or was it his nephew? He was in the family, wasn't it? It may be Rocky. It may be his son. I'm not sure. There's no picture in here. Cocoa Samoa was the miniature Jimmy Snooka that worked as Sabu the Wild Man in Memphis in 1983, 82 and 83,
Starting point is 01:17:37 the original Sabu. But most of the time he was Cocoa, he was often a baby face, but he was a great body, curly hair, the snooka look, but only like 5'6. But Jack Hart was Barry Horowitz. Tyree Pride was the,
Starting point is 01:17:54 the champion of the Bahamas, and they used him in Florida because they ran the Bahamas, and if they put him on the television, he'd be even that much bigger over there, pun intended, because he was like, what Tyree Pride was like 175 pounds back when that kind of thing wasn't done, wasn't he? Am I remembering correctly?
Starting point is 01:18:18 He was not a bigger guy, and I don't remember him wrestling too many places other than where he wrestled. Rip Oliver, of course, mostly known for the Northwest and Don Owen's promotion, Portland. And he was the guy that Billy Jack brought with him to Dallas that was featured in the Billy Jack dark side of the ring.
Starting point is 01:18:41 And of course, Blackjack and Kendall. That narrows down the year here just a bit, as does our main event, which we'll get to. and Barry Windham being on a card against Kevin Sullivan. And then the lumberjack match with Wahoo and Lugar, that puts it, Lugar didn't start until 85, and he was in Crockett by 87. So that really narrows our time frame.
Starting point is 01:19:16 And from the size of this card and the names on it, even though they weren't doing super business at that point, This was right before Crockett bought Florida, so I'm going to say 1986. And is it Miami? Is it St. Petersburg? Is it Jacksonville? Let's go with Miami in 1986. The date Friday, November 29th, 1986. Fault Lauderdale, Florida, the War Memorial Auditorium. Son of a bitch. I was 30 miles off. The front page is,
Starting point is 01:20:07 Aboudadeen awaits within. What new madness has come upon, the Prince of Darkness, and his followers. What secrets that Kevin Sullivan learn on his visit to a remote South Sea Island, location which was once thought to be a land of paradise. That's some tortured grammar. Male chauvinous pig of the month, Mahas Singh, Big Gloria tells all. November is drawing to a close, and of course November is the month in which Thanksgiving occurs. Thanksgiving Day is traditionally celebrated by having turkey for dinner,
Starting point is 01:20:46 which reminds me that there is one turkey who probably didn't get invited. to dinner by anyone, I'm talking about Bob Rupp, also known as Mah Singh. The reason why Rup probably ate Thanksgiving dinner out of a brown paper bag these many years is that nobody likes him. One of the reasons why nobody likes him is that he's a male chauvinist pig, and a turkey, who is also a pig, really does have problems. thus it seems particularly appropriate that the male chauvinist pick of the month for November
Starting point is 01:21:21 be none other than the one who combines the attributes of both barnyard creatures, Bob Rup. Well, there it is another fun, successful edition of guest to program, and of course, Jim. I just always found Rup a little sour, but I didn't know that he was both a pig and a turduckin or what. whatever the fuck, but, but yes, Brian.
Starting point is 01:21:46 Hold on, what do you make of the fact that he wasn't brought in, or, you know, around this period of time or in 87 at all? Because so many of the people who were working for Florida, Dusty would bring in, Barry Windham, Lex Sluagra. Again, those are young main eventers, but Kevin Sullivan would make it up there. Rup never made it out of Florida again. Why do you think that is?
Starting point is 01:22:08 Well, do you remember that when they, when Crockett took over the, Atlanta office in 85, Rup was there. And Rup worked for a brief period of time on the, continued working for Crockett in what summer, fall of 85 on the West Virginia towns. We were going in the Ohio towns and et cetera. And then that's when Rup went somewhere else.
Starting point is 01:22:34 I can't remember. And I never saw Rup again. I think besides the fact that he was getting a little older and a little fleshier at that point. he was just so goddamn unexciting and also so dreary to me. It was like he was always just, we called Bobby and Dennis and I called him droopy roop. We'd see him in the hotel lobby, you know,
Starting point is 01:22:59 a morning we're about to leave for a town. Morning, Bob? Morning boys. You know, and plus he, I believe that because Slater had been to Booker for the Atlanta end when Crockett first absorbed. that and Dusty, you know, relieved him of that. I think Rup thought he was going to get in the office.
Starting point is 01:23:22 I don't think Dusty wanted Rup in the office, and I think they parted ways, something like that. Yeah, I don't know what that relationship was like. They were both big stars in Florida. I once asked a wrestler and I won't use their name about Bob Rup, like, why wasn't he a bigger star or whatever? And the answer I was given was, nobody wanted a chubby Jack Briscoe. But, Jim, that was guest to program.
Starting point is 01:23:44 And, you know, maybe one day I'll say, I have so many people. programs, I have extras. I need to sell some of these. Or perhaps mom and pop businessman out there says, I have so much stuff I need to start selling them. Or maybe they start a business. It could be a number of reasons. Yes, maybe mom and pop just decide, you know,
Starting point is 01:24:03 hey, we got too much shit. We're just going to sell everything we've got and moved to some nudist colony in Green Lawn, Indiana. Well, that may not... How'd you like to see your mom and pop naked, wandering around in the woods with other people, folks. The woods. Well, that's where it is. You can't just be
Starting point is 01:24:20 wandering down city streets naked. There's laws against that, right? I've never actually thought about this. If there was a nudist colony, are they typically in the woods? Is that where you have these kind of things? Oh, you got to put them back behind trees because there's nothing else to cover those things up. What about ticks? Well,
Starting point is 01:24:37 ticks can buy their own fucking clothing. You know, and you can't hardly cover much up on a human being with a tick. Well, Jim, once again... Imagine if instead of fig leaves It'd have been ticks over those classic paintings Well, people would have got arrested for pornography.
Starting point is 01:24:55 Folks, I'll tell you one thing that you can't do with our friends at Shopify is sell pornography. Now, they're not going to allow anything like that unless they get a bigger cut. Let's talk about regular everyday sales and items and let's say perhaps you make candles. Let's say you like to paint pictures. Let's say you make an interesting craft that's unique to you and proprietary to you and you want to sell.
Starting point is 01:25:20 Candles. You mentioned candles. My aunt went to a girl's school. They had a tradition about candles. Lights out at nine, candles out at 11. But I'll tell you, folks, if you have something that you want your mother and father to sell, maybe you just want to have your mother and father just sell everything they've got. Just get it out of the way now.
Starting point is 01:25:42 while there's still time. If you want to start a business, there's no better way in the world to do it than Shopify, because our friends at Shopify, boom, make a lot of people money. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world. 10% of all the e-commerce in the United States emanates from Shopify because they're very commercial.
Starting point is 01:26:07 And you can get started with your own design studio. They've got hundreds of resources. ready to use templates. They help you build beautiful online stores. They're packed with helpful tools that write product descriptions. They enhance your product photography. You can take a picture of your significant other naked and send it to them, and they will enhance it to where it looks like.
Starting point is 01:26:31 No, no, they will. Boy, I'll tell you what. You know, that's a John Holmes got started that way. That is not how John Holmes got started. And I know how you got finished. So maybe these aren't the best examples we should use. Get the word out. Because you have a marketing.
Starting point is 01:26:47 It's your word. What word would you? Fuck. Let's say fuck is the word. Let's say the word is sales. Let's say the word is transaction. Let's say the word is commerce. Greed is good.
Starting point is 01:27:02 Get the word out like you've got a marketing team behind you because Shopify can help you easily create email and social media campaigns so that. And another thing they do is they put the leaflets in the boxes and they take them up into helicopters and they'll drop them. And then the people, the residents of the town, they know they've got like two or three days to give you money before bad shit starts happening. It's a, no, no, they don't have helicopters. They don't have helicopters. Well, no, now it's all drones. I'm sorry.
Starting point is 01:27:33 But point being, they're going to warn you folks before they do anything drastic and you just send them money. and then if you're on the Shopify team, Shopify turns around and sends it to you. It's that simple. And if you got a nice town there, it'd be a shame if anything happened to it. Let's say you don't even want your mother and father to sell all their possessions. Oh, my God. Let's say you just want your wife to get the hell out of town and sell all her stuff. Or if you've got an idea about making the candles or the bath salts or the bath bombs or whatever,
Starting point is 01:28:09 although that seems to me the bath bomb business, I never understood that because it seems like if you're already in the bath and then you bomb it, shit would happen to you. But people sell those now. Let's talk about an actual example that won't get us in trouble, of course,
Starting point is 01:28:24 the official drive-through shirts that we have a new series of designs about to come out. Our store is powered by Shopify and make a power... Well, there you go. They can power your store, whether you are a ma or a pop
Starting point is 01:28:37 or just a little kid or, well, I guess not, that's not the best example. Well, now you see, you always, the child of mom and pop. Child is the father and man. You always get on me for saying that these child labor laws are outdated. We ought to go back to the days when the kids at five or six were able to learn self-reliance and a trade. No, we shouldn't. But at Shopify, they don't have to dig ditches.
Starting point is 01:29:02 They can just sit and type in code all day. There are no children laborers at Shopify. I opened the door. and now I got to shut it. But of course, what they have there, what they could do for you is really what I'm talking about, ladies and gentlemen, what they could do for you, no one could do for you.
Starting point is 01:29:19 And you want Shopify, Shopify could be on your side for just a dollar a month, Jim. Yes, they can because that's a trial period during which time they check you out. If you're not put on trial by the end of that one month period, then maybe they'll take you on as a client. But you can sign up for a $1 a month. month trial period right now and start selling today at shopify.com slash jce shopify.com
Starting point is 01:29:46 slash jcee you get the one dollar a month trial period you see all the different ways that shopify can help aid your online business and make you money and then you determine whether or not that you would like to continue with this money making opportunity and you know if you don't, hey, there's no, no shame in that whatsoever. You want to be a bum, you know, living on the bounty of the county for the rest of your life instead of going out there and creating an empire for yourself, no hard feeling. Imagine a Thunderbolt Patterson at Shopify. You know, that's the thing.
Starting point is 01:30:23 He could have sold these grand ideas that he had on the internet. These $10 subscriptions for his investment club. And then he could have put it in the bank and drawn interest. And then imagine that if you go to the bank. with that money, then they'll give you more money. Who are you with? You with Lehman Brothers? Or who do you invest with? I invest with Thunderbolt Patterson.
Starting point is 01:30:44 Thunderbolt Patterson is my financial guru. And I'll tell you what, when he talks, people listen. So when Shopify talks, folks, well, we haven't, Shopify doesn't talk. Shopify's actions speak for itself. So whether you can sell stuff with Shopify, you don't even have yet. You think you're going to get something?
Starting point is 01:31:09 Just go ahead and sell it on Shopify when it comes in later on, just forward it on through to the people. Shopify.com slash JCE. That's right. We trust them. They power our store. They can power yours.
Starting point is 01:31:22 Shopify.com. That's right. Whether you're on top of the ladder or on the bottom of the ladder, they'll power the top or they'll power the bottom. Once again, finally, Shopify.com slash JCE. All right, a dramatic end to a dramatic beginning of the show here.
Starting point is 01:31:46 We are now time. We are now here. We are now ready for the second quarter. Time. We're now here. We've ended the beginning. It's all downhill from here. Jim, let's talk a little bit about modern wrestling as it airs on TV or whatever we call it nowadays.
Starting point is 01:32:05 As it unfolded the other night. And I've got to say, for one thing, Smackdown last week, I read the recap. that's when we were in the middle of determining whether we were going to all die or not. So I read the recap. There was nothing earth shaking and there's more important things going on. So we're trying to catch up now. We're going to start up with Raw on May 19th. That was a Monday night on the Netflix.
Starting point is 01:32:31 And boy, howdy, this thing's gotten awfully long. Some highlights of this were AJ Styles and Pindley. going about 30 minutes with Finn Baller and J.D. McDonough. They had a multiple woman's money in the bank qualifier. They had Seamus versus Grayson Waller. They had a lot of commercials, a lot of spots. And before we talk about the good segments and or unfortunately, the controversial segment or the one people are talking about,
Starting point is 01:33:08 you said it best when you sent me an email that you got that they sent out to people as a promotional tool to try to make them watch their television and it was like they advertised every mid-card person wrestling that you could find on their roster and nothing appealing the The matches are just in between the segments with the stars coming out and becoming orators. And it's kind of just coasting now, isn't it? Yeah, they keep sending out this email preview of Smackdown and Raw, and at Nxte also, actually. And they're now convincing me not to watch their shows. And these ads, like you said, and I hate to classify anyone as mid-card, people are over.
Starting point is 01:34:01 People are buying tickets. This may be just me. but they put all these people in there it's like if the attitude error did the same thing but you didn't have Austin or the Rock or The Undertaker or Mick Foley you can list everything else on the show except for those four
Starting point is 01:34:18 and I know that you know sometimes you want a guy to do a surprise run-in certain guys are not being booked on the show right now Cody's obviously repairing himself or whatever but it's the same characters week in and week out, and that's always been wrestling, but that was always when wrestling was a one-hour show.
Starting point is 01:34:39 Three hours of nothing really moving and matches that are just matches, but I don't know. Again, and maybe just me, I'm just not into it right now. And the emails they send out to hype me up on their television shows have been the preview I needed to say,
Starting point is 01:34:58 I'll just watch the Mets and the other monitor in the office doesn't really need to be on. And, you know, that's the thing. And we'll probably do it on, I've got a list of some of the gates they've been doing lately. We'll probably do that on the experience,
Starting point is 01:35:14 but they're making money hand over fist, but this is not a thrill ride for three hours of Smackdown on Friday or two hours and 30 minutes of Raw on Mondays, as much as it is a chance to see, one kind of sort of angle and otherwise the guys are doing personal appearances and talking you into the building for their next fucking match
Starting point is 01:35:42 which is not going to be on that show that you're watching and I know that's part of wrestling but it just seems like everything takes so fucking long to accomplish you know I'm getting older Brian I don't have just unlimited amounts of time to spend and having Logan Paul and Gunther have a therapy session, you know, for 15 minutes. That's what they started the show off with. And it was good.
Starting point is 01:36:13 Logan Paul is an excellent heel personality. He's got attitude in his promos. He can talk. He's got the facial expressions. He's an obnoxiously strutting body language type of heel. and you know he's doing a good promo but he's cut a promo on Jay Uso and he disrespects Gunther in the process
Starting point is 01:36:38 because obviously we know who Jay beat for the world title so Gunther comes out because Gunther gets the winner of Logan Paul against Jay three weeks from now on Raw maybe why is Phoenix a big deal? Why are they giving us a main event in Phoenix? by the time we get to Phoenix, will he still be champion?
Starting point is 01:37:02 But he gets the winner of that match from Saturday night's main event on Raw. And the fans are into Gunther, Channing, you tapped out at Gunther, and they're into just booing Logan Paul, so they had reaction here. But Gunther is kind of the nominal baby face. you know, you seem so sure that you can beat the guy who beat me so you think you're better
Starting point is 01:37:30 than it's like the Mendelbaum's, like the Mendelbaum's, you think you're better than me? And then he, Goodther, for English being a second language, can speak better than the guys who's English is the first language. And he put him over and suckered Logan Paul into thinking he was complimenting him and saying, I could learn from you, you're a self-made social media megastar. You can teach me about the marketing and the social media. Because to you, it's business. See, you like my Gunther accent.
Starting point is 01:38:05 It's not terrible. It sounds just like him, doesn't it? Not bad. Well, to you, it's business. But to me, it's personal. Beating Jay Uso is personal. So if you take that away for me, I'm going to take it personal. And he said, basically, I don't like being respected by non-w wrestlers.
Starting point is 01:38:24 And everybody, ooh. at least Pat McAfee showed some fucking heart. You have no heart. And if you beat Jay and take that rematch away from me, I will eat you alive. And then Gunther walks out on him. And once Gunther's out of the ring, Logan Paul starts, oh, come on, big guy, you're going to leave, you're going to leave?
Starting point is 01:38:48 And suddenly Jay Uso's in the ring behind Logan Paul, he turns around and gets super kicked, boom. And their poor old Logan Paul. is colder than a banker's heart and Jay told him that he'd see him Saturday and he'd see Gunther and Phoenix. Why does Phoenix get all the goddamn
Starting point is 01:39:07 good stuff, Brian? I don't know. The dry air? Well, that wouldn't have anything to do with it. For heaven's sake, the dew point would have nothing to do with the level of card that they're putting into Phoenix. Is it
Starting point is 01:39:25 some kind of anniversary? what's going on here? Maybe they have cheap, grade them. I don't know. That's it. You know that Arizona has got,
Starting point is 01:39:36 they got all that cheap stuff at the truck stops and the gas stations. But I mean, this was a nice performance by these guys. It may could have taken five or ten minutes less, but that was pretty much the highlight of the first,
Starting point is 01:39:53 well, that was actually the highlight until we got to the main event, your thoughts. You know, the fans really wanted to make a lot of noise and scream as much as they could, and they did. And it created an interesting dynamic, and I thought the stuff with Gunther and Logan Paul, I had it's one heel talking down another. But it was interesting.
Starting point is 01:40:16 And I agree, it was the highlight of the show, and I didn't watch too much more of the show, and I feel better for it. Well, before we... go to the main event because I watch the main event because my my boy Braun, Bron breakers in it, but the news coming out of the show was
Starting point is 01:40:37 Zoe Stark got injured and if I'm not mistaken, she's just come off of a knee injury and came back not long ago, right? And so this has got to be just I know how she feels literally
Starting point is 01:40:54 and I'm not being a smart ass when I said because of the knee injuries. And in my case, I hurt one and then had just got that one okay and hurt the other one. I think this may be the same one. Again, I don't know. But everybody was trying to analyze what happened and we still don't know what the specifics of the injury are yet. I don't know if it's knee, if it's a, broken bone of what the fuck it might have been, it looked like the knee. But it was a three-way with Ria Ripley
Starting point is 01:41:35 and Zoe Stark and Carrie Sane for the another, the winner goes on to the money in the bank thing, qualifier, whatever. But it wasn't a ladder match as regular three-way. But did you ever get to see this clip yet so that you know what I'm saying? I haven't. When Ria Ripley did her entrance,
Starting point is 01:41:57 that's kind of when I cut out and just went completely to the MEC game until the very end of the show. So I heard about the injury after the fact, but I still have not seen the clip. I don't know if I want to, but I haven't. Well, the thing, no, it's not really that gruesome because the camera shot was the least optimal it could be
Starting point is 01:42:11 for you to see anything. Because they almost missed it completely. And trying to set the scene, Zoe Stark was in the ring, right? and she had taken a bump and rolled, if you're watching the hard camera, she had rolled to the left. Ria Ripley was to the right on the floor, and Carrie Sane was in the ring in the middle.
Starting point is 01:42:42 So apparently because they didn't get a wide camera shot, so you never knew what Zoe Stark was doing until the moment that you saw her fly into the shot suddenly. But as Carrie, Mary Sane is looking at Ria Ripley on the floor, she starts doing the thing where she's bouncing, like she's going to turn and run to the ropes behind her and hit those and run back and dive on Ria Ripley. Right? You've seen that a million times.
Starting point is 01:43:10 I can see it as you're saying it, yeah. Okay. And what's supposed to happen is that since Zoe Stark has rolled out on the apron, she is going to do a springboard into a missile drop kick so that when Kerry Sane turns to hit the ropes, she's going to run and meet the drop kick. So you're still with me? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:43:35 Here was the problem. Apparently, from what I could tell, Zoe Stark did the springboard before Carrie Sane ever turned and Carrie Sane wasn't going to turn, apparently, because the camera shot is from a floor camera of Carrie Sane from behind, bouncing like she's going to turn and run, but suddenly you hear a voice scream,
Starting point is 01:44:09 and then a split second later, Zoe Stark flies into the shot right as Carrie Sane turns around, but Zoe Stark lands short of Carrie Sane doesn't drop kick her with her right leg bent under her. Not even like she's going to drop kick her, but like the nearest I can explain this is if you're in midair and you realize you're going to land on somebody or somebody is not going to be where they're supposed to be to catch. you or whatever. Some people put their arm down. Some people put their leg down.
Starting point is 01:44:52 Some is like, oh shit, I can't drop kicker in the back or I'm going to land short. I better adjust and try to land with my feet under me. Whatever the fuck was going through her mind. When Carrie didn't turn, she tried to pull the drop kick up and got the right leg underneath her and kind of speared down into the mat. right at Carrie's feet where Carrie then fell over the top of it. And instantly, Zoe started screaming that you could hear it and everybody just looked and, oh shit, froze.
Starting point is 01:45:32 And the doctors immediately rolled in. Everything came to a halt and they went to an unplanned break. The announcers never pitched the break, but in this case, they didn't know it was coming. So that's what I hate to blame the girl that got hurt, but she just jumped up and she, I guess, took it on faith when Carrie started bouncing that she was going to turn. Well, Carrie started bouncing, but she never turned,
Starting point is 01:46:10 and she was all the way across the ring. so Zoe really had to fucking jump and it was just it was like she she would have been better off I think trying to hit her in the back with the drop kick because it wouldn't have fucked Carrie Sane up nearly as bad as it would have
Starting point is 01:46:32 as it fucked Zoe Stark up but anyway they what did it look like to you? Did it look like if you had to diagnose it from afar someone who's had. Oh, no. I mean, this could have easily broken your fucking leg. If you, I was able, even though this was on Netflix,
Starting point is 01:46:53 I was able to hit the pause when just accidentally at the right time. And her leg was bent into a fucking, like a question mark. Oh, oh, see, I don't need to see this. Oh, boy. So, I mean, it, it didn't look like there was an obvious bone, like the shin didn't bend completely sideways, but her leg was all crumpled up underneath her. So it could have been ankle, knee, bone, hip,
Starting point is 01:47:22 anything in that general vicinity. But they carried her out. And then they came back from the break and said she was injured and continued to match as a single and Ria won because she was going to anyway. But yeah, but that's like she just, she just jumped and springboarded all the way across the fucking ring when this girl wasn't even looking at her yet
Starting point is 01:47:48 and by the way you said kairie's saying i didn't realize she was back is that her return match i think yeah she just got back so they beat her in her return match well that's the thing rio was going to win obviously because they wouldn't have beat her either one of them but she might have been supposed to beat zoe but well so zoe can take comfort and she got out of doing the job yeah i'm sure she'll have great comfort with that. Yes, that'll make her nip right up. Let me ask you a quick question.
Starting point is 01:48:17 I know, based on what you just described, it's more than an ACL. But in the past, you know, let's say before StarK886, was it that there were a lot of guys working without ACLs or a lot of ACL tears before it was a diagnosed thing? And it's just the same as now,
Starting point is 01:48:37 or is it just that it wasn't happening as frequently back then? no it's 10 times more ACLs now when I tore mine was the first time that I'd heard of it no I'm sorry I tell a lie cruciv uh Darso was right before me crush your cruciv his was February of 86 that's the first time that I had heard of the ACL and when you think about it there weren't there wasn't this insistence on either jumping off of high things or doing the balancing or the springboarding or the velocity that people are spinning to the floor and blah, blah, blah. And an ACL injury was more of a football thing. The guys already, some of them didn't have an ACL from their football days.
Starting point is 01:49:34 But it wasn't a major thing in wrestling. Like we've talked about Terry Gordy having two of them. torn. And that was a freak thing. And that was right around this period of time. 86 was when he really started taping up those knees. Well, yeah, because as I told you, he told me, because I asked him, we were talking about knee problems. It was a simple thing. A guy had picked him up and give him an atomic drop. And when he planted his leg, it was straight. And it boom, snapped the ACL. And then a year or two later, compensating on the other leg, because he never had that.
Starting point is 01:50:10 one fixed, he ended up tearing the other one. That's what he dropped that weight. But guys would work in those days because you couldn't take six to nine months off. But at the same time, they weren't working through torn ACLs nearly as often, nearly as much as they are now because the difference in the style. And still, if you tear your ACL, you're going to be off for a couple weeks, regardless of, regardless of, few weeks, whether you do any goddamn thing about it or not, whether you're a Superman or not, you're going to be off for a while, and guys didn't get hurt to take weeks off on anything near a regular basis back then.
Starting point is 01:50:56 And you wouldn't really have a fucking choice in a lot of cases, whether you had to take time off or something like that. So it's just, you know, again, springboard flying, leaping, landing in awkward positions, catching people with weight on your legs who when you might not be braced exactly correctly, all these things are magnified with what guys are doing these days. This has been injuries with Jim Cornett.
Starting point is 01:51:31 We will now return. And I can tell you if anybody wants to know the worst thing that you can do to leave yourself open for a blown ACL is, and I'm not saying this is what she's got, but the ACL is the sports medicine doctors told me 80%, 85% maybe of the ACL injuries happen
Starting point is 01:51:55 when your foot, your leg is straight out and your foot is planted and you get clipped or land at an odd angle to where your leg goes sideways. When your leg is bent even at like a 20 degree angle, the muscles take over helping stabilize your knee somewhat, but when it's straight out and somebody clips you for,
Starting point is 01:52:20 you can, that's why I used to fight those fucking fans try to kick me into legs. If your leg is straight out, you can take a little bump from the side and it can blow your ACL, just like that. So always keep your legs bent slightly if you're landing from high positions or somebody's going to fucking leap on you
Starting point is 01:52:42 and you're going to catch them. you crouch a little bit. It'll take pressure off your knees. But by the same token, the MCL, the medial collateral ligament, a lot of those injuries happen to regular civilians when they're in car wrecks and their knees hit the dashboard or the front of the car and fold up and bend back too far. And then the PCL is a thing you get when you hyper,
Starting point is 01:53:13 for extend. So it just depends on this leg was bent all kinds of different directions. So I don't know what she could have done. All right. Any more raw? Oh, yes. I forgot. It's almost done. It's not raw anymore. It's almost cooked. Bronbreaker and Jay Uso. I have observations.
Starting point is 01:53:34 Bronbreaker is a goddamn great star in history of wrestling. He is more natural. And we've been watching him for about three years. now. I think he has done better in the first three years and taking this more naturally than anybody in our 2001 OVW class. The timing, the flow, the smoother work. He's, Jay after 15 years, ain't got the timing. And Braun's already, and Braun's having to wait for him or adjust for Jay. And that's the thing. Braun was aggressive. in this. They went a while, through a few breaks.
Starting point is 01:54:18 Braun is a heel. He does heel ship, not just move after move, but then he does the the Breckensteiner or the spear or the clothesline. People love that, but otherwise he's an obnoxious heel in word and deed. And, you know, he just, at one point they were doing a one, two, and Jay's timing is just, it's a beat off. And Braun had to adjust for him rather than the veteran given the rookie the flow. But they love Jay Uso. He's over, so you can't, you know, take that away from him. But anyway, at one point, Braun did give him a belly-to-belly overhead.
Starting point is 01:55:10 instead of going overhead Jay came down on his shoulder and his arms, I don't, or his arm rather, I think he was going sideways like Magnum T.A. and Braun was going overhead like Northern Lights, whatever the fuck. But they did some good false finishes with the spear
Starting point is 01:55:29 and the Breckensteiner and finally Paul actually did something. Paul drew Jay Uso's attention and Bron got the chair and then Paul had to referee, but Jay kicked Braun, and he lost the chair, and Bron went to the floor, and when Uso hit the ropes to dive on him, Paul pulled his leg. And that's the most physical and poor old Paul's been in years now.
Starting point is 01:55:57 I hope that they didn't have to brace him with a series of hydraulic braces so his shoulder wouldn't come out of the socket when he did that. but anyway jay goes after paul on the floor and this was great part and people are loving this shit because they had the this is awesome chance going and they got the false finishes in and now uso's after paul and paul whips his suit jacket off and he puts his fists up like he's going to fight him and then set levels jay from behind ding ding ding ding get the dq going and then that Seth and Jay fighting but Braun stops Jay and they get some heat on him but here comes Sammy and Sammy comes to the ring to face off against Braun and fucking Seth
Starting point is 01:56:49 but he's going to need help and the people start chanting see him punk see him but they're calling for it and then like Mussolini because you chanted for you chanted for you. me. And the place blows. And as punk comes down to the apron and jumps up next to Sammy, they cut the music and the whole arena sang the rest of the fucking song Acapella. You know Acapella, oh, Acapella. The whole place sang to the bridge, as they say, and then they jumped in and got in a big fight and went out to the floor and had the big four-way and Bronte punk on the side of the head. He was like, Jesus Christ. And they fought out into the arena. And the people are going crazy and it's all wild and this was great. And then Jay Uso gets back to
Starting point is 01:57:47 his feet in the ring and goes, well, where'd everybody go? And he turns around and Logan Pauls in the ring and knocks him out. And scene. So the last five minutes was just swell. All right, well, that was WWRWA. Big Saturday night's main event coming up. Is that this weekend? That is. Saturday night's main event on Saturday and Sunday's hangover from AEW on Sunday. Double or nothing Sunday.
Starting point is 01:58:20 I'll take nothing. Which show do you think will be better? Are you kidding? I'm talking. Well, it depends on... Anarchy in the arena. This could be the one that's finally good. No, it depends on what you're looking for.
Starting point is 01:58:34 If you're looking for hours upon hours upon hours of self-indulgent marks over and over masturbating and fillating themselves in front of a small to mid-sized crowd and pretending to be superstars, then you're going to go with AEW. And if you're looking for actual legitimate superstars to come out and do the bare minimum for the shortest amount of time, then you're headed over to Saturday nights. made a bit, baby. So what do you think? Should we go feast or famine? I think it may be feast and famine this weekend. And of course, we'll have that next week here on the show. Jim, of course, that means it's time to move on. And as we move on here with the show, I have some audio. Let's stand
Starting point is 01:59:25 on the topic of WWE. I have some audio that a lot of listeners sent over in the last week. And I think it was because different parts of it went viral at different points. Oh, is this again, our our favorite old married couple are having fusses again, and I've got people tweeting me this like crazy, so I'm glad you brought it up so we can put this to rest. We've talked about Dave Meltzer and Brian Alvarez's discussions slash arguments about AEW booking in the past, but now it's spread to WWE.
Starting point is 01:59:55 Let's see who we agree with. Again, a lot of people sending this over. It's from F4W Online's YouTube channel. Is Solo Sacoa being booked well? We'll stop this at various points, Jim. If you have a thought, just honk your horn. And unlike if Dave and Brian have a thought it dies of loneliness. Running down and then J.C. and then gotten a brawl and Nick Elders comes out and he signed them to an impromptu match.
Starting point is 02:00:23 And they had a long impromptu match. And it wasn't particularly exciting. It was, it was very sluggish. Okay, one thing, I hope that that's not Jeff Cobbs. new wrestling gear. And he was just doing that because it was an impromptu match. Well, yeah, it was supposed to be an impromptu match. So I get that that could be what it is.
Starting point is 02:00:47 But I'm kind of... Let me stop it there. What did he wear? Did you see it? I will. Isn't that when he ran in? Or is this, are they talking about the week after? I'm lost on the frame of reference here. I think we're talking about the Smackdown that we both missed. Oh, well, that's probably it then. I wouldn't understand why he wouldn't be wearing wrestling gear if he was,
Starting point is 02:01:12 but it was an impromptu match. But nevertheless, his name isn't Jeff Cobb anymore. We didn't bring that up. Because remember last week they said, it's the biggest free agent in the world, Jeff Cobb. And I said, okay, Solo Sacoa, Jacob Fatu, Jay Uso, Jimmy, Jeff Cobb. is not very Samoan or Bloodlineish,
Starting point is 02:01:38 and they've changed it. And now, you know, move over Chief Peter Myvia. J.C. Mateo is Jeff Cobb's new name, which kind of sounds like a fucking car dealership somewhere on the coast of Oregon. But I don't know what he was wearing. So, but Dave's the fashion police. So let's go back to the dynamic duo from Wrestling Observer Radio.
Starting point is 02:02:05 I'm scared that because it's the exact. same thing that he wore it, the thing that's like what he's supposed to, because that is like nothing happening here. He's got to get out of that, for sure. By the way, you mentioned Solo Sacoa being protected. You do realize
Starting point is 02:02:22 the last time he's won a match on TV was Well, he's never wrestles on TV. December. But he never wrestles on TV, but he's being protected. He may wrestle on pay-per-view. He hasn't wrestled hardly at all. He has had one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.
Starting point is 02:02:45 He's wrestled 11 TV matches, and he's won zero until this past match. Well, there you go. Then they're trying to get him ready for Jacob. Well, let's stop it there. They're trying to get him ready for Jacob. What did he just say? First of all, I love it. I love it when Uncle Dave jumps in.
Starting point is 02:03:06 of like, no, he's not, or no, it's not, or he disagrees before poor old cousin Brian can get the question out. But no, we've been talking about this. Solo has been kind of diminished and, you know, the, the bloom is off of him a bit. And he hasn't won a match in forever. He's always the one who gets beat because, you know, it's better than the option of Jacob, beating Jacob. But it's startling to hear 11 and 0 is the record, because it seems like they would have thought to give him one win in there just to keep him in the fucking game. But so then, then Dave says,
Starting point is 02:03:47 well, they're trying to get him ready for Jacob, by losing every match. No, we said when they did, I think, the Survivor Series, and so a loss there, because he kept being the one to lose. We said, they're not really booking him that strongly. And then he wasn't even on WrestleMania. and I know he's part of the Jacob Fattu stuff, but still,
Starting point is 02:04:08 he's kind of been an afterthought now, someone who was a main player, it doesn't feel like they're booking him very strongly at all. Well, and to be honest, and we'll go back to the Katzenjammer kids here in a second so they can tell us what they think, but I think it's simple as this. If you go back about a, what a year, year,
Starting point is 02:04:29 whenever Solo popped up in this bloodline position, I said, you know, the problem is that should be Jacob Fatu. That should be the street champion. That should be the fucking enforcer. The spot they put the solo in originally would have worked better at being Jacob Fatu. And then once they got out of that story, they actually got the real Jacob Fatu. and now he has overtaken and surpassed solo in terms of the out-of-control mean street-fighting fucking Samoan.
Starting point is 02:05:13 And because he's so much more, I don't even say impressed, but so much more visual with what he can do. And not only that, but the danger that he puts off, the aura that he possesses, that he's not only taken off and left solo, but he's the kind of guy that they couldn't have made solo a baby face. They were putting a lot of heat on him, and he was beating a lot of the people that the baby faces that the fans liked,
Starting point is 02:05:46 so they would boo him, but he wasn't the kind of guy that would impress the fans enough to cheer him with his insanely impressive work while he's getting that heat. and that's Jacob. So I think you've just got two people in a similar genre and makeup vying for kind of a similar spot, and one of them's clearly standing out more. And again, the booking hasn't helped. Well, I think that's why they're booking him that way.
Starting point is 02:06:18 I mean, he was really hot. That's what I'm saying. He was really hot as the silent bodyguard for Roman. And then when he first turned heel and turned against him, there was a chance there. And it kind of worked for a little while, and then they just started burying him on the show. And he hasn't won any matches. He's a heel boss who doesn't win. When did you, but he's not to boss anymore, really.
Starting point is 02:06:40 When did Jacob show up? Was it the summer? I don't keep, I don't keep these dates, but I think that Solo's perpendicular fall in booking can be directly attributed to Jacob Fatu's arrival and subsequent ascension. Well, like you said, let's go back to. fritz and dits. He's got no credibility, dude. He always loses. Always.
Starting point is 02:07:07 He's always beaten. You know that, you know that wins and losses mean nothing in double. No, they do mean something. That's why Jacob Battoo has never been beaten. They've never beaten the guy. And that's why they're feuding the two of them.
Starting point is 02:07:22 They're feuding the two of them. I know. I'm wondering why they're feuding them. Like, give Jake, give Solo something. Well, they are. I guess they're going to start to do that now. But the point is, is the way that they book title match, they have people lose 10, 15 times in a row, and they'll give them a title match.
Starting point is 02:07:38 Yeah, for a deeks, but for the top guys, they don't beat them. There's a reason that Jacob Fat 2 has never been beat. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, because they're super protecting Jacob Fattu. Yes, exactly. But Solo is the guy who's going to feud with him for next. But they don't care. They don't care. So, so, wait, wait, wait, wait, Brian.
Starting point is 02:07:56 So correct me if I'm wrong, but they, Dave is saying then the way that they're setting this up is the guy that's never lost versus a guy that never wins. Is that the way to put the edge on his thing? And he's saying the guy that never wins has been protected by the booking, I think is what he's saying. No, no, yes. But he hasn't.
Starting point is 02:08:17 That's what I'm saying is that, and they're doing this dissension because it's a natural thing and they're getting some mileage out of solo. and I'm not saying they're going to cast him off to Gilling's Island and fucking, you know, we're never going to see him again, but they have, you know, two people vying for a kind of a similar slot on the card and they're transitioning from one to the other. And I would imagine that if you go back and look, Solo's descent started when Jacobs' assent started,
Starting point is 02:08:55 and they're just switching places. But to say that they're protecting Solo in any way or this is ridiculous. They're not protecting him. They're winding him down. Let's go back to Dave Meltzer and Brian Alvarez discussing Solo Sacoa's booking. It should. If you want people to care about it, they didn't care about that ladder match. They still.
Starting point is 02:09:20 And they didn't care about Solo winning except they were mad because they didn't have Phoenix or like two guys who can do ladder matches. But the point, they've taught how many times, I mean, they've taught the fans that wins and loss don't matter. The fans don't care about wins and losses. I mean, it's been, it's obvious you've seen how many times that they'll put a match that in theory shouldn't draw because one of the guys always loses and it does draw. So it's like I've been studying the fans. It's not a big deal to the fans. He's studying again, Brian. He's been studying this.
Starting point is 02:09:55 He's studying again. He's a big studier. but uh when did they put that match on that with some flunky that everybody thought it wouldn't matter and then it did and it drew what is he referring to yeah and drew for who is he talking about a e w and they just have like a high spot match and it gets the same audience that everything else on the show gets or is he talking about he's clearly referring to the w w here because that's the whole topic so i'd like to have that for instance i don't know let's see if he's It's like, I've been studying this.
Starting point is 02:10:31 The fans, it's not a big deal to the fans. Yes, they will protect a few guys like Solo. Yeah, important guys. I mean, not Joe, but Jacob, like Jacob. But Solo's a guy who they obviously feel that they can beat, but they still treat him like he's a top guy. I mean, he gets plenty of promo time. The key in WW is your promo time. I know, but people don't care about Solo.
Starting point is 02:10:50 He actually doesn't get a very good reaction. Jacob gets a great reaction because they can see. See, he's special. Yeah. Because he never loses. And he's always the guy that has to save Solo. But they push solo. But Solo gets lost of TV time and he gets a push.
Starting point is 02:11:08 He needs to start getting some wins. Let's stop it there for a second. He boy, I'll tell you what, I'm glad I'm not married to Dave. Because he won't give up for anything, will he? And give Alvarez credit. Every time we listen, Alvarez is kind of on the right side of these things, but also he puts up with... These nonstop arguments, I guess.
Starting point is 02:11:29 He's got the patience of a saint. Let's go back to the discussion of Solosoko is booking. Or this ain't going to be much of a feud. Well, he's going to lose the feud, so it doesn't matter. But the point is, especially for heels, they beat heels all the time. And, you know, they beat heels all the time. They don't care. I mean, it's like, that's just part of the deal.
Starting point is 02:11:53 You know, I mean, it's, you know, this is not anything new. this has been the case in WW for decades. They do not, you know, when they book, they're not booking long term who he's going to win and he's going to get a title shot. They'll just do whatever they want. It doesn't matter. It doesn't care.
Starting point is 02:12:10 And then when it comes to, oh, we've got to get somebody ready for a title shot. This guy's lost a bunch of matches. We'll put him in a four way, and he wins the four way, and he gets the title match. And all those losses don't matter, and the people accept it. If the people didn't accept it and it didn't work,
Starting point is 02:12:24 they'd stop doing it. Let me stop it there for a second. I was going to say, this is coming from the guy who says, now Tony Kahn has long-term booking plans that everything means something. And if something is referred to from previous, well, this all goes together. So it's a goddamn giant web of carefully crafted,
Starting point is 02:12:45 intricate interweaving stories over with Tony. And the W.W.E. is just doing whatever the fuck they want to do with no planning? Or is he justifying their planning? because this is the way they do it, and then he says the fans are okay with it. I mean, because the other option is, I guess you just don't come to the arena at all,
Starting point is 02:13:04 but WWE is a different kind of thing right now. They're going to draw people no matter what. It may not be a sellout. But I think that nobody can deny that I'm not saying that the WWE is writing every show and scripting every fucking word months in advance, but that they have had and continue to have a clear plan, barring injuries and interference from the board of directors,
Starting point is 02:13:33 or the rocky spots, they plan shit quite a ways out, don't they? Hasn't it been kind of obvious? That's what they're doing for a while. It has seemed like that, but let's go back. Maybe they'll explain where they're coming from here. Let's go back to Wrestling Observer Radio's discussion that all the listeners were sending to us.
Starting point is 02:13:55 And I'm not, you know, it's like, of course it's better if you make wins. I think it sucks that wins and losses don't matter. But they don't. They don't book. And this is a perfect example. They're building this guy up for a feud with Jacob. Jacob is a top guy. They protect Jacob.
Starting point is 02:14:10 I know, but Jacob is a top guy, Dave, because he never loses. He's always the guy who gets the win. He's always the guy that protects solo. Any super over. I know. And if he lost all the time, it would be different. That's because of the book. that got him super over.
Starting point is 02:14:28 I'm sorry. No, no, but I mean, that's an interesting point. Of course, he's more spectacular, but also if he lost every match, he wouldn't be his over. Exactly. And that's the point that can't be drilled into the broccoli here, deep enough, is that if Jacob Fatu came in and somebody had to save him every time and he got beat every time,
Starting point is 02:14:52 he would be Dov Sig, the most entertaining physical guy in the ring that never wins and nobody gives a shit. But he's not because the booking compliments the talent that they have got. They got Jacob Fatu and they are booking him commensurate with his talent to get over by not ever beating him and by making him a monster. That's how those things go hand in hand. when Dave says wins and losses don't matter may not matter to the audience to the office to the writing staff
Starting point is 02:15:29 they may say well we beat that guy all last year but we'll do something with him now but the fans it matters because when the fans figure out except for the tiny little segment of the the Daveites and the Daveites that worship that type of thing that he likes he likes where they just all just do a bunch of moves and then go home, it doesn't matter to the hardcore fans where the wins and losses because they're just watching moves. But to the general overall population,
Starting point is 02:16:07 if a guy always loses, he's a shits. And that's why that, you know, there's underneath guys on the card and main event guys on the card. The main event guys don't usually lose. But this How has Dave not been able to pick up on this? It's kind of surprising actually to hear Dave say all this just because it doesn't make any sense.
Starting point is 02:16:30 It's almost like he's trying to justify someone's booking, but let's go back to more audio. To their top guys. And my point is they don't protect solo. To a degree. Oh, but they give him all kinds of interview time. I know, but people don't care about him. It doesn't matter if he's got promo time
Starting point is 02:16:47 if they're chanting for everybody except him. They don't care. about solo. Well, you say that... And the fuse that he had. So here's the thing. So wait a minute, wait a minute. So by saying that,
Starting point is 02:16:58 you're saying that they're booking badly and that the feud will not work. I'm saying they're booking solo badly, yes. Okay, if the feud doesn't work, then that's fine. But what if the feud, what if the people react to the feud? But Dave, I've already seen it with solo.
Starting point is 02:17:12 Like he had a feud with Cody and nobody cared about solo. He had the feud with Roman and people didn't care about Roman. Yeah, it's going to do big business because Cody is in there And Roman was in there Well, then there you go But you could have put anyone in there
Starting point is 02:17:27 It wasn't so low It did business I mean it did business So that's all that counts at the end of the day See again, he's justifying everything I don't know why he's justifying Unless Paul said don't criticize it I don't know why he's justifying the booking here
Starting point is 02:17:43 Well he's gonna die on this hill When it doesn't even really fucking matter but the thing is yes alvarez is correct if you put solo or anybody else in with a big star it'll do some kind of fucking business but it's not going to be the main event at russomania and they're talking about this feud this rivalry i am thinking that at some point solo and jacob will have a breakup and they will do three or four weeks of television of interaction or whatever and they'll have a match and Jacob will win it
Starting point is 02:18:21 and that's going to be that rivalry. I don't think this is a multi-match feud for the ages that we are seeing set up in front of our eyes. Do you think it works if it's, and I'm not saying I want this, but I'm just thinking out loud. If it's Jacob Fatu having to get through a bunch of new bloodline members to get the solo,
Starting point is 02:18:43 you know, once again, solo puts barriers in front of him, whether it's J.C. Mateo or Hicolio or whatever it may be. Well, I'm almost wondering if they're not going to save some of that for Jacob to be the boss of the new bloodliners and solo just to kind of be eagieed out. It seems to me that they're already leading down the road of Jacob being a baby face, so I don't think they're going to go there. Do you? Well, I'm wondering whether, well, yeah, you're right. I thought there might be some period of time where Jacob got solo spot and was the boss of whatever. And then the group potentially might fucking turn against him.
Starting point is 02:19:33 But nevertheless, point being, this ain't going to be a goddamn, this ain't going to be the freebirds of Navon Erics. No, it won't. There's a little more audio. Should we play more or shall we give up? It's your call. Ida, it's up to you. How hilarious are they on the out? I don't know. Let's hear the end of this. Hey, does it work? If it doesn't, if it works, it worked. If it doesn't work, then it doesn't work, and then you got to stop doing it.
Starting point is 02:20:01 But when it works, the fact that they do this and it works, it's like, okay, that's what the fans think. If it didn't work, I'd go, hey, guess what? This doesn't work. You got to, you got to do this. But these feuds worked. So there's your answer. It's like, if the, believe me, there are have been times in history where what you're saying was 100% accurate and the stuff wouldn't draw and it wouldn't work. This is not that time because all of those feuds worked. Well, there it is. All those feuds worked and of course Dave's longtime friend Paul Heyman's thing was always,
Starting point is 02:20:33 if it works, it works. So who knows who's feeding Dave the information that this is working? But who gets to say whether something works or not? Well, that's the thing. If it works, it works, it works. Okay, what does it works means? Does it mean the promotion's happy with it? doesn't mean the fans are buying more tickets because of it.
Starting point is 02:20:50 The fans are just where they were because of it. What is working in this sense? And that's also, it's hard to tell these days because the WWE has got themselves in a position where if they just avoid the, you know, a bunch of guys going out and dropping their pants, taking a shit in the middle of the ring, people will enjoy it. live. You can see that they're singing along with entrances and standing and watching guys do stand up without the comedy for 20 minutes at a time. So it's not like they're going to riot
Starting point is 02:21:30 and set seats on fire if, you know, matches are a little bit because they're apparently having fun. But, you know, at what point do is it just, we got to see something here for our money. between the prices and everything else. I don't know. Well, that's the WWE section of the show today, and that's the review of Meltzer and Alvarez once again disagreeing, and once again we're on the side of Brian Alvarez here, but Jim, after a discussion like that,
Starting point is 02:22:05 whether you're Brian Alvarez or just the average person with ears, you may start thinking about tonight's sleep. We're just going to sleep right now. Imagine if you had a comfortable bed right now, Right now, right in front of you, a bed from our friends at Helix Sleep. Well, imagine, let's say you have narcolepsy. Or you've been bitten by a Tietzy fly during an excursion to the South Sea Islands, and you've got some kind of sleeping sickness.
Starting point is 02:22:34 And what you need to do, folks, is you need to put a mattress in every room of your house. That way, if you just happen to nod off, right in the middle of a conversation, let's say, let's say you just happen to nod off right in the middle of a conversation let's say you just happen to nod off right in the middle of a conversation and you're going to fall but you want to fall on a helix sleep mattress because that way you can get a good night's sleep or a good day sleep whatever day that are time that it happens to be it could be afternoon it could be morning you know sometimes these things just happen bryan just like that jody hamilton
Starting point is 02:23:13 used to not off and go to sleep and snore in the WCW offices at the, what was it, the north tower or the south tower? I get my directions confused now. And they had to give him a corner office with a door that they could shut because when he was in the cubicle, you could hear him all over the floor. See, now if he'd have had a helix mattress in that cubicle where he could have laid down flat instead of sitting at his desk and snoring, well it would have saved everybody a lot of trouble they wouldn't have to move his file cabinet
Starting point is 02:23:46 you see what i'm saying brian not no not exactly although you know they say that thomas edison liked to just take a nap wherever he was it didn't matter he would just lay down on the ground that starts sleeping imagine if he had a helic sleep mattress everywhere including jody hamilton's cubicle well that's true and and my uncle harold he had a similar habit he just like to take a shit wherever he happened to be of course that was a lot more unwieldy and it made him a lot less popular than if you just wanted to take a nap wherever you might happen to be but yeah i'll tell you what poor ain't beulah had to carry a bucket around and some towels everywhere she went but folks if you would like to fall into a lovely night's sleep well it's not an accident you don't have to be
Starting point is 02:24:34 thrown you can just fling your own self onto a helix sleep mattress and it'll help you with the snoring. You know they got the special mattresses, Brian. Where if you snore, well, they'll give you a mattress that's specifically tailored and manufactured to help you not snore.
Starting point is 02:24:54 As a matter of fact, it has a little indentation there. You just stick your face right in it. And then you put a strap on the back and your head is stuck in there. Even if you do snore, they can't hear it in the next room. Helix, not Helix. Helix has no strap on mattresses, ladies and gentlemen, but you can strap on the sales.
Starting point is 02:25:13 Do they have? I don't want to, I don't, let's talk about sleep, which we would all like to be in right now. Let's sleep. Well, speaking of being in things, let's say you're in pain. Let's say you got back pain. Well, they've got a variety of mattresses that can help you with your various sacroiliac issues. They got firm ones, they got soft ones. They got ones that fold up like a,
Starting point is 02:25:39 peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And boy, I'll tell you what, sleep apnea? You want some of that? They got one that can give you that. No, I'm sorry, that's what you want to take it away from you. Please. You don't want the sleep apnea.
Starting point is 02:25:53 You want to get, well, they have something that will help you your sleep apnea. I thought it was a positive thing, but it's a negative thing. And if you're sleeping too hot, you're sweating. Overnight, you're sweating, Brian, up there in New Jersey, sweating? Well, they've got mattresses that can, cool you, you touch these things, it's like laying your hand on an air conditioner. It'll just cool, it'll send chills all through your body, so you will never again cook
Starting point is 02:26:19 in the middle of the night. They've got all these fancy Dan things that they're making these days. And of course, at Helix, we've talked about you can, you can rest assured that no one has done any unsavory things on these mattresses ahead of time. They're brought right to your door wrapped up in plastic, not like these mattresses out at the mattresses out. mattress store that anybody and we've talked about what in the world goes on with the mattresses and people's homes brian well i think everybody out there right now you just think to the last time that granny paid a visit you know she's incontinent and she may have put a towel down but what the fuck it's still it's on your mattress in the guest room there or the kids look at what the
Starting point is 02:27:03 kids do especially when they have taco night over at basketball all practice and they come home shitting like goose. The mattresses in your homes right now people need to be replaced. Just do the blue light test, or is it a purple light? What color light, Brian, shows all the people matter and the urine? I'm yearning right now to get back on track. I like to get back on track. The semen.
Starting point is 02:27:37 There's all kinds of semen. and I'm not talking about sailors. That's right. I'm not talking about people in the merchant marine when I mentioned semen on your mattress. I'm saying, let's get to the point. Let's get to the point and let's talk about the mattresses.
Starting point is 02:27:53 Helix sleep.com slash JCE is the code that you can use to go to Helix and get your fine, clean mattress in a variety of different ways. They got the Lux mattress collection, the elite mattress collection. They'll have done. delineate all those, you take the little quiz, you get the mattress delivered to your door, you sleep well forevermore, you sleep so good you never want to get up again.
Starting point is 02:28:18 You sleep so well that you tell your family just leave you alone and let you atrophy in that bed. And you can do it cheaper than ever before right now because for Memorial Day, and actually all the way until June the first I'll have you know, 27% off sitewide and a free bedding bundle with any Lux or Elite Mattress Order, by the way. So 27% off sitewide for anything you got and a free betting bundle, which is a sheet set and mattress protector if you buy any of the Lux or Elite Mattress Collection items. 27% off of anything is good enough, but then if you get the free bedding bundle. Well, now the sheet, the mattress
Starting point is 02:29:05 protector, that's a big deal. Especially if you have children or pets or incontinent senior citizens. Or let's just say that you get shit-faced drunk every now and then and don't actually get up whenever you just piss yourself. Why don't we just focus on we know these mattresses should be rotated
Starting point is 02:29:27 quite a bit. You know what that means, Jim? It's time to wrap it up. Yes. Helixleep.com slash JCE. That's where you go to save that money and get that mattress. You know what that means?
Starting point is 02:29:42 That's right. Helixleep.com slash JCE. No, that's not what we use for Helix, Jim. You can make money on these mattresses too if you do it right. No, we're at the end.
Starting point is 02:29:57 We're not even close to the end. We are at the end. We will not continue. Helixleep.com slash JCE. charged by the hour. Oh, there it is again. This keeps happening.
Starting point is 02:30:11 But Jim, we're going to continue on with the show. And, of course, we have questions, and we have all sorts of stuff, and I think we're going to try to tackle at least part of the AEW male roster, otherwise known as the AEW roster, later on here on the show. Well, let's get a few questions here. I have the Colt of Cornette Facebook group, as well as the corny drive-thru at gmail.com questions. This question was sent via the cult of Cornette by Zach Williams,
Starting point is 02:30:43 the Facebook group that is. Does Jim have a particular wrestling hotel story that stands out above the rest? A wrestling hotel story? Now, those two worlds can intersect in a variety of different ways where the wrestling matches at the hotel, the wrestlers were staying at the hotel, the wrestlers were wrestling someone at the hotel.
Starting point is 02:31:11 I'm trying to figure out which way to approach this thing. I mean, there's the stories of, I wasn't there at this point in time, but Andre the giant fallen asleep on drunk, on a couch in the lobby of the hotel, and them not being able to move him, so they just put like a piano cover over the top of him and roped him off until he got up the next day.
Starting point is 02:31:35 What's the craziest night you ever had in a hotel, you know, going from town to town? Hey, wait a minute now. Hold up once again. Not involving just like, you know, hookers showed up and they were, you know, I killed them with my special magical crack and I made Frankenhooker. No, like, I, I try. Oh, you, so now we know who wrote that script. I tried not to have any insane incidents of the wrestling.
Starting point is 02:32:01 variety at the hotels that I stayed at, but there was, again, there was that time we told a story. I came down in the lobby of the double tree there in Orlando and Dutch Mantel was talking to the cops because they had come talking about Johnny Devine who made the other I just listened to this clip the other day actually. Yeah. Made the other hotel desk clerk cry because he was yelling at her some shit. You know, it depended. The thing about hotels. and the boys is in the territory days,
Starting point is 02:32:35 it could be a blessing or a curse because what you wanted was you wanted to find a hotel in all the towns that you regularly went to that would give the boys a rate. If, you know, the guys are coming in, they're going to get 10, 12, 14 rooms or whatever at a time. And also, if the manager was, you know, cool,
Starting point is 02:32:58 then you could get late checkout, right? because usually you had to check out of a hotel at noon. Well, what if you're at the goddamn building that night? You've got to be there at 6, 37 o'clock. What are you going to do all day? So the regular hotels would give late checkouts to the boys or, you know, just say you're with Crockett promotions or world-class wrestling or whatever.
Starting point is 02:33:20 But then invariably, the boys would then turn around and fuck it up. You find a place that gives you a rate, has a good restaurant, at late checkout, you know, whatever the fuck. And some of the guys would do whatever the boys do. And, you know, then you'd have to go around and find another places. So that used to be a thing when you went to a new territory. Every time you went to one of the towns for the first time, you asked the guys, where the fuck?
Starting point is 02:33:51 You know, where do we stay? And where's the rate? But sometimes that bite you and ass. Again, I've told the story about the time that, me and the midnight and Dick Murdoch ended up in that goddamn the airliner motel at the other Chicago airport midway 40 years ago when it wasn't as nice as that area as it is today. But there was another time when we first went to work for Crockett in 85
Starting point is 02:34:18 and we were booked in Charleston, West Virginia on the Atlanta tours, right? They'd go to Charleston and the Michigan town, Saginaw, Lansing, Ohio, whatever, whatever. So guess who we asked, where do we stay in Charleston, West Virginia? Black Bart. That was our first mistake. He said, you got to stay at Smiley's Motel. They've got a buffet and everything. Smiley's Motel, but I'm like, well, it's Charleston, West Virginia. But God, damn. So we get him in the rental car. And he's, oh, yeah, you get off this exit. He takes us out of downtown Charleston. And it's right on the side of the river there.
Starting point is 02:35:01 And I could remember Smiley's Motel and the sign said buffet on the other side. And this fucking joint, I don't think there was but one working light bulb in my room. And we ended up, we didn't get, we got there too late to go to the buffet. And by the time that the goddamn matches were over and we got back there, the buffet was closed. of the buffet was a non-entity, as I recall, but all night there was somebody not the boys in the next room to me arguing, I mean, guys, not men and women domestic things, but there were guys they were there arguing or yelling or whatever once in a while something would crash into the fucking wall and the picture over the head of my bed would shake.
Starting point is 02:35:51 And I'm like, what the fuck? So never take hotel recommendations. from Black Bart. But that's a lot of times the guys, you know, wanted to go wherever the cheapest rate they could get was. But I tried to have some mix of rate and or, you know, quality stay. We didn't need the Waldorf,
Starting point is 02:36:12 but I didn't want people coming through my fucking wall in the middle of the night. You know, you referenced it. I don't know if you've ever told on the air, the airliner motel story. Oh, God, I know I have. But just in case I haven't. And it'll be. probably be better in the next question anyway. Real briefly, we're on Crockett's plane,
Starting point is 02:36:32 coming from somewhere to Chicago where we're going to be at the UIC Pavilion the next afternoon. And we had all made hotel reservations in Chicago, but what we didn't know, and I think what they changed at the last minute, was that they weren't going to O'Hare Airport, they were going to Midway. And now everybody realizes they don't have no real car. They don't have no goddamn hotel room at Midway Airport in Chicago when we're going to land at 3 o'clock in a morning on a Saturday night, Sunday morning. And the pilots, as they usually did, start radioing ahead, what we're going to need, cabs or taxi, whatever. But there's nobody there. Again, this is 40 years ago at Midway Airport it wasn't a big of fucking deal then and there was nobody there that had
Starting point is 02:37:27 rental cars or that could rent cars and they were trying to call cabs but when we landed there they said well we can't get any cabs to come over here at this time of night in this neighborhood what the fuck they got one cab for 14 guys so everybody was going in groups of i think like you can get four in a cab or whatever so they've found rooms available and it's at the airliner motel okay haven't heard of that chain but they hold the rooms right so me bobby eat and stan lane dick murdock last ones to get the trip over in the cap and we get there and it is i mean the the neon sign still says air conditioned.
Starting point is 02:38:16 And this is 1980 fucking eight. And it's just, it's it's the Bates Motel. There's a guy behind the fucking desk. And as we're checking in, he said, I got the four rooms left. He said, now one room, the heat doesn't work. And it's wintertime.
Starting point is 02:38:34 But I said, I'll take that when I don't like the heat and hotel room anyway. And he said, well, one of them doesn't have the goddamn lock on the inside of the, on the outside of the door. No, how was it? The door won't lock from the outside, but you can bolt it from the inside. And Stan Lane ended up with that one somehow. And then Bobby got the room where the bed hadn't been made up yet, but the guy said, I can get you some sheets and he rings the bell,
Starting point is 02:39:05 ding, ding, ding, ding. And out comes another guy in pajamas that looked like he had just got through with shock treatments at a fucking psychiatric hospital in the 50s. And he's carrying the sheets. And he said, you want me to make your bed for you? And Bobby said, I'll do it. I'll do it. But just give me the sheets. So again, we go upstairs and we're on different floors.
Starting point is 02:39:31 There's like three or four floors. This thing, it's an old motel from the 50s. And it's got the neon sign also has an outline of a plane. And it's a goddamn propeller. plane. That's how long has things been there. So we go up to, I go up to
Starting point is 02:39:49 my floor and as I get off the elevator I look and it's a long hallway and there's like the fucking ceiling lights or every once in a while one will go out. It's like a horror movie. As I'm walking down the hall, I hear TVs going on in the rooms and I get to
Starting point is 02:40:05 my room and I open a door and I shut it and lock it behind me and I look in this entire hotel room, there's a bed, a table and a lamp next to the bed, a small table with a fucking 18-inch black and white television sitting on that and a fucking chair over in a corner. And I'm thinking, I don't want to take my shoes off and step on his carpet. And the bathroom looked like, I don't know, a fucking symbionese liberation camp fucking prison bathroom. So we're hungry. I told the guy, as soon as I put my bags in the room, I'll call
Starting point is 02:40:46 you, Bobby, and there's a white castle next door. So I sit down on the bed and I look at the fucking phone. And this, it's still a desk phone like, you know, the receiver that you could hang up back in those days. It's a table phone. But there's no dial on it, Brian. There's no dial. and where normally you remember the old hotel room phones would have a red light, like they'd light the light up if you had a message. Yeah. There's no fucking light. It's a hole in the phone.
Starting point is 02:41:20 There's no light there. And I pick it up and there's no dial tone. And I'm like, well, great now. I've got to call home at that point. I was going to call, you know, the boys. We're going to go to White Castle. So I'm sitting there to look at this phone. Like, what do I do now?
Starting point is 02:41:36 I'm selling the phone rings. And I'm saying, oh, fuck. It's from beyond the grave, right? And I answered, I said, hello, and it's Bobby. He's corn? I said, Bobby, said, I'm scared.
Starting point is 02:41:51 What the fuck? He'd walked into his room and he had three beds in his room and they were all three different sizes and different makes of bed. And so I said, how did you get me on his phone? I thought the phone was dead. He said, no,
Starting point is 02:42:09 Bobby is standing. a number of cheap motels in his life. It was the deal you had to pick it up and the guy would answer at the desk. And you say, can you get me this number? And he'd plug you like Sarah at the fucking phone company. And I'll meet you all over there at the flight castle in 15 minutes.
Starting point is 02:42:31 I'll use the pay phone over there. I've got a calling card. I can call home. And I'll be down shortly. So then I, I turned the television on. That's when I realized there's a black and white TV, but then I hear screaming from the room next door.
Starting point is 02:42:48 And I'm thinking, what the fuck? And that sounds like a different kind of screaming. I flipped around, you got one Chicago channel, and then all the rest of the channels were black and white porn. And you had to sink up the screaming to the room and the one in the room next to you, or else why is it conflicted? So, we go over there to the White Castle
Starting point is 02:43:11 where I see Paul Jones sitting there and the first thing when I walk in because now Barron Paul Jones has lived in the Carolinas for years and years they don't have White Castle. So he's sitting there he looks up at me and he says,
Starting point is 02:43:23 I don't know, I don't think the food's any good. I said, no, it's White Castle, Paul. It's supposed to taste like that. So we eat and we go back to the goddamn hotel and go back to our rooms and now found out when Stan went into his room, the one you couldn't lock from the outside.
Starting point is 02:43:43 He didn't know whether somebody might be squatting in there or not, so he kind of opened the door and kicked it open and went into the Kung Fu stance. Like, wheeh. So, Stan's in a room, he's bolted the door and he's shoved one of the tables over against the door because it won't fucking lock. It's just got the bolt on it.
Starting point is 02:44:03 Bobby's in a room with the three bears beds, and he's nervous about being in there. I'm watching the black and white porn while I'm, I didn't take my clothes off because I didn't want to sit on anything naked all night. And we just got to make it until 11 o'clock the next day. We're going to fucking leave and go to the pavilion. So after not really sleeping at all and going through all of this, we get down to lobby the next day and we're all sitting there.
Starting point is 02:44:35 We're sleepy. We're tired. We're feeling grody. whole thing and there comes Murdoch whistling and fucking happy and sets his bag to how'd y'all sleep boys and we just sleep at all this fucking hovel we were here and he's oh me and Rhodes we checked into a hotel one night next morning when we woke up we had four inches of snow on top of us because they had both gone to sleep with their heads out the window when they were puking but yeah the airliner motel at chicago midway airport if it's
Starting point is 02:45:10 there I highly recommend it. Was that the scariest hotel or motel you ever stayed at? Yes, that's the worst thing that I've ever, the worst hotel that I've ever, I think, been in. I've been in a few other. The Alamo Plaza and Shreveport, you had to get the building on the left. If you got the one on the right,
Starting point is 02:45:27 you couldn't turn the lights off at night because you'd be joined by visitors. But the one on the left was good, and they gave the boys usually the ones on the left. I think it was $20 in 1984. for the Alamo and they let Toboy's Nikola Voikoff and Crusher Darso and who the fuck else was it? It might have been Jerry Gray, I can't remember. But there was a room over the front office that you just went right up the stairs and it had three beds in it.
Starting point is 02:46:03 So they would get the three beds and they'd split. It was seven bucks each. But there you go. Well, that certainly ended the story with some hotel fear, I guess. Jim, let's get another question here. This one was sent via the Cult of Cornette Facebook group by Leonard Hayhurst. Jim did commentary on superstars in 1997 with Jim Ross as that show was limping to a close. It was once the flagship WWF show.
Starting point is 02:46:40 What does Jim remember of how the show was being taken? treated at the time, and did they know the last episode was going to be the last episode in advance? I don't remember about that, because here's the at the point of 1997, they were concentrating on raw and on cable, and they still had TV syndication on the local stations, but it was less important than it had been previously because, as I said, they were putting all their eggs in the raw basket. And syndication still existed to have the presence on local television so they could put in the local promos for when they came to Louisville or St. Louis or wherever the case may be. And WWF Superstars, as he mentioned was the flagship.
Starting point is 02:47:36 and what was it? It was Superstars was the A syndicated show. Was it then? It was Superstars? Where was Wrestling Challenge? Superstars and Wrestling Challenge was B. And like in New York, Superstars aired on Saturday with Vince McMahon and Jesse Ventura,
Starting point is 02:47:56 previously Bruno San Martino on there too. And then Sunday was Challenge with Monsoon and Heenan. Right. And then they ended up with another. syndicated show for a while there, but point being, in the early 2000s, they finally limped out, but the shows were still there, but what they did was they shot at one point before they went to Live Raw every week, you would do a pay-per-view on Sunday. Then on Monday, you would tape four one-hour Raw episodes in some building. In Tuesday, you would tape four superstars of
Starting point is 02:48:36 wrestling one-hour syndicated shows in some other arena. And in Wednesday, you would do four episodes of wrestling challenge. And around that, you would also do the Coliseum Home Video Exclusives and other shit, right? Well, then as things started gradually switching, because that was hard enough to keep track of, and you were doing an entire months of TV at a time, then the syndicated shows started becoming less important on their own, and they were shot around the big taping. So let's say you did a live two-hour raw on Monday,
Starting point is 02:49:14 you'd do syndicated TV matches around it and a taped two-hour raw for the following week on Tuesday and you'd do other syndicated matches around it. So the bottom line is they put these things together in post just with matches, and they'd plug in the interviews, and they'd get it ready, and then J.R. and I, or whoever the announcers were, would go to the studio and voice the thing over like we were there in the arena. And that's why you would get on cameras with the announcers in one of the earlier matches,
Starting point is 02:49:52 the cameras would come over and just catch the announcers sitting at ringside for a cutaway. Or you might do one little billboard spot just to prove you were in the arena. and he'd go sit in the fucking back and they'd shoot the rest of stuff and he'd do it in post. And that also led to problems when people weren't available and you had to switch announcers.
Starting point is 02:50:12 You had to, the other announcer sitting across the ring and some of the shots and obviously he wasn't doing any of the talking. But I liked that because I liked doing announcing and with JR it was so easy. So whatever morning it was, I came if it was Thursday morning.
Starting point is 02:50:33 We would be at the studio at like 10 o'clock and we'd voice over superstars and then we'd take a 15-minute break and then we would do goddamn the other show we were doing at the time which might have been international heat or might have been WWF New York or might have been whatever,
Starting point is 02:50:54 but we did two shows every week for a while that were in syndication somewhere and that was the easiest part of my fucking week. If I did it with somebody else that wasn't Jim Ross, then they always constantly had to stop and fucking pick up a line or go back or whatever, and it took for fucking ever. And I mentioned when I was doing rehearsals with Shane, and later on I did some on-air stuff with Shane on these syndicated.
Starting point is 02:51:23 It would take three, four hours. But JR and I could sit down and just say, roll the fucking tape, and we would call it live, and we'd do the show in 45 minutes. And the only time they had Jennifer Good was our producer, the only time that she would stop us is if I accidentally said wrestling. And then she'd say, substitute, something else. So I'd go back and weave my way around it without ever, I believe I mentioned. I never said the phrase sports entertainment on television, the whole.
Starting point is 02:52:00 time I worked for the WWF. Never, ever. But otherwise, and that, it was nice and easy. With other people, it was somewhat of a chore. But that's what we did, and then they just sent it out everywhere. So by then there was not a lot of thought being put into those shows. At that point, were they still doing the thing where the commentators would have like a pause and they would put Howard Finkel in to announce the local dates?
Starting point is 02:52:29 No, they'd quit doing that by that point. because they did that in the era where they, I believe, they didn't have as much commercial time or as much commercial leeway in the programs as they did in later years. Because to tell the people what you're talking about, a match would start on the show. And then suddenly the announcers would lay out and that way Finkl could come in and do a voiceover saying,
Starting point is 02:53:02 and World Wrestling Federation Action returns to Poughkeepsie at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center on Saturday, November 12th, with all the top stars and blah, blah, blah, do a 60-second plug, and then get out and you'd pick up the announcing again. But by this point in time, I think the commercial time and regulations were so relaxed
Starting point is 02:53:22 that they were just spotting the thing to death in the course of the program. All right, well, that was a good question. And you know what? I always said we'll get more questions. More next week, because if we're going to do this roster, we better start. No time like the present, I guess, is the expression.
Starting point is 02:53:38 Get it over with. We reviewed the AEW women's roster. We got your thoughts. There was one name that we forgot because she wasn't on their roster page. Mina Shirakawa. Oh, good. And I can send her along with Yucasakazaki.
Starting point is 02:53:56 All right. I'm just, I'm making this note. because we are going to, I know you can get the clip on YouTube, folks, the women's roster, but we are going to recap a lot of this when we get finished sorting things out and see who we got left. Well, let's now get to the AEW men's roster. Of course, this is as listed on the AEW website under AEW roster. So that means that it's almost official.
Starting point is 02:54:22 Almost. And we're going to start and get through the first, but this is going to be a lengthy, process and we'll have some type of nervous breakdown if we try to do the whole thing. So we're going to do this in a couple of segments. Well, here are the champions, Jim.
Starting point is 02:54:39 The AEW World Champion is John Moxley. Let's see how quickly we can get him in the parking lot with his bag headed home. He is now fired. The AEW World Tag Team champions are the Hurt Syndicate, Bobby Lashley and Benjamin Shelton.
Starting point is 02:54:56 And let's put them right over here in the yes they are our talent roster and main event level talent at that. The AEW international champion is Kenny Omega. You know, we said and by the way, let's do the same premise
Starting point is 02:55:15 that we talked about on the women's roster. We're not dealing with, we don't know what a lot of these people's attitudes are or whether they're, you know, space cadets or brain surgeons. Loaded on clean. And we're not loaded on
Starting point is 02:55:31 cratum we're not going to go on the booking that has been done to them we are picking talent based on if i had a wrestling company would i want this guy working for me on the roster and with kenny as much as i detest his personality his wrestling style the things that he's done in the past with the up dolls and the sex toys and the variety of embarrassing things he's done in a way of wrestling, the audience still for whatever reason does somewhat like him. But looking at that and also looking at the fact that he's 40 years old with multiple surgeries and has already said his best years are behind him and he doesn't know how much longer he can do this, I'm going to kick him to the curb because he's too old and broken down and not because he's a
Starting point is 02:56:31 miserable douchebag. That's not what I expected. I thought you were going to keep him. You're going to say, you know what, he's in shape? He's still a star. He's still one of their draws. No, because I don't want him right now. I want any of these people for what they can do for me over the next two to three to five years. And besides that, let's face it, we know where Kenny's heads at.
Starting point is 02:56:56 he's like a lot of these other ones and who was the dip shit lately that put his foot in his mouth about oh uh old osprey talking about oh a w just blows our w w away and the wrestling mate all the aspects of the wrestling it's a hell of an accent there so i don't think you can i think we've established it you can't really learn people like kenny how to participate in a real wrestling promotion. So yeah, he's a good athlete,
Starting point is 02:57:31 but his wrestling sucks and he doesn't take any of it seriously and he's old and he's broken down. So if I want a guy who does a lot of stupid shit athletically and has a goofy personality and is a markish in his demeanor, I'll take Osprey because he's 10 years younger and a better athlete,
Starting point is 02:57:56 and he's not quite as douchebaggy as Kenny when he talks. But don't you want someone who's established with that audience just so you could always beat them to try to get the next person over? This audience is, you can be established with this audience. If Hong Kong Fu-I is establishing himself with this audience, it doesn't take any talent. We're talking about building a wrestling company, not a goddamn performance art troop of high school drama class dropouts.
Starting point is 02:58:30 So I wouldn't keep Kenny, I'd keep Osprey. Well, we didn't get the Ospre yet, but let's keep going through this. The TNT champion is Adam Cole. If I had the Adam Cole of 2015 instead of the Adam Cole of 2025, it makes me nervous watching Adam in the ring these days. I think he needs to, you know what, I'm going to put Adam in the middle because there's something we can find to do with him in a wrestling promotion. Oh, stop it.
Starting point is 02:59:01 Something. No, I'm not talking about maybe wrestling, but something. I'm putting him in the middle. Playing video games on YouTube, I think would be what his benefit could be to the wrestling promotion. Jim, the AW-W World Trio's champions are the ops. Samoa Joe,
Starting point is 02:59:17 Powerhouse Hobbs, and Shabata. Okay, Samoa Joe is kept immediately, so is Hobbs. sorry Shapupey we'll see you later and obviously again Joe and Ken he's got credibility
Starting point is 02:59:37 he can present himself as a main eventer and he's you know Hobbs could get there we've been talking about it may be getting too late this has been a while but Shepoopee is it's just for the fucking A.W.
Starting point is 02:59:54 marks that think that anybody from Japan is automatically supposed to be a good wrestler. It's ridiculous. Jim, the AEW Continental Champion. These are still the champions. We haven't even got to the roster yet. We already killed half the champions, don't worry about it. The AEW Continental Champion, Kazushka Okada. Oh, please.
Starting point is 03:00:14 I'll tell you what. If AEW was my company and I immediately got that son of a bitch in the part of the deal, inherited his contract, I would immediately sue him for fraud and misrepresentation and try to claw back the money that he had been paid so far to be a professional wrestler, because with the effort he's put in, he would deserve that level of treatment. This is the most boring, disappointing, sloppy, lazy fucking do-nothing motherfucker that's ever walked in the face of a goddamn wrestling rank. I've just... A fashion icon. Please let me put the... this in goddamn capitals fire okada well let's now get to the main roster non-champions again this is
Starting point is 03:01:04 according to their website because there are names here i heard were not under contract anymore but they are here but let's go through this and others are in their updated gimmick so yeah if we make any mistakes pardon us ladies and gentlemen we're only reading the roster page from the company's website jim aaron solo I know for whatever reason That was a long time ago in a galaxy far away Jim from the team of crew Action ends ready
Starting point is 03:01:37 Oh Christ on a cracker No he looks As a matter of fact Well we'll get there but Are he and the top flight guys And two or three of these other fucking midgets Are they all from the same litter? I don't think so
Starting point is 03:01:54 I think he's from one part of the country. They're from another part of the country. They all wrestle the same. They talk the same. They dress the same. I can't tell one of them from the other one. So you're not taking action Andretti as well? No, Jericho made him a superstar.
Starting point is 03:02:09 He's free to be a free agent and go get the best deal. What about Hangman Adam Page? You know, it's sad. Again, we're supposed to be just okay on talent. And would they be a boon to a company ignoring the previous book but we know his attitude sucks. Besides the fucking whole brew ha-ha with punk, he's the guy that said,
Starting point is 03:02:37 when they asked him on a public interview, said, well, do you ask the veterans for advice? No, I really don't take advice from anybody. So take my advice, Paige, you're fired. What about Alex Abrahontes? Where is he still there? See, he's one of the examples of someone who I thought may be gone. or maybe he was out.
Starting point is 03:03:00 But no, because he wasn't even really a manager. He just, he was entertaining with the Lucha brothers because God knows something about them had to be entertaining. But no, I mean, you know, I don't really, as an announcer, didn't he announce? That's how he started. Remember, and that was the best stuff he ever did when they introduced him at first. He was the Spanish announcer. And then all of a sudden he started doing the Penta says,
Starting point is 03:03:25 and it worked at first, and then it kind of. Didn't. Yeah. What about Alex Reynolds from the Dark Order? Oh, good Lord. Let's not do that either. From the Spanish Announce Project on Helico. Oh, for fuck's sake.
Starting point is 03:03:44 No, no, a thousand times, no. Sid, this is the problem. And I mean, you can't tell me there's... Oh, no, go ahead. That's your problem. Well, but you can't tell me they're still paying this fucking guy. It's been six years. I couldn't tell you.
Starting point is 03:04:00 This is all the guys they started with that were on indie shows that were their friends, that they thought, oh, if only a big audience could see and then the big audience saw and said, what the fuck? It's all indie guys. And there's nothing wrong with being an indie guy and wanting to live your dream of being a wrestler. But only on indie shows with indie crowds. What about Cool Hand Luke Parker? Excuse me, not Luke.
Starting point is 03:04:32 His name's Angelo. We redo that. I don't know why I said Luke. Well, that's his name, Cool Hand Luke. That's what threw me off. That's what threw me off. He partners with Daddy Mac MacDady. Well, his name is Angelo Parker, Cool Hand.
Starting point is 03:04:47 Well, let's not do Angelo either. Because, again, it's just nondescript look, non-descript. We don't know. What about Anthony Bowens? Where is he gone? Well, they did the big turn with him and Max Caster, the big breaker. And then he beat Caster in 30 seconds and we've never seen either one of them again. I guess that means he's on collision.
Starting point is 03:05:15 I remember Bowens being a pretty good fucking athlete, wasn't he? And he could work. Let's let's save Bowens for right now. You know, there's two big benefits. He's a good athlete. He's gotten himself over. I guess that's two right there, but also he's never going to be a problem in the back. And there's something to be said for that.
Starting point is 03:05:35 Someone who's going to get along with everyone. So there, so we got to, so we've kept, so far we've kept Bobby Lashley, Shelton, Benjamin, Samoa Joe, Hobbs, and Bowens. Are you're a racist, there's not enough white guys. Let's go now, Jim, to a man who is in both Shane. There isn't, there isn't a white guy yet, come to think of it. A man in Shane Taylor promotions. He's the governor, Anthony Agogo. Oh, and he's gone gone.
Starting point is 03:06:08 The governor. The governor. The governor. The governor. You know what? They need to make him the ambassador to West Fabersham so they can open up a pipeline to OVW. Jim, what about A.R. Fox?
Starting point is 03:06:24 What about him? Keep them? he's an athletic son of a bitch and if you could produce him let's keep him over there for the undercar see I like him because he seems like he's like a friendly street dancer just working hard to feed his younger sister or something like you know there's something relatable about him
Starting point is 03:06:45 and he seems nice except when he helped kidnap Nick Wayne or whatever he did back in the day I was about to say yeah he helped with some kind of he had a hard time look he's trying to make money to feed his family yeah he's got a lot all right well well We still need white guys over here. The next one here, I thought this is ricochet. This is not ricochet. Aria Davari from Premier Athletes.
Starting point is 03:07:08 Okay, that's Sean DeVari's brother, and I don't know him as well as I know Sean. I've always was a big fan of Sean's. I don't remember, honestly, seeing anything of what Aria could do. So I don't know what to say there. Are you working there? I haven't seen him on TV. Are you working there?
Starting point is 03:07:28 Let's put Ari in the middle. In the middle, based on what? We haven't even seen him. Based on, I just, I feel bad for him because he's the brother of somebody I like and I don't remember actually what the fuck he's ever done. At least here in this particular situation. Jim, from the Bang Bang Gang, what about Austin Gunn? Where are the guns?
Starting point is 03:07:51 They had that thing they did with the Hurt Syndicate and then they were just gone again. Well, we want the gun, boys. We want Austin, we want Colton. Colton is who we want. We want Austin and Colton Gunn. All right, well. We want the guns, they work their asses off, they're athletic. They were getting a little over the top trying to stand out in a goddamn, you know, circus parade. But they've got all kinds of potential.
Starting point is 03:08:24 What about the Ring of Honor World Champion, Band, I mean, he's popular. Again, can you produce this guy? I don't know. Let's save him. Let's save him. We'll put him down there. What about the Redwood? Big Bill. You know, again, we said we weren't going to talk about previous booking.
Starting point is 03:08:55 I would take Big Bill. Something can be done with Big Bill. Don't let him speak for very long, change his name, give him a partner that can talk, or a manager that can talk or something and produce his ass to where he doesn't do anything stupid to be a seven-foot giant. And there might be something there. You really have to see some of the photos on this page. Jim, what about Daddy Ass, Billy Gunn? You know, Billy, to me, is in the back, produced. training, being entertaining.
Starting point is 03:09:34 Billy's not on cap. Billy overshadowed, what was their names, Castor and Bowens, the acclaimed. It became all about Billy, and then the thing with the kids, I think Billy is a valuable asset backstage and to tell guys blatantly to their face
Starting point is 03:09:54 maybe what to fucking do, but I wouldn't put him on television right now. Jim, from the Gates of Agony, Bishop Khan. Okay. I mean, all I look at when I see the fake Samoans is fake Samoans, bloodline rip-offs. I've seen these guys, and I don't get it.
Starting point is 03:10:16 Jim, do you get Brandon Cutler? Yes, but fortunately, penicillin will cure it. Are you keeping Brandon Cutler? Yes, I'm keeping him in custody until we can have the police come and pick him up for impersonating a wrestler. No, he's, he's gone, gone, he's way past gone. He's in the archives, he's vapor, he's history, he's legend.
Starting point is 03:10:42 What about, and this person's injured right now, but what about Brian Cage from the Don Callas family? I think he's an idiot. I don't think that you could tell him how to take advantage of the look and the athletic ability that he's got. He's a fucking beast who has a better body than Lex Lugar and he wants to do back flips and get his,
Starting point is 03:11:03 shit in. I don't think he's got the high gear to kick into to be a real effective, aggressive fucking heel. But I don't think you can get any sympathy on him as a baby face. I think he's a guy with a great body that could have made a million dollars if he didn't just concentrate on doing fucking moves. So I'd backflip him on out through the parking lot. Jim from the Hounds of Hell, Brody King. You know, let's keep him. because he's big and tattooed up. And I've said before, he looks kind of like he would have been great in territories. He looks kind of like an indie level heel,
Starting point is 03:11:50 but he would have been a top heel in a group in one of the smaller mid-sized territories. But let's see if we can do something with him. Of course, again, he's probably one of these indie-minded clowns, but if you could produce him, there could be something there. again he's on the list here i don't know how you would consider him brian danielson you know before i would have said the same thing i just said about billy even though he's retired from wrestling i would have him in the back to help guys train guys whatever he's not as entertaining as billy gun just to sit around and talk to but but i think he's goddamn lost his fucking mind with this
Starting point is 03:12:36 indie bullshit along with the buckaroos and all the people of that ilk and i think he's he really thinks this shit that he did last few years was good, as opposed to when he was really one of the best, if not the best wrestler in the world. I don't think I want people spreading his fucking thoughts around the locker room if I'm trying to do a real wrestling company, just being candid and honest. Can you disagree with me based on what you've seen?
Starting point is 03:13:03 Well, if we're taking him as a wrestler out of the equation, you're even just talking about him as an agent, a producer. Yeah. If you can't trust his instincts to think the right thing or do the right thing, what good is he in that role? And, you know, he's just going to encourage all of the children to live their dream rather than make me some fucking money. So, yeah, Brian, enjoy your retirement.
Starting point is 03:13:28 We all love you. Well, let's stay on the topic of Brian's with a why, the bad apple, Brian Keith. I mean, I've got nothing against him, but he's small and, he did it you can get anybody sorry brian you were better on family affair Jim also from the hounds of hell how about Sebastian cabot should we send him along with him how about buddy matthews buddy matthews does not go on the roster but the person that buddy matthews would be renamed as is one of my favorite prospects yes i'd keep buddy matthews in a heartbeat would that be
Starting point is 03:14:10 of your favorite projects if you were actually in charge of this project? Yes, because there's something, he, if nothing else, he looks like a fucking caveman. But with that body, with that explosive athletic ability, with the, the work that he's able, he's not just, yes, he's great at doing moves. And I say that derogatorily sometimes, but with that size and with that physique and with that physique, and with that speed and with that explosive athletic ability and doing the move where it's smooth and doesn't hurt himself or someone else,
Starting point is 03:14:48 that's a big part of wrestling. I don't know if he can talk. If he can't talk, make him the missing link junior where he doesn't have to fucking talk. But there's got to be some way that that guy can draw some money into wrestling business. We just got to find out what it is.
Starting point is 03:15:06 Jim, what about, I don't know who this is. well that's a strong recommendation already from the infantry looks like someone I used to work with them Ralph Hensio from the infantry and also from Shane Taylor promotions Charlie Bravo I mean what do you do when you couldn't pick a guy
Starting point is 03:15:29 of a police lineup I assume if he was that good he would have been brought to our attention so over and out Charlie Bravo this is the roster paying these people? Jim from FTR Cash Wheeler.
Starting point is 03:15:47 Well, obviously you keep cash again. We're not talking about previous booking. And he's along with Buddy and a couple of other guys physically the most impressive fucking in-ring performer they've got.
Starting point is 03:16:03 Well, you also have to be scared of you said, cash, I'm not renewing you. Oh, God, he's got his gun out again. I got to run. Come on. No, don't do that. He was found not liable or innocent or not guilty or whatever he was found. He didn't get in trouble over it. Jim, what about Chris Jericho? Sorry, Chris. You know what? It's terrible to say that. Because obviously, you wouldn't want him wrestling regularly because of his age and you, less would be more there. You'd get a name and a legendary superstar to come in for two,
Starting point is 03:16:41 or three pay-per-views a year and some things like that, and you would get your value out of him. But he's, besides the fact that he's gone mental, you know, he just, now it's just shameless self-promotion above all else and the whole thing. I mean, we need younger, fresher guys. And he ain't young or fresh. Jim, what about from the patriarchy, Christian Cage? I mean, the same thing in that, you know, I don't, he's got a name and at least he's not behaved publicly like he's going through a midlife crisis like Jericho.
Starting point is 03:17:28 He can cut a heck of a promo. I haven't talked to him in a long time to know where his head's at on the children's wrestling or whether he's just, you know, taking Tony's money and not worrying about it. but he's another guy that I might want to, depending on where his head is at these days, have in the back to talk to guys. But, you know, again, even though he's, he can certainly outwork fucking Brandon Cutler at half his age, but I, you know, no, this is not the over the hill gang. If you have somebody that age, it's going to be very, very special.
Starting point is 03:18:08 Again, this next person I think is retired and working as an agent, the Kentucky gentleman, Chuck Taylor. All I can tell you about fucking Chuck Taylor is he wouldn't be working. He wouldn't even be allowed to panhandle anywhere around of wrestling promotion. I had anything to do with. What about from the Death Riders, Claudio Castignoli? I said I wasn't going to count previous books. against anybody, I'm keeping Claudio.
Starting point is 03:18:46 There is something, I'm sorry, there's something that could be, he's not going to be the main event, he's not going to be the champion, but on a roster of wrestling promotion, there's something could be done with a guy that talented. Better than what they've done. Better than what they've done, absolutely. But I don't think Claudio, I think that's a wasted
Starting point is 03:19:08 roster spot, if you ask me. What about this next one, Jim? Boom, boom. Colt Cabana Is the boom boom sound of when we fire him out of a cannon to make sure that he flies a long way away from us?
Starting point is 03:19:26 It's ridiculous. He's not over the hill because he never got up the hill to begin with. He can't get the comedy out of his fucking blood. He's a joke, cosplaying wrestling. He was patient zero for joke cosplaying wrestlers.
Starting point is 03:19:42 That's why all the kookamonga kids and the lollipop guild looked up to him as a hero what about from the bang bang gang cult and gun well i've already got him up there with his brother yeah we're definitely keeping him what about the rated r superstar cope and they've actually got him under the seas under the name cope oh this applies again Again, Christian, Jericho, Edge, major names all over 50. If I'm putting a roster together, I'm looking at the next two to five years,
Starting point is 03:20:29 and they ain't going to be there. So with Edge again, I would have said, you know, great for training or attitude or whatever, except he's a guy that was in the fucking match with the fucking spike sticking out of the bat, with Dick the Boozer. So a lot of these guys have, you could almost tell who of the 50 year old generation has gone crazy because the ones that don't stay in the WWE system
Starting point is 03:20:57 and the ones that have gone crazy go over here and want to play with the children. But I don't see it. On the list that we have kept, besides for Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin, I think the maximum age around 40-ish and
Starting point is 03:21:16 tell me that'll Ashley and Benjamin look old and, you know, I'll go along with you, but no, we need younger people
Starting point is 03:21:26 that are serious professional wrestlers and not either ex, you know, pass their prime superstars or cosplaying children that want to do indie shit.
Starting point is 03:21:40 What about very nice, very evil Danhausen? You can't mean to tell me that that was the name you were up to right after I said no cosplaying children. That's what comes after Cope, Danhausen. Okay. Well, let's, well, you know, we don't wish Danhausen any ill.
Starting point is 03:22:00 I don't think he's ever actually wrestled there to begin with. So we don't want him to wrestle for us. But if he wants to guest on Svengu'lli, then we can talk. But enjoy your no-work contract. we're saying. I haven't seen them on TV in a year and a half, two years. Nowhere, man, please listen. Jim, what about Daniel Garcia? Oh, for Christ, say.
Starting point is 03:22:29 Well, besides, you know, he's got a lot of attributes. He's got that incredible physique. I'm sorry, he's got that incredible promo ability. I say he's got that wonderful movie star look. I'm saying, yeah, okay, Daniel Garcia is, is, Is his uncle Jerry still hiring for the band? Let's not associate Daniel Garcia with the genius that was Jerry Garcia. I thought you were going to say, let's not associate Daniel Garcia with the dead.
Starting point is 03:22:57 And then I could say, well, I'd like to. You know, Jim, we'll get back to this in a second. But if I was a member of Jerry Garcia's family and I heard you say something about Daniel Garcia being a member of the family, let alone related to the great Jerry Garcia, are you about to threaten me with legal action? I may want to sue. Well, and I know exactly who and how. how and where you would make your phone call to.
Starting point is 03:23:24 Call Stephen P. Nune, a mud show for two. Those are the rest. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, the new law office.com. 87750, Steve, for our good friend and yours, but not your opponent. Stephen P. New, the consigliary of the cult of cornet, the man that is crusade. to clean up the jails in West Virginia. You know I cleaned up the jails in West Virginia? He let all the people out and sent them to California.
Starting point is 03:24:14 And now there's shit taking place out there too. And Stephen P. New can either get you out of jail or put the person that messed with you in jail or at least make them pay a lot of money. He can do a variety of bad things to people and he does it in the name of law, order, and justice. Stephen P. New law office. 87750 Steve is the number.
Starting point is 03:24:40 Somebody's got to write us a jingle, a musical jingle. 87750 Steve, that's the number to call and you won't believe. How good he's going to be to you when he gets you all the money. And you can buy your own zoo. Got to work on those lyrics. Stephen P. New, new law office.com, 8750, Steve, the number to call. all for justice and money.
Starting point is 03:25:10 Well, if you put it that way, new law office.com. But Jim, let's finish up. Let's return to the roster. We'll go a little bit longer. We are right now in D, but it looks like we move pretty quickly from there. And that's another thing. That's another thing. They start with the first name instead of the last name.
Starting point is 03:25:27 If you're looking for Garcia, he's not in the G's, he's in the D's. Well, Jim, also in the D's. Dante Martin of Top Flight. I'm going to need a second page of paper for all these firings. Okay, Dante Martin, Dante work here no more. Well, hold on now one second. You're talking about the future and Top Flight and his brother's right here too,
Starting point is 03:25:49 Darius Martin. They are a younger tag team who does spectacular stuff. You don't think there's something you could do with them? They're a younger tag team who does spectacularly sloppy stuff, and if I'm not mistaken, both of them have been seriously injured over the past few years and the until they can you know who shows me something is old Kyle Felcher from the time that he showed up what a year ago on TV until now he's put on 25 30 pounds he's got to be on a sauce and I admire his dedication but he's changed his physique he's growing up he's
Starting point is 03:26:26 getting bigger he's getting he's polishing himself these two mopes look the same as they did five years ago So, and their indie guys doing indie matches. And yes, I think it was Dante is the amazing leaper. But they do the same thing now and look the same as they did five years ago. I don't see any progress. And I'm not talking about booking them different ways. I'm talking about getting a goddamn gym, come up with some kind of fucking gimmick, a look, something. they look like seven other fucking people on the roster.
Starting point is 03:27:11 Well, Jim, the Conqueror of Everest, Darby Allen. We got to keep him. We might have to fucking put him on a contract where he's handcuffed after every match and taken and put in a box somewhere until the next night's show so he can't do anything stupid. But all things being equal, he has a weird. unique charisma. There's some way you could get something out of that,
Starting point is 03:27:40 but not if he in any way makes any of his own decisions about anything in his life. You'd have to feed him. You'd actually have to feed that guy. You could make a bunch of money with him, but you'd have to feed him. You'd have to show him the proper way to piss. I mean, you'd have to start from the ground up.
Starting point is 03:27:59 I want to talk about people looking the same. There's multiple people on the page I'm looking at right now with the same bald head look. from FTR, Dax Harwood. Obviously, we're keeping Dax like we're keeping cash, because again, they've been booked into insensibility, but they are the best performing tag team in the company, and you could do something with them that's been better than what's done,
Starting point is 03:28:28 especially if they are produced and if Dax stays off Twitter. From Los Faxia. Ingobernaille The fuckers and the goobers draw Listico Uh draw a map for him to be able to get home Jim, both Ring of Honor World Tag Team Champion and Ring of Honor
Starting point is 03:28:51 World Six Man Tag Champion Dustin Rhodes You know what, you've got to keep Dustin and he's the one guy over 50 that you have on the roster and then you do a proper retirement angle, retirement tour, retirement, whatever, what they were going to do with Jeff, who we might have to keep him also,
Starting point is 03:29:24 just so we can see how that turned out. Oh, give me a break. But just, I've got one more year and I want to go out. it was some level of my head held high and some heel is trying to fuck with him Dustin's great with that type of thing and then you transition him to training working in the back whatever the case
Starting point is 03:29:45 I like all of his promos now or his confrontations they all begin with him screeching the other person's name James like everyone's name he just screeches it out well remember it was his idea that he had remember when Gold Dust had Tourette's.
Starting point is 03:30:04 That was his idea? But, well, it came from, he was in the locker room constantly just acting like he had Tourette's and it was so fucking people hurt when they finished laughing at him that they ended up doing it as one of those cases of ribbon yourself. Jim, what about the Mad King Eddie Kingston? I think that time has passed. And remember, we had, when he first got there, and even though he looks pretty slovenly for a professional athlete,
Starting point is 03:30:37 there was the gimmick and the personality, and then they did the article, and he had a window there, and then he got hurt, and then his matches, I mean, you would have had to expose his wrestling on a limited basis to begin with if you were using him properly. And now I think he's just, yeah, I think time is gone. I'm sorry. from the dark order
Starting point is 03:31:03 evil uno oh for fucks let's seriously uh no the fat fucking counter clerk with a goddamn mask on literally cosplaying as a wrestler you ought to see what this motherfucker
Starting point is 03:31:18 looks like with I saw him at a Ring of Honor TV taping one time at the ECW arena I thought the guy from the concession stand from the hot dog thing had come in the back and I was fixed to kick him out He has to cover the face, but he hadn't figured out a way to cover the fucking body.
Starting point is 03:31:39 No, he's another one of the goddamn children that, maybe they were the Super Smash Brothers. And I had people in, this was in 2010, saying, well, they're the best tag team in the world. When we were featuring Mark and Jay Briscoe, Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin, they there were fans saying but the super smash brothers are the best tag team in the world this fat fucking is goddamn weird friend Jim what about that's what I had to put up with
Starting point is 03:32:14 in Ring of Honor Jim what about Griff Garrison what about him what do you want to do with him I would have fired him I didn't know he still I didn't know he still worked there either did I again tall bad haircut no body no physique we haven't seen him in years and there wasn't nothing to look at anyway. He was the anchor around poor Brown Pilman Jr.'s neck till he escaped the asylum. Jim, what about hologram? How far can we project him?
Starting point is 03:32:47 Again, what the fuck? You've got hologram. You've got gravity. You've got fucking space capsule. I don't know, all of the various Mexican guys with these weird names that do the same shit. they're all minute. You can't tell one apart.
Starting point is 03:33:05 There's not a Ray Mysterio in that crowd. Gravity's not on the list, by the way. Gravity, that's who I was thinking about. Oh, gravity ain't on the list. Well, gravity absconded, didn't he, to go back to Mexico? Or was that the other guy? I really don't know. Part of that new AAA thing.
Starting point is 03:33:22 Now, that was Vikingo. Yes, El Hiho, the Vikingo. Okay, well, Vikingo, hologram, gravity. You know, no, no. Jim from the ops, hook. We are, we're going to keep that young man
Starting point is 03:33:47 and we're going to put him in a different program. And we're going to start him out. That program's called Save by the Bell. Well, no, we're going to put him in. We're going to start him out as the young son of Taz, the announcer and he's a fucking mixed martial arts student or judo specifically or whatever and we're going to start him at the bottom like a preliminary wrestler and we're going to work his way up whether and he's not going to eat no potato chips but we're going to see if
Starting point is 03:34:25 something's there when you concentrate on something serious for a period of time instead of trying to make this honestly undersized underaged young man, some kind of cool fucking modern day James Dean with a sack of potato chips and a bad haircut, and we're going to see if a regular traditional wrestling push where they see him grow up in front of their eyes might get any interest. And if it doesn't, we're going to fire him. Jim, what about from Private Party? Isaiah Cassidy.
Starting point is 03:35:05 What's his partner's name? Mark Quinn. Mark Quinn. Cassidy goes, Quinn stays. Quinn's the one that does, and that's another thing, because I don't need the Martin, because I think of the high jumpers, Mark Quinn was the highest jumper,
Starting point is 03:35:23 and he was the one that was the most impressive with all of the flying shit. This was several years ago when they were using those guys. So I would eliminate all the half-ass flyers and constant, there's my Ray Mysterio, but he's not five foot two, Mark Quinn. He's the guy that will do the flying shit, so it will all get over, and he's the best one at it. We don't need 18 of them. We just need the one guy to do that particular thing. But again, you talk about people who have had injury issues. We've had long gaps where Mark Quinn wasn't available, and I think
Starting point is 03:35:59 it may have been due to injury. Does that scare you off that? Well, if he gets hurt again, I'll fire him. All right. Mr. Happy, Jim from the elite, the scapegoat, Jack Perry. And again, he's gone, sorry. This is a guy, we don't hold the booking against him, but I do hold him against him. And where Jungle Boy was the cute mid-card baby face that could sell and come back and had some fire to him.
Starting point is 03:36:36 That's a good spot for him. he wasn't ever going to be a main event guy, but because he's friends with the fucking Lilliputians, they try to make him some kind of badass heel and he's not even put down by being set on fire with a flamethrower. He's got a bad attitude. He thinks his shit don't stink and he's proven that he's not coachable.
Starting point is 03:37:02 And he's also proven that he's an idiot because he ran his dick licker to see him punk and got face locked. So you don't need that. He's not big enough nor in any way a great enough wrestling talent to compensate for having a fucking whiny little bitch in your locker room.
Starting point is 03:37:22 So I don't think he's of much use to anybody. I hate to say that if it was just he's he's the cute curly-haired guy that we can put in the middle as a Ricky Morton-style baby face. That'd be great. but he those days are gone yeah that ain't coming back i don't think with this guy and jim we will finish with jay here we have a few more to go and then we will pick up next time with k
Starting point is 03:37:47 speaking of jay j lethal j lethal j lethal obviously we would keep uh not holding booking against him he's let's see uh he's better than he's a better worker in the ring than half the guys all ready that I said I'd keep, and I'm firing twice as many as I'm keeping. Again, he's not going to be the champion of a major organization. He can be the Ring of Honor champion. He's not going to, I don't know if I call AEW a major organization, but he's not your world champion, but he's a quality talent that can be used in a variety of ways. One of the things that made him attractive in a ring of honor was not only that he had some mainstream television exposure, so the average person would see who he was or would know who he was,
Starting point is 03:38:43 but also that he could work with the younger guys that were starting to be younger then, but try to slow him down a little bit and try to give him a little pace at the same time. So he's giving them some on-the-job training from being in the ring on bigger shows and with bigger talent than those guys had been. And also he was great with personal appearances. You could schedule him with a station-oriented appearance and he wasn't going to show up fucked up or late or piss him by off or insult anybody or leave earlier, whatever.
Starting point is 03:39:19 So you want him, whether he's in a group or a tag team or whatever, you want him to mean enough on your cards. And guys like that, who I could, maybe a Claudio is a heel if it's that middle card area or but no you know he's not going to fuck up but you know people aren't going to watch him but they're not he's you're just on Claudio you don't have a show where people are going to watch everybody on the show some of the people are on the show to facilitate the furtherance of the people that they are going to watch but i've and jay has much more personality than claudio but you are fox you want some guys
Starting point is 03:40:04 on the card, Bowens. They're never going to be the champion, but you want them on the card because they can perform with other people and you could do a little thing here and there. But Jay Lethal, I would use upper mid-card at the very least and in some type of meaningful
Starting point is 03:40:21 spot to be a gatekeeper of people who are ready to take the next step. Again, I think it would have been... Anyway. I think years ago, maybe one thing, but right now I can't see that, but you're the expert. Who with Jay or with Claudia?
Starting point is 03:40:36 Either, either of them right now in 2025. You've got a guy that can always, could always perform and you can count on and is still young because he started as a teenager. I'm not, again, saying you fucking. Well, actually, I didn't even think about it. How old is Jay Lethal? Jay Lethal is, hold on when,
Starting point is 03:40:55 let me see, three years ago. He's 36, 37. 40 years old, 40. 40. 40. he's an old man so now you keeping some old man on your roster I said 40s I'll keep
Starting point is 03:41:10 50s they got to go Jim what about the next one here I don't want to get bogged on Jay Lethal from the bang bang gang Jay White I mean surprised you're thinking about I didn't expect you to actually take time to think about it interesting well but here's the thing
Starting point is 03:41:33 if I'm keeping A.R. Fox I'm going to keep Jay White I won't let him do these interminable live interview views. He and Juice, that's still my favorite tag team match I've seen in the last five years with FTR. Jay White and Juice Robinson as a tag team
Starting point is 03:41:52 had something. And they fucked that up by making Juice a sidekick and trying to push Jay White as a single. And Jay White's never going to be a star as a single in any way, shape, or form anywhere in this world. But Jay and Juice as a tag team, I would have bought and I would have pushed. So I'll keep him and see if we can do that again.
Starting point is 03:42:18 And Juice can talk. And Jay can stand there and nod. He's up ahead, so I guess I'll just include it now. Rock Hard, Juice Robinson from the Bang Bang Gang Gang. Juice Robinson, baby, we're keeping him in a heartbeat. Because he's got a personality. It's different. He looks different.
Starting point is 03:42:35 He's doing something different. He doesn't look like all the rest of these fucking children. I'm sure the next one you and I will disagree on here in 2025. Jeff Jarrett. I said jokingly earlier, hey, I wonder what happened with Jeff's fucking, you know, last year of the business, retirement march or whatever.
Starting point is 03:43:00 I think I almost, I would have Jeff on the roster to work with guys at house shows. I don't think Jeff needs to be a TV personality or character at this juncture, I would have him working in the backstage area or in the area of live event promotions or in the area of finding fucking sponsors.
Starting point is 03:43:29 Have you ever seen a motherfucker that could find as many people with money as Jeff Jarrett? But if I was going to have him wrestle, I would have him work with guys, younger guys on the fucking house shows, just open a show for 15 minutes and teach them on the job. You know what, I would keep Jeff Choward. If that's exactly how you would use them, that's exactly how I would keep them.
Starting point is 03:43:55 So yeah, I got no problem. There you go. From the dark order, Jim, John Silver. Oh, please. Long John needs to peg leg on out of here. Jim, a former protege of yours, I guess you could say. Johnny TV. formerly John Morrison from Eminem.
Starting point is 03:44:19 You know, again, how old is John now? Because he's in his mid-40s. You know, the booking has been ridiculous. And I don't think he's my age. Wow, 45. Yeah, I don't think John particularly cares, you know, about he's just going through, you know, life and wrestling and doing his thing.
Starting point is 03:44:40 Whether he plays with the children or not, what the style is. he's a heck of an athlete and he's a nice guy. I think there's something that you could get. I'm going to write down John Morrison because that's his actual name. I think there's something you could get for a short time out of John.
Starting point is 03:45:00 He stays in shape and he doesn't cause people trouble. All right. Jim, a couple more here. More Jays? From the Don Callas family, Josh Alexander. Alexander. You know, we got to keep him because he's new.
Starting point is 03:45:21 He looks like he's tried to be serious. He, they, they have introduced him in a kind of a sad way. Nobody knows why, except that his ear might fall off, that he's wearing that fucking head gear. And they beat him every time we've seen him.
Starting point is 03:45:40 But he's trying. I would, I would do something with this guy, see what fuck happens. I'd keep him. And finally, Jim, from the premier athletes, the technical beast, Josh Woods. Have, wait, you know what?
Starting point is 03:46:02 He was the guy that worked with Dan Severn. When I managed Dan at Russellcade in Winston-Salem, I think back about eight years ago, when I said, okay, this would be my last match managing. And it has been. I honored that. He used to be an MMA guy and an amateur wrestler. and I think we saw him
Starting point is 03:46:22 three times on AEW television about three or four years ago, didn't we? I don't know. I think he was a Ring of Honor guy. But again, I don't know. I don't know. Well, but no, but he was on AEW television whether it's after Tony had absorbed Ring of Honor, then it becomes all one and the same anyway. But I don't, I haven't seen him in so long.
Starting point is 03:46:46 I don't know whether he's any good or not. So we might have to fire him and let him go away and learn a new hold. I just don't know. Going to fire the wrestler you managed or managed against in your final match. Well, he should have done a better job. That was fucking eight years ago. He was like a rookie. I just, I don't know.
Starting point is 03:47:06 I mean, I hate to keep him if he's the shits now, but I don't know what to say. Well, again, this is only the halfway point or maybe not even that. Jesus Christ. Okay, now hold on here a second. And I'm going to count because I think there's still 26 lines on a piece of notebook paper. So that's 50. We've gone through over 60 people and we're just to the J's in the men. And that's not counting referees, announcers, and women.
Starting point is 03:47:39 And I have kept so far 22 plus put a couple in the middle. at least I kept 22 of course we'll have to go through and give this this another look-see once we get the list but you know keeping 30% that's not bad so far for this crew well again we are not even halfway through the men's roster we will continue that I guess on the experience coming up wherever you find your favorite podcast with that we're going to wrap up this week's episode let me get this this is not the one I wanted
Starting point is 03:48:14 but we'll go for it Good heavens. I'm moving stuff around. I'm moving. Yeah, you're... All right. At least that made some noise. Well, thank you.
Starting point is 03:48:35 We made some noise here today, and we'll be back making more noise on the experience. And, of course, next week back here in the drive-through, Saturday night's main event, an AEW double or nothing. And, uh, yeah, why, stop me. So, now, wait a minute.
Starting point is 03:48:51 Now, wait a minute. Now, the experience is coming up, and we've got. got before that stuff, we'll do the experience. And we got some stuff on the experience, too, that you're not going to want to miss. Because if you miss it, well, you won't know what the fuck it was. Are we picking up the roster review? We'll pick up the roster review.
Starting point is 03:49:10 We might have dropped it, so that we'll pick it up. Well, that and so much more, the Jim Cornett experience. Of course, go through the archive, patreon.com slash cornet. $5 a month, get you access to the archive, and the official Jim Cornett YouTube channel. Just go to YouTube and search for Jim Cornett. It comes right up, subscribe today. Check out all the videos, full videos, full episodes, as we call them. Clips and so much more.
Starting point is 03:49:35 Is that what we're calling them now, episodes? The official Jim Coronet YouTube channel. Of course, the drive-thru is brought to you by the Law Office of Stephen Peneu 877-50-5-0-Steeve. Get Even with Stephen and New Law Office.com. Can you guys tell who's hungry? I think that's at Cornets collectibles at Jim Cornett.com. What's going on, Jim? Big sale of big merchandise for your big house right now in this big world,
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