Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru - Episode 413

Episode Date: October 11, 2025

This week on the Drive Thru, Jim reviews reviews WWE Raw & Smackdown! Plus Jim answers YOUR questions about The Smashing Machine, AI, AEW & DC, Randy Savage scripting his matches, Sir Oliver Humperdink, Taxi, the Freebirds, manager behavior, and much more! Also, Jim plays Guess The Program! Thanks to our episode sponsors: SHOPIFY:  Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/cornette CORNBREAD HEMP:  Save 30% on your first order and free shipping on orders over $75! Go to cornbreadhemp.com/jce and use code JCE at checkout. RAYCON:  Go to buyraycon.com/jce to get 20% off the fan favorite Everyday Earbuds Classic! Send in your question for the Drive-Thru to: [e-mail]  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.

Hello again, friends. The laughter has begun. Get ready for a rollicking five hours of laughter. Welcome to another edition of Jim Coronet's drive-thru. Right here. And another fine day, we're feeling good, and we got good wrestling talk for you. I'm your host of Great Brian Last,

and here he is the Laughter Man himself, the leader of the cult of Cornette. Mr. Jim Cornett. See, you've made a mistake, Brian last. You've made a mistake. You're trying to overcompensate. That's probably the fucking last we'll hear from you for the next hour or so. You're on mute on a coughing fit right now, I can tell.

Ladies and gentlemen, from the opening strains, and that word has never been more properly applied, from the opening strains of Brian's organ, which gets, I understand, strain quite often. It was like the fucking remand. moans doing Billy Joel. It was a quicker tempo. The notes were shorter.

It was like, oh, I'm going to talk myself into heaven energy. Oh, come on. And then Brian, and then you screamed, hello, friends. And you were trying to artificially pump yourself full of the, you're full of it, but you were trying to pump yourself full of energy because, ladies and gentlemen, Brian Last has a fever. He's sweating. He's sweating over the.

there, as Chris Candido would say, with his New Jersey twang, you got a fever. Fever in the morning and fever all through the night to get me fever. And you don't want to admit it because you're a trooper, Brian, is what you are. Not an actual member of the troops,

but a trooper in showbiz terminology. The show must go on. You're trying to power through this while the perspiration is pouring down your face and the shivers are coming on. And you are our friends. Look, I'm not feeling the greatest today, but I do have a good show. Just come out and admit it. This could be the last time we hear from you. This could be the end of Little Rico. You think today's the day we get the song because of how I feel?

No, no, it will torment you to the grave. But you're, I'm telling you, pretty sure, they're going to be calling the EMS services for you this time this evening now. So who else has our work ethic, our output? Me having holes in my head. Teeth yanked from my cranium.

And still I was able to come back and record a mere four days later or whatever it was. And now you powering through the... I'm in a disaster area over here. Did you know this? I did not know that. I was hoping we get the song considering how I'm feeling, but...

The fascination is... And we're receiving dissertations now on this keychain, more on that. Quite literally. No, it's, look, it's frustrating. It sits here on my desk. I know that it has played the song a few times. It played it when my son was in here, like a week ago. So now I feel, I feel an urge.

So no adults have heard this. Only your small child. I feel an urge to get the song to play knowing it has, but now I can't touch it when we're not recording, because I'm afraid it's going to play again when we're not recording. Damn it! Tiger-D-A! Put it down!

It is down. Good heavens. Anyway, I'll have you know the news update here. I was about to tell you this. Not only are we in a disaster area because of the flooding that has come upon us. They just had a plane run off the runway at Bowman Field. Right before we started recording, I wanted to do, since I do do news bits from time to time on the local news here, we've had the driest August ever

and rained in two weeks at all of any description and suddenly in a 24-hour period much of Metro Louisville is going to get five inches of rain and there's a private plane landing at Bowman Field which is the airport that the snooty people fly into with their private planes they don't have commercial traffic but this they would was a Cessna and it ceased. The runway ceased before the Cessna ceased moving. It's the landing in this torrential rain,

lands on the runway. Runway runs out. Cessna doesn't stop, goes through a fucking fence, ends up on the goddamn, I think it's the, they said the Shawnee Park Golf Course or something. It's on the 14th T.

Just bringing that up. It could be words. I'm glad you were, to get to that important news here, the top of the show. Well, there's strange things that are happening down here. See, why, you've been under the weather the past couple days. I suffered another outage. See if you can make sense out of this, Brian.

My phone went out the other day. The last person I had talked to was you on, it was Saturday, right? I assume. That is the last day that we had talked. Correct. and the phone was working just fine and then that evening I went to pick it up to make a call

but no dial tone. Phone's dead. I try to call the phone with my cell phone all I get's a busy signal. So I called a phone company to report that my phone is out. And they guess what in AT&T?

This is one of the goddamn the pillars of United States commerce and industrialism American telephone and telegraph Brian, guess what happens when you call them on a weekend to tell them that your fucking phone is out? I assume also you're calling from a cell phone I guess you get a recording maybe.

You get a recording saying the hours of our repair department are fucking Monday through Friday from so-and-so and then they have limited hours on Saturday for a giant corporation like that. So the phone doesn't work from all day Sunday and then Monday morning I call. And guess who I get on the phone? Who?

Nobody! It's an automated deal. It's the thing where, you know, they say, what are you calling about? I'm like, broke phone. What the fuck? I'm being put in a position where I'm talking to a goddamn machine and it's answering me.

And we're engaging in a conversation. It's, oh, I can help you with that. And you enter the, or say the things that it wants you to say or whatever. And then it said, well, we're going to send a test signal. And then the phone rings. But I pick it up. there's nobody on it. They say, oh, yes.

It seems there is a problem with that line. We will report that. Thank you. Our technician will be in touch. Blah, blah, blah. You never get to talk to a human being. Guess what happened? No more than 10 minutes after I got off the phone with the robot.

What? The phone started working again. So explain to me. If I don't, if I didn't even need to talk to a human being to begin with, why do they have goddamn hours? It's a very good question. How did you find that it was working again? Did it ring or did you try to call someone? No, I look, you can, my cordless handset has a display on the screen with like the caller ID and all that stuff.

And when the phone is dead, it says check tell line. and then suddenly it didn't say that so I absent-mindedly I'll see or not absomindedly I'll just see boom and there was a dial tone but to the point of why couldn't they have done the same goddamn thing on Saturday night since I never interacted

with a human being to begin with now the robots have hours that's crazy who's your phone company AT&T What did I just do? Boy, you are under the influence of narcotics to fight off this fucking viral infection you have.

American telephone and teleg- And they don't even need to worry about to telegraph anymore. So they can just concentrate on a telephone. God damn it. So you also don't know what caused it and why it happened? No. Don't have a goddamn clue. All right.

Well, let's see. Let's see if one of the listeners can write in and explain this. Maybe there's someone who has a paper on this. We'll find out. Well, this has been phone talk. Ladies and gentlemen, and we have... You know what this Saturday is, don't you? This Saturday?

By cracky? Crown Jewel from Perth, Australia, 8 a.m. on the East Coast. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm talking about the big news. I'm talking about what's really going on this Saturday at noon Eastern time. in the middle of the daytime like God intended for people to consume their wrestling fucking memorabilia. I'll have you know. Cornett's Collectibles begins our holiday sale at Jimcornett.com

and the official on sale of heroes and friends, my new book, which this format has never been done in pro wrestling before in the classic wrestling space, as they say the, if I do say so myself, the wonderful writing as well as the stellar photography and the classic images, a treat for the whole family to stuff in anybody stocking. Don't roll it up when you stuff into stocking. Get them up stretchy stocking. But for 2495, in this day and age, for fuck's sake, buy five of them and hand them out to your

friends and their autograph. But nevertheless, you can click on the banner on Jim, Cornett.com for more information on the book and the 12 wrestling superstars profiled therein. Also, speaking of books, wrestling in the garden. We've talked so much about Madison Square Garden wrestling history over the past several months. The facts and figures we've been using are taken from Scott Teal at Crowbar Press, his fantastic book, Wrestling in the Garden. and for your one-stop shopping, we've got a limited number 100 copies for the holidays,

the entire history of wrestling in the garden backstage and in the ring, and also the 10-20-40 sale, $10 off the Jim Cornett action figures, $20 off the tag team action figures, and $40 the biggest discount you're ever going to get off of the Midnight Express collectible four-pack with the book certificate of authenticity and autographed photo

and the new 8 by 10 pictures and we found some more trading cards but they're going to last long so get there at noon for all that and more Saturday this Saturday, October the 11th at Jim Cornett.com Which trading cards did you file like?

Johnny Bench? No, I mean mine. I'm not going to sell other people's effluvia. I'm sticking with my fluvia. Yeah. My missions.

My insiminations. You could stop in emissions. Yes. But they ain't going to last long. All the trading cards and various things are limited numbers. We found a few more programs. Blah, blah, blah. But you've got to be there first in line.

But the other stuff we got plenty of. So just don't be late. you'll get everything. Damn it. All right. Well, Jim, let's move on. And as you said, I'm a little under the weather. So I'm going to do my best, ladies and gentlemen.

They give you the usual fun show we always do. So why don't we start with a story that's in the news, so it's worth talking about. I have an article here, Jim, from Deadline. How Dwayne Johnson's Smashing Machine went down for the count. As Star's lowest opening, the pick will bleed little with 10 to 15 million dollar loss. WWE?

I'm sorry, I didn't know you were going to, but I just, I knew this is what you would want to lead with to, to perk yourself up a little bit, bad news about the Rock's misfortunes. That's something that always brings a warm to your, warmness to your cockles or whatever that phrase is. A little bit of I told you so is always good for the soul, I think.

and there were people who said this movie was going to be the big movie that gets some Oscar consideration and it's the safeties and it's an indie production company so I mean that's the move they have spent so much money marketing this movie forget about the commercials during wrestling I've seen non-stop commercials for this thing all over the place during the playoffs all over the place

and that's just here not even worldwide so they have spent a ton of money Well, the reports that I saw were that they spent $50 million on the movie. And then the marketing costs on top of that. And they said they're going to get tax breaks from where did they shoot? Did they shoot in Australia? Wherever they shot, they're going to get tax break. A tax break is one thing.

But my God, this is a gross domestic product of Nicaragua or whatever we're talking about here. point, they originally they were projecting that it was going to gross on its opening weekend up to $20 million. And then they revised that prediction as it was getting closer to, well, more like $15 million. And then they were at $8 to $10 million, I think, before the actual weekend. And they ended up just shy of $6 million, which is apparently, like you said, the worst rock opening in ever so what

you were in the middle of reading your thing but I'm just I'm flabbergasted that that I'm not flabbergasted that a movie could be a success or bomb but I'm flabbergasted that all the experts were so fucking far off about this thing well I think the experts are far off about the appeal of the rock and I've been saying that for a while

he's a major star he's been in major success successes, although you could argue, what did he draw versus the vehicle? You know, if he's in a Disney film, is it, oh my God, the rock's in a Disney film? Or is it my daughter wants to go see that Disney film? It's got the rock in it. Yeah, he just happens to be in it. But, you know, anyone can play that role.

It's not like he's drawing people to that role. That's not a shot at him. Literally, you put Robert De Niro in that role. It wouldn't be like, oh, Robert De Niro in Moana. It sounds like it'll be great. No, it's my kids want to see Moana. That's what it is. But we hear about the millions of people.

millions of social media followers. He's everywhere. They just did another puff piece on CBS Sunday morning. Coincidentally, the week before they did another one on J-Lo, he is the male J-Lo in the sense that we're told that he's a major star. We see that he clearly is a major star, yet there isn't really, I don't think any evidence that people want to go out financially support that star's vehicles. Because this movie is all about the rock.

and they've tried to say shit like, he's unrecognizable in the movie. Give me a break. It looks like Dwayne Johnson and a bad makeup team. Well, remember when we first saw the trailer months ago when we saw a hero on the program? We said, why did they make him up to look like fucking Andre? He looks like Dwayne Johnson made up to look kind of like Andre the Giant.

And that's when he has hair. When Mark Kerr shaves his head, I've seen images of that. I'm going to go see this movie eventually. I may have to wait until it comes out. We'll see how much time I have. But once he shaves his head, it looks like the rock. It looks just like the rock. It looks like someone playing the rock more than it looks like the rock playing someone else.

So the movie, Smashing Machine, again, it's an indie movie. He has called it a passion pick. What's the audience for it? I mean, if you want to see the Mark Kerr story, the documentary was fantastic years ago. I don't even know where it's available now. But Mark Kerr is a name that UFC fans really don't know. Modern UFC fans. I don't know how much to know about the history.

history of the sport. There wasn't, I don't think, much appeal for this, but again, it's been pushed down everyone's throats. Which, which, which WWE Hollywood Bigwig, was it Nick Con, or was it Ari Emanuel? Somebody said, well, this will fire up more interest in wrestling movies. This isn't a wrestling movie. This is a fighting movie with a wrestler in it. So is this, is this movie the Antonio Inoki versus Muhammad Ali of movies where the wrestling fans, it bombed here because the wrestling fans didn't know who Inoki was and the boxing fans didn't take it seriously. Do the UFC MMA fans not take the rock seriously as Mark Kerr,

if they remember him? And conversely, would the wrestling fans be more likely? to go see the rock in a movie playing a fucking wrestler than a goddamn fighter they've never heard it. This would be like if Hulk Hogan went to ECW and the fans didn't care. They didn't draw, no one extra came, the people who were there just enjoyed the show as always.

Like nothing about this package made anyone say I gotta see this. So much Puff came out about this. The standing ovation, it can. When like three people saw the movie and two of them left positive review, we started hearing it. See, Brian, 100% reviews on rated tomatoes or rotten tomatoes. Rated tomatoes. Rated tomatoes. Rotten tomato. I'm... I've rated a few tomatoes in my day,

but it's been a while since you can use that word in describing them. And the more people saw the movie, the more negative reviews came out. WWVet, Dwayne Johnson learned about his Achilles heel at the box office this weekend. After his R-rated drama, The Smashing Machine hit the mat as the Blockbuster stars lowest opening ever with 5.9 million U.S. For Johnson, for the story of UFC champ Mark Kerr was a passion project. The wrestler-turned actor announced the movie back at the UFC 244 card weigh-in in November 2019.

Jesus Christ. Well, that's another thing. I don't remember. I believe Joanne Johnson and his team, which would be, you know, his ex-wife, are producers of this project. It's not just like he's an actor, I believe he is one of the producers of the project. Yes, they all produce. That's rough, as Johnson is a tireless promoter who leaves no stone unturned on the PR tour.

Like Taylor Swift, whose movie fared better this weekend, he has the social media reach of half a billion plus, to whom he speaks directly. Now, hold on here one second now, because you've got to remember I'm not exactly in the, exactly in the, the key demo, Brian, for the Swifties. But she released a movie. The movie consists of her telling people that she's just released a record. What is happening? It's not a movie movie. She's not starring in a movie.

The movie is somehow tied in with her goddamn new record. Do you have any further information on this? The name of the film is Taylor Swift, the official release party for a showgirl. which did $34 million opening weekend. So it was the release party that she released for her record. She just hears the video of the release party and it made $37 million in a weekend. She's an incredibly successful musician.

I mean, the biggest of our time. Why doesn't she just bottle her fucking bathwater? Well, that's what I was going to say. She's also a major worker. And I don't think there's ever been anyone of the modern era who has worked a fan base up as well as she has. Was she babysitting for Jeff Jarrett's kids, or was she babysitting for Jerry Jarrett's kids? I think she learned from the head man himself. Yeah, she could teach Jeff a thing or two.

I don't think she learned there from Jeff. But let's go back to this. It's rough, as there truly seem to be awards glow on the smashing machine coming out of the Venice Film Festival after its 15 and a half minute standing ovation. Johnson crying on a global stage. Hold on. Hold on again. Hold on again. I know again, what is,

does it, does it have to be somehow performative from a small insider group in support of something that potentially somebody that they're personal friends with has done to stand?

If you told Howie the mailroom guy, Howie, you got six weeks to live, so we're going to let you fuck all three of your favorite porn stars all at once. After it was over, would Howie give a 15-minute standing ovation to the point, how in the, what has ever happened in your life that you have ever seen or experienced, Brian,

that you would stand there and applaud for 15 minutes? You know, I can't think of anything. I know celebrating for 15 minutes, you know, you could get really into your team winning, but standing there and just clapping. But that's what I'm saying. It starts dying down a little like, no, bring it back. Bring it back. Just keep doing that?

No. No, it's not just being in a great fucking mood. Well, I'm just thrilled that this has happened. It's standing in. What the fuck? You know what it is? You know what I think it is? Because other movies recently have gotten that kind of reaction.

And that's like a traditional thing, like the ultimate sign of respect that I said can before. This is the Venice Film Festival to get that kind of standing ovation. But it's like when Milton Burrell hosted Saturday Night Live. And Lauren Michaels said he was like so disgusted when Milton Burl came up to him, he was like, don't worry. The standing ovation's in the can. Because he had like all this people there. And then Bill Beryl sang some song that no one wanted to hear.

And all of a sudden there's people in the balcony, he's standing up and clapping. And everyone's like, oh, shit, I guess we're supposed to do this too. He set it up himself because that's what he wanted. But Lauren Michaels was disgusted by the idea of this, you know, pre-fab standing ovation. Remember, remember that's what Hayman made Hayman come down here to Louisville. they ran me off of OVW. They made Heyman come down and he was miserable, but he would put the fans that he would,

the fans, the people affiliated with the amateur class, the smart people that were kind of with it, and some of the amateur class, he'd put them across from the camera and tell him how to react all the time to everything. But then other people start noticing, why are they just standing up and screaming

when nothing's fucking happened? Well, again, back to this, it does seem excessive and it does seem somewhat pretentious. Johnson, they're talking about the 15 and a half minute standing ovation. Johnson crying on a global stage, Saffty Silver Lion win, and a seemingly good 73% rotten tomatoes certified fresh critical score. What the fuck? Who comes up with this terminology? But it's never a good sign when a movie plummets from its initial

projections on tracking, three weeks ago, smashing machine was forecasted to be one at A24's highest openings ever in the high teens, the $20 million range. What the hell happened? Let's stop there for a moment. God damn. Again, you know, whether this is the rock or not, and I don't think the rock doing a role like this is something people got excited for.

I think people see it as a gag almost because I don't think people take him seriously as an actor and I don't think, like Jay-Lo doing her stripper movie, I don't think it's going to do anything to change anyone's opinions, but again, I don't know if anyone in this role, as Mark Kerr would have widespread appeal right now. You know what I mean? Like, it's not a story that's good. Women aren't going to really be interested in the story, I don't think, because I think the impression you get from watching the trailers is, oh, it's about domestic violence. And I don't think that's even what the movie's about. And I think young men aren't into the This goes back to what I was saying when TKO gave him everything,

because TKO is run by his agents, the people who are profited the most next to Dwayne Johnson, who's profited the most from his career, Ari Emanuel. Like next to Juan Johnson, Ari Emanuel's number two, and then Vince McMahon. So they've done everything they can to try to make this thing happen. I think there's a mythology around Juan Johnson and how popular he is, and part of that's because the best role he plays is the role of

I'm Mr. Popular actor when he's doing talk shows or anything. But box office is box office, and I'm not giving him credit for animated roles where they use his voice. Or for being a part of an ensemble and Fast and the Furious or anything. Well, that's what I was going to say. You can't really just because somebody does a voice of someone that I don't think that can be a measure of their box office success. But here's the thing.

Also, don't lose track of who the fuck, again, respectfully, is Mark Kerr. Nobody really knows. Do you think a movie about Connor McGregor with Finn Baller playing Connor McGregor would outgross the rock playing Mark Kerr? I think so, probably. in today's modern age, because he's, people know who the fuck he is, especially people that are young enough, they're going to go to a movie. You know, another part of the problem is,

look at the way The Rock has been presented on wrestling TV in the last two years. Has he been presented, if you're just a wrestling fan who casually watches the show, but you kind of get into it. Has he been presented as someone you want to support in any way? He's a dick that comes out and fucks with people, and he whipped Cody Rhodes with a belt and stole his watch and kicked his dog. No.

And see, that's what I was saying about. I couldn't believe Sina would retire as a heel because of movies, because still you're creating some type of negative reaction when you're a heel that doesn't necessarily translate to you being the most popular person in the world, if you're doing your job right. Well, again, let's go back to the article here for a little bit.

Word began to leak at Smashing Machine's Toronto North American premiere that the movie wasn't all that. And no, not because Johnson was stretching with an edgy, dramatic performance. Rather, Smashing Machine wasn't an underdog sports movie, nor necessarily one about a champ's downfall. rather a very non-traditional deliberately paced movie about an athlete struggling with drug addiction

the movie's B-minus cinema score is on par with A24's cinematic canon which is known to divide critics and moviegoers and also what was that word deliberate that was a kind word that the old-fashioned announcers like Gordon's used to use what he's got a deliberate pace when somebody was just fucking slow and plotting

and boring this shit out of people. And if a movie like that is slow and deliberate, that means it's just the rock. It's just like watching him in that role without talking and stuff. So I get, I don't, I got to see this thing now. Here's the good news. The movie has a net $50 million production cost with tax credits from Vancouver and New Mexico. it won't... That's good news? It won't lose much. Estimates being in the $10 to $15 million range.

Wait a minute. Hold on here now there, young man. How in the world, if the movie cost $50 million, did they say that was with promotion? No. I think that's just the production. Okay. There's no way that's promotion. There's no way that's...

50 million plus promotion. motion. Plus 50 million. Plus probably 50 million in promotion. They took in 6 million. Ah, they got deals. You know, they know somebody. But they took in 6 million an opening weekend.

It's not going to go up from here. How big the goddamn tax credit from Vancouver? What did they just give them the goddamn city before that they would only lose 10 or 15 million dollars doing that math? What is going on in the world? What says here, the Rock and Safty, you're going to be working again soon on Ishtar 2.

They ought to be working washing dishes at a Vancouver soup kitchen to pay the city of Vancouver back. Let's go back to the article here. On the low end, that's based on a final domestic between $14 million and $20 million. How great that loss becomes hinges on how hard

A24 wants to push the movie this award season. Insiders are telling us that the New York City label continues to support the movie and stands behind the filmmaker's vision. Smashing Machine's budget is propped by foreign sales, which the Rock lobbied for back at Cannes in 2024. Oh!

Estimated to be in the $35 million range. Okay. A-24 also has a great pay-one deal at HBO Max. If you remember, the Von Erick movie, The Iron Claw, debuted on HBO Max when it went digital. But The Rock got him a Howard Brody deal overseas. Get that international money, baby. He may know a sheik or two, or at least his friends may.

Smashing Machine was a project foreign buyers liked in qualitative terms, but at the time, sources say they were concerns over its commerciality as a story with Unrecognizable Johnson. He's not unrecognizable. That's the thing that keeps getting at me. They're like, you can not even tell it's him. You can exactly tell it's him. It looks like only him.

But you know what, that's a goddamn That's the best name I've ever heard For an old Western movie sidekick Well, there comes unrecognizable Johnson I wonder what he's going to say to the sheriff Here's a part of the positive spin they're trying to make Johnson took a $4 million fee Significantly below his historical

20 million plus paycheck plus points Sources say He even gave a portion of his paycheck to Emily Blunt and Kerr. So now the story is the rock, who again, he's a producer, he's not just an actor in this thing, so he would make money from the back end, that the rock gave away his money

or parts of it to these other people because he really wanted to make this project so bad. But that's, that was easier to do when the WWF, I just said, WWE, I just saw the other day the, the amount of stock and pay that they have given him to drop in every once in a while and fuck up the booking plans over the last few years is past $60 million. And he just shows up like four days in two years.

So I guess the WWE is financing his acting vision. You know, you may remember I used to complain about the fact that Triple H one day showed up with a crew cut. Like there was never anything done, which I think would have been the professional thing, the right thing, something that actually could have probably drawn some interest. if Triple H was against someone and it was hair versus hair, or somehow there was even an angle where someone cut his hair. Yes. There's something near, not just he shows up one day in a suit with a crew cut.

Guys, guys didn't even use to. A lot of times if they'd buy a new car, they'd make sure the book are new to put it in an angle. Like, let me win the car or just anything. You always were thinking in that direction. The Rock showed up as pumped up as he's ever been, beat the shit out of the lead baby face and then made sure that he's not going to return until he looks like a different person who was never going to, there's never going to be any resolution to any of this. And it's all because of the rock.

And now what are they going to do? Now he's going to have some time on his hands. Now this movie's bombing and they've been airing it or advertising it all over wrestling. He's got his Moana Live Action movie coming soon. And again, Moana's the draw, not Dwayne Johnson. So it's going to be very interesting to see how things go. in the future, but let me scroll down a little bit. Here's where I disagree with this article.

While that net 50 million might be low for a rock movie, it's considerably high for a wrestling movie, which I don't consider this a wrestling movie. This is in no way a wrestling. It's a movie with a wrestler in it. Jared Hess's 2006 Nacho Libre, which opened post-the-director's fanfare for Napoleon Dynamite, back when Jack Black, original comedies could debut at

28.3 million and end their domestic run at 80 million. So this is the biggest thing since then. Well, and also, Nacho Libre, to be perfectly honest, did wrestling fans go see that, or was it Jack Black fans? Because I guess it was for the really diehard wrestling fan, but it was, again, incidental to the plot. Yeah. That he, you know, it was not like this.

was a wrestling movie about the current of United States wrestling scene involving other wrestlers and things that the wrestling fans would say, oh, I got to go see that. It's a Jack Black comic. You know, that's a movie that introduced people who don't like wrestling to Lucha Libre, actually, more than anything. Anyone who

saw that, that was the first they probably ever heard of that and understood what the masked wrestling was all about. Here are some previous films. A-24's 2000-23 Iron Claw, three-day opening, 4.8 million, ended up at 35 million domestic. Darren Aronofsky's two-time Oscar nominated the wrestler.

Its highest grossing weekend was 3.7 million. Jesus Christ. And that was only at six week out, and it ended with 26.2 final domestic box office. Okay. And that surprises me because, especially it surprises me that the Iron Claw grossed more when it did. debuted than the wrestler did because you heard so much about the wrestler for so long.

And secondly, the domestic grossest total that they're getting when they open so is surprising to me also. Maybe this thing does have a chance of only losing 10 or 15 meat. Bennett Miller's 2014 Foxcatcher, which again, that's about amateur wrestling, not necessarily pro wrestling, one million in its widest break, final of 12 million. Heck, even Peter Fox starring in the 1981 nudie comedy All the Marbles.

Wait a minute. Nudy comedy. That wasn't. That wasn't. No, there was there was there nudity in all the marbles? I have to go back and watch it now. I don't remember that. Me too.

I don't remember it either. I might have liked it better. That was, he managed girl wrestlers in a showbiz business. None of these are actual movies about profession. no wrestling. And that one finished with 6.1 million domestic. Again, that's 1981.

You know, real quick here as a side, part of the issue is, and we may never see a good wrestling movie because who's going to make it, you know, in the current system. But if you look at the movies that have come out, you know, I've always been a big fan of Body Slam, but that's not even a good example because they couldn't even get into theaters. They had some kind of legal issue where by the time, you know, if it had been released right away,

who knows what it would have done with Roddy Piper in a starring role. But they had to wait like a year and a half or whatever it was, and then it just went on to HBO where it aired endlessly, so people like me can watch it. But Grunt didn't do any business, and it's not necessarily the greatest movie. Verenganya's the wrestler, maybe the... I don't want to know if I should say it's the best movie.

See, the problem is all the examples they gave are all like sad sack films, other than all the marbles, the wrestler, this new rock movie. Well, and then the ones that you just talked about, grunt and all the marbles. It's either a comedy movie where wrestling is all silly and they're not really any of the wrestlers that the fans would know in the particular era that are in the movie and it's not really about wrestling.

It just kind of makes fun of it. The wrestling fans don't really go to see it. Or the sad sack stuff. I'm sure all the indie fans went to see the wrestler. And there's a guy's falling asleep at a fucking autograph table in front of nobody. and it's, you know, that's why I got an advance, not an advance, it wasn't legitimate. Somebody bootlegged a DVD before it came out on DVD, and I've told the story before.

I watched it while Stacey and I were in Orlando for T&A, and it pissed me off so bad, and depressed me so bad, I threw the DVD out the car window and we were going over a bridge into the fucking water on the way back home. The wrestler, Vern Gagne's the wrestler. I think you're trying to say not that it was the best one because it wasn't that big budget or that accomplished of a movie

but it was the only one that actually had wrestling stars in the wrestling business and it was a movie about current day wrestling current day being 1974 when it was done it didn't treat everything silly it treated wrestling as something that existed in the real world with these characters

and there was the funny scene with bruiser and crusher in the bar room fight and there was elements of humor and wah-w-w-wh-wh-w-w-you-know, that type of thing. But it didn't treat the business like it was either silly or like, what was the WCW movie? Ready to rumble, one of the worst things. Ready to rumble. Yeah.

It was a joke. They treated it like a joke. But they made fun of their own fans in that movie. So why does the fan want to go sit there and watch himself be made fun of? and so it's all been silly or blah blah blah or so depressing and queen of the ring is the closest thing to a serious fucking movie about wrestling of one era another sad movie sad sad movie there's no positive happy wrestling movies but she didn't she didn't lose the

belt in the end she persevered and then it didn't go into when she then lost the rest of her business and blah blah blah but nevertheless and it had me so that was a starring turn, but there is, I guess Vern Gagne's The Wrestler was the only legitimate movie of any type that got theatrical release that's been done about the current wrestling business in the United States with current wrestling stars in it ever. Well, I'll bring up one because I saw it in the theater when I was nine, No Holds Barred, which, again, it was a horrible script and a really bad movie, but you would think if was ever going to be a wrestling movie to succeed,

a vehicle starring Hulk Hogan at the height of Hulkomania would be something. But again, word got out pretty quickly that it was an awful movie. The clips they showed on TV made it apparent that it wasn't good. But, you know, it's hard to compare all of these things together. They're all kind of just sad, sad. The ones in the recent years, the Von Erick film and this and the wrestler, it's just all about how awful the wrestling business is.

And how you want to stay away from it, or you're going to die. Yes. They could come to a movie about me. I'm out. He's out in a yard feeding the deer. I have here a Instagram post from The Rock. It's him sitting there dressed as Mark Kerr. It looks like the Rock wearing a wig. It doesn't look anything different than that. From Deep in My Grateful Bones, thank you to everyone who has watched the smashing machine. In our storytelling world, you can't control box office results. but what I realize you can control is your performance and your commitment to completely disappear and go elsewhere. You should commit further to that, Rock.

Is this a suicide note? And I will always run to that opportunity. It was my honor to transform in this role for my director, Benny Safdi. Thank you, brother, for believing in me. truth is this film changed my life with deep gratitude respect and radical empathy

DJ see that's the problem he's so full of shit he can't just write something that doesn't come across like he's fucking workshopping it what is radical empathy in our storytelling world what who talks like that

in our storytelling world you've done a bunch of shit fucking movies. You're not a serious actor, you fucking doofus. In our storytelling world. Come on. Is that what Corey Feldman would say?

In our storytelling world. I was in Goonies. The fuck. It sounds like lyrics from tambourine man in our storytelling world will go holly. Johnson has been in this slump before the $17 million.

budgeted, I never even heard of this movie, the $17 million budgeted 2006 Gonzo movie, Southland Tales, grossed under $300,000 at the domestic box office after a Cannes Film Festival world premiere. Not to mention the audiences weren't really in their seats for his last R-rated movie, 2013's Pain and Gain, which earned a C-plus, despite Michael Bay, bodybuilders and drugs it opened a $20.2 million. Buddy has nothing to worry about.

He'll be back in the Victory Belt Box Office Glory. Is that what it says here? He'll be back at all Victory Belt Box Office Glory. What the fuck of the sentence is this? He'll be back in all victory belt box glory soon with the openings of Disney's live action Moana on July 10th, 2026.

and Sony's Jumanji 3 on December 11th next year as well Well there it is Jim Not a surprise but a lot of people thought Because I call out the Rock The way people would if they were paying attention to things That I was being unjust when I laughed about this movie From the very jump laughed about the idea of being a serious movie Of people really wanting to see it

And here we are Once again, where's the Rock's fans? Where are they? If it's not just about the movie and it's about this guy being a major star with a major reach, where are his fans? Where are all the people he was saying, hey, I've never been to In and Out Burger before. Where are all those people? Did they go to In and Out Burger?

Did they go to this movie? Do they do anything he says to do? Do they buy that shitty tequila? Do they buy his hair care products? Telling you, he's the male J-Lo. We're told he's a major star and he's a star. But he's part of a package on his own. he's not the guy people want to see.

Not anymore. Not now. Not young people. Not men. Not wrestling fans. There are no people, Jerry. Where are the people? Well, this has been box office news. Jim? Yes. The Rock can't sell any tickets to this movie, apparently. He couldn't sell pussy on a troop train.

But perhaps The Rock has another idea. I mean, he's got so much money and obviously lots of family around him to carry his piss bottles or whatever it may be, maybe he can come up with a new business plan. Maybe the rock in his storytelling world could come up with a story that people would want to buy, or maybe a piss bottle branded by DJ. Who knows what it could be?

I said Taylor Swift could bottle her bathwater. I didn't mean that the rock might be able to market his urinary emissions, but if you'd be able to, do have some type of idea on how to sell yourself or someone else to the public. I mean that in the entertainment fashion, not the carnal knowledge fashion, that's illegal, even with our friends at Shopify, and they'll do almost anything. But if you want to make some money with it like that, just hear those cash registers ring a ding ding, ding. If you want to

make some money with an idea, a concept, yourself, or someone else that you know as a or service that you want to get behind, you got to have the big boys with you. Brian, that's first of where you got to have the, you got to have the Arieamanuels, the Arumannules and the Nikkans and the people with those other names

that I would have trouble pronouncing at this point. You got to have people like them behind you. Shopify is the commerce platform on the interwebs that is the equivalent of the big, Hollywood Studio. That's, see, that's the way you ought to think about it. They're the big Hollywood studio behind you. They got the wardrobe.

They got the costuming. They've got the camera department. They've got the, they got the guy that comes around and make sure when you get caught fucking around on your wife that it stays undercover and doesn't go to the National Inquirer. You're going to need that, folks. If you make money with Shopify, first thing's going to happen is you're going to start screwing around with young harlots.

Well, no, well, that's not. That's a big jump you just made out I know where I was sitting here enjoying the dings, the cha-chings that we hear. Well, what do these big billionaires do? They're older, they're 90 years old, they're injectifying stuff into the side

of their members so that they can screw Maryland Monroe in a bungalow but James Bacon's going to find out about it, but I'll tell you what, folks, with Shopify you can get started with your own design studio. They'll furnish that to you there. You can accelerate your content creation.

You can get the word out like you've got a marketing team behind you because Shopify is going to be telling everybody, hey, so-and-so's on our side. He's figured in, you better do business with him. And you know, when people get to the level of Shopify who are responsible for 10% of all the e-commerce in the United States, well, then when they throw their weight around, people listen. Every once a while, they have to rack somebody up and put them in the hospital for a couple of weeks, but it's never anything that can be. They don't put anyone in the hospital. They don't put anyone in a rack. Again, this, nothing will be needed to be proven because nothing like this will happen. But Jim, save all the receipts.

You know what that means, Jim? It's time to get funky with that promo code. Yeah, save all the receipts there. You might need to prove where you were when it goes to court. Turn your big business idea. No. Get into money right now. With Shopify on your side, you can sign a.

up right now for a $1 a month trial period, just $1 to let you know how integral they will be to your life and commerce. And you can start selling today at shopify.com slash cornet. That is, it is a different code, I'm told, from the Jim Cornett Experience Show, which we will say JCE. But on this program, we're going to say Cornett. I don't know why, but that's the way it is, folks, Shopify.com slash cornet and you can get the $1 a month trial period at Shopify and turn your dreams into reality,

build up a bail money fund and you'll be able to take on the world and fleece the suckers with the best of them. Once again, no one will be fleeced, but we trust them with our products, Arcadiavanguard.com, you could trust them with yours. Well, to be fair, we keep a good eye on them. Ever since we

That's a no key He's saying thank you We got to thank the listeners And give them that promo code One more time Play the song One more time Ever since we hired the private investigator

Things have been right as rain At shopify.com slash cornet $1 a month trial period Shopify.com slash cornet Hugada Of course Jim That connotates

It's time to get serious And talk about WWE, a very serious. How serious are you? I got some serious stuff going on here in the real world. Instead of WWE, we can do that in a second, Brian, because have you heard what Robin Williams' daughter Zelda is saying? I don't know anything about Robin Williams' family.

No, I don't know anything about Zelda. Zelda Williams is her name, I presume? Zelda. That would be her name. Well, it's his daughter, Zelda. She may have a different last. name if she's legally married. I wasn't sure.

That's why I asked. But, well, don't disrespect this woman. She's on the ball. Here's what she has said about AI. Because apparently people are making AI images of Robin Williams and mega memes or doing whatever the fuck, right? And she says, please stop sending me AI videos of dad. If you've got any decency, just stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone even.

Full stop. It's dumb. It's a waste of time and energy. And believe me, it's not what he'd want to watch the legacies of real people be condensed down to this vaguely looks and sounds like them. So that's enough. Just so other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop, puppeteering them is maddening. You're not making art. You're making disgusting overpuffing.

processed hot dogs out of the lives of human beings, out of the history of art and music, and then shoving them down someone else's throat, hoping they'll give you a little thumbs up and like it. It's gross. A.I. is just badly recycling and regurgitating the past to be reconsumed. You are taking in the human centipede of content from the very, very end of the line all while the folks at the front laugh and laugh consume and consume. You think she's for it or against it, Brian? You think she pays for Twitter premium or not? That's a lot of words.

No, this is a clip from variety. Oh. She's in variety saying these things. It's very interesting you bring this up today, because I saw something this morning when I was looking through the pending post from the Cult of Cornet Facebook group. There was an AI video

that on its face, it's ridiculous, and then I started watching it, and I couldn't stop. It's Michael Jackson. as a pro wrestler, Michael Jackson and the WWE. Oh, good. And it's ridiculous and it looks as real as anything from that era does. You know, again, we're talking about AI. This is something you're going to see a lot more of.

I want to say it's George Carlin, and now I'm not certain. Now I'm not certain about anything about this story. But I want to say it was like George Carlin's family were upset that someone was making new George Carlin comedy sets with AI. Because although you could sit there... And they should be. Well, although you could sit there and say, you know, I love George Carlin. I wish he was still here.

I wonder what he would say about things today. Actually creating it is another story because you're creating it. It's not the real thing. And it's going to be a growing concern. AI is... I mean, look at where we are today from where we were last year, from where we were a year before that. It's getting better and better and more and more realistic looking.

It's why knowing history is going to be very... important because there are going to be kids who go on TikTok and see Michael Jackson doing a moonwalk in a WWE ring while beating Goldberg I think it happened. Jesus Christ. What are your thoughts?

Because it'll affect you. In a hundred years someone to be like, hey, well, would Jim Cornett think about this moon wrestling? Well, let's find out. No, I'm leaving instructions with the descendants of Stephen P. knew that if anybody tries to create me artificially, or otherwise, they're going to be sued into oblivion.

When I'm gone, I'm gone. So get your Cornett's collectibles now at Jimcornett.com. Except for the potential sale of my estate, which will be handled through, I'm sure, some type of large auction house. They ain't going to be no more stuff after I'm gone of me. Well, we will see what happens. with AI or as Linda McMahon,

wrestling legend calls it Al, or A1, she called it A1, that's what it was. She called it, I called it Al. You called it Al. She called it A1. Yeah. And I'm calling in sick today. But I didn't ask to be the Secretary of Education either when I called it fucking Al.

And you can call me Al. One day someone does a book on her and just discovers how much money her and her family have spent for her to have political jobs. Does nothing came, like, oh, wow, she's a really talented smart lady. Let's get her.

No, it was, I'll give Sacred Heart University this amount of money, and they'll name a dorm room after me. I'll give this politician this amount of money, and they'll let me do this. She bought her way into politics. Why? Why? Well, the two runs for Senate was, what, $60 million together? $60 million for the people of Connecticut to say, no. Not you.

And we got that vision of Vince McMahon crying on stage that night, one of the funniest image as ever because he had that little that's when he had like the little torpy haircut so that's because he realized that he's been $60 million for nothing and that she wasn't going to quit and this was this was before he

was the multi-billionaire now that he he could still feel $60 million dollars and was at that point that he pledged I'm going to spend $60 million on head shitting well that that was from what I understand part of the deal was well we won't have

the public, you know, D-I-V-O-R-C and all that stuff. But here, Linda, here's unlimited funds to run for Senate. And I'm giving you the state of Florida. Go there. But Jim, let's stay on the topic. He got it in the settlement. Everything south of Tallahassee.

They didn't want to panhandle. I'm sorry, go ahead. I believe they're still arguing over the custody of Shane, actually, as we speak. But real quick, Jim, before we. get to, once again, before we get to what you watched. Let's go to AEW news real quick. This broke, I have a press release here.

Uh-oh. DC and All Elite Wrestling joined forces for groundbreaking comic book crossover. The Justice League meets AEW in a two-issue comic book event with an exclusive preview debuting at New York Comic-Con. August 1st, 2025. D.C. and all-elite wrestling are teaming up for an electrifying crossover that unites two powerhouse universes in a bold new storytelling experience. This unprecedented collaboration will bring the Justice League and AEW's top wrestling talent together in a high-octane two-issue comic book event. Hi-octane.

Launching with a special preview edition, available exclusively to fans at Comic-Con, DC and AEW will also co-promote DCCO the DC Comics event launching in October from acclaimed creator Scott Snyder and Javier Fernandez across AEW linear broadcasts digital platforms

and social media channels the collaboration will culminate in DC Comics serving as the presenting sponsor for AEW's marquee pay-per-view event full gear live from Newark, New Jersey.

There's an image here of a... I see Batman, I see the Green Lantern, I see Adam Page and Kenny Omega and Moxley. Oh, good Lord. Oh, good Lord, it's come to this. I'll send you this so you could see this. Before we go any further, what are your thoughts on a crossover event,

uniting D.C. and the Justice League specifically with A.E.W. well before i heard about the green lantern and batman and kenny and page i think batman's the only one that can't fly under his own power uh the thought that first entered my mind was how is dc comics doing these days because i know all print publications are drastically reduced in their print run from the heyday of when people actually read things and I know that kids can't read comics anymore because they're got they're too expensive for them and it's not the 12 cent days when they'd sell four million issues of Fantastic 472 or whatever.

But is Marvel I guess what I'm saying is is Marvel got a deal with WWE or why why would DC comics one of the big two and the comic publishing industry deal with AEW instead of WW unless WWE was already spoken for. Otherwise, how did they land

a big fish like DC Comics to get in the Justice League Superman Batman Universe? That was my first question. Marvel is owned by Disney according to this, about DC. DC,

part of Warner Brothers Discovery. Oh, okay. creates iconic characters and enduring storylines and is one of the world's leading publishers of comics and graphic novels. So it's no longer national periodical publications in an office in Midtown Manhattan with Carmine Infantino and the gang.

It's now part of a big... It's Zazlov. It's Zazlov. Zazlov's over everything. So they've got the same parent conglombo conglomerate. They came from the same sperm bank. Okay, that explains that.

I mean, they've done they've done wrestling comics before. The WWF in the 90s and WCW had had comic books of various kinds. In the 70s, D.C. did Superman versus Muhammad Ali. there was a in what is that issue 1960 or so there was a Superman versus Rocca cover which I I possess rock a did better than only well but Superman's powers had been hampered so he was

or something happened I can't remember now point being they've done crossovers with comics and wrestling through the decades in a very variety of ways. I just just to me seeing the silliness of you could you could buy

Hulk Hogan standing there next to fucking Captain America or whatever the fuck but Kenny and Page and some of these other Nimrods. Well you can see the picture

and apparently this is the cover of the first issue. You'll see Swerve and Mercedes Monet and Wonder Woman. Oh she she had to be there. Mercedes and Wonder Woman. woman. Boy howdy. Is Darby holding his flame thrower? He's holding something, but there is no flame visiting. Wait a minute. I've got this, now that you've sent me this, I'm looking for this

image. Oh, good heavens. Tony Storm looks more jacked up than pockets, though, in this picture. Where's pockets? You see pockets? Oh, there's pocket. Oh, he's right behind Tony Storm. He's stuck in there in between, in Batman's armpit or wing pit. That's an interesting way of flying that Orange Cassidy has there. Do you remember the Von Erick's

comic book where it was like yes. The Von Erics go to outer space. Yes. Well, they spent a lot of

time on Neptune. Yo, Moxley, Moxley looks Moxley not only is way more jacked up than he is

in real life, but it looks like his head's growing out of his left tit. Out of all then, the only one I think

could be a superhero is Darby. I think Darby's more of a sidekick. He's the sidekick that gets thrown around a lot and then, you know, the big boy comes to the rescue. Swirv's looking pretty badass there. I could buy Swerve maybe as a superhero in a comic book. But I guess the question is looking at this cover.

What are your thoughts about the idea of people that likes of Mercedes-Money, Will Osprey, Darby Allen, John Moxley, Swirv, Strickland, Hangman, Adam Page, Tony Storm, Will, Will, a nightingale, Orange, Cassidy, the Omega, teeming up, it would be one thing if they were fighting, but teaming up with Aquaman, Batman, Nightwing, Green Lanterns, Guy Gardner, and John Stewart, Hawk Girl, Zatanna, Wonder Woman. Wait, is that Hawk to a girl?

And Harley Quinn. No, Hawk, Hawk, Girl, not Hawk to a girl. Wait a minute, where's Harley Quinn in here? They need to clear that through me. Uh, yeah, I don't know. I guess. And that's the thing is they're marketing comics to who they perceive to be the now juvenile-minded but adults with disposable income AEW audience. So I guess I can say it.

But I think Aquaman, unfortunately, as always is fucked. He's going to have to do the job for Mercedes. Do you think Mercedes would put Wonder Woman over even with the golden lasso? No. But who knows? But more about this in the coming days And of course, if you are a comic collector Get a copy for yourself

Or if you're an AW fan, get a copy for yourself And all the people chained up in the basement. Oh! But Jim, let's get to WWE TV. What did you watch on Smackdown this past week? Well, you've said that now, And I've got to grab my pad here.

There we go. Again, it's... Jesus, they were from Cincinnati on October the 3rd. And people are going to say, well, that was several days ago. Well, yes, it was, but don't worry, nothing of earth-shaking happened. But this is the story now. I think they have fallen into a pattern here where it's just a long entrance,

the start of an interview, the interview is interrupted, a bunch more people say shit, and then they just walk off. And I know that I always say, well, they get in a fight every time. They can't do an angle, well, on AEW, they do, but in WW they do, but in WW now, they just all leave.

But it'd be nice if there was some break from this pad of the first hour. Right at the top of the program, Cody makes an entrance for over three minutes, says, what do you want to talk about? that's the last words he said. Here came instantly. Paul Heyman interrupted with Bronson Reed and Bronn Breaker.

And then Orton ran in to back up Cody. And Orden never said a word either. Paul talked to him. We're here to talk to Randy Orton. He wasn't out here when you came out. And then he said, we knew that if you corner the champ, the viper will appear. Okay, thin reasoning.

Paul cut to promo where he starts to sow seeds of dissension between Orton and Cody, and he tells them their team can't last, and then the heels left. And then they played music and went to break. Cody never spoke, Cody, it was Cody's promo. Why did he come out there if he was not ever going to say anything? I'm talking in the K-Fa reason now. if they've got to the point where a guy will come out, apparently was something important enough to say

to take the ring on national television, get interrupted, never say a goddamn word, get told off, and then just leave. Am I being too dramatic here? Well, again, they were building up, or Haman was building up the dissension or trying to create dissension between Randy and Cody. That's a story.

Cody's seemingly done very little, over the last several months and we've said it before he's become an afterthought there but he's got the Rollins match coming up they've got this tease with the Orton stuff here

on Smackdown but yeah he didn't say anything I know they're telling the story but the point is it's like everything else on this program they take 15 or 20 minutes to tell you fucking

three or four minutes a story and they just blow off they also they blow off any goddamn pretext that somebody is coming out to do anything other than what actually happens, which is they get interrupted and told off. Like any good advocate, Heyman probably said,

Schmuck, shut up, let me do the talking. To the opponent? Again, I don't know why. I can't explain. These shows have become awful. That's not to say there aren't stars, they're not to say that the fans there who are spending all this money aren't into it.

It's just me. But yeah. These shows have become hard to watch. Nothing happens, and it takes forever for the nothing to happen. By the time it's over, sometimes you're not even sure. Like, was that the end? Was that it? Like, nothing happened.

Like, there's no resolution to anything. Was that it? Will there be more? I just don't know. Well, see, that's their strategy. Sammy Zane wrestled old Malachi Black for almost 20 minutes. So, AEW doesn't have a premium or a monopoly on. on long matches, but then I can tell you the finish.

Damian Priest distracted Malachi Black and Sammy beat him one, two, three. And then Priest gave a razor's edge to Black through the announced desk. Boom, the end. This was the week that Dave Meltzer brought up that Malachi Black wouldn't do jobs in AW and he did for, you know, for WWE, a pretty clean job for Sammy's in here, didn't move from the mat. Well, but also, why wouldn't he? Sammy Zane's a big star.

They've given him a goddamn job where he doesn't have to work in a children's daycare center. And he gets to go 20 minutes on TV. He's fine. He's got the thing with priest going on. But he'll go down like a circus seal if they tell him because it's a professional environment. He has to be professional. But besides that, which is a thing. was a fine professional match.

And Chelsea Green and Alba fire going three minutes with Saul, Ruka, and Zaria. That was the first hour of the show. The promo, the match, the girls, and it's 9 o'clock. Jesus Christ.

And then we had a contract signing with Tiffany Stratton and Stephanie Vakere. Vakur, Vakere. Do you care? Vakir. you care. I care.

I care. They didn't do any favors for Stephanie that Tiffany was wearing like nine-inch heels on her boots and she's in her tights and her whole outfit and her protuberances and everything. And Stephanie was standing there in flats and street clothes. It looked like Wonder Woman standing next to an Uber driver.

What? They couldn't get on the same page. I'm not even, I'm not knocking Stephanie now, but if she was going to dress business casual, why didn't Tiffany come out? And, you know, it just, it was a major visual contrast. Anyway, Stephanie's comment was, and I wrote this down, I won't be losing any much. so next week may the best woman win Tiffany's promo was memorized and recited

but at least she got all the all the words out I know Stephanie's English is her second language but why do they give her a goddamn live contract signing where she fumbles a line looks like a milk stop Tiffany steals the show

and then they leave. Big said there's a little afterbirth here with other people, but did this do any favors for Stephanie is what I'm asking you? Because you're her fan club president. I'm not her fan club president. I do think she's very talented. I enjoy her matches. I enjoy her presence because she doesn't act like a good.

She doesn't act. She just kind of goes out there and portrays someone who's a wrestler. eventually they're going to have to have her do angles and be able to talk. What did you say she said? I won't. I won't be losing any much. So next week, may the best woman win.

Yeah, again, eventually it has to be, I hate you, I'm going to beat you, but this is a, you know, crown jewel. It's crown jewel. It doesn't really matter. She got shown up visually and verbally by this other girl, which she could have at least. again worn her tights like Tiffy was wearing to look like somebody. Instead, she's dressed like a cashier at Target.

And if they know English as her second language, then still it was very pushover baby-facedy, and these people don't like that anymore. They want the baby faces with a little piss and vinegar. But then Julia came to, down the aisle and leveled Tiffany when she was walking back and then Keanu

James did a long promo about wanting to manage Stephanie and made a big pitch to Stephanie. All the time Tiffany is out there laying on the floor thinking, will they ever shut up so I can get up? And then

Tiffie finally gets up and pulls Keanu out to the floor and Stephanie tried to beat up Julia but Keanu pulled her out too and they all left. So a big match at Crown Jewel. It'll be interesting to see. I guess you have to do.

I'm going to watch the match. You have to do a finish, right? You can't do some kind of fuck thing where Keanu James and Julia beat up both girls and there's no finish. You need a finish for a match like this, right, the way it's build up? One would think. And they're going to be, um, they're, Tiffany has already kind of, established herself. Stephanie needs to have some balls to her stand up to Tiffany a little bit there.

If she's going to, and then the other girls, I don't know, they're just kind of clogging things up getting in the way. Timmy. But nevertheless. Have you seen any of the stuff with Keanu James as the manager of Julia? I wasn't too familiar with her until I knew the name, but I didn't really know her until I knew this because the announcers were calling them by their names. She's like a foot taller than Julie.

Julia. That's the thing that keeps throwing me off, but you know. Well, she used to be a wrestler, but I bet she got hurt. Now they're just having her manage. And then we saw the lost Garza's. They've been lost. You don't see them much anymore. Against Javon Evans and Phoenix, who won that match. And then it was time for the fucking main event. No thoughts this week on Javon Evans? A lot of people were surprised by your positive reaction to him last time. when he's working with somebody else like Sammy Zane that knows what the fuck they're doing, then I wasn't going to suffer through.

He's not Braun Breaker yet to me. I wasn't going to suffer through the rest of these embecils to keep an eye on Javan. I'm sure we'll see him again. But that was the whole fucking show, what we've just said except for the main event, which it was Bronson Reed and Bronn Breaker against Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton

obviously that's a that's a made of in any arena in the country. But then the first entrance started at 9.30 and the bell rang for the match at 942. They had a minute of action and went to the break. What the f? They came back and they had four minutes of match and they went to another break. And then they came back and it was a long heat on. Cody and a cold tag to Randy Orton who made a cup. I don't know.

They don't even care anymore to set up a tag. They do, okay, it's time, King. And I'm loving the bronze, right? They're multi-generational heels. They could have been over in any territory anytime. But they do some back and forth, and Bronbreaker drives Cody through the barricade. And Orton hits the DDT on Bronson Reed

and goes for an RKO. And Paul Heyman gets up on the apron. Did you see what he was doing, Brian? He started trying to like he was going to climb to the top rope. He almost tipped the ring over. Well, I mean, think about it mathematically. If he's standing on one ring post and the other one, the opposite him is going to fly up in the air and hurt somebody.

What was he going to do? He was drawn to referee and having fun with himself at the same time. But as a referee goes over to him, Because he got to the bottom rope, right? He didn't get up on the top rope. Seth Rollins comes in, stomps Randy Orton, and rolls out. Bronson Reed splashes him off the top rope, one, two, three. It was another good win for the bronze, which, as we said,

tag team wrestling, you got to have two guys they think are main event guys in a team, and they got to win, and they got to beat people who are main event level stars in a fan's eyes. So that's great, great finish. And then Seth tells both of the bronze, he's mine. Like don't beat Cody up, he's mine. And then Seth starts making a face. And Paul's like, don't do it.

Don't do it. Don't fall in a trap. And Seth goes back in the ring to stomp Cody and misses the stomp. And Cody hits him with the crossroads. And there was two hours of your life. on Smackdown. So we've talked a lot about the issues with the ratings and how it's affecting all of wrestling.

SmackDown's not immune. And again, at the same time, it's not exactly the hottest show. It's not a must-see show. No one's clamoring for, oh, my God, I have to see anything on SmackDown. It's just, you know the stars are going to be there, and they'll be interacting and chatting and doing their things. But there's nothing big that gets you excited. Do they need that?

I mean, is this just a natural wrestling thing? You can't hot shot forever. You can't stay hot forever. We need to have a cool down period, or do they not even see this as that? Because the TV shows, again, you said it. Main event anywhere in the country, can be a main event of any of their pay-per-views,

Cody and Orton versus Braun and Bronson the way they do things. But by the time you get there, it's just, it's a whole lot of like sitting in place, it feels like, to get anywhere. It's hard to do. Well, and also, and I understand why, and rightfully so, in most cases, the matchy, you don't see a lot of those main event matches by the time they're in break,

and they start late with half the matches, the introduction or the entrance. But at the same time, they don't want these guys to go out there and work 30 minutes and get fucking hurt when they cost $50 million a piece to replace them. We did that math, remember? when I said, what is the pressure on Sina with 10 dates left that's going to gross $50 million for the company? He doesn't want to turn his ankle or when you've got to pick one of these guys up and put them down anymore. I better be careful with them. So I understand that part of it.

But everything takes so fucking long. Even the middle card talent takes so fucking long. they've got a lot of people. And especially on raw, it was even more profound because they've got two and a half hours. We're between the entrances and milking for the chance

and milking for the singing and the long monologues at each other or dialogues with each other, it takes 15, 20 minutes to impart what in the days of the attitude era would be a four or five minute live interview in a fucking ring with guys applying themselves because up and down the card, the names it was moving.

It wasn't just limited to the attitude era. Territory wrestling, if you had any kind of good territory, the TV kept moving. You didn't have just endless shows per week and three hours each. you know you had to get your point across you had to get over you had to keep people's attention you had to sell shit and blah blah blah it's just the fucking pace is brutal now in the wwe and it's the antithesis of AEW which they will not fucking stop so nothing registers one won't start the other won't stop I know it's one won't start and the other won't stop

in WWE. Draw the referee, nutshot, super kick. Cover, the end. Finish in AEW. 16 people run in. Four other fights start. Something gets set on fire. We come back from the break with other people in a match.

We don't, where did we start? Yeah, kick out of everything also. Just everything, no matter what, endlessly. Kick out. No matter how big you are, no matter how small you are, kick out. but that's, I mean, it's just where we're at. But the slow stuff is making more money, because at least they can understand it.

If they're, if they're hardy enough, bored enough, interested enough to sit through the whole thing, they understand what they saw. What do you think, one last thing about all this? What do you think about where Cody is right now? They've done a really good job getting Bronn and Bronson over with Hayman. Randy Orton is a legendary character, and if he turns at some point or whatever happens,

there are some fans who think Cody may turn on him. But I don't know about that. No. But Randy is where he is. What do you think about Cody? His current usage and where he is right now coming off a big PWA 500 number one placement. He should be the guy going into Crown Jules, the defending Crown Jule champion. He's had a weird year.

What do you think about where he is right now? Well, he still is the guy. Punk has louder fans. Roman has some devoted fans, but there weren't as many of them in Dallas as there were punk fans, apparently, from the noise. Roman's part-time, punk is, he's more of in the Hacksaw-Duggan position

in mid-south now where he's a guy even without a belt that draws. Cody is still the baby face champion and the and the kind of face of the company and he should be for all the work he puts in the whole thing with the

rocks booking and etc and that thing with Sina was a distraction but the people still like Cody and I would think with he and Orton, with this being the first week of October, they're right around the point where, and they got to get rid of Sina first.

They're not going to do something while a lot of attention is going on Sena's last matches. So I'm thinking by Royal Rumble time, something may happen with Cody and Orton, and Cody ain't going to be the one to turn. and Orton also is closer to the end of his career than the beginning and he's not a guy that minds a little heel run toward the end he doesn't you know take it so seriously he's just a lovely baby face now that he wouldn't want to turn heel and it would it would probably help

cement Cody coming out on the the top of a program with Orton is what I'm trying to say and a WrestleMania match or whatever the fuck. Well, we'll see what happens. That was Smackdown. Jim, perhaps Cody Rhodes' biggest problem is he has horrible musical taste. The music he listens to is just garbage. You could tell by the theme song. He's just into

inspirational, almost like Christian rock, whatever that is. But what if Cody Rhodes had a way to listen to good sounds? To discover everything from punk rock the jazz. Again, with good sounds, a comfortable fit, a stylish look, all from our friends at Raycon. The everyday earbuds classic is what you're talking about. And, of course, you've programmed Cody's taste to your own, Brian, with the punk or the jazz, but you could listen to a little bit of country.

I said in between, too. I included in between. Well, that does that means they're on opposite ends of the spectrum, and I would say that you are wrong about that. I would say that there are offshoots of a spectrum on the left. While at the same time, you could be over on the right-hand side with bluegrass and potentially experimental space music. Also, there's Bach and Beethoven to worry about,

but all in all, I think Cody probably inherited a love of country music from Dusty, so maybe there's a little David Allen Coe in there. Some whalen. Yeah, he would get into where he'd just start wailing. Boy, he would be wailing. You could hear him a mile away. Delbert McClinton. Delbert McClinton killed the house in Pennsylvania, didn't he?

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That's the Myrtle horn. let's tell the truth, Jim, and let's let the people know that Raycon's there to play great songs, no mind reading, but I can read your mind right now. You need a great earbud, Raycon, tell them, Jim.

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A purple blood. It's coming up, and they're not going to say anything to. you because they don't want to hurt your feelings. But they'll wonder why you're just bopping to the cool music while you've got some potentially cancerous growth in your ear. Again, we're...

Oh, there goes Mertil. Jim, let's wrap this up and what people know just the facts. Just the facts by Raycon.com slash JCE right now 20% of these fine, fine earbuds. That's right, very popular here at Last Manor. and of course Stacy Cornett's a big fan.

We have talked about it in the past. She got the cool mint. She got the cool mint color. But you can get what's good for you. Raycon by Raycon.com slash JCE and Jim. First time I saw her with green ears, I called 911 to get an ambulance. But she said, no, it's my Raycons.

Well, Jim, once again, they look great. And everyone will think so when they see you in them. Let's focus on that. Well, I didn't have my goal. glasses on. Jim, let's get away from purple blood boils and let's get back to finishing our talk about

modern WWE, WW Raw, which aired last night as we are recording. Well, they were in Dallas, Texas, and they had 12,913 people there, according to the announcers and Roman

Raines, Roman, Roman, Romans, Romans, Romans, Roman Raines came to the ring, Brian, to top the program off. They had the replay of his return last week and the slow entrance and the slow walks around the ring and he milked the fans for the cheers. There was light singing of his name. There was an okay OTC chant, but it was not thunderous.

and when he finally spoke Dallas, Texas, acknowledge me. He got a pop, but that was eight minutes into the show. And yes, they showed the tape of the return from last week or whatever, but do you think his heel entrance

with the slow walk and the, da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-it worked with the bloodline. It worked with the pageantry. It worked with the minions behind him and the fat wise man with the bald head and the, and the Ulifala was involved. That was a procession. This is not a babyface entrance, is it? I know he still wanted to be cool Roman Raines,

but there's no reason to jump up and throw the babies when Roman Raines is coming to the ring, is there? You know, it's a weird reaction. And then you start thinking about it. and you ask yourself, what's the appeal? He doesn't talk like a baby face. And again, heels get over too, but he's still kind of talking the way he did

as the head of the bloodline. Heyman comes out, and I don't want to get ahead of you, but Hamon almost exposes him, for real. He says, let me show you how this is done. And then he does it. And Roman's standing there with his dick in his hand, and you're like, man, it really was all Haman. Haman really was the guy who set the presence.

there's something there is something missing right now with Roman Reigns it feels like but that's the thing is that we talked about Smackdown Cody the top baby face on that program comes out says what do you want to talk about and gets interrupted and

here comes the heels the same thing here Dallas Texas acknowledge me after this whole procession we're going to hear what he has saying boom music interrupts and here comes Paul and Bronson Reed to the entrance not into the ring but they can't even let them say something to acknowledge the pretext why they were out there

so that these people can interrupt them and they milk the booze and they stood there long enough that Roman added did you come out here to just stare at me and then Paul spoke now we're almost 10 minutes into the show before anything has happened and Paul as you said did let me show you how it's done and gave the big intro as the tribal chief to Bronson Reed. And part of that was Paul the hype man building the thing up and in Roman Reed

being the Roman Reed, Roman Reigns Robert Reed or Robert Reed who apparently never fucked Florence Henderson. But the point being it's so just blah when Roman say yeah he's got the bad aura and persona, but it's slow. And Paul Lee put readover for being the first guy to make Roman leave on a stretcher.

He was carried out. He was taken to the hospital. And then Bronson Reed asked for the microphone, which is like, oh, bad move. But he was brief. And he told Roman, he's like, what would Afa and Sika say? They never got stretchered out. How would they feel now? and in Roman reign said, well, my dad would say, fight him now.

So let's do it now. And it really, and Paul talks Bronson read out of it. And Romans trying to goad him. So, okay, whenever, whatever fashion, et cetera. So Paul then turns around and says, well, we're going to make it. So now Paul can make the matches. does not only agree to a fight, but a specific date, five days hence, and specific rules and blah, blah, blah.

Saturday in Australia, in Bronson Reed's specialty that he's never lost the Australian street fight, from the mean streets of Sydney, from the ghettos of Perth, I'm not trying to disrespect our Aussie fans, but are the streets in Australia known for being violent, or is that more of the outback? Do they fucking have knife fights in the outback like Crocodile Dundee and et cetera? Have we ever seen an Australian street fight before, Brian, to know that this is Bronson Reed's big match? Where the fuck did this come from? It's what I'm asking you.

They came out of Paul Heyman's ass, but it would be my first guess. We have not seen it. Geez, he'll never notice it's missing with all the storage space he's got. Makes you wonder what would it be if Crown Jewel was an Akron? Would it be an Akron street fight? I guess they need something. An Akron rubber fight. Hey, listen, I've seen enough Roman Rain matches.

Roman Rain. Roman Rain's matches, a street fight may be the best thing, because otherwise it's going to be slow and deliberate, like an A-24 film. It's going to take forever. It's going to slow down. Eventually, they'll turn up the mic so you can hear him giving his speech in the middle of the match

to the other guy. The street fight may be the best bet. It'll keep him busy, is what you're trying to say. So finally, the heels are going to leave, and Romans say, ah, you're leaving like a couple of little bitches. And that's all that Bronson Reed gets day. And he turns around in charges to the ring. They get in a fight.

They go to the floor. Roman hits him with a Superman punch. Security and the agents and everybody come out to have a big pull apart. He hits him with another Superman punch. And they played music and everybody left. So we were almost 20 minutes into the show for talk that could have been talked in four minutes and a one minute fight. And it just, again, I think back to,

we had a two-hour show when we'd write raw and Vince would fucking freak out if, God damn it, you're wasting time here. Let's get into action. Get them in the ring. What the fuck is taking so long? And now it's just, but it, nevertheless, your thoughts on,

your predictions on the big Aussie street fight. Is somebody going to get a hit with a kangaroo or a wallaby darned? I don't have any prediction. It's weird. I can't tell you who's going to win. I also can't tell you I'm going to care. I'm sure I'll enjoy it. But again, there's an apathy that's setting in because of the pacing of these shows

and just nothing happening. And then just the similarity in what happens from one show, I mean, from Smackdown to Raw. Again, same kind of opening segment. and, you know, you just know it's going to be a long ride to get wherever you have to go. Well, we rode past Becky Lynch versus Maxine Dupree, old model girl, who apparently got a count out victory over Becky. And then the next match was Lyric against Roxanne. And then they had miscellaneous packages and spots and backstage promos.

And so an hour and 10 minutes into the show is, this is without commercials. I'm watching the replay without commercials. An hour and ten minutes of the show, we have had the opening interview and two girls matches and some people trying to sell us some stuff.

And then, Lacamoosealini, waking up the crowdy, here comes punk, and they woke up. And I don't know whether it's particularly Dallas or whatever, but punk got to pop of the show. It was bigger than Romans.

They sang the song louder. They did the clobber in time. But here's another thing. What I said about Roman, the slow entrance works as a heel with a heel faction, but as a baby face, you need some excitement. even if you're a cool baby face

but punk comes out and keeps it going he's got the facials he's slapping the hands or he's pointing to people he's happy he's doing shit and it brings the people up and then he gets the CM Punk chance and a big pop on it's great to be alive in Dallas Texas on

Monday at 8 o'clock Central or whatever the fuck. And he sang deep in the heart of Texas or got them to sing it. He gets people into it. The delivery, the inflections. He's speaking

genuinely even though it's a work. The point is that's what a baby face has to create some kind of excitement when they come out and he's doing

that whereas Roman did not, did not get the response. That's what I'm trying to say, right. And he, you know, thank the fans for welcoming A.J. Lee back. That got a pop. And he plugged Cody and Seth. He promised Cody he was going to stay out of his business, but he still wants the title match with Seth. Because Seth Rollins, I'm better than you and everybody knows it.

Do you think is MJF going to call Stephen New to sue for trademark infringement. Oh, that was a real question? You can't, yes, you can't, you can't comment, you have insider knowledge. I'm a client of Stephen P. New, I don't know if I'm allowed to comment on. I don't even know if MJF and Stephen Peneer know each other, but I don't know. No, it was a nice little nod to a former compadre who's stuck in La La Land on the

island. Oh, I don't know. I don't know. But I don't know. Well, it's easier to give a nod to a former. compadre that's stuck on Lala land on an island when you're in this land of civilization and he's dealing with Gilligan and the fucking skipper but anyway he says he's going to become the new world champion and that's cue for L.A. Knight's music and L.A. Knight comes out very purposefully

and punk is pissed and he's being interrupted and L.A. Knight had these people let me talk to you And they go, yeah. And then he said, look in my eyes, what do you see? And punk said, somebody who interrupted me? And L.A. Knight is pissed because he hadn't got his reign as world champion. And Punks now is known more for being a husband than the pipe bomb. But you're probably a great husband, but a trashy champ. He had five minutes as champ.

you lost his SummerSlam to Seth, blah, blah, blah. You know who he's never beat, who he's never, ever, ever, ever beat? And Punk said some guy that's never, ever, ever been champion and got a pop that seemed like it threw L.A. night off for a minute. You know what? That reaction was pretty big,

and it did seem like I threw him off. And it was a great comeback timed perfectly, and one would think that you would almost have expected that to come from a guy as quick as punk if you said something that way. But nevertheless, he got it back, though. The people laughed at him,

but he was, but I'm two and oh against Seth Rollins and I'm going to be world champion. And then here Jay Uso's music plays. And now I'm like, Jesus Christ, now this is starting to be AEW because we're starting to have a cast of millions.

But he comes at, they yeeded him, he's over. But he said he never got his rematch and he's next in line. And then LA Knight tells Jay Uso off. His time is come and gone. It's my time now. You ought to focus on the tag team title and maybe stop sucking as a tag team. And apparently the truth hurt there because here came Jimmy out without any music or anything. Just walk it out.

as he did that, Jay hauled off and super kicked L.A. night and knocked him good. So punk is still, all right, I guess we're cool Uso's since he interrupted you and a blah, blah, blah, blah, but you've got to understand. I want the title, getting a line behind me. Maybe you should focus on being the tag team champions. And he told Jay, he said, I love Jay Uso, but I don't like Little Roman. Oh, them's fighting words. And Jay shoves punk, and they start arguing.

And Jimmy's in the middle trying to keep him apart. And Jay tried to super kick punk, but Jimmy grabbed him and stopped him. And when he did that, punk took the opportunity to slip Jimmy and nail Jay, knock him on his ass. And then he turned around and Jimmy super kicked punk because, well, he'd still his brother. It all made sense. As far as who had wronged who verbally and why somebody should want to punch somebody, I'm just, again, I think it's not only a little busy,

but they're setting up some other kind of multiple man shenanigans, I'm pretty sure. But when you have all the baby faces being, I understand they need to be driven toward the title. and want to get the title. But when you have all of them being prickish with each other, the fans, we were just talking about, the fans take sides, even though they're all faces based on who their favorite is. And that's why that Vince Sr.

And most every other promoter throughout history didn't put his baby faces against each other except in cases of misunderstanding, or rarely, and it would hopefully be resolved at the end. But just somebody, to the fans, somebody in this, no matter who it is, is going to look like a dick, and that just diminishes some of your baby faces. Do you see what I'm trying to say? I do.

I also have been thinking that it seems like an LA night heel turn maybe on the horizon, but I've been thinking it for a little while. But more and more segments. But he may be one even the biggest dick in this, though. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's just like you said, when you think about it and it's like, oh, another multi-man match, I'm sick of this shit.

I'm sick of like this guy versus this guy versus this guy, which is a real crutch of Triple H. You know, punk's been in pretty heated feuds. Him and Rollins, although that may have gotten a bit muddy. him and Drew was just a concise this guy and this guy. They don't like each other. That's what's happening.

Acknowledging other people don't like them too. You know, like Rollins. You knew that was coming. This, you know, if L.A. Knight's not turning heel, I don't think it would be the stupidest thing ever to turn punk heel right now. Well, of course not. Jay Uso, unless he stopped selling merch,

I wouldn't turn him necessarily right now. And again, the Uso's are aligned with Roman again, who probably could, He was a heel turn right now. I don't know. It's, um, you know, and again, punk is best also when he's focused on one guy. That's right. Punk understands, punk is a guy who mentally understands what the wrestling business is and has

used his determination to not blessed with the athletic ability of a gold medalist, but with the psychology and a verbal ability of a guy who understands wrestling has willed his body to follow at its best when it's one-on-one, when it's a specific issue, when it's a grudge about somebody that he can talk about and just multiple people muddies the shit up. Yeah, plus it doesn't seem like punk has an issue. I mean, the fans care about punk because he's a star.

You know, out of everyone there, he's one of the people you could say is a star, is a draw. But he's not angry or focused on anything. He's just kind of, hey, I'm out of, to do a promo and tell everyone how great you are, and let's sing, and it's not like I have a message, I have a point, and then when you're thinking it could come from something, it's this big thing here.

Most of the fans, if you, Seth, L.A. Knight, and Jay Uso, they would want either of the three of them to have a world title match with Seth, but if you said it could only be one, most would probably pick punk because he's the bigger star of the three. Next, they'd probably pick Jay because he had it before. And last, they'd probably pick L.A. Knight, just because of the way that everybody's been presented.

But everybody still has their supporters. So now you're just pissing some of those people off at your other baby faces. Nevertheless, then and later on, Of course, after all of this, it's going to be, the main event is going to be punk and L.A. Knight against the Uso's in a tag team match player. But this show, in between the 20-minute promos, it was an episode of Glow. Because then we got E.O. against Kerry. And we've already had Becky and Maxine and Lyric and Roxanne. Now we got E.O. and Kearyon. Now we've got E. So it turns out the only two men's matches on a two and a half hour wrestling program came in the last 30 or 40 minutes of the show.

And of course there's also arguments amongst the Uso's because Jimmy is telling Roman that they're not like him anymore. And Roman's telling Jimmy that when Jay won the title, he became more like me and less like you. So there's the bloodline drama is beginning again, but I'm not sure they can recreate all of this stuff. And there's problems with Seth and Paul in the back where Seth is asking Paul, what happens if I lose Saturday? And Paul finally told him off and said,

at some point I'm going to have to ask myself while I picked you over Roman. So there's problems with them. Nobody can trust anybody around this place. Have you noticed that, Brian? And then there was Penta and AJ Stiles and Dragon Lee against J.D. and Finn and Dominic. And that was just five.

The only men's match in the first two hours of the program. And then we got to the main event. Did you notice that the Uso's were late on their interest? the music was playing and they didn't appear out of the vomatorium. That's actually what they're called. From the breezeway into the arena, the music was playing. They didn't show up long enough. The announcers, like, did they get lost? Did you see what happened behind the scenes?

I did not see what happened behind the scenes, no. They had some fan cam footage or whatever. They got mobbed up there by the fans expecting them to enter or whatever the security. lost control and the cameraman that was with them and both the Uso's got stuck in a sea of people and couldn't get into the arena. So they're probably going to have to revamp their methods of blocking off their entranceway. But they came out and in Punk and L.A. Knight who didn't want a team with each other,

they come out to sort of separate entrances and then hit the ring. together and getting a fight. And by the time that the fight starts, they had one more commercial break, but they literally had 10 minutes of program that was going to be televised from that point. And it was, Brian, as the noted manager of the greatest heel tag team

of the modern era of wrestling, does it sound like sour grapes when I continue to say that, the Uso's aren't a very good tag team? It, am I missing something? I wouldn't call that sour grapes. I would call that facts.

They've been heavily pushed in WWE from almost the very beginning. They've held the tag titles a bunch of times, so there are fans who see them as legends, legends of the era. But when you compare the in-ring work to other great tag teams, tag teams that are universally considered to be great tag teams. Even other WWE tag teams, like the Killer B, like just anyone, the work is different.

And I don't mean that in a good way. And I don't think it holds up. Well, finally, boom, boom, boom. L.A. Knight hit the BFT on J-I-M-M-Y. But then Jay super kicked L.A. Knight. And in punk schoolboy Jay, and that was a lot. a nice little timing they got on that spot there. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,

got a two count. Jay hit punk with a spear and was going to go to the top rope, but saw L.A. Knight and ran and nailed him off the apron, and then turned into Punks go to sleep. When Punk hit that, he collapsed back in the corner because he was fatigued from the previous blow. And L.A. Knight on the apron tagged Punk's shoulder and jumped in and covered Uso 1, 2, 3.

And Pug's standing there like, motherfucker, and L.A. Knight rolled out laughing. But Raw was two and a half hours, and we got, as I mentioned, the long opening promo, three girls matches, the long punk and L.A. night Nuso promo, a six-man tag and 10 minutes of this main event match in, yeah.

And a lot of commercials, a lot of promo, a lot of chances to spend more money on the various things that they're doing. Yeah, no, I finished Raw, and then I immediately said, let me get some tickets for Smashing Machine right after I get back from Riyadh season, because these ads are really speaking to me. Well, Jim, that was WWE Raw, raw, and on the topic of commercials,

we'll be right back after this short commercial timeout. We're at a wrong note or two, but that's never stopped anyone. That's never stopped anyone. Musical geniuses have to kind of be able to have the room to be flexible and create.

And Jim, we're going to create some more show here in a moment, some news, some breaking news. After encouragement from his senior citizen friend, a nice Jewish boy from New Jersey broke his Antonio and Oki Keychain today. when he bashed it as hard as he could over and over again and the frustration knowing that it has a song inside it has played

now it just doesn't do anything RIP Antonio Inoki keychain Well behind every dark cloud Jim there is a silver lining and today is the greatest day of my life Ladies and gentlemen I have two more Antonio and Oakey keychains in the package Oh god damn it

Oh jeez I'm gonna open one of them not to I'm going to have to repair the battery port and clean it out and put new batteries in, but it is my hope that we will debut this song on this show soon. It was my hope that you had finished off your Antonio Inoki Keychain, and we would, we would have heard the last of him. Well, we'll see what happens, but, uh... Slap it in the face again.

See how hard you can get this one. As the legendary Antonio Inoki would say, Talk about Jim, let's get some questions and stuff here on the show We're gonna have some guest to program before we wrap things up

But let's get some questions This first one Sent via the Cult of Cornette Facebook group By David James Kehoe DJ from Toronto Right under that it has the name He wants to use

DJ from Toronto We will use that Sorry about that Here's DJ from Toronto's question If the Midnight Express had stated mid-south instead of going to Dallas, do you think you guys

could have turned baby face? P.S., sorry about the Mets, Brian. And you know what? Thanks, D.J. Congratulations on the Blue Jays, but let's get back to this. I don't know all this football talk. We could have.

We could have maybe, you know, squatted down in the parking lot and shit a live turkey. But we wouldn't have. there was there was no reason for us to turn baby face if if we had stayed in mid-south that would assume then that we would have beaten the rock and roll express in the scaffold matches which wouldn't have happened because that wouldn't have been done that way but if we had stayed and the rock and roll had left then we would have been the top heels and the reason I say this one team had to leave we'd ran the program

you know, it was almost a year long, even though we had the break in the summer, it was two sections to it. But one team, because of the nature of it, had to go at some point because one team had to be acknowledged as the winners. So if we hadn't left, that would have meant the rock and roll did leave. And then we would have still been the top heel team and programmed with the next baby face team that may be able to come in. and I don't know who that would have been because the whole thing worked with us leaving. And then I think who,

was it Doc and DiBiassi, Ted, Doc and DeBi? Yeah, Doc and DeBiase. Those are two people. That followed us as the heel team. Well, well, depends how you see it. Were you, was there. I was going to say,

was there an overlap with the Guerreros, the Alamo Busters? Hector and Chabo Garero were a heel team at that point. And then, then it was Dr. Desti. Williams and Ted DiBiase that were working with the Rock and Roll Express. So we wouldn't have worked with either of those teams, but there was no call whatsoever for us to turn Babyface. You would have been a good substitution, though, a much better one than the Babyface team

that followed the Rock and Roll Express, Al Perez and Wendell Cooley. Oh, yeah, I was a fan of Wendell Cooley's work, but they were not a long-lasting nor memorable tag team in the canon of the greats. The most memorable thing about their tag team run was the Al Perez video in Mid-South through Santana's winning. That's my biggest memory. But unfortunately, a lot of that house show footage, which they used in the video and a lot of their videos, the colors would bleed. I got a good screen with a great quality copy of everything. It's very muddy, some of that early Joel Watts.

Joel was a very muddy young man. Let's move on to another question here, Jim. This one was sent, again, via the... Cult of Cornette Facebook group by Kevin A. Brassard. I don't believe I've ever heard Jim really talk about him. And honestly, I just recently discovered him myself. Thoughts, stories, anything about Sir Oliver Humberdink.

Hump! You know, we haven't asked about him that much and haven't talked about him that much because we hadn't been asked. Humperdink was a fan in Minneapolis in the 60s. And I've seen pictures of him as a young man. He was never, he always looked like Humperdick. He was never a cosmetically pleasing fellow. But he was a fan that got into business and primarily was known as a manager in the 70s

for the Hollywood blondes. I think it was one of his biggest pairings, but he had the House of Humperdink in Florida with, you know, tons of heels that came through. Dusty really liked him as a manager. That's why he used him when he was a Booker quite often. And I think his last national run would have been as the baby face manager of Bam Bam Bigelow and WCW

and what, like late 88. Because he was in those manager bunkhouse stampede battle royals with me and Haman and when Dusty realized that he had enough managers to do like an eight-man manager bunk house. We had to do a bunch of those in the houses. But, you know, that was actually the last time you saw Oliver Humberding when Dusty had enough managers

to have the Freebirds have 10 managers. He came out there. That's right. It was like Dallas Page, the fabulous freebirds, big daddy dink. That was, well, Big Daddy Dink. Yeah. And he replaced Haman with the Samoans.

Whenever in 89, when the Hayman Flair thing happened, all of a sudden, Oliver Humpardink was managing to Samoans. And, you know, Hump, he was an old-time fan as well as then getting in the business and worked a variety of the territories in the 70s. So he understood the business and how to talk his heels over, how to get the guys over, and, you know, how to do the job for the baby face

when they'd get a hold of him and beat him up in the end. as a baby face with Bigelow, he didn't set the world on fire. But I liked Humperdink. No particular stories we didn't work together that long, that often. But he was a classic name manager and what a fucking look. The rooster is what they called him into business. Rooster, because he had that red hair and Red Roberts. Well, his real name was Red Sutton.

Red Sutton. Red Sutton, that's right. Red Roberts was Rowdy Red Roberts, who was one of Roy Welch's crew as the heels in the Tennessee territory in the 50s. But, but yeah, that's the thing is Hump was just a guy. Everybody liked him, didn't have any issues with anybody, and one of the classic old territory managers. You see, I never got it, and I still haven't. I have no problems with what he's done, but my first exposure was kind of the late 80s, baby face dressed like a wizard and masters of the universe. Yeah, Ed didn't. Like shiny purple.

Like that's never with like a magical cane. Or if it wasn't a magical cane as a kid, I thought it was a magical cane with Bam Bam, who was cool. But that was my first exposure to him. And then, you know, from there, the stuff going forward, him with the Samoans, it only invited the comparison to Lou Albano with Samoans. and a lot of people always thought there was a big, not that he was influenced by Lou Albaano,

because I don't even know if he would have really seen much of him, but Lou Albaano was the successful manager in the WWF, WWWF, with that look. Hawaii shirts with a big belly and fucking earring. Yeah, and then there was this red-headed guy doing the same thing somewhere else. I've seen some of his Florida stuff that's good, but I'm missing like the greatness, I guess,

but I never saw him with the Hollywood Blonde's. well and see that's the thing it's like for a guy like humperdink is the manager example of some of these guys we talk about who their best stuff came right before home video or very early in home video so not a lot of people saw it but some of these things it's like watching flair's last match where he had the heart attack and that's the first time you got an impression of flair and you're like what the fuck but a lot of these forgotten classics were a lot better when they were younger and you had to see them live. Playing on the previous question and applying it to talking about Humperding here and, you know, we didn't see stuff with the Hollywood blondes as a heel. How tough is it to be a baby face manager? Well, it's almost impossible. And that's the, the rib is think of, you know, great baby face managers in history as like, you

who, where, when. That's why I got a kick out of doing it with Paul E. during that little run because it was allegedly supposed to be impossible and we did it briefly. But then I realized, oh God, once I didn't have Haman to cross the ring from me, I got to be a fucking healing it as quickly as possible

because you especially can't be a baby face manager unless there's somebody in the other corner. unless your nemesis is over there as well. If you're just, I mean, Arnold Scholland with Bruno or Pedro or Backland or whatever the fuck wasn't really a man. He was a manager in name only. Can you think, Paul Ellering with the road warriors, but Paul didn't serve the purpose of a manager.

He was more like one of the team, but he was the guy on the floor just to keep the third guy on the other side, you know, neutralized. Yeah, he did nothing. He did nothing as a manager. Well, but I mean, as a baby fan, because that's the thing, they had established their relationship as heels, and it was both personal and professional.

He was their wrestling manager and also their real manager. But they were a trio from being heels when they switched baby face. Paul had less to do because you couldn't do that much as a baby face manager. But they still. fit with each other because that was the group

and it wasn't like Paul was saying, oh, and I'm also going to take on the new breed or whatever. It was specific to that combination. So Paul worked there, but just as managing anybody, no, he wouldn't have been good as a baby face. It's almost impossible. Yeah, the Strangler-Lewis, who was blind,

blind baby face manager. That was Jose Lothario. who really, you know, didn't do much, but I wasn't as well. That was supposed to be for the whole San Antonio hometown angle, which Sean nullified and didn't want to do the thing with Jose to begin with, Strangler Lewis was, bless him a favor job for Fez, but based on Lewis could get press when the newspaper still remembered him as being legit and a big major star,

he could get press for the NWA in the 50s, whereas they wouldn't take him seriously without it. But again, as a manager in the modern era sense of performing, there's just no need for a baby face manager unless it's to counteract the heels manager, second corner person, whatever. And only under those parameters, does it really work? Is there a dynamic?

Hey, let me ask you about one of my favorite moments, if not the favorite moment of you as a babyface manager. Summer of 89, center stage. You, the Express, and Doctor Death have a match, and Michael Hayes and the Freebirds are over by the new announce wall at center stage with Jim Ross. And you and Michael Hayes start going at it. And for fans of wrestling talkers of great promos, we didn't call them prox. Romos back then as kids. Like this was kind of a dream thing. Like, no one runs their mouth more than Michael Hayes.

Well, no one runs their mouth more than Jim Cornett. Now they're doing it at each other and you zing him about the wardrobe and everything. But then the moment where you say, I never thought Terry Gordy, you'd be yo. And just how quick he turns around and he's ready to go. That's one of my favorite things from 1989. Well, and that was, it was fun if, as I've said before, The Freebirds were a great and revolutionary tag team, and that was Gordy Robertson Hayes,

not Gordy Garvin and Hayes. But if the birds of that point, if Michael had not been convinced that they were going to recreate the magic from Mid-South wrestling, and they had to be strong kick-ass heels, and they couldn't do any fucking gaga, and they had to fucking mow everybody down,

they would have been easier and more fun to work with because Bobby had been friends with Michael and Terry for ever since they'd been into business working for Nick Goulis in 1978 and you know even though Michael wasn't the best in-ring worker Gordy more than made up for it and Garvin except that he was on the fucking supplements and thought he was a goddamn road warrior

you know he could work and we'd been friends with gorgeous Jimmy Garvin but Freebird Jimmy Garvin was a dick because he was having Royd rage from introducing something that might give him a physique into his body for the first time in his life. And they just, they wouldn't sell. And, you know, the midnight didn't want to put up with that because as a heel tag team, the midnight sold for the baby

faces more than anybody. So we thought they might offer the same courtesy and understand, since we all kind of came from same place, Southern wrestling. But they were working like the road wars to the point where Doc got pissed at Garvin that night in Boston and broke that chair into pieces over his

head. But it just, they were miserable matches. And then Michael didn't want to, I don't want to say put me over. But as the baby face manager, I'm the third guy when they're having a tag match, not a six man. Michael was on the floor also.

And he'd just do shit right in front. of me. Well, Jim Cornett shouldn't be able to whip Michael Hayes. Well, but baby-faced Jim Cornett with a club in his hand should be able to run heel Michael Hayes off before he does shit. If I see him coming, he wouldn't even try to sneak. So we didn't have any fun with it. What was he doing? Was he like dancing over to you? What was he doing? No, he just, he would, he would interfere when one of the guys in the ring drew the referee, he would just start getting heat when nobody had taken my attention. I had to divert myself to not see it, but sometimes it'd be right in front of me. And I'd go over there with the racket. He wouldn't go back up.

He told me, well, I can't be selling the racket. The fucking road warrior animal sold the racket. Michael, you're still a fucking, you know, regular human. I want to get back to that angle specifically in your memories of filming that. It was, but it was fun. The promo and stuff, That was fun. We didn't prep anything. You know, if they were over there doing color while I was at ringside and I'm jousting back and forth, we're just doing shit. We didn't have to prepare anything because I knew Michael was quick,

so I didn't have to need to help him cheat. And I think he knew I was probably going to blister him a time or two. And that was fun. Just the matches suck. You know, as a kid even, again, I was nine, then 10 in 1990, I didn't understand why the Freebirds were tag team champions. I know it's a weird thing, you know, they're a heel team and they win matches, but I was like, how, why?

They have the worst physique of anyone on the roster. And if you look at the killers on the roster, Road Warriors, Steiner Brothers, skyscrapers, Midnight Express and Rock and Roll were having these exciting matches, and the Freebirds were just kind of like at their own pace. and then Michael started like introducing like the rolling DDT and just it was I don't know it was like always a weird thing for me and then there was the US tag titles and like when the Steiner's had those and not the world tag titles was like wait this is a little weird they're yeah

yeah and then the Steiner's is working with the Midnight Express for the US tag title and the fucking freebirds are in the higher on the card with the goddamn dudes I think or the dudes with attitudes some of the other baby faces and it was just yeah all right well this is but yeah but hey no i saw hayes and gordy as a team before they even brought roberts in when they first started i was there in the tv studio when they first were called the freebirds i was there at the coliseum when they first used the freebird music they were always an exciting team and michael could talk and when they brought

roberts in and got the push in mid-south they revolutionized tag team wrestling and made it more modern and were the precursor even for the the fabulous ones in the rock and roll because they were a youth oriented team and that's as we said when we did the show here last week or whenever talking about how bad a shape Dallas was in wrestling wise in 1977 before the kids came in and then had opponents in the freebirds you know, they brought on the youth movement in wrestling, the Freebirds to a large extent. But they weren't young anymore in fucking 1989.

And Michael aged quickly. And you couldn't replace, you couldn't just put Jimmy Garvin in there because they were personal friends. After he'd been gorgeous Jimmy with Precious for years and years, it just didn't work. How much interlap and time was there? with you guys in world class.

I know they were there as baby faces after the WWF run, which was brief, and then they went to Florida. How much time did you guys actually, and were you guys in the same locker room at all? Well, see, when we first went to Dallas,

we'd are, well, the freebirds have left and gone somewhere else or about to leave, and they were there. They made some shows, but then they went somewhere else. They weren't there most of the time we were there, but they bopped in occasionally. which wasn't particularly unusual because they were over in Dallas better than most anyplace else.

So naturally, like, we would make shots back in mid-south, you know, every once in a while, not enough for our liking. But we didn't really interact at all. And obviously, at one point they were baby faces, in which case most of the, the only time we would have ever been able to coexist with baby faces were, at Dallas and Fort Worth because all the other locker rooms were separate, so very little. And one last thing about the Freebirds now that we're talking about them. Where were you the first time you saw them on Georgia TV when they had the music playing behind them while they were interviewed by Gordon Sully?

Did you see it on TV? Did you see it on tape? And if so, how long after it happened? Well, I knew what they were doing from what they'd done in Memphis, and then that's when they went to Louisiana. had the big run in mid-south and we'd heard about the business down there and to be honest the freebirds were a team a heel team in the memphis territory at the same time as the blonde bombers wayne ferris and larry laytham and their manager danny davis and the freebirds were more athletic in the ring and you had gar gorty who was a prodigy even then but they weren't using the birds as well as they were using Ferris and Latham. They were on top working with Lawler and Dundee.

They were the Southern Tag Team champions because they understood they were at least more experienced. Wayne had been working a couple of years, but they had more of the style that you needed to work the main event heel style in Memphis and they could work with more of the guys. Whereas I think the Freebirds upstart personality, didn't endear them, and they just, they didn't get it. So they were having great matches, but they were gone. The blonde bombers were still there.

They go to Louisiana and Watts sees something and sticks Roberts in the mix and shoots the deal with the dog, and they end up drawing a record house in a Superdome. So it's a change in venue, it's a change in environment, it's a change in opponents, and it's a change in whether the Booker wants to push you or not. and also a little bit more, I would have to think that Bill Watts kept Hayes and Gordy in line better than Jerry Jarrett and Jerry Lawler

would have or gave a fuck to try to. So that's probably why that worked better there. But I already knew what they were doing. And then when I saw them in Georgia... Yeah, just the visual in the moment. You didn't see Georgia Championship Wrestling come back from commercial into music ever. like that would Gordon Solie Stanley?

Well, no, and that was the thing, as you could tell, because I was over at Weasel Doelie's house. You could tell when they came in, there's Michael. I mean, they all looked great. They had got the new outfits made. They had the fucking gimmick together. They're playing the music in the background. Hayes is doing the promos.

That was a big part of what made Georgia Championship Wrestling, the must-see show for the wrestling fans in what, 1981 because you can see the freebirds. That's why everybody wanted to see the freebirds. All right, Jim, our next question, sent me of the Culta Cornette Facebook group by Anthony Vanderlut. Who would Jim book as John Cena's final opponent? He's faced all the big names, Lesnar, Cody, Punk, etc.

So who's left for the last hurrah? And with this question, I'll put an adeption. them. Word coming out that the last match, Saturday night's main event, will be against Gunther. What are your thoughts about that? Is that the right opponent? I don't know what's going on with John Cena's

last year. This seemed like there's almost no way that you could fuck it up that the biggest baby face of modern times in the company is going to have 30 dates over the next year to say goodbye and

how in a world. do you fuck that up? They're going to sell a shitload of merchandise. They're going to do a bunch of huge gates and they're going to have some memorable matches. And then we get the heel turn and the rock. And then we get the never mind. You obviously didn't like it.

So I'm just not going to do it anymore. And then as soon as that's working, Brock comes out and just beats him in 10 minutes. I still don't understand that. and I still don't know why they did it unless they were going to bring it back for Sina to beat Brock, because they just didn't have to have that match then, or they didn't have to do it that way. Because it left, it was for the Sina fans that were there that and I'd seen the last time, oh, geez, you need heels to get heat on baby faces, yes, but when the baby face is riding off into the sunset and he's not going to get even,

And what I still don't see that it helped Brock because everybody already thinks that Brock is a goddamn Sherman tank on two legs. And I would have had him have matches with a number of the opponents from the past. And with AJ Stiles, I mean, a lot of these guys are getting ready to quit too. I don't think it to hurt them to do a job. And then I would have saved, again, I think he's not going to beat Gunther, is he?

Why would you, if he did a job for Brock Lester who's probably going to have five more matches in his life at his rate, then why would you not put Gunther over when he's going to be there for the next 10 years? You have to think that that's what he's going to do, the Terry Funk Brett Hart match, where you think he really is going to win, and then Gunther wins and see. Cena feels happy because he put someone over. Then why not save that for when it would really mean something for Gunther? Instead, everybody's going on. Brock just fucking flattened him.

Well, that was just pissy. I don't understand the whole way they've treated this. Put him over more often than not. Make a few people along the way that are competitive with him. Save the big one or two jobs for the last three or four matches and don't have anybody just flatten him, just like nothing without working for it. But that's not what they've done.

But again, they print their own money so they can do whatever they want. They can go out and paint a dirty Sanchez mustache on his face with fucking Brock shit. And it doesn't matter. They don't have to draw anymore. Everything's guaranteed. People are coming back.

by and watching by habit, the money's guaranteed from the networks. The Saudis will bail them out of anything. It's the guy's pride at this point, I think, and going out and won the half-ass put on a decent performance. It's, you know, we have hope for that it's pretty much it. That's going to be the next thing when the Saudis offer seen a money to come out of retirement to come wrestle there for WrestleMania. How they're going to handle that one?

Yeah, remember they had Sean Michael's. come out of retirement because the Saudis paid a bunch of money? What if they get to a point where they can't say no to those people? I mean, I'm going to make you an offer you can't refuse. What if they just start doing that? No, goddamn, we want Vince McMahon out here in tights. We'll give you $500 million. Do you think we see Vince McMahon at John Cena's last match, final match, whatever they're calling it?

No. Washington, D.C., his dad's old stomping ground? I don't care if it's 14th and I. I ain't going to see Vince. No, we'll see Vince in Saudi Arabia. Probably the next time we'll see Vince. But now he ain't going to be in Washington. Jim, let's get another question here.

This one was sent via the Culta Cornett Facebook group by Harendor Kang. What? That's the name here. Harrison in Edison, New Jersey. off-topic question Does Taxi have the greatest cast ever in terms of stars who came out of that show such as Judd Hirsch, Tony Danza, Andy Kaufman,

etc. You left out Danny DeVito, Merri Lou Hinner. I'm not to say Merrill Hinner. I would like to get your thoughts, thank you. The greatest cast in terms of stars who came out of the show. Well, Judd Hirsch was already a star to begin. with. Was he from what? I thought he was. I'd seen him in TV movies and all kinds of shit. Look up Judd Hirsch while I go over the other ones.

Andy Kaufman was already a, that made him a star. That show made him a star, but he was already on television. I thought, Danny DeVito, I think you've got to, got to credit him with being a star off that TV. But it was a great cast, yes. But, then is it are we just talking scripted episodic television because Saturday Night Live has produced more stars but it lasted longer and was a variety program and did anybody know who any of those friends motherfuckers were before that program aired

but have you got any news on Judd Hurd? Yeah and I did. Matthew Perry had done a bunch of stuff right. I saw him in a night in the life of Jimmy Reardon when I was like eight years old, nine years old. See, I didn't know Jimmy. Yeah, he was in that. He was on one of the first Fox shows.

I forget what it was, but he was like, an old man watching himself. Like, he came back to be able to monitor. Jesus Christ, they let that on Fox in the early days? They let anything on Fox in the early days. An old man watching himself. I thought the old men in those days used to try to encourage other people to watch him, but maybe I'm... No, it appears that this was the project that made Judd Hirsch. He was uncredited...

Seriously. He was uncredited in 71 for a roll in jump, uncredited for a role in... in 73 as a cop and Serpico. And then at 7080 he was in King of the Gypsies. Academy Award nomination for ordinary people, but that's 1980, and then looking at a TV. He was on several episodes of The Law in the role of Murray Stone.

He played Saul in the television movie Fear on Trial. On medical story, he played Dr. Joe Dempsey on the episode Wasteland. In the legend of Valentino He played the role of Jack Hourback That was a television movie Followed by the television movie The Keegens Where he played Lieutenant Marco Chardy

So he'd be in a variety of things A household name What year did a taxi start I gotta go back to that Would have been what 8080 or 81 Oh I thought it was before that Okay I got because I was gonna say he was nominated apparently For appearances on Rhoda

the 78 it started. So right before our taxi, he was nominated. Oh, God, I saw him on Rhoda. I knew I'd seen him somewhere before. Did you watch a lot of Rhoda? I watched Rhoda religiously. Did you? Because she was next door to Mary Tyler Moore,

and we had to see what was going on there. What are your thoughts on Valerie Harper, and what are your thoughts on the beginning and end of Valerie Harper on the Hogan family, or what became the Hogan family? I didn't watch the Hogan family. I didn't really like Brooke or Linda, Nick, or any of them. But, no, it was a big deal when Rhoda moved away from upstairs from living over Mary Tyler Moore.

But I always wanted to see more of Cloris Leachman. I think she was, she was fast. She was an easy woman back in those days. Back in those days, in the mid-70s, those days? Yeah, back in those days. She was an easy. She was only in her 50s at that point. Now, she looked good, though.

She did look good. I mean, next to Ted Knight, anyone looks 30 years younger than they actually are. Well, I guess that answers your question, any folks on Jeff Conway, who's in the movie Greece, and then later, I think Celebrity Rehab or One of Those shows. I was about to say he was in one of those rehab shows. Wasn't he friends? Wasn't he one of the people, the Hollywood connections that Larry Burton had, that con man that bought the USWA along with Lawler,

from Jerry Jarrett. I don't remember that. He had a connection with Kinicky? Well, I think he was one of the, because remember they actually had that Dustin Diamond come and do Memphis TV one morning? A screech fellow. Larry Burton knew some of these off-brand Hollywood people.

Apparently, many of the people that he knew ended up in some type of rehab show where they were in various forms of rehab. Any thoughts on Tony Danza? Who's the boss? None whatsoever. No, I never watched that fucking show. You never watched Who's the Boss?

No, I didn't think he was the boss. And one last thing, Danny DeVito. Danny DeVito is I would like to hang out with Danny DeVito. He's probably my favorite of the whole bunch of them. What a fascinating life in career. Not just for the always sunny stuff, but he's just, he's fascinating. Do you ever see twins with Arnold Schwarzenegger? Twins?

Yes, I did. I actually saw that. United outside and in, twins. That was a good one. 1988, I think. You know, he was in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. He played one of the patients. Yes, along with that big Indian

fellow that threw the sink through the window. The hero of the film. That's right. Yes. All right, Chip, let's get another question here. This one was sent via email to the CultaCornet Facebook group. This was sent by Ron Atkins and El Raya,

Elria, Ohio. What the fuck? Elyria, Ohio. Illeria. There we go. El Raya. And they called the wind, El Raya. It's an age-old spot in wrestling

where the manager whispers in their wrestlers ear giving advice, or the heel tag team whispers after the face outclasses them. Yes. What is actually being said? Do guys mime words or say something funny? I'm sure you must have done it a hundred times. Well, it just depends on the situation, because if you're just taking a break for a second,

after he's arm dragged you three or four times and the heel rolls over to the corner, I'll just whisper, you know, just like I'm giving advice and the fucking heel can nod. Sometimes either the partner is saying, okay, let's cut him off and go to our heat spot, fucking, and we're going to do this or that or the other thing, whatever spot we're going to do.

It just depends on the situation. So there is no particular set communication requirements there. It can be just bullshit or it can be telling the guy what they ought to do next or it can be just a joke or whatever, anything in between. I don't really know how to. Any memorable instances of whispering? Not a one. No, not one.

Not one. Not a goddamn one. All right. Well, that was a question out loud. We will now get to another question. Jim, this next one was sent via the, oh, via email, excuse me, to the corny drive-thru at gmail.com address from Mike in County Durham, UK. Oh, I thought he was in North Carolina. I was just wondering whether you think it's fair

that in shoot interviews, wrestlers downplay Randy Savage's abilities because he didn't call his matches on the fly. Especially with so many spots being pre-planned today. He was exceptional in the ring, even though a lot of his opponents in the golden era of WWE were limited. He gave Warrior, arguably his two best matches, and at WrestleMania 5,

made a huge 303-pound Hogan looks somewhat mobile. Also, DDP had his best matches with Savage and WCW. Basically, I'm asking if the cake tastes great, does it matter how it's made? Well, first off, and with Paige, Paige likes to set things up and walk through him also,

so with him and Savage on the same page, I'm sure they had a great match. And I don't know if I don't know if, I've heard people downplay Savage's abilities in saying that why, you know, and saying that he'd like to set things up. So he was the shits. I haven't heard that. Savage didn't start setting stuff up until he went to the WWF.

And what was, you know, 87 was the match with Steamboat, where the Steamboat has said that he came to him with it all written out, et cetera, and all the false finishes. and blah, blah, blah. They literally rehearsed it, I believe, yeah. Yeah. But Savage had been working for 10 years at that point. The matches he had in ICW, the matches he had in Memphis with Lawler,

everything to that point, hadn't been worked out ahead of time because nobody else would have done it with him. And he wasn't a big enough star at that point to insist on it happening. So he could work, He just, I think he saw, probably before most people, that Vince, all he cared about was keep the action going, keep the action going, fucking, blah, blah, blah.

He didn't care whether they rehearsed a match or not. And Savage wanted to, because he had the incredible cardio and he had the cat-like reflexes. He wanted to be able to keep going and going and going because that made him stand out from a lot of the other roster who were not that fast moving. And remember, Randy was still only six feet tall, and on the juice, what was he, 240 or whatever? But he had that aura that made him more intense, and part of that was just moving, moving.

And if you had to stop and call a spot every now and then, that tended to slow things down. And also he was working with guys that weren't going 100 miles an hour to begin with. So I think the veterans, his contemporaries at the time, were in various degrees of bemused, amused, offended that he would write shit down and have a script to follow for a match. It was like the worst stereotype of what people who didn't like wrestling said, ah, they're following the script when there never was one.

It was like guys who were offended when people said the blood was fake, when it wasn't. And then people started using fake blood, and guys, including me in some cases, were like, what the fuck? So I think that's where some people may criticize Savage, but he was an exceptional talent. He could go either way, but he wanted to do that. And as we've all heard, Savage had a mindset that if he decided something, needed to be done a certain way, it was very hard to talk him out of it in any way, shape, or form.

So probably the path of least resistance for a lot of guys, even if they didn't want to go along with it back then. But this isn't something you heard about when he worked at Memphis after you left? No, no. Or when he worked with Bobby Eden for Nick Goulis or anything else? No, that was not a thing that anybody was doing then. I mean, you would talk in the locker room, especially if you hadn't worked with a guy often about what if you could talk in the locker room if they were together what what what kind of

shit do you do if you hadn't seen a guy what do you do well here's what i do let's go okay we'll call some of those things when we get out there and we and we'll go over the finish what's the finish okay and the manager comes in whatever that was the preparation what is what do you do well here's what i do we'll call some of those things and then the fucking skeleton of the match was okay, baby face shines, heel, cut him off, get some heat. Baby face, when it's time to go, make your comeback and then here's your finish. That's what you were told by the book. And, you know, there was, so no, it was not going on with Randy or anybody else that I'd

ever seen that would step by step plan a match before they went to the ring. I had never seen that at that point, early 80s at that point in time. And I don't know if Dallas Page was doing that before Randy Savage or if Randy Savage introduced him to the concept, but, you know, there were wrestlers apparently that I think The Undertaker famously I pushed back when Dallas Page was like, hey, you're working together. Here's the script. Yeah, yeah, well, you can take that and fucking shove that all kinds of places. But is that something you would have to worry about it?

Just like the idea that anyone else would accept what you want to do here. Yeah, I depended on who the biggest star was as to which got their way in that case. but a lot of stars, even of that era, of the modern era of the 90s, would be offended if somebody came to them with a match worked out ahead of time before they got out there and got in front of the people. And you'd have a framework or a skeleton.

And if it was a pay-per-view match or sold out Madison Square Garden, you might go in with a bit more of a framework and a jazier skeleton, but it still wouldn't be all worked out. and some guys would be offended by the idea that they should work their shit out ahead of time. And truthfully and honestly, in the house show days, there was no reason to. The Booker would say, either get 10 minutes, get 15 minutes, get 20 minutes, or get it right.

Just when you go out and have the match that you think you want to have and it's right to go, just go. I don't care what time. those were the kind of parameters you were given. Not, okay, there's going to be six cues for breaks, and you got to hit the exact time because we're fucking live on the network, and, you know, make sure you do this 18 phase fucking finish. That wasn't a thing. So that's why everything looked less pre-planned and more spontaneous,

because it was. All right, Jim. But yeah, Bobby loved working with Savage for Goulis, and they stole shit from each other. You know, the thing that, course, Savage used to grab the guy by the head and run and jump over the top rope and spring the guy's neck on the top rope

and he'd land on the floor. Bobby used to do that working for Nick, but Bobby didn't do that as well as Savage did. But Bobby did the elbow drop off the top better than Randy. I mean, smoother with less injury to the person that was being dropped upon.

But they, you know, they would do the Mid-American title match. They did a 90-minute draw one time for the Mid-American title in front of almost nobody in either Nashville or Chattanooga. But they had a chance to trial that shit because each one was the other was the only person they had to do shit like that in the territory where they could trash shit. All right, Jim. Well, with that, we're going to get ready to move to guess the first. program. And this week here on the show, Jim, you know what that chime means. It's time to chill out.

And we're going to say that just the program this week is sponsored by our friends. That's to be a way to make that sound good at cornbread hemp. And of course, Jim, we want to tell all the listeners about our fine friends at cornbread hemp. And of course, if you take the cornbread hemp CBD gummies, you will automatically be able to play the organ or the keyboard or the xylophone or whatever the fuck that was, better than Brian just did, but also what you're going to find is that if you take the cornbread hemp CBD gummies, not only will your stress alleviate, not only will your discomfort disappear, not only will you be more relaxed, but also you'll be able to call better wrestling matches. That's been proven by scientific studies.

I don't know about scientific studies, but I think Randy Savage, if he were alive today, could have used some cornbread hemp. He could have used some to just de-stress because he was wound up tighter and a banjo string on Saturday night. But folks, if that's you, if you're wound up and you're shaking like a dog shit and peach seeds

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looking down on it. Disembodied. I started to say disembowled. No, let's not use that either. That's not what we're looking for. No. All these products, or third-party lab tested.

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there's a growing leprosy infection. rate and initial studies are saying the CBD can do wonders for leprosy. No, there's no leprosy. We're at the end here. Right here at the end. I just want to leave you with that right at the end. You've seen it in the news. I've not seen it in the news.

What news? They're coming down with leprosy right and left. This guy's ear fell off on Main Street the other day. Whether that is or isn't the case, it has nothing to do with the fine products and the fine people like me that enjoy them from cornfield. bread hemp, Jim. I'm not saying that CBD gummies from cornbread hemp will cure leprosy, but there are no studies that say that it won't. Oh, you hear that. You said the magic word, which is leprosy, which is not something you need to worry about. Jim, one more time, that promo code

for all those nice people out there. Cornbreadhimp.com slash JCE. Use the code JCE at check out 30% off on your first order, unlike if you get leprosy, 30% of your body will fall off. Again, it has nothing to do with this, independent of this, but once again, a great product, cornbread hemp. Yes. All right, Jim, let's get to guest to program. Let's wrap up today's banner episode with guest a program. This is a game where I go through programs in my collection, usually things I haven't filed away yet. quiz Jim about the lineup, maybe some other details.

Jim will guess the location, the date, and all other details that he can come up with that I sum it up in a professional manner. I think you actually did. You did very well and succinctly there. I'm not feeling well today. Well, Jim, let's get to this first one here. I'm going to start you with some low-hanging fruit, as they say. Well, you get as fruity as you want to.

I'll be right there with you. Our first bout, Tito Carion versus Angelo Savaldi. Bout two, Chick Garibaldi versus Dick Steinborn. Mark Lewin and Don Curtis versus Herb Larson and Sweet Hansen. Good Lord. Two out of three falls. Pat O'Connor versus Hans Schmidt. Primo Carnara.

Jesus. And Bruno San Martino. Good. versus the Crusher and Danny McShane, two out of three falls. And finally, our main event, two out of three falls. Antonino Rocca and Johnny Valentine versus the fabulous kangaroos. Christ, on a cracker, what a show. We are in the Northeast at some point, which will get back to

in a moment. Tito Cadyon. There's a name I haven't heard in a while. And Angelo Savoldi, we've talked about him. He just got, he got stabbed probably a year or two before this show took place. Yes, not by Tito Carrier. No, by Danny Hodge's father. Um, which, which Garibaldi was that? Was that Gino or Leo? Chick or Chick. Uh, Dick Steinborn was the son of famous wrestler and strong man Milo Steinborn. Dick Steinborn was a heck of a, going through my negatives, I have found shots of Dick Steinborn when he was wrestling in Memphis in 1977 as Mr. Wrestling under the mask.

They actually called him Tim Woods the first couple of weeks. Jared always liked Tim Woods. He couldn't get him. He'd make a different one. Mark Lewin and Don Curtis, a baby face tag team, probably the, besides for a tag team like Rocca and Perez, the most famous baby-faced tag team in the Northeast in the 1959 to 61-2 era.

Herb Larson and Sweet Hanson, what a stiff team that must have been. They'd beat the shit out of you. Pat O'Connor, obviously a former NWA World Champion, during this time he would have just probably just lost it maybe months before, if not the year before. Hans Schmidt was the top German heel and one of the hottest heels in the business

on the Chicago TV in the early 50s. I got to see him wrestle on the Sheeks TV when I was at A. Lola's house in like 1972, and he still looked the same because he'd always looked old and had a bald head. but he had those I don't know what the fuck they're called but non-cancerous tumors all over his midsection did you ever see a picture

of Han Schmidt in the early 70s I have not I think you mean cyst whatever they are cyst he had knots all over his body his midsection when I was 10 years old it was like holy shit that's what Tenru ended up having too so

so Primo Carnera and Bruno Samertino against the Crusher and Danny McShane. Carnara, everybody knows who the fuck he was. Bruno, this would have, he's coexisting with Rocca, who was in the main event with Valentine against the Kangaroos, Al Costello, and Roy Heffernan. This, I can't believe the team of Crusher and McShane. That's an odd pairing. And one would think this would be a Madison Square Garden lineup, but I don't remember these particular two main events that I've read

the wrestling in the garden book. Maybe I ought to read it closer. I'm going to say this is 1961. I don't know that it's the garden or early 62. I don't know it's Madison Square Garden. When I saw Crusher, I wanted to say, Pittsburgh because Bruno and Crusher had a, Crusher was often in Pittsburgh in the early 60s,

and they had a famous match there. Ah. Fug it, 1961 in Pittsburgh. It's not, but what is it? Well, let me just plug also. There's a great book that's going to be on sale at Cornette's Collectibles. Wrestling in the Garden, you may want to get a copy. Monday, I may want to.

January 23rd, 1961, Madison Square Garden. Okay, God damn it. So wait a minute. That is this, O'Connor was the current NWA World Champion at that point in time, or have I fucked up my goddamn chronology? Now you got me confused.

It was 60 or 61. I thought it was 61, but. 61? Yeah, so he would have been the reigning NWA champion at that point. Let's go to this next one here, Jim. All righty. So I cave-fabed myself on that one is what I did. The opening contest, Sammy Berg versus Anton Leone.

One fall 15-minute time limit. The second bout? A four-man tag team bout. John Tolus and Chris Tolus, Hamilton, Ontario, versus Joe Tangaro and Guy Brunetti. Two out of three falls, 45-minute time limit. The third contest Big Don Lee versus Enrique Torres

1 fall 30 minute time limit The semi-final Wild Bill Longson versus Ike Ekins One fall 30-minute time limit And the main event One Fall to a Finish Pat O'Connor

versus Buddy Rogers good Lord okay um ike ekins was the Kentucky hillbilly and didn't he use the stump puller

hold which was matched here against longson's pile driver Enrique Torres against Don Lee the Tolos brothers against Tangaro and Brunetti who were a

popular babyface Italian team. O'Connor and Rogers could have been a main event anywhere in the late 50s. Good Lord, Anton Leonie would go on to run as a promoter in California, but that would be the early 80s, which is a good 20 years from this card one way or the other. could this be could this be St. Louis and I'm just crazy

I'm going to give the year and longs and still being in the ring because by the late 50s except for special appearances in St. Louis I think he was done right 1961 in St. Louis or Toronto. The building, the Keele Auditorium,

St. Louis, Missouri. Friday, October 7th, 1955. 55! Holy shit! Ringside, $3. Okay, to me, that's early for the Tolos brothers. I didn't know that they would have been featured that early.

Don Lee and Enrique Tories gave me no help whatsoever. Longson and O'Connor directed me to St. Louis, except that both Rogers, long, all three, Rogers, Longson, and O'Connor were on top in Toronto in the late 50s, so I didn't fucking know, but St. Louis, 1955. All right. Talk about your low-hanging fruit. That one was on the top of the tree. Oh, hit the keyboard, sorry. Here's our next one, Jim. Opening bout. Can from California versus Tiger Tasker, Canadian lumberjack.

Special bout. Ted Germain, South Boston, versus Stu Hart, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It actually just says Edmonton, Canada. Sorry, Alberta. Semi-final bout?

Wild Bull Curry, Hartford, Connecticut, versus Roland Meeker, Louisiana. Good God. And the main event, the world champion Frank Sexton versus Dano O'Mahoney, Ireland. Okay. Tiger Tasker would later on become the most famous referee in Toronto, right, for one long period of time. He was the referee you always saw referenced in the wrestling magazines. uh stew hard i wonder whatever came to that kid i don't know anything about his opponent mr germain

bull curry and roland meeker i have posters of curry and roland meeker in the boston territory in 1940 i think they were at six and seven frank sexton was the world champion in the boston territory for years and years, the Sexton brothers, and when Boston was its own city under Paul Bowser, he was a huge draw, and Dano O'Mahoney was the first Irishman that set records in Boston and various places as a world champion of a previous decade. This is in the 40s, and it's in Massachusetts. it somewhere, is it the Boston Arena or one of the

secondary towns? And I'm going to say it's 1947. Wow, very impressive. All-Star Wrestling, Boston Arena, Thursday, March 25th, 1948. Ah! missed it by

three months. There's a picture here of the new Matt Wonderboy, Stu Hart, the Edmonton Flash. And it says here, Stu Hart makes his hub ring debut at Arena Thursday. It'll be interesting to get a line on this Stu Hart, the Edmonton boy,

who has been showing Canadian followers of the game some real fancy wrestling. Tabbed as the Wonder Boy of the Matt, Hart is touted as a great young prospect. So the Boston debut of Stu Hart. And this would have been right after he was working in New York and met Helen with Paul Bosch, and right before he went to Western Canada, right? I believe so, before he returned back to Edmonton or, I guess, Calgary in this case.

Jim, let's go to this next lineup here. Actually, Edmonton first, because he opened up Edmonton first before Calgary. Jim, the opening contest, Bubba Douglas versus Gordon Nelson. Oh, what city in Florida are we going to be in here? Jerry Briscoe versus Devil Number 1. Barry Windham versus Dick Slater. A special challenge match. Jack Briscoe versus Mr. Saito.

Manny Fernandez, Mike Graham, and Steve Kern versus Nikolai Volkov, Brian St. John, and Nature Boy Stanley Lane. A Texas death match Mr. Florida versus the Super Destroyer and since you said Florida I'll just say at the main event for the Florida heavyweight title Don Morocco

versus Bugsy McGraw Okay Well I mean we knew it was Florida As soon as you say Bubba Douglas The Honorary Mayor of Lakeland Florida And who did he wrestle? I didn't even jot that down because I was laughing

Gordon Nelson Gordon Nelson who brought the sugar hole to the snake pit. Yeah, trained guys, hauled the ring, did various things for the Florida office for years and years. Gerald Briscoe's on the card, Barry Windham, Jerry, Saito, everybody knows these names.

Nature boy Stanley Lane. When people know the story that Flair trained Stan to wrestle. When Stan was a room service guy for the marry it or the Hilton or whatever it was in Myrtle Beach and he took an order of five bloody mary's to fucking Flair's room one morning and Flair was in there with companionship and only had a hundred dollars so he gave him the hundred and Stan brought him back his change at the pool that day and he said hey you ever thought about being a wrestler and Stan loved wrestling right so but his first territory stands after he debuted in

the Mid-Atlantic area jerking the curtain a couple of times. They sent him to Amarillo when Mulligan and Murdoch had bought that territory from the funks and he didn't stay long there. I think he bopped through mid-south and didn't stay long there and then went to Florida where since he had been trained by Flair, the nature boy Stanley Lane. He hates the name Stanley. and he was partners with Brian St. John. And Stan's biggest accomplishment at that point in fucking wrestling

was when he and St. John won the Florida tag team title. If I'm not mistaken, they beat Eddie Graham and Ray Stevens. And he's like, who's the fire is Ray Stevens and Eddie Graham? And I've been into business a year and a half. I'm beating these guys. Point being, with all of those things having been. said this looks like a big card this would either be a Miami beach or a St. Petersburg lineup and it would have to be either chronological year it would have to be either late

1979 or early 1980 so let's say St. Peter let's say Miami Miami, 1979 slash 80. Tuesday, June 10th, 1980, 8.30 p.m. start time. Tampa. Fort Hesterly Armory. They put this one in the armory. God damn it. All the cards were main events in those days. All right. Let's get another one here, Jim.

Nature boy Stanley Lane. This one. If you would have pissed Stanoff, call him Stanley. This one is two different cards. Which one is this one? Okay, here we go. The opening bout, Sunny Fargo versus Bill Parks.

And it says Reggie, and Reggie's crossed out, and the word Bill is written in, so Bill Parks. Chief Bighart versus Gene Murphy. Lenny Montana versus Laverne Baxter. Good Lord. and Laverne Baxter was a guy, by the way, just so

nobody thinks that he was beating up a woman. Yeah, and it's spelled here, L-U-V-E-E-R-N-E. That's not the way you spelled it. Tag team match, Tiny Row, and Bull Brummel versus Lord Littlebrook and Cowboy Bradley. And those are the Little Fellows. And seemingly, is this the main event? Seemingly, this is the main event.

Rip Hawk. versus Don McClarity. Wow. Okay, we are in the Carolinas. And the only reason I know that is because Chief Bigheart was a big deal, no pun intended, in the Carolinas at this period of time. Sunny Fargo in the opening match, it's Roughhouse Fargo, but before the gimmick, and while Jackie and Don were,

off in the late 50s, early 60s, being the World Tag Team Champions all over the place, Sonny would sometimes manage them, but because the Fargo's, Sunny and Jackie were real brothers. They were from North Carolina. So Sonny would work locally in the Carolinas on preliminary matches

when he wasn't on the road or being one of the Fargo brothers. Tiny Row and Bo Brummel and Littlebrook and Bradley, the touring midget, could have been any territory so that doesn't give us anything lennie montana and laverne baxter lennie montana was the the actor or the wrestler who became an actor and was in the godfather and people have he's an answer to a trivia question about wrestling in movies he was lucabrasi lucabrazi and played you know variety and other roles of the the heavy the tough guy the mobster, whatever.

He's in the jerk with Steve Martin. That's right. The only other thing to go on is that Rip Hawk was a big name in the Carolinas, and later on, he and Swede Hanson would be one of the first big heel teams there. Don McClarity was a southern star, you know, of the era, but not particularly tied to one place for his fame. And so now that I've beaten around the bush, God damn it, the Park Center in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1961.

All right, well, I think that means we can't do any more today. Uh-oh. Charlotte, North Carolina, November 20th, 1961, the Park Center. Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! You nailed it with this one. And I would have said 60 or 59, but I remember thanks to our friend Sean Delaney over at Evansville that Rip Hawk was the top fucking star in the Evansville territory in the late 50s there, so I bumped it up a year.

All right, well, that is how we'll wrap this up. I had other programs, but I'm not going to top that. That's a big end. I don't think, yeah. I think that's the big finish, baby. Well, this has been guest to program. And with that, the drive-thru is close. All right.

That's no Antonio Inoki keychain. Here's how it sounds now that the Anoki, I can't talk. The Anoki key chain. No more Tagida. No more Ichid Nisanda. Jim, we'll be back in a few days on the experience, and there's so much happening right now. We're about to have Title Tuesday, NXT, versus AEW.

We're about to have WWE. Crown Jewel Perth. The Morning Massacre, maybe they'll call it. It's so early that thing. But we have so many things happening on the, experience and of course next week. Right back here on the drive-thru, go through the archive, patreon.com

slash cornet. $5 a month get you access to the archive going back to the very beginning in 2013. Patreon.com slash cornet. I'm making all sorts of noise and I know it. Sorry, Jace, but of course the official Jim Cornett YouTube channel, go to YouTube and subscribe

today, full episodes, Clip City episodes, Omnibus Collections, that great artwork from George Livinitis, some of our great guest artwork, contributors and will have more to come, the official Jim Cornette YouTube channel. Cornets collectibles at Jimcorna.com. What's going on, Jim? Hi, it's this Saturday. It's finally here, October the 11th, my new book that I poured my heart and my soul and my sweat and my tears and my stomach bile into, along with all the other

great merchandise for the holiday season, discounts, sale prices, new material, incredible stuff, Jimcornet.com starts this Saturday. At Jimcornett.com. Of course, the drive-thru is brought to you by the law. It's a Stephen P. New 7-7-5-0, Steve. Get even with Stephen at new lawoffice.com. Don't forget, the wrestling news each and every day, direct for you. Get it directly. I don't know what I'm saying. From the wrestling news.com, wherever you find your favorite podcasts. I need a nap. And I think that's it. It's nap time. Go sleep, Georgie.

We hope you've enjoyed this presentation. We'll be back for more next week, and in a few days on the experience for Jim Cornett and the late Antonio Inoki. I'm the great Brian last. Tally-ho!