Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru - Episode 414: Jim Reviews Crown Jewel: Perth

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

This week on the Drive Thru, Jim reviews WWE Crown Jewel: Perth! Plus Jim reviews lowlights from AEW Collision, and answers YOUR questions about Ric Flair, Stan Lane's ants rib, Vader & Gary Hart, Paul Orndorff, the Inoki keychain, and much more! Thanks to our episode sponsors: SHOPIFY:  Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/cornette HELIX:  Go to helixsleep.com/jce for 27% Off Sitewide exclusive for listeners of Jim Cornette's Drive-Thru!  PRIZEPICKS: Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/JCE and use code JCE to get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup!  SURFSHARK:  Go to https://surfshark.com/JCDT or use code JCDT at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN! 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.

I messed up a little at the end there. Hello again, friends! And you are our friends, and welcome back to another edition of Jim Cornett's Drive-Thru, right? Drive-3. I can't speak. It's early, not as early as the wrestling's been, but it's Jim Cornett's Drive-Thru on another fall day, and it's all falling down today.

I'm your host, The Great Brian Last week of your questions. We have wrestling reviews, at least some of the wrestling, and so much more. What the fuck is going to? on here? With this man, the leader of the cult of Cornette, Mr. Jim Cornett. Okay. All right, you messed up at the end there as opposed to the beginning in the middle. Then you played the disco single of your, remember them kids back in a 70s? That's how we could shake your body all the way down to the ground. And then you fomfer everything that you're

trying to, every piece of information that you were trying to convey there was garbled and misshaping and ugly hunchbacked even. Got the hunchbacked verbiage going today, but let's see what George

Laurenitis does with that, by the way. Yeah, nothing. Be friendly and nice George and it's George Livinitis, not Laurenitis, she almost got me to agree with that for a second there. Our fine artist of course, on the official culting. This show's going so great so far, folks.

The problem is kids around the world, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, that Brian is now, he's hunkered down in a bunker up there. He's broadcasting from the concrete bunker, but a nor'easter. A nor'easter is coming through. There she blows, whale ho! And all that other sort of starboard

type of naval talk that they do in the Navy. You got bad weather. I told you the other day that a bad moon was rising. The ratings, now the weather, everything's going to hell. You had lost power, you've regained power.

It's still, it's a dark day out there. That's what is throwing you off now, Brian. You're, you're reclimped because of the dark skies above you. Yeah, I mean, the weather's bad. We were on generator for a while, which isn't the worst thing in the world. but it made a lot of noise, and it stopped almost as if God himself were saying,

let the noise stop, record the show. Goddain, hold on now. People are thinking, you insufferable douchebags, so your power goes out, but you got a generator, but you said, but it made a lot of noise.

It's very noise. Because we were trying to record in the room that the generator is located outside of, so it did delay our recording slightly. So you need to, because otherwise it just sounds like, like you're complaining as Mama Cornett would say if they hung you with a brand new rope. I literally was saying that that's not the worst thing in the world, I think, is what I said

afterward. So you're trying to incriminate me on nothing. What are you hiding? You were going back and backpedaling. You were walking it back. What are you hiding? I'm hiding. You want to say, I got something right down here in my pants.

I'm hiding. I could give you a shot at. Is it noisy? No, but it is wet. All right. However. All sorts of reveals here today on the show, ladies and gentlemen. We're going to persevere through your weather mishaps,

and we're going to do the programming for the people, the people of the cult of Cornett, who have actually come out in full support, Brian. My new book, this is the first show we've done since the holiday on sale. Even Antonio Anoki bought one. The new book, Heroes and Friends at Jim Cornett.com, I can't say it's a hit because nobody's actually gotten it yet, so it hadn't been reviewed.

However, I can say it's a bestseller. People respond, in the last 48 hours we have sold just under half the print run, which since we got two months until Christmas leads me to where I have to have more conversations and decisions about things, but it is on sale now and while they last. And I encourage everybody to go not only for my book, but also, I will tell you one thing, and then I come back to the details I was going to go into. Wrestling in the Garden, the history of Madison Square Garden Wrestling that Scott Teal and

Crowbar Press have published. We said we were going to get 100 copies for the holidays, limited. number because we've talked about that book so much, Brian, here on the program, you and I over the last several months, talked about information gleaned from the book in conversations of New York wrestling and history and et cetera. The hundred copies sold out in an hour. So we got a hold of Scott and made an agreement to get more copies because that wasn't even fair to people. It was like, oh, shit. It was disheart. It was displeased. point in people. So we, as quick as we could, we put up a notice. We've got some more copies.

And so while they last, and we got even more this time, but you can once again, if you missed out, if you were the people Saturday afternoon who got shut out, we apologized, we did not expect, it's a great book, but it was like the canary and the coal mine. We didn't expect that kind of feedback. So, We've got them up now and they're on sale through Christmas, one way or the other. And as for heroes and friends, Brian, you and I were talking about this briefly before we went on the air. This is not a print on demand book. You can't get this kind of quality print on demand.

And I'm, again, not trying to put my brilliant writing or stellar photography over this contained within or the incredible array of classic and priceless wrestling collectibles that are showcased. But you can't get this printing, this paper, this color reproduction, and et cetera, on a print-on-demand books. So there had to be a finite number. And I got what I thought was a lot of books. And we've got half of them gone in 48 hours and it's two months until Christmas. So we're going to see how the rest of the sales go, folks.

And I'm not encouraging you to slow down. I'm kind of encouraging you to speed up. And if you speed up, you for sure get one, one way or the other. But if we sell out too far ahead of Christmas, then I may see about trying to get some more printed, but I can't get this many books again. And we'll know if I get as many as I got now, then I'm afraid that I will have a garage full of books for, you know,

I'm an older person now, Brian. I'm almost a legitimate senior citizen. They fudged it down for the AARP card, but I'm almost 65. So I don't know. And if I get less, then I can't get the same price I got. We were practically giving them away already,

so I don't know what we'll do. So if you want one, the best thing do is get one in the next week or two or three or whatever. Yo, Hotchkis, if you're listening, grab one of those first printing boxes and hold on to it for that eBay deal we were talking about.

Would you, God, just quit? Just stop. Why do you got to stomp on the little man? We're just trying to make it. Just, me, Who can turn the world on with his smile? You're going to make it after all. But only after I'm dead, you son of a gun.

Anyway, but again, and by the way, if you've got skin in the game, money in the till here. If you did order when we went on sale on October 11th, which was barely 48 hours ago, as we sit here, packages will start

going out by the end of next week. We are trying now to sort out the slammed orders that we've got in our sorting system, you know, the speedy service system that the feather bottoms are noted for

and start sorting and signing, because everything's done to order. This is not the McDonald's. Your food's not going to die under the heat lamp. Everything's done to order. But the books are easier to do than the action figures. Because you can just do them one after the bubble, the clamshells on the action figures,

get in the way of speedy service. I think you should do glasses again. That worked well. Well, the glasses weren't bad, but the mugs, the cult of Cornett coffee mugs. I can't tell you how many people said, my handle broke off. We had these in fucking peanuts and bubble wrap and square crush-proof boxes. And it was like the Postal Service was using them for batting practice instead of softballs. But anyway, Jimcoranad.com, ladies and gentlemen, is the place you can go now,

discounts up to $40 on the action figures, all of our regular merchandise brand new 8 by 10 photos, and me and Scott Teal are having a race here to see who's the best-selling author on our website. But all of that is available now, and hopefully most of it will be until Christmas. We don't know yet, so act quickly. I'm completely, this was the Canary and the Coal Man type of thing.

because this kind of book has never been done before. So I didn't know whether people were going to respond or not, and they're responding very well. So I appreciate that. Usually that means more to come. So that's a wonderful thing for people who like wrestling history and good wrestling writing. Well, if I had more spare time than I do right now,

I could possibly muster up one of these a year. So it's not like we're going on sale every two weeks. like Captain Marvel during the World War II years. Did you know that, Brian? No. That Captain Marvel at a certain point in the early 1940s had taken over from Superman as the best-selling comic book in America and they were actually pumping one out.

Was it every two weeks or possibly every three weeks? But even more often than monthly. That's incredible. That's incredible. And they even had the world's largest. selling comic magazine, which it was for a brief period of time. No, your publication is more like the schedule of Captain Marvel in the 70s and 80s. Just as a print run for a few issues and then he's gone again.

Well, but then this was this was 1942, 43 or whatever by the early 70s. DC Comics had pulled a fucking Vince and bought the original, the rights to the original Captain Marvel and turned him into Shazam. That's right. Because Marvel Comics had already come up with a Silver Age Captain Marvel, and there was confusion in the marketplace. I always wondered how much confusion there really was in the marketplace for that whole thing. There was confusion in the editorial marketplace between, yeah.

That's right. And Marvel Comics was not even Marvel in the 40s. It was timely. That's right. So therefore, they were even more confused because it was, all the same people at Marvel. Still Stan Lee, been an office boy.

Now he's running the fucking show. See, that's what's going to happen. Feather Bottom, the office boy here is going to take over. After you finally make me watch enough wrestling that I have an aneurism

and... Yeah, we'll see. And then he's going to work as he's going to be the boss around here. He's a very friendly guy and he likes money. I'm going to have him turn on you, faster than Bruce Pritcher turned on Paul Bosch and Peter Burkholz. He's going to be in my employ

before you know it like that. He's a very friendly guy when you wouldn't take home to mother. All right, let's try this again. Nope, it's just the itchy D sound dog. So this is, I can't stop it either. This is, unless I

ripped the batteries out, this is the one where I had to put the batteries in and play with them. I've got it now. That just goes on. Well, I've got it now so the battery are in here and if I press it I'll never forget where I was ladies and gentlemen mark it down you have you have been witnesses

to history it has happened I didn't even have to open the third one what a moment let's see if it happens again but it is possible you have been vindicated wow you're like well these people they've fucking freed you from prison after 20 years because of DNA evidence. You were right all along

and nobody believed you. And you see, the other thing is they play like the catchiest, most funky part of the song, so you hear that, you're like, I want to hear more of this, and then it's Tagata. And then it never happens again. The other version is just, you know, there's like a chant. I don't know if you ever heard the record version of the song.

It's like, Hey, no key, Bombayéé, which is always found amazing. Like, he wrestled Ali, and he's like, I'm stealing the catchphrase from Zaire. I gotta fuck did that happen. I'll leave Bumbae. Watch this. I'll have a song. In no key, Bumayéi. Well, there it is. The Inoki key chain is finally... But there was the music by... Who is that music by? Who would have orchestrated that? Oh, there we go.

I don't press your... Can I stop it? I'm pressing the thing. They used to stop it if I pressed it a second time. No, this one would go right through it, and then... And then... And then... And then, oh. You see, there's no rhyme or reason to when the song plays. I just want to hear the song again. I know it can happen.

Why don't you work on that later on tonight after dark? And we're done with this program. Oh, good Lord. Now I'll never stop. It's like perfectly 70s. It is a cute little ditty. All right. Well, I don't know if I'd use those words, but there it is.

Antonio Anoki, his big return right here on the show. Jim, real quick before we move on. And that was long-term storytelling, too. It took weeks and months. It seems like years to get to that point. I'm just happy I didn't have to open that third one because I have it here. No, don't pick it up. Well, the packaging says,

you could hear the Antonio Inoki theme song, and now we know it is indeed a possibility on the air. And then it has one, two, three, die! Which, I don't know if that's exactly what he said either. What does da mean? Well, the best thing, too, is on the back of it, it has his height, 191 centimeters. His weight 108 kilograms.

Okay, goddamn. His finish hold, there's a swastika. What? What? Wait, what? And then it says, Gatami cobra twist. So I didn't know he was doing the Nazi Gatama. Tommy Cobra Chwit.

No, that's, there's an actual, now certainly there's not an actual swastika. I will be sending you a photo of this momentarily. There absolutely is. This is, this was made in Japan in the 1980s. So, how did, I mean, I understand that when he's stepping over the octopus, hold his legs are crooked out in that fashion and he's got but that's that still doesn't uh see I look it as he's hunting Nazis that he's trying to kill Nazis with his

hold not that he's like supporting them I see Antonio Nokey is a man for them well they would be supporting him he'd have his full weight on them if he had the hold on them well we'll have more about this uh in a little bit but uh Jim I didn't want to plug one thing before we move on it's a brand new book and I was uh fortunate enough to help out a little bit Libnan Ayub, he's a historian from Australia. His father was a wrestler for Australia, wrestler for Australia, an Australian wrestler for many years. He campaigned all over the circuit for Australia.

God damn it, he would wave the flag. This book is pretty cool, and it's not like anything else I've seen. It's called It's All About the Belt, the World Heavyweight Title Belt of the American Wrestling Association, 1960 to 1990. and that's literally what it is. It's all about the history of the belts, the theft of the belts at times, the changing of the looks,

the inmates that carved their initials into it. It is a fascinating book. It's on Amazon. I tried to search for it under Libnan's name and it didn't come up, but if you look for it, it's all about the belt, the World Heavyweight title belts of the American Wrestling Association.

And I agree with you because you or someone assuming your name sent me a copy also and I just got it. I have not had a chance to read it thoroughly or look at even everything, but I flip through it, as they say. And just the detail and the pictures, et cetera, remarkable and the fact that he was able to track down these fucking stories

and the minute details of these different belts and how they, I didn't know that Ganya, the kind of most recognized of my generation, the, what, late 60s and 70s, a.WA belt was actually a rework of a 1952 police Gazette belt that was given to Gagne from the Police Gazette magazine and who used to be in those days and before those days big sponsors and proponents and supporters of boxing and wrestling but also I have a footnote in this. I wish he'd been doing this book. to add a little bit to the story.

I don't know whether it fits in or not. But I at one time possessed one of the belts mentioned in this goddamn book. Did you know this? I did not. I'm trying to think of what it could have been. I know Harry White had some St. Louis and I guess Central States belts years back, but I don't know if one of these was one of those. I don't know, actually.

Okay. So since you brought this up and what the fuck? This is more fun than we talk about to fucking pay-per-view. So I'm living in Connecticut in, it was 1990. I, okay, was it 96 or 97, one of those years. And I happened to be talking to Dutch Mantel. And Dutch had called me, said, Jimmy, said, you know anybody in Japan, some of those collectors in Japan would like to buy belts?

And I said, well, what do you got there? you know, what are you talking about? This was the period of time where I guess Larry Burton had come in and if Memphis was all fucked up or shortly before that or whatever the case, but Dutch had come in, they had put the, remember the unified USWA unified title was part of the unified in it was the AWA belt, right? and as you will recall that Lawler had had the AWA belt

of what was at 89 when they did the super clash and then things fell apart and Lawler kept the belt and this story is told in the book. He wanted an 88 from Kurt Hanig and he held on to it until the beginning of 89 is when everything fell apart. Right. So Vern got a new belt made and that's why you see pictures of that time period

of the early 90s. Lawler is a unified champion in Dallas or whatever he's wearing the belt that used to be the AWA belt, right? So anyway, Dutch said, I've been a unified champion or a USWH. He didn't, he didn't glorify it. I've been the unified champion.

He's like, I've been the USWA champion or whatever the fuck down here. They owe me money and I got it and I got their fucking belt. I want to know if anybody wants to buy it. I said, fuck. How much they owe you? He said it's like $1,000.

I said, I'll give you $1,000 for it. So I sent him a check for $1,000. He sent me the belt. And I had that goddamn, not only in Connecticut, but when I moved back to Louisville, the place I used to live in. And when I moved back to the house here,

I had it for almost 20 years probably, pretty close to it, right? Wow, I had no idea. Yes. But here's the kicker. So at one point when I met Mark James and he'd come up and his brother Chris came one time

and I can't remember I don't remember Milliken coming up with it but some way or another Dave Milliken who makes all the belts for everything if your pants are being held up now it's probably a Milliken belt but he had taken over the the industry-wide

belt-making business at the time from Reggie Parks who he was a protege of and i know people are saying what the fuck is going on here but all this is going to tie together through mark i met Dave through Dave we're all talking we've got belts uh we've got memorabilia and Dave said I'd love to buy that belt for me I say yeah but that's that's the old AWA belt and all the great stars that of he's no here's the story in 1995 like the year before the dutch had won the belt or when all it before whatever happened milican who had already started making belts with i guess with reggie uh or apprenticing under him he bought the fucking the real unified belt from luller but luller I'll sell you this belt, but I need a belt.

So he made this goddamn belt. It was his first replica. So the point is, he wanted to buy the belt because it was the first replica he made. It wasn't the belt I thought it was that all these great AWA stars had held. It was the belt that the previous three champions in Memphis had held.

Right? And I was like, well, motherfucker. So I sold him the belt so he could have his first replica back. Hopefully you made a profit. I think I did. But still, I was like, well, son of a bitch. I thought my guy, you know, Bach Winkle and all the greats have battled over that, no, it was like Dutch, probably Lawler and maybe the snowman or whoever the fuck, I don't know. You know, some of the stuff in terms of the title history is in that book in terms of how many times the title changed in the 80s.

You know, there was the prison belt, that was Stan Hanson and his incidents with the belt. There was Lawler leaving with the belt. Zabisco needed a belt. It was even stolen one time in the 70s. The previous belt, I think it was, or maybe the late 60s, but no, the 70s. A guy ran up at the show just out of the crowd and snatched it from the ring announcer and took off. And they had to call a copse and track him down. And it made the papers, that's all in the belt.

or in the in the belt. It's all in the, in the belt. It's all in the book here. The book about the belt. Once again, it's a real, it's a real belter. It's all about the belt by Libnan and you, check that out. If you're into also photos of belts when they still have pictures of the champion on the belt. It's an interesting period of time.

How do you deal with title changes? Do you have a photo of yourself in a circle we can use? Mula is the only one who could pull that off. Yeah, she kept that photo for 50 years. or she looked the same for 50 years unless she looked real close but in a low-deaf world she never changed

Jim before we move on I sent you an email if you could open your email real quick just to finish things I had and I assume that it is the picture that you spoke of goddamn it is a swastika isn't it it It's not printed like a swastika logo.

It's printed like if a swastika was like a letter. It's like that you would hit down. Here's the swastika letter on the typewriter. It just fits in with the rest of the print. His finished the cobra twist, K-O-B-U-R-A-T-W-I-S-T. Could that? How would they not know what that

is, but could that be something in translation from something else? I hope I've made that perfectly clear. Yeah, I mean, again, maybe another thing to elevate Antonio Anoki, Antonio Inoki Nazi hunter, I think it has a hell of a ring to it. All right, I'll put him down, Jim. It's not ever going to quit now. How much is 108 kilograms? I don't know.

Ask that, who was it Jack Reynolds? Who was the fucking ring announcer for the Clash of Champions, and he had the Russian assassins and he goes, had a combined weight of 190 pounds from kilos Russia. All right, well, Jim, yeah, well, that's even better than South Central Louisiana. Who did that? I remember you tell him that story. Who did South Central Louisiana? We ended up with a ring announcer one night on a Spoky Mountain Wrestling show. was part of the local sponsoring fire department group because for whatever reason, there was no other ring announcer there that night.

And so I would write down the, in a case of an inexperienced announcer, I'd write down the actual weights and the hometowns. All you have to do is say from so-and-so to wait of so-and-so person's name. The gangstas were from South Central L.A. and so when he read it out loud from South Central Louisiana, the gangsters. Well, again, we want to thank Antonio Anoki for participating the last several weeks here on the show.

We really do appreciate it. Jim, let's get to modern wrestling. Now, we did not watch Smackdown, or if I did, it was on in the background, and I don't remember a thing about it. It was from Australia, and they were already there, so what to hell? And why don't we talk about why they were there? WWE in Australia for Crown Jewel, Perth, in Perth, Australia.

A lot of people chimed in after we said there's no king in Australia. Apparently his name is King Charles, relatively famous for England and, you know, his ears. Well, but you know what? No, here's the thing. Then it's an outlaw territory, because there's no way that especially a man that old and in that physical shape can stay on top of what's going on in an, a couple of, a couple of. country surrounded by water of thousands of miles away. No, they got their own business going on. They've blown the king off.

Well, speaking of business, they apparently did another run a big business in Australia. More John Cena T-shirts that I've ever seen on a crowd before. Let's talk about Crown Jewel Perth. They were Perth snatchers, is what they were. That was the official. Very good. the official uniform no as soon as the show came on I was it because the color hit you it's a bright yellow and I was like is this the local

sports team or is there what I don't mean the actual team in the crowd I mean these were thousands of people out of the crowd that were wearing these shirts I thought they were supporting the local sports team in Levenna they just sold that many goddamn John Sina shirts that night. That was the special shirt for the show, right? Because we saw later camera shots. Yeah.

It's a Sina shirt. But how the how the fuck did they get 5,000 Sita shirts over? Anywho, I've never seen one piece of merchandise even in a wrestling crowd.

Well, we're the Austin 3,6, shirts that plentiful, but it was black, so it really didn't jar your vision like that as the bright yellow shirts? Or was this a, this was a fucking thing. They were happy to be there and put that on. Yeah. Do you remember about the Austin shirts? I mean, the Austin shirts was sold to all sorts of people. These shirts are being sold to people who spent a ton of money to come and be as happy as they could be in that crowd. Well, yes, but I mean the plentifulness, Can you even remember a crowd that had that many of just the same fucking Austin 316 shirt on?

It's hard to say, maybe, but the fact that the matter is, those are black shirts, and lots of people wore black shirts, whether they were Steve Austin shirts or not. No one else was wearing a color shirt like this other than John Cena. So it stuck out even more. Yes. Yeah. That's what I just said. Yellow.

That's for yellow. It was very yellow. Yellow. All righty then. So the point is we got a five-match show. So we know that some of the matches are going to take a little while. But we opened up with what ought to be a real stem winder, as Lance Russell would say, a good old-fashioned pier-sixer, as Gordon Solie would say, a Donnybrook even,

the Australian street fight with Bronson Reed and Roman Rains. and they had taken a while to get there. It was, again, I think back to the good old days, the halcyon days of your, even in the attitude era, if we had a fucking pay-per-view, and you said, okay, by the time that we play the open and the drone shots

and the various walk-ins and the package and the explanations, and then the entrances, about 15 minutes into the show, we're going to ring the bell for the first match. Vince would have had a conemption fit. But they rang the bell about 15 minutes into the show. And again, I'm a fan of Bronson Reeds,

and I think he's different, and I think he and Breaker have the tremendous upside and as a team and the whole nine yards, I'm thinking, Roman Raines needs to, when's the last time that Roman Raines came out and tore the fucking house down for nine minutes

with the wildest goddamn thing you ever saw and got the fuck out of there? Never, slow and plotting, deliberate, and then eventually either during a match or afterwards, a speech. Well, in this case, it's the Australian street fight, they go out in the crowd and they fight, fight walk back to the arena and Roman beats him up with the garbage can.

How many bright, shiny aluminum metal garbage cans you see in arenas these days, Brian? I don't think any anywhere. He'd like what they used to come pick up at my mom's house in the 60s. And then they walk, fought back to the ring and Roman beat him up with a cricket bat. And then he beat him up with a Kendo stick.

And then he told Perth, if you want tables, acknowledge me. So they pulled out a table. But then Bronson Reed established himself as the heel good by stopping Roman and sliding it back in. And I was like six minutes, I'm bored already. Because it's the same shit. But here's the thing, the fans,

obviously they paid a lot of money to be there and there was 13,000 whatever and they want to have fun but it's now it's the fans are loud but they're just wanting to be loud and wanting to make noise to be part of the show they're not

they're having fun watching guys fake fight and amusing themselves with chance and singing a particular guy's name they're not really concerned that the baby face is hurt until they see something where somebody falls out the top rope and looks like kills them more on that later. They're not concerned that the heel is going to cheat the guy that they want to win.

And they're not relieved and joyous when the baby face makes a comeback that they didn't think he was going to have a chance to make. It's not the noise of a wrestling crowd anymore. It's the noise of the studio audience on a massive scale. Is it not, Brian? I'm glad you brought this up

because, you know, when we first started seeing it, it was such a novelty. I forget where it really took off. It was Italy or France, wherever it was. it was a big deal and there were so much energy and there were so much happiness it seemed

and people just seemed to retain that happiness and want to dance at times and sing no matter what's happening in the match I mean even like the thing you know the thing you have fun with on the show the daddy cool Cody Rhodes

Cody Roads Cody Roe they do the same thing for Roman Rain so it's not even like it's special for one guy they just want to sing Yeah they want to sing the name But you get the opinion and the crowd really died out later in the show lost their energy finally

but you get the opinion that in some respects and maybe it's a sign of who's buying the tickets up front I don't know but they don't really seem to care about what's happening in the match they want moments but it's not like they're invested in it they're invested in having fun

yes and there's going to be people out there that say oh Garnett hates fun because they already do Cornette hates fun. No, I don't hate fun. I don't hate fried scallops. And I don't hate peanut butter, but I don't put peanut butter on my scallops.

It, at some point, yes, again, we know the business is a work. But at some point, it has transformed itself. And on the AEW at indie level, you can't even really say who's in control over there, whether it's the fans or the fucking boys just doing their own shit. But the WWE, the mainstream thing, has transformed itself into a self-fulfilling prophecy, I think, where the boys have just decided, okay, we're just going to work up a series of stunts. through our match

because the people, if we're over, the people are just going to take it away and sing and yell for everything anyway. But it's just nobody's taking the thing seriously where the guys are putting themselves more in physical danger, more risk of injury, more painful,

just as a general rule, more painful matches than was one. and for many years necessary. And the people aren't even real. Oh, God, I hope so and so wins. Oh, Jesus Christ. It's like, oh, hope they all fall through a fucking table.

Jesus Christ, that has to be disheartening. As a heel, we desperate, as heals, we desperately wanted people to want to see us get beat by any means necessary. And as the baby faces, naturally, the whole, the way they worked their match was for the people to want to see them triumph in the end over all the odds.

And now it's just like, what can we fucking fall through? And again, in the middle of all that, and it's a street fight, but Roman Raines does not really have exciting matches. And they all go, like you said before, they all go a very long time, no matter what kind of match it is. Yeah. It's amazing they had any enthusiasm, quite frankly.

Well, I'll give you some of my notes. Bronson Reed beats up Roman Rains with a chair over and over. Nothing happens for a while. Roman Rains with a Smoh and drop on a chair two count. Everybody sells forever. Roman Rains with 20. That's not a misprint. 20 clotheslines to a standing bronch.

Bronson Reed. Bronson Reed, no bump is what I wrote. No, no bump. Sound like the guys that come back from Japan. They would try to go over finish with you in broken English when they've been working for Baba for a month because they were so used to it. Roman then he, Roman backs him into the ropes and hits him with 20 clotheslines. Huamita, whomita, womata, womata. And then goes to shoot him off and Bronson Reed reversed it. And he shot Roman off and then Roman fucking hit him with a clothesline, and then he took a bump. But I, you know what,

that's somebody calling a spy, hey, I'll show you, I'll show them how big and strong you are on clothesline you 20 times. And you don't take a bump and they will do the spot where you take the big bump. Oh, sure, okay. What fuck sense did it make for him to reverse it? for either guy

Bronson Reed hit Roman Rains with a stop sign I wrote between the pace and all the trash and the ring I've knotted off I will say that at least Roman Superman punch connects in some fashion

visually unlike pockets as an AEW where they just kind of waves his hand in the general direction of their head. Here's another note, nothing happens forever. And then Roman Raines is going to run around on floor and spear, who's he, what's he, Bronson Reed, and suddenly Bronn Breaker is there at ringside and spears Roman.

Referey's standing there looking at it. Oh, it's a street fight, it's no disqualification. then Reed clears off the desk and the two heels power bomb Roman through the desk. And then Reed pulls out a table and sets it up in the ring. And Bronbreaker is rolling Roman reins toward the ring, just all again. It's such a crutch because this type of match and that type of match, the other type of match is no disqualification. the referee is powerless.

They have made it to where the announcer is saying the referee is powerless is the norm rather than the exception. I don't even know whether it should be powerless or impotent. But that just has led to the malaise in people's minds. You can't get heat with a run-in now because it's so overdone. you can't have any rules in place for heels to break

because in the preponderance of matches, everyone's allowed to break them anyway, so you can't even establish visually, cognitively, or subliminally in the fan's minds, what the rules are supposed to fucking be. It's just a goddamn mess. So then, go ahead. I'm sure I know your answer,

but do you think there's also an issue with the fact that a lot of these matches with these guys, specifically this one, and it's a street fight, you're still waiting for the interference. You know it's coming, and you know, that's probably going to be the core part of the match. That's another thing. And in the territory days,

when the heels were getting heat on the baby face in the ring in a main event match or what are the big matches, you could tell when they'd done too many run-ins in the territory because the fans started turn around and look into the back to the baby face entrance who's going to come out and that's when they'd cut them out now god damn their fucking music heralds their impending arrival that nobody needs to look but it's just it's expected because it's a it's a

wrestling trope as the kids i'd never heard that word like 10 years ago that the kids you know say that it that has been now accepted even by the big companies because and the big company because they have writers that are taught structure and blah blah blah whatever the fuck but also when all this is done and i'll explain in a second how it gets worse it just puts the referee becomes a goddamn dick and he just has to stand there and he's buried and the fans are like, fuck. And the referees are now buried just by the booking

bad enough that the guys used to get fined for burying referees as badly as they now are by the fucking office. It's just astonishing to me. Nevertheless. So they're beating up fucking Roman Reigns when the Uso's music plays.

And I wrote, oh for fuck sake because now here came both Uso's and they nailed Braun and both of them beat up Bronson Reed and the referee's just staring and at one point

they're having this big fucking fight and I said nobody in the ring is actually in the fucking match and here's another rule of something they're telling this is they have completely thrown the match out the window and thrown

any logic, common sense, rules, whatever, out the window, because they're telling his story, their story, you know, is maybe great or whatever, but they can't get there without just it. I can't imagine what one of us would have said in the 80s and any company roster, if we had been presented with something where at some point everybody in a. our match is going to be laying around the ring and a bunch of people that are not in it are going to be fucking doing spots in the ring and then when they're done we're going to

continue. So the Uso's beat up Bronson Reed but then the heels came back and beat up the Uso's. And here's another thing. Now, for wrestling psychology that stood for 125 years, you got Bronson Reed and Bronzer beaten up Roman Raines, two heels, one baby face, right, Brian? But now the Uso's have come out. It's three on two, but Roman's spot is that he's supposed to sell on a side,

so it's still two and two. The odds are even. so the odds are even the heels beat up the Uso's and then Braun spears Jimmy through the barricade and Reed goes to splash J but Roman comes back and stops him so now two on two Braun and Braun were kicking the Uso's ass but Roman had to come and save him what the fuck is going on here And then Roman's fighting the heels, and Jay gets up, and he's going to spear Bronson Reed and Reed moves,

and Jay spears Roman reins through the fucking table in the corner of the ring by accident. And then Braun Breaker speared Jay and Reed splashed Roman. One, two, three. A rare Roman rains... Rerginer... Rurf! Ruh-ro, a rare Roman Reins loss is what I'm trying to say to you. Yeah, he's only been pinned a few times in the last several years.

You know, this was a Paul Heyman special. It could have been an ECW in the mid-90s, the amount of crap that happened here at the end. But it's becoming typical. And then, of course, in the post-match, we get minutes of... If it wasn't minutes, it felt like minutes of Roman Reins having a disappointed speech having a disappointed conversation, I guess, is a better term, but it is a speech with the Uso's, and the camera mic picks it up.

I didn't really enjoy this. And, you know, I come away from a match like this, I'm like, man, Roman Reins kind of sucks. You know, he's a big star and everything, but I don't enjoy his matches whenever he actually shows up. And, again, the interference you knew was coming, and it came. But, you know, they got present.

I mean, the thing about the Uso's and Roman Rains from that bloodline angle was they had presence and they still have that presence as just, even then, the matches, it was all about waiting for the big angle at the end or the big interference

or the big thing to happen. The matches themselves are never good. Is Roman Brains one of those guys that is such a cool heel that he becomes a baby face, but when he becomes a baby face, it doesn't work because he needs to be a heel. I think he needs to be a heel.

He's more effective as a heel, and I think that's pretty clear right now. The pace worked as an obnoxious, arrogant heel. It doesn't as a baby face. It's just the plodding, the preponderance of the plotting. He needs more urgency and more fire, I think.

you know that it's almost like the opposite end of the spectrum. What turned Jimmy Snooka, who in the 70s was the premier South Seas Islander, Pacific Island or whatever, in the industry. Snooka as a heel was so electrifying and energetic and fucking oozed, lightning and excitement that that made him a baby face, along with the look, the body, and everything the cool moves. And then when he was a baby face, that was the whole excitement of him.

This is the complete opposite. Roman Raines as a plodding, posturing, arrogant, you know, type heel, that worked, but not as the baby face with no oomph to him every once in a while. Doesn't work, does it? I think

as crazy as this sounds, you're seeing just what a big part of the package Paul Heyman was, even though Paul Heyman's still involved in the stuff behind the scenes and, of course, on the other side in the match, just him having Heyman and walking out there made a whole lot of stuff work.

It's all but presence. And a group of I'm not saying he needs the goddamn you know cast of war in peace or whatever but when Roman was the head guy of a couple of other wrestlers and the gravitas that being

counseled by the wise man Paul Heyman conveys to him and to that group he was the center of attention he was surrounded he could send other people to do the bidding and get the ass kicked and again you had Haman to in some cases do the

the brunt of the explanations so that Roman Reins could just be a cool guy and not have to go into the minute bookkeeper's details of things to get across that whole path then you've got the focus the star of the whole show but with that guy just by himself doing nothing differently,

just kind of the same pace, same kind of interviews. You know, it's just a little blander. Well, you know, Jim, Paul Heyman sure knows how to pick him. And I'm sure if Paul Heyman was on his phone and where else would he be? Maybe he's making some picks right now with our friends at prize picks. Well, you know, that would probably be a thing that Hayman would do if he could figure out a way like he did with the refunding the airline tickets

in fraudulent fashion or making checks in a fraudulent fashion from the solo flex scam that he worked. If he could figure out a way to rig prize picks, I bet you he would. Well, you can't. And you can trust prize picks.

We want to let the listeners know. It's a great service. And we're going to find out a whole lot more about it. And you can trust that it'll work fine. There are no haemals. You're just, You're just jumping it already to defend before I'm even dallyed. You worry me.

But no, because you see, I'm saying that prize picks, they're smarter than the average Heyman. They are too smart for Pauley. They're not like Delta Airlines. And they're not like the Solo Flex people in the 90s. They're good with numbers. And that's why they're the ones that you can trust. Prize picks, the only app that offers stacks, meaning you can pick the same place.

player up to three times in the same lineup. And if that sounds crooked, I've been told that it's not. It's not. That's, I've heard it from you. Just want to clarify. Because, well, what it is, picking different things about the same player. It doesn't mean is he going to make love to the same stripper three times in one night. It means is he going to have three different strippers?

See, things like that. There's a distinction. And folks, if you want to pick on more or less on some schlubbs pass yards or rush yards or touchdowns, you can pick all of them in the same lineup. Just like you go into the police station, you sit down and you say on the lineup, he did it, you can just pick three up. Say arrest all three of the son of a bitchies. And here's another thing that you can do.

Let's talk about other things you could do. Have you ever been asked to be in a lineup? up, Brian, do you look like anybody else? No, I have not, and I do not. You know what you can do? You can follow other prize picks players directly on the app and copy their lineups in one click. So right there, if you get one of these smarty, fancy damn smartphones they got these days,

you get the app and you can track other players. It shows you where they are geographically. When they turn into Walgreens and they're shopping into card department, then when they come back out, they go down the street. to the gas station, especially watch the married ones that go into the cheap motels on the outskirts of town. But you can watch them and then copy their lineups in one click. Hopefully not their whereabouts as well.

Their lineups. Whether it's a friend, a celebrity partner, or just someone whose picks you like, hit the follow button. Check out every lineup they create in the new feed tab on prize picks. And check out their friends. whereabouts and where they go every day when they're supposed to be at work or at the gym,

as he was saying, every Tuesday and Thursday. Ha, ha, ha. Once that we found out about that, well, and you can download the Price Picks app today. Brian, I know you'll be happy to hear and use the code JCE to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That is the code. That's a great deal. It's 10 times.

literally 10 times both literally 10 times both literally literally 10 times both of those things apply jacian what are you live i'm giving you simple mathematics here yes there's a promo code yes that's code i'm trying desperately that's code j c e to get $50 in lineups after you play your first lineup. Now you show us yours first, and then we'll flop our bigger one out. Prize picks, it's good to be right. Dearly beloved, we now continue with the program. We go back to Perth, Australia, for another exciting match. Dearly, beloved,

for the women's title. Or one of them, or both of them, or the crown jewel of them. This was the crown jewel thing, right? Yes, the That's right, yes. The fucking belts that make the late 80s AWA belt look like the Thess belt

from the 50s. Did you see the video they did? They showed it on SmackDown. I think they showed it here too of like the armed security guards fetching the belts in Saudi Arabia, you know, putting them covertly onto a plane in the cars.

What the hell? How much money did that cost? Oh my God Do we have Do we have any proof where they were? They just have a couple of stage hands do it in Poughkeepsie and, you know, said nevertheless. So this was again, we'll talk about the belts

when we get to the, because the men's belt is even more egregiously overly large than the women's belt. But you wanted to watch, you wanted to watch me. You probably did, you sick of. Oh, yeah. You wanted me to watch. Watch.

Oh, yeah. Stephanie. You want me to watch you watch Stephanie Backer. That's what the fucking problem. The whole root of this thing is. You wanted me to watch Stephanie Vakere, Vachan. I don't, Bacare, is that correct? Backer.

I believe that's how you say. Yes. I don't do accents good. Have you noticed that? against Tiffany Stratton. It's Tiffy time. And this probably wasn't the best. It actually shows me how good Stephanie is,

and I'm not denying that she is an excellent wrestler. But this probably wasn't the best stylistic matchup for Stephanie to show off her mad wrestling technique when you could tell that Tiffany, who is trying and who is a still relative newcomer. I'm not trying to bust her balls here, as Dennis Corleuzo would say. Tiffany is probably not seen a lot of this stuff before they worked some shit out. Because it was kind of like Brian Danielson at some points trying to lead a fucking janitor

through a chain wrestling exhibition. And, you know, Tiffy's thing is the cartwheels and the gymnastics and the flying and et cetera. So she did some of that. She was trying her best to keep up with Stephanie in the wrestling. And it was a nice little 10-minute match. And it seemed like Stephanie was working more as the de facto heel because she was a little bit rougher than Tiffie,

but yet they're both. Is Tiffy a baby face or is she? Do they like her because she's a heel, or what exactly is her goddamn deal these days? I think she's a baby face. She was a heel with Naya Jackson, and the fans already started taken to her when she turned on Nia Jaxx,

so I think she's a baby face. Remember what I said about some people being better in one way or the other? I think she, with that obnoxious beauty that she has, the pouty lips and the blonde hair in the V voice and everything, I think she's more appealing as a heel because she can play

on her little Barbie dollness. And Stephanie looks like a feisty underdog type of person who can catch you in the various submissions and everything. But nevertheless, his two alleged baby faces,

they had a match. Tiffy missed a moonsault and Stephanie hit a twisting corkscrew moon salt and I tip my hat to Tiffy this is a they ought to do a segment called Tiffy's tips that'd get her over but nevertheless

I thought that might pop you but apparently it didn't pop you nor anybody else even knows what I'm talking about I wouldn't have laid there for that fucking twisting moon salt I don't care if she always 135 pounds or what good Lord but she nailed it in one two three the crowd liked it then Stephanie Stephanie did an in ring promo as the crown jewel winners are expected to do and

she sounds like she's a better promo in Spanish because it flow and it's her first language and it flows more naturally but um she ain't ain't particularly that. I'm not even talking about her lack of grasp of fluent English. Doesn't she need some more oomph, some more fire and perspicacity, like that instead of just, she's kind of there.

I think right now it's working. Help me. I think the fans have accepted her. The fans have taken to her. Now it helps that she's gotten an extraordinary push. I mean, how many titles are she won in WWE already? She came in,

what, less than a year ago? Has it been a year? Remember, she wrestled for AEW. Was it against Mercedes-Money, I think maybe? Yes. At one of those, when worlds collide, not that when... Forbid door.

Behind the green door is what I was going to say, but I was thinking of a big budget predict. And then she immediately signed with WWE, which has been her goal, and she has excelled in their system. You know, they signed Julia around the same time, and I don't think there's really much of a comparison.

I'm not, I'm not tearing her down. I'm asking you. But I'm saying, I think it works. I'm saying right now I think it works. She also has a move that, believe it or not,

is one of the most over moves in the company right now, the devil's kiss. And I think, yes, she comes across like a serious badass, and I think right now it works. They can blow it.

They blow everything else. Well, and now that, that went out with the old administration from what I've heard. They have all the flowing. They have to have, in a feud. Listen to me,

you defensive son of a gun. I'm saying, I think as her promo being the feisty underdog from a, is she an immigrant? I don't know.

She's from Chile. Chile? Chile. Yeah. Chili? You say Chile? Chila? Whatever the fuck.

The point is, can she have some fucking feistiness in her promo as the underdog? What does that mean? Like, Charo? Like, what do you want feistyness?

No, I don't mean she has to come out and, I mean, screaming hysterically and who, what was there? Hoochie-Koo-Koo-Chi, not who-Koo-Chi-Koo-Chi. I'm just saying a little, a little Ricky Morton-ish in the promo as far as he may be an underdog, but don't count me out or that, even that attitude.

She just kind of very reserved, very, very chilly. very chilly. She, as Nikolov-Okhov would say, I'm so cool, I feel chilly. She hasn't been brought in as the underdog. And again, in the women's division, she's not one of the smallest people there.

So she's just kind of- Okay, then she's got it right to be more feisty. I was saying, put a little more fucking seasoning in her goddamn emotion on her promos, and it might make up for not knowing what the fuck it is. She's saying. I think she's really good. You think she needs vitamin,

B. I really don't know what the hell's going on. Good match, and do you agree the right person won from what you saw? Yes, because they've already got Tiffany over to a level, and Stephanie is newer and needs the victory

more, so I think that was correct in that decision. And again, Tiffany's had a really strong push from day one and the fans took to her. Stephanie Vakur, it's really amazing the level a push at Triple H has given her since she got there. So obviously they see something, but that's the women's crown jewel champion

for 2025, Stephanie Vecere. Do you think they see the... Now, see, if we, either one of us, could speak fluent Spanish, maybe she's the goddamn promo equivalent of CM Punk or Terry Funk or somebody in Spanish. And that's the next market they're going to conquer and try to fuck up the local wrestling. You never really hear that, though.

It's never like, oh, my God, Mill Mosgra's cut a fucking promo on TV in Mexico last week. Like, you never hear that about any. Well, but you, I'm sure someone, just even by the process of goddamn elimination, mathematics, and odds, can cut a fireball promo in Spanish. But we wouldn't know the goddamn difference.

Well, now that... But if they could... Well, you know, she does a little... They'd make money. And she does it a lot, too, and now you see a lot of people do the thing where they'll say a line in Spanish, and then they'll say a few lines in English, and then another line in Spain. They keep mixing it back and forth.

She's in Australia. I don't know how many Latinos here in Australia. But, uh, WWE is international. And again, that was the women's crown jewel match. Jim, what was next on the show? Well, the big one. It's time for the big one. One of the big ones, depending on which big one you.

you were looking for. John Sina and A.J. Stiles, the last time for John Sina, how did he fray, overseas, as he phrased it on his entrance. The last time overseas, let's go to work, baby. And that, again, he was big over, bigly, bigly over. I mean, the shirts, even there were other Sina shirts that weren't the yellow shirts that as we mentioned at the top of the program were prevalent everywhere, a plethora of apparel reflecting support of John Cena. So this crowd, they were there primarily

to see this. And what did they announce? 13,000 some, I assume that's what the building holds, but it's not like it was a, you know, a stadium. I think they got 13,000 people just they were sold with fuck it i'll see cina one more time and they were going to be with this rig i mean to be honest they could have both guys seen at a j both could have squatted down and shit a live turkey in the middle of the fucking ring and people would have given them a 15 minute stand in ovation they were they were here to enjoy this and like it but again from the start you can tell does this make sense to you Brian what I'm about to say to you

the pressure is starting to be off John where these last few he can just have a little bit more fun and enjoy himself because now remember I talked about when he had 15 or 20 more dates left how the pressures on him not to fuck up and get hurt he's 50 years old or whatever and how even more anybody that picks him up and puts him down or say, hey, John, let's do this. You better be goddamn careful with what you're carrying $50 million, right?

But now he's got like four left. Is it four matches or just four appearances? He can do some more shit and he can have some fun. So I think I liked this match overall. all best of the show, although there'll be differences with the main event that we'll talk about. But it was what it needed to be, but again, it reflects what wrestling has become. They weren't really there to see a baby face triumph over odds and get even with a fucking heel. or, you know, they weren't there to say, oh, my God, is this the end for little Rico and this new heel is going to kill my favorite wrestler?

They just wanted to see the event and they want to see the moves. And so it's, it's almost again like dinner theater in front of a fucking NBA arena-sized crowd of people, where they do all the moves and things that they're known for. It's really a baby face match. And then a thing has become, or it's become a thing, Brian, where they're keeping track of the different moves that Sina does because he's doing other guys' moves as a tribute to them.

And AJ did some of it too. where Sina did the Miz's move, and Sina did Rusev's Camel Clutch, and A.J. did Samoa Joe's choke, and the announcers were calling it. They might not say Samoa Joe, the Kokina Clutch. Sina did the walls of Jericho. As Sina got a huge pop

when he did Bray Wyatt's finish. They got a two-count with it. And then the whole crowd waved the cell phone. lights. Instantly, they're all with, oh, we get to be part of this too. Yay! And then AJ actually did, he did a move that A.J. Stiles does. And again, it worked.

And I guess this is modern wrestling, but I just thought, what do you think in like 1980 fucking seven or whatever, if anybody from top to bottom on the card had done a DDT. How long do you think it would have taken for Jake to gotten Vince's office going, what the fuck, man? It's just a whole, it's just like, is this when the stones play like a tribute to one of the blues legends and do one of, you know, a Howland Wolf's song? Or what is going on here with this?

No, I think this is like when two kids go to the basement and imitate their favorite wrestlers. See, I didn't like. I didn't like it. Why did the people like it? Again, the people, I don't know, why do they sing? Why do they sing? Why do they chant? I would never do any of these things. I'm a different kind of fan. But if this was on the Indies, we'd kill it. And again, it's John Cien and AJ Styles that is different. But if it was on the indies, we'd kill it. And if you watch two kids in their basement having like a VHS wrestling federation, this was the kind of shit they would do. Everyone's finisher. And everyone kicks out of everyone's finisher. And you're doing them for the pops. You get someone in the thing. And then you look up at the fans, react to this, remember this. Fans, remember this, golden oldie.

And then you fucking go for it. Like, to me, it got to be too much because it went on for, was it six, seven minutes of doing other people's moves? Waiting for Michael Cole to recognize what it is. Sina hit Orton's draping DDT and then hit the RKO and got a two count. and then AJ hit Sina's AA got a two count

I may have to go to AAA after I finished describing this and more false finishes AJ hit sweet chin music the fans were going bat shit you know and then Sina hit a tombstone but he was smart enough to know that if that got a kickout

that he'd be hearing from Callaway Enterprises, so he hit the Tombstone and then gave him an AA. What's he going to do? He doesn't have Vince there to stooge him off to anymore. He doesn't want to get that started for heaven's sake. He's trying to slip out unobstructed. But Tombstone AA, 1, 2, 3, here's the thing.

There were some of the things about this match were the things that I love to see. You have two guys who A.J.'s in ring is very accomplished, and Sina at this, again, at his age right now, and to be working even this hard and be in this shape, the in ring is great, but especially they know what they're doing. They didn't use furniture. They didn't bury the referee.

They didn't take stupid, dangerous out of control. bumps or give them. They didn't have a strong baby face or heel dynamic, which to me is always, almost always. And 99% of the time needed for a real goddamn barn burner. But athletically, they did, they did all the shit they needed to do. They did too much of it, like you said. and you know it it didn't need to go 30 minutes but it did because they had to sell

lengthily in between all these goddamn finish moves but they didn't need to do all the goddamn finish I realize again they have friends they'd like to send shoutouts to do it on Twitter. It just when it becomes a again like a tribute act type of thing I don't know I think it just took

attention away from this match and those guys if you weren't in Perth Australia in the building wearing a John Cena shirt and loving every minute of it so I'm not going to shit all over it but

I think they were athletically and talented enough to do their own match and not use furniture and other things that they didn't do, but do their own goddamn match. That just bugged me. There used to be a video that was going around like this one guy, he was on stage. I don't know if it was a talent show or what the hell it was, but it was like the history of dance in like four minutes. And it was like from one style to another to another before you know it. He's gone from the jitterbug to the moonwalk.

That's what this was. It was like a history of WWE the last 20 years. Again, the fans there ate it up. The fans there also ate up those expensive tickets. So I don't know how representative they are of everyone, but I think a lot of people love this. And a lot of people,

this is the kind of fun they won out of wrestling, let alone the fun that Sina and AJ were clearly having. But to me, this was somewhat silly. It was almost like a dark match for smart fans being aired on TV. Well, I think we're seeing this is that the people who ever wanted to go and be lost in the matches and lost in the guys and lost, I want Stone Cold to win, I want this other guy to get beat, what the fuck, even that recently, much less the territory days. I think now it's just been relaced replaced by a bunch of people

that just want to go and hoot and laugh at it and whoever wins, wins, whoever loses loses. And, you know, it may sound sentimental of me,

but the atmosphere was so much fucking better when they wanted to stab and cut the motherfuck on the way back from the ring. The fucking, you could feel some electricity in the fucking building there instead of sitting around waiting for the next time a guy tries to break his own neck. And now it's cheap pop theater, whether it's the spots like that or doing this, doing everyone else's moves and then everyone kicks out of everything.

Endlessly. That's what I'm saying. It used to be more dangerous going back to the fucking locker room than it was. You know, you might get stabbed, but at least you wouldn't. be paralyzed from the fucking match. And you know, I understand they're in a weird position because everyone knows you only have X amount of dates with John Cina left. There's only a few matches left.

We know when the last match will be. It's not like you're going to do something right now. So really, you're just talking about matches. Dream matches. You know, people thought Edge was going to come back. That's why, because this is, what else do you do? He lost the Lesnar, he turned back, baby face, and now he's just going to have fun matches on the way out.

again, they loved it in the room. Maybe if I was drunk and I watched it, I really get into it. But to me, it was an amateur kind of thing. You know, those people there wanted to see the John Cena show and he gave them 10 minutes of cheap pops. Maybe that did affect the heat and everything later in the night. I don't know. I mean, this was the most over thing.

But it doesn't do it for me. Oh, no, I think the only way it affected the heat later in the night was they couldn't really follow it. because everybody was, you know, everybody was there for Sina. He had the camel clutch on at one point. And, or they said it was Ruseb's move because, you know, Ruseves.

People know it for Rusev. He had it on and he had his hands, like, I don't know how to describe this, down in front of A.J's chin. Like, there was no cross face, just like his STF. Like, for whatever reason, if you watch John Cena's STF, you would think that the pressure is all on it, the guy's foot. because his hands were so far in front of the guy's face,

he clearly wasn't getting them in a cross face. I think, am I misremembering that at one point when he first started doing that, somebody told him, motherfucker, you crack my neck like that one more time and I'll fucking kick your ass. Oh, I didn't know that. Wow. I swear, I don't want to say it's him, but I remember a story about something about that hold or one just, like it. And the point is

you can fuck a motherfucker up with that thing. So I'm not saying kill people, but, well, but again, I think he's aired on the side of safety. And that's, you know, again, John was never the in-ring technician

that Stiles is, was or whatever, nobody's as young as they used to be. But he's been working as hard as he can to make up for it and I appreciate that but I don't know that he has to

now he's just deciding I got four more chances to show everybody I can really do all these other moves anywho well there it is Sina versus Stiles controversial match well you know where we go from there don't you big tag team action

all right after that segment that they did on whether it was raw or smackdown I can't remember whichever show, but it put me off of wrestling, put me off of watching

television. The acting was so bad with E.O. Sky and Carrie and Oscar and they're screaming and constipated faces that they were making at each other and the childish material that they're given

in the amateurish way that they recited aforesaid and that my girl, Ria Ripley, is stuck in this mess. I tried to watch as much of this as I could, Brian. But can you, with a straight face, again, did you pay any attention to this match whatsoever? I paid a little bit.

Can you tell me that anybody should possibly be able to say that E.O. Sky or Oscar or Carrie's, sane for that matter. Like they say on Twitter are some of the best girl wrestlers in the world after watching this match. What would have made me think that about this? I'm not going to say this match is a great example of anything. It was just a match on the show.

It's just every once in a while when I just happen to actually watch one, all the people say, oh, he knows guys best wrestler in the world. She's the genius of the airwaves and the pilot of the sky or whatever the fuck. I just don't watch the right ones. The heels jump started it. They got in a four-way. They dumped two of them. And then Oscar and E.O. did stuff at 100 miles an hour,

screaming and making faces and doing some video game flipping and roundoffs. And sloppy basics, phantom kicks, nonstop, screaming. horrible flailing, alleged punches that are just directed in the general vicinity of people, and then they'll do a spot that's either a stiff drop kick or climbing up to the ropes, which looks for all three of them, like they're trying to climb Mount Everest. And again, Rhea looks like the only grown adult in this deal. And because she was kept out of the thing

because she's a hometown hero, she got posted fairly quick and laid on the ground and then got back up on the apron and they got long heat on EO while Ria's waiting for the tag because they wanted to give her a big tag. She's the home country hero,

but I've seen better work with little darling Dagmar against Diamond Lil from these other three characters. and then finally that's a bit ridiculous at least it was funny finally they set up

the tag deria was an ice cold tag I mean the people blew because they've been waiting 10 minutes to see her but Eoske is literally laying right in front of her and as the heel on the other side of the ring tags out Eoskei turns over and tag there you go there was no throw babies in the air,

hooray moment where she spun or twisted or dove or just blah, here you go. Ria makes come back and then they stopped Ria. And then she stopped Carrie and tag Dio back in. And a razor's edge combination with a drop kick and a two count and they were still going. and at that point, I just said, fuck it, I got to get to the finish. And finally, Ria, rip-tided Kerry and tagged E.O.

And Eo Moonsaulted her one, two, three. 20 minutes, by the way, of that type of thing. Well, of course, Jim, there was one more type of thing on this show, and that was the main event for the Men's Crown Jewel Championship, the defending champion Cody Rhodes, who's also a world champion against another world champion, Seth Franklin Rollins.

And they get belts and rings and I believe they're going to have possibly an amulet. Have you heard about they're going to make a champion's amulet they could wear around their neck? Lawler had one of those one time. As part of his deal, he had the crown and an amulet. and that was especially when he had a hairy chest before he had to start shaving it because he turned gray

that was fucking cool on a heel the amulet that's why he started shaving his chest hair was it turned gray what the fuck do you think i don't know i thought maybe realized he looked like a gorilla i'm not sure no gaspins his entire life looking like lon chaney junior in makeup for the wolf man and suddenly in his later years he begins shaving his his body not only his chest but his back and his sides and the backs of his knuckles and everywhere where he had hair because how are you going to die that think about it i'm not knocking the king i just you know first time i saw him he looked so odd in the 70s luller's body hair contributed to his being over because you couldn't tell that he had no muscular definition whatsoever

it made him look like a fucking tough guy. And, you know, so thankfully he didn't have to shave when he was getting over. It would have, it would have been Samson all over again, except with chest hair. Well, Jim, speaking to people with no chest hair, Cody Rhodes was in this match. Well, and you know, Cody, he does it so good. He looks like a person that doesn't even have to shave. You know Bobby Eaton never shaved his chest or his back or anything. There was absolutely nothing, nothing there.

Lucky guy. What about Stan Lane? Stan would use a small raising, raising implement, raiser implement, really? Every now and then. All right, but also he's got the light hair, you know. This raising implement was that van. Anyway, back to you. Back to you.

That was the rising implement. The match here they had, okay. Cody Rhodes is the undisputed WWE champion, right? That's what that's the way they refer to him. Can't dispute that. Well, Seth Rollins is he is literally saying

I'm the real world champion. I'm the world heavyweight champion and this is the real world title. He is publicly disputing it. So they pretty much just answered this fucking dispute with this matter. But it's also for this FACTA crown jewel title that they made up because Saudi Arabia gives them hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

So it's just, if it wasn't bad enough having two world champions, I mean, I'm all in favor of in limited quantities every so often, every so many years you have a guy who never lost the belt and some reason and he claims he's the uncrown chair, he's the real champion and the other guy's the pretender and blah, blah, blah, and you unified love shit like that. But you just have two ongoing champions and then you have both of them have a match for another title. Not even two champions have a match with neither title on the line and one gets a win necessitating the rematch with titles on the line.

But two champions have a match with neither one of those titles on the line to win another fucking belt. Have we again jumped the shark with shit, Brian? To just make anything mean something as a big, a big match. Yeah, I think we've jumped a shark in a lot of ways. I thought this match was silly, almost in a lot of ways as silly as silly as the Sina match, although very different kinds of matches.

This is what I was going to say as well. I think the Sina match overall was maybe the one I liked the best. I can't even say my favorite, but the one I liked the best because they didn't use furniture, they didn't bury the referee, they didn't do anything stupid, try to kill each other. It was athletic. The best 20 minutes of the

show in my opinion was the first 20 minutes of this match. The problem is the match went 30 minutes. And they, in the last 10, they took the fucking taste out of my mouth that I had for the first 30 or first 20. These guys, they've got the conditioning. They have the cardio. They have the appearance. They look like athletes. They look like stars, wrestlers, celebrities.

they've got the technical work, the selling and the offense, the moves, experience ring positioning. They work their asses off. They take their time. Seth Rollins as a heel was working the people, too. Imagine that. They set up a match where they do spots that pay off with the baby face shining at the start, and then the heel reacting as he's pissed off. They've clearly delineated whose side we're supposed to be on.

They're doing everything right. And Seth, you know, the way that the heel manages to cut the baby face off as Seth had gone out and snatched Michael Cole and menaced him, so Cody saves him, but then Seth stops Cody and gets heat on the floor and knocks over the prime bottles. Where's Logan Paul? Did he just, did he go to leave and film a movie? What's he doing these days?

His podcast. Oh, well, he can't be disturbed to come out and... Rehearsing for the next match. Christ. Anyway, then he gets the heat, does Seth, on Cody. And Cody is one of the better baby-faced sellers. He understands it's the little things with the body. and the body language and the great facials.

And, you know, the things they did make sense, Seth tried to taunt him with the flip, flop, and fly. But Cody blocked the fly and started flipping and flopping. But before he could fly, Seth got the figure four. Cody turned it. There was no problem here. A random CM punk chant, but. because of Rollins.

And again, I just, I wrote this down a random note again, the belt is so ugly. Have you ever liked green on title belts? I actually kind of like the last championship belt that Bob Bakken had, the first one Hogan had. Just because of, I like the idea, I had name plates for everyone.

But that was green leather. I'm talking green in the plate. No. It's just, it's green. It doesn't look good. And it's giant. It's massive. It goes from above nipples to top of dick.

Anyway, then Cody made a comeback, and Seth was a ping pong ball. He was a bump and heel. That's refreshing to see. And Cody hit the Cody cutter, got a two count. And they went back and forth, and Seth hit the pedigree and got a two count. And then Seth actually did the cross. and got a two-count. And Seth did another pedigree and another stomp and got a two-count.

And then Seth left the ring and got the watch from the timekeeper's table that Cody had given to Seth a couple years ago when he was one of the guys that helped Cody triumph over the bloodline and they were even in the odds. Wasn't that when Seth got in a ring and it looked like he, because he took time off after his knee was flopping back and forth. Yeah, WrestleMania. Well, he got a gold watch for it. That sounds like a dusty promo.

And I blew my ACL for the motherfuckers, and they gave me a gold watch and said, that's it, baby. A robot has done, took your job or whatever. So he puts the watch on his fist, does Seth. But he's conflicted. Should I do it or should I not? And you see him,

Does anybody really act like that when they're conflicted like all the wrestlers do when they're conflicted where they bury their head in their hands and rub them across their head and look up and scrinch their face like they're trying to take a big shit and et cetera, et cetera? Imagine how successful you could be as a pro wrestler today if you're not wishy-washy.

You'd stand out, you'd be able to get so much done when everyone else is standing around trying to figure things out. Be a decisive motherfucker. But he's conflicted. and then he puts the watch down. And obviously this is going to figure into something. At some point, they're going to be able to go back to the footage,

whether it's, you know, Seth, really, I made a mistake, I should have punched you or Cody telling Seth, see, you didn't want to do it, you didn't want to win that way, there's some good in you because he'd already told Paul and Bronson Reed and Bronner, they got to stay in the back. So it was a mono-a-mon-thing. Eventually he's going to switch baby face is that where, you know,

Heyman had been intimating that he and the bronze had a plan if Seth was to lose. Well, is Paul going to accuse him of being a wishy-washy prick because he didn't take the opportunity, even though he did win, whatever the fuck. But nevertheless,

he put the watch down. and he ran into Cody's Cody Cutter and a crossroads and a two count. And that's where I said, okay, the shark has been officially jumped. Because now we're 20 minutes in. They've done their finish a couple of times. They've got a number of big two counts. They've introduced this red herring. How much longer can they go?

there's always more things to kick out of. Seth hit a coast-to-coast diving headbutt from one buckle to the other, two-count. They fought on the top and helped each other do a Spanish fly off the top and a two-count and then nothing forever. And then they just, they had stopped having a match and they were into the stage where they would set up a stunt and they would do it and they would lay there forever to sell it

while they showed replays and then they would work to set up it stopped being a match and it started being a series of tricks as your kids used to say before they outgrew watching it all and then they went they went back to the buckles

and they did a crossroads off the top rope and that was a two count. And it's so phony how they have to help each other balance up there that it takes you out of the, you know, you're just sitting there, well, fuck, you could just get down. And then they have the slug fest in the middle. They can throw punches. Seth finally ducked under and grabbed the watch that was still on the mat

from 10 minutes earlier. and then Cody kicked Seth, but Seth bumped into the referee. Cody went for the crossroads, but while he had Seth hooked, Seth reached up and hit Cody with the watch, and it looked me like somewhat of a potato. Because Seth was blind,

he had his head and fucking Cody's armpit. He just has to reach up and boop. So he pushed him in the face, hit him with the stomp, and then the stomp off. the top. So it couldn't be I hit you with a goddamn kind of a brass knuckle and then hit you with my finish and then I have to do it off the top rope. One, two, three, and it got a big pop. People cheered. They're just there to, oh, good, yay, you guys did a lot of moves good.

Well, again, he's the heel who they have him have music that the fans like singing to. that didn't make sense from day one when he turned to you but that was I liked 20 minutes but they went 30 and the last 10 was just on and on there you go yeah I thought the same thing again I told you I thought it was as silly as the

scene of AJ thing because eventually it wasn't them doing other people's moves it was just them doing the biggest things they could do and kicking out of everything I don't like it when AEW does it I don't like it when these guys do it. No, and that's why people expect it now because they won't stop fucking doing it. Fuck, Bronson Reed, does a splash.

No one kicks out. It's over. Just do one thing. Again, the Sina A.J. things a different animal. That was a tribute to wrestling past. But I don't think it helps. And, you know, again, another thing where

does Cody feel hot in any way? Does Cody have any momentum in any way? No interference? fucking wants the match to the heel. But I don't know. That's Crown Jewel. We'll see where it is next year. You know, I actually thought ahead of time that they've set themselves up where to have this match Rallens had to win.

Because not only was this a big match, but this was like, what, number four, number five between them, he's never beaten Cody. he had to or elsewise he's just a rib and they've been trying to push Rollins and the whole group in a situation so but just because I expected him to win doesn't mean I expected him to need a bazooka to do it for either one of them but also it doesn't make it any more palatable that both the champions went for another fucking title but at least Seth gets the ring he doesn't have to cart the belt, you know, with him wherever he goes. Well, five match show started at 8 a.m. for both of us.

Any thoughts before we wrap up Crown Jewel on? It didn't start at 8 a.m. for me. Actually, it did. It did about two days later when I finally got around to fucking watching it. I had a busy weekend with fun, exciting yard work and things. So I, you know, no, I didn't get up at 8 o'clock Saturday morning and head right into that, that would have ruined my whole weekend. Well, Jim, of course, 8 a.m.

And then you have to worry about, how am I going to see it? You have to log into whatever app it's on in America. It's a pain in the neck. You have to go to the ESPN app. It's available through Disney Plus, and then you go there, and then it says you have to subscribe, and $30 a month. Oh, well, I had to figure out how to do their little search thing, too, because they just wouldn't give me the fucking banner.

So that's Australia for that. on Netflix. I mean, everything's all over the place. If only there was a service that the listeners can put in the service to help them access wrestling and WWE Premium Live Events worldwide. A bullshit cutter is what you're saying. Take somebody to cut through all the bullshit going on around there and get you to where you could watch the wrestling programs that you want to watch, when you want to watch them, without all the hoo-ha and the gaga and the hoop-bloss. and the hyperbole and all the ribitigurgy's going on.

That's our friends over at surf shark, surf shark.com. You may hear us talk about some of these shows jump a shark, but this is the first time that we've been lined up with a surfing shark. And they make it easy not only to watch the wrestling, but also, Brian, you know, we've been talking about it, the new rating system. Every time the people go to the store and they buy one of these smart TVs or the smart phones or the smart stoves or the smart fridges or the smart asses,

they're bringing a spy into their home. Because now people are able to listen to everything you did. They're listening to you bumping uglies with the old lady at night. That's what that refrigerator is doing while it's supposed to be cooling off your ripple. Are you doing this in the kitchen? Are you doing this in the kitchen? Why would the refrigerator know what you're doing in the bedroom? Well, having kitchen sex is hot, especially on fucking burger night.

But let me tell you this. You're being listened to, you're being eaves dropped on, everything that goes on in your house. How else they get in these ratings? They've come out and admitted it. So what you need to do is you need to flummox these people, the evil overlords that are eaves dropping on you and listening to you and everything you do in your house. Surf sharp, surfa. Surfshark.com These people can just swerve all that stuff around.

They will not know where you are. They'll think that you're bumping uglies in your kitchen in Bolivia or maybe Denmark. You know, those people up in Denmark, I've heard they're into the candid photography. If you want to send some of that stuff out, they won't know where it's coming. They'll think it's coming from Tallahassee.

Again, let's not use these examples, even on Burger Night. Let's talk about wrestling and accessing wrestling programming from around the world. New Japan had a big event overnight. And if you wanted to access it from here or from Canada, you're fucked.

Or from Chile or wherever you might want to be, Surf Shark. Well, yeah, that's the thing is if you want to access some of these things, you're fucked unless Surf Shark helps you because you can get access to the commercial-free WWE. And Lord knows we don't want to watch any

commercials on that program on the Canadian Netflix. And the Canadians, they get all the good shit. But all you need is surf shark and you'll have all the good shit too. And like I said, you know, again, if you want to go ahead and just play hide the sausage in your kitchen before you have breakfast sausage, it's up to you, but you shouldn't have these evil ratings corporations listening to you at the same time. eliminate this. Your whole home will be transferred to a foreign country and surrounded with a dome of protection. Well, again, virtually, you will stay in your home wherever you are, no travel.

Yeah, you go with the home, but the home is at a completely different location that nobody can ever find again. A virtual sense. You will remain where you are. There is no passport needed, no travel necessary. No, no passport. This is completely off the radar of the government authorities. That's part of the... Let's not say that either. Ladies and gentlemen, what this is is a great way to access. They're just going to see something

moving down the interstate on a big flatbed truck with a blanket, a big canvas over it. They're not going to know it's your house. Oh, you hear that, Jim. You know what that means. Secure your privacy, folks, with Surf Shark. You need security and privacy,

and you're going to get that now by going to surfshark.com slash JCE, use the code JCE at checkout, and you're going to get four extra months of Surf Shark VPN protection. If you sign up for a year, you actually get 16 months because four months and a year is 16 months. Carry the two. Again, surfshark.com.

Watch the wrestling programs that are forbidden to you here in this country, the police state that we live in. you can be anywhere in the world you want to be, you can be free to be you as long as you don't bother me. Go to surfshark.com slash JCE, 4 extra months right now.

Get this internet spying that all these big ratings companies are doing on you taking care of once and for all. They won't be able to find you. You're just gone. It's like you're in the internet's witness protection program. You can just, just live your life, go out in the front yard to

bathrobe with your dick hanging out, pick up your newspaper, you're a mobster, but now you're in suburban. Ladies and gentlemen, fun examples, and of course that's what we do here. We have fun, and if you want to access wrestling events from around the world and not have to pay for multiple services,

Surf Shark is the way. One final time, Jim. Just take shit without paying all over the world. That's not what I said. One final time, Jim. What's that promo code? J.C.E. All right, we have returned after surfing with that shark. Jim, we have to return here to modern times

and his wrestling news that we have woken up to today. First of all, I know you haven't seen the match. Any thoughts on Konoske Takeshesta winning the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship from Zach Sabre Jr.? No. All right, we wish Takesha a successful run with the belt. Jim.

I don't care. What does that? In other news that you may have woken up to, what do you think about what happened on Raw this morning? This is Monday. That's right. So we have, it's still Monday early afternoon. Raw has not taken place.

All right. I feel like now we're on the same page. Much like me, it sounds like you forgot that Raw was 8 a.m. this week from Australia. they sent it on the show and I completely forgot. You're the business mind around here and you told me that we can't record on our normal day because the pay-per-view was all away at 8 o'clock on Saturday morning, so we got to record on Monday about the pay-per-view so we're not too overdue. And Raw has already taken place.

So we still have to watch it now? Well, it sounds like this may have been, uh, may have been one not to miss. I have some results here. Something actually happened? Let me go to these results. See if anyone has, I'm seeing the spoiler of what happened. I'm trying to see if this is the order of the show or just, all right, I'll just read the headline here.

From the takedown on SI, Braun Breaker and the Vision turn on Seth Rollins. Already! Monday's Raw featured the fallout from Crown Jewel Perth, Bronbreaker, Bronson, Reed, and Paul Heyman turned on Seth Rollins, a WWR at the RAC Arena in Perth, Australia.

CM Punk. Then why didn't he lose? CM Punk, Jay Uso, and L.A. Knight faced off in a triple-threat match in a main event to determine the next opponent for Seth Rollins and the World Heavyweight Championship, and it was Punk who notched the win to earn the highly anticipated match with the champ.

Well, thank God there, but wait! But wait, punk is a baby face and gets a match with Seth, and Seth has just been turned on by his eel friends, so he's a baby face? What? Well, I don't know what, and what are here, let's go back to this. However, it was what happened after the match that shocked WWE fans. Rollins came into the ring to taunt Punk, but Breaker then speared Rollins, and Reed delivered a tsunami on the visionary.

Breaker got in Paul Heyman's face, and Breaker held up the title as Hayman stood in the middle of them and held up their arms. What's next for Breaker, Reed, and Hayman after turning on their leader? Again, this is from SI here. Let's stop there, there's other things on Raw.

What do you think of about doing this angle in Australia? At 8 o'clock in the morning, when nobody saw it, I mean, they'll be able to watch it eventually when people, that's the one good thing, I guess, about the streaming. When people sit down at the normal time to watch the show, they probably won't know that it is taking place 12 hours ago, so it'll be new to them.

But at the same time, what was the, why? Why, man, why? He won the math. They had teased, well, if he loses, you know what's going to happen. So, okay, this is dramatic foreshadowing for down the road. See, they've always been snakes. But two days down the road?

I just don't understand why it came now so quickly. Here's more from this review. The vision kick off the show. Seth Rollins reminds everyone who he is and says that while Raw is about him, he wants to recognize the greatness in the ring. He says, Paul Heyman came to him in his moment in his moment. need, and they have solidified him as the undisputed goat. They hug.

Heyman kisses Rollins on the cheek. Then Rollins kisses Heyman on the head. Jesus, crap. Then they close the curtains and turn the lights down low. And then they better hope it's not Burger Day in the kitchen. But Jim, Rollins turns his attention to Braun Breaker next and calls him the undisputed future of the industry. He says Bronson Reed could not have defeated Roman Reigns six months ago,

but Rollins gave him the knowledge to destroy Reins, and he anoints Reed as the new tribal chief. So it sounds like the night began with everything going fine. Everything was great! Dominic Mysterio defeated Penta. L.A. Knight did a promo. Aska starts yelling at Kyrie Saint about losing a crown jewel. Saint apologizes and says she could fix them.

things, I've had enough of this. Ria Ripley defeated Kyrie Seine. She didn't fix it. Jimmy Uso tells Jay Uso that he's going to get Reed. Bronson Reed defeats Jimmy Uso. Bailey and Lira Valkyria defeated... Lira Lira. I'm thinking of the way you say your fucking name, and now I can't read it

in front of me. Oh, it's all my fault, huh? Well, they defeated Raquel and Roxanne. and yeah it sounds like Rotson Doesn't sound like we missed too much beyond the big angle but what are your thoughts on

Seth Rollins just turned to heal what WrestleMania? Was it WrestleMania that he interfered in a punk match? I think it was. I can't keep track but again I know people will say well they Seth and punk always hate each other

But why would you have your one, the heel in equation in a heated personal rivalry suddenly turned on by his partners and made the baby face in the situation to, to then give the other baby face a man, I don't, I don't know what the fuck's happening here. I thought this would be a long build. where Braun would become increasingly tired of being in Seth Rollins' shadow, bronze the WrestleMania main eventer, bronze the breakout superstar,

and then finally the turn would come with Reed siding with Breaker because he knows where his bread's buttered and Heyman obviously going with them, but it be a thing that would start Seth versus Braun Breaker in some time in the future is where I thought this was going.

But this wasn't a slow simmer. This was a microwave it on high. At 8 a.m. in the morning, apparently. At 8 a.m. in the morning. Well, we'll stay on top of this. Raw rolls on, of course, but... Well, we'll sit on the next show.

We will talk about... I'm going to watch this and see if I can get a clearer picture from seeing it rather than hearing the description of why the fuck they did, whatever the fuck they did. Well, Jim, talking a little further about things you watched, I know that there was something that we talked about on the experience a few days ago,

the Cota Abushi injury, that aired. I was surprised they were going to air it, but they aired it, and they did an angle, and there's things to talk about from AEW collision. Well, I can see why they aired it, because they would have only had an hour and 40-minute show if they went 20 minutes before the fiasco came, but there were a couple of other things on colloquy, should I get into Ibushi or just gloss over these other things first?

Yeah, let's hear about the other things first because the abushi thing was the big thing. Sammy Guevara. I was zipping through the show because I had to, again, the fans had called our attention to two different things. I wanted to see those, but I'm zipping through this and I thought I saw it and I backed up. they were doing a six-man tag. Now the male models,

Minaj and Mansway or whatever their names are, they're there wearing outlandish outfits. And poor John Morrison, Johnny Nitro, Johnny, whatever, however you know him, is in that mix. And Guvara was on the other team. And he gave one of the male models a swan ton off the top rope.

Did you see this or skip right through this to get to the other things? I did not watch this match, though. Okay. He landed square on this guy with every ounce of his fucking weight off the top rope. Just did a goddamn swan dive off the top rope and turned and landed flat of his back on top of this fucking guy. It was a complete shoot. He landed so hard. He sold it himself.

It looked like it hurt Sammy. And 30 years ago, Sammy Guevara's ass would have been thoroughly fucking whipped in the locker room by that Mr. Model. If he needed to pick up a goddamn brick to do it, I have just

I guess this stuff is just accepted now or tolerated and they're just like, oh, no problem, brother, don't worry. But no, if you can't do your shit, any better than that. And I'm laying down there giving you an immobile target

and you squish the fuck out of me and give me a goddamn pop me out of hernia or give me broken ribs or a dislocated whatever. I will get up out of my sickbed and find something to hit you over the head with in the locker room. It's just ridiculous.

What the fuck is the matter with these guys on all sides? the giver and the taker. If Sammy Guevara ever does that move again, he's an unprofessional son of a bitch because he can't be trusted and he shouldn't trust himself. What did the taker do wrong? He laid there and let him do it.

That's what the taker did wrong. Have we heard about Sammy being taken to the hospital afterwards? I have not heard anything about Sammy going to the hospital, no. That's what the taker did. wrong. You heard the story with Dutch Mantell and Roberto Soto haven't you? Walking the dog. Yes. This wasn't even a goddamn big injury, but just for the newer folks, Dutch was young, he was in the Georgia territory, he's fucking green, and Roberto Soto didn't like

his place on the car, didn't like he was being asked to work preliminary with this guy or whatever his problem was. And he was jerking him around and he was being stiff with him, taking advantage, veteran of a young guy. I think he punched him one time, Dutch said, but don't punch me like that again. He punched him like that again. So

they had the match and they got back to the in Savannah, Georgia, I believe it was Savannah, that the locker rooms are separate and you had a kitchen in between. I've been there. And Dutch got back to the

fucking heel locker room and realized that if he didn't do something that none of the boys were going to respect him on the roster, but also he was just pissed. So he walked through that kitchen and picked up a broomstick and came in a babyface locker room and walked the dog on Roberto Soto, as he said, beat the shit out of him with that broomstick. Motherfugger, don't treat me. You don't lay there immobile and let some guy do some ridiculous bullshit and just land on the top of you without saying something about it.

And I see it happen so much with these motherfuckers. I'm thinking nobody's saying anything. Anyway. And also should we talk about FTR? And they've now just decided to just roll over and how would Kenny say it? Do the splits for the phony play wrestlers. It was FTR and Megan Brain

against Kevin Knight, Hong Kong, Fooey, and Willow Nightingale. And I've got to be honest with you, it would be worth it to me to spend the night in jail to just punch Hong Kong foo in a face. It's just annoying to look at, he was the smallest human in the match. He was smaller than both the girls. Am I lying, Brian?

He's a fourth-degree black belt. He's the baddest man on the planet. He's a, he's a, fourth degree fucking stain on the reputation of the wrestling industry. I mean, at least FDR got to show us that it doesn't matter, you know, size, gender, it doesn't matter, they'll sell. Well, that's the thing.

And by the way, I figured out Megan Brain, that's why I was calling her, remember Megan Brain because she ain't with it. We figured out why she looks so good and she's there. And she went for a slam on Willow Nightingale. Willow dropped behind her to slam her, and when Willow dropped behind Megan, to turn for the slam, Megan turned to her left.

Jesus fucking cry. If she ain't got that at this point, she might as well fold her tent. So then Megan threw spitball around with a German suplexed, et cetera, but she's a big bully and she's twice his size, so that got some sympathy on him. then they tagged Dax and Willow in.

And she started punching and chopping him and backed him up into the corner. Cash comes over and grabs her. She turns around, she hammers him back to the other corner. And then she turned around and beat up Dax and insiguried him and spine bustered him and got a two count. And then she and Dax started doing a spot, a wrestling spot, back and forth. and Megan nailed Willow and she got hit the ropes and Dax schoolboyed her pulled the trunks and got a two count he couldn't hold the girl down after she'd been hit with a schoolboy as a grown man and he's pulling the trunks two count and then

the girls did some shit and the heels won and look spitball who cares he's not a serious professional wrestling. Andy's smaller than they are to begin with. So let him fill the modern day manager spot with the heel manager is the only male

figure in wrestling that a girl can beat up. But Dax and Cash, at least until fairly recently, were trying to be taken as serious wrestlers, weren't they Brian, top guys, shit like that.

That's right. So what are they fucking doing? I can understand the slap for the big pop when the heels rocking and rolling and turns into the girl, slap, oh my God. Or the guys beat up and he staggers into a drop kick. Or whatever, or as I said, the heel manager guy gets beat by the girl baby face every time. but you can't seriously present a person who claims to be a serious professional wrestler competing on a competitive level playing field with the girl in the...

No. What the fuck is the matter with these big competitive spots and two counts? I think they realized there was a lot easier to just go with the flow. at some point, and that's what they've done. And that's why they are where they are right now. And that's why the fans treat them the way they do right now. And this is maybe a symptom. This is not necessarily the actual thing that causes everything.

But, yeah, I mean, and beyond this match and FTR, we're seeing a lot more of this men-again-women thing on national TV, and I don't like it. And, you know, again, I don't know. I don't even think there's a demand for it. That's too big, so I don't even understand why they're doing it. Well, and you can tell they're feeling it out because it's, I mean, it's choreographed so obviously to begin with where the guy never strikes the woman.

The woman can strike the man. The man can't strike the woman. The guy can block the woman's kick and spin her around and do the docee dough and swing your partner here and there, grab him in the fucking crotch and spitting his hair, whatever the fuck. but they're trying to do more and more to see if they get any blowback so that they can this is another one of these indie wrestling outlaw show fantasies that they do where guys and girls have regardless of size difference or the obvious difference

have these competitive matches where they do a bunch of finishes and nobody kicks out and the girls especially enjoy being, you know, catered to like they're the physical equals of it, because everybody knows it's all phony bullshit. So the girls get to have a good time. It's just so indie and outlaw and unseemly and in poor taste and et cetera. So this is what AEW is trying to go for. And because they're trying to outdo,

they had a mixed tag match in the W.W.E, you may have heard about a few weeks ago that drew more interest than almost any world championship match this year. You can have the mixed tag when you're carefully controlling what the girls do to the guys and vice versa when there's a personal issue involved like there was. Just making the matches because one, with the proper build, the proper personalities, and the proper issue, Drew, is just outlaw indie Mark fucking booking. I'd have to see Brock Lesnar versus Niajacks if we're going to go down this road. What do you want to hurt Brock for now that he's just come back?

That's the big test. How stiff will she be with Brock? How clumsy will she be with Brock? Well, we'll never know because Brock wouldn't do it. because he knows what the fuck he's doing. But there we are, though. I mean, I think that's part of the issue. These intergender matches,

these are something that, if you remember, the beginning of AEW, there was a hard push. You know, Joey Ryan on the Indies was doing intergender stuff. It was all about, what's wrong with doing this stuff? People like it. No one liked it. A small crowd in a small room got a chuckle out of it. There was no real demand for it.

And now, I think maybe more because the wrestlers want to do. it. It's being shoved down our throats on every show, it seems like. And they'll eventually go too far on this one and cross the line of some kind of taste and, you know, get a nasty letter and back

up on it or whatever. But it's just, again, it's more encouragement for people to just laugh at wrestling, not take anything seriously. I'm not even talking about real. I'm talking about seriously. Like, you would an action, adventure,

show, this is a goddamn sketch comment. And they're just concerned with making people laugh. You know who ain't laughing, don't you, Brian? Kota Ibushi is not laughing. Because he's got a broken fucking leg. I not only watched the incident,

but I watched the whole match leading up to it to try to get some kind of idea of what in the world. again with this guy. I'm not I'm not trying to blame Ibuci all the way.

It definitely was in some respect, depending on how you want to determine the word fault. It wasn't Josh Alexander's fault. He's completely free of blame. Now, how you describe blame or fault depends on Ibuci too, because it's, was he? he knocked Goofy by the bump that he took improperly just moments before, was he blown up

because he looked like his body had completely shut down? Was he impaired in some fashion, which, you know, you can't tell with some guys, but from the expression he had on his face for most of the time through the match before he could have been hurting anyway, he didn't really look like he was. was in the moment. I don't know what to fuck why he did what he did, but it wasn't Josh Alexander's fault. Let's put it that way. Did you watch the whole match?

I did watch the match, including the picture and picture, because during picture and picture he was selling his leg, so then immediately I started thinking, oh, I got to watch what happens. Is that the same leg that breaks? But one thing didn't have anything to do with the other. well from the start of the thing again i talk about okada being so lazy and taking every shortcut and being so boring and a monotone expression on his face etc ibushi doesn't give the impression that he's not trying like okada does and he does

open up with some shit every once a while but through the whole match he has maybe it's just him he has no expression on his face there's no urgency to anything he's doing there's no aura to him he's just a guy and again especially for the first part of this thing josh alexander was was trying he's got facial reactions he can he can work at least as far as doing moves he can he looks like an athlete he was trying to be the heel here by stalling and working to people and bailing out or whatever but in the middle of it ibushi was doing nothing they locked up and did nothing ibushi hit him with a kick and he bumped and rolled out alexander when he stopped him he got basic heat ahead

headlock, a tackle. After about three minutes in, Abushi, he threw a drop kick. And then he did a spot show dive to the floor. You know what? A spot show dive is what the guys, when dive started to become more common and what 20 years ago or whatever,

guys in a locker room, they would say, I'll hit you with a spot show dive. It's a thing where you grab the top rope and kind of vault over it and go side and the guy catches you and your feet are under you and you go easily to the ground. That's the safest kind of dive over the top. It's called a spot show dive. That's what they would do.

We got to dive. We'll do it that way. And Ibushi did one of those and got up and shook hands with the fans while never really changing his facial expression. And then Alexander hit him with a DDT on the floor, easy to, took, to, care of him and they went to the break again alexander was when he would throw a strike or manhandle the guy it's like he was holding a faberge egg i don't know hit him too hard but back from the break it was basic heat he had no bumps per per se abushi was selling like he was in a trance

there was no umph there's the same blank face and then suddenly he hit a power slam and a little back and forth and a German suplex and both of them later and sailed again, sold again. He'll do just enough. Then he got up, he did some kicks, and they tried to do some kung fu movie shit. And Abushi actually did the standing moonsault thing.

But the first big bump for Abushi was Alexander picked him up gave him a spinny thing for a two-count. And then I think there was another Ibushi did a kick and a suplex and the meteor thing on the ground, two-count. And then Alexander did some kind of deal where he picked him up and he slammed him on the apron. And that looked deadly. What a fucking bump.

But then they continue on. and that's when Alexander comes off the ropes and gives Ibusy a big clothesline and Ibusy tries to do the deal where he flips over and he landed on his fucking head. And if you go back and look at this in slow motion,

it's kind of like a head and shoulder thing. I mean, if you said this guy has a broken neck and he'll never feel anything from the waist down again from this bump, you'd believe it. it you'd buy it but then they continued on and abushi had the same vacant stare that he'd had through the whole match but i think it was worse and he looked dazed but he always looks dazed he looks he looks like he doesn't really he's not with what he's doing or was he blown up by this point i don't

know but that's when alexander picks him up and sits him on the top top turnbuckle. Now, if he was knocked goofy, then knocked out or dazed or anything, then he needed to tell somebody, right? You don't just continue, okay, you're putting me up on the top turnbuckle. I have no idea where I am. I'm not conscious. I'm going to weekly help you here. Say something to somebody, one would think. But Alexander puts him up on the top buckle, puts his legs, Ibushi's legs outside the ropes,

chops him. Ibushi kind of sells it, no better or worse than he normally does. He's still got the blank face. And Alexander turns his back and sits, gets up on the buckles like he's got his back to Abushi

who's sitting on the top rope and Alexander is going to pick up Ibushi over his shoulders in a fireman's carry, which number one, all this shit where they do this shit on the corners, it looks so phony and stupid, and nobody's ever trying to get away when they can get away easily. And I don't know why they're doing it to begin with, but he didn't, Alexander didn't just make this up on a sperm of the moment and like, I'll do this. to have worked this out.

So Ibuci had to know, or at least been told what he was going to try to do here. So as he's trying to pick him up in the fireman's carry, he gets Ibuci's left arm over his shoulder, does Alexander. But Alexander can't get his own left arm under Abushi's crotch because Abushi is just sitting there on the turnbuckle. His feet are on the second buckle.

He could just raise up six inches. I mean, it's not like that would look any phonier than anything else that's ever done in these situations. But it's like he wasn't cooperating or didn't even really know what Alexander was trying to do. He was just there. And not either trying to get away or block it or. help it anything. And Alexander

finally kind of jerked a little bit and got under him and shrugged him up on his shoulders. But since Ibushi didn't help him and really once that he was up on the shoulders Abushi, again, was just

a sack of wheat. He wasn't bracing on anything. Ibushi's weight was too far backwards for Alexander who was sitting on the top turnbuckle

also now to be able to fucking hold he just fell straight backwards but because Alexander's feet were on the second rope and his ass was on the buckle when he fell backwards

it put him upside down and he was able to hang for a second and then control his fall better. But when he went over backwards with Ibuci, Abushi was headed face first toward the floor in a splash position. And the rail was underneath his face. So he reached out and grabbed the rail to block his face

and his legs spun underneath him and his right thigh took the centrifugal force of the spin underneath him, and it looked like the lower half of his leg just flipped the fuck around in a very bad fashion. So I think he broke his thigh. Is that what the femur is? Or do you know from... I'm not sure.

How long did you spend in medical school? Not too long. Hold on. Femar, it is the bone of the thigh or upper hind limb, articulating at the hip and the knee. That's what he was holding his thigh, but you can see that the lower part of his leg from the knee down on the replay, it didn't get caught under him. It flapped grotesquely when the rest of him fell on his right upper leg. and one other thing, to be honest, that adds to Ibusy dragging this whole thing down was that when Alexander was trying to get him up, when they showed the replay from the other angle, Ibushi's right heel was under the top turn buckle.

So as Alexander tried to pick him up, there was something that was actively pulling him downward right before the collapse came. So... What were they even trying to do? He was going to give him probably some kind of attitude adjustment or Death Valley driver thing off the ropes or who knows what. Because he just, like, slipped on his own.

It wasn't like Josh Alexander... It kind of felt like if you watched... I watched it a few times. Like, Abushi just started going. And Josh Alexander kind of had to go. That's because he wasn't helping. He wasn't helping at all. He was not whatever move they had agreed to.

Once that Alexander got up there was trying to pick him up, Ibushi wasn't in the right place. He didn't give Alexander a place in between his legs to thread Alexander's left arm through so he could pick him up easily. He had feet on the turnbuckle when he was sitting there. But once when Alexander shrugged him up, his feet were straight out his hands were really not braced on anything and he wasn't i mean look at his face and when he when he was picked up in that position after a struggle his facial expression didn't

change ibushis that's why i'm saying it was like he was neither trying to block it nor cooperate with it he was just there when alexander was trying to do what he was trying to do and he couldn't get the weight distributed right and off they went. But nobody could have done that with Hibushi in that position and in doing the things that he wasn't doing. So I don't know what, that's why they knock himself out on the clothesline beforehand. Well, in that case, shouldn't he tell somebody,

don't put me up on the top rope, I can't fucking see or who are you where are we what well jim and that wasn't really the end of it that was also a post match which they uh by hooker by well no it gets it gets better it gets better because now the fucking guy has to take it and the place popped whoa he took a dive face first he lands he's selling the leg the referee's down there the referee counts it out makes it a count out and Don Callis gets in the ring with the microphone and says, I've got something important to say, this is what happens when you mess with the Don Callis family.

And then Mark Davis comes out. Remember him, the guy from Australia with the big white ass. He's been gone, what, six months? When he came back, he was only back for three weeks and he'd been gone for a year and a half. That's right. He came back for three weeks and he's gone for six months. he started choking and punching the guy with the broken leg

this guy's laying on the floor he just broken his fucking leg and Davis's big fat asses on him choking him and punching him so fucking then Kenny comes out with a trash can apropos for this segment and beats up everybody and so again I don't know that I've ever

When's the last time you heard of a wrestler breaking their thigh bone instead of the lower part of the leg? What was the last time you heard of a wrestler breaking both of their ankles in the same match? Well, no, but I'm, that never, but I'm a legitimate question. I would love for any of the,

for any of the historians out there in the audience, famous broken legs, Larry Henning back in the 60s when they were on top or early 70s in the AWA. But that, you know, Wahoo one time, bro, it was always the lower leg. I didn't know you could do anything. Well, they invent new shit to do to hurt themselves.

But, but yeah, I don't know if this guy was not knocked goofy by the clothesline. Really, the whole match he looked off. he looked like he was confused by where he was. I don't know if he's got issues or if he's just not that bright. I don't know what the fuck's going on. But it was like trying to wrestle a goddamn guy in a hypnotic trance. And again, the guys hurt clearly badly.

They still did the angle. It's just amazing because the angle was so stupid to begin with. Omega looks really bad. Omega looks like his head. It looks like a huggle in the movie Labyrinth, just this giant fucking head now, and he's not moving or looking like he should be there either right now.

What a train wreck. What a train wreck. What a train wreck the entire Ibushi run. Jeez. In two years. Oh, and they said, by the way, this was Ibushi's fourth AEW match this year. they just came back

what a couple months ago so he got signed at least two years ago but let's say a year and a half ago he was off for over a year he comes back he has four matches he breaks his leg does that mean he's going to have like

five matches on a two-year contract well maybe Tony because of the time off will keep extending him it'll turn into like a 20-year contract I don't think Abushi's going to live long enough to serve his contract out. Hey, is that thing real? I know you retweeted it, so you must have seen it too. Brian Solomon tweeted out an alleged note from Tony Khan, Dakota Abushi, a handwritten note. Did you see that?

Yes, I retweeted it because it just popped up on my feed as I was waiting around for you. And he said the decline of Western civilization. It was this nice handwritten letter literally done for. from Bobby Bruns to Jack Feffer in 1951 or whatever, and then it looked like a ransom note that Tony Kahn had posted, I guess, on Twitter or whatever, a picture of a note he wrote, Oh, Kota Abushi, we respect you, get well soon. Like a kid with crayons.

Well, again, considering the style that he wrestled, I don't know how much more there could possibly. It already looked like there wasn't much left in the tank. I don't know how much more anyone could hope to ever see from Kota Abushi. a ring again. I'm not, I'm saying there's something wrong with his cognitive ability because he looked like a person facially walking through that thing. He looked like Terry Gordy, unfortunately. But I always think he looks like that. The last years of Terry Gordy's life after he'd had the, it was in the coma. I've always thought that he walked around that look on

his face. It wasn't just because of a bump here in this match. It's kind of like, remember that episode of the Twilight Zone with the Android boxers where they look almost human enough? But clearly they're not. Well, I don't want to be in the goddamn ring, given my body to an android boxer who looks like he's on Neptune. Well, Jim, I guess the point is, Coda Abushi's going to have a lot of time on his hands. And also maybe time to think about a new thing to do. Maybe he can, maybe he could sell a book of facial expressions to people out there wanting to learn a correspondence course on professional wrestling. A new line of work is what you're saying that he needs. He needs to somehow get out of the wrestling business, do less of that, and do more of

anything else. You know, folks, if you've got an idea, a dream, an aspiration, you're going to need some perspiration, but you're also going to need help in achieving your dreams and your business goals and all of you want to retire out there to an island of the South Pacific with a number of strippers of the various sex that you would prefer, whether you're a man, a woman, or whatever the case may be. You want that for yourself, but first, the problem is you've got to make the money. That's where you need help, and that's where Shopify comes in. Because, Brian, I'll have you know that there was a time where I decided to start on my second million dollars. I gave up on the first million. It was too difficult. But I had to do it myself. They didn't.

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and start selling today. Well, it's later in the day, maybe first thing in the morning. But quick, tagada! $1 a month trial period, Shopify.com slash JCE. They know what's good for you. If you know what's good for you,

you'll be good to them and they'll be good to you. and then we'll all be good. Shopify.com slash J-C-E. That's right. All right, Jim, well, let's get to some questions here on the drive-thru. We have had a lot to review, and it's now time for questions, as I said before.

Yes, I think you mentioned that. You brought that up in no uncertain terms. Jim, this first question was email to corny drive-thru at g-mail.com from Kenny in Calgary, Alberta. Hello. I don't know if this has been asked before. I had just one question. Why did Rick Flair never wear his knee pads on his knees? He always wore knee pads, but I've never seen him in a match with them actually on his knees. Just curious, maybe you would know the reason. And if you notice Dennis Condry was the same way, his were almost on a... his shins rather than with the knee cap centered in the middle of the pad, which you would think, but it depended on the way the guy dropped a knee or went to his knee. And it's hard

to explain, but sometimes, you know, like on flares, the leaping knee drop that he got from Harley Race, where he comes right down within a scant millisecond of your forehead, right? But on the other knee is the one taking the brunt of the goddamn punishment. But depending on how a guy drops a knee, he either lands on the knee cap or the way the knee is shaped or the way the guy does it or whatever. It's more of a flatness on the leg. And the point is, is that the knee pad below the knee

actually protects the knee cap and the shin from being. whanged on the mat. Am I explaining this all? It just depends on how you do it. Because some guys, when they drop the knee, the kneecap will come in contact with the goddamn mat. And other times, the way they do it, if you wear your knee pad on your upper shin and lower knee, it will still cushion everything and also potentially keep you from caving the guy's fucking head in or whatever. Does that make any sense? It makes sense. I believe I also heard that part of Flair's reasoning was that he said that he had skinny calves

and he wanted to cover them up with the knee pad. Well, and I'm sure, you know, he said, oh, you know what? That makes my legs look bigger too, but you wouldn't just leave your knee open to repeated damage over 40 years just to make your calves look bigger if it wasn't what was working for you to begin with. It's even weird when you see someone with no knee pads or anything. Ron Garland out there. People didn't realize this because Lawler all through his career wore long tights, right,

instead of just trunks, short trunks, so you couldn't see his legs. But in the 70s, in the 80s, into the 1990s, 25 plus years, I believe, into his career, is when he started wearing knee pads. on all those old Memphis rings where the padding was worn out, indoor, outdoor, carpeting over plywood or one by 12 boards, time after time doing the fist drop off the second rope or even off the top rope, leaping knee drops, all the other shit he did. He never wore knee pads and he never had a goddamn knee surgery in his life.

And he probably wrestled more. more matches of some description or another than anybody in wrestling after 1980 because of the way he just never quit. And it was at like a fan fest or something in the modern era within the last 20, 25 years that I saw him putting on these big ass knee pads, big, thick ones. And I said, King, I said, what you? He said, yeah. He said, has finally come to this.

but for all the I don't know how he did it. Bare knee, just tights, bare knees. And the thing that looked like a knee pad on those old tights was just K&H would sew those on because that way you wouldn't wear through the knee area. It was just an extra layer of material. There was no padding to it at all.

And then other guys getting the ring in the first week in training, they fucking blow their knee out. I don't know how these things happen. All right, Jim, our next question sent via email to corny drive-thru at gmail.com is from Jonathan in Quebec City. I have a question for Jim. Stan Lane signed with the WWE in 1994 to be an announcer,

but he was only 40 at the time. Do you think Stan Lane could have made good run as a wrestler? Ooh! He would have been a great IC champion. Was it Vince decision to only have him as an answer? Well, I don't know that Stan would have necessarily at that point in his life been a good intercontinental champion, but no, Stan had already made the decision. The way that happened was Stan was working for me as one of the heavenly bodies, the original heavenly bodies with Tom Pritchard in Knoxville, Smoky Mountain Wrestling. And we had left WCW at the end of 1990.

He was miserable there as I was. But as he would later on say, shit, I walked out on a $150,000 guaranteed contract or whatever. What was I thinking? But at the same time, he definitely didn't want to go back to WCW. The WWF at that time

didn't seem like an option and then six months later, you know, we would be in the WWF, me and Tom and Jimmy Del Rey, but we did the super brawl match for WCW in February of 93. Watts was gone. And at that point, we were gone also. I've told that story before. Stan was not necessarily any more enamored of the company than I was, and he figured we could trust Watts also.

so he knew, you know, what to fuck. But that's the thing. Stan had turned 40. And he was seeing guys on the indie shows we do or the early Smoky Mountain Tapings. Ivan Kohloff had the, Ivan at that time was only about 10 or 12 years older than Stan. But because Stan's incredible genetics and Ivan looked older, you know, when he was younger, Stan's saying, oh, his bad ankles. and I don't want to be one of the old timers.

I'm 50 in the locker room. And he just soured on the business and decided to quit. And that's why I replaced him in the heavily bodies. I think he did one loop of Japan just to do it one more time. And then he was done with in-ring wrestling. However, that was at the point where Jerry Jarrett had started working for Vince. when Vince the steroid trial, Vince thought he might be going to jail. He brought Jared up to potentially be the guy to run the company while he was in stir.

Those stories have been told before. Well, one of the byproducts of that was that's when Lawler first started, if I'm remembering right, first started working for Vince, because obviously Jared and Lawler were business partners. but Jarrett had a soft spot for Stan because of the fabulous one Stan and Steve was Jarrett's biggest drawing gimmick that he created in the modern era

and Stan had a great announcer voice so Jarrett's idea because they needed more announcers that knew wrestling in Jarrett's mind Vince was never particularly you know caring about that but Jared had Stan audition for, and he got the job as an announcer. That's why Stan was there for that period of time. And then when Jerry, you know, Vince got out of his issues, Jerry didn't want to live in Connecticut as he's been spending most of his time up there,

started drinking like two bottles of wine every night, wanting to get back to Nashville. He finally said, fuck it, you don't need me. I'm gone. And Stan was there. And as I recall, until the end of the contract he'd signed, because he had become an employee. And I believe he got some kind of minor surgery

that he needed taking care out of the employment thing before the contract was up. But that's why Stan was announcing there. And then he started his career as the announcer and producer of the show for the powerboat racing people and did that for the next 20 years. I never watched the Powerboast,

powerboat racing show. It's more fun than Power Shlap. But, you know, Stan always had a great voice. He would always do the intro for you after you introed the team. I could see Stan being a successful radio DJ. Yes. I didn't particularly like him as a commentator.

I didn't think he felt comfortable or he didn't mesh well with Vince because that's who he was teamed up with at first. Yeah, he wasn't comfortable there. That wasn't his style of wrestling. He, you know, Vince was, even then, a tendency to micromanage people and then you don't know what the fuck to do

because you don't know what the fuck he wants. So it, that's a thing. Wrestling announcing wasn't Stan's thing, in that environment. But he was able to take, and he told me that he was able to take the things he learned about television and production

and just announcing in general. And that's why he fits so well with the powerboat people because that was like, you know, Arnold Palmer Colin Goff, that was his thing. And since they had had a much more primitive television production, he was able to upgrade the thing, and not only was he doing the announcing, he was producing the programs. So it all worked out well in the end. But that's why it wasn't because Vince said, no, you can't be a wrestler. It was because Stan had already said,

I'm done being a fucking wrestler. Jim, mainly because I think WWE Vault put it up on their channel on YouTube, we've had a few questions sent in about Halloween Havoc, 1989. Let me go to these, This first one here was sent to corny drive-thru at gmail.com from Ken J. While watching Halloween Havoc 89, specifically the tag title match between the fabulous freebirds and the dynamic dudes, I noticed there was only one tag title between the two freebirds. What happened to the other belt? Well, I don't remember. and I was on the creative committee at the time of Halloween Havoc 89.

So do you remember or did somebody just forget to put it in their fucking bag? Yeah, I don't remember. So I don't know. Well, no, that's the thing. I mean, there's a teaching moment here. But that's the thing is it doesn't appear from our memory like that it was stolen and nobody walked out with it because both the freebirds were there. It can be this simple.

There have been times a guy just forgot to put it in his fucking bag. And in those days, there were no replicas. You had one of each of the belts, and that's what you had. And that's why there were so many funny things done to cover up when a guy would walk out. Manny Fernandez or Rick Rood left and took. the Nikita Malkovich NWA World Tag belts that us and the Rocker Roll Express had worn and they had to get the new ones made.

And I love those belts. The old ones, not the new ones. But if you forgot to bring a belt, you know, it was your fault, but what are you going to do? You can't not have the match. Well, we don't have both belts. Fuck it.

Cancel a match. And that's, I remember, God damn Who was it I don't remember for sure but I'm not so I'm not going to call anybody's name but while I was in TNA between 2006 and 2009

they got to one of the on location paper views where they weren't doing it in Orlando and realized that nobody had brought the World Title Belt and the main event was of a world title match. Now, when the guys were responsible for carrying the belts around in the territory days, anything from regional belts to world belts,

they may take off and quit the promotion and take the belts with them, but most of the time, if they were still there, they would have the belt with them, especially a world champion, because you prized and guarded that thing most often, right? but this was a case where the promotion had actually said, no, we don't trust the guys. We're going to keep the belts, and we're going to make sure that we've got our belts

and we don't lose our belts, and we always have our belts for the show. And they forgot the fucking belt. So they actually called somebody in Orlando that could go over to Universal and get in the soundstage and take the belt to the airport, and they bought the belt a plane ticket

to fucking, fly to wherever we were. That was a St. Louis or a Nashville or one of the outside paper views. This particular time with the birds, I don't know, but there's been some screwy shit happen, you know, over the course of the years of wrestling with big matches and belts. All right, Jim, our next question about Halloween Havoc 89 was sent in by Brian and Bridgeport, West Virginia.

He wants to get your comments on the match, and he has a few thoughts here. I just watched 1989 Halloween Havoc between Midnight Express and Dr. Death and the Samoan SWAT team with the Samoan Savage. I have no idea where this match ranks in the Pantheon of six-man tags,

but I enjoyed it. Four takeaways? Dr. Death is freaking strong. Dr. Death doing the run in place while he's waiting for a tag has some great subliminal psychology to it as a baby face. where does Bobby's concrete bump rank

on your list of best concrete bumps you've ever seen or been a part of? And finally, on the finish, a very subtle move by Stan was brilliant. Stan gets shoved into you, and he ducks his head ever so slightly so his head hits the racket. Very subtle, but very brilliant.

Well done, gentlemen. Any comments about this match would be appreciated. from Brian and Bridgeport, West Virginia. Brian, do you know how many times I've watched this match back since we've done it? Havoc 89, never. Once. Oh. When I got home and watched the tape at that, because I always,

I watched every big show back at least once. And that was, we were building the next month, November would be the New York knockout, the match between the midnight and the dudes where we'd turn back heel in that famous incident that was the same night as the flare funk, I quit match.

The reason why that I was so desperate to turn us back heel was because in probably most part the matches we were having with the Vuggin Samoans because I think I've said this before when I was on a show a week

or two ago when I was talking about how you can't exist as a baby face manager unless you have a heel manager in the other corner and a personal issue to work off of and interact with. And when it was Heyman, it worked. But then all of a sudden now I'm managing Doc who's a baby face and the midnight who are baby faces and I'm a baby face. And we'd worked with the freebirds over the summer for the World Tag title. And I mentioned that's when Garvin was on steroids and having fucking,

and tantrums and Michael Hayes wanted to work like the road warriors and Gordy was the only one that would bump and sell for anybody, the giant. And those matches were miserable. And then, you know, again, six men with the three Samoans, they're doing all their same shit. And they don't sell unless they head butt each other by accident. Then they take a bump. It was burying the midnight to be stuck in that baby face position without a

a clear reason for us to be presented as baby faces a la the original Midnight Express and Paul E's situation. So this was the last big show match we had before we switched back heel. And Philadelphia. And it was in Philadelphia. So Philadelphia was one of our better towns. They're going to like this and cheered us. but at the same time we were on such a losing streak

that's why the people ended up popping and cheering when we switched heel on the dudes because now they're like yes now they can win again we had actually we were one of the first wrestling acts ever with a fucking sympathy goddamn pop from the booking we'd gone through that year so anyway the only thing I do remember about to finish is yes it was

one of the deals where something happens, I jump up and with rightful and indignation on the apron or whatever, Stan has rolled one of the guys up and as he's kicked off, he goes head first into my loaded tennis racket, which was over and the people knew that it was deadly, knocks me off the apron so I can't intervene in the pen and we get beat. It was basically our way of giving ourselves an out. Yeah, instead of just beating us,

like they do these days and making everybody look like a plate full of piss, we will look like we have it and then suddenly we'll have bad luck and you beat us. That's what I remember about that. What about Dr. Death as a baby face waiting for a tag? He was fucking tremendous. He would do the thing where he's like as a football drill. He'd be running in place and the people would get up and start stomping with him and everything. Because Doc, part of it was he had been doing that.

played football in college, obviously, All-American as part of the deal. But he had been doing that for real when he first got into business because he was so energetic and so fired up. And that's why so many of the guys were scared of him or not scared he was going to hurt him on purpose, but just like flinchy of him because he was a goddamn ball of energy when he first got in the business and he could kill you and not even realize it. So he started doing that for a shoot because he was so wound up, and then it became a thing that he did to get to people up.

All right, Jim, our next question here. We've received a few of these. This was sent to corny drive-thru at gmail.com from Mac in Denver. Jim, there's a video going around of an old shoot interview with the Midnight Express. Sorry if this question is a repeat, but any chance I could hear Jim's side of the story of getting prank by Stan Lane with the ants one of their road trips. This is also written in the Midnight Express scrapbook,

but it can be a 30-minute story, but I'll try to condense things and give you the gist of it. We had been at a spot show into Carolinas working for Crockett where it was outdoors at a baseball stadium, and we had dressed in the dugout. And then it's a middle of, summer. After the show, it's somewhere in South Carolina, and North Carolina, the back roads. We're on the road. We've

got however far to Charlotte, and it's like midnight, just pitch black Tulane State Highway. And Stan starts, you know, talking about, yeah, God damn it, these outdoor shows and I hate this time of year, the weather's so hot and muggy. And literally all these big bugs come out. He's called my attention to the big bugs flying around everywhere. He said, yeah, and the lights tonight at that field. You see all those big moths and bugs. And then he's, I'm driving, stands in the front seat. Bobby's in the back

seat. Stan slaps his leg. And he said, turn, turn your light on. I turned a dome light on. He said, I thought I felt something on my leg. I said, oh, you've talked yourself into it. And here we go, another couple miles down the road. He's slapped his leg again. He's turned a light on again. And I said, what do you do? Now you've got yourself creepy. And as I turn the light on, I see, I look down at his leg and there's a black ant sitting on his leg and he slaps it off immediately. Oh, I said, I knew it.

I said, shit. Well, at least you got it, right? And then he said, well, you know, when we were in that dugout tonight, I saw a lot of ants and there was a big ant hill over in the corner next to whatever. I said, wait a minute, that's where I was dressing. He said, yeah, there was a big ant hill over there. I saw him. And now, as he's planted the seed right now, he slaps his leg again.

And I goddamn look down. And there's an ant on his leg and an ant on his white tube sock he's got because he's wearing shorts. And he's slapping his leg. I'm like, fuck. And just then I feel something on my shoulder. And I look and I can see something falling off. Oh, my fuck.

That's where I put my clothes. They're all over us. Now I'm panicked. And I pull the car over to the side of the fucking road. And I get out and I start slapping it myself and Stan jumps out the door on the other side. And Bobby jumps out of the back seat and I go in front of as I got out the door, another couple of ants fell off of my shoulders, I should say. And so I'm really freaking out.

And I'm standing on the side of the road in front of my head. of the car and I've pulled my pants down to my ankles so that I can slap my legs and make sure they're not eating my balls or anything. And I'm slapping all over and stands hopping up and down on the side of the road, slapping his legs. And Bobby's standing back over by the car. And all of a sudden, we look up and there's red lights. A cop is pulling over behind the car.

And I, as this. as I look up and I see it's the cops and I'm thinking, oh, thank God, because I'm like, we must abandon our car here. It's infested. We can't get back in it. The cop gets out. And I said, officer, thank God you're here, right? And I hear Stan say, ribs over.

And I'm like, officer, our car is completely infested with, wait, what? Ribs over. What? It sunk in on me. The cop is looking, I've got my, pants around my ankles. I'm in my underwear and a t-shirt and I'm out on the side of the road at one o'clock in the morning or whatever in Huah, North Carolina in front of the headlights dancing around. And Stan was on the side of the road and he was dancing around. But Bobby,

when Bobby got out of the car, he had one of those Miller pony bottles of beer, open beer in each hand. Oh my God. He's standing there with two beers in each hand. So the cop says, what the fuck? And Stan walks over to the cop and said, Officer is just a little rivage here. And he holds up this bag of plastic ants and he puts his arm around the cop, turns

the cop around and walks him back to his squad car while calmly conversing with him, showing him the box of plastic ants or the bag of plastic ants that he had and said, we were just playing a little joke on our friend here, but thank you for stopping. Everything's fine. And he put the cop in the car.

and patted him on the shoulder and said, we'll be leaving now, but going on our way now, but thank you for caring about our safety, sir. And we all got in a car and just drove off. He had stopped at the store when we left the town. We always stopped at a convenience store. We'd gas up the car. I was still on Pepsi then.

My Pepsi and my goddamn hostess apple pie or Twinkies or whatever. Stan would get his gator race. and various snacks, and Bobby'd get his beer, and we would go on home. Stan had seen the bag of lots of ants, L-O-T-S-A, lots of ants. It was a bag of about 500 little tiny, plastic fucking black ants. And so he'd given Bobby a handful,

and he had some, and he was putting them on his leg intermittently where I could see him, and then as I got itchy about it, he had Bobby chucking a couple from the back seat where they'd fall off my shoulder. Lots of ants. That's pretty funny. We almost went to jail in fucking nowhere South Carolina for that. Was that Stan's best rib?

That was one of them. That was one of the better ones. I always remember the lots of ants because, but I got him back with the fucking, it wasn't long after that. I've told you the story of the glass breaking hammer. that's where we got him back we got him back well Bobby was in on that too

Bobby helped me out seems like Bobby's playing both sides Bobby's helping both of you guys Bobby Bobby was the impartial Bobby was the impartial middle man he wouldn't he wouldn't go to the elaborate rib

stage he just wait till you got out of the car to go take a piss or something and he'd tie the bottom of your fucking straw in your cup in a knot and then stick it back through the lid so when you tried to take a drink you'd suck your top of your head in. Of course, Jim, after being intact, or infested with ants, you may need a good night's sleep. You may want to just rip off your clothes and go right to sleep on a clean surface and a clean

mattress and cleanliness and comfort are two of the guarantees of Heelic sleep. Yes, but not godliness. Cleanliness is next to godliness, but it's not on the heatiness. Elix menu, but I'll tell you, I wasn't going to get back at the car. I was convinced that we had to leave the car by the side of the road. But I'll tell you what, folks, you ought to be leaving your mattress by the side of the road. Because can you think, how long have you been sleeping on your mattress? I say, you out there, you out there in podcast land.

You had your mattress five years, 10 years, however long you had it. You know what's going on. The farting that's gone on, the accidents, the potential. dissemination of DNA that might be splashed all over it, especially if you've got teenagers when you're out of the house, you need to get rid of that just germ bag, just a giant conglomeration of filth. It just made me time for a new mattress. A brand new mattress from Helix because Helix sleep has mattresses for everybody. If you've got snoring, back pain, sleep apnea, you sleep too hot, they got mattresses that can help that out.

if you're big and fat and corpulent and obese and you're about to explode into a Mr. Creezoat level explosion of guts and intestines, they got a mattress for you too. If you're skinny, if you're a bag of bones, if you use a Cheerio for a hula hoop, they got a mattress for you too. And all of these mattresses are encased in special scientific coating so that any time you either try to shit, piss or splege on them, it'll bounce right back at you. Watch out now, because this could put an eye out. Again, let's not try to do these things.

No, if you really throw a good handful of shit at one of these mattresses, it'll repel it so strenuously that it could hit you in the eye. Don't grab your shit. Don't touch your shit. Don't throw your shit. You could get pink eye. And of course, a good night's sleep is a great way to avoid bad decisions in life, like everything that we just mentioned.

and a good night's sleep comes from Helix sleep. Folks, you know, I need to say nothing else. You don't need to hear anything else. If you want to avoid pink eye making bad decisions and having shit flung at you, get a good night's sleep on a Helix sleep mattress. Go right now to helixleep.com slash JCE. You are going to get 27% off site wide

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that 93% of people would rather sleep on a mattress than a bag of germs or the floor of a toilet That is certainly something we can all agree with A great night's sleep, we endorse it, we love it, Helix sleep. One more time, Jim, you hear the robots, what's that promo code? J-C-E.

All right, Jim, you know what that connotates. This is the final stretch here of the show. Let's get a few more questions and get the hell out of here. Jim, this question, slightly off topic, or completely off topic, was sent the corny drive through at Gmail.com

from Darrell Smith, Newcastle, Oklahoma, just turning 40 years old, and finally rounding out finishing all the episodes of the Twilight Zone. I was curious, what is your absolute favorite episode?

And then he gives his opinion on what his favorite is, but why don't we go? go there, Jim. What is your favorite episode? Oh, God. I mean, how do you how do you pick your absolute favorite? To serve man has the great punchline.

It's a good life as, you know, Billy Mummy is the, you know, all-powerful kid. Somebody, somebody sneak up behind him with a lamp or something. That could be applied today. There's so many, I mean, the eye of Beholder, how can you really pick your absolute favorite when there's so many memorable

things, so many great stuff, and William Shatner on the plane, the Gremlin, Stacey reminds me of that one every time we fly. So what does Pizmo say there? What was his name? Pizmo's name was on this frozen screen right now. Hold on one second. We will be going to Pismo momentarily. Pismo, of course, has been a longtime fan.

Pismos name is Daryl Smith, and he's in Newcastle, Oklahoma. His favorite episode? Season 3, episode 19, The Hunt. In this episode, The Hunter and his loyal dog go hunt a raccoon and fall in a lake, unknowingly dying. Oh, yeah, and then the dog warns him at the end. that he's about to go into hell instead of heaven because the dog knows better than he does

and the dog outsmarts the devil and they get to go to heaven. What do you think of Burgess Meredith's performance? Can't it even say? Oh, well, and... What do you think of Burgess Meredith's performance is what I was trying to say there? Well, no, but besides Burgess Meredith,

how did I not even say time enough at last? Oh. Which probably... Actually, that's still probably the most personal episode to me because I've been that character all of my life. One of these days, I'll just have time to read all my books, and I don't have to deal with all of you motherfuckers. But then when that day comes, I'll break my fucking glasses.

When I was nine years old, I said, I feel for him. I sympathize. I didn't even know it was going to turn out this way that I was going to be fed up with the human race. When you were nine years old, you were watching the Twilight Zone? Fuck yeah. Why would? Jesus Christ.

You're a kid. You're a little kid. I don't know. It came on the air before I was born. These were reruns even. No. My mom liked scary movies, too. Who do you think showed me the ghost and Mr. Chicken for the first time?

That's not a scary movie. But who also the Nightstalker was our favorite TV movie. And she took me to see all of the late 60s, early 70s, Hammer Horror Films. and all of the house that dripped blood, all that stuff. It may be late in the game for the movies that she was seeing, but what did she think if she saw the Halloween franchise, or at least the first movie?

Well, by then, we were not going to movies together, but she liked it as far as I know from having seen it on television, but she never went into too much detail. What did you think when they brought the Twilight Zone back in the 80s, and all of a sudden it's in college. No, it sucked. No, Rod Serling, yeah. No, yeah, that's not only on camera,

but behind the scenes to author some of the episodes as well as just lend his gravitas. It wasn't the Twilight Zone without Rod Serling. Jim, our next question sent via the Cult of Cornet Facebook group sent by a friend of yours, Chris in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, Ed Cohen's hometown. Gary Hart said in a 2007 shoot interview that he was offered the spot to manage Vader and WCW

and regretted the decision not to manage Leon. Gary went on to say he believed that he would have been able to instill a confidence in Leon and would have done a better job blocking and tackling from a political standpoint on Leon's behalf. does Jim believe Vader's career trajectory would have been positively impacted with a more hands-on manager

like Gary Hart early in his WCW career? Well, this would have been, what, 90? Vader made his first appearance in WCW in 1990. He was a full-timer pretty much by 92, and that's when he won the world title with Harley Racist's manager. Yeah, see, when Flair was booking,

Flair had used Gary and Gary was there in 1990 when Vader first started, but I don't think this is the time period because Gary had his own guys. Remember, he had managed Funk and the Dragon Master and et cetera. But they knew Vader was only a part-time guy at that point. I believe that he's probably talking about 92, 93. they said, hey, now that we've got Vader, he needs a manager and it ended up with Harley Race, right? At that time period. So Harley had started managing, I guess, a year, year and a half earlier, give or take, managing Lex Lugar with Mr. Hughes as their Big Bubba Douglass, Big Bubba Rogers.

With Mr. Hughes. The honorary mayor of Lakeland, Florida. But that was in 91 with Lugar as WCW champion after Flair left. Yeah, that's the thing is that that's what he needed a manager. I'm thinking that's when they said, well, maybe we can bring Gary Hart back. I think at that Gary is correct in what he said that he could have been the one to talk to the Booker or the promoter. Because that's what he would have done in the old days. What do you want from Vader?

How do you want him presented? He would get all that stuff and then he would talk to Leon and give him tips and hints and point him in the direction and calm him down. if he got upset because Gary had the even disposition. So all of that is very valid and would have worked in a normal place. But in 92, 93, you had not only an abnormal office situation in WCW where it was just musical chairs, creative, who was in charge, nobody knew from one time to the other, who's it going to be next week. and you had factions behind the scenes of what should happen or who should get pushed.

And I don't know if Gary would have had the pull to go to, Gary could go to a Jim Barnett or even a Dusty Rhodes or a Rick Flair, a Jim Crockett, a Jimmy Crockett, as he would say. But could Gary go to Kip Fry and go, hey, I know what's going on and he really did? but would Kip Frye believe that because he wouldn't know Gary Hart from fucking Jimmy Hart

because he didn't know anything about wrestling so Gary could have done it but whether he would have been allowed to do it was a different thing that image that went around recently of like the top managers or whatever it was and it was you and a bunch of other people

that had Gary Hart had a picture of the politician Gary Hart Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's, yeah, that's, Gary had longstanding respect from a variety of the long-time wrestling people for his success and whatever. But, you know, he would just have been a kind of a strange-looking guy from Chicago, brother, to some TV executive. Jim, our next question sent via email to Corny Drive-Thruy drive-thru.

gmail.com from Jeff Pollard Leesville, Louisiana. Why did Paul Orndorf's WCW run in 1990 only last a few months? I don't actually know. To be quite honest, that was a period of time

where they were trying you know, everything and that was where I would say what was that? Aprilish, Mayish 1990 and he was in for a short period of time. They teamed him up with Sting and some of the other baby faces. J. Y, D, the dudes with attitudes, because the dynamic dudes got over so well as dudes.

I think it was only trying to bring back people that he knew that had drawn money for him before, that, you know, he could get something out of. And Paul lived in Atlanta, was not under contract and probably didn't sign a contract at that point. That's why he was able to come in and out. And I don't honestly remember what the reason was

he didn't stick around for, but he would come back a couple of years later. He was still having problems with his arm and his neck, as you'll recall from the injury that he had. But it was a couple of years later, when he was working for me in Smoky Mountain when Watts came in that Watts called me like, hey, how's Paul doing?

And he brought him in and they had a run there of like at least a year. So that was more. Oh, no. It was longer than that. Well, I mean, in the ring. It was in the ring at least a year and then went to the agent position

and beat up Leon and et cetera. If only Gary Hart had been there to prevent the fight for that. He could have to talk Paul out of beating Vader up. you know, it was a weird period of time, and I know you know that because you quit the booking committee, but it was a weird period of time as a fan because names would pop up and some names you knew and some names you didn't. And just as you start investing in anything, they were gone. Yeah.

You know, the nasty boys got a big push right out of the gate. And then they were just gone and then they just showed up in WWF. Just like that, Orndorff just popped up and then he was gone. Y Y-YD, he never really left, but he would, like, float in and out for the next, like, two years or whatever, year and a half, whatever it may be. It was a weird period. Like, think of how many Clash of Champions had random people. You know, we talked about Brian Lee being on one the other day.

The Master Blasters popped off on one. Who was the other team? It was a maximum overdrive. They were just random people. You know, the Nightstalker being there all of a sudden, and then he was gone? The Master Blasters were a classic team. Were you there for that? Were you already gone?

No, I was there. It was, oh, hold on. The show at the Cobo Arena, that was, I can't remember what date, but the point being, I was there when the Master Blasters, the original version,

the two guys, and it was Big Al Green and the other one, right? I can't remember what the other name was, but no, this was the one that they kicked out before that. Oh, the one they fired. But, well, they didn't really fire him because they couldn't find him. The point of these two big muscle guys were brought in. I don't know where they trained.

Eddie Gilbert named one big Al Green for the actual Tennessee Al Green. But the other one, they were having a match with Brad Armstrong. and Tim Horner one night. I think if you're talking about what I think you're talking about, the clash, Kevin Nash was the partner of the other guy. When the other guy left, they replaced him with Al Green. Okay, then that's the case. Yes, it was Nash and the other guy,

and then they replaced the other guy with Al Green. Nevertheless, the point being, this guy was so bad, if you couldn't have a match with Brad Armstrong and even Tim Horner, you pretty much, you were done, right? That was it. you couldn't do anything.

This guy did the same spot or tried to do the same spot with Brad Armstrong like four times and fucked it up a different way every time. And then you're right, it was Nash because he turned around. And I remember this plainest day, Nash was on the end. Nash was a green rookie too. He didn't know what the fuck he was doing. But the guy turned around to Nash and just put his arms out to his sides like, what the fuck do they want from me?

And the people were laughing at him. And that night, he packed his bag up and went to the bus station and left and nobody ever saw him again. And as far as I know, he never wrestled again. By the way, the moves that he missed, I think were like, I shouldn't even say diving, just falling headbutts. And he couldn't come anywhere near anyone. No, that, what if he, this was a house show, this wasn't even on television. television. So if you saw it, that was how bad he was when he didn't know how bad he was. But when he finally realized how bad he was, can you imagine how bad it was?

Because he just finally just stopped the match and turned around to his partner and just, I don't know what the fuck. But again, to this topic, they built up Mill Moskras real big. He showed up for one event, never saw him again ever again on that show. Well, well, no, you know why that was, don't you? I know exactly why it was. My point was they made it a big deal and then you never saw him again. Corpus Christi, baby.

We didn't go back to Corpus Christi, so Barnett wouldn't say, well, we need to bring in Mosqueras. It's like if you were going to have a baseball game in New York in 1989, and you said, we got to bring in fucking Willie Mays. Did Willie Mays play in New York? Willie May started in New York for the Giants,

and then he ended his career with the Mets. Yeah, but it was before 1989, wasn't it? Yeah, he retired in 73. Yeah, well, there you go. All right, I don't know where we go with that, but one final question here this week, Jim, and we'll have more questions and songs. We have some new song submissions

that will debut next week. But Jim, this final question sent to corny drive-thru at gmail.com from Mick in Nevada, or Nevada, excuse me, I was curious to know, which do you prefer or felt work better? A baby-faced Jerry Lawler

versus heel Bill Dundee? or heel Jerry Lawler versus Babyface Bill Dundee. Was there any noticeable difference in their matches depending on which role Lawler and Dundee were in? Do you feel like there is a quintessential match Lawler and Dundee had that you would say is must watch? Thank you for taking my question. Okay, well, first, the matches were completely different

when Lawler was a heel and Dundee was a baby face versus Vyne. vice versa, because the one guy was working his heel and the other one was the baby face. So they were completely different. As far as the best match between them that I ever saw in person or even on tape was when Lawler was the baby face and Dundee was the heel. But the biggest drawing matches, the ones that sold the more tickets, the longer running rivalry and the most famous one was when Lawler was the heel

and Dundee was the baby face. So the loser leave town match, and they had two loser leave Memphis matches, one in 83 and one in 85. And I wasn't there for the one in 85. I've seen a tape, and I believe that in that case,

Lawler was the baby face also. But the June 6, 1983, match was their single best one, although I wasn't there the next night in Louisville. And Mark James has told me that Lawler and Dundee both thought the one in Louisville was better than one in Memphis. But it was just, I mean, I don't know if it's on YouTube, but it was on, probably not, because it was on Lawler's WWF, it's good to be the King DVD set. But that, that was just a phenomenal match.

but it was the culmination of only like a two or three week program because the reason why they had it was that's when Dundee had been the Booker, but Lawler pulled the power play with Jarrett in, what, Marchish of 1983, which led to Lawler becoming the Booker and a partner in Dundee becoming the ex-Booker. So they switched Dundee heel, and then worked him with Dutch Mantell and a few other the baby faces to build up to a program with Lawler, but that's when Jarrett decided to send Dundee to Georgia

to book the territory for OLEE. We've talked about that because I went along. So they had the loser leave town match, so Dundee left. Then when the territory didn't make it, he couldn't come back to Memphis for like three months or whatever. But the first program they had in 1977 that really got Dundee over as a single star in Memphis. And the second, he was the biggest baby face to territory for quite some time, single baby face. And he was the second biggest star on the all-time modern Memphis era list behind Lawler.

and the 77 program is what got him over. In 12 weeks, I believe, at the Mid-South Coliseum, they faced each other 10 times in 10 different kind of matches, 10 different stipulations, and sold almost 100,000 tickets for those 10 matches. So that one was what everybody remembered anytime they got together again in the ring for the next 10 years was Lawler and Dundee because everybody it didn't just draw in Memphis it drew in Louisville

Lexington wasn't open at that point or it would have done big business there but it put Jerry Jarrett's company on the map as far as box office all right Jim well with that the drive-thru has closed where's Where is this? Oh, just tell Antonio to go Nagabagagagagagat Tagabam again. Oh, shit, the bat. It's not working now again.

The battery. It's the... Oh. Oh, it's... There we go. And now he's going to do this. Let's see if we get the song one last time. I'm looking for my...

One last time. What the hell? All right. And then... Nope. and then back to Tagada. And I'm back, ah, let's just remove these batteries, okay? Yes.

Looking for my thumb piano, which is missing. In action, and it was just here. Oh, it's late in the day, as if you couldn't tell, ladies and gentlemen. We're back next week on the drive-thru and, of course, the experience in a few days. Fun wrestling talk, guess the program returns soon, and so much more. Let's talk about Cornett's collectibles at Jimcornet.com. What's going on, Jim? Well, you know what's going on?

The Big Book Sale. Heroes and Friends is on sale now and get it while you can. It may not make it to Christmas, and I do not know whether or not that we can print another set of this and make it all come out right. So get it while you can.

At Jimcornet.com, and of course you can hear the drive-thruin the experience on YouTube, the official Jim Cornett YouTube channel. Subscribe today, full episodes, Clipsity episodes, all the omnibus collections, the George Livonitis artwork,

and so much more. the official Jim Cornett YouTube channel, and you can go through the archive Patreon.com slash cornet. $5 a month get you access to the archive going back to 2013 Patreon.com

slash cornet. With that, we are done today. We'll be back in a few days for Jim Cornett. I'm the great Brian last. Eh, much better. Telly-ho!

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